"Traffic and road capacity are not the inevitable result of growth. They are the product of very deliberate choices that have been made to shape our communities around the private automobile."

Think of it as a goal for 2020 and beyond.

STREETS AS PLACES: HOW TRANSPORTATION CAN CREATE A SENSE OF COMMUNITY, Project for Public Spaces

“The street is the river of life of the city, the place where we come together, the pathway to the center.”
–William H. Whyte

While streets were once a place where we stopped for conversation and children played, they are now the exclusive domain of cars. Even where sidewalks are present along highways and high-speed streets, they feel inhospitable and out of place.

Traffic and road capacity are not the inevitable result of growth. They are the product of very deliberate choices that have been made to shape our communities around the private automobile. We have the ability to make different choices--starting with the decision to design our streets as comfortable places for people.

Thankfully, in recent years a growing number of people around the world have stood up and demanded something better. PPS is helping to show the way forward, assisting communities realize a different vision of what transportation can be.

Downtown streets can become destinations worth visiting, not just thruways to and from the workplace ...

Bullet points for 2019.

10 Qualities of a Great Street

PPS has identified ten qualities that, in conjunction with the principles described above, contribute to the success of great streets.

• Attractions & Destinations. 
• Identity & Image. 
• Active Edge Uses. 
• Amenities. 
• Management. 
• Seasonal Strategies. 
• Diverse User Groups. 
• Traffic, Transit & the Pedestrian. 
• Blending of Uses and Modes. 
• Neighborhood Preservation. 

When humans outrank anchors 'n' autos: "It’s not about making all cities like Amsterdam. It’s about making them better versions of themselves.”

Well, at least the hue and cry over Spring Street bike lanes recently repainted  (they've actually been there since 2009) has lessened the customary terminal anguish over roundabouts.

Previously, we learned about ...

Leotards, brimstone and "How Amsterdam became the bicycle capital of the world."

"The prevalence of bicycle use in Amsterdam and the Netherlands more generally is a reason why I will never move back to the UK. It is only when you've experienced living in a city that is not dominated by the motorcar do you realise the immense impact it has on your quality of life. The UK now looks like a hellish, backwards, aggressive place full of people who have failed to realise that they've partly created the hell they're living in."

After all, since escaping a culture of car-centric dominance offers further benefits extending in all directions, not merely a bicycle lane or two alone, there's this.

Sharing Amsterdam’s story of transformation into a city for people (Daily Hive)

 ... The experience of living and working in Amsterdam was transformational, shifting her focus from one of environmental sustainability to urban livability. Securing a job as a tour guide to supplement her income, she would show historical photographs of the city’s car-choked streets to tourists, and their reactions were almost entirely uniform: “They would almost always say the exact same thing: ‘That looks an awful lot like my city,’” remembers Dinca.

Dinca and her Californian partner briefly moved back to North America for nine months in 2013, drawn by Vancouver’s reputation for world-class quality of life and progressive politics. But a frustrated stint into the bicycle advocacy scene – including the fledgling Streets for Everyone – would often end in the same reaction from local leaders: “This isn’t Amsterdam”. But, drawing on those archival photos she had collected over the years, Dinca reminded them that, as recently as the 1980s, neither was Amsterdam.

And so, rather than continue down that rather unproductive and unsatisfying path, Dinca decided it was time to return to her adopted home, and complete her Master’s in Urban Planning at the University of Amsterdam, with an emphasis on exploring the (often undervalued) connection between transportation and land use planning.

When it came time to select her thesis project, Dinca recalled the old black-and-white photos that she would show to tourists, and asked herself a compelling question: “Why don’t cities learn from their peers’ historical mistakes and successes?”

She knew, for example, there was intense opposition and outrage at the removal of car parking at the time, while, decades later, almost all Amsterdammers would enthusiastically agree it was a positive step. So she set about better defining and quantifying these dramatic steps towards a city for people, and the average person’s reaction to them.

"Signature" taco walks are nice and all, but here area few random ideas among many that orgs like DNA might embrace to grow downtown every day, not every now and then.

The Louisville Independent Business Alliance (LIBA) has drawn up a strategic plan. LIBA stages the occasional event, but also pursues programs to enhance indie business prospects on a daily basis.

How LIBA plans to broaden the ‘buy local’ message, by Caitlin Bowling (Insider Louisville)

 ... “The ‘buy local’ message isn’t just about buying local, but it’s also about how buying local affects our community overall,” (Jennifer) Rubenstein said.

The key words in the following passage are "community leaders." Who are they, and are they really?

