Gentrifiers in Portland exchange greetings. Perhaps they're discussing the virtue of their Priuses.

Sandra Tsing Loh wrote a excellent piece in the Atlantic snarkily speculating what this recession will do to America’s culture leaders, the Xers, she calls them (a.k.a. David Brooks’s bourgeois bohemians and Richard Florida’s creative class).  Reared in America’s upper- and upper-middle class Valhallas, these college-educated, socially conscious idealists, having never tasted the bitter foot of Maslow’s hierarchy, have heretofore devoted their lives to the maximization of self-expression.  When one is accustomed to an easy life of economic privilege, one becomes too easily inclined to view the concern for things like economic development (the creation of actual wealth) as crass—dare I say unsophisticated!— hobbies.

Having splurged on overpriced liberal-arts degrees, pricey socially conscious clothes, and fashionably “fair-trade” this-that-and-the-other, the once trendy interest in all things eclectic and environmentally sustainable is no longer financially sustainable.   The lofty eclectic idealism has, over the past few decades, morphed this left-leaning bohemianism from an identity once defined by a distaste of consumption into an identity defined by its taste in consumption.

Wither the free-range chicken bistro?  Now that carelessly accrued credit card debt is out of fashion, how can one survive without a steady diet of the moral superiority digested from politically-charged cuisine choices?  Will the forced economic sobriety of our current economic affairs force America’s left-leaning culturally-righteous to reexamine their once-proud disregard of economics—that crass topic!?

Bid farewell to the increasingly progressive, self-righteous, self-congratulatory, overwhelmingly white, and socially stratified Portland.  Hello, diverse, affordable, yet bland, Cleveland.  Farewell to the ritzy Rive Gauche Xanadus, hello to the staid skid-rows bereft of artisan boutiques and scarily “authentic”.

Loh writes,

This economic catastrophe is teaching the Xers that their prized self-­expression and their embrace of personal choice leads to … the collapse of capitalism. Time to inculcate not those self-satisfyingly hip and rebellious values—innovation! self-fulfillment!—cherished by the creative class (a class, after all, that includes in its ranks those buccaneering entrepreneurs who’ve led us down the primrose path), but those staid and stolid values of the bourgeoisie: industry, sobriety, moderation, self-discipline, and avoidance of debt.

Hear, hear!  Perhaps now economic development will actually get a fair hearing when policymakers are forced to consider feel-good measures as taxes on plastic bags and carbon emissions, favored by the elite self-expressionistas, but opposed by the lower- and lower-middle classes, and by nearly every family on a budget.  Fewer can afford the luxury to sacrifice economic well-being for the sake of a political statement.

When real estate prices deflate and consumer spending dives, does gentrification wither? In real estate, sale prices and rents are “stickier” when falling than when rising. Thus, rents and prices should not fall as fast as a drop in consumer spending warrants. Consequently, shops suffer this gap between revenue declines and rent declines, causing them to go out of business much faster than they otherwise would.

The New York Times discusses an example of this unfortunate process playing out right now in the once-gentrifying Eagle Rock neighborhood of Los Angeles.  The paper notes that

The deep recession, with its lost jobs and falling home values nationwide, poses another kind of threat: to the character of neighborhoods settled by the young creative class, from the Lower East Side in Manhattan to Beacon Hill in Seattle. The tide of gentrification that transformed economically depressed enclaves is receding, leaving some communities high and dry.

However, these gentrified neighborhoods did not just change economically.  They changed socially, too, attracting a base of residents with the  job skills, education, and worldly curiosity to support a variety of local retail shops.  Even when these shops that opened under brighter economic times shutter their doors due to a souring neighborhood economy, the intrinsic demand sparked by the changing neighborhood culture does not disappear.

When happy days are here again, these neighborhoods will likely sprout coffee houses, soap shops, thai restaurants and the like rather than pawn shops, tatoo parlors, and car repair shops of the long-gone decades of disinvestment.

The Post reports what everyone else suspects: few members of the board that oversees Metro are regular riders. Furthermore, many of those same board members drive to the Metro board meetings at WMATA headquarters and don’t bother to pay for the privilege of parking there. This news comes as the board considers cutting service in the face of a constricted budget and rising operating costs.

