Density Done Wrong

Quick note: from time to time I stumble onto a serious topic when I was not expecting to. At these times I always feel a bit anxious that the couple of hours of thought and I writing I put in are not worthy of the seriousness of the topic. This is one of those instances. Take this one for what it’s worth, and let's come back to the topic another time…

Every time I leave town, something crazy happens. This time, Taxi-gate. I feel compelled to write something about this; yet, I don’t really have a dog in that hunt. I know both of the principals involved, have a great deal of respect for them both, and know that they’re both working hard for the good of Chattanooga. Hopefully they can work through their differences and forge a manageable working relationship.

The dust-up aside, the core issue- lack of decent transportation options for a large segment of the community- is a serious one. For now, I will not weigh in on the taxicab proposal, but I will make a couple of observations about the larger issues. The truth is that transportation is not the problem, it is merely a symptom. The problem is in our history of affordable housing development.

The provision of affordable housing is a vexing problem. To clarify, I am talking about subsidized public housing; not housing that is affordable for the work force (which is also vexing, but a topic for another day). The economic barriers that are the essence of the problem are real, however, there is a more subtle and pernicious factor in play – design.

For that last several decades of the past century, hundreds of cities around the country built thousands of high-density, low-income housing developments. History has not been a kind judge of these projects. These projects are vilified for their design. The dense complexes became the poster child for all that is wrong with Modern architecture. I certainly wouldn’t defend many of those developments, but I don’t believe that the failure of that model is necessarily in design. I simply don’t believe that dense development is inherently bad from a social standpoint. There is no shortage of examples of dense housing around the world and in our city that functions perfectly. In fact, some of the properties in the hottest market in town, the North Shore, bear a striking physical resemblance to government housing projects both in density and design.

It is widely acknowledged that the biggest issue with those government housing projects was the concentration of poverty. The unintended sociological consequences of that concentration are well known. Unfortunately, the false connection has been made between concentration of poverty and density of development. To the people who have lived in these places, and to those who are involved with trying to improve the situation, density is now equated with poverty and sub-standard housing.
Around the turn of the century, as the inadequacy of the project model of subsidized housing was apparent, work was undertaken to undo some of those wrongs. This work was done under the auspices of Hope-VI and other such programs. Those redevelopment projects were very correctly based on input from those who would live there. The problem is that the basis for input is skewed. There is an understandable (but false) perception that density equals poverty and sub-urban design equals the American dream. When the public input sessions are held, of course the residents express a preference for a big yard, and a gabled single-family house with a picket fence. That is what everyone in society has been programmed to think is decent housing. It’s understandable, and it’s hard to blame anyone for making the association. After living in a dense and impoverished place, the sub-urban life looks great.

What then does this have to do with taxi’s for the underserved? The fact that land use and transportation are inextricably linked. By definition, the more sub-urban a development, the greater the distances between places. While the myth of the sub-urb is seductive, the reality is that it is completely dependent upon the automobile (or some form of personal transportation). Considering the pressing problems of the economically disadvantaged, access is one of the biggest issues: access to nutritious food, access to employment, and access to health care. The fact that the grocery store, jobs, and doctor are miles away is no big deal if you can hop in your car and drive to them. Not everyone can do that, however.

Low density, sub-urban development exacerbates the problems of the economically disadvantaged. Car ownership is expensive. Not only is the car a significant capital outlay; there is also fuel, maintenance and insurance to pay for. If one lives in a sub-urb (or less dense area) without a car, life becomes more difficult. How do you get groceries home from a store that’s five miles away? How does one ensure they consistently get to work on time by walking and using incomplete public transit services? How does one get their children to the emergency room in the middle of the night? When we face those sub-urban problems, then we are forced to develop sub-urban solutions such as scaling back subsidized transit in favor of subsidized taxis.

In theory, development that allows people to live closer to the necessities of everyday life provides the solution to the provision of dignified housing for all of our citizens. Density supports the type of mixed-use development that that put people in close proximity to jobs and good and services. Density also supports more robust mass transit options for the things that can’t be found within walking distance. As long as the bigger issue of poverty concentration is somehow addressed, density seems to provide solutions to many of the issues we face.

As compelling as that theory is, given our track record over the past eighty years, I can’t in good conscience insist upon it. We face a dilemma. It is the responsibility of the community to value and respect the input of the citizenry as we seek to provide dignified and affordable housing. It is also the responsibility of the community to develop in a way that is sensitive to both the resources of the community and the needs of those we are designing for. What happens when those two responsibilities conflict with one another?

