Category Archives: Places

The racial disparities in the Chicago blues scene

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An article in a series about the blues in Chicago explores how the white, downtown clubs are thriving while the older, black clubs on the south and west sides are struggling:

Two clubs, two worlds, one music: the blues. That’s how it goes in Chicago, a blues nexus crisply divided into separate, unequal halves. A sharp racial divide cuts through the blues landscape in Chicago, just as it does through so many other facets of life here, diminishing the music on either side of it.

The official Chicago blues scene — a magnet for tourists from around the globe — prospers downtown and on the North Side, catering to a predominantly white audience in a homogenized, unabashedly commercial setting. The unofficial scene — drawing mostly locals and a few foreign cognoscenti — barely flickers on the South and West sides, attracting a mostly black, older crowd to more homespun, decidedly less profitable locales.

Not all the grass-roots places are dying as quickly as the music room at the Water Hole. Some, such as Lee’s Unleaded Blues, on the South Side, attract a small but steady crowd on the three nights it’s open each week.

But how long can this go on? How long can a music that long flourished on the South and West sides — where the blues originators lived their lives and performed their songs — stay viable when most of the neighborhood clubs have expired? How long can a black musical art form remain dynamic when presented to a largely white audience in settings designed to replicate and merchandise the real thing?

Lots of interesting history. Additionally, the conversations about authenticity and tourism are intriguing: why doesn’t Chicago promote its music and culture more and would a major push in this direction water down the product?

It would probably be very interesting to talk to Chicago and suburban residents about blues music. How many of them know its an available option and if they do know this, how many would choose it over other entertainment activities? How many students in the region know that the blues has such a rich history in Chicago? How many colleges teach about American music (blues and jazz and their contributions to the development of rock ‘n’ roll) as opposed to classical music? How much does like for the blues cut across racial lines? Is the blues most acceptable to educated whites (in more sociological terms, cultural omnivores)?

Modern “cities that have vanished”

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Who needs Atlantis and El Dorado if there are interesting tales of modern “cities that have vanished“?

This reminds me that we tend to think that cities and countries will tend to grow in population regardless of what happens. Obviously, this isn’t true in every circumstance. Particularly in situations involving natural disasters or ecological change (the focus of books Collapse by Jared Diamond), cities can become inhabitable. But, this modern lists also highlights that political decisions can lead to vanishing cities.

In more American terms, this could lead to some interesting discussions about whether cities should be contracted or whole areas of development need to disappear. In two hundred years, might people be talking about a mythical Detroit that once was an economic powerhouse?

NYC proposal for an underground park

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Parks are often considered places to find open sky and sunshine but a recent proposal from two architects for an underground park in New York City turns these ideas on their head:

The pair want to turn the rundown, graffiti-covered trolley terminal under Delancey Street into an underground park, reports CBS 2?s Don Dahler.

“It’s part historical rediscovery of an amazing space; it’s part science-fiction. And I think it’s part just sort of a green, magical community renewal,” Ramsey said…

The ambitious duo were inspired by the overwhelming success of the “High Line” project, an elevated old train line turned park. The proposed “low line” park would take up three blocks underneath the Lower East Side, and would feature actual trees and greenery, thanks to technology straight out of science fiction…

The proposed park, which would be free to the public, has gotten a positive response from the city and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and although the developers aren’t sure yet how much it would cost, they’ve already started raising funds for their subterranean vision of the future.

Sounds pretty interesting to me, particularly in the plans for bringing natural light underground. Some people do have a fascination with being underground – see an earlier posts about a proposed underground skyscaper and an “underground temple” and the tunnels below Paris that have become a big tourist attraction.

If anything, New York City should move forward with this just to promote something that is sure to become a big attraction. The allusion to the “High Line” is telling: these architects want to take another abandoned part of the city and turn it into an attractive public space. I could imagine NYC becoming a unique hub for these sorts of spots, leading the world in redesigning brownfield sites into places not only for tourists but for city dwellers looking for an escape.

