Sprawled Out: The Search for Community in the American Suburb

Complete the Streets, part 1; the upcoming Drexel-Shoppes test

This past weekend as I attended my grandfather's funeral, I was inevitably reminded (as was the rest of my extended family) that we're not getting any younger. The day will come when, in terms of our freedom to get around, we'll be at the mercy of whatever conditions prevail for public transit and street design.

With that in mind, take a look around Franklin. Now imagine trying to traverse the many inhospitable portions of our built environment without a vehicle (the bike path, wonderful as it is, does not count - it doesn't go anywhere).

Bleak prospects, indeed.

I bring this up because Franklin faces an important test when reconstructing Drexel Avenue in front of The Shoppes at Wyndham Village, and I confess that I don't have high hopes.

As previously discussed in this space, Franklin is patterned on classic suburban sprawl templates, one of which is the lack of a cohesive, traffic-taming street grid (an ongoing problem; recall developer Mark Carstensen's overt indignation - - "This is the first I've heard of it!" - - at a public hearing when he was reminded that he would need to need to allow space on the eastern edge of the Shoppes site for a future road that would allow some level of connectivity to future developments).

Developers of untamed subdivisions were/are allowed to create spaghetti-strand roadways built for speed and unrelated to  current and future connectivity. The Franklin "plan" appears to be one that leans heavily (almost exclusively) on collector roads that occur in mile-by-mile increments (Rawson, Drexel, Ryan, Puetz, etc.). These roads are designed to simply get busier and busier, and we'll keep widening them in "response."

A city of incomplete streets.

Unfortunately, one of these "roads as sewer" collector roads - - Drexel - -  runs right in front of the Shoppes at Wyndham Village, intersecting with fast-moving Highway 100. Drexel will assuredly get no relief from alternate routes you'd find on a grid system; it's just going to get busier and more congested. Close your eyes and imagine the environment along the street between Loomis and Hwy. 100 a year from now; and remember, the only way to get to "Shoppes" is to drive.

Again, bleak prospects.

Sprawl-induced barriers abound in what is supposed to be Franklin's "City Center," where "Shoppes" is located. For example, standing between the current nominal municipal center (consisting of the Franklin library, city hall, and Legend park) and Shoppes is multi-lane Loomis Road. Park once and walk to multiple destinations? No way - expect people to get back in their car and drive to Target from the library - not even a half-mile apart from one another - rather than brave that crossing on foot.

Speaking of "municipal center": persons from out of town might be asking, "where is the police station?" We don't call it something so benign here in Franklin; no, we have a Law Enforcement Center that sits off on its own, a sprawling, unapologetic monument to the suburban ideals of "give me space" and "connect me to nothing useful."

Pardon the extended digression, but just look at this thing:

Is that lawn mowed for free?

Given the "macro" sprawl characteristics we observe here in Franklin, how can the city address the more "micro" problem of making Drexel less deadly in front of Shoppes at Wyndham Village, as well as accessible to persons without a vehicle? Perhaps they can't, to be honest, but more progressive and forward-looking suburbs are taking steps via a movement called "Complete The Streets" to make their communities safer, less vehicle dependent and more inclusive for persons with mobility issues.

Stay tuned for part two.

UPDATED - Joel Kotkin: "Here's an Earth-to-greens message: Instead of demonizing the suburbs, why not build better, greener ones and green the ones we already have?"

Photo Courtesy of USDA-NRCS

Though Joel Kotkin has been described as (among other things) "the Los Angeles pundit who loves to be hated by planners," there are some interesting points made in this piece.

He addresses the New Urbanism bugaboo (or, more accurately, "the bugaboo of the New Urbanism"; strict adherents prefer it that way, sort of like how some people insist on saying "the Batman"). Regarding suburbs, the New Urbanism seems to proclaim (condescendingly)  "Suburbs bad; cities good." Indeed, certain proponents of the New Urbanism genuinely give the impression that we should all be living in cities hailing taxis, and the suburbs are worthy of nothing less than abandonment so the land can return to pasture.

But, as I’ve struggled to make clear here, the suburbs are not only here to stay, they can be wonderful places for a wide group of people. The trick is to make peace with what already exists and find ways to make incremental improvements within the present structure. Some would call this a form of Smart Growth (which we'll explore in this blog soon). Joel Kotkin is dubbing this approach the New Suburbanism.

As Kotkin explains:

"Put simply, New Suburbanism represents an effort to create better suburban communities. It is a philosophy of planning, design, and development that aims to improve all of the complex elements that make up a successful community -- governmental, physical, economic, social, and environmental -- creating a flexible template for a wide range of existing and newly designed suburbs.

