The Real Impacts of Downtown Sporting Venues

Nur Asri is an Associate at Larisa Ortiz Associates.

The 2018 Major League Baseball season is upon us. Like every other major professional sport, the season reminds us of the vast impacts– both good and bad – that sport has on our cities and downtowns. Across the country, downtowns are becoming choice sites for sports arenas. In 2016, the Brookings Institution found that 45 stadiums and arenas for the four major professional sports — football, baseball, basketball, and hockey — were constructed/renovated in the United States from 2000 to 2014 with a large majority of these being built in urban centers.

This map shows a concentration of sports teams (and by extension, their stadiums) by city from 2012.

Communities around the country are often told by political leaders of the potential economic effects of building these stadia or arenas; however the reality is often a lot less rosy. Sure, these attractions are bringing in visitors downtown in large numbers like no other business might. Last year, the average attendance to any Major League Baseball game in the US was approximately 30,000. In 2016, the Yankee Stadium in the Bronx saw over 3.5 million spectators enter their doors.

As a result, local bars and restaurants might see hikes in foot traffic due to pre- and post- game crowds seeking replenishment. In Downtown Sacramento, pedestrian traffic in the immediate area of the NBA Kings stadium grew by 10%, according to the Downtown Sacramento Partnership. Many bars have even leveraged these pedestrian counts by hosting parties that coincide with game days and even hired special DJs or introduced sport-themed menu items to lure passing crowds. Unfortunately, the same impact is unlikely for retailers offering goods and services unrelated to entertainment, dining, or sports and wellness. So the jewelry store, hair salon or local book store aren’t naturally going to be the biggest fans of a stadium.

The No-Trickle Effect

In recent years, stadiums themselves have become increasingly mixed-use and entertainment-focused attractions. This means that the developments are inward-looking and offer amenities and attractions that responsive to what already exists in adjacent areas. In particular, the retail and food and beverage offerings found within stadiums are driving visitors with busier schedules to completely skip stopping by outside bars and restaurants before games and spending their dollars directly in these arenas.

In an anecdote from 2012, owner of the Yankee Tavern in the Bronx, Joe Bastone, stated that his business was not really making more money as a result of the new Yankee Stadium’s opening. He claimed that the stadium in fact killed local business because once inside, “visitors can choose from 444 souvenir shops, eateries and concession stands, nearly 50 percent more options than in the old stadium. From hot dogs to Cuban sandwiches and sushi, and from pennants to pinstriped jerseys, Yankees fans can find it all without setting foot outside the stadium.”

Photo: USA Today

Some stadiums have carefully curated concession stands to offer local fare and structured vendor deals with local restaurants. For example, the Barclays Center in the Prospect Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, home to the Nets basketball team and Islanders hockey team, offers Brooklyn-based Williamsburg Pizza, Café Habana Cuban sandwiches, and of course Brooklyn Lager on tap. However, stadium and sports arena developments still have much more to do in terms of growing partnership with small businesses and downtown associations and to enhance cross-shopping opportunities outside the arenas to support adjacent economies.

Furthermore, having tens of thousands of bodies arrive all at once in a concentrated geography doesn’t always bode well for businesses and residents. The hordes of spectators entering and leaving the downtown can be noisy and disorganized, and will certainly impede the regular operations of a business. To mitigate the impacts of human and vehicular congestion on game days, downtown associations are taking a few precautionary measures:

Educating potential visitors on available parking options and street closures. Partner with local news outlets to publish day-of articles that include details on how to get to sporting venues by car or by public transit. This information helps visitors plan their trip ahead of time and reduces frustration on the day of the game.

Uber at Coors Fields, CO

Partnering with ride-share services to manage people and vehicle flow near the venue. Designated Uber pick-up and drop-off areas with clear signage and instructions should be made available to riders to reduce congestion near the stadium.

Detroit Tigers, for example, signed Uber as the official ride-sharing partner for Comerica Park in downtown Detroit. The partnership not only designates pick up areas but also offers first time riders promotional codes. The same deal was made with the Detroit Lions and Detroit Pistons.

Providing shuttle rides to and from transit stops or parking lots farther away. Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena partners with the Downtown Partnership to provide such a service during event days. Again, this helps reduce congestion near the arena and makes the experience downtown less stressful for visitors.

