IS THERE AN 'URBAN REVIVAL' AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR BALTIMORE?
Executive Summary
Baltimore is one of a number of cities that have been heralded by the media as a "come-back" city. The goals of this report are to determine whether Baltimore has actually "come back" or been revived, what it means to be revived, and to differentiate between the myth and reality of urban revival.
This study offers a number of unique contributions to urban revival research: (1) the report clarifies the term "urban revival," (2) we examine both the media's and urban experts' perceptions of industrial cities like Baltimore, and (3) our analysis focuses on what has happened to cities in the 1990s.
Five cities were selected as case studies for this project. They include Baltimore, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis. Although no two cities are exactly alike, historically the economic and demographic conditions in these five cities have been similar. All five of these cities have also been proclaimed as urban revival success stories by the media at one time or another.
While the concept of urban revival received much attention over the last 20 years, no standard operating definition emerged. When addressing the question of what makes a city healthy or revived, urban policy experts, city leaders, and the general public cite growth or improvement in some, but typically not all, of the following dimensions: demographics, economics, quality of life, and image of the city. Magazine rankings of cities and academic research prioritize the importance of these dimensions differently. Some define revival as economic improvement in a city, others as demographic improvement, still others as improvement in the quality of life in a city, and some as improvement in a city's image. Additionally, some experts and leaders believe that reviving one of these four dimensions, or definitions, will cause revival of the other dimensions; however, there is no consensus on where to begin.
The attraction of both residents and businesses is critical to a city's revival. Therefore, before turning to an analysis of each dimension, or definition, of urban revival, it is useful to recognize the motivations behind location decisions. Research on residential mobility trends indicates that people tend to base their residential location decisions on the needs and desires that change with their life-cycle positions, job location, and inclination towards upward social mobility. But the literature has not systematically considered the relative importance of diversity of population, nightlife, or cultural amenities in residential location decisions. Studies further suggest that cities are not as appealing as the suburbs to significant groups of households, particularly families with school-age children and upper-income households. There are a few indicators that suggest that some growing groups, such as young singles and childless couples, are attracted to urban areas. Several cities have experimented with tax incentives and other means of attracting homebuyers, but overall the suburbs continue to demonstrate an advantage when it comes to drawing and holding onto residents.
Firms make location decisions based primarily, but not entirely, on economic factors, according to literature. During the first half of the 20th century, economists believed that firm location decisions were based on minimizing transportation costs and maximizing profits. Over time, they realized that the decision-making process involves more complex aims and a wider array of economic factors such as labor, agglomeration, and space. These economic factors still significantly influence firm location decisions, but have changed due to several shifts in industrial America. Technological advances have decreased production costs in all sectors of industry. Furthermore, the growing high-tech sector is less cost-sensitive than other industries, has different labor needs, and prefers to be near centers of higher learning. There is some disagreement about the role of taxes and tax incentives in drawing businesses. Cities have learned that more jobs are created from existent firms than new start-ups, and thus emphasize the retention of existing businesses rather than the attraction of new ones. The importance of quality of life factors has thus increased; this is especially true for high-tech firms, whose employees demand workplace amenities.
A city's demographic revival is predicated on its ability to attract and retain residents and to maintain socioeconomic diversity among its population. Drawing on academic literature, government statistics, and interviews of city planning offices, four indicators of demographic revival are considered: population change, demographic composition, the extent of poverty, and a city's ability to compete with the suburbs. The evidence does not suggest a demographic revival in Baltimore, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, or St. Louis.
Beginning in the 1980s and continuing through the 1990s, all study cities experienced population loss. Census data regarding city households provide inconclusive evidence of a "back to the city" movement of young professionals, childless couples, empty-nesters, and "non-traditional" households. Historically, immigrants have contributed to substantial population growth in large cities. However, none of the study cities has a large immigrant population, and immigrants seem to be choosing suburbs over cities as places to both live and work. Cities have not reduced the volume of middle- and upper-income whites leaving the city--the trend known as "white flight"--and the relative size of the white population has decreased in all cities. Minority populations have grown as a percentage of the total population in each of the study cities, and blacks comprise a strong majority in three of the cities.
However, the race of those left in the central cities is less important than their socioeconomic status. Middle- and upper-income whites are not the only residents leaving the cities; middle- and upper-income residents of all races follow this pattern. As a result, the overall economic diversity of city residents has lessened, and high rates of poverty persist in all study cities. The percentage of persons living below the poverty level has increased in four of the five cities. Decreases in unemployment rates during the 1990s do not appear to be associated with improvements in median household incomes, per capita incomes, or poverty rates. Minorities in the cities fare poorly in comparison to whites on all socioeconomic indicators that we examined.
The cities are not successfully competing with their suburbs for residents and have not shown improvement compared to their suburbs on any socioeconomic measure. City poverty and unemployment rates tend to be at least twice as high as suburban rates, and city median household incomes are lower than those of their poorest suburbs. Some cities' suburbs, such as Pittsburgh's, have begun to exhibit economic distress similar to that of their central city.
