Planning Quote of the Day

foreclosures are not only bad for the individual

"Foreclosures are not only bad for the individual who loses his or her home ... each foreclosure within one eighth of a mile of a single-family home in a low- and moderate-income neighborhood reduced the home's value by more than 1.4%, an effect more than 40% greater than in middle- and upper-income tracts."

-- from "From the Subprime to the Exotic: Excessive Mortgage Market Risk and Foreclosures," by Dan Immergluck (in Winter 2008 issue of the Journal of the American Planning Association)

1/3 of a region's impermeable surface

"In densely urbanized areas, streets and sidewalks often constitute around 1/3 of a region's impermeable surface."

-- from "Using Individual Parcel Assessments to Improve Stormwater Management," by Meliss Keeley (in Spring 2007 Journal of the American Planning Association).

note: the Spring issue of JAPA has some very good articles on water issues, including the article cited above. We'll be running an article on stormwater management more geared to citizen planners in the Summer issue of the Planning Commissioners Journal.

the subtle qualities of architecture

"Why is it, do you imagine, that so many people want to live in the lovely old conservation areas of our towns and cities -- the bits that weren’t knocked down in the orgies of destruction in the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s -- or to visit them while abroad on their holidays? Because their essential characteristics of harmonious proportions, of human scale and hierarchy, strike a common chord within our hearts. These are the subtle qualities of architecture that so many people find instinctively beautiful. But their origins lie in shared human psychology; which -- as new research is confirming -- is intimately connected to human well-being."

-- excerpted from Remarks of HRH Prince of Wales (pdf file) on Accepting the Vincent Scully Prize (Nov. 7, 2005)

Note: Having offered three quotes from Vincent Scully this past week, I thought it might be appropriate to follow-up with brief excerpts from remarks of Prince Charles on receiving the Vincent Scully Prize in Washington, D.C. in 2005.

be eternally vigilant

Q. How do you see the developer?

A. Clearly he is the one through whom the money is flowing to build our environment. The kind of thing the developers won't pay for, like low-cost housing, is not being built. I don't mean that developers are sinister, but they do have the power to shape the environment. That's why towns, cities and preservation societies have to be eternally vigilant. ...

-- from interview of noted architectural historian Vincent Scully by New York Times reporter Eleanor Charles (February 7, 1988)

looking so candified

Q. What do you think of the practice of restoring run-down urban neighborhoods as condominiums and shops?

A. Considering the agony of the neighborhoods, I find the brick sidewalks, the cafes, the boutiques and the whole gentrification process a bit ridiculous. Yet I can understand it as a desire to pull people downtown. I just think most of those areas come out looking so candified. They used to be for loading and manufacturing and drinking and fighting and a real tough life. ...

-- from interview of noted architectural historian Vincent Scully by New York Times reporter Eleanor Charles (February 7, 1988)

society will build what it believes in

Q. Is the current wave of preservation too intense?

A. I don't think so. Twenty-five years ago we tore down indiscriminately and cruelly. And I think that the forces that work to destroy buildings will always be strong. Sometimes it's simple greed, but there's usually some kind of social force behind it. Society will build what it believes in. Right now it believes in luxury condominiums.

-- from interview of noted architectural historian Vincent Scully by New York Times reporter Eleanor Charles (February 7, 1988)

Note: this week's three quotes will all be from this insightful 1988 interview. While the interview focused on issues facing Connecticut, Scully's responses were often broader in scope.

three strands of barbed wire

"Choate listened to a host of requests from planning commissioners and conceded several changes to his plan. Those changes included adding three strands of barbed wire atop an 8-foot-tall perimeter fence, planting more trees and shrubbery around the property, and limiting incidences of outdoor gun-shooting ..."

Note: Any guesses what the quote refers to? How about a plan to develop a rural 200 acre parcel into a "tactical training center" that will include a gymnasium, a covered pool, two classrooms, nine indoor firing ranges, several mock streets to simulate a town, and -- the "bread and butter of the project -- a  "3½-mile urban-style driving track" "nothing like it within 1,500 miles" that "will incorporate urban features such as cul-de-sacs, uneven surfaces and speed bumps." Now how many local planning commissions have dealt with a proposal like that!

From Proposal for security-training center in Homeland advances, by Julissa McKinnon in the Press-Enterprise (Jan. 9, 2008)

independence and dignity

"... it has taken us nearly four years to foreclose on thousands of abandoned properties, demolish over two thousand dangerous buildings, and upgrade the infrastructure in our most neglected neighborhoods. ... Now I am asking all homebuilders of Houston to help us build new housing on over seven hundred lots that will be made available at submarket prices, with generous down payment assistance programs, so that many working people can obtain the independence and dignity of owning their own house. The City will work in parallel to continue to build community-based organizations where new homes are built. The whole city will be safer as working families move into neighborhoods which too often had become magnets for crime."