The only thing that could really derail this is the cost: who is going to pay for this?

Australian critiques of suburbia

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As part of a larger discussion about the green (or not-so-green) features of high-density living, an Australian academic describes typical Australian critiques of suburbia:

The intellectual misadventure of high-rise urbanism also perpetuates a pernicious bias in Australian environmental debates in which less affluent suburban dwellers are treated as environmentally unsophisticated “bogans” – a stereotype recently denounced by Melbourne University’s David Nichols.

It fits within a long and regrettably continuing Australian tradition of denigrating suburbia whose recent version sneers at “aspirationals” in suburban “McMansions” driving “monster-trucks”. That complaints about suburban consumption lack objective scientific foundation, raises suspicions that the anti-suburban prejudice serves to deflect scrutiny from the more harmful consumption patterns of wealthier – and typically denser – inner urban households.

Those who criticise high-rise urbanism, though, risk being cast as apologists for urban sprawl. Disagreeing with Sydney’s Barangaroo proposal, for example, doesn’t equate to support for the latest fringe growth area splurge.

More single, detached dwellings in low density estates at the suburban fringe also causes harms. These range from the destruction of bio-diverse habitats to the social isolation of new residents from work and services. My own work on household oil vulnerability clearly reveals the future perils from higher fuel prices already planned into the fabric of many of our car-dependent fringe suburban zones.

The argument here is that being green isn’t so easy as simply saying suburbs are bad and cities are good. Unfortunately, the suburbs tend to receive blanket criticism.

It would be interesting to trace the rise of these attitudes in Australia compared to the United States. The US has a long history of these critiques which emerged quickly after World War II, particularly as examples of mass-produced suburbs like the Levittowns became widely known. Out of all of the countries in the world, Australia might have the most similar suburbs to the US (see a recent debate about McMansions in Australia as an example). Did Australian critics of suburbia simply borrow American critiques or did they develop their own independently? Sounds like a very interesting comparative project.

An argument for historic districts: repel McMansions!

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A common argument for historic districts is that they limit the destruction of older homes and the construction of McMansions. Here is an example of this argument in Fort Lauderdale:

However, if communities wait around for that history to age, new development might wipe it out before it has a chance to be saved.

That fear has residents of Fort Lauderdale’s Colee Hammock neighborhood thinking about seeking historic district designation for their community.

“We’re constantly inundated with development issues, people wanting to come in and build too much, too high, too big,” said Jackie Scott, president of Colee Hammock’s neighborhood association. “It gets to a point where you’re sick and tired of always having to come out and fight for your neighborhood. It’s not an enjoyable way to live.”…

“We have some beautiful homes that have been built and are new construction. They fit perfectly with the neighborhood,” Scott said. [A historic district] prevents people that want to come into an area like this to start ripping things down and creating McMansions.”

While McMansions are often tied to sprawl and new subdivisions, teardowns are also a common scene for debates over the merits of McMansions. In this particular example, a McMansion is contrasted with new homes that “fit perfectly with the neighborhood.” Many American communities have created some guidelines so that teardowns can’t be anything a homeowner might desire but there is a spectrum between more permissive and less permissive communities. The advantage of declaring a historic district is that the community has more control over what can be demolished and built within the district. At the same time, some consider historic districts to be quite restrictive.

I would be interested to hear what resources those pushing for the historic district have utilized from outside groups. For example, the National Trust for Historic Preservation even has a page titled “Teardowns and McMansions.” Here is the lead paragraph:

Across the nation a teardown epidemic is wiping out historic neighborhoods one house at a time. As older homes are demolished and replaced with dramatically larger, out-of-scale new structures, the historic character of the existing neighborhood is changed forever. Neighborhood livability is diminished as trees are removed, backyards are eliminated, and sunlight is blocked by towering new structures built up to the property lines. Community economic and social diversity is reduced as new mansions replace affordable homes. House by house, neighborhoods are losing a part of their historic fabric and much of their character.

