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Sunday, May 5th, 2013

Replay: Parallel Societies

This post originally ran on November 11, 2009.

Until recently I had an apartment in the Fountain Square neighborhood of Indianapolis. Fountain Square is a small commercial node surrounded by houses on the near southeast side of the city that has long been my favorite ‘hood in the city. I’ve been hanging out in the area for over 15 years.

Fountain Square was a sort of lower working class neighborhood. The South Side of Indianapolis is notably more Southern in character than the north. In fact, some have said that Washington St. (or I-70) is the real Mason-Dixon Line. In the case of Fountain Square, it is literally Southern. A good chunk of the population is from Appalachia. This has been true a long time. Back in the 1960’s, then Mayor (now Senator) Richard Lugar commissioned a study called “The Appalachian in Indianapolis” to study the question of whether or not the city’s Appalachian community needed special help like other minority populations. The epicenter of Appalachian Indianapolis is Fountain Square. Even today, many people are new arrivals from places like West Virginia. There’s a lot of circulation back and forth. Sometimes kids who get in trouble in Indy get sent back home to West Virginia to stay with relatives there, for example. In effect, Fountain Square is an ethnic immigrant neighborhood, but instead of traditional immigrants from places like Poland, Italy, or Mexico, it is made up of domestic migrants from a particular region and with a distinct culture. New arrivals are, in effect, straight off the boat. As with waves of immigrants from elsewhere, they are seeking better opportunities. Fountain Square is the traditional port of entry for people from West Virginia and similar places to Indianapolis.

The area is about a mile and a half from the center of downtown, and is one of the few intact commercial nodes left in the city. So it was long targeted for development. A few enterprising people bought and refurbished the Fountain Square Theater Building, which now houses restaurants, a duckpin bowling alley, and a boutique hotel. A former department store was converted into cutting edge art galleries and studios. An indie rock club has opened. Many restaurants dot the area and it is really a destination dining district in some ways. (Santorini on Prospect is the best Greek restaurant I’ve ever eaten at). A lot of artists and culturally inclined types have moved in. My apartment was previously occupied by an assistant curator of contemporary art the Indianapolis Museum of Art, for example.

When the artists started moving in I was originally very worried about gentrification and the area becoming unaffordable to anyone without lots of money, like Lockerbie Square or Chatham-Arch, displacing all the original residents. But that didn’t happen. Housing remains extremely affordable and despite the influx of newcomers, they are still a minority.

What’s notable about Fountain Square, and similar areas in other Midwest cities, is that a lot of these artists are able to buy homes. This means they are likely here to stay even if prices go up. That’s in contrast to NYC, SF, or Chicago, where the artists rent.

In any case, while Fountain Square may go upscale, wholesale remaking of large chunks of the city a la Chicago is not likely to happen. Despite the increase in demand for urban living, there is not enough demand to materially increase prices outside of selected district because of the vast acreage of land that has fallen to nearly zero in value. It is a huge overhang. Also, the type of wage inflation and resulting salary gap that you see in bigger cities, which I’ll argue in a future piece is a big driver of their two-tier societies, didn’t happen in Indianapolis. For example, a partner in a major local law firm told me that a few years ago the salary difference for new associates between Indianapolis and Chicago was 30%. Now it is 100%.

So unlike in so many other cities, in Indianapolis yuppies and artists can live side by side with traditional neighborhood residents for a long time. When I lived in West Town in Chicago, my area was probably 30% Mexican, 30% Puerto Rican, 30% yuppie, and 10% other white ethnic. But that was only a transitional period presaging a yuppie takeover. In Fountain Square though, I expect the Appalachians aren’t going anywhere for quite some time, even if the core area around the commercial district does gentrify. (Perhaps the arrival of a spur of the Indy Cultural Trail may by a catalyst for that – we’ll see). I often describe the demographic of the neighborhood as “Artists and Appalachians”, though that doesn’t do it justice since artists are a minority of the new arrivals, who are often professionals, especially those who merely patronize businesses in the area, and there is by my eyeball estimate a 10% or so African American population.

But just because two groups of people live side by side doesn’t mean they interact socially. With some exceptions, I rarely observed much in the way of interaction between them. The upscale restaurants and art galleries are not affordable or perhaps even of interest to West Virginia refugees. Similarly the rent to own stores for yuppies or arts crowd.

There are some older institutions that are, however, used by everyone. One of them is a greasy diner called Peppy’s Grill. If ever a place deserved an exemption from the smoking ban, this is it. The place just hasn’t been the same. Good burgers, great atmosphere. But not a lot of conversation between the two sets of customers.

Another is the Liquor Cabinet, the neighborhood package liquor store. They carry a large inventory of 40’s along with a cooler of top end microbrews from the likes of Three Floyds – all behind a bulletproof glass shield. There’s a drink for every taste and budget.

As an aside, is there any better example to show why, despite what one may think, Indianapolis is not an overgrown small town? I mean, physically, it basically is one. I’ve long noted that a residential street in Indianapolis is not that different from one in the first state capital of Corydon, population 3,000. Heck, Fountain Square is like a literal small town, with its fading Main St. shops along Virginia Ave., the Theater Building and its surrounding streets the courthouse square, and the tidy rows of small, single family homes that have seen better days around it.

But appearances can be deceiving. Function does not always follow form. How many Indiana small towns have a liquor store like that? Or a piece of contemporary architecture like the Craig McCormick designed Ragsdale House on Pleasant St.? Or several edgy contemporary art studios? Or an indie rock club?

Need more proof? Just look at the city’s blogosphere. One of America’s leading LGBT blogs is based in Indy. The leading Republican blogger in the city is gay. A hardcore libertarian anti-tax activist is a former professional dominatrix. And a prominent political pundit is a cigar smoking, whiskey sipping Black Muslim stand-up comedian – and Republican.

