Sprawled Out: The Search for Community in the American Suburb

"Walking buses" and veggies: Town residents come together to make healthy lifestyle changes

Judy Dilling (left) and Jen Chalmers (in red) help walk Lakeview Elementary School students home as part of the Vitality Project's "walking buses" last week in Albert Lea, Minn. The project has added an average 3.1 years to the lives of residents through improved diet, exercise and living habits.

With organizers' help, the city crammed five years of sidewalk and bike trail construction into a year to make exercise easier for its 18,000 residents. Restaurants added healthier menu options and grocery stores showcased wholesome foods. People snacked on fruits and veggies more and ate less fast food.

Schools stopped celebrating birthdays with sugary treats and started setting up "walking buses" that allowed kids to walk to and from school together with adult supervision. Employers gave workers time to exercise.

Organizers say the first-of-its kind experiment added an average 3.1 years to the longevity of about 2,300 residents who calculated their life spans by answering 36 lifestyle questions dubbed the "vitality compass."

Read the rest at: Town residents come together to make healthy lifestyle changes - JSOnline

Save Franklin's historic water tower

Just kidding. Good riddance.

Trading one towering element for another - FranklinNOW.

Sustainable Design: all in the details

From Master Plan to Specs: Sustainable Design in Detail | Congress for the New Urbanism:

As planners, and advocates for healthier place making and urbanism, we often talk about the importance of scale. We recognize that city planning must be comprehensive in that the various scales of planning including the region, city, block, street, and building all must be addressed. Sustainable planning can be mapped on a spectrum of needs from the “big picture” of design all the way down to the specifications of individual buildings. It’s the attention to details the matter.

In a short article from copenhagenize.com, a small effort to improve bicyclist’s commute is demonstrated through the convenient placement of trash bins along bicycle paths. This may seem like an insignificant detail within the large realm of sustainable planning, but such efforts, catering to environmentally friendly methods of travel should be commended.

Speaking for myself, and the large community of supporters of New Urbanism, it’s refreshing to see little ways that pedestrians are taking precedent in an ever growing vehicular dominated society. Small efforts to support pedestrian and environmentally friendly places are integral to the overall success of the urban fabric. After all, it’s important to be reminded of whom we are planning for; those who live in the communities we are designing, improving and rallying for.

Read more here and here.

"Spurb" - Schott’s Vocab Blog - NYTimes.com

From Schott’s Vocab Blog - NYTimes.com:

Spurb

John F. Wasik’s term for “sprawling, unwalkable urban-suburban areas that have no connection to public transportation and central cities.”

Commenting on Mr. Wasik’s book, “The Cul-De-Sac Syndrome,” in The Daily Herald, a local paper in the Chicago area, Anna Marie Kukec wrote:

Still, Wasik draws much on his suburban roots for his books and has even touched on his own neighborhood in “Cul-De-Sac.” That book examines what caused the housing meltdown, how sprawl and tax breaks contributed to unaffordable homes and what could happen next.

As part of his examination, he even coined the term, “spurb,” or the sprawling urban area that’s not conveniently located near anything, like suburbs that seemingly spring out from the middle of a corn field, he said.

Writing for the Huffington Post in June, Mr. Waskik argued:

The spurb’s time has long past. Future energy demands from the rest of the world mean higher energy prices down the road. We need homes where there are jobs, infrastructure and transportation.

The tide is turning: Franklin takes a positive step toward community-building

Item G.6 on this past Tuesday's Common Council agenda reads innocently enough:

Reconstruction of S. 51st Street from W. Drexel Avenue to W. Puetz Road - 60 percent plan review and policy decision relative to additional funding in addition to the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) funding.

This issue was this: The stretch of 51st Street in front of Franklin High School is due for repaving. Despite its heavy use - and single entry-point to the school -  it has been without non-vehicular features (pedestrian and bike access) for as long as the high school has been there (approximately 1964). To simply re-do it as it is would be a lipstick-on-a-pig project, to be sure.

