revitalizing older suburbs: strategies and case studies from...

Revitalizing Older Suburbs: Strategies and Case Studies from Southern California

Dena Belzer & Gerald Autler, Strategic Economicswith Paul Zykofsky, AICP Local Government Commission July 2002

LoCAL GovErnmEnt CommISS Ion a n d ConGrESS for thE nEw UrBAn I Sm

local Government Commission

A nonprofit, nonpartisan, membership organization, the Local Government Commission is composed of forward-thinking, locally elected officials, city/county staff, and other interested individuals. The LGC inspires and promotes the leadership of local elected officials to address the problems facing our communities by imple-menting innovative policies and programs that lead to efficient use of civic, environ-mental and economic resources.

1303 J St., Suite 250 Sacramento, CA 95814 tel 916 / 448-1198 web www.lgc.org

Acknowledgements

T his guidebook was prepared as part of a project funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency through a Sustainable Development Challenge Grant to provide technical assistance

to five cities in Southern California working on revitalization efforts typical of older suburban communities.

The Local Government Commission, working in partnership with the Congress for the New Urbanism, provided assistance to each of the cities and identified technical experts in different fields that could help the cities conduct a planning process or implement a specific project that would improve livability and long-term sustainable development.

City staff and consultants also contributed their time and energy to this project. Special thanks to the staff in the five cities and to the architects, urban designers, planners, developers and economic consultants that participated and contributed their time to this project.

AzusaCity Manager Rick ColeProject Manager Lisa A. Brownfield, AICP

BreaCommunity Development Director Chris Kelly Principal Planner David Crabtree

Culver CityCity Administrative Officer Mark WinogrondPublic Information Officer Randi Joseph

montclairCity Manager Lee McDougal

PomonaCity Manager Doug DunlapSuperintendent Patrick Leier, Pomona Unified School District

riversideCity Manager John HolmesDeputy Planning Director Ken Gutierrez

ConsultantsStrategic Economics: Dena Belzer, Gerald Autler

McCormick Baron Salazar: Richard Baron, Tony Salazar

Citizen Planner Institute: Harrison Bright Rue

Walkable Communities: Dan Burden

Moule and Polyzoides, Architects: Stefanos Polyzoides

Congress for the New Urbanism: Shelley Poticha

Suisman Urban Design: Doug Suisman

Pomona Valley Educational Foundation: A.J. Wilson

Correa Valle Valle: Eric Valle

Revitalizing Older Suburbs: Strategies and Case Studies

from Southern California

July 2002

Principal AuthorsDena Belzer and Gerald Autler

Strategic Economics

Contributing AuthorPaul Zykofsky, AICP

Local Government Commission

Additional Case Studies Author

Alison Pernell Local Government Commission

EditorsJudy Corbett

Paul Zykofsky, AICP

DesignDave Davis

Project manager

A.J. Wilson

funderU.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 9

Revital i z ing OldeR SubuRbS StRateg ieS and CaSe StudieS fROm SOutheRn Cal i fORnia

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Executive Summary

Introduction

Suburban Development in the los Angeles Region

Revitalization Efforts: Azusa

Brea

Culver City

Pomona

Riverside

Conclusions and Recommendations

49 Resources

StRateg ieS and CaSe StudieS fROm SOutheRn Cal i fORnia Rev ital i z ing OldeR SubuRbSi

SummARyExecutive Summary

S uburbs have become recog-nized as the predominant form of urban development

in the United States, capturing most of the growth in population and jobs in metropolitan areas. However, it has also become clear that suburbs are a heterogeneous group that cannot all be discussed in the same breath.

Alongside the “edge cities” full of malls, gleaming office buildings, and expensive homes there are other suburbs, whose fate in recent years has come to more closely resemble the plight of inner cities. As traditional job bases have with-ered and new growth and invest-ment have tended to concentrate farther out on the periphery, many older suburbs have become afflicted by poverty, crime, deteriorating housing stock, lack of investment, limited retail choices, and poor schools.

However, as the five cities in the Los Angeles region of Southern California discussed in this guide-book demonstrate, older suburbs are discovering innovative new ways to make a comeback.

In some cases, these successes are being fueled by projects targeted at reversing the physical deteriora-tion in a section of the city. The City of Brea, in Orange County, is build-ing a new, pedestrian-friendly town center – a new heart for the com-munity. Pomona is transforming an underperforming, semi-vacant shopping center into a new mixed-

use village with schools, retail and a commuter rail station. And in Riverside, the City is pursuing strat-egies to bring Magnolia Avenue, a grand boulevard from the early part of the century that has fallen into disrepair, back to its former glory.

Other cities are making use of the power of planning to inspire and engage their residents. Both Azusa – through its General Plan update – and Culver City – through a Strategic Plan effort – are going out of their way to engage residents in long-term planning efforts that are setting a new, upbeat vision for their future.

While the approaches may differ from city to city and region to region, there are some common themes that older communities should consider in their revitaliza-tion efforts:

Revital iz ing OldeR SubuRbS StRateg ieS and CaSe StudieS fROm SOutheRn Cal i fORniai i

SummARyRecognize the Power of PlaceUniqueness has value. Cities should not strive to look like and imitate their neighbors, but instead should create a unique identity based on their particular situation, history, location, and assets.

Focus on AssetsFocus on creating and building assets appropriate to a particular place, and using the existing assets of the place in question.

Foster Diversity and BalanceA community with racial and ethnic diversity, diversity of immi-grants and native-born, economic diversity, and land use diversity, is more resilient and less susceptible to large economic swings.

maintain and Expand Regional ConnectionsWhatever the importance of inter-nal coherence, cities are part of a larger regional context and they require appropriate connections to the rest of the region. Without those connections, cities become isolated and stagnate.

Reinvest and ReinventReinvention and adaptation are not episodic events but rather ongoing challenges. Cities must continuously reinvest in their infra-structure and their built

environments. They must re-invent themselves as the surrounding context changes.

Build long-Term ValueGood places hold their value over time and afford more possibilities for reinvention. Building long-term value in the housing stock, in the retail base, and in the employment base creates greater fiscal stability as well as greater market viability.

Pay Attention to the BasicsNeighborhoods and cities can quickly deteriorate if they are not cared for regularly. Regular main-tenance and code enforcement is far less expensive than wholesale renovation, and it prevents the damage from spreading.

Balance Past, Present and FutureCities must reinvent themselves continuously, but they must do so with an understanding of what makes them unique and the forces that have shaped them in the past.

make No Small PlansReinvention and timidity are poor partners. Cities that want to posi-tion themselves for success in changing regions must create bold plans for their future.

Azusa kicked off its pub-lic participation process with a bilingual booklet describing the assets it could build on.

W hile there are no hard and fast rules for tackling the problems of disinvestment and deterioration faced by older suburban communities, we are confident that the case studies and rec-

ommendations presented in this guidebook, will inspire new thinking as well as action.

StRateg ieS and CaSe StudieS fROm SOutheRn Cal i fORnia Rev ital i z ing OldeR SubuRbS1

INTRODuCTIONIntroduction

S uburbs have become recog-nized as the predominant form of urban development

in the United States, capturing most of the growth in population and jobs in metropolitan areas. However, it has also become clear that suburbs are a heterogeneous group that cannot all be discussed in the same breath.

Alongside the “edge cities” full of malls, gleaming office buildings, and expensive homes there are other suburbs, whose fate in recent years has come to more closely resemble the plight of inner cities.

As traditional job bases have with-ered and new growth and invest-ment have tended to concentrate farther out on the periphery, many older suburbs have become afflict-ed by poverty, crime, deteriorating housing stock, lack of investment, limited retail choices, poor schools, and so on.

Some who have written about the subject evoke the image of “crab-grass slums” and see urban blight spreading ever farther out from the core as new investment ripples outward. They liken urban develop-ment to slash and burn agriculture, leaving destruction in its wake. However, much of this imagery seems outdated. Just as many cen-tral cities have experienced some-thing of a rebirth in the last decade, so have some older sub-urbs begun to see a reversal of their fortunes. Shifting demo-graphic and economic trends at the metropolitan level, combined

with new policy approaches, indi-cate the possibility for older sub-urbs to reinvent themselves to cre-ate a more prosperous future.

For the time being, it appears that several processes will coexist. Suburbanization and sprawl will continue, and certain types of in-vestment will continue to gravitate towards the periphery. A certain amount of reinvestment will occur in most central cities as they continue to attract young people, empty nesters, and immigrants.

And older suburbs, caught in the middle, will likely experience a range of different fortunes: some will reverse their fortunes and experience increased growth and prosperity, while others will continue to stagnate.

Revital i z ing OldeR SubuRbS StRateg ieS and CaSe StudieS fROm SOutheRn Cal i fORnia2

INTRODuCTIONCertainly much of the difference will depend on regional trends and policies that are beyond the control of local governments.

However, it would be a mistake to imagine that communities have no control over their destinies. Ending sprawl and bringing about true metropolitan renewal will require action at all levels of gov-ernment, but local actions will con-stitute a key element of success.

T his guidebook is the result of a project conducted by the Local Government Com-

mission and the Congress for the New Urbanism, with funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Sustainable Development Challenge Grant program.

The project was designed to assist five cities in the greater Los Angeles region to address the problems typi-cally found in older subur-ban commu-nities.

Specifically, the project was designed to demon-strate meth-ods for some of the follow-ing types of problems: using infill

development to repair the city’s physical fabric; retrofitting linear transportation and commercial cor-

ridors to increase pedestrian, bicy-cle and transit accessibility; and redevelop-ing economically declin-ing commercial centers or neigh-borhoods.

During the course of the 2-1/2 year project, each city was provided with technical assistance targeted at a specific planning process or revital-ization effort.

This project also supported research conducted by Strategic Economics, a consulting firm based in Berkeley, CA that specializes in place-based sustainable economic development strategies. Some sec-tions of this guidebook have been excerpted or adapted from the report prepared by Strategic Economics which takes a broad look at the five communities that participated in this project.

The full report is available at www.lgc.org/freepub/land_use/ reports.

This guidebook is designed for use by local government officials and community leaders interested in identifying strategies that might be applicable in their communities. It covers the following topics:

➢ Background information on the Los Angeles region

➢ Background on each of the cities followed by a discussion of their revitalization efforts and the assistance provided by this project

➢ Conclusions and recommendations

➢ Resource information

Corridor plan for Riverside’s Magnolia Avenue


ThE SuBuRBSSuburban Development in the los Angeles Region

T he Los Angeles area offers a fascinating laboratory for experiments in urban and

suburban revitalization. The second- largest metropolitan area in the country, and one that is still growing at an appreciable rate, the region’s vast size, diversity, and myriad cities small and large pro-vide a wide array of different condi-tions and experiences. Moreover, Los Angeles is in many ways the quintessential “suburban city.”

The five cities that participated in this project – Azusa, Brea, Culver City, Pomona, and Riverside – rep-

resent both successful communi-ties and ones that are still strug-gling. Not all these communities are “suburbs” in the traditional sense of the term, which implies satellite cities built to accommo-date a growing and/or decentraliz-ing population. Pomona is among the oldest cities in the region; Riverside is large enough and far enough from Los Angeles that it is very much a significant city in its own right.

However, in a region as large, com-plex, and spread out as the Los Angeles metropolitan area the dif-

ProjECt CItIES

> Azusa> Brea> Culver City> Pomona> riverside

ferences between classic suburbs and other communities that have found themselves absorbed into the metropolitan fold are quite blurred. The same is true, to one degree or another, in other metro-politan areas.

However, while the context may differ the issues confronted by older suburbs are common to most pre-World War II American suburbs.

A s the quintessential subur-ban city, the Los Angeles region is a laboratory for a

wide range of revitalization efforts.

As Azusa City Manager Rick Cole says, “the future comes sooner to California” and lessons learned in this region may be useful for older suburbs across the nation.

Furthermore, while specific policy prescriptions may not always be portable, analytical techniques and insights often are. In particular, the background report prepared by Strategic Economics offers a way of looking at regions and places that is broadly applicable, even if not all

of the specific policies are. An understanding of place that is rooted in history and regional context is a key part of any successful revitalization strategy.

The five cities examined in this guidebook represent a heteroge-neous group, ranging in popula-tion from less than 40,000 (Culver City) to over 250,000 (Riverside), dispersed at vastly different distances from downtown Los Angeles over three counties, and representing significantly different histories.

