Common Good in Cities: People Who Cycle Are "Better" Than People Who Drive

"Orientation towards the common good in cities: The role of individual urban mobility behavior," Journal of Environmental Psychology (2023)

Abstract:  Orientation towards the common good is considered as a building block of  social cohesion and has been shown to benefit both social communities and their residents. Mobility behavior (e.g. cycling) is associated with many positive psychological variables, but little is known about its relationship with the orientation towards the common good. This study examined the relationships between mobility behavior and four facets of orientation towards the common good: political participation, social participation in organizations, neighborhood solidarity, and neighborly helpfulness. Using a longitudinal multilevel analysis, annual surveys between 2014 and 2019 of a representative sample of the German general population (GESIS PANEL, N = 410) were analyzed. Cycling rather than driving was positively associated with orientation towards the common good in all models. Cycling was the only variable that was a significant positive predictor for all four facets of orientation towards the common good after controlling for possibly confounding variables (homeownership, personal income, education, sex). This research demonstrated that mobility behavior is associated with the orientation towards the common good. These findings are significant for policy and planning because the benefits of cycling over driving are more profound and sustainable than previously thought.

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Makes sense to me that when you're riding (or walking) you're more connected to your community than when you're apart from it in a car.  

And this concept is expressed in an article about the Louisville Loop, a concept for a 100 mile trail loop around the core of Louisville, Kentucky, through various different land use contexts from Olmsted era parkways to the city's Riverwalk ("Louisville Loop architect of 30+ years drives effort to build more trails," Louisville Courier-Journal)

Despite the obstacles the Loop has faced in the last decade, Swintosky remains focused on the vision laid out by the Louisville Loop Master Plan, which called for the completion the 100-mile trail "that becomes an essential component for the growth and prosperity of the region."

"I mean, you could read the Louisville Loop Master Plan, but I can enunciate the words just from my own knowledge and experience," he said. "(The trails) are community-building, they provide good, healthy living opportunities. They give the community opportunity to experience parts of their own area that you don't get by just driving down a road."

This is an example of how parks, trails and open spaces contribute to community well being, engagement, and the presentation of third spaces.

In the entry on National Trails Day, I forgot to reference the term I prefer, "social bridge" and William H. Whyte's term, "triangulation" about how public spaces provide the opportunity for people who don't know each other to interact:

William H. Whyte and "triangulation."  Whyte, who had been editor of Fortune Magazine, became interested in cities and public space, and pioneered methods of urban observation, including filming people and how they used public space.  He wrote a couple of very important books on cities and activation, The Social Life of Small Urban Places and The City: Rediscovering the Center.

One of his concepts is what he called "triangulation," where people who didn't know each other talk to each other.  Triangulation is the process: 

in which a stimulus provides a social bond between people. Strangers are more likely to talk to one another in the presence of such a stimulus. The stimulus might be musicians, or street entertainers, or apiece of outdoor sculpture. Museum professionals will note the relation of these stimuli to landmark exhibits which have a similar effect.

Anne Lusk, in her dissertation on greenways, calls this a social bridge. and I like that term better, it sounds less "social sciency." She wrote about how to design greenways to promote social interaction: 

Except for a minimal number of elements, the environment does not facilitate interaction between strangers. While someone could hold open a door and a person passing through could say thank you, necessary ADA regulations are making many doors automatic. 

If social capital is to be increased and interaction between people who know one another and people who do not know one another improved, environments that might foster positive interaction should be built. At the destinations, social bridge elements could be incorporated in the built environment. These social bridge elements include four types:  

1) Assist, 2) Connect, 3) Observe, and 4) In Absentia. 

An assist social bridge is the built element that allows one person to assist another person. A connect social bridge is a form of William Whyte's triangulation where a third element is watched, such as people kayaking, and strangers talk as friends. An observe social bridge is the positive feeling when a kindness is witnessed and that kindness is facilitated by the element in the built environment. An in absentia social bridge could be experienced in the perception of the person who created or maintained the space for the enjoyment of the recipient. 

And we need to think about that more broadly, in terms of both design of spaces but also programming ("The layering effect: how the building blocks of an integrated public realm set the stage for community building").  And once again, David Barth's integrated public realm framework.

And that's exactly what I ended up doing a couple Sundays ago, crashing the Turkish holiday Kurban Bayramı (Eid al-Adha) held at Sugar House Park.  I made a new friend, and had great food and I learned a lot.

Does the US need a set of national urban parks? | Revisiting a comment from 2019

I bring this up because reading "backfile" articles about architecture and parks in the Toronto Globe and Mail, there is this year old article, "What Canada’s only national urban park can teach us about accessible, eco-friendly design." 

The Rouge National Urban Park is 30 minutes outside of Toronto, and is transit accessible ("One of the largest urban parks in North America is in Toronto and you can get there for free"), unlike most of the Canadian national parks in rural areas. (Or many US national parks and related federal park-type facilities.)

It's a single park unit, not an amalgamation of sites like an NPS National Recreation Area spanning multiple sites in an area like SF, Boston, Long Island, New York or outside Atlanta.

(WRT access issues and DC area national parks, see "A gap in planning across agencies: Prioritizing park access for pedestrians, bicyclists and transit users compared to motor vehicle access" and "Revisiting: Access to Theodore Roosevelt Island, a national park in Washington, DC.")

Nor is it a National Heritage Area which typically isn't urban-focused specifically, they are focused on a large region and interpreting it thematically, such as the Rivers of Steel NHA for Greater Pittsburgh (although the one in Baltimore is; Boston has a National Historical Park including many different sites), but an area of historic interested spread out in a region of many hundreds of square miles. (In the Detroit area there is even an (inter)national wildlife refuge along both the US and Canadian sides of the Detroit River.

(Separately, I've argued DC should manage itself as a heritage area, whether or not it is federally designated as such.  See "A unified National Park Service Visitor Center for DC (and the region).")

Toronto as seen in the distance from Rouge National Urban Park.

