Volume 34 Resilient Cities (2009)

No economy, be it city, regional, or national, can guarantee prosperity or uninterrupted growth. As city after city and country after country faces foreclosures, bankruptcies, and decreasing productivity, we desperately look for systems that can weather the storm, that possess or discover within their borders the assets they need to stay afloat—or to rebuild what they have lost. When we find those cities that have lost only a few jobs or cancelled a small number of projects, we are tempted to believe they have an equilibrium that others lack; but in the end, are there any “resilient cities,” or only resilient people who tenaciously determine what they must maintain and what they must alter in order to adapt to changing circumstances?

Editors: Wendy Baucom and Heather Schroeder

A digital version of this issue is available here.

INTERVIEW WITH NORMAN KRUMHOLZ

McConville, Megan Lewis; Baucom, Wendy; Schroeder, Heather

Norman Krumholz is a towering figure in the eyes of many planners. A proponent of equity planning—the term Paul Davidoff coined in 1965 to refer to planning for the whole city and prioritizing the needs of populations habitually excluded from the process—he pioneered approaches to improve the quality of life in disadvantaged communities. During Krumholz’s groundbreaking ten years as Cleveland’s planning director from 1969-1979, he put this theory into practice, later describing his experiences in a book entitled Making Equity Planning Work.

Krumholz visited UNC-Chapel Hill on Oct. 9, 2008, to deliver a public lecture titled “New Roles and New Status for Planners.” In the talk, co-sponsored by the Department of City of Regional Planning and the Center for Urban and Regional Studies, Krumholz described how the changing shape of cities poses new challenges for today’s planners. He dispelled several myths about industrial cities, including the belief that “the decline can be reversed and the cities restored to their former glory.” Instead of emphasizing greening efforts, New Urbanism, and blockbuster stadium projects, he said planners should focus on the basics: fixing cities’ schools, services, and safety. In an exclusive Carolina Planning interview, editors Wendy Baucom and Heather Schroeder sat down with Krumholz before his public lecture to speak about the biggest issues facing today’s planners. Given his track record, it may be no surprise that Krumholz encourages planners to continue breaking the mold.

KWERE KWERE: A STORY OF A RESILIENT INNER CITY NEIGHBORHOOD IN JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA

Winkler, Tanja

Neighbourhood change in Hillbrow is not concomitant with linear processes of urban decline and economic resurgence. Instead, change is shaped by the history, politics and economics of the local context, in addition to the activities of local actors. Despite severe physical decay, a history of redlining, and limited public sector support, Hillbrow remains a resilient port-of-entry neighbourhood to Johannesburg for many who desire to engage in local and transnational economies.

LOCAL INNOVATION IN COMMUNITY AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: CASE STUDIES FROM EDENTON, WILSON, WINSTON-SALEM, KANNAPOLIS, ASHEVILLE

Lambe, William; Mulligan, Tyler; Bryant, Elizabeth Allen; Lentz, Roger; Norby, A. Paul; Warren, Ben; Giltz, Linda

Editors’ Note: The North Carolina cities represented by the following articles range from Edenton in the northeastern corner of the state to Asheville in the western Blue Ridge Mountains. They range in size from the town of Edenton, with its 5,000 residents, to the greater Winston-Salem metropolitan area that nearly half a million people call home. Additionally, some of the municipalities represented in these articles grew on the strength of a single industry, while others have fostered diverse economies from the start. Nevertheless, each of them has had to respond to national changes in industry, corporate structure, and demographic trends by deciding which parts of their civic culture, built environment, and identity to preserve, and which to wholly readjust. Their stories of change and resilience are told here through collaborations between planners and economic developers, with help from elected offi cials and others involved in the processes of change. The entire assemblage was planned and marshaled by Denise Boswell, Ph.D., in her capacity as the Outreach Coordinator for the North Carolina Chapter of the American Planning Association.

EARLY WARNING AND PLANT CLOSINGS IN THE 1980S

Kohl, Sara O’Neill; Clavel, Pierre

During the 1970s and 1980s, plant shutdowns across the nation provoked a grassroots response, spearheaded by community and labor groups. This paper explores the history of one such response in Chicago: early warning systems, which were independent research networks that combined public and private information with worker knowledge in order to provide advance notice of a possible closing. Using primary sources, interviews with activists, and economic and political analysis of the time, the paper looks at the relationship between participating groups as well as the catalytic role played by the progressive Harold Washington mayoral administration. The local capacity generated during this time is viewed in the context of lessons for the current period of economic restructuring.

INTERVIEW WITH TIMOTHY BEATLEY

Wagner, Christa

On February 19, 2009, the UNC-Chapel Hill Department of City and Regional Planning (DCRP) sponsored a lecture by Timothy Beatley, Teresa Heinz Professor of Sustainable Communities in the Department of Urban and Environmental Planning at the University of Virginia. A DCRP graduate himself (MA ’84, Ph.D. ’86), Beatley has co-authored books with Prof. David Godschalk and Prof. David Brower on hazard mitigation and coastal zone management, although he is best known for his work on the theory and practice of sustainable communities (see a review of his latest book on page 65). During his visit to Chapel Hill, Christa Wagner spoke with Beatley about new (and old) meanings of sustainability, roles for planners in reimagining cities, and going “glocal.”

ENVIRONMENTAL DETERMINANTS OF BICYCLING TO RAIL STATIONS IN CHICAGO

Schwartz, Michael

More and more transit agencies are incorporating cycling into their programs through bike to transit initiatives such as indoor bicycle parking at rail stations, as well as bicycles on buses and trains. In spite of the popularity and success of these programs, little research exists on whether this influences travel behavior, and transit planners and decision makers do not have a reliable way of gauging demand for bicycle facilities. In the Master’s Project excerpted here, annual counts of bicycles parked at Chicago Transit Authority rail stations and neighborhood GIS data were used to estimate longitudinal models of the environmental determinants of bicycling to rail stations. Results indicate that increased use of bicycle parking at rail stations was associated with higher station boardings, more bicycle parking facilities, lower residential density and crime, and fewer bus options, even while controlling for neighborhood demographics.