No, my friends, this is no small town. And it has a lot more character – and characters – than you might think.

Back at the Liquor Cabinet, a variety of people come together to buy their nightly libations – but I don’t see any real conversation or interaction. Only occasional light banter of the type one might make with strangers – because that’s what we are. There’s no connection or bond that has been built between the different groups, with some limited exceptions such as at the Community Development Corporation.

Long time readers know I care a lot about the notion of a “commonwealth”. That is, a city and region where people feel that their fates are linked together, where they rise an fall together, where they feel like they have a stake in the system and in a shared prosperity for everyone.

I think it is harder to view ourselves as sharing a common destiny with people who are very different from ourselves. But if we get to know them personally at some level, there is generally some base commonality there. How do we foster that type of connection, not just of the “Isn’t this weather nice?” variety but some type of real relationship?

I’ve thought about this a bit and it often seems to require some type of pivot point or area of mutual concern people can connect around. I think about, for example, how back in the early 90’s a lot of heavy metal bands and gangster rappers started hanging out together and promoting each other’s stuff. They saw the marketing possibilities yes, but also a way to tap into the common alienation and marginalization their respective audiences felt from the mainstream.

Because each pivot point is likely to involve a subset of people, it is best to have multiple of them. Then you start creating all sorts of cross-network pathways. I thought about this with regards to Fountain Square and came up with a few ideas.

• The obvious neighborhood institutions: neighborhood associations, local schools (such as the area charter school), the library branch, the CDC, etc.
• Back to our musical example, a shared sense of being marginalized in a community felt by both artists and Appalachians. Certainly both of those groups have a shared interest in not seeing runaway real estate prices. The artists already had a scare recently when the Murphy Building which houses many of their studios and such was put up for sale.
• Bicycling. Fountain Square is the heart of Indy’s bike culture. One of the people behind the Indy Cog blog lives there and is brave enough to live in Indy with only his feet and bike for transportation. Joe’s Cycles on Virginia is a local gathering place. But in Fountain Square, lots of people ride. It’s not just hipsters or people making an alternative transportation statement, it’s kids and regular neighbors, people black and white, a true neighborhood cross-section. Seems like an opportunity.

These are a few examples in only one neighborhood. The bigger point is that a big part of what makes a city is its social infrastructure. It’s not just bike lanes and buildings. It’s people and relationships and networks. Especially where there is so much traditional distrust between groups who have often had big differences in interests, finding ways to bring people together across those boundaries, at least at some level, is a way to help strengthen civic social capital. A mixed neighborhood is of limited benefit if people do not, in fact, mix. We should be looking for ways to break down barriers that too often create parallel societies.

Friday, February 8th, 2013

Why Are There So Many Murders in Chicago?

My latest blog post is online over at New Geography. It is called “Why Are There So Many Murders in Chicago?” In it I take a look at why Chicago has so many murders compared to other large global cities.

Some commenters already pushed back saying that there are lots of cities with higher murder rates. Perhaps true. But do you really want to say that Chicago’s peer group is made up of places like Detroit, Flint and St. Louis? After all, Chicago aspires to be an elite global city, and it is against other elite global cities by which it should be judged. Thus places like New York and LA are the right peer group.

I don’t claim to know the exact answers, but I explore some possibilities related to policing, demographics, and housing policy. Whatever the case, Chicago would be well served to do some detailed comparative analysis to figure out what it needs to do differently to stem the murder tide given that there appears to be little progress being made through the current approach. (This January was the deadliest in over a decade, for example).

One item I know I mis-worded. Talking about the NYT piece, my intent was to say that Chicago’s gun laws are pretty tough and broadly comparable to NYC and LA, and so you can’t blame Chicago’s murders on differences in gun policies. That doesn’t mean Chicago and America can’t do better when it comes to guns, but to blame gun laws is really just blame shifting by people who don’t want to take responsibility for what’s going on on the streets of Chicago.

Wednesday, December 5th, 2012

Transforming Bogotá

Lots of folks have heard of the positive changes in transport in Bogotá, Colombia, including things like the Transmilenio BRT system, bike lanes, and the ciclovia. But I don’t think most folks are familiar with all that happened and the journey to get there.

A 2009 Danish documentary called “Bogotá Change” does a good job of telling the story. I’ve only been able to find it online in a seven part You Tube series, which I’m presenting here. It’s an hour long documentary, but strongly recommended for anyone thinking about how to transform their city, especially how to transform the culture, expectations, and norms of behavior.

Most Americans probably think first of Mayor Enrique Peñalosa as the poster child for this transformation. And we see a lot of him in the film. But less well known is another mayor who played arguably a more crucial role in setting the stage, particularly for the cultural change. That was Antanas Mockus. Mockus is even more colorful than Peñalosa, if that’s possible.

To give you an incentive to watch this, I’ll share two brief anecdotes from the film. The first is that Mockus came to fame because he publicly mooned people who were heckling him. The second is that Mockus disbanded the entire notoriously corrupt traffic squad of the police department and replaced them with mimes that shamed drivers into better behaviors. I’m not making this up. So like I said, watch the film.

Part One. If it doesn’t display, click here.

Part Two. If it doesn’t display, click here.

Part Three. If it doesn’t display, click here.

Part Four. If it doesn’t display, click here.

Part Five. If it doesn’t display, click here.

Part Six. If it doesn’t display, click here.

Part Seven. If it doesn’t display, click here.

Thanks to Henry Lanham for sharing this video with me originally.

