Community Development and Smart Growth: Translation Paper Stopping Sprawl at its Source Number Thirteen Community Development and Smart Growth: Stopping Sprawl at its Source This paper was jointly commissioned by the Funders' Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities* and the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC).** The col- laborating author on this paper was Tony Proscio1. This is the thirteenth in a series of translation papers published by the Funders' Network to translate the impact of sprawl and urban disinvestment upon issues of importance to our communities and environment and to suggest opportunities for progress that would be created by smarter growth policies and practices. Other issues addressed in the series of trans- lation papers include the arts, health, biodiversity, children and families, education, aging, transportation, agriculture, civic engagement, parks and open space, work- force development, and social equity. Abstract The tenets of smart growth have ment projects more in common with those of com- that have taken * The Funders' Network works to munity development than adherents shape in expli- strengthen and expand funders' of either movement appreciate. Seen citly "smart" abilities to support organizations through narrow lenses, the two fields deliberations working to build more livable appear to involve different economic with regional communities through smarter growth policies and practices. For and social dynamics, taking place in authorities and more information, visit different locations: rampant, helter- planners. None www.fundersnetwork.org. skelter development in suburbia, vs. of these exam- concentrated poverty and underin- ples arose as a ** LISC is a national nonprofit vestment in inner cities. But this result of some intermediary that works with article begins with the argument that intentional CDCs and their governmental those two dynamics are related, and good-govern- and private sector partners to revitalize distressed communi- in fact are best addressed in tandem, ment exercise ties. Through its 38 local offices not separately. It describes some rea- aimed at aligning the theories of and a national rural program, sons why the community develop- urban and suburban development. LISC has provided to CDCs over ment and smart growth movements On the contrary, all arose because $4 billion in project financing have tended to diverge, and how they solved a concrete local problem and grants, as well as business they might come together around a that had regional implications, and expertise, enabling those groups to address all aspects of building more effective, common vision. because neighborhood and metro- stronger, better communities. politan leaders were wise enough to For more information, visit The bulk of this paper describes recognize those implications and www.liscnet.org. examples of community develop- come up with common solutions. © Copyright 2003 by the Funders' Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities and the Local Initiatives Support Corporation Page 2 The paper argues, in essence, that need to be more carefully studied the intersection of community and replicated. The ideas behind development and smart growth is them need more interdisciplinary today more a matter of practical attention from scholars and policy reality than of well-developed theo- experts. And the combined topic ry. And even the reality is mostly generally needs more leadership, sporadic, scattered, and poorly communication, and advocacy than understood. For the two fields to it has received so far. The paper come together in an effective ends with suggestions on how fun- alliance that is genuinely widespread ders can accelerate progress in all and nationally significant, the these areas, to the benefit of both episodes of successful collaboration movements. Introduction The national movements that we David Rusk calls an "inside game."2 now associate with community devel- Its first goals were akin to disaster opment and smart growth got their recovery - to organize and revivify start in different decades, addressed communities that had been partially different problems (at least at first), demolished, nearly depopulated, and and mobilized different groups of economically devastated, and in con- supporters when they were launched. sequence had grown defensive and They grew up, for a time, seeming weary. The first challenge for com- mostly unconnected - except for an munity development was to stanch a almost coincidental proximity in the hemorrhage of residents, capital, and same metropolitan regions, with political will. And for that reason it community developers operating started small and local, focusing mostly at the core and the anti- inward on the rebuilding of its own sprawl forces concentrated mainly at back yard. the city limits and beyond. Smart growth, by contrast, started as Community development began as a a reaction to abundance and rapid reaction to scarcity and market con- expansion. It grew up among rural traction. It arose as an aftershock of and suburban dwellers, regional and the massive federal urban programs state planners, and environmentalists of the 1950s and '60s, of which city - people who, in Rusk's phrase, had dwellers were often the targets but long since learned to play the "out- too rarely the beneficiaries. It grew as side" game of regional, state, and fed- inner-city markets failed and invest- eral coalition-building.3 Its galvaniz- ment fled, leaving neighborhoods ing forces were in some ways the with only a fraction of the popula- mirror image of those in the inner tion and capital needed to sustain city. Smart growth concerns had to them. Community development do not with feelings of powerlessness therefore began as what historian and disfranchisement, but with Page 3 a desire to knit together constituen- by now decades old, sometimes cies with related bases of power. Its blurred beyond recognition, and More and more goals necessarily comprehended mul- increasingly counterproductive. More (though sometimes tiple interests spread across a wide and more (though sometimes with- without anyone territory. While community develop- out anyone realizing it), the banners realizing it), the ers were organizing and building of smart growth and community their own blocks, smart growth development fly over the same banners of advocates were reaching out to dis- armies, fighting the same battles for smart growth parate jurisdictions, terrains, and the same ends. As often happens and community demographic groups. On the surface, even in more literal battles, their development fly the two strategies thus looked radi- commanders aren't always communi- over the same cally different, and seemed headed in cating with one another, and the evel different directions. of trust and mutual respect may vary armies, fighting from battalion to battalion. Yet few the same battles But those differences, which were would argue that such divisions are for the same ends. never much more than tactical, are wise or helpful. A Harmony of Purpose Sprawl, the underlying cause of development of new locales, poorly most non-smart growth, is a result connected with other parts of the of many forces, including some mar- social and economic landscape, is ket preferences for things that are not the result of a deliberate con- uniquely suburban and rural: big sumer choice for inefficient growth. lots, natural amenities, small juridic- It happened partly because of the tions, economic or ethnic homo- speed of population