More Urban Form

In an attempt to go a little deeper into the previous post I went looking for more pictures of Rotterdam and Houston and found even better comparisons and interesting views than the photos I posted before.

It should also be said that I don't mean to discount the devastation of war to people and property. There is a difference between choosing to build parking lots and having your life and possessions destroyed.

First Rotterdam:

This from scientific psychic:


And this from the special collections of the Wageningen Library:


Next Houston:

Clearance of housing to build US59 via TexasFreeway.com, an amazing resource if you want to see how freeways were built in Texas.


Also via TexasFreeway.com, a view of Houston from the same angle as the previous post's shot:



This is from Aerial viewpoint. A historic shot from 1945 compared with today. Notice the freeway intrusion. Also notice the downtown getting taller. Finally, where Union Station used to be is where highway 59 rockets through on the east side of downtown and Minute Maid park now exists with a token train filled with oranges.

Parking Bombs

More! That's the scream of merchants and others who believe that a downtown without an endless sea of parking is not worth going to. But once the whole downtown turns into a parking lot it's not really worth much anymore is it? Yet we still see the discussion of parking dominate without an eye for the destruction that it can cause a downtown if left unfettered.

Before Portland's miraculous return as an urban Mecca, it too was once infested by parking. So was the city of Houston, where parking lots took over most of the downtown at one point.

Via Mike Lydon and Transit Miami (Via the book City Shaped)

Perhaps you can say how different this is from Rotterdam after German bombing...


It's unfortunate that we didn't see what we were doing to our wonderful cities in the name of cars first. Europe had war, yet we dismantled our cities in a similar way in the name of progress. So much parking though, what has that done to the city's value? What has it taken away in terms of tax revenue from land and greater employment agglomerations? A study by Anne Moudon and Dohn Wook Sohn showed that offices that were clustered had greater values than those that weren't in the Seattle region. In addition to the spending on highways that expanded our regions to their current far reaches, how much real estate value did we destoy?

Greater value for downtowns was lost and in the process we saw places like Hartford, as found by Dr. Norm Garrick at UConn lose population, employment, and their character. Not just the loss from parking, but from the gutting of the city by the Interstate System. Here are some slides from Dr. Garrick showing the destruction. When he toggled through the first time, the room I was in audibly gasped for air.

Hartford Pre Interstate


Hartford Post Interstate


So what's the damage? The amount of tax creating employment did not grow and parking spots skyrocketed.


So in aggregate what did this look like? The red shows it all:


Lost revenue, lost agglomeration, lost value. Will these examples teach us a lesson about too much parking? Perhaps

Free Parking Again

Another issue with free parking. Isn't there a market based way to take care of this issue around Mockingbird Station?

Taxing Districts

More and more I think we're going to see assessments on property owners to pay for infrastructure. This specific example comes from a Grand Boulevard in Salt Lake City moving from downtown towards the airport:

The street beautification, intended to blend with the planned airport TRAX line, would include new lighting, landscaping, multipurpose sidewalks, decorative walkways, bicycle paths and public art.

Of course people are going to complain about another tax, but I wish people didn't feel that everything should be provided for free. Improvements cost money.

The Fight for Access

I'm a bit late posting this one...

One persons station access is another persons time added to the commute:

This north-side resident found the light rail underwhelming—the train chugs along at street level at a modest speed, stopping 10 times, even stopping at times for traffic lights. It’s still faster to take the express bus from downtown. So it was interesting to hear a south-side community organizer speak Wednesday about working during the light-rail planning process to get precisely the things that annoyed me. “We [told transit planners] we wanted more stops and we don’t want intersections cut off,” said Yolanda Sinde,

I suggest reading the rest of the post as well as it delves into gentrification and smart growth as well.

Respect - Pass It On

I saw this commercial the other day. More people need to learn this rule. There are a lot of kids that don't know it.

Over Time

This is a great way to show the expansion of a system over time. Check out David Alpert's time lapse of Metro expansion. What is interesting to me is how its done slowly over time and in segments. I think a lot of cities can learn from this.

Incenting Employment to Centers

Peter Bell has a big job at one of two regional governments in this country (Portland the other). It's understandable that he threads a fine line between suburban and urban constituencies when discussing mobility and other issues a regional government deals with. However I do feel like he has an important duty to steer growth with transportation policy and employment incentives.

The current problem as I see it with the Twin Cities is that its expanding at a rapid clip. While the article mentions this growth has slowed, I don't really buy it. Much of this expansion is a continuation of the post 1950s suburban housing and job growth that continues to suck up resources at the expense of the region's two central cities, Minneapolis and St. Paul. Much of it headed to the favored quarter to the Southwestern part of the region in the areas of Edina and Bloomington.

But with the expansion of employment in those areas, it allows people to move further and further away from the core. The more we move away from the core, the less likely people are to live in urban neighborhoods designed for walking, biking and transit. Something Peter Bell seems to mention in passing but not completely understand is that those exurban sewer and road expansions cost a lot of money. A lot more money over the long term that creating capacity and value through density and transit. But once he expands sewer service to the outlying areas with septic tanks, then the community beyond wants the service, the community after that will ask for it, and then the employment follows workers and then the workers follow that employment. It's a growth strategy that is inherently unsustainable.

And really what I wish they would do is stop and think about how to make existing centers of commerce in the region less suburban and more like downtown Minneapolis and St. Paul. This way these areas can serve a diverse housing stock that people want while also allowing them to not be so dependent on the automobile. This requires that the Met Council work even harder to incent job growth in centers that will also contain the spread of residential development. Ultimately the first line of defense is containing job sprawl and the Met Council can get a better hold on that than they can on residential areas.

Since most people in the United States have around a 30 minute commute, there needs to be a way to keep that 30 minutes static to existing centers in the coming century. Ultimately that means that the Met Council would have to expand jobs in centers, connect the centers via high quality transit, make the centers walkable, and finally stop extending services to the exurbs unless they are going to pay full price for it. Tipping the balance sheets towards more favorable long term sustainable product doesn't just make environmental sense, it makes fiscal sense. If we think all of these cities and towns that have budget issues today during this recession, imagine the recessions in the future where all this extra infrastructure we build today will have to be maintained tomorrow. Only places of significant intrinsic value will be saved from the scourges that continue to occur on a bi/tri-century basis.

This is why I believe that Peter Bell can't just throw up his hands and say he can't do anything about it because too many people are giving him a hard time. I think he needs to lead, and in this sense he needs to take fiscal responsibility for the future of the region. I'm not a huge environmentalist. I can appreciate where they come from. My biggest concern is living outside of our means. Specifically with regards to suburbanism where we're basically just taking away from the economic generators that are cities and spreading our money outward instead of closer to the belt. My Geography professor in college that got me into all this planning stuff always said, if you want someone to pay attention, "hit them in the pocket book". This is ultimately what needs to be done. It might not be the easy way or the most popular way, but someone needs to start thinking about the fiscal ramifications of growth in the region, and the person that should be starting that discussion is Peter Bell.

Open Thread

Wow so I have been so busy I didn't even realize that I haven't posted in a long time. Consider this an open thread. I have a lot of posts I want to write but just haven't had time to write them. NJH asks in the previous post about the Central Subway starting construction. It's kind of beating a dead horse. How would you kill such a project? And why can't we close Stockton to ped traffic only? Does anyone think its going to actually get to Fisherman's Wharf at some point?

Bicycles are Hard to Draw

So says Stephen Pastis.