Fashion vs. "integrity" in house flipping

The Friday Express has an article about the revival of house flipping, "Lucrative New Life for the Obsolete: House Flippers Are Back Post-Bubble," where people buy houses (ideally for a low price), renovate them cheaply and quickly, and resell for a higher price.

Flipping is seen as an indicator of neighborhood upgrading--some people call it gentrification, a term I do not like to use--and neighborhood repositioning.

Having been upset earlier in the week by the somewhat facile approach to urban revitalization expressed in the New York Times op-ed, "The Bright Side of Blight," this week I re-read Understanding Neighborhood Change (1979) by Rolf Goetze, which lays out a strategy for managing neighborhood change more carefully, both to reduce the possibility of decline as well as to reduce the opportunity of hyper-appreciation.

One chapter of the book is about the media and their role in positioning neighborhoods. In the early 1970s, Boston developed a program for neighborhood promotion ("Living in Boston: Public information and promotional strategies in support of neighborhood preservation" is the report that I want to track down, the tv show "This Old House" kind of grew out of those efforts) to help stabilize and improve neighborhoods in the face of suburban outmigration. Baltimore's Live Baltimore resident attraction program is based on these kinds of strategies.

What bugs me about flipping, and this is definitely true as shown in the tv shows about it (even "Designed to Sell" is pretty flippant with regard to historic architectural details), is that for the most part, the people involved don't know much or care much about historic preservation and maintaining the architectural qualities evident in the house. It is maintaining these details that provides the most long term value for the property. Not to mention the impact on the context and form of the overall neighborhood and overall property values.

With historic (or eligible for designation) houses, updates based on fashion--granite countertops, clear glass sink bowls, stainless steel appliances, see through metal stairwells, etc.--tend to fade, and need to be redone in 10 years (not unlike how urban renewal didn't stick, wasn't sustainable, and neighborhoods and business districts redone as urban renewal projects in turn have/had to be rebuilt in order to maintain relevance).

There is an article in the Denver Post, "Integrity is watchword for bungalow-restoration consultant," featuring Jane Powell, author of six books on bungalows (yes, we have 3 or 4 of them), who will be giving the keynote address Feb. 5 at the Denver Old House Society's annual Old House Fair, a day-long event for owners of homes that are 50 or more years old.

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From "Denver Old House Society’s Old House Fair tickets on sale now" in the North Denver Tribune:

Starting at 9:30 a.m., one-hour workshops will be presented, including: Caring for Your Historic Windows, Maintaining the Wood Floors in Your House, Landscaping for Old Houses, Period Details for Kitchens in Old Houses, and Maintaining The Masonry in Your Old House. Each workshop will be offered twice.

Jane Powell – author of six books on old houses, hands-on restorer, speaker and columnist – will give share her experience renovating kitchen and bathrooms, and her love for linoleum, the real stuff, during a special one-hour luncheon presentation. Tickets for the talk, including a box lunch, cost $10...

Numerous exhibitors will be on hand to showcase products and services that are specific for houses built from 1860 to 1961. Various retail vignette areas for Victorians, Bungalows, Denver Squares, Tudors and Mid-century Modern homes will feature accessories and furniture for sale – from fancy lace items for a Queen Anne to shiny chrome wares for the Ranch. Attendees will have an opportunity to win household furnishings, products and services in special drawings held throughout the day.

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From the Denver Post article:

Jane Powell couldn't care less about self-expression through interior design. The outspoken preservationist and self-proclaimed "bungalow Nazi" has just one rule: Don't mess with the fabric of an old home. "My attitude is . . . you are temporary in this house," says the California-based author of six books including "Bungalow Bathrooms" and "Bungalow Kitchens." Quite simply, Powell says: "You don't disrespect the integrity of a house." ...

Powell's talk should spark lively debate among homeowners who relish the charm of old houses but struggle with how to modernize them. [Amy] Carbone appreciated that Powell's book presents three restoration plans for three budgets. A homeowner can hint at the period a house was built through accessories; step it up with period lighting, subway tile and white appliances; or do a full-blown historic restoration with period appliances, original light fixtures and antique hardware. "Those kinds of compromise solutions were important to me because I couldn't afford to be obsessive about it," says Carbone, whose renovation cost a modest $12,000.

Carbone remodeled her kitchen to include a flip-out countertop and more room for plates. "I had an idea of what I wanted, but all that changed completely" after reading Powell's "Bungalow Kitchens," she says.

House-restoration experts consider Powell a lightning rod in the remodeling industry, where homeowners are pushed to update every five to 10 years. Powell underscores the idea that a period kitchen will always look appropriate in an old house — regardless of current design trends — while a remodeled one becomes dated.

Note that open concept first floors (where the living room, dining room, and kitchen are one long room) can be done in ways that are congruent with "old" houses, it all depends on the execution. The flow present in Arts & Crafts, Bungalows, Wardman style "porch front" rowhouses is similar, albeit with some partial walls and wide openings.

It does come down to the idea of "fashion" vs. long term sustainability and integrity.

The Express headline writer made a big mistake in calling older houses "obsolete." But then that writer, and many of the flippers probably aren't reading (and watching) the right programs.

A couple resources that are online include:

-- Rehab Rochester (from the Landmark Society of Western New York)

-- Philadelphia Rowhouse Manual

not to mention the excellent reports from DC's own Capitol Hill Restoration Society:

Red Brick, Brown Brick, Pressed Brick, and Common: Capitol Hill Brick

Repointing and Paint Removal: A Capitol Hill Restoration Society Case Study

Capitol Hill’s Unpainted Ladies

The Stained Glass Windows of Capitol Hill

Building Styles in the Capitol Hill Historic District

The How, When, and Why of Getting a Building Permit

Yours, Mine, and Ours: Front Yards and Other Public Space on Capitol Hill

Cast Iron: Firmness, Commodity, and Delight

Entrance—When a Door is More Than a Door

Windows: The Eyes of a Building

Replacement Windows

But I also recommend magazines such as This Old House, Old House Journal, Old House Interiors, American Bungalow, as well as books, including those by Jane Powell.

"Learning" the wrong lesson is always dangerous and contributes to failure

20+ years ago I worked for the Center for Science for the Public Interest on publishing and communications. One of the first projects I worked on was the compilation and publication of a short booklet on the presence of a potential carcinogen in alcoholic beverages, and promoted it through a press release and subsequent press mentions. We sold a few thousand copies, which was pretty good.

While I thought of the publication as a policy document, about what FDA and BATF weren't doing, comparing them to the actions of the Canadian health authorities, etc., the report also had a list of various alcoholic beverages and the test results, for maybe 1,000+ items (I don't remember the number).

The reality is that the booklet sold as a kind of "self-help" report. People didn't care about the policy. They wanted to know if alcoholic beverages that they bought contained the potential carcinogen.

I had to learn the real reason why people bought the publication, in order to better understand the market for health information, and from that experience (the point about what the report really was about in the eyes of the purchaser was made by the then newsletter editor, we were talking over the lunchroom table), I began to build a framework for understanding CSPI's position in niche publishing.

2. Similarly, a little more than one year ago, I ran into a fairly well known older politico type (an unsuccessful Council candidate who now has a well paying job for DC Government) and he commented about an entry I had written about a Dupont Circle historic preservation battle about a property and its "demolition by neglect."

He says, "you know why they won, don't you? I said, "you tell me." "Because they protested." (There was a protest. I don't have photos. It was covered in GGW I think.)

"No," I said. "They won because it's a designated neighborhood, so they have legal protections in place, so that when they protested, there were remedies and actions that could be taken to get them the result that they want." I then countered with an example in the Eckington neighborhood, where an 1880s (?) farmhouse had been demolished, when it too could have been rehabilitated, had the legal requirements been in place.

People don't seem to understand that when the law backs you, you can win. When it doesn't, it's very difficult to succeed, especially when your opponents are well financed.

