Listening to a talk by the director of research at World Business Chicago, I was reminded of some trends in business development in the Chicago area. And they are pretty exciting!
First, businesses are moving from the suburbs to downtown lately. Why? Apparently, companies that have made this shift claim that they suddenly began receiving higher quality applicants. So, the trend is to locate somewhere that skilled workers want to work. With knowledge-based production, workers tend to want to live and work in the city, not in the suburbs.
Second, "innovation" is the new buzzword. It's not surprising considering the shift to downtown locations. The idea here is to allow collaboration between creative workers/firms to encourage entrepreneurship. Feeding off the "world city" concept, knowledge based sectors are expected to be clustered in order to be successful. This gives downtown locations another advantage.
The bottom line is that the real estate market (or the search for the cheapest land possible) is becoming less of a factor in business location. More importantly, firms want to be located where they can access high-quality workers. The goal is to be where creative-class people want to work and to be located near other knowledge sectors of the economy in order to maximize access to talent. This is the real source of economic growth!
None of this is surprising, but it's something we should be thinking about, especially when we are dealing with an shifting economy with a declining manufacturing sector and growing knowledge-based sectors.
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Saving money on recycling programs (Portland is awesome)
Hey everyone, I've been gone for a while working on midterms while finishing up a journal article that will be published in the Journal of the Air and Waste Management Association. Since this project is pretty much what kept me too busy to post on here, I'll let you know what it was all about.
We compared waste management strategies in three cities: Chicago, Portland, and Columbus. Columbus has some major problems with recycling while Portland and Chicago have done much better. Without getting into all the details of each city, I would say that Columbus has gone the cheap route by making households sign up and pay for recycling services if they choose to. Portland has been much more progressive, introducing food waste collection in October. So, people in Portland can put all the extra food from their kitchens into a separate bin, which the city collects weekly and brings to a compost site. It's a really cool program that has been extremely successful so far.
As a Chicagoan, I was mostly interested in what Mayor Emanuel has been doing with our waste management system. He has introduced two major changes. First, as promised in his campaign, he is switching to a grid system of trash collection instead of a ward-by-ward system, which is vastly more efficient. Think about the grid system of Chicago's streets compared to the ridiculous shapes that most of our wards have become through many rounds of redistricting. This should save the city some money on trash collection while irking some alderman who want to retain the power to respond to service requests.
The second change is much more significant. The traditional city-run recycling collection system is being dismantled. We now have private companies collecting recycling from about half of Chicago's households under contracts with the city. Rahm's "managed competition" idea is to allow private companies to bid along side the city's Department of Streets and Sanitation to see who can offer the best deal for the city. While the city has saved several million dollars by contracting with some of these companies, it is unclear what level of service will need to maintained under these contracts. With the focus being on doing everything for as little money as possible, we don't want to see recycling collectors cutting corners at any point in the process.
Overall, it is a challenge for cities to come up with economically viable policies for waste management while striving for environmental goals. Seattle has been collecting food waste for some time now and is going to switch from weekly trash collection to every other week collection. This policy saves money AND encourages people to use the food waste service and recycle more. The bottom line is that there may be ways for cities to save money that actually promote sustainable practices. We just need to figure out what they are. All we know for sure is that Columbus's method is not the way to go.
We compared waste management strategies in three cities: Chicago, Portland, and Columbus. Columbus has some major problems with recycling while Portland and Chicago have done much better. Without getting into all the details of each city, I would say that Columbus has gone the cheap route by making households sign up and pay for recycling services if they choose to. Portland has been much more progressive, introducing food waste collection in October. So, people in Portland can put all the extra food from their kitchens into a separate bin, which the city collects weekly and brings to a compost site. It's a really cool program that has been extremely successful so far.
As a Chicagoan, I was mostly interested in what Mayor Emanuel has been doing with our waste management system. He has introduced two major changes. First, as promised in his campaign, he is switching to a grid system of trash collection instead of a ward-by-ward system, which is vastly more efficient. Think about the grid system of Chicago's streets compared to the ridiculous shapes that most of our wards have become through many rounds of redistricting. This should save the city some money on trash collection while irking some alderman who want to retain the power to respond to service requests.
