Immigrants, Apples and Successful Cities

posted by John Buntin

Friday night I was in Baltimore for the Lil' Wayne concert. I didn't actually go to the concert; I watched it with the Baltimore police. But this post isn't about what happened Friday night (you can read about that in the May issue of Governing). It's about what happened Saturday morning.

I awoke late, went downstairs, and ask the doorman where in the Monument Square area I could get a bagel and a cup of good coffee. She directed me to the charming City Cafe, basically your classic urban hipster-writer hangout except for one thing: No one there had an Apple laptop.

This was strange. At similar places in Santa Monica or Brooklyn, Macbooks are everywhere. But not here. I'd seen the same Mac absence in Cleveland last fall. That's when it hit me: Cities such as Baltimore and Cleveland are struggling because people there don't use Macs.  

At this point, you're probably thinking: He's crazy! Macs don't make cities richer; it's just that creative types in wealthy communities like (and are willing to pay more for) Macs.

Economists have a term for this error — endogeneity. As much as I (a Mac user) hate to say it, Macs probably aren't the variable that has made West Hollywood rich. They're a byproduct of success, not the cause. Which brings me to immigrants.

A favorite new(ish) theory among urban planners is that immigrants — even illegal immigrants — make for successful cities. Cities such as New Haven have set up support services for them. Other cities have set up immigrant officers to recruit them.

But do immigrants really cause cities to succeed? Or are immigrants attracted to successful cities? That's an important question. I hope some researcher is examining it — on a PC or on a Mac.

For Want of a Pyramid Scheme

posted by Zach Patton

The Memphis Pyramid is quite possibly the biggest municipal white elephant in the U.S. today. Built in 1991 for $68 million, the huge arena was never really finished (a planned top-floor observation deck, for instance, was never built).

Now it stands empty -- 150,000 square feet of hulking, unused space downtown that the city can't seem to find a use for. (When Memphis landed an NBA team in 2001, the new team insisted on a new arena. The Pyramid hasn't had a full-time tenant in over 3 years.)

The only idea on the table involves converting the Pyramid into a giant Bass Pro Shop. (Which, first of all, what?) But even that has stalled for the past two years.

The New York Times just took a visit to the Pyramid and found, well, not a whole lot.

I was just talking about this with Governing Managing Editor Chris Swope, and he made a really great point. If you as a city want to create an iconic symbol for yourself -- which is certainly what Memphis did --  it shouldn't also be conceived as a money-making commercial enterprise. Retail (and basketball teams) will come and go, but if you try to tie those fortunes to your symbolic icon, you're in for trouble.

Nobody looks at the St. Louis Gateway Arch and thinks, "Isn't it sad that it's empty inside?"

Great Places

posted by Ellen Perlman

"State Street, that Great Street?"  It's not the only one. They also applaud that street called Broad. And toast Champagne to Annapolis' Main.

Ahem. Maybe this is why I'm not in the lyrics biz.

What I'm trying to explain is, the American Planning Association came out recently with its top ten list of "Great Streets in America."

Let's give it up for 7th Avenue in Ybor City, Florida, with its European influences. And how about Mill Avenue in Tempe, Arizona, an "urban oasis" that fueled revitalization and commerce? Or Clarendon and Wilson boulevards in Arlington, Virginia, where transit provided the catalyst for smart growth in the corridor?

If you haven't already heard from the planning association people, you're probably not on the "great" list. It's worth visiting their site anyway. To find out WHY you're not on the list and what you can do better in your home town.

While you're there you can see who made the 2008 "great neighborhoods" and "great public spaces." What? You're not on those either...?

Maybe it's time to check out the characteristics and guidelines for great streets, neighborhoods and public spaces.

Photo of Ybor City's 7th Ave. via Flickr, from bueller2.

Invasion of the Pod, People?

posted by Zach Patton

If certain advocates have their way, Ithaca, N.Y., could someday be home to a "pod car" system. Based on this New York Times description, it sounds like something straight outta Epcot:

Pod cars are computer-driven electric vehicles that run on a monorail-like loop, usually suspended above roads, with stops at major destinations.

