Posts from — March 2008

(Jon) I’ve been reading “Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream,” and have been appreciating the authors’ analysis of suburban planning. Who knows if I’ll agree with their solutions.

Here are some quotes from the beginning of the book:

Since each piece of suburbia serves only one type of activity, and since daily life involves a wide variety of activities, the residents of suburbia spend an unprecedented amount of time and money moving from one place to the next.

Why the country’s planners were so uniformly convinced of the efficacy of zoning — the segregation of the different aspects of daily life — is a story that dates back to the previous century and the first victory of the planning profession. At that time, Europe’s industrialized cities were shrouded in the smoke of Blake’s “dark, satanic mills.” City planners wisely advocated the separation of such factories from residential areas, with dramatic results. … This segregation, once applied only to incompatible uses, is now applied to every use.

The problem with suburbia is that, in spite of all its regulatory controls, it is not functional: it simply does not efficiently serve society or preserve the environment.

So far, I can recommend the book. It’s certainly written at a reasonable level for the interested layman.

Photo by Millicent Bystander on Flickr

(Jon) Being nice to strangers is never easy and being polite in public never comes without some training. But it’s still shocking how incivility and rudeness have become so common even as technology makes communication easier.

Today was communication day at the YLNI Leadership Institute — led by Anthony Juliano of Asher Agency and the Soundbite Back blog. One topic that generated heat was the misuse of cell phones and texting devices while other people are nearby.

Stories of annoyance included people who blabbed on their phones in line at airports and colleagues who checked email on their BlackBerrys during meetings.

How can this be? Do they not see all the people standing around them?

Maybe not.

Whether out of fear or out of selfishness, Americans have created a culture in which we may meet only those people we choose to meet. We have less and less incidental contact with those around us.

If you live in a suburban home and work in a downtown building, you can complete your commute from bed to desk without meeting anyone you do not know. You can get into your car in your attached garage, drive in isolation with thousands of other motorists, find your space in the parking garage and walk across the skyway right into your office building. The first person you talk to is the same guy you see on the elevator every day.

So when we’re thrust into a group of strangers at a bank or coffee shop — when we don’t use the drive-through — many of us reach for the familiarity of our phone or BlackBerry. We have forgotten how to talk to strangers. We’re so used to being isolated that we can easily forget the real people standing right next to us.

For those of you who are guilty as charged, you need to practice civility. Push yourself into situations in which you have to talk to strangers. Here are some things I try to do:

• Avoid drive-though windows.
• Don’t use the auto-checkout lines at the grocery store.
• Park on the street.
• Turn off your phone and other devices when you are in meetings or other conversations.
• Above all, whenever you can, walk instead of drive.

Leave comments with your ideas that nudge you into incidental contact with strangers.

– Photo by Hedon King on Flickr

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwd4Lq0Xvgc]

(Jon) Here’s a well-thought-out lecture on New Urbanism by Andres Duany, author of Suburban Nation, The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream — a book I happen to be reading right now and enjoying very much.

This lecture is posted in nine parts (often chopped up in the middle of words). All nine pieces of the lecture can be found here.

Also, you can read an excerpt from Suburban Nation here. I’ll be posting about the book as I read through it over the coming weeks.

Hat tip: URBNBLGR

(Jon) Next American City points us toward a sobering article in The Atlantic about the effects of the subprime crisis on the nation’s suburbs. “The Next Slum?” says these changes “may turn today’s McMansions into tomorrow’s tenements.”

Here are some highlights:

At Windy Ridge, a recently built starter-home development seven miles northwest of Charlotte, North Carolina, 81 of the community’s 132 small, vinyl-sided houses were in foreclosure as of late last year. Vandals have kicked in doors and stripped the copper wire from vacant houses; drug users and homeless people have furtively moved in. In December, after a stray bullet blasted through her son’s bedroom and into her own, Laurie Talbot, who’d moved to Windy Ridge from New York in 2005, told The Charlotte Observer, “I thought I’d bought a home in Pleasantville. I never imagined in my wildest dreams that stuff like this would happen.”

(Arthur C.) Nelson (director of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech) forecasts a likely surplus of 22 million large-lot homes (houses built on a sixth of an acre or more) by 2025 — that’s roughly 40 percent of the large-lot homes in existence today.

If gasoline and heating costs continue to rise, conventional suburban living may not be much of a bargain in the future. And as more Americans, particularly affluent Americans, move into urban communities, families may find that some of the suburbs’ other big advantages — better schools and safer communities — have eroded. Schooling and safety are likely to improve in urban areas, as those areas continue to gentrify; they may worsen in many suburbs if the tax base — often highly dependent on house values and new development — deteriorates. Many of the fringe counties in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, for instance, are projecting big budget deficits in 2008. Only Washington itself is expecting a large surplus. Fifteen years ago, this budget situation was reversed.

The experience of cities during the 1950s through the ’80s suggests that the fate of many single-family homes on the metropolitan fringes will be resale, at rock-bottom prices, to lower-income families — and in all likelihood, eventual conversion to apartments.

As the residents of inner-city neighborhoods did before them, suburban homeowners will surely try to prevent the division of neighborhood houses into rental units, which would herald the arrival of the poor. And many will likely succeed, for a time. But eventually, the owners of these fringe houses will have to sell to someone, and they’re not likely to find many buyers; offers from would-be landlords will start to look better, and neighborhood restrictions will relax. Stopping a fundamental market shift by legislation or regulation is generally impossible.

