Revisiting Strip shopping centers as loci for retail innovation

Bill Lindeke of the MinnPost wrote a column, "In praise of Twin Cities strip malls" that gets at why strip shopping centers, cursed by urban revitalization advocates like me (seemingly), actually have the potential to do what Jane Jacobs said old buildings did, "support innovative new uses because rents are low because the building is paid off."

In cities, depending we revitalization advocates saw 1980s urban renewal strip centers as opportunities for multistory buildings with ground floor retail.  As the market changed, that became possible, and centers in Columbia Heights and on H Street NE among others, were converted.

We didn't see these spaces as places of innovation so much.  Just parking fronted spaces that were counter to urban design principles.

Suburban hipness.  With the type, depending on the location, I wrote a couple pieces about this in 2013, "More thoughts on suburban hipness (it's really about commercial hipness generally, not urban vs. suburban)," and "Millennials and suburban hipness and Montgomery County, Maryland," infused by visits to Phoenix and Seattle, and seeing some really interesting retail businesses operating in "un-cool" strip shopping center spaces.  

Spaces of innovation.  And again in 2025, "Place breaking versus place making: Making people places | independent coffee shops, small business spaces, outdoor spaces."  I wrote:

One of the major precepts of Jane Jacobs Life and Death of the Great American City is that cities need "a large stock of old buildings."  

East Ohio Street, Allegheny City, Pittsburgh.

This wasn't because she was a historic preservationist, but because old, mostly paid off buildings were cheaper to rent space from than new buildings ("Big Data Backs Jane Jacobs: Cities Need Old Buildings," Smart Cities Dive, Older, Smaller, Better Measuring how the character of buildings and blocks influences urban vitality, NTHP).

1. Older, mixed-use neighborhoods are more walkable. 
2. Young people love old buildings.
3. Nightlife is most alive on streets with a diverse range of building ages. 
4. Older business districts provide affordable, flexible space for entrepreneurs from all backgrounds. 
5. The creative economy thrives in older, mixed-use neighborhoods.
6. Older, smaller buildings provide space for a strong local economy. 
7. Older commercial and mixed-use districts contain hidden density.  

What she didn't anticipate is that in strong markets, either at the city-wide or sub-district scale, regional, national and international real estate actors would bid up the space and improve it, so that even "old buildings," became the equivalent of flashy and new and not cheap to rent.

Early on when I got involved in commercial district revitalization, I believed that only historic buildings were capable of supporting the kind of innovation that Jacobs wrote about.

But later I came to understand it was more about the building as an envelope.

Points #1 to #7 can be re-written and applied to the strip center.  Maybe not all of them, but some:

1. (old 2) Young people love cool spaces..
2. (old 3) Nightlife is most alive in places with a diverse range of uses, ideally but not required is attractive architecture.. 
3. (old 4) Older strip shopping centers provide affordable, flexible space for entrepreneurs from all backgrounds. 
4. (old 5) The creative economy thrives in low cost real estate.
5. (old 6) Older, smaller buildings provide space for a strong local economy. 
6. (old 7) Older commercial and mixed-use districts contain hidden density--maybe not so much but it can be created.

Still I wouldn't want strip centers in the core of a central city, but they can be useful in the outer city, and in fact can be quite powerful.  In the suburbs specifically, strip centers are known for being home to innovative ethnic restaurants--Tim Carman of the Washington Post and Karon Liu of the Toronto Star have been calling our attention to such places for years.

Magleby's is in the Historic H.T. Reynolds Building in Springville, Utah.  Springville is noteworthy separately for its arts museum, which has promoted the work of local artists for more than a century.  The city positions itself as "Art City" and leans into it by various promotions and urban design interventions.

I was just in a restaurant called Magleby's in an "old" building in Springville, Utah and it rocked, putting a lot of Salt Lake City restaurants to shame--but that space is what you make of it, the building is an envelope and you can use and makeover the space creatively, or not.  But the low cost of entry in a strip center, provided the owner is amenable to proposals from independent businesses, makes it a lot easier to do.

The first strip center:  Urban streets lined by block after block of low scale retail buildings.  As a child, my experience in Detroit was the major arterials were "shopping centers," as they were lined block after block by retail buildings of various sizes.  

There were "centers" within the miles of buildings often at intersections of major roads where more of a "shopping center" or conglomeration developed.  (This happened in Chicago too.)  

