Can Cedar Rapids be a "receiver city?"

What we're going to need more of
(Swiped from Optikos Design Inc. via cnu.org)

2021 U.S. Census estimates show continued slow growth for the State of Iowa. Cedar Rapids may be one of the best cities in America for millennials to get rich, but neither this designation by Money magazine nor our super-competitive housing prices have led to a stampede of Californians. In fact, the latest Census data show few stampedes anywhere away from cities, despite the potential for additional volatility during the pandemic, and despite prominent memes to the contrary (Frey 2021, Fry and Cohn 2021).

Cedar Rapids 2020 population was 137,710, up 9 percent from 2010, a touch higher than the 7.4 percent rise for the country as a whole. (2021 estimates are not available at this time.) Another 9 percent gain in the 2020s would get us to the neighborhood of 150,000, which is where a housing needs survey commissioned by the city has us; adding Marion and Hiawatha gets it over 200,000 (Maxfield Research 2020: 13). That assumes the same routine growth in the near-future as in the recent past, without any surge of in-migration (or sudden out-migration).

In the longer run, however, climate change may provide a greater impetus for people to move here than  has our low cost of living. Iowa is not a Great Lakes state, but we can almost see them from our houses, and we share enough attributes with our neighbors that this statement by the Council of the Great Lakes Region might well apply to us: The bi-national Great Lakes mega-region, claims Council CEO Mark Fisher, which surrounds the largest freshwater in the world and is home to 107 million American and Canadians as well as a significant regional economy in North America, will be the destination of choice for many around the world who are seeking refuge from a rapidly changing climate and new economic opportunities.

"Receiver cities" are those places likely to receive climate-induced migration from regions plagued by increased incidence of floods, droughts, dangerous heat, and violent competition for resources. A panel at last spring's Congress for the New Urbanism conference focused on Buffalo and Cleveland, which are post-industrial cities that have lost a lot of population in the last half-century, and thus have an ideal combination of inexpensively available space in a traditionally-developed core. (Cleveland hit its peak city population of 914,808 in 1950, when most of the city would still have been traditionally-developed. The 2020 population is 59.2 percent below that, suggesting there's plenty of room for new arrivals.) Cedar Rapids has a history different from those of Buffalo, Cleveland, Flint, and Youngstown, but the city center is still building back from the 2008 flood, not to mention the out-migration of residents and businesses in the decades before that. So why not us?

Why not us? How I answer that question can vary from day to day, but that need not detain us here. It was a rhetorical question, anyway! According to Robert Steuteville, editor of CNU's journal Public Square, there are ways cities can prepare for a potential influx of climate refugees (Steuteville 2021). Fortunately, since we can't predict whether or when or how large this influx will be, the CNU approach is designed not to develop acres and acres of empty space, but will improve service to current residents as well. It's like Strong Towns says...

Here are Steuteville's eight recommendations:

