Planning Institute
26-27 February 2003
 

Professional Education Program
Department of Urban & Regional Planning • College of Fine and Applied Arts • University of Illinois, U-C
(217) 333-3890  •  Fax: (217) 244-1717


Louis B. Wetmore Lecture on Planning Practice


SAVING SICK CITIES :  NEW ROLES FOR PLANNERS

By Norman Krumholz, Professor

Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs
Cleveland State University

The last fifty years have not been kind to old industrial cities like Baltimore, Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, Pittsburgh, St. Louis and many others.  Since the end of WWII these cities have been struggling with problems of declining population and investment,  loss of industrial jobs and sharp increases in the poverty of their people.  In all of these cities the public and private physical plant is approaching obsolescence, especially as compared with newer structures in their suburbs.  These problems have been compounded by a shift in America's economy from production including manufacturing to information industries, and by the shift of populations from city to suburb and from snow belt to sun belt. 

Discussions about these cities and their problems tend to overlook one important fact—most people living in metropolitan areas are not much affected by the difficulties of the central city.  The problems of declining cities bear very heavily on some people—mostly low-income people living in certain neighborhoods, but they do not even touch most suburbanites.  If the majority of suburbanites are even dimly aware of the problems of the poor they often mistake the symptoms for the real problems.  They drive by the vacant land and boarded-up buildings but ignore the social and economic realities that led to the present situation.  In particular, they are inclined to ignore the increasingly difficult situation of cities with large concentrations of poor African-American citizens like Camden, Gary and  East St. Louis. (Kasarda, 1992).   This probably accounts for the most persistent delusions about older industrial cities.

The first of these delusions is that falling populations and massive job losses can be reversed in the foreseeable future and that the older industrial city can be restored to its state of former greatness.  In my judgment, this is a delusion.  The reality is that the job and population losses incurred by such cities have been a reflection of extraordinarily powerful social and economic forces having to do with racial fears, relative obsolescence of capital facilities, amenities, climate and the general improvement in the American standard of living.  Increasingly, they are also a reflection of structural changes in the national and world economy.  I do not believe that the trends resulting from such changes will be reversed within the foreseeable future.

A variant of the first delusion is that some future energy crisis, perhaps coupled with environmental concerns and "new urbanism" designs, will cause a recentralization of our population.  We will all be using public transit and moving back to the central city.  This seems highly unlikely.  In 1995, 90 percent of all commuting in the U.S. was done in private vehicles and only five percent by public transit---three percent in most states.  (U.S. Dept of Transportation, 1995.)    Even if some extraordinarily bold politicians imposed a tax of 50 cents per gallon on gasoline, the average suburban family would save only $500 per year by moving back to the city.  That is hardly enough to influence choices in residential location.  Realistically, this is an automotive society and Americans have typically responded to energy problems not by reducing their use of automobiles but by increasing their use.  From 1980 to 1997, our nation added 1.2 more cars, trucks and buses to the vehicle population for every added human being.  (Statistical Abstract of the U.S., 1999).  In the last decade of rising gasoline prices and insurance costs, vehicle use and registration figures have continued to skyrocket; there are now more vehicles in the U.S. than drivers and there will soon be more vehicles than people.

Another assumption is that such economic development incentives as tax abatements, land write-downs, and tax-increment financing will have a significant impact upon the location of business and industry and bring a flood of new jobs back to the cities.  But older cities enjoy no advantage here since such inducements are now virtually universal amongst states and cities; their widespread availability may simply result in something similar to a gasoline price war.  The myriad of incentives being offered by various jurisdictions tend to cancel each other out, with the only likely effect to be an increase in the expected rate of return on private capital.

