Archive for February 25, 2008

Stackable, affordable, fast — and green — housing

February 25, 2008 / Wendy Waters / 9 comments

The first challenge in building higher density housing these days — or any housing, for that matter — it that it take so long to construct. If a city has a critical shortage of homes, faster solutions are needed.

A second challenge is that it’s becoming ever more expensive to build townhomes and condominiums. Concrete, copper, and other materials continue to escalate in price (and in some cities labor costs are rising too).

Enter a solution: re-use shipping containers and convert them into homes. Okay, at first this sounds cheap and sub-standard — like stringing together “portables” as school classrooms. However, some creative designers have demonstrated that shipping containers can make beautiful and functional housing, and at lower costs that concrete or wood construction.

Containers are typically 20′ X 8′ X 8.5′ or 40′ X 8 X 8.5′. 8′ ceilings are typical in homes, so this is a perfect height.

And two containers can be connected to create a 40′ X 16′ space, or 640 square foot unit (or the 20′ versions offer a 320 square foot home — about the same size as the smallest studio condos). They can also be stacked to offer lofts and two storey units, as well as multi-storey buildings made of containers.

Shipping containers only cost a few thousand dollars each, so they offer a low-cost base. And containers no longer being used for shipping can have a second life as a house — a green option.

While I’m not sure that shipping containers will catch on as “permanent” housing, they could be a very effective way to build temporary homes, fast. This would be valuable in communities facing a sudden critical dwelling shortage owing to an economic boom or a natural disaster.

For example, the town of Whistler, BC, is considering a container housing project for worker housing. Real estate prices are so high in the booming resort community that the typical employee cannot afford to live there, creating acute labor shortages. A stacked container village could be created quickly, offering much better options that living in cars, and other highly dangerous, substandard options employees are using now like living in unventilated condo storage units.

Container housing might also offer an option for migrant workers of all income levels. For example, movie sets in isolated places could import a pre-fab container village to offer everyone from lead actors to grips and production assistants a nice home away from home. The Olympic Games has thousands of “gypsy” workers who move from host city to host city every two years. What if their home could move too? (Of course, finding a site for a container village might be tricky…)

Category: catastrophe management, real estate, residential development, urban technologies /

New playground as community anchor

February 24, 2008 / Wendy Waters / 3 comments

Like many public spaces in East Vancouver, the park by our house used to look tired — exhausted, in fact.  Some playground equipment became so dilapidated, it posed a hazard and neighbors asked the city to remove it.  Other plastic slides had more endurance (does plastic ever break down?), and children belonging to families living right near the park enjoyed it as a quick playground fix when there was not time to go elsewhere.  The entrance sign and bathroom were covered in graffiti.  Drunks and drug dealers could be found under the larger trees.

Then, a renaissance.

After 5 years of lobbying, a small group of neighbors got a full park renovation into the city capital budget.  Half a million dollars later, there’s a new park — and spectacular modern playground.

Suddenly, the park and playground are packed — all day long — unless it’s raining.  Daycares, families, children with nannies are there, enjoying the six slides, multiple climbing aparatus, sand box, mosaic stones and natural boulders and logs to jump and climb.  Picnic tables abound, offering spots for a snack or to sip a juice box.

There’s a stroller jam along the edge of the playground as everyone walks here.   A few trikes and bikes-with-training wheels are there too.

Where did all these children and families come from, I wonder.  Certainly, there are some familiar faces from other toddler activities nearby.  But the majority of these people I’ve never seen before.  From chatting, I learn that most live within 6-8 blocks, some even closer having moved in recently.  Most kids playing are under age 5, while the parents seem to range in age from early 20s to early 40s — part of the urban baby boom that seems to be happening.

Suddenly this playground has become “the” neighborhood spot.  It allows parents to meet and chat informally while the kids play — share parenting tips, discuss pre-school options or daycare possibilities.

Dozens of laughing, shreking children have pushed the last of the drunks and drug dealers somewhere else.

A new playground in a tired park won’t revitalize or anchor every neighborhood — but in one with lots of children and a baby boom, it might.  It certainly helps to reinforce and build community — and allows the community to take back public spaces from less desirable elements.

