Stop the Madness: Stay Off the Chimney

If you have visited Overlook Park in Sandy Springs, you may have noticed that there is an old chimney that is a relic from a long gone house that was once part of the property.  It's actually quite decorative.  However, for the longest time, I felt something just wasn't right.  It was odd to look at it just sitting there as it had for decades without a sign in front of it.  Thankfully, someone has fixed that problem.  

Why I Hate Density

This is an enhanced cross-post from my montly column, Community Design Matters, in The Current.  There may be some editorial differences.

How many houses per acre are in your subdivision?  How many are allowed?  How does that make you feel?  Should you feel anything at all?  I say no and here’s why. 

The numbers tell you the density of a given place.  The numbers associated with density tell you absolutely nothing about that place other than how many people or separate dwellings are located there.  It is a hollow word that says nothing about the charm and lovability of a place.

It can tell you nothing about the value of the homes, quality of the schools, demographics of the residents, congestion of the roads or vibrancy of the neighborhood.  The number requires context.  The entry for Density in Dhiru Thadani’s encyclopedic Language of Cities and Towns begins with the following paragraph:

Density is the number of individuals or dwelling units per unit of area.  The making of vibrant, diverse, and exciting urbanism is directly related to the concentration of population and activity. Density ensures the greatest range of people, buildings, public spaces, facilities, services, and choices.  It promotes the easy exchange of ideas and goods and services..

If density ensures the greatest range of people, buildings, public spaces, facilities, services, and choices, why do people generally flip out when anything more than 2 units per acre is proposed in their neighborhood?  The word has a stigma and it does so by failing to capture context.  The NIMBY response to density has its roots in many misconceptions about density’s relationship to social ills that have been associated with it such as crime, traffic, poor schools, low property values. etc.  The thing is, correlation and causation can often be miles apart.  Other misguided reasons people give such as they don’t want to be packed in like sardines and they aren’t going to give up the American Dream.  Once again, density does a poor job describing an environment.  Take Vickery Village or Seaside as examples.  These are places where single family homes dominate the landscape but the design increases the density and comfort of the place incredibly well.

The real reason for the NIMBY reaction, in my opinion, is that builders have done it so wrong for so long that virtually every building associated with density in a suburban setting is absolutely god awful, reprehensible, cookie cutter design that should be punished by revocation of architectural licenses.  You don’t see the ills in places where density has been done right.

Virtually all of the world’s top tourist destinations are highly dense areas where people live, work, learn and play in very close proximity.  With the exception of landscapes, people don’t take pictures and send postcards of places that don’t have some minimum amount of density.  You don’t get excited when you receive a postcard of Martin’s Landing, even the well photoshopped ones.  People like to see and visit highly beautiful, dense urban areas.  Think of Paris, Rome, Santorini, Prague, Seaside, Savannah or Charleston.  

So, people like density but they don’t like to admit it to themselves.  This is partially because in many cases, developers have put the cart before the horse.  Density does not create a successful place (unless you have hundreds of millions of dollars).  Chuck Marohn of StrongTowns recently stated,

..density is an expected byproduct of a successful place, not the implement by which we create one.

Maybe this is why Historic Roswell has the most examples of density done right in the northern suburbs.  The Bricks, Founders Mill and Canton St Walk/Providence are all excellent and complement the success of the neighborhood.   Unfortunately, there aren’t more.  Take away these three, and you have literally hundreds of poorly planned, improperly located and shoddily constructed condos, townhouse and apartments sprinkled all over the city.  We must do better and cities MUST stop allowing condos, townhouse and apartments to be built where they don’t belong.  They belong in the centers of our villages and towns and not anywhere someone can make a buck.

More importantly however, people need to understand that density isn’t the issue.  Design and location the things that should concern you. 

Community Design Matters Especially if you want "Density Done Right."

This video is a fun exercise to see if you can guess the density.  You will quickly learn that the number isn't the issue.  

The Roswell Loop... A Project We Should Get Behind

This is an enhanced cross-post from my montly column, Community Design Matters, in The Current.  There may be some editorial differences.

 

I brought this up last month and wanted to expand on it. From what I can tell,much of Roswell is completely unaware of the Roswell Loop. It’s time to change that. Imagine a project that would completely transform the way our city gets around, a project that would change the way you connect with your neighbors, a project that would spur significant economic development. Imagine feeling comfortable letting your kids ride their bike a couple subdivisions over because they can get on a trail through neighborhoods instead of having to ride their bikes out to a main road to get to a friend’s house. Imagine being able to commute to work by bike without risking your life while choking on exhaust. Imagine safely riding your bike to get somewhere where you can safely ride your bike instead of driving your car to get to that place where you can safely ride your bike.  Novel idea...

