The Great Inversion and the Future of the American City
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15 On July 13, 1977, Bushwick suffered through: Steven Malanga, “The Death and Life of Bushwick,” City Journal, Spring 2008.
16 Bushwick began to change: Robert Sullivan, “Psst … Have You Heard About Bushwick?” New York Times, March 5, 2006.
17 “Fight, fight, fight”: See Tom Robbins, “The Second Battle for Bushwick,” Village Voice, June 19, 2007, p. 3.
18 “People move here because”: Angel Vera, quoted by Sullivan, “Psst … Have You Heard.”
19 “The train is the entire reason”: Kevin Lindamood interview.
20 “I’m fine … with having no view”: Deborah Brown interview.
21 “Gentrification can’t be prevented”: Vito Lopez, quoted in Yalissa Rodriguez, “Fires and Flames in Brooklyn,” www.mixbook.com/photo-books/education/the-bushwick-fires-and-aftermath-4415967, p. 16.
22 When Jacobs’s own three-story redbrick townhouse: Michelle Young, posted on www.untappednewyork.com, September 28, 2010.
23 downed eighteen whiskeys: Biographer Andrew Lycett argues that Thomas was exaggerating: “The consensus was that he cannot have drunk more than six measures of Old Grand-Dad Whiskey” (Dylan Thomas: A New Life [Woodstock, N.Y., and New York: Overlook Press, 2003], p. 369).
24 “We must understand that self-destruction”: Jacobs, Death and Life, p. 251.
CHAPTER FOUR: THE NEW SUBURBIA
1 It was later estimated: Jeffrey S. Passel, Randolph Capps, and Michael E. Fix, Undocumented Immigrants: Facts and Figures (Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute, 2004).
2 “had been driven to their madness by”: “Georgia: Men in Despair,” TIME, August 13, 1956.
3 “Gwinnett County, which has suffered”: Atlanta Constitution, quoted in Elliott E. Brack, Gwinnett: A Little Above Atlanta (Norcross, Ga.: Gwinnett Forum, 2008), p. 170.
4 “Six lanes of black hardtop”: Tom Wolfe, A Man in Full (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1998), p. 520.
5 Meanwhile, just down the road, Gwinnett Place: Brack, Gwinnett, p. 12.
6 “It’s almost like migrant workers”: Bucky Johnson, personal interview, October 2009.
7 “Latinos are leaving”: Letycia Pastrana, personal interview, October 2009.
8 “Illegal immigrants have already broken several laws”: Paul Allen, letter to Atlanta Journal-Constitution, June 15, 2008.
9 “We are leading the region”: Ellen Gerstein, personal interview, October 2009.
10 Lilburn limits occupancy: Diana Preston, personal interview, October 2009.
11 “If you don’t enjoy and embrace diversity”: Nick Masino, personal interview, October 2009.
12 “illegal immigration costs cities”: Bob Griggs, quoted in Alan Ehrenhalt, “Suburban Influx,” Governing, December 2009, p. 30.
13 Today, the numbers aren’t even close: Audrey Singer, “Twenty-First-Century Gateways: An Introduction,” in Twenty-First-Century Gateways: Immigrant Incorporation in Suburban America, ed. Audrey Singer, Susan W. Hardwick, and Caroline B. Brettell (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2008), p. 15.
14 “Herndon is acquiring”: Bob Rudine, quoted in Timothy Dwyer, “From Segregation to Immigration: For Longtime Residents, Day-Laborer Site Highlights Herndon’s Transformation,” Washington Post, January 15, 2006, p. C5.
15 “suburban immigrant nation”: Susan Hardwick, “Toward a Suburban Immigrant Nation,” in Twenty-First-Century Gateways, ed. Singer, Hardwick, and Brettell, pp. 31–50.
16 “You really have no choice”: Lam Ngo, personal interview, October 2009.
17 At one point, Vietnamese in the Atlanta region: “Global Atlanta Snapshots: The Vietnamese,” Atlanta Regional Commission, 2009, p. 1. This is one in a series of twenty-four informational brochures on ethnic communities in the Atlanta region.
18 By 2008, Indians formed the largest Asian immigrant group: “Global Atlanta Snapshots: Asian Indians,” Atlanta Regional Commission, 2009, p. 3.
19 “They are buying houses”: Charles Bannister, personal interview, October 2009.
20 “has regressed some in that respect”: Ibid.
21 “That one shop brought people”: Moses Choi, personal interview, October 2009.
22 “We’re not as politically active”: Herman Pennamon Jr., personal interview, November 2009.