Photo: San Francisco Bicycle Coalition

Providing convenient, attended bike parking service. This strategy has in fact made driving to games the more inconvenient option for those in San Francisco. A regulation passed by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1999 requires monitored bicycle parking if an event incurs a street closure and anticipates more than 2,000 participants. As a result, all San Francisco Giants games played at AT&T park now provide valet bike parking services to more than 200 spectators, thanks to an arrangement with local bike advocacy group, SF Bicycle Coalition.

So if you’re thinking of attracting a sports team to make its home downtown in a new arena to catalyze further investment in the area and attract visitors, think also about the potential impacts it will have on foot traffic diversion and vehicular congestion. Prepare small local businesses for game days and at the same time, make sure that the arena is responsive to and supportive of existing businesses in the area. 

Dockless Bike Shares: Addressing the First and Last Mile

Dan McCombie is a research associate at Larisa Ortiz Associates

These days there’s a lot of talk about whom or what the next big disruptor is going to be and what industry it’s going to shake to its very core. I wasn’t expecting it to happen in the bike sharing industry. I say this because bike sharing still feels in some ways very nascent. My neighborhood of Crown Heights just had a rollout of new docking stations this year to meet still growing demand and yet now we have the emergence of these “dockless” companies? What exactly are they and what do they mean for commercial districts? 

Unlike traditional bike shares, which require picking up and dropping off a bike from designated stations, dockless bike share eschews them altogether so that riders can use their smartphone app to locate, unlock, ride, and drop off the bike in conceivably any public space (think Car2Go). This is important for commercial district practitioners because it deals with the “first-and-last mile” issue. Most people are comfortable walking a ¼ mile to a bus stop, train, or other fixed-route transit system, but the number drops off precipitously as the distance grows. This pushes people into their cars, to other shopping districts, or prompts them to stay home. Traditional bike shares have sought to address this, but their locations have been subject to certain criteria like population density, number of jobs, or the presence of certain anchor institutions. Not so anymore. For that reason we need to think creatively and critically about how dockless bikes might impact our commercial districts. What follows is a breakdown of what I think are the key benefits, issues, and ways to move forward.

What are the benefits? 

1. Cheaper for cities  

Unlike publicly subsidized and corporate-sponsored traditional bike shares, dockless companies are privately owned and operated. The money the city saves on building stations and maintaining the system can hypothetically be diverted towards better infrastructure, like more bicyle racks and lanes for all users.

2. Better access

Whereas bike share stations are put in locations based on a set criteria, dockless bikes can be anywhere. If your neighborhood has missed out on getting a station in the past, this is an equalizer.

3. Cheaper for riders

Private dockless bikeshares cost roughly half the price of traditional bike shares. Washington, DC's recently implemented dockless bikes cost $1USD/half hour compared to $2 for Capital Bikeshare. 

What are the issues?

1. Ineffective rebalancing

Without designated stations and a well-staffed team, bikes may not always be where people need them during daily commutes. This can also result in bikes concentrating into disorganized piles, creating eyesores, and being an overall public nuisance.

2. Socializing private costs 

Maybe the city saves money by not having to build stations, but if it has to expend money and resources to clear sidewalks and streets (and even trees), at what point does the calculus stop making sense?

3. Lack of regulation

Cities lack the regulatory framework to address dockless bikes. Some companies have employed Uber-style tactics to break into markets without municipal consent, creating public backlash. Cities have tried to respond with stricter policies that could hamper growth. Until cities establish a regulatory framework with the cooperation of these companies, tension is likely to grow and with unpredictable externalities.  

What are the solutions?

Much of the rhetoric around dockless bike shares treat them as a referendum on how well our communities care for public goods. If bikes are vandalized, abandoned, or lost then it’s somehow a commentary on its citizens. Whether or not you agree with that statement, it doesn’t solve the issue. It makes better sense that these dockless companies would want to address the issues head-on in order to realize a better bottom line. If bicycles are being abandoned, that’s one less bike generating revenue. And it doesn’t help that cities aren’t taking kindly to cleaning up the mess. For cities like Singapore and Melbourne, this has meant impounding bicycles and assessing fines to the operators. In the case of Amsterdam, it was so dissatisfied with its own experience that it put a comprehensive ban on all forms of dockless bikes until further notice.   

