20th anniversary of the blog| Urban revitalization systems thinking's greatest hits: Part two -- not transportation

This entry became very long, so I broke it up.

"20th anniversary of the blog|  Urban revitalization systems thinking's greatest hits: Part one -- (in)FAQ and my influences," (2025)
-- "20th anniversary of the blog| Urban revitalization systems thinking's greatest hits: Part two -- not transportation," (2025)
-- "20th anniversary of the blog| Urban revitalization systems thinking's greatest hits: Part three -- transportation," (2025)

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Below I have listed the entries that do lay out systems frameworks the best and/or that I remember writing.  (There are plenty of posts I don't remember writing!)

Arts-based revitalization

A focus on arts-based revitalization grew out of my interest in historic preservation "as a cultural resource," as one cultural element of many in a community.  Very soon into my writing, before the blog, a bunch of DC cultural institutions failed, so this became an ongoing topic.

These two recent entries recount many of the pieces as step by step I developed a more comprehensive approach to arts-based revitalization.

-- "Lack of a system breeds more of the same: Source Theater, Washington DC, up for sale 2006, 2024," (2024)
-- "The town (or place) that art saved(?): arts as revitalization versus arts as community building," (2024)

In 2009, I gave a presentation at the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas conference about "arts districts" and theatre as an example of an artistic-discipline focused approach.

-- "Arts, culture districts and revitalization," (2009)

In 2015 I made the network/cultural ecosystem element a key addition:

-- "Building the arts and culture ecosystem in DC: Part One, sustained efforts vs. one-off or short term initiatives," (2015)

and in 2019 I added another point that was a given, but hadn't been codified into its own point, about forming arts-based community development corporations to buy, hold, manage, and operate properties.:

-- "Reprinting with a slight update, 'Arts, culture districts and revitalization'," (2019)

Buy the Mother Fucking Building Already

BTMFBA, or Buy The Mother F------ Building Already, is a set of blog entries about how arts groups specifically and nonprofits more generally, should own their facilities to be able to control their futures.  I got tired of reading over and over of the displacement of arts groups and the like.  It's a broken record because they don't own their properties.

-- "From BTMFBA to "community right to buy"," (2024)

-- "BTMFBA: the best way to ward off artist or retail displacement is to buy the building," (2016)

-- "BTMFBA: maintaining arts spaces in the face of rising real estate values | Seattle, New York City," (2024)
-- "New form of BTMFBA in San Francisco," (2023)
-- "A wrinkle on BTMFBA: let the city/county own the cultural facility, while you operate it (San Francisco and the Fillmore Heritage Center)," (2021)
-- "BTMFBA: Baltimore and the Area 405 Studio," (2021)
-- "Revisiting stories: cultural planning and the need for arts-based community development corporations as real estate operators," (2018)
-- "BMFBTA revisited: nonprofits and facilities planning and acquisition," (2016)
-- "BTMFBA: artists and Los Angeles," (2017)
-- "BTMFBA Chronicles: Seattle coffee shop raises money to buy its building," (2018)
-- "Dateline Los Angeles: BTMFBA & Transformational Projects Action Planning & arts-related community development corporation as an implementation mechanism to own property," (2018)

Cities (Counties) and Urban Revitalization

When I started working on this stuff, I was most interested in historic preservation.  Main Street commercial district revitalization practice grew out of HP and a desire to save "old buildings" in the face of the development of shopping centers, chain retail, and broken microeconomies.

These three pieces grew from each other, starting with Main Street but more about cities in general, how elected and appointed officials need to see themselves as destination managers, branding managers, asset managers, and risk managers.

-- ""Town-City branding or 'We are all destination managers now," (2005)
-- "We are all brand managers now" came from when I wrote commercial district revitalization plans for a couple of towns in Georgia and Maryland.  
-- "Town-city management: We are all asset managers now"," (2015)

These suggest revitalization programs for East County, Montgomery County; Pontiac, Michigan; and St. Louis.  In part they are built on "best practice revitalization" pieces that are listed under master planning.  But also the Hennepin Works program initiated by Hennepin County, Minnesota starting in the late 1980s to stabilize property values in Minneapolis.

