Solution
We can and must do better
S o here we find ourselves living in urban environments that are in many ways unpleasant, as well as environmentally unsustainable, simply because different outcomes have not been imagined or implemented. Instead of endless butterings of low-rise developments, imagine high-density islands of population and commerce riding upon seas of land or water that help us recapture the spaciousness we have lost. Instead of people isolated in far-flung neighborhoods (or four doors down the street) disconnected from the services they rely upon, imagine vertically constructed urban villages where everything needed is conveniently located within an immediate downstairs backyard, where there is no absolute need for automobile, bus, trolley car, taxi or jitney to run errands in order to access these services, and the greater backyard, the estate we occupy, is parkland, perhaps orchard, farmland or wilderness - our choice.
I was tremendously impressed by the ideas presented by William McDonough and Michael Braunhart in their book "Cradle to Cradle", where they propose how we might re-engineer products to replenish the earth in lieu of our singular habit of being the only creatures in all of nature's biota to waste their leavings as junk, good for nothing but landfills. What might it take to create and live in such an ideal world? It would certainly be a component of the solution we propose.
A wide range of urban conveniences can be constructed within environments of natural spaciousness and be economically viable. How might this be achieved, not only for us with our limited means, and not only for others who would like to share this particular vision, but also for those who would like to create variations of their own dream? How might we use constructive and positive means within present realities to have our economic system profitably build for us this future? Emphasize the profitability. If it is not profitable, it will never happen in an open , free market society.
My Ideal Backyard
First, suppose we fantasize a little. What might I, as author of this, like most to put into my own very personal backyard?
I would start with a body of water. A lake perhaps, or pond, a river, an ocean or even a deep holed fishing creek would do, along with wetlands to increase the variety of birds, plants and animals in that outdoor pastoral scene.
Then there should be a waterfall. Not necessarily a Niagara Falls but something at least to make soothing music as a background sound. Then there should be a meadow bounded by a forest with walking paths and places for deer to browse. I love to see animals and lots of birds in a landscape. Then, although I would mostly prefer to see mountains (big rocky ones), a big bold rock outcropping would be almost, if not quite as satisfying. Most certainly, there should be extensive gardens, an arboretum, no overhead utilities, swimming pools (some for adults and others for the youngsters).
There should be a raft of enthusiastic youngsters with schools,playgrounds and sports facilities like tennis courts perhaps, or a soccer field. The sight and sounds of excited, enthusiastic,outrageous youth is the sound of a happy future, properly a balm for anyone's spirit. Those of ancient age should be able to get around to all of these wonders without having to be athletes. Such convenience simply means that all of the immediate, certainly enclosed sites should be within readily convenient walking distance - say within a thousand feet or so - with plenty of places to sit for a moment in dappled shade with delightful eye music of plantings and art forms to observe while at rest.
Then, for comfort I would like a sunny terrace with parasols for shade (heated in chilly weather), and it would be wonderful to have someone serve a libation while I sat back and enjoyed the passing scene. A few excellent restaurants with dedicated chefs and servers in a warm ambiance would have my cup run over. Most certainly I would enjoy the availability, sights and smells of a couple of delicatessens and bakeries and while we're at it, green grocers and meat markets with sawdust on the floor, and a farmer's market in season.
We would need separately owned businesses for proper price, variety, service, and presentation competition. And I would love to have a florist, a candy store and an ice cream parlor. Try to imagine how satisfying it would be for me, personally to have all those business owners and their staffs know me and call me by name either when I walked into their shop or when seeing me walk about? By golly, I like those people; I really think they certainly should be my good neighbors. There should be a way to accomplish this, even if the inclusion of a tattoo parlor, porn shop or other such vulgarity was required to make it all possible, not only for my personal benefit but most especially, for theirs and for the livelihood, welfare and delight of their families.
Should not barbers and beauty shops belong here also, and a sports bar in a pool hall or bowling alley for us to share with others the excitement of closely contested games. That would surely beat going out in a snowstorm or a heat wave to such a venue, or being a couch potato hidden away alone in some isolated viewing room. I'd love a woodworking and metal shop and a place to chisel on some rocks. That would probably require, for use by others, a number of other interesting craft shops.
