West Canfield Historic District, Detroit, and the West Garfield Park neighborhood in Chicago: Opportunities for demonstration projects on wide-scale neighborhood improvement and quality infill architecture | May is National Historic Preservation Month

-- "63 things to do during National Historic Preservation Month"

-- "May is National Historic Preservation Month: The future of historic preservation"

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West Canfield Historic District, Detroit.  A Reddit thread showed photos of houses in the West Canfield Historic District in Detroit.  The impetus for the district was an antiques dealer, Beulah Groehn, "How One Woman Gave Rise to Detroit's Historic Preservation Movement" NTHP

[In 1965,] an antiques collector and retired executive secretary named Beulah Groehn drove into the city from Franklin to shop at an estate sale. The house, at 627 Canfield, was a beautiful but decrepit Victorian in the gritty Cass Corridor. The neighborhood was built for well-heeled Detroiters of the late 19th-century, but over the course of 90-some years, the mansions of Canfield Street had become boarding houses, bohemian crash-pads, and drug dens. There was no newness on West Canfield. But Beulah Groehn had discovered something she loved. Instead of buying antiques at that estate sale, she bought the house.

For the rest of her life, at a time when many of Detroit's planners and politicians felt that the city's past stood in the way of urban progress, Beulah fought to save places like West Canfield -- not simply because they were old, but because she believed that saving old places would attract residents, create jobs, and make neighborhoods safer, stronger, and more beautiful. Her legacy includes not only stately, brick-paved West Canfield Street -- today one of Detroit's most desirable blocks -- the city's local historic preservation ordinance, and along with it, the Historic Designation Advisory Board and Historic District Commission, the legal mechanisms and governing bodies that help make saving Detroit's old places possible.

West Garfield, Chicago. An article caught my attention awhile back, "This homebuilder wants to revitalize his West Garfield Park neighborhood. He just had his first sale," in Crain's Chicago Business about the development and sale of decidedly modern rowhouses in the West Garfield district of Chicago.  

West Garfield is a neighborhood that's seen better days.  It has a lot of historic building stock in various states of repair, including both healthy and distressed, and it has a number of infill buildings, like these rowhouses that represent modern design.  It has clusters of high performing physical assets that can be built upon once again.

3806 W Washington Boulevard, West Garfield Park, Chicago.

I was thinking that the West Garfield neighborhood would be a great place to do a test on a massive scale, not unlike Germany's IBA, a wide ranging revitalization initiative operating at the scale of multi-districts, that does a bunch of projects, and about ten years shows them, with others still in the pipeline.  

-- IBA - Hamburg

Or again, Germany's International Garden Festival ("DC has a big "Garden Festival" opportunity in the Anacostia River," 2014), which works similarly.  Historic equivalent architecture or new stuff.

Although I guess the neighborhood isn't the safest according to the Chicago Sun-Times, "Voices from Chicago's most violent neighborhood."

-- West Garfield Park, Encyclopedia of Chicago

Too bad I'm not in Chicago because there is a foundation that would fund something like this, albeit they'd need a lot of money and have to work with others.  The Knight Foundation is built on the profits from various newspapers owned by two brothers (Once upon a time I delivered the Detroit Free Press).

The Foundation pretty much only invests in places where they had a newspaper.  Chicago Daily News was their paper in Chicago--even though they sold the paper to Marshall Field, they still make grants in Chicago.

And the Foundation funded a short term preservation initiative called the Preservation Development Initiative, which applied Main Street and other historic preservation approaches to cities and neighborhoods in a bunch of cities in the early 2000s.  One impressive example was working with Mercer University in Macon, Georgia ("Beall’s Hill Neighborhood Revitalization Project," MU, Neighborhood Revitalization Guide, Historic Macon Foundation, "Historic Macon Foundation will expand revitalization efforts in Macon’s Beall’s Hill neighborhood with $3 million from Knight Foundation," Knight Foundation).

-- Investing In Revitalization Efforts: Case Studies from Knight Cities, Knight Foundation

Revitalization lessons from the Knight grants:

Local Context 

• Think beyond the central business district: 
• Build broad coalitions to ensure longevity: 
• Proactively mitigate displacement risk:

Accelerators of Impact

• Cluster investments: 
• Support multiple organizations working toward shared goals: In communities with an array of fiscally healthy and high-capacity organizations, 
• Cultivate relationships with educational anchors

Concentration of investment

• Embrace flexibility and innovation: 
• Achieve long-term impacts by investing in programming, arts, the public realm and infrastructure: 
• Investing in multiple avenues to revitalization:  

One of the neighborhood's assets is the Garfield Conservancy.  

Pair a PDI like initiative with a community safety partnership approach ("Creating 'community safety partnership neighborhood management programs as a management and mitigation strategy for public nuisances: Part 3 (like homeless shelters)") and it could be quite successful ("Chicago needs a homebuilding revolution," Crain's Chicago Business).

In fact, it'd be a good place to test my concept of an ideal neighborhood revitalization program.

-- "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

Although a specific point on deep crime would probably need to be added.

63 things to do during National Historic Preservation Month

Over the years, originally inspired by a "what you can do" list by Preservation Action Council of San Jose, I've developed a four-part series on what people can do to "celebrate" National Preservation Month.  There are 60 items across the posts, ranging from visiting a historic district to watching a film in a historic theater.

Rather than reprint them in full--recognize that some of the links in previous pieces may be out of date--here are the entries.

-- "May is Historic Preservation Month: 60 ways to celebrate | Part 1: Cultural Heritage Tourism (1-19)," (2019)

1.  Resources for Cultural Heritage Tourism Travel. Magazines like Southern Living, Yankee and Sunset.  Bookstores.  Visitor Centers.  Historic preservation organizations.  Local chapters of the American Institute of Architects, and sometimes the American Society of Landscape Architects.  When traveling, library special collections.

