Going to the dogs

In the past I've written about dogs as an indicator of people feeling safe living in cities, and that dog walking provides the impetus for many to actually walk outside in a city.  Plus, dogs (and little kids) act as a "social bridge" (what William Whyte called "triangulation") in getting people who don't know each other to interact.

Some say, with justification, that dog parks are an indicator of reproduction of space and gentrification.  This study, "Dog Parks and Coffee Shops: Faux Diversity and Consumption in Gentrifying Neighborhoods" (Journal of Public Policy and Marketing) is based on DC.

-- "Dog Parks and Coffee Shops documentary about gentrification in DC," 2020

OTOH, how many times have you stepped in dog poop or narrowly avoided it?  Even people who do pick up the poop often toss it into recycling cans, contaminating the waste meaning it can't be recycled.

Suzanne was talking to people about my illnesses, and a person opined that I should get a dog.  That's the last thing I'd be interested in, even though health researchers think having a dog is a good thing ("Can’t commit to a dog? Have one for a day — science says it’s good for you.," Washington Post).  

Psychologist Kerri Rodriguez, who leads a group at the University of Arizona that researches animal-human interactions, said spending just five or 10 minutes with a dog can make people happier and decrease their stress.

In fact, research has shown that when people interact with dogs, oxytocin — known as the love hormone — increases in both species. This is true even if you’re petting someone else’s friendly dog.

Actually my response was "F* that."  I can walk and do things without a dog, and without the responsibility of dog maintenance.  Reading and writing makes me happier...

Note that for a long time, urban multiunit apartment buildings have been offering dog-related amenities to tenants ("Pet-Friendly Apartment Amenities Gather Steam Amid Societal Shifts," Commercial Observer).

1.  "America’s Most Dog-Friendly City Has Had Enough," Wall Street Journal

.  People aren't managing their dogs and feel entitled to take them anywhere.  From the article:

Rose Crelli loves dogs. The violinist grew up with sled dogs in Alaska. She stops to pet dogs on the street. If she had to rate her love on a scale of 1 to 10, it would be a 10.

But Crelli, 29, has started thinking maybe San Francisco is too dog-friendly. While she and a friend were having coffee at Alamo Square park, the pair were approached by five different off-leash dogs in an area that requires dogs be leashed. The final visitor, a golden retriever, sent Crelli over the edge. “It literally launched itself at my pastry and got its mouth all over it and covered it with drool,” she said. The dog’s owner saw the whole thing and kept walking.

I had something like this happen to me in DC.  It cost me a cup of coffee and the dog owner felt no compunction for recompense.

2.  "An Italian City Is Considering a Dog Tax for Tourists and Locals," New York Times.  It's to pay for the costs associated with errant dog owners who don't pick up dog poop, etc.

A bill in Bolzano, Italy, would mean that dogs bringing their owners to the Tyrolean Alps for some scenery and mountain air would face a new charge of roughly 1.50 euros ($1.75) per day, the Italian news media reported.

Local dogs won’t escape under the bill, which would come into force in 2026 if it is approved by the provincial council. Residents would be charged an estimated 100 euros per dog, per year, bringing back a dog tax that was abolished in 2008.

Flickr photo by Edgar Zuniga, Jr.  Sugar House Pond.

3.  Sugar House Park, Salt Lake.  We don't have a dog park, dogs are required to be on leash, but the vast open spaces of the park lead many to unleash their dogs.  For the most part it isn't a problem, and we don't have the resources to enforce the rule.

The board member representing the County Parks Department, which operates the park for us under contract, says if we had a dog park, then people would be more inclined to follow the rules.  

Note the dog park denoted at the lower right of the map for SLC's Fairmont Park.

For me, given that there is a city park a couple blocks aware with over 2 acres devoted to a dog park, I think it's unnecessarily duplicative to create one in our park.

4.  Great guidance offered by Salt Lake County Parks.

-- Salt Lake County Off-Leash Dog Park Master Plan

5.  "Chicago restaurants mixed on the prospect of dogs at the table," Crain's Chicago Business.  An alderman has put for legislation to allow dogs in restaurants, not just on patios.  Holy health department Batman!

6.  Private dog parks with bars and play areas are a new type of business on the rise across the country ("Detroit dog park and bar set to open a suburban outpost," Crain's Detroit Business, "Detroit’s first indoor and outdoor dog park with beer garden plans second location," Detroit Free Press).  Usually they have membership fees.  

The Southfield Barkside will have 5,000 square feet of indoor, climate-controlled, off-lease play space and 8,000 square feet of outdoor fenced-in space. The indoor space will feature wi-fi and TVs. The Southfield location will also have dedicated indoor and outdoor play areas for small dogs. The new dog park and bar will have space for 150-200 guests and a staff of 15-20.

Bark Social when it was operative, in Bethesda, Maryland.

I know one went out of business in DC ("Bark Social dog park, bar files for bankruptcy, shutters all DMV locations"), so I expect the market isn't that big.  Although Bark Social is relaunching on a much smaller scale.

7.  Dog parks issues in Boston ("Boston has few dog parks. It’s led to a pitched battle over public space," Boston Globe).  Apparently Boston is particularly dog friendly.  Many parks it's against the rules to walk dogs, even on leash.  

The article discusses how some park systems across the county have hours where off leash use is allowed, partly as a public safety measure, to crowd out negative uses.

8.  Apparently there is an issue with pet rescue sheltering in DC, which dropped its vendor without a new one on deck ("Inside the Year-End Scramble to Save More Than 100 D.C. Dogs," Washington City Paper).

The Growth Machine in Anaheim, California gets socked with a corruption probe

Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place is the book which expands the original argument first laid out by Professor Harvey Molotch in the journal article "The City as a Growth Machine."

Growth Machine theory is from urban sociology and posits that local political and economic elites, despite intra-elite competition, are overall unified in terms of the commitment to an economic growth agenda centered on real estate development and land use intensification.

Political science has a similar theory, called Urban Regime.  I think GM is better on the overall explanation of why local elites do what they do, while UR is better at explaining at how it operates.  

Where GM theory is particularly insightful on various elements of the land use intensification agenda, from Downtown revitalization to sports stadiums and arenas, conference centers, and in particular, the role of local media--fully dependent of the success of the local region for its own success, being dependent on advertising revenues generated primarily from sales to local businesses--in cementing this agenda.

