Sprawled Out: The Search for Community in the American Suburb

James Howard Kunstler: The "suburban project" and Ralph Kramden's apartment

The suburban project was not a conspiracy by the likes of Robert Moses, Walt Disney, Frank Lloyd Wright, and President Eisenhower to produce a living arrangement with no future. It was the emergent, self-organizing result of special circumstances in a particular time and place: post World War Two America, with an immense supply of cheap oil, cheap land, and the industrial capacity to churn out all the necessary components for a car-dependent development pattern. Suburbia was spawned out of a couple of persistent themes in American cultural history: 1.) that cities and city life were no good; 2.) and that the romance of settling the wilderness could be reenacted, at great profit, in all that space beyond the towns and cities. It would be silly to deny the appeal of this arrangement at its inception. By the end of WW II, city life in the popular imagination was reduced to one potently awful image: Ralph Kramden’s apartment in “The Honeymooners” TV show.

James Howard Kunstler in Ruinous Debt to Create Futureless Suburbia - Contrarian Stock Market Investing News:

Institutionalizing sprawl and looking past existing infrastructure

Shoppes at Wyndham Village: Fill vacant space or BUILD MORE?

So, the Sentry grocery store at the corner of Rawson and 76th has announced that it will close by the end of October. The store was superfluous (throw a rock in Franklin and you'll hit a Pick n Save; I have three to choose from in proximity to my house), but the property will be a blight as long as it stands vacant. Across the street from that soon-to-be-empty building are a vacant coffee shop and vacant martini bar. The Shoppes at Wyndham Village outbuildings are largely vacant as well.

Meanwhile, at the Economic Development Commission meeting last night, I suggested that we focus at least part of our efforts on nurturing small, local businesses to fill some of these vacancies and encourage rehabs and retrofits. A fellow (and long-serving) commissioner responded to my suggestion by gravely reminding all assembled  that "our mission is development of tracts of land to attract business."

Really?

I will argue in a series of subsequent posts (and at the next EDC meeting) that our mission must be much, much broader than that. Stay tuned.

Light Rail spurs economic development and success in Phoenix

Not hard to grasp - Economic development and light rail, hand-in-hand successes:

The light rail here, which opened in December, has been a greater success than its proponents thought it would be, but not quite the way they envisioned. Unlike the rest of the country’s public transportation systems, which are used principally by commuters, the 20 miles of light rail here stretching from central Phoenix to Mesa and Tempe is used largely by people going to restaurants, bars, ball games and cultural events downtown.

The rail was projected to attract 26,000 riders per day, but the number is closer to 33,000, boosted in large part by weekend riders. Only 27 percent use the train for work, according to its operator, compared with 60 percent of other public transit users on average nationwide.

Read the rest at: In Phoenix, Weekend Users Make Light Rail a Success - NYTimes.com:

Social media and local government culture

From http://www.governingpeople.com/Home/: Social media and local government culture:

One of the new slides in this deck asks the question “Should local gov be like Apple or Google?”.

When I road tested this question on Twitter, I got a range of responses, some being quite clear cut, others wondering what the hell I was on about. One was particularly clever.

Here’s what I meant.

Apple are closed, switched off from the conversations about them. They keep their customers at a distance and go to remarkable lengths to prevent users from giving them ideas. As far as Apple are concerned, they know all the answers.

Apple’s products are also damn expensive. They charge as much as the market can bear – and sometimes more. So how come they are so popular?

It comes down to the user experience. It’s so awesome, that people like me will put up with all sorted of crap to be able to keep using it. So, an organisation can still succeed, even if it is closed in its culture, if the product is good enough. I think it would be difficult to argue that any level of government’s user experience is up to the same level as Apple’s right now…

Google, on the other hand, take a far more open culture. They have loads of blogs, just about one for every service they operate. They have forums for users to help one another, and to get help from support. An awful lot of Google’s technology is open source, and they run platforms for others to host and share their code, as well.

