Snapshot: Closed Schools
Tags: Demographics, infrastructure, intergenerational neighbourhoods, Powell River, schools, seattle
Over the course of a few decades, a neighbourhood’s demand for school infrastructure can change dramatically. Changes in population size or composition fuel the need for new schools or erode the viability of existing ones. The effects of these demographic changes are highly localized, since the residential catchment area of an urban elementary school is generally less than a one kilometer radius around the school site.
Cranberry School in Powell River, BC, shown above, was closed in 1983. Its playing fields are still maintained and used by local sports teams, but children from the Cranberry neighbourhood now attend school in other parts of Powell River. To the dismay of local heritage preservationists, the Cranberry School building, built in 1930, sits empty and deteriorating.
Artwood Studios in Seattle, also pictured here, exemplifies the potential for creative reuse of surplus school buildings. Built in 1959, Cedar Park Elementary School served the surrounding suburban Lake City community until its closure in 1981 . Today, it is an artists’ live/work community that houses creative souls and their families along with several studios. The artists’ ongoing lease from the Seattle School District has evolved through dialogue and negotiation between the residents, the school district and the city’s Department of Construction and Land Use.
The Artwood Studios arrangement provides revenue for a school district and housing and work space for artists; tenants occupy a perfectly good building that might otherwise be torn down. Adaptive reuse of old school buildings is a great way to steward social infrastructure. That said, holistic planning would seek to moderate the demographic shifts that make old schools redundant in some areas while creating demand for new schools in other neighbourhoods.
For instance, suburban greenfield developments often provide uniform housing types that are designed to serve young families. As the children of original inhabitants grow up, the neighbourhood population ages en masse. An area that once housed a high proportion of young families eventually accommodates a high proportion of empty-nesters. Area schools serve fewer children, and may be closed or consolidated by school boards.
In contrast, fine-grained urbanism with a mix of housing types is designed to serve residents of all ages. A more diverse neighbourhood population places more stable demands on school facilities (and, perhaps, on other types of infrastructure like community centres). Since schools represent significant public investments in natural and cultural capital, it makes sense to foster neighbourhoods where school buildings do not become redundant within a single generation.
