Pittsburgh Skyline

Pittsburgh Skyline
Originally uploaded by esherman.

Not likely to blog til tonight. Am about to go on an all day tour of the Strip District. While driving through the streets of Pittsburgh early this morning, I was struck, as always, by the height and density of downtown (and the downtowns of other cities) compared to the relatively undense and not very tall buildings along the streets of downtown Washington, where the buildings max out at about 160 feet (with setbacked penthouses).

My thought during those early hours is that in some weird way this makes sense. Because the vital sector in this country is business. Downtowns are about vibrance, commerce, action.

Washington, politically, these days, is about inaction.

So it makes sense that the buildings in downtown Washington are pretty squat and ordinary, without that prepossessing sense of power projected even by the downtown in Pittsburgh--a city with a relatively weak economy, given rampant deindustrialization in the United States. (Did you see yesterday's news articles about the most crime-ridden cities in the U.S., and the point that crime is rising in the midwest, and that experts are wondering why. Why? It's the economy stupid... Deindustrialization has many costs.)

Another thought--given that Pittsburgh is known for the headquarters of Pittsburgh Plate Glass (glass) and Alcoa (aluminum), it makes sense somehow for the city to have a modernist downtown featuring buildings made from these materials.

The last word on Gallaudet

From the Hives:

Hate to say I told you so.
I do believe I told you so.
Now it's all out and you knew cause I wanted to.
Turn my back on the rot that's been planning the plot - because I'm gonna.
No need for me to wait - because I wanna.

Listen to a clip from the song "Hate to say I told you so"

See:

-- What People Protest... (May) which was read by many within the deaf community, and treated derisively by more than a few.
-- I then wrote another entry a few days later, "More about current Gallaudet student protests," which considered the issue on some other levels, and presaged what happened this month.
When stuff happened again earlier this month I wrote three more posts
-- Gallaudet Continued
-- People continue to miss the point about the Gallaudet protests
-- and Another Week at Gallaudet on October 16th where I said:

"Can you say American University, Harvard University, Hewlett-Packard and Patricia Dunn, etc.? There is an incredible disconnect here."

Today's Post: "Board Ousts Fernandes; Gallaudet Campus Quiet." And just like Ben Ladner, Larry Summers, and Patricia Dunn, Jane Fernandes is out.

Index Keywords: ccivic-engagement

Politicos talking out of both sides of their mouths in Maryland

From Action Committee for Transit:

New Purple Line Delay Revealed

Even as Lieut. Gov. Michael Steele was holding his Purple Line press conference, new delays in the Ehrlich Administration's schedule for the Purple Line came to light at a meeting of the Montgomery County Planning Board last Thursday afternoon. A staff report presented to the Planning Board revealed that the Consolidated Transportation Plan, which will be presented to Montgomery County elected officials at the state's "Road Show" next Thursday, delays the completion of Purple Line studies from 2008 to 2010. The Planning Board staff report is online.

As recently as last July 6, Maryland Secretary of Transportation Robert Flanagan told readers of the Washington Post's "Get There" blog that "a light rail might not begin construction until 2010."

Under the newly issued schedule, construction could not start before 2012. This schedule means that we're hardly any closer to riding the Purple Line than we were when Gov. Ehrlich and Lieut. Gov. Steele took office," commented Action Committee for Transit president Ben Ross.
---------------
Remember this next Tuesday, Marylanders...
Image from the Sierra Club Metro DC Healthy Communities initiative.

Index Keywords: transit

More fun with the Growth Machine (and Mary Newsom)

Photo from Agility Nut.

From this piece, "It's just an old building sitting on pricey dirt: In other cities, the Coffee Cup would be treasured -- but not here," about the coming demolition of a local institution, the Coffee Cup, in favor of new development:

They think it will make a difference if the Historic Landmarks Commission asks the City Council to designate the Cup, a modest soul food diner built in 1946, a historic landmark. They think it will help if the council does name the place a landmark.

They're dreaming.

Naming the Coffee Cup a historic landmark could delay the demolition up to a year. Tops. And what's a year to Atlanta-based Beazer Homes, which owns the Coffee Cup property? It's a Fortune 500 company. Its Web site shows 20 developments for sale in the Charlotte alone. A year is nothing.

Do you think things as squishy as racial integration or history or memory matter to a corporate bottom line? Analysts looking at earnings growth and stock prices don't give a rip about some Tea Cup place somewhere in Charlottesville, South Carolina.

The Cup's a goner.

How can I be sure? A better question is how can anyone not be sure? This is Charlotte.

To be fair, I'm not going to say Charlotte is a city where nothing matters but money. This is a city where many things matter to many people -- among them race relations, history, and even good collard greens and cornbread. But in Charlotte one thing trumps all those other things, and that one thing is making money.

Property values trump all

The property holding the Coffee Cup was valued for tax purposes in 2005 at $822,000. That year the building housing the Coffee Cup was valued at $1,200. That pretty much says it all.Beazer Homes owns about 20 acres in the vicinity and intends to build a 400-unit residential and retail complex. It said last month it will raze the Cup. Beazer has told Coffee Cup owners Gardine Wilson and Anthony McCarver they can stay in the place rent free until Dec. 15.

The land is already rezoned for high-intensity development. The city sponsored that rezoning in 2003, part of its efforts to turn the West Morehead Street corridor into a more welcoming place.

It's a good goal. Except that zoning the Coffee Cup property to allow up to a 10-story building pretty much seals its fate. If you can build an expensive, multi-story building, sooner or later someone's going to do it.

Also see "Charlotte's Coffee Cup Owners Ordered To Vacate Restaurant," from WSOC-TV.

Although this is really an issue everywhere, and has to do with "the intensification of land use and the increase in rents" that is the focus of local economic development policies, real estate interests, and local elites.
WSOC-TV photo.
Index Keywords: Growth-Machine

Fighting the obesity epidemic within project planning

These days, "Active Living" through urban design is one of the big rages in planning and public health. That people living in walkable places who walk (or ride bikes) exercise naturally without having to be so conscious about it. (Although this week, the Examiner has a story about Results Gym at 16th and U Streets NW starting to be open 24 hours, and there have been many stories on research linking an increase in gasoline use over the past 20+ years to increasing waistlines, see "Americans' obesity adds to gasoline consumption, study says," from USA Today.)

However, this particular thread in public health and urban planning doesn't interest me all that much. Maybe there's no hope anyway.
A view of a new fast food making its debut at U.S. fairs this fall. Ping-pong-sized balls of batter made with Coca-Cola syrup are deep-fried, then served in a cup, topped with more Coca-Cola syrup, whipped cream, cinnamon sugar and a cherry on the top. (State Fair of Texas/Handout/Reuters). From "Because we don't already have enough fried foods..."

A different kind of obesity is the scale of development, land assemblage, etc. It results in places that are big, beyond the scale of people, and focused more on cars among other things.

I was poking through some of the links in the right sidebar of exemplary urban design and affairs journalists and there is a lot of great writing out there. This column from the Charlotte Observer by Mary Newson, "If you plan too hard, you lose authenticity," makes a point that has been made by many, starting with Jane Jacobs, that when you build large projects (focus on assembling land) for the most part, the "produce" that results isn't very interesting. She writes:

...I started to worry when I saw the consultants' slides of fancy new "developments" in other places jammed with people and eyecatchingly designed, color-coordinated banners and signage. Not signs. Signage.

