Strategic Parking Plan

Free on-street parking (free with two-hour limit),
New Bohemia, October 2025

(4/29/2026) The City of Cedar Rapids is taking a realistic approach to parking issues in the "Core Four" neighborhoods (Downtown, Czech Village, New Bohemia, and Kingston). Business owners and customers have complained about the difficulty in finding parking; parking finances are not self-sustaining but have required annual subsidies from general funds; and new residential and hotel construction promise to put new pressure on available parking spaces.

Convenience survey results: Parking is hard

Those spaces, for the record, number 7230 in this area: 2010 on streets and 5220 off street (surface parking lots and parking garages), not including privately owned parking lots. 

Public attends a Strategic Plan Open House,
Cedar Rapids Public Library, 28 April 2026

The city and its consultants are to be commended for not trying to solve problems by increasing parking capacity in this area. Space devoted to cars--180 square feet per car, unless you want to go bigger for today's gigantic vehicles--is space that can't be devoted to places to live or visit. They create additional distance between those places, making walking more burdensome, and by not being of themselves financially productive, waste valuable space in the city. These costs and tradeoffs are not widely appreciated by the public, in my experience: "I don't like paying for parking" was overheard at Tuesday's open house.

Parking capacity and vibe are mortal enemies

The Strategic Parking Plan's Presentation of recommendations states four main goals:

• Enhance Economic Development: By optimizing parking and mobility, we aim to support local businesses and attract new investments. 

• Improve Customer Experience: We are committed to making parking and mobility more convenient and user-friendly for everyone.

• Provide Cost-Effective Solutions: Providing public parking in a manner that is both financially sustainable and efficient.

• Expand Mobility Options: Leveraging existing assets to offer diverse and accessible mobility choices.

Open house poster on using data to inform policy

Connected to these are numerous recommendations and timetables, which I've distilled to five, because you are a busy person and any list longer than five makes my head hurt.

1. improve customer experience (ease of payment, finding parking lots) (pp. 11-13, 29-30)
2. ParkCR management of Czech Village parking lots (p. 15)
3. create open parking spaces through two hour limits, more enforcement and raising rates at high-demand places (pp. 19-22, 25-27, 31-33)--straight out of the Donald Shoup playbook!
4. Create Resident Parking Permit program (p. 23), so people who live in the district won't have to compete for space with visitors
5. financing and maintenance e.g. parking fees are not self-sustaining, the Five Seasons Ramp (400 1st Ave NE) needs maintenance stat (pp. 36-40)

Cyclists roll by Five Seasons Parking Ramp,
Downtown, May 2025

The plan also recommends further exploration of (1) a Core Four Shuttle for "park once" environment (p. 16); and (2) building a 2. parking ramp in New Bohemia (p. 17)

If the plan works, there will always be spaces available for anyone who arrives in the area to shop or make deliveries, though shoppers may have to pay for the privilege. This may make shopping in the core a more pleasant experience, though that might not overcome the resentment about paying. Shoup recommends devoting the revenue from parking fees to district improvements, which may tend to reduce the intensity of opposition, but that can only happen if there's revenue left over after we pay staff and perform regular maintenance of the facilities.

Increasing enforcement, raising fines
(which were $3 when I first moved to Cedar Rapids)

This difficulty remains, however: People are in the core of the city either because they already live there, or because they have chosen to travel by car, bicycle, walking, or bus.

Bicycle parking at the downtown farmers' market,
Greene Square, June 2025

More construction of apartments and condos may produce more in the first class, but because of the large doughnut of emptiness that surrounds the core, there aren't enough people close enough to rely on cyclists or pedestrians. The bus is not frequent or convenient enough to bring many people, either. Core district businesses rely on people arriving by car. Until and unless the city addresses this--maybe by using parking revenue to improve bus service and cycle paths?--parking in the core will be unsolvable, even by the greatest minds. 

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post said that ParkCR manages the large parking lot on 17th Avenue in Czech Village. Thanks to an alert reader who pointed out that is only a recommendation at this stage.

SEE ALSO:

"Book Review: Paved Paradise," 20 June 2023

"I Wish This Parking Was...," 27 November 2020

Donald Shoup, The High Cost of Free Parking (Planners Press, 2005)

Brian Tabick, "Cedar Rapids Considers Changes to Parking in Four Core Neighborhoods," KCRG-TV, 28 April 2026

Is it too late to build an urban village(s) in the core?

