Women's History Month and urban planning

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This is a reprint from 2020.  For the most part, links have not been checked.

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March is Women's History Month and Sunday March 8th is International Women's Day 2020.

Women as planners and architects. From the standpoint of labor within the urban planning profession, on the land use planning side women make up a larger and larger proportion of the planning workforce, although directorships of government planning agencies tend to be dominated by men.

-- "Jane Jacobs and the Power of Women Planners," CityLab

Although maybe the DC area is an exception given that plenty of articles opine about the need for more women in the profession ("Urban Planning Needs More Women," Rooflines).

There are major exceptions, for example Jennifer Keesmaat was the planning director for the City of Toronto, Ellen McCarthy and Harriet Tregoning were directors of planning in DC, and Amanda Burden was the Planning Commissioner for the City of New York ("Social Planner," New York Magazine) while Janette Sadik-Khan was the Transportation Commissioner.  Sadik-Khan was succeeded by Polly Trachtenberg.

The transportation profession tends to be dominated by men still, as it is heavily engineering based, but that is changing too. 

Increasingly, women are being chosen as transportation directors leading city agencies, for example in Pittsburgh, DC's former associate director of transportation planning, Karina Ricks, leads that agency.  Philadelphia, Portland, and New York City among others.

There aren't too many women running the largest transit agencies, although plenty of women are in high positions in those agencies, and hold positions across the profession.  

Southern California's Metrolink has appointed a woman as CEO ("Metrolink Board Names Stephanie Wiggins as Chief Executive Officer").  The interim director of NYC Subways is Sarah Feinberg.  A woman briefly headed up Sound Transit in Seattle.

In the face of many prominent women, the architecture profession remains dominated by men ("Challenged to change their industries' faces," Daily Journal of Commerce; "Where are the women in architecture?," Austin American-Statesman).  The landscape architecture field has plenty of women practitioners.   

However, according to the AIA, now 50% of students in architecture programs are women, and the organization is now sponsoring an annual Women's Leadership Summit, which this year is in June in Miami.

One of the special interest sections of the American Planning Association is Planning and Women and the Women's Transportation Seminar is a professional development organization for women working in the transportation field.

Women and the history of the planning profession.  One of the strands from which the planning profession in the US was birthed was out of women-initiated "good government" and "good places" initiatives in a time when women still didn't have the right to vote.

(2020 is the 100th anniversary of Women's Suffrage winning the right to vote in the US, which was realized through the passage of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution.)

Women's civic and garden clubs were major actors in local civic affairs, including urban design (as beautification sometimes) until the 1960s at least.

Land use planning and architecture.  Some argue that the principles of land use planning are designed to favor men ("If women built cities, what would our urban landscape look like," Guardian).  From the article:

In a classic 1980 essay called What Would a Non-sexist City Be Like?, the American urbanist Dolores Hayden called for centres that would “transcend traditional definitions of home, neighbourhood, city and workplace”. Since then, others have taken up the argument that a woman-friendly city would be more porous, the divisions between home and work less rigid, so that domestic work is acknowledged as a productive activity, and carers (of children, disabled relatives and older people) are less excluded from economic life. In any case, such divisions are often artificial, with women in developing-world cities undertaking economic activity that has too often been ignored.

-- "Female-Friendly Cities: Rethinking the Patriarchy of Urban Planning," Ms. Magazine
-- "Women's Place: Urban Planning, Housing Design, and WorkFamily Balance," Fordham Law Review
-- "Women in the Urban Environment," Signs Vol. 5, No. 3, Supplement. Women and the American City (Spring, 1980), pp. S188-S214

The presence of women as an indicator of safety in the public space.  For years I have been strongly influenced by points made in writings about safety in public spaces and how the number of women out and about can be seen as an indicator of success or failure.  John King, urban design writer for the San Francisco Chronicle wrote about this ("Great architecture, clean streets, culture -- it must be Minneapolis") in discussing Minneapolis as an example of his ten principles about how to make cities great:

Women know best. The first night in Minneapolis, I dined at Cafe Brenda on walleye and wild rice, which, with blueberry muffins, constitute the trifecta of local cuisine. A stroll past sleepy blocks of warehouses evolving from red-light district to residential neighborhood led me to the banks of the Mississippi. Walking along grassy parkland toward the Falls of St. Anthony, I had the place to myself -- except for one woman jogging casually past me toward the horizon.

When a city feels safe enough that a woman jogs along, alone, at dusk ... somebody is doing something right."

The presence of women as an indicator of what works and what doesn't in managing public spaces ha been discussed over the years in various writings on New York City's Bryant Park.

Keith Bedford for The New York Times. A man and a woman: Minding the gender gap in Bryant Park.

From the 2005 New York Times article "Splendor in the Grass":

It was lunchtime at Bryant Park, and thousands of office workers were gathered beneath the emerald veil of trees. Ever since the park was renovated 13 years ago, it has been a remarkable space, and one of its most remarkable aspects is that the number of men and women is about equal, a balance that is carefully monitored as a barometer of the park's health. In 1980, when the space was rife with drug dealers and other scurrilous sorts, the ratio of men to women was about 9 to 1, said Dan Biederman, president of the Bryant Park Restoration Corporation.

But when the park reopened in 1992, the comfort level of women was seen as key to its resurgence, which is why the park's designers paid special attention to accouterments that appeal to women, like bathrooms with full-length mirrors, kiosk food and flowerbeds.

These days, the male-to-female ratio is just about even. And with this balance comes the possibility of triangulation, which Mr. Biederman defines with scientific precision as the tendency of an external stimulus to prompt strangers to interact. "If there's enough triangulation from things in the park," he said, "then people who don't know each other will break down and talk to each other."

Transit, women and safety.  Around the world women are harassed, even killed, in transit, India being particularly notorious.  In a number of places, women-only taxi services have been created to provide safe transit.