Tuesday, July 10th, 2012

Chicago, Summer Crime, and the Slide Towards Detroit by Mark Bergen

[ Mark Bergen writes a blog called Econometro at forbes.com. He wrote this piece about the rising murder wave there. I'm including it as part of my State of Chicago series, but I should note that it was written independently and is not intended to endorse any of my particular views regarding Chicago - Aaron. ]

Here in Chicago we are fretting about crime. Philadelphia is hosting a jump in violence, with an 86 percent rise in homicides in June alone. But, otherwise, we are mostly alone. Other major cities are continuing the decades-long decline in crime rates, while Chicago has seen a nearly 40 percent spike in murders this year. (You can see a nicely visualized breakdown of the city’s crime, by ward, with this newly released interactive tool.)

The crime spike recently spread to the Magnificent Mile, the squeaky clean shopping district downtown. It led one Alderman, granted anonymity perhaps to escape the wrath of Mayor Emanuel, to suggest that these shootings in safe areas mark “when we start becoming Detroit.” That taps into a huge fear here—turning into the gutted city up north. Lines like that, though, are usually associated with simple, sensationalized ideas about urban violence.

One person who has spent much of his career dispelling these easy notions of crime is Jens Ludwig, a researcher at the University of Chicago. He has an op-ed in Crain’s this morning laying out three reasons why Chicagoans should be concerned with crime. One, in particular, has enormous implications for business in the city:

Third, no one should want Chicago to turn into Detroit — but that’s the direction that violence leads cities. Research by my University of Chicago colleague Steve Levitt and Julie Cullen of the University of California, San Diego, showed that for every homicide that occurs in a city, total population declines by 70 people. The 2010 census showed that Chicago had shrunk by 200,000 people in the past decade. If Chicago had New York’s success in controlling violence (that city’s homicide rate is about one-third ours right now, even though our rates were similar in the early 1990s), Chicago’s population would have held steady or even grown the past 10 years.

This, I believe, is the research he cites. Crime isn’t the only factor pushing city residents out; for that decade of Chicago loss, violent crime rates were steadily falling. But it is a factor, and population loss certainly is a drag on a city’s economic prowess.

That parlays nicely to New York, where the city continues to suppress its crime and expand its economic force. The legal scholar Franklin E. Zimring has a lengthy, nuanced article titled, tellingly, “How New York Beat Crime”:

Once again, the simple explanations are not of much help. Some of the authorities’ more prominent campaigns were, in fact, little more than slogans, including “zero tolerance” and the “broken windows” strategy — the theory that measures such as fixing windows, cleaning up graffiti and cracking down on petty crimes prevents a neighborhood from entering into a spiral of dilapidation and decay and ultimately results in fewer serious crimes. For instance, the NYPD did not increase arrests for prostitution and was not consistent over time in its enforcement of gambling or other vice crimes.

But other campaigns seem to have had a significant effect on crime. Had the city followed through on its broken-windows policing, it would have concentrated precious resources in marginal neighborhoods rather than in those with the highest crime. In fact, the police did the opposite: they emphasized ‘hotspots’ a strategy that had been proved effective in other cities and that almost certainly made a substantial contribution in New York.

Despite the myths of a tough crackdown on crime, pushed by, among others, one-time mayors, New York’s imprisonment rate fell relative to other cities. A sharp fall in illegal drug use in the city helped quite a bit. Zimring also touches upon the role of aggressive, stop-and-frisk policing in the violence decline, though he notes its impact is small, its costs potentially large. Like every other factor, it eschews simple explanations. For those interested in crime policies, the whole thing is worth a read.

Following Ludwig, Zimring does arrive at a simple, cost effective recommendation: “First of all, cops matter.” In loads of studies, more police seem to be the only factor neatly correlated with reduced crime. Facing red budgets, both Detroit and Chicago have shrunk their forces. Unlike leadership in the former city, Emanuel seems to be avoiding the broken windows tactic, opting, according to the Times, to strategically target gangs with the statistical approach of Superintendent Garry McCarthy, the police chief who oversaw much of New York’s decline. McCarthy’s current department, though, has roughly 450 uniformed positions unfilled.

That Times article ends with a Chicago resident lamenting that “we’ve lost our way.” It’s a natural expression for someone at the center of truly depressing violence, and a fine capstone about a subject, city crime, bereft of easy answers. But the idea that a kid in Chicago is locked into a criminal path, or that the city is on some unstoppable decline, isn’t necessarily true. Here’s Zimring:

Perhaps the most optimistic lesson to take from New York’s experience is that high rates of homicides and muggings are not hardwired into a city’s populations, cultures and institutions.

Chicago need not become Detroit, and Detroit need not remain itself.

This post originally appeared at forbes.com on June 26, 2012. Reprinted with permission of the author.

Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011

Collective Pride, Worthy Choices by John L. Krauss

When you ask people locally where they’re from, they’ll specify an area of our community. They’ll say, “I’m from Fishers,” or Avon or Greenwood.

But when traveling, those same people will answer the question differently. They’ll say, “I’m from Indianapolis.”

Indianapolis is Central Indiana’s focal point. If our region were a newspaper, Indianapolis would be the banner headline. If we were sports apparel, it would be our swoosh. If we were a hit song, it would be our chorus.

But while the region needs Indianapolis to be strong, Indianapolis cannot sustain and grow its national status without strong surrounding communities.

In other words, to be a super city, we must be a super region.

To explain our interdependence, choose your favorite cliché: “You can’t be a suburb of nothing.” “We’re all in this together.” “A rising tide lifts all boats.” All these notions are true. So rather than erect more barriers born of fear and parochialism, it’s in our individual and collective best interest to celebrate and invest in regionalism.

Too often, when people hear “regionalism,” they fear we have to become homogenous – that we must evolve into a one-size-fits-all, nine-county Uni-Gov where all the shots are called from the 25th floor of Indianapolis’ City-County Building.

