[inaudible conversations] i apologize for the lack of seating although we are heartened to see so many people here interested in the topic as executive editor of the american conservative thank you for joining us as we discuss the future of traditional urbanism. this is a joint initiative of a magazine based here in washington with the

center-right think tank on want tura take a moment to say thanks for letting us use this great facility and c-span is here broadcasting thanks for joining us are also like to ask the audience with the usual reminder to silence yourself phones but we do encourage tweeting. [laughter] i also hope you'll take a moment if you like what you hear through the institutes

and follow us with those initiatives of the american conservatives and has their own twitter account i'd like to thank our daughters and sponsors with the new urbanism program that makes it possible with the was based in chicago thank you for your support of this event. i also like to read knowledge slow like to take a moment of the staff of the

institute so before we get started with that panel the new urbanism initiative and three years ago about this time 2014 it challenged the status among the conservatives with continuing the same course with ordinary citizens. so for those of you who don't know the issue and those resources wasted on that. does somebody warrants what washington would come to regret that it is the only voice on the right so many

of our editors hand contributors with that current approach is pursued by the government at all levels federal and shirley we will hear from the local official but that is with our environment in which we live and work and raise our children. and to put this into larger context the with the built-in environment but with those small towns or suburban neighborhoods but

now that mass-produced automobile but but the federal government to play an increasingly prominent role to shape this environment to create incentives with this neighborhood for mount -- format with shopping malls surrounded by acres of parking lots which replaced the mean streets and downtown commercial areas. in the great republican icon eisenhower that created the highway system officially that made the car the preferred mode of

transportation so as a result destroyed those established neighborhoods but at the same time federal urban renewal programs to encourage the slum clearance from housing projects from those two were isolated and in some downtowns and through that type of surgery that removed our heritage. but i do think there were dissenters from the up project that was the byproduct -- bipartisan effort but in the '60s was jacobs author of the death and life of great american

cities successfully stopped the lower manhattan project from going right through those dense urban neighborhoods although they couldn't save bin station but now there is an effort to try to rebuild that great space so the neck step in the movement after this initial reaction some people began to engage not just in the reaction to what was happening but work to create a positive agenda in a way that could rediscover those older or more humane ways

places for people to live and work and that movement they just celebrated 25 years of success with new development in restoring the places that people actually want to live whether it is the suburbs in the larger cities but those who have been working on this project that they are generally happy to have conservatives with those fellow travelers in the movement so a few years into this with the new urbanism initiative american conservative is the only outlet to take this environment very seriously and to publish with our print magazine basically we pursued two strands of

inquiry looking at this issue but first is maurer cultural how people imagine the environment or their place with bennett or how they can tap into architecture or urban design with those towns and suburbs as great places to live and then try to work out those urban environments or with those amenities so making this a reasonable choice and second with the larger conversation is of policy

and that creates a regulatory environment so lot of that infrastructure now so sometimes that is involved in removing regulation or things that actually have mix used development as they often with the it -- lived before -- above the store but also means building more housing period especially urban housing in metro areas many of these people especially in these expensive areas like washington or new york

so woefully that creates a framework but first that panelist is the director of planning and urban development for the city of of the akron ohio cities to be in charge of the transportation studies and he has been a long time reader. in the second panelist to the left is a former colleague at the american conservative now the

managing editor of the federalist and you can also read her writing and she will talk to us about how these lessons applied in the rural areas and not just lessons for big cities. unfortunately michael hendricks had a family emergency that my former colleague represents our streets that this event so he will be stepping in. and also was a former colleague at the american conservative and initially

started this whole initiative three years ago around this time. thanks to all the panelists. because of like some of the journalist he is at the center of the rust belt and to give us a lot of lessons how we can actually practically fix things. taken away. >> they give so much for having me it is great to be here. when we were talking before i was going to offer a couple of thoughts before we frame the discussion so with that particular part of the

country what we're seeing is the end of big whether big corporations are big government or big projects i think if you look at that trajectory that is happening in the city's, urban renewal was top down strategy is that was supposed to revitalize us but fast forward 50 years that did not have been. -- happen but that is what i call this prosperity. . .

