Reading leaders need to work on Reading's walkability

by Steve Reinbrecht

To have a vibrant city downtown, full of fun things to do, people need to enjoy walking along the blocks.

Long stretches of bare walls with no detail or windows is a big turn-off for pedestrians, urban planners agree.

That pretty much describes too many blocks along Penn Street, in Reading. Poor leadership has lead to poor design of rare downtown development, another burden for Berks County’ seat to surmount.

Major buildings have been plopped down over the past 10 years where they could be, with no planning. The result is that few guests who visit the new hotel will ever walk to the GoggleWorks, the fantastic art center just five blocks away.

The Santander bank building, the Reading Eagle Company’s press building, the hockey arena, and now the hotel are examples of featureless facades that would discourage the most vigorous urban explorer to see what’s on the next block.

Lancaster has had an urban-renewal plan – and has followed it – for 10 years, with great results. 

A letter-to-the-editor Thursday in the Reading Eagle eloquently raises the concerns. After praising retail-magnate Al Boscov's “savvy and determination to get it built,” Fred Opalinski writes:

“I'm appalled at the forbidding, prisonlike exterior, to my mind the worst of urban design left over from the architecturally horrific 1960s. My wife and I have traveled extensively, and I can't think of an urban hotel anywhere in the world with two blocks of unbroken concrete wall. It's a loud and clear ‘KEEP OUT!’ (Or, just as bad, it says to the clients, ‘We'll keep you safe from the city.’)

“Across the tracks from the cold and hard design of earlier renovation mishaps, I was hoping for gardens, shops and plenty of hotel/city interaction. It could have been so beautiful. Instead we have a bleak and massive bunker without a hint of green space.

“With all the talk of wanting to be more like Lancaster and other successful downtowns, I don't know how the planning commission could have approved this design. Sixty-three million dollars could and should have given us so much more.”

Urban designer Jeff Speck, whose book “Walkable City” was acclaimed, writes:

“Charleston Mayor Joe Riley reminds us that cities should be places that make the heart sing. For many of our citizens, especially those too poor or infirm to travel, the city is an entire world. For this reason, it is our responsibility to create and maintain cities that not only function properly, but also afford moments of beauty.

“Yet how many communities today routinely award to the lowest bidder their contracts for schools, parks, and government buildings, the only investments that belong to us all? In the interest of short-term parsimony, we cheat ourselves out of an honorable public realm and a noble legacy.

“This did not use to be the case, and it need not continue. Many of the nation's most beautiful buildings and parks were built during periods of unparalleled adversity. It should not take another depression to make civic structures lovely again.

In New York, a study showed, the average proportion of the ground floor covered in windows significantly related to pedestrian traffic, “even after controlling for the presence of retailers on the ground floor—meaning the appeal likely goes beyond window-shopping.”

Another New York City study found that more-interesting street fronts also promote a perception of safety.

“The transparency of store fronts and show windows serve to engage with pedestrians and provide them with a sense of safety and security. Furthering the feeling offered by these uses is the glow at night from open stores spilling out into the sidewalk, a large improvement when compared to shuttered stores or blank walls.

“Urbanist Jane Jacobs noted this correlation between ground floor activity and vitality, and how this activity could passively reduce crime simply by having more ‘eyes on the street.’ Such design measures have been shown to significantly deter crime.”

Berk’s incarceration rates reflect those of Texas, Alabama

by Steve Reinbrecht

The United States is renowned for the rate at which it locks up citizens, and Berks reflects the trends.

Berks’ incarceration rate more than tripled from 1970 to 2014, according to new, county-level data from the Vera Institute, which calls itself “an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit center for justice policy and practice.”

In that period, the county population grew about 40 percent, from 296,000 to about 414,000.

Berks’ rising incarceration rate matched those of the U.S. and Pennsylvania until leaping significantly higher in 2001. In 2005, the latest available for state and federal figures, Berks’ incarceration rate was way above the state and national levels. Berks’ incarceration rate peaked in 2006 at 489 adults per 100,000 and dropped to 383 by 2014.

The interactive website also shows how Berks compares to counties across America with populations of similar sizes. Berks' profile matches counties in Texas and Alabama much more closely than those in Michigan, Minnesota or New Hampshire.

Berks’ incarceration rate was higher than most neighboring counties but lower than Lehigh and Lebanon counties.

In 2014, according to state figures, nearly 6,800 people were “admitted” to the Berks County jail, which housed about 1,200 a day, on average.

Vera’s website says its Incarceration Trends project “aims to inform the public debate on mass incarceration and help guide change by providing easily accessible information on the number of people in jails and prisons for every county in the United States.”

While large prisons get a lot of attention, small jails like Berks’ have driven the steep rise in the national incarceration rate. And many are in the cells because they can’t pay bail.

“One third of incarcerated men and women are in our city and county jails, and the research is clear: Reducing the over-use of pretrial detention will reduce the size of both our jails and our prisons,” its report states.

