Low income, high income, the market and the right to the city

There are some pieces on "gentrification" out there that are getting play, but I don't think they contribute to the discourse much, because they don't make connections to earlier work on the topic.

In Salon, Will Doig has an article, "Can gentrification work for everyone?," on higher income "African-American" "gentrification" in Anacostia, and Southern California NPR ("The cultural mashup dictionary: gentefication") and WAMU, the NPR affiliate in DC ("Gentrification, Try Gentefication"), have a couple of pieces on the same subject, the Cali piece focuses on Latinos.

The process of reinvestment described in the "gentefication" process is similar to the way some immigrants continue to invest in their old communities as described in Arrival City by Doug Saunders as well as many articles in the media (I can think of articles from the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post and the New York Times specifically) about how Latino immigrants in the U.S. invest in their communities "back home" and how this changes those communities. It's just a matter of focusing that investment on "arrival neighborhoods" in the U.S. instead of back "home." And it's just a scalar difference from earning money abroad and sending it home to the family--economists call it "currency transfers."

Two things that make the discussion of gentrification difficult in the US concern how people still tend to (1) believe that living in cities is undesirable and is counter to most trends concerning residential choice; and (2) ignore class/economic distinctions, or make sweeping generalizations about them, thinking that most people of color (African-American and Latino in particular) are poor.

They also don't think much about the fact that the US is decidedly a market economy, albeit with plenty of government intervention in the housing market (both policy and financial), and for areas in demand or areas that become more attractive, good deals/low prices lead to increased demand, and in situations with increased demand, people with more money win out over people with less money.

Just like how some people believe that only white people can be racist (not true), others believe that only white people moving into center city neighborhoods are "gentrifiers."

By thinking this way, what they fail to appreciate is that the process of in-migration of this type is about money and class, not race.

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This excerpt from a past blog entry is about 7 years old:

Gentrification effect (2) is what I think people really mean when they are talking about "gentrification," new and different people coming into a neighborhood. Of course, in neighborhoods like CH, displacement is really happening.

As far as displacement goes, it's part of what people call "gentrification". But gentrification is phenomenon with multiple effects, which I describe as:

(1) new investment in a previously underinvested area;

(2) change and different people coming into a neighborhood -- most importantly, different people from those currently in residence (the differences--race, class, ethnicity, levels of educational attainment, attitudes toward the urban experience, etc.--are usually not "celebrated" (I make this point because I still remember first being taught about diversity and multiculturalism in 7th grade, and I specifically remember the "melting pot" and "celebration of differences" phrase -- I have a hard time seeing the celebration, at least in DC);

(3) increase in conversion of previously rented dwellings to owner-occupied, leading to a displacement of renters and an overall reduction of the number of rental units available in the neighborhood;

(4) related to the new demand for living in the neighborhood is an increase in rental rates, which contributes to the displacement of low- and moderate-income residents;

(5) neighborhood improvement as investment (primarily through the renovation and sale of houses to new residents) continues to increase and begins approaching critical mass (cf. Goetze Building Neighborhood Confidence);

(6) faux-displacement as long-time residents decide to "cash out" and take profits on the sale of the finally appreciated property (this is accelerated by, in my opinion, the still prevalent pro-suburban, anti-city attitudes embraced by particular demographics that tend to represent the long time population groups in traditional center cities); and

(7) ongoing increases in property tax assessments which contributes to the displacement of longtime residents on fixed or lower incomes (note that this effect is hard to separate out from [6]).
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While the academic study of gentrification focuses on national and global processes of "the reproduction of space" rather than seeing gentrification as mostly an issue of race, I still believe that the urban sociology subfield of gentrification in the U.S. has one major flaw, that the cycle of urban development should go only one way--outward, and that neighborhoods are born; grow; and decline, and in the declining phase become home to the less well off; rather than recognize that decline is not inevitable when considering multi-decade time frames.

This is based on the 1920s work of the "Chicago School of urban sociologists," in particular Robert Park and Ernest Burgess. Their work was based on the idea that the well off wanted to be separate from the less well off and so they continually moved outward from the core of the city.

As neighborhoods were "abandoned" by groups as their economic situation improved, they were replaced by new immigrants and in-migrants and the process began again. This process has a number of terms to describe it, including invasion-succession theory, ecological succession, or concentric zone theory. And the 1970s housing improvement theory called "filtration" is based on this idea as well.

The first diagram is from The City by Park and Burgess, the second is a more modern rendition and might be easier to read.

Much of the study of gentrification over the past 30 years is based on the work of geographer Neal Smith and his book New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revanchist City. Other work that I like (Loretta Lees' Gentrification, co-authored with Elvyn Wyly and Tom Slater, and her paper in Urban Studies Journal, "Super-gentrification: The Case of Brooklyn Heights, New York City") utilizes a similar thesis, that inner city communities, usually minority, are underinvested and this allows people with higher incomes and power to acquire property transform space, and displace the less advantaged.

The supergentrification thesis is subtly different and very much relevant to global cities. It's about how people with extranormal income, such as Wall Street financial types, reshape the market for residential real estate in desirable submarkets like Brooklyn Heights. This idea can be extended to the idea of second, third, and fourth homes in desirable cities such as Charleston, SC, Downtown Washington, South Beach in Miami Beach, San Francisco, etc.

Locals are displaced by capital flows from outside the region. Capital flows from outside the region are shaping the DC housing market at many levels.

A good overview of the academic take on gentrification is in this book chapter, "Gentrification and the City," by Tom Slater.

I think what's happening in California in Latino communities is different from what's happening in Anacostia. African-Americans of means moving to Anacostia for the most part don't have previous connections to the neighborhood, unlike the Latinos profiled in the SCPR piece.

The back to the city phenomenon on the part of African-Americans is still a pretty localized phenomenon and counter even so to the multi-decade out-migration of middle class and upper middle class blacks from DC, especially to Prince George's County (and from there to Charles and Anne Arundel Counties).

But this isn't a huge demographic wave, not yet. See the blog entries from earlier this year, "Revitalization in stages: Anacostia," and "Gentrification, neighborhood change, and wacked discourse."

My sense is that those African-Americans in-migrants who do want to live in the city are being priced out of more desirable areas and are picking Anacostia as a result. (Very much like how I chose to buy a house in the H Street NE neighborhood in 1988--although I don't live there now. Then, prices throughout the city were constantly rising, the H Street neighborhood was seen as less desirable so prices were much lower, although it was close just as close to Downtown as Capitol Hill with comparable--but smaller--housing stock date from the 1880s to the 1920s, and I thought if we didn't buy then we'd be forever priced out of the market.)

I do think as Anacostia improves and becomes more safe, it's possible that the in-migration of whites and Latinos could make the market even more competitive and over very long frames of time, the area could experience significant non-African-American in-migration.

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To those of us who have been in the city for 20+ or more years, and lived in areas seen once as undesirable, we know this is a distinct possibility. I talk with my next door neighbors--they are lifelong Washingtonians and in their 60s--and we are all amazed at "seeing white people" and baby carriages or bicyclists on various blocks, say the 600 block of Orleans Place NE, which in the late 1980s was one of the city's chief distribution centers for crack and the location of dozens of murders over that time, or at 1st and M Street NW, etc.

This was completely unimaginable even 10 years ago.

