Livable cities and snapshot ideas
There's a lot I like about city living, some of which is exemplified in Springfield. But after returning from my brief stay in Philadelphia, where a lot of things seem to be working well, I'm noticing a lot more unmet potential here. Though I was trudging/running around Philly as a tourist, I was paying attention to quality of life issues. Philly has a lot of downtown dwellers, and I tried to ascertain what makes center city Philadelphia a livable place for those folk.

I do not imply we should remake ourselves in Philly's image... that's just silly. Every city has its own history, its own political intrigue, its own legacy of mistakes. How each municipality responds to that legacy (and overcomes it) is what will set the tempo for viable urban living in the future. And Philly's got that going on. So do a lot of other cities. Springfield doesn't have to be groundbreaking or innovative... just study and copy elements of what's working elsewhere. Save money on the snakepit of feasibility studies, and sink it instead into bricks and mortar. Just ask me, Mr. Know-It-All.

Yes, this may seem like pie-in-the-sky stuff when Springie can't even keep its fire engines staffed and its libraries open. But Philadelphia has a lot of issues with mishandled finances, corruption and fraud, too... not that I'm implyin' anything, of course. Our mayor-elect has pledged to rectify this issue where Massachusetts' third-largest city gets a "westa Wustuh" share of attention, and I wish him well. Go, Granpa! Politicking will always play a role in the urban planning process (Big Dig, anyone?), but the idea of such providing a sustainable, useful benefit for the constituency is strangely... utopian.

Most cities, including ours, seem to approach urban revitalization merely by courting new business. In Springfield, that has brought us Worthington Street and all the revenue that can possibly be generated by draft beer. No, I'm not going to bash the entertainment district. I like nightlife even if I don't often partake of it, and don't think the public safety issues aroused by a crowd of drunken revelers are any worse than they would be if those streets were vacant on the weekends. But is it the cart that pulls the horse? Do people coming here to party really care about making a home here?

My point is that chasing business seems backwards. I would think you'd want to attract residents first. Make people want to live here, and they'll bring the essential businesses in with them. Behold the magic of capitalism. After all, having lost the retail battle to suburban malls years ago, cities aren't going to return to preeminence as shopping meccas. But there's opportunity for neighborhood goods and services if there's a population to demand and sustain them.

I'm not an urban planner, but since I already live here, I guess that makes me qualified as the next guy to offer a few quick-hit ideas:

- Make public transportation less unwieldy. Right now, I really have to struggle to make PVTA work for my needs. Do the buses go where I need them to, when I need them? Is the signage and routing easy to understand? Are the transfer points convenient and timely? What about express buses and recirculating shuttles? Upgrades to the downtown transportation hub? I'm embarrassed every time I have to jump in the car and drive ten blocks, or over to West Springfield, to do simple light shopping. But what's the 'TA doing to make me want to ride them?

-Tie together the "pockets." I don't know how the Hall Of Fame wound up on the wrong side of the expressway, but it's too late to do much about that now, isn't it? While there's evidence some efforts have been made to develop downtown corridors, the "attractions" are too far apart and there's not enough in between. Time to do some backfill to make the whole of downtown pedestrian-friendly. If the whole of downtown were as walkable as the intersection of Main and Harrison/Boland, it would only help unify it.

- Preserve historic structures where possible. We have a wealth of them here, of course, and many of them are ruined, destined to become the parking lots of tomorrow. As many cities (including Philly) have discovered, that's the housing stock for the stable population base you want anchoring your urban core. The little pocket of restored row homes we have on Mattoon Street, for example, is amazing. How'd that happen? Why can't we do more of that? Most urban revitalization schemes that succeed have preservation at their core.

- Speaking of housing, attention must be paid to affordability. I think our melting pot of colors and cultures works well, certainly better than a lot of other places I've lived. That's another thing I like about cities... they're not the suburbs. Philly proved to me that you can improve neighborhoods without excluding minorities or pricing them out of the area. I don't know how they do that, but I'll guess it has a lot to do with not allowing investors to quadruple tenants' rent. Do some of the smart things other cities have done to retain the vibrancy of a multicultural lifestyle. Preserving neighborhood character adds many positive things to an urban-dwelling experience, and the goal should be not to replace that with uptight yuppies and fortresses manned by "neighborhood watch" groups.

Where's the money coming from for all this? Well, out of the hides of taxpayers, of course. Not to be flip with that statement... we're already paying that money. If, instead of building more bridges for Boston, we were to, say, get some Boston money spent out here to make it equitable, and kept money out of the back pockets of the ineffectual and greedy, it might be doable. But spend it on things that make Springfield a place where more people choose to live, want to live, and can afford to live. Then, allow those people to create and support a demand-driven economic base. Businesses have no problem building where their market is. It happens in the suburbs every day, without abatements and incentives and development grants. Those places are trying to control growth. We're trying to inspire it. It's a deceptively simple puzzle, I know, but seems solvable even so. 1:11:36 PM    comment []trackback []