In Nice, France, pedestrians, bicycles, buses and the light rail/tram blend in Place Garibaldi and along the Promenade d’Anglais.
Category: placemaking
hill towns as icons of placemaking
Human settlement is often driven by topography, viewpoints and strategic advantage.
Independent towns and urban neighborhoods alike share an historic affinity for hills. Terrain-intensive cities like San Francisco and Seattle are no exception, and city planning considerations converge around “urban villages” such as Nob Hill, Russian Hill, Capitol Hill and Queen Anne Hill.
Places in their own right, these hilltop centers can serve as the partially self-contained models for the compact and dense urban neighborhoods which are increasingly the vanguard of new century urbanism.
But what about the the hill town of old? Is it an an artifact of the bygone invaders and armies beyond the walls? Touring the dramatic perche´s (“perched”, or hill towns) in the South of France, it is hard to simply dismiss them as an anachronism–especially in light of today’s stated urban ideals.
After all, several common hill town characteristics are consistent with new urbanist principles.
These features include: a blending with with natural topography; a pedestrian identity, with limited vehicular access; an emphasis on aesthetic principles (views to and from); communal groupings of institutions around public open space; careful blending of public pathways and private dwellings; efficient living spaces and allowance for density; as well as innovative bases for water collection and storage and management of sewage and stormwater discharge.
Of course, we can only carry such inspiration so far. Do we see light rail stops at the towns’ base? Energy efficiency and LEED certified construction? These elements are clearly outside the context of the historic examples pictured here.
Nonetheless, we need to take regular walks among human precedent, where under duress, people showed innovation and dynamic placemaking in order to survive.
This article also appeared in Planetizen on September 27 and was adapted for Crosscut, where it appeared on October 14.
ordinary urbanism in the south of France: the same, only different?
Travel as inspiration for better cities and towns is a dangerous past time. Romantic interpretations of far away splendor is easy, and the camera is a willing tool.
So last night and this morning, in the environs of the Cote d’Azur, the mission was to stay ordinary, to show the everyday, the mundane, and the lights while walking at night.
In the parking lots, amid the graffiti, among the regular faces, watching the signage, at the post office, and witnessing new development (even with impact to the landscape), the mission partially failed. Some intuition, laden in the land, seemed to suggest a balance of sorts, which we often do not see at home.
As portrayed below, the cars are smaller, the streets narrower, the spaces more multifunctional, human and nature seem to blend more seamlessly. Most of all, the man-made colors blend with the sky to create a timeless sense of interaction befitting of history.
It’s not all pretty, but there’s an organic wisdom at play which escapes words. Click on each image and/or the slideshow below for more.
a postcard of pedestrian priority
An entry sign to the center of Moscow, Idaho, provides looming new infrastructure in its own right, and symbolizes efforts nationwide to remake auto-prone venues.
Signage, even in commanding edifice form, is but one element of a comprehensive approach to “complete streets”, and dovetails with an effective monitoring and enforcement strategy.
walkability and placemaking on market day
Next week, myurbanist will be reporting live from France, further exploring tenets of urbanism which continue to evolve at home and abroad. Here is a case in point from earlier this year, when our new year’s retrospective included observations which first appeared in seattlepi.com on June 7, 2009, with photos added of the Frejus, France twice-weekly market.
As noted on May 25, when discussing the role of streets and managing the impact of the automobile: “This has all happened before. And it will happen again.” It did not take long to prove the point.
A current visit to France shows that even in a society that prioritizes the pedestrian, especially on market day, the eternal dance of human and machine remains. Yesterday in Frejus on the Cote d’Azur, while sipping coffee watching a street closed off to pedestrians in time-honored market routine, friends told me how the previous market day had featured an altercation of sorts, just adjacent to our vantage point.
Despite the presumptive nature of the weekly market preempting cars, and mechanical pylons closed in unison, an upscale Mercedes made its way down the closed cobblestone street flanked by vendors and musicians. When the driver reached the closed pylons, she realized she could go no further. For the next 40 minutes, while the driver panicked in frustration, passers by conferred and some let loose insults premised on pedestrianism and some took the side of the driver, seeking to help. After all, as the driver apparently exclaimed, she lives in the town center, whether closed for market day or not, and she had the right of passage.
Almost an hour from the altercation’s start, the police arrived, and lowered the pylons. The pedestrian market returned to its historical place, while, inadvertently, the automobile had won a round in the public/private balance of control of the street, and the rights of adjoining property owners.
The moral: The new forms of growth, land use and transportation currently on center stage in our region have and will be played out across the world for generations. They cannot simply be imposed without a careful understanding of the rights at issue.
As Frejus reminds us, even where traditions rule, the battles remain.