Tag: Wichita Downtown Development Corporation

One of the themes of those planning the future of downtown Wichita is that the suburban areas of Wichita are bad. The people living there are not cultured and sophisticated, the planners say. Suburbanites live wasteful lifestyles. Planners say they use too much energy, emit too much carbon, and gobble up too much land, all for things they’ve been duped into believing they want.

It’s an elitist diagnosis, and Wichita’s buying it. Well, we’ve already paid for it, but we can stop the harmful planning process before it’s too late.

Consider the attitudes of Goody Clancy, the Boston planning firm the city hired to lead us through the process. At a presentation in January, some speakers from Goody Clancy revealed condescending attitudes towards those who hold values different from this group of planners. One presenter said “Outside of Manhattan and Chicago, the traditional family household generally looks for a single family detached house with yard, where they think their kids might play, and they never do.”

David Dixon, the Goody Clancy principal for this project, revealed his elitist world view when he told how that in the future, Wichitans will be able to “enjoy the kind of social and cultural richness” that is only found at the core. “Have dinner someplace, pass a cool shop, go to a great national music act at the arena, and then go to a bar, and if we’re lucky, stumble home.”

These attitudes reflect those of most of the planning profession — that people can’t be relied on to choose what’s best for them. Instead they believe that only they — like the planners at Goody Clancy — are equipped to make choices for people. It’s an elitism that Wichita ought to reject.

Besides this, many of the assumptions that planners rely on are wrong, like the purported demographic shifts planners rely on. Consider the recent article Urban Legends: Why Suburbs, Not Dense Cities, are the Future by journalist and geographer Joel Kotkin. While Kotkin’s article focuses a lot on mega-cities like Mumbai and Mexico City, there’s a lot to be learned by smaller cities like Wichita.

One of the issues Kotkin addresses is the effort of cities to appeal to the “creative class.” This is a hot issue in Wichita, where it is thought that we can’t attract young urbanites and their energy and upward economic mobility. Therefore, we must invest in arts, culture, and “hipness.” Kotkin responds:

The hipper the city, the mantra goes, the richer and more successful it will be — and a number of declining American industrial hubs have tried to rebrand themselves as “creative class” hot spots accordingly. But this argument, or at least many applications of it, gets things backward. Arts and culture generally do not fuel economic growth by themselves; rather, economic growth tends to create the preconditions for their development. … Sadly, cities desperate to reverse their slides have been quick to buy into the simplistic idea that by merely branding themselves “creative” they can renew their dying economies; think of Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Michigan’s bid to market Detroit as a “cool city.” … Culture, media, and other “creative” industries, important as they are for a city’s continued prosperity, simply do not spark an economy on their own. It turns out to be the comparatively boring, old-fashioned industries, such as trade in goods, manufacturing, energy, and agriculture, that drive the world’s fastest-rising cities.”

The things the Wichita plan is designed to foster: increased density, increased real estate values, decreased use of the automobile, and prescription by cultural elites of what may be built in which locations — these things drive away many people, Kotkin says: “Nor is the much-vaunted ‘urban core’ the only game in town. Innovators of all kinds seek to avoid the high property prices, overcrowding, and often harsh anti-business climates of the city center.”

The sprawl and the alleged unsustainable lifestyle of the suburbs that elites like the Goody Clancy planners clearly disdain — here’s what Kotkin says: “Consider the environment. We tend to associate suburbia with carbon dioxide-producing sprawl and urban areas with sustainability and green living. But though it’s true that urban residents use less gas to get to work than their suburban or rural counterparts, when it comes to overall energy use the picture gets more complicated.” He cites examples in the article.

But the planning process might not be all bad, Kotkin concedes, noting that “To their credit, talented new urbanists have had moderate success in turning smaller cities like Chattanooga and Hamburg into marginally more pleasant places to live.” Chattanooga is one place that Wichita planners and their acolytes have visited recently.

“Uber-geographer” Joel Kotkin wrote in the Wall Street Journal recently: “Pundits, planners and urban visionaries — citing everything from changing demographics, soaring energy prices, the rise of the so-called ‘creative class,’ and the need to battle global warming — have been predicting for years that America’s love affair with the suburbs will soon be over.”

As Wichita considers adoption of the plan for the revitalization of its downtown, urban planners — both local and out-of-town — tell us that there’s a big demand for downtown living. People are tired of suburban living, they say. Presentations by the city’s planning firm Goody Clancy have contained bullet points like “who favor living and working in vibrant downtowns” and “and they are part of broad demographic trends that are much more ‘downtown friendly’ …e.g., almost two-thirds of Wichita’s households include just one or two people.”

This purported shift from suburban to urban lifestyles is one of the primary underlying memes for the downtown Wichita planners. Is this shift in preference real?

Not according to Kotkin: “But the great migration back to the city hasn’t occurred.”

Kotkin cites some figures showing the decline in the market for downtown condos in a few cities, and concludes “Behind the condo bust is a simple error: people’s stated preferences.” He shows some figures that support his contention that “Demographic trends, including an oft-predicted tsunami of Baby Boom ’empty nesters’ to urban cores, have been misread.”

