One of my intellectual soul mates in NextGen is attorney Ian Rasmussen, who had my favorite presentation of the entire weekend. He called it "No New Streets" and, while I'm going to try and get him to put together a blog piece on it, I have to share the key insight. To paraphrase:

We need to start getting used to a world where there will be no new streets. What you see on Google Maps today is what is going to be there fifty years from now, if not fewer as many streets will be abandoned. The fact that we don't have the money to even maintain a fraction of what we have already built is a powerful constraint that we don't fully appreciate.

Our mental disconnect was fully evident in Florida, a state devastated by the housing crisis yet seemingly filled with the belief that a world with new subdivisions and strip malls is just around the corner. When a property here in Minnesota is going through foreclosure, the snow in the driveway does not get plowed and the lawn does not get mowed; subtle hints of decline. In Florida, the structures apparently get boarded up with chipboard placed over the windows and doors (due to hurricanes, I assume) giving large swaths of formerly successful areas a bombed out look that is eye-catching for all the wrong reasons.

That does not stop their engineers and traffic planners from building yet more. When touring a wholly redundant, $200 million bridge project funded largely by Federal transfer payments (something that won't be there when this expensive, redundant bridge needs to be maintained), I was told this amazing fact: The Florida DOT is required, by statute, to design for a 2% annual increase in traffic on all state highways. Even where there is a documented decline in traffic, they must overengineer for enormous growth. This is a system hard wired to fail.

I spent some time with my parents who are staying outside of Orlando in STROAD hell. To demonstrate how inefficient the STROAD approach is, when I left to drive to the airport my GPS told me is was 20 miles yet the trip would take 35 minutes. Sure, the speed is posted at 55 mph and you can fly by all the boarded up strips mall and condo units, gas stations and fast food joints pretty fast on the six-lane STROAD, but you have a stop light every half mile. I sat there at many so early in the morning, the lone car among the desolation, waiting for the light to turn green.

The answer, of course, is simple. There will be no new streets. We must develop strategies to do much more with ones we have. That is a Strong Towns approach, and it won't involve more traffic but a fundamental reevaluation of how we build value within our places. And it is going to involve an enormous financial reckoning as we come to grips with the fact that the illusion of wealth inherent with the suburban Experiment is just that: an illusion.

If you can get your mind around the notion put forward by Ian -- that there will be no new streets -- you can start to come to grips with the enormity of the change that is upon us. 

There are so many people I need to thank for making the trip to Florida possible. For starters, Kev Freeman and Edward Erfurt of Martin County for bringing me to Stuart for a Curbside Chat, Karja Hanson for lining up a Chat in Little Havana, and Eliza Harris for getting me connected in Orlando where we had another great event. I am fortunate to have such generous and amazing friends.

Also, the Curbside Chat presentation in Martin County was recorded and will soon be ready to watch online, on-demand. That is going to be exciting -- I'll keep you posted.

More soon. Thanks for your understanding.

The retreat begins with a series of presentations -- everyone gets a chance to give on Pecha Kucha style -- and those are being broadcast on WebEx. I was a late arriver today (thanks to a great speaking engagement last night in Martin County, Florida) and so I don't have the web address yet. I'm going to hunt that down and post it here shortly so that anyone can watch the live stream.

Update: The web address for the Pecha Kucha presentations is dpz.webex.com. There are also being video taped and I'm assuming will be upload at some point. Lots of good stuff so far. My favorite is Scott Ford's list of essential reading....a number of titles I have not read and will need to order ASAP.

You can follow the day on Twitter at #NextUrb

Check back for more later.

About a decade ago, Saturday Night Live did a skit that epitomized the spirit of the late 1990s. In a mock 2000 Presidential debate, Al Gore (played by Darrell Hammond) responds to each question in an exquisitely monotone voice saying “lockbox”. Upon each utterance, laughter and applause erupted. Soon enough, the word ‘lockbox’ ceased being an idea worthy of consideration and became something synonymous absurdity.

The SNL skit is unquestionably funny, but our cultural write-off of the ‘lockbox’ is not. For those younger than myself and unfamiliar with this ‘lockbox’ concept, let me explain. In 2000, then Vice-President Al Gore proposed this bizarre idea: the government should save money.

The ‘lockbox’ concept didn’t vibe in the era of tech market booms and the inflated housing fiasco. The idea that when the government runs a surplus, it should save money for future obligations just didn’t seem all that important.

Now, fast-forward twelve years to a much different existence and add a Strong Towns flare. It’s not just that we’ve invested in an inefficient infrastructure system with a low return on investment - it’s also how we’ve decided to acquire the money we’ve spent on this is inefficient infrastructure system.

The United States funds infrastructure largely through debt. This means that a $10 million road is not a $10 million road as associated costs are incurred through interest and other debt service payments. Chuck put it best: “Our current approach to infrastructure spending is impoverishing us as a country.”

The rudimentary idea of saving money for a rainy day (or creating a ‘lockbox’) has completely eluded us at the local level. We’ve ignored the simple principles of finance that parents attempt to instill in their growing children: save money and steer clear of the pitfalls of debt.

So, a local government wants to pursue a straightforward road project. Today, they can do it through a handful of ways. Most all of them require some form of debt. Depending on the road and its jurisdiction, cities can apply for Federal or State aid grants through various agencies, levy nearby property owners and developers, or raise the money locally through the issuing of bonds.

Even in the most localized and conservative of these situations, one where adjacent property owners or developers are charged for the “improvements,” doesn’t typically cover the full costs of the design, construction and maintenance. The rest is financed through debt from either the local, state or federal level, or some combination of the three (This is well-documented in the Strong Towns Curbside Chat Companion Booklet).

If communities want to be resilient, they’ll need to start making plans to transition away from traditional infrastructure financing mechanisms. Why? Because it rolls downhill: the Federal government cuts their budget by bleeding the States. The States pass those cuts down to the local level. This happened in Minnesota; local government aid was slashed and community balance sheets instantly became lopsided.

