Attracting the Creative Class with Infrastructure

May 2008

by Justin Sabrsula and John Rees, AngelouEconomics Project Associates

Written, in part, from their joint presentation of the same title to the American Planning Association during their annual conference, April 28, 2008.

At this year’s annual American Planning Association conference, held in Las Vegas, the importance of infrastructure dominated the collective zeitgeist of conference attendees and speakers alike. In his opening keynote address, Oregon Congressman Earl Blumenauer warned against America’s diminished investment in basic infrastructure; today, national expenditures on infrastructure are barely half the level of spending experienced during the Reagan administration. However, America must not only increase funding for traditional infrastructure such as highways, railroads, and ports. A changing demographic and economic landscape demands that city leaders, economic developers, and urban planners begin to think more creatively and integratively about leveraging infrastructure investments to address complicated urban challenges.

Over the past quarter century, America experienced important changes that have altered its social and economic landscape. The first and perhaps most important element of change involves the country’s evolution from an economy based on the provision of manufactured goods to one built on the provision of services. Since 1979, the percentage of the civilian employment in manufacturing has fallen by more than 50%. During this same period, growth in white-collar employment has consistently outpaced overall employment growth and now represents nearly 60% of all U.S. employment.

These economic changes have produced one of the most significant demographic shifts in the country’s history. With many of the fastest growing employment sectors requiring an educated workforce, the number of Americans graduating from college has jumped dramatically. In 1980, just 16.2% of America’s workforce possessed a college diploma; today, this figure is 27%. The growing number of Americans deciding to attend college, a choice requiring a significant investment of both time and money, has collectively changed the dynamics of the typical U.S. family. Americans today are consistently taking on debt at an earlier age, delaying marriage, and having fewer children than their parents’ generation.

Importantly, these changing demographic and economic dynamics have fundamentally changed the nature of economic development. During the era of manufacturing dominance, investment in basic infrastructure components such as railroads, highways, and ports was key to local economic success. With much of the manufacturing sector requiring largely unskilled workers, the key to attracting businesses to a community was to provide a low-cost environment with reliable access to national markets. Cities such as Atlanta and Houston created world-class airports, ports, and other large-scale infrastructure, and soon experienced a boom in investment and population growth.

As the role of manufacturing in the U.S. economy has declined, however, cities are increasingly finding that solely focusing on the quality and availability of traditional infrastructure investments is inadequate in sustaining economic growth. The rise of a service-oriented economy has resulted in a greater emphasis on the quality and availability of workforce. Simply put, U.S. and foreign companies are investing in communities with large pools of skilled, educated workers. As such, thriving communities are those that can produce and attract talent. And talented workers have considerations beyond planes, trains, and automobiles.

Armed with a rather luxurious consideration of priorities, today’s young creative professionals place tremendous importance on choice, quality and authenticity. For example, traditional grocery stores will not do. Instead, places such as Whole Foods that align with aesthetic, environmental, health, and social concerns, are increasingly popular. This perspective extends to the places these young professionals decide to live. Affordable housing and plentiful jobs no longer suffice. Instead, these educated workers seek out places that foster social interaction, identity, and a sense of place. Importantly, holistic infrastructure investments can further all of these goals.

In Houston, holistic infrastructure development has focused on three key areas: transportation, park space development, and flood control. Each of these three infrastructure investment areas has been developed to help change the image of the city and create additional attractive, environmentally friendly urban growth.

Historically, Houston’s transportation infrastructure has been characterized by large, dirty freeways hemmed in by billboards amidst a sea of development. Recently though, when redeveloping freeways to accommodate urban growth, Houston has created a series of programs to incorporate landscaping, bike trails, and billboard removal into freeway expansion. Because Houston’s transportation infrastructure is a visitor’s first (and often only) impression of Houston, infrastructure redevelopment has focused on aesthetic improvements in concert with meeting the transportation needs of a growing population. This holistic view not only strives to increase the quality of life of Houston residents, but also builds the brand identity of Houston as an environmentally friendly, green city, all while providing more transportation choices.