2. Stay at a historic hotel in the city or a bed and breakfast located in a historic district. For example, the Tabard Inn in the Dupont Circle Historic District is one of the most romantic places in the city to have weekend brunch--out on the patio, during the spring, summer, and fall.

3.  When you visit other places, check out how they deal with historic preservation matters, and share that learning when you come back. For example, every fall, Pasadena Heritage sponsors Craftsman Weekend, in honor of its bungalow heritage.

4. Don't forget to check out traditional commercial districts, antique shops, other stores, cinemas, theaters, concert halls, restaurants, historic cemeteries, etc. as a regular part of your travel itinerary.

5. Check out a historic library building/Central Library.  Another great place to learn about a community when you're traveling is the main library.  Some of the buildings are historic, others more recently are majestic new construction buildings very much worth visiting.  .

6. Visit historic sites.  Many people visit historic sites when traveling.  Across the United States, ("The shortest route to America's 49603 historic sites," Washington Post) there are almost 90,000 places listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

7. Go see a museum exhibit relevant to urban history, even if it's on a seemingly broader topic. When people travel, and "consume" locally available museums, usually people's trips start and end with the local arts museum.

8.  Walking and building tours.  Many communities have organized walking tours for historic areas. Some print booklets for self-guided tours, many places have smartphone tour apps, and cities often have historic marker and trails programs.

9. Bicycle touring.  Bikes are a great way to cover a lot of ground more quickly.  And it's less tiring to bike than it is to walk.  Many cities have bike rental operations (there is a loosely affiliated group called "Bike and Roll" operating in many cities).  And some hotels and B&Bs make bicycles available to their guests.  (There are even apps for renting bikes directly from individuals, like Spinlister, which can be cheaper than the bike rental places.)

10.  Transit as a way to get around.  While not many cities in the US do this, many European cities set up or promote specific transit services as a way to tour parts of the city, usually a set of tourist-oriented attractions in the core ("Travel around the city by tram," Visit Helsinki).

If you're already familiar with how to use transit, it usually isn't hard to figure out how to use another transit system.  If you don't regularly ride transit, likely people will be happy to help you.

11.  When we travel, we like to visit house museums.  For example, the Woodford Mansion in Philadelphia is really cool, and Savannah has many different house museums that you can visit, the most notorious being the Mercer-Williams House.  Most cities have at least one.  Los Angeles has just reopened the Hollyhock House.

12. Arguably, "antiquing" which for me includes ephemera, can be a form of historical/historic preservation-related research and is deserving of a separate entry.

While traveling, you may wish to check out reclaimed building materials stores too.  You'll probably have to do some digging to find such organizations, but offhand I know there are such places in New York City, DC (Suburban Maryland), Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Minneapolis, Detroit, York and Scranton, Pennsylvania, etc., plus the various Re:stores run by local affiliates of Habitat for Humanity.

13.  Visit a historic railroad station, bus terminal and/or a transportation museum.   There are many fabulous extant railroad stations, many no longer in use, in so many cities.2013 was the 100th anniversary of Grand Central Station in New York City, and in Chicago, Denver, and Los Angeles new master planning and/or construction improvement projects for stations in those cities are underway.

14. Visit a streetcar museum.   Many communities have streetcar/transit museums such as the Baltimore Streetcar Museum and the National Capital Trolley Museum  in Montgomery County, Maryland in this area.  So try to ride a historic streetcar as well.

15.  Ride a streetcar system in active service. Some places run heritage streetcars in active service.  Everyone knows about the streetcars in New Orleans (and that system continues to expand in bits and pieces).

16. Tour a historic trail, road, railroad, canal, park network, or parkway/greenway.

17.  Garden Tourism. Garden tourism has two different strands.

18. Ride a passenger rail train.  Ride a passenger railroad (commuter) train.  In the DC region, that means MARC or VRE.  In Greater New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia (SEPTA), Chicago, and Boston (as well as Toronto and Montreal), Southern California, Northern California and elsewhere commuter railroads provide passenger rail services once provided by private railroad companies.

19. Visit a national or state park. DC, for obvious reasons, has many nationally owned parks, the system of Fort Circle Parks works to preserve the forts built during the Civil War to protect the city from Confederate invasion. Fort Stevens, hidden behind a church on Georgia Avenue, around Quackenbos Street NW, was attacked by Confederate forces, and President Lincoln was up there and watched. Up Georgia Avenue a bit, close to Walter Reed Hospital, is a somewhat forlorn and neglected battlefield cemetery and monument honoring soldiers who died at the battle at Fort Stevens.

20. Take a boat trip on a local river.  Many cities have water-based tours or smaller scale water taxi systems.  Boston, Seattle, New York City, and San Francisco have working passenger ferry systems. The Staten Island Ferry is working transit that's free.

-- "May is Historic Preservation Month: 60 ways to celebrate | Part 2: Explore your community (20-36)," (2019)

21. Explore an older area of your community that you don't know. Go on a neighborhood or building tour. Check out a talk (not all of them cost money) at the National Building Museum.

Or just walk around a neighborhood with housing built before 1930.  Walking here and there around the core of Takoma Park, Maryland, we always come across attractive and unique houses.

22.  Many preservation groups sponsor neighborhood house tours.  On the first Sunday of May, Historic Takoma Park (DC and Maryland) has their annual house tour.

23.  Follow the path of a Heritage Trail such as one of the many "produced" by CulturalTourismDC in DC.

24. Shop at stores in commercial districts that are historically designated: i.e., Cleveland Park; Georgetown; Capitol Hill; Dupont Circle in DC, but there are so many across the country.