Azusa, Pomona, and Riverside, have 19th-century agricultural origins. Brea rode the 20th- century oil boom, while Culver City was founded in the 1920s as a home for the film industry.

Nevertheless, they have all experienced many of the same challenges, and they all provide lessons for other communities.


ThE SuBuRBS

Pedestrian-friendly shop-ping districts with wide sidewalks, street trees and safe crosswalks play a key role in creating public gathering places and engines for economic revitalization.


REVITAlIzATIONRevitalization Efforts in Five Cities in the Region

the City of Azusa – Background

A zusa, located in the San Gabriel Valley east of Pasadena, began its mod-

ern life as a rancho on a Mexican land grant and was incorporated in 1898. Agriculture, and citrus in par-ticular, remained the foundation of the city’s growth and development until the 1940s. A number of pack-ing houses, banks, and other enter-prises serving the industry clus-tered around the railroad station downtown, along with businesses serving the population. The 1940s marked the beginning of Azusa’s transition, as they did for most of the region.

Azusa’s burst of population growth occurred somewhat earlier than in many other parts of the region – more than doubling during the 1940s – due to the arrival of Aerojet in 1944. The company, founded two years earlier by a group of scientists from Caltech interested in rocketry, has been a major fixture in Azusa ever since, although the Azusa facility was recently acquired by Northrop Grumman.

Azusa Pacific University opened its doors as Azusa College in 1947, having gone by several different names in several locations since 1900. Along with Aerojet, the college symbolized the shift of Azusa away from agriculture towards a manufacturing, service, and residential base. With the arriv-al of more manufacturing firms, the

city grew into a middle-class man-ufacturing center. By 1960 only 3 percent of the popu-lation worked in agriculture, compared to 36 percent in manufacturing.

The construction of a suburban style shopping center in the early 1960s, together with the arrival of the 210 freeway, precipitated the departure from downtown of sev-eral major businesses and, together with an overall attitude of neglect on the part of the city, led Azusa’s downtown to fall into a state of dis-repair. This deterioration was accel-erated during the 1970s and early 1980s by opening of new malls in nearby cities. Azusa’s sales tax base, already precarious in 1970, deterio-rated even further. From 1970 to 2000 taxable sales per capita declined by 38 percent in real terms.

> AZUSA


REVITAlIzATIONBy the 1980s Azusa’s decline was clearly visible. Housing units were deteriorated, and homeownership levels had dropped below 50 percent. Increasingly some neigh-borhoods took on the role of hous-ing of last resort for a low-income population. By 1990, 14 percent of the population lived below the poverty line. Whereas in 1980 the city could be considered racially balanced, it soon failed to meet that standard, becoming predomi-nantly a Hispanic city.

Economic stagnation continued to plague the city even after the recession of the early 1990s, when the San Gabriel Valley began to cre-ate jobs at a faster rate than Los Angeles County as a whole. Despite this economic dynamism, Azusa performed less well, seeing its employment growth lag far behind that of its neighbors. The retail picture was similar: Azusa’s retail sector, while growing in terms of employment, was declin-ing in terms of per-capita sales.

This stands in sharp contrast to the increasingly healthy retail environ-ments of neighboring cities. Not only is Azusa unable to attract shoppers from other parts of the region, it is losing significant reve-nues due to the spending of its own residents in other communi-ties.

By the late 1980s, the Redevelop-ment Agency had begun to take an interest in the downtown, but efforts to make changes suffered from lack of a long-term vision. By the mid-1990s, however, things started to change. In 1998 the California Department of Transportation ceded control of Azusa Avenue to the city, which

promptly invested in street improvements. 24 new businesses have opened in the downtown since 1998, historic buildings are being renovated, and the city is currently interviewing developers in regard to a mixed-use project that would occupy an entire block of the downtown with residential, retail, and office development.

Azusa Embarks on Innovative General Plan Update

Through this project, the LGC and CNU arranged to pro-vide assistance to Azusa as it

started work on an ambitious pro-cess to update its General Plan. From the start of the project, Azusa was committed to preparing an innovative long-term plan with sig-nificant participation from the pub-lic. It also wanted to develop a plan that would incorporate the most advanced principles of urban design and planning to create a sustainable, livable community.

During the course of this project, LGC and CNU assisted the City of Azusa in the following ways:

➢ Provided assistance on urban design features of the Plan by enlisting the services of the New Urbanist Pasadena firm, Moule and Polyzoides. The sections of the General Plan prepared by this firm emphasized the impor-tance of clearly defining the individual character and condi-tions of all of the City’s physical parts and then using that under-standing as the foundation for planning future changes.

> AZUSA

Elements of a people-friendly streetscape: Street lamps, banners, landscaping, pedestrian crossings


REVITAlIzATION➢ Provided assistance on the cir-

culation/transportation element of the Plan through the services of The Mobility Group, an inno-vative transportation planning firm that recognizes the impor-tance of a balanced transporta-tion system that includes walk-ing, bicycling and transit.

➢ Assisted the City in its efforts to engage the public in the General Plan process by organiz-ing a training session for staff and directors from different departments by Harrison Bright Rue – founder of the Citizen Planner Institute and an expert in public participation.

➢ Assisted in producing a commu-nity workshop on building healthy, safe and livable com-munities in mid-May, 2001. Speakers included Richard Killingsworth from the Centers for Disease Control, Al Zelinka, co-author of Safescapes, a new book on reducing crime through good design, and urban designer Michael Freedman.

By the end of this project, the City of Azusa was close to completing its General Plan update. Efforts to involve residents in the process had been very successful; over the course of the planning effort over 1,000 people had attended four citywide “planning congresses” and over 50 smaller workshops.

The draft elements of the General Plan incorporate numerous efforts aimed at revitalizing the City and improving its livability and sus-tainability. Specifically, they include the following goals:

➢ Protect the historic and signifi-

cant built and natural resources in the City.

➢ Promote enhanced mobility and reduced congestion throughout the city.

➢ Enhance the visual quality and identity of city streets.

➢ Enhance the livability of multi-family residential development, its compati-bility with single-family neighbor-hoods, and its orientation towards the street.

➢ Maintain the visual character and scale of existing neighbor-hoods.

➢ Promote the street as a public place through the appropriate placement of new buildings.

➢ Allow neighborhood-serving multi-use and civic buildings to be located within walking or biking distance from homes, as long as they are located on prominent neighborhood sites.

➢ Neighborhood streets and sidewalks should be pedestrian-first places, not dominated by parked cars and garage doors.

➢ Encourage a variety of housing types and sizes to accommodate the diverse needs of families.

➢ Promote the pedestrian orienta-tion of commercial buildings.

> AZUSA

Strong public participation has been essential to

Azusa’s revitalization successes.


REVITAlIzATION➢ Transform existing commercial

corridors into mixed-use cor-ridors incorporating housing with commercial uses concen-trated in nodes at major inter-sections. A third of the area of existing corridors should be dedicated to housing.

➢ Ensure visual variety on corri-dors through a variety of build-ing types and sizes, variety in landscape, and the reduction of surface parking lots.

These goals are sup-ported in other ele-ments of the draft General Plan. The Circulation Element, for example, puts forth a “mobility vision” under which “The City will put people first by calming traffic, improving connec-tions, and encouraging

walking, biking, and public tran-sit.”

This vision is reinforced by the following goals:

➢ As a key element of an integrat-ed multimodal circulation sys-tem, balance the roadway with the planned land uses in the City.

➢ Fully develop the street system to allow access to all areas of the city. Complete missing links in the city’s street system.

➢ Provide a connected, balanced, and integrated transportation system that enables Azusans to walk, bike, and take transit, rath-er than using their car all the time.

➢ Design/redesign streets to encourage pedestrians and bicycles, as well as to accommodate vehicles.

➢ Make city streets more pedestrian-friendly and bicycle friendly.

➢ Calm traffic in the city and design/redesign residential streets to discourage through traffic, and encourage residen-tially oriented traffic, walkers, and bikes.

➢ Enhance and expand local and regional transit service in the city.

➢ Focus truck traffic onto appro-priate arterial corridors within the city, and keep truck traffic out of residential neighborhoods.

Finally, the General Plan section on economic development strategies establishes as a goal that the City should create a unique place with high quality of life for all residents.

Azusa has not been waiting for the adoption of its visionary General Plan to start working on revitaliza-tion. During the past three years the City has implemented a wide range of measures to implement

> AZUSA

Downtown mural exhorts res-idents to participate in the Citizens’ Congresses – and be a part of Azusa’s future.

below: Flyer invites residents to the fourth congress – “The Great Debate.”


REVITAlIzATIONsustainable development practices to benefit all of its residents.

These practices range from small projects, such as creating a shaded rest area where unemployed work-ers can meet up with employers seeking day labor, to establishing higher standards for new residen-tial infill projects. Crime is down, home prices and sales are up, and new housing and industrial space is coming on line.

The City also undertook a major planning effort, with extensive public input, for development on the 500-acre Monrovia nursery site, the largest remaining area for resi-dential development in the city.

The nursery’s original proposal for a housing enclave was rejected in a special election because of the public’s objection to the exclusive nature of the project, the density of proposed development, the lack of usable open space and the meagre community input. The nursery then

financed a special planning process to redesign the project with exten-sive public participation.

Following a design competition and intensive workshop process, the City chose a plan that incorpo-rates the goals set forth in its General Plan. The new plan includes a mix of housing and retail, a range of housing types with varied architecture that reflects the city’s traditional styles, a network of hiking trails, and other features that residents want-ed to raise the quality of the devel-opment and to integrate it more closely with the rest of the city.

The plan also anticipates that the new neighborhood will be anchored at one end by a transit station for the future extension of the Gold Line light rail sys-tem that will connect Pasadena and other cities in the San Gabriel Valley to downtown Los Angeles.

> AZUSA


REVITAlIzATION

the City of Brea – Background

located on a plateau next to the foothills at the tip of Northern Orange County,

Brea enjoys the highest per-capita income of the five cities examined here, a very healthy retail base, a diverse economy, and a high-quality housing stock. It offers a lesson not so much in revitalization as in creating a balanced community with a diverse economy and population and a viable mix of housing types.

As in the case of Azusa, Pomona, and Riverside, agriculture looms large in the history of Brea. Unlike those other cities, however, Brea’s development was profoundly shaped by another element of the natural world – oil. However, the development of the oil industry in the 1890s did not spell the demise of Brea’s agriculture.

In fact, it shaped that agriculture at the same time that it profoundly influenced the rest of the city’s

development. Initially, much of the marginal land owned by the oil companies was used for pasturage and grain production. Later, see-ing the potential of higher-value crops, oil companies started con-tracting with growers to plant cit-rus.

Brea never was home to a large population until the decline of the oil and citrus industries in the 1940s. Ironically, just as the two mainstays of the city’s economy seemed to be in decline, popula-tion growth started in earnest.

The large amount of land devoted to profitable citrus production had deterred residential building, but population growth and subur-banization after World War II, com-bined with the newly available land, spurred a building boom, par-ticularly after 1950. The city grew by 164 percent during the 1950s and 117 percent during the 1970s, increasing its population from about 3,200 in 1950 to nearly 18,500 in 1970. The city’s stock of housing units nearly quintupled

> BrEA


REVITAlIzATIONduring the same period, increasing from 1,114 in 1950 to 5,461 in 1970.

This expansion coincided with a period of rapid growth in Orange County: in the 1950s and 1960s the county’s population grew roughly five times faster than that of Los Angeles County and the population jumped from about 200,000 to 1.4 million.

This rapid population growth left Brea quite unbalanced by 1970. Population expansion had far out-stripped job creation, and retail development in Brea’s small down-town had failed to keep up as well, leading to the city’s last-place performance in taxable sales per capita that year. Most people went to Fullerton or elsewhere to do their shopping.

Moreover, the city was not particu-larly well connected to the rest of the region. Railroad links that had helped shape the city in its early years were gone, and it was unclear how Brea fit into either Orange County or the rest of the Los Angeles region.

The arrival of the Orange Freeway (Highway 57) in 1972 was a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it con-nected Brea to eastern LA County to the north, to the heart of Orange County in the south, and to the regional freeway network, and in so doing helped spur development and employment in insurance and banking.