Companies are seeking to mitigate concerns and inefficiencies by implementing their own credit and penalty systems. Credits are earned for reporting broken and illegally parked bicycles, posting a ride to Facebook, and otherwise having a successful trip. Penalties are assessed for parking in non-designated areas, forgetting to lock the bike, violating traffic rules, or losing the bike outright. The aggregate effect of these credits and penalties is either an increase or decrease in future prices. Other remedial measure include creating approved parking areas and geo-fencing, where the smartphone app clearly delineates where bikes are allowed to be parked and imposes fines on users who violate the boundaries. For me this presents an argument in favor of information-sharing arrangements between companies and cities. If cities are going to spend money on infrastructure like bicycle racks, lanes, and parking lots, they should know where it makes the most sense to do it. What better way for a company to cultivate goodwill than to share what it has learned through practical experience?

As commercial district practitioners, dockless bikes represent a potential opportunity. Does a shopping district lack the capacity to create a traditional bike share station, but has parking that could be converted into a bicycle lot? Is a high-volume train or bus station just far enough from a commercial corridor as to discourage pedestrian visitation, but could attract cyclists? Are you looking to attract tech-savvy Millennials and consumers who don't own cars?

Maybe dockless bikes are an answer. 

Below is a chart of some of the leading actors in the dockless bike share industry. 

For further information, I strongly recommend the Common Position Paper on Unlicensed Dockless Bike Sharing by the European Cyclists' Federation website. You can find it here.

The Bike Effect on Retail

Lately, we've been busy conducting stakeholder interviews and focus groups with business owners in downtowns all over the region and a common complaint that often arises is a shortage of parking. No matter where we are, merchants argue that a large number of potential customers and visitors to downtown are not coming because there simply isn't enough parking spaces to meet demand. But will building more parking spaces really increase retail vibrancy downtown? What about alternative transportation options such as walking and biking that so many cities around the country are slowly turning their heads to, and what about building infrastructure for those modes instead?

Biking, as we all know by now, comes with a myriad of environmental and health benefits. However, more recently, it is also proving its worth in bringing economic benefits to commercial districts. Unfortunately, it's not yet intuitive that paying customers might arrive by bicycle so business owners remain the last supporters of bike infrastructure.

Bike lanes, as it appears, do not hurt businesses. In a study by the NYC Department of Transportation in 2012 that followed various street redesign projects, it was revealed that sales income at locally-based businesses along 9th Avenue, where a protected bike lane was installed, increased as much as 49% between 2006 and 2010, compared to 3% borough-wide. Although the better sales performance cannot directly be attributed to the installation of bike lanes, it is clear that the bike lanes did not negatively impact businesses. 


Some posit this phenomenon occurs because cyclists have fewer barriers to stopping at a local business than those driving on the same street (Just imagine the hassle of looking for a parking spot for a car versus a bike that can be locked to any old lamp post or corral). However, it is more important that we recognize the overall calming effect that bike lanes provide to our streets. With the presence of bike lanes, protected or otherwise, motorists are forced to be more aware of cyclists on the roads and therefore move at slower speeds. This traffic calming effect then in turn attracts more pedestrians who, like cyclists, have greater freedom to stop and notice storefronts compared to those in automobiles. 

Although the fear faced by business owners of reducing on-street parking spaces for bike infrastructure may sometimes be unfounded, it is important that commercial districts looking to install bike lanes and corrals, or bike programs downtown engage business owners from the very beginning of the process to maintain transparency and build support among these stakeholders.

The Bike Friendly Business District Program in Long Beach, California, for example, did an amazing job in getting business owners involved from the get-go. The program encourages local visitors to bike to the commercial district to shop and dine by growing the number of bike-related businesses downtown and providing bike racks and corrals, bike lanes and clear signage that bolster the pedestrian and cyclist experience of the corridor. In the beginning of the process, the District partnered with neighborhood groups to research how customers traveled to a particular business and shared that information publicly with business owners, reducing common misconceptions about who shops where and how they arrive. By also putting on neighborhood events that encourage people to arrive by bicycle and on foot, and encouraging businesses to offer discounts to customers who cycle, the program has built a bike-friendly business district that today continues to thrive. 