How Cities Can Save Small Shops, by Karen Loew (CityLab)

 ... Meanwhile, cities around the U.S. and the world are recognizing the value of homegrown retail and are enacting policies to enrich the frequently poor soil where small businesses attempt to grow. That’s because municipal leaders are realizing that the basis of any community is its sense of place—its singular look and feel, roots and aspirations—and local retail is essential to expressing that. Shops are part of culture—in addition, of course, to being the places where you can fix a shoe, find a dress, buy a coffee, and chit-chat ...

... This is the moment for mom-and-pop shops to assert their value proposition, says Olivia LaVecchia, a research associate at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance in Washington, D.C. “There’s really a failure to recognize what a powerhouse small businesses are,” says LaVecchia, citing their interdependency with other desirable local outcomes, such as maintenance of affordable housing and jobs.

A recent report from ILSR advocates six policy approaches that any locality can apply. These ideas lend themselves to being customized ...

The six points are summarized below, and it can be readily seen how an activist City Hall working with local independent businesses might devise and implement a customized program of work.

Of course, such a program by necessity would have to be designed to assist businesses first, and City Hall's re-election prospects later -- and both City Hall and an organization like DNA would have to be committed to daily results and not periodic event planning.

Affordable Space: How Rising Commercial Rents Are Threatening Independent Businesses, and What Cities Are Doing About It (Institute for Local Self-Reliance)

1. Broaden Ownership
2. Reduce the Power Imbalance in Landlord-Tenant Negotiations
3. Zone for a Local Business Environment
4. Set Aside Space for Local Businesses in New Development
5. Create a Preference for Local Businesses in Publicly Owned Buildings
6. Recognize Businesses as Cultural Landmarks

When it comes to owning an independent local business in an economy designed and subsidized to exalt big business over small, it simply has to be about every day, not every now and then.

"Chamber Musicians Take to the Streets," and daddy wants some Shostakovich on the plaza.

Not Takin' It to the Streets, which was a Doobie Brothers hit (shall we say) prior to the birth of younger readers.

This is chamber music in the context of placemaking, and I won't rest until Shostakovich greets me as I cross the newly (miraculously?) enlivened concrete slab in front of the City County Building, in route to a city council meeting.

I know; it would require placemaking on steroids to rouse such a dead space. Hope springs eternal, and music soothes the addled here in New Gahania.

Sound Places: Chamber Musicians Take to the Streets (Project for Public Spaces)

Back in October, PPS provided you with a preview of how chamber music and placemaking are coming together in the unprecedented Sound Places program. Since then, program partners Chamber Music America (CMA), the Louisiana Division of the Arts (LDOA), and Project for Public Spaces (PPS), with grant support from the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA), have selected two of Louisiana’s Cultural Districts and two of America’s finest ensembles to collaborate in perfect harmony within the framework of this residency program.

The 2nd movement of Dmitri Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 8 in C minor (Op. 110)

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: Placemaking and the gentle art of nixing community stakeholders when applying lipstick to an alley.

Welcome to another installment of SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS, a regular Wednesday feature at NA Confidential.

But why all these newfangled words?

Why not the old, familiar, comforting words, the ones that worked so well during the glory days, before inexplicably naked greed kicked in like a bond-issue-percentage speedball, knocking you back into the turnbuckles but feeling oh so good, and now as the Great Elongated and Exasperated Obfuscator in the comic book series, you teach detailed principles of banking to bankers, at least when not otherwise occupied making healthy deposits into your own account?

Thankfully, even if one toils for the Sun of the Democratic Future, a healthy vocabulary isn't about intimidation through erudition. Not at all. Rather, it's about selecting the right word and using it correctly, whatever one's pay grade or station in life.

Municipal corporate attorneys reaping handsome remuneration to suppress information and to squelch community dialogue also can benefit from this enlightening expansion of personal horizons, and really, as we contemplate CPIs, IUDs and IOUs, all we really have is time -- and the opportunity to learn something, if we're so inclined.

Earlier this week, the city's economic dishevelment director took time away from failing to populate the industrial park, and stewarded an alleyway beautification project through the forever somnolent Bored of Works, producing terrifying visions straight outta Hieronymus Bosch ...

... but garnering free column inches at the Hansonator.

New Albany approves bid to transform alley into "more of a place" ... “it's going to be a really cool project.”

Of course, dozens of city streets remain inadequately illuminated on a daily basis, which does nothing to enhance public safety, but I digress.

It would be useful if either David Duggins or the newspaper explained what is meant by "more of a place" in the context of gentrifying an alley, and because neither has done so, this week's word is placemaking.

We turn to the Project for Public Spaces for a basic, working definition.

WHAT IF WE BUILT OUR COMMUNITIES AROUND PLACES?

