To some extent moving to the areas without sewers is an investment strategy on the west side...some might remember that big sewage treatment plant built near Miamitown in the early 90's BEFORE nearly any sewers had been installed.  People moved to Harrison Road and Rybolt to GET AWAY from the sprawl, then with the sewers, the strip malls and condo developments arrived en masse.  Meanwhile, those developments with their own sewage treatment plants that predated the sewers were forced through special condo fees to hook up to the new county sewers.  This actually saved residents, from their perspective, zero money, and there was no difference on their end so far as toilet flushing, so there was a lot of resistance to hooking up. 

 

Meanwhile, what happened to Harrison Ave. at I-74 because of the sewers is a travesty.  Big-time sprawl arrived in a hilly area that doesn't look good or function well. 

^

So the treatment plant was built in anticipation of the extension of sewer mains?

 

Meanwhile, those developments with their own sewage treatment plants that predated the sewers were forced through special condo fees to hook up to the new county sewers.

 

This was how a lot of suburban Louisville was developed.  These plat sewage plants were called "Package Treatment Plants" and the concept was that they would be an interim measure before mains could be extended. 

 

In suburban Dayton Beavercreek was a bit unique in that it didn't have sewers at all, but rather septics.  Water was by private wells (each house in a subdivision had its own well) or "Plat Water Systems", small well-and-distribution systems for individual subdivisions....I guess like Louisville's package treatment plants but for water supply instead of  sewage.

 

 

 

Suburban corporate campuses are going out of fashion

  by Kaid Benfield

 

31 May 2011 2:03 PM

 

In the late 1990s, when Don Chen, Matt Raimi, and I were researching our book, Once There Were Greenfields, we lamented the flight of business from America's central cities to increasingly outer suburbs and farmland. In that book we frequently turned for data to metropolitan Chicago where, for example, Ameritech had built a half-mile-long "landscraper" near O'Hare Airport far from the Loop, Motorola had set up camp in Schaumberg, and Sears had fled the iconic Sears Tower for Hoffman Estates.

 

http://www.grist.org/sprawl/2011-05-31-is-it-over-for-suburban-corporate-campuses

So the treatment plant was built in anticipation of the extension of sewer mains?

 

Yes, which is very unusual. The Taylor Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant was built around 1990 with no sewers whatsoever leading to it. Of course, plans for sewers were on the books, and during the next ten years some major trunk sewers leading to the plant were built. This allowed for elimination of many smaller package plants that each served up to a few hundred houses, and elimination of pump stations that pumped sewage to gravity sewers in adjacent watersheds.

 

The new sewers and treatment plant were also supposed to eliminate hundreds of home treatment systems, but only a few were eliminated because it was no benefit to the owner to connect. Western Hamilton County is plagued by developments with small suburban lots served by home treatment systems that are not well maintained.

 

The Harrison / Rybolt area had highway access but no sewers. As soon as the sewers came online, pent-up demand for commercial development caused the area to explode into a sprawly mess.

 

Meanwhile, those developments with their own sewage treatment plants that predated the sewers were forced through special condo fees to hook up to the new county sewers.

 

Condo fees didn't have anything to do with it for the most part. Those package plants were already publicly owned.

Every condo owner in the development I'm talking about definitely had to pay about $300.  Because it was all old people, they raised hell about the $300 fee. 

 

I heard recently that car leases are popular in part because people don't mind paying more for a car as long is the expense is a fixed cost -- they just pay the $350/mo or whatever and they never have to pay for repairs (depending on the terms of the lease).  Condo people are the same way and when a major interior condo repair happens, like water damage from frozen pipes, or the condo association requires everyone to replace rotting wooden balcony railings, the place goes nuts.  People all bought into these homeowner and condo associations because the idea of micro-government, but it turns out these associations are hell and pit neighbor against neighbor.     

Adding to the article posted above, another large employer looking to move back into the city

 

Regretting Move, Bank May Return to Manhattan

By CHARLES V. BAGLI

Published: June 8, 2011

 

 

Fifteen years ago, New York City’s reputation as an international financial center was called into question when the giant Swiss bank UBS moved its North American headquarters to the Connecticut suburbs, where it built the largest trading floor in the world.

 

Now, though, UBS is having buyer’s remorse. It turns out that a suburban location has become a liability in recruiting the best and brightest young bankers, who want to live in Manhattan or Brooklyn, not in Stamford, Conn., which is about 35 miles northeast of Midtown. The firm has also discovered that it would be better to be closer to major clients in the city.