If, and when, the Federal or state government turns off the faucet, how will local governments pay for infrastructure? Under the current system, local governments won’t be able to. They have their hands tied.

In Minnesota, local governments can’t legally raise sales tax for an ambiguous future infrastructure projects or even put away money into a ‘lockbox’ savings account for long-term maintenance obligations. And, even if they could - it would need to be approved by the State legislature. As if to say, that a House of Representatives member from Fergus Falls should have any say whatsoever in the Mankato City Council’s decision, and subsequent approved community-wide referendum, to (for example) approve a .15 percent sales tax increase on alcohol (or gas, clothes, etc.) to support a small-scale local infrastructure project.

We can’t maintain the local infrastructure we have today under our current framework. If we want anything to change, we have to allow communities to get creative. As alarming (or funny) as it might sound, we need to allow cities and towns to have a ‘lockbox’. There are other options out there, but the most plain, simple, and uncomplicated way we can start doing this is through savings. Yes, that bizarre idea of setting money aside for the benefit of future generations.

This time around, instead of ‘lockbox’ – how about we go with something less Al Gore-esque? May I suggest local infrastructure bank?

If you value our work, please consider making a tax-deductible donation to support this blog and our other efforts to build a stronger, more resilient America. A small, recurring donation by you will help us in so many ways. Thank you for your support.

As a finale to the series we've been running that began with a simple comparison of the tax base from two nearby blocks -- one developed in the traditional pattern and one in the suburban -- I am going to share what I would advise a city's mayor to say in response. This is written as an address from the mayor to the staff.

Team,

I don't need to tell you that we are going through difficult times. You've all had your budgets cut in each of the last four years. Many of the things we used to do as a city, we are no longer able to. The trajectory we are on gives us little confidence that things will be different anytime soon. If we're going to tell ourselves that it's halftime in America, then we need to have the courage to make some dramatic, mid-game course corrections.

I've read the report from Strong Towns that showed how the 26-year tax increment subsidy we gave to relocate Taco John's resulted in a tax base, even before we deduct the subsidy payments, that is 41% less than the old run down block up the street. It surprised me, as I'm sure it surprised you, and caused me to do a lot of soul searching. And, quite frankly, it made me angry.

I'm sick of being told that our failure is some type of statistical anomaly. That decline in our core neighborhoods is normal. That we are destined to be a second tier city that fortune somehow passed by.

The thing I'm upset about is not how the report exposed our incorrect assumptions about growth and prosperity -- I'm actually grateful for that. The thing I'm upset about is what we've been doing to our own town, our own residents, our own families for these many years. We've done this to ourselves.

It ends today.

As of this moment, we're all going to be working with the same core goals with respect to the NE Brainerd neighborhood. In the next ten years, we are collectively going to work to accomplish the following hard, measurable goals:

1. Double the tax base of NE Brainerd (8% per year average increase).
2. Increase the total number of jobs in NE Brainerd by 150% (10.5% per year average increase).
3. Increase the population of NE Brainerd by 50% (4.5% per year average increase).
4. Hold budget increases for the city to less than 3% annually, an increase of just 30% over the next decade.

This is our only path to solvency. We need to grow our tax base, population and total jobs using the resources we have while not adding to our long-term liabilities. This is the opposite of what we've been doing. In real terms, our tax base has been in decline. We've lost population and jobs to the surrounding communities. In the name of growth, we've taken on a stunning amount of long-term obligations for infrastructure maintenance; liabilities we have no hope of meeting.

It ends today, and here is how we're going to do it.

Last week I contacted Mn/DOT and our representatives at the Minnesota Legislature to demand changes to the highway the runs through this neighborhood. It is the most destructive infrastructure we have for our overall tax base. I've laid out a proposal that would have our city be a laboratory for an experiment in shared space design. I've also formally offered to guarantee control of access rights and elimination of access points on the periphery of town -- something we've long fought against in the pursuit of strip highway development -- so highway speeds can be increased outside of town in compensation for slower speeds within. I'm optimistic this dialog will bear fruit as Mn/DOT is more desperate to reduce their long-term obligations than even we are.

As for our staff, here is what I expect of each of you.

City Engineer

I know this is going to be tough because you have the greatest course correction of them all. Listen closely. I'm not joking on any of this.

Tomorrow morning you are going to get all the paint you need and you are going to stripe every street in NE Brainerd. These streets are bizarrely wide; completely out of proportion for a neighborhood such as this. I want to see on-street parking areas defined, narrow (10 feet or less) driving lanes identified and the remainder of the space dedicated to bike lanes.

Yes, bike lanes. I want them everywhere and I want no ambiguity over what they are. I realize people are going to look at you funny as I'm sure very few residents in this area even own bikes anymore. Nonetheless, this is going to cost very little and it needs to be done. It is neighborhood triage. The first step of creating value is providing people with options. Today they have one. Tomorrow they will have one more.

Stripe these streets. They are too wide and communicate car domination. Paint is cheap. Striping for bike lanes will add immediate value where little exists today.Next, I want to see a list of all the projects we have planned for this neighborhood for the next ten years. In each and every one, we are going to do three things. First, we're going to reduce costs dramatically by narrowing the pavement width. Our streets will be better looking and cheaper too. Second, we're going to redirect the savings into building quality sidewalks. Remember what I said about creating value by giving people options? Now they will have three (four after I get to the transit coordinator).

This isn't saving us money. It is wasting the hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in sidewalks elsewhere which are now cut off. This is how you kill a neighborhood. It needs to end.

