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Partial Repeal of the ACA through Reconciliation: Coverage Implications for Maine Residents
Headlines: The latest on vacant, abandoned, and problem properties – April 8, 2016
This is our twice-monthly round-up of news stories covering challenges related to vacant, abandoned, and problem properties — and how communities are transforming these properties into assets. (The headlines are for informational purposes only; inclusion does not indicate endorsement.) If you’d like to get this round-up in your inbox, join our email list!
Homes in Rochester (Credit: Chelsea Allingfor Center for Community Progress, 2015)
National
Growing up in a bad neighborhood does more harm than we thought
“The neighborhood in which you grow up is a major determinant of your economic success as an adult. That’s been known for a while, but new research suggests that the effects may be much larger than social scientists previously understood.”
Justin Wolfers | New York Times | March 25, 2016
Zombie foreclosures and the crucial role of judges
“With the title clouded, neither the lender nor the owner maintains the parcel, so it falls into disrepair and becomes a blighting influence on the neighborhood.”
Gregg Hagopian | Governing | April 4, 2016
Maryland
EDITORIAL: Help for homeowners facing tax sales
“Not only does this victory help homeowners, it also takes an important step toward stabilizing communities by preventing the vacancy and abandonment that often results from the tax sale system.”
Robin Jacobs | Baltimore Sun | March 30, 2016
Michigan
Michigan’s $74.5M plan to stymie foreclosure, eliminate blight approved
“Seventy-five percent of the money, or $55.8 million, will go toward blight elimination in Detroit and Flint, according to the Governor’s office. The remaining 25 percent will ‘support mortgage assistance programs.’”
Ian Thibodeau | M Live | April 4, 2016
Mississippi
Jackson residents able to purchase vacant lots
“Residents in the City of Jackson have the opportunity to purchase vacant lots adjacent to their home.”
Jessica Bowman | MS News Now | April 2, 2016
Missouri
Tree farm will sprout on blighted urban KC land
“If the pilot project works, the city hopes up to 100 scattered acres of vacant and neglected land in the city could be filled with trees.”
Lynn Horsley | Kansas City Star | March 26, 2016
Montana
Blight buster? Butte-Silver Bow seeks stronger laws on vacant buildings
“Butte-Silver Bow County could soon give itself another tool to keep tabs on vacant buildings and force owners to maintain them or fix those in bad shape.”
Mike Smith | Montana Standard | April 5, 2016
New York
City levies fines, but fails to collect over half-billion from landlords
“The city has few means to ensure the fines are paid, giving some landlords and contractors leeway to continue to rack up infractions.”
Joe Anuta | Crain’s New York Business | March 28, 2016
Amid finger pointing, problem of ‘zombie homes’ worsens
“It takes an average of 2.7 years to complete a foreclosure in New York State.”
Matt Glynn | Buffalo News | April 2, 2016
Ohio
Ohio City, Knez Homes team up to offer quicker new construction on Cleveland land-bank lots
“Under the emerging Ohio City program, buyers might be able to go from selecting a site to a housewarming party in four to six months.”
Michelle Jarboe | The Plain Dealer | March 25, 2016
Tennessee
City gains the tools, personnel to mount unprecedented attack on blight
“With the charter, Memphis leaders are striking that belief. Coordination, collaboration and accountability will be the best tools in uprooting blight and its causes.”
Madeline Faber | Daily News | March 26, 2016
West Virginia
Huntington native pushes for community improvement
“Architect and Huntington native Phoebe Patton Randolph loves her hometown, and she wants to see it reflect that love.”
Taylor Stuck | Huntington Herald-Dispatch | March 27, 2016
And, Lastly, a Blight Bright Spot!
Vacant land in New Orleans (Credit: Luke Telander for Community Progress)
New Orleans is trying to turn around its blight with these smart designs
“One key insight: Selling off lots one by one probably doesn’t make as much sense as thinking of vacant land on a larger scale, with bigger social, environmental, and economic opportunities.”
Adele Peters | Fast Company | March 23, 2016
MMBR: New Year's Resolutions for Strong Citizens
Making a strong start to 2015.
Hello all you Strong Citizens out there, I hope that you have a had a warm and jolly solstice/christmas season. Welcome to your friendly Monday Member Blog Roll. Traffic on the blogs is a little light at this time of year, so I’ve put together some of my own thoughts on New Years resolutions and how we can use them to be come stronger citizens in 2015 (whoa, I kinda thought we’d all be dead by now or have flying cars on Mars…).
Speaking of the virtues of a strong citizen and resolutions for the new year, over at Granola Shotgun we get a post on doom preparation. I went through a period of real peak oil + climate change are coming for us tomorrow doom--the good news, and the bad news is that our system has proven more resilient than we gave it credit for. One the one hand, I don't wish suffering on anyone (well, pretty much); but on the other hand, it's not clear that we're going to be able to change our systems enough without some kind of break... Regardless of which way the world goes, personal and community resilience seem like good virtues.
I never ever want to find myself in a similar position as my parents so I organize my affairs as if Peak Oil is a legitimate possibility, regardless of the particulars. Listed below are some of my personal rules. Notice, this isn’t a conservative or a liberal list. There’s no mention of bomb shelters or gas masks or firearms to defend against zombies. Nothing on this list will make anyone poorer or less happy. If life continues to be endlessly prosperous and bountiful no one will be missing out on anything. And by the way, these are all things that our great-grandparents did as a matter of course.
At rational urbanism, we get some reflections close to my heart: both that in New England, we don't believe in growth; and that universities can often be leaders in placemaking, but town/gown relationships often drive them to be insular, to the detriment of the town... and eventually to the university.
This is not a bold place. People here do not believe in growth. In preparation for “The Curbside Chat” we removed a bullet point about faith in exponential growth because we knew that it was not a problem with which we had to deal. On the positive side, very few investors in this region assume amazing rates of return, and so there is less volatility and less sensitivity to the boom and bust cycle of the economy at large. As I read the analysis of experts who write about the inevitably higher cost of energy in the future they comment on the difficulties we will face societally dealing with a “no growth” paradigm, I often think that the industrial Northeast has been living with the realities of stagnation and decline for three generations; we’re ready!
Tracking this attitude, check out this latest dust up between motorists (God's own citizens) and pedestrians ("a man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure." M. Thatcher) in Worcester, MA. Particularly striking in light of our recent discussion about design-for-death city streets in Springfield, MA. Does this sound familiar:
"There are numerous factors that contribute to motor vehicle and pedestrian accidents," he said. "Both the operator of the motor vehicle and the pedestrian have an obligation to obey traffic-related laws and ordinances. It is not possible to reduce the number of motor vehicle accidents in the city through enforcement and physical changes to roadways and intersections, because it would be cost prohibitive. So if we are going to have a reduction in accidents, there needs to be a change in the behavior of many of the pedestrians crossing our roads and the operators who are driving them."
As my friend, and local super-planner, George Proakis, likes to point out in his presentations:
We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. - A. Einstein
I predict that a big theme of the coming year(s) will be how CNU stays relevant/progressive in the face of gentrification in cities and the suburbanization of poverty. Here's a great article from Planetizen on how New Urbanists can work in a strongtowns like way to retrofit existing weak-places; think of it as the residential version of "good enough urbanism." I found this quite hopeful!
When UDA began their work on the troubled housing project it quickly became apparent that the budget was inadequate for a complete neighbourhood redevelopment. (The more extensive demolition and rebuilding of entire projects become common later under HUD’s Hope VI Program, which was heavily influenced by Gindroz’ work.) In addition, David Rice, the executive director of the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Assoiation (NRHA), insisted that interior renovation work (where most HUD revitalization dollars had been spent in the past) was at best a band-aid solution. To make a real difference, the site-design and image needed to be completely transformed.
As a result, Gindroz and his team had to zero-in on what really mattered—what would have the greatest impact for the least cost. Working very closely with the residents through a comprehensive charrette process, the participants identified the key problems and offered excellent suggestions about how to fix them. One key theme identified during the public consultation was the desire to live in a "regular neighbourhood" not in a "segregated project." Another theme was to gain control over the dangerous "no-man's" land between the buildings and, finally, the desire to create outdoor places where neighbours could get to know one another.