On the other hand, the freeway removed most through traffic from Brea Boulevard, which had previ-ously been the city’s main north-south thoroughfare, draining more life from the struggling downtown.

In the 1970s, Brea began to use redevelopment powers aggressive-ly to reshape itself. In response to the clear need for a more solid retail base, the Redevelopment Agency focused on building a mall.

The Brea Mall, opened in 1977, pro-vided shopping opportunities for Brea residents and became a major regional shopping center. The proj-ect constituted a huge boost to the city’s tax base just at a time that Proposition 13 was making an imbalance of residential and retail development more untenable than ever.

However, the downtown continued to decline and became very blight-ed, along with its surrounding residential areas. Poor and un- systematic planning throughout the city’s early history had left industrial sites next to residential areas, infrastructure was outdated and in poor condition, and the small lots could not easily accom-modate modern retail develop-ment. There were few buildings of merit, and many were poorly constructed.

> BrEA

New affordable housing built a block away from

Birch Street has brought new residents and

shoppers to the area.


REVITAlIzATIONBrea Builds a new town Center, Improves Linkages

By the mid-1980s, there was increasing talk of trying to create a viable downtown.

A downtown charrette was held in 1989, and resulted in a consensus that the city should acquire the land downtown and begin rebuild-ing the downtown from scratch.

During the charrette, it was agreed that the widening of Brea

Boulevard would not provide the intimacy desirable in a pedestrian-oriented downtown. Instead, the decision was made to build the core of the new down-town along Birch Street west of downtown. This area provided a larger amount of developable land and would avoid the prob-

lems of a busy thoroughfare. The recession of the early 1990s put the project on hold temporarily.

In 1997, the city refined the master plan and barely four years later the first phase of the project was com-plete, with more than 500,000 square feet of retail and entertain-ment space (including 22 movie screens), approximately 140 single family units and 62 loft apartments, along with parking for 2,880 cars.

The downtown includes retail along Brea Boulevard as well as along the more pedestrian-oriented Birch Street Promenade.

The architecture is high-quality and eclectic, with different designers in charge of different buildings even when those buildings were built by the same developer.

(For more details, see Additional Case Studies on the web site.)

A t roughly the same time, the Brea Mall underwent an extensive renovation

and expansion, nearly doubling its space. In 1996, a new community center was completed in Brea’s Civic Center, a concentration of public buildings near the mall.

At the point when the LGC/CNU project was getting underway, the City’s efforts were focused on cre-ating more housing and better connecting the downtown to the Civic Center/Mall area less than a mile away. Better pedestrian facil-ities and a shuttle bus, as well as relatively dense infill housing, were under discussion. With enhanced connections, the City felt that the downtown and the mall would complement each other rather than compete.

The mall is a regional center for high-end fashion and housewares, while the downtown focuses more on different retail niches and enter-tainment. It has succeeded in creating a mix of uses and an environment that is not available anywhere else in the vicinity: a wide choice of movies and restau-rants, as well as other retail, in a pedestrian-oriented environment.

Rather than focus on any one specific plan or project, in the case of Brea the LGC and CNU were asked to assist the City on a number of different fronts related to housing, transportation and neighborhood revitalization.

At the outset of this project, Brea was initiating a program to address the needs of Neighbor-hood Four, an older residential neighborhood close to the Civic Center which was

> BrEA

Pedestrian crossings on Birch Street, Brea’s new main street make it com-fortable for people to park once and walk to multiple destinations.


REVITAlIzATIONsuffering from a variety of prob-lems resulting from poor design and lack of maintenance. These problems included some of the fol-lowing features: poor connections to the rest of the City, deteriorated housing stock, wide streets that encouraged speeding, and lack of cohesiveness. In addition, the city was working on developing an affordable housing strategy.

Specifically, the LGC and CNU worked with the City of Brea on the following issues:

➢ Assisted Brea in developing a land-use strategy for the reuse of an abandoned rail right-of-way adjacent to Neighborhood Four. Specifically, LGC and CNU provided the services of pedes-trian and bicycle expert Dan Burden (director of Walkable Communities) to meet with staff and provide ideas for converting the right-of-way to a trail, for improving pedestrian access routes to Neighborhood Four and from the neighborhood to the civic center, and to develop a more detailed traffic calming plan for the neighborhood.

➢ Assisted the staff in working with the community and pre-paring for review of the project with neighborhood residents.

As efforts to implement the trail linkage plan and traffic calming measures in

Neighborhood Four move for-ward, the City is incorporating many of the approaches recom-mended during the LGC/CNU project into the General Plan update process that is currently underway. For example, increasing

pedestrian activity and calming traffic are being viewed as tech-niques to revitalize older neigh-borhoods.

Staff working on economic devel-opment now recognize that creat-ing safe walkable environments can help improve the quality of life and economic potential of retail areas and neighborhoods.

A number of things are notable about the downtown redevelop-ment, and Brea’s revitalization efforts generally:

➢ The high level of public participation. The public has been engaged in all aspects and phases of the city’s redevel-opment and revital-ization strategies. This, along with the city’s commitment to high-quality development, has helped minimize opposition and move the projects along smoothly.

➢ The rapid completion of the downtown redevelopment proj-ect. The developer attributes that to the high degree of coop-eration with the city, and to the city’s land assembly efforts.

➢ Retail balance. The presence of both regional-serving retail and a pedestrian downtown that is primarily intended to serve the city’s residents is somewhat unusual and constitutes a diffi-cult mix to achieve. However, it helps the city achieve a good balance of internal cohesion and regional connections.

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A median, wide sidewalks and new businesses have

helped make Brea Boulevard a pedestrian-friendly street – in spite of heavy traffic.


REVITAlIzATION➢ Inclusion of a strong housing

program. Brea has not shied away from building housing, and it has created a diversity of housing types as well as insti-tuting award-winning affordable housing programs. In part this has been possible due to the public’s desire to preserve the hills as open space and the con-sequent need to accommodate new housing in already devel-oped locations.

➢ The creation of connections. Brea’s development program has focused on creating both tangible and intangible connections within the city. Downtown retail serves primari-ly the local population base, a range of housing can accommo-date workers in Brea’s diverse employment base, and physical connections have been improved over time. The down-town is being connected visual-ly and physically to the Civic Center/Mall and the new com-munity center is connected to Birch Street with a pedestrian pathway that runs through a new residential development. The city has resisted the creation of the “gated communi-ties” that are proliferating else-where in California. In short, the various elements of the city are becoming more integrated over time.

➢ Employment balance. Brea has a significant percentage of its employment (16.4 percent) in manufacturing, as well as the highest proportion of jobs in finance, insurance, and real estate (F.I.R.E.) of any of the five project cities. Some areas of the

city are developed as office parks, while other areas are set aside for industrial uses. The city has maintained employment diversity even as it has added population and pursued retail development.

➢ The creation and promotion of a place with lasting value. The pedestrian orientation of down-town, the Civic Center complex, and the public art campaign have all helped to create the elements of a unique place. An emphasis on high-quality design and preservation of his-toric elements have helped to give that place lasting value. Finally, Brea has marketed itself to the region, showcasing its uniqueness.

➢ The downtown accommodation of automobiles without overly disrupting other activities. Although there is a significant amount of parking downtown and the overall design recogniz-es that dealing with the issue of automobile access is a reality, particularly in Southern California, the downtown succeeds in creating a pleasant, pedestrian-friendly environ-ment. The publicly-financed parking garages are a large part of the strategy to minimize the impact of automobile infrastruc-ture, as surface parking takes up far more space and is much more disruptive to the urban fabric.

Although Brea has clearly done an exceptionally good job of reinventing itself and

forging the community that it is today, it has undeniably enjoyed a number of benefits. The legacy of

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Active streetscape under the theatre marquee, new housing above retail and sidewalk cafes enliven Brea’s Birch Street.


REVITAlIzATIONthe oil industry helped to attract and create a number of firms, including some high-end knowl-edge-based firms such as Brea Chemicals.

The rapid economic growth in Orange County, now the wealthiest county in the region, as well as the county’s original appeal as a destination of choice for a relative-ly affluent and homogenous popu-lation, meant that in its early years Brea’s population growth did not present it with the challenges of poverty or racial and ethnic diversi-ty that other cities have faced. This is reflected in the city’s rapid rise to the top of the income rankings among the five

cities studied here.

Nevertheless, Brea’s success also lies in seeing opportunities and creating connections, both internal and to the rest of the region. It has reinvented itself, and has continuously looked for new ways to adapt and change. It has focused on building a high-quality, unique place with lasting value. It may not have faced all the challenges of other cities, and it may have enjoyed more advantages, but it still pro-vides valu-able lessons for all com-munities.

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New housing across from the town center.

The farmers’ market creates a place for

people to gather.


REVITAlIzATION

Culver City –Background

located in the affluent west-side of Los Angeles, Culver City is unique among the five

cities studied here in that its early development was not based pri-marily on extractive industries. It is also the city that appears to have maintained the most consistent balance over time of residential and commercial uses.

In fact, when Harry Culver began to plan the city that bears his name in 1913, he envisioned a place for families as well as commercial endeavors. The idea for Culver City was not to create a working-class version of a middle-class residential suburb, but rather to link modest homes closely to jobs and civic institutions.

Culver carefully chose a location between Los Angeles and the resort town of Venice. He saw Venice as providing relief for city dwellers tired of their congested quarters, and chose a site that

most of them would pass through on their way to the beach.

Little more than a decade later, Culver City had thousands of residents, and in 1926 Culver City participated in National Better Homes Week, showing demonstra-tion homes that were affordable to families of modest means but that included amenities not normally found in such units.

Retail sprang up both to serve the resident population and those who were passing through.

On the commercial side, too, Harry Culver’s vision came to fruition. Thanks to Culver’s active promo-tion and more than a little luck, by 1926 Culver City was second only to Hollywood in film production, with six studios includ-ing Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the Cecil B. DeMille Studio, and United Artists.

The city also attracted industry: Western Stove in 1922, Helms Bakeries in 1930, and a variety of businesses in the Hayden

> CULvEr CIty


REVITAlIzATIONIndustrial Tract, established in the 1940s. The Hayden Tract drew a wide range of industrial businesses even as the studios flourished. The rail connection was key, although good road access was also a factor.

Along with the region as a whole, Culver City grew rapidly between 1940 and 1960, more than tripling its population. By 1960, it was near-ing its current size. A series of annexations caused the land area to expand at the same rate.

The studios and manufacturing provided a solid job base, and many people both lived and worked in the city. This was also an era of growth in retail and enter-tainment, with the construction of the Culver Theater.

Throughout its growth, Culver City managed to maintain a balance, and in 1970 it had a solid retail base that yielded by far the highest per-capita taxable sales of any of the five cities despite the deterio-ration of downtown as many busi-nesses moved to a new shopping center. However, things were starting to change on several fronts.

Helms Bakeries, one of the main-stays of the economy, went out of business in 1969, signaling that the long-term viability of manufacturing in Culver City was in doubt. The studios were strug-gling as well, and by the late 1970s the Culver Studio, where Gone With the Wind and many other films had been made, was dilapidated. More generally, the era of growth was ending, and the city had to look for ways to main-tain its success.

In the 1970s, the city began to reshape itself in several ways

through both redevelopment and private initiative. A mall was built to strengthen its retail base. The Marks family purchased the Helms Bakery building, which today hous-es a center for antiques, home fur-nishings, and the arts. And the city built its first concentration of office space at Corporate Pointe on land annexed in the 1960s.

These efforts met with mixed suc-cess. Corporate Pointe is still not fully built out, and the mall, while providing a significant portion of the city’s total taxable sales, seems to attract relatively few shoppers from outside the city. Moreover, the downtown continued to decline.

The 1980s and early 1990s saw a number of major changes in the city’s entertainment industry. In 1991 Sony purchased the Culver Studio and made a major commit-ment to renovate the property, converting it into a state-of-the-art studio and the global headquarters of Sony Pictures Entertainment.

In 1990, a charrette was held to come up with ideas to revitalize the struggling downtown. Over the 1990s the Redevelopment Agency has invested a significant amount of money in parking, streetscape improvements, and other projects.

Even with its ups and downs, Culver City was still named the sec-ond best place to live in Los Angeles County in 1994. Good schools and a desirable housing stock meant that the city could pro-vide some of the most important

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The new City Hall was built following the

1989 Strategic Plan.


REVITAlIzATIONattractions, even if it was judged aesthetically lacking. Moreover, the diversity of the local economy had prevented the city from suf-fering unduly from the collapse of the aerospace industry.

