Watch Cabarrus sprawl! And Catawba too!

OK, I'll admit my bias. I thought Union County would be the biggest sprawl-zone in the Charlotte region. Turns out the honor may go to Lincoln County. (It depends on how you're measuring, of course.) Here's why I say that. As I was adding the link to my post about mountain development, I spotted something interesting on the UNCC Urban Institute website: an interactive set of maps of the counties in the Charlotte region that depict visually the development from 1976 to 2010, and projecting forward.

So I did some exploring. I started with Union County, home to Weddington, Marvin, Indian Trail and numerous other one-time crossroads just over the Mecklenburg line that have become full-fledged towns. Here's the link. (Click on the option for interactive map.) A county that in 1976 was almost completely undeveloped (shown in green) by 2010 was fully a third covered in development. From 1976 to 2006 its population increased 171 percent, but its land area that was developed increased 878 percent. What that means, of course, is that the land was developed in a low-density pattern. And here we go again, a tidbit for fiscal conservatives: Multiple studies show lower-density, spread-out development makes delivering of government services (police/fire protection, streets, water/sewer lines and so on) far more expensive per person than a more tightly knit developmental form – you know, the way things looked before about 1970.

But then I started looking at some of the other counties in the region. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a Mecklenburg interactive map. That one would have been eye-popping, I expect. (Update 1:55 p.m. Thursday: Thanks for the help, commenters. Here's the link to the Mecklenburg map, which was working when I checked it at 1:53 p.m. Thursday. And yep, it's eye-popping. Interesting also, besides seeing the green disappear, to see the "protected lands" increase.)

But of those I checked (Anson, Iredell, Lincoln, Catawba, Cabarrus and York) Catawba probably had the most visibly dramatic change. Cabarrus was dramatic as well.

But this Lincoln County stat blew me away: While its population increased 86.2 percent from 1976 to 2006 its developed land area increased by 1,450 percent.

Sprawl on high: Losing N.C. mountain wilderness

If you love the North Carolina mountains – the rocky wilderness trails, shady streams, the waves of mountaintops fading into the horizon – you won't like what I'm about to tell you. On the other hand, if you like miles and miles of stripped-out highways lined with conveniences stores, gas stations, chain motels, chain restaurants and billboards, you may enjoy it:


A recent study has found that in 30 years – 1976 to 2006 – land development in the North Carolina mountains increased 568 percent – from 34,348 acres to 229,422 acres – while population increased only 42 percent.

This means the development grew even more thinly spread around the area than it was in 1976. The average number of developed acres per person, known as the "development footprint" went from 0.06 in 1976 to 0.30 in 2006.

Projections are that the number of developed acres will increase another 63 percent by 2030, while population will increase only 25 percent. So the development footprint will grow to 0.39 acres a person.

I know unemployment in the N.C. mountains has been a severe problem. My concern is that the form of development, not the fact of the development, is destroying a precious natural treasure. Plenty of other countries have figured out how to have both development and preserved natural areas. Too bad ours hasn't done that yet.


Read the full study at the newly launched, newly redesigned website for the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute. You can also read pieces by UNCC architecture professor David Walters, comparing Charlotte's transit options to those in Basel, Switzerland (er, we fall short), and a piece by now-retired Urban Institute director Bill McCoy on dynamic downtowns throughout the region.


Walters says, "Cities such as Basel are ... better positioned to respond effectively to future changes in lifestyle that may be occasioned by external factors such as climate change, volatile energy prices and diminishing oil supplies. Charlotte, by contrast, faces some daunting, self-imposed challenges as it struggles towards a more sustainable urban future."


McCoy concludes that downtown Charlotte puts downtown Atlanta to shame, and gives a rundown on changes in places such as Mooresville, a former mill town that now sees gallery crawls and wine-tastings in its downtown. He concludes: "The suburban big box retail option dealt a blow to our regional downtowns, but it was not a fatal blow. In fact, our towns have weathered that storm and have come back by emphasizing niche markets, micro-retail, festivals and celebrations, cultural events, music, residential opportunities, and other community building dynamics."


The mountain study come from a collaboration among researchers at the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI) at UNC Charlotte, RENCI at UNC Asheville, researchers from UNC Charlotte's Center for Applied Geographic Information Science (CAGIS), with funding from the City of Asheville, the U.S. Forest Service, and RENCI's home office in Chapel Hill.

(Photo above courtesy UNCC Urban Institute, ui.uncc.edu)

Can you solve US energy crisis?

Now you can match wits with a computer to see if you can find the right energy mix for the country for 2050. It's an online game devised by a nonprofit effort called PoweringANation.org.
The multi-media site is being put together by students at UNC Chapel Hill's School of Journalism and Mass Communications, an effort that's part of the Carnegie-Knight Initiative on the Future of Journalism Education. The Energy Cocktail game is particularly fun - you try to create the balance of energy sources that won't raise costs dramatically but that also meets the goal of decreasing carbon dioxide emissions.

The Balancing Act game is fun too, if you're a local government policy wonk. You pretend to be a city manager making decisions about everything from a new water park to a cattle ranch to a new shopping mall, trying to balance the need for economic development with the strains on local water sources and power plant capacity.

And be sure to watch the video from the Gulf coast town of Venice, La. I saw it last month when I was visiting campus as a parent of a soon-to-be UNC student and a UNC J-school alumna.

Hey fellas, look out! I'm walking here!

What kind of drivers are most to be feared if you're a pedestrian in New York City? If you're thinking cabbies, think again. If you're about to cough up one of those hoary jokes about women drivers – don't. A New York Times article about a study from the New York City department of transportation tells us:

" ... In 80 percent of city accidents that resulted in a pedestrian’s death or serious injury, a male driver was behind the wheel. (Fifty-seven percent of New York City vehicles are registered to men.)"

The article notes that even though a lot of pedestrians are killed in New York traffic, "New York is now far safer to travel within than most other American cities, with half the per capita fatality rate of Atlanta, Detroit or Los Angeles. But New York still trails world capitals like Berlin, London, Paris and Tokyo, all of which are statistically safer."

The report itself lists a number of key findings. Here's one: "Traffic fatalities in 2009 were down by 35% from 2001." Here's another that made me chuckle: "Most New Yorkers do not know the city’s standard speed limit is 30 m.p.h." I think drivers the world over must be about the same. Everyone wants to go faster than the limit. For the record, Charlotte's standard speed limit is 35 m.p.h. unless otherwise posted.

The inequities of NCDOT board

Dear Gov. Perdue, House Speaker Hackney, Senate President Pro Tem (corrected, with apologies) Basnight:

Your state Board of Transportation is ridiculous. Got your attention? Good. Here's why I say that:

I just received an e-mailed press release from my friends at the N.C. Department of Transportation, about committee assignments for that august body, the N.C. Board of Transportation. I had lost track of who my local representatives on the board are, so I decided to check it out. I popped up the online roster for the state transportation board, a body that has major sway in allocating state transportation money. Guess what I see. Charlotte – by far the state's largest city and largest urban area – has only one member: Developer John Collett.

Of the 14 divisions, we in Division 10 (Mecklenburg, Anson, Stanly, Cabarrus and Union counties – population 1,374,357) have exactly the same number of NCDOT board members as Division 14 – Cherokee, Clay, Graham, Haywood, Henderson, Jackson, Macon, Polk, Swain and Transylvania counties – population 338,405. Notice how that's a little more than a third of the population of Mecklenburg alone (913,639).

Now obviously Division 14 needs representation, too. I'm not saying it doesn't. Rural areas shouldn't be overlooked just because they're small. But that doesn't make it right, or smart, to overlook urban areas just because they're big.

So let's take a look at the at-large members of the board, who are supposed to represent various interests. Let's see, there's an at-large member for State Ports and Aviation Issues. So it makes sense for that rep to be Leigh McNairy (again, corrected, with apologies) from Kinston, right? Sure, Kinston has no port, but at least it's on the Neuse River, isn't it? Only thing is, the state's ports are in City and Wilmington, neither of which has a rep on the DOT board.

Is it because of Kinston's vast airport – the state's busiest, and US Airways' largest hub and all that? Oops, I forgot! That would be Charlotte. There's even a Ports Authority Inland Terminal in Charlotte, ahem.

(If you give up on that Kinston mystery, here's a clue. The state-funded Global TransPark – a yet-to-bear-fruit effort that attempted to revive all of Eastern North Carolina by building a big airfield – is in Kinston. Well, now there's a parts factory there, too. Whew. I was starting to get worried that that Kinston appointment didn't make any sense.)