The one I remember when I was in elementary school was still corridor strip, but there was a grocer (Packer, then it was bought out by Wrigley), an independent neighborhood "department store" with a focus on apparel, Woolworth's--not Kresge, even though Kresge was headquartered in Detroit, that's where I would buy Matchbox cars, I don't remember if it had a soda fountain, and a branch of Federal's, a regional downscale department store chain by comparison to more upscale chains Hudson's--which still had its downtown store but was developing suburban malls and Crowley's/Demery's (they merged), which was noteworthy for having a downtown store, but also stores in major shopping districts (Wieboldt's did this in Chicago) and suburban town centers like Birmingham and Farmington.  (Oddly, Grosse Pointe was bypassed except for high end apparel, a small company called Himmelhoch's, which went out of business around 1980.)

Partly what made a shopping center maybe was a parking lot behind the liner buildings.

Corridor revitalization.  Now block after block of retail liner buildings is a problem, especially in areas where travel has shifted to the car from transit.  Addressing it is called corridor revitalization.  And it's hard.  

My recommendation has always been to focus on strengthening nodes and as they are successful, they expand outward, hopefully connecting more closely to other nodes on the street.  The community development corporation technical support organization, Local Initiatives Support Corporation, has had a focus on this for decades, Commercial Corridor Resource Hub

The Germantown Business District in better days, when the transit line was a streetcar, not a bus, and the suburbs were still minimally populated.

Another example of a very long corridor and revitalization is Germantown Avenue in Philadelphia ("Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia is finally improving").  

The Mt. Airy and Chestnut Hill districts in the outer city thrive.  The inner districts do not.  Part of the problem may be that the main Germantown district once thrived with big department stores, and now those spaces are almost impossible to fill.

Separately, there are initiatives in Philadelphia where locally focused community development groups buy and hold properties in order to keep them accessible to and affordable by independent businesses ("BTMFBA + programs to lease the properties to local businesses | Philadelphia").  Also see "BTMFBA Chronicles: Seattle coffee shop raises money to buy its building."

The car changes the form: Park and Shop centers.  The shopping district at Plymouth and Evergreen in Detroit had parking in the back, while Hudson's malls had parking around the building.  In the 1930s, in response to the rise in car ownership, the "park and shop" was born.  It was often an L type shape with a parking lot in front.  

One of the first was in Cleveland Park DC ("The spot to Park and Shop," Washington Post).

Others that come to mind are in Silver Spring, on Cary Street in Richmond, and one in the Brookland neighborhood of DC.  

Given the strength of the real estate market, the Cleveland Park and Silver Spring examples are more chained up and restaurant focused.  

Brookland's is poorly located and has some management issues and doesn't thrive in the same way as the others.

Richmond's strip center is an integral part of Cary Street/Carytown, which is a particularly great example of a successful urban neighborhood commercial district.

Destroy or Save the Park and Shop.  Urbanists today argue that Park and Shops should be rebuilt as dense buildings, like what we advocated for on H Street NE.  From the H Street Connection to a mixed use development:

I argue that on historic preservation architectural history grounds that it's important to save historic Park and Shops ("Blacktop History," National Council on Public History), but not the 1970s-1990s strip centers.  But something is lost when those sites are converted, the retail space is no longer cheap, and independent businesses get displaced.

Cary Court Park and Shop in Richmond, Virginia.

Ideally there would be programs in place to assist those businesses in transitioning to other spaces, in having them have return rights to the new building with lowered rents, etc.

Revitalization.  In 2001, the Urban Land Institute published Ten Principles for Reinventing America’s Suburban Strips.  Although again as I have said, the various "Ten Principles" ULI publications are equally relevant to cities, even when ostensibly about suburbs.

It's possible to add housing to some.  But these days according to Chain Store Age Magazine, it's a high performing real estate "product type," especially when anchored by a grocery store.  So while it's true that as some suburbs densify (often called "urbanize") strip centers get built over ("The Future of the Strip," ULI), they're providing low cost space and attractive retail amenities keeps many in business.

Drone photo of plazaPOPS urban design interventions in Wexford Heights, Scarborough, at 2020 Lawrence Avenue East. 

In Toronto there have been initiatives to incorporate public space and urban design improvements in these centers because they are vital economically but are "meh" architecturally ("Toronto-area strip malls are foodie havens. Here’s how this project is helping them become places for people, not just cars," Toronto Star, "Messy Cities: The Ballet of the Parking Lot").

While not exactly a secret, strip malls were an underappreciated urban aspect of the city for years. In 2002, former mayor Mel Lastman even said, “Strip plazas have got to go. These things are a holy mess. Their time is over.” 

