Savannah itself is an important player in Why I Walk, but the thrust of the text is more universal. The principles and examples could be applied in some way by people who live across America and around the world.

I should note that, before he became SDRA director, Kevin also wrote a wildly popular Savannah Unplugged post that later appeared as an op-ed in the Savannah Morning News: Savannah as a model for the nation: not 1733, but today.

In an SMN column today — Why Savannahians should care about walking — Klinkenberg puts Savannah’s walkability into a broader context. A snippet:

Walking is not a fringe benefit of being in Savannah. It is essential. In this city, you can experience other human beings by greeting them in reality, not just through a car window. Anyone can be here and enjoy a slower pace of life that includes sitting on picturesque streets and shaded public spaces. This place speaks to some very human desires that are timeless, and consistent across every culture.

The fact that Savannah was built around walking for 200 years is also why it is so attractive. When you experience a place by walking, the little details and the appearance of every building matters more. When you speed through a town at 60 mph, you rarely notice much beyond the signs.

I write this because it seems that sometimes we forget just how important walking is to the current and future health of our city.

Kevin doesn’t delve into specific examples, but it’s interesting that this piece has been published as the city of Savannah is about to conduct a misguided “experiment” that will make Bay Street less walkable. For the month of September, we’re going to remove over 100 on-street parking spaces on the south side of Bay Street — spaces that generate millions of dollars for nearby businesses annually — so that travel lanes can be widened in the hope that sideswipe auto collisions can be reduced. In the process, we’ll have speeding traffic just a few feet from the sidewalk on the south side of Bay Street from MLK to East Broad.

Click here for my recent City Talk column detailing all the negative fallout that we’ll see from that experiment.

Ironically, this experiment is in part the end result of Mayor Eddie DeLoach’s expression of concerns about traffic traveling too fast on Bay and the unpleasantness of being on the sidewalk near City Hall. With wider lanes and less on-street parking, we’ll have even faster traffic on Bay and even more unpleasant conditions for pedestrians, in addition to the massive damage done to nearby small businesses and property values.

Yes, we might reduce sideswipe accidents with wider lanes, but we’ll raise the odds of truly catastrophic crashes.

More recently, city officials announced that they might also add a truck ban to Bay Street in the evening until very early morning. That’s worth trying, I think, but I’d invite city officials and members of city council to stand beside Bay Street on a typical weeknight, when traffic really isn’t heavy at all. Some drivers are going far in excess of the speed limit, and a relatively small number of those vehicles are large trucks. With wider lanes, no trucks at all in the evening, and no on-street parking, some of those light vehicle drivers will go even faster.

One important point: a couple days ago, John Bennett of the Savannah Bicycle Campaign told the SMN that the September experiment could result in a “false positive” involving vehicle speeds. In other words, since the temporary medians will be marked with a sea of orange traffic barrels, we will see some drivers automatically slow down. If we had permanent medians there, those drivers would not slow down.

What a mess. Clearly, the city of Savannah needs more people on staff who can advocate clearly and effectively for pedestrians and for small businesses.

Beyond the immediate issue of Bay Street, Kevin’s piece about Savannah’s walking brand is worth keeping in mind for a variety of other reasons. For example, incredibly, there isn’t a signalized crosswalk on either the east or west side of Forsyth Park between Gaston Street and Park Avenue. That’s about 3/8ths of a mile. On MLK south of Gwinnett, we’ve got a median that prevents many pedestrians with limited mobility from crossing the street for blocks at a stretch. I could go on and on with examples.

Yes, Savannah’s older neighborhoods are dramatically more walkable than many places in America, and Savannah’s downtown area remains breathtakingly beautiful in many places, but those qualities exist because of good planning in the relatively distant past. We need to make sure that we make decisions right now that reinforce the visionary planning in Savannah’s history.

How Cincinnati Salvaged the Nationâ€s Most Dangerous Neighborhood

The piece generally speaks glowingly of the dramatic new investment in the historic, long-struggling neighborhood, but the optimism is tempered occasionally with cautions about displacement of black residents and the loss of identity that can result from gentrification.

