More Mind-Blowing Louisville Historic Transit Pictures

In follow-up to my recent posting, David Schooling sent me an absolutely astonishing series of Louisville historic transit photos, with permission to reproduce them.

First, a section of elevated rail along the waterfront.


You can see the rail line to the left in the picture. This was built in 1884 and lasted 100 years into the mid-1980's. I put this first because it belies one of the central claims of the 8664 group. Namely that the construction of the I-64 riverfront parkway cut the city off from the river. The city was long cut off from the river by this rail line. What's more, back in the day, the river was dirty, industrial, and a sewer - not the place for a nice stroll.

I think we're too harsh on some aspects of previous civic decisions. The world was a different place when the riverfront rail lines and expressways were built. Today, rather than saying it was a mistake, let's just acknowledge that we now live in a post-industrial age where the worst of pollution has been cleaned up. This gives us the opportunity to rethink things for the future.

Here's the 4th St. elevated station, circa 1905


An electric passenger train and a freight train prepare to pass each other on what appears to be a timber viaduct.

Two of the three East End elevated lines


The still surviving Baxter el station


Ok, so now you know that Louisville had an extensive elevated rail system, which at a minimum had both freight and electrified passenger service. But did you know it also had a freight subway system downtown?


I knew Chicago had one of these, but was not aware that other cities did too. Who else might have had one? Here's another picture.


As if that weren't enough, in the 1940's and 50's, Louisville apparently had a commercial seaplane port on the river at 2nd. St. Here's the picture.


One of the more interesting planes based there was the RC-3 Seabee flying boat, the same plane from "The Man With the Golden Gun". Here is a picture of that bad boy.


This just goes to show that there is an amazing transportation history out there about our cities. It's definitely sad to see how much of this has been lost forever.

Urbanophile Exclusive: SR 32 Widening in Jeopardy

I noted that Major Moves was shaping up to be great news for Indianapolis, but that the back end loading of regional projects into the plan exposed them to significant political and financial risk. Well, perhaps the first clear cut example of that risk came to light recently when INDOT issued its RFP* for the widening of SR 32 in Hamilton County between US 31 in Westfield and the White River in Noblesville. It appears this project may not happen in anything close to its promised form.

This route carries enough cars to justify widening today, thought it is not in horrible shape yet. That's projected to change, however, with the road operating at LOS F - that's the worst rating - in the future. For expanding suburban areas, the principal improved roadways have generally been radial routes from the central city, and it is often these crosstown routes that are underdeveloped and experience significant congestion.

Major Moves included widening this six mile stretch of road to four lanes at a cost of about $40 million. However, according to the project summary report accompanying the RFP, the current year of construction projected cost to build it has ballooned to $112 million - 2.8 times the budgeted amount. The engineer who drafted this document suggests that the project be downscoped to stay within the budget, fixing only small segments near Westfield and Noblesville, leaving the middle section untouched. The documentation says that the project intent is "to determine the feasible and most economic alternative within the project construction budget of $39,000,000." This implies an almost 2/3 reduction in the scope of the project.

This is obviously very bad news for Hamilton County, Westfield, and Noblesville. How did this happen? The document doesn't say, but I suspect that the lower budget was set many years ago when the project was dreamed up, and never adjusted for inflation. With construction cost inflation running in the double digits, it doesn't take many years of delays to more than double the cost of a road. This is probably one of only many landmines in the Major Moves program.

If this scenario comes to pass, it is not only bad news because the road doesn't get built when promised, it also means that if it ever is constructed, the cost will be even higher, potentially way, way higher.

Since this would be a transportation disaster if it came to pass, what can be done to correct it? I will offer a potential roadmap to rectifying the budget problem. First is to understand the driver of the project cost. This works out to $18.7 million/mile, which is extremely high for a four lane road. For example, the recent SR 32 widening from US 31 to Spring Mill was awarded at about $6.5 million/mile - about 2/3 less. The 146th St. widening in western Hamilton County is projected at about $8-9 million/mile. Clearly, an explanation is in order, as is an investigation of how these costs can be reduced. These costs do not foot with other, similar projects. Beyond costs, additional revenues might bail INDOT out on this one. Congress is debating a new transportation bill, and in the wake of the Minneapolis bridge collapse, it isn't unreasonable to expect an increase.

But let us assume that the price is real and stands and the feds don't give INODT a big new pot of cash. Here is my proposal.

• The road is proposed for construction in 2014. INDOT should do everything in its power, including potentially handing off responsibility to Hamilton County via contract, design/build approaches, etc. to bring this forward. I see no reason construction can't be pulled forward by two years to 2012. Inflation estimates are always guesswork, but I would estimate two years of pull forward would save $10-15 million, so let's pencil in $12 million to bring the cost down to $100 million.

• There is a Major Moves preservation project on the books budgeted at $35 million to reconstruct SR 32 from Spring Mill Rd. west to Lebanon. This is a highly dubious project on its own merits. It will reconstruct a two lane road as, well, a two lane road with shoulders. This route is in fine condition today with decent pavement and adequate lane width. I propose that this project be canceled and the money redirected. $10 million would be retained to fund the widening of SR 32 to four lanes from Spring Mill Rd. to Ditch Rd., which will be very needed to serve the exploding residential districts there. The remaining $25 million would be channeled to eastern SR 32 segment. This brings the price down to $75 million, with a gap of $35 million.

• I propose that INDOT and local governments split the $35 million difference. INDOT will contribute an additional $17.5 million to the project, which I leave as an exercise for them to find. Local governments would contribute $17.5 million.

• The $17.5 million local share would be split evenly three ways between Westfield, Noblesville, and Hamilton County, at $5.8 million each. This amount should be within their bonding authority if they are unable to find other sources such as TIF. That is not an overwhelming amount of money for them. Both Noblesville and Hamilton County have experience pulling off far larger projects. And Westfield just did a $70 million TIF road bond elsewhere.
  

• Each local government would be responsible for multi-use paths and landscaping within their respective boundaries.

This is how the project looks financially:

Item	Amount
Original Budget	$40 million
Pull Forward Savings	$12 million
SR 32 Preservation Cancellation	$25 million
INDOT Contingency	$17.5 million
Hamilton County	$5.9 million
Westfield	$5.8 million
Noblesville	$5.8 million
Total	$112 million

Obviously major activity needs to take place now to make this happen before INDOT goes off and cuts the project scope and/or the window opportunity to effect change escapes. Pulling forward the project and securing interlocal agreement on the plan will not be quick and easy.

Again, who knows how many other landmines are out there. We know already, for example, that the I-65 widening in Boone County had an estimate well over the budget - over 2x. The state pulled that project forward dramatically to try to save money. Hopefully something similar can happen here. This just goes to show that you can't count on a road project happening until the pavement is poured.

I think this also goes to illustrate the fallacy of "we can't afford to fix our roads". The truth is, we can't afford not to fix them. Every delay pushes the costs up like crazy, making it ever more unlikely these projects will ever come to fruition. I noted recently how the head of the Cincinnati MPO says regulatory delays alone are adding a $1 billion in costs to the project to replace the Brent Spence Bridge there. Hendricks County is staring at a bill of almost $150 million to finish the Ronald Reagan Parkway. The current county commissioners regret that they didn't just bond the construction of the road in the early 90's, when the cost would have been a fraction of that.

Bonding isn't a bad idea at all. If the rate you pay in interest is far lower than the inflation costs for construction (which it is in the current environment), and if you can pull a project forward by many years, the logic of bonding is almost inescapable. Imagine if Indiana had borrowed money a 10-15 years ago to complete these Major Moves projects, some of which have been sitting on the books since the 1980's if not earlier. Indiana would be sitting pretty right now. Instead, it is dealing with things like this.

* INDOT's site doesn't easily allow direct linking the supporting document to the RFP. Go to the consultants page. Click RFP's currently advertised (or RFP archive once the bid period is complete). Select RFP 0807, and then press the Supporting Documents button. Download the document titled "SR32 from US31 (Westfield) to SR38 (Noblesville)" Note that this is a 30 MB download. The "Abbreviated scope of services" document is in Microsoft Word format for those of you using Firefox.

Bonus Indianapolis Transportation News

INDOT now as a web site dedicated to the I-465/I-69 northeast corridor project. I will have more to say on this in the future, but there is plenty of good documentation there for anyone to read. The "Feasible Alternatives Selection Report" is the most current.

