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WSJ: McMansions aren’t what they used to be

2009-07-03T13:18:05Z

In an article published in The Wall Street Journal on June 29, June Fletcher reports a new survey showing that large houses have fallen out of favor with the American homebuying market:

"A new study out Monday by the American Institute of Architects shows that Americans have fallen out of love with McMansions. The 500 residential architects surveyed said that only 4% of their clients wanted more square footage in their homes this year, compared to 16% last year.

"This desire isn't surprising, given both the recession and the fact that the most recent U.S. Census shows that there are 77 million people in the "empty-nester" phase of life, from ages 45 to 64, and 61 million in the first-time buyer category, from 20 to 34 . . .

"A survey released this month by the National Association of Home Builders shows that the average home started during the first quarter of 2009 was 2,335 square feet, down from 2,629 square feet during the second quarter of 2008. And 59% of builders surveyed in May by the trade association said that they are planning on building smaller homes in the coming year. Only 1% reported that they would be building bigger homes."

NAHB, perhaps unsurprisingly, claims that the downturn in the McMansion market will be temporary, related only to the recession. But longer-term demographic forecasts portend otherwise, as a larger share of US households will be smaller and childless over the next few decades than has been the case in the recent past.

Fletcher notes that denser housing patterns will require zoning changes in much of American suburbia. But she also cites a story in this month's Urban Land to the effect that several big suburban builders, including K. Hovnanian, KB Homes and Toll Brothers, have started divisions for building urban housing, while other companies have started to convert failed suburban shopping malls, office parks, car dealerships and even golf courses into denser mixed-used buildings.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

They are stardust. They are golden. But are they right about “shrinking cities”?

2009-07-02T13:32:50Z

Warning: this is a long one.

Readers of a certain age will remember Joni's Mitchell's iconic anthem "Woodstock," celebrating the famous 1969 music festival (which, incidentally, she did not attend, but I digress). The song became a monster hit for Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (who did attend) in 1970. Its chorus, propelled by the group's trademark high harmonies, called us to get "back to the garden":

We are stardust

We are golden

And we've got to get ourselves back to the gar-ar-arrrr-ar-arr-ar-dennn . . .

It was, and is, a fantastic song. But it is not, I repeat not, a reliable environmental solution to urban problems. Unfortunately, it does fairly characterize where a lot of the environmental movement's sentiment and energy was in the 1970s when we, pretty much like everyone else, vilified cities and romanticized the countryside. I remember that, when NRDC founded its urban program in the mid-1980s, it was actually an unusual thing for an environmental group to do.

What we didn't realize then, but now do (a lot of us, anyway), is that auto-dependent sprawl with solar panels and compost is still, well, auto-dependent sprawl. And that compact, walkable cities, suburbs, and towns are not the problem but the solution.

The push to reclaim large parts of "shrinking cities" for nature

Which brings me to something that is becoming all the rage with a certain stardust-tinged segment of the planning world: re-vegetating older, industrial "shrinking cities" with green space where vacant properties and isolated occupied homes now stand. Let's clear the debris of vacant houses and lots, the argument goes, and turn their spaces into gardens and natural areas, since the economies of Detroit, Buffalo, Baltimore and the like can't support repopulation. In other words, just as some of us had finally convinced the environmental movement of the terrific value of cities in reducing per-capita environmental impacts, along comes a movement to de-urbanize cities.

I noted my concern with this strategy last month in a post about Detroit, which has been presented with a plan by an architects' study group to do exactly that. (See image: everything outside the designated "centers" would be proposed for greenways or reserved as "opportunity areas" for potential agriculture.)

My post led to a thoughtful rebuttal from Jason King (who had been part of the study group) on his own blog, Landscape+Urbanism. (Blog vs. blog - am I 21st century or what?) I should add that I am a regular reader of King's commentary and always find it provocative and beautifully illustrated if sometimes not quite as urbanist as I might like. His point here is that it is only realistic to consider "shrinking cities" for what they are, and find an approach that responds to their new paradigm. King, who is a landscape architect, seems quite enamored of the "shrinking cities" idea, having blogged about it four times in the last three weeks.

At least King says he isn't the source of the report in the Detroit Free Press (quoted here) that "the committee suggests that Detroit could recreate itself as a 21st-Century version of the English countryside." (Apparently that comes from another thoughtful and nice guy on the team, Alan Mallach, with whom I have had the pleasure of serving on a now-defunct AIA committee. But really.)

It's gaining traction but, fortunately, some neighborhoods will escape

The idea is definitely catching on, reportedly even in the Obama administration. An article by Tom Leonard in the London-based Telegraph, headlined "US cities may have to be bulldozed in order to survive," puts it this way:

"Dozens of US cities may have entire neighbourhoods bulldozed as part of drastic 'shrink to survive' proposals being considered by the Obama administration to tackle economic decline.

"The government is looking at expanding a pioneering scheme in Flint (MI), one of the poorest US cities, which involves razing entire districts and returning the land to nature . . .

"The radical experiment is the brainchild of Dan Kildee, treasurer of Genesee County, which includes Flint.

"Having outlined his strategy to Barack Obama during the election campaign, Mr Kildee has now been approached by the US government and a group of charities who want him to apply what he has learnt to the rest of the country.

"Mr Kildee said he will concentrate on 50 cities, identified in a recent study by the Brookings Institution, an influential Washington think-tank, as potentially needing to shrink substantially to cope with their declining fortunes . . ."

I should note here that Jennifer Leonard of the National Vacant Properties Campaign, who has been working with Dan Kildee, says that he was mispresented by this article and actually wants to do something more limited than the article suggests. I hope so, and I'll get to that toward the end of this post. Looking at ways to "shrink" neighborhoods in fifty cities? Yikes.

Look, maybe there's a happy medium somewhere. Appropriately-sized neighborhood green space can be great for cities and their residents. But I for one am really, really glad this idea didn't have traction a decade or two ago, when it easily could have led to the demolition of vacant houses and properties in such wonderful, now-recovering neighborhoods as Old North Saint Louis (photo of new farmer's market above), Boston's Dudley Street, or even Cincinnati's Over-the-Rhine, now poised to become a national model of revitalization done well. Every one of those terrific neighborhoods could have been subjected to the same logic, since they all suffered serious decline and depopulation in weak-market regions before things began to turn around in recent years.

We won't solve the problem without addressing the cause

I also wish the turning-cities-back-to-nature crowd would give at least some mention to a major reason why these places now have vacant properties: the flight of investment and population to the metro fringe. Everyone is saying or implying that it is all the decline of the industrial economy, but it's not that simple. Most of these regions are not, in fact, declining in population much or at all: The metro areas of Detroit, Baltimore and Boston all grew from 1990 to 2003. Metro Baltimore and Boston continued to grow in the 2000s; metro Detroit did decline between 2000 and 2008, but only by six-tenths of one percent. Areas like Rochester and Syracuse, frequently put in the "shrinking city" column, also basically have been holding steady in the 2000s. There are indeed regions that are shrinking, some in the Rust Belt, but almost none by more than five percent (Pine Bluff, Arkansas is one of the exceptions).

