Revisiting Strip shopping centers and innovation

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

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

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

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

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

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

East Ohio Street, Allegheny City, Pittsburgh.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There were "centers" within the miles of buildings often at intersections of major roads where a more "shopping center" developed.  (This happened in Chicago too.)  The one I remember when I was in elementary school was still strip center, but there was a grocer (Packer, then it was bought out by Wrigley), an independent neighborhood "department store" with a focus on apparel, Woolworth's--not Kresge, even though Kresge was headquartered in Detroit, that's where I would buy Matchbox cars, I don't remember if it had a soda fountain, and a branch of Federal's, a regional downscale department store chain by comparison to more upscale chains Hudson's--which still had its downtown store but was developing suburban malls and Crowley's/Demery's (they merged), which was noteworthy for having a downtown store, but also stores in the shopping districts (Wieboldt's did this in Chicago) and suburban town centers like Birmingham and Grosse Pointe.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cary Court Park and Shop in Richmond, Virginia.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

When governments sell land always put in clawback provisions

DC sold many school buildings in the 1980s and 1990s, mostly to nonprofit organizations.  The city's building inventory was large because segregation meant duplication of facilities.  Over time, many of these organizations sold the buildings off, to great profit.  But there was no provision in the sales contracts for the DC Public School System to get a portion of the increased sales price.

For example, Wormley School was sold to Georgetown University which eventually sold it to a developer for more than 5x what it paid ("University to Sell Wormley Property," Georgetown Hoya).

Although to be fair, partly they took advantage of new market conditions.  When the property sold first, DC was just about ready to take off in the c. 2000 change of consumer attitudes towards urban living which again favored cities.  

It makes sense then that the building is now condos but DC should have gained more from the transaction ("Apartment in Georgetown’s Wormley School Lists for $2.8 Million," Mansion Global).

Another building sold to the DC Teachers Credit Union, and they had offices there for awhile, has long since been converted to in-demand Capitol Hill condominiums.

Parkland, Florida is dealing with that now.  Decades ago they sold for $850,000 a piece of property to the county school system for an elementary school to be built in their community.  But the school was never built and the school system recently sold the same property for $14 million to the Broward Health hospital system ("Parkland seeks $850,000 refund from school district after land sale to Broward Health," Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel).

Parkland wants their money back.  But they, like DC, didn't put provisions in the contract that the property should revert back to them if never used, or to be paid back the cost of the property if it were to be sold to a third party.

Traditionally, land bequests to governments and nonprofits most often include this provision of giving land with conditions that the property revert back to the original owners if the use changes.  

A D.C. streetcar passes the Douglas Memorial United Methodist Church near the H Street Corridor in Washington on March 7, 2018. (Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post)

That's why the United Methodist Church on H Street NE in DC, formerly a "white" church, decided to integrate as the neighborhood changed.  They didn't see a future as a "white church" and wanted to sell the property but the conditions of the bequest made them change course ("This H Street church was a hub of the community in the 1960s, then came the riots. It never thrived again.," Washington Post).

Cy Pres Review.  I am not a lawyer, so take this with a grain of salt, but in some states, the State Attorney General's office is active in overseeing land sales and other dissolution acts involving nonprofits.  Such sales are supposed to be made with the continuation of the  property or monies still being used by nonprofits.

This is called Cy Pres Doctrine ("An Historical and Empirical Analysis of the Cy-Près Doctrine," University of Louisville School of Law Legal Studies Research Paper Series No. 2023-3) and the funds involved, Cy Pres Funds  In Pennsylvania this is in the news because of the closure of the University of the Arts.  A bunch of buildings were sold off by the bankruptcy court, not necessarily for non profit uses.  And a number of schools agreed to take their students.  

The Moore College of Art, the only independent private school of art in the city, argues it should get the bulk of the money, because it's closest organizationally to what UAS was institutionally ("Who should get the $63M endowment money of UArts? Depends on who you ask," WHYY/NPR, "University of the Arts’ $77 million endowment remains mired in court proceedings two years after the school closed," Philadelphia Inquirer) and New York AGs have been particularly active.