The article makes the point that the Canadian Park Service wants to develop other urban parks.  From the article:

Dubbed the “people’s park,” RNUP is currently Canada’s only national urban park. But not for long. To connect more urban dwellers to nature, the federal government committed $130-million in 2021 to establish more of them across the country – looking at cities such as Windsor, Ont., Edmonton and St. John’s, with the aim of creating six by 2025 and a total of 15 by 2030. Parks Canada believes that creating these parks will improve resident well-being, air and water quality and commemorate Indigenous knowledge and culture. The government also recently announced RNUP’s expansion, scrapping plans for an airport in Pickering in favour of adding to the park’s footprint.

As RNUP expands and new urban national parks take shape, the question of how these spaces should look and function becomes more important. Planners and designers are grappling with how to balance ecological health, accessibility and public use, while also considering the role of beauty and aesthetics.

On the long ago entry, "Defining National Park Service installations in DC as locally or nationally serving" (2019), Ed Drozd made the point that there ought to be a systematic provision of "national" parks throughout the country:

First, in re whether locally serving, thinking about it, I wonder what should be the goal of the National Park Service. Clearly part should be iconic areas. But, I do think selected locally serving areas, whether National Parks or National Historic Parks, might be important as well. Not just as outreach between the NPS and most people, but also to connect people to history and/or environment.

Part first amended: my wife lives near the Cuyahoga Valley National Park (full National Park) between Akron and Cleveland. I've been in it, and have been underwhelmed compared to, say, Acadia or Glacier, but it is truly lovely and can connect people to the environment like few other places in the area can.

But, why there but not places in NJ where I grew up? Granted there are National Historic Parks, but those are tied to history. However, in the grand scheme of things, perhaps it doesn't matter because of the programming.

If we think about this in terms of spreading the wealth of national parks beyond the signature parks, as far as urban parks go, there are a bunch of NPS installations, mostly historic site based, some "national recreation areas" like around Boston, SF, Long Island, etc.  They do have an urban program, or at least they did before Trump.

In a follow up comment I was in agreement, but now I am not so sure.  DC has a lot of national park sites, big and small, but the Park Service hasn't been that great about taking care of them, partially because they have a big portfolio, a backlog of maintenance, and because they aren't set up well to deal with urban parks.

Even though they produced a couple decent reports on how to do it, the Urban Agenda Call to Action Initiative more generally, and wrt DC specifically, the Small Parks Management Strategies document (report).

Cracked and broken tiles mar the appearance of Welcome Park, a plaza dedicated to telling the story of William Penn’s vision for the city. Tom Gralish / Philadelphia Inquirer.

And resource deficiencies aren't just a problem in DC, they are especially a problem at Philadelphia's Independence National Historical Park ("Large granite ‘join or die’ sculpture is among Independence Park improvements that still need funding," "Independence Park is ‘woefully behind’ for 2026 and in ‘grave need of resources,’ stakeholders say," "A Much-Needed Makeover: How Philadelphia’s Independence National Historical Park is getting ready for America’s 250th birthday," "More bikes and pedestrians, fewer cars: A $100M rethink of Philly’s historical district," Philadelphia Inquirer) 

-- Independence National Historical Park: Long-Range Interpretive Plan, National Park Service (2007)

A display describing the lives of enslaved people on the site where one of George Washington's homes once stood in Independence National Historical Park. Tom Gralish / Philadelphia Inquirer.

This is irrespective of the recent problems over historic interpretation ("The slavery exhibits at the President’s House are starting to be restored by the National Park Service," "Trump’s attempts to hide the unpleasant truths about our actual history are the real disparagement," PI) at the President's House and the Trump Administration's desire to whitewash over "minority" elements, especially "hurtful" history, as part of the good and bad of the national story.

What about networking existing urban parks?  Now, and I might be biased because I am on the board of an urban park (granted it's 1/6 the size of Central Park in NYC), and knowing also that there are extensive networks of state parks in addition to the large park inventories typical in major cities, that maybe like how within Montreal, they have a set of parks they refer to as Network of Large Parks, some more urban and sculpted, others more natural, that instead, somehow we think of these park systems as networks, and promote and support them that way.

Parks People, the parks advocacy group in Canada, has created such a network there ("Park People launches first-of-its-kind network for Canada’s large urban parks").  Of course in the US there is the Trust for Public Land, an advocacy and consulting group--with an urban parks unit, and various national and state professional associations.  But judging from what I know about parks in Salt Lake City and County, state parks or natural resources agencies don't work that closely to help local and county park systems in terms of a network.

Still a role for the Park Service (and other federal agencies).  There is still a place for NPS in terms of linking various federally controlled sites through National Recreation Areas, Urban National Heritage Areas, Boston's National Historical Park, historic sites and landmarks, and other resources.  There's talk in Southern California of designating some of the beaches a national par ("Parks service says federal control of local beaches could spur new, protections, conservation efforts and economic activity," Santa Monica Daily Press).

But like as opined in the above-cited blog entry, there needs to be a strong interpretational, historic, and cultural resources framework for determining why such parks and sites should be designated as federal.  

And new systems need to be built that better gather public input on these facilities, especially for places treated as more like public parks--ordinarily the Park Service is pretty distant from local input.

Which is why I recommend that local parks master plans also provide guidance wrt federal, state, and county parks within their boundaries.  Some planners say, we don't have any authority so why bother.  My counter is without guidance from us we guarantee we're not considered ("Federal shutdown as another example of why local jurisdictions should have more robust contingency and master planning processes," 2013).

And, there needs to be money appropriated to deal with additional responsibilities for new federally designated parks, rather than merely add to the current $10+ billion backlog in maintenance.

That doesn't even mention US Forests which may be located on the outskirts of urban areas such as in Los Angeles and the Uintah-Wasatch-Cache National Forest outside of Salt Lake.  The Forest Service has been underbudgeted for years, which has led to mergers of forests covering often disparate areas.

Downtown D.C. BID seeks arts director to mold a theater, entertainment district

Warner Theater.

Article in the Washington Business Journal. 

The Downtown D.C. Business Improvement District hopes to mold the city's arts, culture and entertainment community into something akin to London's West End theater district, playing into a larger effort by the Bowser administration to recast the perception of D.C. as more than just home to the nation's capital.

