An Introduction to my micro-urban blog

So, what do I mean by micro-urban or micro-urbanism? And why did I start this blog?

I was thinking of micro-urbanism as small-city urbanism. I grew up in a small city (Wilmington, DE), and, after 2 decades in NYC, find myself living in another small city again (Scranton, PA). A lot of urbanist writing online focuses on large cities, which have a whole host of issues that don't apply to small cities.

While small cities may get ignored, I believe they're in the place where America's large cities were a few decades ago--about to rebound. As a lot of people cycle through large cities again, for work, education, or fun, I expect many who leave will still want some of the urban life they had, but on a smaller scale.

There are plenty of reasons someone would want to forsake the richer cultural and work offerings of the big city: wanting it easier to leave, say for the countryside or to visit family; having more space for their kids or their creative projects (arts, gardens, woodworking, whatever); wanting a bit more quiet. Whatever the reasons, not all of these people will want to go to suburbs or rural areas, and good, small cities will attract the people I'm talking about.

I hope many smaller cities embrace urbanist thinking, much as bigger cities started to a few decades ago. Here in Scranton, there still seems to be a desire in the government to emulate the areas that are thriving--the suburbs--instead of focusing on differentiating the city and doing the things a city can do best. The government leaders don't seem at all versed in urbanist ideas, let alone to realize that urbanism's greatest icon, Jane Jacobs, grew up here. (Granted, it's only of symbolic meaning, as she, like many others, left when she was 19.)

I think part of the problem is that most people don't really think of small cities as "urban"--there aren't car-jackings, 100-story buildings, or subway systems. I'd offer a minimal definition of "urban" as:

• being walkably dense
• having mixed-use (residential + commercial) areas
• being diverse (in ethnicity, income, sexual orientation, etc.)
• and offering a degree of anonymity

The last two are what make a small city urban but keep a large town from being so. A city will have more diversity--various ethnic groups and businesses, a GLBT community, etc.--plus some anonymity in the ability to go a couple blocks from your house and not know everyone you see.

What is "small" in a small city, then? I'll focus on populations of 50-250k, but won't be too strict about it. And, I'll likely ignore suburbs in this range if they don't have some sort of urban core.


Finally, there's another potential definition of micro-urbanism that I stumbled on online, which is urbanism on a micro scale--like micro-economics vs macro-economics. E.g. thinking about how a single building fits into the urban context. I'll stretch this a little further to include thinking of small-scale, low-cost, incremental projects, instead of grand schemes of redesign. Small city budgets are generally too small for vast renewal projects, so this form of micro-urbanism makes sense for them. This aspect of micro-urbanism is completely applicable to large cities as well; I'll just focus on implications for small cities here.

And, this brings me to my last complaint about small city governments, they seem focused on big new buildings, e.g. working towards a (vacant) $20M office building or a (vacant) new office park, rather than infrastructure, zoning, rehabilitation or even lowly sidewalks and traffic lights. A lot of this is purely short-sighted politics--a new office building can get built in one four-year term and makes a great photo op, but zoning and infrastructure improvements can take a long time to bear visible fruit. In short, economics and long-term bang-for-buck will always be a consideration here. 


I may return to a big city some day, but I'd always like the option of living in quality, small, yet urban cities in the future.