As both an overarching idea and a hands-on approach for improving a neighborhood, city, or region, Placemaking inspires people to collectively reimagine and reinvent public spaces as the heart of every community. Strengthening the connection between people and the places they share, Placemaking refers to a collaborative process by which we can shape our public realm in order to maximize shared value. More than just promoting better urban design, Placemaking facilitates creative patterns of use, paying particular attention to the physical, cultural, and social identities that define a place and support its ongoing evolution.

With community-based participation at its center, an effective Placemaking process capitalizes on a local community’s assets, inspiration, and potential, and it results in the creation of quality public spaces that contribute to people’s health, happiness, and well being.

Wait, what was that?

With community-based participation at its center ...

And this ...

Unfortunately, the rigid planning processes of the 20th century have become so institutionalized that community stakeholders rarely have the chance to voice their own ideas and aspirations about the places they inhabit. Placemaking can break down these silos by showing planners, designers, and engineers the broad value of moving beyond the narrow focus of their own professions, disciplines, agendas. Experience has shown us that when developers and planners welcome this kind of grassroots involvement, they spare themselves a lot of headaches. Common problems like traffic-dominated streets, little-used parks, and isolated or underperforming development projects can be addressed – or altogether avoided – by embracing a model of Placemaking that views a place in its entirety, rather than zeroing in on isolated components.

Using the newly monetized alley project as the most recent example of a long-term trend, we find that community-based participation is almost entirely lacking, and community stakeholders largely excluded from voicing "their own ideas and aspirations."

Consequently, the alley running between Spring and Main will be transformed into a "place" that reflects the "ideas and aspirations" of a relatively small number of elected and appointed officials.

This may constitute kingmaking or sausage making, David, but it isn't placemaking.

Is it the Onion? News and Tribune? NA Confidential? Nah, it's just a Duggins-ism, 'cuz "New Albany approves bid to transform alley into 'more of a place.'"

It's getting creepy surreal, for real. 

Make no mistake: We're honored to have been the source of this idea (June of 2915, below), along with the inimitable David Thrasher, and even if neither of us will be getting a plaque.

Thrasher deserves all the credit, eh?

There's just one lingering question. Given the impact of a typical Ohio Valley summer's night, is covering those dumpsters going to be enough?

Wait -- we already asked this question, a year and a half ago. We like being prescient, especially when they don't know what the word means.

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June 12, 2015
Seattle alleys, New Albany street pianos and the overdue purging of bureaucrats.

Photo credit: Hannegan Roseberry at Fb

I generally advocate thinking outside our self-imposed civic boxes, because New Albany has far too many of them, stacked somewhere out in the garage, creased and dusty, and filled with hoary rationales for non-activity that we've forgotten even exist.

We also have many suitable alleys, as outlined in is adaptive reuse saga from Seattle.

Seattle's Future Alleys Look Like Paradise, by John Metcalfe (City Lab)

When you peer into a downtown Seattle alley, you might see rats and people sleeping in dumpsters. That could change, however, as the city plans to turn some of these airless holes into charming, plant-filled utopias.

Against all odds, New Albany has a thriving restaurant and bar culture to consider, and consequently, while excitedly reading about alley renovations in Seattle -- and recalling the many "hidden" infrastructure places we possess in addition to these -- one sensation kept coming back to me.

Namely, the smell of dumpsters behind restaurants in a red-hot, humid Indiana summer. However, using spaces, making places ... I support the idea, and the possibilities are endless. In fact, apart from alleyways, we could do so much better here, and the first step simply must be liberating ourselves from thinking that the usual suspects and their same "officially" accredited agencies, commissions and political entities possess a monopoly on creativity.

They don't, and all too often they stifle grassroots artistic expression, placemaking and neighborhood revitalization.

As Hannegan Roseberry's experience with our gatekeepers at the Board of Works earlier this week illustrates, the cultural asphyxiation starts at the very top. Hannegan had an idea, and the bored's political appointees could barely stifle their yawns while flashing the usual reply: "It's not an option."

 ... Now, you may be wondering what this surely controversial project must be, considering the absolute breakdown of communication and complete avoidance it inspired: A street piano, painted brightly by teenage artists, sitting out on the street for all passersby to enjoy and experience. I know, contain your gasps of horror; the audacity of this citizen, to think she could so arrogantly prep a whimsical and creative project such as this and terrorize the streets of New Albany.

In all seriousness, my goal is to shed light on a far more concerning challenge than the fun and frivolity of a street piano: The piano is really beside the point.

New Albany must make government more accessible. It is absolutely inexcusable that a citizen with an idea and a passion for her community could be so absolutely and completely led in circles, shut out and shut down.

Tuesday mornings, 10 a.m. It's in need of a dose of glasnost.

Look it up, Warren.

An "artsy" refit for the waterfront skate park? Sure, but why has City Hall allowed it to become an "eyesore," anyway?

You know, adjacent to the neglected amphitheater. 