Since 1994, a number of trends have converged. The overall growth in high-tech, coupled with the growing ties between high-tech and entertainment in such fields as multimedia and comput-erized special effects, has driven an increase in high-end jobs. Many of these are connected to the enter-tainment industry, but more and more are not. The initial concen-tration of computer and multime-dia firms attracted by the studios led to a clustering effect that brought others more interested in being around similar firms than in being close to the entertainment industry.

The city, mainly through its rede-velopment agency, has invested in a number of successful projects and is planning others. A Costco built in the late 1990s has been extremely successful. The Culver Theater, empty since 1989, appears to be set to receive an overhaul and will once again be used as a venue for live performances.

The exodus of manufacturing has continued, but the jobs have been replaced. The Hayden Tract is the clearest example, with many of its industrial buildings reclaimed through adaptive reuse to serve high-tech and multimedia firms. Far from being left vacant or being torn down, the buildings have been transformed into architectural showpieces.

Harry Culver’s choice of location still serves the city well today in many respects. The city’s location,

between the ocean and downtown Los Angeles and between Beverly Hills and the Los Angeles Airport, gives it many options for growth. The diversified economy has avoid-ed serious hits, and for the most part the city has managed to main-tain the balance and internal cohe-sion on which it was founded.

But there are also reasons for con-cern as the City faces new changes brought on by the loss of its blue collar base, its transformation into an information-based economy, quickly rising housing prices and very little affordable housing being built. Culver City’s challenge is to maintain its diversity even as it embraces new opportunities.

The city has recognized the im-por-tance of investing in amenities to attract the firms and workers need-ed to ensure continued prosperity, but it must be careful that its prosperity, and that of the surrounding area, does not diminish the diversity that has so far served the city well. Culver City Embarks on a Strategic Plan for the 21st Century

Over the past few years the City of Culver City has taken steps to create a more

sustainable, livable city. As part of that effort, the city started work on a new Strategic Plan in the year 2000. Unlike General Plan updates which deal very directly with physical design features such as land use, housing and transpor-tation, the Strategic Plan process encompasses a broader range of issues including education, safety, economic development, social equity and the environment.

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Happy trails: the Culver Boulevard railroad right-of-way was turned into a bike and jogging path.


REVITAlIzATIONThe new Plan will replace a strate-gic planning process conducted during the late 1980s that resulted in “Direction 21.” Many of the goals set in Direction 21 – including con-struction of a new City Hall, revital-ization of downtown and school improvements funded by the pass-ing of a ballot measure – had been met or were well underway by the end of the 1990s.

City leaders felt that the time was ripe for developing a new vision for the future along with creating a strategic plan to guide implemen-tation.

At the start of this project, the LGC and CNU were asked to assist Culver City in the development of the new Strategic Plan by provid-ing technical experts to raise the level of discussion on key issues and to help engage the public. However, as often occurs with these types of comprehensive planning processes, the plan was delayed and efforts to provide assistance during this project were limited.

Prior to the kickoff workshop for the Strategic Plan process, the LGC and CNU arranged for public par-ticipation expert Harrison Bright Rue to meet with staff in Culver City to review techniques for engaging the public in this kind of planning effort.

Rue provided City staff with excerpts from his facilitator training presentation, reviewed the survey instrument on the city’s web site and suggested changes that were implemented to make it more user friendly.

Culver City took some innovative steps to involve the community in the planning process.

In the first months of the project, the City developed a curriculum guide so that the schools could engage children and teenagers in the strategic planning process. The guide provided teachers with a flexible kit of activities that could be used in different class settings and structures.

Children in Grades 1-3, for example, were asked to draw pictures of places in their city that they thought were “scary,” “fun,” “cool,” “pretty,” or “boring.”

Children in Grades 4-8 were asked to become “time travelers” and to prepare a collage describing their City in the Year 2010. A map-ping game also allowed them to identify places they “liked” and “dis-liked” in Culver City.

Culver City also prepared a detailed “Community Question-naire” to get feedback from residents in the community. After a hia-tus of over a year, the Strategic Plan process was started up again in 2002 with a series of public workshops scheduled for the fall.

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The Higuera Street traffic calming project was

designed by the neighbors through a year-long

facilitated process.


REVITAlIzATION

the City of Pomona – Background

Pomona’s fortunes have waxed and waned over time. The city traces its origin

back to the 1870s, when a rail line was built eastward from Los Angeles and speculators purchased the land that was to become Pomona and attempted to attract investors and residents.

However, there was little activity until the following decade, when a permanent water supply was constructed and Pomona became caught up in the fury of population growth and land speculation that briefly affected all of Southern California – a result of the fare war between the two principal rail-roads.

Pomona grew quickly, and soon it was the largest city in the area, complete with a vibrant citrus industry (thanks to its rich land and rail connection) and a wide array of supporting industries and civic institutions.

During the early part of the 20th century, a residential pattern was established that is visible to this day: prosperous citizens built attractive and often large homes north of the railway, while the southern part of the city housed citrus workers in cottages on small lots.

The 1940s marked a transition for Pomona. Although the city already had a substantial 1940 population of 23,539, its main peri-od of growth was yet to come.

Growth started immediately after the war, with the population expanding by 30 percent in only four years, and continued through the 1950s with 90 percent growth over the course of the decade.

The construction of the San Bernardino freeway from Los Angeles to Pomona in 1954 was a major factor driving this growth. For the first time in its history, Pomona became a part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area.

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REVITAlIzATIONThe decline of the citrus industry was not far behind, with drought, competition from other states, ris-ing land values, and blight putting an end to Pomona’s famous citrus groves as a major economic force by the 1950s.

The opening of a plant to manufac-ture weapons for the U.S. Navy in 1952 marked a significant shift away from agriculture for the city and was the first step in the growth of General Dynamics, which would eventually employ 10,000 people in the city by the 1980s.

In the context of this transforma-tion from an agricultural to a resi-dential and industrial city, a con-sulting firm was hired to prepare a plan that proposed closing the Second Street shopping district, including several cross streets, to automobiles and creating a pedestrian mall.

California passed the Pedestrian Mall Act in 1960, and Pomona acted quickly to take advantage of it, completing the Pomona Mall in 1962.

The city also built a civic center consisting of city hall, a library, a police station, and a fire station. In the late 1950s and early 1960s the city easily passed bond measures to finance a wide range of develop-ment projects.

However, even before the end of the 1960s the city was experiencing problems. General Dynamics cut its workforce after the loss of a major contract; the construction of new housing slowed down following a region-wide period of over-building; and the new free-way drew shoppers (and business-es) away from the downtown.

Large regional shopping centers such as Montclair Plaza, opened in 1968 just to the east of Pomona, were the rage of the day and even Pomona’s innovative pedestrian mall couldn’t compete.

Downtown Pomona had grown up around a rail line and served a local population, but suddenly it found itself severed from the regional transportation network due to the shift to highways and, increasingly, from the city’s population, which looked elsewhere for shopping opportunities.

Pomona’s per-capita taxable sales, which were second only to Culver City’s in 1970, began their slide to last place among the five cities.

The downtown was not the only problem. In the rush to build hous-ing, poor planning and construc-tion had prevailed in many of Pomona’s residential neighbor-hoods. The tract houses were intended to be inexpensive starter homes and often used poor-quality building materials, and many subdivisions were poorly planned.

By the early 1970s, the problems were becoming visible. Pomona’s employment base lacked diversity, so the majority of the city’s labor force worked elsewhere. In effect, the housing constructed in the 1950s and 1960s had turned Pomona into a suburban bedroom community, but one with low-end housing.

When the Pomona Freeway was extended to the east about 1970, residential construction boomed in neighboring San Bernardino County.

Pomona’s outdated, deteriorating housing stock couldn’t compete with the new suburban frontier,

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Pomona’s City Hall


REVITAlIzATIONand the city actually lost 7 percent of its population between 1970 and 1975, even as cities in San Bernardino County grew by 30 per-cent.

Homes were abandoned, especially in the subdivision tracts. Abandon-ment triggered by an ill-advised HUD program and “white flight” sent the housing market into a tail-spin.

Although General Dynamics in-creased employment and account-ed for roughly 10,000 jobs in the 1980s, its connection with the city’s housing stock and population base was largely gone. In the late 1980s, the company closed, dealing a blow to the city’s job base.

Although new housing built in a development called Phillips Ranch in the late 1970s and 1980s rever-sed the population decline, the development consciously turns its back on Pomona both physically and symbolically. Isolated from most of the city, it is clearly meant to serve a regional employment market and orient its residents to the regional shopping centers rather than towards the rest of the city.

Despite its many problems,Pomona today is not devoid of assets. The city has four institutions of higher education (Cal Poly Pomona, DeVry Institute of Technology, Westech College, Western Uni-versity of Health Sciences), a number of advanced industries (Rockwell Collins, Electro-Optical Systems, Pioneer Electronics), and several hospitals, as well as more tradi-tional manufacturing, such as Cal Spas.

It has a significant number of skilled workers: for example, in 1990 fully 20 percent of the city’s employed residents were in managerial and professional occupations.

Pomona has an attractive down-town, a Metrolink station, a stock of attractive older housing, and some key sites available for reuse or redevelopment, such as the General Dynamics facility.

Western University is building a veterinary school downtown that will bring students, faculty, staff, and ancillary economic activity.

Pomona finds new Uses for old Shopping Centers

T he city is now taking steps to embrace revitalization efforts. The Planning

Department is looking more seri-ously at land use with an infill capacity study and updating the city’s zoning code.

The city is actively engaged in place-making activities, such as the revitalization of downtown. The downtown is coming back to life, with new housing, artists’ lofts, new retail, and the planned renovation of the Fox Theatre. The

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Downtown Pomona has a stock of well-designed older buildings that may find new uses in the next few years.


REVITAlIzATIONarts district and antiques shops constitute a regional draw, and the growing preference for urban liv-ing has given downtown housing a boost.

New housing has been built in other central areas of Pomona, as well, and the city is actively pur-suing code enforcement, improved policing, and buying and rehabili-tating dilapidated apartment buildings in an effort to reverse the downturn in the most deterio-rated neighborhoods.

Like many other suburban commu-nities, Pomona is also struggling with how to reuse older, underused or vacant shopping centers. As new malls and shopping centers were built – usually in sprawl-inducing locations – these old retail centers have fallen into disrepair and con-tribute to blight and disinvest-ment.

The City of Pomona, and its neigh-bor, Montclair, faced that problem with a shopping center that strad-dles their border. The Plaza Azteca was once an active shopping cen-ter that served as a regional com-mercial facility until the construc-tion of the newer, larger mall in Montclair in the late 1960s.

The subsequent construction of the 10 Freeway to San Bernardino and the abandonment of the for-mer state highway routes near the shopping center, contributed to further decline as automobile dealers and other highway related commercial ventures also moved out.

The area surrounding the shopping center is an ethnically and eco-nomically diverse older suburban neighborhood that for many years has been experiencing decline.

In 1995, faced with widespread school overcrowding, the Pomona Unified School District decided to take on a unique role and attempt to become the catalyst for a revital-ization of the area. The District pur-chased the old Plaza Azteca mall and started the process of convert-ing the 550,000-square foot shop-ping center into a mixed-use com-plex with educational and com-mercial uses that can serve as the anchor to a broader community revitalization program.

The project, known as the “Village @ Indian Hill,” is in the process of converting the ailing shopping center into a pedestrian-scaled commercial village surrounded by schools and other educational facilities.

During the past few years, a portion of the mall has been converted into the Pueblo Elementary School, serving 650 students. A second school, Pantera Elementary School, was built on the rear of the site in 2000, and an old Ralph’s Giant store was converted into two new elementary schools and the Academy High School in 2001.

Other educational facilities have been added to the Village which now boasts a child development center, visual and performing arts gallery and offices for a regional occupation program, adult and career education programs and a training center for Pomona Unified School District teachers.

Technology classes are held for parents in English and Spanish. A partnership with NASA produced the NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory Educator Resource Center, part of a national network

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REVITAlIzATIONthat provides expertise and facili-ties to assist educators in staff development.

It also houses the Applied Techno-logy Classroom (ATC) that serves as a teaching laboratory to demon-strate integrated technology in the instructional process.

