Land Use Prof Blog

Leinberger (vs. Kotkin): Walking--Not Just for Cities Anymore

On The New Republic's excellent "The Avenue" blog, Christopher Leinberger (author of The Option of Urbanism) discusses a recent Brookings debate with Joel Kotkin (author of The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050).  From Walking--Not Just for Cities Anymore, Leinberger notes:

I just had a debate with Joel Kotkin, whom many consider to be an apologist for sprawl. Surprisingly, there is a convergence between his view of the next generation of real estate and infrastructure development and mine: a constellation of pedestrian-friendly urban development spread throughout metropolitan areas, redeveloping parts of the central city and transforming the inner, and some outer, suburbs. There are certainly differences between the two of us: I happen to see significant pent-up demand for walkable urban development and massive over-building of fringe car-oriented suburban housing and commercial development.

In fact, I see compelling evidence that the collapse of fringe drivable suburban markets was the catalyst for the Great Recession, and the lack of walkable urban development due to inadequate infrastructure and zoning is a major reason for the recovery’s sluggishness. Joel feels the demand for walkable urban development is a fraction of the future growth in households. I think rail transit, biking and walking infrastructure are crucial to make this walkable urban future happen; Joel thinks bus rapid transit is as far as we have to go in the transit world… making cars more technologically efficient is his main answer.

I have been hoping that Leinberger will prove correct about his belief in the untapped market demand for walkable urbanism, which has not persuaded Kotkin and other critics.  Leinberger concludes:

We need move away from 20^th century concepts that confuse the conversation. If I am right, 70 to 80 percent of new development should be in walkable urban places, and my research leads me to think the majority of that development will be in the suburbs.

Matt Festa

Enough with Jane Jacobs Already?

Check out this really interesting piece from the Wall Street Journal: Enough With Jane Jacobs Already, by Andrew Manshel.  Manshel is with the nonprofit Greater Jamaica Development Corp.  He argues that while Jane Jacobs was right about many things, the enshrinement of her views in planning circles should be reassessed.  He says that now is the time, due to Mayor Bloomberg's Charter Revision Commission process.  Lots of interesting thoughts in this opinion piece, so it's hard to know what parts to highlight.    

Jacobs's book is generally regarded as a jeremiad in opposition to the large-scale planning of the '50s and '60s. She is celebrated as the individual who did the most to end that era's Robert Moses and Le Corbusier-inspired, automobile-centric view of urban life. In Jacobs's opinion, the ideal of city living was the West Village of Manhattan, with its short blocks, narrow streets and little shops. She praised the human-scale aspects of city life; the "eyes on the street" of the shopkeeper and the social cohesion promoted by "street corner mayors." In her view, large-scale planning was prone to failure.

Are you with Jacobs, or are you with Bob Moses and Le Corbusier??

Her views have now been broadly adopted and it is conventional wisdom in planning circles that participatory neighborhood planning is best, that preservation of old buildings is essential, and that in cities the car is bad. But Jacobs had a tendency toward sweeping conclusions based on anecdotal information, and some of them were overblown and/or oblivious to the facts. Perhaps most graphically, Jacobs predicted that the grand arts center planned for the Upper West Side of Manhattan would fail. But Lincoln Center turned out to be a great success—igniting the revitalization of the entire neighborhood.

More revealingly, the Greenwich Village she held out as a model for city life has become some of the highest-priced real estate in New York City—it's no longer the diverse, yeasty enclave she treasured. Ultimately, many of the policies she advocated blocked real-estate development—causing prices of existing housing stock to rise and pricing out all but the wealthiest residents.

Manshel calls for more attention to the ideas of William H. Whyte, who inspired Bryant Park and Houston's Discovery Green, among other projects.  Manshel isn't the first to challenge Jacobs' legacy recently: see Benjamin Schwarz's recent Atlantic piece.  What do you think about Manshel's critique of the citizen-participation focus?  Again, it's a quick and thought-provoking read, so check it out.  

 

Matt Festa

Shared Parking as a Solution for Mixed-Use Neighborhoods

This blog post is by guest blogger and UGA 3L (and recent Land Use Clinic alumna) Catherine Mattingly.

For a project in the Land Use Planning course I took this semester at UGA Law, I researched shared parking in mixed-use areas throughout the country and tried to apply the concept to a neighborhood in Athens, Georgia.  Shared parking allows multiple businesses—or even entire neighborhoods or districts—to combine parking spaces in a way that benefits both the customers and the businesses.  This strategy can be used to either alleviate an existing parking shortage, or to require fewer spaces in building a new development.  I will give a bit of background on the area I studied within Athens, Georgia, and then offer some potential solutions for this dynamic problem in the area.

