My Athens

Classic Center Vs. Parks

In making the case that a proposed Classic Center expansion should get the lion's share of the 2011 SPLOST funds that aren't going to the critically needed jail project, Athens Banner-Herald business columnist Don Nelson claims:

1. The Classic Center expansion will boost convention business, and thus bring more visitors to town to pay sales taxes, generate more profits for local business and create jobs.

2. The expansion is a better return on investment for our tax dollars than investing in maintaining our parks infrastructure, greenways or transit stops.

Both claims can--and should be--closely questioned.

1. Does expansion = more convention business?  Not necessarily.  While it's a very frequently made pitch, expanding convention space and adding hotel rooms doesn't always pay off  for cities. For one thing, lots of cities buy into this idea that more is always better when it comes to convention centers. So, there's tons of convention space out there--and it's intensely competitive. For another, the convention business itself is changing as employers, tradeshows and other typical users of convention space scale back or are exploring web-based ways of getting together. (The downturn in convention business preceded 9-11, and the current recession.)  This 2005 report from the Brookings Institution--Space Available: The Realities of Convention Centers as Economic Development Strategy--outlines reasons for skepticism about the wisdom of investing convention center expansions.

2.  Why isn't improving quality of life for residents a good return on investment? Well, actually it is.  Good parks are good economic development investments for cities. If designed well, parks--particularly small neighborhood parks--can help strengthen community ties, boost property values, reduce crime, control stormwater runoff, cut traffic, improve air quality and encourage physical activity. They make existing residents happy, and help attract new residents.  Read this report from the Trust for Public Lands--The Benefits of Parks: Why America  Needs More City Parks and Open Space--to see how parks generate lots of benefits, including economic development benefits,  for cities and their residents.

Let's suppose Nelson and other advocates for the Classic Center are right that Athens stands to gain a lot from an expansion of convention space. And, at least according to the Classic Center's SPLOST proposal, past experience--in terms of exceeding event booking and hotel room usage goals--suggests that this might be case here.

Well, even if this is so, we've still have to grapple with the question of priorities. Personally, I'd like to see a larger Classic Center--one that's perhaps able to attract some bigger name concerts and attractions. But, if because of fiscal constraints, we have to prioritize either convention centers or parks--which it seems like we have to--then what's the best choice from an economic development perspective?

Should luring tourists here to spend money downtown be our priority? Or should investing in making Athens a highly desirable place to live be our priority? That is, should we prioritize investing in convention space for visitors or in neighborhood parks, greenways and transit stops for us to use?

Which economic development investment is more likely to help attract the kind of higher-wage employers we want to locate here? Investments for tourists? Or investments aimed at making Athens the most walkable, family-friendly university town in the South?

Unlike Nelson, I'd prioritize the parks over the convention center.

Athens: Not Cheap to Live Here if You Count Transportation Costs

According to the Housing + Transportation Affordability Index, most of Athens-Clarke Co. is not an especially affordable place to live. That's because our location efficiency is low--which is to say, most of us live in not very walkable neighborhoods and have limited access to transit.

The index, a tool created by the Center for Neighborhood Technology, gauges the true cost of living in a particular places by factoring in transportation costs along with the cost of housing itself. Traditionally, housing has been considered affordable if it costs 30 percent or less of a household's income.  In contrast, this housing and transportation index defines affordability to mean combined transportation and housing costs should consume no more than 45 percent of household income.  By this measure--if I'm interpreting things correctly--most of Athens-Clarke Co. is not in the affordable range.

Here's the link for the Athens region.  In addition to looking at combined housing and transportation costs, you can separate them out and also explore gas costs and greenhouse impacts by region. It's not the most intuitive site, but it's definitely worth a look.

(Via Discovering Urbanism)

Sidewalk Felicities, and a Suggestion for the ABH

Not sure that this blog can take credit, but two instances of what I highlighted as "sidewalk infelicities" have been improved.

The Northwest and Southwest corners at Prince Ave. and Barber St.--a location with lots of foot traffic--are now much more pedestrian friendly.  Take a look at these before and after shots:

Exhibit 1: Northwest corner of Prince Ave. and Barber St.

Before:

After:

Exhibit 2: Southwest corner of Prince Ave. and Barber St.

Before:

After:

Nice work. But, as I said, I'm not sure that any spotlighting by this blog did anything to spur the work. Athens-Clarke Co. does have a Sidewalk Improvement Program in place, and these corners may have been slated for work under that program or another one long before I took note of them here.

For citizens like me the before-and-after shots have proven to be a very satisfying way to report a problem and then to see that something actually got done. (In this case, I can at least pretend that I had an impact--even though it might have been a coincidence.) I  imagine that public servants might feel a similar satisfaction in being able to be so visibly responsive and effective.

In an earlier post, I suggested that Athens-Clarke Co. government set up its own version of SeeClickFix to allow citizens to publicly report city infrastructure problems like crumbling sidewalks or uncollected trash and to have the county's response to those reports publicly tracked.

Suggestion for the Athens Banner-Herald

Now, I think it might be a good idea if the Athens Banner-Herald hosted and bird-dogged such a site as part of its on-line package.  According to this New York Times article, there's a local daily in Connecticut that's using SeeClickFix to boost its internet traffic and interactivity with readers. (The article includes a link to the newspaper's online site and the SeeClickFix page it maintains there. And, FYI, there's already a nascent SeeClickFix page for Athens--it  just needs some high-profile care and attention.)

It seems like a similar effort here in Athens could produce lots of benefits: citizens might feel a little more empowered; public servants might feel a little more useful and loved; the Athens Banner-Herald might get a positive jolt from the new social media, and the city's infrastructure might improve.

How to Brand a City--Do's and Don't's

Don’t try to out-suburb the suburbs with car-oriented living.

Do try to understand what makes your city unique, and use that to create a city “brand” that “springs from the native soil.”

