I recommend reading Neal Peirce’s latest column about urban policy as it relates to the upcoming presidential election. Read “McCain Versus Obama: Who’s Best for Cities” here. I think this column is enlightening to say the least, and should remind us of the importance of good metropolitan policy at the local, state and especially the federal level.
On a recent visit to Charlotte, I took some time to ride their new light rail line and check out some good old fashioned transit oriented development. The line connects Charlotte’s strong central business district with the South End neighborhood and on towards the southwest of the city. Ridership has already exceeded forecasts for years from now, and the day I was there a newspaper article noted that transit ridership in Charlotte is at record levels. I was impressed by development I saw around stations, and of the train operation itself. It seems the good people of Charlotte have a success story on their hands.
I have included photos that can be viewed here on Picasaweb.
My visit focused on the South End neighborhood. The transit corridor runs through the South End along a former freight line between former and current industrial properties with a history rich in the textile business. Old mills are being replaced by imported furniture stores, galleries and architects offices. On either side are stable residential neighborhoods, and the South End is seeing substantial redevelopment. In this portion of the corridor alone, there are nearly 5,000 residential units built or planned, although today’s financial climate will no doubt delay some of these units at best. What endeared me most to the neighborhood was the mix of old and new, including bars, coffee shops and barbecue joints that have clearly served a wide range of customers over the years. They add immeasurably to the urban fabric of Charlotte.
Notable new projects include the Ashton South End, an 11-story, 310-unit apartment project scheduled to open in 2009, a 115-unit for-sale project called 3030 South, and Southborough, a mixed-use commercial and 69-unit project that “wraps” a new Lowe’s store.
3030 South, a development by Heath Partners, is immediately adjacent to the New Bern station. It is mostly complete and sold, with just one phase remaining. Buyers get a five-year tax abatement. The site plan is pedestrian-friendly, with public and interior sidewalks providing easy access to the train platform.
Southborough, developed by the Conformity Corporation, is impressive due to its complexity. A 30,000 square foot office building with ground floor retail complements 69 flats and rowhomes to line a 140,000 square foot Lowe’s store, effectively hiding the store from the surrounding residential neighborhood. Some of the residential buildings actually share a common wall with the store, and in some cases the emergency exits from the store are the residential stairwells.
I met with staff from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning authority, and they are busy completing plans for each of the station areas along the line to meet the demand for development. And so Charlotte hits the ground running with a popular new light rail line, and they already have transit-oriented developments that will serve as models for the industry.
Gordon Price stopped me in the middle of a street in Vancouver, and said, “Now look around and count the number of pedestrians you see. Fourteen. Now how many cars? One.” Sure enough, here I was in Vancouver’s West End, a neighborhood as dense and urban as Manhattan (75 people per acre), and it was pedestrian dominated.
That was just the first lesson in a six-hour walking tour by Gordon Price, a fellow urbanist and former city council member in Vancouver, British Columbia. The tour included inspecting infill housing sites, analyzing building height and massing, tree canopies, awnings, sidewalk and street widths, parking and transit utilization, and sitting on a terrace with a beer simply watching the city.
View my photos at Picasaweb here.
From the start, Vancouver felt different. True, Canada is a foreign country, and there are the obvious differences like currency and mailboxes. The musician at the Irish Pub I visited played “Early Mornin’ Rain, by Gordon Lightfoot, a Canadian. But Vancouver is just across the border, and has many similarities to Seattle and Portland. But the differences were the glassy high rises, the attention to the pedestrian environment and the general orderliness of the city struck me. Seattle, while beautiful and wonderful, is Vancouver’s messy cousin to the south.
I was there a very short time, and really only saw the core of the city and a view of the distant mountains. Like many other great North American urban places, the city core is old and was laid out along transit lines and built to a transit-supportive density. That remains, and in the West End no residence is more than a quarter mile from a commercial street with retail, services and transit. In other words, the city is, as Mr. Price put it, “dense enough” to support walkable urbanism. The difference is what has happened in the interim. Whereas other cities, have emptied out, Vancouver has remained vibrant by maintaining or increasing density, encouraging a very healthy pedestrian environment and not ramming a freeway through the heart of town.
The most striking thing is the attention paid to the quality of the urban environment. Some things are quite simple. Parking is either on-street or underground, not in surface parking lots. Streets are lined with trees. No blank walls - in fact, buildings are required to have numerous entrances from the sidewalk and even high-rises have rowhomes facing sidewalks. Commercial corridors are lines with shops, have few gaps and fewer parking lots, are relatively uniform in height, no more than two stories, and stores are required to have awnings so Vancouverites don’t need an umbrella. How civil!
Halfway through our tour we left the West End and entered the Coal Harbour neighborhood, one of two “new” neighborhoods built recently near the urban core on reclaimed industrial land. As part of the agreement with the city, the master developer had to build numerous public improvements, including a seawall and public realm with bike and walkways, as well as a community center and playground. In return, the developer is allowed significant density to offset the cost of the public amenities, which is interesting because in many ways those very amenities help sell and lease units.
The city requires developers to create 2.75 acres of usable open/green space per 1,000 residents, and it sure seems that Vancouverites appreciate their open space. True, it was a nice day, but everywhere we went, people were out and about, walking, biking, sitting on benches or at terraces.
Mr. Price feels the city lacks a little grit and serendipity, but everywhere we went, he was running in to people he knew on the sidewalk. We met one such gentleman on the sidewalk outside Urban Fare, a full service grocer in Coal Harbour. (Mr. Price stated that it takes 4,000 households to support a grocer like this.) The gentleman indicated that he loved the store and lived several blocks away. When asked if he ever drove to Urban Fare, he said he’d be embarrassed to drive, a small victory for a pedestrian-friendly city.
