Tag: suburbs

“Lifestyle Centers” Smarter Shopping?

  • Shoppers take a coffee break at Eastwood Towne Center near Lansing, Michigan. The outdoor shopping mall is one of a growing number of "lifestyle centers" in the United States. (Photo by Erin Toner)

For decades now, people have done most of their shopping at sprawling, suburban malls that offer plenty of free parking and shelter from the weather. But now, people are heading back outside to shop, to places reminiscent of quaint downtowns. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:

Transcript

For decades now, people have done most of their shopping at sprawling, suburban malls that offer
plenty of free parking and shelter from the weather. But now, people are heading back outside to
shop, to places reminiscent of quaint downtowns. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin
Toner reports:


It’s a sunny day in March. But, as anyone who lives in the Midwest knows, a sunny day this early
in the Spring is rarely warm day. Today’s temperature’s in the 30s. But that’s apparently no reason to
stay indoors, when there’s shopping to be done.


The stores just opened at Eastwood Towne Center on the outskirts of Lansing, Michigan and the parking lot is
slowing filling up. Shiny minivans unload mothers, and babies and old ladies. They disappear into
Pottery Barn, Ann Taylor Loft and the Yankee Candle Company. They march from one store to
another to the sounds of soft-rock drifting out of speakers perched on lamp posts outside.


Eastwood Towne Center is one of a growing number of so-called “lifestyle centers.” There are
several in the Great Lakes Region – in Michigan, Ohio, Illinois and Pennsylvania. Lifestyle centers
are outdoor malls built to look like old-time downtowns. They have pseudo Main streets, that
weave through upscale stores with brick or stone-facades. Shoppers or their bored husbands can
take a rest on wrought-iron benches in neatly-manicured courtyards, or in cozy chairs at Starbucks.


Lifestyle centers also usually have popular chain restaurants and movie theaters.


Beverly Baten shops and works at Eastwood Towne Center. She says people are coming to
Eastwood to do what they used to do in city centers.


“They’re coming here to socialize. They’re coming to have lunch, to maybe see a movie, and
shopping is always a part of that experience because right here, at Eastwood Towne Center, we
have the stores that people want. And that’s so important. Whoever built this mall, did their
homework.”


Cincinnati-based Developer Jeffrey R. Anderson built Eastwood Towne Center. The company also
has lifestyle centers in Kentucky, Ohio and Illinois. And it’s opening four more in the next four
years.


The company’s Mark Fallon says shopping malls took most of the retail out of real downtowns a
long time ago. But he says now, people are looking at getting to the mall as a hassle. Fallon says
lifestyle centers offer the best of both worlds. He says they re-create the feeling of friendly
downtowns, and have the free parking and the good stores that malls offer.


“It’s really the closest thing to what was free-standing shops, that ended up next door to each other,
or in a neighborhood and you’re kind of recreating that feel, and getting back to a more pleasant
and convenient shopping environment that really, the mega-mall or the regional shopping mall that
you’re used to, the enclosed behemoth, that’s usually outside of town that you have to drive to
doesn’t provide these days.”


But that convenience sometimes comes at a cost. The developer covered old farm fields and a
small wetland to build the new shopping center. But it’s just across the street from older city
neighborhoods and infrastructure. Some criticize places like Eastwood for adding to urban sprawl.
But planning experts say many lifestyle centers actually fit into so-called “smart growth.”


Marya Morris is with the American Planning Association in Chicago. She says many developers
are locating lifestyle centers close to existing suburban development – and typically not in big
fields outside of town. Morris says incorporating new development into communities is what
“smart growth” is all about.


“It’s generally building in areas, in already-developed areas through redevelopment or
intensification of development, particularly in the suburbs right now. Many suburbs grew up
without any specific center or town square or downtown. And lifestyle centers, in many
communities, have helped create such a downtown, along with other things like new city halls, or
libraries, or new public greens.”


