Urban Revitalization

Remaking cities in a changing world

Carl Grodach, Renia Ehrenfeucht

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317912019
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Urban Planning & Landscaping

Following decades of neglect and decline, many US cities have undergone a dramatic renaissance. From New York to Nashville and Pittsburgh to Portland governments have implemented innovative redevelopment strategies to adapt to a globally integrated, post-industrial economy and cope with declining industries, tax bases, and populations. However, despite the prominence of new amenities in revitalized neighborhoods, spectacular architectural icons, and pedestrian friendly entertainment districts, the urban comeback has been highly uneven. Even thriving cities are defined by a bifurcated population of creative class professionals and a low-wage, low-skilled workforce. Many are home to diverse and thriving immigrant communities, but also contain economically and socially segregated neighborhoods. They have transformed high-profile central city brownfields, but many disadvantaged neighborhoods continue to grapple with abandoned and environmentally contaminated sites. As urban cores boom, inner-ring suburban areas increasingly face mounting problems, while other shrinking cities continue to wrestle with long-term decline. The Great Recession brought additional challenges to planning and development professionals and community organizations alike as they work to maintain successes and respond to new problems. It is crucial that students of urban revitalization recognize these challenges, their impacts on different populations, and the implications for crafting effective and equitable revitalization policy. Urban Revitalization: Remaking Cities in a Changing World will be a guide in this learning process.

This textbook will be the first to comprehensively and critically synthesize the successful approaches and pressing challenges involved in urban revitalization. The book is divided into five sections. In the introductory section, we set the stage by providing a conceptual framework to understand urban revitalization that links a political economy perspective with an appreciation of socio-cultural factors in explaining urban change. Stemming from this, we will explain the significance of revitalization and present a summary of the key debates, issues and conflicts surrounding revitalization efforts. Section II will examine the historical causes for decline in central city and inner-ring suburban areas and shrinking cities and, building from the conceptual framework, discuss theory useful to explain the factors that shape contemporary revitalization initiatives and outcomes. Section III will introduce students to the analytical techniques and key data sources for urban revitalization planning. Section IV will provide an in-depth, criticaldiscussion of contemporary urban revitalization policies, strategies, and projects. This section will offer a rich set of case studies that contextualize key themes and strategic areas across a range of contexts including the urban core, central city neighborhoods, suburban areas, and shrinking cities. Lastly, Section V concludes by reflecting on the current state of urban revitalization planning and the emerging challenges the field must face in the future. Urban Revitalization will integrate academic and policy research with professional knowledge and techniques. Its key strength will be the combination of a critical examination of best practices and innovative approaches with an overview of the methods used to understand local situations and urban revitalization processes. A unique feature will be chapter-specific case studies of contemporary urban revitalization projects and questions geared toward generatingclassroom discussion around key issues. The book will be written in an accessible style and thoughtfully organized to provide graduate and upper-level undergraduate students with a comprehensive resource that will also serve as a reference guide for professionals

SECTION III

Strategies, Policies, and Projects

The Spaces of Revitalization

In section III we turn our attention toward the application and outcomes of a diverse set of urban revitalization policies and strategies applied by local governments, public–private partnerships and community organizations in different contexts. The chapters contextualize the diverse trends that result in revitalization efforts and include case studies to illustrate how different projects unfold, highlighting the application of urban theory, policy, and politics.

We begin with a focus on revitalization planning in four specific contexts: downtowns, neighborhoods and housing, suburbs, and shrinking cities. In chapter 6 we begin with a discussion of the motivations and range of actions taken to reinvent downtowns. In chapter 7 we concentrate on neighborhood revitalization actions with a specific focus on the important role of housing. Following this, in chapter 8 we focus on efforts and techniques to revitalize inner suburban areas. This encompasses the challenge of “retrofitting” suburbia to new land use and design models, and the role of demographic changes reshaping traditional suburban areas. In chapter 9 we examine the emerging strategies to re-envision shrinking cities, cities that have sustained population loss for decades. In chapters 10 and 11, the final two chapters in this section, we concentrate on two important areas of revitalization applicable to each of these situations: efforts to create cleaner and greener urban environments, and those focused on rebuilding people-oriented spaces.

6

Reinventing downtown and the urban core

Twenty-first-century downtowns and surrounding neighborhoods have been in a difficult situation. What was once the central business district (CBD) is no longer the center of employment. Most major metropolitan regions now contain multiple business districts and dozens of municipalities that vie for residents, jobs, and commercial activity. Yet the downtown continues to be symbolically important within the region in the competition for global capital, and growth coalitions there work to retain their prominence as the urban center in the face of suburban growth. Downtowns in small cities also must compete with regional malls and suburban development, while seeking to preserve their identity as the city’s symbolic center.

To survive and thrive in these circumstances, downtown growth coalitions have undertaken immense efforts to recreate the urban core around entertainment and consumption. Through new development and adaptive reuse, cities have invested in new flagship museums, sports stadiums, and convention centers. They have transformed disused warehouse and historic districts into new arts and entertainment zones while bolstering residential development and improving public transit. Derelict brownfield sites and abandoned industrial infrastructure have become public spaces and parks through both public and private efforts. Smaller cities have also incentivized downtown loft apartments or condos in underused warehouses and revitalized main streets by investing in improvements to support restaurants, specialty shops, and cultural institutions.

