Planning Livable Communities

The Boston Globe had an article last Sunday about problems on Waltham’s redeveloped Moody Street, with some stores closing - notably the Construction Site, a unique children’s toy store and one of the district’s anchor draws (they’re going to keep an online presence only, at least for now).

“The wonderland window displays of wooden toys that once greeted shoppers who crossed the bridge over the Charles River into Moody Street’s heart are no more,” the article notes. “And the Construction Site is not the only independent enterprise to leave the street in recent months. The past year has also seen the departure of Maxima Gift Center, Harry’s Shoe Store, Brickman’s Furniture, and Lexington Music Center. ”

Why the woes? The piece says:

“A lack of unity and cooperation among business owners, the absence of an overarching plan for encouraging shopping and business in the downtown area, slow foot traffic during the day, a lack of parking in the evenings, complicated city permitting processes, the loss of large anchor stores such as Jordan’s Furniture (which left Moody Street in 2004), and not enough affluent shoppers interested in buying higher-end products.”

It’s a cautionary tale for those who believe “redevelopment” is a process with an end, as opposed to needing continued nurturing and updating. One analyst quoted in the story believed the area’s “inner city” urban issues are scaring away affluent suburbanites, but a shopowner who closed a Waltham store told the Globe that many customers weren’t from Waltham. There are plenty of residential units around, but most of those people likely work elsewhere. Are the stores open late enough at night to attract the locals? The loss of Jordan’s as an anchor store was difficult for many other businesses. What can draw people to the retail center? Is there enough variety and critical mass to appeal to locals year after year? Is there a need to try to attract more daytime businesses to the area where people working in jobs other than retail could shop there during lunchtime? Particularly as the economy softens, even successful downtowns have to work to stay that way.

“Pedestrians will be given priority over parking spaces as part of a facelift for Praia do Carvoeiro,” starts a newspaper report on renovation plans for a village in Portugal.

“We want to make this an area of beauty for people and not cars,” a spokesman for the area told The Online Resident. Adds the article:

“Parking spaces next to the square and beach are to be removed to make the entire area more pleasant for residents and visitors to walk about.”

Do you know of  many American towns where traffic flow and parking don’t take priority in planning discussions over streetscape aesthetics? And pedestrian appeal suffers.

One way to gauge whether a place has aesthetic appeal for people, as opposed to cars alone, is simply to see whether a lot of people are out walking around. If a place is walkable - it feels safe, attractive and inviting - and the weather’s good, people should be out. If they’re not, something’s wrong.

Former Milwaukee mayor John Norquist has been credited with another simple method: the “Postcard Test.” Would people want to buy a postcard of a neighborhood scene?

By the way, here’s an overview picture of Praia do Carvoeiro. However, you don’t need stunning oceanfront to pass the postcard test, as places like Concord, Mass. clearly demonstrate.

Cheap energy has had a profound impact on our communities, and I’m not talking about pollution/greenhouse/Earth Day issues. As many (including me) have written, designing our communities around the automobile has led to the pedestrian-hostile streetscapes that give us Rte. 9 aesthetic urban blight, and the need to drive our cars less than half a mile from one strip mall to another, because the walking environment is so unpleasant and unsafe. However, an article in yesterday’s New York Times magazine notes that cheap energy has had other effects on our sense of community:

“Cheap fossil fuel allows us to pay distant others to process our food for us, to entertain us and to (try to) solve our problems, with the result that there is very little we know how to accomplish for ourselves. Think for a moment of all the things you suddenly need to do for yourself when the power goes out — up to and including entertaining yourself. Think, too, about how a power failure causes your neighbors — your community — to suddenly loom so much larger in your life. Cheap energy allowed us to leapfrog community by making it possible to sell our specialty over great distances as well as summon into our lives the specialties of countless distant others.”

Now, I don’t want to go back to the days when all we were able to buy or use came from within a day’s horse and carriage ride away. But author Michael Pollan (In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto) makes an interesting point. It is cheap energy that allows us to buy food grown in South America and toys/electronics/clothing made in China, more affordable than if they were grown or manufactured close to home; just as it’s cheap energy that’s encouraged suburban sprawl by making housing more affordable 30, 40, 50 or more miles from urban job centers.

What can we do about it?

Plant gardens and grow some of our own food, Pollan urges! Sound like a small, inconsequential response? He argues passionately that “it’s one of the most powerful things an individual can do — to reduce your carbon footprint, sure, but more important, to reduce your sense of dependence and dividedness: to change the cheap-energy mind. . . . You quickly learn that you need not be dependent on specialists to provide for yourself — that your body is still good for something and may actually be enlisted in its own support.”