Developers say lifestyle centers are more attractive to retailers than real downtowns because they
can build exactly the store they want from the ground up. In older cities, retailers would have to
pay to retro-fit existing storefronts. And in real downtowns, there’s usually limited parking that
customers have to pay for. Lifestyle centers also often let retailers pack up and leave — no strings
attached — if business starts to slide.


But it seems pretty hard to imagine that a business would fail at Eastwood Towne Center, as the parade
of cars and shoppers grows this morning.

There are 20 new lifestyle centers set to open around the country over the next two years.

For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Erin Toner.

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Commuting Times on the Rise

If it feels as if your commute to work is taking longer, it probably is. The Census Bureau reports the average drive time continues to increase. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

If it feels as if your commute to work is taking longer, it probably is. The Census Bureau reports
the average drive time continues to increase. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester
Graham reports:


According to the Census Bureau, most of the longest commutes are on the east and west coasts.
But the second longest average travel time to work – clocking in at nearly 33 minutes – is
Chicago. And travel times are getting longer, mostly because of urban sprawl. Workers are
moving farther away, and in some cases corporations are moving from downtowns into the
suburbs. Phillip Salopek is with the U.S. Census Bureau.


“Average travel time has been increasing. There was an increase in average travel time between
1980 and 1990. There was a more significant increase in travel times between 1990 and 2000.”


The Census Bureau also found some of the cities with the longest commute times tend to have a
higher rate of workers who have turned to public transportation, with New York, Chicago, and
Philadelphia topping the list.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

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Church Takes a Stand Against Sprawl

  • Sunday mass is much emptier than it used to be at St. Josaphat Parish in Detroit. Only a few dozen Catholics attend mass here each Sunday, though there's room for 1200 - many parishioners have moved to newer churches in the suburbs. (Photo by Corbin Sullivan)

When people left inner cities, many things followed. Newer, better schools were built in the suburbs. And strip malls and shopping centers sprang up. But back in cities, stores and restaurants shut down. Schools and churches also closed. Now, the Catholic church is encouraging people to work together to prevent more urban sprawl. Catholic clergy say they don’t want to close perfectly good churches and cathedrals only to build new ones farther and farther out into the suburbs. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:

Transcript

When people left inner cities, many things followed. Newer, better schools were built in the
suburbs. And strip malls and shopping centers sprang up. But back in cities, stores and restaurants
shut down. Schools and churches also closed. Now, the Catholic church is encouraging people to
work together to prevent more urban sprawl. Catholic clergy say they don’t want to close perfectly
good churches and cathedrals only to build new ones farther and farther out into the suburbs. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:


Twenty-five years ago, Loraine Krajewski lost nearly everything. She lost her home and she lost
her church. Both were demolished when General Motors built a sprawling auto plant over
Poletown, a Polish-American neighborhood at the border of Detroit. Krajewski says it was the fight
of her life.


“I did things I never thought I would do. I picketed, I mean, in rain and snow. I wrote
letters, I mean, to Congressmen and to our council and everything. And I went to meetings
that would last until one, two o’clock in the morning at times, and I took time off from work
to go downtown to the council meetings.”


Krajewski was mad at the city of Detroit for letting it happen. And she was mad at the Catholic
Church in Detroit for not fighting the project. But not mad enough to leave the church. Krajewski
and others forced out of Poletown found a new parish in the city, called St. Josaphat.


Krajewski headed for the suburbs after Poletown disappeared. But she still returns to the city every
Sunday for Mass at St. Josaphat. It’s a 15-mile trip.


“We decided we are not going to let another Polish church go down the drain. And that’s
why I’ve been coming here. It’s just too bad that we don’t have a larger congregation.”


More parishioners would make Krajewski feel more sure that St. Josaphat would always be here,
that it was safe from closing down. But it’s not safe. Only a few dozen Catholics show up here
anymore for Mass on Sunday. And the church can hold 12-hundred people.


Father Mark Borkowski is the pastor at St. Josaphat. He says people like Krajewski, who are
coming from 10, 15 or 20 miles away, are the only ones keeping his church open. But just barely.


“If we were to live on Sunday collections alone, the parish would not be able to survive. So
with our monthly fundraising dinners, we can survive. But there’s a difference between
surviving and flourishing.”