How did we get to this point? You may remember that, during the misguided "widen 51st Street" debacle, certain council members made a point of repeatedly saying that Franklin had "pretty much zero chance" of getting stimulus - aka American Reinvestment and Recovery Act  -  funds (city engineer Jack Bennett: "A chance in a million"; alderman Steve Taylor: "No chance in hell"; alderman Steve Olson: "We will not receive any federal dollars" ), therefor it was senseless to sweat the details.

At that juncture, the list considered for submission for the "no chance in hell" stimulus grant looked like this:

a) W. Puetz Road (S. Street to St. Martins Road)
b) S. Street (Puetz Road to Drexel Avenue)
c) S. 51st Street (North of Rawson Avenue to College Avenue in Greendale; the potential widened road)
d) Additional Project

These projects were chosen without public input based on what the city had in its medium range plans. The 51st Street item was particularly troubling in that it proposed a by-default widening the road; city administrators can deny it all they want, but the only plan filed at that point was indeed a default widening plan.

I addressed these auto-centric proposals in a post entitled "Common Council Tonight: Slouch toward mediocrity or reach for excellence?", which includes some background on how the projects were chosen.

I addressed the council on March 17th, saying in part:

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding should not be used to expand a system of roads that do not provide safe travel for people who are walking or bicycling. Too many Franklin streets are designed wide and fast, without sufficient sidewalks, crosswalks or bicycle lanes.

We, in fact, CREATE traffic with huge roads and no alternative.

Now we have an opportunity for a new approach. there's not a lot of time.

We currently have little or no consideration given for the safety of older people, children, or people with disabilities.

These incomplete streets are dangerous and create barriers for people to get to jobs, school, the doctor, and fully participate in civic life....

...

... I fear that Franklin seems content to ignore opportunities to increase connectivity and instead continues to encourage volume and throughput.

I have a list of almost 600 Wisconsin bicycle and pedestrian projects funded or co-funded by the federal government from 1993 to 2007. Franklin does not appear once.

We're going to have to address this.

As for 51st street: There are clear and ready-to-implement street schemes that can be deployed there to make it a neighborhood amenity and increase commercial foot traffic.

So let’s get on that.

I was far from the only one to speak out. The council heard from many, many residents who sounded a common theme: Why always automatically widen roads? Why can't we walk or bike anywhere in this city? Why no connectivity? Don't we care about the safety of children and the elderly?

It was a watershed moment made possible by the revelation that Franklin's stimulus requests threatened to be "business as usual" - auto-centric, and connectivity-be-damned. Responsive to the enormous amount of public input received, Mayor Taylor submitted a veto aimed at A) dismantling the poorly birthed project list and, B) constructing instead a list that addresses resident's concerns about safety, walkability, and accessibility.

Not everyone thought there was particular value in the discussion prompted by the aborted stimulus application items. Alderman Steve Olson - who repeatedly mentioned his own "lack of memory" at Tuesday's meeting, by the way - said the following months ago at the March 31st meeting:

The reality is, is - and I'm going to say it - this meeting tonight is a monumental waste of time. This common council and you all have had your time wasted for the last three weeks. We will not receive any federal dollars. We do not qualify for federal dollars based on the criteria that now comes before us. So this action item, whether the mayor's veto is withheld or overridden is meaningless, just as my colleagues have said.

The discussion that we're about to have is again a waste of time because we're not going to get federal dollars. We don't qualify. So, for my part I apologize that you're here. I'm glad that you're here; it's good to have people at common council meetings - you know, frankly, I get a little tired of seeing nobody here, so I'm glad you're here. But I think there are better things you could be doing with your time than worrying about a four-lane road that's just not going to happen.

Fortunately, my district's alderman, Kristen Wilhelm, and Mayor Taylor disagreed with Olson ("we will not receive any federal dollars") and made sure public input was gathered and weighed prior to our application for funds. The discussions and meetings for which alderman Olson had such little regard resulted in the decision that the stimulus application would concentrate on 51st Street in front of the high school. Furthermore, we were able to learn the following: Listening sessions - more "monumental wastes of time"? - reiterated and made clear that neighbors are very, very concerned with making that stretch of 51st in front of the high school, at long last, safe and accessible for non-vehicular traffic. That message was delivered without ambiguity.

