Low Key is Key

In recent years summer has been the season when downtown pulls out as many stops as it can in order to draw crowds back. With much success highly publicized events such as the Crim and Back to the Bricks have briefly brought crowds of hundreds of thousands to our own little city center. These events have undoubtedly given people who had never been downtown (or had given up on it) reasons to support it, both in spirit and finance. However it still seemed that once the weekend of races, or roars of engines had ceased the visitors would retreat for the winter, having not found a reason to appreciate downtown outside of those few brief weeks in August.

This past weekend exemplified, in a really lovely way, a very different approach to downtown events. Instead of one massive, expensive affair, bringing thousands of people into our neighborhood interested in a single interest and event; several small events catering to many interests brought life to the city center all weekend long. On Friday the GFAC brought local authors together to present their works to the public, Saturday included the Farmers' Market Bar-B-Q off, a benefit concert at The Good Beans Cafe, and the "Keep on Keepin' on" festival at Riverbank Park. On Sunday afternoon downtown hosted the inaugural "Le Champion Pavé" bicycle criterium.

I love that all of these events happened independently of each other. Even though each appealed to very different demographics and interests, they undoubtedly fed each other and, in turn, gave authentic energy to downtown. What I hope they did, however, was show those who attended that there does not need to be a giant event to make downtown a vibrant living place. Moments like this happen year round. What I enjoyed most about this weekend, though, was that that it felt like it was a weekend for the downtowners. As fun as the larger events are, they depend (and rightfully so) on the tourist dollar. It is the small things, the intimate outdoor concerts, and the exhibit of a local artist that say "community" to me..and truly represent the types of civic life that make a city vibrant.

Bolingbrook IL.

"What a nice day, I think I may go for a drive through the subdivision, then a few parking lots, so I can take a stroll through the city center complex"

It is Monday. Monday mornings combined with my inability to get to Good Beans before heading to the office often result in a very slow start to my work day. On days like this, I often go through the "Yahoo Stories" which tantalize me with colorful stock photographs and catchy article titles, and are placed strategically right under the summarry of my work inbox. So naturally, when given the choice of "Re:Re:March 2009 Board Mtg. minutes update 3a" or "Are Silly Bandz just a fad?" I tend to go the silly bandz route.

On this caffeineless Monday, I innocently clicked on "America's best places to live" and casually scrolled through the list of towns I had rarely to never heard of. The descriptions were vague, and the photos clearly directly from the board of tourism, but I wanted to see if any local burgs had made the cut. The 100 city list did eventually give Ann Arbor some love (the only Michigan city) but it was actually number 43; Bolingbrook, Illinois that caught my attention.

It was the photo that initially grabbed my attention. While most of the other profiles featured images of quaint downtowns, forested parks, or laughing children, this one was an aerial shot of a "lifestyle center" type shopping mall. Why would this manufactured cartoon of a traditional downtown full of national chain retail be chosen to symbolize what the experts(?) at CNNmoney chose as the 43rd best place to live in America? I quickly read the included description and conducted a little research on my own to figure out more. What I discovered was a town that was completely devoid of pre-world war 2, pedestrian oriented planning, and forced it's residents to rely almost completely on auto transport.

In fact the first large developments in Bolingbrook were two subdivisions built in the early 50's known as "Westbury" and the "Colonial Village" These were quickly followed by shopping centers, apartment complexes and housing subdivisions, all charmingly named. This mash-up of disconnected development of course leads to a lack of community identity, to the point that an atlas actually listed the entire town as "Colonial Village." Perhaps this identity crisis contributes to why this city of 70,000 people considers itself to be a "village"

Beyond Bolingbrooks issues with identifying itself, it also seems to be having a hard time figuring out what a town really is. As I stated earlier, the town does not appear to have any sort of traditionally built city center, so a mall development company was kind enough to manufacture one for them. The photo of this "lifestyle center" actually makes it look rather pleasant, it seems to have many of the attributes that urbanists appreciate in a place, narrow streets, on street parking, outdoor seating, and pedestrian scaled architecture....but then you take a look at the
big picture. What seemed to be a progressive pedestrian oriented commercial corridor is actually surrounded by acres and acres of paved surface parking lots. Even though the mall company released this p.r. photo to make the mall seem quaint and pedestrian friendly, what they ended up creating was a place that you had to be a motorist first, and a pedestrian second.

