Category Archives: Market

Cities, Cityreads, Commons, Heart, Market, Mobility

The Urban Hierarchy Was Never Dead

Urban Hiearchy Not Dead

Nearly four years ago I declared that the urban hierarchy is dead. I was already refuting The Urbanophile, Aaron Renn, but I thought I had a good case.

After all, this was before I graduated from my MPA  program, before I rented an apartment that almost bankrupted me, before I moved halfway across the country to improve my job prospects, before police brutalities, school failures, high rents and student debts, and finally bad local and state leadership could come in and cloud my view of the ability for all cities to be equal.

Like Renn, I’ve now lived in two regions of the country, namely the Midwest, which I’m finding has less flexibility and more hidden issues, which are now coming to light.

And at this writing, we are going knee deep into the season in the States where we put things (used to be just sports teams, now it can be anything) on a bracket and determine how good it is with arbitrary guesses.

So it shouldn’t surprise you that just like all other things, all cities were never created equal. Some were port towns. Some were railroad towns. Some were sundown towns. Others still aren’t really towns and therefore use that to fail to provide proper protection of all its citizens.

This is an assessment of US towns and cities, but globally, you find this on every continent, places that are restricted, places built on one industry, places that have died and will never come back, unless they get connected to the current economy. 

In addition, the financial system we often need to help us build or rebuild our cities and towns, may not even want to work with you. Homes in certain areas are still risky investments. Some people still don’t see favorable loan options. And again, why do we even need loans to purchase homes? Why can’t we go back pre New Deal and lower home prices so that like cars, more people with moderate incomes (but incomes!) can pay for them outright. Why can’t more people own things. Same goes with small business loans and other personal loans. Some can get them, some can’t. And it’s not always judged by credit scores and what people can pay.

Then we get to cities who have public transit and cities who don’t and cities who have it, but it doesn’t work well. We have airports, but not all cities have direct connections. We have trains, but likewise, not every MAJOR city is directly connected. Even when it comes to cars, parking is always expensive, some more expensive than others. Roads are subsidized today, but when you stop subsidizing them, are they turning into gravel? Can vehicles besides automobiles and trucks share the road? Can you even walk beside the road, in something besides a muddy ditch. Must we always monitor the door zone and make sure we don’t get crushed and our helmets split into two.

Why aren’t all our K-12 schools the same, at least in the US? Why do people feel like they have to pick the perfect school? Why aren’t all our schools being funded and striving to be the same. Why aren’t all kids brains the same?

No city has ever had the same foods available, at least not without modern transport and logistics networks? And then on top of that, does every neighborhood have the same supermarkets or supermarkets at all? Are the restaurants hip or are they just making ends meet for the cooks and the owners?

Are a good majority of its citizens healthy? Can the medical facilities be trusted? Are there a variety of them? Are the practitioners concerned about health or how they are getting paid? When people do bad things (and even when we suspect them of doing bad things), do they stay locked up without rehabilitation or do we just throw them away and forget they ever existed?

You can have cities that look the same and appear to have all the same things, but if they aren’t equal in service, then yes, you have a hierarchy of cities. Agglomeration economies still make a difference. Even with the Internet and phones, people still need the same speeds.

And on a personal level, one thing that will probably never change, is personal relationships. Each person is unique and sometimes, you need to be near the people who make you stronger and wiser and help you overcome all these inequities. Even in a perfect world, we all have something different to contribute.

However, we are not above being able to equalize a lot of the conditions in our towns and cities. Now some building types make that harder than others, but a mixture of financing and re-thinking how to govern places is a good start to fixing the hierarchy. Also, cheaper passenger transport, with fully integrated modes (fly across country, train up seaboard, Uber or bus to specific home), will make it easier for all citizens of cities, regardless of income, to collaborate, not just online, but in person.

The urban hierarchy will die one day. Unfortunately, that day has not come yet.

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Commons, Heart, Market, Mobility, placemaking, transit, Wishes

My Placemaking Wishes for 2016

My Placemaking Wishes for 2016

It’s that time again, where I rub my lamp and hope that several things in the world of placemaking come true. I’ve made a set of wishes in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015 and I’m honored to share another set of dreams for 2016.

And without further ado, this year’s four wishes.

Truly Safe Streets

It’s my list, I can keep wishing the same things. Especially if those things have yet to come to pass. We need to reconcile the need to reduce traffic incidents, with the greater need for law enforcement to treat citizens like citizens and not enemies of war. Some people are sharing the road with fellow passengers. Others yet are working with their police departments and reducing violent crimes among themselves. Let us continue to wish that our most common public space is the safest. My friend Naomi Doerner makes a great case for combining #visionzero and #campaignzero.

