'Big box' retailers don't generate as much property tax revenue as you might think

A 'big box' store like Wal-Mart coming to town may look like a local tax revenue windfall. But according to an analysis of property tax revenue per acre in Sarasota county, Fla., such pedestrian-hostile developments "produce barely more than a single family house; maybe $150 to $200 more a year," Citiwire.net reports. "(Think of all those acres of parking lots.)"

Meanwhile, a high-rise mixed-use project downtown contributed $800,000 in local property tax per acre, compared with $22,000 per acre for high-end retail shopping mecca Southgate Mall (Macy's, Saks Fifth Ave., etc.)

"Indeed, that three-quarters of an acre of in-town urban-style development is worth more property tax revenue than a combination of the 21-acre WalMart supercenter and the 32-acre Southgate Mall."

That's from a presentation by Peter Katz, director of Smart Growth/Urban Planning for Sarasota county. (See charts/stats from the property tax per acre analysis).

There may be less parking acreage in eastern Massachusetts than Florida, but nevertheless, this is one interesting and useful way to view the value of various developments. Yes, there are plenty of other factors to consider (like generating employment, cost of public services, etc.) But it can be too tempting to look at the total value of property tax per development, without considering what benefits other uses might generate on the same amount of property.

Better streetscapes lead to more walking

Add Scientific American to the list of those saying we need aesthetically pleasing streetscapes to encourage more walking.

Says a recent podcast:

"According to Andrew Furman of Ryerson University in Toronto [http://bit.ly/dr76ot] . . .  in many places in North America it’s just not that nice to walk. But if cities and suburbs put more effort into building better pedestrian routes, he says more people might leave their SUVs at home."

And as I mentioned and Brett commented on a recent post, European cities and towns make much more of an effort at this -- not only with effective transit systems, but with communities designed with walking in mind, not simply driving.

"With its older cities, Europe is more amenable to meandering. Think cobblestone streets and hidden gardens. But North American cities and suburbs are more modern and car-centric, which generally forces pedestrians and cyclists to always take the same, boring path from A to B," Scientific American agrees.

Attractive pedestrian paths aren't a frill. They're vital to get people out of cars and walking from place to place.

We can keep living standards high while cutting energy use

"I know that these days you’re supposed to see the future in China or India, not in the heart of 'old Europe,' " writes Paul Krugman in a column called Stranded in Suburbia.  But "Europeans who have achieved a high standard of living in spite of very high energy prices — gas in Germany costs more than $8 a gallon — have a lot to teach us about how to deal with that world."

Many Americans found gasoline prices of just half that untenable. But that's because so many people drive enormous gas-guzzling cars while living in exurbs designed to require you to drive to get pretty much anywhere or do anything. "Any serious reduction in American driving," Krugman notes correctly, will mean "changing how and where many of us live."

When I'm able to visit Europe, it's always both startling and refreshing to be able to spend most of that time getting around just fine without a private car. Communities are designed so you can walk to get groceries or take dependable public transit where you need - or want - to go. Train stations tend to be surrounded by pedestrian-friendly areas, so it's expected you can take a train from one city to another and then walk to where you need to go.

In Berlin, Krugman visited "a pleasant, middle-class neighborhood consisting mainly of four- or five-story apartment buildings, with easy access to public transit and plenty of local shopping.

"It’s the kind of neighborhood in which people don’t have to drive a lot, but it’s also a kind of neighborhood that barely exists in America, even in big metropolitan areas. Greater Atlanta has roughly the same population as Greater Berlin — but Berlin is a city of trains, buses and bikes, while Atlanta is a city of cars, cars and cars.

"And in the face of rising oil prices, which have left many Americans stranded in suburbia — utterly dependent on their cars, yet having a hard time affording gas — it’s starting to look as if Berlin had the better idea."

The irony is that some people moved out to the exurbs in order to find more affordable housing -- without factoring in the added costs of a lengthy commute. For those who, say, move beyond Rte. 495 but still work in the Boston area, the annual costs of driving can more than offset lower mortgages.

"When driving costs are added to housing costs, the institute found that, for example, the average household spends more each year in Dracut ($35,643) than in Cambridge ($28,671), and more in Stoughton ($37,513) than in Brookline ($36,846)," the Boston Globe noted in a story about a report by the Urban Land Institute released last month. And that doesn't include the "cost" of time spent commuting.

Says Krugman: "If we’re heading for a prolonged era of scarce, expensive oil, Americans will face increasingly strong incentives to start living like Europeans — maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of our lives."