One critical aspect of New Suburbanism lies in its pragmatism. One cannot always assume, for example, that building a new town center, constructing denser housing, or introducing mixed-use development would automatically improve quality of life -- though these strategies can be useful, as we illustrated in our report. In some communities, physical infrastructure systems may be more important, such as schools, parks, and water systems.

New Suburbanism is not a new design paradigm that seeks to compete with or discredit principles of New Urbanism. Instead, our perspective represents a broad-based attempt to find the best, most practical ways to develop and redevelop suburban communities.

Part of Kotkin's mission is to blunt the blanket assertion made by environmentalists attached to New Urbanism that claims denser communities are somehow ecologically benign while sprawled suburbs are choking Mother Earth to death with strip malls and convenient parking. That seems to be his point in this particular article, which will serve as an introduction to "New Suburbanism" with more to come later this week.

UPDATED with a response from former Milwaukee mayor John Norquist.

From Washingtonpost.com (though the piece also ran in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel):

Hot World? Blame Cities.

By Joel Kotkin and Ali Modarres
Sunday, October 14, 2007

It's all the suburbs' fault. You know, everything -- traffic congestion, overweight kids, social alienation. Oh, and lest we forget, global warming and rising energy costs, too.

That latest knock against the burbs has caught on widely. With their multiplying McMansions and exploding Explorers, the burbs are the reason we're paying so much for gas and heating oil and spewing all those emissions that are heating up the atmosphere -- or so a host of urban proponents tells us. It's time to ditch the burbs and go back to the city. New York, Boston, Chicago -- these densely packed metropolises are "models of environmentalism," declares John Norquist, the former Milwaukee mayor who now heads the Congress for a New Urbanism.

But before you sell your ranch house in Loudoun County and plunk down big bucks for that cozy condo in the District, take a closer look at the claims of big cities' environmental superiority. Here's one point that's generally relegated to academic journals and scientific magazines: Highly concentrated urban areas can contribute to overall warming that extends beyond their physical boundaries.

Studies in cities around the world -- Beijing, Rome, London, Tokyo, Los Angeles and more -- have found that packed concentrations of concrete, asphalt, steel and glass can contribute to a phenomenon known as "heat islands" far more than typically low-density, tree-shaded suburban landscapes. As an October 2006 article in the New Scientist highlighted, "cities can be a couple of degrees warmer during the day and up to 6¿ C [11 degrees Fahrenheit] warmer at night." Recent studies out of Australia and Greece, as well as studies on U.S. cities, have also documented this difference in warming between highly concentrated central cities and their surrounding areas.

This is critical as we deal with what may well be a period of prolonged warming. Urban heat islands may not explain global warming, but they do bear profound environmental, social, economic and health consequences that reach beyond city boundaries. A study of Athens that appeared this year in the journal Climatic Change suggested that the ecological footprint of the urban heat island is 1 1/2 to two times larger than the city's political borders.

Further, urban heat islands increase the need for air conditioning, which has alarming consequences for energy consumption in our cities. Since air conditioning systems themselves generate heat, this produces a vicious cycle. Some estimate that the annual cost of the energy consumption caused by the urban heat island could exceed $1 billion.

This is not to say that big buildings can't be made more energy efficient by using new techniques, such as high-tech skin designs, special construction materials to reduce energy consumption, green roofs and passive cooling. But one big problem is that making large buildings green also makes them much more expensive, so that they're less and less affordable for middle-class and working-class families.

Low-density areas, on the other hand, lend themselves to much less expensive and more environmentally friendly ways of reducing heat. It often takes nothing more than double-paned windows to reduce the energy consumption of a two- or three-story house. Shade can bring it down even further: A nice maple can cool a two-story house, but it can't quite do the same for a 10-story apartment building.

Focusing on the suburbs has the added virtue of bringing change to where the action is. Over the past 40 years, the percentage of people opting to live in cities has held steady at 10 to 15 percent. And since 2000, more than 90 percent of all metropolitan growth -- even in a legendary new planners' paradise such as Portland, Ore. -- has taken place in the suburbs.

So we shouldn't be trying to wipe out suburbs. Even with changes in government policy, it would be hard to slow their growth. Europe has strict zoning and highly subsidized mass transit -- policies that are supposed to promote denser development -- but even so, their cities are suburbanizing much like American ones. "Sprawl cities," notes Shlomo Angel, an urban planning expert at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, also are becoming ever more common throughout much of Asia and the developing world.

Here's an Earth-to-greens message: Instead of demonizing the suburbs, why not build better, greener ones and green the ones we already have?