>> lately i think i've adopted what i would call a predestination theology which is the idea that we need to shrink and that the only hope for is to basically shut down our cities. i am not a big fan of that approach. i think it is important to be a realistic about the market and some of our challenges. we have incredible assets in part of our country, i always make the case in a current were city of 200,000 and we have a million people within an hour drive. i refuse to believe that we can get .01% of those people back into the city and start to

increase our population. i think that's a matter of how do we go about doing those things question. just one other quick thought, i think with the rubric of conservativism a lot of the discussion has always been a stereotype to some degrees that conservatives were always pro- suburban anti- urban. but a lot of people suburban and urban are craving a sense of community and the sense of place. that goes back to what i was saying big versus small and manageable. i think there is more common ground out there that a lot of people might first think. think some of the ideas that conservatives would reconsider would be in our part of the country, local government is extremely fragmented. he gets very difficult to have

any regional cooperation, but i think there are good government practices of sharing services and consolidating things. i remember i was part of a sustainable communities project and the obama administration provided funding, we had a lot of tea party people come to those meetings and say that we're coming this and we are starting up a regime in northeast ohio. within some of that noise that was coming up there were real concerns about is the government going to come in and tell people where to live, my opinion is that we need to make cities competitive my people to come live in them. i think that's very different in our part of the country than the coast. here, a lot of real estate issues are so expensive, and

akron i could sell you a nice house for hundred 50000 and allow for 200, we have 1400 of them that the city owns. in closing, thinking about the shared challenges and opportunities in different parts of the country and how to move forward. >> i've had the distinct lessing to live in several different parts of the nation and neighborhoods which is a boots on the ground experience with what's happening with a lot of american communities. i grew up in a farmhouse between fields and then moved to an alexandria condo on the third floor and one of the most walkable neighborhoods in america. i spent some time in a world war ii era supper and got to see the

impacts of the walkable nature that downtown had in the community life of the server. and now could live in a fixer-upper with the front porch. in that time having had a child, i think it's amazing how having someone small that you push round in a stroller changes your relationship with the street a mix of both very intimate and terrifying depending on where you live. one thing that james said is that she felt what she was writing was applicable mainly to large cities, it was applicable to places where people didn't know each other and you interacted with strangers on a daily basis. i would argue that is true of most places in america today. unfortunately a lot of small town's and suburbs no longer have the social fabric that leads them to feel that they

have a community and they know the people they pass on a daily basis. there is no longer that meeting at the grocery store or wherever that might be. my argument would be what we see is more applicable and of course we can fix some things we have a culture and social means, but i think there's a way in which we can build an environment that encourages people to spend time together. which leads me to a story, my great grandfather and his siblings grew up on a farm, there were seven of them. they had a farm in which the cornfield was next to the watermelons. they would go through the cornfield every day after school and still a watermelon and bring it back into the court feel the need it. just to make sure their mother

wasn't watching. when they were adults they went to her and apologize and said were sorry we lied to you and she said why do you think we planted the watermelons next to the cornfield, which is, that was the built environment. it's becoming increasingly important in current days. >> thank you. and thank you louis for putting this together. this is an extraordinary events and an extraordinary craft for this discussion. having spent the last few years working at this intersection of urbanism and conservatism i've heard a lot of things, i've

heard that conservatives don't want anything to do cities that sometimes true. i've heard that cities don't like conservatives but they don't want conservatives and that's often true. but what i've also come to understand is just how many of us are in so many places. and how for all the reputation that cities can be in cultures of liberalism, the essential tenets of conservatism and an attitude towards preserving traditions and attitude towards strengthening people's agency, those are present in cities. party labels may come and go but conservatism is very present.

what we have seen as lewis describes is a built environment that was not planted well in many places. but rather was driven apart. so we saw many cities torn apart by interstate projects that snaked through intentionally poor working-class neighborhoods, black neighborhoods, and highways in cities have to be just as good as i was outside of them. we saw a lot of enthusiasm that destroyed a lot of good architecture and urbanism. in many cities in america you see them starting to try to prepare. trying to put pieces back together and there places where it's happening. one of the great sites of that is the city of detroit where it

