The Three Dimensional City

For years, I've wondered about America's apparent obsession with building out instead of up.  I understand, it costs less to build a single-story building than a multi-story building of the same total square footage.  That benefits a developer, or a few developers.  But it has caused a terrible cost on society.

Building up creates a higher density.  Density makes mass transit practical; that reduces our dependency on fossil fuels.  Density brings destinations closer together; that reduces the amount of time we waste driving from place to place.  And it reduces our need to turn our landscapes into vast parking lots to accommodate big-box retailers.  It's no surprise that residents of Manhattan, one of the highest-density markets in the country, use less water and fuel on a per capita basis than the rest of the country.

So I've always wondered why we choose to help out a few developers, who are probably doing all right financially anyway, at such a high cost to the rest of us.

I've only realized lately that a lot of people, much smarter than me, have been thinking the same thing.  I've also noticed that a few more developers are starting to think in three dimensions.

In February, I came across this article in the Baltimore Sun; it talks about a two-story development with a Lowe's Home Center on the first story and a Walmart on the second story.  The entire project will include additional retail space and residential units.

In my recent hometown of St. Petersburg, Florida, a Publix grocery store built the majority of its parking lot underneath the store.  Buy your groceries and take your grocery cart down an escalator to your car.  I'm surprised how many people complain about the escalator.  I've tried it, it's easier than walking across a large parking lot, especially when it's raining.

The photo shows a development in Tampa, my current hometown.  Instead of the usual oversized parking lot, we have a multi-story parking garage.  Next door is a multi-story retail development with Target upstairs and Whole Foods, and other retailers, downstairs.  The overall footprint is smaller than the typical suburban retail development.

These examples indicate change on a small scale.  But they are good examples of building up instead of out.  We live in three dimensions; we should think in three dimensions when we plan our cities.

Movies and Place: The Sequel

A few location-specific movies of interest:

Kontroll (2004):  Filmed almost entirely in the Budapest subway.  Romance, cynicism, and a murder mystery prove there's a lot going on underground.  Move toward the light.

Hoosiers (1986):  I'm biased because it was filmed in my home state.  People who call this a sports movie don't get it; it's about forgiveness and second chances.  The opening credits show rural Indiana beautifully and that's how it really looks.

Casablanca (1942):  Still one of the most beautiful films every made.  Casablanca is the transition point between war-torn Europe and the hope of freedom in America.  Only a special breed, like Rick and his friend Renault, choose to stay in Casablanca.  The film reminds us that, like today, "isolationism is no longer a practical policy."

The Untouchables (1987):  Sean Connery asks the all-important question, "What are you prepared to do?" in the movie that taught us about "the Chicago way."  The heart-stopping train station shootout was filmed in Chicago's Union Station.

The Last Picture Show (1971):  The dust blows, the windshield is cracked, and the bed creaks to wake the devil - Peter Bogdanovich shows us life in a small, remote town with clinical precision.  The nearest glamour is in Wichita Falls, but Cybill Shepherd, Jeff Bridges and Timothy Bottoms give us the beauty and recklessness of youth born in a town without hope.

See my previous post on movies and place for additional suggestions.

Tampa: Is Transit the Missing Link?

I'm not what you would call an optimist.  But I just moved to Tampa, Florida, and I'm feeling, for me, fairly upbeat. Two factors are putting me on the sunny side of the state.

First, let's be honest, when you're at or near the bottom, there's not much to do but improve.  Lately all the news seems bad.  Consider this:

• The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the Tampa Bay Area's unemployment rate was 12.7% for March, 2010.  That's horrible, but at least an improvement over our January peak of 13.2%
• Bay Area home prices declined 11% in 2009, making us the second worst performing housing market in the country.
• In February, Forbes declared us the worst area in the United States for commuters.
• The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index ranked the Tampa Bay Area among the unhappiest metro areas in the United States recently.
• GMAC Insurance reports that Florida's drivers rank among the worst 10 states in the nation.  Of course, reckless driving is not just a safety problem, it drives up insurance costs for everyone.
• In 2009, Transportation for America and the Surface Transportation Policy Project ranked Florida the worst in the nation for pedestrians and cyclists.

