History Cast Aside

In the rust belt, historic demolition doesn’t just mean the loss of bricks and mortar. In many of these cases, the loss is an entire way of life. Given that many of the rust belt’s great neighborhoods were originally built as factory housing, post-industrial redevelopment has just become the local flavor of gentrification, if such a neighborhood should be so lucky. For the rest of them, they will just add to the thousands of vacant and blighted historic homes that litter communities “from Scranton to Oshkosh.”

Even in Columbus, typically considered an oasis of growth amongst the rust belt, this week has brought the news of not just another factory closure, and not just specifically the loss of the historic Columbus Castings foundry – but also a workforce of 800 in need of retraining, families that will be uprooted, a community that has lost an employer, and a nation that has lost another steel foundry.

I usually say we do not have gentrification in Ohio, and as such, usually cheer on any urban redevelopment. That said, we really don’t need redevelopment everywhere. Sometimes things are fine the way they are. The reality is that you can redevelop a neighborhood, but you can’t redevelop the lower-income families that reside there, who then have to move on with their lives elsewhere.

While most of Ohio’s urban neighborhoods are so disinvested that it’s insane to oppose investment, at the same time, we don’t need to proactively redevelop factories on the other side of town. This site in particular really should be industrial. Surrounded by railroads, cut-off from surrounding neighborhoods, and adjacent to freeway access – this is a site where goods should be made and shipped.

This is not a site where we need a mixed-use utopia for more millennials and empty nesters, or even destination shopping for families. Even if economic activity on this redeveloped site creates low-income accessible jobs, they won’t be good jobs like the 800 provided at Columbus Castings. When we do find a way to grow quality low-income accessible jobs, they are usually located far removed from the communities where people live.

The City of Columbus tried valiantly to find (and financially support) a buyer who would keep the foundry open. Close, but no cigar.

Watch this space. The whole South End of Columbus, where an urban blue collar way of life was holding on, is transitioning to something else. Whatever that is will be dramatically different than what it was, for better or worse.

With this deal, the real estate industrial complex makes another revolution around the sun, which has set on yet another rust belt neighborhood.

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Back home from Cleveland, Cincinnati, Nashville

It’s been a whirlwind of a week, which has kept activity on here to a minimum. I start an exciting new job, and consequently chapter of my life, this week. It is my hope that getting back to the 8-to-5 schedule will give me some time in between or in the evening to finish building out this website in a way that meaningfully contributes to revitalization planning.

Cleveland is always a gem. I’m not sure of the utility of signage to tell you that you’re obviously in the City of Cleveland, but the organic PR value of these signs have paid for themselves several times over.

With and without photo editing, and signage. Considering the photo editing I used was just a few adjustments on Instagram, that gives us a representative sample of whatever is on the hashtag #Cleveland right now.

Cincinnati is also a gem. Being a Cleveland partisan, I suppose I’m supposed to rag on Cincy. Truth is it’s tough, especially with a streetcar! They were just doing testing when I was walking around OTR. FTA requires each of the 5 rolling stock to undergo 500 km (about 300 mi) of testing spread across different days and pedestrian/traffic/weather conditions.

And then lastly, I recommend all revitalization-minded planners take a trip to Nashville sometime soon. You don’t have to take in the country music – there is plenty of other music, sights, and sounds – and above all, you really can just feel the energy and effort that goes into a city on the rise.

The above photo is the Parthenon replica that was built to commemorate the centennial of Tennessee’s statehood, and the latter was my hotel view near downtown. The growing Nashville skyline comes with a westward gradient that often goes unseen in the city’s skyline postcards.

And lastly, the Columbus skyline view from my new loft’s rooftop deck! Always nice to come home to another emerging city, albeit the Most Normal City in America (really puts my travels in perspective once I come home).

Probably some better angles of this view to come. It’s hard to really get in the groove on a realtor’s leash, who probably wouldn’t want me scaling the gutter for the perfect clearing/proportions/angles etc.

Mobility Grants Across Ohio

This has been a big week for bike and pedestrian mobility in Northeast Ohio, as the region’s dual urban cores both received small TIGER grants that will cement the place of bikes and pedestrians in the built environment. Cleveland’s winning TIGER proposal is more significant, with a number of new bikeways connecting the Near West Side including the long-awaited Red Line Greenway. Akron also now has the opportunity to complete its pedestrian promenade along the historic canal frontage that gave rise to the Rubber City.

Of course, these grants pale in comparison to the FTA SmartCity Challenge, for which Columbus will see a windfall of $150 million for displaced transit (driverless cars instead of transit). Even with awards of $5 and $8 million, Cleveland and Akron are still implementing “old school” transportation projects – the kind you can actually see and use.

This view of Akron’s Main Street, taken from a “loft” project I once worked on, shows the existing condition of Main Street, which is really fine. I think the back-in angled parking generally works. In Akron, you have a lot of blue collar folks who won’t be “fooled” by such newfangled parking contraptions, so it’s common to see a pick-up truck rebel and park front-facing on either the wrong side of the street, or across several spaces on the right side. The back-in angled parking is designed to reduce accidents from people backing out into traffic, and instead shifting the reversing to when people first park. It is smart, it works, and it improves safety. I hope they retain this feature, especially as people are just now getting used to it. The Akron proposal, which will ultimately cost $14 million including state and local funds, will also add a roundabout at Mill Street, which is needed. The roundabout will keep traffic moving through congested, one-lane downtown streets that legitimately do bottle-up.

Cleveland is getting a little more for its $8 million TIGER grant, sponsored by the Cleveland Metroparks, which has recently gotten much more involved in urban parks, waterfronts, and recreational connectors. The thrust of the grant is two bikeways, the Red Line Greenway (which has been in planning for almost 5 years) that will run adjacent to the Rapid, and the Whiskey Island Connector that connects downtown to the lake. The overall project totals $16.5 million, including funding from the state and foundations like the Gund Foundation, Cleveland Foundation, and Wendy Park Foundation. This project is a prime example of the type of catalytic community improvements made possible by bringing the non-profit sector into the TIGER effort, which wasn’t possible until recently.

The Red Line Greenway will serve as a legitimate form of transportation. It will nicely augment bikeways that are also underway (the dotted green lines) including completing the Towpath, on-street bikeway that will be added to W. 65th, and the “new” Shoreway. These latter additions will be served by two major connections also funded by this applications, including the Lakefront Bikeway Connector and Canal Basin Connector. The City of Cleveland is also still moving forward, albeit slowly, on the Lorain Avenue cycle track. All of this will turn the relatively-flat west side, which sits in the lakefront coastal plain, into a bikeable oasis (during warm months). This is one $8 million grant that will make a major, lasting difference in how Clevelanders get around and experience their community.