23 “We don’t have a lot of diversity”: Diana Preston interview.
24 “It’s about time for the Asian community”: Lam Ngo interview.
25 “It will change the landscape”: Moses Choi interview.
26 “Each minority kind of keeps to themselves”: Bucky Johnson interview.
27 “Nobody moves out now”: Ibid.
28 “the rubber band of suburban sprawl”: Chuck Warbington, personal interview, October 2009.
29 “Gwinnett County … isn’t really”: Marina Peed, personal interview, October 2009.
CHAPTER FIVE: CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE
1 “The cycle of decline”: Kenneth T. Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 301.
2 “Half a century after Levittown”: Herbert Muschamp, quoted in William H. Hudnut, Halfway to Everywhere: A Portrait of America’s First-Tier Suburbs (Washington, D.C.: Urban Land Institute, 2003), p. 40.
3 “It’s absurd”: Thomas Bier, quoted ibid., p. 85.
4 Bernadette Hanlon provides a rich account: Bernadette Hanlon, Once the American Dream: Inner-Ring Suburbs of the Metropolitan United States (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2010), p. 36.
5 persistence theory: Ibid., p. 40.
6 “life cycle” change: Ibid.
7 social stratification: Ibid.
8 Careful studies by William H. Lucy and David Phillips: University of Virginia, various studies, 1998–2006.
9 As the economist George Zeller reported from census data: Zeller figures cited in Elizabeth Sullivan, “Despite Its Problems, Cleveland Has a Rosy Future,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, May 16, 2010, p. G1.
10 One perverse symbol: Thomas Bier, personal interview, May 27, 2010.
11 “This is the model community”: Jennifer Kuzma, personal interview, May 28, 2010.
12 When a riot takes place: W. Dennis Keating, personal interview, May 27, 2010.
13 “Everybody talks about regionalism”: Ken Montlack, personal interview, May 26, 2010.
CHAPTER SIX: UNEASY COEXISTENCE
1 Two notable events: Alan Ehrenhalt, “Guns and Caramel Sauce,” Governing, April 2009, p. 9.
2 A 2009 survey found: State of Center City 2009, published by Philadelphia Center City District and Central Philadelphia Development Corporation.
3 In 2010, they frequented: State of Center City 2011, published by Philadelphia Center City District and Central Philadelphia Development Corporation.
4 the apartment vacancy rate: State of Center City 2009.
5 Center City had a full-time residential population: Ibid.
6 In fact, a very dangerous place: Figures taken from Philadelphia Research Initiative, Pew Charitable Trusts, Philadelphia 2011: The State of the City, March 2011, p. 27.
7 “is as close to a European city”: Feather Houstoun, personal interview, January 19, 2010.
8 Penn Center: John Kromer, Fixing Broken Cities: The Implementation of Urban Development Strategies (New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2010), pp. 51–54.
9 Edmund Bacon was so widely admired: The TIME article is described on the Ed Bacon Foundation website, www.edbacon.org/bacon/site.htm.
10 the Gallery: Kromer, Fixing Broken Cities, p. 54.
11 “Center City is being despoiled”: “For Future Seasons: Trash and Crime Have Reduced the Appeal of Center City, but Change Is Coming,” Philadelphia Inquirer editorial, December 23, 1989, p. A8, quoted ibid., p. 56.
12 By the 1990s, Society Hill: Kromer, Fixing Broken Cities, p. 54.
13 Instead, it collects roughly 60 percent: Philadelphia Research Initiative, Pew Charitable Trusts, Philadelphia 2009: The State of the City, M
arch 2009.
14 It enacted a ten-year tax abatement: Kromer, Fixing Broken Cities, pp. 17–47.
15 “Without tax abatements”: John Kromer, personal interview, January 20, 2010.
16 “Center City has never looked better”: John DiIulio, personal interview, January 19, 2010.
17 “These areas hem in the city”: Anonymous source, personal interview, January 12, 2010.
18 “For miles on end”: Metropolitan Philadelphia Policy Center, Flight (or) Fight: Metropolitan Philadelphia and Its Future, September 2001.
19 In 1950, 45 percent of the city’s jobs: Philadelphia Research Initiative, Philadelphia 2009.
20 “it was a paradise in its way”: John DiIulio interview.
21 “Lots of individual houses fail”: Alan Greenberger, personal interview, January 20, 2010.
22 “When you pass under the elevated train tracks”: Rob Gurwitt, “Betting on the Bulldozer,” Governing, July 2002, p. 28.
