For the last 13 years since the the Financial Crisis I have been relentlessly haranguing my friends, (good people who are very skilled Architects, planners, and urban designers) to take up the craft of small scale development. I have to admit that I have largely failed at this effort with some of my most capable colleagues and friends. I figure this comes from my sincere belief that in a world slouching toward waste and mediocrity, somebody has got to be committed enough to be an asshole in the service of meaningful and important work. Some folks are just not suited to being an asshole, or would prefer not to take on work that requires that kind of activity.

I keep coming back to the need to get more good places built/rebuilt. Who is realistically going to implement a robust and excellent plan and urban design?

The municipal staff and the dedicated local volunteer activists and elected officials? Seriously? Come on. The deck is perversely stacked against the best of them on a good day. I have yet to see those folks be able to get it done. On some occasions they may actually interfere with the proper implementation (— often with the best of intentions). I have had senior planning staff argue with me about the intent of the drafters of the locally adopted TND code, when I was the sole drafter of the TND code in question.

Urban Design + Development is a both/and, not an either/or proposition. Who has the most impact upon what gets built in the private realm and public realm? The urban designer or the party responsible to install and pay for the utilities, streets and squares? A competent developer understands how an enhanced public realm adds functionality and value to private parcels and buildings. I have spent a good portion of the the last 25 years fighting with municipalities to get them to allow me to build a better public realm and to not waste my budget for building stormwater management measures, streets, squares and other public amenities on dumb but orderly nonsense. There are plenty of unfortunate standards that do not provide any increase in function or value. Building the wrong stuff with greater predictability at huge expense is not a skill we need. As an urbanist developer, I have to train every local civil engineer and utility design office touching our projects on how to create a decent public realm. In the end, the developer also has to wrestle with the fire marshal to keep their unfortunate formulas and shortsighted standard worship from screwing up the public realm and jeopardizing public health and safety.

If urban design consultants and planners are successful in crafting good codes and good plans and they are successful in training and coaching the municipal staff who will be charged with administering the codes, in spite of incursions from the utility companies, the fire marshal and the public works department, then the public realm may be delivered competently. But for all the good intentions of elected officials, Community Development Directors, Planning Directors, architectural review boards, and senior planning and urban design staff, as the developer I end up having to push to get a decent public realm built I have to fight against the endless forces of entropy, the swirling gumbo of lousy habits, comfortable conventions, arbitrary parking standards, lousy management of the public parking resource, outdated peer reviewed standards and standards that never really existed (--but everyone involved seems to believe they must be written down somewhere...)

Urban design skills are essential to becoming a competent and solvent developer because otherwise you cannot deliver the decent and necessary public realm.

Developers have to know the current versions of the IRC and IBC, the International Existing Building Code, the manuals of the Fire Department, ASHTOE, ITE, the local Public Utility Commission's Green Book of accepted typical details and engineering protocols. They should know them better than the front line staff they encounter from all the various silos and better than the department heads.

In my view, an urban designer or Architect who has the vision of what a place can be should not just work for an hourly fee or a completion bonus. If you know how great the place can be, that it will be so much better than the sum of the parts, the pieces of the public and private realm being discussed, then you should develop and build.

You should own the buildings that will hold some of the value you helped create. Own buildings that produce passive income so that you can pass on some wealth and security to your family or your favorite local cause. Own assets that generate cash flow, so that you can be more selective about the clients you agree to work with. Own buildings that produce cash flow regardless of your day to day activity, in case there is a crushing financial crisis and you can't find clients to send an invoice to so you can pay your own rent or mortgage and feed your household in lean times.

Own some buildings in the place you care about building/rebuilding so that you can have time to mentor and coach the next generation, to travel and learn, to take long walks without having to take a client's phone call and scurry back to the office to make yet another round of dumb changes you don't agree with....

The developer has to be the active ingredient, the yeast, the leavening agent that makes bread possible out of water, salt, and flour. If all you have is lots of flour, water, and salt, no matter how much you add of any of these ingredients, you will not produce great bread.

End of rant. Contact me if you are ready to make the move from Planner, Architect, or urban designer to developer. I will introduce you to people from your tribe who made the pivot.

janderson@andersonkim.com