Placeless Politics

Matt Bevilacqua, writing for Next American City, laments the lack of urban issues in the presidential debates:

Forgive me if this is starting to sound old. Urban advocates have raised this complaint many times before: During national campaigns, when pundits and politicos are bickering over everything from reproductive health to drilling for oil to the debt ceiling, issues specifically related to cities get the short shrift.

This is the frustration of national politics. The dialogue is so polluted by vitriol and dominated by issues that don’t matter that the really important stuff gets buried, or worse, forgotten. It’s extremely disappointing to see no discussion on policies and strategies to make our communities the great, resilient, and productive places they are meant to be.

Along those lines, Chuck Marohn over at Strong Towns has a list of questions he would ask the candidates. Unfortunately I don’t see these questions getting answered before these campaigns are over.

Sitting is the New Smoking

André Picard, writing for The Globe and Mail, on how our sedentary lives are killing us:

The researchers found that the least active, essentially those who sit all day, had a:

147-per-cent increased risk of heart attack or stroke;

112-per-cent increase in the risk of developing diabetes;

90-per-cent greater risk of dying from a cardiac event;

49-per-cent greater risk of premature mortality.

[…]

And there is good evidence that inactivity now kills more people than smoking each year.

We have engineered activity out of our daily lives and it’s taking a real toll on our health, individually and collectively.

The best way to combat inactivity is to integrate activity into daily living. Going to the gym is an additional item that needs to be crammed into an already busy schedule but walking to work or to the store is just a part of life in walkable neighborhoods - no special decision or additional time needed. The threshold between sedentary and adequately active is tiny: just 30–60 minutes of walking a day. This is easily achieved if walking is just part of living our lives. This public health crisis will require many solutions but a great place to start is the design of our communities.

The Ward

Beth Reiter, writing for The New Georgia Encyclopedia, provides a great history of Savannah’s unique urban form:

Savannah’s remarkable city plan is distinguished from those of previous colonial towns by its repeated pattern of connected neighborhoods, multiple squares, streets, and designed expansion into lands held by the city (the common). It is unique in the history of urban planning in a number of respects, not the least of which is that the squares allow for more open space in Savannah than in any city layout in history.

Savannah’s brilliance is the ward, the flexible 8 acre unit of growth. The ward accommodates the majority of potential uses needed in the city including residential, commercial, civic, and public open space all in a compact, elegant form. Savannah is an amazing place and Beth provides a great history of how it came to be.

via Neil21

Aging in Place

Ben Brown, writing for Placeshakers, on the idea of aging in place:

The big push among advocates for seniors has been to build new homes and customize old ones for successful “aging in place.” Almost all of the emphasis has been on universal design, on assuring accessibility in individual homes through design and remodeling choices that make it easier to get around in wheel chairs, reach stuff in cabinets and on countertops and assure safety in bathrooms. But aging in places that isolate seniors in their homes, regardless of how easy it is to climb out of the bath tub, is not going to get at the bigger problem. Especially in an era in which the very demographic forces that have served us Boomers so well turn on us when we need help most. Says Nelson:

The American dream of owning one’s own home may result in millions of senior households living in auto-dependent suburban homes which have lost value compared to smaller homes in more central locations where many of their services will be located.

We all should be for strategies that allow for successful aging in place. But for the strategies to offer meaningful advantages to both seniors and their communities, they have to begin with making the right places.

There is so much to be gained, for both seniors and the community, by integrating seniors into thriving multi-generational communities that encourage independence and active living. The interweaving of diverse people into the tight knit fabric of community brings so much vitality and life, so much richness, into the lives of all. True community is a celebration of the diversity of humanity. Our places should reflect that.

Make it Wrong

Speaking of experimenting on the poor, Brad Pitt and his Make it Right foundation have provided a great example of what not to do. While the intentions were good, the results reek of arrogance and ego - an alien aesthetic foisted upon an optionless neighborhood by an experimenting design elite backed by fame and fortune. There is no coherent vocabulary or consistent attitude toward the street and neighborhood. There is no sense of place or tradition that ties back to the city. There is no placemaking. It just seems like a jumbled mess of techno-green and arbitrary modernism.

As Fred Bernstein wrote for the New York Times:

Nearby, an angular house by GRAFT, a multinational architecture firm, features a porch enclosure that looks as though it had been cracked open by a storm, an unfortunate visual resonance. A house by the Japanese architect Shigeru Ban has a private courtyard space between the living room and bedrooms, but none of the detailing that would make it feel like a part of New Orleans.

Indeed, the houses seem better suited to an exhibition of avant-garde architecture than to a neighborhood struggling to recover. A number of designers I talked to, some of whom had visited the neighborhood, lamented the absence of familiar forms that would have comforted returning residents.

