Post #5: Cities and the COVID-19 Aftermath

It has been about 7 weeks since cities and states got serious about canceling events, closing non-essential businesses, and issuing stay-at-home orders in response to the COVID-19 virus. Testing is still problematic -- too few tests being done and too many false negatives being reported. The little random-sample testing that has been done seems to show that a significant number of people have been infected but suffered such mild symptoms that they didn’t realize they were sick. On balance, people are still dying and I don’t think anyone really knows the true extent of this pandemic or whether significant progress has been made in stemming its spread. Still, conversations are starting about loosening restrictions so that the economy can start to recover.

What will urban life be like as we slowly emerge from our quasi-isolation? The current crop of predictions range from “life returns to normal in a few months” to “this is the apocalypse and cities will never be the same.” As is usually the case, reality will probably be some place in the middle, but I’m leaning toward the pessimistic end of the scale. I think a recovery to anything that resembles 2019 is two or three years out, and some things may change permanently. Businesses and city governments need to develop a long-term strategy for survival in an environment of substantially reduced revenue. All is not lost, however. People are resilient, cities are essential to our civilization, and opportunities for progress do exist and will continue to pop up in unexpected places.

I am going to focus my thoughts on the next couple of years, with an occasional side note when I see a change that I think might be permanent or at least very long term. I have grouped my discussion into four broad categories that each contain several interlocking trends or outcomes. Interestingly, many of the trends existed for years but are being amplified or accelerated by the pandemic. Consequently, cities that have been actively preparing for the future (as opposed to simply doing what they have always done) may prove to be more resilient.

The Retail Apocalypse Perhaps the economic sector that has been hardest hit by COVID-19 has been retailing. Most stores were deemed “non-essential” and forced to close temporarily. Those who had a well-developed online presence may have been able to limp along and a few may have even thrived, but for the vast majority this has been a very hard time and many retailers will never recover.

Let’s start by looking at the state of the retail economy prior to the virus. To begin with, the US has been “over retailed” for many years which meant that many stores were just marginally profitable. Overly aggressive expansion plans or leveraged buy-outs resulted in many companies being up to their eyeballs in debt. And to cap it off, online retailing was slowly eroding sales in many brick-and-mortar stores. Consequently, even before the pandemic, numerous national chains were closing stores in massive numbers (e.g. Sears, K-Mart, Payless ShoeSource, Gymboree, Walgreens, Dress Barn, Family Dollar, Gap, GameStop, Forever 21, etc.). Many mom-and-pop retailers were struggling as well, primarily because retailing is a tough business and mom-and-pop operations are almost always on the edge of disaster. 

Recent events will dramatically accelerate the existing trends. The weaker retailers will go out of business entirely and even relatively stable retailers are likely to shutter their worst performing locations. Although retailing will eventually recover, that could take years and in the meantime there are a variety of issues that cities will face.

First, sales tax revenue will plummet -- early estimates suggest that a 10 to 20 percent decline in 2020 revenues is possible. Cities will need to find ways to adjust their budget while still providing essential services. Big-budget, capital improvement projects are the most likely targets although cities need to avoid cutting projects, if possible, that are important for future economic growth.

Second, cities need to get serious about lobbying state governments for legislation requiring online merchants to collect sales tax at both the state and local level. Sales tax compliance is a major headache for online retailers so cities and states should cooperate in producing and freely sharing the types of databases needed to link the shipping address to the appropriate sales tax rate. Do whatever needs to be done because capturing sales tax for online transactions is essential to the future economic health of nearly every major city.

Third, there are going to be a lot of vacant retail storefronts. Over time, retailers will consolidate into the strongest shopping centers and districts. Weaker centers will either be largely vacant and slide into blight or will be populated with third-tier businesses paying bargain basement rents. Cities should avoid using tax incentives or special taxing districts to try to save every shopping center. The hard truth is that some shopping areas need to fail so that they can be redeveloped as something else. Commercial property owners will resist this trend and propose half-baked schemes to buy time -- cities should just say “no.”

The Rise of Germaphobia A Harris Poll conducted in early March found that over half of adults were afraid of dying from the COVID-19 virus. That fear is not going to go away quickly or easily. This isn’t really a new trend either. Germaphobia (perhaps more accurately referred to as Mysophobia) has grown over the past decade or so as Purell pumps have proliferated throughout office buildings and public facilities, especially during flu season. The current virus, of course, is more lethal than most and so has people particularly on edge. I still can’t buy disinfecting hand soap in my local supermarket.

As workplace closures and stay-at-home orders are eased, many people will be reluctant to return to business as usual. Social distancing is now an ingrained habit with proven effectiveness and it may take years before people are willing to pack themselves into a concert venue, or spend hours in a crowded bar, or even shake hands with a stranger. The businesses and facilities that will do the best are the ones that are sensitive to this fear and proactive at making visible changes in response.

Restaurants, for example, should make reductions in seating capacity that are significant enough that they are immediately obvious to regular patrons who return after the shutdown.  Owners will hate the loss of potential revenue that will come from this strategy, but it will be better than a restaurant that people avoid because they are uncomfortable. Similarly, every office building, government facility or retail shop should make sure that every clerk or receptionist has a spray bottle of disinfectant or a box of Clorox wipes so they can be wiping down public surfaces whenever they are not tied up with a customer.

Keep in mind that no one can actually see whether a particular surface or a particular room is virus-laden, so from a logical point-of-view, extra cleaning efforts may not be worth the effort. One infected person can destroy hours of cleaning. But this is a situation in which perception is reality. People are more likely to frequent places that are perceived as being “sanitary” and where efforts at cleanliness are obvious, regardless of whether those efforts are truly effective. Many businesses and organizations would probably benefit from increasing their janitorial staff or increasing the hours spent on-site by their cleaning services. Schedule cleaning during business hours so that customers see cleaning work being done. Again, this is about building a perception that your facility is clean and that you are going to great lengths to keep it clean.

