United Nation's World Urban Campaign

Deserves a mention of its own:

United Nation's World Urban Campaign

From the webpage:

The World Urban Campaign is a platform for public, private and civil society actors to elevate policies and share practical tools for sustainable urbanization. The success of the Campaign will be measured by more sustainable urban policies at the national level and increased investment and capital flows in support of those policies. For this reason it focuses on providing governments and partner networks with an advocacy instrument to articulate a shared vision for a better urban future and to advance the urban agenda within their respective constituencies.

This applies as much to organizations of the urban poor as it does to associations of local authorities, business forums, youth associations, media outlets, professional associations, women’s groups, Parliamentarians, ministerial conferences, and inter-governmental bodies. The Campaign in this way seeks to position sustainable urbanization as a priority issue of the international community and as a national policy priority for individual member States.

I read an article recently about how Harvard Law School is changing their curriculum in three significant ways. One is to incorporate a recognition that law is global, not just from the standpoint of "international law" and relations between countries, but in a globally-connected world, the understanding of law has to be broader, less focused on court decisions and more about institutions and practices.

The same goes for cities. Knowing what happens in cities in other places only strengthens your practice at home.

European "No Economic Recovery Without Cities" campaign

From email:

At a time when a significant number of European countries are facing severe economic problems, the civic initiative 'No Economic Recovery Without Cities', developed under the spirit of the United Nations “World Urban Campaign”, arrives as a challenge to artists, businessmen, researchers and professionals who ‘work with cities’, as well as institutions and communities, to think collectively about the significant role cities play in the social and economic development of Europe.

The first step of this ‘civic challenge’ was the creation of a Facebook Group meant to be the “meeting point” to share innovative experiences (‘good practice’) in different aspects of urban policy/ planning under the following thematic issues: (1)Urban Space, (2) Arts & Culture, (3) Mobility, (4) Environment & Green Spaces, (5) Climate Change, (6) Ageeing.

The goal of the Group is to inspire other experiences, deepen the dialogues between diverse communities and stimulate collective learning in order to ensure that the role and dynamic nature of cities in Europe have a visible and positive impact on the social and territorial cohesion, civic empowerment and economic recovery of all European nations.

Join the Project today and send your civic contribution!

'No Economic Recovery Without Cities!' Civic Campaign

Note that this campaign may have been spurred by a U.S. initiative, New York City's Drum Major Institute's publication of a report, No Economic Recovery Without Cities: The Urgency of a New Federal Urban Policy.

Maybe the plan should be to "blow up" the mall

The Gazette reports in "Wheaton Sector Plan public hearing set for Thursday," that the Wheaton Central Business District Sector plan is being readied for approval by Montgomery County and in "B.F. Saul picked for Wheaton redevelopment" that B.F. Saul Companies has a contract with Montgomery County and WMATA to come up with a redevelopment plan for 12 acres including Metro property.

Meanwhile, the "Westfield Shoppingtown Wheaton" "mall" has been languishing for years (also see "National book chain shakes up Wheaton mall" and "Reformed tax credit aims to boost small businesses"from the Gazette) so now Montgomery County sees adding a Costco to that center as the panacea ("Residents blast Costco plan" from the Gazette.)

Me, I think probably the enclosed shopping center ought to be blown up, recreated as a lifestyle center, and the entire area reworked.

I haven't read the sector plan, so I don't know if that action was considered.

See "DEVELOPERS RETHINK THE MALL FOR THE 21ST CENTURY" and this more cautionary tale, "Lifestyle Center Developers Apply Lessons Learned During the Downturn" from Retail Traffic, concerning the idea.

From the first article:

“A regional mall, if it has the right tenant mix and offers value to the consumer, will be successful,” says Greg Lyon, design principal with Nadel Inc., a Los Angeles–based architecture firm. Plus, developers today better understand where and how to add residential, office and hotel components to bring maximum traffic into the center.

I think it's pretty clear that Wheaton Mall isn't all that successful.

It pays to be connected

Following up the branding theme, The Washington City Paper's Housing Complex column reports on a similar type of initiative for "Mid City DC" in the article "Neighborhood Making in Midcity."

Carol Felix has done some great work, but we don't know yet how much of it was luck (really, how hard was it for Whole Foods to figure out that a location on the 1400 block of P Street NW, in the Dupont Circle neighborhood, was likely superior to a location at 13th and V Street NW), but $200,000?

Holy s***! That's more than what most consulting firms get to do small area plans for the Office of Planning. And it's $150,000 more than what is supposed to be the maximum grant from the Neighborhood Investment Fund.

I don't deny that Georgetown, Mid-City, Columbia Heights, Capitol Hill, etc., need broad-based "commercial district revitalization framework" or "destination development" plans along the lines that I've done for smaller communities. (On the other hand, districts like Georgetown or Capitol Hill are "smaller communities.")

How does one get on that gravy train?

Or am I destined to be doing such plans for small communities like Brunswick, Georgia or Cambridge, Maryland and the like, and never the big city.

n.b., I was part of a consulting team which bid on a NIF grant for Mount Pleasant commercial district revitalization. Instead, our application was denied, and the Office of Planning turned around and gave a different consulting firm a contract to do the same kind of project. I don't think their final report, clickable here, is as impressive as the report done for Cambridge, Maryland, at far less cost and with a lot fewer resources...

I guess it doesn't "pay" to tell truth to power...

DC's "cultureshed"

I wish I invented the word "cultureshed" after all, I write about the transitshed, and I probably coined the word "mobilityshed." But cultureshed is a word used in the opening essay, "The City as cultureshed," by John Lorinc in the book The State of the Arts: Living with Culture in Toronto, which is a survey of the state of cultural affairs there, in part a response by the ground up arts and culture communities to the designation of Toronto as Canada's City of Culture in 2005-2006 and the official actions in response. He writes:

... That's why we should begin to think of cities as 'culturesheds'--deeply interconnected social, physical and economic ecosystems that may be more or less attuned to the circulation of artistic ideas. As Toronto emerges from its year of culture (2006), decked out with a raft of shiny new arts venues and the promotional attention of international tourist marketers, we should be asking ourselves whether the city's cultureshed is healthy or endangered, growing or stagnant.

I've written about this as it relates to DC for while, including the blog entry "Art, culture districts, and revitalization" which was the basis of a presentation at a conference of North American dramaturgs and theater companies last summer.

I have to say that I was truly shocked to read the draft DC economic development strategy plan, (NOTE that public comments are due by August 1st) and I found that the discussion of the issues concerning the creation of "A Creative, Innovative & International City" was direct, honest, and covered many of the issues that I have raised over the years about developing a knowledge-based innovative economy within the city.

The points mentioned include:

- failure to link with "cutting edge research and development" assets
- limited linkage of research to patents, products, and "commercially viable companies"
- failure to develop university academic departments in ways that leverage the opportunity for federal agency development constrasts
- no technology incubation system
- cost pressures of space (and note that my suggested Comprehensive Plan amendment not allowing schools and churches to use industrially zoned properties as a "matter of right" was rejected)
- limited venture capital.

While I haven't had a chance yet to read the Creative DC Action Agenda, I am not surprised that the economic development strategy didn't mention how DC arts institutions and creative organizations tend to be large institutions, presenting institutions, and less likely to be promoting and developing the creation of new work.

