November 2010
Learning from the States (2)
Washington DC
Washington DC is politically unique amongst American cities. It was founded in 1790 as a Federal District distinct from the States to serve as a permanent national capital. The City of Washington was originally a separate municipality within the federal territory until 1871 when it was established as a single, unified municipal government for the whole District. This is why, while legally named the District of Columbia, it is known as Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., is governed by a mayor and city council. However, the United States Congress has supreme authority over the city and may overturn local laws. Residents of the District therefore have less self-governance than residents of the states. The District has a non-voting, at-large Congressional delegate, but no senators. D.C. residents could not vote in presidential elections before 1961.
But Washington DC is also unique as a city. It provides accommodation for Federal, District and local government with their numerous agencies etc, which in turn attracts private business; many magnificent monuments; dozens of embassies; a plethora of world class museums, art galleries, universities, hotels and theatres. Add wonderful rivers, fantastic public transport, outstanding urban design and stupendous public spaces and cuisine from every corner of the globe. It is a city in which one can enjoy an excess of different experiences in a relatively compact space.
An article in an “in-flight” magazine whilst on my trip caught my eye. The journalist introduced her article as follows “Washington DC has always been a great place to visit – easy to navigate, rich in classic architecture (and lacking in skyscrapers) and offering an abundance of world-class museums and attractions free of charge. However, it’s always been a bit, well, fuddy duddy. But, like him or not, President Barack Obama has injected a fresh new energy into Washington DC and a much-needed dash of sass to the Capitol City.”
I agree fully with the sentiments expressed in her first sentence BUT, as far as the last sentence is concerned, no….ooooo, I don’t think so lady!!!!!! A President has little if any influence on the city until he is no more, nor is Obama exactly top of the pops these days! I also disagree with her comment that DC “always been a great place to visit”!
My first visit, nearly thirty years ago, was memorable due to, yes, its architecture, scale and historic monuments. But the city itself was dirty, decaying in many areas, filled with aggressive street people and like a cemetery at night. Some years later, in Citichat 37.2007, I described the central city area as “suffering from a decidedly negative image which was quite justified. It was dirty and an air of insecurity pervaded the place with many buildings boarded up and the retail was generally limited and of poor quality. Employment within the central area had been steadily declining, investment was described as ‘anaemic’ and the private sector ‘lethargic’ and it was a pretty dull place. DC, at that time, was actually bankrupt and was experiencing a shambles in governance.”
Subsequent to 2007, I witnessed a massive change to the area that was brought about primarily through the work of the Downtown DC Business Improvement District (BID or what we call a CID) which was established in 1997. Since its inception, the BID has contributed to the neighborhood’s economic growth and image by providing safety, hospitality, cleaning, maintenance, homeless, economic development, transportation, streetscape and marketing services to Washington’s center city. All of this basically from the private sector property owners’ purses, ie those within the DC BID area.
You cannot attract investment to a city unless you can provide investors with three basics - certainty, stability and predictability. If local or other government cannot supply that, the private sector has to step in. Therefore, as good urban management was developed and impacted the downtown area , so investment returned and, today, the result is quite astonishing – a truly huge amount of new office and renovated office space; new residential units, new hotels and museums and restaurants. Employment and number of inner-city residents has soared, quite against the US trends. In just the two days that I was there at the end of October, $1.5 billion of new work was announced for just two projects!
Current construction activity is high– the numbers of people in the streets, day and night, is unbelievable so much so that a major restaurant has decided to go 24/7! Today Washington DC has a vibrant downtown with a wonderful quality of life that attracts more and more young people and business alike, a great city to live and work in!
Last week, instead of concentrating again on the ‘CBD’ I was shown how the dramatic revitalisation of the central area has now begun to ‘push out’ to the surrounding areas resulting in large urban renewal nodes outside of the historic downtown as well as in those areas that are along its extensive riverfront. In regards to the nodes, these are being developed with high density residential cores which are pulling in restaurants, entertainment, etc. Even the badly run-down Adams Morgan area with its problems of high prostitution, drugs, etc has attracted a developer who plans to build a ‘boutique’ hotel which will provide a much needed lift to the area.
