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.

(DC) The Federal Urban Design Workshop, Tomorrow

From the National Capital Planning Commission:

Tuesday, January 24, 2012 6:30 – 8:00 PM
@ National Capital Planning Commission, 401 9th Street NW, Suite 500 North, DC
- More about NCPC's Federal Urban Design Initiative available online
- RSVP

HELP WANTED: Urban design involves the enhancement of a place’s unique urban character through the development and management of its public spaces, including building yards, parks, plazas, and streets. The National Capital Planning Commission is developing a new urban design element for the Federal Elements of the Comprehensive Plan for the National Capital that will establish policies designed to make federal public spaces, campuses, and buildings more livable, functional, and sustainable, and we'd like your help.

Help plan for the future by joining us for the Federal Urban Design workshop. We want your ideas for how federal facilities and property can create better public space within Washington, DC and throughout the National Capital Region.

A response to my WA-OR sprawl post: urban growth boundaries aren't necessarily enough

Brock Howell, King County Program Director, for Futurewise (the group was formerly named "1000 Friends of Washington" and is a smart growth advocacy group) writes:

Your recent blog post doesn't mention that Washington State also has a state land use system and requires the setting of urban growth areas set based on 20-year population projections.

Oregon is fairly lenient when it comes to setting the boundaries (although both states could be better in this regard). Washington falls short in the allowable density in rural areas and agricultural resource lands (max 1du/5ac or 1du/10).

Most of the sprawl over the last two decades in Clark County hasn't been in contradiction of WA's GMA. It's been in the rural area.

Consider the Columbia River Crossing project. The EIS basically says that there will be no sprawl in Clark County because they have a UGA and rural/resource land protections. What the EIS fails to mention is that the expanded bridge would induce more development of Clark County rural lands.

The CRC is a project that Metro has control over. It's unfortunate that the Metro council isn't thinking about the sustainability for the whole region, even though they clearly could, and would actually be of economic benefit to Portland.

Also, I don't think its fair to pick on this recent location if the investment firm to Camas. I bet if it located in Hillsboro, Beaverton, or Gresham or even Salem or Corvallis you wouldn't find cause to decry the move.

All these other places, I would assume you'd reason in part, are within a UGB. But so too is the new project in Camas. In fact, like many of the Portland suburbs, it was home to many tech jobs during the dot com bubble, so its not anything special to have a major employer in Camas.

You can pick on tax policies, but probaby not regional UGB coordination.

My response, besides recommending that people watch episodes #2 and #3 from the web program "Vancouvria", which is a parody of "Portlandia" and the Portland suburbs, is this:

Well, I should have said that an urban growth boundary isn't enough in and of itself to prevent sprawl, because plenty of land development that occurs within a growth boundary may not be "smart" because it still ends up being the perhaps unnecessary development of "greenfield" property that had been undeveloped.

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Note that the same point can be made about cities. Just because a development is in a city doesn't necessarily mean that it is created with sustainable transportation and land use planning precepts, or is appropriately urban. I call this "intra-city sprawl." A couple examples are how DC Government moves agencies to new locations around the city to places that require "more" travel to get there, and induce more trips by car or how the "Upper 14th Street" revitalization plan calls for more commercial development in an under-dense area, in a location only served by buses, when the corridor is just a few blocks from Georgia Avenue, which has more than 1 million of underutilized square feet of commercially-zoned property and yet another million or so new square feet of commercial development coming to the Walter Reed site. But there are many more examples everywhere, including those discussed in this book, The Suburbanization of New York: Is the world's greatest city becoming just another town?

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I didn't mention in the entry that for a time I worked in the planning office for Baltimore County, Maryland, which is one of the first places in the U.S. to have enacted a UGB, in 1967.

As someone aligned with the smart growth movement and ideal, I'd say that most of the county's policies (despite some good ones, and not necessarily what the plans say should occur) are focused on "growth" in Owings Mills and White Marsh, which for the most part isn't necessary, even though it's within what they call the URDL ("urban rural demarcation line"), because there are plenty of intensification opportunities in already developed areas of the county that aren't as far out as Owings Mills or White Marsh. (I wrote about this with regard to Owings Mills as an example of why Maryland needs a state land use plan like PlanMaryland here, "State vs. local control over land use: Maryland edition" and "What the State of Maryland still doesn't get about smart growth.")