The efforts are being driven by the Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation (3CDC), a 501(c)3 privately funded non-profit that has been working aggressively to develop properties in the large historic neighborhood. We don’t have anything like 3CDC in Savannah, but maybe we should?

Perhaps a non-profit entity — one with a much broader mission than the current SDRA or the HSF’s revolving fund — could effectively preserve historic properties in Savannah’s economic development corridors, guarantee that new development provides sufficient affordable housing, make purchases for government needs, and generally implement a coherent vision of neighborhood revitalization.

Check out the 3CDC staff page for a sense of the organization’s scale, and check out their current projects to see examples of adaptive reuse, preservation, and new construction.

Also, before you get too deep into the piece, you should note that Over-the-Rhine was still majority black as of the 2010 census, which showed about 4,400 black residents and 1,600 white residents. In 2000, however, census data show about 1,500 white residents and 5,900 black residents.

What caused the decline in black residents? Given the slight rise in the white population, this certainly isn’t a case of one-for-one racial displacement.

For what it’s worth, we’ve seen similar trends in the Metropolitan Neighborhood in Savannah over the last couple of decades. I’ve written about the trends multiple times. It seems that as the neighborhood continued to decline, primarily because of street-level crime and blight, the number of black residents fell dramatically, while at the same time new residents — mostly white, many newcomers to the city — began trickling in. That trickle has accelerated at this point, and there seems no stopping it.

Anyway, here’s the opening of the Politico piece, which you really need to read if you’re interested in these subjects. And read the comments too, which represent a wide variety of takes on the current state of Over-the-Rhine.

Freed from ordinary political constraints and focused on its task of reversing central Cincinnatiâ€s slide, the Cincinnati Center City Development Corp.—better known as 3CDC—has invested or leveraged more than half a billion dollars into Over-the-Rhine, buying and rescuing 131 historic buildings and building 48 new ones, while maintaining subsidized housing, rehabilitating parks and driving out criminals with cameras, better lighting, liquor store closings and the development of vacant lots. In the process, it has earned the ire of longtime residents and homeless advocates, who say their desires, suggestions and dreams for the neighborhood—until recently 80 percent African-American—are seldom consulted and rarely implemented. “They use a lot of buzzwords and give the appearance of being warm and fuzzy, but without really having the interest to make it something real and true,” says neighborhood activist Jai Washington.

The only thing unreal about it, say officials, are the results.

The Emmett Robinson Theatre at the College of Charleston isn’t as grand or historic as other festival venues, but it makes a tremendous spot for world-class performances that need a more intimate space — the theatre has only 310 seats.

I’ve seen several flat-out tremendous shows at the Emmett Robinson Theatre in recent years, including a performance by the Australian physical theater troupe Gravity & Other Myths, Dean and Britta’s “13 Most Beautiful: Songs for Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests”, and Haydnâ€s marionette opera Philemon and Baucis, staged by the Colla Marionette Company with live singers and musicians in the small orchestra pit.

Ever since I first entered the Emmett Robinson Theatre, I’ve felt the lack of a similar space in the downtown area of Savannah. SCAD’s theatre in Crites Hall falls far short, and the small auditoria at the Jepson and at the SCAD Museum of Art are simply different categories of spaces. With adequate time and care, the Charles H. Morris Center can be a solid venue for musical performances of various types, but it’s not a theatre.

For years, the plan has been that Savannah’s long-delayed, long-promised Cultural Arts Center would have a 500-seat theatre. If designed well, that space would almost certainly be used for world-class performances during the Savannah Music Festival, and it’s easy to imagine a variety of other music programmers utilizing the space, including the Savannah Jazz Festival, Coastal Jazz Association, MusicFile Productions (parent company of Savannah Stopover and Revival Fest), and a variety of course of theatre companies. Imagine the other opportunities too, for cultural programming related to the Savannah Black Heritage Festival, the Savannah Irish Festival, the Savannah Dance Festival, and other groups.

Imagine also the possibilities for city-produced plays as part of ongoing arts initiatives — remember the big summer musicals that the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs used to produce?

