Molovinsky on Minorities

Mr. Molovinsky has another interesting piece ostensibly about race politics today. As has been the constant refrain for years now, opponents of the downtown redevelopment are claiming that the NIZ is a tax grab that takes money out of the hands of minority residents and funnels it to wealthy developers and business people. At the same time, Mr. Molovinsky constantly opines about the "glory days" of Allentown. he loved when the community came together through the CCC to improve the city parks. He waxes nostalgic about the trolleys and shopping on Hamilton Street. Fine, but, you can't really have it both ways.

Allentown was once a great city because people from all classes pulled together. Through successive waves of immigration in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, older majority population groups (first the English and Germans) stayed in the city and continued to pay property taxes and maintain communal institutions as new immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe arrives. Its not like there wasn't friction---there was. But, by and large, Allentown became a thriving city because different ethnic groups and races were able to coexist and largely pull together.

Fast forward to the 1970s and 80s and the middle class abandoned Allentown to head to "greener pastures" in the `burbs. They took with them their money and their public institutions. Without property taxes and without people who cared about community institutions, Allentown withered on the vine.

Now, because of the NIZ, we start to have a nascent migration back to the city. We start to have money coming in, and we start to have middle class people regaining a consciousness of place. These are the steps to redeveloping the economic foundation of the city. And with that foundation secure, all ships (all races and classes will rise). The process won't be perfect there will be some friction around the edges, but Allentown needed a shot in the arm. Mr. Molovinsky is always championing for the status quo---that status quo has kept Allentown's head under the water for four decades. And yet, he also recognizes that the town once had greatness. And, it is obvious that he longs for that greatness once more. It is impossible to reconcile both good things without some friction.

Molovinsky Scoops the Food Desert

In a great post today, Molovinsky has scooped the fact that downtown Allentown's food desert may be coming to an end.  While I can't provide any independent verification of this fact, if true, it is absolutely great news for the neighborhood.

Existential Suburban Supermarket

As many readers know, I am often deeply at odds with the way in which Molovinsky try's to achieve his policy goals, but, you can never doubt his conviction that Allentown government policy ought to serve the working class and that is where his concern for the market arises from.

There might be no greater example of the fact that urban areas are going through a renaissance than the fact that food markets are once again opening up in them.  It is one of the saddest and most shameful moments in the middle-class flight to the 'burbs that the basic institutions of life were drawn out of cities.  These included things like grocers, clothing stores, hardware shops and all the rest of it.  But, the worst, from a human point of view was the loss of places to buy quality foods.

The result are vast areas of urban America that are only served by fast food restaurants and (possibly) bodegas that sell the worst kind of processed food crap.  Buying a head of lettuce might require several hours on a bus with multiple changes.  Before anyone moralizes about this fact, ask yourself, when was the last time I put in three hours of effort for a salad?

Old Time Downtown Market

One of the best things about living in a city is that you don not need a car to accomplish the daily things of life.  In fact, a lot of urban designers define cities by this metric:  can you reasonably (about 10 minutes) walk or ride a bike to the daily activities of life.  If the answer is no, you may have density but still lack a functioning city.  The opening of this market in Allentown and the Bethlehem Food Cooperative in Bethlehem show that middle class folks are once again focusing their attention into the downtowns.  They want actual workable cities---not just density.

Finally, one last observation.  What brought this supermarket into the downtown?  It was the NIZ.  Molovinsky claims that the rite aid used to serve the purpose of a market, that is ludicrous.  I have worked downtown for many years and knew that Rite aid well.  There were bags of candy and sports drink---not much else. THE NIZ, with its thousands of well payed workers are the ones with the money to create a demand for a market.  Money begets money and what Allentown has needed for a long time is a critical density of wealth to spur more and more development.  The NIZ has kick started that sort of development.  And this market is a great indication of how the government's investment is helping the little guy.

Jon Geeting on Eliminating full stops for Cyclists

Making a twenty pound bicycle obey the exact same road rules as a two ton piece of machinery, a.k.a. an automobile is ridiculous.  No one in their right mind would set down to draft the same set of road laws for both bicycles and cars.  And, yet, through, habituation people have come to expect bikes to follow the same rules.  The result is that when bicyclists "break" the law safely (or for their own safety) they are criticized by yahoo motorists who think a violation of a ridiculous crime ought to carry moral approbation.  Stupid.  Jon Geeting has more on legalizing the rolling stop for bicyclists at this old city.

