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CITISTATES REPORT
Syracuse and Central New York
Special to the Syracuse Post-Standard
Series to run the week of June 30, 2002
By Neal Peirce and Curtis Johnson
CONCERNED CITIZENS of Central New York – listen up. We’re just
visitors, not residents. You’re free to challenge any and all of our
conclusions.
But here they are, for you to chew on:
In economic strategy -- go for the gold. A diversified economy
is OK, even valuable. But you need to lead in something that will
make a critical difference for your future. We heard the technology
of indoor air quality -- a carry-through of the Carrier tradition -- could
well be your gold. If you believe so, be courageous, put your
resources where your hopes are, and go for it.
Think new lifestyles. Ad nauseam, Central New Yorkers tell us
your region’s a great place to live. Meaning: great living in the
suburbs for Dad, Mom, Dick, Jane and the family dog -- your
prototypical Ozzie and Harriet family household of the ‘50s. Sounds
nice, but it forgets that Mom’s left the kitchen for the corporate
wars, Dad has no more lifetime job, and the kids are long since off to
places and lives the folks don’t comprehend. Grandpa has passed on
and Grandma, though she’s still healthy, can’t afford the property
taxes to stay in the neighborhood. And if you’re a person of color
living in a troubled city neighborhood, Ozzie and Harriet may as well
have lived on another planet.
American demography is changing faster than the weather,
towards a variety of households and lifestyles. Uniformity’s out,
differences are in. The new century will be deep into diversity in
lifestyles, race, ethnic background. A successful city and region
doesn’t turn its back on the new way; it finds ways to embrace it,
make it part of the new American Dream.
Protect your heritage. You have the kind of villages, the small-
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town atmosphere that much of America is clamoring to build or
restore. Don’t let it get overrun by cookie-cutter subdivisions and bigbox stores plowing under your open fields and dairy farms. Set the
rules for the region your way.
Heal your city. The city of Syracuse offers some of the
starkest disparities, quick shifts from comfortable middle-class
existence to deep poverty, from orderly and safe environments to
rundown and palpably unsafe places, we’ve seen anywhere on this
continent. The stark contrast, neighborhood to neighborhood, even
block to block, shocks and dismays.
Deep social and racial disparities are your most serious
reputational baggage -- more serious than too much snow, or too
little air service, or anything else. You have a relatively small number
of neighborhoods and families who need radically more help than
they’re getting. You can scorn them, if you will, but you’ll pay.
Indeed you’re already paying. Every young person who comes to
Syracuse for a college education and then hurries to leave, telling
others about dangerous neighborhoods and crimes here, is tearing
down your reputation across the U.S.A. Common sense says stop
this hemorrhaging of people -- and reputation.
Unite town and gown . For a truly successful new century,
you’ll have to forge much stronger and complex ties than ever before
between Syracuse University, the region’s top institution of higher
learning, and the city and region. The brainpower the community
needs to excel in a competitive global economy is there on the hill.
But it won’t be tapped, the connections won’t be made, without
conscious effort on both sides.
Make your DestiNY work for you. Assuming the deal’s made,
and the DestiNY mall and entertainment complex are already your
short-term destiny, get more out the project than a passel of jobs
and maybe beating the Mall of America for sheer size. Any region
with enough gall might do that. What no region has done is make its
community a better place simply because a mega-mall arrived. You
could do a lot better. Plan to leverage DestiNY, not for numbers of
on-site jobs (mostly low-wage anyway) but for new and imaginative
connections to your center city, strengthening of nearby
neighborhoods, cultural enhancements, an enhanced environment.
Be an Upstate leader. The Syracuse region, too long mired in
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New York State’s governmental maze, needs to move outside the
box, seize the natural reins of leadership on a multi-county basis.
Metropolitan government isn’t necessary, but radically improved
collaboration and jointly forged strategies are.
Those, as we outline below, are our lead ideas -- based some
on what we’ve learned in other regions, but mostly on what we heard
from you in many group meetings, interviews, and the public session
held May 18.
We’re deeply appreciative to the Central New York
Community Foundation and the Rosamond Gifford Foundation for
inviting us to town, giving us the opportunity to get to know your
region and peoples. The project only moved forward, we’d add,
because the Post-Standard took an active interest in our
investigations, followed through with so much in-depth coverage and
community discussion after the May 18 event -- and agreed to print
this report.
For all who came to the May 18 “Convergence,” as we chose
to call its, thanks. We brought in some talented community-builders,
from across the U.S.A., to converse with a few hundred of you -Mary Jo Waits from Arizona State University, Lenneal Henderson of
the University of Baltimore, and Peter Katz (founding director of the
Congress for the New Urbanism). The result, we believe, was a
spirited, positive dialogue.
If there was any surprise for us in our interviews, it was the
degree of uncertainty we often heard among you. At least twice
during our several days of Syracuse-area interviews in mid-May,
someone brought up the analogy to the “Winnie the Pooh” character,
Eeyore. Eeyore was a grey donkey. He was intelligent, quiet, tended
to keep to himself, was known to be depressed much of the time,
and given to saying,”Oh me, that will never work.”
In a similar vein, we recall SUNY Educational Opportunity
Center director Bill Harper leaning over to us at a breakfast meeting
in May and saying, “I often wonder what we might be able to do, if
we were not afraid.”
And then a comment from Karla Hall, a leader with the
community foundation’s Neighborhood Leadership program: “I’ve
been around so many tables here. I can keep on coming until Jesus
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comes. But no one comes and just does it.”
All of those, let us confess, are strange thoughts to us.
Because the Central New York we were observing and gauging is a
place of so many strengths. It’s a brainy place in a dawning century
of the mind. It has arts and academic distinction, fine neighborhoods,
some of America’s most splendid urban parks, and a glorious lakestudded countryside. Not to mention a robust spirit, thousands of
citizens willing to try each and every experiment for advancement
that rolls down the pike of American community life.
Plus, for helpers, you have all these civic organizations – from
FOCUS to 20/20, the Onondaga Citizens League to Tomorrow’s
Neighborhoods Today – each of which is utterly sincere and public
spirited, pursuing strategies for a better future.
OK, maybe we should agree it’s tougher for mid-sized
American cities, without an assurance of globally-based corporations
and economic activity, to be sure of their niche in the new global
economy. Yet it’s our clear observation that smaller cities can excel
-- and there are success models across the U.S. -- from Portland
(Maine) to Chattanooga (Tenn.), Madison (Wis.) to Colorado Springs
(Colo)., Burlington (Vt.) to Austin (Texas). Grit, imagination, and a
dash of daring help can turn the trick. It’s a club Syracuse and
Central New York ought to belong to. Focus on your opportunities,
and there’s no reason you can’t.
THE ECONOMY: CHOOSE OR LOSE
By Neal Peirce and Curtis Johnson
“This is a great place to raise a family.” “We have a diverse
economy.” “If a few more big corporations would only locate here,
we’d have all the jobs we need.”
Listen to a cross-section of Syracuse area citizens and
business leaders, and those attitudes shine through, indeed seem to
represent the region’s de facto economic strategy.
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We’d suggest those approaches are not good enough -- not
good enough to assure a competitive 21st century standard of living,
to stop spreading poverty, to keep the region’s sons and daughters
from heading out of town as soon as they have a diploma in hand.
Smart regions, in the today’s ferociously competitive global
economy, aren’t leaving success to chance. They are choosing to be
successful, by setting clear goals, mobilizing their resources, and
staying on task. They’re thinking world class. They’re rejecting
mediocrity.
Clearly, there’s nothing wrong with a diversified economy per
se. Onondaga County Executive Nicholas Pirro points out, for
example, the manufacturing firms that remain, from New Venture
Gear to Anheuser-Busch to Bristol Myers Squibb, all continue to
invest in cutting-edge equipment and technology. He cites such
efforts as the new business park, employing 550 people, created on
the site where a departing Allied Chemical left a vast, tainted
industrial brownfield. Along with a commitment to workforce
upgrading symbolized by the Whitney Applied Technology Center and
its Lean Manufacturing Institute.
But a focus on next-generation economies is also critical for
any community. In the words of Walter Gretzky: “The key to winning
is being first where the puck is going next.”
The Syracuse region has some big assets. Great institutions
of higher education, with their research capacity. A highly-skilled
workforce. An active civic culture.
But it’s obvious the area faces a passel of tough economic
problems. Through most of the ‘90s, Upstate New York, the
Syracuse area included, went through a valley of deep recession.
Manufacturing atrophied. New York State’s high taxes, regulatory
and energy costs took a toll. Heavy outmigration to other regions
was registered both among youth and productive middle-aged people
-- even those who indicated that with decent jobs, they would have
preferred to stay. A key problem: the brand of intelligence- and
information-rich industries bolstering so many American regions
registered small progress here.
On top of all that, population levels stagnated regionally and
dropped dramatically in Syracuse proper -- a sure sign, as authors of
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the Syracuse Community Indicators noted, of “suburban sprawl,
devalued housing stock and a diminishing tax base.”
In many U.S. regions today, domestic and now especially
foreign immigrants are stimulating local economies. But not in
Central New York: a survey of the 4-county Syracuse area shows
81.5 percent of residents are natives of New York State, indicating
little “fresh blood” pouring in.
Concurrently, poverty rates, while still below the national
average, have climbed sharply in the region, especially in Syracuse
proper. The shabby appearance of many city sections, not to mention
crime and street gangs, drag down the image of the entire region.
