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Rethinking Urban Dynamics: Lessons from the Census

Much has been made of the vaunted “back to the city” movement by “the young and restless,” young professionals, the creative class, empty nesters and others were voting with their feet in favor of cities over suburbs. Although there were bright spots, the Census 2010 results show that the trend was very overblown, affecting mostly downtown and near downtown areas, while outlying ones bled population. One culprit for this discrepancy seems to be that the intra-census estimates supplied by the Census Bureau were inflated – in some cases very inflated.

Looking at selected core cities for major US metropolitan areas, many of them were materially over-estimated:

One particularly egregious case relates to Atlanta. Its huge projected population increase in the 2000s led me to describe it as “one of America’s top urban success stories.” The reality proved to be quite different. Rather than strong population growth in the city, the population growth turned out to be basically flat, quite a different story. Other declines might be more predictable, such as Detroit, or those who had previously challenged estimates like Cincinnati and St. Louis. Still, even urban cores in rapidly growing regions like Dallas and Houston were not immune from this trend.

There were some exceptions. Cities like Indianapolis, Columbus, and Oklahoma City came in slightly ahead of expectations, but the number of cities with misses and the sizes of the positive and negative misses tilted towards the down direction.

It seems clear now that the justification for much of the “back to the city” story reflected bad estimates. People can’t be faulted for relying on the official government numbers – I did. But the reality of the 2010 Census, as demonstrated by Wendell Cox and others, is that the 1990s were actually better for urban population growth in America than the 2000s in many respects.

One legitimate bright spot for cities lay in the growth of downtown and near downtown areas. Though often starting from low bases, these areas often showed impressive increases. For example, St. Louis showed good growth downtown despite a very disappointing decline in total city population:

The poster child for this phenomenon was Chicago, where a fairly expansive area in the greater core showed large population growth. Areas that were formerly almost all commercial, such as the Loop, added significant residential population, while areas that were nearly derelict like the near South Side have blossomed into thriving upscale neighborhoods.

The problem, from places ranging from Chicago to Cleveland, is that the gains in the “core of the core” have been more than offset by losses elsewhere, especially the flight of blacks and other minorities – many of them immigrants – to the increasingly diverse suburbs.

Cities across America have invested enormous sums into downtown redevelopment and major projects in selected districts. The good news: these investments have shown some ability to move the needle in terms of attracting young professionals downtown. The bad news lies with the fact that these developments have been extremely costly, and have not transformed the overall demographic or economic climates of the cities that tried them. This demonstrates the limits of the policies. Those who aren’t in the young professional, empty nester, or creative class demographic have rightly figured out that they are no longer the target market of city leadership. No surprise then that many of them have decided to vote with their feet.

Given the resulting overall negative swings, cities may want to revisit their strategy of putting all their chips in the downtown redevelopment basket in favor of less glamorous improvements in basic neighborhood safety, services, schools and other critical elements. A handful of elite enclaves and talent hubs may be able to thrive on a “favored demographic quarter” strategy, but for most places there just aren’t enough young professionals and artists to go around.

Aaron M. Renn is an independent writer on urban affairs based in the Midwest. His writings appear at The Urbanophile.

* Actual population minus projected population as of 4/1/2010 using a run rate projection based on the 2008-2009 estimated population growth.
** Base is the projected 4/1/2010 population above.

Photo by Ian Freimuth

April 28, 2011
Diverging Demographics Leads to Fewer Babies in Singapore

Two interesting statistics were recently released in the same week. Singapore clocked in a population of just over 5 million and a sex ratio of 974 males per 1000 females. Its neighbour and ally India inched closer to beating China in the population game by notching up 1,210 million people as its head count, along with the more news-worthy sex ratio of 940 females to every 1000 males.

If you happen to be a Singaporean female who belongs to the Club of 26 (1000 less 974) you can forget about ever finding a mate amongst your countrymen. Even with its low girl child ratio, India’s large population base will ensure that the overall country continues to grow at a healthy pace for some decades with or without policy interruptions. If Singapore’s declining birth ratio continues to favour women, at some stage there will be a shortage of men.

This is part of a larger demographic dilemma. Singapore is increasingly worried about not having enough babies to replace its residents. In the past the government has tried to counter the declining numbers by attracting a work force of immigrants. Most believe that that this has led to over-crowding of an already small country and driven up prices of everything that is already in short supply. Meanwhile the Singaporean birth rate has continued its southward march.

The leading explanation for the low birth rate centers around the high and rising cost of living. Life in one of the world’s ten richest countries can be a struggle even with a home ownership rate of more than 80%. Tax rates are low but everything else that contributes to living, i.e. a car, food items, apparel most of the time are imported and hence quite expensive.

Here are some observations that I hope can explain people’s concern about the “affordability” of having children.

The entire vibe of Singapore is progress. The government pumps in millions of dollars to ensure the country doesn’t fall behind in the ”world-class” game. Casinos, malls, theatres, world famous artists, and Formula 1 car racing all have been here, underlining Singapore’s ambitions to play cosmopolitan. No private building is allowed to stand for more than 30-40 years. It is torn down to make room for swankier apartments with an appropriately swankier name. Escalating property prices drive down the size of new apartments. The name of the game is upgradation. A Singaporean living in an HDB (housing development board) flat dreams of upgrading to an ”executive condominium” and from there to a ”luxury condominium with full facilities”. Adding fuel to the fire are comparisons with the foreigners many of whom live a better life than the native residents.

It is this constant comparison and hence the drive for a ”better” life that discourages the Singaporean from taking a break. Competition at work is fierce, work schedules are gruelling and flexi-hours not really an option without seriously compromising either money making or a chance at a promotion.

The policy of attracting talented foreigners has consequences on the birth rate of the nation. While foreign talent fuels the nation, the presence of upper end mobile foreigners ensures that Singaporeans do not assume that “the good life,” especially compared to their peers in the region. It also keeps them slogging away for more at the cost of parenthood.

Every Singaporean male has to serve in the Army compulsorily for a couple of years. That means for anyone aspiring for a regular career in the corporate or government world, a female colleague can get ahead of her male counterpart by two years. Over a period of a lifetime, two years do not matter much but in the early years of life, a two year lead time can put a woman in her 20s significantly financially ahead of her male counterpart. When it comes to choosing a life partner, she has the choice of a slightly older but financially compatible colleague or a younger but not yet established in his career co-worker.

Like most sensible women would, she chooses to push the marriage age away, and marry someone older than her. The median age for women at marriage is 27.5 years and for men 29.8 years (2009 data). At that age, most people are at mid-level management, hence taking a career break for parenthood necessarily compromises not only earnings but also their future career options in a increasingly competitive job world.

In comparison, Singapore is a great place for foreigners to live as outsiders. By definition, foreign talent comes here in search of a better life than the one they can afford back home. To a large extent, that desire is fulfilled. To retain and continue to attract this talent, the country will have to maintain the distinct treatment of locals and foreigners.

However unlike most immigrant-attracting societies llike the US, Canada and Australia, there is precious little planned assimilation of these foreigners within the Singaporean society. Most foreigners live, seek and mix with those of their own kind or closest to their own kind. Beyond familiarising themselves with food, there is very little ‘local flavor” in their life. Tolerance and racial harmony are well-nurtured values, but integration is largely missing.

Even as children, there is little mixing. There are two distinct sets of students, those educated byt the international school system Vs. the competitive and compulsory local education system. Cross admission into either type is tightly controlled, by purse size, policy or peer pressure

If you do not study in the same school or do not live in the same area you are unlikely to hang-out together or assimilate anything from each other, neither in your formative growing up, “open-minded” years or later.

It is possible for a permanent resident to live for decades in Singapore as a guest, oblivious to the problems of the native Singaporeans, even unaware that there is a world outside of luxury condos and wall-to-wall shopping. Amongst the foreigners there is likely to be little empathy for the real issues facing their borrowed “workland” and its people. Yet it is not possible as a native of the country to ignore the people who come into their country, live a better life than them and do not seem to go through similar life pains.

