New American Paradigm

Streetcar Architecture

A funny thing happens when you change transportation infrastructure like Portland, Oregon has; building design adapts to it.

Portland's future and its past intersect at 28th Avenue and East Burnside.

A hundred feet or so from an old red brick trolley barn -- long since converted to offices -- workers are constructing an eye-catching, four-story condo with ground-floor retail.

Stunning as it is with its protruding, stucco-boxed balconies, the Sunrose Condominiums traces its pedigree right back to the trolley barn era. A century ago, many buildings on commercial streets served by streetcars were built with storefronts flush to the sidewalks and with one or two stories of apartments or offices above.

The interesting thing about this is that many cities, my own included, are trying to force development into these old standards.  But what we're finding is that the market naturally heads in that direction when you bring back the old transportation techniques.

In addition to being more aesthetically pleasing and environmentally sensitive, this type of development is also inherently more sustainable.  The retailers on the bottom floors have built in customers, and also nighttime residents with a vested interest in keeping an eye on criminal activity in the area.

Separating uses not only forces us into cars, but it creates a system unfairly gamed in favor of big business over small.

Sprawl Repair

Even if the age of sprawl is behind us, the effects of development into exurban and rural areas is with us for a long time.  But what do we do to make what's already done better?

We've talked previously about the perils of sprawl here, here, and here.  Galina Tahchieva, a planner with Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co., gave a presentation on the subject at the Congress for the New Urbanism convention in Denver.  Ruth Walker has the highlights:

1. Improve connectivity of the streets by imposing a grid on them and looking for ways to connect the dots, and the cul-de-sacs.

This is perhaps the most obvious.  Cul-de-sacs have come to define sprawl in the same way gridded streets define urban areas.  I actually grew up on a cul-de-sac which might make a person think I'm sympathetic; but in fact it made their absurdity more obvious.  In order to get to the library and shopping area 50 meters from my house, I had to walk a mile eventually ending up on a busy arterial with no sidewalk.  Small wonder people drove everywhere.

Light Rail Of the Future - ULTra

Ever wonder what the future would will look like if we grow brains and actually thought about what sensible transportation solutions would look like?  I know this looks like it's some futuristic utopian system that you might see at a World's Fair or Epcot Center... but this has actually been built at Heathrow Airport and opening this fall.

Peter Calthorpe, author of The Regional City: Planning for the End of Sprawl, said of the project:

"All the advantages of New Urbanism - its compact land saving density, its walkable mix of uses, and its integrated range of housing opportunities - would be supported and amplified by a circulation system that offers fundamentally different choices in mobility and access. Smart Growth and new Urbanism have begun the work of redefining America's twenty-first century development paradigms. Now it is time to redefine the circulation armature that supports them. It is short sighted to think that significant changes in land-use and regional structure can be realized without fundamentally reordering our circulation system."

New Urbanism: The Movie

A primer to New Urbanism, in a video with jokes and music.  What's not to like?

It even says "Yo!" when you're supposed to pay attention.

George Will Defends Sprawl

George Will is sad.  It seems he expected the only Republican in Obama's cabinet not in charge of blowing stuff up (shout-out to Secretary Gates) to be more reliably in favor of conservative principles, like the right to build whatever you want, wherever you want ugly strip malls and McMansions.  Unfortunately, Secretary of Transportation Ray Lahood, uses words that Will finds depressing like "transformational" and "Portland."

What the WHAT?  He writes:

LaHood, however, has been transformed. Indeed, about three bites into lunch, the T word lands with a thump: He says he has joined a "transformational" administration: "I think we can change people's behavior." Government "promoted driving" by building the Interstate Highway System—"you talk about changing behavior." He says, "People are getting out of their cars, they are biking to work." High-speed intercity rail, such as the proposed bullet train connecting Los Angeles and San Francisco, is "the wave of the future." And then, predictably, comes the P word: Look, he says, at Portland, Ore.

Re-Use of Closed Auto Dealers

Over the next few months I expect a question will emerge in communities across the country as GM and Chrysler announce they'll cut a total of 2000 dealerships with Ford surely to follow suit in the near future.  What do we do with the land they once occupied?

This is a question my town, Gig Harbor Washington, has been wrestling with over the last couple years after the Ford and Chevrolet dealerships closed.  You don't realize just how much land these sites take up until you see them closed and the buildings demolished.  It's a question the Daily Green attempts to answer in this article outlining the opportunities and problems.

One critical issue is that the closures will almost certainly be concentrated in the suburbs and exurbs.  The sites were once attractive for the cheap land and access to eager consumers dependent on cars.  But as we've noted before, the days of sprawl are over and it's unlikely the manufacturers will let their more productive urban dealerships go.  Unfortunately, many small communities sought out car dealers hungry for the sales tax they provide and now, with already distressed budgets, could be looking at gaping holes in their economy.  So the trick will be resisting the easy fix and allowing or even encouraging more sprawling development.

Why Are Americans Driving Less?

Infrastructurist has the details on some great news.  Americans are driving less, ending a steady climb in vehicle miles traveled since... well forever.

 

But it brings up an interesting question.  Is this really a change in behavior or just a reaction to increase in unemployment and reduction in discretionary trips.  Nate Silver, of FiveThirtyEight fame, takes a stab at digging into the stats.  Even though he was wrong about the Oscars, he's right about everything else.  He figures:

Healthy Cities Healthy Economy

The Congress for New Urbanism, commissioned by a group called CEOs for Cities, released the results of a study on how New Urbanist growth strategies pays off economic dividends.  If you watch the video, try your best to ignore the awful music, they apparently spent all their money on the research itself. 

The study found that the recent push for growth into rural areas has had disastrous results which we've explored here and here.  Perhaps most importantly, it finds that returning to development in cities over exurbs, is the key ingredient to solving any number of our nation's most pressing problems.   Haven't we all been searching for a silver bullet for climate change, lack of affordable housing, obesity, and excessive personal and public debt?