Can we re-charter our US cities for success?

My company’s headquarters is located in downtown St. Louis. As an urban planner in the new south, my frequent trips to our mothership have granted me the opportunity to explore much of the urbanism, both good and bad, that this region has to offer. And let me say, St. Louis have some absolutely extraordinary urbanism. From historic walkable neighborhoods rich in architectural character to vibrant business districts to its rich cultural amenities, St. Louis provides its residents with the potential for a very high quality of life.

For the outsider, most think that St. Louis, at least the city of St. Louis, extends from the Mississippi River to the Missouri River. And with the airport (as a city facility) located not too far from the Missouri River, this is arguably correct. But in reality, the city itself ends as a corporate entity at the western boundary of the 1200 acre Forest Park. Beyond that lies dozens upon dozens of incorporated jurisdictions including large swaths of unincorporated St. Louis County. I suspect that in years past they simply denoted that area as “beyond this there be dragons.” Today, the population of St. Louis County is nearly three times that of the city but is spread across 91 incorporated jurisdictions.

With a few notable exceptions such as Webster Groves, Kirkwood, University City and Clayton, many of these cities are little more than incorporated neighborhoods with some comprised of just a few streets and houses. Fourteen of these “cities” have less than 500 people with the smallest one (Champ) clocking in with 12 residents.

The result of this “pandemic of place” is evident. Complex taxing structures, municipal inefficiencies, fractured decision-making, and hyper-competitive tax base stealing runs rampant across the area. Some have adapted to these growing costs by creating strategic alliances with neighboring “cities” to contract for services and reduce operating overhead but most are hamstrung by soaring costs (and expectations) and declining revenues.

The question I ask myself every time I visit, which has been more than 50 times over the past decade, is whether a city/county with such great urbanism, can ever be truly competitive in the new economy. And unfortunately, I have yet to come up with a positive answer. This answer has nothing to do with its physical structure which is in many ways far superior to a Charlotte or a Phoenix. Rather, what holds it back from truly being competitive on the national or global scale again is the political structure. By my estimate, the regional probably contributes nearly as many politicians per square mile as Washington, DC. (Assuming a minimum of 5 elected officials per city times 91 cities and the County Council equals 450 plus the City of St. Louis’ 29 alderman and one Mayor for a grand total of 490 elected officials – perhaps someone from the local municipal league can provide a more accurate number). Regardless, even if the number is half of that, it’s still too many to provide a truly competitive region with appropriate representative leadership and effective decision making.

This issue resonated with me on my last trip to St. Louis as I read the current issue of Harvard Business Review. One of the lead stories was a listing of breakthrough ideas for 2010 and coincidentally one of the issues addressed governance and political structures for competitive cities.

Entitled “Creating More Hong Kongs,” Paul Romer, the senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research suggests that charter cities can help to change the rules for struggling economies. Focused particularly on the emerging third world, the suggestion was that if a Cuba or an India created a new port city with open-market rules more like Hong Kong than like North Korea, it could help to give a boost to that nation’s overall economy much like Hong Kong’s free-market tendencies have done for the rest of China.

So as I sat there and reflected on the thesis, I realized that the opportunity for a truly new city and not just an extension of an existing urban area, while possible in a place like Dubai or Mumbai with rapidly growing populations, is not likely to produce an overwhelming number of new entrants for the first world which desperately needs a means to reinvent itself to better compete on the global scale. Rather, I wondered if this idea of a charter city could extend to the re-invention of an existing city or urban area. How many communities across the United States are plagued by byzantine bureaucracies that are so ingrained that decision making is more like an Olympic sport than a deliberative, predictable exercise? How many places have tried strategic reform when a more generalized carpet bombing was necessary?

St. Louis certainly isn’t alone in this, though the sheer breadth of decision makers poses a unique challenge. In other areas of the country, particularly the northeast, the levels of government offer a similar conundrum. Just how many county, township, town, and village governments are necessary to manage the exact same populations that are in fact shrinking, not growing. And even if they are growing, is this still the right approach?

Is there leadership, particularly at the state level to impose such a change on areas that are clearly dysfunctional? Cities and counties are, after all, creatures of the state and can be created and dissolved in a single act. And what are the catalyzing events that make such a radical change possible? Does the area have to be so decrepit or abandoned, like parts of Detroit or Buffalo (with apologies to the great areas of both) to bring about this type of change? Even San Francisco, with its beautiful urbanism, is considered by many to be governed by a structure that is one of the most bloated and ineffectual in the country.

