Creative touches move levers for broad benefits
Shoppers check out clothes in the Henny Penny Mobile Boutique (a.k.a. “the Fashion Truck”) in front of the Hoot & Louise boutique on South Main at G.E. Patterson.
Memphis is already intimately acquainted with “tactical urbanism” — the use of creative, short-term and low-cost projects intended to catalyze long-term neighborhood investment. Binghamton’s “New Face for an Old Broad” event in 2010, which was modeled on other successful “better block” projects around the country, serves as a national case study for the application of tactical urbanism.
The results are worth repeating: An initial investment of $20,000 was followed by more than $20 million in private investment put toward the renovation of 29 properties and the launching of 25 new businesses along the neighborhood’s once-moribund Broad Avenue.
The event brought the area back into the city’s collective conscience, and its collaborative process built greater social capital, a benefit to which no dollar value can be assigned. Altogether, that’s a remarkable return on investment. Most impressive, this work unfolded in less than five years.
Tactical urbanism projects like “New Face for an Old Broad” are often successful because they allow citizens, nonprofit organizations and entrepreneurs to participate directly and collaboratively in the improvement of neighborhoods. Pat Brown of the Historic Broad Avenue Business Association put it best when she said, “It’s easier for any of us to envision what the future can be if you can see it, touch it and taste it as well. Instead of looking at a piece of paper, we want people to experience it.”
Brown’s comments underscore the point that civic engagement and eco- nomic development must extend beyond typical paper-based planning exercises led by bureaucrats and consultants in drab conference rooms. Increasingly, citizens want to co-develop neighborhood projects rather than have city leaders alone lead the way. Tools for the collaborative, bottom-up process are becoming more effective all the time, while traditional top-down planning generates only more “planning fatigue” — too much talking and not enough doing.
The new role for local government is to proactively enable low-risk tactical urbanism projects and then use the resources at their disposal to scale up the most effective ones. The new Hampline currently under construction that will connect the Shelby Farms Greenline with Overton Park serves as a great example for how government and private-sector investment can follow the work of citizen activists and advocates.
Mayor A C Wharton got it right when he said, “Too often, cities only look to big-budget projects to revitalize a neighborhood. There are simply not enough of those projects to go around. (S)mall, low-risk, communitydriven improvements all across our city … can add up to larger, long-term change.”
On a recent trip to Memphis, I met with a number of city officials, neighborhood advocates, local business owners and developers working on projects large and small. There were three key takeaways from those conversations:
No matter the role they serve, Memphians are growing increasingly frustrated with the results of a de-
For more information, visit Memphis.ULI.org. In a fresh riff on the food truck movement, owner Cyndii Jo Hartley’s refitted Lantz vending truck brings a new clothes shopping experience to various locations around the city. cades-old project delivery process tuned to the challenges and cultural expectations of another era.
An inclusive vision for the city’s future is currently lacking, to say nothing of the tools in place to make such a plan a reality.
The only way to get things done at all is to find creative ways around the cumbersome project delivery system. You might call them “urban hacks.”
We must remember that the incremental approach to urban redevelopment runs counter to the conventional planning and economic development strategies still used by most cities, including those in the Memphis region. In light of that fact, a few questions come to mind:
What is your vision for the future, Memphis? How will you and your neighbors help the city achieve it ? In turn, how will your city government enable citizens to help realize a more inclusive future together?
During this week’s Strong Towns Boot Camp and the Bootstrap City public lecture series, we will explore these questions and seek answers that will encourage the next stage of Memphis’ progress. Mike Lydon is a principal of The Street Plans Collaborative and an internationally recognized planner, writer and advocate for livable cities.