-- From Houston, Texas, Mayor Bill White's State of the City Address (Jan. 25, 2008)

and denounce it

"Long Island is a land of bedrooms, not an incubator of urban-planning concepts, and for every smart-growth PowerPoint or op-ed article favoring townhouses, you will have at least 50 enraged citizens who will show up at a public hearing and denounce it. ... Asked which type of neighborhood they preferred -- one where you could walk to stores or one that required driving -- 56 percent said they would rather drive."

-- Lawrence Downes, op-ed "The City Is the Future of the Suburbs, and Other Heresies," in The New York Times (Jan. 29, 2008)

Note: Downes draws on the results of a survey of Long Islanders -- interestingly, the survey's authors put a very different spin on the findings. Consider also the blog posting I entered today on our PlannersWeb blog about one key trend in smart growth -- linking it to action on climate change.

the amount of vacant land

"The amount of vacant land coming online has been overwhelming ... this is something that can't be dealt with by local volunteers."

-- Blaine Bonham, Jr., Executive Vice-President of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, on why paid clean-up crews are needed to deal with the inventory of some 40,000 vacant lots in the city of Philadelphia.

Note: See, "Greening Up Vacant Lots," posted today on our PlannersWeb blog, for more on Bonham's remarks at the recent national Smart Growth Conference in Washington, D.C.. You'll also see why a horticultural group is involved in what may well be the largest undertaking in America to clean up vacant lots.

one heck of a cleanup on Aisle 7

"So the Suisun Planning Commission approves a new Walmart Supercenter despite the dangers the Airport Land Use Commission pointed out of a C5 Galaxy plummeting through the roof ot the building? Oh sure, Suisun. Thumb your nose at fate. Mock the possibility of a flaming cockpit causing one heck of a cleanup on Aisle 7. At this proposed Walmart, customers won't only have to beware of falling prices but falling cargo planes."

-- From "Jilted by the Suisun Planning Commission," on Kelvin Wade's The Other Side blog. Wade is a columnist for the Solano County (California) Daily Republic newspaper.

so much about parking is psychological

"So much about parking is psychological. Isn't it interesting the long distance -- often the equivalent of several blocks -- people will walk across a mall parking lot to get to a destination. Yet in downtowns they want to be able to park at their destination's front door."

-- Roberta Brandes Gratz, from "We Don't Have Enough Parking," Planning Commissioners Journal, Issue #48.

sign regulation

"Sign regulation is one of the most powerful actions a community can take to make an immediate, visible change in its physical environment."

-- Edward T. McMahon, "Sign Regulation" (in Planning Commissioners Journal #25)

note: this article is also available as part of a collection of articles on Design & Aesthetics.

in a Valley town everybody had two houses

“In a Valley town everybody had two houses: the house you lived in, your dwelling-place, in the Left Arm of the double-spiral-shaped town; and in the right Arm, our House, the heyimas. ... The heyimas was a center of worship, instruction, training, and study, a meetinghouse, a political forum, a workshop, a library, archive, and museum, a clearinghouse, an orphanage, hotel, hospice, refuge, resource center, and the principal center of economic control and management for the community ... In the smaller towns the heyimas was a large, five-sided, underground chamber, subdivided with partitions, with a low, four-sided, pyramidical roof showing aboveground.”

-- from Always Coming Home, by Ursula K. Le Guin.

Editor’s Note: Le Guin’s novel about the Kesh people, besides telling a fascinating story, offers many insights into the meaning of community and its physical form.

from William Penn's 1683 plan

"From William Penn's 1683 plan for Philadelphia to the latest neo-traditional addition, the primary American town building motivation has been land speculation."

-- From "The Control of Land Subdivision," by Larry Gerckens, FAICP, in The Promise of America issue of the Planning Commissioners Journal (Spring 2000)

Note: this issue is available through the end of January at a specially discounted price using this link.

the pests that come with warmer weather

"Temperature patterns in New Hampshire are predicted to eventually mirror that of North Carolina. [Keene, New Hampshire] Assistant City Manager Med Kopsinski says that means buildings may need stronger rooftops to handle wetter, heavier snow and ice. And building codes may have to change to manage the pests that come with warmer temperatures. 'One of the things we pay very little attention to in New Hampshire for example is termites and as the temperature does rise we will eventually face dealing with termites and that's going to be a very big change in how we build buildings in New Hampshire.' "

-- From "Keene Plans to Adapt to Climate Change," by Amy Quinton, reporting on New Hampshire Public Radio (Dec. 27, 2007)

wave as you walk by

"Scattered about Greater Cleveland are footpaths -- public routes that give intimate views of the neighbors to pedestrians, bicyclists and others with muscles for motors. ... Many footpaths dwell in the inner suburbs. In Cleveland Heights, city historic preservation planner Kara O'Donnell says the suburb's several footpaths boost the community's unity. 'The people along these paths like to wave as you walk by,' O'Donnell says. 'Neighbors are looking out for one another.'

A popular route in Cleveland Heights has an obsolete name: 'the cinder path.' Some of the pupils who take it from Taylor Road to Canterbury School don't know what its name means, but they like the route. 'It's cool,' says Kyle Soca, 8. 'It cuts through houses, so it's easy to get to school.' ... Footpaths have ancestors in England, where they cut through hay fields for centuries."