Anemic commercial air service discourages new businesses.
Repeatedly in our interviews, we were told of a regional inferiority
complex -- comments such as “We’ve learned over 20 years that
it’s OK to be mediocre,” or a jolting description of Syracuse proper
as “both dull and dangerous.”
The picture isn’t all gloomy. Demographers believe the
population outflow moderated after 1997. Economic activity picked
up, too: the late ‘90s and 2000 registered record total employment
in the region. The area has a modest foothold in modern technology
with such firms as Carrier, the Syracuse Research Corporation in
Cicero, and IST Imaging and Sensing Technology Corporation (“radio
doctors to the world,” headquartered in the Finger Lakes Region). In
retailing, the Carousel Center has drawn from a broad geographic
area; the projected DestiNY project is predicted to provide even
greater stimulus.
But critical hallmarks of success apparent in other U.S.
regions today seemed weak or lacking:
Strong, unified leadership. In successful regions from San
Diego to Portland (Ore.), Jacksonville (Fla.) to Seattle, there’s a
unified coterie of top leaders from business, academia, professional
sectors and government, who share a general vision of where the
area should be headed and work together to form supporting
strategies. San Diego leaders, for example, created a “CONNECT”
organization to expose local entrepreneurs to scientific
breakthroughs in University of San Diego laboratories -- resulting in
billions of dollars of development. The Trade Alliance of Greater
Seattle fosters close personal ties through yearly learning trips of top
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leaders to other world economic centers, from London to Hong
Kong.
We recognize Syracuse has its Economic Growth Council, with
members ranging from MDA to the Chamber, such major employers
as Niagara Mohawk and Verizon, university leaders and others.
Many look to 20/20 as a strong, civic catalyzing force for the next
years. Those alliances, if they had the vigor and broad commitment
we see in other, successful places, would neutralize the pessimism
that seems so prevalent in the Syracuse region.
And there’s another problem: New York State’s strong,
ingrained political culture can stymie progress. Syracuse area citycounty antagonisms have, for example, been barriers in very recent
years. Although the current mayor and county executive seem to
collaborate well, the moral is that in today’s world, progress depends
on having a broader leadership mix than the political alone.
Successful regions will also learn to tap citizen creativity. We
heard Common Council President Bea Gonzalez comment on the
infrequency with which citizens are consulted. We heard a proposal
that citizens, both city and county, be brought early into discussions
of how visitors to Destiny USA, when it opens, can be induced to
return to the area repeatedly, and learn to enjoy its many charms,
from revitalized downtown sections to picturesque Central New York
countryside. It’s precisely that kind of outreach that (1) produces
smart ideas, and (2) creates a sense of regional citizenship.
A compelling economic strategy. The Syracuse region’s
strongest speciality, its best chance at being world class, lies in
environmental and electrical engineering. That was the judgment of
SRI International in the late ‘90s. For the 21st century and the
Syracuse area’s future, there’s a clear translation: innovation in
indoor air, its quality, safety, protection, importance for human
health.
The vision now has “official” New York State support through
the new Center of Excellence in Environmental Systems based at
Syracuse University. With $37 million in up-front state investment,
the project is expected through private corporate and philanthropic
contributions to have close to $170 in early funding -- what the PostStandard has termed an unprecedented public-private partnership for
the area. Partners include 11 Central New York universities and
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research institutions, more than 30 corporations, the Metropolitan
Development Association and the New York Indoor Environmental
Quality Center.
With huge portions of the nation’s existing buildings in need of
environmental improvements, with such corporations as Carrier
already locally-based, the potential for research, development,
corporate spinoffs is immense.
Yet it will be the quality and long-term commitment of all the
area’s institutions, plus injections of venture capital, plus strong
innovations in local schools and universities to prepare qualified
graduates for this new field, that will make all the difference. We
heard on one hand that there are now enough electrical engineers in
Central New York to constitute one of the largest corporations in
the world. But from another source a warning -- that the region has
no more electrical engineers than it could boast six years ago. The
message is crystal clear: huge opportunity, but only with vigorous,
region-wide follow-through.
Hipness. Strange as it may seem, cultural diversity, a touch
of the offbeat, is a hallmark of many U.S. regions doing well
economically in our times. Check success towns, from Austin to
Boulder, Boston to Seattle, Denver to Chicago, and you find higherthan-average counts of gays and counter-culture “Bohemians.” Lots
of immigrants. Downtowns with a lively music and arts scenes -even tolerance for tattoo parlors.