This gives the impression we're all trying to run over each other, what with our unhappiness, cheap homes, and free time from being unemployed.

Still, there are good things going on here.  Some extraordinary beaches and wilderness areas have been preserved despite the best efforts of developers to bulldoze every square inch.  Tampa is an international air and sea hub.  We have an increasingly diverse workforce, not to mention the University of South Florida.

One recurring theme in Tampa, and the entire Tampa Bay Area, is poor transportation.  Florida transportation departments at every level, historically, have been primarily road builders.  The result has been endless sprawl.  I have to think that contributes to our inability to attract employers and the resulting unemployment and unhappiness.

And that's the second reason I'm upbeat:  Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio has been leading the charge to develop a comprehensive area transit system that includes light rail and expanded bus service.  I haven't lived in Tampa long but I can't help but like the Mayor.  She just looks like an optimist, something we need these days.

In a recent column for the St. Petersburg Times, the Mayor wrote, "I see the construction of a modern transit system as critical to our future economic growth and quality of life."  She wisely points out that comparable cities like Charlotte, Phoenix and Dallas have successfully implemented light rail networks.  We are "at least 20 years behind in building a comprehensive transportation system," and this leaves us in poor standing when the Great Recession finally drags to an end.

It's when things seem worst that planning for the future can be most important.  Despite a year's worth of bad news about Tampa, serious people like Pam Iorio are looking at the long term.  The Tampa Bay Area has shown such promise in the past, imagine what a serious transit network will do for us.  Voters in Tampa and the rest of Hillsborough County will hopefully have a chance to vote this November to fund light rail.  I've lived in, and traveled to, areas with serious mass transit systems and it makes a tremendous difference in the quality of life.  And there's good evidence that transit spending is a more effective economic tool than road building.

So I'm optimistic about Tampa's future.  There are still plenty of good things about this area, and the right transit system will bring it all together.

What is the Identity of Your Community?

Communities, like individuals, have a unique character and identity.  I spent two years in Ft. Worth, Texas, while attending Texas Christian University.  (Go Horned Frogs!)  The area most people refer to as Dallas - Ft. Worth, I refer to as Ft. Worth - Dallas.  Ft. Worth sometimes seemed overshadowed by its larger neighbor.  At the time, gift shops at the international airport, situated strategically between the two cities, offered a vast sampling of Dallas souvenirs and only a few token Ft. Worth items.  Mostly there was just a friendly rivalry between the two cities.  I never felt that Ft. Worth lacked for a unique culture or identity and I enjoyed my time there.

This is how Fodor's describes Ft. Worth:

"The city and its people are more deliberate, mindful of the western legacy forever shaping their identity.  That's not to say this is a town of simple country folk - Fort Worth's Cultural District houses world-class art, showcased in architecturally significant buildings."

That's a little stereotyped but basically reflects my memory of the city.

(Google map of Pinellas County, showing the position of St. Petersburg.  Tampa in Hillsborough County is toward the right.)

Until recently, I lived in St. Petersburg, Florida, often reduced to one-third of Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater.  In fact, it often becomes just Tampa-Clearwater, even though St. Petersburg has about twice the population of Clearwater.  Here's how Fodor's describes St. Petersburg:

"There are two distinct parts of St. Petersburg: the at-times snobbish downtown and cultural area, centered on the bay, and the more laid-back but pricey beach area, a string of barrier islands that faces the gulf and includes St. Pete Beach, Treasure Island, and Madeira Beach.  Causeways link beach communities to the mainland peninsula."

Even Fodor's can't identify St. Petersburg!  The beaches referenced in that paragraph (St. Pete Beach, etc.) are not part of St. Petersburg; they are separate communities with their own local governments.  And downtown is an important but geographically small part of the total city.

