A gas station used to be there

Lonnie November 25th, 2009

“A gas station used to be there.” This is true of the corner of James and Midler. A gas station used to be on approximately every corner in Eastwood, based on some comments I heard at TNT Monday night. And that might have been true. But saying “a gas station used to be there” as justification for a new one being put in at the same location is like saying “An oil city used to be there” as justification for putting in even bigger, taller, brighter oil tanks at the northern entrance to Syracuse. Just because we used to do it doesn’t mean that it necessarily is or is not a good idea. Let’s debate this one on its own merits, not the merits of a period of cheap, plentiful oil, now fast waning. Continue Reading »

Have you done your homework?

Lonnie August 24th, 2009

The city of Seattle has Transportation and Pedestrian Safety Committees and a Pedestrian Master Plan. “The plan (a summary you can find here) sets goals and performance measures for making Seattle a more walkable city and reducing the number of car-pedestrian accidents. The plan was developed with help from a citizens’ advisory group.” (see this blog post)

So do a bit of reading about walkability, urban design, and design guidelines and join the discussion. Then let’s debate the merits of what you have read. What specifically is wrong with Seattle’s plan or what do you like about it?

Our aim is to prevent in Eastwood the kind of disaster that happened at Lodi and Butternut.

How about Washington, DC? Did you know that the whole city is booming? Why? In large part it’s due to its walkability. Here’s another article whose points might be debated: Walkability = livability = billions.  Read that article – copyrighted by The Washington Post Writers Group – and find this assertion:

…(C)ities, competing, will likely keep heeding advice to lure creative young professionals; in fact, those that don’t offer true walkable urbanism, … are “probably destined” to lose out economically.

All across this country, cities are waking up the facts that European cities have known for decades: when mass transit is subsidized like highways are, when cities are valued, when a diversity of businesses that are easy to get to on foot are encouraged to develop, then cities are economically healthier, its residents are physically healthier, and communities are more cohesive.

Do your homework. Read the above articles, and more. And come back and share what you’ve read. Let’s educate ourselves, others, and in the process have some healthy discussion about walkability and its impact.

The challenge is to bring an article from a reputable source that is stating that walkability is not good for the economic health of communities. See if you can find any studies that show that single-use, suburban-style buildings set back in a big parking lot are good for urban neighborhoods. Please link (cite) your sources so the rest of us can read what you’ve found. It’s important to back claims with sources – that way our discussions remain focused.

- Lonnie and Jessica


A last-century response to a current problem

Lonnie June 10th, 2009

Sean Kirst recently wrote an article, The Dinosaur: More success by design, citing one of his previous articles, The Dinosaur, by design, that reinforces that idea that we have a prime example in our town of a business that works, despite all the ways people think it should not work. And that’s the Dinosaur, now the #1 barbecue in the country. And it’s working by design.

Sean said in 2005:

Sitting in the car Thursday, watching as men and women flowed in and out of the Dinosaur, it struck me that people go there because it offers something unique – and because it embraces, rather than fears, authentic city ambiance. The funny thing is, if the Dinosaur went by the Walgreens rules (referring to Walgreens “need” for suburban, big-box style development – ed.) , a true Syracuse phenomenon would probably dry up and close its doors.

Sean reminds us that many of our pre-conceived notions of what makes a business work just fall apart in the face of this reality: a restaurant putting out top-notch food that caters to a serious diversity of people can be a destination. It doesn’t need to demolish a building to be successful. It doesn’t need acres of blacktop in front of it. It doesn’t need to alter the streetscape. It fits right in with the city and people come from all over to be there. And they aren’t afraid, and they don’t complain about having to walk a few blocks from their parking spot to get there. (They gotta do something to burn off the calories they’re about to eat!) This is what a real city is about.

But, sadly, Mayor Driscoll is singing the old last-century tune that has ruined much of Syracuse (and the fabric of countless cities across the country): demolish, demolish, demolish. Pave paradise, put up another drug store, and…  you won’t know what city you’re in any more. And you certainly won’t have economic development, because your money will be siphoned off to the coffers of a big corporation in another state.

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again:

How difficult is that?

Keep up the good work Sean! We need you!