This isn't true across the board, but it is a big issue in terms of developing arts production capabilities versus the consumption of artistic activities such as going to museums, or to Broadway plays presented at local theaters, etc.


I guess it shouldn't be a surprise, given the difficulties of supporting ground up artistic endeavors, that I hear a proposal to put Artomatic--the cooperative ground up mobile artistic exhibition--at the soon to be redeveloped Hine Junior High School site, which is less than 100 feet from the Eastern Market Metro Station (see "Artomatic talks locale" is being opposed by neighborhood organizations such as the local Advisory Neighborhood Commission and Capitol Hill Restoration Society, the stalwart historic preservation group, in part because of fears that attendees would drive cars to the event and then park on local streets.

(All the more reason to have a neighborhood transportation plan that manages parking and parking wayfinding, something I've suggested for a few years now, ever since I joined the Eastern Market Citizens Advisory Committee.)

Doing creative, ground-up arts development is very difficult in a city where I joke "big government [the federal government] trickles down and shapes little government [the local government] and the citizens in its image."

I sound like a broken record even to me when it comes to a preference for broad-based planning

According to a DDOT press release, "DC Circulator Launches Planning Study: Six Month Project Will Map System’s Future," they have convened a transportation study to:

guide the expansion of the DC Circulator over the next five to ten years. This comprehensive study will enlist the help of riders and other stakeholders to evaluate the current system and identify future corridors for new service.

What's frustrating about this is that is too narrowly construed, and is independent of a broad planning effort for transit services in the District.

Sure there's the Transportation Element in the Comprehensive Plan + the recent DDOT Action Plan, but what's necessary is a comprehensive transportation plan which places the Circulator within a broad framework of services.

The framework as promoted in this display board (below) at various public meeting is more idiosyncratic than systematic.


What the Circulator bus system offers is a legible service (the buses have a nice graphic treatment and the bus stop information systems are better than for traditional Metrobus services) that is frequent--every 10 minutes.

However, generally to run a bus line with that frequency you need a fair amount of ridership, I'd estimate, at least 10,000 riders/day, and most of the newer Circulator bus services don't meet that standard.

The thing that needs to be done is the creation of an overt high frequency surface transit system. We have the makings of it with certain services, but bus prioritization hasn't occurred in the places where it is needed, primarily downtown.

And high frequency bus services, other than the Circulator, aren't marketed or differentiated from other service. This needs to change.

These questions don't get addressed because of people being more enthralled with the type of bus, the graphics, and the allied information systems. Instead, quality of the bus, the graphic identity, and the allied information systems need to be improved overall. (This is happening in terms of the quality of the bus, as Metrobus has pretty much replaced the old buses with new ones.)

The other thing is that the city needs to address providing intra-neighborhood transit services in a cost-effective but comprehensive manner. Likely that doesn't mean service every 10 minutes, but there is likely a reasonable position between no service and service every 10 minutes that it cost-effective.

Providing service frequency for buses that are mostly empty (such as the Capitol Hill-Navy Yard Circulator) does not do us any favors.

The Union Station-Navy Yard DC Circulator uses 30 foot buses.

(Also see this blog entry: Metropolitan Mass Transit Planning presentation.)

Nothing new in NTSB hearing on WMATA, crash

At least according to the various press (e.g., "NTSB faults circuit in Metro crash" from the Post) and blog reports. I wrote the reprinted blog entry below on July 27th, 2009. It could have stressed safety issues more strongly, but this statement:

We can argue that the accident is an indicator of a far bigger systems failure than the circuit system.

is pretty strong as it is.

Missing the real issue about WMATA

The Washington Post editorialized, in "A Broken Metro‎," once again about how all of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority's problems have to do with the lack of a dedicated funding stream.

Nothing could be further from the truth, as the newspaper's own reporting ought to be communicating to us.

Here are the issues with WMATA:

- general vision and leadership
- the governance structure (members appointed to the board by the various jurisdictions that are members of the WMATA Compact--but too many of them have overly constrained worldviews about what they are doing and who they truly represent)
- the lack of a real system of regulatory oversight*
- funding of current operational deficits**
- funding of capital improvements***
- management of the organization
- operation of the organization
- how the organization treats and serves riders.

* The article in the Post about how BART has a redundant train control system to ensure that all trains are accounted for on the system at all times off-handedly mentioned that BART is under the oversight of the California Public Utilities Commission. See "Sister Transit System Took Steps to Counter Hazard: BART Saw Circuit Problem At Center of Metro Probe."

From the article:

Shortly after BART started operating in 1972, it installed a backup system. Initial tests of the main train protection system failed to detect the presence of a train in a few instances, according to Mike Healey, a longtime BART spokesman who retired in 2005. A subsequent 1972 BART accident involving a train that mistakenly received a command to double its speed instead of slowing down, sending the train off track and into a parking lot, was the catalyst "to have some redundancy to back up the primary train protection system," Healey said...

Willard Wattenburg, an electrical engineer and inventor retired from the University of California at Berkeley, said intermittent failures were frequent on BART in the early 1970s. Wattenburg analyzed BART's initial design for the California Public Utilities Commission, which regulates transit systems, and crafted some corrections. BART officials at the time said the failures were flukes, but regulators insisted on the design changes. .

This used to be the case for the old streetcar system, which was overseen by the DC Public Service Commission.

There needs to be a joint regulatory commission, with appointees from DC, MD, and VA, to oversee the system and ensure that it meets the highest operational standards.

** Dedicated funding is important but is more focused on managing annual operating budgets. The cost of providing transit is greater than farebox and other revenues. Therefore, funds are provided by the member jurisdictions of the WMATA "Compact" to make up the difference.

*** While the annual appropriations include some money for capital improvements, it's never enough, especially when it comes to system expansion, or replacing large amounts of rolling stock.

Dedicated funding gets at just a little bit of the issues that are in play with WMATA generally.

We can argue that the accident is an indicator of a far bigger systems failure than the circuit system.

That's what we should be coming to realize as we are learning about the systematic failures of this system and the neglect of dealing with it--something that predates General Manager John Catoe.

See "Investigators: Metro equipment at crash problematic for 18 months," "Investigators examining glitches around system" AND ESPECIALLY THIS STORY "Metro operator: Recent crash failure echoes 2005 near-miss" from the Examiner.

Street festivals and city fees

Yes there is a problem with fee costs and street festivals. Yes there is a fee waiver process. No the process isn't widely communicated. No there isn't a "cultural plan" regarding street festivals or a consideration of their economic value to the city or for community building value, or a consideration of how these events contribute to the reputation and excitement quality and placemaking value of the city.

Northeast Tae Kwon Do marching in the Brookland Day parade, 2005.

According to the City Paper's Loose Lips columnist, Fox5 did an "investigative story" on the fee waivers. From the column:

Waive This!: Fox 5's Paul Wagner wins the morning with this investigative piece about the city's apparently new practice of waiving police security fees for certain events, like the National Marathon. "In the last two years, more than $600,000 has gone uncollected, money that should have been paid to the city for security at special events." The marathon, Wagner notes, attracts enough runners to generate at least $700,000 entry fees, yet the city waived about $200,000 in police costs last year. Another piece of the story: A homeland security fund absorbs the costs for other events, like the Georgia Avenue Caribbean carnival.

