Structuring Urban Redevelopment Projects: Moving Participants Up the Learning Curve

Urban redevelopment projects implemented through public-private partnerships are the preferred way to revitalize inner-city areas. As the numbers of participants increase and deal structures become more complex, participants need more detailed knowledge of one another’s motivations and behaviors to achieve feasible redevelopment projects. This research describes the expectations and behaviors of private sources of debt and equity, especially their financial return requirements, and the actions public participants can take to reduce project risks. With this knowledge, lead public and private participants should be able to forge economically viable projects that generate greater public benefits while reducing the risks of urban redevelopment.

Office Market Analysis: Improving Best-Practice Techniques

This article focuses on ways to improve market analysis for proposed office projects, taking time and data limitations into account. The discussion moves sequentially through the three primary components of systematic, logical market analysis: the market overview, the market study and the marketability study. Key suggestions cover: (1) discussing megatrends affecting office user preferences and product design; (2) estimating long-term attractiveness of the office location and site; (3) forecasting balance or imbalance between future demand and supply of office space at the metropolitan level; (4) segmenting and differentiating supply and demand at the submarket level for the purpose of assigning market capture rates; and (5) conducting sensitivity analysis of the key variables affecting project net operating income.

Strategic Plays: A Model for Organizational Planning

Strategic planning is a form of organizational planning appropriate for local development organizations (LDO's). It is a "producer-oriented" process to the extent that the aims, resources and capabilities of the local development organization are determined before area-wide goals and problems are addressed. Rather than represent a general prescriptive plan for all local organizations, the plan of the local development organization is one piece of the mosaic of organizational plans which must be jointly pursued to effect successful economic development. This article provides an overview of the strategic planning process as it might be used by local economic development directors

Recovering What Makes Planning Relevant

Background: In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when city and regional planning became a profession, planners did important work in the realms of public health, fire safety, natural resource conservation, civic and social reform, city efficiency, housing improvements, and city beautification. The founders espoused many bold plans to shape the future of cities. These long-range plans were to be both comprehensive and serve the public interest. Now, planners rarely participate in the dialogue about how cities should be planned and designed. We ceded this ground to architects, geographers, sociologists, urban economists, real estate developers, attorneys, environmentalists, journalists, and others. We are conspicuous by our absence. We seem comfortable generating land use plans for local jurisdictions even though we know that integrated land use and transportation planning is needed at the regional scale. We abandoned health and safety in favor of public welfare. As a result, we embrace weak goals like “livability” and vague slogans like “making great communities happen” instead of addressing public interest dimensions of fundamental importance. We became facilitators of process and experts in public participation. But we are timid to argue persuasively for evidence-based ideas about how to plan places and spaces in the visioning exercises we lead. The American Planning Association’s leadership recognizes these problems and is trying to elevate the importance of the planning enterprise on many fronts. APA seeks to increase the status of the planning profession, assist planners in the trenches, find more effective ways to serve the public interest, and win stronger public and political support for planning. To accomplish these important objectives requires a better understanding of how the planning field became narrow and what can be done to increase its relevance

The Mosaic of Economic Development: Local Pieces of a National Whole (Commentary)

For many years, local economic development activities have been justified on grounds of job creation and tax revenue enhancement. Although increased employment and an improved tax base are reasonable goals, organizational and political conflicts can frustrate the success of a community-based economic development program. Local bankers, insurance and utility company executives, real estate brokers, developers and large landowners concerned with property values and stocks of local wealth support tax revenue objectives and real estate development efforts. Physical development strategies offer a high return for propertied interests of a community. Local labor, industrial and neighborhood groups, on the other hand, favor employment programs and business development. These strategies include business starts, expansion and acquisitions which have a significant impact on job creation and retention

Final Thoughts

I want to thank the editors for inviting me to have the last word in this CPJ issue. What follows are thoughts based on my knowledge of regional economic development, the subject I began researching at Cornell University in 1965. I’ll present an idea and then suggest applications for planners. I will not present evidence. If you want to discuss any of the following, please contact me

Estimating the Size of Households and Number of School-Aged Children in New Development: Applications for Forecasting and Impact Analysis

Urban and regional planners forecast population size and number of school-aged children to estimate the demand for public facilities and services over near-term and long-term planning horizons. They also estimate the economic, environmental and fiscal impacts of new development projects on local jurisdictions. State planners forecast public-school enrollments generated by county-level residential development and demographic change. Accurate estimates of the size and composition of households are needed for these important planning purposes

A Note on Real Estate Marketing Research

Although the principles of real estate market analysis are more readily accessible due to the publication of several recent volumes, the topic yet to be grounded properly in the broader marketing research field. Building on the appraisal tradition, the professional market analyst strives for an objective assessment of market comparables and trends to arrive at a thoughtful and informed opinion of economic feasibility on behalf of the client developer, investor, lender, or landowner. However, the purpose, form, and content of real estate marketing research vary considerably during the development Process. This note presents a broader view of marketing research relevant throughout the real estate development process in contrast to formal market analysis conducted during one stage. It should help real estate researchers adapt their thinking to the emerging reality in which marketing research conducted by sophisticated development organizations grows in volume and importance.

New Strategies for Rural Economic Development

In these days of tight budgets and reduced federal assistance to rural areas, it is important to identify economic development strategies that can be effective in smaller cities and rural areas without large infusions of federal dollars. Our review of the literature on economic development in smaller cities and rural areas found a conspicuous absence of information on such strategies. Consequently, we set out to identify model rural development strategies which could be initiated and supported locally or by state governments