That’s the advice Aaron Renn, who writes about cities for a blog called The Urbanophile, is giving to cities and their mayors. He says cities like Austin, Texas, Portland, Ore., Charleston, S.C., Houston, Texas and Las Vegas, Nev. have seen success in part because “they were able to create aspirational narratives about their brand promise that resonated with the people they wanted to attract.”

What should Athens’ brand be?

I want Athens to keep attracting smart, creative people who like to walk or bike to work, school and play. So, I’d like to create an Athens city brand built on an incredibly vibrant college town scene that’s fed by great local food, serenaded by the best music anywhere--all woven together by some of most walkable and green neighborhoods you’ll find in the South. (There’s still a lot—a lot—of work to be done to create the kind of neighborhoods I’m envisioning, but the raw materials are here.)

What’s your brand idea? And can you express it in a bite-sized, catchy phrase? (I can’t for mine—at least not yet.)

Read Renn’s article here.

Think Locally, Act State-ly, and Other Good Ideas

Think locally, act state-ly. It's all fine and dandy to get hot and bothered by who's going to be mayor and who's going to be on the commission, says Johnathan McGinty, but unless more progressives are sent to the State House which exercises lots of control over local governments, lots of important local changes simply won't happen. Want to provide property tax relief to low-income homeowners? Want the state DOT to start practicing a "complete streets" policy? Want the blue laws changed so we can get a full-service grocery store downtown? Help progressives get elected to the State House not just from Athens, but from districts throughout the state. It's a good suggestion. I'll be keeping it in mind as I decide where to make my political contributions next campaign season. (Don't blame Johnathan for the "act state-ly" abomination--he refrained.)

* * *

"Worse than I remembered." That's how Pete McCommons summed up his recent trip down memory lane to the tense times preceding the admission of African-American students Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes to the University of Georgia. His memory was refreshed after reading We Shall Not Be Moved: The Desegregation of the University of Georgia by Robert Pratt.  It's a book McCommons recommends, and one I'll be reading soon.

* * *

How about something even better? In his most recent Athens Rising column in Flagpole, Kevan Williams highlights positive developments in Athens, but he pushes a little--asking for more. About the new river overlook, he asks: why not a full pedestrian bridge? About a new effort to convert blighted apartment complexes into affordable housing, he asks if the new low-income residents will have to drive or take long bus rides to get to grocery stores. These are good questions--questions that seek to enhance the connectivity and day-to-day practicality of the city we live in. Does it connect? Does it help with daily life?  We should always ask these questions, even if we can't always realize them as fully as we'd like to.

Walkability Isn't Just About Sidewalks

Richard Layman, who writes the Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space blog, puts forward a useful reminder that sidewalks alone don't create walkable neighborhoods and streets:

"But it's not just a matter of putting sidewalks everywhere. Frankly, I wish it were that simple...

People's willingness to walk is a function of population and building density, (which in turn influences) the availability of 'amenities' within walking distance (for example, Walkscore lists these types of businesses and civic assets as key destinations: Transit; Grocery Stores; Restaurants; Cafes & Bars; Movie Theaters; Schools; Recreation Centers; Libraries; Bookstores; Fitness Services; Pharmacies; Hardware Stores; and Clothing Stores)."

Read the full post.

A Defense of Jaywalking

When pedestrians get killed by cars don't be so quick to point to jaywalking as the cause, says Tom Vanderbilt, author of Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do:

"...[A] closer look at national data shows that 59 percent of pedestrian deaths for which location information was recorded happened in places where pedestrians had no convenient access to a crosswalk. While jaywalking is often cited as a cause of pedestrian accidents, less than 20 percent of fatalities occurred where a pedestrian was crossing outside an easily available crosswalk."

Read the full article, which, by the way, briefly mentions Georgia traffic laws and the controversy over Savannah's recent crackdown on jaywalking as covered by Sustainable Savannah.

Sidewalk Infelicities, Exhibits 8-12

This is my second collection of "sidewalk infelicities."

What is a sidewalk infelicity? Well, since sidewalks should be continuous, well defined, unobstructed, safe and efficient in giving pedestrians access to places, anything that violates these criteria is what I'm calling an infelicity.

Check out the first collection--exhibits 1--here.

Have you spotted a sidewalk infelicity in Athens? Tell me where it is, and send a photo if possible.

Exhibit 8: Near 1638 Prince Ave.

The sidewalk on the north side of Prince Ave. extending from Boulevard Heights ends here. Matt Elliot explains why this is a problem: it makes "foot travel hazardous for folks living on Sylvia Circle, Winfield Chase Apts., and points westward."

***

Exhibit 9:  Near Intersection of Prince Ave. and Pounds St.

No sidewalk to be found here even though there's a bus stop, and a well-worn foot path to it.

***

Exhibit 10: 1650 Prince Ave.

The rendering (in photo at right) of the new local Social Security Administration building being constructed here shows a sidewalk in front of the completed project. That would be an improvement.

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Exhibit 11: Near 1684 Prince Ave.

This short strips of sidewalk near the intersection with Sylvia Circle ends just past Edward Jones Investment on the north side of Prince Ave.

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Exhibit 12: 1686 Prince Ave.

A driveway into Jack Waldrip Real Estate on the north side of Prince Ave connects with the street, but assertively blocks the pedestrian path.

***

Walkability Is Economic Development

What can we do here in Athens, Ga. to attract a bigger share of young educated professionals—the kind of people who are moving their energy, their talent and their earnings potentials to “cool” cities like Austin, Texas, Charlotte, N.C. and Portland, Ore.?

Today’s Athens Banner-Herald editorial asserts that Athens is “not ready to attract the kinds of industries that could provide jobs for those young professionals.” In support of this assertion, the editorial points to the failure to develop a high-tech industrial park near the intersection of U.S. Highway 78 and Georgia Highway 316, the failure to attract two pharmaceutical manufacturers to the area and the failure of the effort to land a new federal animal disease research laboratory.