25. Eat in a restaurant in a historic building/historic district. Now 60+ years old, Ben's Chili Bowl is one of the few remaining restaurants in the city that is many decades old.  .. Readers have pointed out that Martin's Tavern in Georgetown and Cafe Mozart, a German restaurant downtown, are much older.

26. See a movie in a historic cinema building. There aren't many historic cinemas in DC proper any more, but the Uptown Theater in Cleveland Park is one.

27.  See a production in a "legitimate" historic theatre or concert hall.  You have many choices in the DC area such as the Warner, the National, the Studio Theatre, the Lincoln Theatre, the Shakespeare Theatre at the Landsburgh, the Atlas Performing Arts Center (which utilized federal historic preservation tax credits to pay for a portion of the building's rehabilitation), or the DAR Concert Hall.

28.  Even if you're an atheist, it can be fun to visit a historic church building, including checking out their stained glass windows (I am a big fan of stained glass).

29. Shop at a historic public food market. Eastern Market is DC's last remaining public food market building, built in 1873.  (Union Market is privately owned, and was constructed in the 1970s.)

30. Visit a historic cemetery. In DC, we have the Congressional Cemetery or the Rock Creek Church Cemetery at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, among others.  Brooklyn's Greenwood Cemetery is a standout.  Some cemeteries offer tours.

31. Check out an exhibit at a local history museum or historic site, such as at the Anacostia Community Museum or the Historical Society of Washington or one of the other house museums and historic sites in the city and region.

32. Walk the historic grounds of a local college or university.  In DC, Catholic University, Trinity, Georgetown, Howard, and Gallaudet have beautiful grounds and buildings.  Kendall Green at Gallaudet was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted.

33. Check out a monument or memorial in your community and learn more about it. We can't preserve what we don't understand or appreciate.

34. Visit a historic railroad or bus station, such as DC's Union Station. Designed by Daniel Burnham, it's an incredible example of the City Beautiful architectural movement. Check out chapters from Bill Wright's dissertation on Union Station. He's a great writer!

Railroad stations tend to be grand while older bus stations tend to be gnarly, which is an interesting commentary on the place of these respective modes in transportation history and practice.

35. Check out a historic library building.  Many cities have great library buildings that now qualify as historic.  A number of DC's libraries were built with support from the Carnegie Foundation (Northeast, Southeast, the old Carnegie Library downtown, Takoma, and Mount Pleasant, which is particularly gorgeous) as were more than 2,000 other libraries elsewhere in the US.

36. Take a boat trip on a local river.  The pontoon boat tours of the Anacostia River leaving from the Bladensburg Waterfront Park (in Prince George's County) dip into DC.  Many cities have water-based tours or smaller scale water taxi systems as well.

37. Explore historic preservation matters in your region, beyond the borders of your community.

-- "May is Historic Preservation Month: 60 ways to celebrate | Part 3: Learn and Get Involved (37-52)," (2019)

38. Learn about the history of your community. For example, for DC, read Dream City: Race, Power, and the Decline of Washington, D.C., 1964 -1994 and Between Justice and Beauty, and more.

39. Become a member of your citywide/countywide/regional preservation organizations such as the DC Preservation League, the Municipal Arts Society in New York City, Baltimore Preservation, Historic Districts Council in New York City, Cleveland Restoration Society, Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans, Landmark Society of Western New York (which serves Rochester, among other places), etc.  I am a big fan of the Chicago Bungalow Association.

40.  Before you get too involved, you might want to take the time to read your city, county, or state historic preservation plan.  This will educate you about preservation issues in your area.  (Although generally such plans are pretty positive, and don't go into enough detail about the "threats" nor do they outline ways to address "opportunities" in a process design approach.)

41. Learn about why historic preservation is important, in and of itself, as well as a urban revitalization strategy. The reason I am a strong supporter of preservation is that I have come to believe that it is the only approach to economically sustainable neighborhood and commercial district revitalization that works for the long haul.


42. Join a neighborhood/local preservation group, such as in DC the Capitol Hill Restoration Society, Historic Takoma, or Historic Mount Pleasant).

43.  Nationally, you can join the National Trust for Historic Preservation while you're at it. If you join, you can visit NT owned sites and affiliate organization museums at a discount/free, get discounts at Historic Hotels, and discounts on products you purchase.

44.  Preservation Action is a 501(c)4 advocacy group that advocates for specific legislation and is also a membership group.  Their "Preservation Advocacy Week" is held in March, where members lobby Members of Congress for legislation favorable to preservation.

45.  At the state level, most states have statewide preservation organizations.  In the DC-VA-MD area, that means Preservation Maryland and Preservation Virginia/Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, as well as the DC Preservation League.  Many sponsor annual or bi-annual conferences, journals, and other provide other resources.

46. Volunteer/1. Get involved in a preservation issue in your neighborhood or the city-county at large, which could include attending meetings of your local historic district/preservation commission, which in DC is the Historic Preservation Review Board, or working on a particular project affecting your neighborhood or city.

47. Volunteer/2, in a traditional commercial district revitalization initiative, at a history museum, or for a historic site.  A "division of the preservation movement" is the Main Street commercial district revitalization program, which links economic development with historic preservation focused on the revival of local commercial districts and downtowns in smaller communities.

48.  Volunteer/3, at a history museum, a historic park or at a historic site.  Museums and historic sites are always looking for volunteers, as our most park systems, including the National Park Service.  Many docents at sites and museums are volunteers.

-- Volunteer in Parks program, National Park Service

49. Work to preserve historic schools as schools.  The DC Public School system has an archives and museum that is also a meeting center, Sumner School, at 17th and M Streets NW.