One approach might be to embrace what one writer, Wally Siembab, has dubbed "smart sprawl." Encouraging this sort of development will require a series of steps: reducing commuters' gas consumption with more fuel-efficient cars, dispersing work to centers close to where workers live and promoting continued growth in home-based work. We'll also have to protect open spaces by monitoring development and establishing land conservation based on public and private funding, the latter coming from developers who wish to work in suburbs.

Building what we call "an archipelago of villages" seems far more reasonable than returning to industrial-age cities and mass transit systems. For the most part, the automobile has left an indelible imprint on our cities, and in our ever-more-dispersed economy, it has become a necessity.

This is not to say that transit of some kind -- perhaps more cost-efficient and flexible dedicated busways, or local shuttles -- can't play a role in serving those who can't or would rather not drive. But short of a crippling fuel shortage or some other catastrophic event, it's highly unlikely that we'll ever see the widespread success of heavily promoted strategies such as dense, transit-oriented developments or the wholesale abandonment of the suburbs.

We can accommodate our need for space and still leave ample room for a flourishing natural environment, as well as for agriculture. By preserving open space and growing in an environmentally friendly manner, we can provide a break from the monotony of concrete and glass and create ideal landscapes for wildlife preservation.

Such notions -- developed before the term "green" existed -- go back to a host of visionaries such as Ebenezer Howard, James Rouse, Frederick Law Olmsted, Frank Lloyd Wright and Victor Gruen. And they have already been put into practice. Starting in the 1960s in his development of Valencia, north of Los Angeles, Gruen envisioned a "suburbia redeemed" that mixed elements of the urban and the rural.

Valencia's elaborate network of 28 miles of car-free paseos -- paths designed for pedestrians and bicyclists -- helped make the natural environment accessible to residents. Gruen also recognized the commercial appeal of such an environment. A 1992 ad for the development featured a smiling girl saying: "I can be in my classroom one minute and riding my horse the next. I don't know whether I'm a city or country girl."

Similarly, The Woodlands, a sprawling development 27 miles from downtown Houston, is a model for a greener suburbia in a region not much celebrated for its environmental values. The Woodlands name, said its former president, Roger Galatas, was seen not as "just real estate hype" but as part of a plan to allow development without destroying forest lands and natural drainage.

In the Washington area, Reston and Columbia, the latter the brainchild of legendary Maryland developer James Rouse, have become far more than mere bedroom communities; they have become places, or villages, in themselves.

All these places evoke a more environmentally friendly suburbanism, which also can be promoted in areas that did not benefit from the foresight of a Gruen or a Rouse. Town centers, revived older shopping districts, even re-engineered malls can all be part of a greener, more energy-efficient future in a large number of communities. And this process is already well underway.

Dragooning Americans into a dense urban lifestyle that's attractive to only a relatively small minority isn't the best way to address concerns about energy and resource depletion or global warming. Instead, we need to take gradual, sensible, realistic steps to improve the increasingly dispersed places where most of us choose to live and work.

Joel Kotkin is a fellow at Chapman University and author of "The City:

A Global History." Ali Modarres is associate director of the Pat Brown Institute of Public Affairs at California State University at Los Angeles.

Among many responses to the Kotkin article at Smart Growth America is this one from the president of the Congress for the New Urbanism, John Norquist:

In their op-ed article “Hot World? Blame Cities,” Joel Kotkin and Ali Modares quote me as the kind of person calling for a wholesale withdrawal from suburbia in response to global warming. As a former mayor, I admit I value cities and appreciate their energy performance. But many suburbs enjoy strong environmental performance as well, if they are walkable, allow mixed-uses, and particularly if they are served by transit. We in the new urbanist movement work intensely to make suburbs more livable, valuable and sustainable. The authors take down a straw man of their own creation.

They also advance the notion that cities are to blame for major climate problems. Kotkin and Modares admit they don’t have any evidence that says the urban heat island effect is a source of global warming. The “urban heat island” effect is local and is addressed through measures such as green roofs, more parks and less parking lots.

A scientific consensus says rising carbon emissions are raising the earth’s temperatures. Personal cars and trucks account for 20 percent of U.S. energy-related greenhouse gas emissions and these totals are rising as people spread out and drive more miles. The average resident of a walkable, mixed-use section of a suburb like Bethesda drives about 33 percent less than the average person in a half-as-dense, auto-dependent exurb like Woodbridge, according to the study just released by the Urban Land Institute and Smart Growth America entitled Growing Cooler. In Manhattan, the amount of driving is much lower still.

With the U.S. needing to replace 70 million housing units over the next 30 years and top demographer Arthur C. Nelson of Virginia Tech University predicting a fast-rising market for smaller dwellings in compact neighborhoods, there’s a great opportunity to embrace a convenient and effective global warming remedy - in suburbs as well as cities.

