The Incremental Approach Is The Imaginative Approach
An imaginative neighborhood revitalization, as envisioned by ChatGPT.
My family and I have recently entered a new phase in our incremental housing adventure. We’ve parted with our charming garage flat and moved into a small, recently renovated house in one of the city’s older neighborhoods, not too far from Cameron River.
We weren’t planning to move, but the opportunity showed up unannounced when a friend heard of an available house in her neighborhood and was able to connect us to the owners. After a few emails and shared meals, we had a lease agreement, and in the middle of September, we found ourselves bustling around with the support of friends, filling up every room with boxes and furniture.
In some ways, it’s a prayer answered: Without too much of an increase in rent, we now live within walking distance of the aforementioned friends, a coffee shop, a diner and a bodega. Once I get my bike repaired and the weather is cooler, I’ll be able to cruise on my favorite two wheels to church and the farmer’s market. The double backyard behind the house has inspired my husband to dust off his gardening books and we’ve already met several neighbors.
As with most things in life, it’s not all roses and buttercups. With a median income of barely $30,000, our neighborhood is considered one of the city’s poorest and also has a history of being one of the city’s most dangerous. We have heard of drug dealers not far away and sometimes pick up the scent of marijuana wafting on the night air. A good number of the houses have new paint and flowers out front, but many are patched together with boards in the window and sinking roofs, barely hanging on. Some have been torn down entirely, leaving behind many vacant lots. On morning walks, I have to navigate incomplete and broken sidewalks, step around discarded trash, and be on the lookout for unpredictable loose dogs.
For some people, the neighborhood's reputation and these signs of struggle might make it the kind of place you drive through quickly or avoid altogether. But for others, it can be the kind of place where you linger and ask yourself questions like what my husband is asking about the dry ground in our backyard: “What would it take to bring this back to life?” “What can we grow here?”
That imaginative mindset is at the heart of the incremental developer’s approach, something I’ve been learning about in conversation with several guests on The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast. In talking with people like Ilana Pruess, Seth Zeren and Tiffany Elder and listening to Abby’s conversation with Monte Anderson, I’ve come to see how incremental development is not primarily about changing regulations or increasing the productivity of a street. It’s fundamentally about taking an imaginative posture towards our communities — about seeing problems as potential and looking for solutions.
This mindset is how humans have historically approached shared problems. Part of how towns and cities grew was by entrepreneurs noticing what was needed and then solving that problem. One classic example of this is residential boarding, where a family would rent out rooms in their home and make food for weary travelers…problem seen, problem solved.
This observation-based approach to development allowed cities to emerge as responsive, agile and interesting places. One of my favorite memories from moving to Waco four years ago was when I looked through old phone books and discovered an entire section dedicated to toy repair. Who knew so many dolls were in need of fixing? Well, someone noticed!
On the surface, the incremental development conversation can feel a bit dry, with much of the conversation focused on technical-sounding issues like zoning reform, minimum lot sizes and parking reform. It can be enough to make your eyes glaze over and dismiss this as one for the policy wonks. But from these past few weeks of conversation, it’s become clear to me that incremental development is about more than technical policy changes. It’s really an invitation to take a more imaginative approach to your neighborhood, an opportunity to begin to notice more closely what it needs and what solutions might look like.
In terms of housing, we have seen the rise of backyard cottages as a response to shrinking household size and a general need for smaller homes. But maybe there’s more. Maybe there’s untapped demand for more communal housing or housing with an emphasis on community and support for independent but older citizens. What about intergenerational housing or housing that’s built with flexible components so residents can change the layout as their life stage and needs change?
But it doesn’t have to just be about housing. We can apply this mindset to other issues: safer streets for children to walk to school, more businesses existing closer to neighborhoods, and even coming up with a better way to keep litter off of our sidewalks.
I don’t think of myself as a small-scale developer, but that doesn’t mean I can’t think like one. The conversations I’ve had recently are rubbing off on me because during my morning neighborhood walks, I already hear my internal monologue running off with ideas:
“Imagine what that broken-down house could look like with a little love!”
“Are there any streets we can close to cars to let the children bike freely?”
“How hard would it be to open a community playground?”
“Who is supposed to take care of that withered community garden?”
“I wonder what it would take to bring some vibrant businesses to our depressed commercial strip.”
We might not all be incremental developers (yet), but in cultivating imagination, we can all think like them, looking at our neighborhoods and towns through the lens of possibility, not just problems.
Tiffany Owens Reed is the host of The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast. A graduate of The King's College and former journalist, she is a New Yorker at heart, currently living in Texas. In addition to writing for Strong Towns and freelancing as a project manager, she reads, writes, and curates content for Cities Decoded, an educational platform designed to help ordinary people understand cities. Explore free resources here and follow her on Instagram @citiesdecoded.