The Atlantic Cities:

“The Forgotten Urban Transportation Problem We Should Be Try to Fix

Eric Jaffe. May 22, 2013

In the grand scheme of urban mobility, it’s easy to lose track of commercial freight movement. Commuters are the primary source of traffic coming into and out of the city, and parking causes much of the street-to-street congestion within it. Fact is, says transport scholar Genevieve Giuliano of the University of Southern California, it’s so easy to forget about freight that metropolitan areas have done so for years — at their own peril.

“Any of us who live in cities and metropolitan areas are very dependent on urban freight, because that’s how all of the goods and services we purchase get here,” says Giuliano. “It’s fascinating to me that it’s never been a part of city planning.”

The consequence of this historical oversight is that handling cargo has become the “newest urban transportation problem,” according to Giuliano. While cities have been places of trade and exchange for as long as they’ve existed, planners have only recently begun to give freight its due consideration. Even the new wave of smart growth strategies — with its emphasis on reduced road capacity as well as mixed-use development — has created some unintended complications for commercial movement.”

Photo: Reuters

Architizer: 

“Can The LA River Go From Concrete Ditch To Portlandia-Style Paradise?

Lamar Anderson. May 3, 2013

Bodies of water have so much allure—particularly in overpaved cities—that we’re content to put up with the algae-scented funk of the Central Park pond, or even the stench of Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal, just to rest our eyes on something blue (or, er, brown).

In recent years the LA River has enjoyed a renaissance. Though the waterway hasn’t really been a natural habitat since the 1930s  (when the city lined the riverbed with concrete to control flooding), new bike paths, public art, and kayak tours now draw Angelenos to the water’s edge. So far these upgrades have been largely peripheral, due in large part to urban enthusiasts’ determination to start using the giant ditch they inherited as a river. Meanwhile, the city’s more substantial plan to transform the channel into a living habitat is mired in delays at the federal level.”

Photo: Tom Andrews, via High Country News

The New York Times: 

“Suburban Disequilibrium

By BECKY M. NICOLAIDES and ANDREW WIESE. April 6, 2013

A little pocket of Los Angeles County tucked into the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains reflects a crucial facet of suburban life. There’s tiny, wealthy Bradbury, a town that prides itself on having one of the richest ZIP codes in Los Angeles, where a house is on the market for $68.8 million. A couple of miles to the east is Azusa. This modest suburb is more than two-thirds Latino, a town of working families whose incomes and home values are a sliver of the wealth nearby.

These towns represent extremes of social inequality, but in Los Angeles and other areas, they reflect a defining pattern of contemporary suburban life. Nationwide, rich and poor neighborhoods like these house a growing proportion of Americans, up to 31 percent compared with 15 percent in 1970, according to a recent study by Sean F. Reardon and Kendra Bischoff. Meanwhile, iconic middle-income suburbs are shrinking in numbers and prospects.

Today’s suburbs provide a map not just to the different worlds of the rich and the poor, which have always been with us, but to the increase in inequality between economic and social classes.”

Photo: Ron Chapple/Corbis

The Architect’s Newspaper:

“ ANYTHING NY CAN DO, LA CAN DO TOO

Sam Lubell asserts that LA’s next mayor must step up with ambitious design plans for the city.

Sam Lubell Feb 6, 2013

Having lived in New York and Los Angeles for more than six years apiece, I’ve learned that while they have plenty in common—they’re obviously both huge cities with a level of cultural dynamism and diversity that dwarfs most American metropolises—they’re also utterly different places.

In the design world perhaps the most important division is this: New York has a number of important, powerful, and effective design champions, among them mayor Michael Bloomberg, planning director Amanda Burden, and transportation commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan. The results have been, by all measures, impressive. The city has transformed itself through design, creating an elite new collection of parks, buildings, and master plans, including the High Line, Brooklyn Bridge Park, dedicated bike lanes, and iconic buildings by most of the world’s most celebrated architects, including Frank Gehry, Jean Nouvel, Renzo Piano, BIG, DS+R, and so many more.

Los Angeles is sorely lacking any such unifying galvanizers. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, while a stunningly effective promoter of transit, and leader of a recent triumph (despite heavy lobbying) on the Sixth Street Bridge, is still often subservient by legislative design to warring city council members and various agency heads. The planning director, Michael LoGrande, appears to have a rather tepid vision for long term, proactive planning. And few in the community seem to have taken the lead to fill the created vacuum. Instead of true design champions we have Eli Broad, who builds with little regard for public input or (despite hiring the best) even the input of his architects. Another is Metro, which has been enriched through recent measure R. But despite the valiant work of planning director Martha Welborne, the agency has shown little design savvy in its recent transit projects and transit oriented developments.

So who will step up for Los Angeles?”

Photo: Ben K. Adams/Flickr

KCET Departures: 

“Northeast L.A. Communities to be Envisioned as a Riverfront District

by Carren Jao. 

 January 23, 2013 

To most newcomers in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles River is much like a mythical creature—often spoken of, but never actually experienced. That has thankfully changed over the past decade.