3. This is relevant because of the Walmart issue. A lot of people think they can protest and through the "will of the people" (e.g., "we shall overcome") that Walmart can be vanquished, especially because this week, Walmart backed down on their plans to build a store on a Civil War battlefield (see "Wal-Mart drops Orange County battlefield store plans" and "Battlefield Walmart issue heads to court" from the Richmond Times-Dispatch).

I patiently tried to explain that this was a zoning issue. That people with standing (residents within a certain distance, with the support of the National Trust for Historic Preservation) sued the County to overturn the decision, based on the argument that the decisionmaking process was faulty. Note that the group didn't oppose Walmart generally, just their plans for that particular site.

As the case went to trial, Walmart backed down, and withdrew their plans for the site. From the first article:

"We just felt it was the right thing to do," said William C. Wertz, a spokesman for the Arkansas retailer. He said the company would seek another location in Orange County and compensate the county for its expenses in defending its decision to approve the store.

An industry analyst said Wal-Mart's decision was based on "practical business reasons" and harks back to founder Sam Walton's credo that Wal-Mart should never build a store where it isn't wanted.

Burt P. Flickinger III of Strategic Resource Group said it is rare for Wal-Mart to back away from a store once it has researched a location and settled on a site. But they may have wanted to avoid a continuing public relations hit at a time of disappointing sales and increased competition. "To the company's credit they decided to do something different," said Flickinger, who said he is a Wal-Mart shareholder.

Some people say again, it's because of the will of the people.

I think instead that the opponents had a good case, and rather than lose in court, especially because people weren't opposing Walmart's presence in the county, just on that particular site, they withdrew, because Walmart doesn't want to lose public and prominent battles, because that further arms opponents elsewhere.

Again, know what is going on, and understand it, before immediately deciding that something that happened somewhere, without really understanding what happened, bolsters your position.

4. Again, another Walmart example is the recent announcement by Walmart that they will be improving the healthful aspects of their foods ("Wal-Mart Plans to Make Its House Brand Healthier" from the New York Times).

I saw some article somewhere that asked why would Walmart actually follow through and implement what they said on this issue, because Walmart is known to be under ethical on labor issues, such as the case about systematic discrimination against women ("Lawyers Warned Wal-Mart of Risks Years Before Bias Suit" from the New York Times).

I responded that the writer missed the point. Walmart doesn't make "ethical" decisions. They make "business" decisions. Walmart made a business decision to improve the nutritional quality of their foods for business reasons -- to improve their competitive position, for public relations value, to build relationships with the First Lady, to increase sales. They will follow through.

Similarly, it was a "business" decision to reduce labor costs, hence allegedly discriminatory treatment of women.

The decisions were consistent, both are decisions about how to conduct their business, nothing more, nothing less.

Real estate coverage of trails access (as desirable amenities)

Geralyn Adams and Norman Dyson ride on Indian Head's Rail Trail. Photo Credit: Ann Cameron Siegal for The Washington Post.

The only meeting where I got absolutely beat down, when I was doing the Western Baltimore County Pedestrian and Bicycle Access Plan, was over plans to put a trail in a particular park just east of Towson. I had a bit of hubris about my ability to deal with opposition going into the meeting and I got schooled, big time.

In my observation, they were against the trail not just because they had spent so much time fixing up the park, but because of "misuse" by mountain bikers in the adjacent Loch Raven Reservoir, and they expected that providing multi-use trail access would lead to all kinds of problems.

I countered that with the right design and management (although at this time Baltimore County doesn't have park rangers) you can design out the potential for problems. I even suggested that the State (Gunpowder Falls State Park + the NCR Trail), Baltimore City (which owns Loch Raven Reservoir), and the County (Cromwell Valley Park) join together and do a joint management plan for the parks, which abut each other...

And I also mentioned the fact that after trails are opened they experience high usage and support, that this was the case for the North Central Trail which goes from Ashland Mill Road in Cockeysville up to the Pennsylvania state border (and continues to York) as well as with trails in the Catonsville area ("Input sought on safer bicycle, walking paths in western county" from the Catonsville Times), not to mention Anne Arundel County's experience with the Baltimore & Annapolis Trail.

I still got my clock cleaned.

But I am struck today, reading the Post real estate section, which today features Indian Head, Prince George's County, in the "Where We Live" column on neighborhoods, how many of the recent articles in this feature have specifically mentioned multiuse trails. Today's article has a nice photo of people riding on the Indian Head Rail Trail (shown above).

-- "Indian Head, Md., free of sprawl - for better and worse"

-- "Where We Live: Dempsey, cottage charm in Old Town Alexandria" (1/21/2011)

-- "Old Catonsville: Lovably eccentric" (12/10/2010)

-- "Where We Live: Arlington's Parkway neighborhood, tiny and tucked away" (10/29/2010)

-- "The Arlington Ridge neighborhood: Walking distance to everything" (10/15/2010)

Who needs an infrastructure bank when you have rich foreigners who want US citizenship

According to "SEPTA to borrow $175 million for new fare system" from the Philadelphia Inquirer, the cost of implementing a smart card fare system will be paid by bonds/borrowed money from the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation, a government agency. From the article:

The money for the new fare system is being borrowed through a low-cost loan program developed by the PIDC with CanAm Enterprises, of New York, that allows foreign investors to invest in job-creating U.S. projects in return for U.S. residency. The "Welcome Fund" will provide SEPTA with the $175 million in three installments, at an interest rate of 1.75 percent per year.

The same program has provided funding for the Convention Center, the Temple University Health System, and the Comcast Center, among others, said PIDC president Peter S. Longstreth.

Maybe it's time to give a second glance to those spam inquiries peppering my junk mail box...

If this house could talk program, Cambridgeport neighborhood, Cambridge, Mass.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation Preservation Forum News has an article, "If This House Could Talk…: Connecting Neighbors through Their Buildings," about a community history program in a Cambridge, Mass. neighborhood, Cambridgeport. People put up signs in their yards, telling facts about their houses in both 2009 and 2010, as part of a neighborhood history day.

This is an interesting program. I make the point all the time that if we don't educate people about the history of buildings/their community, how can they be expected to understand and appreciate why buildings (and their historic character and architectural details) should be preserved?

- Cambridge (Mass.) Historical Society

What are some of the interesting things about your house? For ours, I think this stuff is interesting:

- built in 1929 on two lots (later the lots were combined into one lot) by the Richardson family, white, who built the house to live in it
- we found some package wrapping paper from the Kann's department store addressed to Mrs. Richardson, in the attic floorboards
- sometime in the late 1930s or early 1940s the house was sold to the Woolfolk's, an African-American family (it's a pain to research old directories, but I'm looking forward to the release of 1940 Census data for our block, which will be sometime next year)
- the house was designed by an architect although it has similarities to bungalow kit houses
- there have been only 4 owners of the property in 80 years, and the 3rd owner lived in the house starting as an adolescent, inherited the house from her parents, and died still living there at the age of 95 (so is that three owners?)
- still has original kitchen sink and bathtub, both seafoam green
- we have a 1930s stove, but it wasn't the original kitchen stove, but it may have originally been in the basement
- while most of the house was cleared off, we have a few artifacts, such as a placard explaining how to fill the long gone coal bin, wooden car battery cases, a section of the Washington Times Herald from the 1950s, an old issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and a thermometer from Bergmann's Dry Cleaners

- Quackenbos Street was originally considered the southmost border of the Takoma Park neighborhood, although that is no longer the case

Arlington County looking for two "car free" skeptics

I've written in a number of ways about about Arlington's "Car Free Diet" program, as an illustration of innovative transportation demand management programming and as an example of what I now call "action planning" which integrates (1) design methodology; (2) social marketing; (3) the creation of complete branding and identity systems; (4) combined into an integrated program delivery system; (5) based on the idea of empowerment and participatory democracy.

While I may be into theory, the Arlington County Commuter Service Program is much more focused on practice. Last year, they cajoled two people, Todd and Ross, to take a "car free" challenge, and commit to getting around Arlington County on foot, by transit, and on bicycle, and they kept a diary of their experience through a variety of social media means (twitter, videos, Facebook entries, etc.). Todd lost seven pounds, and Ross sold his car!

