Sprawled Out: The Search for Community in the American Suburb

January 24, 6-8pm: Make your voice heard on Franklin's Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan

 

ABOVE: From a previous post on SPRAWLED OUT: An example of a trail that is certainly "recreational," but A) does not connect any destinations (it merely loops through a park), and B) empties into a blind curve on a suburban speedway, further shielded by trees and shrubs (indicated with green boxes).

 

The City of Franklin has been working for some time on a new Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan, and is now inviting public input.

I encourage people to come to the open house and make their concerns about CONNECTIVITY in the city of Franklin heard. As a member of the city's Trails Committee, I am sorry to report that there is precious little interaction between us and the city's Parks Commission. In fact, there has been considerable tension in Trails Committee meetings when I or any other member made requests for information on the ongoing Recreation plan.

A member or the Parks Commission who also sits on the Trails Committee has made it clear that he considers the trails proposed by the Parks Commission as completely separate and unrelated to the sidewalk and trail network we on the Trails Committee are trying to create. He has repeatedly spoken in "us vs. you" terms when the subject of funding comes up.

The problem is this: Trails are, indeed, recreational. However, it's time to look at trails as part of the city's overall connectivity plan. Trails (and sidewalks) are infrastructure, and it's important that we provide a way to get from place to place in Franklin without a car.

The Parks Commission, unfortunately, does NOT plan trails with usefulness or connectivity in mind. To the Parks Commission, trails are mere recreational playthings. Take a look at our current trail system (and some of the insanely dangerous junctures with blind curves on roads) and you'll agree,

This will not be my last post on the subject (nor is it the first), but please mark your calendar for January 24th, 6-8pm, and plan to attend the open house so you can voice your concerns regarding making Franklin travel-friendly for children, the elderly, and differently abled persons.

I've pasted some material from the city's press release below, and linked to fellow Trails Committee member Greg Kowalski's Scribed-posted PDF:

This update is set forth in a draft document entitled Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan: 2025 for the City of Franklin, Milwaukee County, Wisconsin. This Plan is being prepared to maintain the City’s eligibility to participate in many cost-sharing programs for the acquisition and development of its park, open space, and outdoor recreation system. When completed, the updated Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan will look 15 years into the future at the City’s anticipated park, open space, and outdoor recreation needs.

Before the draft is completed, the Planning Department staff of the City of Franklin would like to provide an opportunity for the public to ask questions and to provide additional comments about this draft Plan. Therefore, an Open House has been scheduled for January 24, 2011, from 6:00 to 8:00 pm in the Community Room at the City of Franklin City Hall, 9229 W. Loomis Road.

Copies of maps and other select information from the draft Plan will be on display at the Open House. The entire draft Plan will be available for viewing on the City website and at the offices of the Planning Department approximately one week before the Open House.

It is envisioned that the public comments provided at the Open House will be summarized and provided to the City of Franklin Parks Commission for their review and consideration immediately after the Open House or as soon thereafter as the Parks Commission may determine.

If you have any questions, or need additional information, please feel free to contact the Planning Department at 414-425-4024, or visit the City of Franklin website at www.franklinwi.gov.

 

Parks Plan Open House

The planner's dream gone wrong: The New Provincials

Coming off of a bit of a work-enforced break from blogging, I stumbled upon a new resource out of  Chicago. It's hard to argue with the title of Jason Tinkey's blog -- The Planner's Dream Gone Wrong -- and, given the epic Packers-Bears struggle scheduled for this coming Sunday, it's as good a time as any to engage a flatlander in a friendly manner before kickoff.

Jason discusses American provincialism in this particular blog entry, quoting Barcelona Deputy Mayor Jordi William Carnes making the observation that "America is important to the rest of world, but spends too much time looking inward."

This is true all the way down to the neighborhood level -- or even single household level, frankly -- but Jason chooses to concentrate of the narrow field of view espoused by new Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker as he reinvents Wisconsin as The Weak Link: 

This provincial attitude reared its tiny head again this past week, when Wisconsin Governor Scott K. Walker (that "K" is crucial to avoid denigrating the proper Scott Walker) slammed Illinois for it's tax hike and invited businesses to relocate to his state. As James Warren wrote, this shows a lack of a broader vision on Walker's part. He's playing for votes within his own little fiefdom, seemingly oblivious to the fact that if Chicago's economy were to fail, Wisconsin's would go down right beside it. As much as I love our neighbors to the north, Milwaukee does not have the transportation infrastructure necessary to link it to a global marketplace. This is the same guy, mind you, who basically ran for office on his opposition to high-speed rail, which would be one of the best possible assets in building a regional economy.