Among others, the AG was involved in the selling of Girard College and the move of the Barnes Institution ("Changing Donor-Imposed Restrictions: Cy Pres and Equitable Deviation," New York Community Trust) from Lower Merion Township to Philadelphia.  

Speculative ventures such as constructing this building without having tenants lined up put Cooper-Union at financial risk ("The Indicator: Cooper Union, I Love You but You’re Bringing Me Down," ArchDaily).

In New York State, a major case concerned Cooper-Union College, owner of the land under the Chrysler Building, the lease funds free tuition for the school, but the school wanted to start charging tuition because of financial exigency.  

They were allowed to do this, but with strict conditions ("A Second Chance for Cooper Union").

DC's AG hasn't been particularly proactive in these situations ("DC's Source Theater sold: cause for a cy pres review?").  I argued review should have occurred with the sale of the YWCA in Downtown and the Corcoran Gallery--its collection to the National Gallery, its building and art school to George Washington University ("When BTMFBA isn't enough: keeping civic assets public through cy pres review").

The YMCA at Rhode Island and 17th Street NW as another example.  I never got around to writing about a similar experience  with the YMCA in Dupont Circle. They sold their property to a developer and the recreation use at that site was abandoned.

YMCA said they didn't have experience with a facility serving both workers and residents and that they tried their best to increase membership but were unsuccessful ("Downtown YMCA to close amid rising competition from upscale gyms," Post; "Akridge to redevelop YMCA at 1711 Rhode Island as boutique office," Washington Business Journal).  From the Post:

The YMCA approved a deal to sell the hulking, 1970s concrete building to Akridge, a big local developer, for an undisclosed amount. At 100,000 square feet, it’s the YMCA’s biggest facility in the region, and the property, according to the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue, has an assessed taxable value of $27.2 million. ...

The National Capital facility was never a typical one for the YMCA. The nonprofit organization traditionally serves neighborhoods, not business districts, and Reese-Hawkins said the money from the sale of the building will boost the organization’s community, after-school and summer programs throughout the region.

She hopes to eventually open another full-service YMCA in the city and is in talks with community leaders to assess the best fit. There are no gyms in the District east of the Anacostia River, and Reese-Hawkins said it is possible that one could land there.

The building that will replace the YMCA.

They never opened another full-service YMCA in DC.

The AG got involved in some cases but didn't meaningfully shape the outcome.  

For me, except DC City Government also lacks the imagination, Corcoran Galley should have been transferred to the city creating its first locally controlled arts museum--the other museums in the city are run by the federal government.  And the Corcoran School of Art and Design should have been merged into UDC ("Should community culture master plans include elements on higher education arts programs?").

With the sale of the YW and the YM the organizations argued that the money received would support their programs generally.  But the sale of these properties came at the expense of the availability of recreational resources made available to residents in the center city, and they had received membership fees and donations for years from patrons of these facilities, making the argument for there being a clear DC citizen interest.  

Both the YW and YM should have been "forced" to put some of that money towards the creation of a new city recreation facility serving those areas--if the city's Department of Parks and Recreation had a clue.  A proactive AG and some consultants could have shifted the dialog.

Parkland and cy pres?  With the Parkland case, I'd argue that the State AG could step in and do a cy pres review, and as part of a settlement, make the City of Parkland whole.

Automated speed camera data from Toronto shows the value of this traffic speed enforcement mechanism

Doug Ford, Premier of Ontario, uses provincial powers a lot to preempt local government action, especially in Toronto.  One example is his elimination of the use of automatic speed cameras over "freedom etc." plus other measures can do just as well, such as oversize speed limit signs.

Guess what?  Tickets work.  Since the elimination of cameras, speeding has increased 235% in the Parkdale neighborhood, based on data collection associated with the speed limit counter signs, which collect data, they aren't limited to just saying "slow down" ("We all have one thing to say about Doug Ford’s ban on automated speed cameras: We told you so," Toronto Star).  From the article:

That’s based on data reported from one of the city’s digital “Watch your Speed” signs. You’ve seen them around. They’re typically posted near schools. They flash with your car’s speed as you pass by, hopefully serving as a visual reminder, when necessary, that you should slow the heck down. They also, it turns out, keep a permanent record of speeds.

