Here is a link to a document that I’m going to bring. (PDF file).

The document has a bunch of good links to studies and strategies for shrinking cities. This is a known thing and there is a lot on it. The scope of the problem can be seen quite clearly n a few images. Here is a graph of Clinton’s population at each decennial census.

Below are two images. (Click on them for larger versions.) These two photos are taken at the same scale from Google Earth. The top is Clinton. The shaded area is a rough outline of the core of the city from Camanche Avenue in the south, Mill Creek Parkway on the west, up to Cragmore Dr. at the north and the river on the east.

The bottom picture is this area (rotated 180° to fit better) projected onto a same scale map of Chicago. Clinton’s core area covers Chicago from the Congres Expressway (I-290) along and west of the Kennedy Expressway, all the way up to Irving Park Road. Clinton, with a population of 26,700 has an infrastructure footprint nearly as big as the entire North Side of Chicago which has the advantage of having twenty times the population.

When finally confronted by state regulators and forced to do something about the ADA compliance matter, the company’s reaction is to pull up sticks, abandon the landmark building, move headquarters to the edge of town and spend $1.5 million on upgrading a 1960′s-era production facility to be their new headquarters, leaving the city to deal with the now abandoned, crumbling architectural landmark.

Roosevelt Administration Building. Source; Michael Kearny

Let’s just gloss over for the moment the three decades of short-sightedness that allowed the Roosevelt Building to degrade to its present state. They city and the Board of Ed. have known for a number of years that it had to do something about Roosevelt. Below, you can read the October, 2009 Iowa Department of Education Educational Equity Review and the January, 2010 cover letter that told the School District that it had 60 days to supply the Department of Ed. with a compliance plan. Therefore, after blowing off at least one deadline, the Board of Eduction announced last week their plan to abandon Roosevelt, spend $1.5 million (which is just a back-of-the-envelope estimate from the architect, actual costs are guaranteed to be much higher) on moving the Administration Building to Harding Elementary. With nothing but vague promises to, “do everything we can to save it [Roosevelt].”

The most common argument being bandied about by those supporting leaving and then (inevitably) tearing down Roosevelt is that no one wants it to become “another Post Office.” For those not in the know, the Post Office is the once-beautiful neo-classical old Post Office located in the middle of downtown that the USPS closed down in ?? to move to a new facility two blocks away. It has sat there ever since, slowly rotting. In a recent editorial in the Clinton Herald the paper gave the same rationale.

Well, just take a look at the former Clinton post office. A hulking structure on the corner of South Third Street and Fifth Avenue, it is deteriorating. Apparently the money isn’t available to preserve it. Covenants on the building because of its historic designation limit what can be done to it, we understand.
We’re not saying it isn’t noble to preserve the past, but there comes a time when a property may be past the point of no return.

We believe Roosevelt is an example of such a situation. We are urging the school board, while it has OK’d starting the process of getting paperwork in place seeking that designation, to not pursue it any further. If someone wants to save it, and has the money to invest in it for a planned outcome, that would be a different situation and we would hope the school district would take them up on that offer. But if not, we would hope the district takes it down so that it doesn’t become a liability issue.

There is no fault in having a dream, but having a plan is the responsible way of fulfilling it.

Clinton High School as it was. Source: Micheal Kearny (Clinton Historical Society)

Also by the way, in the Herald editorial they point to a recent online survey they conducted:

We asked readers of our website to answer a poll question on the issue a few months back. They specifically were asked “What should be done with the Roosevelt Administration Center building after school district offices move out of it?”

Of the 1,290 responses, 636 said that tearing it down for safety reasons is the way to go. Next were 359 responses to sell it for possible renovation and reuse. The remaining 295 said to preserve and keep it as close to historically accurate as possible.

We agree with the largest batch of responses.

Math alert: The largest batch of responses are the 654 people who want to keep the building there by either selling it for renovation or having the school district do what it should have done all along and spend the money to renovate it.

