Can You Be A Liberal If You're Also A NIMBY? Um, No.

posted by chicago pop

One of the more curious dimensions of Hyde Park politics is the prominence of a certain strain of old-school Liberalism in combination with a militant variety of Not-In-My-Backyard-ism, or NIMBY-ism.

At first glance, the two traits don't really go together, and there is a sense that they are not bound by any particular logic. They simply coexist in a certain generation's consciousness, in Hyde Park and in other urban places across the country.

But such juxtapositions have a way of becoming contradictions as circumstances change. And all it has taken to bring these two traits into open contradiction is one circumstance in particular: global climate change. It's the equivalent, in terms of ideological watersheds, of Khruschev's 1953 speech to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party denouncing Stalin's Reign of Terror: it was hard to be Stalinist after that. Less dramatically, one might point to being a Southern Democrat after passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964; it was hard thereafter for many southerners to remain in the Democratic Party. Ideologies are intellectual coalitions, and if not updated, they fall apart.

So it is with old-school Liberalism and climate change. The environmental movement has many sources, and many of them (but not all) have been aligned with the American Left and the Democratic Party since the 1960s. This is the heritage that is so well established in Hyde Park. Refracted through the neighborhood's particular experience of Urban Renewal, with the latter's post-war faith in grand technocratic solutions to complicated social problems, the environmental consciousness of the time was steeped in distinctly anti-urban attitudes.

It could make sense, therefore, to be for civil rights, desegregation, unions, and withdrawal from Vietnam, while also wanting the built environment around you to be like a cross between Haight-Ashbury and Harper Avenue: low-slung, two-story commercial districts with quaint gingerbread Victorians along the back streets. One could fight each and every proposed mid-rise or in-fill project secure in the conviction that one was fighting the good fight against City Hall, just as one had done with civil rights and every other Big Project sponsored by Big Capital.

It turns out, however, that this particular type of urban model, and the militant resistance to making it more dense, may be fatal to the planet.

And that's a decidedly un-Liberal possibility.

We've seen this play out in any number of Hyde Park neighborhood controversies over developments, both real and hypothetical. The old-school mentality finds its voice with airy references to "viewsheds," a sometimes uncritical fondness for "open space," and a phobia for tall buildings. Traffic will be horrible, children will be run over, and pollution will kill us all -- when, in fact, just the opposite will most likely be true.

This train of reflection was triggered by a recent essay in a Bay Area newspaper ("You're Not an Environmentalist if You're Also a NIMBY," Robert Gammon, East Bay Express, July 1, 2009). Given the Bay Area's Liberal credentials, it's worth quoting the piece as a sign of the contradiction between earlier Liberal environmentalism and its uneasy NIMBY partner.

Global warming is changing far more than just the climate. It's altering the way environmentalists view development. For years, city dwellers who consider themselves to be eco-conscious have used environmental laws and arcane zoning rules to block new home construction, especially apartments and condominiums. In the inner East Bay, liberals have justified their actions by railing against gentrification and portraying developers as profiteers. But the lack of urban growth in Berkeley and in parts of Oakland during the past few decades also has contributed to suburban sprawl and long commutes. And all those freeways choked with cars are now the single biggest cause of greenhouse gas emissions in the region.

There are always contradictions in any particular political agenda, right, left or other. But it is hard to argue that climate change has not emerged as a political priority that trumps anything else one might care to identify as part of the Liberal portfolio, at least as understood in Hyde Park. Labor? Nope. Racism? Unfortunately not. Feminism. Still secondary. That nice suburban feel with the open spaces left over from Urban Renewal? Definitely, categorically, Not.

Referencing the East Bay again:

[F]or the inner East Bay to grow the way it should, it will have to overcome the region's well-developed not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) sensibilities. In Berkeley and North Oakland, in particular, liberals who view themselves as environmentalists have been blocking dense housing developments for decades. They have complained about traffic, overcrowding, and the potential destruction of neighborhood character. But among those who are paying attention to the causes of global warming, there is a growing realization that no-growth activists have to step back and look at the bigger picture. Climate change has forced a paradigm shift in the environmental movement. If you live in an urban area, you can't call yourself an "environmentalist" and continue to act like a NIMBY by blocking new housing.

This all sounds very familiar. And in truth, it has started to change, even here in immobile Hyde Park. An older generation is passing from the scene, one for whom complaints about "traffic, overcrowding, and the potential destruction of neighborhood character" were right and honorable reflexes in their day. They are also now in full contradiction with what needs to happen in order for Liberal -- or any other -- ideology to adjust to a new reality, so that there is at least some chance of slowing down what might be the greatest shock humanity has faced in its short time on earth.

A final quote from the author, Robert Gammon:

[P]eople who ... consider themselves to be liberal environmentalists ... need to finally start thinking globally and acting locally. The coming global warming crisis demands that they do more than just eat organic, install solar panels, or buy a Prius. They also need to realize that dense development will make their neighborhoods and their cities better — not worse.

