Lay new sidewalks, keep old trees - This should have gone without saying, but the municipal sidewalk program should preserve as many existing street trees as possible. Tall trees with full foliage shade the sidewalk and make walking around the City more bearable in Syracuse’s steamy summers. A sidewalk—even a brand new perfectly level one—will not be a good place to walk … Continue reading Lay new sidewalks, keep old trees →
Sidewalk maintenance and street trees - Sidewalks and street trees both make it easier, safer, and more comfortable to get around town on foot, so Syracuse’s new municipal sidewalk program and Urban Forestry Master Plan should make life better for pedestrians. But these two programs might work against each other if they’re not coordinated. One side of the problem is that … Continue reading Sidewalk maintenance and street trees →
Plant more trees in Clinton Square - Clinton Square is Syracuse’s premier civic space. Bob Haley calls it “the center of the center of the center.” It’s the spot where the City of Syracuse started. It’s the site of our biggest city festivals. It’s where we gather as a community. City Hall has always taken special care of the space. It’s been … Continue reading Plant more trees in Clinton Square →
How cars killed Syracuse - 81’s construction was a cataclysmic event in Syracuse’s history. Building the highway—and 690 soon after—meant tearing down dozens of city blocks and demolishing hundreds of homes. But although that event stands out for the scale of its destruction, it was neither the beginning nor the end of Syracuse’s campaign to demolish itself. Aerial images from … Continue reading How cars killed Syracuse →
Food Deserts and Parking Lots - Too many people living in too many neighborhoods have too hard a time getting fresh food. In part, this problem has to do with the fact that grocery stores won’t open in poor neighborhoods—so-called ‘food deserts.’ But, because food deserts are only ‘deserts’ for people without cars, it also has to do with how accessible … Continue reading Food Deserts and Parking Lots →
The mechanics of exclusion - Syracuse’s zoning ordinance makes most buildings illegal. Before anyone can build almost any new building or put an old one to almost any new use, they have to get a special exemption from the zoning code in the form of a variance or permit. This seemingly bureaucratic process is actually intensely political—the zoning appeals board … Continue reading The mechanics of exclusion →
What to do with Shoppingtown - After losing out on millions of dollars in tax revenue and spending millions more in bankruptcy court, Onondaga County has gotten legal control of Shoppingtown Mall. Now the County’s just got to figure out what to do with that 70 acre property. Given the geographic location of the site and the demographic trends in the … Continue reading What to do with Shoppingtown →
A greenway for the Westside - Soon, the Eastside, Southside, and Northside will all have access to a cross-county network of greenways running through two of the three big valleys that intersect at Downtown Syracuse. That third valley—stretching from the City Center to Split Rock through Syracuse’s Westside—should have it’s own greenway too. Abandoned train bridges, a channelized creek, and public … Continue reading A greenway for the Westside →
Will the Inner Harbor become the new Central Business District? - White collar companies are building new office space at the Inner Harbor instead of Downtown. This could be the start of a tectonic shift that remakes the City’s economic and social geography. Equitable’s plan to move from its landmark office building on Madison to a brand new building on Clinton Street is just the most … Continue reading Will the Inner Harbor become the new Central Business District? →
Neighborhood-Scale Retail - When you’ve already started cooking dinner and realize that you’re out of eggs and that you absolutely have to have eggs for this meal to work, it’s a beautiful thing to be able to just run down the block to buy a dozen without even turning the stove off. When you don’t own a car … Continue reading Neighborhood-Scale Retail →
Multifamily Housing and Neighborhood Character - 331 Winton St is a 2-story, 3-unit apartment building on the Northside. Jefferson Tower is a 23-story, 295 unit Downtown high rise. ReZone can’t tell them apart—as far as City Hall’s new zoning ordinance is concerned, both are ‘multifamily’ housing, and both will be banned from most of Syracuse. That will cause 2 huge problems: … Continue reading Multifamily Housing and Neighborhood Character →
Get Rid of ReZone’s Apartment Bans - City Hall’s ReZone project is an opportunity to unmake the mistakes that have made Syracuse into a segregated city. That will require change, though, because the new zoning map is drawn in such a way that it will entrench inequality and exacerbate the disparities between the City’s neighborhoods. To see how, look at Census Tract … Continue reading Get Rid of ReZone’s Apartment Bans →
Finding Space for Social Distancing - Coronavirus has put space at a premium. A lot of the places where we gather weren’t set up for people to keep six feet apart from each other. Packing into crowded restaurants, churches, arenas, or malls just won’t work the way it used to, and if those businesses and institutions are going to work at … Continue reading Finding Space for Social Distancing →
Three Reasons to Free Streets From Cars - As Syracuse plans to reserve more of its streets for buses, bikers, and people on foot, it’s important to be clear about why that’s a good idea. There are at least three different reasons to keep cars off a city street. To make an intersection safer Intersections where lots of streets meet at odd angles … Continue reading Three Reasons to Free Streets From Cars →
Walking to the Market - It was 5 degrees Saturday morning, but people still walked to the Farmers Market. They put up with the cold, the unsafe streets, and the snow-covered sidewalks because the Market provides access to good cheap food, and because Saturday’s weather was too common to change anybody’s weekly routine. And if people were willing to walk … Continue reading Walking to the Market →
Apartments Go Up and Rents Come Down - Two new residential projects planned for Downtown’s eastern edge indicate that developers may have finally run out of tenants willing and able to pay $2,000 a month to live in the city center, and now they’re building more affordable apartments. For a full decade, this didn’t feel possible. Every single new apartment project got a … Continue reading Apartments Go Up and Rents Come Down →
Trouble with the Curb - In the 2020 State of the City address, Mayor Ben Walsh announced that City Hall is going to try and find a way to take full responsibility for sidewalk maintenance and snow removal, and he announced that City Hall is going to repair a lot more pavement. These two promises have the potential to remake … Continue reading Trouble with the Curb →
ReZone and Syracuse’s Housing Shortage - There aren’t enough places to live in many Syracuse neighborhoods, and the City’s new zoning ordinance needs to help do something about it. Between 2000 and 2016, in 18 census tracts containing ⅓ of the City’s population, the number of people looking for a place to live increased faster than did the total number of … Continue reading ReZone and Syracuse’s Housing Shortage →
Safe Streets without Traffic Law Enforcement - Car-drivers break the law all the time. They speed, they roll through stop signs, they run red lights, they drive over crosswalks while people are trying to cross them on foot. They do all that because it’s accepted and expected behavior, even though it’s also dangerous and illegal behavior. In a better world, this is … Continue reading Safe Streets without Traffic Law Enforcement →
Tax Downtown Parking Lots Out of Existence - Property owners enjoy a de facto tax break when they waste valuable land Downtown by using it as a parking lot instead of something more productive. Take these two lots on the 200 block of East Washington Street. Lot A is a Bank and Lot B is a surface parking lot. City Hall says that … Continue reading Tax Downtown Parking Lots Out of Existence →