And speaking of math. Let’s look at the realistic cost of fixing up Roosevelt. There have been three historical redevelopment projects in Clinton in just the last five years, so we have lots of data to work with. They are: The Armstrong Building, the current home of the Chamber of Commerce on South 2nd Street, and the Van Allen and Howes buildings across the street from each other at 2nd Street and 5th Avenue South. All of those buildings are much, much larger than the Roosevelt building and required much more in the way of reconstruction. With the Armstrong and Van Allen buildings, they had to be converted from open floor plans to apartments and offices. In all cases they had to be completely gutted and equipped with new elevators, HVAC, electrical and sprinkler systems. Each of those projects cost less than $3 million per.

With all the historic preservation credits and grants, green renovation credits and grants it is completely reasonable to renovate the Roosevelt building for a sum that is close to the amount it would take to move to Harding. And even if it costs a little bit more, isn’t it worth it to maintain the unique character and architecture of our city? We have lost so much of it already and so much of what remains is deeply threatened. This is the least our civic leaders can do. Hell, it is ostensibly what they get paid to do. Being a member of the school board is not just about running the school district. It is about running the school district in a way that makes Clinton, IA an attractive and competitive place to live, work and do business.

Letting the city’s historical and cultural artifacts disintegrate under their feet and then walking away from the problem is a huge dereliction of that duty. The board can and must do the right thing.

Note: The part of the Educational Equity Review that pertains to Roosevelt is on Page 18. However, the entire report is enlightening reading with regards to how the district fares in educational equality and non-discrimination. Short version: pretty good but there are some areas to work on.

Clinton CSD Equity Final Jan 29

Ashford University failed to return more than a million dollars in federal aid awarded to students who later withdrew, and may have violated a federal ban on incentive compensation for college recruiters, an audit released on Monday by the Education Department’s Office of Inspector General says.

According to the audit, Ashford, a for-profit institution in Iowa, rewarded recruiters based on their success in securing enrollments and improperly retained $29,000 in federal funds awarded to 38 out of the 85 students included in the inspector general’s review. The inspector general extrapolated from that sample to conclude that the university improperly retained at least $1.1-million during the 2006-7 audit period.

Note that the Audit period was from five years ago. In the last year Congress has been subjecting for-profit institutions to a much higher level of scrutiny and threatening more strict regulation. So, one would hope that practices have changed for the better. This incident does highlight one of the key problems for for-profit universities; the often conflicting goals of maximizing shareholder profits and delivering a quality education experience.

In a post from several years ago I talked about how these competing interests can cripple the institution. On the one hand, Bridgepoint Education (the parent company of Ashford, as well as the University of the Rockies in Colorado is a publicly traded company. Bridgepoint does not issue stock dividends. This subjects it to the expectations that apply in such a case; shareholders will want to see consistent quarterly growth in perpetuity or at least enough constant upward movement that the stock can be arbitraged.

On the other hand, the structural limitations of providing a quality education both for online and physical campus students has a lot of constraints that traditional businesses don’t always have. The need for physical infrastructure for the campus, the student-teacher ratio for both online and physical students and the salaries required for quality instruction all to some extent or another are going to limit the traditional search for efficiency that many businesses use to evolve and maintain profitability.

At some point for example the student-teacher ratio reaches a point where the quality of the product (instruction) suffers. This can lead to student dissatisfaction and students leaving the college, which impacts profits. Therefore, there is some point where no further efficiencies can be made and the faculty cost per student is pretty much set in stone.

So a business model that says the value of the company is based on its ability to grow forever, offering every greater profits and therefore a constantly rising stock price might not be appropriate to this sort of business. An alternative exists wherein the business focuses on competing on quality and to some extent on price. In this model profits remain relatively steady or grow slowly but consistently along with the organic growth of the business (as it adds more institutions for example). The company then goes to a dividend-based shareholder value model. This encourages investors to buy and hold the stock as a long-term investment.

Take for example Johnson & Johnson. Here is a century-old company that, while it consistently innovates, makes pretty basic, mundane things: cleaning products. A look at the ten-year trend for JNJ shows that it has traded consistently in a range between $41 and $71 (the lows include very low lows in economic downturns). The 52 week range is $56-$66 and that is pretty consistent with the 10 year rolling average. The current dividend yield is about $3.55 per share. That’s a nice, safe stock to own in your portfolio. The world needs nice, safe investments as much (or more) than it needs spectacular growth stocks.