The realization is starting to sink in here in Hyde Park -- though it has taken some doing. But it can't be encouraged enough.

A Tale of Two Campus Towns: Hyde Park and Ann Arbor

posted by chicago pop

West Side Books, Ann Arbor
The Quintessential Campus Town Institution

One of the most frequent questions for those who have lived or studied in, or simply passed through Hyde Park for any length of time, is why it does not more closely resemble other campus towns they have known. Certainly, not all campus towns are desirable models. I can think of a number of larger state schools in the Midwest that have expanded in the form of parking lots and drab student housing to consume the old American village that once surrounded it.

This isn't the case with Ann Arbor, Michigan. To the immediate northwest of the University of Michigan campus sits a roughly 10-square block area that makes up the "old downtown." It is a remarkably diverse commercial district adjacent to a major American university. It has upscale dining, it has ethnic quick eats. It has a cupcake shop, and a Chinese bakery specializing in fresh steamed buns and at least two chocolate shops.

The Cupcake Station

Shakolad Chocolate Factory

It has fancy boutiques, whimsical ones, and non-profits that run storefronts for a variety of causes.

Robot Supply and Repair
Front for 826michigan, a Non-Profit Tutoring and Writing Center
Founded by Dave Eggers in San Francisco,
Opened in Ann Arbor 2005

The Workantile Exchange
A "Co-Working" Office Cooperative, With Cafe in Front

It has half a dozen bookstores and a comic book store, and its bars, restaurants, and independent cafes nearly all offer sidewalk seating.

Vault of Midnight

Sidewalk Dining in Downtown Ann Arbor

The Monkey Bar

It has a garden supply store, a contemporary furniture store, and a brand new gym fronted by a juice bar. And as far as I could tell, it has only one Starbucks.

Most importantly, old downtown Ann Arbor is a pleasure to walk around and explore. It seems to pull together most of what past surveys and workshops say people want in Hyde Park: lots of dining, lots of al fresco seating, independent retail, and boutique shopping.

Retail Diversity: An Interior Designer's Studio, A Workspace Co-op, and Ethnic Cuisine

It manages to sustain a core of local enterprises that does not resemble the Banana Republic/Restoration Hardware/California Pizza Kitchen real estate "product" that is so common in new retail development. In the midst of all this, there is room for alternative or non-profit operations that use their business to fund other operations.

Acme Mercantile

Of course, Hyde Park is a neighborhood in an economically distressed region of Chicago, and relies on a single large employer of around 12,000 people to drive the local economy. Ann Arbor is a city in its own right, with a Big 10 research university that itself employs around 38,000 people, while also hosting a cluster of tech and biomedical employers, all of which keep Ann Arbor's median household incomes higher than their Hyde Park equivalents. And as interesting as Ann Arbor's downtown area is, it is relatively low-density, and there are no major drug stores or supermarkets within walking distance. Since 2005, however, the city has embarked on a major effort to rezone downtown and outlying areas to encourage greater densities.

A Thriving Commercial District
Recently Added Density Around the Edges
"Since 2005, when Ann Arbor began rethinking building heights and downtown density, that small area of the city [downtown] has been in the spotlight." -- mlive.com

So Hyde Park is not completely at a disadvantage with regards to Ann Arbor. In the last two years, a number of positive changes, some small and some large, have taken place. There should be room for still more, assuming people understand what is required to bring them about.

Adding More Residential Density to Downtown Ann Arbor

Developing the 53rd St. TIF: It's Hard and We're Not Quite Sure How to Do It

Results of the Third and Final 53rd St. Visioning Workshop

posted by chicago pop

Rendering of a break-even development concept at McMobil Site,

53rd and Kenwood

Over the last year or so, a variety of municipal agencies, community groups, and the office of 4th Ward Alderman Toni Preckwinkle have sponsored a series of three neighborhood workshops dealing with development within the 53rd Street TIF district.

The first two were designed to educate neighborhood attendees about the basic concepts and parameters affecting real estate development in the corridor, and to help illustrate positive correlations between such factors as density of households and the viability of urban retail districts.

Overall, the workshops were well received, drew input from a wider demographic spectrum of Hyde Parkers than the typical and impressionistic "community meeting", and demonstrated a broad consensus on the demand for improvements in the neighborhood's retail offerings liveliness.

The workshops also gave grounds for a cautious optimism regarding public acceptance of the need for higher residential density as a prerequisite for the commercial revitalization of Hyde Park.

People aren't necessarily opposed to getting dense, if it's done right and the economic necessity of doing so is made clear by running the numbers on possible projects. This is exactly what the third and final visioning workshop set out to do: illustrate the limits within which any urban development project is economically feasible by highlighting the economies of scale that come with density.

