Sprawled Out: The Search for Community in the American Suburb

Reality hits home, and McMansions gain saner dimensions

Now that amenities aren't self-contained in each, individual, over-leveraged home, residents will look to their communities for parks, public spaces, pools and other almost-forgotten shared assets.

Property tax freeze? Good luck with that absurd notion. Evolve or die.

By MICHAEL M. PHILLIPS

SMYRNA, Ga. -- For the first time in four decades in the luxury-home business, executives at John Wieland builders are thinking the unthinkable: Maybe houses in the South don't really need a fireplace.

They're also wondering whether new homes require 4,700 square feet of living space. Or private theaters with 100-inch screens. Or super-size-me foyers.

As they draw up blueprints for the house of the post-recession future, builders are struggling to distinguish among what home buyers need, what they want and what they can live without -- Jacuzzi by Jacuzzi, butler's pantry by butler's pantry.

"You have to keep taking things out until you hit a critical point where people reject your product," said Jeff Kingsfield, senior vice president of sales at Smyrna-based John Wieland Homes & Neighborhoods.

It's an experiment brought on by necessity. Two years ago, closely held Wieland was building 1,800 houses a year in posh subdivisions in Georgia, Tennessee and the Carolinas, selling for an average of $650,000 apiece. Today, the company is closing on just 600 homes annually, according to Wieland. It has slashed staff to 330 employees from 1,100.

Read the rest at: Builders Downsize the Dream Home - WSJ.com

Building on good bones vs. making room for a drive-thru

The Former Herda's True Value Hardware Store in St. Martins

With last week's Economic Development Commission meeting canceled due to lack of a quorum (mass illness), I was able to attend and listen in on an organizational meeting of a group called Franklin Citizens for Community Development (formerly known as "Franklin First"), a project organized by blogger Greg Kowalski and James Mullarkey (a Franklin Community Development Authority Commissioner). I wanted to get a sense of their intent.

I listened as they discussed possible mission statements. At first, I heard a lot of "we need a water park," "we need a performing arts center," "why aren't we Mequon?" "high-end amenities!" etc.

I brought with me a picture of the empty hardware store down in St. Martins, which is a beautiful building, and reminded them that the city has some good "bones" to build on; their organization would do well, in other words, to exploit current assets before crying out for more new construction. This seemed to be enthusiastically received.

I also introduced the term "sustainable" to their discussion. One look at the city's budget will tell you that the current way of doing things is not going to work for much longer. Perhaps Citizens for Community Development could use their energy and voices to promote the small steps that are needed in order to create a more economically vibrant city. For instance, promoting small businesses in town is an excellent way to enrich the local economy: For every dollar spent at a local business, 45% is reinvested locally. Spent a dollar at a corporate chain and a mere 15% is reinvested locally.

(We will hopefully be talking more, by the way, about the building above on this blog in the near future.)

Meanwhile, Kowalski's Franklin Today blog reports a rumor that the now-vacant Sentry store on 76th and Rawson may be purchased by neighboring Walgreens, and - amazingly - razed to make room for a drive-thru window.

That's right: Torn down for a drive-thru window.

The bar is once again lowered.

"Walking buses" and veggies: Town residents come together to make healthy lifestyle changes

Judy Dilling (left) and Jen Chalmers (in red) help walk Lakeview Elementary School students home as part of the Vitality Project's "walking buses" last week in Albert Lea, Minn. The project has added an average 3.1 years to the lives of residents through improved diet, exercise and living habits.

With organizers' help, the city crammed five years of sidewalk and bike trail construction into a year to make exercise easier for its 18,000 residents. Restaurants added healthier menu options and grocery stores showcased wholesome foods. People snacked on fruits and veggies more and ate less fast food.

Schools stopped celebrating birthdays with sugary treats and started setting up "walking buses" that allowed kids to walk to and from school together with adult supervision. Employers gave workers time to exercise.

Organizers say the first-of-its kind experiment added an average 3.1 years to the longevity of about 2,300 residents who calculated their life spans by answering 36 lifestyle questions dubbed the "vitality compass."

Read the rest at: Town residents come together to make healthy lifestyle changes - JSOnline

Sustainable Design: all in the details

Photo by Davis Hembrow. Visit his blog HERE.

From Master Plan to Specs: Sustainable Design in Detail | Congress for the New Urbanism:

As planners, and advocates for healthier place making and urbanism, we often talk about the importance of scale. We recognize that city planning must be comprehensive in that the various scales of planning including the region, city, block, street, and building all must be addressed. Sustainable planning can be mapped on a spectrum of needs from the “big picture” of design all the way down to the specifications of individual buildings. It’s the attention to details the matter.

In a short article from copenhagenize.com, a small effort to improve bicyclist’s commute is demonstrated through the convenient placement of trash bins along bicycle paths. This may seem like an insignificant detail within the large realm of sustainable planning, but such efforts, catering to environmentally friendly methods of travel should be commended.

Speaking for myself, and the large community of supporters of New Urbanism, it’s refreshing to see little ways that pedestrians are taking precedent in an ever growing vehicular dominated society. Small efforts to support pedestrian and environmentally friendly places are integral to the overall success of the urban fabric. After all, it’s important to be reminded of whom we are planning for; those who live in the communities we are designing, improving and rallying for.

Read more here and here.

Wondering why we don't bother building community amenities anymore?

I'm long overdue in noting the unfortunate end of the Franklin Cultural Center board's efforts to fund and build an arts center here. The organization was chaired by Don Dorson (read his letter after the jump). So much for local community amenities.