And just so I'm clear about creating value through choice; if we're going to meet our goals, we need to work within a private market that is just as financially strapped as we are. Perhaps even more so. The more alternatives we give people -- for biking, walking or taking transit to get to where they need to go -- the more competitive we will be. If a family can move to NE Brainerd and only have to own one car, they save $8,000 each year by not having to have that second car. For $8,000 per year, they can spend $118,000 more on a house (which is more than most houses in NE Brainerd are worth). That's where we are going to get the private sector investments to turn this neighborhood around.

The third thing we are going to do with each project is to install urban vegetation. Not the quasi-nature stuff you're apparently fond of and not a bunch of weeds in a stormwater pond. We need vegetation that will be stately. We're building an urban neighborhood which is distinctly different from the suburban neighborhoods on the edge of town. It is subtle, but we need to get this right.

And as a final note, just so we're clear: your primary objective is no longer about moving cars. In fact, if we had to list your departmental priorities, that would be just about the last one on the list. Your top priority -- with no close second -- is to create value throughout the existing neighborhoods of this city. Not new neighborhoods on the edge of town. Not new growth out along the highway. Not to help people get to the WalMart in the next city more quickly. Throw away that hierarchical road system map that you have -- it represents an antiquated, 1950's mentality.

We're not about moving cars anymore; we're about building a strong town. 

Planner

Your task is going to involve an equally dramatic shift in priorities and approach. I hope you are up to the challenge because right now, not only is the Planning and Zoning Department not creating value for this city, you are simply a bureaucratic obstacle to be overcome by anyone wanting to do something positive. I don't want to lose you -- I want you to be part of the team -- but the approach needs to change 180 degrees.

Let's start with a mental exercise. I want you to envision what a healthy, successful NE Brainerd would look like. What would be there? I know this is difficult because you and your predecessors have been focused on battling the symptoms of decline: a high percentage of rentals, poorly maintained properties, petty violations for trash and lawn maintenance, building code violations. What would success look like?

Let me help. Success would be a mix of housing options. There would be some rental, some owner-occupied. There would be a mix of types too. Some single-family and some multi-family. I'd also expect that a successful neighborhood would have both high earners and families on the low end of the wage spectrum. One should also expect to see a smattering of neighborhood commercial uses. All of these components would be intermingled and and designed to be completely compatible with each other.

Look at what our city code says. It calls for predominantly one use: single family. We have other "pods" of uses -- essentially arbitrary lines where we separate different types of housing from each other -- where multi family is allowed. These are next to our commercial areas because, ostensibly, poor people live in multi-family and they won't object as loudly to the terrible looking way we do commercial development.

Take a look at what our use-based code has gotten us in this neighborhood.

A lot of low value uses, like garages. Notice how this one is adjacent to the alley yet the cars access from the street, making this space not only look run down by design but also degrading the street, parking and pedestrian spaces.

Use-based zoning doesn't care how the property interacts with the public realm. As a result, you get garages and cars framing the public space, even when an alley is readily available.We also have apartments being built. This is considered positive new growth, although it adds to the hostile feel of this "neighborhood". Many more of this type of building and we might as well just gate each property, put up watch towers and call in the national guard. This is a very anti-neighborhood design.

The use-based code only worries about how the building is being used -- apartment -- and whether it meets the setback, coverage and parking requirements. There is no concern about how this design detracts from the public realm and lowers the value all the neighboring properties.

Our current code also creates artificial buffers around properties, leaving unnecessary gaps throughout the neighborhood. I realize that many people believe we are "built out", but that is a ludicrous notion. We copied an ordinance from somewhere else, but we never stopped to measure our own neighborhoods and determine how it would mess them up. For us to reach our goals, the free market needs to be set loose to fill in gaps like these with productive structures.

When suburban development codes are applied to urban areas it creates artificial buffering -- gaps -- in the urban framework. Not only does this artificially limit what property owners can do productively with their property, but in doing so it severely limits the tax base along with other measures that would improve the productivity of the place (like an additional utility connection on the same pipe).

Then we have the way that commercial properties interact with the neighborhood. We've designed them to be all on the edge and to be accessed only by automobile. Since the defining feature our ordinance demands is parking, we get buildings that have huge parking lots and, thus, face the parking. Here is what our residents get to look at from their homes. Not exactly creating much value for them.

Can we expect our neighborhoods to thrive when we allow them to be treated like this? Why do we allow these commercial properties to not only not provide any access to the people living right across the street (they must drive like everyone else), but we allow them to point their unadorned rear, complete with dumpsters, right at them. To create a neighborhood with value, we need to show it respect.

In fact, we routinely sacrifice the quality of life for our residents, along with their property values, on the alter of new growth. That is a tradeoff that has not served us well and one I am no longer willing to make. Any new development needs to add to the overall value of what is existing, not detract from it.

Today I am going to propose an ordinance that will repeal our entire zoning code. Six months from today, it will cease to govern this city. I would rather have no code than the one we have now, but I do believe that a mixed-use, form-based code with a streamlined approval process would have great benefit for this neighborhood. You have six months to have it in place.

Here are the parameters I expect from a new code.

• It must provide for a mixture of uses within neighborhoods. Limit commercial properties to the intersections if you must, but they must be allowed throughout.
• It must provide for a mixture of housing styles. We have to allow the neighborhood to mature. We're not omniscient enough to say exactly where that will happen and when so we need to get out of the way and let it happen naturally.
• We must regulate how structures address the public realm. Everything that is built from this point forward needs to improve the public space. No more bare walls. No more side entrances. No more garages out front. If we want people to invest in this neighborhood, they need to travel throughout it and know that their investment will be respected.
• There will be a build-to line -- not a setback line -- to ensure that all structures properly frame the public realm. 
• All garages and parking areas shall be to the rear of the lot, always behind the dwelling. They will be accessed from the alley where one is available. We're building a neighborhood for people to live in, not cars.
• Approvals for construction under this code must be able to be done within two hours. People need to know clearly what they can do, they need to be able to walk into city hall and then walk out that day with a permit. No long public hearing process. No ambiguity. If the form of their building meets the code, I want it approved. We are going to be the least bureaucratic regulatory department in the state.