If instead of failing, Athens had succeed at building that high-tech industrial park, and getting those pharmaceutical jobs and the federal laboratory, it’s possible Athens would now be securely on the path to becoming a “cool” city.  But I doubt it.

There’s always a little bit of the chicken or the egg conundrum to questions about local economic development strategy, but part of the reason Athens isn’t attracting the kind of high-tech firms and jobs we want is that Athens just isn’t a “cool” enough city yet.

Tax breaks and cheap land usually aren’t enough to attract high-tech firms—whose success is keyed to their ability to attract talented workers (that is, the kind of people who want to live in cool cities)—to specific communities. The firms want to locate in places their potential employees want to live.

And what kind of places are those? Well, as the editorial suggests, they are places that have “invested in the elements of cultural coolness: good coffee, good food and good music.” Athens certainly has a decent share of that kind of coolness, but I think there’s more to the story than that. There’s good reason to believe that many young educated professionals today also want to live in walkable neighborhoods where you can get groceries, go out to eat, play at a park, listen to music or go to a bar without always having to get in your car.

The talent of the local labor pool is certainly among the most important factors in determining where high tech firms will locate. The trouble is it’s really hard for local governments to do anything very direct about improving the talent pool of existing residents. But if they want to, local governments can make big improvements in local infrastructure, in making walkable neighborhoods, creating lively downtowns and fostering lively cultural scenes. And these amenities—which are quite tangible and easily perceptible—are proven talent attractors.

Of course, Athens should continue to court high-tech firms to move here. Of course, Athens should try to make it as easy as possible and prudent for employers to move here. Keep in mind, though, that because Athens is home to a large, well-regarded university and already has a solid reputation as a culturally lively spot, the city doesn’t have to beg for attention from employers. We’ll keep getting glances at least.

But if we want to start “winning” more in terms of getting employers to move here, then I think we need to change our economic development strategy.

Instead of scrambling to accommodate whatever random suitor-firms wink at us, let’s adopt an economic development strategy that prioritizes enhancing walkability and cultural vitality in central Athens. (Personally, I think Athens needs more work on the walkability front—that is, on increasing density, creating “complete” streets,” more mixed-use development—than it does on the cultural front.) This sort of strategy, I think, will likely be more effective in getting more employers to say “yes” to locating here. It also has the advantage of being something that local governments can actually do reasonably well.

How to Stop Student Rot

[The best way for established neighborhood residents and homeowners to curb irritating student behaviors—like leaving garbage carts on the sidewalk all week long, making lots of noise and parking on the grass—is to go talk to their student neighbors soon after they move in to discuss things like city noise ordinances and politeness.

That's the advice Athens-Clarke Co. Commissioner David Lynn offered in Sunday's Athens Banner-Herald story about some college students violating a local ordinance limiting how many unrelated people that can live together in house in neighborhoods zoned for single-families.

Compared to trying to enforce an ordinance that requires the counting of "unrelated" people living together, he's surely right: direct talk about what really irritates people—the trash, noise and parking issues—is a better approach.

But even though there's much to recommend Lynn's approach—it's immediately implementable, it doesn't involve writing new rules and it apparently works (at least so far, in particular neighborhoods)—there are problems with it. First, it gets old pretty fast. And second, it won't work in neighborhoods under heavy student pressure.

I've now lived in four college towns, always fairly near campus. It's not fun to have to talk to new neighbors every year about fairly obvious matters of politeness and then be ignored as often as not. Over time as more students move in, fewer established residents have the patience to do that every year and so they move...and yet another block gets lost to student rot—which is a real loss to the community.

That said, I personally haven't had any student problems where I live in Athens...but I'm sure some neighborhoods nearer to campus do have such problems.

Anyway, here's my take on a possible way to address the problem of student rot. I wrote this while living in Lexington, Ky. in a neighborhood that was badly afflicted with the rot...]

* * *

When college students cram into homes built for single families, the rot that results is hard to miss. Even if you've never lived in a neighborhood near campus, you'd have no trouble identifying the telltale signs. Trash-strewn yards. Over-parked streets and driveways. Rotting couches on rotting porches. Loud parties into the wee hours.

There is no mystery about why college students make nice, older neighborhoods look crappy when enough of them move in. What is a mystery, though, is why cities and colleges—town and gown—don't seem motivated to do much to prevent the spoiling of these neighborhoods.

This lack of motivation is not good news for anyone—for neighborhoods, for cities, for colleges or for students. Here are three reasons why town and gown should work together to stop student rot:

1. Crappiness and crime. When too many college students move in, they have two neighborhood-killing effects. First, they quickly make houses look like run down tenements. Second, their high turnover rate sucks the life out of the neighborhood by making it hard for neighbors to come to know and trust and respect each other. When neighborhoods lack neighborliness they rapidly become unpleasant, and risk becoming unsafe as well. Cities risk seeing neighborhoods slide into shabby and dangerous places in need of constant patrol. Colleges risk being surrounded by such neighborhoods.

2. Use of prime residential areas for workers and families. Near campus neighborhoods are usually located in desirable parts of town. They are often walkable neighborhoods, close to work, schools and shopping. Such short commute neighborhoods are becoming even more desirable for working families and individuals as gas prices continue to rise and as more people seek "greener" lifestyles. Having such neighborhoods helps cities attract and retain longer-term taxpaying residents. They also help colleges to attract new faculty.

3. Opportunity to harness student energy. Efforts to stop student rot, if done right (I'll suggest ways to do it right below), can transform even large student populations into unalloyed economic and cultural gold for cities. After all, students are hardly just a bane for cities; they are huge assets, too. The trick is to harness student energy to create more vibrant life on campus and in a distinctive student-centered city district.

