Revisiting ADU's

The White House is being used an ADU now. See USAToday: Obama mother-in-law to move into White House

By all accounts, Obama has a good relationship with his mother-in-law. She had put off retirement for years, but finally retired last summer to take care of the granddaughters while their parents campaigned.

"She didn't want anyone else taking care of the kids but her," McCormick Lelyveld said. "She wanted to be the one there."

Barack Obama has called her one of the unsung heroes of his campaign, and spoke of holding her hand on election night.

But when asked by "60 Minutes" if Robinson would move in, he quipped: "Well, I don't tell my mother-in-law what to do. But I'm not stupid. That's why I got elected president, man."

If the White House can be used as a granny-flat then why not my house in Traverse City? The ADU opponents need to admit that their real problem is with renters. Traverse City is not alone in this struggle of locals vs. renters. See Smartmoney: New Battle Affects Home Values: No-Rental Rules. But it is time to revisit this issue as an ADU gives economic flexibility to the homeowner which is needed in these difficult economic times.

Cross Country Skiing

MyNorth.com has a nice article about all the wonderful skiing opportunities in northern Michigan: Cross-Country Skiing Through Traverse City's Coastal Forests

More Community Supported Fishing

Mentioned this idea last March.

The idea is growing. See: Skipper Otto's Wild BC Salmon CSF

How much does it cost & what will I get?
The cost is $250.00/ year. You will receive approximately 35lbs of the best quality whole, fresh and/ or frozen salmon that is available that season direct from the fisherman. This amounts to roughly 7 fish at around 5lbs each (about $7/lb). Most years, you will receive nothing but sockeye salmon; however, if the sockeye runs are poor, you will receive an equivalent value of other salmon.

Via TreeHugger

The Best Cities - Smart People And Lots Of Fun Things To Do

Update 1/16/2009
And let's not forget great places to live need great places to relax.
Boston.com: How the city hurts your brain ...And what you can do about it

Traverse City has a good start in being a great small town. But it is not all the way there yet. Living here "feels" as though we're on the verge of either becoming a great place to live and an economic engine or a touristy follower-town.

What makes a place a nice place to visit usually makes it a nice place to live.

There have been some recent articles regarding what makes some cities always attractive and what a place needs to do to be more than a nice place to visit. What is comes down to is put together a lot of smart people and give them fun things to do.

Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia released a research paper titled City Beautiful (PDF).

...past studies have provided only indirect evidence of the importance of leisure amenities for urban development. In this paper we propose and validate the number of leisure trips to metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) as a measure of consumers' revealed preferences for local leisure-oriented amenities. Population and employment growth in the 1990s was about 2 percent higher in an MSA with twice as many leisure visits: the third most important predictor of recent population growth in standardized terms. Moreover, this variable does a good job of forecasting out-of-sample growth for the period 2000-2006. “Beautiful cities” disproportionally attracted highly educated individuals and experienced faster housing price appreciation, especially in supply-inelastic markets. Investment by local government in new public recreational areas within an MSA was positively associated with higher subsequent city attractiveness. In contrast to the generally declining trends in the American central city, neighborhoods that were close to “central recreational districts” have experienced economic growth, albeit at the cost of minority displacement.

The researchers studied 15 variables to come to their conclusions:

Log Total

Employment in Tourism-Related Activities(1990)

Log Population

Log Number of Colleges

Poverty Rate

Log January Average Temperature (Average 1941-1970)

Log Average Annual Precipitation (1961-1990)

Share with Bachelors Degree

Share Workers in Manufacturing

Share Workers in Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate

Average Block-Group Distance to Park

Average Block-Group Distance to Recreation Sites

Log Historic Places per Capita

Coastal Share within a 10 km Radius

Mountain Land Share within a 10 km Radius

Boston.com has more on this research: Urban playground: As politicians weigh economic stimulus for cities, research suggests a surprising way to succeed: make it fun

In their paper, Carlino and Saiz found a statistical correlation between the number of leisure visits to a metropolitan area and the growth of factors like population and housing values. They controlled to determine that the tourism itself wasn't causing the growth, and argue in their paper that people move to the cities for the same reason they visit as tourists. They also demonstrate that investment by local governments in such "recreational capital" - spending on parks, cultural institutions, sports facilities, and other public-private spaces - has succeeded in making cities like Charlotte and San Antonio more attractive to tourists. They compute that a 10 percent boost in such spending yields a 2.3 percent increase in leisure visits, and, if the correlation holds, will also increase growth.
"If you have things that attract high-skilled, high-income individuals, they are more productive," said Carlino, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. "They are the ones who are likely to start up new companies."