 

As a result, UBS is seriously considering a reverse migration that would bring its investment banking division and up to 2,000 bankers and traders back to Wall Street and a new skyscraper at the rebuilt World Trade Center, according to real estate executives and city officials.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/09/nyregion/ubs-may-move-back-to-manhattan-from-stamford.html?src=me&ref=general

nothing groundbreaking, but an interesting read.......

 

The growth Ponzi scheme, part 1

Blog post by Charles Marohn on 13 Jun 2011

Development Finance Planning

Charles Marohn, New Urban Network

 

The underpinnings of the current financial crisis lie in a living arrangement -- the American pattern of development -- that does not financially suppport itself. The great experiment of suburbanization that America embarked on following World War II has no precedent in human history. As it enters its third generation, the flawed assumptions that were overlooked are now coming back to bite us in a cruel way. Like any Ponzi scheme, there is only one way this ends.

 

 

 

 

http://newurbannetwork.com/news-opinion/blogs/charles-marohn/14876/growth-ponzi-scheme-part-1

Parts 2 and 3 of the above post.......

 

http://newurbannetwork.com/news-opinion/blogs/charles-marohn/14878/growth-ponzi-scheme-part-2

 

http://newurbannetwork.com/news-opinion/blogs/charles-marohn/14879/growth-ponzi-scheme-part-3

Parts 2 and 3 of the above post.......

 

http://newurbannetwork.com/news-opinion/blogs/charles-marohn/14878/growth-ponzi-scheme-part-2

 

http://newurbannetwork.com/news-opinion/blogs/charles-marohn/14879/growth-ponzi-scheme-part-3

 

THanks.  Fantastic post, great read.  I like how it's evidence based.

I sort of disagree with his saying the first-cost of infrastructure is born by the Feds/State.  That might have been the case in the past, but here in Daytonnati, that Austin Blvd interchange on I-75 was funded, mostly, via a TIF and special-purpose JEDD (or something similar to a JEDD), using local money, really anticipated local money due to increase in property valuation.

 

But, yeah, you can see the numbers-based thinking of an engineer in action in these posts.  He's applying engineering economics and maybe (as a subtext) a bit of systems theory, to sprawl. 

 

Some of this stuff you can see operating in the local news:

 

And this is where the Ponzi scheme aspect kicks in, because what is the solution to this unsolvable problem? In America of the post-WW II era, that's easy: The solution is more growth.

 

When more growth is created, the city gets excess cash (in the near term). That cash can then be applied to the old obligations. So long as the city continues to grow at ever-accelerating rates, the system works just fine. But like any Ponzi scheme, as soon as the rate of growth slows, it all goes bad very quickly.

 

...so the system has to keep feeding /expanding to sustain itself. 

 

I think we can think of examples from our various home metro areas but here in Dayton you have suburban Centerville hitting the revenue wall, and trying to 'get well' by trying to merge (AKA annex) the surrounding unincorporated township (to get more income tax revenue), and also to annex into the next door township to facilitiate a big commercial development (to increase both property tax and income tax revenue)...even considering the local retail market is overbuilt. 

 

I'd go beyond just that infrastructure example (which is usually a low annual  operating cost if one isnt doing a replacement or new construction) and say sprawl also drives increases in local government payroll.  Couple sprawl with fragemented government, each wanting to provide the full panoply of services, and you start to see how payroll costs start to drive the desire for 'growth' & 'development', to subsidize pay and benefits (which also increase with time). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The greenest (historic) building is the one that's in the right context

 

http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/kbenfield/the_greenest_historic_building.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+switchboard_all+%28Switchboard%3A+Blogs+from+NRDC%27s+Environmental+Experts%29

 

...

