Density and Pedestrianism Go Hand-In-Hand

The Overhead Wire has already written about this article, and it is indeed worth a read. Short and to the point, author Matt Fikse lays out several reasons why a lot of new development fails, and makes a strong implicit connection between the ambiguous measure of "success" and active pedestrian activity.

To paraphrase, the list of traits Fikse finds contribute to the "livability" of a neighborhood includes:

• High density
• Low-rise
• Smaller linear scale of buildings, blocks, streets
• More and smaller units in those buildings
• High vertical ground level spaces
• Mixture of uses in close proximity

Some of these ideas, notably mixed-use buildings and high density, have been fashionable in urban planning circles for a long time. But others, like small units and low-rise buildings, have still only been embraced by a tiny minority of policy makers. And most new development suffers for lack of those qualities

Some local examples after the jump.

Third Street in Mission Bay

King Street

These are the street scenes I pictured when I read the following quote from the Crosscut post:

Stand in the shadow of any giant residential megablock in Seattle and you can't help but wonder: Isn't there a better way to do this? The reality of massive buildings now being auctioned off at fire-sale prices seems proof that bigness alone is neither necessary nor sufficient a condition for successful development in Seattle.

Granted, these buildings are new and as yet un- or under-occupied. But that's a symptom of the problem. These buildings both happen to be on very expensive rail lines, which should be a draw to the people who politicians, developers, and planners would love to see renting them out and milling about them. Knowing, as many Muni and Caltrain riders do, that it would be easy for them to get to these buildings, why aren't they going?

Let's look at some examples of San Francisco's most active and pleasant spaces:

Grant Street, Union Square shopping district

2nd Street and Natoma

It's somewhat difficult to directly compare the scale in the 'bad' and 'good' examples, but I hope the distinctions are clear. First, there are people in the street. The streets shown in the latter two photos are not directly served by transit at all, and they're absolute nightmares to drive or bike along, yet people make their way there.

I submit that one reason for the number of people in each picture is the number of things you see for them to do. There is one thing to do in the only building pictured in the first photo; two or three in the second. I'd guess there are a dozen or so stores and offices in the foreground buildings shown in each of the third and fourth photos, despite being several stories shorter.

The number of things to do seems to be proportional to the number of buildings on a given block, not the size of the block itself or even the height of the building. The shorter distances that people need to walk between narrower buildings seem to be just as enticing as the perceived safety and ease of the shorter time needed to cross narrower streets.

The rich public spaces around2nd and Howard Streets and Union Square are left over from when cities were built on the pedestrian scale by accident. But they can teach us lessons about what kind of spaces people really prefer to spend time in - lessons that policy makers can learn in order to make good cities by design.

Using more of the land for living instead of driving, and finding ways to realize pleasant smaller-scale ideas are essential. While the megablocks languish for tenants and buyers, a bit of something like Amsterdam's Jordaan built in the heart of Seattle could find a payoff in livability, quality of life, and the desirability of the neighborhood. -Matt Fikse

And in San Francisco as well.