Urban University Interface.com

University area neighborhoods are a valuable context.

“Context” is the pattern, history and character that defines the identity of a city.  Any plan that doesn’t understand the importance of this, omits a critical component necessary for preserving that context.  the intent of Urban University Interface.com, is smart planning inclusion and protection in older core areas of Tucson.  This is simply and urban university interface strategy that Tucson needs and can instill certainty for core area neighborhood and homeowner investment.  The point of attraction as a principle is  to “attract” investment.   Plan Tucson talks will begin the consolidation of neighborhood plan and neighborhoods may object out of fear.   Without a strategy for mutual interface and inclusion, plans alone can not reverse that decline.  The University of Arizona talks about preservation of “context”  in its campus plan.  The University is surrounded context and history that is threatened; nonetheless valued.   When TUSD closes core schools we know the impact.  It is a valuable conversation for both neighborhoods and planners.   The Drachman Center’s studies show some of the facts about this context: UA Area Home Ownership.  Something new has to happen.  View this link for hard hit areas to start the work. 

Defining a balanced interface strategy between this development and neighborhoods would stabilize these assets as soon as it was adopted b both the University and Tucson.  It draws smart transition lines.  It tells residents, your neighborhoods are safe; invest.  it gives development a dimension of planning and investment, that was not there before.  Investment in home-ownership and subsequent higher values attracts a viable demographic cross section of demographics and families once again into the core; a market principal that progressive cities know.  Younger generations want urban cores that support vibrant lifestyles, quality of living, modern concepts of home ownership investment, context and history.  Not having those things is a reason to leave.

When the university and downtown was connected by the modern street car linkage, interesting things happened.  An predictable and uncomfortable conversation started around commercial infill profits and neighborhood fears of decline. It is a common theme with neighborhoods as was well documented in the Broadway Corridor Project.  The RTA ran a 4 year design process costing taxpayers $1M per year and missed the point completely.  It insisted on a an outdated suburban model.  paralyzed by fear, neighborhoods rejected it and it was adopted by M&C anyway.  As Mayor Rothchild stated in council session during adoption; “what do you want me to do about it, I am only one of none on the RTA board”   The RTA’s task force model failed.

For better or worse, transit corridors will and are becoming magnets for development along the Broadway corridor, Grant, Oracle and others.  Developers talk is transit oriented development (TOD) and they will pierce through historic neighborhoods.  They will want clear planning options. We know development impacts neighborhoods.  It is always challenge in Tucson which is among the poorest city in the U.S.   Incentives for preservation need legislative support to work and in Arizona property rights stops anything meaningful for now.  Planners will have to solve this problem with transition and edge strategies that embody mutuality, the desire to invest and live in the impacted area grows as synergistic investment fuels a  new kind of momentum where attraction is a dominate factor.

Tucson city leaders desperately would like to counter the lingering uncertainty of economic recovery, reflect by continuing deficits and layoffs.  Cities need tax revenue and incentive to build.  Stakeholders have a perennial need to build, but worry about cost, planning confusion and neighborhood pressure.  Homeowners want to buy or improve but fear erosion of investment because of a mini dorm next door.  The resolve to find the gold in a balanced  strategy to overcome uncertainty is missing in planning leadership.

Ironically, after 2010, city planners and developers reversed 50 years of downtown decay with aggressive one sided commercial overlays and assurances to developers that began in earnest in late 2012.  We saw 7000 new luxury student beds built in six years.  The Achilles heel is the harm done to the core neighborhood-homeownership and fleeting millennials.  Urbanization is on; good or bad.  It’s the profit motive at work and will continue to emerge.  Its fragile profits are a gamble without the right plans along the interface of impacted neighborhoods that otherwise build desire for residents to remain as a revenue base.  Tucson’s Downtown Links Sub-district to the greater infill incentive district is a smart overly that offers elements of “opt in”  form based planning.   Based on flexible zoning principals, it doesn’t go far enough.  It lacks assurances to neighborhoods, without which, home ownership diminishes and  revenue foundations are built on sand.   We elude a sound base for  planning and development that mutuality and certainty assures when context and identity become assets.

The intent of UUI is to display and critique infill projects, planning leadership and planning concepts. UUI will look for ways to strengthen and enhance Tucson’s core identity and context assets with investment mutuality and attraction.  Interface planning in the face of urbanization is an idea long past due for Tucson and can be a genesis for synergistic planning concepts that can guide a stable future through out metro Tucson.