What makes a place memorable for more than two or three years is not color-themed signage. It's authenticity. An authentic place is one that has grown, on its own, into what it is, not one built all at one time and "programmed" by designers and developers. Shopping malls are like that. North Davidson Street at 36th is authentic.

That's where the bake sale lesson might come in. I know developers prefer to think in terms of large projects on large assemblages of land. Wouldn't it be great if someone -- the city? some property owners? -- decided that instead of doing one big programmed project, they would divide some of those big chunks of property into small slices, and sell them separately?

Shrink the development pattern

A smaller-scale development pattern would bring in a wider variety of businesses and help start a more authentic feel -- after all, historic downtowns all over America have small parcels and narrow lots.

And if they want memorable, why not take one of those small parcels and offer it as a home for the beloved Coffee Cup, the Clarkson Street soul food restaurant about to be torn down? Move it to Brevard Street.

Ditto the all-night Athens Restaurant -- another Charlotte icon, beloved by generations who sobered up there in the wee hours after parties, proms and late dates. It, too, is being torn down. Its owner, Central Piedmont Community College, needs a parking lot. (Ever wondered if Charlotte has a soul? Get real.)

Index Keywords: urban-design-placemaking

We're S H O P P I N G. We're Shopping...*

Ricardo Thomas / The Detroit News. The Green Oak Village Place lifestyle center is designed to be a trendy open-air, walker-friendly mall.

* Pet Shop Boys

A good example of newspapers cheering on the Growth Machine and consumption is this article from the Detroit News, about the opening of a new shopping center in Livingston County (west of Detroit, north of Ann Arbor), "Mall Gets a Thumb Up." Note the banners, the stylized pavements, the individuated storefronts, in the photo above.

Focus on the Main Street look. All the more reason for traditional commercial districts to not forget that in the end, authenticity is real and a strength.

It's funny, because in the Main Street world, it's frequently discussed that in the 1950s-1970s, traditional shopping districts tried to compete with malls by covering up their traditional architecture with aluminum panels and such, rather than focusing on what made shopping centers truly unique--unified management, a common image, standard hours, and joint marketing.

Many of the things cities do today aren't much different than putting aluminum panels up on buildings. Better to focus on extending authenticity and strengthening the habitat that supports local business.

I haven't gotten around to writing about Stacy Mitchell's talk from earlier in the week, but one interesting fact. A few years ago she did a study of stores in Maine (where she lives) and found that of $1 spent in a locally-owned store, 54 cents remained in the local economy, being spent on other things (advertising, wages, goods to sell, etc.) while with chain stores, only 14 cents of each $1 remained in the local economy. Do incentives for chain stores make sense then?

Similarly, authoritative studies show that there is a net loss of 180 retail and service jobs for every new Wal Mart that opens. Hmm, doesn't seem to be too good of a return in terms of looking at "Building a Local Economy," a missing element from the process of creating Comprehensive Plans for localities.

Interestingly enough, an article in the Sacramento Business Journal discusses the Blue Oaks Town Center in Rocklin and parking, making the point that 75% of the total acreage of the shopping center is devoted to parking--that's 41 acres of 55 total (the project is about 2.4 million square feet).
Photo: Dennis McCoy, Sacramento Business Journal.

According to the article, "Parking isn't made in the shade: Rules dictate landscaping, pedestrian-friendliness, number, size of spaces:"

"In most cases, the design of the parking lot is driven by three factors: the size of the parcel, the shape and the type of retail product you're trying to create," he added.

Typically, the number of spaces required varies by use, said David Sablan, assistant planner with the city of Rocklin. In that city, for example, the zoning code requires developers provide one parking space for every 200 square feet of retail, and one space for every three fixed seats in a restaurant. The size of the standard space -- unchanged for years, even as the popularity of SUVs has soared -- is 9 feet by 19 feet, and for a compact space is 8 feet by 16 feet. "No more than 30 percent of the spaces may be compact spaces," said Sablan, "and everybody has to have 25 feet of back-up space."

Design seems to be more about cars, and less about people. Although, it's also about making money and providing places that people want, see "Architects strip away old view of neighborhood shopping center: Cities now demand designs that look like Main Street or European villages," also from the Sacramento Business Journal.

Still, I find it incredibly frustrating that the most adept usually suburban developers understand the appeal of traditional commercial districts, which typifies center cities. Meanwhile center city policies and the attitudes of elected and appointed government officials is that new allegedly glitzy architecture is the ticket, in the face of clear market signals communicating something very different.

Index Keywords: retail

A reason to cry: Tragedy Strikes the Ohio Restaurant

Transforming the Ohio Restaurant. Photo by Elise Bernard.

First section is reprinted from Frozen Tropics

Bethlehem Ayele, better known to Ohio patrons as "Betty," was murdered late Wednesday night. Ms. Ayele stopped at a traffic light in Del Ray when a man approached her car and fired through the window. Ms. Ayele was struck in the head. Though motive was not immediately clear, it has now been ascertained that Betty Ayele offered testimony during the Murder Inc. trial. The trial involved a gang of drug dealers who operated, during the 1990s, in the area just north of H Street and participated in widespread witness killings.

Betty Ayele was known for her friendly and welcoming personality. She worked with her sister in the the Ohio Restaurant (1380 H Street), which their family acquired less than a year ago. She had high hopes of turning the Ohio, which was once downtrodden, and suffering for a reputation for violence, into a a success story. Since the two sisters took control, the Ohio has received numerous enthusiatic reviews, including endorsements from the Washington Post, and the City Paper. The Ohio is maintaining its normal hours, so feel free to stop in and enjoy a bit of Betty's dream in her memory.
Opened windows on the south facade of the building, a few months later.
-----------------
Just a couple weeks ago I met Betty and we had a great conversation. She truly understood what was up with local politics, corruption, and the difficulty of making revitalization happen. What she did wasn't easy. The nighttime cook also functions as a bouncer. And they were struggling to make money--and they appreciated the new late night crowds after the bars closed.

Betty: You will be remembered.

And I hope your murderers fry! (and I am now finally, against the death penalty, but for these cretins, I will make an exception).

Index Keywords: urban-revitalization

Another way to do baseball stadiums and urban revitalization

Image of St. Louis' Busch Stadium from the Redbird Fever blog.

The Detroit News reports on St. Louis' efforts to revitalize, in the article "St. Louis' revival a hit: Detroit could learn some lessons, experts say." Now, St. Louis isn't perfect. This blog has discussed the demolition of the Century Building as a blot on historic preservation and urban revitalization more generally. Nevertheless, looking at images from this article about Busch Stadium, yes a "throwback" stadium, and thinking about how likely it is for DC's coming Washington Nationals stadium to look pretty dated pretty quickly, because they are going for the architectural flavor of the moment, it's pretty telling how the difference in approaches yields more bang for the buck locally.

DC's stadium will cost local taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. The Busch Stadium in St. Louis cost "$365 million, with a $45 million loan from St. Louis County and $48 million in state tax credits; the Cardinals paid the rest," according to the News article.

Index Keywords: stadiums-arenas; urban-revitalization

Quote of the day: historic preservation, competitive advantage

Ypsilanti is a distant much less wealthy relation, when compared to the next door city of Ann Arbor in Michigan. The latter is the home of the University Michigan and massive hospital complexes. The former is the home of Eastern Michigan University (one of a number of what I used to call "direction" schools in the state -- Northern, Central, Western...).

