Smart growth, or not?

[diamonddog_74 32]

I found these two arguments interesting, and quite relevant to some of the issues we SimCity builders face when designing our game cities. I've certainly seen some similar discussions in the forums. I hope you find them interesting too.

"How smart is smart growth," by Robert Bruegman.

"Why they hate us," by Jeff Speck.

[Tysons4 68]

pretty relevant .. 2 sides to every coin

[hamsterTK 93]

I guess I have a jaded view on this "debate"

It seems like most, if not all, "smart growth" measures are far from ideal, which makes them easy targets for critics, but also makes you wonder if the goals these policies are intended to achieve are even feasible at. While the critics I can't take seriously because they can't acknowledge the shortcomings of their own side and still have a valid argument.

[edmonton_stinks 5]

Architects were the first proponents of New Urbanism, as the first article mentioned, and one major drawback to New Urbanism is that it over-emphasizes aesthetic; often seeming to focus more on looking cute than functional design. McKenzie Towne in Calgary is a new urbanist neighbourhood, and it looks the part.

Check out this architecture!

It's even got an attractive shopping street.

Well, some parking is always going to be needed, and the street accommodates it well. Although there is the matter of the wide, parking lot-esque alley running behind the shops.

But look at this corner building...wait, that picture actually looks like any other suburban plaza.

Also, the shopping street in the second image is located in an artificially created centre; there is no bus route that runs along the street, and only a couple of community shuttle routes that run near it. These buses pick people up from around the neighbourhood and transport them to the C-Train station, about 15 minutes down the highway. Pretty standard for many suburbs in the city.

But the buildings sure are attractive!

[cheeseman 3]

lol i guess they are planning for future growth there edmonton ... I see this a lot around baltimore, it seems the commercial areas come and then the population just skyrockets and traffic becomes a problem so they add in the public transport later, we have to have some of the worst urban planners around here in the world also, to stay on topic, i really dont like the idea of smart growth, i feel cities need to grow naturally and this certainly looks nice, but doesnt feel 'right' to me

[Odainsaker 2,135]

...one major drawback to New Urbanism is that it over-emphasizes aesthetic; often seeming to focus more on looking cute than functional design.quote>

That's less a drawback in the principles of New Urbanism (or Traditional Urbanism) and more a failure in its implementation.  The particular stylistic aesthetics of any individual building are really unimportant, for what counts is how all the buildings collectively are arranged in their neighborhood.  Hence, a New Urbanist code governing the planning of a development would specify buit-to and setback frontages, service and access points, uses and densities, sightlines, etc.

However, a quirk of North American residential development is that certain "traditional" or "conservative" looks and styles are expected and are omnipresent, and the entire industry is a McDonald's menu of roof gables, window arches, and fancy upgrades.  Actually, there is a an entire iconography of architectural details that are pasted on buildings...banks get pediments and columns, motels and inns get the half-timbered look, or  arches=rich/quality/high class.  Of course, we don't physically construct buildings with the same methods, materials, or outlook that most of these applied styles originally came from, and the resulting buildings indeed look like fake applications full of cut-corners, window dressing, and lowest-common denominator simplifications.  The result is buildings that look like tacky cartoons, and in many New Urbanist projects their entire neighborhoods look like unnervingly superficial and robotic recreations from the "Stepford Wives."  However, the runaway sprawl suburb has the exact same problems.  Theoretically, you can create a New Urbanist community in avant garde, ultra-modern design, but few developers and marketeers want to risk that challenge.  Look at the homes in any Real Estate section of the local newspaper and you'll get a sense of the commoditized look that the market accepts.  I must admit, I sometimes wonder if the modern idea of the home or strip mall business as a cheap, packageable, and resellable commodity with a built-in lifespan and quick turnover may be the real challenge that breaks the New Urbanist movement.

Another issue for New Urbanism is that its greater ideal sees a total and fully integrated regional design, but most of our built areas today have sprawled in accordance to a different and contradictory set of development patterns.  Whole cities and their infrastructure, let alone their economies and social outlooks, are not reorganized overnight, and so we get isolated speckles of little traditional urbanist islands that are not yet congealing into a greater functional whole.  Too many dots don't always get connected, so it will be a long time before the bigger picture is seen.  It doesn't help that while New Urbanism focuses often on the overarching coded guidelines and master planning, the actual construction in response to that master plan will be by separate owners and builders who, steeped in previous reflexive patterns or aiming to fulfill other interests, will not necessarily respond in the way the original planners had expected or outlined.