I have written about this before. Even a two block street festival in Brookland expecting 100s to a couple thousand people (you fudge some on the numbers, because as the number of attendees climbs, so does the required number of official personnel and services, which raises costs)--I ran this event in 2007--costs about $12,000 in city fees for police, other emergency personnel, inspections, use of the public space, etc.

A typical community organization doesn't have that kind of money, and regardless of what people might think, it's hard to raise sponsorship monies to pay those fees, and exhibit fees for booths hardly come close to covering those fees.

Mount Pleasant Festival (in my opinion one of the best truly "neighborhood festivals" in the city) in 2004 got tagged with a $48,000 fine because the inspectors said that tents were bigger than what had been permitted... (This article from the Washington Times is not available for free, but covers the story, "Lawmaker to look into fines for festival."

There is a fund for constituent services out of the Mayor's office that will cover these costs (a waiver), although you have to be told the fund exists. I didn't know originally, but someone, maybe from the Police Special Operations Division, mentioned it to me.

The real issue is the cost of the fees, and whether or not such events are to be encouraged and offered in the city. There didn't use to be big fees, but City Council passed a bill stating that fees for such services must be assessed.

Yes, there should be a more transparent process, yes the economic and community building value of special events should be quantified.

But a story on fee waivers to big events and small events is not some big deal story, either for tv or the City Paper. Instead, the real story is how much money these fees are, how difficult it is to do special events, whether you represent a large or a small organization, and how can special events be supported in ways that contribute in a variety of ways to the quality of life and excitement value of the city.

Tomatoes growing in a planting box on the 200 block of 4th Street SE

Tomatoes growing in a planting box on the 200 block of 4th Street SE
Originally uploaded by rllayman

Obstructed sidewalk on Missouri Ave. NW -- many households do not properly trim vegetation, and often trees in the planting strip (controlled by the city) aren't properly trimmed either

Obstructed sidewalk on Missouri Ave. NW -- many households do not properly trim vegetation, and often trees in the planting strip (controlled by the city) aren't properly trimmed either
Originally uploaded by rllayman

20 mph speed limit sign on Stanford Street at East Ave in the Town of Chevy Chase, Maryland

20 mph speed limit sign on Stanford Ave. at East Ave in the Town of Chevy Chase, Maryland
Originally uploaded by rllayman

I don't recall seeing a posted 20 mph speed limit sign in the Washington region before, although I don't travel on residential streets outside of Washington very much.

Also see "How London Is Saving Lives With 20 MPH Zones" from Streetsblog.

Recall also that I wrote about this similar policy in Montreal. See the Transport Montreal webpage on the topic.

Which derives from Graz, Austria, which implemented such a policy in 1992. From Literature Review on Vehicle Travel
Speeds and Pedestrian Injuries published by the U. S. Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration:

In Graz, Austria, a city-wide 30 km/h (19 mph) limit on all residential streets (50 km/h (31 mph) on through "priority" streets) was implemented in September 1992 (Sammer, 1997; Pischinger et al., 1995). The change was implemented in response to increasing requests from citizen groups to participate in an area-by-area traffic calming scheme that was gradually including more areas over a ten-year period. The comprehensive areawide program included traffic regulation (signs, roadway markings), extensive and varied public information and awareness campaigns, and supervision (enforcement and speed display boards). About 75 percent of all roads became 30 km/h (19 mph). Injuries decreased from the year before the change to the year after. Minor injuries declined 12 percent, serious injuries dropped 24 percent, and all pedestrian injuries fell by 17 percent. Economic savings from the injury decreases were calculated to be about $6,000,000, a 26 percent drop. Mid-block average and 85th percentile speeds dropped immediately, then gradually recovered to a level slightly below pre-law speeds. Intersection speeds also dropped, by 2.5 km/h (1.5 mph) on average, and the proportion of extreme speeds dropped sharply. Drivers exceeding 50 km/h (31 mph) dropped from 7.3 percent "pre" to 3.0 percent "post." Surveys showed that approval of the reduced speed limits increased steadily after implementation, reaching 68 percent after 18 months for private car drivers, who were the least enthusiastic group throughout. Noise levels, measured on 30 km/h (19 mph) streets, decreased; overall air pollution did not change.

Georgetown: A subtle but important difference between branding and identity-positioning

The Washington City Paper reports, in "Wisconsin and TM: In its Latest Identity Crisis, Georgetown Hires a Branding Consultant," that the Georgetown Business Improvement District has engaged in a brand development effort. (As I mentioned a few weeks ago, the Baltimore City Paper recently ran an excellent article, one of the best I've seen in the traditional media, about branding issues and Baltimore City, "Happy? Baltimore's latest tourism campaign rekindles the city's ongoing branding issues.")

This isn't a surprise. All destinations need to be managed. And the Georgetown BID does so. But often, the problem with the "business types" who comprise the leadership of BID-type organizations is that they think it's about branding, when people who come at this from the cultural tourism, tourism development and management, Main Street commercial district revitalization, or civic tourism perspectives recognize the issue has to do not so much with your brand, but with your identity and positioning--in short, the quality of your offer.

One of the problems that the city's sub-districts have is that typically, DC residents and other stakeholders assess the places independently, rather than within the regional retail and entertainment landscape. So while it is true that within DC proper, Georgetown is probably the most successful independent commercial district, with the strongest image and brand, that doesn't matter, because Georgetown has to remain competitive with other destinations in the broader region.

The real problem is that as a destination, Georgetown, despite the existence of the Business Improvement District, has some real problems. One big problem is the various property interests and intra-business competition--specifically Eastbanc's competition with Western Development, which kept the Georgetown Park Mall from being able to remain competitive, because litigation kept the mall from being able to "refresh." (See "Half-empty Shops at Georgetown Park headed to auction next month" from the Washington Post.)

Another problem is that other destinations change, new destinations develop (such as National Harbor), trends change, and customer bases need to be refreshed as people age and concepts get stale. Plus, the retail and entertainment mix needs to be planned more purposefully by time of day and day of the week, and typically, commercial districts do not do this level of micro planning.

But too often, a focus on branding becomes a focus on logos and the like, rather than a more complete strategy of:

- understanding consumer needs
- developing and positioning a strong brand foundation
- creating the right imagery for the product
- delivering on the brand promise. (From p. 26, "Mind Your Brands," Progressive Grocer's Store Brands, July 2010.)

So it becomes very easy to pillory more typical branding studies, as the WCP does with the opening paragraphs of the above-cited story:

When you hear “Georgetown,” what jumps to mind?

Polo shirts and loafers? Barney’s and Benetton? Spray tans and exotic accents?

Now try a harder one: If Georgetown were an animal, what animal would it be? Or color?

Those are the types of (sometimes inscrutable) questions a group of Georgetowners have been prodded with over the last few months, in an attempt to redefine the neighborhood’s “brand”—what it is that makes the place unique, and how it ought to be marketed. In April, the Georgetown Business Improvement District commissioned a study by the Arlington-based Roan Group, which has interviewed about 50 people from the neighborhood and is now researching the typical customer.

When I was in Montreal last month, I was tremendously interested in the city's tourism guide, the "Official Tourist Guide" (which doesn't seem to be available online, but is available in local tourist information centers, hotels, and other locations) which better than any other tourist guidebook I've seen published by the local tourism bureau, lists attractions/visiting opportunities by "district"/arondissement, such as "The Village," "The Old Port," the "Place des Arts," the "Plateau," Latin Quarter, etc. For the most part, DC's tourism marketing materials don't do this, at least they don't do it very well.

