Upzoned

What Types of Places Might See a Post-Pandemic Renaissance? It Won't Be the Suburbs.

After two decades of robust population growth, America’s cities are no longer booming. According to a recent New York Times article, growth in major metropolitan areas is half what it was about ten years ago. And people are understandably wondering what the COVID-19 crisis will mean for the future of cities. From that article:

Mayors are already warning of precipitous drops in tax revenue from joblessness. Public spaces like parks and buses, the central arteries of urban life, have become danger zones. And with vast numbers of professionals now working remotely, some may reconsider whether they need to live in the middle of a big city after all.

Have big cities lost their allure, as the title of the Times article says? And will the pandemic accelerate a rush to smaller cities, the suburbs, and exurbs?

These are some of the questions Abby Kinney and Chuck Marohn explore on this week’s episode of the Upzoned podcast. They also discuss why the places likely to take the biggest economic hit from the pandemic are those with the most debt, the most long-term liabilities, and the least amount of flexibility—i.e., places built according to the suburban development pattern. And they describe the type of cities most likely to experience a renaissance in the post-coronavirus future. (Hint: It’s not the suburbs, but it’s not necessarily New York and San Francisco either.)

Then in the Downzone, Chuck recommends two very different books — a crime thriller set in Minnesota, and a book on the future of the American worker — and Abby describes the experience of mushroom hunting.

Additional Shownotes

• “America’s Biggest Cities Were Already Losing Their Allure. What Happens Next?” by Sabrina Tavernise and Sarah Mervosh

• “Is COVID-19 the End of Cities?” by Joe Cortright

• “Not So Fast: Density Isn’t Plague-Inducing,” by Joe Minicozzi

• When Will Your City Feel the Fiscal Impact of COVID-19? (Podcast)

• “This is the End of the Suburban Experiment,” by Chuck Marohn

• Abby Kinney (Twitter)

• Charles Marohn (Twitter)

• Gould Evans Studio for City Design

• Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom (Soundcloud)

When Will Your City Feel the Fiscal Impact of COVID-19?

Every city will feel the economic impact of the coronavirus crisis. That’s a foregone conclusion. What will vary from community to community is when they will feel it, for how long, and how bad it will be. This is what Michael A. Pagano and Christiana K. McFarland are trying to anticipate in a new study for the Brookings Institution.

Pagana and McFarland—respectively, Dean of the College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Research Director for the National League of Cities—write that “the impact on cities’ bottom line will be driven not only by overall economic conditions but specifically the parts of the economy where revenue is generated: retail sales, income and wages, and real estate.” The towns and cities most likely to feel the impact quicker are those places most reliant on (a) “elastic” sources of revenue (such as sales and income tax), and (b) employers in “high-risk industries,” such as mining, oil and gas, transportation, travel, and more.

“The results,” they write, “indicate an uneven geography of fiscal impact, with many heartland cities likely to be hit harder and more quickly than others.”

In this week’s episode of Upzoned, hosts Abby Kinney and Chuck Marohn discuss the Brookings study and which communities are in the most trouble. They talk about the “suppressed volatility” of the last decade and how it is effecting cities now, why a city budget really is like a family budget, and how the crisis is reminding us why we need stable local governments.

Then in the Downzoned, Abby and Chuck are both turning their attention to yard work. And Chuck recommends a great audiobook about a daring World War II rescue mission.

Additional Shownotes

• “When will your city feel the fiscal impact of COVID-19?” by Michael A. Pagano and Christiana K. McFarland

• Abby Kinney (Twitter)

• Charles Marohn (Twitter)

• Gould Evans Studio for City Design

• Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom (Soundcloud)

What Happens When a Third of U.S. Tenants Don’t Pay Rent?

The COVID-19 crisis is ravaging nearly every aspect of the economy, very much including the housing sector. Data tracked by the National Multifamily Housing Council found that nearly one-third of residential tenants didn’t pay rent in April. Even before the pandemic, says James Brasuell, managing editor at Planetizen, Americans “were straining to cover the high cost of housing…creating a pressure point in the economy that was, according to reports, booming.”

[Pre-existing] trends were stressing the housing markets and the millions of renters in the country before stay-at-home orders gutted the employment market. On April 1, with millions of Americans suddenly unemployed, and a public health crisis weeks, or potentially months, away from its expected peak, U.S. renters owed a collective $22 billion for rent, according to analysis by CoStar.

During the crisis, many tenants have lost income or lost their jobs outright. While some cities and states have allowed tenants to defer rent payments, those tenants face the prospect of having to make up missed payments before the economy is back on its feet.