But Ypsi has great residential building stock, comparable to Ann Arbor, although in comparison it's cheaper and a short 15 minute "drive" from Ann Arbor (a bus would take longer--hey they need a streetcar or light rail system to connect the two). (Going to school in Ann Arbor and living there for a time afterwards prepped me mentally for becoming a historic preservationist.)
Gilbert Mansion, Ypsilanti, Michigan. Photo from the Ypsilanti Heritage Foundation.

An article about the value of historic preservation in building the competitive advantage of Ypsilanti ran recently in the Ann Arbor News, "Historic District has paid off: Ypsilanti finds its niche by preserving architectural flavor of city." From the article:

"A lot of economic development officials are talking about how, in a world economy, you have to find your niche - and I think Ypsilanti's niche is the historic nature of the city," said Brian Vosburg, director of the Downtown Development Authority and the Depot Town Development Authority. "Historic preservation is one of the biggest drawing cards for tourism and people moving back to historic urban centers."

Of course, I make this point til I'm blue in the face. While it seems that those of us commenting this way are beating our head against the wall (one perfect example is the Florida Market), things are changing a bit.

Note that the Ypsilanti Heritage Foundation has a pretty good website, including this section with before and after photos showing the positive changes reaped by rehabilitation.

For example, I have discussed the relatively abominable design for a proposed multiunit housing building on the south side of the 600 block on H Street NE. See "If ever a project screamed out for design review!"

While I was one of the first people to push the issue publicly about the execrable design, other people, many of whom I don't know, or who haven't put their toes out in public discourse on these kinds of issues heretofore, are making similar points on neighborhood e-lists and in public meetings. It's really heartening to see!

Plus, ANC6A is pushing the issue strongly. While the project is within ANC6C, which doesn't have too enlightened of a perspective on urban design and a quality built environment, fortunately the project lies within 200 feet of the ANC6A border and thus they have standing for "party status" to participate in the proceedings, and as they make the point: this is the first project on H Street to come under the design guidelines passed as part of the Neighborhood Commercial Overlay District for H Street NE, so getting it right at the outset is very important.

Index Keywords: urban-revitalization; historic-preservation

How ordinary, organized citizens can seize political power

Today's Chicago Sun-Times has an op-ed by Mike Gecan, of the national staff of the Industrial Areas Foundation,* the community organizing entity created by Saul Alinsky, about how:

...[D]irect citizen organizing and dramatic public action is steadily losing ground to other political approaches. What authors Ben Ginsberg and Martin Shefter called Politics by Other Means rules the roost these days. That politics includes legislative investigations, judicial proceedings and media revelations. We would add a fourth form -- celebrities adopting causes -- to the list. ...

The problem is that the general public has only one real role in each of these events: the role of spectator. We watch the U.S. attorney. We follow the trials. We line up to get a glimpse of a star. The message to citizens is that the action is somewhere else: in the smoke-filled room; in the whispered phone call of a fixer; in the cubicles of the federal prosecutor; in the studios of the stars. Not on your block. Not in your neighborhood or subdivision. Not in your workplace.

So, the more traditional politics falls short, the more ''politics by other means'' will fill the vacuum. The more ''politics by other means'' fills the vacuum, the more disconnected and passive the public becomes. How to get out of this cycle? The first way is for organized citizens to continue to analyze the issues that affect their lives and to make that analysis public. ...

The second way is to keep doing what the 1,500 leaders of United Power will be doing today: gathering in a public setting, doing public business, pressing candidates for public commitments. No winks. No nods. No back-room anything. And the third way is to continue to exercise the democratic muscle of voting. Without these three habits -- analysis, public engagement and electoral participation -- it won't matter what the prosecutors and movie stars do. The center of our democratic life will continue to shrink. And the politics of the future will bear little resemblance to the world invented by our Founding Fathers and protected from extinction by the greatest president of all, Abraham Lincoln.

He's a man who modeled the kind of politics you'll find in the auditorium at Trinity High School in River Forest Sunday afternoon. And he's the person who knew what the goal of political life could be and should be: ''to afford all an unfettered start, and a fair chance, in the race of life.''

What Gecan calls the three habits of "analysis, public engagement, and electoral participation" are foundational principles of the approach espoused by this blog.

See "Study: Housing costs force moves" from the Chicago Tribune about the study mentioned above.

(Note that the DC Fiscal Policy Institute has been pretty successful garnering similar ink in the Washington Post, see "Separation Between Rich, Poor Widening in D.C., Study Finds," although I would aver that it appears as if the Washington Post and other area newspapers report less on press conferences and similar activities, by either national advocacy groups or local advocacy groups. When I first came to the city, and worked for a consumer advocacy group, we could count on newspapers and local television coverage of our various press conferences. This is less the case today.)

* In DC, the very effective Washington Interfaith Network is an IAF affiliate.

Index Keywords: civic-engagement

Speaking of excitement in urban revitalization

Ground floor demonstration kitchen, River Market, Little Rock, Arkansas. Photo by Damon Hoffman, Little Rock River Market.

Besides the (in my opinion not very attractive) William J. Clinton Presidential Library, Little Rock Arkansas is an excellent example of two well-executed trends in successful urban revitalization: (1) the renovation or construction of new public markets; and (2) streetcar systems. In fact, Little Rock's River Market, which opened in 1996, is reached in part by the Little Rock Streetcar system, which is called River Rail.


And speaking of the kinds of suggestions offerred for a revitalized Florida Market area (see my written testimony on the Florida Market), one that I mentioned is a demonstration kitchen.

The River Market has two--one oriented to more in-depth teaching, on the 3rd floor, and a ground floor space more oriented to chef demonstrations and building excitement and links between buying food and how to prepare it.
Teaching Kitchen, River Market, Little Rock, Arkansas.

Damon Hoffman and Victoria Gross of the River Market were kind enough to send me some photos of their kitchens in use. (The Market is a division of the Little Rock Parks and Recreation Department, which is a good example of my point that Cultural Resources planning and management at the city level should include markets with other cultural resources organizations).
Photo by Jeff Jones. Central Arkansas Transit Authority. A streetcar crossing the Arkansas River along the Main Street Bridge. Currently it is a one-lane bridge for the streetcar.

Index Keywords: urban-revitalization; transit; food-agriculture-markets

Future of the National Mall: Symposium; Lecture

The National Park Service is hosting a one-day symposium to kick off national dialogue in determining the future use, appearance, and landcape of the National Mall:

November 15, 2006
9 am - 5 pm
Naval Heritage Center, 701 Pennsylvania Ave. NW

A related website on the Symposium, its agenda, and public participation opportunities will go live after November 1st.

2. Also, the local chapter (Latrobe) of the Society of Architectural Historians is sponsoring a related lecture the night before:

Tuesday, November 14
The Washington National Mall
Lecture by Peter Penczer, Independent Scholar
6:30 P.M. – reception; 7:00 P.M. – lecture
The American Institute of Architects, 1735 New York Avenue, N.W., boardroom, 2nd floor
$10.00 for Latrobe Chapter members and full-time students (with ID), $17.00 for non-members.

