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HogWash -- in my personal opinion, the problem with corridors goes beyond great streets. I sent an email to Dan Tangherlini and Karina Ricks when the program was first announced, here goes (below). In a follow up email I mentioned that the amount of money budgeted for the other Great Streets programs was significantly less than for H Street, something like $1.5MM per mile, while H Street's streetscape project cost something like $20MM per mile, plus the Starburst, although money for physical improvements was appropriated separately such as for parts of Georgia Avenue.

----- (from 2005)
I think that the intent of this program is great, and that streetscape improvements are the most significant public investments that can be made to spur private investment and result in neighborhrood and commercial district revitalization.

But I do worry that the program is taking on particular challenges--the difficulties of revitalization on long corridors led LISC to create a unit different from the Main Street program called the "Center for Commercial Corridor Revitalization." I think that LISC made a mistake, that in order to marshall the resources to focus revitalization on long streets, that the asset-based Main Street approach harnessing human capital is even more appropriate.

But I think that people under-estimate the challenge of this (cf. the Georgia Avenue revitalization effort, of which we hear very little), and haven't learned the lessons from Barracks Row. (I discussed these lessons in testimony I gave on the DC Main Streets program in the Spring, see http://urbanplacesandspaces.blogspot.com/2005/04/yesterdays-testimony-on-dc-main.html.) Many of the DC Main Street programs are struggling.

Had the Capitol Hill BID not kicked in serendipitously once the 8th St. SE streetscape improvement was finished, I am not sure that this DDOT project would have had the kind of impact that it's having. The street still looks bad every morning before the BID workers come through, and if it looked like that all day, I am sure the corridor would be struggling.

Furthermore, I think that the Barracks Row Main Street organization is much more successful than most of its peer organizations across the city. In part that is because the neighborhood is able to marshall superior human capital to work on the Main Street program.

Many of the areas targeted for the Great Streets program are not so blessed, and I think that the District Government hasn't proven it's adept at working on soft issues such as improving extant businesses, and developing and recruiting the kinds of retail and service businesses most willing to locate in transitioning, emerging, and distressed neighborhoods (using the DCOP neighborhood categorization criteria discussed in the Rivlin paper -- see Rivlin Papers on Revitalizing DC Neighborhoods). Most of the city's recruiting resources have focused on chains, and these businesses, especially the leading businesses in each category, are the least likely to locate in commercial districts that are the least bit frayed.

I write this because it is vital that the Great Streets program succeed, that precious municipal financial resources achieve the intended result. Given the difficulties of achieving such results on H Street, given the tens of millions of dollars expended over the years, and the difficulties in achieving a common vision for an H Street revitalization agenda today, I think that my concerns are legitimate.

I am also sending this to you now, rather than communicating it as an "outburst" at next week's kick-off, which I hope to be able to attend.

I hope that you consider these comments in the spirit in which they are offered, of maintaining, enhancing, and extending those qualities that make the District of Columbia a fine place to live, work in, and/or visit.

by Richard Layman on Apr 11, 2012 5:50 pm • link • report