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At a cost of $220 million, state DOT look to make good on decades-old promise to move a bridge. http://t.co/aaWeEt3PUy
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Stroad roundabouts are simply lipstick smeared on an unproductive strip mall of a pig. http://t.co/aHZtnDY0z7
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Growing trend: Alaska road paved in the oil boom now turned back to gravel. http://t.co/ZTDX6S6w11
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When an economy is broken and corrupt, preying on the poor suddenly becomes a socially acceptable strategy. http://t.co/raYTUL4fAF
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"You don't build an addition on your house if the roof leaks. You fix your roof." Inching towards success in TN. http://t.co/zBaTDpOsfx
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Market solutions to parking problems in Washington DC as demand-based pricing to be introduced. #winning http://t.co/u4mpjuSKfF
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Free Range Kids, gentrification, transportation funding , the Swiss Franc and a Cadbury egg apostasy. http://t.co/iz3qk8cnpk
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Providing retirees a second chance to sell their suburban homes at bubble prices comes at a cost. http://t.co/TcG9k3Cf94
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"We Are Extremely Over-Retailed." The American mall has begun "the death spiral". http://t.co/dtuNdnSKeu
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RT @samuelfbaron: The idea that such a term as 'distracted walking' exists is almost unbelievable: http://t.co/apox9sjAuM #slowthecars
The design team and the residents came up with a plan that employed three key urban design principles, all tried-and-true tenets of traditional urbanism, tested in cities around the world over millennia: 1) create a connected street network lined with houses, 2) provide a clear distinction between public and private space, and 3) create "houses" not "housing."
Lastly, the end of the year and the beginning of a new one is often a time for reflection. I know that as I look to my new year's resolutions for 2015, I want to find was to ask myself to be a Stronger Citizen. In that spirit, I want to share a few ideas about New Years Resolutions that my wife and I have found make them stickier
Top ten lists are great--we find it's actually better to have more resolutions than fewer. With more resolutions (like a top ten list) you have space for the little stuff, more on that below, as well as the bigger items.
Reflect on the good and bad of last year--Before you start writing out your resolutions, take some time for a personal check in (i.e. go for a walk); think about what you're proud of about the previous year and where you would like to have done better, and why. The more mindful of your own experiences you can be, the better you will be able to craft resolutions that are really yours and not just "things that you should do."
Limited and specific--keep your resolutions (or the majority of them) limited and specific. Instead of "be healthier" or "have a better community" include items like "get a dentist appointment" or "have the neighbors over for tea." It's okay to include ones you can knock off in an afternoon (clean the microwave is a favorite of mine), boom you'll have crossed one off by January 2nd.
Have a buddy--it's always easier to step up to hard things as part of a team (where you exercise social pressure on each other to keep up, or to help your team-mates); look for friends who you see often, and see if you can have shared resolutions. Check in with each other regularly through the year. It will help keep you honest, and you will have the pleasure of helping them out as well!
Count-down/up--Our latest innovation: rather than resolve to "go to the gym more often", write down something like "go to the gym 50 times," or "bike to work five days in a row" or "meditated 30 days in a row" then put a check box on your resolution page and keep track of your progress. Once you've done your thing X times, you may find that you've figured out how to make it more of a habit and easier to keep going. This system also helps guard against "oops, I slipped, now I'll just abandon that one" syndrome; if you slip once, you can still get back on the horse and try again for that year.
Stretch goals and rewards--it's okay to have some hard to achieve, big goals on the list too. These are the things that may really stretch you and inform your whole year. Examples include saving more money or losing weight or writing a book. These ones are harder because they are more complicated and diffuse than "go to the dentist," so look for ways to make them more concrete with numbers or specific activities that point toward that big goal. Think about ways that you can reward yourself, without compromising your goal (which is tough for money and weight, because a nice meal is the easiest gift! look for other ways to give yourself a special treat).
Visible and public--life is busy and it's easy to be distracted, post your resolutions in a place that you will regularly see them to be reminded, like on the fridge, in the bathroom, or next to your dresser. It can also be helpful if they are public; for one, your guests may be impressed by how much you've already ticked off this year... and you will feel added social pressure to stay on course!
Share your strong citizen resolution ideas in the comments, and if you're a member of Strong Towns, don't forget to add your blog to the blogroll.