The 500-seat theatre was just one component of the new center, which has been approved by voters for Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax Funding. I could go on and on about the missteps in planning, funding, site selection, and other areas, and I even wrote an entire column arguing that the handling of the project has been a metaphor for city government dysfunction.

In 2014, city officials seemed on track to finally produce an excellent facility (even if we had long ago abandoned the original idea to build the center on MLK so that it would be a catalyst for private investment). From the city’s blog (with emphasis added):

The new Cultural Arts Center will be one of the most technologically advanced buildings in Savannah to meet modern performance needs. It was designed with significant input from Savannahâ€s cultural arts community, and will feature a 500-seat theater, a flexible 125-seat performance space with removable seats, and dedicated performing arts classrooms, visual arts studios and gallery space. The various uses will radiate from a central multi-story rotunda, that will serve as the Centerâ€s focal point. The outside will include a piazza and park-like setting, suitable for outdoor events and classes.

And then the project ran over budget, then the building was scaled down and the larger theatre was eliminated and the black box space enlarged. Now, black box/flexible spaces can be tremendous in their own right (like the monumental Memminger Auditorium in Charleston), but they pose all sorts of obstacles to the kind of programming that a traditional theatre could host. City Manager Stephanie Cutter insisted in public statements that the design had not been significantly compromised, but SMF head Rob Gibson — presumably one of those cultural arts leaders who gave input into the project — joined Lisa Grove from the Telfair Museums and Daniel Carey from Historic Savannah Foundation in criticizing the changes. I’ll embed their joint letter here:

In other words, rather than make deep compromises to the structure and program, let’s explore chances for private, corporate, and philanthropic funding to bridge the funding gap.

The SMN editorial page subsequently questioned the plans for the Cultural Arts Center, and in my latest Sunday City Talk, I have expressed hope that the newly elected mayor and council will hit the pause button on this project.

We need to stop and rethink the final design if for no other reason than the city manager’s public statements are so wildly contradicted by leaders of the city’s leading arts nonprofits.

And for a handful of families, it was a tragic night.

I hadn’t been in bed very long when I heard a burst of gunfire (“burst” seems the right word, but I was pretty groggy), followed by the usual sounds of Savannah at night: sirens.

About 1:30 a.m., there was a shooting near the intersection of 33rd and Barnard streets — about three blocks from my house — that left one person dead and sent three others to the hospital. Police believe there were at least two shooters, but there has so far been no word on arrests. Click here for details directly from the Savannah-Chatham Metro Police Department.

In the midst of the ugly news out of San Bernardino, the Washington Post is calling the incident in my neighborhood The other mass shooting that happened today:

The local news media barely acknowledged the murder: One local television station covered it in three paragraphs.

And the world spun on.

I don’t know any of the victims of last night’s shooting at Barnard and 33rd (or the single shooting on Howard Street that may or may not be related), and I have no idea what any of those victims were doing at 1:30 a.m.

But you know what? I’m routinely out at 1:30 a.m. It’s America; we are allowed to be out late.

There is something I do know, however. I know that Barnard Street between 32nd and 33rd streets has had active prostitution and perhaps drug dealing for years. If I’m on my bike, I stay away from that stretch after a certain hour, but in my van I’ve often seen a prostitute on that block — sometimes even on the steps of the large church there.

[UPDATE: Since posting this, I’ve seen a comment from someone who lives even closer to the crime scene that I do. That person noted persistent and obvious drug dealing on a block of 33rd right off Barnard.]

Last year, I was talking with a former student and learned that he had moved to an apartment in the immediate area. I expressed concern about the blatant crime that he must see all the time, but, like so many newcomers to neighborhoods like that, he assumed that he could just sort of live with it. Given how blatant much of the street crime in Savannah is, new neighborhood residents typically don’t even bother to call the police about what’s going on.

When the crime is so glaringly obvious, how could the police not already know? Often, the criminal activity on Barnard is within plain sight of the new fire station a block away. There is a police precinct just three short blocks away.

