Review: A New Streetscape for Burlingame Avenue

Burlingame, California is a city south of San Francisco on the San Francisco Peninsula. It features a very nice downtown district which has, among other virtues, an unusually high quantity of retailers. While great dining and entertainment has come to many revitalized downtowns, most just can't seem to nurture a good retail scene. Burlingame has managed to pull it off. 

The City is in the process of giving a makeover to Burlingame Avenue, their downtown's main street. I visited the area recently, and the central portion was completed and it looked gorgeous. The new design is a big improvement, and I think they are doing a wonderful job of making a great place greater. When completed, it may be one of the most beautiful streets in Northern California. 

Here's what I saw... 

Fonzie Flats

Fonzie with the Cunninghams in his accessory apartment above their garage.
(From the TV series Happy Days.)

Accessory apartments are small secondary housing units which are built on a lot with a single-family house. They have been put in attics, basements, above garages, and in detached back yard cottage structures. They used to be very common, but were outlawed in many communities during the mid-twentieth century.

They are often called granny flats or ADUs (accessory dwelling units), but let's forget all of that. Granny Flats makes them sound old fashioned and out of date, and ADU sounds like a disease or a boring bureaucratic mechanism.

I propose that from this point forward we call them Fonzie Flats. 

Housing Affordability at the Breaking Point - Part 4: Do We Need Affordable Housing or Affordable Living?

(Photo source: www.choosewhat.com)

Housing is too expensive in many of America's major metropolitan areas, and something must be done about it. However, it would be a tragic mistake to focus only on the cost of rent, or the sales prices of homes. As we work to bring down housing costs, we also need to make affordable options available in other aspects of people's lives which can offset high rent. There are two primary areas that we should focus on in order to promote affordable living: 

Housing Affordability at the Breaking Point - Part 3: Housing Shortage or Urbanism Shortage?

Greenwich Village, New York City. A lot of people enjoy this sort of thing.
(Source: www.http://millefiorifavoriti.blogspot.com)

In case you hadn't yet noticed, urban living is pretty hot right now. Preference surveys show time and time again that a strong share of the overall American public would prefer to live in a walkable urban neighborhood than a suburban subdivision which caters only to the automobile. A majority still prefers suburban living, but the minority which craves city living is large and getting larger.

10,000 Views!

I'm happy to announce that my humble little blog has hit a cool milestone. Right at the New Year I received my 10,000th page view. Some urbanism blogs get that in a week, but for my backwoods-of-the-internet website it is kind of a big deal to get that many hits just before one full year of posting. I'm happy that some folks are checking it out, and I hope it is half as useful to you as my favorite blogs are to me.

Cheers!

Housing Affordability at the Breaking Point - Part 2: Fighting Gentrification (with Luxury Condos)

Well this is just great. Now I'll never be able to afford a used Hyundai.
(Source: www.cleantechnica.com)

Gentrification is back as a hot topic. High income people of various stripes (in San Francisco it is tech workers, in New York it is bankers) are ruining nice, bohemian neighborhoods by moving into the area and driving up the rents. 

At least, that's the word on the street.

While it is understandable how people would interpret the situation this way, this idea is misguided and counterproductive.

Incremental Urbanism is the Key to California's Future

Incremental Urbanism in Washington DC
(Source: Wikipedia)

I am a big proponent of Incremental Urbanism, which is the creation of great places on a lot-by-lot basis, by dozens or hundreds of land owners and developers over time. Many of our favorite historic cities were built this way, and they still work very well today.

I just wrote a blog post for the California Chapter of the Congress for the New Urbanism. As you may know, CNU is famous for large, beautiful, walkable, master-planned projects. Things have changed, though, and these opportunities are dwindling in California. I believe that California's new frontier is on small, non-contiguous infill sites within our existing towns, cities, and metropolitan areas. Can we pivot and master this new realm? I propose that it is essential that we do, and in my CNU-CA blog post I explore how it can be done. Check it out here.

