"What is Urban Renewal?"  by Michael McAteer
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Definition of Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result each time." Albert Einstein  

"If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you always got."

Urban Renewal  by Michael McAteer

An Urban Renewal program that tries to be all things to all People will end up being nothing to
everyone.

During Urban Renewal, what is in the best interest of the City is sometimes not in the best interest of many People in the City. And what is in the interest of the People is often not in the best interest of the City.

Cities, or their disparate parts at varying rates,  are always in one natural state of evolution or another: decline or renewal. This paper intends to address "Urban Renewal" as a sponsored "program," a special event, with benchmarks intended within a limited timeframe. 

Community organizations and individuals who have no expertise or experience in modern urban design and renewal have no place influencing the renewal agenda from an official capacity any more than a lawyer should be telling a doctor how to do neuro-surgery on a sick patient. The proper place for non-experts and all other stakeholders to be heard and contribute input is through a properly conducted Charette. Urban Renewal and Design is a challenging and daunting endeavor even for the experts. Yet New Urbanism experts ( such as those represented in The Congress for the New Urbanism) are chalking up successful renewal stories across the country. Modern Renewal does not appease or allow a sense of entitlement by amateurs to meddle in the process from appointed political positions.

Community groups with a sophisticated culture of urban economics and design should be invited into the process. A good example of this type of community group is the Design Advocacy Group in Philadelphia.

Urban renewal is not a social welfare program. Social programs are already abundantly in existence for the needy in every City. Urban Renewal programs are special events. Urban Renewal programs co-opted by social activists will fail. Social programs masquerading as Renewal will eventually be exposed for what they are, with negative ramifications to follow, possibly inhibiting consideration of another renewal try any time in the foreseeable future.

The same goes for political and institutional pork barrel projects masquerading as Renewal or Economic Recovery projects. Usually, the make up of the renewal board itself is a strong predictor of it's direction, whether it's makeup is weighted in favor of social community activists, politicians or known political cronies, representatives of major city institutions by proxy, or outside experts with no current or previous political or business ties to the region,  no local constituency to appease, and with no continuing participation after achieving benchmarks.

Even a so-called "balanced board," that is, one that gives a seat to a representative of each of the city's major constituent groups, i.e.. the major ethnic, political, business, religious, housing, social categories etc. may be cause for suspicion. These type of boards are mainly constituted to see that each gets its "share of the pie," proclaiming unity while each pursues their own vision, going in separate directions while protecting their turf. A "balanced" board tends to neutralize, diminish and dilute the effectiveness of good plans in the compromising process of wheeling and dealing between groups. A "balanced board" that provides seats of influence to "entitled" non-experts is bound to fail.

Urban renewal programs are historically almost orgiastic opportunities of cronyism and pork barrel corruption. Citizens, the Law and the Press must apply the highest scrutiny. 

Urban renewal is not a social experiment but a pro-business, free market enabler that attracts new businesses and residents, facilitated by physical redesign. Incentives intended to attract business into a renewal zone that contain local hiring requirements will find limited appeal, since the overwhelming majority of businesses want to be free to hire People based on their qualifications rather than their address. Simply taking the risk of moving into a zone with a questionable future and fraught with risk should be quid pro quo enough.

Urbanist's recognize that individual economic and residential decisions are based on self-interest, and that successful renewal depends on the cumulative effect of thousands of individual decisions.

Cities where community activists have a reputation for strong-arming new businesses will have a difficult time of renewal.

The existing state of the City asks at any given moment, "Why would anyone choose to live or operate a business here when they have the option to choose another locale?" The City may ask the question, but only outside stakeholders can answer it.

Urbanist's need to identify outside stakeholders and get a accurate picture of what it will take for them to move into the City. Renewal planners must constantly adjust their plans to appease stakeholders outside the City as information suggests.

Urban renewal is the removing of blight and creating high density, safe attractive walkable new neighborhoods and shopping districts through policy and design. It is for the immediate benefit of middle and upper class business owners and individuals who will settle and create a sufficient tax base to provide services in the future for all residents. These are shoppers, business owners and residents who do not yet have any presence in the City.

In other words, present City residents and businesses must bite the bullet and make sacrifices for current outsiders to accrue future benefits. Every move in this direction speeds up the renewal process. The immediate target constituency for urban renewal programs lay outside the City, not in it.

