Central Planning in Washington

by Tony Chavira

Today on Slate, Witold Rybczynski penned/typed an article that begs Adolfo Carrión Jr, the Director of White House Office of Urban Affairs Policy, to keep planning efforts in the hands of these entities:

1) Real Estate Developers

2) Business Improvement Districts

3) Public-Private Partnerships

In other words, cut out direct government strategy and interaction with the planning process.  The last two paragraphs of his essay are especially telling, so I'm going to try something I've never done before... I'm going to tackle those closing paragraphs literally one sentence at a time.  Let's get to it:

The important lesson is not that city planning is unimportant but, rather, that urban development should not be implemented by the public sector alone and that in a democracy, a vision of the future city will best emerge from the marketplace.

This is entirely true, and no single entity should be "in charge" of urban renewal.  However, there are some projects the government has the resources to tackle and the business sector simply doesn't.  For example, road and rail projects... most of which would never see the light of day if not wholly initiated by a government entity.  A marketplace that already has such a strong dependence on oil would generally dissuade the development of light rail options.  A Business Improvement District with primarily owners of high end 1-story restaurants would probably avoid adding a few stories to their properties for affordable housing, despite any amount of research advocating for smart development.  The market is braindead, which is why people without property vote to point it in a direction they want it to go.

(That it may turn out to be a messy vision, lacking a grand aesthetic, Jane Jacobs long ago acknowledged.)

Indeed she did and indeed she's right, so why would Rybczynski claim that the market will provide anything of substance only to negate that point?  This is an especially annoying aside for him to make when earlier in the article he states that the effect of smart, integrated planning can be achieved through local market initiatives.  Wouldn't you consider that a grand aesthetic of sorts?

The federally funded HOPE VI program, which has spent more than $5 billion since it was launched in 1992 and which mixes social housing with market housing, has demonstrated that when public agencies collaborate with private developers, the result can be affordable homes that avoid the stigma traditionally associated with public housing projects.

The federally-funded HOPE IV program is also HUD-initiated.  The federal program is actually meant to initiated change singularly in a blighted neighborhood, and other local government agencies (as well as private developers) all jump on board once they hear the news.  From the sound of this sentence, Rybczynski makes it seem like the relationship between the government and private developers is equal in some way.  Guess what?  It's not, and most private developers wouldn't give those blighted neighborhoods a second look if the federal government hadn't decided to do something about their conditions.

Almost all cities have business improvement districts, quasi-public organizations that were founded to oversee street cleanliness and public safety; in Philadelphia, the BID is also active in planning and urban development. Some cities are experimenting with multi-use zoning, which permits different uses to coexist in the same buildings, leaving the precise mix to market demand.

Totally ignoring the contentious relationship between mixed-use zoning and developer agenda for a moment, BIDs are interesting organizational structure for Rybczynski to mention simply because BIDs willingly pay local government additional taxes in order to maintain a certain local style and street scene.  In some cases they're a great idea and in others they're oppressive or imposing, but regardless they have nothing to do with federal-level development agenda.  On top of all this, locally organized efforts or advocacy groups that fight for whatever their neighborhoods need are usually directly combating a unilateral development agenda imposed by a single group of developers (and the influence they have over local politics).  As long as they're no overarching agenda for them to adhere to, the direct influence they'll have over the local development agenda will be immense... possibly insurmountable.  I don't automatically assume that developers are evil... but some care more about their project than their project's impact on the community.  But hey, if the market demands that they kill urbanism with another giant mall in the center of the city...

Another interesting innovation comes from Montreal, where the provincial government is building a new $260 million concert hall.

Okay, HOW exactly does this point advocate for market-driven development over government-led initiatives?

Instead of holding an architectural beauty pageant, the government announced a development competition to select a consortium that would not only design and build but also finance, manage, and maintain the hall over 30 years, leasing the building back to the orchestra.

Okay, another Public-Private-Partnership situation.  Yes, that's fine as an example except that THE GOVERNMENT INITIATED THE COMPETITION.  They'll pick the winner, pick the price and follow-through until every "i" is dotted and "t" crossed.  In fact, the Montreal municipality decided that it would be a concert hall in the first place.  How's that for market-driven agenda?

The simple truth is that successful city-building is less about big moves and more about perseverance and day-to-day management.

Rybczynski is absolutely right about this.

In the present economic downturn—as tax revenues diminish and cities face fewer jobs, no new construction, fewer tourists, fewer conventions, and less state funding—older cities will struggle to repair and replace aging infrastructure, and new cities will be challenged to maintain their growth.

Agreed.  So how should we address this problem?

Talk of economic stimulus packages raises the temptation to undertake large publicly planned projects again.

Yes, that's why we initiate stumli... to undertake large, publicly-planned projects.  That's actually what it's for.

This temptation should be resisted.

I wholeheartedly disagree.  Grand, coordinated vision backed by sophisticated research and thoughtful preparation will help to set a vision for how we want America to feel, as a livable space.  Both direct improvements and initiation of redevelopment begins, in many ways, at the federal level even in local markets.  Giving money to private entities for redevelopment without accountability is clearly a stupid idea.  Standing back and hoping that the situation fixes itself is also clearly a bad idea, as it hasn't worked for over 30 years.

The lessons of the last 50 years should not be forgotten.

Rybczynski refers to the development of the unsustainable highway and suburban infrastructure, roughly 50 years ago.  We're a different society now with different needs.  When that infrastructure was proposed and built, it was what the country needed in order to begin rebuilding after WWII.  It injected the economy with cash, gave people jobs and boosted pride with the idea that we were actually improving our country.  Even if everything we're doing to develop urban spaces now is wrong, we shouldn't be dissuaded from trying.  All we have to work with is the best information available.  Nay-saying never gets things done.

To rephrase that great city planner, Daniel H. Burnham, make no big plans, only many small ones.

Daniel H. Burnham is one of the largest-scale planners of any time... between the World's Columbian Exposition to the Plan of Chicago.  He was also the president of the American Institute of Architects for a while, and set an overarching agenda for each of these gigantic projects.  He would not have advocated for small market change on the local level.  We would've wanted a contract from the federal government to re-plan the whole country, and he may have been haughty enough to assume he could do it too.

Oh, and despite the fact that Burnham and Rybczynski see eye-to-eye on this issue, Burnham actually famously said "Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood... Make big plans, aim high in hope and work."  But I appreciate you rephrasing it to best accommodate your argument, Mr. Rybczynski.

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