Jane Jacobs, 1958: "Downtown is for People."

Photo credit

It's an essay by Jane Jacobs written in 1958, and worth revisiting at regular intervals. First, for those just tuning in

Jacobs is credited, along with Lewis Mumford, with inspiring the New Urbanist movement. She has been characterized as a major influence on decentralist and radical centrist thought.

Jacobs wrote a seminal book.

The Death and Life of Great American Cities is a 1961 book by writer and activist Jane Jacobs. The book is a critique of 1950s urban planning policy, which it holds responsible for the decline of many city neighborhoods in the United States. Going against the modernist planning dogma of the era, it proposes a newfound appreciation for organic urban vibrancy in the United States.

Here's the magazine article preceding the book.

Downtown is for People (Fortune Classic, 1958), by Nin-Hai Tseng (Fortune)

... There are, certainly, ample reasons for redoing downtown–falling retail sales, tax bases in jeopardy, stagnant real-estate values, impossible traffic and parking conditions, failing mass transit, encirclement by slums. But with no intent to minimize these serious matters, it is more to the point to consider what makes a city center magnetic, what can inject the gaiety, the wonder, the cheerful hurly-burly that make people want to come into the city and to linger there. For magnetism is the crux of the problem. All downtown’s values are its byproducts. To create in it an atmosphere of urbanity and exuberance is not a frivolous aim.

Gilderbloom: Proving what Gahan can't seem to fathom, tonight at the library.

As noted previously ...

You are invited to listen as Dr. John Gilderbloom preaches his "gospel of things urban" on Tuesday, August 4, at the library.

This is tonight. It's important because ...

"As safety and livability become more important ... the case for converting one-way streets into two-way streets (is) a compelling one."

It's a difficult topic upon which to mount a self-congratulatory plaque, but one addressing genuine fundamentals in the effective management of, and investment in, the city's daily working infrastructure. A good place for the mayor to begin, assuming he ever emerges from aquatic seclusion:

Mr. Padgett's Blues: "10-Foot Traffic Lanes Are Safer—and Still Move Plenty of Cars."

We're hoping to see you tonight ... and big thanks to councilman John Gonder for organizing the event.

You are invited to listen as Dr. John Gilderbloom preaches his "gospel of things urban" on Tuesday, August 4, at the library.

NAC has referenced Dr. John Gilderbloom numerous times in recent years. Thanks to Councilman John Gonder, Dr. Gilderbloom is coming to New Albany on Tuesday, August 4, to give a presentation about the "gospel of things urban" at the New Albany-Floyd County Public Library (Strassweg Auditorium; 6:00 p.m.)

The simplest way for me to say it is this: In large measure, what Dr. Gilderbloom has to say about urban areas is what I wish to facilitate in New Albany as mayor. His presentation on August 4 might as well be a campaign rally. I've personally invited Kevin Zurschmiede to attend.

What? Do you really think Jeff Gahan would come and listen to detailed explanations of what he won't do?

Following are ten links from NAC since 2013 in which Dr. Gilderbloom's name is dropped.

Gilderbloom on New Albany street mess: One-way streets are bad for neighborhoods and businesses.

Irv still nutzoid, and Gilderbloom's research wasted on New Albany -- and Greg Fischer, for that matter.

U of L professor John Gilderbloom gains national notice for one-way street research, by David Serchuk (Insider Louisville)

Calm down, Irv: "Why one-way streets are bad for everyone but speeding cars.

More than one way to think about urban streets, by John Gilderbloom and William Riggs (Special to The Courier-Journal)

Two-Way Streets Can Fix Declining Downtown Neighborhoods, by John Gilderbloom (Planetizen)

John Gilderbloom's and Matt Hanka's original research

U of L Prof. Gilderbloom on Mayor Fischer's minions: "They will never use this research; they will instead belittle our efforts."

As local Democratic Party mounts bowl-a-thon, Dr. Gilderbloom marshalls impressive evidence: "Turn one-way streets to two-way."

CART annual meeting: Dr. John Gilderbloom on ‘Louisville at the Crossroads,’ left behind as other cities embrace New Urbanism (Insider Louisville)

And, here is John Gonder's original post.