Google’s pricing model is different to Apple’s, too. Instead of charging as much as the market can bear, Google charges as little as it can bear, as Jeff Jarvis explains in What Would Google Do? Google wants as many people to use its products as possible, because that makes them work better, so they make them free, or as close to free as they can. Google is more a platform, or a network, than just a company that sells stuff.

Bikeable neighborhoods prove profitable for Portland realtor

What happens when you recognize that bike and pedestrian connectivity is a UTILITY and not merely "recreation"?

From Smart Growth Around America: Bikeable neighborhoods prove profitable for Portland realtor:

The latest batch of annual census data examining Americans’ travel patterns came out this week . The American Communities Survey surveys a cross-section of the country at random to find out, among other things, how they get to work. Do they take transit, do they walk, do they ride a bike?

Portland continued their national dominance of percentage of people who ride bikes, jumping all the way from 4.2% to 6.4% in one year. The city has invested in making biking safer and more attractive, which has paid off with more people biking, fewer cars on the road and cleaner air. With biking growing in popularity each year, scores of enterprising people have started bike-related businesses to ride the rising tide of bike culture in the city.

One enterprising Portland realtor combined the growing demand for homes in convenient locations with Portland’s biking fervor to boost her bottom line — filling a niche that was previously empty. When Portlanders want to buy a home that lets them bike to the office, the grocery store, or the post office, they call Kirsten Kaufman, whom Portland Live calls the “Bike Broker.”

Riding around Portland on her custom-built bicycle, she showcases homes that provide easy access by bike, by foot, and by public transportation — that is to say, the kinds of homes that more people want these days, but that other Realtors might not think to showcase. Kaufman has capitalized on the fact that convenience, short commutes, and access to the community without having to drive everywhere is as much a marketable selling point as good schools or low crime with a growing segment of homebuyers.

Riding on bicycle also gives her a better sense of the neighborhoods she’s selling in.  Of her strategy, Kaufman says:

“I started doing focus groups by showing homes by bike to cycling advocates. All of the feedback I got was positive. Once I actively started marketing to people who want to drive less, my business increased. This year versus last year, I’ve almost doubled my business in the worst real estate market ever. I took that to mean it was a good idea.”

Doubled her business? Sounds like she’s onto something.

Transit key to attracting creative talent here - JSOnline

I can tell you this: Transit is a distinct NON-ISSUE for Franklin's Economic Development Commission. My attempts to discuss our city's approach to impending RTA actions - - planning now to accommodate and benefit from proposed Madison-Milwaukee-Racine-Chicago train service, for instance - - have been met with shrugs.

Transit key to attracting creative talent here - JSOnline.

Making Suburbia More Livable for Retirees

From the decidedly pedestrian-unfriendly layout of Shoppes at Wyndham Village to the habit many city administrators have of referring to bike and walking paths as no more than frivolous "recreation facilities" (more on that when I post about the first Franklin Trails Committee meeting), Franklin can be a tough place to function if you happen to be elderly, differently-abled, or without a vehicle.

Ironically, some of the Franklin politicians who roll their eyes (and I mean that literally) at suggestions that we make walkability and accessibility a priority are themselves approaching (or already in) their golden years. And who can forget the large contingent of Franklin's elderly community that Casper Green mobilized to attend a public meeting supporting developer Mark Carstensen's Shoppes at Wyndham Village despite a site plan distinctly unfriendly to the elderly? 

This past weekend's Wall Street Journal features a story about how many suburbs are "retrofitting" to better serve their aging population - and retaining that population, who otherwise would leave for Florida or Arizona retirement communities. And this means keeping our older neighbors in the mainstream and participatory in community life, not concentrated in "elderly housing facilities."

Why can't we "age in place"?

Sitting in his office in Fayetteville, Ga., Ken Steele, the town's mayor, is poring over a local street map, explaining how this suburb of Atlanta hopes to transform itself into a "lifelong community"—and why neighborhoods across the country need to do the same.

