A great set of stories from the Toledo Blade

These kinds of articles are important. Maybe not so much for thinking about large center cities like Washington--DC is far larger than Toledo or Grand Rapids, but the articles are relevant to commercial district revitalization issues regardless of the size of the community, but especially for submarkets within the city and region.

• Schools, safety critical to urban revival 08/11/2008.

This is key. Suburban sprawl is driven in part by the failure of urban school systems, and therefore the inability to retain middle and upper middle class families seeking ever-improving opportunities for their children. In the DC region, "hip" places like the Del Ray neighborhood in Alexandria and Clarendon in Arlington County are driven by DC's failures to retain the residents who end up moving to these neighborhoods.

• Richmond, Va., entrepreneurs tap into rich history 08/10/2008. From the article:

In the middle of it all, Richbrau's owner Mike Byrne makes his own beer and serves hamburgers. "Cities need to take advantage of their historic backgrounds," he said. "We have wonderful history. That's why I'm here."

DC's competitive advantages are:

1. historic architecture;
2. urban design;
3. history, identity and authenticity;
4. a rich mobility infrastructure that allows one to be independent of the automobile; and
5. the steady employment engine of the federal government.

(The last is also a curse. It prices out certain kinds of commerce and use, and shapes a very institutionally-driven and focused environment, but it keeps the property and employment markets steady.)

The first four competitive advantages DC can shape and influence. Everything that the city does to diminish these advantages hurts the competitiveness of the city in the long run.

• Arena proves catalyst for Mich. city's revival 08/10/2008.

This is a story about Grand Rapids, Michigan. Grand Rapids is Michigan's second largest city, is on Lake Michigan, has a more diverse economy than the rest of the state, etc., so it's a stretch to ascribe its success to an arena. Still, it's a good article.

• Toledo primed for revitalization, but key components still missing

THIS IS A REALLY REALLY GOOD ARTICLE about the conditions necessary for urban revitalization--focusing on layering (having multiple destinations adjacent), pedestrian-centric urban design, and mixed use, particularly residential, in formerly all-business places.

TO ME, THE ARTICLE IS PARTICULARLY RELEVANT TO DC, not in terms of broad city policies and conditions and definitely not downtown, which is on an upward trajectory, but at the neighborhood level.

Our ability to bring about revitalization including thriving commercial districts is somewhat crippled _at the neighborhood level_ because of the inability of neighborhood groups to balance their concerns regarding change with what I think of as citywide objectives of appropriately adding more housing which in turn supports local commerce and more frequent transit, and provides more property, income and sales tax revenues to a city which has a great hunger to spend money on all sorts of stuff (baseball stadiums, school modernization, youth employment programs, new seating and a video screen for the Washington Wizards, etc.).

• $860,000 hybrid vehicle one of Cleveland's public transit’s revivals 08/12/2008

About bus rapid transit and transit. Now Cleveland is a particularly sad case. The region is shrinking both in the center city and the suburbs. The new bus rapid transit system on Euclid Avenue will help that area in its continued revitalization, but it's a matter of stabilizing a sad, shrinking place. (Euclid Avenue is cool though. So are the Gateway and Warehouse Districts.)

• Experts believe bicycling, walking, and public transit use will rise 08/12/2008

(We already know these arguments...)