Sprawled Out: The Search for Community in the American Suburb

Builders know: For suburbia to survive and thrive, higher density, connectivity and placemaking are vital

Aware of the crushing costs of continued sprawl, the ’burbs are embracing slightly higher density and giving rise to a new generation of urban villages and mini cities.

At last night's Trails Committee meeting, we began the process of putting in place a Complete Streets policy for Franklin, Wisconsin. In summary, Complete Streets are an effort -- adopted via resolution, policy, and ordinance in cities across the country -- to build road networks that are safer, more livable, and welcoming to everyone.

You will be reading a lot about Complete Streets in this space in the days and weeks ahead. Make no mistake: Complete Streets is first and foremost an economic development tool, as it is more important than ever to extract maximum value from our build environment.

This article from BUILDER MAGAZINE embraces the suburban context, but recognizes as well the economic importance of creating a connected community:

At the same time, schools aren’t the only draw luring die-hard urbanites to the suburbs. As one-time bedroom communities begin to sprout higher-density housing options (rental apartments, condos, lofts, and the like) around transit stops and mixed-use town squares, they’re beginning to feel more like urban villages themselves—places that have appeal for singles, empty-nesters, and DINKs [Dual Income, No Kids] just as much as families. This increasingly multi-nodal landscape, notes Joel Kotkin, a Distinguished Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University, marks the beginnings of what may be best described as “smart sprawl.”

That also means "retrofitting", when possible, existing structures:

Whereas the old suburban growth model was dead set on expansion in the manner of the Oklahoma Land Rush, new approaches are much more focused on redeveloping tired properties with strategic densification. “The truth is we’re not as built-out as we think we are,” Ellen Dunham-Jones, professor of architecture and urban planning at Georgia Institute of Technology, and co-author of the book, Retrofitting Suburbia, noted at a recent Urban Land Institute symposium on smart growth. The imperative now is to use land resources more economically.

Read the rest at: Beyond (and Above) Sprawl - Land, Attached Development, Infill Development - Builder Magazine

Do We Need Public Libraries? (Enjoy your "Tax Freeze": Part 2)

My post entitled "Enjoy your 'Tax Freeze': Part 1 - A Country Without Libraries" elicited a couple of comments from two local tax freeze advocates (they won't mind me characterizing them that way, I'm sure). Their point seemed to be; "Get into the 21st century - - we have the internet and Kindles now!" I was reminded by both commentors that Ben Franklin would have really dug the Kindle - - after all, he was an inventor.

They miss the point.

To define a library by the technology that delivers words and information is erroneous -- as erroneous as stating (rather elliptically)  "Libraries in schools are already being reduced by digital media. That's the demand."

Libraries (and, more dangerously, LIBRARIANS) in schools are NOT being reduced by digital media. They are being reduced by school boards and school budgets that are defining libraries as little more than "warehouses of bound matter." Schools that have cut librarians in favor of part-time "media specialists" suffer the consequences; I see my own children having to turn to me to learn basic research.

From a 1998 American Prospect article called “Will Libraries Survive?” by linguist Geoffrey Nunberg

In 1998, a Commerce Department study followed that 62 million people are using the Internet, and other estimates put the figure still higher. Most of these… are people who already use the public library less often than their parents did for purposes of obtaining recreational and instructive reading. Now they no longer need to rely on the library even for the sorts of information they can't easily get on National Public Radio or at Barnes & Noble… they may still want to have a library around as an information source of last resort, but they have a number of more convenient options to exhaust before they are driven to use it.

So, in 2011, the library should be dead or dying. But that's not what's happening, for instance, in Chicago. From the book Better Together: Restoring the American Community:

In little more than a decade, Chicago has built 32 neighborhood branch libraries and renovated nine others. the downtown Harold Washington Library Center, opened in 1991, is one of the largest public library buildings in the world. Its green metal roof with huge gargoyle like owls, their wings extravagantly unfurled, make it in unmistakable landmark. 14 more new branches are scheduled to open by 2005. More to the point, the libraries are humming with activity.