Mixed use building on 1st Avenue SW in Kingston Village

SOURCE: David Sucher, City Comforts: How to Build an Urban Village (Seattle: City Comforts Inc., revised edition, 2016)

(10/29/2024) It is one thing to note the unbalanced, car-dependent way in which Cedar Rapids's showpiece New Bohemia neighborhood--and to some extent, other post-flood areas like Downtown, Czech Village and Kingston--are developing. It is quite a different matter to suggest steps that ought to be taken to remedy matters. It is likely, for one thing, that the present situation has resulted from rational (if short-term-focused) assessment of what is achievable. We have the residential and commercial mix we have because those projects seemed most likely to succeed.

Development surely is constrained by external factors beyond the control of anyone in the core: increasing economic inequality, siting practices of grocery chains, local transportation that particularly favors private motor vehicles, and physical isolation of the core from older residential neighborhoods, to name a few. To name another, the hyper-convenience of the Internet is changing shopping and work habits.

ped crossing island and bike lane, 3rd Avenue and 2nd Street SW in Kingston

I am not in business, and never have been, nor do I have professional training as a city planner. "I know what I like," to borrow a timeworn cliche, but so do a lot of other people, so this needs to be about more than my personal taste and preferences.

A good starting point for a conversation with stakeholders would be to know why they are in the core instead of some other place. I imagine they've specifically chosen to be there, but the owner of the (Downtown) CR Chophouse restaurant blamed its recent closure on the presence of homeless people and the lack of convenient parking (El Hajj 2024). If these truly were problematic, why on earth was the restaurant located where it was? This metropolitan area is replete with commercial opportunities with fields of parking and no homeless for miles. 

3rd Avenue SW: The core has bike infrastructure and bus options,
not great but often serviceable 

Right now the core is heavy on apartments and bars, and light on pretty much everything else (except hair salons--why are there so many hair salons?). It is now the case, and likely to continue to be so for some time, that the economy of the core is heavily dependent on people from elsewhere in the region driving there to shop or dine or drink.

Waste of prime space: Surface parking, Kingston Village

You can be, I would think, the new hot spot only for so long. When I first arrived in Cedar Rapids, the area hot spots were the Amana Colonies and maybe the malls. Today those serve as object lessons: hot spots show their age pretty quickly. If the opening of the admittedly fantastic Big Grove location on 1st Street West has been a body blow to the other bars in the core, wait til you see what happens when the casino opens! Marion has invested a lot of money in restarting its downtown area, but counting on the government may not be your most reliable or timely option. Political decisions are unpredictable, and government finances are ever-shakier.

It seems the best long-term strategy for core areas is to become self-sustaining. That is, if the residential population in the center of Cedar Rapids can become large and stable and diverse enough, there will be a steady source of demand for goods and services throughout the day and week, as well as a steady source of people on the street to provide liveliness and atmosphere attractive to visitors. This will require a different mix of housing and businesses than can currently be found anywhere in or adjacent to the core. Some of this will happen of its own accord once the ball starts rolling, but it may need some advocacy to get started.

David Sucher called his development handbook City Comforts because:

Human comfort is the measure of a city.... The main task [of city building] is making people comfortable, the same task faced by the host at a party. (2016: 20)

The means to this end is mixed-use development, in order to facilitate "mixing" of people, or as he titles an early chapter, "Bumping Into People."

The purpose of mixing uses, allowing different activities to rub cheek by jowl, is to foster more complex and intertwined human relations and thus more interesting places. The purpose is to help create human connections--not to mix activities per se. There is nothing magic about mixing uses. (2016: 32)

wall, 1st Street SW

What an urban village can offer people, that car-dependent shopping corridors like Edgewood or Collins Roads cannot, is accessible, comfortable liveliness. That can be self-sustaining only if there are connections to a steady stream of people at different times of the day, rooted in local residents doing the stuff of daily life. (See Jacobs (1961) 2011: 65-71.)

In subsequent chapters, Sucher provides detailed recommendations, with plentiful illustrations, about transportation, sense of place, safety, child-friendliness, necessities, compatible building, and entry points. Some of this we can see in the core: most building is done up to the sidewalk, most building fronts are active rather than blank walls. (See his chapter 3.) My own sense is we could do more to welcome children, encourage transportation alternatives, and provide necessities like rest rooms, as well as to make new buildings compatible with the neighborhood's physical history, but maybe conversations will reveal other opportunities.

Ellen Shepherd of Community Allies speaks
at Loyola University, 2016

There are a number of organizations that can support local grass-roots place making efforts. 

• The Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ilsr.org) provides research and advocacy on behalf of locally-owned businesses; co-director Stacy Mitchell's 2017 post, "8 Policy Strategies Cities Can Use to Support Local Businesses," is a good starting point and conversation-starter. 
• Community Allies (communityallies.net), based in Chicago, provides speakers and training towards building local economies. 
• The Center for Neighborhood Technology (cnt.org) focuses on Chicago, but provides experience on which others can draw. 

There are a lot of forces, and a lot of sunk costs, pushing the core to be a quaint, beer-soaked version of car-dependent suburbia. That doesn't mean we can't push back, and there are reasons to believe the long-term viability of the core depends on pushing back.

SEE ALSO: 

Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities [Modern Library, (1961) 2011], esp. chs 13 ("The Self-Destruction of Diversity") and 14 ("The Curse of Border Vacuums")

Alexander Garvin, The Heart of the City: Creating Downtowns for a New Century (Island, 2019). His "six lessons for any downtown" (ch. 6) include:

1. Establish a distinctive downtown image that is instantly recognizable and admirable
2. Improve access into and circulation within downtown
3. Enlarge and enhance the public realm esp. reconfiguring space used by pedestrians, moving vehicles, and parking
4. Sustain a habitable environment downtown (trees, parkland)
5. Reduce cost of doing business for both governments and private actors
6. Flexible land use, building use and new construction

10th Anniversary Post: West Side Greenway

 

Time Check post-flood, June 2014

Ten years ago this month, the City of Cedar Rapids had an open house at the Flamingo Events Center on the near northwest side to discuss plans for a greenway along the river where some of the worst flood damage had occurred in 2008. The greenway would stretch from Ellis Park, one of the largest and oldest parks in the city, to Czech Village, about four miles in length. Some of the ideas that were floated at the time included basketball courts, one or two boat launches, disc golf putting green, an ice rink, and a ropes course, as well as improvements to the riverside bike trail. At the time I concluded: The special elements... will serve as "demand goods" [term I cribbed from Jane Jacobs], drawing people from all parts of the city and beyond. But the ongoing success of these projects depend on the ability of planners to coordinate effectively with neighborhood and commercial development.

2024: distant view of Ellis Flats, 1618 Ellis Blvd NW
across field planned for trail, water play, skate/skills park

Federal support for west side flood protection was not approved until 2018, and only last week did the City Council approve the final version of the greenway plan. The next step is fundraising from the federal government and other sources (Payne 2024). The plan is divided into short-term (next five years) and medium-term (next ten years) phases. 

The future impact section of the plan anticipates 1-2 million annual visitors to the parks, with the middle estimates projecting $250-500 million in new investment, $60 million a year in economic benefit, and creation of 1300 jobs (p. 86). (These numbers should be taken with a grain or perhaps a pillar of salt. Does anyone ever go back and check these numbers later?) 

1st St and 1st Av NW: plans for whitewater rafting course

1st St and E Ave NW: plans for trail improvements,
Fallen Forest nature play area

Plans for the middle section ("Riverfront Park," discussed on pp. 59ff. of the plan) do not discuss its interface with the latest casino proposal. (See "Cedar Rapids Casino" 2022.) That may be prudent, because approval of the casino at the state level is by no means certain, but it's worth noting the current 1st Street NW will be rerouted and converted into a park road, and that the footprint of the park, particularly near the proposed nature play area and dog run, intrudes upon the footprint of the casino. This is fine with me, since I wish the casino would go far away, but if two would-be tourist destinations are to exist cheek-by-jowl in what used to be a residential neighborhood, it will require some thinking.

1st St and F Ave NW: dog run, parking for whitewater rafting... and casino?

1st Ave at 1st St W: still a wide, high speed highway
through the center of town 

The chain of park areas provides a number of potential benefits to nearby neighborhoods; it will be interesting to see how these considerations are balanced with the expectation of being a tourist magnet. The Time-Check Park is adjacent to development along Ellis Boulevard NW as well as existing residential areas to the west. Ellis could be a challenge for small children to cross, but overall the park should be easily accessible on foot to a lot of people. 

