Creative Class

That’s the title of a terrific new paper by Gerald Carlino and Albert Saiz.  The Boston Globe’s Sasha Issenberg  provides a nice summary of the study which:

looked at 150 metropolitan areas around the United States and found that those rich in what they called “consumption amenities” - the things that make a city delightful, such as parks, historic sites, museums, and beaches - “disproportionally attracted highly educated individuals and experienced faster housing price appreciation.”

In other words, urban growth and prosperity have less to do with transportation links and industrial infrastructure than the patterns that govern behavior at a social mixer: Beautiful and charming cities draw a crowd, while the featureless and unattractive wilt like wallflowers.

Carlino and Saiz’s paper could give policy makers a new way to think about the conditions necessary for economic growth. As they consider how to boost the economy, they should think not about the raw materials of business, but about what will bring together talented people in the same place. This suggests a different approach to stimulus spending - and, likely, stark assessments about where to spend it that will not make for popular politics.

The full paper is here.

There’s a great post by Edward Glaeser (in the Economix blog of the New York Times), titled “New York, New York: America’s Resilient City.”

In it, he describes how New York has managed to avoid the decay that has afflicted many large older cities, and, after a brief downturn in the 1970’s, came roaring back as arguably the most influential single city in the world.

His explanation? In a word - “smart people.”

“New York still has an amazing concentration of talent. That talent is more effective because all those smart people are connected because of the city’s extreme population density levels. Historically, human capital — the education and skills of a work force — predicts which cities are able to reinvent themselves and which ones are not. Those people who are continuing to pay high prices for Manhattan real estate are implicitly betting that New York’s human capital will continue to come up with new ways of reinventing the city. “

Glaeser continues, describing why dense cities succeed…

“They thrive by enabling us to connect with each other, which then promotes learning and innovation. The current downturn will only increase the returns to being smart, and you get smart by hanging around smart people. As long as New York continues to attract and connect those people, the city will continue to thrive.”

Now here’s what every city planner wants to know. Is this replicable? Can this success be engineered or encouraged, and are the effects measurable in 10 years, 20 years, a lifetime?

Does anyone have successful examples of campaigns and projects to replicate this resilient infrastructure? Or perhaps, examples of some cautionary unsuccessful attempts?

Best wishes to everyone for a creative and fruitful New Year!

How do you remake a city of sprawl. That’s exactly what the city of Mesa, Arizona is trying to do, according to The Economist. Mesa has experienced tremendous growth in the past several decades, surging from 7,000 in 1940) to roughly 450,000 today. While many people still haven’t heard of it, Mesa numbers among the nation’s 50 largest cities, bigger than Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, or Miami. It’s a classic “edge city” which, as The Economist writes, consists of: “Mile after mile of strip malls and tract houses, whose evocative names and fanciful architecture cannot disguise the fact that they are large, stucco-covered boxes, dominate the landscape.â€�

Now Mesa is working hard to turn itself into a more liveable city. To bolster its economy, it’s constructing a new airport downtown (to better connect itself to the world - recall the Phoenix-Tuscon area is one of the world ’s 40 biggest mega-regions) in an effort to remake itself as what University of North Carolina’s John Kasarda calls an “aerotropolisâ€� – the thinking being that air transport today is analogous to what canals, railroads, and cars were to past urban systems. Even more interesting is the city is investing heavily in improving its quality of place - urban design, mixed use development, strict building heights, increased density, warehouse conversions, and an extensive network of urban neighborhood parks in an effort to improve its ability to lure talent and jobs.

Read more here.

Stimulus and infrastructure building are all the rage these days. Our project on the crisis and the future of Ontario tackles infrastructure options. Led by civil engineer Chris Kennedy, whose forthcoming book The Wealth of Cities examines the role of infrastructure historically in powering economic growth, the report provides a framework for thinking about and investing in the future. The Toronto Star’s Sandro Contenta reports:

The report estimates the total cost of infrastructure work at up to $27.5 billion. But they say their recommendations address the two most pressing issues today – global warming and global recession. The report proposes 560 kilometres of high-speed electric track that runs from Toronto north to Orillia, east to Peterborough and west to a corridor that includes Waterloo, Hamilton and Niagara Falls. It would take at least a decade to build and cost anywhere from $4 billion to $20 billion, depending on the route and technology chosen.