is as bad as its reputation gives you to believe. it has gone through things that no other city in america has and it has gone further down, but in detroit and in that darkness in trouble, there has been a spirit of people who move into a house that you can get not even for hundred 50000, but hundred $50. and fix it up, to then fix up the next house. and for not much money they can get a lot in a parcel. over the years they can work at fixing them. an inviting neighbors and, a creating neighborhood where they are and engaging in the act of civilization, of taking a place where no one lives and making it

fit for people to live again. and that is a great thing to see. you see that in many places across the country. if you go to indianapolis, 30 years ago looked at itself and said we are no place. we are a suburb that is designated as a metropolitan area and invested in its downtown because it knew it needed a core. it knew it needed a place for people to come and gain their identity and come to know each other. in some places like new york, where i'm guessing a lot of people remember new york in the 80s and 90s when film such as escape from new york were made and it was far more imaginable than the bursting

concentration of economic activity of arts in fatality that represents new york city today. so it's important to realize is were looking for just as the vision of the big planners without they're going to fix everything could not anticipate their mistakes, so to a lot of the ideas we have about what necessarily must come will not come into play. what will happen is that people will be citizens in activity will happen. we can either help that by encouraging the environment to be better towards community we can make it worse and harder. so i will just close by mentioning that in some places like akron, jason has written extensively about how there are

problems and you need to bring people in. in the places that have come back and have revitalized, like new york, like san francisco and seattle, there is a supply problem. in these places where people are gathering to conduct economic and social activity, it is so attractive that many people are coming in but the regulations that lewis described accumulated and made it impossible to build new places for them. so there is just a blind crisis in this country. if there's anything that conservatives should understand, it is the applied problem. there's an opportunity for us to step in and take forceful leadership and to say where

there is economic activity people should be able to go. where there are demand problems we should invite people to come in. we should invite people to come in. that's a great introduction to start us off. maybe you could address what are some of the practical things been done maybe you could tell us more about how are you addressing the supply problem, are you able to compete with washington, seattle and places like that or, what is the medium terms set of goals like akron? >> one of the luxuries a place like akron has is that we will never compete on those terms. were not even as healthy as that is. these stor cities historically a

niche for what it is. and be in the best cities you can. one of the challenges that i'm confident we can overcome over time and with applying some good practices that we don't have a lot of demand right now, but we don't have a lot of demand for the supply that we have. akron was the fastest growing city in the united states between 1910 and 1920. we tripled in population. if you think about was going to is the automobile, we built half of the tires on planet earth in that decade in the decades following the. typical house in akron is 1914 two-story wooden frame house with the front porch. in a lot of cases that was a great house in 1914, fast-forward hundred three years, some of the neighborhoods where that house is still attractive they been fixed up.

we tear down 500 houses every every year in a crime. those houses sell 10000, 8000, $4000. were the most affordable housing market. which is an awesome thing except if you want to make money building something or rehabbing a house. if you buy house for ten great and put 80002 and suffer 40's not a real good return. so what we need to do is had we work with that supply and demand framework? proud to say three weeks ago we launched citywide 15 year property tax abatement. if you build a new house in akron you'll pay zero property tax on that house for the next 15 years. it's not a silver bullet are equally encourage welding in every part of the city but it is

a powerful tool. another thing, our building cold like a lot of cities in the united states regulates heavily the use of it not so much what things look and feel like. if you want to put a barbershop next to house will be incredibly difficult. if you want to build the dollar store hundred yards off the street with giant parking lot, no problem. we need to do is turn it on its head and make it easier for people to have more flexible views to make it more stringent to what it feels like. and then, one of the big opportunities we have is that not a lot of cities on the coast have because land is fairly inexpensive and we have a ton of infrastructure in the city background. grover cleveland, detroit, et

cetera, we were at the leading edge of the freeway building, i laugh when friends and colleagues say we have traffic. we have no traffic. and so i think the opportunity we have right now are in the midst of a teardown, the core of the city and the freeway was built for 100,000 cars in the 70s. it was never finished. about ten years ago i think we made the decision not to double down on the investment that should've never been made. and right now were caring that out. it will free up 30 acres that we can develop into a linear park or maybe a little bit of both. we have a lot of opportunities if you know where to look for them. it's more a matter be in the best city we can. if we do that we will be attractive to people. >> coming off of that, if we can

come back to the cultural side, the importance it plays and how that attracts people and creates a sense of value. >> i think one problem that relates to that and this is a problem with a lot of small communities i've seen, that is larger cities the san francisco's of the world attract people, what happens to the smaller communities surrounding them, usually they become suburbs are they experience that transformation from once being a vibrant town to be in a veteran community to people who buy their groceries elsewhere and who go to the church in the city as opposed to going to church locally. in addition a lot of their local businesses suffer.