Finally, in this short-list of urban delusions, is the one that assumes a federal bail-out.  There used to be an assumption that if enough cities were suffering badly, the federal government would be forced to bail out the older industrial cities with massive programs of public spending.  The model for this bail-out was a "Marshall Plan for the Cities."  Decades ago, this possibility was seriously discussed by some urban scholars, but those who still believe in that possibility today are few and far between. The political clout of cities has been much reduced since the preponderance of votes has shifted from the city to the suburbs.  America's large cities were once the bulwark of Democratic presidential candidates, but would-be presidents can no longer rely primarily on the urban vote to carry an election.  For example, in the 1948 presidential election Baltimore provided 42.3 percent and Cleveland provided 10.6 percent of the total of their state's votes; by 1992 those percentages were 13.0 and 3.5 respectively (Sauerzopf, R. and Swanstrom, T., 1993).  Politicians follow the votes and they are unlikely to pay attention to or provide favors for cities with a small pool of voters.

In sum, I believe America's older industrial cities will continue to lose population and employment, though at a slower rate than during the last few decades.  Urban poverty levels will continue to rise making growing demands on city budgets.  The costs of delivering services and maintaining the infrastructure will not decline in proportion to declining populations or municipal tax resources.  Few of the infrastructure costs of urban growth are easily reversible into economies of shrinkage.   Philadelphia, for example, has just issued $160 million in bonds to demolish 10,000 obsolete structures; Detroit has demolished 28,000 homes since 1989 and spends $800,000 a year simply to maintain vacant lots (Gurwitt, 2002).  Such declining cities will become increasingly dependent upon shrinking state and federal transfer payments and their own dwindling resource base to maintain basic services. 

The problems of America's older industrial cities seem overwhelming; what can urban planners do to improve things?  Surprisingly, a great deal.  This is not to suggest that planners, no matter how hard they work, can reverse industrial decline or change the political economy of their cities.  Only broad social and political movements can accomplish that.  But planners can make a substantial difference to the quality of life in their cities.  The management of stasis and decline offers planners many opportunities to engage in useful, interesting and productive work if they focus on the basic needs of the people of the city and give highest priority to improving the situation for the poor and near- poor populations that make up larger and larger proportions of their residents.  This is not a radical proposal; it is simply providing appropriate service in keeping with the reality of conditions in the city and the inherently exploitative nature of metropolitan development which sorts out people by economic class and consigns the poorest and the darkest to the central city.  Such a proposal is also in accordance with the code of ethics of the American Institute of Certified Planners which emphasizes the need for planners to "... recognize a special responsibility to plan for the needs of disadvantaged groups and persons..."(AICP/APA, 1991).  On a more pragmatic level, it is acceptance of the fact that until the social and economic problems of the poor are abated, older industrial cities are unlikely to attract much new private investment.

The planning program I am about to suggest assumes that the planning agency will broaden its activities beyond zoning, land use planning and urban design, use the full range of the training and talents of its staff and become more important and visible operators in local affairs.  Planners, bolstered by planning legislation and their ability to set agendas, frame issues and initiate public discourse, already have a substantial amount of power.  I am assuming an expansion of that power in the future.  This is plausible for three reasons:   (1) planners are sitting on top of more data and information (most of which now goes unused) than anyone else in local government;  (2) many planners, particularly the younger ones are well-versed in powerful computer and Geographic Information Systems  techniques; (3) more than other participants in local government, planners think comprehensively and are endowed by their training with a greater ability to see the relationships among programs and to quantify the costs and benefits of alternative programs.  Gathering all this data in one location and placing the data in a form susceptible to analysis should convey increased political power to the hands of the coordinators.  As this expertise grows, mayors and city managers will begin turning to their planners as key advisors on nearly all government activities and resource uses.  For some planners, this opportunity for greater responsibility and status will go unnoticed and unexploited; for many others, who are ready to seize these opportunities and the institutional openings offered, this change in importance will project them into the highest rank of responsibility of government and administration.  Parenthetically, it will also make planners much more vulnerable when administrations change.