Myths about student rot

Let's say, after having absorbed the three points just mentioned, city and college policymakers now understand why it's important to fight student rot. Let's say they are motivated to act. What should they do?

The first order of business should be to avoid being distracted by some common myths.

Myth #1: Students are only half the problem. It's true that students and the absentee landlords that rent to them don't cause all the rot. Irresponsible homeowners certainly do exist. So do responsible students. But because you can find examples of bad homeowners and good students doesn't change the reality that most students are highly transient renters with little stake in the neighborhoods they live in and that most homeowners aren't very transient and usually do care a lot about where they live. Students don't cause all the rot, but they are surely responsible for most of it.

Myth #2: Student rot in neighborhoods near campus is to be expected. Well, of course, your neighborhood is infested with students. You live next to campus! What did you expect? If something like that is your response to people who complain about student rot, consider this: not long ago neighborhoods right next to campus—right next to lots of students—were populated mainly by homeowners with a sprinkling of student renters. Not long ago many of these neighborhoods were pleasant, cared-for places. An enlivening diversity of people—most with a real stake in a good neighborhood—lived there. This mix often included college faculty, administrators and workers and their families, first-time homebuyers, older folks with long-time connections to the area—and some students.

Myth #3: Increasing student enrollments are the cause. Students flood into once pleasant, stable neighborhoods. Homeowners flee. Neighborhoods deteriorate. Surely, increases in student enrollment explain this. Well, that's certainly part of the explanation. But it is only part because the student flood into residential neighborhoods outpaces the growth in enrollment in most places. Choices made by colleges play a bigger explanatory role. Choices such as: building less on-campus student housing; ending on-campus living requirements for freshmen and sophomores; and banning or severely restricting on-campus drinking. It's these choices—choices that push students off-campus into city neighborhoods—and not increasing enrollments that account for most of the student influx.

Myth #4: New ordinances will solve the problem. Under pressure from homeowner constituents, city policymakers may be tempted to fight student rot with new ordinances. Direct attacks on the problem include proposals to limit the number of students that can live together in one house or to restrict the number of houses that can be rented to students. Other proposals target symptoms: ticketing loud partiers, fining students and landlords for trash and poor upkeep and extending college conduct rules to cover off-campus behavior. There an indirect efforts, too, such as using zoning rules to protect architectural character which may have the effect of reducing the financial attractiveness of chopping-up single-family houses into student rentals. Some of these ideas might be worthy on their own terms or employed as temporary measures. But they won't do much to stop student rot because they don't deal with a fundamental economic fact: the intense student demand for housing near campus and the good money to be made by renting. Ignoring the economics isn't helpful. The force is too strong.

Better ideas

So, what should be done? What might work?

As I see it, the efforts of city and college policymakers should aim at significantly reducing student demand for housing in near campus neighborhoods.

This doesn't mean adopting policies that allow homeowners to shoot students on sight. It doesn't mean dispersing students far and wide. It doesn't mean cutting enrollments.

What it does mean is concentrating most of student life where it belongs: on campus and in a well-defined, vibrant student-centered district.

Here are three proposals intended to accomplish that:

1. Revitalize on-campus student housing. Colleges should revive the tradition of on-campus living for most students, and build the capacity to house them. Many students today don't want to live on campus. One reason they don't is that most dormitories really suck; they are the American version of bleak East German apartment blocs. But this can be changed. Some colleges are now building new-style residence halls featuring well-designed rooms with fully equipped kitchens, fitness centers, social lounges, movie theaters, pools, game rooms, cable TV and even restaurants, coffee shops and other retail spaces. Even college administrators are starting to realize that cool student housing and other social amenities help with recruitment efforts. When combined with requirements that students live on campus, such efforts create a concentrated, revitalized campus culture. Students like that.

2. End prohibition. When colleges ban on-campus drinking they give students a powerful motivation to move into off-campus neighborhoods where they can party at will without any supervision. Colleges that lift this prohibition and establish policies to allow of-age students to drink responsibly in their rooms and create other venues where social drinking is permitted will be better positioned to intervene when there are problems. Prohibition doesn't stop student drinking; it just shifts where the drinking is done. The responsibility for supervision properly lies with the colleges, not the residents of near campus neighborhoods.

3. Create a vibrant student district. Even where there's a lively on-campus student culture, students will spill into the city—especially into the nearby neighborhoods—for adventure or at least a change of pace. The city should welcome them with a well-defined, concentrated district that caters to their interests and needs. Restaurants. Bookstores. Coffee houses. Smoke shops. Affordable off-campus apartments. Clothing stores. Free wi-fi. Bars. Art galleries. Some high-end condos for the rich kids. A museum. A public water fountain that it's OK to splash around in. Such a district would be extremely appealing—and not just to students. It would harness the economic and cultural energy of students for the good of everyone.

In the meantime

To do these things will require lots of cooperation among city and college policymakers and developers, too. And because it won't happen overnight, city and college leaders must also cooperate on policies for the interim to assure both existing and prospective near campus neighborhood residents that the vitality and quality of these neighborhoods is important.

This means cities should vigorously enforce housing codes and noise ordinances and swiftly fine students and absentee landlords for violations. Colleges should extend student honor codes to encompass off-campus behavior and appoint troubleshooters to work with neighborhood groups and residents to identify and deal with student problems in residential areas.

But don't forget these are temporary "fixes." They are intended mainly to signal that cities and colleges care about the fate of near campus neighborhoods. If intended as permanent solutions to the problem, these policies will only guarantee endless frustration for everyone involved. If the real problem—student demand for housing in near campus neighborhoods—is not dealt with, then the result will be campuses surrounded by shabby, unsafe neighborhoods. This will happen sooner than you think. And when it happens, everyone—students, residents, city leaders and college administrators—loses.

