The Tattler introduces 'From The Archives', a new feature that brings back Tattler stories from the past that we deem to still be of interest. From The Archives will appear on an occasional basis. A brief follow-up to the original posting appears at the bottom of the story as an addendum.
Here then is our From The Archives offering for today:
Wednesday April 21, 2010
'Drive In & Drive Out Condos': Emeryville's Alienating Architecture
'Auto Centric' City Subverts Our Goals
News Analysis
Emeryville has had a 15 year period of explosive residential growth planned in conjunction with the growth in commercial development that has been going on even longer. The newly approved General Plan calls for more growth in the residential sector albeit at a slower pace than what we've experienced up till now. The use of the word 'planned' should be qualified since only the idea of adding more residences has been considered by the decision makers. The actual type of housing we've been getting has been supplied by the developers themselves with no intervening action on the part of City Hall. The type of housing they've been building has been what they have seen fit to build here in Emeryville; what they've estimated will maximize their profits. City Hall has kept out of their way.
Podium Development
Room for lots of cars: This is how Emeryville designs streets. |
Drive In, Drive Out Development
This is how a sidewalk should be used in a city. |
Is there another way of building cities that encourages real civic engagement among its residents?
An Alternate Emeryville:
An Architecture Of Civic Engagement
Imagine if we could plan how our city were to look and feel, how it actually worked for the residents. Imagine if we could make a city with full realization of the benefits of the engaging psychology of space. Imagine if the sidewalks were really fully "activated" instead of the empty rhetoric we now get from the developers. Imagine coming home from work and walking a block or two to your front door. You run into friends and neighbors on your short walk, they also are heading home. You stop by a green grocer on the corner and pick up something for dinner, perhaps stopping by the neighborhood florist to pick up a few flowers for the table.
Condos With Real Front Doors
A front door opening to the street! Chance encounters can happen, community is built. |
No More Free Ride For Developers
Everybody says this is how they imagine a livable city. What's Emeryville doing to achieve this? |
If we build less alienating residences then everybody wins, even those who don't live at the new condos. With a more connected and engaged citizenry, other aspects of life in Emeryville improves as well, the schools, the business sector and the government. All this far reaching civic improvement can be attained by the very simple policy of forcing people to walk a block or two through the neighborhood by not putting parking in the condo buildings. To those who might think this idea too radical, remember, this is how all cities were built for generations. The idea that cars should be incorporated into the buildings is relatively new. Our grandparents built cities like this, they used front doors. It's time we take the good ideas they left for us and incorporate them into a new ethic on how to build livable cities ourselves.
UPDATE: Since this story first appeared the Great Recession has continued along at an increasing pace for municipalities in California. Emeryville's budget has been skewered and the Redevelopment Agency has been absorbed by the State. Private residential building projects have been extremely curtailed. We've entered a period of austerity and the fix outlined by this story, the idea we should be building public parking garages peppered throughout town, now seems increasingly remote. Perhaps some of this can be accomplished at the margins as we move forward in time. With that in mind, each new project approved moving forward, should take into account the need to start building a fund to build these parking garages.
Even though we still have the capacity to vision this kind of livability, albeit on a very limited basis, at this juncture and likely for the next generation at least, the picture presented by this story represents the road not taken. These community building development ideas likely won't be Emeryville's legacy. Emeryville's story will be one mostly of squandered opportunity.
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