Steady Rents and Mortgages

Every city that has at least a major employer; homes that resemble craftsman bungalows, art deco apartments or colonial row houses;has a college or two or three; and has reasonable diversity in population is seeing some form of gentrification, proportional to  the average median household income. Every city has people who can’t make ends meet and in some places, it’s worse than others, because salaries are holding steady for a lot of industries, especially at the minimum wage and entry levels. But, if the housing market could as a whole lower their costs by maybe 10% on services, rents and the like (as well as themselves start to rely less on bank loans and a bit more on cash), maybe we could fix this. This will be a continuing wish, because I know what I just proposed isn’t practical. What however is practical, is empowering people to create craft and trade guilds and turn neighborhood association funds into a means to fund labor and supplies for these maintenance and building crews. My friend John Anderson has a great argument for continuing to mentor and cultivate tradesmen, especially in underserved communities who need lots of housework done, but may not have what it takes to hire outside workers.

Understanding of How Housing Policy and some Transportation Policy Has Created A Number of Social Ills.

Again, this combines elements of the two wishes above. People need to know the history of their neighborhoods, their states and their country. If you don’t like not having public transit, find out where the stops are and why your system exists. Same with your neighborhood and why you may have seen a restrictive covenant in the deed, even though technically those are illegal. At the very least understand why your Realtor still may have suggested a certain group of neighborhoods and why certain neighborhoods command high values (It’s not just because of proximity to Trader Joe’s). I want to use this space and other forums to help people understand why so many of our urban and suburban racial battles have roots back even further than the greater civil rights movements of the 1950s and 1960s. Maybe you weren’t aware of the origins of Oregon, but this post touches on that and how in least one state, capturing the American Dream was completely banned well into the 20th Century. (I’m also aware of the irony of this link in the light of the other link from wish 1.) 

A Commitment By Powerful Interests to Creating Comprehensive Public Transit in More than a Few Cities.

And finally, separating out this wish into its own space, because transportation is easier to change than where houses sit and where people live. Maybe your parents want a huge suburban house and they are willing to pay all the costs to have that house. Namely paying for their own transit service, their sidewalks and bike lanes on their stroads. Even better if we can convince the powers-to-be to increase service frequencies and add weekend and evening services back to commuter routes. I wouldn’t drive into Kansas at all, if I knew I could use the JO commuter service to go to the Target in Mission or Downtown Overland Park at times I have the extra time to do so. I’ve seen the benefits of added MARC service in being able to go more places between DC and Baltimore. This doesn’t excuse new suburbs from popping up and contributing to sprawl. This makes it necessary for municipalities that want to be connected to a greater metro area to be part of said area. I don’t have any specific links for this one, other than read any post that you see from your hometown newspapers, national mainstream magazines and maybe even write an op/ed of your own or a long Facebook post that’s sharable, to tell the world we need better transit.

So here we are, new year, new wishes. Be sure to keep with me via email and on social media to see my progress with the wishes, as well as my commentary on how the world is doing with them. 

Commons, Greensboro, malls, Market, Raleigh, Retail, suburbs

The Lost Corners of Suburbia

The Lost Corners of Suburbia

Belk at Four Seasons Mall
IHOP on Hillsborough Street
Two Guys Pizza on Hillsborough Street
Wachovia at Spring Valley Plaza

All these things used to be on the corner of something. All these places are places I made memories in. All of these places are gone or soon to be gone in their current forms. Many of these places are examples of bad architecture, shadinesss of patrons and big conglomerate corporations that increasingly only care about the dollars of these patrons, not their feelings.

Yet, these and many other dead malls and outparcels and big boxes and downtown storefronts are now gone.

As I’ve prepared to move halfway across the country, and as my hometown and college town begin to make major changes, I’ve started documenting what some may think are mundane, ugly parts of physical space. After all, when I come back to Greensboro, Gate City Boulevard will be the official address of so many things, not just changed street signs. That corner of Hobbs and Friendly might be clear-cut. I want to remember things as they were, because change is inevitable.

And about that corner of Hobbs and Friendly. People are mourning the change of that corner for different reasons. What was once five homes, homes that held families and memories, could soon be the Trader Joe’s that we’ve been begging for years. The one that I’m still on the fence about wanting to come to town for this very reason. (Let me add that now that I’ve had the goat cheese and sun-dried tomato ravioli and I swear by the Maple Pecan Granola Cereal they make, I’m sold on them for more than just cookies).

Sadly though, it’s a lost corner. Lost in the sense that the use of it is changing and memories of the corner are gone.

Yet, there will be new memories right? Some new homes are going on the property. I’m sure one will be the first home of a baby, who will grow up to recount their childhood days walking across the street to Trader Joes on one side and to see Santa at Christmas and to pick out their first bike at REI.

Much in the same way I’ll tell stories about my first visits to the carousel at  Carolina Circle Mall, Belk at Four Seasons, the map store at Cotton Mill Square, the toy store with the cool trains at Forum IV, the Chic-fil-A at Holly Hill Mall, Marvin’s on Hillsborough Street, the soon to be old IHOP on Hillsborough Street.

This post owes a debt to all the many suburban retail nostalgia blogs and Facebook pages out there. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, for those of us who grew up in suburbia or a Southern city that mimics what those in other regions consider suburbia, these were our places.

Our corners.

The lost corners.