The BID began accepting applications last week for a new director of downtown arts, culture and entertainment, with an advertised salary range of $105,000 to $125,000 and a start date as soon as Dec. 22.

The selected candidate will be charged with helping to position downtown D.C. as the region's premier destination for arts, culture, entertainment and sports, a move it hopes will boost visitation and position downtown as an appealing backdrop for companies looking to attract and retain workers. The individual will also be responsible for coming up with funding sources to sustain the effort, which could take the form of a dedicated fund, grants, sponsorships or even the creation of a stand-alone nonprofit to lead those fundraising efforts. In short, it's a big job, and somebody's got to do it, said Gerren Price, the BID's president and CEO.

Building and sharing audiences.  Interestingly, 20 years ago or so I applied for a marketing position at the Warner Theater in Downtown DC. 

At the time I didn't realize they were/are managed by LiveNation, the international arts management group, so I had no chance.

One of the points I made in my cover letter is that even if they compete nightly against the National Theatre for audiences, the reality was they needed to work together to build the audience for theaters in Downtown DC collectively. (E.g. + Landsburgh Shakespeare Theatre, Ford's Theater, Wooly Mammoth, etc.)

I later repeated this in my talk to the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs national conference in DC in 2009, summarized in my entry, "Arts, Culture Districts, and Revitalization." 

The overall point that it was up to theater as a discipline "to make their own plan(s)" that they shouldn't rely on real estate developers and even culture planners to do it for them.

And I made the point they need to share audiences and build the overall audience of people willing to go to Downtown DC to see theater.

Playhouse Square.

Pittsburgh and Cleveland as models.  For years, I've made the point that the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust and the Playhouse Theater Foundation in Cleveland are models for how the city could address development and operation of cultural facilities.

-- "The Howard and Lincoln Theatres: run them like the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust/Playhouse Square Cleveland model," 2012
-- "Pittsburgh Cultural Trust maintains diverse real estate portfolio to support arts," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
-- "How the Arts Drove Pittsburgh's Revitalization," The Atlantic

London's National Theatre.  The recent entry, "Theater Roundup," about theater developments around the country, mentioned the trials and tribulations of the Kennedy Center, comparing it to the great success of the National Theatre in London.  

Director Indhu Rubasingham leverages the national and international place of London in the theater discipline ("National Theatre director Indhu Rubasingham: ‘If I wasn’t scared, I wouldn’t be doing my job’" "Indhu Rubasingham: the National Theatre’s new artistic director takes centre stage," Financial Times) and focuses on innovation and providing a diverse array of programs in part to reach a variety of demographics.  Also see "How to get National Theatre tickets for £10," IanVisits.

 “You can’t be all things to all people, but you can try to offer as broad a range as possible — whether that’s a western classic, an international classic, international new writing or promoting the brilliance we have around the country. The National is a flag-bearer as well as an innovator. It’s a provoker as well as populist. It’s brilliant when it’s doing all those things at once.”

The Kennedy Center hasn't really taken on this kind of role vis a vis the national theater ecosystem in the US. 

Graphic from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Theater as presentation versus theater as production.  The roundup piece also references discussion in Pittsburgh about the difference between theater companies that actively produce plays, versus organizations that present plays from the national circuit, like Hamilton, Cats, etc. 

-- "'Cultural coffin': Pittsburgh's thespians and universities react to theater woes," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
-- "Survey Shows Chicago Small Arts Sector Thriving," American Theatre

Theater production companies contribute to the development and maintenance of the local arts ecosystem, by hiring and paying playwrights, actors, musicians, and back of the house production. 

A showing of Cats does not have the same kind of local impact.

If local colleges and universities have active theater programs, all the better.  For example, in Pittsburgh Carnegie-Mellon is particularly well known.  But DC has a great program and on campus theater at Catholic University too.

The Washington City Paper has reported on an element of this in how cutting back on house staff reduces the pool of local talent and economic benefits to the local economy ("What’s Lost When Theaters Lose Production Crews?").  

Tourists as an element of the market.  Like NYC and Chicago, at least in the past, tourists, not having access to the same array of programming back home, often took in a show as part of their trip to DC.  Of course, NYC has tourists who come to the city because it is a theater destination.  DC is not quite the same.  Except maybe regionally.  

A dissertation on DC's Arena Stage makes the point that it is the closest theater in the city to playing the kind of role National Theatre does in London ("Performing (Non)Profit, Race, and American Identity in the Nation's Capital: Arena Stage, 1950-2010").  

Another dissertation argued that the city's National Theatre played a more national role, when the city was more of a premier tourist destination, and there was less opportunity to consume theater in their own locales ("National theater or public theater: The transformation of the theatrical geography of Washington, D.C., circa 1970–1990").

In region visitors will matter a lot.  But tourists or DC residents aren't enough to fuel the creation of a larger theater ecosystem in Downtown DC.  Metropolitan area residents will have to make up a big proportion of the audience day in and day out in order to be successful.

London.

Peer cities review.  It behooves the BID to do peer case studies, on cities like London, Manhattan (Broadway Theaters: An economic engine for New York, Broadway League), Chicago ("Loop economy boosted by theatre and investment during fall and winter 2022," Chicago Loop Alliance, "Driven by arts and culture, pedestrian traffic in Downtown Chicago exceeds pre-pandemic levels, report finds," WBEZ/NPR), and Hamburg wrt musicals ("Broadway on the Elbe," New York Times), and figure out if the initiative, even though focused on Downtown, will provide assistance and marketing support to theaters and university programs outside of the core of the city.

Similarly, New York City's segmentation of theater productions as Broadway, Off-Broadway, and Off-Off-Broadway is a useful rubric for recognizing that all "theater" is not the same.  Again, presentation of programs in DC that were originally on Broadway has a different economic impact than locally-produced theater and building the audience for it ("Studies Show Big Impact of Small Theatres in NY, Chicago," American Theatre)

Community revitalization initiatives for smaller communities | marginal attraction of people and commerce even in small amounts makes a difference

Sometimes I'm quick to judge revitalization initiatives as not particularly wide ranging.  But the fact of the matter is that many commercial districts can benefit positively from marginal increases in demand, visitorship and spending even from small projects.