The redevelopment of central city commercial districts, waterfronts, and industrial spaces has successfully transformed many disused and dilapidated areas into destinations for middle- and upper-income residents, tourists, and conventions. They also provide an important source of jobs for many people.

These revitalization efforts have not come without costs, however. In chapter 1 we explained that the goal of urban revitalization is to rebuild cities in ways that diverse people can thrive and prosper. For this to occur, urban revitalization efforts must contribute to urban change that accomplishes the six objectives that we outlined: building human capital, promoting social–cultural equity, developing a desirable built environment for diverse groups, designing attractive public spaces, fostering economic competitiveness, and pursuing environmental sustainability. However, the goals of downtown revitalization are often driven and motivated by business and real estate interests seeking to protect and grow their investments. Their efforts can and do support some of these objectives, but they also have contributed to displacing residents as well as industrial and commercial establishments that conflict with the new vision of recreational consumption. While this has produced place-based improvements, it does not address long-standing urban problems and engender robust revitalization. In some cases, cities have attempted to balance the negative outcomes of development through community benefits agreements and linkage policies, but more work needs to be done to ensure that redevelopment both builds human capital and promotes social–cultural equity.

In this chapter we begin with a discussion of the changing character of downtown development. As we discuss, local governments and other central city interests have relied on a range of strategies related to urban design, zoning, land-use mix, and place image. They concentrate on inducing business and property development in the urban core by lowering development costs through a variety of tax abatement programs as well as the acquisition, assembly, and development of property. We then detail two strategies that epitomize the incentive- and place-based approach that has come to define downtown redevelopment: business improvement districts and tax increment financing. None of these strategies are exclusive to downtown revitalization and, while they have since been applied in varied contexts, they have been central to achieving the changes we have witnessed in US downtowns over the past decades. We close the chapter with a discussion of linkage policies and alternative development strategies that some cities employ to balance the negative outcomes of revitalization efforts and develop human capital through job creation for local residents.

THE CITY OF CONSUMPTION

With few exceptions, downtowns in major US cities no longer contain the majority of office space in the region, and therefore no longer function as central business districts. Atlanta, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, and Washington, DC each contains 30% or less of its region’s office space today. Chicago and New York stand out as the only exceptions, where the urban core barely contains a majority of office space in the region (Lang and LeFurgy 2003).

Instead, over the past decades, downtowns have been reinvented as centers of consumption (Clark 2004, Glaeser, Kolko, and Saiz 2001, Hannigan 1998, Judd and Fainstein 1999). Since the 1990s, large-scale projects and mixed-use districts have defined downtown redevelopment. They contain flagship museums and performing arts venues, themed restaurants and specialty retail, hotels, condominiums and loft-style housing, farmers’ markets, convention centers, and sports arenas. Historic warehouse and factory buildings have been transformed to accommodate the new uses alongside new designer buildings. These places are marketed as fun, mixed-use, and pedestrian-friendly consumer destinations.

As we explain in chapter 2, three factors account for the rise of consumption-based development in the urban core. First, the growth of interurban competition and the dispersal of business functions shifted the focus of downtown development coalitions from attracting businesses to attracting suburbanites back to the central city. Second, downtown consumption-based development results from industrial restructuring where financial services and technology sectors locate in the urban core and bring a workforce with strong discretionary spending who often prefer urban living. Third, more young adults and empty nesters are attracted by the amenities and aesthetics of center city neighborhoods and opt to move there.

Vibrant downtowns are built around a mix of new and historic spaces in an attempt to create distinct urban experiences. The urban experience combines appealing industrial-era architecture with cutting-edge culture and the contemporary amenities deemed necessary to attract residents and visitors. Former industrial spaces have become premier shopping and tourist destinations. They evoke the city’s past, and use appealing historic buildings and urban spaces to create distinctive identities (Frieden and Sagalyn 1991). Faneuil Hall in Boston, South Street Seaport in New York, Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, San Francisco’s Ghirardelli Square and Fisherman’s Wharf, and Chicago’s Navy Pier provide the early models for using historic and industrial architecture to create popular destinations (Figure 6.1). These continue to be major tourist draws that bring in significant revenues for these cities and have inspired others around the world seeking to replicate their success. However, as these spaces are managed for visitors, critics charge that they are themed and sanitized centers of consumption. These insulated “tourist bubbles” conceal from visitors the urban poverty, crime, and homelessness that surround them, or displace these problems to other parts of the city entirely (Hannigan 1998, Judd 1999).

Figure 6.1 Pier 39, Fisherman’s Wharf, San Francisco, CA

Photograph by John O’Neil

Downtown development has also turned toward the construction of large-scale cultural institutions. This strategy dates back to the 1950s when a coalition of civic and business leaders, under the leadership of John D Rockefeller III, sought to develop a new performing arts complex in New York City. Part of Robert Moses’ plan for redeveloping the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts was the centerpiece of an urban renewal project created expressly to attract higher-end development to the area. Lincoln Center and subsequent 1960s-era cultural complexes such as the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC and the Los Angeles County Performing Arts Center were designed as fortress-like cultural compounds so that visitors could come and go without experiencing the surrounding area (Grodach 2011). Today, many cultural institutions have attempted to become larger tourist draws in part by turning toward spectacular, eye-catching architecture (Figure 6.2).

