Right Now Downtown

Once upon a time, people sat on front porches and in cafes and argued about the great and not-so-great issues of the day.  They discussed politics, art, religion, government, sports, events and other topics.

As is the case with many interactions, much modern conversation has moved from the flesh to the cyber world.  Blogs often serve in lieu of porches.

Ruth Milligan baffled me when she asked me to write a topical blog several years ago.  I had not read any blogs and did not understand the function they serve in modern discourse.

I can never anticipate the response to a blog entry, but always appreciate comments from Bart, Geoff, Columbusite, Walker Evans, Eric Martineau, Eric Davies and others.  Comments not intended to offend sometimes offend.  At other times, I prod and get some pretty emotional responses.  People seem to get particularly defensive about lifestyle choices.

I will keep cranking out these blogs, but invite you to submit an entry to information@downtowncolumbus.com.  Start your own argument.  It’s fun.

The Columbus High Five looked pretty good last weekend.  I took my 11-year-old daughter, Lilly, to a sold-out WICKED at the Ohio Theatre on Friday night.  Before the show, we ate at Tip Top.  Gay Street was full of sidewalk diners at Latitude 41, Plantain Cafe, Tip Top and Due Amici.

Speaking of Gay Street, the cast and crew of WICKED are staying at the Residence Inn.  Chandra Lee Schwartz, who plays Glinda in WICKED, says that she is enjoying her stay in Columbus and has flattering things to say about the “town.”

The Gay Softball World Series clearly added energy, with 2,500 athletes staying in downtown hotels.  As Lilly and I walked to the Ohio Theatre from Gay Street, we passed a rooftop party at the Renaissance Hotel and a surprising number of other pedestrians.

After the show, we encountered gridlock on High Street as we approached the Short North.  We turned on Vine Street to head west toward Neil Avenue and encountered more traffic as we passed Park Street at 11:30 p.m.  Vine and Park streets had hundreds of people walking from club to club.

As I sat in traffic, all I could do was smile.

Urban neighborhoods are difficult to develop.  They often have dense, distressed property, disproportionate levels of poverty, environmental contamination and other issues.  Suburban “green field” sites are relatively easy to assemble and develop and receive lavish taxpayer support for new infrastructure.

Many years ago, legislators developed tax abatements as an incentive to develop distressed urban centers.  Their logic was to “level the playing field” between urban neighborhoods and “green fields” areas.

In a perverted twist of logic, tax abatements are now primarily used to encourage sprawl.  Marc Conte, Research Director for Capital Crossroads Special Improvement District, took a look at tax abated property in Franklin County several years ago and retrieved his study last week at the request of a developer.  In 2005, the County had a total of 734 tax-abated parcels with a combined abated value of almost $1.8 billion.  Downtown accounted for 9 percent of the total abated value for the county.  Parcels in the City of Columbus but not downtown accounted for 20 percent of total abated value and the rest of the county accounted for 71 percent.  Columbus accounted for 68 percent of the County’s population, but only 29 percent of its tax abatements.

Downtown and urban neighborhoods might be better served if tax abatements were completely eliminated.

Columbus seems to have a phobia about congestion.  Several years ago, for example, I served on a taxicab task force to discuss ways to make cab service more appealing.  We spent a great deal of time talking about how to encourage more people to hail taxis and made several recommendations to the City to eliminate a perception that it discouraged hailing.

Safety officials were particularly vexed by late-night taxi service on Park Street near the North Market.  From 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. Park Street looked like Manhattan, with a steady stream of taxis dropping and cruising for fares.  There were too many taxis!  Cabs stopped in the street!  People stepped into the street to climb into a cab!

The fear of congestion runs deep in some Columbus circles.  Last week, a Public Safety official asked the Pearl Market to eliminate its vendors on Broad and Gay streets.  Although the Public Service Department had issued permits, the Public Safety Department had not.

According to the Safety official, the “problem” with the Pearl Market is pedestrian congestion!  There are too many people on the sidewalk!  People are lingering!

In honor of this request, I feature a picture of the ideal downtown sidewalk.

The Columbus Dispatch provides regular AP coverage of crude oil prices.  I read the coverage religiously.  It is the most accurate indicator of urban health.  Rising crude prices hint that cities might see a meaningful resurgence.  Falling crude oil prices generally doom cities to population and job loss and divestment.

Sprawl is predicated on cheap energy.  Most people can afford long SUV commutes, large homes and warehouse-style shopping only if energy prices are low.  Cheap energy enables construction of subdivisions in central and northern Delaware County, new big box stores to replace those built in the 1980s and 1990s, and needless duplication of infrastructure and municipal services further and further from Broad and High.

I have become cynical about the ability of state and local government to manage growth in a way that serves the public good.  Like most metros in the United States, growth policies in Central Ohio tend to be driven by short-term profit.

Because our best hope for urban order is sustained gasoline prices of $5 or more, I look for crude oil prices each day.  In today’s newspaper, I was pleased to see that, at this moment, crude oil prices are going up.  Go gas!