I have written often over the years about Savannah’s long history of toleration of open street drug dealing and prostitution. Since being hired a year ago, Chief Jack Lumpkin has really been the first major Savannah official to talk about the obvious connection between “open air” drug markets and violent crime, but so far I have seen little evidence that the SCMPD has been able to put enough officers on the street to address the most persistent pockets of criminality.

Can anyone be surprised that the “nonviolent” but unchecked criminal activity on a particular block should suddenly turn into horrible violence?

The simple truth is that street level drug dealing and prostitution — crimes that Savannah has simply tolerated for decades — are their own kinds of violence. They destroy residents’ senses of safety and eventually destroy neighborhoods. Ironically, that neighborhood destruction is what has set the stage for the rapid gentrification in the area around last night’s shooting. But that’s another Savannah story.

Sure, sure, sure, city officials keep saying that it’s just a draft and that everything in the draft is open to discussion and revision.

But, really, why start the public discussion with a draft ordinance that many of us would consider draconian — a draft ordinance that is so restrictive that it virtually guarantees that individual entrepreneurs will not even take the risk of launching a food truck?

So let’s consider one specific property that has come up in multiple public discussions as one that would be perfect for food trucks: the parking lot of the old Sears/DFACS building. The official address of the building is 2 East Henry St., and the large parking lot — just under one acre — is bounded by Drayton, Henry, and Bull streets.

Why would that location be so good for food trucks?

• It’s right in the middle of the city and gets a lot of traffic, including foot and bicycle traffic going north and south on Bull.
• The property is currently underutilized.
• There are four food service establishments nearby (Local 11 Ten, Betty Bombers, Brighter Day, and The Sentient Bean), but it’s hard to imagine any of those businesses seeing a decline in sales if there were also food trucks in the neighborhood. (Local, Betty’s, and The Bean also do significant sales at times of the day when food trucks would be unlikely to be in operation.)
• The old Sears lot isn’t in a designated redevelopment corridor, but we’re seeing a resurgence in activity along Bull Street south of the park; food trucks could help spur interest and activity in the neighborhood.

Under the city’s initial draft ordinance, however, we would almost certainly never see food trucks in the old Sears parking lot.

The starting point would of course have to be the owner(s) of the site, who would have to expressly allow food trucks to set up shop there. Also, the food truck employees would, according to health codes, have to have nearby bathrooms.

Wait, why not let food trucks just park in the spaces on Henry Street immediately south of the Sears lot — in those spaces that no one even knows exists because no one ever even uses them? Well, the draft ordinance does not allow food trucks to vend on public property unless they are working under a special event permit.

But the problems for a would-be entrepreneur go far beyond that. Here are all the issues of which I am aware, but there could be even more:

• The city’s map of proposed zoning districts for food trucks (see below) doesn’t even allow them in the 2-B district, the current zoning classification of the lot. Under the current draft of the NewZO, which city officials literally might not move forward for years, the zoning district would change to TC-2, so under that map the property would be zoned the same as some properties where food trucks would be allowed. Got that?
• The lot dimensions on SAGIS indicate that the northwest corner of the Sears lot — the part closest to Bull Street and Forsyth Park — is less than 200 feet from the door of Local 11 Ten. So to set up in the most prime location in the lot, the owner of the food truck would have to get written permission from Local.
• Perhaps as much as 1/3rd of the western portion of the lot is less than 200 feet from the apartments directly across Bull Street. Again the food truck owner would need written permission from the property owner.
• A significant amount of the eastern portion of the lot is within 200 feet of residential properties on Henry Street and Drayton Street, so if a truck were set up there, the business owner would need permission from the owners of those residential properties.
• Even if all the appropriate permissions were secured and the zoning were changed, the draft limits the number of food trucks in a given location to two per acre. The Sears parking lot is less than one acre (not by much, but I’m pretty sure it would be short), so that means that only one food truck could set up there, assuming that the zoning were changed and that all the other requirements were met. All that space — room for a dozen food trucks, easily — but only one would be allowed.

If you were a lender who was approached by a young entrepreneur with dreams of starting a food truck in Savannah, what would you decide about the loan once you realized all of the hoops that the truck would have to jump through?

