Tag: Design (Page 1 of 2)

Materiality and Space: A Case Study of the New Jersey Floodplains

October 24, 2023 / odrozd

By Ivan Melchor

Does landscape form generate society? This is the question posed by Anthropologist Anna Tsing, whose fieldwork in Sorong, Indonesia tracks how rampant mining and construction of impervious concrete infrastructure transforms the city into a ‘pinball machine’ where mud and water interact, ricochet, and respond to this human development, causing the local landscape to flood.^[1] The question is applicable in many contexts, none more fitting than in the floodplains of New Jersey.

Instances of hurricanes are attributed a great deal of importance, and rightly so, but so often the dialogue in the aftermath seems to mirror one another. The common conversation topics post-hurricane includes the following: a critique of the federal government’s response, analogies of negative health outcomes that cannot be quantified, and metrics of the subsequent flooding indicative of the worsening consequences of climate change.

Climate events should be taken seriously, and sea level rise is undoubtedly a reality that coastal communities like Fire Island, a barrier island off Long Island, New York, are wrestling with already.^[2] But what is lost in this echo chamber is a discussion around how the human imposed landscape interacts with rather than reacts to these climate events. Often the dialogue around climate change is future-focused, geared towards generating new technologies and infrastructures. The consequences and answers to climate change are situated in the language of tomorrow but weight should also be placed on the history of the infrastructure in place and what could be recreated with the footprint we’ve already constructed.

I propose two entry points from which to interrogate the issue of flooding in NJ: the concept of the basement and the ‘unbuilding’ of a structure’s footprint.

Historically, the basement has been a common feature of residential buildings in New Jersey. Internet research quickly reveals a vague history explaining its use to deal with freezing pipes, supposedly critical to the infrastructure of the home. A review of FEMA flood claims filed in New Jersey revealed that 78% of claims filed by residential owners were for buildings with a basement.^[3] A finding indicative not of causality but rather of how commonplace basements have become.

Figure 1: ArcGIS 3D model of basement square footage per residential building in Princeton, NJ (Source: Ivan Melchor)

Last year, the VizE Lab for Ethnographic Data Visualization at Princeton University obtained tax and property value data from the town of Princeton, NJ in order to visualize their widespread use. Figure 1 illustrates basement square footage per residential home to represent the below ground impact of development.

Constructing a basement in an area with a high water table can lead to recurring flood problems, making homes susceptible to ankle deep waters after a heavy rainstorm never mind a hurricane. The displacement of soil in order to accommodate these structures can further concentrate stormwater runoff, worsening flooding effects in areas with already high impervious coverage.

Conversations with local zoning officials regarding the issue often contain a cynical undertone. They suggest that new houses are being developed and old houses redeveloped with increasingly large basements despite warnings because they increase property value. And while there may be truth in that claim, it is stated that below-grade living spaces recoup up to 70-80% of the construction cost but do not often result in a gain on investment. ^[4]

A plausible alternative is that the idea of ‘livable space’ is an expression of our cultural behavior; the increased isolation of single-family zoning in towns such as Princeton reinforce the notion of “private property” and make us less likely to interrogate the issues occurring within our “homes.” Figure 2 highlights how widespread low-density housing has become in Princeton, NJ for example.

Figure 2: Dasymetric map of Princeton, NJ highlights the spread of low-density housing (Source: Ivan Melchor)

There is also the question of what materiality our infrastructure takes on. Susan Bristol, a policy director at the Watershed Institute in New Jersey, proposes the concept of ‘unbuilding’ as a design practice to lighten our footprint on both the environment and the ground.

Unbuilding would mean returning some of the understory of buildings to pervious surface area rather than only resorting to concrete pours at grade irrespective of environment. This would allow for water to flow horizontally through the building’s footprint rather than creating combative infrastructure.^[5]

Both the discussion of basements and the concept of ‘unbuilding’ invite us to think about space, not only how much of it we use but also what materials sustain its life force. The message of resiliency is commonplace, but our infrastructure must not only withstand climate events, but also be ready to interact with external forces such as stormwater.

What the ‘pinball machine’ effect reveals is that communities (and more explicitly property owners) continuously act upon their environment, changing its expression. Zoning laws and development serve as an archive of what a community has become, yes, but also generate a new interpretation of society, obfuscating issues that are ‘out of sight’ but that should be interrogated by urban planners and policymakers alike.

Citations

^[1] Anna Tsing, “Stop Blaming Global Warming: A Pinball Model of Chronic Flooding in Sorong, West Papua” (Clifford Geertz Commemorative Lecture, Princeton University, Princeton NJ, March 30, 2023).

^[2] Liam Stack. “Millions were Spent to Fix Fire Island’s Beaches. Some Have Completely Eroded.” New York Times, August 11, 2023.

^[3] FEMA (2023). FIMA NFIP Directed Claims – v2 [Dataset]. https://www.fema.gov/openfema-data-page/fima-nfip-redacted-claims-v2

^[4] Remodeling.com, “Basement Remodel,” accessed on August 19, 2023.

