Category Archives: Neighborhoods

Craft Breweries, Neighborhoods, Walkability

Craft Breweries and the 15-Minute City

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Last month, I attended a conference in Monterey, CA where I had the opportunity to hear Carlos Moreno speak. Born in Yunja, Colombia, Moreno is an urbanist and professor at Sorbonne Université in Paris. Among academics and city planners, he is best known for his work on the 15-Minute City, a term he coined at the 2015 Paris Climate Conference.

As an idea, the 15-Minute City is a pretty simple. It is an urban planning concept which advocates that most (if not all) of the amenities that you need for daily living (education, healthcare, work, leisure, entertainment etc.) should be accessible within 15 minutes using active modes of transport, i.e., walking or cycling. This is not necessarily a new concept.. As early as the late19th and early 20th centuries the idea of socially cohesive neighborhoods with a sense of community and amenities such as parks, schools, libraries, and public baths were being discussed.

The 15-Minute City emerged as a response to our excessive use of the automobile. The dominance of the automobile travel in the United States is reflected in data reported by The National Household Travel Survey (NHTS). This survey showed that, in 2022, the average shopping trip was 5.6 miles, the average trip for childcare was 6.5 miles and the average trip to participate in a religious activity was 8.9 miles. In contrast, data presented by the National Bureau of Economic Research shows that “residents of the median US neighborhood only take 12.1% of their trips to basic amenities within a 15-minute walking radius.”

Key planning concepts underlying the 15-Minute city include neighborhoods, accessibility, walkability, and land use mix. In a paper published in 2023 in the journal Sustainable Cities and Society, Efthymis Papadopoulos and his colleagues suggest that the 15-Minute City bringsthe idea of living locally at the forefront of city planning”. The benefits of living locally include a lower carbon footprint, healthier residents, and stronger community bonds.

Strong community bonds exist in the 15-Minute City because neighbors have more face-to-face interaction with each other. These interactions occur as people go about their daily living. And the interactions that people in a neighborhood have with each other do not need to be intense or long lasting in nature. Indeed in a 2014 paper published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, Gillian Sandstom and Elizabeth Dunn showed that a brief exchange with a coffee shop barista (having a short conversation) enhances an individual’s happiness and sense of belonging. People living in amenity rich neighborhoods have a larger number of face-to-face interactions with other residents, exhibit higher levels of interpersonal trust, are less likely to experience social isolation and loneliness, are more willing to help their neighbors, and generally feel better about their community than people living in lower amenity neighborhoods. As noted by the aforementioned Papadopoulos and his colleagues, the15-Minute City begins to “address the problem of alienation and disengagement between the citizens”.

In the 15-Minute City the necessities of everyday life can be accessed within 15 minutes by using active modes of transport (Source: City of Fort Collins, CO)

As I listened to Carlos Moreno speak I thought about craft breweries and the role they might play in the 15-Minute City. As myself and others have argued before, craft breweries function as neighborhood gathering spots (aka Third Places) in cities, large and small, across the United States.

Coined by the urban Sociologist Ray Oldenburg, the term Third Place refers to places outside of home or work, where people congregate and interact. Writing for Brookings Institution, Stuart Butler and Carmen Diaz (2016) note that Third Places are “locations where we exchange ideas, have a good time, and build relationships”. Others have referred to them as the “Living Room of Society” and “Centers of Community” respectively.

Some observers suggest that craft breweries are a new genre of Third Place on the American landscape. These include George Homewood, Norfolk, Virginia’s director of planning and community development, who argues that craft breweries are “gathering places that are in many ways replacing things like libraries and recreation centers within a neighborhood”, while Jim Morrison, writing for The Smithsonian Magazine, describes craft breweries as “the evening analog to the third place of the morning coffeehouse.” Furthermore, many craft breweries are child and dog friendly, offering families a place where they can gather, interact, and relax. As such, they have an important role to play in the 15-Minute City.

One advantage that craft breweries have over many other Third Places (libraries, coffee shops, farmers markets etc.) is that they serve alcohol. As a stimulant, alcohol releases endorphins in our brains, allowing us to relax and be more amenable to interpersonal interactions. Research by the evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar has demonstrated that people who have a pub (he did his research in England) they they frequent on a regular basis “tend to be more socially engaged, feel more contented and are more likely to trust other members of their community than those who do not drink at all”. 

The concept of the 15-Minute City got me thinking about breweries in my neighborhood. While 85% of Americans of legal drinking age live within ten miles of a craft brewery, I have no idea how many live within a 15-minute walk or bike ride of a craft brewery. The brewery closest to my house is a 23 minute walk or a seven-minute bike ride. There is a second (newly opened) that is a 13-minute bike ride. I guess I could always invest in a bicycle.