The Roswell Loop makes all of this possible. It was hatched back in 2006 as part of a brainstorming session with the city and a consultant. The idea was to create an innovative solution to connecting our schools, parks and neighborhoods. It grew some legs and actually made it into our Transportation Master Plan. As an interconnected series of five loops that create a larger loop through our city, it would link our parks, schools, neighborhoods, natural amenities and historic center together to form a safe network of connectivity. It would also tie in with other trail networks like the Big Creek Greenway and Lower Roswell Rd Trail leading into Cobb County.

With a commitment and evidence of investment, developers would begin to develop along the trail network unlocking value in areas of the city that are stagnant. We have a number of examples of extremely popular multi-use trails around the region that have done just that. The PATH Foundation has been working to build these trails in the region for 20 years. They have built over 160 miles of trails to date. Many of these trails are nothing short of amazing. Adjacent neighborhoods and businesses use these trails as amenities and the trails themselves encourage development.

Think of the Big Creek Greenway, Silver Comet Trail or the Stone MountainTrail. These are all fantastic trails but most people, even those who live near them, still have to drive to get there. The Loop would enable people to ride or walk to the trail instead of hopping in a car to get there. Perhaps the most transformative trail in the region is the newly opened Beltline Eastside Trail that stretches from Piedmont Park to to just south of Inman Park in Atlanta. It is ar elatively short stretch at almost 2.5 miles but it connects a number of amenities and neighborhoods in a way no one in Atlanta would have imagined ten years ago.

In the past seven years, there has been more than $775 million in private investment within half a mile of the new trail. Visiting the trail on a weekend, it’s obvious why businesses that back up to the old deserted railroad tracks are now working to open new entrances to front the trail. Check out this time-lapse video from the Streets Alive event in October.  This was a week before it's offical opening.

Just eight weeks after it's official opening, the Woodruff Foundation committed $3M to extend the path further south.  The trail has created instant value in the form of a useful alternative route by foot or bike and given adjacent businesses additional visibility from passers by that are much more likely to stop by serendipitously than a car would be. Recent studies have actually shown that bicycle commuters tend to spend more when they visit local stores. It’s all starting to make sense.

So, back to this Roswell Loop idea. How do we make it a reality? First, according to Roswell DOT, we actually have about 15% of it in place. Those are parts of Old Alabama Rd, Willeo Rd, Azalea/Riverside Rd and Mimosa Blvd along with another two miles that are in design that should be completed in the next couple of years. In order to complete the remaining 85%, there are a couple of things we should do.

First, following the Beltline model, we should identify the segments that would see the most traffic and start those ASAP. We should consider offering incentives to developers who are interested in building along the trail as well as property tax incentives to residents who want to open up their property lines to create trail connections with neighboring subdivisions. We should market this project and get the Downtown Development Authority involved and consider bringing in partner organizations like the PATH Foundation. Additionally, the city should commit to the project by creating an official Pedestrian and Bicycle planand budget accordingly.

Finally, the loop should be branded and we should label the trails that already are in place. This network would increase quality of life by making the city easier to get around for all our citizens not just those who are fortunate enough to be able to drive. It would make Roswell more desirable to potential residents and business and we could become a model for suburban connectivity.

A Letter to Santa from Roswell

This is an enhanced cross-post from my montly column, Community Design Matters, in The Roswell Current.  There may be some editorial differences.

Dear Santa,

First off, to eliminate any confusion you may have, we are the Roswell without the aliens.  This Roswell is a beautiful place full of great people and lots of nice neighborhoods. Unfortunately, similar to most US cities, we have a ton of mindless development, run down strip malls and disjointed subdivisions.  I’m writing this year to ask for a little help. 

We’ve been a good city this year.  We did a master plan for our historic district, passed a hybrid form-based code, started working on a unified development code, finished a strategic economic development plan, finalized our historic gateway transportation alternatives on top of passing a bond referendum that will pay for lots of great infrastructure improvements.  We are trying our best to fix our problems but we need a little Christmas magic.  Here’s what we want for Christmas this year:

An Identity - The other Roswell has Aliens.. We need something even cooler.  Our neighbor to the north is the Technology City of the South (kinda geeky but it pays well).  Our neighbor to the East is the number one suburban city in Georgia (not the identity we really want).  Our neighbor to the south is a national model for outsourcing city services (not everyone likes outsourcing).  We have the river, lots of cyclists, lots of history, tons of weddings and of course Canton Street.  What kind of identity can we create with those ingredients?