Urban mobility planning in Barcelona: Lecture in Cambridge

What are the results of implementing better transit networks, traffic calming zones, and a bike sharing program? Are these measures always environmentally-friendly? Are they enough to create better places to live and enjoy? Learn about the development of urban mobility plans in Greater Barcelona and Catalonia, Spain, from Marius Navazo, Urban Planner, Barcelona. See what the Catalan Government is encouraging municipalities to do.

The lecture is Thursday, June 25, 7 to 9 pm at LivableStreets office space, 100 Sidney Street, Cambridge. The event is free and open to the public (although donations are suggested). Beer and soda provided compliments of Harpoon Brewery and delivered thanks to Metro Pedal Power.

Marius Navazo is a geographer who has been working for the last 10 years in town and regional planning, focused on transportation and its impacts to improve cities from a social and environmental perspective. He has been working at the Catalan Government for the last 4 years, and now he is a freelancer working for different municipalities in the Barcelona area.

For more information, go to www.livablestreets.info/node/2154.

Downtown retail districts need residences

The Boston Globe had a piece this weekend about the Downtown Crossing shopping district, with the online title: "Without car traffic, Downtown Crossing loses its charm at night." As if autos driving through a neighborhood with shuttered stores and zero pedestrian traffic is going to bring the area back to life.

I saw the same thing last weekend when I was in Indianapolis on business, in the city center, and there were wide streets with ample parking everywhere. But without a critical mass of residences in an area along with an appealing pedestrian environment to draw them from home to destinations on foot, the neighborhood street got awfully lonely at night.

And if there's too much emphasis on broad streets with quickly moving traffic, there's a major risk of killing off after-dark foot traffic altogether.

If you want to argue that vehicular access is necessary to attract more residential development along the block, fine. But just letting cars drive through won't bring vibrant nightlife back to Washington Street. Newbury Street "works" not because there are cars, but because there's the proper mix of businesses that appeal to people on foot, pedestrian-friendly streetscape including architecture that makes people want to stroll and window-shop, and a relatively narrow conduit for vehicles that usually must move slowly through the area.

Stimulus funds: How much for something besides roads?

Streetsblog has some good news for cycling, pedestrian and anti-sprawl advocates. Analysis by the Tri-State Transportation Campaign of the recently passed stimulus bill shows that the $27.5 billion included for "highways" allocates 3% of that for "transportation enhancements," usually bicycle and pedestrian projects. That's up from 1.7% in the 2005 federal transportation bill.

In addition, major metro areas (population over 200,000) will get roughly 16% of the total funding -- which apparently is good news considering how funding usually gets distributed. Although Ben Fried at Streetsblog points out, "As Brookings notes, the nation's 100 largest metro areas produce 75% of the nation's GDP." Three-quarters of the nation's economic activity, yet less than one-fifth of federal funding for transportation infrastructure.

Thanks to my colleague Mitch Betts for the link.

Last month, Transportation for America put together a chart showing various state transportation funding requests. Massachusetts apparently asked for $783 million in transportation funding, including $17.6 million (2.2%) for bike and pedestrian projects. And that, ladies and gentlemen, was the second-highest percentage request on the chart - possibly highest, since Maine's 2.8% included ferries as well as bike and pedestrian work.

Hang up the phone and drive

Even if you've got a "hands-free" headset. Hang up the phone and pay attention to the roadway, so you don't kill someone, OK?

Latest data show that talking on a cell phone, even with both hands on the wheel, is a dangerous activity.

"Engaging in a phone conversation on a mobile device while driving distracts the brain and delays reaction times, experts said. Drivers are more likely to swerve between lanes, slow down and miss important signs," says this CNN story summarizing recent driving-while-talking studies. And no, it's not the same as chatting with the person next to you. From the same report:

" 'It doesn't matter what kind of cell phone device they are using, because the impairments are so large,' said University of Utah professor David Strayer, who used a high-tech driving simulator for his experiment.

"Strayer's study, published in December, concluded that conversations with a front-seat passenger can actually mitigate accidents, because the passenger can help observe road conditions and warn the driver of possible hazards."

Maybe you don't mean it, but if you talk on the phone while driving, you're showing contempt for the safety and well-being of those on the road around you. Studies are clear that reaction time is slower for a driver yakking on a phone. Not just for other people. Yes, even for you. And when you're piloting a 1,000+ lb vehicle at 55+ mph, just a slight delay in reaction time can be deadly.

"Phone driving is the drunken driving of the new millennium," wrote Dan Carney in the Washington Post piece, What Call is Worth a Life? "Seemingly everyone does it, and all of them seem to believe that they are skilled in a way that prevents their powers of perception from being clouded by the fog of isolation that envelops drivers who talk on the phone."