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Although it's probably a 30+ year process--it will take that long for significant redevelopment to occur east of the Anacostia River because it will take 20 years or so for more desirable parcels located west of the river in SE, SW, and NW to be developed although places located on subway lines will be absorbed first (Capitol Riverfront, Southwest Waterfront and Southwest, NoMA, Reservation 13, McMillan Reservoir, areas near transit stations such as Fort Totten and Brookland, and parcels near Rhode Island Metro, Takoma, the Armed Forces Retirement Home, H Street NE, lower U Street, Walter Reed, etc.).

This could speed up a bit if a more concerted effort to link the Capitol Riverfront development west of the river with the development opportunities at Poplar Point east of the river in a joint revitalization planning process and program occurs.

I think that could have more positive effect than the focus on the St. Elizabeths Campus, which is pretty much self-contained (see the old blog entry from 2006 "Enclave development won't save Anacostia") and therefore has less capability to generate "trickle down" and "trickle up" improvements.

But the point of the academic literature on gentrification is that the poor are displaced. New investment doesn't help the less advantaged all that much.

But cities need investment and in-migration in order to thrive. So the reflexive oppositional stance vis-a-vis in-migration and investment is counterproductive, at least if you want to have the money to pay for public safety, quality schools, and other municipal services.

David Harvey's paper (expanded into a book), "The Right to the City," first a lecture then published in New Left Review, makes the point that the right to the city is imbued in us as citizens, and transcends our place as defined by the market economy.

In a market economy, for this to be the case, Social Darwinism as the predominate social policy has to be supplanted by a much broader agenda, which in a time of economic privation, it's very difficult to find proponents for such an agenda.

Frankly, I don't think the issue should be preserving places for the poor as they are as much as it should be on assisting people so that through education, training, and other assistance, they are prepared, able and capable of participating in the market economy. I can't claim to have a particularly good set of policy proscriptions to do that although I have a bunch of ideas:

- a robust affordable housing policy and a robust program to maintain affordable housing stock through portfolio investment programs, new production of affordable housing, community land trusts, and cooperative housing programs

- great public schools

- year round school, extended day programs, co-operative high school programs

- free access to higher education and other training programs, including trades (e.g., "A woman who teaches men to weld provides other life lessons too" from the Los Angeles Times)

unification and synchronization of various social service programs into community centers, sometimes called "community schools," one particularly good example is the effort in the City Heights neighborhood of San Diego by Price Charities and programs described in this 2006 blog entry, "Public assets: public school buildings used for more than school"

- caseworkers assigned not to multiple families but having one or two families only as their clients (think of what this article discusses on routinization of positive health behaviors and apply it to participation in the market economy, "Gentle Nudges Work to Get People Exercising," from the Wall Street Journal).

Until we take this step, in-migration into the city and the process of improving and repositioning neighborhoods will continue to be traumatic and contested.

Los Angeles light rail experimenting with late night hours

From "Night life, night train finally connect in L.A." in the Los Angeles Times:

Their train could be coming. As it has for several years, Metro is giving late hours a holiday trial run this weekend. On New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, all five Metro Rail lines and the Orange Line busway will operate 24 hours, with rides free from 9 p.m. Saturday to 2 a.m. Sunday, Metro spokesman Marc Littman said.

What's more, in mid-November, Metro took the first step toward 24-hour service by dropping the time between night trains from 20 to 10 minutes. Depending whether the "More Trains, More Often" pilot program takes off , the agency could extend subway hours after dark, perhaps even going to round-the-clock service, Littman said.

"We're a 24-hour city," he added. "People are going to their proms on the subway."

It's about time. Some of L.A.'s liveliest night life is clustered around the trains: L.A. Live, with its array of concert venues, restaurants and sporting events; the downtown Art Walk; and Hollywood's dance clubs. Even the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach has evening events.

The proliferation of smart phones is flushing out night owls for the train. Phone apps tell you when the next train is coming, how far you have to walk to your bus connection, how many calories you are burning and even how much you are reducing your carbon emissions.

Few subway systems in the U.S. provide 24 hour service. New York City and Chicago do. And some places have "Night Owl" bus service along the subway lines when they are closed.

Downtown and the Department Store as key "public" spaces

Last month I blogged about DC's Central Library and proposals to "co-locate" commercial space on the library site, to generate revenues to pay for renovations and expansions. See "The DC Central Library, the Civic identity and the public realm."

I mused about the key civic assets in a community, how they define the community, and whether or not communities would allow such key buildings as the City Hall, Courthouse, Main Library, or main public park to be commercialized.

As mentioned in the entry, some "public spaces" are in fact privately owned. I mentioned the railroad station--although these days for the most part these are publicly owned facilities--and while I didn't mention the primary Downtown commercial district specifically, I did mention the buildings that are/were there, such as the city's department stores, majestic theaters, signature restaurants, and other retail.

Of course, these shopping districts have long since been supplanted by the suburban shopping mall.

The Boston Globe opines about the loss that derives from the way retail shopping has changed, how department stores and the city's main shopping district have long since been supplanted, in "What is Christmas without the department store?"

For those of us with memories of the department store Santa--for me it was at Hudsons, in Downtown Detroit, but every city has its own examples, this of course resonates. Also see "How J.L. Hudson changed the way we shop" from the Detroit News.

Other resources

-- The American Department Store Transformed, 1920-1960 by Richard Longstreth (he has written a lot of great journal articles on department stores and commercial districts, including "The mixed blessings of success: The Hecht Company and department store branch development after World War II" and "The Neighborhood Shopping Center in Washington, DC, 1930-1941."

-- Going shopping: consumer choices and community consequences

-- Harvard Design School guide to shopping (Chapter 4 makes the point that the history of shopping is also in part about the history of women. After all, about 70% of retail transactions are conducted by women. And department stores were created to make shopping like theater.)

-- English Shops and Shopping

-- Downtown America

"Final Sunset" The Requiem for Hudson's Suite, Lowell Boileau 1998. Demolition of the Downtown Hudsons Store, Detroit.

Police unions and municipal decision-making

It's very hard for politicians to criticize police officers (and fire fighters) and it's hard not to acquiesce to their wage and pension demands--after all, they put their lives on the line.

Plus, the unions make donations to political campaigns.

But at the same time, the union represents police officers as laborers, and they aren't usually focused on police department management and managers as working to reduce crime and improve public safety as much as they think of them as evil overseers.

In Stockton, budget cuts to the police department are being fought by the police officers union with incendiary billboards and other very direct tactics. See "Debt-ridden Stockton a battleground for police union, City Hall" from the Los Angeles Times.

Steve Anderson installs one of the billboards the police union is using in its fight over cutbacks. The police union also bought the house next to City Manager Bob Deis. (Craig Sanders, The Record / December 29, 2011)

Missing the point on constituent service/discretionary funds available from legislators

The point isn't that the funds exist, but the arbitrariness and/or self-serving nature of how the funds are used/allocated.

The solution to the lack of democracy, openness, logic and transparency isn't taking the money away/eliminating the funding source--groups and projects need the opportunity to garner funds for worthy projects--it's to make the process more open, transparent, participatory, and democratic.

To use a hip term, "crowdsourcing" or some such might make the point better that the issue is to address the arbitrary and capricious nature of the allocation process, not to eradicate the funds.

