Market on the Green nonprofit supermarket from ProMedica Health System, Toledo

Market on the Green is located in the ProMedica Ebeid Institute building, which is in a low income neighborhood, separate from but near some of the system's hospitals.

I was re-reading a past blog entry on hospital planning in the Salt Lake City area ("Hospitals as urban anchors/revitalization levers, not usually, but with great potential to serve communities in important ways: Examples are two forthcoming projects by Intermountain Health and University of Utah Health") and among the best practices it mentioned for activating the first and second floors beyond traditional medical series, I listed the "Market on the Green" supermarket in Toledo.  

I must have found out about it from this Wall Street Journal article, "Take Two Aspirin—and a Serving of Kale." 

Given that supermarkets run by cities--proposals in Chicago, New York City, and DC--are all the rage it's important to look at what works and what doesn't.  This piece discusses the failure of urban markets ("Grocery stores in cities: the failure of the "15 minute grocery store"").  Also the opportunity of food cooperatives as an alternative model ("Revisiting Takoma Junction and the Takoma Co-op development issue | A chance to start over").

Yard sign announcing a household's support for the Wasatch Community Food Co-op.

Food coops do need initial capital and that can be hard to raise.  

The Wasatch Community Food Co-op finally opens this month--they've spent 15+ years organizing, raising capital, and finding and building out a space.

And there is the public market model ("Eastern Market DC's 150th anniversary last weekend | And my unrealized master plan for the market").  

In distressed areas I think that model is adaptable and adoptable as a way forward because you divide the various functions into departments, called "market stands," and from an entrepreneurial standpoint they can be run by individuals rather than "the city," and with fewer capital requirements compared to running a grocery store as a single operator.

City-run supermarkets.  I am skeptical about city-run markets because the profit margins are so low--I tried to get a creative donation from the supermarket business cooperative in the Intermountain States, along with some of their local affiliates, and they lamented their extremely low margins of 1.5% or less, and that was before the effect of tariffs and now the War with Iran which impacts both transportation costs and consumer spending even more.

And because cities aren't known for innovative management in governmental matters.  Running a retail business is a stretch beyond that, although it can be addressed by hiring people with industry experience.  But letting people with a retail background act like retailers is still a tough decision for a city government.

Public markets are a truly rare form of public-nonprofit management.  Most public markets are owned  by the city but operate with independent management.  For those that don't, half are probably successful and dynamic, like Reading Terminal Market and Lancaster Central Market, and the others, and I would include Eastern Market DC where I served on the board for 13 years, static--even though Eastern Market seems to always be rated highly in consumer voting contests ("Shop, savor, and stroll these 10 must-visit public markets," USA Today).

Managerially, one of my favorite examples is the Milwaukee Public Market.  

It was built by the city and run by a nonprofit, but the nonprofit was overwhelmed and management shifted to the Milwaukee Downtown Business Improvement District, and it gets high ratings ("Milwaukee Public Market gets back to business," "From one market to another: Milwaukee Public Market’s advice for Brookfield," Milwaukee Business Journal).

Reading the second article, archive.ph version for those without access, you can tell they really get it.

"I think taking this as a model and plopping it anywhere, it's not always going to work in every setting, every environment, every city," Schwartz said. "These are not always easy operations."

We've had the benefit of time, reputation and experience. We've also developed this into not just a place where people can get food, but we can host regular events and cooking classes. We embrace an outdoor element for experiences, whether it's the Palapa at St. Paul Fish Co. or a beer truck outside. So, I think you have to be multi-dimensional.

At Eastern Market in DC there is zilch innovative design associated with the individual stands.  

Not so for St. Paul Fish Company at Milwaukee Public Market.  

Brand promise is communicated and strengthened by a strategic choice of seafood creature sculptures.

Turnover and new tenants is not always a bad thing. It's sometimes a mutual, "Hey, I'm gonna do this for a few years, experience it, and then I'm gonna concentrate on another brick-and-mortar." There's a level of rotation that adds freshness and newness. It can be beneficial. Probably 34% of our tenants are originals. We always try to find a mix of not only the right food products, but also ownership, representation and businesses that will help add something from the neighborhood, not just the market.