Not this neighbor, though: 1426 1st St NW (and others?)
stand in the way of the canoe safari and picnic grove

Ditto the gardens, water play area, toddler area, and roundhouse in the Czech Village Park on the southwest side. Its area also has planned residential redevelopment, existing residences, and a challenging through street (C Street SW, in this case). I hope there will be some routine play equipment for the littles, but the bigs ought to find more places to explore than in a typical city park. 

approximate site of B St SW woonerf
plans for toddler park, water play, playground

Accessible green spaces that are somewhat wild provide benefits to individuals as well as the overall ecology (Galle 2023). This all adds to the attractiveness of the neighborhoods. In a best-case scenario, the neighborhoods would provide steady use of the parks, with folks from farther out adding their own energy without overwhelming things, and the city will be committed to ongoing maintenance and improvement.

The big question remains from 2014: Will the Greenway project be able to evolve along with the neighborhood, while accommodating visitors from elsewhere, like our city's flagship parks? Or will it be primarily a "destination," separated and alienated from the place where it's located, like the baseball stadium, New Bo City Market, and the proposed casino (though any of these may change in time)?

MAIN SOURCES

Marissa Payne, "Cedar Rapids Will Seek Funding to Bring Greenway Plan to Life," Cedar Rapids Gazette, 29 May 2024, 1A, 8A

Greenway Parks Plan Update (City of Cedar Rapids)

Five Favorite Streets

 

1903 storefront at 73 16th Avenue SW

"What are your five favorite streets in your town?" asked someone on Mastodon the other day. Unfortunately, I can't remember who inspired this post, but it does allow me to promote my presence on the oddness that is Mastodon: You'll find me at @brucefnesmith@mastodon.coffee. There are lots of urbanists on Mastodon!

I mulled, cogitated, and in time came up with five streets in Cedar Rapids that I love. I'm going on pure visceral reaction here, though I will try to explain my love for each, which seems based in a stew of walkability and nostalgia. The streets are listed alphabetically; they are too different for me to attempt to rank them. I add the caveat that I've lived and worked my entire Cedar Rapids life on the east side, so I just don't know the west side as well. It gets some love, too, however!

Bever Avenue SE (2400-3000).

A lovely urban boulevard that lost quite a bit of its tree canopy in the 2020 derecho, but still retains its aesthetic charm. Pedestrians gravitate to it because many of the residential streets to its south lack sidewalks. On the north side is Bever Park, one of the town's largest and oldest parks which includes two playgrounds, a duck pond, swimming pool, picnic shelter and wooded trails. Average daily traffic count: 4980. Served by the #2 bus below Memorial Drive.

Yes, but: Despite the thoughtfully stenciled sharrow, auto traffic moves too fast for comfortable cycling, and the lack of stops requires cautious crossing from the residential area to the park. Besides the park, there are few attractions within an easy walking distance.

Bever Avenue, looking west from park entrance

4th Avenue SE (1900-2100).

Old-fashioned houses are charming if on the large side. This is one of my favorite streets to walk at Christmastime. The poet Paul Engle (1908-1991) had a childhood paper route here, and in his memoir described the tree-lined street, trees that spread up and outward, meeting high above the middle of the street, so that walking along them in summer was going through a green tunnel. Those houses at a distance looked calm, quiet, outside the turbulent world. But to a boy of twelve they were crammed with excitement, with living, tense, often wild faces. Windows were the way I looked into their eyes (A Lucky American Childhood [University of Iowa Press, 1996], p. 62). The #2 bus runs close by.

Yes, but: Like 8th Avenue in Marion, which is another street I love, the lovely houses are going to be too big for most of us. It's a strenuous though doable walk to downtown or any other attractions.

4th Avenue, looking east from 20th Street

Johnson Avenue NW (200-300).

Shady older street with a mix of houses, within walking distance of a supermarket, schools, churches and some small offices. At one end is Haskell Park, a pocket park named for the state legislator who championed the Lincoln Highway. Farther down Johnson is a Dairy Queen. Across 1st Avenue, alas a crossing not to be taken lightly, are Cleveland Park and the baseball and football stadia. Downtown is about a mile and a half away. Served by bus routes #8 and #10.

Yes, but: As a segment of the original Lincoln Highway, it connects two high-traffic stroads.

Johnson Ave NW (Google maps screen capture)

Longwood Drive NE.

