Can American Cities Save Themselves? This One Thinks So.

it's a story all too familiar for Rust Belt cities a small City sees the main industry leave and is stuck waiting for someone to save them but what if the calvary isn't coming South Bend one of the first to experience this realize that if they wanted a new and better version of South Bend they would have to create it themselves I'm here to learn from them and to find the answer to this question what happens when a town truly believes that they can create the place that they want [Music] so South Bend has always been kind of like a pioneering City because you know when we were born as a city you know this was where first of all Native Americans congregated and then it was where fur Traders and others began to come and then it was where early industry began to start and then we got the Studebaker Corporation here and we had this major auto company coming and then in 1963 Studebaker left and at the time that was the beginning of the de-industrialization of America and what we saw at the beginning of the Rust Belt we were the first place to start it to rust places like South Bend Detroit Gary and Youngstown were the heartbeat of the American dream these were not just the cities of the future they were places where people lived good lives if you think that your place is immune from the DraStic decline seen in these cities then you're ignoring things like Automation and AI that are just on the horizon this is why it's crucial for us to watch and learn from the steps taken by these cities as they ReDiscover themselves the stakes are too high not to if a community doesn't develop if a Rust Belt City doesn't develop an ecosystem and really start to sort of take its future into its own hands it just continues to rust there's no guarantee that things are going to work out and we're going to talk about the difficulties but it's hard not to be optimistic when looking at the progress and mindset of people living here well there's a lot of potential that I saw in South Bend and still see in South Bend I think what also really attracted me to South Bend is is the people and the resilience that I see I really feel like places like South Bend are the perfect places for people to bring new ideas to because you can be connected to the administration you could be connected to Banks everybody here is actually I believe trying to support people to make the city a better place I mean we're in a place right now uh the general Deli where I met local developers just randomly and we have those random conversations that actually led to results I had no idea what was going to become of it but we should start having some conversations I was starting to do a little bit of development over in uh near Northwest neighborhood and Tim was city planner and uh and I was just looking for a good coffee shop these kinds of connections are important because there's a lot of work to be done and South Bend knows this the thousand houses in a thousand days campaign introduced by Pete butterjudge was part of an effort to improve neighborhoods by repairing or demolishing abandoned or vacant houses which weren't contributing to the community and were hurting the values of homes in these core neighborhoods this was mostly seen as a success by the city of South Bend but now the challenge ahead is how does the city ensure that people who saw the decline also get to be part of the investment and how do you bring the right kinds of developers to create the places you want it wasn't that long ago that people were calling South Bend a dying City and this kind of work is the work that is pushing back hard against that narrative this is a City full of opportunity it's affordable you could come here you can get something done you can meet folks you can get plugged into an ecosystem of very enthusiastic people who are trying hard to make change happen so we you've heard of this idea of developing an ecosystem a couple times now what they're referring to is the network of people in a community with the resources connections knowledge or desire to invest in the places they live let me show you we start with a dream to make a great neighborhood we can't let our neighborhood go down and so we've joined forces with like a Mike King with like an n and n with like a Heritage Foundation with like Anne Mannix and what they're doing in hopes that we could come alongside of all of them in a collaborative effort to to rebuild our neighborhood we're not New Kids on the Block we may be new to this development world but we've been in this neighborhood since 2007 I believe 2004 and so we've been in this neighborhood a long time these are people who know their Community deeply and have unique skill sets that are necessary to create thriving places this knowledge of place and a connection to home create the best kinds of developers ones who care more about building a neighborhood than extracting wealth out of them if we can take care of our own neighborhoods and we can do that from within then it just creates a per I mean just how can you not have purpose in that purpose and the desire to create a great neighborhood can only go so far though there need to be systems in place that encourage local developers to revitalize their own communities and my job in revitalizing the neighborhood involves getting as many people involved in that as possible because if our organization held tightly to that and tried to control that like we're building roughly five to six houses a year or rehabbing and in this neighborhood alone we have over 400 vacant lots and even more vacant homes on top of that so if we continue at the rate we're going we could tackle this in another 100 years if it takes a village then the next step is to connect these doers entrepreneurs business owners and