Peter Penczer introduces his book, The Washington National Mall, the first general history of one of America’s most important urban parks. Penczer will trace the history of the Mall in a lecture illustrated with more than 100 photographs, most never before published. The book, self-published in full color, is due in spring 2007. The lecture will focus on the Mall’s three lives. For most of the nineteenth century, it was little more than a pasture. Then, in the 1870s, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers completed the landscaping in a naturalistic style inspired by Andrew Jackson Downing’s 1851 plan for the Mall. For sixty years the Mall was filled with ornate Victorian buildings, winding paths, and heavy vegetation. That was swept aside in the 1930s in favor of the classical landscaping envisioned by the McMillan Plan of 1902. Penczer is also the author of Washington, D.C., Past and Present.

Reservations are not required. For general information about the event, please contact Andrew Drabkin at 202-277-7106.

3. Of course, the National Coalition to Save the Mall is another resource for this topic.
Image of a new National Mall, extended south from the U.S. Capitol.

This vision has been suggested by the Legacy Plan produced in the late 1990s by the National Capital Planning Commission, and is being promoted by the Coalition through their "Third Century Initiative."
AP photo by Nick Wass.

Index Keywords: National-Mall

Transit for Howard County and Rethinking Sprawl and Refocusing upon the Core

Proposed heavy rail transit system for Howard County, from the Howard County blog.

A blog from Howard County, Columbia Compass, mentioned one of my blog entries and Dan Malouff's map showing a possible scenario for a regional railroad passenger system that combines and transcends the present VRE and MARC services, which for the most part are focused on ferrying people from distant places to work in either Washington or Baltimore, rather than providing true regional railroad service on the lines of what is done in the NYC, Boston, or Philadelphia regions.
Dan's map...

In an e-conversation Dan mentioned that some things not included here were being discussed at the time in other ways, such as a light rail system for Southern Maryland, which now seems to be off the table, meaning it might be worth adding a Southern Maryland rail line to this map.

Also, Ken Firestone mentioned extending service to Wilmington, Delaware, and then within a few days, this article, "Rail-service hopes rise: State promises to talk to Amtrak about extending into Cecil," surfaced in the Cecil County Whig. From the article:

County and town officials have long been calling for rail service in Cecil County to fill a 20-mile gap between Perryville and Newark, Del. The hole is the only gap in commuter service in 460 miles of rail lines between Virginia and Connecticut. State officials, however, have refused to budge on their stance against an expanded rail service.

Flanagan agreed to pursue Amtrak service but did not go as far as to offer his support for an extension of the MARC commuter rail’s Penn Line farther into the county. The problem with the extension, he said, is that it would not be productive enough to justify its cost. The extension would also create havoc on the Penn Line’s schedule, he said. “It’s impossible to run trains up here and maintain the service as it exists,” Flanagan said.

This is a perfect illustration of why we need one regional railroad passenger transportation system, rather than an overly constrained commuter focus, one that transcends narrow state-centric thinking, in favor of regional thinking.

By connecting MARC to Newark, Delaware, the MARC system could be connected to SEPTA, the transit system of the Philadelphia region. A one-way ticket to Perryville from DC costs $11.00. A one-way ticket from DC to to Newark Delaware (20 miles beyond Perryville), costs $57.00. SEPTA from Newark, Delaware to Philadelphia costs $7. The fare from DC to Philadelphia via Amtrak is $58. (Of course, the round trip fare via a Chinese bus from DC to Philadelphia is cheaper than the train, and practically a non-stop trip.)
SEPTA map.

Another perspective showing the possibilities within the area for the creation of a regional rail service, from BeyondDC.

Now while I don't have problems with extending the subway lines at their ends, and improving transit-based mobility in the counties throughout the region, the reality is that this isn't about improving transit and mobility for Washington DC (my primary interest) as much as it is about enabling more sprawl and more development. Although anything that brings people to the city on transit rather than in their cars is always a good thing. (Last year I was flying out to Portland on the same day as an anti-war march in DC, and I was shocked to see at the Greenbelt station that charter buses were disgorging mobs of protesters to take the subway into the city, allowing the buses to avoid traffic.)
A "mob" at Greenbelt Station, September 24, 2005.

Most of the "smart growth" energies are focused on creating "better" suburban development, not about recentralizing, revitalizing, and repopulating the core. Recentralization, not polycentric development, is the thesis of the book Cities in Full by Steve Belmont, which is one of the best books in urban planning since Death and Life of Great American Cities.
Steve Belmont embraces Jane Jacobs' much acclaimed prescription for urban vitality—high densities, mixed land uses, small blocks, and variously aged buildings. He examines neighborhoods that adhere to her precepts and those that do not and compares the results. He examines the destructive forces of decentralization and shows how and why they must be turned into forces of renewal.

Better development is important for the suburbs, but at the same time, focusing "growth" on extant infrastructure and places tends to be the "smartest" policy, not merely a "smart" or "smarter" policy.

In fact, this is discussed in yesterday's USA Today cover story, "How will the USA cope with unprecedented growth?." From the article:

• Ready made cities

Detroit, Washington and St. Louis supported hundreds of thousands more residents in 1950 than they do today. Dozens of cities across the country are well past their heyday but still have all their streets, roads, power lines and water supplies in place. If only people would return.
Cleveland had a population of about 915,000 in 1950. Today, it has less than half (452,208).

"We have a unique opportunity here," says Joseph Marinucci, president and CEO of the Downtown Cleveland Alliance, which advocates investment downtown. Cultural and aesthetic amenities, such as a symphony and a riverfront, already exist. Housing is cheaper and traffic lighter than in many other metro areas. "We'll be very well-positioned to garner our share of growth," Marinucci says.

Los Angeles native Ivan Schwarz just moved to Cleveland with his wife and 16-month-old daughter. A television producer who also finds locations for shows (HBO's Entourage and NBC's My Name is Earl), Schwarz is the new vice president of the Greater Cleveland Film Commission, one of the city's attempts to lure industry. "In L.A., there's so many people, everywhere you go is a problem," says Schwarz, 44. "This is such a community. ... Houses are more affordable.

Note that some of the Maryland "Extra" sections of the Post ran a story about Maryland's recent "Reality Check" exercise , "Confine Growth to Urban Areas, Residents Urge," subtitled "Report Supports Saving Farmland."

The prevailing belief was rather than sprawl further outwards, focus development on the Washington and Baltimore regions.
One of the workshops leading to the "Reality Checks Plus" report was in June for Southern Maryland leaders. From left, Karen Edgecombe, George Leah and Dawn Tucker ponder choices. (By James A. Parcell -- The Washington Post)

Click here for the Reality Check-Imagine Maryland website, and here for the report "Today's Vision, Tomorrow's Reality."

Online conference on reviving vacant properties

The demolition of the Rochambeau Apartment building in Baltimore, in the heart of the Mt. Vernon neighborhood on Charles Street, is not an award-winning housing restoration strategy, nor a great endorsement of the City of Baltimore's approach to urban revitalization. (Baltimore Sun photo)

From NHI/Shelterforce:

Our friends at the Fannie Mae Foundation have just announced the 2006 Maxwell Awards of Excellence, which this year went to organizations working on the problem of abandoned and vacant property.

Working with the National Vacant Properties Campaign, they selected four organizations doing outstanding work turning vacant properties into vibrant communities. On November 2, KnowledgePlex will present an online chat with the winners. Information about the event is below.

Turning abandoned properties into community assets is, of course, of special importance to us. With the help of the Fannie Mae and Ford foundations, we recently published a book on the topic – Bringing Buildings Back by our research director, Alan Mallach. For information about the book, please click here. And for a fascinating observation/review of a presentation made by Alan at the National Building museum a few weeks ago, please see Richard Layman's blog entry, "Bringing buildings back is really bringing urban neighborhoods back."

