Marlo, I just read your e-mail about your new carriage house. Congratulations! By adding a second dwelling in the manner that you are doing, you are doubling the density of your lot! In a neighborhood such as the Northside, with an existing residential density of about 9 dwellings per acre, it would not take much more to reach that magic 12-15 dwellings per acre threshold. This is one of the many, many ways in whch we can densify our cities and avoid the Orwellian/1984/Frantzville (yes, F-R-A-N-T-as-in-Tea, Z) nightmare scenarios I've apparently triggered in the minds of some of the list serve members. (No apologies, by the way, to all I've traumatized.) It's an example of the evolution, not revolution, that I mentioned in my earlier e-mail. Another example here in Ithaca is the new two-family townhouse on Lincoln St. between Aurora and Lake. It has two very light and airy 1,750 sq-ft, 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath dwellings each with a one-car garage. It's a townhouse, just rotated 90 degress and featuring a roof-top deck off the 3rd floor master bedroom suite. It is also the equivalent of 18 dwelling units per acre. Then there is the Fairview Heights Apartments, inconspicuously located at the corner of Dryden, Ithaca, Cornell and Maple Avenue above Collegetown. It features 140 units in a garden-like setting that includes a combination of 2-story townhouse units 7-story mid-rise building that nobody seems to even notice. At 28 unites per acre is is probably the densest area of Ithaca outside Collegetown, and not cheap housing either. It may not be everybody's cup of tea, but it is an example of attractive urban living that would likley better serve the living needs of young professionals and older empty-nesters than a McMansion in the suburbs or psuedo-homestead in the country would. There are a number of other urban design concepts, such as those used at Sunnyside, Radburn and the Greenbelt cities. These include arranging the homes around a jointly owned interior lawn or greensward and orienting their interior spaces inward. Children thus have a safe place to play, off the street and within sight of many community eyes. There can be a variety of tenure arrangements in addition to the traditional fee-simple/home mortgage or rental options: housing cooperative, condominium, co-housing, elder cottage or life-rights, for example. By all means rest assured that a compact Ithaca covering just 3 square miles instead of 11 square miles would definitely NOT limit access to rural areas. In fact it would do the exact opposite. Density would draw the countryside into the city. Instead of a 1 to 3 mile wide belt of suburban wasteland surrounding Ithaca, the countryside could start at the base of West Hill, just beyond Six Mile Creek to the south, just beyond College Avenue on East Hill and at the north edge of Fall Creek gorge. Imagine all the homes sprawled up West Hill, East Hill South Hill, and Snyder Hill, all of the Village of Cayuga Heights and Village of Lansing and all of the Big-Box development along Meadow street and Elmira Road replaced by farms, forest and meadow. All the city parkland that exists now would still exist, except that outlying parks like McDaniels, Bryant, Strawberry Fields and others would be integrated into a tight system within a five-minute walking distance of all residents. Stewart Park and Cass Park are not disappearing either. Not only will there be fields to walk alone with the moon in, you won't have to get in the car to drive to them. And without the two hundred plus miles of streets and roads needed to support the suburban wastelands, and without the need for huge shopping center parking lots lit to prison yard intensities, thousands of streetlights and parking lot lights can disappear and with them a major source of light pollution. We will be able to see the stars again from our downtown homes. Nor will life be nearly as boring as feared. Actually anybody who lives knows life is far from boring. Actually the primary catalyst for the past 50 to 100 years of White Flight to the suburbs and now the countryside is that the diversity of race and class within the city is just too damn unnerving to the average white middle class American. As for me, my 140-year old, 1,200 square foot cottage on my 4,500 square foot lot keeps me well occupied. Of course the lawn only takes 20 minutes to mow if I take my time, so I lose out of the hours and hours of recreational mowing my suburban and rural friends enjoy, and I can't pump nearly as much greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere with a reel mower either. But I have lots of trees, flowers and shrubs, and a stone retaining wall to finish. There are also things like taking my turn to mow my neighbor's lawn (free) for her, because we all know that she had to move away temporarily to care for her mother, and take my turn shoveling a couple of elderly neighhbors' sidewalks, because we all know they can't do it and can't afford to hire somebody to do it. Cass Park is a five minute walk down the public footpath from Cliff Street. There never really is a dull moment, and I don't even have to resort to TV to fill the time. Then there is that $1,400 per month my wife and I save because we don't have to drive to work. There are a thousand different way in which we can let our cities evolve into more compact, and more environmentally, economically and socially sustainable communities in the coming decades. It will just take imagination and creativity, an open mind, and a critical questioning of the fears, prejudices and attitudes we carry, toward both the environment and our fellow human beings. By moving back and densifying our cities, however, we will not only be able to move toward a more sustainable society, people might start asking themselves how they could have been so stupid as to not to embrace the concept earlier. George Frantz marlo capoccia <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: i'm feeling weary at just the thought of it, george. if population density isn't the reason for crime, then don't we have a great deal of other issues we need to be addressed and remedied before we can start increasing urban populations in the US?
the thing that got me was having all those kids penned up together. of course, that's not what you said, but again, things would have to be changed dramatically and a lot of attitudes toward education would need to be totally obliterated. i'm being contrary about this probably because i just can't imagine having limited access to rural living. aren't there tons of people like me who would feel terribly penned-in not being able to wake up in the middle of the night and walk in a field all alone with the moon? is that a figment of our imaginations or lack of experience? -marlo On May 11, 2008, at 6:51 PM, George Frantz wrote: > On Friday marlo capoccia 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? > > > > > --------------------------------- > Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. > Try it now. > _______________________________________________ > For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County > area, please visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/ > > RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for: > [email protected] > http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins > free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org Marlo Capoccia Garden Gate www.gardengatedelivery.com _______________________________________________ For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, please visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/ RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for: [email protected] http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org _______________________________________________ For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, please visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/ RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for: [email protected] http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org
