Article 13, It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood...August 1, 2014

Frantic Freeway by Spike Jones

Watching is optional!

"It's a beautiful day in this neighborhood, A beautiful day for a neighbor, Would you be mine? Could you be mine?.......Won't you please, Won't you please, Please won't you be my neighbor?" (Excerpt from Mr. Rogers Neighborhood song)  I barely know my neighbors, sure I know the next door neighbor

Wondering how lovely a neighborhood could really be...

those across the street from me but there it ends. Why don't most of us know our neighbors? Speak for yourself  "Mr. unsociable", I know all my neighbors! OK, so some of you know many of your neighbors but I bet my bottom dollar that is not the case with most Americans. So what's wrong with people or is there something wrong with our neighborhoods? I'm not a psychologist so let's focus on what's wrong with our neighborhoods. I know there are many of you who love your neighborhood, many who don't care one way or the other, and many who know no other way and believe that this is a natural way of living and embrace it; after all you were born into it, make the best of it! To those people I say fine: As in psychology a problem is only a problem if it causes you distress. So to the rest of you, maybe you're tired of the endless traffic, the non existent peaceful Sunday drives, no sidewalks to take a stroll on or parks for our youth to play in, no local civic centers or theaters or museums to visit, not knowing most of your neighbor's because it's impossible to walk safely down the street and then there is my favorite: the symphony of lawn mowers and leaf blowers wailing throughout the neighborhood, who the hell wants to hear birds chirping anyway? These are just a few things that are not pleasant with many neighborhoods.  MOVE? Well I could keep moving further away from the city as many are doing but you're basically just expanding sprawl with that mentality. Moving to the country side or a further away place is difficult as well. Many of us are financially strapped to a good paying job that we simply cannot leave or don't want to commute hours to.  Many of us have extended family in the area where we live and do not want to leave them. Maybe we truly like the area where we live and put up with all the negatives but wish it was better. So for this article let's take the position we are not moving but improving.

Buckhead, Atlanta GA

One fundamental problem with modern day neighborhoods (not Buckhead of course!) is they are just a collection of speculative built homes where homeowners and civic minded people are not involved (for the most part) in the planning. These homes and developments are built by speculators and investors bulldozing sites with no respect or regard for the environment, or people's input and only care to maximize profit (see my GAIA article). These "homes" are sometimes built by the hundreds forming instant soulless neighborhoods called "Sub-Divisions". The soulless qualities of the planning often trickles down and shapes the soulless living within these neighborhoods. There is no reason why developing sites cannot coexist with their surroundings, instead they bully there way in without regard to the fabric of the landscape, how people live beyond their front yard and ignore preserving the natural beauty of the area. Although there is much not too like about the planning of these neighborhoods there is much worth fighting for. So the answer is not to simply move and forget the problem but to force building agencies to better regulate this senseless construction based primarily on profit rather than community welfare. I know your screaming, "that's all we need is more regulations!" Don't worry, I'm not here to slow the economic growth machine down, although I do believe we need more protective laws. I won't suggest any, instead I will focus on how to make a community more like a collective organism rather than a bunch of amoeba's bouncing off each other. Sprawl for now, is here to stay. Programs like open space preservation, zoning and other remedies can slow down the expansion people seem to need but it won't stop it; People's needs will always come first for the better or the worse, hopefully improving the community will become one of those needs. Here are on Long Island it is interesting to see what sprawl has replaced: Farm fields, Race tracks built by Vanderbilt, dozens of historic airfield's including the one where Lindbergh himself took off from. These sites are now lost forever, shame, shame shame.

