Urbanism obituaries, 2022 | Death clusters of people, buildings and organizations as an indicator of institutional failure

Recently, I thought about demolition of historic buildings in cities like Detroit as deaths, and that they were worthy of a listing in my annual article on "Urbanism-related Obituaries (2022)." I have listed failures of retail businesses like Sears or Debenhams, why not buildings?

But then I thought that there was a difference between deaths of individuals and systemic, institutional failure.  And that this type of death should be called out in a different entry.

 Homeless Deaths from Exposure. We can't really blame this on cities.  

Homelessness concentrates in cities because there are more people, housing is more expensive, and people migrate to cities because they are more likely to offer social services.  But multiple reports made me realize that we need to think about this even more ("Hundreds of homeless people died on Orange County’s streets in 2022," Orange County Register; "At least 77 people died homeless in nation’s capital this year," Washington Post; "This year, at least 159 homeless Utahns died. The death toll is likely higher, officials say," Salt Lake Tribune).

Readers have called our attention to the book, Homelessness is a Housing Problem, which I haven't yet tracked down ("Is homelessness a housing problem? Two Seattle experts make their case in new book," Seattle Times).

Traffic-related deaths. There are more traffic deaths outside of cities than within cities, because traffic tends to move more slowly within cities.  

Since covid, traffic related fatalities are on the rise ("With traffic deaths on the rise, psychologists are being called on to make driving safer," APA). They had been on a decline before that.

Then again, it depends on whether or not motor vehicle operators are conscious of pedestrians and bicyclists.  Coming to Utah, it's a poster child for sprawl, and the mobility paradigm is centered on the car.  In fact, two of the top ten car dealership groups are based here, one sold for $3.2 billion (although they have dealerships in states other than Utah).  The state is an oil producer, and has at least five oil refineries, so it is super committed to a gasoline-centric land use and transportation planning paradigm.

Blue ribbons were tied to trees along the walking route to Bonneville Elementary School on 1900 South in Salt Lake City.

Recently a child was killed at an intersection a few blocks away (" School community mourns loss of 11-year-old girl after crosswalk crash," KSL-TV).  

There was no reason for it.  The sight lines are fine, there aren't problems with the pavement quality or intersection, there is a traffic signal.  The driver said "I didn't see her."

I've come to believe that "I didn't see her" really means "I didn't look."

This is a problem in cities that promote more trips by walking, transit, and biking, in that there is little education or emphasis on training motor vehicle operators to be a lot more aware and responsible for their acts.

-- "A more radical approach to "Vision Zero" is needed: reconstructing streets out of different materials to reduce speeds," 2019
-- "Vision Zero mea culpa in DC," 2022

Salt Lake has lots of car-light rail accidents, and the state experiences weird killings of bicyclists by drivers, and many pedestrian deaths 

Drug overdose related deaths. I had no idea, but more people die in most cities from drug overdoses, not murders ("Drug overdoses now kill more Americans than guns," CBS News, "Overdose Deaths Continue Rising, With Fentanyl and Meth Key Culprits," New York Times).  

The cynical part of me thinks that this outcome is cheaper than trying to address the problem.  Although to be fair to public health departments, many do address it.

But it's hard because some of the logical ways of addressing it are politically fraught ("https://chicago.suntimes.com/2022/12/27/23517734/opioid-overdoses-prevention-sites-safe-injection-west-side-tanya-sorrell-lashawn-ford-op-ed," Chicago Sun-Times).

Demolitions of historically significant buildings.  I've written for years that demolition of buildings is seen as a solution, but in weak markets, just creates a different kind of nuisance, that of an empty lot.

One of the buildings demolished in Detroit this year is the headquarters for the American Motors Corporation (AMC).  

(Interestingly, I've been reading a biography of George Romney--The story of George Romney: builder, salesman, crusader--who headed AMC before he went on to become Governor of Michigan and later a candidate for President.  He was Mitt Romney's father and frankly, I think George was a much more principled person.)

Originally it was the HQ for the Kelvinator refrigerator company, with the main manufacturing plant behind.  

When the company merged with Nash Motors and became Nash-Kelvinator it became the headquarters for the combined corporation, and remained so when the company merged with Hudson Motors, and later when it was renamed American Motors.

I can't imagine a new building being constructed in its place will have the kind of architectural stature of this building ("AMC Headquarters redevelopment advances with brownfield plan approval," Detroit News).

Another article discussed the demolition of an apartment building next to a neighborhood park ("Demolition on abandoned Detroit apartment begins Tuesday," Fox2 TV).  It's doubly ironic.  

First, the building was called out as a potential anchor in a neighborhood revitalization plan only four years ago.  

Second, apartment buildings are a great way to leverage the place value of parks in terms of adding residents and increasing property values.  The likelhihood of that vacant lot being filled with a new building in a weak real estate market like Detroit is remote.

In fact, I think about this all the time, wrt Salt Lake City and the park of which I am on the board, and how buildings across the street could be comparable to how apartment buildings line the streets across from parks in New York City.

In short, while it takes a lot of work to restore a vacant historic building, in most instances, the place values (see the book Economics of Uniqueness: Investing in Historic City Cores and Cultural Heritage Assets for Sustainable Development) are so much greater than if they are ever replaced.

Cities need to be more innovative and work harder on this.

Photo: Tom Gralish, Philadelphia Inquirer.