Earnest Brew Works (Westgate location) in Toledo, OH is a 7-minute bike ride (23-minute walk) from my house

Further Reading:

Jeffres, Leo W., Cheryl C. Bracken, Guowei Jian, and Mary F. Casey. 2009. The impact of Third Places on community quality of life. Applied Research Quality Life, Volume 4, Issue 4, pp. 333–345.

Papadopoulod, Efthymis, Alexandros Sdoukopoulos, and Ioannis Politis. 2023. Measuring compliance with the 15-minute city concept: State-of-the-art, major components and further requirements. Sustainable Cities and Society, Volume 99.

Sandstrom, Gillian M. and Elizabeth W. Dunn. 2014. Is efficiency overrated?: Minimal social interactions lead to belonging and positive affect. Social Psychological and Personality Science, Volume 5, Issue 4, pp. 437-442.

Craft Breweries, Gentrification, Neighborhoods

Barrio Logan – Gentrification or Gentefication?

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The role that craft breweries have played in the revitalization of distressed urban neighborhoods has received a significant amount of attention in both the popular media and academic literature. Indeed, it is a topic I have addressed several times in previous blog entries (for example see here and here). The relationship between craft breweries and neighborhood revitalization is a complicated one. In some neighborhoods, the introduction of a craft brewery may be the catalyst for revitalization of the neighborhood, while in others craft breweries arrive after the revitalization process is already underway. An example of the former includes the Ohio City neighborhood in Cleveland, OH, while the NoDa neighborhood of Charlotte, NC provides an example of the latter. Some see the revitalization of a distressed neighborhood as a positive development, while others view it through a negative lens. The latter group point to the displacement of incumbent residents and businesses who can no longer afford the higher rents that inevitably come with a revitalized neighborhood. – the term gentrification is often used to describe such a process. Gentrification can be defined as the “a demographic and economic shift that displaces established working-class communities and communities of color in favor of wealthier newcomers and real estate development companies.”

No large American city is exempt from gentrification. This includes the city of San Diego, CA where approximately 30% of census tracts have undergone gentrification since 2000. Late last year I had the opportunity to visit Barrio Logan, a San Diego neighborhood where gentrification has been an issue of ongoing debate.

Barrio Logan is a community of approximately 4,800 people in south central San Diego. Just over 70% of the population are Hispanic. Indeed the neighborhood has been predominantly Hispanic since the early 20th century when refugees from the Mexican Revolution settled there.  The neighborhood is bordered by United States Naval Base San Diego to the southeast, Interstate 5 (built in 1963) to the northeast, and the San Diego Unified Port District and bay to the southwest. A central focus of the neighborhood is Chicano Park, which has been described as “the geographic and emotional heart of Barrio Logan” and “one of San Diego’s most culturally significant landmarks.” Established in 1970, the park is located beneath Interstate 5 and the on-ramps for the San Diego-Coronado Bridge. With over 80 murals, the park has the largest collection of outdoor murals in the world. The murals focus on Chicano culture, “ranging from Mesoamerican influences to local San Diego Chicano struggles”. In 2022, Time Out listed Barrio Logan in its top ten list of the world’s coolest neighborhoods.

Barrio Logan (Source: Barrio Logan Community Plan)
Many of the Chicano Park murals have been painted on the pylons that support the Coronado Bridge
One of the most famous murals is “Hasta La Bahia. Translated, this means “All the way to the bay,” refers to a campaign throughout the 1970s and ’80s to extend the park to the San Diego Bay

On my recent visit there, I had the opportunity to participate in a group walking tour of the Barrio Logan neighborhood. Our tour guide was David Favela, owner of one of the neighborhood’s breweries, Border X Brewing. We started our tour at Border X, where David provided us with a history of both the brewery and its relationship to the neighborhood.

Since its opening in 2013, the brewery has served as a community gathering spot, a neighborhood Third Place if you will. In a recent interview David also noted that “We’re serving the community that exists today. We’re not waiting for a new community to displace them.” The last statement is a nod to gentrification, a topic that is discussed in more detail below.