So, yes, some central cities have depopulated badly (though even within the central city limits the rate of loss generally appears to be slowing), but most of their regions have continued to sprawl. I haven't reviewed the most recent statistics but, in the 1980s and 1990s, Pittsburgh grew in developed land six times faster than in population; Boston five times faster; Chicago and Cleveland four times faster; Baltimore 2.5 times faster; and so on. Greater Buffalo grew by 50 percent in developed land between 1982 and 1996, even while experiencing no growth at all in population; the metro regions of Detroit and Rochester grew in developed land by 20 percent and 16 percent, respectively, even while shrinking slightly in population during that period.

Viewed from this perspective, the problem is not one of much if any real metro area depopulation but mainly the changed geographic distribution of that population as regions have failed to address sprawl. That is a problem that needs fixing. Converting large amounts of currently urban land "back to the garden" without also addressing sprawl will only ensure that any further population shifts or recovery will occur in favor of the fringe, where the per-capita environmental damage is the greatest.

Regional problems need regional solutions

Put another way, if you're a doctor with a patient suffering from trauma and blood loss, first you stop the bleeding. Then you proceed to surgery, if necessary. But so far no one is suggesting anything of the sort. So many well-minded people remain trapped in the artificial jurisdictional straitjacket that looks only within the central municipality's borders, ignoring the reality that the larger region is where the deeper solutions lie.

The president himself has acknowledged that 21st-century challenges are more regional than municipal, in a 2008 campaign address on "the new metropolitan reality":

"It's not just our cities that are hotbeds of innovation anymore, it's those growing metro areas. It's not just Durham or Raleigh - it's the entire Research Triangle. It's not just Palo Alto, it's cities up and down Silicon Valley . . .

"To seize the possibility of this moment, we need to promote strong cities as the backbone of regional growth. And yet, Washington remains trapped in an earlier era, wedded to an outdated 'urban' agenda that focuses exclusively on the problems in our cities, and ignores our growing metro areas; an agenda that confuses anti-poverty policy with a metropolitan strategy, and ends up hurting both . . .

"Yes, we need to strengthen our cities. But we also need to stop seeing our cities as the problem and start seeing them as the solution. Because strong cities are the building blocks of strong regions, and strong regions are essential for a strong America. That is the new metropolitan reality and we need a new strategy that reflects it . . ."

Moreover, some of these "shrinking" central cities are just now beginning to show a few signs of potential. While central cities in weak-market areas are still claiming an unfortunately small share of overall metro growth, it is worth noting that their share of that growth has been increasing from the 1990s to the 2000s. Cities where this has occurred include Baltimore, Milwaukee, Providence, Rochester, Saint Louis, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and even Detroit, among others. This is not the time to surrender their potential to the suburbs.

A happy medium?

Now, I'm OK with converting smaller tracts of vacant and derelict land into urban green space, which could turn out to be a net plus for all concerned, and maybe that's where the happy medium comes in. Appropriately scaled parks for walkable neighborhoods are great for a lot of reasons, not least because they can support future investment and development.

And I'm definitely OK with targeting public urban investment to nodes within a city that have the most potential to recover, as suggested some time back by Joe Schilling of Virginia Tech and the National Vacant Properties Campaign. It makes some sense to engage those neighborhoods first and then, if there are results, move to additional areas. The article in which Joe's thoughts are cited points to a very successful program in Richmond (example, photo left) that has demonstrated the viability of targeting.

But going ambitiously after 50 inner cities to address supposed depopulation issues with land conversion while most of them are in regions that are relatively stable or growing? And doing nothing about the sprawl that is a major source of the problem? Good heavens.

I'm not alone

Having done a little research, I am relieved to learn at least that I am not the only one who thinks we should proceed very cautiously with re-purposing these neighborhoods and direct our attention to the entire region, not just the central city. Richard Layman is another writer that I read regularly, in his blog Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space:

"Because I think that the dynamics of urban decline and the possibilities for revitalization are more nuanced . . . the 'solution' offered by Dan Kildee, treasurer of Genesee County north of Detroit, as recounted in the story, 'US cities may have to be bulldozed in order to survive,' [linked above] is too harsh and can't be applied categorically . . .

"Cities that have relied on manufacturing will have to shrink somehow. But the real issue is continued outmigration and expansion and greater utilization of land per capita in metropolitan areas. In short, metropolitan regions continue to expand significantly, at rates greater than that generated by population growth."

Mathieu Helie, writing on the blog Emergent Urbanism, is another skeptic who believes the proposed solutions need to be better considered:

"If we embrace complexity, then the randomly sized pockets of open land are an exceptional opportunity to renew the city of Detroit. They form a fractal solution set to new construction that many different people can participate in and contribute to. It can accommodate small, medium-size and eventually large-size businesses in close proximity with diverse housing and convenient transportation structures . . ."

Writing in the Los Angeles Times, Gregory Rodriguez's views come close to my own:

"The plan makes sense on some level, but it's disturbing on another. Anyone who's driven by miles of empty lots in Detroit knows that urban demolition does more than destroy blight. It also erases history and what a city was. Traces of the past have always been jumping-off places for the next chapter (think rehabbed Victorians or sleek post-industrial lofts). And, of course, the back-to-nature plan -- which could be used in cities such as Memphis, Baltimore, Philadelphia and others -- is fundamentally an admission and may be an assurance that these cities will never rise again."

More hopeful models

There are other, more hopeful models. Roberta Brandes Gratz, author of Cities Back from the Edge and The Living City, points on Citiwire to Wilkinsburg, a one-time streetcar suburb of Pittsburgh that has suffered major abandonment of both residential and commercial properties. The city is now benefiting from an innovative public-private-nonprofit partnership that is renovating vacant historic properties, resulting in the first home sales in the area in years.

In Buffalo, the West Side community, much like Boston's Dudley Street before it, is taking control of its own destiny, going directly to problem property owners or instituting legal proceedings to buy vacant properties cheaply and resell them at bargain prices to local buyers willing to repair and occupy them. Gratz writes that community volunteers are also painting over graffiti, cleaning out rubble lots, crowding out drug dealers and prostitutes by strategically working with the police, planting trees, fixing sidewalks, mowing lawns and anything else to show their determination and caring. Houses are now selling; new people are moving in; and leaders from other Buffalo neighborhoods are seeking advice on how to develop a similar strategy.

As the National Vacant Properties Campaign says on its website, "this is usable land already connected to urban infrastructure. For metropolitan areas looking to accommodate growth without consuming the surrounding countryside, these properties amount to a large reservoir of land for well-planned development." Most of these areas are still growing in the surrounding countryside.

Before publishing this post, I contacted Jennifer Leonard of the Campaign, who believes land banking is a very useful tool for dealing with vacant structures and tracts. Land banking allows a community to gain control of, consolidate, and hold troubled properties while planning for the community's future and potential recovery; a form of the practice was immensely helpful in assisting the recovery of Dudley Street in Boston.

Dan Kildee has gained a national reputation for his use of the technique in Flint, and Jennifer assures me that land banking, not wholesale conversion of urban parcels back to nature, is Kildee's real aim for "shrinking cities." I hope that turns out to be the case, though I have a fear that, if banked land is used for gardening and green space even "temporarily," communities will never welcome development on those parcels. As a result, we basically risk creating a fragmented countryside with suburban/rural densities (see rendering developed for inner-city Cleveland, above) in the center of a region. We will see.

