Urban Food Thoughts

Neal Pierce had an excellent piece of the subject of local food and the rise of cities this past Sunday.

We think of hunger – global hunger – as a third world problem yet of the millions who go to bed hungry each night, more and more of them are in cities. The bigger the city, the bigger the number of unfed.

As Pierce points out, over the next 40 years our planet will have to produce as much food as we have ever produced and I, for one, am worried about its quality. I am also reasonably sure that a majority of it will not be local food.

Cities, by their very nature, develop in the same locations and utilize the same type of land which is ideal to grow food crops. As cities grow they expand across the very land which they may need to feed themselves, devouring acre after acre in non-agricultural and resource consuming urban development.

There are those who stress that cities are where brilliant minds are more likely to intersect with others of like bent and innovations can spring forth. So, where are we going to find the innovations for feeding our ever growing urban areas? The University of Pennsylvania’s Institute for Urban Research recently held a “Feeding Cities” conference looking for answers.

Historically, with all of our cities swallowing up so much fertile farm land and creating climate altering “heat islands” in the process, our family farms have been evolving into massive industrial operations which are highly susceptible to floods and droughts. Scientists say that the altering climate will see many more of these floods and droughts. Did this conference have any good answers?

One suggestion was that cities can try to toughen themselves by assembling disaster emergency funds, strengthening their infrastructure and building their resilience. WOW – whose idea was this? When we cannot even maintain our pension funds or our roads, bridges and sewers adequately we need to establish a massive rainy day fund (which will probably be blown on the first event)? Not my idea of a complete solution.

Other conferees stressed the preservation of land for agriculture, either within their borders or in surrounding regions, apparently similar to our Rural Service Area (RSA). Lexington has already done that but the majority of crops being grown in the RSA will not feed our local population, since we don’t eat horses. Some conferees saw this as a food buffer and a flood buffer – two public goods, but our experience may say otherwise. In a free market no one can tell the farm owners to actually grow food for people and not commodity crops or inedible animals.

It was mentioned that fending off powerful business or political forces to preserve agricultural lands may be a tremendously difficult task. From gated communities and golf courses to the starter homes evolving into suburban slums amid a food desert, Lexington needs to think about better access to local food production on what remaining land we have.

In the developing third world nations it is estimated that 40% of the food produced annually is lost due to improper storage or delivery systems. Yet, in America we waste nearly 650 pounds per person a year, more than any other country in the world. The losses by careless farming, inefficient food processing or from retail stores simply discarding foods that are past their sell-by dates probably trail our own personal inability to control what we buy and fail to eat. It hurts me to see what remains from many restaurant meals and I don’t see what is discarded from the kitchens themselves.

Did we always have this waste? Could we feed all of the estimated 9 billion people anticipated by 2050 with more local production and less transportation related product spoilage? There is a joy to greater self-sufficiency and local food production which Lexington is beginning to understand, yet we still fail to create real community gardens in our communities. I get the feeling that community gardens are thought to be only for the poorer sections of town. The HOA where I live will only allow a few tomato or pepper plants in pots and less obvious herbs.

Pierce concludes his article with this: 

“To date, city-produced foods account for a tiny share of urban food needs. But one is led to wonder: If city food demand is a top 21st-century concern, perhaps city ingenuity – and spirit – can also help to forge answers.”

For Lexington, those answers are not forthcoming. Nor do they seem to be in other larger communities, since Pierce is still looking for them. That would indicate that we have not achieved a critical mass of intersecting thinkers on this part of Lexington's problem – though there are a handful of pioneers.

That Lexington developed, in part, where crops are known to do well and parts of that development has proven to be a detriment to the whole, just may be a hint toward an answer.

Over the last decade or so, our city has purchased property which was adversely affected or, by its placement, caused that adverse affect on others. Said property has neither been re-purposed for suitable urban use nor been reverted to the other job for which the land is quite well suited – growing food crops.

Do some of these properties fall within an area which can be called a “food desert” or could become one should the nation's transportation costs skyrocket? Could producing healthier food closer to the mouths which need it help? Could production of such food be coordinated under the auspices of a “Local Foods Policy Advisory Group” go a long way in averting urban hunger? Maybe.

Perceptions Pervade Planning Public Parking

As I said in my last parking post, “...public perceptions will always trail the reality of most situations”.  It appears that the perceptions of Debbie Long, owner of Dudley’s on Short, did not live up to the reality as it relates to the parking situation in downtown Lexington.

“We found that my guests really adapted easily to our downtown parking,” Long said in the recent Business Lexington article. 

Parking should not be a complicated process, but to many of the suburban mindset downtown parking is never as easy as it is in the shopping malls like Fayette Mall or Hamburg.  There one can park within a few hundred feet of a store's front door, walk for a mile and a half until exhausting the store's selection, go back to the car and move it a half mile and do it all over again, until tired.

Long says it’s not the concept of paying for parking or the short walk to the restaurant that creates a problem for her patrons.  The hard part is the confusion which comes from the inconsistent marking of visitor parking and employee/event or even the resident parking.

I have long been of the persuasion that on-street parking should be for those using it less than an hour at a time.  That probably comes from the historical 1-hour limit on most parking meters.  Surface parking (hopefully tucked in a block interior and a simple entrance) should be for several hours of usage (typically less than 3) and structured parking for all day and residential patrons.  Hence, on-street = highly visible, surface = basically hidden and structured = part of the office/residential complex.

It does appear that progress is being made of arriving at a standard identification symbol for parking facilities and there is a working group of parking operators which meets regularly.  But settling on a logo and some other embellishments does not solve the problem quickly. Gary Means, LexPark Executive Director, admits “The new signage will be phased in as budgets allow” since the group is still discussing how the new signage will be funded.

The other side of the coin in any discussion of downtown parking is; How are we going to continue to accommodate our need for parking?  Planners and developers first look at what and how much parking will be needed, usually by looking at what was required in the past.  It is a standard practice that they have been taught.

Past experiences and trends do not always allow for the good prediction of future events. 