David Favela, owner of Border X Brewing, tell us about the history of the brewery

After sampling four different beers at Border X, David took us through a transect of the neighborhood, at the conclusion of which we arrived at Mujeres Brew House. Mujeres is owned by David’s wife Carmen Velasco-Favela and her business partner Esthela Davila. It is a brewery with an interesting origin story. In 2019, a survey revealed that 60% of Border X’s customers were female. This gave Velasco-Favela, who was then BorderX’s marketing director, the idea to start a women’s brew club. The brew club functioned primarily as an educational forum, with guest speakers covering every conceivable topic from the history of beer to how the stuff is made. The speakers’ series proved highly successful and soon the idea of opening a female-owned brewery was mooted by Velasco-Favela. When a vacant building became available in the neighborhood, the idea quickly evolved to become a reality. On July 1, 2020 Mujeres Brew House opened its doors.

David talking to our tour group at Mujeres Brew House, with the freeway on-ramp as a backdrop.

Many of the beers at both Border X and Mujeres Brew House are inspired by David and Carmen’s Hispanic heritage. For example, at Border X we sampled their Blood Saison. This particular beer, whose ingredients include the leaves of the hibiscus, is inspired by Agua de Jamaica, a hibiscus iced tea. At Mujeres, the La Jefita Tamarindo Hefeweizen includes fresh tamarind pulp which is imported from Mexico. Both David and Carmen are running breweries which brew great beer and appear to be contributing to the vibrancy of the Barrio Logan neighborhood. More formal recognition of David’s efforts came in 2020 when he was a semi-finalist for the prestigious James Beard Award in the Outstanding Wine, Spirits, or Beer Producer category. The objective of the awards is to “is to recognize exceptional talent and achievement in the culinary arts, hospitality, media, and broader food system, as well as a demonstrated commitment to racial and gender equity, community, sustainability, and a culture where all can thrive.”. Although he never won, being a semi-finalist was a recognition of the what David has achieved at Border X.

David Favela in front of one Barrio Logan’s murals

One of the issues that I raised with David during our tour was that of gentrification. Rather than experiencing gentrification, David suggested that the neighborhood had actually underwent a process he called ‘gentefication’. According to one definition, “Gentefication happens when college-educated, upwardly mobile Latinos invest in neighborhoods they’ve grown up in.” In short, the difference between gentrification and gentefication is that in the former it is outsiders with no ties to the neighborhood who invest, while in the latter it is people with ties to the neighborhood (and in some cases current residents) who invest. The word gentefication is derived from “la gente” (“the people” in Spanish), suggesting “grassroots, Latino-led redevelopment of the community.”

While gentefication has undoubtedly occurred in Barrio Logan, so has gentrification. And indeed, both may be having a similar impact. In a paper published in 2021, Emanuel Delgado and Kate Swanson suggest that both processes (not just gentrification) have contributed to increased rents, making it difficult for some longer-term residents and businesses to remain in the neighborhood. They cite the cases of Mesheeka and the Chicano Art Gallery, two local galleries, closed due to escalating rents. Local residents such as Maritza Garcia, who works with the Environmental Health Coalition, are fighting back against further gentrification. The city appears to be listening. The 2023 Community Plan for the neighborhood “seeks to limit the displacement of residents”. Policies identified in the Plan to facilitate this include working with development applicants to provide very-low and low income affordable housing, promoting homebuyer assistance programs for moderate-income buyers, and encouraging compliance with State and local affordability requirements to ensure an adequate supply of affordable housing. But residents are not depending upon the City to address gentrification. The Barrio Logan Community Land Trust Committee has been established to purchase land, with the objective of using it in a way that is beneficial to the community. Community Land Trusts are recognized as one of a number of best practices when it comes to fighting gentrification. I have visited Barrio Logan twice in recent years. As an outsider, it would be inappropriate for me to comment on the state of play with regards to the changes which have taken place in the neighborhood in recent years. All I will say is that I enjoy visiting Barrio Logan, and find it a vibrant and friendly neighborhood. And, of course, it has two wonderful breweries.

One Barrio Logan resident makes their feelings on gentrification clear

Further Reading:

Delgado, Emanuel and Kate Swanson. 2021. Gentefication in the barrio: Displacement and urban change in Southern California. Journal of Urban Affairs, Volume 43, Number 7, pp. 925-940.

Rosen, Martin and James Fisher. 2001. Chicano Park and the Chicano Park Murals: Barrio Logan, City of San Diego, California. The Public Historian , Volume 23, Number 4, pp. 91-111.

Adaptive Reuse, Economic Development, Neighborhoods

Wynkoop Brewing Company: A Pioneer Investor

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Last month, I spent a few days in Denver, CO. I was there to attend the North American Meetings of the Regional Science Association International – a scholarly organization to which I belong. On my “to-do” list for this trip was a visit to Wynkoop Brewing Company, which is located in Lower Downtown (LoDo) section of the city. So one lunchtime, with some colleagues, I jumped in an Uber and and headed to Wynkoop.