^[5] Susan Bristol (2022). “‘Unbuilding’: Out of sight/Out of mind.” AIA New Jersey.

Ivan Melchor is a Data & Research Assistant with the VizE Lab for Ethnographic Data Visualization at Princeton University. He is interested in how the language of climate change generates possibilities for current and future human development. He is part of a team of academic researchers hoping to produce a documentary on NJ flooding in 2024.

Edited by Kathryn Cunningham

Featured image courtesy of Ivan Melchor

From Archives) What XKCD Can Teach You About Planning

December 27, 2022 / odrozd

This post was originally published on March 27, 2018, and is one of the most viewed articles in 2022.

By Nora Schwaller

XKCD is a beloved, online nerd comic that primarily involves esoteric jokes about physics and math with a healthy dose of snark. But that’s not all these humble stick figures provide. They can also offer valuable insight and lessons into some of the finer complications of planning: from big-picture issues, to niche problems. Therefore, through careful review and study, you can use XKCD comics to become a better planner. Here’s a quick tour of some of the top applications of XKCD to the planning field.

From the master planning perspective, XKCD can help you plan an execute a project from start to finish by realizing the importance of big-picture thinking:

XKCD: Planning

And providing helpful tips on time management and organization, such as the best ways to start a project:

XKCD: Making Progress

To budget your time:

XKCD: Time Estimating

And to make a schedule:

XKCD: Time Management

XKCD can also help you address niche problems that come up in core course class work, as well as harder issues that you address in topical classes. For example, XKCD provides ample advice on how to create and present helpful maps.

It can help you set up your GIS project:

XKCD: Map Projections

And teach you how to add that all important design flair:

XKCD: State Borders

So that you can present your work in a convincing way:

XKCD: Heatmap

XKCD has advice for planning specializations as well. Particularly, it has a lot of information on transit problems.

Such as, how to set up roads for everyone’s use:

XKCD: Highway Engineer Pranks

And prepare for the advances of the future:

XKCD: Driving

XKCD can also assist with your studies by translating abstract concepts to ‘real-world’ situations, like supply and demand and the tragedy of the commons:

XKCD: Hotels

Or the real reasons for considering the best years for Census data:

XKCD: Suckville

And, finally, it can help you connect with the public. Whether that is explaining your most recent research project:

XKCD: Like I’m Five

Or the most recent disaster:

XKCD: Worst Case Scenario

About the Author: Nora Schwaller was a first-year Ph.D. student in the Department of City and Regional Planning, where she focuses on disaster recovery. Prior to UNC, she worked for an architecture firm in San Francisco. Outside of class, Nora enjoys long bike rides and short walks, delicious food with good people, and casually perusing information on the design history of contemporary video games and systems.

Undergrads analyze UNC spaces

July 20, 2022 / odrozd

This post was originally published on February 28, 2018. As the end of summer approaches and the school year starts, we go back to one of the archives to take a look at the spaces at UNC.

By Marques Wilson, Forest Schweitzer, Olivia Corriere, Bronwyn Bishop, and Joe Young

As part of the Community Design and Green Architecture (ENEC 420) course with Eric Thomas, the Project Manager and Lead Designer at Development Finance Initiative, undergraduate UNC students evaluated public space. Using video and behavior mapping techniques, students evaluated how different local spaces are used, or not, at different times of the day and on different days. They noted weather and other factors that would influence the behavior of people in the space, and produced final reports and videos to highlight the design features that seem successful in attracting and keeping people, and those that fall short. See excerpts from two groups’ final reports and their videos below:

The Pit:

“There is nothing elegant, advanced or expertly designed about The Pit at UNC and yet it is a focal point of our campus. It is quite literally a glorified rectangle-shaped hole in the ground. It’s only definitive feature being steps lining the edge and two large trees in it’s center. How does something so simple have such an impact on the everyday lives of students? The Pit’s simplistic nature lends itself to ease of use, but it is largely so successful because of its central location. The Pit is surrounded by some of the most frequently visited buildings on campus: the student union, the Student Store, the dining hall, Lenoir, The Undergraduate Library, and Davis Library. These buildings attract students of all years and majors.

The Pit is used in many ways and is a healthy, bustling part of UNC’s campus. However, it could stand to be improved. For example, the entire unused section nearest to the Undergraduate Library could be revitalized using creative seating solutions. We propose a designed space — different than anything The Pit has seen before — of modern multi-use benches in what is now “dead space.” An example of our vision is the Plaza at Harvard and the simplistic, yet artistic benches that exist there. Our hope is that this will give new life to this area of The Pit because when people see intentional seating for them in a popular social place, they will utilize it. Also, the modern design of the benches will give The Pit and exciting element of relevance in design that college students are likely to be interested in.”