Take a look at the “predictions” of Lexington's 1930 Comprehensive Plan.  Public transportation consisted of a mix of streetcars and auto-buses running routes which covered pretty much all of the city limits.  The Plan called for systematically extending the streetcar lines into the establishing neighborhoods, but due to the Great Depression and some Congressional acts meant to counteract the poor economic times by 1938 the streetcars had all been removed.  I don't think anybody saw it coming.

Take a look at the “predictions” of Lexington's 1947 Comprehensive Plan.  Gearing up for and fighting World War II had brought us out of the Depression, the GI's were coming home and ,with the streetcars gone, everybody had a car these days.  The Plan called for a certain percentage increase in auto ownership by 1970, but we blew through that estimate by the early '50s.  The roads that we planned to build like the By-Pass, now New Circle Rd, were undersized and crowded by the time they opened.  I don't think anybody saw it coming.

It seems that we are always planning for the existing situations or for those of the recent past since that is what we can justify through statistics.  Experience should show that we have very little to look back on and say that we got it right.  Who planned for the use of personal computers, either in the workplace or at home, or predicted the explosion of the use of smart phones so that our community would be ready for them when it happened?

Downtown retailers and developers do listen intently to their existing and potential clients in terms of what the parking needs are expected to be, but how many of them or their predecessors were unprepared for the surprises cited above?  Many cities are looking at TOD (Transportation Oriented Development) but it doesn't come up in any news reports or announcements about our downtown.  Not even the much ballyhooed Rupp Arena redesign or the Town Branch project.  Will Lexington be skipping that part of following the trends in other “world class” cities?

There are some other trends to which we should be paying attention.

Since 2008, the number of miles driven nationally has fallen markedly.  This was first attributed to the onset of the recent economic recession and the housing crisis.  That statistic continues to decline even after we have entered the “recovery” phase and we return to what was normalcy.  People, and young people in particular, are just driving less miles and not always in their own vehicle.  Car-sharing is a recent urban phenomenon to which the suburbanite mind does not relate.

Suburbanites can really grok the idea of a flashy car and the open road.  This must be what sells cars because it is in almost all of the new car ads on TV.  Even the ones showing downtown driving have the subject auto as the only car on the street.  If this were reality, then there is no parking problem.  Crowded roads and urban gridlock is not meshing well with the alleged purposes of buying a new car.

The main reason that suburbanites need an auto in the first place is to get to a job.  Jobs in which wages have generally not kept up with the family needs.  New roads and cheap oil have allowed past home buyers to drive until they qualified for a mortgage.  Now that need for a car is more pronounced than ever but the new roads, the cheap oil and the quality mortgages are fading from most household's view.

More and more of today's new automobile commercials are promoting extras like navigation systems and Wi-Fi hot spots with live streaming of video or Bluetooth communications instead of 4-wheel drive and snappy handling.  These are all aimed at the youth market and that market is remarkably shunning the auto either by choice or economic necessity.

The just released 2013 Car Affordability Study, from Interest.com measures how much the households in our top metro areas should pay for a car that they can afford.  The formula is simple, a down payment of at least 20%; auto financing lasting no longer than four years; and principal, interest and insurance not exceeding 10% of a household’s gross income.  Mike Sante, managing editor of Interest.com, in a statement said "Car costs are one of the most controllable parts of a household's budget." 

The top 25 metro areas were compared by median household income and this formula and then ranked.  How do you think that Lexington fared?  I, for one, was surprised.

Lexington's median income is $48,306, which places us right between the last two communities on the study's list.  It nestles us right between Miami and Tampa.  Of course the “affordable” range of auto in Tampa was $14,516,  that is 52.48% less than the median price of a 2013 vehicle.  The typical two car household of the Lexington suburbs can now safely afford about half of a new car.  That, my friends, is without considering any commuting costs or maintenance.  Our recent college graduates, with their high student loan debt, cannot afford to drive until they qualify to live in the suburbs.

Wages, as a percentage of GDP, have been declining since 1970.  Lexington's population since merger has nearly doubled and what looked to be a large suburban growth was a great migration from the inner city.  Indications are that this migration will reverse itself as it has in other cities.

We also need to hold on to our values when we choose a direction and avoid the traps of other cities. 

In Philadelphia, the administration has spent years talking up the value of lively, walkable streets.  Their Convention Center was purposely built without parking to discourage hordes of motorists from jamming the streets around the building, and to encourage visitors to use transit. Their 1991 Center City Plan prohibits parking next door on the adjacent Arch Street, specifically in the belief that Philadelphia's downtown activity should not be broken up by garages.

In 2010, a developer argued that parking was in short supply in the area and proposed that he build a parking garage, the problem was that his site wasn't zoned for a garage.  Fearing the loss job opportunities, the permitting process was eased, an excellent design team brought in to design and build it.  As of now, and many of you may draw parallels to our CentrePointe project, the Arch Street garage has brought no development, no new shops or restaurants, and no good design.

Inga Saffron, the Philadelphia Inquirer Architecture Critic, put it well, “… design will not save us from what's wrong with garages. The real problem with these utilitarian structures - and we're talking about the free-standing, aboveground kind, located in downtown settings - is that they distort how the city functions.

Saffron goes on, “When you insert a garage on a dense, pedestrian-friendly block, you can't help but dilute the mix by widening the distance between people and their destinations. Meanwhile, new parking encourages people to drive instead of taking transit, which only further increases the demand for more parking. Putting garages underground, below mixed-use buildings, is expensive, but at least it minimizes the harm.”

What does any of this mean in our preparing to plan for our downtown's future?  We are approaching that point in the life of the 2007 Plan where, in past plans, the reality completely obliterates some of the major assumptions of earlier proposals.  Are we about to lose a concept of urban life that we have counted on or is it already gone and we believe it dormant?  Is there something that we should be, or have been, planning for that will appear an oversight? 

We can, as most other cities have, continue to plan for how we think that life will remain in our fair city, or we can plan for how we would like for Lexington to be.  We often promote Lexington as “unique” and it definitely is, actually despite the repeated attempts to transplant ideas from other communities.  Progressive cities will ask “What can we do that no other city has?” while we ask “Why can't we have that in our city?”  Are we willing to join the progressive cities and ask the correct question?