There’s nothing quite like the sense of satisfaction I get picking our home-grown tomatoes and basil for a summer salad, even if I’ve got to add slices of Vermont-produced cheese and a drizzle of Spanish olive oil to the plate. Not to mention, little matches the incredible sweet, juicy taste of a tomato picked fresh from the vine. It’s a completely different foodstuff from that which has been been transported thousands of miles out of season.

Being outside in the garden on a daily basis, I also see my neighbors, I notice my local environment, and I feel more connected with my neighborhood. Much moreso than if I get in the car and drive to my local super Stop & Shop, even if I run into my neighbors there.

My parents live 3 miles farther away from Manhattan’s Penn Station than I do from Boston’s South Station, so comparing commuter rail service from each home is a reasonable endeavor. Of course, New York is a much larger city, so suburbs there are more densely populated 20 miles out than they are here. So, I expect that trains run more frequently on Long Island, especially off peak  (33% more into the city between 9 am and 5 pm). And, that stations are more convenient to more people on Long Island than they are here (by the time I drive the 6 miles south to get to the Framingham commuter rail station, I could be close to one-third of the way into Boston if I headed east instead.)

However, I do expect it to take a shorter amount of time to get from Framingham to Boston by rail than it would to travel the longer distance between my parents’ home and New York City, especially since they need more stations to serve a more densely populated area. Yet it’s just a 40-minute trip on Long Island, while most trains on the Framingham line are slated at just under an hour (56 minutes).

In other words: It usually takes about 50% longer to travel a shorter distance by commuter rail in Boston’s western suburbs than on Long Island.

Shameful.

The “American dream” has often been equated to “owning a home of one’s own”; and, in the post-World War II era, that dream more specifically translated to “a move to the suburbs.” But those days are ending, argues Christopher B. Leinberger in The Atlantic.

He cites suburbs where “[v]andals have kicked in doors and stripped the copper wire from vacant houses; drug users and homeless people have furtively moved in” to make a somewhat shocking point:

“[T]he story of vacant suburban homes and declining suburban neighborhoods did not begin with the [subprime mortgage] crisis, and will not end with it. A structural change is under way in the housing market—a major shift in the way many Americans want to live and work. It has shaped the current downturn, steering some of the worst problems away from the cities and toward the suburban fringes. And its effects will be felt more strongly, and more broadly, as the years pass. Its ultimate impact on the suburbs, and the cities, will be profound.”

In other words, “[T]the pendulum is swinging back toward urban living, and there are many reasons to believe this swing will continue. As it does, many low-density suburbs and McMansion subdivisions, including some that are lovely and affluent today, may become what inner cities became in the 1960s and ’70s—slums characterized by poverty, crime, and decay.”

Sound far-fetched? Arthur C. Nelson at Virginia Tech’s Metropolitan Institue studied consumer research, housing supply data and population growth rates, Leinberger says, and then modeled future demand for various types of housing. “Nelson forecasts a likely surplus of 22 million large-lot homes (houses built on a sixth of an acre or more) by 2025—that’s roughly 40 percent of the large-lot homes in existence today.”

The good news locally: There’s never been a better time to invest in revitalizing older, more compact downtown neighborhoods, such as Framingham’s. The plan to beef up downtown’s walkability environment could pay even greater dividends than if, as I’d wished, it had been tried 10 or 20 years ago.

Some still argue that “market demand” is responsible for the boom in exurban McMansions and other car-oriented suburban development patterns. But actually, as I and many others have argued, it is local zoning regulations which are responsible. It’s typically much tougher for a developer to build mixed-use cluster zoning on suburban land than a residential-only subdivision with quarter- or half-acre zoning.

Look at the price per square foot of various housing option, notes Leinberger, a real estate developer and professor of urban planning at the University of Michigan. You’ll see what the free market values now:

“Twenty years ago, urban housing was a bargain in most central cities. Today, it carries an enormous price premium. Per square foot, urban residential neighborhood space goes for 40 percent to 200 percent more than traditional suburban space in areas as diverse as New York City; Portland, Oregon; Seattle; and Washington, D.C.

“It’s crucial to note that these premiums have arisen not only in central cities, but also in suburban towns that have walkable urban centers offering a mix of residential and commercial development. For instance, luxury single-family homes in suburban Westchester County, just north of New York City, sell for $375 a square foot. A luxury condo in downtown White Plains, the county’s biggest suburban city, can cost you $750 a square foot. . . . People are being drawn to the convenience and culture of walkable urban neighborhoods across the country—even when those neighborhoods are small.”