There's an at-large member for "rural issues." The position appears to be unfilled. Hmm, I wonder who's the at-large member for "urban issues." Guess what. There isn't one. But don't cities have urban-style issues in much the way rural areas have rural-style issues? Don't they deserve some attention too? Gov. Perdue, please hop on this.

There's an at-large member for environmental issues. Good! That's forward thinking. That member is from Raleigh, Nina Szlosberg-Landis. So the cities in the Triangle (Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill) get two board slots, because the District 5 member, Chuck Watts, is from Durham.

There's an at-large member for government-related finance and accounting issues (huh?). He's Ronnie Wall from Burlington.

Aha. Here's an at-large member for mass transit. Since Charlotte has the only light rail transit system in the state, and is the only city with funding to build the state's only streetcar system, and has the largest bus system and the only dedicated sales tax for transit in the state, it makes all kinds of sense that the at-large member for transit is – Andrew Perkins, from Greensboro?

And that gives the cities in the Triad (Greenboro, Winston-Salem and High Point) two board members as well, since the District 9 member is Ralph Womble from Winston-Salem.

Throwing aside the ridiculous way in which the DOT districts are configured (dating to where the state prisons were located, and I am not making that up), it's fair for all sections of the state to have voices on the board. But it isn't fair for people in cities to be disproportionately voiceless.

Charlotte and the state's other cities are the economic engines of North Carolina. When they sink, the state's economy sinks. That should be reflected in all state policies, not just transportation. It simply makes no sense that they get disproportionately tiny attention when it comes to transportation representation, or any other forms of representation.

I'm guessing the legislature can change those silly DOT districts. But when it comes time to make appointments, Gov. Perdue, Rep. Hackney and Sen. Basnight, could you please notice that your largest city – you know, the one with the busiest airport, the biggest traffic problems, the biggest mass transit system – might need a little more representation on your state transportation board?

Planning commissioners get tough

Here's a heartening (well, sort of, as you'll see) little event that took place at a little-heralded government meeting this week. It involves planning commissioners pushing to get a better outcome on a proposed rezoning.

The rezoning in question involves a highly visible corner at East Boulevard and Scott Avenue, in the heart of the Dilworth neighborhood's commercial district. If you've lived in Charlotte for a long time, you'll remember it as the site of the still-missed Epicurean Restaurant, home of fabulous steaks and The World's Best Biscuits, small morsels of buttery heaven which perfectly trained waiters brought around to your table throughout the evening, so you ended up consuming several thousand calories in biscuits alone, along with your steak and potato.

The Epicurean closed about 12 years ago. The Castanas family that's owned the property since 1959 tried to redevelop the site in the late 1990s but couldn't get the financing, owner George Castanas told me on Wednesday.

They want to put a parking lot at that key intersection. (Actually, people have been parking there already, in violation of existing zoning, NS, which doesn't allow parking lots.) So they're seeking a rezoning. It's complicated, involving something called a "Pedscape Overlay" for East Boulevard. But the upshot is that the new zoning category they seek would require an improved, wider sidewalk along East. The owners want to keep the same old sidewalk, which a Charlotte DOT staffer estimated at 5 feet with a small planting strip, or none, depending on where you look.

The planning staff is OK with letting the rezoning go forward without an improved sidewalk. Indeed, because the rezoning would be to something called "optional" - B-1 (PED-O) instead of B-1 (PED) - the better sidewalk wouldn't, technically, required. The "optional" means you can do pretty much what you want as long as the city will let you get away with it. (Some optional options are more palatable than others, of course.)

Throwing aside the larger question of why you'd have a supposedly pedestrian-friendly zoning standard (i.e. PED) at one of the key intersections in the main commercial area of one of the city's most historic neighborhoods that allows a surface parking lot -- after all, can you say "pedscape"? - why didn't the planning staff at least push the owners to improve that bad sidewalk?

At Wednesday's meeting of the Zoning Committee (which is a sub-set of the appointed Planning Commission, the one that makes recommendations to the City Council on rezoning petitions) several commissioners began pushing the staff on this very question. Nina Lipton, Tracy Dodson, Greg Phipps and Claire Fallon all chimed in, diplomatically, of course, to suggest that something better for the public could be accomplished. The planners' point had been that the parking lot isn't likely to be the permanent development at that corner, so whatever happens now is likely just interim.

But commissioners Lipton and Fallon both questioned how long "interim" might be, since the lot's been sitting undeveloped for 12 years already.

With the property owner really wanting that parking lot, and really needing a rezoning to make the parking lot legal, the planners actually have some leverage in this case. Yet they didn't appear to have tried to use it.

In the end, the Zoning Committee voted to delay making their recommendation on the rezoning until September to give the property owner time to "work with the neighborhood" - i.e. the Dilworth community association - to come up with an idea that's closer to the spirit of the pedscape designs.

Streetcar planning (or not), the Texas way

Charlotte as a model of planning? When it comes to its new federal streetcar grant, if you compare the Queen City to Fort Worth, Texas, the QC looks positively Swiss in its efficiency.

Fort Worth was another of the cities to win a $25 million federal grant for a streetcar project, reports Yonah Freemark in his piece in The Transport Politic, "Fort Worth Wins Grant for Streetcar, But Whether It’s Ready Is Another Question." But Fort Worth doesn't even have a route chosen for its streetcar from among six it's studying. The city hasn't yet decided on how its share would be funded. And without a route chosen, the exact costs are difficult to project.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram (disclosure, a fellow McClatchy Co. newspaper) editorialized that the city should leave the grant on the table. A local pro-transit blogger, Forthworthology, takes the editorial board to task for what it says are inaccuracies, such as saying the city's cost would be $26.8 million, when no reliable cost estimate can be made until a route is chosen.

In the Transport Politic piece Freemark writes, "Unlike the streetcar lines proposed for Charlotte and Cincinnati, which are basically ready for construction, Fort Worth’s line is under-planned. The fact that the city has yet to settle on a final alignment is problematic since it means that Washington is agreeing to finance a project that has yet to be fully defined. Is that sound policy?"

It's a good question. Many U.S. cities (including Winston-Salem and Columbia) are looking at launching streetcar projects. But until the Obama administration, streetcar projects were all but frozen out of any federal funding. That's one reason the Federal Transit Administration took unspent transit money and created the pool of streetcar. With so many cities that could use the money, why give a grant to one that doesn't seem ready?

An aside - I noticed reading the Star-Telegram editorial that the "Regional Transportation Council" has given money to the streetcar effort. Yet another metro region with a sane planning structure: The regional council of governments (known as a COG to planning technies), which does regionwide planning, is the same organization as the metropolitan planning organization (MPO), which does regional transportation planning. Well, duh.

Of course, in Charlotte we have four to six MPOs in our metro region, and they're all separate from the COGs. So our transportation planning is both fractured and disconnected from land use planning.

Insanity. It's one thing that helped give us a state-designed outerbelt in southern Mecklenburg designed with the state-held delusion that nearby land would remain rural.

A few small sidewalk victories

All but this section of Runnymede sidewalk (above) has been cleared off.

Some of you recall that a few weeks back I wrote an op-ed (with lots of photos) "Walk This Way. If You Can," about my experience walking to work, a 4.2-mile hike along Providence and Queens Roads and Morehead Street. I mentioned several spots where unkempt sidewalks would pose obstacles to anyone in a wheelchair (or on roller skates, or trying to walk two abreast, for that matter). The one that brought the most comment from readers was my mention of several sections of the sidewalk along Runnymede, between Sharon Road and Colony Road. I pass there regularly in the car and walk there occasionally, and the sidewalk has been covered in leaves, mud and crud for at least a decade.


Finally! All but a small section has been cleared. (see photo at right).

I don't know if it was publicity or whether the city's transportation department contacted the property owners, but several Saturdays ago I spotted a guy with a big broom sweeping off the muck. And the scraggly holly bushes planted at the edge of the sidewalk (their prickly leaves making for a tight squeeze past the hollies) have been cut down.


I had called 311 to report a couple of spots on Providence Road where, in one case, ivy and in another case, azaleas, had grown over the sidewalk leaving only a narrow passage. The city DOT is on the case. The ivy's been cut back. The azaleas remain in need of severe pruning.


For the record, I have nothing against hollies and azaleas. I have planted, fertilized and otherwise tended both in our own yard, and they are valuable living things. Just not planted next to a too-narrow sidewalk.