We congratulate all the Maxwell Award winners, and want to note that one group – Lawrence CommunityWorks – was featured in Shelterforce in March/April 2005 and again in the Summer 2006 issue.

We hope you have the opportunity to listen to the online chat. It should be well worth your time.

From Vacant Property to Affordable Homes -- Lessons from Maxwell Award Winners
Thursday, November 2 at 2 p.m. ET (1 p.m. CT/noon MT/11 a.m. PT)

Reclaiming vacant and abandoned properties to create affordable homes is one innovative way to address the affordable housing challenge. It can strengthen communities through the redevelopment of blighted properties, recreating vibrant places while also providing much-needed affordable homes.

On Thursday, Nov. 2 at 2 p.m. ET, KnowledgePlex will present an online chat featuring representatives from the organizations that won top honors in the Maxwell Awards (see list of winners below). We'll hear about the challenges the groups faced and the strategies and best practices they used in completing their projects.

Click here for more information about the chat and how to participate.

2006 Maxwell Award Winners

Most Impressive Overall Housing Benefit:
Bickerdike Redevelopment Corporation for the Harold Washington Unity Cooperative in Chicago

Most Innovative Partnership:
Women's Institute for Housing and Economic Development Inc. for Acushnet Commons in New Bedford, Mass.
Most Successful Public/Private Partnership:
New Economics for Women for Tierra del Sol in Los Angeles

Most Effective Catalyst for Community Revitalization:
Lawrence CommunityWorks for Reviviendo Family Housing in Lawrence, Mass.
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I will be at the National Trust Conference next week and likely unable to listen in on this. Fortunately, Knowledgeplex archives these presentations, check out Chat Archives on this webpage.

Index Keywords: urban-revitalization

33rd conference on Washington DC Historical Studies

Thursday, October 26 - Saturday, October 28, 2006

33rd Annual Free Conference on Washington, DC Historical Studies Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library 901 G Street, N.W.

Index Keywords: cultural-heritage; historic-preservation

Blog martyrs and reflection

Stepping back for a moment to reflect, today's story, "Martyrs of the web: free the bloggers jailed for telling the truth," lists cases of four bloggers who have been imprisoned for writing about repression in their country, which is based on the new Amnesty International campaign to bring attention to this broad problem (and the abetting of oppressive government actions at times by Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft--at least in China). Next week there is an International Governance Forum regarding the Internet, and Amnesty is using the opportunity of the meeting to call attention to this issue.

This page, "Call to Bloggers" to stand up for freedom ahead of world meeting on future of Internet, is from the Amnesty International website.

Click here for more information on Amnesty’s campaign for internet freedom.

Granted I criticize all the time about (in no particular order):

-- bad government and/or corrupt or at the least very sleazy government officials and/or lobbyists
-- lack of a sense of urgency to do what's right
-- a failure to heed the lessons of what works (asset-based historic preservation) and what doesn't work (generally big projects, land clearance, urban renewal) in urban revitalization
-- undeliberative civic engagement
-- the world of sprawl
-- aggressive suburbanization of urban places
-- value engineering trumping beauty in design of new buildings
-- the modernist movement in architecture
etc.

But except for possibly libeling someone (which I assiduously work to avoid) those of us that use the web for civic engagement activities in the United States don't have to worry about being jailed, just whether or not anyone pays attention.

Ought we not step up and lend our voices to this campaign? The right to speak out should exist for all.

Index Keywords: civic-engagement

Metro floor

Metro floor
Originally uploaded by mariannaF.

Photo caption: Recently, on only some metro stops in Paris, Ive been seeing these yellow arrows on the floor.
The direction of the arrows indicate where people should stand while waiting for the metro, and where people will get off the metro.
So organized! (This photo has notes. Move your mouse over the photo to see them.)

Flickr photo by MariannaF.

Index Keywords: transit

Map of Washington, DC , 1908, showing streetcar lines, railroads, and steamship docks (Hammond Company)

Map of Washington, DC , 1908, showing streetcar lines, railroads, and steamship docks (Hammond Company)
Originally uploaded by rllayman.

Will Fleishell sent me a link to this. Thanks.

Hollywood Florida rejects $100,000 in incentives for Starbucks

While the city ended up saying no, according to the article "Hollywood rejects paying $100,000 to lure Starbucks to downtown," from the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, it was a surprise. Apparently there are three independent coffee shops within a few blocks of this site. See "Hollywood proposal to lure Starbucks is causing a stir," from the day before, which has a good discussion of the kind of groupthink involved in these kinds of proposals. From the article:

City documents explaining the proposal state that the building's owner will not be able to sign a long-term lease with the Seattle-based coffee chain without that money. CRA critics, including neighborhood activists and one city commissioner, say the handout is the latest example of how officials are mismanaging public money intended to redevelop slum areas.

"The concept of paying businesses to come here is ridiculous," said City Commissioner Peter Bober, whose law office is near the proposed site. "These incentives are creating a lot of dissention among our merchants. Everyone is watching what everyone is getting. Everyone who wants to open a business here is coming with their hands out. It's becoming a corporate welfare system."

But Dr. Barry Kay, who owns Hollywood Eyes and is president of the Downtown Hollywood Business Association, said luring Starbucks is vital to bringing other big-name businesses to Hollywood. "It tells everyone that Hollywood is for real," he said. Kay said Starbucks officials told merchants during a recent workshop that they needed the incentive to make the deal work.

If the deal goes through, Starbucks would open at the corner of 20th Avenue and Harrison Street by next spring. The site is on a stretch of Harrison Street that features some of the city's most successful high-end restaurants, including Michael's Kitchen. Chicago White Sox pitcher Freddy Garcia plans to open a gelato sports bar franchise called Paciugo on the same street next month.

Index Keywords: commercial-district-revitalization; government-subsidies

Probably not the last word on the Florida Market

I have never been a fan of heavy metal or AC/DC but these lyrics are apt:

Dirty deeds done dirt cheap
Dirty deeds done dirt cheap
Dirty deeds done dirt cheap
Dirty deeds and they're done dirt cheap, oohh
Dirty deeds and they're done dirt cheap
Whoa yeah
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Egg and cheese man at the Florida Market building. He is the only true farmer in the complex. He's been associated with the Union Terminal Market since he was a child in the 1930s, helping his uncle sell produce from an outside stall.

In the latest issue of themail, Kathy Henderson, a Ward 5 ANC Commissioner (and member of the Historic Preservation Review Board, so it's not in my best interest to anger her...) disagrees with my statement about the Florida Market, writing "Your comments about the New Town Development and unsophisticated Advisory Neighborhood Commissioners are offensive." (See the issue online for her full text, under the title "Dirty Deals.")

My response:

While I think that Kathy Henderson is the greatest (had I lived in Ward 5 I likely would have voted for her), I respectfully disagree with her interpretation of my statement (which Gary Imhoff reprinted) about the relative lack of sophistication of ANCs in the matters that come before them, especially with regard to the Florida Market issue. (My written testimony on the Florida Market. )

First, despite my various writings, I am not necessarily against the exercise of eminent domain authority, or even city-provided funding and incentives. However, I do think that the exercise or provision of such should always be performed with great care, and not to the benefit of particularly well connected people at the expense of the less well connected.