Indeed, everywhere I went the pedestrian environment was stellar. In the morning, I wandered to Yaletown, the other new central city neighborhood. Like Coal Harbour, it too has a community center. But Yaletown is more impressive. They preserved the original roundhouse from the 1880s (it houses the community center), and adjacent that is a lovely park with an elementary school and daycare. The housing development was all high rises on podiums, and all of it knit together with a very pedestrian-friendly environment.
Sure, my first impression of the city was from the bus high up on the Granville Bridge, with what seemed like hundreds of thin, glassy blue towers with lush green mountains in the background. But down on the sidewalk, I just didn’t “feel” like I was amongst all those high rises. As I said, developers are allowed to build tall point towers, but they must be narrow to minimize shadowing, and must be set back when possible, especially from commercial streets. The towers must be on podium structures that are built to a human scale.
Sure enough, I passed tower after tower that had a two or three story podium with multiple commercial or residential entrances, trees, wide sidewalks, bike racks, and benches. Many developments are set back enough to allow for trees and a public sidewalk, as well as a semi-public area for benches or outdoor seating at a cafe, or private space like a small patio in front of a residence. Either way, it was all very intimate without feeling as though you were invading anyone’s privacy.
I am so impressed with Yaletown for its community center and school, especially compared to all the urban cores that have significant recent residential development without either a community center or school. I have read that the school was full from day one and has a long waiting list. Not surprising. The community center is wonderful as well, carved out of the original roundhouse. In fact, the steam engine (No. 374) that pulled the very first freight train in to the Yaletown yards in the 1880s has been restored and sits on the end of the roundhouse itself.
Of course, the natural setting is wonderful and not to be ignored. Besides the mountain backdrop, there is water everywhere. The core city is surrounded by water, so that I had to take a water taxi to charming little Granville Island. While I sat in the Public Market there with a cup of coffee admiring the day, a fellow in a little rubber raft with a tiny outboard motor pulled up to the dock. In the boat were two little excited dogs. As he approached the pier, both jumped out, but only one made it, the other hitting the side and splashing in to the water. The owner laughed and reached in to pull little Fido out. I got the feeling this happened a lot. They all disappeared in to the market to return five minutes later with coffee and treats to putter away in their boat. I can’t decide who has the better life, the dogs or the owner!
Well, it was a great visit. What Vancouver lacks in architectural variety (most new towers are glassy blue), it makes up for in walkable urbanism. Vancouver is quite possibly the finest example of good planning led by educated decision makers of any city that I have ever seen. I’d live there. Well, let me go back for a week of drizzly January weather and I’ll get back to you.
In a sign of the times, some of my friends that used to develop condos are now developing wind farms. The condo market may have dried up, but the wind still blows. And indeed it blows, especially here in Minneapolis, so much so that one particularly windy day last sping, one of those days that would be pleasant but for the wind, I signed our household up to receive a portion of our electricity from the wind.
Those friends of mine, the former condo developers, recently put on a presentation about wind power for our local Young Leaders Group of the Urban Land Institute. They work for National Wind, a Minneapolis-based developer of “community-based” wind farms. Community-based means National Wind develops the wind farm, but the local land owners and community shares the revenue generated through the sale of energy to the utility company.
National Wind develops wind farms in Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Iowa and is pursuing projects in Colorado, Montana and Wyoming. They look for windy areas, and typical wind farms include perhaps 100 turbines and encompass thousands of acres involving leases with vast numbers of land owners. A single turbine takes an average of one acre out of production, so to large landowners it is similar to leasing rooftop space for a billboard in the city - simply a source of additional revenue.
Electricity is measured in Megawatt Hours (MwH), and one MwH can power 300 homes, for example. One turbine can generate up to 2.5 MwH, and a wind farm can power thousands of homes. Wind energy already generates 22,000 MwH nationwide, approximately 1% of our electricity needs, but is growing by 4,000 MwH per year. However, demand is growing annually by 12,000 MwH, so there is a lot of catching up to do. It is possible that by 2030 as much as 20% of our nation’s electricity will come from wind.
Of course, conservation measures and legislation can greatly affect these outcomes. The reason for the recent surge in wind power development stems from a national tax credit that must be renewed by congress this year to continue. As well, many states require a percentage of electricity to come from renewables. Wind energy is not free, nor even cheap, but it also has precious few external costs related to health or the environment, costs that aren’t always foreseen or even linked. So public support and government incentives will continue to be necessary.
As with everything, geography matters. Average wind speed varies by location, as does land availability and transmission capability. The windiest locations are generally the great plains. That is one of the reasons Minnesota and Texas are among the leaders in wind power generation (Texas is first, California second, and Minnesota third). The southeast states, however, are much less windy and won’t see much of their electricity come from wind. But the great plains are also sparsely populated, and transmission capacity must be increased for new wind farms to be connected to major metro areas.
There are economic benefits as well. Not all wind power developers operate using the community-based model like National Wind, but sharing the revenue helps rural communities economically. There are also jobs. Most turbines are currently made overseas, and I have seen them offloaded from ships on to trucks at Duluth Harbor to be taken to their final destination on a windswept hilltop somewhere west of Minneapolis. But due to demand, manufacturers are building plants here in the United States, thus generating additional jobs and tax revenue.
Wind power is certainly a part of our urban future, as are a variety of energy options. So before we drill for more oil, we need to first find ways to conserve energy through sensible urban planning, increased transit investment and energy efficient buildings. Then we must ensure that congress reauthorizes the tax credit, and that states continue to provide incentives for wind power.
