Journal of Sustainable Real Estate

-- Journal of Sustainable Real Estate

Published annually online, has some interesting articles including:

2011

- Dynamics of Green Rentals over Market Cycles: Evidence from Commercial Office Properties in San Francisco and Washington DC
This study examines the rental rate dynamics of green commercial office properties in the San Francisco and Washington DC metropolitan areas. Similar to previous studies, we find that green office properties enjoy rental rate premiums over comparable non-green buildings. Our models also suggest that green property rents may provide a hedge in down markets.

- Residential Land Values and Walkability
The aim of this paper is to determine to what extent the benefits of walkable neighborhoods are reflected in land values. We find that after controlling for population growth and lot size, land values generally increase with walkability and that this result is stable over time.

- Creative Construction: The Capacity for Environmental Innovation in Real Estate Development Firms
This paper examines three hypotheses: (1) green development adopters and their investors take a longer-term stake in projects; (2) price competition is less important than competition over quality, and (3) the developer takes greater control, especially in the provision of design and construction services.

2010
- Location Efficiency and Mortgage Default
Using a sample of over 40,000 mortgages in Chicago, Jacksonville, and San Francisco, we model the probability of mortgage default based on differences in location efficiency.

Racing to the bottom on gambling

One of the biggest reasons that states are pursuing casinos and slots is to stay even with other states in their regions. For example, Maryland loses out to West Virginia (Hollywood Casino at Charles Town), Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.

While the seeming justification is to support horse racing or other locally important "industries" and facilities, the reality is that only by comparison of leakage of revenues to other states does making casinos and such legal make any sense as within the state, gambling merely transfers monies, businesses, and jobs from other parts of the "entertainment" sector. See "States betting on casino gambling" from USA Today.

According to Earl Grinols, author of Gambling in America: Costs and Benefits, for every $1 that comes into the area from a casino, $3 goes out in unforseen economic costs, therefore casinos are not sustainable economic development.

In the DC area, gambling is an issue both in the city, because of the unseemly way that former gaming lobbyist and DC City Councilman Michael Brown got approval for doing it in an underhanded way with no public hearings ("Michael Brown, gambling man" from the Post) and because it is being touted as a solution for the economic problems of the Rosecroft Race Track ("PNGI Makes Pitch for Gaming at Rosecroft" from BloodHorse.com) in Prince George's County ("Don’t bank on Md. casinos," Post), although Post columnist Robert McCartney points out, that not unlike how Anne Arundel Mall is getting slots instead of Laurel Race Track (that's a long story), the likelihood of a casino ending up at National Harbor instead is a strong possibility ("Slots site in Prince George's faces tough road to passage").

Brown is unseemly. The way that Internet gambling is being proposed for DC is pretty dirty, but he touts it as a way to get more revenue for the city, $13 million over 4 years. From the Post story "What will iGaming repeal cost the District?":

On one level, it will cost the city about $13.1 million, which is how much revenue finance officials have estimated the program would bring in through September 2015.

That revenue has already been used to balance the city’s four-year financial plan. (Unlike pretty much every other government, Congress says the District has to balance its spending not just in the current fiscal year, but three years into the future.) So lawmakers have to identify $13.1 million in new revenue or spending cuts to account for the disappearance of “iGaming.” It’s not a lot in the context of a $6 billion-a-year local budget, but it’s not nothing. D.C. Council sources say they’re still working to find the money, so consider that a minor complication as the repeal moves forward.

But at $4 million/year, that's not even a rounding error in DC's annual budget of $9.6 billion. And note that this year, DC now has a $240 million surplus ("District officials announce $240 million budget surplus" from the Post).

Are we so low and so desperate that we have to grab for any dollar, or is it reasonable to say that the city should stand for something, for a vision that doesn't require money grubbing, and profits for gambling interests at any cost?

DC FY2012 Budget Overview.

City-county/County-city

The work of Myron Orfield, author of Metropolitics, has shaped some of my thinking about metropolitan government. Orfield focuses in part on tax harmonization--that property tax resources are shared across a metropolitan area, that center cities aren't pushed to the edge financially as a result of outmigration and sprawl.

One way to do this practically is the center city-county merger, which has occurred in places like Indianapolis and Lexington and Louisville, Kentucky. And Toronto.

Note that while Pittsburgh and Allegheny County have not merged, there is a report on the subject and it is still discussed. In the interim, one of the initiatives that was created was the "Allegheny Regional Asset District," which is a taxing district for the city and county that supports cultural institutions. This is important because center cities usually provide the bulk of a metropolitan area's cultural infrastructure (museums, zoo, auditoriums, etc.) but typically, only the city itself provides financial support for those facilities. Cleveland has a similar tax for the arts (ironically, funded by a tax on cigarettes, which is somewhat regressive and seemingly misdirected, but that's another issue).

But I never thought through all the consequences, and mostly I focused on the ability to be more efficient in government operations and services, as well as a unitary stream of property tax revenue.

An example of one of the potential downsides of this kind of merger comes from Toronto, where suburban councillor Rob Ford was elected as Mayor by the greater "suburban" population, while the urban population of the true "center city" was not favorable to his candidacy.

Since the election, Mayor Ford has pushed through many anti-center city initiatives and not unlike the "economic development agenda" of the Mayor Gray transition team in DC, is much more focused on promoting automobility and speeding traffic for suburbanites, rather than being focused on a center city urban design and transportation agenda.

Image from "How Toronto Voted For Mayor" from the Torontoist.

And I wonder about this idea from the San Diego Chargers to have a county-wide vote, rather than just a vote of the City of San Diego, to support a tax for a new stadium. Certainly it seems that in many metropolitan areas, support for certain kinds of sports teams comes more from the suburbs than from the city itself. Would a metropolitan area of multiple jurisdictions pass a vote like this, calling for taxes from suburban jurisdictions to support a sports stadium in the center city? Would such a vote pass with suburban support--not unlike how Rob Ford got elected in Toronto--and center city opposition?

See "Fabiani: Chargers want countywide stadium vote" from the San Diego Union-Tribune.

From the article:

Chargers special counsel Mark Fabiani told a roomful of regional leaders Wednesday that a new football stadium is more likely to get built with political and financial support from around the county, and that a public vote on the venue would almost certainly slip to 2013 — when a fresh crop of politicians would be joining the debate.

“We think we would do better on a countywide vote than we would in just a citywide vote,” Fabiani said. “So our lawyers have already advised us, and will continue to, about the kinds of things that would justify a countywide vote.” ...

Wednesday, Fabiani touted a stadium’s economic value beyond the city of San Diego. He said the Chargers and the National Football League could together contribute $400 million toward a project that could reach $1 billion. He suggested the rest might come from taxpayer support, naming rights and the potential lease or sale of city-owned land at the Qualcomm site in Mission Valley and the Sports Arena site in the Midway area.

Moving the team is always a possibility, especially because Los Angeles is itching for a team of its own, and Philip Anshutz' Anshutz Entertainment Group, the firm behind the Staples Center redevelopment district, is working to make it happen. See "The Man Who Owns L.A.: A secretive mogul’s entertainment kingdom" from the January 16th, 2012 issue of New Yorker Magazine.

(Note that Philip Anshutz owns the Washington Examiner, so I frequently point out in blog entries the hypocrisy of the paper's screeds against taxpayer financing of private endeavors when in Los Angeles, AEG has taken hundreds of millions of dollars of tax increment financing for similar projects, and aims for much more for the NFL stadium and team.)