With no disrespect to the Carnegie's Daniel Pfalzgraf, who has identified a viable opportunity in Nawbany's forever neglected riverfront skate park, and by doing so is thinking so far outside our self-imposed local boxes that he might as well be curating the museum on Saturn, the place to start at the skate park is repairing and improving what already is there, then moving forward with more costly ideas -- and (dare we mention it) connecting these ideas with something approximating a Riverfront Amphitheater master plan.

Conversely, if City Hall remains aloof to waterfront possibilities, preferring its newer shiny objects to the daily grind of maintaining existing facilities, far better to cut it out of the plan as much as possible, and "placemake" independently.

Pfalzgraf is on to something, and in moving forward there is one absolutely huge imperative, one the city customarily ignores: None of these ideas should begin gestation without the direct participation of those currently using the space.

They should be asked, and any plans should pass their approval. If they're asked and decline participation, then let the inevitable campaign finance monetization begin.

Absent the public aspect of placemaking, we'll have yet another imperfect target for excessive expenditure that looks peachy keen on the outside, to the detriment of its intended functionality (see Park, Bicentennial).

FROM EYESORE TO OPPORTUNITY: Carnegie Center talks artsy plans for New Albany skate park; Carnegie curator hopes to create a skate-able work of public art, by Danielle Grady (News and Tribune)

... (Daniel) Pfalzgraf also hopes to ask for proposals from artists, local or regional, detailing their ideas on how to make the park look unique.

He wants passersby to have the same experience looking at the renovated skate park as they would looking at any other work of art, he said.

If nothing else, Pfalzgraf just wants to repair what’s already at the park and maybe give it a paint job.

“We’d love to make it a huge event and completely revamp it, but we’ll basically do whatever’s possible,” he said ...

"What we have to address now is making livable, healthy, safe, and sustainable cities," (Jan) Gehl says.

Photo credit. 

Go to the article for the details. As always, the point isn't so much that New Albany should embrace outright such ideas from the realm of larger cities. Rather, it's that until we begin thinking these thoughts, we'll be unable to borrow from these ideas and adapt them to make a great, smaller city.

5 Rules For Designing Great Cities, From Denmark's Star Urbanist, by Diana Budds (Fast Company)

Danish architect and urbanist Jan Gehl has spent decades making sure cities work for people, not the other way around. Here's how.

... "What we have to address now is making livable, healthy, safe, and sustainable cities," Gehl says. It's a topic he's written about in his books Cities for People and Life Between Buildings, and spoken about in The Human Scale, a documentary about his life's work. His research and theories have inspired a generation of planners and urbanists who are intent on reclaiming cities for people. On the heels of a recent lecture he gave at the Van Alen Institute in New York, we asked him about the most pressing urbanism problems of today and what he thinks the path forward should be.

1. STOP BUILDING "ARCHITECTURE FOR CHEAP GASOLINE."
2. MAKE PUBLIC LIFE THE DRIVER FOR URBAN DESIGN.
3. DESIGN FOR MULTISENSORY EXPERIENCES.
4. MAKE TRANSPORTATION MORE EQUITABLE.
5. BAN CARS.

"Streets can once again become thriving, livable environments for people, not just cars."

The topic paragraph speaks directly to New Albany's degraded condition, and the inability/unwillingness of the city's "leadership" to address it.

Why does Team Gahan always pee on pedestrians?

Know that "traffic calming will occur prior to the tolls," just don't mention in which direction.

Team Gahan's breathtaking passive/aggressive answer to the question of making a safe pedestrian crossing at Main and W. 1st.

So on, so forth, ad nauseam.

Reimagining Our Streets as Places: From Transit Routes to Community Roots, by Annah MacKenzie (Project for Public Spaces)

Streets are our most fundamental shared public spaces, but they are also one of the most contested and overlooked. Today, and for most of the last century, we have taken for granted the idea that our streets are primarily zones for cars, parking, and the transporting of goods. This has not been the case, however, throughout most of history. Across many cultures and times – since the beginning of civilization, in fact – the street has held vast social, commercial, and political significance as a powerful symbol of the public realm.

The Baylor for Mayor meme, October 27: Placemaking is about people, Jeff.

From June 25, 2015:

Adam cringes: "What If We Reinvented Civic Infrastructure Around Placemaking?"

Please, let's start "educating community leaders about placemaking."

I consider this a must-read. It's what we're saying. They're ideas that matter.

Hmm -- wonder if David Duggins has finished reading Jeff Speck's book after a year and a half?

The last time I asked him, he had not. Sad, isn't it?

Top 10 techniques for educating community leaders about placemaking, by Nathan Norris (Better! Cities & Towns)

Extraordinary strides have been made in the advancement of placemaking over the past twenty-five years.