                                                                           

                                                                                 

Roosevelt Field Before and after. For more info visit this site:

NY/Airfields_NY_LongIsland_Nassau 

 So putting aside sprawl and concentrating on what aspects of sprawl can be dealt with in a realistic way, my number one concern, which will be the most difficult to contend with, is road design.  Unfortunately convenience, entitlement, and sheer irrational thinking such as "Because I said so" mentality will stymie all efforts to change our current mode of thinking when it comes to road design. Not until we have a social re-awaking will things change but until then let me tell you what I think is wrong and how I think things could be done better.  Our road ways (let me stick to our neighborhood streets for now) should not be "thru" ways to escape traffic jams, short cuts, or convenient race ways. Many a home owner raising a family are hampered in and do not feel comfortable having their kids play in the front yard, go for a bike ride or walk down the street. They are simply frustrated with cars zooming by their home at high rates of speeds. Residential roads are being used as short cuts to avoid congestion on the more heavily used road ways and often used to avoid traffic and volume on the main roads. The Planning of any community should take into consideration local access only and stop the high speed short cutting. This will mean of course more dead ends, cul-de-sacs, extra feeder roads and more clever planning but well worth the effort for a safer and a more socially inviting community, AHHH, now I can walk (or bike ride)  down the road to a neighbors house, or simply go for a nice walk without fear of someone mowing me down because they are cutting through my neighborhood! By the way the converse works as well; do not allow residential homes to be built along highways, or roads with speeds greater than 35 mph speed limit. It's amazing that someone trying to back out of or pull into their driveway with freeway like traffic zipping by thinks that is a good thing.  These are simple considerations that don't cost much, should be not too hard to incorporate in our road planning and could instantly improve the quality of life for millions of people at least on Long Island where I live.

Southampton Village

While we are on the subject of speed let's move this discussion to the village road ways and for all of you who want the "village"  feel to make a come back to your town. If this is to happen speed limit must be strictly controlled, no questions asked.  I have worked in a village for many years , Southampton Village and have observed what makes this place extremely successful from a use point of view and that is they have reigned in traffic and speed control. You cannot have a vibrant active village life with cars driving by at great speed, it's just unsafe, unpleasant and too transient. There is no sense of welcome or leisure or wanting to be around a place where things are moving around them at high rates of speed on the road or parking lot, that's a strip mall design. A well regulated and controlled flow of traffic allows for pedestrians to safely cross a road at a cross walk, cars to park on the street, and for people to actively use the sidewalks and shops without worrying if a car flying down the road at 90 mph will jump the curb and strike them. When traffic is controlled shops and stores can be built closer to the street which is more inviting for pedestrians who don't like to walk across busy parking lots. It also encourages sidewalk activity such as window shopping, socializing and strolls. Before you show me great designs to revive a village first tell me how you design the roads and control the speed limit and I will show you a beautiful village that will practically self design.

Moving off road, I will make my most controversial "alternative" proposal that in my ideal world would be a must. Planners must include nature and the environment in their design; wow how alternative is that. What! We cannot just bulldoze nature, we need to spend additional money because of your sensitivities to the poor plants and animals? Well additional money yes but more than you think because we are not just building better infrastructure but also educating the public on the subject. OK nothing new here, proponents on how best to protect and save the environment are out there with great ideas so I will defer to them.  With that said my great proposal would be to provide "Land Bridges" or "Nature Bridges" and tunnels for animal migratory patterns and allow them to get from one place to the other without having to cross busy highways. This is already in existence but not in wide use (see image below). These types of bridges should be mandatory in places that are overly developed or encroach on wildlife areas. Mainly they are being built for bear but even in suburban and urban areas these should be built for smaller animals found throughout the country. You want me to pay for an infrastructure that allows animals to roam free as they please? YES, time to start thinking of others. Mitigating the impact of roads on the environment is not a major consideration for engineers who primarily design for motor vehicles and not much more. Of course there are those who will tell you we need safer and better pedestrian and bike path design first but we also need road ways that respect the environment. When we incorporate this type of design thinking and consider nature and wild life we the people get added benefits that would allow us greater recreational use of open space and nature that is currently cut to ribbons by criss crossing roadways creating strips of land that are of no use or value to anyone. Time to reclaim our homeland once again.  Not only would we connect habitats, imagine not having to drive to far away places to hike a trail, camp, mountain bike, we could enjoy nature once again, locally. It would be a dream of mine if one day a person could hike from Manhattan to Montauk without having to cross a single street, neighborhood or freeway. Right now it is impossible to do so. Someone start the Manhattan to Montauk Trail or the MMT campaign!

