Factors undergirding the decline of economic clusters

Having the throne doesn't make your firm impregnable.  One of my lines is that once McDonalds made it to the top of the fast food restaurant industry, they were always going to lose market share as the segment was vulnerable to niche operators and new business models.  

They're still the King, but always on the defense.  It's difficult to come up with huge breakthroughs that maintain preeminence in the face of constant competition.

Agglomeration economics.  Business clustering, or agglomeration economies, occurs because a firm develops in a place for particular circumstances--access to resources, capital, transportation efficiency, etc.--and as the economic segment develops, support businesses, financing, and other firms are created, strengthening the place as the center of that industry.

But over time, other places compete for pieces of that industry, diminishing the strengthen and preeminence of the original cluster.  This is abetted by how older firms have higher costs, such as pensions and wages, because of a more mature workforce, etc.

There are a couple of good articles about this.  

Washington, DC as a center for business around government.  One is in Greater Greater Washington, "DC has officially lost over 83,000 jobs. The reality is even worse," about Washington DC's economic decline, which results from three things: (1) work from home as a response to covid meant people left the city for cheaper places to live while retaining their high "in Washington DC" incomes, shrinking the local economy and the demand for housing; (2) federal government shrinkage; and (3) decline in international business and tourism.

This is abetted by what is called the multiplier effect, how each direct job supports indirect jobs either within that industry, or in consumption related jobs.  So the 22,000 jobs cut by the federal government has a total effect of 66,000 to 88,000 lost jobs.

DC's competitive advantages.  When I first got involved in revitalization 25 years ago, I identified what I believed were DC's primary competitive advantages.

These were, before covid and work from home, the city's competitive advantages.  WRT the federal government, the city also has to contend with the disinvestment agenda of the Republican party, including relocation of agencies to other parts of the county.

1. The steady employment engine of the federal government.
2. Historic residential, commercial, and civic architecture
3. Historicity (the nexus of people and place)
4. Walking City Urban Design.
5. Transit Network allowing for mobility without automobile dependence

Foremost was the steady employment engine of the federal government, even though long before the Trump Administration, other states and Congressmembers cherry picked agencies for their communities, like West Virginia at the behest of Senator Robert Byrd, a bunch of agencies are in Maryland, etc.  

Wholesale dismantling of agencies and bureaus like the Agency for International Development or the Department of Education both reduce the capacity of government to perform--which supports the neoliberal principle that government is less effective than market-based solutions--and the employment advantages to DC.

Just as bad, both Trump Administrations have moved agencies out of the city as a stratagem to reduce government capacity and employment, in moves like placing the USDA Economic Research Service in Kansas City or BLM to Grand Junction, Colorado--a majority of the extant employees didn't move. 

This is happening with the Forest Service division of USDA, which is consolidating, firing people, and moving its headquarters to Utah--a state at the center of fighting for the sale of public lands or their use for mining, oil production, etc., rather than for conservation.

The destruction of the US Agency for International Development wiped out the "international organization and contractor" economic cluster.  Etc.

Hollywood: LA and film and television production.  Los Angeles became the center of film production because it had a lot more sun than most places, which meant filming was rarely interrupted by negative weather.  But even Greater LA couldn't "stand in" for all environments, which led to Vancouver, British Columbia becoming an alternative.

And like McDonald's, Hollywood, the King of media production, always was vulnerable to losing elements of its business environment.  More and more places began offering tax incentives and other inducements that California didn't think it needed to provide.  To the point where the loss of business was substantial and too far along to reverse.

The LA Times covers this in "How L.A. stopped being Hollywood’s leading star."  From the article:

Film activity in the L.A. region plummeted in the second quarter of this year, with shoot days for feature films and TV productions falling 20% and 30%, respectively, compared with already anemic levels from a year ago, according to FilmLA.

The fallout has been devastating for local film crews and businesses. L.A.’s signature industry has shed some 57,000 jobs in the past four years, while more than 80 film and television production services businesses have closed since 2022. The production crisis has even become a political flashpoint alongside affordability, crime and homelessness in the race for mayor and governor.

The story of how L.A. steadily lost much of its homegrown industry to other locales is a tale of hubris, escalating costs, political inaction and fierce competition from states and countries hungry for a piece of the Hollywood pie. California eventually adopted a very limited film tax credit plan in 2009, but even then production had already gone elsewhere.

Additional lessons: changes in production and technology are "earthquakes" in industry tradition that support industry shake up and relocation.

-- "Next Level Clustering of Business away from the Midwest" (2022)

Emerging versus mature markets.  There are many ways to look at how to assess vulnerability.  One is the Alexander Gerschenkron thesis of "the economic advantages of backwardness."  His point is that established economies have vast investments in maintaining legacy systems of production.  While emerging economies can adopt the latest technologies without having to strand billions of dollars in previous investments.

The perfect example is China and electric cars.  Its automobile industry was nascent and did focus on traditional technology at first.  But as the new technologies of EVs were developed, just on the basis of the size of its market, it was well positioned to be a first mover in the field.  This was probably furthered because China isn't a large oil producer and therefore centering its car industry on alternatives to the internal combustion engine had other benefits of reducing demand and dependence on oil for transportation.

New technologies within industries.  This is an issue within industries as well.  The US automobile industry is a good example as the development of electric cars has allowed new entrants, although Tesla is the only real successful firm in the car market.  The truck sector, the most profitable for the old Big 3, faces competition from new entrants like Rivian.  But even so, because the US automobile market is so mature, with demand for "only" a few million vehicles per year, it can't compete with China.  

Film and video is another example.  Not only was Hollywood vulnerable to other states angling for a piece of the production pie, but as the industry atomized and vastly expanded from four main broadcast channels to hundreds, and then from centralized to decentralized distribution such as through streaming via the Internet IT infrastructure.

Now the big companies are all Internet based--Netflix, based in the SF Bay as is Apple, and Amazon, using its Prime platform as a media delivery system, is based in Seattle.  The traditional firms keep merging, and none seems to have the heft to make video streaming content profitable, unlike Netflix.

Centralized versus decentralized distribution.  This repeats from above.  Video media is a primary example.  But its enabled by the Internet and its massive "back of the house" information technology infrastructure.

It's comparable to the difference between "big iron" more centralized computing as typified by Boston and Route 128 businesses like Data General versus the microcomputer oriented Silicon Valley.  This is discussed by AnnaLee Saxenian in Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128 (review).

Which has also spawned "cloud computing," although the foundations of such systems, starting with ADP payroll processing, are quite old. Amazon and Microsoft make a majority of their profits from cloud computing services--which is also driving the demand for data centers.

The Internet as a platform has similarly made direct distribution, complemented by extensive package delivery systems, much cheaper than before, allowing companies to sell products directly to customers with minimal transaction costs.

