Land We Share Summit, Salt Lake City, Friday October 2nd

Given that this past Saturday was National Public Lands Day (blog entry), and the issues I wrote about concerning Utah, it's great timing that the second Land We Share Summit on public lands in the state of Utah is coming up later this week.

The sessions look amazing

--Morning Plenary: "Threats to the National Monuments"

-- Breakout: Rural organizing

-- Breakout: Economics of open space

-- Breakout: Wildland Fire, Wildlife and Watersheds

-- Breakout: Indigenous Co-Management

-- Lunch Plenary: "The State vs. The Environment"

-- Breakout: Running for Office

-- Breakout: Attacks on Public Landsiv>

-- Breakout: "Wild" Places in the 21st Century

-- Breakout: Your Brain Outside

-- Session: "Wild" Places in the 21st Century

-- Keynote from Winona LaDuke

-- Happy Hour and Networking

Unfortunately I will be out of town.

Ah, the H Street Community Development Corporation

The Washington City Paper reports that the former director of the H Street CDC paid himself more than $1 million of unjustified bonuses, without notifying the board ("Former Housing Nonprofit Director Found To Have Diverted Funds for Six-Figure Bonuses").  

This was complicated by the fact that a long time ago, the CDC created a for profit division which allowed them more shenanigans with little oversight.  A previous director had created a janitorial service which got the contract to maintain facilities, but as the potential conflict of interest was disclosed, it was allowed, etc.  So top staff were able to generate additional revenue streams beyond their paychecks.

The DC Superior Court ruled that Kenneth Brewer, Sr. has to return more than $1.2 million.  Looking over the board members mentioned in the article, and on their website, I recognize a bunch of the names still, not all, even though that was 20+ years ago.   And I think it's interesting that on the current board there are no white people to reflect neighborhood demographics.

But as the neighborhood improved, the HSCDC could no longer compete in the market for property, so it moved to doing projects in still distressed areas of the city.

Things haven't changed much from 20 years ago.

=====

Community development corporations were created in the 1960s to stabilize inner city neighborhoods  in the face of outmigration.  Back then cities had two main types of neighborhoods: 

-- areas that could be stabilized: those with building stock that was attractive and that in turn attracted "urban pioneers,"-- basically white people willing to live in the center city when housing choice trends favored the suburbs.  Interest rates were high, neighborhoods were run down, city services constrained, and overall the city faced a loss of population.  Historic preservation efforts were the primary tool for neighborhood stabilization.

Preservation had the benefit of being low cost to cities.  Some regulation and staff time--supported in part by the federal government, and some investments in elements like brick sidewalks and historic facsimile light poles.  Otherwise the residents bore the costs of rehabilitation.

-- more distressed areas with a lot of population leakage and a preponderance of low income residents.  Cities tended to put their limited resources in these areas on equity grounds.  But the return on investment was minimal.

The areas were CDCs were directed to act were istressed and challenging economically. This was complicated/accentuated by and in areas of cities that experienced riots.  Riots decimated commercial districts especially, destroying the local micro economy.  A lot of housing stock deteriorated.

CDCs were created to address these issues in distressed areas, but mostly focused on what I call "building housing for poor people." Great on equity grounds, but didn't have much positive effect on the micro economy.

Some addressed commercial district issues but mostly focused on housing.

DC did create historic districts in two historically black areas of the city, one East of the River, that remains impoverish, and Le Droit Park, which is better situated in the NW quadrant is pretty central, abuts Howard University and became "gentrified" by income if not originally by race.

Lack of accountability.  Many CDCs lacked accountability and much success.  Although to be fair, CDCs were given difficult areas to try to fix.  The New York Times Magazine ran a cover story, "The Myth of Community Development" in 1994, in excoriating CDCs as an economic lever.

Some were good, some places had too many, there was always more demand for action than money, and the process of financing these kinds of deals was hard, even though back then the US Department of Housing and Urban Development actually provided money to cities for these purposes, which is a far cry from how it's been the last 20 years.

Leinberger's book made the point that before the change in attitudes, 70% of people wanted to live in the suburbs.  With the change, it was 30% cities, 30% suburbs, and 40% either.  That's changed though since covid.

Times changed: c. 2000 and the new demand for urban living.  OTOH, with the change in willingness to live in cities around 2000, momentum from private investment of large real estate developers and individual households reached a point of critical mass and was self-replicating.  Although distressed areas still lagged, and needed city and other subsidies to fund improvements.

Improvements also came through gentrification and displacement, where relatively low cost housing was bought by people with more money--they weren't necessarily rich but they definitely had more money than the people they may have replaced.  

For a long time you didn't see displacement in DC, because with the exception of converting four unit apartment buildings to condos, a lot of the housing that was acquired and renovated had been vacant.  After all, the overbuilding of housing in the suburbs left a massive inventory of vacant housing in the cities.  

But this started to change after 2000.  For example, one subsidized development in Columbia Heights with great views was warehoused to be able to upscale it ("HUD Set To Seize D.C. Housing Complex," Washington Post).  I visited that complex as a Census worker in 2000 and I was astounded at the number of vacant units. And the beautiful hill over the city from being on the hill of the escarpment.  From the article:

U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros announced plans yesterday to seize ownership of a federally subsidized apartment complex in Northwest Washington that he said is one of the 100 worst-maintained developments in the country.

There was a reason  Now it's a fine example of a market rate development

CDCs are a mixed bag.  An organization created in response to urban poverty, the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, was created by the Ford Foundation to provide technical support and access to funds.  In some cities, LISC branches were robust and demanded accountability.  In other cities LISC was so so and definitely not pushing internal improvement.

Buildings weren't valuable.  Design wasn't valuable.  Only the ability to assemble land.  When I started getting involved, the H Street Community Development Corporation was the primary revitalization actor in the neighborhood.  The leadership didn't see any value in the historic building stock and the attractive architectural design it represented, either in the commercial district or the neighborhood, even though just a few blocks south, Capitol Hill was revitalizing because of people attracted to the "pretty buildings" and proximity to the US Capitol Complex and Downtown.   