I can understand our downtown developers using the conventional wisdom of looking to the city government to build their structured parking, but government is not building the parking lots of the suburban retail stores.  Cities used to believe that they HAD to do this to aide in downtown revitalization.  Our city is in the process of divesting itself of all its parking garages and getting out of the parking business.  To that I say a big “hooray”.  Now the questions arise, “Should the Parking Authority, the agency now in control of the downtown garages, consider building expensive spaces for a society which may be trending away from requiring them?  Should the Parking Authority take the gamble that a developer will not?

I guess, in the end, it all comes down to perceptions, mostly based on past experiences.  The public believes that available downtown parking is hard to find or inconveniently placed.  The retailers believe that parking should be provided for them.  Developers and landlords believe that they need assistance to serve their clients. So, now I ask you; Do these perceptions trail the reality and will these perceptions change with reality?

p.s. For further thoughts on parking planning go here

True Urban Mixed Use.

I have not decided yet whether this emerging trend from the DC area is merely interesting or somewhat disturbing. Churches in that region have had to come to grips with their financial situations and some of the more cash-strapped are looking to become mixed-use developments in order to remain in existence.

The First Baptist Church of Silver Spring, Md. is asking to replace their current facility with apartments, shopping and a new church building. To be truthful, it is in a neighborhood which has a good transit presence, great walkability, a proposed Metro line stop and is transitioning toward higher density. What the area does not need is a wide expanse of parking and the setbacks off of the streets which presently exist.

Whether due to declining attendance or growing ambitions, other area churches are pursuing similar tactics. A church in downtown DC has been given permission to demolish their old Brutalist style building to erect an office building and church. In Arlington, Va., a church sold the air rights so as to construct several floor of apartments above.

This scenario brings to mind the recent removal of the Faith Covenant (formerly the Woodland Ave Baptist and originally the Immanuel Baptist) Church building for the High Point Condominiums. Though built on a much smaller scale the idea is much the same. The small church, which was losing its congregation and financially unable to adequately maintain the structure, opted to sell and re-establish elsewhere.

The theme which ties most of these instances together appears to be the involvement of the historic preservationists and their claims that these building are “significant”, either historically or architecturally, and should be saved. I guess that it could be argued that ecclesiastical buildings may be “community” or civic properties in a visual sense and therefore merit saving. I tend to weigh the value of what may replace the existing, visually and not economically, for my opinions.

What makes this interesting is that it is happening in quite a few localities, many of which are rapidly intensifying in density or transitioning to more urban uses. This intensifying is something which the Planning staff has urged for many years, through several comprehensive plans and when combined with the reluctance to expand the Urban Service Area mean that we could be facing similar issues.

We have some history of removing a few of our older churches over the years. The University took the Porter Memorial location on S Limestone and Baptist Healthcare (Central Baptist Hospital) took both the Centenary Methodist and the Central Baptist structures for more intense uses. Still others remain on highly traveled arteries at the edges of neighborhoods where “real mixed use” could be used as a catalyst for a transformational moment.

Given the general feeling toward downtown preservation, I think that our oldest church facilities will not consider such options at this time but there are a few which could see economic sense in such an endeavor. That is where the disturbing aspect of this trend may emerge.

I do not pretend to understand the congregational or financial health of our inner ring churches, but I do see when they add property (usually for parking). There is always the possibility of being land rich and congregant poor which can only be exacerbated during times of economic downturn. In times when folks cannot travel to services it may be advantageous build something where they don't have to drive.

A true mixed use.

A Question About Parking

I believe that it would surprise most folks to know that a machine, developed nearly ninety years ago, was first used to ease the parking situation of the day. The hated parking meter.

There are some in my own family who will not think about venturing downtown simply because they feel that finding a place to park is too big of a chore with which to deal. However simple the task to accomplish, finding a parking spot is much more difficult. Between the traffic on the one way streets and the supposedly endless searching for a close parking space, they would rather go to the mall. I think that they typify the opinion of many in the neighborhoods outside New Circle Rd. and a good many within.

Conventional thought of the past 50 years or so has been that it is no problem just to hop in the car and run to the store. You could park at the front door, quickly get in and get out and be home in no time flat. The roads to the store are now wider and carry more cars, the parking lots are bigger as are the stores but it still does not cost you to make the trip. It is always free parking, for you.

The rise of the automobile in America led to more than the freedom of the open road, it led to chaos in the streets of eastern cities which were not designed for them. Cities were built to accommodate rather than integrate cars. According to Kerry Segrave in “Parking Cars in America, 1910-1945”, The idea in force in American law at the start of the 20th century, that thoroughfares were for the movement of traffic—with certain specific exceptions such as the loading and unloading of goods and passengers—gave way fairly quickly to the idea that took root in the popular mind that parking of vehicles on the street was a right and not a privilege. In response, ill-conceived regulations helped cement the concept of free parking as a public good across America, fueling our dependence on automobiles.

Unlimited free parking, without legal restrictions to encourage turnover, soon led to commonplace traffic jams on many city streets, complete with double parking, traffic at a crawl and employees hogging the prime spots all day. I doubt that it helped when turning movements at intersections, with or without traffic control, was added into the equation. Thus the parking meter was devised.

In 1933, Carl C Magee, a Oklahoma newspaper man and entrepreneur, engaged two engineering professors at Oklahoma State University to design and build a control devise. Two years later, Holger George Thuesen and Gerald A. Hale had their first working parking meter, the Black Maria. Magee, having been named to Oklahoma City's Chamber of Commerce Traffic Committee, chose the corner of First Street and Robinson Avenue as a starting point and installed a series of meters along a whole block face. The date was July 16, 1935. Lexington would wait ten more years, July 22, 1946 for their first meters and thus proving Mark Twain wrong.

Each devise cost of $23 apiece but were installed gratis with the understanding that their initial capital cost would be repaid by the five-cent hourly rate, after which the city would reap all parking fees.