Brausell’s recent article “Rent Crisis Deferred” is the subject of this week’s episode of Upzoned. Host Abby Kinney, a planner at Gould Evans in Kansas City, and Chuck Marohn, founder and president of Strong Towns, discuss how the housing market is responding to massive non-payment, and it is rippling throughout the rest of the economy. They explore why much-lauded “market responsiveness” is not always a happy thing, the historical roots of our volatile housing system, and what happens when a volatile system seeks equilibrium. They also discuss a few ideas (like a debt jubilee) that have been floated to respond to the crisis.

Then in the Downzoned, Abby and Chuck take a break from recommending media and offer their “Quarantine Chronicles,” including family walks, bike rides, and the experience of cutting one’s own hair.

Additional Shownotes

• ”Rent Crisis Deferred,” by James Brasuell

• James Brasuell (Twitter)

• Abby Kinney (Twitter)

• Charles Marohn (Twitter)

• Gould Evans Studio for City Design

• Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom (Soundcloud)

• Select Strong Towns Articles about Housing

  • Two Simple Rules For Healthy Neighborhood Change, by Daniel Herriges

  • Skinning Your Knee vs. Breaking Your Leg, by Johnny Sanphillippo

  • Why Housing Is “The Wickedest of Wicked Problems” (Podcast)

  • Jenny Schuetz: Who's To Blame for High Housing Costs? (Podcast)

  • Stuck: Why Rent and Mortgage-Burdened Americans Don’t Always Move to Cheaper Pastures, by Kea Wilson

  • More “Landlords on the Street,” by Gracen Johnson

  • 17 Head-scratcher Housing Terms, Defined, by Rachel Quednau

“The Worst Possible Thing We Can Do With This Money”

As talks begin about how to kickstart the economy after the worst of the COVID-19 crisis, lawmakers, policy wonks, and the media are resurrecting a familiar plan: a huge infrastructure bill that will “get money flowing” and “put Americans back to work.”

The belief that infrastructure spending can cure what ails us, that infrastructure is a “good financial investment,” has gained such widespread acceptance (in both major parties, among advocacy groups, and in the media) that we here at Strong Towns call it the “Infrastructure Cult.” But we’re not buying it. Because when you do the math, you soon discover that the more-is-better dogma is financially ruinous for local communities in even the best of times.

On this week’s episode of Upzoned, host Abby Kinney and Strong Towns founder and president Chuck Marohn discuss a recent article from The Hill about the $2 trillion infrastructure bill gaining steam in Washington, DC. They talk about where the money is likely to come from and how it will be spent, the problems with comparing the bill to Great Depression-era recovery plans, and why we can’t fix the economy using the same thinking that made it fragile in the first place.

Then on the Downzoned, Chuck recommends a modern adaptation of Sherlock Holmes and previews something big he’s been working on. And Abby, a Kansas City-based planner at Gould Evans, recommends a Netflix show that should be must-watch even for people who don’t live in Missouri.

Additional Show Notes:

• “Infrastructure bill gains new steam as coronavirus worsens,” by Mike Lillis and Scott Wong

• Abby Kinney (Twitter)

• Charles Marohn (Twitter)

• Gould Evans Studio for City Design

• Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom (Soundcloud)

• Select Strong Towns articles about the Infrastructure Cult

  • A Reminder for Planners: "Every Projection is Wrong," by Daniel Herriges

  • The Hyperloop Is Always Greener from the Other Side of the Stroad, by Charles Marohn

  • What Should My City Do About Our Infrastructure Backlog? by Charles Marohn

  • Shreveport's Highway Emperors’ New Clothes, by Kim Mitchell

  • Why Does Infrastructure Cost So Much?, by Charles Marohn

Bicycles Shine During a Pandemic

The coronavirus has upended life as we know it. Without minimizing the grief, fear, and uncertainty that has gripped the entire world all at once, the pandemic has also revealed things that were always true but were frequently obscured...or ignored.

Case in point: Bikes are an outstanding way to move around, get exercise, see your town, spend time with friends, reduce pollution, and build the economic resilience of your community. Yet we’ve built our cities in such a way that biking is not only impractical and inconvenient, but often a dangerous nightmare.

What’s happened during the coronavirus crisis is that, on many roads, the proportion of cars to people has flipped. More people are out walking and biking. Some towns and cities are even rushing to adapt existing car-centric infrastructure so pedestrians and cyclists can move around while still observing social distancing guidelines.