Unlike Charlotte, Durham nixes digital billboards

Just spotted this article in the Raleigh News & Observer - the Durham City Council has turned unanimous thumbs down on a proposal to allow digital billboards.

Interesting. Charlotte, of course, allows them, having voted 8-2 in 2007 (council members Michael Barnes and Warren Turner were the "no" votes) to loosen the city's already loose billboard standards to allow the large and distracting TV-screen like signs.

The article about Durham says Durham's "City/County Planning Department recommended against the change in a strongly worded presentation that raised concerns about digital signs as motorist distractions and costly litigation that could be invited by tampering with an ordinance the city has already spent more than $1 million defending against industry challenges."

Other cities that ban digital billboards include Chapel Hill, Morrisville, Cary and Raleigh.

How Charlotte competitor builds its streetcar

St. Louis, one of the four cities in the running with the QC for the probably-not-very-exciting 2012 Democratic National Convention, was also a recipient of one of those $25 million federal grants for a streetcar project. In "St. Louis’ Loop District Gets Endorsement from Feds with Grant for Streetcar," Yonah Freemark at thetransportpolitic.com gives more details about the project – the only one of nine cities whose streetcar projects got federal money this year that plans a project outside of its downtown.

Some interesting tidbits: St. Louis plans its project to use both overhead wires (like Charlotte) and battery power, which will let it run through some segments of the route without the wires. "This could make St. Louis the first city in the U.S. to experiment with this sort of alternative propulsion for rail vehicles," Freemark writes. Indeed, in talks about Charlotte's streetcar and the problem of how to deal with The Square (at Trade and Tryon in the heart of downtown) if the project's next phase is built, the idea of batteries has come up. Looks as if St. Louis will be the guinea pig on this technology.

Also interesting is the way it's being funded: In addition to the feds' $25 million grant, the project will get $6 million from the local Council of Government/MPO (Imagine this: In many, many metro regions the "regional planning" body and the "regional transportation planning" body are the same – duh!). Private money, estimated at $5 million to $8million, is expected from donors McCormack Baron Salazar, a national urban development firm with headquarters in St. Louis, which committed $2 million in tax credit equity, and the St. Louis Development Corp., which has pledged $3 million.

And, writes Freemark, "Operations will be covered by a transportation tax residents in the surrounding area approved by 97%. This strong show of local support, both financial and political, is likely one of the reasons St. Louis won the grant from the U.S. DOT over so many competitors." That tax is in the form of a 1-cent sales tax in a transportation development district.

Charlotte folks should be paying attention to several lessons here: Look to multiple revenue sources such as special districts and getting the private sector which will reap some benefits to pay in. But this part needs to be in neon, with flashing red arrows pointing to it: Combine the region's splintered MPOs (Metropolitan Planning Organizations for those of you not deeply into transportation policy) and the region's COG, so there's one regional planning agency doing the planning for the region.

Remembering a designer who made a difference

Touring the soon-to-open greenway along Little Sugar Creek on Wednesday "Long-ignored creek debuts in starring role," (slideshow here) my guides pointed me to some carved inscriptions in the pavement at each end of the pedestrian bridge that allows people to walk from Harding Place over the creek to the greenway. They were put there by the folks at LandDesign, in memory of the late Brad Davis.

Brad was a champion for parks, as well as good design. I met him shortly after I started writing my columns on city matters, and I respected the care he put into his work and designs. He was a long-time member of the county's Park and Recreation Commission and helped found its nonprofit Partners for Parks. He died of cancer in 2007.

His colleagues at LandDesign, where he was a partner, donated money for a small memorial to him at the greenway. If you walk across the bridge you'll see his words. I particularly liked those on the Harding Place side:
"Attaining good design is a real struggle between the idea of creating great spaces and meeting the regulations for public health, safety and welfare. When in doubt, do great design."

Why conservatives should love streetcars

"'For cities, conservatives' banner should read, 'Bring Back the Streetcars!' "

Read on. It's from an article in The American Conservative, "What's so conservative about federal highways?" by William S. Lind, director of The American Conservative Center for Public Transportation and coauthor of Moving Minds: Conservatives and Public Transportation. Reader Mason Hicks, who grew up in Lancaster County, S.C., but now lives in Paris (France) shared it with me recently.

Lind's piece talks about the folly of a national transportation system that requires us to depend on foreign oil, and on only one transportation mode, and points out how it was government intervention in the marketplace (via billions spent on highways) that helped kill the passenger rail business.

And here's another provocative excerpt: "The greatest threat to a revival of attractive public transportation is not the libertarian transit critics. It is an unnecessary escalation of construction costs, usually driven by consultants who know nothing of rail and traction history, are often in cahoots with the suppliers, and gold-plate everything."

He writes of the importance of "avoiding the foxfire allure of high technology," and says, "All the technology needed to run electric railways, and run them fast, was in place 100 years ago. It was simple, rugged, dependable, and relatively cheap. In the 1930s, many of America’s passenger trains, running behind steam locomotives, were faster than they are now. (After World War II, the federal government slapped speed limits on them.)"

It's a provocative piece, especially in light of the Charlotte debate over whether the city should accept a $25 million Federal Transit Administration grant to help it start building a proposed streetcar line. Here's what the Charlotte Observer's editorial board said in today's newspaper:
"Think streetcar vote was hard? Just wait."

Weak mayor? Pat McCrory opines. In California.

Hmm. Ex-Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory, a Republican who's almost certainly running for governor again in 2012, has written an opinion piece for, of all things, the Sacramento Bee:
"Strong mayor or not, it's still the bully pulpit."

It seems Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson is pushing to turn the office, in California's capital city, into a full-time, strong mayor form of government. And the local paper there (a McClatchy Co. sister paper to the Obs) requested the opinion of another non-fulltime mayor.

For those of you not deeply into local politics, here's a primer on strong/weak mayor systems: In cities such as Charlotte that have a "council-manager" form of government, the mayor's doesn't hire or fire anyone or run any city departments. A professional city manager does that. The council makes the decisions such as policy, and hiring/firing the city manager. In Charlotte the mayor doesn't even have a vote on the council, except in a few instances (ties, rezonings with protest petitions, etc.) Charleston's Joe Riley, Boston's Tom Menino, Chicago's Richard Daley are all "strong mayors," – they function as the chief city administrator.

McCrory concludes: "Regardless of the powers to the mayor's office it will be the mayor who will get the blame or the credit for what happens in a city. Deserved or not."

There are pros and cons to each type of government. Strong mayors can be more effective in changing city policy – witness Daley's success at and worldwide acclaim for repositioning Chicago as a "green" city. City managers tend not to want to be strong enough leaders to get out in front of those who hire/fire them, which can lead to a sense that no one is leading the city – which was a recurring criticism during McCrory's tenure. And with the job being a (wink-wink) "part-time" one, the post is only going to attract people who are wealthy, retired, self-employed, have very understanding bosses or have a job or whose pay is so low the mayor's pay is a step up.

On the other hand, strong mayors can use their power to reward political allies and punish foes, even to a greater extent than "weak mayors." (They can all do that, believe me.) And an inept or crooked strong mayor can do a lot more damage than an inept or crooked weak mayor.

My conclusion is that I'd like a strong mayor system if we had a mayor I liked and I'd hate it if we had a mayor I didn't. And that's not really all that helpful.

Streetcar, more tree protection before City Council today

City Council members today get to deal with some controversial stuff. At tonight's 6:30 p.m. meeting they're to vote on whether to accept the $25 million federal grant to start building a streetcar line. At their 5 p.m. dinner meeting they'll hear a briefing on the controversial tree ordinance revisions, five years in the making. And at a 3:30 p.m. committee meeting, the panel will hear about the controversial urban street design guidelines, which have been in the works for eight years. (Memo to government staff: If you have the temerity to propose something developers don't like, be prepared to spend many, many years on it.)

For all you local government aficionados, here's a link to what the council will be asked to vote on for the streetcar. And here's a link to two pro-con pieces that ran Saturday on the Observer's op-ed page, from council members Edwin Peacock III (he's voting no, he says) and David Howard (why he'll vote yes). And here's what the Observer's editorial board said about the streetcar on July 18, in "Streetcar is sound strategy, not silly frill."

Tree ordinance: At its 5 p.m. dinner meeting the council's to be briefed on the proposed strengthening of the city's tree ordinance – the part of the ordinance that applies to commercial development, including multifamily housing, but not the part for single-family subdivisions. Just to show you how things work, here's a list of the members of the stakeholder committee that has been hashing out the tree ordinance for FIVE YEARS.