Sadly, it should not come as much of a surprise that those in the position to shape transit policy themselves don’t even ride the very systems they advocate.  Members of Congress afford themselves massive surface parking lots on the Capitol grounds and even a car allowance financed by the taxpayer.  Even liberals such as former HHS-nominee Tom Daschle wouldn’t be caught dead bearing the indigities of one of America’s most extensive transit networks.

When those in power are disconnected from the consequences of their policies, there exists less of an incentive for careful consideration.  DC Councilman and WMATA board chair Jim Graham unwittingly proved this point very well:  “Few D.C. Council members have children in the city’s public schools, [Graham] said, ‘but we all vote on the budget. We’re all engaged.’”

And what a fine job they’ve done!

The U.S. Department of Transportation is providing a miniscule $30 million in matching funds for rail projects around the country and $2 million is headed to Virginia for $13 million rail project to lay a third track in Spottsylvania County, Virginia.  This third track is expected to ease passenger rail (i.e. Amtrak and VRE) congestion on the increasingly popular Richmond-Washington service.  What’s interesting is that the goal is to make a rail trip between Richmond and Washington (about 100 miles) faster than a 35-mile, rush-hour drive between Washington and Leesburg.

Though Amtrak currently runs service between the two cities for about $46 each way, if cheaper commuter rail ran the route, could it end up costing less than driving in from Leesburg?  In which case, could that change sprawl patters to run as nodes along rail corridors instead of every which direction?

Not any time soon.

Though gas may be more expensive that it was ten years ago, it will have to go much higher to justify a $46 train ticket.

Richard Layman raises a good point on how government services are conceived and perceived:

Is public transit supposed to be a service of last resort for people who don’t own cars? Or is public transit supposed to be a system to enhance mobility by reducing the need and demand for automobiles, supporting urban economic development, reducing traffic and congestion, and getting very large numbers of people to places effectively and efficiently.

For a lot of places, government provision of services are focused on providing service to people without other choices. Maybe that inalterably impacts how service is provided?

Indeed, when particular government services are only offered to the weak and desperate, the public constituency for such services is only the weak and desperate. As a result, the services fall into neglect, disrepair, and mismanagement since the city’s influential elite and middle-class don’t have to face the problems of these mismanaged programs.

I’ve often wondered whether Washington’s Metrobuses would run better if the city’s councilmen had to ride them to work everyday. Clearly yes. However, the problem extends to other services as well. Another example is the city’s public school system, among America’s worst by most measures. Since the city’s elite and increasingly elusive middle-class are either childless or send their children to private school, they have only a passing, academic interest in the state of the city’s public schools. As a result, one will find that the system has pretty much become the school “option” of those who can afford no other option: families who can neither afford private school nor afford to leave the city for the suburbs.  Even Mayor Fenty doesn’t send his children to the city’s schools.

Likewise, I’ve frequently heard this concern of constituency voiced in opposition to means-testing Social Security.  If the rich and upper-middle class are excluded from receiving Social Security benefits (but not exempted from paying the taxes), they will loose interest in Social Security as a government program and the program will consequently suffer.  It is an argument that I believe is outweighed by other considerations (e.g. the system’s solvency and the unfairness of taxing lower-income earners to pay benefits to the rich), but the point is worth considering nonetheless.

Constituencies matter and when we design government programs, we must consider who will benefit and support them.  Congressmen, for better or for worse, have long realized this, passing ill-conceived and otherwise unpopular measures by attaching them to widely popular bills. If we want government programs to receive the necessary attention and support, we must include the interest of the powerful and politically active to ensure their health and survival.

Source: maps.live.com

L’Enfant’s plan for Washington included a hierarchy of orthogonal streets. While he aligned numbered and lettered streets on the cardinal axes, he diagonally overlaid the more important grand avenues. At major intersections of these grand avenues, he plotted public spaces which were later drawn as circles by surveyor Andrew Ellicott.

Meridian Hill Park is perched on the edge of the escarpment that separates the original L’Enfant Plan from the rest of NW DC. At the southeast corner of the park lies an odd intersection convening 15th and W Streets with New Hampshire and Florida Avenues (see satellite photo above). Since everything in the northwest portion of this intersection—Meridian Hill Park and the block between 15th Street and Florida Avenue—was not a part of the L’Enfant plan, one can safely assume the Frenchman had not intended to terminate New Hampshire Avenue there with a grand public space. The intersection consequently is a sea of asphalt confusing drivers and intimidating pedestrians (see image below).

