Michigan builds economic development around placemaking

The administration of Republican Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder launched a program in April that ties placemaking to economic development and, although the initiative is in its early stages, has the potential for far-reaching impact.

The MIplace Initiative embraces the ambitious goal of constructing “a Transect-based approach to good development in Michigan” while using the mixed-use neighborhood as a development model, according to James Tischler, community development director for the Michigan State Housing Development Authority (MSHDA).

Better! Cities & Towns interviewed Tischler by phone and also received an email response from the agency. “Two central activities of this [Place] Council are to promote principles and practices which create regions, downtowns, and neighborhoods that are attractive places to live, work, and play, and to engage in strategic activities that lead to the retention and attraction of talent,” explained MSHDA staff member Leslie Kettren.

More than a dozen nonprofit organizations throughout Michigan have joined the partnership and sit on the Place Council. Getting widespread support and input from nongovernmental groups is key for success, the organizers believe. Yet Snyder has asked that MIplace move forward “in dog years,” Tischler says. The goal is to marshal “A significant amount of state, regional, local and private resources ... to make significant physical change in a relatively short period of time (such as 2-6 years).”

New model

“It’s a model that has never been tried before. It could be applied in a number of states,” notes architect and urban designer Mark Nickita, the mayor of Birmingham, Michigan. Nickita is a board member of the Michigan Chapter of the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU), which is providing technical assistance in curriculum development, case studies, and Transect mapping.

In explaining the importance of placemaking, Snyder told the state legislature: “Competing for success in a global marketplace means creating places where workers, entrepreneurs, and businesses want to locate, invest and expand. ... A community without place amenities will have a difficult time attracting and retaining talented workers and entrepreneurs, or being attractive to business.”

Snyder hails from the Ann Arbor region, one of the most livable in the state from its urban core to rural outskirts — and that background influenced the governor’s understanding of the value of place, Tischler says.

The approach is summed up by the title of a book, The Economics of Place, recently published by the Michigan Municipal League, a nonprofit that supports Michigan communities and is a MIplace partner. One of the book’s essayists, developer and author Christopher Leinberger, reports that more than 35 percent of the nation’s asset base — more than double the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ combined — consists of the built environment. Compact, walkable places are highest in demand but are also illegal or poorly understood in many communities, Leinberger says.

The initiative seeks to address that problem. It is led by MSHDA, whose executive director, Gary Heidel, made the announcement in April, and the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC).

The program has three main components. The first is education: MIplace is creating a comprehensive Placemaking Curriculum that is tailored to diverse audiences — such as citizens, elected officials, developers, and various interest groups. Like college curricula, numerical designations — e.g. 100, 200, 300, 400 — will designate beginning to advanced levels. “There are a ton of people and organizations that know how to do things right, many reside at CNU,” Tischler says.

The training program will, at minimum, involve thousands of people at state, regional, and local levels in the public and private sectors, Tischler says.

The second component is practice and implementation. Efforts in this area include identifying current or recent projects throughout the state that achieve placemaking goals. Five recipients of US Housing and Urban Development Sustainable Communities grants are working with MIplace to set up a network for shared expertise.

MIplace also intends to map the state by urban-rural Transect — potentially the largest effort of this kind. The Transect is used to classify the built and natural environment into six tiers, from natural to urban core. It is widely employed in form-based codes, street design, comprehensive plans, and other applications. Regions have been mapped by Transect zone, but never an entire state. The Transect zones will be correlated to socio-economic data to determine areas that are most in need and also likely to benefit from placemaking initiatives, Tischler says.

Policy recommendations will come out of what is learned through education and practice/implementation. MIplace will base policies on practices and projects within the state to avoid skepticism of solutions from distant locations, he adds.

Funding

Currently, MIplace is being run with existing budgets out of the two agencies. MSHDA and MEDC distribute a total of $80 million in Community Development Block Grants and HUD HOME grants, which could be allocated using placemaking priorities, Tischler says. “It is a matter of looking at existing resources and organizing them for maximum efficiency, leverage, and opportunity as a starting point,” writes Kettren.

The MIplace Initiative will allow the state to employ a resource allocation model for state expenditures and infrastructure, similar to the State of Maryland’s Priority Funding Areas, which have influenced the allocation of that state’s resources for more than a decade. Whereas Maryland’s program allocates funds regionally, MIplace will target places within the region, Tischler explains.

The Michigan Department of Transportation will be key, because street and transit networks provide the foundation for placemaking. Michigan has a Complete Streets law, and Tischler is on the DOT’s Complete Streets Advisory Council.

“Complete streets policies are moving into alignment with the DOT’s context sensitive solutions project,” he says. “This could accelerate the development of complete streets. The next dimension is to calibrate complete streets with different context zones.”

The following is a list of the types of regional and community placemaking improvements necessary to attract and retain talent, according to a brochure on the initiative:

• Wide range of housing choices (including workforce, affordable, rental and owner-occupied housing)

• Wide range of transportation choices (including improved transit)

• Quality public infrastructure

• Mixed-use development

• Pedestrian orientation

• Many amenities (including green and blue infrastructure, bicycle paths and trails, entertainment venues, etc.)

A timeline for the initiative includes start of training for state agency staff and major stakeholders by July 2012, and start of training of local government officials by September 2012. “We hope to have the entire Initiative launched by October 1, 2012, and encourage folks to stay tuned through miplace.org for updates,” notes Kettren.