A Placemaking Journal

For reasons both mysterious and irrelevant, Citylab’s Facebook page promoted a two and a half year old post on bike theft this weekend. What proved interesting about it, at least to me, is that in explaining market demand for stolen bicycles, it referenced a study on how people perceive different types of crime — finding that receiving stolen property and failing to return misdelivered property are considered so insignificant that respondents rated them not really worthy of punishment.

Meanwhile, all you robbers, burglars, extortionists, blackmailers and similar miscreants better watch out. Because no one’s interested in taking your crap.

That seemed a roundabout way of suggesting a pass for all the sorts of things regular people might be inclined to do, but punishment, perhaps severe, for the things bad people do. And that got me thinking about the distinctions we draw for ourselves.

But back to that in a minute.

There goes the neighborhood. Or does it?

Last week, news was released about Manuel’s Tavern, a landmark Atlanta institution, “quintessential neighborhood bar,” and storied seat of local political discourse. It seems the 100 year old building is being refurbished. Its land is being sold and its considerable parking lots are being redeveloped as four-story buildings — something compliant with the area’s long-term neighborhood plan. But the building, together with the beloved business it houses, is staying put.

Furthermore, the development partner is Green Street Properties, perhaps Atlanta’s most place-sensitive in-town developer. Its CEO, Katharine Kelley, was previously with Jamestown Properties, whose Ponce City Market project is a go-to local example of stellar redevelopment and adaptive reuse of historic resources. Before that, she was part of the team that created Glenwood Park, redeveloping a former concrete plant into what’s now widely acknowledged as one of the southeast’s best traditional neighborhood developments.

If anyone can get it right, it’s them. But that didn’t matter. Reacting in oh-so-predictable knee-jerk fashion to the usual melange of click-baity headlines, insufficient detail, and news posts missing the nuance of the story, people went nuts.

Evil developers! No respect for history! Density, density, density! No matter, I thought. The story will get clarified and people will come to recognize that, rather than a curse, what we’re witnessing is a blessing that will not only help endow the tavern’s next century, it will replace an acre of asphalt car storage with both people and neighborhood-serving commercial enterprise. In short, it will deliver all the things people keep saying they want.

But I was wrong. Even as the story’s details got ironed out, people were still angry in ways I just couldn’t fathom. Yes, some dove in, got up to speed, and changed their tune. But so many others seemed intent on sticking with the boogeyman narrative. The loss of Manuel’s, even if the truth of the matter was the exact opposite of that proposition, was just one more example of how everything’s getting worse. All the time.

It was, I later came to determine, not about Manuel’s at all. It was about change. Especially change that doesn’t seem directly tied to a tangible and immediate personal benefit.

Ordinary vs. extraordinary measures

So what’s this all have to do with the crime-and-punishment perceptions that kicked off this post? In some odd way, I think they present a parallel with what’s happening in our urban settlement patterns.

It’s no secret that cities are getting their mojo back. American attitudes on where and how to live are shifting. And while plenty of people are still happy in the ‘burbs, many others now see themselves in more urban surroundings.

Especially for those with the luxury of choices, living in the city no longer represents a compromise. It’s now a goal. There are now increasing ways in which people — at many levels of the economic spectrum — can find their place. Where they want it. How they want it.

The path that leads them there represents what people think of as “ordinary measures.” Things like finding housing for yourself and perhaps your family, weighing amenities, gauging commute times, etc. Stuff regular people do when it comes to finding a home.

And once they’ve found their place, it’s not uncommon for people, especially those raised in 20th century ‘burbs, to immediately begin pining for a big vat of amber to lock everything in place, exactly as they like it. But cities simply don’t work that way.

As we invest in cities through the choices we make, value is created. And before long come interests looking to capitalize on that value. Such folks — developers and the like — are embarking on what we everyday citizens think of as high-impact “extraordinary measures,” which allows us to think of them — like the robbers and blackmailers in our crime study — as predators. Bad people, distinct from the rest of us just doing the things normal people do.

Time to look in the mirror

I think it’s high time we all embark on a little collective therapy. If we do, maybe we can finally admit to ourselves that, if you choose to live in the city, shop in the city, commit yourself to an in-town neighborhood, or just hang out and participate in the public life of the community, you too are complicit in the process of change.

Urban change is not something that happens to you. Or distinct from you. It is something that happens, in some small increment, because of you.

The interests investing in the city in big ways are following your lead and acting on the same impulses that drive the decisions you make: the recognition of something attractive and the desire to benefit in some way as a part of it.

What to do?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting we put the kibosh on our urban renaissance. Our 20th century urban disinvestment was a tragedy, on multiple fronts, that we’re still trying to sort out. But now we recognize the lessons gained through thousands of years of city living offer far more promise — for both the earth and us — than any other way of organizing ourselves. So instead, consider this a gentle recommendation that we simply proceed with a bit more self-awareness, a bit more humility, and considerably less motivation to pull up the drawbridge just as soon as we’re settled in.

Why? Because once we acknowledge our own culpability in the inevitable change we’ll experience over time, the more we can begin working together to address it — taking extraordinary measures of our own to better direct that change towards the greatest possible benefit for the most people. Balancing the potential for negative impacts with the positive potential of grounded and humane policy.

More often than not, this involves things like tax policies and related affordability measures that protect seniors or other disadvantaged populations, zoning reforms that allow for housing types across the economic spectrum, and land use and design regulations that foster growth consistent with equitable mobility choice and other ways in which cities best grow to serve the myriad wants and needs of the human condition. In all its complexity.

But that means becoming more politically aware and active at the local level. It means acknowledging the fact that, just as its undoing took many decades, the process of once again learning to live together in diverse community is messy and will take time. It involves working heart-to-heart, hand-in-hand, even (some might say especially) with those you least relate to. It means doing the difficult and often thankless work of being a citizen and not just a consumer.

Above all, it means accepting the fact that we, the regular people, are ultimately responsible for the community we share. Warts and all.

Or, you can jump on your preferred social media and reactively unload on one more reason why everything’s getting worse. All the time.

Your choice.

–Scott Doyon

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