The germophobia trend will be particularly hard on transit services and on facilities that host large gatherings (e.g. theaters, live music venues, public markets, churches, sports arenas, fitness centers, etc.). These facilities by their very nature tend to be effective conduits for spreading germs so they will need to be creative at finding ways to encourage at least some social distancing. Unfortunately, they may not fully recover until a vaccine is found.

Governments and many private organizations will need to use technology to restructure public meetings. It will be one thing to simply stream live video from meetings so that people can see what is going on, but it will be more difficult to find ways to get effective public input and to facilitate true public discussion.

Re-Thinking Work and Learning One silver lining from the pandemic mess is that it has forced people to explore the technology for remote work and remote learning. This is not to say that everything has been wonderful and that no one will want to return to their normal office or their normal school. The percentage of the population that is disciplined enough to really be productive working from home over an extended period of time is definitely less than 50 percent and even people who are disciplined enough to get work done at home probably miss the face-to-face social interactions that the office provides. Remote learning, in particular, requires discipline and initiative that most children don’t have and it requires teachers to structure their lessons in very different ways.

But what has happened is that many people who would not have considered working or learning from home have now been exposed to the available technology and have learned that it is possible. The combination of new software options and faster internet connection speeds in most urban homes means that things are possible now that would not have been possible even a few years ago. This forced experiment in remote work will be particularly eye-opening for managers who may have previously downplayed working from home as an excuse to goof off.

To take advantage of it, however, managers will be forced to adjust the way that work is assigned, the way that progress and obstacles are managed, and the way that productivity is measured. For those willing to figure out the details, a new option is now available that may change our definition of “office” or “school.” Again, this isn’t really new. All of this was gaining ground before recent events, but the pandemic has accelerated the trend and expanded it in new ways.

So what does this mean for cities? I suspect that many white collar jobs will get a noticeable jump in work schedule flexibility. Instead of a rigid 8-to-5 requirement to be in the office (plus, in many cases, after-hours work as well), it will become increasingly acceptable to work from home certain days or certain times during the day. This, in turn, may end up altering rush hour traffic patterns. Even if only 10 or 15 percent of office workers opted to start their day working from home (e.g. checking emails, doing research, or polishing a presentation) it would make a significant impact on traffic congestion. Would cities reduce the priority of road widening projects as a result? Many midwestern cities have designed their road networks specifically to handle rush hour traffic even though that means that most streets and highways are grossly underutilized for the vast majority of the day. Spreading out the normal work commute from a one-hour window to a two- or -three hour window, or reducing the number of people who go into the office at all, would make our utilization of street infrastructure far more efficient and ultimately reduce the per capita cost of that municipal investment.

Second, the expanded use of remote work or learning technologies will likely lead to a re-thinking of office space or school space requirements. The concept of “office hoteling” is already fairly common in big cities on both coasts where office space is very expensive. The idea is that most professional workers will no longer have a fixed office, cubicle or desk assigned exclusively to them. Instead, a corporate software system will allow them to reserve a work space and equipment on an as-needed basis. Alternatively, companies may make greater use of “team rooms” or other types of collaborative spaces that use less floor area per employee. If you need privacy to focus on a difficult task, then work from home.

Companies were already finding ways to shrink the amount of office space per employee, this simply accelerates the trend. The result is that companies may reduce their office footprint, or at least grow it more slowly, thus resulting in overall office space demand growing at a lower rate than it has in the past.

Finally, cities may need to rethink their position relative to the telecommunication companies working in their jurisdiction. Many midwestern cities already feel “under siege” from the pressure to approve and monitor the variety of requests to install new fiber optic lines or small-cell antenna systems that are necessary for the 5G service that every cell phone provider is anxious to roll out. Such construction projects are often widely unpopular with citizens because they are messy and ugly, and it is unpopular with municipal employees because it often causes conflicts with other existing infrastructure systems. Instead of dragging their feet, however, perhaps cities should embrace and facilitate new internet communication infrastructure as a way to differentiate their city in the race for the next generation of information-age jobs and workers. Having a robust communication infrastructure might become the economic equivalent of previous generations getting a rail line, or airline service, or interstate highway access.

The downside is that all of this exacerbates the digital divide issues that our society currently is facing. If poor communities are slow to get 5G infrastructure or poor households cannot afford 5G service, are we perpetuating a “rich get richer” trend? I don’t have an answer to that problem, but I think cities need to address it in their social equity strategies.

Density and Design Already some commentators have speculated that the pandemic would not have been so severe if cities were less dense. They point to New York City, Detroit, Chicago, Seattle and Los Angeles which have been particularly hard hit with COVID-19 deaths as proof of their theory. Given how little hard data we have on what factors affected the spread of the virus, I think such speculation is extremely premature. While density may end up being a contributor to some degree, I suspect that other factors -- such as large areas of concentrated poverty -- will prove to have a far more powerful explanatory impact.

Blaming density is also rather pointless. No one is going to use public health dollars to tear down skyscrapers so that the next pandemic won’t be so bad. Cities are here to stay. In fact, cities have been and are likely to continue to be the economic engine that powers the world economy. There is an undeniable link between the density that cities provide and the creation of innovative ideas. As Matt Ridley put it “cities are where ideas go to have sex.” (1)

Still, the pandemic has highlighted a few issues of urban design that could stand to be improved. Chief among them, in my opinion, is the public space/private space dichotomy that has become increasing severe over the past few decades. Streets, sidewalks, parks and plazas are almost always considered public -- almost anyone can go there and nearly anything is allowed to happen. Inside a building or behind a wall is normally considered private, where your presence and behavior are subject to the control of the owner or tenants. That is all fine except that public to private should be a scale, not a black and white dichotomy. To put this in pandemic terms, public spaces are uncontrolled and dangerous, but interesting; while private spaces are safe but isolating. What has become obvious in recent weeks is that one of the keys to maintaining your sanity has been the discovery of semi-private spaces where social interaction can occur, but in a reasonably safe and controllable way.