Oh, and there will be an immediate ban on new surface parking. The entire neighborhood we are looking at is eight blocks square. Theoretically, if our streets were not so hostile to pedestrians, the entire place is within walking distance of itself. Despite that, people rarely park on any of the streets. Surface parking is a cancer on the tax base. There will not be another surface parking lot built until all those on-street spaces we pay so dearly for are filled.

Our obsession with rental properties is over. We do not have a problem with rental properties, or better put, rental properties are not the problem. They are the symptom. The problem is neighborhoods that lack value and reasons for people to invest in their future. Your job is no longer to fight over rental properties. It is no longer to administer red tape or checklists, to ensure that each use is in its proper place, that there is enough parking for each Black Friday rush of vehicles.

Your job, plain and simple, is to improve the value of the public realm. If you make our public spaces -- the space between structures spanning across the street -- more valuable, our neighborhood will grow and prosper and we will meet our goals.

I'll continue this dialog next week as our mayor addresses Economic Development, Parks and Recreation, Housing Rehabilitation Agency, Public Utilities, Maintenance, Transit, Public Safety, the property tax system and the city's school district, churches and civic organizations.

Thank you to everyone that has been following this series from the beginning of 2012 until now. We've appreciated your feedback. If you would like to support our efforts to get this message out to more communities, please consider supporting us with a tax-deductible donation. We are a 501(c)3 non-profit working to spread a timely message of resiliency across the United States. Thank you for your support.

Enjoy the week's news:

• Cap'n Transit, the anonymous blogging super hero of the land use realm, once again applies Strong Towns principles to a local STROAD, touching on a shared pet peeve: pedestrian overpasses. I am really honored and it gives me a sense of purpose when good writers like the Cap'n take our stuff and build on it to make specific, substantive points about their built environment. If Cap'n Transit is not on your blogroll, I recommend you add him.

Most of the time, though, pedestrian overpasses suck. They're at their worst when they cross streets that have wide sidewalks and retail, like I've seen in Santo Domingo. In these cases, a driver who wants to cross the street has a huge advantage over the pedestrians who have to climb up, over and down. Underpasses, as used on Queens Boulevard and in Paris and London, are just as bad. In Strong Towns terms, pedestrian overpasses are bad for crossing streets. In fact, they're one of the ways that streets get turned into stroads.

• Another great writer is our friend, and regular contributor, Nate Hood. Writing on the new Streets.mn site, Nate weighs in on one of the more controversial communities in the Twin Cities Metro Area: Lake Elmo. I can't say that I've always found Lake Elmo enlightened or even thoughtful as a community, but I tend to agree with Nate's analysis that their only true crime is resisting the ubiquitous Suburban Experiment embraced fully by their (now struggling) neighbors. Regardless, being the father of two young girls, I can't help but thinking of this video whenever I hear the words Lake Elmo.

First of all, when they say “growth” they are referring to what Strong Towns calls “The Growth Ponzi Scheme”. In other words, that our current financial problems at the local level are not, as some suggest, a lack of growth. Yet, our problem is 60 years of unproductive growth — “growth that has buried us in financial liabilities.” Lake Elmo has few of these liabilities, whereas places like neighboring Woodbury have many.

Fact of the matter is, Lake Elmo will likely be in a better financial position in the long-run because it doesn’t have “growth” (and the long-term liabilities that come with such financially unproductive land uses). In a nutshell, this article plays off our misconceptions of growth – that any new development must be good for the community as long as it a brings near-term property tax increase. This mindset, so embedded into our cultural vernacular, needs to change.

• When people link to our site and others follow that link, it shows up as a referring site in the reports our blog software tracks. I enjoy following some of the less-traveled links to see where the Strong Towns message is reaching and how it is being put to use. A trend I've noticed is people responding to other sites with links/facts/quotes from Strong Towns. For example, someone named Steve pointed out that the Mountain View, CA, council seems to prefer STROADS, our friend Steve Stofka followed up a thoughtful post by pointing the author (and readers) to our conversation on STROADS, and Tom H. issued this challenge to those seeking election to the city council in Sioux Falls, SD. Great work, everyone.

EVERY current City council member, candidate, and the mayor himself should be well acquainted with the principles espoused on this site:

http://www.strongtowns.org/

You can’t claim to be running a financially-sustainable city if you don’t do something about the suburban-growth Ponzi scheme.

• I've never heard of New Albany First, but I like their local business focus and am proud that they list us under "Resources and Affiliations". Let's do a Curbside Chat in New Albany and I'll make sure we're down for both.

• Later this month I'll be traveling to Austin, TX, as part of a retreat with the Orton Family Foundation and some great allies in the community-building realm. I'm already humbled by their inclusion of Strong Towns, but then this week they released this article where they included us in a broader discussion on resiliency. Announcements on our partnership with Orton coming soon.

We’ve yet to hear about a town in the U.S. that isn’t facing budget shortfalls and cutbacks, and most places are pretty creative at making do and doing without when it comes to rec funds and school supplies. But the Minnesota non-profit Strong Towns has helped communities reexamine their decisions concerning land use and infrastructure improvements. Strong Towns’ “Curbside Chat” program and a companion booklet helps communities see why some “growth” and “progress” is actually setting us back.

• Thank you to whomever sent me this beautiful piece by Sharon Astyk. In it, she draws an analogy between an impoverished family and an impoverished country. There is a lot of deep insight there -- I found myself wanting to pull out an excerpt about five times -- so do yourself a favor and read the entire thing. I tend to agree with the overall sentiment: we're going to go through some tough times and the sooner we stop fighting that notion, the sooner we can start to repair the damage that has been done.