The Pomona Unified School District has installed a fiber optic network in the Village that can be utilized for the creation of a “smart community” for business, educational, and resident access as well as security in the area.

Commercial activity has been con-solidated in the eastern section of the Village, and the space is now 90% leased. Anchor tenants include a drugstore, a theater, and other retailers.

Through this project, the LGC and CNU provided urban design and transportation expertise to assist the two cities, the school

district and the nonprofit Pomona Valley Educational Foundation that manages the shopping center.

Early in the project new urbanist architects Moule and

Polyzoides organized a design charrette to develop an urban design plan for the Village and adjacent areas.

The plan that emerged from the intensive workshop process calls for the creation of a new town center by breaking up the large mass of the mall and filling in the parking lot with infill buildings.

A new traffic circulation plan was developed to link up to a proposed transit station on the Metrolink suburban railroad along one edge of the site.

The new blocks incorporate the existing mall and other buildings into a cohesive urban block fabric and create a series of pedestrian-friendly streets and blocks.

The ultimate goal of the urban design plan is to “transform a failed automobile-dependent mall into a new transit oriented neighborhood center fashioned after the princi-ples of the New Urbanism and Traditional Town Planning.”

The planning effort is being co-ordinated by the Pomona Valley Educational Foundation and includes the participation of the cities of Montclair and Pomona as well as of the Pomona Unified School District.

In addition to helping develop the community plan for the shopping center site, the LGC/CNU project worked on numerous fronts to help revitalize the shopping center and convert it into a neighborhood center. Specifically, project staff assisted in the following ways:

➢ Transportation planner Michael Bates of The Mobility Group studied traffic issues in the area and evaluated the community plan proposals for street con-nections and circulation.

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A Village Square, framed by new buildings adjacent to the existing mall (bottom center in plan dia-gram) would provide a central gathering space close to the proposed Metrolink station at the bottom of the diagram. The plan also shows the location for school play-grounds (bottom left), a Canal Park (bottom right), the Village Playfield (middle left) and a neigh-borhood community park (top).


REVITAlIzATION➢ Conducted meetings with elect-

ed officials and staff from the Cities of Pomona and Montclair to gain their support for the community plan. Both cities agreed to use the plan in the development of a Specific Plan for the area. The Redevelopment agency offered to make façade improvement funds available and is investing in streetscape and pedestrian circulation improvements.

➢ Discussed with representatives of Albertsons supermarkets and Savon drugstores (current tenants in the Village) their will-ingness to cooperate in the design of the commercial village that is the centerpiece of the new plan. Both companies expressed interest in making changes to their stores to fit into the village plan.

➢ Brought in New Urbanist devel-opers Richard Baron and Tony Salazar to visit the Village site and meet with the superintendent of schools to discuss a proposal to include housing for teachers in the new town center.

➢ Helped develop a Request for Qualifications to find developers willing to build a mixed-use transit-oriented project. Eight teams expressed interest.

➢ Arranged for Dan Burden, direc-tor of Walkable Com-munities, to visit the Village @ Indian Hills and assist the City of Pomona and the Pomona school district

in evaluating pedestrian improvements, especially along routes to and from the new schools that are being built there.

The meeting with staff from the City and the school district resulted in agreement to put together a successful application for funding for pedestrian im-provements under the State’s new “Safe Routes to School” legisla-tion.

➢ Helped in negotiations to purchase the first portions of the housing site in the Village Community Plan. Two finalists for design/build were selected to build the University Village mixed use project. Cal Poly University and the Western University of Health Sciences were recruited to par-ticipate in the project. A devel-oper was selected; preliminary steps are underway for imple-mentation.

The Village @ Indian Hill is already serving as a model for other mixed use projects in the region. The Pomona Unified School District is working on two other projects containing educa-tional, commercial and residential development at two redevelop-ment sites in the City.

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The Village @ Indian Hill is being transformed into a

pedestrian-friendly village by filling in the parking

in the front and cutting a few streets through

the development.


REVITAlIzATION

the City of riverside – Background

Riverside is the largest of the cities examined in this paper and also the one that is least

like a suburb. Far from Los Angeles, Riverside is a growing, important city in its own right, and set to become the heart of the Inland Empire region east of Los Angeles, which will be home to one quarter of the region’s popu-lation in 2025.

Riverside was founded as a cooper-ative venture in 1870 by a group of eastern investors who laid out their new city in the fertile valley between the Rubidoux and Box Spring mountains. From the begin-ning, agriculture was the economic base: navel orange trees were planted in the early 1870s, along with vineyards, wheat, and fruits. The town grew to the south and southwest to take advantage of gravity flow from the Santa Ana River. By 1882, Riverside could claim nearly half of California’s more than 500,000 citrus trees.

The city was incorporated in 1883, and Riverside County was created in 1893 from parts of San Diego and San Bernardino counties. The City of Riverside’s role as county seat has given it a stable employment base in public admin-istration.

In the 1890s, Riverside’s economy picked up speed. The city’s growers, packers, and shippers pioneered refrigerated shipments and devel-oped new packing machinery. A successful agricultural cooperative emerged, the California Fruit Growers Exchange (owner of the Sunkist label).

Riverside’s economy was aided not only by the natural fertility of the region and by a significant flow of investments, but also by a marked capacity for innovation. A citrus experiment station pioneered new growing techniques, and a dynamic industry sprang up to produce machinery for harvesting and pack-ing.

The city’s wealth, independence from Los Angeles, and role as a

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REVITAlIzATIONcounty seat helped it develop a solid base of affluent, involved citizens and key institutions that seem to have served it well to this day. Riverside’s affluence during its heyday has also given it a rich stock of notable buildings con-structed up until the 1930s.

March Field was opened near Riverside as part of the American war effort in World War I. It grew in importance in the 1920s and the years leading up to World War II, bringing a great many military and civilian workers to the area. At the height of its activity, the base supported 85,000 troops and was a major fixture in the region’s econ-omy until its realignment in 1996. The downsized facility is now known as March Air Reserve Base. Norton Air Force Base in San Bernardino was another important piece of the regional economy from 1942 until its closure in 1994.

As in the rest of the region, the 1940s to the 1960s represented a period of rapid change in River-side, with rapid population growth and economic change. In 1940, 14 percent of the labor force was employed in agriculture. By 1960, this figure had fallen to under 5 percent, while manufacturing rep-resented 17 percent of the total.

There were also big increases in retail employment, finance, insur-ance, real estate, public administra-tion and education.

The Citrus Experiment Station, started in 1907, evolved and trans-formed over the decades and in the 1950s became the Riverside campus of the University of California, giving the city an academic base that has helped to stabilize its economy over time and

that provides a valuable asset for future growth. The city is also home to Riverside Community College, California Baptist Uni-versity, and La Sierra University.

Overall, Riverside dealt well with the transformation from a prosper-ous agricultural community with a small social and economic elite to a middle-class industrial city. The 1950s-70s were a time of growth and prosperity in the country gen-erally and California in particular, with a stable manufacturing base providing good jobs for most of the population.

However, the same trends of decentralization and freeway construction that were affecting the rest of the region also were felt in Riverside. At first, the city probably benefited from these trends as population and jobs moved out to the fringe of the metropolitan area. But just as in other cities, the freeways, and auto-oriented development pat-terns generally, have split apart the various elements of the city and undermined its cohesion.

The effect of these trends, com-bined with the reigning planning philosophy, can be seen in River-side’s downtown just as in so many others. Not only did Main Street become far less important as a retail destination because of changing transportation and land use patterns, but the city actively promoted alternatives.

In the 1960s and 1970s Riverside Plaza and the Tyler Mall (now the Galleria) were opened as auto-oriented shopping centers, draining life from downtown.

Riverside, like Pomona and many other cities, created a pedestrian

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REVITAlIzATIONmall in its downtown in 1966. While it was never a great success, it was not a complete failure like so many other such projects. The presence of a relatively stable em-ployment base in the state office buildings, courts, and other public administration buildings, gave the mall a customer base that most other cities couldn’t count on.

Downtown Riverside also remained a draw for tourists throughout the decades, and many of the main attractions, including an historic landmark, the Mission Inn, are adja-cent to the mall. Furthermore, Riverside has invested in new pedestrian amenities, continued to support a weekly street fair, and engaged the Project for Public spaces to help it improve the mall.

Nevertheless, the combined effects of changing regional patterns of investment, land use, and tranpor-tation, along with the challenges faced by the manufacturing sector, all took a toll on Riverside. The city began to be bypassed by in-vest-ment in newer communities on the eastern fringe of the metropol-itan area. Infrastructure and the housing stock deteriorated, and the city made few investments in key amenities like libraries and parks.

By the late 1980s, there was in-creased recognition of the problems the city was facing. The city’s residents and leaders realized that Riverside was a mature, older community that could no longer count on economic growth but that would have to struggle to rein-vent itself.

Since then, Riverside has begun to confront its problems actively, reinvesting in its housing stock to address deterioration and improve

quality, and to focus on providing a range of housing opportunities for all income levels. The city has attempted to address its diversity issues and treat that diversity as an asset in its economic development strategy.

It is investing in marketing, an activity that now accounts for a substantial portion of its economic development budget, in an attempt to create an image of Riverside as a good place to live, work, and have fun and to capitalize on its central role in the county and the region.

Although there is increased focus on the quality and individuality of Riverside’s neighborhoods, down-town is at the center of attention. The city is developing a mixed-use strategy to revitalize downtown, adding a mixture of housing types, reinvigorating the retail center, and turning it into a vibrant urban hub for the entire region.

In the realm of economic develop-ment, Riverside Regional Tech-nology Park broke ground in 1999 as a collaborative venture of UC Riverside, the city, the county, and private industry. The project’s centerpiece will be the University Research Park, intended to foster and attract high-tech industry to the city.

Riverside has also been paying increasing attention to quality of life, which is one of the main assets any city or region can build as part of a strategy for succeeding in the new economic environment. The population has recently passed bond measures to support schools and libraries and the city has refo-cused attention on parks after years of neglect.

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Magnolia Avenue Corridor Plan materials: The “Corridor Study” document and a site plan that shows how a shopping center at the LaSierra node could be filled in with shops and housing to create a new public square. The cross-hatched area to the right of the square would provide a good location for multi-family housing.


REVITAlIzATIONriverside revitalizes Declining Commercial Corridor

One of the problems typical of older suburban commu-nities that the City has

been trying to address is the revi-talization of the Magnolia Avenue corridor. This major arterial exhibits many of the symptoms of disin-vestment in strip commercial development.

Magnolia Avenue was built in the late 1870s as a grand tree-shaded boulevard that would help market land owned by the fledgling Riverside Land and Irrigating Company. In 1889, an electric streetcar was added, turning it into a thoroughfare uniting the city.

However, helter-skelter develop-ment along Magnolia along with construction of the Riverside Freeway started the decline of the grand boulevard. Construction of large automobile-focused shopping centers at various nodes along the Avenue pumped new blood into Magnolia when they first opened in the 1960s and 1970s, but their subsequent decline in the past decade has resulted in further disinvestment.

In 1996, at the City’s request, the Local Government Commission organized a two-day “SWAT Team” visit by a team of technical experts from across the nation that focused on revitalizing Magnolia Avenue. The group met with representa-tives of neighborhoods along the Avenue and discussed issues and opportunities for improving the corridor.

Following the visit, the City Council appointed a task force to expand on the recommendations made by

the expert team. The task force rec-ommended a dual planning strate-gy that would focus both on the corridor as a whole as well as on the seven local districts that the corridor passes through.

The task force also determined that future plans should focus on the following issues: the role of Magnolia Avenue in Riverside’s Citrus Heritage Program, the Avenue’s role as a transit-oriented corridor, and the concept of “a string of pearls” in which the corri-dor would be treated as a linked chain of notable and interesting neighborhoods and districts which are strengthened by their sequential relation-ship with each other.

The task force also proposed that all future studies look at strengthening what was “right” along Magnolia Avenue and with fixing what was “wrong.” They recommended doing a study of the entire 17-mile corridor to establish a framework for identifying, priori-tizing and coordinating future short- and long-term planning efforts along Magnolia Avenue.