In my hometown of Kansas City, the older neighborhoods in particular seem to have more porches, balconies, decks and patios that function as semi-private spaces that allow informal conversations to take place between neighbors. In newer neighborhoods, there are front yards and mini-porches, but they serve mainly as a buffer between the street and the house -- they are rarely used for any purpose involving human activity. Outdoor spaces tend to be in backyards that are isolated from the neighborhood.

Commercial property can also have a range of semi-private spaces, typically in the form of a courtyard, atrium or formal lobby. Unfortunately, many property owners see these areas as unproductive space and so more modern buildings have tended to minimize these areas as much as possible.

Although the problem has been highlighted by the current pandemic, it isn’t really a health issue, it is an issue of good urban design. When there is a range of interesting spaces spanning public to private, cities are much more livable and, as it turns out, more resilient to the occasional pandemic as well.


Thoughts? As always, share your thoughts and ideas by leaving a comment below or sending me an email at doug@midwesturbanism.com.


Notes:

Matt Ridley, The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves, 2010

Post #4: Demographics and Urban Form - Part I

“Why are so many apartments being built”?

I would be willing to bet that this is the most common question city planners in the Midwest have gotten from non-planners over the past few years. A full answer to this question would have to reference several different factors, but one of the primary ones is a demographic trend that I want to explore in greater detail in today’s posting.

The decline in household size is a long-standing trend that all planners should be familiar with and it has gotten enough publicity that most members of the public are probably somewhat aware of it as well. But I think that most people, even professionals, don’t appreciate the impact that this trend should have on cities in the long term.

This chart looks at just two slices of this trend to illustrate in clear terms the exact scope of what has happened. Very small households consisting of just one person have grown from roughly 13 percent of all households in 1960 to more than 28 percent in 2019. (1) At the same time, large households (five or more people) have moved in a nearly opposite manner, declining from nearly 23 percent of all households in 1960 to less than 10 percent today. This demographic trend stands in stark contrast to what I think most people view as the predominant housing form in midwestern cities. I think that most people assume that the predominant housing type is, or at least should be, single family homes.

I should point out that this trend is not limited just to the extremes. The percentage of households containing two people has also been growing, and represents the single largest share of total households (34.5%). The percentage of households containing either three people or four people (mid-sized, if you will) has been falling, although not as quickly as the percentage of large households. The bottom line is that the “typical” household now is smaller than would rationally require a single-family home, and yet our housing policies and much of our city planning efforts don’t seem to reflect this reality.

It is tempting to discount the small-household phenomenon in two ways. First, some might assume that it is a temporary condition that people generally would avoid if they could. In other words, people might be living alone now but in a relatively short period of time they will become part of a larger household. For some households, this is true -- a young, single person might get married and start having children, for example. But the larger trend is not temporary. People are choosing to live in one- or two-person households with no real intention of changing. In fact, the percentage of people living alone increases as income increases. People don’t live alone because they are forced to, they seem to prefer privacy in their living arrangements and they purchase this privacy by living alone as their economic resources increase. (2)

Second, it is often assumed that people living alone are a relatively narrow subset of the general population -- recent college grads just starting their career or empty-nesters, for example. Again, there is a larger trend that goes unappreciated. A hundred years ago, most single-person households were young males but today the gender split is nearly even and actually favors women (54%). Similarly, there is no concentration in terms of age. Thirty six percent of single-person households are between 45 and 64 years of age, matching the percentage that are 65 and older, and exceeding the share that are 44 and younger. (3) People who live in small households are not just young people starting a career or elderly spinsters, they are people of all ages, all genders, and all races who choose to live in small households for a wide variety of reasons.

Where this demographic trend intersects urban form is in the range of housing options. In midwestern cities, the most widely produced housing types are large, single family homes and apartments (including condominiums in an apartment style building). Single family homes, of course, can come in a wide variety of sizes and designs, but the reality is that only 10 percent of new single family homes are built with either one or two bedrooms. And although multi-family housing can come in a wide variety of forms, the reality in midwestern cities is that over 90 percent of multi-family units are in apartment projects containing 10 or more units. (4) While there is nothing wrong with either large single family homes or traditional apartment buildings, my contention is that these two housing forms do not effectively meet the wide variety of housing needs or preferences that are contained within the small-household demographic.

It is my belief that small households -- now comprising more than half of all households in this country -- should be able to choose from a much wider variety of housing forms that can supply the amenities and features that they want without forcing them to purchase more housing size than they need or packaging them into apartment communities that don’t meet their lifestyle preferences.

The reason that a wider variety of housing isn’t being produced is that our current housing industry -- including municipal housing regulations -- is still dominated by systems optimized for suburban style development. That may have been fine 40 years ago when demographic trends were different but it does not meet today’s needs. Those
systems are good for large developers who produce housing “at scale” but they do not incentivize small developers producing creative housing options for the numerous demographic niches that small households tend to form. In fact, rather than being incentivized, small developers often face obstacles that large developers do not.

Prior to the suburbanization phase of urban development, cities generally contained a wide variety of moderate density housing types that are rarely produced today. Quite a bit has been written about this so-called “missing middle” but few steps have been taken to actually encourage it to be built again. In this posting I don’t have room to describe all of the possible options for housing that could be beneficial for small households, but I will go over a couple of options that can serve as examples.

Accessory Dwelling Units The first option is what is known in planner jargon as an Accessory Dwelling Unit or ADU. This is an idea that has actually been around for centuries, going back to large estates that had servant’s quarters over the carriage house or a gardener’s cottage in the backyard. More recently, they have been used for elderly relatives and commonly referred to as “granny flats.” Now they are starting to be used simply as another way to meet the demand for relatively affordable housing in existing neighborhoods.

