"Carmel, Indiana, is showing suburbs how to go big on biking."

Holy Caesar!

A councilman who rides a bike?

Meanwhile, it's almost as if Carmel has a plan. Just imagine if Jeff Gahan had coherent, organized plans pertaining to bicycling, walkability, street trees and other vital matters -- apart from luxury dog parks and public housing putsches.

Gahan only knows monetization ... but a boy can dream of better things.

CARMEL, INDIANA, IS SHOWING SUBURBS HOW TO GO BIG ON BIKING (People for Bikes)

You’ll sometimes hear that it’s almost impossible to make biking truly desirable in American suburbs. Carmel, Indiana, is proving every day how wrong that is.

The booming city of 90,000, immediately north of Indianapolis but with a distinct and dense downtown of its own, is actually evidence of the opposite idea: The country’s newer, faster-growing cities are where connecting great biking networks has the most potential to transform American life.

As explained in the video above, released Monday by the City of Carmel, the scale of Carmel’s investment in better biking since Mayor Jim Brainard first took office in 1996 can almost be hard for an outsider to believe. The city currently has 190 miles of off-street bike paths, with 20 more miles on the way in the next two years ...

"Will the Death of Malls Save the Suburbs?"

The article speaks primarily of enclosed malls, though several points are applicable to the potential redevelopment of strips like Colonial Manor on Charlestown Road.

Will the Death of Malls Save the Suburbs? by Clare Trapasso (Realtor)

 ... But now this somewhat beloved and utterly iconic American institution—forever immortalized by teen classics like “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” “Mallrats,” and “Clueless”—is in danger of becoming an endangered species ... the sea change has already begun. Foot traffic in most of the nation’s largest malls is dropping ...

 ... How is the decline of the mall going to affect American life itself? Some municipalities are finding that these dead shopping meccas present a unique opportunity to reinvent—and reinvigorate—their sleepy suburban landscapes. The centers are being transformed into public parks, medical complexes, even hockey rinks. In some cases they’re even being rethought as walkable “urban developments in the suburbs” which include funky boutiques, innovative restaurants, fitness centers, entertainment, and, yes, housing.

"Impure thoughts about suburbia" and New Albanian corridors.

It's interesting reading about "the virtues of America's aging inner ring suburbs."

The topic was raised by Diane Benedetti at Thursday's council meeting, pertaining to the area around the Colonial Manor shopping center on Charlestown Road. It's also something Scott Blair and I have discussed, given that we're both property and business owners on Plaza Drive off Grant Line Road.

These are not far-flung suburban areas, but they're the oldest suburbs within the enveloping ring of I-265. Often I've decried the absence of economic development planning closer to the historic city core, but there are no plans for these corridors, either.

My business has a footprint in both, and I am interested in improving both. With downtown as a reference point, State Street is the Hospital Corridor, Grant Line Road the IU Southeast Corridor, and Charlestown Road the Purdue Center Corridor. In the real world, the first step in making sense of these categories would be consistent public transit options.

We live in New Albany, though. Plan B, anyone?

DR. STRANGELOVE: OR HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE SPRAWL (SORT OF), by John Sanphillippo (New Geography)

I’m a longtime advocate of walkable, mixed-use, mixed-income, transit-served neighborhoods. But lately I’ve been having impure thoughts about suburbia. Let me explain.

Delicious reading: "The Suburbs Made Us Fat."

Fat, but broke; Floyd County's skint again. Tell you what, Jim -- how 'bout us city folks keep paying double so you don't have to mention the "T" word to the tea drinkers?

Meanwhile ...

(thanks to K for the link)

The Suburbs Made Us Fat, by James Hamblin (Atlantic)

People in dense cities are thinner and have healthier hearts than people in sprawling subdivisions. New research says the secret is in the patterns of the streets.

... 68 percent of Americans are overweight or obese, which means that someone you know is overweight or obese. Most people don’t get the CDC’s minimum recommended amount of physical activity. Americans spend more time driving every year. So it is logical to conclude, as Garrick and Marshall do in their paper, “The role of the street network and how we put together the bones of our communities should not be overlooked as a potential contributing factor to health outcomes.”

They also found that wide streets with many lanes are associated with high rates of obesity and diabetes. That’s most likely indicative of, as Garrick and Marshall put it, “an inferior pedestrian environment.” Similarly, so-called “big box” stores in a neighborhood indicate poor walkability and are associated with 24.9 percent higher rates of diabetes and 13.7 percent higher rates of obesity.

Dense cities promote walking and biking, so the push for healthier cities fits with the vogue push for active lifestyles—as opposed to gym routines smattered across an indolent existence. Physical activity is not just concerted exercise time and deliberate recreation. It’s about ways of life. For some people, that’s best accomplished by making things inevitably more difficult on themselves in everyday life.

