I haven’t been to Rochester NY for 10 years but was amazed by the quality of the city’s legacy assets. It also made me think about the incredible resiliency of some of the rust belt metros. Imagine some other city of 200000 or metro area of 1 million and how they would do if they lost 60000 jobs from a single employer.
I’ve been doing some work with Kenosha Wisconsin which rarely gets much notice in urbanism circles other than the negative attention from the rioting that occurred in 2020 following the shooting of Jacob Blake. They were one of the great auto manufacturing cities in the US as the main production center for AMC which for a time was the 4th largest auto company in the US. They’ve been working for 35 years to transform the AMC/Chrysler plant sites that closed in circa 1990 and 2010. This year they kicked off construction of what will be a >$700 million project transforming a 9-block area in the downtown including one of the last blocks remaining to be developed of the former AMC lakefront plant. This project is 2 blocks from their Chicago Metra station and the project will include up to six 10 to 20-story towers. They are also completing the first two buildings within the 107-acre site of the former AMC Main Plant/Chrysler Engine plant in what is planned to be a $1 billion innovation district. Within the past week Lilly announced a $3 billion plant expansion just outside the City limits and this follows Microsoft’s announcement and active construction 10 miles north of what will be the largest data center in the world ($3.5 billion initial phase).
Ooh thanks for sharing these insights. You make such a good point about resiliency. I think about this sometimes with Philly, where I live. When the loss of population and commuters happened after the pandemic, I think people were unfazed. Not our first time at this rodeo.
Thanks for this list of urban achievers. Just one correction. Boston is working on enabling ADUs, but has not passed that zoning ordinance yet. The 2024 Massachusetts statewide law that enabled ADUs in every other town left Boston out. But stay tuned for 2025!
Thank you for that. It was unclear to me what phase this work was in. It seems kind of like jumping the gun to put an ADU guidebook out there if you need a zoning variance to build one, but I guess hopefully it will be changed soon. From the City of Boston website: “Over the next year, the Planning Department will work to advance and complete zoning that updates residential zoning and allows for ADUs on larger lots (generally at least 60 feet wide and 4,800 square feet), and where properties have up to 4 units.” https://www.bostonplans.org/neighborhood-housing
I haven’t been to Rochester NY for 10 years but was amazed by the quality of the city’s legacy assets. It also made me think about the incredible resiliency of some of the rust belt metros. Imagine some other city of 200000 or metro area of 1 million and how they would do if they lost 60000 jobs from a single employer.
I’ve been doing some work with Kenosha Wisconsin which rarely gets much notice in urbanism circles other than the negative attention from the rioting that occurred in 2020 following the shooting of Jacob Blake. They were one of the great auto manufacturing cities in the US as the main production center for AMC which for a time was the 4th largest auto company in the US. They’ve been working for 35 years to transform the AMC/Chrysler plant sites that closed in circa 1990 and 2010. This year they kicked off construction of what will be a >$700 million project transforming a 9-block area in the downtown including one of the last blocks remaining to be developed of the former AMC lakefront plant. This project is 2 blocks from their Chicago Metra station and the project will include up to six 10 to 20-story towers. They are also completing the first two buildings within the 107-acre site of the former AMC Main Plant/Chrysler Engine plant in what is planned to be a $1 billion innovation district. Within the past week Lilly announced a $3 billion plant expansion just outside the City limits and this follows Microsoft’s announcement and active construction 10 miles north of what will be the largest data center in the world ($3.5 billion initial phase).
Ooh thanks for sharing these insights. You make such a good point about resiliency. I think about this sometimes with Philly, where I live. When the loss of population and commuters happened after the pandemic, I think people were unfazed. Not our first time at this rodeo.
Thanks for this list of urban achievers. Just one correction. Boston is working on enabling ADUs, but has not passed that zoning ordinance yet. The 2024 Massachusetts statewide law that enabled ADUs in every other town left Boston out. But stay tuned for 2025!
Thank you for that. It was unclear to me what phase this work was in. It seems kind of like jumping the gun to put an ADU guidebook out there if you need a zoning variance to build one, but I guess hopefully it will be changed soon. From the City of Boston website: “Over the next year, the Planning Department will work to advance and complete zoning that updates residential zoning and allows for ADUs on larger lots (generally at least 60 feet wide and 4,800 square feet), and where properties have up to 4 units.” https://www.bostonplans.org/neighborhood-housing
I would guess they did the guidebook to help show people, and especially homeowners, what can be done. And that way build support. I'm here for it!