These signs can be set up to collect data in both directions.  Yellow signs are typically placed near schools.  White signs elsewhere.  Photo: TrafficLogix.

Using the same basic methodology as Safe Parkside, I looked at data from more than 800 sites with these digital signs. In October 2025, the last full month before Ford’s ban on speed cameras took effect, the digital signs collectively recorded 626,137 vehicles exceeding the posted speed limit by at least 20 km/h. In April, with no more fear of speed cameras, the number nearly doubled, to more than one million.

Of 837 sites I looked at with data from both before and after the speed camera ban, the number of drivers doing 20 clicks over the limit increased at 476 of them. (Before the program was put on ice, the city had 150 speed cameras that rotated through locations like these.)

Tickets are "controversial."  They cost money so people don't like them, without acknowledging that if they followed the laws they wouldn't be ticketed.  

In the Douglas Shoup parking universe, parking tickets are a source of revenue for commercial district public space improvements.  But to me there is a fine line between encouraging and discouraging people to visit traditional commercial districts.  You have to balance parking concerns, bad behavior of parking--which is why Shoup encouraged low or no cost parking in garages, and high prices for street parking--and encouraging return passenger.

The recent director of the Philadelphia Parking Authority, Richard Lazar, made the point that rather than focusing on the revenue generating capacity of tickets, he prefers to think of them as "education devices" that people use to change their behavior ("Rich Lazer Would Like You to Love the PPA. No, Seriously.," Philadelphia Magazine).

Lazer recognizes that increased enforcement isn’t viewed positively across much of the city. He doesn’t look at enforcement as a revenue generator — a claim you can hear muttered at expired meters across Philadelphia — but rather as a behavioral change. If you’re blocking a crosswalk or parking on a sidewalk or jamming up a bike lane, yes, you’ll have to pay a fine. And maybe next time, you won’t do it (or at least will think twice about doing it).

“It’s about curb management and enforcing quality-of-life issues so they don’t happen anymore,” Lazer says. “And maybe that’s putting yourself out of business, because you want people to follow the rules. But at the end of the day, we don’t want to be looked at as somebody who just wants to generate revenue, because that’s not the mission. Our operation is not out to just crush people.”

I imagine he believes that parking scofflaws, who don't care about tickets--a problem in DC with out of state license plate users of the streets because it's hard to penalize them, that they should get their cars impounded, as another form of education.

Anyway, the Toronto findings are a sad but good example of real life experimentation to prove or disprove various approaches to public policy, in this case traffic enforcement.

Fourth of July | US 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence

There's far too much going on for me to be able to write something pithy and searing about the state of American Democracy, other than my contribution to a Utah commemoration of the anniversary last week at the opening of the Museum of Utah History.

Below, it's the last of the line of red bars.

There is an article in the Toronto Star, "How does former foreign affairs minister John Manley see America today?," interviewing John Manley, former minister, about Canada's relationship now with the US.  Which has deteriorated in so many ways ("Trump threatens not to renew USMCA as Carney talks trade strategy with premiers," "North American free trade is gone, dead and buried," Toronto Globe & Mail).

It's not very good.  

One example is Trump holding Canada hostage over the new Gordie Howe International Bridge.  Canada paid for it because the US wouldn't contribute and the Detroit-Windsor crossing is key to trade between the two countries, the auto industry, and Canada-Michigan, Canada being Michigan's largest trading power ("For people in Detroit and Windsor, Gordie Howe bridge delay fits a familiar – and frustrating – pattern," "Canada built the Gordie Howe bridge. Trump weaponized it," "Donald Trump can’t open the Strait of Hormuz, so instead he’s blocking the Strait of Detroit," Toronto Globe & Mail).  

The new bridge will correct transportational bottlenecks that result from the current set up.