For example Fargo North Dakota has doubled its downtown population over the past 25 years ("St. Cloud aims to revitalize downtown by ‘copying what Fargo did’," Minneapolis Star-Tribune) and Winona, Minnesota, by refocusing its use of its riverfront, has created an arts district ("How an industrial city along the Mississippi River transformed itself into an arts town," MST)

1.  "Glenview buying former Signode campus to control redevelopment," Crain's Chicago Business.  I've often made the point that an RFP isn't a plan, that it is a solicitation for proposals from organizations which may or may not have good ideas.  

Starting with a plan is better than an RFP, it shapes the proposals and what is acceptable, based on an already developed community consensus.

Glenview takes this a step further--maybe a plan would have been enough?--and bought a large vacant industrial property, totaling 56-acres, to be able to shape how it is developed.

Similarly, Monroeville, Pennsylvania considered buying the local failed shopping mall.  Instead, Walmart bought it and is likely to build a retail facility there.

en Sjaaheim, Silas Dingman and Brady Skahen, members of the pop-punk band F-18, perform at B-Side Indie Music Cafe in downtown St. Cloud last month. The performance was part of a night of punk music put on through Project 37, an all-ages and sober music program. (Alex Kormann/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

2.  "This central Minnesota city is taking a true punk-rock approach to revive its downtown," Minneapolis Star-Tribune.  It probably won't spur the creation of the next Prince, or the ground up punk rock movement in DC in the 1970s sparked by the teen band, which morphed into Fugazi, but if cities like Austin, Chicago and Seattle have developed programs to support their music industry and the presentation of like music, why not St. Cloud?  From the article:

For years, officials here have been trying to enliven a lackluster downtown beset with empty storefronts, hollowed-out offices and nearly empty sidewalks.

Now some punk rockers are striking a chord. They, along with other musicians and artists, are stepping up in ways beyond what officials have done, adding cultural attractions and events. A new all-ages music venue that opened this past summer — the B-Side Indie Music Cafe — has already established itself as a gathering spot, jumping with punk rock kids one night, with singer-songwriters another.

In the works next door is a community arts space run by the Wirth Center for the Performing Arts. And in the future? Leaders dream of an arts magnet school or art museum.

“I have a three-part plan to revitalize downtown into an arts district,” said James Newman, executive director of the Wirth Center, which has provided music lessons in central Minnesota for more than four decades. “Downtown has so much potential, and I think an arts focus would be a great thing to bring people in.”

... Already sprinkled throughout downtown St. Cloud are several arts spots, including the Paramount Center for the Arts — which hosts musicals, plays and concerts, as well as art classes — and Pioneer Place on Fifth, which offers music and local radio theater. There are also stages at the Red Carpet Nightclub and an intimate venue at Gnarly Bard Theater, which opened last year.

The question is how much of this ends up being focused on people in-market, shifting their interests from something else to music, versus could St. Cloud, 65 miles from Minneapolis, develop as a destination on music?   From the article:

The planned hub is part of a trend playing out across the state as cities work to revamp downtowns with arts and experiences as retail stores struggle to stay open and offices shutter as more employees work from home.

In Winona, leaders have turned the southeastern river city into an arts destination with a concert hall and art gallery expected to open in the next year, as well as prominent festivals celebrating Shakespeare and Beethoven. In Detroit Lakes, an installation of giant wooden trolls brings people to its downtown and then sends them on an adventure to nearby parks and trails. And in Anoka, folks are invited to explore its downtown’s concerts, farmers markets and businesses with a drink in hand as part of the state’s first social district.

It's a reverse of the more typical flow of rural-suburban residents to the city to join a music ecosystem.

-- "Arts as production: The rock music ecosystem in West Seattle," 2022
-- "Ground up (guerrilla) art #2: community halls and music (among other things)," 2011
-- "Under threat: Austin's music industry as an element of the city's cultural ecosystem and economy," 2016 
-- "Leveraging music for cultural and economic development: part one, opera," 2017
-- "Leveraging music as cultural heritage for economic development: part two, popular music," 2017
-- "NBC4 asks if DC can become a concert capital like Nashville, Austin, and New Orleans?," 2019
-- ""Arts district planning" in Arlington County | Many communities don't know the difference between arts as production and arts as consumption," 2021 
-- "Another example of why local culture plans need to include an element on retail/dealing with for profit elements of the cultural ecosystem: Nashville's Tubb Record Shop," 2022

Baek Jae-ho, head coach of the Sangdong High School baseball team.Photographer: SeongJoon Cho for Bloomberg

3.  "High School Baseball Brought a Dying Korean Town Back to Life," Bloomberg.  The rural declining mining town of Sangdong came up with a program to attract new residents, by creating a first-in-class high school baseball program.  From the article:

That passion for the game inspired Cho Yun-hee and Kim Kyung-soo, 1986 graduates of Sangdong High. As part of a group discussing the future of their alma mater, they spearheaded an effort to attract students, mulling and rejecting proposals such as creating a training program for the energy and mining industries. Then in 2022, they hit upon an ambitious plan. The school would offer free baseball training, plus lodging and food for out-of-area students.

But with an estimated cost of 500 million won ($350,000) a year, the proposal wasn’t an easy sell. Opponents viewed the expense as ludicrous for a decaying community, and even supporters questioned whether a ghost town like Sangdong could lure transplants from dynamic parts of the country.

... Baek had his reputation and a straightforward pitch to prospective students: Get top-level training and a chance at the pro leagues for free. That’s a strong combination in a country where team membership fees and private coaching can cost more than 3 million won a month. The school provides equipment, free lunches and helps pay for other meals. There are now 38 students in the program, two short of a full roster after two players were expelled for smoking (the school has a strict one-strike-and-out policy).

Since the program started, population has inched up over 1,000, new businesses are opening and new housing is being constructed.

