Policy Analysis of Restoring Economic Vitality and Addressing the Economic Challenges Faced by Palmdale City

Introduction and Problem Statement

The problem faced by Palmdale City is the challenge of bringing back economic vitality to its fading business district. This policy analysis will evaluate the available alternatives to Palmdale, the importance of the issue, as well as the policy issue at stake. Also, the paper will scrutinize the best practices of other cities that have overcome with comparable problems, the programs they developed to address the issues, and the impacts the programs have had over time.

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Palmdale was incorporated in 1962 and is located in north LA. The city developed from a small rural town to the current population of over 127 thousand dwellers and a hundred and two square miles. However, the city's population has been growing, and the people have been struggling due to the deteriorating economy of the city. Appreciating the importance of the problem, the city came up with a revitalization plan in 1995 aimed at restoring the economic vitality to the city (City of Palmdale, 1995). The city's elected officials, the residents, as well as the city staff worked collaboratively in developing the plan, through the Downtown Revitalization Committee. The plan detailed various moves and tasks that needed to be done to revitalize the city. While there have been some accomplishments, a large part of the revitalization plan has not been implemented and the crisis of the city's deterioration continues to be a huge challenge to the residents of Palmdale.

Evidence

Palmdale City became a suburb of LA because of urban sprawl as well as the necessity for reasonably priced housing not found in Los Angeles. As the prices of homes continued to increase in LA, many people realized that they could own a home in Palmdale. As a result, the city experienced explosive population growth from 23, 000 to 127,000 from 1985 to 1996. As the population increased, job opportunities did not match up forcing about eighty percent of the population to travel for jobs outside Palmdale, in the neighboring cities. The economic recession of the early 1990s that affected the whole country had a huge impact on Palmdale and the surrounding cities, leading to the collapse of several industries (City of Palmdale, 1995). The collapse of industries led to the elimination of jobs which resulted in massive layoffs. Palmdale City was the most affected because the majority of the workers resided in the city. The city witnessed a tumble in values of property as well as increased home foreclosures. This fueled the deterioration of Palmdale City as neglected housing increased, buildings fell into despair, and the crime levels shot up.

These cumulative factors provided massive challenges for Palmdale city to overcome, and the issues were catered for in the city's strategic plan. The primary constituents of the plan included an all-inclusive economic improvement plan, humanizing infrastructure, improving quality of life of the residents, innovative housing programs, as well as downtown revitalization plan. The downtown revitalization plan concentrated on economically strengthening the city, rehabilitating and beautifying the business district, and developing a vision for the future of the city. Nevertheless, the city has made some progress in implementing the revitalization plan (Robertson, 2001).

Alternative Policy Response

Palmdale City has to analyze several alternatives in the current effort of restoring the economic vitality of the deteriorating business district. The alternative policy responses include continuing the commitment to implement the revitalization plan, analyzing the best practices the cities faced with the same challenges used to overcome their problems, to improve public security, learning new practices by attending conferences, and maintaining memberships in important professional organizations within the State.

Downtown Revitalization Plan

The business district revitalization plan of Palmdale City was approved in 1995. However, it was updated four years later to provide sufficient flexibility to contain future changes. The vision, planning, as well as funding of the revitalization plan has started to show the desired outcomes of the plan (Landis, 2006). Although some accomplishments have been made, it is paramount that Palmdale remains committed to the plan with enough support through providing sufficient funds and staff. The goals yet to be attained include creating the "heart" of the business district, creating a proper mix of unique businesses, restoration of deteriorated buildings. Palmdale city will be rehabilitated, redeveloped, and strengthened economically with the continued commitment and support of the community, business owners, and the city.

Improved Public Safety

Increasing public safety is vital to attracting business owners and shoppers back to the business district. If individuals feel unsafe when in the business district, they will not frequent it nor use it for businesses. Increasing policing, as well as lighting up the streets will boost the feeling of safety and encourage more residents to visit the downtown and do business (Weick, 1984). The business watch programs and partners against crime (PAC) are the city's critical pillars of crime prevention efforts. PAC personnel are assigned jurisdictions in the business district and are responsible for all activities that take place in their areas. The personnel patrol the city with bikes and are more open to the residents of the city. The business watch program connects the business owners in collaboration with the city's security personnel to deter crime in their areas of business.

