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A few months ago, I suggested that one good way to start our transition from
Suburban Hell to something much nicer would be to, perhaps, bulldoze a big
box shopping center, and build something there that was a little more like
Paris or Venice, or Tokyo.
April 1,
2012: How To Make a Pile of Dough With the Traditional City 7: Let's Bulldoze
a Big Box Shopping Center
We don't really need so many shopping centers anyway.
So, let's do it.
First: where is the big box shopping center we plan to bulldoze?
It needs to be in a place that would have a market for a dense Traditional
City-type environment. This probably means some urban core area, or a place
near an amenity like a beach or train station. We will be adding a lot of
commercial and residential square footage here, so there needs to be a market
for that. You need to be able to sell it for much more than the construction
cost, to create the profit that justifies the large investment. I suggest a
shopping center near the beach in San Diego. This is not because I like the
San Diego climate, and the beach, and girls in bikinis. No, it is because
everybody else likes those things too, so there would be interest in
purchasing or leasing property in such a place, at a price premium.
I took the example of a shopping center in Binghamton, New York. Binghamton
is probably not a good place to do this, because nobody needs another nine
million square feet of floorspace in Binghamton. However, since all shopping
centers are basically the same, we can use that example. At a density of
100,000 people per square mile, reached in some Paris neighborhoods, 15,000
people or a third of the entire population of Binghamton could live here.
However, those 15,000 people already have houses, so we don't need to build
any more in Binghamton. In a place like Darien, Connecticut, however (an
upscale New York City suburb), lots of people might like to live in a place
like this (good schools), and pay a premium for it, especially if it was
within walking distance of the train station.
 
Bulldozing this thing is pretty easy, because its mostly
just parking lots anyway, and the buildings themselves are rather
insubstantial.
This photo is about 800 meters across, and the land plot is about 93 acres.
That is quite large, actually.
Here are some of our design goals:
1) We are assuming that we have to interface with Suburban Hell as it
exists, so that means lots of parking needs to be provided, and a way for
automobiles to get in and out easily. Parking will be in enclosed, multistory
parking garages, mostly integrated into multi-use buildings.
2) Our land use plan is something like this:
60% building footprint
30% parks, courtyards, yards, gardens, and other public and private open
space, which consist of Places, not "green space".
10% roadways, broken down into:
About 20% of streets are Arterial Streets, with two to four
lanes of dedicated automobile roadway in the middle, probably some trees or
grass as a buffer, and sidewalks on either side. No on-street parking.
The remaining 80% of streets (by length) are Really Narrow
pedestrian-centric streets, of 10-30 feet wide, no segregated automobile
roadway, no sidewalks, and no green buffers.
3) Building height is
generally 3-6 stories, a typical Traditional City height.
4) Some buildings can be taller, particularly those which are adjacent
to Arterial Streets. This would be more of a Manhattan-style Hypertrophic
approach. Big buildings and big streets go together easily. So, you can add
your 35-story highrise apartments and offices here too, if you want.
September
23, 2012: Corbusier Nouveau 3: Really Narrow Streets With High-Rises
August 26, 2012: Corbusier Nouveau 2: More Place and Less Non-Place
August
19, 2012: Corbusier Nouveau
5) The treatment of the perimeter is an interesting design point. How
should our neighborhood interface with the rest of Suburban Hell? Put a wall
around it? (Lots of walled cities are very nice.) Put a green buffer around
it? It might be nice for it to be separated from the rest of Suburban Hell,
like its own little island of Traditional City fabulousness. Shall we put a
row of buildings along the existing very large automobile roadways? I opt
here for a combination of some park space along some streets (isolation), and
some buildings along other streets. One nice thing about park space is that
you can decide to build on it later if you want. Ideally, although being long
and skinny and serving as a buffer, this will be usable and enjoyable as a
park, not just a wall of shrubbery.