With such resources available, I wonder if local groups are now more effective in adopting historic districts.

Sociologist predicts shift in American unskilled, immigrant laborers: they will come from China rather than Mexico

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While the economic downturn has reduced the interest in immigration reform, a sociologist suggests a new trend in the immigrant unskilled labor force in America: in the future, such laborers will come from China rather than Mexico.

Q: Why might Chinese immigrants overtake Mexican immigrants in low-wage, unskilled jobs here?

A: Mexico for decades has supplied our country with low-wage laborers, legal and illegal, but that’s grinding to a halt. Increased border surveillance and high unemployment are keeping people away from the United States. Other things are holding people in Mexico. They have a lower unemployment rate than we do. And what a lot of people don’t realize is that their fertility is dropping to 2.2 children per woman. It used to be six or seven children a few decades ago. There are fewer young people available (to take jobs), and fewer mouths to feed. There are about 4 million or 5 million undocumented Mexican immigrants in our country (and about 11 million illegal immigrants total). They pick up garbage, work construction, agriculture – all the things in big cities that the local people don’t want to do. Who’s going to do that work? There’s already a network of migration from China to our country; probably 200,000 to 300,000 undocumented Chinese are here. They’re mainly on the East Coast, in Houston and Los Angeles. They’re mainly doing restaurant work. Undocumented Mexicans are much more visible.

Q: Why would they leave China for the United States?

A: You have all of these rural-to-urban migrants inside China who are essentially driving the Chinese economy, doing all the work in the big cities, doing all the construction, the nanny work, the low-level jobs. They’re not going to do that forever. The economy is starting to slow down in China. The first people to lose their jobs will be these rural-to-urban migrants. In China, to move from one place to another, you have to get permission at both ends. That never happens, so people move unofficially. There are already 10 million unemployed rural-to-urban migrants. There’s already a China-to-U.S. network of undocumented migrants.

Several pieces of this argument strikes me:

1. The Chinese economy slows down. This would be a big issue for the global economy. Would there even be much of a flow of people round the globe if this happens?

2. The urbanization process in China may only be picking up steam. Here is a 2009 report from the McKinsey Global Institute on the topic. Is China prepared for this?

3. Mexican laborers are finding it harder to come to the United States and have more reasons for staying in Mexico. Does this mean that the debate over immigration from Mexico is essentially over?

4. If this shift does happen, would the immigration debate simply turn to China and away from Mexico? If so, what might be the implications of this for the US-China relationship?

When a suburb doesn’t support the big tax break supported office park

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An interesting story is brewing in Hoffman Estates where the State of Illinois wants to keep the Sears headquarters by continuing a major tax break but the local school district and some in the community don’t want to live with the reduced tax revenue for years to come. Central to the story: the tax break didn’t help fill up the 780 acre office park, leading to less tax revenue than expected even with Sears located there.

Instead, two decades after the special taxing area was created, some 200 acres remain undeveloped in the 780-acre park anchored by Sears Holdings Corp.’s headquarters. A swath of land that was supposed to generate $50 million in property taxes in 2012 raised only $25 million in the past tax year…

The ambitious project’s inception came at the pinnacle of “euphoria” over a booming commercial real estate market, said John McDonald, who teaches land economics and real estate at Roosevelt University. But that party ended with the economic slowdown of the early 1990s, and the market, he said, has not rebounded. There is no “desperate need for office space anywhere right now,” he said…

The inability of the park to pull in the predicted revenues underlies the battle over Sears’ future. The fight has largely centered on Community Unit School District 300, a financially strapped taxing body whose officials claimed it stood to lose more than $10 million in revenue per year under the original plan to extend the taxing area’s term.