developers to the resources that cities offer but how do we do that with our branded initiative startup South and Albert we try to serve as a triage Center because we get asked this question all the time what are we where do I go for X we try to do that where we're pushing out folks to all the resources that are available because it can get messy and Entrepreneurship is messy at the same time we're also looking at how do we bring resources from a state and federal level into this region one way that local governments can help support local entrepreneurship and make great places is by encouraging Banks to invest in their local projects which is why sometimes cities offer things like subsidiary loans to encourage Banks to take risks on small developers and recovering communities the the idea there being not that we want to just help Banks out and take away their risk but we want to encourage Banks encourage the financial institutions to look at these types of loans things that are probably not in their normal wheelhouse and see that wow not only can we still make money off of this but it's so exciting to see how as a bank we can benefit our community we can drive these investments from people who live in the community the last part is crucial if we want to create vibrant interesting and financially sustainable places local businesses are irreplaceable as exciting as starting a new business or becoming a developer might be it's also really scary to navigate if a local citizen with a dream doesn't perceive that there are supports and an existing helpful Community then that vacant building downtown is either going to sit empty or be bulldozed to put in a corporate drive-through as as a private developer I really didn't have any kind of blueprint and so I was kind of trying to figure things out along the way and and then being having this ecosystem that exists in South Bend and even through the network with neighborhood Evolution like we were I've just been able to take in so much more and get the support from local folks and other folks that are doing a lot of the same work and really care about the communities we're working in and it's not as overwhelming when something does come up that's a little bit outside of our purview we have people to call and we have people who have done it and who have dealt with it and who are dealing with it when people working to make livable and vibrant communities connect with those who have the experience and the means to make bigger bets on downtown wild things can start to come together this kind of synergy is arguably the most crucial step and if you're familiar with City finances you know how important a productive downtown is downtown is a giver not a taker when it comes to the tax base and it is so we cannot overstate the importance of investing in the density downtown because it's what helps Drive the tax revenue that then supports quality of life throughout all of our neighborhoods you know unfortunately there's and this is in every Community there's properties that are owned by like outside investors that really is just about sucking the equity like out of the property for their gain and so having a shift to local ownership means that wealth is being built here but also like the buy-in and the collaboration is here as well one great example of this is Penny Hill Homes having cut their teeth rehabbing historic homes and having the support of neighborhood Evolution and South Bend's ecosystem Sarah and Jenny were set on that next step of creating the walkable Community they envisioned renovating a beautiful but neglected building just outside of downtown they had to secure funding which is where Northwest Bank came in one of the key points that Sarah Hill mentioned to us in one of our conversations was that there's gold in the neighborhoods and that's an attitude that the banks need to to embrace that yeah maybe an underserved neighborhood but Banks need to if they're going to serve the community they need to serve the whole community and they need to realize that yes we need to pay attention we need to embrace we need to reach out to the organizations that are active that are trying to build an ecosystem and become a part of that movement to help grow that neighborhood back to to Vitality that was also just an obvious like why why wouldn't we buy this possible dream we can see it maybe no one else can see it but we can see it this possibility but like this is awesome but it's in our community yeah and so we have to go in and save it because no one else is going to care and no one else is going to see the vision and we know that all of our neighbors will come together at this little Crossroads of these two neighborhoods that we live and work in and it will just be magic once it's done and there's literally nothing going on there now and we're just going to create it because like that Community is worth it and they will work towards it and they will all come together and support it once we really get started when we choose to do a project or one of the things that has kind of carried us through is would we want to live here would we want to like shop here would we want to be here so we need to build that thing that we want and so with this in mind we go back to near Northwest neighborhood where Mike Keane instead of looking at problems focused on the abundance that was there he focused on providing housing and improving homes everything that we've been doing in in in what we call our farm is within a block and a half of right here this house is what every house on this block looked like this way seven years ago the whole block here looked like that and that's why people didn't want to walk here they were afraid to walk you improving his own neighborhood even if he could acquire the vacant lots to do so is difficult because