Our super-city status, however, depends not on homogeneity, but on ever-expanding choices available to all of our residents, visitors, businesses, students and more.

From arts to sports, libraries to restaurants, established neighborhoods to new exurbs, choice is what makes our community superb.

We’re more likely to sustain and grow our job market with a broad choice of industries and businesses.

We’re more likely to build value in our homes and control our cost of living with a choice of transportation (e.g., cars, commuter rail, buses).

We’re more likely to have affordable, desirable housing for all if we have choices in every price range and living style.

We’re more likely to have a well-educated work force if we have high-quality school choices for all of our students.

We’re more likely to enhance human health if we have choices for recreation, medical research, health education and treatment of disease.

We’re more likely to stem the brain drain, raise children who want to live here, and attract workers from other places if we have choices in education, enrichment and entertainment.

We’re more likely to succeed in a global economy if we have cultural choices that attract, retain and engage diverse people. Call it a mosaic, a cornucopia or quilt, choices are Central Indiana’s linchpin, our point of difference, our brand. Rather than flee from those choices or isolate one another, we must encourage and invest in them.

In so doing, it’s important that we value and acknowledge the ideas and choices of all kinds of people from all over the region, not just those that emerge from the center outward or from the top down. In considering those diverse ideas and choices, we must value not only our self-interest, but also our collective interest; not only short-term investment, but also long-term return on that investment.

Decades ago, when Uni-Gov was passed, Indiana lawmakers decided that Indianapolis wouldn’t be allowed to grow beyond its Marion County boundaries. Consequently, we are fiscally landlocked.

Today, that puts Indianapolis at risk from a tax base too small to support the city itself and to drive the region and state that depend upon it. Indianapolis is, after all, the principal economic engine not only for Central Indiana, but also for the state.

There’d undoubtedly be great resistance (as there should be) to such alternatives as commuter taxes. But we do need to explore region-wide, issue-specific investments in such measures as mass transit, quality of life or quality water – areas with collective responsibility that reap collective benefit.

We’ve come a long way since the days when we had few choices. Many people from within this city and beyond take pride in telling the world, “I’m from Indianapolis.” But we can’t have it both ways. A community worthy of collective pride depends on choices worthy of collective investment.

John Krauss directs the Indiana University Public Policy Institute and its Center for Urban Policy and the Environment.

This column originally appeared in the Indianapolis Star on February 6, 2010. Reprinted with permission of the author.

Thursday, October 7th, 2010

New York’s Quality of Life Agenda

Thanks to Greater Greater Washington for pointing me at this incredible video about New York City’s livability agenda. (If the video doesn’t display, click here). This is simply a must watch.

What I’d like to highlight is how with all these initiatives, the sustainability angle is actually downplayed. If you listen to Mayor Bloomberg and Jannette Sadik-Khan talk, you hear them talking about making tangible, near term improvements in quality of life, safety, and bettering business conditions in the city. In short, it’s not about doing something to save the world or because it’s the right thing to do. It’s about doing them because they make sense for the city and New Yorkers.

Obviously New York is a unique place and these ideas can’t be lifted and dropped just anywhere. Other cities will continue to require a more prominent role for the automobile, for example. But the attitude of asking what we can do right now, today to create a safer, more livable city that is a better place to do business is one any city can take to heart. I hope America’s other metropolises are listening.

If you are wondering if this is really paying off for New York, the answer is Yes, and in a forthcoming post this weekend I’ll give a major demonstration of why.

More:

New York’s Leadership in Transportation Design
Another Epic Public Space Win in New York
Janette Sadik-Khan on Changing the Transportation Game

Friday, December 11th, 2009

Midwest Miscellany

The Good News

I thought I would lead off a few pieces of very good recent news.

First, Louise Nippert donated $85 million to Cincinnati arts groups. $75 million of this goes to the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, making it the largest gift in that institution’s history and one of the largest to any orchestra anywhere.

Also, the Indianapolis Regional Center Design Guidelines won the 2010 National Planning Excellence Award for a Best Practice from the American Planning Association. Columbus, Ohio won in the Best Practice for Implementation category for its University District revitalization. And Chicago won in the Outreach category for its Wicker Park Bucktown Master Plan. The APA web site has the full list of winners.

Ideas For Cities

Back in September at Velocity Grand Rapids, an energetic bunch of urban enthusiasts came up with a collection of ideas for cities. I participated and previously shared some of the thinking this event stimulated in me. Recently, GOOD Magazine started blogging a huge collection of ideas that were captured from that event. It is called Ideas for Cities and is worth checking out. You won’t agree with all of them, I’m sure, but you are sure to find some good things on the list as well.

It’s Not a Race – But What If It Were?

I don’t know the original source of this video but I found it via Human Transit. It shows the progress of rail line construction in various cities over time. On your mark, get set…

If video does not display, click here.

2010 Housing Outlook

Pittsburgh’s Chris Briem pointed me at this Fortune magazine housing outlook for 2010. Pittsburgh happens to be the only market projected positive for 2010, though several markets turn positive in 2011. Here’s the Midwest cities from the list. The rank is in order of best to worst housing markets for the top 100 metros.

• #1 – Pittsburgh: +0.41%
• #7 – Kansas City: -1.81%
• #8 – Louisville: -2.24%
• #12 – St. Louis: -2.39%
• #24 – Indianapolis: -3.23%
• #30 – Milwaukee: -3.92%
• #34 – Chicago: -4.30%
• #40 – Minneapolis: -4.99%
• #50 – Columbus: -6.54%
• #51 – Cleveland: -6.98%
• #57 – Cincinnati: -8.30%
• #65 – Detroit: -9.40%

A Tsunami of Freight

The Cincinnati Enquirer has a great series of articles on increasing truck traffic in the region and insufficient investment in roads to keep up with it. I-75 is now the busiest north-south trucking route in the US, and 47,500 trucks per day pass through Cincinnati.

I know there are a lot of people out there that are anti-highway. But a lot of the arguments around it relate to local land use and development patterns and ignores freight. Clearly, rail freight and intermodal transport are growing at a rapid clip and need investment. But trucking is always going to be a very important part of our national economy and keeping freight moving on a national and regional level is critical. For a big rig, every hour of delay costs about $67 – that adds up quickly.

I support transit development but also believe we need highway investment. With almost every Midwest city and state saying distribution and logistics are going to be a big part of its economy, highway investment is even more critical. If your region has big time congestion and roads with obsolete dimensions, that’s dramatically going to hurt your business climate for transport intensive industries. The cities that figure out how to make this investment are going to distinguish themselves.

One of the things I said I was going to do when I started this blog was call them like I see them, and for this I know I part ways with many. We absolutely need major highway investment in our cities. Do we need transit investment as well? Absolutely. I believe they are actually complementary, not substitutes. Transit works well were highways don’t and vice versa. We need to complement urbanized cores with transit appropriate development patterns with strong regional and national highway networks. It’s a matter of AND not OR.

More from the Enquirer:

• Mixed mode takes a load off trucks
• One wreck can choke the whole system
• Ideas to clear up the mess

World and National Roundup

I want to highlight two long but fascinating and troubling articles about international cities. The first is The Dark Side of Dubai from the Independent (UK). (via @a_me1). It is an incredible peek behind the glittering facade of this Middle Eastern Oz.

The other is a piece in the Observer (UK) on Rio’s drug war. This piece is another example of why the Guardian/Observer is the best newspaper in the world.

Design Boom takes a look at some of the coolest subway designs in the world. Highly recommended. Nothing in the United States featured, of course.

Foreign Policy magazine published their first annual list of the top 100 global thinkers.

Forbes/Kotkin: The World’s Smartest Cities

PD Smith has an opinion piece in Wired UK proposing to use taxation to get people back into cities over there. You wouldn’t have to tax me to get me to move to London! Just offer me a job. It might be my favorite city in the world.

The Guardian: How locals transformed streets into public spaces.

The Atlantic: Mayors vs. Governors. How cities are getting short changed on the stimulus.

Glaeser: What Makes Cities Great

NYT: Entering the super-project void – Bemoaning the lack of transformational infrastructure projects in America.

Essay: Dawn of the Deal Mall (via Kaid Benfield)

A study shows that wind farms don’t harm property value.

CS Monitor: Five cities that will rise in the New Economy (via Houston Strategies)

Reihan Salam: We’re all Michiganders now

Elizabeth Warren: America without a middle class.

David Brooks: An Innovation Agenda

New York Magazine: The Encyclopedia of Counter-Intuitive Thought – a compendium of some of the best works of counter-intuitive thinking from the last decade. Very stimulating. (Via @jwalkersmith)

New Geography: Will New Urbanists Deliver a Home Win with Miami 21?

NYT: Trouble in Philly, Lessons in New York. There’s a backlash against bicycling in Philadelphia after bicyclists killed two pedestrians. It would be tempting to just bash cars more here, but biking advocates need to address the legitimate concerns about how biking affects pedestrians. Clearly there is an element of the biking community, albeit a minority, that rides rudely and hazardously. We need to educate and encourage bikers to share the road with pedestrians just as we do the same with drivers.

Streetsblog New York: MTA Doomsday Redux?

Five days that shook Seattle. A look back at the WTO meeting and riots (via @OtisWhite)

Sizing up a sharp turn at the Denver Art Museum. A look at that institutions progress as 20 year director Lewis Sharp departs.

How two cities revived train stations. The Detroit Free Press examines how Kansas City and Nashville reused their train stations, seeking a model for saving the Michigan Central Depot.

Nashville: Medical Mart chooses convention center home. (via Brewed Fresh Daily)

Kaid Benfield: Texas (!) becomes first state to adopt smart streets rule. I’m not as surprised as he is. With that Texas attitude, when they think they are behind on something, they make a point to catch up, which is why Texas actually bests almost the entire Midwest on most measures of urban progressivism.

Ohio Faces ‘Mobility Crisis’

Urban Cincy highlighted a study that talked about the precipitous decline of transportation option other than automobiles in Ohio. He’s got all the details you should definitely check out, but I wanted to share the maps of non-auto transportation links in Ohio in 1979 vs. 2009.

First 1979:

Now 2009:

Policing Levels

Urban Cincy has a another great piece, this one on police staffing levels in Cincinnati It’s an interesting and provocative analysis in an area in which the discourse is dominated by a political culture in which no one wants to appear soft on crime.

He had a great chart of police officers per capita for Midwest cities. Here is the research, in terms of police per 100,000 residents in the year 2000:

• Cleveland: 381
• Milwaukee: 335
• Pittsburgh: 310
• Cincinnati: 307 (2010 data pro forma with planned reductions)
• Kansas City: 284
• Louisville: 269
• Columbus: 245
• Minneapolis: 236
• Toledo: 220
• Indianapolis: 207
• Portland: 190

Names and Identity

The New York Times had a great piece Sunday called “Vancouver Talks Tough to Itself“. That’s Vancouver, Washington. One of the key focus areas of the article is how sharing a name with Vancouver, British Columbia kills their brand recognition. One local even created a shirt saying, “Vancouver (not B.C.), Washington (not D.C.), Clark County (not Nevada), near Portland, Oregon (not Maine)”.

The town is actually considering the step of renaming itself back to its original moniker of Fort Vancouver in an attempt to eliminate the confusion.

