Category Archives: Places

Celebrating “a cathedral for commuters”

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Grand Central Terminal is 100 years old and NPR provides part of its story:

Seven is one of the 750,000 people who walk through Grand Central every day. To put it into perspective, that’s more people than the entire population of the state of Alaska — a handy fact you can learn from Daniel Brucker, an enthusiastic New Yorker who’s managed Grand Central Tours for the past 25 years…

Fortunately, the Vanderbilt family, who owned the New York Central Railroad, had the money. And what they built was a 49-acre rail complex with more tracks and platforms than any other in the world. The buildings on Park Avenue, to the north, are built over it. And it’s an almost unfathomably busy place — during the morning rush hour, a Metro-North commuter train arrives every 58 seconds.

“It’s like a cathedral that’s built for the people,” Brucker says. “We’re not going through somebody else’s mansion, through somebody else’s monument. It’s ours. It’s meant for the everyday commuter, and it’s a celebration of it.”…

“It is the largest interior … public space in New York,” Monasterio says. The windows on the east and the west side, those windows used to open, they used to draw air from the east side, through the terminal, over and out the west side.”

Having been there a few times myself, it is a remarkable building. Public spaces that are so crowded, functional, and well-designed are rare.

It would be interesting to hear more about how Grand Central fits into the fabric of New York City. On one hand, it seems like quintessential New York: classical exterior, busy space, busy yet functional. At the same time, it doesn’t exactly fit with Midtown Manhattan and the modern skyline. It is a relic of the past, a building that had to be saved through the first federal conservancy act from the 1960s.

Hispanics will be largest group in California by 2020

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New demographic projections for California suggest Hispanics will pass whites to be the largest group by 2020:

Population projections released Thursday by the state Department of Finance show that Hispanics will become the dominant ethnic group in California for the first time.

By 2020, demographers say Hispanics will be about 41 percent of California’s population, with whites less than 37 percent.

The white population will fall to about 30 percent by 2060 from the current 39 percent, affecting politics and public policy in the nation’s most populous state. Whites currently lack a majority in only Hawaii and New Mexico.

It will be worth watching to see what changes this brings to California’s society, economy, and politics. Another issue to consider is whether the trend in California will extend to other states or whether California is uniquely positioned to experience this sort of demographic change. While we have been reading about these projected demographic changes in California for years, I don’t recall seeing similar projections for states like Texas. This, of course, could suggest demographic change is taking place more slowly in other states.

San Francisco leads US cities in terms of official tourism Twitter accounts

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While New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago may lead in terms of population and prestige, San Francisco is the leader in a more modern category: official tourism Twitter account followers.

What’s your favorite city to follow on Twitter? If you chose San Francisco (@onlyinsf), you’re one of the 99,000-plus followers that made it No. 1 among the 10 most popular U.S. cities on Twitter.

New York City (@nycgo) and Las Vegas (@vegas) come in second and third while Los Angeles (@discoverLA) takes eighth place. Cities were ranked by the number of people following their official tourism Twitter accounts, not city government or other Twitter feeds.

The rest of the top 10 cities:

4. Miami (@miamiandbeaches)
5. Philadelphia (@visitphilly)
6. Chicago (@choosechicago)
7. Portland, Ore. (@travelportland)
9. Columbia, S.C. (@columbiasc)
10. Louisville, Ky. (@justaddbourbon)

The report from Skift, a newish New York company that produces travel information and news, looked at how tourism agencies use social media. During a two-week period, it found that Portland and Philadelphia were most responsive to answering questions via Twitter, and that New York City, Las Vegas and Portland had the quickest average response times to their tweets.

Does Louisville get a prize for having the most clever Twitter handle of the top 10? I want to know several things about these Twitter accounts:

1. How does the number of Twitter followers translate into tourism dollars? Tourism is big business for all of these cities so they have an interest in having engaging Twitter accounts.

2. Are most of these followers looking for special deals? Do they tend to follow the city when they already have a trip planned?