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.

Jeff Speck on Walkability: "You have to separate downtown from other urban areas."

The interview is excellent, and touches on the high points of Specks' "Walkable City book, but notice in the introduction where the link leads: Straight to Amazon.

Jeff Speck on Walkability: The Livability Interview

The topic of walkability comes up quickly in most conversations about what makes a city a great place to live. While cars are often perceived as a freedom-producing device, having the freedom to get away from them, too, can be key. But what makes a city walkable? Jeff Speck, coauthor of the landmark bestseller Suburban Nation, is out with a new book entitled Walkable City. The book does a great job of outlining the necessary requirements for being a walkable city. You should read it, but I’ll give you a hint: It takes more than sidewalks. We spoke via phone about how walkability and livability relate and what other factors go into the livability equation. First off, he says, we need to fix the incentives. 

Livability: Are there places that aren’t walkable?

Mr. Speck: Most of sprawl is unfixable. Almost any city built before World War II, if it has any economic growth whatsoever, has a downtown that is ready to come back to life – if it hasn’t already. If we’re interested in growing into the 21st century in a sustainable way, our governments at every scale need to create programs that make it easier for people to move to those places and work instead of into sprawl.

Quality of Life Bond Bonuses, Episode 3: Retrofitting suburbia.

This time, quite seriously: Ellen Dunham-Jones (thanks, Jeff) explains the notion of "retrofitting suburbia," which provides numerous smaller strategies that New Albany needs to be considering for the original sprawl areas now located inside the Beltway (think: Charlestown Road by Colonial Manor).

Do we have plans and strategies for targeting redevelopment in these ways? If so, let's hear them. If not, perhaps some of the spare bond windfall might get us started thinking in this direction, and grasping that there's more to quality of life than a swimming pool.

More recent thoughts on this topic:

Quality of Life Bond Bonuses, Episode 1: Going mobile? Just put it on the card.

Quality of Life Bond Bonuses, Episode 2: What do we do with all those Bicentennial books?

ON THE AVENUES: Looking for Quality of Life bond issue bonuses? "Pick me," says orphaned Riverfront Amphitheater.

ON THE AVENUES: On quality of life and newfound loot.

Before the meeting, let's think about differing qualities of life.

Repurposing and adaptive reuse of useless suburban office buildings?

It's a long story, one I'll relate in greater detail when there's time.

The topic goes something like this: 30-year-old suburban (inside the NA beltway) one-story office of typically mid-80s construction (read: cheap), circa 10,000 square feet, is by most accounts entirely useless in the current age.

Literally no one wants it, and everyone involved knows it. And yet the very existence of such an outmoded, useless building inflates the price of the property upon which it rests, frustrating what might otherwise be a conducive real estate deal.

What can be done, short of demolition ... and I hate to see landfills burdened?

Is there any precedent for creatively repurposing such a structure?

If you are reading this and have links to information sources, please get them to me. It's time for thinking outside the confining business-as-usual boxes ... but I need some research assistance.

Are we moving in? Are we moving out? Who are "we," anyway?

 In the New York Times, Fred Siegel reviews a book by Alan Ehrenhalt. Will inner cities in America revert to Vienna, even as the exurbs are transformed into Kolkata? Are these shifts significant or exaggerated? And, why isn't there a Wal-Mart inside the El?  

Trading Places: ‘The Great Inversion and the Future of the American City’

... The title of his book refers to both the growth of downtown living in once forbidding neighborhoods and, contrary to expectations, the movement of immigrants into the suburbs.

Insider Louisville's Kaufman tills similar ground, and deftly inserts a Kansas song lyric snippet along the way. See if you can find it.

Steve Kaufman: Brookings Institute finds people are fleeing the suburbs for the cities, but what about Louisville?

... The report’s opening graph: “Last year, for the first time in more than nine decades, the major cities of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas grew faster than their combined suburbs.”

Is Louisville part of this trend?

Is the inner core throbbing with new residents while the outer ring of suburbs loses its allure?

There are three answers: Yes. No. And Maybe.

"Living better and smarter shouldn’t be a partisan issue."

As the author accurately notes, a restoration of balance between urban and suburban is about providing options for those so inclined, not emulating Ceausescu's forced resettlement policies.

The American Dream: Phase II, by Allison Arieff (NYT Opinionator blog)
By ALLISON ARIEFF

... The aforementioned changes point to the fact that a paradigmatic shift in our concept of the American dream is underway. And this shift is not just because of the recession, says Gregory Vilkin, managing principal and president of MacFarlane Partners, quoted in that USA Today piece, “It’s no longer the American dream to own a plot of land with a house on it and two cars in the driveway.”

