Richard Louv lecture on Thursday, November 8 2007, at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, for the Eagle Creek Park Foundation.

Because everything must change we might be entering the most creative period in history, because everything must change. Not only to ameliorate or solve the problem, but actually to create a better society.

– Richard Louv talking about climate change and pollution in the same lecture referenced in the previous post.

The truth is, only some people are motivated by despair. The rest of us need something else. In the end, there really isn’t any practical alternative to hope. We need to give that to ourselves. We need to be generous with hope, to ourselves, to our kids.

– Richard Louv lecture on Thursday, November 8 2007, at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, for the Eagle Creek Park Foundation.

You can read my condensed notes of highlights from the same speech in a past posting on this website, titled Beasley dreams.

Dreaming is a fundamental tool in planning.
– Larry Beasley

Today (Sun Oct 21), I attended a Dream Vancouver conference. A daylong Appreciative Inquiry exercise was facilitated by Bliss Brown. It demonstrated a process for engaging citizens in dialogue to dream of the possibilities for the future, work toward a consensus vision, and commit to actions toward that shared vision. The day also featured a keynote speech by Larry Beasley, former Director of Vancouver City Planning. The following are notes from that speech.

–

Anxiety limits us, prevents dreaming.

On building a sustainable city, “we’ve made a good start; we need to continue to improve.” We haven’t reached near our potential for culture — institutions, events. We need only look to Toronto to see how far behind we are culturally.

“Common wealth, public property does not get the care it needs” due to funding. Cities do not have appropriate or adequate access to the type of funding that would be necessary to keep streets and public spaces properly designed, built or maintained.

He has been working in Abu Dhabi of the United Arab Emirates. The Minister of Environment there is an avid falconer. From the impacts on the birds, he could see and appreciate the seriousness of environmental degradation. The country now has the most stringent environmental legislation in the world. They are creating a carbon neutral community with a population of 100,000.

He discussed a list of things he believes cities here should be doing with haste to reduce their environmental impact, including reducing waste, producing energy, create infrastructure that is not geared to cars, grow food closer to where people live.

There is a dire need for reasonably priced well-located market housing in this region. Middle-income earners are being pushed out to the urban edge. They have to drive to work which means they’re spending lots of time in their cars that they’d rather be with their kids, endure the expense of operating an automobile, waste fuel and contribute greatly to air pollution.

In Abu Dhabi, there is a government policy to provide a home to every citizen. “Housing is a basic right of humanity.” There should be affordable, suitable housing for everyone in Vancouver.

He expressed exasperated frustration seeing continuing “subdivision sprawl” spreading throughout the Fraser Valley.

“If you create the best city in the world but nobody can afford to live here, it becomes irrelevant.”

In form and function, and as a density alternative to highrises, there is “no better multiple housing” than the urban rowhouse.

He was very animated in proclaiming a need for a “third housing sector — the semi-market sector.” Homebuyers would be provided an opportunity to own an affordable, appropriate, and well-located home in exchange for them not using it as an investment. A legal arrangement would require that they not sell for more than they paid. They retain the equity created by paying the principal, but cannot take advantage of the speculative open market, thus it remains affordable for the next buyer.

“Urban success has to benefit every single person.” He noted a study that found frontline healthcare in the downtown eastside is the SRO hotel frontdesk attendant familiar with their tenants — “Have you taken your meds yet today?” His dream is of a Vancouver that is not only beautiful but also humane and inclusive.

“Environmental moves have to go along with densification.” To opponents of towers and density or those who are ambivalent to issues of affordability, he asks, where will your children live? Where will you live when you get older? However, “every community has to have its own definition to ‘ecodensity’. You can’t take one community’s definition and apply it here and here and here”

–

The following are bites from his responses to questions from the audience.

–

There should be flexibility in multiple housing for the garage to be used for uses other than parking, such as a workshop or storage.

There is a need for multiple housing to be designed to be suitable for children, and to accept children.

People commuting from the valley, and our society in general, need to give up the conflicted dream of the idealized house being 3,000 sqft with a giant lawn.

Another solution to create flexibility and affordability is to create and allow multiple housing that can be divided to have a rental suite.

It’s time to “pick up the co-op tradition that was so alive 20 years ago.”

Developers are very sophisticated. Their products are more than housing. They are creating neighbourhoods, whole communities. Developers accept that there is a common wealth that they contribute to.

Good civic leadership will ensure one development doesn’t negatively impact another development and make sure it contributes to the community. Regulation is accepted. Developers understand that regulations serve a necessary purpose and protect their interests. When there’s a problem with a regulation, it is not its existence in itself that might makes it wrong; it’s how it’s done.

