Author: admin

Itinerant Geogapher

November 1, 2008
Flatbush_athletics

October 29, 2008
Appalachia and Energy

When I think of the energy crisis, I cannot help but think of the poignant story of Martin Toler. A victim of the Sago Mine disaster, he was found sitting alongside his 12 fellow miners in darkness. Deep in the heart of the earth he wrote a note to his family as air and time was running out: “Tell all that I’ll see them on the other side,” read the note found lying beside his body. “It wasn’t bad. I just went to sleep. I love you.”

Toler’s incredible courage to care for family first in the face of certain death reflects some of the Appalachian culture. Yet the region has struggled from the beginning of its settlement. It has almost always been poor. The world of small towns in Appalachia stands light years from the “flat” world of Friedman or the green certainties of elite urbanites.

Not surprisingly, we find it hard to simply dismiss coal and other fossil fuels with such aplomb. Inez, Kentucky, the birthplace of LBJ’s War on Poverty in 1964, has struggled over the years with the boom and bust of the coal business. And, despite the news media insistence that it isn’t doing well, its unemployment rate is well below that of other more “successful” communities.

We look at the revival of coal as a potential source of economic sustenance for our communities. This does not mean we have to abandon the environment or the strict safety standards that might have saved Martin Toler. But neither do people there want to abandon their towns and the ability to make a good living for their families.

Marvin Toler and his fellow miners lived through the boom and bust of the energy cycles. They lived through bitter debates over mine safety, unscrupulous and/or absentee owners, black lung, mine disasters brought on by lax standards, slurry spills and mountaintop removal. Yet mining has also provided a good living for people and a way to keep the towns we love alive.

Our hope is that energy could revive our communities. Perhaps we can rewrite the story of coal through standards that make mining safer and technology that can make it cleaner. Our greatest hope is that, with American ingenuity and Appalachian persistence, we can think up new and alternative sources of energy right in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains.

Marvin Toler didn’t have to go far to convince me of the strong stock and strength of him and his forebears. As the American dream undergoes renovation, I need go no further than Toler’s last words, scribbled in darkness but full of hope, strength, resilience and love – all qualities that remain true even in our bewildering world. His words transcend the YouTube culture and go to the heart of the matter. Perhaps that mountain fortitude of his is the perfect quality for starting a new energy revolution.

Appalachia will always be about the rugged sorts who settled there. Those who worked the mines and tilled the soil did not ask for much. They worked hard and didn’t count the cost or avoid taking risks. Coal could be part of that future, but the spirit of this place could also extend to other tasks that need smart, tough and risk-taking folks. We don’t need to become more dependent on the coal mines, but we think they can be part of creating a new wave of opportunity for our communities – if we can find the will.

Sylvia L. Lovely is the Executive Director/CEO of the Kentucky League of Cities and president of the NewCities Institute. She currently serves as chair of the Morehead State University Board of Regents.

October 26, 2008
Localism – What’s the Attraction?

As I drive to work here in Wisconsin Rapids, I cross the bridge where the view of the river is stunningly peaceful, with the mystical morning mist rising off the calm water reflecting the warm early morning sunlight as it surrounds the pristine wooded islands. It takes me all of five minutes by car to make my journey to work – one of the beauties of living in a smaller community. I can get to most places in town within five minutes.

It does not mean, however, that I lack access to the same amenities that an urban dweller has. When I’m looking for my arts and culture fix, I don’t need to go far; there is a new show opening at Alexander House, one of the local galleries which regularly features accomplished artists with local ties. The local theatre productions rival professional quality, as several of the key performers and producers are professionals, who choose to live in an area that offers a better educational experience and quality of life for their families.

You can get the local word on “what’s happening” by heading to the local coffee shop, pub or walking to the post office and greeting other “locals,” drinking in the character of the community. In a flash, I can be at the airport, and be on my way to countries around the world. Although the airport is 45 miles away, I can actually get there in less time (under 45 minutes), than someone living in Chicago or Minneapolis can get to the airport in those cities. I might pass a total of 25 cars in my entire drive to the airport, and at the airport a long line to check in at the kiosks might be two people ahead of me. Air fare from our central Wisconsin airport, even to international locations, is usually cheaper than if I fly from any of the surrounding big metropolitan airports.

Five years ago, I purchased my three-bedroom 1300 square foot ranch home two blocks from the seven-mile Riverwalk trails for $75,000. My neighbor, the previous mayor, mows my lawn and does odd jobs for me. I have the beauty of woods and water that is easily accessible and safe to go alone and enjoy. I am tapped into the world and information super-highway with redundant high-speed internet access. I live the good life without the long lines, high costs or hassles of the city. It also offers me an opportunity to be civically engaged and give back to the community, as well. This is why I choose to live in the heart of Wisconsin. I want “where I live” to offer exceptional quality to enhance my life, and it does here in America’s Heartland.

The pace of our lives increased exponentially in the last half century, and continues to escalate at a rate that is staggering. During this evolution, we went through the period of being caught up in this fast pace and trying to “keep up with the Jones” and the speed of technology advancement. We were attracted to the fast lane and glitz of urban lifestyle, which symbolized chic and sophisticated. The Baby Boomers, in their career primetime, driven to succeed, gravitated to the coasts and large metropolitan areas to be where it was “happening.” As a result, housing costs in these regions skyrocketed, the highways became unbearable during commuting hours, adding hours on both ends of the already longer work day necessary to keep up with the increasing global competition and faster and faster pace. Crime rates soared. People became numbers and life was about mass production, cookie cutter franchises, big box shopping and having the most goods – a popular Calvin and Hobbes cartoon reflected this fad, “He who dies with the most toys wins!”