People left the churches when they left the city for bigger plots of land and better schools. And the
Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit followed its people. Catholics built new churches in the suburbs.
But now, the Archdiocese is rethinking its role in urban sprawl.


Father Ken Kaucheck is on the Detroit Archdiocese urban sprawl committee. He says the church is
concerned about sprawl because it creates social and economic inequities between cities and
suburbs.


“It creates blight. It creates loss, it creates desolation and desecration. And it destroys not
only communities, but therefore, it destroys the lives of people.”


Kaucheck says the main tenet of the church’s anti-sprawl campaign is encouraging local
governments to work together on economic development. He says if communities are not trying to
one up each other to win new development projects, there would be less incentive for companies to
move farther into rural areas.


Kaucheck says the church wants its priests to talk about sprawl in their Sunday sermons. He calls it
“stirring the population” to affect social change.


“It’s government of the people, for the people and by the people. That’s what a democracy
is about. But somebody has to raise the question and you raise the question, faith-based,
through the scriptures. Is this what the gospel of Jesus Christ calls us to? No, it doesn’t call
us to sprawl, it calls us to solidarity in community, and to looking at how service of one
another sometimes means dying to myself, that means maybe I’m going to have to give
something up.”


It isn’t likely the church’s urban sprawl committee will be able do much to bring people back to
parishes in the city. Father Mark Borkowski at St. Josaphat prays about the problem to the
Madonna. Her picture is at the center of the church’s main altar.


“My personal reason for the novena is to say to the Blessed Virgin Mary, ‘I haven’t got a
clue as to what to do, so I’m turning the problem over to you. This is your shrine, if you
want to stay here Mary, do something to help us help you stay, and help us stay here. When
the problem is too big you have to turn it over to a higher power.'”


The Catholic Church now hopes to protect churches that could become the next victims of sprawl.
Those are in places that once served the early waves of Catholics leaving Detroit for the first
suburbs.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Erin Toner.

Related Links

City Battles Sprawl With Greenbelt

Environmentalists scored a huge victory at the polls earlier this month, when a Midwestern city and its surrounding townships agreed to a tax to preserve a belt of green space. The plan marks one of the first locally funded efforts in the Midwest to fight sprawl. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Halpert takes a look at whether this plan will fulfill its promise to curb unplanned growth:

Transcript

Environmentalists scored a huge victory at the polls earlier this month, when a Midwestern city and its
surrounding townships agreed to a tax to preserve a belt of green space. The plan marks one of the first
locally funded efforts in the Midwest to fight sprawl. Sprawl often occurs when developers pave over
farmland and other natural resources to create strip malls and subdivisions. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Julie Halpert takes a look at whether this plan will fulfill its promise to curb urban sprawl:


Voters in Ann Arbor, Michigan gave the nod to a 30 year tax to preserve roughly 8,000 acres of land. It’s
one of the first measures in the Great Lakes states to set up a major regional funding plan for curbing
growth. Sprawl is prominent in the area and Ann Arbor and its surrounding townships will share the
preservation costs. The proposal will allow the city to purchase easements on land. That will prohibit the
land’s future development and preserve it.


Elizabeth Humphrey is the director of the Growth Management Leadership Alliance in Washington, D.C.
She says citizens are fed up with seeing houses overtake park lands. So anti-sprawl initiatives, like Ann
Arbor’s, are gaining popularity among all political parties.


“I think the loss of open space is the one thing that we all see as the big threat of sprawl. It’s tangible.
You can see it in the field you used to play in when you grew up. It disappears and that’s visceral. And I
think that appeals to everybody who’s really concerned about how we’re growing.”


Humphrey says that Ann Arbor’s program is a good approach, since it focuses on regional development.
And while scenic areas like Boulder, Colorado and Portland, Oregon have greenbelts in place, the
Midwest generally hasn’t followed. But that could all change now, according to Mike Garfield. He’s
director of The Ecology Center, which spearheaded the plan.