The parties and legislators are continuing to discuss whether Sears would be required to keep some 4,000 of the roughly 6,100 jobs at its headquarters well into the future. The potential consequences should the company not meet that condition remain unclear, said Hoffman Estates Corporation Counsel Arthur Janura.

Typically, suburbs are thought to be in favor of these tax breaks as it helps lure new businesses to town. However, this situation is a cautionary tale about tax breaks: just because one is granted doesn’t necessarily mean that businesses will necessarily move in. If everyone is building big industrial or office parks and offering tax breaks, can everyone win? And in an era of falling tax revenue and rising costs, suburbs need to maximize their assets.

Of course, the State of Illinois will look really bad if Sears leaves as it will feed a (growing?) narrative that Illinois is generally bad for business. It will be fascinating to see how the State and Hoffman Estates come to some sort of agreement that everyone can live with.

Quiet plans for private illegal immigrant prison anger Florida town

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Here is an interesting story about quiet plans to build a privately-run prison for illegal immigrants in a wealthy Florida town that helps illustrate the issues of having private prisons, NIMBY concerns, and immigration:

Only the leaders of Southwest Ranches kept their plans quiet from residents for almost a decade, and the project has now ballooned into what would be among the federal government’s largest immigrant detention centers. The town would have to pay $150,000 each year to keep the prison, but officials say the town would turn a profit by getting 4 percent of what U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement pays the company operating the prison to hold inmates there.

Many residents finally caught wind of the idea this year, when the immigration agency announced a tentative deal, and they’re angry. They’ve held protests at public meetings, contemplated whether to recall the mayor before his March election and whether to amend the town charter to make it easier to fire the city attorney pushing the deal.

The objection over the prison has created an odd set of allies among the town’s affluent residents, many of whom are wary of illegal immigrants, and longtime activists who fight for immigrants, legal or not…

But according to Mayor Jeff Nelson and others involved at the time, the plan for some kind of prison run by Corrections Corporation of America, the nation’s largest private prison operator, was always integral to Southwest Ranches’ ability to survive.

The town, a self-described “rural lifestyle community” located southwest of Fort Lauderdale, is for the equestrian set. There are several very interesting cross-currents in this story:

1. Lots of towns need revenue. Not only will Southwest Ranches earn money per inmate but there will be jobs at the prison.

2. Immigration is a hot-button issue. Shouldn’t people in town opposed to illegal immigration welcome such facilities?

3. But, of course, those worried about illegal immigration probably don’t want the prison right next to them. Classic NIMBY situation – build it somewhere else.

4. Local officials have done this quietly and it appears residents may not be able to do much at this point about halting the process.

The conclusion of this story makes it sound like the NIMBY concerns win out – as one resident says, “In the opposition to the prison, both sides of the immigration debate are represented.” I can’t say I’m surprised – what wealthy community would want a prison in town? If the private company doesn’t end up building in this town, how difficult will it be for them to find another town who needs the revenue? And if this community does indeed need revenue, would these same residents be willing to give up services or pay higher taxes?

Designer parking garages in Miami

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Parking garages tend not to have good reputations as they are often functional blocks of concrete that are measured by how many cars they can fit. But, Miami apparently has a number of “designer” garages including a proposed parking elevator for a new high-rise:

The $560 million Jetsonesque tower will rise in Sunny Isles Beach as part of a collaboration between Germany-based Porsche Design Group and a local developer, Gil Dezer. It likely will be the world’s first condominium complex with elevators that will take residents directly to their units while they are sitting in their cars…

Here is how it will work: After the resident pulls over and switches off the engine, a robotic arm that works much like an automatic plank will scoop up the car and put it into the elevator. Once at the desired floor, the same robotic arm will park the car, leaving the resident nearly in front of his front door. Voila, home!