---

Cruising With Hans, by John Gonder at his blog

A chance encounter at a grocery store a couple weeks ago allowed me to run into John Gilderbloom. Dr. Gilderbloom is a professor at U of L, and is a noted and quoted authority on urban revitalization with a heavy reliance on the effect two-way streets have in bringing about such revival.

He and I had met several years ago for a discussion of our building in Louisville.

Dr. Gilderbloom mentioned that he is off to Europe soon to preach his gospel of things urban. He said it would be a help to him if he could have a shakedown cruise of his material before he crosses the ocean. I asked if he'd like to run through his presentation in New Albany since we are always looking for good ideas on how to improve our city.

He accepted the invitation, and will speak at the STRASSWEG AUDITORIUM in the basement of the New Albany Library, TUESDAY, AUGUST 4, 2015 at 6:00 PM.

Dr. Gilderbloom is a bit of a shy, reticent, fellow; a typical academic type. But his grasp of his subject material is wide and strong. An informative and engaging presentation awaits those who attend. So, please come help Dr. Gilderbloom get ready for his European visit.

"If you (literally) disintegrate a society’s physical setting, as sprawl has done, you tend to disintegrate its culture as well."

Who are the local conservatives and Republicans who'd like to join the dialogue about these purple topics?

I can think of plenty of them in leadership positions who can't and won't, and yet many of us on the shop floor agree as to broad concepts during social media chats.

Where are you? Let's have a beer. Forget the parties, because there are coalitions waiting to be built.

Painting the Town Purple, by Jeff Turrentine (On Earth)

... Which is why it’s always satisfying when left and right amicably agree to come together over a sustainability issue that was previously thought of as the province of “the environmental movement” (whatever that term has come to mean). Not long ago, I came across a remarkable quote: a one-sentence condemnation of urban sprawl that astutely links its ethos of physical decentralization to the breakdown of certain civic ideals, like community and neighborliness, that we hold dear.

If you (literally) disintegrate a society’s physical setting, as sprawl has done, you tend to disintegrate its culture as well.

True enough, I thought—and well put, at that. The sentence appeared in a white paper on sprawl’s social costs. That one of its three authors was Andrés Duany, the architect who coined the term “New Urbanism” to describe a set of urban-planning principles emphasizing density, centrality, walkability, and shared civic amenities, came as little surprise. But upon reading the names of Duany’s collaborators, I’ll confess that my first thought was that a politically minded copyeditor was playing a practical joke. Could it really be the case that helping Duany make his anti-sprawl, pro–smart growth argument were Paul M. Weyrich, cofounder of both the far-right Heritage Foundation and the Moral Majority, and William S. Lind, the conservative critic who has spent the last quarter-century since the collapse of the Soviet Union railing against an insidious “Marxist culture” that’s still hard at work corrupting America from within?

One article you simply MUST read: "Cities for People—or Cars?"

Photo credit: Shutterstock, via The American Conservative

I'm pulling two paragraphs below as teaser, but you simply must read the entire essay at The American Conservative, which commissioned Charles "Strong Towns" Marohn to write it.

Let that soak in. New Urbanism in this context is neither a "liberal" nor "conservative" issue. It is a "people" issue.

Now, know this: Marohn's essay might as well be Platform Plank Numero Uno in the Baylor for Mayor independent campaign. It is principled, positive, and borne out in voluminous human experience, all across America and the planet:

New Urbanism is a civic design movement ... (advocating) the reforming development practices to support traditional patterns: building close-together homes in slow increments over time and storefronts pulled up to the street instead of buried behind nearly empty parking lots—designing cities and towns for people first and then for automobiles, not the other way around.

What good is independence without independent thinking? Please read Marohn's entire essay.

Cities for People—or Cars?: New Urbanism rediscovers centuries of walkable wisdom, by Charles Marohn (The American Conservative)

... The central task of the Millennial generation is not going to be expanding the boundaries of our cities but managing their contraction. We must find a way to unwind all of these widely dispersed and unproductive investments while providing opportunities for a good life—a modernized American Dream—in strong cities, towns, and neighborhoods. And we have to do all of this with the drag of large debts and a failed national system for growth, development, and economic management that largely associates auto-based development with progress.