The rail system would help create a high-density “mega-region” by improving transportation and attracting what the report calls well-paid “creative” jobs, such as those in aerospace, finance and telecommunications. “A high-speed rail network knitting Ontario’s cities together could revolutionize the province’s role within the continental and global economic systems,” it says …

The provincial government plans a 15 per cent reduction in greenhouse gases, below 1990 levels, by 2020, and an 80 per cent reduction by 2050. The report describes Ontario’s plan to phase out coal-burning energy and Metrolinx’s proposed transit projects during the next 25 years as important steps. But it adds that Ontario’s population is expected to increase to about 15 million by 2021 – with half of the 2 million growth in the Toronto region – and more needs to be done …

A scenario in which 25 per cent of Ontario cars are plug-in hybrids would require an extra 2,500 megawatts of electricity during peak nightly hours, when most would be recharging their cars. It would cost between $5 billion and $7.5 billion to build the extra nuclear and wind power needed, spread over a 10-year period, the report says. The move could also put Ontario at the forefront of the emerging hybrid auto sector, it argues.

The report emphasizes “mobility hubs” built around high-speed rail stations that connect passengers to local buses, trains and subways. The government should zone land around these hubs to allow for a high-density mix of residential and commercial buildings, it says. Highway congestion would be reduced by high-speed trains that can travel, depending on the technology used, from 130 to 400 km/h, the report says. This high-speed link could eventually be extended to Ottawa, Montreal, Chicago and New York, the report says.

(Graphic via the Toronto Star).

The Toronto Star’s Sandro Contenta provides a sneak peak of our study of future of the Ontario economy, led by Rotman School Dean Roger Martin and myself.

The $2.2-million report is expected in February. Florida and Martin say it’s too early to discuss specific recommendations. But in separate interviews, they make clear they will focus on strengthening the Toronto “mega-region,” investing massively in infrastructure, greatly expanding post-secondary education, and managing a seismic transformation that will eliminate most manufacturing jobs, but may also threaten social peace. “If we don’t do this adjustment right, if we lose social cohesion, we’ll never get it back,” says Florida, director of the Martin Prosperity Institute, affiliated with the University of Toronto.

The full story is here.

So says New York Times’ David Brooks:

The 1980s and 1990s made up the era of the great dispersal. Forty-three million people moved every year, and basically they moved outward — from inner-ring suburbs to far-flung exurbs on the metro fringe … If you asked people in that age of go-go suburbia what they wanted in their new housing developments, they often said they wanted a golf course. But the culture has changed. If you ask people today what they want, they’re more likely to say coffee shops, hiking trails and community centers. People overshot the mark. They moved to the exurbs because they wanted space and order. But once there, they found that they were missing community and social bonds. So in the past years there has been a new trend. Meeting places are popping up across the suburban landscape.There are restaurant and entertainment zones, mixed-use streetscape malls, suburban theater districts, farmers’ markets and concert halls. In addition, downtown areas in places like Charlotte and Dallas are reviving as many people move back into the city in search of human contact…

Barack Obama has said that he would start an infrastructure project that will dwarf Dwight Eisenhower’s highway program. If, indeed, we are going to have a once-in-a-half-century infrastructure investment, it would be great if the program would build on today’s emerging patterns. It would be great if Obama’s spending, instead of just dissolving into the maw of construction, would actually encourage the clustering and leave a legacy that would be visible and beloved 50 years from now.

To take advantage of the growing desire for community, the Obama plan would have to do two things. First, it would have to create new transportation patterns. The old metro design was based on a hub-and-spoke system — a series of highways that converged on an urban core. But in an age of multiple downtown nodes and complicated travel routes, it’s better to have a complex web of roads and rail systems.

Second, the Obama stimulus plan could help localities create suburban town squares. Many communities are trying to build focal points. The stimulus plan could build charter schools, pre-K centers, national service centers and other such programs around new civic hubs… A stimulus package may be necessary, but unless designed with care, its main effect will be to prop up the drying husks of the fall.

More here.

Toronto’s ongoing creative transformation is coming more fully into view. This week saw the opening of Frank Gehry’s newly renovated Art Gallery of Ontario.

(Photo via AGO).