H Street NE from the top of the Hopscotch Bridge (over the Union Station railyard.

Flickr photo by Mr. T in DC (he's in Maryland now).

They tore down one of the oldest and most historic buildings to build a s**** looking 3 bay retail unit.  And the strip shopping center, now replaced with an amazing building, was typical crap.  None of the buildings they constructed were designed sensitively in a manner that would complement and extend the historic architecture of the commercial district and the neighborhood.

It wasn't pretty, but this similar building in Brooklyn that tends to be a restaurant on the ground floor with apartments above show that rehabilitation was possible.  The building that replaced it is terrible, and the "second floor" is fake, it's just an extended facade.  In fact, I came across that building when it was the Hope & Anchor Diner, and I immediately thought it was relevant to the 8th and H Street NE intersection

Two more examples of historic preservation driven rehabilitation.  The now defunct Taylor deli on the 1200 block of H Street NE and a corner building at 7th Street and New York Avenue NW.

H Street Connection has since been replaced with...

The Avec Apartments on the 800 and 900 blocks of H Street NE.  

Now the corner space is operated by an Aldi Supermarket.  

Interestingly, Aldi still operates its first DC store which is just over one mile to the east.

Live Baltimore used to run ads in the Express, making the point that Baltimore houses were often bigger, but definitely cheaper, compared to rising prices in DC.

The Greater H Street neighborhood had the same conditions, except for poorer residents, and at the time maybe it could have flourished with a residential recruitment program like Live Baltimore, but it would have come with displacement.

In any case, the H Street CDC only saw value in the opportunity to capture and assemble land for bigger projects, and they rebuilt housing that had been frame (worth a lot more today) in 1980s style rowhouses in a number of places around the neighborhood, helped fund a suburban style shopping strip, etc.  

Houses built by the H Street CDC on the 700 block of 8th Street NE.  While I think they're ugly, some have an asking price of $1+ million.  Maybe I'm the person whose position is wrong-headed.

They did buy and hold the Atlas Theater, but they wanted to convert the interior to parking, or to build a roller rink.  Creating an entertainment focus for the business corridor never crossed their minds.

So when we created the historic preservation focused Main Street commercial district revitalization program for the corridor, complemented by a revitalization plan commissioned by the rejuvenated Office of Planning, we were at odds.  

(I wrote about this tension on the anniversary of LISC, "The community development approach and the revitalization of DC's H Street corridor: congruent or oppositional approaches?," in 2013, in response to a laudatory op-ed, "The seeds of the H Street ‘miracle’," in the Post.)

Banner from the Montana Community Development Corporation.

I thought CDCs sucked by definition ("The Community Development Corporation Model of Urban Redevelopment: A Political Economy Critique and an Alternative").  

But then I went to the National Trust for Historic Preservation conference in Cleveland in 2002, and their CDCs blew me away.  It turns out that the philanthropic community joined together to demand accountability and for a bunch of the CDCs to merge, since they covered similar areas, and would have more heft.  Funding was dependent on these changes.

That never happened in DC.  LISC was weak.  A couple CDCs did some decent work, but even then they had a hard time showing quantum improvement.

The Washington Post did a hard hitting series in 2002 ("Falling up -- Accountability and DC Community Development Corporations").  We thought we were vindicated but nothing came of it.  And this was when the Post was still doing important local coverage and investigative reporting.

-- "Federal Money Flowed With Little Oversight: City Promises to Cut Off Ineffectual Groups"
-- "D.C. Revitalization Promised, Not Delivered: Nonprofits Collect Millions as Work Goes Undone, Neighborhoods Left With Eyesores"
-'"Risky Ventures, Little Accountability: After Years of Public Funding, Nonprofits Have Completed Few Projects"
-- "Blighted Sites May Revert To D.C.: Revival Has Stalled Under Nonprofits"
-- "$100 Million Down the Drain" [Editorial]
-- "D.C. Housing Authority Fines Nonprofit: Development Group Sold Two Row Houses, Meant for Individuals, to Investor"

I guess that's when I learned that $100 million didn't go very far anyway, let alone when grift and graft is involved. 

Conclusion.  A few years later the groups won awards from the DC Building Industry Association.  And in 2011 the Post ran similar stories ("(Some) Community Development Corporations still screwing up").

Now in 2026, we basically have embezzlement.  That's 39 years of experience all right.

All the stuff I've experienced gets referenced in my thinking.  The point about accountability mechanisms that I wrote about in terms of best practice revitalization, was based on good and bad examples in Europe in a series I wrote for the EU National Institutes of Culture Washington Chapter on culture based revitalization in Europe.

From "Updating the best practice elements of revitalization to include elements 7 and 8 | Transformational Projects Action Planning at a large scale":