How could this be? It’s because -- explains Richard Florida of
Carnegie Mellon University -- cultural, ethnic and artistic diversity
sends a message to creative people that they’ll be welcomed in, find
a hospitable climate. It’s becoming ever clearer that the successful
cities and metro areas of the 21st century will be those that appeal
to talented people -- especially talented youth. The race for factories
and big corporations was 20th century stuff; the prize of the future
will be success in attracting the kind of smart and creative people,
the risk-takers who generate new inventions, patents, marketing and
finance plans, entrepreneurial start-ups and world-class products -the seedbeds, in short, of 21st century innovation and growth.
Are there seeds of a “hip” or “cool” culture in Syracuse? Yes.
A recent editorial in the Post-Standard even listed them: Vibrant
cultural life based in flagship arts institutions and a lively smorgasbord
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of community- and ethnic-based art forms. A highly-developed civic
life in such groups as MDA and the Chamber, 20/20, the Onondaga
Citizens League, FOCUS, and neighborhood TNT meetings. A
precious architectural heritage in such places as Clinton Square and
the towns and villages of Central New York. Armory Square and
growing nightlife. Jazzfest, the “horses” -- and more.
But is the Syracuse community truly welcoming to talented
immigrants -- or indeed to its own black middle class achievers
(whom we heard keep moving away)? Is the Syracuse area more apt
to welcome challenging debate -- or does it, as some allege, typically
“marginalize dissent”? Does Syracuse have the robust, recovering
inner city neighborhoods of America’s comeback cities? Can it claim
more than small pockets of night life? An open door to alternative
lifestyle people? Community policing that reaches out to povertyplagued neighborhoods?
On all those issues, we heard heavy doubt. For a strong 21st
century economy, more tough choices lie waiting.
GET THE GOWN INTO THE TOWN
By Neal Peirce and Curtis Johnson
“Here’s our city over here,” Syracusians tell visitors. Then, pointing
eastward to the hill, they add, “Up there is Syracuse University.”
The division of town and gown is not unique in Syracuse: it’s
mirrored in cities coast to coast. Inevitably, one’s led to ask: Are
the universities the best neighbors they could be? And couldn’t more
of the brainpower boxed up behind the ivy walls could be channeled
into the community?
Up on its hill, Syracuse University could pass for an unsecured
fortress, a community unto itself. Its imposing buildings bear the
weight of a grand reputation. Its growing endowment is positioning it
for a broad international mission.
But beyond the historical coincidence of name, what does
Syracuse University have to do with Syracuse city, and with region?
A great deal, it turns out. The university is the flagship of an
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extraordinary fleet of institutions that make Central New York one of
a handful of U.S. regions where higher education institutions
constitute the core economic asset.
What SU does in this decade, along with the efforts of the
other colleges and universities, may be the single most critical factor
in shaping the economy and quality of life of Central New York.
We’ve already referred to the immense strategic potential of
SU’s newly-announced, state-funded Center for Excellence in
Environmental Systems.
Yet as promising as that initiative appears, it’s through
thousands of contacts, formal and informal, that great universities
and colleges make a strong and positive mark in their communities,
indeed fulfill their full missions within American society.
Checking across the U.S.A. today, one finds increasing
numbers of forward-looking universities engaged in heavy-duty
reappraisal of their ties to their host communities.
Research and development is often the key. The University of
San Diego is a partner, for example, in a “CONNECT” organization
that exposes local entrepreneurs to scientific breakthroughs in its
laboratories -- and has resulted in billions of dollars of development.
But R & D isn’t the whole story. Increasingly, university
leaders are taking on prime roles of civic leadership. At a recent San
Diego briefing, we were amazed to find the leader with the most
intimate grasp of a broad range of regional economic development
activities was, conspicuously, the chancellor of the University of
California at San Diego, Robert Dynes.
But there are problem areas. One concern is the impact of
universities’ physical expansion on nearby neighborhoods -- clearly an
issue in Syracuse, where the university has aggressively added
territory, for buildings and parking lots, in recent decades.
Historically, universities have thought little about the social and
economic impacts of their expansions on the vulnerable, low-income
communities adjacent to their campuses.
A second issue is how universities can be more engaged in
tackling the severe societal problems evident at their very doorsteps.
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The concern, in the words of the University of Pennsylvania’s Ira
Harkavy, is that privileged universities become stranded “islands of
affluence in seas of poverty, oases in deserts of despair." That, he
insists, risk betrayal of the optimistic missions of universities in early
America -- not simply to advance learning, but to train youth for
citizenship, creating a new and better society.
Harkevy was able to get Penn -- and not just undergraduates,
but an array of professors, instructors and graduate students -involved in outreach to some of West Philadelphia's most ravaged
neighborhoods and troubled schools. They became personally
engaged in inventing courses and programs, in guest teaching, in
getting inner-city kids to open their minds to the idea of service to
their own communities.