Talking of residential, I read a report of the opening of a new $43 million mixed income apartment development – developed by a partnership between the private sector, local government and a church. The 178 unit project provides 128 units for working families and individuals who earn up to 60% of the median income for the area and the balance for those who earn up to 30% of the median income for the area – these units will in fact house formerly homeless individuals who have previously occupied transitional housing or single room occupancy units.
A magnificent new waterfront park on the South West of the city is in the last stages of construction along the edge of the Potomac River between the Francis Scott Key Bridge and the Kennedy Centre. About 80% of its length was undertaken by the council’s Parks department which left an unmade section at its one end. The local (Georgetown) BID financed this section with $100 000 from its funds and another $100 000 raised from the public. Four features I particularly liked were (i) the numerous large black granite information ‘boards’ with historic photographs of the area etched on their surfaces; (ii) the way those using the park are enabled to get right down to the water’s edge (iii) the wide use of natural grasses and (iv) the large paved maze which always attracts people to figure out how to get to the end.
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| Georgetown Park - local grasses |
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| Georgetown Park - stone storybook |
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| Georgetown Park - maze in centre background |
A major (5 000 units) residential precinct is being developed on the edge of the Anacostia River between the new National Ballpark and the Washington Naval Yards. Here the developers have chosen to complete the public space along the river before completing the residential units. Again, it is high quality design using natural materials, planting and water.
Planning of a third new waterfront development as a ‘frontage’ to high density residential is well advanced this time on the South East of the city. The waterfront already provides moorings for scores of yachts, houseboats and small vessels as well as a floating sea food market and also boasts an historic performing arts building, the Arena Stage, now cleverly enveloped by a large glass structure providing modern amenities.
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| Floating seafood market |
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| Arena Stage- glass envelope |
Washington is synonomous with museums and art galleries and one automatically thinks of the Smithsonian museums, the Holocaust Museum, the National Art Gallery, and the National Portrait Gallery. But there are literally dozens of others and I spent a good few hours in one recommended to me, the Newseum. The blurb provides this description: “The Newseum in Washington, DC is a six-level, high-tech and interactive museum tracing the history of news reporting from the 16th century to the present day. In 250,000 square feet of exhibit space, the Newseum offers visitors 15 theaters, 14 major galleries, two state-of-the-art broadcast studios and a 4-D time-travel experience. The exhibition galleries explore news history, electronic news, photojournalism, world news and how the media have covered major historical events.” For me it was an absorbing and fascinating walk through history. One gallery has original front pages from the world media covering every major incident from the Oxford Gazette of 1666 reporting on the Great Fire of London through World Wars, Man on the Moon, political assassinations, Nixon’s Watergate scandal (including the door to the room that was broken into to obtain the tapes) the toppling of the Berlin Wall, 9/11, etc etc. One section has day to day reporting on Katrina; another has eight twelve foot high grafittied 3 ton sections of the Berlin Wall and a guard tower from Checkpoint Charlie; yet another a massive charred and twisted section of the 360 foot high antenna from the top of a World Trade Centre tower once the highest point in New York City and the second highest antenna in the world. But none of these are merely static objects to gawp at but are part of exhibits that tell their stories visually and aurally. A section that also tells its own poignant story is a curved glass wall engraved with the names of over a thousand journalists who have died whilst carrying out their trade – a sobering reminder of the extreme danger that many experience in their work.
A huge map of the world is colour coded in relation to the degree of Freedom of the Press in each country. The top grading is “Free” and covers North America and most of Western Europe. Sadly, South Africa is only reflected as “pretty free” but even that will change to the worse if the current Bill is approved by Parliament!
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| World Trade Centre Antenna |
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| Berlin wall sections and Checkpoint Charlie guardpost |
Another new Museum, outside of the city, is the Air and Space Museum at Dulles Airport – it has an exciting collection of real planes, historic and contemporary, as well as various NASA spacecraft.
