It's been said that Eskimos have hundreds of words for snow. Here in Southeastern Michigan, I swear we have just as many words for
fear.
Change is scary, and a lot of changing has happened here. The world turned, and it's been a rough adjustment for Detroit. So it's not surprising that we sometimes get defensive, holding onto past ways of doing things, or making excuses. (We make a lot of excuses.)
This fear manifests itself in all sorts of ways, and one of the most immediately visible ways is in our built environment. Even with all the rhetoric -- and real investment, even -- in urban density, people continue to live and work too far from the core.
The reasons people use to justify this are many and varied. If you ask metro Detroiters why they don't live, work, or hang out more in the city, you'll get a whole host of reasons. When you hear these reasons recited over hundreds of conversations, you begin to notice a trend:
We use code words a lot. And a lot of these words are code for fear.
One example is parking. As in,
"I'd come downtown if the city had more parking." It may seem small -- not half as important as public education or tax policy or any of the larger forces working against Michigan's largest metropolis. But I've heard it enough to know there's a lot to unpack here. How we deal with our automobiles says a lot about how we deal with fear.
* * * * *
Parking is on my mind because in three recent meetings, people (
intelligent people, mind you -- people who care a lot about the future of our city) identified lack of affordable and available parking as a major hindrance to commercial viability in Detroit. As in,
"If we want to have more retail, we need more parking."
By the third time, I felt like my whole body was a steam pipe about to burst.
Detroit has
far more surface parking than any other city I've ever been to. In fact, the gluttony of space we allow (or worse, require) for cars is one of the largest impediments to density, walkability, and the very viability of business we're concerned about.
I don't need any studies or surveys to tell me this. I just know it. All you have to do is look around. Empty sidewalks. Empty storefronts. Parking lots everywhere.
So how is it then, according to a survey conducted by the Detroit Regional News Hub, that the number one reason metro Detroiters don't visit the city more is
parking?
As with many things in Detroit, the reason people give is often not the
real reason. It's not that we're lying, it's that we lack a basic understanding of how our environment impacts our experience. (Either that, or we're uncomfortable saying what's really on our minds.)
Parking is not the problem. Fear is the problem.
And just to be clear, I'm using the word "fear" here very deliberately. Others might say safety. Or crime. But fear is really the more accurate word. Fear can exist whether a threat is real or imagined. Fear can be rational or irrational.
Fear can also be overcome. That is, if we
want to overcome it.
So when it comes to parking, what are we afraid of?
- Personal safety. People are afraid to walk from their cars to wherever they're going in the city. Maybe they've had experience with crime, or maybe they've just read about it in the paper. This means they expect parking to be as proximate to their destination as possible. Adjacent. Secure. Lighted. Attended, if possible. Look at any announcement for an event in Detroit, and you'll see these words printed right there next to the location. This additional instruction is intended to be reassuring, but I would argue that it has the opposite effect. It's a quiet, constant reminder that we have some reason to be concerned.
- Protection of property. People are afraid their cars might be broken into (or worse, stolen) in their absence. It's hard to enjoy dinner or a show if you're always on edge, wondering if your mode of transport is safe. A secure spot in a lot or structure puts your mind at ease. So many venues have come to accept the extra expense of providing this -- it's just the cost of doing business in the city. One bad experience could lose you a good customer or employee, so it's in your best interest to prevent an unfortunate incident.
- Personal comfortability. People are accustomed to a certain level of convenience and control over their experience. I'll take this one step further to say that Americans are increasingly afraid of being outside of their comfort zone. (A by-product of wealth, maybe?) So if there's the possibility of having to walk a little bit further than you planned, or getting lost between points A and B, or getting caught outside in a storm, or having an unplanned encounter with a stranger on the street -- it's unsettling. Discomfort is heightened when people find themselves in an unfamiliar place. Fear of the unknown is a powerful thing.
Cities, by their very nature, are places of serendipity, chance, unplanned encounters, unfamiliar people. The whole point -- I would say
joy -- of city living is the unexpected. Curious people who enjoy discovery thrive in cities. Cautious people who prefer comfort and security, notsomuch.
The trouble here in Detroit is that when you say "unexpected," most people probably don't think of pleasant surprises, like stumbling upon an impromptu street performance or a new public art installation they knew nothing about. They think of all the
unpleasant things that could happen.
Like that scene in
The Bonfire of the Vanities when a limousine transporting a millionaire and his mistress makes an accidental exit into a Bronx neighborhood. Chaos ensues. It's the ultimate worst nightmare for many Americans -- finding themselves in a "foreign" land, face-to-face with poor, potentially hostile people.
I swear this scene was the impetus for GPS. Just look at the fear in Melanie Griffith's eyes:
For many, the city of Detroit feels unfamiliar. The condition of the built environment is not "normal" by most people's standards -- whether their normal is a more densely populated city, or a more well-manicured suburb. I am reminded of how disconcerting the city's physical landscape can be when new visitors ask,
"I don't get it. Where are the people? Where are the places where things are, like, happening?"
This was me when I arrived in Detroit nearly a decade ago. Over time, you get accustomed to the landscape, it doesn't feel so unnatural any more. You learn where to go, you learn how to see things differently. And you even get defensive when journalists describe Detroit as some kind of ghost town. (
"You're not going to the right places! You're just not seeing it!")
But for sure, it's jarring at first. We all have certain expectations of what a big city looks and feels like. We are not wrong to have these expectations, or to look for visual cues that we're in a vibrant, safe place. Many of these cues are at street-level -- lighting, signage, open doors, windows, pedestrians, trees, etcetera. A kid riding her bike, an elderly man taking a stroll. We see these things and think,
"Well, they seem to feel safe here, so I guess I am, too."
