Toellner Tells it

Kansas City Commuting Heat Map

I've been a little MIA from this blog over the past few months -- at some point I'll probably get into why but I've been off working on other projects. I'm hoping to be back here consistently soon. Meanwhile, I stumbled across this visual heat map that highlights commute times from various parts of Kansas City.

The tool itself is pretty interesting - -as you can actually change it based on your actual destination, or on whether or not you're using public transit (which will show you visually why transit hasn't taken off in the metro -- it's because it pretty much takes longer to get anywhere on a bus than it does in a car).

It also has crime heat maps and amentiy maps. It is actually a really handy little tool for anyone who is looking to move to Kansas City to take a look at where various hot spots are. Other cities are available as well.

Check it out here.

The Higher Cost of Suburban Living

 When people talk about the cost of housing, often the only thing people talk about is the actual cost of the home they intend to buy.  And often, one thing that many people note when they buy a home in one of the distant suburbs is that they can "get more home for the money" in a distant suburb vs living closer in.

What people don't usually count in the cost of owning a home is the higher transportation costs that are incurred when people live further away from jobs and entertainment options.

So with that, the folks at the Center for Neighborhood Technology have put together maps that compare the housing prices of different areas in the city -- and then comparing the costs of the different areas of the city if you factored in both housing AND the cost of transportation.

So in the first posted map, the yellow areas in the city are the areas of the city where housing costs less than 30% of the total average income for the city -- and the green represents areas where housing expenses are more than 30% of the average income.

The second map then shows the relative pricing when transportation is figured in. So the yellow areas are areas where housing/transportation costs combine to be less than 45% of the total income and the green areas are areas where the cost of housing and transportation are greater than 45% of the average area income.

(You can click on either map and it will take you to a larger version).

While the first map shows that there are affordable homes available in the distant suburbs, they become less of a bargain when transportation costs are included.  This leaves the primary core of the metro to be the most "affordable" area of the city (along with the areas right around major arteries).

The good news is that KCMO has both affordable housing AND low transportation costs -- which would make it more attractive to a lot of potential home howners. If the city can somehow overcome some of the other hurdles that make KCMO LESS livable (crime, bad schools) it has a huge opportunity to stunt urban sprawl and attract people to more urban (and affrodable) living.

H/T:Good

Is "Regionalism" stripping cities of their identity

I stumbled across an interesting blog posting over at Good today written by Carol Coletta -- the President and CEO of CEOs for Cities and the host of the nationally-syndicated public radio show, Smart City.

In the article, she shares an experience of flying into one city, to speak in another city, but staying in a suburban hotel in a different city -- that all share the same region.

All three cities, plus two others, happen to share a single region. On their own, all of these cities have distinct charm. But string them together with the highway sprawl so familiar all over the country, and it sucks all the charm out of the idea of regionalism—fast. In this case, the sum is decidedly less than its parts.

This is by no means the only region to suffer this fate. In fact, it is more the norm than the exception.

Another recent trip produced an almost identical experience. My hotel was in the middle of a suburban parking lot. All that asphalt seriously discouraged a walk to the restaurant across the parking lot. Instead of experiencing the joy of being in a recognizable place that either of the cities that make up the metro area would have most assuredly delivered, I was staying somewhere between both near an expressway exit because it was “neutral territory” for a regional meeting.

Does this sound like she's in Kansas City? Staying in Shawnee and speaking in Overland Park?

Kansas City is lucky to have some good suburbs -- each with areas that have their own, distinctive downtown areas. Downtown Mission, Merriam, Blue Springs, Overland Park, Parkville, etc all have interesting little downtowns that make them distinctly, and uniquely, themselves.  However, sprawl has caused most of cities to mostly look primarily the same, with very little differening them from each other.  Colletta says that a lack of regional focus has caused this problem across the entire US:

Regionalism makes complete sense conceptually. Our economies, our natural systems, and our transportation systems are, indeed, regional and require a regional approach.

Regionalism can be relatively easy to impose in regions with big, dominant core cities, such as New York and Chicago. In those regions, everyone knows what’s powering the economic engine, and no one can risk killing it off. The dominant city is favored, as it should be, in regional decisions because it’s in everyone’s clear interest to do so.