The children of these semi-residents ,even those born here, often view the country as a stepping stone to migrate to larger, more developed economies or in tighter times like these, receive their higher education abroad and come back to a life not dissimilar from their parents. Their parents often then choose to go back to their much more affordable native countries than stay on and watch the cost of living overwhelm their diminishing retirement funds.

Barring a few exceptions, natives would live and retire in and inexpensive country leaving it to their children to fulfil dreams of an upgraded life.

Isn’t it time the two sets got together to create a better future, one for their land of birth and the other for their land of work? Perhaps balancing these two groups, and working towards their integration, is critical to maintaining Singapore’s progress in the future.

Vatsala Pant is a management graduate with several years of business leadership experience and a connoisseur of people, places and cultures. She currently lives in Singapore.

Photo by Lip Jin Lee

April 27, 2011
Washington State’s Evolving Demography

Population change in the state of Washington has relevance to the nation and to other states because it tells us something about market preferences of households versus the orientation of planners (e.g., “smart growth”). It tells us much about gentrification and America’s changing racial and ethnic diversity.

The summary will be in two parts. This piece will look at population growth and redistribution. A second article will review the growth of the minority population and its (surprising to some) redistribution and its relation to the gentrification of the city of Seattle, plus a look at the implications of ethnic change to Washington’s new 10th congressional district.

Washington state and the greater Seattle region grew fairly vigorously 14% (838,000 new residents) in the decade, as they have most decades for over a century. This growth is unusually high for a “non Sunbelt” state. This growth is due not just the engine of Seattle, as eastern and western Washington also experienced substantial growth.

Most smaller metropolitan areas across the state grew faster than the Seattle metropolitan core. Fast-growing counties are found in the east (Franklin 50%, the easy winner, Benton 23; Kittitas, 22; and Grant 20); all associated with Latino in-migration, as well as in the west (Clark, 23 %; suburban Portland, Mason, 23 percent; suburban Olympia, Thurston (Olympia) 22; Whatcom (Bellingham), 20; and Snohomish, finally, suburban Seattle, 18.

There are two Washingtons: greater Seattle and the rest of the state, marked by a love and hate relationship. But the balance of power – and demography – is clearly changing in both. There were a few areas of slow growth or decline, as in the heart of the wheat country, but significant growth took place in other metropolitan areas, most notably the Tri-Cities, Vancouver (suburban Portland), Bellingham, Olympia (the state capitol) as well as Spokane, Yakima, and Wenatchee.

There has been considerable population growth associated with the Columbia Basin project, fueled by heavy Latino in-migration and high birth rates. At the same time there has been population expansion in selected environmental amenity areas – often with retiree in-migration – in many counties across the state. Amenity fueled growth was dramatic in all directions beyond the metropolitan central Puget Sound core, but was also impressive in several areas in eastern Washington, as in Okanogan, Pend Oreille, and Stevens, the far north and northeast, and in Kittitas. Some of this growth comes from migration east from Seattle. Fourth, despite a growth management plan, metropolitan exurbs continue to expand, especially around Vancouver, Spokane, Bellingham and the Tri-Cities (black on the map, over 100% growth).

Turning to central Puget Sound, the most dramatic growth (often over 100 percent), occurred at the far edge of the urban growth areas, and just beyond as exurban growth. This is true in absolute numbers as well as rates. Growth management and upzoning have been unable to stem this tide, for two main reasons rarely acknowledged by planners: the preference of families with children for single family houses and greater housing affordability, at least in some areas (for example, King county south and east of Seattle, and south into Pierce county). Growth was also impressive in most rural and exurban areas, especially in Pierce, Snohomish and Kitsap counties, but far less in King county, which has by far the strictest growth controls

At the same time, there was concentrated growth in already urban areas, city and suburban, as higher density apartment sprang up across much of Seattle, Tacoma, south King county, in some Eastside cities, and in the SR 99 corridor of Snohomish county north from Seattle.

In Pierce, Snohomish and south King, some single family and small apartment growth occurred in less affluent areas, attracting many people, including young families who cannot afford to live closer to Seattle. Areas of slower growth tended to be military areas, some urban non-residential tracts, and some more affluent, older settled single family home areas, with an aging population. Growth in downtown Seattle and Bellevue, even Tacoma, was substantial, if not quite as great as planners envisioned. The current shift from home ownership to renting is leading some to project a projected apartment boom in or near downtown Seattle.

It’s also interesting to look at density as a measure of “urban-ness”. The third map for density is at a finer block group level. Moderate urban densities from 1000 to 5000 per square mile are dominated by single family homes, areas between 5000 and 7000, by a mix of single family homes and apartments, and over 7000 by apartments, essentially the density goal of urbanist smart growth planning. Seattle really has achieved a substantial degree of such urbanness, dominating central Seattle, but spreading to all corners of the city. Other areas of higher density include the SR99 corridor in Snohomish county, especially south Everett, high tech suburbs to the east, and in south King county the SR 99 corridor again, in some less affluent suburbs, and in Pierce county, downtown Tacoma, and some of South Tacoma toward Ft. Lewis.

But still more than half the urban footprint resists the officially preferred urban densities. Even with densification, redevelopment and the opening of the first light rail line, these higher density areas housed only 34 percent of the population of King county (up from 32 % in 2000), and only 10 % of the population of the people of the three suburban counties. The city of Seattle is exceptional, containing 52 percent of the high density tracts on the metropolitan area, although it has only one-sixth of the population.

As the late great UW economist Charlie Tiebout told a seminar 50 years ago, “People vote with their feet” This is certainly true about residential choices. While perhaps twenty percent at most of Americans may prefer higher density living, for reasons of age, family status or ideology, the large majority does not and likely will not.

To a leftist like me, the tragedy is how smart growth transfers wealth and the vaunted “quality of life” to the rich and the professionals, at the expense of the poor and of minorities. Sadly the Democratic party seems totally blind to the fact that the fixation on new urbanism contributes to the rightward backlash. Folks do not want to be told how to live, especially, dare I assert, when those hectoring them have already cornered the nicest parts of the region for themselves. Middle and working class families are not likely to embrace policies – beloved by affluent professionals – that would deny them a chance to own their preferred kind of residence at a reasonable price.

Richard Morrill is Professor Emeritus of Geography and Environmental Studies, University of Washington. His research interests include: political geography (voting behavior, redistricting, local governance), population/demography/settlement/migration, urban geography and planning, urban transportation (i.e., old fashioned generalist).

April 26, 2011
The Evolving Urban Form: Manila

The Urban Area: The Manila urban area ranks as the world’s fifth largest urban area (area of continuous urban development) with a population of approximately 21,000,000 (Note 1) covering a land area of 550 square miles (1,425 square kilometers). The urban population density sits at approximately 38,000 people per square mile (14,500 per square kilometer).

Like nearly all major urban areas of the world, Manila has experienced substantial suburbanization over recent decades and substantially falling urban population densities. In 1950, the core municipality of Manila had a population of under 1 million people, and it represented approximately 60 percent of the urban area population. Over the intervening years, the core of Manila grew by approximately 700,000 people, while the balance of the urban area added nearly 20,000,000 people (Figure 1).

A Forbes article indicates that Manila is the highest density major municipality in the world with a population density of nearly 115,000 per square mile (45,000 per square kilometer). This is more than double the population density of ville de Paris. The core has a population of approximately 1.7 million in a land area of 15 square miles (39 square kilometers).

The densest district reaches nearly 180,000 people per square mile (70,000 per square kilometer). Even so, this is far less dense than some parts of Hong Kong (more than 1.1 million per square mile and more than 400,000 per square kilometer). Even higher densities existed in the early 20th century Lower East Side in New York (according Jacob Riis, author of A Ten Years’ War: An Account of the Battle with the Slum in New York). Even higher densities were reached during the late 1980s in Hong Kong’s now demolished Kowloon Walled City, variously estimated at up to 5 million per square mile (2 million per square kilometer).