W.E. Co-hosts mayoral candidate forum

Lonnie June 9th, 2009

MEET THE CANDIDATES FOR MAYOR OF SYRACUSE

Join the discussion with mayoral candidates focusing on
“HOW DO WE BUILD A SUSTAINABLE, LIVABLE SYRACUSE THROUGH CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT AND PLANNING?”

Wednesday, June 17
6:00 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.: refreshments
6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.: program

SUNY Oswego Metro Center
Corner of N. Salina and W. Washington Streets  MAP

EVERYONE IS WELCOME

CANDIDATES FOR MAYOR – all agreed to attend:
Alfonso Davis, Carmen Harlow, Otis Jennings, Steven Kimatian, Stephanie Miner, Joe Nicoletti

Candidates will be asked to respond briefly to the following three questions, followed by an open forum.

QUESTIONS:
1) A key contributor to making a city sustainable and livable is good urban design and planning.  As mayor, what principles and policies will you use to ensure that the city of Syracuse will safeguard and strengthen the elements of good urban design it already has, add more wherever possible and make Syracuse the national model for sustainability?

2) Numerous documents containing plans for sustainable development of all or parts of our city, created by citizen groups or consultants, already exist at City Hall. James Street Overlay District Guidelines and a proposal for a Director of Sustainability are examples.  What will you do to recover, implement, and, most of all, enforce, what is still valuable in these documents?

3) Considering any future planning for a sustainable and livable city that might occur during your administration, how will you ensure that Syracuse residents will have ample opportunity to contribute, and that their opportunity to react and give input continues as those plans are carried out and enforced?

Sponsored by
WALKABLE EASTWOOD, GREENING USA,
URBAN DESIGN CENTER,  F.O.C.U.S. GREATER SYRACUSE

Top Ten Myths of Downtown Planning

Lonnie June 4th, 2009

The following is an excerpt from a new Planners Press book by Philip L. Walker, AICP.

No time to read for about ten minutes? Then skip down to number 10 in the list below.

The 1970s were an innovative era in design for many facets of American life, including clothing, hairstyles, architecture, and, yes, urban planning. By the early 1970s, a number of forces were already in full play, resulting in unparalleled residential and commercial growth in the suburbs and a steady spiral downward for many downtowns.

Continue Reading »

A 10-minute primer

Lonnie March 23rd, 2009

If 100 people in Eastwood were to read this through – it takes less time than watching just the ads in “Dancing With the Stars” – and if each were to educate just one other person about the effect on Eastwood of the proposed Walgreens sign, then we’d have a great turn-out at the April 6 Planning Commission meeting. That’s when a decision will be made about what they want: a 10-foot LED stand-alone ground sign. It violates the overlay district guidelines in four ways: sign square footage, total number of signs, prohibition against ground signs, and prohibition against animated signs.

But here’s what you want to read first, an email reprinted here with permission from our neighbor and retired professor of architecture, Sig Snyder:

Continue Reading »

Oh! The messes of the pre-caffeinated!

Lonnie August 10th, 2008

One morning as I stepped up to the counter at Cafe Kubal, barista Ozula rapidly cleaned it off, saying something lovingly about “the messes of the pre-caffeinated.” I stared dumbly at the menu board, waiting for the fog to clear enough to be able to make an intelligent choice. She was patient, as always. I eventually got it together and, trusting my caffeine intake to a trained expert, placed my order.

This morning, at home and in an equally pre-caffeinated fog, I did this: Continue Reading »

“Save The Planet: Live In a City”

Lonnie May 28th, 2008

Here in Walkable Eastwood, we’ve known for about 150 years that it’s easy and quick to get from here to just about any place in the Syracuse metropolitan area. We have the lush green of a suburban setting but the proximity to all the necessities and many of the joys of life. This “village within the city” was developed at a time when there was no gasoline and no cars. Just feet and public transportation, unless you happened to have a horse. This is old urbanism at its finest, residential and business development on a human scale. Continue Reading »

Where food comes from

Lonnie April 27th, 2008

We’re avid readers of Anthony Bourdain’s books. Two of them have impacted our family somewhat dramatically. The first was Kitchen Confidential. Aside from being just a great read, it was also the third book our then-early-adolescent son read. He read it cover to cover, but it was at the third chapter that he came running to announce that he wanted to be a chef. Why? He pointed to the title of Chapter 3: “Food is Sex”. That did it. A couple culinary degrees under his belt, he’s now in charge of the mignardises in a restaurant in New York.