The long-vacant Palace Theater in downtown Gary. A blueprint for reversing the city’s fortunes proposes using the restored theater as the heart of a new arts district. Photographer: Zach Mortice/Bloomberg CityLab

4.  Smaller but better?  "Can Anyone Save Gary, Indiana?," Bloomberg.  Gary is about 30 miles from Chicago, and has transit service to and from the South Shore Line, the last US interurban commuter railroad service.

Gary was a steel town.  As US Steel faltered but also reduced employment through capital investment, so did the city--US Steel once had 30,000 employees, now 4,000 (remember too the job multiplier effect which is between 3x and 4x, so that's potentially a loss of 104,000 jobs total.  The city has over 7,000 abandoned buildings.

From the article:

The city’s population also peaked in the ’60s, at about 170,000; today fewer than 70,000 live there. Roughly 80% of Gary residents are Black and a third live below the poverty line — about three times the state average.

Especially downtown, the impact of the exodus is shocking. Most of the land within a several-block radius of City Hall — 5th and Broadway, the center of town — is a bleak patchwork of cleared lots and abandoned commercial buildings. It’s the kind of decay only seen when there was once a rapid and focused public investment in infrastructure, followed by immediate wholesale neglect.

But according to a new study by Notre Dame’s Housing and Community Regeneration Initiative, the failure of mega-scaled landmark buildings like the Genesis Center — a typical gambit for struggling cities — isn’t just an indicator of flailing industrial economies. Instead, the size and form of these developments are themselves the primary culprits.

“When you’re in a state of physical collapse, it doesn’t make any sense to build one big building, because what you need to do is take whatever demand exists and spread it out in smaller buildings, so you can actually find a way to illustrate to people that this change has come,” says Stefanos Polyzoides, dean of Notre Dame’s architecture school, which houses the Housing and Community Regeneration Initiative. “One building accommodating a change is not urbanism. It’s architecture.”

This is an excellent point about many small projects having more impact than a single large project.  So Gary is working to engage multiple small developers, and focusing on rebuilding the public realm in the core of the city, and focusing development on the commercial core, and in neighborhoods that are somewhat stabilized but have vacant lots perfect for infill buildings, zoning changes and some money from the state, which seriously restricted the city's ability to generate property tax revenues through various legislative initiatives.  From the article:

But if the city is going to depend on small business owners for its downtown renaissance, there are resources it needs to offer, he says, like business management training. “A lot of times, mom-and-pop business owners jump in the water and learn how to swim while we’re in the water,” he says. “If we’d had avenues for training, then a lot of businesses that had not made it might be able to make it.”

Jane Jacobs was not in favor of large projects at the expense of smaller, which is discussed in the book Cities: Back from the Edge. 

Elkhart still has a thriving downtown.

5.  Elkhart, Indiana.  The Notre Dame program is also working with Elkhart, and the article contrasts revitalization there versus Gary.  

Elkhart has had more success because of a strong philanthropic community, a lesser problem in terms of abandoned buildings, better capitalized locally-based businesses, and a stronger industrial base, centered on RV manufacturing.  From the article:

Working with other family-owned businesses, as well as the public sector and philanthropic support, Weaver has seen $250 million invested over the last six years in Elkhart’s River District, a mixed-use live-work neighborhood at the confluence of the Elkhart and St. Joseph Rivers. 

So far, the effort has produced hundreds of new residents, a 1.5-mile riverwalk, five parks, and 40 new businesses; a new and lively urban place. “The only way I’ve seen this successfully executed is to slowly build confidence by incremental development,” Weaver says. “I think what Notre Dame has set up is a playbook for communities to think about redevelopment in a way that’s hyperlocal to them.”

Notably, the equity invested is from the community itself, he says. “Nobody is coming to save Elkhart,” says Weaver.

"Hotel Elkhart Named Top Restoration Project in Indiana," HospitalityNet.

Investing in yourself, rather than seeking a savior from outside pushing a large project is key.  From the article:

In some ways, Elkhart is in a different boat than Gary: It has a strong philanthropic community and an intact industrial base.

It’s home to Patrick Industries, which is the leading manufacturer of the ever popular RVs.

Weaver’s ability to finance urban development is closely tied into this dynamic. His firm also develops industrial facilities, and Weaver says the returns for building a “a big dumb box” can be 20%. For his civic work in the River District, it’s paltry 3%.

And he’s not sure building quality urban places outside of major metropolitan areas is going to be an attractive investment for investors any time soon. “I don’t know that we’ll ever be in a situation where the best outcome for the community is the best outcome for the developer in the short term,” he says. “There’s a conflict. I think it’s very difficult to build buildings that enhance civic pride, that put the community first, and provide a short-term superior return.”

While the article discusses structural racism as an issue in Gary, which is majority black at 72% of the population, it doesn't discuss how Elkhart is 62% white.  

This gives the city an easier path forward than Gary ("Elkhart looks to spark downtown revitalization with $40M amphitheater," Inside Indiana Business, "Elkhart officials approve 2 development projects to reimagine city," WNDU TV," "Elkhart," BusinessView). 

Gary's waterfront.  Despite the decline of the steel industry generally, and the reduction in workforce at the US Steelworks in Gary by 70%+, the Gary Steelworks is still the largest steel plant in the world.

Another advantage is that while Gary has the shore of Lake Michigan as an asset, it's occupied in part by US Steel, while Elkhart is able to leverage its riverfront ("Revitalization of the Elkhart River District," Landscape Architecture). 

In a way the comparison between the cities is unfair, in that Elkhart never really crashed the way that Gary did.  According to the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, most of Elkhart's downtown is historically intact, and designated.   

Elkhart County is the number-one tourist destination in the state, primarily because of the Heritage Trail, a 90-mile journey through Amish farms, shops, small towns, and urban areas. Free CDs guide visitors past Elkhart’s 1924 Elco Theatre, the Midwest Museum of American Art, and the RV Hall of Fame and Museum.

Elkhart River

 Another attraction in Elkhart is the National New York Central Railroad Museum, which highlights the importance of railroads to the city’s and the country’s development. Elkhart was a vital link between East and West during the country’s growth, and the city is a natural home for this museum, since its rail yard is among America’s largest. The museum includes a replicated stationmaster’s office and a restored 100-year-old freight house complex containing displays and hands-on exhibits.