Among craft beer drinkers, Wynkoop is known for its excellent beers, including its Rocky Mountain Oyster Stout, whose ingredients include freshly sliced and roasted bull testicles. As someone who has been studying the American craft brewing industry for a number of years, Wynkoop is a brewery that I often mention in my academic papers. Very often I mention Wynkoop in tandem with Great Lakes Brewing Company which is located in the Ohio City neighborhood of Cleveland, OH. The two breweries have much in common. Both were established in 1989, and both were what are termed pioneer investors in their respective neighborhoods, playing a key role in their revitalization.

Rocky Mountain Oyster Stout from Wynkoop Brewing Company

In 2000, my colleague Stephan Weiler, a Professor of Economics at Colorado State University published a paper in Urban Studies in which he looked at the role that Wynkoop played in the revitalization of the 23-square block LoDo neighborhood. During the 19th century Lower Downtown emerged as a rail hub, mineral processing, manufacturing and warehousing center. The 20th century brought economic changes and the emergence of new transportation technologies that would supplant the railroad, with the result that “the LoDo industrial area went into decline, as companies boarded up their factories and warehouses. Squatting and crime increased, and liquor stores (along with their entrenched customer base) became the area’s most prominent resource” (Weiler 2000, p. 173). Some of the beers brewed by Wynkoop pay homage to the LoDo’s industrial past or the city’s unique geographical location. So you can sit inside Wynkoop’s taproom and enjoy a Hazy Train IPA, a Rail Yard Ale, or Kurt’s Mile High Malt Lager.

I enjoyed a Hazy Train IPA while visiting Wynkoop

In the mid-1980s, two entrepreneurs, John Hickenlooper and Jerry
Williams eyed LoDo as a potential location for a new craft brewery that they were planning. LoDo’s had what lots of craft brewery entrepreneurs seek out when they are looking for potential brewery space – an abundance of inexpensive large vacant buildings. Hickenlooper and Williams finally settled on the historic J. S. Brown Mercantile Building, built in 1899, as the site for their brewery. On the off chance that you follow Colorado politics, the name John Hickenlooper is probably familiar to you. In addition to being an entrepreneur, Hickenlooper served as the Mayor of Denver between 2003 1nd 2011 and then the 42nd Governor of Colorado between 2011 and 2019. He also sought the Democratic nomination for President of the United States 2019 but dropped out before the primaries. In November 2020, he was elected to the United States Senate.

Wynkoop Brewing Company
Patrons enjoying lunch and a pint at Wynkoop Brewing Company

As noted by Weiler (2000, p. 175), “the first few years of the brewery, though, were indeed a struggle, and were devoted to attracting a regular clientele into the area”. As its reputation grew, however, the number of patrons steadily increased. Not only did the flow of patrons to Wynkoop increase, but so did the flow of other investment dollars into the neighborhood – an antique store, residential lofts and a publishing company soon opened their doors. Additional retail, galleries, and residential properties followed the example set by Wynkoop and other early investors. Today, LoDo is a thriving neighborhood that functions as a mixed-use hub of housing, retail, office, and entertainment spaces. One evening. coming back from dinner, driving through LoDo, my Uber driver said that the neighborhood today was unrecognizable from what it had previously been. The revitalization of LoDo is part of larger planning initiatives being undertaken by the City and County of Denver. Over the years, the City and County have developed a number of plans in their efforts to think strategically about what the city might look like. These include the 1968 Downtown Area Plan, the 2000 Lower Downtown Neighborhood Plan, the 2007 Downtown Area Plan, and the Comprehensive Plan 2040 (adopted in 2019). In 1988 Denver City Council gave LoDo Historic District status, with a view to ” encouraging historic preservation and promoting economic and social vitality ” Today, LoDo’s development is overseen by The LoDo District, Inc., a 501(c)(3) Registered Neighborhood Organization.