Now as the Baby Boomers are entering retirement and their children are having children, we are noticing a trend that may bring new life to the Midwest and the patchwork quilt character that rural communities offer. No longer does the rat race of the urban life style hold a compelling calling. A resurgence of wanting something more real, more balanced, more representative of our agricultural roots and our rural heritage, which made the country rich in Americana, seems to be calling. The new trend that is emerging is localism – the desire to have a strong sense of place and connection to where we live, what we eat, how we participate in civic engagement.

As Baby Boomers look to wind down, they are seeking a more relaxed atmosphere and authentic sense of place. This is also the demographic that is beginning to drive the trend towards self-employment, often using their acquired professional expertise from their high powered career investment as the product, and seizing the opportunity that technology and mobility provide to be located in a place that appeals to their quality of life factors. Their children, who are entering that phase of life, where they are having children, are seeking that housing affordability, safe neighborhoods, beautiful natural landscape and good public education system for their kids, often found in the upper Mid-west. This generation that is now beginning to make an impact in the workforce, exhibits a high level of civic responsibility in its decision making. Put that together with the Baby Boomers growing sense of awareness that our past actions of ignoring our affects on our environment must change and that starts with changing our own habits and choices in what we buy and how we live, creates relatively large movement towards “local.”

An article, by Marian Burros, in the New York Times, published on Aug. 6, 2008, stated,
“One of the biggest brand names in food this summer doesn’t carry a trademark. It’s the word ‘local,’ which has entered the language as a powerful symbol of high quality and goodness.”

So, what is the “local” appeal? It is the character and quality of life that provides a sense of place – a reminiscence feeling of authenticity and knowing the source of where things come from, who made it and how it was grown. There is a desire to make the personal connection and create an experience in the purchase of a product. That experience often equates to wanting to have that sense of place association. The sense of place character is one that has a unique quality, a distinction and flavor that brings out the emotional response which translates to being an experience of culture and belonging.

As we have come to grips with growing fuel prices and climate change, a sense of social responsibility has grown. We see a growing social movement to also protect the character of our communities by revitalizing downtowns, curtailing big box retail development, seeking non-franchise purchasing experiences, and patronizing local specialty shops, geared toward sustaining that sense of unique character and experience that a community offers. Even in urban areas, the sense of neighborhood culture and pride is having a resurgence.

As we experience the personal economic affects of globalization and the resulting loss of jobs due to sending our production work overseas, we have seen a rising understanding of the connection and benefit that demanding “local” provides, to our area economies, our own families, our neighbors and friends. Supporting “local” gives people the good feeling of “making a difference” and playing a responsible role in the sustainability of our communities, while also stimulating that sense of pride and authenticity. It says we have a choice in the matter, and that choice matters. “Localism” is not only good for our economy, it represents a sense of social responsibility and desire to sustain our patchwork quilt of Americana that represents our country’s heritage and character.

Connie Loden is the Executive Director for Heart of Wisconsin Business & Economic Alliance that coordinates community economic development projects in Central Wisconsin. Connie is an internationally recognized leader in rural development, holding leadership roles with the Community Development Society and National Rural Development Partnership.

October 20, 2008
Recalibrating Destination Marketing
In the dark days following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., when traveler anxiety hit previously unknown levels, there developed among tourism marketers a new emphasis on targeting what was then called the “drive” market. During a time when formerly fearless flyers were concerned that airport delays could add hours to their trip or that there might be another attack on the nation’s air passenger system, a new sort of traveler’s calculus evolved: Would it be quicker to make a trip of 500 miles or less by simply driving to the destination rather than allowing the extra two to three hours for airport security that the airlines and the FAA recommended?

Today, with the unpleasantness of air travel at what’s perceived to be an all-time high, many of the post-9/11 circumstances seem to be upon us once again. Now, though, with gasoline prices also setting historic highs, it is no longer advisable to refer to something called the “drive” market. Instead, the term of the moment in the travel and tourism industry is the “in-state” market, the idea that people are less likely to travel by air and would prefer vacationing closer to home, giving us this past summer’s buzziest buzz word in travel, the “staycation.” For harried destination marketing professionals, anxious to keep the hotel rooms in their cities occupied, giving some thought as to whether this trend is one that will pass quickly or not is certainly worthwhile. Here are some things to consider:
- A recent poll commissioned by the Travel Industry Association (TIA) indicated that 41 million airline trips were avoided during the past year by passengers not because the fares were too high, but because air travel has become too inconvenient. The TIA estimated that the trips that were avoided represent a $26 billion loss in consumer spending, including $4.21 billion in federal, state and local taxes that would have been collected. Most observers agree that the airlines’ current proclivity toward nickel and diming passengers with nuisance fees to compensate for higher jet fuel prices is unlikely to make passengers more inclined to fly to their destinations.
- At the annual meeting of Destination Marketing Association International in late July, several sessions touched on the necessity of destinations to work with local attractions not typically considered tourist attractions—such as farmers’ markets, central business districts and seasonal and cultural festivals—in a way that will prompt locals to spend what would normally be their travel budgets in their own hometowns. Interestingly, the most recent TIA/Ypartnership TravelHorizons survey indicated that among travelers expecting to take vacations in or near their hometowns, 22 percent planned to stay in a hotel, motel or resort.
- These developments fit with what urban policy expert Joel Kotkin calls the “new localism,” the trend toward people becoming less geographically mobile than at any time since the advent of commercial aviation. According to Kotkin, high energy prices and an increased concern regarding environmental impact are causing more people to seek recreational and cultural experiences that are closer to home. And Kotkin, who’s writing a book on the subject, believes this is a long-term trend that will continue to grow between now and the year 2050.
While no one is predicting the immediate demise of long-haul domestic or international air travel, it does make sense for destination marketing professionals to consider recalibrating their marketing efforts with these new realities in mind. As always, the best advice is to maintain an approach that balances a destination’s marketing efforts between the most sought-after visitors and the visitors that the destination is most likely to attract.