50. Another way to learn a lot but very quickly is to attend a preservation conference such as the annual meeting of the National Trust for Historic Preservation (this year it's in Denver starting October 10th) and the National Main Street conference, which was held in Seattle in March, some sessions materials are available).

51. Check out the history resources at your local library or a specialized collection such as in DC at the Washingtoniana Collection at the Martin Luther King Central Library or the Peabody collection at the Georgetown Branch, the Kiplinger Library at the Historical Society of Washington, the Jewish Historical Society, or the Moorland-Spingarn Collection at Howard University.  Many city libraries have history collections.

52. Read a historic district brochure (or historic building or district nomination form).  In DC, they are available online or in hard copy at the Historic Preservation Office.  Many communities produce and publish these kinds of publications.  Two of the best I've ever read is one on Jefferson County Indiana including Madison (One of the first Main Street communities) and Hanover, and the other on the Kansas City public market, called City Market.  Both lay out their respective histories chronologically but thematically.

53.  I am a big fan of reading the design guidelines publications produced for cities or neighborhood historic districts, which describe local historic districts, such as those from Montgomery County Maryland, Richmond, Virginia, Roanoke, Virginia, and the Philadelphia Rowhouse Manual.  The Roanoke Virginia Residential Pattern Book is a stand out!

54.  Listen to a preservation focused podcast.  Podcasts--"radio shows" are a new addition to preservation-based media.  Preservation Maryland produces a great series, PreserveCast, which is worth checking out.

-- "May is Historic Preservation Month: 60 ways to celebrate | Part 4: Preservation At Home (53-60)," (2019)

55. If you own "an old house," and want to learn more about historically sympathetic renovation, why not subscribe to relevant magazines such as Old House Journal, Old House Interiors, American Bungalow, This Old House, Fine Homebuilding, etc.

56.  Publications on maintenance of historic houses.  

57.  Books to guide renovation.  

58.  Parts and appliance resources.  There are companies that specialize in "historic" parts.  For example, DEA Bathroom Machineries specialize in bathrooms, especially historic sinks.

59.  Most big cities have architectural salvage stores, for example in the DC area, it's Community Forklift.  In Baltimore, Loading Dock is a non-profit while Second Chance is a for profit.

60.  Workshops and expos.  It would be logical to have "Preservation Expos" during Preservation Month but it doesn't seem to be the case.  Historic Chicago Bungalow Association holds workshops most months, and has building expos too, from time to time.

61.  Activities for and with children.  If you have children in your life, how about doing an activity with them that is architecture-preservation related?

62. Television programming.  There are some HGTV/DIY network shows that are sympathetic to historic preservation, although the bulk of the shows are not.  Even the heralded "Fixer Upper," even if they renovate vacant houses, tends to homogenize the interior of a house into a gargantuan "open concept" house with a massive kitchen. 

But shows like "Rehab Attic," to some extent "Stone House Revival," and "American Rehab: Charleston" generally are pretty empathetic on historic preservation and can be a great source of ideas.  Lately I've been enamored by "Restored," featuring Brett Waterman working on houses in Riverside County, California.

Obviously, "This Old House," on PBS is the grand-daddy of all shows.  In my opinion, it's great for historic architecture and detailing, but the program tends to be more about supersizing houses, but doing a great job while you're doing so.  And they seem to let it slide when homeowners make decisions that somewhat cavalierly rip out historic elements in favor of modernization.

63.  Researching the history of your house.  There are people who will research this for you, but many city libraries have usable information and even may offer seminars on how to go about this.  Census records are one place, but more current records aren't accessible.

-- How to Research the History of Your House | This Old House
-- Internet Public Library: Research the History of Your House
-- Houses - The National Archives

Ride Public Transit For Free: San Francisco Bay, on All Aboard Bay Area Transit Day (May 6)

This is marketed with too short a time frame, but transit agencies should schedule a couple free transit days each year as a way to introduce people to and market the hell out of transit.  Such days can be used to launch coordinated improvements as well.

From the website:

Bay Area transit agencies in partnership with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) and the Bay Area Air District are encouraging residents to ride transit on Tuesday, May 6, for All Aboard Bay Area Transit Day, coinciding with the start of Spare the Air summer smog season. 

All Aboard Transit Day encourages people to get out and ride transit – or perhaps try it for the first time – as more people return to the office and as transit ridership grows. On May 6, transit agencies will offer free stickers and other swag items to riders throughout the day to thank them for riding, while also soliciting their feedback.

Chicago Community Policing Study

Civic groups in Chicago joined in to commission a study, Operationalizing Community Policing Within the Chicago Police Department: A Summary of Current and Promising National Practices, to help the Chicago Police Department realize its goal to become an agency committed to "community oriented policing."

21CP’s study – which involved interviews with personnel and community stakeholders with direct knowledge of community policing practices in 17 jurisdictions nationally as well as a review of relevant literature –identified a number of elements that CPD’s community policing approach should reflect and incorporate going forward, including:  

