An Old Building Should Get A Birthday Present
Author’s Note: This piece owes a significant intellectual debt to conversations with our friend Joe Minicozzi of Urban3.
Consider two books, which we'll simply call A and B. Book A was published 30 years ago, and it is still in print and widely read today. The other one, Book B, was published 300 years ago, and it is still in print and widely read today.
Which one is more likely to still be around and popular another 300 years from now?
If you answered Book B, you have tapped into a bit of wisdom called the Lindy Principle. First articulated by academics in the 1960s, the power of Lindy is a favorite subject of Nassim Taleb, a mathematician and one of today's foremost thinkers on uncertainty, risk, and randomness. Taleb calls the rule "one of the most universal, robust, and reliable heuristics" there is.
The Lindy Principle is a simple rule: the longer something has been around, the more likely it is to be around in the future. Certain kinds of somethings, anyway: non-perishable things, such as technologies and works of art and literature. For these things, you can think of their future life expectancy as proportional to their current age. The longer an idea has been around, the more confidence you should have in its staying power. The newer the idea—although it's obviously not true that nothing new will prove to be of lasting genius and value to humanity—the more likely it is to be a flash in the pan.
How does the Lindy Principle apply to places?
You might note a consistent property of ghost towns: almost without fail, they weren't around (as actual, populated places) for very long. Most lasted a few years, maybe a couple decades, their creation spurred by some ephemeral circumstance like a resource boom. For every ghost town you can actually see and explore, there are 1,000 places that were born, died, and never even left such a permanent trace of their presence. Not all were hardscrabble, boom-and-bust places: some just served a purpose, maybe served it well and maybe were even vital and beloved and beautiful places, until history passed them by and they gradually or suddenly ceased to be.
The vast majority of the settlements inhabited 2,000 years ago no longer exist, even as ruins or a name on a map. However, think of the 2,000-year-old (and older) cities that are on the map today. Does anyone really doubt that in another two millennia, if there is human civilization at all, that a prime example of it will be found on seven hills framing the banks of the Tiber River not far from its mouth at the Tyrrhenian Sea? Or that there's a good chance that city will still be called Rome, in some variant at least?
Rome, Italy. Photo by Caleb Miller on Unsplash
Think smaller. Think of the corner of the world you spend your days in. What in the place you live has staying power? Will your great-great grandchildren know your own neighborhood by the name you know it? Will they know any of its landmarks? How do you know?
Of course, buildings, streets, bridges, walls, and monuments in parks are not "non-perishable" in the sense that the Lindy Principle is meant to describe. All of these things can and will crumble to nothing if left alone. And yet, a building is also the embodiment of an idea, an attempt at not only function but (hopefully) beauty and permanence. And the real wisdom of Lindy is in the revelation that the only thing that can prove such an attempt successful is that it succeeds: that people keep coming back, that they keep on loving a place and investing in it, weeding the cracks in the pavement, scrubbing the grime off the walls, replacing fallen and chipped stones.
That's it. We don't know a place is going to endure because we spent a lot of money building it, or because it broke sales records, or because a team of consultants made a projection, or because it's in our Vision 2050 Plan, or because we hired an award-winning architect, or because they won an award for its design, or because they did the same thing in Portland and it really turned that part of downtown around, or because right now it meets the pressing need for (affordable housing / revitalization / vibrant public space / a state-of-the-art event venue / fill in the blank).
We know it's going to endure only in time, and with slowly increasing confidence, as we watch it endure.
What is the best investment your city can make?
So much of what passes for "investment" today is actually speculation. This insight was articulated by John Bogle, founder of Vanguard Group and creator of the first index fund, in a 2012 book excoriating the financial industry for its obsession with short-term windfalls at the expense of building long-term, sustainable wealth for its clients. Bogle wasn't talking about cities or local governments. But he could have been.
Who deserves a tax abatement or TIF or economic development grant? The builder of a new entertainment district or Costco-anchored commercial plaza or stadium or casino? Or the person who wants to rehab a faded downtown landmark? Who is more likely to actually get it?
Cumberland, Maryland. Image source.
Maybe an old building should get a birthday present from City Hall the year it turns 100. As a token of thanks for a century of contribution to making a place for the ages, cut its taxes and let the owner use the savings to finally get rid of that asbestos or replace the roof or restore the marble portico damaged by acid rain. The things that will help a building that has proven its worth keep giving back for the next 100 years.
We know where the wealth in our cities is: in place after place, large and small, from Eugene to Charleston to Lafayette to tiny Watertown, Tennessee, we find it in the oldest part of town. There's every reason to think that's where we'll continue to find it. If we really want to invest as productively as possible in our places, we'd do well to remember Lindy.
Cover image of Cumberland, Maryland via Wikimedia Commons.
Daniel Herriges has been a regular contributor to Strong Towns since 2015 and is also a founding member of the organization. His work at Strong Towns focuses on housing issues, small-scale and incremental development, urban design, and lowering the barriers to entry for people to participate in creating resilient and prosperous neighborhoods. Daniel has a Masters in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Minnesota, with a concentration in Housing and Community Development.
Daniel’s work with Strong Towns reflects a lifelong fascination with cities and how they work. When he’s not perusing maps (for work or pleasure), he can be found exploring out-of-the-way neighborhoods on foot or bicycle. Daniel has lived in Northern California and Southwest Florida, and he now resides back in his hometown of St. Paul, Minnesota, along with his wife and two children.