Creative Class

“The bicycle is the means of transport used most often in Amsterdam,” reports Bike Europe. “Between 2005 and 2007 people in the city used their bikes on average 0.87 times a day, compared to 0.84 for their cars. This is the first time that bicycle use exceeds car use.”

When I started cycling in the Boston area a decade or so, I recall there was a competition between bike, car, and train commuters on designated routes. The bike commuters cleaned up.

It’s getting better in cities from New York to Portland, but American and Canadian cities have a long way to go to catch up – in car too many, commuting by bike remains fraught with risk.

Check out this video of Amsterdam bike commuters:

Crosscut argues that it’s time for Seattle and other cities to learn from NYC’s example and start turning old elevated structures into parks and other good uses (pointer via Planetizen).

[T]hink a bit about the advantages of elevated linear parks. They can provide remarkable views, often through the slots of the cityscape. They open up access to back-door and upper-level spaces. They make connections with gritty urban history. The design experience is not the usual bland blend but instead has the visual excitement and tension of green spaces set amid rusting iron forms. The Seattle aesthetic has been to make open space as green and pastoral as possible, as if blotting out the city. Time for a richer palate, a more dissonant and beautiful chord.

(Image from thehighline.org)

A new study in the medical journal Pediatrics (h/t Planetizen) finds that community and the built environment – everything from walkable streets to the location of schools – have big effects on the health of our kids.

An estimated 32% of American children are overweight, and physical inactivity contributes to this high prevalence of overweight.This policy statement highlights how the built environment of a community affects children’s opportunities for physical  activity. Neighborhoods and communities can provide opportunities for recreational physical activity with parks and open spaces, and policies must support this capacity. Children can engage in physical activity as a part of their daily lives, such as on their travel to school.

Factors such as school location have played a significant role in the decreased rates of walking to school, and changes in policy may help to increase the number of children who are able to walk to school. Environment modification that addresses risks associated with automobile traffic is likely to be conducive to more walking and biking among children. Actions that reduce parental perception and fear of crime may promote outdoor physical activity. Policies that promote more active lifestyles among children and adolescents will enable them to achieve the recommended 60 minutes of daily physical activity. By working with community partners, pediatricians can participate in establishing communities designed for activity and health.

More than 2,000 car dealerships across the country will be closing their doors in coming months. Planetizen – my favorite urbanist site – recently asked its readers what should be done with all that space. Here are the top five vote-getters as of May 21:

• Ask the local residents about what the community needs (222 votes)
• Urban gardens (200 votes)
• Create walkable, vibrant places and improve current communities (138 votes)
• Farmers’ markets and local events (126 votes)
• Solar and wind energy park/vehicle charging stations (102 votes)

The American Lung Association’s State of the Air report on America’s most polluted cities is out. Here’s one summary (pointer via Planetizen).

Six out of ten Americans live in urban areas where air pollution can cause major health problems … Despite America’s growing “green” movement, the air in many cities became dirtier during the past 12 months. The research names Pittsburgh, Los Angeles and Bakersfield as the most polluted US cities. The report finds that air pollution hovers at unhealthy levels in almost every major city, threatening people’s ability to breathe and placing lives at risk …

Many cities, like Los Angeles, New York, Atlanta, Charlotte, Philadelphia, Washington, DC and Baltimore have made considerable improvements in their air quality over the past decade. People living in some of these cities however, are breathing even dirtier air than what was reported in the Lung Association’s previous report. Only one city, Fargo, North Dakota, ranked among the cleanest in all three air pollution categories covered by the research.

Maps of the most polluted cities are here; the cleanest cities here.

Too many cities have mortgaged their futures on big-time sports, letting their parks and high-school ball-fields go while pouring public dollars into big-league stadiums. But some communities are reaping myriad benefits by focusing on smaller, local sports, according to Next American City (pointer via Planetizen).

Wendell Cox writes (pointer via Planetizen):

Most suburban growth is not the result of declining core city populations, but is rather a consequence of people moving from rural areas and small towns to the major metropolitan areas. It is the appeal of large metropolitan places that drives suburban growth.