Previously, wholesale and large scale retail stores were the primary distribution points for goods, because this minimized transaction costs for the producer and the customer.

Electricity is now proving vulnerable to decentralized delivery through the adoption of solar energy systems and distributed energy resources (batteries) at the point of individual households and businesses ("Are plug-in DERs going to spark a grid revolution?," Volts).

New versus old companies and legacy cost structures.  New companies have the advantage of small workforces earning less money and benefits than established companies.

High fixed costs, e.g., for the automobile industry pensions and insurance for current and retired workers, make it harder to take risks.  

Marketing's Five Ps: Product, Price, Place, Promotion, and People.  There's a maxim in business: your choice of price, quality, or speed of delivery, pick any two.  The 5 Ps are the shorthand for how products have been developed and promoted.  Changes in the conditions of any of those Ps provide a space for business opportunities to develop, threatening existing agglomeration economies of various business segments.

Source: Corporate Finance Institute.

For example, place means where a product is sold, but also how it gets there.  Cheap gas and the highway network trumped railroads.  Before railroads, many industries developed across the country, such as stove production, because the cost of transporting heavy items was so high.

Promotion no longer means the newspaper or broadcast television, but all sorts of digital media.  This has made Facebook and Google the largest sellers of advertising, supplanting traditional firms.  And social media--yes there are paid influencers--mean businesses and products can get great exposure without payment of any kind.

An RFP isn't a plan: redux

I caution against cities releasing RFPs--requests for proposals--without being built upon a planning process.  Without a plan, anything can come over the maw and what comes reflects the developer's preferences, not necessarily either "the city" or "the public".  And proposals tend to be conservative because cities are conservative.

A great example of this is the redevelopment of the Walter Reed Military Hospital Campus in DC.  Hey, they've done a good job.  But it's mostly housing and retail, because the city economic development group is most comfortable with that ("Nice looking five story brick apartment building, Parks at Walter Reed development, Washington, DC," 2026).

Some of the RFPs included wacky hope of getting MIT involved, etc., because the campus included the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, which basically was a set of buildings turnkey that could have been used to start a medical school, biotechnology campus, etc.

That happened sort of, but not by the city's hands.  The Children's Hospital of DC separately lobbied Congress to get control of that property and they did.  Stuff's happening there, not sure about how breakthrough it is.

I wasn't involved at all in the public process around Walter Reed even though it's less than two miles from our DC house, because I had been working on a bunch of other stuff.  

Later, some people came to me with their concept of using the new hospital building (since torn down and it cost more than $125 million to do so) and the Pathology facilities to create a graduate medical education program (the aim was to get the Royal College of Surgeons Dublin to open a medical school, and with Washington Adventist University--there is a medical school at Loma Linda University and many Adventist colleges have medical professions education, and other institutions, open other allied medical education programs) and a biotechnology research initiative/research park.  And I wrote it up.

We were far too late in the process, again the city is conservative, and it didn't help that the leaders of the effort were somewhat wacky, one's focus was to use the H1B Visa program for funding, and we couldn't get either the Royal College or Washington Adventist to sign on the dotted line so that the city would take it seriously.

But in contrast to the housing and retail, it could have supported thousands of high paying jobs, including technology associate positions that didn't require postgraduate work.

St. Elizabeths East campus (West is for the federal government).

Later I wrote it up as a proposal for the city's St. Elizabeths campus in SE DC.

-- "Ordinary versus Extraordinary Planning around the rebuilding of the United Medical Center in Southeast Washington DC:  Part Two: Creating a graduate health and biotechnology research initiative on the St. Elizabeths campus," (2018)

And after that went nowhere, suggested the University of Maryland could do it at the new Largo Hospital--UMD's biomedical research is mostly in Baltimore.

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

I learned the importance of pre-planning from the example of Kennedy School in Portland.  Residents wanted a say in how it would be sold and remade.  They ended up supporting the idea of a bed and breakfast ("Vision and Versatility: The Story of McMenamins," Spirited Magazine, "Preservation Brotherhood," Chicago Tribune, 2004, "Preserved in Alcohol: Case Studies of Adaptive Reuse Projects by McMenamins, Inc.," thesis). And the McMenamins Company came up with an amazing response resulting in an award winning property.

Edgefield Manor

But they moved from brewpubs and cinemas to larger property redevelopment earlier, buying the 300 acre Multnomah County poor farm,  Edgefield Manor..

By the time they got the property it was pretty much wrecked.  They found the money to rehabilitate it.  Now it has a hotel, golf course, brewpubs, distillery, gardens, and other amenities.

They've gone on to do this with many properties in Oregon and Washington, they didn't stop with Kennedy School.

Sadly, it's rare to find a developer that is (1) super creative, (2) committed to historic preservation, and (3) willing to work with "white elephant" properties that are difficult and costly to redevelop.  (Note that while the firm doesn't deal that much with former public buildings, Jemal Development is fine with historic buildings, first in DC, then in places like Frederick, Maryland, Richmond, Virginia, Pittsburgh, and Buffalo, among others.)

Northampton State Hospital in 2007.

Other cities have either been good or bad at this dimension.  This article laments that such a path and a company like McMenamins isn't active in Massachusetts, ("Miracle Manor," Valley Advocate), suggesting that the old Northampton State Hospital could have been developed similarly.

-- "A planning process done right | NYC to build affordable housing on a city parking lot & points about DC and Montgomery County" (2026)
-- "Adaptive reuse of a high school to a concert space in Portland, Oregion: Revolution Hall" (2023)
-- "One way to encourage community input into development planning" (2010)

TGM photo by Sammy Kogan.

Toronto Waterfront.  Conclusions in the Toronto Globe & Mail article "A bigger Biidaasige Park is another waterfront triumph for Toronto," encapsulates this argument, also mentioning the failure of the Province of Ontario in its quest to "revive" Toronto's waterfront separate from the City.

There is a lesson for other governments about how to make a place. Think hard up front, with public input, about what your goals are; then hire excellent designers, give them direction, and rigorously defend their vision.

... Mr. Glaisek says success began with decades of public advocacy – the citizen group Bring Back the Don was central – and basics: “We had strong leadership, we had funding, and we had the continuity of an organization that could focus attention for 20 solid years.”

While city staff and others helped realize the project, Waterfront has been at the helm. In meeting after meeting, year in and year out, their staff has defended the idea of “leading with landscape” and the specifics of this huge, complex, fragile project.

Of course, that presumes the local government doesn't blow off the opportunity.  In DC, like with Walter Reed, St. Elizabeths, and many other civic building projects. Which the writer points out is a problem with Toronto's city agencies.

Over at Toronto City Hall, none of those conditions exist. The parks department’s output is chaotic and nobody seems to know how its decisions are being made or by whom, much less what the guiding principles and design standards might be.

Waterfront has been different. The expanded Biidaasige invites thoughts of a city that can build great things, and whose greatest times are still ahead of it.