they're trying to answer the question of how do we make ourselves unique, vibrant, powerful will socially and economically when our resources are being drained. they have a feeling of being faceless. it's interesting to see how the zoning and regulations issues the money that goes into suburban development canada should be redirected into the small town environment surrounding its downtown in the old houses that are there trying to rejuvenate the spaces that exist making them peopl places e want to live so resources are being pulled away from what's already beautiful but just needs little bit of help but continues to build the community that was once strong. >> john could you talk to some about some of the incentives in place in terms of what's been set up over the years in terms

of financing and we had a piece in the american conservative, think there might be one on your chair about how an infrastructure bill and what it can do to create a level playing field. >> one of the great challenges that we are encountering no is just how much infrastructure jason was describing was built in very peculiar times. and for most of america, it was not the rubber boom, but the baby boom. it was when the greatest generation came home from world war ii. the federal government had gotten involved from the new deal setting up institutions like the federal housing agency and they got more involved. they set a very specific targets

a very specific institutions to create what they wanted. what they wanted what was fashionable at the time, he was separate everything out as jason was describing, they were regulated very closely because nobody wanted a tire factory in the middle of their single-family residential neighborhood. so they wrote these crude regulations. what they did not account for what you are discussing earlier, the traditional mainstream where you have more density, where you can have an apartment in during the day the grocery looks out and keeps an eye on the home and

at night the people keep an ear out in case anyone is threatening or breaking into the shop. this pattern there are many who is terms to it. too many to list here, but it was the core of every american downtown until this point. because the federal financing standards would not permit a mixture of uses, they saw themselves as residential only are commercial only. the funding, the financing dried up and the entire banking market moved to the direction the feds are pointing. so, this is just a heads up for people who wonder why we didn't build things better. this was discovered and i know there are people in the hell right now trying to figure out how they should fix the federal

program. not so that subsidies can be poured into a new preferred form, but rather so the playing field can be level, so that when people can decide they can build something in their place they can access the market make that investment. in that article you mention he describes the premium development has these days. a lot of people write about cities, it's wrong thinking is just about big cities. you're seeing it everywhere. your scene suburbs urbanizing because people want flexibility. because people want to be able to walk to the store. and the price premium is there. people will build it and people will come, the question is, if are going to let the legacy cities that are ready exist

building and let people come to forget to keep pushing them further out. >> i want to open this up to the panel before we open for questions. think we all agree that increasing this is great, there's a lot of movement, was a lot of pushback on the projects and i'm sure jason deals with us on the ground how do you respond to people who just don't want change, don't want increased density or the freeway removed, how do you make the case for this new vision? >> 20 years and local government has taught me that people never like change. whatever the changes you have to be willing to be in it for the long-haul. it to be willing to listen and

tweak things. there is wisdom in the crowds, maybe sometimes with individuals is more problematic. one thing this travis taught me is contrary to popular belief, americans are favor of having owners government regulations on other people's properties. that does come up in the world world was zoning. in a lot of cities, akron included, there's a move, air b&b is a great thing. we have a growing community, but six or 7000 refugees strong. jason fell in love with the neighborhood, created what is called the exchange house which

is a rehab policy buffer $22000, making it a cultural center and an air b&b. air b&b's are more popular, on the other hand, when u.s. people to rent out their houses for parties were hundred 50 people or weddings, and the zoning code most people would agree it's probably not reasonable and single-family neighborhood teva hundred 50 people hanging out in front yard. but in an air b&b rio to people in their eating breakfast with your dog is probably okay. so how do we navigate that environment and the regulatory fashion? another thing in a city like akron where traffic congestion is nonexistent, certainly by d.c. or any other standards our mayor has been really progressive with the idea of what we call road diet, so taking streets and roads that