23 In a study of eighty-three cities: Brookings survey, cited in Metropolitan Philadelphia Policy Center, Flight (or) Fight, p. 41.
24 “No one sitting in a sidewalk café”: Anonymous source, personal interview, January 12, 2010.
25 “If you were to aggregate”: Gurwitt, “Betting on the Bulldozer.”
26 “What you generally see is tinkering”: Bruce Katz, quoted ibid.
27 In the end, though, Street’s initiative: Ehrenhalt, “Guns and Caramel Sauce.”
28 The number of new arrivals: Audrey Singer et al., Recent Immigration to Philadelphia: Regional Change in a Reemerging Gateway, Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program, November 2008.
29 But when it comes to reviving: Harold Brubaker, “Philadelphia Is Lagging in Immigrant Population,” Philadelphia Inquirer, December 6, 2009, p. D2.
30 Why did Philadelphia fail to attract: Camille Barnett, personal interview, January 12, 2010.
31 “Philadelphia has traditionally not been very tolerant”: Feather Houstoun interview.
32 “We simply don’t have enough economic vitality”: Metropolitan Philadelphia Policy Center, Flight (or) Fight.
33 “The game is not keeping people”: David Thornburgh, personal interview, January 13, 2010.
34 “New York considers itself the capital”: Alan Greenberger interview.
35 “We don’t have the economic juice”: Ibid.
36 Any discussion of Philadelphia’s economic development problems: “The Philadelphia City Wage Tax: A ‘Special Case’ Income Tax,” IssuesPA, Pennsylvania Economy League, July 2003.
37 “Our employment trajectory”: David Thornburgh interview.
38 It’s the amount of tax: Philadelphia Research Initiative, Philadelphia 2009.
39 “It’s a ridiculously weak executive form”: John DiIulio interview.
40 “Being aggravated and contentious”: Alan Greenberger interview.
41 “I’ve lived in the Midwest”: Monica Yant Kinney, “Why Is Philly Still So Parochial?” Philadelphia Inquirer, December 22, 2010, p. B1.
CHAPTER SEVEN: THE URBAN SQUEEZE
1 Emancipation Park was the place: Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, “Historical Reflections on the Third Ward,” paper written to accompany the museum’s annual student photography exhibit, Eye on the Third Ward (date of paper unknown). This educational exchange with Houston’s Jack Yates High School has been ongoing sine 1995.
2 Between the vacant lots: John Buntin, “Land Rush,” Governing, March 1, 2006.
3 “We’re supply-constrained”: Bob Eury, personal interview, April 2010.
4 “The Third Ward is the epicenter”: Bill White, unpublished interview with John Buntin, February 2006.
5 “I’m an egalitarian”: Garnet Coleman, quoted in Steve Inskeep, “Fighting Gentrification with Money in Houston,” Morning Edition, National Public Radio broadcast, September 17, 2009.
6 “If somebody’s going to move into the Third Ward”: Garnet Coleman, personal interview, April 2010.
7 “Quite frankly, this is personal”: Ibid.
8 “Our goals are two-pronged”: Ibid.
9 “is, ‘Give us our blight’ ”: Tom Diehl, personal interview, April 2010.
10 “If we weren’t banking land”: Garnet Coleman interview.
11 The Fourth Ward was the home: Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, “Houston’s Fourth Ward: Old Neighborhood, New Life,” Perspectives 2 (2002): 1–8.
12 Houston Renaissance: David Ellison, “A Neighborhood in Flux,” Houston Chronicle, January 21, 2007, p. B1.
13 “When you look at what they were being displaced from”: Larry Davis, quoted in Buntin, “Land Rush.”
14 “If it’s historic”: Spencer Lightsy, quoted in Ellison, “A Neighborhood in Flux.”
15 “Gentrification was never my goal”: Bob Lanier, unpublished interview with John Buntin, 2006.
16 One is LARA: Carolyn Feibel and Bradley Olson, “Mayor Moves on the Great White Way,” Houston Chronicle, January 1, 2010, p. 1.
17 More ambitious was Houston HOPE: Ibid.
18 “redevelopment that’s the opposite”: Buntin, “Land Rush.”
19 One effort that Coleman has supported: Ibid.
20 “Every time one of these little old houses”: Ibid.
21 In a survey conducted early in 2010: Stephen Klineberg, personal interview, April 2010.
22 “multicentered metropolitan region”: Ibid.
23 “If the rich are going into downtown now”: Ibid.
