This event is a joint initiative of the american conservative, a magazine based in washington, and the R Street Institute, a right center think tank in town. I want to thank Hillsdale College kirby center for sponsoring us to use this great facility. This event is also being broadcast on cspan. So i want to thank them for being here as well and thank those who are joining us on cspan for this discussion. In that vein, i would like to ask our audience here in the house the usual reminder to silence your cell phones. Although we do encourage live tweeting, if you are so inclined. Conservativeurbanism. I also hope youll take a moment when you get home later or now, to follow both the american conservative and the R Street Institute twitter, facebook, you can find our website. In addition, the new Urbanism Initiative of the american conservative has their own twitter account. newurbs, which i encourage you to follow. I would like to thank our donors and sponsors who made this event and the continuing new Urbanism Program possible. Tom wilber, the bradshaw night foundation, and dominique watkins. Thank you for your support of this event and the new Urbanism Program. I would also like to our knowledge our american conservative board member in the audience, howard. And i believe i saw Scott Mcconnell here as well. And i would also like to the go moment to thank the people who are less visible, both of the staff of the R Street Institute, and the american conservative. Before we get started with the panel, a bit of background on the new Urbanism Initiative at the american conservative. Americans ago, the conservative does what it does best. To challenge status quo thinking among conservatives of a particular policy area. Continuing the same course is good for the country and the community and ordinary citizens. When the magazine was founded in 2002, the issue of the moment was the calming iraq war and of the coming iraq war and the resources wasted on that and intervention abroad. At that time, washington would come to regret that. The american conservative was essentially the only voice on the right cautioning against that intervention. Fast forward to 2014, many of our editors and contributors realize theres a similar domestic issue. Which the current approach pursued by our government at all levels state, local, and federal and shortly, we will be hearing from a local Government Official who lead to a long term weakening of politics. Thats the state of our built environment in the quality in places which we live, work, and raise our children is the one that were here to talk about today. To put this in some larger context, i think since the end of world war ii, theres been clearly a dramatic reshaping of our build environment, not just in the big cities but in smaller towns and suburban neighborhoods. Much of this change was set in motion before the war by the massproduced automobile. But certainly after, as the greatest generation returned home to give earth to the very large baby boomer generation that set off a great demand. Much new housing had be constructed. But the federal government this will be interesting to conservatives played an increasingly prominent role by shaping this environment by helping create incentives, to create vast new sauce swa culdesacrbia and styles and neighborhood formats that many generations and many of us grown up in. With large shopping malls and shopping parks surrounded by acres of parking lots. Which aim to replace these downtown commercial areas. And that great republican icon, dwight eisenhower, created the interstate highway system. Known as the, really, officially, the National System of interstate and defense highway that once and for all made the car, i think, the preferred mode of transportation not only between metropolitan areas but reshaped them as well. A lot of people have these big, long, urban commutes, and as a result, destroying lot of these long established neighborhoods. And at the same time, federal urban renewal programs encouraged cities across the country to engage in misguided what was then called clearance, creating these big housing projects, where people in poverty were isolated and faced rising crime. And in some downtown medium and some downtown medium and large cities never recovered from that brutal surgery that removed much of our cultural heritage. Along the way, i think there were dissenters from this project. Which was largely a bipartisan effort among those in power. Perhaps the most prominent, someone you certainly know in the audience, 1960s jane jacob. Who successfully stopped the Lower Manhattan expressway project from plowing right through the dense urban neighborhoods there. She and others, unfortunately, were not able to save the great masterpiece in midtown manhattan. Penn station, which met a wrecking ball in 1964. By the way, there is now an effort, among some conservatives and others, to try to rebuild that great space. Please check out those articles online. So i think the next step in this movement is later on in the 1980s, after this initial reaction. Some people began to engage not just in protest and reaction to what was happening to the landscape in our cities and towns that worked to create a positive agenda that would involve local governments, private real estate developers, in a way that could rediscover some of these older, more humane ways of building for places for people to live and work. Congress,ovement, the eventually became known as the congress of the new urbanism. It celebrated 25 years of success both in doing new development and restoring an old urban fabric that creates kind of places many people actually want to live, whether they are suburbs or older poor neighborhoods. The new urbanists, who have been working now for three years on this project, they tend to have more left to center politics, are generally happy to have conservatives who supportive more humane environment as fellow travelers in this movement. So here we are, three years into this, what we have called the new Urbanism Initiative. Theject, i