Today's residents will receive future benefits through others that cannot come to fruition any other way. Territorial attitudes and a sense of entitlement that attempt to keep outsiders at bay and keep benefits in will generate no benefits and further isolate Inner City poor from mainstream opportunities.

Urban renewal efforts influenced by social service and affordable housing providers will come to resemble a social service program and be a complete turn-off to the region's middle and upper class. Renewal leaders who as politicians had a history of applying short term patches to long term problems, or who have a prior or newly established business relationship with large institutional beneficiaries of renewal funds, will find it hard to build trust with skeptical stakeholders, especially prominent business People with honed analytical skills.

The history, business and political ties of Renewal leaders will play a large role as to informing stakeholders decisions. Without attracting a viable upper class from the region urban renewal is dead.

Often used specious arguments by community activist's such as "we stayed and stood by the City during it's hard times, now we deserve something…" is a thinly disguised parasitic, something for nothing attitude. People do not hesitate to move to a better neighborhood when they can.  Renewal leaders who succumb to this victimology do the City and its good People a disservice while repelling desirable potential inhabitants. While large historical forces have shaped the American ghetto, this is the context in which some must deal with their problems, not an excuse for failure or benefits beyond the social sector. Life can be hard, and harder for some, but Urban Renewal funds are not to be used as welfare funds or for public housing. That is what the local housing and welfare boards, with their separate and historical funding sources are for.

 "Isaac Backus, a prominent Baptist minister in New England, observed that when: "church and state are separate, the effects are happy, and they do not at all interfere with each other: but where they have been confounded together, no tongue nor pen can fully describe the mischief's that have ensued."

No matter how many People attend church or work hard in some cites, it is a lack of architectural cohesion, wasted space in the form of parking lots and vacant lots, vandalism and other property crimes, burglary and thefts, the preponderance of illegal drug markets, violence, blight, rampant anti-social behaviors, tacky shoddy retail shops, gangs, unruly teenagers, school violence,  illegitimacy and lack of a skilled and employable populace that creates the profile of a "worst case" Inner City needing attention.

These problems in turn lead to a lack of economic and social capital. Churches are valuable institutions in their historical role as spiritual guides, facilitators of personal transformation and, in urban areas, the delivery of social services. Serious Urbanist's must ferret out the challenges of a city, divide them between the predictable and fixable (design) and the theoretical (social) and work on them separately, considering the two processes operate on wholly different timelines and practices. Any design challenge can be completed in 1-5 years. Social challenges, whose solutions are purely theoretical with no predictable outcome based on past history, are on a timeline of 20 years ( one generation) to infinity, ( or "never, " since poverty and its associated pathologies have been in existence on this planet since the beginning of mankind, despite the best intentions of policy makers throughout history. ) 
Urbanists should work on what is known and doable within the allotted time, and not engage in risky experimentation that may ruin a window of opportunity, leaving the larger social problems ( those beyond which soundly designed built environments can positively effectuate ) to social theorists. To date, only Urban design and physical development is a proven methodology of urban change within a specified period. 

Desirable outside stakeholders are, almost by definition not in need of church social services. Therefore, churches should be considered in the social and theoretical "People" side of the renewal equation.

The preponderance of urban churches, while successful in their mission of personal transformations and faith, have failed to transform inner cities into anything resembling paradise. Overwhelmed and insufficiently successful (as urban renewal tools) Inner City churches struggle and are ill suited to take on the additional burden of urban renewal and design, and are a poor substitute for successful Urbanist experts with proven track records.

Urbanist's must be careful to avoid "The Seattle Process," that is, the civic inclination to seek so much public input and consider so many sides of an argument that nothing actually gets done. It is not a conceit or elitist for one Urbanist to believe he or she knows better than one thousand residents and other stakeholders attending a Charette. 1,000 people who have never attended medical school or have a medical background could never perform even one successful heart operation. A heart surgeon could successfully perform 1,000 heart operations. A good Urbanist begins an operation with the same singular confidence of a surgeon opening a patients chest. Like a good doctor, a good urbanist persuades a patient as to what is necessary for health, does not let the patient write his own prescriptions, and gains the patients trust and cooperation for the patients own good. 