movements, geneity. A purely urban policy - outpacing the ability of governments Rusk's "inside game" - has little to recognize or prepare for them. answer to these phenomena, since Some of that rush, in turn, was an cities can't manufacture those assets outgrowth of desperate population in sufficient quantity to cater to so flight - away from more efficient great a demand. but poorly maintained neighbor- hoods, and into alternatives that But the ill effects of sprawl are not were not always carefully planned or solely a side-effect of changing mar- well coordinated with other aspects ket preferences. Some of the worst of regional development. aspects of sprawl - including much of the harm it does to the environ- Preserving or rebuilding older, core ment and to the effective delivery of communities is therefore one essen- public services - come from the tial strategy for bringing reason and wasteful, hasty depopulation of order to the development of whole older places that could have held metropolitan areas. Redevelopment their residents' loyalty, but instead of these areas isn't the sole answer were left to crumble. Scatter-shot to sprawl, but it is an indispensable Page 4 part of the answer. Virtually every development as necessary. For exam- sprawling metropolitan area in the ple, in a recent report by Grow United States has centers of outward Smart Rhode Island, the statewide flight at or near its core - popula- leadership group for regional plan- tion centrifuges that disperse resi- ning, the first of four "policy direc- dents outward as if by irresistible tions" recommended for the state's force. So long as such communities future is this: continue to lose the confidence of their residents, the ruin will spread, Let's commit as a state to with each successive wave of deterio- actively promote reuse of the ration and depopulation sending vacant lots and empty build- more residents to seek a safe haven ings in Rhode Island's urban far away. centers and to turn tax losses into tax revenues. To do so, we That principle is where the interests need to beef up our existing in- of community development and centives and assistance for smart growth meet. Community brownfields redevelopment and developers, at their best, preserve streamline building rehab and rebuild older homes, strengthen codes to promote more reuse of businesses and business districts, existing homes and buildings.4 promote employment, improve secu- rity, restore parks and public spaces, Meanwhile, community developers and work with governments to raise are increasingly recognizing a stake the quality of public services and in the deliberations of regional and infrastructure. By restoring amenities smart growth forces far beyond their and the quality of life, and by pursu- neighborhood boundaries. Not all of ing mixed-income communities, them have yet arrived at that recog- Community they regain or hold onto population nition (we'll say more about the rea- and investment, and thus help calm sons for that momentarily), but par- developers more the ripples of disinvestment, decay, ticularly among the older and more and more seek to and flight. Arguably, any realistic accomplished community develop- be at a common approach to smart growth (in fact, ment groups, it has become fairly table with regional the very thing that makes it "smart") common to see strategic planning planners, state and starts with the assumption that that incorporates initiatives in neighborhoods at the core of metro- regional transportation, economic suburban politan areas need to maintain or development, and community governments, and increase their population levels if the renewal. Community developers other smart-growth whole region isn't just going to more and more seek to be at a com- players, looking for sprawl into eternity. mon table with regional planners, ways to improve state and suburban governments, Leaders of the smart growth move- and other smart-growth players, regional housing, ment, even if they have not always looking for ways to improve regional commercial recognized community development housing, commercial development, development, and as a natural ally, have increasingly and job markets. Many more com- job markets. embraced the aims of community munity development organizations Page 5 are now branching into, or being tious in the process. To see in more created in, suburban communities. detail how community developers The reason for this confluence of have arrived at the smart growth interests is not that either side has table, we start by considering some received some sudden bolt of recent experience in three areas: enlightenment about modern metro- transportation, business develop- politan theory. Like most productive ment, and the "new urbanism." At coalitions, it has come about because the end, we will knit these experi- each side has been pursuing its fun- ences into a larger picture that sug- damental interests and mission, and gests how the movements can be grown both wiser and more ambi- brought even closer together. Where Community Development and Smart Growth Are Meeting 1. Connecting neighborhoods the neighborhood. What the resi- with regional transportation dents saw - and transit engineers As their name As their name implies, community initially did not - was the possibilty implies, community development organizations combine of using the new transit station and development a developer's sense of opportunity associated commercial development organizations with the community's sense of its to unite two residential communities combine a own potential, needs, and assets. This that had been separated by an elevat- developer's sense eye for spotting local opportunity ed highway and by the derelict site can often be just as useful in design- on which the maintenance facility of opportunity with ing "smart" transportation and was to be built. the community's growth efforts as is the more abstract sense of its own expertise of the professional planner. They imagined creating commercial potential, needs, facilities, parking, and "buffering" Consider the case of the planned developments around and above the and assets. Franklin Avenue transit stop in maintenance yard. Orienting the Minneapolis - where transportation development toward Franklin planners had proposed to locate a Avenue, just at the spot where the large maintenance facility, in keeping elevated highway divides the two with what they regarded as the main- neighborhoods, would bring pedes- ly industrial (and unsightly) character trians, motorists, and transit users of the neighborhood. Neighbors, together from both sides of the understandably, saw the area and its highway. And it would restore a feel- possibilities differently. Without dis- ing of productive use to what would puting that the system needed a otherwise be just another forbidding maintenance yard, the community industrial area. With some explaining development group called Seward and negotiation, the vision found a Redesign invited residents to a pub- receptive audience with the region's lic forum to suggest ways of meeting Metropolitan Council, which award- both the system's needs and those of ed Seward Redesign a planning grant Page 6 to put flesh on the idea. The com- nity group, called Bethel New Life, munity organization then Inc., and a private joint-venture approached potential partners, partner, roughly half the residential including health care and education- land came from the Chicago al institutions, as possible developers Housing Authority (the rest was and tenants at the site. The project is acquired privately). Down-payment still in development - but it is a assistance comes from a city bond profoundly different undertaking program, government grants and tax today from what it would have been benefits are subsidizing portions of without the influence of Seward the development budget, and most Redesign and its constituents. of all, the site's locational appeal comes from the Transit Authority's A similar story took shape around newly renovated station in West the underused "El" station in the Garfield Park, part of a $300 million Chicago neighborhood of West modernization of the Green Line. Garfield Park. When the city pro- One neighborhood's effort to rescue posed to shut down the Chicago its transit station ended up strength- Transit Authority's Green Line, the ening a whole corridor of city and plan would have left only a west- suburban neighborhoods, and the bound commuter line traveling the transportation that unites them. same route. The commuter line, however, would not serve West The case of the Fruitvale Transit Garfield Park or many of the other Village in Oakland, California, may neglected city neighborhoods along by now be the most famous example the way. In response, a community of local and regional needs leading to organization with roots in the local a single, smart solution. In Fruitvale, Baptist church began trading ideas transportation planners had original- with other Green Line neighbor- ly imagined a new transit station as hoods, with Chicago development mostly a giant park-and-ride zone, and transit officials, and with inner- and their main vision for it was to ring suburban governments. Not build a parking garage. This was, at only did they find a far more atten- first, a good example of the kind of tive audience for their ideas than growth that isn't "smart." Viewing they might have seen ten or 20 years the transit line as mainly a way of before, but they found themselves getting out of the neighborhood pursuing a classic "outside game," all (presumably to get to jobs in the in the name of rescuing one neigh- suburbs or downtown), planners borhood's link to transportation and seemed to be paying more attention jobs. to their riders' destination than to their origins. It was good for the Today, a 23,000-square-foot Transit suburban periphery and for the cen- Center is in development at Lake tral business district. But it effective- and Pulaski, along with an enclave of ly treated the underused middle - 50 new three-bedroom houses a the struggling residential area around block away. Though these projects the Fruitvale station - as irrelevant. are being carried out by the commu- Then a community development Page 7 corporation (CDC) weighed in. The hood as a business opportunity, both Unity Council, buttressed by years for the transit system and for mer- of organizing and working with local chants, and not merely as a point of merchants and residents, offered the departure for other, more desirable regional transit officials a different locales. Not incidentally, the project vision of the proposed station: one also creates a superior housing oppor- that would actually boost ridership, tunity for the housing-strapped San besides making a community asset Francisco Bay Area. The improved out of something that would other- transit station and the new amenities wise have been a development alba- around it make the neighborhood tross. The unfolding Transit Village more desirable to residents, who are - with new stores and restaurants, also likely customers of the Transit renovation and strengthening of cur- Village businesses. rent businesses, a cluster of new housing, and open space - now Third, the development also incor- seems like such an obviously good porates a neighborhood project that idea that people may eventually for- aims at strengthening current busi- get that it didn't happen automati- nesses and improving commercial cally. Someone needed to conceive it, real estate. That program operates sell it to transit officials, and then alongside the development of new help develop and market the vision. stores and housing at the transit site. That someone needed to know the The whole package - existing busi- neighborhood's strengths well nesses, plus new ones, plus housing, enough to imagine how they could parking, and mass transit - illus- be enlarged and built on. As often trates the web of interrelated inter- happens, the someone was a com- ests that can make community devel- munity development organization. opment indistinguishable from smart metropolitan planning, at least Three things make this example sig- where underdeveloped urban neigh- nificant far beyond Oakland. First, it borhoods and regional transporta- represents a story not mainly about tion plans converge. confrontation between community developers and a regional agency, but 2. Salvaging commercial and real collaboration. (Yes, the regional industrial space, and the jobs authorities needed some persuading that go with it at first, but so do most government It is axiomatic that where jobs go, bureaucracies. This was not a funda- population follows. Consequently, mentally rancorous negotiation.) The for those seeking to discourage out- premise was mutually appealing: ward sprawl and redirect population The more lively and attractive the pressures inward, a crucial goal is to Transit Village becomes, the more attract employers and business likely it is that people will use the investment toward more central transit system. neighborhoods. That is the same goal that community development Second, the plans for the Transit organizations are pursuing in many Village treat the inner-city neighbor- of the same neighborhoods, in the Page 8 hope of boosting employment and center that anchors the eastern opportunity for their residents - or neighborhoods' fragile commercial even, more basically, of salvaging corridor along Brush Creek. industrial areas that have fallen into Community Builders recognized in vacancy and disrepair. the mid-1990s that, except for the Swope Parkway Health Center, the So if the motives of regionalists and corridor's economic strengths lay So if the motives community developers are slightly almost entirely to the west. The of regionalists different - growth management for community group's challenge was and community the one, income opportunity and therefore to draw some of that real-estate preservation for the other development potential eastward - developers are - their targets and interests are starting with a derelict parcel that for slightly different quite often identical. A good illustra- years had contained a scrap yard and - growth tion is the development of the a cluster of abandoned houses. management for Brush Creek Corridor in Kansas the one, income City, Missouri. Kansas City had At that parcel, the two visions met: authorized a Tax-Increment smarter development patterns for opportunity and Financing (TIF) District to spur the region, productive land use and real-estate development eastward along Brush more jobs for the neighborhood. preservation for Creek, on the inner side of a sym- Neither the regionalists nor the the other - their bolic dividing line at Troost Avenue, community developers initially targets and which historically separated the sought each other out as partners, poorer, mostly African American but both recognized the opportunity interests are east and the more affluent western for partnership when they saw it. quite often identi- neighborhoods. It is the point from cal. which, in the immediate postwar With the financial sweetener of TIF- years, white flight, development, and generated financing, Community westward sprawl took off. The TIF Builders set out to create an attrac- was meant to help nudge investment tive, safe environment with new and growth back eastward, across housing, a large, refurbished park, the divider. and, on the scrap-yard site, a com- mercial development with a signa- Turn now to Community Builders of ture corporate tenant - eventually a Kansas City, a community develop- central service facility for H&R ment corporation whose interest is Block. Safety was a crucial consider- not primarily in altering develop- ation, given that the run-down con- ment patterns across the metropoli- dition of the site had made it a tan area, but in creating opportunity breeding-ground of vandalism and for residents of the Mount petty crime. So after its initial work Cleveland and Sheraton Estates to develop the $20 million Health neighborhoods, which lie east of Center, Community Builders spent Troost Avenue. Community Builders several years developing new hous- was organized with help from the ing and a child care facility, to Swope Parkway Health Center, a upgrade the appearance of the area, major clinic and family development boost street traffic, and attract stable Page 9 residents. The group formed a spe- themselves marching in the same cial security initiative with the direction. And the direction is east. Kansas City police to ensure that residents, both new and old, felt As a meeting-ground for regional safe. Soon the houses were begin- and neighborhood visions, few ning to rise in value (they would places can be as compelling (or, by climb nearly 40 percent in five some lights, as intimidating) as the years). Crime was sharply down, and brownfields of Allegheny West, a applicants were queuing up for a neighborhood just north of center- chance to live in the neighborhood. city Philadelphia. In Allegheny West, Then came H&R Block, and the the local community development commercial parcel had its signature organization has zeroed in on 15 tenant. The meaning of all these industrial hulks as prime locations steps depends in part on the side of for new commercial and industrial the smart growth table from which development. Many of the sites have you view them. Seen one way, all of environmental histories that will them are essential to the broad, require mitigation, and nearly all of regional push for more eastward them present an uninviting picture development. Seen the other way, to a casual shopper for industrial they are pure "inside game:" new real estate. Not so long ago, region- jobs, new development, and safer alists might have seen these sites as a streets for a single neighborhood. perfect example of the hopelessness of central neighborhoods, and a rea- To show how thoroughly those two son to turn their attention outward. viewpoints have converged, Community developers might have Community Builders is now a key sought simply to have the remaining member of Brush Creek Partners - buildings leveled in the hope of put- a nonprofit civic association made ting some housing, or maybe a park, up of businesses, churches, schools on the cleared land. and neighborhood groups from both sides of Troost. The Partners But in Allegheny West, as in many group now takes an active interest in older urban neighborhoods, two promoting the Community Builders' important things have happened to eastward development program. But change those attitudes in recent as The Kansas City Star put it, "They years. First, the environmental con- aren't pushing to improve neighbor- sequences of the "live and let die" hoods east of Troost Avenue just approach - the presumption that out of altruism. ... They want old urban parcels outlive their eco- healthy surroundings to mesh with nomic worth and must eventually be hundreds of millions of dollars written off - have become dismally invested west of Troost." Suddenly, clear: a hemorrhage of concrete through the power of successful and asphalt into the surrounding investment and some creative coali- countryside, as businesses abandon tion-building, the two sides of the established industrial areas for new Troost Avenue race barrier find territory farther and farther away Page 10 from the urban core. Alarmed over to new owners. The committee this loss of greenspace, states such shepherds each of the sites through as Pennsylvania have passed increas- the remediation and rehab process, ingly favorable laws and regulations to preserve momentum and to to lure investors back to the aban- ensure that the end uses measure up doned industrial zones, often known to their potential. as brownfields. In 2002, the federal government followed suit. The point is not simply that these Recent theories properties now have a team of clustered under Second, the employment conse- organized, dedicated advocates for the heading of quences have been devastating for development (though that is, by the residents of the abandoned itself, important news in Allegheny "new urbanism" older neighborhoods. West). The more far-reaching point and "livable Disproportionately unemployed and is that this team is a state-local col- communities" - poor, many are unable either to relo- laboration; includes representatives entailing mixed- cate to the remote locations where of government, business, and resi- use planning and the jobs have gone, or even, in many dents as well as community develop- cases, to commute there. For com- ers; and pursues an agenda of con- development, munity developers, it is no longer siderable importance to the whole more open enough simply to beautify the empty Philadelphia region, not merely to architecture and factories and industrial property. one neighborhood. That is, to many public spaces, Success now depends on replacing eyes, the future of regionalism in traffic calming, not just the architecture, but the southeastern Pennsylvania, economi- employment potential of those cally, socially, and environmentally. and environments properties. that invite walking 3. The regional value of and provide plenty Chastened by these lessons, leaders mixed-use development and of access for from both the community and the the `new urbanism' pedestrians - are region now sit on a working com- Recent theories clustered under the mittee, convened by the community- heading of "new urbanism" and "liv- perfectly aligned based Allegheny West Foundation, able communities" - entailing with the purposes to tackle the 15 targeted brownfield mixed-use planning and develop- of both community parcels. The committee consists of ment, more open architecture and development and local business associations, the city's public spaces, traffic calming, and smart growth. Department of Commerce, the state environments that invite walking and Environmental Council, staff mem- provide plenty of access for pedestri- bers from the Pennsylvania Senate ans - are perfectly aligned with the and the City Council, and residents purposes of both community devel- and business people from the neigh- opment and smart growth. If both borhood. Two years into the effort, are concerned with creating stable the committee has performed envi- residential markets and "communities ronmental assessments on 12 of the of choice," retarding flight and 15 sites, identified new uses and encouraging inward development, even some tenants for several of then both have much to gain from them, and conveyed two properties the tenets of the "new urbanism." Page 11 Here's one example: suburb. Winchester Greens merges The development of Winchester suburban quiet, space, and security Greens in Greater Richmond, with urban-style advantages like a Virginia, combines clusters of gen- mixed population, easy pedestrian teel townhomes, some for families shopping, affordable rental apart- and others for the elderly (with sin- ments and home-ownership possibil- gle-family houses next in produc- ities, and (for the first time) good tion), a child care center, and open transportation connections to the play fields and recreation space inte- city and the hinterland. Until the grated into the design. Shopping is new development, the closest public nearby, and more retail space is transportation to the site had been being developed in tandem with the some two miles away. Some of the new housing. The village atmosphere new transportation was the result of of Winchester Greens blends sound true smart growth negotiations economics, energy efficiency, and among the project's community good architecture, making an area developers, the metropolitan that is inviting for pedestrians and Chamber of Commerce, state legis- children at play, where elderly and lators, and the Greater Richmond younger residents intermingle, and Transportation Company. shops cater to a steady clientele of neighbors and walk-ins. Winchester Greens proves several points at once: that balanced, attrac- As such, it's a good exhibit of the tive design can make a community principles of the "new urbanism." out of a stretch of neglected real Although it's a community develop- estate; that such communities can ment project, it's located not in attract both investment and muni- Richmond, but in a suburb, the cipal services that would otherwise aging bedroom community of flow elsewhere; and that all of this Chesterfield County. But apart from can be - in fact, needs to be - a the suburban locale, what makes it common endeavor of smart regional significant to the wider region? The planners and equally smart commu- answer is the development's underly- nity developers. ing purpose: not just to brighten a distressed or neglected piece of real To slow or reverse the march of estate, but to help redirect develop- population and capital into undevel- ment and transportation patterns oped areas, states will need to re- inward, away from Richmond's ever- examine the way they use housing receding sprawl line. subsidies, building codes, infrastruc- ture planning, and land-use policy in Positioned on a major commuting older urban areas. They will have to corridor, the 80-acre development is do so in ways that don't alienate sub- aimed at attracting residents, mer- urbs - where the preponderance of chants, and (most important) trans- local wealth and political power usu portation to a central place that ally lies - and yet that boost in-fill blends the advantages of city and development within existing urban Page 12 and metropolitan boundaries. There One illustration of what the New is some encouraging, if still early, Jersey code can do comes from the evidence that states are asking intelli- aging industrial city of Elizabeth - gent questions along these lines, and in fact, from that city's poorest and could come up with creative solu- most deteriorated neighborhood, tions. Where that is happening, called Elizabethport. There, in 1997, effective community development a community development organiza- organizations are likely to be crucial tion called PROCEED (the Puerto in making those solutions work. Rican Organization for Community Education and Economic Develop- An example of sophisticated state ment) used the code to renovate an policy for encouraging inward devel- abandoned warehouse and clothing opment is in New Jersey, where the store. The building is now a modern state created an unusual sub-section child-care center for 60 children, with of its building code specifically for an accompanying outdoor play- rehabilitation of older structures. The ground and 10,000 square feet of Rehabilitation Code eliminates some office space for social service organiza- high-cost requirements that were tions. The total cost of $1.2 million designed for new construction and was substantially lower than it would that apply poorly (sometimes destruc- have been two or three years earlier, tively) to older buildings. It takes under the old code. At the much- much of the guesswork and need for higher price, the project wouldn't variances out of the approval process have been feasible. The warehouse for rehabs. One state official estimat- rehabilitation has since sparked other ed that the new code routinely economic development projects in reduces costs in rehabilitation by one- the neighborhood, including the quarter, and has sometimes shaved expansion of existing businesses and up to 40 percent. It cost the state the opening of several new restau- nothing to make these changes (apart rants. Several of the new and expand- from years of hard work and delicate ed enterprises were made possible by negotiations), yet it represents a sub- the flexibility of the new code. stantial fiscal stimulus for develop- ment in older city neighborhoods - Improving the already-developed and, not incidentally, in aging suburbs. core of sprawling metropolitan areas will be essential for slowing their In the first year the new code was in outward expansion. But it is not yet place, the pace of new rehabilitation a process that comes naturally to the projects in New Jersey surged from a free, unguided market most of the two percent increase the prior year to time. States that are serious about as much as an 84 percent increase in preserving greenspace, limiting traf- Jersey City, 59 percent in Newark, and fic congestion, and salvaging their 20 percent in Trenton. The effective- historic population centers thus need ness of the new code has drawn the to move, as New Jersey and attention of other states, particularly Maryland have done, toward a sys- Maryland and Delaware, which have tem of incentives, rewards, and lead- written new rehab codes of their own. ership in behalf of older, more cen- Page 13 tral neighborhoods. That is happen- tions and their supporters should ing, and increasingly the advocates likewise be discovering the benefits of smart growth and regionalism are of jumping on the regional band- providing some of the impetus to wagon. That is happening, but it has nudge states in that direction. proven to be more of a challenge than one might think. The next sec- As that trend progresses, regionalists tion discusses some of the reasons are increasingly discovering what why this is so, and what could be done they can gain from community to accelerate the process of learning, development. At the same time, interaction, and collaboration. community development organiza- Impediments to a Smart Growth­ Community Development Alliance The argument thus far, and some of must be acknowledged, mutual the examples attached to it, might stereotypes. Some metropolitan the- seem to make the prospect of a orists, including some very promi- neighborhood-regional alliance seem nent ones, continue to think and almost obvious - a matter of time, write about community develoment perhaps, but surely inevitable. Yet in as if it were some leftover tool of a reality, there is not yet a broad con- defunct urban socialism, as if little sensus in either camp about the mer- had changed, either tactically or ide- its of such an alliance or the oppor- ologically, since the 1960s. And a tunities that it might bring. The few leaders of community develop- examples we have cited are not yet ment, perhaps bruised by past typical, although