– Your Bright Brothers Team
David Romako / Josh Yeager /  Brandi Walsh

Ready for a big gulp of Gensler? Two pieces came across our radar this week that are of interest to the UPMO industry.  This piece on “Innovation Districts, Affinity Districts, and the City of the Future” is pretty prescient, and touches on some of the same elements for success from the William Fulton piece we feature below in DID YOU KNOW. And once again, the recurring theme of “leaning into experiential” is at the top of the list for cities looking to rebound from the pandemic, which changed our districts’ focus from a “central business district” to experiential, with a focus on shopping, culture and placemaking. The second article narrows in on the tenets of a successful “affinity district”, in that “…they promote a sense of community around shared activities, especially mobility, food, and creativity,” and further stating that, “…the physical environment must take on the role of providing human connection and creating places in which people can commit to themselves, with elements that educate and inspire.” And while you may be thinking you’re not a master planned, mixed-use community — the same rules and approaches apply. This article also provides a framework for successful districts, as well as breaking out key strategies for success. We love a lot of the strategic thinking coming out of Gensler, and their City Pulse Survey, published last fall, is chock full of delicious little data nuggets. 

We’ve got a racist history of urban planning and transportation to make amends for in this country, most of it disingenuously foisted upon cities under opprobrious pseudonyms like “blight clearance” or “urban renewal”. And yet, in hindsight, we see that we allowed federal infrastructure dollars (from the 1956 Federal Highway Act) to rip asunder entire neighborhoods for “the good of the whole”. But clearly these weren’t affluent suburban neighborhoods with homogenous white populations — they were primarily communities of color or Jewish enclaves wiped from the face of the city in lieu of super sleek modern highways that would solve all our societal ills and thread together our nation’s cities like bead after bead of glistening pearls. Yeah, right. Thanks to groups like Segregation by Design, which we gave props to in Edition 18, we can literally see the damage done and make atonement for it. With historic federal funding now flowing down to nearly every state, city and municipality, there are dollars available to undo some of the damage. So we were thrilled to see that there is $3B earmarked for restoration included in the new Inflation Reduction Act signed into law this week. Specifically entitled Neighborhood Access and Equity Grants, the funding is intended for things like, “…covering a highway, turning a highway into a boulevard, adding trails and bike lanes, installing sound barriers, providing better connections to transit, using “green infrastructure” to handle storm runoff, reducing urban heat island hot spots, building safety features and curbing air pollution.” And stitching our cities back together with an emphasis on DEI, is definitely something we ❤ a lot!

Photo credit: Segregation by Design

It may sound like a “No duh!” recipe for success, but in a new book by William Fulton, he prescribes to the notion that for a city to be successful, it must contain two things: a sense of place and prosperity. So simple, in fact, is the suggestion, that it’s the book’s eponymous title “Place and Prosperity”. Journalist Alan Ehrenhalt gives us a good run-down in this quick review for Governing. Cities can be prosperous or have a strong local identity, but it’s not all that often that they have both. And Fulton’s insights into winning cities like Pittsburgh and Las Vegas counterbalance the one-sided doctrines of exurbs empty of a sense of self, like southern California’s vast swath of sprawl, Houston’s garden-gated ramble of tracts, or Ehrenhalt’s demonstrative example of McLean, VA. Striking the balance is part of the equation and Fulton deftly describes how cities need to be prepared for when a major corporate anchor ups and leaves, as well as how quickly the evolution process of transforming a town can take place. With concerted placemaking efforts and coordinated economic development strategies, yours could be the next boom town from Fulton’s perspective. Looks to be an excellent read, and we’ve added it to our “book club” queue.

Photo credit: David Kidd

You may know his work from public places spanning Princeton, NJ to San Francisco, CA, as Walter Hood is one of the most well-respected luminaries in landscape architecture today. In this interview from ArchPaper, Hood waxes nostalgic and discusses why Black landscapes matter. Head of Hood Design Studio, a “social art and design practice”, Walter’s firm also has a “people-first” approach, in that they are known to incorporate community feedback in their planning processes, and are constantly evolving. While potentially tangential to our industry, Hood’s work and his wins play an outsized role in creating spaces within the public realm. This quick read shows that his vision, voice, insights and approaches are true inspo for all of us. 

Photo credit: Hood Design

A dark horse emerges from the middle of the country, and once again this week, we’ve got Tulsa in the news. Seems like things are A-OK in this Oklahoma city of just over 400K residents (and growing). In our last issue we gave props to the folks behind Downtown Tulsa’s haiku placemaking activation. And this insightful piece from Governing points out that despite its checkered past, today’s Tulsa is pulling out all the stops to foster a community of innovators, dreamers and doers, with the intellectual braintrust to make it all happen. And hey, that $10K relocation bonus ain’t half bad either! From cultural attractions to parks and nonprofits, to creating that swirling sound of the tech sector leaving Cali and Manhattan for more affordable midwest WFH climes — it seems like Tulsa’s concerted efforts are really bearing fruit.

Photo credit: Jametlene Reskp, Unsplash