For 2011, Arlington is doing the program again, and they are searching for two new County residents up to the challenge. The lucky two will receive the following support:

It may be called a "challenge," but according to ArCo, they'll be providing a lot of support to tackle the 30-day challenge, including:

- loaded SmarTrip card
- bike and biking gear from Revolution Cycles and BikeArlington
- membership to Capital Bikeshare
- detailed route maps to and from your work
- video camera to record your adventures

Visit the Arlington Car-Free Diet Skeptics Challenge website for more information and/or to enter. The deadline for entries is February 28th.

How DC universities ought to be integrating bicycling into transportation demand management

While I can't seem to find the exact provision in DC Zoning Regulations, my understanding is that colleges and universities have to update their campus plan every ten years, and submit to a public review process as part of this. (The State of Maryland requires an update every 6 years for public colleges and universities, but a direct public process for consultation with local jurisdictions isn't required, and the provisions for transportation demand management are minimal, even though some institutions go beyond the minimum requirements.)

Washcycle provides a link to Georgetown University's proposed transportation demand management plan, which was submitted as part of the update process currently underway for their campus plan.

Campus plans are one of the only areas in the DC Zoning Regulations (other than for planned unit developments) where transportation demand management is ("somewhat") required. So seeing this proposed plan is interesting, and a guide for how TDM protocols and requirements could be extended more widely to other types of land and building uses within the city.

The entry yesterday with regard to more robust requirements for bicycle accommodations in urban apartment buildings uses as guidance the five major ways that universities and colleges are supporting bicycling through the provision of bicycles. This is independent of the provision of bicycle-supportive infrastructure, programming, and support.

(I really wish I had a photo of the bike parking at the south campus dorms of the University of Maryland, as they are a clusterf***, very chaotic. Clearly not enough parking is provided. Plus, they don't provide adequate secure long term parking. Fortunately, UMD has developed and is implementing a comprehensive bicycle master plan.)

In my opinion, the best way to integrate/reintroduce college students to transportational bicycling is to provide students with bicycles. There is a lot of handwringing in Davis, California about its decline as the nation's leading bicycle jurisdiction. Davis' preeminence came with the development of the University of California campus there. Originally, car traffic was banned except on the periphery of the campus, and so biking became the predominant form of longer distance transportation. The campus has a bike shop, a bicycle planner, etc. But over time, the prevalence of biking has dropped off in Davis and other jurisdictions have surpassed the city in terms of planning and infrastructure.

Jeff Mapes, in Pedaling Revolution (review excerpt from the New York Times), surmises that the reason for the fall in bicycle usage in Davis has to do with the fact that through the 1970s, students were introduced to bicycling at a young age, and this isn't true today.

I take this idea further, suggesting that City of Davis and the University of California have tended to employ what we might call passive strategies for infrastructure and to some extent for programming (this isn't true exactly, but resources directed to promoting biking, and bicycle training have been reduced), and they have been supplanted as communities such as Portland, Berkeley (where bicycle boulevards were invented), and Minneapolis have focused on developing and implementing active strategies for the creation of infrastructure, metropolitan pathway networks, and programming, and so have surpassed Davis in terms of the actual take up and utilization of biking.

What we want are college students to bike instead of drive. Bike sharing systems don't really cut it because they are capital intensive. Bike libraries are focused on providing bicycles to occasional users, not developing battalions of transportational bicyclists--who ideally will continue to bike transportationally after college.

So the two best methods, as listed yesterday:

Ripon College freshman students getting their free bikes, 2009.

1. Give students a free bike (with some conditions) as a transportation demand management strategy designed to reduce automobile traffic, parking demand, and the space required to park cars (Ripon College Velorution program) As the Ripon webpage says:

Our world, including the Ripon campus and community, is increasingly susceptible to the societal ills of obesity, traffic congestion, fuel consumption and pollution. In recent years, a growing percentage of Ripon students have brought a vehicle to campus. Too often, Ripon students, faculty and staff alike use their vehicles to travel from their campus residences and offices to classes, the cafeteria and the gym. A recent statistic about American’s driving habits suggests that 50 percent of car trips in the United States are less than two miles. We all rely too much on our cars. ...

Ripon College is proud to join the velorution by providing a new custom Ripon College Red Hawks Cannondale F9 mountain bike to each first-year student who signs a pledge that he/she will not bring a vehicle to campus through the duration of the 2010-11 school year. Students also will be required to volunteer 10 hours of community service through the College's Office of Community Engagement. In doing so, these students will not only break their dependency on cars for transportation, they also will contribute meaningfully to their new home — Ripon.

2. (Discounted) bicycle rental by the term. At North Central College in Naperville, Illinois, for $30/term (the last time I checked), you can rent a bike for the entire semester, including a lock and helmet. They also provide free repairs by the campus bike shop.

These methods are direct and purposeful and are likely the best way to promote bicycle use generally and transportational biking specifically much more directly than the other methods.

Residential colleges and universities in DC should be encouraged to develop programs similar to these, at least on a pilot basis, especially in the urban core (George Washington University, Georgetown University, Howard University) as part of their campus planning updates.

Colleges and Universities outside the urban core (Catholic University, Trinity University, American University, the Mount Vernon Campus of GWU) should be encouraged to test these concepts.

Frustrations when people ask the wrong questions (about snowstorms among other things)

Pedestrians cross thru traffic on "K Street" as traffic is at a stand-still on the streets of Washington, DC with downtown rush hour gridlock on January 26, 2011, as a powerful snowstorm pounds the city. Commuters had drives home that were 6-8 hours long rather than 60 minutes to the suburbs and several hundred thousand greater Washington, DC, Virginia, and Maryland, residents lost electrical power. Hundreds of flights were canceled and schools closed because of a snowstorm that was expected to dump up to 12 inches (30 centimeters) of snow on US east coast cities. AFP PHOTO / Paul J. Richards (Photo credit should read PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images)

Unlike the Washington Post editorial ("Sorry excuses"), the GGW posting ("Thundersnow traffic illustrates east-west divide"), a Post column about people's frustration ("An 8-hour ordeal") Wonkette ("The Light Snow That Absolutely Decimated D.C.: A War Album") It's easy for me to not be too worked up about the traffic clusterf**k on Wednesday, when hundreds of thousands of federal workers were released early--all at the same time--just when the snowstorm started to rage, and thousands of people spent many many hours trying to get home.

In one of the interviews with Jane Jacobs after the publication of Nature of Economies, I remember an exchange with regard to road capacity. When asked about why isn't there enough road capacity, she replied:

"You're asking the wrong question. The right question is 'why are there so many cars?'"

I mention this because the main question with regard to the snowstorm-commuting debacle on Wednesday becomes one of road capacity and overburdening the system.

It's not just about road capacity generally, but of road capacity in suboptimal conditions, and in a system with a number of chokepoints -- for example there are only 5 bridges connecting DC and Virginia (+ two subway tunnels) and that means that all the traffic has to get through those 5 bridges.

The capacity of one mile of freeway lane in optimal conditions is 2,200 cars/hour. Suburban arterials probably have a capacity of about 1,300 cars maximum (the figure is dependent on the number of lanes and the number of entry points per mile and of course the speed limit and the conditions). City streets maybe 800/cars/hour/lane. And remember that with short blocks (300-400 feet in length) the queuing capacity/lane is not large.

This diagram is from an FHWA presentation on roundabouts, but the capacity data for urban roads by lane is still relevant.

The fact is that in an auto-dependent mobility paradigm, when you have hundreds of thousands of drivers leaving work at the same time, having to drive more slowly in suboptimal conditions, with car and other breakdowns reducing the number of open lanes, and all converging on a relatively small number of entry/exit points simultaneously, you have the recipe for disaster--if you are automobile dependent.

The thing is that this is nothing new. I have written before about similar events over the years, and my experience on my bike cruising by blocks and blocks of stalled traffic (such as that backed up for entry onto I-395 at Massachusetts Avenue NW).