The URDL keeps development within the line for the most part and outside of the rural area (they control development by not providing access to "city" water "outside" the URDL--the water system is run by Baltimore City in association with the county)--although the line changes when the Growth Machine demands it (e.g., development triggered by McCormick Spice's move to Hunt Valley in the late 1980s).

So you're right, just because development is within the URDL (or within an urban growth boundary) doesn't mean it's "smart."

Urban growth boundaries don't work when you cross state lines

The metropolitan area of Portland, Oregon is unusual in that there is an urban growth boundary designed to limit "sprawl" forms of land use development, as well as an elected Metropolitan Government which also focuses on the UGB and is the designated metropolitan planning organization for transportation purposes.

At the same time, Washington State is just across the Columbia River--it's 9 miles from Downtown Portland to Vancouver, Washington.

And while it is not unprecedented for "metropolitan planning organizations" to cross state lines--it's done in the DC area, where the MPO covers DC, and parts of Maryland and Virginia, the Wilmington, DE MPO also includes part of Maryland, the MPO in the Philadelphia area includes part of New Jersey, etc.--the MPO for Vancouver, Washington is separate from the MPO for Portland, Oregon, and even if combined, likely wouldn't have the same kind of power over land use in the Washington State side of the region.

Development there is further complicated by the fact that Oregon doesn't have retail sales taxes, and Washington State doesn't have an income tax. So retailers do better in the Portland side of the region--Downtown Vancouver's retail is pretty paltry as a result. And many people prefer to live in Washington State, because of the lack of income tax.

The Seattle Times has an article, "California investment firm spurns Seattle area for rural Clark County," about how a financial firm relocated from California to Camas, Washington--15 miles from Downtown Vancouver, so 24 miles from Downtown--to a 170 acre campus that right now has about 400 employees, and adding to sprawl.

So the Washington State side of the Portland metropolitan area is a case study for how sprawl can occur, even in an area with generally stronger laws and regulations against sprawl.

Double design failure: Norfolk State University and light rail

First, Norfolk State University made the Hampton Roads Transit system move their proposed light rail station off the campus, out of a perceived danger to students, to a site near the campus but across a 6-lane road.

Now they complain that students cross the street from the station to the campus directly, rather than walk two blocks out of their way to a controlled crosswalk.

From "NSU officials say Tide station poses risk for students" in the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot:

Because of their safety concerns for students on campus, Norfolk State University officials forced a $7 million relocation of the light-rail station across Brambleton Avenue, to move it away from the school.

Now that station poses a different kind of safety issue - for students trying to get onto campus.

Students, who ride The Tide for free, often dash across six lanes of Brambleton traffic to get from the rail station to classes, instead of walking an extra block or two to use a controlled crosswalk. They cross in the middle of a busy block, between the Interstate 264 exit ramp and the Park Avenue intersection, which is traveled by nearly 50,000 vehicles a day.

"It's really dangerous," said Regina V.K. Williams, NSU's interim vice president for finance and administration and the city manager when Norfolk agreed to build the station across Brambleton. "We want people using light rail, but we want them to be safe."

This is such an obvious design failure--three in total--that it's almost not worth discussing. What did they expect? Their first decision to not place the station on campus was flawed and was compounded by the second decision to move the station off campus, and then to place the station in a proximate location to the campus, but without a crosswalk and traffic signal at the station.

Many universities have heavy rail, light rail, or street car stations adjacent to their campuses and they thrive. Portland State University has repositioned many of its programs and the design of their campus around the streetcar.

Streetcar at Portland State University. Image from Rethink College Park.

NSU had the same opportunity and blew it.

Fortunately, in the DC area, University of Maryland ended up making the right decision about light rail access for the Purple Line, after previous resistance. See "University of Maryland drops opposition to central campus route for Purple Line" from the Washington Post.

And of course, every university wants to get their name on the nearby subway station...

The Foggy Bottom station is on the George Washington University campus, and the Brookland station abuts Catholic University. In Arlington County, the Virginia Square station is a short walk--probably less than the distance from the Tide "Norfolk State University" light rail station to the campus--to the Arlington campus of George Mason University.