In other words, proper attention to public library facilities will make those facilities integral to the community—more than worth the investment made. In an hours-old news clip, you see Illinois continue that commitment:

Sixteen Illinois public libraries will receive construction grants to help pay for essential upgrades planned for this summer.

The grants will go toward projects such as handicapped accessibility, heating, ventilating and air conditioning units, building additions and renovation. Secretary of State and State Librarian Jesse White says many public libraries lack the funds to perform these improvements without grant money.

And why? These urban and suburban libraries provide huge quality-of-life benefits. Irregardless of whether information is delivered via bound matter or iPad, or Kindle, or microfiche, or computer monitor, etc.

So - a commentor says "literature, research, and study are all evolving."

True. So...?

Innovative libraries aren't content serving as one-way conduits of information; they want to foster dialogue and exchange with their users. What does that have to do with whether words appear on paper of an illuminated screen?

As further expressed in the book Better Together: A library is no longer a passive repository of books and information or an outpost of culture, quiet, and a calm in a noisy world. The library of today is—should be—an active and responsive part of the community and an agent of change. In addition, the Internet, which was supposed to wipe out its reason for existence,  is very often cited as one of the things that brings people to the library.

This may come as a surprise to some of our more sheltered subdivision dwellers, but there is a “digital divide” in this country. Believe it or not, there are people who live within blocks of you who do not have access to the Internet, a computer, and certainly not a Kindle. For them, the library provides a window into a world of information we take for granted in our suburban enclaves. And now that the digital divide extends into our suburban enclaves, library access is more important than ever for people seeking employment, information, networking tools, etc.

There are also people who are new to the world of computers and the Internet. Late bloomers. For them, the Franklin public library provides very inexpensive computer classes. At five dollars per class, they are eminently affordable; at the same time, their immense popularity has created a not insignificant chunk of income for the library, which helps perpetuate these services.

Here in Franklin, our library stands as the only non-retail “third place” in existence. That is, the library is the only place you can go with no barrier to entry; a place where you may meet or happen upon virtually anyone.

What is a “third place”? Ray Oldenburg describes  it as a place that is neither work nor home, a place where people can spend time together. The café, the public, the neighborhood tavern, the old-fashioned drugstore with soda fountain are some of the examples he uses. A good third place makes few demands on the people who gather there, beyond requiring them to observe some basic local rules (for instance, that individuals, and especially newcomers, will not dominate the conversation; or that Illinois natives will assert their Bears fandom in moderation while in Wisconsin borders). A third place is a neutral ground where people from different walks of life in the community can meet and get to know one another, having in common perhaps only their desire to frequent this particular place. (More about "third places" here.)

Think of some examples of "third places" in Franklin. It's a very, very short list.

The replacement of local shops by chain stores and implementation of single-use zoning that puts housing, workplaces, and retail establishments in segregated areas have effectively eliminated the “corner drugstores” and the coffee shops where people met one another and found out what was going on in town and in the neighborhood. Television keeps us at home in the evening, when in the past we would've sought one another's company in a third place. The authors of the blog comments which I am addressing here have first-hand knowledge of the political and ideological polarization that is threatening us locally. I attribute a great deal of the blame for the lack of community in suburbs like Franklin to the simple fact that our built environment has made it impossible for those serendipitous chance encounters between persons who have ideological differences that lead to constructive debate and collegial jousting. Instead, we are treated to “bloggers” and anonymous commenters who insult one another's ideas—and assault one another personally—in away they never would if they had actual, real-world interaction with persons outside of their ideological spectrum.

Look at the crowds at Starbucks and other cafés. They attest to the continuing need that people feel for third places. However, those third places have a barrier to entry; that being the fact that you are ostensibly there to purchase three-dollar coffee and maybe a muffin. If you bring a backpack full of notebooks and pencils to Starbucks and simply loiter, you are not living up to your side of the bargain. The demographic is narrowed thusly.