Longwood and its sister streets, Dunreath and Gwendolyn, were shoehorned between 19th and 20th Streets some time in the 1920s or 30s. We lived on Longwood from 1997-2007, and I loved the closeness of the small lots. On the edge of the Mound View neighborhood, there is a pocket park (Tomahawk) at the end of the street, and beyond it the CeMar Trail and the athletic fields of Mount Mercy University. Franklin Middle School, the Tic Toc restaurant, and the Old Neighborhood Pub are within easy walks, and Coe College isn't terribly far, as I can personally attest. The street has neither curbs nor gutters, but slopes toward the middle, which during rainstorms creates a creek known as Big Al. The #3 bus runs close by.

Yes, but: There are no sidewalks. The closest elementary school closed years ago, and the second-closest is shortly going to be closed, too.

Longwood Drive, looking north from C Avenue
(Google Maps screen capture)

16th Avenue SW (000-120).

This was the main commercial street in pre-flood Czech Village, though bars and knick-knacks have replaced essential services to the neighborhood that is no longer. Thanks to visionary property owners like Mary Kay McGrath and Bob Schaeffer, Czech Village has managed to retain much of its historic charm through this transitionary period.The narrow street makes walking easy, and it contains probably my favorite bar (Lion Bridge, at 59) and coffee house (Cafe St. Pio, at 99). If I were a plant person, my favorite plant store would be Moss, at 74. The Cedar Valley Nature Trail crosses 16th Avenue at A Street. Average daily traffic count: 4720. The #7 bus stops at 16th and C.

Yes, but: There are few residences nearby now, though plans for development of the flooded area to the south are in the works.

16th Avenue looking southish from A Street.
Lion Bridge's courtyard is on the left. 

SEE ALSO:

"The Urbanest Places in Cedar Rapids?" 16 July 2020

"The Place Where I Live," 1 April 2013

Cedar Rapids bus routes: https://www.cedar-rapids.org/residents/city_buses/routes.php

Cedar Rapids average daily traffic counts:   https://iowadot.gov/maps/msp/traffic/2021/cities/CedarRapids.pdf

Linn County trail map: https://linncountytrails.org/trails/

Airbnb in the core

 

Czech Village, Cedar Rapids

"The beef I have with the airbnbs in my neighborhood is EXTREME," tweeted a friend and civic stalwart who lives in the Oakhill Jackson neighborhood in the core of Cedar Rapids. This came mere days after I started noticing fancy doorways like the one above in Czech Village. A friend who lives just outside of Czech Village adds that there are two Airbnbs on his block, one directly across the street (though, like most Airbnb spaces, they come without labels on the doorways).

Airbnb, the online marketplace for short- or long-stay housing, has arrived in a big way in the emerging core neighborhoods of Cedar Rapids, and perhaps your town, too. This summer I've been pondering the center of town--including downtown, the planned New Bo Extension, Czech Village and New Bohemia--but I hadn't pondered this trend. As it turns out, a lot of people around the country have been pondering this very thing.

Airbnb, similar to Uber, began as a way to help people clear a bit of cash by renting spare rooms or even their entire house or apartment if they weren't using them. The website facilitated the meeting of buyers and sellers who might not otherwise meet each other. Jane and I frequently used Airbnb when we visited our son in St. Paul, Minnesota, whose entire collection of motels is on I-35 miles from where we wanted to be. Airbnb put us in a variety of comfortable houses in and around the Macalester-Grande neighborhood. They were more convenient and even more comfortable than a motel, so they were clearly filling an unmet need, which is how the economic marketplace is supposed to work.

Market innovations, however ingenious, can bring market failures. (See Kemmis 2022 and Fallon 2022 for examples of disappointed buyers and hosts, respectively.) Even when both buyer and host are happy, there can be externalities. Loud parties can be annoying to fellow guests at hotels, but are even worse to experience when you're at your actual home; Airbnb recently announced an algorithm to try to reduce such incidents, which has reportedly been effective in Australian trials (Braga 2022). There have been complaints that hosts don't pay taxes hotels do (Sheppard 2022), or comply with regulations faced by traditional apartments (Cortright 2019). Particularly in tourist areas, conversions to lucrative short-term rentals can raise real estate prices overall, and price people out of housing. (See Lemke 2022 for the math in Seattle, and Frishberg 2022 for an effort to counteract this in Sedona, Arizona.)