1. A commitment to the development and production of a broad, comprehensive, visionary, and detailed revitalization plan/s (Bilbao, Hamburg, Liverpool);
2. the creation of innovative and successful implementation organizations, with representatives from the public sector and private firms, to carry out the program. Typically, the organizations have some distance from the local government so that the plan and program aren't subject to the vicissitudes of changing political administrations, parties and representatives (Bilbao, Hamburg, Liverpool, Helsinki);
3. strong accountability mechanisms that ensure that the critical distance provided by semi-independent implementation organizations isn't taken advantage of in terms of deleterious actions (for example Dublin's Temple Bar Cultural Trust was amazingly successful but over time became somewhat disconnected from local government and spent money somewhat injudiciously, even though they generated their own revenues--this came to a head during the economic downturn and the organization was widely criticized; in response the City Council decided to fold the TBCT and incorporate it into the city government structure, which may have negative ramifications for continued program effectiveness as its revenues get siphoned off and political priorities of elected officials shift elsewhere);
4. funding to realize the plan, usually a combination of local, regional, state, and national sources, and in Europe, "structural adjustment" and other programmatic funding from the European Regional Development Fund and related programs is also available (Hamburg, as a city-state, has extra-normal access to funds beyond what may normally be available to the average city);
5. integrated branding and marketing programs to support the realization of the plan (Hamburg, Vienna, Liverpool, Bilbao, Dublin);
6. flexibility and a willingness to take advantage of serendipitous events and opportunities and integrate new projects into the overall planning and implementation framework (examples include Bilbao's "acquisition" of a branch of the Guggenheim Museum and the creation of a light rail system to complement its new subway system, Liverpool City Council's agreement with a developer to create the Liverpool One mixed use retail, office, and residential development in parallel to the regeneration plan and the hosting of the Capital of Culture program in 2008, and how multifaceted arts centers were developed in otherwise vacated properties rented out cheaply by their owners in Dublin, Helsinki, and Marseille).
7. commitment and time.  Revitalization is a forever process that takes a long time to begin to see results.  It needs to continue beyond the vicissitudes of changing political administrations.
8. adaptive management. Visionary revitalization requires continuous process improvement.  Other ways to think about it are using the design method or adaptive management instead of remaining static.  Programs can always be improved and should be.

But we have plenty of our own good and bad examples in the US. DC CDCs and the H Street CDC in particular.  Fleetwood Mac sang the song, "You can go your own way."  That hasn't worked out so well for DC ("Urban economic development best practice is not found in DC").

Bye DC Streetcar | Too small to reshape DC policy, Big enough to spur $1 billion in economic development

Flickr photo by Ted Eytan.

Yesterday, DC shut down its streetcar ("D.C.’s Streetcar is making its final stop, leaving a mixed legacy," ).  My joke is that DC and Seattle started planning for streetcars in 2003.  Seattle got its first segment in 2007.  DC in 2016.

The streetcar never got a chance to succeed.  Dan Malouff at Greater Greater Washington has written some good pieces about it ("Eight big-picture lessons from the DC Streetcar," "How DC’s mayor and council chair thwarted every effort to better the streetcar," "To the death of a dream: RIP DC Streetcar"). 

He makes three key points.  (1) Settling for a start with a "minimum viable segment" is a mistake and (2) success of the streetcar was dependent on it being but one segment of a larger network (3) but that was actively stymied by elected officials, in particular Mayor Bowser and Council Chair Mendelson.

Minimum viable segment means you start it, and hope to expand it incrementally, by building on the expected success of the first segment.  But that never happened.  The minimum was too minimal to have much effect on getting other areas of the city to want streetcar service.  

Imagining a streetcar on Georgia Avenue.  This is in Petworth.

(Even though the economic development benefits ought to have convinced many areas of the city it would be a great lever for improvement.)

And people committed to opposition don't ever stop opposing (even if not helped by the city's top elected officials).  It makes for an almost insurmountable hill.

OTOH, the minimum viable segment was enough for DC's development community to offer to the city an unsolicited proposal to manage, create, build out, and operate a streetcar network for the whole city, not just the itty bitty part it was currently serving.

DC's elected officials don't see transit as a core competitive advantage. DC's elected officials mostly come from car-oriented areas of the city ("DC as a suburban agenda dominated city").  The current generation is not known for visionary thinking.  

Despite the massive success of the city's revitalization centered around the creation of Metrorail and intensification of development in its wake ("Today WMATA Metrorail's 50th anniversary from the start of service | Part 1: many lessons can be found, if you look")--ironically the 50th anniversary of the start of the system was last week--the current generation of elected officials don't accept that without Metrorail the city would be s***.  Even Councilmembers who have served on the WMATA board.

Streetcar westbound on the 500 block of H Street NE.  Photo by Dan Malouff

Resident opposition.  And I have never understood resident opposition to the streetcar or light rail projects proposed for DC, Maryland, and Virginia.  DC was served by streetcars until 1962.  In fact, the H Street Line, Rte. 20, was one, although it was abandoned in 1949.

Media opposition.  While this Washington Post editorial is recent, "A streetcar no one desired," it's not a whole lot different from op-eds from 10 years ago ("Mayor Bowser should shut down streetcar operation, concede it was a bad idea").  

Although Washington City Paper disagreed ("H Street NE May Not Need the Streetcar. Benning Road Does").  WRT the City Paper's point, it was economic development misfeasance to not continue the streetcar to Benning Road Metrorail station, serving the Minnesota Avenue corridor.

This ad we created for H Street NE shows we understood the value of transportation access as one of the neighborhood's competitive advantages relative to the rest of the city.  This is at the corridor's "100%" intersection, 8th Street and H Street.

They act as if the metropolitan area has zero experience with successful fixed rail transit.  Sure Metrorail is the best--as advocates in Toronto used to say, "Subways are for everyone," but light rail and streetcar have their place within a robust transit network.

The fact is the city has 42 Metrorail stations.  At the core it has 31 stations, and for the most part, the commercial districts and neighborhoods served by every one of those stations have experienced massive economic improvement.

WRT the streetcar, it's not just that the city didn't do a good job planning network expansion.  Attempts to do so got bogged down in neighborhood opposition.  Which were seized on by elected officials to use appropriated money for other things.

At Whole Foods.  Photo by Dan Malouff.

Lesson One:  In economic development terms the Streetcar was a big winner for H Street NE.  I wrote about the cancellation last May ("DC makes yet another bad decision about streetcars: will replace the one line with a so called "fancy" bus | The Vision Thing") and last fall in "Streetcars: transit, economic development levers, source for discontent in local politics | Milwaukee HOP streetcar."  

My point all along is despite the planning and operational failures, which Dan does a better job explicating than I did, it's been a wild success from an economic development standpoint.

More than $1 billion of new development has been sparked, mostly outside of the catchment area of Union Station, which gets its ED oomph from Metrorail ("DC and streetcars #4: from the standpoint of stoking real estate development, the line is incredibly successful and it isn't even in service yet, and now that development is extending eastward past 15th Street," "Update/revision of H Street transit oriented real estate development table").