Nelson/Pitt/Mix Accessory Dwelling

An ADU is simply a second living unit added to an existing single family home. It can be in the form of an apartment carved out from a large home or constructed as an addition to the main house, but more commonly it is a separate structure built in the backyard. A typical ADU is roughly the size of a large, two-car garage and is generally one or two stories in height. Even though accessory buildings, such as detached garages, sheds or workshops, are almost universally allowed in single family zoning districts, accessory dwellings are typically banned in midwestern cities. And yet where they have been tried, the overall impact on the community has generally been positive.

The advantages are numerous. To begin with, the small size is often the perfect match for the needs of a small household. Second, they don’t require the building of new streets, water mains or streetlights, thus adding to the assessed value of a neighborhood without adding to the infrastructure that needs to be maintained by the city. Third, they typically require new construction or extensive remodelling which means they have the latest appliances, high energy efficiency, and can be designed to be handicapped accessible. Fourth, they are typically added to existing neighborhoods which means they are perfect for nearby households looking to downsize but wanting to maintain their social networks and neighborhood familiarity. Finally, they can serve as a
secondary source of income for the occupants of the main structure, thus increasing housing affordability in a different way.

Cottage Courts  This second option is a new spin on an old concept where small, single family homes are clustered around a shared open space. Although not as common as accessory dwelling units, cottage courts are gaining popularity particularly in the northwest due to the work of architect Ross Chapin. In addition to developing several cottage court projects, he has also authored a book on the subject called “Pocket Neighborhoods: Creating Small-Scale Community in a Large-Scale World” (2011).

Ross Chapin Cottage Court

Once again, the homes in a cottage court are typically quite small -- perhaps 800 to 2,000 square feet -- and consequently can fit the needs of small households better than traditional single family homes which now are typically being built at 4,000 square feet and up. In addition, the shared open space means that the land area per dwelling is also very small, generally 3,000 to 4,000 square feet. Enough area to allow your pet to get some exercise or to indulge in some gardening, but not so much that it becomes an economic burden. This means that a cottage court can reach the density of a small apartment building (8 to 12 units per acre) while using a single family form that is generally more acceptable to existing neighborhoods. It also lends itself to shared contracts for landscape and exterior maintenance, thus relieving small households of maintenance chores that they typically have no interest in performing themselves.

Perhaps best of all, cottage courts promote at least some degree of socializing between the various households. While many small households might not feel the need to socialize with their physical neighbors, social isolation is a concern for a certain subset of households, particularly for those who live alone. The cottage court layout lends itself to casual conversations as you come and go, which also means that someone is more likely to check on you if they don’t see you for several days.

The problem is that cottage courts do not fit neatly into the vast majority of zoning regulations, particularly when such developments are proposed in existing neighborhoods which is where they logically belong. They are likely to either not be permitted at all or permitted only with a variety of variances or zoning adjustments. If the units are going to be owner occupied, there are likely to be similar problems with subdividing the property because of the unconventional lot layout. By not following the conventional pattern for single family homes, cottage courts not only run into problems
with governmental approvals, but their individual buyers may have difficulty finding a financial institution that will give them a conventional mortgage at competitive rates.

Conclusions The easiest way to be a successful developer is to mimic successful developments that have been done by others in the past. It simplifies the process of getting development approvals, arranging financing, and finding buyers because everyone understands what it is you want to do. The system breaks down, however, when societal needs change and the housing that is being produced no longer matches the characteristics of new households.

Sure, small households can adapt to old housing formats. An elderly couple can live in a four bedroom house despite the maintenance burdens that result from that choice. And a single parent with a school-aged kid can live in an apartment complex despite the lack of amenities for children. But why shouldn’t there be more options that might better meet their needs?

The housing options that are typically built today are only partially a result of developers supplying what the market demands -- they are also the result of governmental, financial and marketing systems that warp supply to what was common in the past rather than what will be needed in the future. We are fitting square pegs into round holes because we are really good at creating round holes, instead of breaking out of the box and learning to create holes of different sizes and shapes.

Fifty years ago, society encouraged conformity and the result was subdivision after subdivision of nearly identical houses. Our society now celebrates diversity and it is time for the housing stock of our cities to reflect that change.



Thoughts? As always, share your thoughts and ideas by leaving a comment below or sending me an email at doug@midwesturbanism.com.


Notes:
  (1)  US Census Bureau, Current Population Survey

  (2)  Rose Kreider and Jonathan Vespa, “The Changing Face of Living Alone, 1880 - 2010”, September 2013

  (3)  George Masnick, “The Rise of the Single Person Household”, May 2015, Harvard University Joint Center for Housing Studies

  (4)US Census Bureau, Characteristics of New Housing

Post #3: Evaluating Transportation Options

In an earlier blog, I referred to our current urban transportation system as dysfunctional, and I stand by that description. Our current system, of course, is largely based on privately owned automobiles and a heavily subsidized network of streets and bridges. To be clear, private cars are terrific at fulfilling certain transportation needs in certain situations. In fact, if you could only pick one transportation option which had to meet all of your transportation needs, most people would choose a private automobile and that choice would be perfectly rational.

The problem is that there is no need to restrict ourselves to only one transportation option, although that is what many of us have chosen to do. In order to make that one tool work, we have made numerous compromises in our daily lives, and governments at all levels have made extraordinary investments and decisions in support of that singular tool. The result is a system that works best for people who are reasonably affluent, but increasingly doesn’t even work that well for them. No matter how nice a car you drive, you still probably spend much more time than you would like stuck in traffic or searching for a parking space.