I also believe, on the basis of long observation and experience, that there are ample opportunities for planners to expand their role in local government.  The bureaucratic structure of local government which looks like a monolith to those outside is, in fact, a good deal more porous than is generally imagined.  Broad areas of public policy exist often outside the domain of any specific agency, and other areas of responsibility are handled casually by agencies who would prefer not to deal with them.  An activist planning agency with objectives, competence and the willingness to seize opportunities for greater responsibility can become recognized as the city's expert on certain issues and can influence politicians and the policies of other city agencies as well. These new roles for planners  might be classified into five categories: (1) the imposition of restraints; (2) creative investment proposals; (3) policies for constructive shrinkage; (4) strengthening community organizations; and (5) regional collaboration.  In many respects, many of these activities are more closely related to planning-based management than to notions of traditional longrange, comprehensive planning. 

The first category is the imposition of restraints.  Hardly a month goes by without headlines proclaiming a new scheme to "turn the city around." Some of these amount to little more than urban decoration—a mall, a stadium, a convention center.  Others involve proposals for major residential, commercial, or industrial development.  All promise to attract jobs and people back to the city; all demand a massive infusion of public funds before construction.

All of these proposals come before planners for evaluation and approval.  When planners review these proposals, they should ask three overriding questions that economists always ask but planners rarely do: "What is being produced?  For  whose benefit?  At whose cost?" In those cases where analysis indicates that the public costs will likely outweigh the public benefits, or where the benefits are likely to accrue to those least in need of public support, planners should reject the proposal outright; modify the proposal to make it more suitable, or publicly question the proposal, thus engaging the public and politicians in mutual learning.  If what is being proposed is a stadium, for example, planners can frame the issue not as it's usually framed: "build the stadium or lose the team" but as a series of questions: "how will the stadium proposal impact the city's ability to provide basic services?; how will it impact the capital investments that are needed in city neighborhoods?;  how it will impact the city's bond rating?" Such questions, based on analysis that has been practically and ethically thought through, may provide important information to the public at large, may strengthen the hand of sympathetic politicians and lead to a more successful negotiation. 

If the planners must yield and provide what seem to be inappropriate subsidies, they can argue for linkage deals.  The proper posture for such negotiations is not "over my dead body" but "I'll give you this if you give me that" in which the subsidies or special rights granted by the city are off-set by special contributions by developers for neighborhood investments, low income housing, child-care, public transportation or job training (Keating, 1986).  In the process, planners can gain some public acceptance for the notion that the city and its residents should expect something in return for granting subsidies or special privilege.

The recent interest in professional sports in America provides a very substantial example of public funds being used for non-productive purposes.  From 1990 to 2001, the intense interest in sports facilities has resulted in 21 new stadiums for football and baseball and 26 new arenas for basketball or ice hockey at an estimated cost of $20 to $25 billion.  As of January 1, 2001, eleven more arenas and stadiums were under construction and 9 others were in advanced planning.   How can cities, counties and states justify throwing money at sports teams that, after all, are successful private enterprises that earn fat returns for their owners?  Because, say their proponents, they are important vehicles for economic development that produce jobs and net tax increases.  But analysis after analysis demonstrate clearly that professional sports have a miniscule impact on the regional economy and produce little in the form of new jobs or new net taxes (Baade & Dye,1988; Rosentraub, 1997; Euchner, 1993).

The Gateway project in Cleveland which contained a new stadium for the baseball Indians and a new Arena for the basketball Cavaliers is a case in point.  It was supposed to cost $344 million and (according to the proponents) generate 29,000 new jobs and 15 million a year  in new property taxes.  Instead the complex cost $462 million (a 34 percent overrun) and produced about 1900 jobs-- all part-time, seasonal and low-pay and no new property tax revenue at all.   Cleveland planners might have publicized data from similar projects in other cities; challenged the project’s assumptions and framed the issue in a way that might have helped undercut support for Gateway. 

Arguing against the commitment of resources to projects which offer few returns implies that there are more productive investments which the city should be making.  That leads to my second category: developing creative investment proposals.

In this category of activities, planners can seek opportunities to direct the city's resources toward programs and projects which will result in long-term savings, which will make existing systems work more efficiently, or which will direct   private resources toward the fulfillment of public objectives.            They can also try to improve the operations of other city agencies which lack internal planning capability.  They can take part in efforts to insist that banks and S&Ls make loans in poor neighborhoods.  They can try to sharpen the management instruments in local government as two young planners did with Cleveland’s Capital Improvement Program (C.I.P.) in the early 1980's.