In a recent CityLab article, “In a Global Health Emergency, the Bicycle Shines,” Laura Laker describes how cycling rates are skyrocketing around the world, and how cities are responding.

Many experts view cycling as a safe way to avoid crowded public transportation systems — and the citizens in a number of world cities appear to agree. In New York, cycling spiked by 52% over the city’s bridges after social-distancing protocols were put in place. In Chicago, bikeshare use doubled in early March. In Dublin and London, advocates are offering support to new riders who are taking to the streets in droves.

In this week’s episode of Upzoned. Host Abby Kinney, a planner at Gould Evans in Kansas City, and Strong Towns senior editor Daniel Herriges discuss the CityLab article and what the pandemic reminds us about the benefits of cycling, in both good times and bad. What if we could shed our assumptions that streets are for cars? What opportunities do we have to improve bike infrastructure, benefiting folks now but also long into the future?

Then in the Downzone, Daniel talks about how he and his wife are using the quarantine to reconnect with an eclectic mix of friends and family. And Abby and Daniel both discuss a bizarre a documentary series on Netflix that the whole country seems to be watching. You know the one.

Additional Show Notes:

• “In a Global Health Emergency, the Bicycle Shines,” by Laura Laker

• Neighborhoods First, by Chuck Marohn

• Abby Kinney (Twitter)

• Daniel Herriges (Twitter)

• Gould Evans Studio for City Design

• Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom (Soundcloud)

• Recent Strong Towns articles about biking

  • The Right-Hand Rule for Passing a Bike, by Buff Brown

  • Cyclists are somehow both “vehicles” and “pedestrians.” This ambiguous status puts lives at risk. By Greg Walker

  • “Which Way to Your Car, Sir,” by Daniel Herriges

  • Hey Peloton, Here’s How Real Cycling “Changes” You, by Arian Horbovetz

  • So Your City's Getting More Bike-Friendly. How Do You Identify the Next Best Step? by Tim Wright

 

 

How the Coronavirus Is Exposing the Fragility of Our Economy

If you’ve followed Strong Towns for a while, you’ve likely heard us talk about Nassim Nicholas Taleb. We frequently refer to him as the Patron Saint of Strong Towns thinking, because—as we wrote last year—“his insights about risk, uncertainty, and fragility have profound implications for how we build our places.”

One of Taleb’s key concepts is antifragility. The opposite of fragility is not resilience (or robustness). Something that is resilient, when it encounters a shock or disruption, merely returns back to its original state. In contrast, something that is anti-fragile actually gains from the disruption. One example is our bones, which get stronger as we subject them to the many small impacts of walking or running.

For those with eyes to see and ears to hear, the coronavirus outbreak has a lot to teach us about just how fragile many of our social systems have become. This includes, but is certainly not limited to, our economy. A recent article in The Atlantic gets at one aspect of this. In “The Modern Supply Chain Is Snapping,” Lizzie O’Leary describes how the coronavirus is exposing “the fragility of an economy built on outsourcing and just-in-time inventory.” As she shows, we are reliant on China for many of our manufactured goods, including components for prescription drugs and medical supplies. When something disrupts that system—like the coronavirus outbreak—the effects ripple throughout the global economy and our public health efforts.

On today’s episode of Upzoned, host Abby Kinney, a planner at Gould Evans in Kansas City, talks about The Atlantic article with Strong Towns founder and president Chuck Marohn. Abby and Chuck discuss some of the choices from the last 70 years that have made the economy more brittle, the work ahead to pick up the pieces, and also the choice we have to make: Will we double down on failed, fragile-making systems, or will we rebuild in a way that makes us more antifragile?

Then on the Downzoned, Chuck recommends Peak Prosperity, a daily YouTube show from Chris Martenson offering commentary and analysis on the news. (Peak Prosperity has been warning about coronavirus for more than two months.) Both Chuck and Abby also discuss the steps they’ve taken to make time for contemplation and rest in the midst of the massive changes wrought by the pandemic.

Show Notes

• “The Modern Supply Chain Is Snapping,” by Lizzie O'Leary
• Peak Prosperity (YouTube)
• Abby Kinney (Twitter)
• Gould Evans Studio for City Design
• Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom (Soundcloud)
• Recent Strong Towns articles on antifragility
  • Why Decline Is Not Normal, by Charles Marohn
  • Why Massive Piles of Cash Can Be Bad for Both Companies and Cities, by Tristan Cleveland
  • Is a City More Like a Washing Machine or a Cat? (Podcast, Part 1 of 2)
  • Lots of Small Earthquakes: How a Place Becomes Antifragile (Podcast, Part 2 of 2)
  • Winning Is the Absence of Losing, by Charles Marohn

"The Worst Planning Mistake in Minneapolis History"

Many towns and cities have at least one: the physical reminder of some particularly egregious development mistake.