The urban experience extends to the diverse neighborhoods that make up the urban fabric. Ethnic neighborhoods and neighborhoods with rich histories have become an important part of urban living. The variety of food and culture contributes to giving the urban core its cosmopolitan character and sets it off from the surrounding suburbs (Zukin 2010). The growing appeal of urban core living also has encouraged shrinking cities to create initiatives to attract suburban residents back into the city. Cleveland for instance promotes itself for its “grit mixed with sophistication … where you can eat bucatini pasta served with beef jerky, dance to world music on the front lawn of a renowned art museum or do yoga in front of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame” (Positively Cleveland 2014).

Often this activity is centered around a district modeled on New York’s SoHo which offers art galleries, restaurants, and night clubs in historic industrial spaces. Although people experience such neighborhoods as “organic” development, in most instances redevelopment has been encouraged through public policy initiatives and zoning strategies. Through both public and private efforts, places such as downtown Los Angeles, uptown Oakland, the Crossroads Arts District in Kansas City, and Wicker Park in Chicago have been recreated as authentic urban neighborhoods.

Figure 6.2 Aerial view of Experience Music Project, Seattle, WA

Photograph by SFM Archive, under www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html

However, some fear that downtown redevelopment processes result in the suburbanization of the urban core itself (Hammett and Hammett 2008). Even as these neighborhoods are marketed for their urban authenticity, they are increasingly occupied by corporate and boutique retail, and patrolled by private security (Chapple, Jackson, and Martin 2010, Lloyd 2010) (Figure 6.3). In 1990, 55% of New York’s SoHo neighborhood businesses were arts-related and only 10% were corporate retail and service chains. By 2005, 52% were corporate retail and services and only 9% were arts-related businesses (Zukin 2008). Even urban neighborhoods with identities rooted in the history of immigration, political activism, and ethnic ties focus on attracting outsiders, forcing them to respond to policy objectives and outsider concerns rather than responding to priorities of their residents (Dávila 2004).

These trends in downtown redevelopment bring two tensions to the forefront. Cities are attempting to create distinctive spaces, but in doing so they are replicating other cities. Although still appealing to many people, the experiences in these places become increasingly homogenized, even as the specifics—the markets, the architecture, the waterfronts, the neighborhoods—are rooted in a city’s unique history and the new development incorporates innovative design. As a result, even as people want authentic urban spaces, the process by which they are created and changed can undermine the very qualities that people seek (Zukin 2010). Moreover, although individuals want to visit ethnic neighborhoods, they do not want to visit an ethnic neighborhood with other tourists like themselves.

The other tension revolves around the fact that much downtown redevelopment is the product of neoliberal policies meant to encourage gentrification (Hackworth and Smith 2001). Downtown redevelopment is a market-driven process stimulated partly by public incentives that have primarily benefitted central city property investors while eroding any possibility of achieving social and economic equity. Few projects have engaged with longtime community members, instead privileging private sector interests. In addition, in their efforts to attract development, public entities ease planning and zoning restrictions and offer tax and land giveaways that help large, corporate interests at the expense of small and local businesses (Fainstein 2005). Although some projects promise social concessions, the outcomes are market-driven and therefore geared toward tourists and middle- and upper-income residents.

Figure 6.3 SoHo boutique, New York City

Photograph courtesy of Peter Blazak photography

Despite the tensions, entertainment and consumption define the new city center and provide a safe investment environment to attract people and capital downtown (Frieden and Sagalyn 1991, Leinberger 2009). In the process, consumption districts have brought new retail and entertainment venues, enabled the renovation of historic buildings, and improved the built environment while providing new sources of sales and property tax revenues. At issue, however, is the fact that they build a city for consumers and not diverse publics. In particular, these projects may not benefit lower-income urban residents, many of whom lived in the urban core prior to the period of gentrification. Although some projects bring important social benefits including affordable housing, employment opportunities, and retail, too often formerly struggling areas are transformed without making space for the diverse people who called central cities home. While this has produced place-based improvements, it often displaces problems rather than engendering robust urban revitalization.

REVITALIZATION TOOLS AND STRATEGIES IN DOWNTOWN AND THE URBAN CORE

To stimulate downtown revitalization, the most common approaches rely on tools intended to spur land development in specific places. As we discussed in chapter 5, downtown growth coalitions that include public and private sector participants decide what areas will be targeted for development. Business leaders advocate for and public entities provide incentives to reduce development costs. The incentives range from various f...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of boxes
• Section I - Changing Regions, Local Lives Urban Revitalization in Context
• Section II - Local Change in a Global Economy The History and Theory of Urban Revitalization
• Section III - Strategies, Policies, and Projects The Spaces of Revitalization
• Section IV - Urban Revitalization Methods Data, Techniques, and Relationships
• Section V - Looking Forward
• Index