John Norquist, president of the Congress for the New Urbanism and former mayor of Milwaukee

Transit-oriented development (TOD) proves effective

The point of this article, from Planetizen.com, is that impact estimates and measures provided by the Institute of Transportation Engineers--data which are used to calculate impact fees for developers--are overstated for residential TODs. A more precise measure would mean that "policy makers and planners can 'afford' to give TODs as much as 50% lower fees than traditional developments with no adverse effects on other areas of government budgets caused by traffic impacts."

In other words, banks and other lenders who create deals with developers will have further incentive to create TOD residential developments when their true benefits are reflected in lower impact fees.

Because it's all about The Deal.

   

The Results Are In: Residential TODs Produce 50% Fewer Car Trips

    By G.B. Arrington
(vice president and principal practice leader at PB PlaceMaking.)

You drank the Kool-Aid; you know that if you link transit and land use to create transit-oriented development (TOD) the result is fewer car trips and a host of benefits. From Portland to Miami, Boston to Los Angeles, a record number of TODs are being built in the US. Yet most bankers, developers and regulators are drinking from a different cup. As a result the majority of new development adjacent to transit stops in America has been built in a manner oblivious to the fact that a rail stop is nearby. Therefore many of the hoped for benefits (less time stuck in traffic and lower housing costs to name two) are not being realized from a public investment of nearly $75 billion dollars in rail transit over the past 11 years.

New Research  

New research recently completed for the Transit Cooperative Research Program provides the ammunition to build TODs that take the benefits of transit into account. The study completed by PB PlaceMaking, Dr Robert Cervero, The Urban Land Institute and the Center for Transit Oriented Development looked at how automobile use of residential TODs compared to conventional development.

 

Our research looks at the actual transportation performance of 17 built TOD projects. This was done by counting the passage of motorized vehicles using pneumatic tubes stretched across the driveways of TOD housing projects of varying sizes in four urbanized areas of the country: Philadelphia/N.E. New Jersey; Portland, Oregon; metropolitan Washington D.C.; and the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area.

Suburban Bias   

One motivation for this research was to provide original and reliable data to help seed new professional guidance for building TODs. In part that means an update of the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) trip generation and parking generation rates, from which local traffic and parking impacts are typically derived and impact fees are set.

 

Some analysts have identified a serious "suburban bias" in the current ITE rates. Most of the empirical data used to set generation rates are drawn from suburban areas with free and plentiful parking and low-density single land uses. Moreover, since ITE's auto trip reduction factors, to reflect internal trip capture, are based on only a few mixed-use projects in Florida; there has been little or no observation of actual TODs. The end result is that auto trip generation is likely to be overstated for TODs. This can mean that TOD developers end up paying higher impact fees, proffers and exactions than they should since such charges are usually tied to ITE trip rates.

TODs Produce 50% Fewer Trips 

In fact, the results of this research clearly show TOD-housing produces fewer automobile trips in the four urbanized areas. The research confirms the ITE trip generation and parking generation rates over estimate automobile trips for TOD housing.

 

The ITE manual presents “weighted averages” of trip generation that this study showed to be flawed for TODs. The weighted average vehicle trip rates for this study were computed for all 17 projects combined for weekday, AM peak, and PM peak. Over a typical weekday period, the 17 surveyed TOD-housing projects averaged 44% fewer vehicle trips than that estimated by the ITE manual (3.754 versus 6.715 daily trips per unit). The weighted average differentials were even larger during peak periods – 49% lower rates during the A.M. peak and 48% lower rates during the P.M. peak.

 

Peak hour impact fees and traffic impact studies based on the ITE manual could be overstating the congestion-inducing effects of TOD-housing by as much as 50%. One result may also be unnecessary impact mitigation and roadway improvements. This means that policy makers and planners can “afford” to give TODs as much as 50% lower fees than traditional developments with no adverse effects on other areas of government budgets caused by traffic impacts.

New Standards Needed to Reflect Reality 

Existing suburban standards assume virtually everyone drives. It should now be indisputable: TODs perform differently than conventional development. New parking and trip generation rates are necessary to reflect reality. Implementing the findings of this research will allow communities across America to capture the benefits of TOD and reap additional benefits from the substantial investment in transit.

 

New standards could result in wholesale changes in how we address the cost, impact and feasibility of residential development near transit. The implications of new standards are varied:

 

• Local officials and neighborhoods may be more apt to support increases in residential densities near transit if they are shown proof significantly fewer trips result from TODs than in conventional development.

 

• Developers would likely pay lower fees and extractions by as much as 50% to reflect the actual performance of residential TODs. Those savings can be passed on to consumers in the form of lower housing costs.

 

• Parking availability and cost has a major impact on transit use. Transit agencies should plan for increased ridership from lower parking ratios for residential TODs.