This is an approach that assures a destination that even if the city-wide conventions they covet do not materialize, hotel rooms and convention centers can still be filled with the multitude of meetings and events organized by groups that are local, state and regional in scope. For the majority of cities that can only dream of hosting a once-in-a-lifetime Super Bowl or the Olympic Games, there are countless youth and amateur sporting events that generate millions of hotel room nights year in and year out. Setting a course that is mindful of the healthy volume of business available in a destination’s own backyard is the natural hedge against the larger phenomena that seem to be developing and over which the typical destination marketing executive has very little control.

Timothy Schneider is the president & CEO of Schneider Publishing, the Los Angeles-based company that publishes Association News and SportsTravel magazines and organizes the world’s largest conference for the sports-event industry called TEAMS: Travel, Events And Management in Sports. TEAMS 2008 will be held October 21-25 in Pittsburgh. The group travel markets served by Schneider Publishing generate 106 million hotel room nights annually. For additional information, please visit www.SchneiderPublishing.com or call toll-free (877) 577-3700.
October 20, 2008
“The Not So Big House” Ten Years Later

It has been ten years since The Not So Big House became a surprise best seller, elevating a successful but unknown Minneapolis-based architect, Sarah Susanka, to the couch of Oprah Winfrey. Shortly after its release, the book became number one on Amazon.com, the force of which wasn’t fully understood or appreciated back in 1998. Since then she’s published five more books in the Not So Big series, but none have benefited as much from pitch-perfect timing. Not only was technology reaching people in new ways, it was reaching the very people for whom Susanka was writing, even if she didn’t know it at the time.

In the introduction to the 10th Anniversary Edition, she admits to being perplexed by the overwhelming response to her “not so big” message, but then she read an article on “Cultural Creatives” by sociologist Dr. Paul Ray, who identified a previously undiscovered segment of the population that was looking for ways to live “responsibly, sustainably, and meaningfully.” While the term “Cultural Creatives” is essentially the New Age version of Richard Florida’s “Creative Class” (and equally ill-defined), clearly her book was at the forefront of something – be it a new culture, a new class or a new generation. Most likely a combination of all three, let’s call it the Dwell magazine demographic.

In the pre-Dwell magazine world of 1998, however, Susanka’s book – if not cutting edge architecturally (her aesthetic draws heavily on Frank Lloyd Wright) – was in sync with this emerging demographic’s tastes. Of course, urban Dwellers have always dealt with smaller spaces and lived “sustainably” whether they meant to or not. But Susanka’s book focused exclusively on the non-urban single-family house, which is where the vast majority of people were and still are living in the United States. Reviewers took note that her message bucked the “starter castle” trend, (a term that has since been dropped in favor of “McMansion”). For those Dwellers not inclined to move to urban areas or fix up older housing in declining inner-ring suburbs, there was little to choose from that emphasized quality over quantity. As the success of her book clearly demonstrates, not all Dwellers were rejecting the suburbs – with its low-density, car-dependent development pattern. For some, it was the housing stock itself that was the problem. It simply no longer fit the way many people actually live.

“Today’s houses still wear the architectural equivalent of a hoopskirt, even if the accessories seem more contemporary,” wrote Susanka. “While we’ve been busy evolving over the past century, most of our houses have not. Their evolution has been constricted by outdated notions of what we think we need and what the real estate industry says we need for resale. At the turn of the new century, most houses are designed for the turn of the last.”

How did that happen? The real estate industry is notoriously slow to respond to change, which was well underway in 1998. Globalization and technology were (and still are) changing the way people live and work, but the housing stock was stuck in the industrial era with its emphasis on a division of labor both inside and outside the home. In his 1991 book, The Conscience of the Eye: The Design and Social Life of Cities, Richard Sennett, a professor of sociology at the London School of Economics, noted that in the industrial era, cities had become all but unlivable and people retreated into their homes. “The public world of the street was harsh, crime ridden, cold, and above all, confused in its very complexity.”

To counteract the chaos, he noted, “[t]he private realm sought order and clarity through applying the division of labor to the emotional realm of the family, partitioning its experience into rooms.” Communal areas of the home gave way to activity-specific, divided rooms, with the man in the study, the woman in the kitchen, the children in their own separate bedrooms or play areas: “Separation created isolation in the family as much as it did on the street. . . . The hearth was supposed to give warmth, yet the division of labor [inside the house] gradually cast its own chill.”

Today’s suburban McMansion is essentially the same isolating nineteenth century home on steroids (although far from urban chaos), and the housing bubble in the first half of the decade only made matters worse. Like a supernova that burns brightest just before collapsing in on itself, McMansion developers went on their final building spree despite the trend that Susanka had identified. One executive in the homebuilding industry told The New York Times in 2006: “We haven’t been as quick to adapt to the market as we should have been.” Why? “Most home builders are reluctant to change the formula that made them so profitable over the past 10 years,” explained James Chung, president of Reach Advisors, a Boston-based marketing firm.