Shameless Recycling

As many of you are no doubt aware, the Benwood Foundation has started a community blog. The site features more than a dozen very smart people and me. My focus in that space is pretty much the same as it is here, sans cussing and Alabama football. My first post on that site came out a week ago.  However, due to the shocking (if not understandable) lack of retweets and likes, I am using reusing that post as this week's C.Rushing offering. Enjoy...

http://www.benwood.org/perspective/untitled#.UycTBF5xq3s

I want a hamburger... no, a cheeseburger... I want a hot dog... I want a milkshake...

After being tested in the sub-freezing climes of Iowa, the mere freezing temps in New England this week posed no problem for your boy. Apologies, but with the passing of football season, it appears that weather has become my new crutch for the blog opening. Sorry, that’s all I’ve got. A few pitch-perfect days in the Scenic City, however, have blunted the edge of winter’s memory so hopefully we can put this little phase behind us.

Over the course of the last three years I have written about a wide variety of things. Yet when it comes to describing exactly what I would like to see our city become, I’ve been batting the bunny around. I’ve never made specific comments about what I want. This week I will remedy that by providing just such a list. Your list may differ and that’s one of the things that makes this country great. As a great Alabamian once said, “I may be wrong, but I doubt it.”

Disclaimer: Each of the items on this list is less important the process of developing a community vision for how they are achieved.

-I want a borderline out-of-control college strip. I’m getting on up there, so this is not likely to benefit me directly. (My version of an out-of-control night involves happy hour and ends before the sun goes down) The energy of an active social scene for young adults adds immeasurably to the life of a city. I think we’re on the verge of this happening- the question is where. Vine Street? Patten Parkway? The Boulevard? Time will tell….

-I want racially and economically diverse neighborhoods. One could argue that we have a few, unfortunately, those are all in one stage of gentrification or another (and yes, there is hypocrisy in that statement). What I want are stable and established urban neighborhoods where people of every race and income level are accommodated and welcomed. It is an understatement to say that this is a challenge in a market economy, but this is my list and it’s what I want.

-I want shade. There are a couple of places downtown where an attractive tree canopy sets a memorable stage for downtown life. Unfortunately, those places are vastly outnumbered by places devoid of vegetation. The TDOT expansion of US-27 will reduce the area of downtown tree coverage by probably 30%, and in return they are gifting us concrete walls and roads. I don’t think most people understand how seriously this will impact the scale and character of downtown. As we have rolled over on that project, we are left to try to mitigate the damage.  This means planting trees anywhere we can.

-I want to be forced out of my car. I love to drive my car. I have always loved to drive. I would dearly love to have a downtown where it is so fun and convenient to walk, bike and use transit that I would prefer that to driving. Penalizing drivers through taxes, parking fees or other policies will ultimately be less effective than creating places that are more fun and convenient to walk/bike/ride through. That’s the old question of carrot v. stick. On my trip last week it would have been easy and cost effective to rent a car at the airport and drive to my destinations. I was willing, however, to take the T and walk dozens of blocks in sub-freezing temperatures, because that was more fun than the car would have been. Oh, the joy of a city where it is more fun to walk around than it is to drive.

-I want a good Chinese restaurant. I have said this before. Good hot and sour soup is one of life’s great joys, and crispy duck is one of the crowning achievements of human kind. Unfortunately, there is no great Chinese restaurant in this county. My vision for downtown includes a great Chinese for both dine-in and take-out. Consider the great cities in our country- they have great Chinese restaurants, if not an entire China-town.

-I want more. More housing, more people, more store, more restaurants, more parks. Density is the defining characteristic of downtown, and the greater the density, the greater the variety of offerings for the community.

I’m sure that there are other things that I want, but this is the best I could do off the top of my head. Please feel to add your comments on what you want below…

You ain't from 'round here, are ya?

So there I was, on the wintry plains of Iowa, staring down the gaping maw of a polar vortex. Being as I am, physically and emotionally unequipped to deal with such things, the battle was fierce. Yet as Gandalf emerged from his battle with the fiery balrog, I too was victorious and came through the other side a changed man. Which is to say that it was cold last week. It would not have been difficult to pick out the southerner in that scene- he being the one walking through a foot of snow in suede loafers and cotton blazer. Looking fierce I must say, but not looking too smart. Next time I'll check the weather before I leave. I dislike the cold and I’m always sad to leave the family, but travel is a necessary part of what I do as the out of town consultant for other cities.

Cities or other institutions in search of guidance or assistance often reach out to individuals or firms with expertise in dealing with a particular challenge. For a variety of reasons the search often leads to out-of-towners. Sometimes that specialized expertise is not available in the community, sometimes a fresh perspective is needed, and sometimes the local pool simply lacks the capability to do a job. For better or worse, there is cache with bringing in an outside consultant for a process as opposed to using someone local. As the good book says “A prophet is not without honor, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house”. (I have no idea what kind of honor I have, and I’m certainly no prophet- perhaps this explains why I have been fortunate enough to work on a number of projects in Chattanooga to supplement my out of town work). In any event, hiring an out-of-towner is a thing, and one for which I am grateful.

While the benefits of bringing in consultants are many, their Achilles heel is in their very nature- they are from out-of-town. More often than not, they lack a deep understanding of existing physical conditions, they are often unfamiliar with local players and processes, and are new to the political climate. Those of us who are worth our salt expend a great deal of effort to address those issues on the front end. The fact is that the “experts” on a community are the ones that live there- not the guy who shows up for a 6-month process. Depending on the work, a consultant has at most a few months to do inventory and analysis work- often having to start from scratch. Fortunately for the consultants who worked in Chattanooga over the past few decades, that was not the case.

A few weeks ago, I wrote that one my laments for the passing of the old design studio was that we lost necessary long-term institutional memory. That is but one of a wide variety of necessary roles in the community that now go unfulfilled. (For the record, design review is the very least of these and the one thing that studio never did well). One of the great unsung stories of the studio was the role of working with out-of-town consultants.

The Design Studio was not shy about bringing in outside expertise, and they had the confidence to bring in the best (it is not uncommon for the self-conscious to shy away from good designers in order to either control the process themselves or claim more credit). The list of consultants they worked with is a virtual who’s who of the profession: Carr Lynch Associates, SITE, Pettersen+Littenberg, Koetter Kim & Associates, Dover, Kohl & Partners, Calthorpe Associates, William McDonough, and Hargreaves Associates to name but a few. All of those firms did fantastic work here, with the common thread of the design studio as partner/client. Those consultants were able to do very high level work because the design studio demanded it and facilitated it. The studio was a resource to the consultant- providing a framework within which each consultant could operate, providing on-the-ground perspective on site conditions and political circumstances. The consultants that came here had the benefit of years of design investigation at a variety of scales, and a larger contextual framework for how their work fit into the overarching vision of the community.

In my experience, good clients make good consultants. The design studio was a great client – they knew how to frame the work, knew the right questions to ask, and enabled the consultants to perform at a high level. There was genius at the studio that pushed consultants to exceed their own high standards. As you may imagine, that didn’t always go over so well, but it produced results. As I was pulling together the retrospective, I came across a letter with a note about Stroud (and by extension, the Studio) that stuck with me “I have seen him perform with a wide range of architects locally, nationally, and internationally; the better they are, the more respect they have for him”. Having a client that can pull/push a consultant as a project dictates results in a creative tension that produces the best results.

Having an urban design institution with years (if not decades) of experience in the city was a tremendous resource. The result was a community that got the most out every consultant that came here. Their success here made them better, and we were the beneficiaries. As we continue to draft our laundry list of urban design process deficiencies, let’s add the lack of an institutional framework for engaging, managing and pushing consultants to perform exceptional work in our community.

Give it up for Mr. Randy Watson...

Last week I had the pleasure of chatting with the editor of an alternative weekly in Atlanta. He’s in the process of writing an article concerning Chattanooga and how we’ve worked to prevent brain drain. He talked to a number of folks while he was here (no doubt all smarter than me), and I’m excited to see what they had say about the topic. Fortunately (or unfortunately) for you, you don’t have to wait to hear what I had to say…

When I first moved to Chattanooga, the city’s turnaround was well underway. In fact, it was at a point where the Design Studio was already hosting groups of visitors from other cities who wanted to learn how we did it. Our usual suspects addressed these groups and explained various aspects of our work: economic development, sustainability, infrastructure provision, the role of the public realm, the role of public input and the importance of partnership. As I sat in those meetings listening to my heroes tell their stories, however, I was stuck with one compelling consistency. Virtually everyone mentioned that the driving factor of all of work was to create a place that our young people would return to. This is one of those instances where a very complex set of issues can be boiled to a simple statement that everyone “gets”. Not everyone understands (or cares to understand) the somewhat esoteric urban design concepts we employed, but everyone understands the concept of creating places where people want to live.