 

• Housing affordability is a crisis facing the nation. More affordable TOD housing should be available to the public because of lower development costs and the need for less expensive parking.

 

• More compact environmentally sustainable development can result from less land being consumed for parking. U.S. EPA estimates each on-site parking space in infill locations can reduce the number of new housing units or other uses by 25 percent or more.

 

Implementing these findings should help result in better planned communities, less time stuck in traffic and more affordable housing. Let’s get going.

  Appendix: Snapshot from the study  

All 17 projects studies were within an easy walk of high quality transit with a mix of modes – heavy rail, commuter rail and light rail. Projects ranged in size from 90 to 854 units. The primary use was residential though 6 of the 17 sites had incidental retail uses on the first floor.

 

Washington, D.C.        - 59.9% below ITE A.M. peak rate                              The biggest effects were found in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. Among the five mid-to-high rise apartment projects near Metrorail stations outside the District of Columbia, vehicle trip generation rates were more than 60% below that predicted by the ITE manual.

Portland, OR – 49.63% below ITE A.M. peak rate                                 After the Washington area, TOD-housing in the Portland area tended to have the lowest weekday trip generation rates – on average, around 40% below that predicted by the ITE manual. The Portland projects which performed best were those on the fringes of the City Center. Collins Circle on the western edge of downtown produced trip rates 78% below those predicted in the ITE manual.

San Francisco Bay Area – 47.5% below ITE A.M. peak rate                             The San Francisco Bay Area also averaged vehicle trip generation rates substantially below those estimated by the ITE manual. Among the East Bay TOD-housing projects studied, Montelena Homes had the lowest weekday rate: 2.46 trip ends per dwelling unit, 63% below ITE’s rate.

Philadelphia / Newark – 30.53% below ITE A.M. peak rate                  Lastly, the two apartment projects near suburban commuter rail stations outside of Philadelphia and the Newark metropolitan area of northeast New Jersey averaged weekday vehicle trip generation rates that were roughly one-quarter less than that predicted by the ITE manual. This is an appreciable difference given the relatively low-density settings of these projects and that commuter rail offers limited midday and late-night services.

      

 

G.B. Arrington is a vice president and principal practice leader at PB PlaceMaking.

The "paradox of sociability" and "the third place"

Illustration from The Planners Web

I was struck by an answer given to me by a Sprawled Out commenter - one who seems to hold a black belt in indistinct contrariety  - when I asked, probing for something specific with which he disagrees: "Do you feel our sense of community is actually increasing year by year, decade by decade?"

He answered: "In Franklin, yes, actually, and far beyond what I saw in other communities built on the traditional lines to which you advocate a return. Franklin, with all its local associations and citizen committees and commissions is like something out of Tocqueville by comparison."

So I found a specific thing on which we disagree. "Associations and citizen committees and commissions," oh my!

There was a time - - and let's hope there will be a time again - - when members of a community interacted regularly with one another in safe, available public spaces; no need to "join" or "sign up." This interaction - - encouraged by thoughtful physical space as built by pre-sprawl planners - -  nurtured a sense of community and empathy between young and old, rich and poor; the ability (and opportunity) to disagree in a civil manner; mobility for elderly and children, etc. Today's sharply segregated society -- created and enforced by developer-driven "planning," among other blights - -  is effectively and observably smothering all of the above.

Do "associations committees and commissions" constitute community? If so, I say, how sad. Evidently community is reserved for those with the time and inclination to join "associations committees and commissions" - - which mainly consist of like-minded people, by the way, unburdened by certain other responsibilities. It's not enough to just be a fellow fellow human being. And remember, any association, committee or commission is necessarily defined by some manner of exclusion (Darla Hood couldn't join "The He-Man Woman-Haters Club").

Could "associations committees and commissions" help create community? Perhaps.

But our physical, built environment must change. Lack of regular contact in public space has cost us our senses of civility and empathy. The crass talk-radio mentality we endure today - - grown men and women resorting to name-calling and taunting - - is nurtured by the anonymous nature of our interactions. Other people are mere speed bumps in our day (especially while driving, which we do more and more and more as suburbs abandon all pretense of walkability). We go from garage to parking ramp to cubicle and back to garage.

In his book The Great Good Place, Ray Oldenburg does a wonderful job explaining the some of the reasons that regular encounters with people in "third places" - - that is, a public place that is not home and not work - - are of a different character than the relationships created in "associations committees and commissions" and among friends you might choose to invite to your home. The book goes into great detail about how the ability to encounter our fellows in "third places" is crucial to re-building the sense of community that is being lost as we isolate ourselves and limit our life to "the big triangle."

