Sprawled Out: The Search for Community in the American Suburb

New emphasis on pedestrian safety in Milwaukee

Focus groups found that Milwaukee visitors liked many things about the city but considered it unfriendly to pedestrians and believed police didn't care about ticketing drivers who cut off pedestrians in crosswalks, Milwaukee Downtown Executive Director Beth Nicols said.

In an effort to change that, police will be handing tickets to drivers who refuse to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks, Milwaukee police Capt. David Vahl said. Those tickets carry fines of $77 at intersections controlled by stoplights and $133 at intersections without stoplights. The tickets apply to not just marked crosswalks but also unmarked crosswalks, which are located at intersections in the same spots where marked crosswalks otherwise would be found.

Link: JS Online:Drivers must yield to pedestrians.

Unintended Social Comment Dept: "Um... Great Garage"

I'm struck by this full-page ad for many reasons.

First, as a person who occasionally works in advertising, I note the odd placement of the phrase "The Bentley Residence," (complete with incongruous comma) across the garage door. Is this the home of the Bentley family? Do they mean to say that a Bentley automobile lives inside the garage? Are the letters meant to be affixed somehow to the door?

Secondly, since Regency Builders bought a full page ad, one would assume they would want to feature what they consider a true "beauty shot" of their product. And what do we see? Garages (plural!), many square yards of cement, a downspout (almost brazenly front and center), immature shrub plantings, and an utterly fake "balcony" - - almost the epitome of all that is wrong with modern house design, presented without irony.

But, sadly, they got it right. Most houses today truly are "The Bentley Residence," and "The Pontiac Residence," "The Chevrolet Residence," "The Jeep Cherokee Residence," "The Land Rover Residence," "the Subaru Residence," etc.

Mostly empty city block may get big development

From The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

A local developer is proposing $104 million, 20-story project - including a hotel, condominiums, offices and shops - for an empty block in downtown Milwaukee's Park East redevelopment area.

Ruvin Development Inc. wants to build the mixed-use project on a site bordered by N. Old World 3rd St., N. 4th St., W. Juneau Ave. and W. McKinley Ave. The project would be among the largest downtown developments currently proposed.

The block is empty except for the Sydney Hih building, which Ruvin Development bought last year with plans of incorporating it into the development. The project also would include the former Gipfel Brewery, which Ruvin would move to the development site from 423-427 W. Juneau Ave.

Link: JS Online:Mostly empty city block may get big development.

Detroit area to lose an advocate

Good news for Illinois; bad news for Detroit.

The job of city manager is a common post in local suburbs. Its occupants are hired by elected politicians, and they are typically quiet, apolitical technocrats.

Tom Barwin, though, used his platform to become one of metro Detroit's most outspoken activists on two of the region's most vexing issues: mass transit and sprawl. His departure has ramifications far beyond 9 Mile and Woodward.

Observers say Ferndale's success has been the work of a variety of officials and businesspeople, but even those who sometimes opposed Barwin give him high marks for his performance.

"Tom did a great job in Ferndale," said Dan Dirks, general manager of the suburban bus system. "I think he is one of the best out there. We might disagree on some aspects, but I was impressed with his effort and stamina on the issue of mass transit. Tom has been dogged."

Esther Capaldi, a Ferndale resident for nearly 25 years, said, "The people in my book group joke about how Ferndale has become a 'destination.' I even hear people Up North talking about going to Ferndale."

A lanky man who sometimes wears a ball cap, even with a suit, Barwin, 52, was born in Detroit and raised in Warren. He worked in several other suburbs before taking the Ferndale job in March 1998.

His arrival, he said, coincided with a movement to overhaul the neighborhood of 9 Mile west of Woodward. Officials eventually slowed traffic by shrinking the road from four lanes to two, established on-street parking and convinced business owners to reorient their entrances from a big parking lot on the other side of their shops and restaurants to 9 Mile.

"We wanted a more human scale," he said. "We wanted people to slow down and appreciate what's here."

...Where Ferndale represents a version of New Urbanism, its opposites are the popular big-box complexes along M-59 in Macomb County or around Great Lakes Crossing in Oakland County.

Barwin's New Urbanistic beliefs run deep, and he became combative at times while advocating a light-rail line down Woodward or criticizing plans to expand I-75 through Oakland County from three lanes to four.