“I think that what we did Tuesday in Ann Arbor and Ann Arbor township could lead to a wave of new
conservation easement programs and farmland programs around Michigan and throughout the Great
Lakes Region.”

Garfield says his group’s win showed it was possible to successfully trounce a formidable opponent: the
homebuilders. Homebuilders feared the plan would limit housing choices. They spent a quarter of a
million dollars to fight it. Garfield’s hopeful that this victory will help preserve Ann Arbor’s high quality
of life and its vital downtown. In a mere ten minutes, he’s able to walk to work without fighting traffic.
And he thinks the ‘yes’ vote indicated that Ann Arbor residents value that kind of living. But Garfield
realizes not everyone in Ann Arbor agrees with him.


“And of course there were some people in town who are not developers and home builders who opposed
it because it was a tax or because they believed some of the arguments or they didn’t trust city hall or
something like that.”


Niki Wardner is one of those people. She lives in a ranch on an acre of land overlooking a public golf
course in Ann Arbor’s wooded residential section. A handful of vote no signs are perched against her
door. Wardner lobbied heavily with other citizens against the Ann Arbor plan. She thinks 30 years is
way too long for a tax.


“They’re going to bond this issue, this proposal, i.e., take a mortgage out. We can never change it.
There’s no accountability. How do we know 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, 30 years, what’s going on with
it?”


Wardner’s concerned that this plan was rushed to the ballot without details on how it would work and
what kind of land will be purchased. She thinks something needs to be done about sprawl. But she’s not
sure this is the solution. And she also thinks residents won’t agree to the increased development that will
likely occur downtown and where she lives.”


“Personally, you know, I bought my piece of property because I live on a park and you know, we all like
trees and green space and I don’t think anyone wants townhouses or condos or a five story building in
their backyard.”


And building more homes downtown is a central part of the plan. Doug Kelbaugh is Dean of The
University of Michigan’s College of Architecture and Urban Planning. He says that to avoid sprawling
out, more people need to live in the city’s center.


“There aren’t enough people living downtown. It’s the living downtown, the downtown residential
development, that will do the most to decrease sprawl, decrease the number of commute trips, decrease
the length of commute trips, increase the walkability, increase the livability and the urbanity of Ann
Arbor lifestyles.”

Kelbaugh says if that denser development occurs, that means houses will have to be built on smaller lots.
That could curb housing price spikes by adding to housing supply. He said that if carried out responsibly,
Ann Arbor’s plan could be a small, but important first step in attacking sprawl.


“As long as gasoline is so cheap and farmland is so cheap, we will tend to have sprawl in America. This
is a major model that’s prevailed in America for 50 or 60 years, if not a little longer and it’s going to take
a little while to turn it around. But this is a significant beginning.”


Other towns are looking to preserve green space just like Ann Arbor’s doing. They’ll be closely watching
to see if it works.


For The Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Julie Halpert.

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Sprawling Cities, Sprawling Waistlines

  • Many sidewalks end abruptly and go nowhere. Health experts are saying sprawling urban areas need to be designed so that sidewalks and bike paths are connected to community destinations. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Public health officials are calling for changes in how we design communities. They say poorly designed development contributes to higher obesity rates, the early onset of diabetes, and other health problems. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Public health officials are calling for changes in how we design communities. They
say poorly
designed development contributes to higher obesity rates, the early onset of
diabetes, and other
health problems. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:


For the past few decades most suburban developments have been about convenience.
Shopping
should be just a short drive away…. parks, just a short drive away… school just a
short drive
away. Four-lane highways have replaced two lane streets to relieve congestion. If
you’re in a
car, other than dealing with the headaches of traffic, getting places isn’t that bad.


But… if you’re on a bike… or walking… crossing those multi-lane roads at busy
intersections is
daunting for adults… let alone children. And often, sidewalks are built, but
sometimes they just
end. A lot of times, sidewalks in a sprawling area never really go anywhere. So,
people don’t
ride their bicycles or walk to destinations. It’s just not convenient… and
sometimes it’s
downright hazardous.