Ironically, the world's first parking ticket occurred about one month after the Oklahoma installation when the Rev. C.H. North received a citation while he had gone inside a grocery store to get change for the meter. The judge dismissed the case.

Regardless, the parking did its job and business picked up so dramatically in the first week that the other side of the street demanded that they also have meters installed. Word spread quickly and so did the meters. Lexington, when we did get meters (see above), made a gutsy move and installed 700 meters, on a trial basis.

The reported first days collection of parking meter coins amounted to $451.47 and by the end of 1948 revenues totaled $64,708 for the year.

How did this apparent panacea for all of parking's ills go from being loved in the late '30s to being basically despised two decades later? Can the same thing be said for the stoplights too?

As towns became cities and urban centers, more street space was filled with the parked cars rather than moving ones. Unlike our larger east coast communities, most city's leaders didn’t turn to mass transit as a solution to the increased congestion, but found it to be a convenient excuse to remove what efficient commuter tracks and inner-city rail systems that were in place. Lexington's residents who bought in the neighborhoods designed around the streetcar soon found themselves needing an automobile and a place to put it at home. All of this right in the middle of the Great Depression.

The resulting increase in traffic and its need for parking should have enticed any enterprising property owner to build multi-level, covered parking spaces, much like the older livery stables which could be found dotting downtown at the turn of the century. The building of and maintenance of parking garages can be an expensive proposition, which is why many property owners today look to the local government for assistance.

Probably the best reason for the reversal in thought is “... decades of poor meter implementation, inane off-street parking requirements, and [a] technological stasis [which] slowly turned our city streets into a driver’s nightmare.” according to Hunter Oatman-Stanford in a Collector's Weekly article from January of this year. This could be as a simple as overuse of the meters or just poor placement, which when it did not work as expected was supplemented by equally bad implementations of parking requirements. In typical American response to these ill-conceived regulations, drivers soon began to see the concept of free parking as a public good.

I personally believe that government should not be in the parking business. Provide for their employees and customers, like private enterprise, but that is as far as it should go. Instead of NOT providing free parking, how about encouraging FREE public transit..

Donald Shoup, professor of Urban Planning at UCLA, explains that minimum parking requirements “led planners and developers to think that parking is a problem only when there isn’t enough of it.” All across America today's legally required lots are, more often than not, half-empty since they are designed for the maximum peak use. Parking is kind of like dark matter in the universe, we know it’s there, but we don’t have any idea how much there is.” Today parking lots cover more of urban America than any other single-use of space and it is estimated that the U.S. has as many as eight parking spaces per car.

As the suburban lots are underused for typically short length stays and the downtown spaces are overused for typically day long stays, where is the balance point? When will we begin to mandate “right-sized” parking for particular parts of town rather than continuing a “one size fits all” approach? I can see the developing Design Excellence Guidelines having some input in this regard, but they need to be for all of Lexington and not just the B-2 family of zones downtown.

So, what is lacking in the way of downtown parking? The quantity or quality of inexpensive parking? Or just the lack of free parking where you want it? I think that there should be a definite private participation in our structured parking solutions

The right sizing of parking to our development types and locations along with better public transit access should play a more important in the success of downtown retail, entertainment, offices and residency. But public perceptions will always trail the reality of most situations and as more Millinenials adjust their perceptions, I think that we will see the need for downtown parking wane.

Now, if I were in total control of downtown parking; For the visitor, it would be visible, For the local, it would be there but hidden and Public transit would make it superfluous.

Facade/Sidewalk Porosity?

I have been asked to consider putting forth my ideas on the state of downtown Lexington's parking. That is taking some research and maybe a little history as to how we got to where we are. I am feeling something in the wind and hope that it is not some “lets solve our problem like name a city did it”, because I always find that we only go about half way and then look for better things. Until then I am continuing to think about urban walkability.

One of the most common complaints about Lexington, and its downtown in particular, is the blandness of the architecture since the 1960s. We do have our share of windowless, rough concrete panels or tinted windows hiding who knows what from the passing public. These building may be right up on the sidewalk but they do not engage the public or any pedestrians – they do not help in creating any sense of street life. Even the ones which set back and have their semi-public plaza spaces are not relieved of guilt.

My main objection to the downtown CVS project was not the location but the design of the face which they chose to show to the street and the public. The Board of Adjustment had already cast their lot against the pharmacy drive thru before it became a controversial subject and that opened the subject of facade design. We need no more dead walls looking out on our streets.

If there is one more thing that we should have learned ,since we began to reverse the trend from bland Brutalist architecture, is that the typical pedestrian needs to also be entertained on their walk. One of the common jokes in my family was that we were taking the kids on a “march through the Sahara” whenever we went on walks – and especially through uninteresting areas. Long stretches of treeless streets were quite stressing for us and them - because there was just nothing mildly entertaining about it.

The mildly entertaining aspect of downtown pedestrian life, historically, was the ever changing facades and display windows of the buildings there. Every 16 to 20 feet, certainly no more than 40, there was an apparent change or difference in the periphery of ones vision. It was these changes and differences which gave the pedestrian reference points as to the distance traveled or an estimation of how much farther it is to go. The blind can still use the sounds and smells which usually accompany these changes for the same reference points. Long stretches of dead walls or open expanses of empty parking leave very few of these points.

I have begun to understand the concept put forward in Walkable City about the need for porous and deep edges between our public (pedestrian) space and the private (commercial) space. Jeff Speck's definition of porous refers to the number and size of the windows and doors which allow proper lighting and otherwise engage the two spaces in a lively relationship. The idea of depth is simply the degree to which edge allows for the space to blend or blur area of the said relationship of activity. These opportunities can include; awnings, ledges, columns, recessed doorways, etc. All the things that our older stores had in abundance.

Too few doors or windows, such as the backs and sides of commercial buildings, give absolutely no chance for any relationship – lively or otherwise. Likewise the distance setback from the sidewalk, anything in excess of a few small steps, allows no blurring or blending to occur at all. Does it make sense that developments at our sidewalk edges tend to repel the pedestrian these days rather than encourage them?