In theory, the new Ronald Reagan Parkway interchange on I-74 opened today.

The Importance of Social Structures for Urban Succes

There seems to be a popular belief that what it takes to create an industry cluster in bioscience or whatever is to pair research with commerce. That is, to find an academic institution doing cutting edge research, and connect it with venture capital and entrepreneurs to start companies to commercialize it. Soon enough, you have a "cluster" of businesses that takes off like a rocket. This is the perceived Silicon Valley model, and no company epitomizes it more than Google, which was started by two Stanford students to commercialize their graduate research.

But is this true? There are many top flight research universities in this country, but few major startup clusters. When major research institutions fail to generate commercial spinoffs, this is often blamed on a lack of venture capital. But is that really the case, or is something else at work?

Anyone interested in this matter simply must read AnnaLee Saxenian's seminal book, "Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128". A social scientist at UC Berkeley, Saxenian lived and worked in both Silicon Valley and Boston's Route 128 technology corridor. She wondered why Route 128, which started out with far more of a technology business and economic base than Silicon Valley, eventually lost ground to become a clear number two. She sees this resulting from the different social structures that exist in the various areas.

According to Saxenian, Route 128 suffered from a culture that was oriented towards a traditional maturing industry, not a rapidly changing one like technology. This included more deliberative decision making; vertical integration and self-sufficiency; hierarchical, centralized command structures; focus on economies of scale; a high friction job market; geographically dispersed locations; and low levels of cooperation and sparse networks between firms in the region. In other words, all the standard traits of a typical large corporation. While she doesn't dwell on this point, it also comes across that Boston, probably due to its New England locale with all the history there, was a much more closed society. The social network and hierarchy was more fixed (the phrase never appeared in the book, but I couldn't help but think Boston Brahmin) and the process of establishing trust and credibility much slower than California. While famous as one of the bluest states, Massachusetts is socially conservative in many ways, and highly risk averse. This is the land of the suit and tie, and the difference between that environment and California casual was more than just a surface thing.

Silicon Valley, of course, was just the opposite. It adopted social structures that were very focused around innovation and time to market. It was open, with rapid, decentralized decision making. Firms quickly specialized, focusing on their core competency, and established close links with suppliers to fill in the rest of the value chain. These links were often such that it was not clear where one company ended and the other began. The clearly functioned on high degrees of trust. Even direct competitors often talk to exchange ideas and help each other solve problems. Here's a quote:

"Competitors consulted one another with a frequency unheard of in other areas of the country. According to one executive: 'I have people call me quite frequently and say, "Hey, have you ever run into this one?" and you say "Yeah, about seven or eight years ago. Why don't you try this, that or the other thing." We all get calls like that.'" (33)

Clearly this is quite unique. I'm not even sure if it's all legal, but hey, it works for them.

The job market in Silicon Valley is extremely fluid, with people constantly changing jobs, starting companies, etc. It is expected that you won't stay that long with any given employer. Route 128 operated on the "company man" model and to leave was to show disloyalty, often resulting in ostracism. Since Silicon Valley was a new country with almost all immigrants of one type or another, family history and credentials meant little. What mattered was whether you could perform.

Now of course it was almost entirely men, originally white men, who set this up. The tech industry is famous for being one of the most gender imbalanced. What I found particularly interesting was that many of the founders had Midwestern roots. Again quoting:

"This collective identity was strengthened by the homogenety of Silicon Valley's founders. Virtually all were white men; most were in their early 20's. Many had studied engineering at Stanford or MIT, and most had no industrial experience. None had roots in the region; a surprising number of the community's major figures had grown up in small towns in the Midwest and shared a distrust for established East Coast institutions and attitudes. They repeatedly expressed their opposition to 'established' or 'old-line' industry, and the 'Eastern establishment." (30, emphasis added)

"The many examples of engineers with humble origins who became millionaires by starting successful companies had no parallel in the more stable social structures of the East. Jerry Sanders, founder of Advanced Micros Devices ... grew up in south Chicago, the son of a traffic light repairman." (38, emphasis added)

To digress for a moment, remember how I said the contrarian, ornery Hoosier/Midwestern attitude is, in the right context, a huge strength, not a weakness. This shows that in action. These guys didn't toe the conventional wisdom line. Instead they created a whole new business model. I've got to believe the Midwest mindset played a huge role in making this possible. The unfortunate thing is that they had to leave the Midwest to do it. Imagine if they'd stayed home and made it happen around one of the great engineering schools there? Alas, to this day Midwesterners often have to leave to turn things into reality. Famously, Marc Andreessen had to leave Illinois to start Netscape, and in fact had U of I actively hampering him all the way. If the Midwest cracks the code on this piece alone, it would be a huge step in the right direction.

(By the way, for a wonderful look at how these Midwesterners invented Silicon Valley and the "elder days" of semiconductor business, see Tom Wolfe's 1983 Esquire essay, "The Tinkerings of Robert Noyce".)

These extremely fluid job markets, open social institutions, high trust customer and supplier interactions, and competitor information exchange create an environment of so-called "dense networks". In a period of rapid change and innovation, these networks, by efficiently distributing information and dispersing risk, create an environment with very rapid speed to market and high levels of adaptability. A traditional Route 128 do it all yourself model simply can't keep up with the power of this vast network.

It was this network, more than anything, that created the Silicon Valley we know today. The "cluster" we see in Silicon Valley is not an artifact of spatial co-location. It comes from the network. According to Saxenian,

"Spatial clustering alone does not create mutually beneficial interdependencies. An industrial system many be geographically agglomerated and yet have limited capacity for adaptation. This is overwhelmingly a function of organizational structure, not of technology or firm size ... The current difficulties of Route 128 are to a great extent a product of its history. The region's technology firms inherited a business model and social and institutional setting from an earlier industrial area." (161-162).

Sound familiar? It describes the Midwest perfectly. What I find interesting is how Saxenian illustrates her thesis not using a struggling Midwestern burg as a case study, but rather Boston's Route 128, the second largest technology hub in America, home to possibly the greatest collection of universities in the country, with massive access to capital, etc. If this town had its problems, how much more so places without those advantages? It certainly shows the scale of the challenge in building industry clusters.

Obviously, changing the social structure, culture, and institutions of a region is difficult to do. Even positive articles highlight the scale of the challenge. I'll refer a recent article on Milwaukee startups that I linked that quotes a local businessman saying, with some pride I gather, "Milwaukee is a one-strike-you're-out town." That's not a good thing. Silicon Valley shows that failure and risk taking are good. The way to innovate is to figure out how to try lots of things and to fail quickly and cheaply. If you are overly concerned that you'll be permanently ruined if your business goes bankrupt, you're not that likely to take a chance.

It reminds me of a discussion I once had with a friend from Germany. He told me, "We're the children of the people who stayed" and bemoaned the highly conservative outlook of his countrymen. He noted the extreme reluctance to take risks because in Germany, if you go bankrupt, you're stigmatized for life. Obvious some of that carried over to heavily German Milwaukee.

I should note that one should not over-internalize Saxenian's case studies into some sort of cookbook solution. Every city and region needs to find its own unique path to success based on its own culture, institutions, history, etc.

I would be remiss I did not point out a few areas where I was skeptical of the Silicon Valley model. One intriguing factoid from the book was that in 1962 federal government purchases, principally defense related, accounted for over half of Route 128's sales. Indeed, the area got its start in technology through defense related research during World War II. Could it be that dependency on government contracts is really what caused the dysfunctional culture there? Government largesse encourages rent seeking behavior at the expense of building a competitive business.

Also, Saxenian highlights how the non-business social networks in Boston substitute for the type of technology networks in Silicon Valley. But is this a bad thing? The books paints a portrait of Silicon Valley as a bunch of geeky guys who toil away long hours on tech projects and even talk about technology at the bar when they do go out. It's like a community of idiot savants. Some might say "get a life!"

What's more, there is some research that suggests dense networks themselves aren't a recipe for success. In an thought provoking paper called "Why the Garden Club Couldn't Save Youngstown" Sean Safford contrasts the experiences of Youngstown and Allentown, both small steelmaking cities. Despite similar dense networks, Youngstown failed while Allentown fared much better. His conclusion that was the dense networks in Youngstown only reinforced an already closed leadership circle who were economically aligned, while Allentown's served to bridge otherwise non-overlapping groups.