That is, real poverty works pretty much the same at the personal, state or national (Iceland, say) level - you can't buy much, you can't save money, your costs get driven up. you lurch from crisis to crisis, getting further and further in the hole. Some people are able to make their way out due to concerted effort and some good luck, but for most people, no matter how you try, getting out is almost impossible - because it would require the ability to invest in your future. At best, you can maintain, get a little ahead this year, and fall back next, rather as Japan has done for the last 25 years.

• Minnesota's own Tom Fisher is one of the most brilliant people I've never met. Fortunately, my colleague Jon knows him fairly well and I'm hoping that leads to an introduction someday soon. In the meantime, he had another brilliant piece in the Huffington Post where he talks about the old economy changing into new and how our politicians seem to be failing us when it comes to making this transition. The entire thing is worth a read.

We have developed our cities based on the old economy, with residential, commercial, and industrial areas kept separate and "pure" through single-use zoning. That made sense in an economy that divided our work lives from our private lives, and that spawned large-scale noxious industries that no one wanted nearby. The next economy, though, may look more like the way in which people lived and worked prior to the industrial revolution, in which home, office, and shop co-exist in some combination of physical and digital space. This may require rethinking our zoning laws to allow for a much finer-grain mix of uses and repurposing buildings designed for single functions that will have no tenants or buyers if they remain that way.

• Over at the Strong Towns Network there are now 160 members and a lot of good discussion going on around the implementation of Strong Towns principles. One of the things we do at STN is provide what we're calling Strong Towns U, a bit of daily knowledge we share, often in video form. This video got chatted about a little bit more than usual; not sure if it was the bad facial hair, my inability to write $80,000 (I wrote $80,0000 -- not sure why) or my "fantastic" drawing ability. Regardless, here's a little taste of what we've got going on there daily.

• If you're not connected to us on Facebook, you may have missed this article from Joe Minicozzi that we shared there last week. If you are going to forward one item from this week's digest to your friends, neighbors and local officials, either make it Ricky Gervais singing lullabies to Elmo or this article from Joe.

• So Canada is rethinking the strip mall. Being relatively close to Canada geographically here in Minnesota, I have a special affinity for our less-messed-up relatives to the north. That the strip mall would fade into obscurity is inevitable (unless you are from Baxter, MN, where incredibly we are building more while literally thousands of square feet sit vacant -- we're pathological in our desire to recreate 2005). What was incredible about this article was that someone actually laments it.

Strip malls -- once anchors of postwar North American suburban neighborhoods -- are doomed, with thousands across Canada and the United States already derelict and eyed by land developers.

But at least one Canadian academic sees value in maintaining the ubiquitous local retailing plazas, and has amassed proposals such as adding community gardens or toboggan slides, or morphing them into giant bee hives or parking lots for food caravans.

"Strip malls were once the economic hubs of new suburbs," said Rob Shields, a sociology professor at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, who received a government grant to rethink strip malls to benefit communities around them.

• Speaking of Canadians, Hazel Borys wrote this insightful piece on the DNA of place and the ROI of movement and revealed in an email that "she thought of me". (**blush**)

Governments use GDP and jobs as tools to guide investment decisions, when they should be using ROI. Here's looking at a couple of ROI numbers for transportation investments for streetcars, cycling, and walking. And the principles that will enable returns from the street. 

"Looking at the ROI of Movement here, we’ve been mainly talking money. But when you find a character-rich, highly valued place, you’ll also find a high quality of life and lowered environmental impacts per person. When you dig further into what makes these places, you’ll conclude the streets are genes in the DNA of Place. Or maybe they’re even more like histones, which compact and organize DNA."

"Just as DNA is essential to life and health, streets are essential to the health of our urbanism – and therefore to our economy, society and environment. In old urbanism, streets are nearly as complex as the double helix of DNA. Unnaturally simplifying streets as we have over the last 65 years, into a meager selection of freeways, arterials, collectors, locals, and cul-de-sacs have put the health of cities and economies and people at risk."

"Just as in complex lifeforms, urbanism isn’t easily put into a petri dish for studying one moving part at a time. But until we understand – and appropriately value – the ROI of Movement, the DNA of Place is at risk."

• The sad story of Magnetation Inc. -- a iron ore related company that is the illegitimate child of (legal) political graft -- is only made comical by its threat to move away from home to build its $300 million plant. The fact that there is so much political drama and backstabbing here is further validation that a top-down, politically-driven approach to local economic development is nothing more than a Minnesota-nice form of legal corruption. When are we going to embrace the economic gardening approach? (Answer: When our political system evolves from hunter/gatherer to placing a higher value on the long, slow, but far-more-fruitful task of gardening. So, in other words, when we're totally broke and can't hunt any more, macho men.)

“To me, it’s embarrassing that a guy who got $1 million of free taxpayer money from Minnesota would even consider going to another state,’’ Rukavina said, referring to a $1 million grant Magnetation’s CEO Larry Lehtinen received in 2008 from the Minnesota Minerals 21st Century Fund administered by the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development.

• The fact that cities could be forced to pay enormous sums of money to build ADA-compliant sidewalks is adding injury to insult. We so cavalierly built places that humans can't traverse without a car -- assuming everyone would ultimately drive -- that now that we're broke and actually have to get around without cars, important segments of our population can't do it. I'm interested to see how California -- a state so financially committed to the Suburban Experiment that I don't see how they can intentionally turn back -- handles this (humane) mandate.

The lawsuits were filed by disabled people who say broken sidewalks make it impossible for them to get around and seek repairs or improvements. The plaintiffs contend that the conditions violate the federal Americans With Disabilities Act, a tool that has been used across the country to force better access at restaurants, department stores, movie theaters and the like.

The tactics are already paying off. In the biggest sidewalk-related settlement in California, the California Department of Transportation in 2009 agreed to spend $1.1 billion over 30 years to fix state-controlled sidewalks, crosswalks and park-and-ride facilities.

Sacramento settled a similar case by agreeing to allocate 20% of its annual transportation fund over the next 30 years to make repairs and install ramps.