Sculpture Garden:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0wshgas3Ak&t=5s

“We chose to analyze the Sculpture Garden, which lays between Kenan College of Music, the Hanes Art Center, and Swain Hall. The space is primarily transitional, with bits of student-made art sprinkled throughout. A diagonal, bricked walkway extends through a grass matrix, forming a square with three sides touching the above buildings. The Sculpture Garden is a moderate-to-heavily used space. The primary form of traffic is individuals walking in either direction along the prescribed brick pathway. Although there were bikes present in the data, the absence of bike infrastructure, and the sometimes clogged nature of the pathway deterred most from riding their bikes through the Garden. One might think that the grass matrix would be attractive sprawling space for individuals and groups looking to eddy out of the central flow, or to simply mill about and consume the art present, but this data was absent from the study. Some few individuals crossed ‘unconventionally’ across the grass, but these were in the extreme minority. The particularity of the pathway (leading to the front doors of Hanes Art) does not lead for much variation, and thus only suits a specific type of traveler: they who wish to walk from Swain Hall, or other locals in mid campus, to Hanes Art or over to South Columbia Street.

Our recommendations would be to make the space feel like it belongs in the arts part of campus. Make it different. Make it new. The single brick path should either be removed or downplayed. A program should be put in place informing passers-by that they are free to walk in the way most organic to them, for perhaps a year. At the end of this period, the paths naturally worn into the grass matrix could be either bricked over or simply defined and formalized. More sculptures and places for people to sit should be installed. The sculptures fortify the space; they make a large, empty space feel small and intimate. They afford privacy without actually cutting the individual off from the rest of the Garden. Even non-three dimensional additions like posters and murals on the sides of Kenan and Hanes would really bring the place alive. There is ample real estate with which to flesh out not only the Sculpture Garden, but to crystalize what it means to be an artist at Carolina. In doing so the university could strengthen its image, and foster a robust space for artists on campus to share their own work and consume and comment on the work of their peers and mentors.”

Analysis of the Sculpture Garden by Marques Wilson (Undergraduate Senior, Public Relations B.A., Sustainability Minor), Forest Schweitzer (Undergraduate Junior, Environmental Studies B.A. – Sustainability Track), and Olivia Corriere (Undergraduate Sophomore, Environmental Studies B.A. – Sustainability Track, Geography Minor).

Analysis of the Pit by Bronwyn Bishop (Undergraduate Senior, Environmental Studies B.A. – Sustainability Track, Writing for the Screen and Stage Minor) and Joe Young (Senior, Environmental Science B.S., Mathematics Minor).

Featured Image: The Pit at UNC Chapel Hill. Photo Credit: UNC Admissions

Planners as Pollinators

February 26, 2021 / odrozd

By Pierce Holloway

Picture yourself in a forest. You are surrounded by trees, shrubs, flowers, birds, and deer. A creek. Insects.
All around you is a cacophony of living organisms and beings large and small,
each playing a crucial role in the overall health of the environment.
Hold this image in your mind.
Piece by piece, visualize the creek being replaced with a sidewalk, the trees with buildings, the insects with cars, the deer with people, the flowers with street performers, and the shrubs with manicured landscaping.
Before you know it, you have teleported from the Pisgah National Forest to downtown Asheville, NC.

This thought exercise introduces you to the many parallels that exist between ecological ecosystems and the human made forest of urban environments. In an urban playground of steel, concrete, and street vendors, an intricate ecosystem exists that can be observed, studied, and learned from- just like the nearby forest. Within the concrete ecosystem, city planners can and should act as pollinators. A planner acting as pollinator facilitates and encourages societal growth through the cross pollination of ideas between residents, social organizations, governments, and academics.

The idea of modeling our systems after the natural world is not new, but is of the utmost importance. Parallels between the natural world and human design have a long history of intellectual thought and self reflection. Plato (428-328 BC) stated, “The natural world we perceive through our senses (see, hear, touch etc.) reveals only a fallen, shadow, incomplete versions of this Ideal Truth.” The ideology of nature informed design has evolved time and time again, cropping up more recently in Urbanism through the minds of Ian McHarg and his seminal 1969 book Design with Nature or Timothy Beatley and the Biophilic Cities movement. The blog The Nature of Cities dedicates itself to the core elements of these concepts.

The metaphor of a planner as pollinator builds on the complicated relationship that pollinators have with plants in their natural biome. Pollinating is not a one size fits all profession. General pollinators like Bees and Butterflies transport pollen between countless flora species. Specialized pollinators such as the Yucca moth (Tegeticulla yuccasella) have evolved to pollinate only one plant, the soapweed yucca (Yucca glauca), whose seeds provide the food for the Yucca Moths larvae. The Yucca moth exemplifies the idea that pollinators are in a symbiotic, interdependent, and mutually beneficial relationship with their environment. The pollinator benefits the flower, and the plant provides critical nourishment for the pollinator.

*A Yucca Moth Pollinating Soapweed Yucca. Photo Credit: NCSU*.

