In this era of high energy prices, economic uncertainty, and
demographic change, an increasing number of Americans are showing
an interest in urban living as an alternative to the traditional
automobile-dependent suburb. Many people are also concerned about
reducing their annual vehicle miles traveled (VMT) as a way to
lower greenhouse gas emissions affecting climate change. But
providing transportation options is complex and demands a shift in
land use patterns and the way we locate and shape future
development.Density is often defined in terms of population per
square mile, but such a crude measure makes it difficult to
understand the relationship between density and city life. We need
to think about urban density by including the density of jobs,
schools, and services such as retail, transit, and recreational
facilities. Fitting more amenities into a neighborhood within a
spatial pattern that invites walking will create the type of built
environment that offers real transportation options.Landscape
architect and urban designer Julie Campoli challenges our current
notions of space and distance and helps us learn to appreciate and
cultivate proximity. In this book, developed as a follow-up to
Visualizing Density (2007, co-authored with aerial photographer
Alex S. MacLean), she illustrates urban neighborhoods throughout
North America with hundreds of street-level photographs.Researchers
delving into the question of how urban form affects travel behavior
identify specific characteristics of place that boost walking and
transit use while reducing VMT. In the 1990s some pinpointed
diversity (of land uses), density, and design as the key elements
of the built environment that, in specific spatial patterns, enable
alternative transportation. After a decade of successive studies on
the topic, these "three Ds" were joined by two others deemed
equally important--distance to transit and destination
accessibility--and together they are now known as the "five Ds."
Added to the list is another key player: parking.The Ds have
evolved into a handy device for defining and measuring compact form
and predicting how that form will affect travel and reduce VMT.
They share the characteristics of compact development often
described as "smart growth." Lowering VMT by any significant
measure will require integrating the D attributes at a grand
scale.While thinking big is important, this book visualizes a
low-carbon environment in smaller increments by focusing on 12
urban neighborhoods of approximately 125 acres each--a comfortable
pedestrian walk zone. Some are in familiar cities with historically
dense land use patterns, intertwined uses, and comprehensive
transit systems; others have emerged in unexpected locations, where
the seeds of sustainable urban form are taking root on a micro
level.- LoDo and the Central Platte Valley, Denver, Colorado- Short
North, Columbus, Ohio- Kitsilano, Vancouver, British Columbia-
Flamingo Park, Miami Beach, Florida- Little Portugal, Toronto,
Ontario- Eisenhower East, Alexandria, Virginia- The Pearl District,
Portland, Oregon- Downtown and Raynolds Addition, Albuquerque, New
Mexico- Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York- Little Italy, San Diego,
California- Cambridgeport, Cambridge, Massachusetts- Old Pasadena,
Pasadena, CaliforniaThese places were selected because each offers
choices: travel options, housing types, and a variety of things to
do and places to shop. Their streets are comfortable, attractive,
and safe for biking and walking. They all show how compact
development can take shape in different regions and climates. Six
specific qualities make them walkable: connections, tissue,
population and housing density, services, streetscape, and green
networks.Although some of these neighborhoods are the result of
recent development, most have shared a similar trajectory: bustling
industry and growth followed by decline and depopulation as
rail-based transportation was replaced by the highway, dispersing
economic energy in more diffuse patterns at the edges of cities. In
many of these places, the bad years took their toll, eating away at
the intricately connected urban fabric. By the end of the twentieth
century, however, the story had changed. Frustration with the
negative side effects of low-density sprawl led to a realization
that these older, urban neighborhoods had a lot to offer.First a
trickle and soon a steadier stream of investment flowed back toward
cities and into downtown neighborhoods. Their "good
bones"--human-scale buildings and ready-made networks of small
blocks and connected streets that shorten distances and make
walking easy--are drawing people back into these neighborhoods.
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