Planning Quote of the Day

alert us to early warning signs

"In January, the Council approved a proposal ... to redevelop Allied Drive. Crime there is down by half since the City acted on my initiative to buy 20% of the housing there. Now we’re starting to see millions of dollars of private reinvestment there, which was exactly what we intended when we bought the property ...

But we are also attempting to do two things that have not been tried much anywhere in America: we are trying to improve Allied Drive without driving out low-income working families and we are trying not to simply force problems into other neighborhoods.

Along those lines, we are working on [an] initiative to develop the Neighborhood Indicators pilot project. Inspired by a program in Charlotte, North Carolina, this is a set of statistics that is designed alert us to early warning signs of stress in a neighborhood. Armed with that knowledge we can go to these neighborhoods and ... attack a problem before it gets out of hand."

-- from State of the City Address, by Madison (Wisconsin) Mayor Dave Cielewicz (April 9, 2008)

bowling alleys on every corner

"Bowling alone is a sign of our times. We could bring it back. We could like, transform the entire society. We could have bowling alleys on every corner. We could have a sense of community together. People setting pins again. End the automation! Get the pin boys back. No telling what could happen."

-- Senator Hillary Clinton, speaking to the press while flying above Pennsylvania, as reported by Katharine Q. Seelye on The New York Times Politics Blog (April 2, 2008).

Note: for more on why bowling is something planners should care about see our post, Bowling Together, on our PlannersWeb blog.

new media have empowered neighborhood groups

"Free, new media have empowered neighborhood groups tremendously. A decade ago, anyone wanting to oppose a rezoning or a development had to go door to door or make scores of phone calls to get people to meetings. Time and distance greatly constrained what people could accomplish.

But now an increasing number of neighborhood groups are using tools like Yahoo or Google groups, which allow e-mail messages to go out instantly to group members -- and only to group members -- so quickly that neighborhoods are now as agile as their industry opponents. Neighborhoods are also using free blogs to give them a public face and to archive public documents.

I think this new "Army of Davids" power is very apparent in Greensboro, where developers have lost recent rezoning battles (or given up before they started) in response to neighborhood pressure. It looks like they're going to lose a few more."

-- David Wharton, "And They're Getting More Organized All the Time" (Dec. 4, 2007, on his A Little Urbanity blog about living in the middle of Greensboro, North Carolina)

the density of alcohol outlets

"The density of alcohol outlets correlates with density of physical assaults and is closely related to crime and violence. Alcohol slows reaction time and its use by pedestrians and drivers contributes to traffic injuries. ... Liquor stores are concentrated in low-income neighborhoods."

-- from a background research report for the new "health element" of the City of Richmond, California's general plan.

Note: for more about the fascinating work Richmond, California, has done in developing a health element for its general plan, see today's post, Here's to Your Health, on our PlannersWeb blog.

the amount of vacant land

"The amount of vacant land coming online has been overwhelming ... this is something that can't be dealt with by local volunteers."

-- Blaine Bonham, Jr., Executive Vice-President of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, on why paid clean-up crews are needed to deal with the inventory of some 40,000 vacant lots in the city of Philadelphia.

Note: See, "Greening Up Vacant Lots," posted today on our PlannersWeb blog, for more on Bonham's remarks at the recent national Smart Growth Conference in Washington, D.C.. You'll also see why a horticultural group is involved in what may well be the largest undertaking in America to clean up vacant lots.

like looking at a rubber band

"Hannibal [Missouri], as I learned, subdivided itself according to degrees of affluence nearly as severely as it divided itself between affluence and poverty. Even as the doctors competed to claim the best custom-built house with the best view, salaried workers ... struggled to secure beachheads for their $120,000 trophy homes on the farthest frontiers of the town's westward expansion. ...

It was a little like looking at a rubber band that had gradually been stretched, then stretched some more, stretched beyond its normal tolerances, until holes had begun to appear and grow in the elongated fiber. More accurately still, it was like looking at a miniature model of an aging metropolis, its industries defunct and its central city vitiated by strip development and flight -- nearly all of it white -- toward its receding suburbs."

-- from Ron Powers' Tom and Huck Don't Live Here Anymore: Childhood and Murder in the Heart of America (2001).

Note: I strongly recommend this fascinating book by journalist Ron Powers about a return visit to his boyhood hometown of Hannibal, Missouri. Powers is also author of Flag of Our Fathers and White Town Drowsing.

you can't visualize a 250 row spreadsheet

"Making data available in a spreadsheet is nice, but you can't visualize a 250 row spreadsheet like you can a map."

-- Richmond, Virginia, resident Ross Catrow on the benefits of geographically mapped crime data and vacant property information (in correspondence with Planning Comm'rs Journal editor Wayne Senville).

Note: for more detail on the remarkable online, real time, maps available through RichmondCrime and Vacant Richmond, see the post on our PlannersWeb blog, Real Time, Real Value.

wave as you walk by

"Scattered about Greater Cleveland are footpaths -- public routes that give intimate views of the neighbors to pedestrians, bicyclists and others with muscles for motors. ... Many footpaths dwell in the inner suburbs. In Cleveland Heights, city historic preservation planner Kara O'Donnell says the suburb's several footpaths boost the community's unity. 'The people along these paths like to wave as you walk by,' O'Donnell says. 'Neighbors are looking out for one another.'