That makes a difference.  It reminds me of Pontiac Michigan, a majority black city in a county, Oakland that is majority white.  But the County didn't realize it had an obligation to assist the city in substantive revitalization.

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

Marginal increases in population can have an extranormal impact.  

6.  The above-mentioned downtown residential development program in Fargo, North Dakota (Downtown in Focus Action Plan, Fargo Core Neighborhoods Master Plan).

Block 6 Apartments, Campbell Properties, Fargo, North Dakota.

7.  Tulsa's Remote program to attract "work from home" tech workers by providing small relocation grants ("The economic benefits of paying workers to move," Bloomberg).

8.  Paducah's artist recruitment program, which has helped to revitalize neighborhoods near downtown, attracting artists and businesses, in part because of Paducah's Interstate highway connections to other Midwestern cities with summer art fairs where artists sell their goods ("In Paducah, Artists Create Something From Nothing," NPR). 

The Mississippi Crossings development on the Mississippi River in Champlin. (Leila Navidi/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

9.  Champlin Minnesota's riverfront revitalization ("Twin Cities suburb turns forgotten Mississippi riverfront into a key attraction," MST).  The city has worked to leverage its riverfront since the late 1990s and it has taken 20+ years of steady effort to come to fruition.

(Stillwater, in the far suburbs of Minneapolis worries about overtourism, "Scenic Stillwater draws festive crowds. How much tourism is too much?," "Remade Stillwater riverfront could bring new parks, boat launch, picnic space and fishing piers," MST).

10. "A mountain-bike boom brought growing pains. But these mining towns now embrace their new identity," Crosby and Ironton, on the decline with the close of mines, shift their economies to outdoor recreation and tourism ("Iron Range to spend $5 million on mountain biking trails," MST, 2018).

James Brainard, the mayor of Carmel, Ind., poses before the last of the buildings filling up City Center.Alan Greenblatt/Governing

11.  Creating a center in suburban towns.  Not revitalization per se, but "vitalization" of otherwise residentially focused communities ("Twin Cities suburbs seek destination status with new downtown plans," "St. Louis Park’s West End bucks the trend with one of area’s lowest vacancy rates," MST).

Carmel, Indiana, a traditional suburb of Indianapolis, realized it needed to create a downtown to spur growth ("Meet the Mayor Who Totally Transformed His City," Governing Magazine, "‘How Did I End Up in Indiana?’ Welcome to the Internet’s Favorite Small City," Wall Street Journal).  From the WSJ:

“What I heard when I went door to door in May 1995 for my first election was this yearn for a traditional city,” he said.

At the time, zoning laws prevented the integration of residential and commercial development. Over the next three decades, Brainard said, Carmel has been revitalized in large part through zoning changes and tax increment financing, which allowed the city to build infrastructure with bonds backed by the projected tax revenue of future real estate. 

Carmel has built several multimillion-dollar, mixed-use developments along its central corridor with townhomes, apartments, boutique shops and restaurants. An Arts & Design district with galleries and showrooms now sits in place of the city’s original downtown area. 

It connects to the City Center development, which is home to a 151,000-square-foot concert hall and the Carmel Christkindlmarkt holiday market. These developments are connected by the Monon Greenway, which can be walked or cycled and is part of the 27-mile Monon Trail that runs to downtown Indianapolis, according to Brainard. He has also implemented a network of over 150 roundabouts as an alternative to signal lights, in an attempt to move traffic more efficiently, increase walkability and minimize car accidents.

It's been very successful, so another suburb, Fishers, is doing the same thing ("How Fishers is bringing people out of cul-de-sacs," "New 'urban village' is the latest development in Nickel Plate District south of 116th Street," Indianapolis Star), "Fishers announces plans for $122.5M in new downtown developments," Indianapolis Business Journal).

12. Rural "company" towns invest locally to attract workers.  The Wall Street Journal reports on Pella, Iowa, the home of Pella Windows ("Facing Labor Shortages, Pella Reinvents the Company Town in Rural Iowa").  

Pella Corp. has offices and manufacturing plants in more than 30 cities across the U.S. and Canada. But one of the toughest jobs, say executives at this closely held maker of windows and doors, is convincing workers to locate here in its hometown, a rural city of about 10,000 residents 45 miles southeast of Des Moines.

The company and its controlling shareholders—members of the founding Kuyper family and its descendants—set out to change that. They have spent tens of millions of dollars in the past three years on housing, child-care centers, restaurants and an indoor entertainment center, among other things, to retain and attract new workers. More spending is on the way.

“We just didn’t have the amenities that people we were trying to recruit would expect,” says Chief Executive Tim Yaggi, noting that the manufacturer competes with major cities for talent.

I think that Kohler in Wisconsin is another example.  And ironically, Andersen Windows in Wisconsin.

Somalis in Minneapolis.  

13.  Immigrants moving to languishing communities ("Immigrants as in-migrants and community revitalization") such as 

• the Somalis to Minneapolis-St. Paul ("Somalis finding their place in Minnesota," CNN)
• Latinos to Iowa ("This Iowa meatpacking town didn’t always welcome immigrants. Then the high school started a mariachi band.," Des Moines Register) and many other places ("$11M Plaza de Sol development will bring food hall, small business incubator to St. Paul’s East Side," MST)
• Portuguese and Brazilians to East Coast towns
• Haitians in Ohio don't eat cats and dogs ("An Ohio City Faces a Future Without Haitian Workers," New York Times, "Haitian immigrants helped revive a struggling Ohio town. Then neo-Nazis turned up," Guardian)
• Cape Verdeans in Boston, etc.

Threat to immigration as a revitalization augur.  This is under threat though because of the Trump Administration's anti-immigrant agenda ("The Bay Area’s ‘Little Kabul’ once welcomed Afghan refugees. Federal cuts are changing that," San Francisco Chronicle, "'Now, there is fear everywhere’: How Trump’s immigration crackdown has permeated R.I.’s smallest city, home to a big Latino population," Boston Globe, "Chicago ICE Raids Keep Customers at Home in City’s Latino Retail District," Bloomberg, "Minnesota’s Ecuadorian community is flourishing, but its future is uncertain," Sahan Journal).  From Bloomberg:

For Marco Rodriguez of Dulcelandia (Spanish for “candy land”), the raids are a double whammy. Costs for the family business he runs had already gone up by at least 25% due to tariffs, he said, and now the raids are keeping shoppers away during a peak season. Sales across his four shops in Chicago are down more than 50% this year. 

