City Talk hasn’t looked closely at the issue of downtown residential density for quite a while, so consider this the first in a periodic series about the benefits of greater density in older neighborhoods and about strategies that will get us there.
U.S. Census estimates show that most of the neighborhoods in Chatham County are not becoming denser, but they are growing more diverse. The Hispanic population is increasing, while more white residents are moving into traditionally black neighborhoods and more black residents are moving into traditionally white neighborhoods.
But who’s to say what “traditional” means?
Neighborhoods might seem to have fixed identities from year to year or even from decade to decade, but larger forces are always at work, with some residents leaving and new residents moving in — or not.
Long-term population loss has been the big story for some of Savannah’s older neighborhoods, but it seems inevitable that folks will repopulate some areas, especially those that offer practical transportation options and lie at higher elevation.
Of course, residents can’t move back into depopulated neighborhoods if land use changes too dramatically.
Protecting the residential character of the neighborhood was one of the driving principles of the historic Mid-City Rezoning of portions of Thomas Square, Metropolitan and Baldwin Park neighborhoods.
That 2005 zoning ordinance allowed many commercial uses where they had previously been restricted, but it also stemmed the institutional and commercial creep that swallowed up so many residential blocks over the decades.
Preventing the continued residential degradation of
core neighborhoods is one of the main reasons I’ve written so much about the city’s plan to demolish 36 residential properties for a new Central Precinct.
Of course, we shouldn’t tell folks that they should live in downtown neighborhoods if they would prefer to be elsewhere. Still, for a variety of reasons, we need to make sure those older neighborhoods offer high quality of life and appeal to a variety of residents, including working class families.
Savannah has simply failed to protect quality of life in some key neighborhoods, which has forced many longtime residents to move out.
But where are those folks going when they leave Savannah’s older neighborhoods, which are then increasingly attractive to wealthier newcomers?
Across America, we have seen a dramatic increase over the last decade or so in poverty in suburban areas that have limited transit and offer few services for the poor. Demographic changes in the Savannah metro area seem to reflect this nationwide trend.
We might not see the Southside “ghetto” that Mayor Floyd Adams predicted over a decade ago, but the geographical marginalization of the poor should be a major concern for policy makers.
Sunday’s City Talk will continue this discussion.
City Talk appears every Sunday and Tuesday. Bill Dawers can be reached via billdawers@comcast.net. Send mail to 10 E. 32nd St., Savannah, GA 31401.
