CNU Diary 2023

The Westin Charlotte promenade at 8:00 a.m. Thursday

Wednesday, May 31

Is there room in urbanism for the grumpy and discouraged? I am in Charlotte, almost 1000 miles from where I started the day, attending my first-ever in-person Congress for the New Urbanism. I flew from Cedar Rapids via Chicago. A recent episode of Freakonomics exulted in the miracle that is air travel. Air travel is quite the miracle indeed, except when it isn't. And today it barely qualified.

I arrived in Charlotte two hours later than planned, because we spent two hours on the runway at O'Hare waiting out a lightning storm. I thereby missed the welcome party at the 7th Street Market, which ended at 8 p.m., though I recognized a few of them by their lanyards as they returned to conference headquarters. (I'll get mine tomorrow, I guess.) I missed the first bus to town because the wayfinding signs at Charlotte-Douglas International are the worst (actually, they're excellent, except for any help finding the city transit.)

My laptop was broken on the journey. I'm tired and hungry, but too dispirited even to scare up something at the hotel bar. I didn't bring enough socks.

Urbanism is an inherently optimistic movement. The problems of the world today were caused by bad decisions in the past, but we know how to undo them. Then the magic of human interactions, facilitated by proximity and the removal of barriers, will all make our lives better, with less stress on the environment and public finances. The next two days are full of projects that have worked, and tried-and-true ways of advocating for them. And I am just not feeling it. After two hours imprisoned on the tarmac, I hated everybody, especially the guy sitting next to me watching a violent movie on his phone with the sound up. On the plane, proximity became unbearable, and I longed for barriers and escape. Those feelings are only beginning to wear off, recharged (unlike my laptop) as they are by each new frustration.

The other thing that's weighing on me now is everyone says CNU is all about socializing. It's the connections you make and the conversations you have that are the essence of CNU. Perhaps after a night's sleep I'll feel like I can manage a short conversation, but two days of chatting is liable to put me in traction.

(Actually, I've already managed one conversation, with an urbanist named Jay Hoekstra who rode over to the hotel on the bus with me. That seems a lifetime ago.)

Thursday, June 1

Nine hours of much-needed sleep, and I'm into this. The opening event was inspiring, the tour of bicycle-oriented development was informative, Cedar Rapids got a major award, and I bumped into Dave Alden (after sitting next to John Simmerman at lunch). My e-bike didn't "e," one of the socks I did bring has a hole in it, one of my ears blocked up during lunch, but none of that matters. I'm surprised I even mentioned it. Then my phone battery slowly died during the Charter Awards ceremony, so that I was unable to get a picture of Jeff Pomerantz, Shannon Ramsay, and Jeff Speck accepting the award for the ReLeaf Cedar Rapids program. That did matter, actually.

President Mallory Baches calls the conference to order

On the main stage, in the morning's first panel, Eric Kronberg, Braxton Winston, and Rebekah Klik discussed the housing crisis. Kronberg, who runs a firm in Atlanta and dubs himself "the zoning whisperer," talked about the prerequisites for "attainable housing:" existing walkable infrastructure (because vehicle ownership is too costly for anyone under 80 percent of area median income, and because if the infrastructure's there it leaves more money for architecture). Winston, a member of Charlotte's city council, celebrated the uniform development ordinance (UDO) which takes effect today, and discussed his awakening to the importance of local politics beginning with a police shooting protest in September 2016. Afterwards, Rebekah Klik asked the best questions, starting with: what is the source of your sustained optimism? Winston plugged the ideal  of America, including democracy and self-government; Kronberg said seeing progress happening, and public understanding improved, and sharing stories of successes. 

panel on housing: Rebekah Klik, Eric Kronberg, 
Braxton Winston

Surging economic growth in the southeast has caused problems, but also opportunities to talk about equity and attainable housing leading to "common ground" (Winston). Kronberg also commended the book (and accompanying website) Homelessness is a Housing Problem by Clayton Sage and Greg Colburn (California, 2022).