And in an area not directly served by Metrorail, H Street, because of the streetcar, has more intense development than any other area of the city similarly not immediately connected to Metrorail.

Revitalization didn't come about solely because of the Main Street commercial district revitalization program.  In 2002, a group of stakeholders got the corridor officially sanctioned as a Main Street improvement area.  The approach links historic preservation and business development and marketing, based on a model developed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.  It's now called Main Street America.

It brought attention to the district when it had been ignored, but can't take credit for the large number of new buildings on the corridor.  That's on real estate developers, and the streetcar as a "priming action."

H Street Land Use and Transportation Plans and Programs.  The designation and funding and technical assistance associated with it were complemented by the creation of an area plan for the corridor in 2004 (Revival: The H Street NE Strategic Development Plan), and a streetscape improvement plan (Great Streets Framework Plan: H Street NE – Benning Road).  Interestingly enough, a new plan is being developed ("H Street NE Land Use and Market Study Underway," H&K).

Other city investments in facade improvements, business development, etc. contributed to the improvement.

Sure, I'd like to take credit for it, given I was a key organizer of the Main Street program there ("The community development approach and the revitalization of DC's H Street corridor: congruent or oppositional approaches?").  

The 2004 economic development plan didn't foresee the streetcar, it aimed to leverage the economic energy of Union Station, so how the corridor developed, and how they anticipated it would develop became very different from what happened.

More than anything this change, especially further east from Union Station, was because of the streetcar.  Although having a land use plan when DC was at an inflection point--post Marion Barry--when urban areas not just DC were attracting new residents and new businesses, was key.  Big real estate consulting firms mapped all the opportunities on the corridor and started marketing them.  This intensified with the commitment to the streetcar. 

The whole district gained thousands of new units of housing, not just by Union Station, with new ground floor space with high ceilings better suited for modern retail.  Whoever would have anticipated that a Whole Foods Market would have opened on H Street?  And that's just one example of significant change that never could have been anticipated when were organizing to be designated a Main Street district.  

Originally the building on the left had been an ugly small modular single story library.  It was redeveloped as affordable housing.  I wish it were taller with more units, but I guess they built what they could fund. They did a great job with the facade in terms of historic architectural design and building materials.                                                                                                                                        I do wish they had kept the library function as a public use on the ground floor, as a way to maintain the presence of civic assets in the corridor.  Photo by Dan Malouff.                                                                       
Although more so the retail and restaurants developed were not chains, but with great identity and branding systems ("Independent retail businesses can succeed and thrive"), not so much chains, although Giant Supermarket came first ("360 Apartment building + Giant Supermarket vs. a BP gas station, which would you choose?").  And now even Aldi wants to be in on the urban action.

Separately the rehabilitation of the Atlas Theater into the Atlas Performing Arts Center helped to anchor the eastern end, still with a lot of smaller historic buildings, as a night life district ("Joe Englert, DC nightlife impresario, dies | Lessons about nightlife-based revitalization," and "H Street NE nightlife district, failing").

DC's streetcar is another example, even if done so wrongly, that return on investment for economic revitalization may be best from significant improvements to transit infrastructure.

Counter examples: Kansas City, Milwaukee, and Tucson.  And despite complaints about the streetcar Kansas City ("12 transformative projects drive growth along the KC Streetcar in 2025 and beyond," Kansas City Star) and Milwaukee (cites above), the streetcar there is again, sparking significant economic development.

And Tucson ("Smaller than Jax, but I have rail: Lessons from Tucson’s Sun Link system," Jacksonville Today).  From the article:

According to research published in the Harvard Law & Policy Review, half of Tucson’s population and housing growth between 2014 and 2021 occurred along the streetcar corridor. Real estate investment surged by $2.5 billion, and annual city tax revenues jumped 30%, adding $13 million each year.

Rendering, a new Commanders football stadium as the anchor of a mixed use entertainment and housing district.

What about transit service to and within the RFK campus?  It's also short sighted to drop streetcar service when it can be leveraged to provide additional service to the new campus being developed around the Washington Commanders football stadium and all its touted ancillary development.   

A streetcar loop could serve the interior of the campus, with cars leaving from the Stadium-Armory Station as well.

SF Muni light rail/streetcar service at Oracle Park, home to the San Francisco Giants baseball team.

DC is so full of missed opportunities.

Lesson two: a streetcar is intra-district transit not inter-city transit.  These days most pundits are criticizing "Obama era streetcar projects" as not having much effect ("Out of Favor," Governing).  

Part of the issue is whether or not the places served were the right ones, whether or not the streetcar is an isolated mode or integrated more broadly into the area's transit networks, inadequate frequencies, slow speeds, the focus on "minimum viable segment," and being street running.  From the JT article:

The success of Sun Link wasn’t about density; it was about connecting the right destinations with reliable, visible infrastructure that people trust. If Jacksonville wants to move forward, it must learn from cities like Tucson, not fear them. Innovation doesn’t mean chasing gimmicks, it means investing smartly in what works.

At the streetcar line scale, street running versus dedicated lane was the biggest criticism of the streetcar ("Sign In Subscribe Live TV Markets Economics Industries Tech Politics Businessweek Opinion Video More US Edition CityLab Transportation Hey, Streetcar Critics: Stop Making 'Perfect' the Enemy of 'Good'," Bloomberg).  

Or that they are more about economic development than transit ("Why Streetcars Aren’t About Transit: The Economic Development Argument for Trams," NextCity).  While the criticisms are reasonable, they miss the point about what kind of transit a streetcar is supposed to be.   

A streetcar should be transit + economic development.

My response to that article was "DC and streetcars #2: STREETCARS ARE ABOUT TRANSIT, just in a different way from how most people are accustomed to thinking about it."   

But I realized people were judging it wrongly.  A streetcar line is about "intra-district" transit ("Making the case for intra-city (vs. inter-city) transit planning").