-- St. Louis: what would I recommend for a comprehensive revitalization program? | Part 1: Overview and Theoretical Foundations," (2021)
-- "St. Louis: what would I recommend for a comprehensive revitalization program? | Part 2: Implementation Approach and Levers," (2021)
-- "Revisiting St. Louis revitalization planning in the face of population shrinkage," (2023)

-- "Pontiac Michigan: a lagging African American city in one of the nation's wealthiest counties," (2022)

-- "East County, Montgomery County, Maryland: Council redistricting spurs ideas for revitalization | Part 1 -- Overview," (2021)

-- "Revisiting the 11th Street Bridge Park project as an opportunity rather than a folly: a new revitalization agenda for East of the River, DC," (2024)

-- "Smaller town revitalization planning: No, Thomas Friedman is not a sage," (2018)

Since I started this work in earnest on H Street NE in Washington, DC, helping to form a commercial district revitalization program there, and the area has experienced more than $1 billion in new development since, this is an important piece about the "community development corporation" approach, which I didn't think was working.  Of course, there are many more pieces on this broad topic as I was trying to figure things out.

-- "The community development approach and the revitalization of DC's H Street corridor: congruent or oppositional approaches?," (2013)

Civic assets as a network

The "change isn't that simple" entry discusses multiple cities with wide-ranging anchor project development with branding similarities to the "Signature Streets" proposal.  I'm interested in co-location and the opportunity of civic assets to be nodes for promoting civic engagement and democracy.

-- "Eastern Market DC's 150th anniversary last weekend | And my unrealized master plan for the market," (2023)

-- "Neighborhood libraries as nodes in a neighborhood and city-wide network of cultural assets," (2019)

-- "Change isn't usually that simple: The repatterning of Oklahoma City's Downtown Streetscape," (2021)

-- "National Community Planning Month: Schools as neighborhood anchors," (2022)

-- "Great article on urban design qualities of Kimmel Center in Philadelphia | extendable to civic assets more generally," (2023)

Commercial property taxing methodologies/Overtaxing retail space in DC

For years I testified that DC's property tax methodologies over value commercial property when it comes to retail stores.  I stopped testifying when I realized that the city's elected officials either didn't understand or care.  They seemed able to focus on a legacy business or two worried about displacement (like Ben's Chili Bowl) but they couldn't grapple with it being a systematic problem affecting all retail businesses.

-- "Displacement of retail businesses through increasing property tax assessments," (2005)

-- "Forcing Displacement by the disconnection of tax assessment models from public policy goals," (2005)

-- "Displacement of retail businesses through increasing property tax assessments," (2005)

-- "Dupont Circle's changing retail environment covered in today's Post ," (2006)

-- "Is there a link between historic designation and chaining up of retail in neighborhood commercial districts?," (2006)

-- "Testimony -- Historic Neighborhood Retail Business Property Tax Relief Act," (2006)

-- "The real estate market replicates commodity, not community," (2007)

-- "Avoiding the real problem with DC's property tax assessment methodologies," (2007)
-- "Cleveland Park Retail: My off-hand evaluation, the rents are too high," (2009)

-- "Revisiting the issue of neighborhood commercial district property tax methodologies," (2013)

-- "Further evidence of DC being an international/national real estate market," (2018)

Community Boards and building the capacity for quality civic engagement

DC has what are called Advisory Neighborhood Commissions.  Other cities have differently named  similar organizations. Generally, they have the power to weigh in on matters before government bodies.

My biggest criticism is that they lack resources and are given little in the way of technical assistance (not that the average Commissioner thinks they need it).  In DC especially there is a missed opportunity to leverage the value of the city's 46 ANCs as a network, both at the ward and city-wide scales.

-- "DC's Advisory Neighborhood Commissions," (2012)
-- "(Even more on) ANCs (Advisory Neighborhood Commissions in DC)," (2010)
-- "Setting up DC's Advisory Neighborhood Commissions for success," (2022) (lots of links within)
-- ""Networked solutions" for some problems with ANCs in DC," (2011)
-- "Dumb... to fix bad practices, make them democratic instead of just eliminating them," (2012) (also discusses participatory budgeting)

Note that the network concept applies to parks and libraries friends groups, and school PTAs as well. Even neighborhood associations.

Best practice capacity building efforts that I've come across:

-- "Building civic engagement systematically: Seattle's Department of Neighborhoods," (2022)
-- "Framingham Massachusetts creates Citizen Participation Officer position" (2018)
-- "Gaps in Parks Master Planning: Part Eight | Civic Engagement and Positive Promotion of Democracy," (2024)

-- "Main Street and getting schooled in politics, constituency building, and building support for your program," (2006)

Federation of Calgary Communities has an extensive set of technical assistance courses.  Park Pride, the Atlanta area friends of the parks organization, has an annual conference.  So does Friends of the Parks in Chicago.

The Asset Based Community Development Institute is a great resource, having published a number of workbooks (the ones out of print are available as free pdfs).  In college I came across an organization at the University of Massachusetts Amherst called the Citizen Involvement Training Project--I remember their workbooks being good.