Now if we can just get the Lorain Avenue cycle track off the planning boards!

 

#ClevelandThatILove

Spent Memorial Day weekend up in Cleveland, and took a few photos of the city’s changing cityscape. This isn’t a comprehensive photo set, but rather just a few snapshots I came across over the course of a weekend. Click on the image for full-size and captions.

New ice cream shop in between Ohio City and Detroit Shoreway

Playhouse Square placemaking projects – the billboard sign and “world’s largest outdoor Chandelier”

Layers of bridges down in the Flats

Stonebridge apartments in the Flats West Bank

Terminal Tower rising above Euclid Avenue buildings

The roof of the iconic Cleveland Arcade

View of Downtown CLE and the Cuyahoga River from the Flats West Bank

 

Lastly, no trip to Cleveland would be complete without watching the sun set over Lake Erie, this time through a thunderstorm (which intensified into a tornado warning).

Challenging and Serving Detroit

While there is nothing unique about having a challenge, according to City of Detroit Chief Talent Officer Bryan Barnhill, the challenge of holistically revitalizing Detroit is unique and noble. Challenge Detroit is an exciting and innovative leadership and professional development program that brought me up to Detroit in Mid-May. Not only was it a great time to be in Detroit, with the best weather I have experienced there to date, but it was a truly inspiring program and mission.

We were treated to a first-class, two-day program with one-on-one interviews with Detroit-area planning and design firms, networking events, guided bus tours of the city, field sessions with community stakeholders, and then a wrap-up “Mini-Challenge” to design a park around a vulnerable population. While the “Mini-Challenge” is designed to simulate service projects that Challenge Detroit Fellows undertake regularly, this “Mini-Challenge” was distinctly fun, giving us the opportunity to address a serious challenge with mediums such as play-doh, pipe cleaners, buttons, and popsicle sticks. My table, tasked with designing a park that is inclusive of homeless populations, produced a vision for a “Food Farm” park that addresses food insecurity through community gardens, a farmstand, and programming spaces.

While I may still yet become involved in Challenge Detroit myself, there are some transferable values that could yield similar results for other cities. As the non-profit sector has been uniquely involved and empowered to work on Detroit’s systemic issues, a major point of emphasis is that it won’t be “fixed” or “solved” or even “helped.” The “solution” is something else. Toward this end, the program teaches a project planning philosophy called “Design Thinking,” adopted from Stanford University’s design school.

Backed by these non-profit stakeholders, Challenge Detroit is unique for bringing in top-notch talent and embedding them into the community that they will serve. Rather than “fix, solve, and help,” the idea behind Challenge Detroit is “live, work, play, give, and lead.” I think this bold idea emphasizes that while Detroit needs givers and leaders, it also needs every-day people who just want to live, work, and play. For 30 lucky fellows, the program also offers the opportunity to develop one’s career while serving this amazing mission in an amazing city.

Real Unclear Policy – The non-think tank

Adam Millsap, a research fellow at George Mason University in Virginia, has seen the efforts to revitalize rust belt cities and thinks Americans deserve to be told the truth. That “truth” is the basis for this screed on the Real Clear Policy website.

“Finally, we need to stop encouraging people to stay in declining areas based on stories of false hope. For certain individuals, it may make sense to remain in a depressed area, for either economic or personal reasons, but they should do so without being told that we can save their city. Moving toward opportunity is a better solution for most Americans than waiting for opportunity to come to them.“

Never mind the transformation taking place in Detroit. Forget about the strong results that are starting to emerge out of Cleveland, where the city has surged into a leading position among cities competing for college-educated Millennials. Who cares that Pittsburgh and Boston have already proven that turnarounds are possible?

He and other George Mason researchers also aren’t impressed by the rust belt’s cost advantage, because they contend that SF and NY have “laws” that “artificially inflate” the cost of real estate. You know, zoning, building standards, and crazy things like that. That’s why those cities are so expensive, not because of demand.

You can’t make this up. And apologies to any George Mason people reading this, as I have friends myself from GMU, and would never blaspheme an entire school (let alone a good one). I am not trying to undermine the entire research arm of George Mason, let alone the public policy school, but just pointing out the trail of how they got to this point. Policy formulation precedes policy implementation.

“Yet residents are told that their cities, from Buffalo, N.Y., to Birmingham, Ala., can regain their former glory if they can just attract the right company or win that next government grant.”

I guess it’s that simple. Just waiting on that government grant to come through!

I’m not an abrasive, argumentative, or cantankerous guy; but I have to call out dangerous research such as this. He is right that individually, it is better to put yourself in proximity to opportunity. You can do that by moving across the street in every single one of these cities. My personal experience is that this region is bursting with opportunity, and that the secret is out – not unlike SF and NY, pursuing opportunity has gotten increasingly competitive here.

By all means, scare people away from the Rust Belt – makes life easier for me. However, when you attempt to inform federal investment priorities, and lead with an attack on our grant-winning efforts to compete against the federal investment flowing into the Sun Belt, that’s when Real Clear Policy crosses a line. You aren’t just looking out for the individuals mired in rust belt poverty, who you want to move down to become mired instead in Sun Belt poverty. This is a regional attack on another region.

I have always thought better to produce research on good unfunded grant proposals than bad grant winners; the emphasize needs to be on growing the pot for community development projects nation-wide, rather than shrinking the pot for all of us.

Detroit: 2016

Now a year removed from bankruptcy, Detroit is moving on and building the strongest momentum that the city has had since its precipitous decline began, more promising than any other flash of hope that came and went in the past. You can’t come to Detroit today and not see that this is the Comeback City; It’s happening.

Click here for the photo tour from my 2015 trip.

Somehow, I seem to be making a personal tradition of making an annual Detroit trip during the winter. I also somehow always luck out and get a weekend that is “relatively” warm, so I’ve really lucked out (2015’s trip was in the 30s, but wedged between two Polar Vortex weeks; 2016’s trip had temps in the 50s). All of this said, and even in the “Comeback City,” there really isn’t all THAT much change in 1 year. A few new scaffolds covering some buildings, such as the Griswold Bldg on Michigan Ave that’s now pretty far along. The booming M1 Corridor isn’t all that unchanged – it’s mostly the same building projects still underway, and the light rail is still under construction, although the street is a little bit more passable.

