City Building in an Age of Decline
America finds itself in an accelerating age of decline. The past half-century has seen a slow decline in many communities, but with continued investment broadly speaking. With a new presidency looking to shrink the role of the Federal Government and a Court set on dismantling the administrative state, we’re about to see a much more rapid decline across the United States.
In many ways, I foresee this decline as similar to what most of Europe faced as the Roman Empire retreated from the continent. As the Empire abandoned places it once ruled, the quality of life and material wealth of those places also declined. Goods, once produced by artisans in far off cities, became simpler and locally produced by craftsmen without the skill or artistic style of masters of the craft, whatever that craft might be. Public spaces, once built with funds from Roman coffers, were maintained as well as communities could with local resources or fell into disrepair. Roads, aqueducts, military fortifications, and all manner of other public improvements slowly deteriorated over the decades and centuries. That is to say, it was a slow decline that many might have only noticed looking back over the course of their lives. As the power of the Roman Empire waned, local power structures took its place, often in the form of strongmen or the church.
Looking towards the future, it is easy to imagine the United States following a similar arc. Much of America’s public works is built with Federal dollars. Roads and highways, water and sewer, affordable housing, police and fire equipment are all paid for in part, or at times entirely, with Federal funds. These funding programs are spread across the Federal government, embedded into every department. It’s programs like the Department of Transportation’s RAISE (formerly TIGER) program for local transportation projects, or the Bureau of Reclamation’s WaterSMART program for water infrastructure projects, or the US Economic Development Agency’s Public Works programs, or the Community Development Block Grant program that many cities rely upon to improve their deficient infrastructure, or the entirety of the Low Income Housing Tax Credit Program that underpins the entire affordable housing industry. All of these programs and the funds they provide to local communities will likely be coming to an end. American cities, like European communities at the end of the Roman Empire, will have to learn to make due with local resources.
Unlike in post-Roman Europe, the forces that brought about the decline exist within each of our communities, working to stymie efforts to rebuild and improve using the meager resources we have left. These are the folks that oppose any change to their community, regardless of how minor or beneficial. These forces have been emboldened by their victories at the national level and will continue to be difficult opponents for city builder to overcome.
Architects, engineers, urban planners, and city builders of all types should be reassessing their role in society and find new ways to do the most good while doing fulfilling work.
The strategy of least resistance is to work in communities that want to rebuild, grow, and improve, and that have the local resources to do so. There won’t be any of these communities, and finding work there will be difficult. These will be larger cities with a strong tax base funding their general fund. Limiting these opportunities further will be the fact that many cities that do have access to resources cannot gather the necessary support to implement worthwhile city building initiatives. One of the best ways to determine whether a city is even interested in improving its built environment is to see if the city has a comprehensive or general plan that has been updated within the last decade, and whether it includes goals to improve the built environment.
The second strategy, although one that might be less fulfilling, is to work for private developers while working to build new developments that provide the greatest community benefit possible. The reason this is often unfulfilling is that community benefits will aways take a back seat to private benefits measured by profit for the developer. I’ve spent a couple of periods of my career working entirely or primarily for private developers. My first job after college was for a land developer that entitled master planned communities and sold the land and entitlements to merchant home builders. The underlying goal of this role was to make the billionaire owner of the company even more wealthy. He did not care one iota about the quality of the projects he developed if it didn’t produce an increased return on his investment.
However, this is not always the case, and for some developers the goal is to create a quality project that future residents will enjoy living in. The East Solano Plan, better known as California Forever, is an example of a project that seems to meet this desire. Looking at the design for East Solano, they’ve designed it using the most recent ideas on creating cities that allow residents to lead healthy, fulfilling, prosperous lives. But again, like with finding cities that are interested in improving their built environment, the opportunities to work for developers that want to build high-quality developments will be limited.
Finally, for city builders who want to stay in cities that don’t have many resources and a community that is not interested in revitalization, the best strategy is to utilize Strong Towns’ approach. Do the small projects that you do have the resources for, under the radar, and make small improvements at the margins to improve people’s lives. This won’t be high profile work that leads to endless praise, but it will be important work. As planners, we should not be abandoning cities to the worst impulses of their electorate.
The coming years and decades will be tough for people who want to build verdant cities that provide board opportunities for fulfilling, happy, prosperous lives for all residents. Such visions for the future have been broadly rejected by the American People, and the resources to build such cities simply won’t be available. As city builders, we must continue to improve cities to the best of our ability with the resources we have left.