This study, conducted by the urban design firm of Moule and Polyzoides, was adopted by the City Council in 1999 and estab-lished a vision and detailed princi-ples for guiding the revitalization of Magnolia Avenue. The vision of the plan is “to reinvigorate the original corridor and bring Magnolia Avenue back to the grand character intended by its ori-

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Magnolia Avenue: Before and after street

cross-sections along one section of the roadway.


REVITAlIzATIONgianl designers. This has to be achieved by capitalizing on urban design, landscape, transportation and land use opportunities. This kind of integration of multiple dimensions of planning is based on the livable communities concepts that are the foundation for the New Urbanism movement.”

The plan also established some of the following guiding principles:

Economic Principles

➢ The economic role and land use focus of each district should be clearly defined

➢ To be economically vital, a shop-ping destination must have a limited supply of retail space.

➢ Vacant parcels on the corridor should be developed to their present best use, rather than wait for future commercial development opportunities.

➢ A Corridor-wide or City-wide economic development strategy must be implemented.

Transportation Principles

➢ Automobiles are not necessarily the number one priority.

➢ Pedestrian or bus service should not be compromised for the benefit and convenience of automobile travel.

➢ Local traffic access should be handled as a higher priority than the accommodation of through traffic along the corridor.

➢ The use of right-turn pockets should be avoided.

➢ A narrower street to reduce traf-fic speeds and emphasis on a “local” traffic environment should be provided.

➢ Sidewalks and/or sidewalk bulbouts at intersections should be provided where appropriate.

➢ Medians should be retained and/or provided where the street is too wide for comfort-able pedestrian crossing. A median, or “median-islands” should be added to landscape and/or traffic calm appropriate portions of Magnolia Avenue.

➢ Parking policies should be mod-ified to support the “Park Once” concept.

➢ Bike lanes should be designated to have priority over on-street parking where there is no room for both.

The Plan includes a detailed analy-sis and review of the entire corridor focused on: land use and economic performance, transportation, open space and building types, landscape, historic preservation, codes and coding, and catalytic projects. It then goes on to look at four of the districts along the corridor and concludes with proposals for implementation and next steps.

The City has started by developing design guidelines for new signage along the corridor that will help establish the identity and character of the corridor and the neighborhoods through which it passes.

Riverside is also gearing up for the update of its General Plan and staff expect to use that process to develop land use and development standards that will reinforce the recommendations in the Magnolia Avenue Study. These include high-er density housing, improving the relationship of buildings to the street and other features that will

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Bus shelter designs: Each sec-tion of the avenue will have shelters with different design elements.


REVITAlIzATIONsupport a more vibrant, pedestri-an-friendly environment.

Through this project, the LGC and CNU provided assistance to the City with several different issues related to the Magnolia Avenue revitalization effort. Specific efforts included:

➢ Helping the City to coordinate the plan for Magnolia Avenue with the regional transit agency.

➢ Assisting with the City’s on-going efforts to build compact residential housing close to the downtown by giving a presentation to their Planning Commission on the benefits of higher density development.

➢ Enlisting developers Richard Baron and Tony Salazar to provide input to City staff on the residential development poten-tial of several infill sites along Magnolia Avenue. As a result of their visit to Riverside, the devel-opers explored the potential for building new housing on a spe-cific site in one of the declining shopping centers. While the project was put on hold while an adjacent contaminated site was cleaned up, construction activity has started up recently on this project.

➢ Project Manager A.J. Wilson facilitated a citizens’ meeting (at the request of a Council mem-

ber from one of the focus areas on Magnolia Avenue) to discuss priorities for rehabilitation of a major area park. This effort resulted in appropriation of a million dollars for construction of a new aquatic facility.

➢ At the request of City staff, the LGC and CNU enlisted the firm Suisman Urban Design, which has extensive experience on transit-related projects, to devel-op design guidelines for new transit shelters along Magnolia Avenue. The work was conduct-ed in concert with the citizens advisory group established by the City Council.

Riverside has a number of impor-tant assets. Its history of wealth, institutions, and an involved citizenry ready to invest in the community appears to have left a legacy that is helping its current efforts. The city has enjoyed relatively enlightened political leadership in recent years, with strong community participation in the visioning process currently underway. The four university and college campuses can play a role in helping the city build its quality of life, educate its future workforce, and attract business.

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Pedestrians strolling in the downtown

Conclusions and Recommendations

T he conclusions and recom-mendations that follow are excerpted from the report

prepared by Strategic Economics that analyzed the five cities in the broad historical and regional con-text. (The full report can be found at www.lgc.org/freepub/land_use/ reports.)

The five communities discussed in this paper are all different in their origins, their history, their growth, and their current conditions. Azusa, Pomona, and Riverside all have 19th-century origins; Brea and Culver City are largely post-war phenomena. Culver City was founded in response to rapid growth in the region and the desire to provide balanced com-munities accessible to the middle class; the others were agricultural communities that transformed over time. Brea and Culver City have high incomes and are among the region’s most desirable places to live; Azusa and Pomona are struggling.

Despite their differences, all of these communities have faced sim-ilar challenges. After being in a position to benefit from the rapid growth and industrialization expe-rienced on the periphery of the region from the 1940s through the 1960s, they all found themselves losing out to other parts of the region as growth and investment continued to expand outward.

Moreover, the dramatic changes in transportation over the course of just a few decades had severed

the ties between housing, jobs, retail, and institutions that had once characterized these cities. With their internal cohesion gone, and lacking clarity about how to position themselves in a changed region, all the cities watched as their downtowns declined, housing began to deteriorate, and the industrial base began to change under pressure from competition from abroad as well as cheaper regions in California and else-where in the country.

All the cities successfully made the transition from an agricultural to an industrial base, (other than Culver City, which had no need to), but the way in which that happened made a difference for their future well-being. Cities that allowed themselves to be devalued through poor planning – and all did, to one degree or another – found that just a few decades into the process they had little to attract residents, retail, or jobs. Those that were able to plan for lasting value didn’t fall so far.

The 1970s were in many ways a crucial decade. Pomona’s obsolete commercial corridors and indus-trial areas caught up with it and less than three decades after its transformation had begun it found that it was nearly out of the run-ning. Brea, with a more stable base of housing and jobs, and a stron-ger economic base, was able to start building for the future. Cities that ignored the signs of decline in the 1970s, such as Azusa, slipped


CONCluSIONS


CONCluSIONSfarther and farther behind.

By the late 1980s most or all of the cities had realized that they could no longer afford inaction. The recession of the early 1990s delayed some of the movements for change that were starting to gather momentum, but by the late 1990s efforts were well underway.

The similar timelines are no coincidence: all these cities were caught up in regional and national trends that caused many of their problems, just as now they are part of larger trends that are recognizing and attempting to cor-rect the mistakes of the past. Many of the factors that affect these trends are beyond the control of individual cities. The cre-ation of truly healthy, equitable, sustainable cities and metropolitan areas in the United States will require actions at all levels of government.

Yet there is also much that can – and must – be done at the local level. The cities examined show clearly that part of the difference in their varying degrees of success lies in how well they have respond-ed to their larger context.

Older communities currently have more opportunities to revitalize than at any time

in recent history. Immigration and other demographic trends, the increasing importance of place and uniqueness, and the changing nature of manufacturing all indi-cate a different context for revital-ization than the one that existed just 10 or 15 years ago. The factors for success have changed, and the time is ripe for reinvention.

The cities that have been most suc-cessful – Brea and Culver City – have confronted this challenge

head-on in recent years. They have reshaped themselves physically, reinvigorated their job bases, and built on their assets to create unique places. They have com-bined an understanding of their past with a forward-looking vision of what they could become. They have increased their internal cohe-sion – the connections among their different elements – while at the same time strengthening their regional connections and forging new ones.

Brea and Culver City have the advantage of being located in wealthy parts of the region – Orange County and West Los Angeles, respectively – and this undoubtedly has something to do with their success.

However, location alone is not a guarantee of success, nor is a less fortunate location tantamount to a sentence to fail. These two cities have responded to trends in the economy, in their regional context, and in transportation to become balanced, successful communities.

Older suburbs are no longer bene-fiting from being at the edge of a growing metropolis, nor can they offer the amenities of the core. Instead, they must find a different role in the metropolitan area. In order to do this, policymakers must focus on desired functional out-comes. That is, they must pursue measurable improvements in the quality of a community and the quality of life of its residents rather than simply focusing on the strate-gies used to reach those goals, which will necessarily vary.

A pedestrian-oriented downtown is not necessarily feasible or even desirable in all communities; a healthy retail base with physical

“Civilizing Downtown Highways” by the Congress

for the New Urbanism examines ways in which

older arterial roadways can be converted into pedestri-an-friendly Main Streets.

and economic cohesion is.

Preservation or adaptive re-use of older structures is only one strat-egy for achieving the desired out-come of creating a unique place that builds on its history and assets.

The following recommendations describe both an appropriate approach to policymaking and a set of desirable functional out-comes. They are deliberately general since the goal is to lay out a vision for how to think about healthy cities rather than to attempt to prescribe specific policies or actions, given the vastly different challenges faced by communities with different histories in different locations.

Recommendations✔ Begin with an Understanding

of Place

✔ Recognize the Power of Place

✔ Focus on Assets

✔ Foster Diversity and Balance

✔ Create Local Cohesion

✔ Maintain and Expand Regional Connections

✔ Balance and Connect the Local and the Regional

✔ Reinvest and Reinvent

✔ Build Long-Term Value

✔ Pay Attention to the Basics

✔ Balance Past, Present, and Future

✔ Make No Small Plans

✔ Recognize Limits

✔ Forge Regional Partnerships


CONCluSIONS

> ON ThE WEB

Beyond the five cities profiled in detail in the printed version of this guidebook, we also have a number of additional case

studies about revitalization efforts in other older suburbs on our web site.

As you read the following recommendations, you’ll see thumbnail sketches and photos of some of these successes – take a look and then visit our web site to learn more about them.

www.lgc.org/freepub/land_use/reports


RECOmmENDATIONSBegin with an understanding of Place

W hile it may seem trivial to point out that every place is unique, too often

this simple truth is lost in the rush to adopt the solution of the moment, be it a casino, a mall, or any other economic development fad. High-quality, viable, sustain-able communities can only be built on the basis of their own unique history, situation, and assets.

The first step in any revitalization – and a key part of any economic development program – is to gain an understanding of the nature of the place in question. Regions dif-fer vastly: the population growth and immigration experienced by Los Angeles stands in marked con-trast to the stagnation and decline of many “Rust Belt” cities. No two cities are comparable, as we can see from the five examined here.

And even within a given city, neighborhoods vary dramatically.

Each place should be understood as unique, but also part of its larger context. The four variables intro-duced in the regional analysis of the background report – people and society, economy, natural envi-ronment, and built environment – are a starting point, but they must be analyzed in historical and regional context.

Brea’s history as a booming resi-dential and industrial community following the decline of the citrus and oil industries is fundamentally

Addison Circle

A ddison Circle has created a “there” there in Addison, Texas, a classic “edge city” in

the northern Dallas suburbs. Based on a visioning process conducted in the early 1990s and subsequent Specific Plan process, Addison Circle creates an exciting, urban environment by combining over 3,000 new residential units in four-story buildings with ground floor retail, wide sidewalks, public plazas and pocket parks.

> ON ThE WEB


RECOmmENDATIONSdifferent from Pomona’s slow de-cline, not to mention the evolution of Culver City into a center for entertainment- and information-based industries. The transforma-tion of Orange County has created a different regional context than development in the San Gabriel Valley.

An understanding of the history of a place provides a solid foundation for its future health and stability. Not only does history tell us what a place has been and can be, it also provides some of the main assets for the future.

Recognize the Power of Place

h arry Culver recognized the importance of place, even if he equated the qualities

of a good place solely with a benign climate and oceanside loca-tion. An appreciation of unique-ness is important both for under-standing the nature of a place and for shaping its future. Diversity is becoming more rather than less important.

For most of the 20th century, the organizing principle of the American economy was mass production, which emphasizes quantity and homogeneity. These principles affected transportation and urban development along with virtually every other facet of society. Buildings, neighborhoods, and even entire suburbs were virtually interchangeable, in accordance with the principles of mass production and modernism.

However, as the economy has shift-ed towards an information- or knowledge-based production

mode, people have placed in-creasing emphasis on quality and uniqueness. Markets of all kinds have become increasingly seg-mented, consumers want choice, and producers respond to those changing demands. This is the rationale behind the “flexible specialization” production that has replaced much mass production.