In an interview with US News and World Report, Breonne DeDecker, program manager at a New Orleans housing nonprofit, asked: 

One of the big questions that we have is, 'How much of an outsize role do we want tourism to have in our city--do we really want just to turn the entire city over to like basically being a simulacrum of New Orleans? How much are we asking of our residents to give up in order to make space for these tourists?  (Bach 2019) 

The markets for real estate and tourism in Cedar Rapids, like most American towns, is nothing like that in New Orleans or New York City or Sedona. Yet we have a stake in the future of our city center, including the ability of a cross-section of people to reside there. The oldest neighborhoods in town went through the typical 20th century trajectory until it was suddenly interrupted by the 2008 flood. As an urbanist, I'd like to see walkable, mixed-use, mixed-income development rise from the muck, but that may not be where private investors see the highest return. It may not be in housing at all. What then? Drive-to urbanism for shoppers and tourists, far flung mobile home parks and apartment complexes for the struggling, car dependence for the rest of us?

Czech Village mixes housing and shops in historic structures

Kea Wilson of Strong Towns reminds us that Airbnb is not a monolith; the properties offered represent a variety of circumstances and opportunities (Wilson 2019a, Wilson 2019b). She and her partner listed one part of their St. Louis duplex on Airbnb, using the fees to pay for an improved office and more space for their dog. Some Airbnb rentals fund other good things, like keeping this historic New Bohemia house viable:

211-213 13th Av SE

It's likely that the Czech Village Airbnbs help maintain the rest of the funky apartments on the block, a sharp contrast to the condos in New Bohemia and Kingston Village. Other Airbnbs surely displace residents, although Kea Wilson reminds us that some of that may be forced by public policy. 

If you're in the area, join Corridor Urbanism to discuss the complexities of this issue at our next gathering, Wednesday, September 17, at 6:30 p.m., location to be announced. (Watch our Facebook page, or request in the comments section to be added to our e-mail list.)

Bridge of Lions reopened: What's on the other side?

July 22, 2022: cutting the ribbon on the Czech Village side

(7/26/2022) City officials, business owners, and neighbors gathered last week to celebrate the reopening of the Bridge of Lions over the Cedar River, which connects the New Bohemia and Czech Village neighborhoods via 16th Avenue South. It was closed for nearly a year while flood protections were added on both sides of the river. Just this month, the cherry was added to the sundae in the form of gateway arches on each end of the bridge.

Entrance to Czech Village, July 11, 2022

The arches tell you the name of the neighborhood as you enter. The reverse side of the Czech Village arch says "Gateway to New Bohemia," and the reverse side of the New Bohemia arch says "Gateway to Czech Village." That should settle that, in a way that only a quality branding operation can do.

The speeches ahead of last week's ribbon cutting focused on the flood protection rather than the arches. Gates on each end of the bridge are on rollers which can roll across the road to connect to the flood wall on the other side. They are 14 feet high, providing protection to the volume of the catastrophic 2008 Cedar River flood. For the record, the gates are 67 feet long, four and a half feet thick, and weight 61,200 pounds. 

Roller gate on the New Bohemia side, as seen from the street

The total cost was $12 million, paid by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The Corps in 2018 reversed their earlier decision not to fund flood protection on the west side of the river, possibly because a Republican administration was concerned about a vulnerable Republican member of the U.S. House, but that need not detain us here.

April 2020: Bridge closed

May 2020: Construction begins

July 2020: Construction continues

Speakers included Mayor Tiffany O'Donnell... 

Mayor O'Donnell addresses the gathering

as well as City Manager Jeff Pomeranz from the City of Cedar Rapids, Lt. Col. John M. Fernas from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and Monica Vernon, Director of the Czech Village/New Bohemia Main Street District.

There even was royalty:

Czech Village queen, prince and princesses.
One of the princesses had to be rushed to the hospital with heat prostration

Ribbons were cut on both ends of the bridge, for symmetry's sake....

New Bohemia side

...and seldom was heard a discouraging word.

Achieving flood protection for Czech Village and New Bohemia was a prodigious achievement--technically, politically, and financially. These investments of time and energy have clearly created a turning point for this area. Our question here is: turning point to what?

1. Investment. There has already been a lot of momentum on both sides of the river. One of the speakers at the ribbon cutting noted that the number of businesses in the District has more than tripled to 250 in recent years. There remains plenty of space, and unused capacity in existing buildings. Flood protection will encourage construction, and I imagine will make property insurance a lot simpler.