The solution of course is to prioritize transit (even so there is little slack capacity in the system to add service), including snow removal on bus routes, but also to create an early release schedule that is based on shifts, whereby certain agencies are assigned leave times, with the idea that there is a gradual release of workers so that the system is not completely overburdened at the outset.

The thing is that isn't how the federal government has done it in the past. Directors of the Office of Personnel Management are new with each administration and lack institutional memory.

Plus it is politically difficult now to make decisions about letting people leave work early because of the rampant bashing of federal workers and the federal government.

It's too difficult to try to explain to people that the problem really has to do with the mobility paradigm, mobility capacity, the onset of the worst of the storm during "rush hour" and a flawed process for early release which inadequately takes these factors into consideration.

If you work within 5-10 miles of where you live and you have good transit access, while it might take a little longer to get home, you should be okay. If you live farther away, or in locations where your mobility is car-dependent, any substantive breakdown in the capacity and throughput of the road system will lead to catastrophic delays.

When the system is broken, it's easy to blame public officials for their failures, but the fundamentals of the problem are much deeper and less facile that editorial writers seem to understand.

For example, to add capacity, the editorial suggests opening unused lanes in the other direction (southbound 16th St. for example) without recognizing the legal requirements for doing this safely are considerable--barriers, roadblocks, police-traffic enforcement personnel at major intersections, etc.--and would be difficult to pull off on a moment's notice even in optimal conditions of temperature, weather, time of day, and visibility.

Instead, I call that a prescription for more accidents and more problems, not fewer...

Road Congestion as a Policy Driver in spite of the system complexity. MIT class diagram.

Rethinking the best way for urban apartment buildings to support biking

Washcycle calls our attention to an article in the Gazette, "College Park officials ready to back new housing project: Project to bring apartments and retail could break ground in fall," about how the new Domain College Park 256 unit apartment project agreed to pay for a 7 dock bicycle station with 4 bikes.

I'm not sure how much it will cost for the compromise decision. The 11 bicycle + station setup that was originally requested cost $54,000.

I don't think that itty bitty bike sharing stations are the best way to integrate bicycle accommodation into large mulitunit apartment and condominium buildings, at least in more urban settings.

First, WABA made an excellent point in their comments to the DC Zoning Commission on bicycle parking, that according to the 2001 National Household Travel Survey there are 0.86 bikes per household. It seems clear that a fractional requirement of 0.75 bicycle parking spaces per unit will not meet current demand (although it would be helpful to have DC-specific data). (See this Washcycle entry for more.)

Second, therefore building regulations should require that one or two bicycle parking spaces be provided per unit, depending on the expected population of the building, and depending on the "urbanness" of the location--e.g., apartment buildings in the core of the city should have higher requirements than places in outlying parts of the city, and this concept of providing greater numbers of bicycle parking spaces for buildings in settings where bicycles are likely to used should be extended regionally.

Third, of course the parking should be secure (locked with secure entry only for those people with bikes), to be congruent with best practices in bicycle parking, which distinguish between the needs of short term parkers (visitors/customers) vs. long term parkers (residents/employees).

See the Toronto Guidelines for the Design and Management of Bicycle Parking for more detailed guidelines for long term parking (bike cages and indoor bicycle rooms).

Flickr photo of two tier bicycle racks by hey-gem

Finally, it would be nice if buildings looked at the provision of bicycle support as a premium amenity, comparable to the Bicycle Kitchen facility in the Plant51 housing development in San Jose, California.

Flickr photo of the Plant51 Bicycle Kitchen repair set up by Jimmy-Lin

I think we can look to the methods for providing support for bicycling on college campuses for guidance with regard to apartment buildings. There are five different methods that I've come across (in addition to having a bike shop/repair facility on campus, programming, bike parking, bike lanes and other bicycle infrastructure, ideally a bicycle and pedestrian coordinator, etc.):

1. Give students a free bike (with some conditions) as a transportation demand management strategy designed to reduce automobile traffic, parking demand, and the space required to park cars(Ripon College Velorution program)

2. Bike library -- you can go to the Rec. center and check a bike out. But it requires labor and space and can only be done when the center is open. This is more for casual and recreational use rather than transportational use.

3. Rental by the term. At North Central College, for $30/term, you can rent a bike and you get a lock and helmet too. And depending on the program, free repairs. This is for TDM purposes and limits the amount of program management and labor demands imposed by the bike library.

4. Discounted purchase programs like the Fuji University program by Fuji Bicycles, which is in place at many universities including Michigan State, Emory University, Temple University, and Brigham Young University. With this kind of program, not unlike discounted software pricing made available to students, the university doesn't have to worry about anything, it's taken care of by the local Fuji bicycle dealer.

5. Bikesharing programs. Just like the traditional bicycle programs, but with different equipment and university support, such as the Zotz bicycle sharing program at UC Irvine. The problem with bikesharing programs is that they are capital, managerially and operationally intensive, and need a high density of stations to provide a useful and usable service profile.

Some hotels (Starwood W Hotel webpage, "Europe on Two Borrowed Wheels" from the New York Times), office buildings (see "Property Funds See the Value in Being Green" from the New York Times), and an apartment building in Tokyo ("Residents of the Muji village can take advantage of free Muji bikes," photo from the Independent) have bicycle programs, either for free as an amenity or for a small charge.

I think with the Domain College Park apartment project, with 256 units targeting upscale residents, that the City of College Park, instead of getting a one-time donation of $54,000 for an 11 bicycle sharing station (even though they settled for a 4 bike, 7 dock station), should have instead required the provision of secure, protected parking for at least 400 bicycles (with a provision for expansion depending on demand), and the offering of a program of a rental bicycle program comparable to how the Term rental program works at North Central College. For $5 or $10/month, the tenant can get a bike and a lock and a space to park in the secure bicycle parking station.

For about $60,000, you could buy at least 100 bicycles, 100 locks, and pay for most of the set up cost for a secure parking facility for 400 bicycles. That would end up supporting active bicycle use far more than one 11 bike sharing station.

This type of program should be promoted as part of more comprehensive transportation demand management protocols created as part of the development review and approval process for construction of new multiunit housing proposals.

But then College Park needs to complement this with increased bicycle infrastructure and programming, and extend comparable requirements to other new buildings being constructed there.

The Brookland Station site plan by the Abdo Company, for the former "south campus" of Catholic University. The site abuts the Metropolitan Branch Trail and the Brookland subway station on the red line. This is a perfect location for an apartment building to position its marketing program around sustainable transportation and proximity to the city's first shared use path, and support the provision of high quality bicycle parking and other programming on the site.

Supermarkets Inc: Inside a $500 Billion Money Machine - CNBC TV special tonight, 9pm

Produce section of the Acme supermarket store in Lawrenceville, N.J.,
Originally uploaded by rllayman

The story covers how supermarkets organize their stores to sell more. It's always good to learn about best practice merchandising.

- Supermarkets Inc. tv show website

Vacant building allegedly for lease, H Street NE

Vacant building allegedly for lease, H Street NE
Originally uploaded by rllayman

The City Paper has a story, "The H Street Waiting Game: How A Commercial Corridor’s Bright Future Holds Back Its Present," on the trials and tribulations of urban revitalization in commercial districts, and the difficulties of dealing with property owners and their representatives. (Also see the follow up piece, "Falling to Earth on H Street NE.")

She interviews John Formant, who whines about residents. This building of his has been vacant for all of the 23+ years I've lived in Washington.

Although he did paint it, after complaints about his slumlord tendencies came up when he was dealing with an issue that came before ANC6A.

She talks with a representative from Solomon Properties. Some building owners who invest their money and time into commecial districts like H Street NE argue that vacant property owners just slap on a for lease sign to evade higher vacant property tax rates. Considering that the building in the top most picture has been vacant for pretty much one decade at least (I can't remember much beyond 2000), I sometimes think that some commercial retail brokers seem more like a front than an active participant in revitalization.

