Aaron M. Renn

All Things Aaron

Building Suburbs That Last #6 – Limit Restrictive Covenants

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This is another in my occasional series on creating suburbs that will remain successful over the long haul. To recap, I consider the suburban decay facing inner ring suburbs across America, especially those of the 60’s and 70’s vintage built on a modern suburban pattern, as one of the key challenges facing urban leaders over the coming decades. I outlined a lot of the case in my review of the book “Retrofitting Suburbia”. This series looks at ways to keep this same decay from happening to tomorrow's suburbs. The Market Urbanism blog recently … [Read more...]

Picture-Perfect Portland?

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Portland is one of the most-praised cities in contemporary America. But is the hype real? To some extent, it actually understates the case. Portland didn't invent bicycles, density or light rail -- but it understood the future implications of them for America's smaller cities first, and put that knowledge to use before anyone else. The longest journey begins with a step, but you have to take it. Nobody else did. In an era where most American cities went one direction, Portland went another, either capturing or even creating the zeitgeist of … [Read more...]

The Power of Greenfield Economics

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I've touched on this before in other posts, but it is worth highlighting again. The great move from the city to the suburbs has been attributed to various factors: changing lifestyle preferences, the automobile, subsidies to sprawl, urban industrial pollution, etc. While there is probably truth in all of these, possibly the most powerful of them all is greenfield economics. What is greenfield economics? This is simply the set of conditions that flow from building on new territory or exploiting new markets vs. redevelopment of old places, … [Read more...]

The Sprawl Bubble

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[ Buffalo's Chuck Banas is a great thinker, doer, and writer on urban matters. He graciously allowed me to repost some of his articles, and this is sadly the last one I have on file. It was written in 2009 and so some of it addresses what was going on at that time, but the perspective remains relevant, even if sprawl is not your issue. - Aaron. ] I’m certainly not the first pundit to comment on the recent economic meltdown, and I sure won’t be the last. But there is a side to this crisis that almost no one is talking about, perhaps because … [Read more...]

The 31-Flavors of Urban Redevelopment

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Aaron Renn’s March 24 posting on “The Logic of Failure” and his reference to “silver bullet” solutions for redevelopment and revitalization reminded me of my visit to the “Creative Cities Summit”, about revitalizing cities, three years ago this fall. The setting, timing and venue could not have been better, at least in terms of provoking thought about how to do things better. The setting was Detroit, the time was October, 2008, when the financial markets were crumbling, and the venue was Renaissance Center (“RenCen”), the Robocop-like mixed … [Read more...]

The Logic of Failure

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"It is far from clear whether 'good intentions plus stupidity' or 'evil intentions plus intelligence' have wrought more harm in the world. People with good intentions usually have few qualms about pursuing their goals. As a result, incompetence that would otherwise have remained harmless often becomes dangerous...Failure does not strike like a bolt from the blue; it develops gradually according to its own logic. As we watch individuals attempt to solve problems, we will see that complicated situations seem to elicit habits of thought that set … [Read more...]

Transit Ridership Framework

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You might have a hard time believing I've spent most of my career in consulting due to the lack of Power Point presentations on my blog. While I'll admit to not being partial to the tool, I do like frameworks. Going forward, I'll occasionally share some that are relevant to cities, starting today with public transit. Last year I won first prize in a global transit competition sponsored by the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce. The goal was to devise a strategy for boosting regional transit ridership to one billion rides annually. If you'd … [Read more...]

Building Suburbs that Last #5 – Redevelopment Insurance

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Photo Credit: Flickr/julianmeadeThis is another in a periodic series about building sustainable suburbs properly so-called. To recap, I consider the suburban decay facing inner ring suburbs across America, especially those of the 60's and 70's vintage built on a modern suburban pattern, as one of the key challenges facing urban leaders over the coming decades. I outlined a lot of the case in my review of the book "Retrofitting Suburbia". Why is this happening? One big reason cities tend to fall into decline is that they accumulate huge … [Read more...]

Louisville – An Identity Crisis

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Following on from my article on Cincinnati, I'll now take a short 100 mile trip downstream to another old river city, Louisville. Louisville came of age in a similar era and traditionally viewed itself as a sort of little brother to Cincinnati. However, while Cincinnati was once the Paris of the west, Louisville never held so lofty a position, so it lacks Cincy's grandeur. Luckily, it also appears to be missing some of the dysfunction. See here the river city tradition as the Belle of Louisville steamboat fires up. There were obviously no … [Read more...]

Livability Needs to Starts Now For Indianapolis

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CEOs for Cities recently held an event called the Livability Challenge in Indianapolis. Among its major themes was creating more beautiful cities. I did not attend this, but someone who did told me, "The last 3 days have been some of the most inspiring days of my civic life in Indianapolis." I'm not surprised. CEOs for Cities a) just gets it and b) puts on the best events I know, both from a content and organization perspective. If you ever get the opportunity to attend one of their events, I can't encourage you enough to do so. But … [Read more...]