The Evolution of New Urbanism as an Approach to Urban Development Consolidating Living, Working, and...

Fall 2013

The Evolution of New Urbanism as an Approach to Urban Development Consolidating Living, Working, and

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Andrew Tait RHODES COLLEGE URBAN GEOGRAPHY

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Andrew Tait Urban Geography

The Evolution of New Urbanism as an Approach to Urban Development

“Cities are the heart of the Nation’s economic and social life” and “they are centers for

education, entertainment, cultural enrichment, and artistic creativity” (Wyly, et al 26). There is no

arguing that over the last several centuries, or even the last several decades, rapid urbanization has

transformed the way we think, desire, and interact with one another. Over four-fifths of Americans

are making decisions every day that rely on metropolitan areas (Geography). At the same time, our

decentralization into lower density areas on the metropolitan fringe left for many years the

downtown core of older cities weak, derelict, and hanging on by a fraying thread. Over the last

quarter-century, however, a host of cities including Memphis have employed New Urbanist

strategies to revitalize their downtowns and combat sprawling metropolitan fragmentation.

The Foundations for a New Urbanism

“There is a direct relationship between sprawl and downtown vitality” (Faulk 625). People,

major companies, and principal investors are choosing to live, work, and play outside of the urban

core. Their reasons are logical: more personal and private space, proximity to jobs and shopping

centers, newer roads with freeway access, etc. However, central cities are still expected to carry

most of the brunt costs for infrastructure and metropolitan growth and development. More

specifically, “the most lucrative portion of the urban tax base is escaping to the suburbs and beyond,

giving cities fewer own-source revenues” despite spending “$1.51 for every $1 expended by their

suburban counterparts” (Wyly, et al 25-6).

This spatial mismatch of financial resources came to light as many major stakeholders in

urban downtowns were cast aside in the late twentieth century in favor of real estate tycoons in

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suburbia. According to historians and preservationists Richard Moe and Carter Wilke, “Americans

once again find themselves confronting the ills of urbanization. Today, the problem is urban

sprawl, urbanization that creeps unchecked across the landscape, siphoning the life out of historic

centers while turning the countryside into clutter” (Moe and Wilke 245). Additionally, sprawl has

left many citizens in the next generation yearning for “the architecture of community” (Moe and

Wilke 248). With their options running out, residents, developers, and government officials found

solace and hope in New Urbanist development policies beginning in the 1980s.

Pioneered by the Congress for New Urbanism and others, new urbanist planners “stand for

the restoration of existing urban centers and towns within coherent metropolitan regions, the

reconfiguration of sprawling suburbs into communities of real neighborhoods and diverse districts,

the conservation of natural environments, and the

preservation of our built legacy” (Congress). On

the ground, new urbanist policies construct

developments with increased pedestrian access

and safety, alongside the adaptive reuse of

buildings for mixed-uses. For example, an ideal

type community would consist of wide streets

with large sidewalks, plenty of interaction

between storefronts and pedestrians, mass transit where feasible, and places of both residence and

occupation in the same block (see Fig 1). Slowly but surely, “downtowns are changing from a place

where things are made to a place where things are seen, purchased, and experienced” (Moe and

Wilke 237).

Urban planners and other downtown stakeholders have approached New Urbanism with a

variety of different strategies. “K.A. Robertson provides an overview and assessment of seven

Fig 1. An ideal type new urbanist city (Congress)

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approaches that have been commonly pursued: (1) pedestrianization, (2) indoor shopping centers,

(3) historic preservation, (4) waterfront development, (5) office development, (6) special activity

generators, and (7) transportation enhancements” (Faulk 266). Among these seven, historic

preservation and transportation enhancements have been the driving force that motivate the rest

of the strategies. Indoor shopping centers, new offices, and special activity generators often have

to deal with historic preservationists whether electing for the adaptive reuse of a building or simply

the destruction for reconstruction of a new building. Pedestrians cannot inhabit safer walkways

without alterations to traffic flow and streetscapes. Although not mentioned by Robertson, “one

powerful [downtown] magnet will continue to be housing within an easy commute to downtown

for urban residents at the high end of the residential market” (Moe and Wilke 235). Since the urban

core is largely reliant on corporate headquarters and supporting firms during the workday,

downtowns are making themselves marketable to the professionals who wish to live, work, and play

all in the same community.