Snowing on the bike sharing station, 700 block of Pennsylvania Ave. SE

Snowing on the bike sharing station, 700 block of Pennsylvania Ave. SE
Originally uploaded by rllayman

This one is taken with the flash.

A sales flyer in the window of a real estate office, promoting proximity to Walmart (and streetcars)

A sales flyer in the window of a real estate office, promoting proximity to Walmart (and streetcars)
Originally uploaded by rllayman

Cities ain't where it's at if you're a Republican Congressman, and so, neither is transit...

2004-11-11-cover, The Stranger
Originally uploaded by rllayman

The blog I attempted to create years ago, Urban Agenda, was to be focused on developing an urban agenda that could be entered into the foray inPresidential campaigns. It was intended to be a group blog, but unlike David Alpert's wildly successful effort at bringing together good people in to write for Greater Greater Washington, I wasn't able to pull it off.

Yonah Freemark's Transport Politic has a superb post, "Understanding the Republican Party’s Reluctance to Invest in Transit Infrastructure," about the spatial representation patterns of members of the House of Representatives in the US Congress, and how urban representation tends to be Democrat, while Republicans tend to represent suburban and exurban areas.

This isn't a good time to be pushing sustainable transportation policies, given the control of the House of Representatives by the Republican party.

The image is from the cover story, "The Urban Archipeligo" from Seattle's Stranger alternative newspaper after the results of the 2004 Presidential election. It recognized a similar city vs. suburbs/exurbs breakdown in the results of that election, and proposed that the Democratic party refocus on the center cities and the development of an urban agenda.

The 2008 presidential election was somewhat anomalous as inner suburbs voted Democratic more than in the 2010 election. I attribute that to piss poor narrative and organizing on the part of the Democrats. Hopefully, this won't be repeated in 2012.

Good volunteerism vs. "bad" volunteerism

I used to "argue" with my ex-wife about "direct" vs. "indirect" service. We both worked for national organizations focused on social change. She worked for an organization concerned with food-related poverty issues; I worked at a consumer group focused on nutrition and public health policies. Both groups focused on what I term structural change and govt. programs, such as nutrition labeling, pesticide laws, health policy at my group; school food service, WIC and other programs at her group.

But she didn't get the kind of satisfaction that comes from "helping people directly" that comes from giving someone a meal at a soup kitchen. I called that direct service, whereas I was happy to focus on deeper, but harder to realize, structural changes, in order to help more people in substantive ways.

Her way was to help people, but not to change their conditions in material ways, while I was (and continue to be) focused on deeper structural changes.

This comes up, for me anyway, with a volunteerism program in Arizona, called For Our City. There's an article about it in the Arizona Republic, "Non-profit wants to honor Arizona centennial with service." From the article:

In honor of Arizona's centennial in 2012, a Tempe non-profit has challenged residents, businesses and faith groups to volunteer 100 hours of community service this year. For Our City, a program managed by Care Inc., launched "100 Hours in 2011" last week. Care Inc. founder and Tempe resident Jon McHatton said the goal is to get hundreds of people to dedicate 100 hours of their time to caring for the homeless and hungry, to mentoring or to other human-service projects.

The organization's website describes its work as a "catalyst for constructive change at community grassroots levels. It provides a “safe place” for municipal, faith, non-profit and business leaders to dialogue for effective solutions for their community."

But if you look at what they work on, it's mostly in "direct service" helping programs that while helping people and helping them individually. This strikes me that it's about not questioning how things are done all that much, but helping people who need help. That's important, but I wonder how much substantive "dialogue" occurs, and whether or not "effective" and substantive "solutions" are ever proffered.

The program likely isn't pursuing deeper, structural changes in local programs, government, policy, and society, so that material conditions for individuals and populations change significantly and substantively.

Sort of like what DC does with youth improvement programs. People make reports without deep analysis, and mostly the reports are about giving monies to helping organizations, but questions about effectiveness and the quality of outcomes remain.

I know that there isn't a lot of recognition in working for structural change as most people don't understand it, but in the long run, I think it accomplishes much more overall.

Live Baltimore Homeownership Workshop flyer

Live Baltimore Homeownership Workshop flyer
Originally uploaded by rllayman

In keeping with what I've been writing about an overarching approach to urban revitalization, the Live Baltimore program's latest e-letter is promoting their upcoming workshop series.

I am particularly intrigued by the workshop on Buying and Rehabbing a Vacant Property. It's not an easy in the best of times and places. I remember the problems (thefts, etc.) back in the day in the H Street neighborhood. It's got to be worse in Baltimore.

Still, I think these kinds of programs -- resident attraction programs -- work best through the provision of a complete package of services and support programs, including financing.

Otherwise the time period over which revitalization takes is extremely drawn out.

Making hard choices in the beginning makes programs more sustainable in the end (even if harder to create)

DC created a community college, to help the University of the District of Columbia better focus on job training type programs vs. traditional four year degree programs and graduate education. This was suggested in a 2009 report published by the Brookings Institution and was followed up by an op-ed and other coverage in the Washington Post.

-- Building a Strong, Independent DC Community College

The issue and links to coverage including an op-ed by Alice Rivlin and Walter Smith are in the October 2008 blog entry, "Thinking Regionally: Community Colleges."

At the time, I criticized the path taken by the University. I suggested that instead of creating a new community college, why not try to develop a community college jointly with either or both Montgomery College and Prince George's County Community College, comparable to how Northern Virginia jurisdictions have combined to offer one community college system across their geography in the Northern Virginia Community College system (Jill Biden is teaching there...).

This was suggested by the Brookings report (but not in the op-ed in the Post) which called for working with one or more suburban community colleges during the set up period, but along the path of creating a fully autonomous and independent exclusively DC institution. This was rejected because it would be hard to set up. From the executive summary:

While Options 2 and 3 both result in independence for CCDC, they differ primarily in the strategy by which they reach scale. The project team considered political realities, financial limitations, legal requirements, employer needs, community wishes, effects on UDC, and organizational interests to determine the best way forward to achieve the stated goals. The project team is also aware that, due to the rapid pace of change at UDC/CCDC, some of the details in the report may be out of date by the time the report is released but that the overall recommendations will remain valid.

This report concludes that the District should support CCDC's intention to separate from the flagship university, and encourage it to take the fast track to becoming an independently-accredited, autonomous community college with its own Board of Trustees and budget. The report also concludes that CCDC's move toward independence would be significantly advanced by developing appropriate partnerships with one or more of the DC area's three suburban community colleges (Northern Virginia Community College, Montgomery College, and Prince George's Community College) to take advantage of these institutions' resources and reputations and quickly expand CCDC's capacity. Such partnerships could be the start of a regional consortium of community colleges in the DC area. Accordingly, the report recommends that CCDC pursue Option 3, which we call the "Independence Plus Partnership Option."

Sure it would have been hard to create. But why create another administrative structure, deans, etc., and instead offer DC students the opportunity to study at multiple campuses that are already extant, and likely the opportunity to have a broader array of educational and technical opportunities, because of the greater total resources made available to students.

-- Montgomery College has three campuses (one is close by in Takoma Park-Silver Spring) with 60,000 full and part-time students.

-- PG County Community College has 37,000 students, with one main campus in Largo, and three extension campuses, including one at Prince George's Plaza Metro Station.

-- Northern Virginia Community College has 6 campuses, two centers (admittedly not easy for DC residents to get to) and 78,000 students, plus an online learning initiative

Today's Post has an article, "UDC says community college at risk of cuts unless it gets $8 million from District" about the financial problems faced by the DC Community College, because the cost of setting up the institution has been greater than expected, and has used up all the previously allocated monies in advance of the period (four years) that they were expected to be expended, not to mention that there has been heavy demand (which was also covered in this Post article from the summer, "Rising enrollment is a mark of success for new D.C. community college"). From the first article:

Since UDC launched a community college two years ago, enrollment has soared: More than 2,500 students attend two-year academic and job training programs at multiple locations in the city. But UDC officials say they have been forced to spend more than $18 million to get the community college off the ground, nearly depleting the flagship four-year college in Northwest of its reserve funds.