Up until the past few years, the transportation options that were available were somewhat limited and the collective decision to focus on the automobile may have been the best choice for many communities. Transportation options have blossomed in recent years, however, and even more options are on the way. We need to create an urban environment in which people have a range of transportation options that can respond to the range of transportation needs that each of us face on a regular basis.

If we are going to evaluate various options, it would be helpful to have criteria to base evaluations on. Below are ten criteria that make sense to me, but they are not weighted for importance (although they are clearly not all the same importance) nor are they listed in any particular order. In fact, the appropriate weight for each criteria will change based on the requirements of different types of trips and the varying needs of different people.

Speed. Although pop culture therapists tell us to “enjoy the journey,” most of us don’t care about the journey -- we want to get to the destination as quickly as possible. The sooner I can get to my destination, the better.

Convenience. None of us need more stress in our lives, so we prefer modes of transportation that are relatively easy to use and reasonably reliable. Unfortunately, this criteria can be fairly variable. Modes of travel that are generally hassle-free can occasionally fall apart due to unpredictable problems (e.g. traffic jams, mechanical problems, demand surges, etc.).

Trip Length/Destination Flexibility. Some trips are short and others are long, and for some trips we don’t know the length when we start. There is a value to having the flexibility to change our trip destination and to being able to handle a trip with multiple stops using one transportation mode.

Safety. This is another pretty obvious criteria, but one which we probably don’t give enough thought to in our decision-making process.

Cost. Again, an obvious criteria but one which we often sacrifice for one or more of the other criteria if we have sufficient resources. A complicating factor here is that there are short-term costs (e.g. the cost of gas or the cost of a bus pass) and there are long-term costs (e.g., vehicle depreciation), and there is a human tendency to overweight short-term costs and underweight long-term ones.

Weather Resistance. Those of us who live in the midwest are used to adjusting our lives to adapt to changing weather conditions. Transportation options that work well in all forms of weather are a definite plus.

Environmental Impact. This is one of those criteria that many people, including me, think should be important, but we are likely to sacrifice it for speed and convenience in our daily decision making. So it could be argued that it really isn’t all that important in the end, but a more rational assessment might be that this is another example of people discounting long-term costs. Given two options that are otherwise relatively equal, the more environmentally friendly of the two would probably have an advantage.

Health Impact. This is probably not a criteria that most people associate with their transportation decisions, but different transportation options do have differing impacts on our physical and mental health. Granted, this is probably low on most people’s list of priorities but it might move up as more is learned about the impact of our sedentary lifestyle on our longevity and happiness.

Carrying Capacity. This is an important differentiator when different types of trips are being considered. A commute to work might involve just a briefcase or a lunch sack, but at other times a person might need to transport three kids to a soccer game or pick up four sheets of plywood from the lumber yard.

Fun. This is a highly subjective factor but I don’t think it can be ignored. Some people love to drive their car or ride their bike, and that has an impact on their transportation choices.

In future posts, I plan to use these criteria to do some in-depth evaluations of various transportation and lifestyle options. But for now, I’m going to apply them in a very generalized way to the transportation option that most of us rely upon on a daily basis: the privately owned automobile. This will be a very simplified analysis with very generalized trip assumptions -- an average family in an average midwestern city doing trips with typical household purposes -- and I’m not going to do any type of sophisticated scoring. Instead, I’m simply going to base my evaluation on a four-point scale: very positive, somewhat positive, somewhat negative, and very negative.

Very Positive. In this category I would put the criteria of Speed, Trip Length/Destination Flexibility, and Weather Resistance. Obviously, there are situations in which the car falls short in each of these three criteria, but generally a privately owned car does better than just about any other mode of transportation and meets the needs of the vast majority of trips for the vast majority of people.

Somewhat Positive. In this category, I would put Convenience, Safety and Carrying Capacity. I suspect many of you would second guess these rankings. A lot of people, for example, would probably say that a car is very convenient and has excellent carrying capacity. I would argue, however, that there are quite a few inconveniences associated with car ownership that we have simply gotten used to (e.g., parking, breakdowns, routine maintenance, etc.) and so we tend to under-weight them. I downgraded carrying capacity because we generally oversupply carrying capacity which is much more inefficient that we typically realize. On the vast majority of our trips, most of the seats are unoccupied and most of the cargo area is empty. Other people might question my decision to put safety in this category given the large number of injuries and deaths caused by cars. My response is that if you control for the number of miles traveled (e.g. vehicle fatalities per million miles traveled), automobile travel has been getting safer over time which makes me conclude that the car has perhaps a worse reputation than it really deserves.

Somewhat Negative. The only criteria I would rate in this category are Health Impact and Fun. There are no positive health benefits to be had from getting behind the wheel and the grind of rush hour traffic is an almost daily source of stress. And my personal opinion is that driving isn’t very fun anymore, although many would disagree with me.

Very Negative. That leaves Cost and Environmental Impact for this last category. Again, some of you might think I’m being overly negative on both counts. Auto exhaust has gotten significantly cleaner over the years but it is still a major source of pollution, and that doesn’t take into consideration the pollution caused by fuel extraction and refining, or by the automobile manufacturing process. The shift to electric vehicles may improve the environmental impact but it won’t go away entirely until power generation stops relying on fossil fuels and the battery manufacturing process becomes more environmentally sustainable. Cost is another factor that we probably underestimate simply because we have gotten used to those costs as being a necessary part of daily life. But the cost of driving a car is substantial, particularly if you include the indirect costs of parking, road construction and repair, time lost in traffic and vehicle depreciation. In future posts I will return to the issue of cost and its impact on our society.

On balance, it is fairly easy to make the argument that car travel has more going for it than against it -- and in a general sense I agree. I’m certainly not planning on giving up my car any time soon. But there is a significant problem: we have extrapolated from “the automobile is a reasonable choice for many types of trips” to “the automobile is the only logical choice for nearly every trip.”