The second change is much more significant. The traditional city-run recycling collection system is being dismantled. We now have private companies collecting recycling from about half of Chicago's households under contracts with the city. Rahm's "managed competition" idea is to allow private companies to bid along side the city's Department of Streets and Sanitation to see who can offer the best deal for the city. While the city has saved several million dollars by contracting with some of these companies, it is unclear what level of service will need to maintained under these contracts. With the focus being on doing everything for as little money as possible, we don't want to see recycling collectors cutting corners at any point in the process.
Overall, it is a challenge for cities to come up with economically viable policies for waste management while striving for environmental goals. Seattle has been collecting food waste for some time now and is going to switch from weekly trash collection to every other week collection. This policy saves money AND encourages people to use the food waste service and recycle more. The bottom line is that there may be ways for cities to save money that actually promote sustainable practices. We just need to figure out what they are. All we know for sure is that Columbus's method is not the way to go.
Monday, February 13, 2012
Los Angeles: APA boosterism
Los Angeles is in transformation! We all want to believe it, but is it really true. According to the American Planning Association, it is very true. They decided to include an article in the January issue of Planning touting all the great changes in LA lately.
I'm a skeptic. After all, this is a city that was founded on sprawling, low-density, suburban design. It's not like other cities (such as our very own Chicago), which started as dense industrial clusters only to transform into sprawling metropolises in the 50s and 60s. I have faith that Chicago can become more transit-oriented and walkable because it once was. LA is a different story.
The article mentions that single-family home construction is now nearly nonexistent. I'm not sure if that signals a cultural shift or merely tells us that they've run out of room for that type of development. They also mention the unprecedented subway construction boom in recent years in LA. I will admit that it's intriguing that a public referendum, calling for a tax hike to fund subway construction, passed with a two-thirds majority in the county. I think that means Angelenos are committed to public transit. At the same time, I'm not sure if the money is going to useful projects or shiny new subway lines that nobody uses but are good for publicity. I've heard a little bit of both.
So the APA decided to locate its national conference in a city that is the antithesis of everything urban planners work for. Now they have to justify it with articles like this proclaiming all the great changes in LA. Much of it may be true, and only time will tell. Of course, I'll still go to the conference and check it out for myself. We all need to keep an eye on LA in the coming years to see if any of these new trends bring about real change. If nothing else, this type of good old-fashioned boosterism might build some support for the planning revolution Southern California so desperately needs.
I'm a skeptic. After all, this is a city that was founded on sprawling, low-density, suburban design. It's not like other cities (such as our very own Chicago), which started as dense industrial clusters only to transform into sprawling metropolises in the 50s and 60s. I have faith that Chicago can become more transit-oriented and walkable because it once was. LA is a different story.
The article mentions that single-family home construction is now nearly nonexistent. I'm not sure if that signals a cultural shift or merely tells us that they've run out of room for that type of development. They also mention the unprecedented subway construction boom in recent years in LA. I will admit that it's intriguing that a public referendum, calling for a tax hike to fund subway construction, passed with a two-thirds majority in the county. I think that means Angelenos are committed to public transit. At the same time, I'm not sure if the money is going to useful projects or shiny new subway lines that nobody uses but are good for publicity. I've heard a little bit of both.
So the APA decided to locate its national conference in a city that is the antithesis of everything urban planners work for. Now they have to justify it with articles like this proclaiming all the great changes in LA. Much of it may be true, and only time will tell. Of course, I'll still go to the conference and check it out for myself. We all need to keep an eye on LA in the coming years to see if any of these new trends bring about real change. If nothing else, this type of good old-fashioned boosterism might build some support for the planning revolution Southern California so desperately needs.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Affordable Housing: Why it has a place in every community
Just today, I ended up having two discussions about affordable housing and the debates between suburban communities that are so common. Planners generally have to deal with resistance from suburban communities when they want to encourage affordable housing. The resistive mentality is an outgrowth of the larger social forces behind regionalism. Suburbanites (not all, but a significant, vocal portion) oppose almost any introduction of affordable housing, even if it's not Section 8 or subsidized housing, partly because the point of the suburb is to be isolated from those problems of the city (like poor people...). Many suburban communities seem to want 100% single family houses, which are only affordable to the middle class. So, here are two perspectives which hit me today at work.