Also, by the way, food trucks would have to meet applicable sign ordinances. The sign ordinance in the Historic District is fairly restrictive, and there are separate rules for both Broughton Street and River Street. So if the food truck were ever parked in those locations, the signage would have to conform to those separate ordinances (and presumably have to be approved under all those standards).

Here’s the map of where food trucks would be allowed, but please note that food trucks would be limited to private property, probably parking lots for the most part. Each of those lots would be subject to the provisions I’ve noted above.

Alderman Carol Bell apparently started pushing for a food truck ordinance when she was seated on City Council in early 2012. And this is our starting point for public discussion 3 1/2 years later?

I have no reason to think that city officials aren’t serious about crafting a viable ordinance and giving food trucks in Savannah to be successful, but this first draft is nowhere near the final ordinance we need.

The last of the currently scheduled public forums about food trucks is September 23 at Jacob G. Smith, 210 Lamara Drive at 5:30 p.m.

I started at my mom’s house in south Frankfort and headed across the Kentucky River to north Frankfort, which is dotted with important historic sites and stunning architecture.

Frankfort is in the midst of its first-ever branding effort, and it’s hard to imagine any study that doesn’t emphasize both history and beauty.

There are some obvious directions that Frankfort’s branding effort could go. The city is an important hub for American distilleries (I’m sure the rebranding folks took note of recent New York Times coverage of the Bourbon Trail), and, as the seat of state government, Frankfort has a vibrant present and promising future, even if the countywide population hovers around 50,000.

I got a better appreciation of Frankfort’s brand during and after a family reunion in June. Downtown Frankfort has so much unrealized potential — both for residents and for visitors. Increasing the number of apartments/condos/homes is critical to the long-term health of downtown, and Frankfort seems like a logical place for a mini-boom in tourism if the one downtown hotel can consistently meet modern tourists’ standards and if the city does a better job of marketing destinations like the State Capitol, the Old State Capitol, Thomas D. Clark Center for Kentucky History, the Frankfort Cemetery (which doesn’t even have a real website), Fort Hill, the state’s Vietnam memorial, Buffalo Trace Distillery (which does a pretty good job marketing itself already), and outdoor excursions like Canoe Kentucky. Frankfort is also less than an hour’s drive from both Lexington and Louisville, so there are obviously ways to capitalize on that proximity. (Btw, that’s not an attempt to provide a comprehensive list at all.)

Downtown Frankfort is also a pretty remarkable place just to wander around.

This series of photos begins with the old arsenal, now the really nice Kentucky Military History Museum, looming over the Kentucky River. From there the route follows primarily West Main Street, which needs to be made 2-way, and Broadway. I could go on and on about some of the buildings here — including a couple of architectural fails near the end — but I’ll leave it at that.

Many drivers on those streets greatly exceed the posted speed limit (35 mph for much of the time), and they aren’t going to slow down if the street design remains as it is now.

After all, drivers will typically go faster when roads are straight and flat, when roads are one-way, when there is no on-street parking, when lanes are wide (typical freeway lanes are 12′, Drayton and Whitaker are 15′), and when there is little “visual friction” from streetscape elements like trees.

We know from the nasty routine wrecks that drivers aren’t safe cruising faster than 35 mph on Drayton and Whitaker, but the street design deceives those drivers into thinking that they can safely go much faster.

Even though there is plenty of room for bicyclists on Drayton and Whitaker, most of us avoid those streets like the plague. Pedestrians, too, avoid Drayton and Whitaker; the very elements that make drivers feel safer make pedestrians feel more imperiled.

If we were starting from scratch, we would never design Drayton and Whitaker like they exist today. It’s long past time to get serious about changing them.

With fairly straightforward changes, we can dramatically improve safety on those streets, and at the same time we can dramatically enhance quality of life for nearby residents and enhance the experiences of hundreds of thousands of visitors each year.

At the end of the day, however, the most compelling argument for redesigning the streets might be a financial one.