Crime

Given urban crime problems in general and specifically in DC--I remember the worst of the murders in the 1990s, the crack epidemic ("Rayful Edmond's death reminds me of my introduction to Washington, DC") etc., it's no wonder I have written a lot about crime.  These articles are a good summing up.

-- "The state of "broken windows" versus "problem oriented policing" strategies in 2016: Part 1, theory and practice," (2016) (references the speech by Ronald Clarke upon receiving the Stockholm Prize in Criminology)
-- "The state of "broken windows" versus "problem oriented policing" strategies in 2016: Part 2, what to do," (2016)
-- "Social Urbanism and Baltimore," (2019)
-- "Night-time safety: rethinking lighting in the context of a walking community," (2014)
-- Crime prevention through environmental design and repeated burglaries at the Naylor Gardens apartment complex," (2013)
-- "George Kelling, co-creator of the "Broken WIndows" thesis, dies" (2019)
-- "Proof of Broken Windows theory in Philadelphia and New York City," (2024)

-- "Where is the risk management approach to police misconduct and regularized killings of citizens?," (2020)

Cultural Planning

Out of the writings on arts-based revitalization grew my interest in arts and culture master planning, and looking at DC as a locally-focused arts ecosystem and the gaps, since the reality is that DC "outsources" "the arts" to federal institutions.

-- "What would be a "Transformational Projects Action Plan" for DC's cultural ecosystem," (2019)

Design Method as an alternative to Rational Planning/Applying graphic design approaches to urban planning

-- "All the talk of e-government, digital government, and open source government is really about employing the design method," (2012)

I became more interested in the application of the "design method" to urban planning, rather than traditional urban planning ("Scenario planning"), because DM is dynamic: iterative, has feedback loops, accepts changes to "scope of work," etc.  

Rational planning is pretty static at least to me, with constrained scopes and less willingness to change approaches and recommendations as new information is uncovered.

Once too, I misheard a presentation at a conference, and I thought the presenter said she applies "graphic design" approaches to urban planning.  She did, for facade improvements in small towns, but didn't extend the concept to planning more generally.

The design method is the foundation of what I call action planning, a type of master planning (below).

-- "PL #7: Using the Purple Line to rebrand Montgomery and Prince George's Counties as Design Forward," (2017)

-- "Design as city branding: transit edition," (2012)
-- "City (and university) branding: brand deposits; brand withdrawals; brand destruction," (2012)
-- "Georgetown: A subtle but important difference between branding and identity-positioning," (2010)
-- "Identity ≠ branding or Authenticity is the basis of identity," (2007)
-- "The taxi livery debacle as a lead in to a broader discussion of the importance of "design" to DC's "brand promise," (2012)
-- "Illustration of government and design thinking: Boston's City Hall to Go truck," (2013)
-- "(DC) Neighborhoods and commercial districts as brands," (2012)

Semi-relatedly, but also more broadly, for a time, Los Angeles had a "Chief Design Officer."

-- "Christopher Hawthorne, LA Times architecture critic to become Chief Design Officer for the City of Los Angeles" (2018)

Equity Planning/Social Urbanism

In 2013, I was on grand jury duty.  We mostly dealt with drug and gun crimes, but got robberies, assaults, murder, etc. testimonies too.  I realized that DC spends a billion or two on the city's two poorest wards--7 and 8 (although 4 and 5 have pockets of poverty too)--just to keep things the same, at equilibrium. And equilibrium is bad--those areas experience the most crime and murders in the city.

As one of the court reporters said, "breaking the cycle?! We're just cutting the grass!"

I came to realize this diagram for parks planning, was equally applicable to equity/social infrastructure planning.  I just need to revise it, using "subway lines" iconography as a way to outline the various subsystems that make up a community's social infrastructure, which holds the community together.

The Public Realm as an Interconnected system, Slide from presentation, "Leadership and the Role of Parks and Recreation in the New Economy," David Barth and Carlos Perez, AECOM.

When I first started thinking about this, I was introduced by someone working on the Purple Line team to the Latin American revitalization approach called "social urbanism," which is focused on investments in place.  

I had proposed this to now Mayor Bowser before she first ran for mayor, under the rubric of "Deputy Mayor of East of the River."  She transmogrified it into "Deputy Mayor for Greater Economic Opportunity" and it didn't accomplish much.

-- "An outline for integrated equity planning: concepts and programs," 2017
-- "Equity planning: an update," 2020
-- "Social urbanism and equity planning as a way to address crime, violence, and persistent poverty: (not in) DC," 2021 
-- "Black community, economic and social capital: the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago/Chicago," 2021

Government Decision Making

Rahm Emanuel is quoted as saying "never let a crisis go to waste" in terms of seizing opportunity.  But my take on government is that it's bad at making decisions generally, and worse in crisis.