Category: communities, crime reduction, demographic stats, public spaces, revitalization, urban families /

“Our national flower is the concrete cloverleaf”

February 20, 2008 / Wendy Waters / One comment

Ahead of his time, technology historian and urban philosopher Lewis Mumford (1895-1990) grasped the paradoxes of modern life and the long term pitfalls of the urban evolution he witnessed in the 1950s and 1960s.  I stumbled across some great quotes of his today:

  • Forget the damned motor car and build the cities for lovers and friends.
  • Restore human legs as a means of travel. Pedestrians rely on food for fuel and need no special parking facilities. 
  • The chief function of the city is to convert power into form, energy into culture, dead matter into the living symbols of art, biological reproduction into social creativity.
  • New York is the perfect model of a city, not the model of a perfect city.
  • Our national flower is the concrete cloverleaf.  (my favorite)

Much of Mumford’s work is timeless and a treat to read.  Similar to the work of Jane Jacobs, perhaps more applicable now than when he wrote.

Category: transportation, urban history, urban technologies /

Is this the Obama city plan?

February 19, 2008 / Wendy Waters / No comments

Channel surfing I stumbled across Obama’s speech tonight right when he got to the subject of cities. The jist of what he said was:

  • America is spending $9 Billion per month in Iraq
  • Instead, we could take this money and (re)-build roads, bridges, and other infrastructure
  • We could law more broadband lines
  • …

So, is Obama advocating a New Deal style investment in America’s cities?

Because, the US is spending $9 Billion / Month that the national treasury does not have. Stopping the war and bringing troops home will not suddenly make $9 Billion/Month available — it will still have to be borrowed.

Yet, the previous administration was willing to “invest” this much in stabilizing Iraq, feeling that such a venture was in the best interests of the country or the “US Empire” if you will.

The long term re-vitalization of the American Empire might in fact require the same level of spending, at home, on cities.

Update: Feb 20 – from CEOs for Cities:

Maybe it’s time for urban leaders to change the frame and change the way they talk about cities. Maybe it’s time that we offer up cities as solutions to the problems voters identify with rather than as the problem (that, frankly, voters don’t identify with)?

I’ve had the opportunity to be in direct and routine contact over the past five weeks with voters who have questions and advice on issues and strategies in these campaigns. In hundreds of calls from voters, not one — not one — has asked about cities.

For someone like me who is in the business of selling cities, I could take this as a real disappointment. Or I can take it as an opportunity to reframe the way we talk about cities to make them more relevant to voters.

…

Isn’t the economy an urban issue? Aren’t good jobs an urban issue? What about a new energy policy? Isn’t that an urban issue? Isn’t health care an urban issue? Isn’t minimum wage an urban issue? Aren’t early childhood education and schools urban issues?

Category: economic development, national politics, revitalization, transportation /

Juno sets: Contradictory neighborhood stereotypes in an Oscar-nominated film

February 19, 2008 / Wendy Waters / 2 comments

It’s Oscar week, so here’s my themed entry:

I hadn’t heard of the film when Juno was nominated for several Academy Awards. So, I went to youtube to watch the trailer. Less than a minute into the preview, I nearly fell off my chair, seeing a popular park near my house. Suddenly realized that this movie was filmed in Vancouver.

From watching the trailer and other available footage online, I noticed something rather intriguing. The supposedly lower-middle class areas in the movie, were actually filmed in the older, gentrifying Kitsilano and Grandview areas of Vancouver where after the sharp price increases over the past 7 years, a typical single family home will now cost around $1 Million or more.

The fictional gated community where the adopting couple live looks like it was filmed in a suburb — I’ve heard they used either Surrey and Coquitlam, both about 30 minutes east of Vancouver. Those new, large suburban homes — not quite mcmansions – probably fetch about $700 – $800K.

If this movie actually took place in Vancouver, instead of suburban Minneapolis, maybe they’d have to reverse the scenes. Pregnant Juno would be taking the bus and Skytrain from Walnut Grove into downtown to visit the childless couple at their fancy condominium.

If this move took place in the near-future USA, perhaps the lower-middle class family would be living in a crime-ridden suburb of mostly vacant mc-houses.

Category: real estate, urban history /

Suburbia as torture?