An economic development "transformational projects action plan" for Greater Wichita

While preparing a set of entries celebrating next month's 20th anniversary of the blog, I came across this entry from 2020, which I didn't quite finish.

Note that while the entry mentions the failure of the Boeing 737MAX as an issue in their aerospace sector, it's gotten worse ("Boeing’s woes mean rising anxiety in Wichita, Kansas, the 'Air Capital of the World'," NPR, "Troubled Boeing is absorbing Spirit with the Wichita economy in the balance," Wichita Beacon, "New Boeing CEO wants to keep defense work in Wichita after touring facility, Moran says," Wichita Eagle).

=========

Transformational Projects Action Planning as an approach. Based on a slew of previous writings, over the past few years I've codified an approach that I call "transformational projects action planning" as an element of planning at three scales: (1) for master plans; (2) functional plans (elements, such as transportation); and (3) for specific projects, aiming for innovative approaches.

The basic idea in master and functional plans is to create a list of high profile projects that are transformational and further drive innovation in quantum and scalar ways across a community.

Some examples of the concept are written about here:

-- "Why can't the "Bilbao Effect" be reproduced? | Bilbao as an example of Transformational Projects Action Planning," 2017
-- "Downtown Edmonton cultural facilities development as an example of "Transformational Projects Action Planning"," 2018
-- "A "Transformational Projects Action Plan" for a statewide passenger railroad program in Maryland," 2019
-- "A "Transformational Projects Action Plan" for the Metrorail Blue Line," 2020
-- "Revisiting the Purple Line (series) and a more complete program of complementary improvements to the transit network," 2019
-- "Minneapolis Super Bowl: Urban Revitalization and Transformational Projects Action Planning," 2018

So the fact that multiple economic development agencies in Greater Wichita have come together to create a joint approach to economic development and have listed a master set/prioritized list of transformational projects is not derived from the TPAP approach. But it's a good example nonetheless.

It's been spurred by the pandemic-related economic downturn as well as fallout from the failure of the Boeing 737MAX airplane--Wichita is home to a large aerospace manufacturing sector.

There are plenty of business organizations that come together to work together on economic development matters across jurisdictions, that's part and parcel of the "Growth Machine."  But rarely do I see these efforts accompanied by a master list of projects.

From the Wichita Business Journal article "Wichita's economic development leaders outline plan to go after stimulus money":

Creating a blueprint Part of economic development's role in aiding in recovery is assessing where the Wichita area stands. Identify its assets, Greater Wichita Partnership president Jeff Fluhr said, understand the impact that the 737 MAX and Covid-19 have had on the workforce and economy, and see where the group can help.

"These things are all knit together now," Fluhr said.

Partners in the effort are quick to point out the the 13 identified projects are a starting point. Other projects exist, but these are the most attainable.

Lawing said the document gives the Workforce Alliance and others a starting point for competitively applying for federal grants.

"I can demonstrate we have a plan in place," he said. "This is a way we can be proactive."

Here are the projects:

Aerospace Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul
• Infrastructure for the city's airports — Dwight D. Eisenhower National and Col. James Jabara — would give Wichita an opportunity to focus on a recession-proof sector of aviation, the maintenance, repair and overhaul industry.

Aerospace defense manufacturing
• Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification would improve training and support for Wichita-area companies. Estimated amount needed: $1-$2 million.

• A defense manufacturing technology center aligned with WSU's National Institute of Aviation Research. Estimated amount needed; $25-$50 million.

Accelerating the pivot to innovation
Four identified projects, outside aerospace, are associated with technology and innovation.

• A Business Digital Transformation and Convergence Sciences project would be similar to the startup of WSU's National Institute for Aviation Research, instead going beyond aerospace to convert all business sectors digitally. Estimated amount needed: $25-$50 million.

• Andy Schlapp, WSU's executive director of government relations and strategy, said it would include transforming Kansas economic staples agriculture and oil and gas.

• A Smart Manufacturing project combining digital, physical and experimental technologies to advance manufacturing capabilities. Estimated amount needed: $25 million.

• A Cybersecurity "Cyber" Range that would create a Wichita Cyber Range Center to stimulate jobs and companies providing "world-class" cybersecurity. Estimated amount needed: $20-$25 million.

• Dark Fiber Corridors to support the other technology projects and install dark fiber in critical business corridors. Estimated amount needed: $3-$5 million.

Moving people and goods

• The North Junction project, the three-phase effort to unclog bottlenecks and improve safety for the north Wichita convergence of I-135, I-235, K-96 and K-254.

• A transload shipping center has long been discussed, giving south-central Kansas a facility similar to the BNSF intermodal park near Edgerton in Johnson County. Estimated amount needed: $15-$20 million.

Closer to being shovel-ready
• Continued work on the Amtrak Heartland Flyer infrastructure, as Wichita tries to bring an Amtrak stop back to the city, connecting Oklahoma City and the Southwest Chief route in Newton, for the first time in more than 40 years. Estimated amount needed: $32 million.

• Infrastructure for the former oil refinery site west of I-135 at 21st Street, an 120-acre area that's nearly cleaned up by the EPA, according to Nave. The area would be used for industrial development. Estimated amount needed: $5-$10 million.

• An 800-acre "megasite" for catalytic projects adjacent to I-35 and near the El Dorado industrial park. Estimated amount needed: $30-$35 million.

Conclusion.   It's best to be forward focused, also in terms of setting and agenda, and aiming for its realization.

Community building versus economic development versus building a local economy

The article "Philadelphia’s Market Street East searches for growth and renewal — with or without a new Sixers arena," has an interesting section on a community meeting where people who weren't into the arena concept suggested alternatives.  They don't want an arena, they want green roofs...

The Save Chinatown Coalition brought over 140 community members (plus a waitlist) to a hall at the Center for Architecture and Design for a community-sourced design workshop to envision alternative uses for the 1000 blocks of Market and Filbert Streets in Center City, where the 76ers are proposing to build a basketball arena. (Emily Cohen for WHYY)

From the article:

For three hours the ideas flew, more than a hundred people gathered at a forum to suggest what besides a basketball arena could go at 10th and Market: a library, high school, public pool, garden, playground, health clinic, night market, art space, apartments, shops, or maybe a community center where seniors and children would be welcome and safe. .

... “It’s the people’s response to a site that we think should have a lot of input from the public,” said Rashida Ng, a University of Pennsylvania associate architecture professor who helped lead the session, cosponsored by the Coalition to Save Chinatown. The goal was to identify the most compelling suggestions and generate renderings and cost estimates. 

No one spoke in favor of a Sixers arena. And no one was keen to knock down part of the Fashion District, given the taxpayer dollars it has consumed and the cost of demolition. Instead, people wanted to open its walls so pedestrians could more easily move between Chinatown and Market East. 

