I love college towns.

I've often said that if I were a local economic development director and could recruit absolutely any economic activity, it would be a college. Why? 1) Colleges are a basic industry -- outside dollars flowing in to purchase services (education) that is produced locally. 2) The economic activity is relatively stable, without the extreme volatility that many other industries sometimes face. 3) There is little chance that the industry will pick up and leave because labor costs are lower in east Asia or because taxes are 15 mills cheaper down the road.

But even more than those reasons are the intellectual strength and world view of the faculty and the energy and creativity of the student body. Great college towns, I notice, share at least one characteristic -- students want to stay there after they graduate.


This week I was in Ann Arbor, Michigan, home to the University of Michigan, and just such a great college town. I was there at the invitation of Norm Tyler who lives in Ann Arbor but is professor of planning at Eastern Michigan at Ypsilanti 10 miles or so away. I had written earlier (May 17) about the great marketing job Norm and Melissa Milton-Pung of the Washtenaw County Preservation Commission had done in preparation for this visit. Well, it certainly paid off. There was a full house for the evening presentation on the Michigan campus and excellent press coverage.

In addition to the public presentation in the evening there were two other sessions - a meeting over an extended lunch with preservation activists, advocates, and supporters and a mid afternoon session with local officials - city council members, city and county staff, preservation commissioners and others. In all three sessions there were just superb questions that have no easy answers, but represented "ahead of the curve" issues in Michigan and elsewhere. But the depth and sophistication of the questions also reflected the wonderful intellectual venue that college towns represent.

The luncheon, by the way, was at the home of Norm and his wife Eileen, preservation architect with Quinn-Evans Architects. The house was built in 1830 and has to be one of the best privately owned Greek Revival houses in America. Norm and Eileen are only the fourth owners of the house, with one family having owned it for virtually the entire 20th century.

So a day in Ann Arbor was great, but it's not a town without the need to make some adjustments. They are in the process of adopting a new design ordinance -- and it is definitely needed. Two examples will suffice.

First is the lunacy of the facadomy. Saving 4" of brick or 8" of a stone facade is in no way historic preservation. Not a dictionary written by Salvador Dali on drugs would define this idiocy as historic preservation. Of course my home of Washington, DC has many of the country's most ludicrous examples of the facadomy, but the foolishness has migrated to Ann Arbor.

Now I said that I love college towns. But the colleges themselves frequently have the "we're the big guys in town so we can do whatever we damn well please" attitude. And that was the case below. Preservationists argued that the Carnegie Library could have been adaptively reused and incorporated into the super block development that the University is undertaking. But the imagination-challenged university and its architects insisted they couldn't do that (meaning, of course, that they lacked the creativity and design skills to figure out how to do it) so tore down the entire building except the front facade.


So, I guess I need to make it clearer. THIS IS NOT HISTORIC PRESERVATION YOU DAMNED IDIOTS! In fact it is a mockery of historic preservation. If saving the building really isn't possible, then for god's sake, build a good new building that respects its context. And I probably should have mentioned, THIS IS NOT HISTORIC PRESERVATION YOU DAMNED IDIOTS!

I hope that was not too subtle to be understood. Where is that intellectual strength I mentioned in the beginning of this blog? On semester break, I guess.

One other example of the need for a good design ordinance -- and this one the fault of the city, not the University. A new building, perfectly fine design (the currently popular quasi-industrial look for residential units) on a major street in downtown Ann Arbor. But the city required that the entrance to the garage be in the front of the building requiring a mid-block curb cut.

The garage entrance should have been behind the building where there is currently a surface parking lot. The city wants to eventually develop that site as a parking garage. But even so, with the least imagination a way could have been figured out to access a rear garage entrance for this building even after a public garage was built. Lack of imagination that leads to a pedestrian barrier - a mid block curb cut. Sidewalks are for pedestrians, not automobiles. This is very simply bad design dictated by misguided decisions at city hall.

So, thanks, Ann Arbor for a day of great intellectual stimulation for me. But it's too good a town to be diminished by facadomies and unimaginative, anti-pedestrian design decisions. Hopefully the new design ordinance will address these issues.

Labels: college towns, design guidelines, facadomy, historic preservation

This one is short.

Ideas are wonderful things. Open minds and creative thinkers are where meaningful, positive change comes from. And what an incredible tool the internet is to exchange ideas. But it's also a powerful tool to change the terms of the debate.