All of this brings to me a clear focus that in order for cities to thrive in the new economy they must be much more than beautiful, functional, urban places. They must be well governed, from the individual neighborhoods to the Mayor’s office, without being onerous and contradictory to the future vision. Part of this is a discussion on development codes, but it really speaks more to the daily policies of service delivery and business support that a city is best able to provide.

So, is there hope for the St. Louis and it’s hundreds of tiny body politics to be positioned for the future? Can they effectively set aside their individual tax base needs to compete in the global economy? The current economics of St. Louis appear more like a shell game, simply moving tax base around, often in the form of new retail centers that bleed off the adjacent jurisdiction. And often, these “projects” have been at the expense of population, forcing whole neighborhoods to move in order for “progress” to occur. And to be fair, they are all doing it. To point fingers would be futile because you would be spinning in circles. And with declining population, most economists will tell you that no new revenue is being created – it is simply being moved around from one shiny new big box to the next. And we also come to understand that the St. Louis region is really on the precipice of becoming a shrinking city, a place where population growth is inversely related to land consumption.

How would things be different if St. Louis County were comprised of say, eight to ten cities rather than the current 90 plus? And what if one of those new cities were a charter city with a radically different structure that had previously been imagined before? Because to consolidate and yet to continue the same business as usual is more than a missed opportunity for incremental progress. It might just be a missed opportunity for truly global competitiveness that restores St. Louis to the prominence of centuries past and ensures that we aren’t having the same conversation about St. Louis or Memphis or Charlotte in fifty years that we are having about places like Detroit and Buffalo today.

Who is Going to Buy Your House?

Many of us have long questioned whether the exponential growth in the suburban single family lot is, in fact, socially sustainable. Beyond the environmental and economic challenges that many suburban areas pose, is there enough market in the future to ensure their long-term viability?

Harrison Marshall, a colleague and bulk emailer (reformed) of planning news sent around a link about two years ago (before the crash) to an article in the Journal of the American Planning Association, Winter 2008, entitled Who’s Going to Buy Your House? Facing the Consequences of the Generational Housing Bubble. Being a student of both policy policy and urban design I was in intrigued as to the implications of this aging trend on growth and development in our urban areas.

They posited that the coming “generation housing bubble” caused by the graying of the 78 million baby boomers will result in a massive sell-off of homes to younger generations that aren’t large or wealthy enough to absorb the supply.

And now, more than a year after the house of cards tumbled, I re-read this article to see if it again held water. In fact, it seems more timely than ever.

Newly estimated data reported in this article show that roughly 2% of people of all ages younger than 70 sell homes each year, but the selling rate climbs far higher after age 75. Meanwhile, the percent buying homes peaks at a much younger age, 30 to 34 (3.6%), before declining steadily into older ages.

After three decades of relative stability, the ratio of seniors to working age adults nationwide will increase by a total of 67% in the next two decades (2010 to 2030). After 2010 the leading edge of the 78 million strong boomer population will pass age 65 and growth among the elderly population will substantially exceed that of younger adults, an unprecedented social and economic development that is expected to impact every state in the U.S.

I recently participated in a panel presentation on retrofitting suburbia at the North Carolina Planning Conference with Mitchell Silver, the Planning Director for the City of Raleigh, NC and Kathryn Lawler, the Chief of Staff for the Atlanta Regional Commission. Mr. Silver outlined an analysis of the low density suburban growth patterns in Raleigh that have been largely driven by non-Hispanic white, middle and upper income families. A fact that recently forced a dramatic changeover in their local school board when the previous board elected to continue the busing policy that precludes a true neighborhood school model. Ms. Lawler then gave an eye-opening presentation on aging trends. Specifically she noted that the senior population (defined as those over 55) is expected to grow from 20% of the current population (2000 census) to nearly 1 in every 3 people by 2030 in states like North Carolina and Georgia. 1 in every 3! Of course, the graying of our population is only one of at least two other key demographic trends that will have significant impacts on how we grow our communities.