The one area where there has been a lot of change is the new Redwings Arena. One of the grandiose old hotels are gone, yet the other (two twin hotel towers) still stands, and the arena totally dwarfs everything in the southern end of Midtown. Across Woodward, the western-most block of Brush Park is seeing a lot of new development. Huge projects going up between Woodward and John R.

As always, you gotta start at the Market, especially if it’s a Saturday and the weather is sublime. This area was previously artfully gang-tagged all over, which is now giving way to an actual public art initiative called Murals in the Market. There is a map of murals on their website, but several are new in just the last year, such as the really awesome googly eyes. There are more pics inside the market in my 2015 pics, as this time I mostly explored the surrounding market district, where several distilleries and breweries have given way to cold storage and meat market businesses. The Eastern Market is as old school as it gets.

Murals in the Market

This new mural is actually across I-75

Another new one – I love these googly eyes

Shed 2 at the Market

Parking lot in front of the market – that Gothic bldg across the lot is the famed DeVries General Store

Shed 2

New distillery – inside is totally rehabbed and looks awesome, which compliments the rustic look they kept outside

Not untrue

This was my favorite mural bc it is so true

And they have some cool snapchat filters in Detroit

Outside the Red Bull House of Art. Here the Purple Gang used this scaffold across the street to shoot barrels of Al Capone’s booze across the street to supply all of Detroit’s speakeasy’s

I couldn’t help myself – this was my fav piece at the Red Bull House of Art, but that just appeals to the politco part of me

The Eastern Market is just east, across I-75, from Brush Park and Midtown Detroit. The two areas, arguably Detroit’s most active on a nice weekend day, are still pretty disconnected. Of course, Brush Park still has a ways to go toward regaining its lost luster. The M1 Rail project is chugging along, making Woodward Avenue a little more passable than before, and it all looks great. The new Red Wings Arena is also topped out.

Midtown & M1 Rail

Corner of Woodward & Mack

There will be a huge mixed-use village surrounding the arena

These townhomes on the left comprise the first new housing in the Cass Corridor’s revitalization – but they now look kinda outdated

There will be a huge mixed-use village surrounding the arena

Sewage hookah, anyone?

 

Confession time: I LOVE the Detroit People Mover. I wanted to hate it so badly. It’s everyone’s favorite kind of rail project to pick on. It’s a monorail, it doesn’t connect to the street level, you need quarters to ride it, and it only does a 3-mile loop around downtown. I always tried using it as an example of a bad rail project. But it isn’t. The Detroit People Mover somehow works. Every single time I’ve seen it, it’s packed full of people. You have to literally squeeze onto it. It could be sped up – it doesn’t need to stop at every station for a full minute or two – but the best thing about it is the headways. With 5 trains simultaneously making the 3-mile clockwise loop around downtown, a train comes every 3-4 minutes. It’s really awesome.

Downtown Detroit is also really awesome. Similarly, I really wanted to hate the Renaissance Center. It’s the most typical fortress city urban renewal project you’ve ever seen. Did I mention that it’s massing is ugly and intimidating? But it’s also really cool, and I finally made it to the Coach Insignia bar up on the 73rd Floor, which makes the Renaissance Center alright with me. Next time you’re in town, you’ve got to go. Go get a drink (not badly priced at all) and watch the sunset. If you hate fortress corporate towers like me, it will still make you fall in love with the Ren Cen.

People Mover & A View From the Top

Getting off the People Mover at the Ren Cen

Getting on the People Mover at the Rosa Parks Transit Center

Getting on the People Mover at the Rosa Parks Transit Center

Getting on the People Mover at the Rosa Parks Transit Center

Getting off the People Mover at the Ren Cen

Getting off the People Mover at the Ren Cen

Inside the Ren Cen

I think these palms framing the view of Canada constitute “floral irony”

Looking up at the Ren Cen’s main tower

Looking over the Detroit River and the Rivertown neighborhood

Sunset looking southwest

Getting back on the People Mover at the Ren Cen

Detroit Beer Co.

Campus Martius

I’ve always digged the pattern in this building’s facade

The M1 Rail going around the Campus Martius

Campus Martius

Campus Martius

The Guardian Tower

This Chicago-style gem has been turned into a night club

People Mover!

People Mover!

People Mover!

Joe Louis’ Fist

The city’s mascot

This is pretty bad

City Hall

Yeah, the Ren Cen is pretty ugly..

Woodward Avenue entering downtown

People Mover going around the Grand Circus

Sunset from the 73rd Floor

Corktown is probably my favorite little pocket of Detroit. The main reason for this is probably Slow’s BarBQ. Easily the best BBQ joint I’ve ever been to outside of KC, and I would know bc I’m kind of a foodie tourist.

West is (was) Best

Is Michigan Ave wide enough?

Slow’s is on the left there

Michigan Central towers over the storefronts on Michigan Ave

Wanted for some pretty dastardly deeds indeed

This tallgrass “green” space was brand new last year and has kind of turned into a wreck since then

What a beaut

The new windows look really great.

And lastly, I finally made it to the Heidelberg Project, which is truly the weirdest thing I have ever seen. In fact, that is all I have to say about it. Enjoy.

Departure From Reality

Until next time, Motor City!

Detroit: 2015

I spent my birthday last year in Detroit, which may seem like a strange place to celebrate one’s birthday, but I really dig Detroit, and it also coincided with the Detroit Auto Show and a Red Wings Game. Didn’t actually make it into Joe Louis Arena for the game because there were too many brewpubs to try! Priorities, you know.

I wanted to put up these year-old pics from Detroit because I am going back this weekend, with a group from Ohio State’s MCRP program. We have a “City Trip” series each semester that is really the highlight of our student programming, and in the past have done Cleveland, Louisville, and Pittsburgh. Since posting these will also help me clear up space on my phone for new pics, those will surely be forthcoming. It’s kind of what I do. 🙂

Bearings

Detroit is really undergoing a nascent renaissance as it moves on from bankruptcy, which by the way may end up being one of the better things to happen to Detroit. While the slate has been wiped clean at City Hall, the actual city itself and the neighborhoods that comprise it are anything but a “clean slate.” That’s actually one relatively common misnomer about Detroit that gets under my skin when bandied about by fellow planners. Detroit’s communities are still extant, and while it’s true that many block groups have been essentially erased from existence, a lot of community fabric and community stakeholders still remain. For instance, southwest Detroit (Mexicantown) is still pretty densely populated.