“Mid-sized and small counties—which account for the vast majority of jails -- have largely driven growth, with local jail populations increasing since 1970 by 4.1 times in mid-sized counties and 6.9 times in small counties. In contrast, jail populations in large counties grew by 2.8 times.”

The Reading Eagle is very upset about the death-penalty system, publishing thousands of words about the subject.

But what about the thousands of local people incarcerated in Berks County Jail?

A few years ago, I was astounded to learn that most people in our jail are there because they haven’t posted bail.

The Eagle did run a story Saturday about Vera’s project to examine jails at the county level across the U.S.

But did our professional truth-seekers bother to report any of the data about Berks County, a click away at the Vera Institute’s website?

Nah. Too many Christmas events to cover.

Stalled development in Reading deserves more media [public!] attention

by Steve Reinbrecht

Here are a couple examples of how bad leadership is holding up economic development in Reading.

Alan Shuman still wants to develop the grand buildings the city bought on Penn Square, in the middle of downtown. It’s been 15 months since City Council spurned Shuman and instead approved Albert Boscov's nonprofit organization to develop the five buildings in the 400 block of Penn Street.

Nov. 25, 2015

The buildings don’t look much different than they have for years – once-impressive facades in a city that’s declining because of egos and incompetence.

July 2014

Shuman, who has developed several city locations, told me Wednesday, Nov. 25, that he still has business owners interested in moving in to the dead-in-the-water project.

He said he is moving some of the tenants he had lined up for the 400 block over to 645 Penn St., an office building which Shuman owns, "because if I wait any longer on getting them an acceptable downtown location they may change their mind and expand their suburban locations,” Shuman wrote in an e-mail.

“I still have the plans [for the downtown buildings] and am finishing up the Big Mill [apartments] project at Eighth and Oley streets so could just move all the contractors down to the Callowhill buildings [on Penn Street]."

Boscov has not replied to my e-mail about the project’s progress.

Another example of non-redevelopment is the city redevelopment authority’s 50-acre empty lot on Clinton Street, which it bought for $1.6 million in November 2013.

The industrial site sounds like a plum -- “shovel ready” with tax breaks, water, sewer and electric lines and a concrete pad with a 103,000-square-foot steel frame.

Two years later, the authority is still searching – not for someone to buy it, but for somebody to try to sell it sell it. In July 2014, the authority – whose job is to market properties – hired CBRE, Delaware County, to market the property. But that contract “ended recently,” reported the Reading Eagle, never a newsgatherer in love with precision.

What else does Adam Mukerji, the authority’s director, and his helper do all day if they don’t market plum properties like this industrial site? What abilities DOES Mukerji have? I e-mailed the RRA on Monday to find out Mukerji’s salary but have had no reply.

And if he can’t do it, why not turn it over to the Greater Reading Economic Partnership, which gets $700,000 a year in county funding, has a staff of six, and whose job is to connect developers with properties in Berks County?

I can’t find the Clinton Street site on the Partnership’s website. I e-mailed the Partnership to ask if I had missed it but received no reply.

My red ink

Maybe the project stalled because Mayor Vaughn Spencer was waiting for just the right developer to show up. Spencer made a big announcement in February that a fertilizer plant was going to buy the place. The Reading Eagle splashed the news.

Soon after, though, the Lehigh Valley Business Journal, for which I occasionally write, broke the news that the fertilizer plant project was dead.

Later in February, Mukerji named a second firm interested in the place: RSI Home Products Inc. of Anaheim, Calif., a cabinet manufacturer that would reportedly create 750 to 900 jobs. No one from the company responded to my e-mail asking about their interest.

Also that month, County Commissioner Kevin S. Barnhardt asked the Berks County Industrial Development Authority to informally help find the best occupant for the site.

Selling industrial properties must be more complicated than it appears to me. But everybody agrees Berks needs more economic development.

"We're one of the poorest cities in the country, and we want to change that," redevelopment authority member Daniel F. Luckey said at the latest meeting.

We can connect the dots, but the Reading Eagle should be covering this stuff on its daily business page or in its weekly business section. The Eagle did have a recent story about the Clinton Street site, by a stringer, on Page B7, where we learn two brokers are interested in a contract to market it. But the authority couldn’t take action at the meeting because it didn’t have a quorum.

It would be great if the Reading Eagle would try to write the truth about how that is pursued, rather than burying vague descriptions of the efforts on Page B7.

I can’t find any mention of BioNitrogen in the Eagle since February, but the Lehigh Valley magazine has followed the economic development news in Reading.

Berks economy is stagnant because of poor leadership, crony journalism

by Steve Reinbrecht

To the tax-haters in Berks County, the front page of the Reading Eagle on Friday warned that your payments to support county government are going to rise if more people and businesses don’t move here.