• Et tu, Bismarck? Do we have such little imagination?

• And I'm going to post this article on the Minneapolis "gerbil runs" in honor of James Howard Kunstler. I'll never look at them the same since I heard him say that.

The larger problem is connecting them [skyways] to the streets in more obvious ways. Visitors sometimes glance up from the sidewalk to the busy skyway and wonder how they can get into it. City plans have called for improving ground-to-skyway access since the 1980s. The 15-year vision for downtown unveiled last month showed glass elevators lifting pedestrians from the sidewalk.

It's no simple task, however.

• Last weekend I got a little testy when, in the Q&A following a speech I gave, someone innocently suggested that the federal government could be a great partner for a Strong Towns, local-centric approach. (If you're interested in that exchange, wait for the "extra" in next week's podcast.) I have no patience for making the Strong Towns movement a Washington-focused approach. You live by the sword, you die by the sword. Exhibit 5,675,321.

As a result of congressional inaction, the feds will now provide a maximum tax benefit of $125 a month for people who commute to work by public transit or vanpools, only about half as much as the $240 monthly maximum  for commuters who incur parking costs.

For the past two years, Congress provided equal tax treatment for commuters who incurred costs for parking or public transit — $230 a month.

However, the two houses allowed the equal-benefits provision to expire at the end of 2011. As a result the maximum transit benefit reverted to $125 a month, while the maximum parking benefit automatically increased to $240.

• I start the week in the land of pop, fly into coke country and then end up in soda. When it comes to Mountain Dew, I'm multilingual.

• A couple of local items. Pitchers and catchers report in about two weeks and I'm excited -- as always -- for my Twins to get back on the field and hopefully redeem themselves after the most pathetic season of my lifetime (and, yes, I was alive during the second half of the 1990's). I was at Target Field when then Detroit, now Twins, reliever Joel Zumaya grotesquely threw out his arm, so I'm going to make sure and be there for this pitch. And switching quickly to hockey, I thought being intoxicated was a job requirement for the zamboni driver.

Police were called to Hayes Arena Monday night after the Zamboni driver began weaving across the ice and smashing into the boards. Coach Bryan Dornstreich called 911 as the 10-minute ice resurfacing job went on for nearly a half hour.

• Finally, I wanted to share this video with you that my wife emailed me while I am here at the office doing the FND. I really miss George Harrison, and hearing his isolated voice on this recording choked me up. This is one of my favorite songs, from my absolute favorite album, and I wanted to pass it on to you because I feel that ice is slowly melting. I hope you do too.

Have a great weekend.

Strong Towns is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to support this blog and our other efforts to build a stronger, more resilient America.

Things could improve in the public dialogue about how we go about strengthening viability and productivity of our places, as well. So often, we focus on the important point that denser land use patterns are desirable because they lead to the right consequences: Accessibility to transit; housing inventory that provides alternatives to single-family structures; a reduced carbon footprint. Measures of building density are a physical way to gauge these quasi-physical benefits.

Young’s innovative work in Saint Paul, made possible by a supportive Mayor and City Council, as well as funding from Public Art Saint Paul, started with physical elements. Observing the City’s ongoing residential street paving and streetscape program, Young perceived new concrete not as a sidewalk, or as transportation infrastructure, but as a canvas. Today, new sidewalks in the City are stamped with poems. As the City’s foresters identify diseased trees for removal, Young observes an opportunity to mark them in a way that adds something to boulevards that orange rings on trunks don’t. He’s in the process of developing alternatives: Placemaking via arboriculture.

Early on in his current role, Young asked to amend his title from its original: Public Artist in Residence. He’s very specific about the rationale of the choice, which pivots his intended role in a fundamental way. “What art emerges from the city itself?” he asks, turning on its head the standard supposition that cities are frameworks for artistic decoration. Instead, Young views the city – its physical components, but more importantly its patterns of movement, its history, its people – as both the medium and the artist. Young involves himself in meetings of all types, across departments, at the City of Saint Paul, to combine City services with public art and vice versa.

Why does this matter? Here at Strong Towns and at a growing number of tables around the country, discussion is focused on the links among fiscal stress, governance, and land use. And the importance of creating change in these areas is precisely why we need to conceive of the opportunities and barriers in original ways. A key part of the value Young delivers as an artist embedded in the City structure is to provide an outsider’s constructive and critical perspective on existing systems that favor particular outcomes.

To highlight the outcomes alone is valid but incomplete; that’s where our shared work comes in. Examining the potential of zoning code provisions like minimum parking requirements or building setbacks, for example, is worthwhile, but these are consequences of chains of previous decisions. In these two cases, disincentives like the ad valorem property tax exert more influence than can be remedied by the zoning code. The pricing system we have established tolerates the selective omission of costs, obscuring how to create more productive places for all involved: Public agencies, community members, developers, investors. It’s ironic that the status quo is presented as rich in individual choices, when it entails a convoluted system of cross subsidy tilted toward short term development low both in density and productivity.

Marcus Young’s role as City Artist in Residence is worth noting for multiple reasons. In this context, the value of the artist has not to do with creative placemaking or the “creative class,” but about the potential for individuals to reinvent approaches to familiar processes. Producing different outcomes calls for introducing different inputs, and artists like Young are well positioned to make that happen.

Join us on Facebook and Twitter, or contribute to our work by making a donation!

Strong Towns is proud to support a new transportation-focused blog here in Minnesota called Streets.MN. The site is a collaboration among a number of local transportation enthusiasts. Content is updated frequently and can be access on the Streets.MN site as well as on Facebook and Twitter. Today's Strong Towns post is being run concurrently on the Streets.MN site. I intend to be a regular contributor in support of the effort.