-- "Helping government learn," (2009)
-- "All the talk of e-government, digital government, and open source government is really about employing the design method," (2012)
-- "Creating the right program vs. the hype of big data," (2013)
-- "Does the focus on big data mean we miss the opportunity for better use of "little data"," (2015)
-- "For a lot of "urban problems" the issue isn't knowledge about what to do, but willingness to engage that knowledge," (2017)
-- "A positive deviance failure in Boston: Timilty Middle School," (2022)
-- "Incrementalism as a concept of iterative improvement in government project development no longer a legitimate public administration theory," (2023)

Health Care and Wellness Planning

My first job in DC was working for a public health related organization, so for not quite 40 years I have been interested in what I call "health and wellness planning," with a big focus on reducing chronic conditions which cost a lot in terms of diminished health and as a proportion of the cost of health care. 

I came up with a plan for DC's in redeveloping the decrepit hospital east of the river (it's now happening but not like I suggested, see "Things to know about Cedar Hill, D.C.'s newest hospital," Washington Post), in a manner that combined acute care, wellness programming including addressing chronic conditions, and public health with a hospital providing acute care at the center.  (Note that I am rethinking how this kind of system should work--this series is incomplete in some ways--and will write it up sometime in the next few months.)

-- "Ordinary versus Extraordinary Planning around the rebuilding of the United Medical Center in Southeast Washington DC | Part One: Rearticulating the system of health and wellness care East of the River." (2018)
-- "Part Two: Creating a graduate health and biotechnology research initiative on the St. Elizabeths campus," (2018)
-- "Part three: the potential for donations around an expanded program," (2018)
-- "Revisiting East of the River medical care: United Medical Center," (2018)
-- "Update on DC's plans to build a new United Medical Center," (2018)

-- "A glaring illustration of the need for comprehensive health and wellness planning in DC: Providence Hospital," (2018)

-- "Community Health Improvement Planning," (2019)

-- "Big omission in blog series on advance hospital/health and wellness planning, public health planning: addiction services," (2024)

In 2020, with onset of covid I wrote two related articles in terms of disaster planning, including pandemics/epidemics and public health:

-- "More communities need to integrate health care and public health programming: Prince George's County, DC, etc.," (2020)
-- "Rush Medical Center (Chicago) clues us into a gap in state and regional health care planning: planning for disaster and epidemic response," (2020)

One on how University of Maryland could do it, since DC is not.

-- "University of Maryland could seed a complementary biotechnology and medical education initiative in Prince George's County," (2021)

These two articles are relevant to the second article on creating a graduate health and biotechnology research initiative:

-- "How the closure of a Pfizer research center in Ann Arbor, Michigan led to the development of a more robust and independent biotech sector," (2021)

-- "University of Maryland could seed a complementary biotechnology and medical education initiative in Prince George's County," (2021)

Anther applies these concepts to two hospital projects in Salt Lake City and West Valley City here in Utah.

-- "Hospitals as urban anchors/revitalization levers, not usually, but with great potential to serve communities in important ways: Examples are two forthcoming projects by Intermountain Health and University of Utah Health,"  (2023)

Historic Preservation

Why I think preservation matters was discussed in the first entry.

-- "Demolition, demolition by neglect, and the need for better laws and processes in DC," (2011)
-- "Treating an entire city as a heritage area/conservation district, rather than a neighborhood by neighborhood approach," (2020)
-- "40th anniversary of the local historic preservation law in DC as an opportunity for assessment," (2019)
-- "An argument for the aesthetic quality of the ensemble: special design guidelines are required for DC's avenues," (2015)
-- "Changing matter of right zoning regulations for houses to conform to heights typical within neighborhoods, not the allowable maximum," (2012)
-- "Pennsylvania passes receivership law with regard to vacant/nuisance properties.," (2010) (also see the keyword: receivership)
-- "Without remedies there's nothing you can do: historic preservation in Chicago and DC," (2014)
-- "Historic Preservation Tuesday: Historic preservation and public history: whose history is history anyway?," (2015, originally 2009)
-- "Liverpool loses UNESCO World Heritage Site designation: An example of tough choices for cash strapped governments," (2021)
-- "Revisiting the language of revitalization/blaming the building: May is National Historic Preservation," (2020)
-- "Demolition isn't always the solution," (2022)
-- "Monuments as public art, historiography, and change," (2020)
-- "Solar panels and historic districts: not a simple decision," (2012)
-- "May is National Historic Preservation Month | Why after almost 60 years since the passage of the National Historic Preservation Act, is preservation such a hard slog?," (2023)

Over the years, originally inspired by a "what you can do" list by Preservation Action Council of San Jose, I've developed a four-part series on what people can do to "celebrate" National Preservation Month.  There are 60 items across the posts, ranging from visiting a historic district to watching a film in a historic theater.