In 2003, Ferndale and two pro-transit community groups filed a lawsuit against the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments (SEMCOG), arguing that it's biased against Detroit and older suburbs and has promoted sprawl and discouraged investment in mass transit. The suit was dismissed.

SEMCOG spokeswoman Sue Stetler said no one was available from the regional planning body to speak about Barwin but added that the organization wishes him well.

Link: MOTOR CITY JOURNAL: Detroit area to lose an advocate.

The Office of Environmental Sustainability

The former manager of planning services for Oregon's Department of Land Conservation and Development is now Milwaukee's new director of its Office of Environmental Sustainability.

Link: JS Online:Ann Beier 'Takes Five'.

JS Online: Paddlers, progress in downtown Wausau

A nice story about my hometown in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (see my June 29 post):

It's not at all a bad thing for a city when a river runs through it.

It can be unfortunate, though, when a big wide freeway does, as many a city could attest. For many, Wausau is just the largest drive-through community on the way to northern Wisconsin, and viewed only through the windshield on I-39, which we of a certain age will ever know as Highway 51, not an exceptional one. There are mostly the usual suspects - fast-food outlets and big-box retailers - waving hello, and a seemingly endless period of highway construction hasn't added to the welcome.

But it only seems that all of the action is on the edges, where the malls and national chains have sunk shallow roots. There is also life in the city's downtown River District, some old, a lot new, well worth a visitor's time and attention.

Link: JS Online:Paddlers, progress in downtown Wausau.

"There is a real sense of community here," Mrs. Arad continued. "We know our neighbors. We've had dinner with them: Sumner Redstone and Paul Reiser."

Astounding, for so many reasons.

WHEN Irena Medavoy decided to build her dream home, on two flat acres above Beverly Hills, one thing was really important. "I wanted it warm, cozy, informal," she said, before demonstrating how the living room converts into a screening room. At the push of a button, a 20-foot-wide screen descended from the ceiling and three huge speakers rose from beneath the wood parquet floor. At the other end of the room, a floor-to-ceiling bookcase sank — Batcave-like — revealing a projection room hidden behind it.

By the standards of North Beverly Park, the gated community where Mrs. Medavoy and her husband, the Hollywood producer Mike Medavoy, live, their home — 11,000 square feet in an East Coast traditional style — actually is cozy....

..."I was kind of shocked at first — how big it is," said Mrs. [Avi] Arad, a sculptor. "But you get used to it. Now all the closets are full."

"There is a real sense of community here," Mrs. Arad continued. "We know our neighbors. We've had dinner with them: Sumner Redstone and Paul Reiser..."

....On a recent Friday, Mrs. Medavoy set the table for her weekly dinner and a movie, mostly for neighbors. That night's feature was "The Break-Up" with Jennifer Aniston, just out in theaters, which a messenger from Universal had just delivered in metal movie cans.

Mrs. Medavoy screeched as she glanced at the delivery. " 'United 93'?" she said in horror. "I have 20 people coming over — Sumner, everybody — and they're expecting to see 'The Break-Up.' " She ran after the delivery man, who checked his truck and found the comedy. All was well in the neighborhood...

..."This isn't Versailles, and I'm not Marie Antoinette," insisted Joyce Arad, who might have made the remark because her house, completed in 2003, is a three-story palace built in classical 18th-century French style. The kitchen has two vast stone islands with copper pots hanging around each of them, though Mrs. Arad confesses that she doesn't cook much. Outside is an elegant swimming pool designed to look like the reflecting pond of a chateau, along with several outdoor living areas, with fireplaces and fountains. "I wanted it to be homey and authentic-feeling," she said.

Some publicists are about to get their hands slapped hard ...

Link: Paradise Bought in Los Angeles - New York Times.

NEWSWEEK:Building Up the Burbs - Newsweek: International Editions - MSNBC.com

From NEWSWEEK magazine, via The BoxTank:

In contrast to the powers who fight "sprawl," advocates of the new suburbanism focus on ways to make the periphery work better. It's about bringing business and jobs, not just bedrooms, to the outer rings, and reviving main streets in smaller towns and cities, not just in major urban centers. In some senses, the new suburbanism seeks to recover the ideals of early advocates of decentralization such as the early-20th-century British visionary Ebenezer Howard, who proposed dispersing populations into largely self-sustaining "garden cities."