Ellen Bassett is with the Urban and Regional Planning Program at Michigan State
University.


“Because we’re building things further and further apart without connectivity that
doesn’t avail
people to walk or to use their bicycles; they have to drive everywhere. We’re
creating
environments where people exercise less, are less and less active.”


And the result has contributed to a decline in the overall fitness of Americans.
That’s most
evident in children. Kids today are fatter. The rate of obesity is up. Early onset
of diabetes is up.
Part of that is due to kids watching too much television… sitting around playing
computer
games… and so on. But… not being able to ride a bike to school… or being able to
walk to the
park to play soccer… contributes to health problems because kids don’t get enough
exercise in
their daily routines.


Richard Killingsworth is the director of Active Living by Design. The program works
to
incorporate physical activity into everyday lives through the way we design
communities.
Killingsworth says somewhere along the line we came to accept that it made sense to
stop
walking places and instead drive to the health club.


“Now we’ve embraced the notion that we drive to destinations to do physical activity
as opposed
to having it as a part of our everyday lifestyle. So, we’ve essentially built an
environment that
accommodates something that is not physically active and accommodates one mode of
transportation, that’s the automobile.”


Killingsworth consults with urban designers, encouraging them to think about more
than whether
it’s a convenient drive… but to think about whether a neighborhood is designed to
make it a
convenient walk to school… or the park.


“We’ve built upon the notion that the car is king and it should be the only way and
unfortunately
we cannot sustain that for much longer. We need to look at other viable modes and as
we build, if
we build more compactly, a viable mode and a more efficient mode clearly would be
walking or
bicycling.”


And, increasingly, urban planners are being urged by physical fitness experts to
think about
public health. They say making sure there’s a network of sidewalks and bike paths
that actually
connect the community’s destinations is worth the cost.


Risa Wilkerson is with the Michigan Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness, Health
and Sports.
She’s taken an active interest in land use planning. She says it’s cheaper to design
communities
that encourage physical activity than it is for society to pay the health care costs
caused by too
little exercise. She argues she’s not asking for that much.


“That children have sidewalks that are buffered between the road with a row of trees
and grass,
that the parks are connected to the schools and to homes and that people could walk
to get a
gallon of milk if they chose to or to go down and visit their neighbor at the local
coffee shop and
they wouldn’t have to get into their automobile for a quarter-of-a-mile trip.”


Wilkerson says health care costs are skyrocketing. Designing communities that
encourage
walking or bicycling are investments in prevention of the health problems caused by
too little
exercise. She adds the health care costs of poorly designed areas is just the
beginning.


“And then you’ve got pollution costs from automobile emission. It goes on and on in
terms of,
you know, the savings if we get people out walking or biking — cleaner air. If you
put all of those
together, I mean there’s just — it’s a phenomenal case to make.”


Advocates of incorporating more sidewalks, bike paths, and safer intersections into
new
developments says local governments should also look at existing suburbs too… to see
if those
neighborhoods can’t be retro-fitted to include a few sidewalks and safe crossings
that can connect
shopping, schools, and parks to homes. That way the walk of the day can be a little
farther than
just from the front door to the car in the driveway.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

SPRAWLING CITIES, SPRAWLING WAISTLINES (Short Version)

Urban planners and fitness experts are beginning to compare notes about how suburban development affects health. They’re finding that urban sprawl discourages exercise such as biking and walking. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Urban planners and fitness experts are beginning to compare notes about how suburban
development affects health. They’re finding that urban sprawl discourages exercise
such as
biking and walking. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:


Not nearly as many kids ride their bikes to school today as kids did a generation
ago. That’s
because sprawling areas – complete with four lane roads – are designed for cars. not
for bikes.


Risa Wilkerson is with the Michigan Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness, Health
and Sports.
She says fitness experts say there are advantages to building neighborhoods more
friendly to
bicyclists and pedestrians.


“Carpooling your child everywhere you go is a hard life to have if your child could
walk to their
soccer game while the other child walks to piano practice and you stay home and
start to cook a
healthy dinner or you have a chance to go ride your bike.”


