MODERN TIMES
by Art Hobson
ahobson@uark.edu
NWA Times 8 July 2006
A TALE OF TWO
CITIES
Fayetteville
is surely the nicest city in Arkansas.
An aware citizenry, Dickson Street, the Farmer's Market, the developing
trail system, and much more make our city a rare jewel.
Fayetteville's
secret of success is simple in principle but difficult in practice: Pursue a high quality of life as
envisioned by the average citizen, rather than profits as desired by business
interests.
Many examples bear out this formula. Today everybody recognizes that Fayetteville destroyed a beautiful main street when it went along with business interests in the unfettered commercialization of North College Avenue during the 1950s, rather than following the desire of preservationists to maintain the trees and historic homes. On the other hand, a citizen's movement established a strong sign ordinance during the 1970s, over the outraged cries of most of the business community. Today, everybody recognizes the value of that ordinance.
Fayetteville's rampant growth makes it difficult to conduct the reasoned debate that is needed if citizens, rather than money, are to determine our future. Suddenly tall buildings are sprouting on Dickson Street and elsewhere, before the Downtown Master Plan, which contains restrictions on such developments, can be implemented. Average citizens have a hard time keeping up with this dash for profits. We need a downtown growth moratorium until the Master Plan is sorted out.
I spent a happy week in Flagstaff, Arizona recently, during my son David's wedding celebration. It's about Fayetteville's size, and one of the few cities I've visited that is as nice as Fayetteville. It offers some useful lessons.
Although surrounded by America's omnipresent highway clutter, Flagstaff has managed to maintain a sizeable grid of downtown commercial streets and midtown residential streets that are densely lined with small and medium-sized homes. One wide highway (not a freeway) pierces the downtown, but it is bridged by several pedestrian-friendly crosswalks, and the traffic is slowed by several stoplights.
For me, a major criterion of a city's health is: Do people live downtown, and can they walk to buy such practical items as a pair of sox, a screwdriver, groceries, and prescription drugs. Flagstaff has a higher density of residents living in midtown than does Fayetteville. I found places in downtown Flagstaff to buy ordinary clothing, but you have to drive out on the highway to find hardware, groceries, or a drugstore.
Big box stores are the essence of shameless commercialization. Their dependence on cars, on huge tracts of cheap land outside of town, and on city infrastructure to transport the high volume traffic that enables them to undercut the downtown stores, makes them parasites that soon suck most cities dry of homegrown commercial developments. On this score, Flagstaff has suffered some defeats. A Home Depot recently located out on the highway, driving out the smaller downtown lumber and hardware store. That's why I couldn't find a screwdriver within walking distance.
More ominously, Wal-Mart recently organized a referendum to overturn a Flagstaff ordinance that restricted or prohibited retail stores larger than 75,000 square feet. Wal-Mart, which already had a smaller store in Flagstaff, vehemently opposed this ordinance because it prevented them from building one of their mammoth Supercenters. Wal-Mart spent the incredible sum of $400,000--about $20 for each person who voted in the referendum--in their campaign against the ordinance. Wal-Mart's campaign actually compared ordinance supporters to Nazi book-burners who would banish America's freedoms. These expensive bullying tactics resulted in a 51% to 49% vote against the ordinance. This choice of profits over quality of life bodes ill for downtown Flagstaff.
A lesson for Fayetteville: Enact the road impact fees that have been suggested recently, at the maximum possible level. These fees will slow down the rampant growth that drives down our quality of life while driving up our taxes and our water bills. Furthermore, road impact fees make big box stores less profitable and therefore less likely to be foisted upon us.
Flagstaff is full of people all day and most of the night. This people-oriented atmosphere stems from the preservation of many small--four stories or less--older buildings, from the presence of lots of park benches all over town, and from the city's pedestrian and bicycle orientation. There are many trails, and many bicycle lanes on downtown streets so that bicyclers feel welcome and safe. The result is far more bicyclers than we have in Fayetteville, and lots of pedestrians.
The lessons for Fayetteville: Restrict building heights to 4 or 5 stories, place benches (why do we have so few?) all over town, add many more trails, and put bicycle lanes on downtown city streets.
One nice feature of Flagstaff that Fayetteville lacks is a large stone-tiled plaza in the middle of town. It's heavily used for "hanging out" downtown, and contributes to the friendly feel of the city.
Dickson Street needs something like this. We have a perfect spot in the wasted space that surrounds the Walton Arts Center. I'm a great fan of the WAC, and am delighted that it's on Dickson Street rather than out on the bypass where some people wanted it to go. But its orientation, on a hill surrounded by unusable space and at a 45-degree angle rather than facing the street, reminds one of an imperial palace rather than a gathering place. What if the wall around the garden behind the WAC were removed? What if the raised plaza in front were excavated down to street level, and the entire triangular area made into one continuous flat plaza where Dickson Street patrons felt invited to sit down?
The bottom line: Quality of life comes first, before profits.