Yes, Benjamin Franklin would have loved the Kindle. But he would be horrified to learn that citizens of his beloved republic are, in the dawning of the 21st century, cocooning themselves in rec rooms and pulling up their McMansion drawbridges against interaction with other people and other ideas. He would be sickened to hear that we are now celebrating "tax freezes" at the expense of those social institutions that have helped us grow as a country over previous generations; the institutions built by our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents to serve us and that were paid for by their taxes, though they knew they would see no personal, immediate benefit.

Can you even imagine that forward-looking ethic today?

Our tax rate is at its lowest in four generations, and yet we whine about contributing to educate our children, plow our roads, keep our infrastructure together, and provide community amenities. Where we used to invest in future generations, we now look to secure our own purses, tomorrow be damned.

Still, one cannot deny that Ben Franklin would have loved the Kindle...

Smart Growth in 30 seconds

 

Why They Hate Us: A New Urbanist dissects the movement’s critics

Libertarians, Mods, and Saint, oh my ....

To drive to Kentlands from historic Georgetown is a disappointment, but to drive there from sprawling Tyson’s Corner is a revelation. That experience, and the hard slog that led to it, is what keeps us in the fight.

Read the rest at: The Evolving Debate Over Smart Growth - Urban Development, Planning, Design - Architect Magazine

"Aero-tropo-what?"

I don't get it either, frankly:

In the city of the future, all roads lead to the airport.

At least they do in international consultant John Kasarda’s “aerotropolis,” where offices, factories, four-star hotels, golf courses, theaters, warehouses, medical clinics, fine restaurants and shipping centers cluster around an airport like metal shavings on a magnet.

via www.milwaukeenewsbuzz.com

Braess’s paradox: Close streets to reduce traffic?

Counter-intuitive but effective, it turns out.

How closing streets can actually reduce traffic

As the city of Vancouver prepared to convert a car lane on the busy Burrard Bridge into a bike path last summer, some imagined impending anarchy. At the time, one cabbie, Jatinder Nijjar, predicted, “It is going to be chaos.” In fact, the trial—and the traffic—has run smoothly so far.

Nijjar might have had different expectations had he read “The Price of Anarchy in Transportation Networks,” a paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters in August, 2008. The paper’s authors, two Korean physicists and a researcher at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico, showed that closing certain streets in Boston, London, and New York could actually reduce traffic. This counterintuitive result can be explained by Braess’s paradox, a mathematical concept that describes how, when individual drivers make the decision to take the quickest route, they all try to squeeze onto the path they perceive as being fastest in the short term, and everyone’s commute is longer than it has to be. Providing fewer driving options turns out to mean that commuters spread out their commutes more equitably among the routes available, making the average commute shorter for everyone—not to mention creating a more pleasant civic space.

Read the rest at: The GOOD 100: Fewer Streets - The GOOD 100 - GOOD

Rise of the Aerotropolis?

This past Thursday's Economic Development Commission meeting - a fairly frustrating experience; more on that later - featured a presentation by Tom Rave, executive Director of Gateway Milwaukee, on the AEROTROPOLIS concept. As the topic wasn't included on our agenda (i.e. we could do no advance research), I was taken by surprise as I heard described what is essentially a giant FedEx-based city plan that radiates outward from the airport.

John Kasarda [creator of the "aerotropolis" concept] obviously sees the aerotropolis as key to America's competitive agility, and a critical one at that. Implicit in his thinking is a coming world of exponential population increase and cutthroat competition for resources and profits. His vision may evoke everything Americans find terrifying about globalization--a civilization cast in quick-drying cement, packed with worker drones--but if you grant Kasarda's seemingly implacable logic, you have to ask: How willing or able are we to adapt?

Aerotropolis?

Read the rest at: Rise of the Aerotropolis | Fast Company

Roundabouts: Knowledge is economic power

A West Allis blogger recently weighed in regarding roundabouts. His opinions, unfortunately, are derived from nothing more substantial than a "gut feeling"; he lashes out against those darn "knowitalls" who are going to "screw up your businesses."