The inner suburbs, the balance of the National Capital Region now have approximately 10,600,000 residents. The population density drops substantially from the core to the inner suburbs to approximately 45,000 per square mile (18,000 per square kilometer). The outer suburbs, which are composed of the portions of the urban area outside the National Capital Region, have a population of more nearly 8.5 million and a considerably lower density at 28,000 per square mile or 11,000 per square kilometer (Figure 2).

As early as the 1950s, the suburbs have captured most of the urban areas growth. Between 1950 and 1980, the core municipality attracted between 10 percent and 20 percent of the urban area growth. The core municipality of Manila reached a population peak of nearly 1.6 million in 1980, which it has only been recently exceeded. From 1980 to 2000, virtually none of the urban growth took place in the core of Manila, though it captured roughly 2 percent of the growth from 2000 to 2010 (Figure 3).

As of 2010, it is estimated that eight percent of the population lives in the core municipality of Manila, 51 percent in the inner suburbs and 40 percent in the outer suburbs (Figure 4).

The Metropolitan Area: Unlike urban areas, there are no international standards for the delineation of metropolitan areas (labor markets including extensions beyond urban areas). Serious attempts to compare international metropolitan area data have been rare (Note 2). Nonetheless, the evolution of Manila as a metropolitan area can be independently reviewed based upon a provincial level analysis.

The Manila urban area occupies all or part of six provincial level jurisdictions. The largest population is in the National Capital Region, which is somewhat misleadingly referred to as "Metro Manila", despite being only a part of the metropolitan area. This is similar to Tokyo, where the prefecture of Tokyo is referred to as the "Tokyo Metropolis," yet represents only one third of the metropolitan area population. The metropolitan area also extends into the provinces of Rizal (from which the National Capital Region was carved in 1976), Cavite, Laguna, Bulucan and Batangas. The total population was estimated at 26.5 million in 2010 (Note 3).

The metropolitan area’s population growth is strongly moving toward the outer suburbs (the five provinces outside the National Capital Region). Between 1970 and 1990, the inner suburbs captured 61 percent of the metropolitan area growth, compared to 36 percent in the outer suburbs. Between 1990 and 2010, the outer suburbs accommodated 64 percent of the metropolitan areas population growth, compared to 34 percent for the inner suburbs.

Commercial Development: The suburbanization of Manila has not been limited to residences. New, world class commercial cores have been developed that have displaced many of the traditional functions of the older commercial core of Manila. Makati, a municipality to the east of Manila and within the National Capital Region now has the largest business district (photo), while a nearly as large commercial core has developed in Ortigas, just to the north (photo). There are other developing office centers such as the somewhat more distant commercial center near the southern border of the National Capital Region in Muntinlupa. This is similar to the kinds of newer commercial developments that have supplanted traditional business districts in urban areas such Mexico City (Reforma and Santa Fe) Sao Paulo (Paulista and Luis Carlos Berrini) and Istanbul (Levant).These developing country cities have experienced an economic decentralization of business that surpasses that of American edge cities.

Makati

Ortigas

Manila’s Ominous Future? Manila faces an especially difficult future. The Philippines is projected to have one of the strongest urban growth rates in the world over the period to 2050. Since 1950, the Manila urban area has captured nearly 50 percent of the urban population growth of the nation. If this rate were to continue, the Manila urban area would reach a population of between 45 and 50 million by 2050. This is approximately 10,000,000 more than live in Tokyo, the world’s largest urban area today.

But Manila faces even greater problems, related to the intense poverty of much of the population migrating to the urban area from the countryside. The Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) estimated that 4 million of the 11.5 million residents in the National Capital Region lived in slums (shantytowns or informal settlements) in 2010 (Photo). PIDS indicates that this population is increasing at a rate of eight percent annually and is expected to reach 9 million by 2050. This would be nearly 60 percent of the projected population at that time, and does not include slum populations in the extensive suburbs beyond the limits of the National Capital Region.

As if the poverty were not enough, Manila has been plagued by disastrous slum fires, the most recent within the past week. According to the Manila Times up to 10,000 people were left homeless by this most recent fire, which was in Makati, home of the metropolitan area’s largest and most prestigious business district.

Manila also experiences some of the world’s worst traffic congestion, as people increasingly travel by car on its largely substandard road system. Perhaps even more surprisingly, a substantial number of detached housing communities have been developed, especially on the urban fringe.

Manila’s challenge will be to accommodate the millions more who will seek a better life in the urban area and to do so while materially improving the standard of living as urgently as possible.

———

Note 1: This urban area population is considerably above the figure reported by United Nations (11.6 million). United Nations figure is for the National Capital Region, which is also referred to as Metro Manila. In fact, the urban area stretches well beyond Metro Manila. This population estimate is based upon a build-up of smaller area population totals within the continuously develop urban area.

Note 2: By far the most comprehensive attempt to apply consistent criteria to international metropolitan areas, was by urban expert Richard L. Forstall (who ran the Rand McNally "Ranally" international metropolitan area program), Richard P. Green and James B. Pick. The complexity of the research is indicated by the fact that their list is limited to the top 15 in the world.

Note 3: The metropolitan population is estimated by applying the 2000 to 2007 annual growth rate to from 2007.

Wendell Cox is a Visiting Professor, Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, Paris and the author of “War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life”

Lead Photograph: Urban fringe development: Laguna province (outer suburbs). All photographs by author.

April 25, 2011
Tests, Lies and The Race to the Top

Obama had his “Sputnik Moment,“ when standardized test scores around the world pointed to the mediocrity of American students in reading, math and sciences. There is now a major mantra coming from Washington to all state capitals: the “race to the top” is on, and it doesn’t include a continuation of the downward spiral of test scores. The new modus operandi: Leave aside achievement throughout the years in high school, the stream of G.P.As., the difficulty of courses taken during the years in 9 to 12, and any creative projects done by students. Base everything on standardized tests.

When career prospects, prestige, and job security are connected to one and only one criteria — score on a standardized test — human nature is bound to creep in. Baseball players start taking steroids; Olympic athletes try every means to beat the system. Will it happen to dedicated teachers who are working hard to educate our next generation? Will temptation overtake honesty, integrity and ethical behavior?

The jury is out regarding schools in Washington DC, which was considered a shining star of improvement in math, sciences and reading. Many teachers were given bonuses exceeding $8,000; higher-ups were also rewarded.

However, the statistical analysis of erased incorrect answers — replaced with correct answers —on standardized tests have created serious doubts in the minds of the general public and of educators. Acting School Chancellor Kaya Henderson has asked the D.C. Inspector General to investigate reports that a sharp gain in some standardized tests scores may be the result of cheating, and members of the press have asked for subpoenas to be issued to get at the truth. Obviously, a thorough investigation is needed.

Similarly, in Georgia, test scores improved in Atlanta while several officials were indicted and a few resigned. In Indiana, a Department of Education official believes that a test coordinator from the school system copied a test question and distributed it on Facebook. And Texas Education Agency Commissioner Shirley Neeley has launched an effort to catch cheating on standardized tests, not by students, but by teachers.

The all powerful teachers unions, as well as budget-cutting tea party-influenced elected legislators are all pushing their own agendas. The forgotten question: How will an extreme emphasis on standardized tests affect students?

India may offer a possible clue. A country of over 1 billion in population, with several million graduating from high school per year (with average class sizes at 50 or larger), the competition to get into most prestigious institutions is extreme: consider 455,000 students attempting to land a seat in the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology, the globally recognized English language Engineering College, with less than few thousand seats. The competition for good medical and, business schools throughout the country is equally fierce. And remember— all that matters is your score on the standardized test.

