Better Cities, Better Lives
Three Midwestern cities are making strides toward becoming premier, ideal locations
By Elizabeth Robinson
There’s no blueprint. No step-by-step how-to. No clear set of guidelines. An ideal city is undefined, but city leaders across the U.S. are striving to define ‘ideal’ in their own ways.
“What is the ideal city?” Jack Messer, director of planning and development services in Overland Park, Kan., said. “I mean everybody has a different set of ideal criteria by which they make that decision. I think it gets real hard to say, ‘This is the way you ought to do it.’”
Despite the uncertainty of what makes a city ideal, cities across the United States are working toward that goal. Of course, this requires significant time and energy. It takes years of planning and a cooperative community with a future-focused vision for its city.
“To some extent people actually like the grit of cities. I would say the view of what the ideal city is has changed as people have gotten to prefer urban life,” said Dan Biederman, founder of a private city-consulting firm that helps revitalize cities across the U.S.
In 2010, 81 percent of Americans lived in urban areas, and the population of urban areas skyrocketed by 12.1 percent. With people migrating from the suburbs to the cities, more opinions on what the ideal city should be are springing up.
“The fact that there’s a preference for urban situations now among (Millennials) has had a huge affect on the culture,” Biederman said. “There are television shows that glamorize urban lifestyle of young people who are just out of college. I think that’s changing society’s view of cities and economic choices.”
Ideal cities aren’t all about the glamour, though. Biederman said there are three basic tenets to creating a model city: safety, cleanliness and aesthetics. City leaders throughout the U.S. are applying these tenets to their cities.
Growth and Improvement
For Messer and the Overland Park planning and development department, a successful community considers the wants and needs of its residents and develops the city in a way to meet those needs.
To meet those needs, a comprehensive plan is used to pinpoint where future growth is possible and what’s needed to facilitate said growth. This is where Biederman’s tenets come into play. Messer said all aspects of a community — safety, transportation, education, leisure, etc. — must be present to make a community complete and close to the ideal.
“Of those things that build a city, I don’t think that one takes precedence over the other. I think they all work together,” Messer said. “If you just build a highway and don’t worry about anything else, you haven’t built a city, you just built a highway. I mean all of those things work together; you have to consider all of those.”
The Overland Park area has grown and improved in its 50-some years. Growth has come in terms of population size, environmental logistics (like storm-water storage), walkability and leisure, commerce and education opportunities. In Messer’s opinion, Overland Park’s road to becoming an ideal city is by continuing this growth and improvement. For him, and for Overland Park, there’s no staying still.
“There is no situation in the growth and development of cities where you get to just stay where you’re at. You’re either gonna fall behind or you’re gonna move ahead,” he said. “We want to be a growing, thriving city where our citizens can come and meet their expectations, exceed their expectations and live out their life in a way that satisfies them.”
The Tomorrow Plan
Other Midwestern cities are following suit. In central Iowa, the Tomorrow Plan was developed to focus on creating a “vibrant, enduring future for greater Des Moines.” The organizing team consists of several local government officials, groups like Habitat for Humanity, Iowa Health and Urban Ambassadors and local sponsors including restaurants, attractions and universities.
“We really just want this to continue to be a great place to live, work, learn and play,” said Bethany Wilcoxon, senior transportation planner for the Des Moines Area Metropolitan Planning Organization. “We want to continue to push and make sure this is a place where people want to be, where their kids and grandkids want to be, and it becomes one of the premier cities in the nation.”
The Tomorrow Plan looks to execute improvements in affordable housing, environmental improvements (like water quality) and a long-range transportation plan that increases bus ridership numbers and better service, particularly in more socioeconomically depressed neighborhoods. Organizers anticipate a big push for sustainable living in regard to local food issues and the development of the downtown Des Moines community. The first stage started July 2011, and the entire plan is set for completion by 2050. Des Moines resident Kitte Noble thinks the future improvements will create a better quality of life in Des Moines.
“I know there’s a lot of talk of a lot of those things that are going to happen or are on the wish list of things to happen, and I think our city leaders have done a great job of looking ahead and looking into some of those options,” she said. “I think it will just make it all the more enticing for people to move here and continue to stay here and not move away.”
Some of the most influential resources for the Tomorrow Plan have come from other cities that have undertaken similar projects, like St. Paul, Minn.
The Most Livable City in America
With a motto like “The Most Livable City in America,” St. Paul set high expectations for itself. But those lofty expectations aren’t daunting. With the St. Paul 2015 plan in place by the department of city planning and economic development, becoming the “most livable city” isn’t too far away. The City of St. Paul is gearing up efforts toward serving a variety of incomes and household types, providing jobs to serve people at various education levels, building commercial corridors combined with neighborhoods and a walk-able, green atmosphere surrounding the city.
The city’s main project is implementing a light-rail system connecting downtown St. Paul to downtown Minneapolis. Not only will this be an efficient form of transit, but it will also make more developments along the transit line possible.
St. Paul is also looking at Biederman’s last essential step — becoming an aesthetically pleasing city.
“We have kind of an artist district in the lower part of our downtown, so we’ve been working on supporting that and encouraging more restaurant movement down there and bringing more concerts and other arts activities downtown, and publicizing that and I think that’s been really successful,” said Donna Drummond, director of planning for St. Paul.
As plans in cities like Overland Park, Des Moines and St. Paul come to fruition, the standards and expectations for ideal cities will continue to rise, creating more model cities throughout the U.S. Biederman said this is what the U.S. needs. Better cities will lead to better lives.
“I work everyday in a city and I think it’s a stimulating environment,” he said. “So I think the society, it sounds odd, but I think society gets smarter as cities become more lively and healthy.”
Photos courtesy of the City of St. Paul Planning and Economic Development
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