The participatory budgeting process embarked upon by four New York City Councilmembers (blog entry: "More on ethics: discretionary funding-constituent funds"), where they are using public, open, transparent, "crowdsourced" like processes to divvy up "discretionary" funds allocated to their Council District/Councilmember is what DC ("D.C. Council’s ethics package leaves many unsatisfied," Post) and Prince William County ("Should Prince William Board have discretionary funds?'" from the Post) is the kind of process that needs to be adopted to correct the problem.

-- Participatory Budgeting Project

-- Participatory Budgeting in New York City
-- Materials, Participatory Budgeting in New York City

Also see "Participatory Budgeting" from the Polis blog and the webpage for Alderman Joe Moore of Ward 49 in Chicago.

If they can do participatory budgeting in an aldermanic ward in Chicago--a city which makes the ethically challenged in DC more akin to choirboys--it can be done in DC or Prince William County.

The 2011 projects for Ward 49 in Chicago, chosen through a participatory budgeting process:

• Bike Lanes on Albion, Eastlake & Pratt (Phase II). This is a Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) project. We are awaiting the resurfacing of Pratt (see Street Resurfacing below).
• Bike Racks. Twenty racks will be purchased, with CDOT matching with an additional 20 racks. The site locations are being determined.
• Improvements to Ridge, Touhy & Rogers Intersection. Final estimate was given by CDOT and we are awaiting scheduling.
• Improvements to Metra Underpasses at Birchwood, Estes & Touhy.This is a joint effort by CDOT and Union Pacific. The project will include washing, lighting, repainting, and pigeon abatement.
• New Playground at Touhy Park. The initial estimate assumed matching funding from the Chicago Park District. If it is not forthcoming, we will need to reasses the project scale or seek an additional funding source, or both.
• Path Extension at Jarvis, Leone & Loyola Parks. Same issue as with the Touhy Park Playground (see above).
• Street Resurfacing of Pratt, Wolcott, Columbia & Jarvis. This is a CDOT project. Repaving of the 12 blocks was delayed from Fall 2011 to Spring 2012 to coordinate with the People’s Gas new gas line project throughout the 49th Ward.

Bus transit, for choice riders

In my blog entry ("Detroit in Underdrive") on Detroit's decision to not build light rail but to do "bus rapid transit," Brian Morrisey criticizes the entry in comments (on my home computer some bug prevents me from using the comment function) saying that it's

disingenuous considering that nowhere in the US is BRT truly implemented with all its necessary components. Most just are just dedicated bus lanes that still must contend with traffic and existing infrastructure.

I don't think it's disingenuous, just reality.

Only in Pittsburgh does BRT function mostly like how BRT does in South America, with one major exception, there isn't pre-payment before bus entry, and the buses don't have low floors with multiple entry doors.

But the most important factor, travel on dedicated busways, is the way most of the Pittsburgh BRT routes function. Even so, the routes have never achieved anywhere near the expected ridership. That being said, they have much better ridership, especially for the region's population, than most of the other BRT routes in the U.S.

Most of what we might call BRT in the U.S. is more what I've called "bus rapider transit" but maybe is better termed "branded bus transit," where the buses have attractive livery designs (like the DC Circulator), more attractive bus shelters, and better branding campaigns, including the provision of signage, mapping, etc.

Metro Rapid bus, Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles.

Zum bus, Brampton, Ontario. Photo: Christopher McKechnie, About.com.


Bus shelter, Silver Line BRT, Boston. Photo by Steve Pinkus.


Metro Rapid map sign, Los Angeles. Photo: TBSH.

Here's a resource I just came across but haven't read yet, Developing the Next Frontier: Capitalizing on Bus Rapid Transit to Build Community, which is a ULI task group report evaluating the opportunity for development in association with new BRT services in Seattle.

Plus there is the EMBARQ: The World Resources Institute Center for Sustainable Transport report on transit (bus) marketing, which is very good as well, From Here to There: A creative guide to making public transport the way to go.

This is an issue too with inter-city bus services vs. railroad transportation.

I find it interesting that conservative newspapers like the Washington Examiner continually push bus "rapid transit" over fixed rail transit.

Ostensibly it's about cost, but at some level it's about supporting roadways and the sprawl paradigm--because buses use the same roads that cars use and because heavy rail, light rail, and streetcar systems are focused on intensifying land use and are typically focused on center cities and inner ring suburbs more than exurban locations, while bus rapid transit is more about providing exurban transit service, more like commuter bus service rather than transit as part of the firmament of sustainable communities.

Today's Examiner editorial, "Stop being so 'Kardashian' about mass transit," is typical, although I bet if "push came to shove" and it was a matter of taking away roadway lanes from all traffic and dedicating them to busways, the paper would editorialize in favor of the automobile.

From the editorial:

The cost of the 15-mile CCT "train on rubber wheels" -- including dedicated lanes -- is about $491 million. Compare that to the $1.93 billion it will cost for the 16-mile Purple Line connecting Bethesda to New Carrollton, or the $2.2 billion for Baltimore's 14-mile Red Line. These two light rail projects are sucking up state and federal transit funding. Had state and county officials chosen BRT instead, they would have had enough money to build the Purple and Red Lines and the CCT -- with $3.2 billion to spare.

Detroit also planned to spend $528 million on a 9.3-mile light rail line serving its hollowed-out urban core, but city officials wisely pulled back because of very real concerns that Detroit could not afford the light rail line's annual operating costs. They are now shifting $500 million to a 110-mile BRT system that will connect three counties and the airport, and help 60 percent of still-employed city residents get to their suburban jobs. Motor City will soon have largest BRT system in the nation, joining other cities with successful BRT lines such as Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles and Vancouver, British Columbia

Since BRT is so much cheaper and way more flexible, and provides mass transit to a much larger area for the same capital costs, why would any public official even consider fixed rail?

BRT is cheaper and arguably it is more flexible, but the reality is that cheap and flexible aren't the right questions, especially if you are focused on maximizing use, not minimizing initial cost.

The answers to the question of why would any public official consider fixed rail over buses are pretty simple:

1. More people ride fixed rail transit than buses;

2. The non-transit dependent (choice riders) will ride fixed rail transit when they don't appear to be willing to ride buses, even better branded buses;

3. Fixed rail transit investment repositions communities around transit and within their respective regions as choice locations--this is an essential and key difference between the modes;

4. As a result, fixed rail transit spurs significant private commercial and residential development and investment, at many times the cost of the public investment in transit. In the U.S., this has not been the case for investments in branded bus transit.

But I would argue that in order to generate these benefits, you need to have a network of fixed rail transit, one or two lines isn't really enough, at least for communities on a significant downward spiral. For example DC vs. Baltimore. Both were declining cities when subway systems were first proposed.

DC got a five line subway system. Baltimore got a truncated subway line, later complemented by a light rail line using an existing industrial railroad alignment.

DC's central business district and a couple dozen neighborhoods have since revitalized as a result of transit service, while Baltimore continues to languish. The subway has stanched DC's population losses, while for the most part, there has been minimal private investment spurred within Baltimore as a result of the subway and light rail lines.

The same issue of "bus" versus "railroad" comes up for inter-city transit service.

Initially with the so-called "Chinese buses" and now with upgraded services from Greyhound (Bolt Bus), Coach USA (Megabus), along with other services operating regionally.

