{"id":1978,"date":"2012-09-25T10:30:01","date_gmt":"2012-09-25T16:30:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/?p=1978"},"modified":"2014-08-09T17:09:15","modified_gmt":"2014-08-09T23:09:15","slug":"the-redshirt-manifesto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/?p=1978","title":{"rendered":"The Redshirt Manifesto"},"content":{"rendered":"

For 15 months I\u2019ve been following the debate about the 9th<\/sup> and Colorado development in Denver as a neutral observer. I\u2019m interested in the process<\/em> of urban development, and in the substance<\/em> of the resulting design plans.\u00a0 I\u2019m persuaded by arguments from the urban planning literature that we need, in this increasingly complex Urban Age, better involvement of citizens in participatory design<\/em> and negotiated development<\/em>.\u00a0 This is especially important where a developer doesn\u2019t need citizen buy-in to build what he or she wants.\u00a0 I also believe\u2014as the name of this blog suggests\u2014that there\u2019s something to be learned about urban design and development as it occurs in other countries and cultures. \u00a0Finally, my collaboration with colleagues in DU\u2019s Daniels College of Business persuades me that not all developers are evil, and that not all corporations are beyond redemption even if their business practices leave a whole lot to be desired.\u00a0 If we really want to remedy what ails American corporate culture then we need to consider the system<\/em> that produces bad behavior\u2014the refreshing focus of the Occupy Movement<\/a>\u2014and do what we can to change the corporate culture from within.<\/p>\n

Up until three months ago I thought the development discussion at 9th<\/sup> and Colorado was \u00a0going pretty well.\u00a0 Several public meetings provided very useful exchanges among developers, city planners, and citizens that at least seemed to reflect an interest in participatory design<\/a> (e.g., see\u00a0here<\/a> and here<\/a>). But then Walmart was announced<\/a> as the anchor tenant, and everything changed.\u00a0 As City Councilwomen Mary Beth Susman and Jeanne Robb note in the newspaper story<\/a> reporting their recent decision that they won\u2019t support public financing for the project, \u201cthe rhetoric [has] gotten a little heavy.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Heavy, and also heated.\u00a0 \u00a0Entire groups of people have been stereotyped. \u00a0False claims and anecdotes have been passed off as fact and recycled ad nauseum<\/em>.\u00a0 History has been ignored or revised. \u00a0Names have been called and characters assassinated.\u00a0 Positions have grid-locked. \u00a0We\u2019ve moved a long way from the promising start toward participatory design and negotiated development.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

At this point both sides might reflect a bit on what they can do to get things back on track. A good start on the neighborhood’s side would be to re-evaluate its fundamental message. \u00a0This was recently summarized on the official anti-Walmart website\u00a0stopwalmartcolorado.com<\/a> in a post called \u201cOur Message in a Nutshell<\/a>\u201d\u00a0 <\/strong>[Note: “Our Message in a Nutshell” was apparently removed from the stopwalmartcolorado.com website after I posted “The Redshirt Manifesto”]. Stopwalmartcolorado.com is the site that\u2019s organized citizen opposition to the project by distributing red yard signs proclaiming \u201cNo Walmart\u201d and promoting the wearing of red shirts to public meetings. \u00a0It now has a companion Facebook page, Do It Right at 9th<\/a>. \u00a0The Redshirt Manifesto<\/em> contains the following three points:<\/p>\n

1. We can do better\u2028\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>We have a rare opportunity to develop 28 acres of prime Denver real estate. \u00a0The developer wants you to believe that a suburban style shopping center is the only option in a world of possibilities, when nothing could be farther from the truth. \u00a0Let\u2019s take the time to do this right and maintain the wonderful character of the neighborhood. \u00a0In the meantime, CU must be required to maintain the property in the meantime<\/em> [sic].<\/p>\n

2. Walmart is a bad <\/em><\/strong>[sic] for our local small businesses and a net job killer\u2028\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>There are studies that show that when WalMart moves into an area, it is detrimental to the local, small businesses. \u00a0Because they force nearby competition out of business, they actually kill 3 jobs for every 2 that they create.<\/em><\/p>\n

3. Public financing requires public benefit and there is none to be found here\u2028\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>The developer of this project is seeking public financing for this project which requires that it be for the public good. \u00a0This project is actually just the opposite \u2013 not only do we exchange local, small businesses for a big box, but when a Walmart moves into an area property values go down, crime goes up and traffic dramatically increases.<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to suggest that each of these claims is problematic and that the Manifesto as a whole may hurt the prospects for good place-making at 9th<\/sup> and Colorado more than it helps.\u00a0 First, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s true that the developer wants us to believe that theirs is the only option. \u00a0The earlier Shea Properties option\u2014although apparently more favorable to the local neighbors\u2014didn\u2019t succeed because a deal couldn\u2019t be closed on financing. I suspect that the current developer selected his option, at least in part, because of that earlier failure.\u00a0 That said, it seems to me that there\u2019s room to synthesize<\/em> elements of the two options while adding some new elements that we\u2019ve described in multiple postings on this blog. \u00a0But synthesis is not helped by rejecting the Walmart piece out-of-hand. \u00a0What does “doing it right” mean if the first option was un-doable and the second one is undesirable? \u00a0An anchor tenant like Walmart\u2014appropriately scaled for the urban space\u2014could very easily catalyze development of an option that better meets everyone’s<\/em> desires.<\/p>\n