Meanwhile, Roberta Brandes Gratz makes her central point most eloquently:

"One is hard pressed to find a city or even a neighborhood that was ever regenerated through demolition of vacant buildings. Didn't we learn of the hollow results from the discredited post-World War II urban renewal policies that destroyed - and for decades left bereft - vast tracks of troubled residential structures?"

Let's at least slow down

To all this, I would add only that a major recession is probably the worst possible time to draw conclusions about a neighborhood's - or a city's, or a region's - long-term potential for recovery. At least let's give it a wait before making long-term land use decisions that take developable inner-city land off the table, OK? And let's not use a sledgehammer to perform what probably should be delicate surgery.

Plant a neighborhood garden or create a neighborhood-scaled park? Absolutely. And enjoy it. But turn large tracts of city land "back to the garden" without also curbing sprawl on the edge? I'm not convinced.

You can still enjoy the song, though. This is a relatively recent, jazzy version by Joni:

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

Streets for seniors: a video look at issues and remedies

2009-07-01T17:04:48Z

Streetfilms has released a great short video about how our streets and traffic patterns pose particular challenges to senior citizens on foot. With the assistance of New York City's Transportation Alternatives, that city's impressive DOT has begun an earnest look at ways to address the problems. You don't have to be a street design geek like me to appreciate these issues, explained by ordinary citizens as well as by the conscientious public servants who are trying to respond:

On a related note, Streetfilms also has interesting short videos that show how London and San Francisco are beginning to give parts of streets previously consumed only by traffic back to people.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

Tax greenfield development, subsidize infill

2009-06-30T13:30:45Z

Tyler Caine has a terrific post on his sustainability blog Intercon extolling climate change policy to get on the smart growth bandwagon. He says it extremely well, so I am just going to quote a few bits and send you to his site if you want more:

"A number of government sponsored initiatives are targeting sustainable technologies that want to provide an easy fix to climate change (renewable energy, fuel cells, energy efficient home upgrades). But when it comes to sustainable progress, if we are going to delve into the policy game then we should be including measures that actually change the way we are doing things, not merely advance the technology that allows us to do things the same. As a result, I would suggest taxing the development of greenfield sites and, conversely, offering incentives to redeveloping existing buildings or property near town and city centers . . .

"Undoubtedly, building on the edges is building cheaper. The land often goes for a song. Labor is less expensive. Access to sites is easier and building codes are less stringent. But the cheaper choice for builders can be more expensive for municipalities (and we know where their budgets comes from.) Sprawling development is notoriously inefficient; each an oasis of occupancy connected by thin veins of pavement that make car travel a considerable portion of daily life . . . Greenfield development can mean funding for new power lines, new sewers and new roads for a relatively small group of new citizens. It expands the coverage areas for maintenance crews, emergency vehicles and mail delivery that can drastically offset the incremental rise in tax revenue . . . Taxing this kind of sprawling development may help curb its growth in the country.

"Most importantly of all, there is no need for greenfield building. We have loads of existing space in close proximity to transportation and infrastructure . . .

"On the other side of the tax lie subsidies to shift new construction and home ownership to areas with an existing populace. New homes and offices can benefit from utilities and services that residents have already paid. In addition to possibly being cheaper than new construction, reusing existing structures drastically reduces waste from demolition and construction and negates the need for the production of new virgin materials. All of it points to lower carbon footprints and lighter lifecycle costs . . . Remember, the goal is not for less development, merely shifting it for a smarter solution. Reinforcing our town and urban centers would support a critical mass of residents that breeds efficiency where fewer services could reach more instead of wasting more taxpayer dollars on diluted redundancy . . ."

I love it. Go here for the full post, which I originally found via the Sustainable Cities Collective.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

Great principles for “smart growth schools”

2009-06-29T13:33:31Z

Last fall, I posted a two-part photo essay on school sprawl and the alternatives. As I wrote then (in Part 1), "schools used to be the heart of a neighborhood or community. Children and not a few teachers could walk to class, or to the playground or ball field on the weekend. This was relatively easy to do, because the schools were placed within, not separated from, their neighborhoods. They were human-scaled and their architecture was not just utiliatarian, but signaled their importance in the community. Now it has become hard to tell one from a Walmart or Target."

In Part 2, I presented some examples of schools that fit well into their communities, including two in my DC neighborhood, pictured below.

Now, thanks to a post by Penelope Grzebik in the CNU Salons, I have learned there is a website dedicated to providing resources on "smart growth schools." The site, which includes a well-annotated "report card," a listserv, links to some very good resources, and a pathway to hands-on assistance, was created by Nathan Norris, who has been developing community performance indicators for at least a decade.

The report card is especially good, 24 pages of great tips and advice based around eleven key principles:

1. Restoration Preference

Will old schools be restored rather than replaced so long as the cost is less than a new school? This is a separate question than whether the school building will be recycled for another use (i.e., adaptive reuse).

2. Holistic Planning

Is school planning done in conjunction with land planning and transportation planning or are these segregated?

3. Community buy-in

Is the school planning process designed in a way to secure meaningful community input prior to key decisions being made?

4. Elimination of design constraints

Do you have the flexibility to design the school efficiently for the site and the community?

5. Neighborhood School

Is the school embedded into a walkable neighborhood so that most students can reach it safely without the necessity of a car or bus?

6. Prominent Site

Is the school sited in a prominent location (e.g., terminated vista or on top of a hill) so that it communicates the importance the school has in the culture of the community?

7. Shared Use

Is the school sited or designed so that it can share uses with the community such as a gym (or YMCA), park, ballfields, community meeting space, daycare, library, performance theater, art studio, cafeteria/restaurant, community garden, health clinic, etc.?

8. Flexibility

Is the school designed so that it can grow (independent additional wings, floors or structures) or contract in size and services (areas can be removed or adaptively reused if no longer used for school purposes) as the neighborhood grows or contracts so that it remains useful over a longer period of time?

9. Connected Learning Environment

Does the school connect itself to effective distance learning opportunities; is the school connected to the local community through interaction with local businesses or through a community service program?

10. Community Pride in the Design

Is the school designed so that it generates community pride as measured by a Visual Preference Survey (VPS)?

11. Green building certification

Does the construction or renovation of the school follow best practices regarding energy efficiency, water efficiency, indoor air quality, daylighting, light pollution and earth-friendly construction techniques as set out in the LEED for Schools program?

Norris explains the thinking behind smartgrowthschools.org:

"The Smart Growth Schools website is designed to make it easier for people to understand how they can improve their communities and schools by considering issues that are oftentimes ignored in the school planning process. These issues pertain to the intersection between Smart Growth and K-12 schools. Paying attention to these issues will result in communities saving money, decreasing the environmental impact of schools on the community, improving the health of students, and increasing the long-term support for the school system by those who do not have school-aged children."

What a great way to think about such a vital neighborhood resource.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

Cut'n'Paste Cities and "Design a Livable Street" - fun interactivity

2009-06-26T13:23:01Z

Cut'n'Paste Cities is a web-based participatory project that invites readers to share what they like best (and least) about cities, through their own photographs:

"A global call to action and an invitation to urban dwellers to describe through photography the places and things they love about their cities, and those that they could do without.

"The brief is to capture through photography what you really like in a city, what makes it tick, and what you would like to see more of in the future. They can be spaces or services, aspects of everyday life or temporary events. Alternatively, describe something that should be removed from the city, a building you could do without, a service that just doesn't work. These are a CUT. Things you like are a PASTE.