According to Reach Advisors, among the Dwell demographic who prefer single-family houses, they want smaller homes built closer together with amenities that foster interaction with their neighbors, such as dog parks and walking trails. They would also prefer their private space cultivate family interaction rather than be divided into separate activity rooms. For decades, progressive urban planners have advocated for mixed-use buildings and blocks, but the same could be said for a suburban house. Multi-use spaces are where families interact, and that interaction makes the difference between a house that is merely occupied and a home that is truly lived in.

But rather than scale down to a more efficient design, McMansion builders just kept adding on to the already bloated floor plans, with the industrial era house at the core and all the new economy rooms tacked on. Media rooms, home offices, and hearth rooms – a poor imitation of a loft-like space, where the kitchen flows into eating and sitting areas anchored by a fireplace – grossly expanded square footage. According to Census data, median square feet of floor area for new privately owned, single-family homes jumped from 1,560 in 1974 to 2,248 in 2006. The typical McMansion is 3,000 square feet or larger. The numbers are not yet all in, but anecdotal evidence indicates that it is these energy-inefficient behemoths built far from job centers that have experienced the most drastic price declines in the current housing market crisis, possibly the worst in American history.

With prices already down almost 20 percent, home values are on track to decline as much as they did during the Great Depression. According to Robert Schiller, professor of economics at Yale University and an early predictor of the housing market decline, currently there are about 10 million homeowners who owe more on their home than it is worth. And even if the market has hit bottom, after adjusting for inflation, most homeowners will continue to lose money.

Of course, this is not solely the fault of McMansion builders and buyers. Old neighborhoods in rust-belt cities with small, densely packed houses have been devastated as well. But clearly, the market is not in turmoil because working class people fell victim to subprime loan sharking but in part because developers built and middle class and wealthy people bought way more house than they could ever need or even want. The New York Times recently featured a 26,000 square foot home in Greenwich, CT that has been put up for auction. “We kind of knew even before the house was finished that it was too much house for us,” said the homeowner, Stan Cheslock, a Baby Boomer-aged financial investor. While this is a gross example, would the housing market be in better shape if “not so big” were the predominant building philosophy, and not just a countervailing trend among the Dwell demographic? One could make a case.

Like the American auto industry rediscovering demand for fuel-efficient cars, in the current housing crisis The Not So Big House still feels highly relevant if no longer revelatory. Susanka took inspiration from the sailboat, where efficiency and multi-purpose space is essential. “Because of this careful, thoughtful use of space, it’s no great exaggeration to suggest that six people can live more comfortably on a 40-ft. boat than they can in a big, badly designed house.” To that end, she emphasized cozy spaces over cathedral-like great rooms; socializing areas that flow together but utilize ceiling height variation and lighting design to delineate spaces; and “away rooms” for private time. She noted that some of her clients discovered the appeal of the “not so big house” when it came to building a second home for summers or weekends. When her clients realized they preferred their second home – with its emphasis on informal comfort and efficiency – they began to rethink their primary residences.

But for most people, the fact that large formal living and dining rooms go unused for all but a few days of the year, ditto that oversized jacuzzi in the master bath and formerly screened-in porch – which was much loved in the summertime but after being converted to a year-round room became just another underutilized sitting area – is not enough to convince them to choose smaller spaces. So the McMansion explosion happened at the same time the “not so big house” message came to define the tastes of an emerging demographic of homeowners. But 10th Anniversary edition, Susanka doesn’t do much to explain why.

One clue might be found in a new twist on the theory of conspicuous consumption, as noted in a recent issue of the Atlantic Monthly. Kerwin Kofi Charles and Erik Hurst, two economists at the University of Chicago, show that a relatively poor group in close proximity to a relatively well-off group will spend more on “bling” at the expense of their own needs and private comforts. While they were studying differences in spending habits of blacks and whites, the same could be applied to the growing gap between the upper middle class and the super wealthy, a relatively new phenomenon. Between 1949 and 1979, income at all levels grew relatively equally, but since then income growth has occurred disproportionately at the upper echelons. The richest 1 percent increased their portion of the national income from 8.2 percent in 1980 to 17.4 percent in 2005. The Economic Policy Institute calculated that in 2004 only the top 5 percent of households increased their incomes, while the remaining 95 percent had flat or falling incomes. It’s not too much of a stretch to apply the “bling” theory to the upper middle class and their McMansion home-buying habits. If your income is stagnant or even dropping, keeping up appearances becomes paramount.

For the Dwell demographic – which never expected to be super rich – the point is not smaller for its own sake but a shift of emphasis to quality materials, customization and detailing with a technological update. This preference doesn’t necessarily lead to one aesthetic. Dwell readers will not find much in the way of cutting edge design in the Not So Big House, either in the original book or the 10th Anniversary edition. Susanka’s tastes are “Minnesota nice” – a house should compliment, not detract from its neighbors (Susanka now lives in Raleigh, NC). Photos emphasize suburban bliss in warm hues, with lots of woodwork and overstuffed couches. It is the “not so big” philosophy that defines the Dwell demographic with its more traditional middle class emphasis on private luxury in the service of comfort, practicality over bling. Just a sampling of a few Dwell articles over the years: “Affordable Luxury: 10 Homes that Do More with Less,” “Bathrooms 101: Innovative Materials, Cool Products,” “Collapsible Furniture for Cozy Spaces.”

