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Bike, Meet the City. City, This is the Bike
Mary Catherine O’Connor, WorldChanging
What will bike-friendly cities look like ten years from now? As citizens around the world raise the demand for human-powered transportation infrastructure, major cities are starting to re-imagine their car-centric transportation models.
Are more American residents bike-commuting as a regular practice? You betcha. According to the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), bike commuting increased 30 percent in the past year. And this seems to be a national trend. It grew 75 percent in New York City since 2000, doubled in Portland, Ore., in the last five years, and the number of cyclists on Washington, D.C. streets surged a full 100 percent between 2004 and 2006.
What does this look like on a city level? On Thursday, May 8, 2008, from 8 am to 9 am, the SFMTA counted 406 bicyclists rolling into the city’s downtown, heavily congested corridor on one street alone. During that same time, it counted 338 cars moving down the same stretch of roadway. This is the first year that bikes outnumbered cars outside of Bike to Work Day.
But city streets are still often inconvenient, if not downright hostile, to non-drivers. To catch up with demand and encourage even more citizens to cycle, cities from Sao Paulo to Philadelphia are rolling out Bicycle Master Plans (we’ve covered some on Worldchanging).
(17 July 2008)
Toward walkability – and happiness
Dan Burden, San Jose Mercury News
Over the 12 years I’ve spent advocating for walkable communities in about 2,500 towns and cities throughout the world – including 20 or so in the Bay Area – I’ve found a disparity in the level of happiness that appears to have nothing to do with levels of income.
In communities around San Jose, residents have an enviable standard of living in many respects, yet many don’t seem as happy as one would expect in light of their income and the creative environment of Silicon Valley. What could be the cause? And more important, what are possible solutions?
A recent international study on happiness by researchers at Leicester University in England ranked the United States as only the 23rd happiest place in the world. Denmark is the happiest, according to the research.
It’s probably no coincidence that more than 20 years ago, Denmark set a vision to become one of the best places to walk anywhere. It took a long time to get there, but the Danes apparently are very happy with their results.
Silicon Valley can follow this example. It can leverage its standard of living to increase its walkability and improve its quality of life.
One measure of quality of life is the level of access we have to the things we value most – jobs, safe streets, affordable transportation and housing, and quality health care, schools and civic spaces such as parks and other gathering places.
DAN BURDEN is the founder of Walkable Communities Inc. and is a principal with community-planning firm Glatting Jackson Kercher Anglin.
(13 July 2008)
Also at Common Dreams.
Kunstler: One City Block (Part 1) (audio)
Duncan Crary, KunstlerCast via GPM
James Howard Kunstler often describes Saratoga Springs N.Y. as a classic Main Street American town. In part one of this special program, we take to the streets of Saratoga to experience the sense of place in this small city. Kunstler brings us from the busy sidewalks along Broadway to a sidestreet leading to a major urban infill project. He explains the urban sensibilities of the 19th century structures, points out the boneheaded decisions of the 1960s one-story development, and the promising efforts of mid-1990s new urbanism.
(17 July 2008)
Kunstler on Handicap Access (audio)
Duncan Crary, KunstlerCast
In this episode of KunstlerCast, James Howard Kunstler explores the consequences of handicap access regulations and how these codes have unintentionally promoted suburban sprawl throughout much of America.
In many instances, developers feel it’s easier and cheaper to just build one-story buildings rather than multi-story handicap accessible buildings. These codes can also discourage the retrofitting of second and third story retail space in old “Main Street” buildings as well.
So while handicap codes may make it easier for some people to use our built environment, they can also indirectly make it more difficult for those do not own a car. Episode 22.
(10 July 2008)
Kunstler: Personal Transit & Green Buildings (audio)
Duncan Crary, KunstlerCast via GPM
James Howard Kunstler takes questions on personal rapid transit, sustainable green buildings and the happy motoring program in America. He also scolds us for us referring to ourselves as consumers. This show is the result of a special collaboration between The KunstlerCast and Planetizen, the online network for professional planners.
(8 May 2008)
The Unraveling of the Suburban Fringe
Prashant Gopal, Business Week
Most of the overbuilding during the housing bubble took place in outer-ring suburbs. They are also likely the places to be hit worst by the downturn
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… BusinessWeek.com asked Zillow.com, which provides online home valuations, to analyze how home values have been holding up in large cities across the county compared to both inner and outer suburbs. The results are fascinating. Annual price changes in most of the largest metro areas, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, San Francisco, Seattle, Baltimore, Washington D.C., and Philadelphia, followed a similar pattern: Values were most stable within a 10-mile radius of the center of the city, but generally worsened with each successive radius ring as far as 50 miles from the center of the city.
Not all cities kept precisely to the pattern, in part because of the complications of geography. In Washington D.C., for example, prices started improving in the 40-mile and 50-mile rings, most likely because the area intersects with Baltimore and its immediate suburbs. Some cities, such as Boston, Cincinnati, Denver, San Diego, St. Louis, and Phoenix, did not seem to have any discernible pattern. And in other areas-Detroit, Cleveland, Dallas, Atlanta, and Reno, Nev.-the opposite phenomenon seems to be in play, with real estate values actually improving away from the city.
(12 July 2008)