Read his blog entry yourself and assess the quality of his reasoning. You cannot assess the veracity of his data because, well, he doesn't provide any.

Which is good enough for one of his fellow community bloggers. Always entertaining is the trick of shrugging off mountains of data by equating empirical research and documented facts to "brochures and pamphlets and spin." Why expend intellectual muscle when you can chuck peanuts from the sideline?

"Data." "Research." "Careful study." "Endorsements by business groups." "Documented success in other communities." "Fact-based debate." These are the tools of those darn "knowitalls" who are going to "screw up your businesses."

"Supposition." "Gut feeling." "Fear of personal annoyance." "Poor math skills." "Colorful language." "Dogmatic partisanship." Ah, the tools of persons with a keyboard and access to the internet - - and little else to aid their position.

The West Allis blog entry, self-evident in its irrelevance and divorced from reality in favor of venting annoyance, is not worth the point-by-point dissection (in this case, evisceration) that a carefully reasoned argument would deserve. However, I wanted to answer here a couple questions for commenter "StubbornOldMan," because some technical shortcoming on the NOW blogs will not allow comments over a certain number of characters.

The questions "StubbornOldMan" came up with (even after claiming that he'd spent some time reading entries on this blog) were:

I have no personal axe to grind with you John, but you haven't answered either of the two questions I asked you.

1) What specific conditions would lend a particular interchange to be a poor candidate for a roundabout interchange? You hinted that there are defintely some. You're being just a tad bit too general in your criticisms for my objective mind.

2) If businesses lose income as a result of lower sales as a result of consumers going elsewhere, doesn't that automatically result in a less profitable business (consequently less tax revenue)?

Yes, I'm aware of the irony of "StubbornOldMan" demanding my specificity in the form of his grossly generalized questions. Let's see, however, if we can use this space to encourage specific questions about the dozens of specific issues surrounding roundabouts.

(An aside to "StubbornOldMan": Specific questions about specific issues - and specific criticisms of specific assertions I make or quote in this blog from other sources  - would indicate at least a minimal level of respect for the value of my time.)

I’ll answer the second question first: Yes. And the point of that question? Alas, a mystery. Is "StubbornOldMan" asking this on the basis the muddled blog entry he and I commented under? Does he believe that the "gut feeling" of one Michael James of West Allis ("roundabouts are bad for business," says Michael James) constitutes a sound platform from which to launch some manner of if-then connection?

To address question one, let’s first lay out some simple realities:

1. Roundabouts are not appropriate everywhere.
2. Worth repeating: Roundabouts are not appropriate everywhere.
3. And, once again, in case you missed it: Roundabouts are not appropriate everywhere.

Hence the saying: Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.

Also, let's be more precise about "my criticisms." My argument is NOT "All roundabouts, all the time." My argument is: IF  careful study by the DOT brings a recommendation of roundabouts on 27th street, we should have the informed wisdom to exploit that to our advantage and not succumb to uninformed apprehensions.

What is important to note is that there are conditions that make roundabouts the far-and-away better choice in terms of safety, cost to build and maintain, convenience and commercial growth.

The blog entry we commented under - a blog entry based on zero facts, incorrect assumptions, a poor grasp of history and context, and a reliance on "gut feeling" - seems to deny that reality.

If I remain a “tad too general,” it's because, A) the data in three 4-inch thick three-ring binders gets a bit dense for non-engineers like myself and, one might suppose, “StubbornOldMan,”and B) "specifics conditions" are not at issue here other than to admit, as "StubbornOldMan" must if he is intellectually honest, that "specifics conditions" indeed exist and are measured by professionals.

