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Essays related to the CSCC

Reclaiming the Urban Landscape

How we design our cities has enormous consequences. This essay will describe a number of ways to help mitigate the problems of auto centric land use with the converging trends central to the CSCC in mind. [see calendar for “Reclaiming the Urban Landscape at the Green Home Show”]

For the past 75 years, our urban areas have been designd and built primarily for automobiles. We have high levels of mobility – cars - because we have low levels of accessiblity – being close to where we need to go. The land use arrangement we are familiar with is predicated on cheap oil and lots of it. That equation is changing. There is an urgent need for urban redesign - holistic approaches deliver multiple benefits. This essay will focus land use changes that are residential and neighborhood scale, briefly mentioning larger scale.

Several thoughts to keep in mind.

1] More than likely, we will need to make much more effective use of what urban infrastructure we now have. The white paper Hirsch Report from 2006 advises preparing for peak oil in an effective way would take a crash Manhattan Project/man on the moon type effort of 20 years to make an appreciable difference for how we cope with declining energy supplies. It is most likely we have lost that opportunity. At this point, we dont have the time, leadership, money or civic vision to make the wide scale changes the trends call for. We will have to improvise and wing it as individuals, neighborhoods and nation with most of the effort coming from the grass roots. Ideally, governments can help mitigate the social and economic disruption we are already witnessing that will certainly worsen, but any forthcoming mitigation is likely to be inadequete because the scale of the changes we can expect are far beyond the experience and training of elected officials and government staff.

2] Humans are very creative. New conditions, likely to be unfamiliar and difficult, will certainly bring out ideas and approaches for reworking the urban landscape that few, if anyone, is even thinking about at present We can expect both the best and worst of human nature to manifest as economic disarray deepens. The better prepared we are, the better the chances for positive outcomes.

3] This transition is not only about technology and resources. It is very much about culture and how we see ourselves in the world as individuals and as a community. There needs to be a vision and an upgraded set of ideals and values for a different way of taking care of our needs- a culture change. We will not be successful repairing the damage of the past 50 years by using the same thinking that brought us here in the first place.

4] There are real life assets we can draw from. A] On the ground examples/models of pioneering changes in land use of the existing urban infrastructure, B] Vision and analysis from non mainstream sources that have already done a useful, if not well known amount of consideration and strategizing about these issues.

5] The dominant corporate consumer culture and world view is all most people know. Setting it aside and creating a healthy and functional alternative will be an immense task and it may not be graceful. All the positive attributes of human character will be called upon for these changes. Those attributes can be found in everyone and can be nurtured, cultivated and manifested. We will either make the changes we need to make or wish we had. Many people will become open to positive changes when they see successful and accessible alternatives exist to a failing way of life.

6] A vital part of making healthy and positive changes in land use, life style and economics is to make the time available as individuals to be a part of the process. How we prioritize our time is immensely and fundamentally important. This is the realm of culture change. Its about trading time immersed in the consumer culture for time in the emerging positive civic/ecological culture. [please read the Culture Change essay].

Suburban Conversion

Half of Americans live in suburbia and not all suburbia is created equal. Even here in Eugene, suburbia takes very different forms. Locations in the hills are not as likely to be as functional in an energy constrained near future as places in the flats when considering soil, sun and accessiblity. In contrast, northern parts of Eugene are characterized by large lots, better soils, solar access and are less auto dependent because its flat. Elsewhere across the United States, its very likely suburbia will be depopulated in places such as Houston, Phoenix, Atlanta and Dallas, to name only a few. The energy and material resources to sustain suburbia as we know it are unlikely to last.

In Eugene, one can find a growing number of sububan properties that are being used in ways that would not likely have been thought of 40 or 50 years ago when those houses were built. Grass is gone, replaced by gardens. Ornamental landscaping has been replaced with fruit and nut trees, edible shrubs, vines and brambles. In some locations pavement has been removed and that daylighted space is finding more productive use. Rain water collection systems are being installed at an increasing number of homes. More places are using passive solar space heating, solar water, photovoltaics. Remodeling garages into living space, a common home upgrade, is gaining new meaning as a smart land use change for responding to global trends – reclaiming space from automobiles for shelter, food and the environment.

Suburban properties will become locations for home economics – taking care of more needs from assets on site such as soil, water, sun and human resourcefulness. Suburbia can redefine itself and become a fertile places for creating eco culture change.

A location in River Road has been an on going conversion project for 8 years. Virtually all the landscaping is edible with apple, peach, pear, fig, lemon, cherry, olive, filbert and English Walnut. There are six different kinds of brambles. Grass is all gone and turned into vegetable gardens. Driveway was removed and now supports food production and storage shed.