On the border between Montana and Canada, 44 natural overpasses form the world's largest network of crossings

Nature Bridges

So moving from roads my next order of concern is site development and an engineering philosophy I learned about in a seminar called LID, which stands for Low Impact Development. (yes I know, how lame to have learned about something so valuable in a seminar and then share bits of it on a blog) Now I am no expert in this field but it should be truly a practice of the future and  implemented everywhere if we are to preserve and save what's left of our beautiful country. LID is simply site development that is not clear cutting, bulldozing and paving over with an "end of the pipe" mentality. It is an alternative to conventional "hard" engineering site development and uses instead "soft engineering" working with the natural aspects of the site and it's natural characteristics to it's best advantage. I have to admit I'm at a loss why this not more adopted by building agencies as this method is less destructive to sites and the environment and in most cases cheaper for developers. I don't blame builders for not implementing this because they are unaware of such  methods but if I told a builder you can legally save thousands of dollars by planting trees and shrubs rather than costly hardscaping, I think they would adopt it immediately. The University of Arkansas has an excellent book on the subject, I highly recommend it: LID Manual

LID  Design , University of Arkansas Community Design Center. (Courtesy UACDC)

Throwing everything at this article including the kitchen sink we now get to my pet peeve, which is the overhead electrical grid delivery system. Those nasty overhead wire and poles are the biggest eye sore to any community.  Now may be our chance to convert our current antiquated systems which hurricane's seem to take out for us, as we prepare to integrate new energy sources and delivery systems into our infrastructure which will include electric charging stations for electric cars, wind turbines, solar and other sources (Damn hippies!)

Architect Denied would like to propose the Long Island Monorail Express (The LIME) right over the Long Island Expressway, or in the median. OK a little fantasy here. We already have a Monorail from Jamaica to JFK which is pretty cool but a central system that branches to all parts of the island would be the way of the future. In other parts of the country I hear such systems are failing and no one is using them but I don't know the details of those failures if indeed they are failing. I suppose the success of this system would derive from the economics of it, ease of use and freedom from gridlock. Here on Long Island the main highways serve millions with basically one way in one way out with nasty traffic most everywhere you go. Many commute to the city on LIRR train system but that is over crowded and a bit slow (I do love trains). If a Monorail could directly access places a train currently cannot like housing developments, shopping centers, airports (JFK already does this) hospitals the ease and economics of this type public transportation might just work. The balance would have to shift dramatically in favor of public transportation because right now it's a loosing battle against the automobile which has two major advantageous that public transportation cannot provide; privacy and a much better and flexible schedule; come and go as you want. Maybe a personal pod in the Monorail car itself and shorter wait times could solve this imbalance but I will leave that for another discussion. So what does the future time traveler have to say about all this? Monorail, pure fantasy? In societies of the future senseless automobile fatalities (which people conveniently accept as a fact of life, result in more deaths than any current war being waged), and the wasted life time sitting in traffic will be a thing of the past. Neighborhoods and homes will evolve and change because the wonderful world of sprawl and the single family home is not sustainable. In the future, society will be divided into two groups: the child like Eloi and the ape like troglodytes, the Morlocks. How do I know? HG Wells said so. OK so you have nothing to worry about right now but be aware that you are either a Morlock or an Eloi, whether you know it or not! How do you know which are you? Read the above article again and if you find yourself disagreeing with most of these points, you will have your answer. (So self serving my arguments!)

HG Wells, The Time Machine

Finally we have an "end of article optional viewing video" for your enjoyment. Just as I start every architect denied article with an optional viewing video (to set the mood of course) here is a piece called,  "Subdivisions"  from a famous rock band of the past. I quote, "Any escape might help disprove the unattractive truth But the suburbs have no charms to soothe the restless dreams of youth..."