Stories by Marc Eisen

Regionalism is a concept honored in theory and seldom in practice among local governments in Dane County. Turf protection almost always trumps cooperation. In this column for Isthmus, I argue that a unified financing and perhaps common operation of the area’s big event facilities–the Overture Center, Monona Terrace and the Alliant Energy Center–makes a lot of sense.

In particular, I warn that the single-minded attention on Overture’s problems comes at the expense of Alliant. I write:

Among the area’s top-tier event facilities, the county-owned Alliant stands alone. This includes the unrivaled breadth of its facilities — the 10,000-seat Coliseum and the Exhibition Hall are augmented with an arena, the Willow Island outdoor venue and nine farm buildings — and also its financing.

Unlike Monona Terrace and Overture, Alliant receives no direct public subsidy. County officials expect it to pay its own way. But times have been tough. The big concerts of years past (everyone from Sinatra to Elvis to Bowie) have largely disappeared, while the facility is still suffering the loss of UW Hockey to the Kohl Center.

According to executive director Bill DiCarlo, Alliant has been digging into its $2 million reserve fund to balance the operational budget in recent years. He expects his deficit to exceed $250,000 this year. But observers say that DiCarlo runs a tight ship, and under normal circumstances Alliant could be expected to tough it out until the economy picks up.

But these aren’t normal times. Alliant needs an infusion of capital now to satisfy the space needs of World Dairy Expo. It’s difficult to overestimate the importance of World Dairy Expo to the Wisconsin economy. The yearly confab — ranked among the top 35 trade shows in the entire country — fills local hotels with more than 65,000 visitors from 90-plus countries.

The immediate economic boost for local hotels, restaurant and entertainment venues exceeds $14 million for the five-day event. But the deeper payoff is the business generated for Wisconsin agribusinesses like ABS bovine genetics in DeForest and BouMatic milking systems in Madison. More than 750 exhibitors will be on hand when the 44th show convenes on Oct. 4.

Just one problem. The expo has a huge waiting list of vendors because Alliant has nowhere near enough space to house them. “We could double the size of the Exhibition Hall and fill it with our waiting list,” says expo general manager Mark Clarke. “That’s an awful lot of money not coming into the community.”

To read the full column, please go here.

I was one of the many anonymous volunteers who helped plan the Congress for the New Urbanism’s national conference  in Madison in early June. I served on the tours committee, which met for more than a year, and helped plan tours of the downtown’s full-block developments (Capitol West and Block 89) and of the great planner John Nolen’s handiwork in Madison. My old paper Isthmus asked me to write about my impressions of the conference.

You can read them here. Among other things, I was reminded of how Madison really doesn’t want to become a big city:

Madison has always been conflicted by density. It’s honored in theory as a boon to mass transit and to sophisticated urban living, but often opposed in practice when a developer wants to put up a five-story condo down the street.

This ambivalence is understandable. Neighborhood scale is important (but not all-important), and some oversized designs are wretched. But as  [author Edward] Glaeser said in an interview, while neighbors always deserve a say in the deliberations, they shouldn’t have a veto.

“Every time you say ‘no’ to a new development, you’re saying ‘no’ to a family that wants to move into the neighborhood,” he said. “Every person in greater Madison who wants to buy is being impacted by a community that wants to shut things down.”

The density issue is bubbling up beneath the new downtown plan and in the new zoning map still in the drafting stage. A quick survey: The business group Downtown Madison Inc. has criticized the plan for failing to promote greater density in areas like Mifflin Street.

Dennis Lynch, a development consultant, has circulated a critical memo (PDF) arguing that the city is creating a “dead zone” by capping most development at five stories, the point at which he says construction costs shoot up. Steve Cover, the city’s new planning chief, is unfazed, responding that other developers don’t share Lynch’s views and that the five-story limit is not absolute.

This is important stuff because the new downtown plan and zoning map will set the city’s DNA for the next 25 years. As Glaeser sees it, change is a constant in urban life. Cities that don’t reinvent themselves fall into decay and fade away. With government as Madison’s signature industry in decline, Glaeser’s warning gives pause.