Think about it. In the years prior, the term “placemaking” wasn’t even in common use by developers, designers and planners. Nor were terms such as form-based code, new urbanism, smart growth, transect, charrette, visual preference survey, traditional neighborhood development, transit-oriented development, sprawl repair/suburban retrofit, return on infrastructure investment analysis, tactical urbanism, WalkScore, complete streets, context sensitive thoroughfare design, LEED-ND, light imprint infrastructure, WalkUP, the original green, lean urbanism, the high cost of free parking, etc.

What has not changed over the last 25 years is that decisions regarding the growth and development of our communities are still being made by community leaders who might be experts in politics, but do not have an adequate understanding of placemaking principles.

Uninformed decisions can lead to bad results. You are familiar with the types of poor policy decisions that spring from this uninformed position— all road widenings are “improvements,” all density is bad, the public works department should treat an urban area exactly the same as a suburban area, etc. For those of us who are focused on improving our communities through competent urban design, this is a source of great frustration.

So here are my Top 10 Techniques for Educating Community Leaders about Placemaking. If you find yourself similarly frustrated, consider the following tools for those you believe are open to enhancing their knowledge (not everyone is).

Ethan Kent interview: Placemaking as antidote to "top-down solutions."

Given that so many of the New Albany governing clique's stalwarts view the sexist, racist and anti-Semitic myth merchant Walt Disney as some sort of god, perhaps it shouldn't come as a surprise that they keep patting citizens condescendingly on their heads, pointing the way to the water slide, and treating us like ignorant little children.

But you see, New Albany doesn't need any more multi-million dollar monuments to make-believe. We need a reality check, and win or lose, this is what I aim to provide in my race for mayor. I'd appreciate your support.

For me, loveability begins increasing once the need to channel and control urban management for purely political funding reasons begins receding. It's time to open this place up, not add further rings of hermetic security to the down-low bunker.

What Makes a City Great? It's not the Liveability but the Loveability, by Irene Pedruelo (Policy Innovations)

There is a lack of consideration for "place" in American urban planning that Ethan Kent finds concerning. It offends him the way ugly typography offends graphic designers. He works as senior vice president of Project for Public Spaces (PPS) in New York, where they are trying to turn the way we shape cities upside down. Over its 40-year history PPS has focused on turning public spaces into great places. How? Just visit their offices in Manhattan. The entrance is like the jungle.

An example of the question-and-answer:

IRENE PEDRUELO: Then why are many trying to suppress this kind of urban planning?

ETHAN KENT: The culture of global development is very much trying to order and organize chaotic streets and communities, often undermining the emergent creativity of these places. It is not to glorify the problems but it's to say that in some ways they are creating better public spaces, better community outcomes, than the more top-down solutions that are being introduced to solve their problems.

Adam cringes: "What If We Reinvented Civic Infrastructure Around Placemaking?"

Think about the massively expensive "places" recently created by municipal government in New Albany: Bicentennial Park, River Run Family Water Park, Silver Street Park and the coming "upscale" apartments on the Coyle site.

Then think about the ongoing reign of the slumlord and the city's unwillingness to tackle sub-standard housing, the counter-productivity of one-way arterial streets and the incestuous non-transparency of city officials and Democratic Party functionaries.

The following article deals with placemaking, itself a notion as intimately familiar to Team Gahan's TIF ONE credit card drones as Mandarin Chinese is to your house pets. Think about the "fractured, siloed structure of contemporary government" not just as it pertains to placemaking failure, but to all of local government's activities.

Just think about it. Gahan, Dickey, Duggins -- they don't want you to think. That's the single best reason to do it.

Just an excerpt below.

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Toward Place Governance: What If We Reinvented Civic Infrastructure Around Placemaking?, by Ethan Kent (PPS.org)

Refocusing Governance to Support Public Spaces

As we have experienced in all of these contexts, Placemaking identifies and draws out local leadership, partners and resources on all levels of community and government. When we ask: “What if a central focus of governance became the building of successful places?” there is general comfort and energy to make that happen–to work together in new ways.

The fractured, siloed structure of contemporary government, with its myriad departments and bureaucratic processes, often directly impedes the creation of successful public spaces. Transportation departments view their mission as moving traffic; parks departments are there to create and manage open green space; community development agencies are focused on development of projects, not the spaces in between them or the organic opportunities that arise from social interactions within them.

The Placemaking approach builds on the ability of place-based institutions to create great community places that bring people together and reflect community values and needs. In cities where Placemaking has taken hold, local government is often not directly involved in implementation, but relies on more localized community development organizations, business improvement districts, and/or neighborhood partnerships to take the lead in making community change happen.

