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The United States is in the midst of an unprecedented boom in
the design, construction, and renovation of public schools. The
boom has spread to virtually every state in the country and is
expected to continue in most areas for at least another decade. The
U.S. Department of Education estimates that the aggregate national
investment in this process will exceed $250 billion over the first
decade of this century. At the current pace of roughly $30 billion
per year (F.W. Dodge statistics), we are already poised to meet or
exceed this robust projection.
In most jurisdictions across the country, this massive investment
is viewed as a clear and necessary way to improve educational
infrastructure by providing state-of-the-art facilities
designed to improve educational outcomes. An equally important, but
often overlooked, benefit of this investment is that it can also
improve community infrastructure by complementing and even
galvanizing positive community economic development. Awareness is
growing of programs and legislation that can leverage K–12
construction as a catalyst for economic development, but this trend
is in its early infancy.
Americans now have an opportunity to reverse the forces of sprawl
that have driven growth patterns since the end of World War II and
to rebuild their older downtowns and neighborhoods. Yet most
American communities continue to plan and design schools that
perpetuate sprawl and inhibit revitalization of urban
neighborhoods. Architects can play a critical leadership role in
reversing this trend; our profession can lead the way to a
generation of “smart growth” schools that significantly
enhance quality of life and economic opportunity in America’s
cities and promote environmental and social sustainability. This
leadership can take many forms. One of the most significant is to
work within the profession and with state and local decision makers
and their local communities to help rethink the way communities
plan and design schools.
Why is this the right time to focus on rebuilding
America’s cities?
Most older cities lost the bulk of their economic base, and as much
as one-third or more of their population, with the departure of
industrial jobs and the emergence of new suburban economic activity
following World War II. The value of Detroit’s tax base shrank
by more than 75 percent in constant dollars between 1950 and 1990,
even as the surrounding region prospered. While Detroit’s
experience has been more extreme, even in highly affluent
metropolitan Boston, 80 percent of children living in poverty are
concentrated in a few urban communities, cut off from their
middle-class peers. However, the fundamental dynamics that saw
investment, jobs, and the middle class leave America’s cities
now are poised to reverse across the United States.
- Dramatic demographic change sets the stage for urban
revival. Longstanding demographic dynamics that favored
suburbs have now reversed. After more than four decades, during
which baby boomers dominated the U.S. housing market—and
overwhelmingly sought out suburbs—housing demand is now spread
roughly evenly across every age group from 25 to 75. The Urban Land
Institute notes that, for the first time in 30 years, “There
is no [longer a] mass market. We are truly becoming ‘a nation
of niches.’” In a September 2004 article,
BusinessWeek reported that large national home builders
who had “spent decades trying to lure folks out of the city .
. . are suddenly making a reverse commute . . . by gobbling up
urban properties at a fevered pace."
- People increasingly value urban communities.
The Boston Globe recently reported a national poll showing
for the first time that more than 80 percent of Americans would
make a shorter commute a primary factor in housing choice. Why?
Just look at the Boston region: Total vehicle miles driven have
increased 15 times faster than population since 1970. These lost
hours translate into growing pressures on households trying to
raise children. Worse yet, it now costs $5,000 to $10,000 to own
and operate an additional car. Changing values can be measured most
dramatically in new urban housing demand across America—for
lofts in downtown Albuquerque and Columbus, Ohio; mixed-use
neighborhoods in San Diego; and residential towers in downtown
Miami.
- Regions with lively downtowns and urban neighborhoods
attract growth and jobs. The U.S. Bureau of Statistics has
projected that all of the fastest-growing occupations between 2002
and 2012 will be urban occupations. Increasingly, as urban
economist Richard Florida noted in his landmark book The
Creative Class, many of these skilled workers seek regions
with vibrant downtowns and urban neighborhoods. In 2003 the Lincoln
Institute for Land Policy reported that state and local governments
cannot afford the costs of building and maintaining the additional
miles of highways and utilities, new schools, and other
infrastructure required to support sprawl.
What roles can schools play in rebuilding America’s
cities?
That “competitive” schools play a critical role
in attracting people who can afford to choose the community where
they live is well documented. However, there is far more to the
story. Many urban neighborhoods have lost their schools. In the
1960s, half of America’s students still walked to school.
Today, following three decades in which many urban neighborhoods
lost their schools, only 10 percent of students walk to school. The
loss of schools has removed an important source of neighborhood
cohesiveness and pride. In an age when few households include a
parent who is free to chauffeur students to and from school and
related enrichment activities, the lack of access to most schools
except by car in placing a growing strain on American
families.
In 2005, schools represent one of the most significant potential
areas of investment and visible change in urban neighborhoods. The
National Center for Educational Statistics reports that the average
age of America’s 93,000 schools is 40 years, and more than
three-quarters need major repairs. The center estimates that the
cost to bring schools up to appropriate standards would exceed $175
billion alone in the 10 states most needing improvements. The need
to invest so much in America’s schools not only presents an
unprecedented opportunity to bring schools back to urban
neighborhoods but also underscores the need to use the remaining
urban schools well. The Albuquerque School District reports a
problem faced in many regions: It cannot afford to replace its
existing urban schools with new suburban substitutes.
