Walkable urbanism in the South Suburbs: not for a lack of trying

Previously I pointed out that there is a high degree of variance in the real estate markets of Chicagoland, and that the rising tide hasn't lifted everyone equally.  The south suburbs in particular have not faired well compared to suburbs equally north.  If you'll allow me to quote myself:

And while Chicago did very well last year, with home prices showing their biggest advance in 25 years, the south suburbs have done very poorly. Prices in many south suburbs have declined to 1990s levels.

This, I think, deserves some parsing as you will see the picture is murky.  Take, for example, Tinley Park.  I adduce that Tinley Park, like many of its neighbors, has tried to create walkable urbanism and failed not for a lack of effort.  Tinley Park is geographically on the edge of Cook County.  In fact a small portion of Tinley Park is in neighboring Will County.  It is well connect to the big city.  The I-80 interstate rolls through Tinley Park and will take you downtown with no tolls.  Of course rush hour traffic on the Dan Ryan can be a grind but Tinley Park is also connected via the Metra.  The Rock Island Line has two stops in Tinley Park.  Both stations are fairly new, with the 80th street station being less than two years old, and declared to be the Taj Mahal of commuter train stations.

The "hut" that stood at the station since the 1970s is long gone, replaced by what Metra Chairman Brad O'Halloran on Monday called "the Taj Mahal" of the Metra system.

The station is the busiest on Metra's Rock Island Line, which stretches from Joliet to LaSalle Street in Chicago. The station borrows from and improves on the smaller station the village refurbished on Oak Park Avenue in 2003 that has won awards from architectural and transit groups and has become the central feature of Tinley Park's downtown district, said Village Trustee David Seamon. 

The Oak Park Avenue station, in the heart of Tinley Park's historic, pedestrian friendly downtown, is a classic example of civic investment in transit-focused development, Mahmassani said.

Let's look closer at the Oak Park Avenue station.

The station is flanked by lot parking on all sides.

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Across the street is a fairly walkable stretch of Oak Park Avenue.  There is no parking in front except on street and everything is right up to the sidewalk.  There are bars, restaurants, and even mixed use condominiums (the white balconies on the far right).

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Looking left there is, next to the parking lot, an empty lot.  This parcel was to be a mixed use construction.  Condos I think.  If you enlarge the picture you can see the proposed renderings.  Everything right up to the sidewalk.

Here we are, right up to the sidewalk.  I'm not sure what used to be here.  But this site has been in this state for years.

Despite these efforts, attempts at building more dense, urban areas in Tinley Park have failed, though not for lack of effort.  This empty parcel of land is directly behind the Oak Park Avenue station.  It was slated for redevelopment into mixed use condominiums.  These pictures were taken in 2011 but currently the lot still stands empty.  For years this project has sat waiting for funding; the locals long ago approved the density.  Tinley Park tried to bring walkable urbanism to the south suburbs.  Unfortunately for them the market did not follow.

This area, by the way, has a walk score of 61.  Not terrible by suburban standards.

The myth of exports

There is an old fable that goes something like "exports are the key to prosperity.  America was much more prosperous and cities doing better when exports were higher."  I want to caution against such a thin reading of economic history, as it can cause embarrassing mistakes.  Take, for example, the assertion that everyone agrees that boosting exports is important and that building an export economy is more important for cities than building downtown apartments.

This fetishization of exports as a metric is pernicious because it can lead policy towards suboptimal goals.  Especially for cities.  Sometimes they are based on false assumptions as well.  For example the above links are based on the false notion that "exports include both goods and services".  This is false:

The OM-ZIP series can track export sales of states, metropolitan areas, and ZIP codes (at the three-digit level). Statistics are available for exports of merchandise only. No sub-national data currently exist on exports of services.

