On Friday marlo capoccia <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
i have only been able to skim this discussion, but haven't noticed
any discussion about quality of life. does increasing urban density
affect crime rates? are there mental health issues?
...why is population density preferable? is it for reasons of travel?
freeing land up for farming?
Marlo,
One of the greatest triumphs of capitalism and real estate maketing has the
the creation and perpetuation of the myth that increased residential density
equals higher crime rates. It's that ancient practice of circulating a lie
long enough that it becomes a fact in the minds of the population, or in the
case of Americans, a fear. In the US it has sold tens of millions of homes and
cars, gutted our cities and created the biggest social, economic and
environmental mess in history.
There is no connection between typical urban density and crime rates, or rate
of mental illness.
For starters, Toronto would not be consistently ranked as one of the most
livable cities in North America. In addition to be one of the most livable
cities, it is also the most densely populated city north of Mexico. In fact it
has a population density 2.5 times greater than Chicago, one of our more
infamous cities, crime-wise. Toronto of course also has a great public transit
system, and more bike rack slots on one block of Queen Street than in the three
blocks of the Ithaca Commons.
In fact just about any major city in the world outside the United States has
a population density of three, four or five or more greater than that of our
major cities, yet they also have crime rates that are generally far lower than
ours.
There are many factors influencing crime rates, but population density is
rarely one of them.
Of course in Ithaca we have a major perception problem when it come to crime
and crime rates, thanks to our local newspaper.
Regardless of whether the crime happened in Cayuga Heights, Enfield, Danby,
Lansing, Varna, Ellis Hollow or Town of Ithaca, because it occurred within the
14850 zip code the Ithaca Journal more likley than not places the incident in
Ithaca. Any criminal living within the 14850 zip code automatically becomes a
city of Ithaca resident.
As a result the city proper is unfairly labeled as a "high crime area," when
in fact crime rates, including violent crime rates, are in some locations in
Tompkins County significantly higher than those in Ithaca proper.
The level of population density that the Ithaca urban area needs to attain in
order to place 55,000 residents within easy walking, biking or bus distance of
everything, dramatically reduce our dependency on the automobile, and to create
a cleaner, safer and more environmentally sustainable community is not that
great. The level of density needed to create a walkable, bikable, non-auto
dominated community is somewhere around 15 dwellings per acre on average, or
about 17,000 to 20,000 persons per square mile. This can easily be achieve by
simply folding the two- to three-story traditional colonial townhouse
architecture into the mix of residential dwellings now in Ithaca.
I'm not talking about everybody giving up their mortgage and moving into
high-rise apartment buildings.
The townhouse is by far the most widely used residentail architecture in the
world. It was the predominant residential architecture in colonial American,
and can still be found in ultra-high income neighborhoods in older American
cities like Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston and Washington DC.
In Lancaster, PA the townhouse survived through the Victorian era and into
the 20th century, in several different styles, before being superseded by the
single-family detached.
I'm also not talking of revolution, here, but instead an evolution.(Yes, I
know we all have a personal secret list of places around here we would love to
torch, but...)
Granted this may be taken as heresy, but there are a lot of homes in Ithaca
that are either structurally deteriorated or functionally obsolete, and it
would be better if they were simply replaced. The notion that neighorhood is
sacred also has to be discarded. The character of the ideal American
neighborhood character after all is a very large contributor to environmental,
economic and social unsustainability in the US. It's if fact one of the major
obstacles to achieving any resemblance to sustainability.
Demolishing homes and hauling the debris off to the landfill however is not
part of this proposition. Most of these older homes can and should be
"deconstructed," i.e. carefully dismantled and their components recycled into
the modern new (town) homes that replace them. It's not rocket science, and
deconstruction is one of the rapidly growing "green" industries in the U.S.
With the cost of new building materials rising, recycling old lumber, etc.,
will likely continue to become more attractive.
George Frantz
P.S. Did I mantion too that six ICSD elementary schools, Boynton and DeWitt
and Ithaca High School would all fit within the 3 square miles of a sustainable
Ithaca, which would mean that almost the entire school bus fleet goes "POOF!"
too?
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