Second, I don\u2019t think its true that Walmart \u201cforces\u201d competition out of business.\u00a0 People have agency.\u00a0 That agency doesn\u2019t disappear when Walmart shows up. \u00a0\u00a0If Walmart forces competitors out of business it\u2019s because they make consumers a deal that they can\u2019t refuse.\u00a0 If consumers abandon the mom-and-pops they\u2019ve been supporting just because a Walmart appears somewhere within striking distance that doesn\u2019t say much about neighborhood loyalty to small, local business. \u00a0There are certainly \u201cstudies that show\u201d this-and-that about Walmart\u2019s effect on the retail landscape. But the thing about \u201cstudies\u201d is that they can show almost anything.\u00a0 Studies of the Walmart that appeared in 2006 on the west-side of Chicago\u2014perhaps the best-analyzed case and the one that\u2019s most relevant to development at 9th<\/sup> and Colorado\u2014reached very different conclusions<\/a>\u00a0about the store’s effects.\u00a0The Chicago case makes it clear that analytical methods affect research results and that causal chains are not always clear (for a Chicago city alderwoman\u2019s on-the-ground evaluation of the west-side Walmart\u2019s impacts, see here<\/a>).\u00a0 \u00a0Certainly, Walmart finds itself at the center of many community controversies, which stopwalmartcolorado.com is compiling here<\/a>.\u00a0 But close reading of each of these stories suggests that there\u2019s more to them than meets the eye. That is, they are complicated by local<\/em> context and history and most are not strictly comparable to the situation at 9th<\/sup> and Colorado.<\/p>\n

Third, I don\u2019t think its true that there would be no public benefit if public financing was used to make way for a Walmart at 9th<\/sup> and Colorado.\u00a0 Site remediation and site tenancy strike me as separate issues. \u00a0Public financing would remove an eyesore and a public health and safety hazard.\u00a0 It would remediate the site for all<\/em> future tenants, not just the big box retailer.\u00a0 Sale of the property would allow the University of Colorado to restore over $700,000 that it currently spends to maintain a blighted campus to its central operating budget, money that I trust would be used to support the university\u2019s educational mission. Seven hundred thousand dollars ain\u2019t chump change given that Colorado is as bad as every other state in the union when it comes to providing public funding for higher education. \u00a0In fact, Colorado is worse than most. \u00a0According to the National Science Board<\/a> and as reported in The Chronicle of Higher Education<\/a>, per-student state support in Colorado over the last ten years has fallen by 48%, the greatest decline of any state in the nation. \u00a0In short, the public good can be served without the site\u2019s neighbors liking all the specifics of the development plan.\u00a0 As noted previously on this blog, I don\u2019t detect anything in the exchanges that I\u2019ve witnessed over the last 15 months to suggest that Walmart couldn\u2019t help successfully develop 9th<\/sup> and Colorado provided that the company is serious about making firm and binding commitments to neighborhood and place.<\/p>\n

Because of broad agreement across American political lines about the overall virtues of our particular economic system<\/em> it’s been said that conservatives ignore the problems produced by bad corporate behavior and liberals only move them around.\u00a0 The Redshirt Manifesto, and the citizen opposition that\u2019s been expressed at recent public meetings, smacks of this kind of liberalism. \u00a0What we need are more examples of citizens working with<\/em> the enemy to sensitively develop place while also changing corporate culture for the better.\u00a0 That would be both radical and<\/em> heroic.<\/p>\n

Update December 15, 2012:\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>Scott Doyon recently posted a piece called “Walmart and the Quest for a Better Mousetrap<\/a>” in\u00a0PlaceShakers and Newsmakers<\/a>\u00a0that makes a few points broadly similar to ones made here. Money Quote: “The system that fosters Walmart is not part of the natural order. It’s not an eternal and unchanging truth we must contend with. \u00a0We <\/em>created it, and we can revise or even recreate it if we so choose.”<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For 15 months I\u2019ve been following the debate about the 9th and Colorado development in Denver as a neutral observer. I\u2019m interested in the process of urban development, and in the substance of the resulting design plans.\u00a0 I\u2019m persuaded by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9th-and-colorado"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1H2bI-vU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1978"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3365,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1978\/revisions\/3365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}