That's right, exports does not include services.  So high service metros like New York, San Francisco, or Los Angeles are penalized in the export section.  Metros that export manufactured goods and commodities like grains, oil, and machinery reflect well in the export section.  An oil producing port of origin like New Orleans will therefore score well, despite the relative poverty of the metro.  Especially because it is a port of origin for much of the goods that go down the Mississippi.

Generally, that person or entity is the U.S. seller, manufacturer, or order party, or the foreign entity while in the United States when purchasing or obtaining the goods for export

And yet this is the 21st century.  The success of the tech and financial industries in spurring growth in places like San Francisco and New York suggests that the information age is at hand, and that exports as a metric of economic health is not as important as it once was.  For many cities, building a downtown apartment IS more important than building up exports.



Good-bye commodities exports



Hello services

For cities like Chicago, where manufacturing exports have long waned, clinging to those remaining industries rather than fostering new 21st century industries is contraindicated.

Rank	Metro Area	2012
1	New Orleans-Metairie-Kenner, LA	20209.1
2	Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, TX	17778.0
3	Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA	14160.9
4	San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA	14087.7
5	Salt Lake City, UT	13764.1
6	Detroit-Warren-Livonia, MI	12904.6
7	Cincinnati-Middletown, OH-KY-IN	9312.0
8	Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA	8881.9
9	Memphis, TN-MS-AR	8522.5
10	Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, FL	8304.9

This chart ranks things, but not per capita GDP, unemployment, purchasing power, or other relevant metrics of a metropolitan region's overall health.

The Downtown living era

The latest news comes from Cleveland.  Downtown development is taking off and people are flocking to the center of Cleveland, a city once derided as the "mistake on the Lake".

More people are moving downtown: Between 2000 and 2014, the city's downtown residential population increased 60% to about 13,000. Over 3,100 apartments were created over that same period, according to the Downtown Cleveland Alliance, a nonprofit that works with downtown property owners, with another 2,200 units either under construction or planned.

Detroit, despite bankruptcy and depopulation in the periphery, is seeing a replete core.

Vacant units appear to be getting snapped up quickly. As of 2012, occupancy rates for rental units in central downtown and Midtown stood at 97% and 95%, respectively.

The same old story in Milwaukee, where the downtown core is booming.

Driven by growth in neighborhoods around downtown, Milwaukee's population grew by nearly 4,000 residents in the last two years, according to figures released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau.

I have long covered Chicago's Loop development.

As you can see from this map the neighborhood of downtown Chicago adjacent to Grant Park increased population by over 300%. This neighborhood historically has had low population, hence the phenomenal growth. In fact much of the Loop has been sparely populated and only in the recent years has space been repurposed residential.

I hesitate to construct a single narrative, but instead will attempt to weave several.  One story is the tale of post-industrial cities repurposing the manufacturing core into residential districts.  Another story is the changing preferences for walkable environments.

This is a paradigm shift in America, where a preference for downtown living germinated and stretches its acrospire.  It happened first in New York, where Manhattan population declines reversed and eventually took hold in outer boroughs.  The Rust Belt, once the acme of withered city cores, is finding a new reservoir of growth.

Another thread to weave in the narrative is rising inequality and housing.  As inequality of income and wealth increases it does not surprise that inequality of housing concatenates.

In the Postwar era, the late 70s was a time of lower income inequality but also a time when many industrial cities experienced huge population losses.  Chicago's biggest population loss as a percentage of the whole was during the 70s when it dipped 10.7%.  The same story is true in Milwaukee, where the 1980 decennial showed a loss of 11.3%.

It is no surprise then, that demand for walkable neighborhoods has driven poverty out into the suburbs.

The number of suburban poor living in distressed neighborhoods grew by 139% since 2000, compared with a 50% jump in cities. Overall, the number of poor living in the suburbs has grown by 65% in the past 14 years—twice as much growth as in urban areas.