Bear in mind, this is not so much about "smart growth" versus "natural growth" or "master planning" versus "no planning"...these are false dichotomies because the system already operates under a massive and artificial set of predictable guidelines, patterns, and controls.  Instead, what is is being called for is a change from one system and set of regulations, which has created a clearly unsustainable and alienating sprawl, to another system with a different set of regulations, which offers the promise of a more humane human environment.  It's the kind of change expressed in the idea of setback lines...the current system often specifies a building be setback some distance away from the front property line, usually to make an appropriately grassy front yard or to create a front parking lot in easy sight of the highway.  There are already in place exactingly detailed codes and conventions that optimally determine these distances.  A change would be to instead require a "build-to" line, where buildings would have to be built with facade frontage at their front property line so as to restore a public pedestrian streetscape a move parking to the back.  An alternative set of similarly exactingly detailed codes and conventions would be needed to make this setup work.  Obviously, using either current setback or proposed built-to lines each comes with an entire web of related issues that make them work within their own paradigm, but what is important to understand is that either way, nothing is happening "naturally," but is instead predictably following some set of developer rules that we have spelled out.  New Urbanism argues for a change in our priorities regarding our built environment, and with it a change in the developer rules.  Naturally, it's going to long be a messy and imperfect process.

(Errr, gee, have I bored anybody yet?)

[hmm 17]

Odainsaker Nope you havent, at least not me. If you ever happen to run a planning department in any city, I'll gladly work under you; you sound like my proffesors.

 

Odainsaker's right, Its just nearly impossible for any of these "smart developments to make sense logicaly since they are scattered about haphazardly in a huge sea of auto centered sprawl that has been growing unabated for the las half a century. Its hard to revese something like that meaning that within the sprawl of any American or Canadian city lies over a million diffrent property owners. Getting each of them to cooperate and reconfigure thier property or split thier lots to make the envirnment denser for the sake of making new urbanism make sense is pretty much impossible, especialy  if there is no personal or economic gain besides the greater good of the environment.

Its hard to reverse almost 60 years of devloping the wrong way in North America. I tend to think that all this New Urbanism and Smat Growth  that architects, planners and all my proffesors in university swear by is really old urbansim, or the way that we used to build cities before the first suburban post WWII development boom. Buildings were built up to the street lines, parking lots were not the main attraction for a store and outlying areas were either connected by rail, trolly (light rail) or later on bus. I dont really dont think theres anything smart about it; designers are just figuring out that thier ancestors at the turn of the 20th century had it right all along.

[Msprintz 25]

Originally posted by: hmm

Odainsaker Nope you havent, at least not me. If you ever happen to run a planning department in any city, I'll gladly work under you; you sound like my proffesors.

 

Odainsaker's right, Its just nearly impossible for any of these "smart developments to make sense logicaly since they are scattered about haphazardly in a huge sea of auto centered sprawl that has been growing unabated for the las half a century. Its hard to revese something like that meaning that within the sprawl of any American or Canadian city lies over a million diffrent property owners. Getting each of them to cooperate and reconfigure thier property or split thier lots to make the envirnment denser for the sake of making new urbanism make sense is pretty much impossible, especialy  if there is no personal or economic gain besides the greater good of the environment.

Its hard to reverse almost 60 years of devloping the wrong way in North America. I tend to think that all this New Urbanism and Smat Growth  that architects, planners and all my proffesors in university swear by is really old urbansim, or the way that we used to build cities before the first suburban post WWII development boom. Buildings were built up to the street lines, parking lots were not the main attraction for a store and outlying areas were either connected by rail, trolly (light rail) or later on bus. I dont really dont think theres anything smart about it; designers are just figuring out that thier ancestors at the turn of the 20th century had it right all along.

quote>

That's because our ancestors and designers at the beginning of the 20th century didn't have various technologies that have made sprawl and modern suburbia possible.  There were no freeways or high speed rail lines in existence at that time. 

I'd say a model for a transit oriented suburban community would probably resemble something along the lines of the  Cleveland suburb of Shaker Heights, OH or the much older Baltimore suburb of Roland Park, MD.  Each was designed with streetcars in mind, a form of transit that would whisk riders to the inner city.  The line in Shaker Heights is still in operation as part of Clevelands rapid transit system. 

Another fine example would be the city within a city design that was designed around Clevelands terminal tower complex.  Here's a good read on that complex  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_Union_Terminal

Of course these individuals didn't have degrees in urban planning or uban studies either.  That makes these accomplishments all the more greater, and shows that one just needs to think when it comes to designing cities and surrounding suburbs.  What we need is a good artist or thinker like say O.P. or M.J. Van Sweringen. 

[hamsterTK 93]

I have to admit I like the whole "town center" plan for a shopping center better than traditional strip malls.

I don't think we can't turn back the clock and return to the various economic and societal circumstances that shaped the patterns of urban growth in the pre-war era. You need an understanding of present-day dynamics before making a judgement.