Despite having defined this emerging demographic’s housing preference, not only does Susanka fail to reconcile the popularity of her book with the McMansion explosion of the past ten years, she claims a little more credit than is probably due. She notes in the preface to the 10th Anniversary edition that the average size of a new home in the U.S. finally leveled off at just under 2,500 sq. feet (an accurate statement) and that over 40 percent of new homes are now built without a formal living room (a dubious statistic). “I think the Not So Big House series has helped to turn this tide,” wrote Susanka. Clearly, that tide was turned by much larger forces.

Lisa Chamberlain is the author of Slackonomics: Generation X in the Age of Creative Destruction and covers real estate for The New York Times.

October 18, 2008
Gentrification from the inside out in Brooklyn’s Ditmas Park

Twenty some years ago my husband, 2 young sons and I moved from our cramped 16-foot wide attached row house in Brooklyn’s trendy Park Slope to a free-standing, 7-bedroom Victorian house in the Ditmas Park section of Flatbush with stained glass windows, pocket doors, original wood paneling, a back yard, front porch, driveway and 2-car garage in a little-known, tree-lined neighborhood about 10 minutes away – on the other, high-crime side of Prospect Park. Friends thought we’d taken leave of our senses!

Built early last century, our neighborhood Long has been known for its architecture, with the largest concentration of Victorian houses in America. It’s the kind of neighborhood sensible new urbanists dream about it; the only block in New York with subway stations at each end. This was a tribute to the clout of the neighborhood’s original developers who had a strong commitment to building “suburbs in the city,” and secured the best in public transportation for their customers.

Driveways help preserve the neighborhood’s low density, while also allowing ample street parking. But before and after WWII, entire blocks of houses were torn down and apartment buildings erected in their place. Today, blocks of beautiful, 3-story Victorian houses with large front porches alternate with blocks of 5 and 6-story apartment buildings.

Not surprisingly, the people in the houses differed, in terms of race and social class, from the people in the apartment buildings. They rarely interacted. The subway tracks demarcated the neighborhood; one side was mixed, the other predominantly black and lower middle class. When crime exploded in the 1960s and welfare tenants were moved into some of the apartments, much of the middle class – white and black – fled. By the early 1990s many assumed that nothing could be done about the collapse of the quality of life. It wasn’t unusual for police officers in that era, many of whom lived in suburban Suffolk County, to respond to crime victims condescendingly by asking, “What do you expect if you live in a neighborhood like this?”

Little changed even after the extraordinary Giuliani/Bratton efforts brought down crime, little changed in the mid-1990s. The district’s once thriving shopping street, Cortelyou Road, still had no bank, no coffee shop, no diner, no sit-down restaurant, no children’s store, no real estate office. So there wasn’t much pedestrian traffic – or “eyes” – on the main commercial street, still dominated by 99 cent stores competing with 97 cent stores.

Most neighborhood residents, if possible, shopped elsewhere. Frustrated by this situation, in 2001 I founded “Friends of Cortelyou,” a (very) small group dedicated to recruiting new businesses to our commercial strip. A couple of “friends” and I went to lunch, dinner, and coffee at places that we liked in other neighborhoods in Brooklyn. We introduced ourselves to owners and managers as Friends of Cortelyou, trying to convince entrepreneurs to expand into our still “below the radar” neighborhood.

To us, the broader, social implications of local shopping were clear; people who walked to local stores on local streets, instead of driving or taking the subway to more developed neighborhoods would generate the everyday interaction that defines a lively neighborhood. Cortelyou’s commercial strip is only 7 blocks long, and a few new stores could have a significant impact.

I figured that someone who had taken a chance in Brooklyn’s Ft. Greene, that edgy, racially (and income) diverse neighborhood might see the potential in ours which US News and World Report described as the “most diverse neighborhood in America.” One owner, a half Martiniquen, half Jewish former Parisian was hooked; he saw the possibilities for commercial development and knew first-hand the advantages of being first (namely, cheap rent and “buzz”).

The former Parisian negotiated to take over the lease of an existing corner bar. When he ran into trouble securing “the last $30,000”, we put out a call to about 40 neighbors to raise the last start-up capital. Thirty six different neighbors agreed to loan (or give) $1000 each to back someone who would open a new restaurant in our neighborhood!

One incredible woman, Susan Siegel, decided she wanted to bring a farmers market to the neighborhood. She worked on this full time, and a year later it opened! Some Cortelyou grocers objected to having it on their strip; a few vocal homeowners objected to unlocking a public school yard and using it to house the market. Ironically the fight over the market swelled into a local “pro-development” movement, made up of people alive to the new possibilities, and sparked a neighborhood newsletter.

Once it opened in 2002, the Farmers Market became an informal community center, a literal common ground, for our neighborhood. The Market became a place where the full range of neighborhood residents could come together to buy fresh fruits and vegetables and to catch up on what’s happening in the schools, the playgrounds, and stores including a highly successful organic food co-op. Until then, only the homeowners were organized but now new co-op owners, home owners, and renters all came, mingling freely with each other, and with “veterans”, in a way that had not previously been the case.

At that time we realized we needed more new and engaged residents. I tried to persuade two local realtors to sell the co-op apartments; they were far cheaper than co-ops in other good (or “good enough”) neighborhoods, and seemed like the way to bring in young or single people. But the realtors were dismissive explaining, “there’s not enough money,” or “too much work” in selling coops to make it worth their while.