Appealing Gateways - Santa, do you even know when your sleigh enters Roswell airspace?  We don’t have a single gateway in our city that is worthy of being called a gateway. We need beautiful gateways at every major entrance to the city.  Especially at Holcomb Bridge/400 and Hwy 9 at the River. 

A Signature Project - Our neighbors have them so why can’t we?  Alpharetta has two, City Center and Avalon.  Sandy Springs has their City Center.  Could you maybe bring us a boutique hotel at our square?  I feel bad for all the wedding guests that come to our downtown and then have to leave to go back to their hotels by the freeway.

Connective Paths - Let’s face it Santa, even you can’t repair our road network any time soon.  It will continue to be a disjointed system that forces all the cars onto collector roads and arterials and creates mega traffic. But roads aren’t the only way to connect the community and increase our sense of place, how about we create a network of dozens of multi-use paths like the greenway that connect our subdivisions.   Let’s set a goal of creating 50 miles of multi-use paths that transect subdivisions and connect parks and schools within the next 10 years.  We could even pay for that ourselves, at 5 miles a year it would be about $2.5M/year.  I hear the storied Roswell Loop will take about $40M to build...

Remove the Reversible Lanes - Okay Santa, you don’t have to use them but take my word that these things are old and dangerous.  The traffic engineer that designed them should definitely be on the naughty list.  We need to fix them asap before someone really gets hurt.

More Jobs - I don’t know what the unemployment rate is at the North Pole but Roswell currently enjoys one of the lowest unemployment rates in Georgia at 6.5%.  Unfortunately, many of those jobs are outside of the city.  Our residents commute north to Alpharetta or south to Sandy Springs, Dunwoody, Buckhead and Atlanta.  Can you bring some local jobs please?

High Quality Apartments - Now you might think this is a bit crazy to ask for but I really want to see some high quality apartments, especially in our most walkable areas.  The kids these days just don’t want to buy homes and the apartments in our city aren’t the kind they want.  If we are going to diversify and attract the next generation of talent to Roswell, we need some new apartments. 

I Almost Forgot... Can you bring us an outdoor recreation complex that would have a Major League Soccer stadium, a whitewater rafting center (like the one in Charlotte), an aquatic center and a velodrome all with a hotel and some retail?  You could even package them all together in one location and brand it as the Outdoor Recreation capital of the south (take that Alpharetta geeks!). What’s that Santa?  I’m crazy, you say all that can’t fit anywhere in Roswell? Not so fast Santa.. you could plop it down perfectly on the southeastern quadrant of the Holcomb Bridge/400 intersection... and you could even fit a MARTA stop there but the people on the naughty list don’t like trains (even at Christmas) :)  Here's a quick sketch if you need help imagining it.

Now, let’s get those elves to work!

p.s. This post has a different title than the column in The Current.  The title of the column was not written by me and I do feel that Roswell is very unique... actually moreso than our neighbors Alpharetta, Marietta and Sandy Springs which is why I love living here.  I apologize if the title offended any of my readers.

Steve Jobs vs. Urban Design

This is an enhanced cross-post from my montly column, Community Design Matters, inThe Roswell Current.

“Simplicity is the Ultimate Sophistication.” “Think Different.” Those are two of Apple’s most recognized taglines. They define the company, but even more than that, they define Steve Jobs. Last month marked the one year anniversary of the passing of Apple’s founder and two-time CEO.

He changed millions of lives with his incredible ability to blend technology with design. He sold millions of people on iPods, iPhones, iPads, and Macs.  He convinced us to buy music online and to watch cartoons. None of this happened overnight, and it was no accident. He created a product that leaves people saying ‘I want that’ and then keeps them coming back for more.

I often think about what the world would look like if Jobs had been an urban planner. Would there be more places that leave us saying, “I want more of that?” Would he have been into walkable urbanism, a promoter of drivable suburbia, or would he have been something different? The legendary planner Andres Duany has a great metaphor. He says that good urbanism is a Mac program trying to run on a PC operating system built for sprawl. Most of America is using a PC, making the Mac programs difficult to use.

Walkable urbanism really is kind of like a Mac OS. It’s easier to use, quicker to get around, multi-tasks well, and it’s so simple a kid can use it without constant supervision. The layout of the apps on the iPhone even looks like a street grid. Unfortunately, this is largely a thought experiment, as Jobs’ didn’t dive into the subject much. Luckily, the world got a brief glimpse of his thoughts on the built environment in his final public appearance before the Cupertino City Council in June of 2011.