This is one reason why I avoid the "G" word.  I suspect that many of the economic conditions were sown decades ago when people's preferences were different.  Population and wealth moved to the suburbs.  Now population, and even greater wealth, is returning.  And so cities find themselves in a downtown development boom fueled by more money than that which built the postwar suburbs, and suburbs find themselves in a downturn as unprecedented as the mid-century decline of the American downtown.

Currently Chicago has plenty of empty real estate in and around downtown ripe for redevelopment.  The city and many of its suburbs can easily build walkable, transit oriented development that can cater to the shifting demand for more rail and less bus transit.  But eventually Chicago will exhaust its supply of this low hanging fruit of urbanism.

increasing demand for safe walkable neighborhoods is ineluctable

Infrastructure innovations

Recently Matthew Yglesias took a survey of transit construction projects around the globe and found that construction costs in the US are extremely high.

The case for doing more is in fact strong. But it would be much stronger if the United States knew how to undertake cost-effective projects.

In a way, the US has a problem with transit construction productivity.  New York City's 1900 subway system cost 35 million dollars.  In today's money that comes to 941 million dollars.  The total length was approximately 20 miles.  The cost per track mile was therefore about 47 million dollars a mile in 2014 dollars.  Compare that to today's Second Avenue line, which is planned to build 8.5 miles of subway and looking at a cost of 4.5 billion dollars.  That totals 529 million dollars a mile.  Thus the cost of construction increased 482 million dollars a mile.  More than 1,000% increase in costs.

Consider that since 1900 construction has been aided with the following innovations:  diesel engines, laser guided drills, computer automation, and GPS for starters.  Labor saving devices and productivity increases should have, in theory, reduced prices.  For all the technical advances in surveying, planning, and building; costs have skyrocketed.

It is clear that in America there is no need for innovative financing for transit projects.  Instead what is needed is innovative planning and construction that cuts costs significantly.  If cities like Chicago wish to be globally competitive, they need to adopt construction practices that brings costs down to a level comparable with European cities.

Following the housing problem

I previously covered the housing crunch facing big cities.  The problem is starting to become widespread.

The US is facing a new housing crisis. No, it has nothing to do with subprime mortgages or bloated home equity balances. This time the nation is dealing with shortages of rental housing, a problem that will become increasingly acute in years to come and may result in a material drag on economic growth.

Indeed we are already seeing it now.  Younger adults are buying homes infrequently.

Just 36% of Americans under the age of 35 own a home, according to the Census Bureau. That's down from 42% in 2007 and the lowest level since 1982, when the agency began tracking homeownership by age.

They are also living in their parents' home more frequently.

Due to high unemployment and sluggish wage growth, lots of young people who aren't in school don't have very much money in their pockets. And yet even though young people have less money today, rents are higher and mortgage lending standards are tighter. Higher costs plus lower incomes = growing need to economize, so more people are living with their parents.

We see younger adults with lower paying jobs and less savings, which is driving down demand for homes. Thus, supply is not increasing quickly; as reflected in depressed construction numbers.  New home prices won't fall below construction costs, so there is a price floor.  So the supply rises to meet a paltry demand.

If the problem were purely supply constrains we would see rapidly rising home prices.  And while that is true in some localities it isn't happening across the Midwest.  We are seeing rising home prices, but only in places truly constrained in increasing supply and facing rising demand like San Francisco and New York.  Other cities have rising demand and unconstrained supply, like Houston.  And while downtown Detroit and Chicago are seeing rising prices in some desirable neighborhoods, they aren't seeing the aggregate demand increases that Dallas is experiencing.  Indeed Dallas prices are at record highs, and Chicago is still off the peak.

For a city like Chicago, which is seeing rising rents despite low population growth, the question is would a resurgence of demand among younger Americans cause prices to skyrocket?  And if they did, would rising prices ignite a construction boom in a city with rather depressed new construction starts?

