Good Urbanism Is More Than a Nice Curb
Reflections on a recent visit to Baltimore
On a recent visit to Baltimore, I was tickled by just how delightful the city’s urban fabric is: small, walkable streets; handsome rowhomes that engage well with the sidewalk; mid-block monuments that erupt from the cobblestones, rewarding pedestrians but forcing drivers to stay engaged. And while it would be great to see those sorts of treatments applied to every city in this country, it’s also worth dwelling a bit on why a successful city is more than just a bunch of nice curbs…
At the risk of stating the obvious, Baltimore City is very poor, but sits in the midst of one of the nation’s richer regions. And while cities in the Northeast are generally segregated, and have stark contracts between their urbanized cores and unwalkable ‘burbs, it all just hits harder in Charm City.
The region’s public transit is a stark example. Regional leaders planned out an impressive system in the 1960s, hoping to criss-cross the region as thoroughly as other Great Society era subways like DC and SF’s.
Of the 71 miles planned, racist backlash in the ‘burbs meant that only 45 got built, with the system today a mix of light and heavy rail. (A recent plan to build another ~14 miles was famously killed off by Republican Governor Hogan.) The network that got built is an odd hybrid, taking the grays of DC’s brutalist stations, but none of its charm, and combining it with rolling stock and faregates that an Angeleno or Miamian may find familiar.
Still, paired with an extensive commuter rail system (including one line that both tops out at 125 miles per hour and runs every 15 minutes at peak hours,) the region has decent transit bones, at least by this country’s middling standards.
That makes it all the sadder that so few people use public transit in B’more, with just 3% of people in the metropolitan area using that commute mode, as of 2022. Nearby DC has double the transit share, at 6%, as does Philly, another region ripe with charming rowhouses. That’s to say nothing of NYC-Newark, at 24%. Looking out west, LA-OC has the same transit mode share as Baltimore, but SoCal actually beats out Baltimore on overall sustainable modes, thanks to higher incidences of carpooling and biking. Given how much of Baltimore was built not just pre-auto, but pre-streetcar, that’s pretty damning!
The Downtown proper is an interesting set of contradictions. On one hand, Baltimore’s job sprawl isn’t terrible, with about 18% of jobs located within 3 miles of the CBD, about the same as Chicago’s. On the other hand, central city foot traffic has been slow to recover post-pandemic, with Downtown Baltimore ranked in the bottom third by UT.
Part of that slow rebound may itself be the legacy of earlier redevelopment efforts. Baltimore is perhaps the most famous example of the Festival Marketplace concept, where city fathers hoped that indoor-outdoor malls would revitalize urban centers in the Reagan era. Harborplace opened right on the harbor (duh) in 1980, preceding similar concepts like NYC’s South Street Seaport, San Diego’s Horton Plaza, and Miami’s Bayside Marketplace. Baltimore doubled down a few years later with the redevelopment of the architecturally significant Pratt Street Power Plant, turning it into another shops, food and fun-plex.
But whether you like your downtown shopping structure bland or awe-inspiring, you’re out of luck these days: both buildings are basically half dead. Perhaps stocking the two of them with all the *best* chain retailers — over the years that’s included Hard Rock Cafe, Barnes & Noble, Gold’s Gym, H&M, McCormick & Schmick’s, Great American Cookies and more — isn’t actually enough to get affluent suburbanites to leave their local malls where they can find the exact same schlock?
As Baltimore looks to regain its footing once again, here’s hoping regional leaders learn from past mistakes.
HOT INDUSTRY NEWS & GOSSIP
A very Curbivore podcast! One of the most exciting sessions from Curbivore 2024 was DeliverZero + Uber Eats announcing the West Coast launch of their reusable, returnable packaging solution. If you weren’t there to see it live, you can now listen in.
From grey curbs to green space: The City of El Monte has opened phase 1 of its Merced Ave Linear Park, turning what used to be an unnecessarily wide street ROW into a new park area, including a bike path and water capture infrastructure.
Plugged back in: After Elon unceremoniously fired the entire Supercharging team, it looks like many of its employees are quietly back at work for Tesla. While the quotes by staffers show little love for Musk, they evidently feel that EV charging will only work nationwide if Tesla’s network stays in pole position.
Eat outside, while you still can… While many New Yorkers were cautiously optimistic as the city retooled its outdoor dining program, the situation on the ground is starting to look less good. The deadline for the new permanent outdoor dining program is now just two months away, and only a few hundred have applied since the program opened in March. Considering that 12,000 merchants took advantage of the previous, more lax, version of the program… that’ll be a whole lot of space returned to car storage in short order.
Five pennies for your parking thoughts! The City of Dallas is raising parking rates, which normally wouldn’t be interesting enough to warrant a write-up. But here’s a fun one: prior to this adjustment, some meters in the city were still just five cents per hour. Must not be much worth seeing nearby!
Smart curbs, clever results: Our friends at Automotus have released their findings, after helping the City of Pittsburgh build out a smart loading zone program. Among other benefits, the program saved 3.5k gallons of gas, cut 30 tons of carbon emissions and generated $9M in travel time savings.
Micromobility Europe returns: The world of small vehicles returns to Europe, as our amigos at Micromobillity host the latest edition of their Dutch gathering next week. We hope you’ll join them, tickets start at just 100 euros!
A few good links: Austin light rail inches forward, with acceptance into federal CIG program. Uber, Instacart alums build out ad platforms for Walmart & PayPal. NoHo-Pasadena BRT moves forward. Amazon cuts grocery prices, strengthens partnership with Grubhub, secures BVLOS certification for drone deliveries.
- Jonah Bliss & The Curbivore Crew