As I said, UR theory is best for explaining how the Growth Coalition works.  In the paper, "Now What? The continuing evolution of Urban Regime analysis," political science Professor Clarence Stone writes:

An urban regime can be preliminarily defined as the informal arrangements through which a locality is governed (Stone 1989). Because governance is about sustained efforts, it is important to think in agenda terms rather than about stand-alone issues. By agenda I mean the set of challenges which policy makers accord priority. A concern with agendas takes us away from focusing on short-term controversies and instead directs attention to continuing efforts and the level of weight they carry in the political life of a community. Rather than treating issues as if they are disconnected, a governance perspective calls for considering how any given issue fits into a flow of decisions and actions. This approach enlarges the scope of what is being analyzed, looking at the forest not a particular tree here or there. [emphasis added, in this paragraph and below] ...

By looking closely at the policy role of business leaders and how their position in the civic structure of a community enabled that role, he identified connections between Atlanta's governing coalition and the resources it brought to bear, and on to the scheme of cooperation that made this informal system work. In his own way, Hunter had identified the key elements in an urban regime – governing coalition, agenda, resources, and mode of cooperation. These elements could be brought into the next debate about analyzing local politics, a debate about structural determinism.

I've written about this in a bunch of blog entries about other communities, as well as about DC:

-- ""Columbus Way" merely another example of "Growth Machine/Urban Regime" theory," 2019
-- "Minneapolis growth machine," 2015
-- "If you don't know urban political theory, it's likely that you don't understand local land use: St. Louis: DC; etc.," 2012
-- "Smaller town revitalization planning: No, Thomas Friedman is not a sage," 2018
-- "The Growth Machine needs to be subtle when it comes to elections | Voters need to see some benefits," 2020

Graphic from "Public-Private Partnership Model Used in the Taipei Central Station Project Research," Mou Chung Tseng, National Taipei University.

Usually, it's pretty much out in the open, in that groups like the chamber of commerce and other organizations--in DC the Federal City Council ("THE DISTRICT'S POWER BEHIND THE SCENES: Washington Post-connected business group wields influence over city's legislative agenda," and "The DC Lobby," The Common Denominator)--are the organized growth coalition, which includes leaders of major locally-based corporations, real estate developers, bankers, university presidents, media leaders, etc.  

In NYC you have REBNY, the Real Estate Board of New York and the Partnership for New York City as the leads, with plenty of other groups in a secondary position.  Plus business improvement districts (which often have ex-government officials as leaders), etc.

Elected officials are more "fellow travelers," not so much stated "card carrying" members of the group.  But aligned and integrally involved ("Meet the Lobbyists, Developers, and Insiders On Bowser’s ReOpen DC Committees," Washington City Paper).

Anaheim has its "growth coalition" too, centered around Disneyland first and foremost as well as professional sports operations, especially the Anaheim Angels baseball team and stadium.

But unlike in other places, apparently the group operates more "secretively" and has involved the sharing of confidential city information with business interests, putting it more into the zone of corruption rather than mutual cooperation ("Secret retreats and a powerful ‘cabal’: Corruption probe reveals who really runs Anaheim," Los Angeles Times).

Hence the probe.

Note that DC has corruption issues too.  See:

-- "Managing the brand promise of cities in the face of corruption," 2019
-- "Wow: Revisiting DC's Corruption Caucus," 2019

Black community, economic and social capital: the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago/Chicago

charlie calls our attention to an interesting article in Politico, "How a South Side Chicago Neighborhood Is Trying to Keep Its Black Residents," about black outmigration from Chicago and how this impacts black neighborhoods alongside urban disinvestment and other ills. 

A companion article, "The Demise of America’s Onetime Capital of Black Wealth" discusses the decline of black businesses and black capital in Chicago, in particular larger businesses that operated at a national scale, like Johnson Publishing, or regionally like the Independence Bank, dairies (imagine, black-owned dairies!), etc.

Another companion article, "Black People Are Leaving Chicago en Masse. It’s Changing the City’s Power Politics," discusses how this is a result in part of "black flight," and leads to other urban changes.

The Englewood article covers how the neighborhood perseveres, with a variety of community initiatives and a strong block club network, even as outmigration, crime, and disinvestment continue.  

It's a great illustration of the urban sociology approach to "collective efficacy" and engaged communities and residents.

It does get at why I was originally somewhat skeptical of the collective efficacy approach ("Urban Health, Nasty Cities, Broken Windows, and Community Efficacy," 2005; "Broken windows/collective efficacy," 2019). 

You have efficacy, organized citizens, but things still languish. 

But my thinking about such issues at the time was under-sophisticated.  What I didn't understand at the time that it is not either/or.  (At a talk by Robert Fishman at AU I made this point, that I had been stuck on either/or, not thinking about and/and.) 

Chicago is one of the only cities in the country where block clubs post signs calling for positive behaviors ("New Signs On The Block," WBEZ-FM/NPR).

Community organizing may not be enough in the face of disinvestment. The community organizing and engagement part of community efficacy needs to be combined with systematic investment and support in building pan-neighborhood organizations and economic and community revitalization initiatives. 

Chicago-based Joe Louis Milk Company went out of business in the late 1970s.

Capital is required.  In other words, while community efficacy contributes to community success, it can't fully substitute for capital.  After all, the solution to disinvestment is investment.

At the end of the day, you need capital in order to initiate improvements in terms of commercial and residential buildings, the creation of businesses, the strengthening, expansion and operation of civic assets--schools, parks, libraries, recreation facilities, cultural spaces, etc.

-- "Social infrastructure in the Liberty City neighborhood of Miami," 2020
-- "A wrinkle on BTMFBA: let the city/county own the cultural facility, while you operate it (San Francisco and the Fillmore Heritage Center)," 2021

The companion article, "The Demise of America’s Onetime Capital of Black Wealth," reiterates the importance of capital accumulation and how it influences the success of local economies and economic power, and how the decline of black banks in Chicago makes it that much more difficult to ward off disinvestment.