A former LoDo flour mill (left) is now residential lofts (right). Source: LoDo

Wynkoop Brewing Company is one of many examples of a brewery that has contributed to the revitalization of an urban neighborhood. Google “breweries revitalizing neighborhoods” and you will plenty of other examples. In some cases, like Wynkoop, a brewery can be the catalyst for neighborhood revitalization. They are the first significant entity to invest in a neighborhood. Such pioneer investors can signal the promise of a neighborhood to other would-be investors. In others cases, a brewery follows other investors and becomes an important piece of the revitalization jigsaw. In contributing to the revitalization of distressed neighborhoods, craft breweries engage in adaptive reuse, thereby breathing new life into abandoned buildings. Thus, all across the United States, we see craft breweries located in what were once were old churches, fire stations, hardware stores, auto dealership etc. Craft brewery entrepreneurs are particularly adept at utilizing what might be thought of as challenging spaces. As noted by Bart Watson, Chief Economist with the Brewers Association, “one of the advantages of breweries is they can go into former industrial buildings or difficult spaces to develop”. Weiler (2000, p. 178) agrees with the assessment. As he notes, “craft breweries are likely to be particularly well-matched with the circumstances of senescent industrial districts, and thus often represent the most promising pioneers”.

My visit to Wynkoop represented another item checked-off on my “breweries-to-visit-list”. I have known about Wynkoop for years and have used it as an example of a neighborhood revitalizer in many of my writings. So it was nice to finally visit and enjoy a taste of their beautifully crafted ale.

Further Reading:

Reid, Neil. 2018. Craft breweries, adaptive reuse, and neighborhood revitalization. Urban Development Issues, Volume 57, pages 5–14.

Reid, Neil, Margaret M. Gripshover, and Thomas L. Bell. 2019. Craft breweries and adaptive reuse in the USA: The use and reuse of space and language. In Brunn S., Kehrein R. (eds.) Handbook of the Changing World Language Map. Springer, Cham, pages 1-19,

Weiler, Stephan. 2000. Pioneers and settlers in Lo-Do Denver: Private
risk and public benefits in urban redevelopment. Urban Studies, Volume 37, Number 1, pages 167-179.

History, Neighborhoods

From Mills to Breweries: Charlotte’s NoDa Neighborhood

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I was in Charlotte, NC recently. I was there to attend the 42nd annual Applied Geography Conference. As is customary in my conference travels, I used any spare time I had to explore the local craft beer scene. This was my third visit to Charlotte, since 2012, so I actually was quite familiar with the growth of the city’s craft beer sector. During my last visit in 2016, I had visited three Charlotte breweries (Birdsong Brewing Company, The Unknown Brewing Company, and Heist Brewery) as part of a  Charlotte Brews Cruise tour. Charlotte has also been one of my case study cities for my academic work on America’s burgeoning craft brewing industry. With my colleague Isabelle Nilsson of the University of North Carolina-Charlotte, we examined the impact of craft breweries on property values. Our research showed that being within one-half mile of a craft brewery increased the value of single-family homes by 9.3%. In another piece we examined the role that craft breweries have played in the revitalization of Charlotte’s historic NoDa neighborhood.

NoDa is a fascinating neighborhood, with historical ties to North Carolina’s textile industry. Production of textiles began in North Charlotte (as NoDa was known then) in 1903 with the opening of Highland Park Mill No. 3. Two other mills were subsequently opened in the neighborhood- Mecklenburg Mill In 1905 and Johnson Mill In 1916. At that time, North Charlotte was geographically separated from the city of Charlotte, being located three miles north of the city.

In close proximity to the Highland Park and Mecklenburg mills were mill villages. These villages, constructed by mill owners, provided homes for the mill workers and their families. Mill villages had basic services such as a school and a church. At the nexus of the two mill villages was a commercial district, where services such as grocery stores, a barber’s shop, a drug store, etc. could be found.

By the mid-1960s, low-cost labor in developing economies in Asia and Latin America posed a serious threat to the American textile industry. Mills closed and employment dwindled. The impact of this overseas competition was felt in and around the Charlotte region, The Highland Park Mill No. 3 and the Mecklenburg Mill closed in 1969, while the Johnson Mill closed in 1975. The closing of the mills signaled tough times for North Charlotte. People left the neighborhood, seeking employment elsewhere and abandoned homes fell into a state of disrepair. Poverty, crime, low-income housing, drug houses and prostitution came to characterize the neighborhood.

The revitalization of the neighborhood began in the 1980s, when two artists, Paul Sires and Ruth Ava Lyons, opened the Center of the Earth Gallery on North Davidson Street. Other artists quickly followed, and North Charlotte became a small, but thriving, arts community. The neighborhood still faced challenges, however, and remained rough around the edges. The Great Recession of 2007-2009 was not good to the neighborhood , which was now known as NoDa. The neighborhood survived, however, and today is home to a diversified range of businesses, including cafes, restaurants, bakeries, yoga studios, and breweries.