To indulge "StubbornOldMan," here's a list of just a few of the factors - "specific conditions," if you will - the DOT weighs when measuring the appropriateness of a roundabout in a particular traffic environment. They look at the finished product in terms of:

• Entry Width
• Entry Flare
• Entry Angle
• Entry Radius
• Entry Deflection 
• Entry Path Curvature
• Entry Path Overlap
• Entry Speeds
• Fast Path Speeds
• Speed Consistency
• Sight Distance
• Exit Path Overlap
• Entry and Circulating Visibility
• Splitter Island Design
• Exit Lanes and Geometry
• Pedestrian Crossings/Crosswalks
• Maneuverability of Large Trucks
• Vertical Design Parameters

The ENTRY DEFLECTION is very important, for instance, as noted in the paper "Roundabout Studies in Kansas":

It must be stressed that the significant reductions in crashes and crash severity result from a well designed modern roundabout, with sufficient deflection to ensure low-speeds – no more than 30 to 40 km/hr. Also, the roadway environment or approach geometry (e.g. roadway curvature) should be such that drivers do not approach at high speeds. A study (Flannery, 2000) of crashes at modern roundabouts concluded that the main cause were approach geometry that allowed high-speed entry and lack of adequate deflection in the roundabout. Unfortunately, due to lack of clear cut guidelines and inexperienced designers, some new roundabouts in the USA are being built with little or no deflection.

That last line is very important.

If all of those (and much, much more) is found to be satisfactory, then roundabouts (properly engineered!) are recommended. If roundabouts are NOT recommended for 27th street by the DOT (which could still happen), then I would be first to agree with them. Tomatoes in fruit salad, remember?

But the bottom line is this:

After 20 years of careful study and data collection here and abroad, it has been shown to the satisfaction of state and national transportation officials, engineers, insurance companies (whose fortunes rise and fall on safety issues) and commercial organizations that properly engineered roundabouts in appropriate settings are far and away superior to traditional signaled intersections.

I’ll repeat a key phrase: “properly engineered roundabouts in appropriate settings.”

(DIGRESSION: I'll not insert here a long analysis of the difference between roundabouts and traffic circles that was flat out missed by a NOW commenter. Rather, I will direct "StubbornOldMan" to a website by the "knowitalls" at The Insurance Institute for Traffic Safety and a chart that conveys the information nicely.)

Then there's this from the voluminous file of "brochures and pamphlets and spin":

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) performed a study titled Crash Reductions Following Installation of Roundabouts in the United States in 2000 on 24 U.S. intersections that had been converted both signalized intersections and stop-controlled intersections to modern roundabouts.  Similarly, the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) also completed a related study in 2002. The U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) also produced Roundabouts: An Information Guide in 2000 with safety statistics contained.  All of these studies revealed very consistent “before” and “after” results with respect to the safety of modern roundabouts compared to other types of stop controlled and signalized intersections. The following is a brief summary of these results with regard to the extent to which modern roundabout conversions improved the accident safety of the intersections: 

• 38 - 40% average reduction in all crash types
• 74 - 78% average decrease in injury accidents 
• 90% average decrease in fatalities or incapacitating injuries 
• 30 - 40% average decrease in pedestrian accidents (depending on the  roundabout location and existing pedestrian volumes)
• As much as a 75% reduction in delay where roundabouts replaced signals

These study results replicate other results of numerous studies conducted on roundabouts in Europe and Australia and provide quantitative evidence that the selection of a roundabout over the more conventional intersection geometrics and traffic control can have significantly positive traffic safety implications. 

- Source: High Speed Approaches at Roundabouts

But, are roundabouts good for business? This is a discussion I'm having as a member of the Franklin Economic Development Commission, and I can tell you that many of my fellow commissioners knew very little about roundabouts and their effects at the beginning of our discussion; they know a bit more now that I've corrected their stated misconceptions with documented facts.

So, "StubbornOldMan," I invite you to read a paper entitled, simply enough, "Are Roundabouts Good For Business?"

