Where do we go NOW!? – President’s Message
July 7, 2020 by Ted Knowlton
Policy/Legislative
Where Do We Go Now?
What a challenging and great time to be a planner. We certainly are in the middle of our own crisis as local governments face funding shortfalls. This affects departments that rely more on growth and a healthy economy, such as planning. Our battered economy affects public and private sector planners alike. Even as society faces an exigency like this, the planning profession has special value right now.
Just as we are beginning to overcome the public health emergency of COVID-19, and are grappling with the economic emergency, we all are just starting to explore how COVID-19 will affect people’s lifestyles and decisions. Shifting lifestyles over time affects how our cities function and change over time. Leaders and residents should look to planners to understand shifts and how to react and shape these shifts.
What kind of shifts are we talking about? From before the onset of the pandemic to the peak shift, we have seen open space demands increase 100% on average, bike trips are also up about 100%, and trips to work have been down by as much as 40%. These are significant shifts in a short period! What will conditions be like when the pandemic crisis recedes, and life settles into a “new normal?” Some of these changes will endure even after we gradually emerge and recover from the pandemic as a result of new habits. (See the article “Some of Utah’s growth challenges take a breather but not for long” for more information at www.utahpolicy.com.)
Where do we go now?
- Will we see a permanent bump up in telework and an acceleration in e-commerce? If so, what does this mean for our commercial areas in cities? How can they evolve? Is now the time to have a frank conversation about allowable uses in commercial zones (increasing land-use flexibility)?
- Will we see a permanent increase in bicycle use? Bike sales are up also roughly 100%, and e-bike sales are up much higher than that. Indications are the growth in bicycling represents a broader market of bike riders, not just the pre-existing bike community riding en masse. Many European cities are making permanent increases in bike infrastructure to respond to COVID-19. What are we doing in suburban, urban, and rural Utah? What should we be doing with bike infrastructure?
- WIll your community look welcoming to skilled labor and businesses that seek highly amenitized environments that surround residential and mixed-use developments? Will your community thrive economically after the new equilibrium? Local sales tax allocation for online sales largely follows the buyer’s location. This means that there is a much higher value to your city when households choose to live there.
A crisis creates a natural opening to ask structural questions like these. We need to ask these questions while the natural opening exists within our communities. In a year, when a new equilibrium comes about, the desire to look afresh at land use, urban design, amenities may no longer be there. While being sensitive to your community’s willingness to look ahead, I hope you will be bold in helping your officials and the public ask, “Where do we go now?”
Utah is Still the Place for Growth
Now here is the hard thing—recall we were going through the most heated growth-related conversation in modern times before COVID-19 hit. Utah was the fastest-growing state in the nation in the last decade and was facing significant challenges in housing, transportation, air quality, etc. COVID-19 will certainly affect economic growth, but residential growth in Utah is predominantly internal. Local conversations about effectively accommodating growth while maintaining a high quality of life will return and will continue to be challenging for several reasons:
- People tend to focus on the urgent issues of the moment, less about longer-term issues.
- Participation in local government is low—unless people have a direct stake in an outcome.
- Regional impacts are often not considered in local decision making.
- Public processes can be expensive.
- Ultimately, the level of controversy is “high” around accommodating growth pressures.
- Negative messaging about the risks of change or growth can be contagious.
APA Utah will be shifting some of its focus to facilitate conversations about COVID-19 to share lessons with—and between—you about “where we go now.” We will also re-engage the significant issues that pre-dated COVID-19 as appropriate. I encourage you to participate in chapter activities. Let’s help each other further the cause of creating better places!
Be safe,
Ted Knowlton, APA Utah Chapter President
Recent News
- Art as Daily Experience in Ogden’s Nine Rails Creative District
- Award Spotlight: Salt Lake City Reimagines Nature
- LET’S TALK! AND TALK. AND TALK SOME MORE…
- A Minnesota Judge Throws the Book at Immoral Tax Assessments
- The Great Rebalance
- To Fully Observe, We Need to Walk
- Study reveals that Utah housing prices have increased 200% in two decades
- DOUBLE WHAMMY
- The Office of the Property Rights Ombudsman
- Gov. Cox hails ‘generational’ effort in Utah’s water law history
- Clamor is King
- Utah Is Building a ’15-Minute City’ From Scratch
- Quality of Life – A Dishonest Approach to Change in Neighborhood Character
- Changing the Rules of Zoning
- Growth & Change In the West: 2022 RMLUI Conference Recap
- Vernacular Is Beautiful—If We Would Just Allow It
- APAUT Spring Conference Follow-up and Pictures
- To Airbnb or Not to Airbnb
- The Costs of Wide Streets in the U.S.
- APAUT President’s Message – March 2022
- How should we decide the fate of Utah Lake?
