Problems with the 15-Minute City in American Cities

 

In June of 2021, no one was on the street in Milwaukee, as chronicled in the Last Days of Lockdown.  We walked around for an hour and saw very few autos or people on the sidewalk of a very walkable city and a prototype for a 15-minute city.  

 

In European cities, the population of low income is less clustered intentionally like in the United States.  Milwaukee, Philadelphia, and most Cities have clustered minorities and low-income people in certain sections of the city.  The same is true in wealthy counties as minorities are clustered in smaller urban centers less than 15 minutes wide.

 

There are areas in America where, if you live in a white area, you may not see anyone of color during the day.  Conversely, there are sections of cities where low-income and minorities are clustered, so they might not see a white person during the day.

 

Creating bike lanes would be a priority in some cases.  In strong minority neighborhoods, it is considered a part of gentrification.  There may be a decentralization of low-income people as part of the 15-minute city, especially if hot new restaurants open up in the sought-after area, currently 90%+ minority.

 

The 15-Minute City Create a Problem for Food Deserts?

 

Many US cities are segregated by race because, in most cases, there was an effort to restrict where minorities lived.  People living in cluster sections of cities like Philadelphia have little or no grocery store choice.  Thinking that will be addressed through a 15-minute walk or bicycle ride is simplistic.  

 

Economic development works differently. It works the opposite in some cases. Endless process, crime, lack of available dollars to purchase goods. All play a factor in having a grocery store located in the neighborhood. Locating a grocery store with a wide variety of reasonably priced products takes a lot of work.

 

Public transportation could be difficult when food shopping, and attempting to create a decentralized array of stores offering the same selection as a suburban store is ambitious. 

 

Covid Retail Closing Creates a Planning Problem for the 15-Minute City.

 

Office vacancies and remote work have strained retail goods, with the foot traffic different from prior to the pandemic.  Trying to access a retail store for goods and services has changed significantly since the lockdown.

 

This could benefit planners working with economic development agencies within the target area.  Food and services are scarce in some city areas, and the high vacancy rates could offer opportunities that would not normally exist. Perhaps planners could craft a strategy after a community needs assessment.

 

 

The 15-Minute Imitative Working in Conjunction with Other Jurisdictions

 

An example of a potential problem is that the City of Oxford (UK) has a 5.9% black population. The Oxfordshire County Council targeted six roads into Oxford City. They reduced traffic by imposing a traffic filter restricting the use of private cars in these areas during peak hours. 

Residents could get a waiver permit for up to 100 days per year.  The Council stated every part of the city was assessable by car at any time using alternate routes. Cameras will monitor activity, and there will not be manned checkpoints.  The project is not part of Oxford’s 15-minute city plan but could be a supplemental measure or even a new measure that had merit.

In the United States, this would limit job market opportunities in the suburbs for minorities and low-income people.  A plan like this would also take more automobiles off the commercial corridors and steer them through residential areas as part of some circuitous route. 

What makes me Laugh about the Problems with the 15-minute City Planning Effort

Tremendous backlash labeled “conspiracy theories” is another way of combatting someone disagreeing with you. When I look at the 15-minute City, I think more of subways, trollies, and regional rail crossing large swaths of the city dynamically and effectively.  Bicycles are fine, but I would not go back on the 15-minute city to ram through the bike lane, much to the annoyance of the current residents.  In a way, it is classist and denotes gentrification by working against the wishes of current residents.

 

I do not believe you can argue mobility and access in an abstract and have to realize the social context of the action.  There are few, if any black people in Oxford, so the arguments made there do not reasonable relate to the 15-minute city in America.  There is a red flag with limiting access to the city by a neighboring jurisdiction, which shows how it can expand. It can expand once people get used to it, and certain populations could become isolated by design.