This symbiotic relationship is at the heart of my connection between planners and pollinators. Planners can be generalists or specialists, both of which benefit from interacting with and listening to individuals across the spectrum of municipal services and city ecosystems at large. Planners are not only pollinators, but can act as cross-pollinators and should seek a variety of experiences outside of the blinders that planning school offers. Planners are bestowed with a wealth of tools and power as municipal servants or private consultants. This position consequently gives planners a responsibility to expand their interdisciplinary thinking as a way to offer the best services possible. It behooves the profession of planning for individuals to seek out experiences from people outside the planning hive mind.

Perhaps Maya Angelou said it best,

“You are the sum total of everything you’ve ever seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot – it’s all there. Everything influences each of us, and because of that I try to make sure that my experiences are positive.”

Planners can expand their horizons and their toolboxes through exposure to new ideas in their ecosystems, which helps create a sum total that is rich with nuance and considerate of the complicated needs present in city ecology.

Pollinators, while an integral part of the ecosystem, are just one part. Planners perform a similar function, as processors that are one of many important revolving parts of an ecosystem. If you are a planner, an urban enthusiast, or otherwise, I encourage you to see the parallels between planning and a forest ecosystem. Begin to notice the other aspects of your ecosystem / your city that help you create a more comprehensive and interconnected understanding of your world. What ecosystem are you a part of, and how can you build new symbiotic relationships within it?

Pierce Holloway is a first-year master’s student at the Department of City and Regional Planning with a focus on Climate Change Adaptation. Before coming to Chapel Hill he worked as a geospatial analyst for Urban3, working on visualizing economic productivity of communities and states. Through his coursework he hopes to explore the nexus between adaptation for climate change and community equitability. In his free time, he enjoys long bike rides, trail running, and any excuse to play outside.

Piece edited by Ruby Brinkerhoff

Featured Image: Combination of https://best-wallpaper.net/ & https://www.cbf.org/issues/forest-loss/, Photoshop by w. Pierce Holloway

Yucca Moth Image: https://projects.ncsu.edu/cals/course/ent425/images/pollinators_gallery/pages/06_yucca_moth_jpg.htm

A Walking Tour of McMansion Hell

April 21, 2020 / odrozd

By Jacob Becker

Just like you, hopefully, recently I’ve been spending the majority of my day inside my house. For me, after a spring break visit turned into a semester-long stay, that means staying at my parents’ house in New Jersey. I don’t want to give the Garden State a bad name—it’s full of natural beauty and wonderful bagels, with a competent governor who made the decision to close state parks to the public. But, because of those park closures, my outdoor recreation can only happen in two places: my neighborhood and Animal Crossing.

In Animal Crossing, a mask can still be a good idea.

After my college roommate came to visit one summer, I learned my neighborhood is officially considered an exurb, which is a suburb, but somehow even less convenient to get to work from. There are no sidewalks, probably because there is nowhere worth walking within the town borders. This lack of sidewalks means that most of my walks are around the same culs-de-sac where traffic is lightest. It’s surrounded by some nice forests, so birds, squirrels, deer and foxes are frequent sights, but they are welcome sights after spending most of the day inside. The houses I see almost every day are not.

This walk is filled with some of the ugliest houses I have ever seen. You might say that’s a harsh judgment, that architecture and aesthetics are subjective—but I feel qualified to judge this, as What Makes McMansions Bad is one of three concrete skills I have learned in my planning graduate experience thus far (the other two being telling a computer to make maps and how to have imposter syndrome). Also, just look at them. My opinions owe much to McMansion Hell, which, unsurprisingly, has many examples from my county of Bergen.

This isn’t the worst house, because I’m saving that one for last, but it’s terrible.

The color of this house doesn’t pop in this picture like it would on a sunny day, and you should be thankful for that. It’s somewhere between beige, light olive and mustard yellow, all of which make this list of the ugliest colors in the world, and we will be referring to this color trifecta as yeige. But the architect didn’t stop there. They also added a stone tiling to emphasize the oversized, out of place window over the door which only exists to let neighbors know they have a chandelier. My editor told me to refer to this window as central, but I would argue this house is far too unbalanced to have anything resembling a “center”. Speaking of the windows, the left side of the house has a selection of differently sized, randomly placed windows on an otherwise featureless void of yeige. Beyond that, there is no physical center to the house, instead different features and shapes are haphazardly pushed in and out of it. The overall appearance can only be described as lumpy.

Here, yeige stucco makes a comeback, but instead of stone, tiled brick is added to—well I don’t really know what the purpose of adding it is other than to amuse me. This house is also far too large for anything resembling a single family, and I heard a rumor from my dad that it’s only used on Thanksgiving.

I couldn’t fit the entire house in one shot, even with panorama mode.

There are many contenders for the worst house on my regular route, but this one showcases my favorite New Jersey McMansion feature—an abundance of unnecessary columns. Under the light, there are 6 pure white columns perched on top of piled up stone bases that serve no discernible purpose. The house would be better off without the two random triangles they are pretending to hold up. The only way I can imagine this house was built is that either a couple both owned exceptionally ugly houses and decided to attach them to each other when they moved in together, or the architect wanted to prove that he could make a monstrous McMansion with only one story. This one could eat three houses the size of my parents’ and still have room for the 5 cars these people undoubtedly own.