Larger metropolitan areas have more lucrative employment opportunities and generally have higher incomes than smaller metropolitan areas. This is particularly the case in developing countries. As a result, the big urban areas attract people seeking to escape what are often the stagnant or even declining economies in smaller areas.

A very Jane Jacobs insight, and one I find compelling.

In The Economy of Cities, Jacobs controversially argued that virtually all of economic growth traces back to cities: In her view, cities actually precede agriculture. Early cities, according to Jacobs, spurred agricultural development by providing trading centers for agricultural products.

While it’s common to think of suburbs as draining off city assets, today’s metropolitan areas with their urban cores and suburban and ex-urban rings, are really expanded cities. Up until the early-to-mid 20th century, cities were able to capture peripheral growth by annexing new development, until suburbs figured out they could prosper by becoming independent municipal entities – thus the now famous concentric-ring, or, in some cases, the hole-in-the-donut pattern of our metro regions. The growth of gargantuan mega-regions like the Boston-New York-Washington corridor is essentially the next phase of this process of geographic development.

It’s important to understand how these two interrelated geographic processes – outward geographic expansion and the more intensive use of existing urban space – combine to shape economic progress.

Image courtesy of Tata Housing

Tata – the Indian mega-conglomerate that launched the $2,000 car – has created a housing division which is building new apartments ranging from $7,800-$13,400 dollars outside Mumbai (pointer via Planetizen). Business Week’s Prashant Gopal explains:

Tata’s housing division is targeting a segment of the market that was largely overlooked during the housing boom. India’s builders were concentrating on building shiny new high rises and mansions on golf courses … Luxury flats in Mumbai can cost more than ones in Manhattan. But these apartments won’t be luxurious. The Tata apartments will be built on 67 acres in Boisar, an industrial area where many lower-wage commuters already rent. These apartments will be absolutely tiny. The carpeted area of the smallest units will be 218 square feet, too small even for most Manhattanites. The largest units would be about 373 square feet.

Check out the pictures, floor plans, and payment plans here.

Is the Phoenix housing market starting to turn the corner? The LA Times thinks so (pointer via Planetizen):

Phoenix’s housing bust has turned into a quasi-boom, a sign that its market may have hit bottom and a sneak preview of what a national housing recovery could look like.

More homes are selling than at any time since 2006. Prices are slowly stabilizing. Buyers are once again finding themselves in frantic bidding wars – only this time over foreclosed houses selling at deep discounts rather than ranch homes listing for vast sums.

Not so fast. Phoenix, as the same LA Times story notes, had perhaps the biggest housing bubble of all. Prices have plunged from $268,000 in June 2006 to $120,000 – the sharpest decline of any metro tracked by the Case-Shiller home price index.

Looks more like bottom-feeding to me. Long-run recovery will turn on the region developing new industries and work that can replace the tens of thousands of jobs wiped out in real estate and construction.

Calling all urbanists and sustainable environmentalists. The car-less German suburb story is the most e-mailed at the New York Times. 

MOST POPULAR

1. In German Suburb, Life Goes On Without Cars

Seems like the notion of living in a car-less suburb and living a car-free life has a bit of traction, at least with New York Times reading classes.

The Times follows with a nifty symposia on whether America can go car-free, with:

• Witold Rybczynski, professor of urbanism
• D.J. Waldie, author of “Holy Land”
• Dolores Hayden, professor of architecture
• Christopher B. Leinberger, real estate developer and author
• J.H. Crawford, author of “Carfree Cities”
• Marc Schlossberg, professor of public policy

Money quote from Leinberger:

“American families who are car-dependent spend 25 percent of their household income on their fleet of cars, compared with just 9 percent for transportation for those who live in walkable urban places. That potential 16 percent savings could go into improved housing (building household wealth), educating children or that most un-American of all activities, saving. “

Yowser. Now add in the housing costs at say 30-35 percent or more and what’s left over to grow the industries of the future?

Meanwhile, Planetizen links to this story on a really old car-less resort town in Michigan.

I confess to owning a car, but it’s pretty easy to go car-less in Toronto, and it’s close to America.