Picture This: A Proud Downtown
How exciting it seemed, at the time, when the first mall opened on the outskirts of Olympia. Spurning downtown with its quaint old stores, my friends and I hopped on our bikes and pedaled for miles, clear across town, to explore the new attraction.
That mall still stands, a faded concrete bunker on a vast old parking lot, its architecture dated, its gloss long gone. Now there’s a newer mall. Miles away, it glistens with the latest in plastic ferns and look-alike corporate chain stores.
But I don’t go there. And when I think of the old hometown, its malls are least among my memories. You’ve seen one, you’ve seen ‘em all. What I do remember, and what I do regularly visit, is the city center. It’s still alive, it’s still interesting, it’s still Olympia for me. The renovated waterfront. The park. The old buildings, home to family businesses: Coffee shops, bookstores, funky restaurants, a violin shop, a farmer’s market. Up the road, the Capitol.
What have we done?
What have we done to our cities?
How could we have been so stupid, to concentrate a generation of American wealth and commerce in the disposable architecture and featureless freeways of suburban sprawl?
If you think those questions seem dated - like the empty old malls that squat on some of your own city’s least-visited parking lots - think again.
All over the nation, cities are fighting to recover from years of destructive investment and short-sighted zoning policy. Some are succeeding. Seattle. Portland. Even Olympia.
Downtown Spokane is fighting back, too. Its future is the leading issue in the Spokane mayor’s race.
But it wasn’t a candidate for mayor of Spokane who set me to thinking about all we Americans have done, and need to do, in our cities.
It was John Norquist, the mayor of Milwaukee, whose insights linger in my mind like the sizzle of a lightning bolt.
Several days ago, Norquist spoke to the National Conference of Editorial Writers at their annual convention in Madison, Wis. All he did, really, was show some slides. What a story they told. It’s a story familiar in every corner of the country, as the editors in his audience confirmed with their prolonged applause.
Picture a lovely old downtown hotel, rich in history, ornate in design, celebrating a century of famous guests. Next, picture a new suburban motel with all the character of a Styrofoam hamburger box. A century hence, will anyone fight to preserve it or care who slept there?
Picture a maze of suburban cul-de-sacs. No sidewalks. No front porches. Three-car garages. The nearest stores, miles distant. Now picture an urban neighborhood. Front porches. Sidewalks, with overhanging trees. Stores and bus lines, a few blocks away.
Picture a downtown commercial district with unique old buildings crowded to the edge of a bustling sidewalk. Now picture a surburban strip mall, set back from the road with a parking lot in front and a forest of signs from similar establishments stretching into the distance as far as the eye can see.
Picture a high-volume suburban arterial, where no one walks and even the cars cannot escape except at tangled concrete interchanges. One such interchange, Norquist said, costs more to rebuild than it would take to create a medium-sized mass transit system. Guess which project provokes debate?
Picture a parade, a fun run, an outdoor concert in the summer. Does anyone hold such gatherings in the parking lot of a mall? Forget it. Only cities offer an attractive setting suitable to civic celebrations and a complex street grid capable of dispersing the crowds.
Picture a lovingly maintained Victorian house, with a restaurant in the ground floor and the owner living on the second floor. In many cities that would be illegal, a “mixed use” contrary to rigid zoning codes.
Cities don’t have to put up with their own destruction. Yet most have facilitated the process, with zoning policies that encourage the inhuman regimentation of suburban sprawl.
There’s hope. Many downtowns, Norquist contends, still contain the architectural DNA for their own recovery. All that’s needed is the will to change the zoning codes and investment patterns that created a generation of urban decay.
Certainly there’s hope in Spokane. A contract has been awarded to restore the historic Davenport Hotel. Nearby, a steam plant that once posed an environmental headache is being converted into a home for intriguing commercial shops. Elsewhere in the core, old housing is being rebuilt. There’s a new railroad/bus terminal, a new library, a new arena, a new transit center and new employers bringing hundreds of jobs downtown. The Lincoln Street Bridge project offers congestion relief, a major extension of Riverfront Park, new pedestrian access to the falls and removal of a decayed and awkwardly sited bridge. And, the local family that owns this newspaper wants to invest in a renovation of the downtown retail district.
These things are controversial. So be it. Bring on the controversy. Without a thriving city at its heart, a metropolitan area is as forgettable as a trip to some half-dead, 30-year-old suburban mall.
, DataTimes MEMO: John Webster is editor of The Spokesman-Review’s opinion pages.