August 2003 · Volume 85 · Number 7
Restorative Development:
The New Growth Strategy for Communities of All Sizes
Storm Cunningham
What do the following concepts have in common? Brownfields
remediation. Adaptive reuse. Infrastructure refurbishment. Historic
preservation. Stream, watershed, and wetland restoration. Rural economic
revitalization. Waterfront redevelopment. They are all tools—some old, some
new—of a fast-emerging growth strategy known as restorative development.
Over the past decade, restorative development has become the fastest-growing
economic sector, currently accounting for almost $2 trillion annually. Eight
component industries have emerged in this sector: four that primarily restore
the natural environment (ecosystems, watersheds, fisheries, and farms), plus
four that mainly restore the built environment (brownfields, infrastructure,
heritage, and disasters/wars).
Some of these restorative industries are ancient, such as disaster or war
reconstruction and heritage restoration, while others barely existed as
industries before 1990, like brownfields redevelopment and ecosystem
restoration. But all have been growing far faster than new development (which
can take the form of sprawl, or destructive, development, the outmoded strategy
many community managers still rely on—often in vain—for economic growth).
Pioneer Mode of Development
Let’s back up a bit. How could a new economic sector possibly grow to more
than a trillion dollars per year without attracting more attention than it has?
The answer is that many local, state, and national governments around the world
have been stuck in an antiquated development style that started in 3000 B.C. and
that kicked into high gear after 1492 A.D. When growth has been desired, we have
automatically defaulted to “pioneer” mode: develop raw land, extract virgin
resources, and so forth.
As a result, our planning and budgeting procedures only have addressed the
first two focuses of the development life cycle, which are 1) new development
and 2) maintenance and conservation. Restoration is the third concern in the
natural life cycle of almost everything: buildings, ecosystems, communities, and
nations (see Figure 1).
But we seldom plan or budget for restoration, so these needs seem either to
pile up in a huge backlog or to hit us unexpectedly when something fails
catastrophically. Sometimes, the “backlog” pile itself subsides and hits us
unexpectedly! This previously ignored restoration portion of the life cycle,
however, is precisely the one in which the vast majority of development activity
will take place in the 21st century.
Humans have been developing the world’s best real estate at an especially
frenetic pace since the advent of the industrial revolution in the late 1700s
and the resulting population explosion, from 1 billion to 6 billion in the past
200 years. Now, if we want to find the greatest new development frontier, we
must turn 180 degrees and look behind us. Revitalizing all of this built
environment, as well as restoring the remaining natural resources that have been
degraded or exhausted by this development, represents the current rapid shift of
development focus.
Three crises have hit most local governments: those of constraint,
contamination, and corrosion. These dilemmas are the catalysts behind the sudden
appearance of the restorative-development megatrend:
- The constraint crisis arises when we find that every acre of land we want
to develop already is serving
some valuable function that someone will fight
to protect. It might be treasured heritage, it might be a watershed, it might
be farmland, or it might be simple greenspace. Developing a property under
these conditions will create a new asset, but it will likely destroy existing
values in the process. That’s the key distinction between new development and
restorative development. Today, development “from scratch” almost always
destroys some existing value to create new value. Restorative development only
adds value to property that has lost it.
- The contamination crisis is fairly self-evident. Many cities, such as
Niagara Falls, New York, no longer have a single acre available for
development that isn’t contaminated. The solution to these localities’
constraint crisis is to resolve their contamination crisis by remediation and
redevelopment. That’s why Mayor Daley of Chicago once said, “Economic
development in Chicago is brownfields redevelopment.”
- The corrosion crisis stems from the fact that so much of our
infrastructure is at the end of its useful life and needs to be renovated or
replaced. The same is true of many of our buildings. Deferred maintenance has
added to this “inventory of the decrepit,” causing many structures to need
restoration before their time.
All three of these crises have afflicted humankind ever since we started
creating communities, farms, and industries. What’s new is that this is the
first time in recorded history when all three crises have struck simultaneously
on a global level. This is why restoration has become the business and the
spirit of the 21st century.
Readers of this magazine are already familiar, no doubt, with dozens of
successful metropolitan revitalization stories based on restorative development.
You’ve seen or personally experienced the magic of reconnecting your citizens
with their waterfront, for instance. This often is accomplished through a
combination of brownfields remediation, infrastructure restoration, heritage
restoration such as the adaptive reuse of old factories and warehouse buildings,
stream/wetlands restoration, and reforestation.
Almost all waterfront revitalizations have succeeded, but some have succeeded
more dramatically than others. The difference between modest and spectacular
success usually rests on two factors: 1) how well the locality has involved all
stakeholders in the design, execution, and ongoing redevelopment of the project;
and 2) how well the plan has integrated the restoration of the built and natural
environments. The potential conflicts—and potential synergies—often are subtle
in nature but powerful in effect.
The restoration economy, as it’s come to be known, still is burgeoning. But
it’s currently in an essential period of consolidation before entering its major
growth period:
- Governments at all levels are incorporating restorative development into
their dialogue, planning, building codes, development incentives, tourism
marketing, and budgets.