Yet they’re essential parts of our urban landscape and throughout the Greater Toronto Area have been recognized as great retail expressions of multiculturalism. Cheaper than downtown main streets, small businesses can flourish, especially true in the food scene. Previously ignored strip mall eateries are routinely celebrated, while a place like Ridgeway Plaza in Mississauga, with nearly 100 ethnic food options, has become such a foodie haven it suffers from the strain of so many people visiting. 

Seeing how strip malls, designed sometimes decades ago for motorists, have evolved into vibrant, walkable places on their own has been fascinating. Now the plazaPops project is helping them adapt more formally.

Or, communities can have big revitalization plans, like for the Takoma Crossroads Langley district spanning Montgomery and Prince George's Counties in Maryland, and soon to be a stop on the Purple Line light rail, but as Bill Lindeke points out:

Owners of these properties are reluctant to give that up a passive income stream for an expensive, risky investment.

Aerial view, Takoma Langley Crossroads at the intersection of New Hampshire Avenue and University Boulevard.  The retail mix is mostly independents, with some chains.

Why should they?  The centers are thriving, with few vacancies, and are full of businesses catering to the Latino population of "East County," even if they don't look pretty, are fronted by parking, car sewers etc.

Although I do believe these districts can be rebuilt, more urbanistically and with housing, especially when paired with rail transit.

The challenge is to maintain the uses and the proprietorship of independent businesses through and after the changes.  

That's one of the reasons wrt this district that I suggested that Montgomery and Prince George's County create a "transportation renewal district" to fund a bi-county community development corporation to buy, hold, and operate properties in the catchment area of the Purple Line, to best mitigate these types of issues in ways that the private sector isn't accustomed to doing.

-- "Creating a transportation development authority in Montgomery and Prince George's County to effectuate placemaking, retail development, and housing programs in association with the Purple Line"

Mitigation.  Ridgeway Plaza, Mississauga, Ontario. Note that Ridgeway is actually a newly constructed shopping strip, less than four years old.

The product type is still being built where it can be successful.  The relatively new Ridgeway Plaza in Mississauga, Ontario, is wildly successful because of its ethnic restaurants ("The suburb that won't sleep," New York Times, "Suburban ethnic enclaves").  But it makes it a destination for which its traffic load and patron volume was never considered.  From the NYT:

But Ridgeway’s unexpected popularity has created problems for Mississauga. The vast plaza attracts crowds at all hours of the day and night, resulting in noise and littering, too much traffic and not enough parking. There have been confrontations and even physical fights; illegal fireworks; and nuisance from vehicles, including street racing.

Such quality-of-life concerns have arisen at the same time that Mississauga’s population has been growing fast with an influx of immigrants — local developments that coincide with a broader souring of public opinion in Canada toward newcomers

Ah, the H Street Community Development Corporation

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

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

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

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

Things haven't changed much from 20 years ago.

=====

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some addressed commercial district issues but mostly focused on housing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

H Street Connection has since been replaced with...

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

Now the corner space is operated by an Aldi Supermarket.  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Banner from the Montana Community Development Corporation.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Daylighting creeks in Salt Lake City: Creating the Three Confluences Park

Last Saturday was the Celebrate at the Confluence event sponsored by Seven Canyons Trust, held at Three Confluences Park on Salt Lake City's West Side.

Seven Canyons Trust worked with the city to create the park by daylight the confluence of Red Butte Creek, Emigration Creek, and Parley's Creek at 900 West  ("Salt Lake City’s newest park is now open — see where three creeks meet on the west side," Salt Lake Tribune).  It opened in 2021.

The Trust grew out of a University of Utah planning design studio, which focused on the concept of daylighting creeks throughout Salt Lake Canyon.

The Wasatch Front is full of canyons and creeks.  The creeks, fed by snowmelt and rain, empty into the Jordan River which in turn flows into the Great Salt Lake.  Area communities capture this for the bulk of their water consumption.  (Once they are past the canyon, rain and stormwater, plus water releases from the canyons, make up the water flow.)

An 1800s citizen movement to protect the watershed.  Because of citizen concerns in the late 1800s about the quality of water supplies because the creeks and rivers were mostly used for dumping waste including dead animals, and the denuding of canyon forests for wood, they advocated for the creation of national forests as a way to protect the water supply.

Phillips Arch in the boundaries of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.  Photo: Tim Petersen.

Today Utah is a leader in trying to overturn federal ownership of public lands.  These days that's particularly ironic, because at the State level and the State's representatives in Congress, including the particularly odious Senator Mike Lee, Utah is a leader in trying to get federal public lands given to the state.  And the state (and Senator Lee) want to develop these lands as much as possible ("Thanks to Utah, Americans are about to lose their public lands," Moab Times-Independent).  