When we were looking to buy a house in the mid-’80s, outer suburbs like Southborough, Acton and Stow were still affordable and exurbs beyond were cheap. But having grown up in a dense, walkable community just over the New York City line, I couldn’t stand the thought of having to get in my car and drive 10 miles roundtrip to a strip mall just to pick up a quart of milk. On the other hand, after six years of apartment living (and hearing my neighbors clearly on the other side of the walls), I wanted a bit of breathing space between my own home and my neighbors.

That’s why the Saxonville neighborhood of Framingham ended up as the perfect balance for me. I could walk to the library, post office and grocery store (now a hardware store, but at least there’s a convenience store), not to mention take-out pizza and Chinese. But there’s still some buffer between my house and others.

Over the past couple of decades, while it was the best lifestyle choice for us, it didn’t look like the best investment choice. Property values in some exurban towns have soared more than older, mixed-income communities like Framingham. Now, though, I’m even happier I’m here. Instead of missing out on the great-flight-to-the-exurbs trend, it looks like Framingham is in sync with current and future market forces - if that long-discussed downtown revitalization comes to pass.

Framingham was qualified for half a million in federal money for its Downtown Streetscape Improvement Project, according to Congressman Ed Markey and State Rep. Pam Richardson. The money will go toward “streetscape improvements throughout the Downtown area including periodic streetlight installation, installation of pedestrian-scale lighting, sidewalk and walkway construction, installation of street furniture, and landscaping,” Rep. Richardson said in an e-mail.

This is great news, as a more pedestrian-friendly streetscape is absolutely critical for downtown revitalization plans. It’s nice to see serious local, state and federal attention on this key issue.

Residents have proposed creating a network of walking and cycling paths in Cohasset, Hull, Hingham, Norwell, and Scituate, the Boston Globe reports. The idea is to be both recreational — so people can enjoy green space — and for actual transportation, to link up to parks and waterfronts as well as ferry and train stations.

“All of these communities have some beautiful open spaces,” Judeth Van Hamm, president of Sustainable South Shore, which first proposed the idea, according to the Globe.

“Proponents say a South Shore Greenway would build on substantial progress already made by the towns,” the Globe says. “The plan would join the corridors and fill in gaps where needed.”

Sustainable South Shore, have worked with the Conway School of Landscape Design to create a specific plan.

Local businesses are also on board; the greenway study is backed by Cohasset Cycle Sports and Jake’s Seafood Restaurant in Hull, as well as Sustainable South Shore and Scituate’s People for Active Transportation and Health.

“The idea is to link all these treasures that we have,” Van Hamm told the Globe. “There will be a map; people can follow it.”

The Boston Globe last week gave an approving nod to Hudson’s Adaptive Reuse Overlay District zoning, which makes it easier for the owners of old mills downtown to revamp the buildings for mixed commercial/residential use.

The zoning change will not qualify for subsidies under the state’s 40R Smart Growth program. That program requires rather high density levels for developments near mass transit. Many communities are leery of those high density requirements, and with good reason. “The smaller size project was more appropriate to our needs,” Hudson Executive Assistant Paul Blazar told the Globe.

That’s the right approach. No statewide program with a single density level can be a good fit for every community, and 40R probably make more sense for more urban neighborhoods. Meanwhile, the Globe points out,  “the town has taken other steps to make its downtown more appealing. The 5-mile long Assabet River Rail Trail connects the downtown with Marlborough, and has become a popular recreation site for walkers, bicyclists, and skaters.”

Although I’ve never lived in Hudson, I was a reporter there for several years and am familiar with its compact downtown. Like Framingham’s, Hudson’s downtown was theoretically walkable but the streetscape and street crossings discouraged park-once, walk-to-many strolling. Plus, there wasn’t much pedestrian street life, which more downtown residences could help fix.  Without an appealing streetscape, new residences won’t do much for pedestrian activity, which is why in Hudson now, “a walkway along the canal is lined with period light posts, which have also been installed along the town’s Main Street,” the Globe notes. “The town has secured facade-improvement grants for several of its downtown buildings. Businesses themselves have also chipped in, helping to landscape the rotary in the town’s center and installing flower boxes along an alley connecting Main Street and South Street.”

Without improvements like this, no one wants to walk around. These are things Framingham must consider along with zoning for things like condos at the old Dennison plant. The way the downtown streetscape appears now, few people would want to walk from Dennison to restaurants and shops just a few blocks away.