The Urban Blog

The “It’s Expensive Because It’s Dense” Canard

The ever bullish on sprawl Professor Wendell Cox likes to write articles that call out those urban areas which have enacted policies to encourage density and reduce sprawl.  A recent example is his piece The Infrastructure Canard where he unpacks the popular notion that private developers never really pay their way in terms of infrastructure costs.  The cost of providing infrastructure for far-flung developments is in fact often held up as a reason why infill development would be more cost effective.  And Cox makes a few good points.

The fact is, suburban developers frequently put in all the infrastructure of their subdivisions during the initial construction phase.  Today they are also often required to pay impact fees on top of that, and they are required to set aside land for parks, open spaces, and schools.  Debunking myths like these is a great service and I for one am thankful that Cox bothers to do it.  Which makes it all the more infuriating when he trots out his own canards, usually invoking the word “Portland” or sometimes “Seattle” or “California” to do it, that slag on dense, urban development as driving up housing costs in those areas that try it – while at the same time creating greater traffic problems and worse air pollution.

Given my 13 years of up close and personal experience with Seattle, whenever I read this kind of boneheaded nonsense, it’s always galling.  So I’d like to rebut Cox’s claim that:

Destroying Housing Affordability in the United States: In the United States, compact development polices have also increased house prices. For example, even after hitting bottom earlier this year, house prices in compact development markets such as California, Seattle and Portland remained as much as twice as expensive related to income than in less strongly regulated markets. The annual US infrastructure savings suggested in the Costs of Sprawl – 2000 are so small that they would pay less than one-third of the excess higher annual mortgage payments in California attributable to compact development (Note).

In Seattle, within city limits and within the central Puget Sound region including Seattle’s immediate suburbs, the problem that is causing higher prices is not the policies having to do with reducing sprawl.  The Seattle-Tacoma-Everett metropolitan area, home to some 4 million souls, sprawls for over 60 miles along the I-5 corridor – and sprawls for up to 20 miles eastward along various east-west highway corridors such as I-90 and SR-520.

Within this 1200 square mile metropolitan area, a variety of housing at a variety of price points can be found, suitable to just about any income.  Location, however, is a different matter entirely.

In a market, price is determined by the two competing factors, supply and demand.  The City of Seattle is about as landlocked as any city, being surrounded on nearly all sides by water.  Seattle is expensive because it is desirable.  For every expensive charming old house in a charming old neighborhood in Seattle, there are 5 houses 30 to 40 miles out of town selling for way less.  In an affluent area that makes its money on education, medical research, software development, and aircraft manufacture, it can be fairly easily shown that people who can choose based on factors other than price will choose what they desire – and old houses in old neighborhoods are desirable.

All things being equal, this would be an acceptable solution.  However, the only way in and out of most of the affordable places is via the private automobile.  Far from being an anti-automobile missive, this piece serves to remind that the history of auto-oriented development makes a pretty compelling case that as more lanes are added, more traffic congestion will emerge to fill those additional lanes.  There is a physical limit to the number of vehicles which can be moved per hour per mile of a highway lane.  Most people who drive are not driving with the intent of optimizing traffic flow, they are in a hurry and want others to get out of their way.  Gridlock is the natural result.

The reward awaiting those who shop based on price and square footage, is a legendarily long commute of hours a day wasted fuming inside an individual climate controlled box on wheels.  Were the level of subsidy for effective high capacity mass transit anywhere near equal that of highways in the Seattle area, these long commutes would be made via transit.  People would still own cars.  They would use the right tool for the job, as far as their transportation choices are concerned.  It is the regional infrastructure that suffers from suburban development, not the infrastructure of an individual development.  As people drive 30 and 40 miles one way, twice a day, 5 days a week, they impact the infrastructure of the areas they drive through – infrastructure they are not paying for.

While no fan of sprawl as a phenomenon, I have accepted that population growth and constraints on supply of more desirable in-city housing will always lead to sprawl, no matter what efforts are undertaken by governments to control it.  As the owner of a detached single family residence, I can attest to the fact that people like houses.  But house prices in old city neighborhoods are higher relative to their suburban counterparts due to desirability.  That hardly any developer is making new grid system towns which have the characteristics that will evolve into desirable old city neighborhoods over time is what is driving up prices in many metro areas.

Are urban growth boundaries the answer to the problem of sprawl?  The jury is still out on that one, but probably not.  By the same token, neither is limitless sprawl the solution to expensive housing in more desirable neighborhoods.  Sprawl that genuinely mimics the character and form of the desirable neighborhoods, and is connected to major destinations by effective transit, would seem to be the solution.

Cox is using red herrings to convince us that people actually want what is on offer from suburban developments.  A closer analysis will reveal that when people can choose based on factors that are important to them, the situation is not so cut and dried.  The reality of the situation is that people are taking what they can get – not necessarily what they want.