 

I only had 30 minutes, so I didn’t go into as much wonky detail as I would have enjoyed (!), but I emphasized six neighborhood factors that affect the environmental performance of buildings, including historic ones.  These are all backed by research:

 

• Location.  The centers of regions and older suburbs perform better than the fringe, even if other factors are held constant.
• 
  Connected streets.  A well-connected street network (featuring smaller blocks and lots of intersections) shortens travel distances and makes walking more feasible and pleasant.  It is the single most important determinant of how much walking will take place in a neighborhood and the second most important determinant (after location) of how much driving will take place.
• 
  Places to go.  A mix of conveniences such as shops, schools, and places to eat and socialize encourages walking, promotes fitness and health, and reduces emissions from driving.
• 
  Ways to get around.  The more transportation choices, the better.  If you’re lucky enough to be within walking distance of rail transit, for example, the number of automobile trips during rush hours can be up to 50 percent lower than what would otherwise be expected under standard engineering forecasts.
• 
  Density.  As I have said before, it doesn’t necessarily have to be high density to reduce driving and watershed-damaging pavement per household.  We see substantial improvements in performance as we move from large-lot sprawl even to ten homes per acre; beyond 40 to 50 homes per acre, we continue to see improvements, but at reduced increments.  Moderate density helps a lot.
• 
  Green stormwater infrastructure.  While runoff per household goes down in denser neighborhoods, runoff per acre can go up unless mitigated.  Green infrastructure, when in the form of publicly accessible green spaces, can also bring an array of additional benefits to a neighborhood.
  

....

Parts 4 & 5 of the series posted earlier.....

 

 

http://newurbannetwork.com/news-opinion/blogs/robert-steuteville/14887/growth-ponzi-scheme-part-4

 

http://newurbannetwork.com/news-opinion/blogs/charles-marohn/14889/growth-ponzi-scheme-part-5-finale

Companies head back downtown

July 14, 2011: 5:00 AM ET

By Laura Vanderkam, contributor

 

FORTUNE -- Like many companies, Michigan-based Quicken Loans once thought a suburban location made a lot of sense. Space in office parks was reasonably priced, and employees could buy new single-family homes with yards and access to good schools.

 

But a few years ago, the online mortgage lender began to think about a move to the city. For a technology company, "there is an opportunity cost of not being in an urban environment," says CEO Bill Emerson. "The youth of America, when they graduate, they're looking to go to an urban environment." Top recruits wanted somewhere they could work, live and play and meet other young people. "An asphalt parking lot is not necessarily the best way to do that."

 

http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2011/07/14/companies-head-back-downtown/?iid=HP_River

^

This quote is priceless:

 

"The youth of America, when they graduate, they're looking to go to an urban environment." Top recruits wanted somewhere they could work, live and play and meet other young people. "An asphalt parking lot is not necessarily the best way to do that."

 

...yet you hear whats left of the corporate leadership in Dayton...the CEOs of Reynolds & Reynolds, Woolpert (engineering & design firm), NewPage (spinoff from MeadWesvaco) and TerraData (spin off from NCR), they preferred locating in suburbia.

 

....with at least two of the CEOs or corporate leadership of these firms quoted as saying as thats where their staff wants to be.  In fact I heard this verbatim from the CEO of TerraData (sp) at a panel discussion, as to why he located out near Lexis/Nexis, then out to Austin Road area.  That a suburban location was sort of a retention/recruiting tool.  Suburbia as a "better location' desired by staff was also the justification given for the R&R relocation to Research Park (east side of Kettering)

 

Like I have so often said (eleswhere, not here) the business leadership in Dayton have totally, utterly, completely missed the boat when it comes to locating in the city.  The only firm that did do this was a relo from Richmond, VA, who built a new mid-rise downtown.  Presumably Vigininians aren't as down on downtown as Dayton biz types.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Like I have so often said (eleswhere, not here) the business leadership in Dayton have totally, utterly, completely missed the boat when it comes to locating in the city.

 

Much of the "business leadership" everywhere, not just in Dayton, is made up of older and more conservative folks who know nothing but the suburban experience, so it's not surprising in the least.  Also, with the economy being the way it is, potential employees will still choose that suburban job because it's either that or no job at all.  It's remarkable to see a trend away from suburban campuses happening with the job market being lousy.  Should the job situation start to favor employees again, where they can choose between a downtown or a suburban position, that's when we'll see the trend become really pronounced.

as I often say... public leadership is at worst inept. Private leadership at worst is actively destructive. That and the fact that our state government doesn't encourage or really provide the tools for real urban development/redevelopment.

State law allows local governments (municipalities, county, transit agencies, park boards, etc) to join forces with other local governments in co-local agreements for limited purposes such as joint-economic development initiatives, multi-jurisdictional services, inter-county public transportation routes, etc.