Yoga at the Art Gallery of Ontario

Yoga classes at the AGO start in darkness at 7:55 a.m. and as the class progresses students are able to greet the sun. SERENA WILLOUGHBY/TORONTO STAR

Here's a way to reach out to new audiences. It's not likely to happen in a federally-controlled museum in DC however... See "Art Gallery of Ontario offers yoga classes in the Henry Moore gallery" from the Toronto Star.

Another example of phasing: how commercial and entertainment districts can change over time

Yesterday I wrote the piece about the H Street commercial district in response to a screed that appeared in the Washington Informer about the changes happening there.

While I do agree that there are gaps in how the planning for the changes came about, resulting in under-formed provision of civic services and things to do that don't cost money, the reality is that cities change over time and the solution to disinvestment is investment, and that strategies that focus on keeping areas poor don't improve neighborhoods.

(To address What that means is that there needs to be a better focus on "community economic development," education and workforce development, etc., or the kinds of things discussed in Mihalio Temali's Community Economic Development Handbook; overview, review.)

So I suggested that commercial districts that are improving improve in phases, and in later phases it's more possible for retail to develop.

The Friday Weekend section of the Washington Post has a feature on what we might call "more upscale places" in Adams-Morgan, "What to do this weekend: Explore Adams Morgan."

Adams-Morgan became the more "downscale" weekend entertainment destination as Georgetown went more upscale. But over time, as the demographics of the area change, and as a new entertainment district is being created on H Street NE, Adams-Morgan has the chance and opportunity to reposition as well. This is seen in the greater variety of evening options now available there, as outlined in the Post article.

Similarly, for many years if not decades, Capitol Hill was derided as a place where it was impossible to find an upscale restaurant meal. Over the past few years, that's changed as well, as new developments, especially the baseball stadium, bring more potential customers to the area, and as 8th Street SE (Barracks Row) has developed into a small entertainment district destination as well.

The benevolent vision of the Growth Machine

I am a fervent proponent of the Growth Machine thesis, first laid out by sociologist Harvey Molotch, in the seminal article, City as a Growth Machine: Toward a Political Economy of Place. From the abstract:

A city and, more generally, any locality, is conceived as the areal expression of the interests of some land-based elite. Such an elite is seen to profit through the increasing intensification of the land use of the area in which its members hold a common interest. An elite competes with other land-based elites in an effort to have growth-inducing resources invested within its own area as opposed to that of another. Governmental authority, at the local and nonlocal levels, is utilized to assist in achieving this growth at the expense of competing localities. Conditions of community life are largely a consequence of the social, economic, and political forces embodied in this growth machine.

Political scientist Clarence Stone, a professor at University of Maryland has a competing thesis, that of the "urban regime." I don't think these theories are competing so much as different sides of the same coin. "Growth Machine" theory explains the motivation of "the land-based elite," and "urban regime" theory explains in detail how the land-based elite operates and functions.

In the paper, "Now What? The continuing evolution of Urban Regime analysis," Stone writes:

An urban regime can be preliminarily defined as the informal arrangements through which a locality is governed (Stone 1989). Because governance is about sustained efforts, it is important to think in agenda terms rather than about stand-alone issues. By agenda I mean the set of challenges which policy makers accord priority. A concern with agendas takes us away from focusing on short-term controversies and instead directs attention to continuing efforts and the level of weight they carry in the political life of a community. Rather than treating issues as if they are disconnected, a governance perspective calls for considering how any given issue fits into a flow of decisions and actions. This approach enlarges the scope of what is being analyzed, looking at the forest not a particular tree here or there. (emphasis added, in this paragraph and below)

In discussing Atlanta, Stone writes: "Land use, transportation, and housing formed an interrelated agenda that the city's major economic interests were keen to advance;" and

By looking closely at the policy role of business leaders and how their position in the civic structure of a community enabled that role, he identified connections between Atlanta's governing coalition and the resources it brought to bear, and on to the scheme of cooperation that made this informal system work. In his own way, Hunter had identified the key elements in an urban regime – governing coalition, agenda, resources, and mode of cooperation. These elements could be brought into the next debate about analyzing local politics, a debate about structural determinism.

