#urbanophile

[newsuburbanism]

The Return of Sprawl https://t.co/jy5xe20bFi— Aaron M. Renn 🇺🇸 (@urbanophile) March 27, 2018

http://twitter.com/urbanophile/status/978638156886093824

[stillmorethanthisblog]

If cities are your bag (particularly midwestern cities) take a peak at Aaron Renn's blog The Urbanophile. As a good starting point, scroll through Renn's What I Believe page. Here's an excerpt:

"Building on assets" is a trap. Only building on assets is a strategy too focused on defending the past, not embracing the future. Yes, leverage assets, but also add new things to the pot for future generations.

Great stuff. Read on. Smart. Very smart.

[alexinsd]

Bike lanes are great. But bike lanes are the civic equivalent of what might be called “best practices” in the corporate world. They are things every well-functioning city is now expected to have. They don’t, however, generate differential value or make a city any more competitive in the market. Just as you can’t build a successful company on simply a collection of best practices, it’s hard to build a successful city just on these things. You need them, but they aren’t enough. They are the new urban ante — just table stakes.

The Urbanophile

[chicagobusiness]

Ever wonder how that $2.25 CTA fare gets divvied up? Here's a look at just who all gets a piece of your transit pie. 

[catherinemtang-blog]

America’s cities are the the bedrock of the nation’s social, cultural, and economic well-being. They’re also the places most Americans call home. For the good of their regions and the nation as a whole, they must, and can, learn to be sustainable. That means demographically and economically as well as environmentally. By discarding failed stereotypes and strategies from a very different age that no longer work today, and adopting instead progressive principles across an integrated set of domains that reflect today’s realities – including architecture and design, arts and culture, civic branding, economic development, the global economy, historic preservation, land use, education, regionalism, strategic planning, talent attraction, technology, tourism, transportation, urban culture, and sustainability – and which are tailored to the local environment, cities can create unique regional strategies to guide themselves to success. -- * To figure out what those unique strengths are, cities ought to look at their problems and challenges from the most unexpected, non-traditional angles. Invert the world. Stand those problems on their head. Yes, look at the facts on the ground, the things you can’t change but that you think are holding you back. Then brainstorm for all you’re worth to identify ground-breaking, unusual, or simply as-yet unconsidered ways to reposition civic weaknesses into substantial strengths. * We need to look forward, not backward. There is no more corrosive force than nostalgia. We should know where we’ve come from and what we stand for. But we can’t become imprisoned by a yearning for an imagined past that never really was. * We need to embrace a 21st century vision of urbanism. Urbanism – Yes, but trying to copy Greenwich Village 1950 is not the answer. To find it, we must boldly re-imagine the possibilities of what a city can be and bravely identify what works today-and what doesn’t. * We don’t know where this ride is taking us. We’re at a pivotal time in America’s urban history. So much is changing, and more change is yet to come. For our own sake, we should not assume that we’ve arrived where we’re headed, or that we have the answers. If there’s one thing we should take away from the urban planning failures of the past, it is a strong does of humility.

- Aaron M. Renn, creator of www.urbanophile.com. I recently fell upon his website and, wow, his passion for cities is just as enriched as mine! These are a few blurbs from his "What I Believe" page that most explicitly apply to the goals in my thesis, but, overall, his thoughts are fairly in line with mine: curiosity, fascination, and appreciation for cities, what makes them great, what makes them not, and what we can do as part of the process.

[catherinemtang-blog]

Article: The Reasons Behind Detroit’s Decline by Pete Saunders

Photo Credits: www.urbanophile.com

This is an excellent piece by Pete Saunders, a Detroit native who currently works as an urban planner in Chicago, from www.urbanophile.com. I'm not a fan of always reading about the "reasons behind Detroit's decline" (i.e. race/class tensions, white exodus, suburbanization, the fall of the auto industry, etc), because that's usually what writers like to (or know to) focus on and then make a blanket generalization about why Detroit is the way that it is. And, to be candid, it makes me depressed because it's just a long lasting list of negatives and only negatives, with no glimmer of hope left. Pete Saunders, however, writes a great account as to how Detroit's decline started not in its peak of the 1950s, but at the inception of its prosperity at the turn of the 20th century. In other words: planning. Read below.

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Tuesday, February 21st, 2012

The Reasons Behind Detroit’s Decline by Pete Saunders

My hometown of Detroit has been studied obsessively for years by writers and researchers of all types to gain insight into the Motor City’s decline. Indeed, it seems to have become a favorite pastime for urbanists of all stripes. How could such an economic powerhouse, a uniquely American city, so utterly collapse?

Most analysis tends to focus on the economic, social and political reasons for the downfall. One of my favorite treatises on Detroit is The Origins of the Urban Crisis by Thomas Sugrue, who argues that housing and racial discrimination practices put in place after World War II played a primary role in the decline of Motown. I’d argue that it’s closest to the truth of an explanation for Detroit today, but not quite there.

Everyone seems to know the shorthand narrative for Detroit’s fall. Industrial output declines; racial tensions rise. White residents leave; an unapologetic black leadership assumes control. And there’s quite a bit of truth to that narrative. Yes, the auto industry faced stiff competition, moved jobs to the suburbs, moved jobs down south, and later moved jobs out of the country. And all that happened with fewer jobs at each stop. Yes, Detroit does have a regrettably complex racial history and the legacy of two perception-forming riots since World War II (in 1943 and 1967). Yes, Detroit has had its share of political corruption, often tied to the tumultuous mayoral administrations of Coleman Young and Kwame Kilpatrick.

But here’s the thing. Buffalo and Cleveland have suffered the same kind of economic loss, but have not (quite) fallen to the same depths as Detroit. In fact, Pittsburgh suffered as much economically as Detroit, and is now poised for an amazing Rust Belt comeback. Any number of cities has had as troubled a racial legacy as Detroit, without being as adversely impacted. And Detroit certainly hasn’t cornered the market on political corruption, as long as Chicago exists.

So why has Detroit suffered unlike any other major city? Planning, or the lack thereof for more than a century, is why Detroit stands out. While cities like Chicago, Philadelphia and Los Angeles (don’t laugh – Detroit and LA essentially boomed at the same time) put a premium on creating pleasant built environments for their residents, Detroit was unique in putting all its eggs in the corporate caretaker basket. Once the auto industry became established in Detroit, political and business leaders abdicated their responsibility on sound urban planning and design, and elected to let the booming economy do the work for them.

Detroit’s decline has been going on far longer than most people realize, because of the city’s lack of attention to creating a pleasant built environment. Evidence? A Time Magazine article entitled “Decline in Detroit” from 1961 – yes, 1961 – had the following to say in its opening paragraph:

If ever a city stood as a symbol of the dynamic U.S. economy, it was Detroit. It was not pretty. It was, in fact, a combination of the grey and the garish: its downtown area was a warren of dingy, twisting streets; the used-car lots along Livernois Avenue raised an aurora of neon. But Detroit cared less about how it looked than about what it did—and it did plenty.

Emphasis added.

So what exactly did Detroit get wrong on the planning side of things? I outline nine direct and indirect planning and land use reasons for the Motor City’s current state. Here they are below.

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The article is quite long, so read the rest of it here.

[livefrommyroom]

If you don't know who Aaron Renn is, check his blog out. Many fascinating write-ups on Detroit and occasionally some really fun stuff like this old 1965 Detroit promotional video called “A City on the Move.”