This is followed up during the tourist season with tourist information centers and carts in some of the most visited neighborhoods such as The Village and the Plateau. (The Bethesda Urban Partnership does this too, with at least one cart in the summer, which is located outside of the Barnes & Noble on Bethesda Row.)

Similarly, DC's "destination development planning" (we don't term it that way) doesn't really work this way either.

So other places in the city such as Dupont Circle and its subdistricts and Capitol Hill and Cleveland Park have the same problems as Georgetown, which has been written about in this and other blogs. But because the city doesn't have the right planning framework in place, the problems continue. With regard to the framework:

1. I have recommended for at least 5 years that one of the elements of the Comprehensive Plan should be a tourism development and management plan, with both city-wide and sub-district dimensions (the Federal Elements of the DC Comprehensive Plan do have a visitor element);

2. I have worked out a broader framework (along with Chuck D'Aprix of Economic Development Visions) for commercial district planning, which is best outlined (thus far) in this report, A Commercial District Revitalization Framework Plan for Downtown Cambridge, Maryland. It covers attraction development, accommodations, and other aspects of developing a destination, not just the retail mix.

Below, I am reprinting a blog entry from five years ago on this broad topic.

Tuesday, February 22, 2005
Town-City branding or "We are all destination managers now"

On the National Main Street list, Andrew Jones writes:

Here's an article about Fayetteville, NC, which is considering branding itself America's most patriotic city. Some brainstormed ideas:

* Daily parades.
* Give police the authority to issue fake tickets to foreign-made cars.
* Requiring all restaurants to serve apple pie and hot dogs.
* Actors posing as George Washington, etc. roam downtown.
* Fireworks every weekend.
* Paint the streets to look like the flag.

My thoughts:

While it is said all the time in Main Street trainings and in the cultural tourism end of things, the importance of "authenticity" can not be under-emphasized. (Check out the Main Street Approach.)

To my way of thinking, the language of the Main Street principle on assets overly focuses upon hard assets (buildings) and it should be expanded to reflect the understanding that this refers to assets more broadly. This can help Main Street practitioners help people understand that assets include social and cultural capital as well. (Human capital is covered in other principles--self-help and partnerships. )

In a presentation, you might want to outline more specific aspects of cultural capital (arts, performance, historic resources, history), particularly "historic capital," to explain what these assets are and why they are important.

In my experience in Washington, DC, I have come to the conclusion that to many people in our city, "Main Street" isn't a unique, comprehensive, integrated, proven-to-be-successful community revitalization approach that needs to be embraced and followed (perhaps with some slight adaptations for particular circumstances) but merely is one more program in a long line of revitalization programs that have been attempted, (but with a pot of money from the city for neighborhood organizations, if successful in winning a designation).

In some of the situations that result, the definition of revitalization ends up being not much different in the reality than urban renewal-like redevelopment, which sees the only asset as land able to be cleared and rebuilt.

There isn't a nuanced understanding about the importance and primacy of authenticity and historic capital -- historic buildings, independent businesses, real experiences, unqiue community history -- as basic building blocks of a community revitalization strategy. No matter how hard we try, our neighborhood commercial districts (with some exceptions) aren't going to be able to compete with the suburban malls by trying to outmall the mall.

That being said, I've been meaning to send this link to the list from an article in Urban Land Magazine, about successful retail-entertainment "retailtainment." It's a well-written, thoughtful piece on this aspect of unique retail and where it suceeds.

It might just be my city "blue state" attitudes and general cynicism, but the Fayetteville ideas strike me as "inauthentic." However, I will say that there are all types of market segments and as Bob Lutz said about his uniquely styled cars. "Yes, maybe only 10% of the market likes them, but 10% of the market is really large and profitable." (badly paraphrased)

Nonetheless, city branding is a big issue. At the root, it's about identity and vision and what you are trying to accomplish. I strongly recommend the NMSC handbook Marketing an Image for Main Street. This handbook covers this issue pretty thoroughly and has some great case studies, such as of Boulder, Colorado. It discusses how the ER and Promotions Committees are both dependent on a market study in order to move forward. A market study, focused on current and potential market segments is one of the most important things that a Main Street program must do at the outset (the NMSC handbook on this is called Step-by-Step Market Analysis, although I haven't read it yet).

City branding is the rage.

http://www.brandchannel.com/ is a great website resource for branding issues and there are a number of articles on the site that are relevant to our work in community (re)building:

This article, by Karen Post, covers the issues really well: . She writes in "Brandtown: Destination distinction or disarray" that

Destination branding is about:

1) Clearly defining a purpose,
2) Being distinct,
3) Consistently communicating a persona, and
4) Delivering on a promise.

She states that further that:

a city or destination brand is the sum of what the market thinks when they hear the brand name. It's how they feel when they arrive at the destination's website or experience other communication, and it's what they expect when they select one place over another.

There are well-branded cities and places...these destinations have crisp stories, distinct attributes, and consistent messaging, and deliver the brand promise at all touch points... On there other side of the map are many lost destinations and leaders who don't quite get it. They think the brand is a jazzy logo ... and most of all they are oblivious to the destructive power of un-united forces within their destination.

She also talks about the Hartford Image Project and their new tagline "New England's Rising Star" (which I refashioned for a job interview in Prince George's County Maryland--"city X: Maryland's Rising Star"). BTW, in looking up transit planning in York Ontario I found that they use the tagline: York Region: Ontario's Rising Star.

Other good articles include:

-- Branding Nations;
-- Manufacturing a New Detroit;
-- Johannesburg South Africa (As I have written elsewhere, this city has "issues". They counter them by being upfront. The City of Johannesburg website is fabulous!); and finally
-- Brand Your City: A Recipe for Success" by Jonathan Baltuch.

What he writes is obvious, but if it is so obvious why do so many communities, destinations, attractions, etc., blow it? He starts by saying

The most misunderstood and underutilized tool in the typical American city's toolbox for exonomic success is brand identity. If your city has not taken the time to figure out who you are and taken steps to define it to the world, then it is left to others to define you.

He goes on to list the basic steps of the process:

* Internal Research
* External Research
* Logo and Brand Promise Design
* Comprehensive Brand Identity Package Design and Implementation
* Internal Education (what I would call a focus on local markets and stakeholders)
* External Education (a focus on reaching external markets)
* Advertising

It's basic but it lays out the process.

Other good resources come from the cultural heritage tourism program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Reading through one or more of the community assessment reports lays out the basic assessment/gaps analysis model that they use. Being a strong proponent of "adaptive re-use" or R&D ("rip off and duplicate") or just learning and applying the model to your own situation can help you work through such issues in your own community.

Outside assessment is good, because it is independent and generally is enriched by experience with other communities. It needs to be matched with local expertise and opportunities, awareness of design, traffic and transportation movement, etc., in order to really move forward.

I really like the idea of a branding or tourism charette, based on something like the "How to Turn A Place Around" book and workshop of the Project for Public Spaces) or the "Great Tours" historic places workshop developed by the National Trust which is another great model for looking at your assets and the stories that you have to tell. While the book and workshop focus on particular sites, the model is extensible.