In his talk, he presented his vision for a new 175-acre Apple campus in Cupertino, Calif. First, the design channels his inner environmentalist by increasing green space by 350 percent. Today, the land has an 80:20 ratio of buildings to open space. That ratio would be reversed. The building would be something right out of a sci-fi movie. A single, enormous four-story circular building that would increase existing office space by 20% to 3.1 million square feet. There would be a 60 percent  increase in trees, from 3,700 to 6,000. The number of employees would increase by 40 percent  from 9,500 to 13,000. All of this would be done while reducing the total amount of surface parking by 90 percent. Jobs stated, “The overall feel of the place is going to be a zillion times better than it is now with all the asphalt.”

A rendering of the campus presented to the Cupertino City Concil

All in all, the proposal is unique and nothing if not Jobsian. It could be argued from a New Urbanist standpoint that the new design is a modernist nightmare but it can’t be argued that it is less interesting than what is there currently. In Jobs’ own words, “We want to take the space and in many cases we’re making it smaller. We’re putting more of a desirable thing on the space.” This is what he did time and time again. He took an existing product and tweaked the design and functionality to make it more desirable. Everyone had cell phones but the iPhone was a game changer. Everyone had watched cartoons, but “Toy Story” made us love them again.

However, the design itself would likely fail the community design litmus test. The building becomes isolated, and the only people interacting would be Apple employees and their guests. Knowing Apple’s focus on secrecy, this would work for the company but it wouldn’t work for a community.

The project would be mostly single-use and would keep Apple employees segregated from the city.

That being said, this was his first stab at urban planning, and perfection is rarely reached on the first try. Painstaking care and thought go into Jobs’ designs.  Thinking of how people will interact with the product from hardware to software was paramount, which is why I believe that another few projects would have given us something revolutionary.  It might not be New Urbanist in style, but I think he would have eventually leaned that way.

All of that being said, Steve Jobs may have influenced cities and urban life more through Apple than he ever could have as a planner. The advent of the smartphone, specifically the iPhone, and all of the technologies that are replacing the big, clunky slow old way of doing things has helped make living, working, and playing in walkable urban places easier and sexier than any time in the last 70 years. Thank you, Steve, for giving us great designs!

The Pollution We Don't See

This is an enhanced cross-post from my montly column, Community Design Matters, inThe Roswell Current.

They are there for our safety.  To protect us from others and ourselves.  They inform us and guide us.  But, until you sit back and look at all of them in their glory, you don’t realize that they suffocate us, degrade our environment and tell us just how stupid others think we are.  Most of them serve a purpose but many of them are redundant.  Virtually all of them have a colored front, a shiny back and are supported by a cheap steel bar.  They lack any level of charm and are often put in precisely the wrong place. 

I hope this isn't occurring frequently enough to warrant a sign

What I’m talking about are signs.  Just look around the next time you are at an intersection.  You would be hard pressed to find a place that has fewer than 10 signs of some sort visible.  We don’t accept litter, we regulate air and water pollution.  However, when it comes to sign pollution, the polluters know no bounds.  Case in point is the recent courtroom victory of georgia billboard companies versus north fulton cities that don’t want billboards polluting their cities.  Rather than siding with the people and the cities, the court has ruled that North Fulton cities must reimburse the billboard companies $4 million.  Get ready for more billboards!

Here’s a sample of the sign pollution that goes largely unnoticed every day: 

Entrance, Do Not Enter, Wrong Way, Stop, Yield, 4 Way Stop, 3 Way Stop, Yield to Oncoming Traffic, Keep Moving, Slow Traffic Keep Right, Blind Driveway, No Trucks, No Parking, Parking, Compact Cars Only, Handicapped Parking, Fire Lane, Turn Arrows, No Turn Arrows, Speed Limit, Round About Ahead, Stop Ahead, Speed Bump, Speed Hump, Dip, Gas, Lodging, Food, Mile Marker, No Left Turn, No Right on Red, Watch for Pedestrians, MARTA, Kiss-Ride, Airport, Low Flying Planes, Speed Monitored by Detection Devices, Slow Children at Play, Animal Crossing, Thru Traffic, Hospital, School Zone, Walk, Don’t Walk, Neighborhood Watch, Adopt a Highway, Body of Water Notice, Watershed Notice, Bridge May Ice in Winter, Use Headlights When Raining, City Limits, County Line, State Line, Overhead Clearance, Commemorative Road Markers, Keep off Grass, Historical Markers, Memorial Highway, Memorial Bridge, Tourist Interest Signs, Highway #, Billboards (electric and traditional), Subdivision Signs, Street Signs, Shopping Center Signs, Store Signs, Exit

Are half of those are even necessary?  Do we really need to be on the look out for Low Flying Planes and in the know that Speed is Monitored by Detection Devices?  Do we really need 8 Wrong Way signs at one off ramp?  Head on collisions are tragic but most are caused by drunks who would miss a hundred wrong-way signs. 