If you are a true destination for residents and people from out of town, I think you need to embody as many types of experiences as possible and cast a wide net, whether it's for families who are coming in from out of town or somebody who lives in a condo that's popping over here to have a glass of wine, grab a steak and make it at home.

One of the problems with ratings is the tension between selling prepared food, more typical of what are called food halls, and fresh food to prepare at home, and maybe with some prepared food vendors.  A lot of the other markets do fresh food better, and most that specialize in it, like Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia or Grand Central Market in Los Angeles, do way better.  And Pike Place Market in Seattle didn't even make the top 10!

Why has Market on the Green been successful, when similar ventures fail?  

Compared to many nonprofit grocery initiatives, it's still standing after years, when many have failed long before that kind of tenure.  

It's not a grim space.  It has positive design qualities.  While it's one tenth the size of a for profit supermarket, it offers the same array of goods, even beer and wine.

It was funded by a donation from the lead philanthropist supporting the ProMedica System.  It's located in the Uptown neighborhood which is defined by USDA as a "food desert" and where they started their community development program ("Seaway standing strong," Toledo Blade). 

Originally the market didn't have a more traditional (and hopefully outdoor sign.  Now they do.

The building is owned by the health system, and the second floor has a teaching kitchen, other community services, and workforce training (two more floors for other stuff).  

They support local vendors and stock and market their products ("Farmers First Coffee release party at Market on the Green" and "Beer Sampling at Market on the Green," Toledo City Paper)--the beer sampling up in the teaching kitchen with better access controls.  

And they're innovative, unlike a lot of public markets, they offer online ordering and delivery ("Market on the Green offers online shopping and delivery," Toledo City Paper).  

I tried to have that done at Eastern Market and you wouldn't believe the pushback--"Eastern Market is all about the face-to-face experience" they said.  For some it is, for others it isn't.  Maximizing your ability to reach multiple market segments in the face of ever increasing competition is key.

The store has been open for 11 years, which is a great run so far.--and it's still going.

But it may have taxed managerial resources, because in 2023 outsourced management to a local grocery store operator ("ProMedica grocery store in UpTown Toledo gets new local management," Toledo Blade).  

As a whole the hospital system has run some  deficits and this saves them not just money, but "managerial burden," involved in running the store ("ProMedica scraps new Monroe hospital as losses mount," Toledo Blade).  Since they've cut back on plans for new buildings, sold off their nursing home division, and ended event and venue sponsorships.

Success factors for Market on the Green.  I think the key elements are (1) philanthropic donation to provide capital, (2) and to buy the building, (3) which means they can be patient, (4) because they have "patient capital" to support the business, (5) without interest fees (6) and probably no rent, (7) so, as long as it doesn't lose money on operations, (8) because of the high degree of management and board commitment separately (9) and as a key element of their place-based community development initiative, Ebeid Neighborhood Promise.

Initiatives at other hospitals include food stands within the hospital's first floor, food pantries offering free food to people in need ("Micro-markets inside health centers could be just what the doctor ordered," Grocery Dive), community gardens, and farmers markets held on campus.  St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ypsilanti, Michigan goes even further, allotting 25 acres on its campus to a local produce farmer, using some of the food in their food service program, donating to food banks, etc.

Social determinants of health.  The justification is what are called "social determinants of health," how lifestyle and other factors like place contribute to people's health/problems and providing food access reduces income hindrances that can make it hard to buy healthier and fresh foods.

According to Next City ("Why Health-Care Systems Are Funding (Or Building) Grocery Stores") such stores funded by, supported by, or run by hospital systems support both personal and community health, so it may help them when preparing their Community Health Assessment Plans required as one element of Obama Care.  From the article:

There’s been a lot of talk and research about the importance of access to healthy food as a social determinant of health. Obesity, diabetes, heart disease — all are linked to diet. So putting a full-service grocery store in the heart of low-income, under-resourced neighborhoods, where health disparities are high and persistent, seems like a sensible thing.

City incentive programs.  Rather than open and operate stores, many cities like DC and even states, like Pennsylvania (although it's not much money, especially when you consider how big the state is) have tax incentives and other programs to subsidize the cost of putting stores in less economically well off areas. This Reddit entry is great, listing the five incentive programs in DC.