The next issue is our current fertility rate. It is widely accepted that 2.11 births/woman is the needed replacement rate to ensure a stable population. According to the US Census Bureau-National Center for Health Statistics the fertility rate of our white and black populations hovers in the 2.06 births/woman range. Only when you include the current Hispanic fertility rate of almost 3 births/woman does our current population growth curve approach the replacement rate. In 2006, it was estimated at 2.10 births/woman. Non-hispanic whites, currently 75% of the population, are expected to be in significant decline by 2030 because of declining birth rates while Black populations are expected to double its present size in the same period. Source: US Census Bureau National Projections.

So how does our country keep growing? Very simply – immigration. Immigration accounts for nearly a third of our current population. Not surprisingly, the largest immigrant group is Hispanics who have grown from 12.5% of the population in 2000 to almost 15% in 2006. In 2030, Hispanics are estimated to comprise nearly 1 in 5 Americans, more so in many counties particularly in the southeast and the west where they are expected to comprise 50% or more of the population. From 2000 – 2006, Hispanic growth accounted for 50.4% of the total population increase! Source: Hispanic Population Projections, US Census Bureau.

What do these changes have in store for American communities. There are a number of potential impacts that will be explored in subsequent posts but the fact remains that in 2030 the face of the average American will be much different from what it is today. These changes are likely to have very significant impacts on a myriad of issues include growth patterns in our communities, our social service network, and our education system.

The baby boom generation, long the driver of housing and other community growth patterns will be slowly replaced with new groups whose values will likely be different. The non-Hispanic white majority is being rapidly replaced by a more diverse face that may or may not accept the suburban ideal. Will the new immigrant family endure long commutes for a large house on a large lot. If history is any precedent, the numbers point to an even greater sell-off of the suburbs in the years to come.

Cites and the Myth of Suburbia

Something interesting happened this week. The US Census Bureau released their latest municipal population estimates and it provided some very interesting trends and some very misleading data. New York City and Los Angeles both increased in population and remain or nation’s largest cities. Recent immigration is fueling most of the growth in those urban areas as they continue to swell with minority populations.

What made the release most interesting though is how the media reacted to the fastest growing list. According to the Christian Science Monitor “Texas hosts four of the top 10 cities, including Round Rock – which was No. 2 – Killeen (9), Fort Worth (10), and McKinney (5).The others include Raleigh (8) and Cary (3) in North Carolina; Roseville (6) and Irvine (7) in California; and Gilbert (4), in Arizona.” Christian Science Monitor 7/1/09

Most of the media swooned over these growing cities with their “good public schools, partnerships between businesses and universities, entrepreneurship, low crime rates, and cultural outlets” but little was said of how this growth actually occurred. In fact, the real truth is that many of these cities are not really cities at all, but are in fact suburban communities that share two key characteristics. They are located in job-rich metropolitan regions (Austin, Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill-Cary, Dallas-Ft. Worth, and Phoenix) and are located in states that have progressive annexation laws that permit established municipalities to absorb their suburban fringes. Don’t be fooled into thinking that these areas are recession-proof. The growth that the Census Bureau announced for the year over year was based largely upon growth in these suburban areas that had been accumulating for five to ten years. in North Carolina, suburbs must meet certain density thresholds before they may be annexed by the municipality. That means that the suburban growth that was ground to a halt when the bubble burst in 2008 will likely slow growth in these areas over the next five period.

This is not to take anything away from my own capitol city, Raleigh, North Carolina. Their downtown is slowly transitioning from a sleepy center dominated by low-rise, sprawling government office buildings to a mixed-use center with dare I say, a night life. And Cary, long a community of pristine suburban office parks and golf course neighborhoods is embracing an urban future with increasing density and a burgeoning downtown area.

The term “city” broadly refers to all of those incorporated jurisdictions that provide urban services to its residents. Some have commerce and culture, while others are simply a bedroom. The new economy is already determining the next winners and losers. Winners will be communities that are mixed-use and flexible, able to attract jobs and people, and have a coherent vision of long-term sustainability. The losers will be the ones wound so tight with restrictive covenants, age-restrictions, and long-term lease stipulations that they will be unable to retrofit for the future. Cities large and small will be doubly challenged with being efficient providers of urban services as well as centers for civic culture. Will the suburbs be able to meet this challenge or will they wither on the vine?