Desirable walkability

Recently a story about Detroit made some waves because it bucked the trend of tales of decline.  Instead it focused on Detroit's rising rents:

Karen Schultz lived in a seven-room apartment in Midtown's Cass Corridor for 35 years. She was kicked out in late 2013. "It was a really nice building next to Wayne State and the landlord is moving students in and out and increasing the rent," said the 60-year-old retired police department psychologist. She now pays $926 a month for a three-bedroom, up from $815 in her old place. She thinks she may have to move in with her daughter and her three grandchildren, who were also priced out of the old building.

This concatenates with the rather contradictory story about Detroit's expensive plan to remove derelict homes:

A task force convened by the Obama administration issued the most detailed study yet of blight in Detroit on Tuesday and recommended that the city spend at least $850 million to quickly tear down about 40,000 dilapidated buildings, demolish or restore tens of thousands more, and clear thousands of trash-packed lots. It also said that the hulking remains of factories that dot Detroit, crumbling reminders of the city’s manufacturing prowess, must be salvaged or demolished, which could cost as much as $1 billion more.

This begs the question "Why are some areas of the city rising in value while some areas continue to free fall?"  But a closer examination shows a rather obvious correlation.  First, the big picture.



It is unsurprising that the areas with fewer violent crimes are doing better than the high homicide areas.  And indeed you can compare this map with the demographic map of Detroit and see something of an overlap where people are leaving.



The overlap is no surprise. But the crime map doesn't tell the whole story.  One of the neighborhoods highlighted with rising rents is Cass Corridor in Midtown.  This area has a walkscore of 91.  Compare that to some of the neighborhoods with rising vacancy rates.  Take, for example, this area of Palmer Woods, with a comparable homicide rate and an increasing vacancy rate:  walkscore 42.

Continue your tour of Detroit to the Southeast side, another region where the crime rates are comparatively low but the vacancy rates are increasing.  There you find a walk score of 45.  While it is no surprise that the regions of the city with higher homicide rates have higher vacancy increases, the walk score factor has been surprisingly absent in the recent brouhaha over Detroit's multifaceted housing market.

In fact I encourage you to take a trip around Detroit with the walk score and see the correlation between decreasing vacancy and high walk score.  This high vacancy neighborhood on the Southwest side, for example, has a walk score of 48.  And another, this in the lower crime and lower vacancy neighborhood of Elmwood Park has a walk score of 69.

The areas of the city that seem to be doing the best are areas with a higher walk score and lower homicide rate.  And the correlation between lower homicides and higher walk scores is evident as well.  This is an important point that is missing in the analysis of many urbanists.  Rather than making facile comparisons to globalization or ignoring market preferences for walkability altogether, urbanists should be connecting the dots.  I've already highlighted the low rate of driving, car ownership, and drivers licenses of the youngest cohort.  A simple conclusion is that increasing demand for safe walkable neighborhoods is ineluctable.  And indeed such observations are omnipresent, even in highly blighted Detroit.

It is strange to suggest that people priced out of a low crime high walkable area simply move to a higher crime and lower walkable area as a reasonable solution to the problem!  It is strange to make a moral judgement about market preferences.

Urbanists are not seeing the nuance in the demand and supply issues at the locus.  Failure to differentiate between quality of housing stock and neighborhood characteristics has lead many urbanists to mistake demand issues for supply issues, or simply dismiss the demand issues.  Indeed Detroit serves as a monolithic example of inelasticity in both supply and demand.  This has lead to moralistic pablum such as referring to a retired police psychologist as a young urbanist, a part of the global workforce, or an entitled grouser rather than looking at empirical evidence.  We could observe from the data provided that low crime high walkable neighborhoods in Detroit is an inelastic good, with a demand that is increasingly inelastic as well.  Again, with the demographic numbers on younger Americans the demand elasticity is unsurprising.  The pace of supply increases of low crime highly walkable neighborhoods is a subject well worn for good reason.

This issue is transferable to other cities.  Take Chicago.