Designing a Better Cleveland -- Steven Litt, Cleveland Plain Dealer

Page from Designing A Better Cleveland booklet by Steven Litt, Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Steven Litt, the architecture and art writer for the Cleveland Plain-Dealer, gave a set of talks on Designing A Better Cleveland. The talks were converted into a downloadable booklet, with these sections:

• Introduction
• What is Good Design?
• The Present Moment in Cleveland
• Building Blocks of the Built Environment
• Sustainability
• Infrastructure
• The Role of the Civil Engineer
• Walkability as a Performance Standard
• A Continuing Battle
• The Value of a Can of Paint
• Choosing a Designer
• Civic Engagement
• Design Review
• Civic Virtue
• The Role of Elected Officials
• The Role of Cultural and Educational Institutions
• What Can You Do?
• Resources

It's very brief, and more meant to be a starting off point. While it does have sections on sustainability, civil engineering (traffic), and walkability, I'd argue another page or two on transportation and transit was definitely in order, plus historic preservation.

But it's a good overview of what we need to be concerned about when we consider land use and real estate development issues in our communities.

Proposals for redesigning Chicago's Navy Pier

Caption: Along the boardwalk (Team X/Xavier Vendrell/Grimshaw / January 30, 2012 )
Team X proposes to enliven Navy Pier’s South Dock promenade with pocket parks, terraces, kiosks and towering sculptural elements.

Relevant to all those places with waterfront redevelopment initiatives (Brooklyn, Toronto, Philadelphia, Poplar Point in DC, etc.)

Mary Schmich from the Chicago Tribune's column, "How about redesign for Navy Pier cheesiness?," on the fundamental cheesiness of Navy Pier is comparable to how many people feel about other produced places such as the Inner Harbor Festival Marketplace in Baltimore or Fourth Street Live in Louisville.

-- "5 fresh visions for Navy Pier," Blair Kamin, Chicago Tribune

-- photo gallery, Chicago Tribune

Navy Pier's east end ( AECOM/BIG / January 30, 2012 ). Navy Pier’s southeast corner would be lifted above Lake Michigan in this plan for the pier’s redevelopment by the AECOM/BIG team. Another corner would tier down to the lake.

Hoping to right the proposed federal transportation bill which is heavily weighed against sustainable transportation

(For those of you with voting Congresspeople...) From Rails to Trails Conservancy:

We aren't exaggerating when we say this ask has never been more urgent.

Please read more and take action now. We have until 4 p.m. EST today to have our thoughts heard.

Tomorrow, Thursday, February 2, the Transportation and Infrastructure (T&I) Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives will be voting on our nation's next multiyear surface transportation bill.

There's no way to spin this: From the perspective of trails, walking and bicycling, the bill is a total disaster.

Among its worst features are:

• It eliminates dedicated funding for the Transportation Enhancements (TE) program—the nation's largest funding source for trails, walking and bicycling. (Terrible news, but we expected it.)
• It removes the rail-trail category from TE eligibility.
• It completely eliminates funding for the Safe Routes to School program.
• It eliminates funding for bicycle and pedestrian coordinators at state DOTs.

But there's still a chance...

Representatives Tom Petri (R-Wis.) and Tim Johnson (R-Ill.) are considering the introduction of an amendment in the committee that would right many of the bill's wrongs.

But they need to hear from other committee members that their amendment has a fighting chance.

Please: Take two minutes and ask your representatives to defend trails, walking and bicycling. We only have until 4 p.m. EST today, so any additional support you're able to gather will make an enormous difference!

Some funny messages: Woodstock (VT) Home and Hardware

See "Orgill grows on Woodstock: Woodstock Home & Hardware stocks its shelves with a bold promise" from Home Channel News.

Retailers are often advised by commercial district revitalization consultants to not be too distinct especially out there with "political" messages, because such messages are likely to rile at least part of your customer base. These are funny nonetheless. (And I didn't include one that might rile part of the readership.)

Three Chicago firms to refund $34 million in TIF subsidies back to the city

See the article from the Chicago Sun-Times.

From the article:

The largest break — $15 million — comes from CME Group, which was granted a TIF subsidy but is taking a pass because it no longer needs the help after settling its tax issues with the state. ...

Another $13 million will come from the CNA group. The insurance giant got a $13.7 million subsidy in December 2008 to renovate its 333 S. Wabash headquarters, but used the money to renovate and lease space it no longer needed after a corporate restructuring.

The redevelopment agreement required CNA to maintain at least 2,700 employees at the site through 2018, but fell short of the requirement for all of 2010. The funds will go to local taxing districts now that the Central Loop TIF has expired.

The third refund — nearly $5.4 million — will come from Bank of America, which took over a TIF redevelopment agreement for 540 W. Madison from ABN Amro and was required to honor ABN’s job promises.

After reporting the required 2,739 jobs in 2009, Bank of America subsequently “self-reported” that it had “overstated the job number” by including the jobs of DRW, an on-site consultant. Bank of America was required to return the 2009 payment with interest and wrote a check for $5.4 million on Nov. 1, 2011. The funds were returned to the River West TIF.

TIF, or tax increment financing, the process by which future presumed increases in property tax revenues are encumbered by using the future revenues in the here and now as incentives to businesses for various expansion projects, is a tried and true financing technique for local governments. At the same time it can be controversial, seen as a give-away. And many times the job figures aren't realized.

In DC we have a bunch of examples of how this program doesn't work well for the city. For example, the "employee-owned" Bureau of National Affairs, a publishing firm, received big property tax reductions for many years. When the property tax reductions expired, they moved to Arlington.

Or Co-Star, the big realty information services firm, agreed to move to DC from Bethesda, and they bought a building--so it happens at a rock bottom price due to the real estate crash, which not even two years later, they sold for great profits, all the while pocketing $6 million in tax abatements. See "Abatements rise in popularity in luring companies to D.C." from the Washington Business Journal and the Costar press release, "CoStar Dials Up $101M Sale of HQ Bldg. One Year After Buying it for $41M".

I don't think there was any tax abatement rebate there.

Good resource on property tax issues

-- Property Tax webpage, Lincoln Land Institute

One of the reports on the site is the Minnesota Taxpayers Association 50-State Property Tax Comparison Study (2010).

While the report is "biased" in that it believes that residential and commercial property should be taxed equally, it looks at the high and low cities in each state and the District of Columbia.

DC compares quite favorably to most major cities. In this region, while the overall tax "burden" maybe a bit higher than in Northern Virginia, it's actually much lower than people think--e.g., property taxes in DC are lower than in Maryland, especially compared to communities that have both a county and city tax (e.g., Rockville, Takoma Park, Mount Rainier, etc.).

Detailed criticism of IFF study of DC public schools

I haven't read the report yet (Quality Schools, Every School, Every Child, Every Neighborhood), so I haven't felt comfortable commenting, although it is true that based on the dictum in Graham Allison's Essence of Decision that "where you stand depends on where you sit," the fact that the Illinois Facility Fund is a real estate organization focused on charter schools enablement leads to the supposition that they will draw certain conclusions.

The Teachers and Parents for Real Education Reform blog has criticism of the current report, as well as previous entries about the process. See "IFF Study Released to Criticism of Research Methodology."

From the entry:

The IFF report’s methodological problems can be summarized as follows:

• The researchers created a zero-sum game in which schools are divided into four “Tiers” based on how much better or worse their DC-CAS scores are from the mean score. Each school is deemed to have “performing seats” or “non-performing seats” depending on whether students’ DC-CAS scores are higher or lower than the mean. Under this methodology, there will always be winners and losers relative to other schools.

