Walkable is In

Nothing gets the point across better than a simple drawing like this by the New Urbanists:

 

On the subject of walkability... no other mode of transport compares in ease or pleasure. A few days ago our family took a nice bike ride to Newport. The ride was a lot of fun, but I was struck how much more complicated and difficult it was than our usual walk to the Library or Fountain Square. You can't really carry a conversation while biking, and one kid requires a special seat with a seatbelt, both require helmets that they have trouble with, add some mechanical difficulties, and then trying to park them in a safe spot and carrying the helmets around all adds up to a strained day. Really, nothing beats a walk.

City Journal New Urbanist Critique

City Journal article about New Urbanists tells them to quit talking about global warming and be cool. By being cool, she means: get the buy-in from the community and work at transforming community from the bottom up (as opposed to working from the top by changing zoning or lending rules for example):

The New Urbanism and suburban sprawl have something in common: they’re uncool. New Urbanism is uncool because it is basically traditional; modernism is still the thing in architecture...

Why all the worry about what’s cool? ...In many ways it’s a conservative approach to building communities, which probably accounts for its not being in fashion.
....
... “there’s no indication that the system of building in this country is even dented.” In other words, sprawl still reigns, and so do the sundry forms of architectural dysfunction afflicting the nation’s public realm. The New Urbanists have changed the conversation, but they haven’t changed the world. At least, not yet.
.....
Modernist construction... is typically a matter of reduced up-front construction costs and elevated maintenance costs. (It’s pretty much the same story in the subdivisions, where construction of ordinary tract houses and McMansions alike has become increasingly shoddy.) New Urbanists ... are entirely correct to speak of the ... solidly crafted, and enduring classical architecture as “frugal.” Truly frugal and indeed “sustainable” architecture involves making buildings that people will love for many years to come.

If the New Urbanists are to fulfill their movement’s vast potential as a force for cultural renewal, though, they must do a better job of addressing the public.

...(NUrbanists are) indifferent to the ways in which sprawl is deeply rooted in the American experience, especially the postwar experience of fabulous material progress. The supercilious attitude ....toward the American way of life—which sprawl has epitomized for some time, like it or not—is easily taken for upper-middle-class snobbery. This simply reinforces the New Urbanists’ status as a yuppie cult.
....
...New Urbanists need to focus on a vision that supports the resurgence of an architectural culture—which is precisely what we haven’t got now. Sprawl, generally speaking, is a utilitarian phenomenon with minimal artistic value. It does not involve vision. Its practical advantages, as embraced by millions of Americans, are real, but from a design standpoint it represents unculture...

...As for sprawl, you don’t have to be losing sleep over rising sea levels to regard it as a deeply problematic habitat, or even an ecologically wasteful and objectionable one.

.... Our system... takes no account of the developer of vision who looks beyond the investment cycle to build on the best of our civic-art heritage...

...New Urbanism should not operate as a top-down phenomenon, but as a locally oriented movement that builds from the bottom up. Even if it became politically feasible, attempts to mainstream New Urbanism by bureaucratic diktat...would simply turn New Urbanism into mass-market kitsch...

... building a community cannot be a libertarian exercise... you would need a founder—a leader ... Such a leader would have the guts to scorn the bureaucratic minutiae of “process” politics and stake his authority and prestige on a principled judgment: “This is how we should build here.” Grounded in vision and culture, such leadership could build a community for future generations informed by the noble achievements of the past. ...

The New Urbanists... need to... focus on the formidable task of cultivating political leaders across the ideological spectrum who have the gumption to redeem the nation’s urban landscape—one community at a time.

Qualls a Green New Urbanist

New Urbanists are somewhat split between those who consider themselves modernist and those that prefer traditional architecture and design. There are further divisions in this movement, for example, some favor rehabilitation of existing cities and buildings and some favor new development.

Some members of the Congress for the New Urbanism have been proponents of adding Green issues to the CNU Charter. Traditionalists have been skeptical of this, saying that traditionally designed cities and buildings are inherently green and sustainable.

Cincinnati Councilmember, Roxanne Qualls is a proponent of the green movement. A group was formed and met late last year in DC to draft principles or "canons" that would be presented to the annual CNU meeting in April 2008.

At the annual meeting in Austin, Texas, on April 5th, Roxanne became one of the first signers of the Canons of Sustainable Architecture and Urbanism.

here is a PDF file of the canons.

Qualls Supports Form-Based Codes

 

I was taken aback, when in a recent interview with The Beacon, Roxanne Qualls mentioned "form-based codes". The rest of the interview is peppered with similar revelations, but that is the first time I have ever heard a politician.... much less a local politician, even mention form-based codes. Here is the relevant quote:

2. Maintain and strengthen the compact, pedestrian oriented, mixed-use neighborhoods of our city. This goes beyond reforming the zoning code. It means putting in place form-based codes that reinforce the unique character of our neighborhoods, simplify permitting processes, speed development, all the while reflecting the aspirations and goals of the residents. It means combing through all the codes that impact our existing buildings and, without sacrificing safety, finding those codes that add costs and delays to renovation and rehab.