Best Practices

The best practices of Ventura, Brea, and Arcadia will be presented as examples of how cities faced with similar problems worked to overcome their challenges. Arcadia was once a bustling city like Palmdale, started to deteriorate as many properties became functionally obsolete, buildings became abandoned, and the seafronts were vacated. To overcome these problems, Arcadia created their downtown revitalization agenda, designed to rehabilitate the city. The program aimed to create an exciting and interesting downtown. With the support from the community, business owners, and the elected leaders, the objectives of the revitalization program were realized, and the city's downtown was revitalized (Wagner, Joder & Mumphrey, 1995).

The second exemplar of business district revitalization is the City of Brea. Like Palmdale, the city's business district started to deteriorate as buyers moved to the expediency of enclosed malls. This was followed by the desolation of the buildings fueled by absentee landlords, poor maintenance, and overcrowding. The city tried a Facade Improvement Program but was unsuccessful. To restore the economy of its downtown, the city purchased seventy-eight of blighted property using redevelopment funds. The city encouraged community participation and funded the project (Wachter & Zeuli, 2013).

Ventura City is the third example of successful restoration of economic vitality to cities' downtown. Similar with Palmdale, Ventura city experienced a process of physical deterioration and economic decline as industrial and retail activity dispersed. With time, the city changed and deteriorated. Ventura needed a robust program to reverse the lost identity of the city as well as the eroded economy; therefore, it developed a strategy for revitalizing the city in 1993. The community, the business owners, as well as the elected leaders worked collaboratively and equally supported the downtown revitalization plan. The comprehensive plan involved design guidelines, development standards, infrastructure, and parking policies, and developed land use policies. The success of this plan is evident as the town was revitalized and its business district captures the charisma of the present day period and is home to thriving businesses. The charm of the city has been enhanced by various beautification programs (Kabala, 2007).

Professional Organizations

There exist several state organizations that promote, among others, restoring economic vitality and revitalization of downtown. Examples of these organizations include the California Downtown Association, League of California Cities, California Association of Local Economic Development (CALED), as well as the California Redevelopment Association. All of these organizations have newsletters and websites carrying significant information on various important issues, special training seminars, and networking opportunities. These organizations also hold conferences every year that provide educational openings to their members on emerging issues such as deteriorating downtowns as well as restoring their economic vitality. Palmdale city holds active membership in all the organizations mentioned above (Dardia, 1998).

Most of these organizations have other parallel programs that have made huge contributions to the redevelopment and bettering of communities around them. For instance, the California Redevelopment Association has been given numerous awards on program excellence (Johnson, 2000). Also, CALED has a mission of educating its members on how to attract, retain, as well as enlarge businesses through a statewide network comprising economic champions committed to upholding the economic vitality of the State of California. The other professional organizations also have similar mandates.

Evaluation Criteria

Efficacy

While implementing the criteria to the proposed alternatives above, it is vital to asses or appraise four or fewer alternatives, but not more. Efficacy can be defined as the total decline of the problem. Although efficacy is not always feasible because of funding issues as well as other limitations, this criterion is relevant to be considered. Efficacy evaluation will be functional to the proposed alternatives like increased public safety, the best practices of the cities discussed earlier, and the downtown revitalization plan.

Cost

It will be important to evaluate all of the proposed alternatives to determine the appropriate one that should be considered for adoption taking into account the funding criteria. The process of evaluating the alternatives will encompass the cost of improving public safety and crime reduction, cost of implementing best practices, plus the cost of the downtown revitalization plan.

Equity

A detailed analysis of the proposed alternatives will include the assessment of equity of all of the above-named alternatives to be considered. The evaluation will embrace the cost and benefits of public safety, drifts in the best practices of the cities that overcome the same challenges, in the impact of the businesses and the city, as well as the unbalanced or unstable impact of downtown revitalization.

Feasibility

The last part of this analysis will be the assessment of the feasibility of all of the suggested alternatives to find out if the implementation of the alternatives will be realistic and sustainable. The evaluation will incorporate the feasibility of community support and funding of increased public support, public and political support and funding of the best practices of the cities that overcame similar problems, and funding as well as political support of the downtown revitalization plan (Faulk, 2006).

Apply Criteria and Project Outcomes

Revitalization Plan for Palmdale City Downtown

The revitalization plan for Palmdale city downtown was passed by the city councilors unanimously in 1995 and amended four years later and is the status quo of the current analysis. The comprehensive downtown revitalization plan addresses how to achieve...