I've put in red the members who represent developers or businesses whose major clients are developers. (Granted, just because you get paid by developers, or are one, it doesn't mean you're not sometimes environmentally minded. But I'm just saying.) I'm not sure how to categorize Henry Wallace from Duke Power, a utility company. It's a subsidiary of Duke Energy, which also co-owns Crescent Resources, which was a major developer around here until it had to file for bankruptcy.

I've put in blue the members who are government staff, and therefore are expected to be responsive to ALL members of the public, i.e. not say things that may tick off developers.

In green are the stakeholder members who aren't affiliated with the real estate and development industry and aren't local government staff.

Don McSween (City Arborist), Mary Stauble (Mecklenburg County Solid Waste), Lisa Hagood (ESP Associates, Designer), Lee McLaren (DPR Associates, Subdivision Steering Committee), Henry Wallace (Duke Power, Utilities), Tim Morgan/Andy Munn (REBIC, Home Builders Association), Bob Miller (Camas Associates, Architect), John Porter (Charter Properties, Developer/ Charlotte Apartment Association), Chris Buchanan (Moore & Van Allen, Tree Advisory Committee), Rick Roti (Sierra Club), Christa Rodgers (Parks and Recreation).

Even more revealing is to check out the cost-benefit analysis subgroup, whose mission was to apply the proposed changes to some development sites to see how much they might add to the cost of development. (It's amazing anyone was left at the Crosland or Childress Klein offices while this group was meeting):

Jon Morris (Beacon Partners), Clifton Coble(Bissell Development), Chris Kirby (Carlson Real Estate), Tom Lannin(Chestnut Consulting), Tricia Noble (Childress Klein), Sue Freyler(Cole Jenest & Stone), Bill Daleure (Crosland), Mike Wiggins(Crosland),Scott Henson (Crosland), Steve Mauldin(Crosland), Ju-Ian Shen (Design Resource Group), Al Harris (LSG), Debra Glennon (LSG), Jay Banks(Kimley-Horn), Ed Schweitzer (Land Design), Jeff Orsborn (OSG), Kavita Gupta (Perkins and Will) ,Brandon Plunkett(The John R. McAdams Co), Brian Crutchfield (Timmons Group), Terry Brennan (Trinity Partners), Paul Devine (Childress Klein), Landon Wyatt (Childress Klein), David Haggart (Childress Klein),Chris Daly (Childress Klein),
Trey Dempsey (Lincoln Harris).

Does it make sense to have plenty of site-plan, run-the-numbers expertise on a cost-benefit analysis group? Of course. But if you've ever wondered why run-of-the-mill Charlotteans think the city's government processes are dominated by developers, that's why.

Street designs: At 3:30 p.m. today the council's Transportation and Planning Committee (David Howard, Patsy Kinsey, Warren Cooksey and Michael Barnes) hears presentations on the Urban Street Design Guidelines, and the Centers Corridors & Wedges Growth Framework. The committee is being asked to make a recommendation to the full council on the CC&W Framework. If you haven't heard much about it, you're not alone. It's not been getting many headlines. Probably because it doesn't really change things very much. Or if it does, I haven't been able to find that section in it.

The street design guidelines have been controversial. Developers (who'll have to pay to put more streets and sidewalks into their developments, which takes away from developable land) contend the street requirement will raise costs. They've also acquired a sudden concern for storm water runoff (a concern they didn't seem to feel very powerfully when the city and county were trying to adopt watershed protections and floodplain regulations in the 1990s) and they're noting that all those sidewalks and extra streets will create more impervious surfaces. As if all the rooftops and driveways and surface parking lots they're building don't.

Short block lengths are a huge help to people trying to get around the city on foot. The city's attempt to shrink the allowable block lengths in its new development is admirable. Further, the USDG policy that was adopted in 2007 already compromised the transportation experts' earlier proposal, after developers complained. Here's hoping the City Council, as it deals with the staff's current project to codify the policy into the local ordinances, doesn't force yet another "compromise" of the already compromised guidelines.

Here's a link to the PowerPoint presentations that show the Centers Corridors & Wedges Growth Framework, and to the Urban Street Design Guidelines.

Art, Avett Brothers and "Freemore West"

A quick update on last week's posting about the arts grants to Winston-Salem and Greensboro, "Winston-Salem gets artsy on its interstate." I wondered whether Charlotte had tried for any similar arts grants. I heard back from Robert Bush at the Arts & Science Council: "ASC applied to the NEA but didn’t make the cut."

He said the UNCC School of Art & Architecture was a partner along with Charlotte Center City Partners in the application. "Our application," Bush said in an e-mail, "was to support the Cultural Action Plan that we will be launching and specifically to support an international design competition for the Main Library/Spirit Square Block and the block immediately north on Tryon as a mixed use redevelopment project focused on innovation and creativity. "

Another public art tidbit: I'm just back from a couple of days of student/parent orientation at the University of Tar Heel, and I noticed on the wall in the Frank Porter Graham Student Union building, some clay disks that had a familiar look to them. Sure nuff, they're the work of Raleigh-based and UNC-educated artist Thomas Sayre, whose red-clay-colored disks on South Boulevard ("Furrow") have drawn plenty of attention (a lot of it negative). He's also the artist who crafted the so-called Onion Rings ("Grandiflora") at Wendover and Randolph, a work I have confessed to feeling fond of.

The Gaston Gazette tells us that the Gaston Parkway is likely to be delayed until 2015, because so many roads projects in the area are keeping contractors too busy to work on the parkway, too. Hmmm.

And a press release from the city of Charlotte's Neighborhood and business Services Department, about a celebration 10 a.m.-1 p.m. on Thursday at Wesley Village apartments (2715 Wet Stone Way, Charlotte, NC 28208), tells me that part o town has been "newly named and branded" as "Freemore West."

And if you're with me this far, here's a link to a cool video that NPR has posted to go with the Avett Brothers' Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise." It features an animated painting by Jason Ryan Mitcham. "The video shows the rise, fall and inevitable decay of rampant urban development," says NPR. Let's just say it's an artist's view, not a planner's.

And commuter rail for North Mecklenburg lives?

Here's a business-focused wrap-up of reasons no one should count the proposed commuter rail line to North Mecklenburg as dead. Business Today online writes "Economic Development Prospects Put North Line Rail Back on Track." Although there's not much new news in it, it's a good wrap-up of why the North Line (a.k.a. the Red Line) remains an excellent plan, and one that the business community should get behind.

Now if they could just wire up some of that federal money for commuter rail .... That's been the sticky wicket all along. The Bush administration's transit-funding rules were written in such a way as to rule out virtually all proposed commuter rail transit, including this project. Those rules are changing. Stay tuned.

Winston-Salem gets artsy on its interstate

Cheers to our fellow N.C. cities, Wintson-Salem and Greensboro. Each won a six-figure grant from the Mayor's Institute on City Design.

The most exciting project is the one in Winston-Salem, which received $200,000. The Arts Council of Winston-Salem created a coalition among the N.C. Department of Transportation, the city, and the Chamber of Commerce to make sure urban designers and artists have a role in the NCDOT replacement of 11 bridges along Business I-40. The goal: Assemble artists and urban designers to create a master plan that provides guidelines for design, lighting, sound walls, and bridge abutments, as well as water features, public art, and festival space adjacent to the rights-of-way.

It would be great if Charlotte's Center City 2020 Vision Plan came up with a similar coalition, and went after similar money.

Greensboro's $100,000 grant to this project. The grant foes to Action Greensboro, a not-for-profit organization in the N.C. Piedmont that coordinates citizen initiatives on enhancing the Greensboro. Action Greensboro is funding public art for a renovation of an abandoned railroad. The art will include 12 decorative iron , through which will be seen two 60-foot graphic panels depicting parts of Greensboro's history.

The greenway encircling downtown Greensboro sounds like some Charlotte plans (remember the uptown loop greenway from the 2010 Uptown Plan, or the John Nolen greenway plan from early in the 20th century?) – as yet unfinished. Note the photo with the Greensboro plan, shows work by artist Jim Gallucci. Want to see some of his work in Charlotte? Visit the bridge over Briar Creek on Central Avenue.

Renewing the old urban-suburban battle

Professional contrarian Joel Kotkin had a piece last week in the Wall Street Journal, "The Myth of the Back-To-The-City Migration," that's gotten folks stirred up. (That link doesn't require a WSJ subscription). Here's his thesis in a nutshell: "The great migration back to the city hasn't occurred. Over the past decade the percentage of Americans living in suburbs and single-family homes has increased."

