Urban Planning. 1 of 6. Smart growth in shrinking communities

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1 This website would like to remind you: Your browser (Apple Safari 4) is out of date. Update your browser for more security, comfort and the best experience on this site. Article Urban Planning Smart growth in shrinking communities For the complete article with media resources, visit: BY MARY SCHONS Monday, August 29, 2011 Urban planners are people who direct the development of cities and towns. Urban planners are sometimes called city planners. Many urban planners work for local government, although some advise nonprofit and community groups on ways to best grow and develop their cities. Most cities, however, are not growing. Urban areas are losing population. The 2010 U.S. Census showed population growth slowed in 14 of the 15 largest urban centers. The challenge for many urban planners has become not how to plan for growth, but what should be done with vacant city land left behind when people or businesses move away. Urban planning got its start in the U.S. in the late 19th century. At the time, many cities were dirty, overcrowded places. Illnesses such as cholera, yellow fever, typhoid, and influenza spread rapidly. City planners at the time thought spreading people as far away as they could from industry, with its foul odors and air pollution, would make them healthier. City governments created laws called zoning ordinances to keep people, business, and industry separate from one another. Moving farther away from their jobs meant people relied more heavily on cars to get where they needed to go. Starting in the 1920s, increased dependency on cars led to more traffic and air pollution. Walking to do daily errands became more difficult when neighborhoods and shops were spread too far apart to visit in one trip. Several recent studies have linked city planning to issues of obesity and public health, said Jason Satori of Integrated Planning Consultants. When we design cities in ways that require people to drive rather than walk, and when we design streets that make biking dangerous, we discourage people from engaging in physical activity. Making Cities Bike-Friendly Today, cities around the world are making their streets friendlier to bikes and pedestrians by passing laws restricting car travel. Vienna, Austria; Munich, Germany; and Copenhagen, Denmark, are closing entire streets to car traffic. Barcelona, Spain, and Paris, France, have dedicated more of their streets to bike traffic. Drivers in London, England, and Stockholm, Sweden, pay a fee when they drive into the city. Making cities less friendly to cars makes people more likely to walk, ride a bicycle, or use public transportation. Chicago, Illinois, is one U.S. city that s on its way to becoming more bike-friendly. 1 of 6

2 The city is opening its first protected bike lane (on Kinzie Avenue). It will have soft plastic posts and a special lane to protect cyclists from heavy downtown traffic. Alderman Proco "Joe" Moreno, who represents Chicago s First Ward, has proposed removing one lane of car traffic and devoting it to bike travel. The city's Bloomingdale Trail is transforming an abandoned rail line into a park and bike trail that will be ready for use by Mayor Rahm Emanuel has pledged to build 25 miles of bike lanes for each year he's in office. We need to recognize that streets are public spaces too, and not merely channels for moving as many vehicles as quickly as possible, said Tom Vanderbilt, the author of Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do. The car will continue to exist, but should be treated as a renter of the city, not its landlord. Mixed-Use Communities Other cities are reducing the amount of time spent in cars by creating a mixture of shops, housing, and public transportation in the same neighborhood. These communities, called mixed-use communities, enable residents to live, work, and shop with less reliance on an automobile. The Civano project in Tucson, Arizona, and the resort village of Loreto Bay in Baja California Sur, Mexico, are planned neighborhoods designed to use city space more wisely and reduce sprawl. Joanna Trotter is the community development director for the Metropolitan Planning Council, a nonprofit organization dedicated to shaping a more sustainable and prosperous Chicago region. She grew up in a mixeduse community in Portland, Oregon. My mother never owned a car, she says. We used public transportation to get where we needed to go and lived in a neighborhood where people of different incomes lived on the same block. When I moved away from home, to Atlanta [Georgia], Los Angeles [California], and finally Chicago, I began to see how not typical my city was compared to the rest of the country. Today, Trotter helps manage the Gary and Region Investment Project (GRIP), which works with communities in the greater Chicago area. Cities like Gary, Indiana, and Flint and Detroit, Michigan, all were planned to be bigger than they actually were, says Trotter. Gary, Indiana, was originally planned for 200,000 people. The closest the city ever got to that number was in 1950 when it had 178,320 people. Today, Gary has 80,000 people less than it did in Planning includes better housing and transportation, as well as parks and rivers that are clean and available for use by the public, says Trotter. We are preparing Gary not for growth, but for stabilization. We were working with the city to find projects that will attract businesses and strengthen the urban core. At a 2010 GRIP event, Northwest Indiana residents met to vote on a series of projects they feel would help the community the most. Expansion of the Gary/Chicago International Airport received the most votes. Another project high on the list was improvements along Gary s metro rail stop. Airports and train stations bring in a lot of people, explains Trotter. They also bring restaurants, hotels, cargo, and shipping companies. These are jobs not directly connected to airports or railroads but would come about because people need those services. Community Gardens City planners are increasingly looking at growing food within city limits as a way to use vacant land. Urban agriculture and community gardens have gained popularity in recent years as people want to purchase food that's 2 of 6