This makes the work of the New Urbanists even more important. They are the ones who have applied the rigor needed to understand how a city really works. What are the nuances that make a neighborhood cohesive? Where do we place public buildings and how do we design them so they are not just functional but make a city wealthier? How do we make “good neighbors,” as Robert Frost might ask, without fences and a large setback?

Mueller Community in Austin, Texas: "Planners minimize the supremacy of the automobile and shape the environment around pedestrians."

I'm reminded of Tempelhofer Park in Berlin, where an airport was transformed into a commons. In this instance, it's a community.

(sighs and shrugs) ... Of all the current candidates for office in New Albany's municipal elections, how many (a) would support "smart urban design," and (b) even know what it means?

Perhaps Irv Stumler can ask Jim Padgett for a one-way definition.

With Porches And Parks, A Texas Community Aims For Urban Utopia, by John Burnett (NPR)

In Texas, a state where cars and private property are close to a religion, there is an acclaimed master-planned community that's trying something different.

When Austin's municipal airport closed 16 years ago, it created a planner's dream: 700 acres of prime real estate close to the city core. What emerged from years of public/private/neighborhood collaboration was the Mueller Community — often spoken of as a masterwork of smart urban design.

Mueller is the product of the "new-urbanism" concept: the idea that a built environment can create meaningful community. Planners minimize the supremacy of the automobile and shape the environment around pedestrians.

Speck in Carmel; meanwhile, in New Albany, we wait for ANY Democrat to "get all New Urban" about ANYTHING.

Jeff Speck tweeted this link (below).

By the way, the city of New Albany is spending $194,000 on a "toilet room" at Binford Park. Living and dead trees fall while too few are replanted. We flaunt strange suburban pride in housing demolition without plan one to replace the structures. Heavy trucks keep speeding through downtown residential areas on streets where they should not be. Parking rules are enforced only variously.

Is this the most tone-deaf mayoral term in the city's history?

Better stated, how many "leading" Democrats overall exist in Floyd County even capable of fathoming the following passage in terms of basic reading comprehension, much less actively working to implement the principles enunciated within it?

ROGUE ELEPHANT: What happened when the Republican mayor of Carmel, Indiana, bucked his party and embraced sustainability? He got reelected—four times, by Kim Larsen (One Earth)

 ... Since first assuming office in 1995, Brainard has been steadily transforming his city into a model for how other small cities of the 21st century can use sustainable urban policy to court economic growth, increase populations, beautify public spaces, and greatly improve local quality of life—all while reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming.

On this last point Brainard long ago established his bona fides. Since 2005, he has been cochairing the Energy Independence and Climate Protection Task Force for the U.S. Conference of Mayors, which has been instrumental in convincing American cities to adopt goals toward lowering their carbon emissions. A year ago President Obama selected him to sit on the president’s State, Local, and Tribal Leaders Task Force on Climate Preparedness and Resilience. After four White House meetings, the 26-person panel is now winnowing a slew of recommendations to present to Obama in November.

Meanwhile, back in Carmel, the Brainard administration continues to find new ways of folding sustainability into the workaday business of city management. Municipal workers, for example, now drive hybrid and biofuel vehicles down roads newly planted with hundreds of trees as part of a citywide goal to achieve 50 percent tree-canopy coverage on all of Carmel’s streets. A new, interconnected system of pathways and sidewalks encourages cycling and walking. And when it came time to update the local wastewater treatment plant, the city opted for a technology that kills bacteria with ultraviolet light rather than chlorine. (Even trace amounts of residual chlorine in treated and discharged wastewater can be harmful to aquatic life.)

It’s significant that Brainard is doing all this as a Republican (one of only four on Obama’s Local Leaders team). He shrugs off any suggestion that his sustainability ethic somehow represents a break with Republican tradition, citing such conservation-minded GOP forerunners as Teddy Roosevelt, who vastly expanded the National Parks system; Dwight D. Eisenhower, who created the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; and Richard Nixon, who signed the papers to establish the Environmental Protection Agency. But more to the point, he maintains, no daylight exists between the Brainard administration’s approach to city management and the Republican Party mandate to generate and maintain stable, prosperous communities unburdened by high taxes.