Similarly, the heritage area concept and the organizing metaphor of the cultural landscape is equally mind-expanding. You don't have to create a heritage area in order to inventory the assets you have in your community and begin to bring the various interests together.

Speaking of this, the Tourism Development Handbook: A Practical Approach to Planning and Marketing by Kerry Godfrey and Jackie Clarke lives up to its title. It's a great practical approach to destination development and management. With a nod to Richard Nixon's quote "We are all Keynesians now" the fact is, for those of us involved neighborhood and commercial district revitalization:

we are all destination managers now.

And the tools in books such as this, which lay out a model for tourism development planning at the destination level, are very helpful regardless of who we are trying to attract to our neighborhoods and stores.

Creating systemic-structural change

For most of my life, I have been interested in organizational systems, be it newspapers and media when I delivered newspapers as a child, or restaurants and restaurant chains when I worked in restaurants, universities and colleges when I was in college, and local government as an interested and involved citizen.

In college, I came across the field of organizational development, and crossed paths with one of the founders of the field (Ronald Lippitt). The textbook Social Psychology of Organizations was probably one of the more important books I've read, along with Diffusion of Innovations by Everett Rogers and Change: Principles of Problem Formation and Problem Resolution which distinguishes between "first order" and "second order" change.

My focus on systems only increases with each new experience. Working for the Baltimore County Office of Planning over the last year was particularly instructive because I had never worked for a local government before (I worked for a Main Street program funded by DC, but there was still somewhat of an arms length distance), and while on the "inside" I learned that it was a whole lot harder to push change forward than I had thought. (At the same time, it was a great experiment for me to figure out the various levers of different agencies, the barriers to improvement, and try to come up with a way of dealing with all that--many different agencies, the executive leadership, elected officials, and state agencies too.)

The pedestrian and bicycle access plan draft I produced is all about building a system and structure for bringing about structured, structural and behavioral change--in an environment, the suburbs, where creating a positive environment for walking and bicycling is very difficult, because of how the suburban transportation system was set up to optimize automobility. We'll see what happens with it. (The draft should be released within the next couple weeks, although my contract ended and it's somewhat out of my hands although I'll still have input.)

Anyway, I was reading the Sunday New York Times Magazine yesterday and I had seemingly no interest in this article, "The New Abortion Providers," but I was eating a meal by myself and I ran out of things to read so I read it and I'm glad I did.

It's a textbook description of how to build a system to bring about structural change, in this case, providing and systematizing education and training for family physicians and ob/gyn doctors in how to do the procedure, and how to build a more supportive environment within the health care system (clinics and hospitals) so that providers aren't considered pariahs and marginalized.

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Just how I am not in favor of "expanding choice" in transportation, instead I focus on optimality, in many instances, while I favor the idea of "nudge" and incentives (see e.g., "Gentle Nudges Work to Get People Exercising" which I discussed in the Baltimore County plan, in terms of building a system of education and encouragement to assist people in their move from automobility to walking and biking), I think it's better to focus on building a system that produces the right outcomes. See the introduction to the past blog entry, "System transformation or people vs. systems and structures," as well as "Stultified vs. flat organizations, democracy vs. autocracy" for more on this point.

Metropolitan Mass Transit Planning presentation

In March, I did a presentation at the University of Delaware, to the transportation planning and urban studies departments, laying out my hypotheses/theories for creating a systematic framework for transportation planning at the level of the metropolitan area.

It links the various concepts Ive developed over the years, based on observation and practice in the DC-Baltimore region and beyond.

The big points are:

- distinguishing between transportation planning and transit service planning. In the DC region, by default, WMATA is the transportation planner. But that is a mistake. True metropolitan area planning needs to be done, and metrics for level of service and network breadth need to be set independent of any specific transit service provider.

- distinguishing the transit network as a set of interconnected subnetworks with the overall regional (connecting metropolitan areas) and metropolitan networks and the suburban and center city transit subnetworks

- transit shed and mobility shed based planning to build ridership and induce mode shift.

At the end of the presentation are a few slides about transportation/urban revitalization oriented blogging, since it was as a blogger that the concepts were developed and how I came to the attention of a graduate student at the University of Delaware.

The presentation has been updated some, based on the response and a couple things I forgot to mention, plus some additional graphics.

Metropolitan Transit Planning: Towards a Hierarchical and Conceptual Framework

Getting old... (my generation)

Lyrics:

People try to put us d-down (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
Just because we get around (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
Things they do look awful c-c-cold (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
I hope I die before I get old (Talkin' 'bout my generation)

This is my generation
This is my generation, baby

Why don't you all f-fade away (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
And don't try to dig what we all s-s-say (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
I'm not trying to cause a big s-s-sensation (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
I'm just talkin' 'bout my g-g-g-generation (Talkin' 'bout my generation)

------
Today I ate at a regional chain restaurant in Rockville for breakfast. Looking at the check, I received a "senior discount" worth 10%.

I didn't ask for it...

Curvilinear sidewalk on Halpine Road in Twinbrook/Rockville

Curvilinear sidewalk on Halpine Road in Twinbrook/Rockville
Originally uploaded by rllayman

One of the things I discovered in talking with residents (talking = a form of anthropological/qualitative research) is that seeming opposition to "sidewalks" isn't always about sidewalks per se, but about how sidewalks are traditionally constructed--in a straight line a certain distance from the street, and if there is a line of trees in the way of the straight line, the trees get cut down.

There aren't many good examples around of incorporating sidewalks more "surgically" into the landscape (other than DC's increasing use of rubber sidewalks to better deal with tree root upthrust), and this one, on Halpine Road in Twinbrook/Rockville, is quite good.

Bethesda Trolley Trail wayfinding signage

One of my complaints about the new Metropolitan Branch Trail in DC is that thus far, the signage is almost completely inadequate.


First, the signs don't explain what the "MBT" is is--some signs abbreviate MBT if they are interim trail signs because the city evidently didn't want to pay for larger signs and spelling out "interim trail" and "Metropolitan Branch Trail" required a bigger sign.

Second, on the shared use path section, while there are some mileage-directional signs (I haven't uploaded photos yet) at entryways, there is no explanatory signage, no rules signage, and no what we might call "branding-identity-marketing" signage. Third, at the major entryways onto the trail on L Street NE and M Street NE there is no "trailhead" signage nor signage around directing bicyclists to the entry points.

A few years ago, Toole Design produced a wayfinding study for the Bethesda Trolley Trail in Montgomery County. It's been many months since I've been out to the Twinbrook Metro Station, which is proximate to where the trail begins/ends, and this time, I noticed a new wayfinding sign that is very good.

One side is interpretative.


The other side has a map of the trail and other regional trails--this is really important as it outlines the concept of a regional bikeway network, lists rules for using the trail (including "staying on the right" which I find is a real problem for pedestrians especially but also some bicyclists on the Metropolitan Branch Trail so far), and a discussion about the status of construction for the trail. The graphic identity is strong as well.

All in all they did a good job.

A few years ago, DC did do a tender and got proposals for creating a wayfinding signage system for the Metropolitan Branch Trail. While the winning proposal was interesting, I had some reservations about it (the signage proposal focused more on developing neighborhood specific signage rather than an overall signage concept for a regional shared use path facility). But it hasn't been executed in any case.