Sure it gets people between districts along the line, but it also provides multiple stops within a neighborhood and its commercial district.  But people are judging it as if it is supposed to be a metropolitan area service, where people travel relatively long distances, and speed matters at lot more.  

Riders wait for the Cincinnati Bell Connector on the opening day of the streetcar following opening ceremonies at Washington Park. The 3.6 mile long route goes through downtown and Over-The-Rhine has been 10 years in the making. The Enquirer/ Liz Dufour

Although like as implemented in Cincinnati, streetcars in dedicated middle lanes would be optimal.  But if not could be addressed by aggressive traffic enforcement ("While progress has been made, Sun Link blockages still an issue," Arizona Daily Star).

For me, getting from the Metrorail station home, or to and from the grocery store, etc., would be a huge gain.

Lesson Three: Effects on the transit network/you need a streetcar network.  Plenty of streetcar stubs don't do much for the transit system overall.  There are many more examples than mentioned here, like Tampa.  But ones that are lines like Little Rock or multiple lines like San Francisco and Toronto, less so Philadelphia, have a great deal of success.

Adding fixed rail transit in the form of streetcar to a community without it can be transformational in reaching new audiences, and serving as a rolling marketing campaign.  For example, the KC Streetcar generates 30% of the area's total transit trips.  Yes, they are low generally, but from a marginal increase standpoint, not insignificant.

And DC did have plans for expansion (DC Streetcar System Plan: H St/ Benning Rd and Future Segments and Extensions).

The streetcar network that wasn't.

Lesson Four: Opportunity to reposition a community's economic development and transit messages.  I don't think it's communicated enough or right.  Cities other than DC recognize the economic development value of streetcars.  I think like I have written about light rail ("Using the Purple Line to rebrand Montgomery and Prince George's Counties as Design Forward") it's an opportunity to position a transit system and the business district and community more broadly as "design forward."

Portland streetcar as a mobile public art installation.  Art by Bobby Fouther.

Although in places that are very much car centric, it just might not matter so much.  People are committed to the car and can't see viable alternatives. 

Lesson Five: Expansion takes way too long.  DC never expanded.  Other streetcar projects have like in Portland, Seattle, and Kansas City.  This gets back to the minimum viable segment point.  It takes so much community and organizational capital to get a transit infrastructure project launched, that it's hard to keep raising the same level of organizational, community and financial support for expansion.  

So I say, plan for extensions while constructing the initial segment, and move forward to design and engineering as soon as possible.  Kansas City's first extension opened nine years after the initial launch ("KC Streetcar Now Open at UMKC," UMKC).  

Cincinnati's considering it now, nine years later ("Streetcar expansion study? Most key Cincinnati City Council candidates open to it," Cincinnati Business Courier).  If they get the go ahead, it could be another ten years before it happens.  As these quotes from the article confirm, Cincinnati's had the same problems other places have had, with skepticism and opposition, as well as difficulties getting funding, etc.

The Cincinnati Connector streetcar has set new highs for ridership in every year since 2021, but the city, which opened the project in 2016, has never developed a plan to expand and extend the route, should funding ever become available. At the same time, two of the region's Midwestern competitors, Kansas City and Milwaukee, have expanded their streetcar lines.

... Streetcar supporters have never given up on expanding the project even though the political will at City Hall has been nonexistent. A previous council made the streetcar fare-free in 2021, which boosted ridership that has kept growing.

... “It’s an economic development tool,” Cramerding said. “We need to look at transit as an economic development tool to grow the city, not just move low-income people from point A to point B.”

Former Councilman Steve Goodin, who is Charter Committee endorsed, said the city does not have the money to study an extension and is against it. “It’s an amusement park ride, not transit,” Goodin said.

... Former Councilwoman Laketa Cole, who is Charter Committee-endorsed, described the current project as a failure. “They should have had the train go from Uptown to downtown,” Cole said. “To have it go around a circle, you set it up for failure.”

The project originally was supposed to extend to the University of Cincinnati, but then-Gov. John Kasich, a suburban Columbus Republican, killed state funding for that phase of the project. Then-Mayor Mark Mallory and City Manager Milton Dohoney declined to let the project die, securing more federal funding to complete its current iteration.

Conclusion: Comparing and contrasting systems.  Research by a professor at the University of Kansas compared two successful systems, Kansas City and Tucson, to two less successful systems, Atlanta and Cincinnati and ("Place-Making or Place-Taking? The Relationship between Goal Tension and System Performance of U.S. Modern-Era Streetcar Systems," Journal of Planning Education and Research). 

Interviewees were asked what influenced decisions that shaped the streetcar systems in their respective city. Mendez found that systems that prioritized economic development in decision making tended to perform poorly. The most successful systems were in cities that emphasized system performance and placed streetcar systems in areas where people lived, worked and wanted to go for entertainment, recreational and personal reasons.

“In cities that prioritized economic development, decisions reflected that focus,” Mendez said. “For example, if you look at corridors where poor performing systems were placed, you will find twice the number of vacant parcels and properties. Such placement can maximize the economic development impact of the streetcar, but it limits its ability to serve the immediate needs of the public.”

He makes a good point.  But I look at this a bit more nuanced, and should have earlier in my writings as well.  An economic development focus is fine, so long as the district or the city is in a strong real estate market.  H Street--close to Downtown and Union Station, in a city regaining population, is an example of this.  Aiming to spur development in a weak market is difficult, as the example of the Miami heavy rail Metrorail shows. 

I think Atlanta is somehow different.  It's not a weak market overall.  It may be because there while there is a lot of new development, much is in the suburbs ("A wrinkle on corporate headquarters: leaving the city as buildings age") or in what may as well be a suburb, the Buckhead District. This is seen in how the Braves baseball team moved to Cobb County, while every other baseball stadium redevelopment project has been city focused.  

Clearly, Atlanta had other issues.  Atlanta also has the separate Beltline project, although I wonder if transit will ever be added to it--it is experiencing growth because of the reposition, civic investments in trails, etc.  