February 18, 2008 / Wendy Waters / 4 comments

Cary Tennis at Salon magazine summarized the dis-satisfaction of a young professional couple who had recently purchased a home in the suburbs.

 But then, after all your hard work and some measure of feeling deprived of the good things in life, you get a job with a big salary and someone who sells real estate puts you in her car and drives you around and some person inside you — not the careful-planning you but this other more spontaneous and sensuous you, a you who always wanted to live in a big house with a yard — sees a big, pretty house with a lawn and goes, “Wow!” And you buy it.

And as soon as you move in you feel a profound sense of loss. You can’t put your finger on it but the place you are in does not make you happy. The place you are in is big and pretty. So that makes it hard to explain. Why does big and pretty not make you happy?

It doesn’t make you happy because it’s not made for humans. It’s made for cars. These suburban houses are basically huge garages with attached living quarters for servants — meaning us. We are the servants. We work for the cars who live there. The cars have a very good life. We make sure of that. But our lives are not so good there.

I do believe that suburban living is a form of torture. If you made suspected terrorists live in big suburban houses, they would talk eventually.

Perhaps the American dream turned into a nightmare.  While suburbs are hardly torture, I’m sure their isolating effect has made many formerly content people much less so.    I would be curious to know whether increased rates of the diagnosis of mental illness and prescribing drugs like Prozac is possibly linked — at least in part — to the isolating affects of living in suburban sprawl.

Category: sprawl /

Book Review: Suburban Transformations

February 13, 2008 / Dave Atkins / 3 comments

Review by Guest Blogger, Dave Atkins

How can we transform our suburbs and edge cities into memorable and sustainable places? This is the central question behind architect Paul Lukez’s book, Suburban Transformations, in which he uses five case studies of proposed suburban renewal to introduce the Adaptive Design Process.

Lukez considers what has made great European cities memorable by examining how cities like Florence and Cologne evolved into unique, distinct places. Traces of the old such as the amphitheater, the Roman aqueducts, and the medieval walls, and are now juxtaposed with modern functionality. He concludes that a community’s identity is a function of the successive transformations of a site over time.

In our suburbs, we have typically erased history with each successive development. Even new urbanist and smart growth projects generally begin by wiping out the old. As a result, suburbs have no identity; the developments reflect the popular design theories of the day but often tell us nothing of what came before. Eventually, the development becomes old and stale and is demolished to be replaced again.

The Adaptive Design Process describes a fairly technical toolkit for considering how incremental and adaptive development might proceed to transform instead of replace a region. As a lay person, I am not sure how I would make use of this to improve my community, but I think the approach lays out a framework for talking about alternatives to the typical either/or development practices. I would love to hear, from developers and planning professionals, how this approach could be translated into practical, local action.

Key characteristics of the Adaptive Design Process

The adaptive process aims to bridge the past and future by breaking development into six phases:

  • mapping,
  • editing,
  • selecting tools and typologies,
  • projecting,
  • simulating, and
  • recalibrating

The case studies illustrate how a redevelopment might proceed–instead of making one master plan and implementing it, the development of a location adjusts.

Key tools of the Adaptive Design Process

A symbolic representation of development helps model history. Lukez describes a coding notation to signify how structures have changed over time. For example, he describes the operations of “erasing” and “writing” on a site to support the formulation that Identity = Site + Time. This can be expressed as a “spatial-temporal typology” with a string of symbols like “(WpT1)(WiT2)(EexT3).” These operators describe how a piece of land was divided into parcels (Writing/Parcelling at Time=1), then various buildings were built on each pacel (infilled at Time=2), then a connecting parkway/walk path was cut through the middle of the development (excised at Time=3). This notation could allow the story behind a particular site to be “coded” as a series of operations that could then be analyzed. Having such a coding sequence would make it possible to record large amount of data for software analysis and ultimately rendering in visual models.

Mapping and cross-mapping can be powerful tools to understand history and plan the future of a place. The case studies illustrate specific examples such as how the Burlington Mall (northwest of Boston) was built over a major aquifer, or how noise patterns, sight lines, and traffic patters are all interrelated and should be considered in redevelopment. Part of the difficulty of evolving suburbs in the way that great cities have evolved is that it has been easier to simply start over, believing nothing significant was already there. But mapping and cross mapping can help to uncover a history that might be quickly bulldozed away.