His thesis flies in the face of other analyses that show a decided uptick, compared with recent decades, in the proportion of people wanting to live in urban areas. As is always the case, some people take issue with either Kotkin's facts or his conclusions. Or both.

Here, for instance, is a two-part blog riposte that Bill Fulton wrote in 2007, in "It's Time to De-Kotkinize the Planning Debate." Fulton, a planner, publishes of the respected California Planning & Development Report, and is mayor of Ventura, Calif. He's quite complimentary of Kotkin's research for his books, but thinks the speeches play fast and loose with data.

And Sam Newberg (a.k.a. Joe Urban) offers this rejoinder, "Joel Kotkin Takes On Urbanists." In an e-mail to me, Newberg adds, " I like Joel Kotkin and most of his work. In this article - http://joe-urban.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/suburban-snapshots.pdf - I even found that he and Peter Calthorpe agree on the fundamental shape of regions, even if they disagree on the built form on the ground. The problem I have is that Joel Kotkin does us all a disservice by lumping the very widespread preference for mixed-use, walkable places with those who want a downtown high-rise condo – a big difference. We have not provided enough quality urban housing choices in this country – supply has not met demand. Federal policy, siloed decision-making, city zoning laws, lending practices, NIMBYs, and mechanisms for financing transportation and affordable housing are all to blame."

And if you've read this far, you're probably interested in Christopher B. Leinberger's blog posting, "Walking – Not Just for Cities Anymore," written after he debated Kotkin last week in New York. Leinberger is a developer and a visiting fellow at Brookings, who also writes for The Atlantic. He finds a surprising convergence in some of their thinking.

Leinberger and Newberg both finger one of the reasons that make me think Kotkin paints with too broad a brush. What's "urban"? What's "suburban"? That answer varies widely depending on geography, government and history. It's all in the eye of the beholder and means a lot of the statistical stuff being tossed around today is, in my eyes, squishy.

For instance, what parts of Charlotte are "urban"? I could give you a good argument that almost nothing in Charlotte is urban - not even uptown - if you envision urban as containing streets and where you can walk a few blocks down a sidewalk lined with storefronts and find dozens of stores selling goods you need for daily life (as well as interesting specialty stores), offices, apartments, nightlife, small industry, a variety of transportation options, schools and other public institutions. Dilworth, by that definition, is primarily suburban. In fact, it was designed as a turn-of-the-century streetcar suburb. It's within a mile of downtown, and it's slowly densifying, but is still predominantly single-family housing with reasonably big lawns. So is Dilworth "urban"? "Suburban"?

Is Davidson urban or suburban? What about Piper Glen? Davidson is not part of the city limits of Charlotte. But its older areas are denser, more walkable and have more urban fabric than the large-lot, single-family golf-course-focused subdivision of Piper Glen, which is within the city limits and therefore, in some definitions, urban instead of suburban.

Leinberger makes a good distinction. He writes, "Unfortunately, the concept of dividing the world into city versus suburbs is no longer so relevant. I have been dividing metropolitan places as either 'drivable sub-urban,' meaning low density, modular, and dependent upon the car/truck for most trips; or 'walkable urban,' meaning at least five times more dense and integrated and dependent upon many transportation modes (transit, biking, and, yes, cars and trucks)."

I think Kotkin is right in his generalized position that many people still prefer suburban-style living. But by that does he mean half-acre lots? Cul-de-sacs? Eastover and Myers Park, which are considered in-town but which have huge lots and a sprinkiling of cul-de-sacs? White picket fences and that fabulous federal subsidy we get for taking on a mortgage? Terms must be better defined. And just because plenty of people still prefer that way of life, does that mean other people who want another way of life shouldn't be offered it, especially if the other way of life takes a lot fewer tax dollars to support?

I've seen enough studies from people who make their living analyzing real estate markets to be convinced there remains an unmet market for more urban-style living - by which I mean walkable neighborhoods where you don't have to drive so far for everything, where single-family houses and shops are rigidly kept apart from apartments and condos - basically, the kinds of places where you never see a "berm" or a buffer. ( And everything I just wrote should be read with the proviso "When the real estate market comes back.")

Behind the fountain? A Scout story

I've been getting interesting comments all week about the "Walk This Way. If You Can" package from last Sunday's editorial page. One of the many interesting ones was an e-mail from Ivan Mothershead (he was a state rep back in the day) giving the history of the drinking fountain I featured in a photo:

"Thanks for the picture of the water fountain at Christ [Episcopal] Church. This fountain was paid for and installed by my son for his Eagle Scout project in August 2000. The church had nothing to do with the fountain, except for giving him permission to install it and paying for the water.

I am sure he'd love to get some credit for it!! Hint Hint! I cannot speak for the Methodist Church fountain [I referred in my article to another fountain at the Myers Park United Methodist Church parking lot at the Queens-Queens-Providence-Providence intersection, aka Q2P2] or how it got there, but Ivan and his friends spend two days digging out the red clay (six feet down) and installing the fountain. The cast iron fountain cost $3,000, he raised more than that to buy it, install it and give the balance to the church. If you are by it, note the marble stone in front. Someone steals the bowl we leave for the dogs.

You know great stories that would entertain your readers would be Eagle Scout projects in the county. There are a lot of neat projects that would amaze your readers. Hope the fountain is working OK!"

I'm glad to know its history, and I stopped on Thursday to admire the polished marble stone with "Charles Ivan Mothershead" engraved, as well as a Bible verse. And I'll say that for years I've admired – and sat upon – a bench installed in our neighborhood several decades ago by another Eagle Scout. The Scout projects have added some great amenities to the city.

One other note: More and more of those drinking fountains are being installed. It's a slow but steady increase. I regularly use one on Wendover, between Forest Drive and Forest Drive (don't ask!). I know of one or two on Queens Road/Queens Road West. I'm pretty there are others. It's a wonderful, generous and gracious city comfort for pedestrians and bicyclists in this often hot city. My thanks to those who've generously installed them.

When cultures collide, you get - chipmunks?

OK, this is just a fun little posting to illustrate how we can all be so embedded in our own cultures and circumstances that we sometimes need to see things from others' eyes. I remember experiencing this years ago, when I traveled to Europe the first time. Among the things that struck me (in addition to great french fries, excellent bread and tasty beer) were small differences in things I had simply never realized might be different: doorknobs (they were handles, not knobs), light switches (the flat kind) and pillows (round bolsters).

So last week we were walking down a street in Athens, near the Central Market, and we pass a pet store. In a cage, next to the usual birds, etc., we see for sale - for 35 Euros each (about $43) – chipmunks. Yes. Photo evidence here:Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Major income stream in the back yard! Just got to work out a few hundred details ...

New look at old problem: Paying for transportation

RED WING, Minn. – Planning consultant Scott Polikov from Fort Worth, Texas, has an idea that needs a bigger audience. It's about how you find money to build transit systems. That's a problem Charlotte is facing, along with dozens of other U.S. cities. Based on his thinking it's something Charlotte has possibly mismanaged, along with many other places.

The key understanding is that building a transit system (or any transportation system, whether it's highways or canals) creates huge profits for real estate interests. Example: A transit authority will announce it's building a line, and where the stations will be. Then it will go out and buy right of way, often through eminent domain, along that planned route, paying now-higher land prices, since the building of the line will make that land worth more.

"In Europe, the landowner pays for the right to have the station," he said.

Why shouldn't the government (that is, all of us, since we are the government) capture some of the value that it's creating (that we're creating) by building that infrastructure?

Indeed, in the pre-crash era there were developers who were seriously thinking about putting up millions to build Charlotte's proposed commuter rail transit lines, because they knew it would make their development significantly more valuable. The same was true for the Triangle Transit proposed transit line.

Sometime, credit for real estate development will re-emerge. When that happens, why shouldn't the Charlotte Area Transit System, for instance, auction off the development rights at the transit stations? And then use that money as a revenue stream? (Yeah, yeah there are a lot of legal issues involved, not to mention political ones.)

Consider how development has occurred along the Lynx light rail line through South End. The line was fixed. In an understandable effort to lure transit-oriented development at the station areas, the city has doggedly gone in and pro-actively up-zoned land to the TOD zoning – thereby giving away huge land value to the property owners. It also gave away any real power the city planners might have had to force better urban design onto that TOD development. If you're already allowed by right to do your TOD, why should you listen to the city's request that you do something different – for instance, including some affordable housing units?

