This article originally appeared on Streetsblog.
Columbus, Ohio, is a retail Mecca. The town is home to the corporate headquarters of Limited Brands, Abercrombie & Fitch, Bath & Body Works and Victoria’s Secret. So it’s no surprise that malls figure prominently in the local economy. For decades they have guided development further and further from the core of the city.
Decades ago Columbus was served by a downtown mall — City Center — and malls in its west, north and east neighborhoods: Northland, Westland and Eastland. But in the ’90s, developers …

Waukesha, Wisconsin is a city whose identity has always been tied to water. In the late 1800s, the town was known for its natural springs. So fresh-tasting was the water that people traveled from around the country to share in its purported medicinal properties. Among those who sought its healing powers was first lady Mary Todd Lincoln.

But there are no springs in Waukesha anymore. Over the years, as Waukesha evolved into a sprawling and affluent suburb of Milwaukee, its springs went dry or were paved over. More recently, the deep sandstone aquifer that is the town’s main source of water has been drained substantially and has become contaminated with radium.

All of which has led to the watershed moment in which Waukesha finds itself today. The suburb is seeking permission to be the first community since the Great Lakes Pact of 2008 to pipe water in from the lakes, the country’s largest source of fresh surface water.

We’ve been writing a lot about sprawl and race relations lately. I think that is because these issues are tremendously important to the discussion of the current conditions in Rust Belt cities.

Well, I’ve got to thank UrbanSTL for pointing me to this illuminating interactive map that shows how white flight and sprawl transformed the metro area over the course of decades.

You have to visit this site to see it unfold. I think this really mirrors development over the past six decades for Cleveland, Detroit, Cincinnati, Youngstown, Buffalo and many other Rust Belt cities.

Notice how the application is called Mapping Decline.

Thanks to Kevin Leeson at the Cuyahoga County Planning Commission weblog for pointing out this depressing fact:
The National Resources Inventory, conducted by the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, shows that every state lost farmland between 1982 and 2007. Ohio had the second-highest amount of prime agricultural land converted to developed land, losing 585,100 acres from 1982 to 2007.
That’s all the more senseless when you consider Ohio’s population has been essentially stagnant over the last few years. For those who wonder where everyone from Ohio’s cities went, check your local cornfield-turned …

I think this is the most important article I have seen on the Rust Belt urban condition since this blog began.
Kain Benfield of the Natural Resources Defense Council has raised questions about the wisdom of mass demolitions in “shrinking cities.” In this article, he points out that leading urban thinker Richard Florida has joined him in this perspective.
Benfield makes the point that Detroit, Cleveland and other shrinking cities are being hollowed out, not by regional population loss, but by sprawl. Returning urban areas to quasi-rural will simply lengthen commute times …

In the name of protecting water quality in Lake Erie and the state’s streams, the State of Ohio has developed a voluntary, incentive-based program for sustainable development.
It’s full of really good stuff, for example:

Identify priority development and conservation areas.
Offer incentives like density bonuses, streamlined review processes, and design flexibility for development in priority areas.
Evaluate existing zoning codes, review processes, and regulations for disincentives to desirable development practices, and set policy for correcting the disincentives.
Establish regulations that prohibit construction in the wetland and riparian setback area.
Encourage compact neighborhood development, historic preservation …

That’s Bruce Fisher’s question, posed in this piece for Buffalo’s alt-weekly Artvoice.
What do you think?
-KG
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Above: The party’s not over in Vegas.

Some urban thinkers thought one silver lining of the economic crisis could be a slowdown in unsustainable sprawl, particularly in overbuilt areas of the southwest, like Las Vegas.
But that appears not to be the case at all, according to this New York Times story.
Despite home prices having declined 60 percent in four years, and despite the fact that there are nearly 10,000 empty homes with 5,600 more expected on the market soon, the Times reports, “builders here are putting up 1,100 homes, and they …

Check out these before and after pictures of St. Louis’ Crown Square, provided by the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The once dilapidated commercial plaza has been restored as part of a larger neighborhood revitalization strategy led by the Old North St. Louis Restoration Group, and it’s attracting national attention.

For more than two years, this revitalization effort has centered around an eight-block area in city’s Old North neighborhood.

“The new Crown Square will be mixed-use and walkable, containing apartments as well as commercial spaces, some sensitive new

Here’s a good visual on what sprawl looks like – and its economic impact – from the folks at Buffalo Rising.
It’s a bit old but I wanted to link to it anyhow. I can’t say it better than they did – “Three times the stuff – fewer people.”
-KG
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