Use what works. Lukez is not arguing that a site should be reduced entirely to a matrix of numbers and maps. But the use of these tools can open up design possibilities that were not otherwise apparent. Suburban development has typically required action within a very limited window of economic opportunity and there were no systemic tools to consider other approaches to the massive, generic development. I believe Lukez is providing a toolkit that will not automate planning, but will give planners who want to do better the tools to articulate and calibrate their vision.

In the end, this book raises many questions–chief among them whether the process I have summarized is something that could be actualized in a real economic setting. My sense is that this toolkit is most useful to the progressive planner who allies with a technical architect and can use it to sell a vision of progress that is substantively credible to developers and the general public.

I had the opportunity to meet the author at a presentation of his book in Boston last week and was able to ask a couple of questions. Clearly, the big question is how can this be made attractive to planners and developers. Part of the answer might be in sustainability–the idea that with the right vision and process, we could develop properties in the suburbs with much longer lifetimes. Instead of constructing a mini-city that will be good for 15-20 years perhaps this process would enable a longer time horizon so that lifetime economic value would be greater. But are there any developers who dream of starting a city that will last 1000 years?

My main question though was how the adaptive process might relate to my own community where the massive Westwood Station project is going to create a mixed-use, smart growth development of 135 acres, bringing 1.5 million square feet of office, 1.35 million square feet of retail, 1000 apartments, and 60,000 cars a day to my town of 14,000 residents. The short answer is that it is probably too late; this project has been planned by one architecture firm to be the ultimate smart growth project in the country. Perhaps if multiple firms were involved, there might be some opportunity for adaptation.

I think the greater value of the ideas in the book are for communities that are trying to improve themselves from the ravages of past development. One case study in the book talks about the Dedham mall (about 2 miles away from me) and presents a creative plan to transform the landscape and community. In town after town, we have seen segregated development, where we have a classic town common in one part and a big mall somewhere else to capture the tax dollars to pay for fixing up the town. No matter how “smart” the growth is it will not provide identity when it is segregated to a corner of town.

Visionaries are often discounted as impractical, but it seems to me Lukez has made a substantial effort to provide a level of detail and workability to these ideas that, in motivated and skilled hands, could begin to translate vision into reality.

Reviewed by Guest Blogger, Dave Atkins

Category: book reviews, communities, development conflicts, planning policy, real estate, revitalization, urban history /

Gung “Haggis” Fat Choy (belated)

February 11, 2008 / Wendy Waters / No comments

After the firecrackers chased away the evil spirits, a Scottish Bag Pipe Band helped lead off yesterday’s Chinese New Year Parade through the streets of Vancouver’s Chinatown.

In Vancouver, blending the Scottish Robbie Burns Day festivities with Chinese New Year has become a tradition. Haggis meets Gung Hay Fat Choy (Happy New Year in Mandarin). Thus, the Chinese New Year Parade has become increasingly multi-cultural.

One thing that makes cities fascinating and fun are the unexpected results of mixing people and their traditions.

Yesterday we walked down to the Chinese New Year Parade in Vancouver’s Chinatown. After the Pipe band and a brass band came the Dragon dance, performed by people from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. The Olympic Mascots joined in along with veterans, marshal arts groups, the girl guides, and groups of performers displaying everything from lion dances to tai chi.

Officials from the Chinese Consulate walked the route handing out traditional little red bags, which Chinese children receive for new year, only containing candy instead of money.

Then the Premier of BC (like the Governor) came by dressed in a blue Chinese festive shirt, giving out red envelopes containing chocolate loonie coins. Not to be outdone, the Prime Minister’s office offered chocolate twonies, although the Prime Minister himself did not attend.

Little red envelopes were soon thick on the ground. A variety of other politicians and their staff also offered little red envelopes with candy or chocolate coins. The Vancouver Police Department offered fortune cookies. Everyone had the same fortune “use an anti-theft device on your vehicle.”

Brazen Careerist blogger Penelope Trunk recently commented on what makes writing and people interesting:

The interesting part of writing is not the part of the piece where you know exactly where it’s going. The interesting part is when you get to an unplanned moment . . .when you have to look inside yourself to keep going, and pull out something you didn’t know you had before.