For example, the State supports the reduction in size of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument ("Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument Under Attack from Utah Members of Congress," Earthjustice).  And it suggested that the federal lands in the Big and Little Cottonwood Canyons--also used by for profit ski resorts in the winter, should be converted to state control.  To what ends...?

The State of Utah funded an ad campaign promoting its preference for federal lands being "returned" to the state.  Note that the State Constitution says federal lands should always be federal ("Here’s how much Utah is spending on a public relations campaign for its lawsuit seeking control of public land," Salt Lake Tribune).

Forest Service changes to increase for profit use of forests at the expense of conservation and public use.  Moving the US Forest Service to Utah ("The Forest Service Is Moving to Utah. Here’s What That Means for Our Public Lands," Outside) and the firing of scientists there ("Forest Service Sheds Research Capacity in Move to Utah," PEER) furthers this agenda.

How the Trump Administration is selling the move: "USDA Prioritizing Common Sense Forest Management, Moves Forest Service."

Undergrounding into pipes creeks and rivers.  But I digress.  In many urban areas, starting in the 1800s, creeks and rivers were covered and diverted into underground pipes.  

In DC, that's happened with Tiber Creek.  Someone who worked in a building abutting the old creek said you could hear it sometimes.  

In my Manor Park neighborhood, a creek at Fort Slocum was undergrounded--but the area still has a high water table and flooding--we had to install two sump pumps as a result of that and increasingly "robust" rain events.

DC still has other streams, even if it doesn't have an active daylighting program.  The Anacostia Watershed Society, Anacostia Riverkeeper, and Washington Parks & People lead efforts to remove litter and improve water quality for creeks that run into the Anacostia River.

Rock Creek Conservancy does the same for the DC and Suburban Maryland sections of the Potomac River Watershed, alongside the Potomac River Conservancy.

RFK Jr. may be willing to swim in it.  I think it's still premature ("Kennedy Swims in Washington Creek That Flows With Sewage and Bacteria," New York Times).  But ever closer, at least for the River, except that it took a major step backwards when a wastewater line burst, flowing into the River for weeks before it was repaired and contained ("A Huge Sewage Spill Is Over, but Contamination Lingers in the Potomac," NYT).

Daylighting.  For 20ish years at least, there has been a movement for daylighting--restoring these creeks and rivers.  Seoul is particularly famous for removing a freeway that had been built on a river.  In 2020, the Catharijnesgel Canal in Utrecht, Netherlands, was restored after being filled in during the 1970s to create a 12-lane freeway.  Etc.  

Before and after, Cheonggyecheon Restoration Project.

I think I first came across the concept in an issue of the Urbanite, a magazine that focused on Baltimore urbanism, which sadly went defunct as a result of the 2008 Great Financial Crisis.  

In "The Urbanite Project 2010" "Architect Gabriel Kroiz and environmental lawyer Eliza Smith Steinmeier proposed daylighting Harford Run, a stream that runs under Central Avenue, and turning it into a lively community recreational space."

 3 Confluences Park today and the site in 2007.

Jordan River.  Separately the Jordan River Commission has been charged with restoring the Jordan River (and Utah River in Utah County) as it flows to the Great Salt Lake.  One thing they did that's really cool is the Jordan River Parkway trail along the River from Utah Lake in Utah County to the Great Salt Lake in Davis County--I've ridden parts of it but then I got sick and couldn't bike ride--over 60 miles.

View of the 3 Confluences from the east bank of the Jordan River/Jordan River Parkway Trail.

Long Branch, Montgomery County: Main Street manager job | Purple Line

GGW's job listings include one for a Main Street Manager for the Long Branch district of Montgomery County, housed in the Montgomery Housing Partnership (a CDC focused on housing affordability and community building).  

I'd be interested in it because of the long term potential of the area.  Sparked by the opening of the Purple Line light rail line in 2027/2028.

Long Branch Station under construction

OTOH, Main Street managers aren't planners so much as event developers and event managers.

=======

In October 2018 ("Montgomery County Maryland Parks Department Speaker Series: David Barth, Wednesday October 3rd"), Montgomery County Parks Department brought in David Barth ("David Barth, Rest in Peace," 2022) to do consulting training with department staff and a public talk about his approach to (parks) planning called "High Performing Public Spaces".

They reached out to him via the then chair of the planning commission, because of how much I talked him up in the blog.  David sadly is no longer with us, but I learned a lot from his writings, and occasional in-person encounters at planning projects.

In 1950 an art deco shopping complex opened on Flower Avenue, anchored by a theater and a Giant Supermarket.