We heard that SU is moving in this direction, getting students
involved through a Center for Community and Public Service. We
were also briefed on a very active Urban Ministry Project.
We did, though hear skepticism about how many faculty see
such activities as worthy of their attention, worthwhile expenditures
of their time. As one local critic told us, many faculty “might as well
be working in East Cupcake, Illinois, for all the attention they pay.”
The remark recalled a story Harkavy told us, relating how he
recruited a famed University of Pennsylvania anthropologist by first
maneuvering him to the windows of the faculty club to look at on the
West Philadelphia scene. Harkavy’s words to this professor, who
routinely flew off to such remote places as Central America to collect
neighborhood-based data on nutritional deficiencies: “I need you in my
village.” To his surprise, Harkavy found his audacity rewarded as the
professor agreed to take his research into the neighborhood next to
the university.
Soon the anthropologist’s graduate students were not only
doing research in nearby blocks, but were contacting parents of
children, volunteering on weekends to go door-to-door and help
families change their dietary habits.
The University of Pennsylvania is only one of several
universities that have pioneered outreach partnerships in recent
years. Yale, Trinity College in Hartford, the University of Southern
California in L.A. and Howard in Washington have among those that
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have made especially impressive strides.
Columbia University, on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, has
registered one of the most remarkable turnarounds. Its landaggrandizing tactics of the ‘60s were so egregious they sparked
mass protests including arrests. By contrast, Columbia in the ‘90s,
under President George Rupp, not only talked the talk of better
community relations but appointed permanent high-level staff to work
closely with its neighbors in Harlem and other close-by communities.
Columbia also developed programs to increase its employment of
nearby neighborhood residents. Through networking, it’s upped
purchases from local vendors past $60 million yearly. The university
counsels local small businesses with teams of MBA students. An
urban technical improvement program has helped community- based
groups capture over $100 million in development.
And in dramatic contrast to the years of confrontation,
Columbia now regularly presents capital plans for feedback at
community board meetings.
There are steps in the same direction: SU, for example, gets
due credit for its 11-year record with the Neighborhood
Improvement Program, assisting in making homeownership a reality
for more residents. But the Columbia model suggests unexplored
ways to work intimately with neighboring communities.
The 21st century potentials for America’s urban universities
may expand from service to unusual new opportunities, insists
Eugene Trani, president of Virginia Commonwealth University in
Richmond. Students, he predicts, will go overwhelmingly for college
experience in lively cities. Isolated campuses with six big football
games a year won’t cut it; 24-hour-a-day towns will. Smart
universities must bolster urban revitalization and variety, as Virginia
Commonwealth did through investments to bring retail and private
housing to the distressed Broad Street area the university abuts.
And the most successful universities, Trani suggests, will learn
to carry education outside the classroom. In Virginia
Commonwealth’s case, he suggests, that will mean the Virginia
Museum of Fine Arts, the Virginia General Assembly, Theater
Virginia, the Virginia Ballet, and the Richmond public schools. “The
experience must be dramatically enriched for students, both in terms
of educational experience and research opportunities,” says Trani.
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One’s impelled to wonder: What if SU and its nearby partner
colleges thought that expansively about their role in the city and
region in future years? Its exciting to think of the multiple,
complimentary roles -- universities in their R & D roles, as
collaborative land developers, as employers, as researchers and
helpers in addressing social problems, and as users and stimulators
of local cultural opportunities.
In a university town like Syracuse, the opportunity scenario
could be exceedingly rich.
IMAGINE A GREAT CITY
By Neal Peirce and Curtis Johnson
Is the Syracuse region a sufficiently “livable,” attractive place for
21st century standards? Will it be able to attract and hold the
professionals and skilled workers who can pick anywhere they like in
the U.S. to shape their careers and personal lives?
We found people of two minds on that question.
As visitors, one gets a fast earful about short commutes from
still quaint suburban towns, raves about close-by lakes and the
region’s cornucopia of cultural opportunities. And there’s wonderful
pride in Clinton Square, Armory Square, the splendid public parks and
other charms of the city proper.
But there’s a dark side. Some parts of Syracuse are clearly
not charming. Some neighborhoods on the south side seem heavy
with adults unemployed and youth out-of-control. A new Family Dollar
store will not turn this condition around. Guns and gangs make big
headlines and a bad reputation for the whole community.
So what needs to be done to create a Syracuse region that
can be sure of attracting talented young professionals and holding its
newly-footloose baby boomers?
This newspaper ran a fine series back in March on why so
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many leave and where they end up. The simple reason so many
young people leave, it turns out, is that’s what young people do. They
search for new places, new adventure, hunger to experience a larger
city than Syracuse.
SU spring graduate Scott Adams is one of those, though he
confesses that when he came to Syracuse, it “seemed like a big city.