 

If the state won't support Ohio's urban areas, then maybe it's time Ohio's urban areas join forces and pool resources to provide the means for their own growth and improvement.

that would assume local governments centered around the city gave a shit about anyone but themselves. I have seen no such evidence. And it appears our state is interested in crippling their funding without doing anything to encourage them work together.

that would assume local governments centered around the city gave a sh!t about anyone but themselves. I have seen no such evidence. And it appears our state is interested in crippling their funding without doing anything to encourage them work together.

 

If that's the case then our urban areas deserve to wither as a result of the state taking their wealth and giving it to the suburbs. But I would consider "survival" to be in their own self-interest. If they don't, then they deserve to die.

 

Oh, and by the way, the air conditioning discussion really isn't on topic. So.......

 

yes, well when it comes to local governments I am pretty sure they would rather have the state let them wither away and die, than actively work to eliminate themselves... which is what would be in the best interest of the taxpayers. Thus they do everything they can to increase their tax base to keep operating no matter how much it might screw over their neighbors or the region.

How would having large municipalities form development partnerships "eliminate themselves"? They are already doing this with JEDDs and other co-local agreements with neighboring communities. Maybe I'm being naive, but I always thought unity, partnerships and numbers bring strength, not weakness.

^

These ad-hoc partnerships (like JEDDs and I think other forms of revenue sharing)  and multijurisdictional special purpose districts are about as close as we come to regionalism.   

 

Eventually there is going to be a breaking point for declining core cities where revenues dont match expenditures.  So far urban areas in the state have been able to match cuts with reductions. 

 

In some places, like Camden NJ, the state actually took over the city for awhile, or took over financial management.  But they also ended up subsizing Camden govt, too.

 

I think there was some sort of state recievership thing for East St Louis as well.

 

That would be the end-state.  The local government as ward of the state. 

 

As for sprawl, ad hoc arrangements can facilititate it.  The TIF that funded Austin Road interchange on I-75 was a multijurisdictional effort by the suburban cities and townships around the interchange.  A case of regional cooperation to facilitate sprawl. 

 

 

 

 

 

I have been following a very well-written urban planning blog lately that I commend to everyone's attention.

http://www.strongtowns.org/journal/

 

 

One of their recent posts discussed cities as sources of innovation and consolidation as a way to reduce inefficiencies.  They were writing about Minnesota, but I think the same can be said for Ohio.  Partially paraphrasing and partially injecting my own thoughts on that blog post, consider the following.

 

In business, the prevailing view is that the vast majority of innovation occurs in small companies, but as we know many (most?) start-up companies fail within five years.  Larger businesses are supposedly more efficient.  (Forgetting apparently, the bipartisan government bailouts of the auto companies, the airline industry (repeatedly) and too-big-to-fail banks.)

 

Viewing government as a business is the current fad, which suggests that smaller governments will be better at coming up with innovative ideas than larger ones.  Unfortunately, they're not.  Every municipality seems to have substantially similar codes, regulations, budget approaches, staffing, street standards, employee policies, etc. 

 

Another current fad views governments as inherently inefficient, and therefore we hear more calls for consolidation.  Fewer governments are not always better though.  Ever hear of a corrupt superintendent?  An ineffective police chief?  A corrupt public official?  Fewer, larger government entities also provide an opportunity for a single bad apple to spoil a larger basket. 

 

I believe that in the face of this long financial crisis most local governments have already spent years reducing inefficiencies.  I don't think we have that much more to gain from reducing inefficiency, which is where consolidation might otherwise provide some gains.  I believe that we need to find a new way to run local government, and if we're really interested in finding innovative ways out of the current financial difficulties, we don't need to consolidate, we need to find ways to allow local governments to innovate and to share the lessons of those innovations. 

 

So how do we get more innovation?  We have to put in place a safety net (!) that will allow municipalities to take risks, and yes, fail (for example, allow cities and towns to declare bankruptcy).  And we have to have a way for cities across Ohio to learn from other cities' successes and failures. 

 

Before we get there, however, we should rethink what we want our city governments to do for us.  Do we expect our cities to just perform a few essential duties, like a utility-- efficient but dumb?  Or do we want the cities to try to find innovative ways of providing more services to the citizens?

 

If we want to follow a utility model, then we should limit cities to the bare basics of police, fire, trash collection, plowing, and running local elections, and leave all the planning, zoning regulations, parks and recreation, infrastructure investments, economic development and tax matters to someone else. The same can be applied to Ohio's 88 counties.

