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40 Planning June 2005 and good management. These principles pro- vide the basic guidance needed to produce a plan for good downtowns, cores, or centers. . Many people assumed that the suburban hopping centers being built during the 1960s would provide these qualities. But often they did not. Victor Gruen saw this as early as 1973 and said so in his book, Centers for the Urban Environment. He gave a scathing cri- tique of how shopping centers were being built (he called them uni-functional centers), urged that regions be organized around a system of multi-functional centers, and said that these centers should be anchored by a wide range of functions (not just shopping). Several research studies came to the same conclusion. The first, compiled in 1968 for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban De- velopment by Banon-Aschman Associates of Evanston, Illinois, recommended that land uses be organized into mixed-use clusters designed to meet the needs of neighborhoods, communi- ties, and regions (even super regions). The sec- ond, done in 1981 for the U.S. Depanment of Transponation, recommended that metropoli- tan regions be developed into a series of centers (at the subregional level) to provide focal points for regional and subregional transit ser- .vice. Jerry Schneider, the author of the second repon, called this concept "polycentric." About a dozen metro areas prepared plans following the polycentric concept. They in- cluded Minneapolis, Toronto, Vancouver, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Baltimore. Several of these areas developed principles and pro- grams for their development, and a few con- ducted major studies to measure benefits and esrablish implementing policies. Locations were proposed, and a few pro-core policies and p'i!ms were adopted. However, no one recognized just how strong such policies and programs would have to be to produce the desired results. And almost no one applied the principles emerging from down- town planning to the design of suburban cores. Very little was done to put new commercial, institutional, or public functions into these centers to make them truly mixed-use. Even fewer were compact. And far more develop- mentwas located outside of centers than within. Some hope The result is the condition we have today: the widespread, single-use, unplanned, wasteful, . vulnerable-to-obsolescence,and often con- flicting development that we call sprawl-with all its attendant problems. According to the Urban Land Institute, one in five of the country's major suburban shop- 'J? E ~ N iN I N G 'e II iA ,~,'Jl) fl B J~} ." . /. . "", ~0"A" "k i@: ping centers is obsolete or in danger of becoming so. Five of the first six such centers in Phoenix have had to be totally rebuilt. The International Downtown Executives Association recognizes 47,000 shopping centers in the U. S. Most of these could be targeted for improvement, as could tens of thousands of individual office and institutional complexes. The deficiencies of such areas are a major source of blight, conges- tion, traffic, environmental degradation, and neighborhood abandonment. A few organizations-including the Ameri- can Planning Association, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and the Regional Plan Association in New York Ciry-have suggested ways to deal with these problems. But these programs reach only a tiny fraction of existing cores, and very few, if any, aim to get development in--or become the centers of-new mixed-use centers. Public and eorporate support? The potential value of mixed-use centers sug- gests that we should give them wide national, regional, and state support in the same way that we support our goals in education, health, housing, security, transportation, and the en- vironment. We should recognize that such centers may be one of the best tools we have to achieve planning goals. One who makes this point strongly is Donovan Rypkema, an economic develop- ment consultant and principal of the firm Place Economics. Writing in the Winter 2003 issue of the Journal of the American Planning Association, he noted that downtowns are im- portant for effective environmental, transpor- tation, preservation, and smart growth poli- cies. He also noted that downtowns are essential for community economic health, diversity, and public expression. The same points apply if you substitute the word "cores" for the word "downtowns." Other aqnunenls for eores Victor Gruen suggested that mixed-use cen- ters have the following traits: .. Consistency with market trends. Cities have always grown around markets. But in the 20th century, extensive automobile use created more potential sites than markets can support, mak- ing it hard to focus demand in good cores and encouraging sprawl. In this century, however, continued population growth, combined with increased congestion, will make cores more at- tractive as the way to handle growth. .. Reduced travel. A major argument for establishing strong cores is that they will reduce travel requirements and thus also re- " l o " ~ 1! o ". ~ ~ .., " ~ " l 0: 1 :~ o ~ :E duce consumption of space, time, and en- ergy. By putting more people within a rela- tively short distance of work, school, and shopping, cores will increase the feasibility of transit and encourage walking and bicy- cling. They will also be a focus for transit, taxis, and car pooling.