"We want people to know there is no more money in this piggy bank," said Allen L. Sessoms, president of UDC. "If they want to keep this going, we need money, and it's going to cost money."

For all its aspirations, DC isn't all that big. While a community college is vitally important to workforce development, rushing forward without fully thinking the project through is proving to be problematic. Most of the campuses are satisficed, and the college doesn't have the resources it truly needs to scale up, not to mention it's duplicative.

Sexy and fashionable programs don't make blight go away

Vacant houses a few blocks from Penn Station in Baltimore. Note that one of the building has an "arts project" on it, as it's in the Station North Arts District (which has had some real positive impact on Charles Street and North Avenue with commercial property).

There is an op-ed in the New York Times, "The Bright Side of Blight," about the need to link employment development programs to revitalization programs for urban improvement. Even though I agree with the argument, I ended up responding to the article somewhat negatively on an e-list I'm on and there was a back and forth.

Image from Green For All

I think my negative reaction is a function of how difficult it is to work on these issues when most programs are conceived in flawed ways, are under resourced, and because they are band aid like responses to the financial leakage that has been created by suburban outmigration, sprawl, consolidation of industry generally, and then globalization of the world economy specifically and the creation of a new playing field where the U.S. is no longer the preeminent actor that can pay workers extranormal wages for rote work because it was performed in the U.S., but now labor must compete in a global market with countries where labor costs are 1/20 or less of U.S. workers.

So this is what I wrote originally--

Of course it's important to include job development and training within neighborhood revitalization programs. But the fundamental problem is a broken economy and lack of demand.

The problem with community development from the 1960s-2011 is that for the most part it has focused on making better housing, but not on fixing broken economies. (See "The Myth of Community Development" from a 1994 issue of the New York Times Sunday Magazine.)

Better urban housing is important, but it isn't economic development in and of itself. I wonder if this is the same case for the programs discussed in the article.

These kinds of programs are important, but not significantly ameliorative in terms of rebuilding broken microeconomies. Mostly they are about using stuff that is otherwise unused, or trying to build a market for better decision making and practice far in advance of the ability for the market to be sustainable, such as for "green collar jobs."

The key is triage and sorting. Neighborhoods that have the potential to be competitive within the regional residential landscape ought to get different treatments than the neighborhoods that in the next 10-20 years don't have that opportunity.

There was an interview, "'If you cut the rate, people will come'," in the Baltimore Sun last week with Loyola University economist Steve Walters about how reducing residential property taxes would be a boon to city residential attraction programs. From the article:

The Loyola University Maryland economics professor, pointing to the modern rebirths of San Francisco and Boston after tax revolts forced drastic rate cuts three decades ago, has long argued that Baltimore would become a much healthier city if it followed suit voluntarily. More people would move in, he says. More owners would fix up dilapidated properties. In several years, revenue collection would be back to its old levels — and then surpass them, he predicts. ...

Few argue that Baltimore's rate, more than twice as high as any county rate in Maryland, is good for the city. But elected officials, loath to severely tighten budgets to make up for revenue shortfalls in the near term for the hope of better times later on, have never permanently reduced the rate in a significant way.

So Walters, in a new paper written with former student Louis Miserendino, lays out a plan aimed at minimizing initial budgetary pain. They've dubbed it "cash on delivery." Amend the city charter to guarantee that the tax rate — now close to 2.3 percent — would drop to 1 percent in three or four years, they suggest. Then set aside the extra revenue as property sales and rehabilitations presumably ratchet upward in anticipation of the tax relief, and spend the revenue only after the rate drops.

-- How To Make Baltimore A Superstar City

This reminded me of the Philadelphia tax abatement initiative of no property tax for 10 years on converted multiunit housing buildings from what had once been abandoned warehouses and factories. The program has since been expanded to all commercial construction, not just conversion projects. ("BUILDING INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION: PHILADELPHIA TAX ABATEMENT ANALYSIS")

It's a good program, although soon these buildings are gonna have to start paying taxes--at least in Philly.

I don't know what a sortation and triage based revitalization program would be for Philly. The big problem is that cities don't operate in a vacuum, but within a regional landscape with many other actors and various levels of government over which the center city has no control.

I used to think that transit was essential to the maintenance of a viable city, but Philly is one of those center cities (other cities with comparable wide spread transit systems are Boston, San Francisco, Washington, Chicago, and San Fracisco + Montreal and Toronto in Canada) with a great transit system but the city is still economically unsuccessful.

Then, I wrote this--

After reading Rybczynski's Makeshift Metropolis last week in prep for a review, I am coming to the view that I need to write a primer/handbook on urban revitalization myself.

My disappointment with the book is that it is neither a polemic (think of the books by Kuntsler) or a primer (like Mike (Mihalio) Temali's great textbook Community Economic Development Handbook or some of the publications from the Main Street Center such as Marketing an Image for Main Street), even if it covers the subject well enough and has some good insights sprinkled throughout.

Granted were I to write a book it would be somewhat derivative, but it would focus in very practical ways on the topic, a true handbook/primer guide to people trying to figure stuff out overall, rather than a micro focus on whatever strategy is fashionable that day.

My criticism of the Smart Growth Manual by Duany, Speck and Lydon is that it while it is a useful guide of what to do in terms of development -- and granted there is a lot of bad development going on -- it's not instructional, and the book doesn't include the kind of follow up and more detailed information that people need in order to make knowledge actionable. In short, it is no Urban Design Compendium.

It would cover Temali's model, the Main Street Approach, entrepreneurship development and retail development programs (like the Historic Downtown LA Retail Project, Second Street in Austin, etc.), residential strategies (historic preservation, Elm Street model, resident attraction programs), sustainable transportation/transit, streetscape/livability infrastructure improvement programs, business and neighborhood programming operations and financing models (Business Improvement Districts, Community Service Districts, Community Benefits Districts, Main Street organizations, neighborhood associations, Community Development Corporations, etc.), arts programs and the difference between revitalization and community building, tempered by strong and weak real estate markets, the regional retail landscape, etc. + financing (tax abatements, special tax districts, bond initiatives), housing programs and land tenure practices (options of coops, land trusts, portfolio investment, etc.), business organization, municipal financing and tax policies, etc. Even regulation in some instances.

Revitalization is complicated and hard work and the accepted nostrums be they CDCs/housing, enterprise zones, big projects like convention centers or casinos or other wack job ideas, don't help all that much.

And frankly, even I only know how to help communities that are reasonably well connected by freeways, railroads, or transit. Small dis-connected communities, unless they are resource-blessed (natural resources, tourism, etc.), I can't help.

In my experience, in reasonably well connected places, transit--as long as it is the right kind of transit and not overly satisficed--is the public investment with the greatest ROI by far.

That's what I learned from observing the impact of the creation of the infill subway station at "New York Avenue." Irrespective of its anchor development impact on the "NoMA District," that subway station also positively impacted residential and commercial improvement and investment north of H Street, which had previously served as a hard and fast boundary for people with choices. This led to a revaluing of at $350 million for the residential properties north of H Street and south of Florida Avenue (an average increase of $200,000 per property).

And finally, I wrote this--

Basically, what I've come to believe is that is in weaker markets, you have to make choices, and even in weaker markets there are submarkets that have opportunity and can be "fixed."

I figured this out because I would think long and hard about my experience in DC, which was hard enough, and then try to figure out what to do in similar situations in Detroit, Baltimore, or Pittsburgh, but where the real estate markets are weak.

Eventually I figured out that if someone asks you "how do you fix Detroit?" that it would be crazy to not be totally paralyzed, but then you have to step back and recognize that you aren't trying to fix the entire city, that you break it down to the neighborhood/commercial district level.

And that, while every place is unique of course because it is a unique creation, few neighborhoods/commercial districts are exceptional and can't be compared. Using some pretty simple analytical tools, you can analyze neighborhoods and commercial districts at the block level, and you can develop strategies to move these places, both overall and at the block level, up the ladder of improvement.

