Signs of Spring in the Park

Brandywine Park is the single best thing about Wilmington: the Brandywine River, the diverse bridges and monuments, the llamas at the zoo, the ducks, geese, groundhogs and foxes, and the ever changing landscape.

Here are the latest signs that Spring has arrived in the park.

From Drop Box

Van Buren Street heading up Monkey Hill

From Drop Box

Snowdrops

From Drop Box

Crocus

From Drop Box

Marsh Marigold?

From Drop Box

Maple Blossoms

From Drop Box

Cherry blossoms near the Josephine Fountain

From Drop Box

Maple blossoms

Delaware Center for Horticulture

There are plenty of challenges when trying to garden in the city. The space has to be used for every conceivable outdoor activity from eating, playing, and cooking to storage for bikes, trash-cans and cars. Many backyards are largely paved with bricks or concrete or contain compacted, poor soil which a shovel reveals to be full of broken glass and decaying bricks. High fences between some houses cast all day shade while other yards suffer from being over exposed to the sun without a tree (or a space for a tree) anywhere.

On the upside, your problems are confined to a small area and you may never need a lawnmower.


In Wilmington, the best place for advice on city gardening comes from the Delaware Center for Horticulture. Besides offering lectures and workshops, they make plants available to some city neighborhoods without garden centers and promote the urban tree canopy. They also plant public areas like highway median strips and roadsides. (Photo by mathplourde on Flickr)

Every year the DCH sponsors a City Garden Contest which recongnizes the hard work and ingenuity of city gardeners. All the judges are volunteer amateurs: they walk around with a map and a score sheet and have a lot of fun while getting inspired for their own gardens. When I judged the Group Garden division, I was able to see the transformative power of gardening for residents of a women's prison, an alcohol rehab center and a homeless shelter.

The demonstration garden behind the DCH buildings on DuPont Street showcase key concepts for urban gardeners:

1.) Start by considering the "hardscape" of your garden, which is the flooring, the walls, and the hallways. On a city lot you will likely need to either garden in containers or build raised beds to get above the old soil. Part of your hardscape can involve reusing cool old things: DCH has old lamp posts growing climbing plants and old shovels used as a gate. Just as a small indoor room requires 3D thinking to maximize its potential, think about giving the plants structures to get them off the floor and onto the walls. A pergola doubles the use of the space as a loft bed would.

2.) After the hardscape comes the plants. The DCH recommends growing native plants so you can support native birds and insects, prevent invasion by weedy imports and reduce the need to water, spray and otherwise pamper exotic plants. Be very realistic about the amount of sunlight and water your garden receives. Most of my plant failures have come from having sun-loving plants in the shade or having moisture loving plants in terra cotta pots that are constantly drying out. Check out the National Wildlife Foundation for recommendations of native plants for different conditions.

3.) Feed your garden with homemade compost and water it from your rain barrel. Composting does not have take up very much room - my bin is 2 feet square and ends up holding a year of kitchen scraps. DCH holds workshops on composting and setting up rain barrels.

Window Boxes

In honor of the first day of Spring, my daughter and I just planted primroses in the window boxes out front. Living on 4/100ths of an acre, there isn't much else room to garden.

I believe in the charm of window boxes. When I visited Germany for a summer in High School, I was struck by the profusion of window boxes on private houses and public buildings and what a cohesive force it was in the public space. Living in an urban area, where brick wall meets concrete sidewalk, flowers are very welcome. They remind us of the seasons, soften the hard edges of the built world, and represent hope, beauty, and rejuvenation.

One urban neighborhood that I have read about uses window boxes as activism. Over-the-Rhine, Cincinnati is a neighborhood full of 19th Century buildings and is listed on the National Historic Register. From a densely populated high of 44,000 residents in 1900, the current population is below 8,000. The grand buildings in the neighborhood have fallen into disrepair and are in danger of being lost. Crime is a major issue for the residents of the neighborhood. A group of residents decided to hang window boxes and fill them with lush plantings to emphasize that the neighborhood was cared for and looked after. The residents formed a group with the ambitious plan to create a mile of window boxes in Over-the-Rhine.