Reviewing the various development concepts from the November 15th workshop, it's clear that the facilitators tapped a rich well of creativity in the participants. Most of the concept proposals -- for the McMobil lot, the Dorchester Commons strip mall, and Harper Court -- are interesting, and some are attractive.

Aerial Map of Possible Development Sites Within Hyde Park's 53rd Street TIF District

Unfortunately, none of them is economically feasible. It seems that while Hyde Parkers may be growing accustomed to the idea of density, none of the workshop proposals was dense enough to offer the kind of return that would attract a real-world developer.

Even with up to $6.2 million in subsidies from the 53rd Street TIF fund.

Workshop participants used blocks and a map to mock up a development proposal which they then gave to some real estate people who crunched the numbers then and there.

The chart below lists the development concepts that were graded as feasible, i.e., not money-losing. Of the 8 concepts that made this cut, only 4 of them would have generated any profit for a developer, and none of those came close to the threshold of 15% return on investment that was used as the no-go line beneath which few developers would risk their money.

Economic Profiles of Workshop Site Proposals

Model and Rendering of Site Concept for Harper Court

Three factors seem to pose the biggest hurdles to these projects: 1) 4th Ward Alderman Toni Preckwinkle's firm and praiseworthy commitment to a minimum of 15% affordable housing in any residential project; 2) an opaque and mysterious local market in real estate that may inflate the cost of land acquisition; and 3) a public hesitation to go even denser.

The affordable housing requirement for TIF districts is a Chicago ordinance, and Alderman Preckwinkle is firmly committed to it. It's laudable, but in order to make it attractive for the kinds of projects Hyde Park needs, we need bigger subsidies from somewhere, or a tolerance for still greater density to offset revenue from the sale of below-market rate units.

The market value of land in Hyde Park is a vaguely mysterious subject, as there is so little of it, traded so infrequently, with so much owned by the University of Chicago, that it is hard to know if the going rate is really $75/sq. ft as the workshop proforma assumed.

A perusal of values for a standard-size, 3,100 sq. ft. vacant lot in the areas immediately west and south of Hyde Park puts them around or below $35/ft.sq. The few lots in Oakland/North Kenwood are in the $55-60/sq.ft. range.

Dorchester Commons Concept

But in order to find comparable $75/sq. ft. prices, I had to venture north to Bucktown and Edgewater, where this number represents the lower end of the range. Is this really what the McMobile lot or Dorchester Commons are worth?

One relationship that's not too clear from the document is the relationship between retail and residential space in any of the projects, and how tipping this balance either way works for or against it. For example, the most ambitious concept for Harper Court (pictured above) actually has more retail than housing units (115 to 114); this concept also resulted in the highest (7.8%) rate of return.

Likewise, two of three concepts for the McMobile site had roughly equal retail to housing numbers, and neither of them did more than break even. The question I have for our real estate folks is why McMobile #1, with 44 residential units and 10 retail, did no better or worse than McMobile #3, with 16 residential units and 17 retail.

What are we to take away from these numbers? Do we need more retail at these sites, or more density? If a 1:1 ratio works OK at Harper Court, why not at McMobile, and which way should it go at that site, or at Dorchester Commons?

And how in the world could Hyde Park support 115 new shops as proposed in Harper Court #2?

Whatever the answers to these questions, it's clear that the 53rd St. Visioning Workshops have elevated the discussion of development in the TIF District, and in Hyde Park overall.

No longer will it suffice for a few people to sign a petition and make vague protestations about what they consider acceptable or not at this or that place, based on this or that arbitrary standard.

Now we have a much better set of tools for figuring out what will realistically work at some of these sites, as challenging as it may be. We just need to figure out how make that happen.

reallyboring reports: 53rd Street Visioning Workshop

posted by chicago pop

reallyboring blocks
(pics by Eric Allix Rogers)

Check out the neighborhood blog reallyboring -- which is actually not boring at all -- for a snappy and illustrated account of this past Saturday's 53rd Street Visioning Workshop.

You may remember we put up a note on how the workshop would help you "Learn to Love Density." Sounds like it worked.

reallyboring's take is interesting:

The purpose of the exercises was ... to gauge the community response to the fact that any new developments in the neighborhood, in order to be financially possible, would necessarily be fairly dense. The attendees, by and large, seemed quite happy with this, although there is an apparent generational divide, with older residents less in favor.

Don't we know all about that particular "generational divide"! Glad to hear that, in spite of this, there was an overall positive reception of the linkage between density and feasibility.

Check out the blog for more pics of the blocks they played with -- and other cool snaps, like the one below.

Amazing Interior Shot of Kenwood Acadmy
(pics by Eric Allix Rogers)

NIMBY's Corner: Deconstructing Hans

posted by chicago pop

It is characteristic of Hyde Park that the campaigning around Doctors Hospital continues to take place after the vote itself has been decided.