New goal for neighborhood residents

The benefits of these proposals are clear and substantial. Cities get higher quality neighborhoods. Students and colleges get re-vitalized campus life. Everyone gets to enjoy the cultural and economic energy of a new and distinctive student-centered district.

To obtain these prizes, however, town and gown policymakers will have to be pushed into action by the residents of near campus neighborhoods.

But these residents will have to embrace a new, more strategic goal—that of significantly reducing demand for student housing in their neighborhoods.

This means energies currently spent on seeking new ordinances to control student rentals and to punish students and absentee landlords for misbehavior will have to be re-directed. The new work will involve enlisting city and state policymakers to help push colleges to build more student housing and to re-vitalize campus life. It will also mean demanding that cities start working with planners and developers to create student-centered commercial and cultural districts.

Such work will take more time than getting a new ordinance passed, but the pay-off will be much sweeter: a pleasant, safe neighborhood right next to campus.

# # #

Sidewalk Infelicities, Exhibits 1-7

Today I’m starting a new project on this blog, and that’s collecting examples of what I’m calling “sidewalk infelicities.”

Crumbling sidewalks. Obstructed sidewalks. Unconnected, interrupted or otherwise incomplete sidewalks. Excessively narrow sidewalks. Unsafe sidewalks. Disrespected sidewalks. All of these are examples of what I consider “infelicities.”

The more general way of putting this is: Sidewalks should be continuous, well defined, unobstructed, safe and efficient in giving pedestrians access to places*—and anything that violates these criteria is an infelicity.

This is just the first batch of infelicities. More—many more, unfortunately—could follow, including some right outside my front door. 

If you know of any sidewalk infelicities in Athens, let me know. Send me a photo and a description of the location.


Exhibit 1: Northwest corner of Prince Ave. and Barber St.

Why isn’t this paved up to the crosswalk?

* * *

Exhibit 2: Southwest corner of Prince Ave. and Barber St.

Is the thinking that grass is more pleasant for pedestrians to stand on while they wait to cross the street?

* * *

Exhibit 3: Southwest corner of Prince Ave. and Finley St.

Even though this corner and Finley is actively used by pedestrians and is practically downtown, the West side of this block of Finley—from Prince Ave. to Meigs St.—lacks a sidewalk—and given where the street light pole and utility box are located—no one’s thinking about making room for a sidewalk.

* * *

Exhibit 4: Southwest corner of Meigs St. and Finley St.

Here, where a sidewalk resumes on the West side of Finley for a little while, it starts off already crowded with obstructions.

* * *

Exhibit 5: Northwest corner of Hancock Ave. and Finley St.

Right where you’d want to put a paved corner for pedestrians, two utility poles have staked their claim.

* * *

Exhibit 6: Southwest corner of Meigs St. and Newton Ave.

Why isn’t there a sidewalk here?

* * *

Exhibit 7:  Northeast corner of Meigs St. and Pope St.

A good start, maybe?

___ ___ ___

*Adapted from “Criteria for Good Sidewalks,” in The Poetics of Cities: Designing Neighborhoods that Work by Mike Greenberg. 1995. Ohio State University Press.

Do Loyal, Passionate City Residents Spur Growth?

What qualities in a city inspire the loyalty and passion of residents?

According to a study conducted by Gallup and funded by the Knight Foundation, the top three factors that lead to strong attachment to a city are its physical beauty, the opportunities it offers for socializing and its openness to a variety of different kinds of people.

We should care about this because, according to the study—entitled The Soul of the Community—cities with the highest proportion of attached residents experienced stronger economic growth than cities where residents reported weaker attachment.

Now, the direction of this effect is hard to pin down. Is it attachment that’s contributing to the growth, or growth that’s making the attachment possible? Or both?

The study authors don’t make a strong claim one way or the other, though they clearly suspect that attachment does help push economic growth. To show the plausibility of this, they point out other studies that show that boosting the emotional connection of employees does in fact lead to improved financial performance of the companies where they work.

If the loyalty and passion of residents really does help spur a city’s economic growth, then advocates of local economic development might want to change their focus.

So, instead of asking existing residents to spend tax money to attract outsiders—say, with job or development tax credits or financing the expansion of conference centers—these growth advocates might want to start pushing for improvements that make existing residents happy.  Such improvements might include neighborhood pocket parks, more sidewalks, a permanent public farmer’s market, property tax relief for low-income folks, better designed streets, more public swimming pools. Things like that.

The suggestion isn’t that trying to attract outsiders is bad, but that rather that the best way to spur economic growth—including getting outsiders to open their wallets here or move jobs or businesses here—may be to make improvements that please the people who already live in town.

Maybe good places to live in grow because they invest in what makes them good places to live?

Walkability Linked With Higher Property Values

Savannah Morning News reporter Adam Van Brimmer writes about how enhancing walkability will improve property values in Savannah neighborhoods:

"People will pay for livability," [walkable communities expert Dan] Burden  said. "You change a road and calm the traffic, and you increase property values multiple blocks deep. You put in sidewalks and trees, and values go up even more."

Done in tandem, road changes and sidewalk and tree improvement boost values from $5,000 to $35,000 on average, Burden said.

Considering most Savannah neighborhoods are built out - constrained by established roadways or the natural geography - improving walkability could be the key to sustaining and growing property values.

Same goes for Athens.

Read the full article.

Thanks to Sustainable Savannah.

Image credit: Richard Burkhart/Savannah Morning News

Boulevard Dreams, Version 1.0

This map depicts changes I’d like to see in Boulevard, the Athens, Ga. neighborhood I live in. (Click here to view larger version of the map on screen. Or click on the map to download a copy.)

The changes I propose—which are tagged with numbers in the map above and described in this post below—aim at making Boulevard an even more walkable neighborhood than it is now. (Because I haven't figured out how to embed links to text in the map, the best way to read this post is to either: (1) download and print the map above and then refer to the numbered descriptions below; or (2) print this post and then click on the map above to enlarge it and consult the printed post for the descriptions.)