I was there for the opening (full disclosure: I serve on the board) and the building is beyond spectacular in the way it activates the art, stitches together old buildings and reanimates old spaces, and relates to the messy urbanist neighborhood which surrounds. Here’s what the NYT has to say;

Frank Gehry has often said that he likes to forge deep emotional bonds with his architecture projects. But the commission to renovate the Art Gallery of Ontario here must have been especially fraught for him. Mr. Gehry grew up on a windy, tree-lined street in a working-class neighborhood not far from the museum. His grandmother lived around the corner, where she kept live carp handy in the bathtub for making her gefilte fish. Given that this is Mr. Gehry’s first commission in his native city, you might expect the building to be a surreal kind of self-reckoning, a voyage through the architect’s subconscious. So the new Art Gallery of Ontario, which opened to the public on Friday, may catch some fans of the architect off guard.

Rather than a tumultuous creation, this may be one of Mr. Gehry’s most gentle and self-possessed designs. It is not a perfect building, yet its billowing glass facade, which evokes a crystal ship drifting through the city, is a masterly example of how to breathe life into a staid old structure. And its interiors underscore one of the most underrated dimensions of Mr. Gehry’s immense talent: a supple feel for context and an ability to balance exuberance with delicious moments of restraint. Instead of tearing apart the old museum, Mr. Gehry carefully threaded new ramps, walkways and stairs through the original. As you step from one area to the next, it is as if you were engaging in a playful dance between old and new.

But that’s not all. Earlier this month, Toronto’s Artscape unveiled its transformation of Toronto’s old street car repair barns into an urban park plus work-live space for artists and creators.

(Photo via Blog TO)

The project is an amazing example of creative, sustainable, and inclusive adaptive reuse. Rana and I were blown away when we saw the project as host of its opening night. The Globe and Mail reports:

The reinvention of the old Toronto Transit Commission streetcar-maintenance sheds in the St. Clair-Wychwood area of the city will banish forever your spontaneous, ill-considered desire to damn all urbanity … [T]his is a chance to feast on a version of urban heaven, a wondrous, hybridized redevelopment of something that had been left for 30 years to die a slow death. The Artscape Wychwood Barns, which open to the public this week, give us a new kind of temple in which art, community and urban agriculture are allowed to happily conspire … This is not to say that the barns will replace such major destinations as the Art Gallery of Ontario or the Royal Ontario Museum … The compelling city allows for an intermingling of all creative players. And it’s that potent mix which inspires us to stay.

Exactly. Artscape founder Tim Jones likes to say the city’s ongoing transformation involves the simultaneous recognition of the need both to put creativity on display and to more fully engage creativity at work. These two projects are part of that unfolding process to celebrate and harness creativity in a sustainable and inclusive way.

The piling-on begins: The AP reports:

Three big city mayors asked the federal government Friday to use a portion of the $700 billion financial bailout to assist struggling cities. They sought help with the pension costs, infrastructure investment and cash-flow problems stemming from the global financial crisis. The mayors  - Michael Nutter of Philadelphia, Shirley Franklin of Atlanta and Phil Gordon of Phoenix  - made their request in a letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. Nutter said cities are facing an economic crisis not seen since the Depression and need help just like financial institutions. “I want to make sure that cities and metro areas are at the table, that their voices are being heard, that our challenges and problems are well understood, so that we can get relief,” Nutter said.

Who’s next?

I’ve had my share of tiffs with David Brooks, but he nails this one:

Granting immortality to Detroit’s Big Three does not enhance creative destruction. It retards it. It crosses a line, a bright line. It is not about saving a system; there will still be cars made and sold in America. It is about saving politically powerful corporations. A Detroit bailout would set a precedent for every single politically connected corporation in America. There already is a long line of lobbyists bidding for federal money. If Detroit gets money, then everyone would have a case. After all, are the employees of Circuit City or the newspaper industry inferior to the employees of Chrysler? …

If ever the market has rendered a just verdict, it is the one rendered on G.M. and Chrysler. These companies are not innocent victims of this crisis. To read the expert literature on these companies is to read a long litany of miscalculation. Some experts mention the management blunders, some the union contracts and the legacy costs, some the years of poor car design and some the entrenched corporate cultures … A federal cash infusion will not infuse wisdom into management. It will not reduce labor costs. It will not attract talented new employees. As Megan McArdle of The Atlantic wittily put it, “Working for the Big Three magically combines vast corporate bureaucracy and job insecurity in one completely unattractive package.â€�

The Washington Post is reporting that Obama appears to be committed to creating a new White House Office of Urban Policy. Let’s hope it’s one that recognizes urban policy as a key element of innovation, economic growth, and competitiveness as well as poverty mitigation.

Your thoughts on what a new urban policy should look like?