It is true that we choose to live near those that are like ourselves- ethnically, financially, and even spiritually. But even this is not enough of a power for a real neighborhood to be created. Many folks often no longer know what they have in common with their neighbor. Can you blame them? We have built homes for quite awhile now as though they are little islands with the garages as their port of entry. Often we may recognize those who live near us just by their cars.
I have been thinking about neighborhoods for the past few weeks for work and am realizing that there is no real fixed understanding of what makes a neighborhood work except the dynamic of how people relate to each other. Can you design a place that improves how people connect to each other and create a real community? Is it more of a roll of the dice? Just because someone shares a similar racial, financial or spiritual background with you may mean very little in regards to how you relate with them. Do some neighborhoods work regardless of how poorly they were designed and other highly-designed ones fail? I have a favorite in the town I live near, Ft. Collins, Colorado. It is in the suburban section, where faded pastel boxes with a garage in front sit along streets that twist and turn inside a mile-square grid. The one exception is a couple blocks that, instead of large yards, the developer put a sizeable rectangular open space in the middle that all the homes face. This also means that all these homes face each other too. This shared space works out great for the dogs and kids, and the adults end up talking to each other. Now everyone knows each other by their voice, not just their car.
I do not know how intentional this development was. It was a simple idea but was not repeated through town. I suspect that real estate agents were afraid of the small yards, but developers realized that if they made the yards smaller they could squeeze more boxes in, and so it goes. What we got was what we all now clearly understand as suburbia. My wife and I have a little game, well, more of a joke. We look at a development’s name and try to guess what was there before the bulldozers came in. Think “Fox Acres” or “Pleasant Meadows” or “Arapahoe Ridge”.
It is for good reason that there is a backlash to the suburban life. The price paid for more and cheaper square footage helped create a real disconnection from those around you, a lack of community. The old town part of Ft. Collins rarely has a “house for sale” sign that stays up for long, but in the mountains where I live, a house at the bottom of the road is celebrating its second year on the market. As an investment it is obvious where to place your chips. But yet the old neighborhoods are hard to recreate from scratch. A mixed use, walkable, park-filled place does not necessarily translate into a great neighborhood.
I have a simple working theory for this. We are better off not living close to people similar to ourselves, but different. One’s ethnic or sexual orientation is a powerful gift to those with a different make up. Same goes with wealth and religion (or lack of either one). This is not kumbayah. I am not suggesting that everyone is going to like each other, only that we have the chance to understand our neighbors better and so we become better for it. I can honestly say that I have little in common with any of my neighbors, but I still seem to communicate with them all the time (the development is called Buckskin Heights, and sure enough one neighbor shot the local buck.) It is not because of my front porch, or that we all face a park or whatever urban planners’ thinking is. We all live on a dirt road, acres from each other. I think it is the difference in our personal lives that keeps us communicating (and my very social dog). Is this Dr. Phil material? Maybe I should get back to talking about buildings.
Can you design for this kind of thriving community? Yes, but only if you ignore the historic pressure of building to a “market”. If you’re serious about this I bet that you need to build to suit a variety of backgrounds and mix of incomes and interests. Throw in some front porches and a way to get around besides the two ton personal transport and we are heading somewhere. My personal lesson learned is to create a common area to gather and run the kids and dogs silly. Even the annoying stuff expressed in Tom Waits’ ballad* that shares the same title as this the sustainable line doesn’t seem so bad, because you are home.
Don’t miss the 2009 EarthWorks Expo in Denver August 22nd and 23rd where I will give a workshop that explores “Green Building with the Naked Eye” in the Panda (!) Room at 4:30 August 22. Here is my attempt at self-promotion:
“Pondering all the aspects of green building can seem like looking through a prism. Learn how to see a green building clearly. This workshop will give an overview of how to look at sustainability in building. See how LEED and Energy Star for Homes work using integrated design and a collaborative approach. Take home seven steps to a sustainable building that you can use to put the different components of green building into perspective. By developing a discriminating eye you'll be better prepared when you want to renovate, buy, or build from the ground up.”
More idea’s and links as always on the sustainable line: blog, and tell me about your neighborhood, or lack of one.
Andrew Michler, LEED AP
Check out a “new urbanism” project called Prospect New Town in Longmont, Colorado.
*Well the eggs chase the bacon
round the fryin' pan
and the whinin' dog pidgeons
by the steeple bell rope
and the dogs tipped the garbage pails
over last night
and there's always construction work
bothering you
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood
Friday's a funeral
and Saturday's a bride
Sey's got a pistol on the register side
and the goddamn delivery trucks
they make too much noise
and we don't get our butter
delivered no more
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood
Well Big Mambo's kicking
his old grey hound
and the kids can't get ice cream
'cause the market burned down
and the newspaper sleeping bags
blow down the lane
and that goddamn flatbed's
got me pinned in again
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood
There's a couple Filipino girls
gigglin' by the church
and the windoe is busted
and the landlord ain't home
and Butch joined the army
yea that's where he's been
and the jackhammer's diggin'
up the sidewalks again
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood
