3C Updates from the Urbanophile

Aaron M. Renn's blog, The Urbanophile, had a great post earlier this week with archive summaries of previous Urbanophile entries about Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Columbus.  For updates from all three cities, here is his list. Cincinnati

• A Midwest Conundrum – I talk about all those great assets, and ask why they haven’t powered the region to better performance.
• The Neighborhoods of Cincinnati – A photo tour showing off some of the fantastic neighborhoods and architecture in the city. It can really shock people who aren’t ready for it.
• Dramatic Riverfront Revitalization Nearly Complete – Randy Simes looks Cincinnati’s riverfront transformation.
• Agenda 360 – My look at Cincinnati’s regional strategic plan.

Cleveland

• What’s Wrong? – I ask what happened to make Cleveland suffer so, when unlike Detroit there is no easy narrative such as the auto industry collapse and extreme racial segregation.
• Reactions to What’s Wrong – The post above spawned more comments than any in Urbanophile history. I summarize some of the best of them here.
• Will a Dying City Finally Turn to Immigrants? – Richard Herman’s plea for Cleveland to embrace immigration.
• “James Drain” Hit Cleveland – What LeBron’s departure means for the city.

Columbus

• The New Midwestern Star – My overview post on this little known but strong performing metro.
• Rebranding Columbus – A look at the city’s recent re-branding initiative.
• Downtown Mall to Be Demolished – My take on plans to replace the failed City Center Mall with a park.

How Do we Make Smart Growth Happen?

By Alison Goebel. Recently the New Yorker published an article about Moscow's traffic and the city's efforts to mitigate its paralyzing congestion.  Despite numerous attempts, Moscow’s wide streets (one as large as 18 lanes across!) continue to be choked with cars.  Consulting with traffic experts, the author, John Gessen, concludes that Moscow’s traffic problems are part planning (for example, the mayor recently did away with red lights along one major road to the airport, thus preventing safe and easy on/off turning), and part social.  The number of drivers has increased exponentially since the 1990s, as has the presence of large luxury cars on the roads.  “Swaddling you in leather,” Gessen writes of a friend’s Mercedes, “in Moscow, there are far worse places to be trapped.”  If the choice is between waiting for the crowded metro and sitting in traffic, Moscovites prefer traffic.

Instead of expanding public transit options, enforcing and strengthening traffic codes, or creating zoning laws to prevent commercial districts from directly entering and exiting major highways, the most recent solution to Moscow’s traffic problems has been to begin building another beltway around the city.

Since reading this article, I’ve been thinking about Moscow and other cities that need policies which depend upon and reward smart growth.  With this question in the back of my mind, it seemed apropos when I and other GO-ers recently began talking about the high cost of being both a public transit user and a car owner.   Many of us who live in the city can only afford a car or a bus pass, but not both.  But as Erica Spaid pointed out, if we had to pay for parking (or pay to drive downtown), the costs wouldn’t seem so high and there would be more incentive to use a transit pass.

It will take much more than toll fees to get Moscovites and Ohioans out of their cars and using public transit (and admittedly it’s not just about cost, but also commuting time, limited service options, and other factors), but the issue remains the same: how do we encourage and successfully implement smart growth practices when the status quo feels all right?

Wind Energy in Ohio

By Gene Krebs. A new book has been published called Wind Energy in Ohio: Our Past, Present and Future.  It is a compilation of articles edited by Heidi Callender.  It highlights the potential for wind energy in Ohio and how it could help bring some manufacturing back to certain areas.  She dedicates the book to the people of Ohio with the hope that an educated public will appreciate Ohio’s past and present wind energy industry, and would be inspired to contribute to Ohio’s prosperous wind energy future.

There was a very successful book signing Tuesday night in Cleveland.  I’m in the preface because one evening over dinner at Schmidt’s in German Village with Heidi and her husband Jamie we discussed Ohio’s future.  My minor role was to give her a laundry list of people to contact, many of whom are in the book.  You can go to Amazon to get a copy.  You can’t have mine; Heidi signed it herself!

Ranking Transit Access

You may have seen our earlier entry about the importance of walkability and a tool to measure exactly that, walkscore.com.  Recently Walk Score has become multi-modal with the introduction of a new component, Transit Score which also ranks access to public transit.  So far over 40 cities are included in this ranking system, including Cleveland, Ohio.

Transit Score uses transit agency scheduling data to create a new index. This time, it rates how good the public transit service is, taking into account factors like how far you’d have to walk to get to the nearest bus/train stop and how often buses and trains arrive once you get there. The creators of Walk Score, a company called Front Seat, have also partnered with Chicago’s Center for Neighborhood Technology to release an app that calculates exactly how much you spend on transportation, no matter what form you use.

The big question is how much will these new tools affect home-buying and development decisions.  We certainly think these factors are worthy of heavy consideration.

How Transportation Affects the Health of our Communities

A blog entry from the Infrastructurist today provides two sources which both indicate that increased driving leads to less healthy lifestyles.

• A fascinating graphic shows the correlation between how much driving a state’s residents do and the state’s rate of obesity. (Good)

• And a new study says that people who live near public transport live “healthier, longer lives.” (APTA)

These are both interesting sources which confirm the need for multi modal transportation options and communities that are walkable and bikable.  The data are clear; transportation is not just about getting from point A to point B.  It’s an important factor for the health and vitality of our communities.  How does transportation affect your life?  What do you want to see changed here in Ohio?

