The Atlanta BeltLine is explicitly deigned to both improve the quality of life of current city residents and to attract new residents to the city, particularly mobile young professionals. This dual purpose is how placemaking should be done everywhere.

The BeltLine is 33 miles of multi-use trails, parks, and a network of pedestrian-friendly transit links. Serving 40 neighborhoods, not just downtown. Light rail is a central design feature of the BeltLine.

For years we have made the case that placemaking should be central to Michigan’s economic-growth strategy. The data are clear that the most prosperous places across the country are those with the largest talent concentrations. And that mobile talent is choosing to live in places with quality basic services, infrastructure and amenities.

But the economic development need to retain and attract mobile talent should not be at the expense of current residents. For cities this must be a both/and––not an either/or––proposition. Both current and future city residents should be provided with quality basic services, infrastructure and amenities that make the city an attractive place to live, play and work.

Clearly, far too often, cities have chosen to focus on providing service and amenities on downtown and near downtown neighborhoods so as to retain and attract affluent/college educated households. This needs to change.

Improving the quality of life of current city residents and attracting new residents to the city was the dual mission of the new Austin transit plan. Transit Now––the cross-sector supporters of the initiative––described the benefits of the light rail plus initiative this way:

It’s time we invest in a new future for Austin that gives our transit-dependent neighbors dignity, that gives everyone else a viable option to sitting in traffic, that helps prevent climate change and protects the quality of our air and water, that prevents displacement and creates complete communities with expanded access to opportunities to all residents, and that keeps our economy humming now and for decades to come.

The Atlanta BeltLine also was designed both to improve the quality of life of current city residents and to attract new residents to the city. The Atlanta Beltline describes itself as:

As one of the largest, most wide ranging urban redevelopment programs in the United States, the Atlanta BeltLine is the catalyst for making Atlanta a global beacon for equitable, inclusive, and sustainable city life.

The story of the Atlanta Beltline is told in Ryan Gravel’s highly recommended Where We Want To Live: Reclaiming Infrastructure for a New Generation of Cities. Gravel first proposed the BeltLine a little more than twenty years ago in his masters thesis at Georgian Tech.

From its inception the BeltLine was designed to be far more that a walking and bike path with light rail running along side the trail. It lists it goals as: 33 miles of multi-use urban trails; $10 billion of economic development; 30,000 permanent jobs; 22 miles of pedestrian friendly rail transit; 5,600 units of affordable housing; 1,100 acres of environmental cleanup; 1,300 acres of new greenspace; 46 miles of improved streetscapes, and the largest public art exhibition in the south

Gravel calls it catalyst infrastructure. A catalyst for economic development, community development, affordable housing, etc. The BeltLine is the infrastructure that creates the kind of amenities where people prefer to live and thus drives where development occurs. And changes the nature of that development from what Chris Leinberger in the Option of Urbanism calls driveable suburbanism to walkable urbanism.

Turns out that both current residents, across race and class, as well as potential new residents all want walkable urbansim. That communities can do both/and placemaking. And when they do the result is a place that both improves the quality of life of current residents and attracts mobile talent that drive future economic growth.

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You read that right! The State of Michigan pension funds investing in light rail transit oriented development in Dallas, Texas. This happened years ago. (A case study on the Mockingbird Station and the pension fund’s role is part of a 2007 report prepared for the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority which you can read here.)

To be clear what is worthy of a post is not that our state pension fund invested in Dallas. If it was a good investment its what the pension fund should be doing. What is worthy of a post is that more than a decade later Michigan policy makers and most metro Detroit policy makers still don’t understand the important of transit in general––and light rail in particular––to economic development. Not only is it a key ingredient in retaining and attracting young talent but it also is a major stimulant of economic development at light rail stations. What is so frustrating is that in 2015 our state pension fund still does not have the opportunity to make an investment in one of those projects here in Michigan, particularly Detroit.

We are told often by political and business leadership that we should look to Texas as a model. But hardly ever is rail transit on their list of lessons we should learn from them. It should be.

Metro Dallas is all in on rail transit. They now have the longest light rail system in the country; 90 miles. Funded by a regional sales tax approved by voters in 1983. (You can check out more about the Dallas light rail system here.) Here’s how DART (the region’s transit agency) describes their impact on economic development:

From the beginning, part of DART’s mission has been to build a transportation system large enough to stimulate economic development. The voter-approved 1 percent sales tax that funds DART makes that possible. Developers generally are looking for good transportation infrastructure when they are deciding where to build that next office tower, residential complex or shopping center.