In Chicago the pattern looks familiar.  This Englewood neighborhood has a walkscore of 71.  Compared to the burgeoning Wicker Park area where the score clocks in at 89.  As you can see, Wicker Park has both a lower violent crime rate and a higher walk score.  If one continues this series with some of the sententious alternatives to Wicker Park you find the following:

Woodlawn:  55
South Shore:  75
Bronzeville:  72
Austin:  74

Note that these suggest alternative neighborhoods all have significantly higher violent crime rates as well as lower walk scores.



Indeed one author even went so far as to suggest Garfield Park as a reasonable alternative to Lakeview.  Garfield Park is home to one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in America.  Shamefully, some urbanists think violent crime is an unimportant statistic!

The suburban partnership

Cities and their suburbs form a partnership.  An ecosystem, if you like.  For most metropolitan regions, the bulk of the population lies in the suburbs and the bulk of the industry lies in the city.  That relationship doesn't hold for every metro region, but it is often true.  Thus cities form a partnership with their suburbs.  If the partnership is healthy then they can cooperate on issues like taxes, transit, and public safety to enhance the region and increase the overall region.

For several years, some aldermen in Chicago have bloviated about imposing a commuter tax on suburbanites who work in the city.  You can see its roots in 2011 when it was proposed by city Inspector General Joseph Ferguson and praised by several aldermen and opposed by the mayor.  It was ressurected in 2013 by the Grassroots Collaborative, where alderman Emma Mitts supported it but alderman Ariel Reboyras opposed it.  It is getting legs again in 2014 with support from alderman Bob Fioretti.

While this tax may never pass due to legal reasons, I oppose these sorts of punitive deals that cities and suburbs dither about.  It is divisive and unconstructive.  And there is a clear precedent that Chicago should learn from and avoid.

I have long opined that there is not a more dysfunctional city suburb relationship than metro Detroit. There is, at times, an almost visceral hatred betwixt the two.  Recently an interview with L. Brooks Patterson, the Oakland County commissioner, has surfaced which gives a voice to that acrimonious relationship.

"Anytime I talk about Detroit, it’s not positive. Therefore, I’m a Detroit basher."

This sort of acrimony is par for the course with Detroit and its suburbs.  There is much hand-wringing over former Detroit Mayor Coleman Young's phrase "Hit eight mile".  And this acrimony has played itself out in public policy.  Look at how little cooperation exists concerning an abundant resource; the water department.

“I tell my team no deal is better than a bad deal — and right now it’s a bad deal, so we’re probably going to walk,” Patterson told a crowd of public officials at Governing magazine’s Outlook in the States & Localities conference.

The Free Press reported last month that Orr was considering forming a regional authority without Oakland and Macomb as members, if they wouldn’t agree to a deal, according to sources involved in the negotiations.

Also consider some of the fits and starts that have plagued regional transit in the Detroit area:

• 1988 – On December 7, 1988 Public Act 204 was amended and SEMTA was restructured from its seven-county operation into a three-county agency, which excluded the City of Detroit (emphasis added) and renamed the Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation (SMART).  SMART began operations on January 17, 1989.
• 1996 – SMART and DDOT establish a common regional bus pass but further attempts to merge services fail.
• 2001 – The Detroit Regional Chamber spearheads legislation to create a Detroit Area Regional Transportation Authority (DARTA).
• 2002 – Legislation to form DARTA is vetoed by Governor John Engler
• 2003 – In May of 2003 DARTA is formed through an interlocal inter-government agreement (IGA) that includes the City of Detroit, Wayne County, Macomb County, Oakland County, Monroe County and SMART. The agreement proposed that the parties utilize existing constitutional and statutory law to establish more effective and efficient public transportation services. Under this agreement the parties agreed to transfer to DARTA powers, duties, functions, responsibilities and authority essential to providing quality public transportation. However, under this agreement DARTA could not levy taxes nor could DARTA bind any Michigan municipality to any obligation without the consent of that municipality.
• 2006 – In May of 2006 the Michigan State Supreme Court decision dissolved DARTA and the IGA.
• 2009 – During 2009 the legislature failed to approve legislation to develop a regional transit authority.
• 2011 – The City of Detroit cuts DDOT bus operating subsidy and approves a bond issue to help fund Woodward Light Rail required match. No operating funds have been identified for the Woodward Light Rail. 

It is to Detroit's detriment that the region failed to cooperate on regional transit issues.  These sorts of disagreements have spilled over into other areas of civic life, such as the Detroit Zoo.  The region has wasted taxpayer funds trying to poach industries from the suburb to the city.  Quicken Loans relocated to Detroit from the nearby suburb of Livonia .  Thus the net job growth for the region was essentially nothing.  Quicken Loans moved into the Compuware building, itself a transplant from the neighboring suburb of Farmington Hills.

Detroit and her suburbs tell a cautionary tale.  Chicago has, in comparison, a robust relationship with its suburbs.  The RTA, despite its faults, manages transit agencies that provide a comparatively well integrated network of trains and buses.  I have personally used all three of them for commuting:  Metra, PACE, and the CTA.  I have taken the traditional perimeter/suburb to downtown commute as well as the reverse commute to the suburbs.  And I can say that, while not always a joy ride, they exist.  And this allows households with fewer than one car per working adult to commute to work, a trend increasing over time.  It also allows downtown Chicago to enjoy greater density, which leads to more diversity and specialization.

Chicago needs to resist the call to arms against its suburbs, just as its suburbs need to resist a call to arms against the city.  Plans for a punitive suburban tax increase are the sorts of petty squabbles that made Detroit so dysfunctional.  Instead of looking to punish the suburbs, grassroots organizations and alderman should look at ways to work better with the suburbs to ensure the continued prosperity of both city and suburbs.

Chicago aldermen warmed to the concept of a one percent commuter tax on suburbanites who work in Chicago.

“People who live outside the city and work in the city utilize our streets, our transportation systems. They’re in Chicago. They’re out of Chicago. Perhaps, there’s a price to be put on that,” Ald. Pat Dowell (3rd) said at the time.

Ald. Leslie Hairston (5th) added, “A lot of people come in the city. A lot of people outside do business with the city and we don’t recoup those dollars.”

Resist the call to arms.  Remember that these aren't free riders.  Suburban commuters pay tolls and transit fares.  They dine and shop downtown.  They are a valuable commodity to the city businesses that need a skilled and diverse workforce.  Remember that the suburbs can levy a price on city dwellers that use suburban streets and transportation systems.  And look at where that road leads.

The big housing crunch

The story of housing costs increasing rapidly in many cities across America is becoming a popular tale. But this was all too predictable. Back in 2011 Brad DeLong observed that the housing boom was followed by an even larger housing bust:

As you can see new housing construction fell an estimated 5 times the size of the construction boom.  Thus we reach the situation where home prices increased an average of  12% nationwide last year.  Combining the low pace of inflation and wage increases, housing costs are putting a squeeze on households.

Consider Chicago, where the price of rentals has increased 17% over the last decade.  An increasing number of renters pay over 30% of their income on rents.  But as they say, all real estate is local.  And while Chicago did very well last year, with home prices showing their biggest advance in 25 years, the south suburbs have done very poorly.  Prices in many south suburbs have declined to 1990s levels.

I think what we are seeing is the hyper localization of real estate.  Neighborhoods with low crime and good access to transportation are increasing in value, while those without those two factors struggle.

The geographical problem reconsidered

Previously I suggested that JC Penny's problems were more than just the death of retail problems that have plagued many brick and mortar stores.  Rather I suggested that not having a location in cities was a problem. Since then Sears announced they are closing their flagship Loop location in downtown Chicago. So perhaps my assessments were wrong. If the downtown location didn't help Sears it probably wouldn't help JC Penny.