There are also programs to expand the array of healthy foods available in corner stores and bodegas, who might not normally carry such products because of spoilage and other concerns, and familiarity as they mostly sold non-fresh foods.  

In NYC Shop Healthy NYC, formerly the Healthy Bodegas Initiative, is a city program.  In Philadelphia and Camden, New Jersey programs are coordinated by the nonprofit Food Trust.  In a study of bodegas in New York City:

Most consumers shopped at the bodega because it was close to their home (52%). The majority (68%) reported shopping at the bodega at least once per day. The five most commonly purchased items were sugary beverages, (29.27%), sugary snacks (22.34%), coffee, (13.99%), sandwiches, (13.09%) and non-baked potato chips (12.2%). Nearly 60% of bodega customers reported their purchase to be healthy.

It would have been even cooler, but more expensive if the outdoor sign rendered the more detailed logo, in neon.

Conclusion.  While I think these initiatives are great, as the Milwaukee Public Market director said:

"I think taking this as a model and plopping it anywhere, it's not always going to work in every setting, every environment, every city," Schwartz said. "These are not always easy operations."

pertains here too.  The reason(s) for success of Market on the Green rather than failure is because the factors that are key to their success are usually opposite the conditions faced of other ventures, for example:

• patient capital versus impatient capital
• no interest on financing versus interest on financing
• no rent versus paying rent
• knowledge and skill in operations versus good intentions
• organizational commitment versus bottom line focus

are all key factors.  Government can be a source of patient capital, but they definitely lack operational expertise.  And government grant programs come with lots of strings and reporting requirements, and usually have more demand than funds.

ProMedica has tapped Summit Foods and owner Ed Beczynski to manage its Market on the Green grocery store in UpTown.  Mr. Beczynski is a local restaurateur whose family has run Summit Foods for 25 years.  Toledo Blade photo.

Because people have to eat, whether or not a store is immediately close by, even in food store deprived areas, people have developed ways to provide access and a means to travel to existing supermarkets (Lack of access doesn't deter shoppers from visiting large grocery stores," FoodDive,  "The Influence of Foodstore Access on Grocery Shopping and Food Spending," Economic Research Service, USDA).

Retail trade areas.  Plus people's complaints of lack of immediately accessible food stores runs into the retail trade area issue--an RTA radius for a supermarket in a city is up to 5 miles, even more for specialty stores.

Granted it presumes use of a car.  But an RTA of say 3 mile radius is still an area of 28 square miles.  That's almost half the size of Washington, DC.

A three mile radius or retail trade area, drawn with 6500 Piney Branch Road NW as the central point.

During our unsuccessful fight against Walmart entering DC ("Walmart closing one of its three DC stores," with links to 11 other blog entries, and my op-ed in the Washington Business Journal, "Temper Walmart Glee With Planning") the then planning director talked about the areas they wanted to locate being food deserts.  

They weren't except in SE DC, and they ended up not even opening that store even though they "promised."  

At that time, within the radius of the store for Georgia Avenue, there were at least four Giants, three Safeways, multiple ethnic markets (I used to cycle to them at University Boulevard and New Hampshire Avenue to the great Latino market), a Save-a-Lot (since closed), at least two Shoppers Food Warehouse stores, two Aldis, a Price Rite (the cheap brand for Shoprite), and one Whole Foods.  Plus others on the west side of Georgia Avenue, and on the east further into Prince George's County.

There are even more options now, including an Aldi at Fort Totten, Lidl in Columbia Heights, a Whole Foods at Walter Reed, Wegman's on Wisconsin Avenue NW.

15 Minute City.  The reason the "15 Minute [Walking] City" concept bugs me isn't the aspiration--that most everything you want is within 3/4 mile walking distance which for able bodied people is about 15 minutes--it's because the provision of retail and services don't work, at least if you want them to be cost competitive at such distances.

Note that a "15 Minute Bicycling City" makes way more sense.  That's a 2.5 mile area radius riding at 12mph and an area of 19 square miles.  Pushing it out just a bit further, our Manor Park house is accessible to so many places, not just in DC, but across the border in Maryland like Silver Spring, University Boulevard, and the University of Maryland College Park, and 5 or so miles to Downtown DC, Union Station, etc.