The owner of the private Ambassador Bridge, which is the major above-ground link between the two nations, but the bridge dumps its traffic into a neighborhood not set up to facilitate very well the movement of the truck traffic towards the freeways, has made lots of donations to Trump ("Trump keeping Gordie Howe bridge closed to help donor, Michigan senate candidate claims in ad," AP).

The Gordie Howe International Bridge in Windsor on Thursday. Canada picked up the tab for the recently-completed bridge, but it still hasn’t opened because Trump doesn’t want it open, writes Tony Keller. Photo: Dax Melmer/The Globe and Mail

From the interview:

How truly democratic is the U.S. today?

We need to remember that every institution has some fragility to it. And that it requires all of us to remain vigilant. Democracy is not something to be taken for granted. It takes work. We have to inform people. We have to educate people. Literacy is a prime requirement in a democracy. We have to preserve the independence of voices that can be critical of what those in power are doing, holding them to account. I think (journalist) Anne Applebaum uses the analogy that we tend to think of democracy like we go to the tape in the kitchen and pour ourselves a glass of water. It’s way more complicated than that. It’s like when we had to go up the hill to the well and pump some water out in order to get a drink. That’s what democracy is. It requires work.

This is so true.  As despondent I am about the state of the nation today, especially how Republicans put party before country, how they have abdicated their responsibility as co-equal members of the Legislative Branch to be lapdogs of the President, how the rule of law is disregarded ("Electing a Federal Attorney General and a Chief Inspector General | Expanding Democracy") and how the conservative majority of the Supreme Court is overtly Republican in many of its rulings, we still have to try to work Democracy, to improve it, to push back against the transgressions.

=======

"American flags are everywhere this weekend. But the symbol has become politicized to a degree unseen before," Boston Globe.

Partisans at each end of the political spectrum use the flag to disparage the patriotism of the other side. Politicians on the right literally wrap themselves in the banner to proclaim their love of country. And protesters on the left wave the flag at mass demonstrations as a rallying cry to protect or expand American rights.

... For many at that time, the flag symbolized a transcendent sense of broad national purpose, even if large swaths of the population still struggled to claim their rights or bitterly criticized the government. This Fourth of July, even flying the flag at home can have political, demographic, and racial overtones.

About 70 percent of Republicans, and 60 percent of Americans ages 60 and older, fly the flag at least during national holidays, according to an April survey by The Associated Press and the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago.

Conversely, about 60 percent of Democrats and independents said they never fly the flag, including about 75 percent of Democrats under 45, the survey showed. In addition, only about 30 percent of Black adults said they ever display the banner.

I'm more with Zohran Mamdani in his speech on Friday ("Zohran Mamdani rebukes Trumpism with pro-immigrant speech for US’s 250th birthday," Guardian). 

“Patriotism has never been about pretending our nation is without flaws,” the New York mayor said. “Patriotism is every act of righteous dissent. It is every march led under the heavy sun. It is every protest held a decade before its time. It is precisely because we love this nation that we will not leave it.”

Location, location, location ... and what zoning allows determine what a property is actually worth

According to Crain's New York Business, this 85-year-old White Castle at 89-03 57th Avenue in Queens is selling for $15 million.

Having dealt with land use issues from the perspective of a revitalization advocate for about 35 years, I have come to belief that most less involved citizens think land use and planning decision making is a game.

That don't see it as a legal process with parameters.  Yes, a lot of the law preferences development if the project meets categories of approved use, height, and mass. Usually this means that those projects are called "matter of right" with no opportunities for citizens to weigh in.

Public notice for a zoning hearing in Detroit.  Flickr photo by Steven Vance.

If not, and a zoning changes of one or more elements are required to develop the property the way the owner wants, it triggers hearings and opportunities for citizens to weigh in on the matter, positively or negatively.

Similarly, with historic preservation if a building is landmarked individually or is part of a historic district, desired changes require approval, which unless minor also trigger a hearing process. 

Some cities extend this to demolitions, an automatic triggering of public review.

The same is true of environmental review when development proposals are located in sensitive areas, etc.

I call these "remedies," opportunities within the law to have input on the process.