of what's called an appraisal Gap without comparable houses nearby it's hard to convince appraisers that the home is being worked on are going to sell for enough to cover the construction costs this makes it hard to get traditional funding now instead of waiting for the market to pick up they decided to improve the market themselves they would cultivate this land they would create a great place to live and in doing so other people started to join the movement they wanted to improve their own neighborhoods as well and so one of my major concerns was the most cost effective thing to do with that property if you're literally just trying to maximize return on investment is to buy it as it is and to just rent it out at current market rates right because you only care about you know that property for its uh return right but I care about it also for what it brings to the neighborhood because you know I look at that every morning from my kitchen right and I care about who lives in that house I care about what it brings to the community and these neighborhoods deserve to be developed from the inside out the reason why these specific neighborhoods were having a hard time recovering was because of the inertia of policies like redlining and the appraisal gap which makes it hard for families living in these neighborhoods to maintain that generational wealth that was passed down to them at times we hear a lot of no's and I can be specific and say especially people of color you know we hear a lot of no's um but I'm saying that I know here in South Bend we are starting to hear a lot of yeses and that this is how you can do this and that's what's that's also what's amazing South Bend has committed to this long process of letting people cultivate their neighborhoods local citizens wanted in on this process so the city government listened making it easier to get started by rewriting city codes this work even won an award in 2021 you know block by block parcel by parcel I mean that's how we got to get it done because at the end of the day we may have some vacant buildings we may have some vacant Lots but we got to start building on them and it doesn't just happen you don't just snap your fingers and all of a sudden you have a neighborhood again it's individual projects each one starts adding and they Compound on each other it's also crucial in this process that the people developing are doing it for the right reasons people I found that's doing this same work that a submission for them they will not keep it from you how to do it they want to tell people how to do it they want help doing the work because this work is too big for just a handful of people we need all the help we can get and your town needs you while there are all sorts of ways to fix the next smallest thing in your neighborhood the ecosystem in South Bend exists because people started developing their neighborhoods themselves and saw that they couldn't do it alone working together sharing their Collective knowledge and influence this movement of small developers is actually the largest developer in the city Now's the Time where I give you some actionable steps But first you need to identify your current role are you new here welcome we're glad to have you subscribe and check out our resources and other videos to see what we're about if you're an excited Citizen and want to get started in this work you need to get connected to the major players in your community the people who are already doing this work for example skip having just graduated with his Masters in City and Regional planning wanted to revitalize the neighborhood he grew up in he took notice of the work that my Keen was doing on the bakery building in Portage Midtown instruction happening at the ward Bakery building it's like hmm I thought that was super vacant if like kind of falling apart what's going on there so I just like went on to online looked up like our local newspaper like South Bend Tribune just was like had a couple stories about what my team was doing and us that's really really cool that's something I want to know more about and I just emailed them said hey dude have half an hour to chat I want to just see what you're doing and go from there we support tons of local conversations and would love to help you establish one in your place to get that ecosystem started click the link below to see if there's already one taking place in your city neighborhood Evolution also has 12 steps that we're going to link below so that you can learn how to find your farm and get to know your neighborhood and more if you're not in a position to be a developer then it's on you to advocate for changes that make it easier for locals trying to cultivate their Farms the systems in most places as they stand are complicated to navigate difficult to get started in and so full of red tape that they discourage small developers from getting started and instead as Mike puts it incentivize secret handshake agreements South Bend not only simplified its development and land use codes but also created a central place with all these resources you work for your city take note this stuff is hard to navigate and this is a really easy change to make it's easy to fall into the fatalistic mindset that things can't change but here at strong towns we see all across North America people are stepping up to Champion their towns fighting for vibrant financially sustainable and resilient places more stories like this to come keep doing what you can and we'll see you next time foreign [Music]

Channel: Strong Towns

Views: 130,416

Keywords: Strong towns, decline, rust belt, notre dame, south bend, pete buttigieg, NJB, orange pill, not just bikes, gentrification, chuck marohn

Id: qRv02yQWkp8

Length: 17min 22sec (1042 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 28 2023