• When schools are compared, no account is made of the socio-economic background of the students or the number of special education students, or English language learners among them. Differences in DC-CAS scores are compared under an assumption that students are all equally equipped and supported to do well. The differences in achievement and whether the trend is upward, downward or stationary is credited entirely to the school.

• Within each of 39 neighborhood clusters, when schools get different DC-CAS results, the researchers assume that the students are the same and therefore, the difference is a credit to the school. No attempt is made to look at possible differences in socio-economic background of the students who select one school over another, which might be different than the neighborhood overall. ...

• The researchers acknowledged that standardized test scores are not the best way to measure the quality of a school, and they wished they had other ways describe differences in quality, but used the only measure that they had at their disposal. Notwithstanding their admission, this study is the most extreme example of reducing the quality of a school only to its test score we have ever encountered. No other factors were used. Most reputable research examining school improvement efforts, for example that of the highly esteemed Consortium on Chicago Schools Research, has never taken this reductionist approach.

• The IFF researchers failed to consider recent history in DCPS, before making their recommendations. The track-record of school turnarounds in DCPS [by charter school organizations and others] since 2008 has been an embarrassment. Outside management firms have been brought in to run Dunbar, Anacostia, and Coolidge high schools. Two have abandoned their partners. None of them have achieved significantly better results. School consolidations have led to explosive results at Hart MS and elsewhere. The national report card for national charter chains has not been good. In other words, there is no silver bullet contained in changing the management of schools. Nevertheless, the folks at IFF are wedded to this recommendation as their bias. It will be resisted in DC for good reason.

• The IFF also seems to ignore the national research that shows a mixed track record of school turnarounds and national charter chains, and overwhelming national research that demonstrates that standardized test scores tend to mirror the socio-economic background of the students taking the test. It is one thing to make every effort to counter this reality with programs and strategies that mitigate the effects of poverty. It is quite another to structure a study premised on the assumption that any difference in test scores is the result of good or bad teaching alone, or as they term it – “performing seats.” The simplistic design of this study flat-out ignores the national research and it promotes an unfair and punitive set of assumptions in response to the data.

Ideal Mayoral/City Council candidate campaign agenda: Getting Our City's S*** Together

So I just woke up from a dream/nightmare where I somehow became an at-large City Councilmember through appointment and I had to share an office with Vincent Orange (in DC, Councilmembers have their own individual offices, as do councilmembers in most places).

I wouldn't agree to something he wanted me to do, but I was interested in his tracking of China issues and taste in music--in real life, I know nothing about Vincent Orange on these dimensions.

In the Monday Post there was an article about how most DC Councilmembers are likely to coast to re-election ("D.C. Council incumbents could coast into primary despite political upheaval") and over the weekend there was an editorial about the latest in elected officials ethical challenges over the lottery contract ("Meeting Mr. Graham," "D.C. politicians playing games"), plus Michael Brown, to look like he cares about ethics, called for an investigation of the Dept. of Housing and Community Development, because he knew that the Post was just about to publish an exposé ("D.C. housing deal shows much spent but less accomplished") so he could get ahead of it and appear concerned given that he has ethical challenges of his own ("Michael Brown, gambling man").

Not to mention articles about the embarrassment of DC officials going to states like New Hampshire ("New Hampshire gives DC the cold shoulder on statehood push") and Florida to lobby for statehood and full voting rights. Yes, DC residents should have full voting rights. But like it or not, the states had to meet certain qualifications in order to be admitted to the Union as full-fledged states, and these days, I don't think DC is putting forward a very strong case.

Now while I thought about what my agenda would be to run for office, I also started getting scared in terms of figuring out how to get campaign petitions out and circulated and the right number of signatures, fundraising for a campaign (I ran for City Council in Ann Arbor in 1987 and I hated fundraising back then...), and the creation of an organization able to get out the vote in all the wards and precincts, do campaigning in the interim, and have people at all the polls on election day.

Thinking about that stuff is why I probably can't get back to sleep...

But enough of retail politics, what would my agenda be, and conversely what should the agenda be for candidates for office who want to change the way the city is being governed now?

Sustainable Communities slide from presentation, Leadership and the Role of Parks and Recreation in the New Economy, David Barth, AECOM.

Overall vision

Building the city for the future, where it can continue to grow, rather than strictly managing the city as if it is still shrinking in population and business and desperately needs to stabilize. I tend to believe that most elected officials have no real overall vision or sense of where the city should be focusing.

That means dealing with transportation, schools, and poverty reduction most of all.

Because DC collects 100% of the income tax of residents, attracting more residents with income should be a key goal. How to "insert" new residences in a city where much of the land is off-limits to development (federal land, university campuses, parks, etc.) is a conundrum.

And because commercial property generates a significant amount of the city's revenue base, maintaining the city's pre-eminence as a place to conduct commerce should be a key priority.

Public Realm as an Interconnected system, Slide from presentation, Leadership and the Role of Parks and Recreation in the New Economy, David Barth, AECOM.

Quality of life

The idea would be to extend Councilman Wells' "livable-walkable" (placemaking) agenda to the entire city. After all, I argue that the point of planning and zoning is to increase quality of life. When planning and zoning outcomes don't do so routinely, we know that the processes "need to be improved."

- develop a robust planning framework for DDOT and the Office of Planning to integrate placemaking initiatives in streetscape and other projects

- pursue ideas to rebuild places that have been sacrificed to roadway expansion, e.g., bringing back Truxton Circle or wide sidewalks on Connecticut Avenue in Cleveland Park, and creating new squares such as Dan Malouff's idea for "Scott Square" or the idea to "deck over" the underpasses on streets such as Connecticut Avenue in Dupont Circle or along North Capitol Street on the border of the Bloomingdale and Eckington neighborhoods (these and other similar initiatives have been discussed in past entries)

- develop a parks and recreation master plan that integrates federal parks into the planning mix, as well as schools

- focus on schools reform in terms of re-creating robust neighborhood schools as fundamental civic assets and community anchors ("Rethinking community planning around maintaining neighborhood civic assets and anchors")

- development of better planning and zoning regulations such as big box retail zoning overlays and the imposition of development impact fees

- imposition of design guidelines and review procedures for the entire city, not just historic districts

Truxton Circle before (top) and after (bottom).

Economic development

• My #1 belief about DC's economic development capability and capacity is that transit improvement and extension should be the city's number one priority.

- Committing to and creating the separated blue line subway line would be a key priority, and further expansion planning for other subway lines within the city (e.g., Michael S's "brown line" idea or Dave Murphy's proposal for a separated yellow line)

- As would improvements in surface transportation, a streetcar system for DC, with connections to and service within Montgomery and Prince George's County as well, and improvements to the bus system.

- Funded in part by a transit withholding tax on all wage income earned in DC (Congress would have to sign off on this).

- I've argued before why the height limit should be punctured, at least downtown ("Height Act: It's important to discuss but too late to make any difference on what has already happened"), in order to maintain the Central Business District's ability to retain and attract business in the face of ever-increasing competition by the suburbs--although the big impact will be on future competitiveness, not so much in the present.

- Creation of an innovation agenda and research parks at Catholic University in Northeast DC and the St. Elizabeth's Campus in Southeast DC

- Creation of a better commercial district revitalization program, focused on enabling small business development, and limiting retail "greenfield" development within the city which often comes at the expense of extant places. (At the same time, not every commercial strip can be "fixed".)

