Smart growth and strong mayors

The Atlantic has a about the revival of two cities — Greenville, South Carolina, and Burlington, Vermont — by James Fallows, one of America's pre-eminent journalists. The two cities are polar opposites politically — one redder than red, the other bluer than blue — yet they followed a similar pattern of revitalization. 

Creating a vibrant, walkable downtown —and connecting those downtowns to a beautiful natural asset — were essential elements in both communities.

In Burlington's case, the natural asset is Lake Champlain, and it was cut off from downtown by railroad infrastructure. In Greensville's case, a highway bridge blocked the city from its river and waterfalls. Both cities began to implement policies that led to their revivals early — in the 1970s and 1980s — when urban places were at their nadir. Both had iconoclastic, free-thinking mayors in a "strong mayor" system. Finally, both cities took advantage of public-private partnerships, led by the strong hand of visionary leaders.

Here is how Fallows describes, in part, the Greenville experience. 

"… The downtown recovery effort was heavily guided by city officials—a series of mayors and a cadre of professionals in the city’s planning and economic-development agencies. The first of the influential modern mayors was Max Heller, who had fled Vienna after the Nazi takeover, found work in a shirt factory when he arrived in Greenville, and eventually owned a shirt-making company himself. As mayor starting in 1971, he led the effort to make the downtown more walkably European. He faced opposition from threadbare downtown merchants, who feared that making driving less convenient would push their remaining customers out toward the suburban malls. Now there is a heroic statue of him amid the bustle of Main Street. His latest successor, Knox White, overcame resistance in locating a baseball stadium for a Minor League team downtown, at the site of an eyesore, an abandoned lumberyard a few blocks from City Hall (“Even my wife thought that was crazy—where would people park?,” White says); in requiring the stadium developers to build adjoining condos as part of the project (“I told them, ‘This is how we do things’—and the condos sold like hotcakes!”); in working with the county to develop the Swamp Rabbit walking-and-biking trail, which now extends for 17 miles; and, most of all, in removing a concrete highway bridge that since the 1960s had blocked off the Reedy River waterfalls from the city that had grown up around them (“People kept saying, ‘It’s a perfectly good bridge! Why would you get rid of it?’ ”). Now Falls Park is the featured attraction of downtown, with the falls area ringed by clubs and restaurants and surmounted by an elegant 345-foot-long suspension bridge for pedestrians, from the same firm that designed Boston’s Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge.

I love the story about the bridge, because the mayor clearly got the concept that natural beauty linked to a human-scale downtown generates value economically and socially. One can imagine that many in the city — including engineers, business owners, citizens — were skeptical and downright opposed. Why invest in the beauty of downtown, when much of the wealth has migrated to the suburbs? Yet the mayor pushed the idea through and proved the naysayers wrong.

In Burlington's case, the revival was launched by a socialist mayor, Bernie Sanders, who is now an independent US Senator. Sanders won by 12 votes and faced complete intransigence from city council. He overpowered the opposition through coalitions and implemented reforms and ideas that shape the city today.

As inspiring as these stories are, and as much as Fallows presents them as models for other cities, the lessons are not easily transferrable. They rely too much on moments in history and visionary leaders who are vested with strong political power — "strong mayors." This is a version of the "champion" model for smart growth.

Other cities will use similar tools for revival — building on their cities' human-scale and natural assets — and the job will be both easier and harder than in Greenville and Burlington. It will be easier because a tremendous market has emerged for urban living. This market makes possible both business and grassroots support for smart growth. The job will be harder because cities have fewer resources than they did in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Getting money for major infrastructure projects, to correct mistakes, and improve urban places, will be tougher. 

I advise cities and towns not to wait for a visionary mayor on a white horse, but to start building grassroots and business support for smart growth today. If you do happen to elect a heroic leader, he or she will have a much easier time with this support in place. Absent a mayor like Heller or Sanders, a movement of citizens can still make vast progress. In other words, we have to build our "champions" from the ground up.

Robert Steuteville is editor and executive director of Better! Cities & Towns. 

For more in-depth coverage: 

•  to Better! Cities & Towns to read all of the articles (print+online) on implementation of greener, stronger, cities and towns.

• Get , packed with more than 800 informative photos, plans, tables, and other illustrations, this book is the best single guide to implementing better cities and towns.