• Community policing must be an express, defined overall philosophy. In many, but not all, of the departments studied, community policing is specifically identified as an overall philosophy of policing and an overarching way that the department does its work – and not a specialized program with its own label, name, or personnel
• Community engagement must be understood as part of, but not the same as, overall community policing. Because community policing involves dynamic partnership with community to co-produce public safety, it necessarily requires police personnel to foster relationships with community stakeholders. However, operationalizing “community policing” likely benefits from police departments systematically describing how that community engagement factors into a wider “community policing” philosophy or approach.
• Community policing likely benefits from formally codifying and tracking community problems, assets, and events – and from other types of centralized, department-wide coordination or administration. Even as community policing can and must happen at the level of individual officers, problem-solving efforts, community assets, and opportunities for community engagement must be inventoried, codified, and tracked so that progress can be made and measured. That is, it appears that departments benefit from maintaining some structures and processes to ensure that individual personnel are appropriately “plugged into” the department or a geographic area’s community policing concerns.
• Police agencies must articulate specific, granular performance expectations for personnel across all ranks (i.e., including supervisors) and roles on community policing responsibilities and provide training on such expectations. This may include: (1) Specific guidance on how to use unstructured community engagement time (2) Specific guidance on how to incorporate community policing principles into call response and enforcement activity (3) Specific guidance or instructions on promoting visibility (4) Designating specific expectations about the amount of time that officers should spend on community and problem-oriented policing activities; and (5) Providing personnel with responsibility for a defined geographic area
• Community policing programs benefit from mechanisms for gathering, analyzing, and using performance data and metrics. For a police agency to gauge whether its personnel are in fact conducting the types of activities that community policing requires, it will necessarily benefit from collecting and analyzing information from the field about officer performance. Although some departments have established mechanisms for gauging performance and outcomes, several departments with whom 21CP engaged said that data and metrics regarding community policing is an area that they are actively trying to address – recognizing that the absence of concrete information makes it more difficult for the department to gauge its level of success and share positive outcomes with community and external stakeholders.
• Many departments benefit from having some centralized, department-wide coordination or administration of community policing. Although departments must ensure that the existence of some individuals to oversee community policing is not seen by others as making community policing someone else’s role or responsibility, they can benefit from personnel ensuring that the department, as a whole, is aligning its activities with the community policing objective.

Also see the blog entry:

-- "The opportunity to rearticulate public safety delivery keeps being presented: Rochester New York," 

Impact of proposed transit cuts at SEPTA/Philadelphia presented in graphically compelling ways

With WFH and the ending of special grant programs from the Biden Administration ("Public transit agencies eye service cuts as pandemic aid runs out," Marketplace/NPR), coupled with the Trump Administration's pro-car bias, virtually every transit agency is facing financial exigency in future  budget cycles ("Metra, CTA and Pace warn of possible 40% service cuts starting in 2027," NBC Chicago, "What to know about possible PRT cuts and how to make your voice heard," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) , often with pleas like in Philadelphia ("No more excuses — Harrisburg Republicans must find a way to fully fund SEPTA," Philadelphia Inquirer) and the SF Bay, for state bailouts.

Process for considering transit service cuts in Pittsburgh

WFH has totally messed up transit agency budgets, shifting the most use from morning and evening commute to primary business districts, to use spread out during the day, across the system, further increasing costs alongside revenue decreases.  DC for example has lost about 250,000 train riders from pre-covid highs.

The Reddit Philadelphia has included entries on what budget cuts would to do to SEPTA's, the regional transit agency for Philadelphia, service network, and I thought they've had some good graphics to illustrate the changes.

-- SEPTA budget cut fact sheet

  Proposed cuts to the current rail system ("SEPTA prepares for major service cuts," Trains Magazine).

Current ail transit system

The Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission ("Regional planners calculated the impact on traffic if SEPTA cuts happen. It’s really bad," Inquirer) did a study of the impact the proposed cuts will have on motor vehicle traffic congestion.

From the article:

SEPTA is facing a $213 million annual structural deficit due in part to pandemic-related ridership reductions and inflationary pressure on labor and materials costs. (Fare evasion doesn’t help matters, costing from $30 million to $68 million yearly, according to SEPTA projections.)

The transit agency released a $1.65 million operating budget on April 10 that included a doomsday scenario of service cuts, along with an average fare increase of 21.5% across the board. In all, up to 55 bus routes would be eliminated, five Regional Rail lines shut down, and 66 stations closed. Other routes and lines would see reduced frequency of buses and trains.

At least one of the SEPTA trolley routes serve the suburbs.  This is in Media, Pennsylvania. 

Flickr photo by James Scales. 

Those cuts would occur in two phases, this fall and on Jan. 1, without new state subsidies, the transit agency says. If the full menu were enacted, all rail services would stop at 9 p.m. across the SEPTA network early next year.

From the standpoint of "those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it, some Pennsylvania Republicans are recommending privatization ("Idea to privatize SEPTA floats around the State House amid funding crisis," Fox29).  The proposal focuses on bus services, not the entire system.

There's a reason that with few exceptions, privately run transit systems were acquired by local and state governments to maintain service.  They were unprofitable from a fare standpoint, especially in that many of the "spillover benefits" of transit aren't captured by the transit operator.

Note that plenty of public transit agencies outsource operations of some or all of their transit services to the private sector.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.  Since the operator isn't responsible for investments in transit infrastructure, that's often skipped over.  Privatization is no panacea.

Impact on property values.  Another report ("SEPTA cuts could lead to drop in property values around Regional Rail lines," WHYY/NPR, Economic Impact Analysis: SEPTA Service Cut Proposal Due to Lack of Funding) points out that property values will drop in areas that get less service at a cost of .  This is another example of a "spillover benefit," improved property values, just one of multiple positive economic development impacts not being captured by a transit agency.

Impact on special event population.  SEPTA promotes transit service to sports events like Eagle football games and concerts ("Taylor Swift's Eras Tour helps boost Philadelphia's economy," ABC6).  Philadelphia will host ceremonies commemorating the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and World Cup soccer.  

Severe cuts to transit will significantly impact the ability of visitors to move around the city ("Philly mostly ready for 2026 … except for that little SEPTA problem," WHYY/NPR).

Streetcar service to ATT Park in San Francisco. SF Chronicle photo.

Impact of graphic design in government communications.  Note that the presentation of these issues with great graphics is an illustration of the power of good graphic design and the use of the design method by government agencies.