October
10, 2009: Place and Non-Place
6) Block size is roughly 100-200 feet along the short side and 200-500 feet
along the long side.
So, here we go:
The darkened areas are
parks. The small darkened area on the left is a paved town square. You could
add some smaller squares and parks here and there as well. The wide,
double-lined streets are Arterial Streets. The single black lines are Really
Narrow Streets.
Although most of the streets here are Really Narrow pedestrian streets,
almost all of the blocks have at least one side adjacent to an Arterial
Street. An entrance to enclosed parking can be put on the side facing the
Arterial Street, so that cars can enter and exit without having to drive on
the Really Narrow Streets. Vehicles will be allowed on the Really Narrow
Streets, but, seeing as they would have to share the road with people
walking, and also there's no place to park there, the main reason that
motorized vehicles would be on the smaller streets is for deliveries and
dropoffs.
This site has about four million square feet. At 60% building footprint, and
an average height of four stories, that would mean about 9.6 million square
feet of space here. That is a lot, although some of it would be used for
parking. The typical parking treatment would be something like this:
This is an example for a residential apartment building, but it could also be
an office or retail/commercial type building. The parking is integrated
inside the building, so we can avoid any outdoor parking lots or ugly
"giant concrete box" parking structures.
April
22, 2012: How to Make a Pile of Dough With the Traditional City 8: Shared
Parking
The buildings along the perimeter will be in the Manhattan or 19th Century
Hypertrophic style, which is to say, up against the sidewalk with no
"green space" buffer in front.
You can add more square feet by building a little higher and adding some
highrises here and there. Alternately, you could make some of the streets
into single-family detached residential streets, like this:
July 31,
2011: How To Make a Pile of Dough With the Traditional City 5: The New New
Suburbanism
Townhouses would also be fine, at roughly double the density of SFDR housing.
July 1,
2012: How To Make a Pile of Dough With the Traditional City 9: Townhouses
With Parking
For comparison and inspiration, here are some aerial photos of dense
Traditional Cities. The width of the photos is about the same as our plot
size here.
Kyoto, Japan. The photo is about 950 meters across.
Manhattan. The photo is about 930 meters across.
Paris. The photo is about 750 meters across.
Venice. The photo is about 950 meters across.
Look at the street patters, the size of the blocks, the locations of parks
and so forth.
Basically, we want to create a place with the character (and design elements)
of these famously successful Traditional City environments, while also
including adequate parking for all involved. (Manhattan isn't a Traditional
City, but rather a 19th Century Hypertrophic city. Nevertheless, because we
are including the possibility of Manhattan-style highrises here, along the
wider Arterial Streets, our design also includes a bit of Manhattan flavor.)
Here is what the streets in our design are supposed to look like:
A typical street in Venice. The width is about thirty feet. This is a Really
Narrow pedestrian street, with no automobile roadway, and no sidewalks. The
"black line" streets on our design would look something like this.
Building height is 3-6 stories.
A contemporary commercial street in Tokyo. The width is about 18 feet. No
sidewalks and NO CARS.
This is a quieter, more residential street in Kyoto, with townhouses and
small shops. The width is about ten feet.
A street in Dublin, Ireland. Another Really Narrow pedestrian street,
although a bit wider here at perhaps thirty feet.
This is more of an Arterial Street, with a segregated automobile roadway of
roughly two lanes in the middle, and sidewalks.
A cozy Really Narrow pedestrian street in Paris. Do you see why our design
goal is 80% Really Narrow pedestrian streets? They are so much fun.
Width is about 20 feet, building height is about four stories.
This street in Barcelona is more of an Arterial Street, with two or three
lanes of traffic on a segregated automobile roadway. Ideally, we would have
no onstreet parking. Sidewalks on either side, and some trees. Building
height is about six stories.
Try to imagine it all in your head. What would this 93-acre place look like
when we are done with it? It should be as much fun as living in Barcelona or
Tokyo.
Way better than a big box shopping center.
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