I realized I’d have to take this on myself. So I got a real estate license, affiliated with a Park Slope broker, and began selling co-ops in one building in our area. Other agents in that office didn’t mind; for them, too, it was too little money and too much work. Selling real estate and developing the neighborhood were two sides of a coin; the combination turned out surprisingly to be more fun and satisfying than I had imagined. Within two years I co-founded Brooklyn Hearth Realty, an agency I currently own with two partners, young, dynamic neighborhood residents who moved here in the twenty-first century.

The neighborhood buzz kept growing. Jim Heaton, a local advertising executive initiated an online newsletter, FREND, and also designed a logo for Friends of Cortelyou. We had the logo printed on t-shirts and oversized shopping bags, and sold them to raise money for the few activities we sponsored that required financial support. We initiated and hosted “Welcome Receptions”, at first in our homes, then in the new restaurants that we recruited for the new residents. These turned out to be very popular, and were one more mark of distinction for our neighborhood. Local businesses joined in as sponsors.

FREND served to “connect” nearly a thousand people and families to the new initiatives, particularly around the Farmers Market and crime, but the on-line contribution really blossomed in 2003 when Ellen Moncure and Joe Wong revived the Flatbush Family Network (FFN). This site has become an invaluable source of neighborhood and childrearing information for the many young families who live here. For many people moving into this neighborhood, FFN provides an initial introduction and orientation to life in this neighborhood. For those who live here, it’s a convenient, ongoing source of information and support.

All this really began to congeal by 2002. New stores began to open on Cortelyou Road. One of the early successes was the Picket Fence restaurant. Picket Fence was followed by a vintage furniture store (opened by Nicole Francis, a staunch FOC member), a Mexican restaurant, a café, a bar, a bagel shop, a dance studio, a real estate office, wine store, furniture store, children’s store, natural food store, new flower shop/bar, and Tibetan Café. Meanwhile the long-established food co-op and the pizza shop both expanded and upgraded. The Farm on Adderley broke new ground in 2005, attracting attention and customers from far outside the neighborhood. The owners of that restaurant opened another a few blocks away the following year, and just opened the flower shop/bar a month ago. Once seemingly on its last legs, the neighborhood now pulses with a contagious energy.

That energy gave birth to the Ditmas Park Blog, founded in early 2007 by Ben Smith and Liena Zagare. The blog sends local information and gossip beyond the neighborhood’s families, reaching growing numbers of singles as well. This was the first institution to target singles as much as families, extending the neighborhood’s expanding demographic boundaries. Zagare, her finger on the neighborhood’s pulse, went on to found the Ditmas Workspace in summer, 2008. She created a shared workspace in a former doctor’s office. Another former doctor’s office, also on the ground floor of a large house, has a neighborhood yoga studio and several artists working in small, separate spaces. That’s the “new use of old space” that’s helping to reconfigure our neighborhood for the 21st century.

Much of what I’ve described occurred during the boom times of 2002 through the first half of 2008. Although Brooklyn’s market stayed strong through the summer of 2008, we now face an uncertain future in a very volatile economic climate. Perhaps people will stay closer to home, like the woman who stopped in my office on Cortelyou the other day who said, “I’m not going out as much, and trying to save money. So I’m going over to my friend’s with a bottle of wine.” After all, you can save money on transportation and on babysitting by staying closer to home.

As I write this, the owner of a successful Manhattan restaurant is looking closely at Cortelyou, hoping to open in a “real neighborhood” where customers support local businesses. No one knows yet where the economy is headed, or what this means for our neighborhood. But we now have a vibrant neighborhood. This is no longer just a location where the houses are a comparative bargain. It’s an area with an identity.

Jan Rosenberg taught Sociology at LIU’s Brooklyn Campus for 28 years; her studies of other Brooklyn neighborhoods, and of cities, inspired her work in Ditmas Park. She is cofounder of Brooklyn Hearth Realty.

Photos courtesy of Joanna Grazda and Mark Gilman.

October 16, 2008
A Grand Alliance: Fostering a North American Central Economic Region

Given current economic trends, the time may be ripe to consider as a concept, an economic region straddling the middle of the North American continent – a North American Central Economic Region (NACER). These cross-border economic regions spanning Northwestern Ontario, Manitoba, North and South Dakota and Minnesota, already share infrastructure, production facilities and research and development capacity. A North American Central Economic Region (NACER) would build on these existing relationships, as well as historic patterns of cultural exchange, cross-border trade, and travel.

Governments with fixed territorial boundaries do not always effectively address the need for cross-border regional economic partnerships and co-operation. Often created under radically different conditions, borders can result in transactions costs that limit interaction and opportunity.

The concept of cross-border regions in North America is not new. Joel Garreau’s Nine Nations of North America describes cross-border regions that share similar economic, social and cultural characteristics. Other concepts for cross-border economic regions include Cascadia on the west coast and Atlantica on the east coast. Atlantica is more formally known as the Atlantic International Northeast Economic Region (AINER) and is currently the focus of advocacy and research on the part of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies based in Halifax and the Eastern Maine Advocacy Corporation. The AINER concept comprises the Canadian Atlantic provinces as well as Maine, Vermont and the northern part of New York State bordering Lake Ontario.