The first brewery to call NoDa home was NoDa Brewing Company, which opened its doors in October 2011. Today, the neighborhood is home to ten breweries. While in Charlotte, I had the opportunity to visit four of them Birdsong Brewing Co., Heist Brewery, Protagonist, and Wooden Robot Brewery. Of the four, Heist has the strongest connection to the neighborhood’s historic textile industry. It is, in fact, located in the old Highland Park Mill. Inside the brewery, their is a framed description of the mill’s history.

Heist Brewery is located in the historic Highland Park Mill
The history of Highland Park Mill is displayed in Heist Brewery

Visible from Heist Brewery are a number of the single-Storey homes once occupied by mill families. Some of these have been restored by local residents. The mill homes are protected by protective easements, a legal document signed by both the homeowner and Preservation North Carolina, which prevent homeowners from making changes that compromise the home’s historical integrity. As recently as 2015, NoDa’s refurbished mill homes were selling for anywhere between the high $200,000 and the mid $400,000.

An old mill worker’s home in Charlotte’s NoDa neighborhood. This home is visible from Heist Brewery.

Charlotte has a vibrant craft beer scene. As is the case in many cities I have visited, craft beer has a habit of connecting the beer drinker with a community’s history. To a large extent, this is due to the fact that many craft breweries, in search of inexpensive real estate, occupy older abandoned buildings in historically interesting neighborhoods. Thanks to my wonderful hosts, Isabelle Nilsson and her husband Jeff, I had the opportunity to experience the NoDa neighborhood, complete with its wonderful craft breweries and fascinating history.

Further Reading:

Glass, Brent D. 1992. The Textile Industry in North Carolina: A History. Raleigh: North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources.

Reid, Neil and Isabelle Nilsson. From mill district to brewery district: Craft beer and the revitalization of Charlotte’s NoDa neighborhood. Invited chapter for inclusion in Beer Places: The Micro-Geographies of Craft Beer, by Daina Cheyenne Harvey, Ellis Jones, and Nate Chapman (Eds).

Neighborhoods

Overlooked Neighborhoods

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Recently, I came across an interesting article on the website ozy.com. It was titled Overlooked Neighborhoods: Little-known Gems in Well-Known Cities. The premise of the article was pretty straightforward. When we visit a city, we tend to keep to well-trodden paths. These can be restaurants we have read about in guidebooks, museums that are on everyone’s must-visit list, or a green space such as a famous park.

But dare to look beyond the tourist traps and our own comfort zone, and we will see that every city has lesser-known neighborhoods that are worth spending time in. This particular article identifies seven such neighborhoods:

It is is an interesting list, albeit a little U.S.-centric. What I found particularly intriguing about the descriptions of these seven neighborhoods is that beer is mentioned as a key part of the urban fabric in four of them (Abasto, Bridgeport, Brevnov, and Over-the-Rhine). In the cases of Abasto, Bridgeport, and Over-the-Rhine, craft beer bars and breweries, in particular, are mentioned, while in the Břevnov neighborhood of Prague, the monks at the monastery there first brewed beer in the year 993. This makes it the earliest record of beer being brewed in the Czech Republic. In a completely separate piece on Pittsburgh’s overlooked neighborhoods, Kelly Abrogast, shines the spotlight on the city’s Troy Hill neighborhood. According to Abrogast, Troy Hill is Home to “some of the best beer you’ve ever had”. Troy Hill is home to Penn Brewery.

Rhinegeist Brewery in Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine neighborhood

The fact that craft beer (whether in the form of craft beer bars or craft breweries) are considered a key contributor to interesting and vibrant neighborhoods does not surprise me in the slightest. In a 2016 piece in The Atlantic, James Fallows identified eleven signs that a city will succeed – one of those signs was the existence of at least one craft brewery. As noted by Fallows, “a town that has craft breweries also has a certain kind of entrepreneur, and a critical mass of mainly young (except for me) customers.” As Fallows correctly notes, craft breweries are a magnet for young people. As market research has demonstrated, it is the Millennial cohort who are driving the growth of the craft beer sector. A craft brewery or craft beer bar in a neighborhood attracts young people, not just from the immediate neighborhood, but from other parts of the city, and even farther afield. Beer tourism is increasingly popular, and craft beer drinkers visiting cities search out those neighborhoods with craft breweries and craft beer bars. A craft brewery opening up in a neighborhood is akin to putting up a welcome sign. It is saying to people, come check us out. This neighborhood is ok; good things are happening. In some cases, such as the Ohio City neighborhood in Cleveland, OH or the Lower Downtown (LoDo) neighborhood in Denver, CO, craft breweries (Great Lakes Brewing Company and Wynkoop Brewing Company respectively) were pioneer investors who kick-started the redevelopment of these respective neighborhoods. In other cases, such as the Pearl District in Portland, OR or the North Davidson (NoDa) neighborhood in Charlotte, NC the craft breweries and craft beer bars have followed other investment into the neighborhood. Whatever the sequencing of investments, many of these neighborhoods have had new life breathed into them.

