I'm working on the housing element for the county comp plan. Here's part of the intro. All of the images are to the same scale.
Typical residential development in the county, 1950
4 residents per household
Typical residential development in the county, 1975
3.25 residents per household
Typical residential development in the county, 2005
2.3 residents per household
Thats some good stuff. One of the first things that strikes me (after the sprawl factor) is that the 2005 picture seems to show an effective use of greenbelt connections and animal travel corridors. If the downtwon corridor of the same area could have a density of say 45 units to the acre you would be set!
Dan- You have a job outside Cyburbia?
Looks like the last one is a poor execution of so-called "cluster" or "conservation" subdivision.
Have you looked at the environmental impact? I am just looking that the amount of impermeable surface and the amount to green space in each photo and 2005 looks like it would be the most open.
I think that they all bad, but I also wonder how the quality of life is in each time period, and what are each of those places like now? The first one could have been taken at the edge of Detroit in the 50’s.
When compassion exceeds logic for too long, chaos will ensue. - Unknown
dude, they are probably all contemporary photos, just of areas that represent different eras in the County's development.Originally posted by michaelskis
The 1950s sub. is the mostly likely place I would choose to live, if I was forced to (though that type of neighborhood is low on my current list). The units/acre density is highest, which is something I like and probably is most likely to have a commercial corridor within moderate walking distance.
The other two just make me think 'I ahve to drive everywhere'.
This is an interesting photo survey, Dan. What, specifically, is the purpose?
I'm sorry. Is my bias showing?
We did something somewhat similar in our 2004 Master Plan:
"Growth is inevitable and desirable, but destruction of community character is not. The question is not whether your part of the world is going to change. The question is how." -- Edward T. McMahon, The Conservation Fund
It looks like all three are single use, so you would be driving everywhere anyways. For the cost of development the first is the best because it has more users per section of sewer, water, road, and power and the tax base would be better in the first.
I would also wonder what the property values are for each of them.
When compassion exceeds logic for too long, chaos will ensue. - Unknown
Notice the incongruity of larger lot size with fewer residents per household. How and why is this happening? Two words - Peak Oil. These photos show the trend of a society at or very near it's all time high for per capita consumption of oil. They document a society that is high on oil.
"The current American way of life is founded not just on motor transportation but on the religion of the motorcar, and the sacrifices that people are prepared to make for this religion stand outside the realm of rational criticism." -Lewis Mumford
Interesting to see... I'd definitely go for the 2005 version if I can't get my 200 acres.
Most of the new residential subdivisions I see planned in this area look more like the 1950 version. Tiny lots (50' frontage) smashed cheek by jowl together, even ones way out in the boonies. This is not done out of any good purpose, as some here might say, instead maximizing the number of lots on a given piece of land. The worst of both worlds, higher density but no place to walk to anyways.
There seems to be a tendency among some planners to automatically assume that the last photo is bad planning. Without knowing all the information about that particular community and the particulars of the land there is no way to tell. Subdivisions like that are not necessarily bad planning. In some cases subdivisions like that can be examples of good planning.
I was thinking something like that. The thing which most impressed me is how much more greenery and trees there are in the last photo. That seems like A Good Thing to me. I don't feel I have enough info to draw too many conclusions from the photos.
The lots are large because over time, the communities adopted zoning regulations with increasingly larger minimum lot size requirements.
In community 1, when land was rezoned from agricultural to residential, the minimum lot size was around 5000 to 6000 square feet. In community 2, it was 10,000 to 12,500. In 3, it's an acre. Over time, minimum lot size requirements kept getting larger and larger, and zoning districts permitting small lots were either removed from the codes, or they were turned into legacy districts, where land could no longer be rezoned to that designation.
Almost all new residential development in the country is large-lot single family. Why? Several reasons, but the biggies; NIMBYism (nobody wants a development with smaller lots next to their, but they love larger lot development) and dirt cheap land. A developer can make quite a bit of money building $250K houses on 1/2 acre lots. There's no financial incentive to build higher density development, and there's quite a bit of opposition to it.