Narratives about the economic benefits of bike infrastructure downtown may differ from town to town but the key to success lies in involving business owners at all turns of the process and clearing up any unfounded fear of the bike lane. Polk Street in San Francisco, for example, revealed that merchants' fears of removing parking spaces for pedestrian and bike infrastructure were completely groundless when an intercept survey conducted in 2013 revealed that only 14% of visitors to the commercial street arrived by car. 

It is also important to note that not all businesses will benefit equally from a bike lane. Furniture stores, for example, may have to adapt more than a cafe because customers simply cannot bike home with a product purchased in-store. However, there are ways to cope. For example, making available cargo bikes for delivery may be one way of adapting - as carried out in Long Beach, CA. Ultimately, the flexibility of a business will determine its chances of survival no matter the change to the district's physical landscape. If the environmental and health benefits of biking weren't already enough to convince you that customers are slowly converting to this mode of transportation, consider the calming effect of bikes on your commercial street and its potential to drive greater foot traffic - a new bike corral in front of your store may not be such a bad idea after all!

The most fundamental thing you need to know before you make your next downtown investment

What is the one most critical factor driving the success of your downtown economy? Getting this wrong could mean millions of dollars in wasted investment that fails to catalyze downtown - and could instead undermine it. Read on to learn more. 

Lessons learned the hard way

A few years ago I was working in a small waterfront community (name and places have been omitted to protect the innocent). To the north lay a large body of water (not many shoppers there!). To the south were certainly lots of people, but most were poised to travel away from the water and towards the malls that have located in more central locations. That said, the town had great bones. Main Street had a charming, pedestrian friendly feel. What’s more, walkable neighborhoods surrounded downtown. These homes, for the most part, had been well maintained and still evoked a feeling of small town living, where parents might send their kids downtown for ice cream with a few dollars in hand. This was the kind of place that many people might want to live.

Yet here we were – with a downtown that was struggling. The local movie theater was on the brink of closure. Vacancies were increasing. Downtown simply could not compete with the pull of nearby shopping malls, with their multiple offerings and centralized location. And even though there was more than enough parking downtown, much of it structured and behind the main street, the parking structures felt unsafe after having been neglected for years.  Dark corridors and broken elevators do not make for an inviting place to arrive for work or a downtown shopping trip.

Over the course of the project, I couldn’t help but notice that the community had also made infrastructure investments, some quite recently, that significantly undermined the downtown economy, and they probably did it without realizing it. Millions of dollars in infrastructure investment had recently gone towards street “improvements” around downtown that did very little for pedestrians, cyclists or those who use public transportation. The improvements were designed only with car owners in mind. It probably made sense at the time. I can imagine the conversation in City Hall … “most people drive, so let’s make sure we make driving through downtown fast and easy, and if they want to shop, let’s make sure they have more than enough parking.” Makes sense on some level. But what they also did was deprive residents of alternative options, options that might make a stroll or bike ride downtown part of an experience - an additive amenity that might make downtown an even more appealing place to visit. 

Unfortunately, poor decisions were made at many levels. The Mayor actively prevented bike lanes from being incorporated into a major streetscape improvement project. The rationale? The lanes would require maintenance and create a liability – costs the City could ill afford. In another instance, the recently reconstructed sidewalks connecting downtown to the surrounding neighborhoods strangely dead ended at major intersections, and often did not connect with existing crosswalks. Where crossings did exist, the crossing light offered barely enough time to cross the street before the light turned green. Everywhere we turned, we saw decisions that made OTHER places easier to access. Was it really a surprise that the downtown was suffering in light of the decisions made over the years? The slow chip, chip, chipping away of accessibility could be likened to the chipping away at the foundation of a house. At some point, the foundation fails and the house collapses.