About food stores on the nonprofit side, there are at least five motivations, a lack of stores (without regard to retail trade area), campaign promises, ideology, good intentions, and market reality.

Balancing amongst them, and creating a store that remains successful in the long term is tricky.

What gets measured gets done: Annual Report on the Conditions of Children | County initiatives on poverty, from Orange County to Salt Lake County

In college I thought I was gonna end up in the business world.  One of the books big back then was In Search of Excellence (published in 1982), about high performing organizations.  

It turns out I was more interested in organizations per se and how they operate than whether or not they were for or non profit.  And in high and continued performance.

One of the key points in the book is "What gets measured gets done," making the point that "making the numbers" is the focus when you're asking for measurable results.

Separately, I opine that everyone says kids are important, but too often money nor solid programs fails to follow the concern.  That being said childhood poverty has dropped significantly over the past 30 years due to a broader safety net ("Expanded Safety Net Drives Sharp Drop in Child Poverty," "How Poverty Programs Aided Children From One Generation to the Next," New York Times).

I expect that there is serious backsliding starting this year given cuts to Medicaid, food security programs, and schools more generally.

So the fact that Orange County California publishes a report, Annual Report on the Conditions of Children, to focus in on interdicting poverty at the county level is pretty interesting ("Win some, lose some: It’s not always easy being a kid in the O.C.," Orange County Register).  

Childhood is measured by poverty, health outcomes, academic achievement in annual snapshot

... There are several positive signs. More than 90% of all pregnancies include prenatal care; vaccination rates are high; kids have more access to emotional support; lower income students are doing better in math and language; foster kids are getting more timely permanent placements, and local kids are less likely than their peers around the state to get arrested, with fewer local cases leading to serious legal outcomes.

The negative signs, though, are blinking red. Child poverty is rising, as seen by increases in food assistance and free lunch programs. A higher percentage of local kids face “insecure housing” (read: homelessness). There are more preterm births and low birth weight babies. Teen pregnancies and dropout rates are both rising. There are, among children and teens, more “accidental deaths” — which include drug overdoses. More kids born drug-exposed and more are reporting that they suffer from depression. And child abuse, locally, remains a serious concern, with the county posting a higher rate of abuse than the state average.

Measurement is the first step.  Action planning, implementation, review and continuous improvement is the second, and its hard.  Especially in the face of too often limited funds.

In my writings on equity planning and social urbanism, I've never gotten into the weeds, recommending metrics and specific programs and initiatives for addressing it.  

-- "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

That's a necessary step for making public officials accountable for improvements in their communities.

Counties and areas of extreme poverty.  A number of cities like Richmond, Chicago (Invest SouthWest) and Dallas (Grow South) have developed anti-poverty revitalization initiatives.  I think some have gone by the wayside as administrations turned over.  

In Toronto, rather than provide financial support to all kinds of organization, the United Way focuses its efforts on a set number of impoverished neighborhoods.

I am not so familiar with county initiatives specific to poverty, although I mention all the time the Hennepin County Works program, which focused on reinvesting in Minneapolis to stop population leakage and rebuild ("A COUNTY AND ITS CITIES: THE IMPACT OF HENNEPIN COMMUNITY WORKS," Journal of Urban Affairs), because the County feared it was at risk from property tax declines.  It wasn't so much an anti-poverty measure as much as it was about being pro-center city.

Many school systems have related initiatives ("Schools #2: Successful school programs in low income communities and the failure of DC to respond similarly," 2019).  

Dayton, Ohio has is a major initiative focusing on "neighborhood schools" and adding human services functions, ("50-plus ways you can help 6 Dayton schools, thousands of students," Dayton Daily News, "Dayton's neighborhood school centers," New Directions in Youth Development).  

Roy Utah has boosted high school graduation by better linking elementary and middle school outcomes to high school, with mentors and other services ("How Roy High boosted graduation rates from 70% to 92%," KSL-TV).