Fifth Ward Alderman Leslie Hairston's letter to the Herald urging 39th Precinct residents to vote "no" appeared the day after the election. A week later, a letter from precinct resident Hans Morsbach appeared, making the case for why you should have voted "yes" 8 days before, or should have morally supported those who were able to do so.

The reason for this exercise in chronological acrobatics, however, is fairly obvious: an issue of major import to two wards, two neighborhoods, and an entire section of Chicago was left to the judgment of some 600 people, of which 254 actually decided the matter, voting by a margin of 20 to ban the sale of liquor at the Doctors Hospital site.

Hans Morsbach, therefore, needs to convince the rest of Hyde Park that this was the right thing to do. The odds, however, are pretty good that if put to a vote by anything other than the 39th Precinct of the 5th Ward, the dry referendum would have failed by a large majority.

One again, a vocal and well-organized minority have taken control.

But taking control was the easy part. Convincing everyone outside the 39th Precinct that they were right to do so might be a little bit harder.

Let's have a closer look at Hans Morsbach's apologia pro vita sua of Wednesday, November 12, 2008.

****

Morsbach: "The opponents of the referendum suggested that we are unreasonable neighbors standing in the way of a much-needed development, and putting a higher value on our own conveniences than on neighborhood interests."

Comment: Agreed.

Morsbach: "A hotel largely designed as an overflow for downtown facilities would not serve Hyde Park well."

Comment: From the beginning of this controversy Morsbach, as well as Allan Rechtschaffen, have assured us all that they were deeply studied in the market dynamics of the hospitality business on the South Side of Chicago and could therefore make recommendations as to the proper scale of any hotel on Stony Island.

The problem is, they've offered no evidence to back up their statements as to the proper scale of a profitable hotel, or what the market in this area could support.

As only the latest example, Morsbach claims without any evidence that Marriott intended this hotel to serve an "overflow" purpose. Yet even if this was indeed the intent, why would this "not serve Hyde Park well"? The presumption is that the economy of Hyde Park ought to be limited to a one square mile area, and that this isolated condition is economically desirable. We've been arguing against this idea from day one.

Morsbach: "A study has shown that there is no reason that the existing limestone-and-brick structure cannot be used."

Comment: Has anyone besides a few activists actually seen this study? Can they tell us how much the design of the preservationist alternative diverges from the parameters presented by White Lodging, and what features of the original Marriott would have been compromised (in terms of size, facilities, construction or operations costs)? Such a weighty pronouncement calls for some public facts, not just Hans Morsbach's say-so.

Morsbach: A hotel would "burden our infrastructure."

Comment: This is classic NIMBY-suburbanite whooey. How would the White Lodging Marriott burden what infrastructure?

Sewer mains? Power grids? Road surfaces? Cellular towers? The CTA? Metra station facilities? The traffic lights on Stony Island? They don't tell us, and it's not clear they have any idea.

City infrastructure in most places is underutilized, especially inner city infrastructure, and has been for generations. An entire school of thought has developed around this idea at Northwestern University School of Education and Social Policy. A city like Chicago was built to deal with lots of people.

By arguing that major urban areas can't handle intensive use, Morsbach is rehearsing 70s-era anti-urban romanticism, one that runs counter to well-documented arguments that dense urban areas are in fact the most energy-efficient types of settlement pattern and should therefore be encouraged as a strategy of slowing climate change.

Cities are designed for more burden to infrastructure per unit area than any other type of settlement. There are fewer people living in the 5th ward now than there were 50 years ago,which means that there is less of a burden, if any, on existing infrastructure.

Morsbach: "There should be a place for visitors and students to park their cars without a lot of hassle. Providing adequate parking is imperative."

Comment: Parking is indeed something that needs to be planned carefully. But Hans hasn't always used such high-minded rhetoric; previously he has made it clear that he wants to be able to park his car in front of his house: "I like to park my car near my house on Harper." (Hyde Park Herald reported on August 1, 2007.)

Morsbach, like most of Hyde Park's old guard, is unreflexively automobile-oriented and density-phobic, without realizing that the latter is a partial cure for the former: as we have conveyed on this blog numerous times, urban density in fact diminishes car use. Beyond that, he gives no evidence for his inference that "parking" (in a private lot? a city lot? on the street? in a garage? in front of his house?) would become more difficult on Stony Island or anywhere else.

In fact, Rechtschaffen, who criticized White Lodging for not providing a parking study (which they did, though the University chose not to release it to the public), clearly had already made up his mind that parking and congestion would be "a disaster" without having viewed any analysis of the issue. (Hyde Park Herald, LTE, September 10, 2008)

****

In a recent article on Hyde Park in Crain's, it was mentioned that Morsbach has been in business in the neighborhood since 1962.