think american conservative is only outlet on the right to take these issues seriously. In the past three years, we published in our print magazine and online on these issues. I think we have a sickly pursuit two strands of inquiries, ways of looking at this issue. Strands two first, more of the cultural one. How people imagine the built environment. Their place within it, and how they can tap into these great, lost traditions of architecture and urban design. At least before world war ii. I think it made our city, towns and suburbs great places to live. As conservatives, were called here to try to work out how families can thrive in more dense, urban environments perhaps with one familyar and living with less amenities. Reimagine how can we make this a reasonable choice for more than or bahamians. Secondly, the second show and i think we will address today, beyond the larger cultural strand of how weeshape the conversation is the public policy. I think at lst a couple of people on this first panel will focus on that area. That involves creating a Regulatory Environment and promoting infrastructure that at least allows for walkable urbanism. Lot of our infrastructure now really excludes that possibility even as a choice for folks. Sometimes, it involved removing regulations like strict parking minimums. Or removing things that allow mixed use development so people can live above the store, as theyve done for centuries before the last 50 or 60 years. Which essentially made that illegal in other places. It also means building more housing, period. Especially urban housing in metro areas, which many families who want to live in these places are priced out of, especially in expensive markets, like San Francisco, washington, boston, new york places like this. Hopefully, that creates the kind of framework to start our discussion with our initial panel. I want to introduce our panelists, as we get started. First panelist, initially, to my left, is jason segedy, who is the director of Planning Urban Development and assistant to mayor in the city of akron. He previously was the director of akrons metropolitan area transportation study. Overseeing all the transportation funds in greater akron. I understand hes been a long time reader of tac. Which i am happy to hear that we have readers in akron. Our second panelist, to the left of jason, is gracy olmsted. Who i am pcticing is a former colleague of mine at the american conservative. Now the associate managing editor of the federalist. A state editor for a weekly news letter for women. You can read her writing besides in the federalist and the american conservative in christianity today and catholic real life, and gracie will talk to us today in part about how all these lessons apply also to smaller towns and rural areas and how these leonare continuum. Finally, unfortunately, Michael Hendricks had a family emergency and had to cancel. But im happy to say that my former colleague, jonathan coppe, represents r street. The cosponsor of this event. And the visiting senior fellow with the are sure is a two will be stepping in. At r street, john researches urbanism in built environment and previously, former colleague at the american conservative. And initially started this whole new Urbanism Initiative three years ago around this time today. So thank you to all our panelists for being here. I think what we will do is start with jason. Maybe giving us remarks. Jason, we are happy to have you here, because, unlike some of us journalists and other thing tanktypes, he actually runs planning in akron, ohio. It is the center of the rust belt. I think you can tell us what is going on there are in ohio and give us a lot of lessons for how we can actually practically fixed things in places like that. Take it away. Jason thank you so much for having me. It is great to be here in d. C. With all of you. I think when lewis were talking before, i was going to offer up a couple of thoughts as we start to frame the discussion. I think in a lot of our cities , in particular in my part of the country, what were seeing in a lot of ways what i would call the end of big. The idea that these big corporations, big government, big plans and projects, are going to save us. I think if you look at the trajectory of whats happened in a lot of our cities, particularly in the rust belt, as lewis said, urban renewal was one of those big kind of topdown commanding control strategies that was supposed to revitalize us. Fast forward, 40 or 50 years, that didnt happen. I think the next step in lot of our cities what i call prosperity, theology of building casinos and stadiums, convention centers. Not to say those things arent important. In some cases, we can probably all point to projects that probably should have never been built. They have their place. By thing the idea that this Silver Bullet project is going will save your city people will build a convention center, step two is question marks, and step three is success. [laughter] we dont necessarily have a plan to get from here to there. And then i think, particularly in ohio and michigan and other parts of my part of the country, lately, i think a lot of people have adopted what i would call kind of a predestination theology. The idea we need to shrink. And that the only hope for us is to basically shut down our cit is. Im not a big fan of that approach. I think it is important to be realistic about the market and about some of our challenges. We have incredible assets in our part of the country. I always make the case in akron, were a city of 200,000. We have four Million People within an hour drive. I refuse to believe that we cannot, with the planning, get. 01 of those people back in the city and start to increase the population. I think thats a matter how we go about doing those things. Just one of the other quick thought. A lot of what with the rubric of conservatism, a lot of the discussion that has morphed over the last 20 years i always think it was a stereotype to some degree conservatives were always pro suburb and antiurban. But i