And that is exactly what Knute "Skip" Berger in Seattle is doing on the whole green building or sustainable development discussion. Skip is a native of the northwest, a committed environmentalist, and a superb journalist in print, in blog and on the radio.

Here's Skip's latest called Unsustainable Seattle. This battle on the myopia of the "green building" and "density trumps all" approach is just in its infancy. But informed, reasoned arguments such as those Skip is making will constitute the opening volleys. I'm pleased and flattered, of course, that I've been quoted. But far more important than that is the intellectual quality and commitment to the environment that writers like Skip and Lloyd Atler columnist for Treehugger.com are bringing to the debate. (You might want to take a look at Lloyd's column on this issue and an interview I did with him. And if you're still not sated with this issue my blog on the website of Heritage Strategies International.)

Berger is both so well respected and cogent in his writing that within hours of his posting on Crosscut, the environmental columnist for the Seattle Post Intelligencer, Robert McClure wrote a very thoughtful blog about Berger's blog.

Ideas are powerful things. And how lucky we are that there are electronic journalists such as Berger, Atler, and McClure to widely disperse them

Labels: historic preservation, ideas. Seattle, Sustainable Develoment

Last week I had two speaking assignments - the New Jersey Historic Preservation Conference on the Rutgers campus in New Brunswick and the Maine Downtown Conference in Biddeford. More about Biddeford in the next post.

First to New Jersey. The other opening keynote speaker was Dr. James Hughes, Dean of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers, one of the top rated planning schools in the country. Anyway, Dr. Hughes' presentation was mostly about the economic and demographic changes in New Jersey at the dawn of the 20th century and at the dawn of the 21st century. Now for a numbers geek like me, this is always interesting stuff. But for many it isn't. But that is not the case when Dr. Hughes tells the story. He is clever, self deprecating, amusing, and clear. No tables of linear regression on PowerPoint slides...just a very interesting, entertaining, and very relevant presentation of what's happening.

At one point Dr. Hughes said that he was known as the Dr. Kevorkian of economics in New Jersey, having forecast nine of the last five recessions.

Well, as it turned out I had essentially a down day between my New Jersey speech and the one in Maine. So instead of going back to Washington, hanging around for half a day, flying to Portland, Maine, renting a car, driving to Biddeford, then reversing the process, I decided to make the whole thing an auto trip. I took lots of music and audio books and enjoyed a couple of days in the car.
So after my sessions were done I drove from New Brunswick to Bennington, Vermont, figuring I would then have a leisurely drive the following day to Maine. And I did.

But here's where Dr. Hughes and recessions come back in. I left Bennington driving on Route 9, a wonderful two lane highway across Vermont and New Hampshire. Mid morning I stopped for breakfast in a mom and pop (literally...both mom and pop were working there) cafe in a small Vermont town. The technical definition of a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative growth. But I don't think that's the test. The test is what I heard and read while eating breakfast.

Outside the cafe I bought the local weekly newspaper so I'd have something to read...and I always find local weeklies interesting. Front page story one -- a locally owned gas station in operation by the same family for over 65 years was shutting down. The high wholesale price of gas, and credit card fees of almost $.12/gallon left no gross profit to pay the rest of the bills. The classic case of "lose money on every deal but make it up in volume." Front page story two -- a local daycare center was either going to have to significantly cut back on staff and children served or close altogether. Why? Because they were losing their United Way funding. Why? Because the donations United Way typically received in the past were not coming in, so they, too, had to cut allocations to agencies.

And then the conversation lesson. I was sitting in a booth but a man, obviously a regular, was sitting at the counter. I figured out he was a small businessman who plowed snow in the winter and did lawns in the summer. So on his way out, "mom" asked if he was keeping busy with his lawn mowing customers this year. "No", he said, "but that's probably alright. I just don't have the cash to pay the workers. Half of my snow plow customers haven't paid last winter's bills yet, and my biggest customer still owes me $15,000." Now maybe for 28 year old MBAs on Wall Street making $800,000 a year, $15,000 is barely enough for a cheap Rolex. But for small businessmen like him (and me, for that matter) $15,000 is a huge amount of money.

But here's the rest of the conversation I eavesdropped on. "And what do I do? Sue them? I'd be lucky to get 25 cents on the dollar, and I would lose my biggest customer permanently. So I just have to wait and hope that eventually they pay. But in the meantime, a new piece of equipment that I bought for $12,000 I returned to the dealer. I was going to buy a new truck this year, but I settled for a used one instead."

