A ten year perspective: The future of healthy cities and infill and intensification

Over the past 10 years as revitalization energy has swept over Washington, DC as living in the center city became "trendy" again, seen as a logical choice, there has been a fast and furious debate about "new" housing, what's appropriate, and what current residents feel comfortable with.

(Note that today's definition of "urban" doesn't always mean the "center city" as places like Bethesda, Silver Spring, and the Wilson Boulevard corridor in Arlington County also thrive and have added copious amounts of multiunit housing.)

I remember exhibiting for the H Street NE neighborhood at the one and only "City Living Expo" in 2003 and being very conscious at both the excitement of people considering urban living as a logical choice, as well as the deep anger being expressed to me by some attendees, about the prospects of change, the influx of higher income residents, and how it might change their neighborhoods, their prospects, the city, and their sense of belonging within the city.

Much of the anger expressed over former Mayor Williams had to do with a perception that he was more focused on making the city attractive to new segments, rather than focused on making the city better for the people already here.

This is a tricky dynamic. Within the regional landscape, municipalities have to be competitive in order to continue to retain and/or recruit residents, investors, new projects, and amenities, in order to maintain revenue streams (income, property, sales taxes, other taxes and fees).

At the same time those "already resident" are clamoring for new programs and more spending on various priorities (especially the schools).

I was always struck by the desire people expressed at various community meetings about family housing vs. housing for nonfamilies--as one ANC commissioner put it "houses with room for two kids, a yard, and a dog" versus multiunit buildings, often more attractive to people without children--without a recognition of how the cost and availability of land as well as the cost of construction makes it virtually impossible to add single family detached or attached housing in the core of the city.

Not to mention that having a diversity of housing types (and mobility options) makes a locality more economically diverse and sustainable over the long term. Nor the fact that most households do not pay property and income taxes at the level that covers the cost of educating even one child (about $15,000/year/child) so that a housing development program focused on families (even though the number of households with children continues to shrink nationwide) is unsustainable financially.

Interestingly, in meetings in my new job, where I advocate for transit, walking, and bicycling, people who have fought those battles there for many more years and through many contentious public meetings sigh, and tell me stories of how residents are adamant that car-based living is the only choice for the county, of how they have been threatened etc.

But it's not a whole lot different here in DC. Arguments within neighborhoods over adding new housing, such as in Tenleytown, Brookland, Takoma, Fort Totten, etc., have been fierce. Many of these battles have been about infill housing on land owned by WMATA. But in large part these battles are about how people define their neighborhoods, on how they define themselves and residents that belong, vs. change and the kind of people they don't think they want to have in their neighborhoods.

And these kinds of arguments are prevalent across the region. A couple years ago I was struck by the arguments in Hyattsville over the EYA development "Arts District Hyattsville" and the inclusion of 14 feet wide townhomes in a section of the project that has not yet been developed. The argument was that people in such narrow homes weren't likely to be good neighbors and citizens committed to the city, because the houses would cost less. See "Hyattsville questions review process for EYA" from the Gazette. From the article:

The project in question, East Village — half of EYA’s Arts District Hyattsville — will include more than 500 row houses and condominiums, along with live⁄work units and retail space. But the width of the row houses — some are as narrow as 14 feet wide and as large as 24 feet wide — concerned Hyattsville city officials, who suggested narrower homes would appeal to a more transient population and lead to frequent ownership turnover.

And questions about redeveloping neighborhoods more intensively, such as in Silver Spring ("Two-thirds of Falkland Chase to be designated as historic" from the Gazette) or the way that Virginia Square neighborhood in Arlington was redeveloped from low density housing to high density multiunit and commercial, not to mention the Purple Line light rail proposal and opposition from the Town of Chevy Chase, are contentious, even if easier to do in the suburbs. (In DC, it's easier to do this on commercially zoned property, and almost impossible to do it anywhere else.)

