Fish Out of Water

Monday was a bad day. I had a embarrassing episode in front of a historic review board. I had been helping a neighbor who bought a very small vacant building to rehab. He wanted to make some changes that were not very compatible with the historic nature of the building. I didn't really agree with his proposal, but he is a good friend, and I was helping him turn a vacant building into a home.

So, last fall, I did a quick drawing for him and he submitted it for permit. Online we could follow the process of the permit through the approval process, and in early November we were pleasantly surprised to see that the reviewer had approved the plans and that I wouldn't have to modify the drawing. But it turns out that he didn't even look at the plans so this approval was a mistake that would come back to bite us.

So Monday, months after construction started, my wimpy drawing ended up in front of a discriminating board. I was so embarrassed because I know better. But this was a minor addition on a minor building on a side street, and my friend knew what he wanted to do, so I drew it ...and the board rightly rejected it.

After the meeting, I dejectedly took a walk with my son around the blocks around our house and all the construction sites and vacant buildings. It was a beautiful sunny day, but there weren't that many people around because... well there just aren't that many people here anymore...at least around Washington Park, most of the buildings are vacant and/or under construction. And I had this overwhelming feeling that I was not in my neighborhood anymore, that a wave has washed over the hood and some of us fish are left flapping on the shore.

There was a time when I felt like I knew everyone and everything that happened here. Maybe it was also a time when I was more relevant to the neighborhood. We were doing things, saving buildings, and building a community. But now all that stuff we did seems so small and irrelevant under the wave of huge projects with big 3CDC budgets.

For example, I posted once about a small building that I helped rehab in the 1990's. It was a difficult project: condemned, no money, partially collapsed and a community that sometimes didn't seem to care. I and many others spent a good part of two years on this dinky little project, and at the end the mayor at the time, Dwight Tillery, did come and cut a ribbon. Woohee. Back then, it seemed like it was all a Sisyphean battle. If there were 500 vacant buildings, and each one took 2 years of work, and each month another one was demolished, well.. it just seemed impossible. It also seemed more crowded, and loud... and crazy.

At one time it seemed like not many other people were against demolition. I mean people and groups like the CPA, the OTR Foundation etc were against demolition, but they just couldn't make any headway and their voices seemed drowned out of a bigger political economic picture. But today there are lots of people fighting this fight, ....and 3CDC will rehab a dozen buildings like 1425 Elm in half a year. (They will also demolish a few, which is another story.)

So with feelings of irrelevance in my head, my son and I were climbing around the construction sites and collecting bits and pieces of trashed cell phones and soft bricks for a science project, and I noticed that these unfamiliar people were walking past us. They were youngish with tight pants, dress shoes, sunglasses and talking on their phones. 3CDC just moved into their new offices at 14th and Race, and it was 5pm and they were all leaving for the day. It seems like they just started rehabbing that building a few months ago, and already they are moved-in, fully furnished and staffed.

So here I am feeling a bit down, a bit out of place, when we came upon the Homeless Coalition's fliers that were posted all over and I felt sympathy for their weakness, their powerlessness in the face of this wave. I also felt stupid for being so self-centered in my feelings about the neighborhood. I mean, here I am, secure in my job and house, while others have neither....


But I'm not homeless, and I only had my injured pride to heal. So by Wenesday I was recovered and in a better mood. The sun was out and the hood seems so clean and fresh like spring. And my wife and I attended an event packed with dozens of friendly faces. I talked with others who also feel uncomfortable with some of the developments. It used to be that we would take any improvement, any rehab we could. Now we can be critical of the decisions being made by executives that none of us have even met like: why are they building so many parking lots and why does every storefront have to be bronze aluminum...

I say to myself, face it, neighborhoods do not stand still. They are either moving moving upward and getting more expensive, or they are getting cheaper and suffer disinvestment. Sometimes it may happen so slow that it is unnoticeable, and other times like now it will happen like a whirlwind and knock a lot of people over.