Participatory Democracy

My interest in planning derives from the fact that land use issues are those issues most likely to engage the average citizen in local civic affairs, and I believe that planning functions to engage citizens in the process.

But DC suffers from being the "local" city where the federal government is based, and I joke that "big" government trickles down and shapes "little" (local, DC) government in its image.

- Create a civic engagement element in the Comprehensive Land Use Plan covering substantive participation requirements in city activities including planning and budgeting

- Note that the Comp. Plan is the closest the city has to a "master plan" or "business plan" and it should be retitled accordingly

- Create a substantive training, development, and capacity building infrastructure for civic life, including ANCs (""Networked solutions" for some problems with ANCs in DC," "Even more on) ANCs (Advisory Neighborhood Commissions in DC)," "The uncreative city #2: neighborhood capacity building and leveraging the power of proximity and networking")

- Use participatory budgeting principles ("More on ethics: discretionary funding-constituent funds," "Missing the point on constituent service/discretionary funds available from legislators") in granting processes (and for constituent services funds for Councilmembers and the Mayor)

Restructuring DC Government's political structure

For a long time I've suggested we need a charter revision commission. DC has had Home Rule for 30+ years, it's time for an evaluation. Of course, changes to the Home Rule Charter require Congressional approval.

- First, I'd add a Planning and Parks Commission and a Transportation Commission. (cf. "civic engagement.") The former would have oversight over all DC Government Agency planning activities. The Transpo Commission would oversee transportation, which is key, given that it is the foundation of DC's economic and competitive advantages.

- Second, I'd change the structure of City Council as I have argued before:

-- Make it a part-time job truly

-- Cut the salary in half (from about $130,000 now to about $70,000)

-- Add one Councilmember to each ward, and four more at large. That would create competition within wards rather than relatively impregnable power bases. It would make it harder to pass legislation (13 votes instead of 7), which would be a good thing.

-- likely more hearings would be at night, when average citizens are likely to be more able to attend

- Third, I'd changed to a ranked choice voting system to increase the likelihood of diversity of representation.

- Fourth, I'd limit campaign contributions from businesses (see "In DC, a mockery of campaign finance laws" from the Post).

- Fifth, bring back the term limits that were passed in a referendum but overturned by City Council.

- Sixth, consider putting bonding initiatives up for citizen approval in elections.

- Seventh, see the discussion of participatory budgeting above.

Schools Reform

Schools reform in DC is so f*ed up that I think that the DC school system may be just about at the point of no return, except for the schools in the western portion of the city and Capitol Hill.

It's almost as if segregation has returned in that the public schools that function are in predominately white areas, while the schools in African-American neighborhoods have been supplanted by charter schools or are declining even more precipitously, given the constant turmoil of "reorganization" and "improvement" through a "practice of reform" that seems focused more on inducing chaos and turmoil.

As mentioned above, neighborhood schools are the basic building blocks of healthy vibrant sustainable neighborhoods and need to be maintained, not just as a school planning function, but as a land use and neighborhood stabilization and revitalization function.

- Focus efforts on the public schools, and begin reining in the charter schools, which are created without a broader plan for provision of schooling in the city.

- Build strong and deep professional development programs to support teachers, students, classrooms, families, principals, and schools.

- Extend the excellence that already exists in the school system, rather than quench it--expand cluster school programs such as in Capitol Hill, the Spanish language, and Montessori.

- Create cluster school programs in every ward (if needed) to strengthen and reposition the schools and programs.

- Have schools serve as primary touchpoints for social service delivery in high-poverty neighborhoods. ("community hubs", i.e., "THE SCHOOL AS COMMUNITY HUB: A PUBLIC ALTERNATIVE TO THE NEO-LIBERAL THREAT TO ONTARIO SCHOOLS" from Our Schools/Our Selves)

- Consider developing year round school calendars, especially in high-poverty neighborhoods.

- Consider developing co-operative high school education programs, especially in high-poverty neighborhoods.

- Focus resources on significant reduction of achievement gaps between high-income and low-income students through the development of programs along the lines of those in Montgomery County, Maryland

- Note that I don't think that the schools should be under the Mayor and therefore the City Council. There should be a separate school board with oversight, but with checks and balances including Mayoral and Council oversight. Council has too many other responsibilities to give school issues the necessary heft and oversight required. (And we need a real plan for the schools, instead of various disconnected initiatives by Councilmembers.)

Health and Wellness

DC actually is a national best practice practitioner for its program of community clinics. I'd extend these clinics more purposively towards an integrated community system for care, with a focus on prevention, wellness, and chronic disease management. ("Disruptive innovation once again") These kinds of functions can be one of the elements of neighborhood hubs based at neighborhood schools.

Poverty Reduction

DC is a wealthy place. It's also a place with areas predominated by multi-generational poverty. One of the only things that 2010 Mayoral candidate Leo Alexander said that made sense is that every 10% reduction in poverty in the city saves $150 million, because we spend $1.5 billion (or more) annually on social welfare related programs.

I haven't worked out what the ideal campaign agenda would be in this area, but it would involve microenterprise development, neighborhood jobs programs, restructuring certain DC government contracts to prioritize local employment, and massive social integration programs based on ideas such as Family Independence Project in Oakland California (see "Beating Poverty With Cash Incentives: A new way to help the poor become self-sufficient raises hackles at both ends of the political spectrum -- and questions about effectiveness" and "Can the Poor Help Themselves? Social Innovation from Boston" in Governing Magazine)

Another thought is to re-organize human services program delivery around assigning caseworkers to serve just a handful of families, focused on multiprogram coordination of services designed to reintegrate families socially and economically into the market economy (capitalism isn't going away any time soon, so the best way to participate in American society is to be employed).

Public Safety

- Continue to focus resources using problem-oriented policing and data-driven methods.

- Consider reorganizing the fire and emergency services department ("Rationalizing fire and emergency services")

- Reorganize the youth rehabilitation services function. Too many young adults under the supervision of the youth section of the criminal justice system continue to perpetrate crimes, get killed, etc.

-To refocus our approach to youth crime issues, adopt the "Boston model." See "Straight Outta Boston" from Mother Jones Magazine.

Now I'm finally tired, and should be able to get back to sleep.

Top world cities by real estate investment

From a report, A New World of Cities: Redefining the Real Estate Investment Map by real estate brokerage firm Jones Lang Lasalle. (Also see "San Diego 25th in commercial real estate investment" from the San Diego Union-Tribune.)


The report is quite interesting, focusing on cities as the main drivers of economic growth in countries and the rise of Asia.

In 2004, 6 of the top 10 cities for global real estate development were in the U.S. In 2011, only 2 U.S. cities make the list--New York and Washington. The top 30 cities account for 50% of total global real estate investment.

There are a number of interesting charts and maps in the report, e.g., that the top 300 cities account for 40% of the world's GDP, the fastest growing mature cities, the fastest growing cities, etc.

"Complete Streets" London style

Today the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments bicycle and pedestrian committee has an all-day two-part workshop on developing complete streets policies across the metropolitan area's jurisdictions.

And the Montgomery County League of Women Voters has a talk on complete streets today as well.

Flickr photo of Exhibition Road by Gary Etchell.

Exhibition Road in London links a number of cultural assets and has had some significant "placemaking" issues over the years. A redesign of the road is being well received and is making a difference. See "Exhibition Road, London – review: After years of wrangling, the new Exhibition Road in South Kensington, home to many of Britain's great museums, proves a triumph for the 'shared space' movement" from the Observer.

