Douglas S. Kelbaugh’s Ideas on Urban Design
May 25th, 2006,My interest in promoting bicycling and walking in my hometown of Northfield, Minnesota, has led me to think more about urban design. I recently checked out a few books on the subject from the library and wanted to share what I found. One of the more interesting books that I discovered was Douglas S. Kelbaugh’s Repairing the American Metropolis (Univ. of Washington Press, 2002). Kelbaugh is Dean and Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan.
Here is what Kelbaugh has to write about urban sprawl:
The biggest perpetrator of sprawl is zoning that segregates different land uses into large, single-use zones that are monocultures, i.e., all garden apartments, all single-family houses, all retail, all office. Large arterials separate these areas like rivers, impassable to pedestrians and often gridlocked for automobiles. (25)
He also picks out seven policy initiatives that he thinks are most important for immediate action in the United States. Although these are often intended as recommendations for large urban areas, many are also appropriate for smaller towns. Following are excerpts from this summary:
1. Get development priorities right. Make infill and redevelopment of existing urban centers and towns a higher priority than new suburban development…Urban Growth Boundaries around towns and cities are an effective way to encourage infill and redevelopment of existing areas and preserve the hinterland…A network of pedestrian and bike paths should link existing population centers as much as possible…[N]ew development can be justified outside the urban growth boundary if it is compact, balanced, self-contained, and stand-alone…
2. Get automobiles under control. Stop subsidizing the automobile. Adopt new and more robust taxes and regulations that will make market prices more commensurate with true and total costs…The most effective economic policy to reduce vehicle miles traveled, or VMT, would be a much higher gas tax…
3. Get transit on track. Reform federal, state, and local transportation policy to support public mobility, access, and walkability, not just public roads and private cars and trucks…Studies suggest that if plans link land use and transportation as well as cluster housing and jobs together, every person-mile of mass transit, whether bus or light rail, will displace the need for four to eight person-miles of car travel. A light-rail system is often the best way to transport the largest number of people during the busiest hours in the most crowded corridors…
[D]on’t forget walking…It takes four ingredients to get people walking: (a) compact development, so there is a sufficient number of people living, working, shopping, and recreating within a walkable radius; (b) a rich, interesting, and convenient mix of uses, so there are destinations worth walking to; (c) a capacious network of pedestrian space that is safe from crime and dangerous automobile traffic; and (d) a regional transit system, so that the pedestrian can get around the entire metropolis…
4. Get planning. There needs to be a regional plan for the metropolitan region and a planning body with the authority to take a synoptic view…
5. Get more granny flats and live-work units…Like walkability, accessory dwelling units and live-work units are a good measure of the social health of a city…Live-work units are the single most effective way to eliminate the commute trip, and accessory units may be the single most cost effective and quickest way to provide affordable rental housing units…
6. Get funding and taxing right. Tie the allocation of federal, state, county, and municipal government funds for transportation, energy, clean air, clean water, housing, neighborhoods, and public works to local land use and transportation that nurtures compact, affordable, coherent, and more pedestrian-, bicycle-, and transit-oriented communities…
7. Get governance right. Reconfigure government to empower to a greater extent both the region and the neighborhood…[S]hift more power down to the neighborhood. More cities should be divided into boroughs, which, in turn, should be divided into official neighborhoods of, if numerically possible, five to ten thousand people…At the same time, shift more power up to a regional council…Make high-quality public schools the physical, social, and cultural centerpiece of the neighborhood by locating community centers, public libraries, gyms, museums, and even selected social services in, connected to, or adjacent to the school buildings… (182-192)