Arguably no public or private building type is as important to a
community as a school. The importance is multidimensional:
- The central role of education in the health of communities,
cities, regions, and the nation
- The cultural and symbolic importance of the appearance of the
school as a reflection of democratic and community values
- The significant size and scale of individual school
buildings
- The importance of school location in enhancing community
character and development as well as providing convenience for
parents and students and neighborhood cohesion
- The opportunity to create outdoor learning and play spaces that
support children’s development while becoming community
assets
- The opportunity to expand the functions of the school to
encompass community facilities and services, i.e., as a community
learning center
- The opportunity to leverage school construction with
neighborhood investments in housing, parks, public infrastructure,
and economic development.
Unfortunately, while educational infrastructure automatically
improves as a result of new school creation, community
infrastructure does not. Why not? Why is the huge investment now
being made in educational infrastructure not more effectively
leveraged to vitalize communities? The reasons are many and varied
but fall into several broad categories:
- Institutional separation between school boards and municipal or
county governments inhibits collaboration.
- School construction culture minimizes the need for, and value
of, community and municipal government participation in the
development of the educational philosophy, location of facilities,
and the design features of the building or campus.
- Municipal or county government views schools as
extrajurisdictional “facts of life” rather than as
integral components of a municipal or county master plan.
- Local master and neighborhood plans include few requirements
for the creation of long-range plans for schools and fewer still
for the creation of school facility plans.
- As a consequence of all of the above, little to no integrated
planning occurs.
- No organization or institution exists whose “day job”
is to look across jurisdictions to optimize synergies between
school and community development.
Although hard to quantify, it is our belief that overcoming
these institutional barriers, particularly in our nation’s
urban areas, could have substantial potential benefits for school
districts and for the communities that support them. These benefits
are, for the most part, going unexploited in jurisdictions across
the United States.
How can architects help lead the way?
At the state and local levels, the people who make decisions
about funding, locating, planning, and designing new and
rehabilitated schools are constrained by increasingly anachronistic
policies and guidelines that were written in the era of
suburbanization. For example, before 2004, the guidelines issued by
the Council of Educational Facility Planners called for school
sites that ranged from at least 10 acres to more than 50 acres.
These acreages are not only unnecessary but also unworkable in
almost every urban neighborhood. Worse yet, a mayor or school
superintendent who seeks to build a school on a smaller, urban site
is repeatedly accused by constituents of “selling our kids
short” by not adhering to “accepted
standards.”
Further compounding the problem, most states have policies that
strongly favor construction of a new school over reinvestment in an
existing school; and once again local communities are suspicious of
proposals that go against accepted standards. Evidence is growing
from communities across America that compact, urban schools can
match any schools in terms of the quality of their facilities and
the effectiveness of the education they offer. Architects can play
critical leadership roles in rewriting these policies and
guidelines and helping public officials build the case for smart
growth schools with constituents who have grown up with the sense
that bigger and more spread out is better when it comes to
investing in schools.
Pressure also is increasing on public funding, which often
falls short of providing all of the necessary resources to meet the
demand. As a result, there is an emerging emphasis on opportunities
for public-private partnerships. Current financial models place the
private sector at a disadvantage, however. there is growing
precedence of public-private partnerships that can provide
opportunities for districts to create new economic models that will
support and fund innovative schools. A few such examples include
City Lights, a residential development in the state-owned Queens
West housing development in New York City that includes PS78;
Metropolitan Learning Alliance-Mall of Americas, Bloomington,
Minn.; and James F. Oyster Bilingual Public Elementary School,
Washington, D.C.
Experience has shown that if architects take the actions
summarized below, they can play a leading role in the planning and
design of school facilities—whether through new construction
or renovation of existing buildings—that will catalyze
lasting improvements in both educational and community
infrastructure.
Advocate
- Changes in legislation to require that school districts prepare
long-range education and facilities master plans integrated with
local plans
- Changes in legislation to allow and to provide incentives for
public-private joint ventures and mixed- and joint-use buildings
with the goal of creating schools—really, community learning
centers—as centers of community
- Bond issues that include resources to construct joint-use and
mixed-use schools.
Organize
- Local charrettes to plan and design schools in conjunction with
community groups, students, educators, and local governments
- Asset-based community planning programs to identify and map
community resources that can enhance learning
- Professional training programs to introduce school district
and municipal personnel to best practices in the planning
and design of high-performance schools that are centers of
community.
Develop
- Model legislation that can be used for advocacy
- Model charrette programs for interested AIA components and/or
jurisdictions to follow
- Model programs for creating long-range facility plans for
schools and communities
- Training programs.
The following professionals contributed to this
article:
- David Dixon, FAIA, principal, Goody, Clancy &
Associates, and vice chair, AIA Regional and Urban Design
Committee
- Deane Evans, FAIA, research professor and executive
director, Center for Architecture and Building Science Research,
New Jersey Institute of Technology
- Pam Loeffelman, AIA, principal, Perkins Eastman, and chair,
AIA Committee on Architecture for Education
- Herb Simmens, PhD, Blue Moon Urban Fellow, Center for
Architecture and Building Science Research, New Jersey Institute of
Technology
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