It reminds me of two stories.  There's a great section in Death and Life of Great American Cities about Jane Jacobs on a road trip through Northeast cities in decline, but one neighborhood in one city thrived.  The difference was this neighborhood retained a community bank which continued to lend to local businesses and residents.

The other is a New York Times Magazine article ("Why New Orleans’s Black Residents Are Still Underwater After Katrina") on the Liberty Bank and Trust Company of New Orleans, and its struggles after Hurricane Katrina.  Having locally-focused banks is key.  But as the American economy is increasingly organized at the national scale, it is much more difficult for community banks to exist, and for locally focused loan portfolios to not be considered high risk.

(Chicago had another nationally recognized locally focused community development oriented bank, ShoreBank, which didn't survive the 2008 recession.)

Social infrastructure.  What sociologist Eric Klinenberg calls social infrastructure in his book, Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life.

And systematic neighborhood revitalization initiatives.  It does reiterate the point I made about the need for systematic neighborhood revitalization programs.     

While I am a strong proponent of self help, it's not enough.  People need assistance, especially when they are already active.  Expecting them to do it all themselves, especially in economically challenged areas where investment capital is limited, is a fools errand.

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

Neighborhood plans.  And also for systematic community revitalization planning, and a strong focus on civic engagement, as I outlined for St. Louis:

-- "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"

and am remiss on for Eastern Montgomery County, Maryland, in terms of the second article:

--"East County, Montgomery County: Council redistricting spurs ideas for revitalization | Part 1 -- Overview"
--"East County, Montgomery County: Council redistricting spurs ideas for revitalization | Part 2 -- Some transformational concepts"

and lamented about concerning DC's poorer neighborhoods:

-- "Social urbanism and equity planning as a way to address crime, violence, and persistent poverty: (not in) DC," 2021

Conclusion.  You need both community organizing and civic engagement as well as capital.  Interestingly, in many places they think money is enough, but all too often it isn't.  Neighborhood revitalization initiatives often fail because of lack of community engagement.  But usually, the biggest issue is both lack of money and lack of substantive civic engagement.

Understanding the DC housing market: demand for urban living, not the construction of new housing, is the driving force

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Originally published Friday March 12th, but republished on Saturday March 13th, because of reordering of the list of items, edits and expansions including adding an item to the list, on public housing.

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There is an op-ed in the Washington Post, written by DC housing activists, on their belief that building more housing merely fosters gentrification.

-- "D.C.’s build-build-build mind-set results in more gentrification"

From the article:

The past 20 years have made clear that the build-build-build scenario just results in gentrification, the forcing out of Black and Brown residents from D.C., and increased land values that destroy existing affordability without producing replacement affordable housing. In addition, hundreds of acres of public land have been given away or leased at fire-sale prices with all manner of financial incentives thrown in, from gap funding to tax-increment financing to tax abatement, usually for more luxury studios and trophy office space. Far from correcting for these disproved policies, the mayor’s amended Comprehensive Plan provides more of the same.

I didn't do super well at economics in college, because I'm not great at higher math, although I did reasonably well at microeconomics ("economics of the firm").  In any case, I joke that DC housing activists make me out to be a great economist, because they argue that not adding to supply, when demand is greater than supply, leads to lower prices.

(My other joke is about politicians and how politics is often trying to do everything possible to avoid having to acknowledge micro- and macro- economics.)

-- "What people don't get about the DC housing market: supply is much less than demand, so prices keep rising (a/k/a basic economics)," 2017
-- "Will DC's Housing Ever Be Affordable Again? Answer: No," 2016

One of the biggest problems in understanding the housing market is that there are many different elements to it, all happening simultaneously, it's not just one thing.

Levittown suburban housing constructed on Long Island, New York, Single family detached houses, requiring a car to get places: work, school, and home.  Mostly for white people.

But the reality of the last 20 years of the DC housing market is pretty simple.  Since 2000, demand for housing in center cities has increased significantly, compared to the 50+ years after World War 2 when people preferred to live in the suburbs.

-- "Why "gentrification" is visible now... the Diffusion of Innovations Curve of Everett Rogers," 2018

In The Option of Urbanism: Investing in a New American Dream, Chris Leinberger writes that whereas before 2000, 70% of the housing market was focused on the suburbs, today 30% of the housing market is focused on cities, 30% on suburbs, and 40% is satisfied by either type of housing.  

Housing preference trends today mean that potentially 70% of households are interested in center city living, significantly increasing demand and driving up prices. In situations of high demand, people with more money dictate conditions and control the market.

Q Street NW, Georgetown, DC

Displacement did occur some in the last 20 years, as some rental housing was converted to owner occupied, and as prices rose in response to increased demand.  

-- "More about contested spaces--gentrification," 2008

But that's a different phenomenon from what has happened with the addition of new housing.  In DC, building more housing was a response to increased demand, and for the most part*, in DC, it wasn't produced through the replacement of existing occupied housing.

(* The rebuilding of public housing did occur in the 1990s and early 2000s and did result in a decreased number of units, both from making smaller complexes and adding some market rate housing.  That's a different segment of the market.

There are some instances where some apartment buildings, such as Clifton Terrace in Columbia Heights, were converted from low income to high income housing. There are a couple instances of a string of rowhouses being torn down and replaced by apartment buildings. )   

What I've learned in 20 years through close observation of the DC housing market

1.  Strong markets function differently than weak markets.  DC is a strong market.  You can also assess strength of the market at the neighborhood scale.  For the most part, all of NW DC is a strong market, and most of SW (it's so small). NE is a strong market along the Red Line Metrorail, and weaker with distance from the Red Line.  SE is a strong market west of the Anacostia River.

With a couple exceptions, the public safety cost of living east of the river is high and "gentrification pressures" won't fully build until the majority of places in higher demand areas are mostly built out.

(In weak markets, the problem is lack of demand, vacant housing, the need for neighborhood stabilization, and low prices.  Low prices can make it difficult to maintain older houses, because the cost of rehabilitation and maintenance isn't necessarily recaptured in higher value. New buildings are difficult to finance because they won't appraise high enough to cover the costs of new construction.)

2.  The markets for rental and owner occupied housing function differently.

3.  The markets function differently for higher income versus lower income housing segments, for both owner occupied and rental markets.  

For example, Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell writes, "Rents for the rich are plummeting. Rents for the poor are rising. Why?."  

In short, I'd say, there's always demand for lower priced housing, so it will continually rise in price, while certain exogeneous shocks to the high income market, or overproduction can affect prices, at least in the short and intermediate run.

4.  Proximity to Metrorail transit increases housing demand and pricing.

5.  Increased demand for center city living vis a vis the suburbs has led to higher pricing.  (In 2003, you could still buy a house in the H Street NE neighborhood for under $125,000.  Now houses there cost more than $750,000.)  Into the early 2000s, a small studio in the Cairo Building in Dupont Circle cost less than $100,000. Today the cost is upwards of $400,000--a 373 s.f. unit sold for $270,000+ in 2014.

Because of the rise in demand for center city living, more people with more resources have entered the urban housing market, increasing pricing compared to the period when there was less demand for urban housing and a great number of vacant dwellings as a result of outmigration to the suburbs in the many decades after WWII.

6.  In keeping with residential choice preferences, the greatest demand is for single family housing, especially historic building stock.  Although the addition of multiunit housing stock supports demand for different market segments that hadn't been satisfied by the previously narrow range of housing types.

Blue is zoned for single family rowhouse; pink for single family detached housing.

7.  Most of DC's SFH was built before 1935, when the nation's population was 40% of today's. Based on national population growth, DC has less housing supply relative to demand.

• US population, 1930: 123.1 million
• US population, 2020: 331 million
• DC population, 1930: 486,000
• DC population, 2020: 693,000

(According to editions of the Statistical Abstract of the United States published in the 1940s, DC's peak population, during the War years, may have been as high as 900,000 although it dropped to 802,500 in the 1950 Census, which is the highest ever official population.)

8. The supply of SFH is relatively fixed.  Demand is greater than supply, and prices rise in response.  

The land dedicated to single family housing is mostly built out.  More housing can't be added, except in odd locations where institutional land is deaccessioned.  By definition the supply of "historic" building stock is fixed, it is comprised of housing built in the past.  Houses built before 1930 comprise the largest stock of historic buildings in DC.

In short, decisions made 90-120 years ago affect today's market.  

9.  As long as demand is greater than supply, even with new additions to supply, housing costs will continue to rise.

This point is not widely understood.  For example, from the article:

The principal failed policy is that building more market-rate residential density will result in adequate affordable replacement units. It hasn’t, and it won’t. Our city’s feeble inclusionary zoning program has produced only 1,000 units in the past decade because typically only 8 to 20 percent of new units are set aside as “affordable.”

The issue in DC's housing market isn't "affordable replacement units."  It's having enough supply to meet demand.  DC's population has increased by about 90,000 from 2010 to 2020--that's 15%.  And it could have increased more had there been available housing units, especially if available at a lower price.

Note that even if not enough, inclusionary zoning adds lower cost housing units to the market, over previously levels.  The problem is the overall rise in demand for housing in DC, which has led to a "precipitous" rise in pricing.  ("Precipitous rises" don't matter if you are well off.  They matter a lot if you aren't.)

10.  Zoning rules created relatively homogeneous zones of residential units, with a limited range of types of units, forcing all segments of the market towards SFH rather than a mix of single family and multiunit housing.  This narrowing of available housing types displaces segments of the market that can't afford but also don't need traditional SFH.

11.  Because until the Great Depression and the growth of the federal government, DC was a relatively small city without much of an industrial base, housing was not built to be particularly dense.  Compare housing built at the time to cities like New York and their tenements and rowhouses, or Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Boston, Montreal, etc.

Now that demand for housing is greater, DC's housing stock is small in density, relative to demand, and less able to meet demand, further leading to higher prices.

12.  Household size has decreased, increasing the number of units required to house the same number of people.  (See the concept of "overhousing" and Eric Klinenberg's book Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone.)

✷ Average household size (US), 1930: 4.11

✷ Average household size (US), 1950: 3.54

✷ Average household size (US), 2010: 2.58

✷ Average household size (DC), 1950: 3.2

✷ Average household size (DC), 2010: 2.11

Now vs. Then: renovated and rehabilitated apartment building at 2nd and T Streets NE, Eckington neighborhood, DC

13.  Because of the cost of land and the extreme difficulty of redeveloping SFH, most new housing constructed is multiunit, and located on commercially zoned land, which is easier to redevelop and can be built to a higher density.

14.  DC's Height Limit, by limiting height of (multiunit residential) buildings restricts the housing supply, increasing prices.

On wide streets buildings can be taller.  But there is no density bonus for buildings close to transit, regardless of the width of the street.

Iowa Apartment Building (condominiums now)

1325 13th Street NW (near Logan Circle)

five blocks to the Shaw or Dupont Circle Metrorail Stations

Fort Totten Square Apartments

5661 3rd Street NE (fronting Riggs Road NE)

three blocks from the Fort Totten Metrorail Station

15. Irrespective of the Height Limit, constructing housing at less than maximum allowable density decreases supply and raises prices, which is an opportunity cost (along with reduced commercial and personal property, income, and sales tax revenue to the city).

The same building was empty and dilapidated in 2007.

16.  New housing is constructed at today's cost of land, labor and materials so it is priced at the top of the market.  Only over long periods of time do "new" additions to supply put downward pressure on prices, as the housing ages and even newer and higher priced housing is constructed and added to supply.

17.  It costs more to rehabilitate "historic housing" to historic standards.  In strong markets like DC or neighborhoods like Georgetown, this increased cost comes back to the bottom line by increased property values.  In weak markets like Baltimore or Cleveland this isn't necessarily the case.

18.  Every generation or so, a house may need serious rehabilitation.  This leads to an upward repricing of housing because it has been "refreshed."  Hopefully, if done through "flipping," the rehabilitation has been executed to a high standard, frequently this isn't the case.

19.  In the rental market, because of the demand-supply mismatch, substandard housing (Class B, C and D) rents for higher prices than would prevail in a weaker market. (This phenomenon of higher prices for less well maintained housing bleeds across the DC border into Prince George's County.)

20.  New rental housing, unless subsidized, is priced at the top of the market because it is built at today's prices.  Volume constraints imposed by the Height Limit and the high cost of land, labor and materials, leads for profit housing developers to focus on the highest income segments of the market.

21.  The demand-supply mismatch also creates pressure to convert smaller and older apartment buildings and complexes to owner occupied housing, which reduces supply in the rental market, leading to increased prices and displacement.

22. Conversion of apartment buildings does extend the range of housing types available in a neighborhood, increasing the opportunity for segments of the market that can afford apartment units, but not traditional SFH units.

23.  There is a lot of talk about the "missing middle" of housing types such as "rowhouses," duplexes, carriage houses, etc.  

-- "Bring Back Missing Middle Housing," AARP
-- Missing Middle Housing website (and book)

DC does have significant amounts of this type of housing.  But because of the demand-supply imbalance, this housing is priced significantly higher than it would be in a community where the demand and supply for housing is closer to being balanced.

24.  Increasing the ability to create carriage houses/alley dwellings, English basements, and attic apartments in existing housing would increase the supply of housing, and make it easier for households to pay off expensive mortgages.  But the cost of creating this housing, in the short run--to do it legally will cost upwards of $200,000 per unit, even with zero cost for land--will add to housing supply, but it won't be "affordable housing."

(In the intermediate run, funding this housing is complicated because mortgage products haven't caught up to the phenomenon of an owned house including rental units.)

-- "Calculating the costs of building an ADU," Building an ADU website/Backyard Revolution book

25.  Current zoning allows small apartment buildings to be increased slightly in size, and rowhouses can be converted into two to three unit "flats."  High demand neighborhoods are seeing an increased number of conversions as a result.  

But the housing won't be cheap.  The acquisition cost of the property is the normal cost for a single family house, plus the cost of conversion, plus the profit percentage, carrying costs, etc.

-- "A short point about why eliminating single family zoning won't result in a rise in "affordable housing" (any time soon)," 2019

A sign in front of 3625 13th Street NW announces the conversion of this single family rowhouse into three separate units.

This four unit small apartment building has been converted into a larger four unit condominium, bythe addition of a third floor ("Two-bedroom, one-bathroom condo in D.C.'s Trinidad lists for $399,000," Washington Post).

26. A more recent phenomenon is the rise of temporary housing rental through Airbnb and other programs.  In strong markets this leads to an increase in rental prices because of the reduction of supply. The impact on the owner occupied market is probably minimal ("When Airbnb Listings in a City Increase, So Do Rent Prices," Harvard Business Review, "What Airbnb really does to a neighborhood," BBC News).

27.  Reducing the supply of public and social housing through rebuilding programs, increased demand for affordable housing, and led to higher prices.  The HUD HOPEVI program of rebuilding public housing but at the same time reducing the total number of units, reducing the size of units making it difficult to accommodate large families, and adding market rate housing to the mix in certain cases reduced the supply of low income/affordable housing, thereby increasing demand and pricing.  

Other low income housing rebuilding programs, such as Sursum Corda and DC's parallel program, New Communities, have similar effects.

This 1999 article from the Washington City Paper, "Dream City," discusses the rebuilding of the Ellen Wilson Dwellings project on Capitol Hill.  The original development had 129 units, the new development 134.  But only 33 units were set aside as affordable, a decrease of 96 units of affordable housing.

Resulting from these programs, low income housing residents have been displaced to Prince George's County, Maryland with especially deleterious effects on that community including a higher rate of murders and crimes, and bankruptcy of the community hospital ("Shouldering the Burden," Suburban Gazette Newspapers, 2003).

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I'm not being totally fair.  Yes, there is gentrification.   There is no question, using the classic definition, there is gentrification in DC.  Although again, it's a function of increased demand, and new housing construction is a function of increased demand.  

In the argot of urban sociology, neighborhoods are being "reproduced" for higher income segments of the market, as more people of higher income move into a neighborhood, attracted by its location within the center city and relative affordability.  

Neighborhood reproduction = gentrification.  

Yard signs posted in a yard on Peabody Street NW in the Brightwood neighborhood.  

Photo: Perry Stein, Washington Post

But the phenomenon is different in low income neighborhoods than it is in higher income neighborhoods.  In the latter neighborhoods, displacement isn't what's happening so much as people are choosing to cash out.

The velocity of neighborhood reproduction is accelerated through the process of the creation of "one over neighborhoods" -- aspiring homeowners prefer a high profile neighborhood, like Capitol Hill or Dupont Circle, but they can't afford it, so they move into the closest comparable nearby neighborhood that they can afford, in the process also changing that neighborhood's demographics and market for retail and other amenities, to make it more similar to the preferred neighborhood.

-- "Shaw (and Mid City East) as a one-over neighborhood: revitalization, displacement, gentrification as a function of critical mass and timing," 2013

For example, choosing H Street NE or Hill East because they can't afford a house on Capitol Hill, buying in Trinidad because they can't afford H Street NE, Columbia Heights or Shaw because they can't afford Dupont Circle, Petworth because they can't afford Columbia Heights, Brightwood because they can't afford Petworth and Manor Park because they can't afford Takoma DC, Takoma Park, Maryland or Brightwood, etc.

(The one over neighborhood concept was coined by the Live Baltimore resident recruitment program.)

In low income neighborhoods and buildings, people are displaced as the housing is rehabilitated and converted to appeal to higher income segments of the housing market.

But again, because of the significant rise in demand for center city living, prices rose significantly, and this created pressure on low income households, irrespective of the construction of new housing.

Affordability in the face of significant rising demand.  Dealing with affordability is a whole other issue and requires a suite of responses. Some the city has employed, many it has not.  But the biggest issue is that DC is comparatively small and mostly built out.  Supply is comparatively static.

DC Growth Machine update

I've written a lot about the "Growth Machine," which is a school of thought in urban sociology concerning the organization of local political and economic elites in favor of a pro-growth, real estate focused agenda.

Graphic from "Public-Private Partnership Model Used in the Taipei Central Station Project Research," Mou Chung Tseng, National Taipei University. 

Harvey Molotch's paper, "City as a Growth Machine: Toward a Political Economy of Place," published in 1976, and later expanded into the book Urban Fortunes: Towards a Political Economy of Place, serves as the foundation for this theory.

-- ""Columbus Way" merely another example of "Growth Machine/Urban Regime" theory," 2019
-- "Minneapolis growth machine," 2015
-- "If you don't know urban political theory, it's likely that you don't understand local land use: St. Louis: DC; etc.," 2012
-- "Smaller town revitalization planning: No, Thomas Friedman is not a sage," 2018

Urban Regime theory is the political science equivalent.  I think GM is better for explaining why they do what they do, and UR is best on the how. 

In the paper, "Now What? The continuing evolution of Urban Regime analysis," political science Professor Clarence Stone writes:

An urban regime can be preliminarily defined as the informal arrangements through which a locality is governed (Stone 1989). Because governance is about sustained efforts, it is important to think in agenda terms rather than about stand-alone issues. By agenda I mean the set of challenges which policy makers accord priority. A concern with agendas takes us away from focusing on short-term controversies and instead directs attention to continuing efforts and the level of weight they carry in the political life of a community. Rather than treating issues as if they are disconnected, a governance perspective calls for considering how any given issue fits into a flow of decisions and actions. This approach enlarges the scope of what is being analyzed, looking at the forest not a particular tree here or there. [emphasis added, in this paragraph and below] ...

By looking closely at the policy role of business leaders and how their position in the civic structure of a community enabled that role, he identified connections between Atlanta's governing coalition and the resources it brought to bear, and on to the scheme of cooperation that made this informal system work. In his own way, Hunter had identified the key elements in an urban regime – governing coalition, agenda, resources, and mode of cooperation. These elements could be brought into the next debate about analyzing local politics, a debate about structural determinism.

Where GM theory is particularly insightful on various elements of the land use intensification agenda, from Downtown revitalization to sports stadiums and arenas, conference centers, and in particular, the role of local media--fully dependent of the success of the local region for its own success, being dependent on advertising revenues generated primarily from sales to local businesses--in cementing this agenda.

(This paper, applying UR theory as an analytical lens for understanding an infrastructure project in Turkey is pretty interesting, "Evaluation of Urban Decisions in the Context of Urban Regime
Theory: The Case of Konya Courthouse Project," International Journal of Engineering Inventions 6:9 [2017].)

In DC, the Federal City Council is the "governing coalition" described in UR theory ("THE DISTRICT'S POWER BEHIND THE SCENES: Washington Post-connected business group wields influence over city's legislative agenda" and "The DC Lobby," The Common Denominator).

The Washington City Paper has a brief piece ("Meet the Lobbyists, Developers, and Insiders On Bowser's ReOpen DC Committees") looking at the membership on Mayor Bowser's "ReOpen DC" initiative for planning and coordinating the reopening of DC's economy in the time of pandemic.

That's a good update of the GM membership list, alongside people participating in the Federal City Council, DC Chamber of Commerce, the Washington Board of Trade, the Greater Washington Partnership, and similar organizations.

Dog Parks and Coffee Shops documentary about gentrification in DC

On one of the NextDoor lists, filmmaker and research scholar Sonya Grier invited people to view her film, "Dog Parks and Coffee Shops," which she co-produced with fellow scholar Vanessa Perry, for free this weekend on Vimeo. (I don't know if the film is always open access.)

They also wrote a journal article, "Dog Parks and Coffee Shops: Faux Diversity and Consumption in Gentrifying Neighborhoods</>," published in the Journal of Public Policy and Marketing IN 2018.

The film was produced in 2014.

Yard signs created by a resident of Peabody Street NW.  "A D.C. resident hopes these yard signs can save his neighborhood from gentrifiers," Washington Post.

It focuses on demographic changes in three DC neighborhoods: U Street/Shaw; Columbia Heights; and Petworth.

 It's an interesting and provocative take on the community changes even if I think it starts from a false premise, that (paraphrased) "DC was a majority African-American city and now it isn't."

It's true DC was majority African-American, but only since the acceleration of white flight in 1954, with the desegregation of the school system in September 1954 after the Supreme Court ruling in Brown vs. Board of Education (man, we are far from those kinds of decisions by the Supreme Court!).

Later, the 1968 riots further increased outmigration

"Dog Parks and Coffee Shops" features extended interviews with three professors: Easten Law, intercultural communications at American University; Sabiyha Prince, anthropology, independent scholar; and Gregory Squires, sociology, George Washington University; as well as residents from the neighborhoods.

I definitely want to read Dr. Price's book, African Americans and gentrification in Washington, D.C. : race, class and social justice in the nation's capital.

There are some great comments by the many residents, including one who sums up the changes as "greater diversity, but still separate" communities.

I think that's definitely true.  The issue is how does one create community with people of such differences in income, race, and class.

In my own case, I believe it comes from shared experiences and actions.

Some of the people, including Dr. Prince, talk about the way the city was when they first were here, which was around the same time I came to the city, in 1987.  Dr. Prince describes Columbia Heights as a mix of all types of people, including professionals.

But I think if there was a kind of solidarity then (and let me tell you, in more troubled areas, it was different) it was over the fact that by and large, cities had been abandoned and the only people who lived there either had no other choices or wanted to (e.g., I chose to live in the city because I didn't want to live in the suburbs).

People came together across race, class, and income boundaries through neighborhood organizing around common concerns -- drug markets and crime; development; commercial district improvement; and other issues.

Once cities became "trendy" and people became displaced as those people with more money bought property, those old community ties began to unravel as new, higher income residents had little cause to join together with "legacy" residents to fix things, as things seemed to be better and didn't need fixing (except for the schools, given that crime and murder where it is a real problem tends to be in poorer neighborhoods outside of the frame of reference of newer residents).

One of the reasons that gentrification as an area of study is complicated, at least in DC, is because it is simultaneously associated with voluntary out-migration, as many African-American middle class households have moved to the suburbs in search of the American Dream of larger properties.

That is why Prince George's County, Maryland is majority black today which has been the case since 1990, and Charles County, Maryland is moving in that direction (it's 50% white, 40% black now)--demographers joke that Charles County is becoming a suburb not of DC but of Prince George's County.

I still remember opening up the Sunday New York Times Magazine in 1992, to read the cover story on Prince George's County, "The New Black Suburbs."

Without in-migration of new, largely non-blacks, DC's population would have continued to drop, rather than increased over the past 10 years.

Another thing is that while the film focuses on the racial changes in the city, and maybe this is just 'cause I'm white, it doesn't focus enough on the reality that income and wealth is the most important element, even more than race.

Plenty of white people who chose to live in the city when it was not trendy can't afford to buy houses that cost $800,000+.

BUT ALL IN ALL, "Dog Parks and Coffee Shops" is worth 40 minutes of your time.

Past blog entries on this topic include:

-- "The nature of high value ("strong") residential real estate markets," 2017; which discusses the supergentrification thesis of Loretta Lees and the concept of "capital deepening" of David Ley
-- "Exogenous market forces impact DC's housing market," 2012
-- "Applying the supergentrification thesis to San Francisco, Santa Monica, and other cities experiencing hyper-demand," 2014
-- "More about contested spaces -- gentrification," 2008 -- this is based on writings dating to 2002
-- "Is gentrification a racial or economic class issue?," 2015
-- "So much of the writing about gentrification is worthless," 2014

Broken windows/collective efficacy: Baltimore; Newark; Grand Junction, Colorado; Pittsburgh; Albany

EE called our attention to the cover story on Baltimore, published two Sundays ago in the New York Times Magazine, "The Tragedy of Baltimore."

Baltimore.  The article was very disturbing.  The description of the post-Freddie Gray riots and the rapid rise in crime and murders in Baltimore reminded me of what it was like living in Washington, DC and specifically the H Street NE neighborhood back in the late 1980s and early 1990s when the city was faced with the scourge of crack and a rapid increase in murders--over 400 per year for many years.

Where I lived was a few blocks from Union Station and a bit more than one mile to the US Capitol and to Downtown, but by happenstance, it was also just a few blocks away from one of the city's primary open air drug markets, and in an 18-month period, there were 30 murders.

It was a terrible period for me personally.  My then wife was assaulted, we had a car stolen, our house was burglarized multiple times, and after the breakup of our marriage, I got mugged a number of times (hurt a bit but I always managed to get away and never lost anything, not my wallet not my bike).

It was living under siege.

Interesting, the article ascribes the riots, and even the death of Freddie Gray, to a number of poor decisions and choices by the police department, the State's Attorney's Office (who in advance of the arrest of Freddie Gray, asked the department to increase patrols in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood), under trained police officers and the failure of the State of Maryland to provide the police department with back up officers in the period of unrest after Gray's death and before the onset of riots a few days later.

Broken windows versus collective efficacy theory.  My primary response to the article concerned how in the past I had scorned collective efficacy theory (ironically, one of the leaders in this school is Robert Sampson, who is speaking next week at American University) in favor of "broken windows theory" and how I had been wrong and missed the point.

I believe in the concept of broken windows theory, which is that by addressing disorder -- vacant houses, crime spots, litter, abandoned cars, etc. -- communities end up being better able to manage and reduce crime.

-- "The state of "broken windows" versus "problem oriented policing" strategies in 2016: Part 1, theory and practice," 2016
-- "The state of "broken windows" versus "problem oriented policing" strategies in 2016: Part 2, what to do"
-- "Night-time safety: rethinking lighting in the context of a walking community," 2014
-- Crime prevention through environmental design and repeated burglaries at the Naylor Gardens apartment complex," 2013

The thing about the original theory is that it was also about investing in the community, but for the most part, police departments abandoned that element of the approach, and focused on what came to be called "zero tolerance policing," and the arrest of people at the merest provocation -- not having a fastened seatbelt, a broken tail light -- including rampant "stop and frisk."

The basic idea behind collective efficacy is that communities that are more organized and active, despite income and other demographics, are supposed to be better at warding off crime and disorder, without necessarily more policing, and even in low income areas.

To me, the data on this is mixed.

Which is why I was, I hate to say, derisive ("Urban Health, Nasty Cities, Broken Windows, and Community Efficacy," 2008).

But I missed the point.

Not either/or but and/and.  One of the factors acknowledged by Professor Patrick Sharkey's book discussing the decline of crime in major cities is collective efficacy ("NYU professor's book traces the decline of crime in U.S. cities since the '70s," New York Daily News).

What I failed to acknowledge is that focusing on the defense of Broken Windows wasn't the point -- and I had first hand experience from my H Street neighborhood.

Instead, I should have been considering the fact that how bad things could be, that the neighborhoods and community organizations were functioning at all was a miracle.

This is especially true for low income neighborhoods, which for a variety of reasons, have fewer resources, fewer functioning community organizations, and less of a sense of collective trust.  Also a lot more direct experience with all kinds of trauma.

The real point is that neighborhoods under siege need even more investments in community organizations, neighborhood improvement, and the like.

Likely collective efficacy surveys would find more positive results commensurate with increased investment in social infrastructure.

Newark.  Yesterday's NYT has an article ("'Newark's Original Sin' and the Criminal Justice Education of Cory Booker") on Presidential hopeful Cory Booker, now a Senator from New Jersey and formerly the Mayor of Newark.  Much of the article discusses his record on addressing crime.

While the city was successful at reducing crime and the murder rate, it was more focused on a zero tolerance policing strategy, although it was called "broken windows," and eventually the city submitted to a consent decree with the US Department of Justice over overzealous execution of policing to the point where people's civil rights were frequently violated.

Broken Windows and Collective Efficacy Theories need to marry.  Again, I believe that Broken Windows theory has been transmogrified from its origins.  Had it been paired more overtly with collective efficacy theory as a way to implement the community investment side of the equation, it would have worked better and generated less opprobrium.

Granted, police departments aren't always the best agency out there to implement community investment programs.  But there are exceptions:

-- "Los Angeles police department "Community Safety Partnership"," 2014

Grand Junction, Colorado.  The Grand Junction Sentinel has a great article ("We got our neighborhood back: Targeted areas see a drop in crime") about a targeted crime reduction effort in Mesa County.

The program focuses on places of frequent incidence of crime, and in addition to arrests provides and coordinates the provision of other resources in a Broken Windows fashion to make the changes permanent.

Pittsburgh and Albany.  Other articles on the East Liberty neighborhood in Pittsburgh ("How community-led renovation is helping a rundown Pittsburgh neighbourhood fight crime," Guardian), and the difficulty of making new investments in weak market neighborhoods ("In Albany, struggling neighborhoods face uphill battle to improve: Local couple faced many hurdles trying to build in low property value area," Albany Times-Union) provide other insights into the advantages of such approaches, but also demonstrate the difficulty of making new private sector investments in such communities, because the cost of new construction exceeds the value of existing properties.

