only communities composed of multi-options, diversity and inclusive will survive and remain successfully functional and effective in the 21st century. They will be characterized as equitable, affordable, sustainable and walkable. The specific components are housing, work, services, amenties, movign and thriving. whose factors include: quality education; access to good jobs, affordable housing; affordable healthy food; affordable health services; ability to enjoy amenities; access to recreation and parks; meaningful civic engagement; affordable transportation choices.
As in all communities, decision-making models fall into three categories: grand plan by primary elements (government/business)/almost no deliberate and/or subconscious actions by individuals and small-entities. moderate planning/moderate actions. liitle or no planning/primarily actions.
The secret and charm of community is its diversity and level of human interaction achieved by creating walkable urban-style environments. 'Spontaneous' diversity (on all levels-primary & secondary) is generated by planting seeds.
four conditions are all necessary and indispensible.
1) must serve more than one primary function and preferably more than two.
+ insuse people to go outside on different schedules
(people distributed throughout the time of day)
(factor of users spread through time of day)
(maximum person/times - when needed most for time balance)
- mid-afternoons(2-5)
- evenings
- saturdays/sundays
+ are there for different purposes (residents/workers/irregulars/tourists)
+ use many facilities in common
+ a waterfront itself is the first asset capable of drawing people.
+ primary uses - anchors/bring people to a specific place/ can be unusual / attractors of people
(offices/factories/dwellings/education/entertainment/recreation)
+ secondary uses - enterprises that respond to the presence of primary uses / serve people & flourishes sufficiently / contains enough of unusual & unique.
+ primary uses mixtures - to preform effectivel/overlap/use same streets/some of same facilities
(incubate operation/incubators of enterprises)
+ constant replacement - less with more intensive/no artificially induced dispersion,only centripetal forces/courts of honor[formal design]/functional & economic needs of the place/
+ mingled city - individual architectural focal pts./intimately surrounded by everyday matrix in harmony w/economic-functional behavior.
+ each primary use needs imtimate matrix with its secondary diversity.
+ primary uses - complexity & variety. {place requires a grid/network/overlap of primary uses]
2) most blocks must be short; streets and opportunities to turn corners must be frequent
+ isolated, discrete street neighborhoods are apt to be helpless socially.
+ monotony - endless stores/depressing predominance of commercial standardization.
+ consolidation, scale of support, scale of convenience.
+ no stringent physical segregation of regular users
+ streets containing buildings where things could start up & grow at spots economically viable
+ various alternative routes to choose
+ mutual paths - mixed & mingled.
+ supply of fleasible spots for commerce.
+ distribution / convenience of placement.
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article @ The Atlantic Cities / Irvine Minnesota Inventory.
All of this means is that truly walkable urban communities are much more economically vibrant than their drivable suburban neighbors. Creating a supply of walkable urban neighborhoods, substituting 'walkable urban' for “drivable suburban”.
What do most people want in the way of a community? A functional, safe, economically effective, place that provides a diversity of choices for residence, work, entertainment, recreation, transportation, services and human needs. Additionally, people want walkable, energy-efficient, more sustainable places that offer racial and ethnic diversity, prosperity, and stability.
I've been emphasizing this point for years - America needs to re-invent its cities for two reasons - and this is one; the other is energy. I don't see America giving up the individual transportation module (car) any time soon (say the next 100 years) but with fossil fuels ending and thus more expensive, living in suburban is not going to work. the cost and inconvenience will not sustain itself. Small to mid-sized cities would do well as bloomer-centric hubs, particular those with good mass transit and several features that attract activity. With small electric powered cars, zones with a 5-mile radius will be ideal especially with the availibility of transit.We live in an older suburb of Chicago - 95% of everything we need is within 5 miles, everything one would want or need + rail and mass transit & easy access to 3 interstates. And yes, we have our few square feet of grass.