Closer to home ...

Washington Post columnist Steven Pearlstein calls for the Growth Machine, in other words, business interests, to up their game and re-focus on a regional agenda with less inter-jurisdictional competition and squabbling between DC, Maryland, and Virginia. See " A call of action to Washington's business elite."

While I don't disagree that the metropolitan area's leaders need to re-vision and forge a new consensus vision going forward, a vision that works for the 21st century, I think its essential that the people who are "allowed" to set this vision be drawn from a grouping larger than business interests--which in this region the most motivated are mostly real estate developers.

Tysons Corner, Virginia as the culmination of the efforts of the 20th Century's Virginia contingent of the region's Growth Machine.

More on commerz in the 'hood

An H Street e-list calls our attention to this piece, " D.C. Residents Call for Fewer Bars on H Street" from the Washington Informer, with quotes from African-American residents about the gentrification of the commercial district.

Note that this isn't a new story. See the blog entries from 2006, which responded to similar articles in the Washington Post, including "Whose H Street Is It, Anyway? A Dispute Over Restaurant Zoning Creates a Chasm Between Northeast Washington's Old and New Residents" (the first entry below includes cites to other Post articles about other neighborhoods, recycling the same issues):

-- Commerz in the 'hood... (aka "Commerce as the engine of urbanism")
-- Commerz in the 'hood, part two

-- Commerz in the 'hood, part three

-- Commerce dans de quartier de la ville, partie quatre (Commerz in the 'hood series)

Post graphic on the H Street revitalization plan, 2007.

From the Informer article:

Residents of the gentrified H Street area are troubled by the block on block of bars that line the Northeast corridor. Margaret D. Lewis said not all of the improvement projects left the corridor better than it was found.
"They have too many bars and too many restaurants," said Lewis who has lived in the area for more years than she cared to remember. "They need to have more retail stores." ...

Lewis' friend, who didn't want to be identified, shared Lewis' frustration. She was bothered by the lack of grocery stores in the area and also saw evidence she was being pushed out of the corridor.

"They have come and taken H Street over as their place," [Dineen Method] said. "It should be a place for anybody -- not just for them." She said she lived in the area when nobody else wanted to be here and made the best of a bad situation.

She also blamed city planners for not making Black people an integral part of the rebuilding of the H Street Northeast corridor. "They built it up around them," she said. "They are putting up condominiums, but they are not putting up low-income housing for people in the area. That leaves more people homeless and jobless."

... Meanwhile, if Darnell Thomas has his way, he would choose youth friendly activities to put on the corridor and fewer watering holes. The youth need places to go, too, said Thomas who is a Muslim.

"They took the library. Why would you take a library down? So now the youth have no place to go," he said, referencing the closing of the R.L. Christian Library kiosk in 2008. "Every neighborhood should at least have a library," he sighed.

He didn't understand the closing of the Children's Museum at 3rd and H streets. It was converted to luxury condominiums, one of which is occupied by former Mayor Anthony Williams, who targeted H Street as one of the areas slated for revitalization.

My response:

When there was a hearing on the Main Street program, convened by then Councilman Kwame Brown, at the Atlas in 2007, the same argument was made about the need for more retail stores.

My response at the time was that commercial districts revitalize in phases. My "Richard's Rules for Restaurant-Based Revitalization" piece focuses on how restaurants/taverns are necessary to get people to resample commercial districts. And are needed so that people can "refresh" themselves (by eating, using the restroom, etc.) and stay longer in the district, rather than just accomplishing one or two errands and leaving.

This is a phase that lasts upwards of 10 years, before you can seed substantive retail. Plus, DC has a different dynamic going on with rents, and the rents are too high to allow for a significant amount of independent retail to develop, because the revenue potential of the space isn't high enough to support the asking price for retail rents. Whereas because of the small spaces, otherwise you'd think that these spaces would be great for retail...

- "Cleveland Park Retail, my off-hand assessment is that the rents are too high"
- "Commercial retail rents #2"
- this article by columnist Neal Peirce discusses how the period of Main Street revitalization is a 15-20 year process,

Although as certain blocks are redeveloped in a more large scale fashion, like 600, 800, 900, + parts of the 300 and 1200 blocks, especially after the introduction of the streetcar, chain retailers are likely to come to the corridor. The fact that Giant Supermarkets is building a store on the 300 block communicates to other retailers that the submarket is worthy of consideration.