Perhaps to a great extent, the key attribute is less the networks themselves, than the ability of outsiders and new thinking to penetrate them. Silicon Valley's social structure was open, Route 128's wasn't exactly closed, but there were barriers to entry. In a globalized world of ever faster change, the ability to respond and adapt, to process new ideas and react to rapidly shifting global forces, is critical. This puts a bit premium on dense social networks that are also open and flexible.

This is somewhat the thesis also of Richard Florida. He has a somewhat different spin, saying that the economy is now powered by the creative class, and they want to live in places that are open, tolerant, etc. This is his "three T's" model: talent, technology, and tolerance. The last appears not to be so much valuable in its own right, but for what it says about the openness of social networks. Thus a large number of gays in a community isn't what drives economic growth per se. Rather, a thriving gay community is a signaling mechanism that lets people know that diverse ideas and people are welcome.

I think we all know places where the social network is impenetrable. This isn't necessarily a function of size, prosperity level, etc. I mentioned the Boston old money, social register concept. In any number of southern cities, who your daddy is, or what sorority you went to in college is a huge determinant of your place in a social hierarchy. If you don't come from the right family, the right schools, etc., you can forget it.

Perhaps this explains my Cincinnati conundrum. Here's a city with better assets than almost any in America, but it is one of the all time relative decline stories in US history and to this day is on a moderately stagant, slow growth path. Why is that? There was an intriguing study I saw recently called "Who Rules Cincinnati?" This is by an independent researcher named Dan La Botz, who I get the impression is some sort of activist, so keep that in mind. Nevertheless, he uses a similar approach to the Garden Club study to track social networks in the city, coming to the conclusion that officers of seven major corporations basically run Cincinnati, mostly to that city's detriment. Another person I know offered the interesting insight that when he meets someone in a bar in Cincinnati, the first question they ask him is where he went to high school. This both indicates a highly inbred culture as evidenced by the assumption one must have gone to high school in Cincinnati, and shows that the school you attended is an important social marker. (It perhaps also shows a lack of regard for higher education).

It could be that the Midwestern cities that have the best potential for future growth are those with the most open social networks, as well as exhibiting other of the characteristics Saxenian cites. I think this would be fertile ground for social science research. It also makes me wonder if perhaps that goes part of the way to explaining the relative success of the Midwest's larger state capitals. State capitals constantly have people traveling and doing business there from all corners of the state. This flow in and out might potentially prevent a social structure from completely congealing into a small, inpenetrable elite. I sense another potential dissertation topic here.

The key takeway is not to focus on purely the institutional infrastructure (universities, venture capital funds, labor force, etc.) when trying to set out an economic strategy. The local culture, norms, and social practices, and in particular the density and openness of the social networks is critical. Clearly, as anyone who has found themselves mired in a corporate or governmental bureaucratic organization, changing a culture is an extremely difficult thing to do. But it is something that clearly warrants an examination.

As one post-script, I should note that Route 128 style autarky is making a comeback. The self-sufficiency doctrine and vertical integration did not help Route 128, but it is still advocated by many people. The "sustainability" movement is, to a great extent, one that tells us we should do our production at home, grow our own food, etc. I don't want to totally pooh-pooh this idea. I'm all in favor of local agriculture, for example. But we have to be cautious not to let this turn cities and regions too far inward. Trade, openness to new ideas, etc. are all critical to economic success in the globalized age. We should not be tricked into believing any one place can do it all itself.

Mega-Skepticism

[Update 7/12: For a 1990's take on the concept of a super-region from the perspective of Cincinnati, refer to the Gallis Report (9MB PDF)]

There seems to be a lot of talk lately about an expanded concept of regionalism. Perhaps the best known exponent of this view is creative class guru Richard Florida, who published his thesis in a paper called "The Rise of the Mega-Region". In Florida's view, the mega-region is the logical unit of economic activity, superseding nation-states, US states, or metro areas. He defines mega-regions as basically a conglomeration of metros and their surroundings with more or less continuous development as indicated by light emitted and tracked from space. In this logic, much of the Midwest is in what he dubs the "Chi-Pitts" mega region, a collection of 46 million people creating $1.6 trillion in economic output (GDP equivalent) per year. This rates that mega-region third in world based on economic output. His map incapsulates the northern arc of the Midwest around the Great Lakes, extending from Minneapolis to Pittsburgh. Florida believes that thinking mega-regional is one way for struggling cities to boost their fortunes.

Author Richard Longworth has a similar view. He sees Midwest state boundaries as historical anachronisms unsuited to the modern economy. His travels while researching his book brought to light that few people in Midwest even know what's going on in the next state, much less around the world. In his view the Midwest has great assets, but significant challenges, and the best way to deal with the latter is through a self-consciously Midwestern strategy developed through new regional institutions.

Academic institutions appear to be getting in on the game as well. The Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), an organization of Big Ten universities plus the University of Chicago, recently held a summit on the regional future of the Midwest in Minneapolis, co-sponsored by the Federal Reserve.

It is easy to see the surface logic and appeal of this. The Midwest is collectively struggling, so it makes intuitive sense to pool resources and tackle the problems together. Who could be against regional cooperation?

What I can't help noticing, however, is how few concrete proposals are out there that would appear to show any material uptick from regional cooperation. Other than holding conferences, what is it that cites and states in the Midwest are actually supposed to do to implement this strategy? What does a mega-regional solution allow a city to do that it couldn't do on its own?

I have struggled to think of operationalizable actions, but can't come up with many. In fact, most of benefits of thinking bigger appear to be elusive. Let's think about why size and scale works in a business environment. There are a few reasons.

One is economies of scale. Typical scale economics comes from capital efficiency. That is, a large producer can substitute fixed costs for variable costs, and with large volumes produce a unit cost that can't be beat by smaller producers that can't absorb the fixed costs.

Two is purchasing power. This exploits economic inefficiency from being a dominant purchaser of inputs or producer of outputs such that a company can trade on favorable terms. We see just such a battle playing out for iron ore, featuring a large customer (China) haggling back and forth between a handful of large producers (Vale, Rio Tinto, etc).

Three is additional specialization and the division of labor. With more people, you can have greater specialization. This enables ever more division of labor which creates a more efficient production environment a la Adam Smith's pin factory.

Four is diversification. This is the logic of the conglomerate like General Electric. Being in diverse businesses, it is better able to weather the storms that hit any particular one of its units. It should be noted that conglomerate thinking is definitely out of favor.

Do any of these apply in the case of the Midwest? It is hard for me to identify specific scenarios. To give a real example, I think of the triangle of cities formed by Cincinnati, Indianapolis, and Louisville. These are all smallish major metros separated by about 100 miles. While none would be mistaken for Sunbelt boomtowns, none of them are Cleveland or Detroit either. They are also a good example since they are in different states. How might these cities cooperate to take advantage of mega-regional thinking?

I can already name some small scale things that have been done. One is mutual aid. The electric utilities in the three cities have long sent crews to help out the others after major storm related outages. And the cities formalized a disaster assistance pact. This is sort of the diversification argument and seems to create something tangible.

Beyond this, are the cities able to take advantage of scale economics? I don't see how. I could see some level of capital efficiency that could be achieved if, for example, the three cities shared an airport located somewhere between them. But they seem far enough apart not to be able to do that for anything I could think of.

Is specialization an option. In theory, yes. In practice, I'm dubious. Thinking about how this might work, I use the example that Cincinnati could be the headquarters city, Indianapolis the life sciences city, and Louisville the tourism city. Each city would specialize and the others would agree not to compete but support the chosen city for each individual segment. This would eliminate costly duplication of effort and allow more muscle to be put behind each individual item. But would this happen? Highly unlikely. None of these cities is giving up an inch in fighting for all three items. That's just not gonna happen.

Now, we do see around the country some degrees of specialization in cities that are nearby such that one could argue they form an extended region. NYC specializes in finance, DC in government, for example, and there is a lot of travel back and forth. In Texas, Dallas, Houston, and Austin seem to have specialized in complementary niches. But I don't see a great opportunity for this in the Midwest, at least not in a pratical sense.

