Sprawled Out: The Search for Community in the American Suburb

Bad news beat: Emerald ash borer discovered in Franklin

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports what I guess we should have know was inevitable.

Emerald ash borer discovered in Franklin - JSOnline.

Friends of the Franklin Public Library need your used books CDs, DVDs, tapes, and magazines

The Friends of the Franklin Public Library are looking for gently used books CDs, DVDs, tapes, and magazines for their Annual Book Sale, which will be held on Friday, September 11th.

From the Friends:

This popular annual event helps the Friends sponsor numerous events at the Library such as the wonderful cooking classes presented by Staci Joers, quilting classes or the successful Divas and Divine Desserts program. In addition to these great community events, the funds raised by the Friends help support programs that the Library budget simply cannot afford. This past year the Friends donated $14,000 toward computers for the children’s department, $8,000 toward updated books about foreign countries and the 50 states and $4,500 toward the children’s, young adult and adult summer reading program.

Help the Friends continue supporting the Franklin Public Library and to continue to offer these community programs by donating your books and other material to the Library for their sale. Drop off your used books at the Franklin Public Library between the hours of 10 and 8:30 Monday through Thursday and 10 to 5pm on Friday.

The book sale will be held on Friday, September 11th, 10am - 5pm, Saturday, September 12th, 10am - 5pm, and Sunday, September 13th, 1pm - 4pm

A special Friends only presale will be held on Thursday, September 10th from 6pm to 8:30. 

Not currently a Friend of the Franklin Library?  Pick up a Friends’ membership form at the Library or e-mail the Friends of the Franklin Public Library at [email protected] 

The Franklin Public Library is located at:  9151 West Loomis Road, Franklin, WI 53132  Phone (414) 425-8214.

The Friends of the Franklin Public Library are looking for gently used books CDs, DVDs, tapes, and magazines for their Annual Book Sale, which will be held on Friday, September 11th.

From the Friends:

This popular annual event helps the Friends sponsor numerous events at the Library such as the wonderful cooking classes presented by Staci Joers, quilting classes or the successful Divas and Divine Desserts program. In addition to these great community events, the funds raised by the Friends help support programs that the Library budget simply cannot afford. This past year the Friends donated $14,000 toward computers for the children’s department, $8,000 toward updated books about foreign countries and the 50 states and $4,500 toward the children’s, young adult and adult summer reading program.

Help the Friends continue supporting the Franklin Public Library and to continue to offer these community programs by donating your books and other material to the Library for their sale. Drop off your used books at the Franklin Public Library between the hours of 10 and 8:30 Monday through Thursday and 10 to 5pm on Friday.

The book sale will be held on Friday, September 11th, 10am - 5pm, Saturday, September 12th, 10am - 5pm, and Sunday, September 13th, 1pm - 4pm

A special Friends only presale will be held on Thursday, September 10th from 6pm to 8:30. 

Not currently a Friend of the Franklin Library?  Pick up a Friends’ membership form at the Library or e-mail the Friends of the Franklin Public Library at [email protected] 

The Franklin Public Library is located at:  9151 West Loomis Road, Franklin, WI 53132  Phone (414) 425-8214.

New Report: Walkable Neighborhoods Increase Home Value

If the inverse is true, look for home prices to continue to plummet in UNwalkable Franklin:

A new report from CEO for Cities, “Walking the Walk: How Walkability Raises Home Values in U.S. Cities,” argues that more walkable neighborhoods increase home values. According to CEO for Cities, data was analyzed “from 94,000 real estate transactions in 15 major markets provided by ZipRealty and found that in 13 of the 15 markets, higher levels of walkability, as measured by Walk Score, were directly linked to higher home values.” CEO for Cities adds: “The study found that in the typical metropolitan area, a one-point increase in Walk Score was associated with an increase in value ranging from $700 to $3,000 depending on the market. The gains were larger in denser, urban areas like Chicago and San Francisco and smaller in less dense markets like Tucson and Fresno.”

Read more at: New Report: Walkable Neighborhoods Increase Home Value « The Dirt

See what happens when you miss a meeting?

FranklinNOW and the Franklin Today blog report on a common council meeting I could not attend Tuesday night. My unavoidable absence was particularly unfortunate because they discussed the city-owned parcel of land between Fire Station #1 and the Franklin Public Library, which I'd indicated would be a good location for a coffee shop/co-working facility if we could somehow induce that sort of development.

After reading both accounts (FranklinNOW starts out breathlessly: "Officials know that some empty city-owned space at 8921 W. Drexel Ave. has caught the eye of several interested parties, but they will want to continue to mull how to re-use that property."), it's clear that I should clarify some aspects of the concept I'd proposed and the process thus far.