Rather than reprint them in full--recognize that some of the links in previous pieces may be out of date--here are the entries.

-- "May is Historic Preservation Month: 60 ways to celebrate | Part 1: Cultural Heritage Tourism (1-19)," (2019)
-- "May is Historic Preservation Month: 60 ways to celebrate | Part 2: Explore your community (20-36)," (2019)
-- "May is Historic Preservation Month: 60 ways to celebrate | Part 3: Learn and Get Involved (37-52)," (2019)
-- "May is Historic Preservation Month: 60 ways to celebrate | Part 4: Preservation At Home (53-60)," (2019)

Homelessness

I argue we need to build more housing targeting the extremely low income and provide adequate support services.  It's not a matter of not knowing what to do, but how to get support and to pay for it.  

Center cities provide a kind of quality of life benefit to the suburbs, as they tend to provide more services and get more homeless individuals as a result.  Upwards of 70% of homeless clients have mental illness and substance abuse problems, so homelessness is a social services problem, not merely one of lack of adequate housing supply.

-- "Revisiting stories: the homelessness crisis in Orange County, California and middle class protest" (2018)
-- "One of the "solutions" to the crisis of homelessness is a lot more SRO housing" (2017)
-- "One potential solution to the problem of "finding work" for homeless adults" (2017)

Housing, strong real estate markets/gentrification 

In the beginning, that is 20+ years ago, I didn't think about gentrification and displacement much because it wasn't happening where I lived.  Mostly people moved into buildings that had been vacant.  

Of course, in the latest phase of urban attraction--post 2010--that's no longer the case.  Basically as the city has increased its attractiveness, the highest income groups "pioneer" an increasing number of neighborhoods.  UBC professor David Ley refers to this as capital deepening.

-- "Understanding the DC housing market: demand for urban living, not the construction of new housing, is the driving force," (2021)

-- "More about Contested Space--Gentrification," (2008, originally 2005)
-- "The eight components of housing value," (2016)
-- "Exogenous market forces impact DC's housing market,"(2012)
-- "Applying the super-gentrification thesis to San Francisco, Santa Monica, and other cities experiencing hyper-demand," (2014)
-- "The nature of high value ("strong") residential real estate markets.," (2017)
-- "Why "gentrification" is visible now... the Diffusion of Innovations Curve of Everett Rogers," (2018)
-- "Yes the neighborhood will change, but it will take 10-25 years," (2018)
-- "House flipping as reproduction of space," (2018)
-- "Q: Could a community land trust help solve D.C.’s gentrification crisis? A: No, not 15 years after the velocity of DC's housing market changed in earnest," (2019)
-- "The Washington Post article on displacement in Shaw," (2019)
-- ""Real estate capital reproduction of space" in the Parkdale neighborhood of Toronto," (2020)
-- "Uphams Corner, Boston: revitalization "without" gentrification," (2023)

Main Street/Commercial District Revitalization

In 2002, I got involved in an effort to create a Main Street program for H Street NE.  A couple years later I helped Brookland create one, and later served as a program manager in Brookland.  These days there are way too many "Main Street programs" in DC, but that's an argument for another day.  There are myriads of other articles besides these.

-- "Basic planning building blocks for urban commercial district revitalization programs that most cities haven't packaged: Part 1 | The first six," (2020)
-- "Basic planning building blocks for urban commercial district revitalization programs that most cities haven't packaged: Part 2 |  A neighborhood identity and marketing toolkit (kit of parts)," (2020)
-- "Basic planning building blocks for urban commercial district revitalization programs that most cities haven't packaged: Part 3 | The overarching approach: destination development/branding and identity, layering and daypart planning," (2020)
-- "Basic planning building blocks for "community" revitalization programs that most cities haven't packaged: Part 4 | Place evaluation tools," (2020)

Other entries include discussion of daypart planning and events planning.

-- "Planning programming by daypart, month, season: and Boston Winter Garden, DC's Holiday Market, etc.," (2016)

-- "Richard's Rules for Restaurant (Food) Based Revitalization, Salt Lake City and DC's Chinatown," (2024)

-- "Commercial district activation issues in smaller communities: Phoenixville, Pennsylvania," (2023)

Master Planning

My thinking about the master planning process has definitely evolved. First it was the design method instead of rational planning; Then action planning; incorporating the design method, social marketing, implementation and citizen centricity.  The multi-step process for large scale best practice revitalization planning followed.  Then the importance of anchor projects to drive a plan forward: what I called Big Hairy Audacious Goals; which was then more formalized into the concept of Transformational Projects Action Planning.  