Back before 1962, Hyde Park was a fairly happening place, and strangely enough, it had a lot of hotels. Then things changed, it became not-so-happening, lost its old hotels, and in the aftermath of Urban Renewal and the attempt to make the inner city into a suburb, an entire generation of residents got used to it that way.

Unfortunately, what they got used to was an historical aberration.

Now that things are beginning to revert to the mean, they're fighting the norm with everything they've got. It may keep them busy in the short run, but in the long run, they're going against the tide.

Learning to Love Density: 53rd St. Visioning Workshop Pt. 3 -- Saturday November 15

posted by chicago pop

The third in a series of workshops dealing with development dynamics on Hyde Park's 53rd Street retail district will take place this coming Saturday, November 15 (see flier below).

Hyde Park alum and Metropolitan Planning Council VP for External Relations Peter Skosey helps to explain what the whole things is about, based on a similar workshop done in the Lawndale neighborhood.

Check it out in this video:

Like the previous two 53rd Street workshops, this one will be based on a series of exercises meant to visualize and make tangible the abstract and ominous-sounding notion of "density." Using a method developed in Minneapolis called the Corridor Housing Initiative, the idea is to help people "connect community visions with market realities" through a series of exercises that demonstrate the variety of forms that density can take, and the market constraints that face developers in urban projects.

Logistics below:

Developing Harper Court: What Evanston Can Teach Hyde Park

posted by chicago pop

Optima Towers, 1580 Sherman Avenue, and Borders Location
13-story, 105 Units, Mixed-Use. Completed 2002.

This blog began with a bit of overheard conversation, so it seems appropriate to continue the tradition.

Back in the day, nearly a decade ago, I was living in a flat in Hyde Park's doppelganger neighborhood -- Rogers Park -- and working up in Evanston. Across the hall was a colleague who was doing the same. We both confronted Evanston just moments before it began its transformation. "It's a nice town, but it's just kind of boring," said my neighbor, shortly before moving to Wicker Park.

No more.

As most people know, Evanston has reinvented itself. The interesting thing is that what happened in Evanston could happen in Hyde Park.

Now that the Harper Court parcel is finally up for redevelopment, there is potential to develop these assets in a way that helps reverse decades of relative decline in Hyde Park's struggling commercial district. Just like what happened in Evanston.

As of 2005, the benefits of Evanston's approach were measurable. Downtown Evanston has increased the total number of retailers in its central district by 27% since 1997, boosted total retail sales by 11.2% between 2000 and 2003, has added to the housing stock while keeping its parking requirements lower than surrounding suburbs.

As a result of increased business activity, Evanston has been able to lower its taxes to levels not seen since 1971. Though similar values would not accrue directly to Hyde Park, they are indicative of the improved health of the local economy, some portion of which would be captured by the 53rd Street TIF, and, when this expires, by the local school districts.

Sherman Plaza
25 stories, 253 Units, 1,600 Car Parking Garage, Mixed Use, Completed 2006

Evanston as Example of Smart Growth

The Evanston build-out is considered by progressive urban planners, such as those who prepared the EPA report from which much of the data below is taken,* to be a model of successful smart-growth, transit-oriented development (TOD). It is now a case-study used to demonstrate a few things about how to redevelop urban centers around a commercial district well-served by transit -- exactly the situation that describes Hyde Park's Harper Court and east 53rd Street.

1. It is possible to add density to a district without significantly increasing traffic congestion. This is possible when:
   
2. Full advantage is taken of existing transit infrastructure by placing density within walking distance of transit stations, or using innovative transportation solutions to link to transit from further away.
3. Entertainment and a 24/7 district are the anchors of "downtown" redevelopment.
4. A successful project will be market-driven and demonstrate close cooperation between multiple actors -- municipal authorities, citizen's groups, master developers, Federal and State funding and regulatory agencies, and merchants. And perhaps most importantly:
5. There is a market for walkable, high-density urban environments. The long-term trends are shifting towards this type of real estate, despite the current market downturn.**

By 2005, many of the goals of Evanston's nearly two-decades old planning process had been achieved. They included the addition of 2,500 new housing units, 2.5 million square feet of new office space, the addition of a 175 room Hilton Hotel, construction of Evanston's first high rise in 20 years, the building of a new 1,400 space parking garage, and -- at the center of it all -- a new multimodal transportation center at Davis Street, which facilitates 1,477 weekday transfers between CTA, Metra, and Pace riders, and is used by over 1,000,000 transit riders annually.

Davis Street Station
Federally Funded and Completed in 1994
Source: http://www.chicago-l.org/stations/davis.html

Evanston, a fairly affluent inner-ring suburb, nonetheless had to deal with a dying commercial core and rising taxes well into the 1990s. It was able to revive its downtown and improve its financial standing by leveraging its urban assets -- multi-modal transit access, a safe and vibrant 24 hour district supported by high residential density -- to effectively compete with low-density, low-tax suburban municipalities.