That was four years ago, and the problem has only gotten worse. "One study from the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis estimated that 636,000 traffic accidents each year -- about 6 percent of all accidents -- are caused by drivers using their cell phones, resulting in an estimated 2,600 deaths," notes CNN.

It's time to ban drivers from talking on cell phones. Period.

Will the financial meltdown tame exurban sprawl? Is home ownership an economic problem?

Toward the end of a lengthy piece on how the financial crisis will reshape America, "Rise of the Creative Class" author Richard Florida argues that our society will finally start re-thinking suburbs -- particularly exurbs. He believes areas with a high concentration of well-educated knowledge workers will do best in a post-manufacturing economy:

"The places that thrive today are those with the highest velocity of ideas, the highest density of talented and creative people, the highest rate of metabolism. Velocity and density are not words that many people use when describing the suburbs. The economy is driven by key urban areas; a different geography is required.

"The housing bubble was the ultimate expression, and perhaps the last gasp, of an economic system some 80 years in the making, and now well past its 'sell-by' date. The bubble encouraged massive, unsustainable growth in places where land was cheap and the real-estate economy dominant. It encouraged low-density sprawl, which is ill-fitted to a creative, postindustrial economy. And not least, it created a workforce too often stuck in place, anchored by houses that cannot be profitably sold, at a time when flexibility and mobility are of great importance."

Just as the era after the Depression and World War II led to suburban growth, will our new post-crash era once again realign American living patterns? It's an interesting argument, especially if you believe that areas most rich in knowledge workers, such as Silicon Valley, New York and Boston, will thrive.

The most controversial part of his piece is his call for an end to government incentives to homebuyers, arguing they "distort demand, encouraging people to buy bigger houses than they otherwise would." However, I think Florida gives too short shrift to the community benefits of home ownership (which can include condos, not only stand-alone single-family houses) -- once you're heavily financially invested in a place, you have much more of a stake in the functioning success of that community than you do if you're a transient renter. He also underestimates the problem of disparity of housing prices: How many people in affordable areas of the country are put off by housing prices in Boston or New York -- even rental prices -- compared to what they can get elsewhere?

Instead, I think we should start with a look at changing other government actions that encourage exurban sprawl, such as: the investment and development/design tilt toward roads for private cars instead of mass transit and walkable neighborhoods; zoning regulations that favor sprawl over smart growth; and perhaps someday the effective forced subsidies by urban dwellers so those in the exurbs pay similar utility rates, even though it's more expensive to deliver services to sparsely populated outer-ring communities.

However, I think it may be worth a look at some point (clearly not right now) at *how* the government promotes home ownership, because it is certainly arguable that deductions for mortgage interest can disproportionately benefit upper-income taxpayers. As Atlantic senior editor Clive Crook notes in the article Housebound:

"The current deduction costs nearly $80 billion a year in forgone federal revenues. It is available only to the minority of households—typically affluent— that itemize their taxes. Households at the margin of choosing between renting and owning are not, for the most part, itemizers. The deduction has no effect on their choice, and thus does almost nothing to promote homeownership. What it does promote, studies show, is spending on housing—that is, people who would have been owners anyway pay more for their houses. Prices are higher than they would otherwise have been, and mortgages are bigger. As many owners have learned abruptly, this can worsen economic insecurity."

Not sure I completely agree. At the time we were buying our first home, the mortgage deduction was the difference that allowed us to afford a house at the median price point in the most affordable town in the area -- a 7-room slab ranch on a quiet street in a middle-class neighborhood -- instead of a house on a noisy street, a house that was smaller than our apartment, one that would need a lot of (expensive) work, or one that increased our commutes. So I sure appreciated the deduction. Although I suppose it's arguable that if there weren't such a deduction, price levels would had to have been lower as a result, just as prices allegedly drop when mortgage rates rise. However, that's not necessarily the case. But some other sort of tax credit that better targets middle-class homebuyers might indeed be more effective than the mortgage interest deduction we have now.

Florida suggests that instead of trying to stop foreclosures, we require banks that take ownership of homes from defaulting homeowners "to offer to rent each home to the previous homeowner, at market rates—which are typically lower than mortgage payments—for some number of years. (At the end of that period, the former homeowner could be given the option to repurchase the home at the prevailing market price.) A bigger, healthier rental market, with more choices, would make renting a more attractive option for many people; it would also make the economy as a whole more flexible and responsive."

