As I wrote last fall, to move more deliberately toward anything resembling a sustainable future, we need to use land more efficiently, building more compactly, with higher densities of homes and businesses per acre than we built, on average, in the late 20th century. We particularly must do this in two circumstances: by retrofitting or "repairing" what are now low-density suburbs with aging commercial buildings going out of service, and by reinvesting and rebuilding in disinvested parts of central cities and older towns and suburbs. While I am on record as saying that we don’t necessarily need high densities to achieve these improvements, we certainly need to do much, much better than sprawl.
A growing segment of the market is ready for more urban environments, but for young urbanites to remain committed to city living and more walkable suburban environments as their life circumstances evolve, they will need higher quality urban places than we have offered in the recent past; and they will need relief from the sometimes harshness that unmitigated density can bring. It is the urban commons – the parks, plazas, streets, greenery and public facilities we share or in which we have a collective interest – that have the greatest potential to provide these things. As I argued earlier this year, sustained success – and successful sustainability, for that matter – require that there must be a "there" to the neighborhoods, cities, suburbs and towns we inhabit. (...)
There is no better place to start than with our streets, our most plentiful and visible parts of the urban commons. And I would offer as a first principle that a street is not just a "street"; a road is not just a "road." We have come to think of streets and roads as conduits, particularly for motorized vehicles: viaducts for getting us from point A to point B as efficiently as possible. Anything that slows us along the way is viewed as a detriment.There are probably some roadways (inter-city freeways, perhaps; but not city streets, I would argue) for which vehicle travel efficiency is still a supreme goal. But that objective should not be allowed to define all streets, particularly in urban and suburban areas. My friend and street-design mentor Victor Dover, in an excellent essay on the subject for the just-published second edition of the Charter of the New Urbanism, reminds us that streets have historically been regarded differently:
Our society once created many different types of streets. A street was not just a conduit for moving cars and trolleys through, but also a place in its own right for socializing, entertainment, commerce, and for civic expression. Pedestrians (and their natural allies, the cyclists) ruled. (...)But, when I say that a street is not just a "street,” I mean that it is not just a surface for motorized travel. It is also the sidewalk, the curb, the trees and “street furniture” that line it; the facings of the shops, homes, and other buildings and uses along the way. It is not just about transportation, but also about civic definition and social and commercial interaction. It is a system, at a minimum, and should at least aspire to becoming a place, as Victor asserts.
by Kaid Benfield, The Atlantic | Read more:
Image: Courtesy of ITE and CNU
