Land use planning is upside down by not focusing on maintaining and strengthening neighborhoods: independent retail should be an element supported by city programs

"Land use" planning doesn't usually address neighborhoods in a systematic way.  In 2011, I wrote a couple pieces including "Rethinking community planning around maintaining neighborhood civic assets and anchors " about how neighborhood elementary schools are the building blocks and anchors of strong neighborhoods, and how planning pretty much ignores it.  I've since expanded on those pieces, such as "The bilingual Key Elementary School in Arlington County as another example of the "upsidedownness" of community planning."

And then today, I came across something I wrote in 2010, about "neighborhood planning" in DC ("Planning frameworks and the DC Indices guidebook").

For most municipalities, the Comprehensive Land Use Plan (or Master Plan) is the closest the local government has to a mission statement and "business plan" and therefore the document ought to be truly comprehensive and thorough.

The Indices guide [the 2010 link doesn't work and archive.org is down, this is the link from 2016] says that DC produces neighborhood plans but we don't really, the "small area" plans that are produced are not neighborhood plans as much as they are framework plans to guide development, revitalization, and zoning. 

A neighborhood plan would systematically consider civic facilities (i.e., schools, parks, libraries, recreation centers, transportation -- ideally from the standpoint of sustainability, even the provision of emergency services), and other quality of life factors.

Small area plans and corridor plans ("Great Streets") as mentioned in Indices mostly consider development opportunities and do not consider how a neighborhood is served (or not) by civic assets. So to my way of thinking, they fail the most basic definition of "deliverables" that qualify being termed under the definition of a "neighborhood" plan. (See this web resource guide for more details about what makes great neighborhood planning.)   ...

I argue that the purpose of planning and zoning is to preserve, maintain, and extend quality of life for residents, while at the same time ensuring the ability of the city to function as a preeminent location to locate and conduct commerce within the metropolitan landscape, and as a place to visit and be entertained.

Neighborhood commercial districts and independent retailers have special needs.  I've been communicating with will from Capitol Hill, DC for years.  

Lately, I wrote about the closure of Mott's Market ("Saving urban corner stores needs public assistance: Mott's Market on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC") around the corner from where he lived, and he has informed me that more corner stores are closing around Capitol Hill.  

It's noticeable in Capitol Hill because they've been able to maintain the presence of corner stores because of the density and income demographics of the community, while corner stores in other parts of the city have been on the decline for decades.

But now Capitol Hill faces negative conditions for corner stores, because of high rents and low revenues and the increased value of the property for alternative uses, but also a generational-ethnic-immigrants issue. 

Race, ethnicity, immigration play a part.  It's a generational-immigrant issue because like taxi driving, corner stores require a lot of hours and low pay, so they appeal to people who may be less competitive in the labor environment in other circumstances.

Pre-1968 (riots), most DC corner stores were run by Jews ("Mom and Pop No More," Capital Jewish Museum) and Greeks, in the 1970s African-Americans, and starting in the 1980s, Koreans ("Korean Merchants Find Opportunity in DC," Washington Post, 1986).  

Reasons for the transition to Koreans from African-Americans included dislike of the hours, fears of and experience with crime, and relocation to the suburbs making travel between home and work more difficult.

This is a great book.  It's about the interaction between business owners and residents in urban neighborhoods.

Koreans are retiring, putting business succession and continuation at risk.  Now the Korean business owners are hitting retirement age and there doesn't seem to be a new generation of immigrants able or willing to step in and take over, especially because in 2022 and opposed to 1972, the cost to buy a business and building is beyond the means of many.

Plus, cashing out and letting the building become a residence looks pretty good. 

And given that they don't have many real ties with local neighborhoods--most of these owners live in the suburbs not the city--it's not a priority for them to sell the property in a manner that strengthens neighborhood character, it's merely a decision about maximizing profit.

Government economic development programs need to step in.  But they usually suck at it.  Most communities, not just DC, don't really do comprehensive planning at the neighborhood scale.  

And as I have argued, they don't have good frameworks for how to approach it anyway.

Therefore, Will's right that the circumstances are such that to "preserve" corner stores in hot real estate markets, extra-normal assistance is required.  

And the fact is, most neighborhoods, even well-resourced ones like Capitol Hill, often need help too ("Revisiting older writings on the success of independent retail and neighborhood commercial districts").  

But the thing is, along the lines of my point that government is more about a bias for inaction than action, government, even a "Department of Small and Local Business Development" isn't likely to step up.  

They lack a fine grained understanding of how this or commercial districts work, and they don't think in system/structural terms--they can grasp the issues of a "multi-decade person of color owned business" but not the idea that the issues are systematic, and pertain to all independent businesses, new and old, although there can always be specific issues concerning raising capital, race, etc.("Revisiting the issue of neighborhood commercial district property tax methodologies").

SEMAEST is supporting the development of a local bike shop, and tweeted about it.

The Community Development Corporation/SEMAEST model as a solution.  I've written in terms of arts uses that communities need to develop CDCs operating at the scale of a city or county to buy, hold, and rent properties to arts uses at discounted rates.  

SEMAEST in Paris does this for retail, and they control over 700,000 s.f. across the city, and have been very successful in supporting the maintenance of existing retail and the development of new retail.