 

But if we are going to demand more from cities, then we need to identify the state laws and regulations that restrict what cities can and cannot do and modify them to allow cities to do things differently.  The combination of fewer state-mandated limitations and a safety net to catch the failures appears to be a surer path to success for Ohio in the long run than municipal consolidation.  IMHO

 

Define what you mean by a safety net.  In particular, what do you think should happen to a municipality that fails and needs to avail itself of the protection of this safety net.  There is already a chapter of the Bankruptcy Code specifically reserved for municipal use (the infrequently-invoked Chapter 9).  It is actually a fairly limited proceeding, because many of the things that can happen to a private company in bankruptcy cannot happen to a municipality.  It cannot be "bought out" by another municipality, for example.  The directors and officers (e.g., the city council, mayor, etc.) cannot be forced out by creditors.  It cannot dissolve (or at least, bankruptcy doesn't change that--you would still look to whatever the state dissolution procedure is).  It cannot be compelled to sell assets such as public pools, golf courses, etc.

 

Municipalities already have many protections, even outside of bankruptcy, that are unavailable to private entities.  Creditors that lease equipment to municipalities generally do not have the right to repossess it, for example.  You can't foreclose on the city buses or plows.  You can't put a boot on the fire trucks (for obvious reasons).

 

Are you envisioning a "safety net" as something that would completely bail out risk-taking cities and make everyone, including their bondholders and public employee unions, whole?  If so, that would be just as likely to discourage as encourage innovation, since it would simply reward existing tendencies to overspend and overpromise and not think about long-term costs.  If not, though, what "safety" would this safety net provide that is not already part of the law?

Are you envisioning a "safety net" as something that would completely bail out risk-taking cities and make everyone, including their bondholders and public employee unions, whole?  If so, that would be just as likely to discourage as encourage innovation, since it would simply reward existing tendencies to overspend and overpromise and not think about long-term costs.  If not, though, what "safety" would this safety net provide that is not already part of the law?

 

I don't know. Please advise.

 

We want cities to take risks and try to do what we want cities to do for us in new and more efficient ways.  Like most new companies, a lot of these ideas aren't going to work out.  If the city takes on a lot of debt, for example to back low-interest loans to demolish/repair/replace vacant housing, and the tax revenue isn't there when the bonds come due, then what?  Pennies on the dollar?  State/county takes over that municipalities' government for five years?  Automatic tax increase to cover losses?

 

The Beginning of the End for Suburban America

[email protected] (Alexis Madrigal), On Wednesday September 14, 2011, 1:29 pm EDT

 

 

For decades, Americans have consumed more energy, built bigger houses, and driven more miles with each passing year. Not anymore.

 

In the years following World War II, the United States experienced an unprecedented consumption boom. Anything you could measure was growing. A Rhode Island-sized chunk of land was bulldozed to make new suburbs every single year for decades. America rounded into its present-day shape.

 

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/The-Beginning-End-Suburban-atlantic-1156625650.html?x=0

 

Some possible holes or unanswered questions in that article:

 

(1) It says that electricity demand is projected to decline.  Is that limited to residential electricity demand?  Drawing lessons about suburbia from electricity demand seems to me to be something of a perilous exercise.  First, it is quite possible to move from a suburban environment to an urban one and actually increase one's electricity usage.  Second, if those statistics include commercial power users, then we might be either overstating the residential case (if it's really commercial users who will be scaling back their use)--or even potentially understating it, if commercial power use is projected to grow while overall use is projected to shrink.

 

(2) It states that the average size of a new home is 130sf smaller in 2010 than in 2007.  Very well, but is that evidence of actually changing preferences or merely of financial distress, which would suggest that we should expect a reversal of that trend if/when the economy recovers later this decade?

 

The numbers I've seen show that suburbs continued to grow faster than truly large cities over the past decade.  (The "city" numbers get inflated because suburbs become cities in name, but not what most of us think of when we think of cities.)  At most, urban neighborhoods reduced the deficit between their growth rate and the growth rate of suburbs.  The unholy trifecta of size, safety, and schools still has not been addressed in most major cities (though in terms of safety, urban crime has definitely been on a downward trend for several decades).  And, of course, if the cities do begin to address the "size" issue (i.e., that the price per square foot for real estate tends to be higher in desirable urban neighborhoods than in desirable suburbs), that will eat away at the energy-use-centric case against suburbia that that author is trying to make.

