Vibrant urban neighborhoods have some common qualities.
They have a critical mass of residents and have neighborhood businesses supported in part by those residents.
Vibrant mixed-use neighborhoods also have good connectivity. Whether you’re driving a car, riding transit, bicycling or walking, you can efficiently get where you need to go.
Today’s urban planners are intensely focused on those qualities as keys to neighborhood revitalization.
The proposed new police precinct in the Metropolitan neighborhood will almost certainly impede those goals.
Last week, the city moved ahead with plans for purchasing 36 residences, many of them occupied, that would be demolished for the new Central Precinct.
The modest homes face both sides of 33rd and 34th streets between Montgomery Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
After years of losing residents, the population of the Metropolitan neighborhood has apparently stabilized, but U.S. Census data confirm that the demographics have been changing dramatically.
Most of the property in question is in Census tract 113, where the number of blacks as a share of the total population declined by 34 percent between 2000 and 2010. In the adjacent Census tract 114, the decline was 50 percent.
City officials have repeatedly emphasized the need for affordable, low-income and workforce housing throughout the downtown area, but this move would destroy three dozen existing units.
On top of all that, the historic structures date to 1920, according to Eric Curl’s coverage of the sale agreement in this newspaper.
And there has even been talk of closing those blocks of 33rd and 34th streets. We know that traffic flow and private investment have been severely hampered by disruptions to the city’s historic grid, so why would that idea even be on the table?
I might have a different take on the location if there weren’t blighted buildings and large vacant lots scattered nearby. There are obviously locations where a new precinct could be built without disrupting the neighborhood’s historic fabric.
And I might have a different take if I thought the sheer presence of the new precinct would have some overwhelmingly positive impact on nearby blocks.
I live close to the current Central Precinct on Bull Street. I’m sure the regular scrutiny of officers has made the immediate area safer, but it’s not like there’s a watchtower.
In the 18 years I’ve lived right around the corner, my block has seen drug sales, numerous burglaries, stolen bicycles, at least one auto theft, a hit-and-run accident and various other problems. You know, the usual.
So here’s hoping preservationists and neighborhood advocates scrutinize this proposed purchase.
City Talk appears every Sunday and Tuesday. Bill Dawers can be reached via billdawers@comcast.net. Send mail to 10 E. 32nd St., Savannah, GA 31401.