The Washington Times ran an op-ed by James Bacon of Virginia's Bacon's Rebellion blog, "The intercity bus revolution," highlighting the success of entrepreneurial inter-city bus services over more expensive railroad-based services. From the article:

While President Obama dreams about spending hundreds of billions of public dollars building a high-speed, intercity rail network, an entrepreneurial revolution in the old-timey bus industry is scoring dramatic gains in market share for intercity travel - without government subsidies.

After decades of losing customers, the intercity bus industry began experiencing an entrepreneurial renaissance in the mid-2000s. And 2011 was the best year yet. According to a study published by DePaul University’s Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development, intercity bus was the only major long-distance passenger mode to grow appreciably this year. Daily intercity bus operations expanded by 7.1 percent.

But the article doesn't acknowledge that these bus systems are in fact highly subsidized, because they are "free riders" (other than gas taxes and tolls) on the already developed local road and highway system, and their use of an ill-defined curbside infrastructure can be problematic in terms of quality of service, not to mention that companies may stint on maintenance to reduce costs, which puts customers at risk.

See "Firm with routes to New York told to take buses off road" from the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot and "Chinatown buses' offer cheap rides to NY" from the Richmond Times-Dispatch. That being said, I think the services are great because they enable low cost inter-city transit for people who might not otherwise be able to afford it.

Railroads and airlines use a dedicated infrastructure, which is more costly, but also allows these modes to travel much faster (ideally, in the case of railroads, where dedicated right of way without crossings doesn't always exist) than buses.

Plus high speed railroad service is being developed to provide alternatives to air travel, given concerns about reduced access to oil, and even if it is true that oil production will increase because of new technologies, the fact remains that concerns over greenhouse gas emissions encourage the consideration of railroad travel, not to mention the fact that providing airline service and airports is economically costly--as an industry, airlines have mostly lost money throughout the industry's entire existence, with some exceptions like Southwest Airlines.

It's not the same question, and confusing the modes by asking and answering the wrong questions doesn't move our transportation system forward generally, and certainly doesn't move it forward in terms of the question of a more sustainable and robust paradigm either.

Has DC reached revitalization critical mass, so that local government missteps don't matter?

555 Massachusetts Ave. NW.

Most of the local pundits, such as Gary Imhoff and Dorothy Brazil at DC Watch, are focused on the various ethical failures in the city, as Imhoff writes in the latest issue of themail, the twice weekly e-letter on good government:

The year began, at least for me, with great hope that the obvious corruption in the Fenty administration — the favoritism in awarding city contracts, the appointing of obviously incompetent nominees to boards and commissions, the ignoring of community and citizen input in running the public school system — which had been overwhelmingly rejected in the 2010 election, would be cleaned up by the new administration. But then the Gray administration not only didn’t clean up the corruption of the Fenty administration that Vince Gray had campaigned against. Gray embraced that corruption itself, ignoring the Inspector General’s and DC Auditor’s reports condemning Allen Lew’s mismanagement of the school construction and renovation program, and rewarding him for it by naming him his City Administrator. Gray named a series of appointees of dubious ability, some tainted by nepotism. Councilmembers were involved in scandals involving misappropriating their campaign funds and city tax funds, misspending their “constituent service” funds for their own personal and political purposes, and engaging in conflicts of interest between their legislative duties and their outside employers.

And granted, the local schools situation isn't very promising in terms of long term attraction and retention of families with school-aged children, although charter schools and certain high quality and magnet programs in certain DCPS schools provide some hope. (Basically, what people call the "reform" process that started with Michelle Rhee could be more accurately described as school destruction--robust systems needed to be created in order to address and mitigate "achievement gaps" but instead personnel has been roiled by too frequent changes of principals and a focus on firing teachers.)

But according to last Thursday's Post, the "Number of District residents skyrockets."

The District has gained more than 16,000 residents since last spring, growing at a pace that outstripped anything seen in the boom years preceding it.

Census figures released Wednesday estimated the city’s population was 618,000 in July, up 2.7 percent from the census figure in April last year. The current growth spurt is so rapid that the District is on track to draw more newcomers in two years than it did in the entire decade before.

The District’s expansion is all the more remarkable when compared to the rest of the country, which is experiencing its slowest growth since the end of World War II.

The District’s population figures cap a decade of success in maneuvering a turnaround in the city’s fortunes, and its image. Barely 15 years ago, the District had a widespread reputation for having streets that wouldn’t get plowed after a winter storm and that were crime-ridden in any season. Now, the District routinely shows up on lists of cool cities where young people gravitate, and it is drawing as many young adults as ultra-hip Austin and Portland. Three in four newcomers in recent years have been between the ages of 18 and 34. They have zero interest in the suburbs.

Why, in the face of an almost meltdown in local government ("Can D.C. council go back to legislating?" Post) not to mention over-reach ("Is D.C. overgoverned? Or undergoverned?" Post) is the city's population continuing to grow?

Sure DC has a lot going for it:

• (expensive) historic housing stock in attractive neighborhoods (saved in the down years by historic preservationists now reviled as holding improvements back);

• that are walkable and bike-able ;

• plus bike lanes, a developing network of cycletracks and trails, and bikesharing;

• a decent (but declining) subway system complemented by Metrobus service for the transit dependent, and Circulators for people afraid of or find it too difficult to navigate Metrobus service;

• new multiunit housing units in interesting already urban areas such as Downtown, 14th Street, Columbia Heights, U Street, and H Street NE;

• re-created urban areas such as Capitol Riverfront, NoMA, and the Southwest Waterfront District;

• some interesting (Dupont Circle, Georgetown, Adams-Morgan) or revitalizing (H Street, 8th Street SE, U Street) entertainment-commercial districts;

• improving retail Downtown ("Downtown Land Baron Doug Jemal Thinks F for Fashion Street" from the City Paper), including at CityVista (Busboys & Poets, 5th Street Hardware, a very nice Safeway), mostly steady retail in Georgetown and Friendship Heights, a Target and BestBuy at DC/USA and a Best Buy and Container Store in Tenleytown--who cares that Sears is closing 100+ stores, they closed their department stores in DC almost two decades ago;

• the relatively steady employment engine surrounding the federal government--especially for contractors, lobbyists, and lawyers, although the picture isn't as bright for career government work;

• a location on the East Coast not too far from New York City (and Philadelphia and Boston);

• a bunch of new (Harris-Teeter, Safeway) or significantly refurbished(Safeway, Giant) supermarkets;

• a baseball team, stadium, and big convention center (mostly built with public funds);

• and soon, 6 Walmarts.

One reason is that comparatively speaking, housing in DC will hold its value more when compared to other cities in the country. Because even when the governance function of the federal government is doing "badly" ("Politicians in denial," Post) people still work for it, bills are paid, etc., so that creates a high positive equilibrium for the housing market ("DC housing market one of two in nation's top 20 to post price increase," Examiner). Although, with federal government gridlock and a focus on budget reduction and contraction, this growth and steady state position is going to diminish somewhat, but still, compared to most other locations across the country, DC in particular (and the region as well, depending on local conditions) will remain attractive.

And during the recession/Depression since 2008, for the most part, housing in DC has held its value, especially compared to most other markets nationally.

Sure, the stratospheric price escalation stopped--you aren't finding neighborhoods like Petworth or Manor Park or Brookland where flippers are trying to get $650,000 to $700,000 for a house that now sells for $400,000-$450,000.