There simply must be a concert hall for us to enjoy plays, opera, ballet, symphonies and the occasional politician's spiel that I could happily catcall and loudly boo! I'd enjoy browsing in a library or bookstore. Many things can be satisfactorily ordered on the internet but personally, my wife and I like to try on shoes and have a cobbler, tailor or seamstress fit our apparel more exactly - it would be wonderful to have those good people nearby and to know all of those who work in those shops by name as friends and neighbors
Many if not most of those delights might be available in a rural village, but certainly not of the quantity and rich quality available in just about any urban area. What insanity ever took such things away from where we live? Oh yes, I remember, it was for some sort of property value protection - for in our present urban communities these venues are prevented by law from being in, or even near, either yours or my residential property. But I certainly want all those things in my very own affordable backyard. Do you like that? What might you then add or subtract?
The Urban Village Paradigm
To include all of these amenities in close proximity would obviously require a multi-use, multi-story structure, or structures. As we have imagined them, urban villages would rise to take advantage of vertical rather than horizontal space travel. Because each development would be positioned within large tracts of open parkland, these urban villages differ from the sea of skyscrapers found in large cities. Every 10.5 or so feet above each ten acres of land is another ten acres available to be enclosed for sale or rent. Thus, instead of a hundred-acre one or two story development built with little or no open space, imagine placing ten horizontal levels onto just ten of those acres, leaving the other ninety developed largely by Mother Nature or the community for some other worthwhile open space purpose. This type of construction, at even higher rises, would provide adequate commercial and residential space to fulfill the dreams of the most acquisitive capitalist, but would also recognize the value of open land for those outdoor amenities that money alone cannot buy.
To access the vertical spaces within this newly created urban village is simple. In 1861 Elishu Otis developed an elevator safety device that permitted the loading and unloading of cargo for the New York City shipping industry. Wide varieties and usages of these machines are commercially available. It is also interesting to note that the higher an elevator is required to go, the lower its initial cost per foot of rise and operating cost. Elevators are far more economical in construction and maintenance than roads, which are public tax-consuming liabilities. As capital, elevator installations are amortized by their owners and operating costs are paid by their users with far less expense than those horrendously expensive and cluttered tax supported lateral arteries we call roads, whose periodic costly repair congests traffic even further.
To be economically viable, urban villages must be profitable entities for their developers, and therefore firmly based upon the fundamental reasons for which every city exists - opportunity. What all of those merchants, institutions, and facilities require is a customer base large enough to enable them to make a living. That leads to the need for a substantial estate with a large enough population to support the businesses and other activities that enable inclusion of those desired amenities. In addition to those indoor and outdoor features, such a population would properly require places to live, work and play, together with a full range of municipal services.
What are envisioned then are substantial, good-sized town communities arrayed in open spaces connected to one another as neighborhoods of a larger city, existing together for the many economic reasons cities exist. Specialization of activities in varied venues - such as for art, sports, work, education, specialty shopping - would create great synergies and competitive energy. Transportation between these point A and B entities could take many available delightful forms above, on or below grade, but freeing the land for pedestrian use: subways, maglevs, water craft, taxis, rickshaws, bicycles or shoe leather. Yes, you might even use an automobile but we suspect that as you read further, you might find this delightful extravagance is better reserved for recreation and touring upon the open road and to far places. Rather than owning, we expect you will find it more economical to rent vehicles for special purposes.
So here we're talking about a property large enough to put all of these benefits into. How big would such an area need to be? Honestly, we do not really know. We would like it to be as large as possible in order to house a wide variety of amenities, but as small as possible to promote easy access within the property itself. We recognize that to make such a project possible within existing urban areas, the property would need to be as small as practical because of land availability and project economics. To accommodate present populations, new urban villages could readily be sited within existing metropolitan areas. As an example, the Boston to Washington DC megalopolis, with a population now in excess of 44 million, is currently the nation's largest concentration of people and might be the region that could most readily benefit from the adoption of this urban village paradigm. This is not to deny that an ambitious developer might well make such a project eminently successful in any urban area here in America or elsewhere in the world.