From the article:

Its big idea, which originated with Moylan, was to create a "shared space" whereby pedestrians, cyclists and vehicles all occupy the same surface, without kerbs or barriers to separate them. It seems risky, but the theory is that if walkers and drivers can see that they are occupying the same space, they will behave more responsibly. The concept was the invention of the Dutch traffic engineer Hans Monderman, who used to walk backwards into dense traffic to demonstrate that drivers would be sufficiently human not to run him over. Exhibition Road is the largest example of such a space in Britain, although it is not the purest, as there is some slight differentiation between carriageway and footway.

Dixon and Jones's main contribution has been direct and has two elements. They have arranged the new paving into a broad diamond pattern of pale granite on dark, put all the street lighting on to a row of tall, silvery masts. This gives a unity to the various characters of the street, which at different places has cafes, grand museums, colleges and terraced houses.

It also allows the architecture of the different buildings, which runs from the declamatory to the discreet, to speak for itself. One virtue of Dixon and Jones's design is its lack of rhetoric, which, if anything, could go even further – the marching lighting masts are arguably a little too intrusive.

The overall effect is of generosity and calm. Crowds can flow more happily over the paving and the route from South Kensington tube to the great museums, which was always a tricky one unless you took a long subway, is now a pleasure. The road is a place where you might want to be, rather than just a means of getting someone else. It is not fussy and prescriptive, as public space improvements often are. A particular joy is that there is no pointless public art; it was rightly decided that, with sculptures both outside and inside the museums, there was already enough art to go round.

Note that "Complete Streets" as a movement isn't enough--is incomplete.

The issue is really more one of "Complete Places" to incorporate not just the mobility dimensions of place but the place and how it contributes to quality of life and the success of neighborhoods and commercial districts.

-- Urban Design Compendium

-- "Are Complete Streets Incomplete?," Project for Public Spaces

-- Smart Transportation Guidebook

Talk that the Olympics in London won't have the previously expected economic benefit

Overbooking of hotel rooms by the Olympics organizing committee for use by dignitaries reduced supply and led to price escalation. Release of now unneeded rooms may come too late to reduce prices and get more business.

See "Foreign visitors turn their backs on the Olympics: Overpriced hotels and threats of disruption deter tourists from what was supposed to be a money-spinning showpiece" and "Tourism gold? Olympics set to lose Britain billions: Organisers accused of scaring off visitors by creating damaging spike in hotel rates" from the Independent.

From the second article:

The organising committee for the London 2012 Games, Locog, revealed yesterday that it had over-estimated by a quarter the number of rooms needed by officials, media and sponsors. It has now handed back 120,000 of the total 600,000 nights booked for the sporting event.

The large-scale reservation of rooms in early preparation for the Games has caused increased prices across the capital and has put many regular tourists off visiting this summer.

Tour operators warned last night that a sudden flood of vacant rooms would be too late to boost visitor numbers. Analysis for The Independent suggests up to one million beds will now go unsold over the Olympic period, hitting hoteliers and others working in the tourism industry. One trade association estimated income could slump by up to £3.5bn during July and August.

Premium Tours, a leading sightseeing operator based in London, expects business to decline by one-third this year. Neil Wootton, the managing director, said: "Prices have been so high that tourists are moving elsewhere. Overseas wholesalers who traditionally push London have switched to other cities this year. If the Parisian and Italian hoteliers do their job then the tours may never return to London."

Another one from the archives: analyzing retail store failure

One of the comments on this City Paper Housing Complex blog entry, "Going Backwards on Benning Road," indirectly and correctly makes the point that I was guilty of the over-generalizations that I often accuse others of employing, it's worth reprinting this piece from September 2007, when I was the program manager for the now defunct Brookland Main Street commercial district revitalization program.

I am particularly proud of the discussion of the four different "mixes" or subsystems of individual businesses, including what I call the store operations mix.

The link for the "Urban Retail Centers" document doesn't work anymore. This is one of the sections that I was referring to, in terms of the typical size and type of retail centers (you can sort commercial districts in cities in a similar fashion) and how many residents (retail trade area) you need to support the centers of various sizes.

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Why ask why? Because.

Slide from the Project for Public Spaces. I need to make a slide like this for individual stores. (See below) about the Retail Mix.

In the last couple months, 3 businesses have closed on the 12th Street NE corridor in Brookland, the commercial district I am charged with assisting. Another one is closing (this one is in large part a succession issue). On the other hand, in the last year, Yes! Grocery opened, and has a greater sales volume and number of employees than all of the stores that closed.

But when a store closes, the point isn't to make a statement "The store closed." The point should be to figure out why. That means asking questions. (I mention this because of one of the questions from someone in the audience at the session about Brookland at Friday's local ULI chapter conference made a statement about the failure of these businesses.)

The thing is that most people don't have any clue as to why the businesses close and don't have much insight into what is going on. In "Main Street at 15," Kennedy Smith wrote in 1995 about how marginal economies in our local commercial districts disconnected knowledge and success from the ability to open a business. She writes:

As retail dollars moved out of Main Street, a host of problems moved in. To begin with, the economics of owning commercial property downtown no longer worked. With fewer business tenants, downtown property owners had to depend on fewer rents. A building which might have once generated three $500 monthly rent checks might now only produce one or two--and building maintenance suffered. Downtown started looking run-down and shabby, in marked contrast to the spanking new shopping malls. Main Street`s retail space was suddenly second-class, at best. The businesses that could afford to pay the highest rents went to the mall; the rest came downtown.

Market demand had once shaped the mixture of businesses downtown. Now, anybody could open a business downtown with a few thousand dollars, regardless of his or her marketing savvy, business skills, or even knowledge of whether or not there was a market for the stuff he or she hoped to sell. Instead of a business district tightly synchronized with market-area consumer demand, Main Street had become a bizarre and eccentric assortment of junkshops, marginal businesses and other occupied vacancies.

After doing my presentation earlier in the week in Takoma Park, I realized I need to add a couple slides on the concept of a "retail trade area." So I was doing some research and reading about this yesterday. One of the best short discussions of some of the issues, and a listing of the size and population required to support various retail shopping places is this piece, Urban Retail Centers from UMN. (Note that you need up to 40,000 people to support 50,000 s.f. of retail. Most of the small neighborhood commercial districts have 50,000 to 100,000 s.f. minimum. H Street, including Hechinger Mall has 1 million square feet.)

One of the articles I dug up is called "Trade Area Mix and Retailing Mix: A Retail Strategy Matrix," from the Journal of Marketing, October 1976. In turn it cites an article from 1961, "The Retailing Mix: Planning and Management," from the Journal of Retailing.

The latter article proposes three components or sub-mixes of the retail mix:

Goods and services mix
• Variety and Assortment
• Parking [I would change this to Accessibility and Transportation]
• Sales Service
• Customer Service
• Credit
• Price Lines
• Guarantees and Exchanges
• Alterations and Adjustments
• Delivery

Communications mix
• Personal Selling
• Advertising
• [I would add Exterior Conditions of the Commercial District]
• Window Display
• Interior Display
• Public Relations
• Store Layout
• Catalogs
• Telephone Sales
• [now we would add online sales as well]

Physical distribution mix.
• Store Location
• Distribution Centers
• Inventory Control
• Transportation [of goods]
• Handling Goods

In terms of thinking more broadly in terms of the success of an individually-owned independent store, you can add another dimension called something like:

Store Operations mix
• Rent
• Quality of space and location
• Proprietor salary
• Personnel acquisition
• Labor costs
• Access to capital

The Rosenbloom article discusses the Trade Area Mix, linking broad market demand to the possibility of store (and commercial district) success:

1. Trade Area Geography: the geographical extent of the trade area
2. Trade Area Demand: the level of consumer demand within the geographically delineated trade area
3. Trade Area Heterogeneity: the mix of consumer market segments within the trade area and the diversity of consumer demand for products and services. The greater the demand, the higer degree of heterogeneity, characterized by more offerings.