think a lot of people, suburban and urban today, are craving a sense of community and sense of place. I think that goes back to what i was saying about big versus small. And manageable. I think there is actually a lot more Common Ground out there than a lot of people might first think. I think some of the ideas maybe conservatives can reconsider with cities would be in our part of the country, and this is true lot of the midwest and northeast, local government is extremely fragmented. It gets very difficult to have any sort of regional cooperation. I think there are Good Government practices of sharing services, consolidating things. I think thats something we have to explore. And then i remember i was part of a sustainable communities project that the Obama Administration provided funding through h. U. D. And d. O. T. And e. P. A. On. We had a lot of Tea Party People come to those meetings saying we were communist and setting up a totalitarian regime in northeast ohio. But i think within some of that noise that was coming up, there were real concerns about is the government going to come in and tell people where to live. My opinion is we need to make cities competitive and have people want to come and live in them. Not prohibit people. I think that is something very different in our part of the country than the coast. Here, a lot of real estate issues are it is so expensive. In akron, i can sell you a really nice house for 150,000. I will even sell you a lot for 200,000. We have 1400 of them that the city owns. Just some thought. I think, i guess in closing with this part of it, thinking about the shared challenges and the shared opportunities in different parts of the country and how we to move forward. Gracy i have had the distinct pleasure of living in different parts of the nation and several different neighborhoods, which i aint kind of gives you a boots on the ground experience whats happening in lot of american communities. Either in a farmhouse and then moved to alexandria condo on the third floor. One of the most walkable neighborhoods in america. Which was lovely. Spent some time in a world war iiera suburb and got to see the impacts that divide from the walkable nature of a downtown had on kind of the Community Life of that surb. And now have the great blessing in a victorian fixer upper with a front porch. And in that time, having had a child, i inc. It is also amazing how having someone small that you push around in a stroller changes your relionship with the street and makes it both very intimate and very terrifying, depending where you live. Buone thing that jane jacobs said in the life and death of the American City birth, she thought what she was writing was applicable to mainly large cities. It was applicae to places where people didnt know each other. Where you interacted with strangers on a daily basis. I would argue that that is true of most places in america today. Unfortunately, a lot of small towns and suburbs no longer have the sort of social fabric that leads them to feel that they have a community. That they know the people they pass on a daily basis. There is no longer that serendipitous meeting at the Grocery Store or on your way to the bank or wherever that might be. My argument would be that where thats what we see in jane jacobs work is more applicable to more communities outside of thlarge city. We can fix some ings via cultural and social means. However, theres a way in which we can build an environment that encourages people to spend time together. Which leads me to a story, actually. My great grandfather and hi siblings grew up on a farm. There were seven of them. And they had a farm in which the corn field was right next to the watermelons. The watermelon patch. And they would steal through the corn field everyday after school. And steal a watermelon and bring eatack to the cornfield and it andust make sure their mother was not watching. When they were adults, they went to her and apologized and said, mother, were sorry. We lied to you and stole those watermelons. She said why do you think we planted the watermelons next to the corn field . Which is a long way of saying, we can foster serendipitous fellowship via built environment. [laughter] and i think that is becoming increasingly important in current days and days to come. Jonathan thank you. I love that story. I am going to have to steal it. And thank you, lewis, for putting this together. This is really an extraordinary event and an extraordinary craft for this discussion. Having for the past few years working at this peculiar intersection of urbanism and conservativism, i heard a lot of things. I heard that conservatives dont like cities. They dont want anything to do with cities. And they would just as well cities disappear. That is sometimes true. Ive heard that cities dont like conservatives, that they dont want conservatives, that they would just as well disappeared. That is also true. But what i have come to understand is just how many of us are in so many places. And how for all the reputation that cities get of being monocultures of liberalism, the essential tenants of conservativism, of an attitude towards preserving traditions, of an attitude towards strengthening Peoples Agency those are present in cities. Party labels may come and go. But conservatism is very present. What we have seen, as lewis described, is a built environment that was not planted well in many places. But rather was driven apart. We saw many cities torn apart by interstate projects that snakes through, intentionally, poor , working class neighborhoods, black neighborhoods, in an idea of progress. Because highways are good, so more highways are better, and highways in cities have to be just as good as highways outside of them. We saw lot of enthusiasm that destroyed a lot of good architecture, a lot of good urbanism. And in many cities in america, you see them starting to try and repair. Trying to put pieces back together. And there are places where its happening. One of the great sites of that is the city of detroit. Where it is a