The "Broken Window" hypothesis which is used in criminology, says that disorder (broken windows) leads to increasing disorder, and eventually more and more severe crimes. In Over-the-Rhine, the window box gardeners are hoping that order will bring more and more order and a reduction in crime. In addition the window boxes act to give the neighborhood some distinction, some "branding" to the neighborhood. Now you are in Over-the-Rhine, now you are not. It also recalls the neighborhood's German roots. I think it's an awesome idea, better than the ubiquitous "flag" approach to dressing up urban spaces.

Window boxes are more difficult to get right than they seem at first. They look best when they are a bit wider than the window they are beneath. They must be attached securely to something. I carefully measured the space outside my first floor windows and ended up buying window boxes from Williams Sonoma. I wanted wrought iron to match the outside fence, and I was looking for a design that harmonized with the age of my house. After I got the boxes, I found out they were wider than advertised. That caused me to rethink how they were going to be attached. I attached them to my house, but eventually they started pulling down the old wood. Eventually I got a carpenter to come and build up a really firm foundation for my boxes.

Watering is not an issue for these boxes because they are at ground level. I don't have second floor boxes because we have storm windows and security screens and I wouldn't be able to water them. One problem I do have is that the boxes are in deep shade and almost any flower box arrangement I have ever seen relies on sun-loving plants. Every summer I try different things in the boxes, although the boring coleus and impatiens are usually the best. In Winter, I fill them with holly, pine and Christmas balls.

But in Spring time, I look forward to the pansies, primroses and ranunculus. For the price of a bouquet, I get two months of a cheery welcome home.

9th Street Lofts

My most recent Wilmington post was about the destructive forces of Colonial Parking and their quest to turn Market Street into smooth black asphalt, so today I decided to look at the more creative forces we have in our city.

I went to look at two lofts that are available at 218 and 222 W. 9th Street by Preservation Initiatives. They are walk up lofts with plenty of good light, well proportioned space, refinished old floors, high ceilings, and character. The kitchens are efficient but well equipped and the bathrooms are pleasant.

Chris Winburn, of Preservation Initiatives, who was showing me around, says the company is involved in some other buildings in the Market Street area, including the properties on the 400 block of Market, across from Orillas. Right now, all those buildings have are some facades and front rooms, but they are planning 14 loft apartments along with retail/commercial space and somehow they are going to attach in the back of the buildings to new construction.

Seeing that effort cheers me up. We could have ended up with more office tower/ curtain wall blech or even surface parking in this area of town. Instead we are going to keep the finely detailed, human scaled, inviting feel of Wilmington's architectural heritage. That is something to be encouraged.

Brookings Article on Metro Areas

According to Bruce Katz, Mark Munro and Jennifer Bradley, authors of this article from the Brooking Institution, the health of the largest metro areas matters more than the health of the 50 state economies. The authors say it is cities that are creating jobs, innovations, and prosperity. This has implication for policy at the federal level.

We should be spending money on metropolitan infrastructure, such as new transit lines or the maintenance and upgrade of existing roads and bridges, because it gives the best return on investment, the most bang for the buck. And yet the federal government sends the overwhelming bulk of national infrastructure funds to states, not metros. Given the vagaries of state politics, state departments of transportation in turn tend to scant metro investments in favor of building brand-new roads in far-flung places. Money that could be fueling the metro economic engine ends up widening a rural highway.

But—critically—metros are more than the sum of their parts. When they function at their highest pitch, metros epitomize the special “multiplier” value of concentration, clustering, and agglomeration in economic life, a value celebrated over the centuries by economists such as Adam Smith, Alfred Marshall, and Paul Krugman. The gains are manifold. Thanks to the cost-effective sharing of fixed resources in relatively dense locations, infrastructure investments yield markedly higher payoffs in metropolitan areas than in non-metro areas, or in the old hub-and-spoke, urban/suburban model. Metropolitan density yields invention: Patenting rates rise markedly with increased employment density, such as is provided by metropolitan areas. Metro areas also accelerate residents’ wage growth, because they promote learning, help match people to jobs and people to people. Economists Edward Glaeser and David Maré found that workers in large metro areas earn a 33 percent wage premium, that the premium accrues to them over time, and that it stays with them when they leave the area. Metro areas themselves seem to speed the accumulation of human capital.