When someone says "That store closed, the X commercial district is a terrible place to do business," the reality is a lot more complicated. Was it the owner? The concept? The commercial district? The property? Access to capital?

And it's not either/or, it can be and/and/and... For example, the Brookland commercial district has some significant spatial and access issues. Just like I write about "intra city sprawl," commercial districts need to ensure intensity and critical mass.

Slide © Project for Public Spaces.

And in terms of creating a "Commercial District Retail Strategy Matrix" for the city, the only way it will be possible to create strong retail centers in our neighborhood commercial districts in DC is through differentiation and a focus in part on cultural anchors to assist demand.

There is no way that DC with its current population can possibly fill the demand for all the new retail that is going to be created in the city, let alone the extant retail space, given the difficulty of developing independent retailers in the current environment, and the fact that asking prices for rents even in marginal neighborhood commercial districts are greater than $30/s.f.

Furthermore independent property owners, unlike the management of a shopping center, aren't likely to provide either build out allowances, a period of free rent, and/or rent rebates, which are necessary sweeteners often provided in order to set the stage for retail success.

Reprint: Bringing buildings back is really about bringing urban neighborhoods back

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From September 2006.

It will be awhile before I have to chance to write in depth about the book that was launched last night by the American Assembly. (See previous entry.) Some of the discussion at the presentation troubled me, the overview was very powerful. The book is an extension of the report, "Reinventing America's Legacy Cities: Strategies for Cities Losing Population" which states 6 priorities for "legacy" cities that face long term shrinkage but also opportunity:

Building a Framework for Change
Understanding that one size does not fit all places, in this report attendees of the American Assembly lay out the following recommendations for fostering transformative change in cities that have lost substantial portions of their population:

1. Develop a creative vision for the future of the city, grounded in a thorough understanding of the city’s economic geography, the role it plays in its region, and its function in the global economy

2. Rigorously and objectively analyze the city’s assets, understanding both opportunities and constraints

3. Design strategies tailored to areas and opportunities with the greatest market potential, informed by social, environmental, and other values

4. Recapture surplus land for public uses in areas where private markets are not functioning

5. Build the city’s ability to execute complex revival strategies by:
• Strengthening governance and leadership
• Growing financial capacity
• Investing in information infrastructure

6. Forge supportive partnerships among federal, state, and local governments by:
• Targeting resources
• Revisiting regulatory policies
• Incentivizing regional collaboration

Alan Mallach was the editor for the project, and he is the author of the book discussed in the entry reprinted below.

The basic point is focus your revitalization strategies on your assets. The problems are bad enough that starting from what strengths you have is your most cost-effective opportunity.
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Yesterday, I wasn't going to go to the Smart Growth talk at the National Building Museum by Alan Mallach, about his new book, Bringing Buildings Back, because I have too much to do.

I'm glad I went.

Frankly, it's not like it was anything new. I've figured out most of what he said, based on 7 years or so of pretty serious involvement and analysis of urban revitalization, mostly in DC. But it would have been a lot easier and quicker to have had this book (just like I wish I had been able to read Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City before moving into the city).

But since you don't hear this from just about anybody else, it was great to have him confirm it (it also parallels the work done by organizations like NeighborWorks and the Casey Foundation in working to indentify the factors that influence comprehensive, successful neighborhood stabilization and improvement).

So I bought the book, which I don't often do.

His thesis, based on a lot of field experience and research, is that vacant buildings--I was impressed that he never used the words "blight" or "dilapidated" but called the buildings "abandoned" or "nuisances"-- are a tremendous underutilized asset providing cities with great opportunities.

We talked for quite a bit after he was finished with his book signing, and he used the phrase minimally acceptable market threshold, referring to how you augur urban revitalization, neighborhood by neighborhood, in ways that attract the people who have choices, the ability to live wherever they want. This dovetails with the quote from Richard Florida in yesterday's Post article, "The City as Modern Muse," about Brookland:

Extracted from a Washington Post graphic produced by Nathaniel Vaughn Kelso.

The reality is that you have to attract residents with choices because you need property, sales, and income tax revenues to fund city activities. (Another perspective on this is Rolf Goetze's Building Neighborhood Confidence, written in the late 1960s.) I had written a few comments about this in a thread on the blog Urban Commons last week:

Center cities only having "neighborhoods of and for people who have no other choices" well, it's not a competitive advantage. I will say that his argument in some respects parallels some of the discussion in Logan and Molotch's Urban Fortunes about historic preservation.

I think the point that they missed is the necessity of stabilizing urban neighborhoods, including downtown, vis-a-vis the suburbs. You have to have viable neighborhoods (which requires "place-based" investments) in order to retain residents, residents paying property, sales, and income tax (if the jurisdiction assesses it). Retaining low income residents isn't great for either the revenue or expenses side of the city government financial statement...

The more people you retain in the city that are middle and upper income the better, because you need the revenue, badly. Detroit has such a tremendous infrastructure left over from its days as a city with 2 million residents that its property taxes are sky high. A house assessed for $200,000 pays $8,000/year in property taxes. That's 3x higher than DC! And it's not like Detroit is full of amenities. (Although a house assessed for $200,000 in Detroit could be worth $600,000 in the right neighborhood in a strong market city.)

The problem is that while strategic investments are required in downtown and other areas, too often the bulk of the investments go downtown, or to big projects, that in the great stream of things, aren't necessarily strategic in terms of generating additional private investments and in-migration of residents.

It's a hard issue to work through. "Neighborhoods first" policies often don't generate the kinds of revenues cities need, especially if cities are still leaking business and population, particularly residents that pay more in tax revenues than they consume in services.

But too often, the downtown first interest groups have hogged the majority of the public investments.

The other problem, and in terms of Mallach's talk yesterday, it was the one thing he didn't discuss and his presentation suffered for it:

Most elected and appointed municipal officials still focus on big projects, with an urban renewal mentality, even though for the most part, as a theory of revitalization practice it is safe to say that it hasn't worked and is discredited. (Also see Peter Drier's nice piece on Jane Jacobs, "Jane Jacobs' Radical Legacy," from Shelterforce, the magazine published by the National Housing Institute, where Alan Mallach is the research director.)

A giant wrecking claw releases a torent of debris as demolition of the 100-year-old apartment building begins. It will take six weekends to complete the razing.(Sun photo by Doug Kapustin) Sep 16, 2006

This is a particular problem in Baltimore. I have been meaning to write a blog entry about how demolition of the Rochambeau building started last weekend, see "Building gives up ghost: The Rochambeau feels the wreckers' touch as a long battle to preserve the structure ends," as well as this story, "City houses to be razed," both from the Baltimore Sun. The latter story is about how 400 houses will be demolished across the city, to assemble land and develop larger parcels for development.

Crazy. Rehabilitating the houses and renting or selling them, or putting them into a community land trust would more likely "produce" affordable housing than their strategy. Plus it would likely be cheaper, especially given the quality and longevity of new construction, have higher appreciation possibilities, and it would maintain historic building stock in a way that strengthens Baltimore's identity.

See the National Trust report Affordable Housing and Historic Preservation: The Missed Connection by Donovan Rypkema, for more about this issue.