There is a 3500 gallon rain water storage system, passive solar redesign with a 350 ft sq sunroom, detatched passive solar bungalow, chickens, water features with native plant habitats, cold frames to lengthen the growing season. All this on a quarter acre property. The place has also become a site for workshops, Perma Jam and welcomes a wide variety of tours and visitors - the project has become a civic asset.

Several sites in Eugene are seeing collaboration between neighboring properties. This is the next step in reclaiming suburbia. Home economics can become neighborhood economics. From single residential scale to neighborhood scale means far more of our needs can be taken care of closer to home. There are benefits to scaling up and still being people/planet friendly. Collaborations between neigbors can mean sharing tools, sharing and learning skills both hands on and professional, underused property can find better uses, multi generation cooperation can help replace the cash economy.

One site in Eugene is a cluster of mid 60's suburban homes where neighbors coordinate their gardens, share tools, socialize and strategize. They also are in the early stages of collaborating with a nearby school for creating a large school garden and are building a social platform for more ambitious efforts.

Another land use initiative is in the Bethyl neighborhood where a couple is reaching out to neighbors with ideas of collaborating on food, tools and garden space. The couple is encouraging others of like mind to buy properties nearby to create an extended eco village.

A group in Friendly Neighborhood has organized garden growing workshops while neighbors in River Road have self organized to restore riparian habitat along the river.

Small efforts at cooperation will lead to larger ones. How those efforts evolve will be unique given the people involved and their own resources but those efforts will likely start out looking after basic needs.

[see calendar for “Creative Neighborhood Initiatives” presentation at the Green Home Show]

Eco Villages

The eco village idea takes shape at several sites of Eugene. One location's property is owned by a single person but there is a very real community sense with the multiple households close to gether. Density in one area allows for open space for a large organic garden in another area. There is natural drainage, a former driveway is now garden and an attractive water feature, there are a number of examples of natural building techniques, the location has a space available for community gatherings, there is a high level of group socializing and interaction.

Another place with experience valuable to the community is a housing co-op in Whiteaker. The place has been going for 25 years and is legally a non equity building cooperative. It owns about 9 properties and can manage them in an integrated way that benefits the co op members and the surrounding neighborhood as well. Again, density in some areas allows for gardens and play area elsewhere. There are many shared amenities that would not likely be available to only a few people like a parking area that is now a garden, sauna, cooperative art and a community meeting space also available for use outside the co-op.

These eco villages are pioneering examples of a very different approach to land use, culture and economics. The are cooperative, they all reduce the eco footprint and they all are dynamic and able to evolve as conditions change in the broader sense. They are a bit like laboratories and have much to share with the larger community. They are already making changes in lifestyle that will help to pre adapt them for a very different world we are all moving towards. They will also evolve in their own unique and creative ways and become even more productive and diverse in taking care of needs.

Block Planning

In the realm of social/cultural/economic/land use evolution, the next step up from the sites described above in complexity and benefit is called Block Planning [BP]. Thirty years ago, the city of Eugene contracted a local architect and land use visionary to work with neighborhood groups to promote Block Planning. The effort did not quite make it off the ground but there is much to learn from that effort where several groups did meet, created plans but did not translate those plans into reality.

A Block Plan is an agreement between the residents and property owners of a block, along with the city and neighborhood association to make a specified set of changes in land use over a certain period of time. One of the most important benefits of a Block Plan is it allows a more flexible approach to meeting city codes and development guidelines. That means a Block Plan can be far more creative in its design and build out than a single property by itself. Properties within the plan remain private but the overall block can far more effectively make use of set backs, cluster parking, density, solar access, landscaping, storm water and more.
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A BP can facilitate many formal and informal collaborations among its residents. Increasing density in a thoughtful way can actually lead to more open space. It can produce far more food and facilitate shared projects like rain water catchment, composting, storm water, child care, vehicle sharing, food projects, solar and much more. Cluster parking and car sharing could allow much more automobile space to be transformed – driveways into garden, garages into granny flats, meeting space/block culture center, small businesses and much more.

Multiple adjacent Block Plans can multiply the benefits. Thoughtful density can lead to more convenient transit because there are more people to use it. Greater density can support new neighborhood scale businesses and culture. The neighborhood can be more walkable, more kid friendly, more senior friendly and a more affirming, visually attractive, cohesive and resilient.

A Block Plan is an ambitious undertaking and the benefits can be huge for the residents and the larger community in even more ways. The planning, investment, reconstruction, materials all can create quality job for many different kinds of small businesses such as architects, carpenters, plumbers, permaculture landscapers, local finance and more. It could help create local businesses to supply the eco friendly materials used in the Block Plan for solar, food, rain water, resource conservation and other aspects of a Block Plan.