Correcting the problems of suburbia is an international imperative. Almost everywhere, cities tend toward sprawl, more like much-maligned Los Angeles than like Manhattan, the urbanist's heaven. This pattern owes largely to the preference of the middle and working classes for privacy and space—choices ridiculed as boringly bourgeois by urban theorists. "L.A. is the realization of every immigrant's dream—the vassal's dream of his own castle," observed the Italian-born, Los Angeles-based urbanist Edgardo Contini in the 1960s. "Europeans who come here are delighted by our suburbs. Not to live in an apartment! It is a universal aspiration to own your own home." Today, surveys find that 70 to 80 percent of Americans prefer a single-family home and only 15 percent, an apartment in a dense urban area.

Link: Joel Kotkin: Building Up the Burbs - Newsweek: International Editions - MSNBC.com.

Maybe those narrower roads aren't such a bad idea ...

Asphalt prices run projects off budget.

Roads as sewers

One of the most interesting aspects of intelligent community design is the fact that the width and surroundings of a street can do infinitely more to determine traffic speeds and behavior than a feeble speed limit sign could ever hope to.

For example, a collector road near my home is posted at 35 miles per hour, but NO VEHICLE on that road goes below 40 miles per hour - - and those that go under 45 are routinely tailgated by impatient drivers. I'll make a non-supported guess and say the average speed on the road is 50 miles per hour. The police department of Franklin could collect thousands of dollars per day in speeding fines if they chose to (or could afford to) strictly and consistently enforce the speed limit here.

Why do people treat this road as if it's a highway? Because it was built without thought to the traffic calming effects of narrower streets that are bordered with trees (which are called "Fixed Hazardous Objects" by traffic engineers).

This is a fact: When even the most conscientious person gets behind the wheel of a vehicle, that person changes and becomes markedly more aggressive and seeks to get from point a to point b as quickly as possible. (Road rage incidents, for instance, are very often perpetrated by people who are non-confrontational outside of their car.) The street conditions communicate with the vehicle and determine what speed is desirable - - a vehicle-driver "collective brain" is created.

Also, because there is no sidewalk or pedestrian walkway, a white line on either side of the road is there to denote a bike/pedestrian lane. This misguided effort actually creates a wider appearance to the road, making the driver/car collective brain feel that it is appropriate to go much, much faster than 35 miles per hour.

As a person who frequently runs on the road above in order to access quieter subdivision roads, I can attest to the fact that the "pedestrian lane" is most often viewed by vehicles as a passing lane; when faced with brake lights and a turn signal ahead, they veer into the lane at full speed. The "letter of the law" says that bicyclists should travel the same direction as vehicular traffic; on Franklin's collector roads, adhering to that rule will get you killed. Not quite two years ago a man walking his dog in one of these "pedestrian lanes" was struck and killed by a car. I ran by the chalk mark and chemical stain (which cleared the blood from the asphalt) for weeks afterward, a reminder to stay vigilant until I could finally make a left turn into a subdivision.

Street design is long dead and has become the job of street engineers. Forget asthetics; the philosophy now is to flow traffic as quickly as possible without much regard to the surroundings or safety of bikes and pedestrians. Streets are sewers that must flow unimpeded, and in a community like Franklin that leans heavily on collector streets and has largely abandoned the idea of intermediate grid roads, that means more and more lethal stretches of road right next to family neighborhoods.

Some subdivision roads are no better. This winding street comes down a hill; I routinely see soccer moms piloting vans at 35-40 mph toward me as I run up the slope. The width of this road is excessive and encourages speed; the gentle curves are speed-provocative as well - - one finger on the wheel and a foot on the gas pedal are all that's required to negotiate streets like these, to paraphrase Duany, Plater-Zyberk and Speck in SUBURBAN NATION.

Excessive street widths are the result of codes and regulations that go back to the cold war era. In fact, one of the reasons for wide streets was to facilitate quick evacuation and movement of emergency vehicles after a "nuclear event"!

Another factor which remains in force is accommodation of fire trucks. More on that in an upcoming post.