3. This doesn’t necessarily line up with one recent measure of the leading American cities for tourists. According to 2009 data listed by Forbes, here are the top tourist cities:

Orlando, Fla.: 48 million visitors
New York City: 47 million visitors
Chicago, Ill.: 45,580,000 visitors
Anaheim/Orange County, Calif.: 42,700,000 visitors
Miami, Fla: 38,100,000 visitors
Las Vegas, Nev.: 36,351,469 visitors
Atlanta, Ga.: 35,400,000 visitors
Houston, Texas: 31,060,000 visitors
Philadelphia, Pa.: 30,320,000 visitors
San Diego, California: 29,600,000 visitors

This data plus the Twitter data could be interpreted in a few ways. One way to view it is that some cities don’t need much of a Twitter following. For example, I assume Orlando and Anaheim get so many visitors due to the Disney presence. Thus, these visitors care a lot less about the cities (are there many people looking to get to downtown Orlando or Anaheim?).

4. Any chance these Twitter accounts take advantage of fake followers to improve their image? Boosterism may know few bounds…

Naperville thinking of expanding its Riverwalk

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Naperville’s Riverwalk is often touted as a key feature of the community. Riverwalk officials are now interested in expanding it further south:

Chairman Jeff Havel said an extension would link Edward Hospital and Knoch Park to the downtown.

The idea came up last summer when McDonald’s was looking to open a restaurant at the southeast corner of Hillside Road and Washington Street near the Riverwalk’s current terminus. That plan fell through and the site is still occupied by a Citgo gas station. It is the only piece of land along the proposed extension the city does not currently own.

Havel said the Riverwalk Commission is always looking to complete gaps in the path’s boundaries, update its appearance and improve safety, accessibility and hospitality…

If the plan does move forward as Park District Commissioner Ron Ory hopes it does, he said he would like to see it happen through volunteer efforts and private funding.

I’d say go for it, particularly if the cost could be kept low in the spirit of the original Riverwalk that was first created with donated time and materials from people in the community. The Riverwalk is a unique feature of Naperville; while the DuPage River is not that grand as it winds through the community, it still provides something few suburbs have. For most of its history, the river was not accentuated in the community even though early Naperville featured a mill on the river. Buildings in the downtown that backed up to the river did little to provide an interface between the two places. But, with the first Riverwalk planning beginning in the 1970s and the first section opening on Labor Day in 1981, it has provided a public space and a park right in the middle of downtown.

Also, such a park can continue a process that has been taking in DuPage County over recent decades: using land along waterways as park land or Forest Preserve land. The DuPage County Forest Preserve has bought a lot of land around the branches of the DuPage River and Naperville can contribute to this project with a Riverwalk extension.

A third point: I wonder if this was lurking behind Naperville’s tough questions of the proposed McDonald’s on Washington Street. If the proposed site is the only site along the river the city does not own, this earlier decision makes more sense.

Considering how to better connect Chicago’s “Cultural Mile”

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Chicago Tribune arts critic Chris Jones suggests Chicago’s “cultural mile” is not connected well:

Like many such districts, congressional and otherwise, the Chicago Cultural Mile is an inherently artificial entity — Chicago self-evidently has many a cultural mile — designed to promote specific business and nonprofit interests and, of course, designed not to impinge on the jurisdiction of others. The reason for the weird turns is to link such big lakefront museums as the Field Museum of Natural History in the “mile” along with such Michigan Avenue anchors as the Art Institute, the Spertus center and Millennium Park. John W. McCarter Jr., the former president of the Field, joined the board of the nonprofit Chicago Cultural Mile Association last week along with Frank P. Novel of Metropolitan Capital Bank & Trust. The association, a hitherto snoozey but apparently growing nonprofit, also announced the hiring of its first full-time executive director, Sharene Shariatzadeh.

Let’s stipulate that the weird trajectory of the Chicago Cultural Mile is indicative of a problem in cultural Chicago, which McCarter knows as well as anyone: the continued lack of a graceful, logical curve (be it path, rail or road) to get visitors from Michigan Avenue to the steps of the Field Museum and the Adler Planetarium in a way that does not confound the visitors. Some variation of a graceful curve — as distinct from a counter-intuitive, traffic-dodging series of right-angled turns on streets with a surfeit of concrete — is needed. There are many reasons for the current financial duress at the Field, but one under-acknowledged factor is the renovation of Soldier Field, which made the museum seem more of its own island, far more distant, far harder to reach, if only in people’s heads.