"The project will culminate with an exhibition of curated insights, stories and speculations based on the images.

Cut'n'Paste eminates from Foresight, a project of the global design/engineering firm Arup:

"The Foresight Team was established by Arup in 2002 to help better understand the long-term drivers shaping our business and that of our global client base. We identify emerging trends and explore their likely impact on the built environment. Drivers of Change is a research-based programme that communicates these important issues in a thought-provoking and accessible way. These issues continue to be explored in workshops, publications, talks, films and exhibitions."

The project already has some great photos on display, including the one of Seattle's Post Alley (above), by Thomas Brown.

In a similar vein, check out Good magazine's "Design a Livable Street" project. Using a technique similar to NRDC's Picturing Smart Growth, the 22 entries posted start out with an actual photograph of a streetscape in need of help, and then show a vision of what the same space could look like. Very creative and fun.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

New Urban News: “Containing development at the fringe” is the way to reduce CO2

2009-06-25T13:33:56Z

In the June 2009 issue of New Urban News, researchers Lawrence Frank and Sarah Kavage report that "location [of a neighborhood] within a region" is a highly significant determinant of residents' travel behavior and, therefore, "containing development at the fringe of the urban area" is "quite effective" in reducing CO2 emissions. Other significant factors include land-use mix, street connectivity, and the presence and quality of transit service.

Frank is a well-known scholar who holds a chair in sustainable transportation at the University of British Columbia. He founded and led the seminal SMARTRAQ study on travel behavior in Atlanta a decade ago when he was at Georgia Tech.

The key takeaway from the current article: where development goes matters, not just how it is designed. Incidentally, Frank and Kavage found that a neighborhood's residential density is generally not a significant factor once it is isolated from the other key determinants of travel patterns.

Now, while my friends Reid Ewing and Eliot Allen (no slouches themselves in the study of travel behavior) have been telling me the importance of location and regional accessibility for a decade, I think it is both significant and encouraging that the new article appears in the monthly bible of new urbanism. (Unfortunately, the article - "Which factors matter, and why" - is not available online.) Most new urbanists I know are architects who do not choose the location of their projects. As a result, they are far more concerned with (and more skilled at) doing a good job wherever their client wants to build than they are with curtailing suburban expansion beyond the current fringe. "Since development beyond the fringe is inevitable, let's just make it better" has been the guiding principle. Could change be in the air?

James Howard Kunstler, author of many books including The Geography of Nowhere, and longtime chronicler of the urban/suburban condition, seems to think so. After returning from the annual meeting earlier this month of the Congress for the New Urbanism in Denver, Kunstler had this to say:

"[New urbanists] have had to shift their focus starkly. For years, their stock-in-trade was the greenfield New Town or Traditional Neighborhood Development (TND), a severe reform of conventional suburban development. That sort of reform work was only possible when 1.) the continued expansion of suburbia seemed utterly inevitable, requiring heroic mitigation and 2.) when they could team up with the production home-builders to get their TND projects built. To the group's credit, they realize that these conditions are no more. Suburbia is now cratering, both as a repository of wealth in real estate and as a practical matter of everyday existence."

Now, Kunstler is not a man given to nuance, and I frequently disagree with some of his points, if not usually his general thrust. But I absolutely agree that conditions have changed and that ever-expanding suburbia no longer need be accepted as an inevitable land-use paradigm. I hope that he is right in the rest of his paragraph, too.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

Farmland worth saving (photo essay)

2009-06-24T13:31:57Z

These wonderful photographs of Frederick County, Maryland, are all by my friend Kai Hagen, writer, photographer, conservationist, entrepeneur, and County Commissioner. Kai is concerned that development is sprawling out onto prime soils even while there are ample sites within the bounds of existing development to accommodate the county's growth. (Kai's campaign web site - now archived, take a look - was headlined, "We don't have to sacrifice what we love about where we live!")

Some of these sites - including the one immediately above - are themselves either proposed for, or squarely in the path of, encroaching office parks and subdivisions.

I wrote about farmland in a somewhat lengthy post back in April. As I noted then, "Every single minute of every day, America loses two acres of farmland," and we're losing our best land - the most fertile and productive - the fastest, according to the American Farmland Trust.

Our food is increasingly in the path of development: 86 percent of the nation's fruits and vegetables, and 63 percent of our dairy products, says AFT, are produced in urban-influenced areas.

The solution to providing the best protection for the resource is to keep cities and suburbs as intact and dense as possible, to limit their spread across the rural landscape. Low-density suburban development is the most inefficient in its incursions on farmland, as it is with regard to watersheds, wildlife habitat, and transportation efficiency.

My friend, developer Daniel Hernandez, says, "Finally, after so many decades, policies for smart agricultural policy are just now emerging into some level of coherence, and building support. It is clear that agricultural land preservation is critical to the economic future of our country and to feeding our country. Anything that undermines that would be irresponsible."

Daniel continues: ""Recognizing that much of this prime land around the country has unfortunately already been infringed upon, there is every reason to still support the complete preservation of these spaces."

Kai's photographs remind us why.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

Revitalizing Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine (Part 4: making it green)

2009-06-23T13:28:55Z

This is the final installment of my miniseries about Cincinnati's remarkable Over-the-Rhine neighborhood, potentially a national model for smart, green revitalization. For previous posts in the series, visit Part 1 (the legacy and the challenge), Part 2 (building on the neighborhood's assets), and Part 3 (making impressive progress). Today we'll look at the prospects for the neighborhood's recovery to be successful environmentally.

The reason that revitalizing Over-the-Rhine should be just as important to environmentalists as it is to historic preservation, economic recovery, and social equity is that revitalizing such a centrally located district is inherently green, even if you aren't trying to make it so. Let's revisit some maps that accompanied the earlier posts:

On the left, we see OTR outlined in red, as central as can be, adjacent to Cincinnati's central business district and just south of the jobs-rich uptown University district. On the right, we see the pattern of per-capita carbon dioxide emissions from driving in metro Cincinnati. The neighborhood is in the lightest color, signifying the lowest emissions, in sharp contrast to the region's outlying areas with much higher emissions rates.

The main reason is that households in outlying areas simply drive a lot more than their inner-city counterparts, because for residents of outlying areas destinations are more spread out, transit service is less available and convenient for most people, and there is little within walking distance.

Here's a really wonky bar graph, borrowed from my presentations, that takes us inside the research a little. Based on a meta-analysis of the published literature on travel behavior (publication pending), it shows the five major land-use factors that can reduce the amount of driving people need to do, and their importance relative to each other and the total. A central location is by far the most helpful to reducing driving rates, followed by the presence of transit service, neighborhood walkability, a mix of commercial and residential locations in the neighborhood, and neighborhood density.

OTR has all of these in abundance and, as a result, has terrific transportation performance. Census data indicate that OTR residents drive alone to work only about a third as much as residents from the state of Ohio as a whole; OTR residents are 12 times more likely to take transit to work than residents of the state as a whole. And, while one might be tempted to dismiss those differences as simply the product of OTR's low average income, there's another telling number that cannot be so easily dismissed: 27 percent of OTR residents walk to work, compared to only 2.4 percent for the state as a whole. That is location efficiency, and that is also why I contend that inner-city revitalization is one of the very best things we can do to lower our overall per-capita carbon footprint.

