Civic Strategies

We are so used to celebrating homeownership in the United States that it's a little starting to hear it criticized. After all, home owners bring stability to neighborhoods, in part because they have a financial stake in how they turn out. But some researchers think that, on balance, homeownership is a bad deal for cities. For one thing, they say, it tends to increase unemployment by cementing people into places they really ought to leave. More surprisingly, some research indicates that high levels of homeownership might deter entrepreneurship.

Several cities, including Grand Rapids, Michigan, are considering doing something remarkable with their urban rivers: Restoring them to the state they were in before there was a city around them. Specifically, that means restoring their rapids, which were dammed up or dredged out during the cities' industrial eras. Why would they want to do that? Part of it is to create new recreational uses for the rivers (kayaking and such), but as this article points out, there's a larger purpose. When people play on rivers, others pay attention. And if you're trying to reorient your city toward its waterfront, one of the best ways is simply to give people something to watch. So while relatively few people will ever shoot the rapids in a raft, those who do will find a much larger audience of people who will watch . . . especially if they're doing it through the middle of a downtown.

It was bound to happen. There are political PACs today for every interest group. Now there's one in New York for pedestrians and bicyclists. StreetsPAC plans to support candidates who'll keep New York's bike lanes and  walkability improvements . . . and expand them.

On Otis White's civic leadership blog: When you're taking on a major urban problem, the best way to begin isn't with a single great action but with a series of small, reinforcing actions. By doing so, you recognize the complexity of cities and build early momentum. And that lays the groundwork for bold actions to follow.

Redeveloping declining strip shopping centers is a good thing, especially if it results in livelier, more walkable commercial areas. But there is a down side, as this article points out. These declining shopping centers sometimes house a warren of small, often immigrant-owned businesses that couldn't afford the higher rents of tonier retail districts. What do we lose when these businesses go away? And should we do anything to help them? Food for thought.

One of the most striking things about cities is that they're such complex environments. What that means is that they tend to respond to changes in unexpected ways. You can see this playing out in urban cycling, which (today at least) is an unquestionably risky undertaking in most American cities. So what could make cycling safer? More bike lanes? More people wearing helmets? Or simply getting more people to ride bikes? The answer may be . . . more bikes, which may someday reduce the need for special lanes or even safety equipment. Here's why.

The four most important words leaders should use, a well-known corporate CEO says in this interview, are, "What do you think?" Leaders must bring others along with them, and that means including them in decision making. And that inclusion begins with purposeful listening.

We read a lot of books about cities and urban issues and write about what we find. Here's one we read a while back, "The Great Inversion and the Future of the American City" by Alan Ehrenhalt. We are living in a time when American cities are being reshaped in epochal ways, the author says. And when all is settled, we may end up with metropolitan areas that look like those in Europe, with the wealthy at the core and the poor and immigrants on the outskirts. That's, of course, the opposite of what we had in most of the 20th century (with the poor in the inner city and the affluent in the suburbs). But demographic, cultural, and other forces (including commuting times) are forcing a "great inversion." Hence, the rebirth of inner-city neighborhoods from Chicago to New York, and the rise of ethnic suburbs in unexpected places like Atlanta. This book is a fascinating look at our emerging metro areas.