But, back to the city! What new issues are there for us to learn from? The leader in practical forward urban thinking is still the Downtown DC BID. As I wrote some years ago: “One thing has distinguished the Downtown BID above all others. That is the strategic thinking and far-minded planning of its Executive Director Rich Bradley, an old friend to Johannesburg. Whilst still being passionate about ‘clean and safe’ as its core function, under his direction, the BID has considerably broadened its scope particularly in the areas of economic development, marketing and transportation. A great deal of this work is done in partnership with local government departments and I really mean ‘partnership’ – whilst our local government talks of partnership I don’t believe we go anywhere far enough to allow the inner city to reap the benefits of full co-operation – admittedly they are locally hampered by some of the quite stupid requirements of the MFMA, but that’s another story.”
Rich believes the future imperatives for cities are Public Space, Transportation and Energy.
The latest on the transportation front are
Increased use of bicycles for transportation. Bicycle lanes are being introduced all over the city – the lanes are provided between the pavement kerb and the street parking places for cars. This also allows access for cleaning the street gutters!
Large scale provision of ‘smart bikes’ - ‘bikes for hire’ – as has become very popular in Paris. Racks of twenty to thirty bicycles are strategically placed all over the city. Their front wheels are locked into the racks and can only be released by (a) paying a membership fee to belong to the particular hiring company – which fee can be from 24 hours to an annual fee and (b) swiping your credit card. You can return the bike to any rack of that particular company and your rental ends when you lock the bicycle back into the rack. You are charged on length of time (per half hour periods) from unlocking to re-locking the bike. Want to go from city centre to any one of the dozens of attractions – no problem. Grab a bike, ride to where you want to go, lock it back into a locally available rack and walk back or ride it back or to somewhere else.
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| Rent a bike |
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| Map of CBD rent a bike racksAdd caption |
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| Rent a bike rack in CBD |
The DC BID is also examining new thinking to parking – possibly one can introduce the same electronic system now being used in parking garages which indicate via a light which bays are in use and those that are vacant. Imagine if you had that facility throughout your inner city with advice on boards on the perimeter directing you to vacant spaces. Many tolls throughout the States are now automatic – a card reader in the roadway or, more lately, above the car, automatically debits your car with the toll – maybe it could be done for parking! Scientific ways at calculating parking tariffs are being examined – ideally you always want to price parking high enough so that there is a small vacancy factor, say 5%. If the infrastructure of all of this is provided by the private sector who will manage and maintain it far better than any public body, there is room for a deal between public and private sectors – both benefiting.
Finally, new thinking on energy. Property owners in US cities are being forced to re-examine their energy usage but this tends to be done in isolation. What if you have a city block that has residential, hotel and office buildings? Surely there is a synergy waiting to be exploited – the office buildings use electricity during the day, the other two mainly at night. If night users could generate extra energy during the day and vice versa, there is an opportunity for major rationalization, cost and energy savings. Now take that philosophy to a BID (CID) area and one can start to look at ECO BIDs (CIDs). One thought that went through my mind is that our major resurgence in residential conversion of old office blocks probably means that we aren’t getting the maximum energy saving that we should. Maybe we need some drastic new thinking in this area!
Street lighting and the management thereof is another aspect which is under the microscope. There are emerging companies that will take over street lighting from a city – provide guaranteed lighting levels, guaranteed lamp replacement times, management of lighting levels – you want a more lit or less lit ambience during a special occasion, they will provide it – and the cost is less. Again, we have a problem with parastatal control and union issues and a fragmented approach to energy saving.
I remember at the start of the CJP nearly twenty years ago now, how we were often criticised for looking for inspiration to first world cities/countries. The answer is simple – their private sectors and many of their public sectors think outside the box, constantly inventing new ways to solve old problems – we, on the other hand, have a private sector that too often doesn’t recognize its urban responsibilities and a public sector that, by and large, constantly seeks ways of keeping everything within the box – not a winning formula!
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