A long overdue update

This is the point at which most bloggers either: 1) write a lengthy post, talking about how bad they feel for not writing and rededicating themselves to post more frequently; or 2) delete the blog. I'm going to do neither of those things, and leave it up for the few worthwhile articles I wrote, in the off-chance someone might be interested. Eric Temple Bell wrote that "time makes fools of us all," and that has certainly been the case with parts of my posts. I find myself wanting to slap my palm to my face reading a few of my points, but they are what they are, so I'll let them stay in the open air. There are a few interesting things coming along now that might be worth posting about, so you might see something soon. You probably won't, though. Cheers, Lew

Walking to Philly

One of my fondest memories is attached to the walkway on the Ben Franklin Bridge. The Phillies had won the 2008 World Series and we were on our way to the parade. To avoid all the traffic, my sister, my brother, and I parked in Camden and took a walk, screaming our lungs off alongside the other fans. This memory always makes me think. Why can't we walk to more that Philly has to offer from New Jersey? Why can't families bike to the Linc or to Frankford? We should make it a priority to expand our walkways over the Delaware between SJ and SE-PA. The Betsy Ross and especially the Walt Whitman should be the two highest priority bridges.

The Walt Whitman Bridge, from the Philadelphia Side. Credit: pontla, flickr.com

The 1997 predicted value of a pedestrian walkway on both sides of the Verrazano-Narrows bridge was $25 million. Adjusted for inflation, that equals $36.5 million in 2015, everything else remaining constant. If we divide this value by the length of the Verrazano, we get a cost of $2,665/ linear foot. If we apply this ratio to the shorter Walt Whitman, at 11,981 feet  (we are likely over estimating, given the costs of building in NYC  and the fact that the Walt is just two years older than the Verrazano), we see that the cost would amount to just under $32 million. Keep in mind that this back-of-the-envelope estimate applies to building a walkway on both sides of the bridge. If we applied this cost to just one side, the walkway would cost $16 million.

This might seem steep, but consider some of the other improvements included in the DVRPC's Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) 2014 - 17.  In Camden County alone, there are several multimillion dollar projects that offer returns I would deem questionable. One example, below, is the Improvements to the Intersection of Route 30 (White Horse Pike) and Eversham Road. A few left-hand turn lanes and a year later we've spent $6.8 million. And let's not even consider the tremendous cost of the Route 295/76/42 connection (not to say that this isn't a decent improvement, because it is). Again, all of these projects are Camden County alone – we're not even considering what could be accomplished with the pooled resources from our nine county area. If we can fund questionable improvements like the Route 30/Evesham intersection, we can certainly fund interstate improvements that would vastly improve the region's bike and pedestrian infrastructure and serve populations disproportionately unlikely to have access to a car. 

Obviously accessibility is at least somewhat a concern, as we are expected to add a bike- and wheelchair-friendly ramp to the Ben soon. But this should serve as just the beginning. Maybe by the time the Phils win their next World Series (in another 28 years), I'll have the opportunity to walk to a home game, straight from South Jersey.

A Regional Tool

Hey everyone,

It's been a bit since the last post, but I wanted to take a minute to mention two things upcoming that I'm really excited about.

For one, I am working on a tool that should help with planning advocacy in our region. It will be a calendar that includes planning, zoning, redevelopment, and any other commission you can imagine, meetings throughout South Jersey. It'll include county and state board info and even some for the bigger/more critical municipalities. This takes more time than you'd imagine, as the data is ridiculously spread out and no one wants to make it easy for people to show up at a meeting when it could cause them some trouble. It's sapped a bit more time than I'm happy with but should be done this week.

The reason I even began preparing this tool is that it formed out of a discussion with several other planners and urbanim-minded people in the region last month. We've come together as a group that's pretty informal at this point, but our second meeting is this week. We're interested in working as a watchdog/advocacy group for responsible planning in the region. After this week there'll be more to say about it, but for now you should check out the facebook group we've been using to plan: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1425776957705366/

If you're interested in coming to the meeting, shoot me a message for more info.