I spent the first night looking out the window, amazed by the light of
the city.”
Yet the youth who choose public colleges in the area do tend
to stay when they graduate. Because Syracuse University appeals to
an international market, only about 10 percent stay somewhere in
the region after graduating, though about half, according to career
counseling staff, do remain in New York state.
Counselors report that the students who do get off campus
into some Syracuse-area employment setting, through coop or
internships, register more enthusiasm for staying – if they can find
suitable work. Just staying over a summer or two seems to shift
attitudes. Susan Hildebrand, a recent graduate who grew up in
Mechanicsburg, Penn. recalls two summers, “going downtown a lot,
mixing with Syracuse people.” She found the experience “fun,
relaxing,” and not at all like the talk of “people approached with
sawed-off shotguns,” which she’d heard on campus.
Students generally told us that career aspirations, real job
offers included, were taking them to other cities after graduation.
It’s an observation that leads us to make an even stronger pitch for
the importance of the Syracuse area developing more home-grown
industries.
But there’s a companion strategy that makes the day for
some regions -- building truly great communities where talented
people will want to live.
It used to be that any good place to work was considered a
good place to live. No more. These days, only good places to live
are seen as good places to work.
So, what could Syracuse and its surrounding communities do
to earn this much sought-after reputation?
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First, protect as vigorously as possible the culture of small
towns and rural life.
Both seem under siege today as sprawling subdivisions spread
out over hills and farms. Just consider why this region’s collection of
villages with real town centers and vibrant neighborhoods is itself a
tourist attraction. Places such as Skaneateles, Manlius, or Camillus
don’t need promotional signs saying “great place to live.” The
message lies in everything a visitor sees.
So agenda number one should be to protect this asset, and
not allow it to be eroded by converting even more dairy farms to
faceless, standard development.
Onondaga County actually has a plan for ensuring that new
growth is not only good quality but oriented to strengthening
communities. The county’s recent settlement plan was born with
assistance from famed New Urbanist architect Andres Duany. It’s
now being “translated” from philosophy and pictures to an
enforceable code.
But the idea’s simple enough. Preserve the rural character of
the countryside. Build real neighborhoods around town centers. Mix
housing and shops and offices close together. Whether in small cities
or hamlets, or even urban Syracuse, it’s the “DNA” of the place that
matters. That’s what Armory Square has in common with
Skaneateles – they are both true to a DNA for livability, and that
makes them destinations.
Most places in America, it’s the counties that don’t seem to
care, that give away land like more of it can be manufactured. We
find it remarkable that Onondaga County is taking the lead to
preserve a core asset of the region.
The themes of the settlement plan show up already in the
Fayetteville Mall makeover, in the new housing such as Ann’s Grove
in Camillus, and the village concept in north Cicero. Still, the
temptation to sacrifice precious heritage for one shiny new Rite-Aid
store will not go away. Political resolve will be critical. Pride about
great places will likely prove more powerful than any rule of law.
Second, apply the same rigorous standard to Syracuse itself.
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Syracuse mayor Matt Driscoll told us that while he would
change a few things in the Duany recommendations, and he knows
it’s the county’s plan, he liked it. That is no surprise. The plan
institutionalizes the very kind of community planning that produced
Syracuse’s most desirable neighborhoods.
A recent visitor to your region, the father of a local developer,
looked around the city and volunteered that “out in Denver we’re
trying to build new what you already have here.” These
neighborhoods are the “small towns” of the city. Every decision
made and dollar spent ought to be measured for its impact on
making neighborhoods better places.
The place to start: understand that “cleaner” spells “safer” in
the eyes of most citizens.
Some south side neighborhoods look neither clean nor safe.
Not only is this condition a continuing tragedy, it is the source of
most of the talk on the SU campus that trashes the city. Students
talk about Syracuse as a “divided city....where there are many
affluent areas and also poor, dangerous feeling places.”
SU student Nick Serrano grew up in northern Virginia, and
after graduation is headed for a job in Kansas City. Serrano says,
“Back home a vacant house would make people upset – they’d do
something. Here you see empty places everywhere.”
In our interviews we heard optimism from neighborhood
representatives, who were encouraged by the team of leaders now in
place for schools and police. Leaders are necessary and laying better
plans is a good step. But what this scene desperately needs is
evidence of action – progress, real and visible.
Third, get more out of DestiNY than achieving a large scale
retail and entertainment complex.
What most communities do, especially if they feel down on
themselves, is try to shoot the moon, go for broke, fire the silver
bullet. Some say that DestiNY is squarely in that “silver-bullet”
mentality. We agree, it might be. But it doesn’t have to be.