If it had been linked to the Beltline, and at least of the portion of the Beltline got transit service, comparable to Maryland's forthcoming suburban Purple Line, which as built will be less than 20% of the initial concept) then it would be different ("Atlanta’s Beltline rail debate: To build or not to build?," ACPC).

DC as the supra outlier.  Being the only city in the era of modern streetcars shutting it down, DC is the foremost outlier.  Despite the clear economic success.  I'd argue DC's weak leadership by elected officials doomed the streetcar, even though overall the city until the new Trump Administration, had been experiencing a great deal of growth, construction of new properties, infill development, and population growth.

As discussed in the parallel series on Metrorail's 50th anniversary, it also suffers from many of the same problems ("Today WMATA Metrorail's 50th anniversary from the start of service | Part 1: many lessons can be found, if you look"). 

========

A shout out to Joe Fengler.  Joe Fengler was the chair of Advisory Neighborhood Commission 6A, which covers a good chunk of the commercial district's geography.  

It occurred to him that it would be wasteful to tear up H Street for streetscape improvements, only to tear it up again for streetcar tracks.

He created a lobbying and advocacy campaign to install the tracks at the same time, instead of separately.  

He also thought--at the time Anacostia was being considered for the first line--having tracks in the ground would increase the likelihood the project would move forward on H Street first.

He got other ANCs along the corridor to agree, and the city decided to do what he suggested.  Some people, like in Dan Malouff's assessment, said this created problems down the line, when what would have been the best option was already constrained by the track layout.

Nonetheless, Joe was a visionary and he doesn't get much credit for it.

To bad he didn't get on City Council.  He would have been a great advocate for streetcars both for transportation and economic development.

The city let all his hard work go to waste 

Vis a vis the WAMU article, "As the DC Streetcar shuts down, leaders wrestle with H Street’s transit future."  

“We need to have a bold vision,” said Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen, who represents much of H Street and chairs the council’s transportation committee. “One that is more than just a segment, but one that actually is a connection that really connects neighborhoods, connects the city and works as part of an entire transit network…It’s got to be a bigger vision than just one segment or else we’re just repeating the mistakes of the streetcar.”

Now they're concerned?  They've had decades.

Good article in the New Yorker about political organizing

-- "What MAGA Can Teach Democrats About Organizing—and Infighting" 

Distinguishes between "mobilizing" and "organizing," and grassroots determination of agendas -- "as Mao put it, letting one thousand flowers bloom."  Organizing is about creating leaders that do, while "mobilizing" is about showing up to something.

When I talk about this, I've never made the distinction between mobilizing and organizing, but I always talk about what might be thought of as "long range planning," that for meeting X you already need to be setting up "next steps" and meeting or action Y.

I don't fully buy the comparison between the anti-drug use organization DARE and MADD, Mothers Against Drunk Driving.  The author argued that by letting people set up chapters in MADD with limited guidance, they had a lot more agency versus a more top-down organization with control of messaging and agenda by people at the top.  

Can a top-down organization work?  DARE didn't because it turned out that research on its curriculum and methods found that it didn't diminish drug use, and that in some cases, even encouraged it.  But what if the agenda and curriculum worked?  Would DARE have been successful with the mobilizing model and top down control.

Protest against ICE after the killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis by ICE agents.  Reddit photo.

The difference too between the two is that a more variegated infrastructure is created with the organizing model, providing the people at the top can be looser with control.

The article contrasts Democratic and Republican Party approaches, says the Republicans work it better because their only litmus test is whether or not you support Trump, not your position on guns, abortion, LGBTQ issues, etc.

It discusses the success of the Obama campaign, and how right wingers studied the model, and adopted and adapted it. 

From the article:

Ben Wikler chaired the Democratic Party of Wisconsin from 2019 to 2025. He recently told me that “Democrats should be learning from the Republicans about how to build small, socially interconnected communities.” Wisconsin had the tiniest swing toward Republicans among battleground states in 2024 because, Wikler believes, the state Party prioritized “neighborhood teams working year-round and socializing with their neighbors, to form real communities”—the same approach that governs Faith & Freedom. For liberals, he said, alternatives to church and the gun club include neighborhood organizations such as gardening groups and community centers. Whereas maga welcomes anyone wearing the red hat, Democrats often require people to use new terms on pronouns and race, and they can punish or exclude anyone who strays. “That doesn’t work,” Wikler said. “A movement needs people who feel safe with each other, who can hang out and talk about things besides politics. People who like each other. The Republicans are finding those people. The Democrats aren’t doing that enough.”

One problem, according to researchers, is that the left’s success in mobilizing large crowds may have caused leaders to misunderstand what spurs someone to become politically active in the first place. In the late nineties, the sociologist Ziad Munson began interviewing pro-life advocates, and he initially assumed that such people had been strongly opposed to abortion for years. “I was completely wrong,” he said. In fact, nearly a quarter of activists told him that they had been pro-choice when they attended their first pro-life event. A majority said that they had not had strong opinions about abortion. “But then something happened, like they moved to a new town or started going to a new church, or they got divorced and started joining singles groups, and the new people they met were pro-life,” Munson explained. “And so they found a community, and a sense of identity, and that’s when they became committed.”

Many leaders of local MADD chapters first sought the group out after their lives had been upended by a drunk driver, and they found that meeting other victims helped them process their anger and grief. Wolfson, the MADD researcher, told me, “They were mainly women who had never thought of themselves as public figures, and now they’re talking to legislators and spending time with people who understand them and making new friends. At that point, you’re all in.” The organization accepted everyone, regardless of ideological background (and drinking habits). “All you needed to join was to care about this issue.”

While not discussed in the article I think this is an element in anti-vaccination forces.  Besides the anti-science etc. people, a lot of people who made "mistakes" during covid, leading to death or serious and long term illness, if not of themselves, of people in the circle, need "someone to blame" other than themselves.