But in those regions with cities of equal size or with a weak central city, the conflicts are writ large. The conflicts are even sharper in regions with a history of racial and economic segregation. That’s challenge enough. The real problem comes when, in the name of regionalism, decision makers become place agnostic. In other words, they can’t favor any one place in the region for fear of offending every other place in the region. That translates into development anywhere in the region being labeled as good development. If a road is built in one part of the region, it must be equalized with a road in another part of the region. If a cultural facility is awarded to one place, the next sports facility should surely be built elsewhere.

The bold stuff for emphasis is mine. Sound like KC?

The end result, according to Coletta:

The end result too often is places with no strong center and blured identity, places of no distinction, no vibrancy and force us to drive too much and generate too much carbon, places that are linked together not only by an economy and a transportation system but also by mind-numbingly repetitive development strug in between.

Colletta's recommendatio involves promoting regionalism -- promoting the entire region as a desirable one so we are successfully competing against other cities for new businesses, vs competing against each other. It calls for investing in more vibrant places, putting a stake in the gournd and declaring one place in the region as mattering more than the others -- and that if we don't, we'll end up with a place with no distinction -- which will undermine all of our regional strength.

It sure sounds an awful lot like Kansas City. And while it just makes sense for Kansas City, MO to be the area that matters most (because it holds most of the jobs, most of the history, most of the major destinations, the largest convention center, the entertainment districts, arena, sports teams, zoo, museums and most of the people), focusing regionalism for the improvement of the majority of the region will require the powers in other communities to give up some of their power for the betterment of the region as a whole.

And unfortunately, for now, it seems like the powers that be in the region would rather duke it out amongst themselves that build a strong regional center that the other communities support and enhance.

New Urbanism

I just happened to catch an article over at Fast Company today on New Urbanism. 

The video, and the article, talk about some of the environmental struggles that are being caused by the massive amounts of urban sprawl we are seeing in our cities...and that our new building culture stresses cul-de-sacs (which are now being outlawed in some areas) has created a lot of problems in how we live our lives.

"Wouldn't it be great to replace car commutes with walkable town centers? But what the video elides is that many cities actually makes this sort of development illegal, with zoning regulations that actively discourage "mixed use" planning. And many sprawling cities don't have any control over their own borders--developers frequently find it cheaper to simply move further out, rather that work within existing planning frameworks."

I think by and large, people have missed out on a lot in our "new" suburban communities. Additional commute times in vehicles lead to less time spent with families. Time spent in your own large yard replaces time spent in community park areas where you can meet people and socialize. You miss the joys of walking to dinner or the safety of walking home after a night at the corner pub.  The cost of running a school is more expensive because kids have to ride the bus to school instead of walking down the street. And we continue to build out -- taking up farmland and natural habitat (and then complain that the deer are bothering US).

I just think it's interesting two of the most demanded areas in this city for people to live, Brookside and Waldo, completely follow this model. Virtually every house in the area is walkable to shops, bars, restaurants, grocery stores, and the most popular walking/biking trail in the city. It also (not coincidentally) lays along the route of the busiest bus route in the city.

I still haven't figured out why more areas don't strive to emulate these areas and this form of urban design.

Here's another video from CBS that ran awhile back on the same concept and some other areas that are striving for this type of urban design:

100 Abandoned Houses -- and re-examining how we think about upgrading KCMO

Earlier today, I stumbled across a website that is essentially a photo essay entitled "100 Abandoned Houses" (hat tip PSFK)

100 Abandoned Houses is essentially a photo essay of the abandonment of homes in the Urban Croe of Detroit. Many of the houses are beautiful old homes that have just been left to rot and decay in the elements.

Detroit isn't unlike most large cities (although their situation may be a bit worse than most). They suffered the same fleeing out to the suburbs that all cities faced in the 70s, 80s and early 90s.

Now, the shells of homes are a reminder of urban flight, a sign of deteriorated/neglected neighborhoods, and a sign of the abandonement that many neighborhoods face. A photo essay like this could easily be done in virtually any large city in the United States -- and could easily be done in Kansas City. Heck, in Kansas City, it could likely be done in a short afternoon, and may only take walking a dozen city blocks to complete.  I addressed this some back in October.

Meanwhile, today, Yael Abouhalikah at the Star had a good column today about how Kansas City's reliance on TIF projects is eating into the city budget-- with 23% of every sales tax dollar now being used to fund TIF projects, vs being invested back into the city's decaying infastructure.