The experts say the way neighborhoods are designed now could be contributing to health
problems in kids such as obesity, the early onset of diabetes, and asthma that might
be aggravated
by auto emissions.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

Small Forest Patches Breed Disease

Chopping down trees for subdivisions and farm fields isn’t just bad for forests. It can also hurt people. According to new research, small patches of woodlands breed more ticks with Lyme disease. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein reports:

Transcript

Chopping down trees for subdivisions and farm fields isn’t just bad for
forests. It can also hurt people. According to new research, small
patches of woodlands breed more ticks with Lyme disease. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein reports:


Felicia Keesing, a biology professor at Bard College, wanted to know
where people ran the greatest risk of getting Lyme disease, an illness
spread by ticks. She knew Lyme disease-bearing ticks are carried mostly
by the white footed mouse. And she knew that kind of mouse thrives in
small chunks of forest.


That’s because its predators need larger woods to live and have
moved away. So Keesing compared forest chunks of different sizes for
tick populations. She found a lot more ticks with Lyme disease in small
forests boxed in by houses or farmland.


“On average about seven times as likely to encounter an infected tick in a patch of woods
smaller than five acres.”


Keesing says the results send a clear message to town and village zoning boards
weighing development issues. They should do everything they can to prevent the
fragmentation of forests.


Keesing says her research doesn’t suggest small lots should be cut down altogether. But
new development could be better planned to reduce the risk of Lyme disease.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m David Sommerstein.

Related Links

Governments Grapple With Regional Transport

Many large cities throughout the Midwest have been struggling with issues such as urban sprawl. Getting workers from one area to the jobs in another has become a transportation challenge. Building multi-lane highways only seems to encourage more sprawl, so many cities have worked with surrounding suburbs to build mass transit systems for the entire metropolitan region. For one major city, political leaders are just now getting around to making that happen and as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jerome Vaughn reports… even now it’s not going to be easy:

Transcript

Many large cities throughout the Midwest have been struggling with
issues such as urban sprawl. Getting workers from one area to the jobs
in another has become a transportation challenge. Building multi-lane
highways only seems to encourage more sprawl. So many cities have worked
with surrounding suburbs to build mass transit systems for the entire
metropolitan region. For one major city, political leaders are just now
getting around to making that happen. And as the Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Jerome Vaughn reports… even now it’s not
going to be easy:


Detroit is the 10th largest city in the country…and it’s had more than
its share of struggles over issues such as chronic unemployment, poverty,
and pollution.


Finding solutions to those intractable problems has long been a goal of
government leaders in the area. But over the past three decades…they’ve lacked
one tool… used by most other metropolitan areas
around the country…that can make a difference. A regional transportation
system.


But that’s about to change.


Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm has joined Detroit Mayor Kwame
Kilpatrick…and the heads of the three largest counties in Metro
Detroit…to announce the formation of the Detroit Area Regional
Transportation Authority…otherwise known as DARTA.


The new regional transportation authority is backed by local governments,
business interests ..and mass transit proponents. The government leaders have
signed an agreement to work towards the regional transportation
system. Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick says the new deal will benefit the
city AND suburbs.


“This is a real people thing today. It’s also an economic thing…and it’s
rare when these two things come together. This will drive the economic
engine of the state. To move people to jobs…leads to economic
independence.”


The agreement is the first step towards ending decades of debate over how
best to get workers from their homes to their jobs. With many Detroiters
living below the poverty level…owning a car is impossible. But that can
mean taking several buses over a span of three hours just to get to work
each day.


That type of commute is what DARTA proponents, like such as Attorney Richard
Bernstein hope to end. As a blind man…he’s unable to drive to get
where he needs to go. He says Detroit’s lack of coordinated mass
transportation pushed him to become a transit activist a couple of years
ago.


“As a disabled person who can’t drive…I struggle for my independence and I
struggle for my freedom. And DARTA is the only hope that someone like me
has in order to lead a quality of life here in Southeast Michigan.”


