Urban strategist Christopher B. Leinberger laid out his recipe for downtown revitalization Monday before the public and members of the Hourglass Foundation, which hosted his presentation, "Guarding Lancaster's Future -- Revitalizing Downtowns."

Without getting mired in this city's own quicksand issues, Leinberger, a consultant, author and professor, described points he made in "Turning Around Downtown: Twelve Steps to Revitalization," his collection of practices that have helped once-hollowed-out urban centers transform themselves into hip, high-rent cities that are fast becoming neosuburbia for Generation Xers and empty nesters.

If Lancaster is to do it, it won't come easily. Leinberger called his first ingredient -- unified intention and vision to revitalize -- the hardest to come by, and it certainly has been a stumbling block for years in determining downtown Lancaster's future.

But the other ingredients are also crucial. They include: designing a strategic plan; understanding that the public sector must usher in and then step aside for private development; making development easy for those willing to take a risk; giving nonprofit groups space to take a lead in revitalization; and creating a development company, whether it be for-profit, nonprofit or a combination of both, to take on the riskiest of projects to show private developers the way.

And those form just the backbone of revitalization. A vibrant city offers urban entertainment, rental housing for those willing to give city life a chance, housing for sale, retail to serve city residents and downtown employment opportunities.

It's a tall order. Still, Leinberger, whose mother and brother live in the Lancaster area, says it can be done. But developers must retrain themselves after decades of spreading outward, a process that took city residents, retail and money with it to the suburbs.

Leinberger said revitalization is worth it. While suburban hot spots have quicker return for investors, they quickly burn out. Cities take longer to realize returns, but when they do, the returns are steady and drawn over 20-plus years.

"In seven to 10 years, those fringe areas peak and lose their market share," he told a crowd of more than 300 at Liberty Place. "We don't trust investing (long term) in that financial model because it could be an abandoned strip center, many of which litter your highways around Lancaster."

Leinberger said a burgeoning city can even "bury the box," luring big-box chains into metropolitan locations wedged between other city retail stores. He emphasized the new products that would appear with revitalization: buildings with first-floor retail space under residential units, dead-end streets punctuated with spectacular buildings, invisible parking decks hidden behind city facades.

Leinberger said he prefers the carrot to the stick when encouraging city revitalization, but he still warned that times are forcing Americans to rethink their love affairs with suburbia. A recent poll of 8,000 new Philadelphia residents showed 99 percent of them hold college degrees, compared with 25 percent of the general population, and a whopping 60 percent hold postgraduate degrees, compared with only 10 percent of the general population.

"If you care to keep F&M graduates and Millersville University graduates here, if you want Penn State and University of Pennsylvania graduates here, you had better offer them an attractive downtown, because that's what they want," Leinberger said.

If brain drain isn't threatening enough, Leinberger warned that the suburbia model was designed when energy was cheap, so the cost to commute was, too. Those days are over.

"This decade is the last decade of cheap oil production," he said. "How can you afford to commute out to the fringe?"

Leinberger answered several audience questions, most of which centered on ongoing controversial development in downtown Lancaster, including a proposed slots parlor and a plan for two towers of luxury condos.

He pointedly steered away from commenting specifically on the downtown hotel/convention center project.

Leinberger said he has seen no evidence casinos improve city revitalization, particularly because they "rob from the poor to give to the rich -- not exactly the way to promote a more socially just place."

He said he didn't have a problem with allowing construction of high-rise buildings in a traditionally low-rise skyline because high-density living space is a cornerstone of revitalization. That is, foot traffic equals people, and that's what makes a city happen.

"Basically, being opposed to high rises because they don't fit -- well I'd really give a lot of thought to that," he said.

"If you care to keep F&M graduates and Millersville University graduates here ... you had better offer them an attractive downtown, because that's what they want."

Christopher Leinberger

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