-- "The SEMAEST Vital Quartier program remains the best model for helping independent retail ," 2018

-- "Revisiting stories: cultural planning and the need for arts-based community development corporations as real estate operators," 2018
-- "BTMFBA: the best way to ward off artist or retail displacement is to buy the building," 2016-- "BMFBTA revisited: nonprofits and facilities planning and acquisition," 2016
-- "BTMFBA: artists and Los Angeles," 2017
-- "BTMFBA Chronicles: Seattle coffee shop raises money to buy its building," 2018
-- "Dateline Los Angeles: BTMFBA & Transformational Projects Action Planning & arts-related community development corporation as an implementation mechanism to own property," 2018

Lack of a good framework for how to do comprehensive and integrated neighborhood planning makes it harder.  And it's abetted by not doing comprehensive planning at the neighborhood scale, and doing it the right way instead of the wrong way ("The Takoma Metro Development Proposal and its illustration of gaps in planning and participation processes ").

Places vary by density and use, and planning should be responsive to those differences.  Illustration from The House Book by Keith DuQuette.

What should comprehensive neighborhood plans focus on?  So I was thinking about this in terms of what should truly neighborhood-focused comprehensive plans focus on and this is what I came up with:

1. Public safety ("The state of "broken windows" versus "problem oriented policing" strategies in 2016: Part 1, theory and practice," "The state of "broken windows" versus "problem oriented policing" strategies in 2016: Part 2, what to do")
2. Urban design/placemaking/designing walkable places ("Extending the "Signature Streets" concept to "Signature Streets and Spaces"," "Planning for place/urban design/neighborhoods versus planning for transportation modes: new 17th Street NW bike lanes | Walkable community planning versus "pedestrian" planning," "The layering effect: how the building blocks of an integrated public realm set the stage for community building")
3. Coordinating the development of maintenance of a civic assets network at the neighborhood scale (parks, green spaces, open space, libraries, etc.) ("Neighborhood libraries as nodes in a neighborhood and city-wide network of cultural assets," "Five examples of the failure to do parks and public space master planning in DC")
4. Viable neighborhood commercial districts and independent retail ("Basic planning building blocks for urban commercial district revitalization programs that most cities haven't packaged: Part 1 | The first six")
   
5. High quality neighborhood schools, including safe routes to schools ("Why isn't walking/biking to school programming an option in Suburban Omaha? | Inadequacies in school transportation planning")
6. Sustainable mobility and traffic safety (Making bus service sexy and more equitable,"  "Transit, stations, and placemaking: stations as entrypoints into neighborhoods," "Revisiting Vision Zero in DC and NYC," "Parking districts vs. transportation/urban management districts," "Intra-neighborhood (tertiary) transit revisited")
   

Of course, the "integrated public realm framework" concept by David Barth is the basic idea.  It's not rocket science, except that somehow "land use" planning doesn't tend to address neighborhoods in this kind of comprehensive way.

A platform for a ward-focused agenda for Councilmembers.  When I thought about running for DC Council a number of years ago, I started sketching out a platform ("Outline for a proposed Ward-focused (DC) Councilmember campaign platform and agenda").  Although I was interested in the platform and didn't like the kinds of things you have to do to run for office, and I didn't go forward.

Dashboards-infographics.  One of the things I listed was created a "dashboard" of metrics on how various elements of the ward are functioning, from road quality to the number of vacant commercial and retail properties.  But like the failure to do real neighborhood or even ward- or district- focused planning, the same goes for providing actionable data on how a place is functioning or not.

(One of the reasons I probably didn't get a DDOT job that I applied for, dealing with the city's advisory neighborhood commissions, is I brought a draft concept of an infographic that would provide tracking information on DDOT activities at the Ward/ANC scale.)

Trapani Communications of Michigan has created infographics for some cities and towns.  These graphics aren't at the level of detail I'm thinking of, but they show the concept.

Infographic: Violent crime in Richmond, Virginia

Another element: developing consensus priorities at the neighborhood scale.  In my writings on community benefits agreements:

-- "Community benefits agreements (revised)," February 2008
-- "Community benefits agreements: revised (again) ," June 2008

one of the points I make is that in order to have an open and transparent process for directing proffers to non-idiosyncratic and ad hoc projects, a community needs to create what I called "consensus priorities," and ensure that such monies go to those projects.  It could be funding air conditioning at a local school, creating a neighborhood trail, funding parks improvements, a local business directory, etc.

Creating a set of consensus priorities--you could think of it as a low level "transformational projects action plan" at the neighborhood scale--should be a part of this kind of process. 

Mount Dennis, Toronto.  An article about the Mount Dennis neighborhood in Toronto, which is about to be served by the Eglinton light rail line, describes how the neighborhood is supportive of the new infrastructure, in part because there is a simultaneous program for neighborhood improvements ("Sidewalks, bike lanes and shops: why this neglected neighbourhood is saying ‘yes in my backyard’ to LRT development," Toronto Star), which illustrates the importance of the kind of complementary approach suggested here. 

The plans aim to make Mount Dennis a new transit hub with superior connections 

to Downtown Toronto and the Airport

The new planning framework builds on the 2019 community-initiated Mount Dennis Eco-Neighborhood Action Plan.

Neighborhood revitalization planning in weak markets.  These entries are more focused on distressed/emerging/transitioning-weak market neighborhoods.  (But even more successful neighborhoods in strong real estate markets need assistance.)

-- "The need for a "national" neighborhood stabilization program comparable to the Main Street program for commercial districts: Part I (Overall)" (2020)
-- "To be successful, local neighborhood stabilization programs need a packaged set of robust remedies: Part 2" (2020)
-- "Creating 'community safety partnership neighborhood management programs as a management and mitigation strategy for public nuisance programs: Part 3 (like homeless shelters)" (2020)
-- "A case in Gloucester, Massachusetts as an illustration of the need for systematic neighborhood monitoring and stabilization initiatives: Part 4 (the Curcuru Family)" (2020)
-- "Local neighborhood stabilization programs: Part 5 | Adding energy conservation programs, with the PUSH Buffalo Green Development Zone as a model" (2021)