DestiNY, as explained rather carefully to us by Robert Congel
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of Pyramid Management Group, could be a major catalyst,
succeeding in raising the region’s visibility and increasing its visitor
count, while ensuring that downtown and the nearby neighborhoods
are also winners.
Pick up one of the DestiNY USA books at the Pyramid offices.
One very prominent page is called “Creekwalk.” Pictured there is
promenade along the creek that runs from the Inner Harbor through
downtown, with a seamless row of lower-rise buildings reminiscent of
a scene near the Rialto bridge in Venice. Congel talks about this
feature of the project as the “connection to Armory Square.”
Cleaning up this creek, today an eyesore and largely blocked
off from public use, is critical, though not merely to make the
connection between the DestiNY zone and downtown. As our
colleague Peter Katz put it when we visited in May, “Don’t confuse
connectivity with proximity.” In other words, it is what you build along
the creek that matters as much as achieving the connection. It is the
urban experience one feels walking through the area. Just imagine
this corridor filling up with small shops and offices, places to learn
computers or another language or take a music lesson, apartments,
lofts, and condos, and great restaurants.
Sound a lot like Armory Square? Yes, that’s the point. At
least one pioneer developer, Robert Doucette, is already providing
Syracuse with the very thing that people flock to. The apartments in
the Loew’s Theater building are great urban spaces. Check out the
Lemon Grass at night – plenty of boomers in there. We found young
people filling the evening sidewalks, on deck in the outdoor bars and
restaurants. The closest thing to a city-streets traffic jam seems to
happen because people are looking for a good Armory Square parking
place.
We heard that the city was making building restorations and
conversions easier to do. If the city and Pyramid can work together
on planning and zoning, on resource-building, this is possibly the most
strategic step either could take to make DestiNY more than just a
retail-entertainment draw. The success of Franklin Square shows
the great potential for converting old urban buildings into 21st century
spaces. Rather than creating a second downtown space to compete
with the first, DestiNY and the city could register an immense
breakthrough: expanding the quality living and working space of an
historic city center.
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Indeed, if the city and Pyramid jointly show they are serious
about this corridor, the case for state and federal support to build
the proposed monorail will be greatly enhanced. Offering visitors a
way to get from the airport to DestiNY to downtown and to SU
without fighting the traffic will prove to worth every penny.
Particularly if it’s built with outside funding.
Funding of course remains a big question. More than one
person whispered skepticism in our ears over Pyramid’s intentions
and what part of this enormously ambitious project gets paid for by
the public. One still hears serious grumbling about the state-countycity financial accords already reached with Pyramid for the new
project.
But what we heard, directly from Mr. Congel and his
spokesman, Michael Lorenz, was a pretty clear commitment to see
this project through with high quality, to establish a lasting legacy in
which all the community can take pride. If they follow through, with
directness and generous spirit, they’ll be able to escape most of the
nightmares of political wrangling, petty petitions and paralyzing
disagreements that so easily thwart development projects.
The community, for its part, then needs to be clear on the
vision, insist on clear bookkeeping and accountability where the public
dollars are involved, and remain a working partner in the execution.
That partnership should extend also to the North Salina
neighborhood, so close to DestiNY that it cannot go unaffected by its
development. North Salina still functions like a real neighborhood.
The urban fabric, not pretty in places, is intact. There are real jobs
there, block after block, and homes people are trying to take care of.
Now, fast forward to a successful DestiNY, with traffic
counts soaring as an index of commercial success. Where do the
visitors stay? Where do they eat?
Here’s what happens if there is not a plan to stop it: a typical
strip of Taco Bells and Burger Kings, laced with a line-up of Hampton
Inns and Motel 6s. Each one an island of bedrooms surrounded by a
sea of tarmac. This scene would suck the life out of the North Salina
district, leaving yet another soulless commercial strip.
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There is an alternative. Plenty of hotel space and all the food
anyone could need can be built into the structure and style of the
historic Salina neighborhood. But not without committing a complex,
intentional act. Not without a commitment of the city to work with
Pyramid -- and with representatives of the Salina neighborhood -- to
design this capacity, to specify how it looks and works, where the
buildings go and where the cars park.
Then you can put out the welcome mat. And give DestiNY
credit for getting on more than one map: one for its commercial
clout. And another for helping to build an even greater community.
MAKE UPSTATE AN UPSTART:
SYRACUSE IN ITS GREATER REGION
By Neal Peirce and Curtis Johnson
Recession, Sunbelt growth, partisan politics, the fuzzy authority
created by New York State’s Byzantine networks of municipalities,
districts and authorities -- they’ve all been bad news for Syracuse
and Central New York in recent years.
And while there’s much focus on the city of Syracuse proper,
it well to remember it actually constitutes only 33 percent of the
population of Onondaga County, and an even smaller percentage of
the four-county area -- Oswego, Cayuga, Onondaga, Madison -- of
which it is a part. Syracuse may seem the “capital” of this Central
New York region, but its dominance has eroded steadily.
