Minimum parking for bars

Dave from the blog Urban Milwaukee digs up this interesting zoning ordinance from Franklin, Wisconsin.

Use	Minimum Required Parking Spaces per 1,000 Square Feet of Floor Area	Other Required Standard(s) for Off-Street Parking Spaces
Bar or Tavern	10	Or 1 space per 2 seats or stools, plus 1 space per employee, whichever is greater

What's the subtext of this law?

It's that you're expected to drive to and from the bar - as simple as that. If any of the patrons choose to walk, bus, or even organize a designated driving pool, this parking lot will remain underutilized. I suppose lemonade must be the drink of choice in the Milwaukee area (although, to be fair, I wouldn't doubt this language pops up in other municipalities around the country).

What happens when zoning encourages and accommodates drinking and driving while federal law prohibits it? Maybe there ought to be more coordination between governing bodies to reconcile this one. It could be confusing for the public.

Free range kids

ok, so I subscribe to Reader's Digest. Really it started showing up in the mail each month mysteriously, and it still keeps coming. I usually just read through the anecdotes about stupid blunders and cute sayings, but in the most recent issue I came across an interesting article (not online). Apparently, a mom whipped up a controversy all across the national media simply by allowing her 9-year old son to find his own way home through the New York subway system. In fact, the mom, Lenore Skenazy, has catalyzed this decision into movement with the clever title, Free Range Kids. (Coincidentally, this exact phrase came up in a lecture I attended that morning by Dr. Timothy Beatley)

"The fact is, children are 40 times more likely to die in a car accident [than be kidnapped], and that doesn't stop us from driving them to karate. Car accidents, after all, are just that - accidents. But we blame parents, the same way we used to blame rape victims, for "letting" anything happen to their children."

I don't have much to say to the parenting side of this, nor can I really gauge how much the media is stoking the flames of irrational fears, but it I can pontificate on how the structure of the places we live in plays a big part in how independant children can be. James Howard Kunstler, in Home from Nowhere, tells the story of his move from suburbia to New York city when he was the same age Skenazy's son is,

"I was very much at liberty in the great city. A child could move about in relative saftey most anywhere in town, even Times Square. Bus and subway fare ran to 15 cents in those days, and, in fact, was free to schoolchildren, who were issued monthly transit passes. It was not necessary, and hardly desirable, to be accompanied by a parent to any of the places I frequented.

My old chums back in suburbia, whom I visited now and again, began to show sure signs of social retardation as we slouched toward puberty. A trip to the Coke machine at the nearest gas station was high adventure for them."

A dense urban environment, with a transportation system navigable without a driver's license, can open up a range of possibilites for children to explore their own environment. The same could be said for a smaller town, with just an exchange of making trails in the woods for walking through the art museam. I grew up on the outskirts of a college town. There was a creek by our house in which all of the neighborhood kids could play, make rope swings, claim territory, or whatever we dreamed of. At the same time, I could walk to Main Street every Saturday morning to explore the shops, spend my allowance on whatever I wanted, and just feel a part of the community. Geez, I'm not even 30 and I'm reminiscing about the "good old days."

Painting Charlottesville

I just stumbled upon the blog of a talented local artist, John Trippel, who has painted many cityscapes of downtown Charlottesville and the Belmont neighborhood. He's also featured biking and transit in a few of his works. An artist who can capture the life and color a city is a wonderful thing for any community to have.

In a recent blog entry, he tells of his adventures combining a bicycle and bus commute into one. That's something I have yet to try here. It's encouraging to read his account of how the city public transportation system has changed for the better in the last several decades.

Conservatives and Urbanism

When I first wandered onto the political landscape of urban planning, it didn't take long to figure out that the teams had already been lined up neatly along the left-right spectrum. Conservatives were supposed to champion the suburbs, and liberals were the cosmopolitan urbanites (or hippie farmers). The Right wants tacky cul-de-sacs to raise a family, and the left wants to cram everyone into soviet block housing so wildlife can roam the countryside. This immediately struck me as nonsensical, at least from an ideological point of view, probably more the accidental result of current American demographics than any preconceived outworking of values or beliefs. This is one of those issues that ought to transcend these fault lines, or maybe just side-step it. There are plenty of (conservative) reasons for conservatives to ensure that cities stay cities and country stays country.

That's why it was pleasant to read Dana Goldstein's the Conservative Case for Urbanism, even if she did sneak in some unecessary digs against Republicans.

"Policies in favor of dense development shouldn't be viewed on a left-right spectrum and certainly needn't be filtered through culture-war rhetoric, the panelists said. In fact, one doesn't have to be concerned about climate change at all in order to support such policies; values of fiscal conservatism and localism, both key to Republican ideology, can be better realized through population-dense development than through sprawl."