Ironically, the one area I do it happening in is within those much maligned state boundaries. For example, Indiana University and Purdue University have a great degree of specialization. Purdue has engineering, pharmacy, and agriculture as specialities. Indiana University has law, medicine, etc. They complement each other so well, in fact, that they are able to share major regional campuses in Indianapolis and Ft. Wayne.

What about purchasing power? This is something I do see some logic in. Namely, if the Midwest congressional caucuses pooled their power, they could accomplish something. Again, how likely is this in practice? Most congressman and senators seem primarily concerned with their district, and not that likely to expend clout elsewhere. But if a Midwest caucus were formed in the House and Senate, there could emerge something. Perhaps the forthcoming battle over the Great Lakes Compact would be a good place to start.

There are certainly benefits to an expanded view of the market for state and local level procurement. For example, "home cooking" in terms of favoring in town or in state suppliers probably raises the cost of road construction, etc. Throwing this wide open to Midwestern competition, with common standards would be a financial benefit. But of course, so would opening it up to global competition. And that's just unlikely to happen due to politics. Not in the Midwest, not anywhere.

Looking again at our three cities, I don't see them able to reap much advantage from pricing power effects of cooperation. And even if they did, would this really materially change their economic fortunes? Unlikely.

So where are the benefits of mega-regionalism to be found? Jim Russell of Burgh Diaspora views it as less about scale than about critical mass, particulary critical mass of talent. This is a powerful metaphor because it makes us think that once a certain talent level is reached, a chain reaction will set off a powerful economic explosion.

I prefer to think of this as a concept I call "minimum efficient scale". That is, there is a certain minimum size it takes in order to support certain things or to do them in house. For example, a city needs to be a certain size to support commercial air service, a pro sports team, or a Neiman Marcus. Would cooperation between our three cities enable anything they can't support today because of inefficient scale?

There is some intruiging evidence here. Cincinnati seems to have benefitted from this. They have a Delta air hub, a major league baseball team, a major amusement park, and an IKEA store. I would argue that most of these only make sense for Cincinnati in the context of exploiting the expanded regional population. However, Cincinnati has favorable geography (being also close to Dayton and Columbus and thus serving as a natural focal point) and was traditionally the more prominent and large city of the three. The benefits to Cincinnati are clear, but are there benefits to anyone else? Not anything significant. What's more, none of these items required any mega-regional cooperation at all. They happened naturally because of the marketplace. What would the cities specifically cooperate on that would give them something they don't have today?

When it comes to talent, there are certainly benefits to having more of it. But I don't see any particular benefits to mega-regionalism here. What would they be? Idea exchange? Possibly, but there is no particular geographic advantage to that. I can exchange ideas with anyone. If I were a struggling Midwestern city, I'd probably be more concerned about building connections to successful places and to the overall global economy than I would be to my failing neighbor next door. Believe me, if a good idea comes up, people will find out about it. The Youngstown shrinkage experiment is a good example of that.

Could there be an expanded labor market? I'm having trouble seeing it. In our example, consider a life sciences company in Indianapolis. Would they be more easily be able to tap into labor in Louisville and Cincinnati if there were some cooperation in place? Perhaps if the respective life sciences communities were intertwined, there would be more awareness of job opportunities, but my experience is that people are either going to stay where they are, or follow the money. In the latter, they probably aren't moving 100 miles for what are probably similar wages. They are going to go to San Diego and make some real bucks. What's more, the regional cities I know seem to harbor a special contempt for each other, which would seem to make it doubly unlikely someone would move if they bought into that rhetoric.

I also do not buy into the "chain reaction" analogy. I've yet to see a successful example of this that spans metro areas.

Geographic proximity alone can offer some benefits. Philadelphia is certainly benefitting from proximity to New York as NYC prices turn it into the sixth borough. Pittsburgh can't tap into that. But I view this as less of a mega-region, than just the colossus that is New York City expanding its sphere of influence as it becomes an ever more important world city. There is a similar effect going on with Chicago and Milwaukee, but is that replicable elsewhere?

I think again about this, what would proximity alone bring to our three cities? Well, for some it could mean easier access to professional sports. But other than Reds baseball, which has a very broad fan base for historical reasons, I don't see it. A local Louisville blog recently noted the lack of inroads the Colts have had in building a fan base in that city, for example. And looking to the bigger city example, what benefit could Indianapolis reap from closer engagement with Chicago that say Kansas City, which is outside the Floridian mega-region, could not?

Florida himself probably offers the best potential explanation. He argues that mega-regional integration will lead to emergent properties that can't be predicted based on the inputs. This is plausible, but not where I'd be hanging my hat if I were trying to figure out where to invest my time. And emergent properties could be good or bad and Florida doesn't predict what they might be.

Longworth is also big on mega-regional thinking. He does a great job of diagnosing and describing the Midwest's problems. But I do not see how the specifics of his proposed solutions will dramatically change the Midwest's course. And he himself recognizes the political difficulty of making them happen. Among his proposals, he wants to see a Midwest regional think tank and newspaper. He'd like to see reciprocal in-state tuition. He'd like to see a higher degree of academic specialization among Big Ten schools with less competition. And he'd like to see states call a cease-fire in the economic incentives game versus each other. All good ideas, and potentially beneficial. But I don't believe they are game changers, apart potentially from the academic specialization, which seems to be a daunting proposition.

I'm willing to be convinced. I clearly see the benefits of regional cooperation on a metro or economic area basis. Even there, however, we've seen significant challenges operationalizing even that idea. To really justify significant time and effort being spent on mega-regionalism beyond the quick and easy idea exchange variety, I think a specific program of recommended actions and the type of results we should expect to see from them needs to be put forward. Otherwise I'm inclined to view mega-regionalism in the Midwest as dinosaurs mating. Rolling up a bunch of weak players won't make a strong one.

I welcome any thoughts on this subject, of course.

Artists in the Midwestern Workforce

The National Endowment for the Arts released a recent study on artists in the workforce. It provides a comprehensive analysis of the census data from 2000 on the number of professional artists by state and metro area.

Now this data is certainly not perfect. Among other things, it only counts people who are employed as artists in eleven specific categories. Part time or non-professionals are not included. Still, for what it is, there is some interesting data. The eleven categories are actors; announcers; architects; fine artists, art directors, and animators; dancers and choreographers; designers; entertainers and performers; musicians and singers; photographers; producers and directors; and writers and authors.

For the metros I track, here are the rankings by total numbers of artists:

Rank	City	Total Artists
1	Chicago	64,800
2	Detroit	33,215
3	Minneapolis	28,685
4	St. Louis	16,755
5	Kansas City	13,540
6	Cleveland	13,420
7	Cincinnati	11,555
8	Milwaukee	10,975
9	Columbus	10,775
10	Indianapolis	10,075
11	Louisville	6,035

And here are the rankings by artists as a percentage of the workforce.

Rank	City	Artists % of Workforce
1	Minneapolis	1.71%
2	Chicago	1.57%
3	Detroit	1.53%
4	Kansas City	1.45%
5	Milwaukee	1.40%
6	Cincinnati	1.37%
7	Columbus	1.31%
8	St. Louis	1.26%
9	Cleveland	1.20%
10	Indianapolis	1.19%
11	Louisville	1.15%

More Smart Economic Development Strategies

In my recent posting about the brand promise of Indianapolis, I advocated that far from rejecting Indy's traditional brand image, the city should instead embrace the best of it, updating it for the future with optimism and ambition. Core to this was motorsports, which is the brand image of Indianapolis for many people, especially outside the United States. There was some lively debate around this in the comment thread to say the least.

Interestingly, an article in the Star shows that motorsports isn't just a good brand, it's good business. The Indianapolis area has over 400 motorsports related businesses, with over 8,800 employees and a combined payroll exceeding $425 million. My simple math puts the average wage for that at about $48,300/year. Many of these are located in the racing cluster around Indianapolis Raceway Park in Brownsburg. What's more, as a commentor noted, motorsports is actually a high technology business, making it a good fit for the city's ambitions in that sector. You can read more about this at http://www.indianamotorsports.org/ and http://www.indianamotorsports.gov/

I previously discussed what makes a good economic development strategy, highlighting Indy's very successful amateur sports strategy and the newer Music Crossroads initiative. They key is not to focus all of your efforts on markets like high technology and life sciences, where everybody and their brother wants a piece of the action and few cities have a differentiated strategy. It seems to me that every city I look at has pretty much the same strategy there. There will be winners to be sure, but the greatest benefits will accrue to only a handful of places, and the winners in some respects have already been chosen. No Midwest burg is likely to knock Silicon Valley from its perch as America's tech capital, for example.