First of all, it's my understanding that the Common Council asked various departments and commissions to submit their recommendations for the city-owned space. So, outside of the Fire Department, the "interested parties" became "interested" only after being asked to do so. (The Economic Development Commission recommendation is pending.)

As for my co-working facility idea, the most important point is this: The specific parcel between the library and the fire department was a CATALYST for my concept of using city resources to promote the idea of a coffee shop/co-working facility in a logical space close to the library, park, and subdivisions, but the concept is NOT dependent upon that specific spot.

In most of my discussions and meeting regarding the issue, this seems to be the hardest thing to make clear. For my part, I was led to believe in my initial inquiries that the fire department had not indicated any particular interest in that land. Therefor, I continued to refer to that piece of land specifically when describing a coffee shop/co-working facility, even though there's an entire "zone" in proximity to the library, park, subdivisions and city hall that could be suitable.

It's been made clear since then, however, that the Fire Department would like to expand Fire Station #1 in the direction of that land. As I've always said, Fire Department gets first dibs.

So, to reiterate: the coffee shop/co-working facility conversation can go on without regard to the specific parcel in question.

I think it might be wise at this point to "rebrand" the proposal as well by removing "coffee shop" from the title to prevent shorthand characterizations like the one I noticed in the FranklinNOW report ("There has been interest in the property for businesses, such as a coffee shop, the mayor said..."). While I think a coffee shop component is very important, more attention needs to be paid to the co-working function of a facility like the one I have in mind, and what such a facility could mean to the community in terms of supporting business development and small business collaborations.

Finally, Greg Kowalski's Franklin Today blog item paints a picture of political intrigue ("Michlig would need both the Mayor and the CCP to support his plan for that parcel, and without it...at this point I'd have to contend that the proposal could be labeled as 'politically dead'....) that simply does not exist. I am not a city employee nor an elected official, and the Economic Development Commission on which I serve is unbudgeted; at best I can afford only to offer my ideas and "shake the trees" in hopes of creating a productive conversation that gets us above and beyond business as usual.

So, back to shaking trees I go ...

"USE YOUR PC'S AT HOME. If you don't have one, don't expect to leech off of the taxpayers."

Intriguing thread of comments at the Battle Joined blog reveals some cynical attitudes towards the role of a public library in Franklin, Wisconsin.

One wonders why anyone would consider moving to - or relocating a business to - a community that does not make a priority of its public library and its associated services, programs, and opportunities.

See a problem in town? There's an app for that

An iPhone application that uses the convergence of phone-camera-GPS-internet to allow anyone to instantly report issues they come across - everything from graffiti to pot holes to a lost puppy.

There is (as of yet) no app capable of rehabilitating depleted municipal budgets, however.

From: SeeClickFix: SeeClickFix Iphone App. Version 1.0 Released:

Another step toward becoming little more than a series of subdivisions and cul-de-sacs: Library closed all weekend

Victim of the budget shortfall, The City of Franklin's sole public space and community gathering point is now closed for ENTIRE WEEKENDS for the balance of the summer. Go home to your Wii; nothing to see here.

From FranklinNow.com:

Library faces another chapter on budget cuts

Facility will be closed Saturdays through Sept. 5

Posted: Aug. 11, 2009

As part of a mandate to cut budgets by 4 percent, the Franklin Public Library will close on Saturdays during August and on Sept. 5.

Library Board President Dennis McKnight said the board had to make "substantial" cuts in order to meet the order. In addition to closing on Saturdays, the board also cut back in other ways, including on spending for books and materials, he said.

Board members thought closing the library on two consecutive days - Saturday and Sunday - would lead to greater savings on utility and air-conditioning costs, McKnight said.

It made more sense than closing for a week at a time, and doing it during August avoids a closure during the school year, he added.

"It wasn't an easy decision," McKnight said. "We cut a lot of different things rather than one big thing. … We certainly did not want to do it."

Mayor Thomas Taylor this summer asked all city department leaders to trim their budgets by 4 percent this year as one of several cost-saving measures to make up for a potential deficit.

He also told department heads to prepare to make more cuts by as much as 15 percent.

Because we should know better by now: Rehabilitating suburbia

Dwell Magazine and Inhabitat.com sponsored a REBURBIA Suburban Design competition recently, challenging entrants to reinvent suburbia. Perhaps make crapulent, hostile landscapes (like the one above) more safe, useful, and conducive to community.

In a future where limited natural resources will force us to find better solutions for density and efficiency, what will become of the cul-de-sacs, cookie-cutter tract houses and generic strip malls that have long upheld the diffuse infrastructure of suburbia? How can we redirect these existing spaces to promote sustainability, walkability, and community? It’s a problem that demands a visionary design solution and we want you to create the vision!

Clearly, wholesale razing of asphalt-moated structures is not practical, so solutions that rehabilitate the mistakes of the past are especially intriguing. Hence, "Reburbia."