This year at Strong Towns we have focused on a comparison between the financial productivity of the traditional neighborhood pattern and the post-WW II development pattern of the Suburban Experiment. Our case study has been a three block area in my hometown of Brainerd, MN, where the city has provided a 26-year Tax Increment Financing (TIF) package to a fast food restaurant that, despite being brand new and built in full conformance with the local suburban codes, has a total value 41% less than an adjacent block of the same size that has retained -- in a much deteriorated state -- the traditional development pattern.

The traditional development pattern is more financially productive and more resilient. So how do we, at this point in the process, embrace the historic DNA of our urban centers and start to reverse the decline? The next posts in this series will seek to answer that question starting today with perhaps the most difficult change we need to make; the orientation of our highways as they pass through urban neighborhoods.

The single piece of public infrastructure doing the most damage to the value of the neighborhood we are studying is the state highway. Its design is sucking the value out of the entire place. Like most highways, the design through this urban neighborhood is indistinguishable from the design used on the open road outside of town. This helps the engineers at the DOT to theoretically meet their mandate -- move as many cars as possible as quickly as possible -- but does little to create a platform for creating, let alone retaining, real financial value.

The STROAD design -- a street/road hybrid -- is the futon of transportation alternatives. Where a futon is a piece of furniture that serves both as an uncomfortable couch and an uncomfortable bed, a STROAD moves cars at speeds too slow to get around efficiently but too fast to support productive private sector investment. The result is an expensive highway and a declining tax base.

When a highway enters an urban area, it needs to adopt an urban geometry. That means narrower lanes, slower speeds and more awareness of the need to share space. The concept of "sharing space" is so foreign to Americans that it is worth deeper explanation. We're not talking about having a place for everything -- aka, Complete Streets -- or even having everything in its place -- aka, Complete Roads -- but that the concept of "priority" needs to be abolished in favor of an approach where all space is shared amongst transportation options.

Priority is what keeps you waiting at a traffic signal. It is what makes pedestrians run across the street when the light is about to change, even when they are in the crosswalk. Priority is what keeps drivers from being prosecuted when they run into a cyclist. It is one of the physical mechanisms that foments the mental reaction of road rage.

The concept of priority is the opposite of shared space. With priority, traffic devices, controls and regulations are used to designate who has domination of the public realm at any particular time. Generally, automobile through traffic is given the priority. When a car is forced to stop at a signal, pedestrians and traffic moving in a perpendicular direction can be given priority while the through traffic waits. Bikes are sometimes given priority in designated lanes. Sometimes cyclists ride within the traffic stream and theoretically have the same priority as an automobile, although too frequently that right is not recognized by the driver.

The connection to road rage is simple; when the system gives you priority, the public realm belongs to you. This gives drivers a feeling of entitlement and of domination -- they waited their turn and now the road is theirs. Add the relative anonymity of being in an automobile to the equation, and it is not difficult to see why we have road rage problems in the United States. In a priority system such as ours, anyone that fails to properly signal their turn, drives a little too slow or cuts into traffic is taking away the right of the driver with priority to access and fully utilize the public realm.

And priority is dangerous too. When we give a driver priority, we tell them that it is okay to go. The system of priority is supposed to make the public realm safe for the driver who has been given control over it. While we talk about defensive driving, we are conditioned to expect normal, routine conditions. In a system of priority, we are not automatically looking out for the accident-causing exception to the rule.

Most Americans that read what is going to come next in this post will find it bizarre. That is not because it is crazy but because we are so conditioned to believe that a system that gives priority for using the public realm is both efficient and fair. It is neither.

In an urban area -- and don't confuse what I am going to write here with a suburban road situation -- in an urban area, remove the traffic signals, the excessive (and generally ignored) signage, the stops signs, the hard elevated curb that separates pedestrians space from automobile space and the crosswalks. Reconfigure the public realm to give it an intuitive sense of complexity. What happens? Chaos? We may be inclined to believe so, but no.

What happens is shared space. I'll give you an American example where this works so you can picture the mechanism. Say you are attending a concert or a sporting event where the overflow parking is in a field or some type of area where the stalls and driving lanes are not well defined. When the event is over, people (some of whom may be under the influence of adult beverages) are walking around this undefined space at the same time that cars (sometimes driven by those also under the influence of adult beverages) are trying to navigate the same space. Despite the chaos, nobody is run over and people don't die in this environment. Why? Because it is a shared space.

In a shared space, drivers expect pedestrians and look out for them. Pedestrians expect cars to be there and do likewise. Instead of the aggressive stop and go of a priority system, you have flow. Everything flows naturally and the public realm is shared amongst all traffic options. Cars, bikes, pedestrians, people with baby strollers, people in wheelchairs, etc... They all are equally accommodated.

Counterintuitive as it may sound to the American used to the priority system, share space works because the perception of risk makes people more alert, more accommodating and more cautious.

A shared space approach may mean that cars will need to be driven at 10 or 15 mph, but before you think that the result is tremendous delay, understand that they are not stopping at lights or other places where priority would make someone wait. The continuous flow combined with the ability to intelligently access the entire neighborhood grid system (as opposed to the hierarchical system that funnels all traffic to collectors and then to arterials) not only increases the total capacity of the system but provide drivers with multiple, viable options for each trip.

Getting back to our three block case study, once we slow the cars and convert the STROAD to a street, we will provide for a more complex environment that will favor the traditional development pattern. People will be able to park on the street without worrying about getting their door sheared off. People will be able to walk without a car traveling 45+ mph mere feet away. Bikers from the surrounding neighborhoods can return. Some shade trees can be provided in the recaptured area to add even more value.

Now here's the punch line to this entire concept: to do everything I've described here and convert this STROAD to a productive, shared-space environment would cost a fraction of what our current priority-based system costs to build and maintain.