It makes me concerned about Martin O'Malley as governor of Maryland... Although from a "smart growth" and pro-transit standpoint, it'd be hard to be much worse than Governor Erhlich.

Mayor Martin O'Malley, left, and Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. debate at an event today hosted by the Maryland AARP in Timonium. At center is Joseph DeMattos, state director for AARP. (Sun photo by André F. Chung) Sep 14, 2006

See today's Sun editorial, "Smarter treatment." From the editorial:

But these upgrades can also allow sewage treatment plants to expand capacity. Reducing pollutants is good. Even expanding capacity is probably helpful. After all, if Maryland is going to have growth, better to have it hooked to a public sewer than a septic tank. Unfortunately, that's where matters get complicated.

Chesapeake Bay restoration grants are designed to clean up the worst polluting plants. The Maryland Department of the Environment doesn't factor in how the communities may potentially misuse any increased capacity. As a spokesman for the department told The Sun, "We don't look at what they do afterward." Controlling growth is considered a local matter.

That's a mistake. And it's another example of how the Ehrlich administration has repeatedly missed opportunities to build on Maryland's Smart Growth legacy. The Smart Growth concept demands that the state take a more active role in planning; without it, the MDE and other state agencies are merely enablers of bad local planning decisions.

The competitive advantages that cities have are centered upon historic architecture, urban design, and history (along with good transit). When you destroy historic architecture, you diminish your identity and your ability to compete. Granted if Baltimore were Detroit, the situation would be different. But it is well located, on the East Coast, well connected to other cities with rail, and in the core of a growing region, not to mention convenient to people priced out of Washington--the commuting distance by railroad to DC from Baltimore is less than that of many people who work in New York City but commute from other parts of New York State, New Jersey, and Connecticut.

But the average city official or planning department employee is shell shocked, and think that their best course of action is demolition. Sure their city has shrunk greatly. But nothing like Detroit.

As Alan Mallach said, "People aren't really buying houses, they are buying location."

If you wreck the advantages of your location, people won't be buying houses and choosing to live there.

Tonight: Book launch, forum to address solutions for America's ailing cities

(From email)

New Book Offers “Legacy Cities” Best Advice from Nation’s Leading Urbanists.

Authors’ Forum Headlines Book Launch
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Forum: 5:00 p.m.—6:30 p.m.

Reception: 6:30 p.m.—7:30 p.m.

The Brookings Institution 1775 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C

Born out of a major conference in Detroit – now the nation’s symbol for cities that defined the nation’s 20th century economy but find themselves in search of a new identity – a new book, Rebuilding America’s Legacy Cities: New Directions for the Industrial Heartland, explores strategies for retooling, reimagining and re-building these cities.

Published by the Columbia University-based American Assembly, the book from America’s most notable urbanists is a blueprint for cities, towns and neighborhoods seeking to recast their futures in the changed world economy and adopt policies that encourage the adaptive repurposing of land to make their cities competitive.

The book will be formally launched on January 26th at an afternoon forum and reception at The Brookings Institution. Three project co-chairs and co-sponsors – former Mayor and Secretary of Housing and Urban Affairs Henry Cisneros, former Columbus Ohio Mayor Gregory Lashutka, and Dan Kildee, former Genesee County Treasurer and current President of the Center for Community Progress – will join Legacy Cities Project Director Paul Brophy; Hunter Morrison, Program Director of the Northeast Ohio Sustainable Communities Consortium; Lavea Brachman, Executive Director of the Greater Ohio Policy Center and Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution; and Alan Mallach, book editor and Brookings Nonresident Senior fellow.

“Few cities and towns in the United States have escaped the shrinking revenues, high unemployment and dwindling private investment that characterize today’s economy, with ‘legacy cities’ hit hardest,” says Secretary Cisneros. “That dynamic can and must be reversed – nothing less than the very vitality of our nation is at stake.”

Historic preservation roundup

Standard Record & Hi-Fi in the Roosevelt neighborhood of Seattle. This example of streamlined art deco commercial storefront from the 1940s is slated for demolition and will be replaced by a light rail station. The Seattle Landmarks Preservation Board decided against designating the building. It would be possible to incorporate the facade into the light rail station. Photo: Benjamin Benschneider, Seattle Times.

1. Conservation districts. An interesting set of articles in the Reading Eagle, "Historic district scope scaled down" and "Conservation sector in Lancaster praised as big plus for city" about creating not a historic district--because a historic district has "too rigid" a set of regulations concerning architectural details and materials--but a "conservation district," which only considers three things: demolition requests; new construction; and significant alteration.

In the past I haven't been too favorable on the idea of conservation districts, because I think materials and architectural quality do matter.

On the other hand, I do think that in DC at least, with the rise of property rights fervor and the lack of super good public relations and outreach on the part of preservation in the city, along with the fact that a majority of the City Council doesn't seem to be too favorable to preservation--seeing it as a hindrance to development (and yes, it can be, that's the point) and how the law requires a vote amongst affected property owners, that it becomes much harder to create a historic district in DC, especially one of major size--the big historic districts in DC, such as in Georgetown (actually created by a special law passed by Congress in 1950) or the Capitol Hill Historic District, which has as many as 8,000 buildings, were created when the laws were different and in different times--so maybe it's time for me to compromise, and give in on the idea of conservation districts as being much better than nothing, given that nothing is the level of protection accorded to so many buildings in DC, despite their eligibility for historic designation.

In Reading, the proponents of the conservation district argue that it can be a step to a full-blown historic district, as people experience that the reality of historic building regulations can be dealt with.

I argue that there is limited social, community and organizational capital, so the likelihood of incremental change from one type of historic district to another is unlikely, because it's too much work.

2. Religious exceptions to historic designation. I don't agree with it. In fact, churchly demolition of designated buildings by Capitol Hill Baptist Church, because they claimed they couldn't afford to pay for upkeep, so they tore down the buildings for parking, led to the creation of DC's local historic preservation laws. (One case going on in the city now is a church that wants to tear down buildings that they haven't maintained for a parking lot. See "A Tale of Two Razes" from the City Paper.)

In New York City, churches are organizing opposition to the creation of a historic district in the East Village. See "Historic District Plans in East Village Stir Opposition" from the New York Times.

3. The value of historic preservation to local character, authenticity and the local economy. In the context of DC, I argue that historic architecture, the pedestrian-centric urban design of the city from the Walking City era (1800-1890) and history, identity and authenticity are three of the city's key competitive advantages as a place to live especially vis-a-vis other locations in the Washington Metropolitan area.

Additionally, preservationists saved the city by stabilizing many of the city's fine urban neighborhoods during the many decades when trends for residential choice did not favor urban living.

Sadly, because we preservationists don't do a good job making this point, and instead are derided for holding back change (sometimes the derision is justified, because it is true that preservationists do have to figure out how to act in the 21st Century, when the goal isn't stabilizing neighborhoods that people don't want to live in, but is instead, accommodating new residents, people who want to live in the city, and whose income supports better municipal services and a broader array of retail options and attractions), the essentiality of preservation to the city's current resurgence is unheralded if not disputed.

The Seattle Times' Pacific Northwest Magazine has a nice piece, "Seattle's old buildings: Opportunities, not obstacles," that recounts these types of arguments in terms of Seattle. The article may not say all that much that is new (to me anyway), but the photos are fabulous and it's always nice to see the argument repeated.

4. Plus, speaking of Seattle, I mentioned awhile back that they are creating a "historic theater district" there, as a way to help preserve "old" theater buildings there. Some people have criticized this, because the district isn't contiguous, it's more of a type of building historic district. See "Council to vote on forming historic theater district" from the Seattle Times.