-- "All the talk of e-government, digital government, and open source government is really about employing the design method," (2012)
-- "PL #7: Using the Purple Line to rebrand Montgomery and Prince George's Counties as Design Forward," (2017)
-- "Design as city branding: transit edition," (2012)
-- "City (and university) branding: brand deposits; brand withdrawals; brand destruction," (2012)
-- "Georgetown: A subtle but important difference between branding and identity-positioning," (2010)
-- "Identity ≠ branding or Authenticity is the basis of identity," (2007)
-- "The taxi livery debacle as a lead in to a broader discussion of the importance of "design" to DC's "brand promise," (2012)
-- "Illustration of government and design thinking: Boston's City Hall to Go truck," (2013)
-- "(DC) Neighborhoods and commercial districts as brands," (2012)

Arbor Day

Some of the articles about Earth Day (4/22/25, usually acknowledged the weekend before or after) focused on acts people can take to make a difference.  

One is planting trees.  Many Earth Day events are organized around tree planting events organized by local and state tree advocacy groups.  

Such groups may be necessary in the face of municipal budget cuts ("LA’s Tree Emergency Goes Beyond Vandalism," Planetizen) and failures by agencies ("Salt Lake City’s Public Lands Department accidentally poisons 200 trees," Salt Lake Tribune) and misguided legislators ("Are trees ‘the enemy?’ Some Utah lawmakers claim overgrown forests suck too much water," SLT).

Arbor Day is held the last Friday in April, as a way to focus on the place and role of trees in our communities.

-- last year's entry, "Arbor Day: Street Trees of Seattle by Taha Ebrahimi | Trees as Cultural Landscape (at the community scale)"

1. Cities and/or neighborhoods as community forests ( Interactive map of many US cities, "Which cities have the most trees? See how yours stacks up," Washington Post).  For years I've suggested that cities, and more recently, maybe neighborhoods, should think of their tree cover as an urban or community arboretum.  

Morton Arboretum in Illinois runs the Arbnet accreditation program, and a few smaller cities have this certification.  DK about any neighborhoods.

Also see "A sequoia forest in Detroit? Plantings to improve air quality and mark Earth Day," AP.

Arborists are turning vacant land on Detroit’s eastside into a small urban forest, not of elms, oaks and red maples indigenous to the city but giant sequoias, the world’s largest trees that can live for thousands of years. .

The project on four lots will not only replace long-standing blight with majestic trees, but could also improve air quality and help preserve the trees that are native to California’s Sierra Nevada, where they are threatened by ever-hotter wildfire.

Detroit is the pilot city

for the Giant Sequoia Filter Forest. The nonprofit Archangel Ancient Tree Archive has donated dozens of sequoia saplings that were planted Tuesday by staff and volunteers from Arboretum Detroit, another nonprofit, to mark Earth Day

TreeCity USA is another Arbor Day Foundation program rewarding cities for their commitment to urban forestry.

Relatedly, while seeing only limited use, SF has an "Green Benefits District," which is a special tax increment financing mechanism that can be used to maintain and improve public spaces.  One is active in the Dogpatch-NW Portrero neighborhood.

Cass Avenue, Mt. Clemens Michigan.

2.  An alternate way to think about local government planning and the role of trees, is treating Streets as linear parks, framed by trees ("Linear parks: Adding value to urban landscape," Question of Cities).  

Before the dominance of the car, streets were treated more as landscapes with plantings, rather than utilitarian spaces.

Similarly, a "parkway" is more about the landscape than a freeway.

3.  Green bonds as a funding source. Likely to dry up during the Trump Administration, this Philadelphia Inquirer article is about the best explanation of how they work, "Longwood Gardens’ $250 million renovation taps increasingly popular ‘green’ bonds."

4.  Fruit trees in the public space.  Not just pretty but a source of food.  But they are messy.  Salt Lake's Green Urban Lunch Box, which has a focus on fruit trees as part of urban food systems, put itself on hiatus because of funding unpredictability.

Sugar maple trees are a source of maple syrup ("Rhode Island Couple Tapping Trees for Syrup," FUN107). 

5. Tree vandalism.  "Vandals chainsaw dozens of trees across downtown L.A.," Los Angeles Times and "Homeless Couple Destroys Young Trees At SF’s Jefferson Square Park," Beyond Chron.  WTF?  The cost of lost trees can be considerable.

A woman walks around a felled tree along South Grand Avenue in downtown Los Angeles on Sunday. (Photos: Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)

L.A.’s fragile urban canopy was dealt a vicious blow this weekend when a chainsaw-wielding vandal cut down a number of shade trees along South Grand Avenue and other areas of downtown, according to media posts and photos uploaded to Reddit and Instagram. 

-- "Chain-saw-wielding man suspected of felling downtown L.A. trees is arrested," LAT 

6.  Rich people unauthorized cutting of trees to improve the viewshed from their home is a common problem ("Southbury couple says they will pay $600,000 judgement for illegally removing town-owned trees," CT Insider). And developers ("Fort Worth council ‘speaks for the trees’ with tougher fines for clear cutting," Fort Worth Star-Telegram).

Not everyone agrees ("Do cedar trees have more rights than homeowners? Texas lawmakers pushes new bills to remove protections," KXAN/Austin).

Texas lawmakers are taking on cedar allergies during the 89th Legislative Session. Two bills, House Bill 3798 and Senate Bill 1927, aim to prevent a city from prohibiting the removal of an Ashe Juniper tree.

“It’s these liberal urban communities, like the city of Austin, who are trying to put cedar trees over private property rights and over protecting native flora and fauna,” said State Rep. Ellen Troxclair, R-Burnet County.

Also see, about examples in England ("Felled giants expose gaps in tree protection," Guardian).

We should have a system of protection like Toronto, Canada, where virtually all trees, public and private, are automatically protected and any felling requires a licence to be obtained. Where felling is permitted, the bylaws also require new trees to be planted and there are penalties of up to C$100,000 (£54,000) if you contravene the law.