Pontiac/Oakland County, Michigan.  But I think the Hennepin County model is extendable, an apt model for more places, especially as a way to address poverty.  I wrote about this in terms of Pontiac,  ("Pontiac Michigan: a lagging African American city in one of the nation's wealthiest counties") where I admitted I was embarrassed for not thinking this long before when I was a resident of wealthy Oakland County in middle and high school and a couple summers once I started college.  For a time I even went to Pontiac Schools in 6th and 7th Grades.

East County/Montgomery County, Maryland.  For Montgomery County Maryland too ("East County, Montgomery County, Maryland: Council redistricting spurs ideas for revitalization").  I just wrote about Long Branch ("Long Branch, Montgomery County: Main Street manager job | Purple Line").

Separately, Montgomery County Public Schools puts more money towards Title I schools serving impoverished areas ("When Unequal is Fair Treatment," Education Week) although outcomes continue to lag ("Educational Inequality in Montgomery County Public Schools," Montgomery County Sentinel).

Equity planning/social urbanism.  Another way to think about such programs is through the concepts of equity planning and social urbanism.  The programs above have influenced my thinking about this definitely.

-- "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

Salt Lake City.  There are tons of reports about economic disparities between the East and West sides of Salt Lake.  The west side is more Hispanic, more people of color, more poverty (series: "Roads to Understanding: Salt Lake City’s west side," KSL-TV. "s," Salt Lake Tribune).  

The west side is where the city's industrial district lies, including the state's five oil refineries, so air quality is a particular concern ("West-siders, at last, may have the proof they need to fix air pollution," Salt Lake Tribune).

Meanwhile the east side pretty much thrives as it's closer to and abuts the Wasatch Front mountain range so people haven't been inclined to move "west" as is more typical in most metropolitan regions, as they grow, they grow west.  

Even so there is population shrinkage or at least shrinkage of households and fewer children so schools on the east side of the county marked by closing schools in the adjacent Granite School District ("Granite Schools is looking to close 3 more elementary schools," KUER/NPR).

Salt Lake has closed west side schools because of low enrollments, while Salt Lake's stay open because the east side still has a preponderance of large Mormon families ("School closure and consolidation planning needs to focus on integration planning at the outset as a separate process," "Equity/"Equity" versus efficiency and the school closure debate").

The school system does have a number of Title I initiatives and a couple of schools more like the Dayton model, with community health clinics and community centers as part of the school grounds.

The physical divide between East and West is created by railroad tracks and a massive train yard as well as I-15, which follows the route of the railroads ("Will Salt Lake Heal its Historic East-West Divide, or Exacerbate it?," Building Salt Lake, "Utah and SLC wanted to punch a hole through I-15. West-siders fought back," Salt Lake Tribune).

So the city has plenty of initiatives promoting growth on the west side, prioritizing funding projects there over the East Side.  

To me, the biggest problem of development on the west side is lack of town centers, but I've grappled with how to write about it and haven't yet ("A new 9th and 9th? Salt Lake City’s Marmalade neighborhood becoming a ‘destination.’," "Why there are no bars in Rose Park or Fairpark — and why that could finally change," SLT).

It makes it hard to develop commercial districts and small businesses ("A coffee truck, known on Salt Lake City’s west side and at farmers markets, opens a brick-and-mortar cafe," "Mestizo Coffeehouse, part of a ‘beautiful community’ on SLC’s west side, is closing," Salt Lake Tribune).  (There is a redeveloping district along North Temple, but in terms of the east-west divide, it's more of an extension of the Central Business District.)  

There is also a citizen-initiated proposal, the Rio Grande Plan, which would revive the Rio Grande Station for long distance and commuter railroad sand light rail service, which may also involve undergrounding railroad tracks outside of the rail yard, making it easier to get between the east and west sides ("Study highlights Salt Lake City's east-west struggles. What will be done about it?," KSL-TV).  (I was the first person at the public launch of the proposal to say publicly that the RGP should be implemented in association with the coming of the 2034 Winter Olympics.)

The University of Utah runs an interesting community program there called University Neighborhood Partners ("University of Utah University Neighborhood Partners program and community revitalization in West side Salt Lake City/County," "How University Neighborhood Partners helps west side leaders," Salt Lake Tribune) and is investing in a small version of its hospital in West Valley City ("Hospitals as urban anchors/revitalization levers, not usually, but with great potential to serve communities in important ways: Examples are two forthcoming projects by Intermountain Health and University of Utah Health") which abuts Salt Lake, and is even more Hispanic demographically. 