Brainard, loyal Republican that he is, is doing all that. But he’s also doing a lot more—which is apparent to anyone who spends a day or two, as I did, walking around the city he leads. Carmel is being reconfigured according to planning principles that, for many centuries, organically guided the way cities developed—but that, in the era of the automobile, required a renaissance. This renaissance began to take shape in the 1980s in the form of New Urbanism ...

Best guess: You can count 'em on the fingers of one hand, all the while sadly and safely assuming that the absurdly low number is twice or three times that of the total of Republicans hereabouts who've so much as heard of Theodore Roosevelt.

And that, dear readers, is why we're going to screw up this opportunity. In Geico horror movies and New Albany, we make bad decisions.

That's what we do.

First, we need to want to have ideas. Then ...

Think about New Albany's leadership caste.

Think about where the leadership caste gets its information, and how it exercises "leadership."

Think about how any number of cities in New Albany's position might benefit from being a pro-active laboratory of change (if it's been broken for decades, then why not fix it?), and by thinking outside of the stultifying, traditionalist, limiting boxes that invariably yield white bread, by-the-numbers policies and designs for expenditures such as Bicentennial Park and a potential (unnecessary) farmers market "expansion."

Think about how fresh-think always seems to subjugated to old-think.

Think about how our best and brightest generally seek their futures elsewhere.

Think again about New Albany's leadership caste, and if you're still thinking, and haven't yet decided that Morose Hour might as well begin at 6:30 a.m. on a Tuesday, then read this article ... and think about what might be ... with some thought.

9 Ideas That Can Change Everything We Think About Cities, by Carina Kolodny and Ashley Woods (The Huffington Post)

 ... The race is on for cities around the globe to meet the needs of a rising population amid a changing climate and a shifting technological landscape. The cities of the future will have to balance high-tech advances with sustainable living. Here are nine ways they can do that ...

Taxes and "business-friendly" policies? Maybe for 1Si, but not for entrepreneurs.

Dare we delve once again into the world according to Richard Florida?

After all, I wouldn't want that Joel Kotkin exurban apologist guy coming by and egging my house.

Let's cut to the chase, all the while remembering that like so many other places, New Albany contributes to a net diaspora of talent. The talented typically move elsewhere. Those remaining here talk a lot about low taxes and business-friendly policies, and are Dixiecrats, and ...

Oops. I'm starting to see an ominous pattern.

What Cities Really Need to Attract Entrepreneurs, According to Entrepreneurs, by Richard Florida (Atlantic Cities)

... Perhaps even more interesting from the perspective of urban policy are the location factors that did not make the cut – those that high-growth entrepreneurs found to be of little consequence in their location decisions. At the very bottom of the list were taxes and business-friendly policies, which are, unfortunately, exactly the sorts of things so many states and cities continue to promote as silver bullets. Just 5 percent of the respondents mentioned low taxes as being important, and a measly 2 percent named other business-friendly policies as a factor in their location decisions.

Hummer owners gag as "Hamburg Announces Plans to Become a Car-Free City Within 20 Years."

Ah, those crazy Germans -- not just talking a good game, but actually seeking to achieve a shift to renewable energy.

Of course, in America we're better off with the Creation Museum and lots of Big Coal and Big Oil to take us there. Thanks to diligent legislators like Rhonda Rhoads, we're also keeping them gays in their places, by Gawd.

Meanwhile, in Hamburg, the Beatles are so 1960s, and even the St. Pauli Girl has become irrelevant in the craft beer age. In Hamburg, a politician can muse aloud about a car-free future, and not be exiled to Ken Ham.

Thanks to J.d. for the link.

Hamburg Announces Plans to Become a Car-Free City Within 20 Years, by Charley Cameron (Inhabit)

Hamburg is currently working on a plan that would eliminate the need for cars within the next 15-20 years, making the city a greener, healthier and more pleasant place to live. The city’s proposed Grünes Netz, or “Green Network” will create pedestrian and cycle paths to connect the city’s existing, substantial green spaces, and provide safe, car-free commuter routes for all residents.

Six ideas from Jeff Speck that are as plain as the cost-benefit nose on a banker's face.

