Tag Archives: cities

Dealing with slow people on the sidewalk, London edition

Posted on by

This is an issue I’ve always wondered about: what to do with slow walkers on public sidewalks? Of particular note are people who stop in the middle of the sidewalk to hold an impromptu conference while others try to get around them.

Apparently, this is a concern for others as well. Business owners on London’s Oxford Street have proposed a plan to have tourists and shoppers walk closer to buildings while those who want to get through the area, such as employees and residents, walk closer to the street:

Sidewalk rage may be closer to the point, and an alliance of local landlords and retailers believes it has an antidote. On behalf of London pedestrians who are sick of dodging Oxford Street’s tourist hordes and texting teens, they’re ready to draw the line. A pretend line, anyway.

New West End Company, a group of 600 business owners in the district around Oxford Street, is planning to direct slow movers to walk in a “shopper lane” along store fronts, so that hurried residents and workers can proceed without opposition on the sidewalk’s edges. The concept echoes a gag played in New York City last May, when pranksters laid a chalk line down a sidewalk on Manhattan’s busy Fifth Avenue, with one lane reserved for “tourists” and another for “New Yorkers.”

But London’s line would likely be virtual. Under the plan being hatched by Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas, chairman of New West End Company, maps available at airports, hotels and other traveler spots would tell visitors to cling to buildings. The directive would also be written onto local area maps outside subway stations and at busy intersections.

With little chance of enforcing such rules, how effective could this be? And could tourists and others mount a counter-campaign where they remind the people of Oxford Street how many dollars they bring into the tourist industry and local businesses? (This is unlikely considering the diffuse origins of the slow movers – but it would be interesting nonetheless.)

h/t The Infrastructurist

Kotkin: election results “the smackdown of the creative class”

Posted on by

Amongst pundits sifting through the election returns, I have only seen Joel Kotkin explore how votes broke down by broad location categories: cities vs. suburbs. Before the election, Kotkin suggested that both parties were fighting over middle-class suburbanites (and the Democrats were losing at this). Afterward, he continues this argument and suggests the creative class and bourgeois bohemians were overwhelmed by the middle-class, suburban vote:

More than anything, this election marked a shift in American class dynamics. In 2008 President Obama managed to win enough middle-class, suburban voters to win an impressive victory. This year, those same voters deserted, rejecting policies more geared to the “creative class” than mainstream America.

A term coined by urban guru Richard Florida, “the creative class” also covers what David Brooks more cunningly calls “bourgeois bohemians”–socially liberal, well-educated, predominately white, upper middle-class voters. They are clustered largely in expensive urban centers, along the coasts, around universities and high-tech regions. To this base, Obama can add the welfare dependents, virtually all African-Americans, and the well-organized legions of public employees…

But the real decider–to use George W. Bush’s unfortunate phrase–remains the much larger, more amorphous middle class. Given the economy of the past two years, the subsequent alienation of this group should pose no mystery. Suburban swing voters didn’t suddenly turn into racists or right-wing cranks. Instead they have seen, correctly, that Obama’s economic policy has to date worked to the advantage of others far more than themselves or their families. Until the Democrats and Obama can prove that they once again can serve the interests of these voters, they will continue to struggle to recapture the optimism so appropriate two years ago.

I would love to see some actual numbers on this. It seems like Richard Florida could post some maps like he has recently been doing on Atlantic.com that would correlate voting patterns with the presence of the creative class.

I wonder if Kotkin would suggest this is a continuation of the older “culture wars” idea (progressives vs. conservatives, religious vs. non-religious, etc.) or a new trend (the creative class vs. middle-class suburbanites).

More broadly, how big will the creative class in America grow to be? Is it possible, or even desirable, that a significant number of Americans become part of the creative class or the bourgeois bohemians?

Suburbs and cities in the 2010 elections

Posted on by

Joel Kotkin argues that suburbs are the primary battleground in the 2010 elections and Democrats are behind because they are trying to push urban strategies:

In America, the dominant geography continues to be suburbia – home to at least 60 percent of the population and probably more than that portion of the electorate. Roughly 220 congressional districts, or more than half the nation’s 435, are predominately suburban, according to a 2005 Congressional Quarterly study. This is likely to only increase in the next decade, as Millennials begin en masse to enter their 30s and move to the periphery.