Gateway entry sign for DC, at East Capitol and Southern Avenue NE

Gateway entry sign for DC, at East Capitol and Southern Avenue NE
Originally uploaded by rllayman

I still think these signs are pathetically boring.

Complaining five years later is too G** D*** Late

Today's Examiner has a screaming cover headline about the impact of the military Base Reconsolidation and Closure process. The story, "Region braces for traffic 'chaos'," is about how the movement of close-in, transit-connected facilities, to farther out places lacking high quality transit connections is going to cause problems for commuters.

I wrote that 5 years ago, well, less 6 weeks, when the announcements were first made. Too bad the various newspapers (I think back then the Examiner was still the Journal Newspapers) and politicians didn't think about that then...

Friday, August 26, 2005

Military base relocation

Security personnel checks vehicles entering Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington August 25, 2005. A military panel voted on Thursday to close the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, which has treated U.S. presidents and soldiers including Iraq-war casualties over nearly a century in the U.S. capital. (Larry Downing/Reuters)

Today's papers report on the BRAC decisions with regard to various military installations in the Washington region as well as the broader region including "out-state" Maryland and Virginia. Stephen Pearlstein's column "Base Closings are an open door," argues that these moves will help broaden the business mix and lead to longer term health of the local economy by not being so reliant on the military. (This is also discussed in "TRANSFORMING DC'S OUTDATED MILITARY FACILITIES INTO CITY REVENUES" from the NARPAC website.)

More generally, the State of Maryland is a big winner in this process, as the Baltimore Sun reports in "Panel vote would bring over 7,000 jobs to Md.: Base closing, realignment boosts Fort Meade, Aberdeen Proving Ground; State could end up with largest net gain in jobs."

My concerns center around the sprawl-promoting aspects of the move. Making Fort Belvoir a bigger regional military center increases car trips because it's not well connected to the current transportation infrastruture. And proposals to extend Metro to Fort Belvoir and even to Fort Meade in Maryland (suggested by state officials in Maryland) will add to the transportation infrastructure, but in a way that makes the newly connected area more likely to be developed in traditional sprawling patterns.

As far as Walter Reed goes, people are probably right that if the District can get control of this property (a very long process as pointed out by Delegate Norton) there will be a long-term net gain to the city as it is likely that most of the people working at Walter Reed are suburban residents.

In the old days, when people walked or took streetcars to work, most people lived relatively close to work. For example, perusing Census enumeration sheets for the H Street neighborhood for the early part of the last century finds that hundreds of people work for the Government Printing Office, located a short distance away at North Capitol and H Street, or the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, which spun off the GPO, or at private printers that grew up in the area as a cluster of printing skills developed (e.g, the headquarters of XM Satellite Radio was once a printing plant). Today, if a handful of GPO workers live in Greater Capitol Hill, I would be very surprised.

Federal Elements of the DC Comprehensive Plan and Urban Design

DC's Comprehensive Plan is comprised of two major sections, one is produced by the city and the other section, the Federal Elements, is produced by the National Capital Planning Commission. NCPC is supposed to coordinate federal land use policy within the city.

It happens that in testimony a few years ago to the National Capital Planning Commission, I mentioned the necessity of adding an urban design element to the Federal Elements as well as making the Transportation Element more robust in terms of requirements that federal facilities be located in close proximity to high capacity transit, and the provision of funds for the expansion of transit facilities in order to accomplish this.

In my opinion, Urban design and Transportation are the most important elements of the Comprehensive Plan (along with Economic Development), and I believe that (1) these elements should be designated the "leading" or guiding elements of the plan, superior to the other elements, and (2) that the Land Use element, which is typically considered the most important, is more a derivative of the other elements, which is why Land Use shouldn't be considered the leading element of the plan.

After all, as it says in the "introduction" to this blog (a quote from the Smart Growth Network publication Getting To Smart Growth 2):

A community’s physical form, rather than its land uses, is its most intrinsic and enduring characteristic.

That's why urban design is so important. DC's Urban Design element is very good. It's too bad that it is overshadowed by the Land Use Element.

Tomorrow there is an online chat by NCPC on the Federal Elements:

LIVE ONLINE CHAT: Discussion of the Comprehensive Plan with NCPC Sr. Urban Planner David Zaidain

• WHEN: Thursday, July 22, 2010 | 12:00 p.m. | Noon
• WHERE: Online and hosted by local blog DCMud

Join NCPC Sr. Urban Planner David Zaidain as he discusses the Comprehensive Plan for the National Capital: Federal Elements and how they impact the region. NCPC is beginning to update these elements and you can learn how to become involved in this important planning effort. The discussion will focus on the following topics:

• How the Comp Plan serves the region and why it matters to you
• The elements of the Plan
• The Plan's role in guiding federal facility location, transportation, etc.
• The Plan's policy impact on local/regional development
• Why the Plan is being updated
• The addition of an Urban Design Element
• Opportunities for public involvement

Event Details

• NCPC website
• Facebook

Couching anti-transit rhetoric in other terms

According to the Gazette, in "Kane says money not in the budget right now for light rail," Republican Lt. Governor candidate Mary Kane of Montgomery County says that the State of Maryland doesn't have the money for light rail in Montgomery and Prince George's Counties.

She may be right. But the issue is one of priorities, including the rate of the gas tax in Maryland. Maryland's gasoline tax stands at 23.5 cents per gallon, which ranks 26th highest nationally.

Sure, as she points out, the State needs to improve the Maryland commuter rail service, not to mention WMATA. But the problems with those services are independent of the need to improve east-west transit service in PG and Montgomery counties.

And it's not like Gov. Ehrlich was focused on improving MARC or WMATA when he was governor.

From the article:

"As [former] Governor Ehrlich said — and I support him wholeheartedly — you've got to be honest with everyone. We cannot afford a Purple Line," Kane, Ehrlich's running mate, said in a telephone interview Thursday. "We need to look at things we can do. And a rapid bus transit system is something we can do."

Generally, I am not a fan of bus rapid transit, because I think that for the most part, choice riders will not ride buses. Maybe I am wrong. New York Magazine has an article about how bus rapid transit will be the next best thing in New York City--better even than cycletracks! See "Can the MTA Revolutionize the City's Bus System?."

I think that if all mobility services paid their full cost, it would be possible for rapid bus services to be competitive, at least under 8 miles in distance, but with big subsidies for the automobile, I think even with all the bells and whistles, it will be difficult to get people to ride buses in the U.S. As it is, existing bus rapid transit services don't have ridership numbers that are all that compelling. Generally, light rail lines have significantly higher ridership. When you add the land use/economic development aspects, fixed rail transit makes more sense.

Do we need a grocery ambassador or a city-wide food security/foodways plan?

In the round of the zoning update on food issues, I didn't see fit to submit comments about urban agriculture, even though I guess I should have. Evidently, it's still gonna be close to impossible to have poultry, not to mention there is little discussion of urban orchards, urban forestry, and other issues, even though people are concerned about "food deserts" and access to fresh foods.

According to the Washington Business Journal, in Cheh introduces "grocery ambassador" bill, Councilmember Mary Cheh has introduced legislation on the topic, calling for a grocery czar amongst other steps, but I think the legislation is somewhat narrowly conceived because this issue is about more than just trying to attract some grocery stores.