This 2011 article provides an outline of Speck's book to come ("Walkable City"). As I read through them, I keep hearing bankers talking about "cost-benefit analyses," and I feel much the same way as when I see people looking at their iPhone weather apps rather than looking out the window. 

Quality of life "no-brainers"? Here are six. Can you take the time to read them, please?


Recipes for Great Places: Jeff Speck On Six Ideas That Are Changing the Planning World, by Kevin Pozzi, (1000 Friends of Oregon)

Walkability

A consistent theme throughout Speck’s discussion, walkability is a key focus for planners, consumers, and business people today, as evidenced by popular sites like Walkscore.com.

“It really all comes down to walkability. It’s a great way to tell if your city is doing something right,” Speck said, detailing that pedestrians desire a safe, comfortable, enclosed, and interesting walk. “So how do you get people to walk? You give them a reason to walk—a mix of uses.”

As walkability consultant for Oklahoma City, Speck’s firm advanced the city’s downtown transformation through the successful Project 180 initiative, retrofitting many of the city’s wide arterials to improve walkability and add bikes lanes and on-street parking.

Urban Triage

The next concept Speck introduced, a Duany-coined term known as urban triage, acknowledges that most American cities are dominated by auto-oriented land uses, likestrip malls, and big box stores.  

Because these uses will be around for the foreseeable future, Speck advocates for a thorough analysis of street quality in targeted areas like downtowns, focusing resources on what will ultimately have the most amount of impact.

“We need to get people to walk by choice and to create walkable places,” he said. “And to reference a Duany quote, the first place to do that is in our downtowns, because downtown is the one neighborhood that belongs to everyone.”

One-Way Versus Two-Way Streets

Speck also discussed the impacts of one-way streets versus two-way streets. He described how the uninterrupted mass momentum of vehicles in one direction harms the retail environment by obscuring visibility of shops from view and distributing vitality unevenly throughout the urban landscape.

He mentioned Vancouver, Washington as a prime example of a city that experienced a remarkable transformation of downtown street life and business activity after modifying its one-way thoroughfares to two-way streets.

“ODOT’s boilerplate solution to everything seems to be speeding traffic through downtowns,” Speck said, referencing the prevalence of one-way thoroughfares in smaller towns and cities throughout Oregon. “It really should be changed.”

Road Diets

Related to the one-way vs. two-way distinction is the concept of road diets,an approach that reduces the amount of lanes on thoroughfares in an effort to increase safety and encourage active transportation.

Most of these adjustments retrofit streets from four lanes to three, allowing space for bike lanes, wider sidewalks, landscaping, and on-street parking. Studies show that these modifications don’t significantly alter overall capacity and are a cheap solution that improves the overall safety of the street.

The video from Streetfilms explains the concept further, and includes some impressive examples from around the country.

“Four lane roads are extremely dangerous. T-bones come from cars turning left into lanes that you don’t see,” Speck said. “If you have a three lane road, there is simply no more danger of being t-boned.”

What We Know About Parking

Transitioning the discussion to stationary vehicles, Speck detailed the latest on parking through the lens of Donald Shoup, a Yale urban planning professor who has written extensively about the intersection of parking and land use.

 “Parking is a public good that must be measured properly if downtown succeeds,” Speck said. “It is important to price parking so that one space is empty at all times, mirroring individual choices to maximize utility.”

Speck explained that underpriced parking leads to crowding, which can then lead to a loss in customers and quality of life issues.

Of course, discussions about parking prices can generate considerable debate. So how can municipalities price parking in a politically feasible way? Speck suggests that they create a public benefit district to transfer generated revenues back into the neighborhood.

Greenwashing

Speck concluded his discussion with the topic of greenwashing, citing numerous examples of initiatives that may seem environmentally friendly, but often consist of green gadgetry or misleading spin.

Speck argued against what he calls “gizmo green,” the addition of accessories to buildings in an effort to fulfill an obligation to be environmentally friendly. While not advocating against these retrofits, he is concerned that many of these ‘sustainable’ buildings are located so far from walkable neighborhoods and transit corridors that they are completely dependent on automobiles.

“By far a human being’s greatest carbon footprint and environmental impact is from driving,” he said.