all of them were rebuffs from state and suburban undertaken in the course of normal power centers, have gone some business, not mainly for the sake of lengths to distance themselves from proving a point or pioneering some what some still regard as antithetical, power realignment. Leaders in these hostile outside interests. cases really did see a natural harmo- ny between the "inside" and "out- It is certainly true that a few com- side" game. But they are not yet typ- munity organizations, including a ical of every place. few longstanding and accomplished ones, cling to the idea that all neigh- Most of the cause of this persistent borhood development must be of a separation arises from the contrast- single kind, to serve a single clientele ing histories we described at the - that all housing must be subsi- beginning of this paper. The differ- dized for the very poor, or that all ences in those histories have been businesses must be small and indige- reinforced over time by different nous, or that all new job creation styles of operation, contrasting must be concentrated in the neigh- philosophical orthodoxies - and, it borhoods where unemployed people Page 14 live. Those positions, whatever their to be sure, have been actively dis- merits, are unlikely to leave much couraged from such interaction by room for collaboration with adher- demagogues of both the urban and ents of smart growth, among whom suburban camps.) If such divisive mixed communities and diverse local elements exist among metropolitan economies are bedrock principles. leaders, they tend not to be well rep- resented in smart growth circles, But those bedrock principles are by which offer little comfort or oppor- The actual agenda now also in the mainstream of most tunity for anyone bent on exclusion of smart growth community development thinking and enforced homogeneity. The nationwide. Today, the phrases actual agenda of smart growth lends lends itself to both "mixed-income" and "mixed-use itself to both regional equity and regional equity communities" are bywords of neigh- diversity - values that require some and diversity - borhood redevelopment as much as vision, but no particular class per- values that require of regional planning, though the spective, to embrace and defend. some vision, but idea is still held back by a lack of adequate policy and tax tools. Not The truth is that both community no particular class all community development advo- development and smart growth trace perspective, to cates have been expert at making the their origins to some degree of embrace and "mixed" message clear, but the point political divisiveness and class defend. is eloquently made in the actual resentments, a difficult but work that community developers inescapable heritage that lingers, have been doing for the past ten to albeit in shadow form, to this day. 20 years. The caricature of commu- Where those resentments persist, nity development as a plan for con- one might argue, they tend to reduce centrating the poor in "gilded ghet- the effectiveness of whatever side toes" is an impressively durable continues to cling to them. But the myth, but a myth all the same. mere fact that biases and stereotypes are counterproductive has rarely Similarly, there are surely some sub- been enough to make them disap- urban and regional leaders whose pear. A stronger remedy usually hope is to confine poverty to the comes from the growth of wiser inner cities and to preserve the eco- leadership, dedicated to building nomic homogeneity of outlying alliances rather than stoking distrust, areas. Likewise there are leaders in and from the rallying of wider and inner cities and inner suburbs who wider support to that leadership. view the infill development agenda Such voices are now being heard on of smart growth only as a Trojan both sides, but not everywhere, and horse bringing with it gentrification not yet loudly enough to command and displacement. But the image of the national attention of their a monolithic suburban elite fixated respective camps. on containing the poor is likewise a crude stereotype, held primarily by Two other factors have served to urban residents who have had too slow what might otherwise have little opportunity to interact with been a natural joining of forces. The their surrounding neighbors. (Some, first involves resources: Community Page 15 development organizations tend to The final obstacle is so basic it is be thinly staffed. The best of them often overlooked: There is a funda- - with sizable real estate holdings mental structural difference between and with programs and partnerships the way smart growth and communi- spanning multiple disciplines - ty development forces are organized. already demand more than an aver- The former have regional and age commitment of time and energy statewide concerns as their mandate, from the people who work for and they exist primarily in the form them. Devoting time to travel to of organized coalitions of disparate regional or statewide meetings, jurisdictions and local interests. Their spending hours networking with members, to some degree, set their unfamiliar groups and leaders, and parochial concerns aside (or try to do learning unfamiliar issues and sys- so) when they convene in these tems - these things are not just regional bodies. That is their explicit time-consuming, but they represent mandate. Community developers, by a big wager on an uncertain and contrast, exist because of their paro- sometimes distant payoff. A com- chial interests; they have few forums munity development staff whose in which they are called to represent calendar is already overfull may not something larger than the needs and easily see the virtue in that gamble; plans of their particular community, but even if they do, some may sim- and those forums tend to be more ply have no hours to devote to it, for mutual support and information however eager they might be. exchange than for taking common action on some unified agenda. The same is true of smart growth coalitions, whose members tend to Community development intermedi- be fully occupied in other work, and aries have increasingly trained their Community may have responsibility for regional focus on state and regional trade development growth only among dozens of other groups as part of both their program intermediaries responsibilities that fill their daily and policy strategies. For example, in have increasingly schedule. Particularly if they have southwestern Pennsylvania, the San had little luck in reaching out to Francisco Bay Area, Milwaukee, or trained their focus neighborhood groups in the past Seattle, the Local Initiatives Support on state and (or, perhaps, if they have merely Corporation (LISC) is designing pro- regional trade assumed their luck would be bad), grams around explicitly regional or groups as part finding time for an uncertain statewide strategies, in which the field of both their courtship on the far horizon of their office supports the revitalization of region may seem too much of a neighborhoods in wide geographic program and stretch. On either side of the divid- areas. In other cases, including Ohio, policy strategies. ing line, it seems, the barriers can California, and Florida, LISC's pro- seem just high enough to overwhelm grams have deliberately sought to the small resources available to over- promote statewide coalitions from come them. The result is an oppor- multiple sectors, including neighbor- tunity for mutual reinforcement that hoods and municipalities, businesses, many can see but few can