Second, I find it appalling that the equivalent of private bills favoring a particular group can be entered as proposed legislation before City Council without requiring (1) a public tendered request for proposals that is open and transparent, with stated criteria for evaluation; (2) independent analysis of alternatives; (3) independent economic analysis of the claims made within such a bill.

There is something seriously wrong with how the DC Government conducts business given the frequency of how often this occurs. The lack of sophistication goes far beyond ANCs, although at the higher levels, I believe the failure to create regularized and transparent processes and procedures is deliberate--it allows for the creation of a habitat (a/k/a "cesspool") where it is far easier to make deals and satisfy special interests.

Third, in my testimony I quote from a Boston Globe op-ed about ways to provide open evaluation of eminent domain proposals. The provisions offerred are extendable to the evaluation of proposed private-public partnerships such as that laid out in the New Towns proposal. The authors suggest:

-- Requiring, as Justice Anthony M. Kennedy suggested in his Kelo concurrence, that any exercise of eminent domain for economic development have a primarily public purpose rather than a merely incidental one.
-- Requiring the government to demonstrate the public benefit through a full-scale financial analysis that could be challenged in court.
-- Requiring that eminent domain not be used for a solely fiscal purpose and that it instead must be part of a comprehensive land use plan.
-- Requiring that the affected neighborhood have adequate participation in the planning process, a right that would be backed up by state-provided technical assistance upon the neighborhood's request.
On the market tour, produce room, Kang Farms (now MS 3000 Food Service), Saturday October 14th.

Finally, concern about the New Towns proposal should not be geographically bounded. For one, the area abuts Ward 6, and Ward 6 residents live closer to the Market compared to neighborhoods located in Ward 5. Probably more of Ward 6 is closer and more Ward 6 residents live closer to the market than the average resident of Ward 5--especially compared to all the people bused to the hearing from Fort Lincoln. Yet the two abutting Ward 6 ANCs (one has a boundary one block away), have not been consulted about this matter.

Of course, it is troubling that the Ward 5 ANCs heard and acted on only the one side that was presented to them, by the New Towns proponents. The ANCs did not seek out, hear, and consider alternative perspectives. Likely the ANCs did not evaluate the claims that were proffered. Plus, the ANCs seem to be relatively unconcerned about the sidetracking of the original revitalization strategy suggested by the Office of Planning (which has been told to shut up by higher ups in the Executive Branch). This is the source of my statement that ANCs can be relatively unsophisticated when considering such matters.

In any case, the Florida Market should matter to us because we live in the District of Columbia, not because of the particular Ward we live in. Furthermore, exercise of eminent domain authority and the provision of government subsidies should be a matter of interest to all District residents, regardless of where we live or the location of the particular site where government power is being exercised and/or subsidies provided.

What I call the too often "tyranny of neighborhood parochialism" has got to stop. It serves the city--and neighborhoods--poorly. And it starts with ANCs.
Cutting meat at Caribbean Supreme. Many of the vendors have butchery operations (Obeng International Market and All-Africa Market do), plus there are meat only operations, as well as many butcher counters in the Farmers Market building.

Index Keywords: food-agriculture-markets; Growth-Machine

Comments on Proposed EYA Development at Takoma Metro Station, Washington DC

25 October 2006

Ms. Debra Johnson, Secretary
WMATA
600 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001

Re: WMATA Public Hearing #175 on Proposed EYA Development at Takoma Metro (Docket No. R06-5)

Dear Ms. Johnson:

The Citizens Planning Coalition (CPC) wishes to submit written testimony on the above-referenced matter.

CPC is committed to the principles of mixed primary uses, as laid out by Jane Jacobs more than 40 years ago, in the classic urban studies tome Death and Life of Great American Cities. Related principles include intensification of land use adjacent to high-capacity transit, and an emphasis on alternatives to automobile-based mobility. At the same time, CPC is committed to the preservation of historic building stock and open space, as well as promoting and extending the use of transit more generally.

The proposed development at Takoma Metro offers incredible opportunities that appear, for the most part, to be wasted, according to the plans that have been submitted by the developer, plans that WMATA appears to find worthy of approval.

This is a mistake.

1. It makes little sense to develop townhomes on land immediately adjacent to the subway station, as this is a relatively unintense use of land. The roughly 90 houses would yield maybe 180 residents, which totals maybe one subway car's worth of riders for an average day.

2. It makes even less sense to promote automobility via the sale of WMATA land resources. According to the plans as submitted, most of the townhomes would have two-car garages.

Promoting automobility immediately on top of a WMATA subway station is short-sighted and seems to be a massive failure of vision. Transit-oriented development should promote transit. Development at transit sites that promotes automobile-based mobility is anachronistic, and seems counter to WMATA transit promotion objectives. In any case, such development can not be called "transit-oriented." At the very best, it should be termed "transit-adjacent development," but such is hardly beneficial to transit promotion.

3. CPC recommends that WMATA adopt a transit-first development policy generally, which should guide development plans for this and other similarly situated land parcels in the WMATA land inventory.

The City of San Francisco adopted a "transit first" development policy decades ago. For the most part this means that new development in the downtown core has been built without parking, but with access to efficient transit.

Moving to a "transit first" land use and development paradigm

Most citizens and government agencies are imprinted with an approach to land use that is automobile-centric and oriented towards segregated, relatively undense uses. This is commonly referred to as a suburban-oriented land use and development paradigm. Stakeholders have an unconscious and systematic bias towards "automobility" and improving the transportation system for automobiles, at the expense of transit and pedestrian capacity, and urban design.

The suburban land use approach is particularly inappropriate for center cities generally, and Washington specifically, especially because the city is so well connected by transit, in particular the subway, and relatively efficient bus service throughout most of the city, and because of the importance of leveraging the tremendous public investments that have been made in building and maintaining this system. (Note that the polycentric design of the WMATA subway system is criticized because it promotes sprawl even more than it improves access to and within the center city.)

A "transit-first" policy would establish and emphasize that the basic framework of how the City of Washington should grow is through the linkage-articulation of land use and transit. Intra-city and regional mobility can be improved and congestion reduced by investing in the capacity of our transit system, and by linking land use policies to these investments.

Furthermore, every parking space is an automobile trip generator. We cannot simultaneously expand parking and reduce congestion. The concept of induced demand presented both by parking spaces and roads is well understood throughout the transportation planning profession.

WMATA, as a transit agency, should not be in the business of promoting automobility, especially through its land development and disposition practices.

An illustration of how San Francisco's "transit first" development policies work in practice

According to the article "If you build it, will they take the bus? San Francisco builds an epic mall, with no parking," published in the Austin American-Statesman on Sunday, October 22, 2006, San Francisco's downtown growth management policy, adopted in 1985, for the most part, forbids the creation of parking spots when new development is constructed.

The article discusses the Westfield San Francisco Centre, which was just expanded, tripling the square footage to 1.5 million.

According to the article:

San Francisco's Westfield mall doesn't even have a parking lot. The nearest parking is across the street at a city-owned lot that also serves the Moscone convention center and other attractions. It can hold about 2,600 cars. Officials expect about 68,500 people a day on average, or about 25 million a year, will visit the mall. That works out to one parking spot for every 26 mall shoppers....

The mall also is in the middle of one of the biggest hubs for public transportation outside New York City. More than 30 different public transit sources are within a few blocks of the mall, including the Powell Street terminus of the city's famed cable car line, several stops for the Bay Area Rapid Transit subway system, and stops for municipal trains and buses.