This story made me immediately think of Columbus, Ohio. It’s another city that struggles under the weight of a fairly generic name. It’s not that it is overshadowed by a more famous or bigger Columbus, but rather that Columbus is simply a common name for cities in America (Columbus, Indiana; Columbus, Georgia) and that the word Columbus to many people means the Columbus in their own state. Also, until recently Columbus was in the shadow of Cleveland and Cincinnati, so didn’t have longstanding historic recognition. It is probably the biggest city in America where you always have to give the state, not just the city name – Columbus, Ohio. It is probably the largest city out there where a Wikipedia search on its name takes you to a disambiguation page.

It prompts an interesting question: should Columbus change its name? That would be a radical step for sure, one fraught with danger. But also a potential game changer for the city. Just the act of doing so would generate huge press. If I were them I would consider it except that such exercises are inherently so difficult, as most corporate branding initiatives show. I lived through the transition from Andersen Consulting to Accenture. So I know that finding a good name is problematic, and even the best of names sounds stupid when you first hear it. (I think Accenture did one of the better jobs out there). Would anyone pick, for example, Chicago as a city name today? No. The name has meaning because of the history and what it represents. So even the coolest of names would take a long time to “break in” so to speak. If someone really did come up with a great name though, it would be something to debate.

Cincinnati Agenda 360

The Cincinnati Enquirer did a major feature on Agenda 360 last week. Agenda 360 is the region’s strategic plan for the future, focused around raising the number of young people with college degrees, adding jobs, and more.

As the piece notes, however, the goals seem unattainable in the target timeframe, especially with the recession. The Agenda 360 organization is still thinking big, however. According to executive director Myrita Craig, “We wanted to aspire to not just an incremental increase, but to a quantum increase. Love it or hate it, that’s what it is.” The Enquirer suggests that they will be forced to re-evaluate these goals and I agree. I think it is good to set stretch goals and dream big, but if attaining them is patently impossible, it is time for a rethink. Having said that, there is still plenty of good in Agenda 360, and particularly in the process they used.

I previously took an in-depth look at Agenda 360 back in March.

The Enquirer also shared thoughts from several other people on the plan:

• Myrita Craig Q&A
• Kimm Coyer (Director of Economic Development for Warren County)
• Jeff Edmondson (Executive Director of Strive)
• Bobbly Maly (VP of Development for the Model Group)
• Charmaine Moore (Education Director for the Cincinnati Opera
• Ryan Rybolt (President and COO of Infinitech)

The Cleveland Infrastructure Challenge

A couple of news articles out of Cleveland got me thinking again about the infrastructure challenges facing not just that city, but most of our cities. The first was a piece on the recontruction of the Inner Belt bridge. This nine figure project is going to result in six years of construction and traffic disruption.

The other was about the city seeking $219 million to shore up the Cuyahoga River bank. A section of it is in danger of collapsing, which would disrupt the shipping channel, destroy a major sewer line, and take out a roadway.

When you look at expenses like this – and others such as CSO remediation – it shows again the problem that our core cities are forced to spend huge amounts of money just to replace or repair aging infrastructure. When suburban areas build infrastructure, at least they get the benefit of mostly net new product. But after a lot of these expenditures in our cities, they have more or less the same product. Fixing a decaying bank just holds off problems, but doesn’t add to Cleveland’s competitive advantage. Indeed, to the extent that local funds are used, it only adds to the fiscal burden. In my view this is again where federal assistance could help our cities tremendously.

Also, it is critical to find any way we can to get value add out of these projects. Too often instead we get value engineering that strips these down to the bare minimum to save on budget. The end result is a project that doesn’t move the needle for the city or region, but still costs a fortune.

The Asian Invasion

Illinois recently poisoned the Sanitary and Ship Canal in order to kill off Asian carp, and invasive species working its way north from the Mississippi River. There is a huge fear that these voracious eaters would devastate the ecosystem of the Great Lakes if they managed to make it to Lake Michigan.

Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm wants to force Chicago to close the Chicago River locks to stop it. She’s even threatening legal action. Subsequent press coverage indicated the Army Corps of Engineers is actively considering a temporary closure.

Let’s face it, Chicago would never have been allowed to reverse the flow of the Chicago River today. Other Great Lakes states have long seethed at this arrangement and the threat to the ecosystem is a foot in the door to re-open the issue of whether Chicago can continue to divert billions of gallons of Lake Michigan water. This could get interesting.

More Midwest

Chicago
Comparing the Modern Wing and the Pritzker Pavillion (Build Blog). The authors reach more or less the same conclusion I did.

Cleveland
Casino, convention center, medical mart and other downtown projects need something else to succeed – more people (Plain Dealer) – via Brewed Fresh Daily
Cleveland’s Euclid corridor has paved way for economic development (Plain Dealer)
RTA’s Euclid Health Line faring well in ridership, innovation (Plain Dealer) – An architecture review of the new BRT line, with video.
Cleveland’s RTA exploring ways to saving on utility costs (Plain Dealer)

Detroit
Grand Cobo Ideas Not So Far Fetched (Free Press)
Population loss costs Michigan $4.3 billion (Detroit News)
Downsize Detroit: Strengthen city by phasing out depleted neighborhoods (John Mogk @ Detroit News)
Hundreds of Michigan road projects slashed (Detroit News)
Rethinking Talent Retention (Generation Y Michigan) – via Burgh Disapora

Indianapolis
Indianapolis displays the art of ‘Sacred Spain’ (AP) – A fantastic review of this exhibition from the Associate Press
Place making in Irvington (A Place of Sense)
New Lease on Life for Old City Hall? (IBJ)
Roadside America gets flair (American Dirt)
Zoning board to vote on I-465 sign request – PLEASE, PLEASE VOTE NO

Louisville
Louisville sidewalks get $7.4 million makeover (C-J)

Milwaukee
Regional Transit Authority caught in a funding tangle (J-S)

Pittsburgh
Regionalism: What Is It Good For? (Politics and Place)
Pittsburgh tuition tax plan spurs student fears (Philadelphia Inquirer)

St. Louis
Renewed Metro (transit) tax campaign will test St. Louis value (Post-Dispatch)

Twin Cities
Minneapols-Duluth rail price tag rises to $1 billion (Star Tribune)
What deficit? Vikings fans rally for new stadium (Star Tribune)

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

Indy: Parallel Societies

[ If you are looking for something related to Gabe Jordan, scroll down to the bottom of this post ]

Until recently I had an apartment in the Fountain Square neighborhood of Indianapolis. Fountain Square is a small commercial node surrounded by houses on the near southeast side of the city that has long been my favorite ‘hood in the city. I’ve been hanging out in the area for over 15 years.

Fountain Square was a sort of lower working class neighborhood. The South Side of Indianapolis is notably more Southern in character than the north. In fact, some have said that Washington St. (or I-70) is the real Mason-Dixon Line. In the case of Fountain Square, it is literally Southern. A good chunk of the population is from Appalachia. This has been true a long time. Back in the 1960’s, then Mayor (now Senator) Richard Lugar commissioned a study called “The Appalachian in Indianapolis” to study the question of whether or not the city’s Appalachian community needed special help like other minority populations. The epicenter of Appalachian Indianapolis is Fountain Square. Even today, many people are new arrivals from places like West Virginia. There’s a lot of circulation back and forth. Sometimes kids who get in trouble in Indy get sent back home to West Virginia to stay with relatives there, for example. In effect, Fountain Square is an ethnic immigrant neighborhood, but instead of traditional immigrants from places like Poland, Italy, or Mexico, it is made up of domestic migrants from a particular region and with a distinct culture. New arrivals are, in effect, straight off the boat. As with waves of immigrants from elsewhere, they are seeking better opportunities. Fountain Square is the traditional port of entry for people from West Virginia and similar places to Indianapolis.

The area is about a mile and a half from the center of downtown, and is one of the few intact commercial nodes left in the city. So it was long targeted for development. A few enterprising people bought and refurbished the Fountain Square Theater Building, which now houses restaurants, a duckpin bowling alley, and a boutique hotel. A former department store was converted into cutting edge art galleries and studios. An indie rock club has opened. Many restaurants dot the area and it is really a destination dining district in some ways. (Santorini on Prospect is the best Greek restaurant I’ve ever eaten at). A lot of artists and culturally inclined types have moved in. My apartment was previously occupied by an assistant curator of contemporary art the Indianapolis Museum of Art, for example.

When the artists started moving in I was originally very worried about gentrification and the area becoming unaffordable to anyone without lots of money, like Lockerbie Square or Chatham-Arch, displacing all the original residents. But that didn’t happen. Housing remains extremely affordable and despite the influx of newcomers, they are still a minority.

What’s notable about Fountain Square, and similar areas in other Midwest cities, is that a lot of these artists are able to buy homes. This means they are likely here to stay even if prices go up. That’s in contrast to NYC, SF, or Chicago, where the artists rent.

In any case, while Fountain Square may go upscale, wholesale remaking of large chunks of the city a la Chicago is not likely to happen. Despite the increase in demand for urban living, there is not enough demand to materially increase prices outside of selected district because of the vast acreage of land that has fallen to nearly zero in value. It is a huge overhang. Also, the type of wage inflation and resulting salary gap that you see in bigger cities, which I’ll argue in a future piece is a big driver of their two-tier societies, didn’t happen in Indianapolis. For example, a partner in a major local law firm told me that a few years ago the salary difference for new associates between Indianapolis and Chicago was 30%. Now it is 100%.

So unlike in so many other cities, in Indianapolis yuppies and artists can live side by side with traditional neighborhood residents for a long time. When I lived in West Town in Chicago, my area was probably 30% Mexican, 30% Puerto Rican, 30% yuppie, and 10% other white ethnic. But that was only a transitional period presaging a yuppie takeover. In Fountain Square though, I expect the Appalachians aren’t going anywhere for quite some time, even if the core area around the commercial district does gentrify. (Perhaps the arrival of a spur of the Indy Cultural Trail may by a catalyst for that – we’ll see). I often describe the demographic of the neighborhood as “Artists and Appalachians”, though that doesn’t do it justice since artists are a minority of the new arrivals, who are often professionals, especially those who merely patronize businesses in the area, and there is by my eyeball estimate a 10% or so African American population.

But just because two groups of people live side by side doesn’t mean they interact socially. With some exceptions, I rarely observed much in the way of interaction between them. The upscale restaurants and art galleries are not affordable or perhaps even of interest to West Virginia refugees. Similarly the rent to own stores for yuppies or arts crowd.

There are some older institutions that are, however, used by everyone. One of them is a greasy diner called Peppy’s Grill. If ever a place deserved an exemption from the smoking ban, this is it. The place just hasn’t been the same. Good burgers, great atmosphere. But not a lot of conversation between the two sets of customers.

Another is the Liquor Cabinet, the neighborhood package liquor store. They carry a large inventory of 40’s along with a cooler of top end microbrews from the likes of Three Floyds – all behind a bulletproof glass shield. There’s a drink for every taste and budget.

As an aside, is there any better example to show why, despite what one may think, Indianapolis is not an overgrown small town? I mean, physically, it basically is one. I’ve long noted that a residential street in Indianapolis is not that different from one in the first state capital of Corydon, population 3,000. Heck, Fountain Square is like a literal small town, with its fading Main St. shops along Virginia Ave., the Theater Building and its surrounding streets the courthouse square, and the tidy rows of small, single family homes that have seen better days around it.