I'd add that it's not only the fiscal conservatives who may want to embrace urbanism, but social/traditionalist conservatives have a lot in common as well. Many have noted that all civilizations throughout history have abided by certain patterns of urban growth, only to be completely trashed, in the name of modern efficiency, by the growth patterns within the last 50 years. This simple fact should be enough to make any Burkean raise his eyebrows.

I understand differences in how to get there, but I don't understand why there is not more consensus on where we ought to go.

Public participation actually works

Public participation has been the official goal of the planning profession for a few decades now. Planners have realized that no level of data analysis abilities or technical design expertise can create, by simple fiat, cities that people actually want to live in. Citizens have to build their own cities, and planners are there to organize and lend a hand in this effort. This role of a "community organizer" is no less important than that of a master architect, but it can feel a bit tedious as all of the messy, overlapping interests and identities of a place seem to be a tangled knot. Sometimes you can hear slight (off the record) murmurs, "why can't they just listen to us experts? This is a matter of design, not politics." But that would take us back to square one.

This is why it's good to hear, from time to time, that all of the messy efforts of democracy are worth the time. I just discovered the insightful blog of a fellow planning student living one state north of me, Rob Goodspeed. He links to a new study by the National Academy of Sciences which purports to show that the level of public participation leads to better environmental decisions. Better both in terms of the quality of the actual polices and the ability to move the policies into implementation. (I don't want to buy the report, so I can't vouch the evidence itself.) This is refreshing to hear.

Goodspeed mentions a couple of other studies related more specifically to planning and concludes,

"I think the lesson from the National Academies panel must be driven home to the urban development community. Since we are so intimate with participation, we lose perspective on its broader importance and role. Given the legal requirements for transparency and professional approaches to participation, the key is to look beyond an obsession with the intellectually vague “NIMBYism” and design processes that foster consensus and prevent Morriss Fiorina’s “Extreme Voices” from having a monopoly. In particular, I think it means designing processes that are less time-intensive and allow involvement on a wider scale of commitment levels."

Here, here.

A look at pedestrian safety

This week, the Charlottesville city council spent some time discussing techniques to help pedestrians feel more comfortable crossing. Charlottesville Tomorrow has the audio recording of the meeting.

Here are the ten proposals that were approved by the council:

1. “No matter what we do from a physical standpoint, without education we are wasting our time and money” A public relations campaign educating pedestrians about safe crossing and drivers’ awareness.

2. Enforcement from the police department.

3. Work toward American Disability Association (ADA) compliance. Install more understandable crosswalks to help the disabled community.

4. Use Zebra-striped crosswalks. More visible than brick, if not as aesthetically pleasing. (Councilmen Huja thought bricks might actually be more visible. I kind of agree, as least subjectively)

5. All signals at every location should be uniform push-button. Now different styles are used for different places, and it can be confusing.

6. Hand-man signal at every location. No longer walk-don’t walk. (picture from Am New York)

7. Countdowns on all intersections.

8. Eventually, install audible crossing signals everywhere, but start at a few locations (downtown, university hospital, across main street).

9. Install LED flashing crosswalks at six locations (matched with six more from the university).

Front yard gardening

I just listened to an interview with an architect/gardener Fritz Haeg, and this man has a pretty inspiring vision. Like many other folks, he has grown very dissatisfied with the cultural phenomenon known as the front yard and everything it stands for - wasted space, a monoculture of Kentucky bluegrass all over the country, pure ornament with no function, and a lack of transition between the public street and private house. Yet instead of griping about things (like I do, for instance), he has embarked on a campaign, from Salinas, Kansas to Baltimore, Maryland, to reclaim these private spaces for use as productive gardens.

As an artist, his main focus is to help shift the notion of a beautiful yard. Front yards are visible to the entire streetscape, and their landscaping as long been a way for homeowners to make a personal expression about their values. Although private property, there is a sense in which the front yard functions publicly as well, which comes to mind as soon as you consider how angry people can get when their neighbors never get around to mowing. If the front yard can become a useful space, and one that reinforces the connection we all have with the land and food, it can help enliven and educate an entire neighborhood.

While I'm on the subject, it's worth bringing up a wonderful project happening in Charlottesville down the road from us. The Quality Community Council of Charlottesville planted an "urban farm" adjacent to the Friendship Court apartments on Monticello. It provides a service on a number of levels by providing nutritious food to low-income families, setting up a local organic food source, creating a beautiful shared space, giving a common purpose to the community, and providing some physical activity for kids. I wouldn't be surprised if we see more of these popping up around the country.