That's not to say that cities shouldn't try to build industries in those sectors. They should. Things like life sciences, high technology, green business, etc. are such growth areas and so omnipresent in the 21st century economy that you must have at least some presence there to even be in the game. A city without a life sciences strategy could end up like a company with no internet strategy - a has been. Conversely, that means these industries are, to a great extent, just the ante you've got to pay and don't build a differentiated offering except in limited situations. They are a necessary but not sufficient condition.

What cities really need to do beyond the ante is to find areas where they can build their own version of what Warren Buffett would call "wide moat" businesses. That is, those that have a sustainable competitive advantage. Rather than trying to beat Silicon Valley at their game, I'd argue cities need to define their own games they can make others try to beat them at. The Indy amateur sports strategy was a great example of this.

Indy's motorsports strategy is another. Because of the Indianapolis 500, the city has a huge reputation for motorsports. Having built up other events at the Speedway, plus the US Nationals and other premier events held at Indianapolis Raceway Park, it's safe to say that there is no other city with a collection of racing events like Indy anywhere in the world. What's more, as with amateur sports, the city didn't just rely on events, but also built a cluster of businessness and expertise in all facets of the industry. This has led to the major job cluster that we observe. This is big business, and it is a wide moat business. What's more, it has a huge positive impact on the city's brand.

The great thing is, there's a lot more gas in the tank, so to speak, in the motorsports strategy, and if it is extended and aligned with an overall brand repositioning for the city, the benefits could be enormous. I mentioned before the alignment of motorsports with high technology. Consider how this could be leveraged. We often hear the legends about how many safety and other pieces of equipment such as rear view mirrors debuted in the Indianapolis 500 before they made their ways to production cars. Why not try to revive that? Indy Car and Nascar have gone for purely standard kits, while Formula 1 has veered off into true high tech, with ever more esoteric gear requiring a budget in in the nine figures just to compete. But there is a third way. I can't claim credit for this because Bob Kravitz of the Star I believe already threw out the challenge, but why not tweak the rules of Indy Car to make technology competition part of the sport again and orient it towards alternative fuels and green energy? Why shouldn't IndyCar perhaps, at least in some type of event, be going for a pure hyrdogen car or a pure electric car, or something that both forces teams to compete, involves high technology with massive comercial spin-off potential, the ability to lure outside funding, and a huge boost for the city's environmental image. Think of it as the Brickyard meets a version of the X Prize.

This is just one idea of how to capitalize on motorsports. There are many others. But the key is that the city has already built a successful wide moat business here. The challenge for Indy and other cities is how to find additional wide moat businesses they can build up and expand, and not be trapped playing solely in games that have lots of lots of competitors and entrenched market leaders.

By the way, that's not to say life sciences or high tech can't be part of that. But find your niche. Specialized laboratory and service companies employ 6,000 people in Indiana, for example. Still, I wouldn't be putting all my eggs in those baskets.

Ralston Square Project Update

Ralston Square, a proposed mixed use development in downtown Indianapolis has obtained financing and signed major hotel and commercial tenants. The 11 story, $60 million Ralston Square, an urban infill project on South St. occupying the block between Meridian St. and Pennsylvania St. that is currently surface parking, will open in 2010 with a 155-room Cambria Suites hotel and a 525 space parking garage. The ground floor will feature a BlackFinn Restaurant and Saloon, and Strike City Bowling, both chains. The upper floors will have 40 condominiums, a reduction from previous counts. The project still contains a green roof and is planned to be LEED Silver certified.

The developers have released new renderings from Ratio Architects. Before reviewing them, let's recall the original render.


I posted an extensive review of this structure previously. While a lot of people were down on it, I actually kind of liked it, judging is a "fairly solid infill project". The LEED certification is good of course. But what I most liked is that they let a parking garage be a parking garage, and even exaggerated the expression of the concrete parking decks with overhangs that gave a Prairie Style feel to it. I thought the red brick structure with "limestone" and glass created a modern take on traditional Hoosier styles in a way that had become Ratio's signature. I even thought that the Ratio house style would make a good template for an "Indianapolis style" vernacular architecture. It wasn't perfect by any means. The small upper story windows give the building a "Villagio effect", and not in a good way. The vertical slit windows make it look like an upscale jail. There is a faint aroma of the public housing project about it. But on the whole, not bad. Read the rest yourself for full details.

Now onto the new renderings. Here is the primary South St. facade.


Here's a closeup of the corner of South St. and Meridian St.


I'd say the first iteration is "not bad". This one, however, is "not good". In contrast to say the JW Marriott, this one actually got worse with the redesign.

First, the brick color is not as good in its own right, IMO. And while this structure would be small by many urban standards, it will be very prominent on the south end of the Indianapolis downtown, where that color, in contrast with the previous red brick, will clash with Lucas Oil Stadium and Conseco Fieldhouse. I don't think we need to have a monolithic red brick downtown, but this is not a good complementary color.

What's more, the facade is made up of a series of design elements that seem to have been cribbed from a variety of other generic buildings and crammed together into a mish-mash that makes no logical sense. The first design featured a tower rising at the Meridian/South corridor, with an almost separate structure along South St. perpendicular to it. It made a sort of intuitive sense. This one lacks any sense of balance or proportion. Its one single structure in appearance, one that seems to feature sheer cliff faces along the street. The South St. facade, by my count, has about 11 different main sections to the facade, which do not integrate well into the whole. The worst offender is what looks like a giant black cutout in the middle of the section along Meridian St. and wrapping around a bit onto South St. I've been staring at this design a while now, and I cannot figure out what the architects were trying to achieve. I would love someone to explain it to me. What's more, the vertical slit windows are still there, and the upper floor windows are still a bit smallish.

I do have some things I like about this, however. The first is that the garage entrance seems to have been moved to Meridian St. next to the tracks. I was studying the renderings and at first couldn't even figure out where this was. In fact, I might have got it wrong. But the attempt to reduce the impact of parking on the building, and to locate the entrance next to what is already a major disruption in the street fabric was smart.

Also, I had pleaded with Ratio to make sure this was a 360 degree building and not to ignore the South St./Pennsylvania St. corner, or the street level engagement along Pennsylvania St. This building appears to satsify the requirements. Here's a lo-fi render of that corner.


I like the wrap-around glass that accentuates that corner. While there is a bit of blank facade wall along Pennsylvania St., which in an ideal world would be corrected, again it is next to what is already a major disruption in the street fabric. And the corner appears to have a decent treatment.

The one thing I again don't like is the reverse cut-out middle section. It is as if the architects took inspiration from a Jenga game, where the building was made out of three major horizontal planks and someone poked the the middle section to the east a bit. I can see where you could actually have a lot of fun with something like this and make a building that even looked super-cool. But this certainly doesn't fit the bill.

While the new structure has improved some spot elements of the old, on the whole, I would have to judge this design a step backwards. However, the fact that this project obtained financing and signed several tenants in a difficult real estate climate is very positive. As is the fact that the developer appears to continue to have faith in their residential component in not just a tough market, but a pioneering location.

The Brand Promise of Indianapolis

This is premature article. I hoped to develop my thinking much more before posting it. But since there were some questions and a lot of conversation on my HARMONI thread about the brand identity and "brand promise" of Indianapolis, I thought I would post it now, with the idea of stimulating discussions and soliciting ideas.

Please keep in mind while reading that there are two separate questions: what is Indy's brand identity, and what would the city like it to be in the future?

After my most recent pecha kucha presentation, someone came up to me and asked a question: "What is Indianapolis' identity?" She noted that when you think "Texas" a whole series of associations comes to mind: ten-gallon hats and cowboys, "everything's bigger in Texas", a certain exaggered masculinity combined with traditional "Yes, Ma'am" manners. But Indianapolis didn't seem to conjure up anything for this person or those she worked with. It was a constant topic of conversation. This is, perhaps, not uncommon in the area. I noted how Louisville struggles with the same questions of identity.