Increasing density

Mainly, I propose making Boulevard more walkable by increasing residential and commercial densities. More people living in new infill homes and new apartments will support more grocery stores, restaurants, coffee shops, convenience stores and pharmacies. In turn, these new commercial destinations—combined with a few other amenities like a dog park, new pedestrian paths, better bus service—will make the neighborhood even more attractive to people looking for a walkable place to live. As Christopher Leinberger puts it in his book The Option of Urbanism: Investing in a New American Dream: "In walkable urban places, more is better. Adding more density and uses makes life better and real estate values climb higher. It is an upward spiral of value creation."

Over time, if my proposals—or better ones with the same aim—are implemented, Boulevard will become the kind of neighborhood where you don’t need to get into a car more than once every other week. Anyway, that’s my dream for Boulevard.

Boulevard is good as is, but…

Don’t get me wrong: I really like my neighborhood as it is right now. It’s close to downtown and campus. It’s practically bursting with trees and flowers. It’s infested with good neighbors and their dogs, sprinkled with wonderful old and new houses and favored by some really good spots to eat. But even so, there’s room—plenty of room, really—for improvement and especially for more neighbors.

These are the pipe dreams of a newcomer

I’d like to think many of the changes I propose would be fairly easy and uncontroversial to implement. But I acknowledge some of these proposed changes—while technically feasible—might not be politically feasible for now. 

Please note everything I propose here is based on my informal impressions—and not on detailed site surveys analyzed in the context of current zoning regulations.  Also, I’m pretty sure my own thoughts about how to make Boulevard more walkable will change as I learn more about the neighborhood, topography, politics, etc. This is merely the first version of this dream.

Please comment

I’d like to know what people think of my suggestions. And I want to hear about your dreams—wild or practical—for Boulevard. Let me know. I'd like to do a future post that compiles these ideas.

KEY TO NUMBERED ITEMS ON MAP

1.  My house. This is where my house is located, at 325 Lyndon Ave. The yellow circle on the map represents a half-mile radius from my house. A half-mile is considered by many urban planners and observers to be a relatively easy, convenient distance to walk.

2.  Infill housing and “granny” flats.  Here the parcel is divided in two, and two appropriately scaled single-family homes are built. I’d bet there are at least 25 parcels—if you subdivide some of the larger parcels—throughout the Boulevard neighborhood that could support new single-family homes. In my dream, all these parcels would be built on. And I’d also like to allow some of the larger lots the opportunity to build small single-family homes behind existing homes, and to sprinkle in low-income units.

3.  Apartments. This new two-story 12-unit apartment building follows the scale of the adjacent Calais Apartments.

4. Coffee shop with upstairs apartments.  Built to meet the sidewalk with parking in back—not on the street front—this new coffee shop features free wi-fi and four apartment units upstairs.

5. Cohen/Cain Pedestrian paths. These two paved paths open pedestrian and bike access between Chase St. and Cohen and Cain Sts, enhancing walkability.

6. Dubose Pocket Park. With a park bench, a picnic table, a flower bed border and a modest-sized open patch of lawn, this simple pocket park is well-used by neighborhood kids and adults.

7.  The Black Panther Restaurant with Outdoor Café.  The beautiful long windows of this restaurant housed in a renovated building overlook a shady, paved outdoor seating area on this busy corner.

8. Apartments. After the car repair shop moved to a new neighborhood site (see item 28), a new three-story, 24-unit, street-fronting apartment building was built.

9. The Bread Basket, transformed. There’s still a gas station here, but it’s moved behind the new street-fronting main feature—an expanded Bread Basket food counter and convenience shop. The same down-home fare is served along with new menu items.

10. Dubose St. (re?)extension. Looks to me like Dubose St. connected to Nacoochee Av. in the past, and it does so again. Why?  Because doing so provides greater inter-connectivity and opens-up new space for development by busting-up a huge, traffic-clogging block.

11. Mixed-use development #1. On the ground level, this small cluster of street-fronting new two-story buildings is mainly occupied by medical offices, but there are also a few other kinds of offices, and some small retail shops. On top, there are condo units.

12. Mixed-use development #2. Green Thrift Grocery occupies a corner building at the intersection Dubose and Chase Sts. Other buildings house a mix of offices, retail and apartments. All structures are two-story and street-fronting.

13. Mixed-use development #3. This project includes a three-story street-fronting building devoted mainly to medical offices and apartments.

14. Mixed-use development #4. Three new two-story, street-fronting buildings with office and retail space on the ground level and apartments above.

15. Mixed-use development #5. This cluster of new two-story, street-fronting buildings features a mix of commercial, retail and medical office space with apartments on the second-story.

16. Bus shelter, better bus service. A large bus shelter offers plenty of seating and guaranteed access (or you get a free ride) to a bus every seven minutes every day from 6 a.m. to midnight.

17. Mixed-use development #6. A couple new three-story, street-fronting buildings provide retail space on the ground floor, and two stories of apartments above.

18.  Single-family homes and condominiums.  Two sets of two single-family homes are built are Dubose St.—one set on each side of the new Virginia Av. extension (see item 19). Behind the single-family lots, are three three-story condo buildings.

19. Virginia Av. extension. Pushing Virginia Av. through to Prince Av. opens-up new commercial and residential space and enhances connectivity and walkability.

20. Dubose St. pedestrian/bike path. The car part of Dubose ends when it hits the new Virginia Av. extension but continues as a paved pedestrian/bike path and eventually hooks up with Pope St. and Barber St.

21.  Mixed-use development #7.  This important gateway corner (like its sister corner, see item 22) is now anchored by a well-designed—actually, quite dashing—street-fronting contemporary building. Restaurants, shops (including thrift shops) and other retail store occupy the ground floor of this three-story structure. There are offices on the second floor and condominiums on the third floor.