That means making _hard_ choices about where to focus investment, and where not to invest, at least initially, to be able to substantively (re)build critical mass and then build on the critical mass--expanding and extending outward from these pockets of strength.

This is really hard to do politically though. Politicians like to spread money around and give a little bit to everyone. It doesn't make for very speedy improvement though. And people get all enamored with their urban garden programs and such, which dissipates the necessary focus on rebuilding the local economies.

(Remember that this was the central lesson of the Main Street program. People's interest in commercial district revitalization was driven by their interest in saving historic buildings. But very soon into the pilot program, the leaders realized that disinvestment in the buildings was a symptom of the real problem, a broken economy within the commercial district. It was the lack of success of the commercial districts, which had been supplanted by the development of regional shopping centers, which led to low rents below the requirements for maintaining buildings and/or vacancies leading to further disinvestment. The need then was to rebuild the economic success of these places as retail districts.)

Baltimore's Live Baltimore resident attraction program is one initiative that works to market the city and its neighborhoods in very specific ways. They do tours, provide incentives, market to potential residents, and have lots of programming initiatives. Baltimore's Healthy Neighborhoods program is another, which provides targeted assistance programs to neighborhoods that are in need of revitalization assistance. Other communities do similar programs. Cleveland Restoration Society has done a bunch of programs concerning restoration as well as specific improvement programs (so does the Famikos Foundation there). Community Design Center of Pittsburgh does a lot of great work wrt assisting homeowners with renovation. Some of these kinds of programs can be linked to low cost loan funds. They are in Cleveland.

Then there is the tax abatement program that happened in Center City Philadelphia to retrofit large unused buildings into multiunit residential properties, as mentioned above.

The Elm Street program created by the State of Pennsylvania applies the Main Street approach to neighborhood revitalization. (Maryland has copied this as "Pine Street" but I haven't seen much of its work, there was an initiative in Cambridge in fact, but I never got a chance to talk to them.) We can think of this as an extension and formalization of the ideas and concepts expressed by Rolf Goetze in Building Neighborhood Confidence.

And the kind of university-historic preservation joint venture as in Macon Georgia between Mercer U and Historic Macon (that program was recently touted as a new urbanist thing on this list, and maybe that's the case, but I've seen other presentations on this program and NU was never mentioned) as a way to target reinvestment to build critical mass. Of course, the University of Pennsylvania has done similar things in West Philadelphia.

And the general discussion in the book Changing Places about historic preservation. And revolving funds. Some communities have them, most don't. (We don't in DC, even though Historic Savannah created, arguably, the first preservation-based revolving fund in 1962.)

The problem though with preservation-based revitalization strategies is that in weak real estate markets, there is no question that the costs involved in maintaining a building to historic preservation standards are not made up in the back end by increased property values. So a 1200 s.f. rowhouse in the H St. neighborhood (which isn't even designated) is worth $400K, and $600-$700K closer in, in the designated Capitol Hill neighborhood, but might be worth $125K, in Rochester, NY, and less in cities like Detroit or Cleveland or in the suburbs of Pittsburgh.

Frankly, the addition of these kinds of housing programs to the program laid out in Temali's Community Economic Development Handbook provides a relatively complete approach to neighborhood and commercial district revitalization if you ask me + management programs (Main Street or whatever).

The DC Walmart issue is frustrating

From email:

Wal-Mart Officials to present plans for 4 DC stores at DC Federation Assembly

Date: Tuesday, January 25, 2011, 8:55 AM
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
7:00PM . Room 412
John A. Wilson Building
1350 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

Special Presentation
Mr. Keith Morris, Director of Community Affairs, East Region, Wal-Mart

I am chairing a subcommittee focused on the large tract review process for the Walmart proposed for Square 2986 on Georgia Avenue NW (Ward 4). There are four other subcommittees focused on the effort and thus far I have been impressed by the level of participation and interest and discourse expressed by the participants so far.

-- Committee on Square 2986

The committees site has a lot of the documents the groups have been preparing or gathering, but not the email traffic.

Email threads yesterday indicated that the Walmart people are basically saying the same stuff at every meeting, and they aren't going through an iterative process where they take info in and respond subsequently with better proposals.

I know in my committee meeting we discussed how the development process works, and how Walmart games the process. I do find it interesting as I wrote before, about the oppositional response in New York City, while for the most part elected officials are rolling over in DC.

To me, the issues are really twofold:

- Walmart and their entry

- the developers and what they do with their sites.

Walmart's one thing. Crappy development of the sites in ways that don't further other revitalization objectives is something else.

The latter issue isn't being addressed for the most part, as people are focusing for the most part on Walmart as a company.

As for Walmart's entry, it is true that the reality is that there is very little that we can do to oppose their entry because we have limited legal means (as expressed through DC's building and planning regulations, as codified through zoning regulations) to do so.

People need to understand the significant gaps in DC building regulations (zoning regulations) with regard to community input and review of what are considered for the most part to be matter of right projects.

E.g., DC doesn't have a provision for special/additional review of retail stores over a certain size. Other communities do.

Some cities, like San Francisco, require significant review of each and every chain store proposal. In fact, I think their law is too draconian, as there is room and need for chain stores as part of more complete commercial districts and retail strategies.

Still other communities have more detailed review procedures for certain types of retail and service proposals (such as fast food stores--DC has this for certain commercial zoning categories) or for locations (i.e., neighborhood serving zoning in certain districts of Laguna Beach, CA to prevent over touristification of the commercial district).

The reason that the new "pawn shop notification" "law" in DC is meaningless is that for the most part it provides no remedies or significant criteria by which an oppositional argument can be made on the part of interested community groups and other stakeholders.

That means that desires for community benefits agreements with Walmart, while desirable for the community, have no basis in DC law (except if any of the specific projects will involve planned unit development zoning provisions, which I understand is the case for the Ward 7 store only) because they are matter of right projects.

In fact, the Walmart proposal for New Jersey Avenue in Ward 6 doesn't even trigger the large tract review process (Chapter 23 of the Zoning Regulations) so there is absolutely no opportunity for community input on the Walmart aspect of the project there.

Ideally, the community response to Walmart and the inability to accomplish very much will lead to initiatives to add these types of provisions to DC's zoning regulations.

People's animus with regard to Walmart means that the developers are getting a pass on whether or not their proposals for site development are good--the New Jersey Avenue proposal, or suck--the New York Avenue and Georgia Avenue proposals, or potentially sucking (Ward 7 proposal).

That's what bugs me the most.

And what I wrote about, in an op-ed "Temper Walmart glee with planning," published by the Washington Business Journal.

The word "glee" refers to the initial and in my opinion wrong-headed positive response by smart growth types to Walmart's "urban" entry into DC, because one of the four store sites--note that is 1/4, 0.25 or one-fourth--will be developed in an urban fashion.

That too quick and premature response has been picked up nationally and in turn it makes it that much more difficult to focus people's attention on the real and fundamental problems present in the remaining--3/4, 0.75, three-quarters--projects.

I don't expect anything new to come out at the presentation tomorrow night (which I will miss because I have a prior commitment).

I am not the only blogger lamenting about inwardness... (regionalism)

(Image: midwest states as defined by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. I added the header.)

The Planner's Dream Gone Wrong is a blog focused on Chicago and the midwest, and has a number of recent entries on regional provincialism by the states ( "The New Provincials" and Indiana Wants Me (But I Can't Go Back There)*).

I do this kind of laments about DC's inward thinking and embrace of mediocrity, which because the city is the national capital, is branded as something that merits being termed "world class." (e.g., "Chauvinism, mediocrity and robust systems").