Cascadia has been nurtured by a government funded cross-border advocacy group initiative known as the Pacific Northwest Economic Region or PNWER. PNWER defines a region of the Pacific Northwest that includes British Columbia, Alberta, the Yukon, Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington with a total population of about 20 million people. The PNWER provides a forum to address important cross-border issues in trade, transportation, the environment and energy. The 18th annual summit of the PNWER was held in Vancouver in July 2008 and discussions focused on marketing the Pacific Northwest in advance of the Vancouver Olympics, trade and travel across the Canada-U.S. border.

In a similar manner, a North American Central Economic Region (NACER) could span Northwestern Ontario, Manitoba, North and South Dakota and Minnesota. This region stands at the cross-roads of the North American continent and essentially comprises the north-central portion of Garreau’s “Breadbasket Nation.” As a region, NACER covers 1.8 million square kilometers with a population of nearly 8 million people and a GDP (US$) of about 370 billion dollars. This economic region contains agricultural production activities, food processing, forestry, petroleum, coal, mineral and hydroelectric resources as well as substantial manufacturing and service capacity.

The recent rise in commodity, food and energy prices has demonstrated the increasing strategic importance of the NACER zone in the long run. As well, the major centers of Minneapolis-St. Paul and Winnipeg are already locations for numerous corporate head offices, health, educational, research and government services. In addition, NACER contains vital road, rail and airport hubs that would be complemented by three ocean-going ports – Churchill, Duluth and Thunder Bay as well as the Mississippi route down to the Gulf of Mexico.

The similarities and geographic proximity of the provincial and state economies of this region create a conjunction of common interests and possibilities for economic growth. For example, Manitoba and Northwestern Ontario have abundant hydroelectric resources and would benefit from increased exports to meet growing American power needs. Given current trends in energy prices, NACER has the potential to be a 21st century energy export giant rooted in agricultural and forest bio-fuels and hydro-electricity. In particular, the potential of Northwestern Ontario as a forest bio-refining energy center and hydro-electric producer would be enhanced by sharing of expertise with Manitoba and Minnesota.

Another specific example of economic interests coinciding can be seen in the conjunction between the aerospace program at the University of North Dakota and Winnipeg’s aerospace manufacturing sectors. As well, Manitoba and Minnesota both provide large adjacent markets for goods and services for firms in North and South Dakota.

As a further example of common economic interests, Minnesota has robust growth and a tight labor market and some of its firms could benefit from setting up operations in nearby Northwestern Ontario which suffer a surplus of highly skilled surplus labor and capacity due to the forest sector downturn. Moreover, recent economic development initiatives announced for northeastern Minnesota could also provide opportunities for Northwestern Ontario firms. As well, improvements to the highway, road and border-crossing network in the NACER region could also generate benefits for increased regional partnerships.

This economic region requires a sense of common vision in order to grow and prosper during the 21st century. Leaders in this region need to facilitate cross-border commerce and activity in the areas of cross-border employment and business opportunities, better relationships between producers and suppliers, improving cross-border transportation infrastructure, cross-border environmental and nature conservation, and tourism promotion. At the very least, a regular regional forum between Chambers of Commerce and political leaders to examine common economic problems and solutions would be a worthwhile endeavor.

Institutionalizing a regular set of meetings as has been done in the Pacific Northwest would be a good start. Furthermore, developing a regional vision and set of common statistics that could be used to lobby both federal governments could also help, particularly when border issues threaten the role of the border as a zone of interaction.

The time is indeed ripe for a North American Central Economic Region (NACER). This cross-border region shares common economic interests and is strategically positioned at the heart of the North American continent. Key immediate priorities for this region involve research and industrial partnerships, common tourism marketing and steps to reduce congestion and streamline flows of legitimate trade and travel. The next step is for interested parties and stakeholders to come together and establish a cross-border institutional framework to promote this alliance, identify issues, set priorities and most importantly, mobilize resources on both sides of the border.

Livio Di Matteo is Professor of Economics at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay and specializes in economic history, public policy and health economics.

October 7, 2008

Canada’s High Tech Leaders

If you ask most Americans, or Canadians, for that matter, where Canadian high tech is concentrated, they will point you to the great metropolitan centers of Toronto and Montreal. But in reality the real centers of tech growth in Canada are concentrated elsewhere.

One particular standout is Ottawa, the nation’s capital. Over the past decade, Ottawa’s image has evolved from a drab and even stern city to that of a conurbation displaying major demographic, social, cultural and economic diversification (Culturally and socially, Ottawa is now on par with other North American cities of equivalent size).

Although the public service sector remains prominent, the economy of the national capital has undergone major changes. Since 1990, the high-tech sector has grown at such a pace that in 2000, according to Mallet (2002), 80,000 individuals were on the payroll of knowledge-economy businesses, almost as many as in government offices. And Despite the sector downturn in 2001, Ottawa still ranks in the top ten North American cities where a high percentage of people holding university (bachelor and Ph.D.) degrees. This same pattern can be observed in the capital region of the United States as well.

Table 1. Percentage (%) of the workforce in professional, scientific and technical services in the United States and in Canada (top 20).

Rank

Cities

% of workforce

Washington-Baltimore

11.54

San Francisco

10.95

Calgary

10.91

Ottawa

10.47

Toronto

9.78

Raleigh

9.74

Denver

9.14

Boston

8.98

Albuquerque

8.76

Vancouver

8.74

San Diego

8.72

Austin

8.55

New York

8.20

Atlanta

8.19

Montréal

7.95

Colorado Springs

7.92

Minneapolis

7.74

Chicago

7.70

Houston

7.44

Philadelphia

7.40

Source: Statistics Canada (2001) and US Census (2000).

