[p2p-research] Walkability: check it before choosing your next home!

[Paul D. Fernhout]

M. Fioretti wrote:
> A simple way to help everybody, even people not normally interested in
> sustainability, p2p-friendly cities etc... to rethink the quality of
> their urban life:
> 
> "Walkability is a characteristic of homes and apartments that all
> their owners, or everybody considering (even in these times) buying a
> new house should know and think about."
> 
> Full text (please don't overlook the terms of use) at
> 
> http://stop.zona-m.net/livingworld/walkability-check-it-choosing-your-next-home

With rising populations, there is a need to build new cities. How about a 
new city in the USA designed for walkability? Or other aspects of 
"sustainability"? Might even be "profitable" for someone with billions of 
dollars to build one.

Google search:
   http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=sustainable+cities

Example:
   http://sustainablecitiescollective.com/

Of course, most of the focus on sustainability is on retrofitting. But, 
considering energy use, it may be better to just start over with bulldozers 
in some cases. And in any case, we do need more cities. The problem is, 
people tend to duplicate what they have come to know, so if we just know 
suburbs and such in the USA, or overcrowded city cores like Manhattan that 
otherwise might be more functional, we tend to build the wrong stuff. And 
it's not overly hard to build sustainable and humane cities. Jane Jacobs, 
for example, had lots to say about that. Still, there are some cities one 
can point to that are doing better than others. Portland, Oregon? Many Dutch 
cities with integrated walking and bicycling trails plus mass transit? 
Curtiba, Brazil? I'm sure there are many more, even as probably none of them 
are built using everything we know now.

And then, one can just focus on building sustainable "towns".

Of course, if you are going to bother building a new city or a new town, it 
is tempting to give it a new economics. :-)
   http://www.pdfernhout.net/sunrise-sustainable-technology-ventures.html

But, maybe best to do just one good thing at a time. :-)

There clearly at least is a market for new towns that are "upscale" and part 
of that is walkability:
  http://www.seasidefl.com/
  http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/Seaside.html

Example:
   http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-12482499.html
"""
Architects Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk want to replace sprawl 
with old-time neighborhoods. Trouble is, their ideas work too well.
   When Seaside's Ken and Rosemary Scoggins need their groceries, they give 
a list to their 6-year-old daughter and send her to Modica Market with her 
little red wagon. After clerks fill out the order, she signs for it and 
heads back home. Try that anywhere else and you're asking to be featured in 
a future episode of "America's Most Wanted."
   But Seaside, a retreat located just east of Fort Walton Beach in the 
Panhandle, is ...
"""

Of course, one aspect of this is "affordability". But, one can hope that it 
might trickle down as a movement...

The motivational video:
  http://www.seasidefl.com/video/video.htm

More on that town (and there are more):
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seaside,_Florida
"Seaside is often cited as the first New Urbanist development. At the time 
of Seaside's construction, Walton County had no zoning ordinance, leaving 
Seaside's founders able to plan with a comparatively free hand. In the 
absence of these regulations (e.g., minimum lot size, separation of uses), 
Duany and Plater-Zyberk (DPZ) were able to design a mixed-use development 
with densities greater than conventional suburban development. DPZ hired 
architects such as Melanie Taylor and Robert Orr to design the buildings and 
housing for the development. Seaside is primarily a resort community, 
consisting of residents who live there for months at a time as well as 
vacationers renting cottages and houses.  ... Seaside is often cited as an 
example of successful implementation of New Urbanism. Time magazine called 
it "the most astounding design achievement of its era and, one might hope, 
the most influential"[1] It has been used as a model for other new urbanist 
developments in the United States and abroad. However, some have criticized 
Seaside as being overly rigid, as the community's architectural standards 
provide strict limitations on the external aesthetics of the houses, 
resulting in conformity of style rather than creativity – which some people 
call a manufactured fantasy. Others have criticized the community for its 
lack of socioeconomic diversity, which they see as ironic given that the 
community was itself modeled on the diverse and urban neighborhoods of large 
North American cities such as New York City and San Francisco.[citation 
needed] However, Seaside (and New Urbanism more generally) has had a 
significant impact on urban planning in many cities. New Urbanist 
developments continue to proliferate across North America, and many planners 
and urban designers are beginning to understand the importance of mixed-use 
and higher density communities (see Transit-oriented development).["

But, things change when you add mass transit and so on. We really need to 
eventually upgrade our whole society, lest each town become an upscale 
prison in a sea of disaster. That's what is nice about the Netherlands. As a 
tourist, when you see a bicycle trail or a walkable town, you don't think 
"this is just for a few rich people". Even as the Netherlands is a 
relatively rich country (built in part on profits from the slave trade 
centuries ago, sadly, same as for the USA).

--Paul Fernhout
http://www.pdfernhout.net/
http://www.beyondajoblessrecovery.org/