Sprawl in the Eastern US takes on a much different form than in Western states. Subdivisions with the density you see in new projects in California, Arizona, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Utah would be unthinkable in the Northeast and Great Lakes region, even in the New York metro where land prices are astronomical.
Several posters noted the more open distribution in the 2000s development. That's a MISTAKE. The pictures show three developments over a given span of terrain BUT the point is that to accommodate a given # of people, it now takes THREE TIMES As much land that, tree-belts notwithstanding, is built upon. So what you really need to compare is one 'square' of the 50s development plus two squares of countryside/fields against three squares of the later development. So Dan is right, it is sprawl, no two ways about it.
Thanks for the pics, Dan, very convincing.
Any way to get that in PDF? I'd liek to keep it. Maybe with more reference as to locations / sources? I think it is truly exemplary.
Life and death of great pattern languages
One acre is the minimum lot size here to accomodate personal sanitary disposal systems. Most new subdivisions are developed far from municipal sewer service. Does the 2000's development above have sanitary sewer service?
Interesting concept. Have you looked at scale of photos? It seems that the houses are about the same size on all of them, but we know houses have grown in size quite a bit since the 1950's. The widths of the strees/sidewalks seem to be different too.
We hope for better things; it will arise from the ashes - Fr Gabriel Richard 1805
I don't necessarily see it as "bad planning," but I do see it as "bad building" or "bad development." There are clearly no sidewalks or pedestrian paths, no community businesses, no parks or playgorunds, and the distances between the homes is too great to allow for alternative methods of transport.
Hmmm ......
Yes, most have sanitary sewer and municipal water service.
Dan, what are the lollipop looking things sticking out of the rear of most of the 1950s-era homes? Swimming pools? Rear garages/driveways?
Most likely side driveways leading to detached garages.
I'm sorry. Is my bias showing?
Yep None of the benefits of true urbanism. They're still monolithic subdivisions, sprawl, with absolutely nothing to make walking pleasant, interesting, or possible. This just means more GCPA (Grand Cherokkes Per Acre), not good planning.
On the other hand, it is more efficient from a strict land consumption standpoint. The Eastern/Midwester ideal of five acre McRanch suburbia means merely that the ENTIRE county and the adjoining one is suburbanized, with traffic loads along rural farm-to-market roads and fragmentation of habitat.
I just find it funny that we can't even agree as planners on what constitutes good development. It often comes down to tradeoffs such as density or open space. While MZ prefers the green space (I sympathize) jmello prefers a more functional, mixed use environment.
Here in South Florida lot sizes larger than a 1/4 are very rare except for wealthy areas and a lot of the new subdivisions have 5 units per acre. Unfortunately few developments take advantage of density in a way to support a mix of uses or tansportation options. This seems to be the most frustrating aspect of the high density suburban development model.
I think that a theoretically 'good' development pattern would be taking the 1950s sub. (or greater density) and quishing it into a concentrated node and then maintain the rest as active/passive recreation and/or forested trails and/or wild nature corridors connected to other dense nodes.
It appears, I seem to be channelling Calthrope.
I'm sorry. Is my bias showing?
Doop! Sorry Dan... I can't read bold
I am just floored that the homoe sizes are about the same. Ave Home sizes though may be misinterpreted, surely bigger newer homes have the nice conservative family units and 12 kids.
We hope for better things; it will arise from the ashes - Fr Gabriel Richard 1805
A couple more observations:
Only the 2005 has no sidewalks.
Although the 1950 has the fewest dead-ends, it has the longest blocks without a cross-street.
The neighborhood I grew up in was built in the early 70's and I'd say the development pattern was much more similar to the 1975 than either the 1950 or 2005.
Hopefully, the non-planning masses could learn something from these three photos; they have a lot to say. Nice work Dan!
"The current American way of life is founded not just on motor transportation but on the religion of the motorcar, and the sacrifices that people are prepared to make for this religion stand outside the realm of rational criticism." -Lewis Mumford
It is still all feudalism because it does not give the people freedom from government dependency.
bud...
Illustrated zoning ordinances and subdivision regulations
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