And finally, metropolitan land-use and placemaking bring special advantages. More compact development patterns preserve rural lands and valuable ecosystems that rapid suburbanization might otherwise consume. Likewise, such development expands transportation options and generates fewer vehicle miles and associated greenhouse gas emissions. One result: U.S. metro-area residents— frequently supported by public transit and greater residential densities—have smaller per capita carbon footprints than the average American.

More Photos of King and Market Street Demolitions

In the photo above you can see that the view from Market Street now goes all the way across to the East side of King Street.

(Above) This side of King Street is protected from demolition because it is part of the Eastside Historic District. Unfortunately, the West side of the street is not.


(Above) These are the houses that remain on the West side of the street. I doubt they will last very long, given the City's weak kneed response to the demolition of the others. I call them houses, but as you can see, they are used as offices and are in a commercial zone.


Once a street has a big hole in it, it loses all its character. In urban contexts, the even setbacks of the rowhouses function to create the feeling of a room. The facades are the walls of this outdoor room and our lives take place within their shelter. Without the walls, we are in a no-man's land. It's a very uncomfortable feeling for pedestrians.


Here's the current lot which Colonial Operates and wishes to expand. You can see that the lot is not kept in good condition. It has no lighting, security, greenery, permeable pavement, run-off control or any aesthetic improvements of any kind. We are supposed to believe that this new lot will be different than the other hundred lots they have owned/managed.

Some Views of the Demolition on Market and King Streets

This is a view of the rubble remaining after six properties were just demolished by Tiffin, LLC.  Market Street is on the left in this view and King Street (not visible) is to the right.  The paved area is from demolitions carried out in a previous era, before I lived downtown.  In 1997, the City of Wilmington passed an Ordinance prohibiting the creation of new commercial lots in the Downtown Design District of which this is part.
You can really see the gaping wound created in this block.  This is the 1200 block of King Street, and we are looking North.  How will this block ever recover?  The company responsible for the demolition of the properties claims they are helping the City out by amassing properties of various ownerships into a single entity that can support a large office tower.  This block is part of the area known as "Lawyer's Row."  When the New Castle County Court House was located a block up the street, many lawyers had offices in these old houses.  There are still lawyers in the remaining houses on this street.
A mother and her child crossing the street because the sidewalk is closed.  Lawyer's Row is located along the dividing line between my neighborhood - Midtown Brandywine - and the Upper East Side.  The towers in this photo were built on former residential stock. Despite the somewhat hollowed out street vibe caused by half vacant office towers, parking garages, surface lots, and a scarcity of retail offerings, there is a fair amount of pedestrian activity on this block. Market and King Streets both lead to the Market Street Bridge, which connects this part of Wilmington to Brandywine Village and other neighborhoods to the North of the Brandywine River. One block south is Rodney Square, our main bus hub and the cultural heart of downtown.

What are streets for?

The New York Times reports that Mayor Bloomberg is planning to close sections of Broadway to vehicle traffic as early as May this year.  Last year Bloomberg proposed levying a daily use tax, like London has, to deal with increasing auto congestion, but he didn't have support from legislators.  

Quoted in Newsweek,  Sam Schwartz, the city's former traffic commissioner says "Bloomberg is taking the position that as long as it's within the two curbs, it's [city] property and he can decide how to use it."

For many decades the theory has been that auto congestion is caused by supply and demand. There is a certain supply of space on streets and highways and there is a constant or rising demand for this space.  The new planning theory is that sometimes you can take away a street and you also take away the demand.  (Or: If you don't build it, they won't come.)

In the Broadway case, Mayor Bloomberg is arguing something less: he's just saying that Broadway is an inconvenient diagonal that adds to long wait times at intersections.  But the result will be that pedestrians are given more public space which is especially desirable in Times Square.

I am glad to hear NY is going to give the Times Square pedestrians more space.  Sometimes cities only put pedestrian malls in places that need revitalizing and no one goes there and they are dreary places.  It makes more sense to add them where the people already are.

Venice from the air

This link will bring you to aerial photographs of Venice, a city of connected buildings and the largest car-free city in the world.

I think one of the things I would enjoy most about visiting Venice would be the lack of car noise.

Fight Surface Parking Lots Updated

Surface parking lots are the utter bane of downtown living, which is obvious if you walk near one. But our fair city hasn't done enough to stop the creation of more of them and doesn't seem to grasp the harm they do.