With projects large and small, the city has repeatedly rallied in favor of reviving this waterway and, in the process, returning the 51-mile river back to Los Angeles guided by the Los Angeles River Masterplan. The masterplan outlined a 20-year blueprint for the development and management of the river. In it, Angelinos could see a different vision of Los Angeles. As a result, the city has seen a growth of projects around the river and interest especially in theGlendale Narrows.

On January 24, Los Angeles is taking another step forward to take advantage of the growing public interest in the river by launching the Northeast Los Angeles Riverfront Collaborative (NELA RC), a holistic, collaborative urban planning effort to take advantage of the River as an economic development asset. The collaborative takes up the mantle left behind when the state’s Community Redevelopment Agencies were dissolved last year, but with added emphasis on inter-agency cooperation and community-based approaches.”

Photo: KCET Departures

The Los Angeles Times: 

“First Phase of Glendale Narrow Riverwalks opens

The $2.1-million project includes horse facilities, park areas and a half-mile trail along the Los Angeles River. One resident sees a ‘huge improvement’ over what was there before.

By Brittany Levine, Los Angeles Times. December 15, 2012, 6:55 p.m.

By the time BJ Kincler got her horse, Dusty Roads, the city of Glendale had closed off the horse pen behind her apartment along the Los Angeles River, leaving the equine with nowhere nearby to kick up her heels.

But on Wednesday, Dusty Roads played around in new equestrian facilities open to the public for the first time after city officials unveiled Phase 1 of the Glendale Narrows Riverwalk.

“She’s really happy,” Kincler said as the horse ran in circles, stopping to lick a few apple treats from Kincler’s palm.

It took about a decade to complete the first phase, a $2.1-million project that includes horse facilities, park areas and a half-mile trail along the Los Angeles River that begins near Paula Avenue and Garden Street.”

Photo: Bob Thompson takes a photo while Jeanne LeFever looks around during the grand opening of Phase 1 of the Glendale Narrows Riverwalk in Glendale on Wednesday. (Raul Roa, Glendale News Press / December 12, 2012)

The Atlantic Cities:

America’s Most Diverse Neighborhoods.

Jed Kolko. Nov 13, 2012

Abraham Lincoln proclaimed Thanksgiving a national holiday during the Civil War, in an attempt to restore peace and unity to the United States. In today’s diverse America, Thanksgiving remains widely celebrated and crosses religious, racial, and ethnic lines (though some Native Americans consider Thanksgiving a Day of Mourning), with Americans from different regions of the U.S. and different countries around the globe bringing their own traditions to the Thanksgiving table.

This Thanksgiving, we wanted to see which neighborhoods best reflect American diversity. To do so, we identified the country’s most diverse neighborhoods and metros using Census data on race and ethnicity. We measured diversity as the share of a metro area’s or ZIP code’s population in its largest racial or ethnic group: the smaller the share of the largest group, the more diverse the neighborhood is. For instance, an area that is 70 percent white (the largest group), 20 percent black, and 10 percent Asian is less diverse than one that is 60 percent Hispanic (the largest group), 30 percent white, and 10 percent  black. In this example, the second neighborhood is more diverse because the largest group accounts for 60 percent of the population versus 70 percent in the first neighborhood (see note about Census racial and ethnic definitions at end of post).”

Photo: SVLuma /Shutterstock

“For Cleantech Companies, Land Is a Problem

Ryan Vaillancourt. Oct 15, 2012

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES - City officials and business leaders for years have been pushing the idea to transform the eastern edge of Downtown into a hub for green jobs and clean technology companies.

But there’s a problem. Today, if someone wanted to bring a manufacturing operation to the area to build, say, extra efficient batteries, it would be nearly impossible to find space.

The vacancy rate among the industrial properties in and around the Arts District has long hovered at about 2%. The tight market stems in part from the robust cold storage, produce and garment-related businesses that have long anchored the area.

There is, however, a significant stock of old warehouses and factory buildings that haven’t seen heavy manufacturing operations in decades. Instead, they are used for storage or shipping and receiving — operations that involve relatively few jobs.

Local leaders believe those buildings are ideal candidates for green or tech-related companies. Bringing those century-old industrial edifices up to current codes, however, looms over property owners like a dollar sign-shaped storm cloud.

“That’s the biggest challenge,” said Erik Johnson, president and CEO of Greneker Solutions, which makes mannequins out of soy-based urethane in a facility near Soto Street and Olympic Boulevard.

In 2010, Greneker was looking to start a new business manufacturing countertops out of recycled materials. They planned to invest about $1 million in a facility. They found candidates in empty or underused industrial buildings in Downtown, but none made financial sense, Johnson recently told 14th District City Councilman José Huizar and a room of developers.

“The sheer labor and cost it would take to go ahead and repurpose those buildings, to bring them up to current codes and adaptability to the type of machinery we were looking at, didn’t make sense,” Johnson said during an afternoon meeting at the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator, a city-funded Arts District entity that aims to nurture fledgling companies. “I ended up doing it in Ohio.”

The Downtown meeting may have spurred what Johnson and other area business leaders believe could be a solution — an adaptive reuse ordinance for industrial properties. The term comes from the 1999 law that made it easier and less expensive for developers to turn old commercial buildings into housing. It directly led to the Historic Core residential boom.”

