Libraries as Equity Building Blocks

PLs play new role as investment magnets for community revitalization

By Andrew Richard Albanese -- Library Journal, 5/15/2001

Considering past trends in America's cities, what will happen on June 9 in downtown Nashville is somewhat remarkable: on that day the city will officially christen its new main public library with a festive grand opening ceremony. While building a new public library is no small feat, consider this: Nashville tore down a shopping mall to erect the library. City officials expect the library to do what Bennetton and the Gap could not: revitalize the city's cultural epicenter.

Nashville is one of a growing number of cities that are moving away from the traditional view of library as cost center. Rather, local officials and politicians, under whose collective purview libraries fall, are seeing them more as equity anchors, as investment magnets that help expedite the revitalization of a neighborhood or community.

"We're in the midst of a great $115 million expansion," says Nashville Library Director Donna Nicely. "We've built five new branches, and we have this glorious new downtown library because we have a mayor here, Mayor Bill Purcell, who believes in the role libraries play in the community. We believe libraries can be the community's foundation." Nicely says that Nashville's downtown development group, in charge of devising a plan to energize Nash-ville's downtown area, used the library as one of the main points to sell its plan. Already, Nicely says, the downtown area has seen increased foot traffic. "People are beginning to pop by," says Nicely, "and I think we can credit the library with that. There's a new café and plans for another café nearby."

Along with institutions like the new Frist Center for the Visual Arts and the Country Music Hall of Fame, Nashville's new main public library is expected to be a major factor in a revitalization that Nicely says is breathing new life into the city. Nashville officials say a swell of civic pride is already palpable and will grow even more when the estimated 1.1 million visitors once again begin to make their way into the downtown area for books, art, education, and music. Traffic at the new library alone is expected to double from the 250,000 now using the old main library, according to figures from the Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency.

As in many cities, Nashville's downtown had stagnated, says Nicely. But the library's presence bodes well for the future as the city's downtown area continues to pull in much needed retail and residential development. "Our library is a success story for other cities," says Nicely. "This is a hopeful thing. This can be your community, too."

Kansas City, MO

Plans are underway in Kansas City to build a state-of-the-art public library main branch that would place the facility in the majestic First National Bank Building at 10th Street and Baltimore Avenue, the city's historic district. Kansas City Library Director Dan Bradbury says the city's business community is keenly aware of the role the library can play in resettling the downtown area.

"It's still a depressed area in terms of storefront business," says Bradbury of the city's historic district. But not for long: the area is being redeveloped as a cultural and residential area, explains Bradbury, with the library as its centerpiece. Already the tide has turned: there is a bistro opening across the street from the site. The library is planning a café, and there is talk of putting in street-level convenience shops. A new performing arts center will be several blocks away, and plans are underway for additional development. "Once we get the evening crowds, that [traffic] will really stimulate growth," he says.

The library's construction is a perfect example of a successful public/private-sector partnership, according to Bradbury. A newly formed corporation, a spin-off of the Kansas City Downtown Council, acquired the First National Bank Building, will renovate it to the library's specifications, and then lease the space back to the library. "Our downtown council thinks the library is going to be an important catalyst for the area," says Bradbury. Jonathan Kemper, chair of Commerce Bank of Kansas City, told local reporters that "a metropolitan library is not just a good idea, it is essential."

Jacksonville, FL

"Jacksonville's downtown is like a lot of other cities' downtown areas," says Sylvia Cornell, assistant director of the Jacksonville Public Library. "A lot of businesses have left." But with a $2.2 billion "Better Jacksonville Plan" in place, city officials are hoping to reverse that trend. Front and center is its new main library. The city has allocated $95 million for the construction of a six-story, 300,000 square foot downtown library, which will sit adjacent to a new state Capitol. "We're hoping to be a catalyst for growth," says Cornell. "That is our plan. We have a great riverfront in Jacksonville, and there are condominiums and more being built."