Detroit Is In Bad Shape

It’s not news to anyone at this point that Detroit is in bad shape.  That’s a pretty widely acknowledged fact.  This MSNBC article details a lot of the factors in the decline, but also shines a light on a few signs of hope.  What is missing is a view of the good and the bad which is focused on an unconventional approach to taking the good things that have been happening on a small scale and applying those en masse to the bad.

Let’s start with the good.  Detroit has had an active program of downtown revitalization that is viewed by the city government as the key component to showing the best face of Detroit to visitors.  Detroit has been relying on hotels, casinos, and sports arenas to lure visitors and provide them with an environment that leaves them feeling energetic and positive about the city.  And this is important.  Detroit features a very beautiful downtown, quite a forlorn looking place at its worst but when viewed on a map and in pictures, reveals itself to be quite an amazing design, signifying Detroit’s status as one of the oldest cities in the US.

This work downtown has been accompanied by a focus on economic development.  Compuware, an IT consulting firm, completed construction of a headquarters building in downtown Detroit several years back.  Quicken Loans also established a facility in Detroit.  Condo developments have been targeted at bringing in new residents.  Repopulating Detroit from the center out has understandably been a priority for Detroit.

The further north one goes away from downtown Detroit, the more blighted the neighborhoods become.  Abandoned industrial manufacturing facilities, many auto plants among them, litter neighborhoods filled with the wreckage of long-abandoned houses.  The average home price, according to the MSNBC article, is $18,500.

Some positive developments have occurred in these areas, however.  The article mentions a budding urban gardening movement that provides a glimmer of hope.  Mark Covington, a Detroit resident, joined together with some friends to clean up some abandoned lots in his neighborhood.  Covington then got the idea that a garden would be a great waypoint for local residents on their way to shopping at stores.  Conveniently, there was space available in the form of the lots he and his friends were already cleaning up.

The incarcerated are committing new crimes upon release merely so they’ll end up back in jail where they know they’ll have food and shelter until the economy improves in Detroit.  The article doesn’t mention what the unemployed Covington does to survive, but when you consider the price of real estate in Detroit, that may be irrelevant in the short term if he properly managed the resources he acquired while employed.

The city government is trying to get $47 million in federal funding to deal with its abandoned houses.  Demolish some houses and fix up some others.  This is a good starting point.  If the prices of the rehabilitated houses remain low due to lack of demand and are not artificially inflated after rehabilitation, there is a real opportunity to do something truly innovative in Detroit.

Working with the city government, private charity interests should acquire the houses.  Local and outside volunteers and the unemployed, including those petty criminals who are currently keeping themselves locked up to guarantee access to food and shelter, should be brought in as part of the solution.

The contract:  Occupy the houses.  Keep up the property.  Reliably appear at community redevelopment meetings.  Carry out assigned tasks to ensure the security and safety of the neighborhoods.  Duties might also include working in the aforementioned gardens, an effort that should be expanded.

The same private charities that acquire the properties and manage the contracts with the tenants, would subsidize broadband internet access for these houses, computers to place in the houses, as well as basic utility service sufficient to keep the houses powered at all times and free of plumbing damage during wintertime.

Governments would work to create reliable, affordable and effective public transportation linking all city neighborhoods and to restore police, fire, and schools.

The contracts negotiated with the tenants would share one thing in common:  a commitment equal to the term of the average auto loan in terms of time and effort (For example, a 5 year commitment).  The tenant’s commitment is the property taxes due on the house, which go into the government coffers and help bolster already ailing transit, police, fire and school services.

Once the tenant has completed the terms of the contract, the ownership of the house is turned over to that person with all the responsibilities that entails.

This strategy has a few things going for it.  First, upon release the former inmates are often already faced with parole officers to report to anyway, and a commitment to find a job and place to live within a reasonable amount of time.  In so many cases in the criminal justice system, especially in depressed economies such as Detroit’s, this whole process is such a waste of time as to be a farce.  Parole in effect becomes the compulsory community involvement in this model.  The place to live, the daily activities and the community monitoring arrive automatically. 

For the volunteers from healthier backgrounds, the day-to-day work is the community organizing and management.  Keeping the gardens running and seeing to it that the contractually obligated maintenance and other community work is happening becomes the bread and butter of these people, who get the same payoff in terms of the house as the rest of the participants.

As for an economic activity for Detroit’s outer rings, it’s important to look to the abandoned industrial facilities.  Many of these need to be knocked down immediately.  That’s jobs.  But some of them might possibly be preserved, as in the case of a few rotted out Ford and GM plants, as museums.  That’s also jobs.  Some of them might find new life in replacement economic activities the likes of which are required in order to give a city new life when the formerly dominant industries vacate due to structural and global economic factors.