The real issue is a comprehensive plan for food security and foodways in the city. Grocery stores are but one piece.

The Community Food Security Coalition is an organization broadly focused on food access. Toronto and a number of other communities across North America have created "Food Policy Councils" to focus on food access at the local level, especially in urban places, and work to make more direct links between urban and rural food policy. (The book The Edible City looks broadly at Toronto's foodways, food policies, and food industries. This paper, Food Policy Councils: The experience of five cities and one county, from 1994 discusses the disconnection of cities from foodways policymaking.)

Food Trust in Philadelphia has pushed food security and initiatives to increase the availability of fresh foods and supermarkets in underserved areas in the city and state.

Finally, the Economic Research Service of the USDA has created a Community Food Security Assessment Toolkit which provides a more systematic method for evaluating community food security and a planning framework for improvements.

The issue is tricky.

First, there is a conceptual problem with the food desert issue, because of how new urbanists and such are defining the need for access--a grocery store within easy walking distance--and the reality of how the supermarket industry is organized and focused on providing stores of 50,000+ square feet, serving retail trade areas of 50,000+ residents in a retail trade area five miles in diameter.

The reality is that not every neighborhood is large enough to support a full line grocery store the way that the grocery industry is set up to "deliver" supermarkets. Plus, many people are cost-conscious and end up patronizing stores where prices are lower (as opposed to smaller neighborhood-based stores). And the industry has worked hard at closing smaller, neighborhood stores in favor of larger single stores serving many neighborhoods.

Second, there are many grocery stores accessible to DC residents in neighborhoods that are seemingly understored, but the stores happen to be located just outside of the city in Maryland.

Washington Post image from the 2007 article "Signs of Change Line the Shelves."

Third, we need to look at farmers markets and public markets more systematicaly as a way to deliver fresh foods to residents, not so much in the higher-income areas of the city, but in the "food desert" areas. Although these areas are hard places to make such markets work if their prices are higher than typical supermarket prices.

Fourth, plus working with store sizes significantly smaller than 50,000 s.f. and with extant companies, from corner stores to affiliates of Murray's stores, and companies that aren't necessarily the region's largest supermarket chains, and independents--finding companies that are innovative and able to understand the center city as a market that is distinct and different from the suburbs.

I don't know why it is so hard in the U.S. to find a company like Sobey's, one of Canada's more innovative suprmarket companies, with a couple divisions focused on center city locations. See "How Sobey's is taking on Loblaws" from the Toronto Globe & Mail and "Grocery chains develop a taste for urban living" from the Toronto Star.

Fifth, related to both 3 and 4 concerns how such entities are organized. A faux "public market" with 10-15 different vendors, along the lines of how Baltimore's Belvedere Square is organized, is a way to assist the development of retail entrepreneurialism as well as extend food access by working with smaller entities to offer "departments" within a common space, where the overall effect is the creation of a complete array of food offerings, but through multiple businesses rather than only one.

Sixth, not to mention nutrition education. The issue isn't merely access to nutritious food, but actually purchasing and eating such food. For a number of years, I have recommended that demonstration-teaching kitchens be incorporated into Eastern Market and Florida Market, as a way to teach better nutrition.

Seventh, plus urban agriculture, including community gardening, orchards, and forestry.

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I suppose I just put myself out of the running for the grocery ambassador position...

Step up and vision an interconnected public realm

I guess my biggest problem with the cultural side of economic development in DC is that major opportunities for leverage are often missed.

With regard to cultural assets, the fact that the Arts and Culture element of the Comprehensive Plan is but a grab bag of ideas is a real problem. The lack of a solid parks and recreation master plan is another problem. Not to mention the relatively vision-less Capital Space Plan for federal and local parks planning. (I haven't had a chance to review the release of the National Park Service's plan for the National Mall.)

So is the fact that DC doesn't do what we might call sub-district planning--sure we have 'small area' plans, but small area plans are basically development guidance, they aren't comprehensive community-wide plans--becomes a real problem since breakthrough planning ideas and concepts usually come around only once in a lifetime. And if you miss the opportunity, it's gone forever (at least for a couple generations).

I have mentioned before that I was fortunate to see a presentation by David Barth of AECOM (formerly Glatting Jackson) at the 2005 APA convention on best practices park planning via his framework of what he calls "city revival" -- which combines City Beautiful ideas of parks planning with smart growth ideas and new urbanism.

He continues to refine these ideas even though the City Revival framework has not been published in textbook form (one place it can be read is in this appendix of the City of Tampa Parks Master Plan).

I was working up a concept for the bicycle and pedestrian plan for Baltimore County that I call "Signature Streets" -- combining smart growth and livability/quality of life/placemaking concepts, the county's commitment to investing in existing areas (Maryland's Priority Funding Areas, along with the county's "Renaissance" and community conservation revitalization programs), sustainable transportation (walking, biking, transit), and "complete streets" principles -- as a way to justify the financial cost of reworking particular roads as complete streets and I came about a more recent presentation by Barth and Carlos Perez, Leadership and the Role of Parks and Recreation in the New Economy.

Pages 6 and 7 of this presentation blew me away in terms of how they depict graphically the idea of "The Public Realm as an Interconnected System" and how sidewalks, bikeways, trails, streets, greenways, and transit are the links between the various components.

This is exactly the idea I was trying to convey with the "Signature Streets" concept--that it is more than a "complete street" it's about the public realm and civic assets and placemaking more broadly.

It's also relevant to the discussion touched off by Philip Kennicott in the Sunday Washington Post, in "In siting a national Latino museum, the best view is the long view about a proposed National Museum of the American Latino, and how if located in the Banneker Overlook area of L'Enfant Plaza, with the right set of additional components, could be an augur of improvement and revitalization of the public realm in that area. From the article:

The Juggernaut of Museum Politics is moving again, straight toward the Mall. This time it's a proposal for a National Museum of the American Latino, and the momentum is coming from a commission created by law in 2008. The 23-member panel is studying the feasibility of a museum in Washington to celebrate "the art, history and culture of the Latino population of the United States."

The commission made its first formal presentation to the National Capital Planning Commission on July 1, sharing with the planning oversight group a shortlist of possible sites for the museum. The NCPC will respond in August, and the museum commission will report back to Congress in September.

But things are moving fast, even at this preliminary stage. In April, there were nine possible locations on the list, according to Henry R. Muñoz III, a San Antonio-based designer and entrepreneur who is the commission chair. Now the shortlist is down to four.

And they are all on or adjacent to the Mall. Anyone who cherishes the thought that the Mall is "a substantially completed work of civic art" -- the phrase was used by Congress in 2003 in legislation meant to limit new construction -- will find little comfort in the current course of events. There is always a loophole, especially if an interest group is powerful enough to lobby Congress. Witness the appalling plan to construct an unnecessary visitors center for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, one of the most shameless land grabs in the history of the deeply contested Mall.

Washingtonians need not look to the Fenty administration, either, for much comfort. The District's Office of Planning bounced questions about the new museum over to the mayor's office, whose spokesperson e-mailed this: "The District hasn't taken an official position."

Instead, we're likely to get another museum crammed into the National Mall, and lose the opportunity to extend the quality and depth of the city's public realm.