These numbers will only get better with the arrival of the streetcar, which now has a development team appointed by the city, and with the ongoing and planned upgrades to the neighborhood's sidewalks and pedestrian-friendly streetscape. Incidentally, Cincinnati-based Libby Hunter, who with her business partner Jami Stutzman has built a real estate brokerage around concepts of sustainability, has a terrific introduction to how better walkability can help the city on her firm's web site.

Over-the-Rhine's green advantage won't stop with its location, however. There is a natural synergy between the time-honored design and embodied energy of historic buildings and environmental performance, and many people in the community are committed to making the restoration one that incorporates the latest green building technology, verified by LEED certification. The OTR Foundation has a particularly good statement and introduction to the issue on its website. The Foundation sponsored a design initiative in partnership with the University of Cincinnati's College of Design, Art, Architecture, and Planning, and others, that produced innovative student designs (see rendering above) for green rehabs of OTR properties (scroll down a bit on this site for a nice description).

The neighborhood already has one LEED-certified building, the renovated Art Academy of Cincinnati (above right), and two buildings in the Gateway Quarter project (above left, the facade of the Mottainai) are on track to receive certification this summer. Even a parking lot in the 1500 block of Vine Street has undergone a green renovation, and now has pervious pavement (photo below) to assist stormwater management.

But wait, there's more: the local chapter of the US Green Building Council is inviting students and young professionals to participate in a contest to create a design for a green, upgraded homeless shelter for OTR. And, to top things off (literally), the Findlay Market now has solar panels on its market house roof and last month hosted a forum on green development.

All this energy around making Over-the-Rhine greener is awesome. As I wrote at the beginning of this series, the neighborhood has a long way to go. Much of it remains downtrodden, and It can't help that the economy is stuck in the gutter at the moment. But, if you can't get excited about what's happening in OTR, maybe you just aren't that interested in helping people, cities, or the environment. OK, that's a little over the top, but the point stands: this is terrific stuff, and other cities could do well to learn from what's happening here.

I ran across a lot of great neighborhood resources while researching this series and either I or helpful commenters managed to mention and/or link to most of them. Some that I didn't, but will now, include the Somewhere Over the Rhine blog, City Kin (not just about OTR), iRhine.com, and some very neat Hopper-esque paintings by Alan Grizzell. Special thanks to Jim Uber for the original inspiration for the series.

And, finally, because this is my blog and I can: Speaking of things inspirational, I absolutely love the music of Cincinnati natives Linford Detweiler and Karin Bergquist, the couple who named their band Over The Rhine (credit to Merry R. for the intro some time back) in tribute to the neighborhood. If you like your music with exquisite, contrapuntal keyboard, mournful cello, and plaintive, haunting, and totally committed vocals, here's a sample:

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

New numbers prove smart growth reduces CO2, cost-effectively

2009-06-22T13:49:24Z

For the most part, the climate change establishment - whether in government, industry, or the environmental community - has ignored the potential of land use strategies to provide significant reductions in carbon emissions while also producing multiple other environmental, economic, and societal benefits. There have been grudging, passing mentions, usually at the end of some long report or other mainly about cap and trade schemes, power plants and fuel efficiency, but that's been about it.

Now, reducing power plant emissions and increasing vehicle fuel efficiency are hugely important strategies, as are getting more from renewable energy sources and green buildings, for that matter. But how's that working out so far, you might ask? The best that one can say is that the recession has driven carbon emissions down for the moment, and there is hope for incremental legislative progress. Meanwhile, the US continues to lag far, far behind Europe in controlling emissions.

It's quite possible that California's new land use and transportation planning law, SB375, has been a game-changer. As most readers probably know, that law, which was strongly supported by NRDC, requires the state's metro areas to adopt land use patterns that curb sprawl and reduce carbon emissions to meet specified targets.

Suddenly people who two years ago wouldn't give smart growth advocates the time of day are talking about things like transit-oriented development and growth boundaries (if they still haven't caught on to revitalization and walkability, unfortunately), and mainstream enviros are beginning to seek ways to increase neighborhood density instead of opposing it. People are looking to the coming federal transportation bill as a way to implement California's measures on a national scale. While you still won't hear much about any of this from the Really Big Thinkers on climate, it's happening in spite of them.

Which is a pretty long introduction to a new report that will make smart growth harder to ignore as a carbon-reducing strategy. In particular, the Center for Clean Air Policy (CCAP) released a study last Friday documenting how comprehensive application of smart growth best practices and improved transportation choices can significantly reduce transportation emissions at a cost savings to society. The report makes a strong case for investing a portion of cap-and-trade revenues in smart growth. Here are some of the key findings:

Smart growth and smart transportation choices can reduce the amount Americans need to drive - as measured in vehicle miles traveled (VMT) - by 10 percent per capita from 2005 levels.
A 10 percent reduction in per capita VMT would reduce annual transportation emissions by 145 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (MMTCO2) in the year 2030, equivalent to the annual emissions of about 30 million cars or 35 large coal plants.
These reductions would equal approximately 6 percent of the 2030 greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction goal proposed in the American Clean Energy and Security Act.

The new study, titled Cost-Effective GHG Reductions through Smart Growth & Improved Transportation Choices: An economic case for strategic investment of cap-and-trade revenues, was authored by CCAP's Steve Winkelman, who has consistently produced great analytical work on these subjects, and his colleagues Allison Bishins and Chuck Kooshian. My NRDC colleagues Deron Lovaas and Nathan Sandwick, among others, provided advice and comments to the authors.

CCAP reviewed a number of reports and case studies from US cities and states that demonstrate how making smarter land use and transportation choices reduces emissions and saves money. Some examples:

Sacramento projects savings of 7.2 MMT of CO2 by 2050, while saving $9 billion in infrastructure costs and $380 million in annual consumer fuel costs, yielding a net economic benefit of almost $200 per ton of CO2 saved.
Portland, Oregon's investments in bicycle infrastructure will reduce emissions by 0.7 MMT of CO2, with net economic benefits of more than $1,000 per ton CO2 saved.
At the state level, Georgia could save more than $400 billion over 30 years, while saving 18 MMT of CO2 with strategic investments in transit, freight and travel demand management (e.g., four day work weeks, telecommuting, carpooling). In Atlanta, the Atlantic Station redevelopment project is reducing residents' need to drive by more than 30 percent [note: much more, according to data that I have seen; the authors are being conservative], which would cut 0.6 MMT of CO2 over 50 years, and generate $30 million per year in much-needed local tax revenue.

The study points out that, although the price signal from a national cap-and-trade system will be sufficient to change behavior of major point sources of emissions (such as power plants), it will be far less effective in influencing travel demand for Americans. But achieving economy-wide emissions reductions will be less costly if strategies include smart growth and improved travel choices. CCAP recommends dedicating 10 percent of national cap-and-trade allowance value to these strategies.

Winkelman said that this investment would jump-start smarter land use and transportation choices at the local, regional, and state levels while lowering economy-wide greenhouse gas mitigation costs. CCAP reports that, later this summer, it will release a more in-depth review of the economic impacts of smart growth and improved transportation choices, called Growing Wealthier: The Economic Benefits of Smart Growth.