While the changes are happening, it it is an exciting mixed neighborhood. I am attracted to this mix, even one more on the poor side..., but I'm wondering how long it will be before this place has gone too far for me, or am I changing to fit the place?

I love Over-the-Rhine and I love downtown. But no one person owns it or designs it in his own image. The clash of intentions is part of what makes cities so interesting. Yes, I would prefer that development happen one building at a time, one quirky family at a time. But that is a hard way to save hundreds of large vacant and expensive buildings when one organization with all the political and corporate power can make it happen, and they can even make it look easy. Unfortunately they cannot do it right... kinda right yes, but not really right, with the character and passion that this unique place deserves.

Some Metropole Residents

The Metropole Is Our Home from Barbara Wolf on Vimeo.

Bohemian Gentrification Out of Steam

From the NYTimes Fashion and Style section a report about a "fringe" neighborhood in LA:

... The tide of gentrification that transformed economically depressed enclaves is receding, leaving some communities high and dry.

...What happens to bourgeois bohemia when the bourgeois part drops out? ...

... in this downturn, Mr. de Velasco’s printing shop doesn’t seem to be hurting, nor is Tritch Hardware. The shops at risk are the ones playing the Decemberists in a continuous loop.

“Some of them tried niche things,” Mr. Tritch said, with no gloat in his voice. “That didn’t work out.”

...In bad times, neighborhood idealism can be compromised with one trip to Wal-Mart...

...“Those places are important — they dissolve some of the cruel anonymity of everyday life,” he said. “They’re part of the equation of making the local real to us. But they’re not the whole equation. They’re not enough. ...I’ve got enough handmade soap....”

... will probably return to being a neighborhood whose best qualities are well-preserved homes, old-school pizza and a really good hardware store.

But ...The cityscape will be dominated by Walgreens and muffler shops....

... the screenwriter, has given up her neighborhood shopping fantasies. “When we first moved here,” she said, “I wanted it to be cool. But that stuff doesn’t matter anymore.”

Starbucks: Gentrification or McDonaldization

Or is there a difference? Map below shows how Starbucks stores spread into gentrified areas of NYC, starting in the Upper East side in the 80's:

...Starbucks soon will enter the value-meal race. Schultz had long belittled such a move and said that customers were willing to pay a premium for the Starbucks "experience."
-USA Today

History of Gentry and Yuppies

Or how Alex Keaton, Patrick Bateman, Cocaine, Gyms and Ronny Reagan changed Manhattan and the world. Article here.

...generally speaking, yuppie culture has become the culture, if not in reality, then aspirationally. The pods have pretty much taken over the world. The ideal of connoisseurship, the worship of brand names and designer labels, the pursuit of physical perfection through exercise and surgery—do these sound like the quaint habits of an extinct clan?

-Jay McInerney, 1984 author of: Bright Lights, Big City

Die Yuppie Scum

Apparently there was a riot 20 years ago during a protest against gentrification of the East Village. A commemoration protest is planned on the anniversary. Article in The Villager:

...After (removing) about 12 posters, I was approached by Jerry The Peddler, an East Village fixture, political activist, organizer and general hustler for the antiwar movement. He asked what I thought I was doing, and I showed him the poster and explained that it was hate speech and shouldn’t be tolerated. He acknowledged that I was right — it was hate speech, and, he added, “I hate Yuppies.” I told him he had no right to call for their death, as I reached to take down another of his hate-filled posters. He grabbed my left hand — technically an assault — and bent my finger back. “I’ll break your fingers, so that you’ll never play guitar again, and if I see anymore of these posters down…I’ll kill you,” he said. You know the look of hate, and he had it in his eyes.

-Bobby Steele (gutarist for The Undead and The Misfits)

Mixed Neighborhood Elusive but Possible

From Chicago:

...traditionally diverse neighborhoods ... are remarkable because they've managed to thrive as diverse communities for decades, becoming neither slums nor totally gentrified as others have...