1. Build more sustainably, including enabling car-free living. Nicole Dieker (2019), who moved here from Seattle, managed car-free at least for awhile, but it was more work than most people are able to do, particularly when you can get anywhere in town by car in 15 minutes. Bike infrastructure is improving, but public transportation has circuitous routes and limited hours of operation. The Urban Transitions website argues even more greenhouse gas emissions can be averted through changes in building.
2. Focus on the "missing middle" to grow population in existing neighborhoods. The Cedar Rapids City Council just authorized accessory dwelling units by right in all areas of the city (Payne 2021). This is an important step, but most important in the center of the city, which has the greatest potential for sustainability, walkability, urban living, or whatever you care to call it. 
3. Bring downtown back, with mixed-used buildings to add residents and businesses. The new construction in the "Banjo Block" on 4th Avenue SE, which will add 224 new apartments on a former brownfield area (Green 2020), is a huge addition. So are the 110 units planned for New Bo Lofts south of Geonetric. We need to figure out a way to liberate valuable land that's not being used, such as in the 1200 block of 2nd Avenue SE, and the 1000 block of 3rd Street SE. I would look strongly at a land value tax. I'd also like to talk the MedQuarter out of the vast wasteland they're creating between downtown and Wellington Heights.
4. Convert single-use commercial corridors to mixed use. Are we talking about Collins Road? Or Wiley Boulevard? I don't think so... they're too far gone to do cost-efficient sprawl repair, and too far away from the center to be much help. There are some interesting developments on the west side, on 1st Avenue and Ellis Boulevard, for example. I'd like to see more of this on 6th Street West, 1st Avenue East, and maybe other strips close to the core.
5. Be competitive rather than waiting for the seekers of cheap dry land to find you. A month ago I wrote the calls for change by mayoral candidates Amara Andrews and eventual winner Tiffany O'Donnell were "refreshing in a town where the political culture can be maddeningly complacent." Changes should consider future residents, who will be different from current residents, and why they should move here and not Duluth.
6. Tear down unnecessary freeways as Rochester NY and Milwaukee already have done. Shall we talk about this? The Gazette had a brilliant long article Sunday on the destruction of the Little Mexico neighborhood in the 1960s to make room for I-380 (Jordan 2021a), and in the 1990s my student Darcie Carsner did an honors thesis on how the route was plowed through the western end of Czech Village (Carsner 1996). There were neighborhoods then... they could be neighborhoods again! Counterpoint: Iowa Department of Transportation planner Cathy Cutler justified widening  the highway on the grounds that "People are uncomfortable on 380 at four lanes. That's why we're expanding to six lanes" (Jordan 2021b). So we're going to be limited by what makes drivers "uncomfortable?!"
7. Reform zoning to allow #1-6. Cedar Rapids has taken some important first steps; besides allowing accessory dwelling units, we have adopted a form-based code and revised or eliminated parking minima.
8. Implement a walkability plan, correcting decades of auto-centric engineering. Cedar Rapids adopted a pedestrian master plan in December 2019, which you can find here. It contains 18 policy strategies aimed at developing [1] "a connected pedestrian network that links popular destinations year-round" and [2] "a culture of walking." There are some interesting proposals for more sidewalks and better promotion of the benefits of walking, but in terms of what Steuteville identifies as needing undoing--"one-way streets, excessively wide lanes, turn lanes, too little pedestrian space, and other design factors"--we've made a good start. The vast majority of our one-way pairs have been restored to two-way traffic.

Before (Google Maps screenshot from 2008)

After (2021): How my neighbors feel about this change
says a lot about how they feel about anyone walking

To hear some tell it, the city could accommodate growth to 200,000, and the metro to 250,000 or 300,000, simply by sprawling ever outward, and widening I-380 to six or maybe eight lanes. This strategy is ultimately self-defeating from both financial and environmental perspectives. (See Davis 2021.) To accommodate future growth, we should do what we should be doing anyway (and some of which we are already doing): urbanism.

SEE ALSO

Lavea Brachman and Eli Byerly-Duke, "Legacy Cities Can Think Big for Transformative Impact with ARP Funds," The Avenue (Brookings), 12 October 2021

Darcie Carsner, Ethnicity in American Political Participation: The Case of the Czech Village (Coe College, 1996)

Maxfield Research and Consulting, "Comprehensive Housing Needs Update: City of Cedar Rapids, Iowa," February 2020

Robert Steuteville, "Eight Ways for 'Receiver Cities' to Prepare," Public Square: A CNU Journal, 9 December 2021

Age-Friendly Community

Bike to Work Week celebration crowds the bike lane on 3rd St SE

In 2019 my town of Cedar Rapids joined AARP's network of Age Friendly States and Communities, which that organization defines as "a framework for state and and local leaders that make communities more livable for people of all ages."

Age-friendly communities make it easy for people to live their best lives at every age. They offer diverse housing and transportation choices, safe and accessible public spaces, and ways for people of all ages and abilities to participate in their community. 

They urge localities to think in terms of eight domains of livability: (1) outdoor spaces and buildings, (2) transportation, (3) housing, (4) social participation, (5) respect and social inclusion, (6) work and civic engagement, (7) communication and information, and (8) community and health services. A recent citywide survey, part of the Age-Friendly Community process, asked us to rank these in order of urgency. I chose housing, in part because everything else is way more difficult if housing is uncertain. I also prioritized places to go (#1 and #6), ways to get there (#2), and the ability to participate (#5).