Government should leverage its modest funds with the private sector to create housing. “There is enough wealth in our community and in the system to provide housing for everyone.”

Creative thought is critical to design. It is nurtured in an atmosphere of trust and respect, in which ideas from all participants are accepted as gifts to the common endeavour: Generousity of spirit is critical to creativity in a group endeavour.
– Rand Iredale (1929-2000)

I came across this quote on a board outside of an SFU City program lecture last night. Architect Rand Iredale was the subject. He was celebrated for his creative problem solving, heritage conservation and approach to urban policy, which is regarded to have been very influencial on the shaping of Vancouver.

“There is a major problem in the planning process; the initiative is left to developers to make proposals in which they have to invest considerably and have no certainty of succeeding. The planning process and planners have been reduced to focusing on negotiating public amenities, servicing and other contributions to the municipality as a condition of success. This is a costly and uncertain process which discourages the needed densification process.”

“We need to put the planning back into planning. Municipalities need to identify and pre-zone areas suitable for densification and then charge the appropriate development fee.”

It sounds like there is a need for the province to provide better tools for cities. Zoning should be about land-use and building form, but cities are using the zoning process to ensure development pays for community amenities or changes to the surrounding area.

Things might work better if zoning was really about zoning and there were other methods or mechanisms available to cities for acquiring public amenities. The whole process would be much more deliberate and less confusing while providing greater certainty for both the community and developer.

Using the rezoning process to obtain public amenities is a clever trick that’s become institutionalized out of necessity, but that’s not really what it’s for. Unfortunately it seems that using it for this end is compromising its real purpose — to encourage and provide direction for development — to move toward implementing the land-use principles in the OCP.

“While [...] environmental differences did contribute to the different economic trajectories of the two countries, a larger part of the explanation involved social and political differences, of which there were many that eventually penalized the Haitian economy relative to the Dominican economy. In that sense, the differing development of the two countries were overdetermined: numerous separate factors coincided in tipping the result in the same direction.” (pg 339)

I find that last line very interesting – many things seeming to be totally unrelated all contributing to the same result. I see that often from my role as a City Councillor.

I also find myself thinking about the same idea in reverse. What about single policies or projects that have a range of impacts otherwise unrelated and difficult to anticipate?

Sometimes it’s very challenging to motivate people to make changes when they see the benefits as being very small. The sum of the many small benefits is hard to appreciate when those pieces appear so far apart.

The feature speaker was Peter Calthorpe, much celebrated urban planner. As introduction, here is an excerpt from an interview of Calthorpe by Scott London, snipped from http://www.scottlondon.com/interviews/calthorpe.html

As one of the leading proponents of New Urbanism or Neotraditionalism, Calthorpe has formulated a comprehensive design and planning philosophy aimed not only at curbing urban sprawl and reducing traffic congestion, but also creating more pedestrian-friendly and ecologically sound communities, environments that that promote a sense of connectedness and place. He is the author of Sustainable Communities, The Next American Metropolis, and most recently, The Regional City: Planning for the End of Sprawl (co-authored with William Fulton).

Scott London: In a nutshell, how would you describe good urban design?

Peter Calthorpe: My short and simple answer is that a well-designed city is walkable. It’s a place where your destinations are close enough to walk to and where you feel safe enough to walk. And it’s a place that is interesting enough socially to make you feel that walking is perhaps something more than just getting from point A to point B. I think that is the heart of it.

London: Is it possible to design walkable communities in an age of freeways and strip malls?

Calthorpe: Well, the idea that we can return to mom-and-pop grocery stores is fallacious. But I think we have to find our way back to some of the design principles of the traditional American city. The idea is to create a hybrid between the realities of today and the need for a return to human-scale community.

These are a few notes I managed to catch during his lecture at the Hyatt last Thursday.

–

It’s challenging to get people to think long term. This generation seems to be different – less interested in future generations, just living in the present.

Is people’s investment in the future in decline?

The ethos of the WWI and WWII generations was of making things better for the next generation. This seems to be eroding.

We should be planning 50 years out.

The PRINCIPLES of urban planning:
• diversity and balance

• human and pedestrian scale

• conservation and restoration

• connections and interdependence

These principles need concrete implementation strategies.

For diversity, the more inclusive the better. Fully integrate low income housing with housing for higher incomes.

For pedestrian scale, short blocks encourage pedestrians. Oceans of parking is what results from large blocks (long distances between intersections) since it creates a reliance on the automobile to get around.

Examples of regions that at first weren’t open to new methods of accommodating growth found themselves embracing change as a result of an open and engaging PUBLIC PROCESS.