New Urbanism in Action

Prior to discussing New Urbanism in downtown Memphis it is important to briefly frame

how new urbanist policies have been implemented in other cities. Portland, Oregon and

Milwaukee, Wisconsin offer an insightful juxtaposition regarding their success and process for

applying new urbanist principles to their downtown development schemes. First, Portland has

largely been touted as the initial and most successful new urbanist city. The city has combatted

sprawl and “a revitalized central business district has attracted new residents to the city’s

neighborhoods, even residents in income levels that were leaving the city before the downtown

plan was formalized” (Moe and Wilke 226). Secondly, Milwaukee is a comparable city to Memphis:

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a former industrial powerhouse located on a river that faces a steep history of cultural, economic,

and racial segregation.

Metropolitan fragmentation has been plaguing urban regions for the last half-century;

sprawling suburbs are now stretching into counties sometimes two or three removed from the

urban core. This sprawl has created too many governmental bodies which makes responsible and

efficient decision making about metropolitan growth and development challenging. In 1978,

“voters in metropolitan Portland took a giant step toward solving [fragmentation] when they

approved the nation’s first directly elected metropolitan government, which coordinates the

growth-management plans of three counties and twenty-four municipalities in the Portland

metropolitan region” (Moe and Wilke 218-9). This landmark vote has vastly enhanced the ability

for all stakeholders, especially those favoring new urbanist development in downtown Portland to

assert their policies for higher-density, mixed use living. Once this new governmental body got to

work, “we had a goal in mind of trying to create a very pedestrian-friendly downtown core,” said

former Portland mayor Neil Goldschmidt (Moe and Wilke 224). The city accomplished that by

boosting mass transit, constructing sufficient housing for its work force, and limiting automotive

accessibility in the city. Despite much criticism for ther radical policies, the statistics do not lie:

“after two decades of saying no to more parking spaces and freeway lanes, Portland benefits from

one of the country’s lowest downtown retail vacancy rates (3.5 percent) and one of the lowest

vacancy rates for top-quality office space (7 percent)” (Moe and Wilke 227). Many developers gawk

at Portland and wonder “Can Portland’s success of the last quarter century be followed elsewhere?”

(Moe and Wilke 233).

The city of Milwaukee has certainly tried to emulate Portland’s prowess in the field of New

Urbanism, though not quite to the same success. After experiencing great demise at the hands of

international industrial job relocation and federal urban renewal policies, Milwaukee’s downtown

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was in a dark place. In an effort to rebrand Milwaukee as an invigorated and impassioned city, “the

New Urbanism principles applied to downtown Milwaukee involved parking system enhancements,

traffic circulation improvements, pedestrian emphasis, and visitor friendliness” (Voigt and

Polenske 26). The city also initiated a great deal of beautification along its waterfront. Like

Portland, Milwaukee’s emphasis on pedestrianization relies heavily on metropolitan transportation

policy decisions. City engineers Kenneth Voigt and Jeffery Polenske assert that in Milwaukee

“transportation policies can contribute to the synergy required to achieve a vibrant downtown that

is friendly to motorists, pedestrians and businesses” (Voigt and Polenske 29). However, unlike

Portland, Milwaukee has exhausted far more resources on parking system enhancements for

commuters and tourists downtown. Despite taking a different approach than Portland, “office

space vacancies have increased faster in the suburbs and nationwide” than in the city. “Per NAI

Global, downtown [Milwaukee’s] class A vacancy of 10.3% is better than the national average of

13.9%” (Bernacchi). By and large, new urbanist policies have been successful in garnering

downtown residential and business growth to downtowns across the country.

