Feb

17

Copenhagen’s Potato Rows

Filed Under Copenhagen, planning, Streets For People, Uncategorized | 4 Comments

The Potato Rows - shared streets where people are prioritized.

A daughter and father enjoying the afternoon.

A recent blog written by Justin Martin of SvR Design caught my attention and brought back some fond memories of Copenhagen. I decided to pull out my external hard drive and find my own photos of Copenhagen’s “Potato Rows” – a community of townhouses in the Østerbro neighborhood that was built in the 1800s as housing for workers and is now one of the most popular and highest-priced addresses in Copenhagen (oh, gentrification).

Examples of private open spaces buffering homes from the public street.

The Potato Rows, or Kartoffelraekkerne in Danish, features narrow streets that are utilized as a shared space between people and cars. The townhouse homes all have small gardens or courtyards that face the street, with front porches where neighbors can enjoy their private outdoor space. The private courtyard space has landscaping and short fences to buffer residents from the street activities and provide privacy, but there is a visual connection between the street and yard. When I visited the Potato Rows on a sunny afternoon, many neighbors were sitting on front steps reading a book or just enjoying the sunshine. Others were taking advantage of street furniture within the public rights-of-way.

Chalk-filled streets with people walking down the middle are the "norm" in this neighborhood.


American planners know the advantages of density, the need for a proper transition from private to public space, and the importance of encouraging homes to face the street. But, to me, the Potato Row’s shared streets are what really makes the community stand out. While the streets have “sidewalks” that are slightly above the road, most people walk down the middle of the road. This is because the sidewalks are usually where cars park or where the many street amenities, including benches, play structures, picnic tables, and landscaping, are placed.

Streets for play.

Examples of amenities that double as traffic-calming elements.

A family strolls down the middle of the street.

On these streets, people are prioritized.  This is reinforced by street furniture, play structures, and landscaping that are all placed in the streets themselves. These amenities take traffic calming to a level that I’m sure most American fire marshals would find completely unacceptable. But, the residents of the community seem to approve. And I think that is an important factor. As Danish planner and architect Jan Gehl says, places must be designed with people in mind and creating human-scaled communities is crucial. The Potato Rows stands out because of “the vibrant street life, sense of community and the walkability of the neighborhood,” making it one of the most sought-after locations in town.

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More images:

Exit condition where the road abuts a busier neighborhood collector street.

A "sidewalk" where play equipment and benches are placed.

A cat-approved street.

Dec

10

How do you define ‘Smart Growth?’

Filed Under Development, Land Use, planning, Policy | Leave a Comment

Kaid Benfield (director, Sustainable Communities and Smart Growth for the National Resources Defense Council; co-founder, LEED for Neighborhood Development rating system; co-founder, Smart Growth America coalition and author of Once There Were Greenfields and other books) has called for a reexamination of how we talk about Smart Growth, which begs the question: What does Smart Growth mean to you? There are official principles, of course, established when the term was coined, but do you have your own definition?

Via Verde affordable green housing, Bronx, NY (courtesy of Jonathan Rose Cos.)

It’s time to update the definition of “smart growth”

It has been a dozen years or so, fifteen at the most, since a broad but committed group of advocates and organizations coalesced around a shared set of beliefs that, borrowing from then-Maryland-governor Parris Glendening’s landmark legislation, we called “smart growth.”  The phrase suited the movement because it emphasized that we were not opposed to population and economic growth, but we felt it was important to accommodate it in a smarter way:  one that reduces the environmental, economic and social costs of unchecked suburban sprawl and brings investment and opportunity back to communities that had been left behind in the building boom on the fringe of our cities and metro areas.

I’m still for that and, if you’re reading this, chances are that you are, too.  But what about the particulars?  Have we learned anything in the last decade and a half, and are we sufficiently applying what we have learned?  I would say yes, and no, respectively.  I’ll get to that in a minute but, first, let’s look at where we’ve been.

Capitol Hill, Seattle (by and courtesy of Eric Fredericks, neighborhoods.org)

rural Frederick County, MD (by and courtesy of Kai Hagen)

Of all the attempts to define what the content of smart growth should be, the one that has had the most publicity and staying power has been the set of ten principles crafted in the late 1990s for the Smart Growth Network (NRDC is a co-founder).  They are expressed as imperatives, the things we should strive for in pursuit of a smart growth agenda:

  • Create a range of housing opportunities and choices
  • Create walkable neighborhoods
  • Encourage community and stakeholder collaboration
  • Foster distinctive, attractive communities with a strong sense of place
  • Make development decisions predictable, fair and cost effective
  • Mix land uses
  • Preserve open space, farmland, natural beauty and critical environmental areas
  • Provide a variety of transportation choices
  • Strengthen and direct development towards existing communities
  • Take advantage of compact building design

…More

via New Urban Network

Oct

23

Action Alert: Ensure Council Designates Funding for Bike/Ped Projects

Filed Under Bicycling, planning, Policy, Politics, Seattle, Streets For People, Sustainability, Transportation, walking | Leave a Comment

This next Monday, October 26, Seattle City Council will be considering whether or not to repeal the Employee Hours Tax (aka, the “Head Tax”). Regardless of how you feel about the repeal of the tax, the potential loss of a funding mechanism for Bridging the Gap sends a dangerous signal about Seattle’s transportation priorities. The Mayor has stated he wants to make Seattle into the most pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly city in the United States. This is the time for us to walk our talk! The improvements identified by both plans make it safer for our children to walk to school and in their neighborhood. They help our seniors to continue to be mobile. They help us reduce our reliance on the automobile and reduce our carbon footprint. They also ensure the health of our business districts and other community places.

Please email city council members today and urge them to allocate funding sources for bike and pedestrian infrastructure. And if you are free, please consider attending the city council hearing on Monday at 5:30 pm at the Council Chambers in City Hall.

Oct

21

Great City Releases Land Use White Paper

Filed Under Great City, Land Use, planning, Seattle | 1 Comment

Yesterday, Great City released a Land Use White Paper to the campaigns, city council, planning commission, and city leadership. The impetus for the paper was the belief that Seattle is being presented the urgent opportunity to be bold and visionary with its land use policy. Freshly elected officials, a new administration, and an economic recession that has temporarily slowed new development will provide the city a chance to reevaluate its current approach to planning and development.

It is Great City’s goal to widen the dialogue on land use, both during what remains of the campaign season and into a new administration. The white paper issues a broad challenge to Seattle’s leadership and citizenry while also providing some recommended strategies to create a more livable, economically vibrant, and socially just city. We look forward to working in partnership with new and existing leadership, the city, the non-profit community, and our citizens to do just this.

great_city_land-use-white-paper.pdf (Small PDF)

Seattle Sunrise photo via artslink.com