This week a developer tore down these houses on King Street to enlarge the surface parking lot there. Just this past week he tore down three on Market street, the back side of the same lot. This is Market Street, our town's Main Street. While the Mayor's office is paying attention to rebranding the 200-600 blocks of Market Street as LoMa for Lower Market Street and the 600 to 1000 blocks are also receiving Historic District status, the rest of Market Street towards the Brandywine River is being neglected.


The truth is there is ample parking already downtown and no need for this lot. Some of the parking is not visible; it's in garages and that's how it should be. But the rest of the parking is very visible because it is on ugly surface lots which ruin the urban fabric, decrease the vitality of neighborhoods and cut them off from downtown. People don't like to walk near them or live near them. The developer's true intentions are to rip down buildings incrementally until an entire city block has been amassed, and then sell to a developer for a high-rise. If the lots sit vacant for two decades in the meantime, that's too bad for you and everyone else who is working for a livable downtown.

Put up better signs for garages so the suburbanites can find them, invest in decent transit, and stop the madness of wasting the city on empty parking lots owned by land speculators. No more surface lots! No demolition for parking!

Imagine a beautiful, livable city. Imagine a city you would like to visit. It's about people, it's about activity, it's about vibrancy. It's not cars in lots.

The City of Wilmington Department of Planning tells me that there is a part of the City's code which prohibits the creation of more surface lots in the downtown design district.  The developers are seeking a variance to this ordinance and are threatening to leave the lots a pile of rubble if they don't get their variance.  Oh, I get it black mail!  I guess we should all start tearing down our houses now.   We can always apologize later.

The Stability of Cities in Economic Collapse

This month's Atlantic magazine has an article by Richard Florida called How the Crash Will Reshape America. Florida says that the effects of the crash will be felt differently in different places across the country. He predicts the losers are more likely places like Las Vegas and Phoenix (cities built on real estate development) and the Midwest rust belt cities like Cleveland and Detroit (built on manufacturing and already in decline.)

Florida argues that the most successful areas to emerge from this economic downturn will be the places where creative and educated people are clustered most tightly together. So, although NYC has lost 17,000 financial sector jobs, he predicts it will do well because of the close packed talent base available in the region. One statistic in the article that jumped out at me was "Thirty years ago, educational attainment was spread relatively uniformly throughout the country, but that’s no longer the case. Cities like Seattle, San Francisco, Austin, Raleigh, and Boston now have two or three times the concentration of college graduates of Akron or Buffalo."

It seems to me that the cultural value placed on post-secondary education is not uniformly distributed in our country. I am a close reader of the web forum College Confidential. I have read posts from parents in suburban Texas whose children have taken a high school course load with 1/4 of their credits in Drill Team. (This is so the Football Team can practice for a double period during the school day and thus satisfy that cultural value.) And there are parents in Massachusetts and NYC whose kids have taken 11 AP classes including multi variable calculus. The priorities of school districts vary widely, and urban school districts usually do not compare well to their suburban counterparts. But the most highly educated people end up working in urban areas.

From a Row House point of view, this was the most salient point from Florida's article:

Suburbanization—and the sprawling growth it propelled—made sense for a time. The cities of the early and mid-20th century were dirty, sooty, smelly, and crowded, and commuting from the first, close-in suburbs was fast and easy. And as manufacturing became more technologically stable and product lines matured during the postwar boom, suburban growth dovetailed nicely with the pattern of industrial growth. Businesses began opening new plants in green-field locations that featured cheaper land and labor; management saw no reason to continue making now-standardized products in the expensive urban locations where they’d first been developed and sold. Work was outsourced to then-new suburbs and the emerging areas of the Sun Belt, whose connections to bigger cities by the highway system afforded rapid, low-cost distribution. This process brought the Sun Belt economies (which had lagged since the Civil War) into modern times, and sustained a long boom for the United States as a whole.

But that was then; the economy is different now. It no longer revolves around simply making and moving things. Instead, it depends on generating and transporting ideas. The places that thrive today are those with the highest velocity of ideas, the highest density of talented and creative people, the highest rate of metabolism. Velocity and density are not words that many people use when describing the suburbs. The economy is driven by key urban areas; a different geography is required.