Assuming the increased flow of dollars to be inevitable, the future depends upon what kind of investment comes. Will the current dominance of locally-owned businesses continue, or will chains move in? That matters to how much money stays in the community. Will bars, restaurants, and shops continue to cater to occasional shoppers from outside the neighborhood ("drive-to urbanism"), or will there be places for residents to satisfy everyday needs? Housing construction is underway in New Bohemia, and is planned for Czech Village and the New Bo Extension, so we can hope for a critical mass of local residents, but as Oak Hill Jackson Neighborhood Association president Dorothy De Souza Guerdes points out, nothing has resulted from construction so far.

Loftus Lumber site in New Bohemia:
City is trying to juice some mixed-use construction

2. Connection. Growth in the District is likely to affect adjacent neighborhoods, Oak Hill Jackson on the New Bohemia side and Hayes Park on the west side. These connections are not certain to happen--at present the District and its neighbors are leading rather parallel lives--but as activity and especially population increase there's bound to be some spillover.

Increased investment in historically underserved neighborhoods is known by the snarl word gentrification. But neighborhood investment surely is desirable, because areas of concentrated poverty are bad for everyone but particularly the residents. Yet it comes, infamously, with risk of widespread displacement of current residents. Growth that includes and provides opportunities for current residents is good. Growth that pushes current residents aside so well-off newcomers can take advantage of the primo location is not good, and where done with public funding is outright scandalous. This could go either way in coming years.

Oak Hill Jackson has a lot of older housing as well as
post-flood construction

3. Broader social impacts. I'm in no position to measure the return-on-investment for the federal funds. Some level of benefit is highly likely, but in these inflationary days, we are surely aware that the government can't fund every good thing. What are the opportunity costs of putting their money into Cedar Rapids? Don't know. Can't say.

From the town's perspective, dense development near the center of town saves on infrastructure construction and maintenance costs, and makes efficient public transportation service possible. Should the school district follow the movement of people into the core, they could save on bus expenses because students around Czech Village and New Bohemia would be within walking distance of their school(s).

The environmental impact of development in the District depends on how many short car trips can be replaced by walking or cycling. Not only has the city just passed a climate action plan, but the world has had enough signs of climate change this summer to alarm all but the hardest-core denialists. A residential population walking to nearby stores would have a substantial positive impact on the environment, not to mention their own physical fitness. Conversely, if the District continues to rely on "drive-to" urbanism, while residents drive out of the neighborhood to get groceries and go to school and work, we'll continue to contribute to environmental degradation, including the possibility of future flooding. 

Memorial to "the mayor of 2nd Street" in New Bohemia

Change is inevitable; as Addison Del Mastro writes: We owe it to ourselves and to the future to keep building where we live, to keep iterating, to see people as a resource, and to see growth not like cancer but like childbirth: something painful and beautiful at the same time, something that takes away some things while opening up many more. The development that's about to happen can and should do honor to those like Edward Kuba whose visions built the neighborhoods. 

What has been happening in Czech Village and particularly in New Bohemia doesn't look like "iterating," or course. To be sure our hands were forced by the flood and the need to forestall future floods. But it's good to remember that good change happens incrementally rather than relying on big wins and "game-changers." And that good change is inclusive, not a scrum where only the strong survive. The city can't dictate how change will roll out, but neither can it sit back and assume good change will happen automatically.

Let's continue to celebrate the efforts that have brought the District back. A lot of people worked really really hard to get us here. What happens next will make all the difference.

One of the lions overlooks his river

NOTE: The Czech Village/New Bohemia Action Plan contains a vast array of concepts, which roughly divide between placemaking (wayfinding, parks, streets and other amenities) and housing. Of particular interest to this discussion:

• The Greenway Park (p. 53), a large multi-purpose park southeast of Czech Village and potentially easy to access by surrounding neighborhoods across C Street SW
• The Community Arts Trail (p. 66), a pedestrian/bike walkway on the south side of 10th Avenue from the river past the Cherry Building to 6th Street, highlighted by public art installations.
• Infill housing (pp. 69ff.) in both Czech Village and New Bohemia as well as the New Bo Extension, anticipated once the various amenities are in place, and which "would bring a wide range of prospective residents and visitors into the districts."

SEE ALSO:

"More New, Less Bo?" 4 July 2022

"The Future of Downtown Cedar Rapids," 24 June 2022

"Where Are the Metro's Destinations Heading?" 28 July 2021

"Bridging the Bridge," 26 June 2019