Where they had him do the onsite work was in Long Branch.  Long Branch is a part of Montgomery County (not Takoma Park, which it is next to) that is heavily Hispanic and more low income.  

Don't forget Takoma Crossroads.  Long Branch abuts Takoma Langley Crossroads another lower income, minority majority area, that spans both Montgomery and Prince Georges Counties.  Both areas will have Purple Line light rail stations, which will open in late 2027 or January 2028 at the latest.  Parts of the east side of New Hampshire Avenue are in Takoma Park.

One public investment is a bus transit station now, for buses but will complement the forthcoming light rail station. ("Takoma Langley Crossroads Transit Center: A Critical Evaluation").  PGC had a neighborhood investment program for the neighborhood for awhile, but the program dissipated.

New Ave initiative.  Takoma Park has a New Ave corridor revitalization initiative for the part of New Hampshire Avenue in the area within the city.  While the website hasn't been updated for years, a number of projects are underway.

There is work to create a continuous bikeway along the Avenue, although the hills are serious (e-bikes!).  And the city updated part of its master plan to address other parts of the city roughly abutting these areas, west of New Hampshire Avenue.  There is a placemaking initiative with Dance Exchange, an arts group based in the city.

The County planning department created a Long Branch Sector Plan, but in 2013.  The area is ripe for a new plan, with the coming of the Purple Line.

Long Branch is an unincorporated part of Montgomery County.  Long Branch is an area of the county that they've done more economic development investment given the area's lagging status compared to West County ("East County, Montgomery County, Maryland: Council redistricting spurs ideas for revitalization," -- I never did write the second piece, but the transformational concepts are also here, "St. Louis: what would I recommend for a comprehensive revitalization program? | Part 1: Overview and Theoretical Foundations" and "National Community Planning Month | Civic Involvement").

I can't remember if I did the site visit with them, or if I just went out there and did my own site visit and analysis (comparable to what I did in Silver Spring (or both), "Setting the stage for the Purple Line light rail line to be an overwhelming success: Part 1 | simultaneously introduce improvements to other elements of the transit network").  It seems that I never wrote it up as a blog entry.  

Later the Parks Department created an initiative to improve parks and open space in the area, which is ongoing.  

A community development corporation is needed to jumpstart development.  I advocated in the meeting for doing advance investment there in association with the Purple Line and station area planning.  They made the point that because of the economic demographics, developers weren't going to be first movers.   

That's among the reasons I advocated for a community development corporation serving the Purple Line transit shed ("PL #6: Creating a transportation development authority in Montgomery and Prince George's County to effectuate placemaking, retail development, and housing programs in association with the Purple Line," "Revisiting creating Public Improvement Districts in transit station catchment areas").

(The Montgomery Housing Partnership may be functioning like that as it relates to Long Branch.)

Equity planning.  Note that I'd been thinking about that area for awhile (I used to shop by bike in the area), contrasting Long Branch and the Takoma Langley Crossroads area (New Hampshire Avenue and University Boulevard) with DC, talking with a person working for the light rail program at the time about the concept of "Social Urbanism" as practiced in Latin America, and my grand jury experience.  This led to my writings about equity planning.

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

And yes, I used a graphic by David Barth to show how you can think about equity planning as a system.  I never redid the graphic, but I wanted to add lines (like on a subway map) connecting the "bubbles" with "subway lines" denoting transportation, education, community and social services, media, etc. laying out a way to think about all this at the community scale.

Assets.  There are some great assets in Long Branch--a library and a separate recreation center, both which could be redeveloped as more mixed use and active spaces ("Neighborhood libraries as nodes in a neighborhood and city-wide network of cultural assets").  

(New York City has done/is doing a number of projects with housing above libraries, "New library/community space + 100% affordable housing mixed use building in New York City").

The Giant supermarket is a site with a lot of redevelopment potential, as other supermarkets elsewhere in the region have been re/developed with a store on the ground floor and housing above.  

This apartment-grocery store building in Petworth DC replaced a single story Safeway that had been fronted by a parking lot.

There are a nice couple blocks of traditional commercial storefronts on Flower Avenue ("a long life for long branch: tools to preserve independent retailers," UMD student studio), including the old theater that is used as a church.

If I remember right, there is other land with development opportunity in the area.

Conclusion.  Long Branch + New Hampshire Avenue + Takoma Langley Crossroads has a lot of potential.

But, like with any revitalization program, and this one doesn't necessarily have a strong plan to start out with, it will take years to come to fruition.