I attribute the lack of strong identity to a few factors:

• The city's image is tighly linked to that of Indiana as a whole, and thus to a general Midwest image. It has not traditionally been viewed as distinct from its state in the way that, say, New York City has been.
• Indianapolis has not historically been prominent on the national radar because it is a smaller city.
• The images that are conjured up when thinking of the city are those that cause embarrassment to a lot of people locally, such as auto racing and tractors.

Think of the first point. What do you call someone from Indianapolis? I can't think of anything other than "Hoosier". As I noted in that pecha kucha presentation, Indianapolis is culturally Hoosier. There is not a huge cultural gulf between the city and the rest of the state. I happen to think that's a good thing. However, the Indiana association does predominantly conjure rural images such as flat farmland, tractors, small towns, etc. that are clearly not what a city like Indianapolis is about. So I do believe city needs to add a layer of unique civic identity on top of the existing stack (Hoosier, Midwesterner, American, etc). While Indianapolis should by no means try to declare independence from Indiana, it does need to strengthen its own brand.

On the second point, I've long noted that while other Midwestern cities are trying to turn around decline, and have to come to terms with their diminished relative standing in the nation, Indy's profile (and that of some other places like Columbus, Ohio) is on the increase. Indianapolis has never been a larger, more important, more influential player in the nation and world that it is today. Is it in the truly big leagues yet? No, but it is at its highest level ever and is still on the way up. As it continues that upward trajectory, it will start to get more press. For example, the Colts have been incredibly instrumental in bringing Indy to the fore in the public imagination. So assuming they keep it up (and hopefully win a few more Superbowls!), the Colts (and potentially just the Colts blue color), could become more associated with Indy. Raising the city's profile is a slow process, but the trend lines are positive here.

Lastly, let's face it, Indy is carrying around a chip on its shoulder about being a "cow town" sort of place. It is desperate to prove its big city bona fides and have people see it as a real big city. That's why there is so much focus on things like swanky restaurants, shops, pro sports, light rail, etc. Indy is desperate to be perceived as having the trappings of a "real" big city and be taken seriously by the Chicago's and New York's of this world. I think this leads to embarrassment about the things the city is associated with and a desire on the part of some to downplay its strongest brand assets.

The best example of this is auto racing. Indianapolis and the 500 Mile Race are basically synonymous around the world. Yet the city does not fully champion it as core to its modern identity. One, because it doesn't want to be viewed as a one trick pony, which isn't necessary a bad thing. It sees itself as being more than a one event town and is eager to showcase the new. Two, because in the US auto racing is considered déclassé by the urban elite, and the brand image of the typical Indy car or NASCAR race fan isn't something the city really wants to portray itself as being all about. Similarly for all the traditional Hoosier attributes such as pork tenderloin sandwiches.

This is typical behavior for all human beings. When we were little kids, we wanted to emulate the older kids. When we were freshman, we were desperate to be cool like the upperclassman. As we mature through the various stages of life, we often come to view the things we left behind with embarrassment, as "little kids stuff". We go New York and see fashionable people strutting through the streets and we feel inadequate. I understand completely the impulse behind this. But as we fully mature, we settle into our skin and become comfortable with who we are and confident about ourselves. We're able to resist peer pressure a little better.

I personally try to live by the credo of what I call the "random bastard" theory. That is, why should I care what some random bastard on the street thinks of me? There was a Dr. Pepper commercial a while back that showed a guy happily doing all sorts of embarrassing things for his girlfriend: buying tampons, folding her underwear at the laundromat, holding the clothes she wants to try on at the boutique. The only thing he's not willing to do is share his Dr. Pepper. We all have a good laugh at this, but I think it illustrates the way that we all as human beings care very much what even random strangers might think, even about activities that are perfectly normal and rational. The first time I took the Eurostar train to Paris, I walked out into the Gare du Nord desperate to look like I knew exactly where the cab stand was. There's nothing I hate more than looking like I don't know what I'm doing in public, and especially in Paris I wanted very much to look like I was a sophisticated regular, not a doofus American tourist who'd never set foot in that station before. But what could be more natural than having never been in a particular train station or airport before? It's a perfectly normal thing. So I wandered around like an idiot tourist for a while and finally found the cab stand. I try to always remember that I shouldn't spend any time worrying about what those random bastards on the street think. I don't always succeed, but I do try.

I think there's a similar process at work in cities. As Indy (and most places) start to move up in the ranks, they want to be taken seriously by the upperclassmen. But the cities that are truly successful and truly maturing have moved beyond imitation of what others deem cool. They have the confidence to boldly chart their own path to the future, and to find their own unique success. Cities, very successful ones, as diverse as Austin, Las Vegas, Portland, and Charleston, SC. have figured this out.

When it comes to brand image, having all those big city trappings ultimately amounts to nothing. Rather, I argue that it is those truly organic local items that are the key to building a future brand image. Look at almost any corporate rebranding campaign. The first thing the company does it try to go back through its history and understand its core essence, its "brand DNA" to use an overworked term. Even the hippest of companies such as fashion houses do this, mining their archives for inspiration for future collections. That's what Indianapolis needs to do in order to understand where it is and where it should go. Indy can tack on pro sports teams and light rail lines till the cows come home, so to speak, but that provides nothing distinct for anyone to latch onto. And whether things like auto racing and pork tenderloins are good or bad is often purely a matter of attitude and perception.

Consider a few examples. Smoking is considered a lower class activity in America these days. Yet in France they smoke like chimneys and everyone thinks it is cool. Why's that? People talk about Hoosiers chowing down on deep fried tenderloins and the like as a sign of provincial unsophistication and poor eating habits, then go to Belgium and go gaga over french fries in a greasy paper cone slathered in mayo. I fail to see the big difference. Nobody thinks Chicago hot dogs, Philly cheese steaks, or NYC pizza are bad, despite how fattening and horrible for you they are. They are all sources of pride to their communities. Heck, in Europe they even decided auto racing (Formula 1) was cool and something rich, sophisticated people should be into.

What Indy needs to do create that brand image is to stop being embarrassed at what it is and start showing a little pride and swagger about it. What could be more hillbilly than ten gallon hats and the whole Texas schtick? Yet they are perhaps the most proud people of what they are of any state - and it has worked well for them. Indy seems embarrassed of anything that has a
whiff of Southern, blue collar, or rural influence, but the fastest growing cities in America are in the South, where they are proud of their heritage. Why can't Indy show the same pride and swagger? I'm not talking about the naive boosterism that is so prominent in some circles. That really is embarrasssing. But rather about setting a lofty goal and ambition, based clearly in the local culture. A good mixture of high ambition, bravado, and audacity, all in a local wrapper.

I think a lot of the places of the South are a good model to follow. For many years they were beaten down, economically depressed, with many national image stigmas. Yet they reinvigorated themselves through optimisim, embracing the best parts of their image while shedding the worst (creating this image of "the New South") and having that swagger I mentioned.

I consider Atlanta as a great example. Indy and Atlanta were about the same size 50 years ago. Today, Atlanta is one of America's largest, most booming cities. Back in the 80's when their metro area reached the 2 million mark, civic leaders launched a bunch of balloons to celebrate. Can you imagine such a thing happening in Indy? It would probably be greeted as a sign of the apocalypse by many. When nobody gave them a chance, Atlanta said, "Let's host the Olympics". They believe they are destinted to be one of the top world cities. All too often, Indy just seems happy to be here, satisfied with its modest levels of outperformance versus the nation and a region that is suffering.

I just got back from Nashville, a city slightly smaller than Indy and only growing a bit faster, and there is a huge belief in their future as the next great city of the South. It is very much worth a visit to see how they are reinventing themselves, with much bigger plans and ambitions than Indy, even though I'd argue they have little to nothing on Indy and in fact are inferior in many ways. And of course they are building a lot of their identity around country and contemporary Christian music, more déclassé items among the urban elite. But what they've done is a put a modern spin on it with their glitzy "Nashvegas" approach. I think it is well worth spending a long weekend in Nashville checking out the vibe in the town.

I believe a successful brand repositioning for a city will probably rely heavily on creating the new brand from the essence of the old, as well as creating a new level of ambition that is combined with an optimistic world view. The first part gives people something they can relate to. The second gives them something to believe in and inspire them. I think this is something that Indy needs to do. It needs to take the best of its existing Hoosier and Midwest identity, get rid of the non-core negative aspects of it, and set forth a new ambition and positive vision for the city and what it can achieve.

So, yes, Indy's identity is a bit weak today, but I believe the ingrediants are there to really create something. Perhaps one day Indianapolis could even be "the Capital of the New Midwest". Ok, Chicago will always be the capital of the Midwest, but it is a complete outlier and so different from other places that you can almost consider it its own standalone region - it seems to be doing its best to declare independence from the Midwest in its bid to join the league of world cities. The lessons of Chicago are for the most part not applicable to other Midwestern cities. This leaves room for Indy to take the lead in creating a new identity amongst the real Midwest, and redefining the region for the 21st century. Indianapolis, along with cities like Columbus and Kansas City, offer a real Midwestern model of success, one that can produce viable lessons for how other parts of the Midwest can reinvent themselves to be successful.

What would this involve?

• Self-conciously define and embrace the "New Midwest" identity, keeping the best of the past and the present, while having the courage to change the things that need it for the future. Change is always a hard sell in Indiana, but if it is not a wholesale throwing out of the current identity, but more of a reshaping, it is probably a lot easier to pull off.

• Things to keep and build an identity around for the city are auto racing (yes, keep it front and center), the Colts, the small city feel, pork tenderloin sandwiches, the "good, solid, reliable people" ethic, basketball mania, highway orientation ("the Crossroads of America"), patriotism, etc. Think about the imagery the city, the state, the region conjures up. As I noted in my HARMONI review, some of these are tractors in the field, lunch pails and smokestacks, fierce competition on the sports field, airplane engines, big rigs, a researcher's white lab coat, war memorials, and so on. These are powerful, masculine images. Chicago took more or less those same ingrediants and called itself "the City of Big Shoulders", an image it is now consciously abandoning (a decision I feel is a terrible one, incidentally). There's something similar there for Indy, both in terms of expressing what the place has to offer, and as inspiration for a design language and design identity for the city.
  

• Here's my favorite example of taking what is and making it what could be. Hoosiers have a sort of contrarian, even ornery attitude towards the world. Indiana stood virtually alone on DST for the longest time, for example. But this is exactly what I advocate - having the courage to go your own way and not follow the lemmings. In a world where everyone else is following the pack, Indianapolis (and perhaps Indiana) dare to be different. The key is to start applying that attitude towards shaping the future, instead of digging in about the past (e.g., DST). The exact same attitude that so many view as a weakness is in fact, when used properly, a huge strength. This is what I mean by forging the "New Midwest".

• Figure out how to leave behind some of the more negative aspects of the current brand image such as environmental degradation, racism, and, for the city itself, some of the more overtly rural imagery inappropriate to an urban envirnoment. For example, I've argued before that the black community of Indianapolis should be front and center as one of the central growth pillars for the central city, and represents one of the great untapped resources of the city. Virtually no other cities have blacks as one of their target markets. This leaves a big opportunity for Indy to build on its rich black heritage to create an image of one of America's great cities for blacks. Incidentally, this was one of the things that has been absolutely critical to Atlanta's success ("the city too busy to hate").
  

• Be optimistic about the future, and set high goals and ambitions for the city. There are places in the Midwest that deserve to feel gloomy. Detroit, for example. Plenty of places are in bad shape. While Indy is not immune to the current economy or the forces of globalization to be sure, it is actually beating not just the Midwest but the nation at large in things like population growth, percentage of residents with a college degree, new high tech jobs, etc. I personally believe that Indy is a city with huge future potential. It's not the only Midwest place like that to be sure. But it belongs in the top tier of places, no doubt.
  

• Embrace getting bigger and boosting national and international prominence. This alone will create better brand recognition among the public at large. So many people in this day and age are anti-growth. They cite all the perceived negatives of it. But growth is good. Growth is what provides opporunities for people and what ultimately provides the scale necessary to support those urban amenities like rail transit that so many people want. Those types of things take people and wealth to support them, and growth is how you get it.
  

These are just some ideas. I had intended to let this bake more and think harder about how to extract the current brand image and how specifically to update it and strategies for implementation. Instead, I decided to throw them out there and let the world collaborate on it with me. This is a complex, difficult matter, not one with simple answers. And ultimately, a culture and vision of a place grow organically out of the people who live there. Good leaders can point the way, but it can't be imposed top down.

Please share your thoughts in the comments section.

News Briefs

The Journal editorializes about the self-inflicted economic death of Ohio.

Purdue University researchers find that 70MPH is as safe at 65MPH on the interstates.

A study shows that non-compete agreements are bad for innovation. Some researchers believe the fact that California does not allow non-competes while Massachusetts does is one reason for the ascendancy of Silicon Valley over Boston's Route 128.

The Economist profiles the book "The Big Sort" about how our society is becoming ever less mixed with regards to political views as democrats and republicans self-segregate.

Chicago. A major report on the CHA's scattered site housing initiative.

More on a proposed $200 million commuter rail line extension to Milwaukee.

Chicago now features by far the nation's highest sales tax - 10.25%. It also features the nation's highest real estate transfer tax as well, I'm told. And property taxes are nothing to sneeze at either.

The Tollway Authority approved a $51 million Eola Rd. interchange in Aurora on I-88.

The Illiana Expressway study continues apace.

Cincinnati. The Cincinnati Art Museum plans to raise $86 million for an expansion and renovation. The goals are more space and LEED certification.

Cleveland. More on the city's foreclosure crisis. A scary statistic: "Forty percent of single-family homes sold in Cleveland this year were purchased for less than $10,000."

Indianapolis. Wow, coverage for Indianapolis in The Guardian. Alas, it is about a teacher suspended for teaching a disallowed book. There is certainly more than one side to this and similar stories, but the tone of this coverage isn't positive to be sure. Luckily for the city, it is never named, and it is unlikely an overseas reader knows where Perry Township is.

Bargersville is undertaking a major annexation along the SR 135 (Meridian St.) corridor, with the potential for taking over the entire Center Grove area. Meanwhile, Westfield plans to annex 20 donut hole areas.

An editorial about the search for a new IndyGo leader in the wake of Gilbert Holmes' retirement.

Indy is the Midwest leader in adding high tech jobs.

Louisville. A debate rages about whether the state has cut funding for the Ohio River Bridges Project.

The city continues to press to build a pedestrian crossing on the unused roadway sections of the K&I rail bridge.

An architectural review of the proposed downtown arena. Like me, the reviewer is not sold on the design. Louisville deserves better than this.

Naptown Gets Harmonic

[Update 7/6: The Star runs a lengthy article on this proposal today]

The Indianapolis Business Journal ran a cover story this week about an initiative called HARMONI, the Historic Midtown Neighborhood Initiative. No, I can't parse the acronym either. Their plan is to work to improve the infrastructure in Meridian-Kessler, Butler-Tarkington, and Broad Ripple. The focus is on Meridian St., and changing the feel of the road from that of a commuter highway to a more neighborhood serving street.

The complete vision is not provided in either the IBJ article or on the HARMONI web site. But there is still a lot to sink your teeth into. The goal is to "return this district to the walkable, bikeable, connected condition it was expertly designed to be nearly 100 years ago". Phase I involves a series of improvements at high priority locations:

• Adding a median, sidewalks, and parkways to Meridian St. between 54th St. and the Canal.
• Adding landscaped sidewalks on both 56th St. and Westfield Blvd. from Meridian St. to Illinois St., linking Meridian St. to the commercial node there.
• Enhancements at the Canal bridge on Meridian St.
  
• A decorative crosswalk linking the Canal Towpath trail to Alice Carter Park across Westfield Blvd.
• Decorative sidewalks, parkways, lighting, and landscaping at the commercial strip at 39th St. and Illinois.

In effect, this plan will upgrade a stretch of Meridian north of where the sidewalks currently end, and improve connectivity to Bulter-Tarkington's two commercial nodes. This plan would cost between $4.4 million and $7.4 million, with about $2 million coming from private sources. Of the private money, $300,000 is in hand. Obviously with that price range, many decisions are yet to be made. Future phases aren't detailed, but the article notes that the group would like to restore rail transit service along the College Ave. or Keystone Ave. corridors. As the College Ave. corridor rail line is the Monon Trail, don't look for a decoversion there any time soon.