In addition, while Houston’s light rail expansion plans were developed primarily with the idea of building the backbone of the region’s public transit system, quality of life and aesthetics played key roles in the decision-making process for light rail construction. A newly-designed light rail car, the development of an urban square centered on the light rail line, and connections with Houston’s major urban parks all help to change the image of Houston from a freeway-oriented city.

Houston has long had the perception of being a city without parks for its residents. In an effort to change this perception, the City has focused on adding park space downtown. Houston also sought to solve infrastructure problems related to flood control while creating world-class green space. Houston redeveloped a section of its urban waterfront along Buffalo Bayou, connecting hike and bike trails from across the city, adding a pedestrian bridge to ease crossing of the bayou on foot, and reshaping the channel of the bayou to provide better water movement in cases of flooding. This redevelopment was leveraged with one of the largest urban skateparks in the U.S., and an innovative under-freeway lighting system based on the phases of the moon. The City’s other major park investment in Downtown Houston was designed to improve visitors’ impressions of Houston near its Convention Center and Hotel and to address a lack of parking at the Convention Center. Discovery Green was developed by a public/private partnership, and sought to create a backyard for downtown, induce urban development in an under-developed area of downtown, and provide a new focal point for visitor activities other than the surface parking lot it would replace.

The City of Houston and the Buffalo Bayou Partnership, a local non-profit, have provided funding for programming in and along Buffalo Bayou, including boat racing, movies and concerts along the bayou, and canoe tours through the city. The City of Houston and the Discovery Green Foundation, another non-profit, have provided programming dollars for outdoor concerts, farmers markets, and various urban amenities, including bocce, ice skating, restaurants, playgrounds, an urban dog park, and wireless Internet access.

Houston has historically been very prone to flooding because of its proximity to the Gulf of Mexico and its low-lying land. In addressing flood problems in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Allison, a storm that dropped 40 inches of rain on the City and caused more than $6 billion in damages, the City of Houston also aimed to provide additional public park space and green infrastructure for the city. Federal, state, and local governments, along with Houston’s park-focused non-profits, created and carried out a plan to create freshwater wetlands along the bayou to control flooding, and built trails along the bayous to provide more urban amenities for residents nearby. Educational centers focused on wetlands education, along with picnic areas, lakes, and other flood retention structures, were landscaped to provide daily use for residents, and have helped to build Houston’s image as a green city. 

These investments in infrastructure, including freeways and light rail, urban parks, and flood control structures, have induced private development throughout the City of Houston as well.  BP North America’s Headquarters, with more than 1,000,000 square feet of LEED Platinum office space, and BLVD Place, a large mixed use center with more than 500,000 square feet of retail, 175,000 square feet of office space, 500 high-rise condos, and a 225-room hotel, have been located along the freeway and light rail investments, providing additional high-quality urban environments attractive to the creative class. In Downtown Houston, more than $1 billion in construction has occurred within a 5-block radius of Discovery Green Park, including the first condo tower built in Downtown Houston in 40 years, a LEED-Platinum 35-story office building, and a mixed-use retail and office center located along the light rail line and near Discovery Green. In the Texas Medical Center along Brays Bayou, which has benefited most from flood control and park improvements, more than $6 billion in hospital and research facility expansions are under construction, helping to retain top biomedical research in the area.

Ultimately, the success of Houston’s holistic infrastructure development points to a new paradigm of infrastructure development necessary to build the urban economy. Infrastructure development must not only address problems associated with urban growth, but also help reinforce a positive brand and identity for a city and leverage public investment for private growth. The importance of design, aesthetics, and programming in creating holistic infrastructure cannot be overlooked. Additionally, because of the multiple focuses of these infrastructure projects, intergovernmental and public/private partnerships as well as creative financing mechanisms are important to success. As Houston has shown, infrastructure development is an important part of any plan to attract the creative class, and its success in doing so can be replicated by cities across the country.