A series of before and after drawings by Galina Tahchieva immediately caught my eye. The restaurant pad below should be very familiar to residents of Franklin and surrounding communities. Unfortunately, the "new" Golden Corral restaurant slated for 27th Street - yes, the 27th Street for which the city has expensively established "design standards" - looks almost exactly like the "before" picture below. I guess we'll fix it later.

This set of simple infill techniques represents a sprawl repair toolkit to retrofit the 5 building prototypes that define Suburbia. These iconic detached structures and their parcels, via modest interventions, have the potential to contribute to a more diverse, cohesive urban fabric within a walkable and identifiable public realm.

Rather than being demolished, these existing buildings are re-purposed and/or lined with new structures using renewable technologies and energy-efficient practices, often taking advantage of Suburbia’s typically excessive setbacks and parking lots.

A drive-through restaurant pad becomes part of a main street, but largely concealed from it, with perimeter liner buildings added along the edges of its parking lot. A strip center is converted into a recycling center with a green roof and 2 side-wings with solar panels framing a courtyard that reaches to the sidewalk. A gas station remains in place while growing a two-story corner store-office extension at a busy intersection to help screen it. A suburban ranch house is permitted to utilize its deep front yard to add a wing with additional bedrooms, a home office, or a rental outbuilding that creates a courtyard with the existing home and defines a livelier street frontage at the sidewalk. Even the ubiquitous McMansion can be converted into senior housing when a five-bedroom/ three-car garage home yields a 10 room-9 bathroom facility for seniors and a caretaker.

See the other 4 building types at Urban Sprawl Repair Kit: Repairing The Urban Fabric « ReBurbia.

Placeless places: More on "The Shoppes at Wyndham Ghost Town"

A follow-up to my post about contrasting sunny Sunday afternoons at Ferch's Malt Shoppe locations in two quite different environments. A comment was left by "Anon":

I was there on 8/3 with my family at 8 PM at night. Target looked like they were ready to close then, the Starbucks and Food Court were already closed, and it seemed like a ghost town in there. We went to Ferch's, and there was like 10 people in there when we started, and another 10 people came in while we were having our desserts.

I think you have to give it time. There's nothing there to attract people to that location yet. Huntington Learning Center's looked like they were finished with drywall, and Cousins and the haircut place were closed.

I remember when the Target in New Berlin was like a ghost town the first year or so as well. The same with the Target in Oak Creek. I'm happy that it's a Target, and not a Wal-Mart.

It might have been interesting to see the Greendale Ferch's at the time "Anon" describes above; Monday evening, still light out, perfect temperature -- the park right next door, a neighborhood in safe walking distance, etc. I don't imagine a "ghost town," do you?

And, yes, we can be relieved that Wal-Mart -- whose location on 27th Street is shabbily maintained at best -- is not there.

The point is, the interlocking conditions I described in my previous post contribute to a vibrant public space that is not subject to "spurts" of 10 people or so who arrive for a single purpose and then get back in their car and leave. There is nothing of use anywhere near the Shoppes at Wyndham Village's Ferch's; it's an imitation of a replica -- where the Greendale Ferch's is explicitly designed to evoke long-departed downtown "malt shops," it works because it is part of a network of pre-planned civic and commercial amenities that rise above the level of a single developer's desire to "do a deal." The Franklin Ferch's duplicates the decor, the menu, the signage, but ignores everything else that makes for a regular flow of people in and around their site.

It's a poor site plan, driven, evidently, by the rigid requirements of Target. That vast frontage of asphalt parking is nonnegotiable for a reason; Target (and most big boxes) manipulate their site plans to discourage relationships with other commercial buildings in proximity.

So, while the Shoppes at Wyndham Village's (apparently abandoned) website claims...

The layout has been thoughtfully planned to include outdoor seating areas featuring decorative benches, lighting and abundant pedestrian paths offering connections for ideal access to the stores. Imagine carrying out your shopping errands at your favorite retailers and being able to meet friends for coffee and lunch at Franklin’s finest shopping experience – The Shoppes at Wyndham Village.

... it is abundantly clear by a cursory glance at the site plan above that this is little more than a standard Target big box location with out-buildings; nothing will cross that red border up there, even though extending structures along Lover's Lane to nearly meet Target would have created a much more useful, interconnected space. 

Go there while the weather is perfect and sit on a "decorative bench" in the treeless, open expanse and see if you don't feel like asking yourself, as I did, "what am I doing here?" It's practically hostile space.

"Thoughtfully planned"? No, this is the sort of character-free development that used to pop up near highway interchanges and still do as part of "Edge City" developments, which are "placeless" concentrations of business, shopping, and entertainment outside a traditional urban area in what had recently been a residential suburb or semi-rural community. Think Bluemound Road in Brookfield.

