The Case for a Dense Core
Steve Belmont, AIA:

Transit, Location Efficiency, and Transit-Oriented Development
Hank Dittmar:

Financing Mixed Use Progressive Development
Chris Leinberger:

Houston, we have an opportunity
Dr. Arthur C. Nelson, ASCE, FAICP

Developers' Panel

Public Policy Panel

Entire report - pdf - 2 meg

Presentations
Steve Belmont- 14 meg
Hank Dittmar- 19 meg
Chris Leinberger- 18 meg
Arthur Nelson - 8 meg
Jeff Taebel- 3 meg
John Jacob- 3.5 meg
David Crossley- 9 meg

Steve Belmont: The case for a dense core

Steve Belmont, AIA, author of Cities in Full: Recognizing and Realizing the Great Potential of Urban America, and the president of Great Cities Alliance, presented “The Case for a Dense Core.”

Density alone not enough
The central theme of Belmont’s presentation was that it is inefficient and ineffective for cities to plan for density or transit in a vacuum. He said cities need to plan for density and transit together and they need more than just random density; they need strong central, dense cores to make transit most effective and to support the range of shops and services that make driving non-essential.
Belmont began making his point by demystifing certain beliefs about transit and commuting and how they worked in less dense, edge cities. Belmont declared that “transit is irrelevant in most of America’s metropolitan areas” largely because of the low density and poor layout of those cities. He said where transit is most effective is not in the less dense, polycentric cities, but in the denser, central cities such as Manhattan and Boston where there rests a “critical mass” of customers.

Need to separate myth from reality
Belmont also refuted Joel Garreau’s energy efficient “mythology” that declared those living in “Edge Cities” (city centers outside of the traditional, downtown city such as the Galleria area) would drive less, staying within the convenience of their nearby edge city. Instead, he said, the opposite has happened: people are traveling more often and to further places. He said between 1976 and 1997, the US population increased slightly more than 25 percent while Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) grew about 125 percent. The growing Edge City trend, he concluded, isn’t as convenient as predicted.

His next target was smart growth, specifically as it relates to transit, saying that planning for smart growth and transit in some areas is irrelevant. He cited Robert Cervero who said, “Islands of transit-oriented development in a sea of freeway-oriented suburbs will do little to change fundamental commuting habits…Successful transit villages will need to be part of a transit metropolis.” Belmont further emphasized the importance of coehesion saying, “the only way to create a transit metropolis is to first create a transit city.” There is really only one transit metropolis in the nation, he said, and that is New York City, which amounts to one third of the nation’s transit passengers.

Successful transit metros need successful transit cities
New York’s transit success, Belmont says, comes from its intensive high density and relatively strong central city. The strong central-city element, he said, is essential to getting the most out of transit. The chart below shows the clear correlation between population densities and transit shares. A higher density results in a higher percentage of population using transit. However, he noted that Boston strays from the rest in that it has more transit per population than its density would seem to merit. Belmont says this is due to the city’s especially strong, dense central city.

Belmont then talked about various areas’ struggles to make transit an important part of overall commutes. He said that Atlanta, Buffalo, Cleveland, San Diego, San Jose, Sacramento, all have transit making up less than 4 percent of total commutes according to the 2000 census (Houston also had less than 4 percent). He said three things are needed for better transit:
1) Closely spaced routes
2) Frequent service
3) Direct service to more destinations

What is most needed to make transit work
But the critical factor to making transit work, he stresses again, is the central, dense core. To further emphasize this position, he points to the New York Regional Plan Association’s “Where Transit Works,” which clearly states focusing growth on the central areas results in high rewards for transit trips, “Say the options are to double residential density…within one mile of a downtown…or at a distance of 10 miles from it. In the first case, public transit trips per capita in the affected area will increase seventeen times as much as in the second case.”

Some cities, however, have managed to invert the dense, central core idea by instead planting single family homes just beside downtowns, making “suburbs in the cities,” and pushing density further away from downtowns, he said. He viewed this development as fundamentally incorrect, and said the cities that have got it right not only show benefits in transit numbers, they also see benefits in other areas including safety, economy, and cultural amenities.

Jane Jacobs revisited
Belmont wrapped up the presentation by revisiting Jane Jacobs, a well-known urban philosopher and author of several books about city planning. He quoted her four virtues of high-density urban residential districts:
1) They generate little vehicular traffic.
2) They foster street safety.
3) They generate and sustain a rich variety of commercial and cultural amenities.
4) They produce and/or attract affluence.

Belmont used New York City to prove each case. New York City, with a density of 26,404 residents per square mile, is safer than the less dense San Francisco, Minneapolis, Houston, and Atlanta. He pointed out that, unlike some of the more suburban cities, New York has the “impenetrability” quality where individuals can not easily escape between the shoulder-to-shoulder buildings of NYC as they can in the more open neighborhoods in the suburbs.

Finally, Belmont noted density’s attraction of the affluent. Quoting Dr. James Hughes of Rutgers University, he said, “The rich are only willing to buy and live in a few select locations and—obviously—Manhattan is one of them.”* The chart above shows the correlation of income and density: the higher the density, the higher the income.