Why you need to know about location theory
When thinking about access, it is important to understand fundamental economic theory, specifically “location theory”. Location theory states that businesses choose locations that will maximize profit. This theory is the basis of retail site selection as well. Being located in a place that is accessible and appealing to customers is critical to the bottom line. It is why Dunkin Donuts prefers the “inbound” side of the street – people buy coffee in the morning on the way to work. Or restaurants prefer to be on the “outbound” side of the street – people buy food on the way home from work. We also know that customers, especially in this day and age when time is a commodity, prefer to cross-shop, accomplishing a few shopping errands during a single visit. This is why retailers also prefer malls and shopping centers. These are often places designed for the time strapped shopper in mind. The concentration of stores draws more customers than a single store will on its own. (And on an aside, it is also why on-line shopping is so popular. What is more convenient than making a purchase from your home computer or smart phone? But I digress….)

Today I’m only going to tackle pedestrian and bike access....

Tips for taking stock of pedestrian and bike accessibility
When considering how accessible your downtown is, take stock of the following:

Bike access – Bike share programs and bike infrastructure are blossoming throughout the country. And where they have, local businesses seem to benefit. In New York’s Chelsea neighborhood, an NYC DOT study found a 49% increase in retail sales for locally based businesses after bike lanes were introduced compared to a 3% increase borough-wide. As biking becomes more popular as a mode of transit, local business districts, which are more accessible, are in a better position to draw customers from a larger trade area. As you assess your “bike friendliness”, ask yourself these basic questions:

• Does your district offer safe passage for those biking to the district? And are the lanes safe for cyclists of all ages?  In New York for instance, only children under 12 are allowed to ride on sidewalks. As a mother of a 6 year old – I would be thrilled if I could craft an afternoon of bike riding with my son, stopping to eat here or there. But the bike lanes in my neighborhood are shared with the road – not ideal for a little boy still learning to steer properly. So instead we leave our bikes at home, or load them into a car and leave the neighborhood.
• Are there sufficient locations to secure a bike when you reach your destination? If people have concerns about where they are going to lock up their bikes, it could deter their decision to visit your district. Consider that a single parking spot can support 10+ bike parking spaces. Wouldn’t businesses prefer ten shoppers over one who arrive by car?

Pedestrian access – There are two kinds of pedestrian access to consider – one that involves simply getting there and another that involves what happens once you arrive. Those are two different things. Lifestyle centers, for example thrive on the latter. Most customers arrive at these glorified malls - many of which attempt to mimic the Main Street environment – by car. Once they arrive, the quality of the common areas or “Main Street” is what they are there to experience. Like any mall, the owner tries hard to ensure a continuity of retail and an attractive environment. These places try very hard to achieve walkability.

The other kind of pedestrian access is about tapping the built in residential demand from people who living within walking distance of the shopping area. Here is where the “walk appeal” of all the streets and connections to downtown start to make a difference. Why is that? Because walk appeal is often psychological. A five-minute walk through a parking lot feels substantively different than a five-minute walk along a vibrant city street or leafy attractive sidewalk. A short walk on a hot day feels is much less appealing when there is no shade. A resident or office worker will walk further if the downtown environment is more appealing, when there is window shopping to be done or a cool spot to enjoy a nice view. In City’s like New York or London, walking a mile to one’s destination – a 15-minute walk – is not uncommon.

As you consider the pedestrian environment, ask yourself these basic questions:

• Is your downtown environment riddled with gaps in the pedestrian environment? Did you know that even 50 feet of a “poor” environment can keep people from walking past? In 2006 I was working at the New York City Economic Development Corporation, and as part of a rezoning along 125^th Street – which at that time was seeing lots of taking up ground floor retail space – creating dead zones in the evening. What we found was that even these minor breaks in continuity affected people’s perceptions and how far the were willing to walk. So take stock if your district. Is there a vacant lot that needs to be activated? A bank that shuts down at 5 pm? Retail that closes and pulls down roll down gates? All of these things make an environment less appealing to pedestrians. So the businesses located on the other side of that gap, whatever it is, will see fewer customers as a result. 
• Is the five-minute walk shed from your downtown comfortable to walk? Is it safe to walk? Is there proper lighting? Is there shade to protect pedestrians during hot days? I am working in a community right now with a great opportunity to connection a waterfront marina – with lots of visitors to downtown. The problem? A creek and bridge that are uncomfortable to cross lies between the marina and downtown. While most locals think the distance of ¼ mile is easy to walk, on a hot or even warm day, the is brutal.  The sidewalk is narrow and unprotected from car traffic.  Improving the bridge crossing for pedestrians, or even building a pedestrian only bridge across the river – not an insignificant undertaking – is necessary to seam these two assets together. 