Ride past any number of DART Rail stations and you’ll notice construction. The visual clues offer anecdotal evidence: The number of privately developed structures being built within walking distance of DART Rail stations appears to be on the rise. The proof came from the Center for Economic Development and Research at the University of North Texas. The center’s latest study found that more than $5.3 billion in private-capital transit-oriented development projects have been built, are under construction, or are planned near light rail stations since the debut of DART Rail in 1996.

“Investing in DART has expanded transportation options and attracted corporate, residential, retail and cultural facilities to our city,” said Richardson City Manager Dan Johnson.

Dallas is not alone in making transit a central component of their economic development strategy. As we explored in a previous post regions across the country are investing in light rail systems. Many in the South, many in red states. And in nearly every case it was the business community that took the lead in making rail transit a priority including in most advocating for a regional tax increase.

Its time that Michigan––metro Detroit in particular––learn that successful 21st Century regions have a comprehensive transportation system that provides convenient alternatives to driving anchored by rail transit.

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What is the difference between bus and rail transit? Buses are an effective way to move people. Rail transit is primarily a powerful catalyst of economic growth. As Megan Owen, Executive Director of Transportation Riders United, is quoted in a terrific overview Free Press article on M1: “Weʼre basically throwing away a $3- billion economic development investment.”

Several years ago at a Urban Land Institute (ULI) Michigan Real Estate forum I heard a presentation on the Portland, Oregon street car system put in place in the 70s. It was described as development oriented transit. The city made the investment first and foremost for rail transit’s ability to stimulate and steer economic development, not to move people. And it paid off! Portland’s boom has been very much rail transit driven.

And cities and regions across the country, except here, learned the Portland lesson. Including Salt Lake City which for more than a decade has and continues to invest in building an extensive light rail system as a lynchpin of their economic growth strategy.  You read that right: red state, small government, low tax Utah investing taxpayers money in a light rail system.

This year at the ULI forum I was on a panel where one of the speakers said that national retailers are increasingly making new investments in central cities along light rail lines. Light rail, not bus lines – rapid or not. They too understand that light rail uniquely spurs and concentrates development. It is a particularly powerful attractor of young professionals that the city, region and state so desperately needs for its future economic growth.

Unfortunately our city and state elected leaders don’t seem to have learned that lesson. We are walking away from this powerful economic development initiative because as the Free Press report the lack of $10 million dollars a year in operating funds. $10 million a year would bring billions in economic growth and we won’t even try to raise the funds. Not smart!

The folks that get it are metro Detroit’s private sector leadership. The hopeful news is that the Kresge Foundation and Detroit’s business leaders are not taking no for an answer. As Crain’s Detroit Business reports, they sent a letter to the Mayor and Governor supporting development of M1 from downtown to the New Center area. They wrote:  “Detroit is at a critical juncture,” the funders wrote in the letter. “The need for a powerful catalyst to spur investment, attract new residents and businesses and help restore the city’s tax base is urgent.”

In another Crain’s article Dan Gilbert put it best: “Detroit has a chance to make a decision. Does it want to be a second-class city or a first-class city? These kinds of decisions, like we are seeing right now, won’t allow us to compete as a first-class city,” he said.

And they have put their money where they mouth is. As Crain’s writes:

Signing the letter were Kresge President and CEO Rip Rapson, Penske Corp. founder and M1 Rail Chairman Roger Penske, Quicken Loans Inc./Rock Financial founder and M1 Vice Chairman Dan Gilbert and M1 CEO Matt Cullen. Compuware Corp. founder Peter Karmanos Jr.; the Ilitch family, which owns the Detroit Tigers, Detroit Red Wings and Little Caesar Enterprises Inc.; Henry Ford Hospital; and Wayne State University joined the other private funders in each having committed $3 million for the display advertising rights to a station along the planned rail’s route.

The lead funder is the Kresge Foundation which has committed $36.7 million to the project.

As we have written often, in a state where many candidates get elected by bashing Detroit, Governor Snyder deserves enormous credit for his courage to campaign across Michigan that for Michigan to succeed Detroit must be successful. He understands better than any Michigan governor since Bill Milliken that the most prosperous states in the nation are those with a high prosperity big metropolitan area anchored by a vibrant central city.

Now is the time to put that understanding into action. We need the Governor along with city and regional elected officials to join with business and philanthropic leaders to make M1 a reality and to put in place what we all so desperately need and want, a powerful spur for economic growth.

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