In neighborhood design, these trends translate into the need to strike a better balance between form and function, an increased emphasis on maintaining and enhancing quality of life, a renewed sense of the importance of place, and a greater desire for choice.

Compare the strategy of giving dif-ferent architects control over each of the major buildings in down-town Brea to the mass production of identical homes. Witness the importance that almost all these cities have placed on their historic buildings, com-pared to the callous indifference with which such buildings were razed in the 1950s and 1960s.

In other words, uniqueness has value. Cities should not strive to look like and imitate their neigh-bors, but instead should create a unique identity based on their particular situation, history, loca-tion, and assets. They should use the power of place to build value and forge an appropriate strategy for job creation, urban design, housing, and retail.

Most cities can find a retail niche that will allow them to attract their own residents as well as outsiders looking for a particular type of retail or retail experience. Azusa can serve as a Hispanic retail center for the San Gabriel Valley.


RECOmmENDATIONSPomona can create a transit-orient-ed, pedestrian-friendly downtown based on its historic buildings, aca-demic institutions, and artist com-munity. As a regional center, Riverside can focus much more on supplying many of the retail needs of the rapidly growing population of the Inland Empire.

In the housing arena, too, unique neighborhoods hold their value over time. In many cities around the country, older neighborhoods are making a comeback because of their housing stock. The pre-World War II housing in Pomona and Riverside is likely to be more valuable for longer than the newer

housing built in the 1950s. The key is to ensure that housing built today is of high enough quality to retain its value.

Focus on Assets

Some cities are blessed with a fortuitous location, skilled labor force, excellent trans-

portation connections, and historic buildings. Other cities have few vis-ible assets. Yet any successful revi-talization strategy must focus on creating and building assets appro-priate to a particular place, and using the existing assets of the place in question.

The Round at Beaverton

T he Round demonstrates how transit can transform the suburbs. This project – which ran into financial

difficulties in the late 1990s – is making a comeback with support from the City of Beaverton, Oregon. Built around a stop of the MAX light rail line, The Round will include residential apartments, offices and retail along with a public plaza, amphi-theatre and park, all within a stone’s throw of the transit stop.

Graphics: Lane Marketing

> ON ThE WEB


RECOmmENDATIONSAssets are sometimes found in sur-prising places. The Center for Neighborhood Technology has examined urban neighborhoods and identified often-overlooked tangible assets such as concentrat-ed purchasing power (a function of density), mass transit infrastructure, accessibility to the central city, and abandoned and underutilized land. From this perspective, vacant land is not merely blight but an impor-tant resource for development and revitalization. Many of these same assets can be found in older suburbs.

Other literature (Harkavy and Zuckerman, 1999) highlights the role of “eds and meds” (educational and medical institutions) as “hidden assets.” Although much of the relevant literature focuses on large cities, many of the conclusions are also valid for smaller ones. Four of the cities examined in this study – Azusa, Culver City, Pomona, and Riverside – are home to significant academic institutions and four – Brea, Culver City, Pomona, and Riverside – have hospitals.

There are many other examples of assets in these communities. Culver City is turning a blighted industrial area into an architectural landmark and center for high-end jobs. Azusa has easy access to the San Gabriel Mountains and the rec-reational opportunities they pro-vide. Pomona and Riverside have rail connections to Los Angeles. Three of the cities – Culver City, Pomona, and River-side – are reno-vating historic theaters.

And all of them attract immigrants, who have been seen in many cities to contribute greatly to revitalizing the housing stock and the retail base.

In some cases, the city in question has been able to capitalize on these assets; in other cases that remains to be done.

The Center for Neighborhood Technology points out that just as important as these tangible assets are intangible ones such as sense of place, community, social capital, institutions, relationships, and shared knowledge.

The General Plan process in Azusa has made it clear that whatever the city’s problems, many of its res-idents feel a strong connection to the place and to the community and are willing to devote time and energy to improving it.

In Brea, Unocal’s long history, desire to be a good corporate citizen, and vested interest in the place have helped create a spirit of cooperation between the city government, the company, and the public that appears likely to lead to high-quality development on the 120-acre development site for which Unocal is now creating a plan.

And in Riverside, the legacy of an active citizenry that invested in its city is still present and, in the eyes of some, an important asset for the city’s future success.

Foster Diversity and Balance

Although diversity is most often used to refer to ethnic and racial diversity, in fact,

there are many types of diversity that affect communities. Racial and ethnic diversity, diversity of immi-grants and native-born, economic diversity (of households and workers, sectoral diversity of


RECOmmENDATIONSthe economy, a mix of small and large businesses), and land use diversity (housing, employment, retail, etc.), are all part of the picture.

A diverse economy is less suscepti-ble to large economic swings. The economy of the Los Angeles area is currently healthier than that of the Bay Area in part because of the lower degree of dependence on high-tech industries.

Riverside’s diverse economic base – with industry, academia, and public administration – has helped the city avoid serious fiscal crises. Culver City has been economically successful in part because of its diverse economic base. With a solid base in entertainment, the city avoided excessive dependence on aerospace industries.

Local economies can pursue economic diversity as a road to sta-bility and adaptability. As industries

rise and decline, a city can remain an integral part of the regional economy as its economic base adapts to those changes. A balance of land uses and industries can help ensure this stability.

Maintaining economic diversity requires looking carefully at the land and real estate needs of the industries that are desired and ensuring that the city can provide those things. Some commercial uses – such as many industrial activities – are not compatible with residential or office develop-ment and should be segregated from other uses. Increasing inte-gration of some land uses (e.g., residential and retail) is desirable, but there are exceptions to this rule.

Diversity in the labor force can be a strength and a key part of an economic development strategy. A diverse population base – with a

Anaheim

A naheim, California, the city best known as the site for Disney-land, is taking innovative steps

to create a town center while meeting the growing need for housing and livable urban spaces. Several projects are underway to fill in unused parking lots with a mix of uses including housing. One project will redevelop an aging strip mall into a mixed-use vil-lage including 34 residential units. An adjacent site formerly used by a truck-ing company is being redeveloped to include compact housing similar to the sketch shown here.

Graphics: The Planning Center

> ON ThE WEB


RECOmmENDATIONSmixture of skills, occupations, and income levels – supports a diverse economic base by providing employers with access to a wide range of employees.

Riverside is beginning to embrace its racial and ethnic diversity, as well as economic diversity, as part of its economic development strategy.

Moreover, there is evidence that the creative employees required by many of today’s “new economy” industries, as well as by more tra-ditional industries pursuing “high-road” competition, are attracted to places that welcome diversity.

A diverse population can only be supported with a diverse housing stock that serves the needs of the entire range of population. This means that housing policy should be explicitly linked to economic development strategies and should strive to provide a variety of hous-ing types, from apartments to single-family houses, for a variety of income levels. Cities should look for ways to attract and retain highly skilled residents while also preserving and expanding housing opportunities for lower-skill and lower-income residents.

Brea has succeeded in retaining and building significant economic diversity even as it has grown and become more prosperous. The city has industrial jobs and white-collar, high-tech jobs, although the occupational breakdown of its residents also is more skewed towards managerial, professional, and technical jobs than produc-tion jobs. It has a viable down-town as well as a regional mall, and a wide variety of housing types, including affordable hous-ing.

Achieving and maintaining racial diversity is a complex task. Both Azusa and Pomona have dropped off the list of racially balanced cities in the Los Angeles area. While neither could be termed homogeneous, they have lost racial and ethnic diversity as well as economic diversity. And Brea, for all its economic diversity, is arguably the least diverse of the cities studied in racial and ethnic terms.

As cities attempt to regain eco-nomic and racial/ethnic diversity, maintenance of internal cohesion should be a primary concern. Providing high-end housing in a sheltered enclave at the edge of the city is not the same as inte-grating a range of housing types into the fabric of the place. Brea has been quite successful at inte-grating different types of housing and has consistently opposed all proposals to build gated commu-nities. Azusa has also gone to great lengths to ensure that any new housing built at the Monrovia Nursery site is integrated with the rest of the city and downtown.

Create local Cohesion

local cohesion means the degree to which the differ-ent elements of the place

relate to one another successfully. Do residents shop locally? Do people employed locally in a wide range of occupations also choose to live in the place? Are the local institutions, such as universities, involved with the rest of the city? Does the housing stock match the job market? Is high-end housing integrated with other housing and with the fabric of the city as a


RECOmmENDATIONSwhole rather than being segregat-ed in an enclave?

A simple numerical balance (such as a balance of jobs and housing) is not necessarily sufficient, or even desirable; the issue is instead about ensuring sufficient connections among the community’s different elements.

The trends of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s disrupted the cohesion that had previously been a characteris-tic of most towns and cities. Freeways separated jobs from housing even more, creating bed-room communities where residents had no connection to the local job base, and severed the connection between housing and retail, which concentrated in regional malls.

Pomona’s cohesion has been undermined by the loss of jobs and by the fact that the city’s profes-sional and academic jobs are not, for the most part, held by city residents. In addition, the residents of the higher-income housing stock do not generally work in Pomona. Most of the city’s residents travel elsewhere to shop. Higher end housing is ori-ented away from the rest of the community and physically separated from it.

Culver City and Brea, with their stronger economies, demonstrate a higher degree of local cohesion. As higher-income cities, they also boast more desirable – and expen-sive – housing. Although no hard data could be obtained, anecdotally

Citrus heights

C itrus Heights, California, a second ring suburb in eastern Sacramento County, is confronting a problem typical of older suburbs: how to create a town center at a major

arterial roadway intersection. This concept plan looks at the pos-sibility of taking the two roads below ground at the inter-section and building an intimate, walkable village environment on the surface.

Drawings: Mogavero Notestine Architects

> ON ThE WEB


RECOmmENDATIONSboth cities are considered desirable places to live by all segments of their population and by most of the people who work in them. The result is that employees in Culver City’s entertainment industry or Brea’s high-tech firms – as well as in the manufacturing plants and warehouses located in those two cities – are more likely to live and shop in the same place that they work.

Likewise, regardless of their place of employment, the residents of Brea and Culver City seem less like-ly to be oriented away from their home city in other areas of their lives.

Despite their success in attracting shoppers from outside, Brea and Culver City are not necessarily models for other places in this regard. Simple mathematics dic-tates that not every city can enjoy above-average per-capita retail sales. For most cities, capturing more of their internal spending and serving the needs of their resi-dents may be a more realistic goal. It may also be a more desirable goal.

There are promising trends. In Pomona and Riverside, the main universities are becoming more actively involved in the city through neighborhood improve-ment efforts in Pomona, the Riverside Regional Technology Park, and other initiatives. Azusa’s General Plan process has focused on ways to knit together the dispa-rate elements of the city, and pub-lic workshops on the Monrovia Nursery site have led to a project that will be more fully integrated with the rest of the city, including the downtown, and that will serve as a link to the new Gold Line.

Perhaps the most important lesson to remember is the need to create an integrated housing stock. For cities seeking to reverse years of decline, the desire to develop high-end housing at all costs is perhaps understandable, but if housing is truly to serve as an integral part of a high-road economic develop-ment strategy it must be built as part of the city and not an appen-dage to it. As cities add housing to attract a higher-income resident base, they should take great care to avoid creating high-end enclaves.

maintain and Expand Regional Connections

Whatever the importance of internal coherence, all these cities are part of a

larger regional context and they require appropriate connections to the rest of the region. Without those connections, cities become isolated and stagnate. Connections include viable transportation links, the ability to attract outsiders as shoppers or employees, and resi-dents’ ability to participate in the larger regional labor market.

Brea attracts shoppers from outside; Azusa and Pomona do not. Culver City is located in a part of the region that affords its residents with access to a wide range of employment opportunities; options in Riverside are more limited.

External connections are particu-larly important in the case of cities that have lost their traditional job base. In Pomona, as well as in many typical older suburbs in declining industrial areas around the country, much of the housing stock was built to serve a particular industry or even a particular firm.


RECOmmENDATIONSWhile reinvigorating the local employment base is part of the solution, so is forging connections – both tangible and intangible – to the regional economy. Are appropriate transportation links in place? Do residents have the skills and access to information they need to participate in the regional labor market? Can the city attract firms that serve regional industries as suppliers and contractors (e.g., in the way that metalworking firms until recently served the aerospace industry)?