During the 1970s and before, Cleveland's CIP, which is assigned by charter to the City Planning Commission, was scorned as a bad joke because of a chronic shortage of city funds and an intensely political competition for the resources that were available.  As a result, the city's roads, bridges and public buildings fell into disrepair.  The city's default on its fiscal obligations in 1978 seemed to cap the city's infrastructure problem; there was no comprehensive strategy for capital spending and in a bankrupt city, no money to spend in any event.  Yet, during the 1980s, with support from the administration, the business community, and the innovations of a small group of dedicated and bold urban planners, the CIP was restructured, existing resources were heavily leveraged and hundreds of millions of dollars were systematically invested in public infrastructure with highly visible results. (Hoffmann, Krumholz, et. al. 2000).

Another example of creative investment is the Cleveland land bank which emerged as a response to widespread tax delinquency and property abandonment of inner-city land.  Cleveland's planners executed a detailed study that measured the extent of the problem in 1972 (Olson and Lachmann, 1978).  Then the planners organized a successful lobbying effort with the Ohio General Assembly to change the state law, shorten and streamline the foreclosure procedure dealing with tax delinquent land and enable Ohio cities to set up land banks to receive such parcels, clear their titles and liens and dispose of the land for reuse.  From 1976 when the new bill was signed into law until 1990, the Cleveland land bank sold over 5,000 parcels and returned most of them to productive use by individuals and community development corporations.  As many of Cleveland's community development corporations will attest, parcels from the land bank have become essential building blocks in neighborhood revitalization efforts. (Linner, 1977; Bright, 2000, Krumholz and Lloyd, 2002).

Two points should be clear from these examples.  First, the proposals for ways in which the city should invest its resources are very modest, and, in many ways not as politically appealing as the big-bang proposals they seek to restrain.  They do not promise to walk on water or save the city.  They only promise to help the city program and invest its resources in meaningful ways.  Second, efforts to influence the investment of the city's resources involve very time-consuming commitments and political participation by the planners.  The cases make very clear that it is not enough for planners to present their findings to the planning commission, to articulate broad policy statements, or to prepare capital improvement programs, or testify at budget hearings, and let it go at that.  Much more is needed.  It is essential to set up coalitions with other interested participants, and to work closely over long periods with other public and private entities to develop and help implement very specific program and project ideas.  Ends and means interact: if planners are truly interested in beneficial outcomes, they must be prepared for protracted participation.

The third category, policies for constructive shrinkage, involves recognition of  the fact that as the population and economic base of the city declines, the city may have to divest itself of certain responsibilities and accept some new ones.  Planners can play an active role in negotiating the terms and conditions under which the city can transfer some its facilities to state or county--wide agencies which can then draw upon a broader base for their tax and political support.   However, before engaging in such transfers, the city should obtain reimbursement for its past investments and /or guarantees of improved service for its residents--especially those city residents who need help the most.

In Cleveland, as an example, city planners worked over a five year period with other local, county and state officials to transfer the city's transit system to a regional transit authority (RTA).  But, RTA was set up only after the city got guarantees of better service and lower fares for its elderly and those transit-dependent riders who depend on RTA for their entire mobility around the metropolitan area.  The planners also led successful efforts to lease Cleveland’s three lakefront parks to the state of Ohio. (Krumholz & Forester, 1990).  The effort resulted in the state spending approximately $50 million from 1980 to 2000 in capital improvements and another $40 million on maintenance and staffing.  These formerly neglected and underfunded city parks are now the finest, most popular parks in the State park system.

My fourth category of useful things planners can do is strengthening neighborhood based community organizations.  Why are these groups natural allies for a city's planners?  The answer is simple. They often speak for the poor; they provide a countervailing political force to the constant demands by downtown interests for capital improvements and through their advocacy, they may have a major, long-term beneficial impact upon the efficient delivery of public services to the city's neighborhoods.  In addition, they often insist that more grandiose programs must be set aside in favor of addressing basic needs, a position that I frequently agree with. 