For example, SheTaxis, a women-focused taxi service in Greater New York City, modeled after the service in Mexico City ("Mexico launches fleet of pink cabs - driven by women, for women," New York Daily News) which was launched in 2009, launched in 2014 ("New Service Offers Taxis Exclusively for Women," New York Times).

But overall in the US, such services haven't fared too well.

SeeJaneGo, a ride hailing service catering to women, operating in Orange County, California, shuttered in 2018 ("See Jane Go, a ride-hailing service for women, by women, says farewell," Orange County Register).

In response to public safety issues, Mexico City has dedicated cars on its subway system for women although similar cars in Beijing don't seem to be working too well ("China's Women-Only Subway Cars, Where Men Rush In," New York Times), although such cars have existed in Tokyo since 1912 ("I used the women-only train carriages in Tokyo, for good reason – and I'd welcome them in the UK too," Independent).

Professor Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris of UCLA has authored a number of papers on bus stop safety. Many transit agencies have introduced anti-harassment programs.

-- Hollaback! is an organization that addresses street harassment issues
-- Hot Spots of Bus Stop Crime, Prof. Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, UCLA
-- Geography of Transit Crime, Loukaitou-Sideris et al., UCLA
-- Transit Security: A Description of Problems and Countermeasures, FTA

Restroom equity.  One long standing issue is restroom access.  Women tend to take longer to use restroom facilities (men can stand for some of their needs, taking less space, while women need stalls), but in public buildings like sports facilities, train stations, airports, and convention centers, more restroom facilities for women tend to not be provided.  Some cities and states have been changing laws to address this ("'Potty Parity': Equal Wait Time for Men's and Women's Restrooms," Time Magazine).

Cover image: Wheels of Change: How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom (With a Few Flat Tires Along the Way), by Sue Macy.

Women and bicycling.  There are many initiatives around promoting bicycle use by women.  One of the earliest was by the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals (Women Cycling Project).   Now many local and state bicycle and alternative transportation organizations have women access initiatives.

The Race Pace chain of bicycle shops in Greater Baltimore has had for many years a sub-store called Bella Bikes dedicated to women's cycling, within their Ellicott City location.   More bike shops are adding this kind of offering.

Women and political power. While there is no doubt that men are a majority of the holders of elected office at all levels across the United States ("Why Does the US Still Have So Few Women in Office?," The Nation), increasingly, women are winning elections for mayor in cities around the country.  DC's Muriel Bowser is one such example, but there are many others, including Houston, Salt Lake City, and in 2017, Seattle and Montreal.  More and more women are being elected to City Councils, etc.

Post the Trump victory, many more women are running for political office at all levels ("A year after the Women's March, a record number of women are running for office, will they win?," Washington Post; "More Than Twice As Many Women Are Running For Congress In 2018 Compared With 2016," NPR).

And a signpost of this movement was the midterm national election, where a great number of women of a diversity of race and politics were elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, although generally this was more a case of Democratic Party members over Republicans ("Banner Year for Female Candidates Doesn't Extend to Republican Party," New York Times).

Gender budgeting.  In 2017, the Economist ran a provocative editorial, "Why governments should introduce gender budgeting," building on an earlier article, "Why national budgets need to take gender into account."

From the editorial:

At its simplest, gender budgeting sets out to quantify how policies affect women and men differently (see article). That seemingly trivial step converts exhortation about treating women fairly into the coin of government: costs and benefits, and investments and returns. You don’t have to be a feminist to recognise, as Austria did, that the numbers show how lowering income tax on second earners will encourage women to join the labour force, boosting growth and tax revenues. Or that cuts to programmes designed to reduce domestic violence would be a false economy, because they would cost so much in medical treatment and lost workdays.

As well as identifying opportunities and errors, gender budgeting brings women’s issues right to the heart of government, the ministry of finance. Governments routinely bat away sensible policies that lack a champion when the money is handed out. But if judgments about what makes sense for women (and the general good) are being formed within the finance ministry itself, then the battle is half-won.

By not looking at the differential impacts of policy in terms of gender, bias is structured into outcomes.

-- "This Is What a Feminist Country Looks Like," New York Times
-- A Feminist Government, Government of Sweden

Our federal deficit needs a dose of reality

This is actually a letter to the editor published in the Toronto Star.  But it makes the argument that many of us have.  The budget deficit is primarily a function of tax cuts.  The recent vote by the House of Representatives extends Trump tax cuts which will lead to massive budget cuts in areas where people really need the services currently provided ("House Passes G.O.P. Budget Teeing Up Enormous Tax and Spending Cuts," New York Times).  From the NYT:

The House on Tuesday narrowly passed a Republican budget resolution that calls for $4.5 trillion in tax cuts and a $2 trillion reduction in federal spending over a decade, clearing the way for major elements of President Trump’s domestic agenda.

The nearly party-line vote of 217 to 215 teed up a bitter fight within the G.O.P. over which federal programs to slash to partially finance a huge tax cut that would provide its biggest benefits to rich Americans.

The blueprint sets the contours for the legislation that House Republicans will now turn to writing. It puts a $4.5 trillion upper limit on the size of any tax cuts over the next 10 years, but does not dictate which taxes should be reduced, a complex and politically tricky question of its own that could take months to sort out.

It also calls for slashing $2 trillion in spending over the same period, without specifying which programs should be cut, though top Republicans have targeted Medicaid and food aid programs for poor Americans. And it directs increases of about $300 billion for border enforcement and defense programs, alongside a $4 trillion increase in the debt limit.

The letter

The government should implement a moratorium on any and all tax cuts. They are economically senseless and politically expedient. The budget deficit issues we have are never going to be solved with tax cuts. That’s all we have done for a long time and deficits have only increased. It’s a bad habit politicians have normalized and they know it. A moratorium on tax cuts in a healthy economy would increase government revenue as the economy grows and expands. To supplement the increase in government revenues — taxes on the rich should be increased moderately. Why some will ask? Because they can afford it and it will not change their lot in life. They will still be rich. They have been the main beneficiaries of past tax cuts which only increased our deficits. 

