There are certain land uses that unify a community’s core more than others. These place making uses serve as primary gathering spots and trip generators which can then produce ancillary trips to other uses in the vicinity. We all know a healthy Main Street when we see it – Walt Disney certainly did, as he recreated that image at the entrance to a number of its theme parks – albeit, unfortunately in the exurbs at the time they were built.

When a community’s core loses these place makers and trip generators, for whatever reason, it is difficult to recapture the lost foot, bicycle, transit, and car traffic. Sure, green field sites can be less expensive in the short-term, but the residual effects of vacating a central location, such as but not limited to vacant storefronts, blight, and building deterioration, will likely offset those initial benefits over the long run. In addition, the edge city sites simply promote more sprawl and automobile usage with their acres of parking lots and often limited access to transit services, bike paths, or even sidewalks.

The list of use below is not meant to be exhaustive, but more of a way of generating discussion.

Library or museum – while most major cities retain the main library in or near the downtown core, this is not always the case with smaller cities and suburbs where they tend to be located near schools. Each time I sit in the library to work on this blog (as I am right now), the amount of foot traffic in and out of the front door is simply amazing.

Libraries are great learning centers, but very often they are also inspiring architecturally. Even industrialist Andrew Carnegie understood this – he certainly left an enduring and endearing legacy for1,679 very fortunate communities across the nation.

Museums can vary in location and in subject matter. They are often situated in a city park or a scenic site. When located in or near the heart of the city, they are also vitally important to place making as a wonderful community attribute.

Post Office– granted, local communities often have little say on what the post office does, but when a post office moves to an edge location, there is a palpable drop in foot and car traffic in the vicinity of the old location. In addition to the loss of commerce, many older post offices are grand structures that bring charm and aesthetics to the central city that you will not find in the burbs.

Hospital – whether it is the patients, the employees, the visitors, or the service providers, hospitals produce a tremendous amount of traffic, whether it be foot, transit, or car. Keeping the facility in the community core is paramount for retaining the viability of the core and the surrounding neighborhoods.

A couple of weeks ago I was rather dismayed to learn that both hospitals serving Lafayette-West Lafayette, Indiana have move out to the eastern edge of town near I-65 from central parts of Lafayette. Would someone please explain to me how that better serves the 60,000 or so people living in West Lafayette and Purdue University, some 12 miles away across town?

If I were a hospital entrepreneur, I would build one in West Lafayette immediately. I would like to also know how moving the hospitals to the eastern edge of the urbanized area improves response times and efficiency of ambulatory services?

Fortunately, here in Greater Lansing, the city’s major hospitals (Sparrow and Ingham Regional) have remained in the central city/midtown areas. Similarly, Henry Ford Hospital and the Detroit Medical Center, along with Wayne State University provide incentives for their employees to live in Midtown Detroit.

Community College – sorry if I seem like I am picking on Indiana here, but rarely does Ivy Tech (the statewide community college) build/rebuild a new facility in the heart of a city – the facilities keep being constructed on green fields out by the bypass. The Bloomington location is shown below. Logansport’s campus is the most recent example I have seen of this phenomenon.

Thankfully, here in Greater Lansing, Lansing Community College is right in the heart of downtown, which is an excellent downtown asset. Those 30,000 students spend money on books, food, housing, entertainment, etc. which is music to the ears of central city businesses. It also promotes walkability, transit, and inner city revitalization.

Transit or train station– here is where Greater Lansing falls a bit short.

While CATA maintains its modern bus transit center in downtown Lansing, the region’s AMTRAK station is adjacent to MSU’s campus in East Lansing. While that makes sense in some respects (students using the train to get back and forth from home), it does nothing for either downtown Lansing or East Lansing.

One of the great benefits here, is the stations can bring in commerce from visitors and tourists as they pass through the community. The fact that it is being saved by the Lansing Board of Water and Light as part of its new $182 million headquarters and steam generation facility is terrific (see image below), though my preference would have been to revitalize the old railroad station in the REO Town section of Lansing for rail passenger services, instead.

Religious institution – most often not just a Sunday morning and Wednesday evening site of activity, the loss of the trips generated by the membership of a church, mosque, synagogue, temple can be devastating to a central city. Weddings, funerals, rehearsals, day care, schools, community meetings, reunions, forums, classes, voting, and many other activities take place here throughout the week. These benefit area businesses and helps retain residential property values. Personally, I do not think there is a sadder vacant land use than a religious institution.

Funeral home – this may sound rather morbid, but in thousands of small towns across America, funeral homes are an important gathering place in times of grief. They also tend to be the largest dwelling on main street, which makes its vacancy all the more noticeable.

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There are a number of other uses I could have listed, but you probably get the picture by now. As planners, we must find ways to assure that the uses that bind the social and economic fabric of the central city together remain there and do not begin fraying at the edges. Each place making use that is lost loosens these pivotal binds that coalesce the downtown area into a healthy and vibrant place to live, work, play, learn, visit, and enjoy.