Also, check out this video by a real American hero.

Cher is Coming to Allentown

More on this tomorrow, but, the Morning Called just announced that Cher is coming to Allentown!

the NIZ and the Little Guy

One of the refrains that you hear again and again about the NIZ is that it is tax payer money being funneled by government to J.B. Reilly and other oligarch cronies.  I don't deny that because of the NIZ, J.B. Reilly is going to be a wealthy, wealthy, man.  But, there is nothing new about this.

For the previous sixty years, government policy and government tax dollars got thrown at the suburbs and subsidized the destruction of our beautiful farm lands and forests into dreadful McMansions.  If you don't think private developers got rich from this suburban development you are kidding yourself.

Government (and law) creates markets on which private money plays.  While the markets shift around, the fact that people get rich won't.  What we should be asking is if the market that is created creates and maintains the best type of society.

And, here is where I think the NIZ really shines. Yesterday the Morning call announced that Donny Petridis is moving a new restaurant into the downtown to service the thousands of new white collar workers who are soon going to be working there.  There is no getting around the fact that J.B. Reilly (who owns the building this restaurant is going into) and Petridis (the restraunteur) are wealthy dudes.  But, the employees of these restaurants aren't going to be so wealthy.  From the hostess to the waitstaff, to cooks, and dishwashers, this new restaurant is going to employ dozens of people at a living wage.

That is dozens of people working, having a sense of pride, off the government doll, off drugs, all the rest of it.  Isn't this exactly what we have been saying has been needed in Allentown for decades?  Guess what, its happening right now.  Whats more, these smaller ma and pa type service industries which support the larger commercial enterprise are home grown.  You can bet the majority of the staff are going to Allentownians and not poached from the 'burbs.  What accounts for the change, what made these good things possible?  The Neighborhood Improvement Zone (NIZ).

Hegel, Alienation, and America's Loss of Place

A few years ago I was at an event with the then mayor of Whitehall.  The mayor lamented to me, saying, "I don't understand it, why does everyone talk about Allentown, Bethlehem, and Easton in the same breath?  Why don't they mention Whitehall, we have more people than Easton!"  Half jokingly, I replied, "people might not think about Whitehall because its basically a three mile strip mall.  What else are you known for?"

Walmart in Whitehall

I tell this story to express a point.  In America, we are conditioned to think of social importance as emerging out of population numbers.  The more people, the greater the importance.  This might be true in a purely political sense, but, it does not capture how we actually think about social importance.  What is really important about social importance is perception.  For example, in the 17th century, the ideal of female beauty was much different from how it is today.  In that period, a curvaceous almost overweight figure was preferred.  Rotundity bought social cache.  Today, the opposite is true.  "Beauty" is not a fixed concept, it changes with what we use to talk about the ideal.

The same is true of population centers.  In an ontological sense, a populated place is just a collection of bricks and mortar and streets.  It assumes no identity until we start to tell stories about the place.  And, here, is where the cities of Allentown, Bethlehem, and Easton begin to take on an important role in our imagination.  Growing up, my parents would tell me great stories about the halcyon days of Allentown.  When kids would go ice skating down at Union Terrace then then buy a hot dog at Yaccos.  The pride of the entire city going to a football match at the ASD stadium.  Shopping on Hamilton Blvd. and Hess's.  Walking to the fairgrounds and randomly meeting family and friends that stretched back to elementary school.

That was Allentown.  It had a character.  People talked (and still talk) about the character.  Despite my many misgivings about Mr. Molovinsky's ideas, his Romanticized rhetoric about the city is why I still respect him.  By contrast, you might ask, what do people say about whitehall?  There is a generic 1980s mall there.  What historical events happened there?  None that I can think of.  The place is a three mile strip mall, not much more.  Now you might say, yeah, but people live there.  People have individual memories in their own home.  True, I don't deny that.  But, when people don't interact, when they don't share communal institutions, group identities are not created.  And, the lack of a group identity ultimately leads to great swaths of this Commonwealth living alienated and isolated consumer driven lives.