How would moving toward a place-centered governance shift the effectiveness of government’s ability to work across departments and with the communities it is meant to serve?

If the ultimate goal of governance, public institutions, and development is to make places thrive, then governance culture and processes need to change to reflect that goal. Place certainly does not represent all of the public good and value in a community, but place as an organizing focus can best help that value be preserved, shared and leveraged.

A focus on place supports a culture of leadership to emerge from all levels, inside and outside of government. A Placemaking culture challenges everyone to compete to contribute to shared value. Bad ideas and privatizing forces are adeptly kept in check or pushed out. The open governance process and culture, enabled by a shared focus on place, is more accessible to all, and more compatible with constructive participation.

The "solution is density," in which small parks play a design role.

There is no room for creative design downtown? Red = blank urban fabric.

Once New Albany had a grand post office at the corner of Spring and Pearl. It was targeted by Suburban Think and bulldozed in the 1960s for conversion into a mundane parking lot.

So it remained until just a few years ago, when we spent far too much money, perhaps a million and counting, to transform the space into what's known now as Bicentennial Park, one bounded by a building, an alley, and two one-way streets, one of which is a high-speed arterial.

The appearance of Bicentennial Park undoubtedly is an improvement on the poorly maintained parking lot owned by notorious slumlords, but it was built without multi-modal use in mind -- and might mere beautification have been done less expensively?

Also, as with the farmers market build-out at Market and Bank, a crucial street corner is tied to an occasional use concept rather than soon-to-be possible infill construction. With all due respect to my friend David White, high rises never were as much the objective as achieving density by filling gaps downtown.

The overall "message" as conveyed by the city's design, and its periodic use of Bicentennial Park for organized events, is that it isn't really a public space meant for adaptation and impromptu use. Rather, it's for shows and for gigs it wasn't built to support, meaning that each such temporary use must be funded again, over and over. How does this make sense?

The planning and design of Bicentennial Park were decreed from the top-down, and they ignore inclusive principles of community and placemaking in favor of finding a spot to erect a self-congratulatory plaque.

Meanwhile, in DC ... a counter example.

Fairfax trades a parking lot for a new park, by Canaan Merchant (Greater Greater Washington)

Old Town Square in Fairfax used to be a park that nobody used because it was wedged between two parking lots in the middle of the city's small, historic core. Now it's bigger and more inviting, and it's helping Fairfax embrace its urban roots.

We have roads, but we have no streets. Time for a change.

A street in Brooklyn (from the article).

A street in New Albany.

One by one, day after day, we post these statements of transformative principle, safe in the knowledge that the planet is filled with practical examples of their utility.

One by one, day after day, elected and appointed officials in the city of New Albany fail to grasp the central point, letting precious time slip past as they embarrass themselves through abject ignorance.

Granted, no one wants to get involved with the filth of politics, and yet the only real answer to this conundrum is to fire the incumbents. You'll have two opportunities to do so this year, and in the process, to select individuals who "get" it.

Reimagining Our Streets as Places: From Transit Routes to Community Roots (Project for Public Spaces)

In a city the street must be supreme. It is the first institution of the city. The street is a room by agreement, a community room, the walls of which belong to the donors, dedicated to the city for common use. Its ceiling is the sky. Today, streets are disinterested movements not at all belonging to the houses that front them. So you have no streets. You have roads, but you have no streets.
– Louis Kahn, The Street

Streets are our most fundamental shared public spaces, but they are also one of the most contested and overlooked. Today, and for most of the last century, we have taken for granted the idea that our streets are primarily zones for cars, parking, and the transporting of goods. This has not been the case, however, throughout most of history. Across many cultures and times – since the beginning of civilization, in fact – the street has held vast social, commercial, and political significance as a powerful symbol of the public realm.

The street was “the first institution of the city,” as architect Louis Kahn once wrote, and even if we don’t always recognize it, streets are still a powerful force in shaping our physical and mental landscapes. We name them after our idols and fallen heroes—in remembrance of presidents or literary figures, civil rights leaders or old Hollywood stars. In many of our own lives and experiences, they are sites for both celebration and rebellion: Stages for summer block parties and holiday parades, they are also the place we gather to express public dissent—as with recent demonstrations following the grand jury decisions in St. Louis and New York, where millions took to the street in protest of widespread police brutality and racial injustice. When streets function well on the level of everyday experience, they provide opportunities for people to connect in a way that no other public space can.

Houston Jones, and planning for people and places.

First I saw this quote on Twitter.

“If you plan cities for cars and traffic, you get cars and traffic. If you plan for people and places, you get people and places” -- Fred Kent (Project for Public Spaces)

It made me think of something I'd just read. What was it?

It was Houston Jones's third point below: "Try to get close to a stop light or something that slows traffic down where you're not whizzing by at 45 miles an hour."