It seems possible that, from what I have put forward, a formula could be devised and refined with which to rate our commercial streets as to the potential of pedestrian activity. A residential formula may also be created with similar or adjusted values applied. I really want to see how the “stand alone” re-figuring of Rupp Arena would fare in this “urban sidewalk porosity” rating for lack of a better moniker. It would be my hope that this is something which could be included in the Design Excellence Guidelines whenever they are written.

Is It To Be Or Not To Be --- An Urban Market?

Kroger has announced plans to not just renovate the Euclid Ave store, but to replace it with a larger, ”urban lifestyle market”. That was the phrase that Danny Lethco, a real estate manager for Kroger, used repeatedly during a gathering with neighborhood residents and interested parties. Maybe we just need to look at just what is an “urban market”

Though not exactly super markets, these smallish grocery stores strive to provide our cities with fresh food, meat and cooking staples within reasonable walking distance. Corner stores like these became passe after super stores like Walmart, Winn-Dixie, Kroger and Meijer came to suburbia. However there’s been a new push toward walkability and sustainable growth within our cities and we again need accessible food in our urban areas.

This Euclid Ave. store has been called a "university store" and dubbed the "disco" Kroger by Ace magazine since it serves a large number of eclectic students in the overnight hours, but it also serves as an oasis in the food desert of the less well off of the 40508 and 40502 zipcodes. Many of them are faced with carrying their groceries on long public transit rides, buying a car or relying on convenience stores to purchase their necessities. Will they be better served by making this an urban store?

The confined space of a site for an urban style store will demand the right balance of urban design and will present some challenges. These grocery stores have to use a fraction of the space that super stores have, prioritize the goods they will provide and consider parking in an area unable to accommodate a super-parking-lot. With these challenges in mind, many other cities and entrepreneurs have taken the risk and opened such grocery stores. It may be helpful to examine how they did it.

First, I looked at the basic history of the seemingly ever increasing size of suburban grocery stores. After the sprawl explosion of the 1950s and ‘60s, supermarket chains have focused primarily on the suburbs. The business model involved rolling out the same store with parking in front, again and again. When supermarkets did build in cities, they plunked down the same suburban box whenever possible. This approach works as long as new growth is taking place primarily in the suburbs and the cities languish.

Kroger, in its history, is not a stranger to the Chevy Chase area and many will remember when it occupied the space where Shoppers Village Liquor through Josie’s sets today. Well, they even pre-date that if what some of the old-timers told me is true when I was growing up. I have been told that the now gone Ben Franklin five and dime, which stood approximately where the drive entry is to the Ashland Plaza, was built as a Kroger before they moved around the corner.

Kroger also shared the Aylesford/Ashland Park/Chevy Chase shoppers up until the late “60s with the Parkes Bestway (High St where Great Clips is now) and the Colonial Albers (on the Kroger current site) stores and a Minit Mart (now Sew Fine). I almost forgot the small corner grocery where Architectural Kitchens & Bath now occupies. Most all of them had good walk-up traffic until pantry and refrigerator sizes grew, working mothers and time schedules dictated a large weekly shopping trip rather than daily checks of what was fresh.

How others have succeeded

When looking at how others have succeeded, I turned to the Urban Land Institute and took information from their 2011 Fall Meeting's session on “Developing Walkable Urban Groceries in Mixed-Use Environments”.

Chevy Chase is very definitely a walkable, mixed use area, therefore I believe that their recommendations should apply. Chevy Chase is also urban, not quite urban core but firmly, in the minds of most, a downtown area and ripe for infill or redevelopment. Kroger is choosing the redevelopment path.

Parking is absolutely necessary. Nearly all urban-format grocery stores need parking, even in transit rich neighborhoods, and it must be separated from residential parking. Often, grocers require five spaces per 1,000 square feet (93 sq m) of store. In the substantially denser urban locations where significant percentages of customers walk, sufficient parking is still required, although the allotment can be as low as two or three spaces per 1,000 square feet. With the credits allowed for bike racks and the transit stop, I believe that Kroger should have this covered.

Pedestrian entrance. With a split between customers arriving on foot or by car, a key for the design of the store is to get one entrance to face the parking lot and the other to be an attractive pedestrian entrance off the street. A store’s pedestrian entrance is critical in an urban area. It requires a welcoming access point from the sidewalk.. Grocers don’t necessarily want too much exposure and light, as natural sunlight and windows can negatively affect HVAC systems and refrigerated goods. In this case, an artist will tell you that the northern light is more pure light with lower UV effects. Here, Kroger has shunned the sidewalk/street and the lower UV light by catering to the auto traffic.

Not listed by the ULI is the inclusion of a drive-thru pharmacy window for an urban market. Walkable urban neighborhoods tend not to need such amenities. Rite-aid, just a block or so away, has no need of one nor does Wheeler's Pharmacy on Romany Road. Just a few years ago the CVS proposal at the Main and Vine intersection went through a long, torturous struggle because of a drive through window. That project failed.

The location of the proposed drive through on this plan presents some really troublesome thoughts. Firstly, it is hidden at the very back of the structure and under the similarly hidden auto ramp to the rooftop parking. If that was not enough, the loading dock ramp is arranged immediately adjacent to the pharmacy window or at least close enough to present possible traffic hazards. Add to that the traffic movements into or out of the Marquis access point and I see a real possibility of a SNAFU or worse.

Kroger seems to have made one concession to their standard floor plan in that the deli will occupy a portion of the space usually reserved for the produce section. Ostensibly this is to allow the pedestrian entrance to the “relaxing patio” behind the transit stop feature. Of course this transit feature may be omitted since they donated a considerable sum to the “Bank stop” across the street.

On the idea of this “patio” or sidewalk seating, it is unclear if this area will be like the seating at the Beer Trappe, Bourbon n' Toulouse or Charlie Brown's. These cited seating areas work well in the mild weather, but are primarily used by smokers due to the city's ban. Will this really be relaxing if it is all smokers? Will pedestrians want to use this as an entry point to the store if it is filled with smoke?