Better Philadelphia (and a "Better" South Jersey)

I did something very dumb. I entered a student design competition in addition to all of the other obligations I have. It was due the same time as most of my midterms. It was rough.

It was also too interesting to resist. The 2015 Better Philadelphia Design Challenge – in honor of the city's great planner of the 20th century, Ed Bacon – asked students to consider how the Philadelphia and (optionally) Camden Waterfronts could be redeveloped alongside Petty Island, which is a beautiful piece of land in the Delaware River between the two cities. As with any competition, time was extremely limited and just a day after submitting, there are numerous tiny thing I would like to change. Due to constrained space, I had to scrap including some more ideas I had about housing and a neat idea about providing space for people in need of temporary shelter (e.g. domestic violence victims, other individuals involved with social work, etc.). All that being said, I'm proud of it, and my group mates and I should be pleased with how well it came out. 

UPDATE: I realize I probably should not post the project until judging is completed. I will put it back up in December. I remember that we are supposed to remain anonymous to the judges, and if for some reason any happened to read this, we might be DQ'd. If you'd like to view it (and you're not one of the judges :p) please message me!

UPDATE 2 (March 13, 2015): Not a winner. I probably focused too much on Camden, when they explicitly said "Camden should not be a major part of your presentation  – I just love that place too much! Anyway, please go ahead and check out my team's final poster below.  

Note: To view the text and smaller graphics, it's probably best to download the file and then zoom in as needed. The project had to be 80" x 40"!

Higher quality download available here: http://imgur.com/PsCcSuo

Highlights:

• Daylighting (digging up and making into an active waterway) the currently paved over Aramingo Canal (formerly Gunner's Run) in the Kensington/Port Richmond neighborhoods of Philly. This would be a beautiful public space, a driver of economic investment, and a bulwark against future water level rises.
• A pedestrian/cycling bridge between Petty Island and Philadelphia, thus connecting Camden to Philly. It would also be able to open by swivel to allow for shipping channel access (although almost all shipping ends south of Petty Island). Smaller boats can pass by on the east of the island, without needing the bridge to open. Increased ferry service between interesting points on the Camden and Philly waterfronts will also be added to improve connectivity.
• ResIndustrial Development.  One idea that PhiliAdelphés shares with great planners like Bacon and Jane Jacobs is that industry need not be a boogeyman – we believe residential and light industry can cohabitate with proper design. Imagine a bar where guests watch the  Conrail shipments move in and out, or mid-rise lofts where workers need only take an elevator and a few steps to get to work. 
• In Camden, ResIndustrial uses will be dedicated to attracting late-night industries and shops, including all-night cafes, publishing, shipping logistics, bakeries and the like. This will ensure “eyes on the street” and informal security at all hours of the day. The signicant state aid programs in place in NJ could attract these businesses to the city.
•  Interpretive Digital signage will be installed on the Philadelphia waterfront at quarter mile intervals. Signs will be equipped with altered reality technology. Signs are equipped with a camera that reads real world activity and translates it into historic footage of various eras, depicting the activity that took place on the waterfront and on Petty Island.
• Install piezoelectric plates (which generate electrical energy by collecting kinetic energy) under I-95 as it undergoes repairs. In Philadelphia, just a 1 km stretch of piezoelectric plates in the project area under I-95 will provide daily power to over 1,200 homes.
• All new and renewed developments in the project area will be tied into district-wide energy and grey & storm water management systems.  
• Inspired by Leni Lenape longhouse architecture and the Petty Island designs of architect Louis Sullivan, the Museum for a Changing World is not only a monument to the past and a united future, but is also a time-based public art piece. The museum stairs, which borrow from the grandeur of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, run up to the riverfront and are labeled with a year and historic event in the region's history. As water levels rise and we watch events disappear, It will serve as a reminder that all things and people are in flux and interconnected.