And they bind together over those beliefs.  

That becomes Anthony Fauci, Big Pharma--if ivermectin worked at reducing covid, Eli Lilly would have been marketing the hell out of it, hospitals, doctors, particular medicines and what they call "the protocol" which was remdesivir administered intravenously when hospitalized--they said it killed people.

Consistency and logic aren't part of the equation, such as the ivermectin thing--were the producers of ivermectin and hydroxychoroquine the Good Pharma and Pfizer and Moderna Bad Pharma?

Plus, you had people like DeSantis saying remdesivir was good, but don't get the covid shot.  Crazy.  FWIW, remdesivir helped me during my 8 day stay in the hospital as a result of my third and worst bout of covid.

From the article:

When researchers such as Munson look at today’s leftist movements, they often see the opposite approach. “The left has purity tests,” Munson said. “You have to prove you’re devoted to the cause. But that means that, once you join, you’re spending time with the kind of people you already know, because you already move in the same circles, and you’ve screened out people who might be ideologically ambivalent right now but might have become activists if you had welcomed them.”

Are they purity tests, some are like on trans issues--it killed me during the election to see ads from Trump saying "She cares about they/them.  We care about you."  But maybe at times it is more about logic and facts versus fabulism.  At least it is for me.

From the article:

The sociologist Liz McKenna, of Harvard, told me that movements succeed best when people feel welcome. A movement becomes sustainable when members feel empowered and find friends. “The left loves big protests, but protesting is a tactic in search of a strategy,” she said. There must be some shared core values among a movement’s members, of course, but the requirement can’t be that every value is shared. “Making room for difference isn’t a nice-to-have thing—it’s table stakes,” she told me. “The rallies are by-products of the community, not the goal.” Most of all, even though anger can be useful, a movement also needs to provide some joy. “Trump rallies are fun,” McKenna noted. “The Turning Point campus debates are fun.” For a long time, she said, the left was less fun and more angry, “and so the right was out-organizing them at every turn.”

October is National Community Planning Month | Thirteen characteristics of walkable neighborhoods | Characteristics of great places

The CNU Public Square article, "Thirteen characteristics of walkable neighborhoods," reminds me that this month is National Community Planning Month, which I have been remiss in writing about.  

Years ago, the American Planning Association used NCPM as a way to bring attention to best practice urban design and public spaces neighborhoods and cities.  They stopped doing that awhile ago.  I think that was a mistake because you can never have too many examples of what's good in the midst of a planning paradigm that produces a lot more bad.

 I wrote some pieces, with the intent to write more.  

-- "National Community Planning Month: Schools as neighborhood anchors," 2022
-- "Community Planning Month and Transportation," 2022
-- "Planning books to read for National Community Planning Month," 2020
-- "October as National Community Planning Month (and "defund the police")," 2020
-- "Community planning, capitalism, and housing/real estate development," 2020

Ridge Avenue in Roxborough, Philadelphia.  One side is historic small commercial buildings.  On the other side is a new, modern design, apartment building with ground floor retail.

Given the previous entry, "BTMFBA + programs to lease the properties to local businesses | Philadelphia," definitely an article on best practice in commercial district revitalization is in order.  I do have a series:

-- "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)

Boise has a great program to support neighborhood identity development and community building.

This series is on neighborhood revitalization:

-- "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

But frankly, the blog is full of thousands of entries that are related to best practice in community planning.

The CNU article about walkability is more about technical conditions, less so about people:

1. The neighborhood is the increment of planning. A single freestanding neighborhood is a village. 

I make this point in the entry, "National Community Planning Month: Schools as neighborhood anchors," which builds on writing back to 2011, but urban planning isn't really set up that way.

2. The neighborhood is limited in size to a 5-minute walk (0.25 miles, 400 meters) from edge to center, where the needs of daily life are available. 

From the standpoint of how retail is organized, this isn't practical.  More like a mile, probably more.

3. Neighborhood streets are in an interconnected network, allowing multiple routes to destinations. 

This is a basic precept from Jane Jacobs Death and Life of the Great American City (1961).

4. Neighborhood streets are spatially defined by buildings. Neighborhoods are nested together to make a town or city.  

Neal Street NE, DC.  

5. Neighborhood buildings are diverse in function but compatible in terms of size and configuration on the lot. 

I often quote Stephen Semes' point on neighborhood buildings comprising an "architecture of the ensemble."  New modern buildings often contrast terribly in terms of the ensemble.

6. The civic buildings of a neighborhood are located in important areas, for example, attached to squares. 

This one is tough.  The civic buildings and structures of a community tend to be a library, elementary school, maybe a transit station.  Schools aren't centrally located in this way.  

Mt. Pleasant DC's plaza is focused around an old streetcar turnaround.  The nearest library is a few blocks away, same with schools.  Although I do think when possible neighborhood libraries should be sited in this way.  Idea Store branch libraries in the Tower Hamlets borough of London are sited like this.

I will say that the Salt Lake City and County libraries don't do this very well, and often the building facade isn't permeable and doesn't connect to the street.

A plaza function may be provided rather than as a primary space, adjacent to a library or transit station.  

I do think if there are neighborhood centers, this kind of space needs to be built in.

7. Neighborhood open space is defined rather than amorphous. 

Parks, pocket parks, plazas, etc.

8. Everyone living in a neighborhood has independence of movement, since activities of daily life are within walking distance.

Ideally yes.  As we get old, it's harder to walk.  I have a heart condition and I walked 2+ miles today after a serious workout yesterday, and it was very hard.  Plus, I didn't have to walk back, I got picked up (a grocery store trip).