It is a fact of social life that the number, kind, and availability of friends depend upon where one may engage them. If our dependence upon place in this regard is not always understood, it is because our closest and dearest friends may be granted special rights to enter our homes and lives almost at will. Few people, however, can be allowed such privileges if privacy is to be preserved and individuals are to maintain control over their lives and relationships. Involved here is the "paradox of sociability. " Simply stated, one must have protection from those with whom one would enjoy sociable relations. One can't have them bursting into one's home or one's place of work or even have them around when one wishes they were not. The average individual may regularly engage a host of friends only if he or she can be free of them whenever that freedom is necessary or desired. Of course, there must also be freedom to engage friends easily if a generous number of active friendships are to be maintained.

It is this paradox of sociability that encourages a proliferation of third places, of convenient gathering sites, wherever human beings have settled. Only where planning or zoning disallows them do they fail to appear as a natural manifestation of people's need to have readily accessible meeting places that may be visited and departed from at will. Where third places are not provided, the individual's active friendships are greatly diminished, as is the ease with which he or she can make contact with friends. Such is typically the case in the newer automobile suburbs where zoning regulations disallow those kinds of establishments elsewhere appropriated as gathering spots. Within developments containing nothing but homes, residents are confronted with an unhappy choice: they may either open their homes to frequent and unbidden intrusions by friends or they may sharply curtail informal socializing. Usually, and with good reason, they opt for privacy. The home after all, must be kept as a sanctum sanctorum of privacy, rest, and recuperation, and it must be thus preserved for all members of the family.

As many an urbanite and suburbanite has learned, having an extensive network of friends is no guarantee against loneliness. Nor does membership in voluntary associations, the "instant communities" of our mobile society, ensure against social isolation and attendant feelings of boredom and alienation. The network of friends has no unity and no home base. One's many friends may offer no more than sporadic and unreliable accessibility. The voluntary organizations offer true group affiliation and they have a home base, but what they offer is available only at scheduled times. And, in many of them, interest tends to be confined to the mutual problems and concerns of parents without partners, the work of the church, the playing and analyzing of bridge games, and so on. What urban life increasingly fails to provide, and what is so much missed, is convenient and open-ended socializing places where individuals can go without aim or arrangement and be greeted by people who know them and know how to enjoy a little time off.

While we're on the subject of "the third place"; posted previously, but worth repeating, is this excerpt from Oldenburg's preface:

In the absence of an informal public life, living becomes more expensive. Where the means and facilities for relaxation and leisure are not publicly shared, they become objects of private ownership. Boredom is constant. The American spends much time relieving that boredom by re-decorating their homes. They depend on new wall coverings or furniture arrangements to add zest to their lives. Like the bored and idle rich, they look to new clothing fashions for the same purpose and buy new wardrobes well before the old ones are past service.

A lively round of after-dinner conversation isn't as simple as a walk to the corner cafe (if they can find one) --one has to Host the dinner. The home entertainment industry thrives in the death of informal public life and the demand for new vcr's sound systems, video rental stores, and new cable connections are satisfying the social exiled. This problem in America manifests itself in a sorely deficient informal public life. The structure of shared experience beyond that offered by family, job, and passive consumerism is small and dwindling.

Is this some recent phenomena? Journalist Max Lerner is quoted in Oldenburg's book:

A number of recent American writings indicate that the nostalgia for the small town need not be constructed as directed toward the town itself: it is rather a "quest for community" (as Robert Nisbet puts it)--a nostalgia for a compassable and integral living unit. The critical question is not whether the small town can be rehabilitated in the image of its earlier strength and growth --- for clearly it cannot---but whether American life will be able to evolve any other integral community to replace it. This is what I call the problem of place in America, and unless it is somehow resolved, American personality will continue to be quiet and unfulfilled.

Lerner wrote that in 1957! He has certainly been proven a prophet.

Serving - not shunning - the neighborhood, continued

Commenting on my post about the new Sendik's and its lack of accommodation for the nearby neighborhood,  reader Terrence Berres tasks me with locating "evidence of a bygone era of such things being common." Because, he says "Old memories, old photos, and a drive through an old neighborhood usually show garbage cans out back, and maybe even the concrete bunker for ashes from the coal furnace."

He misunderstands me. I'm not talking about literally using multiple sides of a commercial building as a facade. I'm talking about taking care of the people who live nearby rather than shutting them out.

Remember, Terrance, that the downtowns of "bygone eras" served human beings, not exclusively vehicles. You could easily walk downtown and the storefronts - - public space - - welcomed you. Builders didn't need to make special accommodations as they should now.

To the left and right of the picture below, for instance, are block after block of houses that are served by this commercial street (there are apartments above shops as well).

(More photos here.)