The AARP's effort is similarly-themed to 8 80 Cities, a Toronto-based organization founded in 2007 by Guillermo "Gil" Penalosa. The numbers in their name refer to age: We believe if everything we do in our public spaces is great for an 8 year old and an 80 year old, then it will be great for all people. Their main foci of their mission are "mobility and public space." The range of the projects covered on their website is fascinating:

• My City Too, advocating "a more child friendly Toronto" by enabling "outdoor free play and independent mobility"
• Creating Parks and Public Spaces for People of All Ages, a step-by-step guide to inclusiveness on a budget, in which they partnered with AARP
• Addressing Homelessness in Parks, another collaboration with AARP, a guide to making parks inclusive of all, even the unhoused (see also Owens 2021)
• Wintermission, a toolkit to get communities through the winter together, including these flashcards to facilitate public discussion

And that's just a sampling. And when the city's Age Friendly City survey asked for where our city had done well and where it needed to do more, it was the 8-80 concept that guided me as I answered off the top of my head. I am 62, but have aspirations to be 80, as well as strong hopes that our young people can explore their world independently and safely.   

Where has the community done well?

We have an impressive array of parks, from neighborhood pocket parks like Tomahawk...

to multi-acre multi-use parks like Bever where you can swing on a swing, pet the farm animals and quack at the ducks, smell the flowers, have a picnic, hear the municipal band, and/or hike in the woods.

We have bike lanes on key streets, having managed a transition from do-the-best-you-can to painted lanes to separated lanes in congested areas. 

Protected bike lane on 3rd Avenue SE (from city website)

We have more sidewalks and trails than ever. This sidewalk on K Avenue NE serves as both an extension of the CeMar trail and a safe route to walk to Garfield Elementary School and Franklin Middle School.

Sidewalks are critical for walking in neighborhoods, whatever shape you're in and whatever speed you go, and it's sad that so many people still resist them.

How can the community become more "age-friendly?"

We could make it easier to get around by slowing car traffic so that it's safer to walk and cycle.

Why is it so hard to walk to the 1st Avenue Hy-Vee?

We need more affordable housing options for families and seniors in walkable neighborhoods. 

Missing middle housing on Grande Avenue SE

Snow removal needs to include pedestrian access to the streets. This is difficult, because we have so large a street network that it's all they can do for workers to keep those clear, but not everybody drives.

Wall between sidewalk and street along 2nd Avenue SE

Transit that is affordable and convenient helps people who aren't or shouldn't be driving. We made some modest moves towards more emphasis on human ridership (as opposed to geographic coverage) when we started running buses up 1st Avenue East every 15 minutes. We can't do this for the entire city, but we should explore more opportunities to provide frequent service along direct routes.

Route #2 covers the southeast side

Entrepreneurship isn't the answer to everything, but I'd say policy preference for local businesses would lead to more options (entertainment, dining, employment, shopping) for people of all ages and incomes.

Our city, like all places, will face many challenges and opportunities in the future, and it's understandable to focus on each in isolation from the others. But having signed on to Age-Friendly Communities in addition to Blue Zones, and having produced a climate action plan, we are ready with principles to guide our policy decisions.

 SEE ALSO: "Out of the Mouths of Babes," 23 April 2019

Book Review: Confessions of a Recovering Engineer

 

16th Avenue SW, Cedar Rapids

Charles L. Marohn Jr., Confessions of a Recovering Engineer: Transportation for a Strong Town. Hoboken NJ: Wiley, 2021.

What is the purpose of transportation? Charles Marohn's seminal contribution to this topic has been to note that it depends on where the transportation is occurring. Sometimes it is to get from one place to another quickly and safely; sometimes it is to get around within a productive place. In the first case, you want a road, with the best American examples being the interstate highways between metropolitan areas. Within places, you want a street that accommodates a variety of uses including but not limited to or even favoring automobiles.

America's greatest development mistake has been decades of urban design that practically makes a motor vehicle a requirement for participating in society, and results in streets that try to be roads at the same time: stroads are high-speed roads that also feature commercial development that draws a lot of auto traffic. They are financially unproductive, as he explored in his previous book, Strong Towns (Wiley, 2020), but they are also dangerous. (See especially chapter 2.) It is the safety (or lack thereof) of the places where people live that is the focus of the current book.

