I've been meaning to clarify what good land use planning can do, beyond sending you to a link to Andres Duany's lectures (on YouTube), or his book Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream. Those may be a little more than you want to explore... So, luckily, the New Urbanists have started an online journal called Public Square, where you can find out about urbanism in bite-sized chunks. Check it out.
The key bite-sized chunk is building pedestrian-friendly, mixed use neighborhoods. That means the pedestrian connection to all the things in the neighborhoods is dignified and comfortable to use (continuous sidewalks, not sidewalks next to fast flowing traffic, 10 - 14' light poles, a small turning radius at the corner, etc.). It also means the neighborhood contains destinations of different types. So you can walk to the corner store, or an office, or at least a transit stop.
We have lots of opportunities to promote this kind of development. What happens if we build New Urbanist neighborhoods?
1. The public realm is re-invigorated. Sprawl means private opulence, but public squalor. Sprawl also isolates us from each other, by design.
2. Homeless people get attention and management, rather than being shunned and ghetto-ized. I suggest downtown Sacramento's recent trend toward building housing is one reason homelessness has gained some prominence among public policy issues.
3. Public health improves. Such neighborhoods integrate walking into the fabric of everyday life. Even a 10-minute walk means significant reductions in late life health problems.
4. The great income divide lessens. Everyone knows the poor have gotten poorer, but few people appreciate that the mandate to own an automobile is the most regressive "tax" sprawl enforces.
5. Youth and the elderly get re-integrated into the neighborhood. People too young or old to drive can actually get around without an auto. This means that the fastest growing demographic (over 85) gets a city that serves them too. It also means kids get a chance to be responsible ("Go buy a loaf of bread at the corner store, please Johnny").
...
I want to add that these suggestions are not of the "pie in the sky" variety. They are not like NIMBY neighbors asking a builder to turn half his subdivision into a park. That's roughly equivalent to saying "Why don't you flush your money down the toilet?" ...or some such silly question.
Nope. New Urbanist neighborhoods sell for premiums, typically. The market likes them. People want to live there.
There are also plenty of opportunities to re-integrate sprawl into a genuine neighborhood, too. For example the Town & Country mall that's losing Macy's could languish with lots of vacancies.... Or it could build apartments in the oceans of asphalt (parking sized for the busiest shopping day, but vacant most of the time). Such malls--called "lifestyle malls"--also sell for premiums, and re-invigorate otherwise dead shopping centers.
The key bite-sized chunk is building pedestrian-friendly, mixed use neighborhoods. That means the pedestrian connection to all the things in the neighborhoods is dignified and comfortable to use (continuous sidewalks, not sidewalks next to fast flowing traffic, 10 - 14' light poles, a small turning radius at the corner, etc.). It also means the neighborhood contains destinations of different types. So you can walk to the corner store, or an office, or at least a transit stop.
We have lots of opportunities to promote this kind of development. What happens if we build New Urbanist neighborhoods?
1. The public realm is re-invigorated. Sprawl means private opulence, but public squalor. Sprawl also isolates us from each other, by design.
2. Homeless people get attention and management, rather than being shunned and ghetto-ized. I suggest downtown Sacramento's recent trend toward building housing is one reason homelessness has gained some prominence among public policy issues.
3. Public health improves. Such neighborhoods integrate walking into the fabric of everyday life. Even a 10-minute walk means significant reductions in late life health problems.
4. The great income divide lessens. Everyone knows the poor have gotten poorer, but few people appreciate that the mandate to own an automobile is the most regressive "tax" sprawl enforces.
5. Youth and the elderly get re-integrated into the neighborhood. People too young or old to drive can actually get around without an auto. This means that the fastest growing demographic (over 85) gets a city that serves them too. It also means kids get a chance to be responsible ("Go buy a loaf of bread at the corner store, please Johnny").
...
I want to add that these suggestions are not of the "pie in the sky" variety. They are not like NIMBY neighbors asking a builder to turn half his subdivision into a park. That's roughly equivalent to saying "Why don't you flush your money down the toilet?" ...or some such silly question.
Nope. New Urbanist neighborhoods sell for premiums, typically. The market likes them. People want to live there.
There are also plenty of opportunities to re-integrate sprawl into a genuine neighborhood, too. For example the Town & Country mall that's losing Macy's could languish with lots of vacancies.... Or it could build apartments in the oceans of asphalt (parking sized for the busiest shopping day, but vacant most of the time). Such malls--called "lifestyle malls"--also sell for premiums, and re-invigorate otherwise dead shopping centers.
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