Yep. That whole traffic thing ... again. Even the real estate guy gets it.

10 Questions with Restaurant Realtor Houston Jones, by Zach Everson (Eater Louisville)

What would be three tips you would give to somebody looking to open up a restaurant to consider regarding the real estate aspect of it?

They always say location, location, location. But that's not always true. I think that one tip I would always is what's your point of difference? You know, what makes you different than anybody else in opening a restaurant, number one. Number two is the concept I feel like has to fit the space. I don't know quite how to explain that, but if it's a brick building and it's down in Butchertown and it's called the Blind Pig, then it kind of fits the space. If you put the Blind Pig in a strip center, in the middle of the strip center it probably wouldn't do very well. It's picking the right location and the demographics, making sure the demographics work for you. The other tip I would give would probably be don't put it on the street. Try to get close to a stop light or something that slows traffic down where you're not whizzing by at 45 miles an hour.

Slumlords have their own view of placemaking.

An appropriate thought for the conclusion of a week that saw Carl Malysz land a new job further up I-65 might well be brief contemplation about the legacy of the top-down England years in New Albany, as compared with the grassroots neighborhood revitalization emphasis described below.

Are we making progress is recovering from the Hizzoner years? Or is the legacy of the Battered City Syndrome just too great?

Why True Neighborhood Building Requires the Dedication of a Few 'Zealous Nuts', by Fred Kent (GOOD HQ)

What we share with our neighbors is place: the magical, intangible quality that is created when people interact around a tangible space, be it a park, a street, or a vacant lot. At the Project for Public Spaces, we advocate for citizens to be included more directly and meaningfully in the process of shaping their neighborhood’s public spaces. We believe that a neighborhood can only reach its fullest potential when everyone who lives, works, and plays there feels welcome to contribute to the life of its public spaces ...

... Detroit is struggling, but this is bringing out the best in the citizens who have chosen to stay. What we are seeing there today is neighbors realizing, en masse, that they can’t wait any longer for someone else to turn things around, and they are taking action to create the kinds of neighborhoods that they want to live in, with or without official permission. They are thinking Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper, and working together to accomplish ‘quick wins’ today that will build the social ties and momentum needed to transform the city tomorrow.

Another instance of rightsizing: "Improved Safety and Pedestrian Experience."

Quite possibly I'm repeating myself, but so be it. Here's an excellent example of what New Albany needs to be considering ... not INSTEAD of potential recreational facility upgrades, but as a NECESSARY COMPONENT of any such upgrades.

Sorry to be yelling, but sometimes it's the only way they'll pay attention.

Raymond Avenue: Rightsizing Improved Safety and Pedestrian Experience

Poughkeepsie, NY
4 → 2 Lane Configuration + Roundabouts and Pedestrian Infrastructure

Raymond Avenue borders Vassar College, residences, the Arlington Business District, open space, and an elementary school in the Town of Poughkeepsie. It is also known as Route 376, and was converted into a four lane minor arterial in the 1960s. This rightsizing project reconfigured 1.5 miles of Raymond Avenue to two lanes, calmed a previously unsafe corridor, and added a range of pedestrian and aesthetic improvements.

In 1999, Project for Public Spaces was hired by Vassar College and the Arlington Steering Committee to study the Arlington Business District. Recommendations for the area included traffic calming, which prompted a redesign of Raymond Avenue by the New York State Department of Transportation (NYS DOT).

These being the community principles we ignore in New Albany.

In New Albany, starting about a year and a half ago, a process was initiated to spend more than a million bucks toward creating a place -- in this instance, a downtown park meant to honor the city's Bicentennial --  conceptually trickling from the top down, as it's always been done, and stewarded by a relatively small group of surely well-meaning persons who nonetheless cannot seem to grasp that the planet is filled with useful ideas, and maybe every now and then, it might be a good thing to be "lower case" democratic about such matters. Unfortunately for the noblesse oblige theory of civic management, our movers and shakers possess too narrow a conceptual vision, which isn't always very obliging. When one's prime objective at every turn is retaining control, it discourages involvement, which in turn becomes the rationale for retaining control: See, no one else can or will do it. It simply isn't true, and I wish "they" could see that.

As an example of what I'm saying, here are eleven principles for creating community spaces. Did any of them feature in the development and implementation of Rent Boy Park?

Eleven Principles for Creating Great Community Places

Didn't think so.

Bicentennial Park, Part Two: "When did the public input process into this park's location, imagined functions, design, and construction occur?"

Recently, when existing trees abruptly began falling, New Albanians became aware that we're in the process of building a $750,000 Bicentennial Park directly on the site of the city's famous Post Office, which was razed sans any meaningful public participation during a previous era of dis-enlightenment in a town notorious both for scant transparency and irony allergies.

