Sprawled Out: The Search for Community in the American Suburb

Walmart, Target, Best Buy & Other Big Box Retailers Embrace Sales on Smaller Scale | Moneyland | TIME.com

ABOVE: Meijer artist rendering; retail as far as the eye can see .... 

As Franklin faces the impending addition of a gigantic Meijer big box, dismantling the Crossroads Regulating Plan in the process, the rest of the commercial world sees the benefit of ... smaller: 

While the big-box retail model is far from dead, stores such as Walmart, Best Buy, and Cabela’s are realizing that the enormous, one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work for all shoppers—nor all locations. To grow, many retailers are shrinking, sometimes with smaller stores, sometimes by introducing smaller, more intimate and approachable locations within larger stores.

Read the rest at: Walmart, Target, Best Buy & Other Big Box Retailers Embrace Sales on Smaller Scale | Moneyland | TIME.com

Franklin council delays action on Meijer proposal - JSOnline

Above: A Meijer community meeting in Franklin.

Here's an article that oversimplifies a more complex issue. As a member of Franklin's Economic Development Committee and Plan Commission, I can tell you that there are, actually, myriad issues that have NOT been dealt with relating to DNR permits (Meijer subverted the process a bit when they went to a DNR pre-plan meeting with a full plan) and the DOT's fairly tone-deaf road requirements. Homeowners who live nearby are in for quite a change.

Meijer has proposed a take-it-or-leave-it 24-hour big box with an ocean of new impervious surface. The DNR requires that a site plan be submitted that does not impinge upon the floodways and wetlands to the extent that the current plan does; Meijer is then charged with proving that the improved site plan is impossible.

Meijer has not submitted that plan or its reasons for not creating a more location-sensitive site plan; the DNR has made it clear that the burden of proof resides with Meijer. The Franklin Plan Commission voted on the site plan and other accommodations for Meijer WITHOUT access to the alternate site plan (I was the lone "no" vote on the Commission).

Communities get the development they deserve. Big box stores of this size demand a large market share and will drain that market share from surrounding businesses (the Franklin Pick and Save Center on 76th Street is already for sale; they know which way the wind blows). A store like Meijer is certainly welcome, but they should develop the property with sensitivity to the community, surrounding neighborhoods, and local long-term economy. The answer is there, but Meijer has not presented any alternatives.

Read the rest at: Franklin council delays action on Meijer proposal - JSOnline

Living in Lego City

Ever see that huge LEGO CITY section at Toys R Us? How does it stack up in the eyes of city planning theorists? 

Safety is a watchword in Lego City. The Mobile Police Unit is ready to be deployed at a moment’s notice, should the Police Helicopter spot any illegal activities. It is hard to believe that any thieves could cross into Lego City, knowing the Forest Police Station is fully operational. And if the police, with their own helicopter and Jeep and a built-in holding cell, don’t catch the criminals, the bear (included) will. 

Read the rest at: Living in Lego City

Road Widening: Contemporary Blood-Letting

 

ABOVE: Rawson Avenue - non-vehicles beware. Subdivisons full of children who attend a nearby elementary school face this barrier.

 

After decades of catering to cars and the people able to drive them at the expense of people who cannot or chose not to drive (Rawson Avenue in Franklin, WI is a living monument to that vision), city planners and transportation officials are finally (slowly) starting to see the value in making communities accessable to all. However, it isn't going to be easy to convince the public at large that we needn't provide the means to travel at 60 mph through residential areas:

We have been so thorough in making cars happy for the past several decades that much of our world is designed in such a way that it is impossible to travel without a car.

Tragically, convenient, easy car travel we have bankrupted ourselves in creating is not conducive to creating safe, lovable, human-oriented, sustainable, enjoyable places that induce civic pride (indeed, it is utterly destructive of a better place to live). Those of us who have discovered this, then, are stuck with the enormous task of trying to point out that the path to a better community – to a better future – lies in doing something that at least initially, seems harmful to our happiness: inconveniencing car travel and car parking (and making car use more costly)

Read the rest at: Road Widening: Contemporary Blood-Letting | Dom’s Plan B Blog

10 years later, the sad lesson of the Segway: The suburbs killed your rocket-pack

“Instead of becoming the next Bill Gates or Henry Ford, Kamen might find himself ending up like another great American inventor, Preston Tucker, who in the 1940s built the Tucker, a car too far ahead of its time.”

I think the explanation is far simpler. The Segway revealed what we in the suburbs are getting to know more and more: You cannot walk or bike from any place of significance to any other place of significance in most modern areas of human habitation.

In a world largely created for cars, a conveyance like the Segway is nothing but a toy.

Ten years on, and I've neither ridden one nor seen one at use "in the wild" by anyone other than a mall cop or city tourist.

 

Read the rest at: » A Segway anniversary JIMROMENESKO.COM

"The human body works better when we walk."

The picture above is one I took this morning while out for a walk. While this blog is often where you see horrific examples of asphalt gone wild in the suburbs, anyone who lives in a community like mine can attest to the beautiful stretches of road that exist - - especially at this time of year.

If a person could string together a mile or so of the sort of roadway you see above -- particularly if it creates a useful route from home to a grocery store or cafe, for instance --  it wouldn't be hard to create an opportunity to walk each and every day. However, the majority of my route this morning was along 51st Street, where traffic averages 45-50 mph (it's posted 35 mph) and the "pedestrian lane" is a narrow edge of the roadway deliniated by a white line.

Fortunately, the city is working to continue a sidewalk that runs in front of the high school and currently gets you about 1/5th of the way between Drexel and Rawson. It connects people to the grocer, pharmacy, and convenience store/gas station that are at the corner of 51st and Rawson. Eventually, many people will be able to make a morning or evening walk towards a cup of coffee or a few groceries part of their daily routine.

