Waco seeks to improve quality of life with urbanism

Urbanism not about ideology

Jon Boyd, Sep 17, 10.

A list of cities embarking on innovative city planning might include Portland and Seattle, but Waco, Baton Rouge, and Tulsa also might make the list.  Waco has hired an urban planning consultant from Portland to help transition the city toward walkable, mixed-use communities, according to an article in USA Today:

In a move not usually linked with areas that have large expanses of open space and strong views on property rights, this central Texas city of about 125,000 is embracing innovative urban concepts. Waco is close to adopting a plan that includes mixed retail and residential downtown development, green construction and high-density, “walkable” communities that discourage driving.

“I was surprised when we got hired,” says John Fregonese, an urban and regional planning consultant based in Portland, Ore., a national model of urbanism. He was brought in to help Waco’s transformation. Two other Southern cities — Tulsa and Baton Rouge — also have hired his firm.

“They’re pretty conservative places, but it’s not about any kind of ideology,” Fregonese says. “They sense the market is going in that direction and that the community that doesn’t have walkability is at a disadvantage in today’s world.”

Some Waco residents and city leaders cite personal advantages to urbanism, and other cite economic necessity, based on quotes from the USA Today article:

Waco’s plan is bold for a city that’s been without a vibrant downtown for about half a century, much of it destroyed by a 1953 tornado. The city wants half the growth projected by 2050 to locate downtown and have 100,000 people living there.

That’s the ambitious goal of Imagine Waco, a 40-year vision drafted with the help of residents. Some meetings attracted 700 people, Groth says. “This plan had a lot of public input,” Mayor Jim Bush says.

The city reached out to segments including poor residents, bankers and investors, Baylor University and arts councils. Chamber President Jim Vaughan used to work in Chattanooga, which has received acclaim for its waterfront redevelopment.

The consensus: develop the banks of the Brazos River, attract the young and empty-nesters from Baylor University’s growing student body and faculty, and highlight tourist attractions (Waco Mammoth Site archeological dig, Dr Pepper Museum and replica of the drugstore where the soft drink was invented, an 1870 suspension bridge over the Brazos, Texas Ranger Hall of Fame & Museum).

Todd Still, 44, lived in a Waco suburb when he graduated from high school. He left but returned in 2003 as a professor of biblical studies at Baylor and resettled in suburbia. Two years ago, he moved to the Austin Avenue neighborhood near downtown.

“The truth is, in postmodern culture where people crave community, they don’t want 42 lawnmowers,” says Still, head of the Austin Avenue Neighborhood Association. “They’re willing to live with the charms and challenges in closer confines.”

Suburban sprawl has to stop, says banker Sam Brown, who plans to create an entertainment and residential district. “Because we have so much land, we have created these monsters we can’t feed anymore,” Brown says, citing the cost of roads, utility lines and services to remote areas. “In the process, we have neglected the heart and soul of our city.”

 

 

 

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