Also, zoning wasn't so restrictive that you couldn't have a neighborhood grocer or drug store right on the corner of a residential block, like I did in my hometown of Wausau, WI. This store served the surrounding neighborhood; it's on a residential street (and barely survives today), and you can walk or bike to it easily. As a child, I bought most of my comic books right here:

We're not talking here about buildings literally having two or more sides that serve as facades; we're talking about making accommodations for neighborhoods in this modern "zoned" era by using the neighborhood-facing side accessible and a community amenity. In this particular case, it would have meant better use of the west side of the building and access for the neighbors, who now have to drive their vehicles in order to get to a store they can see (and hear) from their houses!

It doesn't have to be complicated. Below is the side and back of a commercial building in new urbanist Middleton Hills (these are the sides of the building away from the main road and facing the neighborhoods). They still found space for the loading dock and garbage:

It just takes a little creativity.

"Well, in all honesty, what were you expecting them to do for the back and side of their store?"

A note from Greg Kowalski - - who blogs at Franklinnow.com and Metro Milwaukee Development News - - reinforces my blog entry below (regarding Whitney Gould and Pabst Farms) where I lament the fact that people don't even know anymore what an effective neighborhood or community looks like; it's been that long since they were common.

In a post I made yesterday, I talk about the soon-to-open Sendik's at 51st and Rawson:

Now that the building is nearly complete, the missed opportunity is all the more obvious. To Rawson and 51st, Sendik's presents a nice facade. To the nearby neighborhood, it bears its unadorned rear end and a busy loading dock. The building was designed to exclusively serve vehicles, without regard to the HUMAN FACTOR - - i.e., the inhabitants of the nearby neighborhood.

What should have been a great neighborhood amenity is now effectively sealed off from a neighborhood that will nonetheless have to endure the extra noise and traffic without enjoying the benefits of a neighborhood grocer, cafe, and public space within easy walking and biking distance.

Greg noted that some "trinkets" had since been added to the bare side of the building; I replied that I was unimpressed. Greg then wrote:

"Well, in all honestly, what were you expecting them to do for the back and side of their store?"

In all fairness to Greg, - - though, as a person who blogs about development issues, he should know better - - his question reflects the gap in knowledge shared by the vast majority of people today. We have become so indoctrinated into the idea of strip malls behind asphalt setbacks that we cannot even wrap our minds around the idea that commercial buildings built in proximity to neighborhoods used to - - gasp - - acknowledge the presence of those nearby human beings and serve as an amenity to them; actually presenting a human-scaled entryway and/or outdoor cafe seating towards the people as well as the traffic.

How about containment for the loading dock and a welcoming, open area  - public space - facing the neighbors?

Examples:

The fact is, these options were never explored.

So you have this (plus "trinkets"):

"If this isn't good enough for you, tell us how you'd do it better. You'd probably criticize Shangri-La."

Above: Middleton Hills, WI

Whitney Gould of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has a ready answer for people with, apparently, the time on their hands to actually call her and leave a phone message professing their ignorance on the topic of community planning.

Alas, we can hardly blame people for not knowing how communities used to be built; the sprawling, vehicle-dependent, developer-enriching, disconnected-enclave system of "planning" that we now experience has its origins just after WWII. There aren't many people left alive to remember the way things used to be.

Dream subdivisions already are a reality

Posted: Oct. 21, 2007

Spaces Whitney Gould E-MAIL

I received a lot of e-mail on last week's lament about Pabst Farms, that 1,500-acre residential and commercial development in Waukesha County. Most readers agreed with my observations about the project's generally uninspired design and planning; a few, including residents of Pabst Farms, defended the subdivision and told me to mind my own business.

The most provocative response was a phone message from an unidentified reader in Oconomowoc who challenged me to suggest an alternative. "If this isn't good enough for you, tell us how you'd do it better," he said. "You'd probably criticize Shangri-La."

OK, here goes.

Assuming that Pabst Farms ought to have been developed at all, the best outcome would have been a subdivision showcasing cutting-edge, eco-friendly design and planning - the kind of community that could sustain itself as gas prices climb, water gets more scarce and concern grows about the climate-altering gases produced by fossil fuels.

Instead of row after row of look-alike shops with slapped-on gables, you'd have distinctive, well-scaled buildings with sod roofs that could absorb storm water and provide insulation; maybe some solar panels. All the parking lots and driveways would be paved with porous material to minimize runoff. Businesses would be nearby, not across the interstate. Transit links would be extensive.

The housing would be a compact mix of well-scaled, energy-efficient, architect-designed homes, condos and apartments in a wide range of prices and in styles from traditional to contemporary. Minimal grass, to reduce water and fertilizer use. Rather, big swaths of trail-laced landscape abloom with drought-adapted native plants; and, in a gesture to Pabst Farms' origins, community gardens.