Bernstein says he’d like to have that extra measure of independence. But he
says…right now…it’s impossible for him to get around town on his
own…given the current state of mass transit in Metro Detroit.


“For me right now …it isn’t that regional transit is difficult to
use…it’s that it’s non existent …that is the issue. Ultimately, if I want
to get from my house …or my apartment to my office. There is no bus I can
take. There is no bus I can take from my office to court.”


But Bernstein’s passion for regional transportation isn’t uniformly shared.
The original measure creating DARTA was vetoed by former Governor John
Engler last year as one of his final acts in office. The state legislature
tried to resurrect the bill in January…but it has subsequently
stalled…pushing the new governor, Jennifer Granholm and Detroit Mayor Kwame
Kilpatrick and others to find alternate ways routes to create a working agreement.


The opponents say the regional transportation system is not fair. State
Representative Leon Drolet opposes DARTA because he says his more rural
constituents shouldn’t be taxed for a bus system they’ll never use. He wants a
provision that would let communities “opt-out” of the DARTA if they choose. The
Republican legislator says he also concerned because there’s no plan to pay for
DARTA yet. And he says no one’s convinced him that such a system is really
needed in Metro Detroit…home of the Big Three automakers..


“Macomb, Oakland suburban Wayne communities…those are built around the
car. Everywhere there’s a parking lot. Boston, Washington DC, New
York…those communities…mass transit is very viable in the inner areas
because it costs 30 bucks a day or 50 bucks a day to park your car. And
that’s what drives people to mass transit…the inconvenience of driving
your car.”


But automakers say they want the regional mass transit system. The
Southeastern Michigan Council of Government’s Transportation
Expert…Carmine Palombo…says many of the region’s businesses are having a
hard time getting workers from their homes to their jobs. And that includes
the Big Three automakers…who have come out in favor of DARTA.


“The auto company themselves employ people who need to have good transit in
order to get to their jobs…and so they’re feeling the pinch…just like
every other employer is who wants to get…make sure they get to the jobs
they have to offer in a stable environment. So the car companies aren’t the
problem.”


(sound up – bus)


While the Detroit Area Regional Transportation Authority agreement has been
signed….the work is just beginning for transit activists in
Metro-Detroit. The current agreement only provides for planning a
regional transportation system. There’s currently no money for
implementation of ANY plan.


And DARTA opponents such as Leon Drolet are still on the job, too. He’s
charging that the chairman of his county…had no authority to sign
the DARTA agreement…and is asking the State’s Attorney
General to investigate.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Jerome Vaughn.

Churches Struggle With Urban Sprawl

Urban sprawl is affecting communities across the Great Lakes region. In one Ohio community, residents are turning to their churches to fight back. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Schaefer reports:

Transcript

Urban sprawl is affecting communities across the Great Lakes region. In one Ohio community,
residents are turning to their churches to fight back. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen
Schaefer reports:


Forest Hill Presbyterian Church was built in Cleveland Heights 100 years ago. Pastor John Lentz
says, in its heyday, some 15-hundred people regularly walked to church services every week.
Today, the congregation totals just 600. Lentz says it’s a constant struggle to replace those who
leave his flock for the greenfield developments that surround the urban center.


“Churches are anchors of communities and I think we need to be active in the kinds of issues that
affect our communities, like fair and open housing and education, and really make it our mission to equip
faithful people to, you know, walk the walk.”


He and other religious leaders have banded together to form the Northeast Ohio Alliance for
Hope. The group is working with 15 Cleveland suburbs, taking on issues like predatory lending,
school funding, and home repair.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Schaefer.

Bigger Homes, Better Living?

  • American houses are getting bigger and bigger, but some architects question whether more square footage leads to a happier life. Photo by Lester Graham.

Although family size is growing smaller in the U.S., house sizes are growing larger. The square footage of a home built in the 1950’s seems tiny compared to the houses typically built in the suburbs today. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham looks at the trend of ever-larger houses:

Transcript

Although family size is growing smaller in the U.S., house sizes are growing larger. The square
footage of a home built in the 1950’s seems tiny compared to the houses typically built in the
suburbs today. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham looks at the trend of ever-
larger houses:


There’s no one answer as to why we’re building bigger houses. For some people, it’s a matter of
investing. Housing prices continue to rise and bigger houses sell well. People trade up. But…
for some homebuyers, it’s more than that. It’s a statement.