But the book that continues to inspire me is A Cook’s Tour, and specifically the chapter, “Where Food Comes From“. Read it, and you’ll understand why he says that where our food comes from is not always pretty. But it’s the larger concept behind that chapter that makes me think a lot and sometimes do strange things.

Strange thing #1: I make coffee in a 70-year-old vacuum coffee pot.

Continue Reading »

Do you miss the city?

Lonnie February 15th, 2008

Dave Frishberg has written an awful lot of songs with lyrics that truly rival those of Cole Porter. He’s an incredible pianist, too, with a nasal voice that nevertheless manages to convey witty insights and complex emotions in a way we seldom hear any more. As I was listening to one of his songs on his Classics CD, “Do You Miss New York?“, I was struck by the following words, which could have been written by anyone who has moved to one of those big suburban subdivisions:

On this quiet street is it really as sweet
As it seems out here?
Do you dream your dreams out here?
Or is that passe?
Do you miss the scene?
The frenzy–the faces?
And did you trade the whole parade
For a pair of parking places?

The whole parade. I guess that’s what I just adore about living in the city. From our second-story front porch we watch people walk by all the time. From the window of Cafe Kubal we see people walking in to get their caffeine fix or a steaming bowl of exquisite soup. And of course on Memorial Day we actually do get an official Eastwood parade!

I’m wondering who is out there now, people who have lived in Eastwood but moved away, who would kinda like to be able to return to this charming neighborhood where people know each other, attend community meetings galore, raise a stink about bad development and just generally care – deeply – about what goes on here.

Why do we want to keep that decrepit building?

Lonnie January 15th, 2007

That decrepit building, known as the “Steak & Sundae building,” hugs the northeast corner of James and Midler. And we want to keep it because it follows the guidelines a lot better than an empty lot. In Eastwood you need a plan before you can just tear a building down.

Below you can see an aerial view of the corner of James and Midler. The “Steak & Sundae” building is indicated by an asterisk: *. That building is inviting for people to walk into, as long as it’s maintained and occupied, of course. Most important, it holds the corner and its parking lot is mostly in the rear. “Urbanism starts with the location of the parking lot.”

Look at the southwest corner. This is where the Sports Center was (#3). It’s been a large, empty eyesore since it was demolished with no plan for redevelopment. The Dunkin Donuts is a suburban-style building in a sea of asphalt. It’s appropriate for spots just off the Interstates, not an urban neighborhood. The Byrne Dairy (#4) gives us asphalt instead of an interesting building at the corner. So with large expanses of asphalt on three corners, why would we want to complete this vile picture?

overviewjamesmidler.jpg

Key Bank, #1, doesn’t follow this guideline: “All buildings facing James Street shall be placed so that their facades are parallel to the street line of James Street.” It’s possible to have new buildings that follow the dictums of smart urban development.

It’s time to talk about Route 81 again

Lonnie January 7th, 2007

What yesterday may have been a harebrained scheme is increasingly understood as a huge money saver. Oh, and it also builds community and real estate value. At the Highways to Boulevards web page of the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU), you can see photos, read more about this option, and see what Buffalo is doing about its outdated highway. I quote:

“Reclaiming Urbanism and Revitalizing Cities

“America’s twentieth century highway building era included elevated freeways which cut huge swaths across our cities, decimating neighborhoods and reducing quality of life for city residents. This massive concrete infrastructure had devastating effects on urban economies. It blighted adjacent property and pushed access to basic amenities further out. With the Federal and State Departments of Transportation confronting shrinking budgets and cities looking for ways to increase their revenues, it is an ideal time to offer less expensive, urban alternatives to the reconstruction of urban expressways.

“New York City, Portland, San Francisco, Milwaukee and Seoul, South Korea have confronted this problem by replacing elevated highways with boulevards, saving billions of dollars and increasing real estate values and economic development on adjacent land. The Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) and the Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) believe that teardowns offer an attractive option for cities struggling with aging highway infrastructure. The strategies are proving themselves in adding value and restoring urban neighborhoods decimated by highway construction.”

If these cities are taking this idea seriously, is there any reason why Syracuse shouldn’t?