A Conversation With Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan
“Every neighborhood has a future” was Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan’s campaign slogan when he ran for office in 2013. Now, just a few months into his tenure, it’s clear that his message—one that spat in the face of Detroit’s bankruptcy, its curtailed social services, and its high crime rate—will be a difficult one to implement.
A little about Duggan: He was born in Detroit in 1958, where he lived until he left to attend the University of Michigan. He received a Bachelor’s degree from the school in 1980, and a law degree three years later. He served as an elected official beginning in 1986, and more recently, as the president and CEO of the Detroit Medical Center. Now, Duggan is the first white mayor of majority-black Detroit since the mid-1970s.
I’ve long been interested in Detroit’s economic transformation, the comeback of its urban core, and the problems and divides it faces. I sat down Mayor Duggan earlier this month to talk about it.
Richard Florida: Let’s start with the basics. What is your vision for the city?
Mayor Duggan: The first thing we're trying to do is deliver quality city services, what in other cities might be taken for granted. We've got 18,000 streetlights installed since my first day here. We're taking down vacant houses—knocking down 250 of them a week. When you take down the run-down houses, the beautiful houses that are left there have significant value.
What we've started doing is filing lawsuits on every abandoned house in a good neighborhood at once. We give the owners two choices: They can sign a court order to have it fixed up and occupied in six months or they can give it to us and we'll sell it on the Internet. About a week from now, those are all going to hit the Internet pipeline, which means you're taking the whole neighborhood at once. The beauty of this is, for every house that we sell, two people sign a consent agreement to fix up their own house. Because I, as mayor, don’t want the house: I want it fixed up.
We're at a point that I've never seen in this city's history, where the young people want to be in an urban area. People are moving back. The jobs are moving back.
We hear a lot about how Detroit has to shrink. But you ran for mayor on the idea of protecting the neighborhoods in the city. Tell us about that.
I don’t see the size as a liability at all. I see the geographic size of the city as an enormous asset, if we think through carefully how to use the land. If you take the quality neighborhoods that are there and you save those, and then you take the commercial corridors near the quality neighborhoods and invest in those, that land becomes an asset to your overall vision and not some liability. I never use the word “shrinking.” Shrinking doesn't occur to me. I see that land as a very valuable part of a long-term vision for the city.
Traditionally, urban revitalization has been led by government. But in Detroit, a great deal of it is coming from the private sector. What do you think about that?
There is something about the spirit of this city that motivates people to want to help rebuild. And then when you look at how undervalued our assets are, you see there's enormous opportunity here. A lot of private investors are doing it from a profit standpoint. And a number of the foundations are doing it because they see return on investment in their own way. They believe the quality of life in the city is going to improve. Everybody sees the potential to have a significant impact in a short period of time.
So do you think a lot of the investment is motivated by the opportunity or a sense of community betterment?
I think it's both. No well-run foundation is going to throw money at me. They're going to invest where they think they're going to have the most impact on the mission. I hope the fact that the delivery of services has improved noticeably in the last seven or eight months is causing people to be even more willing to invest.
What do you see as the key areas and investments in that services area?
Everything starts with quality of life. If you live on a block and you have two burned down houses on your block, you have no ability to sell your house for anywhere near what it's worth. You are trapped there and your children are walking past those houses every day.
We have to improve the quality of life in those neighborhoods and we're working aggressively on it. If you can take out the abandoned houses and you relight the streets, that has an impact on crime. We've cut the response time during emergencies. You're seeing the fewest murders in 20 years. Our EMS response times are now the lowest they've been in five years: we're down from 18 minutes to 12 minutes. By the end of the year, my goal is to be down to seven to eight minutes.
If you go into any neighborhood in this city right now and say, “How are things?” people will say to you, "I got this problem with this or that. But it's getting better." I think you'll hear that throughout the city.
How much do schools matter in this?
The heart of the problem is that you have 40 different entities that are authorized in schools in the state of Michigan right now. In the city of Detroit we have not been well-served by the multiple authorizing authorities. I don’t care whether it's the Detroit Public School's education achievement authority or the charters’. Their performance standards are almost identical, and they are not succeeding. We've got to get to an authorizing entity that can ensure we get quality schools in the city.