Evanston as A Model for Hyde Park: Parallels and Limits

There are a few very large differences between Hyde Park and Evanston that should be noted at the outset. Hyde Park is not a municipality with the power to collect taxes, issue bonds, and fund major public goods like the new Evanston Public Library. And unlike Evanston, Hyde Park is not a gateway to a string of wealthy northern suburbs, but is surrounded by considerably poorer neighborhoods.

But there are real parallels that make it worthwhile to look closely at how Evanston was able to turn itself around, and ask if the same strategies could be replicated in Hyde Park. The parallels can be grouped into the categories of disadvantages and advantages.

Like Evanston, Hyde Park proper has relatively few large lots open for development. This offers a strong incentive to develop for density, to build up where it is difficult to build out. Like Evanston, Hyde Park is moderately isolated from major expressways and airports (unlike certain suburban localities), has suffered from population loss and stagnation, and has experienced severe erosion of its commercial center.

On the positive side, both communities are attractively situated on the shore of Lake Michigan, which has historically been a zone of higher-density development. Both lie at comparable distances from downtown Chicago (Hyde Park is 2 miles closer). Both communities are known for their diversity, though Hyde Park is considerably smaller (Evanston has 74,000 residents to Hyde Park's roughly 50,000). Both communities are well served by north-south heavy rail lines. Although Hyde Park has no CTA rail link within its borders, it does have several heavily used bus routes, and more convenient access to Lake Shore Drive.

Evanston and Hyde Park, of course, both host major private universities, both of which play large supporting roles in the local economies, and both neighborhoods are known for their charming architecture, walkable layout, and notable historic districts.

Finally, although Hyde Park is a city neighborhood and not a revenue-gathering municipality, it is conceivable that the revenue-gathering 53rd Street TIF District, at the direction of a focused and determined 4th Ward alderman, and with the active support and foresight of Chicago planning agencies, could help spark, finance, and manage the multiple partnerships that any significant development centered on Harper Court will require.

Century Theater Complex, 1715 Maple Avenue, with Adjacent Parking Garage

Making Room for the Market, Nudging Smart Growth

Planning for Evanston's downtown renaissance spanned two decades. It drew upon multiple funding sources, and required consistent leadership and community commitment over time. It required accommodation to some conventional market realities, such as the construction of a large and subsidized parking garage for out-of-town visitors, and the use of subsidies to encourage emerging market trends, such as the preference for walkable living environments with easy access to public transportation.

All of this could stand as a model for the redevelopment of Hyde Park's Harper Court.

Further, the example of Evanston should immediately put to rest an either-or vision of development in Hyde Park that argues for either absolute community or absolute market control of what goes on. As for the market, it must certainly "lead" as it did in Evanston and the evolution of the eventual retail and service mix.

But markets are most effective when the goods, services, and instruments of exchange have all been standardized, and investors know exactly what they are getting. The real estate market, for example, knows very well how to finance and build suburban shopping malls and suburban subdivisions. It has much less familiarity with inner-city, mixed-used, transit-oriented projects, and therefore needs encouragement.

On the other side of the either-or, the fear that the University will control development for its own purposes should also be put to rest. The days of Urban Renewal and large Federal block grants administered by the University are gone. The University itself does not have the expertise to pull off urban mixed-use development that is transit oriented, although it is an essential player. Likewise, the "community" alone, however represented, will need to compromise and work together with market-driven actors who need to make a profit.

In urban redevelopment, partnerships are the name of the game. No one actor can go it alone. That means making yourself attractive to at least some developers. We'll see if, given the conspiratorial world-view of many more vocal old timers, this is something that can happen in Hyde Park.

*See Cali Gorewitz and Gloria Ohland, Communicating the Benefits of TOD: The City of Evanston's Transit Oriented Redevelopment and the Hudson-Bergen Light-Rail Transit System [pdf]
**See survey of relevant market research in Christopher B. Leinberger, The Option of Urbanism: Investing in a New American Dream, Chapter 5.

Preserving Indian Village Parking Lots: Behind the Powhattan, Narragansett, and Barclay

posted by chicago pop

The HPP intelligence network recently picked up a bit of electronic NIMBY chatter. Just a few whispers detected and processed at our global listening station, alerting us to the possibility that someone might decide to build a building near the Powhattan -- a tall one, maybe a little taller than the ones already there -- on some of the parking lots pictured below.

Prime Use of Lakefront Property

Whether the chatter is true or not, what is true is that the current use of this land for surface parking only is economically inefficient, and even wasteful, from the perspective of the local economy. Land given over exclusively to surface parking lowers the residential density of a neighborhood, which reduces the local trading area and makes it harder to do shopping close to home.

And it just looks like hell.