Both Florida and Crook point to work by economist Andrew Oswald that conscludes higher home ownership leads to higher unemployment rates, because workers are less mobile and thus less able to go where jobs are. Florida summarizes Oswald's work: "[I]n both the United States and Europe, those places with higher homeownership rates also suffer from higher unemployment. Homeownership, Oswald found, is a more important predictor of unemployment than rates of unionization or the generosity of welfare benefits. Too often, it ties people to declining or blighted locations, and forces them into work—if they can find it—that is a poor match for their interests and abilities."

Not mentioned here, though, is the human cost to forcing people to pick up and move in order to find work; and the cost to a community when large numbers of people view themselves as transient residents instead of fully vested citizens. What doesn't work so well in a financial meltdown works a lot better when the economy is not in dire straits, and people are employed and emotionally anchored to their communities. However, I will admit there's a cost as well to family finances (i.e. housing issues) forcing people to stay in an area where there are no unemployment prospects. In any case, food for thought. Your thoughts?

In Pictures: Transforming an ugly parking lot into a walkable shopping area

Too many of the strip mall/big box parking lots along Rte. 9, Rte. 30 and elsewhere are not only visually unpleasant, but they make it all but impossible to walk from place to place -- even between retail destinations that are only a few hundred feet away. But those design patterns can change! Check out this development vision for a town in Illinois. This 5-picture slideshow starts out with an ugly ocean of asphalt in front of a chain restaurant, and ends with an attractive "walkable design [that] would allow residents to shop with their feet instead of their cars. The revamped shopping center would keep all the same amenities in place and add a sense of community character."

Another scenario from Memphis shows how a few design changes can transform a residential neighborhood with an unappealing pedestrian streetscape into one where pedestrians would love to stroll.

Which version would you rather live, work and shop in? These attractive neighborhoods become possible when developers and town officials keep walkable streetscapes in mind.

(Thanks to my colleague Mitch Betts for the links.)

Another Herbert Hoover legacy: Soul-less zoning

Many of us have Herbert Hoover on our minds these days, wondering whether our economy is once again on the precipice, as it was during the Hoover administration. However, I didn't know until today that Hoover, along with his economic infamy, was also a key player in creating zoning regulations that outlawed great community development patterns.

"As Commerce Secretary, he championed the Standard Zoning Enabling Act to address 'the moral and social issues that can only be solved by a new conception of city building,' " writes Rick Cole at Citiwire.net.

"In 1926, the Supreme Court upheld zoning to protect health and safety by 'excluding from residential areas the confusion and danger of fire, contagion and disorder which in greater or less degree attach to the location of store, shops and factories.' The quite sensible idea that people shouldn’t live next to steel mills was used to justify a system of 'zones' to isolate uses that had lived in harmony for centuries."

The end result? Neighborhoods where you can't walk anywhere. Notes Cole:

"Take any great place that people love to visit. You know, those lively tourist haunts from Nantucket to San Francisco. Or those red hot neighborhoods from Seattle’s Capital Hill to Miami Beach’s Art Deco district. Or those healthy downtowns from Portland, Oregon to Chicago, Illinois to Charleston, South Carolina. What do they all have in common?

The mix of uses that gives them life are presently outlawed by zoning in virtually every city and town in all 50 states."

I'm not sure if I'd go quite that far -- even Framingham recently allowed housing and retail again downtown -- but it is true that a large number of communities would not allow building patterns that were used to create great neighborhoods like Back Bay in Boston.

When David Brooks and I agree...

...the issue probably has some merit :) Since that occurs rather rarely. But he's correct (not just "right") when he says in "This Old House":

"If you asked people in that age of go-go suburbia what they wanted in their new housing developments, they often said they wanted a golf course. But the culture has changed. If you ask people today what they want, they’re more likely to say coffee shops, hiking trails and community centers.

People overshot the mark. They moved to the exurbs because they wanted space and order. But once there, they found that they were missing community and social bonds."

Of course, Brooks being Brooks, he couches this in a criticism of Democrat Barack Obama, who has yet to even take office. I disagree on that part (geez, Obama's inheriting multiple crises from the Bush administration, let the guy take office for a few days before you start complaining); but I do back Brooks' call that Obama's stimulus plan should

"... create new transportation patterns. The old metro design was based on a hub-and-spoke system — a series of highways that converged on an urban core. But in an age of multiple downtown nodes and complicated travel routes, it’s better to have a complex web of roads and rail systems."

One of the great things about New York City's mass transit system is that it's not just set up to get you to the core of Manhattan, but also move within multiple destinations throughout the five boroughs. And it's not accident that New York is the sole city in America where a majority of people use public transportation to get to work.

"Second, the Obama stimulus plan could help localities create suburban town squares."