Also:

-- "Another example of how a RFP (request for proposals) isn't a plan," (2015)

-- "What to do about public input when seemingly public facilities are privately owned?: Parking at Reston Town Center, Fairfax County, Virginia," (2016)

I first developed the concept of action planning, in observing some remarkable best practice government initiatives.

Action Planning

1. Design Method rather than Rational Planning 
2. Social Marketing 
3. Integrated Program Delivery System [implementation]
4. Packaged through Branding & Identity Systems
5. Civic Engagement & Democracy at the foundation = citizen at the center

-- "Social Marketing the Arlington (and Tower Hamlets and Baltimore" way," (2008)
-- "Best practice bicycle planning for suburban settings using the "action planning" method," (2010) 

Best practice urban revitalization planning

In 2013/2014 I wrote a series on culture based revitalization in Europe ("Richard Layman Reflects on EU in Baltimore and Blog") for the EU National Institutes of Culture Washington Chapter for a project they were doing in Baltimore  And I had done some work in Pittsburgh that was also relevant.  It led to a couple more iterations of revitalization planning concept building.

1. A commitment to the development and production of a broad, comprehensive, visionary, and detailed revitalization plan
2. the creation of innovative and successful implementation organizations
3. strong accountability mechanisms
4. funding to realize the plan
5.  integrated branding and marketing programs to support the realization of the plan 
6. flexibility and a willingness to take advantage of serendipitous events and opportunities and integrate new projects into the overall planning and implementation framework 

-- "Economic restructuring success and failure: Detroit compared to Bilbao, Liverpool, and Pittsburgh," (2014)

Even though this approach has been supplanted, I added to it recently.

-- "Updating the best practice elements of revitalization to include elements 7 and 8 | Transformational Projects Action Planning at a large scale," (2024)

    7.  Commitment and time.

    8.  Adaptive management

Big Hairy Audacious Goals realization

In writing the series on the Purple Line, I was reading about anchor projects and their realization and the positive impact they had on communities, particularly in Toronto.

-- "(Big Hairy) Projects Action Plan(s) as an element of Comprehensive/Master Plans," (2017)
-- "Downtown Edmonton cultural facilities development as an example of "Transformational Projects Action Planning," (2018)
-- "Why can't the "Bilbao Effect" be reproduced? | Bilbao as an example of Transformational Projects Action Planning," (2017)

Transformational Projects Action Planning

BHAG was never a great term.  TPAP evolved from the Bilbao article.  

TPAP at multiple scales.  Over time, as I wrote more about it, I realized it should be applied at multiple scales ("A wrinkle in thinking about the Transformational Projects Action Planning approach: Great public buildings aren't just about design, but what they do," 2022).

(1) neighborhood/district/city/county wide as part of a master plan;
(2) within functional elements of a master plan such as transportation, housing, or economic development; and
(3) within a specific project (e.g., how do we make this particular library or transit station or park or neighborhood "great"?); in terms of both
(4) architecture and design; and a
(5) program/plan for what the functions within the building accomplish.

Neighborhood Revitalization

There are a bunch of approaches to neighborhood revitalization in the US, but not a universal program.  I don't even think the Promise Neighborhoods approach from the Obama Administration has much in the way of a defined over-arching approach.  

C. 2005ish, the National Trust for Historic Preservation had received a huge grant from the Knight Foundation for a "Preservation Development" initiative addressing neighborhood preservation for the most part, but they never codified it.  And dropped it a few years later.

Pennsylvania developed an approach called Elm Street, based on the Main Street approach, with the addition of a fifth point on community maintenance--which is subsumed under Design in the MS approach, or what Business Improvement Districts are best known for.  The Elm Street program still exists, but it's not emphasized, and I think got lost in various changes as government's changed leaders.

This outlines an approach for neighborhoods that are distressed or stabilizing.  With modifications it's applicable for healthier places. 

-- "The need for a "national" neighborhood stabilization program comparable to the Main Street program for commercial districts: Part I (Overall)." (2020)
-- "To be successful, local neighborhood stabilization programs need a packaged set of robust remedies: Part 2." (2020)
-- "Creating 'community safety partnership neighborhood management programs as a management and mitigation strategy for public nuisance programs: Part 3 (like homeless shelters)." (2020)
-- "A case in Gloucester, Massachusetts as an illustration of the need for systematic neighborhood monitoring and stabilization initiatives: Part 4 (the Curcuru Family)." (2020)
-- "Local neighborhood stabilization programs: Part 5 | Adding energy conservation programs, with the PUSH Buffalo Green Development Zone as a model," (2021)

Parks Planning

I got interested in parks because of how in DC most locally serving parks are run, without much local input, by the National Park Service, a remnant of how DC was treated as a government agency before Home Rule.  