One of the details pointed out in Jeff Speck's book Walkable Cities is that the frequency and proximity of a building's entries to the sidewalk/street will raise the perception of an area as walkable. I have not heard of anyone devising a rating system or creating an algorithm to chart such perceptions but one cannot be far off. Positioning a building up to the street/sidewalk, or even within 20 feet of it, gives a more cozy feeling to the pedestrian but omitting any entry options of personally relating to it or its occupants turns those feelings to dread.

Our recent snowfall and the current Northeast storm brings up a seasonal complaint of mine. Kroger is, by far, not the only scofflaw in the clearing of the sidewalks which adjoin their property. While it is their duty and responsibility, by being farther removed from the sidewalk there are many who will give them a ”pass” but it really is a liability issue. By moving the building closer to the street, it would seem to make the duty imperative, but if it is the side or back of the building, that duty evaporates from the minds of management since there are no employee access points there. The suburban stores will never expect their customers to be to the rear of their facilities, but in this situation it is where they are forcing them to be.

The larger picture

Just what is the larger picture? At least one of the audience members started off with the big picture agenda questions. “When this store is expanded, will Kroger close the Romany Road store?” Very direct and to the point but also quickly shunted to the side as too far down the road. So, is Kroger not thinking in a long term frame of mind? I doubt that very much.

The very positioning of the proposed building hints that they are looking at the older office buildings along Ashland Ave and the rest of the property on the block, though they stated that they “have no plan to purchase more property” at this time. Granted the PNC bank is unlikely to sell as they would lose their visual street presence opposite the very active Chase bank facility, but with the rise of online banking neither is doing the volume they once did.

Speaking of the Romany road store, is it so under-performing that it need to be combined with another store or eliminated altogether? This store functions as a reliable “third place” in the lives of the neighborhood residents as do the aforementioned Wheeler's and the several restaurants in the area. They have been woven into the social fabric of the families there for several generations. In my mind, the Romany Road store is a better example of an urban grocery than what is proposed on Euclid.

One last point taken from the ULI report is that “Grocery stores transform neighborhoods”. I would take that as both the addition to and the removal from a neighborhood. John Given, who helped develop a Ralph’s grocery store in South Park in downtown Los Angeles, described urban grocery stores as providing an essential element of street life for neighborhoods. The neighborhood grocery store, an urban market or not, it is more important to the everyday life of downtown than Rupp Arena or Keeneland.

To quote Seth Harry, an architect in Woodbine, Maryland, who has retail expertise “As long as walkable urban places are built from scratch or revitalized, more urban-format stores will follow”. In his view, the design of the store is driven by the urban fabric. Kroger may now realize that they had to rethink the placement of the parking in an urban location but it will still takes an urbanist architect to convince most operators to accept other design refinements.

Furthermore, Kroger's goals here may be diametrically opposed to both the purpose and function of urban markets. They stated that they wanted people to “buy more” when they shopped at the Euclid Kroger, but people who walk, bike, or use transit to arrive are not going to “buy more.” They already buy what they can carry. Kroger is using suburban thinking and trying to place it in an urban environment. That formula will not work.

There is also some question as to whether the very idea of acres of shopping in under one roof is even viable anymore. Malls are failing, or redefining themselves and Walmart type stores are shunned by the wealthier classes who would rather make trips to several boutique-style stores than one giant conglomerate comprised largely of products they don't want. Malls and superstores were originally meant to replace the old-world style village markets, suks and bazaars. For a while this worked, but shoppers today are more sophisticated than ever. They are not interested in fake village markets, they want real village markets – an experience that is simply not going to happen in any superstore or superstore mini-version. Quality, unique products are not usually to be found in such places.

So, an "urban" market?  Is it to be or not be, that is the question.

“Neighborhood” Options

I kind of wish that I had written this.

There are a handful of ways in which you can tell FILL IN THE BLANK is still just a small town on the cusp of being a big city. Restaurants that close at 9 p.m. and don’t open on Sundays is one. Another is the attitude many FILL IN THE BLANK'S RESIDENTS have toward parking.

Parking has been a constant topic of discussion – and outrage for some – lately. Neighbors seem to spring into action over the idea of a café or bar around the corner, lamenting that they don’t want cars parked on their streets. Others think the City of FILL IN THE BLANK should provide free parking downtown and in destination areas like FILL IN THE LOCATION . I think everyone should just get over it.

FILL IN THE BLANK is a developing city thanks to the unique personalities and businesses that are already here (and have been developing here for decades) and to the encouragement of the state and local government. People like FILL IN THE BLANK for its weather, its local businesses and its quirkiness. People moving to this city are helping improve this city.

I find in this writer a somewhat kindred spirit. Someone who feels about cities in the same way that I do. Reading farther, it just gets better.

She talks about the new and exciting restaurants which have opened and the many recent arrivals who are bringing increased vibrancy to her city's scene. And who can leave out the rise of the creative classes which throng to exciting places.

I think that she really strikes a chord when she says of the attitudes of the established locals;

“I want to enjoy all FILL IN THE BLANK has to offer, but not within walking distance of my house.”

Is this not the attitude we see in the many comments against what some could call the natural evolution of a city? Apparently it is not just our city, because it is happening elsewhere. Many forms of NIMBYism are alive and well all across America.

A vibrant, diverse and creative city doesn’t have a single “business district” – that model of city planning, where a large central business district is surrounded by housing developments, is a failed idea that creates car dependency, pockets of crime and overweight people.

Don't you just want to shout this from the top of the Lexington Financial Building (Big Blue, to a lot of us)? This wildly suburban attitude may be just the thing that is keeping us from reaching that next step up the city evolutionary ladder.

Multiple or distributed business districts can, and should be, more than extended shopping corridors along the primary thoroughfares leading onto or out of town and large commercial centers. It is the presence of these distributed business districts which helps to describe real neighborhoods. In order for non-residential uses to consider anything other than the extended corridors or centers, the impact of traffic and parking is always discussed, - no argued.

Increasing levels of traffic are indicators of the vitality of an area but are usually also looked at as markers to the diminished safety of a residential section. I choose to believe that the quietest streets are not always the safest and not all traffic activity is vehicular. A cul-de-sac far from a commercial district can be as lonely as living on the moon.