One form of new life these facilities might be suited for is the reprocessing of used merchandise into its next most useful form, and subsequent resale on the market.

A few examples.  One, stripping wrecked vehicles, used electronics, furniture, or other consumer goods down to the recyclable and reusable parts, separating, packaging and shipping those parts.  Two, refurbishment of those goods which could be usable as refurbished goods.  Three, packaging and distribution of any surplus agricultural products from Detroit’s urban farms.

The suggestion here is not one of government control of the end-to-end process.  The government in this model is providing government services.  Transportation, police, fire, education.  Basic infrastructure.  The private sector (in this case charities) is providing the incentive-based package aimed at increasing ownership and overall community health.  And the private sector would be the only thing capable of getting into place the replacement economic activities discussed here (including the urban farming program). 

While the property tax payments as the only financial commitment for the duration of the contract might seem like a great deal for the participants, and the productive use of the participants’ time is well accounted for in this model, without an outlet to external markets bringing in capital, even that relatively minor burden of tax payments in the short term is untenable.  In the end, it all comes back to jobs, and jobs come back to money, and money comes back to providing something that other people need in exchange.  Getting Detroit back on track means having a well rounded economy which is not subject to failure based on one set of factors.  What is being suggested here is a model to accomplish just that.

The New Urbanism Is Still Dead, But…

A new website has come to my attention recently, and I’m happy to toss it on the blogroll.

This website, Cultural Capitol, is New York City based and does a great job examining the current trends in urban design practices.  Of particular interest to readers here might be this examination of the Florida city built by Disney called Celebration and what its design characteristics mean in the current time.  In particular this might be an interesting read for residents who plan to be involved in the public proceedings regarding the Spring Mountain project in Northern Nevada.

"The Americana at Brand"

NPR's Day to Day today reported on a new development in Southern California's Glendale - The Americana at Brand.  This luxury lifestyle development clusters a number of up-to-4 story buildings around a park green, with streets and curbs and a square and some clock towers - and a Cheesecake Factory and every single international chain boutique store you could imagine, with 100 condominiums and 238 apartments.

This project resembles but ain't Las Vegas' troubled Sullivan Square project, which would cluster a number of 20-something story mixed-use buildings around a park, with real streets and curbs and a square and clocks... on a superblock at the corner of the freeway and a suburban mega-avenue.

This project also resembles but ain't this blog's suggestion for Park Lane Mall's impending redevelopment.  They all have their similarities, of course - the primary similarity being their postmodern financing and construction scheme.  And it resembles but ain't The District at Victorian Square - the now canceled Sparks redevelopment project.

This is a very interesting report.  A key quote extracted from the broadcast, by project backer Rick Caruso:

"You can criticize it, and say, 'Based on the books, you shouldn't do this' — I don't know what book that would be"

- Rick Caruso, Developer, The Americana at Brand

What book would it be?  Well, anything by Jane Jacobs would be a great place to start - but happily, what Jacobs was arguing against is no longer common in the world of urban development.  Jacobs was a hard-scrabble community organizer in New York City's Greenwich Village fighting against Robert Moses' road compulsion - specifically, a project to demolish most of Greenwich Village and surrounding neighborhoods so they could build a freeway across Lower Manhattan - which would allow larger towers, presumably surrounded by parks and parking lots - to survive on the island.  The proposal was to replace the lost residential use with yet more towers surrounded by parks and parking lots - across town from the new commercial and retail uses.

Jacobs was a fierce critic of single-use zoning.  She was a fierce critic of projects which overwhelmingly rely on a single architectural metaphor.  She was a staunch proponent of a diverse building line with a diverse range of building heights and sidewalk setbacks - assuming they all had pedestrian fronting along the sidewalk.  Her little book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, is a modern classic treatise of urban planning - written by an amateur.

In the broadcast segment of this story, Caruso (I'm paraphrasing) said that the people who opposed this project based on what "the books" say are also people who only studied but never did any real urban planning - an excellent zinger and a point I would make about Jacobs' amateurism.  There is only one class of urban planning professional - those who are actually involved in the business of creating new urban spaces or redefining existing urban spaces - those who do the nitty-gritty, on the ground work, of building whole new complex places.

Yet I would contend here, that even Caruso is taking an amateur's advice:  The Americana is to feature a diverse mixture of building styles and heights and is not single use and is directly adjacent to other dense, urban development such as old downtown Glendale and the more recent Glendale Galleria.

Growth Out There

Lately Northern Nevada has seen two projects receive the approval of the City of Reno, two projects which are pretty controversial and are indicative of a broader set of problems the city is trying to solve, and really, what that means, is that people need to speak up, but speak up in full context.  That's done here, below the jump.