So allow me to state for the record my philosophy of how the future is aligned: neighborhood - city - region - planet. Note that "county", "state" and "nation" do not exist. These are eighteenth-century constructs that serve little useful purpose in a connected, digital global economy. The hard question is asking what it will take to achieve this in these "United" States. No politician has ever voted themselves out of a job, and yet a thorough realignment of local and federal governance is necessary. Industrialized Europe had to be more or less leveled in World War II for the stakeholders to recognize the value of cross-border cooperation and a free exchange of people and ideas. I certainly hope we don't need such a serious jolt.

Wisconsin and Illinois, despite their football-based loathing, have too many issues which demand cooperation. And you can add Michigan, Ohio, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, New York and Ontario to that mix, as well. In coming decades, stewardship of the Great Lakes will become crucial to the region and to the world. Transportation linkages already radiate from Chicago like an octopus, in a common region with common concerns, these absolutely must be brought up to speed with the rest of the developed world. There is really no other option.

Read the rest at: the planner's dream gone wrong: The New Provincials

"People tend to poo-poo this business about all the vitriol that we hear inflaming the American people by people who make a living off doing that. That may be free speech, but it's not without consequences."

Unfortunately, this incredibly tragic story threatens to have a local angle for other communities given the over-the-top tone of many community blogs.

On a national and local level, I am sickened by attention-starved persons whose paycheck and/or self worth is derived from creating a spectacle via over-the-top rhetoric and name-calling. They may claim, "Hey, this is just like professional wrestling; it's entertainment and I'm just playing a character!" -- but they -- we -- need to be aware that our words and images are available to diseased minds who are waiting for reinforcement.  

Left or right; conservative or liberal -- there are consequences to the tone of rhetoric we deploy. Being a cartoon character may get you mic or camera time and sell some books, but you're also pouring gasoline on a fire.

"When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And unfortunately, Arizona, I think, has become the capital. We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry.

"It's not unusual for all public officials to get threats constantly, myself included. That's the sad thing about what's going on in America. Pretty soon we're not going to be able to find reasonable decent people willing to subject themselves to serve in public office.

"People tend to poo-poo this business about all the vitriol that we hear inflaming the American people by people who make a living off doing that. That may be free speech, but it's not without consequences."

-- Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, speaking Saturday on the shooting in Arizona that claimed at least six lives and left Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in critical condition

The Great Desprawling Experiment - Emerging Ideas - Utne Reader

The very epitome of "the geography of nowhere" -- targeted for transformation.

Next up: Trying to get Robin Williams to go 30 days without doing a Popeye impression. Equally challenging.

It’s hard to conceive of a less likely poster child for the livable-communities movement, which prizes dense urban-style neighborhoods where residents can live without cars. Yet developers and county leaders in Fairfax County are close to finalizing a radical multibillion-dollar plan to “desprawl” Tysons. The proposal, aimed at attracting a total of 100,000 with the texture and energy of city life, involves tearing up large swaths of the existing town and constructing a series of urban villages, with buildings up to 25 stories high.

“Tysons Corner is a leading example of a suburb trying to transform itself into something else,” says Christopher Leinberger, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution and a top thinker on the future of America’s suburbs. “The people there see walkable urban areas and say, ‘We want that here.’ They want that kind of urban excitement.”

Read the rest at: The Great Desprawling Experiment - Emerging Ideas - Utne Reader

Next American City: Little to Celebrate

ABOVE: Celebration’s small town AMC cinema. Credit: flickr user bobafred

Celebration, Florida just might represent everything that used to be right with America, and everything that is currently wrong with America. Celebration, for those unaware, is a master planned community that was built by the Disney Corporation, and incorporates various Traditional Neighborhood Design (TND) features with a touch of Disney magic. Recently, though, Bad Things have been afoot in Celebration—murder, suicide, and foreclosure. Could real city problems be invading this fake city? What would that mean?

Read the rest at: Next American City » Columns » Little to Celebrate

$5 for a gallon of gas in '12; luckily, we'll have the train alternative... oh, wait ...

The incoming governor of Wisconsin chose ideology and bald-faced patronage over common long-term fiscal sense.