Surprise: Franklin was granted a $1.5 million stimulus grant for 51st Street reconstruction.

Another surprise: Turns out City Engineer Jack Bennett submitted Franklin's stimulus funding request with plans and budgeting that DID NOT include the bike and pedestrian paths that all parties assumed were part of any plan for the street. In other words, the default plan (no paths) would go into effect if additional city funding could not be appended to the project to supplement the $1.5 million stimulus grant. With the grant, the city's expense to re-do the road with paths would still be cheaper than doing a road without paths minus the grant. Still, money's tight, right?

Long story short: On Tuesday night, this city took a huge step toward becoming a much more sustainable, attractive, and desirable community by altering the project slightly (putting off reconstructing the intersection, for instance) and preserving the pedestrian/bike paths that the community expects. A decision made for the citizens and not just their cars.

Aldermen Wilhelm, Solomon, and Skowronski voted for the re-budgeting and preservation of the paths plan; Alderman Olson voted against; Aldermen Sohns and Taylor were not present.

It's one small portion of the city, but a good, positive policy step; the people have been heard. Taken in combination with possible action by the Trails Committee regarding a Safe Routes to School program and its attention to 51st Street directly north of the intersection in question, Franklin is making strides toward improving its character and desirability by becoming more than simply a collection of subdivisions.

More later ....

The library discovers Facebook

If you're on Facebook, please become a fan of the Franklin Public Library, our community's most vital - and, arguably, only - public space. It's an easy way to keep up with programs and services offered at the library, a great city resource that we cannot take for granted.

Wondering why we don't bother building community amenities anymore?

I'm long overdue in noting the unfortunate end of the Franklin Cultural Center board's efforts to fund and build an arts center here. The organization was chaired by Don Dorson (read his letter after the jump). So much for local community amenities.

I also just started reading a newly published book called THE CUL-DE-SAC SYNDROME: TURNING AROUND THE UNSUSTAINABLE AMERICAN DREAM. And there's Franklin - a favorite for authors and journalists needing an object lesson in sprawl economics -  on page 53:

High-growth areas nearly always translate into higher property taxes. One study in Dane County, Wisconsin, where the tax burden is among the highest in the United States, showed that while the county's population grew 12 percent from 1990 to 1996, total property taxes soared 3.57 times faster than the population. Part of the reason is that developers rarely pay the long-term costs of building communities. Impact fees are often minimal.

Once subdivisions are built, builders are off the hook to fund schools parks, roads, and other infrastructure. In fact, the disparity between what a single-family home costs taxpayers and what developers pay is huge. In Franklin, Wisconsin, just south of Milwaukee, each new home cost taxpayers more than $10,000 for schools and services in 1992 (it was considerably more by 2008). The developer's contribution: $813 per home. Impact fees vary from locale to locale, but they never cover the full cost of development.

Is Franklin ready for Safe Routes to School?

Rabbit path: The current walking/biking route from the Hillendale subdivision to Pleasant View Elementary

Last night the Franklin Trails Committee, of which I am a member, met for the second time since its formation. It's mission is to address the creation of a pedestrian and bike path or trail on or near 51st street between Rawson and Drexel, while also discussing citywide non-vehicular connectivity.

The very first hurdle the Committee - and, by extension, the city of Franklin - needs to overcome is the outdated idea of bike and walking paths as purely recreational. Alderman Tim Solomon, a fellow member of the Trails Committee and also on the Parks Commission, seems especially prone to seeing non-vehicular trails as frivolous park-type amenities rather than vital elements of infrastructure. After all, up until now the city's trails have been under the direction of the Parks Commission, and our street system is notoriously unfriendly (read: deadly) to pedestrians and bikes.