As far as gentrification goes, it goes without saying that Downtown and Midtown are relatively stable. And while the city is only 138 square miles, somehow it seems substantially larger. The sheer magnitude of Detroit is lost on many people – it’s 138 square miles of densely packed neighborhoods. The “gentrified” Downtown and Midtown core, now pushing northward into New Center, is such a thin slice of this huge city, but it’s still a more significant urban core than most cities have.

The hardest hit parts of Detroit are east and northeast Detroit, the Grand River Avenue / I-96 corridor, and south Detroit. Historically, south Detroit was the rougher part of town, whereas today it’s probably not quite as challenged as other parts due to stable affordable housing in Mexicantown. Better parts exist along the eastern riverfront (Jefferson Avenue corridor) and in the NW tip of the city, north of Grand River Avenue.

I feel guilty doing this, but this photo tour will focus exclusively on Downtown, Midtown, and the Corktown and Eastern Market areas that branch off of Woodward in opposite directions. That said, within this corridor, there is more than enough to satisfy the pickiest cultural tourist – world-class architecture, museums, food, public spaces, event venues, and all linked by decent transit that will soon become world-class transit (once the M1 Rail opens).

Photo Tour

Corktown is becoming a hotspot of Detroit’s foodie scene, and also features some loft housing. The neighborhood, just west of downtown along Michigan Avenue, is anchored by the incomparable Michigan Central Station, which is getting rehabbed!

 

The Eastern Market is Detroit’s public market. Every self-respecting Rust Belt city must have one of these. The Eastern Market is different in that it’s a larger complex, less oriented toward tourists, and more oriented toward wholesale clients. It’s surrounded by a district that features more touristy “general stores” and some of the coolest graffiti I’ve seen this side of Brooklyn.

 

Downtown Detroit is alive and well. Its sidewalks must go through an emotional rollercoaster – yes, sometimes totally empty – but other times, full of nightlife even on frigid weekend late nights, or full of downtown residents jogging or walking dogs, people going to work, or brunch, and the strangest phenomena observed was a legitimate Sunday mid-day “rush hour” when the grandiose Art Deco skyscrapers open their doors for architectural tours. You will literally see the sidewalks packed with hispters and families alike, taking photos and taking in the vibe of the irreplaceable Art Deco architecture.

 

Midtown Detroit is the new economic engine of Southeast Michigan; the true embodiment of an “eds and meds” district, which you read more about on Midtown Detroit Inc’s website. This economic engine is different from Downtown in that it is fully leased and developers can not keep up with demand. It’s also different than office tower clusters in Troy, or Southfield, in that it is walkable and transit-accessible. This economic engine is different from Royal Oak or Birmingham, awesome as those are, in that it is actually in the City of Detroit where economic development is needed most.

 

Lastly, some of the city’s most beautiful and enduring spaces are along the eastern waterfront, where the Detroit River opens into Lake St. Clair. The Detroit River is the only point where you can cross south into Canada, and in the middle of it, is Belle Isle. East of there, you see cool landmarks along the lake such as the Grosse Pointe Yacht Club.

Cleveland: RTA “Rapid” Photo Tour

Cleveland, once the fifth largest city in the United States before its suburbs took over, is one of those cities that inherited an old-school transit system. In a way, it’s Rapid Transit system is manifesting new-school trends as well, diversifying its modal split in recent years. The old school still prevails though. While best-known for its award-winning Healthline BRT (which was supposed to be light rail, but switched to BRT in order to get FTA funding), the older rail network still carries the bulk of ridership.

Overview of TOD across the entire city

Its 19-mile, heavy rail (think MARTA or WMATA) Red Line dates back to the 1950s, and carries 19,500 daily riders in retro “silver bullet” trains, which is higher ridership than the Blue and Green lines combined. Utilizing a historic railroad trench, most stations are grade-separated – TOD designs are just now emerging that facilitate a seamless integration with that grade separation. Every single Red Line station has recently been rebuilt. Red Line station redevelopment has been a decades-long initiative, primarily moving from west to east. The Red Line connects the Airport to Tower City through westside neighborhoods such as Westpark, Lakewood, West Blvd, Detroit-Shoreway, and Ohio City. After Tower City, the eastbound Red Line connects to University Circle and East Cleveland through some of the east side’s hardest-hit communities, such as North Broadway, Fairfax, and Kinsman.

For the photo tour, I will start with the westside Red Line – but it is worth noting that all of these photos are from 2013-2014. Where possible I will contrast these outdated photos with renderings and newer photos from myself or the media. I need to take newer pics one of these days, but I’ve just gotten out of the habit of doing this in my adopted hometown:

Red Line train at W. 117 on the Cleveland/Lakewood border

See the resemblance?

Train boarding at Triskett Station on the far west side

Detroit Avenue bridge with Flats West Bank development on the other side

The West Side Market at W 25th and Lorain is a historic icon of the city. It’s also the design inspiration for the W 25th Red Line Station.

West Blvd station

Triskett Station, just across I-90 from Central Lakewood

Residual land uses between Tower City and the Cuyahoga River

West 117 and Madison station on the Cleveland/Lakewood border. Lakewood, Ohio (population 50,000) is the densest city in the state, with a population density equal to that of Washington, DC.

Red Line viaduct over the Cuyahoga River

Large TOD planned for a current strip mall site that separates the Red Line from the iconic West Side Market

The half-completed Eco Village surrounding the W. 65th Red Line Station

Tower City offers connections to the Blue and Green lines to Shaker Heights, the Waterfront Line to the Flats and lakefront, as well as the Euclid Avenue Healthline BRT. Tower City is one of the nation’s largest and oldest TOD’s, originally built by railroad moguls O.P. and M.J. Van Sweringen. The Van Swearingen brothers actually founded the Cleveland Interurban Railway to connect their master planned suburban development, Shaker Heights, to Downtown Cleveland. Tower City, then the Union Terminal Complex, was the western terminus for that transit network, which anchored downtown’s Public Square.

Public Square is a large, 4-block commons area in the dead center of the city, typical of communities founded in the Connecticut Western Reserve. Just as Cleveland’s open space legacy harkens back to its New England roots, so do its liberal politics and extensive transit legacy. Before Tower City was finished, there was Shaker Square – the entrance to Shaker Heights, and where Van Aken Blvd (Blue Line) and Shaker Blvd (Green Line) split. To this day Shaker Square is one of the city’s hottest and most-integrated neighborhoods, a testament to the enduring value of transit-oriented real estate. On the other end of the line, transit is being totally revolutionized in Downtown Cleveland – particularly with the new Public Square. Below are some photos inside the Terminal Tower complex and the adjacent Public Square. Renderings of the new Public Square follow.

