Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Inner City Blues Pt 2.

I've been giving a lot of thought as of late on how to revitalize Russell and for that matter other inner-city neighborhoods. What's the best way to reinvigorate an inner-city mostly minority community? Should we push for lower taxes? A special financing district? Honestly, I don't think any of those will work in the long run. What will happen is what has already happened in Russell. You get a lot of light industry that moves in to take advantage of the tax breaks, but they never hire anybody from the neighborhood.  Hence the neighborhood doesn't get any better. It looks good in the paper, but the community stays the same.  Louisville has tried to revitalize Russell. Tearing down dilapidated homes and building new ones. The City has gone as far as tearing whole blocks to build a new neighborhood called the Ceder Street Development. I haven't seen the master plans for the development, but the few that have been built so far look like those in another western Louisville neighborhood called Park DuValle.  Personally, I think the architecture is a bit out of character for neighborhood, but it still works. Currently, they only have about 6 houses sold. 6 out of about 40. Once the housing market picks up hopefully more houses will be built.

I think there are several avenues that cities can pursue to revitalize these inner-city neighborhoods.  I know I said tax breaks may not be the way to go. And I agree to a certain extent. I think there should be a certain conditions on the tax breaks like the business (especially if they employee more than 25 and indeed are the warehouse/light industrial type) have to hire some people from the community. 

I would also like to see the use of forgivable 2nd mortgages.  I know when we purchased this house in Russell we were given a forgivable second mortgage. We were lucky, because the program we used was only for new construction. Our houses isn't new. However, we qualified, because we complete gutted the interior of the house. So in essence it was like a new house. I would like to see that program expanded to also included rehabbed houses and not just new construction. We still have a lot of old homes that need a lot of TLC. A program like this might help to save some of these houses. This program was federally funded, and the funds have dried up. I know Louisville has a severe budget shortfall so I don't expect this program to be reinstated, but it should be reinstated as soon as things turn around.

I also think cities have to do a much better job of reaching out to the community, and let people know that it is a priority that we revitalize Russell and neighborhoods like it. Take the forgivable second mortgage. If the city sent a representative to the area churches, civic organizations and actively told people that we have up to 15k in a forgivable second mortgage I think the city might be surprised at how many people would bite. The only way we found out about it was because we dug through the city's website and happen to stumble upon it. It shouldn't be so difficult. A revitalize urban neighborhood can only benefit the city in the long and short run. Why hide such a valuable tool?

One big mistake I see cities do all of the time is that they tear town whole sections of their inner-city neighborhoods, and then replace them with suburban style infill. A neighborhood that once had a lot of density and alleys now has a lot less density, no alleys, and a form factor that doesn't fit the character of the surround neighborhood. What usually happens is that the neighborhood gentrified. Hence reformed. But what happens to the poor people who use to live there? You can only reshuffle the chairs on the deck so many ways.

I'm not advocating that cities shouldn't try this sort of gentrification. I'm just saying that there are better ways to do it. I'm not against having poor people stay in the neighborhood. Quite the opposite. I think any infill projects such as these need to keep the density that have always had. instead of kicking all of the poor people put build a mix use/ mix income neighborhood.  Build apartment buildings that have market rate apartments, income based, and public housing in the same building. It's been done before, and it seems to have worked. an example of this would be Park Du Valle and Liberty Green.   

I would also like to see cities advocate urban gardening and famer's markets in poorer inner-city neighborhoods. Urban neighborhoods tend to be food islands. That means that residents usually don't have that many options for buying food. Take the west end of Louisville. Louisville's West-end comprises several neighborhoods and has about 75,ooo residents. There are only 3 grocers to service the community. To put it another way. Louisville averages 1 grocer for ever 12,500 residents. In western Louisville it's about 1 grocer for 25,000 residents. I would bet that it's about the same in most other urban neighborhoods across the country. I think this is one area where cities can provide some assistance. Urban gardening and farmers markets may not be the answer, but they are a piece of the answer. Cities and community agencies have to do a better job of explaining the "urban market" to large retailers. Most chain retailers are set up to cater to the suburban customers. Hence, they chose to place stores based on number of cars passing a certain point, and number of credit card transactions. That works well in a part a town that is geared toward automobiles. In a poorer part of town it doesn't work so well. In poorer urban communities people tend not to drive and pay for a lot of items with cash. Cities have to advocate building smaller stores. They all don't have to be huge big box retailers to serve urban communities. Smaller stores will work and would be just as profitable. I don't expect this change to come quickly if at all. Which is why I think farmers markets are the way to go. Maybe cities can offer grants and other incentives to local non-profits/businesses to open up small store farmer market grocers. Like this neighborhood stores of the past century.   

These are just some of the things I think cities could do to revitalize their urban neighborhoods. If nothing else this might help stabilize them. I don't think any one person or group has all of the answers. In the end, the community itself, with help from city government will be the best course of action.

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