Here is a link to a map showing vacant homes and businesses throughout the US. You can zoom in on Michigan and have a better look at Kalmazoo. We are actually doing better than most other counties in Michigan with residential vacancy at 3% and business vacancy at 11%. Unfortunately, looking at the map that depicts change from quarter to quarter these numbers seem to be slightly increasing.
Why do you think Kalamazoo is "becoming more vacant" and what types of things can the city do to help alleviate the problem.
I would like to know what the vacancy rate per year has been over the last 20 years for Kalamazoo, along with the other metropolitan areas in Michigan.
ReplyDeleteA few factors contributing to the vacancy ratings are the Michigan economy and the lack of jobs. You can help bring people back to Michigan and the Kalamazoo area by promoting the community in a positive light. Emphasizing areas around Kalamazoo as well as the city itself. Showcasing special attractions, such as college events that make Kalamazoo unique will get people interested and involved. Think about Ann Arbor, part of the city’s appeal is that it is a college town with events (educational and non-educational) always taking place.
Having a PR person who is constantly controlling the Kalamazoo community’s media. Putting out positive information and statistics that attract people to the community. For example Kalamazoo could be compared to Ann Arbor or emphasize how close Chicago is.
I would try to bring more residents back to downtown. That would fix many problems by itself. The people would organize more events which, for them, are easily assessible afoot. In another class I went to a condo building in downtown Kalamazoo that used to be a factory building. The residents enjoy having community within the building and to live right next to the downtown with all its attractions. Also they create a demand for goods and would give businesses an incentive to move back to downtown instead of right next to a mall outside of the city. I think that this higher density in the downtown would be beneficial for all citizen of Kalamazoo.
ReplyDeleteThere are organizations whose job is to advertise Kalamazoo in a positive light. Discover Kalamazoo is the marketing organization to the county and they try to attract people to the community, but it is difficult to pull national attention to a small city.
ReplyDeleteTo help alivate the problem, the city can create tax exemptions to families to purchase vacant properties.
I agree with Laura. I also think it's important that when bringing residents downtown, Kalamazoo aims to attract mixed-income residents--not just the wealthy who are looking for trendy, expensive urban lofts. I think that turning the factory buildings into cool apartments is a GREAT idea, but as we've seen in bigger cities, these lofts create exclusive communities and can exacerbate socioeconomic division among residents.
ReplyDeleteI dont think that just making the city seem better will do everything that is needed. Kalamazoo needs to bring more jobs to the area in order to attract more poeple to the city. People will follow jobs, even more so today. Things like tax breaks and more cooperation could work wonders in this area.
ReplyDeleteThat's a really interesting link. I was surprised to see that my county in CT (New Haven-Milford) has 4% residential vacancy and 12% business vacancy, larger than Kalamazoo-Portage. New Haven-Milford also has a much larger number of total units.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't help but look at the statistics for New Orleans, which was the only area on the map that was in red. New Orleans was listed as having a 15% residential vacancy rate and a 25% business vacancy rate!
I think the big thing here is the general trend towards vacancy in America, particularly in business development. The recession has definitely exacerbated the problem, but it was already there. Think about how many strip malls and such in Kalamazoo are unused, but development has continued to stretch out along the Westnedge and W. Main corridors, and you see that in pretty much any city. There's about a dozen empty big box stores off one exit in Muskegon, they all moved two exits south and rebuilt in the last 5 years to follow business to the new mall.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to drive down vacancy, land use policy is huge. You have to keep supply in-line with demand, which is not just an economic problem because so many complex factors go into where people build/live/shop/work, and is further complicated by the really long life span of buildings.