Alienation is a hash word, but, its a pretty good description of early 21st century America.  It is the America inaugurated by Vonnegut and described in cruel detail by David Foster Wallace.  It is an America of the individual consumed by herself, her own needs, and her own entertainment.  It is a world, frankly, given over completely to the individual and the ego.  It is a world that tends toward the skeptical and the nihilistic.

G.W.F. Hegel

It is a world, however, that is not necessarily new or entirely modern.  Following Kant's "Copernican Revolution" many early 18th century German philosophers attempted to confront the idea of how to escape nihilism in a world devoid of God and constituted by individual consciousnesses.  The most successful of these German philosophers was Hegel.  Although his entire philosophical project is incredibly difficult and dense it boils down to a few main points, the most important of which is this: none of us is entirely free to determine everything in our own life, the way in which we perceive the world is colored by the community in which we live.  Happiness, freedom, and an escape from nihilism is obtained in living one's life in accordance with the spirit (identity) of the community.

Now, that might sound absolutely un-American, but, I don't think that it needs to be.  As an American, we have the right to live where we find a community that corresponds with our internal values.  And, we ought to be able to find distinctive communities that to a greater or lessor degree fit who we are.  Maybe, that place is Allentown, maybe it isn't.  But, for the vast, vast, vast majority of people, that place is not going to be the uniform blandness of the suburbs.

Roosevelt visits Allentown Speaks to Throngs of Citizens

Cities need to be given the chance to grow and develop distinct identities because it is only within an identity of place that individuals can also find their own purpose and connectedness.  We have tried the suburban model, it doesn't work.  Political communities must be more robust---there must be more shared institutions and interactions.  Until we overcome this problem of lack of sense of place Pennsylvania (and America) will continue to suffer from an anxiety of purpose and narcism of character.  Redeveloping mid-sized urban space would go a long way to solving these types of problems.

NIZ Refocuses Growth into Cities

There was more good news out of Allentown earlier this week.  The Morning Call reported that the major Lehigh Valley law firm Norris McLaughlin & Marcus is moving back downtown.  Norris McLaughlin is a firm with a nearly century long tradition in downtown Allentown.  The firm had been a fixture of the downtown until Corporate Plaza (where the firm was located in the early 1990s) fell into a sink hole on 7th street.

After the Corporate Plaza fiasco, the firm decided to move to a low-rise suburban office park in South Whitehall Township.  There they stayed until the lawyers were enticed back by low rents generated by Allentown NIZ tax district. This was another impressive victory for Allentown and proponents of urban growth, and should be seen for what it is---a return of a prominent Allentown law firm to it's rightful place in Allentown's urban core.

Of course, in this valley, no good deed goes unpunished.  The usual suspects were out blasting the downtown redevelopment.  Prominent amongst them, blogger Bernie O'Hare who, in typical fashion, claims that the movement of the law firm back to its historic home is some sort of money grab by J.B. Reily & Co.

Nothing could be further from the truth.  Norris McLaughlin was forced out of its home by forces beyond its control.  The early 1990s were some of the bleakest for Allentown and prime real estate was scare.  They moved because state tax policies and municipal law subsidized sprawl development and made suburban office space artificially cheap.

But, the NIZ changes that.  It, for the first time, gives Allentown a fighting chance to play on an even footing.  If Bernie wants to claim that Allentown "stole" Norris McLaughlin, he better be willing to admit that South Whitehall stole them first.

Its great to see another Allentown institution return to its rightful home.

And, where does Bernie get off saying that this is only beneficial to the Developer.  It is beneficial to the hot dog vendors, the pizza guys, the dry cleaners, the shops on Hamilton.  It helps everyone who was hurt when these attorneys stopped coming in for lunch or having a suit pressed back in the early 90s.  It especially help's the firms clients who no longer have to pay their attorneys to drive to the courthouse to file pleadings.  The NIZ is designed to help those who need the most help, the ma and pa shops inAllentown who were gutted by the middle class scurrying to the 'burbs.