River City Revitalization

Some say Henry Turley owns downtown Memphis and they would not be far off considering

Turley is one of the city’s premier commercial real estate developers. He also “has attracted national

attention as a pioneer in the movement called New Urbanism, led by architects, planners, and

builders who advocate for better-designed communities as remedies for placeless urban sprawl”

(Moe and Wilke 93). Memphis is a city much like Milwaukee above and was plagued by urban

renewal and rapid suburbanization in the mid-twentieth century. Like Milwaukee as well,

Memphis has spent millions and millions of tax dollars and grant money to enliven the downtown

core over the last quarter century. Fig 2 showcases longitudinal demographic data for downtown

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Census 1980 Census 1990 Census 2000 Census 2010 2013 Estimate

Residential Pop. 23,067 21,862 20,212 22,791 23,794

Households 9,600 9,487 9,417 11,278 11,834

Avg. HHI $8,413 $18,109 $37,653 $51,568 $59,745

Median HHI $4,701 $9,079 $20,625 $32,839 $36,228

Bachelor’s Deg. - 15.8% 29.0% 35.3% 39.1%

Graduate Deg. - 7% 12.9% 16.5% 18.8%

Students - - - - 12,847

Employees - - - - 12,847

Visitors - - - - 4,000,000

Memphis from 1980-2013. The city has made great strides in economic factors like household

income (HHI) and made a significant jump in the number of households, largely due to more

young, single professionals and an increase in housing stock. That being said, “more promising is

how downtown is discovered more each year by Memphians themselves, drawn to the river for

weekend recreation and for annual festivals and carnivals celebrating the city’s music and famous

barbecue” (Moe and Wilke 97).

By and large, the city of Memphis has revolutionized and completely transformed the

experience of being downtown. “Before Downtown's redevelopment many people wouldn't dare to

walk along a nearly deserted Main Street” (Bailey). As such, the city completely altered Main Street

under the guise of New Urbanism. The revitalized

Main Street Plaza is safe for pedestrians as

automotive transit is prohibited and a trolley line

takes residents and visitors from one end of

downtown to another where they can live, work,

and play (see Fig. 3). Vital to redeveloping Main

Street Plaza was the decision to adaptively reuse

Fig 2. Demographic data for downtown Memphis 1980-2013 (“Downtown”)

Fig 3. Main Street Plaza (©www.gogobot.com)

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historic buildings instead of demolishing them. According to Turley, “a huge amount of our assets

are tied up in these old buildings you see here” and he was the first to initiate mixed-use

development of historic structures in 1976 (Moe and Wilke 91). As of 1998, it was stated: “If

Memphis civic and business leaders make more of a determined effort, it is not inconceivable that

a generation from now many of downtown’s vacancies could be filled” (Moe and Wilke 97). Since

then, city stakeholders and prominent developers like Turley have made a concerted effort to

reconfigure these buildings. However, the remaining buildings to be developed are much larger in

scale and some face expensive structural or industrial chemical issues that dissuade redevelopers.

What’s been working for Memphis? As seen in Fig. 2, the residential market catapulted in

the late 1990s and the city can barely keep up with consumer pressure. “Downtown apartment

occupancy has nudged up to 95 percent as growing demand for rental housing outstrips completion

of new units” (Risher “Apartments”). Simply put, the population downtown continues to rise “at a

time when the supply of apartments hasn't grown proportionately, due to a lag in completion of

large new projects” (Risher “Apartments”). Wealthy white-collar professionals, especially young

professionals without families, are enamored by the newly redeveloped lofts in historic buildings.

This demographic is largely and almost exclusively the heart and soul of the New Urbanism

movement as they advocate to corporate colleagues earnestly for multi-functional communities

where their workplaces and recreational havens are a quick commute via walk or bike or well design

public transit. “We've never had a stronger demand to live downtown in the history of our city,"

Downtown Memphis Commission president Paul Morris reported (Risher “Pinnacle”).