L'Enfant and Ellicott struck straight lines. Meridian Hill Park and the block to its east are just outside the L'Enfant Plan and did not fare so well. Image source: DC Atlas

The public street space between the private property lines affords the city plenty of space to redesign the intersection.  I have drawn a plan that includes traditional Washington elements (a circular public space) along with more modern innovations (bulb-outs and raised crosswalks) to transform the intersection into a safer and more inviting public space (see image below).  After drawing this plan I learned that the District is planning to construct a circle here eventually as part of a plan to improve 15th Street. Their draft study does not yet include any plan for the circle, nor any cost estimates, so though my idea is not unique, it cannot be accused of reinventing the wheel (or rotary, for that matter).

This plan benefits drivers, pedestrians, and residents, while improving safety and the environment. The design contains five features that benefit the community:

1. Increased public green space— This plan reclaims unnecessary street asphalt for public greenspace and sidewalks. Replacing asphalt with grass allows the ground to absorb more rainwater and thus reduces the burden placed on the cities sewers, which currently receive a high amount of street runoff during storms. Reducing the amount of surface covered by dark asphalt also reduces the amount of heat the city absorbs during the summer. The increased greenspace creates new opportunities to plant trees which clean the air, provide shade, and increase the pleasantness of a place.
2. Creation of a new public place identity— L’Enfant had originally intended for such intersections to serve as the center of neighborhoods. He had suggested giving properties lining today’s circles to the various states, which he predicted would spruce up their respective circles in order to compete with each another for prestige. Though the city never carried through with L’Enfant’s plan for allocating properties to states, the existing circles and squares, particularly Logan and Dupont Circles, have come to identify their entire neighborhoods. Creating a new circle park provides the neighborhood a similar opportunity.  Furthermore, the circle above is aligned with the New Hampshire Avenue axis, formally terminating the avenue that begins all the way at the Kennedy Center.
3. Elimination of a confusing traffic pattern— Washingtonians have long since become accustomed to navigating traffic circles. This plan is a sharp improvement over the current intersection, which relies on countless traffic lights, some of which are located on tiny island in the middle of the intersection. The number of traffic signs the city has posted is evidence of the current intersection’s confusing design.  Though most of Washington’s circles and squares have been appropriated to honor Civil War heroes both famous (Grant) and unknown (Farragut), this circle could honor a more recent worthy city resident.  Naming the circle and erecting a statue can be delayed to a later date following a public nomination process.  Many of the city’s original squares and circles remained unadorned for decades.
4. Enhanced pedestrian safety— Some circles intimidate pedestrians because of their shape and because of the flowing traffic. The raised crosswalks at the circle’s entrances and exits will physically highlight the crossing of pedestrians, who, lest we forget, maintain the right-of-way. The raised crosswalks will also slow drivers who may otherwise speed in and out of the circle. No matter what one says about the pedestrian compatibility of circles in general, a circle here is a vast improvement over the current intersection, which even features an unreasonably long east-west crosswalk that only the bravest residents use.  A closer observation of the plan would reveal the presence of bulb-outs, which extend the curb and sidewalk into the street at crosswalks, providing pedestrians with shorter distances of street to traverse and also increases their visibility to drivers.
5. Reduced speeds and additional parking— The plan also calls for a modification of 15th Street between V and W Streets. The current street, though technically two lanes, is wide enough to fit four cars traveling abreast. Traffic engineers know that the wider the travel lanes, the faster drivers tend to drive. By converting some of the unnecessary width of the left lane into angular parking, the new design will reduce speeding and provide more street parking for residents and churchgoers alike without eliminating any greenspace.

Update: A DDOT official emailed me to let me know that the agency has no plans for a circle at that location and that both the National Capital Planning Commission and the National Park Service, which is reposible for Meridian Hill Park, were not fond of the concept several years ago.

Having lived four years without a car in Prince George’s County, Maryland, I can attest to the utter contempt for pedestrians that afflicts the county.  Even when sidewalks are present along busy roadways, they are often too narrow, too close to the roadway and frequently lack crosswalks.  Several recent pedestrain deaths are highlighting the issue and the Maryland State Highway Administration is looking into pedestrian improvements along stretches of Pennsylvania Avenue in P.G.

