The next few days will be hectic so posting will be a bit sparse. Just a heads up.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Monday, April 6, 2009
"Green" Space
Coco Chanel once said "Fashion fades, only the style remains the same." That truth of fashion also applies to development. There are some needs that have remained remarkably persistent over the years while others have been more of a fad. With talented Realtors hawking properties (Those brushed nickel appliances are really going to hold their value), there is a certain resistance to, and acceptance of change. Change that comes from within is pushed, from outside is resisted. The insider driven business is strongly supported by a study kicking around linked receiving expert advice to a reduction in cognitive activity.
In development, there are certain norms that become established and are enforced by the the professionals in the field. One common norm that has recently taken a dive is the "bigger is better" mantra. We tend to take things too far, we catch a good thing and drive it into the ground. Is a 2,000 sq.ft. house better for a family than a crowded tenement? Sure. Is a 20,000 sq.ft. house better for the family than the one a tenth of the size? I would say no, others would disagree, and the kids would do coke.
One of the enduring fads of development is "green space". It is proudly thrust forth in development plans as a gift to the community. The developer is kind enough to not develop all of their space, and leave it all "green" and shiny. Communities love this space so much that most require certain percentages of green space for every development parcel. Yet developers love green space too, and they often exceed green space requirements. So what is really going on here.
There is very influential research that demonstrates that people have a better quality of life if they can see a tree out their window. The theory goes that the fractal makeup of the natural world has some restorative effect on the brain. Without appropriate urban spaces--think of that nice picture of an ancient city hanging on your wall--that mimic this effect, it becomes important to provide natural ones--green spaces.
In addition, cities are afflicted with storms that dump massive amounts of water onto newly (on a geographical scale) impervious surfaces. It would ease the burden on the city to move all of this extra water around if some of it were allowed to seep into the ground. A norm was born.
It turns out, that certain landscapes are cheaper to provide than others. Trees are expensive, so are flowers, plants and bushes. The cheapest way to provide greenspace turned out the be the lawn. In the US alone, there is over 31 million acres of it. That's more land than all of New York--the state, not the city.
Every American is endowed with over 4,000 sq.ft of lawn. The funny thing about lawn is that it doesn't contain the natural fractals found in trees and other plants. It is almost indistinguishable from the latest generation of AstroTurf. It doesn't even do a particularly good job of absorbing stormwater. It's much better than concrete, but much worse than a forest floor.
In reality, developers use lawn as fudge space. If they don't provide enough green space, buildings begin to define the space, instead of just residing in it. When buildings define space, developers are forced to make a host of decisions that go against dozens of norms that are based on the "building in space" model.
Just as people have limits on their time and money, so do companies and cities. They can landscape a bit of open space, but most of it ends up lawn in the end. Instead of finding ways to economically "deal" with our space, perhaps we should be finding ways to distribute land so that individuals, businesses and institutions have the right amount of land at their disposal. Enough to meet their needs, but not so much that they feel compelled to waste it on grass.
Space is precious in cities. If there were 10 square feet less space in your yard, would you miss it?
Friday, April 3, 2009
End of Exurbia
For generations, we have relied on novelty to maintain our spaces, ring upon ring of development hawking the latest fad to the upper crust of society. We slowly drew people out of the hearts of cities, promising them addmittance to the middle class way of life through a change in address.
The farther from the center, the higher on the social ladder you went. In American, we can make even the stupidest ideas happen. Bring on the highways, the strip malls, the collector roads, parking lots and the cul-de-sacs. Somewhere along this line, several things began happening in concert. The lot sizes of suburbs grew so large that they lost their name and became a new place called exurbs. These places bore no sembalance of the small towns that suburbs are meant to emulate. Instead, this was the country, 100% rural.
It doesn't take a Nobel Prize to realize that the sticks are a losing proposition. The urbanization of the world will not decrease for a very simple reason, people like cities. Even in their neutered and sprawling state, urban and suburban areas run the table in attracting young people, families and the elderly. The biggest realization of the trip was this--development is war.
This type of warfare had become incredibly advanced, optimized by years of experience of study. It is a PR war, a war of public perception. It is a war of many fronts, and the exurbs presented a difficult choice for suburbs. The suburbs, which were based on the argument that away is better, had to switch gears. They were facing agressive challenges from exurbs that could hollow out their communities in the same way their own growth cased massive migration. This is what they faced, from a 2006 article:"As far as we are concerned, this is very good news indeed," said Christine Brainerd, spokeswoman for Elk Grove's city government. "It's a sign that the development strategies the city has put in place are working and that we have become a place where many, many people want to live."
What ensued was a massive battle for public perception. Newspapers, tv shows, books, academics and magazines all weighed in. The growing forcefulness of the climate change community helped push the message. In is good. Density is good. Walking is good. Out is bad. Sprawl is bad. Driving is bad.
The exurbs ended up losing the battle, but the suburbs failed to win. It was the sleeping giant, the city, that truely took the day. This was the battle for the young. The singles or couples without children. It is this group that has been captured by cities. While cities still lose families and the elderly, they have soundly won their first battle in generations. Swayed by the argments of their own communities, suburban children abandon the "American Dream" in search of walkability, clubs and culture. Cities, for their part, must struggle not to just to keep these new residents, but to adapt in an effort to maintain them.
The next battle brews.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
San Francisco Post Canceled
I was going to do this post yesterday, but didn't want anybody to think I was fooling. I've decided to cancel the San Francisco overview post since I've already done posts on most of our interesting observations there. It would have been nice to be able to explore the vast network of suburbs that ring the city, but the expense involved in such an adventure would have far exceeded our budget. Next time, we'll have sponsors!
In any case I'm working on a post for a bit later on this afternoon, so stay tuned. I left an image below the fold for those hoping for one last shot of the city by the bay.
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