Most citizens see approvals as a process that favors developers.  While the process does favor development--after all, cities make the bulk of their revenue from property tax, and commercial property tax is higher than on residential, plus cities have so much untaxed land between government and nonprofits like churches [see the Growth Machine argument]--it's not a slam dunk.

Based on the regulatory framework projects can be defeated.   Developers call when the zoning and review, and permitting process provides the go ahead to build, "entitlements."

The reason this property interests me is that it is seemingly similar to a property matter I dealt with in Salt Lake involving Sugar House Park ("Learnings from a recent zoning issue I've been involved in").  

There a single private property on the perimeter of the park exists as a historical anomaly predating founding of the park.  

Though zoned low density and neighborhood serving, the property owner valued it as if it could be rezoned to a high density use that wasn't neighborhood serving.  They refused to accept anything opposite their belief.  The failure to get approval for an upzone was based on the land use context and the clear language and history of master planning for that neighborhood-this site was never intended to be able to be densely developed.

One of my arguments against the upzone was that the property owner's intransigence shouldn't be rewarded with an upward revaluation of the property.  Ultimately it wasn't.

The Queens site is zoned for medium density residential (say 6-7 stories), and it wouldn't be a stretch given NYC's recent move to build more housing ("City of Yes") that they could get a slight upzone, but not a major one.

Different property.  Different "entitlements".  Different outcomes.  Different value.

In a weak housing market, will Cleveland's Housing Innovation District move the needle?

Cleveland's biggest problem is that the city is shrinking.  The population in 1990 was 505,000 and 372,000 in 2020. 

Now that's a store.

For example the famed Heinin supermarkets local chain announced they're closing their landmark downtown store, located in a historic bank--after downsizing and rebuilding after George Floyd riots closed the store ("Heinen’s closure in downtown Cleveland raises questions about sustaining development").

 And so is the metropolitan area.  The 2020 population was about 2.1 million.  The estimate for 2026 is 1.72 million.  

1836 E. 79th Street, Cleveland, Ohio.

In that context, there's a lot of vacant buildings and lots ("Finding the Potential in Vacant Lots," New York Times) not just in the city proper, but in the suburbs too.  

I know that years ago, Cleveland's inner ring suburbs were leaders in trying to do suburban revitalization (The Northeast Ohio First Suburbs Consortium), but not quite how Arlington County, Virginia was able to because the DC metropolitan area was growing, and they could leverage the addition of Metrorail ("How DC [really Arlington County] densified," Works in Progress).

Still, Cleveland has incredibly social, community and organizational capital. In the 1990s, Cleveland  foundations worked together to force accountability and consolidation on community development corporations.  There are many foundations doing great housing work like the Catholic social justice based Famikos Foundation.  When I was there in 2002, the city had a great facade improvement program and manual.

The Cleveland Restoration Society was a leader in leveraging city monies in bank accounts to fund housing renovation.  They have a revolving fund to invest in property development.  

There are a number of firms specializing in historic preservation financing and rehabilitation of big projects like Sandvik Architects.  And the state has a historic preservation tax credit too.

And they have a program to help churches light their steeples, which I think is really cool.

The Metroparks system is fabulous, with many on the Lake Erie waterfront.  

There are great civic assets like the West Side Market and business improvement districts and community development initiatives all over.  The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  Terminal Tower is a fabulous train station.  (But all the old department store buildings, massive 1 million s.f. or more are all defunct.)

I always tout there "Business Revitalization Overlay District" as a way to coordinate investment with the public and private sectors.  They have strong design review requirements.  And the State has a strong receivership statute that allows nonprofits to take over properties, cure the title, fix them, and sell them, to bring houses back into use.

They are an example of a line I have, that cities like Cleveland 

"have a desperate willingness to experiment because they have no other choice."

More alternative weeklies need to publish "worst of" articles. Page 1, Page 2.

They still have legacy heavy rail service although it's not well used.  A great system for evaluating bus stops for amenities.  The transit system provides decent coverage, and it was the first one to connect heavy rail service to the local airport in the late 1970s.  A big Midwestern bank is still based there, and there are some other corporations.  In nearby Akron, LeBron James has invested a lot, so has the Knight Foundation.  