In my life I doubt I’ll ever own my own house, and I certainly won’t be able to pay off a raccoon to build my own McMansion and fill it with dinosaur bones that I refuse to donate to the museum like I can in Animal Crossing. You might think that the one benefit of homes this large is an easier time social distancing, exploring the rooms you never even knew were there, but from my walks that doesn’t seem to be the case. I feel like the curmudgeon I’ll eventually become every time I see people not practicing social distancing around my neighborhood. Maybe these homes have seven cars, but the kids I see longboarding together can’t all be siblings!

All image credits: Jacob Becker

About the Author: Jacob Becker is a second-year master’s candidate pursuing a dual masters in City and Regional Planning and Environmental Sciences and Engineering. His research interests include mapping air pollution, climate change adaptation and transitioning to clean energy sources. For fun, Jacob takes his mind off the slow heat death of the planet by hiking around it and indulging in improv and sketch comedy. Jacob received his undergraduate degree in Biology from the University of Chicago.

The Path to Equity: Do Greenways Help or Harm Low-Income Communities?

October 29, 2019 / odrozd

It’s not easy being green . . . unless you are a greenway.

In that case, you’re probably a hot ticket for municipalities, especially those in North Carolina. As part of the East Coast Greenway, 372 miles of trails wind across the state.

Proposed route, only 30% complete, by the East Coast Greenway Alliance.

Get Going NC, a blog created by Cary-based author Joe Miller in cooperation with the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation, compiled a list of trails in 2011. Many have been added since then, including in smaller cities such as Albemarle and Havelock.

Extensive greenways can also be found closer to home, logging 17.6 miles of trail in Chapel Hill, over 30 miles inDurham, 80 miles in Cary, and 100 miles in Raleigh.

Defining Greenways

Although many people associate greenways with undeveloped space, this misconception is easily debunked by Bolin Creek Trail. Brandon Tubby, UNC varsity distance runner and Angles contributor, describes the cement as “quite hostile” and “disappointing.”

In fact, greenways can be man-made or natural, urban or rural, paved or unpaved. The Town of Chapel Hill Greenways Master Plan (2013) interprets “greenways” as:

Networks of natural spaces which provide corridors connecting areas such as neighborhoods, parks, and schools. These passageways typically include trails for pedestrians and non-motorized vehicles.

While there is no technical definition for a greenway, the term connotates “the trails and connectivity that people always wanted,” said Dr. Danielle Spurlock, assistant professor in the Department of City & Regional Planning.¹

The actual number and length of greenways in North Carolina varies depending on whom you ask.

“There is the flipside that it’s also used as a marketing feature, and it is a metric that easier to measure than other types of investment,” Dr. Spurlock said.

The impact of greenways in the Triangle. Prepared by Alta Planning + Design.

Other potential benefits of greenways include transportation access, disaster mitigation, community cohesion, and aesthetic and moral value.

Greenway success, however, is typically measured in economic returns. The merits of measuring the success of greenways through property values warrants continued exploration. Do past projects illustrate the importance of considering equity to ensure sustainable, long-term development?

The Atlanta BeltLine

Equitable development is just about being sure to be inclusive of diverse groups throughout the planning process, and afterwards ensuring that you have some concrete plans that are able to be implemented. A lot of times, planners just use fancy buzzwords saying they’re going to be doing all this great stuff, and then there’s no follow-through. – Ansley K. Jones²

Ansley K. Jones, an Atlanta native, critiqued the Atlanta BeltLine’s lack of affordable housing for her UNC Master’s Project. She responded to the Master’s thesis that started it all: Ryan Gravel’s 1999 plan for the Atlanta BeltLine.

In his thesis, Gravel proposed converting 22 miles of railroads into multifunctional trails. He submitted this idea to the city in 2001, and the project broke ground in 2006. It has been called “the most comprehensive revitalization effort ever undertaken in the City of Atlanta . . . connecting 45 neighborhoods.”

Trail network proposed in the Atlanta BeltLine 2030 Strategic Implementation Plan.

However flashy the project seemed, the BeltLine promised 5,600 units of affordable housing by 2030, but almost immediately began to fall behind on achieving this goal. BeltLine Inc. neglected to earmark 15 percent of public funds and by 2016 had raised only enough to fund fewer than 785 affordable housing units.

Both Gravel and board member Nathaniel Smith resigned from the Atlanta BeltLine Partnership in 2016, and Paul Morris resigned as CEO of BeltLine Inc. in 2017. Gravel becomes an easy target to blame–with his “equity” rhetoric, early acknowledgement of gentrification, and modern loft in the BeltLine-gentrified Inman Park neighborhood–but blaming him misses the point.