A Mumbai publication recently highlighted the human cost of Indian education “successes”. The statistics draw a bleak picture of elite students in India. About 19 students commit suicide per day, with six of these attributed to the “fear of failure on standardized test,” the sole school selection criteria. Student suicides in India were 6,060 in the year 2008, and increased to 6,761 by 2009. The states with above average literacy, with extreme competition for prestigious education institutes, are number one and two in suicides. Psychologists and education professionals are attributing this to “excessive emphasis” on standardized tests, parental expectations, and social pressure to succeed. Think Tiger Mom!

The suicide rate is so alarming that the Minster of Law (comparable to an Attorney General) has suggested “decriminalizing” suicide (currently, anyone who survives a suicide is subject to prosecution). The local English language columnist, Gitanjali Maria, observes that “Childhood should be the days of fun, not memorizing equations.” Hone your talents and discover your hidden strengths, Maria recommends, instead of spending every waking moment preparing for the next standardized test.

The system of standardized tests rarely allows a student to enjoy any subject or to discover the beauty of math or physics. All the knowledge, fun, desire and ability to enjoy and excel is filtered down to one scantron that will decide the zip code you will live in, your bank balance, and whether you will have a good job or just get by. We all need to recognize the difference between a ‘race to the top’, and a race to memorize formula with the sole objective of “fill the correct blank with a Number 2 pencil”.

Shashi Parulekar is an engineer by training. He holds an MBA, and served as Asia Pacific M.D. with Parker Hannifin Co in Michigan for over ten years. He is a global business executive by profession and a demographer by passion.

Photo by By Shannan Muskopf, biologycorner: Standardized Test

April 24, 2011
Devastated St. Louis Airport: Up to the Challenge

St. Louis: April 23, 2011 (9 a.m.) The St. Louis (Missouri-Illinois) metropolitan area is just beginning to dig out of the devastating tornadoes that struck on the evening of Good Friday. Miraculously, there appear to have been few, if any life-threatening injuries.

The St. Louis tornadoes, however, impacted interstate travel like no other tornadoes in history. St. Louis Lambert international Airport sustained major damage. The main terminal, lost one half of its windows and had major damage in the ticketing area. Concourse C, which is the busiest at the airport lost part of its roof, had damaged jet ways and is reported to have lost all of its windows on the north side. The main terminal would be readily recognized by movie-goers who have seen it featured in Planes, Trains and Automobiles (with an artificial snow cover in the middle of the summer) and Up in the Air. The main terminal was one of the most notable early modern terminal designs and was a precursor of the TWA terminal at JFK airport in New York.

At this point, local officials have even mentioned the possibility that the structure may have been compromised by the storm. Many cars in the adjacent parking structure were damaged by flying debris, which broke windows and produced body damage. Debris filled one of the major roadways between the main terminal and the parking structure (photograph). Needless to say, the airport has been closed indefinitely.

As disruptive as the tornado was to the airport and the traveling public, the closure is likely to be shorter in duration than if it had happened at about any other major airport in the nation. This is because St. Louis airport probably has the largest amount of unused capacity of any major airport in the western world.

The past decade has been characterized by serious reversals for St. Louis airport. The fate of the airport was significantly tied to Trans World Airlines (TWA) which established a hub at St. Louis airport in the early 1980s, shortly after the expansion of the air travel that occurred due to airline deregulation. St. Louis was one of the most convenient metropolitan areas in the nation from which to travel, with frequent nonstop service to all major markets in the nation, daily service to London and seasonal service to Paris. However, TWA filed bankruptcy more than once and was finally purchased by American Airlines. After the 911 terrorist attacks, when airline volumes dropped temporarily in the United States, American Airlines began scaling back operations at St. Louis airport. Now, the TWA – American hub is gone and the airport’s largest airline is Southwest.

Over the past decade, the passenger volumes at St. Louis airport have dropped by nearly two-thirds. This has left much of the airport empty. Concourse A continues to be used near capacity. Concourse C, which used to be home to the TWA hub is probably the busiest, but is only partially used. There are two other concourses that are virtually empty including Concourse D, built when volumes were the highest and the older Concourse B. The damage to concourses appears largely to be limited to Concourse C, but it is serious. There is also a Concourse E, which is dedicated principally to Southwest Airlines. This concourse appears to have also escaped major damage.

All of this spare capacity gives St. Louis airport the potential for a quicker recovery than would be possible if the airport were running close to capacity, as was the case at the turn-of-the-century. It seems likely that this provides the opportunity to transfer operations to the nearly empty Concourses B and D, while longer-term repairs are made to Concourse C.

There is still the difficulty, however, of the damage to the main terminal, principally because it contains the ticketing and baggage facilities for Concourse A and Concourse B, which appear to still be usable. Access to these concourses could be expedited by prioritizing the repairs toward the west side of the ticketing lobby, which serves the Concourse A and Concourse B airlines and is closest to those concourses.

There still remains, however, the difficulty of handling the Concourse C flights. Even here however there may be opportunities for an expeditious recovery. Concourse E, the Southwest terminal, has direct access to Concourse D, though that access has not been permitted in recent years. There may be ways to relocate the ticket facilities for the Concourse C airlines temporarily to Concourse E, and to transfer the flights to Concourse D. Should the main terminal repairs proceed fast enough, a simpler solution would be the transfer of Concourse C traffic to Concourse D.

No final plan has been announced. It is also possible that the early damage reports are more pessimistic than will be revealed in the days and hours to come. However, even with its reduced volumes, the nation needs to have this unprecedented removal of one of its principal facilities quickly restored.

April 23, 2011
Pickles Plans a Pogrom

Pogróm is a word with Yiddish origin, and is a Russian word meaning “to wreak havoc, to demolish violently, to destroy, or to devastate a town."

Eric Pickles, British Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, is planning to demolish, destroy, and devastate half of Dale Farm, on Oak Lane, Crays Hill, near Billericay. Situated to the North of the now established "plotlands" around the post-war New Town of Basildon in Essex, Dale Farm is home to around 1000 people. It is not a farm. It is a 5 hectare former scrapyard off the A127, outside the M25, owned by the Gypsies and Travellers themselves. They have built their own chalet homes in around 100 plots, large enough to include caravan pitches for their families and friends. The problem they have is that the Local Authority has changed it’s attitude to letting Gypsies and Travellers stay to make something of this redundant Brownfield site. Today the Local Authority is mostly against the residents of Dale Farm. But it was not always so in this part of Essex with a long history of "plotlands".

In the 1960s there were fewer than 10 plots on Oak Lane. Over time the Local Authority, Basildon Council, granted planning permission for around 40 additional plots. Then attitudes hardened in 2000. The Local Authority decided that the Dale Farm plots could not be added to, and that having allowed earlier building on the scrapyard was a mistake. Residents faced opposition to new building on their own land, and the 50 or so homes that were built in the twenty-first century were never going to be granted planning permission by the Local Authority that now wished none of them were there. Half the homes are legal. The other half have had to be built on land the residents legally own, but which the Local Authority now sees as "Green Belt". The Gypsies and Travellers face a Local Authority that, despite Basildon’s history of "plotlands", has nastily turned against them.

For more information see http://dalefarm.wordpress.com

Plotlands as a measure of affordability 75 years on 05.04.2009

Googling plotlands at 10 to 30 homes a hectare 22.04.2009

On Google Earth look for the rectangle of family housing built in poor quality Green Belt land at Dale Farm, Oak Lane, Crays Hill, Billericay, Essex, CM11 2YJ. The Dale Farm Gypsies and Travellers have shown how people can meet their own housing needs, if only the Local Authority will give them planning permission. Now Basildon Council is planning to spend £8.0 million in demolishing their homes, plus the cost of policing the action. The Daily Mail claimed that Essex Police has asked the Home Office for £10.0 million to cover that policing cost. (1) What kind of crazy planning tyranny is it when people – just like you and I – are prevented from planning and building a field of family houses for themselves?

