Revitalization of Smaller Cities Offer More Opportunities for Prosperity
In this new age of post-pandemic, racial tension, political divide, global power shifts, redefinition of family and individual identities, and the inequality of accessible and quality educational opportunities leading to prosperity, we are reminded that the quest for freedom and the American Way remains much the same as our forefathers intended to achieve in their early fight for justice and the pursuit of happiness for all.
This time, these challenges have arisen as a result of the lifestyle trend among most Americans, who prefer living in urban areas over the suburban sprawl of parking lots and box stores surrounded by large housing developments. New urbanization and the revitalization of downtowns, becoming once again walkable, bikeable conglomerates of “complete neighborhoods” knitted together to each uniquely offer all of life's necessities and amenities within a walk or bike ride of each small borough, has once again become the ideal live-work-play destination for most Americans. And this desired destination is true for all Americans in all socio-economic sectors.
While compromised public safety and skyrocketing living costs in major metro areas have become intolerable, evidence suggests that Americans are now shifting towards smaller cities that offer the benefits of urbanization. This brings undeniable excitement to urbanization, placing it at the doorstep of all cities as a method for revitalizing, competing, and growing into a special place where people will want to live.
Note the recent decade's trends that drive the need for city leaders to address collaborative change within their cities, specifically in their community neighborhoods.
Places with a population of 50,000 or more experienced greater growth than other US regions. Yet, most Americans still live in suburban and rural areas, allowing suburban cities to compete with urban cities.
While white-flight from cities to suburbs has been long-standing, black-flight from the 50 largest cities has become more prominent as cumulatively there are fewer blacks in the top cities than in the prior decade, while all other race-ethnic groups have gained population in top cities.
Many of the most densely populated neighborhoods in cities require revitalization to address issues such as blight, poverty, poor-quality housing, low-performing schools, inadequate public transportation, limited childcare, and difficult access to jobs and training.
Grassroots community development initiatives are most effective in the hardest hit neighborhoods that have lacked decades of reinvestment by local, state, and federal funds. As a 2019 Bloomberg article states, “community wealth is 'a broad-based effort to build equity for low-income residents,' which could unlock 'hundreds of billions in market and civic capital' to revitalize struggling places across America.”
Since COVID, billions of dollars of state and federal funding have been targeted to redevelop distressed neighborhoods. Most state and federal funding requires local public and private matching funds. Yet, many local communities lack the capacity and relationships to organize and access the various funding sources.
All cities, especially those with populations of 50,000 or more, have traditionally struggled to grow their population and have had fewer resources to invest in their potential growth. Now, they have an opportunity to lead the way to prosperity.
The primary tool in the strongbox of small city leaders is the capacity to form private-public partnerships and operate with an innovative, transformative, and strategic context towards growth. This leadership competency must include the integration of housing, education, business attraction and retention, entrepreneurship, cultural experience, placemaking, and intentional neighborhood revitalization to create places where people want to live in each city.
The aggregation of leadership, land, infrastructure, policy, and funding can be organized in very creative ways to reconstruct the strongest strands that already exist within the unique fabric of each neighborhood. These strands can then be woven upon to design innovative spaces with and for the citizens who already live there – in addition to attract the new members who will identify with and want to be a future part of what each neighborhood has to offer.
We propose that cities that are currently struggling can become thriving cities tomorrow if they demonstrate the leadership capacity and diligence to build a strong portfolio of Complete Neighborhoods. Ultimately, thriving small cities will benefit from civilized urbanization practices if they first build the competency to formulate the private and public partnerships required to prioritize innovative ideas, execute successful projects, develop fair development policies, and pool multiple sources of funding to redevelop one unique Complete Neighborhood at a time.
“While there was no silver bullet, the report identified some common patterns for becoming a competitive city. These cities used a menu of interventions to increase competitiveness, including institutions and regulations, infrastructure and land, skills and innovation, and enterprise support and finance. Competitive cities developed growth coalitions of public and private stakeholders. Finally, competitive cities are good at turning strategies into action. They have an explicit economic development-oriented mindset that complements a social and environmental vision. They rallied everybody around a shared vision.”