Parking, on the other hand, really only becomes a major headache when the activity or retail endeavor has to draw clientele from more that a comfortable walking distance. Unfortunately for many people, that comfortable distance is growing shorter every year. Turns out people are not very good at conceiving of the distances they walk with any accuracy, according to Kevin Krizek, a planning and civil engineering professor at the University of Colorado. An evening walk to the corner pub or bistro-like dining is something our suburbanites may never know.

A solution to the traffic and parking questions could, or I think should, be more “neighborhood” options. The more “neighborhood” options in an area, away from major, busy traffic corridors, the greater likelihood of people living within that “comfortable distance” of those multiple options to ditch automobile and walk. Voila, cleaner air, healthier people and a more vibrant neighborhood and city.

Some of us are old enough to remember when there were more of these “neighborhood” options and they were located in a somewhat organic manner. They did seem to just grow there, “naturally”, neither forced nor constrained.

Did the strong survive? Did the survivors adapt? Both are good evolution questions but the real question is: Why have more of them not sprouted in our newer neighborhoods? That would take us back to the topics of traffic and parking. While the older “neighborhood” options got along without one or the other, any new ones will be required to have both. Maybe these could be classified as a GMO strain of local retail, but they have definitely been rejected.

So, does anyone recognize the city about which my kindred spirit writes? It surprised me to see that it is also a State University city with many college students. It is a center of politics and economics and if you would like to read more of her work, Stephanie Myers can tell you all about Getting Around the city of Austin, Texas.

How Can We Fix The "Non-Downtown" Walkability Problem

The good reviews continue to stack up for the book ”Walkable City”, Jeff Speck's book that I am in the process of reading. Even some of our city's leaders are commenting on the columns written in support of the book. Alas, the subtitle, How downtown can save America, one step at a time, can still mislead some of them into thinking that this is about fixing our collective downtown areas.

The general state of our own downtown is in need of more repair, but the trick is to stop bringing suburban influenced regulations to bear on very urban developments. Better yet, to remove such influences from the projects built from, say the Urban Renewal devastation forward, and continue to create a dense urban area. The residential framework surrounding the commercial core, our Infill/Redevelopment area, is receiving careful attention in regard to such regulations being applied to new projects there. Those parts of Lexington which should be considered “walkable” are getting the attention that they deserve. It is the rest of the city that we should be beginning to think about.

One of the little personal asides in Jeff's book concern his efforts to build a new house in Washington, D.C. and the regulations which demanded that he provide an off-street parking space – even though he did not own a car. The zoning code for Washington, D.C. had last been updated 1958, when they were trying to cater to the automobile and public transit looked to be a thing of the past.

Very few people gave more than a passing thought to the effect that these regulations had on a now extremely transit oriented part of the district. Was there a pressing need for off street parking spaces in a population where nearly three quarters of them owned no cars. Fortunately, cooler heads did prevail and permission was granted for the omission of the spot, especially since it was so close to a Metro stop and several bus routes, or a “transit zone”.

1958 was about the same time that Lexington began to hit its stride in growth and in growth control. We had received our share of “baby boomers” and worked hard to attract industry. Clean industry like IBM and Trane or others where a smokestack was not necessary. And they did come with all of their automobiles and car-centric attitudes plus a bias against public transit. Some of them became civic leaders and probably felt that, if it was good enough for the nation's capital – then we should be close behind. Close, but within reason.

I am aware that we cannot be favorably compared to D.C. in any way because of urban density, transit options or civic amenities, but due to those mid century regulations, some portions of the district did develop just like Lexington's subdivisions and have the same car-centric attitudes. In a 21^st century world, those attitudes should be and are beginning to crack and fade.

Soon, Washington D.C. will be introducing the first update to its zoning code, after four years of development, and included in this new code are some of the ideas which Speck endorses as a way to make a city walkable. One change is that corner stores could be made legal for the first time in a half-decade, but only in the denser, rowhouse-style developments in order to discourage short car trips. Even the elimination of minimum parking requirements for parcels in “transit zones”

And, according to the Washington Post, “D.C. is only the latest American city to revise zoning rules dating to the 1950s and 1960s to reflect a new planning consensus that the car is, at best, only one player in the urban ecosystem. New York, Baltimore and Buffalo have rewrites underway.”

But it is not just about Lexington re-writing the regulations for development. It is also about re-writing the concepts on density that people have for their neighborhoods. Most often, an increase in density will imply more transients (apartment dwellers), more auto traffic and more prying eyes. What would your basic concern be with higher densities where you live.

I have tended to live where the houses are a little bit closer together, the streets are a little narrower and I don't mind the occasional multiple unit building (as long as it is in character to the neighborhood). Three story concrete block boxes with their attendant paved parking do not belong anywhere inside the limits of the mid-fifties era development. (Nor do their vinyl clad frame cousins)

This complimentary size and scale is what helps to make up a vibrant neighborhood. The density and activity of those diverse occupants coming and going on different schedules and errands. It also makes for safer neighborhoods as long as everyone keeps their eye out for the incompatibilities. The fact remains that this style is still out of favor with the developers and home builders and by extension, most of our suburban dwellers.

Walkability is not coming to our outskirts any time soon, and more is the pity.

Upgrade A Downtown Park?

Phoenix Park has been an issue of concern for years.  That is what the article in the Herald – Leader had to say this morning.  The problem is nobody really seems to know just what to do about the issue.

The Parks and Recreation department is looking to do some "heavy maintenance", whatever that is, on the park in the coming year.  $75,000 worth of heavy maintenance, which compared to all of the other downtown proposals lately, does not sound very heavy. 

Jeff Fugate, president of the Downtown Development Authority, says that the government does not have the money to do a full blown renovation so the work to be done will seem like repainting in a brighter color what you really want is a new kitchen.  This job may well be just putting lipstick on a pig.

The Park Plaza apartment building next door is making an addition of 5,000 square feet of street-level retail space part of their $2 million renovation, so removing some dead trees and replacing some park furniture sounds pretty minimal.