For those of you who read this blog, but do not keep up with the New Urbanism movement or the particulars of Zoning Codes, let me summarize what this means.

Form based zoning codes are about the shape, location and density of buildings. They emphasize the creation of beautiful streetscapes. See the diagram at the top of this post. It is called a Urban to Rural Transect. Differing parts of a region or city are classified T-1 to T-6, and this classification determines all the zoning requirements. It does not determine the uses allowed.

Most zoning laws, including Cincinnati's are "use-based'. This means if you are zoned R, you can build a house. If you are zoned M, you can build a factory. Use-based zoning is a disaster for cities because they emphasize the separation of work and home. If you live in a residentially zoned neighborhood, you generally cannot operate a business there. Frankly, I do not want to live in such a residential ghetto, and a growing number of Americans share my distaste for such places.

A successful urban neighborhood depends on this mixture of uses, and it seems Ms. Qualls has studied the issue and come to the same conclusion.

Read more about the transect and form based codes.

Kids in Cities Concept Paper

In this entry, I will attempt to summarize the Kids in Cities Concept Paper, which can be read in full here. PDF here.

First they establish the obvious, which is the value of more children in cities. They summarize that Parents and Children:
1. Add to the vibrancy and diversity
2. Are strong advocates for amenities
3. Strengthen the ecosystem of civic-minded citizens
4. Add to the tax base
5. Grow the future urban citizens.

Then they discuss how most cities have been losing families for the past 50 years and how many of them have become virtual kid-free zones. The project is about how to reverse this long-term trend.

Then they divide parents into the following subgroups:

 

The misleading part about this diagram is the equal size of the squares, because the suburban loyalists probably make up a great majority of all parents in the US. But it does serve the purpose to understand the potential targets, and the target of the paper, is how to attract the swing vote. I don't like the term Urban Pioneer, and think Urban Loyalist is a better description for the current city parents.

The urban loyalist values: diversity, density and vibrancy.
The swing vote values: space, safety and schools

Space, Safety and Schools must be addressed to attract the swing vote. An extensive study was made of existing urban loyalists, and a lot of attention was paid to their “pain points” and their “work-arounds”. Finally they propose ways to change these duct-tape solutions into opportunities.

Redefinition is one strategy. For example:
• Safety: Majority perceive the city as unsafe, however the density and diversity of people provide many eyes on the street, and children are kept safe by the many people they know in the neighborhood.
• Space: Apartments are expensive compared to half-acre lot in suburbs, however cities offer many adjacent spaces used to extend the home. The entire city is my backyard!
• Schools: City schools perform badly; however, the city offers many out-of –the-classroom learning experiences. The entire city is my classroom!


Some concepts leaders could start to implement:

SAFETY
Messaging: Safe routes can be established and marked, and businesses can be certified as child friendly.
Services: A simple pre-paid card could allow children a network of safe travel on public transit or even taxis. Child-only areas can be established near the driver of buses and trains.

SPACE
Private Space
- flexible space apartments
- older generation can act as a network of providers that swing vote trusts
- time share model for shared spaces or shared sitters or nannies.

Public Space
- car free zones for safe play
- happy hour for families
- stroller lockers, family rest stops
- k-games, interactive kiosks with scavenger hunts, mazes, city history

SCHOOLS
- Website or school liaison should consolidate school information.
- Help children become involved in shaping their community. Families could network via web to search for learning and volunteer opportunities for children. In this effort children will learn real-life lessons.
- Cities have a concentration of experts in certain fields and each city has certain strengths that could be utilized. For example, architects run a program “architecture for kids” that utilized the buildings around them.

I guess I was surprised that the paper did not discuss the things you most commonly hear such as bike trails, parks, affordable housing, daycare, afterschool care, more neighborhood policing etc. I thought the first half was excellent as it reviewed the current strengths of city life vs the growing weakness of suburban life (alienation, less safety, car issues etc). The proposed concepts were a bit underwhelming. I agree with the ideas, but there was nothing revolutionary here. Maybe that is the point. Small adjustments could make life better for us while also signaling to swing voters that they are wanted.

Contested Streets

Should our streets be safe for all types of vehicles and pedestrians, or should they be car sewers, with their only function to move as many cars as fast as possible? I would really like to see this movie. The trailer itself is a good watch.

New Urbanism and Slow Food

A connection is made between the two movements of slow food and new urbanism:

Slow Urbanism encourages people to create whole neighborhoods; to celebrate local community building traditions; and to take time—this is the important (and fun part) -to enjoy community life with family and friends.”

