Transportation Tuesday: the Rosegarden and LVCI Doubling Down on Stupidity

A quick note about the concept of Transportation Tuesday.  I think that by any measure, any sane person would admit that the non-car transportation infrastructure in the Lehigh Valley is absolutely attrocious.  Not only that, but virtually nothing has been done to improve that fact.  This while cities all over the U.S. are preparing for a time when the car will no longer be king.  For reasons of consonance, I am picking Tuesday to browbeat public officials about the fact that they ought to be making better transportation choices.

Enough said about the philosophy, lets talk politics.  This week's Transportation Tuesday post considers the news out of West Bethlehem that the city is about to bulldoze under part of the rose garden to make room for a temporary parking lot for a middle school.  Are you fucking kidding me?!  Martin Towers and its massive parking lots are less than a mile from the site that this about to happen.  Why not make the teachers park at Martin Tower and walk in.  Hell, the kids walk further than that to get to school.  Here is my whole article about the situation.  Like it or not bulldozing under the rose garden for a temporary parking lot is the type of trade off you have to make when you run a town where you value the car more importantly than any other mode of transportation.  There can be no clearer and more causal link of cars destroying public space and undermining urban aesthetics than BULLDOZING A ROSE GARDEN to make way for a PARKING LOT.  Dumb.  And this from a city that calls it self the most walkable in the Valley.  Jokes.

Bike Infrastructure in Europe.

And then there is this from the ever assinine LVCI:  Urbanologists without Cars.  In a bit of crack reporting, LVCI runs down all the ways in which it is inconvenient to live in the Valley without a car.  No shit? tell us more!  From this he concludes that we should double down on car infrastructure.  Whoaaa there Spartacus.  Us "urbanologists" want to change the development patterns so that a car is not required.  We want to live in a downtown where there are parks, and vets, and doctors, and all that stuff you mention in walking distance.  That is our promised land.  We don't have that now because people like LVCI thought it would be good to structure the world in such a way that you NEEDED a car to get to essential services.  Good (maybe) if you are wealthy an live in the 'burbs.  Bad if you are poor and in a city and need access to stuff like, I don't know, food.  My grandparents, (probably like LVCI's) lived in Allentown and they got along fine without a car.  This isn't some mythical utopia we are vying for, just a workable city that existed pretty well in Allentown for a long time.

What Social Equality Looks Like to Millenials

A few days ago, someone in the comment section accused this blog (and Job Geeting) of asking big government for a hand out.  That's absurd.  As I replied, this blog (and Jon Geeting's which proceeded it), is largely premised on the fact that government ought to deregulate the housing market by stopping absurd subsidies to wasteful suburbs.  That is exactly what has happened in Allentown.  As I pointed out yesterday, Allentown has created a real estate free market where tax money flows back to developer to be used to finance the construction of new real estate.  That and minimal zoning restrictions has allowed Allentown to amass nearly a BILLION dollars of real estate investment.  Like I said, Allentown should be the wet dream of free market republicans and the libertarians.

What does this have to do with social equality?  Well, a strong case can be made that starting in the 1950s, the federal government and states undertook a conscious effort to segregate minorities in cities from the Lilly white suburbs.  If you read the transcripts of the senate debate about the mortgage interest tax deduction, Southern Democrats actually note that a benefit of the program will be to help middle class white folks escape "animals" in the cities.  Yikes, (bad quote isn't it Bernie? lol).  The fact is that the suburbs received TRILLIONS of dollars of tax subsidy over the years in a process that was meant to segregate a white middle class suburban majority from minorities who were to be left in cities.  Don't believe me, try to remember how the media depicted cities in the 1980s, you know when Philadelphia fire bombed a residential block or the film "Escape from New York."

Oh look, a black guy with a gun and a chain.

Now, I will concede that there were social programs around the edges to try to help populations left in cities.  But, here is the thing, I think most millennials are willing to concede that in many cases, government programs are ineffective.  Social programs are often a band aid over a much, much larger cultural problem.  What was that problem in America---it was racism that led to an incredibly unfair housing policy that sent middle class folks to the suburbs with their money and their cultural institutions.  The cities were left to rot with strongly derided "social programs" providing a modicum of relief.  When these social programs failed, the middle class sneered even harder form their suburban fiefdoms.

How to fix the problem?  Ronnie Reagan maybe got something right, maybe, sometimes government is the problem.  That is why Allentown's free market, zoning-light NIZ district is such a big deal.  For the first time, in a long time, it is encouraging people to come back to the city.  It is only when the middle class returns to Allentown, with their tax money and philosophy of stable civic organizations, that things are going to turn around for everyone in Allentown.

This is not to say that millennials are some sort of uber-generation bent entirely on social equality.  They want cities because cities are cool and interesting places to live.  But, here is the thing, they don't demand a lilly white playground like the suburban white flightiers before them.  And because of that single important fact everyone's ship in a city will rise.  By ignoring race and class, rather than dwelling on it, the millenials will do more for everyone than the previous generations could even dream.