That's the challenge we face: Connecting roads like the one above to other roads like the one above. That way, walking becomes organic to daily life.   

Why is this important? Watch and listen to the video below (BONUS: This gentleman has an enormously relaxing speaking voice, you'll find). 

Another community taken for a ride by Wal-Mart

Is the death-spiral of the Middle Class still mysterious to people when municipalities PAY to have cash-larded retailers come in to help shutter any and all local businesses?

Wal-Mart throttles South Milwaukee:

The city will spend $800,000 to clean up environmental contamination on the city-owned parcel. The city also will spend up to $1 million on cleanup work on an adjacent 6.5-acre parcel owned by an investment group, led by Briohn Building Corp., that Gatlin is buying.

The city's project costs could total $3.05 million. That amount includes $1.75 million previously spent to acquire and do earlier demolition and cleanup work on its 3.5-acre parcel, minus $500,000 Gatlin will pay South Milwaukee to buy that land.

The Walmart will generate $276,000 in estimated annual property taxes, which will be used to pay off the city's costs, including interest. Once that debt is paid off, the property taxes go to the city, its school district and other local governments.

Do the math. So much for sustainable communities.

Very, very sad.

As Wi-Fi Havens And E-Book Centers, Public Libraries Aren't Going Away Soon | Fast Company

To those equating community libraries to simple warehouses for printed matter whose utility is tied to our dependance upon bound books, some interesting news:

The American Library Association has just published its newest investigation into the state of the nation's public libraries, and the news is...actually rather good. You may think that odd in an era of ubiquitous alternative distractions to reading a real book--from iPads to Kindles--but it's really these new high-tech devices, along with the Internet that's keeping libraries flourishing. The one fly in the ointment is that funding cuts seem to be threatening many services.

While just a few years ago public libraries were all about borrowing books to read, or finding somewhere to study alongside handy text resources, the Net has changed much of this. Now 99.3% of the U.S.'s libraries offer Net access, via a public PC or open Wi-Fi, and 64% of libraries say they're the only free access point in their communities. With that figure stepping up to 73% for rural libraries, and 70% of libraries reporting that public use of their Net facilities increased in 2010, it's easy to see that the public library is still hugely relevant in a digital era.

It seems that [the library's] Internet nexus is extremely handy for people seeking jobs, via vacancy listings and other resources: 88% of libraries offer this, and 72% say their staff are helping clients fill in application forms. Meanwhile, 25% of libraries are in partnerships with government agencies and other groups to build e-government services--almost double the 13% figure from just two years ago. Though we live in a digital era that obviates many reasons to travel, it seems the library still is the social hub for data sharing.

Read the rest at: As Wi-Fi Havens And E-Book Centers, Public Libraries Aren't Going Away Soon | Fast Company

Narrower roads: Less expensive, safer, and more bike/pedestrian friendly

Avert your eyes: The obscenity that is Franklin's 31st Street. At rush hour.

We often hear city officials proclaim their view of the "natural" progression of a road as needing to be BIGGER and WIDER as the years go on. A few years back, aldermen in my city lobbied hard for an obscenely wide road to be built behind the Northwestern Mutual Life headquarters.

After all, went the argument, it'll need to get that big eventually....

This viewpoint is deeply flawed, to say the least, and it's costing our cities an enormous amount of money. We now pay to plow, salt, patch and otherwise and maintain a wide, four-lane road that was laid in front of long-standing houses --- this is where a residential STREET should be --- that gets very, very little traffic per day. Worse, it's only a few yards away from, and parallels, 27th Street, which was supposed to be our high-traffic commercial strip.

People who travel down 31st Street for the first time (most Franklin residents are unaware that it exists) are utterly shocked at its immensity.

No - the smart money is on REDUCING the width of roads and streets. In Minnesota, cities are paring back streets when it comes time to repave them.

A growing number of metro area cities are taking a broader, greener view of street repairs.

Instead of just rebuilding worn roads, cities such as Bloomington, Richfield and St. Paul are narrowing streets to provide space for bike lanes and sidewalks. St. Anthony has added rain basins and retention ditches to filter and re-use runoff for irrigation, officials said.

But despite little additional cost, health and environmental benefits and lower traffic speeds that improve safety, some residents have objected loudly enough to stop their streets from going green.

"They are somewhat controversial when initially proposed in a neighborhood," said Metropolitan Council member Steve Elkins, a former Bloomington council member. "But once they are put in, we have never had a neighborhood ask us to undo the bike lanes."

...

The city website includes a Living Streets Plan manual, estimating that shrinking 30-foot-wide residential streets by 8 feet will save 15 percent in pavement costs, enough to cover the cost of adding rainwater gardens, trees and other green improvements.

The narrower street would cut maintenance expense by about 25 percent, which could save up to $1,000 a mile per year, the manual says. The rain gardens filter runoff before sending it into streams and lakes. More walking and biking instead of driving creates healthier residents and cuts air pollution.

Read the rest at: Cities turn to a new, green path for street designs | StarTribune.com

CNU 19 in Madison

I'm attending the Congress for the New Urbanism gathering in Madison this week, hoping to bring back some ideas (and energy) for Franklin. If we had train service between Madison and Milwaukee, I could be writing blog entries during my trips back and forth to the CNU 19 gathering; as it is, I'll have to catch up in the evenings.

In the meantime, here are some great regularly updated CNU news pages that will keep you on top of the events in Madison as they happen.

CNU Liveblog

The CNU 19 Daily