-- Tom Colson, Toronto

This is also an issue in Utah.  The Republican Legislature may be the most in lock step with Trump of any of the legislatures in the U.S.  E.g., looks like they're going to make adding fluoride to the water illegal ("Utah close to fully banning fluoride in water, stripping cities’ ability to decide," CNN), the Governor is big on supporting immigration crackdowns, the Legislature is cutting the higher education budget some, to focus on degrees that are all about getting jobs, etc. 

The state is growing.  And growing places need more investment in infrastructure, not less.  But the Legislature is focused on tax cuts ("Utah Legislature poised to cut taxes for 5th year in a row," Utah News Dispatch)..  So much for funding education and other priorities.

People aren't "hanging out" as much outdoors during the workday in the center city

The Financial Times, "Is it the end for hanging out?," reminds me that I meant to write about this when it was first reported, in "What happened to hanging out on the street?" in Bloomberg.  Researchers replicated the studies of William H. Whyte ("‘American Urbanist’ Review: Standing Out of the Crowd With William H. Whyte," Wall Street Journal), which formed the basis of the book, The Social Life of Urban Spaces, and the larger version, The City, which is a classic in urban design.  

Unhospitable space.

From the article:

Are city streets places for pedestrians to hang out, or are they routes to be traversed as quickly as possible? Americans are increasingly treating them as the latter rather than the former.

That is the striking implication of a recent interdisciplinary study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Applying modern artificial intelligence techniques to old video footage, the researchers compared pedestrian activity in 1980 and 2010 across prominent locations in Boston, New York City and Philadelphia. Their unsettling conclusion: American ambulators walked faster and schmoozed less than they used to. They seemed to be having fewer of the informal encounters that undergird civil society and strengthen urban economies.

... The researchers found a consistent evolution across all four locations. At each site, pedestrians walked faster in 2010 than they had in 1980, by an average of 15%. Time spent lingering in public spaces declined by roughly half, and fewer people were forming groups. In general, walkers appeared more atomized and rushed in 2010 than they had a generation before.

I e-talked with Anne Lusk about this, she is a researcher at Harvard School of Public Health, and wrote her dissertation on the community aspects of multi-use trails.

New picnic tables at the North Plaza of the Vancouver Art Gallery

I think the authors of the study, deep in "machine learning" and such, miss the point.  "Hanging out" is the dependent variable, while "flexibility with your time during the workday" is the independent variable.

People hang out less because they have more regimented work schedules, shorter lunch breaks, must be seen in the office, etc.

Furthermore, at least the suburban segment of workers, tends to be less familiar with their surroundings in the center city, mostly only between the garage if they drive or the transit station if they take transit, and their office destination.

Plus, as the FT article makes a point of more, while there has been an explosion of high quality public spaces downtown, there are lots of crappy ones still, making it less convivial to "hang out."

And yes, homelessness takeovers of park and other public spaces contributes negatively too.

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Also see:

-- "Extending the "Signature Streets" concept to "Signature Streets and Spaces," (2020, originally 2015)
-- "The layering effect: how the building blocks of an integrated public realm set the stage for community building and Silver Spring, Maryland as an example," (2012)

And the recent piece:

-- "An interesting public space development project in Downtown Pittsburgh: extends the range of after-work activities to keep office workers engaged"

"... road redesigns are always going to be controversial and challenging in an urban landscape designed for, but now overwhelmed by, cars"

From the Los Angeles Times article, "Culver City, don’t roll back your ambitious safe street redesign" which describes how a more conservative city government is considering rolling back an especially successful road diet-sustainable mobility balancing effort that has supported denser housing development, more users of transit, bicycling and walking, with minimal discomfort for motor vehicle operators of a two minute longer trip in the evening.

The project, called Move Culver City, was a 1.3 mile pilot project, quickly built for relatively low cost with paint, removable planters and plastic bollards. The goal was to test the theory that if people are given quality transportation choices, they will use them.

A review of the project after a year found an 18% increase in people walking and 32% more people biking through the area. At the intersection of Culver Boulevard and Main Street, the number of bikes counted. nearly doubled. Bus travel became faster and ridership increased more on the corridor compared to citywide. People said they were biking, walking and taking transit more often in the area, according to the review. They felt safer, more comfortable and noticed fewer speeding cars.

The MOVE Culver City initiative reconfigures traffic lanes downtown. (Citizens of the Planet / UCG / Universal Images Group) 

As for traffic? It moved faster in the morning hours, and in the evening it took drivers about two minutes longer to pass through the area. Two minutes. That’s a minor inconvenience. It certainly seems like a fair trade off to make the corridor safer and more convenient for alternative modes of transportation — which was the purpose of the project.

The city couldn’t widen any more streets (and that doesn’t solve traffic anyway) or build more single-family subdivisions. City officials decided to create a denser, transit-friendly, walkable, bikeable center that would allow more people to live in the city and give commuters more options to get to their jobs. The vast majority of Culver City is still car-centric, but this small section shows how urban Los Angeles can build more affordable, equitable and environmentally responsible communities.

Yet even the modest encroachment of Move Culver City may be too much for opponents of the project, who seem particularly offended by the bus lane. There is a proposal to add back a car lane and make buses and bicyclists share a lane, which would dissuade all but the most confident cyclists and slow the buses, thus making alternative modes of transportation a lot less appealing. And for what? So some drivers can get to their destination two minutes faster.

Also see "Cars don’t have to rule Culver City, or the future of L.A. transit," LAT. Interestingly, the local high school newspaper gets it even if elected officials and automobile dependent folks do not, "MOVE Culver City: Rethinking Urban Mobility in the Heart of Screenland," Culver City High Centaurian.

US Department of Transportation backs down on sustainable mobility/Complete Streets programming.  Meanwhile, the US DOT has removed its webpage on Complete Streets principles ("‘Complete Streets’ Webpage Falls Prey To Trump Purge," Streetsblog).  Note my Signature Streets concept is more expansive ("Extending the "Signature Streets" concept to "Signature Streets and Spaces"," 2020).

-- Complete Streets webpage, US DOT, via archive.org

It's not the end of the world.  It's still accessible, and there are plenty of other resources around the web, including guidebooks from NACTO:

-- Urban Design Guide, web version, book purchase
-- Urban Bikeway Design Guide
-- Transit Street Design Guide

And it should be no surprise because Trump and his Republican agenda is backwards looking, favoring the automobile.  But it does indicate the agency, at least under Trump, will be moving back towards privileging the automobile.

And in Utah, in yet another example of state government preemption of local control ("Red-state Republicans are dogpiling on blue cities," Washington Post), State Senator Wayne Harper, who doesn't represent Salt Lake City, is moving a bill to put a one year moratorium on Salt Lake City's livable streets-sustainable mobility initiatives "so they can be studied" ("Salt Lake City’s plans to build safer streets may hit a dead end — at least for a while," Salt Lake Tribune).

Salt Lake is a leading innovator in traffic calming, bike lanes, trails, and sustainable mobility initiatives, although I think they could do even more.  And, umm, such interventions are already studied before being implemented.  From the article:

A late addition to transportation-focused SB195 calls for a roughly yearlong moratorium on new road projects that aim to reduce or slow down traffic on streets in Utah’s capital. The bill, introduced by Sen. Wayne Harper, R-Taylorsville, passed the GOP-dominated Senate on Thursday along party lines, 19-6, with six Democrats opposing the measure.

The moratorium would run from May 2025 to March 2026 as state transportation officials study all the traffic-calming projects the city had implemented or planned to build from July 2015 to July 2035.

Republicans have a supermajority in the Legislature and zero compunction against preemption of local governance, so it's a slam dunk the law will pass.

Planning and building for the city you want to be versus planning for the past.  I guess we'll see how oriented UDOT is to sustainable mobility. My experience is that they are pretty good, with Trax and bus transit, and the MoveUtah initiative among others.  But still it wastes a year.  And maybe UDOT will buckle.

When I was reading the SLT article, I was thinking, "Salt Lake City is planning and implementing urban design measures for the city it wants to be," while legislators like Pearson must be totally in thrall to the reality of the Salt Lake Valley's sprawl paradigm.

The same thing goes for Culver City, do you plan for the future, or for the past?

Freeway widening versus congestion pricing.  Also see "Widening Highways Doesn’t Fix Traffic. Here’s What Can," Scientific American.

Interstate 45 is getting a $13-billion makeover in Houston. The project aims to reduce congestion by adding new lanes—a common story for the many highway expansions that are constantly happening across the U.S. In nearby Austin, Tex., I-35 is being widened as part of a $4.5-billion project, for example, and near Sacramento, Calif., an expansion of I-80 for close to $500 million is underway. A planned project that involves a major expansion of the New Jersey Turnpike will cost $10.7 billion.

Despite the massive price tags, these projects likely won’t reduce congestion for long. That’s because of a phenomenon that transportation researchers call induced demand: in areas with a lot of pent-up demand for driving, any new capacity from added lanes gets filled up quickly.

Photo: Art Wager, Getty Images.

 After a widening project, “congestion gets better for a little bit..., and then we’re back to where we were. And then somebody says, ‘Oh, we’ve got to widen again,’” says Susan Handy, a transportation engineer at the University of California, Davis. “So how far is it going to go?”

... Widening roads has been the go-to strategy for reducing congestion for at least a century, Handy says. It sounds logical and intuitive: if you have a limited supply of something in high demand, such as the ability to drive on a particular stretch of road, increasing the supply by adding new lanes should make that experience available to more people.

But increasing the supply of something also drops its cost—which can encourage more people to take advantage of it. More supply sometimes induces demand, or at least it allows more of any pent-up demand to be expressed. “Adding capacity makes driving cheaper from the standpoint of travel time and inconvenience and annoyance,” Handy says. More people might opt to drive on the road involved, which can eventually cause congestion to rebound. 

Fortunately for people stuck in traffic today, congestion pricing programs are short-term solutions that work like “escape valves” on congestion, and they’re being implemented across the country. Unlike widening, which decreases the cost of driving and thus causes demand to rebound, congestion pricing regulates the cost of driving in a particular area or lane to tamp down on traffic, Burris explains. Some, such as the program recently rolled out in New York City, include tolls for entering a certain high-volume area. London, Stockholm and Oslo also have similar programs.

Trump says no to congestion pricing.  While they are likely to lose, the Trump Administration aims to cancel New York City's recently introduced congestion zone toll ("Trump Wants Congestion Pricing Dead by March 21. New York Won’t Budge," New York Times).  Which only after a month, is successful in reducing traffic and raising money to be used for transportation improvements.

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Disclosure: Sugar House Park was in the process of working with City DOT to convert the right most lane of 2100 South abutting the park with an extended sidewalk and bike lane.  We'll get to do it.  But now it won't likely be realized until after 2030, and I term off the board in 2030.

Current condition (I want to plant the median too.)

Median strip sunflower plantings, Guardsman Drive, Salt Lake City

900 East abutting Fairmont Park

Extension of the 9-Line Trail, 900 South, abutting Liberty Park

I also want to do a special intersection treatment at one of the street crossings

Broad Museum, Los Angeles, Public art crosswalk by Carlos Cruz-Diez

And plant-related improvements to bus shelters (currently there aren't shelters, just stops)

A sad day for the Washington Post and Washington DC

As Jeff Bezos, owner of Amazon and of the Washington Post, announces the op-ed pages will shift to coverage on "freedom of markets" and "personal liberties"   ("Post owner Bezos announces shift in opinions section," Post, "Washington Post opinion editor departs as Bezos pushes to promote ‘personal liberties and free markets’," Guardian).

While I think it'll likely be "Wall Street Journal-lite"), it is a sad diminishment of the range of opinions offered by the paper.  It's not like I can read George Will or his politically leaning colleagues because of their arguments, but I never minded that they took up space on the pages.

With all the talk about disinformation and misinformation and the need for reliable sources of information, it's sad that the Post is throwing in with this dis- and mis-informatives, as an under-information or incomplete-information provider.  

It's not that you can't write about personal liberties and freedom of markets.  But you're telling an incomplete story if you avoid discussion of real discrimination, minoritarian rule, etc., as well as the need for regulation of markets to reduce the chance for overreach and economic collapse.

It's a long way from what the Graham Family thought were the strengths of Bezos digital knowledge in a future that was and is very uncertain for newspapers ("A Newspaper, and a Legacy, Reordered," New York Times).

From the Washington Post article, "The sale of The Washington Post: How the unthinkable choice became the clear path:"

Washington Post publisher Katharine Weymouth presented her uncle, company chief executive Donald E. Graham, with a once-unthinkable choice at a lunch meeting at downtown Washington's Bombay Club late last year. The paper was facing the like­lihood of a seventh straight year of declines in revenue, with one preliminary budget estimate showing the possibility of $40 million in losses for 2013. And despite years of heavy investment in new digital offerings, there was little sign that robust profits were about to return, she reported.

That left three choices, Weymouth told Graham. The family could continue presiding over the gradual decline of the newspaper they loved. They could move more aggressively to cut the paper’s staff more deeply than ever, hoping that they could return The Post to sustained profitability by sacrificing its longtime excellence.

Or they could sell, cutting ties to one of America’s iconic news organizations after four generations of family control in the hopes that The Post could thrive again under a new, deep-pocketed, civic-minded owner.

... Several factors allowed the deal to come together with relative speed. They included a long-standing friendship between Bezos and Graham, 68, an executive steeped in traditional newspaper publishing who had become a respected elder for a newer generation of tech magnates. Bezos was among the most successful of those, and the two men had on several occasions traded insights on their businesses.

“The Post is his baby,” Weymouth said of Graham. “He was not going to give his baby to anybody who he thought would not care for it properly.”

Looks like the baby got sold to a serial killer ("Post endorsement controversy sparks staff resignations, protests ," The Hill).

Then again, significant change was predicted, it just took 11 years to see how bad it could be ("No Change? Jeff Bezos Will Turn the Washington Post Upside Down," MediaShift).  First on the list, although actually much later:

So what can we expect to change within the next five years and why? Here are some reasonable assumptions:

The editorial policies, the coverage and the content will reflect the interests and ideologies of the owner. For the U.S. government’s hometown newspaper, that’s something to really be aware of.

WTF? Detroit News op-ed: Ease building secondary dwellings in Detroit | Is no solution to lack of housing demand

Before my life disintegrated with the death of my father, the middle house is where we lived in Detroit.  Our Congresswoman lived down the street.  The Zillow estimate is $242,000.

The op-ed ("Ease building secondary dwellings in Detroit," Detroit News) argues that the solution to Detroit's broken micro-economy is making it easier to build accessory dwelling units.  He suggests lowering permit fees, among other steps.

ADUs can pull double duty for the city. They build generational wealth for Detroiters, while supporting housing affordability. It’s a simple amendment that does not upend the general plan of the city and frees citizens to utilize their properties how they please. It’s time to start building back a city meant for everyone, not just the few who can afford it.

This is misguided.  Detroit has tens of thousands of vacant properties and lots ("Detroit Shrinks Itself, Historic Homes and All," Wall Street Journal, 2010).  From the article:

Mayor Dave Bing has pledged to knock down 10,000 structures in his first term as part of a nascent plan to "right-size" Detroit, or reconfigure the city to reflect its shrinking population. When it's all over, said Karla Henderson, director of the Detroit Building Department, 

This house, in the upscale Palmer Woods neighborhood, was demolished but looks recoverable to me.

"There's going to be a lot of empty space." Mr. Bing hasn't yet fully articulated his ultimate vision for what comes after demolition, but he has said entire areas will have to be rebuilt from the ground up. For now, his plan calls for the tracts to be converted to other uses, such as parks or farms.

Even when the demolitions are complete, Detroit will still have a huge problem on its hands. The city has roughly 90,000 abandoned or vacant homes and residential lots, according to Data Driven Detroit, a nonprofit that tracks demographic data for the city.

... "Neighborhoods that are considered stable are now at 20% vacancy," said Deborah Younger, a development consultant involved in the demolition effort.

Making ADUs a little easier to build isn't the answer to an "over supply" of recovarable properties.

At a conference a number of years ago, Alan Mallach and I had a conversation where we expressed incredulity that advocates in Baltimore were advocating for inclusionary zoning, when the city has thousands of vacant properties.  The same goes with ADUs in Detroit.

This op-ed discusses "gentrification."  Yes, some neighborhoods will experience inward investment and this brings sometimes unwanted change.  But the solution to disinvestment is investment, and that's part of the equation of gentrification.

Detroit has tens of thousands of vacant properties and lots.  It is in desperate need of increased demand for housing.  

In the meantime the city demolishes hundreds of buildings each year because of lack of demand ("City of Detroit demolished 6000 homes since 2020," CBS, Detroit Demolition Program, "Detroiters spent $49M on demolition. Where did the money go?," BridgeDetroit).  

The City of Detroit has spent more than $10 million demolishing blighted homes in District 7 on the city’s west side. Some residents say they are glad to see vacant properties being torn down, while others wonder how the money is being spent. (BridgeDetroit photo by Bryce Huffman)

Looking at images of distressed homes in Detroit is particularly depressing.  From the article:

2023 was as a special year for Detroit. For the first time in decades the city gained 1,852 new residents, reflecting a city finally out of its rut and ready to prosper again. True to Detroit’s commitment, property values across the city increased.

On paper, this seems like nothing but fantastic news, but if you ask Detroiters, they tell a different story of gentrification. Gentrification is a process where less wealthy neighborhoods have money invested into them. This can be advantageous for only those who can afford it. With rising property values come higher property taxes. High taxes can be a factor that pushes original residents out of the area, and it’s no secret that many Detroit neighborhoods are ripe for gentrification. 

The article argues that zoning is used to maintain segregation, although rather than term it race based, it expands the definition economically, according to income and the cost of a property.

Detroit, for example, still supports civil-rights era zoning codes that actively enforce segregation based on income. This is slyly done under the guise of mandating setback lines and density maximums to force builders into only one type of development: single-family homes. 

The article suggests that ADUs can help bring about affordability.  Detroit has decades of affordability ahead because of lack of demand and a huge overage of potential housing supply.

A single-family home is not a vice within itself, it is the overabundance and lack of affordable units that artificially spikes housing prices, leaving those less fortunate in the dust. This is not what Detroit needs.

Besides Detroit having lots of small lots, making it a bit harder for ADUs to have space, the reality is that they aren't "that cheap" to build.  Yes, you don't have to pay for land, but you do have to pay for utility hookups including sewer, water, and electricity, and that can be expensive.  A $300,000 or more new to build ADU is a lot more expensive than it is to renovate a $25,000 house.

Plus, in a weak market like Detroit an ADU is harder to finance.  Since it's possible in Detroit to buy and renovate houses for much less than $300,000, an ADU isn't likely to appraise at the cost of construction for a mortgage loan, because it is higher priced than the market.  So ADU builders will have to self-finance.

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By contrast, in Pittsburgh, Robert Fragasso recommends another course ("What the city of Pittsburgh can do with abandoned houses," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette).  It's nothing new, been done by cities over the decades.  But renovation is better than demolition.

Pittsburgh has 10,000 abandoned houses and empty lots, of which 1300 have reported code violations, and restoring these properties to the tax rolls would go far in helping to balance the city and school district budgets. Using the average city property tax of $2500 on those 10,000 properties, adding $25 million in new revenues.

Our political leaders seek governmental solutions to this problem, solutions the city cannot afford, when the private sector offers a potential answer. Here’s my proposal: Instead of expending scarce public funds for demolition and leaving empty lots behind, allow individuals to buy properties for $1 in return for a signed contract to demolish or gut the structure within 60 days (unless it can be successfully rehabbed), build a new residence within 12 months and agree to owner-occupy.

... Once renovation begins in a neighborhood more follows. We have seen this in areas that have been restored.

There is a conundrum.  If you offer such properties to lower income households out of the goal of equity, they may lack the capital necessary to fix the house in 12 months.  OTOH, if you focus on developers, the houses end up being rentals, disallowing individual homeowners the opportunity to build equity.

Note the math compared to an ADU.

The math for the buyer is compelling. The cost of home construction in Pittsburgh begins at around $150 per square foot. Remember the land was obtained in the original $1 transaction. The median home size in Pittsburgh is 1500 square feet, which equates to a construction cost of $225,000. /p>

If the buyer can do some of the work, the resultant cost could be less. That total cost would be much less if the existing structure could remain, be gutted and rebuilt from the inside out. Add $10,000 for demolition or gutting of the structure and the upward estimate of total construction would be $235,000. That is about the average cost of an existing home in Pittsburgh, but this would be a new home.

In Detroit, the cost of demolition is about $20,000.

February is African-American History Month: Urban planning history -- the attempt to make Roxbury a separate city from Boston

I was surprised to come across a Boston Globe article ("Roxbury, Mattapan, and parts of Jamaica Plain could have become a separate Black majority city. Here’s what happened") on a de-annexation proposal for Boston, where the predominately Black areas would create their own city called Mandela.  

Also see 

-- "Separatist City’: The Mandela, Massachusetts (Roxbury) Movement and the Politics of Incorporation, Self-Determination, and Community Control, 1986–1988," Trotter Review
-- "Africa in Boston: A Critical Analysis of Mandela, Massachusetts," libcom
-- "Black neighborhoods becoming Black cities: Group empowerment, local control and the implications of being darker than brown," Harvard Civil Rights- Civil Liberties Law Review, 1988

Greater Atlanta. More recently, in Greater Atlanta, there has been a "create your own city" movement to separate blacks and whites, by selectively incorporating county lands ("The Incorporation of New Cities Has Increased Racial Segregation in Metro Atlanta," JCHS, "Suburbs, Inc.: Exploring Municipal Incorporation as a Mechanism of Racial and Economic Exclusion in Suburban Communities," Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences).  This continues with a proposal to calve off the Buckhead District ("Georgia senators reject Buckhead efforts to leave Atlanta," AP).  

Schools.  Similarly, in Shelby County, Tennessee, which created a consolidated city-county school district, white residents began breaking off and creating their own school districts ("Merger of Memphis and County School Districts Revives Race and Class Challenges," New York Times, "Back to the future: A new school district secession movement is gaining steam," Washington Post).

Mandela versus electing Black leaders.  While the Roxbury initiative was voted on, twice, it didn't pass ("Separatist City of ‘Mandela’ : Boston Voting on Proposal to Let Black Areas Secede," Los Angeles Times).  From the Globe article:

The Mandela referendum was defeated overwhelmingly that year and lost again at the polls two years later. Yet the underlying idea behind the movement — to place decision-making power and resources in the Black community’s own hands — survives nearly 40 years later. As voters in those same neighborhoods have worked over the years to choose candidates they feel are most suited to transform Black Boston, the issues of disinvestment, inequality, and underrepresentation that Mandela hoped to address have still been top of mind. ...

The proponents’ asks focused on giving Black people decision-making power. They wanted hard-earned taxpayer dollars to funnel back into these neighborhoods, and not other parts of Boston with more historic investment. They wanted to control development. They wanted better outcomes for students in Boston Public Schools, which was dominated by kids of color. And they wanted full political representation from their blocks, not just the few Black firsts that had penetrated Boston City Hall in the years prior. 

 “It was about ownership,” said Kambon, director of the Black Community Information Center in Roxbury. “We want to control our own destiny. We have the resources and the people power to make it happen.”

Black leaders, black city, no change?  I was thinking about this in terms of how many center cities around that time, majority Black, were starting to become Black led, although this was another 5-8 years after Roxbury.  And how Black elected leadership didn't make a lot of difference to urban outcomes compared to their more recent white predecessors.

Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago (in the 1980s), Washington, DC, Los Angeles were among the cities electing Black mayors.  And Atlanta.

A point in the book Black Social Capital: The Politics of School Reform in Baltimore, 1986-1999 about Black "takeover of public school boards" is pretty apt, that Blacks could get control only once resources for improvement were pretty much dissipated.  The federal government stopped giving extra money to cities, as their needs were increasing.

Atlanta: the city too busy to hate ("How Atlanta became the 'city too busy to hate'," Yahoo).  The difference in success between Atlanta and the others was likely because at the time Atlanta was a growing city, while the others were shrinking.  

Revisiting entries: Should community culture master plans include elements on higher education arts programs?

This article was published in 2016, "Should community culture master plans include elements on higher education arts programs?," and the next year there was a brief follow up on the for profit arts school sector.  Both sectors should be included in such plans if relevant.

The article made the point that community cultural plans should have an element on higher education if they have small/independent arts colleges, to be prepared if economic and other circumstances change significantly for those organizations.  In DC, the fulcrum was the independent Corcoran Gallery of Arts and its related College of Arts and Design.  

It wasn't until some time after its dissolution that I figured out what would have been the best course--not giving its property to GWU and art to the National Gallery of Arts but to reposition as a locally serving fine arts museum and shifting the college to the University of the District of Columbia.

The piece reads great 8 years later!

Philadelphia brings this back to the fore because the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts is shutting down most of its academic programs ("Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts to end its degree-granting programmes," Art Newspaper) and last year the University of the Arts shut down ("Closure of Philadelphia Art School Spurs Review by State Attorney General," New York Times, "Heartbreak, anger and many questions follow University of the Arts’ abrupt decision to close," AP).

WRT PAFA, according to the Art Newspaper:

The academy’s educational transition website states that there was no “single reason for the decision to wind down degree-granting programmes”, but rather several “converging trends” that led to the downsizing. Principal among the trends listed on the site are “[i]ncreasing expectations from students, prospective students and the families that college should provide a broader range of academic and professional opportunities beyond the fine arts”. This sentiment is echoed in Pryor’s statement that “universities in our own region and across the country are struggling with these trends”, with PAFA representing a particularly vulnerable example in a national arts education sector facing serious headwinds.

Beyond the challenges of attracting and satisfying students, PAFA cited the difficulty of providing adequate services and complying with regulations for a relatively small school, noting that “it is simply impossible to maintain a college—with admissions, enrollment, Title IX, student support services and other requirements—with a student body of less than 300”. The school noted that these difficulties were only exacerbated by the pandemic, leading to even more pronounced challenges in enrollment and operating costs.

Likely this is a problem for other small arts schools.

Now, UAS's properties are being sold off, and the bankruptcy trustee isn't inclined to keep the properties as arts uses, so potential arts-related bidders compete ("Lead bidder for UArts’ Hamilton Hall plans art gallery, work space for artists, and restaurant"), unequally, with for profit developers ("Mayor Parker can help keep the arts in the Avenue of the Arts — if she acts quickly," Philadelphia Inquirer).

A drawing of David Yager, former president of University of the Arts, is on a column outside Hamilton Hall on their campus in Philadelphia, Wednesday June 5, 2024 as students, staff, and faculty rally before marching to 1500 Market and another rally in front of the former law offices of UArts chair Jud Aaron. (Tom Gralish/The Philadelphia Inquirer)

Philadelphia has a strong philanthropic community still, in particular the Pew Foundation, and if the city had been prepared wrt arts planning in the higher education sector, perhaps these institutions could have been saved, and/or the building portfolio remained in the arts sector.

A great example of this happening was in Detroit, when the Kresge Foundation stepped up to save the Detroit Institute of Arts in the face of the City's bankruptcy.  It turns out that the DIA was run as an agency of the city, so its collection and assets weren't separately protected and were in danger of being sold off ("Foundations Commit $330 Million to Protect DIA Collection," Philanthropy News Digest).

Apparently, UAS enrollment had dropped by more than half since 2009.  If that's not an indicator for a need for extraordinary intervention, I don't know what is.

Art facilities portfolios.  In "Reprinting with a slight update, "Arts, culture districts and revitalization" from 2009" (2019), I recommend that such properties be owned and managed by arts-related community development corporations.  These articles provide some additional examples ("BTMFBA -- London edition (2025), "From BTMFBA to "community right to buy"" (2024)).

A community right to buy codicil is what they need in Philadelphia.

Hard to make difficult decisions without a plan.  But getting the Mayor involved is a long shot.  She has to be convinced.  And without an organized plan it's hard to get elected officials to act let alone act with the alacrity necessary to save a school ("The long, slow death of Birmingham-Southern: What killed an Alabama college with 168-year-old roots?," Birmingham News) or a building portfolio.

Write those elements in community cultural resources master plans.

Union Market, a revitalized warehouse district in DC

There's a great deal of experience in urban planning and revitalization around the makeovers of formerly industrial districts into vibrant urban people filled places.   Big manufacturing and warehouse buildings offer good floorplates for what is called adaptive reuse.

Union Market in DC, in part the former grounds of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Freight Terminal, and a wholesale food district market starting in the 1930s is one of the only such districts in DC, because from the start DC was more an office district revolving around the federal government than a manufacturing center.

Three other main exceptions however: What is now called NoMA and Eckington Place and other areas with printing plants--office districts did lots of printing; Ivy City; out New York Avenue and anchored by railroad duties and an old department store warehouse; and the Washington Navy Yard, which was an actual manufacturer of ships--when it closed so did many thousands of honorable blue collar type jobs.  (There are other pockets of industrial zoned land along railroad tracks, like up in Takoma.)

Union Market in more humble days.  Flickr photo by Tyler Nelson.

C. 2005, there was an urban renewal plan for the Union Market district, then called Florida Market, which I and others opposed for something more ground up.  

When a couple of large parcels were sold to a regional shopping center operator I thought the area was toast.  But the firm ended up being able to pivot and change their business model to urban infill and exciting, not chain, retail (some) and (mostly) restaurants.

I have many posts about this, but the most definitive one laying out an alternate vision, was "Retail planning and the Florida Market" from 2009.  It was submitted as testimony at a hearing by the Zoning Commission.

Even so I wasn't as visionary as Edens Realty, which hired a protege of famed restauranteur Jose Andres to bring about creative concrete actions to make the district vibrant.

Today, the district is home to many of the city's most exciting restaurants, while still having "some" legacy and cheaper food sales functions.  Although there is no question the area has been "gentrified," it has a lot more character than it would if it had been remade in an urban renewal guise, with the demolition of original warehouse type buildings in favor of blocky new buildings.

Steak frites, a star attraction at the new Minetta Tavern in the District. (Scott Suchman/For The Washington Post)

The Post has a restaurant review of one of the newest places to join in, "D.C.’s Minetta Tavern is an alluring chip off the old block in N.Y."  

But it was incredibly expensive to renovate, $13 million. Which is insane.

Ironically, Suzanne and I were reminiscing this morning about deceased tavern entrepreneur Joe Englert, who opened dozens of thematic concepts around the city, ground up.  E.g., he bought 8 buildings on H Street NE in the early days for $3 million.  Much less than the $13 million for one building in Union Market. He died in 2020.

Englert brought "regular people" into his ventures ("9 Ways Joe Englert Changed the DC Bar Scene," Washingtonian, "The King of Clubs on the Cutting Edge: Joe Englert has revitalized the city's night life and he's only just begun," Washington Post, 1993), these high end concepts are for the high end investors too.  Lorne Michaels of Saturday Night Live is the lead investor of Minetta's Tavern.

Given that I just ran the series of 20 years of blogging, to continue the retrospective theme, it's fair to say that my involvement in helping to shift Union Market towards a better outcome was my second  most significant accomplishments in DC, the first being one of the leaders of an effort to redefine H Street NE as a revived transportation, housing and business corridor.

I can hardly take credit for these achievements.  But I played a key role in both.

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A note on Ivy City.  Another warehouse district that for a time was revitalizing, spurred by the redevelopment of the Hecht's are deco Warehouse into housing and the addition of quirky but chain retail and a lot of interesting food concepts.  But like H Street NE, which lacks a direct Metrorail connection, its patronage was subsidized by venture capital into firms like Uber, allowing for cheap transportation to and from that area to other parts of DC.  When that money was taken away, the trajectory changed, many of the retailers closed.  Etc.

The story of the freeway deck park in Dallas, Klyde Warren Park

In DC, there has been discussion about decking certain street tunnels, like parts of North Capitol Street.  I guess the area around Dupont Circle that's happening, but I am out of touch.  Freeways do go under the National Mall, and Capitol Crossing, a real estate development, has decked I-395 at Massachusetts.

Separately, for more than 20 years there has been a proposal to deck over part of DC's Union Station railyard to extend the station.

There are a number of freeway deck parks around the country, dating to the 1970s in Seattle.  

Klyde Warren Park in Dallas opened in 2012.  It's a model for how I'd like to extend Sugar House Park in Salt Lake City, which abuts a section of I-80 that is about 40 acres.  I'm pretty sure that area belonged to the park before the freeway was constructed.

For all of us seeking to create freeway decks, the Dallas Morning News has an article about Klyde Warren, "How Klyde Warren Park brought Dallas together."

Conceptualized around 2002, it took 7 years to pull together the financing.  Construction began in late 2009.  They are working to extend the park in a second phase.

According to the Kansas City Business Journal article, "Dallas' Klyde Warren Park offers blueprint for Kansas City's proposed South Loop park," there are 70 freeway deck park proposals in various stages of conceptualization, design, and construction.  One is currently under construction in Philadelphia.

Economic value.  According to the KCBJ:

Klyde Warren Park sits within a 0.52-square-mile public improvement district, established in 2014 to help fund park programming, security and maintenance by way of special assessments on nearby properties.

The year after the park opened, in 2013, the total value of real estate within the district's boundaries was $2.5 billion. Grant said that total jumped to $6.4 billion, or more than 150%, as of 2021. Much of Klyde Warren's nearly $3 billion in economic impact has come from significant increases in surrounding commercial property values, as the park drove up average lease rates for residential and commercial space.

Between late 2012 and 2015, triple-net rental rates climbed anywhere from 32% to 64% at office towers within a several-block radius, or from $19 to $25 a square foot at the Trammell Crow Center, to $22 to $36 a square foot at 2100 McKinney, CBRE's Dallas office found.

With those increased values in Dallas came substantial new tax revenues. Over the past eight years, Grant said new annual revenues resulting from Klyde Warren totaled $513 million to its city, county and local jurisdictions, including $111 million last year.

Interesting, the impetus for the park was improving quality of life and connections in and around the Dallas Arts District.  It wasn't economic development.  But that $111 million figure 

But the excerpt from the KCBJ reminds me of the Hennepin Works program in Minnesota ("A COUNTY AND ITS CITIES: THE IMPACT OF HENNEPIN COMMUNITY WORKS," Journal of Urban Affairs).  The county needed to stabilize and improve Minneapolis to maintain tax revenue.  They found that areas around parks, lakes, and trails maintained their value the best, so they made similar kinds of improvements across the city.

As central business districts decline in value in the future because of the WFH phenomenon, Klyde Warren Park likely will stabilize its impacted geography for many years to come.  

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Some contrariness:

-- "At Play in the Fields of the Bored," John King, American Scholar