Smart Growth and the Great Recession
Smart Growth building projects are only viable if they house both residential and commercial tenants—as in other conventional business, vacancies can be ruinous. After the market crash of 2007, several commercial spaces in mixed-use developments fared poo
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Smart Growth and the Great Recession
The rationale for this book started as a descriptive study of Smart Growth entrepreneurs and the formation of markets for sustainable development, a seldom explored topic in urban studies. I sought to identify the institutional logics—the beliefs and assumptions—of social actors and organizations that have implemented Smart Growth and New Urbanism. Most of this book, has focused on the ways that the entrepreneurial state collaborates with individual innovators to overcome institutional barriers in the marketplace. But there is another salient temporal and structural factor in urban sustainability: the cyclical nature of the property market. The housing market crash of 2007, the Great Recession, and demographic changes, all figured prominently in how Smart Growth entrepreneurs viewed the market formation process. When the market cycle went into a downswing, so did many of the projects. The ones that didn’t fail completely were nearly toppled before regaining their financial footing. This raised the question: how did broader market forces in the economy affect Smart Growth? A few weeks before the 2011 architectural charrette in Santa Barbara, my fieldwork began with an Amtrak train ride to Portland, Oregon. Over the course of a few weeks, I visited each of the developments, ate in their restaurants, or walked about their grounds, and toured the surrounding neighborhoods. Upon arriving in Gresham, I rode the MAX light rail to The Crossings, then strolled to The Beranger, Central Point, The Kohler
© The Author(s) 2017 E.S. Nielsen, Smart Growth Entrepreneurs, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-41027-2_5
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Building, and later visited North Main Village in Milwaukie. On a separate occasion, I made the same trip, but by automobile. Wendell Cox, a critic of New Urbanist enthusiasm, has observed that when planners and designers visit Portland and other cities lauded for their Smart Growth, they often use the city’s mass transit, but rarely drive to their destinations. Most city residents primarily drive to their destinations. I decided it would be best to visit the projects by both transport modes. The buildings in Oregon had a sleek modern style with large windows, balconies, outdoor walkways, small gardens, courtyards, and other amenities. In Gresham, The Crossings displayed an architectural design that mimicked the facades of the compact buildings that line the streets of Copenhagen or Amsterdam (Fig. 5.1). However, there were few other buildings located nearby, which made it seem gaudy and overelaborate. It was an artful building, in my personal aesthetic opinion, but seemed very out of place. Metro currently owns 13 acres of land across the street. They intended for it to be another TOD project next to a movie theater and other entertainments. It is currently slated for multi-family housing, both apartments and condominiums. If the denser housing and the entertainment center across the street is eventually developed, The Crossings may be more suitable for its location.
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