were built and the great thing another luxury we have is we just need to take paint and we can take that four-lane road into three lane road with bike lanes. we will sometimes get pushback on people same were taken away the lanes and then there gonna make up a number of how much longer they think it's going to take to get somewhere. but when we did that project we shrunk the five lane street to tulane, we measured it all weekend the change in average speed of the traffic and, didn't happen, it took maybe 12 seconds longer for people to get through there. that's another thing in the profession which is changing, it's going back to the scientific method, we have an industry of consultants and people to do traffic studies with these computer models,

that's i started my career. people don't stop to think why don't have somebody stand outside of film traffic for an hour so i think that is something that is changing making our cities better. and going back with public perception you can demonstrate with the real-world experience what happens when we do these different interventions. you can learn what not to do. >> harnessing located perception is going to be helpful, just because people who live on a street know the street another traffic on it. i would argue that most americans don't want to dead main street. they don't want their towns to be so heavily covered with traffic they don't feel like they can walk along the street.

most people who live in these towns, if they understand the magnificent difference that happens when you take the street from the car give it back to the townspeople, they will want that template for it. i was in a community now that fighting for his streets back. staunchly advocating for wider sidewalks. it all goes back to reeducating ourselves because we been educated in the way that his car centric. the chief end of the street is not to give us heavier car traffic, is to enable community however we can. i think that involve necessarily more pedestrian and fellowship that happens by foot as opposed to by four wheels.

>> would also indicate that one of the great institutions for this is -- it is time intensive but the people who do well do it very well. gathering all stakeholders from an area together and just working through the issues of what you want your place to look like it helps to be able to say, here's a picture or something was done well and people say we want that. but you are saying you want to ban that. so that can give a conversation started at least. i once had appear next to jason and say that it's ever easy to get political input and buy-in.

but, government is not easy. self-government much less. but for some people, they're able to push it through and able to make good things happen. >> take the next ten minutes or so before the next panel and taking questions, think we have a microphone. so please identify yourself and keep your questions short so the panel can respond. will be able to get him a lot of questions. >> is. as mentioned in the beginning, a lot of the problems with u.s. cities sprawling, government incentives push it that way. so houston has parking requirements, i think you can

build a certain distance from the sidewalk the conservatives, at least in the u.s. are ideologically opposed to spending regulation. to think just taken with the government would result in cities that reverse more than half a century light rail is even expensive. >> i think what were dealing with in many cases in cities across the u.s. that this is a very complicated, holistic, cultural regiment that we've developed. so government regulation is definitely a factor in how we build things when we do. when you're talking about how developers build we have 60 or 70 years under the belt and

although change in regulation is certainly a great tool we should do that more, many times the building and development community, depends on which city were talking about, but a lot of times they will want to build suburban style inner-city. the third factors were talking about is the public. so mixed-use may sound like a wonderful idea to everyone in the room, myself included, the neighbors might feel differently. so it's navigating those conversations in the public and private sector when the citizenry at large. jonathan alluded to this the we kind of turned her back on 5000 years of how to build cities. you read chuck's we really

through a lot of stuff out the window after world war ii. i think the country is going to be repenting at leisure from a lot of the squandering of resources. >> regulation to say not allow more parking to rebuild? that's a big debate. in akron we headed downtown parking requirement. for 30 years nobody was weeding down the door to live downtown but we got rid of it so no longer do we force you to figure out to build a certain amount of spaces per unit. we did talk a lot about maximu maximums. i think the jury is out in the literature in cities. there's a market and an argument

about the maximum say the governments intervening too much another people see it as a necessary corrective. my own thought in a market like ours enough to say that we won't force you to build too much parking. >> so one of the most robust findings is that increasing density left its power all over the world. like any evidence that increasing density will help republicans. is there any city model or state model? q.