From a master planning standpoint it generated the concept that local community master plans should include recommendations to represent the public interest, on other facilities within the jurisdiction that address the same goal, such as state parks, federal parks, or for profit recreation facilities.

These ur pieces shaped the later series and how I think about parks.

-- "The layering effect: how the building blocks of an integrated public realm set the stage for community building and Silver Spring, Maryland as an example," (2012)
-- "Federal shutdown as another example of why local jurisdictions should have more robust contingency and master planning processes," (2013)
-- "A gap in planning across agencies: Prioritizing park access for pedestrians, bicyclists and transit users compared to motor vehicle access," (2015)
-- "Defining National Park Service installations in DC as locally or nationally serving," (2019)
-- "Golf, parks planning, and too many courses," (2021)

These entries build on my participation on the board of Sugar House Park in Salt Lake City, and identifying gaps in process and practice along the way.

-- "Gaps in Parks Master Planning: Part One | Levels of Service," (2024)
-- "Gaps in Parks Master Planning: Part Two | Utilizing Academic Research as Guidance," (2024)
-- "Gaps in Parks Master Planning: Part Three | Planning for Climate Change/Environment," (2024)
-- "Gaps in Parks Master Planning: Part Four | Planning for Seasonality and Activation," (2024)
-- "Gaps in Parks Master Planning: Part Five | Planning for Public Art as an element of park facilities," (2024)
-- "Gaps in Parks Master Planning, Part Six | Art(s) in the Park(s) as a comprehensive program," (2024)
-- "Gaps in Parks Master Planning: Part Seven | Park Architectural (and Landscape Design) History," (2024)
-- "Gaps in Parks Master Planning: Part Eight | Civic Engagement," (2024)
-- "Gaps in Parks Master Planning: Part Nine | Second stage planning for parks using the cultural landscape framework," (2024)

Sports Arenas and Stadiums

In 2005, baseball came back to Washington, DC and the focus was building the team a new stadium.  I and many activists were against public funding, but it happened anyway.  

Rather than adamantly saying "no," I came to realize that since advocates mostly lose out on such initiatives--except if the city or state requires a public vote--we should be focusing on mitigating the problems from such facilities and increasing the benefits.

This is particularly relevant these days given how many stadium and arena proposals are ongoing now, especially given Mayor Bowser's chomping at the bit to bring the Washington Commanders back to DC, the sports and entertainment district proposal for Salt Lake (I didn't write about it because of self-suppression, because Sugar House Park gets funding from the same sources), the Philadelphia 76ers basketball team, etc.

-- "An arena subsidy project I'd probably favor: Sacramento," (2014)
-- "Better understanding of how to benefit from sports tourism," (2018)
-- "Framework of characteristics that support successful community development in association with the development of professional sports facilities," (2021)
-- "Camden Yards baseball stadium is 30 years old," (2022)
-- "Revisiting "Framework of characteristics that support successful community development in association with the development of professional sports facilities" and the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team + Phoenix Coyotes hockey," (2022)
-- "How do you make the ground floor of an arena strengthen the area around it, rather than diminish it? | Philadelphia 76ers," (2023)
-- "Good quote on arenas and stadiums as "performing arts centers" attractions for cities," (2024)

These pieces discuss the concept of leveraging major events like All Star Games to drive other community improvements.  And how such events are overhyped in terms of economic development value, especially for local businesses.

-- "Minneapolis Super Bowl: Urban Revitalization and Transformational Projects Action Planning," (2018)
-- "Baseball World Series in DC as an opportunity for urban planning reflections: #1 | revisiting blog entries from 2005/2006," (2019)
-- "Baseball World Series in DC #2: Eleven urban planning lessons from the Washington Nationals stadium," (2019)
-- "NBA All Star Game in Salt Lake, economic development hype | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on the Pirates baseball team economics," (2023)

Tourism, Cultural Heritage Tourism and the Visitor Experience

Cultural heritage tourism (called City Break tourism in Europe) is best for cities as the visitors tend to explore the city more broadly but also more deeply, attracted to historic neighborhoods and the like. Truthful study of event tourism finds that the economic impact of spending is much more limited than touted.  

The NTHP used to have a great cultural heritage tourism operation but they junked it.  Back in the day I attended some great workshops and conference sessions, including on theme development out of the cultural landscape approach, making historic home tours better, heritage areas, and cultural resource assessments of communities.

Just before the start of my involvement in revitalization, Kathy Smith created the organization CulturalTourismDC, which focused on building neighborhood-based tourism in the face of the focus of the city's tourism promotion on DC and its place in the National Story/American History.  

