My youthful preference for cities was sociological and aesthetic with a soupçon of Club of Rome Limits to Growth. That was enough to make me fertile soil for Chuck Marohn’s message of the suburban Ponzi scheme in the Curbside Chat; sprawl didn’t pay for itself but traditional development did. With that a farm boy from Minnesota said to the entire world that the mightiest, wealthiest, most technologically advanced empire in all of history had feet of clay. The American Way of Life which was proclaimed “non-negotiable” was a chimera in more than one way: it was both illusory and monstrous.
Was it hubristic to believe that a few dozen studies of post war auto-oriented design, a comparison of a taco joint to a block of mediocre buildings, and an anecdote about a small town being encouraged to double down on a waste water system it already couldn’t afford was sufficient to call out the American Dream? Not if you’re right. It’s amusing to listen to the humble Midwesterner project on to his own true believers the hubris he fears in his own message, even going so far as to call himself…I mean members of his own movement…”idiots” if they believe they know the solutions to the problems we face today.
Yes, I agree that our current situation is more of a predicament than a problem and that what we have before us are responses and not solutions. But I do know what we ought to do in the broadest sense, at least here in my corner of the world, facing the predicaments we are facing. And I am not an idiot. In greater Springfield we have a population growing at a snail’s pace and dozens of traditional, walkable city centers and neighborhoods which are underpopulated and underutilized. They already have the infrastructure to satisfy the needs of our citizenry for decades and decades without any more horizontal expansion.
Of course, not only do I know it, Chuck knows it too. To listen to him you’d almost believe that he doesn’t believe his own message here. But as he continuously carries on about “the magic of the incremental” it’s important to understand that he really doesn’t believe in the absolute hegemony of small scale developments, though perhaps he thinks he does. I can give 2 examples from this place (Western Massachusetts) of small scale, incremental plans that he would be four square against.
1) Now that technology has replaced toll takers on the Massachusetts Turnpike there is a movement to add an exit and an entrance along the 30 mile stretch between Westfield and Lee. The cost wouldn’t amount to a blip in the Mass DOT’s budget, but it would open up hundreds of miles of roads and thousands of acres of greenfield to auto oriented development in a region, as I have already stated, with minimal population growth.
2)The South End neighborhood is slowly, and incrementally in tiny chunks transforming from a traditional walkable neighborhood to a car centered place. One by one, hotels, car dealers, and fast food joints are purchasing traditional buildings, knocking them down, adding parking lots, and constructing buildings with stroad type set backs. The developers are making money, and unlike the Taco John’s model, the tax impact on the city has been positive, at least in the short run.
Hey, these are small, incremental bets, but based on the auto oriented model. So you’re in favor of them, right Chuck? Or do you have the hubris to claim that you know better?! I know I know better…but that makes me an idiot, right?
On the other hand we have MGM. A huge “silver bullet” project if ever there was one. But not all silver bullets are of the same caliber: The enormous highway viaduct separating the downtown from the river? Horrible! the enormous urban renewal district north of downtown? Disposable. But a half a dozen projects enumerated here? Spectacular. My city exists as it does because of the ultimate silver “bullet” project (quite literally) and preserved its regional preeminence by yet another.* Under the circumstances which go well beyond this one community’s ability to control (the legalization and proliferation of casino gambling for example), the city is leveraging this HUGE project to repair, restore, or redesign 3 downtown parks and miles of sidewalk and bicycle infrastructure; this mega project has shown a respect for the scale existing of the downtown and is designed to encourage walkability in a way that none of the small scale projects have over the last 30 years with the exception of those restricted by the demands of historic preservation.
*(A public-private partnership to build a bridge across the Connecticut to regain the regional pre-eminence lost to Northampton)
If you’re asking me, do I know the best way to communicate to my neighbors the critical nature of the decisions we are making regarding traditional versus auto oriented development? No, I don’t. Which plans in the short term will serve as the best exemplars of traditional development? “Tampoco”. But that is not the same as pretending I don’t know what the broader choices are and what the correct answers are. I do.
I do get, though, that other parts of the world might be dealing with different issues and people might be positing ridiculous “solutions”: massive, brand new hugely expensive high speed rail projects connecting no place to nowhere in hopes that things will densify on either end. Here, though, we’re just taking already existing rights of way and infrastructure, and used rolling stock to double or triple connectivity to New Haven and New York City: Not high speed, not maglev, just some old trains adding 17, 12, and 2 trains a day at distances of 30, 60 and 100 miles respectively.
To me, and probably to you, smart, small, and incremental. But to people who view rail as a relic it’s an ill conceived reversal, and a governmental white elephant; why not just a couple more lanes to Interstate 91? It’s incremental! “Use the rest of the $ saved not improving Springfield’s rail connectivity to fix the potholes on my street!?”
We know better. You know better. THAT’S a stupid argument. To say so only demonstrates hubris if you’re wrong. And you’re not wrong.
As I’ve said before, Paris was a big idea, and it was a good one. Did Robert Moses draw inspiration from Haussmann? Probably. But Haussmann was right and Moses was wrong. Yes, smaller bets pose less risk than larger ones, and there are things we know, and things we don’t know. Of course knowing which is which is key. It is pretending the difference doesn’t matter or doesn’t exist that is idiotic.
