city-building 101

The city as ecosystem: decoupling economic development from environmental impact. Designing Dongtan from the ground up.

educating a generation of sprawlers

If you want to raise unhealthy children who are going to perpetuate urban sprawl, then look for the cheapest land for schools, make sure they are segregated from the community, encourage parents to drive their children to school, and lock down the buildings at 3 o'clock. That's how it's done in Canada. Any questions?

I have mentioned schools before.

we need bold, integrated planning

Intensification of development is generally good for maximising use of existing infrastructure and benefitting from economies of scale for everything from water supply and wastewater management to transportation infrastructure and public transport services. But there are risks. Politicians often behave as if any development is good development and the property taxes will cover costs, but Toronto is facing a challenge in funding the infrastructure needed to accommodate growth.

Apart from political intervention, the problem for transport planning is that behaviour doesn't always follow the plan. For example, growth aimed at providing passengers for public transport can backfire: if you plan for high densities around public transport stations, but still find that people use cars instead of public transport, then you have just made the situation worse. This is the conundrum faced by planners who want to support pro-transit policy, but often the problem is half-hearted implementation and lack of a cohesive plan to make sure everything is working towards a common goal.

buildings in context

The original LEED program (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) rates single buildings for sustainability, but pretty much ignores a building's context. Now LEED for Neighborhood Development, or LEED-ND, "will place the emphasis on the elements that bring the buildings together into a neighborhood, and relate the neighborhood to its larger region and landscape."

[Grist on 12 October 2006: 'Hood Intentions]

land shortage has an upside

South Africa is experiencing a property boom, and developers say that municipalities are not keeping up with spatial planning to guide development.

The shortage of land zoned and ready for development has implications for urban sprawl and the ability of authorities to achieve planning objectives. Cape Town has done strategic planning, but economic development chief Steve Boshoff says the City has very little interaction with developers, or coordination between municipalities.

The good news is that the shortage of rising cost of land has supported brownfield development and urban regeneration of inner cities in Durban, Johannesburg and Cape Town. The downside is that there is inadequate control over development of affordable housing and mixed-use development; and the pressure for sprawl continues.

[reported in Financial Mail, 31 March 2006]

big box schools

Schools are becoming like “big box” stores – larger, with greater distances between them, resulting in a reduction in walking and cycling to school. Here are some articles on aspects of school location and transportation, including a discussion of vehicle emissions and technologies related to school buses.

transport modelling as a behavioural science

Computer simulation models have been a staple of transportation planning for years, predicting traffic demand to help government agencies establish priorities for improving the transportation system. Generally these models don't take into account the complexities of urban transportation decisions, the interaction between where people live and work, and how we travel to work and other destinations. As a result they tend to be rather rudimentary tools for road network planning. In most cases the models develop travel patterns from an assumed distribution of land uses: land use decisions are an input to the model rather than part of the model process itself.

The University of Toronto is now collaborating with other Canadian universities in the development of an Integrated Land Use, Transportation, Environment Modeling System (ILUTE). This model looks at the behavioural aspects of land development, location choice, auto ownership and activity/travel - and the interaction between these components. For example, land use evolves in response to location needs of households and firms, and people relocate their homes and/or jobs at least partially in response to accessibility factors. In modelling travel, ILUTE adopts an explicit activity-based approach, in which travel derives from the need to participate in activities, and the spatial/temporal pattern of travel is the dynamic outcome of each person's activity scheduling/re-scheduling process.

This approach should help improve the sustainability of communities by providing a planning tool that is better tuned to travel needs and current policy requirements. The model developers intend to make this available for municipalities to assist with transportation planning, but there is a lot of work still to be done.