Great Lakes Brewing Company was the catalyst for the redevelopment of Cleveland’s Ohio City neighborhood

According to Denver Public Library, “back in the 1980s, Lower Downtown Denver was what we called “a little sketchy” – a lot of places were boarded up, and ones that were open were populated by the underground crowd, drifters, punk rockers and late nighters. Today, the bustling restaurant – sports bar – brew pub district looks like the Seattle or Portland we all longed for, with a huge variety of food choices both native and exotic, all kinds of great beer, espresso, chocolate, and other delicacies, and a wide array of clothing and accessory stores, art galleries, and high-end lofts.”

Back in 2016, I spent a few days in Stockholm, Sweden. While there I visited the Nya Carnegie Bryggeret (New Carnegie Brewery). The brewery is in an old lightbulb factory in the Hammarby Sjöstad neighborhood. In the early 1990s, Hammarby Sjöstad was a run-down, polluted industrial and residential neighborhood that was considered unsafe by outsiders. By the time I visited it in 2016, it had underwent a remarkable transformation. As a result of significant investment, it was an attractive neighborhood with apartments, shops, offices and, yes, a brewery.

The Nya Carnegie Bryggeret (New Carnegie Brewery) in Stockholm’s HammarbySjöstad neighborhood is in an old lightbulbg factory

The example of Nya Carnegie Bryggeret shows that craft breweries often thrive in overlooked neighborhoods, but they can also succeed in overlooked buildings. Through the process of adaptive reuse, craft brewery entrepreneurs will take an old abandoned church, fire station, automobile dealership etc. and turn it into a vibrant craft brewery. Craft brewery entrepreneurs are attracted to distressed neighborhoods because real estate is often relatively inexpensive.

Some people living in an overlooked neighborhood, may like it that way. So they may not necessarily welcome a new brewery and other investment and the visitors that they attract. Rising property values may force long-standing residents out of the neighborhood. Along with my colleagues, Jay Gatrell and Matthew Lehnert, I write about this in an upcoming book chapter. The chapter looks at the historical evolution of Cincinnati’s Over-the- Rhine neighborhood. Despite once being dubbed the most dangerous neighborhood in the United States, residents of Over-the-Rhine had for decades been suspicious of outsiders and the change they sought to bring to the neighborhood. This suspicion manifest itself in the Over-the-Rhine Peoples’ Movement who fought against gentrification of their neighborhood. In the end, their cause was a lost one and millions of investment dollars later Over-the-Rhine is very much a changed and more vibrant neighborhood.

Further Reading:

Reid, Neil. Craft breweries, Adaptive reuse, and neighborhood revitalization, Urban Development Issues, Volume 57, Issue 1, pp. 5–14.

Reid, Neil, Jay D. Gatrell, and Matthew Lehnert. Leveraging brewing history: The case of Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine Neighborhood”. In Thakur, Rajiv, Ashok K. Dutt, Sudhir K. Thakur, and George Pomeroy (Eds). Urban and Regional Planning and Development: 20th Century Forms and 21st Century Transformations, Springer: Dordrecht (forthcoming).

Reid, Neil and Isabelle Nilsson. From mill district to brewery district: Craft beer and the revitalization of Charlotte’s NoDa neighborhood. Invited chapter for inclusion in Beer Places: The Micro-Geographies of Craft Beer, by Daina Cheyenne Harvey, Ellis Jones, and Nate Chapman (Eds).

Bars, Craft Breweries, Neighborhoods

Craft Breweries – A Neighborhood Amenity?

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Along with my colleague, Isabelle Nilsson of the University of North Carolina in Charlotte, I recently published a study that examined the impact of craft breweries on property values in the city of Charlotte, NC. In the study we looked a properties sold between 2002 and 2017 . To summarize our findings, we discovered that the opening of a craft brewery in Charlotte resulted in a 9.8 percent increase in the value of single-family homes and a 3.2 percent increase in the value of condominiums. Interestingly, the opening of a craft brewery had no impact on the value of commercial properties. Charlotte is a fast growing city with a vibrant craft brewing scene – twenty-one craft breweries opened in the city between March 2009 and October 2016.