The Five Points area in Athens, Georgia is a small-scale mixed-use area in this historic college town.  Restaurants, clothing stores, coffee shops, even a grocery store, are located along South Lumpkin, which is the main street of this historic area that takes its name from the five-way intersection at the corner of Lumpkin and Milledge.  Next to this cluster of shops lie residential neighborhoods.  The district is in theory the perfect place to park one’s car and spend the rest of the day running errands, meeting with friends, attending yoga class, etc.  Because these stores are within walking distance of one another, there is really no reason to drive from place to place.

However, you may have noticed that I said “in theory.”  Currently, parking in one place and spending the day shopping throughout Five Points isn’t possible.  With the exception of a few informal parking agreements between neighboring store owners and a few spots lining Lumpkin Street (which only permit limited time parking), the general rule in the area is that a store patron must be parked in the lot of the respective business he or she is visiting.  A frequent visitor to Five Points, I have been burdened by this rule many times.  When my Land Use Professor Christian Turner spoke of this problem as a potential paper topic I jumped on board, wanting to learn more about a problem that has hindered the overall appeal of the area.  While the solution of shared parking is simple, creating a successful strategy for an entire district that will be adaptable as businesses change over time can be extremely difficult.  One must consider the current local ordinances and their restrictions on parking, the local Comprehensive Plan, the total number of spaces as well as potential for new spaces, peak hours for the varying businesses, and the general overall character of the area.
 
 After researching shared parking generally, I emailed most of the store owners in Five Points asking for their thoughts on the matter.  Overall, most of the owners and managers with whom I spoke supported shared parking, provided it supplied enough spots for their individual use.  A few owners shared that they felt their business suffered at certain times of the day because there was simply no available parking.  After interviewing these people, I looked for case studies of shared parking strategies that had already been implemented or studied throughout the country.  I found that the primary consideration in the success of a shared parking strategy is whether there are different peak parking hours between stores.  The significance behind this factor is that if businesses have varying busy hours, then there are likely spaces available at one nearby store when another is crowded.  Therefore, by simply making agreements with other businesses to share spaces during certain times of the day, available spots can be increased without having to actually add any additional spaces.  These private agreements can exist in the form of revocable licenses, or appurtenant easements or covenants could also be used.

While agreements such as those mentioned above can be achieved by simple agreements between business owners, a successful district-wide shared parking solution likely calls for control of all available parking by the city.  To achieve this, I suggest creating an overlay district.  This district would eliminate the need to follow any current parking restrictions in the Athens-Clarke County Code.  In addition to adding additional limited-time parking in the area, a parking deck could also be constructed.  Alternatively, a larger parking lot could be created by combining many of the smaller lots located behind the old homes that have been turned into local businesses.  To give the city the right to control parking, each owner could deed his spaces to the city.  Alternatively, a temporary lease agreement could be implemented, but this could hinder construction of permanent changes such as the large lot or deck.  These parking options could be geared not just toward immediately neighboring business, but to patrons in the entire area.

In addition to providing additional available spaces to store patrons, shared parking has other benefits.  Changing the character of parking in the area could help to change the nature of the district as a whole.  For instance, the area would necessarily become more pedestrian-friendly, as visitors are expected to park their cars and walk throughout the district.  The city could also take this opportunity to add more green space to the area.  Thus, establishing shared parking would assist in making visiting the area not only more convenient, but also safer and more aesthetically pleasing.  As space becomes an increasingly important commodity, older districts can retrofit their communities to increase the convenience and attractiveness of the area.  Increased revenues will hopefully follow as patrons find these stores easier to visit.

Overall, in researching this issue, I have been reminded of how dynamic local land use issues such as parking truly are.  Implementing shared parking will certainly be difficult, but the ability of the area to adapt to change could be crucial for its success, especially in its competition with downtown Athens.

First, I'd like to give props to my UGA colleague Christian Turner for having his Land Use Planning students work on practical projects in the doctrinal class.  Second, having read and considered Catherine's paper I congratulate her on excellent work on applying land use concepts to a real, local problem.  I shop at the stores and practice at the yoga studio she mentions, so I also struggle with the parking issues.  However, I hadn't considered the lots behind the old houses retrofit as shops as a good joint parking lot, but it really is.  I hope to promote Catherine's solution locally as a way to create a better pedestrian environment in what should be one of Athens' truly walkable neighborhoods.

Jamie Baker Roskie

"Sprawlanta"

In a funny confluence of events my colleague, Pratt Cassity, sent me a blog by writer Brad Aaron (formerly of Athens, now of NYC) on Streetsblog.  The blog is about an episode of the American Makeover webseries on Atlanta.  The film includes notable Atlantans like Robert Bullard, known as the father of the environmental justice movement and the head of the Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark Atlanta University, Howard Frumpkin of the CDC, and Charles Brewer, developer of one of Atlanta's rare truly New Urbanist developments, Glenwood Park.  Although the film is ostensibly about Atlanta, it's really about Atlanta's status as the poster child of urban sprawl.  It's funny, short, and pithy, and would be a great introductory piece for students about sprawl and its effects, for good and for ill.

Jamie Baker Roskie