“We want to create a place that our young people will return to.”

The statement implies that there is opportunity. Whether a young person is graduating from some level of school or simply making their way into the adult world, they all look for their chance. Healthy communities find a way to provide a range of opportunities for young people to support themselves, chase their dreams, and make their mark on the world. Where those opportunities don’t exist, young people leave in search of places that provide them. Heartbreakingly, for some leaving isn’t an option and the choices those young people have to make are desperate indeed. The promise of our simple statement is that the community will dedicate itself to creating opportunities for ALL of our young people.

The statement implies authenticity. For the last half of the twentieth century, sub-urban development thrust American cities into homogeny. The mall, highway, and chain stores of a sub-urb in one city are virtually indistinguishable from those of another. This is a direct result of the chain store philosophy that design supports brand, not place. When you hear me tilt against the Buffalo Wild Wings and Applebees of our downtown, this is the heart of the matter. Yes, there are issues with architecture, aesthetics and density, but the killer is a lack of authenticity. Those buildings say nothing about downtown Chattanooga, they contribute nothing to the unique character of our city, there is nothing special about them on any level. What we have seen recently, especially among young people, is an overwhelming preference for authentic places. Back in the day, we understood this and did a fantastic job of maintaining our identity despite the temptation of a quick buck. How easy would it have been to sell every corner near the aquarium to McDonald’s, Dollar General, or 7-11? What would have become of us had that happened? The promise of our simple statement is that we are dedicated to the notion that our city is Our City.


The statement highlights the familial relationships that are the foundation of community. Taken literally and personally, this panders to the heartstrings- we all love our children. I would love for Spence and Stern to leave Chattanooga and have fantastic experiences and adventures across the globe. I also want them to come back so I can be with them and (I can’t believe I’m writing this) my grandchildren. From a broader perspective, whether they are biologically related to us or not, I believe that children are our future. Pop culture references notwithstanding, the long-term sustainability of the community depends on the young people of the community growing and taking up the mantle of those that came before. The promise of the simple statement is that we value family and community and understand that they are key to the long-term viability of the city.

For as much as I have played up the importance of the “the statement”, in practice you could strip the children portion and it would still ring true. We have endeavored to create that people will return to- whether they be our children or not. We attract people because we are authentic and have nurtured our unique qualities. People come here because there is a range of opportunities for people who want to make their mark on the community and on the world. Young people come here because their contributions to the community are valued. We can talk all day about the billions of dollars invested, the design awards, and our advanced infrastructure, but the truest metric of what the community has accomplished is the number of people who are proud to call Chattanooga home. 

The Other S-Curve

Did we enjoy the weather last week? I certainly did. Having been out of town for the first round, it was nice to be home for the most recent snow days. Is it tough to get anything done when the boys are out of school? Yes, but while work comes and goes, the joy of pegging small children with snowballs is forever. (On an unrelated note: Dear baby Jesus, please forgive me for considering pegging other people’s children when those bastard neighborhood kids knocked down my finely crafted snowmen.)

Jefferson Heights Park was the perfect stage for a couple of days of snow. The park is my home and a place that I have written about several times before. It was two acres of snowball fights, sledding and snowmen for the two-dozen kids who live on the park (and no, I don’t really think they’re bastards). As well used as the park is, it could handle more. Because of the boundary constraints of Jefferson Heights (railroads, industry, big roads), the park is oversized for the neighborhood. The reality is that a) the park was never really “sized” according to open space standards, and b) later plans assumed that the park would serve a larger area than it does in practice.

The area that we now enjoy as a park was originally the site of an elementary school. Jefferson Street School was built in 1911, and in its heyday enrollment peaked at 406 students. By 1960, when student numbers dropped to less than half that it was designated as an all-black school and renamed the William J. Davenport school. The school was shuttered in 1971, the building was eventually razed, and the site designated a city park. The City probably figured that calling it a park and mowing the grass was far cheaper than maintaining an aging building. From a planning perspective, the site as a park was essentially an afterthought.