She published a book called Capital Assets: A Report on the Tourism Potential of Neighborhood Heritage and Cultural Sites in Washington, D.C, which evaluated neighborhoods in terms of their readiness for tourism.

-- "Town-City branding or "We are all destination managers now"," (2005)
-- "Saturday was World Tourism Day" Tourism and Community Development," (2014)
-- "National Tourism and Travel Week 2019: DC recap | DC needs a tourism development and management plan," (2019)
-- "Leveraging music as cultural heritage for economic development: part two, popular music," (2017)
-- "6Ps and cultural planning and the failure to create a network of African American historic sites across the DMV," (2016)
-- "Where's the there? To get visitation to neighborhoods there must be destinations worth visiting," (2013)

I joke that visitor centers in other places are research stores for people in the profession.  I argue that DC's visitor centers suck.

-- "2019 (US) National Travel and Tourism Week: A visitor centers agenda for DC," (2019)
-- "A unified National Park Service Visitor Center for DC (and the region)," (2024)
-- "Parking under the National Mall should be part of an integrated approach to visitor services and management," (2013)

Urban design/walkable community plans at the neighborhood scale. 

Arguably this could be an element of the transportation post.  Writing-wise it starts with what I came up with in Baltimore County:

-- "Extending the "Signature Streets" concept to "Signature Streets and Spaces," (2020, originally 2015, concept devised, 2010)

Out of the Silver Spring Purple Line writings:

Creating a Silver Spring "Sustainable Mobility District from 2017:
-- "Part 1: Setting the stage
-- "Part 2: Program items 1- 9
-- "Part 3: Program items 10-18

I then realized that most neighborhoods need their own urban design plans, sparked by more detailed exploration of Dupont Circle, community organizing in the Bloomingdale neighborhood about decking over North Capitol Street, and the opening of the Wharf development in SW DC.

-- "Planning urban design improvements at the neighborhood scale: Dupont Circle, DC," (2019)
-- "More about making 17th Street between P and R a pedestrian space on weekends," (2019)

Later I realized it's not so much about the mode--creating a pedestrian plan--but creating broader walkable community plans.

-- "Planning for place/urban design/neighborhoods versus planning for transportation modes: new 17th Street NW bike lanes | Walkable community planning versus "pedestrian" planning," (2021)

And way before these posts, about the value of programming public spaces:

-- "Now I know why Boulder's Pearl Street Mall is the exception that proves the rule about the failures of pedestrian malls," (2005)

An early point was advocating for transportation agencies to have "Chief Thoroughfare Architects" in charge of urban design units, just as agencies have "Chief Engineers" focused on maximizing traffic throughput.

-- "DC's bad urban design as it relates to new transportation infrastructure" (2013)

Urban Economics, Economic Development versus Building a Local Economy

I am probably too rigid in thinking about clustering and agglomeration economics and facilitating exchange as the reason for cities.  While I was pretty committed to the idea that only dominant clusters mattered, like Boston or San Francisco for biotechnology, the Silicon Valley for computing, or Detroit for cars, it is possible for smaller cities to develop clusters of their own that are significant, even if not dominant and smaller.

The point about there being a difference between economic development and building a local economy is that too often economic development planners are satisfied with business recruitment, and fail to consider the overall impact of a business within the local economy in terms of the multiplier effect (additional employment added), how much spend from the business is captured within the local economy, and the cost of recruitment.

-- "Agglomeration economies still matter," (2021)
-- "Naturally occurring innovation districts | Technology districts and the tech sector," (2014)

-- "The East-West Divide | DC area regional economic development: anchors and where they are placed matter + airports | But military spending matters the most," (2021)
-- "Better leveraging higher education institutions in cities and counties: Greensboro; Spokane; Mesa; Phoenix; Montgomery County, Maryland; Washington, DC,," (2016)
-- "Could bringing premier regionally headquartered business enterprises to the Pennsylvania Avenue Corridor be key to its renewal and revitalization?," (2014)
-- "How the closure of a Pfizer research center in Ann Arbor, Michigan led to the development of a more robust and independent biotech sector," (2021)
-- "Revisiting past blog entries: College Park as a college town and economic development | PG County and Amazon," (2018)
-- "Innovation infrastructure as an element of community economic development: BioSpaces; TechShops; Maker Spaces; Arts spaces," (2020)
-- "Next Level Clustering of Business away from the Midwest," (2022)
-- "The nature of DC's federally-related "business" is coordination, not doing," (2018) (but the size of the government as a customer can help to support local business development, e.g., IT, data centers, etc., cybersecurity, etc.)
-- "DC, Transformational Projects Action Planning, and the Baltimore-Washington Maglev project," (2021) (discussion about needing ways to reenergize DC's central business district)