While “the play component is going gangbusters,” Morris is very concerned about the “the

work component,” which is “very weak, and really struggling to fill up the office spaces” as the data

demonstrates (Risher “Pinnacle”). “After falling to 14.7 percent in the first quarter of 2012, [office]

vacancies climbed to 17.9 percent by the first quarter of 2013 and were still climbing… in May”

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(Risher “Apartments”). The Memphis economy is led by the healthcare industry and the

warehousing industry, both of which need large tracts of land to operate. For better or for worse,

there is simply not enough business activity in Memphis to sustain the availability of office space

without a greater incentive for white collar businesses to settle in Memphis. That being said, the

Downtown Memphis Commission has recently pushed its Storefront Improvement Grant in an

effort to increase pedestrian access and aesthetic appeal for retail stores along major downtown

corridors. According to Morris, “most grants would probably be in the $2,000 to $5,000 range,”

enough to see a short term return on their investment (Risher “Spruce”). With the help of this

grant, hopefully Moe and Wilke’s statement about filling the vacancies will be realized in the near

future. Optimism is high in Memphis, largely due to its new urbanist redevelopment schemes

despite the enormous costs for constructing such broad-reaching projects. Accordingly, “the steady

restoration and adaptation of historic buildings and sensitive new construction have made

Downtown the place to be” (Bailey).

Behind the Façade

New Urbanism has been widely contested amongst planners, developers, academics, and

government officials. Beyond sheer costs, three major criticisms have entered the forefront of the

discussion: New Urbanism causes unhealthy gentrification, high density development has

environmental impacts, and the market favors sprawling development.

Gentrification “serves up the central- and inner-city real-estate markets as burgeoning

sectors of productive capital investment” (Smith 446). Many new urbanist developments capitalize

on comparatively low property values in areas on urban core’s periphery. As such, gentrification

has largely become the order of the day for many contemporary development ventures due to “the

increasing centrality of real-estate development in the new urban economy” and since the cost and

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scope of multi-functional projects is so steep (Smith 442). New urbanist style HOPE VI

developments for example intentionally gentrify preexisting public housing complexes by clearing

out the old units and installing pedestrian friendly, and ideally mixed-income developments that

can draw more business activity. With an available supply of workers for these new businesses,

HOPE VI communities end up being occupied largely by the young urban professionals described

above (McDougal, et al). The goal of HOPE VI is to revitalize a neighborhood (typically near the

downtown business core) while simultaneously empowering former public housing residents,

though the program has had mixed results, expressed best by Smith. The strategy for social balance

can be achieved but “involves a major colonization by the middle and upper-middle classes” in

neighborhoods targeted for social regeneration and an intentional protection of indigenous

residents (Smith 445). In essence, many opponents of new urbanist redevelopment schemes

contend that that the desires and opinions of these indigenous residents get passed over by real-

estate interests who ensured the displacement of now former residents.

Secondly, “environmental impact” is a prominent unit of analysis when proposed

redevelopment schemes are being assessed. The growth boundary in Portland, for example, was

put in place to preserve green-space on the metropolitan periphery and to contain sprawling

development (Moe and Wilke 214). According to some however, the environmental impacts of

sprawl are actually lesser than in new urbanist communities or at least less pronounced than new

urbanists tend to cite. “Only about four percent of [the United States’] land is developed,” rejecting

the “danger of development consuming a major percentage of the nation’s land” (Holcombe 286).

Additionally, economist Randall Holcombe explains that low-density sprawl is healthy for the

environment because it maintains of open land while accommodating for population growth.

High-density new urbanist development, on the other hand, “means more buildings and paved

areas relative to open areas that can absorb water runoff, and means less room for trees and

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vegetation that can absorb and process air pollution naturally” (Holcombe 288). This argument,

though, fails to account for the higher pollution from automotive commuting generated in low-

density areas and the push for mass transit by stakeholders in new urbanist communities.

Nonetheless, Holcombe’s argument is quite valid, especially for new urbanist developments that do

not adequately design green-space that can absorb run off and process air pollution.

Finally, statistics alone prove that the market desires sprawling, low-density development.

“Market forces work against the new urbanist goals: as incomes rise, people want to buy more living

space for themselves and want to buy more flexible transportation options” (Holcombe 298). In

almost everywhere around the United

States, suburban population rates are

skyrocketing compared to those in

the urban core. As such, cities have

had to annex or incorporate much of

their metropolitan fringe in order

retain some of the tax base moving

away from the urban core (see Fig.