Other gems include the inclusion of a "fishing lake" on the "town center complex." Any time you have to refer to your town center as a complex, you know you are doing something wrong....and what kind of town center has room for a fishing lake?! The description includes such charming retail options as IKEA, and Macy's to give you that authentic one of a kind down home Bolingbrook experience. My favorite inclusion, however, was the disclaimer at the end of the article saying that event with all of these fabulous things, most residents of Bolingbrook must make the 30 minute drive to Chicago for employment.

...As you can tell this all touched a nerve...

Bolingbrook looks great on paper. The median family income is near $100,000, there is 21% job growth, and 66 % of the residents went to college. But aside from the statistics, the closest thing this town has to an identity is a "Town Center Complex" with a side of fishing lake. I have not spoke with any Bolingbrookians, but I wonder how they would answer if I were to ask them what their town looks like...feels like

Flint has not had a great relationship with top 100 lists, so perhaps I should not be so quick to pass judgment on this town. However, what I really hope to learn from this is how we define places as good or bad. As livable or hostile.

How would you define Flint?

Which Way Part Deux!

A few years after my initial navigational confusion, I began spending the majority of my time downtown and quickly learned the ways of the one ways. Even though mastering the street plan was pretty easy, learning the correct way to drive down West 2nd Street seemed like an initiation into the downtown community.
While one ways are certainly a common identifying feature of our nation's cities, a sign that one is in the city center, the system that was just replaced in Flint had only been there for about two generations. With the huge amount of factory workers commuting through the downtown area in the middle of the 20th century, the city decided to increase the road capacity by turning several major roads into one way streets.So what effect did the one way system have on the downtown community, and how is the conversion going to change the transportation patterns?A very apparent and obvious change is that the path from point A to point B has become much less convoluted, as most streets now allow a driver to travel in two directions. By re-striping these lanes, engineers were able to fit in all kinds of goodies, like turning lanes, bike lanes, and in some cases, parking. (Some on street parking was, however, removed for the conversion) The inclusion of a turn lane on every section of every street is a curious one, there are entire blocks of streets where, with the exception of the actual intersections, there is nowhere to turn. Yet the traffic planners still designed turning lanes into the street, instead of widened bike lanes or on street parking. The rearranging of lanes has also caused some vehicle congestion issues on both Saginaw Street and Grand Traverse. It also seems that when the actual re-striping was happening, the re-stripers paid little attention to whether or not the lanes actually lined up on both sides of the intersection.

A big positive was the inclusion of bike lanes along most of the converted street. I have heard many people complain that the bike lanes occupy much needed space that should have been designated for driving/parking. However the fact that the city has invested in improving the biking infrastructure might just represent a very cool shift in Flint’s approach to transportation. The bike lanes are sometimes just as screwy as the driving lanes, and end abruptly and unexpectedly in really inconvenient spots, but a start is a start. Biking downtown could be a post on its own but for more on biking through Flint, check out vehicle-less city a great new blog by a fellow downtowner.

Walking downtown is now theoretically safer, as drivers have proven to speed when driving on one way streets. However, I have heard more than one walker complain about having to check for traffic from both directions before crossing the street. (Come on people! Shouldn’t you do that no matter what?!)

Downtown businesses should also theoretically benefit from the change, as they are now able to gain exposure and access from two directions of traffic. Although, with the majority of downtown’s business community located on the already two way Saginaw Street corridor, perhaps this does not apply.


A funny thing about us downtowners; we are a proud and stubborn people, once we were initiated into it, we became proud of the one way systems slight inconveniences, and the confusion it caused to out of towners. Sometimes the hardcore downtown crowd gets so caught up in being downtowny that we have a hard time recognizing what changes are for the better, and this blogger feels that the conversion on the one way streets to two way streets may be one of those changes.

Which Way?

My first encounter with the famed one way streets of downtown was probably similar to many people of my generation: driver's training. At 15 I had mastered the art of properly accelerating onto the expressway. I learned all three hundred points on my pre-departure inspection checklist, and I was a pro at adjusting my rear view mirror. But there were a few aspects of moterism that one could not experience while practicing on the back roads and cul-de-sac neighborhoods of Swartz Creek. It was because of this, that the last place that my driving instructor took us was the terrifying, complicated, infamous streets of downtown.