There has been no demographic revival in the five cities. Also, there are no discernible patterns among the cities in socioeconomic factors: during the 1990s, no one city consistently fared better than the others. Overall, Baltimore has not fared worse than the other cities. Milwaukee and St. Louis have shown slight improvement in the 1990s, but no city has truly lived up to its reputation as a "comeback" city in terms of its demographics.
Economic revival is assessed by five key aspects: job profile, labor force profile, tourism strategies, fiscal profile, and residential economic well-being. Data were collected from the 1970s to the present in order to measure the extent of economic revival in the five study cities.
Evidence shows that the study cities are struggling to recover from the severe loss of jobs as businesses have fled to the suburbs. However, these cities are attempting to promote growth. Cities are investing in downtown office developments and are working to attract emerging technology-based industries. Evidence shows that nationally, all of the study cities rank in the top 30 cities for jobs in biotechnology, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and advanced materials. Each study city offers financial incentives to entice new businesses and expand current ones, although literature on firm location decisions indicates financial incentives have little impact.
In the five study cities, employment in manufacturing and retail decreased, while service sector employment increased. Although the service sector growth was large in all cities between 1967 and 1992--for example, Baltimore increased by over 100 percent--it was not enough to offset the overall decline in employment. Moreover, many service sector jobs pay very low wages. For example, Baltimore's median income for service industry workers was $12,462 in 1995. While professional and technical service jobs pay higher wages, the majority of Baltimore's service sector jobs are not in these fields. Growth in this sector is therefore not sufficient to greatly improve residents' economic well-being or the city's fiscal health.
While losing ground in the traditional industries of manufacturing and retail, tourism became the focus of concentrated urban revival efforts in many cities during the 1980s and 1990s. To add to city coffers quickly, tourist attractions such as stadiums, convention centers, museums, luxury hotels, and theme restaurants were built in hopes of bringing in visitor dollars. All of the study cities have invested heavily in attracting visitors, and they clearly intend to continue the strategy with further plans and developments.
Measuring the effects of tourism investments proved difficult. The available evidence suggests that tourism investments are drawing visitors, and they are creating growth in the hotel industry and physical improvements of downtown areas. Thus, portions of cities--namely their downtowns--are being transformed into "24-hour" vibrant places. But the question remains whether tourism strategies are the most effective use of public resources. Benefits to select areas are not clearly translating to other areas of the city and to the city's economic health overall.
Adequate revenue is essential for providing residents with quality public services and investing in local improvements, such as schools, sanitation services, and safety. As cities have lost jobs and population to the suburbs, their ability to raise sufficient revenue has suffered. Thus, fiscal conditions of the study cities are currently stagnant. Except for moderate growth in St. Louis, per capita revenue is basically the same as it was two decades ago. But given the great expenditure needs of central cities, more funds are necessary today than 20 or more years ago. The limited revenue raising capacity that results from weak property tax bases implies a continued dependence on outside sources, including intergovernmental aid and borrowed funds.
The picture of residential economic well-being in the five study cities is mixed. Per capita incomes increased in four of the five cities, but median household incomes increased only in Milwaukee and St. Louis. This suggests that only a small proportion of the cities' population has secured high-paying jobs. In addition, only Pittsburgh was able to reduce the number living in poverty from 1990 to 1996. At the same time, three of the five cities improved their unemployment rate between 1990 and 1996, and the remaining two increased by less than one percentage point. While this is a positive trend, much of it may be the result of national economic conditions rather than the cities' own efforts.
It is clear from the data that none of the study cities improved in every economic category. St. Louis made the greatest gains, improving in five out of seven key indicators, but the poverty rate continued to increase. Baltimore improved the least, making gains only in unemployment. Despite the large investments in tourism, an economic revival has not occurred in the study cities during the 1990s.
Although quality of life has no precise definition, it typically refers to the livability of a city including safety, public services, and physical infrastructure. Poor livability deters businesses, residents, and tourists and inhibits a city's ability to revive. Therefore, urban experts argue that improving the quality of life within a city is crucial to achieving complete urban revival.
Five primary indicators of quality of life are used: (1) the level of civil order; (2) municipal services; (3) the physical environment; (4) functional adequacy; and (5) leisure activities within cities. Census data and FBI crime report data were relied upon, as well as interviews.
Each of the study cities experienced improvement in some of these five broad quality of life indicators in the 1990s; generally, the cities fit within a continuum. At one extreme, Pittsburgh experienced consistently low crime rates, ranked high in school resources and test scores, showed substantial increases in median house value and decreases in infant mortality rates, and it was the only city to improve in air quality. In the middle of the continuum, Cleveland, Milwaukee, and St. Louis each showed more modest improvements in several indicators and all experienced significant improvement in median value of housing units and infant mortality rates. At the other extreme, Baltimore ranks lowest overall. Despite improvements in both property and violent crimes, Baltimore still consistently ranks among the worst in crime rates. Although Baltimore has the highest median value of owner occupied housing, it ranks worst in other housing measures and ranks only average in terms of municipal services, physical environment, functional adequacy, and leisure.