As a preview, the paper ends thusly:

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 
South Golden Road is a typical suburban strip commercial corridor. The installation of four roundabouts within this half-mile long arterial has resulted in slower speeds, but lower travel times and less delay at business access points. Accident rates have dropped by 88% and injury accidents have declined from 31 in the 3 years prior to installation to only 1 in the 4½ years after – a decline in injury accidents rates of 93%. The improvement in traffic flow, vehicular safety and access to businesses combined with amenities such as landscaped medians and pedestrian walkways has stimulated economic activity. Sales tax revenues have increased 60% since installation of the roundabouts and 75,000 square feet of retail/office space has been built.  In Golden, CO, businesses have said “Yes, roundabouts are good for business.” 

Is this section of road, though a close match. exactly like 27th street? Of course not. But you cannot help but be compelled by the similarities and the positive results.

And, "StubbornOldMan," as you read the paper (it's not very long, I promise), you will encounter data that contradicts in rapid succession the egregious (and, frankly, adolescent) suppositions made by the WestAllisNOWblog entry we commented under.

You may choose to ignore, "StubbornOldMan," these data and the fruit of the other studies also included. You may choose to ignore the fact that this particular paper is but the tip of the iceberg in terms of data gathered and studies conducted that conclude in support of properly engineered roundabouts. But in doing so, you are putting intuition and "gut feeling" ahead of hard facts, and I have a difficult time accepting that mode of thinking.

In other words: If, on the one hand, I face "annoyance" and "the public's fear of change," and on the other hand I have reliable data that shows me over and over again that properly engineered roundabouts regularly lead to substantial improvements in safety, higher local commercial success, lower costs to build and maintain, fewer delays, better transit times, lower fuel consumption, etc., then, my friend, I will recommend that the local governments in question demonstrate leadership and advocate for roundabouts when the DOT indicates they're appropriate.

With that said - and knowing that there are specific problems with roundabouts that indeed need to be addressed -  I welcome informed, specific questions and challenges to the material above, "StubbornOldMan."

I also welcome your opinion of the KISS concert at this past weekend at Summerfest!

Enriching the public discourse? The lost art of fact checking at NOW newspapers

Apparently, in addition to sponsoring blog space for the black helicopter crowd, Community Newspapers has evidently extended their laissez-faire policy to assertions of fact made in print at Community Newspaper Inc.'s "MyCommunityNOW" papers.

Witness the "Community Voices" feature in the June 25 edition of the Franklin/Greendale/Hales Corners/Oak Creek NOW Newspaper, "Love or hate 'em, plenty of views on roundabouts."

From "Linda G" of Philadelphia:

I spent 25 adult years in the Franklin area before moving out east and find this talk of roundabouts a bit strange. People in Pennsylvania and New Jersey are getting RID of them. Folks here hate them. Accidents abound. Granted, most accidents are minor. Ten years from now, I bet people will regret having built these things.

Editing? Well, the underlined material above was actually edited out of the print version of this comment (the online posting is here,) Another (wiser) edit was the rambling "A tour guide in Halifax, during one of our visits, said of a roundabout we were navigating that it was going to be replaced because at least two or three accidents happen every day. Sure enough, one happened right there in front of us. Semi-truck crunched a van.")

Fact checking? Opinions are one thing, but, as a newspaper, when you print an assertion of fact, it's generally a good idea to go to Google or make a phone call. Had anyone at Community Newspapers done so, they would have learned that in the older cities of the eastern United States - particularly in Pennsylvania and New Jersey - traffic circles were and are common traffic features.

Let's make this clear (as Community Newspapers missed a teachable moment): Just as not all roundabouts are correctly engineered or appropriate for certain locations, Traffic circles are very different - and much less safe and efficient than - roundabouts. In fact, any traffic circle - often erroneously referred to as a "roundabout" - built in the U.S. prior to 1994 is almost certainly not a conforming roundabout.

And, guess what? The old traffic circles in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, etc. - some dating back to horse and buggy days - are indeed being removed. And often replaced by roundabouts when appropriate.

Does Community Newspapers enrich public discussion when they take this lazy approach?

I guess it falls to me to do what they don't have time for.

From Traffic Circles vs. Roundabouts:

Beware the cul-de-sac nightmare....