Faced with a challenge to 1947 legislation the planning system is acting desperately in forcing the demolition of the Dale Farm homes. The Coalition government has pledged up to £1.2 million to help Basildon Council clear the Gypsies and Travellers away. (2) Basildon Council had asked the department for Communities and Local Government for £3.0 million to help fund an eviction. (3) It’s not the money, but the bigger principle that bothers Eric Pickles, who is now going further. He promises that the CLG will be consulting on new planning guidelines intended to strengthen the hand of Local Authorities in dealing with "unauthorised developments". Dale Farm may be unauthorised, but it is the Local Authority, the CLG, and ultimately Eric Pickles as Secretary of State, who refuse to grant planning approval. If planning approval was likely this conflict would not exist, and 1000 people would be left in peace.

Pickles is determined to clear the Gypsies and Travellers away. He told the Evening Standard that ‘… we are giving councils the power and discretion to protect the environment and help rebuild community relations’. (2) What he means, of course, is that he sees no place in the local community for Gypsies and Travellers. He is blaming them for any strained local relationships when all they want is to be left alone. He appeals to green ideologues, when the Green Belt that engulfs Dale Farm is waste land. James Heartfield made that point on Spiked! in 2009, when the Dale Farm residents were, once again, unable to overcome the planning legal system. The Dale Farm residents face eco-elitism:

‘The law that the Basildon Council is upholding is the law that protects the so-called "Green Belt", which is supposed to stop our towns and cities from sprawling over the unspoilt countryside. Sheridan and his fellow travellers have not taken anyone else’s land; they have built their own homes on their own land. But they are being punished because they have sinned against the sacred cow that is the English Countryside.’ (4)

Even Pickles will probably admit that vast swathes of the Green Belt, and particularly in Essex, is poor quality, but like New Labour before him, he will not let it be used to live in, and particularly not by working people. He sees an opportunity to get the "law abiding" working people of Basildon to turn on the hard working and independent Gypsies and Travellers for breaking the stupid planning law, and challenging the very idea of an ecology in need of his protection. So Pickles is now going deeper into the green prejudice that people are sprawling over the countryside, and need to be contained. At Dale Farm he is tapping into the prejudice amongst environmentalists that large families are a problem. Many Gypsies and Travellers like to have large families, and look after each other, but their sociable culture is evidently at odds with the anti-human idea amongst greens that population growth is threatening the planet.

The anti-human prejudice is common to environmentalists, but is being directed by Pickles as he pushes the planning system towards a legal presumption in favour of "sustainable development". Pickles is saying that Gypsies and Travellers building homes represents the unsustainable development his National Planning Policy Framework aims to stop.

Large families flouting the planning law, and building on the Green Belt in ways that government defines as unsustainable are unacceptable to Pickles. He encourages the local community to organise to move them on, and to use the police to forcibly clear their homes from their own land. Pickles plans a pogrom against Gypsies and Travellers in 2011. As even The Guardian recognised, anticipating "The Battle of Basildon", Pickles ‘… is fast turning his personal track record of vehement opposition to unauthorised Traveller sites into government policy’. (5)

Pogróm originally meant attacks on Jews in the Russian Empire. The first was anti-Jewish rioting in Odessa in 1821. The term "pogrom" gained common use with anti-Jewish riots across the Ukraine and southern Russia between 1881 and 1884, after Narodnaya Volya terrorists assassinated Tsar Alexander II in St. Petersburg. The "People’s Will" anarchists were responsible, but the reaction to the assassination took the form of anti-semitic attacks, lootings, evictions, and expulsions. The perpetrators were organized locally, often with government and police encouragement. Between 1903 and 1906 there were further pogroms, while the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution was widely denounced as a Jewish conspiracy. The British "Khaki" General Election after the First World War returned David Lloyd George as Prime Minister in December 1918, and Winston Churchill became War Minister and Air Secretary. No strangers to anti-semitism, and fearing a spread of mutinous internationalism throughout Europe, they sent the British Expeditionary Forces to help the Tsarist "White" Russians attack the Bolsheviks in the Soviet Union.

Nationalists and the Tsarist Army, backed by Expeditionary Forces from Britain, France, and the United States of America, engaged in pogroms in Ukraine, Poland, Belarus, Romania, and Western Russia, killing tens of thousands of Jews between 1918 and 1920. Pogroms continued in Romania to 1921. Anti-semitism went systematically with racism against Gypsies across Europe between the wars, and did not end with the massacre of the Gypsy Camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau on 2 August 1944.

Eric Pickles is a socially divisive nationalist, but he is no fascist, and would probably hate to be thought of as racist. He believes he is working to protect the planet, while talking about a "Big Society" to businessmen, (6) but he really wants a sustainable Little Britain that makes a virtue out of parochial intolerance. Pickles is adept at exploiting political division. This is of course not a new dispute, nor one limited in consequence to Dale Farm. Much depends on the outcome. The residents were ordered to leave in February 2007 when Ruth Kelly was running the CLG, but they appealed against the decision. (7) The Dale Farm case has gone on since 2001. The leader of Basildon Council Tony Ball insists that ‘… wrong is wrong and there can’t be one rule for one group, and one for another. The law of the land must be upheld’. (8) He knows that the planning law stops everyone from building on their own land unless the Local Authority accepts their design. Ball knows that if the Dale Farm Gypsies and Travellers are not made an example of, then there are plenty of other people around Basildon, Essex, and Britain who would like to build on their own land. Councillors like him would no longer have the power of refusal and demolition that Eric Pickles expects to be exercised on behalf of national government. Ball can’t imagine a planning system based on pursuasion rather than a universal denial of development rights:

‘Look at the alternatives. If a council turns a blind eye to law-breaking what moral right do we have to enforce against anybody else who breaches planning laws? Green belt is there for a reason. It is to stop urban sprawl’. (9)

If the Dale Farm residents win, the denial of the Right to Build can be challenged by many more people around Britain than there are Gypsies and Travellers. Planners would need to win support for something positive to be built by freeholders, having lost the power to say "No".

Basildon Council Leader Tony Ball defended the eviction plan on 15 March 2011 in a television interview, posted on www.bbc.co.uk.

Ball no doubt wants the Dale Farm residents to move on. He seems willing to allow at least a limited window of opportunity for residents to find alternative locations. (10) Yet Ball also appears utterly insensitive to the fact that the Dale Farm residents want the freedom of choice to stay on their own land, at Oak Lane, Crays Hill. Until Secretary of State Pickles intervened it seemed that the 28-day notice of eviction might not be delivered to residents quickly. However Pickles is publicly recommending that all Local Authorities watch for movements of Gypsies and Travellers over the Spring holiday. Rosa Prince, writing for The Telegraph, was not slow to repeat the pre-holiday alarm from Pickles, when she screamed:

‘Travellers have been known in the past to take advantage of bank holidays to launch “land grabs,” setting up home on land which they do not have authorisation to camp on, and applying for retrospective planning permission once the council offices reopen… Councils are also being allowed to resist retrospective planning applications submitted by gipsies and other home builders, and give more rights to enforce removal notice against those who act illegally’. (11)

This eco-anxiety is getting to the truth of the matter. Pickles is blaming Gypsies and Travellers for their independence, but is really worried about "other home builders" who might break the planning law on their own land. ‘It’s time for fair play in the planning system’, he said, ‘… standing up for those who play by the rules and tougher action for those who abuse and play the system’. (12) Gypsies and Travellers know the planning system is not fair. It is stacked against them, and if they try to do anything to solve their own housing predicament the planning system will be used by "the wider community" to demolish, destroy, and devastate their homes. Locals who are not Gypsies and Travellers are asking "Why don’t we all start building extra houses, if they can get away with it?" As James Heartfield has observed, ‘… people usually mean it rhetorically. But actually, it is the right question, just put the wrong way around’. (4) If many more people broke the planning law, and argued to be free to build on their own land as a point of principle, Britain would not have a housing shortage. If Pickles persisted with evictions he would be exposed for his intolerance of Gypsies and Travellers, which in this impending pogrom is hard not to see as an expression of racism.