I've said a big part of Detroit’s crisis is the wealthy suburbs not coming to the table. What do you think about this idea of the suburbs pitching in their fair share and working more closely with the city?
You can't go to the suburbs and say, “I want you to make a deal that's bad for the suburbs and work for the city.” They will not do that, nor should their elected officials do that. But can you find partnerships that are good for the suburbs in the city at the same time? I think you can.
We're going to have one shortly on the regional water system that will hopefully benefit both the suburbs and the city at the same time. You'll be able to judge for yourself whether it had any impact or not.
What about the State of Michigan. Do you think the state could do more?
I never go asking for money. What I try to do is put together partnerships that work for everybody, whether it's the governor, whether it's the president, whether it's the suburbs. I try to find things that work for all of us.
So what you're saying is that the private sector and foundations are more your focus than going to the state or at other political entities and looking for funding.
They're all pieces of a strategy. I need demolition money to be able to have the other houses succeed. That's a government function. But once I clear out the burned out houses and I want to sell the beautiful vacant houses, I need somebody to write a mortgage for that buyer. That's the private sector.
My wife, who grew up in greater Detroit, says it always felt like a big company town: You go to school, you get good grades, and you go get a job. Is there this entrepreneurial ecosystem now that's happening? What are its key features and supports?
The entrepreneurs are showing up on their own. We need to build the ecosystem to extend it.
Go to Craft Work. The waiter has got a Brooklyn accent. What are you doing here? "My girlfriend and I couldn't afford to start an organic food business in Brooklyn. I'm waiting in this restaurant during the wait. We're opening the organic market down the street. We bought a house in the neighborhood. We're fixing up." You see these old houses starting to get fixed up and it feeds on itself.
The loans to start the businesses in the commercial district feed the neighborhoods and as the houses fill up, the neighborhoods fill up, and the commercial district comes back.
They’re also filling up my administration. There are 20- and 30-somethings coming back from New York and D.C. into jobs in the administration that have an impact. It is remarkable.
Some people say Detroit is a tale of two cities: a gentrified core for businesses and newcomers and limited opportunity and failing neighborhoods for the longtime residents. How are you addressing that?
Come hang out with me in any neighborhood in this city right now and you can see it being addressed very aggressively. But when half of the lights in the city don’t work, it seems to be a hopeless situation. So we are putting 1,000 lights a week in neighborhoods. Everybody in the city gets that. The number of people who have called me and said, "We've decided not to sell our house”—we never thought we'd see it in our lifetime.
There is a feeling of hope in the neighborhoods. We have a long way to go. But people in this city believe that the quality of life in their neighborhoods is being addressed.
But there are those who will say that improving quality of life mainly benefits the more affluent. When you make the quality of life better, isn’t the result gentrification?
I've got three city council district meetings for which 200-300 people from the neighborhoods are going to show up over the next few weeks. Come sit at one of them and see. You will absolutely have people complaining about individual issues, but the underlying tone of is one of hope. Nobody says it’s downtown and midtown versus the neighborhoods. People in the neighborhoods today believe that we have an administration that is all about the quality of life of the neighborhoods.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Five Letters Are Driving Chicago Out of Its Mind
The City of Broad Shoulders stands with its arms crossed today. Donald Trump is erecting his name along the side of Chicago's Trump Tower—excuse me, The Donald's Trump Tower—and the city is not having it.
Chicago Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin despises the sign. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel thinks it's tasteless. Hizzoner is still mum about what, if anything, he plans to do about the sign, which will spell out TRUMP in 20-foot letters spanning more than 140 feet along the façade of the building, if it is completed. Chicago is meanwhile coming around to the fact that Trump may have his way with the building, which was designed by Chicago star architect Adrian Smith.
75% of those responding to Tribune website poll say they don't like the Trump sign. Trump's claim, "everyone loves the sign," is B-O-G-U-S.
— Blair Kamin (@BlairKamin) June 13, 2014
What might be greeted as a nuisance in many other cities has hit Chicago as an almost spiritual insult. Laying out the case against the sign for the Trib, one architectural historian summoned both Chicago planner Daniel Burnham ("Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood") and father-of-the-skyscraper Louis Sullivan ("It must be every inch a proud and soaring thing, rising in sheer exultation that from bottom to top it is a unit without a single dissenting line").