Healthline BRT coming around the bend in front of Tower City

Straight ahead, just past the front doors, stands the 950-foot Key Tower, the state’s tallest

Entry foyer with USPS post office

Marble corridors between the foyer and interior mall

People waiting for the Healthline or downtown trolleys outside of Tower City

An ode to the Birthplace of Rock n Roll

The Terminal Tower, Tower City’s centerpiece

One of two shopping atriums inside the Tower City complex

Underground Rapid station

Soldiers and Sailors Monument and Terminal Tower

Healthline station

Base of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument

950-foot tall Key Tower

$32 million makeover of Public Square, designed by James Corner Field Operations (designer of NY’s High Line)

It doesn’t get more real than this

Fare thee well old Public Square, hello new Public Square.

The new Public Square and corresponding improvements to Tower City, including the $400 million Horseshoe Casino, aren’t the only transit-oriented development change in downtown. In fact, it is downtown’s western periphery – the Flats East Bank, Warehouse District, and the lakefront – that show the most promise for TOD. While much has recently been finished, more is underway currently – the largest impact will be plans that the city will get to after the RNC Convention. The Waterfront Line is the $70 million extension of the Blue/Green lines past Tower City, to wrap around downtown. While it was “finished” in 1996, it has always been considered incomplete – original plans included a complete loop back into the Rapid system, around Cleveland State University.

Ridership was so low when the Browns left town until a new stadium was built that service was discontinued shortly after its completion. Service was resumed in 2013, but ridership remained low until the Flats East Bank development opened. This line will be further rejuvenated by a Cumberland Development and Trammel Crow project at North Coast Harbor, in between the Browns stadium and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. This area will also be bridged to Voinovich Park by a $25 million modern drawbridge, that may also connect to a new intermodal transit hub that will replace an embarrassing Amtrak station.

I find it incredible that this bridge costs almost as much as the entire Public Square redesign, which underscores two things: in the public works realm, $32 million for a high-quality project like Public Square is an incredible bargain; and secondly, the city is all in on this pedestrian bridge to the lakefront. I hope there is a good way to match its design up with the intermodal rail hub, but it may be too late. The drawbridge is already funded, but has been delayed by a promised “downtown construction freeze” for the RNC Convention. After that date, the city will also start discussing (ie., look for funding, hire designers, start planning, etc) the lakefront rail station. As a final note, redevelopment in this area will be complicated by a 70-foot grade separation (downtown sits on top of a bluff, above the lakefront), as well as parking lots that are known as Browns tailgating ground-zero (this is a big deal).

Waterfront Line light rail train at a Browns Game

Browns fans walking from the Rapid to the Stadium

Settler’s Landing Park with the awfully Michael Graves-esque Stokes Courthouse Bldg

Waterfront Line weaves between big old industrial buildings

Cool old Italianate-style warehouses

The Waterfront Line in front of the new Aloft Hotel

The 5 stories of this building that vanish put into context the slope of downtown’s western periphery

Tailgating lots between the tracks and the Warehouse District

Flats East Bank station with the historic “Main Street Bridge,” now used by the Shoreway

The industry-inspired Flats West Bank across the Cuyahoga River

Settler’s Landing park on the East Bank of the Cuyahoga River. The surrounding Flats East Bank and Warehouse District are a heavily residential area of Downtown.

Really interesting, subdued development down in the Flats

As I mentioned above, this line is heavily in flux with several projects currently in various stages. The Flats East Bank project is nearly finished, the new drawbridge is funded and about to break ground, the North Coast Harbor is similarly financed but still on the boards, and then the new Amtrak/intermodal hub is still in discussions.

Funded lakefront bridge

Flats West Bank, completed (to this point) about 5-10 years ago

Proposed North Coast Harbor project on the lakefront

Recently completed Flats East Bank

Of course, this blog article would not be complete without mention of the Healthline. Not unlike other transit authorities that volunteer themselves to FTA to be BRT guinea pigs, the transit authority’s own focus has shifted to the surprising success of the Healthline project. It helps that Euclid Avenue is the historic “Millionaire’s Row,” built-out all the way to Wickliffe (suburban Lake County) by the Rockefellers and their ilk.

The Healthline has been described by proponents as light rail with tired, and by detractors as a “federally-funded streetscape,” yet from my point of view those are both good things. I have covered the Healthline TOD phenomena ad nauseum, including a lengthy expose at CEOs for Cities that showed both sides of the coin. Given that the Healthline’s center-lane alignment and platform stations were designed to allow for easy future conversion to light rail, I’m a fan.

The project also branded the Euclid Corridor, the city’s iconic main street, and got the east side of Cleveland moving. The distinctive corridor project has been an undeniable magnet for TOD, nearly $6 billion according to this heavily BRT-slanted ITDP study. While most of it has been market-rate development with minimal affordable development to date, making it feel perhaps more like Dallas than Minneapolis. Despite that, this is all the more incredible given the weak market conditions along the corridor, and the fact that most all development has just been infill with no displacement potential. As crazy as it sounds, this bus project really was the impetus for Downtown Cleveland’s remarkable resurgence.

Playhouse Square on a rainy day

All three of these buildings are gone and replaced by the Intergalactic Center for Innovations in Medical Professions. I think that’s its name.

Some Christmas decor in Star Plaza

The Idea Center

More of

Looking out over the Healthline toward the East, through Midtown Cleveland – the Health Tech Corridor

Mid-day activity

Cleveland’s rich and powerful hang out along Euclid Avenue but probably do not take the BRT

CSU’s Nursing School

Prospect and East 9th – always loved this corner

Signal prioritization for BRT doesn’t really work so the buses get in each other’s way; you’ll wait for 30 minutes and then 4 buses come all at once.

East 4th Street

Looking down Healthline toward downtown – you can barely make out the I-90 Innerbelt down there. Always loved that blue and green bldg on the left.