“On the corridor itself, all businesses have been affected, everyone’s feeling it,” Rodriguez said in an interview Wednesday at the chain’s shop in Little Village. “We’ve seen a drop, especially during these times, these last couple weeks, with what’s going on.”

... Fear of raids in Little Village’s two-mile retail corridor led to foot traffic falling by as much as 30% compared with the prior weekend, according to Jennifer Aguilar, who heads the local chamber of commerce. That’s exacerbating financial troubles for the 400 or so businesses in the area, she said.

Theater roundup

My entry on arts districts and arts as consumption versus arts as production is about how "the arts" contribute to "local urban revitalization" and "economic development" addresses cultural organization development as an element of local cultural and economic development planning.

I wrote it up as a talk at the national conference of the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs ("Reprinting with a slight update, "Arts, culture districts and revitalization"," originally 2009, revised 2019).  The entry discusses arts as production versus arts as consumption, relying on the writings of John Montgomery, the components of arts districts, and facilities as infrastructure.

Because the conference was on theatre I laid it out in terms of how the discipline of theater, at the metropolitan scale, needs to "develop its own cultural plan," including various elements like facilities, support organizations, and audience development.

My most recent related writing was around the sale of the Source Theatre in DC to a restaurant group.

-- "DC's Source Theater sold: cause for a cy pres review?"

Note: the elimination of arts funding by the Trump Administration has crippled many arts groups across the county ("Pittsburgh's theater community reacts to Trump administration's anti-DEI measures, gutting of the NEA," Pittsburgh Tribune-Review)

1.  Pittsburgh theater companies look to merge. A post-covid drop in attendance and therefore revenues is affecting theater groups across the country, many of which are closing.  To prevent some of this in Pittsburgh leading groups are looking at merger as a way to reduce costs ("On the brink of ‘financial failure,’ Pittsburgh’s three largest theaters explore a merger," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). 

2.  Seattle too, but linking a facility with a theater company ("5th Avenue Theatre and Seattle Theatre Group form alliance," Seattle Times).

The 5th Avenue Theatre and Seattle Theatre Group have forged a strategic alliance in which STG has taken over the lease of the historical downtown theater space, owned by the University of Washington. STG will also present arts programming in the space, in cooperation with the longstanding musical theater company.

The 5th Avenue Theatre — which will now be known as The 5th Avenue Theatre Company to differentiate it from the physical space — will remain as the building’s resident theater company and present work for approximately 26 weeks of the year, roughly the amount of time required to produce a five-show season. (In recent years, The 5th has usually produced six- or seven-show seasons.)

3.  Theater presentation versus production as an element of arts as production.  The PPG coverage has made an interesting point distinguishing between the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust and the Pittsburgh City Light Opera, Public Theater and City Theatre .  

I've written about Pittsburgh and PCT as a best practice.  

-- "The Howard and Lincoln Theatres: run them like the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust/Playhouse Square Cleveland model," 2012
-- "Pittsburgh Cultural Trust maintains diverse real estate portfolio to support arts," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
-- "How the Arts Drove Pittsburgh's Revitalization," The Atlantic

But I missed a subtle point.  They operate the facilities but they don't produce home-grown shows, instead scheduling plays and musicals developed elsewhere, traveling shows with their own crews.

By contrast, companies like produce their own shows, and employ local actors and production crews in a way that contributes to the local economy more broadly than putting on a Broadway play ("'Cultural coffin': Pittsburgh's thespians and universities react to theater woes," PPG).

Ten years ago, the Steel City was widely regarded as a destination for actors and backstage workers, thanks to a vibrant theater ecosystem offering numerous paid opportunities to perform for multiple companies each season.

... As costs rise faster for performing arts companies and acting jobs diminish, Pittsburgh is finding itself at a crossroads. Do residents — and, crucially, donors and funders — care whether the local theaters hire local talent, or are they content to see touring shows from New York, like those put on by the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust?

Already there are far fewer paid professional jobs for actors and musicians than in previous years, and local theaters and universities are sounding an alarm. The CLO in recent years has reduced the number of shows it produced in the summer from six to three due to budgetary reasons, for example. 

A merger or consolidation of any kind could lead to a further reduction in jobs and opportunities in the city’s creative sector, and that would have economic ramifications that echo outside the theaters themselves. “This is a big threat to our whole ecosystem,” said Chris Brussalis, president of Point Park University, which has ranked in a national “Big 10” list of performing arts schools based on the number of graduates it has sent on to Broadway.

In Seattle, the STG still places a high value on local production despite expansion to and the need to fill other venues ("Seattle Theatre Group remains community-focused despite expansion," Seattle Times).

4.  Cutting back of the house staff at theaters reduces economic impact of "local" theater and reduces the pool of local talent ("What’s Lost When Theaters Lose Production Crews?," Washington City Paper).  Another way that arts as production ceases to better contribute to the local economy is with cutbacks of highly trained back of the house staff.

5.  Massachusetts offers tax credits for theater production, comparable to film credits ("ATG celebrates big win with launch of live theater tax credits," Boston Globe).

Take a bow, ATG. Your yearslong quest to bring live-theater tax credits to Massachusetts has finally paid off. The idea started with Joe Spaulding, the now-retired president of the two Boch Center theaters, around 20 years ago. He saw how the state’s film tax credits were bringing in business, and wanted something similar for theaters. ATG started putting resources behind the push after leasing the Emerson Colonial Theatre in 2017.