But that’s not a reason for the Cultural Mile to leave Michigan Avenue.

Motor Row, its natural destination, sits right next to the McCormick Place convention center, a crucial economic generator that was built without an obvious emotional link to its city — a disdain for urban context that extracts a heavy price. Fixing up Motor Row is the best way to change that. As the Tribune reported last fall, things are already happening: The Seattle-based food-circus hybrid known as Teatro ZinZanni is eyeing the ‘hood for its long-anticipated Chicago branch. The band Cheap Trick is planning a venue and museum. There is talk of hotels and restaurants. A nearby stop on the Green Line is coming.

Jones is suggesting there are three major issues at stake here:

1. The first issue is that there is not a coherent physical connection between these spaces. They exist in proximity to each other but there is not public space that would encourage visitors to travel between them. This is an urban planning issue.

2. The second issue is marketing and selling this stretch as a coherent grouping. Even without a good layout, how many visitors to Chicago know this grouping exists? While the northern end of Michigan Avenue, north of the Chicago River, is well known and visited, this area could use more promotion.

3. A third concern is that this cultural mile could be still expanded to include interesting existing places. As Jones notes, McCormick Place doesn’t really interact with the nearby area even as it attracts thousands of visitors so a nearby site that would attract visitors could be very lucrative and useful.

As someone who has visited this stretch numerous times, I would add another caveat. To get from Michigan Avenue to the museum campus (Field Museum, Shedd Aquarium, and Adler Planetarium), the most direct route is to cut southeast from the corner of Michigan Avenue and Randolph Street through Millennium Park and Grant Park and over to Lake Michigan. This route takes advantage of one of Chicago’s great features: its parks along the lake. However, cutting through the park, getting away from the traffic, and enjoying the nature and different energy of the parks means that I miss out on what is going on along Michigan Avenue. If the city wants more people to follow Michigan Avenue south, does this necessarily mean diverting people away from the parks?

Kenya plans new Konza Technology City dubbed “Africa’s Silicon Savannah”

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Kenya is planning an ambitious new city intended to be a technology center:

Located almost 40 miles south-east of the capital Nairobi, Konza Technology City is expected to create more than 20,000 IT jobs by 2015, and around 200,000 jobs by the time it’s completed in 2030.

The 2011-hectare site will have a residential area comprising around 37,000 homes to accommodate 185,000 people…

“It is expected to spur massive trade and investment as well as create thousands of employment opportunities for young Kenyans,” said Kenya’s president Mwai Kibaki at the groundbreaking ceremony.

The project, which is part of the government’s Vision 2030 initiative to improve the Kenya’s infrastructure, is also set to include a university campus, hotels, schools, hospitals and research facilities.

Sounds impressive. See more at the city’s official website which includes this overview of the history of the project:

The idea and interest for an African Silicon Savannah in Kenya was first inspired by trends in Business Processing Outsourcing and Information Technology Enabled Services (BPO/ITES), which showed a global offshore BPO/ITES revenue estimated at US$ 110 billion in 2010 and a projected three fold growth to reach US$ 300 billion by 2015.

Currently there over 2.8 million people employed in this sub-sector world wide, however, statistics show that Africa only attracts about 1 % of the total revenues accruing from this growing industry. Only a few African countries have made effort to develop this industry; South Africa, Egypt, Morocco, Ghana and Mauritius have each launched national programs to grow BPO/ITES.

It became clear that Kenya stood a good chance to attract a sizeable chunk of the expected growth in the off shoring BPO/ITES trade revenues if the Government took lead in the development of this industry.

Now we just have to wait a while to see how it all turns out. I’m not saying it will turn out badly but what if it does – who is responsible for the costs and how might this affect the technology sector in Africa?

While the term “Silicon Savannah” sounds catchy, does having such a name help the prospects for the project? I imagine it could appeal to some with the imagery of connecting Silicon Valley and Africa but it also seems derivative and something plenty of other places have tried.