1. There's a suburb of Chicago, the housing of which is 92% single family. In planning for the future of this village, some planners have mentioned that we would like to include some more multifamily housing in this village. Well, at the same time, a public meeting showed that residents wanted the opposite thing: to reduce the 8% of multifamily housing. Reasons cited are fairly typical: the buildings are unsightly, are the source of crime, and lower property values for everyone else. So, there's an impasse between planners and citizen desires. In this situation, planners need to find a way to convince people that it is beneficial to have a more diverse housing stock. It was suggested that we capitalize on another concern of the same residents. "I want my children to want to stay here after they graduate," they say. Well, nobody wants to because it's boring as hell, AND there is no reasonable housing for a young professional. Planners should market affordable housing as a way to get young adults to want to live there because this demographic just doesn't feel like plunking down the cash for a mortgage down payment. It's an important and often overlooked aspect of affordable housing. Plenty of non-sketchy people want reasonably priced apartments.
2. Another program is investigating housing situations in several suburbs of Chicago. Surprisingly, most suburbs aren't even meeting the CURRENT demand for affordable housing. One of the coolest graphs I've seen in a while shows the number of units that are "affordable" (less than 30% of income) to people in each income bracket. If you compare it to the number of households in each income bracket, you find that there are more households making low incomes than there are housing units that are affordable to them (using the 30% rule). These graphs are extremely compelling and should be used to show suburbanites that increasing affordable housing may not be drawing in more poor people, but simply meeting the demand of the existing poor population in the town. It's a basic necessity of the community AS IT IS NOW.
If you ever get into an argument with someone about this, use one of these two arguments!
1. There's a suburb of Chicago, the housing of which is 92% single family. In planning for the future of this village, some planners have mentioned that we would like to include some more multifamily housing in this village. Well, at the same time, a public meeting showed that residents wanted the opposite thing: to reduce the 8% of multifamily housing. Reasons cited are fairly typical: the buildings are unsightly, are the source of crime, and lower property values for everyone else. So, there's an impasse between planners and citizen desires. In this situation, planners need to find a way to convince people that it is beneficial to have a more diverse housing stock. It was suggested that we capitalize on another concern of the same residents. "I want my children to want to stay here after they graduate," they say. Well, nobody wants to because it's boring as hell, AND there is no reasonable housing for a young professional. Planners should market affordable housing as a way to get young adults to want to live there because this demographic just doesn't feel like plunking down the cash for a mortgage down payment. It's an important and often overlooked aspect of affordable housing. Plenty of non-sketchy people want reasonably priced apartments.
2. Another program is investigating housing situations in several suburbs of Chicago. Surprisingly, most suburbs aren't even meeting the CURRENT demand for affordable housing. One of the coolest graphs I've seen in a while shows the number of units that are "affordable" (less than 30% of income) to people in each income bracket. If you compare it to the number of households in each income bracket, you find that there are more households making low incomes than there are housing units that are affordable to them (using the 30% rule). These graphs are extremely compelling and should be used to show suburbanites that increasing affordable housing may not be drawing in more poor people, but simply meeting the demand of the existing poor population in the town. It's a basic necessity of the community AS IT IS NOW.
If you ever get into an argument with someone about this, use one of these two arguments!
Saturday, February 4, 2012
South Side Adventures: Qualitative Investigation
Planners love to make maps, and most people like looking at maps. They're cool as we all know. We also know that there's only so much we can learn from maps. Last weekend, my team did a site visit in Washington Park to get a feel for the neighborhood, and we learned more from that than we could have learned from any map. As an example, check out the map below showing the neighborhood and it's food accessibility.
The two pentagons indicate the grocery stores. The yellow area is within a half-mile of a grocery store and the purple area is a "food desert" not within a half-mile of groceries. According to the map (not to criticize CMAP or my buddy Ian. They did the best with the data they had), most of Washington Park is not a food desert. However the qualitative experience of being in the neighborhood tells a different story. Check out the photo below.
This is a google street view image of the pentagon on 58th street. Clearly, not a quality grocery store.
Our first hand experience gave a similar impression. There was a grocery store right in the middle of the neighborhood which doesn't appear on the map. We went inside to check out the food options. No fresh food. Nothing better than a 7-eleven would have.