The Cleveland Scene alternative weekly still publishes once a month print issues, although the Cleveland Plain Dealer only prints a couple of editions each week. But their urban design writer who was great, Steven Litt, has retired.

Both the Akron and Cleveland areas have great regional bikeway plans and systems.  Plus the universities and the Cleveland Clinic constantly grow.  There are investments in public spaces, the (in my opinion) over touted Health Line BRT, etc.

Creating Cleveland heavy rail is a fascinating story.  The Van Sweringen brothers were developing Shaker Square and Cleveland Heights and they wanted transit service.  To get it, they bought the Nickel Plate Railroad system, to get the necessary right of way.  They also built Terminal Tower.  But they were ruined by the Depression.

Forest City, a regional hardware store chain, was based in Cleveland, and is long since shut down, but the firm shifted to large scale revitalization oriented real estate development in many cities, including DC.  Value City, a regional department store chain specializing in low income markets, was based their too.  It's last iteration in furniture, finally closed this year.  But the founding family, the Schottensteins, when on to be big in vulture investing.

And Playhouse Square is a national best practice example of historic preservation and arts focused development.  They've since created a CDC to build and hold property around the theaters.  

The Gordon Square Arts District is a best practice neighborhood focused arts district revitalization initiative ("A Cleveland Arts District Hustles and Rebounds," NYT).  A number of new developments complement the Capitol Theatre and two buildings converted into smaller community theaters.  Reasonably well designed new buildings too.

To me, Cleveland has a lot going on, and if I could have found gainful employment there, I would have liked to live in the city, despite its cold winters.

I think the Housing Innovation District is interesting, it aligns a wide variety of programs and systems so that both small and larger developers can participate and work with small parcels, not just big ones.  From "'Amazing neighborhoods' that deserve investment. Cleveland proposes East Side improvement district" (Ideastream/NPR)

Cleveland is proposing sweeping development efforts in the historically redlined East Side neighborhoods of Hough, Central and St. Clair-Superior.

Using a suite of economic development tools, including waived permit fees for new construction, modernized zoning codes and a new tax increment financing district, the city plans to put millions toward spurring new housing, businesses and walkable communities in neighborhoods that have been challenged by decades of disinvestment. Cleveland officials are referring to the area as a Housing Innovation District.

"When we think about the Housing Innovation District, it's 'How can we create an area that really incentivizes people to bring new housing,' but [also] really builds wealth block by block in the neighborhood for the existing residents that are here," Tom McNair, the city's Chief of Integrated Development, told reporters in St. Clair-Superior on Wednesday morning. "Because St. Clair Superior, Hough, Central: these are amazing neighborhoods that for far too long haven't gotten the type of investment they deserve."

Lake Erie beach, Cleveland Metroparks.

BUT, at the end of the day, you need households to live in the buildings.  It's not about what the neighborhoods deserve, it's about what the market will support.  

I read a couple of articles on small developers in Chicago and Pittsburgh ("Six new townhomes. Zero buyers. And one developer on the brink," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) who built market rate housing in emerging neighborhoods (so weak not strong) and they couldn't sell them.  Or the houses wouldn't appraise for a mortgage, because of the prevailing housing prices.

I am constantly amazed to see community revitalization programs in specific areas that have spent many hundreds of millions, and it's hard to see improvements, even though they are and usually key civic assets, plus housing--although my line from decades ago, that building better housing for poor people doesn't rebuild broken micro economies all that much, which was my lesson from H Street DC ("Ah, the H Street Community Development Corporation"). 

An awesome house for $325,000 in the Ohio City neighborhood across the river.

OTOH, even marginal additions of population make a difference ("Community revitalization initiatives for smaller communities | marginal attraction of people and commerce even in small amounts makes a difference").

And to be fair, they've really pulled together a lot of policy changes, financing, land etc. to make things happen.  It will be interesting to watch even though I think that it's really tough to move the needle in weak markets.

Boston wonders if they can re-support nightlife based on the results so far from the World Cup

People waited to be seated outside The Union Bar. Photo: Christian Kantosky, Boston Globe.