No train for us. The citizens of Wisconsin will be paying Scott Walker's benefactors in the asphalt spreading business for years and years to come. 

Bonus points: Did you know asphalt uses petroleum?

Read the rest at: $5 for a gallon of gasoline in 2012 - Dec. 27, 2010

Study: Walkable neighborhoods have happier people - Green House - USATODAY.com

Sidewalks and trails make you happier?

I can tell you that I was certainly a happier person when I went for a run the other day and was able to use a sidewalk on 51st street rather than the slush-clogged shoulder of the road I'd braved before the new sidewalk was installed. We're making slow but steady progress.

And, of more import to the bottom line:

If the residents of these walkable neighborhoods are homeowners, they benefit in yet another way, notes the Sierra Club's Green Life blog. It cites a 2009 study by CEOs for Cities that founds homes with an above-average Walk Score sold for up to $34,000 more than their sidewalk-less counterparts.

Read the rest at: Study: Walkable neighborhoods have happier people - Green House - USATODAY.com

A talk with Galina Tachieva, author of ‘The Sprawl Repair Manual’ | Grist

Q. You talk about the economic opportunities that the foreclosure crisis has created. At the same time, it seems like people have less and less money to do big projects. Financing has become very difficult for a lot of developers. How do you see those things balancing out?

A. Of course, right now it's very difficult to even think about any large project. However, there is a whole range of tools which are prepared for very different economic conditions and for very different scales. That is why the whole method is structured from the bigger picture of the region going all the way down to the community scale and all the way down to the block or the building, to be able to respond to different economic conditions.

It might be a government, regional organization, or municipality thinking about their future development as a larger place, as a region. Or it might be a developer who can maybe intervene in one block, who can actually take advantage of some of the foreclosures -- maybe acquire a block of some of these foreclosed properties, and do something on a much smaller scale. And all the way down to the single building. People are thinking about the second generation of some of these suburban building sites coming through the next cycle.

Read the rest at: A talk with Galina Tachieva, author of ‘The Sprawl Repair Manual’ | Grist

Plan Commission Meeting materials for 12-9-10

As promised, I'll be archiving online all meeting materials related to the Franklin, WI Plan Commission.

Here's the agenda and materials for my first meeting on 12-9-10, which, with a light agenda, lasted under 10 minutes. Until I find a way to shrink large site plan documents, they will not be included.

So, now I'm a plan commissioner ...

Back in June of 2006, I started this blog as a research exercise upon learning that the neighboring cities of Franklin (where I live) and Oak Creek would somehow cooperate on developing 27th Street, which acts as a border between the communities.

That led me to the discovery of a book called THE GEOGRAPHY OF NOWHERE by James Howard Kunstler, a reading experience that utterly changed my view of the world around me. 

Haven't read it yet? Take a break and GO ORDER A COPY. I'll wait.

Anyway, attempting to follow the 27th Street drama led to my attendance at many Common Council and Plan Commission meetings, where, combined with my outside reading, I learned "how the sausage is made" in terms of suburban development. I discovered that our suburban built environment will continue to be bleak and uninviting (with precious few exceptions) unless citizens and stakeholders step up and voice their opinions. So very often, bad planning was a result of simply continuing with policies that "worked" in the past, without regard to our present reality or the long term effects of, for instance, making it impossible for kids to walk to school or sporting events.

So my blog became a voice in the suburban wilderness, introducing terms like "walkability" and "smart growth" into the public debate (I think I can take credit for the recent proliferation of the phrase "sea of asphalt" in local media). I began speaking at public meetings -- and, after a period of attracting little more than quizzical stares, I think the economic and social sense of what I was advocating began to take root.

I did my time on the Economic Development Commission; continue to work on connectivity issues while serving on the Trails Committee (including helping to capture a Safe Routes to School Grant); and kept plugging away at the Sprawled Out blog.

Recently, a vacancy appeared on the Franklin Plan Commission, and I threw my name in for consideration. Last night, the Common Council voted unanimously to endorse my nomination, so I am now a Plan Commissioner -- first meeting is tomorrow night.

I'm grateful for the opportunity, and hope to bring something of value to Franklin's overall vision. I also want to use this blog to increase transparency of the planning and development process in Franklin, so you can look forward to seeing, whenever possible, pdfs of the materials Plan Commissioners .have access to for each meeting and decision.

Onward ...