In Minneapolis, one such legacy is a Kmart—the last Kmart store in Minnesota—built in the late 1970s in a plan that went south right from the start. As Jessica Lee wrote in a recent article in the MinnPost, Kmart agreed to occupy the space only “on the condition that the city would close Nicolett Avenue so the retailer could build a massive, sprawling store.”

Since then, the Kmart, a grocery store and parking lots have spanned the 10 acres between Lake and West 29th Street. Residents and businesses for decades have protested the street layout. To this day, the closure of Nicollet has been called “the worst planning mistake in Minneapolis history,” said David Frank, the city’s director of Community Planning and Economic Development.

Now, at long last, Kmart has agreed to “terminate its lease and vacate the building.” It is the culmination of a “years-long debate over what should come of the 10-acre site that interrupts the city’s street grid system.”

On this week’s episode of Upzoned, host Abby Kinney, an urban planner with Gould Evans in Kansas City, and Strong Towns senior editor Daniel Herriges (a Minnesota native) discuss the past and future of a project that’s long been a thorn in the side of locals…and people everywhere who love cities. They look at why planners in the 1970s spent millions of dollars in public funds to essentially replace urban blight with suburban blight. They also discuss how Minneapolis can ensure that one top-down mistake isn’t replaced by another, and what city governments everywhere can do to be more supportive of bottom-up energy.

Then in the Downzoned, Abby recommends The Righteous Mind, a book by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt about why “good people are divided by politics and religion.” (The Righteous Mind happens to be on the Strong Towns essential reading list.) Then Daniel talks about how the latest season of Dr. Who has been a welcome distraction from all the distressing coronavirus news.

Show Notes

• Minneapolis’ decision to buy and demolish Minnesota’s last Kmart, explained, by Jessica Lee

• The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, by Jonathan Haidt

• Strong Towns Essential Reading List

• Abby Kinney (Twitter)

• Daniel Herriges (Twitter)

• Gould Evans Studio for City Design

• Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom (Soundcloud)

• Select Strong Towns stories about the Twin Cities

  • A Minor Miracle in St. Paul, by Christa Moseng

  • Three Cheers for Minneapolis (The 3 is for Triplex), by Daniel Herriges

  • One House at a Time on St. Paul’s East Side, by Daniel Herriges

  • Who Gets to Decide How a Neighborhood Gets Redeveloped, by Nate Hood

  • How to Make City Streets More Friendly, by Jay Walljasper

Should Mayors Be Visionaries?

Do we really want our mayors to have a vision? This is the provocative question asked by Alain Bertaud in an article on The MIT Press Reader. Bertaud is a Senior Research Scholar at New York University’s Marron Institute of Urban Management, an urban planner, and the author of the 2018 book Order without Design.

In his article, Bertaud writes that a mayor “convinced of the necessity of having a vision” is less inclined to support innovation welling up from the population and more inclined to impose his or her own vision. 

A mayor with a vision needs to be followed, not questioned by people who lack one. Visionary leadership implies a top-down approach, in other words, but a city is mostly created from the bottom up.

Bertaud’s alternative?

Mayors and their municipal staff, including urban planners and economists, should be considered not visionaries or rulers, then, but a well-coordinated team (one hopes) of competent managers and janitors.

Bertaud’s article is the subject of this week’s Upzoned. In this episode, host Abby Kinney, an urban planner with Gould Evans in Kansas City, is joined by Strong Towns senior editor Daniel Herriges. They discuss visionary mayors, the role of city managers in creating good feedback loops, and how local governments can act as support systems for local innovation rather than gatekeepers.

Then in the Downzoned, Abby recommends a podcast that’s taking a hard look at the lucrative wellness industry. And Daniel recommends a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about North Vietnamese spy living in Los Angeles after the Fall of Saigon. 

Show Notes

• Do We Really Want Our Mayors to Have a Vision?, by Alain Bertaud

• Order without Design, by Alain Bertaud

• Dongo Chang (Twitter)

• The Dream Podcast

• The Sympathizer, by Viet Thanh Nguyen

• Daniel Herriges (Twitter)

• Abby Kinney (Twitter)

• Gould Evans Studio for City Design

• Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom (Soundcloud)

• Select Strong Towns articles on local government

  • Let's Make Public Hearings More Public, by Travis Parker

  • Learn from Peers but Think for Yourself, by Charles Marohn

  • Prototyping the City (podcast)

  • Beyond the Buzzword: Innovation and How it Can Help Local Government Create Meaningful Change (podcast)

Will Kansas City Actually Offer Free Transit? Should It?