Cornell stressed that the community-building philosophy that will secure for downtown Jacksonville its new main library pervades the entire county. City officials have allocated $120 million toward renovating every branch and building six new ones. "We envision the library as a destination for the community," says Cornell. "We want to make it a fun place for adults and for children, a place where you can spend the entire day. There will be something for everybody."

Los Angeles

Susan Kent, director of the Los Angeles Public Library (LAPL) System, posits that libraries occupy a vital role in the community, one that extends far beyond the mission of providing information services.

With 3.8 million people, LAPL serves the largest community in the United States. Aided by savvy elected officials, led by Mayor James Riordan, libraries in Los Angeles are acting as major cultural and economic anchors. Since 1989, nearly a half-billion dollars have been poured into L.A.'s public libraries. "It's amazing," says Kent. "With such tremendous support, the library has been extremely successful in attracting people."

LAPL is currently undertaking a number of projects that will enrich the city's diverse communities and provide solid economic foundations. In East Los Angeles, a new branch is being built, with the hope that a school will be constructed next to it. In Little Tokyo, LAPL is in negotiations with a developer who has purchased a cathedral to be a performing arts center. LAPL approached the developer about having a library on the site, suggesting it could be a complex of multiple uses that will benefit the entire area. The library also broke ground recently in the Korea Town area for the new Pio Pico Korea Town branch. Talks are also underway with a Korean youth center about renting space.

Kent says Los Angelinos are convinced that good libraries make good communities. "Folks see the library in their community as essential, vital, vibrant, and as a spark to community development."

Andrew Richard Albanese is Associate Editor, LJ

Q and A: Mary Dempsey Details the Chicago Story

LJ Executive Editor Evan St. Lifer spoke recently with Chicago Public Library Commissioner Mary Dempsey about the library's role in revitalizing Chicago polyglot neighborhoods.

Please explain how the concept of the library serving as an expedient or magnet for economic development has unfolded in Chicago.

I think it's that wonderful serendipity of a lot of good things happening at the same time. It comes from the vision of Mayor Daley, a man whose father was head of the city. With his brothers and sister, Mayor Daley learned the important lesson of all politics being local and developed an enormous love of this city and all its different neighborhoods. When he became mayor, it was a wonderful city that was trying to redefine itself, and he went at it, neighborhood by neighborhood.

It was his vision of using public infrastructure dollars to prime the pump for private-sector investment, and he realized that you have to spend money to make it.

He's made sure that the library is an integral part of the revitalization of a neighborhood. He uses them as community anchors and has described them as the "heartbeat" of the community. I also think that for the first time in Chicago and in other cities, we are realizing that we can be equal partners with other municipal and cultural entities.

Where in Chicago did you see the first evidence of a library attracting private-sector investment to its neighborhood?

We first saw it with the Near North branch library, which now sits between and serves the Gold Coast—the upper middle class and extremely wealthy living in condos and townhouses overlooking Lake Michigan on Lake Shore Drive—and Cabrini Green, a less-than-stellar housing project. We were the first big thing to happen [at Cabrini Green]. Then came a new supermarket, then an elementary school, then the renovation of the area park and field house, and this past January a brand new police station. The land upon which we built the Near North branch was an empty, litter-strewn lot with a liquor store on the corner.

Given that not every municipality or library district has a Mayor Daley with such broad purview over so many city departments, is this transportable to other cities? If so, how?

You need to know your own community and who the opinion-makers and decision-makers are. Some communities have a weak mayor and strong city manager. Other communities may have caps on their property taxes. Folks have to do more than show up at city council meetings. We need to have people pay for libraries, and sadly some people don't think that libraries are the best investment for their tax dollars.

We are responsible for communicating how relevant we are to our children's education, to our cultural identity, to the community as a whole. We also need to extend our reach through partnerships and extend our marketing in addition to our reach. If people think that the most exciting thing in town is the museum, then you have to forge a deal with the museum. The days of saying, "We are the library, come to us," are over.

How do you choose the neighborhoods in which a library as economic magnet will work?