But in addition to money being taken away from tax revenue to pay for TIF projects, the amount of tax revenue that is coming is also decreasing -- in part, because of the displacement of tax dollars that comes from these TIF projects. If a new tax-subsided restaurant or entertainment district opens up, dollars that are spent there are moved from places that aren't subsidized, causing tax revenu to decrease.

Let me first say, I don't oppose the use of TIF money for redevelopment. It is a necessary tool. However, we, as a city, have not been very smart about how we use it. Instead of focusing the dollars to help with revitalizing old neighborhoods and fixing existing infastructure, we've tended to over-spend on projects that:

a) Require us to build MORE infastructure to support

b) Displace dollars (and residents) from fully taxable locations into these TIF developments

c) Continue to suck resources away from the city's old neighborhoods, further causing them to fall into disrepair -- even though we have so much visual evidence of the blight and problems this creates.

This isn't just a KCMO problem -- although tax programs to support development at Zona Rosa and in Shoal Creek certainly are contributing to the problem. Pretty much all of the cities in the metro have done this. Overland Park continues to build new shopping centers closer and closer to the Oklahoma boarder while older neighborhoods and shopping centers become blighted and abandoned. Shawnee continues to subsidize development further west, even though there are tons of abandoned strip centers on the eastern side of the city. KCK continues to subsidize development out at the Legends area, even though their urban core is struggling and older malls like Indian Springs are abandoned..

It's time to get back to helping the neighborhoods. In the long term, focusing subsidy dollars on rebuidling and repopulating urban neighborhoods is a benefit for the city. We can increase the populations in these neighborhoods (which increases tax revenue) without needing to build more infastructure (it already exists) -- and leaves less infastructure that has to be supported long-term. The improved density makes public transportation more viable. And it would remove the blighted abandoned homes that are more common in many neighborhoods than ones with people living in them. And these abandoned houses increase the feeling of disrepair (ie: Broken Windows theory), and provide a safe-haven for criminal activity.  Meanwhile, they hamper efforts to build communities and to have effective neighborhood watch programs. 

It's time to change the focus of our subsidized dollars...and put an end to the popularity of abandoned houses in our own city.

(Photos on this page were lifted from the 100 Abandoned Houses website and are located in Detroit.)

Virginia declares war on Cul-de-sacs

Since Friday's post was about neighborhood walkability, I thought maybe today, I'd talk about just the opposite.

The Virginia Transportation Board is creating new rules regarding Cul-de sacs. Like many suburban neighborhoods, many of Washington DC's suburban neighborhoods in Vriginia rely heavily on cul-de-sacs in their design. People in neighborhoods say they love the, because the lack of through traffic makes them save kids to play, and also help deter crime.

However, the flip side of cul-de-sacs is that it puts a lot of pressure on through streets because they become heavily travelled because all of the cul-de-sac streets feed into them. Because every trip that anyone takes from these neighborhoods requires entering out on the main road (work commutes, picking up kids from school, short grocery store trips), these roads become quickly congested and often require widening.

Because of this, recently, the US Census Bureau reported that the longest average commute in the country was in suburban Washington -- largely due to the overcrowding on jammed streets all fed by cul-de-sacs.  This has also affected public safety as fire trucks and ambulances are getting caught in the congestion and have no back roads to turn to to get to their destinations earlier.

"When interstates got built and we all started driving cars, our development patern scattered. Rather than building grid streets, we built a main spine and everything came off of it," said Suffolk County City Council Member E. Dana Dickens. "Offices, houses, stores were separated. You put all your traffic on one main road and you choke everything off."

So the state is stressing that future developments that are more open, more walkable, and more pedestrian and bike-friendly. Where people can make a trip to their local grocery stores, schools and parks, without getting onto the main road.  They are making these roads narrower to slow down traffic and to reduce storm water runoff -- and to save on maintenance costs.  The idea is that long-term, they can reduce traffic, reduce pollution, and save money devoted to paving and plowing the roads.

"When you have 350 to 400 miles of new roads you have to maintain forever, it's a budgetary problem," said Virginia Governor Timothy M. Kain.

When it comes to development of newer neighborhoods, are we using the best in current thinking for land use and designing neighborhoods? Or are we still using 1960s ways of thinking about how we move people in our cities?

From the Washington Post. Page 1 and Page 2.