After Alderman Solomon traced on a map a winding, Parks-proposed trail that eventually empties out onto 27th street, I was emphatic about defining the difference between UTILITY trails - which I believe the Trails Committee is charged with creating - and pure RECREATIONAL trails, which, while of great interest to me personally, do nothing whatsoever to facilitate the kind of connectivity in the city that will in turn encourage economic development. The trail Solomon traced described a potentially wonderful, winding course though fields and woodlands, but ultimately led from nowhere to nowhere - - another path where we need to build a parking lot next to it, perhaps?

I'd brought to the meeting a fairly voluminous amount of information on the state and federal Safe Routes to School program and associated grants. It's been clear for some time now that the area surrounding Pleasant View Elementary, which is a few hundred yards from 51st street, is woefully ill-equipped for accommodating non-vehicular traffic of kids and their parents who live mere blocks away (the entire city of Franklin is, of course, declared an unusually hazardous transportation area by the County Sheriff). Solving the 51st street conundrum and adding simple trails through currently unused land south of the school as well as improving crossings to the north on Rawson will make it possible for children in the subdivisions surrounding Pleasant View to choose to walk or bike to school and add connectivity to commercial sites on Rawson that could do with some foot traffic.

(Think this is an easy problem to tackle? Readers of this blog are aware of the torturous hand-wringing over whether to connect east toward 51st street or, inexplicably, send traffic through Hillendale subdivision.)

It turns out that the city has grant money available to build a sidewalk on the east side of 51st street from Drexel to Claire Meadows - - which seems fairly useless until you consider extending a path east from the West Evergreen stub-road through the vacant land south of Pleasant View.

Safe Routes to School offers fairly substantial grant dollars, but in order to have a chance at getting those funds the community - especially school officials - need to commit to a SRTS program that offers resources on everything from polling parents on their attitudes regarding walking or biking to suggesting sign placement and speed-abatement enforcement options.

So, in order to capture grant funds to help pay for improvements, Job One is to get the school administration on board with the Safe Routes to School program. Cross your fingers.

(See also Franklin Today.)

Suburban strip malls: There's no "there" there

Franklin's own Shoppes at Wyndham Village -- Good news: A handy Target store! Bad news: In no danger of being named one of the Great Places in America

Retrofitting Suburbia on suburban strip malls:

At best, the promise of freedom inherent to the road and the promise of self actualization promoted by consumerism endow the strip with the capacity to satisfy a broad range of individual needs and desires. At worst, the collective aspirations expressed by the commercial strip speak of the willing suppression of local identity by national systems of corporate investment and mass consumption.

More people staying put means more people involved in their community?

Joel Kotkin contends that "fewer Americans are relocating than at any time since 1962. That's good news for families, communities ... and even the environment."

Perhaps nothing will be as surprising about 21st-century America as its settledness. For more than a generation Americans have believed that "spatial mobility" would increase, and, as it did, feed an inexorable trend toward rootlessness and anomie. This vision of social disintegration was perhaps best epitomized in Vance Packard's 1972 bestseller A Nation of Strangers, with its vision of America becoming "a society coming apart at the seams." In 2000, Harvard's Robert Putnam made a similar point, albeit less hyperbolically, in Bowling Alone, in which he wrote about the "civic malaise" he saw gripping the country. In Putnam's view, society was being undermined, largely due to suburbanization and what he called "the growth of mobility."

Yet in reality Americans actually are becoming less nomadic. As recently as the 1970s as many as one in five people moved annually; by 2006, long before the current recession took hold, that number was 14 percent, the lowest rate since the census starting following movement in 1940. Since then tougher times have accelerated these trends, in large part because opportunities to sell houses and find new employment have dried up. In 2008, the total number of people changing residences was less than those who did so in 1962, when the country had 120 million fewer people. The stay-at-home trend appears particularly strong among aging boomers, who are largely eschewing Sunbelt retirement condos to stay tethered to their suburban homes—close to family, friends, clubs, churches, and familiar surroundings.

Read the rest at: Localism: Fewer Americans are Relocating - Newsweek.com