The Bok Building served as a model, the former South Philadelphia high school now home to a bounty of small businesses, nonprofits, and artists, attracting people from around the city to the spectacular views of its rooftop bar. 

The Sixers called the group’s proposals “unrealistic and unworkable,” not ones that belong on a struggling commercial street. “This exercise proved what we’ve said all along,” arena-project spokesperson Mark Nicastre said in an email. “There is no proposal for another project. There is no other private investment for another project. There is no public funding to commit to another project.” 

People at the forum said the discussion needed to move off an arena-or-nothing dynamic. A problem on Market East and in Philadelphia, they said, is the city government only contemplates the future in response to developers’ wishes. Amenities that improve citizens’ lives, like libraries and playgrounds, are seen as expenses, people said. 

Also see "Penn professors spearhead workshop reimagining uses for proposed 76ers arena site near Chinatown," Daily Pennsylvanian, "Community groups say forget 76ers arena plan" WHYY/NPR.

Philadelphia has advantages.  The Walking City urban form is the "urban technology" that supports active cities ("Transportation and Urban Form: Stages in the Spatial Evolution of the American Metropolis," "Department stores are an "urban technology" built for walking not driving," 2024).

While Philadelphia is still a poor city, and the wage tax encourages businesses to locate in the suburbs, it has more than one million people, is pretty walkable, the Center City is quite active with people, the Center City District business improvement district is one of the best BIDs in the country, etc.  But the key is people.  Philadelphia, though much smaller, is up there with NYC in terms of lots of people in its center.

Personally, I think an arena is probably an acceptable choice, especially as it likely will increase transit ridership to events--the team estimates that the 70% of trips to the current arena by car will drop to 40%, with the change due to shift to transit, because of the much better transit location of Market East.

The challenges are (1) reduce the likelihood of negative impacts on Chinatown, (2) figure out how to make Market East incredibly active, (3) especially wrt the ground plane of an arena ("How do you make the ground floor of an arena strengthen the area around it, rather than diminish it? | Philadelphia 76ers," 2023).

Principles that drive my approach to urban revitalization (that the average citizen never thinks about).  I think the alternatives proposed by the community are ridiculous.

Community building versus revitalization.  While my sympathies are for community-based approaches, lots of time they have limited economic return and may cost more money to build and operate than is received ("The Battle for McMillan Why is the plan to redevelop the site of a decommissioned water treatment plant in Washington, DC so controversial?," "Park View Residents Continue To Oppose Redevelopment at Bruce Monroe Park" Washington City Paper, also see ""Temporary" uses as a way to foil development: Bruce Monroe Elementary School site, DC | from school to park to housing").  

I call this community building, not revitalization. 

-- "You gotta have community building," 2007

-- "Arts-based revitalization, community building, network strengthening, commodification, and Artomatic," 2009

And like with multi-faceted arts centers, better economic return comes from those that are adaptively reused than built from scratch ("Developing Creative Quarters in Cities: Policy lessons from “Art and Design City Arabianranta, Helsinki," Urban Research and Practice, 2013, "The story of Cable Factory," "Inside the UK's new $292 million arts center," CNN, ""Arts district planning" in Arlington County | Many communities don't know the difference between arts as production and arts as consumption," 2021, Trans Europe Halles).

Cities cost money to operate.  Cities have to earn money to pay for all the things that people say they want.  An art gallery type building won't have near the economic return as a sports arena, provided it is super well planned.  (That doesn't mean don't do the art gallery building, it means don't treat it as a co-equal substitute to an arena.)

Similarly, a couple of suggestions from someone I know in Salt Lake.  Replacing the minor league baseball stadium with pickleball courts--they don't make money they cost money, at a big site 1.5 blocks from a light rail station.  Similarly, a school in her neighborhood is closing and she suggests it become a library, even though it's a good site for multiunit housing, when the main library is just a few miles away.

The average resident doesn't think about the big picture, certainly not the cost of running a city and needing to raise revenues as costs rise.  Plus they have a bias against development to begin with, think developers are monsters because they make profits, etc. 

I make this point often that planning engagements are set up to fail from the outset because planners have to achieve both city (or county) wide goals like economic development) as well as neighborhood specific objectives, while residents tend to take responsibility only for the latter.

Transformational Projects Action Planning  ("A wrinkle in thinking about the Transformational Projects Action Planning approach: Great public buildings aren't just about design, but what they do," 2022)  is an approach I push for thinking about master planning and the planning of big infrastructure projects, in how plans can be leveraged with anchor projects that push the goals of a plan from vision to implementation, and in big infrastructure projects, how complementary improvements can be driven across the related ecosystem, improving both the success of the project and the infrastructure system within which it is embedded. 

TPAPs should be implemented at multiple scales: 

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

Ultimately, buildings are envelopes or containers for what's really important: what happens on the inside and how they connect to, improve and extend the qualities of place around them.

Building a local economy -- I say there is a difference between building a local economy and economic development.  Many economic development planners don't know the difference.  

The difference comes down to the economic multiplier effect and the net revenue that remains local and recirculates within the local economy.

Graphic from the Lee's Marketplace website.

The capital flow from "economic development" tends to be outward, like the revenues touted from special events like the Super Bowl, most of the money is spent on transportation and lodging, which typically doesn't remain local.

The book Community Economic Development Handbook is very good on microenterprise development and the development of locally owned businesses and the differential impact on the local economy.

The Salt Lake Valley regional independent supermarket, Lee's Marketplace, has an excellent webpage on the impact of spending at locally owned versus chain stores--a Kroger affiliate is the largest supermarket chain in Utah--illustrating this point.

Economic Development.  A lot of economic development for cities centers around tax abatements and subsidizing developers ("Make eminent domain fair for all," Boston Globe).  

Sadly, in DC's case, once an abatement expires, many firms decamp ("CoStar Group Leaving DC HQ After 14 Years," Commercial Observer).  

The way it's supposed to work, in order to receive the benefits, the company has to meet conditions.  Often, they don't, and the development doesn't have near the value that was touted ("Tax incentives to attract business: Wisconsin's Foxconn debacle"). 

Note that I am not against TIF and abatements, just that there needs to be a balance between the public and private interest, and that the public interest should be a prominent element of the outcome.

Eckington is a small neighborhood in Northeast Washington that is tucked among Florida Avenue, Rhode Island Avenue and North Capitol Street. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad established its freight yards there, which encouraged the growth of a rich industrial sector, which remains today. (Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/For The Washington Post) "In Northeast D.C., Eckington offers an oasis of calm amid commotion of the city."

Return on Investment. Return on Investment is the economic value received from an investment.

The point of incentives isn't to build dependence on government funding streams, but to generate positive economic return--greater value in the long run than the money "given up" or foregone ("Tax incentive programs underfund schools," 2024).  