Th eco village and co-op mentioned above have a number of attributes of a Block Plan. A visit to those places with a guided explanation will readily show many of the benefits of a BP. The trends we are concerend with clearly show Block Planning to be a powerful tool for reworking the urban landscape towards a much greener local economy and culture. It deserves active encouragement from the City and neighborhood associations. [see calendar for the Block Planning Tour]

Further thoughts about land use.

Food. Urban agriculture must be an essential part of the urban landscape. Many cities of the world such as Shanghai, London, Dar es Salaam, Vancouver BC, St. Petersburg, Havanna produce significant amounts of their food within the urban area. A worthy civic goal would be to make available for every person in Eugene, a place to grow a meaningful amount of their own food. This could either be where people live, where they work or on city property such as community gardens.

There are many open spaces owned by the city that could become garden areas. Apartment complexes should provide garden space for their tenants if at all possible. Hydroponic set ups in front of sunny large windows, both residential and commercial along with roof tops are the new frontiers of urban agriculture.

A city wide inventory of arable properties is called for that would include quality of soil, ownership of the property and history of the property to determine if contaminants are present. A study should articulate a contingency plan for bringing open space into cultivation, beginning with city property and progressing to other properties if necessary. The city's increasing number of farmers markets is a trend that deserves full public support and could serve as outlets for urban agriculture.

The city's community garden program is one of the best amenities the city offers it citizens. The program should be upsized and integrated into a larger and more ambitious program incorporating land identified from the arable land survey and in cooperations with numerous partners such as the OSU Extension office, communities of faith, School Garden Project, Food 4 Lane County, Victory Gardens for All, neighborhood associations and others.

How to pay for it? The capital costs could be met with slightly higher garden fees or sliding scale. Managing the gardens could be by volunteer to avoid the cost of city staff. Grants and donations could help, especially if there was a well organized civic campaign to expand the City gardens program.

Side bar. More idealistic but worth noting, if city spending was determined by a full cost accounting of how it spends its money, that would lead to a very different approach to making budgets. What spending leads to the greatest health for people and the environment and how does city spending relate to climate change, energy depletion, local food security and other important measures of community well being? Taking these concerns into account would lead to a very different budget that would rank local food production as a high priority along with other changes [land use, manufacturing, investment] that would add immensely to our quality of life while greatly reducing our collective eco footprints.

Added to city property for gardens could be properties of churches, schools, businesses and any where else that makes sense. Apartment complexes should make space available to residents if possible. The city should promote edible landscaping on public property rather than censor it. Partners can be found to take care of the trees and fruit/nuts.

The ideas and models described above are an important beginning to intelligent urban design. They are small scale - the domain of individuals, small groups and neighborhoods. At a small scale, movemen/forward motion can be much more resonsive than the city planning level. The changes to be made will likely be driven by an increasing number of small projects and initiatives that will push the boundaries of city codes.

Some boundary pushing and experimenting will be necessary. I think its accurate to say, the established planning culture will have a good deal of catching up to do although, its accurate to say, many city staff are fully aware of the global trends and many would cheer the innovations that will increasingly be taking place, permitted or not.

City staff with an understanding of the trends and challenges should be encouraged to share their thoughts freely as city employees.

Further Afield

The City does have policies and goals to reduce vehicle miles traveled. A number of efforts have been made towards creating mixed use centers, nodal development, urban villages – different names for the same goal – for re developing zones with higher density residential, combined with commercial and employment opportunities. All to reduce the need and use of cars.

Neighborhood surveys such as the recent one sent out to 1500 residents of River Road can learn what are the most important goods and services a given neighborhood needs to reduce VMT. The city should then use its economic development assets to connect the neigborhoods with the businesses they need.

Strip malls and shopping centers are scattered all around Eugene. The parking lots that go with them need to be redeveloped. The new businesses and higher density residential construction can be built where there is currently parking area. There are literally hundreds of acres of prime real estate, with prelocated infrastructure all around town that can serve a far higher purpose.

Redeveloping parking lots, individual properties, promoting eco villages and block planning, encouraging urbvan agriculture can serve many community goals; help create local jobs, reduce VMT, protect the UGB, facilitate community bulding and local resilience, keep more money in Eugene, create ways to directly invest in Eugene. In Permaculture, this is called stacking, multiple benefits from thoughtful design. This should be one of the fundamental principles for reclaiming the urban landscape.

Decreasing VMT has been a city land use policy for years. One of the approaches for doing that has been to develop mixed use urban villages. The idea is to facilitate neighborhood scale commercial and residential redevelopment together, bringing important businesses closer to where people live so they do not have to drive as much.

Everyone agrees this is a timely idea. How can it move faster?