Indeed in the search for Silicon Valley North, Ottawa ranks close to the top by almost every measurement — jobs per capita, skilled workers, and high-tech growth. Ottawa may seem less than ‘hip and cool’ to most outsiders, but it outperforms its more vaunted Canadian counterparts in terms of tech growth. Overall if any area is to be considered the ‘Silicon Valley North’ it would be the Ottawa region.

Table 5. Science and engineering employment shares for the top 30 North American cities, 2000 and 2001.

Share (%)

Rank

San José, CA

15.7

Ottawa–Gatineau

11.6

Huntsville, AL

11.1

Nashua, NH

11.1

Washington, DC/MD/VA

10.9

Raleigh-Durham, NC

Rochester, MN

9.6

Ann Arbor, MI

9.2

Austin, TX

Santa Fe, NM

8.9

Seattle-Everett, WA

8.6

Boston, MA

8.3

Yolo, CA

Fort Collins-Loveland, CO

San Francisco-Oakland-Vallejo, CA

Trenton, NJ

Dutchess County, NY

7.9

Santa Cruz, Calif.

7.8

Melbourne-Titusville-Cocoa-Palm Bay, FL

7.8

Denver-Boulder-Longmont, CO

7.8

Colorado Springs, CO

7.8

Calgary

7.6

Madison, WI

7.5

Richland-Kennewick-Pasco, WA

7.4

State College, PA

7.1

Bloomington-Normal, IL

Baltimore, MD

6.9

Wilmington, DE/NJ/MD

6.9

Champaign-Urbana-Rantoul, Ill.

6.7

Toronto

6.7

Source: Canadian Census (2001) and U.S. Census (2000).

The other major high-tech centers in Canada are Calgary and Toronto. But even here some of the results are surprising. If you look in detail at Toronto region you find that most of the high-tech growth has been clustered not in the city, but in the sprawling suburban regions around the area, particularly in places such as Kitchener. Similarly in the greater Montreal area, much of the high-tech growth is clustered around the City of Laval, an independent municipality north of the Isle de Montreal.

What does this tell us about high-tech in Canada? For one thing it shows that places that have low crime rates, a family friendly atmosphere tend to be the best places for technology companies — very much like the pattern in the United States. Although Canada is a very different country, the fertile ground for tech companies remains very much the same both sides of the border.

Rémy Tremblay is Canada Research Chair on Knowledge Cities, Université du Québec à Montréal

October 7, 2008

A Local Graduation: How Small Towns Can Come Back

Pick anytown, USA. You were born there; went to school there; made your living there; had your children and grandchildren and ended your life there. Headstones, like many, tell the story of who came and who went and they helped make the town a unique place.

And so, for a moment, I lamented at how much of that we had lost in the changes we have witnessed over the decades. Here we are in the biggest financial crisis in history, or at least since the Great Depression. What do we do?

Towns not on interstates cannot make it we are told, towns that are not hip and exciting are dead. And so, our young people leave — with at least a casual observance that those left behind are falling to the drug culture. In a recent focus group of young males in one eastern Kentucky town one participant stated, “Sure I sell drugs — it’s easy money and I don’t have the connections to get a job even at Wal-Mart.”

How can we recapture that faith in ourselves in American communities? We must if we are going to move forward in a global economy.

Maybe the solution lies in focusing on ourselves. “Localism” has been linked with everything from economic development to environmentalism, but at its core and at its best, it reflects a desire to make the best with what you’ve got.

What you need to build is an intentional city. The intentional city is the middle way — where both the need to attract creative people and the need to sustain traditional economic and social bases co-exist.

It’s okay, after all, not to be the coolest place ever. Why? Well, because most of us aren’t all that cool. But the majority of us still need jobs, fun things to do, people we like and ways to be successful. We need what ‘bell curve’ mixed communities — with the whole spectrum of skills and talents — can give.

Take Newton, Iowa. The closure of the Maytag plant and the loss of 1,800 jobs attracted attention from Presidential candidates. But, as is so often the case, only part of the story was told. Though the loss of Maytag was a severe setback, Newton prepared itself for a successful rebound. The town collaborated with state and other nearby cities to attract several wind-turbine manufacturers. Maytag’s previous facilities already possessed the machinery needed for large-scale turbine manufacturing. The available facilities also were situated adjacent to interstate rail lines.

This economic recovery was possible because the town’s people (many of them former Maytag employees) were interested in more than just their own jobs. They cared about Newton. These engaged citizens took a more active role in planning for their city’s future. They knew change had to come from the grassroots and move up from there.

I believe this form of American ingenuity is at work in many small towns and cities. This requires a focus not only on high-tech and “creative” jobs but maintaining more traditional types of work that is equally important to a city’s health.

This kind of effort requires more than sounding off online. Covert citizenship – yelling across the internet — isn’t real. Sustaining communities requires involvement.

Like the people in Newton, we need to take interest in our own community and intentionally helping it flourish with its own best assets. Just as communities in tropical climates are recovering from hurricanes so can tired and waning cities recovery from malaise and a sense of inferiority.

We need to embrace what we’ve got and not try so hard to be something we’re not. We need to graduate to the current reality but understand also that our greatest advantage lies with what we had to start with.

Sylvia L. Lovely is the Executive Director/CEO of the Kentucky League of Cities and president of the NewCities Institute. She currently serves as chair of the Morehead State University Board of Regents.

October 6, 2008