What do you think about the fact that in one of the sections of Hyde Park-Kenwood closest to the Lake, home to some of the most impressive interwar and post-war residential high-rise architecture in Chicago, and with some of the neighborhood's best access to public transportation, significant chunks of city blocks look like this:

Barclay/East End Parking Lot from Intersection of Cornell and East End Avenues, and 49th Street

The only reason these blocks are public eyesores paved for private parking is because this little area has been a real-estate black hole for nearly half a century. But, as an urban planner friend of mine put it when he saw these lots, "those aren't going to remain parking lots forever."

Local folks might want to get used to the prospect. At some point, someone is going to buy them out and allow them to pay to park in someone else's building.

On land this close to the lake, with such abundant transportation infrastructure, and already designed to accommodate high urban densities, it's practically inevitable. And it's probably a good thing.

A Little Piece of Manhattan (+ Surface Parking)
1640 E. 50th Street -- The Narragansett and Powhattan Buildings

Surface Parking Lot for 4940 S. East End and 5000 S. East End Avenue -- the Barclay and East End Buildings

Replace these parking lots with density of housing, and auto congestion will flatten or even decrease. Because whatever new building shows up on any of these lots, it will have its own parking, which will probably hold most people's cars stationary, going nowhere, for most of the week. It would also likely house things like convenience stores, or more amenities like Istria cafe.

It's all basic stuff. Which you'll know if you scan hipster-liberal zines like Salon.com:

As parking lots proliferate, they decrease density and increase sprawl. In 1961, when the city of Oakland, Calif., started requiring apartments to have one parking space per apartment, housing costs per apartment increased by 18 percent, and urban density declined by 30 percent. It's a pattern that's spread across the country.

In cities, the parking lots themselves are black holes in the urban fabric, making city streets less walkable. One landscape architect compares them to "cavities" in the cityscape. Downtown Albuquerque, N.M., now devotes more land to parking than all other land uses combined. Half of downtown Buffalo, N.Y., is devoted to parking. And one study of Olympia, Wash., found that parking and driveways occupied twice as much land as the buildings that they served. (Katharine Mieszkowski, Salon.com, October 1, 2007).

So if and when the day comes that someone wants to build something reasonable on any of these parcels -- say something comparable to the Powhattan or the Newport in size or shape -- don't be fooled by cries of "Congestion!" or "What about parking!"

These are the neuroses that keep Hyde Park's biggest NIMBYs tossing in bed at night, but like most neuroses, they have little to do with reality.

The cry that you probably should take seriously is this one: "Not another high-rise to block my view of the Lake!" In the 4th Ward, we've seen the lengths to which people will go to protect the "views" over which they have no proprietary rights.

Trees illegally felled near 44th Place and Lake Shore Drive, allegedly to open a view of the Lake from nearby 4th Ward condos.

If anyone already living in a high-rise between 51st and 49th Streets cries out about another high-rise going up next door, we'll be able to expand the NIMBY taxonomy beyond the owners of quaint Victorian frame houses on Harper Avenue.

The new species, if it is ever discovered, may well include inhabitants of vintage Deco towers, and perhaps a few Modernist ones. Specialists at that point will have to recognize this species as a local variant of the world-wide "last one in the door" genus (from the Greco-Latin nimbyotopus rex) or:

"I've got mine, now you stay out."

53rd St. Visioning Results

posted by chicago pop

Now that the polling results from last December's 53rd Street Visioning Meeting have been passed around, I wanted to post some reflections on the event, originally posted as a comment on the blog shortly after the meeting, but now worth posting up front.

So here is my take on the meeting, with some of the more important numbers -- above all, the tallies showing support for mid-rise development on 53rd, and lack of support for building height restrictions anywhere in the corridor.

Co-blogger Peter Rossi and I both want to stress the positive significance of this result for possible development on 53rd and at McMobil. It means that if NIMBYs start making noise about opposing mid-rises, representing "the community," and standing in front of a vast troop of neighbors who oppose building for greater residential density on the 53rd Street corridor, a big red caca flag should pop up in your head.

There have been, as yet, no good reasons advanced as to why buildings 4 stories and taller should not be put up anywhere from Woodlawn to the Lake on 53rd St.

Here's the report:

A few things were remarkable about the crowd: about 25% of those in attendance were African-American. About the same amount were under 40. There were also a few families with small children.

For some contrast, take a look at the picture of the Co-Op Board meeting in the December 12, 2007 Herald for just the opposite demographic. The workshop representation was almost the exact inverse of what usually passes -- with much smaller numbers -- for "the community."

Demographic Diversity of Co-Op Board (from the Hyde Park Herald, December 12, 2007)

The NIMBYs were vastly outnumbered at the 53rd Street meeting. The most controversial vote, and this only moderately so, was the final one (which one heckler felt was "railroaded") asking if people would approve of a mid-rise "somewhere" on 53rd, not specifying where.