"Every small community has the same problem," says Mr. Steele, age 69. "We want residents to be able to age in place, to meet their needs…here, without having to move away."

To that end, he indicates on the map how a new street grid could reduce traffic in the center of town and help Fayetteville become a "walking community"; how new town homes and condominiums, in an area where single-family homes have long been the norm, could give residents of all ages more housing options; and how new greenways and parks could promote social interaction.

"Lenders, landowners, developers—they're all talking now," Mr. Steele says of the project. "We really can't afford to wait."

That sense of urgency is understandable. The nation's sprawling suburbs—home to as much as half of the U.S. population and more than 30 million people age 55-plus—may have been a good place to grow up. But the suburbs are proving a tough place to grow old.

Indeed, as the country ages, suburbia's widely assumed benefits—privacy, elbow room, affordability—tend to vanish. Maintaining yards and homes requires more effort; driving everywhere, and for everything, becomes expensive and, eventually, impossible. (Research shows that men and women who reach their 70s, on average, outlive their ability to drive by six and 10 years, respectively.)

Even something as simple as the absence of sidewalks can discourage older adults from walking through their neighborhoods and seeing other people.

Suddenly, "all that privacy that drew people to the suburbs in the first place can become isolation," says Ellen Dunham-Jones, associate professor of architecture and urban design at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta.

One answer, of course, is to leave. Active-adult communities and assisted-living facilities exist to mitigate some of the drawbacks of growing old on a cul-de-sac. That said, the vast majority of older adults don't want to move. Fully 85% of surveyed individuals age 50-plus told AARP, the Washington-based advocacy group, that they wish to remain in their communities for as long as possible. And those communities, invariably, want the same thing: a strong mix of ages, interests and abilities among residents.

Perhaps a better solution, and one finding favor in more circles, is the idea of "retrofitting" suburbia and developing, as seen on the drawing board in Fayetteville, "lifelong communities." Such projects typically involve taking a neighborhood or site within an existing town or suburb and creating a compact, walkable community—one with alternatives to single-family homes, such as condominiums or row houses. Ideally, older residents in large homes will have the option of downsizing and remaining in a community where they can access restaurants, shopping and other amenities and services on foot.

Read the rest at: Making Suburbia More Livable for Retirees - WSJ.com.

Panera Bread succeeds by creating faux-"third places" in the suburbs

In the absence of true public spaces and third places in modern suburbs, Panera Bread finds an opportunity. Bring your laptop.

Mention Panera Bread and fans are as likely to praise the free Wi-Fi as they are to gush about the Asiago cheese bagels. And that, execs at the $2.6 billion restaurant chain say, is the point. While its competitors scale back on upscale ingredients, trim portion sizes, and create value menus, Panera is selling fresh food and warm bread at full price, and encouraging customers to linger. That recipe is succeeding.

Read the rest at: Rising Dough: Why Panera Bread Is on a Roll | Fast Company.

In hard economic times, Libraries become important community resource for computers and internet

From Checking out what's next - JSOnline.:

The national library study, funded in part by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, found local libraries to be important technology centers for people needing computers with Internet access as well as training and job search resources.

According to the study:

• 90% of public libraries provide technology training, such as how to seek jobs online.
• 71% - and 79% of rural libraries - say they're the only place in their communities for free computer and Internet access.
• 66% of libraries rank services for job seekers as a top online feature they offer, up from 44% in 2007.

From a member of the Franklin "community," posting on another blog:

"USE YOUR PC'S AT HOME. If you don't have one, don't expect to leech off of the taxpayers."

Meanwhile, Racine libraries see their hours and budget cut further - even while circulation is up.

Possible roundabouts cause concern near Lambeau Field - because drunk drivers have trouble with roundabouts

You can't make this stuff up.

Proposed roundabouts near Lambeau Field raise concerns - JSOnline.