Office Vacancies and the Impact of Ground Floor Retail in San Francisco

During the last days of lockdown 2021, it was apparent that the lack of office traffic was impacting retail in the cities visited.  Many businesses across America closed their doors permanently, but many retail businesses did not open because of the Lockdown.

 

Retail in Haight Ashbury had many vacancies without the office buildings, but it appears now, as ioptimize realty site reports, that downtown San Francisco has an office vacancy rate of 26% and an office occupancy rate of 44%. Many of the retail tenants are moving out entirely. Many cities are in the same boat but not on the scale of San Francisco.

 

The Dynamics of the Impact on Retail with Less Workers Accessing Goods and Services

 

Fewer workers utilizing retail during the day have created problems in the dynamics of retail space utilization.  Businesses like dry cleaners and service businesses will have a shakeout as people wear different clothes than they would if they worked every day in an office.  More significant is the frequency of the workers’ appearance in and around the office building.   The kind of business that can do volume downtown to pay the rent changes.

 

The kinds of businesses that can afford the rent will compel building owners to make some adjustments concerning who they recruit to the spaces and the adjusted profit margin at the end of the tax year.  The landlords are already looking toward some level of adaptive reuse for the upper floor of the office buildings.

 

Issues Impacting on the Viability of Retail in Cities

 

Organized retail crime has compounded the problem of what is a viable retail use in the cities.  Recently, We observed people just taking goods out of a business. And wondered who is paying for this. The retail stores will never get that back, and it weighs on the profitability of the business and the ability to pay rent. The business is located on the ground floor of an office building, and even if it is by reputation, it affects the viability of the structure that supports that use.  

 

News reports from the San Francisco Standard report that approximately 203 retailers were open on the streets surrounding Union Square in 2019. By May 2023, only 107, or 53%, were still in business.

 

The 70-store downtown Westfield Mall has indicated it would stop making payments on a $558 million loan, walking away from any of the equity in the shopping center and leaving the future of the shopping complex needing to be clarified.

 

The list of stores that are seeking to close their retail locations and move from Downtown San Francisco is impressive:

 

 

Old Navy                                 Saks Off 5th,

Anthropologie                                    Amazon Go     

Whole Foods                          Office Depot

Arc'teryx                                 The RealReal

CB2                                          Banana Republic

Athleta                                    The Container Store

Crate & Barrel                        Abercrombie & Fitch

DSW                                        Disney

Uniqlo                                     Marshall's 

H&M                                       Gap

 

Adaptive reuse for that much retail space Impacts the kind of retail that could survive in San Francisco. Creative uses would be good, but they cost money, and creative retail use with the amount of dysfunction. It needs to be in a better place to position a city as a credible retail destination to compensate for the loss of office workers shopping retail during the day.

 

Converted Space Office Will Impact the New Retail Development In San Francisco.

 

There is 44% of the office space is unoccupied, and 26% vacant and will probably have to be converted to housing at some point.  The zoning approvals and building modifications planning commission meeting will potentially take two years before they are approved.

 

Once construction is complete, whatever adaptive reuse of the office space is determined will be able to determine the uses of the ground floor.  The transition and the timetable for a new beginning for a retail renaissance in Downtown San Francisco cannot be determined.   

Drug Use Problems Plauge the City of Philadlephia's Kensington Avenue

In Last Days of Lockdown 2021's nationwide journey, Philadelphia stands out for having one of the most severe drug problems among all American cities. In Philadelphia, the cross-street intersections often identify Kensington Avenue (The Avenue). Kensington and Lehigh or Kensington and Allegheny (K & A), Kensington and Front, may mean many different things as you walk along The Avenue. Conditions were documented on The Avenue in June of 2021, which led to an open-air drug market along the street.

 

The Junkies were closer to Front Street, along with the methadone clinic. The Catholic Church took up a good bit of the blocks by Lehigh, along with a population of low-level sex workers; there has always been a little more activity at K & A as there was some old retail on the street and always a few pioneers. 