Nationally, suburban approval for the Democrats has dropped to 39 percent this year, from 48 percent two years ago. Disapproval for President Barack Obama is also high — nearly 48 percent of suburbanites disapprove, compared to only 35 percent of urbanites. Even Obama’s strong support among minority suburbanites, a fast-growing group, has declined substantially.

Kotkin suggests two particular sets of ideas are behind this: suburbanites are not happy with the economic problems and Obama has pushed a more urban agenda (including suggesting that sprawl is not desirable).

Kotkin is on to something about a different political culture in suburbia. Numerous scholars have pointed this out: suburbs are not necessarily Republican but they do have unique concerns including not just keeping their homes but having them increase in values, desiring a more prosperous life for themselves and their children, keeping “threats” at bay, and limiting taxes. It can be tough to sell large changes to suburbanites when they feel that their money or resources are being taken away and used for other people. The political shift in America began in earnest in the 1960s as the growing number of suburbanites began to overwhelm concerns from other areas.

Though Kotkin suggests Obama has a more urban agenda, I think he hardly has strongly pushed for city life or city concerns. Even with the economic crisis, the primary focus has still be on the middle class (and perhaps some on the working class). Obama’s ideas about sprawl are not unusual, particularly among policymakers and academics. Perhaps voters tie Obama himself to the city with his Chicago mansion and seemingly strong ties to Chicago political operators?

But this shift toward the suburbs applies to both political parties: America is a suburban nation. And that suburbia is growing more and more diverse.

How suburbs dealt with parking meters and related issues

Posted on by

The Infrastructurist has a discussion of whether parking prices in the city should be raised in order to encourage less driving and therefore, less congestion.

While this may be an interesting argument, my research into several suburbs showed that they solved this problem without much argument back in the 1950s and 1960s. As suburban downtowns faced more competition from strip malls and large shopping centers, downtown business owners argued that city-owned parking meters were driving away customers. Why would a person go to the trouble of shopping in a suburban downtown when free parking was plentiful at shopping centers? Within a few years, these suburbs removed their parking meters in an effort to improve local business.The possible business gains far outweighed the possibility of some municipal revenues from the parking meters.

When I first encountered these debates, they seemed a bit strange – were people really avoiding suburban downtowns just because of some small parking fee? Even if downtown parking were free, it seems that suburban residents would (and did) tend to choose shopping centers anyway, for reasons that outweighed parking concerns. (Of course, there is a lot of complaining about finding close shopping spaces at the mall – but, at least those spots are free. However, one could make an argument that they are not free as the parking costs get passed along through the business rents and leases and to higher prices for consumers.)

I left reading about these debates thinking that the parking meters were a last straw that suburban downtowns tried desperately to grab at to attract shoppers. Ultimately, many suburban communities were unsuccessful and the parking meters played a limited role.

What cities are the most conducive to scientific research?

Posted on by

A new study in Nature examines which cities are the best for scientific research. The article cites some different measures to get at things like output and quality. Here are some of the findings:

-The top cities for number of articles produced: “Tokyo, London, Beijing, the San Francisco Bay Area, Paris and New York.”

-The top cities based on quality of research (measured as average citations of articles): “Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts, come out on top — attracting more than twice as many citations per paper as the global average. US cities dominate the quality table, with only Cambridge, UK, breaking into the top 10. Cities with the most improved relative quality in the past decade include Austin, Texas, and Singapore City — which has moved from 15% below average to 22% above it. Beijing, however, is below par in the quality stakes: its papers in the five-year period ending 2008 attracted 63% of the global average-citation rate.”

-According to a sociologist, the three factors that lead to more research: “freedom, funding, and lifestyle.”

Several of the experts also caution that cities shouldn’t just throw money at research in the expectation that this will lead to significant wealth generated for the city.

I wonder how much of a role historical factors play in this. Once a city acquires a reputation for prestigious universities and research (think: Boston), how quickly could it lose its status if drastic things started to take place (such as the bankruptcy of Harvard and MIT)? It seems like certain cities gain a reputation or character and that character becomes an inertia that continues to attract new research facilities and scientists.

Thinking about gentrification and preserving neighborhoods

Posted on by

Megan McArdle discusses gentrification and whether “hip” (my term) or diverse urban neighborhoods can remain that way.