It seems clear that eco-elitism can very easily slip into racism, and the ambition of "Localism" seems reduced to mobilising parochial hatreds.

Talking up "Localism", Pickles told the Conservative Home blog readers that ‘… it’s up to you. Be as ambitious as you can. Be as radical as you like. Be as bold as you want. I’m not going to stand in anyone’s way’. (13) Pickles doesn’t mean Gypsies and Travellers. He will do more than stand in their way, and is whipping up racism against Gypsies and Travellers. Not everyone in Basildon will support what he is doing, but the problem is that locally, and nationally, the disparate working people who support the Gypsies and Travellers are not yet sufficiently organised to effectively stop Pickles. That need not remain a political weakness.

Pickles will obstruct everyone challenging the 1947 planning law, but he will be viscious against Gypsies and Travellers. He wants "the wider community" to be involved in discussions in determining the number of traveller sites to be provided. (11) Gypsies and Travellers should be free to live on their own land without this sort of government backed locally perpetrated "community" discipline. Don’t be fooled by all the talk from this Coalition about "Big Society" or ending the "dependency culture".

Britain can’t so easily stop the Dependency Culture 31.10.2010

The Dale Farm Gypsies and Travellers are clearly being singled out for having the strength to demonstrate their desire for independence. In fact it is Pickles and his burdensome planning law that wants to keep them in a state of dependency. As James Heartfield argued in 2008, we should all applaud and follow the example of Britain’s Gypsies and Travellers:

Forget Eco-towns – Let’s follow the example of Britain’s Gypsies 15.04.2008

More urgently, the Dale Farm Gypsies and Travellers need to be defended against the destructive and socially divisive pogrom that Eric Pickles is planning. These family chalet homes should not be demolished. ‘We’re not wanted anywhere. We’re not wanted in the countryside. We’re not wanted in the town’, Candy Sheridan told The Guardian. An Irish Traveller, and Vice Chair of the Gypsy Council 2010, founded in 1966, she is busy trying to help others through the planning system. ‘Councillors don’t want to see us’, but ‘… we are part of the countryside and we have been for 600 years. We have more right to be there than they do’. (14) There is plenty of space for everyone in the 90 per cent of Britain that is not built on.

Britain should be pushing for a universal freedom to build, not forced demolitions, targeted against the few. Don’t be fooled by the awesome mendacity of Eric Pickles. He’s got it in for Gypsies and Travellers, and they threaten his planning system. For Pickles this is a long run battle.

The awesome mendacity of Eric Pickles 31.03.2011

Every planning initiative from this government and from the last one is in tatters. Pickles has no plan to build housing, only punish Gypsies and Travellers who refuse to wait around for the planning system to allow house building. They won’t go easily, and they should be supported. (15)

The CLG looks to be about to demolish more homes built by Gypsies and Travellers than they have managed to deliver through the entire failed Eco-Towns programme. The CLG should be ashamed of their record, and of what Pickles is doing in the name of the planning system.

Zero Eco-Towns 28.03.2011

Grattan Puxon representing the Dale Farm Residents Association wrote an open letter to Pickles on the http://lolodiklo.blogspot.com, an organization dedicated to raising awareness about the history, culture and true lives of Romani people. Puxon told Pickles that ‘… forced eviction is always an ugly action but when it’s being taken against ninety families of one community and those families belong to a ethnic minority, then there must be cause for concern, alarm and shame’. (16) But Pickles is shameless. He says he is acting for the environment and the community of Basildon. In reality he is acting on his own prejudices from within a Coalition government sustained in power by Liberal Democrats.

It is time to stand in the way of Eric Pickles as he plans a pogrom in 2011

Ian Abley, Project Manager for audacity, an experienced site Architect, and a Research Engineer at the Centre for Innovative and Collaborative Engineering, Loughborough University. He is co-author of Why is construction so backward? (2004) and co-editor of Manmade Modular Megastructures. (2006) He is planning 250 new British towns.

Notes:

1. ‘Essex travellers facing eviction threaten Big Fat Gypsy War on the authorities’, 13 March 2011, Daily Mail, posted on www.dailymail.co.uk

2. ‘Travellers face bank holiday crackdown’, 13 April 2011, Evening Standard

3. ‘Not evicting gypsies will set "very bad precedent" ‘, 10 March 2011, This is Total Essex, Essex Chronicle

4. James Heartfield, ‘Dale Farm rebellion against eco-elitism’, 26 January 2009, Spiked Online, posted here

5. Patrick Barkham, ‘Dale Farm Travellers eviction: the battle of Basildon’, 25 March 2011, The Guardian

6. Eric Pickles, speech to the ‘Home Builders Federation "One Year On" Conference’, London, 31 March 2011

7. Andrew Levy, ‘Travellers build a £12,000 hall at illegal camp – with taxpayers’ cash, and without planning permission’, 1 May 2008, Daily Mail

8. Joshua Farrington, ‘Basildon: Council votes for eviction despite travellers’ protests’, 16 March 2011, This is Total Essex, Essex Chronicle

9. Tony Ball, quoted by Patrick Barkham, ‘Dale Farm Travellers eviction: the battle of Basildon’, 25 March 2011, The Guardian

10. ‘Basildon Council votes to evict Dale Farm’, 16 March 2011, Travellers’ Times

11. Rosa Prince, ‘Eric Pickles: gipsies could take advantage of Royal Wedding bank holiday to set up illegal camps’, 13 April 2011, The Telegraph

12. Eric Pickles, quoted by Rosa Prince, ‘Eric Pickles: gipsies could take advantage of Royal Wedding bank holiday to set up illegal camps’, 13 April 2011, The Telegraph

13. Eric Pickles, ‘It’s the local economy, stupid’, 30 July 2010, Conservative Home Blog

14. Candy Sheridan, quoted by Patrick Barkham, ‘Dale Farm Travellers eviction: the battle of Basildon’, 25 March 2011, The Guardian

15. Rachel Stevenson, ‘Dale Farm Travellers: ‘We won’t just get up and leave’, 27 July 2010, The Guardian

16. Grattan Puxon, open letter to Eric Pickles, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, ‘UN calls for halt to UK Gypsy Evictions’, 22 July 2010, Lolo Diklo

April 23, 2011
Guitar World, Fender Style

Estimates put the number of guitar players in the world at about 50 million. Something like 20 million of these pickers, strummers and shredders are Americans.

Fender®, a name synonymous with rock n’ roll dreams, was founded in Fullerton, California by Leo Fender in 1946. Recently Fender began selling the world’s first guitar that is also a Rock Band 3® video game controller. According to Fender’s website, “the Squier Stratocaster blends state-of-the-art gaming and guitar technology with the authenticity of Fender design and engineering, The controller elevates the gaming experience to the level of real music making by letting users play the actual notes and chords of their favorite songs while racking up high gameplay scores.”

Aligning with the Rock Band phenomenon is not Fender’s first foray into nurturing a new generation of guitar gods wherever they might be around the world.

Fender’s headquarters are in Scottsdale, Arizona with manufacturing facilities in Corona, California (USA) and Ensenada, Baja California (Mexico). To maintain and control costs over the years, Fender introduced Squier instruments in 1982, which have been produced in several nations, including Japan, Korea, India, China, Indonesia and Mexico.

The Squier brand’s main focus and most successful approach has been to be the “value brand” alternative to its big brother, Fender. Squier versions of signature models including the Stratocaster®, Telecaster®, Precision Bass® and Jazz Bass® guitars provide an official” cost-conscious alternative that has enabled successive generations of guitar players to pick up an axe at a reasonable cost. In Fender’s words, Stop Dreaming, Start Playing ™

Squier is considered the launching pad for guitar players and owners who are expected to eventually upgrade to the more expensive Fender guitars. Nonetheless, Squier has established its own fan base over the years. Oftentimes this is because the lower cost emboldens guitar player to customize their guitars in ways that might be unthinkable with their higher priced counterparts. Many famous musicians for whom price is irrelevant cling to the brand.