James Dart, a Manhattan-based architect who was born and raised in New Orleans, described the houses as “alien, sometimes even insulting,” adding, “the biggest problem is that they are not grounded in the history of New Orleans architecture.” But, like other architects I spoke to, he expressed admiration for Mr. Pitt. “He deserves a great deal of credit,” Mr. Dart said, adding that Mr. Pitt had “done more for New Orleans” than any government agency.

Or Rebecca Firestone, for The Architect’s Take:

We feel that this is a wasteful approach, for several reasons. Although 150 new dwellings is a good start, each of these homes is costing two or three times as much to build as a less ostentatious building would. And taking longer, too. They’re all designed by prominent national architects, selected by invitation. […]

The Make It Right initiative didn’t go for simple pedestrian solutions designed by Army engineers. Nor did they sponsor an open design competition. Instead, Brad Pitt teamed with Graft Architecture and two other firms, to assemble a list of hand-picked “name” designers. Although the criteria included an interest in New Orleans and sustainability, the resulting designs often look like they’re from Mars.

This seems like such a wasted opportunity. What a shame!

Architecture for Humanity

Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan, writing for Fast Company, reports on the European Prize for Architecture, a prize given to architects who serve humanity:

There are dozens of annual awards doled out to architects who build beautiful, expensive work. The European Prize for Architecture provides a much-needed counterpoint in the industry, rewarding architects who make “significant contributions to humanity" above all else. And this year’s winners, Norway’s TYIN Tegnestue, embody that mission completely: Their ingeniously thrifty, locally constructed projects in the developing world often cost less than $10,000 to build–a drop in the bucket in an architecture world often mired in excess.

This, to me, is what architecture is about - using design and ingenuity to fundamentally better the lives of those we serve. Architects who devote their creative energy towards solving the problems faced by the most under served deserve to be recognized for their contribution to a better world.

There should be caution though - the poor and under served deserve better than the social and physical experimentation they must sometimes endure. Too often architects use these projects as opportunities to push the limits and experiment. What the poor and under served need are proven solutions delivered using economical strategies. There’s certainly room for innovative thinking but let’s not lose sight of the people we are designing for.

Spreading the Wealth

Eric Miller, commenting on the book Spreading the Wealth:

History shows that from highway construction to VA loans, the government made the suburbs possible through vast subsidies. These subsidies took investment away from the cities. Before the suburban subsidies began, transportation systems were largely private (streetcar companies). Today thanks to low-density suburban sprawl, neither highways nor regional transit systems can produce enough revenue to operate as enterprises.

The little considered fact is that the government is actively providing large subsidies to transportation. It’s just that almost all of this subsidy is for a single mode: the private automobile. Any argument that suggests the status quo lacks any subsidy is flawed at its foundation.

Cool Streets

Martin Croucher, writing for The National, on the cooling effect of historic districts:

It is one of the oldest areas of Dubai, but Bastakiya may yet yield fresh lessons for modern urban developers.

The shaded, narrow streets of the district are several degrees cooler than average temperatures elsewhere in the city, a study published online last month by the Renewable Energy journal said.

Dr Bassam Abu-Hijleh, a report co-author and dean of the engineering department at the British University of Dubai, said the design of Bastakiya was in many ways superior to modern grid-based housing developments.

Interesting, but it seems unclear whether the cooler temperatures are due to the narrower streets, organic layout, or a combination. I’d bet that the narrower streets with less pavement and more comprehensive shade from buildings are a more important factor than the organic layout.

Adaptable Housing

Daniel Nairn, writing for Discovering Urbanism, discusses adaptability of housing stock:

But what if homes can be built to be naturally adaptable from the outset? During the lifespan of a home, neighborhood-scaled and regionally-scaled demands will inevitable change. A long-term outlook will envision how the same structure can adapt to these conditions as needed.

It turns out that certain kinds of homes lend themselves to conversion better than others.

Attached single family such as townhouses represent an extremely adaptable typology. A good townhouse building can serve as an owner occupied residence, a residential rental property either in whole or subdivided, or even a mixed use building with ground floor commercial. This amazingly flexible building type is a great asset to neighborhoods because of the wide variety of uses it can accommodate.

Buyer's Remorse

Jeremy Rosenberg, writing for KCET, relays the sad story of how LA ditched its growing multimodal transportation infrastructure for a network of clogged highways:

For reasons as basic and base as bureaucratic power grabs, expediency, and zero-sum options in lieu of smart and nuanced planning, Los Angeles – and many other major cities – wound up smothered with concrete and asphalt goliaths named like Hollywood sequels or Super Bowls – the 5, the 105, the 605, on and on.

How did this all come to pass? Collier-Burns increased transporation-related taxes and allocated millions and millions of additional dollars for freeways. Collier-Burns raised the fuel tax by 50%, vehicle registration fees by 200%, and in a maneuver with an efficacy that should never go underestimated, centralized bureaucratic power in one agency – the California Division of Highways (which later became Caltrans).

Sadly LA wasn’t the only one.