Once we made that leap, we started building cities in a way that enhanced automotive travel at the expense of nearly every other mode of transportation. What once was an enticing option has now become a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you don’t have a car, living in a midwestern city is hard. And if you do have a car, your lifestyle options are defined by that choice regardless of whether you would like options that provide some exercise, or don’t pollute, or don’t cost so much. Want to ride your bike to work? Good luck with that.

This automotive version of the Faustian bargain is particularly hard on people who cannot drive for one of a variety of reasons -- too young, too old, too poor, too disabled or whatever. Midwestern cities largely fail these people because our cities are shaped almost exclusively around automotive travel. What is probably less appreciated is that in some ways our cities are failing all of us. It is time for the transportation pendulum to swing back toward a more balanced range of transportation options. Unfortunately, cities don’t change very quickly and not every neighborhood will want or need every possible option. But it is time for us to insist that at least some part of every city be given the form and infrastructure to reflect and encourage the full range of transportation choice.

Thoughts? As always, share your thoughts and ideas by leaving a comment below or sending me an email at doug@midwesturbanism.com.

Post #2: Confusing homogeneity with compatibility

Forgive me, father, for I have sinned.

One of the disadvantages of a long career in city planning is that I have started to realize all the stupid things I did when I was first starting out. For example, I used to firmly believe in the wisdom of zoning large chunks of land to a single zoning district that allowed a very limited range of uses. At the same time, I would warn against the dire consequences that would come from allowing “spot zoning” to ruin an otherwise pristine development. What better way to make sure that all development within a particular area was compatible than to insist that it all be essentially homogeneous.



The predictable results were large single family subdivisions where simply buying a jug of milk required a 10-minute drive. Or large office parks that were virtually deserted from 6 PM to 7 AM the next morning. Or large industrial parks that never fully developed because there simply wasn’t enough demand for the limited range of allowable uses.

Yes, I and my planning brethren minimized many land use conflicts. But in turn, we helped create a boring and dysfunctional urban form. In seeking the ultimate level of compatibility between properties, we failed to see the downside of homogeneity. There is a reason why nature rarely produces an area populated by a single type of plant or animal -- it doesn’t work well and it doesn’t last long. Ecologists and horticulturalists will tell you that even something as cherished as our front lawn (a homogeneous mono-culture of a single type of plant) is probably a bad idea. (Our Lawns Are Killing Us. It’s Time to Kick the Habit.) In land use terms, we have created an urban form that is not very resilient to economic or social change.

I agree that minimizing land use conflicts is a noble and worthwhile goal. I wouldn’t want my home to be next to the proverbial smoke-belching factory or even a fast food restaurant with a drive-thru lane. But preventing that problem does not require that everything be the same. There are numerous land use combinations that, while different, are compatible in terms of intensity and operational characteristics. There is nothing wrong (and several things that are “right”) with mixing offices and certain types of retail development or multi-family development. Historically, many communities allowed different residential formats to be mixed together into a single neighborhood and increasingly cities are re-introducing that idea into their zoning regulations (e.g. the City of Minneapolis). In fact, I grew up in a single family home that was across the street from two stately, 6-unit apartment buildings and around the corner from a mom-and-pop grocery store -- it seemed perfectly normal at the time.

To be slightly more precise, minimizing land use conflicts is really about reducing or eliminating what economists refer to as a negative externality. In case you have forgotten, a negative externality is a cost incurred by a third party who did not choose to incur that cost and has no control (or limited control) over that cost. Furthermore, the creator of the cost does not incur the cost and so considers it to be “external” to the optimization of their economic returns. Sorry -- I know that probably doesn't make much sense to most people. So let's turn it into an example: if I own a house and a fast food restaurant is built next door, the noise, lights and exhaust fumes from the restaurant and drive-thru lane interrupt my sleep, lessen the enjoyment of my property, and reduce the value of my property when I am ready to sell -- all very real costs. The restaurant owner, on the other hand, has no economic incentive to minimize noise, lights or fumes -- those issues are not problematic for his restaurant and thus are external to his decision-making process. In fact, the restaurant owner would love to increase the number of drive-thru customers which would make all of my problems worse.

In response to the negative externalities created by incompatible land uses, cities created zoning regulations. Properties were zoned to a particular district designation and only land uses that were deemed compatible with one another were permitted in that district. Over time, zoning regulations become more and more fine grained and each district more and more limited in the range of permitted uses so that cities could exercise tighter and tighter control over possible conflicts. Generally speaking, this strategy was successful in minimizing what many people in my generation viewed as the land use chaos of central cities. Baby boomers abandoned the central city en masse for the structured orderliness of suburban zoning. Now, many in the millennial and gen-Z generations view the result as boring and socially stifling, and are choosing to live in the older parts of town because they like the energy and liveliness that come from land use diversity.

Furthermore, many of those homogeneous developments are now showing signs of economic distress because as they have aged and deteriorated, the same zoning regulations that protected them in the past now serve as obstacles to their revitalization. How many cities have a dead mall or half empty power center because the world of retailing has shifted and no one wants to occupy that type of space? How many older residential areas are slowly sliding into blight because there is very little economic incentive for owners to reinvest in their property since their options for reinvestment are so limited? Simply put, homogeneity is the enemy of economic resilience.

What might be worst of all, planners have trained the general public to believe that they must insist on homogeneity to protect their property values and the livability of their neighborhoods. Predictably, this is now being carried to ridiculous extremes where single family homeowners on one-acre lots are adamant that allowing single family homes in an adjacent subdivision to be on half-acre lots will ruin their property values and destroy the tranquility of their neighborhood. Or that allowing a moderate density, elderly housing project 1,000 feet away from their single family neighborhood will end civilization as we know it. Okay, I’m exaggerating slightly, but only slightly.