The problem is that people's definitions of their neighborhoods tend to be static, while maintaining and extending the economic and social health of the center city in a variety of aspects (crime and public safety, quality of municipal institutions generally, schools, availability and quality of neighborhood retail, etc.) must be seen and interpreted as a dynamic process.

Another example--residents in the Georgia Avenue area around Missouri Avenue near the former Curtis Chevrolet site want more retail and amenities but don't want to allow the addition of multiunit housing (it's a moot question because current zoning allows such development)-- failing to recognize that the lack of quality retail is in large part due to the relative paucity of residents in the area which except for some apartment buildings here and there, is amongst the lowest residential density in the city.

The problem is that we don't identify the issues very carefully or directly, and when we aren't talking from a clear position and discussion framework, we don't discuss things very well.

Of course, even if we did, it would still be messy.

Christopher Hume, the great urban design columnist for the Toronto Star, raises similar kinds of issues in today's column, "Condo's future needs mature debate."

From the article:

Toronto's relationship with the condo might best be described as ambivalent. On one hand, we want growth; on the other, only as long as it's not in our back yard.

And then there's the sheer inconvenience of it all. Change, because it's new, is always inconvenient.

The irony, of course, is that there's nothing new about the condo. Toronto has emerged as the strongest condo market in North America, which says much about the growing desire for urban life.

The suburban dream may not be dead yet, but dark shadows are gathering on the horizon. Given the environmental crisis we face, sprawl can no longer be justified. It doesn't make sense.

Cities, dense and transit-based, are the future. As a result, so are condos. Indeed, Toronto has reached the point where it would unimaginable without condos. The idea of the single-family house is no longer economically or environmentally viable. Downtown land is simply too valuable, and resource too scarce. ...

Too often it seems there's a war being fought between citizens and developers. Many Torontonians feel that developers run roughshod over neighbourhood concerns, aided and abetted by the Ontario Municipal Board. So it's no surprise there's widespread anger at a process that's generally seen as favouring rich business interests. At the same time, neighbourhood issues can be petty and shamefully self-serving.

The fact is Toronto has yet to have a mature debate about the condo and its role in the 21st century city. Every decision seems to be made in a vacuum. ...

The new frontier will be family-sized units, apartments with three or more bedrooms. Developers complain that they're the last to sell, but according to downtown councillor Adam Vaughan, the number of highrise families living in condos has been constrained by the lack of suitable units.

Needless to say, all this will change; in the beginning, don't forget, condos were aimed at empty nesters. Now, it's more likely to be the mythical young professional.

Which demographic group is next remains to be seen. In the meantime, the only sure thing is that the condo is here to stay.

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For many years, I have argued that those "One Book" reading campaigns, where everybody in the city is supposed to read the same book and discuss it, ought to be at least for one year, about the future of the city, and people should read Roberta Gratz' Cities: Back from the Edge.

While Jane Jacobs Death and Life of Great American Cities definitely and Steve Belmont's Cities in Full arguably are the most important books on urbanism of the last 50 years, Cities: Back from the Edge, based on JJ's work, is a more easily understood primer on what works and what doesn't, and is a good illustration of the concepts laid out by Jane Jacobs and then extended by Belmont (the first chapter of Cities in Full, 39 pages long, is entitled "Jane Jacobs Revisited" and puts numbers to many of JJ's concepts).

Face it, these concepts are nuanced and while simple and seemingly obvious, the details seem to elude most of us.

Over the past ten years, we haven't had the necessary discussion that we need to have about the future of the center city and the future of Washington, DC and its place and position within the regional context.

Not having that conversation has cost us a lot of time and anguish, and continues to make going forward as a city as whole, very difficult.

It's not enough that I have read these books and work to apply their concepts in my activities in DC (and elsewhere). A lot more people need to do so. Meanwhile we continue to run in place/around in circles.

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Also from Christopher Hume:

- Good design sets a city up for success

- Welcome to the age of region

- Love it or loathe it, change is a comin'