Columbus is home to many innovators.  Few have changed art and technology as much as Charles Csuri, a pioneer in computer animation.  Smithsonian Magazine recognizes him as the “father of digital art and animation.”

His work is being exhibited at the OSU Urban Arts Space in the former Lazarus Building through October 9.  The exhibition includes more than 85 computer works dating from 1963 to 2010.

One of my favorite pieces is “Scribbles and Smears in Space,” an animation projected in a “black box.”  The area, which has a seat in the middle, is cordoned off with blackout curtains.  Walking into the space will make you forget all your troubles and will measurably lower your blood pressure.

Charles Csuri became a well-known neighborhood name after I first moved to the Short North in 1980.  In 1981, he formed a company called Cranston/Csuri Productions at Neil and 8th Avenues to find commercial applications for computer-generated art.  The result of his work can be found in movie theatres each time a feature-length animation hits the big screen.

Walmart is by no means the only big-box predator in Ohio, but it is clearly the worst.  On June 11, Business First published a list of the top ten employers in Ohio whose employees qualify for public assistance.  At the top of the list with 15,002 employees is – you guessed it – Walmart.

If public subsidies paid only for social services for Walmart employees, we would be lucky, but public funding goes far beyond social services.  Taxpayer funding of roadway improvements, utilities, tax abatements and other subsidies make the behemoth’s low prices a mirage.

Those costs are merely the direct ones.  The indirect costs of Walmart create another set of economic and social expenses.  Walmart has almost single-handedly destroyed most walkable communities, gutting the downtown retail districts of virtually every small and medium city in the state and eliminating entire communities of retail entrepreneurs.

I sometimes wonder about the lesser of two evils:  selling drugs to supplement one’s income or shopping at Walmart to stretch one’s income.

The development of Gowdy Field at Olentangy River Road and Third Avenue with generous incentives from the City of Columbus is disappointing.  Two new buildings in the development house Time Warner Cable and the Ohio State University James Comprehensive Cancer Center.  Daimler Group is building a third structure on Third.

I began to think about the layout of this development one day as I waited at a traffic signal and saw a man walking south on Olentangy to get access to Time Warner.  Daimler had blocked access to an asphalt trail that serves as a sidewalk, forcing the pedestrian to walk on Olentangy and compete with 45-mile-an-hour traffic.

Pedestrians, transit riders and bicyclists are clearly an afterthought at Gowdy Field.  Buildings are surrounded by acres of surface parking.  The buildings do not open onto the streets they face, but appear to provide only rear entry (no double entendre intended).  The development stands in stark contrast to a much more urban-looking development to the south, Nationwide’s Grandview Yard.

Measured against a fallow, former landfill, the new buildings at Gowdy Field are an improvement.  But alas, our standards are so low.

Columbus is making some amazing strides with bicycling.  Friday, the Cityof Columbus announced a bike-sharing program for employees.  City employees can use bicycles available at City Hall, the Columbus Health Department and the Jerry Hammond Center.

The Columbus Health Department has long been one of the most progressive in the United States.  We also have a mayor who is “finding his stride” and becoming one of the country’s truly great mayors.

On the biking issue alone, Mayor Coleman has made a huge difference.  He became personally involved in securing Federal Energy Stimulus fund so Capital Crossroads SID can develop bicycle parking facilities in downtown.  He has championed “Share the Road,” bike lanes and trails, and biking to work.

Ultimately, he may have as a big of an impact on Columbus as Manny Sensenbrenner did in the 1950s and 1960s.  His impact, however, will be to grow the city inward, not outward.

He has had his impact on me.  Thanks in large part to his prodding, I bought my bicycle on May 17 and have been riding to work virtually every day since.

Reconstruction of the I-71 and I-70 “split” in downtown shows how badly Ohio’s transportation policies need to be fixed.

Ohio will soon spend $1.7 billion rebuilding a few miles of interstate highway in downtown.  The result will be a wider trench and monster freeway roaring through half a dozen urban neighborhoods.

One reason for reconstructing this stretch of highway makes sense, to make it safe.  The other reason, to increase capacity, is ludicrous.  Additional lanes for through traffic will not fix anything.  According to ODOT, the wider highway will quickly fill to capacity, leaving us with no more than a bigger traffic jam.  Why?  Bigger highways merely enable the same people to drive longer distances to do tasks previously done closer to home.

In the meantime, Ohio legislators cannot seem to agree on spending $17 million per year to operate a 260-mile passenger rail line.  Isn’t it interesting that our State legislators don’t debate the cost of maintaining highway “improvements?”  How much do taxpayers spend on highway patrols, snow removal, roadway and bridge repairs, landscaping, lighting repairs, storm-water run-off, litter collection, signage, emergency medical services and other ongoing costs?

There is a solution for the highway “split” in downtown.  Fix the safety problems.  Don’t increase road capacity.