Admittedly, every community is just a little bit different. Transportation habits and mores differ by location. Weather, land use patterns, income and demographics play a role in determining what these habits are in different places. While this mean that these principles should be tinkered with and customized for every place, at the end of the day a successful downtown will be easily accessible to as many people using as many forms of transportation as possible. The next time you look at your downtown - try looking at it from this new perspective.

The Abandoned Bike Dilemma

Are those pesky abandoned bikes causing an eyesore to your district and taking up valuable space?

We've all seen them. These abandoned bikes obviously have not seen their owner in a very long time and each time you see one its sad bike carcass has become more derelict. Lately, CDA came across the issue with a recent project so we thought we'd look into it.

We discovered that, especially in NYC, it is very difficult to get a bike removed and that both the process and the requirements are rigorous and inflexible.

In New York City for example, the bike must be affixed to public property and must meet 3 out of 5 of the following criteria:

• The appearance is crushed or not usable;
• Have parts missing from bicycle other than seat and front wheel;
• Have flat tires or missing both tires;
• Handlebars and pedals are damaged, or the fork, frame or rims are bent;
• 75 percent of bicycle is rusted.

But as WNYC noted the process to report abandoned bikes is solely by phone so there is no official online or digital submissions process and calling in a complaint "takes about 14 minutes and involves speaking with two operators." LA, on the other hand, has an online submission and appears to make the process more user friendly.

Most college campuses are very liberal with mass removals of abandoned bikes each summer. Bicycles are first tagged as abandoned and given two weeks to be moved before being impounded and then finally given away or salvaged 90 days later. The policy is similar in Toronto where even bikes that look operable but reported are tagged with a two week notice and removed if not relocated. According to Chicago's city code, an abandoned bike can be removed after being tagged for just a week.

Questioning how your city handles abandoned bikes?  It can be as simple as Google'ing "city of ____" + "bike removal." A little investigation, either by internet or 311, can get you on the way to clearing your commercial district of a long overdue abandoned bike.

Sometimes in the end you have to look at the problem and see it from a different angle. Adel Souto of New York has made this topic into an art form, check out his blog.

Roundup: Surgeon General rare push for exercise, placemaking projects, transportation trends translating out of urban core, big box parking lot solutions for peds

Surgeon general pushes people to start walking, communities to step up

The surgeon general, Vivek Murthy, on September 9th encouraged Americans to take a walk, to combat sedentary America, but he asked communities to also step up to make neighborhoods easier and safer for foot traffic.

Photo: AP Photo/Andrew Harnik

4 Cities Get $3 Million Each for Placemaking Projects

ArtPlace America granted funding to see art and culture intertwined not at the end of the project but throughout, in an effort to make art and culture the focus of community projects. "The winners include Cook Inlet Housing Authority in Anchorage, Fairmount Park Conservancy in Philadelphia, Jackson Medical Mall Foundation in Jackson, Mississippi, and Little Tokyo Service Center in Los Angeles."    More coverage here.

Will Big City Transportation Trends Translate to Small Town USA?

With the rise of transportation options in urban core America - Uber, TaskRabbit, Lyft, Seamless, etc - to deliver people, food, and services, those in the periphery are at the cusp of figuring out how to make it useful for them as well but finding few options.

Photo: AP Photo/Mark Lennihan

How to Make Big Box Stores Less Terrible for Walking: 8 Expert Tips

Big Box stores are not going anywhere, especially in America, and the vast majority are not designed for the pedestrian but for the personal automobile making them a dangerous destination by foot.  This article gives guidance to the big boxes to help get their non-auto patrons safely to the door.

Photo: @fineplanner/Twitter

Roundup: Best Practices for Generating Pedestrian Activity, Cons of Mixed Use, Detroit's Two-wheel Culture, Abandonment of Suburban Office Parks, and Chicago's Riverwalk

Which Streetscape Features Best Generate Pedestrian Activity?
An academic publication by Reid Ewing et al, examined which features and elements most effectively encourage pedestrian activity. They found that three of twenty features had a significant impact on ped counts: the proportion of windows on the street, the proportion of active street frontage, and the number of pieces of street furniture.  Fascinating and good news for districts who want to know what kinds of street furniture they should invest in!  Direct link to publication here (accessible through Aug 31).