I have never said [the library] would be the savior of the neighborhood. I have said if we know there is a need for better library service in a specific area or perhaps there is no library service at all, let's see whom we know [other public or private development] who is going there whom we can piggyback off of. Sometimes we went in first because it was the right thing to do. Sometimes we've been in a neighborhood for two or three years before we've seen any concomitant development.

Helping Cities Work

Unless you are out there changing neighborhoods, you are not completing the work you are to do," Mayor Richard M. Daley told a group of library directors, trustees, foundation executives, mayors, and other elected officials at a recent Urban Libraries Council (ULC) conference on community development. Clearly, Daley believes the Chicago Public Library is in the Chicago business, not just the library business. How does that work?

Last fall, the ULC surveyed its members to see what roles they are playing in the economic development of their cities. The results represent an impressive tip of the iceberg of the investments, strategies, and services that libraries around the country are engaged in to make their communities work. The results of the study suggest two paths librarians can take in response to the mayor's challenge: they can do some new things, and/or they can find new language to describe the things they already are doing.

Viewed from the city's side of the table, there are three major facets to libraries' investments in the well-being of their communities:

The economically direct investment in buildings and staff;
The investment in individuals made by providing services that support personal economic and community development; and
The roles libraries play as partners in civic initiatives, bringing the expertise and enthusiasm of their leaders to the table to solve community problems and address community challenges.

It's important to explore this view from the other side of the table as libraries move from merely being advocates to being real players in their communities. As we have all learned, perception is reality. Politicians' and city officials' perceptions are our reality.

1. Building and Staff

Often city officials come to us asking for the projected economic impact of a new library facility. They usually mention stadiums as a model. It is the wrong approach. Stadiums are about bringing cash from outside a community into a community in the form of fees for tickets, parking, food, hotel rooms, and so forth. Public libraries are free (mostly) and are designed to serve the people of the community. True, library users may pay for parking and buy lunch in the area, but that's not really the strength of our presence. We can help city officials understand that our roles as economic players are different (as well as point them to studies showing that stadiums never deliver the economic goods they promise, if we are in direct competition with them for funding!).

High-traffic anchor

The first thing well-situated public libraries do for a community is provide a high-traffic anchor for the neighborhood, assuming they are skillfully located and have services the community wants. A quick glance at the "library visits" section of the annual edition of the Public Library Data Service indicates many of our large public libraries report millions of library visits every year. Lots of foot traffic throughout the day and often into the evening contributes to the safety of the areas they serve. High foot traffic attracts businesses that depend on people feeling safe using them, key businesses like grocery stores that often serve as private-sector anchors for neighborhood renewal.

There are lots of new library buildings going up across America [according to LJ's annual Architectural Issue, LJ 12/00, p. 50–61, 241 new or renovated library building projects were completed between 7/1/99 and 6/30/00]. Ninety percent of the libraries responding to the ULC survey indicated that they completed or planned new or substantially renovated central libraries.

Many of the new libraries are designed to be more than libraries. Some also function as development anchors. In Jefferson County, CO, a new public library is the proposed center for a 55-acre retail and government center, the Lakewood City Commons. In Kansas City, MO, the library (see p. 40) is part of a tax increment financing (TIF) district project that is developing a mix of office, retail, and apartment buildings. Clearwater, FL, is including a public library as part of a waterfront redevelopment plan, and in Multnomah County, Portland, OR, a new branch library takes up the ground floor of a four-story apartment building. Each of these, simply by being good public space, is contributing to the vibrancy of a neighborhood.

Library as co-tenant

In solving their own space problems, many public libraries are also helping solve space problems for other community agencies. Colocation is becoming less rare, with models moving beyond the public school media center/public library facility. The Elizabeth Public Library, NJ, has opened a new branch, colocated with a senior center, preschool, and clinic. In Houston, the library has outlets in a multipurpose center that provides healthcare services in the city's Fifth Ward, as well as in the Napoleon Square Apartments where it shares space with seven community service organizations serving new immigrants. Libraries share space with senior centers in Pittsburgh, Howard County, MD, and Pierce County, WA. Exploring colocation not only opens the possibility of adding value for the community by helping other agencies develop good space, it broadens the support for undertaking building projects by adding constituencies.