The other challenge is that the economics of retail are much different than the economics of restaurants/nightlife establishments. People consume food every day. They don't buy apparel, furniture, books, etc. every day, or even as frequently as every month.

Therefore you need much larger numbers of people coming to your district to support retailers in these categories than are traditionally available within an immediate area. So the district has to become the equivalent of a "regional shopping center" (like Friendship Heights) to offer the array of retailers that people quoted in the Informer want.

And actually, that is how H Street functioned in its glory days, as one of the city's three primary shopping districts (after Downtown, and arguably ahead of 14th Street). H Street didn't have the downtown department stores, but it did have a Sears, and the "5 and 10 stores"--national chains and local versions, a local department store (Mortons) and apparel shops and all the rest.

Hechts didn't build its first suburban department store until the late 1940s. Once it did, other shopping districts formed in the suburbs, and DC's top commercial districts began to languish in response to the new and ever growing competition. In 1964(?, maybe it was 1962) Ourisman Chevrolet left H Street for Marlow Heights. Plus Kresge converted its store to its downmarket division ("Jupiter") banner, making it more of a dollar store, etc. These are indicators about how suburban locations became superior to city locations, at least in terms of H Street.

The riots were the denouement for H Street, and even downtown, which was also affected by national trends which made it almost impossible for locally owned department stores (Jellefs, Kanns, Woodward & Lothrop, etc.) to survive, further dooming downtown shopping districts (although that's a separate issue).

E.g. with regard to retail, look at 8th St. SE (Barracks Row). They have about 8-10 actual retail stores (2 bike shops, a gift shop or two, a couple housewares/kitchen stores, knitting, a couple cell phone stores including Radio Shack). But to show how districts develop in stages, the Main Street program there is about 13-14 years old, and now an apparel store is coming in. But most of the businesses in that area and along 7th St. by Eastern Market are restaurants/nightlife places. And the income demographics of the residential area there are much better than they are for H St.

I now have a term for this, entertainment/commercial districts rather than just "commercial districts."

Other points in the story are misleading. By relying on quotes and not digging deeper, the story takes on a bad tinge. E.g., the Children's Museum wasn't kicked out. They had no interest in staying. They saw the corridor as dingy and unable to improve. They wanted to leave and they did. But the H Street plan didn't even consider that the Children's Museum would leave and didn't recommend changes in its location.

Similarly, the H St. neighborhood was provided with tons of "low income" housing or lower income housing in terms of 2 senior housing complexes, the creation of a garden apartments complex (Pentacle) by tearing down a streetcar barn, a garden apartment type condo complex (Wiley Courts), and other lower cost new construction of rowhouses.

One could argue the new market rate construction is about providing a wider variety of housing at different price points. The reality is that people with income support retail. Whereas the building of low income housing may have stabilized urban neighborhoods (that's arguable), low income residents in and of themselves lack the income to support the development of a wide array of retail.

That's why the H Street Urban Renewal Plan, which was mostly successful*:
- bridge over the railyard
- Hechinger Mall
- 2 senior housing complexes
- Wiley Court condominiums
- Pentacle Apartments
- two office buildings on the 600 block
-3 sets of new rowhouses on the 700 block of 8th and 10th Streets, and the 800 block of 10th St. (on the 700 block of 3rd St. an old distribution complex was converted to gated condominiums as well)
- H street connection strip shopping center
- plus the DC government coming through and leasing the office buildings

didn't improve the corridor overall, because those initiatives didn't add enough income to the local micro-economy to spur revitalization of the retail corridor. Plus, Hechinger Mall, by drawing off the post office, Safeway, and CVS, diverted retail customers from H Street to the Mall, and forced them to drive to get there, and away from walking to shop.

* these projects added up to over $100 million when they were constructed, not in current values, which is higher, which is why I always LOL when people argue that the H Street neighborhood was ignored all those years by the city government.

The fact that the H Street Urban Renewal Plan" "worked" and yet the corridor still languished is what propelled me into urban planning as a profession. I've spent all this time trying to figure why investing $100+ million in the H Street commercial district didn't "fix" it.