Daily Herald encourages new planning regarding housing in northwest Chicago suburbs

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Housing is a metropolitan issue that is often addressed community to community, if at all. The Daily Herald highlights recent efforts in the northwest Chicago suburbs:

In an era when housing development has slowed nearly to a halt, it can feel misguided to be talking about what kind of housing to build in a town and where to build it. But “Homes for a Changing Region” merits attention for a couple of reasons.

One, even the gravest cynic expects the economy will one day turn around and people again will be looking for comfortable homes in inviting communities. So, it’s best to begin preparing now for the types of homes they’ll be looking for.

Plus, the report — produced by the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus, Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning and the regional Metropolitan Planning Council, all with the support of the five communities involved — introduces some new concepts that can help towns be smarter in their development. For one, it encourages cooperation among towns whose development futures seem intrinsically linked. For another, it focuses on reality rather than whim — the needs of residents a town is likely to have in the future rather than of residents it has today or even that it might hope to attract. It envisions an environment in which developers respond to the identifiable marketing needs of particular towns, rather than towns responding to the marketing goals of particular developers.

It’s a worthwhile approach, emphasizing data and efficiency. And it’s about to be applied in another collection of local communities — Carpentersville, East Dundee, Elgin and West Dundee. There, as in the Northwest collaborative, people may find the language more cumbersome and less thrilling than, to make a timely comparison, counting off the stats of a superstar quarterback or comparing defenses of teams from distant towns in the NFL. But. the end result can certainly have a more direct and beneficial impact on their quality of life at home.

Housing is a pressing issue in the Chicago region, particularly since affordable housing is lacking in the city of Chicago. Add to that the trend of decades-long job growth in and movement to the suburbs and there is also a lack of affordable housing in many Chicago suburbs, particularly in wealthier communities. While the Illinois legislature tried to address this in the 2000s, not much has changed.

Even with these new planning efforts, it remains to be seen how much this changes local communities. It sounds like there is a certain number of suburbs in one particular area who are interested but they need more support, not just across suburbs and regional groups, but within their own communities as they go forward with new housing plans. What happens if the suburb of Buffalo Grove, village of just over 41,000 and a median household income of over $91,000 and a poverty rate of 2.9%, and this planning group decides a development of affordable housing needs to be located near an upper-end subdivision? I imagine suburbanites would like the idea of developers responding to needs but what happens if these goals don’t line up?

Decrease in young people in Illinois; how might suburbs be different with less children?

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The Chicago Tribune leads today with a story of demographic change in Illinois: along with some other states, Illinois has experienced a drop in its young population.

Demographers have long known that the baby boom of the 1950s was giving way to a baby bust nationwide. Now Illinois and the Chicago area are providing a vivid example of the trend: According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, from 2000 to 2010, Illinois had a 6.2 percent drop in children under 10, among the biggest declines in the country.

The impact is being felt in declining school enrollments and refashioned youth programs, officials say. In coming years, it will be felt in a workforce with fewer workers to replace retirees and help replenish pension coffers.

Changes in the youth population are especially pronounced in Chicago, which lost one-fifth of its young residents, particularly along parts of the lakefront, in Hispanic neighborhoods and in places where public housing high-rises once stood. But the trend is also under way in suburbs in Cook and DuPage counties…

Even suburbs such as Naperville and Winnetka — traditionally magnets for families — saw relatively sharp declines in their populations of children.

The impact of this could last for quite a while. I’m most interested in the bits about suburban communities. Since the post-World War II suburban boom, suburbs have been generally regarded as the best setting for children. With more space and good schools, kids could be safe and experience the middle-class life. This image coincided with a baby boom where lots of young families, including those of military veterans who had returned from the war, moved to the suburbs. So how would suburbs be different without as many children?

To start, as the article suggests, this would have a big influence on school districts. Communities that once had to build multiple schools to keep up with new developments might now have to contract schools. What will happen to the old buildings? Might this lead to smaller school district budgets which could then lead to less money from property tax bills going to school districts? I imagine a number of suburban residents would be happy at the thought that schools would cost less. Even as communities like Naperville were expanding, some existing residents were pushing for fewer houses so that their tax bills wouldn’t increase.