I had been wracking my brain, trying to figure out some municipal initiatives that DC has done/is doing that are truly best in class, and except maybe for the local Apps for Democracy thing (which I think are often focused on whiz bang stuff, and not substance anyway) and the DC 5 cent tax on shopping bags, plus in the comments BeyondDC adds bike sharing which is a reasonable addition (although see my response, also in the comments), I couldn't come up with much of anything, other than how the previous director of the Housing Authority significantly revitalized the agency and early initiatives on streetscape/complete streets improvements starting about 10 years ago in Georgetown and then on Barracks Row on 8th Street SE, which predate best practice efforts in places like NYC and San Francisco.

Sure, we are doing streetcar planning, but we have been doing it for 8 years, while in half that time, Seattle not only planned a streetcar line, but built and opened it. Yes, we started great livability/complete streets initiatives, but other communities have since taken these initiatives further. Etc.

He touts Richard Longworth, a former journalist now at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, who writes the blog Global Midwestern. Longworth authored the book Caught in the Middle: America’s Heartland in the Age of Globalism.

Longworth's entry, "How To Fix the States," is interesting in how he makes the point that abroad, individual state initiatives to attract business or tourism are important, but overseas, the typical country doesn't distinguish much difference between say Wisconsin, Indiana, or Michigan, and that the states would do better to jointly market (and save money, time, and other resources).

He doesn't suggest that they jointly brand themselves as part of such an effort, but that's a no brainer. I know my attempt above image-wise is feeble but hey, I don't have any decent graphics software...

At the level of the metropolitan area, it's not unusual for business attraction efforts to do something like this, such as the "Select Greater Philadelphia" initiative in that region (their logo is pretty pathetic though), the Greater Washington Initiative on Regional Economic Development (better logo) run by the Greater Washington Board of Trade, or the Trade Development Alliance of Greater Seattle.

Although when it's a big thing like a corporate headquarters (e.g., Hilton Hotels or Northrup Grumman) the states get involved, incentive packages get developed, and regional cooperation goes out the window.

At the metro level, another discussion of "regionalism" is balancing tax revenue receipts across the region, rather than by individual jurisdiction--which is the point of Growth Machine based competition, to maximize precious property tax revenues through real estate development. Myron Orfield's book Metropolitics is about developing that kind of regionally-linked agenda.

One initiative along these lines is the First Suburbs Consortium, which started in the Cleveland metropolitan area, and the related First Suburbs Development Council, in Cuyahoga County. Of course, neither effort helps Cleveland, the declining center city that is still the heart of the region economically.

And of course, there are the city-county mergers, as has happened in Indianapolis-Marion County, Louisville (KY)-Jefferson County, Lexington (KY)-Fayette County Urban Government, and Nashville-Davidson County (they have one of the nation's best planning directors!).

There's been talk about this for at least 5 years in Pittsburgh and Allegheny County, Pennsylvania.

There is a big push by Governor Christie in New Jersey for consolidation of various small government service districts (see "What's really holding up municipal consolidation" from the North Jersey Herald News, and increasingly in areas that are hard pressed economically, there is a greater consolidation of service operations on the part of small local governments and municipalities such as in Greater Boston or in the Detroit Metropolitan area.

Although as has been discussed here in the past, especially by Christopher, smaller jurisdictions can be more responsive and focused on local concerns.

* yes, I am old enough to remember the song from the radio.

Best Chains on Main contest

When I first got involved in "Main Street"-type commercial district revitalization work, I was pretty much adamantly against "chain stores." Over time, I've come to a more nuanced position:

1. Distinguishing between regional and national chains;

2. Distinguishing between straight up cookie-cutter franchises (e.g., "Subway") vs. retail co-ops like Ace Hardware or True Value Hardware that allow for some individuality;

3. Recognizing that selectively adding some chain stores, depending on the market positioning for the commercial district, can actually strengthen the commercial district in terms of its specific niches and overall position in a metropolitan area vis-a-vis other commercial districts;

4. Plus, the presence of chains, rightly or wrongly, is seen as an indicator of quality by typical customers and prospects.

That being said I don't think it's all roses and cream. See the past blog entries "Why the future of urban retail isn't chains" and "Store siting decisions." But it can be true that "regional" chains are more likely to be willing to locate stores in traditional commercial districts, in traditional commercial buildings, compared to national chains. This certainly was true of the old People's Drug Store chain, founded in DC, which got up to about 800 stores, before it was consumed by and merged into CVS.

Mostly, national chain retailers follow neighborhood and commercial district improvements, they don't enter early and help further improvement when it matters most. A couple exceptions are Design Within Reach, which because of their design brand promise, American Apparel (a company which has other very serious problems) which as part of their edginess, and Urban Outfitters, will open stores in areas that haven't fully revitalized. Plus, Urban Outfitters owns Anthropologie, an upscale women's apparel store (primarily, they also sell funky housewares), which opens stores in traditional commercial districts, but they have to have extremely high powered demographics.

I would also vote for Barnes & Noble's college textbook company (it's technically separate from the standard retail chain), which increasingly is locating their college bookstores in commercial districts adjacent to the college, such as in Williamsburg, Virginia (College of William and Mary), or on St. Paul Avenue in Charles Village (as part of a dormitory/mixed use building), Baltimore (Johns Hopkins University), or as part of an apartment complex adjacent to the University of Baltimore on Oliver Street--this location is about a block from light rail and three blocks from Penn Station.

Still, the Commercial District Advisor blog reports the results of a "best chain on Main Street" contest, which seems to be focused on the East Coast, in the entry "AND THE WINNERS OF THE BEST CHAIN ON MAIN ARE....":

- Villa, an urban-inspired apparel and footwear retailer with 26 locations throughout the Mid-Atlantic Region.

- Pamela's P&G Diner (Strip District, Pittsburgh)

- The Fresh Grocer, Philadelphia (they keep looking at but walking away from locations in DC)

- Mugshots Coffee House and Café, a coffee shop with 3 locations in Philadelphia, PA,

- Gothic Cabinet Craft, a furniture retailer with 33 locations in and around New York City.

Were I to throw out some suggestions of companies active in the DC region, they would include:

- Care Pharmacy (a co-op/franchise, based in Alexandria I think)

- Real Cool Hardware Stores, an Ace affiliate, with stores in DC, Takoma Park, and Baltimore

- Yes! Grocery, a natural foods store with multiple locations in DC, none in the suburbs

- MOM Grocery (My Organic Grocery) although they seem to fear center city locations (I think they used to have one years ago)

- Plan 9 Music (Richmond, Charlottesville--they used to have more stores)

- Marvelous Markets ? (they used to be better a couple different ownerships ago)

- Ray's the Steaks and other joints (Michael Landrum), especially their opening a restaurant in Ward 7

- Sound Garden (music) with stores in Baltimore and Syracuse, NY

- Clyde's Restaurants

Plus, in terms of businesses that aren't chain, but have created economies of scale and systems of practice for opening new businesses successfully, I would nominate DC night time establishment impresario Joe Englert. But other restaurant companies are doing this too--I can think of at least 5-10, although Joe is sticking to funkier concepts in tougher places.

Interestingly, the DC-Baltimore region has lost a bunch of regional chains over the years:

- department store chains like Woodward & Lothrop and Garfinckels

- apparel chains like Britches of Georgetowne and Raleighs

- bookstore chains like Olsson's and Trovers

- office supply store companies Ginns and Jacobs-Gardner

- Giffords Ice Cream

- High's convenience stores (at least in DC)

- Kemp Mill Music is down to one store

- People's Drug Stores

Then there are companies that have only one location but clearly could open more stores if they were up to it:

- Red Tree in Hampden, Baltimore -- they are opening a store in Takoma DC, called Trohv, but I don't understand why they don't call it Red Tree

- Need Supply Company (apparel), Carytown, Richmond

That being said, I don't find DC to be that vibrant of a market for independent retail, not compared to say stores in places like Carytown, Richmond, or Ballard, Seattle or even Downtown Frederick or Hampden Village in Baltimore.

It's said that the national jewelry store chain, Kay Jewelers, started in DC. So did the Marriott Company, as a hot dog stand. Of course, the once powerhouse Giant Supermarket started in the city also. (In my opinion they are on the decline, even though I like their pricing comparatively speaking.)