Downtown revival

There is a great book called Downtown, Inc.: How America Rebuilds Cities by Bernard J. Frieden and Lynne B. Sagalyn that I picked up completely by accident at a great bookstore on Haight Street in San Francisco. (Forever After Books, 1475 Haight St.) Although it is a little dated, (original publishing date July 1, 1991) it details how some of the downtown shopping centers and public centers came to be through public entrepreneurship and public-private entrepreneurship.
Again, a little history is in order. During/after the Industrial Revolution people did their shopping downtown, as that is where everyone lived and the suburbs were not even a twinkle in a developer's eye. But once the suburbs came to be, people did their shopping in the suburbs because that's where they lived.

In fact, people began to stay away from the downtowns- for numerous reasons. As more and more prosperous people moved away from the downtowns, people began to see the declining downtowns as dirty, dangerous, stressful to navigate, and parking was non-existent. However characteristics were absent in sunny, sterile suburbia while ample parking abounded.

People used to shop the downtown department stores, but even some of the major department stores packed up for greener pastures. And while some stores stayed, ensconced in their beautiful buildings, some never recovered from the economic blow. Chicago's beautiful Carson Pierre Scott building, designed by Chicago architect, Louis Sullivan (inventor of the skyscraper and mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright) closed its beautiful iron doors last year, February 21, 2007.

My alma mater's library, the Jen Library, in Savannah, GA is housed in a former downtown department store.

And don't get some people started on what they would consider nothing short of a bastardization of their beloved Chicago institution Marshall Field's being turned into another Macy's. The building has not been altered except for cosmetic signage, but the feeling has changed.

Obviously, it need be pointed out that some flagship stores, such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Bloomingdale's in New York never left, they only expanded. But other department stores, some of equal status, others much lower, closed their doors, even in the cities of their birth.

However, some urban planners and intrepid developers thought that they could lure the crowds back to the very places that they had fled. Part of this was due to the fact that many national stores had overextended themselves in suburbia and needed new markets.

Like I said, this book is a little dated and it's weird thinking of shopping areas like Chicago's Water Tower Place as anything but a tourist stop along the Magnificent Mile if you've been there in the past five years. But historically it's fascinating reading learning about the steps needed to be taken to bring to life some of the urban market places that seem so commonplace now, but were innovative for their time. Boston's Quincy Market is cited. As is Seattle's Pike Place Market and many other locations that thanks to these successful efforts.

This is not to say that this movement has not had its critics. (Jeff Ferrell and his work, Tearing Down the Streets: Adventures in Urban Anarchy is one particularly vitrolic example. I had a hard time trying to see his side of the story I was so busy wiping the angry spittle that emanated from the pages. )

This is not to say that a new shopping center is the cure-all, Band-Aid solution for every ailing downtown in America, but say what you will about building downtown shopping centers. If nothing else it points to the enduring spirit of capitalism and its power to wrest many a city back from the edge thanks to America's never-ending quest for stuff and novelty.

Urban renewal, not as good as it sounds

If you are reading this, you have survived my rant about how the suburbs came to be (thoughts on the dreaded sprawl later).

Well, dear reader, suffice to say that the lure of the suburbs was strong, mighty strong and after we kicked Nazi butt in World War II masses of people, enticed by the new roads and cheap mortgage rates, headed out to the suburbs.

Unfortunately, not everyone was able to claim a stake in this utopia. Those who were poor, and were often a minority race as well, were left in the cities. Because of their economic status conditions tended to slide toward the not good side. Repairs went untended, crime increased, and downtown/inner cities began to acquire the unfair (and often untrue) reputation that has plagued them to this day- dirty and dangerous.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions and the urban planners of the late 1940's through the 1970's, and even into the early 1980's looked at the disrepair that our nation's cities had fallen into and decided that it was cheaper to pull the plug, if you will, then perform triage. So that's exactly what they did. Veiled under the innocuous title of "urban renewal," many cities bulldozed blighted areas. In some cases they provided vouchers for the soon-to-be-displaced residents. In other cases, taking advantage of the people's lack of political power, they simply steamrolled their way, both literally and figuratively.

Leaving behind vacant lots, some of which are still vacant to this day. One need only drive around Kanye West's old stompin' grounds, Lawndale, Chicago, to see what I am talking about. I lived there for a few months and it is a tough and gritty place, where children are still raised and grow, but rarely escape.

The problem with vacant lots is that it can increase crime. And indeed it did. Empty lots became prime drug dealing grounds, ideal locations for gang wars, dirty needles, etc., This is similar to the "Broken Windows" theory from Fixing Broken Windows: Restoring Order and Reducing Crime in Our Communities by: George L. Kelling and Catherine Coles. The book, in turn, was based on an article entitled "Broken Windows" by James Q. Wilson amd George L. Kelling, which was published in the Atlantic Monthly March 1982 (information courtesy of wikipedia.org). In a nutshell, the broken window theory states that when a window goes unrepaired it shows a lack of pride in one's home, in one's neighborhood. This lets less-than-do-gooders know that other destructive activities are permissible. Therefore, if the windows aren't being repaired, then who's to say that anyone's going to call the cops if someone "shady" is in the neighborhood. Then "shady" people lead to drug dealers standing brazenly on the street corners and gang leaders strutting like they own the streets, which in all likelyhood they do because, if something as minor as a window isn't repaired, why would anyone bother to care about the big stuff either?

However, in the 1970's urban planning, with the benefit of hindsight, realized that urban renewal didn't deliver the way it had been proposed it would. But downtown cities were still in trouble.