Further evidence that St. Petersburg can't commit to an identity:  At first I thought this road sign identifying St. Petersburg as a "Bicycle friendly community" was a joke.  There are bike friendly areas in St. Petersburg, but this street (66th St. North, a heavily traveled commercial thoroughfare with no bike lane) is not one of them.  It's almost as if the city can't make up its mind.

Did you know a Major League baseball team plays in St. Petersburg?  Many don't, because the team won't take on the city's name.  Instead, they're the Tampa Bay Rays.  Talk about an identity complex.

The mayor of St. Petersburg recently hired a city lobbyist; skeptics have wisely pointed out that lobbying for the city should be part of the mayor's job.

In Made to Stick, Chip and Dan Heath offer a case study of The Daily Record, the newspaper in Dunn, North Carolina.  Dunn had a population less than 10,000 according to the 2000 census.  Yet the newspaper has a circulation over 8,500, based on the most recent figures I could find.  This is extraordinary at a time when major newspapers are shrinking daily.  The Daily Record has one mission - to be local.  To provide the news that national and regional newspapers or network and cable news channels cannot; to fill The Daily Record with as many local names as possible.

I picked up a copy of the St. Petersburg Times last week.  I confess I seldom purchase the local newspaper because between the internet and television, I get more news than the paper can provide (some of it from the Times' own web site).  More important, however, is the lack of news about the city from which the paper takes its name:

• On this particular weekday, there was not one item on the front page specific to St. Petersburg.  Yes, there were state and regional articles of interest to St. Petersburg, but I bet the Tampa Tribune's front page that day looked very similar.
• The food section contained a review of a restaurant in Clearwater.
• The local/state section included a couple of brief articles about St. Petersburg subjects.  It also had a substantial article about Brooke Shields, who I'm sure is a nice person but seems to have no local connection.
• The business section had a brief article about a survey released by the University of Florida in Gainesville, will over 100 miles from St. Petersburg.  Raymond James, Payless Car Rental, Jabil Circuit, and Home Shopping Network are among the companies located in St. Petersburg - it's hard to figure this out from the local newspaper.
• The St. Petersburg Times has an odd section that combines classifieds with comics and advice columns.  The classifieds are from all over Pinellas County; the rest is primarily national syndicated material.
• A weekly Life Times section contained more nationally syndicated material along with a lengthy article about local residents (some actually from St. Petersburg) competing in a Wii tournament.  This section also includes a tiny paragraph advising us to "shop locally" - despite a glaring lack of information about local businesses.
• The sports section had some local focus, with a few articles about St. Petersburg high school sports and coverage of the above-mentioned Tampa Bay Rays
• Finally, a weekly Neighborhood Times section contained several pieces specific to St. Petersburg.

The lack of a local focus doesn't seem to be hurting the St. Petersburg Times.  The newspaper has a circulation over 300,000; St. Petersburg's population is about 245,000.  The paper received two Pulitzer Prizes in 2009.

On the other hand, I have to wonder about the impact on the community and St. Petersburg's apparent lack of a coherent identity.  Would St. Petersburg be better served by a newspaper with a true local focus?  Would other news media come forward to provide local news for other Pinellas County communities?  (A local strategy would work with me.  The one day I bought two copies of the St. Petersburg Times was the Sunday that one of my photos was featured in the travel section.)  I also think our definition of "local" is too geographically broad to support strong neighborhoods and communities.

One final item:  A major Bay Area entertainment venue is called the St. Pete Times Forum.  It's in Tampa!

All of this is not to criticize the St. Petersburg Times or the city of St. Petersburg.  I loved living in St. Petersburg.  I do think it's important to consider questions about community and identity.  If we don't work to build and maintain a positive identity for our respective communities, the wrong identity may prevail.  St. Petersburg has at times been identified with a culture of cruelty.  And that's not good for anyone.