By the time the concept gained traction on Beacon Hill in the past two years, independent theater managers around the state had joined the crusade. They pointed to the money and prestige that show launches can bring, and to the fact that so many shows were starting in places with tax credits. Finally, the Legislature in 2024 included tax credits worth up to $7 million a year in a wide-ranging economic bill known as the Mass Leads Act, to help offset production and personnel costs for Massachusetts launches of Broadway, off-Broadway, and touring shows. (In New York, the opposite is happening: A tax credit program worth $100 million a year, designed to help the city’s theater sector rebound from the pandemic, is about to run out of cash.)

Addams Family theater production, community theater in Davis County, Utah, at Syracuse High School.

6.  Youth theater.  I haven't thought much about K-12 delivery of theater productions.  Salt Lake's East High School is the model for the Disney film and tv show "High School Musical."  Even middle schools produce plays that are marketed to the public.

I never claimed that the points in my original "Arts, Culture Districts" entry covered every element that should be in a discipline-focused arts and culture plan.  A key missing element was education, which is not my forte.  

A couple pieces from the Seattle Times illustrate this, "Where are Seattle’s stages for teen artists and leaders" and "Theater education takes center stage in new program."  From the second article:

For students ages 13–20, the Young Rep program offers training, creative exploration and deeper engagement in theater. This fall, young artists can explore stage management, playwriting and comedic improvisation, and for those eager to take center stage, Seattle Rep is launching a new production intensive. Culminating in two weekends of performances of the play “The Outsiders” — based on the classic novel by S. E. Hinton and adapted by Christopher Serge — this inaugural intensive will be Seattle Rep’s first-ever all-youth production to perform on its Leo K. stage.

... “Then Young Rep — tailored to youth ages 13-20 — offers both shorter themed classes (like playwriting or improv) and immersive experiences such as the 10‑week Production Intensive staging of ‘The Outsiders.’ Students work side by side with professional teaching artists in rehearsals and classes to build acting technique, ensemble collaboration and stagecraft in a fully produced environment,” says Martinez.

Although, just as local theater companies close or cut back on staff, resources made available to K-12 theater programs are diminishing as well.

7.  Pivoting to children's theater in the face of audience decline.  Salt Lake's Plan-B Theatre Company has a traveling theater company ("Utah arts organizations look to the future by inviting and educating young audiences," Salt Lake City Weekly).  After the GFC, the Salt Lake Acting Company started a children's program, including teaching theater, which is something they had to learn to do, out of the belief it would add new energy and audiences to the company.

8. National Theatre of London director Indhu Rubasingham ("National Theatre director Indhu Rubasingham: ‘If I wasn’t scared, I wouldn’t be doing my job’" "Indhu Rubasingham: the National Theatre’s new artistic director takes centre stage," Financial Times).  The artistic director is focused on innovation and providing a diverse array of programs in part to reach a variety of demographics.  Also see "How to get National Theatre tickets for £10," IanVisits.

 “You can’t be all things to all people, but you can try to offer as broad a range as possible — whether that’s a western classic, an international classic, international new writing or promoting the brilliance we have around the country. The National is a flag-bearer as well as an innovator. It’s a provoker as well as populist. It’s brilliant when it’s doing all those things at once.”

Her packed first season, opening next month, certainly teems with exciting possibilities. Classics rub shoulders with world premieres, new voices with famous faces, international work with homegrown talent. The most eye-catching prospects include Lesley Manville and Aidan Turner in a revival of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Letitia Wright in the British premiere of American Tracey Scott Wilson’s The Story, and a return to repertory (once the staple of the National Theatre), with Paul Mescal leading a company in two complementary plays — Death of a Salesman and A Whistle in the Dark.

We’ll see transatlantic partnerships with Brooklyn Academy of Music and The Shed in New York. And, down the line, there’ll be new work from immersive giants Punchdrunk plus a world premiere — as yet undefined — from Stormzy. Stormzy! How much can she tell me about that?

9.  No national theater in the US.  The articles on Indhu Rubasingham made me realize that the US doesn't have a national theater complex functioning the same way. 

Even before the Trump Administration purge at the Kennedy Center ("Trump Takes Over the Kennedy Center," Atlantic Magazine, "Trump Official Gave Free Tickets to GOP Group to Heckle Black Artist," New Republic, "The Future Looks Bleak for Jazz at the Kennedy Center," Washington City Paper, "Kennedy Center cuts dance programming team, as top producers depart," Washington Post, "Kennedy Center’s New Dance Director Criticized ‘Woke’ Ballet Culture," New York Times), it didn't seem positioned as a "national" unifying center of performing arts in the United States.  

Instead it is more of a presenting organization ("At a changing Kennedy Center, the NSO gets back to business," Post), with theater relegated to showing road theater companies, while holding some national events like the arts awards.

A dissertation on DC's Arena Stage makes the point that it is the closest theater in the city to playing the kind of role National Theatre does in London ("Performing (Non)Profit, Race, and American Identity in the Nation's Capital: Arena Stage, 1950-2010").  

I recall a similar argument about the city's National Theatre and how it played a more national role, when the city was a premier tourist destination, and there was less opportunity to consume theater locally ("National theater or public theater: The transformation of the theatrical geography of Washington, D.C., circa 1970–1990").*

* the memory comes from attending DC Historical Studies conferences in the past.  The sessions are definitely a must see, and cover a wide variety of topics.

10.  The lack of a national theater makes the work of Seattle's Living Voices theater company ("Seattle theater company uses one-person shows to tell America’s history," Seattle Times) even more relevant.

Art that connects us to our past — not just intellectually but emotionally and empathetically — is hard to come by. For more than 30 years, Living Voices, a Seattle-based educational theater company, has been creating multimedia solo shows that blend a compelling fictionalized narrative with rigorous historical research, and presenting them all over the country.

Each show, performed by a single actor/teaching artist in front of on-screen materials compiled a la Ken Burns documentaries, is designed to spark curiosity and conversation about the people and events represented. Living Voices can pack a lot of story into these bite-sized shows, all around 30 minutes, which allows time after for a Q&A session between audience and performer.

In 2025 Living Voices is on track to present more than 600 shows, and this sort of access point to clear-eyed historical narratives, conscientiously crafted with a focus on voices underrepresented in history — not to mention performance opportunities for actors including, once upon a time, future Oscar nominee Lily Gladstone — feels more important than ever.