Image, aura, and perception have become central to urban revival strategies. Image refers to the beliefs, ideas, and impressions that people have of a place. Image is fluid in nature, and varies according to time and person. Dictionary definitions underscore the duality of the concept: image refers to both the character projected by someone or something to the public (projections), as well as the concept held by the public of that person or thing (perceptions).
The role of image in urban revival can be measured using two broad categories of indicators: inputs, or what the city invests in creating an image; and outputs, or how that image is perceived. We identify a comprehensive set of indicators to measure each city's investments in image and to gauge how that image is perceived. We then focus on a subset of those indicators, chosen largely because of data availability. The investments examined for this analysis are: (1) the city organizations devoted to enhancing city image; (2) recent physical development projects with total cost above $500,000; and (3) the marketing strategies of public, public-private, and private municipal organizations. The following approaches were used to examine perceptions of a city: (1) a survey of urban expert opinions; and (2) a media analysis. We collected the data mainly through web site searches and telephone interviews.
A comparative analysis of the data collected for the five study cities shows that the cities invest in image creation to varying degrees, and use several different tactics to promote image. They attempt to promote themselves in a positive light and value media coverage. In general, the cities now market themselves in a more comprehensive manner than they have in the past. However, when comparing the inputs to the outputs, no pattern emerges to clearly indicate what combination of investments will produce a more favorable perceived image. Indeed, the image each city tries to project is often disconnected from the way it is perceived. While media reviews of the cities have generally been mixed, urban experts cited each of the five cities as an example of urban failure. Only Pittsburgh was cited as both a success and a failure.
Closer examination of the perceptions indicates that media sources use different criteria to determine whether or not a city has successfully revived. In some of their portrayals of urban revival success stories, the media use a singular criterion, downtown development, as the basis of their definition of what is revived what is not. Contrary to this approach, urban experts and media sources such as Money magazine use a multidimensional approach to determine revival. This approach incorporates multiple criteria to determine success: economic, demographic, quality of life, and image indicators. These different criteria help to explain why the cities are viewed by some evaluators as successes and by others as failures of urban revival.
We combine and analyze key findings of the research on demographic, economic, quality of life, and image revival to provide preliminary answers to some key questions. First, is it possible for cities to experience revival in one dimension of city life and not in the others? Are individual indicators related to each other? And finally, are any of the five case study cities reviving in the 1990s?
Key indicators were selected to represent overall change in each dimension. We first look at overall change in the four dimensions based on whether a simple majority of indicators in each dimension improved, experienced no change, or declined. Next, we look at the number of improved indicators in each dimension. Finally, we investigate actual percentage change in each indicator to see if rates of improvement or decline appear to be related.
There is no apparent pattern of change across the four dimensions. We were not able to say that improvements in one dimension consistently related to improvements in any of the other dimensions. There was also no discernible pattern among the key indicators within each dimension. Improvements in a key indicator in one dimension are not related to improvements in a key indicator in another dimension.
There was some evidence of connections between indicators based on the actual percentage change during the 1990s. For example, declines in population appear to be associated with changes in the crime rate and media rankings. In addition, we observed an inverse relationship between retail sales, the indicator used to measure the impact of tourism, and media rankings.
This research defines urban revival as sustained improvements in four dimensions of a city's health: demographics, economics, quality of life, and image. While each of the five case study cities has been touted as an urban revival success story at one time or another, no city improved in all four dimensions during the 1990s. The improvements cities made in the 1980s were not sustained into the 1990s. During this decade, for example, Baltimore and Cleveland improved in only three and four key indicators out of 13. Milwaukee and St. Louis are improving in a majority of key indicators; however, the improvements are not spread across the four dimensions in a way that each dimension experiences more improvement than decline. Additionally, downtown redevelopment has not improved the quality of life or economic well-being of the majority of city residents. The cities seem to be surviving rather than reviving. Differences in racial composition did not seem to have an impact on how the cities fared.
Recently, there has been some decline in media perceptions of the cities. This decline may be attributed to the fact that the tourist-based approach that the cities pursued left unfulfilled promises. Developing downtown districts and expanding tourism were promoted as methods that would lead to overall improvements in city life. We found, however, that they failed to do so.
Three conclusions can be drawn from our study: (1) cities need to concentrate on attracting higher paying jobs; (2) cities are moving away from tourist-centered revival strategies; and, (3) an integrated approach to revival, combining economic incentives, human capital investments, and comprehensive planning to rehabilitate infrastructure, seems likely to be more successful than pursuing a singular approach.