Public land has value. Used appropriately and efficiently, public spaces — including our streets — can enhance the value of neighboring properties, encourage development, contribute to the tax coffers, and promote neighborhood vibrancy. We simply don’t need two 15′ lanes on those streets, and the wasted space could be repurposed in ways that would generate many millions in economic activity each year.

Let’s look at some images that I created using Streetmix. I’m sharing these under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. You are welcome to use them under the same terms.

I should say right off the bat that pretty much all streets have some variation in width. I’m working with a basic width of 40′ in most of these images and ideas — that’s the approximate width of the two lanes and the sidewalks along much of the street.

Just keep in mind that the calculations might vary slightly from block to block, and, as I suggest near the end of the post, we don’t necessarily need to treat all blocks of Whitaker and Drayton the same.

For the sake of simplicity, I’m focusing on Whitaker rather than Drayton, primarily because the northernmost blocks of Whitaker really do need a radical redesign.

Also, really important: I am assuming that Drayton and Whitaker will continue to be one-way streets, but the best options might involve making them both two-way.

And also really important: you might assume that wider lanes are safer lanes, but the evidence does not support that conclusion. Drivers travel more slowly and carefully in narrower lanes, and even if certain types of wrecks increase on narrower roads, those accidents are much less likely to be catastrophic because the speeds are lower.

So here’s what Whitaker looks like now — two overly wide travel lanes and absurdly narrow sidewalks.

Next is a pretty minor redesign, although this would definitely cost some money since it involves devoting a significant amount of the road surface to the sidewalks. Nothing ambitious here, however — we make the sidewalks safer, beautify the street with trees, slow traffic because of the narrower but still perfectly wide lanes, and, maybe most critically, improve the visibility of drivers at the stop signs on the cross streets.

There’s plenty of room on Whitaker for the following design too — two travel lanes and a lane of parking, which would add considerable value to the properties next to the on-street parking:

But maybe we don’t need the parking as much as a bike lane? Two travel lanes plus bike lane, and a little extra sidewalk width that could be used for beautification:

I would suggest that some stretches of Drayton and Whitaker don’t really need two vehicular travel lanes. These are more radical options — 1 travel lane, 1 bike lane, on-street parking, and wider, safer sidewalks. In one, I’ve put the bike lane next to the parked cars like on Price; in the other, I’ve used the parking as a buffer to protect the bike lane.

As I said above, there is no reason to think that Whitaker and Drayton need the same design for the entire stretch from Victory Drive to Bay Street. The northernmost blocks of Whitaker — from Bay to Broughton — have a large number of pedestrians; many of them are patronizing popular restaurants and bars, while many others are just trying to get safely across the two travel lanes. But if you stand at the corner of, say, Whitaker and Bryan, you realize that the cars turning off Bay and turning out of the parking garage are only really using a single lane. We could and should dramatically reimagine those busy blocks — and we could turn a truly repellant street into a pleasant and comfortable one, including space for outdoor cafe seating and a protected bike lane.

But maybe we need two travel lanes on other parts of Whitaker, especially around Forsyth Park. Here I’ve still made the lanes narrower — again, that’s a no-brainer — but the left lane here is a dedicated turn lane onto Park Avenue, while the buffered bicycle lane will also make it much safer and more pleasant for pedestrians on the west side of Whitaker. After narrowing the lanes, I was able to widen the western sidewalk by 2′ and create a 2′ buffer for the bike lane. The presence of that bike lane would also make it much easier to reduce bicycle traffic in Forsyth Park.

These are all just possibilities, but any and all of them are better than what we have now.

• degradation of residential character and density
• street closure(s)
• overly large off-street surface parking
• forbidding frontages on two significant streets — Montgomery Street and Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard
• lack of vehicular access to southbound MLK

Anyway, I took a few photos of the demolition in progress one night last week.

The next photo is of the one home slated for preservation. However, as I note in my column, the row that includes this house was originally conceived as the location for a reconfigured 34th Street.

Some incompetent person with the city claimed that the home would cost close to $300 per square foot to renovate, but the Historic Savannah Foundation said that it would only cost about half as much. It’s lovely:

And here’s just an extra photo of a wonderful little house — feels very New Orleans to me — across MLK. It’s for sale.