Downzoning Chicago

Chicago's 49th ward, in the Roger's Park neighborhood, is shrinking.  Situated on the north side of Chicago adjacent to the lake and the border with Evanston, it has several red line L stops in the vicinity.  And for some reason it is getting smaller.

The 49th ward, well serviced by transit and on the shores of Lake Michigan.

The shrinking was mostly in the last decennial, as you can see in the demographics of Rogers Park:

1990	60,378		8.7%
2000	63,484		5.1%
2010	54,991		−13.4%

Roger's Park lost significant population after a few decades of gain. It is not clear why.  Crimes are down in the neighborhood.  Big time.

The current alderman worked with the local community to reduce density.

Below are the zoning changes that resulted from the process: 
Downzoned portions of the 7300 block of Bell from R4 multifamily to R3 two flat/single family.
Downzoned portions of the 1400 block of Birchwood from RT4 multifamily to RS3 two flat/single family.
Downzoned portions of the 1300 block of Chase from RT4 multifamily to RS3 two flat/single family.
Downzoned portions of the 2000 block of Chase from RT4 multifamily to RS3 two flat/single family.
Downzoned portions of the 1400 block of Estes from RT4 multifamily to RS2 single family.
Downzoned portions of the 1500 block of Estes from RT4 multifamily to RS2 single family.
Downzoned portions of the 1800 block of Estes from RS3 two flat/single family to RS2 single family.
Downzoned portions of the 1900 block of Estes from RS3 two flat/single family to RS2 single family.
Downzoned portions of the 2000 block of Estes from RS3 two flat/single family to RS2 single family.
Downzoned portions of the 1200 block of Farwell from RT4 multifamily to RS3 two flat/single family.
Downzoned portions of the 1400 block of Greenleaf from RT4 multifamily to RS2 single family.
Downzoned portions of the 1800 block of Greenleaf from RS3 two flat/single family to RS2 single family.
Downzoned portions of the 1900 block of Greenleaf from RS3 two flat/single family to RS2 single family.
Downzoned portions of the 2000 block of Greenleaf from RS3 two flat/single family to RS2 single family.
Downzoned portions of the 1600 block of Lunt from RT4 multifamily to RS2 single family.
Downzoned portions of the 1800 block of Lunt from RS3 two flat/single family to RS2 single family.
Downzoned portions of the 1600 block of Jarvis from RT4 multifamily to RS2 single family.
Downzoned portions of the 1700 blocks of Jarvis from RT4 multifamily to RS2 single family.
Downzoned portions of the 1900 block of Lunt from RS3 two flat/single family to RS2 single family.
Downzoned portions of the 2000 block of Lunt from RS3 two flat/single family to RS2 single family.
Downzoned portions of the 7300 block of Oakley from R4 multifamily to R3 two flat/single family.
Downzoned portions of the 1200 block of Pratt from RT4 multifamily to RS2 single family.
Downzoned portions of the 6900 block of Ridge from RS3 two flat/single family to RS2 single family.
Downzoned portions of the 7000 block of Ridge from RT4 multifamily to RS2 single family.
Downzoned portions of the 7100 block of Ridge from RT4 multifamily to RS2 single family.
Downzoned portions of the 1500 block of Touhy from RT4 multifamily to RS2 single family.
Downzoned portions of the 1600 block of Touhy from RT4 multifamily to RS2 single family.
Downzoned portions of the 1800 block of Touhy from RT4 multifamily to either RS3 two flat/single family or RS2 single family.
Downzoned portions of the 1900 block of Touhy from RT4 multifamily to either RS3 two flat/single family or RS2 single family.
Downzoned portions of the 2000 block of Touhy from R4 multifamily to R2 single family.


The 49th ward is downzoned!  But what is the cause of this push to downzoning?

Did the downzoning cause population loss, or did population loss cause downzoning?  Unfortunately Chicago's zoning maps and laws are a byzantine piecemeal thing not easily parsed.