In revitalization, one of the best examples for me ever was the NoMA Metrorail infill station ("Where We Live: NoMa, the wrong side of the tracks no more," Washington Post, "NoMA: the neighborhood transit built," Urban Land) in DC.  

Union Market at Dusk.  Washington Post photo by Craig Hudson.

The new buildings behind the old market building would have never been built without the addition of the NoMA Metrorail station.

It cost $120 million to build.  But has generated billions in new development, and, in 20 years hundreds of millions in tax revenues.  

This station has had significant economic impact on five areas around it.  

The NoMA district, Eckington across New York Avenue NE, the now thriving Union Market District ("All the places to eat and drink at Union Market," "Every night is a fiesta at El Presidente in Union Market," and "In a once-gritty D.C. market, these wholesalers’ world is slipping away" Washington Post, "Edens' latest megaproject aims to create 'northern gateway' to Union Market," Washington Business Journal), the small industrial area from the station east along M Street and New York Avenue, and the H Street residential north of H Street--I argue the station made people with choices willing to choose north of H Street when before they would not ("White people have flocked back to city centers," Washington Post).

Building the station cost a lot.  But just the impact on one area, the values of houses north of H Street increased 6x or more, close to a billion dollars for 1,700 houses.  Plus the economic impact on the other four areas, totaling in the billions of new construction.

Velocity of positive economic change from public investment. The other element that was educational for me was the velocity of change resulting from the new station.  Granted a lot of development was going on in DC at the time.  But the addition of this particular station sped up the velocity of development in those areas by at least 10 years.

Photo of the then Verizon Center. Toni L. Sandys,  Washington Post.

Another example of stoking the velocity of change is the CapitalOne Arena. 

I argued for years that the move by the teams to DC from the suburbs weren't the reason that the Downtown East End began revitalization.

Eventually I conceded that the move was a vote of confidence in urban living and commerce, and it helped reposition DC's image vis a vis the suburbs, just before residential choice trends began revaluing center cities after many decades of denigration ("Pollin: With Opening of MCI Center, 'I've Got Everything I've Ever Done in My Life on the Line'," Post, 1997, "Without Verizon Center, does Chinatown still thrive?," Washington Business Journal, 2016).  Probably a speed up of at least 10 years also.  

More recently a deck was built over part of I-395, for Capitol Crossing, a project that had been touted for 20+ years before it happened.  While a little far from the arena, the arena being an anchor helped move this project forward ("ENR MidAtlantic Project of the Year: Capitol Crossing Restores D.C.’s Historic Grid," Engineering News Record).  And decking freeways is still pretty rare, most places don't have the kind of economic return necessary to make it pay off.

Transit and economic development.  The velocity of change from NoMA Metrorail station was so significant it convinced me that the public investment with the fastest ROI, at least when done right, is in transit, shifting me towards transit and economic development, c. 2004.

But it's important to point out that there is plenty of transit investment that isn't all that great.  It's expensive to build.  Many transit oriented development projects are built in the wrong place. For example, instead of connecting people to existing places and to places you want improved, the Miami subway system was designed only for the places that needed to improve, making it hard to have much positive impact.   

H Street streetcar.  Flickr photo by BeyondDC.

And investments in bus don't have near the ROI that fixed rail transit does. (Note that Cleveland's BRT is touted for spurring development, but I believe they overstate the case.  Successful universities and medical centers are always growing, whether or not there is quality transit and I believe that the likelihood these new projects only started because of a new bus line is spurious.)

For example, I consider the DC streetcar "failed" from a planning perspective.  But arguably it has spurred about $1 billion in new development ("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," 2015, "Capital One Arena, Wizards and Capitals may move to Alexandria | Why not the RFK campus?," 2024).

This 1964 Esso London road map is an extremely rare example of a gas station map acknowledging a local subway system.  It's even more unusual in that it presents the actual map used by the transit system instead of rendering it differently.

Or single lines instead of networks--DC has a transit network, now 6 lines, while Baltimore, which was too late to the game to get more funding, only has one Metro line which is truncated, and a charming industrial light rail line that has minimal capacity to generate ridership over most of its route ("More remonstration about the molasses of change: Transit planning, Baltimore County, Maryland and Towson," 2022).

The monocentric subnetwork of the DC Metrorail system serves the core of DC.

Ironically, the DC Metrorail system wasn't set up to improve DC, but did because at the core of the system within Washington, 31 stations serve historic or now new neighborhoods (like NoMA, Southwest, etc.).  

So while the transit system was designed for suburban commuters, it helped the city more.  I argue that that section of the Metro operates "monocentrically" while the overall design of the system is polycentric, which doesn't help the city so much--BART is a great example of a polycentric system, although SF doesn't really need it because it has its own rail-based transit system. (This concept is discussed in Cities in Full.)

Transit oriented development.  The one thing to remember is that TOD can take a long time to be realized.  I know of projects that are still underway 20+ years in DC ("360 Apartment building + Giant Supermarket vs. a BP gas station, which would you choose?," and "The Takoma Metro Development Proposal and its illustration of gaps in planning and participation processes" ).   

-- Trans-Formation: Recreating Transit-Oriented Neighborhood Centers in Washington, DC | A Design Handbook for Neighborhood Residents, DC Office of Planning, 2002
-- Ten Principles for Successful Development Around Transit, Urban Land Institute, 2003
-- Station Area Planning: How To Make Great Transit-Oriented Places, Reconnecting America and Center for Transit-Oriented Development
-- Rails to Real Estate: Development Patterns along Three New Transit Lines, CTOD

Arlington County is a national best practice example in aiming to leverage density for extranormal community benefit (Encouraging Transit Oriented Development: Case Studies that Work, EPA, "Other Places Nipping At Heels Of Arlington’s Transit-Oriented Development," MobilityLab).

Phoenix has been good at proactive planning around affordable housing and transit rather than the more trickle down approach in the DC area  ("Light rail housing fund spurs 15 projects in metro Phoenix" and "Why you don't see more vacant lots along light-rail route," Arizona Republic).

And so does seeing the impact of investment from large scale transit systems.  It takes at least 30 years, at least it did for Metrorail, and that was at the core in DC and Arlington, although there were other positive examples.  30 years is a long time.  And academic research earlier than that didn't find a lot of benefits.

Obviously, places outside of the core benefited less during that 30 year period 

-- Understanding the Impacts of Transitways The Hiawatha Line: Impacts on Land Use and Residential Housing Value, Center for Transportation Studies, University of Minnesota, research brief, full document

But after 30 years, places outside the core that had less positive conditions, like Brookland, started to intensify development around the Metrorail station and the local microeconomies improved ("I worked on this 16 years ago... "Metro seeks development partner for Brookland-CUA Metro station"").

To better leverage the value of proximity to transit, density bonuses of at least a couple stories should be a standard policy.

Traffic studies for multiunit buildings at the Takoma Metrorail station find that only 25% of rush hour trips are by car.   

