more on the suburban shift

To pick up where my previous post left off, there's a spate of new scholarship about the re-emergence of city centers. (Not to gloat, but we've been pointing this out for years.)

At our last Business Over Breakfast meeting, we were fortunate to have Brookings Institute fellow Christopher Leinberber talk about the renewed interest in downtowns and how he thinks it will play out.

The gist of his presentation is expanded in his new book, The Option of Urbanism, and it follows a storyline that will be familiar to frequent readers of this blog - that, for any number of reasons, more and more people are opting for new urbanist lifestyles in walkable urban communities.

Leinberger doesn't herald the end of suburban living, but he clearly feels that new generations are being both pulled to downtown living, and pushed away from suburbia's car dependant isolation and energy inefficiency. And he strongly encourages an end to land use patterns and development incentives that led to the creation of the suburbs at the expense of urban centers in the first place.

The book is cited by Alan Ehrenhalt in a fascinating article in The New Republic (Trading Places, The Demographic Inversion of the American City, published on August 13, 2008) in which he goes beyond merely documenting renewed interest in downtown living to show that affluence is moving into cities from the suburbs and vice versa.

He cites examples in a range of places - Atlanta, Chicago, Charlotte, Vancouver, Washington, DC - where a "demographic inversion" may eventually cause these places to resemble the great capitals of Europe, having wealth concentrated in the hearts of cities and poverty dispersed to the hinterland.

According to Ehrenhalt, several trends back his assertion up:

-De-industrialization has removed the grime, pollution, and noise that characterized cities in the early- and mid-20th century.

-Most people recognize that urban crime is not random, and that younger generations do not grow up with the fear of street muggings that their parents and grandparents may have had.

-That the cultural icons of Gen Y are urban. "This is the generation that grew up watching Seinfeld, Friends, and Sex and the City..." not Leave it to Beaver.

-Finally, that fuel costs are more related to dwindling worldwide supply in the face of heightened demand and, therefore, more likely to have long-term implications on personal behavior than did the OPEC-induced fuel crises in the 1970s. In other words, people will drive less and live in communities where they can walk more.

While these trends are positives for cities, he writes that, "demographic inversion cannot be a one-way street. If some people are coming inside, some people have to be going out." Race is an issue, he writes, but economic status may have more to do with who lives where.

In Baltimore, Downtown's residential growth (within a one-mile radius of Pratt & Light Streets) has displaced underused commercial and manufacturing spaces not people, for the most part. (No one was living in Harbor East or City Center until a few years ago.) And we were one of the first major cities to replace our high rise public housing, what Ehrenhalt refers to as "Vertical Corbusian ghettoes" with mixed-income, mixed ownership townhouse communities.

And Baltimore is ahead of the curve when it comes to inclusionary zoning. Residential developments that receive taxpayer funds are under new mandates to provide affordable units, for example.

It's not easy to respect the force of the market on the one hand, while creating new opportunities for economic and racial diversity on the other. But it's a process that's worth getting right and Baltimore is working in that direction.

Downtowns are, and should be, melting pots where people of different backgrounds come together to exchange in commerce, ideas, and the arts. Ehrenhalt thinks this will happen. That people's craving for "community" will bring them together and that even the priciest enclaves will want to be a part of the street scene, not gated from it.

-Mike Evitts

slowing suburban migration

An interesting article in The Washington Post looks at the linkage between gas and the American Dream, basically explaining how the relatively low cost of fuel and the rise of the automobile helped drive people out of cities into suburban clusters for the past several decades - a trend that may be shifting now that gas prices have risen so dramatically.

Post reporter Eric Weiss writes:

Since the end of World War II, government policy has funded and encouraged the suburban lifestyle, subsidizing highways while starving mass transit and keeping gas taxes much lower than in some other countries.