3 grown closer to where they live. Places like Flint and Chicago are leading the way in buying land that would normally be purchased by private owners. In the Haddington neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a nonprofit called the Urban Tree Connection bought two-thirds of an acre of derelict land in the 1990s. Today, the Neighborhood Food Central Production Farm grows potatoes, bok choy, collards, and cabbage. Growing Power Inc. has urban gardens in Chicago and in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. NeighborSpace works in partnership with the city of Chicago to allow community groups to grow gardens in the city. Kathy Dickhut is head of Chicago's Sustainable Development Division and a NeighborSpace board member. The Sustainable Development Division provides assistance to Chicago residents who want to grow plants and fish in hoop houses. Hoop houses are mini-greenhouses that protect plants from the elements. Plastic sheets cover half-circle hoops of metal or plastic tubing. The practice of raising fish and plants in a hoop house or greenhouse is called aquaponics. "In hoop houses, crops like kale can be grown 10 months out of the year, even in a Chicago climate," Dickhut says. Chicago Mayor Emanuel recently proposed an ordinance that would allow the city's 14,000 empty lots to be used in urban agriculture. The new ordinance would allow community gardens to expand to half an acre, would relax strict fencing and parking rules around urban gardens, and would allow food to be sold that was grown in an aquaponic environment. Some urban farming practices use even less land, allowing shrinking cities to be sustainable. Vertical farming is the practice of growing food in high-rise buildings. Dickson Despommier is a professor of environmental sciences and microbiology at Columbia University and an advocate of vertical farming. By growing food hydroponically, or off the land grid, large tracts of farmland can then be abandoned, allowing them to revert to their ecological purpose, he says. Hardwood forests would return, and high-rise buildings would take over the job of feeding the city, he says. VOCABULARY Term Part of Speech Definition abandoned adjective deserted. air pollution harmful chemicals in the atmosphere. alderman elected member of a local governing body, such as a city council. aquaponics practice of raising and cultivating both fish and plants in a single environment, such as a greenhouse. assistance help or aid. bok choy plant, related to cabbage, whose stalks and leaves are eaten as a vegetable. cargo goods carried by a ship, plane, or other vehicle. cholera infectious, sometimes fatal disease that harms the intestines. climate all weather conditions for a given location over a period of time. 3 of 6

4 collard leafy green plant, related to kale, eaten as a vegetable. community garden single piece of land cultivated and maintained by a group of people. derelict adjective abandoned or neglected. development construction or preparation of land for housing, industry, or agriculture. ecology branch of biology that studies the relationship between living organisms and their environment. elements plural weather or climate. enable verb to empower or allow. errand small task or chore. fee price or cost. food material, usually of plant or animal origin, that living organisms use to obtain nutrients. government system or order of a nation, state, or other political unit. greenhouse building, often made of glass or other clear material, used to help plants grow. hardwood the strong, dense wood, of flowering trees. hoop house greenhouse with plastic sheets draped over half-circles of metal or plastic tubing. hydroponics cultivation of plants by growing them in nutrient solutions instead of soil. industry activity that produces goods and services. influenza contagious disease, characterized by fever, exhaustion, and difficulty breathing. Also called the flu. kale leafy green vegetable. land grid method of dividing a specific area of land into smaller parcels by using a system of north-south and east-west lines. landlord owner of an area of land where others occupy space and pay rent. metro, adjective subway or train used for public transportation. microbiology study of the structure, function, and behavior of microscopic organisms. mixed-use community development of an area for more than one purpose, such as housing (residential) and shopping (retail). neighborhood an area within a larger city or town where people live and interact with one another. nonprofit organization business that uses surplus funds to pursue its goals, not to make money. obesity medical condition where excess body fat increases risk for disease and death. ordinance law or rule. overcrowd verb to fill an area with too many objects or organisms. pedestrian, adjective person who travels by walking. 4 of 6

5 population total number of people or organisms in a particular area. professor highest-ranking teacher at a college or university. prosperous adjective financially successful. public adjective available to an entire community, not limited to paying members. public health services that protect the health of an area, particularly sanitation, immunization, and environmental safety. Rahm Emanuel (1959-present) American politician and current mayor of Chicago. rail line railroad line, or a road having a permanent line of fixed rails for trains to use. rapidly adverb fast. reliance dependence. restrict verb to limit. revert verb to return to a formar state of being or acting. shipping transportation of goods, usually by large boat. sprawl unregulated growth of an urban area. sustainable adjective able to be continued at the same rate for a long period of time. sustainable development human construction, growth, and consumption that can be maintained with minimal damage to the natural environment. town human settlement larger than a village and smaller than a city. tract area of land. traffic movement of many things, often vehicles, in a specific area. transportation movement of people or goods from one place to another. typhoid infectious, sometimes fatal disease that harms the intestines. Also called typhoid fever. urban agriculture process of growing, harvesting, processing, and distributing food in a city or town. urban planner person who works to create or improve the natural, built, economic, and social environments of urban areas. U.S. Census count of everyone in the U.S., conducted every 10 years. vacant adjective empty or abandoned. vertical farming practice of cultivating crops in skyscrapers. village small human settlement usually found in a rural setting. ward neighborhood or political district in some large cities. yellow fever infectious disease spread by mosquitoes, primarily affecting the liver. zoning system of sectioning areas within cities, towns, and villages for specific land-use purposes through local laws. For Further Exploration 5 of 6

6 Articles & Profiles National Geographic News: Green-Based Urban Growth The Next Wave of Environmentalism Websites City of Chicago: Sustainable Development Growing Power, Inc. Metropolitan Planning Council NeighborSpace National Geographic Society. All rights reserved. 6 of 6