Lynn Egbert is the CEO of the Michigan Association of Home Builders.


“A lot of that could be a status symbol. Move out of the city; move into a rural-like area because
‘I’ve made it,’ because ‘This is my dream.’ It used to be people would move up, sell their homes
every seven to ten years. That’s changed now and the sale of homes is now three to five years.
You build up the equity in a new home or an existing home, you have the opportunity to build or
move into something else later. It is an investment.”


Investing in a house only explains some of the reason houses are getting larger. Another reason is
government. Local governments are zoning residential areas into large lot subdivisions. Egbert
says that means the builder has to build a big house, just to recoup the cost of the sizeable piece
of land.


“That is a preclusion, a prohibition against Smart Growth. When they have large lots sizes, it
absolutely dictates and mandates that anybody who moves in there is going to have a large
home.”


It’s an attempt by towns to keep out lower-income people who might build homes that lower the
property values of a neighborhood.


But there’s a demand for the bigger houses and it doesn’t seem to be letting up. So, cities and
towns zone for them, builders build them, and people buy them – bigger and bigger.


Linda Groat is a professor at the University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture. She
says it’s not too surprising. People feel less connected to the community at large because they
move often, drive somewhere else to work, and see their home as a refuge. Home is where they
can relax and escape from the rest of the world.


“There may be, on the part of some people, a feeling of need to really make it more of a castle to
compensate for what feels more complicated or out of control in the larger world.”


We feel we need private places that we can call our own. But there might be social costs to that
refuge. There’s often little interaction with neighbors and the rest of the community in which we
live. And Groat says even within the home all that space means family members don’t have to
bump into each other on the way to the bathroom. Groat says in the new large suburban homes,
sometimes derisively called McMansions, everyone can pursue their own activities in different
parts of the house.


“If you buy a McMansion and the master bedroom is off on one wing and or a different floor and
the kids are off in huge rooms way on the other side of the house, is that really going to foster
family connection?”


Some architects are becoming aware the scale of housing is beginning to leave smaller
families with a sense of emptiness, not a sense of space. Sarah Susanka is one of the leaders of a
movement to re-evaluate the concept of whether bigger is really better. The first question is
“Why?” Why are we building bigger houses?


“Well, there’s obviously a large market for larger and larger homes. And my belief is that people
are trying to fill a void in their lives with the only tool that we’ve really defined for ourselves in
this culture which is: more. More stuff. More square footage. You know, more indication that
we’ve arrived. All that stuff.”


But Susanka says there’s a longing underneath all that, an idea that there should be some better
quality of life that’s not being satisfied by just more square footage. She’s the author of a series
of books that started with one entitled “The Not So Big House.” She argues that people can use
the money they’d spend on additional square footage for space that’s rarely used for better
designed spaces where they actually live day-to-day. She says if the house is an investment, then
it should be an investment in quality craftsmanship and better living, not just more space.


“When something is thrown together and just is sort of raw space, but not much else, over time
it’s going to degenerate. And, the amount of square footage obviously has a direct correlation
with the amount of resources it takes to build it. So by making something that’s tailored to fit – in
other words, not with excess material – and then that’s going to last a long time that that should be
the first step in sustainable design.”


Graham: “So, you suspect a lot of these McMansions or starter-castles, as you call them, aren’t going to be
around very long?”


“Yeah, I think in the long haul those are not going to survive in the same way and are probably
not going to be looked after in the same way over time just because they’re not as well put
together and they don’t have the charm that’s going to make somebody want to look after them in
the future.”


Susanka says using resources for bigger houses is not environmentally friendly and does not
necessarily mean better living. She says builders and homebuyers should think about it this way:
build the space you need and do it well and do it in a way that somebody in the future will want to
preserve.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.