Does this sound like a fantasy? Guess again. Variations on my dream subdivision already have taken root. A few examples:

Prairie Crossing, in Grayslake, Ill. I first visited this lovely community north of Chicago in its infancy 10 years ago. Today it's a model of environmentally savvy development with a rich sense of place. The 359 single-family homes are traditional in style but varied in color, and they're full of energy-conserving features and bedecked with porches; more recently, 36 condos were added. Metra commuter lines are nearby.

The beautiful public spaces, including a village green, a skating rink and a lake, are easily reached on foot, as are shops and restaurants. More than 60% of the 677-acre development is open space, including restored prairies and wetlands. An organic farm within the subdivision supplies vegetables, fruits and fresh flowers to residents.

Middleton Hills, Middleton. The late developer Marshall Erdman, a devotee of Frank Lloyd Wright, started this 150-acre subdivision west of Madison in the mid-1990s with a master plan by the New Urbanist gurus Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk. The Prairie, Bungalow and Arts and Crafts architecture can be a bit stifling, but the architect-designed homes, duplexes, condos and stores are street-friendly and well-detailed.

The subdivision also is unusually accommodating to pedestrians: The streets are skinny, to slow traffic, with alleys to conceal garages and trash containers; shops and services are a few minutes away; and trails snake through a lush network of wetlands and open spaces.

Grandview Commons, Madison. Developed by Veridian Homes, this 235-acre subdivision east of I-90, off Cottage Grove Road, has been a bestseller. And no wonder. Its curb appeal derives from well-proportioned, colorful houses sited close to the street in a variety of styles and prices, from starter homes and apartments to condos, retirement units and single-family dwellings; flowering boulevards; handsome public spaces; and great views of the state Capitol. Offices and a retail center are easily reached on foot.

Nearly 1,000 such dense, diverse New Urbanist neighborhoods have sprung up around the country, according to Payton Chung, research coordinator for the Congress for the New Urbanism in Chicago. There are hard-nosed financial reasons to build this way.

A study by a team from Rutgers University and the Brookings Institution found that if only 25% of scattered growth was shifted to more compact land-use patterns, American taxpayers over 25 years would save $2.6 billion in water and sewer costs; $110 billion in road construction; and $420 billion in development costs. Those numbers don't even count the $24 million a day that could be saved in gasoline and other costs associated with driving.

It might not be Shangri-La, but it beats the alternative: a smear of auto-dependent, cookie-cutter development from sea to shining sea.

E-mail to wgould@journalsentinel.com or call (414) 224-2358.

Big Triangles

"It's less clear where home is; I mean, basically as Americans we live our lives in big triangles. One point of the triangle is where we sleep, one point is where we shop, and one point is where we work. And our American triangle has gotten much larger."

Robert Putnam, author of BOWLING ALONE, in the film "Subdivided: Isolation and Community in America"

SUBDIVIDED: Isolation and Community in America

"Three years ago I moved to the suburbs. I was pretty excited about it. There was lots of shopping, lots of parking, and plenty of room for new houses. But after several weeks, I hadn't met a single person. One day, I saw the neighbor across the street mowing his lawn. A perfect time to go and introduce myself. I started toward him with a big grin on my face. But then a funny thing happened. As he turned his lawn mower and took sight of me coming toward him, he spun on his heel and mowed his way behind his house.

"I realized I was living in a subdivision, and not a neighborhood. I wondered: is THIS the new American Dream?"

So begins "SUBDIVIDED: Isolation and Community in America," a film by Dean Terry (see a page full of video clips here).  The documentary hews very, very close to the subject matter I explore here in the SPRAWLED OUT blog, exploring issues of public space, thoughtless development and developers, loss of community, etc., all against a backdrop of strikingly evocative footage and music (also by Terry). If you're the least bit interested in the sorts of topics I explore here, you'll enjoy this DVD very, very much.

Fountains of Franklin announces the "upscale".... Grill & Chill?

From the Fountains of Franklin press release:

Devo Properties, LLC announced that Bank Mutual and the upscale DQ Grill & Chill restaurant will occupy space at the Fountains of Franklin development.

The upscale DQ Grill & Chill, that is.

Nothing against Grill & Chill (it'll actually be a pretty nice establishment to have handy for nearby neighborhoods), but I think the developers in this town need to get together and come up with a more stringent set of guidelines for use of adjectives like "upscale" and - Mark Carstensen's favorite - "classy." Perhaps a good definition for an "upscale" eating establishment would be: Could you take a first date there without being ironic?

Here's the "upscale" menu:

Remember these?