- Corporations in general—AEC firms and real estate developers in
particular—are making restorative development a core component of their growth
strategies, especially as it relates to the creation of new technologies and
services but also as it relates to merger and acquisition (M&A) activity.
- Investment banks and other financial institutions, including insurance
firms, are planning a variety of new instruments and branded products related
to restorative development. Be prepared for a broad spectrum of restorative
REITs, mutual funds, stock indices, and the like to emerge by 2010.
- Academic institutions are adding many aspects of restorative development
to their curriculums, especially at the graduate level. This author, for
instance, will be teaching an executive-level restorative development seminar
at the Harvard School of Design in early 2004, and dozens of universities are
adding courses and degrees in restoration ecology and historic restoration.
Integrated Restoration, the Next Big Thing
Currently, the eight industries of restorative development are largely
Balkanized. The professionals restoring a bridge, a watershed, a historic
district, or deserted/exhausted farmland are generally unaware that they are all
parts of the same economic sector. This fact hamstrings efforts to revitalize
cities, counties, districts, and countries where the entire inventory of built
and natural assets must be addressed together for maximum efficiency and
efficacy.
We seldom plan or budget for restoration, so these needs
seem either to pile up in a huge backlog or to hit us unexpectedly when
something fails catastrophically.
Community and regional development agencies must learn to assemble and manage
the multidisciplinary teams necessary to effectively master-plan the restoration
of natural and built elements together. For instance, when you want a beautiful,
vibrant waterfront where abandoned industrial buildings now stand on poisoned
property, next to a sewer of a river, where do you start? With upgrading
wastewater treatment? With restoring the watershed? With remediating the
brownfields? Or with conserving the historic buildings and renewing the
transportation infrastructure that will be needed when the area becomes an
attraction? Which aspects can be restored simultaneously, which in a linear
manner, and which after a hiatus that allows a certain level of economic
revitalization to occur first?
Probably, the best current example of integrated restoration I know of is the
$3 billion Noisette Project in North Charleston, South Carolina. This 3,000-acre
private redevelopment encompasses a historic community, a closed Navy base,
industrial properties, and residential/commercial neighborhoods. The process of
revitalizing it will include the restoration of numerous brownfields,
infrastructure components of all kinds, hundreds of buildings, important
heritage elements, plus many streams and wetlands. The redeveloper, John Knott,
comes from three generations of restorationists. He, his father, and his
grandfather have been doing restoration work in Baltimore and many other cities
for decades.
Integrated restoration is at present a nascent discipline at best, so
visionaries like John Knott are basically “winging it.” But Knott and his team
members at the Noisette Company are winging it at great heights, having
assembled a truly impressive group of leading-edge architects, engineers, and
contractors. The Noisette Project has the potential to become a real-world
laboratory of restorative development that will be followed for decades to come.
The citizens and leaders of North Charleston deserve hearty congratulations
for bringing this project together. (It’s just moving from the stages of design
and legal work to one of execution as this article is being written.) Literally
thousands of other communities are sitting on redevelopment opportunities that
are every bit as good, if not better. Are you managing one of these communities?
There is, at present, no Silicon Valley of restorative development. But
virtually every form of business—large or small—that exists in the new
development-based economy will have its restorative counterpart in the
restoration economy, whether it offers software, consultancy, manufacturing, or
technical services. This leaves the door wide open for a number of centers of
restorative expertise, some focused on the renewal of infrastructure, others on
oceans, and yet others on socioeconomic factors, the quantity and quality of
water, and other concerns.
The communities that bring together a critical mass of government, academic,
and business organizations to address restorative development will carve out an
economic niche for themselves that will likely last for a long time. The numbers
certainly justify this prediction. “Billions” are bruited about in the language
of the restoration economy. From the $42 billion being spent on the London
Underground, to the $3 billion on the Pentagon, to the $8 billion on the Florida
Everglades, restorative development is demonstrating its (in the United States,
bipartisan) attractiveness as the growth strategy of choice.
Not that we really have a choice. Unlike the Internet bubble, during which
everyone wanted to be a Silicon Valley phenomenon, the restoration economy is
solid and will continue to grow for decades, if not centuries. After all, it has
taken us 5,000 years—since the beginning of the Bronze Age—to develop Planet
Earth as we now know it. Restoring our world might well be the dominant activity
for millennia to come, or at least until a move to a subterranean, submarine,
orbital, and/or interplanetary habitat revives the old “pioneer” default mode of
development.
Storm Cunningham is the chief executive
officer of RestorAbility, Inc., Alexandria, Virginia (storm@restorability.com)
and author of The Restoration Economy. He is a lecturer and editor of
Restoration Economy Leader, a quarterly journal on restorative development.
|
Editor’s Note: A 30 percent ICMA member
discount is available for Restoration Economy Leader subscriptions. Type
“ICMA30” into the referral code box on the subscription form at
http://www.restorability.com/RELeader/, and the discount will automatically be applied to the
length of subscription that is chosen. |
Privacy Policy
© 2004 International City/County Management Association.
Please notify us if you
experience any problems.