The Boston Globe has been writing about the impact of the World Cup on the city's nightlife.

Where the Scots cleaned out alcohol supplies ("‘We’ve never seen anything like it’: Patrons emptied bars and liquor stores in Boston this weekend"), the city extended open hours till 3 am ("Governor Healey signs bill allowing 3 a.m. last call for the World Cup, expanding public drinking through July"), outdoor public drinking zones, like Bourbon Street in New Orleans, etc.  

So the Boston Globe wonders if "Boston nightlife is in the midst of a grand social experiment. Can the good vibes last?."

As someone who worked on commercial district revitalization for 20 years in DC and wrote a lot about this issue, they missed the biggest possible point and difference, the addition of many tens of thousands of people from out of the area who were there for nightlife.

-- "Aging cities | Maintaining economic dynamism in the face of aging populations at the city and metropolitan scale" (2025)

-- "Richard's Rules for Restaurant-Based Revitalization: New business models are needed for 2025" (especially the comments where I quote from relevant articles I come across)

-- "Experience economy/nightlife: Boston, LA, Pittsburgh, London, Santa Monica" (2025)

-- "Planning programming by daypart, month, season: and Boston Winter Garden, DC's Holiday Market, etc." (2016)

Bourbon Street.

Temporarily, World Cup cities are functioning more like 24/7 nightlife districts in Las Vegas, Miami, and not quite NYC, plus Bourbon Street in New Orleans, Beale Street in Memphis?.  People go to those cities to party.  

I follow Reddit Las Vegas and people write about going there and being drunk and/or high for most of their stay.  Maybe the Scots were like that.  Not Bostonians.

Plus the super posh clubs with bottle service and all night dancing, massive pool parties in Vegas, etc.

Beale Street.

A traditional city, at least in the US, just doesn't have that kind of latent populations always going out, and willing to be shitfaced and then go to work.  Concerns like:

• Having to work two jobs
• mobility when drunk
• the impact of smartphones on entertainment choices, less ability to socialize
• the cost of going out
• consumption of experiences
• labor for the establishments and the the rise of the cost of goods sold, 
• rents and changing business models due to work from home reducing office visits
• people drinking less
• People consuming edibles instead of drinking, 
• mocktails (just as expensive to produce, lower margins, 
• etc.

Make it a lot harder to go out.

Big Pickup Trucks and SUVs Kill

 According to the New York Times (""The Deadly Rise of Giant Trucks and S.U.V.s" (NY Times article on taller hoods and larger blind-spots)"), 10% of the increase in pedestrian deaths--which have risen at a rate in the US higher than other countries--is because people's purchases shifted from low profile cars to high profile trucks and SUVs.  And that 10% number only includes deaths on roads, not in parking lots, private roads, or driveways.

Left turns are the biggest source of crashes resulting in death.  The way that the article describes the various blind zones of the Chevy Silverado truck are exactly the circumstances that killed an elementary school child in my neighborhood a few years ago ("Salt Lake City girl struck, killed in crosswalk near elementary school," Salt Lake Tribune).

It was worse than shown in the simulation because the driver was short, making the blind zones even bigger.  From the Times:

To analyze how these blind zones have changed, we used a three-dimensional scanner to compare sightlines in four of the most common pickups today — the Chevrolet Silverado, Ford F-150, GMC Sierra and Toyota Tacoma — with their counterparts from the 1990s or early 2000s.

The Silverado’s blind zones have nearly doubled.

The Sierra’s and the Tacoma’s grew by about 60 percent.

The smallest increase was the F-150’s. Its blind zones grew by about 25 percent.

Money. ‘King of the Road’. 

Our overall findings match what we found in court records and heard from dozens of experts who reconstruct crashes for police and lawyers. Today’s S.U.V.s and pickups promise more: more seats, more space, more safety, more power, more domination, more prestige.

And, for automakers, more money.

They are the source of virtually all of the U.S. auto industry’s profits, said Mark Wakefield, an industry expert at the consulting firm AlixPartners. For nearly a decade, Ford and G.M. have said in their annual reports that their earnings depend on larger S.U.V.s and pickups. The cost of making bigger vehicles is usually not much higher than it is for cars, because they are often built in automakers’ most efficient factories and the extra raw materials are relatively cheap.