A new restaurant opens in the 9th and 9th district.

By contrast, East Side has thriving residential-commercial districts like 9th and 9th ("In Salt Lake City, a dynamic neighborhood with small businesses and room to stroll in," Washington Post, 2013), Sugar House, and 15th and 15th ("Thinking about the opportunities for success with neighborhood commercial districts: comparing Manor Park in DC to 15th and 15th in Salt Lake").

Salt Lake County.  Salt Lake County has its issues.  The County is mostly economically successful, but the west side and certain other pockets of the county lag the wealthier areas.  

While the County is majority Democrat, the way County Council districts are organized, the County Council currently is majority Republican.  Some of the members are seriously conservative and focused on "reducing the size of government" even though as a growing place, demands for infrastructure and other programs are greater, not reduced.

The County faces budget issues because of that growth.  It voted to raise the property tax, not much all in all, but there is opposition ("There’s a new referendum push underway. This one targets Salt Lake County taxes," Salt Lake Tribune).  

The County is cutting back investment in many areas--I know this because I am on the Board of Sugar House Park which is half owned by the County, and we just got a big push back on our capital planning efforts because of this--pushing back some projects as much as 6 years.

Salt Lake Deseret News photo.

The Republican majority voted to close some day care centers ("Families brace for challenges as Salt Lake County child care centers are set to close," KSL-TV) and a senior center to reduce costs.  

Even when offered money by a prominent foundation to keep the day care centers open, leading Councilmembers said no ("A famous Utah family’s foundation offered to pay for S.L. County day cares, public records reveal," Salt Lake Tribune).

To be fair, I don't think the County's wanting to close day care centers is necessarily "bad."  It does have to measure spending and outcomes, and how many people programs serve.  And they argued spending $2 million on 247 people (children) wasn't the best use of funds.

But instead of just voting to summarily cut the program, it could have looked at alternatives that were cheaper, such as supporting "seats" at other for profit and nonprofit centers.

I'm hardly an expert on all the programs in the county and nonprofit and philanthropic initiatives that focus on ameliorating poverty.  

I do know that Granite School District has a number of Title I initiatives (Educational Achievement and Workforce Development: A Review of Community Based Approaches, Gardner Institute, University of Utah).  

(Chris Detrick | Tribune file photo) Promise South Salt Lake Site Coordinator Susie Estrada shows children pictures of the staff members at the Hser Ner Moo Community Center in South Salt Lake City Tuesday, July 18, 2017. 

South Salt Lake ("How “Promise South Salt Lake” is creating safe spaces for youth and families," ABC4, "South Salt Lake Promise program helps youths thrive in community centers," KSL-TV) and Millcreek have created "Promise" initiatives which function comparably to the University Neighborhood Partners, bringing a variety of resources together to help people who can use the boost.  The Promise Partnership Utah organization supports such groups across the state. 

(Ironically, in the area, they call South Salt Lake "sketchy," urban and impoverished.  People here have little experience with true urban poverty! "Areas to Avoid: Salt Lake City’s Danger Zones," RLG, "South Salt Lake is turning 85. What is it known for?," SLT)

Conclusion: Why not a Salt Lake County Community Works Program, focused on poverty reduction? But mostly my response is that like Oakland and Montgomery Counties, very wealthy counties, Salt Lake County has a lot of wealth too, and rather than offer programs in a piecemeal basis or none at all, could a "Hennepin Community Works" program be developed to address the county's economic lagging areas in a more systematic way.

Could the Promise Programs and the University Neighborhood Partners initiative become the foundation of a more focused, overarching and branded County program serving impoverished areas in more systematic ways than the county is doing presently?

Health equity devolves to cities and states as the federal government cuts taxes for the wealthy

I have a bunch of pieces on equity planning and social urbanism, touched off by my experience on a DC Grand Jury.  As one of the court reporters said "breaking the cycle--man, we're just cutting the grass."  I figured that the city spends a couple billion dollars a year on the impoverished in DC, just to keep them in place.

