Archive | January, 2008

Do you want this in your neighborhood?

By on January 28, 2008 in Architecture, Neighborhoods

dwell_house.jpg(Jon) In response to my call for neighborly modern home architecture, Scott rises to the challenge.

He points us to an article and photos in Dwell Magazine which discusses this house built in a distressed neighborhood in Dayton, Ohio.

The builders of the home were warmly welcomed:

Luckily for the couple, there weren’t any stringent codes or angry neighbors with which to contend. “Dayton has some great older areas downtown that are strong historic districts,” maintains Mary Rogero. “But this was a very nondescript neighborhood, so it was easy to tweak the design in a direction that paves the way for modern homes to come in.”

But how would this go over in Fort Wayne? Would your neighborhood welcome such an addition to your neighborhood? I really think my neighbors wouldn’t blink at such a design, but would only be thankful that something new was being built. Tell me about yours.

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The house of the past’s future

By on January 22, 2008 in Architecture, Urbanism

(Jon) While we await some architects to respond to the last post and show off some neighbor-friendly modern housing that’s isn’t a throwback to the Victorian era, here’s an idea from the past — the 1971 fab prefab Venturo:

The advertising pitch, from Treehugger.com:

“A lake, land and sea, a beautiful valley, incomparably compatible settings for your individualized Venturo. This is real vacation living — and you get it instantly, maintenance free because Venturo’s exteriors are in fibreglass, anodized aluminum and glass.”

Plop one of these babies into West Central, and you’ll have the most popular fondue parties on the block. Read the groovy post over at treehugger.com.

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Must New Urbanism look old?

By on January 22, 2008 in Architecture, Neighborhoods, Urbanism

(Jon) Neal makes a valid point regarding my post, “New Urbanism blooming in Bloomington”:

A neat development in a neat town, but the main problem is that the new houses are old-fashioned looking. What part of “New Urbanism” says it has to look like the thirties?

I know the looks are a response to what suburban building looks like currently, but there is another direction you can take this in — new designs. I would be a lot more attracted to something more fresh looking.

Here’s some housing that’s definitely “fresh,” from useful + agreeable magazine:

uahouse1.jpg

But maybe an architect friend or two can point out some other modern designs that would work in an older neighborhood?

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‘Good men are public blessings’

By on January 20, 2008 in Theology

(Jon) There is no such thing as piety that is only private. The following verse is from our public confession at church this morning:

“By the blessing of the upright a city is exalted, but by the mouth of the wicked it is overthrown.” Proverbs 11:11 ESV

If the upright remain hidden behind closed doors in a life lived only in a small, safe sanitized haven, then of course the city is not exalted. Matthew Henry, in his commentary on this verse, says, “Good men are public blessings.” (emphasis mine) Henry mentions three ways in which this is true:

  • God blesses the Christian: “By the blessings with which they are blessed, which enlarge their sphere of usefulness.”
  • The Christian blesses the neighbor: “By the blessings with which they bless their neighbours, their advice, their example, their prayers, and all the instances of their serviceableness to the public interest.”
  • And God blesses the neighbor: “By the blessings with which God blesses others for their sake.”

The result? “The city is exalted and made more comfortable to the inhabitants, and more considerable among its neighbours.”

If Fort Wayne, “The City of Churches,” is not in some way “exalted,” the wicked are not the ones to blame. Fort Wayne Christians must encourage one another to be good to our city, by blessing our neighbors. And in return, God promises to exalt our city. 

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Music on my personal blog

By on January 18, 2008 in Shameless plugs

(Jon) If you’re interested, you can head over to my personal blog and listen to my first professionally recorded song.

It’s called “River,” and I think producer and friend Tim Bushong did a great job making me sound like a good singer.

You can also listen to the song on my MySpace page.

My goal for 2008: Record and produce a CD of my own music.

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New Urbanism blooms in Bloomington

By on January 17, 2008 in Architecture, Urbanism

(Jon) A big hat tip to Urban Indy for this:

As a new development in central Bloomington shows, New Urbanism in many ways is just the old urbanism. This is from a story in the Indianapolis Business Journal about how new housing is being built to blend in with the existing neighborhood around it:

“The term New Urbanism is kind of absurd. It’s old living,” said resident Beth Schroeder, 54, who moved to the neighborhood with her husband from rural Monroe County. “It’s how most people lived until the sprawl of the fifties. It’s retro. We’re just getting back to what we know was good.”