And in the NYT Exonmix blog an entry on why NYC continues to thrive: New York, New York: America’s Resilient City

Homo sapiens are a social species; almost all of what we know we learn from each other. Dense cities, like New York, succeed when they take advantage of this fundamental aspect of our humanity. They thrive by enabling us to connect with each other, which then promotes learning and innovation. The current downturn will only increase the returns to being smart, and you get smart by hanging around smart people.

The formula for a great city seems clear: create a city with a temperate climate near a coastline and with museums, colleges, parks, and downtown magnets -> create dense housing in an urban core -> smart people will come to the city -> human capital will make the city great.

How To Get More Out Of Alleys

Traverse City's core neighborhoods all have alleys with houses near the sidewalks and garages in the back lane. This rear space could be used for much more. If not an ADU then how about an office.Something like this at TH: Back Lane Intensification by Pyatt Studio

All For Nothing

One million dollars later and the decision on what happens to the Boardman River Dams is being left to the City of Traverse City and Grand Traverse County.

See:
R-E: No consensus on Boardman River dams

IPR: Dam Decision

Below is an abridged version of the letter I submitted to the Boardman River Dams Project:

My Boardman River Vision

...the most important things for me are to return the River to as natural a state as possible; create additional recreational opportunities; and maintain water level impoundments as best as possible in order to minimize private landowner impacts.

I'll address my vision by working from upstream to downstream.

Brown Bridge Dam
I know that the impoundment behind this dam is a large draw for many people and therefore a complete removal of this dam is not likely. However, since there is space available I would love to see a structure that allows overflowing water but without the dangers of a low-head dam. My vision is reminiscent of the limestone bedrock in southwestern Ohio. There the rivers flow over large limestone "steps" and the effect can be quite stunning. I would love to see this natural feature replicated by a series of wide concrete steps where Brown Bridge Dam currently sits; structures that would retain a pond of some size behind it yet allow water to flow downstream and the migration of fish.

Boardman Dam
Remove or breach Boardman Dam but throw in boulders or a "rock" dam in order to allow fish migration, fast water habitat, rapids for canoeing/kayaking, yet maintain elevated water levels behind the structure to lessen the impact on waterfront property owners. Build a high two-lane bridge for Cass Rd. so that hikers may pass underneath it and along the river.

Sabin Dam
Remove it completely; let this area return to a natural state. Make the reclamation a feature of the GTCD Nature Center.

Union St
At the very least modify the structure to allow salmon and sturgeon to migrate upstream while keeping out lampreys. As a pie-in-the-sky dream, create a whitewater park between Cass Rd and Union St. This would likely become a regional destination as many U.S. cities are recognizing (e.g., Spokane, Des Moines, Flint, Reno, etc) and I've read about the enthusiasm the surf park in downtown Munich, Germany has created. It could also serve as the hub for TART's regional trail network.

Boardman Lake
I think consideration for Boardman Lake should also be part of any dams decision.

It almost seems sad that a river as recognized as the Boardman is forced through undignified steel tunnels under S. Airport Rd. Not only are they ugly but these tunnels make it very difficult to put-in downtown and paddle up the lake to points further upstream. In my case, when canoeing with my dog he refuses to go through the tunnels! Plus, the steel tunnels just are not inviting for paddlers.

I propose to replace the single eastern Boardman River tunnel with a larger and more natural-looking tunnel-like structure. Something that is big enough to allow two paddlers through at a time but low enough to keep out motorboats, And wide enough to allow a spur of TART's Boardman Lake trail to safely pass underneath S. Airport Rd. so that it could eventually connect to the GTCD Nature Preserve.

And to compensate for the slight reduction in nesting areas due to lower water levels further upstream create a no-wake zone along Boardman Lake's western shore area from in front of the Boardman Lake Condominiums south to S. Airport Rd. in the hope that this will allow loons and other waterfowl to find nesting areas.

To conclude, theses are exciting times for the Traverse City area. There is a great opportunity to link the decision on the Boardman River dams with the new Traverse City master plan and the Grand Vision initiative. I hope my ideas are useful.

Urban Farming In Detroit

What would make a good term to describe the establishment of farms in once urban areas? Re-ruralization?

Detroit is trying it.

See BB: GM's Bust Turns Detroit Into Urban Prairie of Vacant-Lot Farms

The city has more than 500 gardens and ``we plan to triple that every year,'' said Michael Travis, deputy director of Urban Farming, a Detroit-based nonprofit corporation that helps clear land and provides topsoil and fertilizer.