San Juan Unveils Plan for Car-Free Walkable City

We just came across an interesting article describing San Juan, Puerto Rico's proposal to transform the city's historic district, Isleta, into a car-free "Walkable City".  The ambitious plan was released recently, and it calls for bold approaches to make Isleta more livable and walkable.  Banning automobiles from Old San Juan and adding a light rail system are the first steps, followed by the revitalization of old neighborhoods, an emphasis on public spaces and walkability, and new mixed-use developments.

The motivation for the city re-design is partially due to the city’s massive decrease in population over the years.  By making the old city more appealing, the government of Puerto Rico hopes to reverse this trend.

While Puerto Rico and Ohio face many different challenges and therefore require different approaches, it is always interesting to see what innovative ideas are being discussed and proposed across the globe.  Do you think any of these ideas could work in Ohio?

What Does Smart Growth Mean?

As employees of Ohio's smart growth organization, all of us at Greater Ohio Policy Center get asked from time to time what does “smart growth” mean.  Our sister organization in New York, Empire State Future, answered the question for us in a recent blog entry and took it a step further by sharing why smart growth was so important to all Ohioans, whether they live in a rural setting or an urban one (okay he was actually talking about New Yorkers, but we think you get the idea).  Check it out and let us know if they hit the mark.

Federal Bill Aimed at Improving Livability in Ohio and Rebuilding Communities

By Lavea Brachman. Following a key committee vote, I was pleased to participate today in a news conference call with U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan (OH-17) discussing critical legislation that could improve the livability of Ohio communities and direct federal assistance to communities with a high concentration of vacant and abandoned homes due to major population and job loss.  Portions of Senator Brown and Congressman Ryan’s Community Regeneration, Sustainability, and Innovation Act (CRSI Act), which was first introduced in 2009, was included as an amendment to the Livable Communities Act of 2010. Specifically the amendment will create a  new, competitive  grant program under HUD that would allow communities to demolish abandoned properties, find innovative uses for old structures, and create green space.

If enacted, the CRSI amendment will help communities better address fallout from the “shrinking city” phenomenon, which is pervasive in Ohio.  The issue confronting these cities is not whether they will have different physical footprints and more green space than they do now, but how this transformation will happen, so they are ultimately smaller but stronger places to live.  These cities, which have far more vacant land than can be absorbed through traditional redevelopment efforts, require innovative, comprehensive solutions that this legislation will be instrumental in encouraging.

The Livable Communities Act of 2010 with the newly added language from the CRSI Act will improve the coordination between housing, community development, transportation, energy, and environmental policies to help create better places to live, work and raise families.  All of these goals align closely with our report, Restoring Prosperity: Transforming Ohio’s Communities for the Next Economy, which was released earlier this year.  The bill cleared the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee yesterday and awaits consideration by the full Senate.

For more information on the bill and today’s conference call, please see Senator Brown’s press release.

New Research on Ohio School Districts

By Dawn Larzelere. In response to our recent report, Restoring Prosperity: Transforming Ohio Communities for the Next Economy, The Fordham Institute's Education Gadfly team examined Ohio districts’ Student to Administrator ratios as well as the amount spent on administrators as a percent of total expenditures. Fordham also took their analysis a step further by drilling down to see if patterns emerged based on district size.

Greater Ohio’s report found that Ohio spends 49 percent more on district administration than the national average.  The state ranks 47^th in the nation in the share of elementary and secondary education spending that goes to instruction, and 9^th in terms of money spent on administration.

In Fordham’s research, among other things, they found a sizable range in terms of the amount spent on administrators and most of that correlated with districts’ size with smaller districts often spending more on administration costs.  Quoting from a recent blog entry on the Fordham analysis:

“In light of this, districts – especially the smallest ones — must ask themselves tough questions about whether it’s worth merging positions where there’s potential duplication in order to discover cost savings.”

Check out the Fordham Foundation’s blog post for more information.

Report Calls for Increased Exporting in Ohio

Today, the Brookings Institution released a report focusing on the importance of exports to both Ohio and the nation's largest metropolitan areas. The report, Export Nation: How U.S. Metros Lead National Export Growth and Boost Competitiveness, is the first comprehensive analysis of U.S. exports of goods and services produced in America’s 100 largest metropolitan areas. Seven of Ohio’s metros are included in the report: Akron, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Toledo and Youngstown.

Export Nation’s findings are consistent with Greater Ohio Policy Center/Brookings’ Restoring Prosperity report, which called upon Ohio’s regions to build upon their strength in manufacturing and exporting goods, while also strategically adapting to new demands in the next economy.

Both reports call for policies that promote increasing educational attainment, workforce training based on industry demand, and greater investment in innovation. Greater Ohio’s Restoring Prosperity report emphasized the need for Ohio’s state policy efforts to promote exports and encourage growth in Ohio’s cities and metropolitan areas.

According to Export Nation service exports make up a lower percent of total exports in Ohio metros than the nation's other large metros, which likely correlates to below average, college attainment.  With regards to goods exports, all of Ohio's metros surpass the national average.  However, the recent Brookings report also found that Ohio's major metros are comparatively weak in innovation as shown by patent rates compared with their national peers, despite the high levels of manufacturing employment and generally high export intensity.  Nationally, metros that are manufacturing oriented or export intensive typically tend to have higher patent rates.

Greater Ohio believes reliable export data can inform state and local leaders about the untapped export potential of Ohio’s metropolitan areas, and assist them as they reorient the state and its metros to the global trade environment to remain competitive in the 21^st century global economy.

For additional Ohio-specific export data click here or see the full report at http://www.brookings.edu/reports/2010/0726_exports_istrate_rothwell_katz.aspx