‘New Urbanism Offers Solutions to Waning Fortunes of Center Cities’

CSC News & Reflections
Fall 2004

On a typical Saturday morning, downtown South Bend seems to be struggling to wake up. Traffic is light, few people walk the streets and the commercial life of the city center has long since ebbed out into the strip mall, chain restaurants and big box retailers at the edge of the city.

“How did American society bring the city center to the brink of extinction?” wonders Mary Wong, assistant professional specialist in the Political Science Department.

To help students examine the changing face of American cities and to explore some of the solutions, Wong developed a course called, “New Urbanism Applied: Diversity & Community in South Bend.” The course was created in part through a Course Development Grant provided by the Center for Social Concerns.

“The investment and energy that marks the growth of (suburban commercial developments) does not simply represent a displacement of vitality from cities like South Bend, the price of this type of growth outside the city center is less affordable housing, fewer decent jobs, higher crime and increased community homogeneity.

“Strip malls and big box retail alter more than the physical landscape of a community: they undermine the qualities of diversity and integration that enrich the public space of a democratic society,” she explains. “Multi-use zoning, density, decent jobs and public transportation serve as building blocks for diversity within communities.

“These are ultimately issues of social justice.”

In her course, she applies principles of new urbanism to study the deeper effects on community that the built world exerts.

“Transportation, jobs and housing in South Bend must be studied in order to come to a closer understanding of their role in building better communities: public spaces that integrate, rather than segregate, people across race, income, and age demographics.”

Over the past thirty years, the manufacturing industry has faced job losses of 32 percent in South Bend’s St. Joseph County, while 53 perecent of farm jobs have been lost. Meanwhile, less attractive jobs in retail trade have increased by 67 percent over the same period of time.

“The reality that these statistics reflect is this,” explains Wong. “The city of South Bend struggles to increase its attractiveness to a handful of retail businesses, workers, and home buyers.”

Wong divides the course into three basic components. First, she sends students into the city to conduct field studies with business owners, residents and office workers.

Students will then compare several urban and suburban spaces using the new urbanism “10 minute rule of thumb” in which they plot the types of spaces, services and people the average pedestrian encounters.

“This comparative study is aimed at disclosing the relationship between land use patterns and diversity,” said Wong. “New urbanists argue that a city built to a pedestrian scale helps to develop connections between its members–rich and poor, young and old.”

As a final project, the class  breaks into teams to evaluate South Bend’s million-dollar Commercial Corridor Initiative and assess development proposals according to the city plan’s objectives of transportation, jobs, housing and access to culture.

In addition, they evaluate the effects the proposals might have on increasing economic and racial diversity.

They meet on a weekly basis with local neighborhood associations and the Notre Dame School of Architecture’s South Bend Downtown Design Center in order to share their findings and to solicit input for future development initiatives.

“We have seen the impact of new urbanism in cities around the country,” said Wong.

“It is a realistic goal that these principals can be applied to cities like South Bend.

“The strip-malling of America is not a foregone conclusion.”