9. Reduced auto trips means less traffic and lower costs. 

10. Human-scale streets and squares provide opportunity for social interaction. 

11. Transit is made feasible by providing sufficient density near transit stops. 

12. There is a full range of housing types and workplaces, allowing age and economic integration.  

13. Civic buildings and spaces encourage democratic initiatives

Other lists of characteristics of great places to live or visit

Dan Burden has his own list, "How Can I Find and Help Build a Walkable Community?":

1. Intact Town Centers
2. Residential densities, mixed income, mixed use
3. Public Space
4. Universal Design
5. Key Streets are Speed Controlled
6. Streets, Trails are well linked
7. Design is properly scaled
8. Town is designed for people
9. Town is thinking small
10. In Walkable communities there are many people walking
11. The Town and Neighborhoods have a vision
12. Decision Makers are Visionary, Communicative, and Forward Thinking

Astoria.

Kyle Ezell's Get Urban: The complete guide to Urban Living is out of print, but the book makes a great point that you can find good urbanism in towns that aren't necessarily the largest US cities like NYC or Boston, that most places, Omaha or Tulsa, college towns, secondary cities in metropolitan area--like Royal Oak and Birmingham in Oakland County, or the Grosse Pointes in Wayne County, abutting Detroit--have some areas of great urbanism.  

We were recently in Astoria, Oregon, but didn't get to spend much time there due to a crotchety MIL, and the Downtown at its Sunday Farmer's Market, was hopping.

"The 20 Ingredients of an Outstanding Destination" by Roger Brooks International:

1. They begin with a plan.
2. They defined a strong brand and retail focus.
3. They orchestrated recruitment of “critical mass” or “clustering.”
4. They each have anchor tenants.
5. Lease agreements included defined operating hours and days.
6. People living and/or staying downtown.
7. Pioneers with patient money were convinced to invest.
8. They started with just one or two blocks - “demonstration project.”
9. Solving the parking dilemma.
10. Public washrooms.
11. Development of gathering places.
12. Creation of good first impressions: Community Gateways.
13. Design, fabrication & installation of a wayfinding system.
14. A good first impression: downtown or district gateways.
15. 20/20 signage: retail signage rules & regulations.
16. Sidewalk cafes and intimate surroundings.
17. They invested heavily in retai beautification.
18. They provide activities and entertainment: bring downtown to life!
19. They gave downtown districts a name.
20. The marketing is experiential: focus on activities, not buildings.

The Project for Public Spaces Place Game and How to Turn a Place Around workshop but focused on the overall place.

My own "Revisiting factors influencing housing purchase," which lists access to amenities as a factor in deciding where to purchase a house.

The resistance: Florida cities challenging MAGA guidance on LGBTQ crosswalk treatments: Update to "Attacks on American civil society to the most picayunish"

Hundreds of people turned out in a show of support for the LGBTQ+ rainbow pride intersection of Duval and Petronia streets in Key West on July 26, 2025. (Nick Doll Photography via Key West Business Guild/courtesy)

The City of Del Rey Florida, after pressure from the State DOT in response to US DOT guidance, agreed to remove "LGBTQ" painted crosswalks, which technically are not considered appropriate road treatments according to the Manual of Uniform Controlled Traffic Devices.

But they changed their minds.  From the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, "Delray Beach changes course, will defy state and keep its LGBTQ+ pride intersection":

Delray Beach has decided to defy the state and keep its LGBTQ+ pride intersection downtown, a move that could draw scrutiny from Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration. The decision to keep the intersection, at least for the time being, was made this week by a majority of city commissioners. 

It came three weeks after City Manager Terrence Moore ordered removal of the intersection. Moore, like officials in Boynton Beach and West Palm Beach, acted in response to a pronouncement from DeSantis’ secretary of transportation.

They are taking a big risk, considering how MAGA Florida is, and it's a definite positive sign of resistance.  The article is worth reading in full, as it describes the issues and the responses within a number of Florida's cities.

Delray Beach is not alone in resisting the early-July directive posted on social media by Florida Transportation Secretary Jared Perdue, who attached a memorandum warning non-compliant communities that they could lose state funding. Key West city commissioners voted last week to keep their rainbow intersection and fight efforts to remove it. In late July, hundreds of people gathered to show support for the city’s LGBTQ+ rainbow intersection.

In Fort Lauderdale, the fate of a segment of a road painted the colors of the rainbow progress pride flag is unresolved, with several factors complicating the issue. Mayor Dean Trantalis said he wants to preserve that section of Sebastian Street. Any decision about changing its status should be made by the City Commission, not the city staff, the mayor said.

=========================

This entry was published July 18th:

A file photo, above, shows the “Pride Progress Flag” mural on East Ocean Avenue and First Street in Boynton Beach. Now, it's no longer there. A woman, below, walks her dog at the newly painted intersection on Wednesday, July 16, 2025. (Carline Jean/South Florida Sun Sentinel) 

Besides post-hospital demotivation, another reason for not writing has been the overwhelmingly anti-progressive acts by the Trump Administration, too much to grapple with.  I wrote about this in March ("Federal government cuts target civil society").  

From the Sun-Sentinel:

The instructions came via a July 1 social media post, press release and “Dear Governor” letter from Trump Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and a July 2 social media post from Florida Transportation Secretary Jared Perdue, who attached a detailed memorandum from one of his assistant secretaries. 

 Duffy was direct about his intentions. “Taxpayers expect their dollars to fund safe streets, not rainbow crosswalks. Political banners have no place on public roads. I’m reminding recipients of @USDOT roadway funding that it’s limited to features advancing safety, and nothing else. It’s that simple.”

So much for placemaking, traffic calming, and sustainable mobility.

This is further illustrated by proposals to cut federal funding to PBS and NPR ("Senate approves cuts to NPR, PBS and foreign aid programs," NPR).  Since the Senate agreed, it's all but a done deal.  Advocacy and action groups in all categories, such as agriculture and sustainable mobility, the arts and humanities and other areas are all losing funding.

In "Florida city removes LGBTQ+ rainbow intersection, quickly complying with state, federal mandate," the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel reports on how the US DOT and Florida DOT--both hard right Republican, have advised local governments to remove gay pride rainbow crosswalks because they are not authorized "traffic control devices."