-- from Cleveland area footpaths are roads well-traveled, posted on Cleveland.com (Nov. 18, 2007)

high density housing

"High density housing offers an inferior lifestyle only if it is without a community as its setting."

-- Andres Duany (from his firm's web site; Duany is an architect and planner and one of the founders of the Congress for the New Urbanism

copy that rectangle 24 times

"Using the rectangle tool, make a rectangle about 20’ by 90’. Copy that rectangle 24 times, being careful to snap the endpoints together ... Make a rectangle about 60 feet deep and copy it across ... Select all new rectangles ... and click open RandomPushPull function from Plugins ... Now turn around to the back of the “buildings” to make first floors. On the back face of one building, make first story rectangle about 10’ in height. Copy across the others ... Delete any extra lines ... Select all first floor rectangles and apply RandomPushPull from 0 to -30’ ... Repeat same process on other half of block ... On the other side of the block, start again with 60’ deep rectangles, extrude randomly from 30’ to 70’. Then draw the 10’ first floor rectangle on the rear face and copy across, extruding all 0’ to 30’ ... Select the first floors on either side of the block to extrude, since rear yard requirements don’t apply to corner lots. Extrude 20’ to 60’ ... Move each façade of corner lot envelopes to the rear lot line, to close off the block ... Put 2 squares about 15’ x 15’ at each corner of the block, to establish dimension of sidewalk ... Draw a rectangle from endpoint to endpoint to create 15 foot perimeter sidewalk ...

Does this look like a typical New York City block?"

-- from Parametric Zoning Studies: 15 minute randomized block (Nov. 19, 2007)

the reuse of buildings

"People are amazingly creative in the reuse of buildings, but buildings designed for multiple small storefronts seem to be the most flexible. This is evident as you look at the history of Cherry Street or Brookside. What was built to house a small grocery might become a used bookstore and then a restaurant. It's possible to combine several small spaces for a larger use, but it's much harder to take a building designed for one large tenant (a big box) and split it up in a practical way for many small tenants. Part of the problem is the depth of the building. How would you take a 100,000 sq. ft. building, like a small Wal-Mart, and split it practically into spaces of 1,000 to 2,000 sq. ft.?"

-- from November 7th Form over Function post in the BatesLine blog (covering politics and development in Tulsa, Oklahoma)

steel-shod wagon wheels

"The American city of the 1890s was cacophonous. City streets were not only filthy, creating public health hazards, they were also noisy. Cobblestone or granite Belgian block streets rang out with the clang and thud of steel-shod wagon wheels and the shouts of draymen. With masonry buildings packed close together, and sound reverberating off the hard surfaces, noise was a constant factor in urban life. Not surprisingly 'rural quiet' was one of the earliest, and most effective, sales pitches for suburban development.

Among the considerations in support of the separation of industrial and commercial areas from residential areas through land use zoning was noise avoidance, that is, isolating the residential environment from the noise of commercial and industrial operations. Similarly, the wide side yards and deep setbacks from the street called for in suburban zoning were based, in part, on providing residents with a quieter environment."

--  from Q is for Quiet, in the Planning ABC's by Laurence C. Gerckens, FAICP

Note: Looking for a holiday gift for a planner (or planning commissioner) you know. Consider the Planning ABC's. For details on this special holiday offer.

like an anchor store for downtown

"Once renovated, the theatre would be like an anchor store for downtown Carbondale."

-- Carbondale, Illinois, Chris Wissmann, commenting on the just-announced donation of the vacant Varsity Theater to the City.

Note: For more on this story and the benefits of theater restorations -- as well as Carbondale Mayor Cole's announcement about the theater in his November 13 State of the City Address -- see the related post on our PCJ +plus web blog.

won't walk from one destination to another unless

"It’s very tough to get a synergy of creative people breathing life into a declining business district, if that district isn’t a physically appealing place to walk around. And that’s an important point as Framingham [Massachusetts] looks to the new Amazing Things Art Center to help revitalize downtown.

Even if the center is successful in drawing people to the area, they’re not going to do anything else nearby without an environment that encourages them to do something more than go back to their cars. They won’t walk from one destination to another unless it’s aesthetically appealing to do so. Gaps in the facade, with buildings set back and parking lots in front; boring building fronts; blank walls; ugly sidewalks; chain link fences; car-centric street design ... all of these make pedestrians less likely to want to go from one destination to another on foot."

-- from a post on the Planning Livable Communities blog (Oct. 31, 2007)

a green building policy

"In terms of green building, we need to reframe the question to: how much does it cost your city not to have a green building policy."

-- Barbra Batshalom, Executive Director of The Green Roundtable, speaking at the U.S. Green Building Council's Greenbuild 2007 Conference in Chicago (November 8, 2007)

market-based solutions

"We believe in combatting climate change with market-based solutions."

-- Dan Tomson, Managing Director of Citigroup Global Markets, in explaining why Citigroup is involved with financing the Destiny project in Syracuse, New York -- planned as the largest green building in the world.

For more on discussion of this project at last week's international Greenbuild Conference, see our post What's Syracuse's Destiny?