seize. regional bodies, state policymakers, and philanthropic or civic leadership. Page 16 Community development coalitions are, first, leadership with real stature have in some cases grown stronger in regional or statewide policy circles, and more ambitious in recent years and second, staff with enough - an encouraging trend, but one expertise to analyze, propose, and that still has plenty of room to grow. negotiate policies with depth and The two qualities that are most likely sophistication. None of that comes to make these groups more effective inexpensively - which helps explain participants in the smart growth field why it's still developing. Opportunities for Funders: Accelerating the Four General Approaches Smart Growth­Community Development Alliance for Funders The impediments we have just growth advocates who see one (1) Leadership described - historical separation, another as political and intellectual and vision structural differences, and a still- adversaries, a few funders have stark- emerging network of state and ly chosen one path over the other as (2) Funding regional community development the best, or most effective, or simply instruments coalitions - are all areas in which "right" avenue for neighborhood or of collaboration funders' leadership and strategic regional well-being. Regardless of (3) Supporting grantmaking could be crucial. We which choice they make, the very act research and offer here four general approaches of seeing the two sides as alternative development by which funders could encourage rather than complementary goals on ways of more collaboration and guide the contributes to a pattern of division two sides toward a clearer vision of that serves neither side well. blending the their joint opportunities: (1) two agendas Leadership and vision; (2) Funding To be sure, most funders have taken (4) Attracting instruments of collaboration; (3) a more nuanced and constructive attention and Supporting research and develop- view of the matter, even if they have discussion to ment on ways of blending the two weighted their grantmaking more those areas agendas; and (4) Attracting attention heavily in one direction or the other. where the and discussion to those areas where For those who see past the superficial the alliance is working. divisions and false choices, there is an alliance is opportunity for leadership both with- working 1. Leadership in philanthropy and at the front lines Funders, it must be said, have them- of neighborhood and regional devel- selves been affected by some of the opment. It may be helpful, for barriers and historical divisions we starters, for alert grantmakers to note referred to earlier. Among some fun- when their colleagues or grantees ders, no less than among some lead- seem to be clinging to old dicho- ers in the field, the needs of neigh- tomies, and simply to draw attention borhoods and of regions have some- and discussion to those instances. times been treated as an either/or Even within a single foundation, choice. Just as there are some com- there may be separate programs or munity developers and some smart grantmaking strategies for communi- Page 17 ty development and smart growth - take the lead in the whole, slow partitions that could be breached by bridge-building exercise that a last- bringing colleagues together for dis- ing alliance would demand in each cussion and to consider grants that metropolitan area. To support that span the two objectives. Often, sever- more painstaking kind of work, fun- al divisions might benefit from such ders might prefer to rely on national discussions, as when a foundation has and regional intermediaries and on separate programs in social equity, effective state or regional networks urban or metropolitan affairs, organ- and coalitions where they exist. izing, workforce development, and Funding staff and programs specifi- the environment. cally dedicated to building and refin- ing partnerships between communty In the field, funders sometimes have developers and smart growth cham- more ability to summon unfamiliar pions would be a way of signaling parties to a common table than any that such partnerships are important of those parties would have had on to the future of both movements. their own. In field visits, in confer- Either on their own or through ences and exploratory meetings, and intermediaries, funders can support in supporting research or policy ini- replicable projects that combine tiatives, funders have an ability to both constituencies, and encourag- draw each side's attention to the ing other communities to study and opportunities presented by the other replicate those demonstrations. side. While a coercive approach would surely be counterproductive, But apart from supporting particular funders can readily create low-pres- programs or initiatives, grants for sure opportunities for the two sides the growth of effective state and to get acquainted and exchange per- regional community development spectives - an essential first step networks in general would be a use- toward any broader collaboration. ful way of overcoming the structural obstacles we described earlier. In In any case, philanthropy's "bully some states (fewer and fewer, as pulpit" is a still-underused resource time goes on) there is almost no for spreading the message that the effective vehicle through which two sides can and should be working community development groups can more closely together. Quite apart act collectively, or form broad-based from any funding decisions, grant- alliances with other constituencies. makers could provide a leadership Helping to start or solidify broadly nudge, and a well-articulated vision based trade groups in those of neighborhood-regional alliances, instances could make an important both of which are still sorely lacking long-term difference. But in most in many places. places, the state and regional coali- tions already exist and are doing 2. Funding instruments work of real importance to their of collaboration members. The issue in these more Most grantmakers could not - and numerous places is not whether a would not want to - personally state or regional group would be Page 18 helpful, but what it would be helpful already at work on issues of regional for - and specifically, how much of transportation, economic develop- its time and effort should be devot- ment, and mixed-use neighborhoods ed to the opportunities created by is rising. Some at the leading edge of smart growth. the curve - including those we cited earlier - are already forming Among those cases, funders, inter- the kinds of alliances with regional mediaries, and community develop- leaders that should, in time, become ment groups need to think together the norm. Funders have an opportu- about where they might find the nity either to support further work greatest opportunities for construc- among these pioneers or to fund the tive bridge-building. That entail sask- next generation of community ing some fairly basic tactical ques- developers who are just now looking tions: What kinds of capacity, in outward for regional partners. Either which states, aimed at which issues, way, intermediaries can be helpful in would make the most difference in spotting opportunity and in deliver- building community development ing technical assistance. But some effectively into the smart growth dis- support also needs to be aimed cussion? Where are state or regional specifically at the communities and discussions forming the most quick- organizations where the case is now ly, or showing the most promise? being proven. Where do community development actors have the most to offer? 