The power source varies from system to system; sometimes the cars carry batteries, and sometimes the power is in the guideway system. At each station, commuters can summon the car like an elevator, then type in their destination. The cars vary in size but hold an average of four people, and might cost users 50 cents to $1.50 per trip. Because pod cars are lightweight and do not make unnecessary stops, they are more energy-efficient than cars and mass-transit systems like buses.

Great goals, obviously. But there are some pretty great obstacles, too:

Getting it up and running would cost about $100 million and would require funds from a variety of sources, including the federal government, research grants and private investment.

Critics say pod cars may sound cool, but in reality they'd require huge, ugly overhead guideways that would put a "lid" on city streets and discourage pedestrian activity.

Most interestingly, though, is that the U.S. already has one pod-car system:

One was built at West Virginia University in Morgantown in the late 1970s.

At the time, federal transportation officials considered it a difficult and expensive project, said Christopher Perkins, chief executive of UniModal Transport Solutions, a pod car developer in Irvine, Calif., who was at last week’s conference. “People thought it wasn’t going to work,” he said.

But it still operates today, transporting 16,000 passengers a day, and has never experienced a major accident, Mr. Perkins said.

Here's a video about West Virginia University's system. What do you think? Kooky and outdated? Or progressive and ahead of its time?

Image at top: An artists' rendering of what a pod-car system in Seattle might look like. (source)

O-K-L-A-H-O-M-Hey, Where Are the Sidewalks?

posted by Zach Patton

Governing Contributing Editor Anne Jordan is in Oklahoma for a conference.  She sent in this dispatch from the road:

Last evening, sitting in a hotel room in Oklahoma City, I was browsing Facebook and read a status update posted by a teenage friend of our family: "Rob Young is tired of having wet socks."

Well, this morning I can totally relate to Rob's comment. I have soaking wet socks and shoes, and the bottom six inches of my pant legs are covered in mud. All because of my 20-minute morning "commute."

I came to Oklahoma City for a conference. The site is less than a mile from my hotel. I thought I didn't need a rental car. I was wrong! I am technically in the suburb of Quail Springs -- and that makes all the difference.

Every convenience -- food, shopping, entertainment, including the Quail Springs Mall -- is within six or eight blocks. But there are no sidewalks to be found.

So this morning, I had to decide between walking in the road (minimum 45 mph speed limit) or on the grass beside it. Only the fact that I am still alive tells me I made the right choice. There was, amusingly, a single 50-foot strip of pavement in front of a new Taco Bell. Just enough hard surface to stamp out my waterlogged shoes. Clearly the folks who live in the Quail Landing subdivision that I passed don't go out for a stroll.

On the taxi ride from the airport last evening, the driver filled me in on all the wonderful improvements the city had made with money from a voter-approved (and renewed) sales-tax increase in the past decade. Clearly, sidewalks aren't a priority. Guess later today I'll head over to the mall for some more socks, and fork over a little sales tax for the city's next big building project.    

Architect Bullfighter Designs by Committee

posted by Will Wilson

The centerpiece of Seattle's now complete "Libraries for All" initiative is the downtown Central Branch co-designed by Rem Koolhaas, one of the creators of the astounding Central China Television building. The Central Branch library is one of those "you either love it or you hate it" works of architecture.

In honor of the 10th anniversary of Libraries for All, the Seattle Times interviewed Koohaas, offering a glimpse inside what must have been a wild collaboration between Koolhaas and the city. I find surprising the degree to which Koolhaas emphasizes that the library was created "by committee." Mark Rahner is the questioner:

Q: It was a large project to undertake when you had so much skepticism.

A: Yes, but of course we were not alone. And I think that is kind of actually one of the difficult and distorting things at the current moment, is that basically some architects are seen as kind of almost bullfighters who somehow have to kill an animal, but you're part of a much larger enterprise.

Q: I think there's a reason for that: too many people have read "The Fountainhead" and it's ruined them for life.