There were three major reasons for the dreaded downtown driving session. First was to learn how to safely drive with the presence of pedestrians. The fact that "driving in the presence of pedestrians" was only possible in an Applebee's parking lot and downtown could be its own post. I didn't end up doing my training until the evening, however, and as it was at that time, there were very few pedestrians to avoid hitting. The second goal of the session was to learn how to parallel park. This was perhaps the most dreaded of all tasks, and even though I had set up a mock parking spot in my driveway to sharpen my technique, the outcome had been hit or miss at best. So after a few misses , my instructor took the wheel for me, pulled into the elusive spot in one smooth elegant motion and said "there, that is how you do it." (Which may explain why I still have a hard time properly parking on the side of the street) Lastly, we had to learn how to navigate, and properly turn onto one way streets. While this task wasn't exactly difficult, we had all heard horror stories of people driving the wrong way, and turning at the next street only to once again realize that they were going the wrong way. Eventually they would just be stuck in a vortex of wrong turns until they were 18, and could take their driving test without completing training.

It was commonly argued among those of us waiting for our turn behind the wheel, that these one way streets served no purpose. That they were just there to confuse us corn fed, mall shopping suburban kids. But we didn't think too much of it once we passed the test, it wasn't like we would be heading back downtown anytime soon.

The Right To Alfresco!

Businesses in Birmingham have the option of placing dining patios on the parking spots in front of them, so as not to cramp the sidewalk.

Monday night was a lovely night. Combine the wonderful weather, free crepes, a political protest, a business opening, and the Capitol Theatre being open for exploration and you get a breath of what many of us hope so much for downtown to be.

After the hoopla it seemed natural to keep the momentum going so some friends and I decided to have a drink downtown. Turning the corner from 2nd Street to Saginaw Street, and seeing the packed Blackstone's patio, we realized that we were not the only ones who thought that was a good idea.

In just a year's time, the sidewalk patio at Blackstone's has become a symbol of the new downtown. Even at times when the interior of the pub is fairly dead, the handful of tables outside are often full. While many suburban bars offer lovely tiki-themes patios, and other outdoor seating options, people seem to be coming out of the woodwork to enjoy the novelty of eating out in the open, while watching the street life pass by.

The only thing is, this is hardly a novelty. All over the world, alfresco dining is a standard, casual option. Communities closer to home like Ann Arbor also boast their sidewalk cafes, and people flock there. Just this week it was announced that 501 and Churchill's will be opening sidewalk seating options, however they both had to petition the city government in order to offer such an experience. Some people argue that the sidewalks simply aren't wide enough to accommodate diners, and pedestrians, and in some cases this might be true. Blackstone's and the soon to re-open Churchill's patio sections are recessed into their shopfronts, allowing for more space on the sidewalk for passers by. However, we are not the first community to deal with such an issue. Nearby Birmingham MI. allowed restaurants to "rent" the parking spaces directly in front of their restaurant, build a platform on it, and use the space as extra seating.

Alfresco dining is great for both the diner, and the onlooker. By adding movement and purpose to the sidewalk other than simply transportation, we transform the sidewalk into an exciting public place. By showing that we have active civic live at the street level, we encourage more civic life to occur, and as my friend and fellow activist Erin Caudell said Monday night "I feel like it is my right to eat outside"

Celebrating Suburbia

Suburbia imitates our downtown Our Downtown imitates sububurbia

I peruse through the catacombs of Mlive, I came across a few articles that intrigued me. The first was an article on downtown security guards being hired by local businesses to give people from the suburbs a visible sense of security, despite the fact that the layoffs did not reduce downtown police coverage, and the crime stats downtown mirror those of the suburbs. I appreciate having extra eyes on the street no matter what the crime levels are, but I wonder...how far are willing to go to cater to "those unused to an urban environment?"

This desire to lure the elusive suburbanite by creating a more mall-like atmosphere in America's down towns has been going on since the middle of the last century, when malls began to truly compete with traditional urban commercial districts. Decades ago the an awning was constructed over the sidewalks, and music was piped in to give the downtown shopping experience that "strip mall feeling". Over the years Saginaw has been closed to through traffic , "Downtown Sale" events promised great deals and perhaps the biggest flops: Two sub-urban style shopping centers were constructed in the city center, resulting in Windmill Place, and The Water Street Pavilion.

And of course, we built a heck of a lot of parking.

And of course, to build this parking, we had to demolish blocks and blocks of buildings.

The second article that I discovered covered the 40th birthday of the Genesee Valley Mall (A topic which has been discussed on here before) It discusses the changes the mall has made since opening in 1970, as well as the relative success it has had by diversifying its tenant base. What I found fascinating, however, was that in the malls first few years of operation, the list of shops very much resembled what you would find in a traditional downtown. The mall had a grocery store, a butcher, a bank, as well as a slew of shops that relocated from downtown Flint. In the following years, as the mall, and the surrounding area sprawled, the shops inside became more retail based. Reflecting that great suburban past time of building areas that serve as one use "pods." As my mom said "I have no idea why we ever needed so many shoe stores."