Braxton Winston, Charlotte's mayor pro tem 

Late in the afternoon, Kronberg and associates returned to the podium to talk about attainable housing strategies: how to identify neighborhoods to work in, and reduce "brain damage" like costs and regulations for middle housing types. Kronberg said a pilot project is "a great way to gain trust" and may lead in time to policy change.

getting ready to roll

The bike tour ran about three hours, covering 10 miles in neighborhoods around Charlotte's Uptown. Some was on trails, which our guides report are heavily used during commuting times as well as weekends. (This suggests that I may have underestimated the impact of trail connections on bicycle commuting in Cedar Rapids.) Right around Uptown, though, we had to trust to the mercy of heavily-trafficked streets with minimal biking infrastructure. It's a work in progress, we were told.

The Railyard

Bike racks at the Railyard are sheltered

trail alongside the light rail 

housing by the light rail and trail

more housing on the other side of the tracks

bike themed brew pub

South State Street: Stewart Creek Greenway-adjacent building
will be Charlotte's first no-cars apartments

I also bought a CNU 30th anniversary t-shirt and two books. If that doesn't scream "into it," I don't know what can.

Friday, June 2

I returned to Cedar Rapids tonight after a second day at the conference. They're continuing one more day, but I arranged my schedule this way to save a night at the hotel. Of course, the savings now seem insignificant compared to the cost of replacing my broken laptop, not to mention my worn-out socks. I did see a few others with suitcases today, so I'm not the only one ducking out early.

Crane Coffee, Charlotte NC

I started my day at Crane Coffee, which is the closest local coffee shop to the Westin. It requires walking one block past a Starbucks, which I managed. Crane is in the Charlotte Convention Center, which also houses the NASCAR Hall of Fame. Crane has outdoor seats, though mostly in the sun because the shop faces southwest, so no one was using them. It has an open floor plan...

interior, Crane Coffee

...a set of vibrant art on the far wall, and a variety of plants by the front window. There are 11 inside seats, but mostly Crane serves take away to workers from other parts of the office building. I chanced to visit on the last day on the job for the young barista, Sara, which was clearly a major occasion for regulars. I wish her well!

 

 

At 10:15 I got to my first session, on the subject of engaging under-represented communities. (This is probably needed for the bike and trails advisory group in Cedar Rapids and Linn County.) It turned out to be an extra-fun workshop led by James Rojas of Place It. From a couple piles of craft materials, we were told to construct our favorite childhood memory. (Despairing of getting near the piles, I chose instead to draw the baseball field (above) my friends and I improvised in my family's front yard.) Most people, it turned out, like me depicted outdoor/active themes. Next we were told to work together with the others at our table to create an ideal community. Ours looked like this...

(Photo by Miguel Salinas)

...including a park, a church, narrow streets, and a mix of retail and housing types. Maybe because we're all urbanists here, everyone's communities were compact, walkable, functional, and fun.

Rojas explained the first exercise was to put people in a happy frame of mind, while the second reveals core values that are more authentic when done by hands instead of words. He prefers in his workshops to keep things general rather than focusing on, say, trails and bikeways, but the plan's specifics can be informed by the general core values the exercise reveals.

The rest of the day:

11:45 urban design failures: Stephen Mouzon on "worst practices" including "faux new urbanist hardware" i.e. lifestyle centers that look like Main Streets but "nobody's home"

1:30 urban retail: Robert Gibbs on how to build successful retail spaces, and what's trending

2:45 ice cream break at Golden Cow Creamery, Luminous Lane art alley

4:00 pre-reviewed plans: Jennifer Knouse of Liberty House Plans on ways towns and developers can cut housing costs by expediting the planning process

CNU31 was a stimulating couple of days for a humble blogger and gentleman-urbanist thinking these days about housing, bicycling, and the local economy. Next year's Congress will be in Cincinnati--like Charlotte, a city I've never visited, with the bonus of being driveable from Cedar Rapids. If the dates and the funding work, I expect I'd be better-prepared and maybe get even more out of it all than I did this year.

SEE ALSO: "CNU Diary 2021," 16 May 2021

Ananiah Mathew, "Knights, Nights, and a Pinched Blackberry," The Walkist, 9 June 2023