The lesson was that in a city/neighborhood with historic architecture/great building stock, a pedestrian centric urban design, history, authenticity and identity, and great transit access (proximity to Union Station--subway, train, highways, high frequency bus service), an urban renewal strategy focused on building housing for poor people and wiping away the past was a losing strategy.

My other lesson came from the New York Avenue infill subway station. The development of that station meant that H Street was no longer a barrier for people with the ability to choose where they wanted to live. Because of the new subway station, people were now willng to buy and live north of H St.

E.g., seeing white people live on Orleans Place still boggles my mind, as in the late 1980s/early 1990s that was a key center for crack distribution in the city and dozens of people were murdered in that general area. Now, the demographics of the people walking on the streets north of H Street or K Street are truly shocking, given the past.

Anyway, seeing how the investment in the right kind of public transit (at New York Ave. station) propelled neighborhood revitalization faster than almost any other investment is what pushed me along towards transportation planning.

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Flickr photo by DCMatt.

Note: as pointed out by some of the people quoted in the Informer article, it is reasonable to acknowledge that the plans for H Street inadequately addressed the provision of non-commercial public places and spaces, other than arts-related functions around what became the Atlas Performing Arts Center.

This is the result of flaws in how we do planning in DC.

So called "small area plans" aren't comprehensive neighborhood plans covering all issues thoroughly, such as parks, open spaces, libraries, schools, and other civic assets as well as commercial property development opportunities and transportation.

Mostly, small area plans are management plans to address development opportunities. So the provision of cultural and other non-"commodified" spaces within a neighborhood or commercial district often is overlooked in DC planning processes. And this is the case in part with the H Street plan.

-- H Street corridor revitalization plan

This planning document "summarizes the successes" of the H Street small area plan so far. But it doesn't try to determine what if any gaps there were/are in the process and how to address them.

(Note that when the H Street revitalization process started, I knew a lot less about urban planning than I know today. I hope that I would have raised some of these issues back then, had I known.

A few years ago, I did raise with the chair of ANC6A's zoning committee the opportunity to carve out a public parklet at the southeast corner of 8th Street in association with the future redevelopment of the H Street connection strip shopping center. But it was too late in the process. Had ideas like this been addressed in either the H Street revitalization plan or the streetscape and transportation plan, the chances would have been much greater that something like that could have been done.)

What should be the future of the Children & Youth Investment Trust

In last Sunday's Post, Councilman Tommy Wells, former chair of the Council committee with oversight over the CYIT, the quasi-city government organization that was the source of funds that were ultimately converted and used for personal aggrandizement by Councilman Harry Thomas, argues for the continuation of the organization. From "Undoing the damage to D.C.'s Children and Youth Investment Trust":

Former D.C. Council member Harry Thomas Jr.’s theft of more than $300,000 in city funds that were intended to help children was an outrageous and despicable act. But it does not justify disbanding the Children and Youth Investment Trust Corp., the public-private nonprofit that was the source of the stolen money.

Instead, Mr. Thomas’s embezzlement of grant dollars through intermediaries for his personal use spotlights the urgent need for a leadership change at the trust and for a full review by the mayor and D.C. Council of the qualifications of the trust’s board of directors and president. And we need to make sure future appointees fulfill their responsibilities to strictly control the program’s funds.

In the current issue of the Washington City Paper, Alan Suderman has an important piece, "Who Do You Trust?," about how the problems with the CYIT date almost to its beginning.

The organization was set up as a nonprofit so that it could receive donations from foundations and businesses. Typically, foundations and businesses cannot give monies directly to a city government.

But the interest of foundations and businesses giving monies to the CYIT instead of to beneficiary organizations directly was minimal, so the CYIT mostly received monies from the city government, and the CYIT board--appointed by the Mayor--and officials, subject to the persuasive powers of Councilmembers, allocated monies too often at the direction of elected officials, who were able in the case of Thomas to take the money for their own benefit.

Personally, I think that the CYIT should be disbanded, and if the Council or Executive Branch wants to provide monies to nonprofit organizations--which I have no problem with necessarily--the monies should only be appropriated through an open, public, transparent process, with an application and review process independent of extranormal involvement by Councilmembers or the Executive Branch.

