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.