(I'm at a yearly conference among people affiliated with the Citistates Associates, a loose coalition of planners, economists, think-tankers, current and former elected officials, Chamber of Commerce execs, etc., who share an interest in metro region growth issues.)

Best tax revenue bang for the buck? Not what you'd think

RED WING, Minn. – If you're worried about local government's fiscal crisis – and if you're not, you should be; it's why hundreds of local teachers are getting laid off, libraries closed and hours slashed – then you should read this.

I'm listening as Peter Katz, a local government official from Sarasota, Fla., shows a series of charts and graphs and talks about property taxes in Florida. In terms of land development in Florida, he says, "It's like we're falling off the edge of the earth. People are completely freaked out."

So he decided to look at exactly where local property tax revenues come from. He shows bar graphs showing residential property tax revenue per acre in Sarasota County. The biggest revenues come from city residential areas.

Next he shows bar graphs showing revenue per acre for retail development. Here comes surprise No. 1. Wal-Mart/Sam's Club development brings in only about as much, per acre, as city residential. (Think of all those acres of parking lots.) The biggest revenues come from Southgate Mall, an upscale shopping center. That's not so surprising.

Then he shows the one that blows away the room – and this is a room of growth policy geeks, remember. He shows a bar graph on a whole different scale. In terms of property tax revenue per acre, high-rise downtown urban mixed use projects bring in more local revenue than even Southgate Mall, by what looks to my eye as a factor of about 10.

Next highest is mid-rise urban mixed use projects.

"From a fiscal standpoint this really puts hair on your chest," Katz says to chuckles in the room.
Less than an acre of downtown high-rise mixed use urban development brings in more property tax revenue than a 21-acre Wal-Mart Supercenter, he says.
Update here, Thursday 7/1, after I get some information from Katz: He says, " Less than an acre (.75 actually) of downtown high-rise mixed use urban development brings in more property tax revenue than a combination of the 21-acre Wal-Mart Supercenter and the 32-acre Southgate Mall, the county’s highest end commercial property with Macy’s, Dillards and Saks Fifth Avenue.

Then they looked at the payback time for the infrastructure costs for the development. The payback time (measured in property tax revenue, I believe) for the urban mixed use development was three years. Want to guess the payback time for infrastructure built for a planned mixed use development out at a highway interchange? It was a whopping 42 years.

Some disclaimers: Katz notes that they weren't measuring sales tax, only property tax. He also notes that there's obviously a limit on the market for high-rise mixed use projects in any downtown. And I'll note that this posting is a real-time one, and I haven't had time to check with Katz to ensure that I've totally gotten his stats correct.

Update No. 2: Katz notes that the tax analysis was done by Joe Minicozzi of Public Interest Projects, Inc., in Asheville.

(The event is a yearly conference among people affiliated with the Citistates Associates, a loose coalition of planners, economists, think-tankers, current and former elected officials, Chamber of Commerce execs, etc., who share an interest in metro region growth issues.)

In Charlotte, walking has pleasures but problems, too

In my life as an associate editor at the Observer I've written a lengthy piece about my experiences walking 4-plus miles to work once a week in Charlotte, since March. Here's the piece, with a photo slideshow.

But it's too bad the slideshow with the package doesn't show the evil "goat path" along Runnymede, where the sidewalk has not been cleared, to my observation, since at least 2001. Doreen Szymanski of the Charlotte Department of Transportation told me she believed the city had cleared it, at least once. I drive that way almost daily, however, and have never seen it cleared of muck and leaves. I've posted a photo below.

Some adjoining property owners – who ARE RESPONSIBLE because property owners bear the responsibility for keeping sidewalks clear of obstructions – have not-so-helpfully planted holly bushes there, the kind with prickly leaves. So if the bushes ever grow you'll be crowded off the goat path and onto the teensy planting strip.

I'm already getting emails from readers, including one from someone who's a quadriplegic. She writes:
"As a quadriplegic and wheelchair user, I blog about wheelchair pedestrian safety frequently. So many people fail to recognize that, as paratransit cuts continue, even more blind people and wheelchair users are taking to the streets to get around to doctor's appointments, grocery stores, etc. as a necessity. Passable sidewalks, street signals and driver education are urgent concerns that need to be discussed in communities."

Another reader tells of stealth pruning:
"After years of watching walkers and joggers (me included) duck -- or walk in the street to avoid -- low hanging branches on the sidewalk next to a large condo complex, I took my loppers in the dead of night and did some heavy pruning.Now, once a year or so, I just have to do some light maintenance. I leave the clippings -- in the case of the first year, the limbs -- on the grounds of the condo complex, thinking they would get the hint. Now, several years later, I STILL have to do my midnight pruning."

Here's the photo of the Runnymede goat path, with holly bushes:

Charlotte bankers: Armed and dangerous?

I stopped into Johnny Burrito, one of my favorite uptown lunch spots, today and Johnny himself (aka Johnny Bitter) was behind the cash register. He thanked me for a photo I had shot in May that ran in the Observer with an editorial about the visiting NRA convention. The photo showed a sign he had put up offering a free soda or iced tea to anyone showing a gun permit.

They'd had a lot of business after the photo ran, Bitter told me. Because his shop is in the basement of the Building Formerly Known As Two First Union (sorry but I have no clue what its name is anymore, it's the College Street tower behind the Atrium on South Tryon), he'd had a lot of Wells Fargo folks come in, he said. Showing their gun permits.

It was a surprising number, he said. And they were mostly concealed-carry permits. Regular people, he said. Many of them long-time and frequent customers. People with families and everything. Who knew?

Of course, you're not allowed to have a gun in the bank towers. But if it's a concealed carry permit ...

Happily, no gun play broke out at Johnny's and hasn't, to our knowledge, broken out at the bank tower either. Just don't get too snippy with that teller, or your loan officer.

Memory, culture and 'architectural cleansing'

ATHENS – You've heard of ethnic cleansing. Architect Christos Floros of Athens popped out with a new term on Monday: "architectural cleansing."

Sadly, I needn't have listened to the long history of demolitions in Athens to have been able to understand the term. Hey, I live in Charlotte, where what we really need to memorialize at The Square in the heart of the city is not another piece of odd, or clumsy, public "art" but a bronzed bulldozer.

(I'm at a conference, in Athens, of the Johns Hopkins University International Fellows in Urban Studies. [Hat tip needed, here, to other sponsors: Chicago Dwellings Association (akin to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Housing Partnership), the Museum of the City of Athens, Panteion University of Athens, SD Med Association, Pantheon-Sorbonne (Paris 1) University and UMP Geographie-cites (CNRS). And a disclosure: The International Fellows Program paid my travel expenses to the conference.)

The conference theme explores whether memory (that is, the past as reinterpreted by the present) is an asset or an obstacle in urban revitalization. In a city this ancient you'd think the Athenians would revere the past. And you'd be wrong.

The city has had numerous eras in which the buildings of previous eras were simply wiped away. The most recent came with rapid population growth of the 20th century. Most of the 19th Century neoclassical buildings (which had, themselves, wiped away Ottoman and Byzantine architecture) were demolished. Much of the city is now vaguely Modernist-style buildings of little delight or distinction.

Architectural cleansing, Floros said, can accompany war, religious conflict, rapid population growth, ignorance, greed or one-dimensional ideology. It can accompany wars, such as the Persian invasion of 479 BC, in which Athens was demolished, but Floros made an exception for some wartime destruction that takes place without intent to destroy a culture.

Ignorance about the value of the monuments on the Acropolis led to architectural destruction during the Ottoman Empire's 400 years of rule here. Fueled by greed, it took place during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the era when Lord Elgin carted away the Parthenon frieze to England.

It took place due to one-dimensional ideologies during the first Greek state, founded in 1830, when northern Europeans decided the only architecture of value was neoclassical. Byzantine and Ottoman buildings were razed or allowed to fall to ruin during that era.

And it took place during the 20th century, fueled by rapid immigration to Athens from all over Greece. The rebuilding here was influenced, as in most Western cities, by the Modernist architectural movement – founded, ironically, with the 1933 Charter of Athens – which rejected pretty much anything that had ever been done, on the theory that the city must be completely reinvented.

Floros quoted Lord Byron, the English poet who came to Greece to fight in its war for independence in 1821 and died of a fever: Athens is "the most injured and the most celebrated of cities."

Although if you want to narrow the competition to destruction of memories of the past, from what I can see Charlotte wins – in a New York minute. I'm pondering whether the destruction of downtown was fueled more by greed, or rapid population growth, or an unconscious effort to wipe away the black neighborhoods, or the wish to demolish a memory that people didn't want to have to remember.