I think some of Charles Marohn’s perspectives on transit that I personally find myself disagreeing with come from his experiences living and growing up in the Midwest where transit is not on average as well used as it is in the northeast even though it is still more used there than in other regions of the country. I think that perspective causes him to undervalue the importance of transit in places like the Springfield region that have a stronger base demand for transit than similar sized regions in the Midwest where a commuter rail type system even if it was frequent would likely not see as much use as the system being implemented in the Springfield region.
Overall I find myself agreeing with what you have been saying in your posts lately and they seem more applicable to this region than what I have been seeing elsewhere.
It may be that regional perspective but it’s pretty clear the incremental ideology has the power of dogma at S/T, but I’ve been on this ride for a while and to me it has its uses and its limits.
Commuter rail worked well in the midwest until sprawl took over and businesses moved out of the central districts. We had well functioning and crowded trains and trolleys in many towns and cities.
I tend to think that incrementalism is the part of the answer, but I do think Strong Towns can be laisse-faire to a determent. It’s worth remembering that in all those incrementally grown communities, there were institutions that stewarded over the platforms for incremental growth. Would our they have let important commercial corridors become moribund parking lots? I don’t think so.
The flaw of ST incrementalism is that it doesn’t have answers when land values are distorted. For example, if there’s couple acres of ugly surface parking in the core of your city next to the stadium/theatre/etc and it’s worth $10M due to high parking revenues, that lot simply will not be de re-developed organically in cities outside the Top 50, because any developer would need to do a $50-100M development on it to justify the land price. Even if it is re-developed, it’s self-evident that there are no incremental options here. The ST incrementalism works within a specific range – not too derelict to not too over-valued. But what if your city has a minefield of high value downtown parking lots and negatively-valued contaminated brownfields? We not fixing that with incrementalism; we need to go in and fix the root cause of the distortions.
I think that is a large part of where I run into issues with accepting what S/T advocates. It recognizes that are current markets are incredibly distorted in some areas, but it doesn’t provide a way to address that issue within the incremental framework that they propose.
I have thought from time to time that ST could be less big-picture and instead give more specific guidance on well thought-out solutions to problems. I know every municipality has their own specific attributes, finances, etc but joe schmoe who wants to do well for his town might not have all the time to read up and maybe needs a little more of a cookbook.
Anyways, correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t the knock on small incremental automobile oriented development that it returns less in land taxes to the municipality on a per-acre basis compared to traditional incremental urban/pre-depression era development pattern on the same lot? I don’t know Springfield’s ordinances/regulations, but my take is that a lot of what don’t like seeing in the center of our cities are either mandated (eg minimum parking requirements) or allowed to happen (outdated Euclidean zoning regs).
Exactly, but the Hampton Inn and this one huge local car dealer are really taking a bite out of the traditional walk shed and by the time the city realized, if they realize, what it has done to the tax base it’ll be too late.
Tying into your recent post about lousy architecture, a Strong Towns hardliner could make the point that the windowless school and cheap bench are being good stewards of the towns finances, and that the next increment will come along and improve them. But that school’s been windowless for 40 years now, so I guess it’s too bad for the many generations of students who had to pass through it. A spared dollar is more important than the view from your desk. Get back to work!
I always get the idea it’s not a 100% fully baked theory, as the acceptance of ‘failure’ and the metrics used continually and randomly shift based on the post (not the writer- that would be expected).
I also find that the buzzword ‘incremental’ does a lot of unexamined heavy lifting (as you point out above). What counts as ‘incremental’ isn’t handed down by Jesus, it’s just as political as our zoning is today, and one should expect that it would be gamed just as much.
Well put: “heavy lifting”. I’ve likened the circumstances of communities to sports, not a perfect analogy to be sure, but sometimes circumstances call for bold action, and others demand a cautious approach.
Wow, that’s super depressing that the city is still destroying itself for the convenience of cars. I feel for you. Best wishes for defending your city!
I have to say, I find this kinda dickish. Dude, post the comments in the email I sent you, which demonstrate how you’re not only distorting what I’ve said but doing so in kind of dumb way to try and make a point. You’re making ST a straw man for an argument I’ve not made.
Sure. You seemed pretty dismissive of my points…you still do! Which is fine, I didn’t see how your comments even related to what I had written. Dude, more people read any thing you write on Strongtowns in an hour than visit my blog in a month, so I think you’ll survive the “dickishness”. There’s a naive orthodoxy creeping in at Strongtowns in my opinion. I love incrementalism, the coffee shop, painting façades, putting in flowers…but I was literal y doing all of that here when you were still in elementary school. You’ve got a bunch of bright eyed optimistic very intelligent people working for you now; but where is the cabinet of rivals?
Again, I’ll post your responses but I don’t see that they even address my point. I’ve written and linked in the piece to the fact that here, in this place, large scale “silver bullet” mega projects have retained their value and maintained a traditional fiscally viable downtown, but incrementalism is destroying it. Joe referenced the cause on the last podcast, as have I in two or three essays: it continues to make the developers money. If you asked me if I wanted MGM or a local restauranteur to decide the fate of a given parcel downtown I can tell you it would be the corporate vampires hands down!
So funny you mention “straw men” when in the podcast I’m referring to you mention teachers who ask to be totally excused from responsibility for student outcomes, which I have NEVER heard a single teacher do. I’ve heard them, quite reasonably, make it clear that issues such as poverty and ELL status be taken into account when judging student outcomes. As someone who teaches in a wealthy suburb, I agree, despite the fact doing so probably singles out my shortcomings!
Love you Chuck. I think this week’s post nails the objective unassailable part of the ST message: we need to grow where we’ve already invested in the infrastructure if we are going to do so at all!
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