Conclusion: "Details Matter"

As a respected author, consultant, and advocate, Speck’s voice has been very influential in the smart growth and New Urbanism field. While seemingly critical of certain dogma within the profession--namely his discussions around certain "green, sustainable" improvements and street couplets--he consistently champions the creation of walkable cities designed for all modes of transportation.

Speck’s overall argument might be condensed down to the phrase “details matter.” It matters to pedestrians if the journey is interesting enough to actually walk, it matters to businesses when commuters can only see their storefronts one time of day, and it matters how we price parking spots. Most of all, it matters how communities locate, connect, and design their neighborhoods, businesses, and services, to create transportation options and a thriving local economy.

online?os_issue=%2Fsites%2Ffriends.org%2Ffiles%2FOS_October2011-102411-FINAL.html" style="color: #2763a5; text-decoration: none;">Oregon Stories | October 2011

CART in the news (2): Gilderbloom on Quasi-Possibility City.

Substitute "New Albany" for "Louisville," and it's the exact strategy best pursued by the current mayoral administration for the remainder of its turn -- assuming, of course, that conservatives in the local Democratic Party don't commit us to Romneyism in the interim.

CART annual meeting: Dr. John Gilderbloom on ‘Louisville at the Crossroads,’ left behind as other cities embrace New Urbanism (Insider Louisville)

The Coalition for the Advancement of Regional Transportation is hosting Dr. John Gilderbloom from the University of Louisville’s Department of Urban & Public Affairs on Wed., June 19.

... From the CART website:

(Gilderbloom) will discuss his work in “New Urbanism” highlighting real and measurable progress being made by other US cities toward strengthening urban quality of life. Cities that want to function effectively in the future are addressing economic, social, and environmental challenges through policy choices that encourage walkable, bikeable, and public transit oriented communities with a vibrant urban core. Louisville is currently trailing most cities of similar size by most livability, health, and sustainability metrics and in an era of global change laggards have much to lose. Dr. Gilderbloom will provide data that encourages a vision of real and appropriate change that will help close the gap between Louisville and cities with whom we compete.

CART’s annual meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. at the Clifton Center, 2117 Payne St., in Clifton.

Kotkin versus Florida.

Good reading in this point-counterpoint from the Daily Beast.

Richard Florida Concedes the Limits of the Creative Class, by Joel Kotkin

The so-called creative class of intellects and artists was supposed to remake America’s cities and revive urban wastelands. Now the evidence is in—and the experiment appears to have failed.

Did I Abandon My Creative Class Theory? Not So Fast, Joel Kotkin, by Richard Florida

Joel Kotkin says I’ve turned my back on the idea that the creative class spurs economic growth and reinvigorates cities. My response? Bollocks.

Peter Park says: "The reality is all freeways in American cities will come down."

When Job One is fluffing your fellow River Ridge oligarchs, then anyone in Kerry Stemler's position need not be concerned with building communities and cities. By supporting Stemler and these very same oligarchs, entities like One Southern Indiana clearly indicate where their priorities lie -- at the perceived source of operating funds, and not in the notion of building communities and cities. This is the root of the tragedy, with well-meaning indies and small businesses joining One Southern Indiana in the mistaken notion that they're helping to build something, when all they're really achieving is to perpetuate the fluffing.

Meanwhile, those not in Stemler's and his ilk's pockets are trying to determine what to when the freeways come down.

New Urbanism: Overcoming an Overpass, by Ian McNulty (MyNewOrleans.com)

The freeway overpass on North Claiborne Avenue has dominated the downtown landscape for so long it’s hard for some people to imagine the area without it, much less remember how that part of the city functioned before it was built. But as the idea of removing the aging overpass continues to make the rounds among planners and community advocates, an expert with unique experience in urban freeway removal shared his perspective.

“This isn’t about tearing down a freeway, this is really about building communities and cities,” says Peter Park, former planning director for Denver and Milwaukee, where an overpass was removed beginning in 2002. “The reality is all freeways in American cities will come down. They’re not the Roman aqueducts. The question is what to do when they come down.”

RIP at WFPL: "Grady Clay, An Urban Visionary."

It's a fine appreciation of Grady Clay's life and work, but all I the only person chuckling at the irony of Keith Runyon's authorship?