It seems to me that a company that is in the education business would want to actively cultivate a staid, conservative not-going-anywhere-anytime-soon image.

Naturally, I zoomed right into Clinton, IA. Lots of interesting things to see. This will probably be a multi-part series.

One thing that few people fail to realize but that jumps right out at you when you start to compare the data in a visualization tool like this is that Our Fair City is huge. I mean that the geographic area of the city limits is very large. Take a look at these side-by-side images at the same scale of Clinton and Chicago. The dots are population, each dot represents 500 people.

Clinton Population Density, 2010 Source: NYT

Chicago Population Density, 2010. Source: NYT

Click an image to show larger size. Hit the back button on the browser to return to the post.

For anyone wondering why Clinton struggles to maintain and repair its infrastructure, there is your answer. We have a city laid out roughly the size of the North Side of Chicago with barely 1/100th the population. The entire population of the City of Clinton could fit comfortably in Chicago’s West Town, that encompasses my old neighborhood of Wicker Park.

Chicago's West Town, 2010. Source: NYT

Although the federally mandated improvements to our sewage treatment and storm water systems have forced on the City a financial burden it didn’t really need, the bright side is that it will provide the city with a modern infrastructure for growth and infill.

This data leads to two fairly obvious conclusions. One, the last thing Clinton needs to be doing is encouraging any kind of major housing development at its periphery (e.g. west of 18th Street in the middle). Policy efforts should focus incentives, planning and zoning on keeping the city as compact as possible. Second, the only way out of this trap is population growth, and population growth means aggressive economic development incentives.

I propose a goal: 30,000 population by 2030. Round numbers; has a nice ring, 30 By 30.

This can be easily achieved in two ways: new economic development and through the growth of Ashford University.

With the completion of Phase I of the Lincolnway RailportK in mid-2011, the stage will be set to book the first tenant there. It is hoped that one of the wind-industry component manufacturers will chose to locate there and have a facility in place by sometime in 2014-15. Several large manufacturers have expressed interest.

The manufacturing of wind turbine equipment requires large facilities and a fairly large work force. Just building such a facility will be a much-needed shot in the arm for local businesses once ground is broken. The folks at the CRDC are targeting 900 – 1,200 jobs when the facility goes operational with wages well above average.

Although Ashford University does not issue public statements regarding its goals for growth of its Clinton campus and the number of students enrolled at the brick and mortar facility (as opposed to on line) sources who are familiar with those goals say that Bridgepoint hopes to grow to at least 5,000 on-campus students by 2015.

That would represent a four-fold increase along with an aggressive construction agenda. Bridgepoint/Ashford has already purchased the old Clinton Country Club and built its athletic field on the Northeast end, but has about 3/4 of the land open to it for development.

Adding 3,000 odd students and a requisite number of faculty to the city will create the foundation for some good things to happen. It will provide fertile ground for a number of small businesses; cafes, restaurants, bookstores and music venues that provide cultural benefits for all.

Ashford already owns the downtonwn indoor tennis facility and it should be given all the incentives it needs to take over the old YMCA building as an athletic center and classroom space for the physical therapy and healthcare programs it wishes to emphasize in its curriculum. This will require more investment in mass transportation that can be used by everyone and bring more business to downtown Clinton.

Clinton is in a precarious position; poised between great opportunity but on the brink of collapse. In my next post, I’ll examine the census data as it relates to income, education and housing prices. But the data is pretty clear. Clinton will either grow or die. Through a combination of vision and accident the City has been provided with some magnificent opportunities to grow out of its problems. But it will take deft management and hard bargaining to ensure that the growth happens on terms that the City can handle with benefits that accrue to everyone.

Back in the glory days of TV news getting an exclusive usually meant an entire day’s advantage over the competition; what with just the one daily evening newscast. If teased appropriately a good scoop would add viewership to that evening’s newscast but mostly it was a prestige moment that helped build the network’s news brand. So, a good scoop (or more rightly consistently being able to get scoops and exclusives) had a positive business impact, but much less immediate and tangible than newspaper scoops.

