Aaron M. Renn

All Things Aaron

Making the Link Between Quality of Life and Economic Development

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A rather prosaic economic development announcement in Indianapolis provides an opportunity to hammer home in a concrete way the connection between quality of life investments and economic development. This is something I've long argued we urbanists do a poor job of. We tend to adopt a "build it and they will come" marketing approach to quality of life initiatives where the connection between cause and effect is tenuous. Additionally, these tend to focus almost entirely on and tell stories about "the best and brightest" which in a country dying … [Read more...]

In Case You’ve Forgotten How Badly Freeways Damaged Our Cities, Cincinnati Edition

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A couple weeks ago I posted a series of photos demonstrating the damage freeway construction did to Indianapolis. Since I've been covering Cincinnati this week, I thought I'd show the damage freeways did there too. Over the Rhine is one of America's most stunning historic districts. When I visited the city last year, one of the locals explained that there had been "miles" of neighborhoods just like it obliterated by freeway construction. I found this difficult to credit until I came across the photographic proof. Here's a picture of one … [Read more...]

Rezoning Midtown East by Micah Rodman

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[ Many of you are probably aware by now that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is pushing to upzone the Midtown East area around Grand Central Terminal before he leaves office. Micah Rodman, a student at Yale, wrote an a paper on this I thought would be of interest as an example showing the way Bloomberg has been seeking to reshape New York - Aaron. ] Currently, the New York City Department of Urban Planning is in the public approval process of changing the zoning for East Midtown as a means of redeveloping the neighborhood. In this 73-block … [Read more...]

The Growing Public Safety Inequality Gap in Chicago

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[ Daniel Hertz writes over at his City Notes blog. He was gracious enough to give me to permission to repost the results of his research into changes in crime patterns in Chicago over time - Aaron. ] Here are two maps: HOMICIDE RATE BY POLICE DISTRICT 1990-1993 2008-2011 Like the captions say, the one on the left shows homicide rates by police district in the early 90s, when crime was at its peak in Chicago, and the one on the right shows the same thing, but about two decades later.* The areas in dark green are the … [Read more...]

What Detroit’s Bankruptcy Teaches America

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As has long been expected, the city of Detroit has officially filed for bankruptcy.  While many will point to the sui generis nature of the city as a one-industry town with extreme racial polarization and other unique problems, Detroit’s bankruptcy in fact offers several lessons for other states and municipalities across America. The Day of Reckoning Can Take Much Longer Than We Think to Come What’s most surprising about Detroit’s bankruptcy is not that it happened, but how long it took to get there.   In authorizing the bankruptcy filing … [Read more...]

If You Can Repeatedly Close a Freeway For Months At a Time, Do You Really Need It At All?

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Ten years ago state highway officials closed I-65/I-70 in downtown Indianapolis for three months for a rehab project called "Hyperfix." This was expected to cause a "carmageddon," but as we've grown used to many times by now, the expected traffic disaster never materialized: As the start date approached, INDOT and its partners implemented other precautions to ensure smooth traffic flow but soon discovered the additional efforts were unnecessary. For example, the State budgeted $100,000 in overtime for police, mainly to direct traffic downtown. … [Read more...]

Suburban Blight in Kansas City

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[ This week Eric McAfee takes a look at phenomenon that is on the rise in America today - suburban blight. Early generation suburbs across America are falling into decay, bringing with them all the ills we have traditionally associated with the inner city. Eric highlights an example for us in Kansas City - Aaron. ] Over the past century, the word “blight” has undergone a curious expansion in its denotations. It was originally a botanical term referring to a disease characterized by discoloration, wilting, and eventual death of plant tissues. … [Read more...]

Will Las Vegas’ Downtown Project Succeed?

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This is the second installment in my look at the Las Vegas Downtown Project. In part one I gave an overview of the project and some of the positives and success indicators. On Thursday I looked at some of the commonalities between Vegas and other small cities as a bridge to this installment. And finally today I want to look at some of the challenges I see with the Downtown Project and ask, will it succeed? As for the answer to that question, some of it is a matter of how you define success. At a base level, there's already been success. … [Read more...]

The Inevitability of Community in Small Cities

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This is both a standalone piece and a bit of a bridge between the first installment in my Las Vegas Downtown Project overview and the second one. One thing I consistently heard from the people in Vegas was their pride about the sense of community they had downtown. Tony Hsieh says it is the most community oriented place he's lived. One of the Downtown Project official goals is to make Las Vegas the most community-oriented downtown in the world. There's certainly a big sense of community in downtown Las Vegas. I don't want to diminish that … [Read more...]