Reimagining Cities-Disrupting the Urban Doom Loop

VIRTUOUS CYCLES: HOWCITIES AVOID DOOM LOOPS AND THRIVE

“Doom loop” is a new term for an old phenomenon. Cities and metropolitan areas are always changing, and that change is either moving negatively in a doom loop (also referred to as a downward spiral) or moving up in a virtuous spiral. Stasis is generally not an option. The various real estate products and business sectors of either WalkUPs or DriveINs (regionally significant Drivable Sub-urban places) reinforce whether they are in a doom loop or a virtuous spiral. Drivable Sub-urban development, a fundamentally new concept in building human settlements, began in the U.S. in the mid-20th century and later spread throughout the world. The invention, manufacturing and proliferation of cars and trucks, along with the expansion of roads and employing the oil, automobile, insurance and finance industries, created Drivable Sub-urban places in metropolitan America. Drivable Sub-urban development literally “drove” most of the economy. Research conducted in 2023 by Places Platform, LLC and Smart Growth America showed that in the largest 35 metropolitan areas, 98.8% of metro land use is Drivable Sub-urban and nearly all of it has been built since 1950. Only 1.2% of metro land in those 35 cities is Walkable Urban. This suburban sprawl costs the country more than $1 trillion (about $3,100 per person in the U.S.) a year

in maintaining the infrastructure, new public works, driving and health costs. 22 However, despite the costs, the market embraced this new way of travel and living that the automobile created. Regionally significant places, both WalkUPs and DriveINs, are where most of the GDP is generated in our metropolitan areas and cities. However, WalkUPs tend to be far more complex than DriveINs. Therefore, transforming a WalkUP doom loop into a virtuous spiral requires more elements to be changed over a longer period of time. DriveINs can potentially reverse a doom loop by changing fewer elements, such as renovating a regional mall. In this section, we examine historical case studies of WalkUP doom loops that have been reversed in New York City, Detroit, Seattle, Denver, Pittsburgh and New Orleans. THE WALKUP ORCHESTRA WalkUPs are an “orchestra of instruments,” which is complex and difficult to manage. They are concentrated in the central city of a metropolitan area, and they are important for central city economies, public sector budgets and social activities, such as festivals, demonstrations, and celebrations. Given the importance of these places, the focus of this research is on the WalkUPs in the sample 15 cities.

22 Litman, Todd. “Analysis of Public Policies that Unintentionally Encourage and Subsidize Suburban Sprawl.” The Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, 2015.

16 Cushman & Wakefield