4. A suggestion for how to apply a "transit first" policy to the Takoma Station development site: build a multiunit building with no parking whatsoever.

Many people suggest that choices be offered to house-buyers, yet true choices, especially a choice of not having to pay for a parking space, are rarely offered. Most new housing units come with parking. DC Zoning regulations provide for the most part (with some exceptions allowed for new housing constructed in historic districts) that at least one parking space be provided for every new unit of housing.

The concept of the location efficient mortgage, pioneered by the Center for Neighborhood Technology in Chicago, makes the point that households in close proximity to high-capacity and frequent transit are able to use transit rather than automobiles, thereby allowing more of the household revenue stream to be directed to housing costs, ideally towards ownership.

There are many people in the City of Washington who do not own cars. According to the most recent data from the U.S. Census American Community Survey, almost 40% of DC households do not own cars.

Why not provide a housing option for similarly-minded people--those who want to live in the city, who do not wish to own a car, who wish to live in proximity to convenient transit? The Takoma site offers access to the Red line subway, is one station stop north of a connection to the Green line, and is served by Metrobus and RideOn bus service. (It is also one stop from Silver Spring, which provides access to the MARC Commuter Railroad system, and is five stops from Union Station, with MARC, VRE, and Amtrak connections.)

Instead of building houses for cars with the townhome proposal, build more housing for people, by directing the construction of a multiunit, denser building, with more housing units overall.

This should provide more riders for both subway and bus service in the Takoma area, which might allow for an increased frequency of the bus services, given the generation of a greater number of riders.

The District Government's "stretch goal" of attracting 100,000 new residents is based on the fact that much of the city's property and a significant number of transactions in the city are not taxable because of the presence of the Federal Government and a wide variety of nonprofit tax-exempt organizations that have located in the city to leverage access to the Federal Government.

More housing will yield more residents to the District of Columbia, and therefore more property tax and income tax revenues, which comprise the greatest source of DC Government revenues.

Hence, a "transit first" policy with regard to the Takoma WMATA-owned development site would achieve multiple positive public policy outcomes.

5. One of the concerns expressed by Takoma area residents is that the construction of housing on the station site will reduce the number of parking spaces available to riders. Parking could be accommodated within a multiunit building but directed almost completely towards short-term and intermediate-term spaces for transit riders, as well as to visitors to the commercial districts of Takoma Park in Maryland and Takoma in DC. Visitors could park in this space and then make their way around on foot.

To accommodate occasional need for access to cars on the part of residents of the proposed multiunit housing alternative, some spaces could be allocated to carsharing services, and the building could negotiate priority membership privileges with these services. Otherwise, given the recommendations above, no parking spaces should be allocated to residents of the proposed multiunit building alternative suggested herein.

Note that many residents of the new multiunit housing constructed east and west of the Takoma Station do not own cars. Attraction of similarly minded new residents would be extended by the provision of new multiunit housing constructed without any residential parking (other than access to carsharing).

6. Open space concerns expressed by Takoma area residents should be acknowledged. A denser development, without parking, would allow for the retention of more open space.

7. However, urban design considerations would suggest that such space be reconfigured in part to allow for the strengthening of the streetwall and streetscape between the Station and Takoma Park, Maryland as represented by the relative activity vacuum created by the open space immediately abutting Carroll Avenue.

This could provide an additional revenue opportunity to WMATA, if instead of selling one parcel for a relatively insignificant amount of money by selling to EYA; that the parcel be split into two different segments: (a.) a site suitable for a multiunit single building of housing, likely on the parking lot; (b.) some amount of land immediately abutting Carroll Avenue.

8. The provision of quality bus service should be maintained. Although it is believed that this can be accommodated through better configuration of bays and management.

9. "Transit first" policies also promote pedestrian and bicycle mobility in addition to transit. CPC does not favor the proposed reduction of bicycle parking at the Takoma Station, which appears to be heavily used, perhaps at a level even greater than that of Union Station or College Park. Additionally, CPC suggests that opportunities be explored for providing additional exits off the platform, perhaps providing access to the west side of the railroad tracks (egress is provided solely on the east side currently).

Thank you for your consideration of these comments.

Respectfully submitted,

Index Keywords: transit; urban-revitalization

Housing sign garden...

Housing sign garden...
Originally uploaded by rllayman.

Please don't park here

Please don't park here
Originally uploaded by rllayman.

The reason that these signs bug the absolute @#$%^&* out of me is because the Capitol Hill BID doesn't first think, "Hmm, how can we make it easier for bicyclists to get around Capitol Hill, to park, and patronize the businesses here?"

Instead, they put up signs saying nicely "Don't park on the flowers."

What they should be doing:

1. Putting up bike racks all over the Capitol Hill commercial district;
2. And then afterwards, focusing on treebox beautification, which can obscure access to street sign poles and parking meters that would otherwise suffice as places to lock bikes;
3. Putting up the patronizing "don't park here" signs, but if step (1) is followed, then the signs aren't patronizing because you'd already have planned ahead, by making it easy to park and lock bicycles outside of treeboxes.

Index Keywords: bicycling

"We are not dissenters, we are truly protesters," Gallaudet Protest sign

"We are not dissenters, we are truly protesters," Gallaudet Protest sign
Originally uploaded by rllayman.

On the market tour, produce room, Kang Farms (now MS 3000 Food Service)

On the market tour, produce room, Kang Farms (now MS 3000 Food Service)
Originally uploaded by rllayman.

(Assistance from Ken Firestone "solved" my virus/software trojan problems and now I am catching up with uploading photos and other stuff.)

Tonight: Stacy Mitchell talks about her new book, Big-Box Swindle

--------
Also tonight, the Mayor's Awards for Historic Preservation and a Mayor's hearing (by the Office of Planning) on the Cluster 23 Economic Revitalization Study, which among other things has great ideas about how to revitalize the Florida Market by extending its character and emphasis on food. (This idea was then taken and transmogrified by Sang Choi, Vincent Orange, et al. Of course, the city, by selling off the U.S. Beef site at 4th and Florida in advance of creating a broader plan, didn't help matters. That gave Mr. Choi ideas, and the sense that he had the full endorsement of the DC Government to suburbanize the Florida Market area.)


From Deborah Crain, Ward 5 Neighborhood Planner:

Public Hearing on the Northeast Gateway Revitalization Strategy. I wanted to let you about the public hearing that has been scheduled for Tuesday evening October 24, 2006 from 6:30 until 8:00 pm. The hearing will take place at the Youth Services Center located at 1600 Mt. Olivet Road, NE
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One of my colleagues, Stacy Mitchell, will be speaking at Busboys and Poets tonight, about her new book, Big-Box Swindle:

October 24, 2006 (Tuesday) 6:00 - 7:30 PM (Bookstore) Author Event- Stacy Mitchell is author of the forthcoming book Big Box Swindle: The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America's Independent Businesses, an in-depth exploration of the impact of mega-retailers-and what communities and independent businesses can do (November, Beacon Press). This event is cosponsored by Good Jobs First.

Index Keywords: urban-revitalization; historic-preservation

Web resources (Mostly transit)

Arlington County's great CommuterPage webresource has added a blog.

I came across a blog called Transit Miami, about transit in South Florida (mostly Miami--do they consider Ft. Lauderdale part of Miami these days?) It has an extensive set of transit links as well as non-transit Miami area links.