Fast forward a couple of decades to the mid-90s and the community had turned some its focus to the neighborhoods immediately south of Main Street. In all of those plans, Cowart Place (Rustville), Fort Negley, and Jefferson Heights were tied together by a strong 17th Street linkage. Main and 17th are the only two streets that run all the way through the three neighborhoods, but 17th is more neighborhood scaled and pedestrian friendly than Main. This linkage was designed to be a corridor for the neighborhood to access resources such as the stadium, the elementary school and Jefferson Heights Park. Unfortunately, a decision was made that compromised the viability of that concept.

The 1996 Dover Kohl Plan
(It's true, planning for the neighborhood started before 2005.)

17th Street in a simple and compelling diagram.
An axis between two major green spaces that serves as
an organizational framework for three neighborhoods.

The 17th street neighborhood connector got off to a great start when CNE did the Cowart Place townhouses. That momentum was carried on when we did the 17th Street streetscape and water tower project. The segment of 17th from Broad to Market is top-notch neighborhood streetscape. The plan was to carry that level of quality through Fort Negley and Jefferson Heights to the park. The corridor through Fort Negley proved to a bit more problematic as the right-of-way was constrained by stone walls on ether side of the street- while this was inconvenient, it is possible to design around that. The real problem came at the intersection with Rossville Avenue.

Rossville at 17th is the one intersection along this corridor where 17th takes a bit of a jog. In the early 2000’s there was an opportunity to make a simple maneuver to push the corridor through and create a cohesive order that would benefit adjacent property owners and the community as a whole. This opportunity was shit upon, disregarded by the chicken plant and the traffic engineers. The extension of 17th through a small portion of the Chicken Plant land on the west, and through a small portion of an industrial property on the east would have reinforced the notion of the corridor and improved value for all parties involved. Mind you, this wasn’t easy- there were negotiations to make and land to buy. In the grand scheme of things, however, a group of reasonable adults with the greater good of the community as a common goal should have been able to broker a deal with wins for everyone. That didn’t happen. What happened was that the Chicken plant didn’t want to play, and the traffic engineers proposed a band-aid of a “solution” that worked for them (read: the car). The silly little “S” curve is hopelessly out of place and undermines the integrity of the corridor.

17th & Rossville. What should have been.

17th & Rossville. When good plans go bad.

Since that missed opportunity, all three neighborhoods have grown explosively. The compelling and worthy concept of the 17th Street corridor is arguably more valid now than it ever has been. The connection of three vibrant neighborhoods to Finley Stadium, Battle Academy, Water Tower Park, Fort Negley Park, and Jefferson Heights Park should speak for itself. As fate would have it, the adjacent industrial site is on the market, I have heard that the chicken plant is trying to play nice with its new neighbors, and the people in charge of designing our roads are more enlightened than in the past. Unfortunately, I doubt anyone in a position to resurrect the concept is particularly fired up to do so.

This was the solution that the engineers came up with...seriously.

The most expensive section of streetscape
along the corridor is also the worst.

Unfortunately, this is once again merely a symptom of the bigger problem. For every incomplete 17th Street project, there are a dozen other great ideas for projects that have been compromised or forgotten about. One of the beauties of an (essentially) independent design entity was that there was long-term institutional memory for plans, thoughts and ideas. The Design Studio didn’t turn over every four years and its focus on good design didn’t change with the priorities of different political administrations. Good ideas were nurtured and gestated until the time was ripe for implementation. We’re now in a position where we start from scratch every four years. That is my biggest lament for what the community has lost.

Spread the Love

Depression is setting in with the end of the American football season. The last bright glimmer was National Signing Day*. A day on which Alabama signed its fourth #1 recruiting class in a row. Unfortunately, we now face a seven month wait to see them take the field again. Not sure what to do with myself in the meantime. I guess I’ll go work or something. I am, however, a firm believer in the old saying that if you love what you do, you’ll never have to work a day in your life. So I've got that going for me...which is nice.

Speaking of love, I'm taking a Valentine's week break (or weak break as the case may be). I will, however,  leave you with a couple of things to set the mood: Valentine's Day cards for planners, and perhaps the best episode of Mister Glasses (the sequence that starts at 3:48 and pays off at 4:30 slays me).

Have a great week and spread some love.

*Along with another great year for Alabama, this recruiting season reintroduced us to an old friend. You may recall that I shared a moment during the 2012 recruiting season, when Landon Collins’ mom received my inaugural Casey Anthony Mother of the Year Award for raining on her son’s big moment. This year, another of her sons announced, and she handled it much better. I must say that I feel for the poor woman. For Love's sake, can’t we get one of her kids to go play for The Hat? (just not Landon)