• As we expect the land area of Petty Island to shrink over time due to rising water levels, the rest of the island is devoted to transient uses like camping, hiking, and a farm demonstrating sustainable agricultural and urban gardening techniques.

 

Camden Past and Present

It's been a bit, but I've been pretty busy with grad school. For my urban redevelopment course work I have the opportunity to right about Camden fairly often. Here is my first paper, which I believe a pretty useful way of understanding the city's history. Because of length constraints (which I still went over) some things got glazed over, so feel free to contact me if you want me to elaborate on any points I make. Most definitely not a peer reviewed paper, so please any minor grammatical junk. Without further ado:

Camden City is a microcosm of the growth and decline patterns that characterized urban centers in the 21^st century.  Though several cities in the region and the nation followed a similar pattern of decline, the historic, geographic, and economic circumstances of each community vary. This paper will explore the circumstances unique to Camden and analyze how they contributed to the city’s locational advantage, industrial boom, and subsequent struggles in population and housing in the last half of the century. This three-part historical framework will be used to understand the city’s spatial form. Together, spatial and historical analyses will inform a concluding discussion of Camden City’s opportunities and challenges in redevelopment.

Camden is a 10 square mile settlement situated on the shore of the Delaware River.  Two smaller bodies of water, the Cooper River and Newton Creek, segment Downtown Camden from its East Camden and Fairview neighborhoods, respectively.  Camden and its surrounding settlements have low elevation which rarely comes to a steep grade. This combination of factors allowed for easy transportation and trade by foot, horse, ferry, and (eventually, to the city’s advantage) train.

The city was also aided geographically by its location opposite the river of Philadelphia, which was established in 1682 and grew rapidly as a population and trade hub for the young United States. Although the settlements that would merge to become Camden City pre-date Philadelphia’s founding -- the Dutch West India Company’s Fort Nassau was completed in 1620 -- they were smaller family settlements by separated by stretches of forest. The first plats were not laid until just before the American Revolution, and even then the city was composed of three disconnected villages that did not begin to filter together until the city’s incorporation in 1828. In the city’s first census in 1840, the population was a mere 3,371. By the following census in 1850, Camden had been selected as the Seat of Camden County, the origin of the Camden & Amboy Line (one of the country’s first rail lines, and the first to connect the thriving Philadelphia and New York City Markets), and numerous manufacturing facilities. The city’s population grew by the greatest percentage in its history, nearly tripling to 9,479 residents. 

Shortly thereafter, the Camden and Atlantic Raildroad was completed and construction began on behalf of the Camden Horse Railroad Company (CHRC), which established the region’s first trolley line. The former was the first connection from Philadelphia to what would become the booming tourist destination of Atlantic City. Camden benefited from the increased ferry traffic from Philadelphia tourists (there was no bridge or tunnel to Philadelphia at that point) and in return helped to create the region’s tradition of “going down the shore.” The latter, the CHRC, electrified at the turn of the century, leading to enhanced coverage and speed on its lines.  

Camden’s rapid rise in transportation accessibility and its location on the Philadelphia-New York trade route attracted intensive business and industry in a very short period. According to the City’s own published history, Camden housed 80 manufacturers in 1860 and in just ten years this number had grown by more than 50% to 125. One of the companies established in that period was the Campbell Soup Company, the current Fortune 500 Company that invented condensed soup. Just after Campbell Soup made a major expansion in 1894, two other major companies were established in Camden. The first, the Victor Talking Machine Company (established in 1900) was a pioneer in audio recording technology. After its merger with the Radio Corporation of America, RCA Victor was the largest recording company in the United States for most of the twentieth century. Also established in 1900 was the New York Ship Building (NYSB) Corporation, which prospered during World Wars I & II. At its peak, NYSB was the most productive ship building entity in the United States and employed over 30,000 people. More than anything, industry -- and these three companies in particular -- defined Camden, NJ.  The city’s largest absolute gain in population, a growth of nearly 22,000 people, occurred from 1910 to 1920 as a result of rapid industrial expansion. This growth brought diversity to the city’s neighborhoods, which formed into ethnic enclaves of German, British, Irish, Italian, Polish, African American, Jewish, and later, Puerto Rican descent. The city’s diversity and entrepreneurial spirit further contributed to Camden’s culture, where the first fried panzarotti became a New Jersey delicacy and the first drive-in movie theatre thrilled American audiences. 