Demise of arts organizations. It turns out that it looks like the Philadelphia Pops Orchestra isn't going to shutter ("Philly Pops musicians and management reach tentative agreement for new contracts," Philadelphia Inquirer).  It was on the verge ("The Philly Pops is shutting down, leaders say:  This season's Christmas concerts will be the Philly Pops' last," PI), and there was a great article about how the shutdown would have significant negative impact on the music element of the performing arts ecosystem in Philadelphia ("Philly Pops fun is going away. What happens next for the arts is serious business," PI).

I've been writing about these kinds of recurring failures for almost 20 years, seeing multiple organizational failures in DC, and recognizing that these weren't one-off problems, but indicators of systemic and structural problems in how communities plan and fund arts and cultural institutions.

-- "Cultural resources planning in DC: In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king," 2007
-- "What would be a "Transformational Projects Action Plan" for DC's cultural ecosystem," 2019
-- "A comprehensive list of funding sources for arts and culture," 2019

Most cities fail when it comes to a systemic approach.

To me, a key element is an "early warning" system so that groups can be helped when they fall into trouble to begin with, not when they are about to close, lose their facilities, etc.

Demise of retail businesses, national and local.  I've included listings of retail businesses that fail in the urbanism obituaries for years.  But it deserves mention in this piece.  

Cities need to have early warning systems to deal with this going forward especially now, because post-covid it's that much harder for independent businesses to succeed, yet those are the businesses that enliven central and neighborhood business districts.  

We saw a recent edition of PBS News Hour and they ran a story on small retailers, "Small retailers find ways to adapt amid pandemic and online shopping convenience," featuring a store we used to frequent in Takoma Park Maryland called Table, a housewares store.  They closed their Dupont Circle store in DC, because it was experiencing much less foot traffic, while the neighborhood focused store kept its patronage steady.  

Not that I haven't been writing about those issues for the past 20 years...

-- "From more space to socially distance to a systematic program for pedestrian districts (Park City (Utah) Main Street Car Free on Sundays)," 2020
-- "What is the competitive advantage for the post-covid city? Doubling down on place values," 2022 (this entry has 20+ links to other posts)

Deaths of newspapers. Mention this a lot.  Newspaper readership is associated with participation in local civic affairs.  But printed newspapers have been declining for a long time, first because of the consolidation of local business into large companies that didn't need to advertise, and then the demise of local companies (other than car dealers), and second by the Internet, when people tossed newspaper subscriptions in favor of information from the web and/or stopped reading "quality information" altogether.

Source

This article, "Newspapers are disappearing where democracy needs them most" (Washington Post) mentions the mapping of "newspaper deserts."

-- "Newspapers as public media: WBEZ, radio, an NPR affiliate, to merge with the Chicago Sun-Times," 2022

School closures ("National Community Planning Month: Schools as neighborhood anchors," 2022).  I have a number of entries about how urban planning is upside down in that elementary schools are usually fundamental anchors to healthy neighborhoods, but our planning system does not recognize or prioritize this, and many school planning precepts take actions that actively contravene this.

Recognition of the need for school support, that school support = neighborhood support.  There are stories about school closure planning in Oakland, California ("In Oakland, closing schools opens questions about a city’s soul," Washington Post).  

 

What amazed me about the situation is that Oakland has lots of charter schools ("How Charter Schools Became Such a Big Player in California's Education System," KQED/NPR), and they drew off enrollment from the traditional schools, so those schools started failing, in turn having negative impact on neighborhood based schools.  

This is a problem in DC too.  Student enrollment hasn't grown that much, but the number of schools has skyrocketed, because charter schools can pretty much open regardless of enrollment trends.

One way to think of this is as mitigation.  If new schools are allowed to draw off students, and schools in neighborhoods are key neighborhood assets, then the negative impact on neighborhood schools needs to be mitigated proactively.

Salt Lake is about to go through a series of school closures ("Millions wasted as Salt Lake City school board fails to close elementaries," Salt Lake Tribune).  Reporting has not embraced the concept that I promote, that some schools need to be preserved as neighborhood stabilization measures--recognizing that some schools will close.  Not to mention that organized parent groups vociferously fight closure.

The fact is that household sizes are decreasing and Salt Lake City and County were national outliers in having a high rate of households with children.  That's changing, and there are "too many" schools or schools in the wrong places, as different parts of the County and the school districts go through growth and contraction.  Although it happens that schools in my particular area have burgeoning enrollments.

For example, I went to school in Oakland County, Michigan, one of the nation's richest counties.  When I was in high school, many area school districts had two or three high schools.  Now, many of those cities have closed at least one, and the current enrollment of the one school is significantly less than peak enrollment for one school.  But I looked up the population numbers, and the county actually has 200,000+ more residents than it did when I was in high school.  Demographic trends mean smaller numbers of school aged children.

Library defunding. Not many examples of this.  Libraries at least in the US, open more than they close.  But a rural community in Michigan has defunded its library because it has "gay books" ("Only library in Michigan town to close after voters defund it for refusing to ban LGBTQ books,").  

In the meantime, donations have kept the library open ("LGBTQ-friendly library receives another mind-blowing donation to stay open amid homophobic protest," Queerty).

Libraries are under threat in many communities across the country over similar issues, increasingly with the support of national organizations and initiatives ("Template for attack on LGBTQ books replicated in Central Oregon," Oregon Public Broadcasting).

This is a scary indicator of the power of conservatives to cancel and defund public goods. Who are the real snowflakes?