Note that if the City of Takoma Park, Maryland, with fewer than 17,000 residents, can manage to have an open, public, transparent, application process for grants to nonprofit organizations, there is no excuse for DC to not have a comparable process. From the city website:

Small Community Grant Program Information
January 18, 2012
Information on the City's FY 2012 Small Community Grant Program is now available online. Projects must be completed by June 30, 2012. The application deadline is February 8, 2012.

One way to do that would be through a "participatory budgeting" process, where citizens are engaged in the process and shape the results in a significant fashion.

I can see giving the CYIT one more chance, if it shifts to a participatory budgeting process. Otherwise, disband the organization, because it is set up to be a creature of elected officials, even if there is a seeming arms length distance from public officials and the appointees who oversee the organization, and the employees who divvy up the funds.

Another scale of planning failure: neighborhood vs. city-wide interests and food trucks

Food truck at the H Street Festival, 2009.

In the discussion about the Uber taxi service ("Uber car service runs afoul of D.C. Taxi Commission," Washington Post) on the GGW blog ("Uber case is really about purpose of regulation") one of the points made about the Taxi Commission is the problem of "regulatory capture."

In economics, regulatory capture occurs when a state regulatory agency created to act in the public interest instead advances the commercial or special interests that dominate the industry or sector it is charged with regulating. Regulatory capture is a form of government failure, as it can act as an encouragement for large firms to produce negative externalities. The agencies are called "captured agencies".

While it happens that I don't think that's the issue when it comes to consideration and approval of innovative, or at least "new and different," services by the DC Taxi Commission (I think the issue is more indifference to "new and different" services, not a desire to protect taxicab drivers), the fact is that a form of regulatory capture occurs with regard to the new and different by neighborhood constituencies, be they business groups or residential interests.

I think that's what will doom the new plan by the city to give neighborhoods somewhat final authority for approving whether or not food trucks can operate in their particular geographies, as outlined in "D.C. to propose zones for food trucks" from the Post.

From the article:

Searching for a compromise in the bitter divide between brick-and-mortar restaurants and food trucks, the D.C. Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs on Friday will propose creating “vending development zones” that would allow neighborhoods to decide how many mobile and sidewalk vendors to allow in their area.

“It’s our way to really try to make the best use of public space among street vendors and farmers markets, food trucks and bricks-and-mortar businesses,” said Helder Gil, legislative affairs specialist for the department. “It tries to force everybody into the room . . . and find something that works for everybody.”

This isn't compromise, it's conceding the issue by giving final authority to the neighborhoods and the groups which for the most part have resisted providing access to food trucks in the first place.

I have written about this issue quite a bit in terms of the tension between bricks and mortar businesses, business improvement districts and other commercial district revitalization groups, and managing a commercial district overall for vitality and excitement. See "Business improvement districts and boundary spanning " and "Food trucks as a way in."

The Washington City Paper also ran a good story on the topic in 2010, "Inside D.C.'s Food-Truck Wars: How some of Washington's most powerful interests are trying to curb the city's most popular new cuisine."

For the most part, there is a form of "regulatory capture" with business improvement districts by the business proprietor members. The BIDs represent the businesses more than they manage overall the commercial district.

So while it can be advantageous for food trucks to be an element of the retail, services, and attraction mix in a commercial district (not everyone wants to eat in a sit down restaurant, some cuisines aren't available for sale in a commercial district, restaurants aren't proximate to parks and other spaces where people happen to be, people want to be outside, etc.), the likelihood of business improvement districts advocating for food trucks at the seeming cost of their business members is infinitesimal.

If the city's planners (business development and entrepreneurship, land use, tourism, etc.) argue that food trucks are an important element of the mix, how does that desire play out when the city devolves responsibility for accepting food truck operation to neighborhood interests?

In short, it won't get recognized and food truck approvals won't happen.

This new proposal is a mistake.

And note that this is an issue in other cities across the nation as well, because the tensions between brick and mortar businesses and so called itinerant businesses are universal.

A clear signal of a failure in "metropolitan" transportation planning: a proposal to eliminate a subway station from Dulles Airport

The caption on the back of this postcard reads, "Dulles International Airport ... is an international gateway to this country through Washington, our nation's capital. It is a jet airport of both beauty and efficiency, offering the most modern facilities to all its visitors.