Make people designers.
• allow people to engage

* let them be the problem solvers

• step up the sophistication

Provide analysis of the alternatives. Show the data that results from each model. For example,
• land area needing to be added to accommodate projected growth if it were to follow current land use patterns;

• breakdown of the mix of housing types achieved with each model.

What will housing demands be in 20 years – for what types of housing?
Despite the belief that Americans aspire to the suburban Single Family home, on average, 1/3 of housing in the States is multi-unit.

There needs to be a mix of housing types to accommodate all phase in life. “Single Family only accommodates one phase.” Planning should provide a “life cycle” housing mix.

To achieve more pedestrian oriented streets, some cities are allowing higher FAR only for mixed use buildings. Also, in areas where 4 storeys mixed use is permitted, developers are allowed to build an extra storey if the project provides 20% of units as affordable housing. It has been very successful with most developers taking advantage of the opportunity.

For low income homes, de-stigmatize their lives through full integration within developments. Do not segregate low income housing.

Build “connector streets instead of collector streets”. Increase the density of the street grid to spread traffic thinner so streets – all streets – are more liveable.

Can we think about, can we care about, 50 years away? How do you manage the relationship between man and nature? Do you care about the next generation?

–

The following were in response to audience questions.

–

In response to my questioning if he was denying the obvious commercial success and market power of the big box centres:

Avoid big box effect while accommodating big box stores. Don’t allow large blocks at arterial intersections – make the street grid a finer grain. incorporate big box stores into smaller blocks, mixed use or blocks with smaller retail shops wrapping the box. force parking to be either underground or on the roof. But all cities in the area have to enforce the same standards, otherwise big boxes will just go where it’s cheaper to build.

In response to a question about his opinion on the Gateway project, he replied that he didn’t know what the Gateway project is, so couldn’t comment on it directly. Throughout his presentation he frequently focused on roads, number of lanes and speed of traffic. Much of his work has been in attempting to minimize the negative impacts of wide, high speed freeways. His advice:

Balance and mix transportation uses. Sometimes there is a need to blend both freeway expansion and increased transit.

On controlling congestion:

Constrain parking – limit available parking spaces and make parking expensive so that the market will control traffic. People will choose to not drive their cars if they know it will be hard to find a space to park and expensive if they do. Of course, this assumes there are transit alternatives in place. In San Francisco, there are zero parking spots required in some new developments.

In response to a question about the place for nature in cities and viability of green roofs:

Mayor Jackson reported a plan in Delta to achieve a 40% urban canopy by planting 2010X100 trees by 2010.

Calthorpe suggested these issues should be planned and enforced regionally – that the new LRSP could be a new set of standards, for street trees, block size, …

In response to a question about growth:

Limiting growth hurts the low income the most. Limiting supply when there is demand results in increased pricing.

In a rant about engineers, traffic engineers in particular, but also specialized professional disciplines in general:

Don’t forget about the full range of problems – don’t optimize a plan to solve one problem. Focusing on “one dimension of the problem” might create more of a problem than gets solved.

Plan for multi-modal transportation systems – the more modes of transportation, the more resilient the city. Robustness and redundancy builds capacity, supports more pedestrian oriented streets, and helps cities respond and evolve with changing trends, needs or circumstances.

On whether neighbourhoods would be safer with quiet cul-de-sacs separate from busy arterials:

“When you separate the person from the street, the street becomes a utility for the car” and becomes unsafe and undesirable for people.

In the planning process, asking and answering these questions will build public support and/or improve the proposed plan.
What are the consequences of the alternatives?
What are the outcomes of the proposal… and its options?

On a question about North American “car culture”:

“If you really want to have an impact on travel behaviour”, limit parking.

“You build transit to enable pedestrian activity not as an alternative to the car.” To be encouraged to use transit, you “need to arrive in a pedestrian friendly place… and should probably start from a pedestrian friendly place.”
“Transit is a pedestrian enhancer.”

In response to a question about the trend of neo-classical architecture:

Buildings of the 1830′s are still standing and performing well while those from the end of the 20th century are failing. “We need to be wise enough to look to our traditions and history.”

In response to a comment that the real problem is our cannibalistic, capitalist system fuelled by greed that needs growth in order to survive, and therefore doomed for failure and ensuring imminent destruction of the Earth as a habitable planet:

“We need growth as an economic engine to repair mistakes from over the past 50 years.” There has been a lot of damage done over the past 50 years, but growth creates an opportunity to fix that damage.

In response to a question about how high rises fit with the principle of human scale:

“Human scale isn’t about size, it’s about texture, activity, windows on the street … Human scale is not about size.”
[He listed several qualities. These were the only ones I caught as I was writing. I'm going to try and find out if anyone else caught it, because it was brilliant.]