WMATA's 2005 study, Development-Related Ridership Survey, found significant car trip reduction associated with the buildings in Metrorail station catchment areas, even in areas outside the core.  Also see "The analysis of transit-oriented development (TOD) in Washington, D.C. and Baltimore metropolitan areas," Transport Policy, 2014.

The Willow and Maple development is a couple blocks from Takoma Station, off the main street.  It's three stories, but there is parking for every unit.

The Takoma Central apartment building is about 4 stories and a block from the Metrorail station  ("Takoma Central Apartment Building Trades For $51M," Bisnow).

Buildings this close to transit stations, even outside of the core, are logical choices for transit related density bonuses.  If anything, it should be required.

Fort Totten.

Scale and density at transit stations: don't move too fast/timing.  Most citizens think two stories is too high.  

Related to leveraging the value of transit infrastructure as a tool for economic development is timing.     

If done too soon, likely a development will be less intensely developed because construction finance uses current conditions for economic analysis versus longer term conditions.  Economic growth over time from transit access is hard to predict, and construction financiers don't care about the long term anyway.

Park Place Apartments, Petworth.

Good examples in DC are the difference between Fort Totten and Columbia Heights/Petworth (7 story buildings versus 3 and 4 story buildings).  There is tremendous opportunity cost in not building higher.  

It costs DC more residents, income tax, property tax, eyes on the street, customers for business, etc.  To my way of thinking, even 7-8 story buildings might not be tall enough.

Or Silver Spring has a bunch of rowhouses about one long block from the station (behind the McDonald's( built in the 1980s.  If the land were developed later, it would have been done more intensely.  Definitely not single family housing one block from the station in a commercial district with tall office buildings.

Ironically, residents successfully fought off similar proposals for rowhouses at Brookland in the 1990s ("The mix: It's the making of Brookland" Post, 1997) and Takoma in the 2000s ("Foes of Takoma Metro Project Say Glendening Sold Them Out: Town House Plan Isn't Smart Growth, Residents Contend," Post, 2000) did the city a favor, because now those sites are being developed more intensely.

Although this is difficult for developers.  Banks lend on the basis of current conditions, not the future.  And building around transit stations should be determined more by future conditions.

A unified National Park Service Visitor Center for DC (and the region)

In writings on developing a city visitor network ("National Tourism and Travel Week 2019: DC recap | DC needs a tourism development and management plan"), including comments on the DC Federal Elements Comprehensive Plan on Visitor Services, I suggested that there should be a unified NPS visitor center for the region ("World Tourism Day: In terms of providing great visitor services, is DC being a highly visited tourism destination a good or a bad thing?"), because there are so many different NPS facilities.

One of the problems of NPS visitor centers at sites is they tend to be hermetic in that they only provide information for that site.

I was surprised when I visited Glen Canyon Dam to come across an NPS visitor brochure entitled "Experience National Parks in Arizona," listing all the parks, monuments and other installations across the state.  

I have never seen such a brochure in the DC area.  And note I didn't see this brochure at another Arizona NPS monument.

It turns out there are similar regionally focused brochures for Alaska, Atlanta, Colorado, the parks of the New York Harbor, the Midwest, and the West's Intermountain Region, among others. 

For the DC area, more recently referred to as the DMV--DC, Maryland, and Virginia--there should be a DC Brochure, like the Discover Atlanta, like the one for the Baltimore National Heritage Area,* or the New York Harbor, probably other National Heritage Areas, as well as the regional brochures.

-- NPS brochures website

And guess what, there is/was, although I've never seen it in print, Guide to Greater Washington National Parks.  It probably dates to 2002, given the LL Bean--the sponsor--tagline of their 90th anniversary.  

There is also Washington: The Nation's Capital.  So maybe my memory isn't the greatest...  Shockingly, this version shows the Metrorail map.

Note that another problem with NPS is that individual visitor information desks don't distribute information from non federal agencies, like local tourist organizations, and pretty much not even other federal agencies like the Forest Service or BLM.

The Carl Hayden Visitor Center at Glen Canyon Dam in Page, Arizona.

Anyway, there probably should be more than one such integrated NPS visitor center in the DC region.  The one at Glen Canyon Dam had exhibits and a gift shop and is jointly run by NPS and the Bureau of Reclamation.

Note that years ago on Ebay I saw a photo of a "national" information center in DC in the 1940s, but I failed to buy it.

Baltimore, independent of the Heritage Area, has a nice visitor center on the Inner Harbor.  DC just doesn't come anywhere near having such an equivalent.  According to this past blog entry from 2006, "Baltimore City Visitor Center has enviable financial return," the economic return from the Baltimore center was over $3.5 million annually.

====

* For years, I've argued DC should present and manage itself as a heritage area whether or not it is actually designated as one.  The Baltimore National Heritage Area brochure is a nice example of how to do it.  This should include visitor marketing, but also the management of heritage (historic preservation), including more expanded building protections.

Building a local economy versus "economic development": Online Gambling

One of my complaints in urban revitalization is that the average city, including DC, treats any new economic activity as "economic development," and all economic development is positive, when some activities are "better" than others in terms of income, tax revenues, spillover development, the economic multiplier effect, and how much of the money recirculates locally versus is siphoned off to headquarters cities.

The economic multiplier is defined as:

... a multiplier broadly refers to an economic factor that, when increased or changed, causes increases or changes in many other related economic variables. In terms of gross domestic product, the multiplier effect causes gains in total output to be greater than the change in spending that caused it. (Investopedia)

This is a big issue with sports events.  They are touted for their local effects on the economy, especially small businesses, but mostly they benefit airlines, hotels, and rental car companies--most of which aren't local, so the money spent doesn't end up in the host city for very long.  Although there are some benefits on food and drink, and for employment of people who put on the related events around the spectacles.

I have been following this for a lot of years.  Pre-event press coverage touts the benefits in superlative terms.  Post-event coverage focuses on how local businesses didn't benefit.  

Formula 1 grandstand, Las Vegas.  

A current example is the Formula 1 Grand Prix in Las Vegas ("‘F1 Fooled Us’: $4 Million Losses Served by Las Vegas GP Makes Local Business Owners Hit Back," "“Tons of Other Businesses Suffered”: F1 Fans Lash Out After MGM Resorts Announces Historic Revenue From Las Vegas GP," Essentially Sports).

Big corporations benefited.  But small businesses did not.

Gambling.  But I mention this because of a study referenced in the Guardian, "Gambling boom detrimental to New Jersey economy, report says."  From the article:

New Jersey, which led the charge for mobile sports betting’s legalization, has received hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes from the sector. But economists cautioned that the cost of higher problem gambling rates could be “roughly equal” to the state’s takings. 