In reality, most neighborhoods (urban or suburban) change over time. This can happen quite rapidly in urban neighborhoods: new people move and businesses move in or out and places can be transformed in a decade or two. Gentrifying neighborhoods are always teetering on an edge where they recently were poorer but are now hip but soon could be more stodgy middle- to upper-class enclaves. It is probably rare that neighborhoods can stay in a perpetual state of gentrification because there are numerous forces pushing a neighborhood one way or another.

I wonder if arguments about wanting to preserve diverse urban neighborhoods are not that different from suburban NIMBY arguments. In each case, people who have moved into the neighborhood see something they like: perhaps good schools in the suburbs, a “hip” and diverse scene in the urban neighborhood. But then the goal can become to freeze that neighborhood in time, to resist outside forces, to try to keep the neighborhood in the state in which it was originally found. The mindset can be “I found this neighborhood and I don’t want anyone else to come in and change it from what I fell in love with.” In both contexts, this is difficult to do: time passes, the people in the neighborhood change, outside forces influence the neighborhood, and so on.

Perhaps one way to get around these sort of arguments is to suggest that the act of moving into a neighborhood (by a resident or a business) is an act with consequences: moving in necessarily contributes to changing the neighborhood. By living in a neighborhood and interacting with residents and others, the new member of the community helps push the neighborhood in a new direction. Whether this new direction is good or bad, moral or immoral, is another issue.

h/t Instapundit

The difficulty of defining culture

Posted on by

The term “culture” can be tricky to define – as is evidenced in a story from the New York Times about culture and poverty. One writer tries to sum up the definition and the argument:

The important thing is, you can’t isolate culture as one element of a society and change it without changing anything else. You can’t ignore the roles racism, lack of fundamental necessities, and social isolation play in shaping culture, and you can’t use it as a convenient way to blame poverty on the individuals who suffer from it.

While I would agree that it is difficult to separate culture from other areas, sociologists of culture tend to stress that culture is “patterns of meaning-making.” All people do this: develop narratives and ways of understanding their surroundings.

What seems to be the new wave of research is looking at how culture and structures (such as unemployment, isolation, lack of opportunity) interact with and influence each other.

Findings about mixed-use communities and crime rates

Posted on by

Mixed-use developments are the rage these days among architects and planners, both in urban and suburban settings. However, there is some contradictory research about whether these developments have higher or lower crime rates. One recent study suggests that crime is reduced once there are enough people on the streets even as there might be a short-term increase in crime before the neighborhood has enough people on the streets. An earlier study had suggested that mixed-use neighborhoods lead to higher levels of crime and therefore, planners should design neighborhoods with features to reduce crime.

This reminds me of Jane Jacob’s ideas of “eyes on the street.” Jacobs suggested this was easier to maintain in mixed-use urban neighborhoods where storekeepers, shoppers, residents and others maintained a steady watch on what happened in the neighborhood.

Americans walk less than other countries

Posted on by

The Infrastructurist sums up some recent research that shows Americans walk less than residents of other countries. Explaining why this is the case is interesting:

The report’s lead author, David R. Bassett of the University of Tennessee, blames America’s poor performance on its auto obsession and lack of public transportation…

The researchers found no association between daily steps and living environment (e.g. urban, suburban, or rural)…

For the year 2009 alone, the top five walking commuter cities were Boston (14.1 percent commuted by foot), Washington (11.1), San Francisco (10.3), New York (10.3), and Philadelphia (8.7). The city with the lowest commuter walking share for the year was Fort Worth, at 1.2 percent. Freemark comments:

“As the chart shows, automobiles have a majority share in all cities except New York, Boston, Washington, and San Francisco. Unsurprisingly, these are dense cities and the places in the United States with the most complete transit systems.

These arguments make sense at face value: driving and setting would seem to play a large role. However, the first research study’s finding about driving may indicate that driving just trumps other factors for most Americans: whether Americans live in cities or suburbs or rural areas, driving is the preferred mode of transit.

Additionally, perhaps the number of people living in large cities with established and effective mass transit (the five top walking cities cited above) is simply not enough to counter all the drivers in other places.

Planning for Los Angeles’ future

Posted on by

This video from CNN takes a look at some thinking about what the Los Angeles of the future will look like. If sprawl has indeed “hit the wall,” there will be opportunities to create something different.