The BeltLine’s tax increment financing (known as a Tax Allocation Fund in Georgia) prioritized profits over people, as the Atlanta Journal-Constitution with Georgia News Lab broke in 2017. While both Jones and the Journal-Constitution acknowledged factors outside of BeltLine Inc.’s control, such as the Recession and legal challenges, the partnership still neglected “millions of dollars of potential funds.” The Tax Allocation Fund relied on bonds from Tax Allocation Districts’ property taxes, “but because city statute stated that ‘bond proceeds,’ not tax dollars, would go to affordable housing, BeltLine Inc. was free to spend the TAD windfall elsewhere.” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution also reported that BeltLine Inc. failed to invest in land trust homes and temporarily catered to luxury housing by withdrawing from Invest Atlanta’s tax incentive program.

The fallout was bad for affordable housing but good for public awareness about the complexities of development along the BeltLine. “It’s really made Atlanta step up. They’ve had to become a lot more transparent about what’s going on,” Jones said.

Indeed, there is a renewed commitment to affordability along the BeltLine, but its reporting structure of units built inside (1,640) and outside (1,032) TAD boundaries echoes earlier controversies regarding inflating the numbers of affordable housing units.

Durham and Community Engagement

“Housing and Equity” from the Durham Belt Line Trail Master Plan

The Durham Belt Line is a 1.7 mile rail-to-trail project intended to connect to the East Coast Greenway (Durham Belt Line Trail Master Plan). Displacement concerns similar to those seen in Atlanta prompted Nathaniel Smith, the former board member of Atlanta BeltLine and founder of the Partnership for Southern Equity in Atlanta, to speak to the Durham community in August 2018.

While Durham crafted an Equitable Engagement Plan, it lacks a meaningful enforcement mechanism. According to Dr. Spurlock, who is also affiliated with the grassroots organization Communities in Partnership, the plan was pushed through prior to substantial community engagement.

This pattern parallels the unrolling of the Atlanta BeltLine.

“There were so many articles and all this anecdotal evidence that people in Atlanta were mad that the city wasn’t following through on their goals. So, public engagement really could have helped that,” Jones said.

She described some of Atlanta’s recent engagement measures. Public meetings in the BeltLine’s subareas have shown mixed success, but homeownership empowerment workshops have been more successful. These sessions educate citizens about how to access tools such as homestead exemptions, grants to rehabilitate homes, and down payment assistance for first-time home-buyers.

Jones hopes it is not too late for the engagement in Atlanta to have an effect. While Durham’s Direct Engagement period is over, the city still has the opportunity to foster meaningful community input before final design and permitting of the project.

Special thanks to Dr. Danielle Spurlock, UNC Department of City & Regional Planning; Ansley K. Jones, Georgia Environmental Finance Authority and UNC Department of City & Regional Planning, 2018; and Brandon Tubby, UNC Public Policy and Communications, 2020.

Additional resources:

American Trails – List of trail organizations in North Carolina.
City on the Verge by Mark Pendergrast – Book recommended by Ansley Jones on the history of Atlanta and the BeltLine.
Durham Belt Line for Everybody – Project by community groups advocating for equity in the Durham Belt Line process.

[1] Spurlock, Danielle. Interview by Rachael Wolff. October 22, 2019.

[2] Jones, Ansley K. Interview by Rachael Wolff. October 23, 2019.

Featured Image: Before and after along the Atlanta BeltLine corridor. Photo credit: Adaptation Clearinghouse, a project of the Georgetown Climate Center.

RACHAEL WOLFF | Online Content Contributor

Rachael Wolff is a first-year master’s candidate in the Department of City and Regional Planning. She is interested in learning how flood risk shapes land use, property values, and behavior. Prior to UNC, Rachael worked at a federal agency in Washington, D.C., where she also earned her bachelor’s degree at American University. Rachael enjoys climbing with friends, eating new food, and when possible, taking naps.

A Walk through the Granite Garden

October 3, 2019 / odrozd

“The city is a granite garden, composed of many smaller gardens, set in a garden world… Nature in the city must be cultivated, like a garden, rather than ignored or subdued.”

In her 1984 classic The Granite Garden, Anne Spirn challenges the idea of the city in opposition to nature, advocating instead a theory of urban ecology. She contends that humans coexist with natural forces in the city, and, by applying design principles that respect and leverage these forces in urban settings, we can lead happier, healthier, and more sustainable lives.

Spirn divides her book into six core sections: City and Nature, Air, Earth, Water, Life, and the Urban Ecosystem. Each chapter explores the failures of conventional development practices through historical examples, and then delves into ecological solutions to issues such as air and water pollution, soil erosion, flooding, wind tunnels, and heating and cooling. Her epilogue, Visions of the Future, concludes with two contrasting possibilities: The Infernal City and The Celestial City.

Diagram of passive solar house. Photo credit: passivebuilders.com.

