Incrementalism is the idea that things develop naturally based on the needs of society. Someone wanted to open a trading post they bought some land and they built it. Same with a house which were built near the trading post because it was convenient. Then came subdivisions as towns were formed and there became a need to divide up the land the houses sat on so more could live near the store and then there was the need for more stores and neighborhoods came into being.
It all changed when "planners" came into being to restore order to the chaos of the town and its downtown. The wealthy got together and built these things called malls and strip centers at the edge of town and the 'Planner' decreed that all business shall go there. They created zoning overlays that decreed that only houses could be there.
The "disguised goal" was to 'force' the small business to the area where the wealthy wanted it (and could charge for it). Neighborhoods changed. They became less personal, less convenient and less desirable and then the Suburbs came to be.
That happened all over the country as small towns believing they would someday be big cities followed this mantra. People moved away and they declined.
Then one day came the 'outsiders' The outsiders have "Vision" and ideas, they knew what vibrant neighborhood looked like with home AND shops. The battle lines were drawn: vison vs government and planners.
This phase is the phase I find myself in. The town I have called home for for 6 years where we moved our business and home to is ready for the "incremental challenge".. Restoring our neighborhoods to place where people lived and shop.
Our opening salvo was to open our antiques and design business in an old corner store that was built as a Mercantile in 1884 and had been vacant for some time. For us the perfect live/work and it has almost 1/2 a city block of yard (future development land that the original builder held to control development around him), and yes we have plans for that. This neighborhood was the center of the German Austrian community between 1880 and 1920 as it was common for people to organize communities around their culture. This area "Midtown" once has over 16 commercial buildings along its "Main Street" which was 15th street. There was even a firehouse. You had mercantile's, general stores, butchers, barbers and tailors, a bike shop, saloons and fish mongers, It was exactly the kind of neighborhood that people long for now and in the 1880's the Victorian understood the concept of Live/work/play better that any big developer could ever hope to. Today only 5 of those original 16 structures are left and 2 of those are converted residential rentals.
Along the way we organized the neighborhood, started a crime watch and stopped a BIG developer who wanted to drop 42 apartment in a huge 3 story building that would have towered over everything and created huge traffic problems . before you yell Nimbyism. It was a bad 3story entire city block, out of scale development that didn't even try to fit into our community. That same developer however has now built dozens of small homes on vacant lots all over town (a better, more incremental, solution) .We got the same number of families but scattered all over so traffic was not impacted for any one neighborhood.
Next Installment: Neighborhood branding and the quest for incremental development.