Big City Dreaming: The Sometimes Mixed Results of Mixed Use
As the pendulum has swung away from Euclidian zoning toward mixed use, there are some hazards that practitioners should be aware of. For example, too much vacant retail has become the unintended blight of mixed use in smaller urban/suburban areas - "too many cities are insisting on mixed uses in locations that are, at best, suitable for a single use."

Detroit Bike Culture Is Unstoppable
Two wheels are starting to dominate the scene in the city known for four wheels.  Despite the city dealing with bankruptcy and blight, the Motor City of Detroit continues to see a renaissance that expands year after year.  A weekly bike meetup, the Slow Roll, now has thousands of riders. The bike lane network will expand to 200 miles. The annual Tour de Troit will have an estimated 7,500 riders this fall. And new bike oriented businesses are sprouting up.

The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town

Suburban corporate campuses came on the American scene in the 1940's outside of Birmingham and spread thereafter, but have reached a tipping point especially in the suburbs of Washington DC where it is reported that there is enough vacant office square footage to fill the Mall of America four times over and fill most of the Pentagon. See what and why...

Celebrating Chicago's Must-See Public Realm 

Chicago continues its reputation as an architectural magnate with the addition of new public spaces on the Riverwalk. Chicago has tried before to create public space along the Riverwalk, this time however, with wonderful conceptualization, craftsmanship, design, and detailing, appears to be a public space that will connect the public to the water effortlessly for a long time to come.

Complete Streets help the economy, street vendors vs BIDs smack down, and over designed intersections? Commercial District News Round Up, Week of July 7th, 2015

How Thoughtful Street Design Is Helping Communities and the Economy
The National Complete Streets Coalition, a program of Smart Growth America, released a new report analyzing street improvements in 37 neighborhoods across the country.  In the report, communities that were redesigned to accommodate pedestrians, transit users and bicyclists (as well as drivers of motor vehicles) found that the design resulted in positive impacts on key economic indicators, including employment, new businesses, property values and private investment.

Source: Huffington Post

BIDS Worry Over Movement to Increase Vendor Permits
In New York, the number of street vendor licenses are limited by law - only 3,000 permits are issued annually. But a movement led by The Street Vendor Project seeks to change all that. On the other side of this issue are BIDs that are concerned about the impact of vendors on established businesses - many of whom are paying assessments into the BID and who are affected by vendors right outside their doors. Fordham Road Business Improvement District, the largest BID in the Bronx, along with 72 BIDs across NYC, presented a four-page statement prepared by the New York City BID Association warning of “unilateral, piecemeal change” to the current laws “will lead to unintended consequences.” The BIDs suggest a study before lifting the ban. Both sides see financial struggle as vendors have mounting permitting costs while property owners and merchants of BIDs pay assessments to keep the streets clean and orderly.

Image Source: www.norwoodnews.org   Credit: Adi Talwar

Neighbors Are Mad Lincoln Hub Slows Traffic, But That Was Kind of the Point
The design, intended to imitate an oriental rug and also to slow down traffic, not appreciated by local residents at this Chicago intersection.  Overdesigned?...you be the judge.

Reshaping Growth Centers with Open Space = Smart Growth
The addition of open space to urban areas seems counter intuitive to the often assumed need for high-density growth, but this article points out that the addition of open space and the practice of smart growth can lead to high density and better use of land.  The comparison of Atlanta and Barcelona maps, with similar population size, is astonishing.

Most Bikeable Cities of 2015
Minneapolis took number one spot, putting often assumed bike mecca, Portland, in number three. The ranking looked at cities of 300,000+ and the scores are measured on a scale of 0 - 100 based on bike lanes, hills, destinations and road connectivity, and share of local workers' commutes traveled by bicycle.  Check it out...is your city on the list?

The USDA Site Now Has a National Farmers Market Directory
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has launched a searchable national farmers market directory, allowing you to search for markets online. The site has an interactive map and can search the 8,260 farmers markets by zip code and products sold. The USDA included any market that has two+ farm vendors selling their goods in the same location week to week.