The country could be moving toward something much better, something that’s less about consumption (of stuff, of such essential resources) and more about quality of life.

Why not use the buildings already there?

In Thursday’s edition of the Tribune, county commissioner Steve Bush ruminated on the $5.8 million appraisal of the Grant Line Road property that includes the downtrodden but nonetheless historic building that houses the county’s Youth Shelter.

His conclusion? Use the predominantly green property to build a new City County Building nearer to the Interstate.

Why? Because to do so would represent a future-oriented perspective.

Of course, comic relief was provided by county council kingpin Larry McAllister, who noted the absence of money, the hopelessness of the situation, and the dearth of any ideas on his part to remedy the situation.

Presumably these admissions of political impotence are designed to guarantee his re-election by way of assuring constituents that he'll work to keep them poor.

In today’s Courier-Journal, it is revealed that Clarksville’s town government has approached the owners of the recently vacated Value City on Eastern Boulevard with a mind toward flipping the town hall currently located off Veterans Parkway and redeveloping the shopping center area and its acres of unused concrete for use as the new town hall.

Granted, the situations aren’t entirely analogous; Veterans Parkway is an exurban blemish, but Clarksville has a more valuable hand to play as a result.

At the same time, with downtown New Albany properties available for adaptive reuse (even the old M. Fine factory building makes sense in this context), is abandoning the city center for increasingly rare suburban green space really a future-oriented perspective?

Maybe we need to increase their subsidies ... again.

Imagine it costing more to live farther away. Isn't that anti-American?

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Fuel Prices Shift Math for Life in Far Suburbs (New York Times)

“Living closer in, in a smaller space, where you don’t have that commute,” he said. “It’s definitely something we talk about. Before it was ‘we spend too much time driving.’ Now, it’s ‘we spend too much time and money driving.’ ”

Across the nation, the realization is taking hold that rising energy prices are less a momentary blip than a change with lasting consequences. The shift to costlier fuel is threatening to slow the decades-old migration away from cities, while exacerbating the housing downturn by diminishing the appeal of larger homes set far from urban jobs.

"...the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world."

From Ted.com:

In James Howard Kunstler's view, public spaces should be inspired centers of civic life -- the physical manifestation of the common good. Instead, he argues, what we have in America is a nation of places not worth caring about. Reengineering our cities will involve more radical change than we are prepared for, he believes, but our hand will be forced by earth crises stemming from our overconsuming lifestyle. "Life in the mid-21st century," Kunstler says, "is going to be about living locally." Passionate, profane and funny, this talk will make you think about the place where you live.

From bluegill:

Did someone mention an interest in breaking the cycle of poverty and creating pride in the community? Funny, then, that we would design our infrastructure to put workers in one place and educational opportunities, jobs, and childcare in another. A rational person might conclude that's divisive and inefficient, unless they sell petroleum products and plywood window coverings for a living. Or just want to pay more taxes for no particularly good reason.



Kunstler's Clusterfuck Nation Chronicle, published each Monday, is archived here, as referenced
by NAC's My guess? "The Gary” probably doesn't subscribe to this one.

My guess? "The Gary” probably doesn't subscribe to this one.

It gladdens my contrarian heart that numerous Tom Paines of the current era continue to question orthodoxy and spread discontent. The following excerpt is from James Howard Kunstler’s Clusterfuck Nation Chronicle, “a commentary on the flux of events,” which is published weekly on Monday.

June 25, 2007: Peak Suburbia.

I get lots of letters from people in various corners of the nation who are hysterically disturbed by the continuing spectacle of suburban development. But instead of joining in their hand-wringing, I reply by stating my serene conviction that we are at the end of the cycle -- and by that I mean the grand meta-cycle of the suburban project as a whole. It's over. Whatever you see out there now is pretty much what we're going to be stuck with. The remaining things under construction are the last twitchings of a dying organism ...

... The implication in all this is that the activities that have become "normal" for us during the post World War Two era will very shortly become untenable. An economy based on suburban expansion and incessant motoring is on the top of the list of supposedly "normal" activities that will not be able to continue. I would maintain that even if we had 20 years, no combination of bio-fuels and other alternatives would enable us to keep suburbia running. But this latest work indicates that we have much less time to adjust.

This new information is consistent with my view that we had better prepare to make other arrangements for living in this country, by which I mean specifically re-localizing, de-globalizing, with an emphasis on local agriculture wherever possible, the emergency restoration of passenger railroad service and related modes of public transit, the rebuilding of local commercial infrastructures, and a radical rethinking of how we inhabit the landscape under New Urbanist lines.

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For previous chronicles, visit Clusterfuck Nation Archives; the author's main web site is here: http://www.kunstler.com/.