HomeMy WebLinkAbout04-30-2007 Stop being trendy, author tells downtown advocates o�sou TH
F dx
:J b
W eFacE � �
y� a 1, a2
1865
Office of the Mayor
NEWS RELEASE
ApH130, 2007
3 p.m.
Stop being trendy, author tells downtown advocates
Contact: Mikki Dobski, Director of Communications&Special Projects, 235-5855 or 876-
1564, or Marco Mariani, 282-1110
SOUTH BEND—Downtown advocates must teach retiring baby boomers how to world play, live
and shop downtown to reverse cultural perceptions of"normal"American life, according to "a
passionate crusader for downtowns across America."
Speaking Saturday(April 28, 2007) at the first annual Pride of Place Design Awards sponsored
by Downtown South Bend and the City of South Bend, Kyle Ezell, founder of Get Urban
America Ltd., challenged more than 50 downtown advocates to"stop cheerleading and start
teaching."
An estimated 78 million baby boomers will retire in the next 10 years, according to Ezell, an
author and urban planner. He told those gathered at the South Bend Regional Museum of Art that
he believes these"guppies"(Retired Urban People) are the key to changing the future of the
nation's downtowns.
"People who are retiring today are very active and ready to do things,"said Ezell, lecturer in city
and regional planning at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. "This demographic has the
most money of any demographic in the entire history of the United States. ... If they're not
downtown, their grandchildren can't be initiated to city living. That generation is going to be
gone, and 15 years from now cities will become less and less relevant."
Downtown advocates need to reverse cultural perceptions of what is "normal"that began 60 years
ago with the founding of the first American suburb in Levittown, N.Y. According to Ezell, what's
defined as "normal"today includes:
• Homeowners desiring a house at the end of the last cul-de-sac in a suburban development
because it's the farthest away from people.
• Workers getting lunch at a drive-through and eating alone in a car in the fast-food parking lot.
• Drivers sitting in a traffic jam doing their makeup or eating breakfast while reading the
newspaper.
By contrast, he said, walking, bicycling or dining in a sidewalk cafe are considered trendy. "It's
not normal for people to walk Do you see how powerful this is? ... People wouldn't be caught
dead on a city bus,"he said. "What's normal is powerful and trendy is unusual. The people who
are trendy are cheerleaders —live, work, play, shop downtown. Let's move downtown. 'Trendy
people like us like that hustle and bustle.
"We've got to get rid of trendy,"he said. "We can't build downtowns until all the trendy things,
the unusual things, become normal. ... In the 1940s, some developer decided to change the
culture and built Levittown. We still adhere to that 65 years later,but that doesn't have to be
normal anymore.`
Through his web site(www.geturban.com)three books—"Get Urban,""Retire Downtown,"and
the forthcoming"Teaching Urban Values"—and his Columbus-based urban-planning and
marketing firm. Ezell hopes to teach the urban lifestyle to millions of Americans. In small
gatherings. One city at a time.
"I'm going to teach people how to do this and show people how to live an urban lifestyle in
places like South Bend, Indiana,"he said. "If you love your city, you've got to stop cheerleading
and start teaching."
Ezell's passion for downtowns began as a child in tiny Lawrenceburg, Tenn., south of Nashville,
where he roamed the town square and came to love the courthouse in a town planned by Davy
Crockett. Until at age 5 when his parents took him downtown to see a wrecking ball demolish it.
"People were literally cheering. It was progress. ... I was devastated as a kid because my skyline
was being torn down,"he said. "They tore down my Davy Crockett Courthouse, ... [and] they got
what they wanted—plenty of parking and no traffic. Of course there's no business, no festivals,
no events and there's very few stores left."
To "stimulate a cultural shift in the city,"Ezell said downtown advocates need to change the
landscape. "Landscape mirrors culture,"he said. Showing aerial maps he demonstrated that
thriving urban places like New York's Times Square have highly concentrated developments,
while stagnating cities have vast acres of blacktop parking lots.
"More than 50 percent of downtown Fort Wayne, Indiana, is a parking lot,"he said, nothing that
many cities, including South Bend, fared little better. Ezell advocated for walkable communities,
parking for scooters and bicycles, and high-density construction.
"Get urban,"he said. "Get yourself citified."
For South Bend in particular,Ezell said residents must overcome a challenge. "You have a
tremendous inferiority complex. You don't think you're as good as Indianapolis. Just down the
road is Chicago,"he said. "Your city's reputation and the view of your city is a business. If
nobody knows about the vitality of your city and the future of your city, you're losing business."
Having recently visited Rockford, Ill., a city of similar population size to South Bend, Ezell said,
"Rockford is nothing compared to South Bend. South Bend has so much more than Rockford
currently does."
But the bigger shift, Ezell said, remains over perceptions of cities and downtowns as a whole.
"Cities are the souls of our communities,"he said. "We have to have a cultural shift in order for
... all downtowns across the country to survive—and not just as entertainrnent districts."
- 30 -