Church organizations often become a default local government in dysfunctional cities, securing government and philanthropic contracts and fees to provide social services. Rather than being content with the compensation and intrinsic rewards for doing good works, when renewal funds become available, churches often subsume renewal efforts into their mission, demanding a cut of the economic pie, a seat at the political table, and influence to engineer social outcomes through shaky experimental theories.

Too often opportunistic ministers, both storefront and traditional, subordinate their historical role to become real estate developers in the profitable non-profit housing industry. Successful at supplanting market oriented Licensed Planners in master-planning neighborhoods, whole areas are taken off the market and are assigned for low-income housing development and rehabilitation to benefit owners and tenants who cannot afford or don't maintain their properties. This does not correct the underlying problem, the inability of poor residents to maintain their properties, and resets to the beginning the deterioration cycle, which leads inevitably to another tax payer bailout.

Churches also attempt to insert themselves as the moral arbiters of what the City should be, conflicting with equally legitimate visions of other stakeholders. Urbanists should not mediate the competing visions of others, but should know what the course of action is and concentrate on their own vision. Urbanist's must take command of the situation.

Only church organizations that understand the economics and design necessary to attract outsiders into the City should be part of the renewal team. No more than one, if any, church seat on the board should be allowed, which represents the aggregate voice of the City religious institutions, and only those institutions that understand outside stakeholder interests. If "sacrifice" is an essential aspect of faith, People of faith should be prepared to make sacrifices now to reap benefits later. This is a concept familiar to all People of faith and can contribute to renewal success. The board presence and influence of City churches without any renewal expertise beyond low-income housing services should be as limited as their experience. Urban renewal is difficult enough without allowing  faux experts on board.

A healthy adversarial relationship between social activists and Urbanists should be acknowledged. The basis for this differentiation is the recognition that the City also consists of buildings, streets, infrastructure, related public services and utilities such as street and sewer service, architecture, physical neighborhood design cohesion and allure, special districts, location and transportation assets, zoning laws, tax assessment considerations, finance, business attraction strategies, public relations, marketing activities and more that are far and away outside the purview and expertise of social scientists / CDC's subsidized housing activists and theorists.

Combining all this with the immense and varied aspects of social considerations into one program is too much, especially with the obvious conflicts of interest inherent, and would create a creature that is neither fish nor fowl, a creature that could not swim or fly. The best organizational chart would group these varied disciplines into appropriate categories receiving specialized representation into "People" ( Social) and "City" ( Renewal. ) Let the chips fall where they may.

Ubiquitous poverty is repellent to members of the Middle and Upper Class. To find themselves surrounded by poverty and blight is their worst nightmare. Urbanists must avoid including any plans or designs that provide or support poverty programs. This should be left to the social activists. Urbanists should not over-reach and attempt to do more than they are qualified for or have the resources to do, especially when duplicating existing organizations servicing that need.

Urbanists should refrain from incorporating fuzzy social goals or any other programs that rely on rosy predictions that are hard to objectively justify. Whenever possible, Urbanists should present appropriately analogous models to support their position. Unlike Social Theory, which has applied uncountable programs, ideas and billions of dollars to distressed urban cores, the great majority of which have failed, it has been proven that graphic urban design codes serve as predictable guides for change. -1


Intrusive blight and poverty, and its associated social pathologies is the overwhelming reason "Isolated City" renewal efforts fail. "Isolated City" in this context can be defined as a City that has no existing viable and attractive residential, commercial or arts areas to build out from. Isolated Cities are the least likely to have a successful renewal and must pull out all the stops in areas of design and incentives to attract outside stakeholders.

Regional poor move to areas that have a culture of the poor, where they feel less stigmatized and self-conscious, and can find and bond comfortably with others in familiar situations. The abundance of support services for the poor further encourages settlement. This is a natural flow to be expected, since People, like electricity and water, tend toward the path of least resistance. Above all, poor People gravitate to areas where they can afford to live, bringing with them all the psychological and social pathologies of such a tough and sad existence.

Concentrations of poverty also are, to a great degree, the end result of old racist traditions, expressed in public policies and business practices decades earlier. Zoning laws, and the open discriminatory practice of suburban real estate agents refusing to sell to minorities, post WWII through the 1970's, established the present ethnic and socio-economic configuration of urban areas and suburbs.