Americans couldn't wait to trade in the cramped city apartments of the Kramdens and Ricardos for the lush lawns of the Bradys. Local land-use policies kept housing densities low, pushing development to the periphery of metropolitan regions and forcing families who wanted their dream house to accept long commutes and a lack of any real transportation choices other than getting behind the wheel...

...Federal spending is about 4 to 1 in favor of highways over transit. Today, more than 99 percent of the trips taken by U.S. residents are in cars or some other non-transit vehicle, largely as a result of decades of such unbalanced spending.

The policies -- building so many highways and building so many houses near those highways -- have had a direct bearing on how and where people live and work. More Americans, 52 percent, live in the suburbs than anywhere else. The suburban growth rate exceeded 90 percent in the past decade.

But there's been a radical shift in recent months. Americans drove 9.6 billion fewer highway miles in May than a year earlier. In the Washington area and elsewhere, mass transit ridership is setting records. Last year, transit trips nationwide topped 10.3 billion, a 50-year high.

Home prices in the far suburbs, such as Prince William and Loudoun counties, have collapsed; those in the District and inner suburbs have stayed the same or increased. A recent survey of real estate agents by Coldwell Banker found an increased interest in urban living because of the high cost of commuting.

Brookings says transportation costs are now second only to housing as a percentage of the household budget, with food a distant third.

The people are leading the revolution, but land-use experts wonder whether a government policy so etched into the American fabric will follow.

Here's a link to the article.

-Mike Evitts

Restaurant Week in B-more

I have celebrated my birthday a grand total of 7 times now, and it isn’t because I am popular or that I have hit some huge milestone, it is simply due to the fact that everyone has crazy schedules in the summer. It is absolutely impossible to get a group together without loosing someone. So you can imagine my surprise when I made reservations for 15 at the Black Olive to celebrate restaurant week and almost everyone posted.

Our large group made us the perfect candidate for the back private room. The dim lighting was a tad romantic for this crowd, but the set-up of the room allowed for us all to chat with each other sans shouting. The portions were perfect and the rockfish was exceptional.

The meal gave us a chance to talk about work woes, long holidays, and most importantly weekends in Dewey. Witty banter, gluttony, and friendship—all for the low, low price of $30.08. God I love restaurant week.

-Faith

For more info visit www.baltimorerestaurantweek.com.

downtown rental market

the zenith - one of downtown's newest appartment buildings (photo by mitro hood)

The national housing slowdown hasn't hurt residential growth here in Downtown. We gained roughly 1,000 new residents last year, and we predict that number will grow this year.

Demand for apartments, in particular, is very strong. Many buildings are currently 100% leased, and new properties just hitting the market are leasing fast.

According to an article by Aaron Cahall in today's Baltimore Examiner, last month 148 rentals listed through a multiple listing service were leased - up 180% over June of 2007.

This makes sense. Typically, rentals increase when it's tough going in the "for sale" market. Like squeezing a balloon, if things tighten on one end, they'll expand on the other.

We anticipate demand to continue to be strong and are keeping our eye on the supply of apartments. With existing buildings close to full occupancy there should to be new properties hitting the market. But, as we document in our 2007 / 2008 State of Downtown Report, there isn't a lot of new housing construction in the pipeline right now.

-Mike Evitts

cities and food

photo of Red Maple taken by Mitro Hood

Good restaurants define great cities.

Think about it... A thriving food scene implies taste and sophistication, it underscores the creativity and entrepreneurialism of a community, and it provides places for people and ideas to come together, mingle, and regenerate.

Once known mostly for crabcakes, Baltimore's culinary traditions have been elevated dramatically in the past few years. The Charleston Group alone now has four of the top-rated establishments in the region. And they're keeping some good company.

Innovative restaurants and cafes are springing up all over, catering to all kinds of tastes and price points. So are farmers markets and organic co-ops, that bring the farm right to our tables.

We know from our market research that dining is, by far, the #1 reason people come to Baltimore from the surrounding counties. And it's one of the top things out of town visitors want to do when they're here.