Kansas City, Missouri recently made news by becoming the first major metropolitan area to announce plans to offer free bus service throughout the city. Coverage of this story has been mostly positive...but there have been critiques and warnings as well.

Among the latter is “There’s no such thing as a free bus.” Writing last month in The Hill, Patrick Tuohey, director of the Better Cities Project, describes previous fare-free experiments in Austin and Denver that led to “overcrowded buses, disruptive passengers, and unhappy bus operators.” There are other concerns, says Tuohey, not least of which is that the money to pay for it isn’t there yet:

The city’s next fiscal year does not begin until May 1, and the just-released budget proposal does not include enough money for fare-free buses.

Kansas City’s free transit—and Tuohey’s article—are the subjects of today’s episode of Upzoned. Host Abby Kinney, an urban planner based in Kansas City, is joined by Chuck Marohn, founder and president of Strong Towns. Together, they discuss the promise and perils of “free” transit, the kinds of conversations (especially around equity and land use) this plan is spurring locally, and why the argument that we should subsidize transit because we’re already subsidizing cars doesn’t hold water.

Then on the Downzoned, Chuck recommends The Chaos Imperative, a book about why businesses and organizations should create room for disruption, and Abby introduces the new website for Gould Evans Studio for City Design.

Additional Show Notes

• The Hill article: “There’s no such thing as a free bus,” by Patrick Tuohey

• Patrick Tuohey on Twitter

• The Chaos Imperative: How Chance and Disruption Increase Innovation, Effectiveness, and Success, by Ori Brafman and Judah Pollack

• Abby Kinney on Twitter

• Gould Evans Studio for City Design

• Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom (Soundcloud)

• Recent Strong Towns articles on Kansas City

  • Live in Kansas City: "We’re a suburban community learning we can be urban."

  • “We’re Overbuilt on the Public Side, and Underbuilt on the Private Side.”

  • How Better Design Can Help Solve Parking Problems, by Kevin Klinkenberg

Why Housing Is “The Wickedest of Wicked Problems”

A recent article in the New York Times called “Build Build Build Build Build Build Build Build Build Build Build Build Build Build”—that’s fourteen “builds,” by the way—chronicled the drama (and a fair amount of absurdity) surrounding a proposed development in Lafayette, California.

Lafayette, a wealthy suburb east of Berkeley, is known for being notoriously anti-development. When a developer proposed to build hundreds of new homes across the street from a BART station—something the land was zoned for—it set off a firestorm of protests. Some people protested that the plans were too big, others that they were too small. At one point, the developer, Dennis O’Brien, found himself in the farcical position of being sued in support of himself.

The article by Conor Dougherty is the kind of story that brilliantly illustrates the complexities, controversies, and personalities of the housing crisis. Which also makes it the right kind of article to get the Upzoned treatment.

In this week’s episode of Upzoned, host Abby Kinney is joined by Strong Towns president Chuck Marohn and Strong Towns senior editor Daniel Herriges to unpack the Lafayette story. Together, they discuss what the situation in Lafayette says about the degree to which housing policy should be controlled at the state level vs. the local level, the dangers of one-dimensional solutions for complex problems, and whether or not it’s time to reform our laws to simply get more building done.

Then on the Downzoned, Chuck Marohn tells the story of how he met Kansas City rapper Kemet the Phantom, whose song, “Get Out (The Streetcar Song),” is the new Upzoned bumper music. That meeting was a reminder to Chuck that the movement to build strong towns goes far beyond built environment professionals: engineers, planners, and architects.

Show Notes

• The New York Times article: “Build Build Build Build Build Build Build Build Build Build Build Build Build Build,” by Conor Dougherty,”

• Abby Kinney on Twitter

• Kemet the Phantom on Soundcloud

• Conor Dougherty on Twitter

• Recent Strong Towns articles on the housing crisis in California

  • “California Housing Crisis,” by Chuck Marohn

  • “One Important Question About California's Housing Future,” by Daniel Herriges

  • “Best of 2019: California’s Housing Crisis,” by Daniel Herriges

  • “Hey Google, Tell Me How to Make Bay Area Housing More Affordable,” by Daniel Herriges