The statistical analysis and critical thinking that inform this work are framed by three powerful stories. In the introduction he recounts a conversation between pre-awakening Chuck and a woman whose property is about to be severely impacted by a road-widening project and who can't understand Chuck's explanation of why it will improve her life. (Spoiler alert: It won't improve her life, because, as he comes to realize, "improvements" like these make people's lives worse not better.) Then in chapter 1, we meet the Gonzalez family of Springfield, Massachusetts, whose daughter was killed by a car as they made their way from the public library to the parking lot; young Destiny is lifted from the bin of statistics to stand for all the people who are killed on stroads as they try to go about their daily lives. Finally, in the final chapter, Marohn recounts his own harrowing experience, as he too narrowly missed becoming a victim of design. These stories give life, meaning and purpose to the analysis.

Mt. Vernon Road SE near where two boys on a scooter were badly injured in June

Marohn's most important early premise is that transportation is not neutral, nor strictly technical as engineers might (and apparently do) conceive it. It is a question of values. If we design streets to move cars faster while putting everyone else at greater risk, that's a choice that reflects the city's values. Marohn's mission is to make explicit the values implicit in transportation design. Who matters? What matters?

His hope with this book is to introduce Americans to what previous generations enjoyed: "great streets" (the title of chapter 5). Great streets exist for the purpose of "wealth creation," which in turn "is really about building the capacity to endure over time" (pp. 66-67), allowing for adaptation over time, especially incremental growth. This only works when the growth occurs in ways that increase the city's assets faster than its liabilities: "A city can build miles of streets [to move a high volume of vehicles], but if there is not enough private sector investment on those streets to offset the ongoing maintenance costs, the community is merely growing poorer" (p. 68). Making a street a better place to live increases land value, and land value per acre is the quickest way to measure community wealth. Incremental growth, rather than frozen zoning or large-scale developments, is the way to do this:

Single-family homes add garage apartments or convert into duplexes. Duplexes are redeveloped to become fourplex units. Commercial buildings are subdivided to allow more tenants. Gaps are filled in. Space is used more productively. (p. 71)

We find ourselves back at the financial analysis of the first book. Marohn argues that transportation choices must serve this basic reality, but also that "a prerequisite for building wealth is that a street be safe" (p. 66). The traditional grid pattern does this; the arterial/collector system not only does not do this, it creates traffic congestion and the temptation to widen streets into stroads (ch. 6). He picks apart the analyses used to justify widening streets and bashing highways through towns (ch. 8). Roundabouts do this, if and only if correctly; traffic lights do not, and they waste time and encourage aggressive driving (ch. 7). Chapter 7 may deserve its own post, given that so many of my fellow Cedar Rapidians are convinced roundabouts are spawns of Satan.

In chapter 9, he uses the same logic to discuss public transit. This "is the only way to overcome the geometric space limitations of the street while still building wealth," because buses don't require huge parking lots, but only if it is run with a service orientation i.e. frequent and reliable runs between places of value: "All the public employees, lawyers, accountants, salespeople, clerks, and everyone else working in the core downtown should find it ridiculously convenient to board... and get to wherever they need to be to conduct business in the core downtown" (p. 157). Cedar Rapids's coverage orientation means buses spend a lot of time and money serving areas with few riders, making transit a drain on resources at the same time it is a non-starter for all but the truly desperate.

These are the highlights of a book that dips into additional transportation-related topics like scooters, rideshare, the impractical ideas of Elon Musk, and why police should discontinue routine traffic stops. All are in service of making transportation work, in a safe, financially-sound way, to build communities for people. I could use fewer long block quotes from the first book, which is consistently referred to with its full title and subtitle, but on the whole Marohn is a fluent and passionate writer with a lot of hard evidence to support his arguments.

 

Black Friday Parking 2021

 

The day after Thanksgiving again found me prowling the parking lots of the Cedar Rapids metropolitan area, on my annual mission for Strong Towns, the urbanist organization of which I am a member. (I just got the recurring donation thing figured out, and now I am feeling rather Strong myself!) Strong Towns has been running this event nationwide since 2013, mainly to point out the negative impacts of minimum parking requirements in city zoning codes. Their crowdsourced map started in 2015, a cooperative venture with the Parking Reform Network, includes Cedar Rapids as an example of a city that has removed parking maxima for its downtown (Jordan and Wilberding 2021).

Regulations concerning parking comprise 25 pages of the Cedar Rapids municipal code. They are "intended to ensure that adequate parking is provided to meet the needs of individual site designs and the community at-large" (32.04.02.A.1); later the same section refers to "appropriate" amounts of parking. These terms represent value judgments, in spite of the calculations suggested in 32.04.02.B and other attempts at objectivity. They seem to say "You be you, and we'll figure out the parking," but that assumes everyone makes free choices, and those free choices result in the best possible city design. I'd argue both of those assumptions.

The section contains numerous tables defining minimum parking requirements for a given development. General parking requirements (Table 32.04.02-3, pp. 132-134) include two per residential dwelling unit, with less for buildings with small apartments and accessory dwelling units; live-work units are required to have an additional parking space for every 333 square feet of office space. Cemeteries are required to have one parking space for every 50 square feet of the chapel. Elementary and middle schools are required to have two parking spaces per classroom, while high schools are required to have six per classroom plus one per 300 square feet of non-classroom floor space. Want to teach ballet? Studios and instructional spaces are required to have one per 333 square feet. Financial institutions are required to have one per 200 square feet used by the general public, plus one per 600 square feet not used by the general public. This is a fascinatingly granular table, and the effort to compile it must have been impressive.

More importantly, Cedar Rapids now--and I'm pretty sure this is a recent development--has maximum parking rules, as well as exemptions and exceptions to parking minima. Maxima are determined as a percentage of minima (Table 32.04.02-5, p. 135): if 0-49 spaces are required based on Table 32.04.02-3, for example, developments can have no more than the greater of 6 spaces or 150 percent of the minimum number required. Section 32.04.02.F allows exceptions for downtown, and reduced minima for shared parking spaces, residences for the elderly or handicapped, closeness to a bus stop, and connection by sidewalk to trails.

At the very least, this shows sensitivity to the way parking lots waste urban space, and a willingness to develop at least the core part of the city in a way that can serve multiple functions besides car storage. I do not, however, think that Cedar Rapids parking craters are caused by municipal regulation. I think they're caused by the way we do things, at least most of us most of the time, with the ability to ignore people who must or want to do things in a different way. For example, the Blairs Ferry Road Target, in whose parking lot I took three pictures the very first year I did #BlackFridayParking, has 173,941 square feet of retail space, which indicates a minimum of 523 spaces. Maybe I'll count them next year? I'm pretty sure they have a lot more, and were never sweating that zoning regulation back in 2002.

There may be, somewhere in the Cedar Rapids municipal code, an ordinance requiring me to have a second helping of stuffing at Thanksgiving dinner. All that stuffing has analogous negative effects on my physical health to the effects of all that parking on our towns' civic, environmental, and financial health. (Also, by discouraging walking and cycling, too much parking makes us less healthy, just like too much stuffing!) But I'm not stuffing in the stuffing because I'm concerned about an ordinance. I'm doing it because it's what I do on Thanksgiving. Similarly, we build commercial property with gigantic parking lots because that's just what's done.

You be you, drive to Target or Wal-Mart or Fleet Farm, and we'll make sure there's a space for you to park your car. But all this parking is not a neutral engineering/planning response to what people happen to do. It is part of a chain of fateful choices by powerful people that cause the town to develop in a way that driving is what everyone must do.

Fleet Farm, 4650 Cross Pointe Blvd built 2019 189,595 sqft store on 832,867 sq ft lot required parking spaces 570 actual ??

NE edge of the lot

SE edge of the lot

Fleet Farm is a new big-box kid in town. I remember when Chuck Marohn referenced them in his 2015 speech at Iowa City, and multiple people including me corrected him to "Farm and Fleet." We are all aware of Fleet Farm now! There were a lot of shoppers at Fleet Farm this morning, in search of deals like these...

...and they came in a lot of cars, but there was room for plenty more!

Hy-Vee, 5050 Edgewood Rd built 2005 87,524 sqft store on 494,842 sqft lot required parking spaces 263 actual ??

west edge of the lot

Groceries aren't your stereotypical Black Friday purchase, but the lot at this suburban Hy-Vee was nearly full. Elsewhere in this gargantuan plaza, many stores were not open...

It's quite the strip

Another lot of parking

People in this subdivision could walk to Jimmy John's,
or Hy-Vee!

Wal-Mart, 2645 Blairs Ferry Rd built 1990 204,266 sqft store on 772,783 sqft lot required parking spaces 614 actual ??