Nor is it any secret that Upstate New York as a whole
suffered the worst economic fortunes of any American region -- save
perhaps the Central Valley of California -- for most of the 1990s.
To an outsider’s eye, the governmental divisions of Upstate
New York seem especially problematic. Too often, the politics has
tended to be narrow, partisan, unforgiving. Home rule is such
absolute gospel that communities rarely collaborate. In the cities,
municipal unions often dominate, just as job-protective political
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leaders tend to dominate in suburban towns. Every town and village
has to have its own cops, clerks, firefighters, auditors, assessors,
councils and executives. Sprawling suburban growth saps older cities
of their population and tax bases, harming urban minorities perhaps
the most severely. New York State local property taxes are more
than double the national average, fueled heavily by state mandates
and regulations. Your corporations complain bitterly about the taxes
they must pay, the regulations they must obey.
In earlier times, people advocated metropolitan government as
a cure for those problems. Even today, some elements of shared
authority may be necessary. Metropolitan governance has in fact
advanced in such areas as the Minnesota Twin Cities and Portland,
Ore.
Though we’ve noted that across the country, progressive
regions are mostly seeking to walk around the political divisions and
find accords on other layers. Regional economic compacts -- focused
on identifying promising industrial sectors, on workforce
preparedness and other collaboration -- have flowered. Major
corporations have agreed to be partners: in Chicago, they even work
with environmentalists, neighborhood leaders and organized labor in a
“Metropolis 2020" organization focused on more economical,
sensible growth patterns for “Chicagoland.” In Denver there’s
agreement among the region’s numerous city and county economic
development agencies to share all industrial prospect leads.
Business-led coalitions in California’s Silicon Valley focus on
public transportation and affordable housing breakthroughs. In fact,
the leadership groups of regions across California now meet regularly
to compare notes and a state Speaker’s Commission on Regionalism
just reported in last spring. In South Florida, normally discordant
local governments are now getting together to form a more rational,
sustainable transportation plan for their long, narrow, people-packed
strip of land between the Atlantic Ocean and the Everglades. Across
the country, regional coalitions are focusing on “smart growth”
initiatives to curb wasteful sprawl development. Equity issues,
including more region-wide work opportunities for minority and lowincome cities and older suburbs, are being widely discussed.
Up to now, Upstate New York has appeared a laggard, well
behind the times in forming such alliances. Even California’s povertyplagued Central Valley has a Great Valley Center that pushes
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discussions and accords across territory actually more than 450
miles in length.
Perhaps the new indoor air initiative-- the state-supported
Center of Excellence in Environmental Systems and the potential of a
Syracuse-to-Cornell university corridor focused on related computer
and applied software engineering -- will prove a breakthrough in
Upstate regionalism. Opportunity has a way of bringing people to a
table easier than any sharing of burdens.
But the region has to be much more -- simply because the
decision pressures on it will rise. Imagine, for example, that the
DestiNY project brings the economic growth to Central New York
that its sponsors project. In one sense, that’s great. But it also
could mean huge growth pressures -- a deluge of gas stations, pizza
parlors and Taco Bells and other roadside clutter, besmirching the
very countryside and lakesides of Upstate New York the Destiny
folks say they want to help popularize to the American nation.
We believe the region needs some serious discussions about
such perils well before they engulf the area. In addition to elected
officials, it’s critical major businesses be involved: indeed their
presence at the table is indispensable for direct and frank talk, and
getting by parochial issues of who controls each land use decision or
sign permit. Additionally, we’d suggest, your university and college
presidents need to be involved too, as major stakeholders for your
regional future.
Beyond Syracuse’s own Central New York area, we’d make
sure government and business folks from the other Central New
York tables were included. Interesting efforts at regional cohesion
are currently underway in the Buffalo and Rochester regions,
including discussion of about actual city-county consolidations. We’d
doubt your region wants to go that far in the near future. But the
issues of regional efficiency, workforce preparedness, land use,
protection of the natural environment and dealing effectively with the
state government, will be bypassed and left in great measure to
sheer chance unless the Syracuse area engages in direct dialogue
with those sister regions.
If Syracuse and Central New York are serious about being a
world-class, significant region in the 21st century, at least getting
into serious dialogue with its regional partners is an absolute
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minimum.
Operationally, one might simplify the task by getting a
respected, bipartisan, insightful group to pull the parties together for
a forum of Central New York leadership. Maybe your 20/20
organization can fill that bill. But the critical point is simple: don’t just
be a victim of the swirling economic and political tides of this new
century. Look, think, debate about your future. Think and act
regionally. Be prepared for change. The t imes will absolutely demand
it.