Faux town squares without attractive corridors in and out of them won't do as much as backers hope. Still, I agree with the premise that suburbs need  anchor districts where you can walk to multiple destinations instead of having to drive from strip mall to strip mall.

It's way too early for Brooks to declare that "Before the recession hit, we were enjoying a period of urban and suburban innovation. We could have been on the verge of a transportation revolution. It looks as if the Obama infrastructure plan may freeze that change, not fuel it." But the issue is worth pointing out, in hopes that Congress and the Obama administration will help fuel a change toward more community-centered planning -- which would be totally consistent with Obama's campaign themes.

Several letters published in response to Brooks' column  agree with his aim funding community-centered planning, although not necessarily with crticizing Obama.

"Mr. Obama has called for a refocus on urban issues like public transit, rebuilding inner-city schools, and revitalizing public parks and common ground in his public works package. He recognizes that cities are the nerve centers of our modern economy and must be restored to create a durable economic base," notes Jack Luft, former Miami planning director.

"Mr. Obama would get the long-term 'bang for the buck' he seeks by heeding Mr. Brooks’s advice and supporting the shovel-ready plans that metropolitan area mayors are offering," he advises.

Adds architect and urban designerJohn A. Dutton notes that the federal government encouraged a lot of suburban and exurban sprawl via "highway construction, building codes and mortgage tax credits. ...  We should retrofit our suburbs to make them livable communities with true civic centers, walkable neighborhoods, alternative transportation options and preserved open space, while using innovative sustainable development practices that could be a model for the world."

Livable communities in the Obama era

[caption id="attachment_759" align="alignleft" width="200" caption="Obama campaign's Boston phonebanking office, day before Election Day"][/caption]

This isn't a "political" blog, but now that the election is history -- congratulations to President-elect Obama, and to all of us who worked so hard to make it happen! -- it's time to take a look at what an Obama administration might mean for the goals of more walkable, livable communities.

President-elect Obama will have a full plate of crises when he takes office in January, what with the economic woes and two wars. So I'm under no illusions that community planning issues will be atop his agenda. However, he has strong opinions about transportation and community development, ones that see our urban centers not as "unreal America," but as centers of vibrancy and innovation. He has pledged to create a White House Office on Urban Policy and to financially support "innovation clusters" defined as "regional centers of innovation and next-generation industries."

Happily, he is also on record favoring "more livable and sustainable communities." Says his policy Web site: "Our communities will better serve all of their residents if we are able to leave our cars, to walk, bicycle and access other transportation alternatives. As president, Barack Obama will re-evaluate the transportation funding process to ensure that smart growth considerations are taken into account. . . .

How a community is designed – including the layout of its roads, buildings and parks – has a huge impact on the health of its residents. For instance, nearly one-third of Americans live in neighborhoods without sidewalks and less than half of our country's children have a playground within walking distance of their homes. Barack Obama introduced the Healthy Places Act to help local governments assess the health impact of new policies and projects, like highways or shopping centers.

His campaign's 4-page transportation plan includes funding for Amtrak, development of high-speed passenger and freight rail service, invest in public transportation and create more incentives for mass transit use (such as ending the tax code inequities that allow employers to provide more tax-free parking benefits to workers than for carpooling or mass transit).

As president, Barack Obama will re-evaluate the transportation funding process to ensure that smart growth considerations are taken into account. Obama will build upon his efforts in the Senate to ensure that more Metropolitan Planning Organizations create policies to incentivize greater bicycle and pedestrian usage of roads and sidewalks. As president, Obama will work to provide states and local governments with the resources they need to address sprawl and create more livable communities.

At the highest of levels, the election of our first African-American president running on a platform of change, inclusiveness and personal responsibility sends a powerful signal that we're all part of this great nation. We're all equal partners, and we're all partners -- no one is going to make positive change happen for us, not unless we're all willing to do the work to make it happen. And we're likely to see more citizen involvement in trying to bring about the change people seek.

I never quite understood the reasoning behind Republicans disparaging community organizing. Seriously, it's a bad thing for people to band together to try to improve their communities?

(Sorry for the long delay since the last post. My home computer gave up the ghost, it's taken awhile to get a new computer set up.)

When outsiders change a neighborhood

As a traveller, it's hard to complain that there are "too many tourists" someplace, since by definition, you're on of those outsiders. Nevertheless, if you're travelling to see a specifically authentic place, it can be disappointing to see it overrun by mobs from tour buses or cruise chips, along with tacky souvenir shops and others signs that a place is geared toward outsiders instead of being itself. If you have a right to visit, doesn't everyone else? What steps are reasonable for a community to take to preserve its character?