Lowe's is west of Wal-Mart

NW look at Wal-Mart

Sam's Club is east of Wal-Mart

"You could build a small town in that parking lot"--
awed Twitter comment

I did not take pictures of the closer-in sections of the parking lots, so it behooves me to tell you there were a lot of shoppers at all of these stores... just not nearly enough to fill the parking lots. Gigantism of stores and parking lots are a bill of goods sold on convenience and ease of access. It's time to pay attention to what they do to our town's social fabric, fiscal health, &c. 

Dunkin' Donuts: I don't understand my fellow humans
(Similar scenes at McDonald's and Starbucks)

SEE ALSO

"I Wish This Parking Was...," 27 November 2020 [last year's COVID lockdown-appropriate alternative]

"Black Friday Parking," 27 November 2015 [my first venture]

Associated Press, "Holiday Shopping Moves Into High Gear But Challenges Remain," KTLA, 25 November 2021

City of Cedar Rapids, Zoning Ordinance, 14 March 2021 [Section 32.04.02, "Parking," is on pp. 129-154]

Charles Marohn,"Where Parking Reform Ideas Go to Die... or Not," Strong Towns, 24 November 2021 [a story with a happy ending!]

Strong Towns, "Where Will You Be on #BlackFridayParking Day?" 22 November 2021 [this year's invitation]

Black Friday shopping can be a real battle?

I'm enjoying this way too much

Cedar Rapids mayoral runoff 2021

 

Washington High School Step Team, January 2020:
Can these young people find their futures in Cedar Rapids?

City Council elections are opportunities to take stock of where we are as a city and where we would like to be going. In my post from the last mayoral election four years ago, I complained that the candidates lacked either specific policy proposals or an overall vision of the city's future direction. I concluded: America, which includes Cedar Rapids, faces some profound challenges. How do we enable a satisfactory quality of life and economic opportunity for our citizens in the face of economic, environmental, racial, an financial challenges?... We've managed to have a school board election and two rounds of a city council election this fall without serious debate over any of these.

I did give the 2017 finalists, Brad Hart and Monica Vernon, credit for strategic competence: As a manager of problems with high levels of personal activity and familiarity with the city, either would be fine. Does that seem a bit naive today? All I can say is, after two years of relative quiet, the problems of 2020 and 2021 were of unusual magnitude: a worldwide pandemic that refused to go away, a summer of civil rights protests responding to murders elsewhere but recalling a 2016 police shooting here, and then the incredible force of the August 10 derecho. In 2017 I had been thinking about traffic and the city budget and stuff. The city and school district did as much as they could with the pandemic given heavy-handed oversight by a regressive state government, but the policy response to civil rights protests failed to satisfy advocates and makes progress on inclusion uncertain, and precious time was lost with Mayor Hart's delayed response to the derecho. Then there was Hart's deranged voice mail message for CSPS director Taylor Burgen. Perhaps day-to-day competence is not enough.

On November 2, 2021, city council members Marty Hoeger, Tyler Olson, and Ashley Vanorny were reelected without opposition; in District 3, Dale Todd won reelection by a wide margin (62-37) over  Tamara Marcus, the county sustainability manager. Marcus proved to be an exceptionally thoughtful candidate, and I hope she will continue to be present in local politics. The only race, then, to require a runoff was the race for mayor, where former newscaster Tiffany O'Donnell led with 42 percent to 28 percent for both Mayor Hart and Amara Andrews. Andrews had exactly 41 more votes than Hart, who conceded and endorsed O'Donnell. The runoff will occur Tuesday, November 30.

The executive power in Cedar Rapids, like most towns, is mostly in the hands of the city manager since 2010, Jeff Pomeranz, who by all accounts has made good choices on policy (one-way to two-way conversions and protected bike lanes) and city staff. What's left to the mayor, besides one vote on a nine-member City Council, is the public visibility that comes with the position. Ron Corbett (2019-2017) used his position, among other things, to advocate for health and fitness, promoting Blue Zones, commuter as well as recreational cycling, and sidewalks. Who we elect as mayor says much about how we see ourselves as a city.

Meanwhile, a letter writer to the Cedar Rapids Gazette Sunday complained about the lack of amenities for senior citizens, mainly by railing against cyclists. I don't know enough to comment on the senior amenity situation, and can only wonder how a town full of voting senior citizens could possibly be deficient. I can say we need a mayor who can explain to people why inclusion is a good thing, and why policies that seem to benefit people who are not you can actually benefit you by improving the city as a whole.