Next up: Was the Charter of Athens just simply wrong? (Sure seems that way to me.) Asking that question appears to make many architects deeply uneasy.

Update, Thursday June 24: I got an e-mail from Floros, asking that I be sure to note that some of the buildings that have been victimized by "architectural cleansing" in Athens are some important mid-century Modernist buildings. And he's right to be concerned that yet another era of architecture is being wiped away – and not only in Athens. The Charlotte City Council set a precedent in October 2008 when it refused to designate as historic a mid-century Modern house – the first time it's refused a request from a property owner – apparently because council members just didn't think the building was all that significant.

Unfamiliar places, familiar issues

ATHENS – We’ve taken a rest in a bench in the shade, on a 95-degree afternoon climb up to see the Acropolis. Hearing our English another perspiring American tourist asks to share our bench and as we chat about where we're from it emerges that not only had he lived in Charlotte (on The Plaza) but he knew several of our friends.

Three days later at an elegant former residence that's now the Museum of the City of Athens I chat with a smartly turned out Athenian with impeccable British-tinged English. It turns out she's an alumna of East Carolina University and has relatives in Greenville. N.C.

Indeed the world is small. That was driven home when I did an informal survey of some three dozen planners and urban academics from around the globe, at a Johns Hopkins University-sponsored conference in Athens. What's the biggest problem your city faces, I asked. Despite different histories, cultures and governments, the list would sound familiar to any U.S. observer of cities:
problems of urban regeneration/gentrification.
maintaining social cohesion/integrating immigrants.
retaining jobs/boom-and-bust economies.
corruption/maladministration.
undeveloped infrastructure.
sprawl.

Except for this: The architect/planner/professor from Calcutta and the architect/planner from Mexico City both pretty much said, "all of the above."

Cities with strict urban growth boundaries – that is most of the rest of the world except the U.S. – still struggle with sprawl. In Greece it manifests itself in people building illegally, on land preserved for agriculture, and then eventually becoming legal, and demanding sewer service, schools and other urban infrastructure. Hmmmm. Except for the part about it being illegal that's pretty much the pattern in the U.S. as well. We may sprawl, but at least we're not creating as many criminals while doing it.

And speaking of criminals, Athens traffic engineer and professor Thanos Vlastos told me that for 30 years Athens has had a law that you can only drive into the center of the city every other day. They check for odd-even license tag numbers. If you get caught, the fine is substantial, he estimated it at about 700 Euros. But, he said, everyone ignores that. It's not well-policed. And it simply inspired people to buy a second car. We humans do have a way of trying to outsmart most everything.

(Disclosure note: The Johns Hopkins Urban Fellows Program paid my travel expenses to Athens for the conference.)

Charlotte: The Venice of the Carolinas?

I'm blogging from a conference of the International Urban Fellows of Johns Hopkins University, in Athens (Greece, not Georgia). I'll be updating this and sending more posts as time and internet access allow.

ATHENS – Laugh if you want. I've just had a conversation with an Italian professor from Venice that made me think Charlotte and Venice may have a lot in common.

Without the canals, the seaside locale and the splendid cathedrals.

Pier Luigi Sacco, who grew up in a town in central Italy but who now teaches at the University of Venice, started saying that Venice doesn't respect its historic buildings or its tradition of arts and culture. My response was only slightly more coherent than, "Say what?"

We un-cultural Americans, of course, think of Italy as a land of high culture, where beauty and art are worshipped daily.
Not so in practical Venice, said Sacco. Venice values the arts only if they can be shown to improve economic development, he said. It's a city with a centuries-old history of commerce, which has led to a very practical and mercenary outlook on such things.

Sound familiar? Charlotte is also the kind of place where artists have to justify the arts as an economic engine. (To be fair, that's true of many other American cities.) Our Arts & Science Council does studies of that sort routinely. So do state arts agencies. I know New York City did a similar study not too long ago.

Sacco described how an important art historian in Venice had told a conference of other art historians that the importance of the arts was so that tourists would leave the city with empty pockets. (!) That's putting it a bit nakedly, I guess, but if you listen to our local boosters you'll hear a lot of similar thinking, more politely couched, about Charlotte arts groups.

Now, about those canals ...

(Disclosure note: The Johns Hopkins Urban Fellows Program paid my travel expenses to Athens for the conference.)

Look for blogging from Athens starting Sunday

I'm spending a few days in Athens (yes, Greece) for a conference that starts Sunday, sponsored by Johns Hopkins University's Institute for Policy Studies and its International Urban Fellows program. I hope to do some live-blogging from the conference. The topic is "Memory" and its effects on how a city grows and develops. We'll tour the 2004 Olympics facilities, among other events.

My just-graduated from high school daughter (see last Saturday's op-ed on that emotional milestones) and I are here early, playing tourist so the scholarly and expert discussion about the city will have some meaning. We spent the hottest day of the year so far (at least 95 degrees, possibly hotter) touring the Acropolis, where there is very little shade and there were long lines for the water fountains. But it is a more stunning experience than I was prepared for.

Then we opted for the air-conditioned spendor of the new-last-year Acropolis Museum, which has a magnificent display of Greek antiquities from the Acropolis, especially the Parthenon. I won't launch into a travelogue here, but suffice to say that the display -- with plaster casts filling in for the sections of the carvings that Lord Elgin took away to England and which are now displayed at the British Museum -- makes painfully clear that those artworks deserve to come home and be reunited. There are sections where a rider's head is in London, and the rest of the body and the horse are in Athens. Or a leg is in one country, the body in the other. The artwork is too beautiful to have to endure, severed.

NPR did a piece today about the dearth of tourists in Greece. Here's a link. Having only arrived at noon today, I can't say whether the relatively deserted streets today (and "deserted" in Athens is about like a noonday weekday crowd at Trade and Tryon in Charlotte) were a result of a tourism slump, or the 95-degree heat, or the World Cup game in which Greece was playing (and beat) Nigeria. We heard TVs on in many homes we passed.

Long-time utilities staffer snags top job

"After a nation-wide search" Charlotte-Mecklenburg Utilities' deputy director (and currently interim director) snags the top job. Here's the city's press release:

City Manager Names Barry Gullet New Utilities Director

(Charlotte, NC)… After a nation-wide search Charlotte City Manager Curt Walton announced today that Barry Gullet has been selected the new Director of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Utilities effective immediately. The search was conducted by The Waters Consulting Group, Inc.

Gullet was named Interim Utilities Director February 18 after former Director Doug Bean announced his retirement. Since joining Charlotte-Mecklenburg Utilities in 1978 Gullet has served as Civil Engineer, Assistant Chief Engineer and Deputy Director.

“Barry’s knowledge of the system and experience with the City coupled with his creative problem- solving solutions set him apart from other candidates,” says Walton. “While serving as Interim Director he demonstrated great leadership skills and is advancing a nine point plan to improve customer service and operations.”

Gullet is known for being a change agent. As Deputy Director, he has been called upon to successfully lead the utility through difficult reorganizations and performance improvement initiatives. He led a team of employees through a competitive proposal to substantially enhance the way Charlotte’s treatment plants are operated and managed earning the utility national attention. He is also the Chairman of the Catawba-Wateree Water Management Group.

The 54-year-old Landis native was also the 2009 recipient of the Fuller Award, which is a national recognition awarded annually by the American Water Works Association for distinguished service to the water supply field. He is a licensed Professional Engineer and a state-certified Water Treatment Plant Operator. Gullet earned his bachelor’s degree in engineering from UNC Charlotte.

Under Gullet’s leadership, the City will continue its review of customer service delivery, the Utilities Billing Center and the successful completion of the meter reading equipment audit.

Additionally, a rate study is getting under way to analyze and make recommendations related to the water and sewer rate structure. The study will be presented to City Council’s Restructuring Government Committee for review and a recommendation to the full Council later this year.

As CMU Director, Gullet will oversee a 721 employee department with an annual operating budget of more than $104 million and an annual capital budget of nearly $200 million. He will direct city and county-wide utilities planning and management activities for water and sewer operations that include eight treatment plants and more than 8,000 miles of water and sewer pipe. These duties include developing and promoting long-term regional services; maintaining and enhancing existing service levels, designing, constructing and managing the future utility system, in addition to meeting public health, safety and environmental regulations.