One more thing.  Maybe Long Branch should be annexed by Takoma Park.  Although it would mean up to a doubling of property taxes as properties would pay both the city and county tax.  That's probably no go in these times of an affordability crisis.

Blog entries outlining a comprehensive approach to commercial district revitalization 

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

Blog entries outlining a comprehensive approach to neighborhood revitalization

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

Downtowns versus neighborhoods as a revitalization conundrum | Detroit

Hudson’s Detroit, the Motor City’s first new skyscraper in nearly half a century, is a symbol of Detroit’s transformation from bankruptcy to boomtown.  Photo: Steven King/Icon Sportswire.

I wrote about Detroit a few weeks ago ("Dan Gilbert and the state of Detroit revitalization | phases") and CNN has s similar story, "Detroit is back from the dead. But not everyone is feeling it."

CNN references a report (Allowing the Detroit DDA’s Captured Tax Revenues to Again Fund Government Services, Citizens Research Council of Michigan) on the city's economic development and tax policies from the bankruptcy in 2013 to today, and generally finds

• that while there has been plenty of economic development, the costs still have been greater than the benefits
• that the creation of downtown development authorities in Michigan was a good thing because it provided for a dedicated stream of local revenue to support economic development without impinging on other revenue streams
• but it does come at the cost of lost tax revenues for other government authorities like school systems and counties
• that in Detroit, the primary focus on downtown revitalization as being justified to bring revenues to neighborhood improvements hasn't been realized.

View of Downtown's Renaissance Center office complex from the window of a vacant industrial building.  Photo: Jeff Kowalsky, Bloomberg/Getty Images.

I think this is true sure, but like I write about economic impact studies of transit needing a thirty year or longer time frame to truly be able to measure results, the same goes for revitalization of a cities like Detroit, Pontiac, St. Louis, Oakland, etc.

In the words of the Doors song, "Been Down So Long":

… Well, I've been down so Goddamn long

That it looks like up to me 

Well, I've been down so very damn long

That it looks like up to me 

Yeah, why don't one you people 

C'mon and set me free

The current time frame of 12 years for generating conclusions and making recommendations shouldn't be seen as an endpoint but a midpoint.

From the report:

Wellbeing of the City

The idea of “two Detroits” is rooted in part in the perception that the CBD (and midtown) has prospered by channeling property tax revenue back into economic development activities while the balance of the city, including the neighborhoods, have suffered from the lack of investment and economic struggles.

This narrative existed before bankruptcy but has become more acute since.

It is clear that downtown and midtown have fared better than many of the neighborhoods. While abandoned houses have been demolished throughout the city, new buildings have been constructed downtown. Downtown has had a level of vibrancy that is not present in many other parts of the city.

Likewise, it is clear that investments in the downtown have not lifted the city to share in any levels of prosperity. Hopes that investments in downtown would lead to housing nearby and throughout the city have not been experienced except for anecdotal recent developments. 

It is not the DDA’s duty to save the whole city and many factors contributed to the exodus of people, including crime, auto insurance rates, the struggling school system, and the high cost of construction throughout the city.

Rebalancing a Downtown focus vis a vis neighborhood improvements.  In some respects the text reminded me of the point that Rolf Goetze makes in Building Neighborhood Confidence, that the point of focused public investments in neighborhoods (or Downtowns) is to reorient the neighborhood trajectory so that residents once again are confident to make investments on their own.  

Detroit.  Rock City.

In Detroit, while there is tremendous investment as mentioned in my blog entry, as massive as it is, it hasn't been enough to hit critical mass so that the private sector is the predominate investment actor.  In Detroit, the DDA, the State of Michigan, and private foundations remain heavily involved.

I think that even though Downtown improvement requires still more resources, a reset is required to simultaneously pursue more focused neighborhood efforts, even though there is already so much going on at that level already, with improvements in the functioning of the County Land Bank and neighborhood revitalization programs--to me, it's an astounding amount of action and involvement.

Vacant houses are shown in Detroit, Thursday, Jan. 6, 2011. Wrecking crews in the Detroit are well on their way to knocking down 3,000 vacant and abandoned homes promised by Mayor Dave Bing. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

One of the problems is that there is only so much population in-migration going on.  Sure the city has added 7,000 residents the first gain in a long time.  But that's equal to about 1% of the city's population.  

It's not nearly enough to power residential development in Downtown or in key neighborhoods.

Another problem is just how much vacant and abandoned land there is, many dozens of square miles, an area larger than the City of San Francisco.

Still, residents need more skin in the game to feel like they are part of the process, that their long term sacrifice has meaning, that their communities are receiving visible benefits, that all the benefits aren't going to just the Greater Downtown.

