Does (community or neighborhood) size really matter when it comes to urban revitalization?

There is a thread right now on the National Main Street email list about revitalization of "small towns," the particular query is about a New Jersey community with 20,000 residents.

I think it's really important to learn about revitalization, and not to be so focused on size of the city. A neighborhood in the city effort like the Over-the-Rhine initiative that someone mentioned in the email thread (see http://www.irhine.com/) is no less instructive than looking at a "town" with 20,000 residents.

I would recommend that first you read Roberta Gratz's Cities: Back from the Edge. The first chapter on Mansfield Ohio is instructive to all of us, regardless of the size of our communities. Frankly, this is one of the best all around books on the subject, and you might not really need to read anything else (excepting various NMSC publications). I think Main Street Success Stories and Marketing an Identity for Main Street are must read publications as well. The first one should get your creative juices working, and the second ought to get you focused on the priorities.

One of the things that separates weak market communities from strong market communities is what I call a

desperate willingness to experiment.

DC is a strong real estate market, so (imo) generally we aren't that creative and innovative in the revitalization approaches that we end up taking in this city (one exception is the proposal to "Bring Back the Streetcars", see www.dctransitfuture.com -- but that initiative is being led by DC's Department of Transportation, not the DC Office of Planning).

In part this is because even in relatively "weak" sub-markets in various parts of the city such as H Street NE, rents are still $20 or more/square foot. I have a long piece on this broad issue on my blog and it has to do with what Jane Jacobs says in Death and Life of Great American Cities about the importance of a large stock of old buildings available to support innovative uses (because of the lower rents).

Places like Pittsburgh are innovative in comparison. (Richard Florida, the "creative class guru" see www.creativeclass.org, taught at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh.) See http://www.pennavenuearts.org/ or http://www.1662designzone.com/ for a couple of interesting examples of arts districts. Similarly, the City of Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts mounts a variety of creative initiatives. And the LiveBaltimore program that works to attract new residents to the city is also a best practices example.

The most important dimensions in approaching revitalization are (1) the strength of the real estate market more generally (strong vs. weak); and (2) the relative economic and social health of the neighborhood (healthy, transititioning, emerging, distressed are the four types used by the city government to classify neighborhoods in DC; Charles Buki, posits three types: healthy; transitioning; and distressed).

Where your community or neighborhood or neighborhood commercial district lies on these dimensions must shape the strategies and tactics that you pursue--if you're concerned about being successful and husbanding scarce financial resources.

It's not about size, but strengths, assets, and opportunities, and where your community fits within your city and/or region.