Now THAT is a recession. So I'm with you, Dr. Hughes. This is a recession ....whether the black box analysts in Washington want to call it that or not.

Labels: Maine, Recession, Rutgers, Vermont

Hurray for the Economic Development Administration (EDA) of the US Department of Commerce! They have taken a GIANT leap forward in refuting the long-held belief in some quarters that communities have to choose between historic preservation and economic development.

That was always a false choice, of course, but a commonly held one.

But there is nowhere better from which enlightenment should flow than the EDA.

What has happened? Well this year for the first time the EDA has added to their annual awards a category called Excellence in Historic Preservation-led Strategies to Enhance Economic Development. This award takes its place along side existing categories such as Excellence in Rural Economic Development, Excellence in Technology-led Economic Development and Excellence in Enhancing Regional Competitiveness.

Why has this happened? Well, I don't know for sure, but here's my speculation. In 2006 First Lady Laura Bush and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) held the Preserve America Summit.

An underlying purpose of the summit was to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the National Historic Preservation Act (passed in 1966) and to look forward to what the future role of the Federal Government in historic preservation should be. And to do this the ACHP organized 11 groups of experts on a variety of topics to address the issues and make recommendations. Each of the working groups was co-chaired by someone from the Federal Government (nearly always a senior official) and someone from the private or non-profit sector. One of the groups was called Using Historic Properties as Economic Assets.

The Federal co-chair for the group was Jim Yeager, Chief of Staff of the Economic Development Administration and the group was facilitated by Sandy Baruah, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development.

I frankly don't know what interest, if any, either Mr. Yeager or Assistant Secretary Buruah had in historic preservation prior to the Summit. But what they both did do was listen diligently and intently. And I believe they clearly saw the role historic preservation could play in local economies. The working group provided the Advisory Council with a number of important recommendations.

I particularly like the title they've given the award -- Preservation-led Strategies. That suggests that preservation isn't the end, but the means, and in this case the means of effective economic development. The nominations were evaluated on how effectively they used regional historic assets to advance innovative economic development strategies. This award by EDA is one of the first specific actions that a Federal agency has undertaken as a result of the Summit, and they should be heartily congratulated for it.

And by the way, the first winner of the Award is the Main Street Project of Silver City, New Mexico. Main Street is the most cost effective form of economic development of any kind in the country. And Silver City's program represents the kind of bottom up, self-help economic development that has made Main Street a success for nearly 30 years.

So congratulations Silver City and heartfelt thanks to the Economic Development Administration and Assistant Secretary Buruah.

Labels: economic development, EDA, historic preservation

Don't get me wrong. I'm happy that LEED exists. It is an excellent first shot at trying to make buildings and neighborhoods more environmentally responsible.

But to say that LEED is necessary but not sufficient for sustainable development is no different than saying dentistry is necessary but not sufficient for health care. But my other two dissents from LEED-mania are: 1) LEED only deals with the environmental component of sustainable development, not at all with the other two components -- economic responsibility and social/cultural responsibility; and 2) even within the environmental responsibility component of sustainable development the contributions of existing buildings is irresponsibly inadequate on multiple levels.

So that's it. That's my beef with LEED.

Having said that, recently I've been a bit surprised, but more than that extraordinarily pleased to find that there are some within what might be considered the hard core environmental movement who understand that as well.

One is Lloyd Alter a Canadian architect and developer, and now active web journalist for Tree Hugger.com. Here is someone deeply committed to sustainable development, but also sees the irreplaceable role that heritage buildings play in sustainable development. He frequent writes an entry on Tree Hugger entitled "Another One Bites the Dust" that is well worth reading.

Another "green" blog that understands the historic preservation/sustainable development link is GreenRedux.com.

When the discussion of sustainable development moves beyond the techno talk from "green architects" and gizmo salesmen and broadens so that all of the components of sustainable development are part of the discussion, we'll be making progress. Those who remain stuck on the inane "can I get two extra points toward Leed Gold if we put in a bike rack?" are only demonstrating their absolute ignorance about what sustainable development is.

For those with time to kill you might want to look at the podcast interview I did with Lloyd Atler in Collingwood, Ontario recently.

Labels: historic preservation, LEED, sustainable development