Land use lessons - from San Diego (the tech sector of all places)

San Diego business leaders set out to find ways to grow their innovation sector and unlock the door to future economic performance. According to the economist they hired, land use policy is the key they are looking for.

San Diego’s Innovation Economy, and What it Takes to Recruit “The Young and Restless”

Bruce V. Bigelow

As the chief operating officer of the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corp. (EDC), Lauree Sahba says, “Our region’s future as a technology center of excellence depends on our ability to attract and retain the next generation of innovators and young talent.”

Yet Sahba frets that the renowned research institutions and balmy weather that drew the last generation of entrepreneurs to San Diego in the 1970s and ’80s may no longer be enough. The demographics are changing for a highly prized segment of the exponential economy—the well-educated, hard-working, and entrepreneurial adults who are 25 to 34 years old.

Portland economist Joe Cortright calls them “the young and the restless.” With their college and graduate degrees mostly behind them, the young and the restless are in their prime years of mobility. They have the greatest freedom to relocate. But Cortright says the suburban amenities that once made San Diego a kind of idyllic destination a few decades ago are not what the newest crop of the best and brightest are looking for nowadays. And a dream job offer isn’t necessarily enough to make them move either. ...More

On the virtues of urbanism and my semi-urban Central District neighborhood

From the April 2010 Leschi News.

This month, the magazine Seattle Business has a focus on the young, talented creative professionals moving to the Northwest—even if they don’t have a job. The article asserts "Seattle is one of only a handful of cities to which young professionals are flocking."

My neighborhood, Leschi, is not likely immune. Indeed, our architectural charm, parks, mature street trees and lakeshore—combined with our proximity to downtown—almost ensure our neighborhood is one of the first to be discovered by newcomers. It has always been so.

Thanks to our views, the neighborhood was largely spared the 70s decay besetting other Seattle neighborhoods, at least on the scale at which entire blocks elsewhere become wrecking ball magnets by the time of the 90s and 2000s boom years. While this has helped to keep the attractive homes that make the architectural heritage so rich, it has not been conducive to an influx of new housing stock. We are not left wanting, though, for our own examples of the modern, low-cost construction that swept through the city in the last decade. What will we see in the next development cycle, when that demand for the Leschi lifestyle is again facilitated by renewed real estate mobility?

Some of that is up to us. We can continue to advocate for broadly-applied low building heights, parking minimums and other restrictive measures neighborhood-wide, or we could focus; adopting an approach of active engagement, creatively working together to encourage investment into our neighborhood in the places that need it most, demanding design guidelines and advocating for the improvements that will help to create the environment newcomers are looking for, and one that we want them to enjoy—namely the car-free lifestyle. We should want this if we want them to live here in the middle of the city instead of ever-expanding suburbia, and if we recognize our car-based lifestyle is killing us.

Finding and targeting the ideal underdeveloped urban sites in our neighborhood for more intensive development would help us foster a lifestyle growing in global popularity: a life traveled on foot, by bike, or on the bus. This is the demographic of an increasing share of newcomers, and they expect to find what they need in their local neighborhood businesses—not at the nearest Costco, University Village or Promenade 23-type shopping center.

Satisfying the demand of the entire next cycle in just a few locations is possible, too, because (as urban developers are currently finding as they struggle to find financing) nothing cools a lender’s jets like a slowly-filling building in the applicant’s area.

Buildings are taking a few years to completely fill up now, and that is a good thing. It gives us time to adjust and monitor traffic and parking issues.

But ours is a neighborhood of mainly single-family residences. New development in the last cycle followed that formula, focusing on cheap land that is easy to develop, passing up the expensive acquisition and complex zoning issues of larger, more urban lots on our neighborhood’s major arterials.

The next time you are out enjoying one of our occasional walker’s-paradise spring days, look around; beyond the handsome, mature homes and delightful blooming gardens of our neighborhood to the hidden treasure that is underused, unlovable urban land. Is there a better way to grow, than to shoe-horn two faux-craftsman homes into the place of every existing house, one at a time? The answer may well be right in front of our eyes.

Keep up to date with the Leschi Community Council online at
CentralDistrictNews.com/members/LeschiCC