Ironically, the same forces that made Camden an economic powerhouse would also become largely responsible for its decline. After World War II, the NYSB’s importance waned; in 1967 it ceased operations entirely. Facing competition from other recording companies, RCA Victor also closed its Camden branch in the 1960s and, in search of lower prices and less oversight, moved operations to Juárez, Mexico in 1970. Upwardly mobile white working class families either had secured white collar positions or had been sold on the suburban dream. An increasing share of industrial jobs had become occupied by historically poor African American and Puerto Rican families who were then disproportionately affected by factory closures. Frustrations over job loss were compounded by the Civil Rights Movement’s focus on systemically racist policies like FHA redlining and the segregation of public facilities, which reinforced African American poverty. Racial tensions boiled over into race riots in 1971 and fires, looting, and an adversarial police-civilian relationship left Camden scarred. Even deeper poverty resulted and left the city’s population susceptible to drug epidemics and corresponding cartel violence. Population has declined gradually each decade from its 1950 peak at 124,555 to its current 77,344. Greater than a third of residents live below poverty level. In the past five years, Camden has repeatedly been declared both the nation’s most violent, and the most impoverished, city. The situation could not have deteriorated much further.

Camden’s three-part history as transit hub, industrial boom town, and symbol of urban decay, have shaped the city’s urban form. The region’s first plats were developed as detached single family households more reminiscent of suburban manors. These homes were sited relatively close to churches and early post-colonial industries including mills and tanneries. As the first post office and railroads entered the city, development intensified slightly and a downtown began to form in the classic pattern of row homes with the occasional first floor business below. The streetcar diffused the city, creating long mixed-use commercial corridors surrounded on either side by single- and multi-family row home developments. Massive industries entering downtown Camden filled in the waterfront (leaving little public access) and created a need to build up rather than out, as law offices, financial institutions, and new firms demanded space near existing industry. Industrialization was so profound that it necessitated constructing entirely new parts of the city. Land was acquired from Haddon Township and in 1918 construction began on Yorkship Village, the nation’s first government-planned community. Now known as Fairview, Yorkship Village’s design was based on the Garden City model cities popularized in England earlier in the century. As a result, Fairview is an enclave of single-family detached homes in a sea of two- to three-story row homes and mixed-use corridors. After World War I there was little need to develop additional housing and almost all of Camden’s 22,906 buildings were constructed by the end of World War II. The average age of housing is well over 75 years and the city now faces gradual deterioration; approximately 15% of the city’s buildings are already abandoned.

Despite the city’s desperate state, comprehensive attempts at redevelopment were virtually absent until the turn of the 21^st century. The 2000 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia was the impetus Governor Christine Todd Whitman needed to clear Admiral Wilson Boulevard of undesirable land uses that included strip clubs, liquor stores, and dilapidated hotels. Inspired by the success of the Baltimore Harbor, initial redevelopment focused on large-scale waterfront projects. In just ten years, the waterfront had added its four largest attraction: the Blockbuster-Sony Music Entertainment Center (now the Susquehanna Bank Center), Campbell’s Baseball Field, the New Jersey State Aquarium (now the Adventure Aquairum), and the U.S.S. New Jersey. Waterfront redevelopment has not galvanized investment as quickly as investors hoped and the strategy has been criticized for focusing too heavily on mega-projects and not enough on reinvesting in the city’s residents. 