But you don't have the kind of price drop in DC where houses are selling for under $200,000. Even in Mount Rainier, Maryland, just across the border with DC, houses there are selling for half or even less of what they would sell for in DC (depending on the neighborhood), because of the big inventory of foreclosed houses in Prince George's County.

But the big issue, at least, is that the wave of new in-migrants to the city are young, and how the city runs--except for public safety and access to cool restaurants and taverns--doesn't matter all that much to them, now.

One of the advantages of the push over the past 8-10 years to build multiunit housing in neighborhoods where it didn't exist before in a substantive fashion is that it adds significant diversity to the housing stock, and enables more people with a variety of incomes and household types to participate in the housing market, when before, when most housing in the city's neighborhoods has been comprised of single family attached or detached housing, many potential housing market segments had been closed out of the market.

Interestingly, on H-URBAN, the e-list for academics concerned with urban history and urban studies, there is a discussion about DC's population from 1940 to 1950. While the city's highest population as of the decennial Census is 802,000 in 1950, according to annual population estimates published year-to-year in the Statistical Abstract of the United States, DC's peak population was 899,000 in 1946. (The thread is accessible from the H-URBAN webpage.)

DC Population figures (estimates from 1941-1949)

1940 -- 663,000
1941 -- 758,000
1942 -- 817,000
1943 -- 891,000
1944 -- 881,000
1945 -- 876,000
1946 -- 899,000
1947 -- 888,000
1948 -- 840,000
1949 -- 807,000
1950 -- 802,000.

The trick will be to maintain and/or grow population as household types change--singles to marrieds, marrieds to marrieds with children, etc.

As you age and as your household status changes, so too changes what matters to you, where schools don't matter now, and access to craft beer salons does, over time, that flips, and the quality of municipal services, schools especially, and governance begins to matter more, especially for those people who own houses, condominiums, co-ops, and flats.

Has DC reached critical mass of positive trends (see the entry from yesterday, "The fifth phase of center city revitalization (reprint)") so that population will continue to grow despite the ethical cloud that hangs over the city's governance class, or will the failures within local government reverse the current positive trends?

E.g., the bandwagon for Walmart isn't the kind of policy action that typically is attractive to the young creatives moving to cities like Washington.

Going forward, the District's leadership is going to need to be more conscious of managing for the future rather than pandering to the past.

From "2012 resolution tips for D.C.'s newsmakers" by Mike DeBonis in the Post:

Vincent C. Gray, mayor: Look alive. A year into his mayoralty, Gray (D) has pretty well figured out it’s tough to be top dog. Try as he does to tout new economic development projects, reduced unemployment, improved city services and a growing population, he has yet been unable to animate his administration with anything more inspiring than his threadbare “One City” mantra. Filling the vacuum instead have been blown vettings, dismal approval ratings and a strange, scorned employee in sunglasses. A new cadre of top staffers have been brought on to help, but will their boss ever get the “vision thing”?

Bikesharing +1 | Walmart -1

Online gaming -1 | Food Trucks +1

Etc.

Need for a comprehensive visitor transportation plan in DC

One of the problems with planning in DC is the federal interest is planned separately from the local interest, and yet the interests are intertwined. This isn't a problem with land use generally, because the National Capital Planning Commission plans for the general federal interest, and produces "Federal Elements" for the City's Comprehensive Land Use Plan.

Although the disconnection is demonstrated by the failure of the city's Comp. Plan webpage to link to the Federal Elements webpage of the NCPC webpage, although they do acknowledge the Federal Elements. On the other hand, NCPC's page provides a link to the DC Comp. Plan webpage.

Where the problems come up have to do with parks planning and transportation planning especially.

Many of the "city" parks are under federal control by the National Park Service--and the parks are used by people who come to visit the city, including demonstrations, which they do not because Washington is "cool" but because it is the national capital of the USA, and to visit the institutions and monuments that are located here as a result. But these parks also serve local audiences, in particular DC residents.

Note that DC, NPS, and the NCPC joined together to do a parks plan of a sort, called Capital Space, but I don't think of that plan as a comprehensive parks and recreation plan jointly planning federal and local parks assets within the city in an integrated fashion as much as it is a grab bag of some things that needed to be addressed.

As far as transportation planning is concerned, because most of these monuments and institutions where visitors go are in the federal interest area, for the most part DC doesn't attempt to plan there, with the exception of a plan to put a Circulator bus system on the National Mall and attempts, now successful, to get the National Park Service to agree to put bike sharing stations on the National Mall, which heretofore they had resisted.

Top "DC" destinations for tourists (not ranked)

White House

US Capitol

Washington Monument

National Mall/Smithsonian Museums/National Gallery

Mount Vernon

Alexandria (commercial district)

Georgetown (commercial district)

Arlington Cemetery

Note that on their visits, non-business visitors tend to stay overnight in suburban motels, which are cheaper than most lodging options in DC, which further stresses the transportation system.

Note that WMATA is considering a new fare system which would eliminate "tourist" passes--further making bikesharing a legitimate form of transportation for visitors, but children under 16 years of age aren't supposed to use these bikes.

On the other hand, visitors that come to the city on business (lobbying etc.) tend to stay in the city, unless their associations and such are based in the suburbs, e.g., the City of Alexandria is the location for many associations, and many federal agencies, such as the Pentagon, are located in the suburbs.

DC doesn't have a master transportation plan really (other than the documents required by the US DOT), although it is about to produce one, and there is the Transportation Element of the Comp. Plan.

NCPC does have a Visitor Element in their Comp. Plan. DC doesn't have an equivalent element in its Comp. Plan although I've argued for one for a few years, in part because of learning that Charleston, SC has one, although the plan isn't online, the ordinance is, but I'd say it doesn't read as well as the NCPC's element. The NCPC element isn't just on transportation, it's also about the quality of the experience overall, although it remains for other federal agencies to implement those concepts, and for the most part they don't...

The National Park Service did a transportation plan a few years ago and is about to go through another iteration imminently. Plus the issue of the Tourmobile bus service, which I've written about over the years, and was covered very well by the Washington City Paper Housing Complex blog, such as in "The Never Ending Tourmobile."

-- Environmental Assessment, Washington, D.C. Visitor Transportation Plan, National Park Service

A letter in today's Post, "Lack of transit options put Mall sites at a distance," illustrates the necessity of having an integrated federal-city visitor-focused transportation plan, to serve the millions of visitors that come to the city annually. From the letter:

My niece was visiting recently, and she wanted to see several buildings and monuments in Washington. We took the Metro to the Capitol, the Library of Congress and the U.S. Botanic Garden. This required a lot of walking, and the day was a bit windy and cold. The next part of our trip was to the carousel on the Mall, which she rode 40 years ago as a child.

We suddenly realized that there was no easy way to get there, and it was shocking to feel stranded in the middle of the District. I was uncertain about the Metrobus schedule and routes, and we would have had to walk quite a distance to get to a bus. We did not want to take a taxi, so we walked.

In the end, my niece dropped her plan to see the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the other memorials in that area of the Mall. It felt strange, and hard to believe, that we could not visit these memorials because we did not want to ride one of the hop-on/hop-off sightseeing buses.