Grady Clay, An Urban Visionary

Share

Tweet

E-mail

0 Comments

Print

By KEITH RUNYON

Enlarge image

Credit The photo is courtesy Oldham County Historical Society

Grady Clay

When Jane Jacobs wrote The Death and Life of Great American Cities, published in 1961, perhaps the most significant book on American urbanism in the 20th Century, it was not a surprise that one of the experts she quoted was Grady Clay. He was the urban affairs editor of The Courier-Journal, and anyone who cared about city planning knew Grady and the work he was doing in Louisville in those days. It must have been a good life for them; both were born in 1916, and each lived nine decades. (Jane Jacobs died in 2006; Grady died early Sunday morning.)

"City for people," or not?

I posted this at Facebook.

The more dense the urban setting, the greater numbers of walkers and bikers. The greater number of walkers and bikers, the less sense it makes to maintain arterial streets for the benefit of those passing through, to the exclusion of the greater good of the neighborhood hosting the streets. Of course, there must be a balance. But I’m weary of the argument that an extra five minutes transit time for suburbanites is sufficient reason to maintain unsafe conditions for walkers and bikers in urban neighborhoods.

A discussion broke out, and you can read it here.

"The Real Reason Why Bicycles are the Key to Better Cities."

In Europe, senior citizens are out on bicycles in force.

In New Albany, it is argued by some that the Ohio River Greenway could not possibly be non-vehicular because senior citizens would not use it.

Curiously, the bicycle itself stipulates almost no age restrictions. Once you're big enough to hop on and learn to ride, you're able to continue riding for a very long time. You just must want to do it, that's all.

This article aptly captures the epiphany I experienced a decade ago, when I began to see New Albany (and outlying areas) from the saddle, not the driver's side. The view is tremendous, indeed.

This Big City: The Real Reason Why Bicycles are the Key to Better Cities, by Kasey Klimes (This Big City blog).

... The most vital element for the future of our cities is that the bicycle is an instrument of experiential understanding.

On a bicycle, citizens experience their city with deep intimacy, often for the first time. For a regular motorist to take that two or three mile trip by bicycle instead is to decimate an enormous wall between them and their communities.

Gonder on River View.

I've listened to John's comments at the public campaign functions to date, and they're always excellent, delivered in a casual and disarming way, as though he's conciously trying to break down complex thoughts into more easily digestible components. He can write, too, as the following links most recently attest. I voted for John last time, and will again in May. He's simply too valuable not to have on the council as an at-large representative.

River View, Look Again

Yesterday I recounted the circumstances surrounding the ill-fated project known, only to me, as Gonder Platz. That was intended as simply a preface to a more critical look at the River View project. I will lay out my thoughts on it here. Such an excercise may have little sway upon the reader or value, or even readers. It is more an attempt on my part, to get some thoughts on this once-in-a-lifetime project down in writing.

I am neither a proponent nor an opponent of the project ...

Just ask Mr. Resch.

It's what we've been saying. If local builders and developers don't believe it, they might ask Steve Resch to explain, because while their suburban business is down, his is up. How'd he do that?

Thanks to JP for the link.

'Smart Growth' Taking Hold in U.S. Cities, Study Says, by Gabriel Nelson (New York Times, via Greenwire)

Redevelopment of urban centers has continued to outpace construction in the outskirts of suburbia, according to a recent U.S. EPA study, suggesting a "fundamental shift" has begun in the real estate market as the Obama administration pushes denser development through its "livability" initiative.

Built to Last.

From CNU:

The Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU), the leading international organization promoting walkable, neighborhood-based development as an alternative to sprawl, announces the winner of its 2009 video contest. The team of First + Main Media from Julian, CA and Paget Films from Buffalo, NY, award-winning documentary film producers, won for their short film entitled Built to Last. Members of the team include John Paget, Dr. Chris Elisara, and Drew Ward.

The outstanding 3-minute video asks the question “What’s the greatest threat to our planet?” and shows how reimagining our cities and suburbs to be sustainable and walkable will cut carbon emissions, commutes and calories. "When it comes to saving the planet, what we build is the greatest threat…or the greatest hope," say the filmmakers in Built to Last.