I also just started reading a newly published book called THE CUL-DE-SAC SYNDROME: TURNING AROUND THE UNSUSTAINABLE AMERICAN DREAM. And there's Franklin - a favorite for authors and journalists needing an object lesson in sprawl economics -  on page 53:

High-growth areas nearly always translate into higher property taxes. One study in Dane County, Wisconsin, where the tax burden is among the highest in the United States, showed that while the county's population grew 12 percent from 1990 to 1996, total property taxes soared 3.57 times faster than the population. Part of the reason is that developers rarely pay the long-term costs of building communities. Impact fees are often minimal.

Once subdivisions are built, builders are off the hook to fund schools parks, roads, and other infrastructure. In fact, the disparity between what a single-family home costs taxpayers and what developers pay is huge. In Franklin, Wisconsin, just south of Milwaukee, each new home cost taxpayers more than $10,000 for schools and services in 1992 (it was considerably more by 2008). The developer's contribution: $813 per home. Impact fees vary from locale to locale, but they never cover the full cost of development.

Home Buyers Are Drawn to Nearby Organic Farms - NYTimes.com

Perhaps something to consider in Franklin, where farmland is still fairly abundant:

From NYTimes.com:

The bewildered Iowan who converted his farm into a ballpark in “Field of Dreams” in 1989 might reverse the move today. From Vermont to central California, developers are creating subdivisions around organic farms to attract buyers. If you plant it, these developers believe, they will buy.

Read the rest at Home Buyers Are Drawn to Nearby Organic Farms.

Collaboration between HUD and DOT: The start of something big

Citiwire.net » Agencies Collaborating: Affair of the Year.

Column by Neal Peirce on groundbreaking collaboration between HUD and DOT - - a situation that has yet to make an impression on most of my Economic Development Commission collegues:

In Chicago, there’s rejoicing in the offices of a scrappy 30-year old research and advocacy group, the Center for Neighborhood Technology–a pioneer in demonstrating how residents’ combined housing and transportation costs can be reduced in transit-served neighborhoods. It’s a “new day in Washington,” exult leaders Scott Bernstein and Kathryn Tholin, as CNT research and ideas area are poised to be “incorporated into the framing of the Obama administration’s urban policy.”

But critical tests loom on how quickly the new approaches are grasped and implemented through the ranks of the HUD and DOT bureaucracies, contends public administration expert Kent Watkins, a key promoter of the new approach. He notes that multi-billion dollar initiatives, including at least $8 billion for DOT and $9 billion in HUD stimulus spending, are currently “going out the door” without instructions to put a premium on joint transportation and housing initiatives.

But focus on reform will keep building this year with debate on reauthorization of the federal government’s basic transportation program. And even AASHTO–the American Assn. of State Highway and Transportation Officials, historically known as the “big roads” crowd–is making new moves. It wants to double–to $100 million a year–a decade-old federal initiative, DOT’s Transportation, Community and System Preservation Program, to help states and local governments accomplish “smarter growth,” more compact development.

And why? “States now recognize that sprawl–the cost of the current system–will eat us alive,” says AASHTO Executive Director John Horsley. He wants to see the DOT program enlarged with expanded incentives for local and regional bodies to come up with smart combined land use-transportation solutions.

The bottom line’s clear: albeit with fits and starts, radical change is brewing in how Washington impacts growth and development of America’s communities.

Northwestern Mutual CEO puts Franklin on notice regarding RTA: Get with the program

Did my colleagues on the Franklin Economic Development Commission read the Letters to the Editor in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel?

I speak of:

1. Commissioners who thought ridiculous my assertion that Franklin should begin to plan in earnest for the rail line that will eventually run through neighboring Oak Creek (that is: Reassure the business community that Franklin understands the importance of commuter rail and will provide and plan for the vital "last mile connection"), and;
2. Commissioners who regularly insert anti-transit materials into the EDC meeting packets (the last of which was an opinion column by George Torres, at the time an employee of county exec Scott Walker and head of Milwaukee County's shambolic transit system);

My fellow EDC Commissioners should now know that Franklin corporate citizen Northwestern Mutual is led by a man who gets it - - and will expect us to get it as well.

RTA should be sales tax-funded

I am writing to express my support for the creation of a three-county Regional Transit Authority and a viable, dedicated funding source for transit and Kenosha-Racine-Milwaukee commuter rail. As CEO of a major business in Milwaukee County, I know dedicated funding for transit is critical to the future success of my business.

The local business community in Milwaukee is solidly behind the current RTA's recommendations to shift funding for transit to a dedicated sales tax. Many opponents of this transit proposal argue that shifting transit from the property tax to a sales tax is anti-business or will drive business away. That is categorically untrue.

Northwestern Mutual has two major offices in Milwaukee County and employs a significant number of residents of Wauwatosa. Our current transit system is so inadequate and obsolete that my employees cannot get from our downtown office to our Franklin location on the Milwaukee County Transit System. The lack of available transit in this region has a much greater impact on my company than a shift in how we pay for transit.

Of the top 50 most populated U.S. cities or regions, only seven do not have or are not developing rail transit. Wisconsin is already behind other regions in this regard, and without a stable bus transit system - much less improved transit and commuter rail links connecting Milwaukee to other regions - southeastern Wisconsin will be left behind as the state's talent pool is attracted to other developing regions. Those remaining in Wisconsin cannot get to their jobs.

Please tell state legislators that a vote for a fully funded, three-county RTA is a vote to support business in southeastern Wisconsin.

Edward Zore
CEO, Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co.
Milwaukee

Beware the cul-de-sac nightmare....

"The hidden perils of poorly-connected streets, or why I’m afraid of German Shepherds"

Another voice explaining the value of a well-connected community (you'll notice the familiar swirl of Franklin's streets in the leftmost illustration). Should have aimed the stimulus applications in this direction.

 

"The hidden perils of poorly-connected streets, or why I’m afraid of German Shepherds".

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