The reporter wrote:

“If the county's property tax base continues to stagnate, budget chief Robert Patrizio warned, commissioners are going to face some tough choices about spending and taxes in the future.

“ ‘This has to be our No. 1 initiative,’ he said of efforts to grow the county's property tax base. ‘We have to find a way to get development in this county.’ "

Off Buttonwood Street in Reading

Why won’t Wegman’s build here? Berks’ economic activity is stagnant for many reasons. And the lack of good reporting on Berks’ serious issues has contributed to our local lack of progress. You can’t fix problems until you identify and understand them.

The county’s economic-development leaders have held their jobs for years with very little to justify their often taxpayer-subsidized salaries. If they identify practical goals and report on their progress, you won’t read them in the Reading Eagle. 

Jon Scott at the Greater Berks Economic Partnership, Ed Swoyer at the absolutely opaque Greater Berks Development Fund, Adam Mukerji at the Reading Redevelopment Authority, Lenin Agudo, the community development director in Reading City Hall, Ellen Horan at the business Chamber, Crystal Seitz at the visitor’s bureau – none is held accountable for demonstrating effective outcomes.

Investors shun Berks because it’s hard to get here. What other city is so isolated? We have no passenger rail or air service. To get to central Berks from Allentown and the north, you drive for miles of one-lane congestion on Route 222. Coming from Philadelphia and the east, you drive through endless traffic lights on Route 422 in Douglassville and Exeter Township. Or take the turnpike for a fee and lots of extra miles. From the west, you’ll get a close look at dozens of intersections on Route 422 from Lebanon through West Reading. 

In the south, we did get a beautiful expressway, Route 222, which my daughters drive to Park City Mall, outside Lancaster, because Berks has no shops they like. The state provided $140 million for highway work in Berks – to improve Interstate 78 so people can drive THROUGH Berks County faster.

The lack of adequate road access is due to the county’s lack of political clout, demonstrated by the obvious gerrymandering that has made Reading irrelevant on the state and national levels.

Here is another example of local leadership failing to lead. The Democratic political machine here can’t handle its responsibilities. The city of Reading will get nowhere without reasonable diplomacy with county and state officials. But the Dems can line up no one better than Vaughn Spencer or Wally Scott to tell the city’s story and grovel for help. 

Entrepreneurs have told me they won’t invest in Reading because they perceived it was corrupt. That perception has become a well-publicized reality.

I suspect Berks County suffers from a xenophobic business climate that favors established businesses over newcomers, discouraging the kind of innovation that is fueling development in the Lehigh Valley and other places. Do banks operating locally loan to minority entrepreneurs? They are not publicly embracing new credit-risk assessments designed to make it easier for deserving poor people and young people to borrow. The Chamber of Commerce promotes right-wing policy that channels growth to the wealthy and leaves the middle class struggling, and not spending, and thus not creating demand for jobs.

From the Chamber of Commerce's tax form

Reading has missed out on economic- development aid from the state. Bethlehem and Lancaster won tax advantages over Reading because of Reading’s shoddy application. 

Berks has received a paucity of development grants from the Ben Franklin Technology Partners compared to Bethlehem, York, and Scranton. On Oct. 15, Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania announced $651,600 in loans to help young companies in the 21-county region. Berks got $25,000 for one company, about 4 percent of the total.

What’s the progress on the Ride to Prosperity? Berks didn’t regain its pre-recession peak employment [175,800 in July 2007] until December 2014, although it rose through 2015 to 177,000 in October. Economic development officials say we need “shovel ready” sites. So where are they creating them?

Our schools are mediocre. In a ranking of 681 state highschools, Wilson was 105th, Boyertown was 137th, and Wyomissing was 233rd. I’m sure our talented children can’t wait to leave. But that’s OK. Berks has also led the charge to defund public schools even further.

Do we really want visitors? If so, we need to get better people to run the visitor’s bureau. “Take a ride” is the motto; it sounds like “take a hike.” The agency, which got $50,000 in tax money in 2014, paid its president, Crystal Seitz, $135,000 that year. Is she worth it? How do we know?

Drivel from the visitor's bureau website

Once I called the bureau for information about an attraction. A staffer told me she shouldn’t tell me because the business I was interested in was not a member. So it’s clear the bureau, like so many Berks agencies, is more interested in internal politics and survival than serving its mission.

One whopping reason Berks can’t escape its lackluster growth is that Berks’ media – the Reading Eagle, WFMZ, bctv.org – don’t adequately cover the news in Berks. They hold no one accountable. They create no record to hold elected officials to. They ask no tough questions on practical issues. They don’t cover deep problems with health-care access, education, politics, or the environment because advertisers want to project the image that everything is wonderful here, so buy the new car. 

The media are happy to reinforce the world view that everything is OK in Berks County, from the environment to the economy; that people with brown skin cause our problems; and that what we celebrate is celebrated for Christian people who believe themselves white. That sells the media's products, but does nothing to solve the problems limiting our economic growth.