Future investment must first focus on solving residents’ immediate safety and housing concerns. Data suggest that a new, larger police force may be lowering violent crime and reducing drug cartel activity. However, it is too early to tell whether this trend, if accurate, will continue. Housing restoration is another critical concern to be addressed. The redevelopment of RCA’s Nipper Building into the Victor Apartments has been a success story, and similar, historically sensitive, affordable redevelopment must be prioritized. The best property redevelopment will also be transit-oriented. Camden remains a regional transit hub despite its struggles, and development should be bolstered by the River Line, which acts as a street car when in the city, and PATCO, which is one of only six rail lines nationwide that runs 24 hours a day. 

In  order for any of this redevelopment to truly benefit current residents, the city must focus on employment and restructuring its economic base. This decade has seen the emergence of an “Eds and Meds” strategy of economic development based on the Cooper and Lourdes health systems and engagement with Rutgers-Camden and Rowan Universities. This strategy has proven successful in cities like Pittsburgh and Baltimore, but academics have voiced concerns that these industries, too, are at the end of their growth cycle. In order to diversify its economy and avoid its mid-twentieth century blunders the city and its redevelopment corporations will have to use the state’s new economic development incentives to their fullest potential. Camden must constantly recall its history, so that it might not perpetuate the same mistakes as before, but instead inform the city’s next age of progress.

Gentrification: What's in a Word (in Camden)?

Though I advocate for responsible planning across the region, I enjoy writing about Camden the most. Frankly, it's because I like Camden more than any other place. My family has a couple hundred years of history in Camden and it's where I'm going to focus my career. My wife and I want to live there and we plan to buy a house there within the next few years. That's where our story begins.

About a month ago my wife and I were looking at houses we liked, fantasizing about fixing them up and adding -- you guessed it -- chicken coops and bee hives, when she asked a question capable of deflating any urbanist: "Aren't we basically just gentrifying the neighborhood by moving in?" That's a very good question.

For one, there's a sort of Sorites paradox going on. At what point do you call it gentrification when wealthier, whiter families start moving into an area and less wealthy families start moving out? One family? Twenty? Or should we measure it not demographically, but by increases in outside investment or increases in property values/taxes? These finance-based definitions are better, but still missing something. The best definition of gentrification I know is borrowed from professor Linda Bates at Portland State University: the difference between gentrification and revitalization is displacement.

Camden is definitely making an attempt at revitalization. The City is aggressively pursuing investment but in many cases, as noted in the LKB, the opportunities feel targeted at helping outsiders come in (think the Sixers deal or the recently announced graduate housing near the Cooper/Rowan Med School), rather than tackling the many challenges residents already face. I like/hate to think about how many small businesses could be started along Federal St or Haddon Ave with $82 million.* Regardless, its essentially good that the new Economic Development Act has reduced barriers to outside investment. The city faces serious infrastructural challenges, and it doesn't have the resources to address them alone. There is the opportunity for genuine revitalization.

So have these efforts led to displacement? No, not yet, anyway. Not even after twenty years of waterfront development. Assuming the announced projects do begin to increase property values, the city is still FAR from gentrifying. Demographically, Camden is 48% African American, 47% Hispanic or Latino, 3% White and about 1% Vietnamese (cool history there). From 2000 to 2010, the city experienced a net population loss of about 2,000. Those leaving were almost exclusively either White or Asian. Even if 25,000 White, upper-middle class folks moved into the city tomorrow, enough to restore the city to its population circa 1970, availability of land and vacant housing (16% vacancy, compared to 5% nationally) could absorb demand without physical displacement. I realize this is an unfair scenario because it's not an entire city, but neighborhoods like Cooper or the Waterfront, that gentrify. However, the point is illustrative of just how big a demographic shift would have to occur before pulling out the "g" word.