Whereas other jurisdictions have launched initiatives to improve pedestrian safety, the concept seems to be completely foreign in P.G., despite the fact that is the jurisdiction (other than DC) whose residents are least likely to afford a car.

Park Avenue and No Middle Class in Sight.

Houston and New York may seem like very different cities.  The former has no zoning regulation to restrict developers and tends to vote Republican.  The latter hosts bitter fights pitting long-time residents against “greedy” developers and votes reliably for liberal politicians.  Which city do you suppose is friendlier to the middle class?

The New York Sun says Houston and they’ve got the numbers to prove it.  Though you’ll earn a bit less in Houston, the cost of housing is significantly cheaper than in New York.  Even with the higher family transportation costs in car-dependent Houston, the lone star city is still far more affordable for the middle class family.

Furthermore, though Federal income taxes are roughly the same nationwide, state and local taxes are much lower in Houston the city than on Houston the Street.

After housing, taxes, and transportation, the New Yorkers have $26,000 left. The Houston family has $30,500, and those dollars go a lot further than they would in New York. The American Chamber of Commerce produces local price indexes for various areas, including Houston and Queens (though not Staten Island). The overall price index for Queens is 150, which means that it costs 50% more to live there than it does in the average American locale. The price index for Houston is 88.

It would seem that Houston, a city demonized for unruly cowboy capitalism is gentler to the common man than is the self-congratulatory left-leaning metropolis on the Hudson.

Blight and glitz, a tale of two Washingtons united in liberalism.

Marc Fisher in the Post today writes about Marion Barry’s return to life as a civic organizer.  The voice that once denounced the evils of gentrification now seeks more redevelopment in his home ward east of the Anacostia.  The article sports one especially telling paragraph:

In public settings, Barry still says that “if we are not careful, we are going to become a city of the very, very rich and the very, very poor.” But alone in his car, he sounds like a developer, touting the idea that bringing in residents with stable jobs and a stake in the community will do more to stabilize neighborhoods in Southeast than any government giveaway.

Too late, Barry.  Washington is a city of the very, very rich and the very, very poor.  Moreover, the very, very rich are well-educated and typically white whereas the very, very poor are almost always black and are victims of the city’s miserable public schools.  The only thing these two Washingtons share is a long-standing affinity for liberalism and the Democratic Party.

However, it is nice to see that Barry has moved away from the angry separatism of his earlier years and toward an integrationist attitude.  Ward 8 has enough poverty as it is and it could use some wealthier residents to move in and share their wealth.  Whereas good fences make good neighbors, sometimes good neighbors make good neighbors.

The high cost of living in Washington is changing the city in some unexpected ways.  Artists require lots of cheap space for their shows and cheap housing since they tend to make little money.  Washington provides little of either and so it’s no wonder that the city’s creative scene is weak for a city of its size.

The Baltimore City Paper writes about how many musicians in Washington are slowly being priced out to the suburbs; many others are simply choosing to move to Baltimore, where rents are much cheaper.  The canaries are in the coal mine in Tenleytown:

Fort Reno concert organizer Amanda MacKaye sees musicians as being priced out of Washington. MacKaye books the twice-weekly summer concert series, held in a Tenleytown park, through an open application process. In keeping with Fort Reno’s mission to serve the local community, only musicians hailing from within the District of Columbia are eligible. So it’s no small matter that MacKaye, who has booked the series for four years, has seen a drop in the number of Washington-based acts seeking the series’ coveted spots and an increase of applicants from just outside the city.

All the high-priced lawyers and lobbyists are pricing out the artists, who, admittedly, have always been a sideshow in Washington.  The city is not one where someone can afford to show up without a plan—only the rich can afford that.  Since the city is too expensive for artists, the city will naturally continue to suffer from a lack of artists and the homegrown art that takes patience few can financially afford.