 

The Drug and Housing Crisis: How Two Problems Intersected in One Neighborhood City

 

Working down there in the early ’90s, we were buying homes for hundreds of dollars, putting in $60,000, and selling it for $30,000, and the people in the house next to it were walking away from their equity. Things got better, and the area was in a rebound the past ten years. A significant portion of the residents remained in poverty, and the issue of escalating drug use persisted, particularly in cities grappling with the worst drug problems, such as Kensington, Philadelphia.

 

The rent moratorium meant many lost their homes because they did not pay rent and could not afford to pay rent in the future. A large encampment moved into K & A. consisting of campers, disabled, and some drug addicts have resulted from the lockdown. 

 

Philadelphia's Kensington Neighborhood: One of America's Cities Worst Open-Air Drug Markets

 

Among the largest cities in America, Philadelphia, particularly the Kensington area, has earned notoriety for having one of the worst drug problems and has transformed into an open-air drug market where you can buy what you like and always receive threats of intimidation and violence. Shootings, on occasion, add to the dangerous element of intersections.

 

The encampment is having an impact on the retail industry. We saw it in Seattle during the lockdown, where an encampment closed down the entire block. Even if you could get past the tents, you still had to deal with the disaffected population and everything that goes with being around the addicted person.

 

If you go down to The Avenue and watch, you will see the castoffs of society living on the sidewalks and all of society's ills on display. The drug encampments make up the common theme of The Avenue's availability of drugs and narcotics. What needs to be reinforced to solve these issues—#1. The streets are for cars and #2. The sidewalks are for people to transverse the street. It is not a hard concept, but it fits. It would be best if you made people move.

 

Citizens Concerned About the Impact of Retail Businesses

 

When moving people was proposed, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported on November 6, 2022

 

“Clearing one corner just pushes people to the next one over, police say, and many of those living on the street face compounding, unaddressed health and other problems.”

 

I laughed when I read that, as the problem is not on the corner but the entire street length. You look at a street in 100-foot intervals when place-making on the street. The interval will have to be looked at on a larger scale. Make people continue to walk. Do not allow loitering; everyone has to keep moving. What is happening on The Avenue is a long-standing problem that has only intensified. The garbage and litter are completely out of hand. You have people banging people up with some concoction on the street.   

 

A potential solution to combat the cities with the worst drug problems is to implement street closures. Specifically, the streets must be closed in the morning to clean up after a night on The Avenue. The littering infraction cannot control several sanitation issues. Then there is the vomit, urination, other secretions, and bodily fluids. I need to hose it down in the morning.…not too early, but maybe about 7:30 or 8 AM. That is when I used to hose down Philadelphia’s South Street before the stores opened. We are unsure how many stores are left on The Avenue, but they should have the same opportunity citywide.

 

Kensington Avenue Residents Concerned About the Petty Drug Crimes

 

The environment created in the cities with the worst drug problems is far from wholesome for the neighbors and the people on the street. It presents a significant challenge regarding the quality of life for the neighbors and the imperative need for honest and fair treatment for those who are barely clinging to existence. That said, no one wants to walk down the street and have their 8-year-old witness people banging heroin on the street.  

 

No one's grandmother wants to walk down the street in fear of having her purse snatched. Conversely, no homeless person wants to fall asleep, only to be awakened by being pounded by Kensington youths.  

 

Medical Attention to the Side Effects of Drug Use

 

There needs to be some common sense applied to the situation, and the easiest thing to do is to make people move. There will be a need to establish a central intake to deal with the plethora of ill and otherwise infirmed drug users. Open wounds and disease and are the norm in these encampments. A central area would need to be established to evaluate the people needing medical or psychological help. Those seeking not to avail themselves of help will need to keep moving.

 

The degradation of human life is on full display as people bargain sexual favors to secure money for drugs. In public display, they were rolling around in the human waste and remnants of regurgitation from the night before to secure money to purchase drugs.