Portland Transport is a blog-website for the Portland Oregon area. Connected with this blog is flickr account from which I've blogged photos before. (It's the source of the photo of the under construction for DC Trio streetcar in the Ostrava Transit Shop in the Czech Republic.)

And DC's own Stop, Blog, and Roll, focusing on the Woodridge-Greater Brookland area, has an ever expanding set of links, not just for Ward 5, but for the city more generally.

I have been discussing the need for a pan-regional annual conference on transit advocacy. It turns out that there is one coming up in the Greater Toronto Area, the GTA Transit Summit, November 3 and 4. The conference is titled "Building a Network that Serves Riders."

There is the West Virginia Transportation Alliance, which we'll have to talk to, among others, in fostering discussion about Dan Malouff's vision of a regional railroad passenger transportation system.

And even though the State Legislature doesn't seem to be too concerned about the future of mobility in the State of Virginia, it turns out that there is an Annual Virginia Transportation Conference. It was held two weeks ago.

It definitely has a government and academic, rather than an advocacy, orientation, but it's something that needs to be scoped out.

In the same vein, Maryland's Department of Transportation does a road show around the state, discussing the agency's priorities for the next year, holding public meetings, and meeting with County governments. The PG County session was a couple weeks ago. Montgomery County's will be on November 2nd.

Index Keywords: transit

Today's news is yesterday's news

Today's Post has a piece, "Tightened Belts Could Put Press In a Pinch," about the importance of newspapers in investigating government, specifically corruption. Hey, I agree. Granted, it doesn't always make a difference. One example are the great set of articles written in the Post in 2002 about the failures of DC Community Development Corporations to accomplish all that much, which I discussed in the blog entry "Falling up -- Accountability and DC Community Development Corporations."

(Note that recently the Voice of the Hill ran two articles as a kind of follow up to the Post articles, "Main Street group struggles to lead H Street revitalization efforts," about H Street Main Street and "H Street CDC, residents have long been divided on street’s future," about the H Street Community Development Corporation.)

Relatedly, the local as close to a muckracking journal as DC has (other than themail@dcwatch.com), The Common Denominator, ceased publication. That's tragic because it was one of the only places that published some great local investigations, including award-winning pieces about the Federal City Council and the failure of the DC Government to enforce community amenities agreements on the Fort Lincoln "New Town" Development in northeast DC (which is, lamentably, the model for Vincent Orange's misguided proposal for the Florida Market).

Yet the question is was there no market for the Common Denominator, or was it a flawed business plan and direction, or both?

Here's something I sent to the paper when their financial difficulties first came to light last year. I never got a response. And this was before I started to blog, in October 2004. (And another thing. The paper looked like it was laid out and designed by children... And why the focus on local high school sports. Given the disconnection of parents from the school system, were there really much marketing possibilities from such coverage?)
--------------------
I am distressed to read about the financial crisis faced by TCD.

Do you have a good business plan? How much money do you need? What would be the plan to take the paper to the next level so that it can publish based on solid revenues?

Mary and I have talked many times about TCD and its importance and centrality to better government in the city.

She mentioned your belief that "real newspapers charge money" for subscriptions and/or for single copies. I think that this glosses over the major point in media economics, a statement that is usually on the first page of any textbook, that "the business of publishing [and broadcasting] is providing audiences to advertisers."

So one needs to see how to do that best for a particular type of publication in a particular market. If providing a free paper works in building a large enough audience that is appealing to advertisers, fine. If paid for-profit works, fine. Or, maybe the best model in DC is nonprofit? The Nation is a "for-profit" that for most of its history hasn't made money--it has had backers with money. Nonetheless, it does have a nonprofit affiliate that accepts donations.

Thought publications have a difficult time getting advertising. Neighborhood-based businesses aren't likely to advertise because the reach isn't great enough in any one particular neighborhood (City Paper works because of its entertainment focus, publications like the Georgetown Current or the Hill Rag because of their centrality in specific neighborhoods that have strong cores of local businesses). And of course we know that you're getting the short stick regarding DC government advertising, a segment that seems to be owned lock, stock, and barrel by Fagon. Publications like the Washington Informer probably get most of their profitable advertising (full pages from banks, chain supermarkets, utilities) because of their LSDBE status.

Are you familiar with the online examples from City Limits? They are different but each has online and print components, although they are monthly publications, rather than weekly or bi-weekly. City Limits is an advocacy group that publishes a well-regarded magazine that long predated the web. Gotham Gazette (Citizens Union Foundation) really is an Internet-based phenomenon. However, both are nonprofits. Could we make a case to someone like George Soros?

As we are fiddling with the plans to relaunch the Citizens Planning Coalition, the Gotham Gazette model is very appealing -- strong information component + the advocacy piece of the Center for the Urban Future (the parent organization of City Limits). There is no reason to not do this in association with The Common Denominator (one of the ideas I expressed to Mary was offering an option of a subscription to TCD as a part of membership, and this idea could be used with other community groups in the city).

OTOH, right now the relaunch is more an idea, and we don't have money behind us at the moment to go forward. (That's why Soros is on my mind...) One big difference between the two is that GG has a daily e-newsletter that you can get and it brings you back to the site. I think these days people need reminders. City Limits used to do the same thing, but now it only does its newsletter once/week. I don't think it has the same impact.

Another model is the strong focus on the local by the Philadelphia Daily News, where they really do some great writing on vision and future for the city, slugged "Rethinking Philadelphia."

Their featured columnist, Carla Anderson, the "Urban Warrior" has recently begun doing more focused "consumer-style" bulldog reporting on city quality-of-life issues. Similarly, the Toronto Star has a nice feature called The Fixer on similar issues, including on-line monitoring of the status on improving/not improving the various issues they've identified.

The Philadelphia City Paper recently copied the Daily News' "Grow City" campaign with "Marketing 215." However, this is a good way, in my opinion, to consider the direction of a relaunch to build readership. There's nothing to stop The Common Denominator from launching a Marketing 202 campaign, said campaign being based on "Growing an Inclusive City" which is the rhetoric/"talk" of the Williams Administration, but not the "walk." (The Baltimore City Paper, in my opinion, also does a great job covering local issues.)

What's to prevent you from relaunching via a "Rethinking DC" campaign, which isn't really a refocus, but a re-focused packaging and strengthening of what you're already doing.

To make the paper a must read to me means trying to get people like Johnetta Rose Barras (now she writes for the Examiner), John Capozzi, Terry Lynch, even Malik Shabazz writing regular columns. I'd love to do a "Cityspaces" like column. Again the Philly City Paper did a nice job with this and Mark Jenkins used to write about these issues for our own Washington City Paper.

Another example is The CoastSider, a blog focused on a particular county in California (something I was tipped off to by the e-column by Mark Glaser of the Online Journalism Review). Blogs are definitely a model. I don't really spend much time with blogs because I already spend too much time online, and I don't really have good RSS receiving capabilities, but they are a fine model for rethinking what to do. E.g., I really like this one about Florida, South of the Suwannee, which like Gotham Gazette is a nice model of what can be done.

I know someone by email who is one of the world's leading newspaper designers and I had broached with him before the possibility of pro-bono design assistance to you. The Philly Daily News is a good example of strong cover photography and clean typefaces. Newsday too does a great job in this area.

Index Keywords: media; civic-engagement