These demographic trends are behind the analysis that Goody Clancy uses to promote its vision for downtown Wichita. Kotkin’s research ought to give us concern that downtown visionaries are leading Wichita down a path that really isn’t there.

Kotkin issues a note of caution for urban planners: “The condo bust should provide a cautionary tale for developers, planners and the urban political class, particularly those political ‘progressives’ who favor using regulatory and fiscal tools to promote urban densification. It is simply delusional to try forcing a market beyond proven demand.”

What does this mean for Wichita? Wichita’s planners and leaders are promoting a light-handed approach to downtown development, saying, for example, that public financing will be only for public purposes. But Wichita has a history of heavy-handed interventionism using economic development tools of all types. They wish for more. And as the mayor said at a council meeting earlier this year, he’s recently learned of new types of incentive programs that other cities are using. Other council members and some city staff believe that Wichita doesn’t have enough “tools in the toolbox” for shoveling incentives on companies for economic development purposes.

So I think Wichita’s leaders definitely will use the “regulatory and fiscal tools” that Kotkin warns of. It’s only without government intervention that we’ll know whether Wichitans really prefer suburban, downtown, or other forms of living. Urban planners and city hall bureaucrats can’t tell us that.

The Myth of the Back-to-the-City Migration

The condo bust should lay to rest the notion that the American love affair with suburbia is over.

Pundits, planners and urban visionaries—citing everything from changing demographics, soaring energy prices, the rise of the so-called “creative class,” and the need to battle global warming—have been predicting for years that America’s love affair with the suburbs will soon be over. Their voices have grown louder since the onset of the housing crisis. Suburban neighborhoods, as the Atlantic magazine put it in March 2008, would morph into “the new slums” as people trek back to dense urban spaces.

But the great migration back to the city hasn’t occurred. Over the past decade the percentage of Americans living in suburbs and single-family homes has increased. Meanwhile, demographer Wendell Cox’s analysis of census figures show that a much-celebrated rise in the percentage of multifamily housing peaked at 40% of all new housing permits in 2008, and it has since fallen to below 20% of the total, slightly lower than in 2000.

Continue reading at the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) or at Kotkin’s website.

As Wichita moves towards the release of the plan for the revitalization of its downtown, urban planners — both local and out-of-town — tell us that there’s a big demand for downtown living. People are tired of suburban living, they say. The recent draft presentation by the city’s planning firm Goody Clancy contained bullet points like “who favor living and working in vibrant downtowns” and “and they are part of broad demographic trends that are much more ‘downtown friendly’ …e.g., almost two-thirds of Wichita’s households include just one or two people.”

Or, as “uber-geographer” Joel Kotkin wrote in the Wall Street Journal this week: “Pundits, planners and urban visionaries — citing everything from changing demographics, soaring energy prices, the rise of the so-called ‘creative class,’ and the need to battle global warming — have been predicting for years that America’s love affair with the suburbs will soon be over.”

But as Kotkin later writes: “But the great migration back to the city hasn’t occurred.”

Kotkin cites some figures showing the decline in the market for downtown condos in a few cities, and concludes “Behind the condo bust is a simple error: people’s stated preferences.” He shows some figures that support his contention that “Demographic trends, including an oft-predicted tsunami of Baby Boom ’empty nesters’ to urban cores, have been misread.”

These demographic trends are behind the analysis that Goody Clancy uses to promote its vision for downtown Wichita. Kotkin’s research ought to give us concern that downtown visionaries are leading Wichita down a path that really isn’t there.

Kotkin issues a note of caution for urban planners: “The condo bust should provide a cautionary tale for developers, planners and the urban political class, particularly those political ‘progressives’ who favor using regulatory and fiscal tools to promote urban densification. It is simply delusional to try forcing a market beyond proven demand.”

What does this mean for Wichita? Wichita’s planners and leaders are promoting a light-handed approach to downtown development, saying, for example, that public financing will be only for public purposes. But Wichita has a history of heavy-handed interventionism in markets, using economic development tools of all types. And as the mayor recently said at a council meeting, he’s recently learned of new types of incentive programs that other cities are using.

So I think Wichita’s leaders definitely will use the “regulatory and fiscal tools” that Kotkin warns of. It’s only without government intervention that we’ll know whether Wichitans really prefer suburban, downtown, or other forms of living. Urban planners and city hall bureaucrats can’t tell us that.

The Myth of the Back-to-the-City Migration

The condo bust should lay to rest the notion that the American love affair with suburbia is over.

Pundits, planners and urban visionaries—citing everything from changing demographics, soaring energy prices, the rise of the so-called “creative class,” and the need to battle global warming—have been predicting for years that America’s love affair with the suburbs will soon be over. Their voices have grown louder since the onset of the housing crisis. Suburban neighborhoods, as the Atlantic magazine put it in March 2008, would morph into “the new slums” as people trek back to dense urban spaces.

But the great migration back to the city hasn’t occurred. Over the past decade the percentage of Americans living in suburbs and single-family homes has increased. Meanwhile, demographer Wendell Cox’s analysis of census figures show that a much-celebrated rise in the percentage of multifamily housing peaked at 40% of all new housing permits in 2008, and it has since fallen to below 20% of the total, slightly lower than in 2000.

Continue reading at the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) or at Kotkin’s website.