However, many will always live rurally and in the far out suburbs - energy and the recent economic phase shift will pull more people into the cities , particularly if cities can regain employment centers and prove 'safety.
Regarding my two point - that America will have to/must re-invent its cities and suburban centers because of energy.
establishment of suburban villages around transport corridors. (an example - suburban chicago) What is required is an easement from zoning regulations allowing for three or four story multi-use development an eighth of a mile around a designated transport service stop, and three story multi-residence development a quarter of a mile around a designated transport stop. The multi-use zone should allow for both ground level retail and ground and/or second story professional uses, with townhouse residences above. The easement should also include a maximum allowed parking minimum, with allowance to include pooled parking in the zone to meeting parking minimums
As it was originally designed, Outer Suburbia and Exurbia was designed to fail in an era where increasing energy efficiency will be a fundamental platform for ongoing growth. However, its possible to retrofit Outer Suburbia and Exurbia to a more sustainable design
All across the U.S., residential exurbs that sprouted on the edge of metropolitan areas are seeing their growth fizzle, according to new 2011 census estimates released Thursday.
...
"The heyday of exurbs may well be behind us," Yale University economist Robert J. Shiller said. Shiller, co-creator of a Standard & Poor's housing index, is perhaps best known for identifying the risks of a U.S. housing bubble before it actually burst in 2006-2007. Examining the current market, he believes America is now at a turning point, shifting away from faraway suburbs to cities amid persistently high gasoline prices.
...
"Suburban housing prices may not recover in our lifetime," Shiller said, calling the development of suburbs since 1950 "unusual," enabled only by the rise of the automobile and the nation's highway system
If values (property values below replacement cost) are sliding because of the cost of travel per mile in an area that requires a lot of miles of travel to get things done, there are two responses that can boost value:
- Reduce the numbers of miles that need to be traveled to get things done, and
- Reduce the cost of transport per mile
(1) Suppose that you had a small, multi-use "suburban village" that was in relatively easy travel distances.
(2) Suppose that the suburban village was connected by lower cost transport to additional suburban villages as well as to one or more larger urban multi-use areas
http://marketurbanism.com/
http://greatergreaterwashington.org/
http://www.streetsblog.org/
http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/
http://discoveringurbanism.blogspot.com/
http://newurbandesigner.com/
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Notes from 'The Oregon Experiment', 1975, Christopher Alexander, et. al., Oxford University Press.
1) organic order - planning and construction is guided by a process which allows the whole to emerge gradually from local acts. The kind of order achieved when there is a perfect balance between the needs of the parts and the needs of the whole. The community shall not adopt any form of physical master plan, but instead shall adopt a process. The process enables the community to draw its order from a communal pattern language. The process is administered by a single planning board of less than ten members, made up of users and ____________ in equal numbers, and a director of planning (supported by a staff ). It is impossible to fix today what the environment should be like 20 years from today, then steer the process of development toward that fixed, imaginary world.
2) participation - all decisions about building are in the hands of the users. what to build, how to build it. User design team for each proposed building, and only those designs initiated by users will be considered.
3) piecemeal growth - construction undertaken in each cycle will be weighed overwhelmingly towards small projects. piecemeal growth is essential to create organic order, growth and repair, in order to maintain balance and coordination, the quality of the whole. To maintain morphological integration repair must conserve a pre-ordained order and adapt continuously to changing uses and activiities. gradual sequence of changes, distributed across all levels and scales. good environments have in common whole & alive due to slow growth over long period, piece by piece. adapting to changing users and needs.
4) patterns - design and construction guided by communally adopted planning principles called patterns, covering all levels (macro / micro).
5) diagnosis - well being of whole protected by annual diagnosis which explains which spaces are alive and which ones are dead at any given moment. Planning staff along with the users of individual spaces will prepare an annual diagnostic map for the entire environment. This diagnostic map will be adopted, published and available to all.
6) coordination - slow emergence of organic order assured by a funding process whcih regulates the stream of individual projetcs put forward by users.
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