For many homeowners, their residence is their largest asset and their refuge from the stress of daily life. So it is natural to want to protect that. But by creating zoning districts and zoning patterns that promote homogeneity, we have implied that diversity is bad and the public now uses that as a rationale to resist nearly any type of change.

What is the solution?

Sorry, but I don’t really know how to remedy this situation in the short term. I’m not very good at combating irrational behavior and in many of the NIMBY zoning discussions, I think that is exactly where we are. I suspect that the only real solution will take many years of small, incremental steps. Here are some ideas on how to get started:

The Comprehensive Plan Many people want their city’s comprehensive plan to be a crystal ball that will tell them exactly how each portion of the city will develop in the future. That is an impossible task, of course, but planners give it their best effort and they try to compensate for their inability to predict the future by doing regular updates. I think a better approach would be for the plan to be less specific, focused more on the general character and level of intensity that is desired in a given area and less on the specific land uses that are expected. Whatever categories we use in the plan should encompass a variety of land uses that are consistent with the desired character and intensity but not strictly homogeneous unless it is absolutely necessary. I think it is better for the plan to be somewhat vague about the details so that the real “plan” is a framework for an ongoing community discussion about the future that can embrace unforeseen opportunities and respond to unexpected problems.

Promote the need for reinvestment The built environment lasts a long time -- so long, in fact, that most people view it as static or fixed. The reality is that as soon as a building is built it starts to decay. The built environment -- streets, houses, water lines, commercial buildings, bridges, and on and on -- needs continuous reinvestment or it will fall apart. Initially, that consists primarily of routine maintenance, and most people (and most cities) are pretty good at getting that work done. At some point, however, routine maintenance is not enough to preserve structural integrity (and/or economic utility) and some type of reconstruction or revision is needed. This step is expensive and it may necessitate land use or density changes which is where people tend to freak out. We need to educate the public (and civic leaders) on the dangers of continued decay/under-investment so that they can reasonably evaluate proposals for reinvestment/change.

Start where problems are obvious Change is hard. Convincing the leader of a neighborhood to embrace something other than traditional single family homes or convincing the owner of a shopping center to embrace something other than retail will be difficult. It will probably be easier, however, where there are obvious problems. Although even the leader of a declining neighborhood and the owner of a struggling shopping center will want to believe that some minor repairs and a fresh coat of paint will be sufficient to restore the former glory of their development, you may be able to convince them that there has been a fundamental shift which requires a new development strategy. Falling home values or a shift from owner occupied homes to absentee landlords are often signs that decay is outpacing reinvestment. The underlying cause may be that the demographics of the area have changed significantly or that the regional job market has shifted. Step back from the details of zoning and start talking about the realities of what the community is facing. Then talk about the values the community shares before discussing specific development options. If you find a neighborhood that is open to change, work really hard to make it successful and then use it as a model for change elsewhere.

In conclusion, I am not advocating that all neighborhoods should contain a wide variety of uses or that a declining area should welcome any kind of redevelopment or reinvestment. There are some neighborhoods where a limited range of land uses works well, and there are good forms of reinvestment and bad forms of reinvestment. What I am recommending is that we let the pendulum swing back toward an urban form which allows some areas to be more mixed and that, particularly for areas that are struggling, redevelopment options be considered which include both land use and density changes. We need to be open to building a new future rather than clinging blindly to the past.

Thoughts? As always, share your thoughts and ideas by leaving a comment below or sending me an email at doug@midwesturbanism.com.

Post #1: Midwestern Urbanism: What’s the point?

I believe that every blog should exist for a reason and have a distinctive focus that relates to that reason. In this first blog posting on the Midwest Urbanism site, I will explain that reason and the focus that future blog postings will follow and provide a general outline of the kinds of topics that you (the reader) can expect to see. I will also give you an overview of my background in case you are wondering why you should take my opinions seriously. Unfortunately, all of this means that this initial blog may be somewhat lengthy and dull -- I promise future posts will be more succinct and (hopefully) more lively.


Why does this blog exist?

It is my contention that cities are under growing pressure to change. Of course, cities are always changing -- demographics are shifting, old structures are deteriorating, and new structures are being built. But for the past 50 or 60 years, cities have been changing in a way that has been remarkably consistent across the country, and to a somewhat lesser extent, around the world. For lack of a better term, I’m going to refer to this current path of city development as “auto focused suburbanization.” And yes, there are some exceptions to this development pattern, but it has been so ubiquitous that many people assume that this pattern is somehow the natural order of things or that it exists because it is the most rational form of development as determined by the free market system that dominates western culture.

Balderdash. Throughout history, cities have always evolved to meet the needs of the society at that time -- economic needs, social needs, environmental needs and technological needs. The problem is that this evolution takes place so slowly that it is virtually invisible to the members of any given generation. It is only visible in hindsight when you examine a long span of history. But at some point, the economic, social, environmental or technological reasons for a particular urban form change, which in turn leads to the development of a new urban form. What I am going to argue is that we are at an inflection point in history. Our current form -- auto focused suburbanization -- is based on the societal needs of the 1950s, 60s and 70s. We have extended it another 40 years, well past its useful life. Times have changed and our cities need to change as well.

This blog exists because I intend to be an advocate for a new urban form. Throughout history, cities have been pushed to change by forces beyond their control and that change has often been traumatic and disruptive. There are always influential citizens who argue against change, often because they have a vested interest in the status quo, but also because change is hard. Eventually the forces of change win out and the urban form adjusts, but the pace of that change and the quality of that adjustment may determine urban “winners” and “losers” for that particular era. In addition, change often happens through a process of trial and error, with the “error” part of that process being particularly painful. As an advocate, I hope to provide support that will smooth the path for change, minimize equity issues, and provide ideas that I hope will reduce the “error” quotient associated with that change.