- How the Utah Legislature continues to usurp power from city and county government
- What to know about residential care facilities in your neighborhood
- University of Utah Professor Named the 3rd Most Cited Planning Faculty in the World
- TWO BIG BILLS OUT
- Examining the Impact of London’s Mandatory Inclusionary Housing
- May We all Grow Together: Cultivating Support for Utah’s Emerging Planners
- A Commitment to Change
- Okay Boomer
- APAUT Book Discussion: Evicted by Matthew Desmond
- Economic Development After the Rise of Telework
- Follow the 2022 Legislative Session
- After the Bennett Freeze: Planning Within the Navajo Nation
- Flexible Zoning for the New Economy
- Lead and Inspire with Purpose: AICP Code of Ethics Update
- Janet Quinney Lawson – Institute for Land, Water & Air
- Emerging Planners Survey
- Plan to restore Utah Lake met with resistance from Utah County conservation groups
- New Murray projects and guidelines move forward as moratorium ends
- From the Office of Dodge, Wiggle, Hack, Shrug & DeCamp, LLC
- Land Use Training
- Paul Allred: Career Reflections & Valuable Advice – Part 3
- Cache Summit 2021
- WAVE HIKING PERMIT CHANGES ON THE WAY
- Paul Allred: Career Reflections & Valuable Advice (Part 2)
- Paul Allred: Career Reflections & Valuable Advice
- UDOT seeks public input on rural Utah transportation plans
- Electric Vehicles Are on the Rise. Is Your Community Ready?
- Call for Award Nominations
- Fifteen-Minute City
- Remember Olympia Hills?
- The Mountain Lions: these nine cities boomed in the COVID era
- AS PLANNERS, WHY DO WE DO WHAT WE DO, AND WHY ARE WE DOING IT?
- Andrea Garfinkel-Castro, doctoral candidate, “Unpacks” Latino Urbanism
- 11 Ways To Excel Ethically At Every Level
- Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD): core principles
- A Tale of Two Walks: Part 2
- Heat, Health & Equity: The Effects of High Temperatures on Health, and Ways to Mitigate Heat in Our City
- Help Shape Equity Planning Policy
- DO CITIES HAVE THE AUTHORITY TO BAN FIREWORKS?
- Air Quality Is Better In Utah Today Than Ten Years Ago, But…
- Layton council adopts water-saving landscaping requirements for most new development
- CAREFUL WHOM YOU CALL A NIMBY
- Considering A National Infrastructure Bank
- HEALTHY UTAH COMMUNITY
- Breaking Down Silos: The Inception of the Utah Rural Coordinating Council
- MAG Transit Studies
- Effective Public Engagement Requires a Lot More Than a Public Hearing
- Is Remote Work Here to Stay?
- SENSITIVE LANDS PLANNING: PROTECTING PUBLIC HEALTH, SAFETY, AND WELFARE FOR GENERATIONS TO COME
- Bond Ratings are for Investors (Not Taxpayers)
- It’s Complicated (Ok, you’ve heard that before, but maybe not for this topic – billboards.)
- The Color of Law APAUT Online Book Discussion
- The American Jobs Plan Will Make Our Infrastructure Crisis Worse
- President’s Infrastructure Proposal Includes Addressing Housing Affordability
- We Cannot Plan from Our Desks
- Rep. Curtis, Sen. Romney introduce bill to advance the Bonneville Shoreline Trail
- Utah could lose out on billions in federal funding for passenger rail
- The Cure for the Wasatch Front’s Housing Crisis: More Affordable Homes Between North Salt Lake and Lehi
- Ambassador Program Update
- Local Needs Among Utah’s Multicultural Communities During the COVID-19 Pandemic
- Campus Mobility Hub Study – APAUT Award Winner
- Does Building New Housing Reduce Overall Housing Costs?
- Layton Forward – Layton City’s Comprehensive General Plan Update
- Spring Conference Postponed, Book Club, President’s Message
- Presidents Message
- Lehi Connectivity Standards – A Stronger Urban Fabric
- Housing First; Cars Last
- UDOT Bike Infrastructure Data Collection Project
- The Great Horizon Year of 2020
- Density is a Loaded Term
- New Study on Housing Affordability Focuses on Local Land Use Practices
- There is no such thing as ‘smart sprawl’
- Legislative Interim Committee – What You Need To Know
- A bipartisan opportunity to rebuild American infrastructure
- Zoning laws aren’t the only things hindering Utah’s housing market
- Congratulations to the APAUT 2020 Award Winners
- State and Local Governments Must Further Address Housing Affordability
- The Status of Women Leaders in Government – Utah Cities and Towns
- We have to do something about Utah’s housing crisis
- What the Wasatch Front needs is more basement apartments
- Cities Don’t Need High-Rises to Become Affordable
- Away from the bustle: Covid-19 and the end of commuterland
- The Color of Law: A Book Review
- (Contract) Zoning by Agreement in Utah
- Zoning Reform Is Not Leftism
- “The Great Localization” COVID-19 and Opportunities for Communities
- Missing Middle Housing: Thinking Big and Building Small to Respond to Today’s Housing Crisis
- Zoning Reform – English Style
- 3 Stories Show the Flip Side Of Zoning Reform
- APAUT Call to Action
- The Politics of Housing Affordability
- Zoning, Affordability, and COVID-19
- Where do we go NOW!? – President’s Message
- An Interview With Ashley Cleveland, MCMP
- The Importance of Sense of Place in our Communities
- An Answer to the Suburban Growth Dilemma
- Homeless to Housed Fall 2019
- A New Initiative: Children’s Walks
- Awards Spotlight: Water Quality Planning Toolkit for Utah Communities
- All About Storm Drain Utility Fees – Video