Just as how Roger Lewis wrote in the Post, "Southeast D.C. Project Asked Too Much of the Private Sector" about Poplar Point and how DC needs to put forward a plan rather than expect a great master plan to be provided by the private sector, the city ought to step up. From the Lewis article:

Asking the private sector to plan and carry out the redevelopment of large, publicly owned tracts of land might seem like a good idea, but it can be the wrong idea. Sometimes cities themselves must do the work and shoulder the responsibility for planning new neighborhoods. ....

Several years ago, the National Park Service agreed to convey Poplar Point's federally owned riverfront parkland to the D.C. government. The District sponsored a competition to select a master plan and master developer that would finance front-end site development. The theory was that return on that investment would be generated through greatly increased value and the sale of developed parcels. ...

The company's withdrawal illuminates the fallacies of the District's Poplar Point strategy. Given the economic climate, the developer was asked to predict, promise and risk too much. It was unrealistic to demand a visionary program and plan whose feasibility was questionable from the outset and then expect the developer to provide all the financing. ...

But the city should not conduct another competition. It should prepare and adopt its own framework plan of streets, blocks, civic spaces, parks and key public facilities. This is the kind of plan for the city that Pierre L'Enfant created at the end of the 18th century, and it's a planning tradition that should continue.

Because it establishes the pattern and character of the public realm for generations, an urban framework plan must embody a long-term vision. It must incorporate design criteria and guidelines governing the form of development -- building mass and height, density and streetscape design -- and flexibly accommodate many land uses.

With such a plan, private and public investments can produce projects block by block, street by street, parcel by parcel. Inevitably, market and financial conditions, not preconceived schedules, determine the pace and type of development.

Without providing an alternative and thorough conceptualization of arts and cultural development across the city, in part as an "interconnected public realm," the city likely will continue to lose out on opportunities that most other cities will never have, because of the fact that DC is the national capital.

I think it's ironic that the New York Times reports how many cities across the country are being influenced by New York City's High Line project, see "After Elevated Park's Success, Other Cities Look Up" just as how some cities found inspiration in Chicago's Millennium Park project (see "Acres of Art" also from the New York Times), while DC cultural planning efforts seem to be stuck.

There is no question that it is a delicate balance between large arts institutions and ground up efforts that support arts production. Still, the right plan can work to do both, by taking advantage of the fact that many arts and cultural organizations want to locate here, because it is the national capital.

Feel good surveys versus focusing on substance

DC's Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs has a survey up on "improving street vending." This is an issue I have paid attention to over the years. While I haven't been involved with the issue directly, I've spent a fair amount of time with some of the people who were very active in the issue for a long time.

The problem I have with surveys like this is that generally customer surveys find that people will buy X or Y or want access to X or Y, etc., but for the most part customer interest isn't the issue.

The reality is that the issue with "improving" street vending is no different from "improving" retail in neighborhood commercial districts.

Customer interest is less of an issue than these four issues:

- number of available customers (also location)
- creativity of potential entrepreneurs/store owners/cart owners
- access to capital (doing anything other than hotdogs and chips is more expensive) both for equipment and inventory
- the regulatory environment/barriers to entry/opportunities to participate presented by the DC Government (such as requiring higher end and much more expensive carts, etc.)

Here are the survey questions:

1. How often do you eat food from one of DC’s street vendors?
2. If you do eat food from vendors, what kind of food do you eat from street vendors?
3. Are you most likely to:

• Stumble onto a vendor while headed to my favorite lunch spot?
• Hear about a vendor by word of mouth?
• Use social media like Facebook and Twitter to find new vendors?

4. How far would you travel to eat at a vendor?
5. Are there areas of the city where you'd like to see more vending?

(A key issue is segmentation. Office workers are a distinct daytime segment. But they are hard to reach, and increasingly people have less time for lunch/eat at their desk, etc.)

Another problem is that DCRA sees street vending more as a revenue issue--getting the licensing fees--rather than as something more entrepreneurial, and about how vending contributes (or fails to contribute) to vital places.

Am I wrong in thinking that the DCRA survey is somewhat pathetic?

New York City offers some interesting resources:

-- Street Vendor Project of the Urban Justice Center
-- Vendy Awards acknowledging innovative street vending
-- publications
-- Inclusive Cities webpage on street trading/vending
-- Center for Urban Pedagogy Street Vendor Guide
--New York Street Food blog

In places like San Francisco/The SF Bay region and Denver, more established restauranteurs are getting involved in street vending, partly to broaden their revenue sources. See "Oakland to debut street food fest" from the San Francisco Business Times.

How not to build support for municipal unions...

See "Hamden mayor painting the town clean (video)" and "Union files grievance on Hamden mayor's graffiti removal (video)" from the New Haven Register.

Hamden Mayor Scott Jackson paints over graffitti at on underside the Rt 15 overpass located at Wintergreen ave near Carbonella Dr. 07/12/10 VM Williams/Register

New York City isn't perfect either?

I write stuff in this blog, reasonably critical of stuff often in DC, and people will comment to me that DC functions pretty well all in all. I thought about that in terms of how I sometimes think of things in NYC, reading Streetsblog or emails from Transportation Alternatives--after all, compared to DC, New York City's doing a lot more in terms of sustainable transportation, especially in biking.

But the reality is that it's all relative, and we always have to sstrive for greatness and "better-ness" in our own communities.

So I was struck by this entry in the latest issue of the Transportation Alternatives e-letter:


The NIMFY Problem ("Not In My Front Yard")

As a grassroots, member-supported organization deeply invested in community-based planning, we're all for friendly neighborhood discourse -- even the occasional furious disagreement -- but lately a group of Park Slope residents has embarked on a campaign of misinformation and slander that seems right out of Karl Rove's playbook.

"Not in my front yard!" they're screaming about the new Prospect Park West bike lane, while claiming it was forced down the neighborhood's throat, installed without warning and that it's a "danger to pedestrians and cyclists."

Yikes. Where to begin?

The Department of Transportation installed the two-way traffic-protected bike lane as a pilot project on Prospect Park West from Grand Army Plaza to 15th Street with the encouragement of 1,500 petition signatories, the local Community Board, two well-known neighborhood groups and both of the area's City Councilmembers. T.A. trumpeted the lane for months, and it received a good deal of media coverage long before this brouhaha, so if people were unaware or felt uninformed, it is more likely a product of their own inattention than some sort of malevolent cabal.

As for safety concerns, the DOT's study is still underway -- that's part of the pilot program -- but if other bike lanes around the city are any indication, the street will get a whole lot safer. On Manhattan's 8th Avenue, the installation of a bike lane reduced crashes by over 50 percent and reduced injuries for all street users -- cyclists, pedestrians and drivers, by 51 percent. Anecdotally, the rave reviews from cyclists, pedestrians, pundits, neighborhood cranks and motorists that have appeared on message boards, in local papers and on the wall of a quickly growing Facebook group indicate that the lane is doing its job. If it's not, the City will soon find out.

In the meantime, we urge you to join this Facebook group, sign this petition and contact Councilmember Brad Lander about the Prospect Park West bike lane. Tell the Councilmember what you think of the lane and be honest. Informed facts, hard data and community input are an essential part of any good planning process. Absent those, you've got yourself a NIMFY problem.

Making improvements in places is hard everywhere, and everywhere, people's inclinations are to oppose. And the opposition generally doesn't focus on facts and figures, but impressions. And impressions are often very subjective.