But appearances can be deceiving. Function does not always follow form. How many Indiana small towns have a liquor store like that? Or a piece of contemporary architecture like the Craig McCormick designed Ragsdale House on Pleasant St.? Or several edgy contemporary art studios? Or an indie rock club?

Need more proof? Just look at the city’s blogosphere. One of America’s leading LGBT blogs is based in Indy. The leading Republican blogger in the city is gay. A hardcore libertarian anti-tax activist is a former professional dominatrix. And a prominent political pundit is a cigar smoking, whiskey sipping Black Muslim stand-up comedian – and Republican.

No, my friends, this is no small town. And it has a lot more character – and characters – than you might think.

Back at the Liquor Cabinet, a variety of people come together to buy their nightly libations – but I don’t see any real conversation or interaction. Only occasional light banter of the type one might make with strangers – because that’s what we are. There’s no connection or bond that has been built between the different groups, with some limited exceptions such as at the Community Development Corporation.

Long time readers know I care a lot about the notion of a “commonwealth”. That is, a city and region where people feel that their fates are linked together, where they rise an fall together, where they feel like they have a stake in the system and in a shared prosperity for everyone.

I think it is harder to view ourselves as sharing a common destiny with people who are very different from ourselves. But if we get to know them personally at some level, there is generally some base commonality there. How do we foster that type of connection, not just of the “Isn’t this weather nice?” variety but some type of real relationship?

I’ve thought about this a bit and it often seems to require some type of pivot point or area of mutual concern people can connect around. I think about, for example, how back in the early 90’s a lot of heavy metal bands and gangster rappers started hanging out together and promoting each other’s stuff. They saw the marketing possibilities yes, but also a way to tap into the common alienation and marginalization their respective audiences felt from the mainstream.

Because each pivot point is likely to involve a subset of people, it is best to have multiple of them. Then you start creating all sorts of cross-network pathways. I thought about this with regards to Fountain Square and came up with a few ideas.

• The obvious neighborhood institutions: neighborhood associations, local schools (such as the area charter school), the library branch, the CDC, etc.
• Back to our musical example, a shared sense of being marginalized in a community felt by both artists and Appalachians. Certainly both of those groups have a shared interest in not seeing runaway real estate prices. The artists already had a scare recently when the Murphy Building which houses many of their studios and such was put up for sale.
• Bicycling. Fountain Square is the heart of Indy’s bike culture. One of the people behind the Indy Cog blog lives there and is brave enough to live in Indy with only his feet and bike for transportation. Joe’s Cycles on Virginia is a local gathering place. But in Fountain Square, lots of people ride. It’s not just hipsters or people making an alternative transportation statement, it’s kids and regular neighbors, people black and white, a true neighborhood cross-section. Seems like an opportunity.

These are a few examples in only one neighborhood. The bigger point is that a big part of what makes a city is its social infrastructure. It’s not just bike lanes and buildings. It’s people and relationships and networks. Especially where there is so much traditional distrust between groups who have often had big differences in interests, finding ways to bring people together across those boundaries, at least at some level, is a way to help strengthen civic social capital. A mixed neighborhood is of limited benefit if people do not, in fact, mix. We should be looking for ways to break down barriers that too often create parallel societies.

A Word on Crime

This week in Indy a horrific shooting left Gabe Jordan, wine steward at upscale specialty grocery Goose the Market, in critical condition and likely paralyzed from the waist down. This was an apparently random act of violence. He was shot in the back during a robbery while he was out walking his dog late one evening near his home on the East Side.

I didn’t know Gabe personally, but the staff at the Goose are familiar faces, so this one hits close to home for me, and for many others I know. For example, the shooting took place a block from the home of frequent Urbanophile commenter cdc_guy.

Urbanist blogs don’t often talk a lot about crime or education or race. I have talked the race issue buy am a rarity. Those conversations tend to happen in more specialty places. But things like this remind us that things like safety and education and social justice are the basics. If you don’t have safe streets, all the light rail lines in the world aren’t going to save your city.

A lot of us are accustomed to thinking crime only happens to other people. We’re told, and I’m sure it is true, that most murders involve drugs and gangs, or some sort of domestic violence incident. Thus, they aren’t likely to affect us. Or the victims are of another race or class in a way that, as the main part of my post says, we don’t feel a great idea of identification with.

This reminds us that crime is everyone’s issue. Shootings like this, rare though they may be, not only have horrible consequences for the victims and their families, they also have a major chilling effect on our efforts to renew our cities. The fact that this was so apparently random makes it even worse. Gabe wasn’t dealing drugs. He was on a well lit street, not in a dark alley. It was 11:30, not 4am. The message is clear: it could happen to any of us in this place.

I’ve walked all over the East Side. I’ve walked around Fountain Square and other places at night by myself frequently and nothing has happened to me. The odds of anything like this happening to anyone are probably very low. But the plain fact is it would be nearly non-existent in a place like suburban Fishers.

Things like safe streets are a necessary but not sufficient condition for a city to succeed. You have to provide more than just safety, but you still have to provide the safety. Public safety is job one for government, and rightly the #1 issue on which its success or failure should be judged.

We shouldn’t panic over a single crime. In any city, anywhere things like this do happen. Even in Indianapolis there have been worse crimes committed and there are many murders every year. But the fact remains that a man who believed in Indianapolis enough to plant his flag there and make a commitment to it when so many others with choices left is in the hospital and paralyzed right now. He’s paying a high cost for that commitment, one nobody should be forced to bear.

My thoughts and prayers, and I’m sure yours as well, are with Gabe and his family right now. You can follow Gabe’s progress at his family’s web site.

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Aaron M. Renn is an opinion-leading urban analyst, consultant, speaker, and writer on a mission to help America’s cities thrive and find sustainable success in the 21st century.

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