Might it just be really possible? - A Manhattan Charette
Manhattan Island in New York City , the "Big Apple", is about as congested as any place here in America, with a population density that would make our idealized urban village project fabulously prosperous. It already has all of the indoor amenities envisioned thus far, but what would it take to add all the wonderful outdoor rural village amenities many of us crave? Indulge us please; this case imaginative study is to explore the possibilities of combining these amenities conveniently in one place on limited space. A preliminary design study (an over the thumb charette) using approximate numbers might show enough of a feasibility to indicate whether further definitive studies could prove seriously worthwhile.
Manhattan Island is about 23 square miles in area, which translates into some 14,720 acres. It also has a population of a little over 1.5 million people, which equates to about 430 thousand households. Should we divide those 23 square miles into substantial 100-acre parcels, we would have 147 of these plats on which we would have roughly 3000 dwelling units per parcel, or about 10 to 12 thousand people on each of those parcels. If master planned into four cornered clusters, some 40 to 50 thousand people might be living on a few acres of a 400-acre estate that included all or most of those indoor and outdoor amenities. Manhattan Island could be home to 37 such quite substantial 400-acre estates with structures occupying just a small percentage of those total acres.
Roughly 20% of Manhattan (and every other urban area) is paved with streets and sidewalks, which equate to approximately 3000 acres of pavement to access by foot or vehicle those previously mentioned hundreds of thousands of separated points A and B. The Island also is home to a number of parks totaling some 1300 acres, while the height of buildings on the island reportedly averages 10 floors. If we subtract the street and park areas from the total area, we arrive at about 10,400 acres built the 10 stories high to arrive at a present building inventory totaling approximately 4.5 billion square feet. If we assume 15 acre footprints on each of those 100 acre tracts and divide those into the 4.5 billion square feet, the result tells us that 45 to 50 story average heights on those few selected sites would well accommodate the population, economic activity, and all the fabulous indoor amenities presently existing in Manhattan. Now free the ground with subways and elevated roads and now we have an open parkland.
This simple exercise of consolidating the population vertically shows us that we could substitute a mere 37 origin and destination points A and BE for the multiple hundreds of thousands presently existing. Imagine! Islands of population could exist in a sea of land - or possibly in other cases - a sea of water. (Imagine also how such a solution might have turned the tragedy of a flooded New Orleans into a magnificent opportunity to recreate a genuinely original river city for the ages - perhaps on stilts, or perhaps also upon the mounds of rubble resulting from the disaster).
This concept takes the world famous Central Park, separated from the people by a wide moat of thundering traffic, multiplies its dimension by almost 16 times, and puts the people living out in the clearing amongst its beauties. Its creator, Frederick Law Olmsted, would be proud that people had finally learned to live again with nature's bountiful and healthful effect, not just simply observing that nature as an expensive landscape from afar, its values having little, if anything to do with their daily round of existence..
"How droll: What was Wigwams in a clearing became a clearing in the Wigwams!
In the Manhattan example, we would imagine that for economic and practicality's sake, some type of intramural conveyor system would be developed to further diminish the space required for vehicular delivery services. So not only could the very basis for traffic congestion be reduced, but we've just provided 340 acres of surrounding open land, multiplied by those 37 clusters, giving us 13,320 acres (or almost 21 square miles) for all those outdoor amenities such as lakes, woods, meadows, waterfalls, playgrounds and delightful vistas of the rivers and Palisades that current occupancy has paved over and covered up.
This exercise roughly calculates into 30.6 million square feet building average on each of the 100-acre Manhattan estates. Would these multi-billion dollar investments promise profitability? A developer would need to calculate costs, sales and rents to really answer that question. If profit potential is really there, as fully expected, the projects will be built over time until Hendrick Hudson's idyllic discovered island is virtually restored. (Those would be challenging design Wigwams we must admit!)
On other, less constricted sites, say a township of 36 square miles instead of Manhattan's more restricted 23, the footprint average for the above 1.5 million occupants example could reduce to (we think and wish, but cannot insist upon) ten percent footprint land coverage, and the average building height would then be on the order of a more modest 30 stories. Both larger and smaller sites may also prove to be financially feasible; the rough estimate of the Manhattan charette demands that a sharp pencil be put to those possibilities, a task, that substantial funding would enable.
The proportionate footprint land use and the inclusion of profitable commercial activities in multi-use constructions is the key to both the realization of our urban vision and to planet Earth's rejuvenation. What a wonderful way to reclaim so much land that has been despoiled in every community - not only here in the United States but worldwide!
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