7.  Trees as woke.  The Trump Administration sees planting trees as a verboten DEI initiative (Milwaukee church saw opportunity to plant trees on empty land. Trump team saw DEI effort," USA Today).  Also, grant rescissions by the Trump Administration affect grants to states by the US Forest Service.  The grant was for increasing biodiversity of the tree cover.

8.  With climate change invasive non-native trees are an increasing problem ("Nonnative tree invaders lead to declines in native tree species richness," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.).  Also see "Column: Death to the Bradford pear tree," Daily Tar Heel.

9.  As mentioned in the Earth Day entry.  The Trump Administration intends to Increase cutting of trees in US Forest Service lands ("USDA Opens 59% of Federal Forest for Logging to Manage Fire Risk," Bloomberg).  Plus defunding the agency  and cutting science projects.  Given the increase in the geographic spread and virulence of wildfire, the cuts extend to personnel who respond to wildfires ("‘Crazy’: Forest Service cuts ignite fear, fury over wildfire risks," Politico).  

The Ocean County wildfire covered 8,500 acres and led to about 3,000 residents being evacuated, according to the New Jersey Forest Fire Service. Photo: New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.

Wildfires in states are an increasing problem ("N.J. wildfire swells to 11,500 acres, could become biggest in two decades," Philadelphia Inquirer).

10.  Revival of wood as a building material in taller buildings ("How wood is making a comeback in construction," U of Utah).

Ascent Tower in Milwaukee is the tallest timber constructed building in the US.

Although there is a "sweet spot" or limit on when it makes sense to use wood and when not to ("Building tall with timber "does not make sense" say experts," Dezeen).

Herbert Gans, community sociologist

After a BA and MS in sociology from University of Chicago, Gans worked as an urban planner for the Chicago Housing Authority and a federal agency focused on housing before the creation of HUD.  He then received his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, and entering academia at the University of Pennsylvania before settling at Columbia University and later served as president of the American Sociology Association.

-- "Herbert J. Gans, who upended myths on urban and suburban life, dies at 97," Boston Globe
-- "Herbert J. Gans, myth-busting sociologist, dies at 97," Washington Post

From the Globe:

His findings were often surprising. For his first book, “The Urban Villagers: Groups and Class in the Life of Italian-Americans” (1962), he immersed himself in the life of Boston’s working-class West End. The area was later bulldozed for “slum clearance,” and he lamented the destruction of a vibrant community. A half-century later, the book still stood as a classic statement against indiscriminate urban renewal.  (Review, Commentary, 1963, Review, New York Review of Books).

Similarly, Dr. Gans challenged conventional wisdom about postwar suburbia in “The Levittowners” (1967). For more than two years, he lived in Levittown, N.J., later renamed Willingboro, and concluded that the residents had strong social, economic and political commitments, and that notions of suburbanites as conformist, anxious, bored, cultureless, insecure social climbers were wrong. (Review, New York Review of Books, also covering two majority black communities in California).

He found that America’s news was more about politics than government and personalities than issues; that deadlines left little time for context or accuracy; and that beat reporters often censored themselves to protect sources. He recommended larger staffs, wider perspectives and, to cover the extra costs, federal subsidies such as

In “The War Against the Poor” (1995), Dr. Gans scathingly attacked attitudes of the affluent and middle classes and words used to stereotype and stigmatize the poor by questioning their morality and values. One culprit, he said, was “underclass,” with its connotation of permanence, and its presumption that all the men are lazy, all the women immoral, and all the poor too undisciplined to escape welfare dependencies. (Summary, Social Policy)

Returning to the media in “Democracy and the News” (2003), he argued that traditional journalism and an informed citizenry had been weakened by proliferating internet and cable news outlets, the growth of big corporations and special interest groups, and media monoliths obsessed with profits. He prescribed greater newsroom diversity and stiffer walls between editorial and business sides of news organizations.

-- "Urban Legend," UChicago Magazine

At 90, Gans continues to write. His new collection of essays, Sociology and Social Policy: Essays on Community, Economy, and Society (Columbia University Press, 2017), returns to many of the themes that have preoccupied him for more than six decades: immigration, race, cities and how they change, and urban displacement and its effects on the vulnerable.

San Diego Book(store) Crawl: Independent Bookstore Day

Saturday is Independent Bookstore Day.  

While many bookstores organize individual events, bookstores in San Diego are working together to offer a book crawl, involving multiple stores in the event in a manner that builds customer bases for all the stores ("San Diego Book Crawl returns for 8th year with more locations," San Diego Union-Tribune). 14 stores are participating.

The concept of Independent Bookstore Day is expanding as this year is the launch of the Global Book Crawl event, stores in Southern California are participating ("6 Southern California independent bookstores join first-ever Global Book Crawl," Orange County Register, "Indie Booksellers Launch Ambitious Global Bookstore Crawl," Publishers Weekly).

Rather than one day, the Global Book Crawl

is a week, starting yesterday.

"... from April 21-27, the event involves 300 bookstores in more than 70 cities across 20 countries"   

Earth Day is today

 The first Earth Day was on April 20th, 1970 ("Earth Day, Part 2: April 22nd," 2024).  How are we doing?

=======

Not well, with the Trump Administration.

Illustration: transitioning from fossil fuels to cleaner energy.  Vox.

Coal power plant.  Wikipedia photo by Sam Nash.

1.  Repudiation of climate change science ("Earth Day 2025: How the Trump administration's policies will impact global decarbonization." ABC News).