People who haven't been Downtown in a generation are following their stomachs back to town. And, when they do, they're getting a taste of more than just great food. They're experiencing all the positive things that are happening in the city, first hand.

A college buddy of mine came back to town for a visit recently. He's lived in Manhattan, DC, and Boston, and he travels the world for work. But he was blown away by the way Baltimore has grown and become more energized and sophisticated.

Harbor East, where we dined, didn't even exist when he left for grad school.

This sort of thing is why we created the Chefs & Wine experience, and it's why we teamed up with the Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association (BACVA) to start Baltimore Restaurant Week three years ago. Both events are a way to engage food lovers and encourage them to explore new restaurants and experience this rapidly-evolving city.

Restaurant Week is also a good way to support Baltimore restaurants during what's normally a slow time of year for them.

As the years have passed, the buzz has grown. This year, there are more than 100 restaurants participating in Summer Restaurant Week, and we've expanded the number of weekend days included in the promotion. And we started the first-ever Winter Restaurant Week this past January.

I hope everyone takes advantage of the promotion (you're only cheating yourself if you don't).

-Mike Evitts

what lurks beneath

traffic has calmed at Charles Street & Saratoga, although crews are still working to repair conduit damaged by Monday's underground fire

The Sun's Doug Donovan and Jessica Anderson had an interesting article today about the tangled web of public and private utilities underneath our streets.

Most of us are vaguely aware of power and sewer lines running below ground but have little idea just how complicated it all is. Donovan & Anderson write:

"Strung beneath the streets of Baltimore are 10 million linear feet of utility lines carrying electricity, cable, telephone, street light and fiber-optic service, city officials said. . . The lines are threaded through 3.7 million feet of conduits and accessible by 14,000 manholes, [Department of Transportation spokesperson David] Brown said.

"The department's conduit division manages the critical system with a $7.5 million budget, including about $3 million for improvements, $2.5 million for construction and maintenance and $475,000 for inspection and testing, budget documents show.Many private contractors, utility operations and telecommunication companies lease space in the conduit system from the city. The biggest tenants include BGE, Verizon and Comcast. Their lines are typically encased in cables that are strung through concrete holes that open into 6-by-12-foot access areas beneath manhole covers."

The Partnership's Streetscape initiative has brought us close to this complexity more than once. That program has invested more than $29 million over the past eight years to improve 88 block faces.

An important part of the program isn't just prettying things up at street level, with repaving, new sidewalks, better lighting, and landscaping. It's also about updating conduit and utilities that, as we've seen with Charles Street, can cause major problems when they fail.

The challenge to planning conduit improvements, or to fixing situations like the one on Charles Street, is that nobody really knows for sure what's going on down there. Maps and plans tend to be outdated or unreliable. Contractors for all the different entities with sub-grade utilities can sometimes move things around. Even with the use of ultrasonic equipment to try to map conduit, you may be surprised by what you find once you open up the street for improvements.

Which is why it can be difficult (and take longer than anyone expects) for necessary repairs to happen.

-Mike Evitts

absorption

Source: Greater Baltimore Board of Realtors

Going into 2008 the economic prognosticators were guarded about how the national economy would affect Downtown's.

We interviewed 68 regional business leaders for our recent State of Downtown Report, and nearly all of them felt that things wouldn't be great, economically-speaking, but that Downtown's strengths would keep it from struggling the way it did during the downturn in the early 1990s.

It's looking like they were right. A growing number of mid-year reports shows that Baltimore is doing well within the region, in spite of all the bad news about the national economy.

An office market analysis by Colliers Pinkard shows that, in Downtown and Howard County, absorption of new office space exceeded the pace of delivery.

And data compiled by the Greater Baltimore Board of Realtors shows Baltimore City home prices haven't fallen the way they have in the surrounding counties (see chart above).

There's still a lot of uncertainty out there. But there's no denying that the city's economy is light years ahead of where it was even a decade ago.

-Mike Evitts