And, of course, if the cities do begin to address the "size" issue (i.e., that the price per square foot for real estate tends to be higher in desirable urban neighborhoods than in desirable suburbs)...

 

That's a fundamental market response to supply and demand.  More people want to live in nice urban areas than can find them, in no small part due to restrictive zoning, thus the price goes up due to scarcity.  Also, and this is something of a double-whammy on the city, the infrastructure maintenance liabilities have come due there, whereas in most of the suburbs they have not.  The liabilities have piled up in many of the streetcar suburbs (a lot of which are within city limits) and first generation of post-war suburbs, and so far it hasn't been pretty.  So in the suburbs that haven't budgeted for the future, their taxes are artificially low, and some of those maintenance liabilities end up being paid for by the city residents (think water, sewer, and road expansion programs).  The problem, and thus the solution, is two-fold.  We need to allow more supply of desirable urban neighborhoods, and we need to make sure that the suburbs pay their own way.  It's not something entirely on the cities alone to fix. 

^ Partly true, but the first part of it (ending restrictive zoning) is completely within the cities' control, and much of the second part (making the suburbs pay their own way) is at least partly within the cities' control as well, at least when the subject turns to suburbs paying for municipal services by contract.  Also, the former is by far the more important for addressing the price-per-square-foot of desirable urban neighborhoods.  Suburbs getting to set artificially cheap tax burdens would actually increase the price of suburban housing relative to urban neighborhoods, so that pressure actually cuts in the other direction.

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR

To Rethink Sprawl, Start With Offices

By LOUISE A. MOZINGO

Published: November 25, 2011

 

San Francisco

 

....Rethinking pastoral capitalism is integral to creating a connected, compact metropolitan landscape that tackles rather than sidesteps a post-peak-oil future. This requires three interrelated strategies. State and federal governments should stop paying for new highway extensions that essentially subsidize the conversion of agricultural land for development, including corporate offices. Existing infrastructure needs maintenance and renewal, not expansion.

 

Suburban jurisdictions that now require little of the next corporate campus other than plentiful parking can demand more. For instance, they can use zoning codes to require pedestrian, bicycle and mass-transit links to adjacent residential developments. Add to the mix new public spaces, a greater diversity of uses, and transit between multiple employment centers and residential districts — not only to and from the downtown — and suburban corporate offices could initiate a wave of reform.

 

While suburban offices will continue to exist, some corporations can re-occupy city centers that they abandoned two generations ago. Development parcels, vacant offices and economic subsidies lie waiting in cities like Cleveland, Hartford, Raleigh, N.C., and Birmingham, Ala. These downtowns are well served by transit and pedestrian connections, a mix of retail and service uses, and a surprising amount of newly built and renovated housing where workers can live.

 

READ MORE AT:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/26/opinion/to-rethink-sprawl-start-with-offices.html?_r=1&scp=20&sq=Cleveland&st=nyt

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR

To Rethink Sprawl, Start With Offices

By LOUISE A. MOZINGO

Published: November 25, 2011

 

San Francisco

 

....Rethinking pastoral capitalism is integral to creating a connected, compact metropolitan landscape that tackles rather than sidesteps a post-peak-oil future. This requires three interrelated strategies. State and federal governments should stop paying for new highway extensions that essentially subsidize the conversion of agricultural land for development, including corporate offices. Existing infrastructure needs maintenance and renewal, not expansion.

 

Suburban jurisdictions that now require little of the next corporate campus other than plentiful parking can demand more. For instance, they can use zoning codes to require pedestrian, bicycle and mass-transit links to adjacent residential developments. Add to the mix new public spaces, a greater diversity of uses, and transit between multiple employment centers and residential districts not only to and from the downtown and suburban corporate offices could initiate a wave of reform.

 

While suburban offices will continue to exist, some corporations can re-occupy city centers that they abandoned two generations ago. Development parcels, vacant offices and economic subsidies lie waiting in cities like Cleveland, Hartford, Raleigh, N.C., and Birmingham, Ala. These downtowns are well served by transit and pedestrian connections, a mix of retail and service uses, and a surprising amount of newly built and renovated housing where workers can live.

 

READ MORE AT:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/26/opinion/to-rethink-sprawl-start-with-offices.html?_r=1&scp=20&sq=Cleveland&st=nyt

 

This is something you're going to have to start company by company, handing out the tax breaks with a shovel.  Eventually, you may establish a trend.