"Columbus Way" merely another example of "Growth Machine/Urban Regime" theory

In academia, there are (at least) two competing theories of local politics. 

From sociology comes the "Growth Machine," which makes the point that despite seeming intra-elite competition, local political and economic elites are for the most part united on a pro-growth agenda focused on intensification of real estate, since local governments are dependent on property taxes (and sales taxes) for the bulk of their revenues.

Harvey Molotch's paper, City as a Growth Machine: Toward a Political Economy of Place, published in 1976, and later expanded into the book Urban Fortunes: Towards a Political Economy of Place, serves as the foundation for this theory.

Political scientists offer the theory of the "Urban Regime," which came to the fore in 1989, with the publication of Regime politics: Governing Atlanta, 1946-1988 by Clarence Stone (for a long time he was a professor at the University of Maryland). A good synthesis of the work is in the paper "The Evolution of Urban Regime Theory: The Challenge of Conceptualization by Mossberger and Stoker (2001).

I don't think these theories are competing so much as different sides of the same coin. "Growth Machine" theory is best for explaining the motivation and focus of "the land-based elite," and "Urban Regime" theory explains in detail how the land-based elite operates and functions.

In the paper, "Now What? The continuing evolution of Urban Regime analysis," Stone writes:

An urban regime can be preliminarily defined as the informal arrangements through which a locality is governed (Stone 1989). Because governance is about sustained efforts, it is important to think in agenda terms rather than about stand-alone issues. By agenda I mean the set of challenges which policy makers accord priority. A concern with agendas takes us away from focusing on short-term controversies and instead directs attention to continuing efforts and the level of weight they carry in the political life of a community. Rather than treating issues as if they are disconnected, a governance perspective calls for considering how any given issue fits into a flow of decisions and actions. This approach enlarges the scope of what is being analyzed, looking at the forest not a particular tree here or there. [emphasis added, in this paragraph and below] ...

By looking closely at the policy role of business leaders and how their position in the civic structure of a community enabled that role, he identified connections between Atlanta's governing coalition and the resources it brought to bear, and on to the scheme of cooperation that made this informal system work. In his own way, Hunter had identified the key elements in an urban regime – governing coalition, agenda, resources, and mode of cooperation. These elements could be brought into the next debate about analyzing local politics, a debate about structural determinism.

Urban Fortunes is particularly insightful on various elements of the land use intensification agenda, from Downtown revitalization to sports stadiums and arenas, conference centers, and in particular, the role of local media--fully dependent of the success of the local region for its own success, being dependent on advertising revenues generated primarily from sales to local businesses--in cementing this agenda.

The Growth Machine in Columbus, Ohio.  When looking up something about Columbus, I came across a bunch of writings about the "Columbus Way," which is touted even in a Harvard Business School case study as a unique form of public-private partnership across a community.

-- "Powerful partners," Columbus Dispatch, 2012
-- "The Columbus Way: Leaders are codifying what it means, and how it sets the city apart," Columbus Business First
-- "The Columbus Way: How much of it is Wexner's way?," CBF
-- "'Columbus Way' has benefited the city, but what about black community?," Columbus Dispatch
-- "For Columbus, public-private partnerships are key to economic development," Brookings Institution

Columbus isn't unique. Public-private interaction and transactional politics are key to economic development in every city and county in the United States.

Retail magnate Leslie Wexner (Victoria's Secret, etc.) has made large donations to Ohio State University's Medical Center, which has been named in his honor.  

Columbus is merely one more example of Growth Machine and Urban Regime theories.

And what articles have touted as the unique element of CEO Leslie Wexner broadening participation in the coalition could merely be thought of as a maturation and expansion of the local growth coalition in the face of changes in business conditions and the place of Columbus in the state economy.

The local coalition of public and private interests exists pretty much everywhere.  It's not any different from what happens in:

• DC with the Federal City Council ("THE DISTRICT'S POWER BEHIND THE SCENES: Washington Post-connected business group wields influence over city's legislative agenda" and "The DC Lobby," The Common Denominator)
• Greensboro, NC ("Better leveraging higher education institutions in cities and counties: Greensboro; Spokane; Mesa; Phoenix; Montgomery County, Maryland; Washington, DC," 2016)
• Lancaster, PA ("Smaller town revitalization planning: No, Thomas Friedman is not a sage," 2018)
• St. Louis ("If you don't know urban political theory, it's likely that you don't understand local land use: St. Louis: DC; etc.," 2012)
• Richmond ("Who rules in Richmond?" 2005)
• Detroit, where the Kresge Foundation brought organizations together to save the art collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts from being sold off as a part of the city's bankruptcy ("Foundations Commit $330 Million to Protect DIA Collection," Philanthropy News Digest)
• New York City--think the Partnership for New York City, created at the behest of David Rockefeller, now deceased, but at the time leader of the Chase Manhattan Bank
• or anywhere else.

OSU's commitment to redevelopment of the adjacent High Street district, now called Campus Partners, is an early example of university real estate development focused on enhancing an area outside of a college campus.

Learning from Columbus (and everywhere else).  That doesn't mean that the Columbus case isn't worth writing about or analyzing, and learning from specifics to add to our understanding of the phenomenon.

For example, a key advantage a city like Columbus Ohio has is the remaining presence of corporate firms and long standing foundations that still have the money to spend on social and economic ventures, whereas in many other cities, over time, that grouping has diminished as corporations consolidate, go out of business, or relocate.

Or, a downside that DC has is a relative lack of locally-based wealth because the industry here is government.  And that these days, the wealthy would rather do their own thing ("Writing Off the Warhol Next Door" and "Glenstone, a Private Art Xanadu, Invests $200 Million in a Public Vision," New York Times), buy sports teams, or fund projects at national institutions ("David Rubenstein," Chronicle of Philanthropy) rather than create and fund local initiatives.

Or how in Baltimore, even as the local business community gets hollowed out, long time foundations like Abell (created by the family that owned the Baltimore Sun), Casey, or Weinberg (real estate) still fund local projects in significant ways.