In recent years, it seems, Genesee Valley Mall has realized that such a specific one use approach is difficult to sustain. With newer, shinier shopping centers opening in places like Brighton, Grand Blanc, and Fenton, the slew of shoe stores are following. In a strange twist, this has caused the local mall to take (probably unknowingly) take a page from the traditional downtown handbook. In fact Genesee Valley went so far as to actually construct a large Main Street style knock off called "The Outdoor Village" and rent a space to, of all things, a university. (sound familiar?)

So how should we interpret the fact that these two places are imitating each other? Will downtown keep sub-urbanizing until its unique urban fabric is completely gone? Does the newish approach by the mall represent a cultural shift in the way we define place?

I'm sure the Mlive commenters will have a colorful answer or two.

What Does This Post Have To Do With Affordable Housing?

Berridge Place Apartments provide low-income as well as market rate apartments in a setting which does not require the tenant to own a vehicle.

So friends, here I am again

After spending some time at the Michigan Affordable Housing Conference, I have come to realize that many people who are fighting the good fight, may not quite know what they should be fighting. I attended several sessions ranging from "Acquiring and Rehabbing Foreclosed Properties" to "Downtowns in Michigan are Alive and Well" to "Weatherizing your Historic Structure" And while all of these were interesting and informative it was the session entitled "Is Your Community Walkable?" that really surprised me.

It wasn't the topic that I found so off-putting, it was actually an impressive lecture on the "complete streets" initiative in Lansing (more on that another time) What really shocked me was the responses of the other conference goers in the room. The presentation included several slides depicting good, and bad examples of walkability in urban areas. Upon seeing an image of a compact city back-alley with decorative lighting fixtures, and well maintained back facades, a young woman behind me whispered "That must be Paris, or Prague"

A sidewalk café:

"Well sure, that works in Florida"

An entire block of parking:

"How else do they expect people to hang out there?"

An outdoor ice-skating rink:

"Ok, that is pretty cool"

But perhaps the worst comment was not made about the examples being presented, but about the presentation itself:

"What does this have to do with affordable housing?"

Despite the fact that the community activists in our country should recognize that vibrant civic street life can happen in all communities, in any climate, and without enough parking to provide one space for everyone in the metro region, the bigger issue was that this young woman, who was undoubtedly working hard to improve the lives of the less fortunate was missing a huge part of the picture. The poor, perhaps more than anyone else, benefit greatly from living in a community in which they can easily walk, bike, or take mass transit to reach their needs.

No matter how much the government subsidizes housing, no matter how many food or health benefit programs we provide, it doesn't do anyone any good if they can't afford to get to them. If we continue to build an infrastructure that forces everyone to purchase, and maintain a vehicle in order to reach every service that they require, we are putting a huge strain on an already heavily burdened population.

We are lucky though, because creating a walkable environment for the underprivileged is solved with the same simple measures that making every community walkable takes. First, things like subsidized housing should be designed with the pedestrian in mind, as well as placed in a community where many of the resident's needs are within walking distance. This means not separating the facility from the street by a sea of parking, or a large unused lawn. Also taking heed of the proximity to things like pharmacies, grocery stores, schools, and places of employment. (Another point could be made that large amounts of low-income housing should not be grouped together, but that is a whole different post) Secondly, we simply have to make the actual trip safe, and enjoyable. This means properly maintained sidewalks, functioning lighting, and hospitable mass transit stations. Remember, the less practical we make our communities for walking, the more strain we put on those who's best option is to walk.

Downtown Flint has a few examples of both tho wrong, and the right way to do low-income housing. While the 70's and 80's brought examples like Richert Manor on Court Street, which is surrounded by parking, and not particularly close to any services, recent have begun to see developments that seamlessly blend low-income housing with market rate housing, all in a walkable environment. A good example of this is the "Berridge Place Apartments" This historic hotel contains market rate, and low income units side by side. There are cafés (with outdoor seating I might add), coffee shops, places of worship, schools and a soon to be open grocery store all within a few blocks.

So when we think about providing affordable housing options to those who need it in our community, be it students on a budget, the elderly, starving artists, or families, we have to think not only of the price of the housing itself, but of how affordable it is to be in the community they are placed in. By providing the residents a community within which they can do most of their day to day errands without a personal vehicle, we also provide them a better, and less expensive quality of life.

And that, fellow community activist sitting behind me, is the point of the whole movement.