 

In a lot of cases it's quite simply the CEO's decision.....sort of like Nestle USA moved from NYC to Cleveland because Jim Biggar became CEO, and continued on to LA when the head of Carnation became CEO.

 

This is something you're going to have to start company by company, handing out the tax breaks with a shovel. 

 

How about simply ending the tax breaks for suburban development?  Way too many cities, towns, and villages bend over backwards with new roads, water and sewer extensions, zoning changes, waived development fees, and low interest loans to lure in "the next big company" only to then give them tax abatements on top of it all.  Once those abatements end and it's time to actually, you know, start paying for all that infrastructure investment, the big company pulls out and moves to the next place offering more incentives.  There's very few winners, and lot of losers in that scenario. 

^

This quote is priceless:

 

"The youth of America, when they graduate, they're looking to go to an urban environment." Top recruits wanted somewhere they could work, live and play and meet other young people. "An asphalt parking lot is not necessarily the best way to do that."

 

I lived in dayton a few years from 2003-2005 and I felt it was one of the most "down on downtown" metros in Ohio.  There really is little praise or positive opinions of downtown from the masses, business community, students, etc.  It was always "well downtown ugh"  A very 1970s/80s attitude I found.  I feel that it stems form the loss of downtown's significance for so long and a really shabby economic environment that led to such a strong preference for suburbs.  Doesn't sound like it has turned around much.

 

...yet you hear whats left of the corporate leadership in Dayton...the CEOs of Reynolds & Reynolds, Woolpert (engineering & design firm), NewPage (spinoff from MeadWesvaco) and TerraData (spin off from NCR), they preferred locating in suburbia.

 

....with at least two of the CEOs or corporate leadership of these firms quoted as saying as thats where their staff wants to be.  In fact I heard this verbatim from the CEO of TerraData (sp) at a panel discussion, as to why he located out near Lexis/Nexis, then out to Austin Road area.  That a suburban location was sort of a retention/recruiting tool.  Suburbia as a "better location' desired by staff was also the justification given for the R&R relocation to Research Park (east side of Kettering)

 

Like I have so often said (eleswhere, not here) the business leadership in Dayton have totally, utterly, completely missed the boat when it comes to locating in the city.  The only firm that did do this was a relo from Richmond, VA, who built a new mid-rise downtown.  Presumably Vigininians aren't as down on downtown as Dayton biz types.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So.... isn't about time to be re-thinking both our land use and transportation policies?  According to this USA Today story, the answer would seem to be "YES".

 

America's romance with sprawl may be over

By Haya El Nasser and Paul Overberg,

USA TODAY   

 

America's romance with sprawl may not be completely over, but it's definitely on the rocks.

 

Almost three years after the official end of a recession that kept people from moving and devastated new suburban subdivisions, people continue to avoid counties on the farthest edge of metropolitan areas, according to Census estimates out today.

 

The financial and foreclosure crisis forced more people to rent. Soaring gas prices made long commutes less appealing. And high unemployment drew more people to big job centers. As the nation crawls out of the downturn, cities and older suburbs are leading the way.

 

Population growth in fringe counties nearly screeched to a halt in the year that ended July 1, 2011. By comparison, counties at the core of metro areas are growing faster than the nation as a whole.

 

Read more at: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-04-05/sprawl-census-urban/54007292/1

A USA TODAY analysis shows:

• All but two of the 39 counties with 1 million-plus people — Michigan's Wayne (Detroit) and Ohio's Cuyahoga (Cleveland) — grew from 2010 to 2011.

 

Can we please stop being in the company of Detroit?

I saw that too. 

A USA TODAY analysis shows:

• All but two of the 39 counties with 1 million-plus people — Michigan's Wayne (Detroit) and Ohio's Cuyahoga (Cleveland) — grew from 2010 to 2011.

 

Can we please stop being in the company of Detroit?

 

I couldn't help but think when I read this on my phone that people see Cleveland as just another Detroit, especially with articles like this.  Oh well, what can you do?

A USA TODAY analysis shows:

• All but two of the 39 counties with 1 million-plus people — Michigan's Wayne (Detroit) and Ohio's Cuyahoga (Cleveland) — grew from 2010 to 2011.

 

Can we please stop being in the company of Detroit?

 

I couldn't help but think when I read this on my phone that people see Cleveland as just another Detroit, especially with articles like this.  Oh well, what can you do?