As a practical matter, city planners should realize that helping neighborhood based organizations is important because the NBOs represent the sole remaining source of decent, inexpensive housing in the entire metropolitan area.  The price of new housing has risen to the point where only families in the top twenty-five percent of the income ladder can afford it.  Even existing housing in the suburbs is beyond the reach of most central city residents and rental housing is increasing more scarce and more expensive (HUD 2001).  If we cannot preserve the housing stock in older neighborhoods, we may have to replace it at great expense, or experience a significant decline in general housing standards.  Moreover, a stable residential population is essential if the central city's tax base and commercial areas, downtown included, are to survive.

Again the Cleveland experience is exemplary.  During the 1970s, Cleveland neighborhoods were virtually in revolt and a remarkable group of young men and women were engaged in advocacy organizing.  Committed to helping low-income and working-class people and neighborhoods, many of these people have remained in Cleveland, continued working in the neighborhoods and survived the shift from advocacy to development.  Now, in the year 2003, they make up a competent, trusting, and mutually- supportive network of  CDC directors, city hall officials, politicians, and bank lending officers all devoted to neighborhood improvement.  Their ability in the 1990s to successfully rehabilitate thousands of existing houses and develop, finance and manage new housing against great odds has been amply demonstrated.

Cleveland neighborhoods now have in their CDCs a new institutional force that was not present thirty years ago.  This force has an unusual combination of entrepreneurial, management, and political skills and the perseverance to carry forward with their programs, and Cleveland's neighborhood programs are being used as a model for the entire country.   It is possible that the CDCs will provide the leadership, not only to rebuild the housing of the community but to rebuild its shattered social and economic infrastructure as well (Krumholz, 1997).

Another great example in working with neighborhoods is offered by the outstanding work of Professor Ken Reardon in East St. Louis.  Reardon, a former professor here at University of Illinois, organized hundreds of students across the University to engage in neighborhood development efforts that were respectful, empowering cite and successful in restoring some hope and dignity to the people of that troubled city.

My final recommendation is to work toward regional collaboration.  The issue of urban sprawl which has recently energized many planners involves more than the loss of greenspace or farmland or increased air and water pollution.  The way we sprawl also prevents most low-income city residents from accessing the better housing, jobs and schools in the suburbs.  This is the result of local zoning regulations, government policies and market forces.  Suburbs are not interested in opening their borders to low-income housing.  Even if they were, they could not do so without major federal housing subsidies which are now in short supply.  As a result, whole regions of many metropolitan areas in the U.S. are barred to most low-income housing. (Rusk, 1999).

The worst result of this economic segregation or sorting out of economic classes is our continuing failure to provide a decent education to millions of young students.  At this moment (2003) more than 25 percent of all U.S. children under 16 are black or Hispanic.  Most come from low-income families and most go to school in big-city systems that provide a very low-quality education.  Without the opportunity for education, these children will find it very difficult to rise above their circumstances.  Their lack of proper education blights their young lives and threatens America's future standard of living. 

The present system of economic segregation and sprawl is fundamentally unfair and undemocratic.  Planners and all Americans believe in equal opportunity.  Anything that creates and sustains a growing concentration of urban poverty and subordination is a moral and constitutional betrayal demanding remedial action, not just as a matter of policy, but as a requirement of justice.

In the past, some planners actually contributed to economic segregation through zoning and other regulatory devices.  Now planners must work with many others to tear down the very visible restrictive racial walls and redirect public investment in infrastructure, housing and schools away from exclusion and toward collaboration.