Tiffany O'Donnell (from her campaign site)

O'Donnell became well-known as a television newscaster for 20 years, including 15 at the local Fox affiliate. She is the CEO of Women Lead Change, which calls itself "the state's premier leadership organization for women, dedicated to the development, advancement and promotion of women," and was active in the founding of and fundraising for the New Bo City Market. Her website highlights the need to "take the city where it needs to go" in order to retain young people and "the workers of the future." There's not much issue detail, and a lot of obvious, but her priorities page includes downtown and river revitalization, and the intent to "incentivize and support growth of existing businesses" and "lean into our entrepreneurial economy," which are worthy goals indeed. Her last-week op-ed (O'Donnell 2021) touted her leadership credentials and the need for change.

Amara Andrews and friends (from campaign website)

Andrews, a newcomer to city politics, is an executive with True North Companies whose beat includes transportation and business development. She was also active in business development in Champaign, Illinois. She is involved in Advocates for Social Justice, which arose out of the 2020 protests, and the Academy for Personal and Social Success. Her website is far more substantive than O'Donnell's. She notes the need to shift business support towards assisting existing small and midsize businesses, while attaching public goods conditions when we use tax incentives; the connection between walking and biking infrastructure and needed improvements to our public transit system; and one-stop "opportunity centers" to help workers with any and all barriers to employment. Her last-week op-ed (Andrews 2021) discussed the coalition-building and persistence that led to the creation of the city's citizens review board, and talked about the need to include the unhoused in policy efforts.

Both candidates are hitting the right notes, even if Andrews's are arranged for a chamber ensemble and O'Donnell's for Casio keyboard. I'm a word guy, so Andrews is the one speaking to me, yet it would be nice to have a Mayor O'Donnell bringing her networking experience to bear on our common life. Both articulate the need for policy change, which is refreshing in a city where the political culture can be maddeningly complacent. Cedar Rapids has done some remarkable things in the last 15 years, but we are far from being the inclusive, environmental, walkable, and opportunity city we need to be. To have someone in the mayor's seat showing why and how we need to do things differently would really be something.

SEE ALSO:

Amara Andrews, "Choice is Between Change and More of the Same in C.R.," Cedar Rapids Gazette, 21 November 2021, 1C, 4C

Tiffany O'Donnell, "Time to Stop Being 'OK' With "OK' in Cedar Rapids," Cedar Rapids Gazette, 21 November 2021, 1C, 4C

Open Streets DC 2021

 

"Celebrating the People of Park View,"
mural by Rose Jaffe and Kate Zaremba in 2016

"If you close it, they will come?" Washington's Open Streets program returned to Georgia Avenue NW this month and got a turnout every bit as numerous, diverse, and fun-loving as they had two years ago.

Georgia Avenue north of New Hampshire Avenue

Again, job stuff kept me away until the last hour or so. This year, though, I walked south from the Metro station instead of north, so while the joy was the same, as was my commemorative t-shirt, the pictures are different.

Out of the Metro

The absence of cars on the street enabled activities including...

The Honey Larks on the Reduce Energy Use DC Main Stage

young and very young walkers

Enjoying snacks and company in the shade of street trees

Recreation at Bruce Monroe Community Park

Chalking and painting

Services along the route included...

Water station

Roller skating lessons

Police chilling with everybody else

Dance lessons in progress

Information booth (where I filled out a survey to get the t-shirt)

City Council member Brianne K. Nadeau

I did not see Council member Nadeau, but one of her staff was in a vigorous discussion about the future of Bruce Monroe Community Park, where a housing development is planned. Conversations like this can happen naturally when the design brings people together.

There seemed to be less public anxiety about the chaos that would ensue when the street was closed, possibly because I didn't have the local FOX station on during breakfast. Local merchants were definitely taking advantage of the opportunit

antique shop

restaurant with outdoor seating

more outdoor seating with jaunty pretzels

They have all the herbs

They have all the beans

Ice cream!

The long festival came to an end at the intersection with Barry Place...

...adjacent to historic Howard University

By this time, they were taking down their booths...

...and the police were warning all the mellow people that cars were about to return.

I'm glad Washington gave people the opportunity to imagine for a day all the many things we could do with some of the space we currently devote to cars. Soon, the city will try other streets. I hope I can be around when it happens!

SEE ALSO: "Open Streets DC," 11 October 2019