Did you write the author or editor?

 

Did you write the author or editor?

 

Of what, the article/publication or the Census which generated the data that triggered the news coverage?  I don't think the Census was wrong. Writing a letter won't cause the Census data to change. Moving into Cuyahoga County or even into Cleveland will.

 

Did you write the author or editor?

 

Of what, the article/publication or the Census which generated the data that triggered the news coverage?  I don't think the Census was wrong. Writing a letter won't cause the Census data to change. Moving into Cuyahoga County or even into Cleveland will.

 

The article itself.

Frankly, I would worry less about the population of the county and more about the population of the city as well as the population of the urban core.

 

I do think it's true people commonly see Cleveland as another Detroit. I see evidence of that in many places. On the bright side, people would have said that about Pittsburgh a few years ago too, but since Richard Florida has been tooting the Pittsburgh horn, it has become the revitalization flavor of the week.

 

On the whole, though, the great reduction in manufacturing jobs has painted the entire Midwest with a negative label. People do not see Midwestern cities as viable places to live. Combine it with political polarization and the Midwest, being a swing region, is reviled by conservatives and liberals alike as being too liberal or too conservative.

 

Not having media located here is the #1 biggest plague, though, IMO. Media being exclusively on the coasts projects the image that only the coasts are relevant. The biggest sign of this, aside from the shear abundance of inaccuracies like those spread about Cleveland, is the uphill battle Chicago has in projecting any sort of prominence outside the region.

The death of sprawl?

by Warren Karlenzig

 

Originally posted at Common Current.

 

The United States has reached an historic moment. The exurban development explosion that defined national growth during the past two decades has come to a screeching halt, according to the latest US Census figures. Only 1 of the 100 highest-growth US communities of 2006—all of them in sprawled areas—reported a significant population gain in 2011, prompting Yale economist Robert Shiller to predict suburbs overall may not see growth “during our lifetimes.”

 

We are simultaneously witnessing the decline of the economic sectors enabled by hypergrowth development: strip malls and massive shopping centers, SUVs and McMansions.  The end of exurban population growth has been accompanied by steep economic decline in real estate value, triggering a loss of spending not only in construction, but also home improvement (Home Depot, Best Buy) and numerous associated retail sectors that were banking on the long-term rising fortunes of “Boomburbs.”

 

The fate of these communities has been so dire that for the first time in the United States suburbs now have greater poverty than cities.

 

Read more at:  http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2012-04-10/death-sprawl

 

On NPR radio tomorrow across Ohio.

 

Growing Up, Not Out

 

Posted Tuesday, May 1, 2012

 

Houses have sprouted where amber waves of grain once dominated the landscape outside of urban centers in Northeast Ohio. Paved streets. Shopping complexes. Miles of new utilities. Some say this kind of development is not progress: Suburban sprawl, they contend, is causing economic and environmental problems. Folks buying a piece of the suburban American dream may beg to differ. The argument for shrinking our regional footprint, Tuesday at 9:00 on The Sound of Ideas.

 

http://www.ideastream.org/soi/entry/46660

Thanks for the head's up.  The discussion was so general that I'm still not sure what this consortium will actually be doing (other than a regional land use map).  I'm sure he's a nice guy, but Mike McIntyre is not very good at hosting these radio discussions.

I didn't have to listen to today's discussion on WCPN because I heard it 5 years ago.

 

http://www.ideastream.org/soi/entry/4437

Dealing with Sprawl and Regional Fragmentation

 

 

Posted Wednesday, September 13, 2006

 

Four million people, 15 counties, 700 political entities and two pressing problems for northeast Ohio: sprawl and regional fragmentation. As we continue our conversations about the Voices and Choices agenda, we'll take a look at the decaying state of of our urban cores and the bridges our communities are building to become a unified region with shared goals. It's the Sound of Ideas - you're invited to join us Wednesday morning at nine on 90.3........

 

At least downtown is getting some population bump since then, but the scarification of  Lorain county has only accelerated :(

^For sure; but I was hoping to hear something specific about the Sustainable Communities Consortium, not just the overall issue.  And even that was kind of a disappointment.

Michael, I moved your Lakewood post to:

http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,3281.0.html

Thanks, for finding the right place, Ken!

 

 

Interesting "info-graphic" on the death of suburban sprawl:

 

http://www.archdaily.com/230276/infographic-burbs-going-bust/