I’ve written
several blog posts about what is happening to Conshohocken, Pa., and on
Tuesday, April 14th I’ll have to opportunity to talk on the
subject. I will be one-third of a panel
discussion entitled “Conshy at the
Crossroads,” to be held at the Washington Fire
Company, 36 West Elm Street, Conshohocken, at 7 p.m. Doors will open at 6:15
p.m. I will be joined by Jerry Nugent,
Executive Director of the Montgomery County Redevelopment Authority, and Ray
Weinmann, president of The Weinmann Group, who helped to develop Conshohocken’s
25-acre Urban Renewal Area during the 1980s.
Our moderator will be Naomi Starobin, editor of Keystone Crossroads, a statewide reporting collaborative led by WHYY that focuses on
problems and opportunities facing Pennsylvania’s urban areas. If you are in Southeast Pennsylvania on that
date, I would love to see you there.
This
is actually the first of several planned events on the subject of what is happening to
Conshohocken, sponsored by the Conshohocken Revitalization Alliance and Morethanthecurve.com. It will require several to cover all that is
happening, but this one will be your introduction to the subject, and should not be missed. History will be
the focus, to set the stage for the more detailed subjects that will follow in
future “Conshy at the Crossroads” meetings.
The April 14 event’s press release bills me as one of “three
redevelopment experts,” a title which I appreciate, but do not feel I
deserve. I am a historian, and my focus
on supporting urban activism has led me to learn much about “redevelopment,”
but through a lens that delivers relevant lessons from the past, not a focus on
current redevelopment projects. I will
thus have little to say about this or that specific project, but rather more to
say about the potential effect of their accumulation.
“Conshy at the Crossroads” is an excellent title for this planned series
of get-togethers, because the metaphorical allusion is based on the physical
reality (yes, the crossroads are
actually in West Conshohocken, but it never gets first billing anyway). The intersection of two major
transportation routes at a location of considerable natural beauty is the
fundamental reason for all that is happening to both boroughs. Supporting credit goes the long-defunct Urban
Renewal Program, for saving potential developers much of the cost for
demolition of existing buildings. The quick
increase in development proposals with the end of economic hard times is also
evidence that timing is still everything.
For the combination of these reasons, the time is now. Conshohocken is indeed at a crossroads.
The stated purpose the Conshohocken Revitalization Alliance is to
“promote the maintenance of the borough’s character as it grows,” and it
is the borough’s character on which I will focus. The specific challenge facing the
Conshohockens is how to fashion a community identity from the two quite
disparate groups that the current activity will generate. I have previously phrased them as The Old and
The New, but the important difference is WHY each has chosen to live
there. I hope for the opportunity to
speak to this.
In all
honesty, however, it is extraordinarily difficult to maintain a town’s
character when the physical and social conditions have changed as much as they
have since the days when Conshohocken—and each of the other towns on the lower
Schuylkill River—grew to maturity and prosperity. That character—and the fierce pride in which
it was expressed—was the result of a combination of historical circumstances,
none of which now apply, not only to the Conshohockens, but also to pretty much
any town these days. Conshohocken, as
with every other town on the lower Schuylkill River (at least) was, during its
“glory days,” a community, in every sense of the word. The residents who lived in each town also
shopped there, worshipped there and found entertainment there. The town was almost the totality of their
lives. They also could reach each of
their necessary destinations on foot, because every town, in the almost complete
absence of individual transportation, congregated everything close to
everything else.
That last part
about everything being close to everything else remains, because Conshohocken
is still the same size it always has been, and so are the vast majority of its
properties and streets. Pretty much
everything else has changed, though. Today,
only a very small percentage of Conshohocken residents both live and work in
the borough. The shopping has largely
disappeared and many of the religious congregations and parishes have either
moved or expanded out of town. As a
result, pretty much every adult needs an automobile to perform those basic
functions of going to work, shopping or worship.
Therein lies
the fundamental problem, because Conshohocken was not built for the automobile,
neither while in use or parked, especially parked. All attempts to accommodate an old urban
structure to prioritize the flow of traffic are ultimately futile. Yet the deluge of new residences along the
riverside will bring with them a great many more cars, and there is no other
choice than to attempt to deal with
that fact. I expect to act (as usual) as
a wet blanket to anyone who attempts to posit a pleasant future for
Conshohocken traffic.
Still, the automobile
is only a conveyance, and in the final analysis it is people who will write
Conshohocken’s future. Automobiles will
bring them to the borough, and will take them away, but if they only live there
while working, shopping and worshipping elsewhere, what will give them a sense
of community, a sense of actually belonging? And if they live in the new residential
developments along the river, what is to connect them with the town—and the
residents—on the hill above them? The New
residents will effectively create new neighborhoods, set amidst the many
promised recreational inducements. Will
The Old, up on the hillside, be able to share in these welcome improvements? Given the traffic, how much hassle will it be to even get there?
The
fundamental contradiction between the urban grid and the automobile will
continue to bedevil Conshohocken, but a much more fundamental contradiction is
developing, as an entirely new community arises at the foot of an old one. If The Old and The New cannot find shared
reasons to love their community and to work for its betterment, what kind of
community character will result? How will
it be possible to maintain the
borough’s character when virtually all the physical and social conditions which
brought the borough into existence and nurtured its growth have changed a full
180 degrees? How much of the old pride
can be saved? Must Conshohocken instead fashion
an entirely new character in response to modern times?
These are
tough questions, and kudos to the Conshohocken Revitalization Alliance and Morethanthecurve.com for what they are
attempting to do. I’m honored to be a
part of it, and hope to see you on Tuesday, April 14, 7:00 PM at the Washington
Fire Company, for the first installment of “Conshy at the Crossroads.”
Here’s a link to the event’s Facebook
page. Check it out!
No comments:
Post a Comment