Sidewalks

Star Plaza at Playhouse Square

East 9th and Euclid – this corner has now been transformed, with Heinen’s grocery store the pictured Ameritrust Rotunda, and apts and a high-end Marriott in the tower behind it

CSU likes to tear buildings down, including some that need to go like Viking Hall, and some that should have stayed like the terra cotta Wolfe Music Bldg

Healthline through the CSU campus

House of Blues at Euclid and East 4th

CSU station

Playhouse Square station

Healthline Station at Playhouse Square – there is also now a large billboard sign and other peacemaking elements here

Euclid Commons student housing development at CSU

CSU entry market at the Innerbelt

Healthline Corridor and the Hanna Building, at 17th

PlayHouse Square is the nation’s largest collection of theaters outside of New York City

Students, foliage, and BRT on the CSU campus

It’s worth mentioning that a lot of the $5.6 billion in TOD was mostly institutional expansion that may have been negligibly spurred by the Healthline. While these institutional actors (such as Cleveland State University, the Cleveland Clinic, Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals, etc) may have still needed a green light from the public sector before reinvesting in their physical presence along Euclid Avenue, you can’t seriously attribute the expansion of the Cleveland Clinic to a BRT system. There are Saudi sheikhs who maintain private wards at the Clinic just for when their family needs check-ups. The magnitude of the Clinic is not even in the same ether as Euclid Avenue and its bus rapid transit, and for better or mostly worse, the planning of the Clinic (and its cornucopia of parking garages going up every year) reflects this. In my opinion, TOD should have to be underparked in order to qualify.

The Healthline is also not perfect. Signal prioritization absolutely does not seem to be working. I say that because I was a frequent Healthline rider who sat at many a traffic light in my day, which is the whole point of signal prioritization, especially when the BRT has its own lane. In fact I’m pretty sure the only purpose of the traffic signals along Euclid is to first infuriate everyone, then put cars second, and transit last. The route is also longer than BRT can be expected to remain on schedule. Also, due to congestion in University Circle, the ideal center-lane alignment gives way to curbside-alignment and mixed traffic operation.

It is that eastern end of the Healthline corridor that is perhaps the strongest. That is also where the Healthline is least Healthline-like (just described above), which also casts aspersions onto the catalytic extent of the BRT itself.

While the long-term civic vision of Downtown, Midtown, and University Circle being continuously bridged is slowly coming to fruition, the pace of infill is rampant in the last two miles of that 5-mile trek. University Circle is the hottest square mile of real estate in Ohio, and to get there, you have to first traverse the mile-long Cleveland Clinic campus. You don’t necessarily have to go through Midtown, though. Motorists often prefer the scenic route on MLK Blvd and Rockefeller Park’s cultural gardens, while transit riders may prefer the tried-and-true Red Line which has 1/4th the number of stops along the way. The eastern Red Line is just now getting its new stations, except for some that may realistically just be closed. Below are two year-old photos, with photos of the new stations at Cedar and Mayfield roads. Major TOD is transpiring at these gateways.

Where Mayfield Road bends around MOCA

Exterior of Corner Alley, the anchor tenant of Uptown’s Phase 2

CSX operates several tracks adjacent to the Red Line through UC

Red Line station

Typical morning congestion coming down the hill on Cedar Road

Euclid/Ford/Mayfield

Euclid Corridor during a snow storm. The Euclid Tavern on the right, now co-operated by the Happy Dog hot dog restaurant, is a legendary music venue where Chrissie Hynde among others got their start

CIA and Cinematheque

Interior of the awesome 2-story Corner Alley bowling alley at Uptown

Decorative utility boxes and the new Cleveland Institute of Art

The underpass beneath the CSX Tracks. Yes. This is literally the passage ON Euclid Avenue between UC and the Euclid/East 120th Red Line station, which is above this

Circle East townhomes at Euclid and E. 120th

Red Line train

The iconic Euclid Tavern

University Circle “skyline” from the Tudor Arms

Downtown Cleveland visible through the Cleveland Clinic canyon

MOCA Cleveland

Euclid Avenue view from MOCA

Mixture of densities and colors in University Circle

Platform at Euclid/East 120th

Putting a Rapid station in the middle of Little Italy, which once resisted a transit connection, is a BIG deal for Cleveland

Little Italy is one of Cleveland’s most vibrant hotspots, and is now transit-oriented with the addition of the Mayfield Road station

Red Line train travels past Little Italy

View of Uptown Alley from MOCA

Red Line rolling stock

Healthline station at Uptown

And now for the transformative new stations, and resultant TOD:

The new Little Italy Station

The new University-Cedar Station

The Intesa project was reborn this week as Centric, which is a large TOD

Overview of TOD infill in the triangle between Euclid, Mayfield, and the Red Line tracks

Lastly, the oldest transit asset in all of Cleveland – the Shaker Heights Blue and Green Lines. These two combine for around 15,000-17,000 daily riders, not bad – but certainly brought down by lower density in affluent Shaker Heights. This is another case where what is old is being made new again. The Shaker area, beginning at the St. Luke’s redevelopment area at MLK, connecting into historic Shaker Square, and then splitting up through Shaker Heights – is seeing renewed development interest along the Rapid. Some of this is legacy real estate, including Shaker Square and Van Aken Blvd’s linear mid-rises. Some of this is recently completed, particularly at Lee Road, between Van Aken and Chagrin.

As with many things in Cleveland, the best is yet to come, with the Van Aken District now under development. Van Aken is the redevelopment of a huge strip mall that used to sit on a complicated 6-way interchange. Roads are being reconfigured, the Blue Line is being extended across the interchange (where it used to terminate), and new urbanist infill is taking over on all corners.

First, the Cleveland-proper parts of the Shaker area (St. Luke’s Hospital area and Shaker Square):

Georgian-style balustrade on the rooftop at St. Luke’s, which makes for a pretty cool skyline viewing platform

Shaker Square

Farmer’s Market at Shaker Square

Train entering Shaker Square – the actual station has an iconic diner

Lastly, the Shaker Heights-proper part of the Shaker area, where higher-end TOD is beginning to transpire.

Blue Line LRT leaving Lee Road

Weird stairs leading down from Lee Road / Van Aken Blvd

Shaker Heights City Hall at Lee and Van Aken

Typical mid-rise scale of Van Aken

Typical high-end condo infill in Shaker Heights

All of the above (for the Shaker part of this post) is about to soon by overshadowed by Northeast Ohio’s largest TOD in nearly a century: The Van Aken District.

Rendering looking NW to SE through proposed Van Aken District

Site plan diagram

That, from these ashes:

Existing conditions at Warrensville Center Road / Van Aken Blvd / Chagrin Blvd intersection

While all of these rails may have lost some of their luster, they still work well. They are traversed by around 40,000 passengers daily. They are the formative first experience of many newcomers, when they first land at the airport. They may not always comprise the scenic route, but there is a good chance they can get you where you need to go. They are Cleveland’s most underutilized practical development asset, which it is just now beginning to realize.

