URBAN JOURNAL: The community of ... whatever
By Mary Anna Towler on Jul. 29th, 2008
Midtown Plaza could have remained the vibrant retail and community center that it once was. We just didn't want it to.
This is indeed another of my regional-planning rants, but facts are facts. We have traded a vibrant downtown retail center for half a dozen suburban malls with little advantage or interest beyond convenience for the shoppers who live nearby. (And if I lived in Greece, I'm not sure I'd count a mall's "convenience" as a plus, given the traffic on Ridge Road.)
Goodbye, then, to Midtown Plaza, a place that made me think, when I moved here 43 years ago, that I had moved to a real city.
When it closed last week, Midtown was a shadow of the marvel it once was, back when department stores were real department stores, and throngs of people stood at the crosswalk that connected Sibley's and Midtown, waiting for the light to change.
Not enough people wanted to keep that experience. And too many people moved to the outer suburbs. And so when the developers built the suburban malls, people went there to shop, shunning the downtown they had once depended on for clothing, gifts, furniture, towels, and yes, for some, even groceries.
Convenience mattered more.
I'm sure it's just a coincidence, but let me point out that once upon a time, the population of the Rochester area was growing. While we were building those malls, though, and while we were building all of those suburban housing developments, that population growth began to slow. And now, in the entire region - in all six counties except Ontario - the population has begun to decline.
We keep right on building outward, though.
According to news reports, in some parts of the country people are moving closer to where they work because of high gas prices. And the Wall Street Journal reported recently that some cities have their eyes on Sacramento as a possible model for planning. Sacramento has adopted growth controls and is encouraging new construction in densely developed areas.
Could that happen here?
Don't hold your breath.
Kent Gardner at Rochester's Center for Governmental Research says we can't draw many parallels between Rochester and Sacramento, or between Rochester and places like California and Chicago, where traffic congestion makes commuting a nightmare. "Rush hour" in Greater Rochester is laughably tame, he notes.
It'll take more than high gas prices, says Gardner, to put a serious dent in our sprawl. What would it take? "Getting people to change how they think about where they build," Gardner says. And, of course, getting them to think about where they live.
We're beginning to see signs of change. So far, new downtown housing developments have done well, and it'll be a very good sign if Buckingham's big multi-use development on the Genesee Hospital site fills up quickly. But construction continues in the suburbs, as well. New developments are proposed for open space along the Erie Canal in Brighton. The Monroe County Water Authority has just gotten permission to build a new plant in Webster, which is almost certain to foster new development farther out from the city.
Our sprawl is due to mindset, more than anything. We complain about gas prices and about the high cost of government that sprawl feeds. But until we want a different kind of community, we'll keep doing what we've been doing.
Maybe we just don't have a clear sense of what we want to be. We mourn the closing of Midtown, but too few people wanted to shop there. We want a vibrant community, with healthy retail and arts, but we think we can have one without a strong central core.
Our vision, I guess, is of a community of separate little communities.
Or whatever develops.
That's what we have. And that's what we'll get in the future.
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Doug Midkiff on July 30th, 2008
Mary Anna, as usual, you are right on target. The Rochester region is just drifting, somewhat aimlessly, and it will take initiative, imagination, and a change of attitude to correct it. Otherwise, it will continue to wither on the vine.
Why should I, a resident of Knoxville, TN, care what happens to Rochester? Simply because I spent some of the best years of my life in the city. Kodak brought me to Rochester in May 1982, from its Chemicals Division in Kingsport, TN, to serve as a transportation manager in its World-Wide Transportation Department. In the twenty-five years I lived there, I learned to love the city and have said so many times in articles written for your paper and the D&C. I left it only because health issues required it.
When I arrived in Rochester, Kodak employed about 62,000 and the city was alive and thriving. I moved into an apartment on Park Avenue. I walked the street daily and savored the beautiful colors of the locust trees that bordered it, the diverse architecture of the residences along the way, and the even more diverse demographics of the community.
Downtown was a bustling place and Midtown was much as you describe it. I shopped at Sibley's, B. Foreman's, McCurdy's, and at the many small retail shops that downtown afforded and loved it
When Kodak offered substantial inducements for early retirement, I jumped at the chance to leave what I considered to be the stifling culture of the company. After a few years as a consultant, I joined the staff of the Genesee Transportation Council as a transportation specialist. That is where I really began to learn about the city. It was there I began to experience the attitudes that led to the city being described as Smugtown USA.
I was puzzled by the unwillingness of the leaders and their staffs to explore new opportunities, often offering tradition as excuses given for not doing this, or doing that, with the professionals often using the excuse "that will never fly in Rochester." I couldn't understand why the voters and others didn't express their outrage over the perpetual tenure of people like Adam Urbanski, with his strangle-hold on the City School District, and Tom Mooney, who led the most staid and passive chamber of commerce I ever witnessed and I've witnessed several.
Has the climate of Upstate New York created a culture of hardy and conservative people, who learned to be that way in order to survive? One can argue that, in the distant past, the city was open to new ideas, with Midtown the first downtown mall, but it was not the city leaders and planners, it was individuals like George Eastman, Carlson of Haloid, and Hiram Sibley, who gave it the reputation of a city with many firsts. But that time has passed and there are no people with those mind-sets leading the city today.
Mary Anna, where is Rochester's Cincinnatus?
Doug Midkiff on July 30th, 2008
In a post script to my previous comment, may I answer my own question regarding a Cincinnatus, for Rochester. The city had its Cincinnatus, who was called out of farm fields in 458 BC to save Rome, in former Mayor Bill Johnson.
Johnson preached against urban sprawl and the need for a vital city core, only to be defeated by a TV anchor and talk show host, Maggie Brooks, through the machinations of former Republican Party Chair Steve Minarik, playing the role of Karl Rove, Jr. in the Monroe County chairman's race.
True, Johnson was too eager to get the fast ferry up and operating to examine the details, but at least he had an idea and a good one, at that. He has suffered the consequences in the media, with scurrilous and asinine comments about that episode, but it is his kind of thinking that Rochester needs, with innovative ideas and campaigns to end the senseless urban sprawl. It is better to make a mistake trying than to not try at all.
Evan on July 30th, 2008
Thank you Doug for writing something thoughtful and fact oriented..That kind of thinking doesnt come around these parts very often...its refreshing, humbling and actually kind of sad all at the same time. I hope there are some more people in this city that read this.
-Rochester Loyalist Even Though The Chips Are Down