Community groups that push for affordable housing and good health care, schools and jobs are paramount to maintaining neighborhood diversity...

..."So often when we talk about gentrification, we think it's going to homogenize, but in the first stages, it can actually diversify the neighborhood,"...

Such diversity can be temporary, as rising housing costs tend to push people out...

..."it's important for our country to have those kinds of spaces where people can rub elbows."

Invincible Cities Photo Documentary

Camilo Jose Vegara has been taking photos of slums and gentrifying neighborhoods since 1969. He has been taking photos of some of the same places over the years and has now put many on this website.

Starbucks

 

Above is a photo of another underground parking garage being built, this one in Savannah, GA. At great expense, this city is rebuilding Ellis Square. I think the sentiment of this graffiti is a serious concern in a beautiful but somewhat earthy city like Savannah. The riverfront and market area has turned totally touristy and tacky, and they risk losing their authenticity IMO.

I drove hundreds of miles over Easter break, and was surprised that Starbucks is so prevalent at freeway exits. I had my first Starbucks' experience ever last week, and it was in a Kroger store. The $3.00 cappuccino was of low to average quality, and I really don't see why they are so popular or why they are considered to be the preeminent sign of urban gentrification. I wonder what percentage of total Starbucks stores are urban vs. those that are suburban in another store or in a strip mall vs. those that are stand alone with drive-through.

I can only think of two Starbucks in Cincinnati, one downtown and one in Clifton, but I'm sure there are dozens in the neaby suburbs.

Rural Gentrification

In a sense this is old news, since another word for it is sprawl and is descendant of our interstate highway system. But, I have never heard it termed rural gentrification as the Wall Street Journal does:

With the Internet allowing people to work from almost anywhere, the distinction between first and second homes has become blurred. Many people are buying retirement property while they're still employed. Millions of soon-to-retire baby boomers, say demographers, will propel this trend for years to come.

"What we're seeing is a class colonization," says Peter Nelson, an associate professor of geography at Middlebury College and an expert on rural migration. "It really represents a shift in the nature of the economy from a resource-extraction economy to an aesthetic-based economy."

On a similar note, see this article from the Columbus Dispatch about small towns in the middle of sprawl trying to either spruce up or create new "downtowns".

Liberal NIMBYS

Good article about the people who support low-income housing with their donations, but fight it when it is proposed to be built near them:

affordable housing in the county was so fierce in the 1990s that a Marin chapter of Habitat disbanded, former members say, after finding itself unable to get a single project built in five years.

... across party lines, most opposition to affordable housing boils down to homeowner fear of lowered property values and higher school costs.
...
"They should be creating wireless areas of tribal habitats," he says. Not in his neighborhood, though. He recommends a spot owned by the Catholic Church, several exits down the freeway.

Property values are the symptom. The illness is disconnected residential developments completely segregated by income.

I find it interesting that most of the neighbors who are opposed are older people. I think the younger generations are bored with living in isolation, and are less likely to be NIMBYs.

Against Change or Against Improvement?

I don't like it when a childhood haunt is demolished, and I can understand a person expressing sadness at the loss of a neighborhood.

But what if you grew up in a disfunctional 15 story housing project with elevators that smelled of urine and broken glass in the dusty playground? I have to admit, I would still be a bit saddened to see it demolished. I hate demolition. I think most all buildings can be saved and improved.

That said, some forms of housing are proven disasters, and the most disaster prone is high-rise government housing. Study after study has shown that they are unsafe and unsalvageable. In his ground-breaking studies Oscar Newman used scientific methods to successfully design what he termed "defensible space", something high-rise government housing always lacks. You can read his book for free on the HUD website.

An article on the AP today is about a woman who gives what I would term sentimental tours of the old ghetto:

..this "Ghetto Bus Tour" is.. the last gasp in her crusade to tell a different story about Chicago's notorious housing projects, something other than well-known tales about gang violence so fierce that residents slept in their bathtubs to avoid bullets.