The Granite Garden has stood the test of time and remains highly applicable, in part because design practices have advanced so little since its publication. Our failures to adopt and scale principles of urban ecology come with a high price tag, one that we pay, literally and figuratively, every day; home foundations ruined by frost heave, basements flooded during moderate rains, heating and cooling bills for thoughtlessly sited new construction, and mold-induced asthma are all the avoidable results of undervaluing⁠—or outright ignoring⁠—the power of natural forces.

Yet Spirn suggests many approaches to improve these conditions, approaches that are systemic and often synergistic in nature. For example:

integrating trees and other plants into urban neighborhoods in order to reduce urban heat island effects, improve the mental health of passersby, increase property values, moderate winter winds, and reduce runoff; and
siting new buildings so as to reduce heating and cooling costs, avoid flooding and foundation instability, protect residents from air and sound pollution, and nurture fragile ecosystems.

“[C]ities are intricate systems that confound attempts to solve one problem in isolation.”

While Spirn’s vision of urban ecology remains only partially realized, the good news is this:

“The celestial city is no utopian fantasy… it is necessary merely to recognize what is good in the present and nurture it, to adapt successful models already forged by cities of the past and present, and to develop new ones.”

⁠—⁠—⁠—⁠—⁠—⁠—⁠—⁠—⁠—⁠—⁠—⁠—⁠—⁠—⁠—⁠—⁠—⁠—⁠—⁠—⁠—⁠—⁠—

Anne Whiston Spirn, The Granite Garden: Urban Nature and Human Design, Basic Books, Inc., New York, 1984.

Featured Image: Plants burst through asphalt road. Photo Credit: earthporm.com.

Quotes:
— pp. 4-5, Prologue
— pp. 235, The City as An Infernal Machine
— pp. 275, Visions of the Future

About the author: Will Curran-Groome is a first-year master’s student in the Department of City and Regional Planning. Prior to coming to UNC, he worked in public health and social services research with a nonprofit in Philadelphia. Will’s academic interests include land use policy, affordable housing, and the relationship between the built environment and health.

What XKCD Can Teach You About Planning

March 27, 2018 / odrozd

From the master planning perspective, XKCD can help you plan an execute a project from start to finish by realizing the importance of big-picture thinking:

XKCD: Planning

And providing helpful tips on time management and organization, such as the best ways to start a project:

XKCD: Making Progress

To budget your time:

XKCD: Time Estimating

And to make a schedule:

XKCD: Time Management

It can help you set up your GIS project:

XKCD: Map Projections

And teach you how to add that all important design flair:

XKCD: State Borders

So that you can present your work in a convincing way:

XKCD: Heatmap

XKCD has advice for planning specializations as well. Particularly, it has a lot of information on transit problems.

Such as, how to set up roads for everyone’s use:

XKCD: Highway Engineer Pranks

And prepare for the advances of the future:

XKCD: Driving

XKCD can also assist with your studies by translating abstract concepts to ‘real-world’ situations, like supply and demand and the tragedy of the commons:

XKCD: Hotels

Or the real reasons for considering the best years for Census data:

XKCD: Suckville

And, finally, it can help you connect with the public. Whether that is explaining your most recent research project:

XKCD: Like I’m Five

Or the most recent disaster:

XKCD: Worst Case Scenario

About the Author: Nora Schwaller is a first-year Ph.D. student in the Department of City and Regional Planning, where she focuses on disaster recovery. Prior to UNC, she worked for an architecture firm in San Francisco. Outside of class, Nora enjoys long bike rides and short walks, delicious food with good people, and casually perusing information on the design history of contemporary video games and systems.

DCRP in the Urban Land Institute Hines Student Competition

March 8, 2018 / odrozd

Each year, the Urban Land Institute conducts the annual Hines Student Competition — an opportunity for graduate students students across the country to form teams and create a visionary land use development design for a site in a North American city. Each team of five must have members representing at least three different disciplines. Teams have two weeks to produce graphics and written analysis supporting their design and market decisions. The most recent competition in January focused on a site in Toronto, Canada.

Colleen Durfee and Sarah Parkins, both second-year DCRP Masters students and participants in this year’s competition, agreed to share some of their experiences and observations from the event.

What schools and disciplines were represented on your team?

Colleen: My team included students from DCRP and NC State.

Sarah: We had two students from UNC DCRP representing concentrations in housing and community development and economic development; one student getting her Masters in landscape architecture from State; and one student getting her Masters in Architecture at State. One of the best things about our team was that it an all-female team.

What were the main objectives of your team’s proposal?

Colleen: Develop the area as a connector/bridge between the downtown to the East and inner ring residential to the North and West. Provide services and amenities to the local community that can add value to the space we were developing. Bring in film industry professionals and educational institutions to learn from each other and grow from cluster development. Provide additional residential space.

Sarah: Our proposal titled TOD+ worked to deliver a mixed-use development centered around people in transition. Sited at the nexus of several new districts, it does not compete with their distinct identities, but rather facilitates the growth of people who live or work in the surrounding neighborhoods or are simply passing through.