Indeed, cities become their most interesting when they allow their citizens to create something previously unseen — Gung Haggis Fat Choy

Category: communities, diversity, urban history /

Presidential candidates: where’s the urban policy?

February 6, 2008 / Wendy Waters / 10 comments

America’s cities desperately need help — particularly repaired and new transportation infrastructure. Whether in response to bridges collapsing in Minneapolis or congestion-fueled pollution destroying the health of children in Los Angeles, a bold federal policy is necessary.

And yet, in looking through the platforms of the five main contenders for President next year, no one mentioned urban issues. Huckabee is the only one who mentioned infrastructure, although he’s interested in building more Interstate highways (in a plan that sounds almost 1930s new-deal like), and to connect cities rather than supply transportation within them.

Yes, cities fall under local and state level government jurisdiction. But, so does education and aspects of health care, and that isn’t stopping most candidates from weighing in and announcing policies for these other issues.

Because CNN spent a lot of yap time last night talking about how well Obama was doing in cities, I thought he might have some urban issues in his platform. Nope. He has a “rural issues” section, but no area addressing urban issues. Clinton similarly offers a statement about creating rural opportunities and “supporting the family farm.”

McCain’s platform includes the Space Program, but nothing on urban issues. Mitt Romney offers three different fear-based pledges on preventing “jihad” “terrorists” and “keeping Americans safe” (from foreign threats), but nothing on keeping them safe from collapsing urban infrastructure.

Maybe I’m missing something since I live in Canada (but can and do vote in the US, as I’m a dual citizen). Readers — if you’ve found an urban policy in one of the candidates’ platforms, please share them.

This absence of urban issues in the US primary campaigns stands in sharp contrast to recent Canadian federal elections when the two leading political parties (and maybe the NDP and Greens as well) had specific city-oriented “new deal” plans, specifically recognizing that slightly over half of the national GDP is generated in metropolitan areas (and a lot of the other half comes out of the oil sands).

Category: economic development, national politics, transportation /

Back to the future: door to door canvassing

February 4, 2008 / Wendy Waters / 6 comments

“knock knock” … “ding dong”

I put down a baby, or my dinner, or the food I’m preparing and scramble down the stairs to open the door. It’s not a neighbor or tenant needing help or dropping off a loaned item or wanting to borrow something. Instead, it’s a door to door sales person or charity collector.

A long time ago we canceled our land-line telephone because only telephone solicitors called it. Our friends and family always tried our cel phones first. But I recall the same annoyance — a ringing phone at dinner time. Any charity that does manage to find my number and harass me for money is instantly on my “no donation ever” list.

Over the past few months, with increasing frequency — at least 2-3 nights a week now — we’re interrupted by a knock at the door. I guess with so many people on “do not call ” lists or hiding unlisted, this is one way to reach potential buyers or donors.

A person collecting for World Vision a couple nights ago offered added perspective. When asked why she was the 5th visitor in the last week collecting for a charity, she said that it’s more ecologically sound and more cost effective for them to send someone door to door than to print brochures and leave them.

I’m wondering if the population density of a neighborhood has an effect on this canvassing calculus. My area is full of duplexes, and some townhouses as well as tightly packed single family houses on small lots. You can reach a lot of people without tons of walking. But would this work in a suburb? And, given security, I have to assume this door-to-door method doesn’t work in condo towers. Can anyone share their experiences?

Another thought: I guess it is more personal to send a real person to a house to ask for money than to use a call centre. The people knocking are paid usually, but seem to genuinely care about their organization. They usually can answer questions with good information.

But, the interruption is the same. They come at the worst possible time — when we’re trying to feed and bathe kids for bed — for me to have any interest in listening. I used to tell telephone solicitors that I don’t do business with them. I’m thinking about doing something similar with the door-to-door organizations. You want my money? Send me an e-mail (a personal one, not spam), or talk to me on more neutral territory such as in front of the grocery store, at the food court at lunch time, or just on the street (charities do this a lot here too). Come to my house at a bad time and you’re on my “do not donate” list.

Category: ecological issues, resident attitudes /