Our study in the journal Growth and Change analyzed the relationship between craft breweries and property vales in Charlotte, NC

Our explanation for our findings is relatively straightforward. A craft brewery is, for many people, a neighborhood amenity. Imagine it is a warm June evening, and you decide that you would like to pop out for a couple of pints of craft beer. What could be better than being able to walk to the neighborhood craft brewery and doing just that. In a previous blog entry, I suggested that many craft breweries are emerging as a new type of Third Place on the American landscape – community gathering spots where people can go and enjoy a beer and relax, while engaging in conversation with other patrons. Being within walking distance of such places is clearly desirable. Indeed, this is a topic that I am going to talk about next month at the annual meeting of the Altoona Blair County Development Corporation.

I will be talking about craft breweries as Third Places at the 2019 Annual Meeting of the Altoona Blair County Development Corporation

But it’s not just proximity to a craft brewery that raises property values. Previous studies have shown that being near a Whole Foods, a Trader Joe’s, or a Starbucks also results in higher home’s values. It seems clear that people appreciate being able to walk to a nearby craft brewery, coffee shop, or grocery store. Indeed, a recent study by the American Planning Association found that fifty-six percent of Millennials prefer to live in walkable communities. And, as market research has clearly demonstrated, Millennials are the demographic cohort primarily responsible for the growth of craft beer. Walkability seems to valued by large swathes of American society. The same study found that forty-six percent of active Baby Boomers also prefer to live in walkable neighborhoods.

Heist Brewery, one of the breweries contributing to increased property values in Charlotte, NC

This semester I am teaching a graduate course in The Geography of Beer and Brewing at the University of Toledo. Students enrolled in the class have to write a term paper. One of the students is writing her paper on the topic of craft breweries and walkability. Walkability is a simple concept really – how friendly is a neighborhood to those who wish to walk to bars, restaurants, grocery stores etc? The walkability score of my neighborhood is 56 (that’s out of a maximum of 100). This makes it “somewhat walkable”, meaning that some of my errands can be accomplished on foot. You can calculate the walkability of your neighborhood by typing in your home address here. The website Walkscore.com identifies a number of factors that determines a neighborhood’s walkability. These include schools and places of employment being within walking distance for most residents, streets being designed with bicyclists, pedestrians, and public transportation in mind, and the provision of plentiful of public spaces where residents can gather and relax. Bekka, my student is focusing on craft breweries in San Diego, CA and is examining the extent to which they are located in walkable neighborhoods. As I write this, she is still in the middle of analyzing the data that she has gathered. I am curious as to what her findings will show.

Just as living near a craft brewery (or a Whole Foods or a Starbucks) may enhance the value of your home, so does living in a walkable neighborhood more generally. The real estate brokerage company Redfin analyzed the impact of walkability on home prices across fourteen major metropolitan areas in the United States. They found that, on average, increasing the Walk Score by just a single point results in a 0.9% increase in home prices.

A potential concern of living near an establishment where alcohol is served is that it could potentially result in more crime in the neighborhood. And there are some studies that have shown higher crime rates in the immediate neighborhoods surrounding bars. This may not be the case when it comes to craft breweries, however. In a previous post guest-blogger Julie Wartell provided data from Portland, OR which suggested that crime rates are lower in the immediate environs (within fifty feet) of a craft brewery than in the immediate environs of a regular bar. The explanation as to why this might be the case are unclear. However, it may have something to do with both the attitude of both the craft beer drinker and the craft breweries that sell their beer in their on-site taprooms. According to Kris Spaulding of Brewery Vivant in Grand Rapids, MI, craft beer is “more about enjoying the craft than getting drunk”. As Fritz Hahn, a writer for the Washington Post, stated, “I’d rather drink beer longer, not get drunk faster”. Brewery Vivant also has a four-drink maximum for its patrons. I am not aware of any scientific studies comparing the drinking preferences and habits of craft beer versus non-craft beer drinkers, but my gut feeling is that the observation of Kris Spaulding is not far off the mark.

Later this year, Isabelle and I (in collaboration with another colleague) hope to expand our analysis of craft breweries and property values to include more cities. At the moment we do not know how many cities we will include in our expanded analysis, or what those cities will be. But I expect that we will include cities in different parts of the country, cities of different sizes, and cities on different socio-economic trajectories (e.g., shrinking versus growing cities). By doing so, we will be able to draw conclusions that are more generalizable. Watch this space!

Further Reading:

Nilsson, Isabelle and Neil Reid. 2019. The value of a craft brewery: On the relationship between craft breweries and property values. Growth and Change, https://doi.org/10.1111/grow.12292