>> because this is an event sponsored by the american conservative, have to point out that conservative and republican are not often enough and are things that go together. but if you're looking at it from a partisan and perspective, it's interesting to notice that only one of the 20 largest american cities right now has a republican mayor, that was not the case 20 years ago. there is been -- taking place in part of that is due to we can speculate a number reasons for the but a lot of it is from disinvestment of the party. if you strengthen cities need to put resources or tension

attention, then the people who are living there will do better. one of the great people who was working in the republican party to try to push back and have resources for people in cities who want to do policy work. there's been a great vacuum a policy work. it's not a surprise that if you're running and don't have any ideas and none of your funders are party infrastructure cares about a place, that place will not respond well to. but, in other places you have seen interesting models. the recent mayor of oklahoma city is a republican who will soon be running for governor. he's a very interesting figure. san diego required his

republican mayor through interesting means but has one nonetheless. you will find opportunities for good policy. people respond to the when you have it to present to them. so you need something to offer people before they will give you their boat. >> take somebody from the back. >> a lot of the talk we've had appear about cities demand problems. we have a supply problem, so one of the more difficult things i've rented to when talking to residents beyond just straight up indians some, are peoples understanding of the housing

supply and the fact that has on prices. people who understand supply and demand don't want to have that in their neighborhood the people who do understand and conclude development is the reason things are so expensive. so if we start building prices will become more affordable. it's usually the other way around unless you succeeded in destroying anything that makes it in the first place. my question is how do you sell that more supply generally deals with housing problems,/how do you create incentives for existing property owners and why should you care that were putting up a midrise down the street.

>> california is a very interesting model. they're dealing with the worst housing crisis in the country. your scene is the political coalition forming. that is attempting to bring the market wisdom and advocate for building while also being in dialogue as you discuss with the power of cities. they create coalitions that advocate for housing in any form, whether it's affordable substance housing or market rate. the important thing that you have to have market rate housing. the lesson you have the more expensive everything else gets. the more that people stop market rate housing more people are driven out of their homes.

that is a message you have to drive home. for the incentives. there's a governance issue. it's one that we need to look seriously at witches, where we place veto power over the ability to create places for people to live. and for people to do things with their own property. we have placed that power at the most local level and as an american conservative local us, and generally for moving all power to the local but, as americans, as we see behind us

it was great tradition of recognizing of when incentives need to be balanced and when governmental structures need to allow envision to check ambition. and so it may well be especially in places with supply problem that we need to take a hard founding look at her governing structures. >> we have time for one more question the gentleman in the back holding up the beer. >> thank you. i wanted to bring back a to the detroit example. we saw some really amazing stuff for me but he hasn't been there lately of the downtown detroit has turned over in a profound way. the other 138 square miles of detroit hasn't seen much change. so what i want to ask is, how do we build this movement going forward that is equal access?

that brings economic growth nudges where the money wants to go but the places that need it the most? not just making great places for the people who wants to be there next but the people who are living there now? >> that's a great question. in a lot of ways that question is almost the flipside of the one about supply. arlene is an example of people being picked up by new housing or what it's gonna do, i think in my part of the country it's almost in the opposite concerned that people will read about gentrification in new york and san francisco in anything new happens in that genie is out of the bottle and people are worried about it, not to minimize the concerns that drive why people may feel that way, but my response in my city when

people say gentrification is out is that would be a really great problem for us to have. i'm very familiar with this summer lifelong actor night, i think are part of the country for a long time has been unrelenting negative about the future the city's, so people must get this weird stockholm syndrome, i don't know whoever coined the term should get an award what it should be called but where people are very afraid, effort people come to me and said they just opened the second coffee shop and that will put the other one out of business, it's like it's good to have two coffee shops. our problem is not that we have too much of anything. in a place like detroit, we have to navigate is the real concerns of the largely african-american, low income population that has been disenfranchised and has

done to it for a long time with legit concerns, but helping people see that getting more investment in the city is a good thing. it makes it a challenging conversation as i don't think it's as simple as a rising tide. like if you read joe cordray, some of his pieces he talked a lot about gentrification property and in those cases there's been an inequality in detroit for like 60 years. none of it was in the 138 square miles. so it is a difficult thing to navigate. i beeline if i told you i know the secret sauce to revitalizing neighborhoods that have not had investment 40 or 50 years, it does start with starting to think small. there's a famous quote about make no little plans, i think

the quote is like the planning professionals, i think for a lot of cases we could go for 50 or 60 years in a lot of ways their products places like detroit. think we need to start thinking about local and ground up and restoring by people who live there. >> that's a great way to wrap things up. in just a moment will move into our second panel. we ask you to bear with us. thank you to the folks were standing in the back. i know there are a couple of extra seats. [applause]