Housing Affordability at the Breaking Point - Part 1: Home Is Where the Supply Is

Black Friday at WalMart? Zombie Apocalypse? Nope, just a San Francisco open house.
(Source: www.creepmachine.com)

In most areas with out-of-control housing prices, it is due in large part to the supply of housing being far lower than the demand for housing. My county is tens of thousands of units short of what is needed today, not to mention the homes that we will need to build to accommodate future needs. 

Only official deed-restricted Below Market Rate units feel satisfying to some housing advocates, but BMR strategies alone will never fix the problem in areas with such severe market imbalances. 

Housing Affordability at the Breaking Point

(Source: Unknown)

Despite the ravages of the 2008 housing bubble burst, and the ensuing recession, affordable housing is a tremendous problem in many parts of the US. The problem is most acute in the big, prosperous metropolitan areas with vibrant urban cores and physical constraints on outward growth, particularly New York, Boston, Washington, and my region, the San Francisco Bay Area. However, it is also an issue in pockets of many other cities in the US, particularly areas that are amenity-rich, job-rich, walkable, and well-served by transit.

The Worst NIMBY Ever?

(Source: www.saveto76.blogspot.com)

Every city planner knows the acronym NIMBY, which stands for Not In My Back Yard. It is used to reference people who are against projects. Typically, it is not used for all opponents, but those who are irrational in their opposition, and who are against not just bad projects, but everything. 

Having worked in local government for 15 years, I have heard a lot of NIMBY stories, but this one takes the cake...

Understanding the Quirks of Incremental Urbanism

New York, under construction lot-by-lot.
(Source: New York Historical Society)

For the past 70 years or so, much of what we have built in the US has been of the large,  "master planned" variety of development. Large areas of dozens, sometimes hundreds, of acres are all laid out and designed at once, and built out by a single builder or a handful of builders working off of a coordinated design. Once they are built out, these areas change very little over time. During the era of suburban expansion, residential subdivisions, garden apartments, office parks, and shopping malls all fit into the master planned category of development.

When New Urbanism rose onto the scene, many of its early and iconic projects, such as Seaside and the Kentlands, were also large, master-planned developments. Unlike their sprawl counterparts they were walkable, compact, mixed-use, and awesome... but they were still large and master-planned. 

This feels normal to our generation, but historically this is an anomaly. Prior to World War II, and going back for millennia, most development was not of the large-scale, master-planned variety. Rather, most cities and neighborhoods were built lot-by-lot, by dozens or hundreds of land owners and  developers. Even when the street and lot pattern was laid out all at once by a city (as in New York's grid of 1811) or a railroad company, the lots were auctioned off to individual parties who carry out the task of building on their own, one by one. In such urban settings, the development of the place is never complete, and many lots will be developed and redeveloped over the years to meet the changing needs of their owners and the market as I discussed in a previous post called Small Lots and the Evolution of the City. Some have referred to this kind of development as Incremental Urbanism. I like that term, and will use it on this blog.

To Connect or Not to Connect?

(Source: www.themidwoodblog.com)

Perhaps it is a natural territorial instinct to wall ourselves into a protected enclave. Much has been written about the late 20th Century phenomenon of gated developments, but that isn't the only time we block access in our neighborhoods. The lollipop cul-de-sac street patterns of many American suburbs are also meant to block; and sometimes older neighborhoods are retrofitted to block auto access, pedestrian access, or both.

As a planner, I see this a lot, but I recently saw it in action in my own neighborhood. I live in an older neighborhood that, for the most part, has a walkable street grid. Slicing diagonally  through the neighborhood is a major piece of underground infrastructure. On the surface, some of this land is occupied by parks, some by parking lots, some is incorporated into adjacent private yards (with the caveat that no structures may be constructed over it), and some is vacant and unimproved. Part of it near me was a park, which was ripped out a while ago when the underground infrastructure was upgraded. 

Our Parks and Recreation Department held a couple of neighborhood meetings to work on a new design for the reconstruction of this park. This all went very well, and the new park is going to be great, but something really stood out to me. The infrastructure corridor continues past the park through a very long block, providing the potential for a direct pedestrian connection to a major street with some great amenities (including one of the best pizza joints in town). Some of us asked for this stretch, which is presently fenced off, to be opened up. Many people in the area have actively fought this connection, though, and it will not be opened.