While that might slow Downtown momentum some, at the same time the whole could be greater than the current sum of the parts.  I've drawn an outline of such a program for St. Louis, which is worth considering.

-- "St. Louis: what would I recommend for a comprehensive revitalization program? | Part 1: Overview and Theoretical Foundations"
-- "St. Louis: what would I recommend for a comprehensive revitalization program? | Part 2: Implementation Approach and Levers"

Another concept is leveraging the development of the Purple Line light rail program in Montgomery and Prince George's Counties in Maryland, both wrt transit and revitalization improvements.

-- "Codifying the complementary transit network improvements and planning initiatives recommended in the Purple Line writings," (2022)

-- Setting the stage for the Purple Line light rail line to be an overwhelming success: Part 1 | simultaneously introduce improvements to other elements of the transit network (2017)
-- Part 2 |   the program (macro changes) (2017)
-- Part 3 |   influences (2017)
-- Part 4 |   Making over New Carrollton as a transit-centric urban center and Prince George's County's "New Downtown" (2017, originally 2014)
--PL #5: Creating a Silver Spring "Sustainable Mobility District"
- Part 1: Setting the stage
- Part 2: Program items 1- 9
- Part 3: Program items 10-18
- Part 4: Conclusion
- Map for the Silver Spring Sustainable Mobility District
- (Big Hairy) Projects Action Plan(s) as an element of Comprehensive/Master Plans
- Creating the Silver Spring/Montgomery County Arena and Recreation Center
 -- Part 6 |  Creating a transportation development authority in Montgomery and Prince George's County to effectuate placemaking, retail development, and housing programs in association with the Purple Line (2017)
-- Part 7 | Using the Purple Line to rebrand Montgomery and Prince George's Counties as Design Forward (2017)
-- Revisiting the Purple Line article series after one year: Part 1 | a couple of baby steps (2018)
-- Revisiting the Purple Line (series) and a more complete program of complementary improvements to the transit network (2019)

Basically it's what I call Transformational Projects Action Planning, at the neighborhood scale ("S").

There are a few other best practice programs in action models to draw from.

Hennepin County Community Works 20 Years of Transforming Places for People

Hennepin Community Works.  When I was reading about how and why Downtown Development Authorities were created in Michigan, as a strategy to stoke city renewal, I couldn't help but think of Hennepin County, Minnesota's creation of a revitalization program in recognition that continued population leakage in Minneapolis was a serious threat to the county tax base.

Hennepin did an analysis of Minneapolis, and identified the factors that separated the stable neighborhoods from those that were declining.  They created a revitalization program focused on Minneapolis, to turn declining neighborhoods into successful and stable ones.  This journal article, 

"A COUNTY AND ITS CITIES: THE IMPACT OF HENNEPIN COMMUNITY WORKS," Journal of Urban Affairs (2006), describes the program.  What they found is that housing in areas by parks, rivers, and lakes retained the most value.

Faced in the nineties with a growing imbalance between the declining prosperity of its core city (Minneapolis) and suburban municipalities, Hennepin County, Minnesota, pioneered a different path. In 1994, Hennepin County launched an urban redevelopment program, “Hennepin Community Works” (hereafter HCW) that clearly supplemented the more common models of county activity. HCW devised an entirely new redevelopment role for the county, and has consequently had a major impact on Minneapolis and its suburbs. 

Since its inception, Hennepin County commissioners have committed close to $200 million of infrastructure spending into a targeted redevelopment program with five goals: (1) to enhance the tax base; (2) to reshape troubled neighborhoods; (3) to improve transportation within the county; (4) to protect and develop green space; and (5) to create new jobs. While much of the U.S. urban past since the eighties has featured decreasing levels of public sector funding and involvement with urban affairs, Hennepin County voluntarily took on substantial additional financial and political commitments with this program

... HCW began here in 1994 as a public works program initially intended to address declining property values. Since then, HCW has significantly transformed portions of the county through major housing, transportation, parks, and environmental restoration investments. Through 2008, HCW launched nineteen projects, totaling $197.5 million in investments.

Minneapolis Neighborhood Revitalization Program.  Separately, the City of Minneapolis developed the Neighborhood Revitalization Program, which sold TIF bonds on Downtown revitalization to raise $20 million per year for 20 years directed to neighborhood improvements (case study, "The Minneapolis Neighborhood Revitalization Program: An Experiment in Empowered Participatory Governance," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, "Citizen-driven program led to more housing, stronger commercial corridors and better public infrastructure in Minneapolis," MinnPost).  