In the absence of these signals, we're left to wonder. "
Is it alright to park here? Will I be okay to walk there?" We're making these quick evaluations all the time, often without really knowing it. We might see a vacant building and think,
"Hmm. No one is monitoring this block. Better park on the next street." Or maybe we circle the block one more time to look for a well-lit area instead of a dark spot.
We do this every day, consciously or sub-consciously. Not just visitors -- residents, too. This is basic street smarts and common sense. As long as we have choices, we're going to choose what feels best.
But what happens when thousands of individual choices for the benefit of safety or convenience add up to really bad policy and practice?
A gluttony of parking is what happens. And it's a slippery slope. Once you start down that road, it's incredibly hard to reverse. We start having expectations, we start patterning our behavior accordingly. And in doing so, we undermine our ability to correct the real causes of our insecurity.
* * * * *
It was at the Detroit Works Project's Entrepreneurs Summit that I was reminded of the real truth behind our parking dilemma. The very smart Sharon Dolente was reporting out from her break-out group of small business owners, and she said something like this:
"Many merchants in our group identified lack of parking as a problem. I've heard this for years, but here's my question: Is this a parking issue, or a public safety issue? If neighborhoods were better patrolled, or if the police were more responsive, then would people feel more comfortable parking on the street?"
It was such a simple but powerful statement in a city that has come to accept crime as part of our reality. We complain about it, but we feel powerless to change it. So we adapt and respond in the best way we know how.
Sharon was right to identify lack of police presence as a contributing factor. Many of my friends would say it's the primary factor. If we all saw more police officers out and about, and if we believed the DPD would actually respond to calls in a timely fashion, then everyone would feel better and criminal activity would be deterred.
Response time is one thing, but police presence is another. Do you feel safer with several officers or security guards around? I'm sure lots of people do, but I don't -- and I know I'm not alone. Especially in urban areas where there is an awful lot of mistrust between authority and residents. Police presence can cause more tension than it can quell.
I don't want to live in a militarized zone. I want to live in a safe, open, inviting place. And call me crazy, but I believe we can have this. With less private parking, not more. It just takes a little more imagination.
Imagine if every surface parking lot in Detroit was occupied by a building. Now imagine if those buildings had ground-level retail spaces with big, transparent windows and doors. Imagine if the windows were illuminated with signage and retail displays, and the doors were unlocked for easy entrance and exit. Imagine if there were people milling around, both inside and out, with visibility between interior and exterior.
You would feel much safer walking a few blocks from your office building to a parking structure if there were more lights and eyes along the way. God forbid anyone approached you, you'd be surrounded by people. Or God forbid it started to downpour, or you got a little lost -- you could easily duck inside the closest business and wait it out or ask for directions.
This is hardly a radical vision; this is how towns and cities have been designed for centuries. During times when we've forgotten the benefits of these fundamentals, we've had plenty of smart people to remind us. Jane Jacobs wrote about the importance of "eyes on the street" for neighborhood vitality and safety in
The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Mike Davis addressed how design impacts our sense of security in
City of Quartz. And the New Urbanists pushed back on auto-oriented development with traditional planning principles for more walkable towns and cities.
Yet somehow these ideas have not penetrated our collective conscience here in Detroit. Somehow property owners, developers, city planners and citizens continue to tolerate the status quo.
The status quo is a fortress-mentality -- a landscape designed by fear. Here, you can leapfrog from safe, private space to safe, private space with minimal interaction with the public realm. Sometimes I watch suburban visitors on their urban journeys, and it goes something like this:
Car --> Parking Lot --> Destination --> Parking Lot --> Car
People have been so conditioned to focus on their destination, sometimes I wonder if they're even using their peripheral vision. My friend Dai Hughes once keenly observed that it's as if folks are wearing blinders -- barely turning their heads to notice what's around them.
* * * * *
So what do we do about this? Especially in a city where demand for space isn't high enough to replace surface parking lots with in-fill development? We're still demolishing historic buildings and replacing them with parking lots. We do it all the time.
Some might say we need more transportation alternatives (bike lanes, better bus service, light rail, etc.) before we can even think about shrinking parking. Until then, less parking will only make the city less attractive for visitors and harm local businesses.
But I'm suspicious of waiting. For more transit, or more police, or more street-level activity. I think we need to start correcting our bad habits. We need to start understanding the high cost of free parking.
"If parking is free and available, people WILL drive," said Carolyn Helmke at our recent
Model D Speaker Series on urban mobility. She was talking about her past experience as Bicycle Program Coordinator at Stanford University, where they ultimately raised the cost of parking to encourage alternative modes of transport on campus.
"Every parking space costs money," Carolyn explained, "and it's something we don't talk about."
This is now my new obsession -- surface parking. Recently I met with some neighbors to talk about how we can think more strategically about parking in our area. The long-term hope would be for local government to eliminate minimum parking requirements, and for property owners to charge fair-market rates for off-street parking.
Perhaps we'll begin with just studying how the surface lots around us are used. I'm sure we'll find that the existing spaces are way under-utilized and could be shared. A nearby university parking lot, for instance, empties out at the end of the work day, and sits mostly unused when school is not in session. Mere feet away, there's another dedicated lot for a local restaurant & bar that is needed most after-hours.
Maybe we only need one lot where we currently have two? Maybe, eventually, one of those lots could be programmed in a way that would increase walkability and safety instead of detracting from it?
And maybe, just maybe, we can begin to chip away at that high cost and paralyzing fear. One surface lot at a time.