This history has been resoundingly and officially acknowledged through the Mt. Laurel decisions, which have become the law of the land. However, these laws came too late, in effect closing the barn door after the horses had fled, after racially and economically segregated settlement patterns were put in place and now ossified.

Furthermore, they still contain loopholes for developers and communities with an anti low income housing bias. Exacerbating the situation, poor cities and poverty services took advantage of financial incentives from suburbs looking to offload their Mt. Laurel obligations. These actions, some well meaning, others simply exploiting the poor, served further to entrench poverty in urban areas. Sadly, elected officials and community development organizations in affected areas must shoulder some responsibility for the suffering in their communities.

In light of history and current practices, a solid argument can be made for compensation to certain classes and groups who have inherited the terrible ramifications of this process.

However, Renewal Funds and plans are an inappropriate source. No Urban Renewal effort has ever received enough funding to do as much as is needed, and cannot take on the added burden of compensating for society's misdeeds.

Failed urban renewal cycles are more the rule than the exception, and the heavy and counter-productive hand of poverty servicers has played a major part in their failures. In some cities however, with every cycle they have become more expert in inserting themselves into the mix. With such limited vision partners unschooled in economics as gate-keepers, it is no wonder that the full complexity, serendipity and dynamics of market forces, investors, individual visions, entrepreneurial endeavors and regional participation rarely gets a shot at involvement before the renewal steam runs out.

Social activists truly committed to helping the urban poor should consider helping them relocate out of distressed cities and into settings more conducive to pursuing life, liberty and happiness. Where life is risky, and crime reduces liberty, pursuit of happiness is severely hampered.

It is time to form a moral argument free of bile and acrimony and take it to the outlying regions that owe their lifestyles to regional social problem repositories in urban areas. If troubled cities are to make a "comeback," the outward migration of urban poor must begin, coinciding with an inflow of self-reliant urban pioneers.

Nothing less than a 1960's style movement in scope and argument will do. Considering the historic resistance to minorities and the poor in the suburbs, the argument should be taken to suburban churches first. Presented with a compelling and irrefutable moral argument, these churches must accept it or reveal a moral, ethical and religious hypocrisy. Here, urban community development activists and church organizations have an important role.
In a best case scenario, the suburban churches will spearhead the drive for the end of segregation and integration into their neighborhoods. Suburbanites in communities with strong values should not fear their values will be overpowered by the pathologies of poverty, but instead will be a powerful influence for good to all who are exposed to them.

The "Baby Boomer Generation" protestors who were a loud voice for integration in their youth, should now be challenged on the depth of their convictions and asked to advocate integration where they live or admit their activities were merely a pretentious shallowness; the '60's as a silly, short lived fashion statement.

This movement should not attack but engage suburbanites.

Enacting legislation to effect regional change that has been resisted through a philosophy, fear, immorality or ignorance will continue to be resisted where a philosophical, calming moral and rationale argument has failed. Where such an argument succeeds, no law is necessary.

Any City with a publicly assisted populace of more than 20% must create programs to promote an outflow to the suburbs to have any chance of renewal. Cities can begin by freezing growth of the poverty service industry. Inner City residents who move to stable communities can immediately enjoy the benefits of mainstream American life and its opportunities for building social capital, instead of waiting and taking the risk that renewal benefits, years off into the future, may not materialize at all. Minorities can be assured that modern day discrimination is relatively weak, and is based more on behavior than race.

No City can accomplish operational self-sufficiency with a subsidized population exceeding 20%. Courts and legislative bodies recognize the deleterious and burdensome effects of a low income housing market above 20%, by capping obligations at this point.

The questionable history of subsidized housing's premier programs and experienced practitioners should be enough to scare off Urbanists from getting caught up in it. Here, from The Manhattan Institute:

Market vs. Government Intervention:"Nationwide, nearly 25 percent of block-grant-backed loans wind up in default, according to a recent analysis of dozens of community-lending portfolios. Even worse, a second HUD program—known as Section 108—which allows block-grant communities to raise money for loans by floating HUD-backed notes, has a staggering 59 percent default rate. Although government programs are expected to make riskier bets than private banks (whose loan-default rates are typically in the low single digits), the stratospheric failure rate of HUD loans amounts to a squandering of millions of taxpayer dollars, since taxpayers are on the hook for these loan guarantees. ( State backed programs fare no better.) "

It is a rare suburb that has a subsidized housing population approaching anywhere near 20%.
The higher a City's low income housing stock, the less the area appeals to potential newcomers who do not depend on public assistance. The housing and architectural profiles of a City is high on the list of items to be considered for those relocating from suburban regions. The higher the percentage of residents on public assistance, the lower the appeal as a place to reside or do business.