In any case, the Playhouse Theater District in Cleveland is a driving force for Downtown revitalization in Cleveland, which given the fact that the Cleveland metropolitan area continues to lose population, is key for helping the city to maintain economic vitality in the face of regional decline. See "In Cleveland, a Model of Economic Viability in the Arts" from the Wall Street Journal.

5. Incorporating "old" buildings into new projects. One thing worth separating out from the Seattle Times piece is that it starts out with a description of the old Standard Radio & Hi-Fi store in the Roosevelt neighborhood of Seattle, which is pictured in the image at the top of the entry.

This streamlined art deco building is being demolished for a light rail station. Something similar is happening in Calgary, Alberta, I think, but now I can't find the article. And of course, it happened in plenty of places in DC when the subway stations were constructed here.

6. Main Street conference in Baltimore, April 1st-4th. The National Main Street conference is in Baltimore this year. If you're into historic preservation and commercial district revitalization, it's probably the best place to learn a lot very quickly about commercial district revitalization in terms of the asset-based approach--assets aren't just "old buildings," they are people and organizations and of course, money.

While it is very difficult work, I am a hard core believer in the Main Street approach, although it's damn hard, if not near impossible to make work, especially in "hetereogeneous" communities like H Street.

It's hard, because you need to have some locational advantages, you have to be able to get some working consensus of different stakeholders, and while the merchants are the most motivated, they have to be willing to give up some control to residents, who bring different skill sets and desires to the table as well.

Plus, it's very easy to become an "events manager" by default. While I could do that, I'd rather do planning, business recruitment, etc., but it's the events that build out your promotional calendar and end up controlling your time...

For people in the region, you can attend the conference for free in return for volunteering some of your time to assist the people running the conference. If you're interested, email me, and I'll send you the contact information.

7. DC Historic Preservation Review Board #1. The City Paper reports in "Nancy Metzger and Historic Preservation’s Public Relations Problem" that Nancy Metzger's nomination to the HPRB is being criticized because she's too hard core a preservationist. F*** that.

Most of DC's zoning and building regulation processes are set up to ease new construction.

The system ought to have some checks and balances. The historic preservation law, regulations, and process, for good and bad, provides some checks.

I have a line "when you ask for nothing, that's what you get. When you ask for the world, you don't get it, but you get a lot more than nothing."

Without people pushing for the hard decisions, the hard course of action, you get very little movement toward it.

The funny thing is that amongst some preservationists in the city, Nancy is considered part of the system, and apt to support the government position even when challenged by more hardcore positions. Funny how the perception of "militance" is relative.

Disclosure: Nancy Metzger has provided advice and support over the years on various preservation projects or landmark nominations I'd been involved in. I learned from her, probably shared a dinner or two, and think she's an incredibly nice person who is one of the people who saved Capitol Hill during the many decades when inner-city living was considered "not of sound mind" by most "good Americans."

The City Paper quotes the testimony of David Garber as a kind of admonition:

I know that these nominees are qualified to be official advocates for the District's built heritage. But I also want to challenge them to see our old and historic places both as important aesthetic and cultural artifacts and as the patterns and teachers for a built future that might not look just like what's come before. Celebrate history, but encourage contemporary design in its interpretation. Require a village scale where appropriate, but allow for greater density where our infrastructure is built to handle it. Be vigilant about context and scale, but allow our library of good urbanism to be shaped by best practices sourced from around the world and across centuries and styles. See change as an asset to be worked with instead of as an enemy to be guarded against. Old is important, but so is eclecticism, environmental sustainability, and urbanizing development.

But to me, that's what historic preservation does already.

I don't always agree with the decision making, but I think that's because of many other faults within our general planning processes in the city, faults that I write about frequently.

Now David Garber is also a small housing redeveloper/flipper ("Lucrative New Life for the Obsolete: House Flippers Are Back Post Bubble," Express, January 28, 2011). Maybe he does great work. My experience in many parts of the city is that most people who do this kind of work do a bad job, be that as it may, what he says historic preservation should do is what it already does, what is called for by the Secretary of Interior Standards for Rehabilitation.

Now I don't necessarily agree with the focus on new construction looking decidedly new. I am more in line with Steven Semes' ideas (author of The Future of the Past: A Conservation Ethic for Architecture, Urbanism, and Historic Preservation, review of the book from Traditional Building Magazine).

From the review:

This book rejects the Modernist ideology that is embedded in current preservation philosophy, which has led to government promotion of architecturally dissonant construction in historic places. Instead, Semes argues persuasively that visual wholeness and architectural continuity of historic areas should be the paramount design imperative. In many historic settings, new traditional architecture provides the best route to harmony with existing building fabric, and Semes calls for rethinking preservation policies that have blocked the use of compatibly styled traditional design.

But that doesn't mean that you can build new buildings that are both "big" which is what many smart growthers want and simultaneously "contextually designed to be complementary to historic buildings." For example, the most successful new condominium building in New York City was designed by Robert A.M. Stern to be just like a "pre-war" building.

But when I think about the alternatives to the historic preservation laws in DC, which are either no special provisions--like most of the city--or urban renewal and social housing disasters, the former in Southwest DC and pre-2005 H Street NE, the latter in many other places, I don't see a better alternative.

I do see a lot of people who are so caught up in the moment that they are unfamiliar with the past, both in terms of architectural history and urban history, and they are unfamiliar with (and I hate to say this) DC's exceptionalism of the moment in that it is now a "strong real estate market" whereas most other cities and metropolitan areas are not similarly "blessed".

Taking some time to make better, more informed decisions, is a good thing, not a bad thing.

Things have been s*** in many neighborhoods in the city a long time--many decades.

If a lot remains undeveloped for 18 months, even 5 years longer--e.g., 5 years is the difference in time between having a 50,000 s.f. BP gas station on the 300 block of H Street NE versus have a 200+ unit apartment building with a Giant Supermarket on the ground floor, that's okay.

8. DC Historic Preservation Review Board #2: Because you're "young" does that mean your appointment to a board is a victory for myopia and idiocracy?

The City Paper also reports, in "Smart Growthy Nominee for Historic Preservation Review Board," that Andrew Aurbach has been renominated to be on the HPRB.

Comparatively speaking, Andrew is young--43 years old or so--and committed to smart growth, and is involved in local campaigns as a resident committed to good government and being willing to work on campaigns helps get you situated to be selected for nomination to commissions and boards.

The comment about a victory for "myopic little twits" is a reference to a 2010 column, "D.C. election didn't just unseat abrasive Mayor Fenty. It was a populist revolt," by Washington Post columnist Courtland Milloy, for ragging on the younger newer residents of the city who read blogs like Greater Greater Washington and advocate for crazy ass shit like streetcars and bike lanes, instead of grants to organizations willing to turn over most of the money to a Councilmember for his own use ("Harry Thomas's enablers" editorial in the Post).

Myopia and twitness aren't character flaws unique to the young, although the young often have the flaws, because their enthusiasms aren't always checked by rigorous debate (see "Brainstorming Doesn't Really Work" from the New Yorker--the basic point is that groups don't necessarily come up with better ideas than individuals, that ideas are made better through rigorous debate and challenge, that people come up with more and better ideas when they participate in such a process).

That being said, maybe Andrew is "young" age-wise and a smart growther, but I wouldn't call him myopic or a twit, while I might think that of many of the people that Courtland Milloy was thinking about when he wrote his column.