This is extremely complicated when a community starts changing due to an influx of newcomers, especially if the recent arrivals are demographically different from longer time residents. Here in New England, there are communities where you're still a "newcomer" if your family's been around for less than 3 or more generations. That's rather extreme; but what about when a neighborhood gentrifies, pushing out long-time lower income residents? What about when newcomers threaten to dilute an ethnic flavor that makes a place special, such as Boston's North End? And the New York Times today takes a look at "evolving Harlem," where great architecture, relatively attractive real estate prices and a cool/historic address is attracting a higher-than-usual amount of non African Americans.

"It's particularly wrong in Harlem, where you have the black cultural capital being devoid of black people," community activist Michael Henry Adams told the Times. "I don’t think tourists will continue to come to the neighborhood if it is entirely white."

Tourism is an economic issue for businesses who depend on them. But it's somewhat ironic that a historic preservationist is citing vacationers as a reason to protect a community from outsiders.

So do we discourage people from settling in a neighborhood because of their race?

Particularly in New York, neighborhoods change, especially ethnically oriented ones, as one immigrant group gets more established and moves on, and another takes its place. Harlem does indeed hold a special historical place, and I certainly wouldn't want to see the plaze razed for skyscrapers and an urban shopping mall. But it's a dicey position to take to find fault with newcomers who want to heop restore the neighborhood's grand architecture and fit in with the prevailing cultural norms, just because of their race.

Burlington, Vermont's 'downtown that works' ... and what Framingham might learn

Burlington, Vt. proper has a population that's smaller than Framingham -- just 40,000 people (plus several colleges) -- yet it boasts a thriving downtown and rejuvenated waterfront. We were there yesterday, on a Sunday afternoon, and the 4-block pedestrian-only retail area was packed with people. There was a special street performer festival going on, but several locals said the crowds were typical.

What makes it work? What lessons could Framingham learn from Burlington's success?

[caption id="attachment_720" align="alignright" width="225" caption="Outdoor seating at numerous restaurants, along with an attractive pedestrian-only retail area with a good mix of businesses, brings crowds to downtown Burlington, Vt."][/caption]

* A huge amount of effort was put into making a walkable city. The waterfront is connected to the downtown shopping area, and both are connected to nearby college campuses. It's not merely theoretically possible to walk between destinations, but the streetscape makes you want to stroll. Cars don't whiz by within inches of walkers, there's separation and screening. And intersections are crossable on foot. There's also a free shuttle running between college, downtown shopping and waterfront. Contrast that with the highly unpleasant corridors between Framingham's train station and retail area, Framingham State, and nearby parks and ponds.

* The city's colleges aren't hidden away, physically separated from the rest of the city, but are well integrated and bring foot traffic and life to nearby retail. "Twenty-five years ago, the four-block stretch between Main and Pearl streets was open to automobile traffic, and lined with shops that met a small city's everyday demands -- it was easy, on a weekday afternoon or evening, to entirely forget that this is a college town. All that changed when the core blocks of Church Street went all-pedestrian," note Kay and Bill Scheller in "Best Vermont Drives." Funny how catering to foot traffic turns out to be good for local business.

* The heart of the city's retail district is, yes, devoted to retail -- shops and restaurants, not things like medical offices, insurance offices or financial businesses. Yes, Burlington also has a Salvation Army center and food kitchen downtown, conveniently located a couple of blocks off the main shopping area.

* The city's sense of place is palpable. Even with some chain stores in the Church Street pedestrian mall, there were so many locally owned shops that I didn't feel like I was walking around a slightly different, outdoor version of the Natick Mall.

"Burlington in the 1950s and '60s was a different place. Docks and waterside railyards had become privately owned wastelands, littered with high grass and rusting debris," Christina Tree & Diane E. Foulds write in Vermont: An Explorers Guide. "The few public beaches were closed due to pollution, and the solution was seen as 'urban renewal.' In the 70s some 300 homes and 40 small businesses were demolished, and large luxury condo/retail development was planned. Then in 1981, Burlington elected as mayor Bernie Sanders, who had campaigned on the slogan 'The Waterfront Is Not for Sale.'

Because of that city form of government, one leader with a vision of how to change the community's direction could win the support of voters and spark a transformation. I'm encouraged that Framingham is working on downtown revitalization plans (something we've been hearing about on and off for decades now), but real change isn't quite as easy in a representative town meeting form of government, where most elected "representatives" easily win re-election without opposition, and voters have no idea what their "reps" stand for or how they vote, since almost no votes are recorded.