Tourists shouldn’t be forced to take expensive sightseeing buses to see D.C. attractions. In hindsight, I suppose we could have taken a cab to see the memorials, but that would have still left us with quite a hike between some of the memorials. There should be another way for tourists to easily and inexpensively get around the Mall.

DOT transportation street sign, with map of the streetcar, shuttle bus, and water taxi services, Savannah, Georgia.

I was in Savannah for the holidays, and I discovered that Savannah created a visitor mobility plan in 2005, which called for various city mobility initiatives--a short distance streetcar on River Street (the route could be extended over time), water taxi service from the River Street District to the convention center across the Savannah River on Hutchinson Island, and a bus shuttle service between parking garages and certain activity centers downtown. This is complemented by 4 existing free shuttle routes through the downtown area run by the local transit system.

Savannah's mobility initiative, DOT, is paid for mostly by tourism taxes and revenues from the parking structures. To limit congestion--the roads are narrow and the blocks are short, limiting queuing capacity, visitors (and commuters) are encouraged to park at the parking structures--they aren't the prettiest things--and to walk and use the free transit services.

Unlike a lot of communities, the rate for parking is relatively inexpensive, $7 for one day or $12 for a two day pass.

There is still metered street parking, and there are other restrictions, not unlike how DC's performance parking district and residential parking permit restrictions favor residents over visitors--giving a two hour daily limit for free parking in these areas.

They even have a training program for front line staff:

-- MOBILITY FRONT LINE TRAINING REFERENCE MANUAL

The letter to the editor reminds me of a conversation I had with another tourism person years ago, but he was recounting his experience visiting DC with his aged mother. He said "there aren't places to sit in Washington, I had to buy her a chair that we carried around with us."

And it also reminds me of how Tyler Brule, the publisher of Monocle magazine and a columnist in the Financial Times, always complains about the quality of the experience at Dulles Airport, e.g., "High anxiety and buses on stilts."

And how Union Station and National Airport aren't managed in ways that provide quality customer experiences either.

The coming development of a city master transportation plan is an opportunity to raise and address these issues. And the Savannah Visitor Mobility Plan is a good model to start with, although for DC, the Capital Bikeshare program would be another element, see "Bikeshare: More of a Tourist Thing Than I Realized" from the City Paper Housing Complex blog.

Best downtowns in the U.S. (according to Forbes Magazine)

Pedestrian Mall, Burlington, Vermont. Image: Forbes Magazine.

1. Chicago
2. Portland, Oregon
3. Burlington, Vermont
4. Indianapolis
5. San Antonio
6. Savannah, Georgia
7. Kansas City, Missouri
8. Winston-Salem, North Carolina
9. Greenville, South Carolina
10. Santa Monica

The article, "America's Best Downtowns" reminds me of the point made by Kyle Ezell in the book Get Urban (blog entry review from the Walker Evans Effect blog) that you can find vital and urban places to live in many cities across the country, you don't have to go to just the biggest cities like New York or Boston or San Francisco, etc.

-- America's Best Downtowns slideshow from Forbes Magazine

As more commercial buildings have been converted to multiunit housing in center city downtown districts that had once been exclusively commercial, the stage becomes set for revitalization because residents, more than tourists, drive retail revitalization, and they become an interest group demanding and advocating for investment downtown.

The list seems a bit arbitrary to me, because it's hard to do a list like this unless you've been to absolutely every major city in the country, but also because communities have different "bests" that make it difficult to compare cities against each other on a straight set of criteria.

But I always find interesting stuff in downtowns and center cities. Also see the MSN feature, "Buyer's Marketplaces," which lists Fells Point, Baltimore [I'd recommend Hampden instead]; Pearl Street Mall in Boulder; 4th Street in Berkeley, California; Old Market in Omaha; Royal Street in New Orleans; State Street in Madison, Wisconsin; Byward Market in Ottawa, Ontario; Old City in Philadelphia [I vote for South Street too]; and Granville Island in Vancouver, British Columbia.

We just spent the past few days in Savannah, Georgia for example, and it's a great place, incredibly walkable, lots of things to see, beautiful squares, some amazing retail shops, etc.

Then again, River Street has been touristified to the point where other than the buildings it's not very interesting, and I was surprised to see the number of vacant buildings on the main retail street, Broughton--that being said, stores like Savannah Bee Company, Silver's, Sylvester & Company, Paris Market, and others were incredibly well merchandised, just superb and a real joy to visit (and buy stuff from).

Interestingly, Savannah considers to be "downtown" parts of the city that in other cities would be considered residential areas.

To "absorb" the large buildings, zoning in the "downtown" including majority residential precincts, has liberal provisions for commercial use including retail and accommodations--it would drive traditional DC residents crazy.

The fifth phase of center city revitalization (reprint)

It's worth reprinting this entry, from September 2006. For the most part, I believe that the text holds true today (in December 2011) for those center cities on the East and West Coasts that are holding their own, relatively speaking, despite the 2008 real estate crash.

Froma Harrop of the Providence Journal has a column from the last week, "Congratulations Seattleites, you live in a cool city," about what's driving this, young people's desire to live in interesting places. (I am a proponent of face-to-face connection and agglomeration economies, so I believe her thesis.)

She jokes somewhat in the piece that young people are going to live in these places, even if there aren't jobs there (which is the joke behind the IFC series "Portlandia"). This is fueled by having a decent supply of relatively low cost housing which supports shared housing, etc.

I am not part of that segment of the housing market anymore, but wonder how much of it still remains in DC...
--------------------

Tom Toles editorial cartoon about the cycle of change in center cities. Now the editorial cartoonist for the Washington Post, Toles produced this cartoon when he was at the Buffalo News.

Entry: Tuesday, September 19, 2006

The other thing that I thought about in terms of Mallach's talk and my own learning, some recent planning history and theory I've been reading, my reaction to a particular part of a presentation at a preservation fundraising training held last Saturday, and my continued incredulity about the failure of current residents to understand the antecedents of city livability, is phases of urban revitalization since just after World War II.

Outmigration from center cities was pretty much halted by the Depression and World War II, which diverted most resources to the war effort. But the process of outmigration started decades previous to the Depression, mostly enabled by railroads and then streetcars, but made relatively simple by the car, especially as a reliable road and service network developed.

After the War, the pent up demand of the American consumer was released. And rather than work to rehabilitate the cities, which experienced a good 16 years of disinvestment and it showed--many residents chose to leave the city and move into greener pastures.

For the most part, the cities were okay with this, especially in 1950, which for most center cities, was the peak of their population and power. Unbeknownst to them it was hollow...

The five phases of urban revitalization:

1. Urban renewal and a focus on accommodating the car. For centuries cities were designed around walking. The horse, carriage, and stagecoach were the most advanced technology for getting around. Cars changed everything. The ability to conquer distance changed everything, and scale and use of space changed dramatically.

The construction of the Interstate highway system should be considered part of this movement although it was more about enabling suburban development. Highways for the most part raped the center cities, which have not been able to recover still.

People moved out of the city, seeking the "American Dream" and a bit of lawn, but still worked in the city. Suburban development was mostly focused on retail and housing. As urban neighborhoods were cleared for "renewal" and "renewed" other city neighborhoods were destabilized by receiving the dispossessed which challenged neighborhood social networks.

Jane Jacobs' Death and Life of Great American Cities, published in 1961, was the major challenge to the intellectual foundations of urban renewal.