But this is right in the middle of Franklin, across the street from a subdivision full of McMansions. Wholly inappropriate to its surroundings because it was designed as though situated right off I-94.

I should also point out that when I looked in the windows of the outbuilding where the Sport Clipz "haircut place" sign is (see below), I saw an empty shell; there aren't even partitions delineating interior spaces. We're talking about frameworks and facades over dirt and gravel, not commercial spaces ready for occupancy.

Target will do just fine. But how do you generate more commercial growth when little or no care appears to be taken in creating a physical environment that is conducive to commerce and integrated into its surrounding community?

But we lose much more than commercial opportunities when we allow -- and even encourage -- development that is so ludicrously out of human scale. As Stacy Mitchell writes in her book, Big Box Swindle:

In the suburbs, life takes place in a series of fragmented, single-purpose zones -- home, office, shopping -- that stretch indefinitely toward the horizon, with no obvious geographic center or outer boundaries. This lack of well-defined community has a powerful negative influence on civic participation, according to Bowling Alone author Robert Putnam, as does the amount of time one spends in the car each day.

UPDATE: Greg Kowalski at Franklintoday.com speculates on possible new Shoppes at Wyndham Village tenants based on MidAmerica Real Estate's web site.They've updated their Wyndham Hills listing and PDF flier to replace Sendik's with Pick n' Save - could the other notations indicate actual pending tenant announcements?

What happens when you build to serve vehicles exclusively? The Shoppes at Wyndham Ghost Town

Yesterday, a beautiful Sunday (low humidity, mid-seventies), I traveled to Franklin's Shoppes at Wyndham Village to see how this relatively new component of the local "social ecosystem" was being utilized on such a perfect day.

The answer? Let's just say that all that were missing were tumbleweeds.

ABOVE: Ferch's in Franklin.

Blame the economy? The fact is, at that very hour (about 5pm), while the Shoppes at Wyndham Village version of Ferch's Malt Shoppe was completely customer-free, the original Ferch's in Greendale (see photo below, taken 45 minutes later) was bustling with people - as is typical - inside and out.

Two Ferch's on the same sunny afternoon. What's the difference?

I saw vehicles come and go from Target at the Franklin Shoppes complex on a fairly regular basis. From the looks of it, these were all fairly joyless excursions; single-purpose errands for practical necessities (though one guy came out with a flat-screen TV and a huge smile). Everyone took straight-line courses from their vehicle to the Target entrance and back again. Occasionally you would see someone emerge with a coffee cup, having stopped at Target's in-store Starbucks.

ABOVE: Ferch's in Greendale.

A different story at the original Greendale Ferch's. There is a shaded, building-enveloped courtyard; on this afternoon, every table save one or two were occupied. Young families, elderly couples, groups of teens, etc., all shared this comfortable space and casually interacted. People walked between the courtyard tables and the adjacent park and coffee shop (the small neighboring stores were mostly closed for the day), stopping periodically to greet neighbors and acquaintances. And almost everyone I passed said hi to me as well.

An adjacent park, welcoming "outdoor room" courtyard environment, pedestrian- and bike-friendly local streets, and attached neighborhood make Ferch's of Greendale a vibrant public space. And commercially lucrative.

Back at Wyndham Village, I noticed a couple of random benches on islands in the asphalt sea. I sat on one for a while -- long enough to contemplate exactly where I was. Why would anyone want to sit right here, in the middle of... nothing? What would bring a person to this particular bench in a strip mall like this, so obscenely out of synch with any sense of human scale?

Benches?

Judging by the quizzical looks emanating from the windows of vehicles whizzing past me, I was not the only one wondering what I was doing there.

 

ABOVE: Ghost town.

I walked the entire Shoppes complex via the exposed strip of sidewalk; no enclosing "street wall" of mature trees and/or buildings to create a comfortable walking environment. I was the lone person on foot in the entire area for the entire period of my visit; again, cars passed me and looked me over as though I was dressed at the lead guitarist for KISS (which I was not). Needless to say, no one said "hi." After all, what the heck was I doing there?!?!

No, the people of Greendale are not inherently friendlier than the people in Franklin. This is an example of how our built environment creates us as much as we create it. Build formless, uninspiring, unwelcoming commercial spaces and you create single-purpose destinations that discourage the sorts of interaction and "lingering" that is crucial to the success of local (i.e. non-big box) businesses -- and, by extension, you strangle local economic livelihood. Who's in a hurry to lease space here as opposed to any other anonymous strip mall?

By contrast, Greendale offers a superior physical environment that attracts people whether or not they need to shop. The small, locally-owned businesses benefit, and a real community is maintained. 

More on this later ...

More photos at: Shoppes at Wyndham Ghosttown - a set on Flickr: