Northfield Downtown Development Corporation

In Wednesday’s (December 7th) Strib, there was an editorial that is of great interest to friends of our historic downtown.

The editorial focuses on a state tax credit to supplement the federal tax credit that offers financial support for historic preservation. Minnesota is one of only 10 states without such a tax credit. I worked on a project in Missouri (a state which has such a credit) that converted a historic hotel building into affordable housing. The state tax credit more than doubled the private equity that was invested in the project.

Northfield has been fortunate that property owners have been willing to invest in downtown over the past few years. But if you ask them about their decisions, they’ll tell you that it’s more from the heart than the head. Additional financial support for such projects would greatly improve the economics.

However, that’s not my favorite part of the editiorial. Here’s the quote that made me smile:

This is also an issue of economic competition. The best jobs and brightest people won’t be drawn to the cities with the longest strips of discount stores and soulless office parks. People want authenticity, a true sense of place.

From the very beginning of the NDDC, back in 2000, we have been advocating that our historic downtown is one of the keys to our community’s economic future. TIP Strategies, the economic development consultants from Texas, repeated this claim, citing our “authentic downtown” as one of the community’s four strengths. They expanded on this theme in their November 2005 draft report saying:

The relationship between creative individuals and the options they can exercise over where they live allow for some very clear opportunities. None is greater than what can be achieved through downtown development.

For those of you who regularly read my blog, you know that it’s a theme that I’ve been raising for quite some time. The NDDC has been encouraging the development of the local music scene as a way to enhance the lives our our 20-somethings, we’ve shared stories of other communities that have invested in their downtown to attract the creative workers that will bring the economic development of the future, and urged the creation of additional “third places” that will add the the economic vitality of our community.

I know that there are some people in our community that consider the Star Tribune to be a bit too left of center for their tastes, calling it the Star and Sickle, but I hope that at least 51% of Northfielders agree with Wednesday’s editorial and will support a boost for preserving the past. Our future depends on it.

…call 3rd Street and Highway 3 the “pedestrian center of our community”.

Left photo, L to R: John Slack, consultant; Paul Smith, EDA president
Right photo, L to R in front: Steve Wilmot, architect; Jim Pokorney, City Councilor

That’s a darn near exact quote of the phrase that they crafted together to wrap up the discussion of the Q Block at tonight’s public input session at the Archer House.

They are right on. Of course, we always knew that Paul and Jim are a couple of bright guys. Let’s follow their leadership on getting a traffic light installed at that intersection.

I am currently reading John Barry’s Rising Tide. It’s about the Mississippi River flood of 1927.

In trying to explain how people could have missed an impending disaster of such magnitude, the author suggests that it may have been part of that society’s reluctance to come to grips with the emerging reality. He says, “perhaps at no other time in American history, even including the 1960s, did so wide a gap develop between a mainstream culture that clung to its certainties and American intellectuals”. Sinclair Lewis mocked Babbit while the Chamber of Commerce editorialized: “Dare to be Babbit!” U. S. inventors and entrepreneurs showed almost a frenzy of creativity during a period in which an article in American Magazine entitled “Why I Never Hire Brilliant Men” explained, “Business and life are built upon successful mediocrity”.

This denial of reality and preference for bland boosterism might not have been a problem (ignoring the rise of the Klan, the increasing number of lynchings and the violent suppression of organized labor that seemed to accompany this desire for normalcy, sameness and the average), if life had indeed been a quiet pond instead of a raging river. However, when those people who started warning of unusually heavy rainfalls and historic heights of water levels in the summer and fall of 1926 were dismissed as unprofessional or attacked as alarmists, these views set up the worst natural disaster up to that point in American history.

The public denials started with the government staff. The army engineers and levee board scientists proclaimed their confidence in the effectiveness of existing systems, ignoring years of expressed concerns by members of the private sector. They were not alone, however. “Publicly, every person in authority…proclaimed absolute confidence. So did the newspapers.” There seemed to almost be a conspiracy between the bureaucrats, the elected officials and the newspaper publishers and editors to deny any concerns or silence any critics.

While they made their public claims, time passed and the waters rose. Opportunities to protect people and property slipped away.

Then the Mississippi River broke out of its levee system in 145 places and flooded 27,000 square miles or about 16,000,000 acres at depths up to 30 feet. The flood caused over $400 million in damages, left 700,000 people homeless and killed approximately 250 white people in seven states. The number of black people killed will never be known, the official leadership didn’t keep count. Most historians believe that the number far exceeded that of the whites.

It was considered the worst flooding disaster in United States history until Hurricane Katrina.

I have enough trouble understanding why a society would proudly praise mediocrity or celebrate an incomplete project. I really can’t understand why people would continue to pour time and money into projects and processes that were increasingly coming under criticism and already showing signs of failure.

But then again, I can’t even understand why you’d say a lemon is a pineapple.

Former St. Paul mayor, director of AmeriCorps VISTA and National Senior Service Corps, president and CEO of Project for Pride in Living (one of Minnesota’s largest non-profit housing and job training organizations) and current executive director of Ramsey Action Programs Inc (the Community Action Agency serving Ramsey and Washington counties) spoke at today’s NDDC’s December Forum.

Jim discussed his new book, “The Promise of Partnerships: Tapping into the College as a Community Asset.” He talked about colleges and community groups working together to better provide needed services. He cited examples ranging from tutoring students to cycling college speakers through the community. He stressed that partnerships take time but that the results could be long-term.

Erin Bowley, co-author of the book and a national education consultant, spoke about Campus Compact, a group committed to building partnerships between colleges and communities. There are 50 colleges in Minnesota and 1,000 colleges in the nation that are part of this group. She noted that Carleton and St. Olaf were among the original members of the group.

Jim and Erin said the newest community initiative by colleges is direct investment, typically in affordable housing or economic development. Jim stressed that community development and economic development are not different things; they are two sides of the same coin. At that point, there was some discussion of the Community Investment Fund, started by the NDDC and now operated by the NEC. After the meeting, both Jim and Erin gave me contacts for models of structuring such financial participation.

The discussion then turned to the relationship between affordable housing and economic development. I had met Jim for the first time when I was developing affordable housing in Lowertown (St. Paul) and he was Mayor back in the 1980s. We joked about my “outrageous” requests for financial support for these projects. Jim then pointed out that looking at these projects 25 years later, they were a great investment of city resources.

There were forty some people in the room, many with connections to the colleges. They, and many community members, cited all the activities by the college community, particularly the students, in the community. I thought NDDC Community Advisor and EDA Vice President Bill Cowles summarized it well when he suggested that maybe if the community were clearer on it’s priorities, the colleges would have a better idea about where to put their resources.

From June 11th to October 11th of this year, I had a column in the Northfield News. During this four month period, there were a total of eight columns in the paper. The columns are now available on our website.

My first column was a “Guest Column”. It was about the first in a series of NDDC Forums on Retail Trade. It was popular enough that the leadership of the News offered me an unpaid position as a regular columnist, unfettered by the “one column per 30 days” rule.

My second column was about gaining wider recognition for Northfield as an Art Town. Needless to say, it was generally well received by the arts community.

My third column repeated downtown stakeholders’ call for stop signs at 7th Street. Although I had quite a number of people tell me how much they agreed with the idea, there were a few people that didn’t like it. I’ve been told that they felt that I was “politicizing” a process that they believe should be left up to the experts.

My fourth column encouraged people to view Northfield as an ideal weekend getaway. It was, quite simply, a shameless promotion of Northfield in general and ArtSwirl in particular. (I should reveal my conflict of interest, the NDDC is a partner with the NAG in this annual celebration of the arts.)

My fifth column discussed P. J. Stiles thesis, in his book Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War, that Jesse James was a terrorist. I was quite interested to learn that some people in Northfield reject Stiles’ theory that Jesse James was the killer of Joseph Lee Heywood. Although I geniunely found the book to be fascinating, the column could be seen as a shameless promotion of Northfield in general and Defeat Days in particular.

My sixth column expressed my concern that what I found to be most appealing about New Orleans might be destroyed not by the flooding but by the rebuilding. It suggested that “the neighborhoods, communities and cities that have atmospheres get them from the funky, soulful, organic growth that is nurtured by the people that live in them, not the tidy, sterile, planned growth that is designed by outsiders”. Although I will admit that this column might be considered by some people to have little to do with our community, I thought that there were lessons to be learned from that community and its current challenge.

My seventh column was clearly the most popular. I had probably fifty people tell me how much they appreciated it. I actually had someone I had never met before in my life call me at my parents’ home in New Hampshire to tell how much he enjoyed it. However, I would encourage you to read or reread this column, because it was apparently considered so sharply critical by a couple of people that they are continuing to complain about it, two months after its publication. I felt that I had not specifically criticized any person or any group. I thought that my message was simply that after three years and tens of thousands of dollars spent on downtown planning, we should just spend a few thousand dollars on the bike racks that downtown stakeholders had formally requested back in 2003. I would be sincerely interested in your take on the column.

My eighth, and final, column was the second most popular. I had dozens of people stop me on the street or call me at home at thank me for it. It was a renewed call for a traffic light at 3rd and 3. It referenced the 1997 Report by the Citizens’ Task Force and the 2005 Report of the Mayor’s Task Force. My hope was to make clear that this was not a new idea but that, in fact, citizens had been requesting this traffic light for 10 years.

When I submitted a column about the concept of “branding” a retail district for regional promotion, I was told that the paper was no longer going to accept and publish my column. I was told that it was part of a new policy on guest columns. You can read that column as a blog entry.

I have found reading the guest columns under the new policy to be illluminating. Certainly, I have been known to respond to the gift of lemons from leaders by loudly proclaiming my love for lemonade. However, I see no benefit to the community from calling a lemon a pineapple.