What I will not advocate for is a blind return to some fondly remembered past urban form. While we certainly can learn from the past, I believe that we need to define a new urban form that is different from anything that existed in the past.


My Focus

There is quite a lot being written about our urban form and the need for change. Much of it is focused on the larger metropolitan areas on the east and west coasts. As you might have guessed from the name, I intend to focus on mid-sized, Midwestern cities. I think that the ideas generated for New York City, Washington D.C., San Francisco or Los Angeles are often not directly applicable to Kansas City, Des Moines or Indianapolis. So I hope to write about ideas that I think are applicable in a Midwestern setting of 500,000 or 2 million, and let others worry about the coastal “mega-cities” of 5 million or 10 million or 20 million.

This focus is driven by the fact that the midwest is what I know and love. I was raised in Lincoln, Nebraska and have lived for the past 40+ years in the Kansas City area. And although I have traveled to cities all across the county, I have never seriously considered moving outside of the midwest.

But it is also driven by the belief that midwestern cities are an undervalued resource in this country. Omaha or Oklahoma City may not have gorgeous weather and scenic beaches of San Diego or the educational resources and high-tech buzz of Boston, but they have more to offer than many people realize and they don’t have many of the problems that threaten to make life in many large cities almost intolerable for all but the very affluent.


The Case for Change

Any advocate for change runs the risk of being written off as a hysterical prophet of doom, wildly exaggerating a few minor trends into apocalyptic forecasts. I am aware of that possibility. But when I look at what is happening across our country and around the world, I think it cannot be characterized as a “minor trend.” In fact, I think there are numerous, interrelated trends all pushing our society -- and the resulting physical form of our cities -- in generally the same direction. It is these trends and the associated impact on our cities that I hope to explore in upcoming posts. Below is a brief synopsis of a few of the primary issues that I think are particularly significant:

Demographic Change For a variety of reasons, household characteristics have changed substantially from 40 or 50 years ago when the suburban boom was at its peak. This is not a short-term trend or a temporary phenomenon, it is real and long-lasting. We are older, we are having fewer children, we are more likely to live alone, and our social relationships have changed. We need to shape our cities with this “new normal” in mind, not some idealized “Leave It To Beaver” family from the past.

Generational Shifts It is always dangerous to generalize about an entire generation of people -- there is simply too much diversity within a generation to make most statements very useful. But I think there have been shifts in the underlying values and priorities between the Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and now Gen Z that are changing, and will continue to change, our society and ultimately our cities. Our current urban form was largely the product of the Baby Boomer generation but as that generation moves out of positions of power and into retirement, the void is going to be filled by younger people with a different point of view.

Dysfunctional Transportation The automobile has given us an unprecedented amount of personal freedom and flexibility. The cost, however, has been enormous, although much of that cost is hidden from view. How exactly do you put a price on the 40,000 lives that are lost annually to traffic accidents? Or what psychological price are we paying for a transportation system that is so frustrating that “road rage” has become a normal part of big city life? As useful as the car has been, it is time that we define a new way forward for personal transportation that blends new and old technologies into multiple transportation options rather than a one-solution-fits-all approach.

Personal Economic Stress  We live in a capitalist society where there are economic winners and losers, but one of the strengths of this county has always been the belief that hard work will lead to a better economic position and at least a reasonably comfortable life. Much of our urban growth, in fact, has been fueled by the rising middle class of the post war years and a pretty convincing argument can be made that objectively American households are better off than ever before. When it comes to personal feelings of economic well-being, however, perception is reality, and I believe there is a growing perception that the economic deck is stacked against the middle class. This perception will inevitably have an impact on urban form and on the operational decisions that cities make.

Governmental Economic Stress  I doubt there has ever been a time when city leaders felt they had all the financial resources that they needed, but today’s leaders are facing increasingly difficult choices between growing needs and stagnant or even dwindling resources. As a case in point, few cities maintain their physical infrastructure -- streets, water lines, sewer lines and public buildings -- to the degree that they should. Consequently, those physical assets are literally crumbling under their feet during a time of growing anti-tax sentiment and declining trust in government leadership. In many states, this distrust has led to state laws which restrict the degree to which local governments can raise local property and sales taxes regardless of how clear the need might be. Thus, many cities are being squeezed between rising costs and a very limited ability to raise revenue.

Environmental Concerns Regardless of your personal beliefs on the issue of climate change, I think there is a growing perception (particularly among millennials and Gen Z) that this is a defining issue for the future that will have ripple effects across our society. Again, perception is reality so it isn’t really about assigning blame or quantifying future impacts, cities are going to have to take concrete steps to reduce their collective carbon footprint or face a growing backlash from their citizenry. The challenge, I think, will be to shape the response in a truly meaningful way. The real issue is not about mandating another inch or two of insulation in new buildings or installing more charging stations for electric vehicles, but rather about building an urban form that gives people the ability to make comprehensive changes in their lifestyle without huge sacrifices in personal comfort, safety and convenience.


Again, I will be going into greater detail on all of these topics (and more) in the future.


About Me

I have worked as a professional planner, in both the public and private sectors, for over 40 years and I have been a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners for over 35 years. During that time, I have been involved in long-range planning, special projects planning, current planning, code writing, code enforcement, and planning technology (GIS and permitting systems).

For much of my professional career, I was employed by the City of Overland Park, Kansas -- a suburban community of nearly 200,000 people in the Kansas City metro area. My most recent job title was Manager of Strategic Planning; a position which gave me time to do some big-picture thinking and to research the trends which I discussed above. I recently retired, thus giving me the time to write this blog, but I plan to stay active in the planning profession.

I would appreciate feedback from anyone reading my posts. Please leave a comment below or you can reach me at doug@midwesturbanism.com. Feel free to agree or disagree with what I write, offer suggestions, ask questions, or suggest places that you think I should visit or topics that I should address.