As the newspaper's Jeffersonville management snoozed, NAC's Jeff Gillenwater did a little comparative park shopping in North Carolina (published October 3).

Below is 230 N. Tryon Street in Charlotte, North Carolina-- a decrepit, city-owned parking lot next to a long defunct 85-year-old theater. Look familiar? It's only slightly smaller than the corner of Spring and Pearl.

Its neighbor, the Foundation for the Carolinas, has been negotiating with city government to purchase and renovate the theater for some time. In preparation for the then upcoming Democratic National Convention in September, the City decided in mid-July to allow the foundation to turn the lot into a pocket park while it decides on the possible sale. The whole real estate and rehabilitation deal will take several years anyway. The work was completed in less than two months with $150,000 in foundation funds and community donations.

Several days afterward, an as-yet unfinished conversation began in the comments section between Jeff and Pete Andriot, who works for the park's designer.

Pete Andriot said...

Hi Jeff –

A colleague forwarded your post to me, and I thought I could offer some insight into the cost of Bicentennial Park (BP). While the pocket park you chose as a comparison is apt, your statement that it “It's only slightly smaller” is not really accurate. A quick check on Google Earth shows the site in Charlotte to be 70’x90’ (6,300 SF) – significantly smaller than BP at 120’x135’ (16,200 SF). The cost per square foot in Charlotte (~$24/SF) is directly comparable though, if you discount the two major items which BP has that Charlotte doesn’t: fountains ($100,000) and the excavated lawn with steps around it ($40,000).

Fountains are almost always going to be the single largest line item in any exterior development that has one. But they are a vital element in successful urban spaces. Humans are subconsciously attracted to water – the sight, smell and sound of it are stimuli that cause people to want to look and linger (and maybe even play in it!). Fountains are the single most important difference between transient park spaces (which people just pass through) and engaging park spaces (where people will pause and linger). Can your think of any successful urban park/plaza/square in North America or Europe that doesn’t have a water feature? I’m sure there are a few, but they are few and far between.

The excavated lawn and the steps do a couple important things. The biggest thing the lawn does is reverse the site drainage. The prior parking lot used to sheet flow directly into Spring Street and right into the city’s overburdened storm sewer. Now the lawn is lower and is permeable, so the runoff will have a chance to percolate back into the groundwater before it overflows into the sewer (yes, there are overflows to keep the lawn from actually flooding). The steps round the lawn allow for informal seating around the lawn. Individuals or small groups can find a place to site anywhere around the ellipse. New Albany isn’t ready for moveable tables and chairs yet … but the park is designed to handle them if we get to that point someday.

If you want additional comparable projects: Bowling Green, KY spent $2.1M on Circus Square Park as an anchor for their new sports and entertainment district. Mishawaka, IN spent right around $2M as well on Robert Beutter Riverfront Park, a new anchor for redevelopment on the north edge of their historic downtown. Logansport, IN spent $1.6M on Little Turtle Waterway plaza. The Town of Akron, IN (pop 11,000) spent $350k on their Community Square. Two projects that just wrapped up construction in mid-sized cities are Canan Commons in Muncie, IN ($708k) and Main Street Square in Rapid City, SD ($6.5M).

That last example is a significant of money put into a one-acre site, but it underscores my point succinctly. Main Street Square been open less than a year, in a city not quite twice the size of New Albany, and has already spawned over $2M in private reinvestment and redevelopment within one city block. Successful urban parks consistently pay for themselves many times over in kick-started reinvestment. They catalyze urban revitalization.
12:22 AM

Before Jeff replies, let me be the first to express my delight in learning that my town isn't "ready" for movable furniture (are we ready for flush toilets?) ... and that we need a fountain for subconscious water "attraction" when one of the nation's major rivers lies a few hundred yards away ... and never mind my fear that a city congenitally unable to care for existing asphalt-laden parking lots might now be compelled to regularly maintain a water fountain.

Here is Jeff's response.

I very much agree, Pete, that public space and placemaking are important elements in community building.

Given that, we'll start at the beginning: When did the public input process into this park's location, imagined functions, design, and construction occur?

Since you work for the design firm responsible, I'm hoping you can explain the format used for the various charrettes, detail the input received, and characterize how Rundell Ernstberger Associates interpreted that information into the location and design, especially since you mention judgment of that for which New Albany is or isn't ready.

I read the two daily newspapers that cover New Albany, view the city web site fairly regularly, follow city government on Facebook and Twitter, and have checked the Rundell Ernstberger web site a few times, but seem to have missed that.
1:29 AM

We await further dialogue. Thank you CM CeeSaw: Can we have another?

Link: Bicentennial Park, Part One: "Whom Does Design Really Serve?"