You can view a half-minute snippet of downtown Burlington below.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/PUKl3m1wFRA]

Google Maps walking directions: Good idea that could stand improvement

Google Maps now offers the option of getting walking as well as driving directions, one of my Computerworld colleagues notes in his blog. It's a great idea in theory, but the algorithm is a bit lame at times.

I'm guessing that Google is considering things like shortest distance and ability to go the "wrong way" on one-way streets when giving its walking suggestions, but not other important things such as crossability of intersections on foot, appealing streetscape, or even presence of sidewalks.

The system correctly changed its route for going on Speen Street to North End Treats on Rte. 30, routing a car down Leggat McCall connector but a pedestrian down Speen Street (it would be impossible to walk on Rte. 30 the first way, because of the traffic pouring off the Turnpike in between). However, Google Maps suggests pedestrians walk to Shoppers World from the Leggat McCall connector (see below) by crossing Rte. 30 and continuing straight on a road with no sidewalk and multiple lanes of fast-moving traffic -- an extremely dangerous route on foot.

[caption id="attachment_715" align="aligncenter" width="239" caption="This is the route Google Maps suggests for walking to Shoppers World from the Leggat McCall Connector."][/caption]

Next-gen bike sharing comes to the U.S., in Washington

Washington, D.C. is launching what Time magazine calls "America's first high-tech bike-sharing program," featuring "key-card locking systems and tracking devices to prevent theft."

The idea is inspired by popular bike-sharing programs abroad, especially Paris's Vélib. Notes Time:

"Although places like Copenhagen, Lyons and Barcelona are big on bike-sharing, the City of Lights boasts the crème de la crème, with 20,600 bikes and about 1,450 stations--four times the number of Parisian metro stops. It's hard to walk more than two blocks without running into a bike rack, which helps explain why the program has already yielded a 5% drop in car traffic. Paris has also removed lots of parking spots to make way for bike stations.

But making things convenient for riders is a major production. Some 400 people work full-time to ensure that the Vélib program runs smoothly. Every day trucks have to move bikes around to meet rush-hour demands, and a barge along the Seine serves as a floating bike-repair shop. "

Not surprisingly, America's first effort is very much more modest, with just 120 bicycles and 10 stations. However, city officials know that will need to scale up considerably in order for the program to be a serious commuting alternative.

In Paris, the effort is quite serious. "We conceived of this as a public-transportation system, so it operates as one," Bernard Parisot, head of the company running Vélib, told Time. In contrast, most U.S. communities view cycling as a hobby indulged in by a few, and not a key mode of transport on par with autos or even subways. Then again, most U.S. communities view walking as an optional activity, not an important mode of transport, as evidenced by lack of snow clearing in winter, not to mention roadways actively hostile to people walking from place to place (case in point: it's all but impossible for me to walk from my office to Shoppers World, less than a mile away, because of dangerous intersections and lack of sidewalks).

A few cities, though, are taking cycling seriously for transportation, such as Portland, Minneapolis and Denver, Time notes. "For bikes to become a mainstay of the morning rush, cities need to spend time and money expanding bike fleets and making streets safer for two-wheelers. That means creating dedicated bike lanes and ticketing cars that double-park in them."

Perhaps soaring gasoline prices may finally create more pressure for municipal officials to take cycling, walking and mass transit more seriously as alternatives to the private automobile.

Lunch break

It is eye-opening to see how differently people view meals and mealtime in much of Europe vs. the U.S. To many people in Italy, France and elsewhere, meals are to be savored and unhurried. in the Northeast U.S., these days it seems that taking time out for meals is often considered extravagant, wasteful and even lazy.

When we first arrived in Italy, I noticed that my friends and I were always by far the quickest eaters wherever we were, in and out while everyone around us was still enjoying a less hurried meal. By the end of our trip, we had slipped into the rhythm of delightful hour and a half or longer dinners, and unrushed lunches. But that's a hard habit to maintain once back home.

In Italy, many stores close at lunchtime, and even in Florence, the shops close by dinnertime despite the hordes of tourists still filling the streets. Yes, they could probably be making more money if they stayed open; but unless you're in the food-service/hospitality industry, it's expected that you'll be having your meals during lunch and dinner, not working. Interesting and different perspective. I can't describe the look one of my friends in Slovenia gave me when I explained that during my lunch break, I take a 20-minute walk, and then go back to my desk to eat because I've pretty much used up the break time I feel I can take. He couldn't have been more appalled if I'd told him I eat my lunch in the toilet. There's a completely different viewpoint about the importance of mealtime to living a civilized life.