22. Mixed-used development #8. Like the mixed-use development across Barber St. from it, this site now features an elegant, street-fronting contemporary building housing a mix of retail, commercial and residential uses.

23.  Apartments. Perched atop this exquisitely re-landscaped site marking the beginning of Boulevard is a 54-unit apartment building with an underground parking lot.

24. Barber St. Park. This park, located where Boulevard begins, starts with street-facing benches and a small picnic area on the part that fronts Barber St., but then devotes itself to a beautiful shade garden and walking trails.

25. Light industrial development #1. A sleek, low-cost structure offers space for a business incubator program as well as for light industry, warehousing, artist/crafting studios and commercial offices.

26. Light industrial development #2.  The same as item 25 above, except bigger.

27. Stream Track Park. This narrow park includes a paved bike path and unpaved hiking trails—both of which follow the streambed. At the trackside part of the park, is a small fenced-in dog run area.

28. Light industrial development #3. A series of compact, low-cost/low-rent and very modern-looking buildings to house light industry, commercial offices and artist studios.

29. Three Players Av. Named in memory of the three Town and Gown players murdered near where this new road begins, Three Players Av. runs parallel to Prince Av. and cuts across four over-sized blocks to slant up to a connection with Hiawassee Av. The new road activates lots of space for useful development and enhances walkability.

30. Mixed-use development #9.  Some of the new two-story buildings in this cluster take advantage of the new street frontage offered by the new Three Players Av. (see item 29). All buildings are street-fronting and contain a mix of retail, commercial, medical office and residential uses.

31. Yonah Av. pedestrian/bike path. This short paved extension of Yonah Av. allows pedestrians and bicyclists to enter the new Hiawassee Urban Nature Center (see item 33) and to connect through to Hiawassee and the new Three Players Av. (see item 29).

32. Mixed-use development #10. This series of two story buildings—some of which are substantially renovated existing structures—offer retail and commercial space on the ground level and office and residential space above.

33.  Hiawassee Urban Ecology Center and Park. The urban nature center takes this place as its model, and is dedicated to preserving the natural features of this stretch of streambed and educating residents, especially the kids at nearby Chase St. Elementary School, about the ecology of the stream. Kevan Williams, the architecture/development columnist at Flagpole Magazine, informs me that the Boulevard neighborhood was originally platted with a park in mind at this location—which explains the origins of bordering “Park” as a street name.

34. Condos. This contemporary-design, two-story, street-fronting condo building features 20 dwelling units.

35.  Off leash dog park/expanded White Tiger patio. A fence surrounds this plot, giving dog owners a secure area to let their dogs run off leash. Thanks to the adjacent White Tiger—a restaurant and coffee shop—people in the park can also access a patio overlooking much of the park and order food or coffee. 

36.  Street and path extensions. A new street—called Electric Av.—cuts around the Georgia Power sub-station to connect first to an extended Chattooga Av., then to an extended New Av. and finally to an extended Nantahala Av. There’s pedestrian path and stairway to connect Nantahala Av. proper to the old Nantahala Extension.

37. Apartments. With a design inspired by the electric power sub-station it overlooks, a very modern-looking three-story, street-fronting apartment building offers 24 dwelling units.

38.  Light industrial development #4. Same description as item 25, except smaller.

Green Thrift Grocery to Open in Athens

By Dan Lorentz

[Here’s a news story I’d like to read one day…]

ATHENS, GA.  (PDN*) — Green Thrift Grocers, Inc., a national franchise specializing in neighborhood grocery stores featuring locally grown produce at discount prices, today announced plans to open a small-format store here.  Company officials said they had acquired a site for a 10,000 square foot store in Boulevard, a largely residential neighborhood just northwest of downtown.

Future site of Green Thrift Grocery

Boosting walkability is part of mission

Green Thrift started in Philadelphia, Pa. in 1999 as a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing fresh, affordable produce into low-income urban neighborhoods not being served by larger grocery stores.

Since then, the mission has broadened—and so has the customer-base.

“We quickly realized that grocery stores don’t just help people get access to food,” explained Darrell Evans, Green Thrift’s founder and chief executive officer. “They can also spark economic activity, perk up property values, and create a more walkable, healthier neighborhood.”

Green Thrift still serves low-income neighborhoods with limited access to fresh foods. But now the organization—which has become a very profitable, for-profit corporation—seeks out what it calls “tipping point” neighborhoods to locate in.

In Green Thrift’s corporate parlance, “tipping point” neighborhoods are compact, well populated mixed income neighborhoods with a strong identity. Typically, they are also already fairly walkable, but require a full-service grocery store to make it possible for residents to take care of most of their daily needs without a car or other transportation.

Once such a neighborhood is identified, Green Thrift works with neighborhood residents, local investors and local farmers to gauge the interest in and the financial feasibility of opening a grocery franchise there. If local interest from residents, investors and farmers is sufficient, Green Thrift will move forward with the project.

“Low-income folks love what our stores bring into the neighborhood, but so do plenty of middle and upper income folks,” Evans said. “And more and more of them are looking for walkable neighborhoods to live in. They also don’t mind the lower prices for locally grown food.”

Neither a Kroger’s nor a hippy co-op

Fresh, locally grown foods sold in season at low prices—that’s the message Green Thrift highlights in its advertising. But customers can also pick up a gallon of non-organic milk or bleach because the stores also offer much of what conventional grocery stores stock, including cheese and deli meats, dry groceries like pasta, spices, sugar bread and other baked goods, wine and beer, frozen foods, cleaning detergents and paper products.

To keep costs down, Green Thrift avoids fancy displays and like other grocery franchises, uses its buying power to leverage lower prices.