-- "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" (2022)
-- "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

Some cities have launched poverty reduction and area-based economic development programs to address this, like GrowSouth in Dallas ("Cities Need Goals and Capital to Fight Poverty," Catalyst) or Invest SouthWest in Chicago ("Johnson Administration Breathes New Life into INVEST South/West Developments in Englewood," South Side Weekly, "Invited In Only To Be Shut Out," Block Club Chicago, Next Steps, West Humboldt Park, "City announces four new targets for Invest South/West," Crain's Chicago Business).  

United Way Greater Toronto for more than a decade has focused its program funding on languishing impoverished neighborhoods ("Guiding the United Way through the next decade," Toronto Star).  From the article:

United Way Greater Toronto just launched an incredibly ambitious 10-year strategic plan. We’re going to sustain the 10 community hubs we have and create 10 more. Hubs are like a one-stop shop for social and healthcare services in neighbourhoods that need it most. So, it improves access to services. It improves quality. It pulls together organizations under one roof, so it increases collaboration across organizations.

Our second goal is a community real estate vision. Seventy per cent of the community organizations we support are at risk of losing their space, and they’re also at risk of then being, in essence, priced out of communities that need them the most. We have a real focus on supporting those organizations to ensure the stability of those physical sites being owned by community organizations and stewarded for generations to come.

At least with the cities, the programs tend to wax and wane as new administrations succeed previous ones more committed to poverty. 

If we think that cities (and counties, see "Pontiac Michigan: a lagging African American city in one of the nation's wealthiest counties" and "East County, Montgomery County, Maryland: Council redistricting spurs ideas for revitalization | Part 1 -- Overview") should focus on addressing poverty with place-based solutions, I'm thinking it's the same with health equity.  Programs like Medicaid expansion--run at the state level in most places--provide health care to people who are medically needy.

This op-ed in City & State by NYC's health commissioner, "I am New York City’s doctor. This is how we treat chronic disease" makes the point that as the federal government cuts health programs (and medical research) cities and states should step up and fill the gap.

[RFK Jr.] has fired at least 20,000 employees from the Department of Health and Human Services. Billions of dollars in lifesaving medical research have been cut. Tens of millions of Americans, including millions of New Yorkers, will lose their Medicaid, Medicare, and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits because of Republicans’ “One Big Beautiful Bill.” The record-breaking government shutdown multiplied the confusion and loss.

... My job is to support all New Yorkers in leading their healthiest lives, no matter their income or neighborhood. We have the experience and expertise to improve outcomes and even prevent chronic disease entirely. We know what approaches are proven to make a lasting impact.

That’s why, at the New York City Health Department, we recently released a city-wide chronic disease prevention strategy, which outlines how local government can address the root causes of chronic disease.

The strategy recommends promoting healthy living through nutritious foods and physical activity. But we must also meet people’s material needs. Improving access to basic resources – with direct cash payments, grocery credits and more – has a proven impact on health. And informed conversations around marketing, product design and creative media approaches can increase consumer awareness of the health impacts of the products they buy.

When people can afford the things they need – housing, health care, the ability to put healthy food on the table – they aren’t waiting to be treated in the ER once they’re in crisis.

This also comes up in Chicago, with multi-decade differences in life expectancy based on race, income, and neighborhood ("As they live Chicago's 'death gap,' a 3-generation family fights to end it," Chicago Sun-Times).

These kinds of statistics are the basis of the concept of "social determinants of health" 

and programs to address the disparities.

I have a series of articles about developing a comprehensive program at the bigger city scale on health equity, but I never termed it that way.  City and county poverty amelioration programs need to focus on health equity as an element of equity planning, and these entries lay out a way forward.

-- "Ordinary versus Extraordinary Planning around the rebuilding of the United Medical Center in Southeast Washington DC | Part One: Rearticulating the system of health and wellness care East of the River" (2018)
-- "Revisiting East of the River medical care: United Medical Center" (2018)
-- "Update on DC's plans to build a new United Medical Center" (2018)
-- "A glaring illustration of the need for comprehensive health and wellness planning in DC: Providence Hospital" (2018)

-- "Community Health Improvement Planning" (2019)

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

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

-- "Costly failures in the mental health system" (2025)

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