Here are some renderings that were posted by HARMONI. First the commercial node at 39th St. and Illinois St.

I'm not sure to what extent these renderings are intended to be actual depictions vs. conceptual drawings, but I'll point a few things out. On the plus side, note the separately marked Chicago-style bike lanes similar to the ones that will be put in on Michigan St. and New York St. on the east side. Also note the landscaped pedestrian blister that constricts the street at the crosswalk to slow traffic and shorten the crossing district. On the negative, the sidewalk looks too narrow - far to narrow for commercial frontage, and the power lines on the street have got to go. Pay attention to the antique street lamps, which I'll address later.

Meridian St. at Westfield Blvd. with a median, sidewalk, etc.

What I'll note about this is the use of some type of bollard to give extra definition to the crossing zones and additional pedestrian protection while waiting to cross. Very good. The cross-walk hatches appear to be themoplastic, however. The use of colored concrete as on the 38th St. streetscape would be much better. The intent is to lower the speed limit from 45 to 30 on this stretch of road. I don't see this project materially reducing actual speeds at this location, however. Speed limits are supposed to be set based on the design speed of the road and the speed at which drivers actually drive (the 85th percentile rule, for example). This road exhibits the characteristics of a 45MPH design speed.

Here's the treatment at the Meridian St. bridge over the Canal.


I like the gathering place where pedestrians could take in the Canal. I like the semi-circle design as well. It's like a mini-Monument Circle. That is a nice touch.

And the crosswalk on Westfield Blvd.


It looks to me like Westfield would be converted to a curb/gutter section here. That would be very nice indeed. I'd like to see the trail paved too. It is currently gravel. The big problem I note is that there is only the trail on one side of the road. There's no sidewalk on the other side. That's a design problem. It forces anyone walking to the park along Westfield to use the trail, then cross a busy street. This shouldn't be necessary for people coming from south of Westfield Blvd.

What I like best about this plan is in how it strengthens neighborhood commercial nodes, and treats sidewalks as linkages between origins and destinations, making them functional transportation systems, not just leisure paths. That's huge. Sidewalks are useless if they don't go anywhere.

One day I might write up my own strategy for the city. One of the key parts of it is to recognize that unlike almost all other major cities, Indianapolis is almost completely lacking in major urban commercial streets. There is nothing like, for example, even what you see with north High St. in Columbus, Ohio. Rather, Indianapolis has more pocket nodes of commercial intersections, surrounded by more low intensity residential areas. My theme is something like "100 courthouse squares" (or Monument Circles perhaps), where these nodes become neighborhood focal points, with a network of excellent connections between the nodes and between the nodes and surrounding areas. Have something Cultural Trail like to link the nodes to each other and to major corridors such a Meridian St. or the Monon Trail and to parks and other destination points. Use a more standard sidewalk for neighborhood linkages.

This plan goes right along with that thinking. It leverages the existing sidewalks on Meridian, fills them in to the north, then creates linkages to the 56th St. and Illinois St. commercial district. The Westfield Blvd. and 56th St. linkages connect the node to the Meridian St. spine, and the Westfield Blvd upgrade is the start of a linkage between that node and Broad Ripple. Looking at extending this further, I see other spurs going off Meridian to the 49th St. and Pennsylvania St. district, as well as the various commercial nodes along College Ave.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Obviously I like this plan a lot. The city could build it as-is and I would happily raise my glass and drink a toast to it. But since this is Yours Truly, I naturally have a few suggestions to make. The current proposal is good, but frankly not distinctive. The renderings are nearly identical to many other such plans across the country. There's nothing here that screams "Indianapolis". While it is workmanlike job, it is not the type of project that would befit a world class city. World class cities think harder and dig deeper. So in that light, let me throw out a few suggestions that I believe could improve this project at modest cost. Hopefully they at least stimulate thinking.

I don't want to read too much into a few lines of text, but it appears that the fundamental design vision behind the project is one of nostalgia. The IBJ article talks about it, noting, "Nostalgia may be one way to sell the effort." The HARMONI web site says, regarding 38th and Illinois, "Nostalgic lampposts, street signs, brick crosswalks and plantings will celebrate the area’s history." Remember those antique street lamps I highlighted? This type of design is prevalent throughout the project. Merriam-Webster defines nostaliga as "a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition". In the design, this is implemented through things like Victorian gas lamp posts.

I believe that nostalgia is the wrong approach, and the specific design elements such as gas lamps the wrong way to implement it. Why? There are three basic reasons.

1. Nostalgia, as the definition implies, is a state of looking backwards, of longing for the good old days. It is an emotion that very much says our best days are behind us, and that we'll never have it so good again. I could not disagree more. This might be true of most of the Midwest, but it isn't true of Indianapolis. As I noted before, one of the most distinguishing features of Indy is that its best days are head of it. Indianapolis is a bigger, more important, more influential place in the world today than it has ever been in the past. And it seems likely to only grow moreso in the future, with good leadership and a bit of good look. While cities like St. Louis talk about what they used to be, Indianapolis is still a rising star. It's a city on the way up. A design that reflects this outlook, that is more forward thinking and optimistic, while still being rooted in the fabric of the neighborhood would be much preferred.

This is not to say that we should fail to consider the history or character of the region. That's where all too many modernist designers fall down. They are all too willing to ignore the present and past in self-indulgence or a utopian zeal for blowing away the old to build an idealized future. The history of Meridian-Kessler, Butler-Tarkington, and Broad Ripple is a rich one. It is one to be celebrated and built on for the future - but not to be encased in amber. I believe this history can be tapped without engaging in retro-nostalgia, however. And I'll show you how.

2. The traditional implementation of a nostalgia based architecture, as best exemplified by the antique gas lamp posts, is excessively Victorian and feminine. This might make it a good fit for Paris or even a small town, but it's a bad choice for a Midwestern metropolis like Indianapolis. Think about the Midwest, Indiana, Indianapolis. What comes to mind? Tractors in the fields, fast cars and fumes, lunchpails and smokestacks, fierce competition on the sporting field, airplane engines, big rigs, a researcher's white lab coat, war memorials, etc. What do most of these things have in common? They evoke powerful, masculine images. The Midwest was the land where people with strong backs, strong morals, big dreams, and an incredible work ethic tamed the prairie, fed America, built its cars and appliances, etc. If you are going to be nostalgic, that's the image to shoot for, an unpretentious solidity. Frilly decorations just don't fit.

3. The typical antique gas lamp design is also very undistinctive. As I noted before, these were could-be-anywhere renderings. There is nothing about them that makes someone sit up and take notice that they are in Indianapolis, except perhaps the Canal bridge treatment. One antique gas lamp replica looks much the same as the next. It is probably the most common street light design in America. You can order them straight out of a catalog, most likely.

There are four challenges I'd put out to the designers:

• Create a design that unique to the city, rooted in its unique history and context. This is where we anchor to the rich traditions of the neighborhood.
  

• Create a design that says "Indianapolis". That's not to say that it has to be a race car or something. Too facile or obvious a design can be worse than something generic. But a design that is consistent with the brand image (e.g., appropriately masculine) that can be imbued with the city's own unique identity is a must.

• Create a design that is forward looking and optimistic about the future.
  

• It needs to develop or further a unique design identity for the city. As I have said before, so often a great design is made in one special place and never used again. Examples are the Warehouse District streetscapes, the brick along Market St., the 38th St. streetscape, and the I-465 NW fast track project. Making every design a one-off is like a company doing a different logo for every ad they run. It only confuses things. What is needed is a consistent and clear branding for the city, and a consistent design language is a big part of that.

Those of you who've been reading my blog can probably predict what I'll say next. (For a refresher course, read my first Pecha Kucha presentation). I'm a big believer that transportation facility design is possibly the greatest branding opportunity a city has. As I stated elsewhere, our interstates and arterials are our new Main Streets, our new public square. They are increasingly the venues that shape our impression of a place. What impression is your city leaving?

I believe there are already great examples of local design in place that could be re-purposed for this project. They meet all of the criteria. They are rooted in the local environment, masculine in tone, forward looking, unique to the city, and further its design identity.

The first design is the stoplight mast arms used in the Warehouse District.


This is one of my favorite designs, of anything, in the city. It is simple, clean, elegant, masculine, classic. Note the timeless quality about it. This would fit in with the Meridian