Thus Washington faces an odd paradox: the preponderance of bourgeois bohemians provides a market for alternative music and art scenes, but also makes the economics for such a scene impractical:

Jason Urick, a member of electronic noise outfit WZT Hearts and resident of warehouse concert space Floristree, also sees Baltimore as more affordable for artists, where they can spend more time on their art and less on the job. “[Washington] is an affluent city,” says Urick, who grew up in the D.C. suburb of Gaithersburg and settled in Baltimore eight years ago. “I think that [Baltimore] does attract more artists because they [can] do less and eke by here rather than what it takes to eke by in D.C.”

Ironically, a housing market crash in the District just might enhance the city’s cultural vitality.

For several decades following the end of World War II, urban planning policies largely prioritized the conveyance of the private automobiles through America’s cities.  Not only did these policies include the highway building sprees of the 1960s, but also included other less obvious changes, including the conversion of streets to one-way commuter thoroughfares, the installation of reversible commuter lanes, and the elimination of rush-hour street parking.

All these policies aimed to ease commutes from far away suburbs and the changes often reduced the livability of the various urban neighborhoods along the way to downtown.  Cities accommodated these commuter demands lest downtown businesses respond to difficult commutes by relocating to the suburbs.  Rather than try to compete with the suburbs by selling the merits of city living, cities often tried to ape the form and autocentricity of the suburbs.

Washington, like many other big cities, is now reconsidering its autocentricity.  The Washington Post reports that the city is considering changes to several streets to make them more pleasant and convenient for residents than for the commuters who drive through them.

Several of the changes include

• Restoring Constitution Avenue NE, 17th Street NE, and 19th Street NE in Capitol Hill to two-way traffic.
• Restoring 15th Street NW in the L’Enfant Plan to two-way traffic.
• Replacing the reversible center lane on 16th Street NW through Mount Pleasant with a tree-studded median and pedestrian refuge.

The city is right to prioritize the lifestyle of its residents over the convenience of suburban commuters who choose to forgo metro and to drive to work in the District.  The city’s plan will understandably draw the ire of suburbanites, many of who live in anti-pedestrian subdivisions and do not understand the negative consequences of automobile dominance.

Suburban living requires lots of driving.  Driving requires gas.  Lots of driving requires cheap gas and thus many exurbs are suffering especially hard right now, says the New York Times.

In a recent study, Mr. Cortright found that house prices in the urban centers of Chicago, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Portland and Tampa have fared significantly better than those in the suburbs. So-called exurbs — communities sprouting on the distant edges of metropolitan areas — have suffered worst of all, Mr. Cortright found.

In some ways this is a bittersweet phenomenon because the exurbanites tend to be a mix of the lower-middle class who cannot afford to live closer and the neauveau almost-riche who demand ridiculously large McMansions.  I feel sorry for the former, but little sympathy for the latter.

…economics.

The lack of affordable housing is one of the primary drivers of gentrification as middle class people move into previously ignored, yet affordable, neighborhoods.

The New York Times ran a story about the complications of gentrification in Portland, a city known for its liberal politics. With self-proclaimed progressives moving into a once-black neighborhood, they are unwittingly pricing out (or “victimizing”, if you prefer a neo-Marxist term) the former residents who aren’t nearly as well-off as they.

One resident sums up the hypocrisy of these leftish newcomers:

“I’ve been really upset by what I perceive to be Portland’s blind spot in its progressivism,” said Khaela Maricich, a local artist and musician. “They think they live in the best city in the country, but it’s all about saving the environment and things like that. It’s not really about social issues. It’s upper-middle-class progressivism, really.”

A Prius in every driveway does not a just city make! Thus the interests of the wealthy Left trump the interests of those whom they claim to defend.

A local civic group has resorted to hosting a forum to alert the mostly white newcomers to what they’re doing to the neighborhood. From the article’s description, the forum comes off as a demeaning affair meant to parade in front of the mostly white crowd of newcomers the mostly black residents, few of whom the newcomers had spotted during their days ensconced in their elite liberal arts and law schools.

Even still, this therapeutic, self-indulgent drive to assuage white guilt does nothing to keep rents affordable for long-term residents.

Yet what has been clear from the meetings this month and last is that talking about the impact of gentrification is easier than finding ways to reduce it. For some minority residents, the notion that white Portland now says it feels their pain is cold comfort.

“That’s been our history,” Norma Trimble, who is Native American, said during the question-and-answer session this month. “They take all you’ve got. They take your land. Now they want your stories.”