Front doors are an important part of the urban landscape. Irish doors may be the most famous example (just Google it). I have successfully advocated for front doors in the past, and I even came up with the GDA, or Gehl Door Average, based on Jan Gehl’s book Cities for People, whereby only when there are 10 or more doors per 100 meters of street frontage can you consider it “friendly.” Gehl isn’t simply calling for more doors, but rather that doors add to the quality of our “eye-level” experience of place, and designing doors properly is key to making streets and cities more walkable. Today we’ll be looking at urban…

At CNU 22 in Buffalo last month, I met an Englishman during a pub crawl. He was a pleasant enough chap, but kept wandering in to the quiet streets of downtown Buffalo, as if to demonstrate how much space we waste in our cities by giving it over solely to cars. Little did I know this Englishman was Ben Hamilton-Baillie, a traffic and urban design consultant, and that he’d be giving the keynote lunch address the following day at lunch. Well, Hamilton-Baillie, shown below lying on Bank Street in Ashford (he does this everywhere), knocked it out of the park. Among the many provocative and relevant…

Cruising high above the Mississippi River on my first Green Line light rail ride was something I may never forget. It felt so…right. Some may find it absurd to hear me say it is worth the billion dollars just to ride it across the Mississippi. But think about it – a meaningful transit investment connecting the state’s largest downtown with its largest University (and on to St. Paul!) makes sense, and it only took 150 years and $1 billion to do it. Despite some timing issues, the train ride itself is sweet. The problem lies in getting there. $1 billion later, the Green…

Rumor has it James Corner Field, the landscape architecture firm that designed the High Line in New York City, is designing Nicollet Mall. I’ve seen the plans for Nicollet Mall and offered opinions, but figured I needed to see the High Line for myself. My wife and I did just that on a recent trip to New York City. My first impression was how wonderful a little green was. Having some vegetation in a city like New York, with block after block of concrete (I mean, what’s a dog to do?) is wonderful (see below). Plus you get views of the Hudson River…

Where’s Wonder Woman, and what will she do about urbanism in Minneapolis? Several recent reviews have appeared in the press regarding Mayor Betsy Hodges’ first 100 days in office. She has been deliberative in hiring key staff positions, preferring instead to build relationships and simply listen. In the Star Tribune’s coverage, it was noted that she has not yet engaged on density and development issues. I look forward to her doing so. Hodges also likes Wonder Woman. I don’t know a lot about Wonder Woman, except that like most superheroes she fights for peace, love and equality. When it comes to density and development issues, I hope Hodges thinks…

What do the great streets that Nicollet Mall aspires to become have in common? Do they all have benches? Do they all have trees? Are they all vehicle free? Do they all have shade trees? Do they all have a playground? Are they all major regional shopping streets? No. One thing they all have in common is plenty of room on the sidewalk for pedestrians; that is a given. Interestingly, the other thing all great streets seem to share is something not even on the street itself but rather the buildings; they all relate well to the street. There are…

“She said City Center used to be the center of our scene. Now City Center’s over.” – The Hold Steady, Your Little Hoodrat Friend Could City Center have turned out differently? The answer is absolutely it could have. Reading Nick Magrino’s post on the four corners of City Center in Minneapolis, I recalled there is a nearly identical office tower in Denver. It is called Republic Plaza. It is also designed by Skidmore Owings & Merrill, and it opened two years after (1984) City Center in Minneapolis (1982). It appears both projects were developed by Brookfield Properties. (Incidentally, both also have…

If we get the streets right, good things will follow in downtown east. Much hand-wringing is occurring over whether or not there will be good development around the new Minnesota Vikings football stadium in downtown Minneapolis. When we look backwards 30 years at why development hasn’t happened since the current Metrodome stadium was built, we find three main reasons. One reason is some property that remained zoned industrial until very recently. A second obvious reason is five entire blocks of land owned by the Star Tribune blocks didn’t get developed in part because the newspaper was using them and didn’t want to…