The world of Fender sound also includes a history of amplifiers whose distinctive tones and cabinets have defined generations of rock, jazz, country, pop and all combinations thereof.

Today many of these Fender tones are available to the masses of guitar players on the recently released AmpliTube Fender app for Apple’s iPad. Developed by IK Multimedia and Fender, the iPad app enables guitar players to use their favorite gear anytime and anywhere, including the ’65 Deluxe Reverb™, the Super-Sonic™, the ’65 Twin Reverb™, the ’59 Bassman™ LTD and the Pro Junior™.

With the AmpliTube Fender for iPad app anytime, anywhere joins stop dreaming, start playing as yet another way that Fender will continue to nurture and grow a new generation of guitar players. It will also rekindle the youthful dreams of an older generation of pickers and strummers who have now begun or are now resuming their guitar playing.

Pricing for entry-level users through global manufacturing, integrating core capabilities with the latest technologies, creating and leveraging strong brands in multiple ways for multiple generations. Fender’s formula is working and holds valuable lessons for entrepreneurs and large companies alike.

April 22, 2011
Here Comes the Bus: America’s Fastest Growing Form of Intercity Travel

Travel by intercity bus is growing at an extraordinary pace: reflecting a rise in travel demand, escalating fuel prices, and investments in new routes. This confluence of factors has propelled scheduled bus service between cities to its highest level in years and has made the intercity bus the country’s fastest growing mode of transportation for the third year in the row. “Curbside operators,” including BoltBus, DC2NY Bus, and Megabus.com, which eschew traditional stations in favor of curbside pickup and provide customers access to WiFi and other amenities, have enjoyed particular success.

The comeback of the intercity bus is noteworthy for the fact that it is taking place without government subsidies or as a result of efforts by planning agencies to promote energy efficient forms of transportation. Instead, it is a market-driven phenomenon that is gradually winning back demographic groups that would have scarcely contemplated setting foot on an intercity bus only a few years ago. Our DePaul University study estimates that curbside operators like Megabus expanded the number of daily departures by 23.9% last year.   In the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states, service grew at an even faster rate.

As recently as a decade ago, traditional bus services were all but written off as a “mode of last resort.” A painful and unrelenting decline had pushed intercity buses into the margins of travel. The opening interstate highways, increased automobile ownership, and the deterioration of downtown business districts in major cities had weakened demand for intercity bus services starting in the 1960s. Continued retrenchment took place throughout the 1980s and 1990s—a downturn that pushed Greyhound into bankruptcy and continued even after the terrorist acts of September 11, 2001, which dramatically affected the demand for air travel.

By 2006, the sector began a recovery. “Curbside” bus companies had begun operating express service on relatively short-distance corridors linking major cities. Attracting publicity for their steeply discounted fares—with a few seats sold for only $1—these operators sometimes entered service on routes already served by so-called “Chinatown Operators,” bus lines, typically operated by Asian businesses, between the Chinatown districts of major cities.

In other instances, curbside carriers infused new life into markets that hadn’t had seen new service in many years, including many routes through the Midwest’s Rust Belt.

The largest and best-known of the curbside operators, Megabus.com (“Megabus”), a subsidiary of Coach USA (owned by Stagecoach, Ltd., a British company) opened its Chicago hub in early 2006. In 2008, DC2NY Bus began service between New York City and Washington, D.C., differentiating its product with wireless internet service and other amenities. Megabus and BoltBus (a joint venture between Greyhound and Peter Pan Lines) soon followed suit and took the model one step further by building full-scale hubs based out of Manhattan. On the West Coast, California Shuttle launched service between the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles, albeit with limited schedule frequency.

All this early success made the brisk expansion of 2010—a time of economic difficulty for American transportation—all the more remarkable. Curbside operators such as Boltbus and Megabus expanded their number of departures by 23.9%, accounting for more than 440 daily bus operations in the continental United States. A significant share of the growth—68 daily departures—took place to and from Megabus’ new Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. hubs, both launched in the latter half of 2010.

For the first time, with the advent of its Philadelphia hub, Megabus operated a route that did not originate nor terminate in Chicago, Los Angeles, or New York. This change marks an important shift in expansion strategies of curbside operators into somewhat smaller origin-destination combinations. This trend continued with hubs created in Washington, D.C., resulting in new express service provided from the nation’s capital to eight cities, including Boston, Mass., Knoxville, Tenn., Raleigh, N.C., and Richmond, Va., with a new hub in Pittsburgh, Penn. announced earlier this month. Only a few years ago, the idea of a private company publicizing new express bus service linking shrinking industrial cities like Pittsburgh to Detroit would have seemed unlikely, but it is happening today.

For the third year in a row, the intercity bus service was the fastest growing mode of intercity transportation, outpacing air and rail transportation. The amount of bus service—the total number of daily departures, inclusive of both curbside and traditional carriers like Greyhound and Trailways—grew by 6.01%. The number of airline departures rose by about 3% in 2010 while the number of train miles operated by Amtrak rose by a modest 0.5%.

Greyhound, now twenty years out of bankruptcy, is also showing signs of life. Last December, the carrier introduced premium service on selected routes from Chicago offering passengers receive free WiFi internet, more spacious cabins, and guaranteed seating.   A year earlier Greyhound unveiled a similar product upgrade on certain East Coast routes that included new buses and an advertising campaign aimed at diversifying its ridership. In the Southeast, a new luxury operator, Red Coach, launched last between South Florida and Central Florida as well as points as far north as Atlanta.   Red Coach offers extra-wide seats that decline to near-horizontal positions as well as a GPS satellite monitoring system.

Curbside buses achieve more than 160 passenger-miles per gallon of fuel burned, making them several times more fuel efficient than commercial airplanes and private automobiles, as well as conventional diesel trains. Using the results of a survey we administered to 250 curbside-bus passengers in East Coast and Midwestern revealing how passengers would have traveled had curbside bus service not been available, we estimate that curbside bus service is reducing fuel consumption by about 11 million gallons annually and reducing carbon emission by an estimated 242 million pounds—the equivalent of removing about 23,818 vehicles from the road.

When making these estimates, we take into account the fact that curbside operators, in part due to their low fares, have a stimulating effect. That is, they generate new travel. We measure how some of the potential reduction in fuel consumption is offset by additional trips made by consumers.

The growing prevalence of portable electronic technology, such as laptops and cellphones, gives intercity bus a new competitive advantage over air service and driving. At randomly selected points, we estimate in our analysis of traveler use of technology that more than 40% of passengers on curbside buses are equipped with portable devices, a percentage higher than on Amtrak (perhaps due to the free Wi Fi) and much higher than on commercial airplanes. Customers who place a premium on their ability to access electronic devices apparently find curbside bus service a particularly attractive option.

By all indications, we will see more intercity bus expansion over the next year.   We anticipate that new service will likely emerge over the next several years in places where little or no curbside service is available, such as in California, Florida, and Texas. It appears only a matter of time before curbside operators make a significant presence throughout the United States, something remarkable considering that this mode entered the scene just a few years ago.

Joseph Schwieterman, Ph.D., is a professor at DePaul University in Chicago and director of the school’s Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development.

Photo by Sidddd

April 22, 2011
Downtown China

In Downtown: It’s Rise and Fall, 1880-1950, Robert M Fogelson says that downtowns are a uniquely American phenomenon. He refers to downtown as the commercial cores with high building densities that form "canyons" that, in some smaller urban areas, might be only a block long to a mile or more long. Fogelson demonstrates that downtowns in the United States are largely a creation of rail transit (subways or metros, street cars and their predecessor horse cars). American urban areas grew at the same time that this mode of transport was reached its zenith.