In a report seen by the Guardian, they estimated economic output, jobs and wages have been knocked by New Jersey’s digital gambling surge – calling into question industry claims that legalization can provide a boon to states nationwide. 

The research, commissioned by the Campaign for Fairer Gambling, found that $2.4bn spent by people gambling online in New Jersey in 2022 “decreased New Jersey’s economic activity by about $180m”. 

Had the same amount of money been spent on another activity, like shopping or dining, NERA Economic Consulting estimated that significantly more would have been paid out in wages, which employees would have then spent on other parts of the economy.

Economic development versus building a local economy.  Online gambling is a perfect example of the difference between the two.  ED says economic activity increased.  BALE says that the net economic benefit was diminished because gambling is a less productive economic activity than others.

Unfortunately, economic impact studies are usually conducted by the proponents, not an independent organization, and cities, especially elected officials, aren't particularly skilled at digging into the claims from a more nuanced perspective.

Revisiting Pittsburgh and Allegheny County as an opportunity for city-county consolidation: The "RiversCity" proposal

Partly what got me thinking about city-county consolidation--places like Indianapolis (1970), Knoxville, Macon-Bibb County, Georgia (2012), and what SF and Philadelphia did in the 1800s--was seeing mention of a Brookings Institution report about Pennsylvania c. 2003 (Back to Prosperity: A Competitive Agenda for Renewing Pennsylvania), and it mentioning how so many of the micro jurisdictions across the state including in Allegheny County, where Pittsburgh is, lacked the financial capacity to serve their residents.

Plus I attended a conference in Louisville Kentucky in 2004, just as they were beginning to consolidate the city and county after a successful vote to do so (A 10-Year Perspective of the Merger of Louisville and Jefferson County, KY, Abell Foundation, "How merger reshaped Louisville, Jefferson County and metro development," Louisville Public Media/NPR).

It was probably easier for Louisville because Knoxville city and Knox County had merged some functions--but not the city and county--years before.

Later I suggested this for Baltimore City and County ("Opinion: What Baltimore and D.C. can do to start working better together as a region (Baltimore Business Journal op-ed," 2016), and I support efforts to do this for St. Louis City and County ("St. Louis: what would I recommend for a comprehensive revitalization program? | Part 1: Overview and Theoretical Foundations," 2021).  I also think Detroit should do it, but ideally with Oakland County!, not Wayne.

It turns out that ten years before Brookings, Professor David Miller (now deceased) of the University of Pittsburgh suggested a proto version of this, a concept called "Rivers City," not for the entire county and not for Pittsburgh but for the various small communities in what is called the Lower Mon(ongahela) Valley ("Small Western Pennsylvania towns weigh merits of merging some public services," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette).

The economic circumstances they face are issues common to that of municipal finance for communities and metro areas across the country, which I wrote about in "The real lesson from Flint Michigan is about municipal finance" (2016).

Basically our local government finance systems were set up when the country was growing.  They don't work well in changed circumstances.

In the Lower Mon Valley, communities are resistant, believing rightly that they are unique.  Although really, they are not exceptional, and economically at least, they should merge to have greater taxing and funding capacity.  

Those communities haven't merged, but over the years, because of their minimal financial capacity, they have merged services, like police and fire departments.  This phenomenon has been happening across the country for the past couple decades in places like New Jersey, Suburban Detroit, and Salt Lake County.

According to the article, 39 communities make up "Rivers City," ranging in population from 232 to 23,000. The communities total 209,000 in population, while Pittsburgh is about 306,000 and the total county population is 1.238 million.

From the article:

“A lot of these really small towns have now been in a position for about 30 years where they just don't have the tax base necessary to support the full slate of services that they had been used to previously,” Mr. Dougherty said. “And I'll be honest: our response to them has largely been, heal thyself, mostly through service cuts.” 

If it isn’t service cuts, then it’s consolidation — many fire and police departments are either decertifying their operations or merging with nearby departments, Mr. Dougherty said. And it’s likely that sort of functional consolidation, rather than municipal consolidation, will occur in the coming months and years, he said.

Straws and puffery: USC's DC "campus" as a lever for downtown revival

I have been interested in the opportunity for higher education infused urban revitalization for decades.  

In DC, for awhile I was a Main Street manager in the Brookland neighborhood, which is home to Catholic University, Trinity Washington University and near Howard University, and I touted the potential of student spending as an element of commercial district revitalization.

Student spending.  The problem with that is students spend money in very narrow ways.  At the time those universities were interior focused and I promoted the idea of moving the CUA bookstore to 12th Street NE. (Howard does have its bookstore on Georgia Avenue and they tried for a hotel and have worked on developing a town center there for a couple decades).

That didn't happen, but did with an campus adjacent development--Monroe Street Market--on land owned by CUA, but creating a competing retail center against the 12th Street commercial district, which still limps along today, 10 years after the opening of Monroe Street Market.

Students spend most of their money on food and drink, books, and sundries.  You need a lot more students than CUA (6,700) or Trinity (1,800) to have a real impact on a local commercial district.

I went to the University of Michigan, which has a two major retail districts abutting the campus (and a couple of other little ones).  But these days, UM has 51,000 students--it was the low 30,000s when I went there.

Businesses developed out of university-based research.  Another element is business spinoffs from university-based research--medical, pharmaceutical, engineering, business, IT.  DC's universities aren't particularly good at that either, although some does happen, but the businesses usually end up in the suburbs, where there is more of a business ecosystem, and/or is where the principals live.

In "How the closure of a Pfizer research center in Ann Arbor, Michigan led to the development of a more robust and independent biotech sector" (2021) I suggested that some colleges are particularly good at spin off business development and we should figure out how to duplicate and replicate that.  

I didn't mention University of Pennsylvania and they may or may not be good at spinning off independent businesses, but they have a big revenue stream from pharmaceutical royalties ("Research behind COVID-19 vaccines reaps close to $1 billion in royalties for Penn," "COVID vaccines pushed Penn’s licensing revenue over $1 billion last year, after the school ranked No. 1 in 2021," Philadelphia Inquirer).  Less so today, but the Philadelphia-NJ area was once a center of chemical and pharmaceutical research and manufacturing, so it makes sense that Penn still is a factor in that field.

Faculty concentration as talent and an element of community development.  Faculty creating a cluster, having bright children in schools, supporting community institutions, etc., is another element of community revitalization, especially of schools, but the faculty at DC's colleges don't seem to be clustered, at least not in the way that NIH staff children have on Montgomery County schools.

-- "Revisiting past blog entries: College Park as a college town and economic development | PG County and Amazon," 2018
-- "To be a great city, College Park Maryland needs some "there", it needs a center," 2013
-- "More Prince George's County: College Park's militant refusal to become a college town makes it impossible for the city(and maybe the County) to become a great place," 2015
-- "College town follow up: alumni as residents and contributions to community capital," 2015

Real estate development.  Some schools have invested in nearby commercial districts, like Catholic University mentioned above.  The University of Connecticut ("UConn Decides to Build Its Own College Town," New York Times) and University of Maryland are trying to create town centers which otherwise don't exist.  Ohio State University has a major investment program in the High Street district.  