Bravo.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

US transit cities in-the-making

2009-06-19T13:41:55Z

Grist has an informative and fun read, written by Jonathan Hiskes and Katharine Wroth, on "the best US transit systems you never knew existed":

"As cities big and small rethink how their residents get around, new systems are taking shape-and as gas prices and paychecks fluctuate, riders are responding in droves. While the current economic crunch is forcing many cities to hike fares and cut back on service, innovations continue, and the tracks are laid for a bright future.

"Here are a few surprising places where public transit is gaining speed . . ."

The list of highlights includes Phoenix, Richmond, Denver, Salt Lake, Charlotte, LA, Cleveland, St. Louis, Orlando, and Grand Rapids, with some great images (Richmond above, courtesy of GRTC Transit System) and narrative. Readers are also invited to leave their own examples.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

Transportation Secretary LaHood leads the way on sustainability

2009-06-18T13:30:11Z

This is not your father's DOT. A couple of days ago I wrote a post on the remarkable (and now three-agency) partnership on sustainable communities within the Obama administration. Secretaries Ray LaHood (DOT) and Shaun Donovan (HUD) and Administrator Lisa Jackson (EPA) are placing the sustainability agenda front and center, committing the federal government to join forces with states and localities in making the places where we live, work, shop and play more livable, affordable, connected and environmentally friendly. All three deserve our praise; so do their staffs who have been working on this; and so, for that matter, does their boss in the White House.

Today I want to give a particular shout out to Department of Transportation Secretary LaHood, a few months ago just a little-known Republican (!) Congressman from downstate Illinois. I have to confess that I didn't know what to think one way or another when the Obama team announced his appointment. But, from today's vantage point, wow.

The first major signal came in March, when LaHood and Donovan announced the interagency partnership. I wrote about the announcement then - emphasizing the agencies' intention to "have every major metropolitan area in the country conduct integrated housing, transportation, and land use planning and investment." You'd be surprised how few regions do this now. In defiance of logic, land use and transportation are considered independently, and the results of that are all too apparent on our chaotic landscape and soaring carbon emissions from driving. This in itself was big.

A few days later, LaHood elaborated on the concepts in his own blog:

"We'll look for ways our two departments can further coordinate location efficiency [a phrase that I believe was coined by my NRDC colleague David Goldstein] in housing and transportation choices for states, counties, and municipalities.

"On a less concrete level, the task force will evaluate and recommend measures that indicate livability. After all, if we don't know livability when we see it, how can we know if we've helped communities achieve it?

"I have a few ideas. For example, I think everyone, urban and rural alike, needs safe and affordable access. Access to work, to medical services, to schools, to shopping, to recreation, and to other essential activities.

"We're moving into new territory, and it must be mapped out. We need better tools to track housing and transportation options and expenditures. We need standardized and efficient performance measures. We need to learn from what works.

"In the coming months, we'll work closely with Congress and our stakeholders on a new authorization package for surface transportation--the sidewalks, roads, rails, and transit that move you where you want to go, that move your goods where you need them. With your support, we can make livability a centerpiece of this legislation."

(There is currently some skirmishing going on regarding the timing of the reform legislation, with some reported disagreement between the administration and Congress on the issue. I'll have more to say about that at the bottom of the post, but it in no way detracts from the terrific leadership the Secretary is showing on the substance of sustainability.)

The mention of sidewalks in LaHood's writing is significant. Walking is the most environmentally efficient means of transportation of all, yet it has traditionally been completely ignored in transportation planning and investment. Despite some good procedural reforms over the years (particularly in the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991), and the implementation of some innovative transportation programs that have been relatively small compared to the agency's overall budget, DOT's core mission for several decades now has remained giving money to states for highways, with very few strings attached. To have the head guy talking about a new direction, emphasizing location efficiency, access, performance measures, and livability is huge - and badly needed.

The announcement earlier this week bringing EPA into the partnership only strengthens the new direction. On Tuesday, I wrote about the core principles announced for the partnership. But the agencies' full statement, which was not yet available when I wrote that entry, also discusses the methods by which their partnership will pursue those goals, and they are all about smart growth. Here are some excerpts:

Enhance integrated planning and investment. The partnership will seek to integrate housing, transportation, water infrastructure, and land use planning and investment. HUD, EPA and DOT propose to make planning grants available to metropolitan areas, and create mechanisms to ensure those plans are carried through to localities.
Provide a vision for sustainable growth. This effort will help communities set a vision for sustainable growth and apply federal transportation, water infrastructure, housing and other investments in an integrated approach that reduces the nation's dependence on foreign oil, reduces greenhouse gas emissions, protects America's air and water and improves quality of life . . .
Redefine housing affordability and make it transparent. The partnership will develop federal housing affordability measures that include housing and transportation costs and other expenses that are affected by location choices. Although transportation costs now approach or exceed housing costs for many working families, federal definitions of housing affordability do not recognize the strain of soaring transportation costs on homeowners and renters who live in areas isolated from work opportunities and transportation choices. The partnership will redefine affordability to reflect those costs . . .
Redevelop underutilized sites. The partnership will work to achieve critical environmental justice goals and other environmental goals by targeting development to locations that already have infrastructure and offer transportation choices . . .
Develop livability measures and tools . . . HUD, DOT and EPA will help communities attain livability goals by developing and providing analytical tools to evaluate progress as well as state and local technical assistance programs to remove barriers to coordinated housing, transportation and environmental protection investments. The partnership will develop incentives to encourage communities to implement, use and publicize the measures.
Align HUD, DOT and EPA programs. HUD, DOT and EPA will work to assure that their programs maximize the benefits of their combined investments in our communities for livability, affordability, environmental excellence, and the promotion of green jobs of the future.
Undertake joint research, data collection and outreach.

(Emphasis in original.) This is exactly what we need, and we should all look forward to helping them succeed. But Secretary LaHood has been busy on some separate (if very consistent) initiatives as well.

Take high-speed rail, for example, one of the President's favorite transportation projects. Earlier this month LaHood and Vice President Biden met with eight state governors, along with transportation officials from 15 additional states, in a roundtable to discuss the administration's plans "to jump-start a potential world-class passenger rail system and set the direction of transportation policy for the future." The Secretary has been out front on the issue, writing on his blog:

"It's the right thing to do for our mobility - and for the environment. A single railroad track can carry as many people as a 10-lane highway. That could help to relieve congestion. And rail systems powered by clean diesel or electric power are energy-efficient. They're capable of removing billions of pounds of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year.

"Years from now, Americans will look back on this time as a game-changer. A time when we got serious about putting public transportation to work on behalf of all Americans. A time when we recognized that passenger rail can play a key role in making our communities more livable and sustainable."

LaHood's DOT is also seeking Congressional approval to invest $604.3 million in 10 new or expanding city and metro transit projects across the country, and he has approved federal ARRA relief funds to help 11 others already under way. He has elaborated on these initiatives on his blog and in an address to the American Public Transportation Association. And LaHood has even spoken up on behalf of bicycling as "an important factor in less carbon-intensive commuting."

To top it all off, he has made great appointments to posts in DOT. My friend Roy Kienitz, whose career has included outstanding service on transportation and related issues to the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan and governors Glendening (Maryland) and Rendell (Pennsylvania), as well as leading the nonprofit Surface Transportation Policy Project, is now DOT Undersecretary for Policy. There is no one whose judgment I trust more on transportation policy matters.