The results were favorable, with 63% answering Yes and 26% No. That's almost the same split as we saw with the vote to close the Co-Op, and suggests that good sense has not decamped from the neighborhood along with good retail.

A different measure of the same sentiment was taken by a separate vote, and makes it just as clear that most folks there did not oppose a mid-rise on 53rd, or at McMobil in particular.

The category "height limitations," meaning a cap on how high a building can go, which is the linchpin of opposition to a mid-rise at McMobil, pulled in only 8.3% in the first round and 13.2% in the second. Height limitations are not a majority concern. A well designed mid-rise building at McMobil, I believe, could win most people over.

Asked what buildings should look like on 53rd, the top 3 responses were "Mixture of historical and well designed modern buildings" (44%); "mixed use" (40.6%); and "underground and off-street parking" (21.7%).

I decided to drive the issue home in a post immediately following the meeting because there is an increased awareness of the site, and because not everyone now reading the blog may have read the earlier posts dealing with what may happen at McMobil.

It was also clear at the time that the Spicer Dream Machine was revving up a PR drive to limit the height of whatever gets built at McMobil, all while beginning to display the trappings of a pro-density self-transformation. The latter is bogus.

Despite not having been able to advance a single substantiated or objective reason to oppose anything taller than 3-4 stories at the McMobil site, which sits within clear view of buildings just as tall or taller, Jack Spicer has signed a petition and written 2 letters to the Herald on behalf of folks who resist adding population to Hyde Park. Spicer's most recent letter on the subject is a case in point: his a priori claim for wanting height limitations is that mid-rise buildings are "oversized, monolithic projects that dwarf their neighbors and bring congestion and boredom." (Herald, December 12, 2007)

The terms in the quotation above are all subjective, lack specific referents, and have no bearing to any existing plan for the site. They embody numerous tacit assumptions, and have more to do with phobias about density inside the NIMBY mind, than what can be built outside of it.

For change to happen in Hyde Park, we need more households and more people. That means making the buildings for them. The results of the 53rd Street Visioning Workshop demonstrated that Hyde Parkers understand this and are willing to see it happen.

The Transit Crisis and Hyde Park

Damen Blue Line platform*

Next Sunday Chicago residents will experience a significant curtailment of one of the City's most fundamental services: transit. Six hundred CTA employees will be let go, 39 bus routes will be eliminated, with a loss of an anticipated 100,000 riders daily. Fares will increase from $0.50 to $1.00 depending on the service.

Hyde Park, for the most part, will be spared the direct impact of cuts in bus service routes. In contrast, several adjacent north-south express lines that had experienced very impressive growth between 2006 and 2007 will be cut:

X3 King Drive Express (growth of 1303.7% from 2006-2007)
X4 Cottage Grove Express (627.7%)
X55 Garfield Express (141.2%)
X28 Stony Island Express (104.3%)

Hyde Park's major bus connector to the Loop, the North Side, and Chicago in general, the X6 Jackson Park Express, will remain. Its ridership increased 7.2% between 06 and 07, the lowest increase of the lot. The key difference, and probably what saved it, is the fact that it has higher annual ridership than any of the others.

What's the upshot of all this for neighborhood politics?

The upshot is that it's all about transit, not parking. If Hyde PARKERS lose what transit service they have, they'll rue the day they worried about insufficient street parking. Congestion and tight parking are classic NIMBY issues because they focus on individual inconveniences, while sidestepping the broader social problem.

Parking is not the primary congestion issue in dense urban environments. Public transportation is the primary congestion issue in dense urban environments. If public transportation is removed from a major city, congestion will become infinitely worse. If public transportation is improved, congestion will be mitigated.

The reason Hyde Park will retain the X6 Jackson Park line probably has to do with its stable ridership, which in turn is guaranteed by the corridor of density along Hyde Park Boulevard between Lake Park and Lake Shore Drive. According to the classic study of ridership and density (Pushkarev and Zupan 1977 -- see Table 1), express bus routes typically require 15 households per acre.

Example of Transit Supportive Density

Think about how to fit at least that many households on one acre and you have an idea of the minimum build-out that Hyde Park and neighboring communities will require to keep this kind of bus service in an age of funding cutbacks. Some corridors -- like Hyde Park Boulevard and stretches of Lake Park -- already have this. But there's no way around this fact: if we want public transportation we have to accept high urban densities. The alternative to this publicly shared good is privately experienced inconvenience.

NIMBYs who block higher density developments -- well represented in Hyde Park by the Council of Neighborhood Pomposities familiar to readers of this blog -- are therefore directly undermining one of Chicago's greatest public assets, its public transportation system. Acting on the basis of claimed entitlements to private space and free parking, NIMBY obstruction makes it more expensive, more time consuming, and just more difficult for everyone else to get around the City of Chicago.

Be sure to think about that this winter when you're waiting -- and still waiting -- for the next bus.

*Photo from the amazing pool at CTA Tattler