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The Planetizen News Brief - 3/12/09

12 March 2009 - 5:00am
Smart City Radio

The Planetizen News Brief is a weekly rundown of some of the most interesting and important news and issues of the past week.

The Planetizen News Brief airs every week on the nationally-syndicated radio program "Smart City", which is broadcast in cities across the U.S. Learn more about Smart City and listen to archived shows.

Full Transcript
In the latest reaction to the hobbled economy, the State of Florida has announced plans to break up a state agency tasked with managing growth, oversight legislators say is holding Florida’s economy back. The proposal up for consideration this week would dismantle the Department of Community Affair and re-distribute its responsibilities to Secretary of State Kurt Browning. The St. Petersburg Times reports that the plan is one of a handful of measures aimed at loosening development permitting rules. The hope is that lifting growth management policies and other restrictions will allow projects to move along more quickly and get money back into the state’s economy faster. But critics argue that the plan is more of the same bad policy that wrecked the economy in the first place – speculation-based development that has left more than 300,000 homes empty or foreclosed in the state of Florida alone.

And it’s not just homes that are facing abandonment. Commercial real estate is also emptying out across the country, and cities are taking the hit. A recent article from BusinessWeek looks at the spreading scourge of vacant retail properties, and finds that as the recession bears down, cities are going to see more and more of their commercial-based tax revenue disappear. From cities to suburbs, the retail drain is widespread and growing. Property taxes are often the major source of revenue for cities, so as retailers and businesses drop out of the market, cities’ budgets will likely end up the biggest losers. And that’s a trend many expect to continue for at least the next year.

As a result of these dwindling coffers, some are predicting a radically different look for cities in the near future, especially public spaces. An article in BrandWeek is predicting that as the economy tightens up and city budgets drop, more and more municipalities will start to warm up to the idea of allowing advertising in public spaces. It’s an easy way for cities to make money, and an appealing draw for advertisers, who can get their names or products in front of a large audience for a relatively low cost. From vinyl-wrapped ad buildings in L.A. to corporate-named transit stops in Chicago, cities are looking for new ways to rake in some extra cash. Some cities have even begun selling ad space on the outside of school buses. And though the extra money is more than welcome in struggling cities, many critics are uneasy about these publicly-owned places and services being handed willfully into the hands of the private sector.

Stories discussed in this week's Planetizen News Brief

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There is lots of theory, and lots of wonderful mathematics, and even lots of dealmaking. But the financial engineers are not real engineers who take responsibility for the bridges that fall down. They have no notion of a safety factor.
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