Are we truly safer with all these signs or is it DEsigns that make us safer?  There is a concept in Europe called a woonerf devised by a radical traffic engineer where all traffic signs and signals are absent.  It looks like chaos but it’s actually much safer than a standard intersection.  Why?  Because drivers are forced to pay attention.  When a driver feels uncomfortable, the driver pays more attention.  When drivers pay more attention, they crash lest often.  Our roads have been designed to make it easy to not pay attention.  Their straight & wide designs forgive us for texting, eating, looking down and generally not focusing on the road.

Do we need more signs or do we need better roads?  The next time your DOT wants to put up another sign, think about the true necessity of that sign and ask if we need a new sign on that road or a redesign of that road.

Above, I mentioned a woonerf which is a signless intersection.  The Strong Towns Blog which I follow regularly recently had a post with a number of video links that illustrate the power of the signless intersection.  This one was my favorite because it illustrades how the same intersection works with and without lights.  There are several more videos that get into more detail and examples that you can check out here.

Now, where could we put in a woonerf and create a shared space in Roswell?  I think there are two spots in particular that would serve as a perfect testing ground..  They are the Norcross St. and of Webb St. intersections on Canton St.  Traffic is slow enough that cars, pedestrians and bicyclists can all interact well with eachother.  I would go further and propose that the speed limit be reduced from 25 mph to 15 mph from Goulding south to Magnolia.

These are the types of ideas we need to be thinking about and implementing.  They are cost effective, decrease traffic and safer when implemented correctly.

image: fanpop.com

The Elusive Walkable Neighborhood

This is a cross-post from my montly column, Community Design Matters, inThe Roswell Current.  

 

Recently, I wrote about the Elusive Neighborhood Grocery Store. A number of readers wrote me with disappointment that we have so few here in the northern ‘burbs.' I’m disappointed too. But, there is something even more elusive in our part of metro-suburbia that is even harder to find—The Elusive Walkable Neighborhood.

The first thing I want to point out is this: There are Neighborhoods that are Subdivisions but not all Subdivisions are Neighborhoods. Atlanta’s northern suburbs are largely made up of subdivisions that people call neighborhoods because our country has lost so many true neighborhoods that people don’t even know how to recognize them anymore. A place with houses has become a neighborhood. The second thing I want to point out is that a walkable neighborhood almost always has sidewalks but a subdivision with sidewalks is rarely a walkable neighborhood. 

Okay, you say… you just dissed my subdivided lifestyle, so tell me, Mr. New Urban Smarty-pants, what is a walkable neighborhood? First and foremost, a walkable neighborhood is a place where people generally prefer to walk because it feels comfortable and interesting. Use the following question as a litmus test. When driving, do you feel the urge to get out of your car and walk? If the answer is no, you are probably not in a walkable neighborhood. If the answer is yes, you have probably found one. 

There are other ways to test walkability. The most popular is Walkscore, which is a place whose value of 0 to 100 is based on the amenities in close proximity of a given address. Check yours at walkscore.com. You can also use the immeasurable rules of Walk Appeal coined by architect Steve Mouzon — people on the street, lovable things along the way, magic of the city, safety, nature, and sound. These are all things that impact whether you will walk somewhere but probably don’t enter your thought process when deciding between your shoes or your keys.

Another easy rule of thumb is that people are generally not willing to walk more than a quarter mile to get to their destination if a car is readily available. Exceptions to this occur in places with high Walk Appeal, where the walk is broken up by many interesting ‘distractions.’ These distractions are generally people, shops, or interesting views (natural or manmade). Places like Paris, New York City, Savannah and Charleston are great examples of places where people are more than willing to walk long distances. Places like Windward Parkway that have sidewalks do enable walking but don’t have high Walk Appeal. It gets a Walkscore of 12.  

Walkability is a key component of a true neighborhood. Neighbors don’t meet each other driving from their garage to the big box store du jour and back to their garage. They meet each other on foot. Much of this happens while walking. Walkable neighborhoods promote neighborliness. Neighborhoods with a mix of interesting destinations within close proximity that are accessible by foot promote walking. Walking promotes better health, better social capital, and less foreign oil consumption. And walking under the influence rarely results in serious injury. 

Now that TSPLOST has failed, maybe we should move in the opposite direction and focus less on roads and transit and more on sidewalks and proximity.