Thinking small instead of thinking large

You get more diversity when you break up a redevelopment project into smaller pieces says this editorial, "New Old Harbor District," from the Providence Journal.

This broad idea has implications for many things besides redevelopment projects, but also for:

1. Government contracts (i.e., break out a waste removal contract by Ward and in DC you could have four smaller companies able to do the job, instead of setting up a contract framework where only one or two firms can compete);

2. Retail development (i.e., you want a grocery store? Break it up into departments -- meat, seafood, dairy, produce, prepared food and catering, coffee, tea, and beverages, health and beauty and cleaning supplies, and nonperishables -- and instead of one provider, you have 8 people, and a smaller amount of capital required to open a business.

3. Superbuildings and superblocks in what are otherwise small blocks -- because one building and one or two entrances replaces 10-15 smaller bu;ildings, each with a separate entrance.

From the article:

One important decision will be whether to divide the land into bigger or smaller parcels. Experience with the Capital Center District, which has large parcels, argues for smaller parcels.

Reducing the scale of development would open the district to a greater range of developers and a more interesting variety of uses, creating a higher density of population and a finer grain of buildings and streetscapes. It need not preclude the assembling of parcels for bigger projects, or taller buildings, but larger parcels do tend to inhibit smaller projects that take less money to finance and less time to plan and build. Overreliance on big corporations and big institutions to build big projects could slow development, resulting in a vast parking lot instead of buildings and neighborhoods. Rather than being starkly different — i.e. modernist — the new part of downtown should flow organically from the old part of downtown.

This may fly in the face of the sort of gigantism that has afflicted American development practices in recent decades. But thinking small might be more lucrative than thinking large, especially for a metro area that sits between the vaster metro areas of Boston and New York. Providence should be an alternative, not more of the same, and that might be just as enticing as the usual packages of tax incentives. I hope that the planners will consider that.