Back in 2004, this quote appeared in an article in Wired magazine appropriately called Roads Gone Wild:

The old ways of traffic engineering - build it bigger, wider, faster - aren't going to disappear overnight. But one look at West Palm Beach suggests an evolution is under way. When the city of 82,000 went ahead with its plan to convert several wide thoroughfares into narrow two-way streets, traffic slowed so much that people felt it was safe to walk there. The increase in pedestrian traffic attracted new shops and apartment buildings. Property values along Clematis Street, one of the town's main drags, have more than doubled since it was reconfigured. "In West Palm, people were just fed up with the way things were, and sometimes, that's what it takes," says Lockwood, the town's former transportation manager. "What we really need is a complete paradigm shift in traffic engineering and city planning to break away from the conventional ideas that have got us in this mess."

An urban street that costs less to build and maintain, attracts more private sector investment, creates a greater, more resilient tax base than the standard approach, and is safer too. Those are the type of advantages that come from building a Strong Town.

Strong Towns - We're a lot like James Howard Kunstler except you can share us with your mom. Check out our podcast on iTunes and, while you're there, give us a rating. If you listen to our podcast, have already given us a rating and would like to do us another favor, go to our donations page and become a supporter of the podcast. If you've done that, then sync up, put in your ear buds, tune in and zone out to our latest podcast; an interview with Duncan Crary of the Kunstlercast.

So here's the deal....below is the sausage making of the Friday News Digest. When someone mails me an article during the week or when I come across something that interests me, I paste it into this post. Thursday night into Friday morning, I go through and provide excerpts and my own comments.

This Friday, I'm going to turn that over to you. Pick an article, give me a quote and a Strong Towns take. When I get time to put the News Digest together sometime on Friday, if your stuff is good, I'll put it in the post and give you the attribution. We'll call this crowd sourcing the news. And if you have a news article out there that I've not included, do the same thing but also provide the link. 

I'm excited to hear what ideas you might have.

1. http://www.startribune.com/local/minneapolis/137828733.html
2. http://vimeo.com/35259036
3. http://www.minnpost.com/cityscape/2012/01/12/34273/congress_tells_americans_commute_by_car_not_transit#.Tw75_sFq_UU.email
4. http://www.citypages.com/microsites/food-truck-map/
5. http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/220096/
6. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204720204577130710627851528.html
7. http://www.businessinsider.com/video-irish-journalist-leaves-ecb-official-speechless-2012-1
8. http://scienceblogs.com/casaubonsbook/2012/01/the_wealth_and_poverty_of_nati.php
9. http://capntransit.blogspot.com/2012/01/navy-road-and-projects.html
10. http://hiddencityphila.org/2012/01/wissahickon-urban-suburban-midcentury-victorian/
11. http://www.planetizen.com/node/53922

and #12 is a photo:

You can email to me at marohn@strongtowns.org or just use the comments section. 

I've met Jim before at the Congress for the New Urbanism. I blog during CNU and so I sit in the front and, when Jim sat down beside me, I made it a point to shake his hand and greet him. Like a giddy school kid, I even blogged about the experience. I'm sure he would find that amusing.

Last October I got an email from Jim giving me some praise about the TEDx video and the Curbside Chat booklet. He kind of casually threw out the idea that we could someday do a podcast together. I may be a giddy school kid at heart sometimes, but I'm also an opportunist. A chance to have an extended conversation with one of my favorite social commentators was one of those experiences I had to pounce on. I emailed him back and said I'd come to his place -- or Duncan Crary's -- and we could make that happen.

Now I was going to be in New York on business, and I've always wanted to see upstate, so this was something I could have fit into my schedule. Unfortunately, I think I came across as a little over eager, especially since when I said I would "drive up" Jim apparently assumed I meant from Minnesota. He thought that was ridiculous -- told me so in the way you would imagine him doing -- and that's kind of where things ended.

Fast forward to 2012 and I'm sitting here with a copy of the KunstlerCast book written by the host of the program, Duncan Crary. The two of us are Facebook friends and, in chatting with him about the book, he agreed to come on the Strong Towns podcast.

We were able to pull that off this week. I want to take the blog post today and make sure that those of you that don't subscribe to the podcast know that the interview is there. I thought it was fun and it turned out really well. Duncan is a good subject for an interview. He made many thoughtful and insightful points that you don't often get a chance to hear from him on the KunstlerCast.

Click here to stream the podcast interview with Duncan Crary.

Although we've never met in person, I feel a little bit of a kindred spirit with him. We are both of Generation X and, while he laughed at my use of the term "slacktivism", we've both chosen to live in small towns and to, in our own non-traditional, Gen X way, push for change in those places. While my parents (and his parents probably too) would scratch their heads at the idea of spending significant time on a river barge this summer to write about the experience, I totally got where we was coming from when he said that was one of his upcoming projects. Hopefully we'll do another interview when that book is out.

A few things about Duncan. Not only is he the host of the KunstlerCast, but he runs Duncan Crary Communications where he does P.R., publishing and all-around assisting with communication projects. He comes across as a very down to earth guy; someone who believes in what he is doing but doesn't take himself too seriously. If Jim Kunstler is the court jester -- a title he has given himself that has far deeper significance than simply "clown" -- then Duncan is the town crier. These two are a great team.

Finally, I have to recommend the book Duncan has written. I'll admit that I was skeptical when I heard he wrote a book about conversations from the podcast -- how interesting could that be? Having read it now, I can say that it is very good. I'm immersed in this stuff and I learned new things from it.

For those of you wanting a good overview of Kunstler's thinking and for those of you that want to share JHK with others but may fear being embarrassed by the sometimes "salty" language he can use, this book is a great tool. The format is, by design, conversational. You can digest it in small bites or in large pieces. And the Kunstler world through Duncan's eyes is not necessarily sanitized, but it is communicated in a way that I think will reach a broader audience.

Plus, it is dirt cheap. You should really buy one for each member of your city council.

If you would like to know more about how to apply Strong Towns thinking to your community, join us at the Strong Towns Network, a social enterprise for those working to implement a Strong Towns approach.