As a gateway city that embraces cultural diversity and is expecting a significant increase in immigration, Toronto will need to facilitate the smooth transition of its diverse newcomers. TOD+ supports this notion by offering a range of affordable housing options and institutional support services that cater to immigrants resettling in Toronto.

As the supply of rental housing continues to be outpaced by demand, TOD+ also focuses on providing affordable housing options to aging millennials, encouraging them to remain in the urban core as they transition through different life stages. The largest component of TOD+ is multi-generational housing that embodies 8 to 80 principles.

In support of Toronto’s identity as a prominent hub of tourism and commerce, TOD+ further establishes a seamless experience for Toronto’s many short-term visitors who are temporarily settling in the city for business or pleasure. TOD+ offers both traditional and experimental hotel options that serve business professionals visiting nearby East Harbour and provides an immersive cultural experience to curious adventurers eager to explore downtown or the outlying neighborhoods.

To accomplish these goals, TOD+ reclaims the lost space of this flood-prone site by creating an elevated platform that spans from the western side of Broadview Avenue to the Don River.

TOD+ team design. Photo Credit: Sarah Parkins

Describe some of the opportunities and limitations of working with the Toronto site.

Colleen: We experienced limits to the kind and amount of data we needed. Additionally, we were not familiar with how public/municipal financing works in Canada or where to find needed data and information.

Sarah: This was the first year that the ULI Hines competition took place outside of the US, which caused a lot of limitations. Our training about zoning, planning tools, financing modeling and sources, and building codes have taken place within the context of the US, so we had to go through a crash course on the political, social, economic, and financial environment of Toronto in about a week. However, the great part of this competition is that no idea can be too big. So while we were trying to consider those world real factors, we also got to make some pretty big design decisions, like capping the highway and building a huge underground park that takes on water during floods; something you probably couldn’t normally propose for a development.

How did your training at DCRP and your experience as a planner inform your team’s design?

Colleen: I knew somewhat where to find the data I needed but it was still difficult, and I felt like I had to make some pretty huge assumptions I was not terribly comfortable with.

Sarah: My role was really unique in terms of coming on as a DCRP student because I also have a degree in architecture from my undergrad, so my experience as team leader was really as a bridge between the designers and the planners. I was able to look at the project from both of these sides, consider the economic strategies that would work best for us, and deal with issues about land acquisition and programming a mixed-use development while also helping to envision what our site would physically look like through design. I honestly can say that I used a little bit of everything I’ve learned from DCRP during this competition, including topics from my affordable housing classes to transportation classes.

What was your greatest learning experience from the process?

Colleen: I learned how to do a pro forma, and I learned a lot about the design process, about how it is iterative, and how when it is compressed, you don’t have the time you need to marinate with an idea. Rushing through it does not necessarily bring about the most creative results for groups, and I think that is part of why they compress the competition timeline. I think we would have benefited from being able to think through things without the stress of the limited time, but overall I loved working with landscape architects and seeing our ideas visually.

Sarah: Personally, this opportunity was a great way to combine all my skills from a degree in architecture with the skills from my master’s degree. I got to practice the skills needed to think through an urban redevelopment strategy, considering the financial analysis while also including programming and placemaking concepts. But I also got to make renderings and drawings that represented the design of the project.

It was also great to practice how to communicate between different disciplines. There were definitely barriers between our planners and our designers, so it was challenging trying to bridge that gap and have everyone on the team learn from each other’s disciplines.

This was a great opportunity and I really recommend it to any students who are interested in real estate development or urban design. It was a lot of work, but it was absolutely worth it.

Visit the ULI website for more information on the Hines Student Competition.

Featured Image: View of the main competition site in Toronto. Photo Credit: Urban Land Institute

Advocating for Bicycle Boulevards: A Process in Durham, NC

September 7, 2017 / odrozd

How do community groups participate in transportation planning? Durham Bicycle Boulevards, an advocacy organization based in Durham, North Carolina, seeks to raise awareness for better bicycle infrastructure in the Bull City. Working in collaboration with Durham Area Designers, the group hosted a design charrette. The event brought together city planners, community members, and design professionals to create an outline for how Bicycle Boulevards could make Durham the most bikeable city in the South.

[vimeo 199890071 w=640 h=360]

Durham Bicycle Boulevards Concept from Brian Vaughn on Vimeo.

In late August, the City of Durham announced that it won a grant to implement Bicycle Boulevards from the North Carolina Department of Transportation. The city is matching the state expenditure with local funds.

If you would like to learn more about Bicycle Boulevards, consider attending the next Street Design Series meeting on Tuesday, September 12, 2017.

About the Author: Brian Vaughn is an undergraduate and minors in Urban Studies and Planning. This summer, he spent three weeks in South Florida, Charlotte, and Atlanta conducting a public life study around transit stations. His favorite transit oriented development is Union Station in Washington, DC.

Video Source: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Featured Image: Photo via Visual Hunt