But what is a scoop/exclusive worth in the Internet age? At best a media outlet will have the story to itself for a few hours before it is cited, cross-linked, and tweeted all over the world by other outlets. Granted, an exclusive will drive some traffic to the website and might, might, MIGHT drive some advertising click-throughs. But people who are looking for a quick read on breaking news are highly unlikely to take the time for a diversion into web advertising.

No, the only real business driver for working a scoop in 2010 has to be for the prestige of it. It is purely a brand-building exercise.

If that is the case then the aim should be to get the story right AND first, or to be in-depth AND first. And if being first is not possible (say for an afternoon newspaper with a 9 a.m. deadline) then it seems the business case would say that being right and/or in-depth would trump the now very ephemeral advantages of being first.

Being first with a bullshit story is probably worse than not covering it at all. It ruins the news brand. Unless your “brand” is focused on whipping up a particular market segment and reinforcing their existing belief structures. Then it’s fine. But it’s not really news, its commentary and opinion

It seems to me that the business aim for entities in the actual news business — especially for web-only outlets — should be quality and depth of reporting that will create stickyness and build the brand. Stickyness is web-speak for having viewers stay on your site for more than a few minutes and view more than just the one page that you might have entered by via an external link. Better yet, to be compelling enough to entice people to come back and be regular readers or god-forbid, actual subscribers to an actual newspaper.

I guess none of this is really earth shattering. Unless you run the Clinton Herald, our local newspaper. In which case your local beat is consistently scooped by the Gannett outlet, The Quad City Times forty miles downriver. The Times also does a better job of driving traffic to the website with a full twitter stream of breaking news (the Herald tweets maybe once a day) but more importantly the Times has all of its news archived on the web site unlike the Herald which still seems to think that if it’s not ink on paper delivered to the door then it doesn’t count.

The Herald consistently embargoes content on the website to drive people to the paper edition. If I miss a local story in the dead-tree edition and it doesn’t make the cut to the web page three or four days after publication? I have to physically go to the friggin Library. Which I’ve done. Once.

What I’m getting at is that it just doesn’t make a lot of sense that if you have a near-monopoly on the local newspaper business and are, in the claims of the publisher, “consistently one of the most profitable papers in the company,” to be consistently lagging your competition from down-river. Gannett, like all major publishers has a huge debt-load (unlike the privately-held CNHI, the Herald’s parent) and is always cutting budgets to the bone. Considering the minor marginal costs of placing additional, non-print content to the website and driving traffic and adding value with Twitter feeds, it would seem like a no-brainer.

I’m pretty bummed that some sort of server upgrade ate most of the 2005 – 2007 posts of this blog. There were a couple of nice posts about how weird I find it that although you can get from Clinton to The Loop in two and-a-half hours, most people in Clinton would never think of making the journey on their own.

Which is a pity. Because that’s an easy day trip and we’re talking one of the great cities of the planet that is closer than Cedar Falls, Ames or Des Moines.

All of this is apropos of nothing save that I love the tumblr blog, Fuck Yeah! Chicago.

Looking North On Wabash & Lake

This week, the Clinton Chamber of Commerce held its annual strategic planning meeting and the guest speakers were Dubuque City Manager, Mike Van Milligen and Rick Dickinson, President of the Greater Dubuque Development Corporation. Van Milligen and Dickinson have been working in Dubuque since the mid-1990′s. And they really did start from scratch. Thinking back to the 1980′s Dubuque had some of the worst unemployment in the nation. Dickinson described his start as inauspicious.

“In the course of a few weeks of my starting in 1995, the Riverboat Casino in East Dubuque left, a foundry in East Dubuque burned to the ground and the Dubuque Packing Plant closed its doors. People were calling me, ‘The Angel of Death.’ ”

“But, the hard times put fire in the belly of the people of Dubuque,” said Van Milligen.