(Source: http://www.safetysign.com)

Why We Block

Why is this done? In a society that is so obsessed with connectedness of the digital variety, why are some of us shunning connectedness in our cities? I have encountered three primary reasons, all of which are rooted in fear.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Major Streets

(Source: Urban Advantage)

Major streets are usually terrible places. Who wants to stroll along a street like the one above? I certainly don't. Streets like that are noisy, uncomfortable, dangerous-feeling, and uninteresting. 

Although this kind of street is a staple of the suburbs, most suburbanites and suburban planners aren't crazy about them. Despite the extreme auto-dependence of the suburbs, suburbanites dislike the noise, fumes, and danger of major roadways that, by necessity, must carry so many cars. Who can blame them? Their usual response is to hide from the monster that they created. They often turn the adjacent development's backside toward the street (creating a terrible tunnel effect) or set buildings back far away from the roadway (creating dispiriting voids).

The Tunnel. Despite the landscaping, this is not a nice place. At all.
(Source: Google Earth)

Urbanists also rightfully despise such streets. They prefer streets like the one below. This is the dream, right? This is the kind of street where I'd like to hang out. In fact, I have hung out there, and it was great. It was peaceful, comfortable, safe-feeling, and interesting. When urban planners and designers try to create a great street, we usually have something like this in mind.

But...

Lessons from Arlington, Virginia

Arlington, Virginia
(All images are from the film Arlington's Smart Growth Journey)

I recently watched a great documentary on YouTube (which is embedded at the end of this post) called Arlington's Smart Growth Journey. This hour-long documentary, produced in 2009, chronicles the transformation of Arlington, Virginia into a model of effective urban planning and a model for maintaining a high quality of life in the face of tremendous growth and change.

Arlington is across the Potomac River from from Washington, DC. In the 1960s they were a suburban community that found themselves in the path of proposed freeways, a proposed commuter rail line, and a lot of anticipated growth. Rather than fight change, they shaped it and controlled it, and used it to improve their community. They were really ahead of their time. They were practicing smart growth and transit-oriented development before those terms even existed.

Placemaking in the Silicon Valley

Castro Street, Downtown Mountain View

(www.rofo.com)

Back in April I was interviewed by the great Russell Hancock for his radio show Inside Silicon Valley. We discussed the ongoing renaissance of Downtown Redwood City and how it came to be. Russ was kind enough to invite me back for another interview. This time it was a double interview with my friend and mentor, Bruce Liedstrand. Bruce was the Community Development Director for Redwood City when things really got under way there, and he was City Manager for Mountain View, California when they revitalized their downtown.

The three of us discussed the success of Redwood City and Mountain View and what lessons they may offer for creating more nice places within the Silicon Valley. Presently, the Silicon Valley isn't known for comfortable, walkable, and vibrant urbanism; rather, it is known for corporate office parks and car-oriented suburban development. There are great places in Silicon Valley, though, and there can be more. 

Will Electric Cars Solve All of Our Problems?

www.smartercharger.com

I recently came across an interesting post over at DC Streetsblog. It calls into question the notion that electric cars are green, and can solve our environmental problems. The article cites research that "considered the full environment costs of electric cars, including the manufacture and disposal of their batteries, which found no benefit compared to conventional cars."

Reading this reminded me of an excellent piece by the late Jane Holtz Kay called No Such Thing!  that I read in Orion Magazine back in 2001. In it, she handily dismembers the notion that electric car is "green," pointing out, among other things, that even the cleanest cars result in tremendous pollution during production, before they ever hit the showroom floor. Twelve years later, it is still worth a read.

While they are certainly cool (especially the Tesla!), and we should continue to experiment with them, it is dangerous to look at electric cars as the "silver bullet" cure to all that ails us. In America we love to solve problems by buying a new toy, but this one is not only inadequate but a distraction. 