Via: Los Angeles Downtown News

Photo: Fred Walti is among a group of area advocates trying to make Downtown a better place for future clean technology companies. photo by Gary Leonard

“STEALTH DENSITY

Carren Jao. October 9, 2012

Barbara Bestor’s Blackbirds gives a single-family look to high-density housing that puts pedestrians and cyclists first.

With the help of LA’s 2004 Small Lot Ordinance, which allows developers to build single-family homes and detached townhouses on a single lot originally zoned for multi-family housing or commercial development, LocalConstruct and architect Barbara Bestor are hoping to turn a one-acre hillside parcel in Echo Park into a prime example of smart growth.

“We felt that there were few existing projects that took advantage of the ordinance’s potential,” said Casey Lynch, LocalConstruct co-founder. He and his partner Mike Brown started the company in 2009 with a focus on “green retrofits” for distressed apartment buildings and homes in Los Angeles.

The plan for Blackbirds—located between the neighborhood’s Preston and Vestal avenues—calls for 18 small-lot homes clustered around an internal living street designed after the Dutch Woonerf concept, where pedestrians and cyclists have priority. The project’s unusual rooflines and its resulting configuration reminded developers of birds surrounding a pond, which gave rise to the development’s unusual name. Blackbirds will consist of three 1,800-square-foot single-family homes, three side-by-side 1,400-square-foot duplexes and three side-by-side 1,300 square-foot-triplexes.

“Their density is similar to the fabric of housing around them. The trick visually is that some of the units are in duplex or triplex configurations but still appear similar to unique houses, a sort of ‘stealth density’,” said Bestor, who up until now had always worked on single-family residences.

Also intriguing is the focus on a less car-centric lifestyle at Blackbirds. Lynch adds that some units will also be “un-garaged.” Carports or open parking spaces will be placed strategically around the internal living street, which would leave more open space on the site. “We think that is a needed step in the evolution of LA typologies,” said Lynch.

“I am curious as to why larger scale housing projects so often have a lower level of finish and stultifying repetitiveness given their prices,” commented Bestor. “We are attempting to add quality and individuality to each of these units as well as a structure engendering community and neighborliness in the way they are grouped together.”

An initial presentation to the Echo Park Neighborhood Council garnered the usual concerns of increased traffic and parking congestion due to added density, but also notes of approval at the development’s utopian impulses.

Blackbirds is finalizing its schematics and the possible changes discussed include further reducing the density of the development, adding traffic safety measures, and access to lower streets for parking. A construction start date is dependent on a Zoning Administration hearing, but LocalConstruct is targeting construction to begin by the end of 2012 with units completed by late 2013.”

Via: The Atlantic Cities

Image: Barbara Bestor Architects

“Watch a City Aglow in Greenhouse Gas Emissions

• EMILY BADGER
• OCT 09, 2012

The above picture is a snapshot of the city of Indianapolis, as seen through its greenhouse gas emissions. All those glowing green patches of land – those are individual residences contributing to the city’s carbon footprint thanks to home heating, lighting and appliances. The tall red towers illustrate the emissions coming from commercial properties and industry. And those squat red bars cutting through the city – those are cars traveling Indianapolis’ beltway at rush hour, emitting carbon dioxide as they go.

This image comes from the Hestia Project, a software system just developed by researchers at Arizona State University that can estimate greenhouse gas emissions across a city’s landscape, right down to its individual buildings and roadways.

“We all love to point the finger at everyone else for greenhouse gases, but one thing that becomes imminently clear when you look at emissions in this detail is that blame is a ridiculous thing to do,” says Kevin Gurney, an associate professor in ASU’s School of Life Sciences and a senior scientist with the Global Institute of Sustainability. “We’re all part of the system. All of us engage in these activities. I drive a car, I have a home, I go to work. And you really see that.”

The software corrals publicly available data wholly unrelated to climate change. That includes property tax filings that reveal the size and age of buildings, how they’re used and what fuel heats them, DMV records on auto maintenance and inspections, and Metropolitan Planning Organization traffic count estimates. “None of that data has been collected technically for any environmental reason,” Gurney says.

And this is one of the strengths of Hestia. The United States and other nations have objected to international climate treaties that don’t include rigorous verification of emissions levels and reduction efforts. We can’t solve the problem, the argument goes, until we can accurately measure the scope of it and what governments say they’re doing to address it.

Well, Hestia has figured out how to estimate those measurements at the micro scale, using internally consistent data that could hardly be classified as suspect (think cities are manipulating their DMV records to paint a rosier picture of their carbon footprints?). “This is starting to eliminate that excuse,” Gurney says.

Hestia can also track patterns in emissions over time. In this hypnotic hourly animation, you can watch the people of Indianapolis head to work in those red buildings by day, then return home to residences that light up in green with tens of thousands of households turning up their thermostats and TVs by night. Traffic along the city’s main highways ebbs and flows in purple.

This seasonal animation, meanwhile, illustrates how dramatically different a city’s energy use appears in summer and winter.”

Via: The Atlantic Cities

Image: Hestia