The store encourages walking by allowing customers to roll their grocery carts home and have them retrieved by the store. The carts have air-inflated tires and a simple suspension system so they are easy to push and steer in the store’s aisles and on sidewalks and streets.

On average, Green Thrift grocery stores are about 10,000 square feet. Many conventional supermarkets are at least 30,000 feet. More intimate feeling, the small-format Green Thrift stores often evokes memories among older customers of neighborhood groceries from the 1940s and 1950s.

Residents welcoming, says neighborhood leader

“For the most part, people living in the neighborhood are really excited about the Green Thrift store,” said Elliot Mattison, president of the Boulevard Neighborhood Coalition, a group representing more than 250 neighborhood residents.

Daily Groceries Co-op, located near the Boulevard neighborhood, already provides residents with access to fresh, local produce. But because the store is not a full-service grocery and is located just outside of the neighborhoods boundaries on the south side of the very busy multi-lane Prince Av., Mattison said the new Green Thrift store “will do more to really help make Boulevard a truly walkable neighborhood.”

According to Mattison, the location of the store, on the southeastern corner of the intersection of Dubose Av. and Chase St., has some residents concerned about increased traffic on the already busy Chase St. Green Thrift officials downplayed the concerns and pointed out that their stores boost foot-traffic much more than car-traffic. At present, the site is used as a parking lot for medical offices located across the street. A parking garage will be built nearby to accommodate for the lost parking spaces.
_____

* This post is a work of fiction. PDN is the acronym for Pipe Dream News, a fake news service that syndicates (actually, pretends to syndicate) fictional news accounts of people, places, things and happenings that do not exist but would be cool if they did.

The Food Trust’s Super Market campaign inspired parts of this post.

Walk Scores for Athens Neighborhoods

Boulevard is the most walkable neighborhood in Athens and Cherokee Forest is the least, according to a very quick and dirty study I conducted using Walk Score, an online walkability calculator.

If the "study" is accurate, then Boulevard, a near downtown neighborhood, is a very walkable place where it's possible to get by without a car, and Cherokee Forest, located off of Nowhere Rd. in northern Clarke county, is a neighborhood where practically the only walkable location from your house is your car. 

Of the 31 neighborhoods registered as part of Athens-Clarke Co.'s Neighborhood Notification Initiative (NNI), only ten, including Boulevard, are considered "very walkable" or "somewhat walkable." The other 21 neighborhoods are "car-dependent" or "drive-only." None of the registered neighborhoods met Walk Score's threshold for being a "walker's paradise"--which is a neighborhood where you can take care of most day-to-day errands on foot and where many residents get by without a car.

The rankings

For your convenience, here’s a list of Athens neighborhoods ranked from most-to-least walkable (to view larger version, click on chart):
 

Data and methods

I generated the walk scores by going to Walk Score, a web site, where you type in an address and get a map of your neighborhood and a "walkability score." The score is generated by an algorithm that calculates the distance to locations such as stores, schools, parks and restaurants from the address you give, assigns those locations a score based on their distance and then combines all those scores into one summary number—your Walk Score. The higher the score, the more walkable a location is.

The first map below--created by the Athens-Clarke Co. Planning Commission--shows the boundaries of the 31 neighborhoods registered in the ACC Neighborhood Notification Initiative as of May 30, 2009.

In the second map below, each marker points to an address in the heart of one of the 31 neighborhoods. If you click on a marker, you’ll see the address, the name of the neighborhood it’s located in, and a link to the Walk Score for that address. (I had hoped to create a single map showing both boundaries and representative addresses, but I haven't been able to figure out how to do that--yet.)

The Walk Score for each address/neighborhood was generated on May 30, 2009, and might be slightly different today if new data has been added to the site.

Map 1: ACC NNI Registered Neighborhoods
View ACC NNI Registered Neighborhoods in a larger map

Map 2: Representative addresses with Walk Scores
View Walk Scores for Athens NNI Neighborhoods in a larger map

Limitations

I don’t take this “study” very seriously, and neither should you. For one thing, I’m assigning a whole neighborhood a Walk Score based on a single house within the boundaries of that neighborhood. I’ve tried to eyeball “central” locations, but these are just very rough approximations. A better study would sample a spatially diverse variety of locations weighted by some measure of the concentration of residences. 

Of course, these rankings also are heavily dependent on the Walk Score web site’s own algorithms and data—both of which have limitations.  For example, the site doesn’t factor in street design or topography, and it measures distance “as the crow flies” rather than actual walking paths. Read about other limitations here. And on top of all this are all the problems inherent in talking about the walkability of an arbitrarily defined neighborhood.

Still, if we could test every residential address in Athens, plot them on a map, you’d see natural clusters of more and less walkable areas—and these clusters would, I’d bet, roughly match many of the neighborhoods we already identify formally and informally.

So, even though I say I don’t take the precise rankings very seriously—it’s just not very carefully structured—I’d nevertheless bet that a properly done study would not return significantly different rankings. The Walk Scores might be slightly different, and the exact ranks might differ, but I would not be surprised to see every neighborhood remain in the same broad Walk Score categories—that is, Boulevard would stay in the “very walkable” category; Five Points in “somewhat walkable;” Green-Acres Crestwood in “car dependent,” etc. 

Walk Score’s categories

Quoted from Walk Score’s Web site:

90–100 = Walkers' Paradise. Most errands can be accomplished on foot and many people get by without owning a car.

70–89 = Very Walkable. It's possible to get by without owning a car.

50–69 = Somewhat Walkable. Some stores and amenities are within walking distance, but many everyday trips still require a bike, public transportation, or car.

25–49 = Car-Dependent. Only a few destinations are within easy walking range. For most errands, driving or public transportation is a must.

0–24 = Car-Dependent (Driving Only). Virtually no neighborhood destinations within walking range. You can walk from your house to your car!