The future of transit in Cleveland is in flux. The city is currently debating a contentious fare hike that will undoubtedly hit the poor the hardest. Transit in Cleveland, and the breadth of access it provides compared to other Tier 2 metros, is still a bargain. Even the Healthline’s naysayers will admit that the Cleveland RTA is very well-ran, which goes a long ways. RTA has identified 10 “transit-propensity” corridors, which is a way of saying that they have a priority list of Cleveland’s primary corridors.

The agency just completed a $20 million BRT-lite project on Clifton Avenue, which serves high-density pockets like West Blvd, Edgewater, and all of Lakewood. The agency is currently beginning a project to extend either the Red Line or Healthline eastward, all the way to Euclid (population 55,000). It will hopefully be Red Line extension that is chosen in the end, but that will be dictated by the planning process that is currently underway. Lorain Avenue and West 25th are likely next-up, and activists are already duking it out in the media. Me thinks West 25th would be a phenomenal streetcar corridor, and so do many others, including Ohio City Inc. RTA may go path of least resistance with just another BRT-lite.

P.S. For some extra reading, here is the text of the CEOs for Cities article. While they cleared their website, it made it up onto some blog or forum. The article is one of my better pieces, offering a fair and balanced look at the Rail v. BRT debate in Cleveland.

P.P.S. Please ask for permission before reusing pics. Almost all are mine, but some are from Cleveland.com. Renderings are obviously the intellectual property of the architect and/or developer.

CityLab Officially Channeling CAVE: Champions BAN on Historic Districts

Fight with Richard Florida. Check. It’s like a well-known rite of passage for any academic. I have always taken issue with some of the destructive reporting and advocacy at CityLab. One day they’re categorically against public housing authorities (which do a lot of good), the next they’re against all streetcar projects for some reason, and it so happened that over the weekend the new fashionable stance is against historic districts. Not just any one historic district, but you know, ALL of them. Richard Florida then indignantly defended throwing Rust Belt historic preservation under the bus, saying they “aren’t pro or anti city, [but rather just] objective and fact based.” Rather than wait for the other side to get an article, here are my own objective and fact-based responses. Whatever that means.

@iamemenhiser @kristoncapps @CityLab We are not pro or anti city, we aim to be fact based & objective. Lucky to have Kriston on our team.

— Richard Florida (@Richard_Florida) January 30, 2016

Their stable of writers remind me of that crazy uncle (in my case, my very own Dad is our family’s crazy uncle) who can’t have nice things, and sees an ulterior motive behind every corner. In other words, Citizens Against Virtually Everything. You just can’t win for trying.

In fact, CityLab would like to unite with Republicans in Michigan and Wisconsin who according to a twitter exchange I had with the author Kriston Capps, have the “right idea for the wrong reasons.” So there you have it, when Tea Party Republicans aren’t busy regulating water quality in Flint, they’ve got a lazer focus on the housing affordability crisis caused by historic districts. Right. And the splash photo accompanying the article was that of a baby literally being thrown out with the bathwater. (I wish)

In case you doubt that the reputable (supposedly?) people over at CityLab would actually write and subsequently publish this:

Houses, on the other hand, are often poor candidates for historic preservation. This may be a bitter pill to swallow for people who love residential architecture (as I do). Historic homes and neighborhoods can be immensely significant, culturally and architecturally. But houses belong to owners, and in the U.S., the tried-and-true way to build wealth is to acquire real estate. Historic homes, typically gorgeous single-family homes, are often powerful assets.

So when local- and state-government bodies grant preservation status to historic districts—sometimes entire neighborhoods—they do not always simply protect culture, architecture, and history. Sometimes they also shore up wealth, status, and power.

So the charge, so far as I read it, is that insisting on single family zoning of historic homes not only squeezes low income families into a housing problem, but is actually just a conspiracy to “shore up wealth, status, and power.” Also, the author could have pointed to some research on this. That would have lent an understanding of how HP districts work in the Midwest (Michigan, Wisconsin), which is where this article is premised.

Read on…

“How would you feel if you woke up one day and found your house subject to 40 pages of rules and regulations?” said Wisconsin Republican State Senator Frank Lasee in a statement. “Burdensome regulations that require you to get permission from a government committee to improve your house, get approval for paint color, or the style and brand of windows you buy.”

I’m a little shocked by the credence CityLab is lending to this essentially anti-intellectual argument. There aren’t 40 pages of rules telling you what you can and can’t do with your historic home. There is a helpful guide that may or may not be that long, but I assure you that the rules can fit on one sheet. This goes to Richard Florida: I’ve been a long-time supporter, but come on man. If you take yourself seriously, you can’t be the publisher of ignorant CAVE talk. What is this FOX News? Here are the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards, which are mostly just good practice for us all.

Behre reports that Charleston is changing its architectural-review process, which could ease the way for more ambitious growth. Charleston residents aren’t all against the idea. And as his longtime readers know, the people of Charleston bear an authentic interest in architecture; it’s not a front. Still, the same class of argument being levied against cutting-edge campus design is being used to thwart more affordable housing, and that’s a problem. The result is a Charleston elite of increasingly wealthy downtown residents, and an affordable housing crisis for everybody else.

This giant paragraph-long sentence fragment literally blew up my WordPress, but it’s important to get it in here because of how wrong it is. It’s the crucible closing argument in a whole vignette Capps wrote decying Charleston as “a model for how not to do preservation.” Charleston is actually not a model as much as it is a grandfather of the historic preservation movement. I erroneously wrote in this paragraph that the National Trust conference was in Charleston, when it was actually in Savannah – two cities I frequently combine, to be honest. Thanks to Jennifer Bailey for pointing this out, as well as this fun fact of the day: Charleston was actually the first city (1931) to designate its own local historic districts.

I can not actually speak to everything that has ever transpired in Charleston, and if it’s anything like my own hometown or the cities I’ve grown to call home, I certainly can’t defend everything they have ever done. I share Capps’ passion for equitable urban development. Here’s the bottom line: How many low-income accessible jobs are supported by the tourism industry in South Carolina? How many cities, not beaches, in South Carolina have a tourism industry?

I’ll do the research on that, just because it’s not difficult. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that of Charleston’s 331,000 non-farm jobs, Leisure and Hospitality account for 46,000. You can look this stuff up. 46,000, and that’s not even counting all of the services supported by that Leisure and Hospitality industry. Altogether it’s a HUGE opportunity for low-income families where the bread winner may not have a college degree. And it’s made possible by something as annoying as Charleston’s unique historic charm and its resistance to modernity.