"I want you to see what I see," says Beauty Turner, after leading the group off the bus to a weedy lot where the Robert Taylor Homes once stood. "To hear the voices of the voiceless."

Turner, a former Robert Taylor Homes resident, has been one of the most vocal critics of the Chicago Housing Authority's $1.6 billion "Plan for Transformation," which since the late 1990s has demolished 50 of the 53 public housing high-rises and replaced them with mixed-income housing.

City officials have heralded the plan. But Turner believes the city that once left residents to be victimized by violent drug-dealing gangs is now pushing those same people from their homes without giving them all a place to go.

In many ways similar to Cincinnati's City West Project, the Chicago Housing Authority is demolishing Robert Taylor Homes, which consisted of 28 high-rises and over 4,300 apartments and replacing it with a "mixed income" development. This is all part of a Federal Program called Hope VI, which was a controversial program to help Housing Authorities demolish housing.

I have concerns about any wholesale change of a neighborhood. To paraphrase Jane Jacobs: "Any neighborhood, built at once, and built to be unchanging, is bound for failure" (I'll try to look up the exact quote later and insert it here).

My concern with City West is that it is overly new and built to be unchanging. A mixture of old and new structures is essential to a vibrant city district because small, new ventures require the affordable places that old buildings provide. Only established businesses of large size can afford new construction.

Also, the new homes in City West are all wood framed construction with brick veneer fronts and vinyl siding on the sides and rears. This may be expected in the suburban neighborhoods that Drees typically builds in, and it is certainly the cheapest per square foot, however, it seems out of place in a city that is mostly brick.

Despite my reservations about the new City West, I am only slightly sentimental about the housing projects that it replaced, and think that a mixed-use, mixed-income project, with defensible space is certainly an improvement.

OTR tour of homes

The OTR Foundation puts on a tour of homes every year or so, and I really wanted to go this year because there is a lot of new rehabs to see. Unfortunately, I did not have my camera with me, but this guy did.

Some of the projects were impressive, notably 1214-16 Vine by Uban Sites. They had the largest units, and EVERY unit had some kind of private outdoor space. The importance of this outdoor space cannot be emphasized enough. They also had larger units, which could fit a family, although families are more likely to choose a side street. I think I only saw one unit that was a three bedroom, and that was the townhouses on Orchard Street, by Mike Uhlenhake. In my opinion, this would be an ideal family home.

Damn, I wish I had brought my camera.

Children in Manhattan

Some select quotes from an article in the NYTimes this morning.

Since 2000, according to census figures released last year, the number of children under age 5 living in Manhattan mushroomed by more than 32 percent. And though their ranks have been growing for several years, a new analysis for The New York Times makes clear for the first time who has been driving that growth: wealthy white families.

At least half of the growth was generated by children who are white and non-Hispanic. Their ranks expanded by more than 40 percent from 2000 to 2005. For the first time since at least the 1960s, white children now outnumber either black or Hispanic youngsters in that age group in Manhattan.

The raw numbers are subject to interpretation, but, coupled with anecdotal evidence, what they generally suggest is that more well-to-do Manhattanites who might otherwise have moved to the suburbs with their children are choosing to raise them in the city, at least early on.

Compared with those in the rest of the city, the youngest children in Manhattan are more likely to be raised by married couples who are well off, more highly educated, in their 30s and native born.

“We’re grappling with what we do in a few years when the kids are no longer able to share a bedroom, said Mr. Rosenblatt, who is 45. “We have financial planners, but it’s certainly an issue we wouldn’t have if we lived in the suburbs.”

Mr. Osborne, 44, an expert on the Russian economy for a firm of financial advisors said: “If both parents are working, it actually becomes logistically difficult to live in the suburbs. If you’re 90 minutes away, we just don’t like that feeling.
“Even if we were disposed to — for the usual space, quality of life reasons — to go to suburbs, we would have to consider the practical difficulty.”