Fugate also called the park “tired”, actually “very tired”, but then it is our only public space which get used nearly 24/7 for 9-10 months a year.  When it serves as living quarters for a segment of our less affluent residents and acts as living room, dorm room, dining room and sometimes bathroom to an ever changing gaggle of people, what would one expect?

There are a lot of folks in town who would like to rid the park of its constant visitors or semi-permanent residents but others believe that to be quite cruel.  There is even a certain segment which will avoid passing through the park because of a fear of harassment or pan-handlers, though I have never seen such occurrences of that activity. 

LFUCG Commissioner of General Services, (soon to be CAO) Sally Hamilton, claims that this “maintenance” is in no way an effort to force the “homeless”, for lack of a better description, out of the park but subtle efforts have been used before.  I do realize that the Park Place residents do find the park denizens annoying and off-putting but they should have some alternative place to go. The Phoenix Park Homeless Initiative, an effort begun in 2009 is probably still looking for a long-term solution and this is not it.

Now, I do feel that the placement of different seating could go a long way in discouraging the sleeping on the park benches.  Maybe some style of singular seating with substantial armrests between would prevent the appearance of “overnight” accommodations.  I still have trouble seeing sidewalk dining should there be a food place in the Park Place retail since the former restaurants have tried and failed to make it work.

Another common thread of complaint about Phoenix Park is the haze or cloud of smoke, be it the legal stuff or not.  Since it is a “low lying” park, should smoking be allowed there at all?  Or should smoking be restricted to well beyond the entryways to all buildings?

These may all be moot points if the funds are not included in the new FY2014 budget or the money may well be misspent if the park is included in the plans for the “day-lighting” of Town Branch and the creation of what will mimic the old idea of a “Commons” as depicted on the original town plat.

Or it could be a whitewashing of an old fence and re-arranging of the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Even More On Kentucky Proud

How many of us local folks (those who grew up here in Lexington) have had the impression that the tobacco industry and the thoroughbred horse industry were the two mainstays of Lexington's economy?

Since I was a small lad, the annual Blue Grass Review, a section of a January Herald – Leader Sunday edition, made grand statements and projections about all of the recent sales or the upcoming season for both industries. These were can't miss fields to be in.

Therefore, I was quite surprised to see this clipping from the June 30, 1938 Lexington paper:

In 1888, the largest crop grown in this county was hemp.

Twenty-four percent of the world's output was produced here.

Now we grow only about forty acres of hemp. Formerly the hemp house was as much a part of the farm equipment as the dairy or the stable. Now, the hemp house has given away to the larger tobacco barn and the horse barns.

In 40 years and two significant wars, Fayette County would abdicate its place as a world leader of beneficial raw goods and replace it with products associated with vice and addiction. Yes, I do know that local farmers have been raising horses and racing horses since before the Civil War but horses were not the only line of work. The modern thoroughbred operation of today began with the introduction of corporate style funding (syndicates and the like).

Hemp, basically a weed, is about as easy to grow as hay or sod and without the extensive level land requirement. The hard part is in the harvesting and processing of the fibers. Did it make a lot of sense to switch to tobacco, a much more labor intensive production process and susceptible to more blights or diseases?

The decline in production may have its roots in the The Marihuana Tax Act Of 1937, which did not directly outlaw the growing of hemp but put a tax on every entity who dealt with the raw material. Although the tax was just $1 a year in most cases, the penalties of not registering and paying were substantial.

Given the quote from the newspaper account, the tax was be placed on a sizable number of Fayette County farmers during a time when they were trying to climb out of the Great Depression. Not a good economic move there Congress.

There may be some defense for Congress since it was thought, at the time, that hemp fibers could replace wood chip fibers in paper production. Such a move could have threatened the powerful William Randolph Hearst and his vast timber holdings from which he got his newsprint.

Further complicating the economic landscape was the inclusion of the Cannabis family of plants in the 1925 revision of the International Opium Convention as a drug. The Boggs Act of 1952 is the first time in federal drug legislation that marihuana and narcotic drugs were lumped together, but the damage had already been done.  In 1970 any cultivation of Cannabis plants what-so-ever was banned in the U.S.

More recently, at least since the mid-1990s, automobile parts manufacturers in Europe have been developing a process to use bio-mass fibers as a raw material. These fibers have included soy, switchgrass and hemp. The technology has been around since the late '30s so it is nothing new.

In 1941, Henry Ford made an experimental car body out of organic fibers that included hemp. As a demonstration, it was struck with an ax handle without damage to anything but the ax handle – it broke. Sadly, production costs proved to be too high, raw materials in short supply and World War II intervened, or we may have had many more lighter weight, auto-bodies when the “muscle car” engines developed. Imagine the Corvette with a bio-fiber shell rather than fiberglass or the polycarbonate shell of the old Saturn line which tended to shatter in colder climes.

Hemp is legally grown by 29 countries around the world at present and most will export many products made from that hemp. China, Russia and Korea produce a lion's share of those exports yet each year the U.S. government identifies those countries that it considers to be drug-exporting nations and they are not on the list. We Americans can legally import hemp products from as close as Canada but we cannot join the global market place or become hemp independent or export our own.

A number of our state's leaders wish to change the status quo and position Kentucky  to proudly return to leading the world in hemp production, employing many farmers in the process.  This week the The Kentucky Chamber of Commerce joined Agriculture Commissioner James Comer in supporting legislation allowing hemp production.  Federal law still stands in the way, yet fully half of the our state's Congressional delegation have stated support of efforts to legalize growing hemp.

Not all farmers can get in the horse business and the tobacco business has just about dried up. Our produce farmers and remaining dairy/cattle farmers are scrapping for what tillable land there is left.  Hemp can be grown on more marginal land and we still have some of that, especially in the more eastern region where they need the help.

Hemp legislation can be done in a reasonable and safe manner if we try.  Let us all try to be proud Kentuckians, employed proud Kentuckians.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2013/01/11/2472773/kentucky-business-group-gets-behind.html#storylink=cpy