Helping as many poor to move out of the City and into better neighborhoods is an important social mission that should endure through all times. It is a mission separate from Urban Renewal and should not be commingled.

Low income housing development beyond 20% should never be accommodated in Renewal Plans unless the existing aggregate total of subsidized housing in the city is below 20%. If the subsidized housing population is already beyond 20%, there is no reason to consider it at all, and dangerous to do so. Any funds to support subsidized housing should come from its historic sources, and should not be allowed to siphon renewal resources. Any renewal program that attempts to improve the existing low income stock and maintain the status quo, or worse, increase the amount of low income housing is in a self-defeating process akin to rearranging and painting the deck chairs on the Titanic. Subsidized housing issues and Urban Renewal are in natural opposition to each other in a process whose success ultimately depends on the actions of the Free Market. Subsidized housing efforts have a place in every City, and especially suburbs below the 20% threshold. They are the purview of the local housing authority and not the renewal board.

Businesses and new residents will not be attracted into the worst cities unless their physical, and psychological security can be assured. Unless someone can stand in any part of a redeveloped zone, turn 360 degrees and not see or feel threatened by blight in any direction, their psychological comfort cannot be assured.

The first and most important phase of renewal in Isolated Cities is the design challenge of the built environment.

Downtowns should eliminate parking lots wherever and whenever possible. Open spaces downtown erode architectural cohesion and the essential "walkability" of successful, vibrant downtowns. People do not want to walk past empty open space. Urban designers should think of parking in vertical not horizontal terms, and create efficient intermodal transportations to decrease the number of cars entering downtown. Parking lots are prime infill development sites, since their transformation does not require the dislocation of residents or businesses and demolition. Before disruptive and costly Eminent Domain over businesses or residents is enacted, parking lots, which are rarely in use more than 20% of the time, should be drafted into the revitalization process and converted.

In the worst cities nothing less  than "Hardened Blocks" and defensively designed New Urbanist business districts will work to provide a sufficient level of comfort. However, communities and business districts with controlled access for security are considered so revoltingly ant-ethical to poverty service and social engineering leaders in some areas that they would rather see their City fail without them than succeed with them, regardless of the fate failure consigns to residents.

Gated communities, though frowned upon by many, ( including the Congress of New Urbanism) are not only the norm in some areas, but also the most desirable places to live. Malibu Colony and Bel Air in the Los Angeles area have been gated since the 1920's and are the most exclusive and expensive residential neighborhoods in the nation, supplying an inordinate amount of property taxes to the local government. Even inside many undesirable and dangerous neighborhoods in Los Angeles, historically gated communities have held their value and remained secure places to live while surrounding un-gated communities on all sides have gone down to blight and ruin. Crime is virtually non-existent in these gated communities. ( Lofts and tall luxury condominiums are simply vertical gated communities.)

In Isolated Cities where the crime rate is high or perceived to be high, Hardened Blocks or gated communities are a necessity. Defensively designed communities can be established for existing neighborhoods as well as new. Defensive design works best for neighborhoods with distinct borders. A neighborhood association should be formed to decide borders and poll residents to gauge the desire for a manageable, livable zone. If a majority approves, the plan should be presented to the local Planning commission and funds sought.

The borders decided upon should constitute an area spacious enough that no one feels penned in or conscious of the borders. The borders should be pleasing to the eye from either side. Defining a neighborhoods borders creates common cause, a sense of shared experience and community, stimulates civic activities, participation and civic pride.

Modern defensible neighborhood design can be implemented with beautiful landscape or architecture  in ways that link to surrounding areas as the extended hand of a friend. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the Seven Wonders of The World decorated that city's defensible border. Crime can be managed to extinction, giving residents the quality of life they deserve. As crime plummets in defensively designed areas, real estate values quickly rise.