This pattern was also evident in the pre-automobile cores of large urban areas in Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Since then, the downtown has been losing its preeminence. As late as 1950 virtually all of the nearly 50 US urban areas with more than 250,000 people had concentrated downtown areas of varying sizes. The unifying factor was the access to this one point in the urban area by transit from most or all of the rest of the urban area.   Smaller urban areas, after transit’s golden age, never developed downtowns as well-developed as those which grew during the transit oriented urban areas of the pre-World War II era.

China’s emerging commercial cores bear little resemblance to these older American downtowns. Generally, what might be termed as downtown in the urban areas of China is far more dispersed. The tallest buildings do not stand across narrow streets from one another. You see little of the often spectacular high-rise canyons seen in great American downtowns such as Chicago and New York or even smaller ones, such as Pittsburgh and Seattle and many others.

Dominant Pattern: The Dispersed Central Business District: The most pervasive form of downtown China is a larger central business district consisting of dispersed high-rise buildings superimposed on lower rise residential buildings, the latter often being five floors or less.

Perhaps the best example is Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong (12 million population) that now engulfs adjacent Foshan. The skyscrapers of central Guangzhou, some among the tallest in the world, are spread around an area of between 10 and 15 square miles (26 to 39 square kilometers). The largest concentration is near the Guangzhou East Railway Station, where the trains of the former Kowloon – Canton Railway terminate. Even so, this concentration is more sparse than would be expected in even a smaller US Pre-World War II transit oriented downtown.   Other, smaller concentrations of tall commercial buildings or skyscrapers are virtually isolated. The Guangzhou International Finance Center, the tallest building in Guangzhou and 10th tallest in the world dominates its generally low rise surroundings, soon to be joined by an even taller 116 floor building that is under construction.

The pattern of dispersed and large central area development is also obvious in nearby Shenzhen, Guangdong (population 15 million, see Note), which rose from being fishing village to megacity status in less than 30 years. The central core occupies at least as much space as central Guangzhou. However, unlike Guangzhou, part of the Shenzhen central area has relatively dense high-rise buildings. This eastern section has a number of very tall buildings, and of the world’s second tallest skyscraper (and China’s tallest) is now under construction in this area (the Pingan International Financial Center).

Other Chinese urban areas with generally dispersed core commercial development include Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan (5 million), Changsha, capital of Hunan (2.5 million), Taiyuan, capital of Shanxi (3 million), Kunming, capital of Yunan (3.2 million) Guiyang, capital of Guizhou (2.3 million), Ningbo, Zhejiang (3.2 million) and Tianjin (7 million), a provincial level municipality.

Changsha and Taiyuan are near duplicates, with the core development in a wide area extending from the main railway station over a mile westerly to north-south rivers that dissect each urban area.

Dongguan, Guangdong (12 million, see Note), like Shenzhen became a megacity (from a rural area) in less than two decades. Dongguan is located between Guangzhou and Shenzhen, and may have the most dispersed central business district in China, with little concentration except for an "edge city" development with comparatively large distances between buildings. Dongguan is unique for being the largest urban area in the world without an international airport (Dongguan is served by the nearby Shenzhen and Guangzhou international airports).

Dual Cores Superimposed on Dispersed Central Areas: There is also a variation on this dispersed pattern in which the core commercial area includes two unusually high concentrations of buildings.

The best example of this is Beijing (14 million) where an older concentration of high-rise buildings is to the west of Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City in a corridor along the Second Ring Road (one of Beijing’s five freeway rings or beltways), and a sixth is under discussion. The newer concentration is to the east, in a corridor along the Third Ring Road. This area includes the CCTV Headquarters and the tallest building in Beijing, the 74th floor China World Trade Center III, on the other side of the Third Ring Road. These concentrations along the ring roads resemble more the post-World War II corridor form of Central Avenue in Phoenix than Manhattan, Seattle or Pittsburgh.

Shenyang, in Manchuria, capital of Liaoning (5 million) also has two cores in the midst of a less concentrated central area. The larger and newer core is adjacent to Shenyang North Railway Station, while the smaller and older core is near Shenyang Railway Station.

Suzhou, in Jiangsu (3.3 million) is well known for its canals, as the Venice of the Orient. Suzhou too has two comparatively concentrated cores on either side of the older smaller low rise core. The largest concentration is to the west, adjacent to the Grand Canal, built between 1,500 and 2,500 years ago to connect Hangzhou with Beijing (1,100 miles or 1,700 kilometers), The smaller concentration is to the east. Even so the pattern of dispersion is dominant. The urban area’s tallest building, the Henghe Tower (photo) is well away from any other buildings of significant height.

In Xi’an (5 million), capital of Shaanxi (and a historic capital of China known as Chang’an), the two more concentrated areas sit along a north-south spine on either side of the historic walled city, which includes an older, even less concentrated business district.

Wuhan, capital of Hubei (5 million) also fits the dual model, but this is partially due to the post-war amalgamation of three cities (Hankow, Wuchang and Hanyang), the first two of which have large and dispersed core areas, with some concentration.

Hanghzou (capital of Zhejiang, 5 million) and Zhengzhou (capital of Henan, 2.3 million) exhibit a somewhat different pattern of the dual core superimposed upon the typical commercial dispersion. In Hangzhou, a new central business district is under development, well to the east of the older core area. A new central business district is also being developed, with major parts completed, on the periphery of Zhengzhou (the Zhengzhou "New Area"). This area was inaccurately characterized as China’s largest Ghost City by The Daily Mail (London).

Shanghai: Shanghai (19 million) deserves special mention. A business center since the 1920s, Shanghai boasts one of China’s more concentrated central business districts, west of the Pu River (Puxi) as well as perhaps the world’s largest edge city development, across the river in Pudong. Puxi includes the famous Bund area along the river with its classic western architecture. The central business district continues westerly and to the south to beyond the north-south elevated freeway. This district has tall buildings widely dispersed throughout. Some of Shanghai’s tallest buildings are here, though few are close to one another. Pudong includes the Pearl of the Orient Tower (either loved or hated by architectural critics), the 101 story Shanghai International Financial Center and a number of other tall and unique skyscrapers (photo). This concentration, however, is separated by large streets and plazas and does not resemble the concentrated central business districts of the United States. Soon, this area will add a 128 story building, which will be the third tallest in the world (measured in feet or meters).

Nanjing: Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu (4 million) has a more American looking central business district, by virtue of a number of tall buildings located close together at or near the Xinjieko intersection. Yet, Nanjing’s tallest building and seventh the tallest in the world (Nanjing Greenland Financial Center) sits well to the north of Xinjieko, while the other tallest buildings are a subway stop to the east.

Chongqing: Chongqing, a provincial level municipality, has an urban area population of 7 million. Chongqing breaks the mold, with a central business district that would be familiar to urbanites in the United States (photo). The core of Chongqing sits on a peninsula formed by the confluence of the Yangtze River and the Jailing River. It bears a resemblance to Pittsburgh, down to a plaza similar to the Golden Triangle. Close by and up a hill may be China’s only US style-central business district. Here, the streets are narrow, the buildings are tall, and there are canyons like those of pre-World War II Pittsburgh, Seattle or even Manhattan. Much of this anomaly is probably due to the constrained geography of the central area. At the same time, commercial development is crossing the Yangtze River and spread to formerly rural areas west, such as Daping and Shapingba . These areas are up to forty-five minutes from the core.

None of this, of course, is surprising, since China, like America and elsewhere, is like nowhere else in the world.

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Note: The population figures shown for Shenzhen and Dongguan are based upon unofficial estimates that include the non-permanent (migrant) population. Official figures in these two prefectures generally include only permanent residents, who may represent 50 percent or less of the population.

Wendell Cox is a Visiting Professor, Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, Paris and the author of “War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life”

Lead photo: Second Ring Road Corridor, Beijing (by Author)

All photos by author.

April 21, 2011