Roy's appointment was followed up by the announcement that Polly Trottenberg, another Moynihan veteran (the late senator was primarily responsible for the landmark ISTEA legislation in 1991 and was a giant intellect on infrastructure issues), would be joining the team as assistant secretary for transportation policy. Polly also served as legislative director for Senators Barbara Boxer and Charles Schumer, and more recently has been executive director of Building America's Future, a bipartisan coalition co-chaired by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Pennsylvania Gov. Edward Rendell, and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Other big-time appointments at DOT have included John Porcari of Maryland as Deputy Secretary, Victor Mendez as head of the Federal Highway Administration, Peter Rogoff as head of the Federal Transit Administration, and Joe Szabo to head the Federal Railroad Administration. It is not without significance that so many of these appointments have substantial legislative experience. As noted above, the massive federal transportation law is due for reauthorization in this Congress, whether it occurs this year or next, and I believe Obama and LaHood are assembling a team deep in Congressional experience specifically in order to bring about the change they have signaled in their rhetoric.

That's a lot for, what, five months so far? Mostly words, true. But that's where leadership begins. And it's the first time we've had it at DOT since I've been working on these issues.

As for the administration's desire to put off consideration of major transportation reform until next year, environmentalists should not necessarily view that as a bad thing. DOT's terrific appointments are new, and just settling in. The legislative calendar is already full with hugely important items such as health care and climate change. And the recession distorts the issues surrounding any major funding bill such as transportation in ways that could be counterproductive to the reforms we hope to see. Both of the last two major transportation reauthorizations also involved postponements, so this is far from unprecedented.

The only downside is that House Transportation and Infrastructure chairman Jim Oberstar (also a friend of reform) has been eager to get going, and as of this writing has been planning to introduce a 100-page outline of his proposals later this morning. So this creates a bit of tension between two pockets of leadership who are really on the same side. That's not good, but in the long run the law could be better for the delay.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

The Future Scotland debates: can architecture “set our souls free”?

2009-06-17T13:26:17Z

Barry Didcock, a contributor to Glasgow's Sunday Herald, seems to think it can. Me, I don't know that architecture can set my soul "free," exactly, but I believe it can indeed be soul-stirring and soul-nourishing.

The question arises because the Glasgow-based Lighthouse Centre, which strives to be "a leading body for the promotion of architecture, design and the creative industries," is hosting a series of debates about the future of Scotland's built environment. So far they have hosted sessions on public spaces and education, with housing, "regeneration," sustainable places and health yet to come during the summer.

Didcock wrote an essay about the series for his paper, and I like both the way he writes and the observations he draws out of those he interviews:

"The built environment is a woolly phrase used by architects and planners to mean the things around us. It sounds remote from our daily lives but unless you live in a yurt on a beach with a view of the mountains, those 'things' do matter. They are the schools your children learn in, the hospitals you go to when you're sick and the doctors' surgeries you fret in when you think you might be. They are houses, shops, offices, cinemas, bus stations, and branches of Starbucks. They are the places in which you love, laugh, sleep, eat, wait, work and queue for a cappuccino . . .

"Now is the time to ask questions. Why is that road so noisy? Why don't these windows open? Why is my house so dark? What would happen if the whole town centre was pedestrianised? Why isn't there a permanent farmers' market? The answers are out there, and so is the ability to make change happen . . .

"[Architect and Future Scotland participant] Malcolm Fraser can point to some good [recent] residential projects. He's a fan of the EDI Group's regenerative programme in Edinburgh's Craigmillar housing scheme, for instance. He likes the fact that it puts creation of community ahead of any other priority, that it uses government money creatively, and that it employed one of Scotland's best architectural companies - Glasgow's Elder and Cannon - to build which he thinks is easily the best-designed school in the country, Niddrie Mill and St Francis Primary School. But he is no fan of those volume housebuilders whose major marketing tools are "kerb appeal" - what the house looks like when you pull up outside in your car . . ."

Here's what Didcock writes about sustainability:

"As for the future, sustainability is one of the key issues. It means environmentally-conscious design, and includes everything from using solar power for heating to flushing toilets with rainwater . . . For Fraser, sustainability means working with existing environments as much as it means creating new ones. Make do and mend is his mantra, and a good Scottish virtue it is too.

"'There's a circus out there telling us a sustainable eco-future is about building enormous dormitory towns on farmland somewhere, but they'll be eco' because they'll have Prince of Wales-approved pediments around the front door. That is an enormous smokescreen.'

"He points to the window, gesturing once more across the Edinburgh rooftops. 'You want an eco town? There's one. Our eco towns are our existing settlements. They've got railway stations in the middle, they're dense, they're walkable, they're liveable. I live my life in Edinburgh without a car. There's a mountain here I can climb and my architectural career has been about reinforcing the integrity of a place where you can live with a small carbon footprint.'"

That's my kind of sustainability. Read Didcock's whole essay here, and visit the Lighthouse Centre's site for more, including transcripts of the sessions held so far. I note that the sustainable places session is scheduled for August 21, in the Scottish Parliament. Sign me up.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

EPA joins exciting HUD/DOT partnership on sustainable communities

2009-06-16T15:18:07Z

The more the merrier, and one only wonders what took them so long. Back in March, the Obama administration announced an exciting new partnership between the federal transportation and housing & urban development departments to pursue together an agenda for smart growth and sustainability. As I wrote then, this was exciting news because HUD had basically avoided the issue for most of its history, and DOT had been a bit schizo, doing some great things but also continuing to fund sprawl-inducing highways without any clear mission for sustainability.

But Secretaries LaHood and Donovan really get it, and their press releases said all the right things about focusing on metro-area coordination of housing, transportation, and land use planning, even taking into account the true affordability of housing when transportation costs are factored in. This was big stuff, and HUD secretary Donovan backed it up with a great speech several weeks later to the Urban Land Institute. With a new task force being appointed to do the work, these were signs of true leadership.

At the time, I couldn't help but wonder where EPA was in all this. After all, both the Clinton and Bush administrations maintained a truly committed and innovative smart growth division in their policy office, now headed for the Obama administration by Maryland smart growth veteran John Frece. Although I have been wildly enthusiastic about the new leadership from HUD and DOT, both of whom direct major programs and dispense considerable amounts of funding that can have huge impacts on land use and sustainability, I have also become accustomed to having EPA be the federal lead on these issues.

But the good news is that EPA is about to join the party. Although, as I write at 10 am, there has not been a formal announcement on EPA's website, I have been told that administrator Lisa Jackson will be announcing today that her agency, too, is on board. [Edit 12.30 pm: here is the announcement on EPA's site.]

According to a document describing the partnership, the three agencies will work together to ensure that the nation's housing and transportation goals are met "while simultaneously protecting the environment, promoting equitable development, and helping to address the challenges of climate change." The now three-way partnership will identify and carry out strategies to do the following:

Provide more transportation choices. Develop safe, reliable and economical transportation choices in order to decrease household transportation costs, reduce our nations' dependence on foreign oil, improve air quality, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote public health.
Promote equitable, affordable housing. Expand location and energy efficient housing choices for people of all ages, incomes, races and ethnicities to increase mobility and lower the combined cost of housing and transportation.
Increase economic competitiveness. Enhance economic competitiveness through reliable and timely access to employment centers, educational opportunities, services and other basic needs by workers as well as expanded business access to markets.
Support existing communities. Target federal funding toward existing communities to increase community revitalization, the efficiency of public works investments and safeguard rural landscapes.
Leverage federal investment. Cooperatively align federal policies and funding to remove barriers, leverage funding and increase the accountability and effectiveness of all levels of government to plan for future growth.
Value communities and neighborhoods. Enhance the unique characteristics of all communities by investing in healthy, safe and walkable neighborhoods - rural, urban or suburban.

