First Impressions of Bloomington and Inter-City Visit

If you've followed the wealth of tweets that have come out of this first day of the Inter-City Visit you know that three groups of participants got up early this morning and made our way to Indiana by bus, plane, and bus again. We took a bus tour of Bloomington, had an opening reception, and then split into groups to have discussions about housing, downtowns, sustainability, education, and the arts. Over 60 members of the Bloomington community joined us for these conversations.

Here are my impresssions so far.
- Many of the buildings downtown and on Indiana University's campus are made of locally quarried limestone and are really lovely.

- Bloomington has a very large downtown that is laid out in a much more grid-like configuration than Carrboro or Chapel Hill.

- Bloomington is home to IU and is the county seat and has a lot of associated reasons to bring folks downtown.

- Bloomington City Hall is located in a renovated factory (the Showers Factory) that is very attractive.

- There is a large amount of student housing in downtown or being developed there including the Bicycle Apartments where to live there you can't have a car. Bloomington is an incredibly bike-friendly town (The City of Bloomington was recognized as a Silver "Bicycle Friendly Community" by the League of American Bicyclists, one of only 200 US towns - Carrboro also has a Silver designation, Chapel Hill a Bronze).

- Bloomington has at least 6 Bed and Breakfasts in it's downtown.

- The average home price in Bloomington is $150,000.

- Bloomington has a significant problem with homelessness and has not develeped a cohesive plan to address it yet:

Residents’ goodwill isn’t in doubt. Shelters and food pantries offer services to homeless individuals, more than in surrounding counties. But a growing population of drifters, arriving from beyond the Monroe County line, has brought with it a surge in crimes by people who are homeless. Bloomington’s inviting mindset has brought grace into question.
The number of people booked into the Monroe County Jail in 2011 who were identified as homeless, living at a shelter or with no permanent address was more than double 2007’s figures. A study of bookings in January, June and October of those years showed 45 homeless individuals jailed in 2007, climbing to 111 by 2011. January and June of 2012 produced 87 total arrests.
The Rev. Forrest Gilmore, director of the Shalom Community Center, said he believes increased crime by homeless individuals is a byproduct of a growing client base. Police walking the beat certify the reality.
(Bloomington is a haven for the homeless, but at what cost?
By Jon Blau and Victoria Ison 331-4266 | jblau@heraldt.com 331-4371 | vison@heraldt.com
Herald-Times August 12, 2012, last update: 8/17 @ 5:56 pm)
I hope to learn more about over the next couple of days.

Tomorrow, we start out with discussions about how Bloomington and Monroe County do economic development (they also have a revolving loan fund), discuss their downtown with it's thriving arts, learn about the future of student housing (40% of students live on campus), have conversations about university-community partnerships, and hear about innovations in government. We wrap up the day with field trips to the B-Line Trail (repurposed train track); a theater; a tech high school; an arts center; a homeless shelter; or a kids' museum.

I am sure the tweets will be flying again (#ICV2012).

If you are on the trip, what were your first impressions?

If you are not with us, what questions do you have?

Comments

Great thoughts Molly! I appreciate you taking the time to write down your thoughts after our first day. For those not here, following #icv2012 on twitter provides valuable information about the trip. We should have more content heavy thoughts tomorrow. 

Great report Molly. Thanks.  Here's a report from WHCL's Aaron Keckhttp://chapelboro.com/Dispatch-From-Bloomington-Day-1-Don-t-Know-What-Yo/14193485Bonnie Hauser

Keck's article says this resulted from the Asheville trip, but wasn't it planned before that?

Thanks from me as well for the OP report and to you and everyone else who's providing very informative tweets from Bloomington.I'm fascinated by the Bicycle Apartments, and am looking forward to the discussion this fall over the proposed development of the same name in Chapel Hill.

Much energy has been expended in Chapel Hill to first define and then encourage Transit Oriented Development. But when developers bring such projects to the Advisory Boards and to Council, they have often been rejected. This reflects a fundamental lack of clarity on the part of the citizens and the Council. It is impossible to navigate a path to the future based only on what people *don't* like. There has to be consensus on what the community *does* like so that it can be put in place. Please try to ask some probing questions in Bloomington. How do citizens articulate the kinds of development they want, or will support? What role does the Planning Department and the Council have in educating citizens about how development really works? How does the Council react when citizens want something different from what they wanted the year before?

John - there were A LOT of questions asked of the planning staff during this session at the Inter-City Visit. All in the room were quite taken aback by the fact that the develeopment review takes just 120 days in Bloomington. There were many questions about this. The Bloomington City Planning Director did say that this has been a bit too rapid in some cases and some community members have been unhappy with the result (their very large Smallwood downtown student housing development is one example of this).Bloomington has at least 35 neighborhood associations that are registered with the city. The City works directly with these associations to gather community input. I did not hear anything specific about how Bloomington educating citizens about how the development process works. They do update their comprehensive plan every 5 years with community input.Other ICV2012 attendees can probably provide more details.

"they have often been rejected"This seems like just rhetoric.  I agree that both towns could afford to be more clear about what they want, but I can only think of one recent development in Chapel Hill that was actually rejected.

 

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