Urban Small Ball

ROCHESTER - My favorite metaphor for our city's renaissance is baseball. Some may say this is because I am into sports too much. I prefer to believe it is just too apt to pass up. Rebuilding a city is better done by playing 'small ball' than swinging for the fences. What exactly does this mean? In small ball, you hit singles, lay down bunts, steal bases, etc. This tends to lead to runs in bunches. Swinging for the fences can offer big rewards, but percentage-wise, more often leaves you empty. Investing in housing stock, cleaning up trash and public art is urban small ball. Fast ferries, stadiums and large scale projects are swings for the fences. Downtown amenities, like a refurbished Manhattan Square Park, are also urban small ball.

Joe "Greatest Coach Ever" Paterno often says, take care of the little things and the big picture will take care of itself. Mayor Bob Duffy must believe this because he has focused quite a bit of energy on quality of life issues. Starting with Clean Sweep, Duffy signaled that if we each take care of our own neighborhoods, collectively the city will improve. This increases the morale of the city, and tends to do so at a fraction of the cost. The good news of the city's revival has come in a trickle. A tidbit here and a tidbit there. This trickle, however, is steady. If it continues, we are in great shape.

The latest tidbit is Manhattan Square Park re-opening its ice rink. This is welcome news for those of us that skate (or try) in the city. It adds a nice little amenity to our lives, especially important in winter when our recreational options are limited. But wait, there's more! Not only has the rink re-opened, the facility has been refurbished. The heating shelter has been expanded to include heated floors and a fire place. I would be sold right there. Yet, the city found that by changing the shape from an oval to a kidney shape, they could increase the size of the rink itself by 30 percent. If all that wasn't enough, the city even bought new skates to replace the garage sale looking stock they currently had. I can't wait to take my first fall, uh, skate around the new rink.

I think we forget, sometimes, how effective smaller quality of life improvements can be to a city and to its overall morale. The news is filled with the large projects, just as ESPN is filled with big home runs and big strikeouts. We should remember that although those things fill the highlight reels, in the end, you win with fundamentals. On the baseball diamond it is advancing runners and scoring runs whereas on the urban diamond it is investing in neighborhoods and small scale projects. It seems our city has finally embraced small ball, and that is why we will win.