In Pomona, the attempt to connect to the regional labor market was one factor in the city’s decline because of low-end housing that characterized that attempt. Cities must undertake such a transforma-tion with an eye to creating long-

term value. Riverside can leverage its position in the Inland Empire to benefit from being at the center of that region, while also benefiting from being a part of the greater Los Angeles area.

Balance and Connect the local and the Regional

Successful cities require a bal-ance of internal coherence and external connections.

Moreover, since external connec-tions and local elements shape each other, they both benefit from an appropriate interface. The interface between the two, as much as the nature of either one alone, is an important factor shap-ing a city’s development trajectory.

Santana Row

T his project in the City of San Jose, California demonstrates how underper-forming shopping centers in suburban communities can be transformed into higher density, mixed-use urban places. Santana Row features 680,000

square feet of retail space, 1,200 luxury rental apartments, a boutique hotel, 12-screen cinema, over 5,000 parking spaces and a pedestrian-friendly main street in what was once the low-rise Town & Country Mall.

Graphics: Federal Realty

> ON ThE WEB


RECOmmENDATIONSTransportation links must not only connect different places as nodes in a system, but must also connect to the individual elements of each place. The decline of rail transpor-tation and the rise of the freeways was one of the factors that caused the regional population to bypass Pomona’s downtown retail in favor of new regional shopping centers, even as Cal Poly continued to draw employees and students from throughout the region. Pomona’s retail base became isolated from the city’s external connections, just as it was isolated from the other internal elements.

Unlike Pomona, Brea has a balance between its internal elements and its regional connections. This has not always been the case – the freeways and mall helped to destroy the downtown – but the end result is that the downtown that connects to the rest of the city also serves as a regional draw. The same strategy could work in other cities. Downtown retail can be defined by the nature of the local population while also attracting customers from elsewhere. Strong ties with local universities can help support industries that sell their products far away.

This observation has significant implications for both planning and design. The various components of a city should be planned and designed with the external linkages in mind, and vice-versa.

A shopping district with regional appeal will be less effective if it is not easily accessible, just as the bene-fits of a transit link will not be fully realized without supporting devel-opment in the vicinity of the station.

Housing should be integrated into the fabric of the city, both physical-

ly and economically, yet it is unreal-istic to expect that all, or even most residents will work in the city where they live. Housing will be more desirable and more effective as part of an overall economic strategy if it is also linked to trans-portation and serves the regional labor market.

Reinvest and Reinvent

In a dynamic environment, reinvention and adaptation are not episodic events but rather

ongoing challenges. Cities must continuously reinvest in their infra-structure and their built environ-ments. They must reinvent them-selves as the surrounding context changes.

Even when Culver City was named the second-best place to live in Los Angeles County in the mid-1990s, its bland and even unattractive physical appearance was highlight-ed. Since then, the city has invest-ed heavily in its appearance, even as it has transformed an aging industrial zone into a concentration of innovative architecture and high-end jobs.

Brea began the process of transfor-mation when it changed from an economy based on citrus and oil into a residential community with a new job base. It continued with redevelopment efforts that led to the construction of the mall and the civic center. And more recently, it has radically reshaped its down-town.

Ironically, Pomona’s attempt to cre-ate a pedestrian mall was unsuc-cessful because it was, in a sense, too visionary. The complete domi-nance of auto-oriented retail and


RECOmmENDATIONStransportation in the 1960s and 1970s spelled failure for many such projects. It may have been the right idea, but it came at the wrong time: the new freeways spawned regional shopping centers while the old downtowns along the rail-road became obsolete and declined. It was a good idea that didn’t work in the context of the time.

For better or for worse, Brea built its mall to capitalize on the new nature of external connections and transportation, later revitalizing its downtown when the pendulum began to swing back in favor of compact, walkable retail areas.

Build long-Term Value

Good places hold their value over time and afford more possibilities for reinvention.

Building long-term value in the housing stock, in civic buildings, in the retail base, and in the employ-ment base creates greater fiscal stability as well as greater market viability. This requires, among other things, that communities recognize that successful economic develop-ment does not usually consist of a single large scale project, but rath-er can be composed of many smaller incremental actions aimed at main-taining and renewing the most fundamental elements that create a place.

hercules

T he City of Hercules, a fast growing suburb in the San Francisco Bay Area, is turning an old brownfield site into

a new town center with a mix of uses and housing types, narrow tree-lined streets and four distinct residential neighbor-hoods. The plan was developed through a charrette process in 2000, and construction has already begun on homes within the Waterfront Quarter.

Photo: Steve LawtonDrawing: Sargent Town Planning

> ON ThE WEB


RECOmmENDATIONSIn contrast to the shoddy housing built in many cities during the 1950s and 1960s, much of which ended up abandoned and blight-ed, most of Brea’s housing stock seems set to hold its value over time. Creating unique, high-quality neighborhoods does not mean creating exclusively upscale hous-ing, but it does require careful planning and good construction, combined with an effective eco-nomic strategy to safeguard against disinvestment and deterioration of the housing stock over time.

In contrast to the deteriorated malls and shopping centers in many older suburbs, vibrant down-towns can offer more staying power, particularly given the changing economic environment. Although Pomona’s downtown revitalization plan was not a suc-cess when first implemented, the presence of the historic downtown and the conversion of the Village @ Indian Hill into a mixed-use neigh-borhood center will likely be a significant asset that can help build future value.

Finally, a “high road” approach to job creation can create higher long-term value. This does not mean creating only jobs for highly skilled workers in advanced indus-tries. Rather, it means fostering industries of all kinds that compete on the basis of quality and innova-tion, and that therefore pay their workers more and invest more heavily in the place that supports them.

Pay Attention to the Basics

Cities are in many ways analo-gous to individual houses. To maintain and enhance

the value of their houses, home-owners must continuously reinvest in their property, painting rooms, repairing the roof, and replacing leaky plumbing. Without reinvest-ment, the property will eventually deteriorate to the point where it has no remaining economic value.

In the same way, neighborhoods and cities can quickly deteriorate if they are not cared for regularly. The safety and condition of the housing stock should be constantly monitored, codes should be enforced, and cities should devel-op programs to ensure that the housing stock is well cared for. Regular maintenance is far less expensive than wholesale renova-tion, and it prevents the damage from spreading.

Riverside has improved its code enforcement and has also invested in schools and libraries. In Azusa, workshops and “citizen congress” meetings initially focused on com-plaints about the most basic of issues: traffic, dirty streets, and other problems with the nuts and bolts of life in the city.

In response, the city has improved its efforts to keep the streets clean and has planted over 2,000 trees. These measures may seem like drops in the bucket in the context of Azusa’s larger challenges, but they are crucial for arresting and reversing decline and building the quality of life necessary for success.

Balance Past, Present, and Future

In the past, the desire to make way for a new vision has too often resulted in the destruc-

tion of what came before. Such


RECOmmENDATIONSactions ignore the value of existing elements of a city as assets. The past has shaped the present and should inform the future. At the same time, it is important to avoid embracing the past in empty nostalgia. Cities must reinvent themselves continuously, but they must do so with an understanding of what makes them unique and the forces that have shaped them in the past.

Culver City’s Hayden Tract builds on the city’s industrial past even as it fashions a high-tech future. The adaptive reuse of industrial buildings has given the area a unique character that constitutes a significant selling point. River-side’s concentration of historic buildings are a tremendous asset that should be preserved even as the city makes bold plans to re-shape its downtown for the future.

make No Small Plans

A hundred years ago, architect and urban planner Daniel Burnham urged his peers to

“Make no small plans: they have no magic to stir men’s blood.”

However Victorian the language and however overused the quote, the idea still applies today. Reinvention and timidity are poor partners, and cities that want to position themselves for success in changing regions must create bold plans for their future. Brea’s downtown is successful in part because of the vision and leader-ship that supported it. The Hayden Tract in Culver City has few, if any, precedents and has placed its bets on innovative architecture.

Boldness does not mean giving up a sense of reality. Rather, it means

thinking outside the box and being willing to set high standards. In an environment that demands con-stant innovation and reinvention, cities should constantly search for ways to push the envelope even as they continue to focus on the basics. This means that planning should be proactive rather than reactive.

Cities should not merely respond to trends but should create a vision of where they want to go.

Implementation may be incremen-tal and take many years, but cities that have the vision, dedication, and leadership can successfully reinvent themselves.

Recognize limits

Although the previous rec-ommendation exhorts older communities to pursue bold

initiatives and reinvent themselves, a word of caution is in order. At the end of the day, individual cities still operate within a regional context that they have limited power to shape. They will have to respond to trends rather than create them. Even the boldest plans must be tempered by realism. Not all communities can become high-tech meccas (nor should they), nor can they even emulate Brea or Culver City.

Even so, there are many possibili-ties to create stable, healthy com-munities without a regional mall or high-tech entertainment-focused employment base. An awareness of the limits of any given community will help avoid the risk that unrealistic plans will distract attention from the nuts-and-bolts policies – building local-serving retail, improving the


RECOmmENDATIONSquality of employment no matter what the particular industries, creating and maintaining a high-quality and affordable housing stock, and focusing on quality of life.

The main tools that cities have at their disposal – government and markets – also have their limits. The market alone cannot build or main-tain healthy cities and communi-ties, but neither can governments solve all problems or create mira-cles where there is no market sup-port. Cities must recognize the limits of both markets and gov-ernment.

Forge Regional Partnerships

Finally, while cities individually have limited control over their regional context, collec-

tively they have a great deal. Whatever the merits, drawbacks, and prospects of stronger regional institutions, cities have a great deal of freedom to forge partnerships with their neighbors to avoid fruit-less competition and redundancy and shape their regional context for the better.


RESOuRCESmore Resources on Suburban Redesign and Revitalization

A Better Place to Live: Reshaping the American Suburb. Philip Langdon. Harper Perennial, 1994. 270 pp.

American Metropolitics: The New Suburban Reality. Myron Orfield and Bruce Katz. The Brookings Institution, 2002. 221 pp.

Civilizing Downtown Highways: Putting New Urbanism to Work on California’s Highways. Sarah Pulleyblank et al. Congress for the New Urbanism, 2002. 100 pp.

Density by Design. Steven Fader. Urban Land Institute, 2000. 137 pp.

Greyfields into Goldfields. Congress for the New Urbanism, 2002. 88 pp.

“Mall Over.” Richard Bailey. Urban Land Magazine, July 1998. 6 pp.

Redevelopment for Livable Communities. Rhys Roth. Washington Energy Outreach Center. 87 pp.

Ten Principles for Reinventing America’s Suburban Strips. Michael Beyard and Michael Pawlukiewicz. Urban Land Institute, 2001. 24 pp.

Transforming Suburban Business Districts. Geoffrey Booth et al, Urban Land Institute, 2001. 229 pp.

Valuing America’s First Suburbs: A Policy Agenda for Older Suburbs in the Midwest. Robert Puentes and Myron Orfield. The Brookings Institution, 2002. 49 pp.

more Case Studies

C ase studies of the following revitalization efforts in older suburban communities can be found on the Local Government Commission’s web site at www.lgc.org/freepub/Land_use/reports:

➢ Addison Circle, Addison, TX Brings Urban Environment to Dallas Suburbs

➢ Anaheim, CA Intensifies Development at Underused Shopping Centers

➢ Transit-Oriented Development in Beaverton, OR Adds Urban Amenities to Portland Suburb

➢ Brea, CA Recaptures “Heart and Soul of the Community” with a New Downtown

➢ Incremental Infill Development Offers Solution for Reclaiming Suburbs in Citrus Heights, CA

➢ Bay Area’s Fastest Growing Suburb Combats Sprawl with Town Center, Hercules, CA

➢ Failing Shopping Center Gives Life to Vibrant Urban Neighborhood, Santana Row, San Jose, CA


NOTES

printed on recycled paper ■ editing+design: dave davis

Anonprofit, nonpartisan, membership organization, the Local Government Commission is composed of forward-thinking, locally elected officials, city/county staff, and other interested individuals. The LGC inspires and

promotes the leadership of local elected officials to address the problems facing our communities by implementing innovative policies and programs that lead to efficient use of civic, environmental and economic resources.

The LGC has produced numerous guidebooks and other publica-tions on topics related to land-use planning, infill and transit-ori-ented devlopment, livable communities, street design and traffic calming, and related growth management issues.

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