So, if you're like me and have the luxury of worrying about if living where you want to live is "ethical," fear not. You're not (yet) a part of gentrifying Camden.

Postscript thoughts:
It is precisely because gentrification isn't currently happening, that now is the perfect time to ensure that it will not happen. New economic development should focus on neighborhood revitalization throughout the city with opportunity for local groups to demand Community Benefits Agreements. Conditional rent controls should be put in place that allow tenants to adjust gradually to increased rates. We should offer protections to current home owners, bolster local home buyer programs, and offer Individual Development Accounts (governments funds that match earned income on the condition that savings are applied to buying a home, furthering personal education, starting a business, etc.). If I were a resident, I would feel much better about these big economic dev. projects knowing they won't eventually lead to booting me out of my house.

________

*For the curious, national average start up costs for small businesses are $30,000. That would result in a ludicrous 2,733 new businesses.

Move Forward or Stay in Place (part 2)

Or Move Forward?

 The coming Clayville Generating Station 1, in Vineland has been described as "integral to the future of the Vineland Municipal Utilities." But is it? Are any of these planned natural gas plants integral to our future? Government bodies pushing for natural gas facilities argue from the standpoint of energy security, but this is based on false assumptions that the energy we generate in NJ is the only energy we can use. Our utilities buy from a centralized grid and then distribute it to us. If my undergrad notes are correct, electricity attenuates to uselessness by the time it has traveled about 400 miles. That gives us a BIG area from which to draw electricity. In an excellent article covering the Oyster Creek and B.L. England plants, Braden Campbell of the Press of Atlantic City points out that only rarely (the worst parts of this winter's severe cold snap, for example) did BL England operate at full capacity. We don't need all that excess production for 95% of the year.

That being said, we will at some point need to add to our state's energy capacity. Since it probably won't be of the phased-out nuclear variety, we have a few choices. The clear sweetheart of the moment is Natural Gas. In the last post I mentioned a number of plants that are either in their final planning stages or already under construction. Yes. Natural gas is cheap. But that's because no one seems to be worrying about those pesky little externalities. Externalities like the disposal of the toxic chemical slurry that is fracking waste water. Currently the solution is to throw it into open air pits with a plastic barrier the only thing standing between waste and groundwater. Activists have passed local ordinances in a number of NJ towns banning fracking waste (full disclosure: I was part of a college group that proposed one of these ordinances) and even gotten fracking waste bans through both arms of the state legislature. Then Christie vetoed the bill. There's a bit of cognitive dissonance going on there.*

The rush to build these natural gas plants is even more puzzling given the advances our state is making in renewable energies. The U.S. Department of Energy began accepting the nation's first bids for offshore wind in February and the first three developers of NJ offshore wind were awarded a combined $47 million in early May. Along with a couple of sites in RI, VA, and OR, NJ is pioneering energy technology that with current technology could unlock more than 4,000 gigawatts of renewable energy nationally. In addition to our wind advantage, NJ is way ahead when it comes to solar. We are second only to the behemoth that is California in number of solar installations statewide. What's more, a report by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) suggests solar and wind prices will continue to plummet and that they will be cost competitive with natural gas by 2025. That's good news for a state that took the pains to invest in renewables early. The missing link in all of this is large-scale renewable energy storage, but the first commercial companies are making a go (and with plenty of money to be made, that field will be in a good state by 2025, for sure).

So again, I ask, why the rush to build natural gas plants? That missing capacity is not missed dearly. In just a few short years we'll be ready to truly move forward with our energy infrastructure, rather than burden South Jersey with gas plants that won't be cost competitive in two decades.

*Note about natural gas plants: Not all plants run on gas extracted through fracking. The BL England would have been one example, allegedly. Still, there's that silly GHG emission thing to worry about. Also, NJ, to my knowledge, does not have a good store of natural gas. The ban would prevent externalities from big gas states like PA from being dumped in New (probably South) Jersey.