The report yesterday, " Board weighs eliminating Metro stop at Dulles," in the Washington Examiner that the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority is recommending dropping the station planned to serve the Dulles Airport site for an alternative farther away, requiring a transfer to a bus and 1.5 miles to the airport is a perfect illustration of failures in the metropolitan area's "transportation planning" process.

From the article:

The airports authority in charge of building the Metro rail extension to Dulles International Airport is considering eliminating the Metro station at the airport.

Instead of stopping at the airport, Metro's new Silver Line would drop airport passengers off along Route 28 in Fairfax County. Riders would then have to ride a bus or a light rail train another 1.5 miles to the airport, according to a proposal discussed Wednesday by the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority.

Altering the course of the Metro line, which is already under construction, would shave about $70 million off of a nearly $6 billion price tag...

Despite the fact that there is the Transportation Policy Board of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, which is tasked as the "metropolitan planning organization" for federal transportation planning requirements, we don't really have a metropolitan transportation plan so much as a collection of transportation priorities by the three separate "state" jurisdictions, DC, Maryland and Virginia.

If there were a true metropolitan plan, there would be a master framework for transportation, focused on throughput more than modes, proposals for various types of transportation infrastructure would be subsumed under the plan rather than driving planning, and certain decisions, such as which activity centers to serve, would not be subject to whim or at least capriciousness.

For example, in a metropolitan plan, transit service to airports would be prioritized, and the planning of fixed rail transit service wouldn't be strictly a function of the separate jurisdictions. (I recommend a framework for this kind of process here: Metropolitan Transit Planning: Towards a Hierarchical and Conceptual Framework.)

The Silver Line planning and construction process has been a Virginia initiative, because in 2003 WMATA devolved responsibility for expansion planning to the separate jurisdictions.

And the planning process doesn't require that the impact of expansions on the core system be addressed simultaneously with expansion. So while it would have been possible to use the Silver Line extension to Dulles Airport as a way to drive forward the "separated blue line" in the core of the region, to provide another northern crossing of the Potomac River, and to provide redundancy and capacity in the core of the system, which is expected to reach capacity in the next decade, this didn't happen.

I wrote about this in 2006, "Blinking on urban design means you limit your chance for success."

As far as metropolitan planning goes, it's also an illustration of the failure to plan for the metropolitan area in terms of its role as a gateway to the U.S. and the National Capital. I write from time to time about how the publisher of Monocle Magazine, Tyler Brûlé, writes a weekly column for the Financial Times, and he is constantly writing about how the experience of flying into Dulles from overseas is a substandard one, not becoming to the United States. (For thinking about the region in terms of "nation branding" issues, I recommend Brand America: The Mother of All Brands by Simon Anholt.)

From "Let’s play ‘Guess where I am?’":

Gate agents screaming for transfer passengers, sniffer dogs and disorganised immigration officers greet travellers in this airport terminal ...

When I finally reach the front and am told what booth to stand in front of, I have to remind myself not to say anything smart as I’m likely to be thrown into detention and escorted back to my Lufthansa aircraft. OK, it’s time to make your guess. Where in the world am I?

You might think I’ve rocked up in some shambolic banana republic or poorly managed police state, but I’m actually at Washington DC’s Dulles Airport late on a Sunday afternoon.

Because no one agency seems to be considering this broad issue, maybe that's another task for the Visitor element of the Federal comprehensive land use planning process managed by the National Capital Planning Commission. (Although it requiring changing the plan to be about the "National Capital" as well as the "National Capital Region," which is among the responsibilities of the Commission.)

But I've argued that how fixed rail transit service to Dulles Airport needs to be planned less out of a focus on value engineering and more according to the Airport's role as a gateway to the region and the the country for awhile...

This has been a problem for awhile. See "Demanding excellence in public projects is too rare a phenomenon: #1 the subway station at Dulles Airport" and "Silver Line Metro expansion a classic example of the need to have true regional transportation planning."

Dulles Airport postcard view. Looks can be deceiving. How you get to and from an airport on the ground is just as important as how the airport looks from the air.