The lesson here is that any data is only so deep. It's difficult to analyze the quality of facilities without doing a labor-intensive qualitative investigation. The same issue arises with the WalkScore system. It tells you what amenities are nearby, but has no way of analyzing the quality of those places. So, a walk score of 80 in one place could be dramatically more walkable than another place with a walk score of 80, as a result of higher quality places to walk to. Clearly, Washington Park is not walkable and is a food desert. The problem is that we want to define a "food desert" as a place where people do not have access to QUALITY food options. Well, we can only measure quality, qualitatively, and first hand experience is the only way to effectively do that. This is the point where planning becomes less of a hard science and more of an exercise in getting a feel for people and the way they live their lives, which is where this field becomes a real adventure. I hope that makes all of us excited to be doing what we're doing!
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| Taken from http://www.cmap.illinois.gov/moving-forward-in-detail/-/asset_publisher/Q4En/content/planning-for-green-and-healthy-chicago-neighborhoods?isMovingForward=1 Authored by CMAP and GHN |
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| Source: Google Maps |
Our first hand experience gave a similar impression. There was a grocery store right in the middle of the neighborhood which doesn't appear on the map. We went inside to check out the food options. No fresh food. Nothing better than a 7-eleven would have.
The lesson here is that any data is only so deep. It's difficult to analyze the quality of facilities without doing a labor-intensive qualitative investigation. The same issue arises with the WalkScore system. It tells you what amenities are nearby, but has no way of analyzing the quality of those places. So, a walk score of 80 in one place could be dramatically more walkable than another place with a walk score of 80, as a result of higher quality places to walk to. Clearly, Washington Park is not walkable and is a food desert. The problem is that we want to define a "food desert" as a place where people do not have access to QUALITY food options. Well, we can only measure quality, qualitatively, and first hand experience is the only way to effectively do that. This is the point where planning becomes less of a hard science and more of an exercise in getting a feel for people and the way they live their lives, which is where this field becomes a real adventure. I hope that makes all of us excited to be doing what we're doing!
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Renewal
Hey!
I just wanted to point out that this blog has been inactive for over a year now so I altered the title and description in an attempt to get back at it. From now on, I'll be writing posts periodically, which relate to my new life in Chicago and as an urban planning student here. My experiences are not only drawn from school, but my professional life as I have an internship at a planning agency here. So, I have a lot going on, and it sparks a lot of thoughts in my head that I want to get down on paper (or this modernized version of paper). Hopefully, we can keep this active. Me and you together, that is. I want everyone's input!
-Anthony (Same author from a year ago; brand new life)
I just wanted to point out that this blog has been inactive for over a year now so I altered the title and description in an attempt to get back at it. From now on, I'll be writing posts periodically, which relate to my new life in Chicago and as an urban planning student here. My experiences are not only drawn from school, but my professional life as I have an internship at a planning agency here. So, I have a lot going on, and it sparks a lot of thoughts in my head that I want to get down on paper (or this modernized version of paper). Hopefully, we can keep this active. Me and you together, that is. I want everyone's input!
-Anthony (Same author from a year ago; brand new life)
Friday, November 19, 2010
High Speed Rail Rally
Despite Scott Walker's determination to stop the high speed rail project, many people in Wisconsin still believe we can save it. I'm not sure I agree that we can change Walker's mind, but it would be nice if we could. In any case, it is still worth expressing our opinions on the matter. There will be a rally tomorrow (Saturday) at noon near the Blair St/John Nolen intersection. It's at the parking lot at the corner of Wilson and Hancock. This intersection was the site of an anti-rail rally earlier this year because some believe that the train would cause traffic back-ups at that intersection as it crosses. Of course, what people don't mention is that the overall effect would be positive since freight trains will be able to move much faster through the intersection. People think about the slow trains moving through that intersection now without realizing that all the trains that will go through there after the line upgrades will be moving much faster. So, there would be less overall stopped time due to trains. The point is that this intersection is a point of contention in this political debate. There's a Facebook page explaining the details of the rally. Make sure you click "will attend" and then show up tomorrow because people need to see that the support for the train is not dead. There will be multiple rallies around the state at the same time.
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