The glass elevators will give residents and their guests unparalleled views of the city or of the ocean during their high-speed ride, expected to last 45 to 90 seconds…

The car elevators are the latest twist on Miami Beach’s burgeoning passion for designer parking garages. The highly acclaimed 1111 Lincoln Road designed by Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron opened in 2009; also planned are garages by London architect Zaha Hadid, Mexico’s Enrique Norten and Miami’s own Arquitechonica.

Being able to live in a luxury condo that is greatly enhanced by parking right outside of your door sounds like a uniquely American prize. This is another reminder how American culture is dominated by the automobile.

At the same time, this could also be seen as an architectural or design issue: how can one successfully design parking garages so they are aesthetically pleasing? While these garages in Miami might be for more luxurious residences, there are other options. One option that seems to be growing in popularity is underground garages. While this is great in dense urban spaces where valuable land can’t be wasted on a separate parking structure, it can also be found in denser suburban developments where the goal is to allow condo or townhome owners to park directly below their units and to keep the garage out of sight. After all, large houses with prominent garages may be called “snout houses” in reference to the overarching emphasis on where the garage is going to be parked.

This reminds me of one of the parking decks in Naperville. The Van Buren structure features a stained glass window memorializing the “Cars of the Century.” Also, Wheaton has done a nice job of hiding their downtown garage behind more traditional looking structures.

Describing “suburban bliss” while also pursuing urban planning and living

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A student at Columbia discusses her feelings of wanting to become an urban planner and live in the city while also retaining a warm spot in her heart for the suburbs:

Coming to New York from more suburban hometowns, it’s not uncommon for us to miss our cars, big box stores, and front yards. But for me, the conflict between urban and suburban living is more than simple nostalgia for my hometown. It is a question of ideology, and one that concerns my professional future.

I’ve known I wanted to be a city planner since the tenth grade, when I happened to pick up a copy of Jane Jacobs’ “The Death and Life of Great American Cities” while doing homework at the Scotch Plains Public Library. I devoured the book in a few days. It was a revelation for me—someone put into words the vitality of urban streets I so eagerly took in anytime I visited New York. As an urban studies major at Columbia, I’ve studied cities in sociology, political science, history, and architecture classes. My studies have confirmed what I felt the first time I read Jane Jacobs: Urban living is the best kind of living.

I’ve read about the racial discrimination that stopped non-white Americans from taking part in the suburban American dream, the urban renewal projects that devastated working class neighborhoods with expressways, the disinvestment in urban centers that led to riots—all the mid-century injustices that remind us of the true cost of our driveways, lawns, and cul-de-sacs. I understand the environmental danger of car (and oil) dependence, low-density housing, and sprawl. I understand how unfulfilling it can be to live in a socially homogeneous town with little street life or walkability. I feel so strongly about these issues that I even want to go to graduate school to learn how to begin solving them.

Yet I really, really like coming home to my car and to my favorite strip mall restaurant on Route 22—a highway that severely isolates my own neighborhood from the rest of my town. In my time here at Columbia, despite my urban-centric curriculum, I’ve also learned that the suburbs are here to stay, and there’s no sense wishing they didn’t exist. I might end up a city planner with a very urban lifestyle, and I most certainly won’t be moving back to New Jersey, but there’s no reason I can’t relish a trip to the mall. Of course it’s not terrible, I told my friend. Home—with all its unsexy suburbanity—always makes me happy, too.

This piece contrasts a professional ideology versus personal emotions. The key here is that the suburbs are equated with home. I wonder if her viewpoint will change after years of living in the city or, perhaps more interestingly, years of working within the field of urban planning where she may not find too many people willing to defend the suburbs.

Of course, this doesn’t always have to be a dichotomous choice: we certainly need people to do urban planning in the suburbs. In fact, one of the complaints opponents of sprawl often have is that it looks like there was little foresight into how suburban developments, subdivisions or big box stores included, affect their residents and how different types of development do or don’t work together. And if the wave of the future is indeed a denser suburban landscape, particularly in desirable locations, there may be room for a number of planners to bring together city and suburb.