Going beyond schools, this could lead to changes for other taxing bodies such as park districts and libraries. But, even more broadly, this could change the character of many suburbs. Without as many children, the main focus of suburbs might change from familialism to something else. One big trend in American life today is the rise of single-person households, which could also become the plurality in the suburbs. There have also been rumblings about older suburbanites whose kids are growing up or have already left the house wanting to move to denser areas. Neighborhoods and communities that once revolved around children and their activities would have to shift their focus elsewhere. Imagine a Chicago suburb that becomes known as a haven for the 50+ crowd. Or a suburb where young professionals have a hopping cultural and entertainment scene.

Behind the suburban scenes: Warrenville asks Naperville School District 203 to stop expensive lawsuit

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I posted last November about a Warrenville newsletter where the mayor expressed his displeasure that a new Cantera business had invited the mayor of Naperville to its opening but not the mayor of Warrenville. I was surprised at the reaction, which was quite unusual to see in a newsletter to the whole community, but I wonder it might be tied to a eight-year expensive lawsuit over tax revenue from Cantera:

Warrenville officials are campaigning to end an eight-year court battle over taxes with a Naperville school district.

The case returns to court Thursday, two days after leaders of five government bodies in Warrenville presented the Naperville Unit District 203 school board with a letter saying the lawsuit concerning a special taxing district has cost all parties involved more than $803,000 since 2005…

The lawsuit was filed by the district in March 2005 over the use of funds from the Cantera tax increment financing district. The Cantera development now includes a theater, shops, restaurants and corporate offices and provides about $3.2 million a year in revenue to District 203. Dave Zager, the district’s chief financial officer, said the Naperville district will continue to collect property tax revenue from the development into the future, but the amount will vary.

However, the school district alleges in the suit it is owed more than it has received. Brummel maintains the funds from the TIF district have been distributed legally and at the advice of attorneys.

The case has been dismissed twice, but the school district appealed twice, and litigation has continued.

Warrenville, its park district, fire protection district, Wheaton-Warrenville School District 200 and the public library district have spent a combined $357,000 defending the case. Naperville Unit District 203 has spent about $446,000. Part of the Cantera site is in District 203, and part is in District 200.

On one hand, this sounds like a lot of money to spend on a lawsuit that has still not concluded, but, on the other hand, tax revenue is hard to come by these days and lots of school districts could use this kind of money. I wonder if the length of the lawsuit is also tied to the economic crisis of recent years; in better times, District 203 might be better able to lose this revenue.

This is the first time I’ve heard of this lawsuit. Large battles between suburbs or suburban governmental bodies are fairly rare.

The winner of NYC’s micro-apartment contest

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With more cities interested in micro-apartments, the announcement of a winner of the New York City micro-apartment contest may be influential:

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced the winner of the city’s adAPT micro-apartment competition yesterday, a contest to design a 250- to 370-square-foot living space that launched last July. The winner, chosen from 33 applicants, is a collaborative effort between Monadnock Construction, the Actors Fund Housing Development Corporation, and nARCHITECTS called My Mirco NY, which will have its design implemented in a 55-unit building scheduled for completion in 2015…

Like many others, the winning design incorporates high ceilings and dual-use furniture to make the space seem larger. Although the press release called the winning proposal “fresh”, “striking”, and “innovative”, the long, narrow floor plan is similar to comparable projects like San Francisco’s SmartSpace, with fold-up furniture, micro kitchen, floor-to-ceiling storage, and loft space.

The mayor’s office had to waive some zoning regulations to make My Mirco NY legal, but it did not release any information about the competition’s runners-up or what their designs were like…

nARCHITECTS designed the building around prefabricating the units and stacking them on a foundation, then adding a brick facade. It will be the first multi-unit prefab building in Manhattan.

It will be interesting to see how people living in the units as well as people in the neighborhood respond. It is one thing to win a design competition, another to put it into practice and achieve the desired results.

It is also worth noting that the city had to bend some zoning rules. If communities are serious about micro-apartments and other similar smaller housing units, they have to find room in zoning regulations. This could be a more difficult task as zoning changes can draw the attention of neighbors and others in addition to stirring up political discussions involving elected officials, city employees, and builders and architects.