Footnote: There are a number of software models that integrate land use and transportation planning, but most of them, like the ILUTE model, are developed in an academic environment and are not widely used. An exception is the MEPLAN model developed by Marcial Echenique and Partners in the UK. This one has been in use for many years, and one of its applications has been with the ongoing (since 1996) Cambridge Futures project.

need more focus on sprawl

The Province of Ontario currently has in force a 1996 Policy Statement that has been criticized for effectively "requiring municipalities to facilitate urban sprawl by maintaining perpetually expanding supplies of developable land." As reported in the October 20, 2004 issue of Novae Res Urbis (GTA Edition), a revised Provincial Policy Statement proposed this year is attempting to reduce sprawl by increasing intensification and redevelopment. However, the Pembina Institute believes that the June 2004 draft does not go far enough in providing incentives that would reduce greenfield development.

The institute has proposed greater focus on the utilization of development capacity, as opposed to simple land availability. Development capacity should be "defined to include both the potential for redevelopment of existing urban areas, and development potential of the currently undeveloped portions of settlement areas designated in official plans." The institute says development potential should also be determined by considering a minimum density requirement for expansions beyond the existing urban area and for transit corridors. The province's Places to Grow document proposes that 40% of growth over the next 10 years should be within current urban boundaries, but is not clear on how to define, target or monitor urban intensification.

transit-oriented vs transit ready development

A concept closely tied to the ideas of new urbanism is that developments should be designed to support transit through considerations such as density, mix of uses, walkability, and location in relation to transit services. Transit-oriented developments (TODs), as they are called, are still the exception, rather than the rule, but a study released in August 2004 shows that more than 100 have been built in the US. The report, Transit-Oriented Development in the United States: Experiences, Challenges and Prospects, shows that TOD boosts transit ridership and increases land values.

As reported in the October/November 2004 edition of New Urban News, the TOD report "cites specific new urban projects as evidence of a shift in the relationship between transit and development." An interesting finding is that the most dramatic changes may be achieved on greenfield sites, which suggests that where sprawl cannot be avoided, there are still opportunities to mitigate some of its negative impacts. The report contends that there is the possibility of inducing suburban residents to ride transit through design and proximity. However:

The problem with this strategy is that the opportunities for immediate transit connections are rare on greenfield sites. The report therefore recommends making developments on these sites "transit ready" - meaning that they should not only have sufficient density and walkability, but also a plan that considers the location and right of way for potential transit.

energy objectives in planning policy

Western Australia's Draft Liveable Neighbourhoods Edition 3 policy, updated in October 2004, is an innovative, performance-based approach to urban planning. It operates as a development control policy, or code, to facilitate the development of sustainable communities.

One area where this policy departs from the norm is in specifying how communities can reduce energy consumption. The Community Design section acknowledges that "street and lot orientation and lot dimensions should facilitate the siting and design of dwellings that can minimize non-renewable energy use and be appropriate for the climatic conditions."

The Lot Layout section goes further in encouraging lot design that allows for climate-responsive dwellings. Recognizing the different climatic zones in Western Australia, the policy suggests that "correctly orientated lots should have guidelines specifying appropriate building setback from the northern property boundary to enable good winter sun access to suitably located and sized windows." The guidelines provide a rating system that "scores" dwellings for solar access based on lot orientation and width. Lots in temperate climates should be oriented to facilitate siting of dwellings and private open space to take advantage of winter solar access and summer sun deflection. Lots in hot humid and hot arid climates should be oriented to facilitate the siting of dwellings to take advantage of micro-climate benefits, including cooling breezes, shading and canopy vegetation.

I have not seen Australian residential subdivisions, but in southern Ontario (Canada) most - if not all - new subdivisions completely ignore these principles. Developers are not responsive to the climate or the site itself, typically clearing trees and topsoil and establishing street and lot layouts that provide the greatest cost efficiency within municipal requirements. Many have single-dwelling lots where houses are only a few feet apart: too close for solar access in the winter and for cooling breezes in the humid summer, and no benefit from the winter heat savings that would accrue if the houses were actually attached. The result is greater consumption of energy for heating and cooling.