A popular route in Cleveland Heights has an obsolete name: 'the cinder path.' Some of the pupils who take it from Taylor Road to Canterbury School don't know what its name means, but they like the route. 'It's cool,' says Kyle Soca, 8. 'It cuts through houses, so it's easy to get to school.' ... Footpaths have ancestors in England, where they cut through hay fields for centuries."

-- from Cleveland area footpaths are roads well-traveled, posted on Cleveland.com (Nov. 18, 2007)

the irony of gentrification

"The irony of gentrification, though, is that while the seeders drive the cycle, they plant the seeds of their own obsolescence. They arrive to be eventually driven out."

-- from "The Embers of Gentrification," by Adam Sternbergh, in New York Magazine (available online)

Note: this is a fascinating article about how the cycle of gentrification has played out in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn.

a lot of broken axles in the future

"The idea is that these little mini roundabouts will slow down speeders in residential neighborhoods ... All I can think of is, what happens with the first good snow cover, when drivers can't see them? I see a lot of broken axles in the future of Edgewood Avenue."

-- from the Letter from Here blog, about Madison, Wisconsin (Nov. 18, 2007)

up and running

LIGHTED CHRISTMAS PARADE
Rotary of Greensburg is up and running. We started a tradition several years ago of sponsoring the Lighted Christmas Parade and we are determined to again. We are planning for December 2nd. So put on your thinking caps and light something up for the parade!

Greensburg Planning Commission meetings are held Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m. in the Kiowa County Meeting trailer, located directly west of the courthouse square.

GREENSBURG AA
Greensburg AA meetings have resumed. Meetings are held on Wednesday nights at 8:00 p.m. at the Elmore Heights meeting room.

Note: Evidence of a return to normal life Greensburg, Kansas, the city devastated by a powerful tornado last May. From the Kiowa County-Greensburg (KS) Recovery web blog. For more on Greensburg, see my post of June 21, 2007, Rebuilding Greensburg (describing my visit to Greensburg).

the worst people in the world

"I think developers are the worst people in the world, but since I’m an architect, I have to try to work with them all the time."

-- comment included in post, Man on the Street: Carroll Gardens Development, on the Brownstowner blog (Sept. 13, 2007)

new waves of artists

In a lot of cases we're seeing the arts being used as a blunt instrument to jump start economic development in "blighted" neighborhoods. ... New waves of artists entering underdeveloped urban neighborhoods often encounter suspicion and sometimes meet outright hostility from the folks who've lived there for generations. The established residents (rightly) fear that rapid increases in property values (and therefore rents) will closely follow the artists' arrival. It doesn't help matters that, more often than not, the newcomer artists are mostly white, and the existing residents mostly not. If you're going to explicitly employ strategies to radically alter the texture and economics of a neighborhood, you simply have to pay some attention to who's already living there."

-- Adam Huttler, from Zen and the Art of Urban Planning on Adam the Hutt blog (Sept. 20, 2007)

dats da last ting I wanna see

"Geez. Dats da last ting I wanna see. Abuncha old people drivin round town goin five milesanhour. Wantin all da good parkin spaces made inta hand-dee-capped ones. Geez. Day needta get more fact-ree jobs."

-- comment posted on the Eriepressible blog in reply to Oh,Those Retirees Are Such a Burden (see our Quote of the Day from yesterday)

an orthodontist (retired at age 45)

"An orthodontist (retired at age 45), a phys ed teacher (retired at age 50), and a university professor (retired at age 59) ... all embarking on second (and in the orthodontist’s case, third) careers. Careers that don’t necessarily serve them financially, but serve society. I would love to have people like this in Erie…people with ideas, ambition, and a desire to give back. Oh yeah, and they have money, too ..."

-- from Oh, Those Retirees Are Such a Burden, posted on the Eriepressible blog (Sept 17, 2007)

a full suckling pig ... with six violins, two violas

"A Haitian Choral and Orchestral Symphony, and Free Neighborhood Pig Roast! ... Come to the Bloomingdale Farmers' Market Sunday September 9th for a free neighborhood Bar-B-Que!

There will be free-range pork and lamb on the grille, vegetables and fruits in the stands, and a full suckling pig roasting in a fire pit! There will also be music from a group of 50+ choral and classical musicians from Port Au Prince, Haiti, playing with six violins, two violas, two cellos, a double bass, a flute, and a Haitian tambour drum. Come and celebrate ..."

-- excerpt from message from Martha Cherlot of the Embassy of Haiti posted on the Bloomingdale blog (about Washington, DC's Bloomingdale neighborhood)

unicorn-hugging wackos

"These people aren't a bunch of tie-dyed, unicorn-hugging wackos, these folks look like your neighbors ..."

-- Fort Worth, Texas, blogger "Steve-O" in a post about a meeting on "whether the eight-acre [Trinity Trees] tract of old growth urban forest would be preserved or go to the bulldozer."

note: the Caravan of Dreams blog has a series of posts about this issue