John Norquist, the former Mayor of Milwaukee, told us that the way to build great places is to create walkable places; that the properties on Buffalo's waterfront near the inner harbor will dramatically increase in value if the Thruway was removed and replaced with an at-grade boulevard. He also said that Buffalo's financial condition has saved it from more suburban-type development that would have hurt the City in the long-run.



Neal Payton, an architect and planner from Silver Spring, Maryland emphasized the creation of value in real estate. He told us the biggest financial impact a community can have is from mixed-use development. He said that when we are looking at a new building being proposed we have to consider not only the building but its relationship to what is there and what impact it will have on future development in the area. As to Buffalo, he was somewhat appalled that people in the Waterfront Village opposed the addition of some neighborhood retail in their area. He said such an addition would dramatically enhance the values of the residential properties. And he said that Buffalo had too many surface parking lots and visible parking ramps in the downtown area.



Christine Todd Whitman, the former Governor of New Jersey told us that Smart Growth and economic development go hand-in-hand and, in places like Buffalo, Smart Growth is not merely an option, it is a necessity; and that continued sprawl costs us all in added expenses for schools, infrastructure maintenance and services. She also cited a Wall Street Journal study that said that when employers are looking for places to locate the two most important factors are the quality of schools and the overall quality of life and that tax incentives were number 10 on the list.



Jeff Olson, the co-director of the Initiative for Healthy Infrastructure at the State University of New York in Albany said that Buffalo is not high on the list of healthy communities in America, that we have to provide more neighborhoods where people can walk and bike comfortably but that individuals alone can take small steps to improve the situation, e.g. by planting more trees and flowers in the front of their house to improve the appearance of street to encourage people to walk more. He stated: "if a street cannot be easily crossed by a grandparent wheeling a grandchild in a stroller, something is wrong with that street."



Craig Lewis, a planner from Charlotte, North Carolina told us

the most important thing our suburban communities can do to make them more attractive and increase the long-term value of properties are to replace zoning ordinances that separate uses with form-based zoning codes that emphasize a buildings appearance and location in relation to the street rather than what goes on inside the building. He said the suburbs should start to replicate the good neighborhoods of the city.
He said developers and builders take the path of least resistance by doing what they are allowed to do and if the rules change, they will follow the rules. He said when suburban communities allow exclusive subdivisions there will be resistance to any new development near those neighborhoods but if compact walkable neighborhoods are built, any new development that extends those neighborhoods will be seen as adding value to what is already there. And he said that the suburbs should look at the demographics, recognize that the nuclear family - two parents and one or more children comprise less than 25% of the households in America and that our population is aging - and not force builders to build only large single-family detached homes.



James Eppink, a planner and retail marketing consultant from Michigan, told us that we are over-retailed, that we have too many choices in our shopping and that the more we spend in national chains, the more money leaves our community. He said that in 1960 we had only 4 square feet of retail shopping area per person. Today we have 38 square feet and we really need only about 21 square feet. He said that, even in cold-weather climates, there is a national shift away from enclosed malls to outdoor mixed-use lifestyle centers where the old types of main street are being recreated. He reaffirmed that retail follows residential so that if you sprawl with housing, retail will follow and if you build housing downtown, stores will come. He said good management of neighborhood shopping areas was crucial in order to allow them to compete with the larger malls and that local storeowners should join together to put their shopping districts in order - cleaning up litter regularly, working toward shared parking areas and improving their signage and store facades.



Jim Charlier, a transportation planner from Boulder, Colorado told us that we should change our approach to the way we build and improve streets. He said Buffalo is unusual in that is has all of the symptoms of sprawl but without the growth - he called it a "nasty mix."
He said that just having great buildings is not enough to make a great city, Buffalo needs to have great streets as well. He said that because good streets reflect the scale and character of adjacent land uses, key decisions about street networks and street design should be based on the desired character of the adjacent properties and neighborhood so as to make sure that what is done increases, rather than detracts from, the value of those properties. He said that widening roads is generally not a good policy because it induces more traffic and encourages more development in places where we might not want it, leading to a poor return on public investment. He said that by continuing to allow cul-de-sacs in our suburban developments we are behind the national trend of requiring all streets to be connected. And he said the end of cheap oil will force us to more compact development and we should do it sooner rather than later. He concluded with the statement that if we don't build good streets we will have to live with the consequences for many decades.



William Fulton, a planner, journalist and member of the Ventura City Council from Ventura, California told us we must solve the problem of jobs, high taxes and high service expenses. He indicated that people want economic opportunity and an interesting place to live and we are providing neither. He pointed out that the Erie Niagara region ranks 288 our of 331 metropolitan areas in the percentages of households of couples with children at home, being only 21% of our households, and that the region has an exceptionally high percentage of old people. He suggested that we are not building houses for our market of smaller and older households. He said that the most important thing seniors should be doing to stay healthy is walking, but we are not building walkable neighborhoods and the cost of shuttling senior citizens around because they do not live in places where they can walk to some destinations will be an enormous financial drain on local government. He said that: the community should not waste capital on anything that does not create or enhance a regional asset, we should not build infrastructure we cannot afford to maintain, we should look at other places for ideas and improve on them.

This summary was prepared by George R. Grasser 12-07-05 and amended 12-16-05 to include the William Fulton presentation.