Left: 1998 Chevy Silverado.  Right: 2021.

Yet customers are willing to pay much more for them. The average sticker price for a full-size pickup is $70,000, double that of a sedan, according to Cox Automotive. (Some people pay more to soup up their trucks with “lift kits” that raise their suspensions.)

The State of Utah is investing in a pro-nuclear public affairs campaign leading up to getting one of those new mini nuclear reactors

Decades ago when I worked for the Center for Science in the Public, I learned about corporate campaigns to promote industrial production of various products that were often harmful, like tobacco (Tobacco Advertising: The Great Seduction).

Food companies did advertising too pushing unhealthy products.  I once made a comment to a journalist at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution about how McDonald's spent more on advertising in one day than CSPI's annual budget.

CSPI was really big on fighting alcohol advertising.  At the time liquor companies had an agreement to not advertise on television but that started changing around the time I worked there.  CSPI fought it.

Personally I didn't think it was a big deal as beer and wine were advertised and it seemed unreasonable to ban advertising of products when 80% of the population had no problem with it.

OTOH, advertising would increase consumption leading to more problems.  Like with sports betting today ("The impact of exposure to wagering advertisements and inducements on intended and actual betting expenditure: An ecological momentary assessment study," Journal of Behavioral Addictions) or vaping ("How Social Media Promotion of Vaping Targets Teens," Yale School of Medicine).

CSPI published a couple small books on "Marketing Booze to Blacks" and "Marketing Disease to Hispanics," back when alcohol and tobacco companies were big supporters of minority group organizations, minority media, and museums, aimed at selling their product disproportionately to people in distressed circumstances.

I was proud when I got a blurb in a column in the Columbia Journalism Review about a black media company specifically criticizing CSPI when hawking for ads.

Later there's been good coverage about this wrt plastics ("Plastic Wars: Industry Spent Millions Selling Recycling — To Sell More Plastic," NPR).  When we were in DC, there was a campaign against an city legislation to start a recycling deposit program, with the message that it would impose burdens on small stores.

Communications presentation board on the dangers of tobacco, Harambee African American Tobacco and Health Network.

WRT smoking, I was pleasantly surprised to go to a Juneteenth event in Ogden Utah and saw that two different organization booths featured anti smoking campaigns.

Anyway, for awhile the State of Utah has been running a campaign to "counter the mis-beliefs we have about nuclear energy" without acknowledging that there are reasonable concerns.  I've heard radio spots, but hadn't seen online ads.  This one is over the top.  It costs a f* of a lot more to pay for storing one barrel of nuclear waste and it isn't safer than properly packaging leftovers.

-- 3 Advanced Reactor Systems to Watch by 2030, US Department of Energy

-- "Utah and Industry Leaders Announce Major Nuclear Energy Partnership in Brigham City," Brigham City

-- "Utah officials announce Brigham City as state’s ‘nuclear hub’," Trementon Leader

The cost to store one barrel of nuclear waste ranges from $2,000 for low grade waste to many hundred thousands of dollars for highly radioactive waste.  One advantage of the new reactors is that are supposed to not generate as much waste and I think they claim they'll be able to use existing waste as feedstock.

Of course, the other big pro-corporate campaigning going on now is for data centers--it supports your use of the Internet ("Meta Campaigns to Change Opinions on Data Centers," New York Times).

From the article:

Meta, OpenAI, Google, Microsoft and Amazon have embarked on a building spree in the A.I. race, investing hundreds of billions of dollars to erect data centers to develop the technology. In doing so, they have fueled an increasingly political issue, with President Trump and lawmakers across the country criticizing the computing sites for driving up energy costs and straining local water supplies.

So in November and December, Meta spent $6.4 million to run a series of ads — including the one about Altoona — in the television markets of eight state capitals such as Sacramento, Salt Lake City and Tallahassee, Fla., as well as Washington, D.C., according to data from AdImpact, an analytics firm.