According to Zillow, Roger's Park property values increased 12.9%.  Over that same period the nation wide inflation rate was 1.6%, making property values in Roger's Park rising at a rate that is 8 times the rate of inflation.  So what is going on in the 49th ward?  It is getting smaller, less dense, and more valuable all at the same time.

The shifting tides of Chicago transit

The Chicago Transit Authority's ridership numbers came out a few weeks ago, and the numbers look good on first glance.

In 2012, Chicago’s mass transit system saw its largest growth in 22 years, the Chicago Transit Authority announced on Wednesday.  The CTA said that ridership grew to 545.6 million rides last year, an increase of 2.4 percent from 2011, according to a statement from CTA.  Rail ridership was at its highest level in 50 years, increasing to 231.1 million rides in 2012, according to the CTA.  Bus ridership was also up, increasing to 314.4 million rides, an increase of 4.05 million rides from 2011.

Stepping back and looking at the RTA's numbers as a whole since 1980 gives nuance.  Ridership on the CTA's rail lines is up since 1980, but was more than offset by a decline in bus riders.  Thus the CTA is providing fewer riders today than in 1980.  The system as a whole is up from its trough in 1995, but below its 1980 levels.  The declines all came from bus transit.  Both the CTA rail and Metra are up from 1980 but the CTA bus and PACE are down.  And thus the RTA as a whole is down since 1980.



It shouldn't be that surprising that the CTA gives fewer rides today than it did over 30 years ago, as the population of Chicago is smaller today than it was 30 years ago.  However the region is bigger today, so it does not explain the RTA's net losses.  What is surprising is the rise of rail transit and the decline of bus usage, not just in Chicago but the whole region.

This presents a real puzzle.  Does the decline of bus ridership and rise of rail ridership reflect a changing taste in RTA patrons?  Does it reflect the demographic changes of Chicago's neighborhoods; rail accessible neighborhoods growing in population while bus accessible neighborhoods declined?

It is also possible that we are looking at a shift in office space.  As the Loop continues to transform from sleepy downtown to vibrant city core and suburban employers move their offices in or near downtown, this might be the result of a change in employment patterns.

The death of retail: JC Penny's geography problem

The retailer JC Penny is going through a round of store closings as part of its long standing financial difficulties.  You can find a list of the 33 stores closing here.  One thing you will notice is that all of these stores are in the suburbs.

And you can see on this quick google map search, JC Penny's stores are all in the suburbs.  There are no locations inside Chicago.

The JC Penny optical location in the Loop is defunct

In contrast Target has 2 locations in downtown, Macy's has a downtown location, and Sears has a store in the Loop on State Street.  Even Walmart, ever known for large parking lots, has multiple locations in Chicago.  With the growth of suburban poverty, that seems like a geographical problem.

Specialization and diversity

Ricardo Hausmann has a superb article on cities and specialization.  The takeaway is that specialization is a myth.  Cities that focus on specialization are too often losers, and that the true key to a city's success is diversity.  Money quote:

But specialization at the individual level actually leads to diversification at a higher level. It is precisely because individuals and firms specialize that cities and countries diversify.

This is why the idea that cities, states, or countries should specialize in their current areas of comparative advantage is so dangerous. Focusing on the limited activities at which they currently excel would merely reduce the variety of capabilities – or “letters” – that they have. The challenge is not to pick a few winners among the existing industries, but rather to facilitate the emergence of more winners by broadening the business ecosystem and enabling it to nurture new activities.

I recommend reading the whole thing because I largely agree with the thesis.  Many big cities in America have declined.  Those that were more diverse were better able to weather the destruction that the 1970s wrought.  Chicago has lost a number of important industries over the years; from meat packing to steel many of Chicago's specializations have disappeared.  Being large and diverse was important for Chicago's survival.  Today it is more important than ever.