Quest for Community in America - Quote

... the nostalgia for the small town need not be construed as directed toward the town itself: it is rather a "quest for community" - a nostalgia for a compassable and integral living unit. The critical question is not whether the small town can be rehabilitated in the image of its earlier strength and growth - for clearly it cannot - but whether American life will be able to evolve any other integral community to replace it. This is what I call the problem of place in America, and unless it is somehow resolved, American life will become more jangled and fragmented than it is, and American personality will continue to be unquiet and unfulfilled.

Max Lerner, America as a Civilization, 1953

Indicator Species

"Children are a kind of indicator species. If we can build a successful city for children, we will have a successful city for all people."

– Enrique Peñalosa, Mayor of Bogata, Colombia 1998-2001

The Third Place

As good a definition as any for the so-called "third Place".:

"A community life exists when one can go daily to a given location at a given time and see many of the people one knows."

-Philip Slater

Jane Jacobs Quote #2

We can see around us, from the days preceding project building, many examples of decaying city neighborhoods built up all at once... Every city has such physically homogeneous neighborhoods.

Usually just such neighborhoods have been handicapped in every way, so far as generating diversity is concerned. We cannot blame their poor staying power and stagnation entirely on their most obvious misfortune: being built all at once. Nevertheless, this is one of the handicaps of such neighborhoods, and unfortunately its effects can persist long after the buildings have become aged.

When such an area is new, it offers no economic possibilities to city diversity. The practical penalties of dullness, from this and other causes, stamp the neighborhood early. It becomes a place to leave.

Neighborhoods built up all at once change little physically over the years as a rule. The little physical change that does occur is for the worse - gradual dilapidation, a few random, shabby new uses here and there. People look at these few, random differences and regard them as evidence, and perhaps as a cause, of drastic change. Fight blight! They regret that the neighborhood has changed. Yet the fact is physically it has changed remarkably little. People's feelings about it, rather have changed. The neighborhood shows a strange inability to update itself, enliven itself, repair itself, or to be sought after, out of choice, by a new generation. It is dead. Actually, it was dead from birth, but nobody noticed this much until the corpse began to smell.

Finally comes the decision, after exhortations to fix up and fight blight have failed, that the whole thing must be wiped out and a new cycle started... A new corpse is laid out. It does not smell yet, but it is just as dead, just as incapable of the constant adaptions and permutations that make up the process of life.

There is no reason why this dismal, foredoomed cycle need be repeated. If such an area is examined to see which of the other three conditions for generating diversity are missing, and then those missing conditions are corrected as well as they can be, some of the old building must go: extra streets must be added, the concentration of people must be heightened, room for new primary uses must be found, public and private. But a good mingling of the old building must remain, and in remaining, they will have become something more than mere decay from the past or evidence of previous failure. They will have become the shelter which is necessary, and valuable to the district, for many varieties of middling-, low- and no-yield diversity. The economic value of new buildings is replaceable in cities. It is replaceable by the spending of more construction money. But the economic value of old buildings is irreplaceable at will. It is created by time. This economic requisite for diversity is a requisite that vital city neighborhoods can only inherit, and then sustain over the years.

page 198, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, published 1961

Privacy in the city

Jane Jacobs spends a lot of time writing about the need for the city to accommodate strangers. When I first read this, I thought she was giving too much attention to a minor topic. I mean, you can always pull your shade, right? But the longer I live in the city, the more I see that the issue is much deeper than that.

People want the freedom to become friends with only the people they choose. They do not want to share all their private lives with all the neighbors. A good city neighborhood allows people to know lots and lots of acquaintances, but importantly allows those people to also have private lives.

Perhaps I am being to abstract to make much sense, so I will try an example:

The playground. At a well designed and well-attended playground, your child can meet and play with lots of other kids, and if you wish you can strike up a conversation with other parents, while they sit in the shade and watch; or you can sit and mind your own business. However, if play is limited to private areas such as yards, courtyards, or even to inside, then the parents are forced closer than they want to be to the other families. Families in this situation may choose to stay isolated, rather than open their private space to all kinds of strangers.

Residents of small towns, are forced to be intimate with neighbors. This could be good, but it could also be bad. See, I would rather choose who I become intimate with.

Suburbanites have the choice of following their little kids to the neighbors yard, (if you want to supervise them), or you can drive them to the local park to play. The real result of this arrangement is that families pick neighborhoods that are full of people very similar to themselves. Then, forced intimacy is more likely to be ok.

The advantage of city life is the huge variety and degrees of friendships that are available. Because you are not forced into intimacy with everyone, the range of people you feel comfortable living next to is much more diverse.

Jane Jacobs quote #1

It is futile to try to evade the issue of unsafe city streets by attempting to make some other features of a locality, say interior courtyards, or sheltered play spaces, safe instead. By definition again, the streets of a city must do most of the job of handling stangers for this is where strangers come and go. The streets must not only defend the city against predatory strangers, they must protect the many, many peaceable and well-meaning strangers who use them, insuring their safety too as they pass through. Moreover, no normal person can spend his life in some artificial haven, and this includes children. Everyone must use the streets.

-from The Death and Life of Great American Cities, page 35-36.