Let me conclude by conceding that these recommendations  for effectively managing decline may strike some as very modest—not the kind of visionary proposals—the gleaming new towers in the parklike setting—that citizens are accustomed to hearing from city planners. In fact, the whole idea of aging and shrinking strikes some people as an admission of defeat.  This is to be expected in a society that is preoccupied with newness and youth as ours.  However, remember that the aging analogy cannot be carried to its ultimate conclusion.  No city is going to disappear from the map.  Older industrial cities may be smaller in the future; they may look somewhat different; but they will still be places where important things will happen and where hundreds of thousands of people work and live.  The question for us as planners is how can we help make the best of our situation?

I do not believe that the older declining cities of the Northeast and Midwest need be less desirable places to live than the rapidly growing cities of the South and West.  If growth were an unqualified blessing, there would not be so many people opposing it in various parts of the country.  And, of course, if planners are successful in the modest tasks I have set out, our cities will be run more competently, public services will improve and our neighborhoods will become more desirable residential locations and will be better able to compete with other locations in the region.

While decline does present huge problems---the difficulty of matching municipal revenues with expenditures, the thinning-out and abandonment of parts of the inner city, the reduction in economic opportunities for disadvantaged groups---all of them can be addressed and mitigated through wise public policy, if we have vision and political will.

Neither planners or politicians should fall into either of two opposite traps concerning the future of declining central cities.  One is the trap of hopelessness, giving up because the city seems to be declining in so many ways.  Despair is the one unforgivable sin in theology and in cities too, because it creates its own fulfillment.

The other trap is pretending there are easy and glitzy solutions because we accept some comfortable delusion that glosses over the reality of the situation.  We cannot go back to the past.  We cannot expect the federal government to bail us out.  There are no grand and simple solutions and pretending there are no serious problems is one means of never improving anything. 

 

References

AICP/APA. 1991.  "Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct," Section A,5.  Chicago: American Planning Association

Baade, R.A. &  Dye, R.F. (1988). "Sports stadiums and Area Development: A Critical Review". Economic Development Quarterly.. 265-275.

Bright, Elise M. 2000. Reviving America’s Forgotten Neighborhoods. New York City: Garland.

Euchner, Charles. 1993. Playing The Field. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press

Gurwitt, Rob, 2002. "Betting on The Bulldozer". Governing July pp 28-34

Hoffmann S., Krumholz, N., with   Kevin O’Brien, and Billie Geyer 2000. "How Capital Budgeting Helped A Sick City: Thirty Years of Capital Improvement Planning in Cleveland". Public Budgeting and Finance. Spring. 24-37

Kasarda, John  in Harrell, A.V. & Peterson, George E. (eds). 1992. Drugs, Crime and Social Isolation: Barriers to Urban Opportunity. Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute.

Keating, Dennis.  1986. "Linking Downtown Development to Broader Community Goals." Journal of the American Planning Association. Spring.

Krumholz, Norman. 1997.  "The Provision of Affordable Housing in Cleveland: Patterns of Organizational and Financial Support" in Van Vliet (ed) Affordable Housing and Urban Redevelopment in the United States. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Krumholz, Norman & Brian Lloyd. 2002. "Landbanking & Neighborhood Revitalization in Cleveland." APA Planner’s Casebook. Chicago: American Planning Assocation.

Krumholz, Norman & John Forester. 1990. Making Equity Planning Work. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Chapter 10.

Linner, John. 1977. "Cleveland Banking Tax Delinquent Land." Practicing Planner, Chicago: American Planning Association.

Olson, Susan and Leanne Lachmann. 1976. Tax Delinquency in the Inner City. Boston: Lexington Books.

Rosentraub, Mark S. 1997. Major League Losers. New York: Basic Books.

Rusk, David. 1999. Inside Game, Outside Game. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution

Sauerzopf, R. and Swanstrom, Todd. 1993. "The Urban Electorate in Presidential Elections, 1920-1992". A paper presented at the Urban Affairs Association Conference April 22-25.

Statistical Abstract of the U.S. 1999

U.S. Department of Transportation. 1995. Personal Transportation Survey.

U. S. Department of Housing & Urban Development. 2001. "A Report on the Worse Case Housing Needs in 1999." Washington, D.C.: Office of Policy Development & Research.