From the 1960s, until the last decade, most urban sociologists believed that cities were born, grew, declined, and died. There was no sense within academia that center cities could revive.

2. The historic preservation movement in the early 1960s. People, attracted by the historic building stock in many urban neighborhoods, moved to the city. Center cities had changed significantly in terms of population as a result of white flight. The preservation movement was two pronged, mostly augured by new residents, usually white, but also with a current resident thread, in some African-American neighborhoods.

The preservation movement was also an outgrowth of the anti-freeway movement in places like Greenwich Village in NYC, the French Quarter in New Orleans, Washington, DC and other places. The National Historic Preservation Act was first passed in 1966, and it called for protection of designated neighborhoods vis-a-vis federal undertakings, in particular, freeway projects.

3. The "Community Development" refashioning of the urban renewal philosophy. Community Development Corporations were created to step in and act where the market refused. And especially after the period of urban unrest (riots, rebellion, civil disturbances--choose your term) peaking after the assasination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., cities emptied out of both middle and upper income residents, as well as businesses, especially in those areas scarred by unrest.

Washington Music Center, Washington DC after the 1968 riots, 1200 block of H Street NE. This business relocated to Wheaton, Maryland.

Most CDCs built housing. For the most part, CDCs saw the solution to the urban problem in terms of the automobile-centric suburban development paradigm, and most projects aggressively suburbanized the city through the construction of strip shopping centers, shopping malls, and housing oriented to the car, driveways and parking, rather than attached, more dense housing (for the most part). Rather than enhancing population through adding residents, many CDC and post-riot renewal projects ended up reducing the number of middle income residents, and focused on serving lower-income residents.

In my opinion, in most places, the millions of dollars invested in CDCs from the mid-1970s to today have had little impact in terms of positive urban revitalization, because they adopted a paradigm antithetical to the competitive advantages of the city. I don't think they were mendacious, but I bet it's the rare CDC director or board member who has ever read Jane Jacobs.

4. Continued in-migration by people attracted to urban living, in part due to overt or covert strictures on choice or appeal of where to live. (I need better language for this.) Immigrants, artists, and other people with alternative lifestyles found urban living to be affordable and/or attractive for a variety of reasons, and continued to move into urban areas, despite recent experiences with civil unrest, national and regional trends and polices that continued to favor suburban development (including federal mortgage policies), increased municipal dysfunction and decline in the provision of services.

These populations built on the efforts started by the preservationists. In certain places with extremely low real estate demand, immigrants had tremendous impact. Improvement cumulated over generations, as financial capacity developed with assimilation and the achievement of critical mass, assisted by continued immigration by members of the extended family.

5. Renewed interest in urban living by younger and older people. Spurred in part by tv shows such as Friends and Seinfeld, as well as a desire for a lifestyle not centered upon the automobile. Some say there is actually a "bookend" effect with seniors attracted to city living as well because of the ability to get around without a car (driving abilities often degrade with age), transit, and the amenities.

This senior couple lives by Potomac Avenue metro station in DC, and they ride around much of the city. Downtown to swim at the YWCA, etc. They are looking forward to riding to 24th and L Streets NW to go shop at Trader Joe's.

One aspect of this phase is an interest in historic residential building stock is paired with demand for lower-maintenance living in multiunit apartment and condominium buildings. But a big part of the attraction are walkable neighborhoods anchored by commercial districts, cafes, coffee shops, etc.

Flickr Photo by Eye Captain.

Adams-Morgan on a typical Sunday.

There are many more issues that could be discussed, but then this would become a 10,000 word essay. Displacement, programs to support housing options for those of lesser means, strengthening independent retail, transit, dealing with new residents possessing a suburban, car-centric paradigm about land use, how to add infill housing and commercial development in ways that don't overwhelm extant neighborhoods, the quality of municipal services, especially public safety, and public education, the issue of change in power relations and contested spaces, are just a few that come to mind.

But one concern that initiated this piece to begin with is the failure of many new residents to understand that they wouldn't have attractive urban neighborhoods to live in if it weren't for historic preservationists and their efforts over the many decades when people thought they were crazy for remaining committed to the city.

New residents ought to be the first to support preservation, if they want to remain in a livable city, one that faces tremendous pressures to redevelop into a more dense pattern, because of the profits that can be reaped by doing so.

But this could come at a great cost: the loss of the very characteristics that make the city livable to begin with.

Detroit in underdrive

For all the talk about the resurgence of Detroit and its region after the collapse of two of the three major U.S. based automobile manufacturers there, which has devasted the regional economy, the city's recent choice to go with bus rapid transit instead of light rail, for a transit system on Woodward Avenue, which in turn dooms the ability of the ability to develop light rail along Woodward in Avenue in Oakland County, demonstrates that the region hasn't reached the point where it is willing to redefine and reposition for the future.

See "Detroit light-rail plan is dead; high-speed city, suburban buses to be used instead," "Light-rail investors press on with plans to build shorter line in Detroit," and "Detroit's do-or-die moment is at hand" from the Detroit Free Press.

From the last article, by columnist Tom Walsh:

The much ballyhooed Woodward light rail plan was always more important symbolically than it was in terms of its actual projected ridership or the construction jobs it would generate.

It embodied the elusive dream that private-sector investment from big names -- Roger Penske, Dan Gilbert, Peter Karmanos and the Ilitch family -- in tandem with support from philanthropic foundations such as Kresge and Hudson-Webber could help ignite an economic rebirth of Detroit along its main artery. ...

Just like the plug has been pulled on Woodward light rail, investments of all kinds – new housing to meet growing demand in Midtown, new shifts at auto plants, hospital expansions — could grind to a halt if Detroit is perceived to be imploding. Further down the road, there’s no law that says Detroit is entitled to have professional sports teams, symphonies or art museums forever.

The glimmer of hope here is that we have people in this town who have conjured improbable comebacks from the scariest of crises — the auto company CEOs and the heads of DMC and Henry Ford hospital groups, all of which were drowning in red ink a few short years ago.

Now is the time to act, before other promising projects are derailed like the Woodward light rail line.

-- Woodward Light Rail

Although to be fair, the project in Detroit has been scuttled in part because of a determination by the US DOT that poor economic prospects in Detroit and Michigan make long term stewardship and financial operation of a light rail system in Detroit a somewhat risky project.

On the other hand, I would argue that Detroit has to bet the farm if it wants to reposition.

With this decision, the city is likely to continue its economic free fall and failure. Maybe they should make a decision not unlike how Memphis did about its school system, forcing a merger with the county school system. See "Merger of Memphis and County School Districts Revives Challenges" from the New York Times.

Maybe Detroit should just merge into Wayne County, or Oakland, Wayne, and Macomb Counties should merge?

Interestingly, the wacked conservative politicians in Troy, Michigan (where I lived during my junior and senior high school years) are similarly vision-less, having voted against support for the creation of an enhanced rail station in the city, which borders Birmingham. (When I was in high school, there was a local commuter railroad service that stopped at this station, although I can't remember if I ever took it, my adoptive father did from time to time.)

They did this out of some misplaced belief that the federal government is wasting money on transit, on "principle," as the City Council needed to make a decision in favor of the station for the plan to go forward, but the project involved federal and state transportation funding--and the Governor of the State of Michigan, Rick Snyder, a Republican, is in favor of the project.