Electric cars don't, and never will, fix following problems:

Parks: Acres or Access?

A great article just popped up over at The Atlantic Cities about parks. The article highlights work by the Trust for Public Land, which mapped park access in the fifty largest American cities. The article makes the point that cities with lower densities have a harder time providing access to parks, because fewer people are within walking distance of them. It is good, and it is short. Check it out.

Most cities have targets for parks based on acres, not access. Their goals often focus on providing a certain number of acres of parkland per 1,000 residents. The National Park and Recreation Association recommends 10 acres per 1,000 residents. This is the wrong way to look at it. I see three primary problems with this standard: 

The Renaissance of Downtown Redwood City

I wrote the following piece for cnu.org's City Spotlight. The original article can be found here. CNU's website is packed with good stuff. Check it out.

It is unknown to many urbanists, but one of the most dramatic downtown comeback stories of our generation is taking place in Redwood City, California. I have been lucky enough to serve as Redwood City’s Downtown Development Coordinator for the past ten years, and to play a role in its renaissance. This dynamic district, formerly ridiculed as “Deadwood City,” has seen an amazing turnaround due to an aggressive program of code reform, a strong investment in public spaces, and a strategy of using entertainment as a catalyzing force.

Founded in 1852 as a port on a creek leading to San Francisco Bay, Redwood City took its name from the redwood lumber that was shipped from there to build Gold Rush-era San Francisco. When San Mateo County was broken off of San Francisco County in 1856, Redwood City was designated the County seat, and the town grew slowly but steadily around shipping and government. It became one of the primary towns on the San Francisco Peninsula and had a strong downtown until the middle of the 20th century.

As with so many American downtowns, it declined with construction of nearby malls and other shopping centers. A redevelopment plan was drawn up in the 1960s to completely demolish historic districts, create superblocks, and pedestrianize primary streets. Thankfully, this plan was never implemented, and Downtown Redwood City limped through the late 20th century struggling economically, but physically intact.

The citizens of Redwood City had long desired for their Downtown to be revitalized, and steadily demanded that actions be taken to improve the area. Some good steps were taken, such as the the 1989 preservation of the former fire station and its adaptive reuse into the main city library, the construction of a new city hall in 1997, and the development two city-assisted housing projects in 1998 and 2002. Some missteps were also taken, such as the construction of a suburban-style shopping center directly next to the Downtown commuter train station in 1994. However, the turnaround really began in earnest at the turn of the millenium and is now a juggernaut. It has progressed generally as a three-phase process.

The Downtown Redwood City Development Boom Continues

JK Dineen has a nice piece over at the San Francisco Business Times about the ongoing development boom in Downtown Redwood City. The pace of development is really picking up, and the quality is great. Check out JK's article about it here.

The Sprawl Transect

The Rural to Urban Transect is a great tool. It provides a method for understanding the various types of built environments that one may encounter, from the densest downtown to the sparsely settled countryside. More importantly, it helps planners and designers to address each type of place according to its needs. A country road doesn't need curbs, gutters, and sidewalks, but a downtown street without them is hopelessly inadequate. Each type of place can be great, and the trick is to understand what zone you are in and design it appropriately. It can even be used, in a tongue-in-cheek manner, to select a wardrobe.

It can also help to lay out neighborhoods and cities. For example, the T5 zone shown above may be perfect for a neighborhood main street, whereas the residential side streets may be T4. Deeper within the city, where transit is available and jobs are clustered, the denser Transect zones should be more prevalent. Near the outside of the city, away from such amenities, the less intense Transect zones should dominate.

It has even been used as the basis for zoning and other codes. There has been quite a bit of thought put into it. If you'd like to learn more, go to www.transect.org. 

Several years ago, I developed a counter-concept that I called The Sprawl Transect. Some folks had erroneously accused the T3 zone of being sprawl, thereby accusing the Transect of accommodating sprawl. This simply isn't the case; T3 simple represents walkable low-density residential areas. These areas existed long before sprawl was a problem, and they are a great and important part of any city's land use portfolio.