3. Supporting research and development on ways of These questions naturally produce blending the two agendas Most public policy different answers in different places. Most public policy on urban and on urban and Answering them wisely in each set- metropolitan development tends to metropolitan devel- ting is a challenge that community focus on the problems of low- developers, funders, government, income neighborhoods or on sprawl opment tends to and potential smart growth allies and smart growth, but hardly ever focus on the prob- need to tackle together. Little of that on both topics together. Think tanks lems of low-income will happen without some fiscal and university centers, with only the neighborhoods or stimulus. Even in the cases with the occasional exception, have likewise on sprawl and highest potential, there will be a tended to stick to their disciplinary need for some statewide or regional niches, specializing in one pursuit or smart growth, but officials on both sides of the fence the other. As a result, policy ideas hardly ever on both who can dedicate a portion of their that might bridge the two fields have topics together. time to working out a common languished for lack of research, agenda and devising ways of bring- demonstrations, and refinement. ing their colleagues into more fre- Funders could bring both capital quent contact. and attention to this problem by supporting research and experimen- Finally, the same can be said for tation on concrete practices that support to individual community combine regional and neighborhood development organizations. The planning and development. New number of community developers techniques and policy ideas such as Page 19 tools for mixed-income housing, similar collaboration. The volume of manuals on incorporating green actual work continues to grow dra- design with community develop- matically, although its volume sur- ment, research on the best methods prises not only the occasional of transit-oriented community observer, but community and smart development (and their cost-effec- growth practitioners themselves. tiveness) have all been broached here and there, but all need far more Whatever funders may choose to do thought and examination. Before a directly in supporting smart Whatever funders strong public constituency can form growth­community development may choose to around the intersection of these two partnerships, there is an important do directly in fields, ideas about how they work indirect task to be addressed as well: together need to become more con- supporting smart Work in this area needs to be better crete, more thoroughly tested, and publicized, discussed, understood, growth­community more widely understood. and replicated. Conferences, publica- development tions, and opportunities for discus- partnerships, 4. Stimulating attention sion are far too scarce. The mutual and discussion there is an misperceptions and stereotypes we important For all the rumblings of activity discussed earlier might unravel a described in this paper, the connec- good deal faster if the channels for indirect task to tion between smart growth and communication between the two be addressed as community development remains a sides were wider. well: Work in this boutique topic, appreciated by a few area needs to be adepts and trail-blazers, but not There is, of course, a danger in better publicized, enshrined in any set of trade groups, focusing any funding portfolio too intellectual forums, or deliberative intensely on conferences and studies, discussed, organizations. There is, for example, which can sometimes be the last understood, and no Journal of Smart Growth and refuge of an unimaginative grant replicated. Community Development. Very few program. But in this case, informa- organizations embrace both goals. tion is at least half the battle. Trust Whenever the combined topic is built partly on understanding, and comes up at national and regional understanding feeds on facts. A fun- conferences, or in public policy cir- ders' agenda for community devel- cles, the response usually reflects opment and smart growth surely more enthusiasm than information begins with support for actual col- or experience. laboration, for projects of local and regional significance, and for the Worst of all, the community devel- people and organizations that do opment and smart growth leaders this work. But in this case, those who now work creatively together people and organizations also have little sense that they are part of urgently need to share what they any national trend. Most of the have accomplished, to learn what community developers profiled in others have done, and to seed a this report were aware of only a lim- national discussion that, for the ited number of other instances of most part, has yet to begin. Sources for Cited Examples Allegheny West Foundation Puerto Rican Organization for Ronald Hinton Community Education and Executive Director Community Builders Economic Development 2801 W. Hunting Park Avenue of Kansas City (PROCEED) Philadelphia, PA 19129 Chuck Gatson Teresa Sato-Vega (215) 225-1019 Executive Director Executive Director www.alleghenywest 3801 Blue Parkway 1126 Dickinson Street foundation.org Kansas City, MO 64130 Elizabeth, NJ 07201 (816) 922-7660 (908) 351-7727 Bethel New Life, Inc. www.PROCCEDINC@aol.com Mary Nelson Executive Director Seward Redesign 4950 West Thomas Local Initiatives Brian Miller Chicago, IL 60651 Support Corporation Executive Director (773) 473-7870 Julia Seward 2323 East Franklin www.bethelnewlife.org Director of State Policy Minneapolis, MN 55406 1825 K Street, NW, Suite 1100 (612) 338-8729 www.sewardredesign.org Better Housing Coalition Washington, DC 20006 T.K. Somanath (202) 739-9266 The Unity Council Executive Director www.liscweb.org Arabella Martinez 100 West Franklin Street Executive Director Richmond, VA 23220 1900 Fruitvale Avenue, Suite 2A (804) 644-0546 Oakland, CA 94601 www.betterhousingcoalition.org (510) 535-6900 www.unitycouncil.org Endnotes 1. Tony Proscio is a writer and consultant to foundations and nonprofit organizations. He is co-author, with Paul S. Grogan, of Comeback Cities: A Blueprint for Urban Neighborhood Revival (Westview Press, 2000). 2. See David Rusk, Inside Game/Outside Game: Winning Strategies for Saving Urban America, Washington: The Brookings Institution, 2001. 3. Not all rural communities, it must be said, were so adept or so enfranchised. Rural constituencies in some areas enjoyed political influence out of proportion to their numbers, and in some of these places wealth was growing as well. These tended to be the rural areas whose residents and leaders were in the vanguard of the anti-sprawl movement. But in many other parts of rural America, growth has been nonexistent and population and wealth have been falling. There, quite often, community development was the more influential movement, until the two ideas began to converge in more recent years. 4. "The Costs of Suburban Sprawl and Urban Decay in Rhode Island: Executive Summary," by H.C. Planning Consultants, Inc., and Planmetrics, LLP, for Grow Smart Rhode Island, December 1999, p. iv. Hooper Brooks, Chair L. Benjamin Starrett, Executive Director Strengthening funders' abilities to support organizations working to build more livable communities through smarter growth policies and practices. 1500 San Remo Avenue, Suite 177 Coral Gables, Florida 33146 Phone: 305-667-6350 Fax: 305-667-6355 Email: ben@fundersnetwork.org www.fundersnetwork.org