Never bring a knife to a gun fight, I suppose. But the high tenor of the conversation makes me wonder: Does Chicago take its architecture just a tad too seriously?
"[The Donald Trump sign] is just like Donald Trump. He dies his hair orange and does gross things," says Stanley Tigerman, the dean of Chicago architecture. "Except for Adrian’s building. It’s the only good thing he’s done in his life, but it won’t get him into heaven."
So Chicago does take its architecture too seriously, or so it appears when the Donald is involved. At other times, though, it almost seems like the city might be mortal, even pedestrian, when it comes to using design to shape its civic identity. Earlier this month, Mayor Emanuel introduced an RFP to turn Chicago into a "City of Lights" at night by draping the city's buildings and infrastructure in, well, lights. Kamin, a Pulitzer Prize–winning architecture critic, describes the plan as a "frenemy" deal: "The tourist city is both friend and enemy of the real city."
"I’ve got a problem with that, too," Tigerman says, referring to Mayor Emanuel's plan. "The city doesn't particularly need or demand it."
In general I think the government should let people do what they like with their real estate, but I make an exception for Donald Trump.
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) June 13, 2014
Perhaps it's just the fact that it's Rahm taking on the Donald. I'd watch that fight over a Chicago dog. Yet the outrage did not feel so palpable when the mayor backed the demolition of the Prentice Women's Hospital, a decision that can't be undone. That building was a major Chicago landmark, razed by Northwestern University to make way for a new biomedical research building. (Not that there were no hurt feelings involved: Northwestern blacklisted architects who opposed the demolition.)
Going, going...last remnants of #Goldberg's concrete quatrefoil coming down at #Prentice @PresNation @landmarksill http://t.co/2F0qllVT8w
— Matt Cole (@UrbanWorks312) June 13, 2014
If Chicago, as a city, is willing to throw down over five letters, where was it when the Prentice came down? Would things have gone differently had Donald Trump been driving the wrecking ball?
"The demolition of Prentice hospital is not Brutalism’s—or even Modernism’s—Penn Station Moment," critic Alexandra Lange wrote for Architect. (Disclosure: I was senior editor there at the time.) "Unfortunately, it is going to take the sacrifice of another postwar landmark to create the kind of broad-based, politically connected, media-savvy preservation movement to support Modernism each time it is threatened."
"It was a tragic loss," Tigerman says. As for what these debacles say about Chicago, he goes on to argue that the defining quality of Chicago architecture—and maybe a defining characteristic of Chicago in general—is that the city "rises as a phoenix out of the ashes of the fire."
He is referring, of course, to the 1871 fire that destroyed and created Chicago, happening, as it did, at the time when both steel skeleton frame construction and the gearless elevator arrived. But he also says that it has been constantly rebuilding itself since the Great Chicago Fire. Architects Jeanne Gang and John Ronan carry on the tradition of the First Chicago School and the Second Chicago School after that. And there are "12 or 13 architects" waiting to replace them, Tigerman adds.
"It’s the most modern city on the planet, because of that fire," he says. "Chicago is a perpetually young, perpetually modern city. With great optimism, despite the crime issue. People are stung by the beauty of it."
In other words, Chicago has survived worse than demolition, and Chicago will endure The Donald. In any case, it could be worse.
"Look at the crap that goes up in New York. Just think about it for while. What happened at Freedom Tower," Tigerman says. "New York talks a good game, but Chicago builds one."
Golly, I wish I had a smaller house.
The Metamorphosis of NYC Streets
We have similarly high hopes for Mayor Bill de Blasio as he takes office, and look forward to what he and new NYC DOT Commissioner Polly Trottenberg accomplish. Even though so much has changed, the vast majority of our streets still need to be rethought and redesigned. We need more space for efficient modes, slower speed limits, and traffic calming for our most vulnerable citizens. I hope this short gets them excited to top the transportation record of the Bloomberg administration.
Please note: This is but a short sample of the before-and-after footage at our disposal. Seriously, we could have put together a one hour version!
Rural Housing Preservation Grants
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