24 “one reason Houston is affordable”: Mayor Bill White, unpublished interivew with John Buntin, January 9, 2006.
25 “The unavoidable fact”: Edward Glaeser, “Houston, New York Has a Problem,” City Journal, Summer 2008.
26 “There are no tools”: Peter Brown, personal interview, April 2010.
27 “As long as they can put forth the required cash”: Tom Diehl interview.
28 “You’ve always loved trains”: Frank Liu, personal interview, April 2010.
29 “You see people buying housing”: Bob Eury interview.
30 “The higher the price”: Frank Liu interview.
31 “They’ve already fallen in love”: Ibid.
32 “pedestrian-friendly atmosphere”: Woodlands promotional brochure, April 2010.
33 “Urban and Sugar Land were not always compatible words”: Sugar Land promotional brochure, April 2010.
34 “Everybody wants that”: David Crossley, personal interview, April 2010.
35 “There will be more transit-oriented real estate”: Ibid.
36 “The people who want to live close in”: Tom Diehl interview.
37 “If I had to take one thing”: Peter Brown interview.
38 “is the most interesting city in America”: Stephen Klineberg interview.
CHAPTER EIGHT: CREATING A DOWNTOWN
1 “to attract hip young professionals”: Michael Smith, personal interview, April 2008.
2 “creative class”: Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class (New York: Basic Books, 2003).
3 “The common element of great cities”: Phil Gordon, personal interview, November 2009.
4 As early as the end of the 1940s: Grady Gammage Jr., Phoenix in Perspective: Reflections on Developing the Desert (Tempe: Herberger Center for Design Excellence, Arizona State University, 2003), p. 36.
5 “Real estate is to us”: Susan Clark-Johnson, personal interview, November 2009.
6 “We must solve the riddle”: Michael Smith interview.
7 “Retailers are not pioneers”: Ibid.
8 “to use entertainment in the service of downtown revival”: William Fulton, “Planet Downtown,” Governing, April 1997.
9 “For thirty years”: Glendon Swarthout, quoted in Philip VanderMeer, Phoenix Rising: The Making of a Desert Metropolis (Carlsbad, Calif.: Heritage Media Corp., 2002), p. 102.
10 “If you want to create a real downtown”: Don Keuth, personal interview, November 2009.
11 “looks like a truckful of buildings”: Grady Ga
mmage Jr., personal interview, November 2009.
12 “Our historic building stock”: Jason Harris, personal interview, November 2009.
13 “Phoenix had Quonset huts”: Don Keuth interview.
14 “There was a wildly optimistic view”: Tom Franz, personal interview, November 2009.
15 “We’ve got all these edifices”: Susan Clark-Johnson interview.
16 “this is not a Disneyland ride”: Harry Mitchell, quoted in John Faherty et al., “Light Rail Packed for Grand Debut,” Arizona Republic, December 28, 2008, p. 1.
17 “Now that it’s up”: Carol Johnson, personal interview, November 2009.
18 “Our presence will be catalytic”: Michael Crow, quoted in Craig Harris, “Trio Frame Future for Downtown,” Arizona Republic, January 4, 2006, p. 1B.
19 “ASU downtown is more than a few nuggets”: Phil Gordon interview.
20 “People weren’t buying to flip”: Eric Brown, personal interview, December 2009.
21 “Life happens under five stories”: Ibid.
22 “The less frequently you use your car”: Grady Gammage interview.
23 “This isn’t an urban city”: Don Keuth interview.
24 “We have all these people”: Carol Johnson interview.
25 “When I think about Chicago”: Alicia Porter, quoted in The Arizona We Want (Phoenix: Center for the Future of Arizona, 2009), p. 32.
26 “There is something genuinely vital”: Grady Gammage interview.
27 “We’re not a global city”: Don Keuth interview.
CHAPTER NINE: URBANIZING THE SUBURBS
1 77 percent of Generation Y: John McIlwain, Housing in America: The Next Decade (Washington, D.C.: Urban Land Institute, 2010), p. 15.
2 “Generation Y’s attitudes toward home ownership”: Ibid.
3 In a poll cited by The New York Times in 2009: David Brooks, “I Dream of Denver,” New York Times op-ed column, February 17, 2009, p. 33.
4 “Once the economy recovers”: McIlwain, Housing in America, p. 26.
5 The demographer Arthur C. Nelson calculated: Arthur C. Nelson, quoted in Ellen Dunham-Jones and June Williamson, Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design Solutions for Redesigning Suburbs (New York: Wiley, 2008), p. 10.