Is there truly a good reason why I couldn't leave later from work in exchange for taking a longer lunch break from time to time? I don't think so. Much of this is self-imposed, because we live in a culture where if you're not running around busy all the time, you fear being seen as not "hard-working" enough, not interested enough in "success." The results of all this pressure have now filtered down to kids, where many "high-achieving" high school students now don't take a break during the day, according to a story in yesterday's New York Times. "I would never put lunch before work," one junior told the Times, as she vowed to work through what will become a new mandatory lunch break. I find that sad.

New York City unveils ‘Sustainable Streets’ plan

After NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg's plan to charge drivers for taking private vehicles into some areas of Manhattan was killed by political opponents, the city's transportation department last month unveiled a more modest proposal aimed at "bring[ing] a green approach to transportation that will simultaneously ease travel conditions in our growing city while squarely facing the problem of climate change and improving the city's quality of life."

Sustainable Streets will increase bus service, as well as add bus lanes, bike racks and 200 miles of cycling lanes next year, among other things, according to the Gotham Gazette. There are a few more details (including video introducing the program) at Streetsblog.

‘Pedestrians will be given priority over parking spaces’

"Pedestrians will be given priority over parking spaces as part of a facelift for Praia do Carvoeiro," starts a newspaper report on renovation plans for a village in Portugal.

"We want to make this an area of beauty for people and not cars," a spokesman for the area told The Online Resident. Adds the article:

"Parking spaces next to the square and beach are to be removed to make the entire area more pleasant for residents and visitors to walk about."

Do you know of  many American towns where traffic flow and parking don't take priority in planning discussions over streetscape aesthetics? And pedestrian appeal suffers.

One way to gauge whether a place has aesthetic appeal for people, as opposed to cars alone, is simply to see whether a lot of people are out walking around. If a place is walkable - it feels safe, attractive and inviting - and the weather's good, people should be out. If they're not, something's wrong.

Former Milwaukee mayor John Norquist has been credited with another simple method: the "Postcard Test." Would people want to buy a postcard of a neighborhood scene?

By the way, here's an overview picture of Praia do Carvoeiro. However, you don't need stunning oceanfront to pass the postcard test, as places like Concord, Mass. clearly demonstrate.

Cheap energy, and community

Cheap energy has had a profound impact on our communities, and I'm not talking about pollution/greenhouse/Earth Day issues. As many (including me) have written, designing our communities around the automobile has led to the pedestrian-hostile streetscapes that give us Rte. 9 aesthetic urban blight, and the need to drive our cars less than half a mile from one strip mall to another, because the walking environment is so unpleasant and unsafe. However, an article in yesterday's New York Times magazine notes that cheap energy has had other effects on our sense of community:

"Cheap fossil fuel allows us to pay distant others to process our food for us, to entertain us and to (try to) solve our problems, with the result that there is very little we know how to accomplish for ourselves. Think for a moment of all the things you suddenly need to do for yourself when the power goes out — up to and including entertaining yourself. Think, too, about how a power failure causes your neighbors — your community — to suddenly loom so much larger in your life. Cheap energy allowed us to leapfrog community by making it possible to sell our specialty over great distances as well as summon into our lives the specialties of countless distant others."

Now, I don't want to go back to the days when all we were able to buy or use came from within a day's horse and carriage ride away. But author Michael Pollan (In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto) makes an interesting point. It is cheap energy that allows us to buy food grown in South America and toys/electronics/clothing made in China, more affordable than if they were grown or manufactured close to home; just as it's cheap energy that's encouraged suburban sprawl by making housing more affordable 30, 40, 50 or more miles from urban job centers.

What can we do about it?

Plant gardens and grow some of our own food, Pollan urges! Sound like a small, inconsequential response? He argues passionately that "it’s one of the most powerful things an individual can do — to reduce your carbon footprint, sure, but more important, to reduce your sense of dependence and dividedness: to change the cheap-energy mind. . . . You quickly learn that you need not be dependent on specialists to provide for yourself — that your body is still good for something and may actually be enlisted in its own support."

There's nothing quite like the sense of satisfaction I get picking our home-grown tomatoes and basil for a summer salad, even if I've got to add slices of Vermont-produced cheese and a drizzle of Spanish olive oil to the plate. Not to mention, little matches the incredible sweet, juicy taste of a tomato picked fresh from the vine. It's a completely different foodstuff from that which has been been transported thousands of miles out of season.

Being outside in the garden on a daily basis, I also see my neighbors, I notice my local environment, and I feel more connected with my neighborhood. Much moreso than if I get in the car and drive to my local super Stop & Shop, even if I run into my neighbors there.