A: Yeah, exactly, exactly. And I think that's actually extremely inconvenient, because there was Deborah (L. Jacobs, former City Librarian), of course, and there was also a board, and we had a lot of bonding in the beginning. So it's definitely not an ego thing, you know...

I shouldn't be so surprised. I'm a Howard Becker pusher, after all. But the building just doesn't look like something that a lot of people had to agree on, that had to get "passed by the board." Knowing that it did makes the design seem that much more ambitious. Too often, big projects like this turn out "fake seeming."

Koolhaas also puts an interesting twist on an issue raised in Chris Swope's June article about the future of libraries. Chris describes a big shift toward "the idea that libraries should offer the services that customers say they want — not what librarians wish they wanted." Koolhaas notes what makes that so darn tricky when it comes to designing public libraries:

Q: Public libraries are known as sanctuaries for the homeless — and as a one-time employee of a different library, I can tell you they preferred the periodicals section. Did you take this into account?

A: Yeah, from the very beginning, and also we did certain things because we knew that was the case, we knew that would happen, and we didn't want to resist it. But on the other hand, we didn't want it to become the kind of dominant fact of the library. So it worked in terms of materials but also in terms of arrangements, but also in terms of different kind of sections, just something that we were very conscious of.

Here's more about designing the library with the homeless in mind. Turns out, Koolhaas even wanted a hospital for the homeless in the library.

Five Reasons to Love Birmingham's New City Center

posted by Zach Patton

The Pentagon is heading for Birmingham!  Okay, not the Pentagon. But the Alabama city might be getting a shiny new five-sided building all its own.

A new city jail, police and fire headquarters, police academy and public works offices would be housed in one pentagon-shaped building under Mayor Larry Langford's plan to build a municipal center in Titusville.

Holding an aerial photo of the Pentagon building in Washington to show the design, Langford detailed his plan Monday during a City Council committee meeting.

Langford on Saturday first told a crowd gathering for Titusville Day of his idea to demolish the jail and other buildings on Sixth Avenue South and build a municipal complex across the street. On Monday he described the shape of the building and named the other offices it would house.

Hey, it's good enough for the federal government, right?

Let's All Move to Tulsa Metro!

posted by Zach Patton

Speaking of maps, here's a really interesting one I found on Paleo-Future.com, a cool blog about now-dated visions of the future. The map is from a feature called Closer Than We Think, a series of illustrations that ran in the several U.S. newspapers in the late 50s and early 60s.

The Super-Metropolis Map of 1975 was one edition that ran in 1961. It shows a projected map of the United States as it would appear 14 years into the future.

The map predicts that larger urban cores would morph into "super-metropolises" -- "regional cities" that are "nearly continuous complexes of homes, business centers, factories, shops and service places." It's a pretty spot-on prediction, of course (although I'm not sure you could make the argument that that actually happened by 1975).

Some of the predicted super-metropolis locales are pretty prescient as well -- especially Phoenix and a pre-Disney Central Florida.

But the map is way off on a couple other predictions -- a metropolis around Tulsa?  A strip of mega development around Chattanooga?  An urban center in the Mississippi Delta?

And this:

They will be saved from traffic self-suffication by high speed transportation -- perhaps monorails that provide luxurious non-stop service between the inner centers of the supercities as well as links between the super-metropolises themselves.

Yeah...not so much.

The Woonerf, The Swale and Urban Acupuncture

posted by Zach Patton

Think city streets are must be either driving lanes or pedestrian malls?  Think again, grandpa.

The New York Times has this round-up of some of the more progressive ideas for urban design.

The piece is written with an eye toward the future of NYC, but I'm pretty sure you could figure out how to incorporate a woonerf or a swale in your city, no matter where you live.

Heated Sidewalks! Just in Time For Spring!

posted by Zach Patton

Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle has signed legislation allowing heated sidewalks, stairs, entryways and pedestrian walkways.

Wisconsin had the nation's only prohibition against such devices, passed in 1980 as a response to the 1970s energy crisis.

No doubt this will be good news for Wisconsin residents, who just suffered through their snowiest winter on record.

They're just probably wishing the new law had come a little sooner.