See "Troy turns down plan for transit center, passes on $8.4M in fed funds" from the Detroit News and "In Troy, an all-too-familiar fear of the other" from the Detroit Free Press.

From the Detroit News article:

After a decade of planning, a regional transit center is off the table after the Troy council voted Monday to pass up a design contract that would have paved the way for $8.4 million in federal funding to build it.

A divided council listened to residents, stakeholders and engineers speak for about two hours before turning down, in a 4-3 vote, an architectural and engineering contract to design the facility. The decision puts an end to a project that polarized the community.

By voting not to award the contract to build the transit center, the council essentially forfeited the $8.4 million in federal grant money. ... "We were not going to approve this transit center. We didn't believe it was the right way to use taxpayers' money or to move this city forward in a positive and vibrant way."
‎
From the Detroit Free Press article:

Hicks!

Until a few weeks ago, it wouldn't have occurred to me or anyone else to describe the denizens of Troy that way. On its face, after all, the largest city in Michigan's richest county is a pretty sophisticated place. ...

To be a hick in 2011, then, is to be in a state of denial -- which is why "hicks" is precisely the right word to describe Troy Mayor Janice Daniels and the like-minded elected city leaders who've sent Troy reeling backward in time, grasping for a past that is not so much racist or unsophisticated as it is, well, past. ...

Daniels & Co. invoked a series of spurious arguments to defend their decision, including the claim that they were striking a blow against federal spending. (In fact, the federal money that had been earmarked for the Troy transit center will now be disbursed for similar projects elsewhere, although not necessarily in Michigan.)

But their real motive was transparent: the fear that outsiders currently disinclined to visit Troy may do so if enticed by a modern train station and convenient parking, at an incalculable cost to Troy taxpayers and their way of life.

This paranoid insularity is hardly unique to Troy, of course. It's epidemic in Michigan, a state whose percentage of native-born residents is second to only Louisiana's.

Nor is it unique to the relatively affluent suburbs. In fact, the closest parallel to Troy's Mayor Daniels may be Detroit City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson, whose reflexive suspicion of suburban outsiders mirrors the concern Daniels and her allies express about transit riders from the region beyond Troy's borders.

-- Environmental Assessment, Troy/Birmingham Intermodal Transportation Facility, Oakland County, Michigan

Of course, putting in enhanced transit service in a place like Detroit is a counterintuitive decision because the economy is dependent on the automobile, and the automobile-based economy is dependent on sprawl--the Detroit region is the most deconcentrated of any metropolitan area in the U.S.

But 21st Century mobility, and place positioning for cities vis-a-vis others favors high quality transit service. Research by Newman and Kenworthy finds that regions with robust transit have higher incomes and a more robust economy compared to regins that don't.

Washington, DC would be a basket case--no different from Newark or Baltimore in all likelihood--without the heavy rail subway system, which opened its first phase in 1976 and didn't fulfill its original footprint until around 2001.

Sure there was plenty of high quality historic residential building stock, and the steady employment engine of the federal government, but access to high quality transit redefined many neighborhoods, repositioning their value and position within the regional economy.

A couple nights ago, exchanging holiday presents with one of our next door neighbors--they are lifelong DC residents--we were talking about their early experiences as a young married couple, living more than 30 years ago at 15th and R Streets NW, and how they sold their house for about $150,000 in the early 1980s, and how it would be worth at least $800,000 today.

Thank the Metro for that.

Despite all the lousy government and decline in the quality of municipal services, including most (but not all) ofthe school system, the subway service made living in the city a worthwhile choice despite all the negatives of urban living.

How Detroit thinks that enhanced bus service--nowhere in the U.S. is bus rapid transit making much of a difference in terms of repositioning communities and neighborhoods within metropolitan regions--will help it going forward is beyond me.

Seeing how light rail lines are helping reposition places like Minneapolis and Phoenix ought to have been a lesson that more desperate communities like Detroit ought to have learned from.

But it should be no surprise that they haven't.

Talking with my neighbors (because we always talk about and mostly lament the state of local government) the other night, I made my point that DC failures, especially within neighborhoods, aren't just the result of disinvestment, but also a failure of leadership at all levels.

Similarly, Detroit is in the position that it is in because of six decades of failed leadership by people in business, government, and the unions. It didn't happen overnight...

That's one crazy popup (on the unit block of Florida Avenue NW)

Photo from EE.

Another example of why DC needs citywide design guidelines, regardless of whether or not a neighborhood is designated, as this desecreated early 1900s Victorian style (Queen Anne) rowhouse communicates to us.

Dream of the suburbs is alive in Vancouver, Washington

A video parody based on the opening of the IFC series, "Portlandia."

Public Space Report Card from the University of British Columbia

I am a fan of inventories and surveys as a way to structure our approaches to revitalization:

- Litter Survey Form, Keep Australia Beautiful

- Problem Property Audit Form, University of Memphis

- Community Design Assessment, National Trust for Historic Preservation

- Urban Design Evaluation Tool & Glossary of Terms, Design Advocacy Group, Philadelphia

- Place Game, Project for Public Spaces.

- Neighborhood active/healthy design checklist, Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada

- Pedestrian Road Safety Audit, Federal Highway Adminstration

The Public Space Report Card from the University of British Columbia is a worthy addition to this list.

DC giving money to universities to give to their employees to live in the city

According to this DC government press advisory "MAYOR VINCENT C. GRAY TO ANNOUNCE LIVE NEAR YOUR WORK PARTNERSHIP WITH GALLAUDET & AMERICAN UNIVERSITY"

From the press advisory:

Mayor Vincent C. Gray will announce the kickoff of the District’s Live Near Your Work pilot program with the award of grants to Gallaudet University and American University to encourage their employees to purchase homes near their jobs in the District. ...

Live Near Your Work is the District’s matching homeownership grant program developed by the D.C. Office of Planning. Grants will be paired with contributions by major D.C. employers toward down-payment and closing costs for employees who purchase a home in the District near their job or close to mass-transit stations.

While the intent is good, it's backwards. FWIW, this kind of program should be required of universities in the city as part of the approval of university campus plans, without DC having to give these institutions money to do so.

Mercer University (Macon) and University of Pennsylvania, among other institutions, have extensive programs concerning revitalization of neighborhoods around their campuses, where they are making the investment in the surrounding communities, sometimes with some grant assistance, but not with municipal funds.

See "Penn offers assistance in buying West Philly homes" from Penn Current. From the article:

Penn’s Enhanced Forgivable Loan Program allows full-time employees to receive $7,500 that can be used for down payment, closing costs, home renovations, energy audit home retrofits or the purchase of eco-products. The Closing Cost Reduction Program offers nominal discounted closing costs to the University community for the purchase of a home in West Philadelphia.

More than 1,000 University and Health System employees have taken advantage of the programs since 1965, when Penn first began offering West Philadelphia home buying incentives.

Toyin Adegbite-Moore, director of Penn Home Ownership Services, says the incentive programs have benefited both Penn employees and the local community. “It keeps the University connected to the community where it’s based,” she says. “And for the community, there’s a connection to the University.”

From the "Home Buying Guide" on the Historic Macon website:

Mercer University Down Payment Assistance
Mercer University offers up to $20,000 for any of its full-time employees to purchase a house in College Hill. This program is very simple to use and has few restrictions.