A total of 32 candidates from across the country applied for the position. After review and evaluation of qualifications, the Waters Group presented 16 applicants for consideration by the City Manager of which five were interviewed. The interview panel included Ron Kimble, Deputy City Manager; Jeb Blackwell, City Engineer; Bobbie Shields, Mecklenburg County General Manger [er, "manager"/Mary] ; and David Jarrett, CMU Advisory Board Chair. The five applicants were narrowed to two finalists who were interviewed by the City Manager.

To read more about Barry Gullet click bio. The annual salary of the CMU Utilities Director is $152,000.

Old/new Charlotte photos, plus - ta-da! - 'Voltron'

If you're a sucker for old photos of Charlotte (or you like the phallic gallery of new building photos) hop over to CLTblog, and/or to urbanplanet. Folks have posted a number of old photos, postcards and cityscape scenes, many of them from uptown/downtown, shown in varying degrees of glamor.

The photo atop this is of South Tryon Street. It strikes me dumb whenever I see it, that the city allowed that street scene – and all the similar scenes – to simply vanish. It's more than just a lack of interest in historic preservation, although that's part of it. It's a loss of the collective will to create architecture with a human scale, I think. Compare that street scene to the thrusting, oh-so-macho towers depicted in the newer photos.

I'm not saying nothing new should be built. That's silly. But what would have been wrong with saving a few blocks of buildings that look like this? If you want to see a downtown where some of the old fabric has been saved, visit downtown Raleigh. Its city planning department also has an Urban Design Center right on Fayetteville Street, its main downtown street. Go figure.

Here's a quick plug, as well, for a great little video-with-music of the new Duke Energy Building with its lights running, a sight I have yet to see although I look out my vintage-'60s gun-slit windows at the Observer building and see the building multiple times a day.

(Just to disclose: The Observer building is NOT one you'll see many loving photos of in those aforementioned building-photo collections. And it's as functional as a place to inhabit 10 hours a day as it is delightful as a view.) Here's the link to the Voltron video. (It's embedded below.)

If you prefer different music, Justin Ruckman at CLTblog has done a three-movement series of videos, set to Beethoven's String Quintet in C, op. 29. Check them out here.

U.S. youth less car-crazy than their elders?

Something is changing in America. People aren't driving as much – even taking into account that the recession and unemployment reduces commuting. Several people, including a writer for Ad Age magazine, have noticed a dip in the rates at which young people are getting driver's licenses.

Jack Neff, writing in the May 31 AdAge.com, says, "The automobile, once a rite of passage for American youth, is becoming less relevant to a growing number of people under 30." His piece shows the stats that back up that thesis.

Similarly, Nate Silver, writing in the May 6 Esquire, opens his piece this way: "This is surely one of the signs of the apocalypse: Americans aren't driving as much as they used to."

And the ubiquitous Richard Florida, writing at theatlantic.com, points to Neff and Silver's articles and ponders whether his predicted "great reset" is taking place. This view dovetails nicely with Florida's new book, "The Great Reset." He's been writing about "resets" for the Atlantic for some time now.

If you read the pieces it's hard not to think they're onto something. AdAge, especially, is known more for pointing to consumer trends than for worrying about issues such as the fiscal and environmental irresponsibility of suburban sprawl.

But here's another sign that something truly is changing. Automakers *#8211; who have nothing if not a history of extraordinarily effecting ad campaigns – are changing the backdrops on their ads, using more sexy urban scenes and fewer beautiful wilderness scenes. Catherine Lutz and Anne Lutz Fernandez point this out in a June 3 Huffington Post piece, From Upstream to Downtown: Car Ads Head to the City. The two are authors of the book "Carjacked: The Culture of the Automobile and its Effect on Our Lives." In the HuffPost piece, they write, "Just when some of us have decided we want to live in places where we don't have to be quite so dependent on the automobile, the automobile is trying to follow us there."

If you're interested in more about "Carjacked" – a book I recommend as one that looks at the world in ways you probably hadn't thought of before – here's a Q/A I did with Fernandez for OnEarth.org.

More delays for Charlotte's tree ordinance

Charlotte has lost half its tree canopy since 1985, and Mecklenburg County has lost a third of its. (Read the report on that - see page 70 of this pdf.) So plenty of eyes are on a proposal – moving through the bureaucracy with the speed of Providence Road traffic at 5:30 p.m. – to strengthen the city's aging tree ordinance as it applies to commercial and multifamily development.

Finally, the plan was, the City Council's environment committee would render its recommendation today at an 11 a.m. meeting. This isn't final adoption, mind you, just a recommendation to be sent to the full council. The environment committee, which until Anthony Foxx was elected mayor last November was dominated by Republicans (on a council with a Democratic majority, mind you), has been gnawing on the ordinance since June 2008.

I don't know what all local developers think of it, because that's a large and diverse group – a fact you wouldn't know if you listen only to the local developers' lobbying group, REBIC. But REBIC and its members have been raising issue after issue for five years, first on the stakeholder committee, which could not reach consensus, and now as the ordinance is before the committee. During the stakeholder discussions REBIC used the time-honored "stall-it-by-demanding-a-cost-benefit-analysis" gambit, which took more than a year, in part because a few non-developers on the stakeholder committee suggested that maybe the anti-tree-ordinance folks shouldn't be the ones who got to choose the sites on which the cost-benefits were being analyzed.
REBIC didn't like the idea of pushing the required "tree save" from the current 10 percent up to 15 percent. They didn't like the idea that trees in parking lots should be planted closer together. Those issues have been, I think, resolved.

Today two sticking points remained: The city staff's proposal for how to deal with development on already-developed sites, and how to set the fees for a "fee-in-lieu" proposal, under which developers could opt to pay a fee rather than save the trees on a full 15 percent of the site. (It's all very complicated.) REBIC's preferred "fee-in-lieu" was laughable: just decide that all land in the city, for tree ordinance fee-in-lieu purposes, is worth $40,000 to $50,000 an acre and set the fees as if that were the case.

Council members offered several proposals to "compromise" between staff's recommendations and REBIC's ideas. Why the council members so rarely seem to just opt for their paid staff experts' recommendations, which have already been compromised during stakeholder talks, is beyond me. But instead of voting today, the committee has punted until June 21.

Best quotes of the day: Both courtesy of District 6 rep Andy Dulin.
- In the context of his worries that the tree ordinance will add costs to development: "We're going to jack up the cost of building a strip shopping center."
- "Developers love trees."

For traffic geeks, policy wonks and more

Sharing tidbits and links:

- Lew Powell shared this article about a math whiz in Manhattan who is devising an intricate Excel program to show the cost to everyone from each car, truck, taxi or bus that enters Manhattan daily. It's in Wired magazine. For congestion-policy geeks and others.

[Lew, for you who don't know him, is now retired from his long-time role as Observer Forum editor, Buzz editor and office "wag" – as when people would write, "an office wag quipped ... " and recount a pithy and witty observation.]

- A sad, ironic note. The Mecklenburg County Park and Recreation Department recently learned it's one of three finalists for the 2010 NRPA Gold Medal Award. It's an annual award from the National Recreation and Park Association (NRPA) honoring excellence in management and planning of parks and recreation agencies. Of course, the county park department's budget is being cut almost in half. It's losing dozens of staff to layoffs, and some of its programs will have to be eliminated.

- Want to see a new promotional video for the city, done by the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority (CRVA)? It's at the bottom of this page. Cameos by Michael Jordon,
Winston Kelly, Anthony Foxx, a tray full of homemade biscuits and more. I note one shot early on is from – gasp! – the Daniel Stowe Botanical Gardens in Belmont (not Gastonia, as I wrote in haste Thurday night). That's legit if you think of "Charlotte" as the region. Not sure about that Childress Vineyard clip, though. It's up the road rather a ways, outside Lexington. Pick you up some Lexington BBQ on your way ...

- Here's a link to the piece in the Atlantic magazine about Andres Duany - a piece I referenced in my May 21 op-ed, "Jane Jacobs, Robert Moses and NIMBYs." If you missed them, here are a couple of earlier posts on related topics, here and here. Both were written at a conference where Duany spoke, sponsored by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, the Nieman Foundation and the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Anthony Flint of Lincoln Institute sure wished I'd have mentioned that sponsorship in the print oped. I should have, he's right.

- ‘Bright flight’ changes the face of cities, suburbs/Younger, educated whites moving to urban areas for homes, jobs - It's a link to an Associated Press story on the msnbc.com web site. It refers to a Brookings Institution study released in May, but the link to the study on Brookings site is temporarily broken. This link takes you to the main Metropolitan Policy Program site at Brookings.