2.  Promote a fossil fuel economy rather than a renewable energy paradigm.  During the first Trump Administration the Economist suggested this was a backwards rather than a forward looking approach ("America’s domination of oil and gas will not cow China").  This is a classic example of the Gerschenkron theory of economic backwardness being an advantage for later blooming economies as they can adopt the latest technology without worrying so much about sunk costs. ("New report details long-term challenges to US energy dominance," Midland Reporter-Telegram, "The road to energy dominance is not paved with coal," The Hill).  

Also see "Clean energy breakthroughs could save the world. How do we create more of them?," Vox.

From the second article:

Market forces have been phasing out coal for the last decade in favor of cheaper electricity sources. Coal’s decline has been steady, regardless of which party sits in the Oval Office. When President Trump took office in 2016, coal represented 30 percent of total U.S. electricity generation. By his first term’s end, and despite efforts to prop up the industry, that share had plummeted to 20 percent.

Adobe Images photo of a coal mining operation. 

A recent series of executive orders throw a federal kitchen sink at bolstering this energy resource, which markets deem uneconomic, while simultaneously declaring an energy emergency. But the White House cannot erase energy market realities by presidential fiat.

Executive orders cannot change the fundamental economics of coal-fired power plants, nor can they alter states’ authority over electric generation facilities, which Congress delineated in the Federal Power Act. The orders also will not bring new coal plants online within the next four years, because their time horizon from investment to build, interconnection, and operation is far longer.

3.  Trump Administration will disallow states from imposing regulations on American energy projects ("Trump’s New Way to Kill Regulations: Because I Say So," New York Times)

President Trump this week directed 10 federal agencies — including the Environmental Protection Agency, the Energy Department and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission — to implement a novel procedure to scrap a wide array of longstanding energy and environmental regulations.

He told agencies that oversee everything from gas pipelines to power plants to insert “sunset” provisions that would cause regulations to automatically expire by October 2026. If the agencies wanted to keep a rule, it could only be extended for a maximum of five years at a time.

Experts say the directive faces enormous legal hurdles. But it was one of three executive orders from Mr. Trump on Wednesday in which he declared that he was pursuing new shortcuts to weaken or eliminate regulations.

The article goes on to discuss how the regulatory process for creating rules works, and that Trump's order is counter to administrative law. 

4.  With an increase in the number of extreme weather events ("Extreme Weather and Climate Change," NASA), the Trump Administration is calling for an end of FEMA providing disaster planning grants to states ("Trump administration ends key grant program that helps communities prepare for disasters," AP).  From the article:

In a news release Friday, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said it was ending the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program, calling the move part of efforts to eliminate “waste, fraud and abuse.”

“The BRIC program was yet another example of a wasteful and ineffective FEMA program. It was more concerned with political agendas than helping Americans affected by natural disasters,” the agency said in a statement.

In addition to ending the program going forward, FEMA said it was also cancelling all applications to the program from 2020 to 2023 and that money that was awarded as part of grants but not already distributed would be immediately returned to the federal government.

Not to mention the gutting of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the agency that includes the National Weather Service ("The costs of Trump’s NOAA science purge," Politico, "Trump administration has set Noaa on ‘non-science trajectory’, workers warn," Guardian). 

5.  End Environmental Justice Programs.  These programs address harms caused by the location of polluting firms in low income communities ("EPA to fire or reassign more than 450 staffers working on environmental justice, DEI" Washington Post).

6.  Defund National Parks.  Not only does this make visiting national parks more difficult.  Scientific research programs are being gutted ("Former rangers worry what Trump’s cuts will mean for Utah’s national parks," KUER/NPR).

7.  Increased cutting of trees in US Forest Service lands ("USDA Opens 59% of Federal Forest for Logging to Manage Fire Risk," Bloomberg).  Plus defunding the agency  and cutting science projects.  Given the increase in the geographic spread and virulence of wildfire, the cuts extend to personnel who respond to wildfires ("‘Crazy’: Forest Service cuts ignite fear, fury over wildfire risks," Politico).  

The Ocean County wildfire covered 8,500 acres and led to about 3,000 residents being evacuated, according to the New Jersey Forest Fire Service. Photo: New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.

Wildfires in states are an increasing problem ("N.J. wildfire swells to 11,500 acres, could become biggest in two decades," Philadelphia Inquirer).

8.  Considering denying nonprofit status to environmental advocacy groups ("Trump Officials Weigh Earth Day Move Against Green Groups," Bloomberg) as it's already cutting grants to such groups without authorization from Congress ("EPA’s Decision to Scrap $20bn in Climate Grants Based on ‘Inaccurate, Politicized’ Claims, Says Grantee," Earth.org).

There have been weekly demonstrations at Tesla showrooms across the country, including damage to buildings and cars.

9.  Bonus: Elon Musk's destruction of government as a shock troop of Trump is harming the electric car producer, Tesla ("As Tesla profits plunge 71%, Elon Musk says he'll spend less time on DOGE," NPR).  Note even better than electric cars is not driving and...

10.  The Trump Administration is deemphasizing transit funding and multi-mobility transportation policies("States push to shift road funds to transit and bike projects as Trump threatens cuts," AP).  

The Administration is threatening New York State transportation funding because the State won't accede to demands that New York City end congestion pricing ("Trump official threatens New York governor over halt of congestion pricing," Guardian).  

The Administration also cut a planning grant to Texas for high speed passenger railroad service, calling it savings for taxpayers (press release).

This photo is actually from Canada.  X photo.

Most transit agencies across the country are facing massive cuts in service, because of federal disinterest in providing funds.

11.  Bonus: More generally, Republicans are pretty much against public investment and the concept of public goods ("Boebert wants to pull the brakes on federal funding for proposed Front Range passenger rail project," Denver ABC7 ).  During the Biden Administration plenty of Republicans took credit for projects in their districts that they voted against.