Will this happen in Fort Wayne’s suburbs? It’s certainly possible. Is there any reason that the same forces that brought crime and abandoned houses to the inner cities would be stopped at the city limits? Indiana currently has the ninth highest foreclosure rate in the nation.

There should be no gloating on the part of urban advocates. This is a serious situation that will impact real families who thought they had escaped the negative effects of city living. It will be quite a shock if they discover they were wrong.

Related: Check foreclosures in your own neighborhood at RealtyTrac.

– Photo of Las Vegas suburb by Rich Lem on Flickr

(Jon) A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon the Web site deadmalls.com, which chronicles the sad stories of decaying retail centers.

In this article, the featured mall is Fort Wayne’s own now-demolished Southtown Mall.

The commentary includes a short history submitted by a Fort Wayne resident and a kind of walking tour made by the Web site’s owner in 2001. You can also view a gallery of 25 photos taken in 2001 of Southtown Mall (Note: photos 26 through 33 are of a different mall).

You can also see many more exterior and interior photos of Southtown Mall in a photo gallrey at aroundfortwayne.com.

I find it amazing that such a spookily vacant mall was open to the public for such a long time after it was obviously dead. Whatever you think of Wal-Mart, it sure beats what it replaced.

I’ve heard Southtown was successful for the first half of its life. But was there anything about the mall that doomed it to fail?

Related links:

• A history of American shopping malls
• Photos of dead malls and vacant retail on Flickr
• Definition of dead mall at Wikipedia
• Malls of America blog: “Vintage photos of lost Shopping Malls of the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s”

(Jon) If public art has the power like no other to “brand” a city — think of the Eiffel Tower and the Gateway Arch — then why is the public so often against the expenditure?

Dan on Cyburbia thinks it may be the style of art that’s been typically commissioned in the last half of the 20th century:

“Since about the late-mid 20th century a popular form of public art has emerged that I will call ‘amorphism’ that can be found in cities all over the world. It’s difficult to describe, but much like pr0n, you know it when you see it.

“Given that most people prefer their art to have form why have so many formless works been selected/commissioned? Do various governments have a desire to appear cutting edge/avant garde/futuristic and feel the art helps convey that impression? How are most selection committees formed?”

To bring the issue to Fort Wayne: Could much of the disagreement with Harrison Square have to do with distrust of the city’s ability to build something iconic?

I am thinking of the “amorphic” red steel artwork beside the Fort Wayne Museum of Art, the name of which escapes me. (Could someone could post a name and even better a link to a photo?) I heard stories that when it was reported the structure was sinking into the ground, a radio station encouraged listeners to drape their bodies all over it, to hasten its sinking?

On the other hand, I’m also reminded of our beautiful Allen County Courthouse, one of the best example of beautiful and functional public art anywhere. What was the spirit of those hardy Fort Waynians, and can it be recaptured?

Please comment here, but also take a minute to read the Cyburbia post and view the great examples.

Author’s photo on Flickr

Andy Mitchell of Martin Riley Architects and AB417 brings news of what sounds like a fascinating lecture coming to town in a couple of weeks:

“(It) will occur in Fort Wayne on March 17th from 4:30-6:00 pm. Jeremy Harris, recent Mayor of the City and County of Honolulu, Hawaii will be at the auditorium at the main branch of the Allen County Public Library discussing sustainable development and the cities of the future. He is visiting with Ball State University’s College of Architecture and Planning and then, through some generous donations from local organizations, will be available to come up to Fort Wayne to give a presentation. He is an excellent speaker and has a vast knowledge to share with us all. I hope you can attend.”

According to his bio:

“During his three terms as Mayor, Honolulu was recognized as one of the best managed cities in the United States.”

After he left office, among other things:

“(H)e served as a national director on the board of the American Institute of Architects, and helped create a new AIA program focused on helping American cities become more sustainable. He was also appointed as a Senior Fellow of the Design Futures Council. Mayor Harris is currently a member of the Sustainability Roundtable of the National Academy of Science and also serves on the National Academy’s Committee to advise Congress on the future policy and research direction of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.”

It is unknown whether the lecture will be recorded. You can read more biographic tidbits about Harris after the jump below.

photo of Honolulu by shchukin on Flickr

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(Scott) Having a FLW house certainly lends cred to your good city status. And having it accessible publicly lends even more.

The NYTimes today published an article on the phenomenon of FLW houses being turned into, essentially, bread and breakfasts. A quote from the article:

A Frank Lloyd Wright house is like a Japanese garden. No matter where inside it you stand, or which way you turn, the view before your eyes has been planned — and planned to be harmonious and beautiful. To absorb it and try to understand how it was done, you need to move and pause and double back and look around again, stand and sit and maybe lie on the couch. But the usual way to see a Wright house is on a 45-minute or hour-and-a-half guided tour. As a result, Wright admirers have learned to live with frustration.

Staying over, with time and privacy, we chipped away at ours. Over two days and nights, we dined in the glow of concealed overhead lights, read in a cozy nook under triangular windows, lay in bed in the morning watching gray treetops sway. We padded over concrete floors heated by hot water pipes below. Looking at details and structure, we tried to tease out the mechanics behind the overall effect of effortless serenity.

It might be a little pricey, but if you have the chance, take advantage of a local opportunity to increase your knowledge and appreciation for great residential architecture.