4). Economist Randall Holcombe is also a major advocate for a neoliberalist reliance on market

forces, especially for economic development. According to him, “governments are more

aggressively involved in central economic planning for land use than any other area, and the new

urbanist movement is providing the fundamental ideas through which this planning takes place”

(Holcombe 299). However, strict state and federal mandates are making such large-scale new

urbanist planning difficult since “the expense of the planning process is borne by the local

government” (Holcombe 294). Only the next several decades will be able to determine how

markets respond to well established high-density communities for the affluent.

Metropolitan Area Percent Incorporated 1980

Milwaukee-Racine, WI 30.14228

Dallas-Fort Worth, TX 21.9519

Memphis, TN-AR-MS 12.32538

South Bend, IN 11.27572

Atlanta, GA 9.303319

Buffalo-Niagara Falls, NY 8

Seattle-Tacoma-Bremerton, WA 5.240642

Portland-Salem, OR-WA 4.655034

Richmond-Petersburg, VA 3.476738

Fig. 4. Percent of land incorporated during 1980 in select

Metropolitan Statistical Areas (Burchfield, et al)

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The Post-New Urbanism Manifesto

New Urbanism has certainly not been without its critics. Of all the claims to dethrone

contemporary development policies, the argument for gentrification is the most morally

compelling as it acknowledges the voicelessness experienced by indigenous or displaced residents

of regenerated communities. Additionally, market forces clearly point to a desire by citizens to live

in low-density neighborhoods with daily essentials accessible by automotive transit instead of by

walking or mass transit. I anticipate that new urbanist development could be especially beneficial

in exurbs being developed for the first time, yet some of its objectives must be altered.

Although a primary tenant of New Urbanism is historic preservation which “focuses on

‘adaptive reuse’ of historic structures where buildings that were initially constructed for one

purpose are converted to a different use,” Post-New Urbanism could have the freedom to design

pedestrian-friendly, mixed-use, and high-density space on a blank slate like a corn field or forest

(Faulk 267). Such Post-New Urbanism is already beginning to take prominence for young, urban

professionals whose workplace is located on the suburban fringe. Post-New Urbanism also has the

potential to address a severe spatial mismatch between the location of impoverished

neighborhoods on the urban fringe and the location of low-wage jobs on suburban beltways (see

Fig. 5). As long as Post-New Urbanist

developments account for low-rent housing,

it could open up a door for increased

socioeconomic integration and offer the

assets of New Urbanist communities to all

citizens.

Citizen voice will also be important

for the long-term success of Post-New

Fig. 5. Plans for a Post-New Urbanist style development

(http://intl399.blogspot.com/2009/05/what-is-mixed-

income-housing.html)

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Urbanism. New Urbanism has been criticized for colonizing impoverished communities on the

urban fringe and rendering the displaced citizens voiceless and largely without residential

alternatives as outlined above by Neil Smith. However, “good citizens are the riches of a city” and

they should hold authentic weight in our democratic nation (Moe and Wilke 260). In an age where

corporate-interests speak far louder than the average citizen, we must presently put the

construction of new urbanist developments into the hands of the people who will inhabit them.

“The solution, according to the New Urbanism, is smart growth, which means increasing

population density in areas where people live to preserve the environment elsewhere, and an

increasing reliance on mass transit and other alternatives rather than automobiles” (Holcombe

286). Although consumers have opted for low-density sprawl over the last half-century, opening

the market for new urbanist assets could potentially give a voice to those citizens who rely most on

mass transit, pedestrianization, and affordable housing. Thus the time has come for a citizen-

centered Post-New Urbanism that acknowledges and contains sprawl by constructing higher

density communities for all socioeconomic levels in both the urban core and on the metropolitan

fringe where jobs are highly clustered.

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Works Cited

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Congress for the New Urbanism. “Charter of the New Urbanism.” Congress for the New

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<http://search.proquest.com/docview/1372228256>.

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memphis-looks-beyond-pinnacle/?print=1>.

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<http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2012/aug/20/memphis-agency-launches-new-

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