Its Official: One Billion Dollars of Development

Its hard to know where to start on an article like this.  The idea that Allentown, Pennsylvania could have brought in nearly a billion dollars of investment money even five years ago would have been laughable.  The city was on the ropes.  Not anymore.  Now Allentown is the place to be, its the place to go out, and pretty soon it is going to be the place to live.

The first place to start might be to address some of the negative criticisms.  There are a lot of questions about what will happen after the NIZ run outs.  First off, that is a long way down the road.  The NIZ is in place for 30 years and will drive development during that entire time.  Why?  First, you need an explanation of how the NIZ works.  The law is complicated, but essentially this is how it goes:

1.  NIZ taxpayers pay their rent as normal.

2.  That local and state taxes are sequestered at the state level and returned to the ANIZDA board.

3.  ANIZDA uses the money to pay off the construction loans of the new development.

When you zoom out, what the NIZ is really doing is creating a free market, it is saying, if you build within the geographical boundaries of this zone, you can use your own money to finance the construction of your own building---the state will bow out of the market.  That's smart.  That's a free market---that what hardcore Republicans and libertarians have been gunning for for years.  People like J.B. Rilley couldn't compete with all the tax breaks and incentives that had previously been going to the 'burbs, but, because Allentown now has a free market, he (and other developers can compete).

The consequence:  ONE BILLION DOLLARS in investment.  The best part is, there is no way the tax payers are left holding the bag.  Once the NIZ ends, tax revenue is returned to the state---the new real estate development should be totally financed by that point.

Once again, this is a huge win for Allentown.  Haters are gonna hate but they are now in the minority.  My generation, the millennials, want vibrant cities.  For all we care, the strip malls of suburbia and McMansions ought to decay into dust---it would look better anyway.

Great job Allentown.

Energy Costs and Land Use

Every time that I see an article about energy costs, it makes me glad that I live in a city.  I predict that my energy usage is probably less than 25% of a normal Americans.  Why, is it because I change my everyday life to live without?  Nope.

Living in shared space (an apartment / condo) in a larger building is inherently energy efficient.  Even more so if there is shared heat / water.  The fact that I don't need a car means that there is no car payment, no oil changes, no need to buy gasoline.  That's the benefit to walking.

So, for the city dweller, a change in energy costs means next to nothing.  For Joeanne Six Pack heating and cooling her exurban McMansion and driving everywhere, well, a small change means big hurt.

Transportation Tuesday: Nitschmann Middle School Parking

Last week, the Morning Call had an interesting opinion piece from the forever hard-nosed Paul Carpenter about a parking situation developing over at Nitschmann Middle School.  Apparently, the School District is doing some renovations at the school that will require that part of the existing parking lot is torn up and made unusable for parking.

The current solution to the problem will be to open up areas of the Bethlehem Rose garden for parking.  In the process several large trees will be removed and teacher's cars will be parked in the garden.  Carpenter, channeling his inner Joni Mitchell, disapproves of the idea.

Initially I though that Mr. Carpenter was (as he is sometimes prone to do) overreacting, but the thing just stuck in my craw.  Then, I realized why.  Tearing up a beautiful (and well used) rose garden to accommodate parking is just one more concession that our cities are asked to make in favor of the car.  When are we going to stop and say to ourselves, hey, we are serious when we say that our community should be walkable.  We are serious that walking, biking, and shared transportation should be the first things that come to mind when we are confronted by a transportation problem.

Martin Tower (and its large surface parking lots) is less than half a mile from the middle school.  What is the harm in asking the teachers to walk (or if the school district wants to---run a shuttle).  I walk a mile or so a day to get to and from my home to work.  It keeps be slim.  My grandmother walked everyday from 9th and Tilhman to 7th and Hamilton to get to her job.  And, I bet a lot of the middle school kids have to walk even further to get to school.  Why is it that once you become a teacher you shouldn't have to walk a mile in the kids' shoes.  These are the people setting the example for how we ought to be living in our communities and that example ought to include walking for the sake of the community and health.

I know that this seems like a small thing, but every single time our cities are asked to chose between walking or a car they are pressured into accommodating the car.  Its time to stop it.  And its time to say publicly---that's it, the era of the car-centric city, is at an end.  We are serious about sacrificing a bit of car comfort to make our city more beautiful, more walkable, and healthier.  I hope that city council takes action against the destruction of the rose garden and clearly says why the car in no longer king in Bethlehem.

New Allentown Video

Sure, its a fluff piece, but it looks great!



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnfXEjUl2kc

Changing Landscape of Valley Real Estate Development

Suburban Death

This article is exactly what the new urbanists have been saying for years---what we need is more housing, but in already existing neighborhoods.  This necessarily means more mixed use, more density, and more walkability.  It means refocusing attention into the downtown because that is where these goals can be more easily realized.  It is absolutely amazing to see real estate professionals in the Valley finally talking about non-suburban models of growth.