An indicator of how much control the poverty industries have over a City's political and civic life is to walk down its main street. If the number of housing and social organization offices fronting the street are larger than any other business category, chances are the poverty industry is the prevailing influence and will dominate the philosophical outlook of the renewal agenda. This is a red flag to any prospects visiting the City.

The poverty industry is by nature adverse to the middle class values of free enterprise and self-reliance. Social service agendas require constant subsidies and a persistently dependent constituency to survive. Poverty service businesses are no more welcoming of competing ideologies into their bailiwick as middle class values proponents are into theirs. Poverty servicers are in business, and like all businesses, strive to maintain their customer base and stay in business. As malls attract shoppers, the presence of poverty service providers attracts the impoverished, concentrating poverty in those areas.  Equity in society demands a fair share of the distribution of opportunities and challenges. 

Good policy and design equitably forces the distribution of challenges throughout the region by virtue of it's being, without consciously taking this distribution into its conception and implementation.  Displacements may or may not be a bad thing.  Urbanists should plan, design and develop with confidence that their activities will facilitate positive civic outcomes while adding value, proceed as aesthete mechanics and engineers, avoid becoming sociologists or thinking for others.  

Local officials who persist in assisting social service and housing agencies in locating in or near scarce prime real estate, even in the midst of a renewal effort, reveal their desire to maintain ties as they are with their traditional constituencies at the disregard and expense of constituents outside the City. This in turn may reveal that local officials see the current renewal effort as just another cycle which will end, and are planning their moves to be well positioned when the cycle is over. Faux renewal cycles are often pork barrel opportunities utilized to benefit powerful politically connected institutions and their associates, many of whom may hold official renewal positions, thereby reinforcing the power broker and constituent status quo.

Businesses do not prefer to locate amidst signs of poverty, but prefer to be associated with areas projecting success. If at the start of a renewal effort it is recognized that social welfare institutions are already too salted throughout an area, and relocation would be turbulent, the locus of renewal may have to be shifted. Constructing a new main street may be the only alternative.

Impatient renewal officials who try to predict how the local economy will evolve as a result of their plans, and feel the need to entice and support certain businesses based on their assumptions are a poor substitute for actual free market selectivity.

For example, granting an incentive to establish a specific brand supermarket that is successful in the suburbs could backfire if it turns out the aggregate taste of newcomers is for a organic specialty supermarket like Whole Foods, easily accessible in a nearby town. It is impossible to predict precisely which types and brands of businesses a population will require. Urbanists in Isolated Cities should concentrate on establishing a residential population. The commercial situation will resolve itself as quickly as need be.

If renewal officials could predict market activity, they would be the gurus of Wall St. and be in a different business altogether. Establishment of a large number of residents in a concentrated area will create appropriate economic activity spontaneously.
Urban Pioneers, the only people who will move into an Isolated City are a far different breed than Suburbanites, and have far different tastes.

Urban Pioneers consist of married and single professionals without children looking to reside in easy proximity to work, Empty Nesters who are scaling down and conserving resources, artists seeking cheap creative space, Gays looking to build community, individuals and entrepreneurs looking for real estate with high value growth potential. All must have easy access to regional cultural activities, restaurants and entertainment.

Couples and single parents with children often become urban pioneers in renewal zones where they feel safe, real estate values and transformation are accelerating and blight is quickly vanishing, and successful neighborhood renewal is on a track compatible with their personal desires and has reached an irreversible momentum. This usually occurs in zones adjacent to an existing healthy neighborhood.

In decisions of City vs. People, serious Urbanists will always serve as the appointed City advocate with complete fidelity. People representation falls to elected officials, social service advocates, community activists and their hired attorneys. As can be seen in this unbalanced equation, the forces against renewal can be mighty. In the face of such an array, the City needs to have at least one consistent body of representation that does not make compromises on its health. Just as a corporation is an artificial person with rights that protect its integral existence, so the City must receive such singular respect and protection.

Again, what is good for a City may not be good for many of the People in it, and what is good for People may be bad for the City. Great Urbanist's hold true to their principles and positions, and may be over-ruled but do not compromise convictions or beliefs.

-1(-CNU Charter.)

Camden Land and Dream
Michael McAteer                     Contact Michael McAteer