When talking about the keys to their success Van Milligen and Dickinson came back again and again to two themes: cooperation and preparation. For years, the GDDC leadership has had a standing meeting with City Hall staff every Wednesday at 11 a.m. where they go over everything that is going on in the city and share responsibilities for preparing for initiatives. Further, the GDDC board, which might seem unwieldy with 37 members is also a vehicle for public and private cooperation, Dickinson explained.

The board requires the City the County and the School District to have a member of the Greater Dubuque Development Corporation board. All members of the board must be executives of their organization. This means CEO’s of member businesses, City Council Members, and the School Board Superintendent. Dickinson explained why this is critical. “We need people there who are decision makers, who can give the unqualified opinion of their organization and who can move the ball when opportunities arise.”

The two used as an example, the recent selection of Dubuque by IBM to locate a facility and 1,300 jobs in Downtown Dubuque. When the IBM committee visited Dubuque to consider the city and evaluate sites, they fell in love with the old Roshek Department Store building downtown. The problem was, neither the City nor the GDDC owned the building. They had thirty days to put together a deal to purchase the building and secure the $42 million in funds to restore and build out the facility.

Within 24 hours Dickinson had convened a meeting of the CEO’s of every financial institution in town. He told them< "We need a $25 million line of credit." Dead silence. City Manager Van Milligen then rose and said, "This line of credit will be backed by the full faith and credit of the City of Dubuque." And so the deal was made.

Preparation is also key. The GDDC talks to over 200 local businesses per year and keeps a powerful database of all the existing businesses, their current conditions, needs and plans. The GDDC sponsors a concierge service and subsidises a Distictively Dubuque (PDF file link) program that hosts classes and tours for newcomers.

During the process during which IBM was weighing Dubuque against other cities, each visit by the IBM staff was highly orchestrated and nothing left to chance. By way of example, Dickinson talked about the final stage of the process. The race was down to Dubuque and a city in South Carolina. The decision was up to three IBM divisions: Operations, Facilities and Human Resources. Operations liked Dubuque. Facilities liked South Carolina because they were offering a new building, ready to move in. Human Resources would have to break the tie.

IBM’s Vice President of Human Resources came to visit and was having lunch with representatives of the three colleges in Dubuque. She had already fallen in love with the city’s historic architecture, river expanses and quirky layout, but she expressed some skepticism about Dubuque’s ability to provide the highly-educated, specialized talent IBM would need. A GDDC staffer walked over with a stack of 600 resumes that she had pulled off the Access Dubuque website — all were qualified technology applicants — and dropped them on the table next to her. Game, set, match to Dubuque.

That incredible level of preparation and organization is a critical element of successful economic development activity. How does a city get there? Dickinson summed it up in four words, “Elect talent. Hire talent.”

Clinton has done a lot in the last couple of years to lay the foundation for a major increase in economic growth through strategic investments. But in order to make those investments pay off the community needs to begin to pull together and work smart as well as hard.

During the period of explosive growth in the Dot-Com era right through to today the one thing that makes the Internet special is its blind simplicity. At the end of the day, all it is is a network of very fast little virtual mail-room clerks shifting packets to and from their destinations. The network does not care at all what is inside that packet. It can be part of a credit card transaction, a video, a love letter, a chat text, a blog post, literally anything that can be reduced to digital bits can be moved over the Internet.

The Internet’s strength and its value as a tremendous generator of innovation, progress and freedom in the world is directly linked to its OPENNESS. The fact that it is a dumb network that just moves packets means that anyone who can think of an interesting thing to do by moving little chunks of information, can go right ahead and do it, EVEN IF ITS NEVER BEEN DONE BEFORE. THEY DON’T NEED PERMISSION. IF IT FOLLOWS THE PROTOCOLS IT GETS ACCEPTED.

We’ve got a web site up and running, google4clinton.org. There’s nothing there yet, but we’ll have some content up later today.

Yesterday afternoon we met with officials from the Clinton Regional Development Corporation, the Chamber of Commerce and City Aldermen and agreed that this is worth pursuing and divided up responsibilities for collecting the information required by the Government application.

We’re moving forward. Most of my efforts will be consumed by work and this initiative for a couple of weeks so do check back but don’t expect much posting here.