University of Pennsylvania and Mercer University in Macon, Georgia have invested in neighborhood revitalization, and many colleges have special mortgage financing programs for faculty and staff which help to bring faculty close to the campus.  George Washington University owns a huge amount of commercial property around its campus, which is a major source of revenue.  Yale University too is a big factor in New Haven real estate.  Etc.

The Lincoln Land Institute has a program working with universities on this.

Unrelatedly, Ann Arbor, where the University has grown its enrollment by more than 50% in the past 40 years, is undergoing an intensification that is a national outlier, with many small scale buildings in the core of the city being sold, demolished and replaced with multistory buildings.

I wrote how a block next to where I lived was consolidated and converted to a multiunit apartment building ("Example of whole block intensification in Ann Arbor, Michigan," "Land use intensification in Ann Arbor").  

I just learned that another place where I lived will be demolished for a new dormitory ("Saying goodbye to Ann Arbor's Marshall Court: Houses to be demolished for new dorm," Ann Arbor News).

Athletics.  Some of the major college football and basketball teams can have significant local economic impact, although a lot of the time, the effect is muted ("Tourism economic impact of University of Michigan football").  

Interestingly, DePaul University, known for basketball, with subsidy from Chicago, built a new arena off campus in the Convention Center district.  Some cities like Waco for Baylor University, have provided financial support for college football stadiums and arenas.  There is such a project right now in Kalamazoo, Michigan for a mixed use facility that will have Western Michigan University teams as anchor tenants ("Plans revealed for new arena in downtown Kalamazoo," Kalamazoo Gazette).

The question becomes: what kinds of schools are good at stoking revitalization?  I remember when I went to UM, Eastern Michigan University in next door Ypsilanti was touted for moving their business school to the Downtown.  When I applied for a job in Hyattsville, I suggested they try to get University of Maryland to move their Art School to the Route 1/Rhode Island Avenue corridor, to anchor the Gateway Arts District.  The University of Tennessee moved its architecture school to Downtown Knoxville.  And the GMU campus at Virginia Square in Arlington, Virginia, which has the policy and law schools, and other programs.

Similarly, the creation of Appalachian School of Law in rural Virginia was touted as a way to build the economic power of the region ("Appalachian School of Law receives final installment of $6 million funding package," Bluefield Daily Telegraph).

EMU and ASL haven't had much impact.  I don't know about UT.  And people aren't calling Arlington a college town.

Commuter school versus residential campus versus "night school" versus semester in X city program.  Besides how big the school is, a goodly part of this comes down to the nature of the program.  Residentially-based schools are likely to have more economic impact on local stores, while commuter and night school students are likely to spend minimal time on campus or in nearby commercial districts outside of class.

Leveraging higher education institutions for urban economic development. It is possible to leverage higher education institutions in important ways.  But it needs to be purposive.  Trickle down doesn't work that well.  I've written about it a lot:

-- "The other George Miller idea: creating multi-college innovation centers in (cities) Philadelphia | Creating public library-college education centers as revitalization initiatives," 2021
-- "Better leveraging higher education institutions in cities and counties: Greensboro; Spokane; Mesa; Phoenix; Montgomery County, Maryland; Washington, DC," 2016
-- "Naturally occurring innovation districts | Technology districts and the tech sector," 2014
-- "Universities as elements of urban/downtown revitalization: the Portland State story and more," 2014
-- "President of Washington State University dies: fostered development of the "University District" adjacent to Downtown Spokane," 2015

Making the point that DC in particular doesn't seem to be very good at it.

Puffery.  That's why I have to laugh at the article in today's Post about USC, "D.C. officials hope new USC campus can aid in downtown’s comeback."  From the article:

District officials have spent months figuring out how to counter negative economic trends spurred by emptied offices downtown. But their efforts to repopulate the area are set to get a big boost from the University of Southern California — which on Wednesday unveiled its East Coast campus, in the heart of D.C.’s business district.

USC’s “Capital Campus” will transform the 60,000-square-foot, crescent-shaped building at 1771 N St. NW, previously occupied by the National Association of Broadcasters, into a home base for students and graduates of the Los Angeles-based university. The official opening places USC among a growing array of universities with hubs in the District, giving students a chance to capitalize on political and policy-based career opportunities that have become synonymous with Washington.

USC President Carol Folt says the hub could draw nearly 1,000 of the university’s students to D.C. each academic term, potentially tripling or quadrupling the university’s presence in the city. For D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D), who toured the facility with Folt on Tuesday, that prospect fits squarely into her administration’s plan to “reimagine” sectors of downtown that have long been associated with large office buildings and the working professionals within.

It's a small program that won't have anywhere near the impact of the existing major schools that are already based in the city: American University (14,318 students); George Washington University (25,613 students--this includes their Virginia campus); Georgetown University (19,371 students); Howard University (10,000 students), etc.  (UDC like CUA and Trinity is smaller.)

As it is there are a bunch of university centers in the city already similar to what USC is launching.  What kind of substantive economic impact do they have?  I know I haven't noticed much.  

Plus there is Johns Hopkins University, which has had a comparable campus (a couple buildings) in Dupont Circle for decades and is moving to the former Newseum ("Former Newseum almost ready for Johns Hopkins graduate students" WTOP radio)--and that's a 420,000 s.f., project, and it seems as if they'll also run the Dupont Circle buildings for awhile.  It opens this fall.

Conclusion.  To be clear, I think programs like the new one by University of Southern California are great, and that cities like DC should be open to them. I'm just turned off by the puffery.

I find DC's planning around higher education to be pretty disappointing.  But that's not a unique failing.  DC's planning function and capacity has diminished with each mayor since Anthony Williams left office in 2006. (Maybe it was in stasis under Mayor Gray.)

Cities like Greensboro or Portland or Spokane have to be more innovative because they have fewer opportunities.  

DC has plenty of assets.  They aren't coordinated or leveraged very well.  And that's where the local government planning functions have opportunities.

Years ago I suggested a multi university building East of the River, and later how graduate health education and  biotechnology research program could be the anchor for revival of the St. Elizabeths East Campus, as part of the building of a new hospital there ("Ordinary versus Extraordinary Planning around the rebuilding of the United Medical Center in Southeast Washington DC | Part Two: Creating a graduate health education and biotechnology research initiative on the St. Elizabeths campus").

DC needs to be more innovative to be able to develop its economy semi-independently of the federal government, which was slow and steady and growing for decades, but now no longer is, especially with the impact of what is now called work from home (formerly called telecommuting) post covid.

Instead, under Mayor Bowser DC's urban and economic planning functions have stagnated.