Posts Tagged ‘revitalization’

Of the five major ways to foster urban revitalization;

1. Facilitating high end real estate development,
2. Supporting the arts and culture,
3. Cleaning up the joint,
4. Squashing the gangs, and
5. Creating a reason for Trenton to be here,

Only “Cleaning up the joint” can be done inexpensively.

Visitors to Trenton often comment that the city looks “run down” and dirty. Residents agree. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s useful to honestly measure the things that make a city attractive to its current and future residents. Clean streets, low crime rate, diverse retail options, value for the housing dollar and jobs are obvious elements of attractiveness. A thoughtful city planner or economist would measure these things, understand their impact on revitalization and then target spending to get the biggest bang for the buck. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the last several years I’ve compared large urban revitalization project to a hypothetical program I call the down-payment grant.

Government folks hate comparing their revitalization projects to my hypothetical suggestion. They like to point out that the funds they propose to spend are restricted in nature and aren’t available for my crazy scheme. OK, I never said they were, but they shouldn’t argue that those funds are for the purpose of revitalization unless they can be shown to at least approach the simple benefit of the down-payment grant.

Let’s remind ourselves what revitalization means

Revitalization is somewhat in the eye of the beholder. In fact, that’s one of the problems. Our government officials shy away from specifying what they mean by the term.

I propose increased per capita income as a single clear and measurable standard for revitalization.

Economists and sociologist consistently link improved per capita income to better housing and education and to lower crime. Furthermore, it’s a statistic that the Census Bureau measures for us. A city with a high per capita income is better able to afford schools, the arts, charity for the poor and lower tax rates. It will also spend proportionately less on police and fire protection.

The down-payment grant is a good hypothetical way to spend $100M

Read the rest of this entry »