I can understand how New Urbanism can get some knocks for being rather utopian. But what you can’t knock is the care this particular New Urbanist developer had for his neighbors:

(Developer Matt) Press held a series of meetings at a nearby elementary school to explain New Urbanism. It wasn’t until getting feedback from neighborhood residents that he and his architects sketched out the development plan. That he won the support of surrounding property owners spoke loudly to city officials.

“He had a core group of residents who were lobbying and actively engaging the city on the developer’s behalf,” said city Planning Director Tom Micuda. “Which just doesn’t happen in our profession.”

When it’s explained, New Urbanism makes a lot of sense to a good number of potential home buyers.

The real obstacles in Bloomington, and many other cities, were suburban-style zoning requirements that were relaxed and rewritten and suburban-oriented bankers who had to be convinced that such a project is financially feasible.

Read the story here and check out the slideshow of 10 photos.

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Walkable urbanism

By on January 16, 2008 in Transportation, Urbanism

(Jon) Can walkability save a downtown? Christopher Leinberger in his new book, “The Option of Urbanism,” makes just such a case.

This column by author Neil Peirce begins with a little suburban history lesson:

(A)fter World War II, with Americans’ rush to thousands of new suburban locations, a never-before-seen norm appeared. Leinberger calls it “drivable sub-urbanism.” And what a market smash it proved, offering Americans a sense of freedom, mobility, privacy, their own piece of turf and a yard for the kids to play. Plus plenty of jobs and profits, from autos to oil to real estate to fast food. …

But in the 1990s, the model began to lose some of its luster. Suburbia’s big parking lots and low-density zoning meant an auto for every trip. Walking and transit were impractical. Older suburbs began to decline, inducing families to drive farther and farther to new suburban rings. Thousands of malls and shopping strips were abandoned. Traffic congestion — and Washington is no exception — became so severe that many families were obliged to build their lives around it. Kids had to be driven everywhere. Vehicle miles driven in America shot up a stunning 226 percent from 1983 to 2001, while population increased just 22 percent.

The suburbs aren’t going to go away, of course. But more recent trends may begin to favor the more traditional urban model:

(W)alkable urbanism has demographics going for it. The share of U.S. families with children at home has been declining sharply; the largest household growth will be empty nesters, never-nesters and singles, many likely to look to cities and their excitement. And cities, competing, will likely keep heeding advice to lure creative young professionals; in fact, those that don’t offer true walkable urbanism, Leinberger suggests, are “probably destined” to lose out economically.

You can read Peirce’s entire article and then visit Leinberger’s Web site, with links to dozens of PDFs of stories about walkability in different cities, such as Dallas and Detroit.

Hat tip: DFWB · Photo by Moriza on Flickr

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Good thing it wasn’t 2006

By on January 15, 2008 in Shameless plugs

(Jon) Former Fort Wayne resident Andrew Sikora thinks enough of The Good City to list it as No. 7 of his Top 7 of ’07 blogs of the year.

That’s very nice of him, and we appreciate the confirmation of what we’re trying to do here.

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Ye Olde Urbanism gets boot in britches

By on January 14, 2008 in Community, Urbanism

(Jon) A proposal to build a Medieval European village has gotten hogtied by modern Indiana regulations.

The people behind Simpler Times Village want to build a rural community with old-fashioned ideals — really olde — in green space in Madison County. From its Web site:

Can you imagine a storybook village in old world Europe? Have you ever traveled to Italy or Austria to see a community built before 1800? We are working to recreate such a place…

Simpler Times Village is unique because residents will be able to live, work and enjoy agriculture all in one place. You can open a bed and breakfast, own a simple vacation cabin or build a fine estate. You can have gardens and chickens in your backyard. …

But according to the Indianapolis Business Journal, the county commissioners are none too keen on allowing such a development encroach on agricultural areas.

If you look past the dreadful Thomas Kinkade aesthetics and the evangelical escapism, much of the goals of the village are actually quite laudable. Kevin of Urban Indy — who deserves the hat tip for my post — sums it up nicely:

(T)he idea is not terrible. They would have been built to incorporate small farms. The buildings and streetscapes are human-scaled. Also, the businesses would be locally owned.

The fact that this would have been a green field development gets a thumbs down, though. I suspect that a good chunk of people who move to these greenfield New Urbanist developments still drive to work. Public transit would be non-existent.

Exactly. Why not try to do something like this inside an existing city? Can the developers find a city innovative enough — or desperate enough — to relax some of the outdated suburban zoning strictures in a few city neighborhood blocks? This idea doesn’t need outdated architecture to work. It needs creative civic leaders, developers and potential residents who don’t mind walking — and don’t mind a few chickens.

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