Neighborhood associations were tasked with working with city agencies like the School System and Parks Board to make improvements.  Early into the program, they realized that most neighborhood associations lacked the technical capacity to lead the effort, so they developed a strong technical assistance program so residents could develop the expertise to successfully create and implement projects.  From the MinnPost:

The NRP drastically altered the landscape of neighborhood associations in Minneapolis. What were once underfunded, small groups that relied primarily on volunteer labor transformed almost overnight into organizations that had the financial resources to enact dramatic change in their neighborhoods. Overall, neighborhoods used just under half of their allocated NRP dollars to construct housing projects — in many cases affordable housing projects.

The third largest allocation of funds went towards economic development and efforts that aimed to revitalize commercial corridors and help support local businesses. The results show that neighborhoods channeled funding in a way that mirrored neighborhood needs, meaning investment was sensitive to the local context. The bottom-up design of the NRP led to increases in housing stock, revitalization of many key commercial corridors, improvement of public infrastructure such as parks and schools, and increases in the institutional capacity of many neighborhood associations.

This book discusses the MAP program in depth.

Oklahoma City Metropolitan Area Projects.  This is a little different.  OKC is more than 3x larger than Detroit.  So while it is funding "metropolitan" projects, they are limited to the boundaries of the city.  MAP is an impressive system that's been through a few rounds.  

Each round puts investments into major community improvements from the riverfront, recruiting an NBA basketball team by building an arena, to school physical sites, the beginnings of a streetcar network, etc. ("Change isn't usually that simple: The repatterning of Oklahoma City's Downtown Streetscape," "Civic culture and organization as an element of community economic resilience").

Detroit's MAP so to speak is what it is doing downtown.  By contrast, it would be interesting to create a MAP 4 Neighborhoods just like the second phase MAP in OKC was MAPs 4 Kids on improving schools.

Other transformational project models include

• Bilbao ("Why can't the "Bilbao Effect" be reproduced? | Bilbao as an example of Transformational Projects Action Planning")
• Liverpool ("Liverpool regeneration as a process for regaining relevance at the regional, national, and global scales")
• Downtown Edmonton's focus on cultural asset development ("Downtown Edmonton cultural facilities development as an example of "Transformational Projects Action Planning"")
• Germany's International Building Exhibition and International Garden Festival revitalization programs ("Hamburg, urban design, and placemaking: big vision, big projects")
• Helsinki's Arabianranta district ("Developing Creative Quarters in Cities: Policy lessons from “Art and Design City Arabianranta, Helsinki," Urban Research and Practice) 
• Portland's developments in transportation and urban design ("Talk by Congressman Earl Blumenaur on "The Portland, Oregion urban revitalization story"")

• Kansas City's streetcar development ("Kansas City Streetcar’s extension is open! Now you can ride from River Market to UMKC for free," KCUR/NPR, "'I was so wrong': Main Street shop says KC Streetcar brought more business than expected," KHSB-TV, "Years before KC streetcar expansion on Main St., development begins to boom in Midtown," Kansas City Star, "UMKC Proposing Student Housing, Retail by Planned Streetcar Terminus," Flatland).  They use a special tax district on properties within 1/3 of a mile of the line to pay for operations.
• etc.  

Luis Hernesto Holguin, left, and his sister Resfa Holguin use outdoor escalators, newly installed at Comuna 13 shantytown as part of an urbanization plan to improve living conditions of residents, in Medellín. (AP Photo/Luis Benav)

Social urbanism as another approach to neighborhood revitalization: Medellín.  Social urbanism is an initiative launched by Medellín, Colombia, to improve neighborhoods and public safety by investing in civic assets like parks and libraries, urban design, new schools, and better transportation connectivity such as public escalators and gondolas in extremely hilly areas, to bike share to finish or begin a transit trip.  

Improvements include a reduction in murders by about 90%--likely, even in the face of the pandemic, crime and murders would have dropped, neighborhoods and life circumstances and achievements would have improved.  

Top-notch amenities like parks and libraries have been placed in some of the city’s poorest neighborhoods. Photo credit: Jorge Gobbi via Flickr

Social urbanism isn't suggested here to deal with public safety so much as to focus neighborhood investments.

-- "Experiments in Social Urbanism"
-- "'Social urbanism' experiment breathes new life into Colombia's Medellin Toronto Globe & Mail
-- "Medellín's 'social urbanism' a model for city transformation," Mail & Guardian
-- "Medellín slum gets giant outdoor escalator," Telegraph
-- "Medellín, Colombia offers an unlikely model for urban renaissance," Toronto Star-- 
-- "Latin America’s New Superstar," NextCity