I would argue that Charleston IS a model for how TO do preservation: Focus on critical mass, preserving the larger context, and doing something significant enough. Preservation shouldn’t be about saving one landmark here, an old school there, etc. It’s value is in the whole, not the pieces. Few communities have been more successful at turning historic districts with heritage tourism into an economic engine, but something like this exists at a smaller scale in many of our communities, wherever we call home. This type of grassroots economic development is the essence of the patented Main Street Approach.

National Trust for Historic Preservation Conference Attendees

Read on for the grand hoorah:

That case against historic districting is similar to the case against protectionist single-family zoning anywhere. And the question isn’t just aesthetic, it’s constitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last year on “disparate impact” means that wealthy communities cannot keep affordable housing out because wealthy residents feel that they’re better off without it. The federal government’s Affordable Furthering Fair Housing rule means that cities and neighborhoods cannot use single-family zoning to keep affordable housing at bay.

As cities confront the growing nationwide housing crisis, there will be both a need and a market for building more densely, even in the most precious neighborhoods. Historic preservation is a tool better used to protect community assets, not private assets. Historic preservation is a tool better used to safeguard the historical resources in which everyone can take pride—not the historical resources that were only ever allotted to winners by race-based housing policies.

It’s always nice when an author just comes right out and says what he/she really wants to say. While the author didn’t exactly do that, he came close by just spitting out whatever he thought might stick… Supreme Court! Disparate impact! Wealthy communities! Single-family zoning! Nationwide housing crisis! The end [mic drop].

There is indeed a nationwide housing crisis. My generation is saddled with debt, over-educated, and more often than not living at home in the ‘rents basement. I’d be doing that myself if the family basement wasn’t already snagged…by my little brother…so alas, I venture out into the cold in the Rust Belt, where Millennials actually can make it these days. Michigan and Wisconsin are in the Rust Belt, and Michigan is a place I go often. Have even worked on some projects pertaining to its communities and have networked with many of its housing/development/planning professionals. They do good work Up North, and withstand a lot of blows from the Snyder regime. HP has always been under fire with this regime, and generally if Rick Snyder doesn’t like you, you must be doing something right!

Michigan history is on the downward slide, but don’t worry: “Right idea for the wrong reasons!” -CityLab

One of Snyder’s first actions was eliminating the historic tax credit (which was a blow to every community in the state, esp Detroit), which he then followed-up with a new rule that HUD’s Hardest Hit Funds need not undergo a Section 106 Review. Sec. 106 is a SHPO review process that all federally-funded projects undergo in order to ensure our taxpayer dollars aren’t irreparably leveling cities left and right. We try to keep the wanton destruction to a minimum, but what can ya do? Snyder’s 2nd move was to expedite the extent to which HUD money can be used to dynamite what’s left of Detroit, basically. Now the latest is the proposal to “ban” historic districts, which is really just the hat trick! For you southerners, that means a 3-fer. What-a-deal (if you hate history). I drew the above handy diagram in case the direction of this arc is lost on you.

Furthermore, the article shows zero understanding of how community development in the Midwest works. The assumption is that the wealthy are clinging to their historic homes or moving in en masse, pushing out the poor, and giving us the nationwide affordability crisis.

Actually what is happening is that cities are clinging for dear life, desperate for families to move back, regardless of socioeconomic background. Historic districts in the Midwest aren’t bucolic small towns inside the big cities. In reality they are full of life and diversity. They are the densest parts of Midwestern cities. They are a home for immigrant communities, creative class, young professionals, and minority families – all of whom call each other neighbors. They are what is working amidst a lot of dysfunction in our cities. According to this Fannie Mae report, historic rehabilitation accounts for 50-60% of all construction activity in Baltimore, Cleveland, Detroit, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and D.C. It is nearly 80% of what is happening in St. Louis.

As for Detroit, you better go see it now, because if the State of Michigan gets its way, there won’t be much left. In Detroit, historic districts are actually the only stable parts of the city. I would argue that anything that can provide stability in that city is a good thing. According to this article, historic designation has largely kept foreclosures out of historic districts. It has also injected these communities with federal historic tax credit equity, that they are desperately in need of. State tax credit equity was also brought forth by historic designations, before Snyder killed that. It’s not just Detroit, either. This is typical of every large Midwestern city with declining or stable growth. It’s called “asset-based revitalization,” which is the strategy where you work with the people and the building you already got.

Cass Corridor Neighborhood Development Corporation and Midtown Detroit Inc. are teaming up to rehab several old decades-empty buildings into quality affordable housing, using both federal historic (not possible without historic designation) and low-income housing tax credits. Read about this project and see more photos on MLive.com.

Not only are these Rust Belt historic districts NOT pushing poor people out, they have actually been one of our best strategies to repopulate inner city neighborhoods. In almost every case, these neighborhoods are growing more income-diverse, which is exactly the goal of Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing. Before you cite policy, you might actually want to read the policy. Not only are these neighborhoods attractive for affordable housing projects (I believe in putting affordable housing in good communities, but that’s just me), but oftentimes historic tax credits and low-income housing tax credits work together. In Ohio, Round 15 of Historic Preservation Tax Credits (the most recent) alone made possible $32.5 million in rural affordable housing, where the need is greatest in our state.

@belt_magazine @iamemenhiser @PresDetroit @jarjoh Grand Rapids for starters (that's where the MI bill came from)

— Kriston Capps (@kristoncapps) January 30, 2016

During a twitter exchange with the author, I and Belt Magazine asked him where in Michigan have historic districts pushed out the poor? He offered Grand Rapids. Again, Reeeeeeesearch man. It turns out that in Grand Rapids, historic districts are gaining safe, decent, affordable housing in the 100s of units. This article alone cites several concrete examples that combine historic and affordable. I could go on ad nauseum, but instead Let ME Google This For You. In the Midwest we’re big on teaching people (pundits) to fish (research on their own). Wait no, he only meant that Grand Rapids spawned the Michigan GOP. Not sure what that has to do with the price of rice in China, but the more you know!

@belt_magazine @iamemenhiser @PresDetroit @jarjoh I'm only saying that GR is where the GOP was born in MI. In WIS I believe it was De Pere.

— Kriston Capps (@kristoncapps) January 30, 2016

Many state historic tax credit programs actually have an inclusionary affordable requirement, which is as much as anyone can do to combat the nationwide affordable housing crisis. You can look that up on the Novoco website. In the end, fixing this problem won’t come from finding a panacea. The problems are multi-faceted, and so must be the solution. What is working, ie historic preservation, must be a part of that calculus. Killing historic districts isn’t just throwing the baby out with the bathwater; it’s throwing the bathwater out with the baby.