When city officials think of contributions to economic development, of course they think of jobs. The traditional approach to demonstrating value here is to cite the number of jobs related to an industry or agency and the total amount of wages paid. Wages are then often subject to a mysteriously derived multiplier to demonstrate their total impact on the economy of the city. For example, the library's total payroll may be $1 million. Assuming every dollar paid generates $3 in additional local revenue as people buy things, then the people from whom they bought things buy things, and so on, the total economic impact of the library's payroll is assumed to be $3 million. The problem with using such numbers for public libraries is that local governments are the major payers of the total salary of library employees. There is a better way to talk about the economic impact of the library as employer.

Simply by being owners or renters of popular high-traffic buildings and employers of a wide variety of workers, public libraries contribute to the success of the cities they serve. Then we come to the actual library work they do and how much of it enriches the individuals and communities they serve in ways that can fairly be linked to economic and community development.

2. Library Services

Most public libraries point to their business information centers as the most direct way they contribute to economic development. Some create and staff such centers on their own, while others do this with business partners. The Memphis-Shelby County Public Library provides materials and online programs for business planning in its business center, while staff from First Tennessee Bank provide counseling and workshops. The Bank of America has supported a Small Business Resource Center at the Broward County Public Library, Fort Lauderdale, FL.

Other services in libraries also contribute to the economic well-being of their communities. The adaptation of new Americans to life in the United States is often facilitated by library programs and resources. Not only do many libraries offer English as a Second Language (ESL) classes—the Queens Borough Public Library, Jamaica, NY, runs the second largest ESL program in the nation—but they offer classes that acquaint parents with public school protocols, let people know their rights as tenants, and prepare them for the U.S. citizenship test.

Literacy literally

Libraries that offer basic adult or family literacy classes have solid ground to stand on in claiming to contribute to economic development, especially if they can demonstrate that program participants actually learn to read. Many libraries choose to offer literacy services to meet community needs, while others do not, based on the patterns of community resources as well as on the library's resources and priorities. Often those that do not directly offer services contribute to the community's literacy efforts by participating in literacy councils or by providing material and space for tutoring or meeting space for classes. Almost every public library is, in some manner, supporting the development of a literate work force and citizenry in the United States.

3. Libraries as Civic Partners

Many libraries serve economic development agendas in standalone ways. Many more do this work through a series of strategic partnerships and participation in broad city initiatives. Among the ULC survey respondents, and in those cities with active city initiatives in these areas, 97 percent of the libraries were involved in civic initiatives dealing with youth, 69 percent with neighborhood development, 66 percent with downtown development, 54 percent with Digital Divide initiatives, 52 percent with public safety/juvenile justice programs, 48 percent with environmental programs, and 43 percent with smart growth undertakings. Roles may be modest or significant, but at least libraries are at the table.

Getting on the "team"

Often librarians wonder why they are not called upon more by their cities when advisory groups are established or citywide initiatives are being formed in matters of economic development. Sometimes it is because we have yet to make the connection between our personal and institutional capabilities and the project at hand, but sometimes it is because we are not considered part of the elected officials' teams. Our fiercely maintained independence from the political fray cuts both ways—a gift in matters of intellectual freedom but a liability in matters of collaboration.

Talking with community leaders about these roles is an art, more in a jazz mode than a classical one. It is essential to ascertain where the community is before doing a long riff about what the library can do. Start by listening to the chord changes in the community. Then develop a melody that builds on them. That kind of responsive communication differentiates a player from an advocate, who always shows up singing the same library song.

There are many ways public libraries help make cities work and many more we will conceptualize. Our credibility, as well as some of our glory, will rest in making not just our libraries good places but our communities good as well.