EPA's smart growth staff really has the best and the brightest, in my opinion, and I'm not just saying that because they are friends of mine. They are very, very good at what they do, and even with a relatively small budget have produced some of the best research in the field. HUD and DOT will be fortunate to have them as a partner, and so will the country.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

Revitalizing Cincinnati's Over-the-Rhine, national model in the making (Part 3: making impressive progress)

2009-06-15T13:36:05Z

This was going to be the final installment of my miniseries about Cincinnati's remarkable Over-the-Rhine neighborhood, but I'm on too much of a roll to finish today. (Or, as my man Van would put it, "it's too late to stop now.") But this is a nice problem to have, really. Nothing is more important to urban sustainability than revitalization and I love that this story is so rich with possibility.

As I wrote in the first post, this distinct and historic quarter adjacent to Cincinnati's downtown is full of character and promise but bears considerable scars from decades of disinvestment. In the second installment, I reviewed some awesome neighborhood assets that provide a terrific foundation for a vibrant, mixed-income neighborhood-in-the-making. Today we'll look at some of the impressive, hopeful beginnings.

Over-the-Rhine may have a long way to go in order to become the model of revitalization that it can be, but one has to be impressed with what's happening there. Let's start today with the overall vision: in 2002, the city of Cincinnati published a comprehensive plan for bringing the neighborhood back to life. If the plan is realized, most of the neighborhood will retain its mixed-use character, but the colors on the map below show some intended differences of emphasis among the district's 362 acres:

The areas shown in red, for example, will have some retail, often with residences and/or offices above; the yellow areas will be mixed but mostly residential; the orange areas will be mixed residential and commercial; and green and blue represent parks and institutional space (e.g., the Music Hall), respectively. Research shows that mixed-use neighborhoods with well-connected streets perform significantly better environmentally than other types (because they promote walking and reduce vehicle emissions), so this looks great from that angle.

Note also that the neighborhood is getting some infrastructure improvements. The map shows the location of planned tree plantings along many streets around OTR, as well as more significant streetscape upgrades in the areas marked with those large, green-outlined asterisks.

The construction areas are bustling. Much of the implementation is being carried out by the Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation (3CDC), "a private, non-profit corporation whose purpose is to develop Cincinnati's Center City as a regional center of high value employment and real estate, sustained by a diverse mix of housing, culture and entertainment." 3CDC's website notes that its operations are funded privately, through business contributions as well as through support from foundations and other philanthropic sources.

The Corporation's latest progress report states that, in the past three years, it has invested $70 million in the revitalization of OTR. Much of that has gone into rehabbing buildings around Washington Park in the south of the neighborhood, now known as The Gateway Quarter. The largest landowner in the neighborhood, 3CD controls all of the properties shown in color below:

The parcels shown in yellow represent the first two phases of the Gateway Quarter restoration, and they are now complete. Gateway III is shown in amber, and Gateway IV in green. The properties in red are 3CDC holdings that will be part of future projects.

The completed Gateway projects comprise 103 residences, plus 7 commercial and live/work units in Phase I, and an additional 20,000 square feet of commercial space in Phase II. Thanks to a couple of terrific photographers (as always, move the pointer over the image for the credits) who have been kind enough to allow me to share their work, here is a peek at some of it:

Count me among the people who would love to live there.

Which leads us, of course, to the elephant in the room: gentrification. There is no doubt that current residents' fear of displacement is real and, given experience elsewhere, not without basis. My fervent hope, of course, is that a rising tide in OTR will lift all boats, so to speak, in the neighborhood and that it will flourish as the model of diversity, with mixed incomes and ages, that it deserves to be.

As a number of commenters on my previous OTR posts pointed out, we're a long way from displacement at this point, given that nearly if not all of the properties being redeveloped by 3CDC have been vacant and deteriorating, not occupied. I'm sure that my Cincinnati host, UC's Jim Uber, speaks for many:

"I, and many others, moved here in the hopes of finding a truly racially and economically and socially integrated community . . . Right now the need for funding, for keeping rain and vandals out of beautiful buildings so they are preserved, outstrips the concerns about gentrification. The possibilities and the degree of poverty and vacancy are both so great, that to have any complaints at all about the $100M that has been invested over the last few years can seem like madness."

A obvious key will be the provision of affordable housing in restored parcels as the recovery advances. In the meantime, I am encouraged that even while the upwardly mobile are moving to OTR there remain positive signs for the current population (including the diverse clientele at the Findlay Market, as noted last week), and that there are some terrific programs in the neighborhood targeted at helping current residents, such as Power Inspires Progress, which operates a pizzeria on Vine Street while providing training in job skills, and Smart Money Community Services, which works with a credit union to provide basic (and affordable) banking services along with a range of educational programs on financial issues, "empowering families to achieve their financial goals while enhancing the quality of life in our community." In addition, the 500-member OTR Chamber of Commerce, which provides a wide range of services to the neighborhood and its residents, sponsors a number of programs to help small businesses in OTR. In many cases the Chamber's assistance has gone to minority-owned enterprises.

And surely both new and longstanding residents can take comfort and pride in the downturn in crime and upward swing in population in central Cincinnati, including Over-the-Rhine:

Joe Brinker, who commented on my last OTR post, and his business partner Steve Dorst are making a documentary about the rebirth of OTR. (Some of their evocative photos accompany this post.) I really like Joe's perspective on the neighborhood, which I'm excerpting here:

"In Over-the-Rhine, my roots go back a century. Henry Schmidt, my great-great uncle, like so many other German immigrants, started my family's Cincinnati story there in the late 1800s (and was soon joined by my grandfather and great uncle). He became a successful masonry contractor, with enough money to build his own house in what is now Norwood. He and his wife were childless, so they sent word back to the village of Klosterholte, Germany for their niece-my grandmother, Elizabeth Schmidt-to come care for them in their old age. Elizabeth married and had three children-one of whom is my father.

"As I grew up in Cincinnati, my first memories of Over-the-Rhine were in the 1970s. I remember the beauty and the decay, the boarded-up facades and the rich smells of Findlay Market. For me, the neighborhood embodied the most authentic strains of Cincinnati culture, from old-world traditions and architecture to African-American sounds and tastes. As I grew older, walking through Over-the-Rhine increasingly left me with feelings of melancholy and loss. It was a bittersweet feeling - one of the most remarkable and unique places in my city, a neighborhood that truly makes Cincinnati both historic and contemporary, was avoided by most and forgotten by many . . .

"But have you walked Over-the-Rhine's streets lately? There's a buzz, an energy: improved safety and security, renovated Italianate facades, new construction, new people, and new businesses. There is a widespread optimism and intent that I have never sensed before . . ."

Joe appears to have a healthy mix of long-term perspective, realism, and optimism, all of which will be needed to make OTR a success. Read the whole passage here.

Next: will the revitalization be green? That will be the conclusion. Really.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.