Since the 1950s a multitude of solutions to revitalize decaying inner cities have come and gone. If anything, matters have grown worse—brave souls should visit Detroit, Cleveland, Gary, East St. Louis, Memphis, and countless others to see for themselves. The repertoire of solutions appears exhausted. Big cities have favored massive urban renewal schemes in which whole neighborhoods were destroyed and replaced with award-winning expensive failures such as Detroit’s Renaissance Center. Conservatives continue to embrace tax breaks and similar fiscal incentives, though these seldom performed as advertised.
The root cause of past and continuing failures at breathing life into a dead downtown is simple. The wannabe Doctors of City Health all suffer from what might be called an Edifice Complex. They see urban vitality in terms of concrete things. Signs of “health” mean five-story parking garages, professional landscaping, a large expensive controversial sculpture or fountains, a state-of-the-art multipurpose transportation hub, a modern flexible convention facility with connecting luxury hotel, and modern office buildings galore filled with well-paid white-collar and executive workers.
Those afflicted with this Edifice Complex embrace Say’s Law, i.e., supply creates demand. The construction of parking spaces, for example, will motivate people to drive downtown to fill them. Build a first-class hotel and convention center, and the conventioneers will come. It’s sort of a Chamber of Commerce version of Field of Dreams.
The secret of downtown revival lies in achieving a critical mass of people; repopulation, so to speak. But it is also true that just any sort of people will not do in a proper urban revitalization. If it were simply a matter of numbers, free food and booze plus an occasional wet T-shirt contest would suffice. Nor would homeless and winos qualify. Success requires attracting well-off, law-abiding people willing to spend lavishly
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Poster Comment:
an immodest proposal?