Category: placemaking

from ancient Rome to “sidewalk Saturdays” in America?

On By Chuck WolfeIn compact development, infill development, pedestrianism, placemaking, politics, transit oriented development, urban views5 Comments
Via Dolorosa, Jerusalem, in modern commercial context

The contextual evolution of Roman military crossroads often shows commercial street life as the latest overlay on the ancient castrum, its roads (decumanus and cardo) and intersections. Over time, a place of armies becomes a sociocultural place anew.

For instance, in Jerusalem, the legendary path to the cross coincides with the Roman decumanus. In Split, Croatia, the crossing of the decumanus and cardo in the old urban center shows remnants of the temples of the Dalmatian summer palace of the Emperor Diocletian.

In several entries, myurbanist has challenged American placemaking advocates to consider pragmatic approaches when borrowing from qualities of foreign urban spaces, recalling their evolution over thousands of years under different sociocultural circumstances. Likewise, the blog Emergent Urbanism recently cautioned to be mindful of the “patterns of place”.

In American efforts to move from the food court back to the street, we should consider first our own cultural context, and without political will, the tendency of traditional street use permitting and related, safety-based regulatory regimes to discourage more expansive public use of rights-of-way for nontraditional street and sidewalk use.

Certainly, policymakers, the development community and community leaders are gaining momentum through focus upon sidewalk dining ordinances, complete streets programming, and compact and walkable transit oriented developments. But in a time of recession and financial constraint, reinvention will not appear overnight, and allegiance to traditional regulatory schemes dies hard at the interface of public and private property lines.

Outdoor cafe reuse of Diocletian's Palace, Split, Croatia
American food court
American sidewalk expansion

In the short term, in the spirit of the “quick win” discussed before in the context of achievable placemaking in urban alleys, why not innovate even more?

Here’s another “quick win” idea, convertible to existing neighborhoods, large and small. Every Saturday morning, suspend the rules:

Create Sidewalk Saturdays.

How about a municipal ordinance offering temporary, no-fee public sidewalk use every Saturday morning for two hours, with removable tables, for small restaurants and coffee houses that can do so while allowing a walkable passage between storefront and street? How about such businesses offering noticeably reduced coffee, espresso drink and chocolate drink prices during these two hours for those who bring their own cups?

Would such an experiment work universally? Could it be done while meeting the needs of fire codes and related public safety and often complex insurance requirements? Would businesses uniformly reduce prices to further the American return to the livable street? Would we walk, bike, or take transit to sit streetside?

Can we achieve the evolution of the castrum in America? Whether we could implement a “quick win” like Sidewalk Saturdays would forecast success in implementing the “look and feel” from afar.

urban radar and finding places of scale

On By Chuck WolfeIn compact development, pedestrianism, placemaking, urban views13 Comments

Human-scale public spaces create a sense of belonging and comfort. In a city, stumbling upon places like Neal’s Yard is undeniably special, and can create indelible memories which fit today’s dialogue of urbanism. This small courtyard, in London’s Covent Garden section, is home to holistic-health restaurants, shops and businesses–accessible through a narrow passage off of Monmouth Street–a reminder of why walking-oriented guides or articles are often the best “radar” for touring a city.

old planning principles are new again

On By Chuck WolfeIn compact development, housing, infill development, pedestrianism, placemaking, transit oriented development6 Comments

If you’ve never seen them, old ideas feel new.

At the dawn of the American community planning movement, the founding generation of American planners attempted to optimize the configuration of new neighborhoods with careful attention to integration of land use, building type and street position, with an eye beyond property lines.

In “The Road to Good Houses”, Survey Graphic, v. 54, May 21, 1925, planning pioneer and landscape architect Henry Wright urged comprehensive siting beyond lots with an eye to light, air and view; provision of public institutions, recreation facilities and local commercial and convenience facilities “in the right places for community uses”; the location of industry to facilitate efficient transportation of goods and people; provision of parking and waste disposal with little disruption; an emphasis on the interplay of public and private lands, with attention to the grouping of buildings and collective service provision; and the allowance in housing for a variety of income groups and family sizes.

Here he compared the ordinary with the ideal:

compact development, literally

On By Chuck WolfeIn compact development, infill development, placemaking, urban views5 Comments

Last year, myurbanist reviewed the impact of economic reality on Monaco’s suspended plans to expand waterward, in a visionary–yet perhaps unsustainable–attempt to accommodate growth in the second smallest country in the world.

In the mean time, with livable space all but gone, the landscape reflects undeniable innovation.

gridded streets regulating neighborhood form: beyond history

On By Chuck WolfeIn infill development, pedestrianism, placemaking12 Comments

Today’s Planner’s Web has an interesting piece on the Origins of the Street Grid, referencing another short article by Laurence Aurbach at Ped Shed. This inquiry is a compelling aspect of the history of urban form, and last year merited a personal dust-off of “Streets Regulating Neighborhood Form: A Selective History”, something a younger myurbanist penned as Chapter 7 in Anne Vernez-Moudon’s Public Streets for Public Use, originally published by Van Nostrand-Reinhold in 1987.

The Chapter took history a step farther, and said that the sometimes-maligned grid would be back, working with other measures, to regulate streets away from single mode use. A myurbanist entry from January 1 provided summary thoughts from the Chapter, consistent with the histories referenced above:

As noted on May 7 and May 14, [the quest for locally walkable and transit linked communities and redefinition of the role of the automobile] is often expressed primarily in design terms, with a de-emphasis on particular land uses in favor of desirable and appropriate building forms for a given urban sub-area.

Let’s not forget that public rights of way, (particularly streets, underlying and adjacent infrastructure and how they relate to surrounding uses), are also at the center of our attempts to tame automobile dependence and bring European pedestrianism and transit-oriented centers to Puget Sound. Many urban designers conclude that the key focus rests with wide and malleable sidewalks as the precursor to successful redevelopment.

Indeed, throughout recorded history, governments have used streets as a versatile private property management tool. With utilities flanking and buried under streets since ancient times, such conduits have often been seen as more important than the property on both sides.

Scholars trace the role of streets as the central regulating determinant of surrounding land use to Greek boundary stones which defined public space with inscriptions such as “I am the boundary of the agora”, to the layout of Roman military camps. Similarly, the reappearance of the wheeled vehicle and public marketplace in medieval times demanded, in modern parlance, adequate surrounding infrastructure. The industrial revolution demanded rectilinear transit patterns and yielded the late nineteenth century Garden City precursor to today’s green ideals.

Early twentieth century American planners struggled with how to assure new alternatives to simple gridded urban development. The neighborhood unit theory and examples from the New York City region in the 1920’s and 30’s were rediscovered in the past 20 years and spurred renewed debates about the value of curvilinear streets v. gridded streets, and neighborhoods which look inward on themselves with an internal open space focus.

Today’s planners must continue to use the street as a legal and planning tool to govern neighborhood form and appearance but also assure a functional layout that integrates pedestrians and multiple types of vehicles. Topics for continued consideration and merger include determination of: 1) desirable and appropriate building forms and interaction with public rights of way; 2) hierarchies of public rights of way; 3) the appropriate separation of pedestrians and vehicles; and 4) how to manage speed and noise with traffic control devices, public education, law enforcement and vehicle redesign.

We remain at a literal and figurative crossroads as we struggle to preserve quality of life and safety, and to achieve energy conservation and offset climate change.

Stay tuned for more on the “new”, post-curvilinear life of the the grid.