Two Things People Hate: Density and Sprawl

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This piece couldn't ring more true for Boston...

http://www.planetizen.com/node/30508

Two Things People Hate: Density and Sprawl
Barbara Faga
26 March 2008 - 3:13pm

We?ve been conducting public meetings for years. And it used to be easier. Present the plan. Discuss the plan. Talk about how your plan is better for the neighborhood/community/city/region and provide the conclusion. But things have changed.

When did the public become planning experts? People appear at public meetings and talk about density and land use. They know how many units per acre are good?and bad. Of course, they tend to be wrong, as they do not discuss design. Still, public meetings have become the forum for the public to debate density with experienced planners and designers.

Recently we were in a contentious public workshop with a community, developer, and planning commission, focusing on a ten-acre site between a large public park and single family neighborhood. The logical approach is to have higher density across from the park and transition to a few stories next to the neighborhood. Or so we thought. Instead, the community wound up in a heated discussion about density. A height of five stories at a density of 25 was scoffed at as much too dense?next to a 40-acre park that the city is spending 40M$ on acquiring and improving and refers to as their ?central park.?

Density has become a four-letter word. But mention sprawl and the public scoffs at the lack of sustainability. And they can?t have it both ways. The discussion needs to be about design and sustainability.

My old favorite assignment for students was to find out the allowable FAR in major cities. As I recall, at that time the FAR in Atlanta was among the highest in the northern hemisphere. Students thought FAR was by far higher in Manhattan. Not so then. My new favorite assignment is to show photos and ask students to describe the density. Good design does not illustrate density. Density is a relative term that describes quantity, not quality. It is design that will make or break a project.

By now you?ve figured out that nothing bothers me more in a public meeting than a debate on density. Neighbors in an Atlanta neighborhood with a density of about four units per acre argue that they have traffic issues and need light rail before there can be more development in the city. When we tell them they need a density of 15 to 20 per acre for transit, they cringe. It is not density and sprawl that is their issue?it is good and bad design. We have to change the conversation.

Barbara Faga, FASLA, is a principal and executive vice president of EDAW, an international landscape design and planning firm.
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It is frustrating to think that there are so many people out there who care deeply about their neighborhoods but completely miss understand density and growth. This just reminds me of what happened with Cape Cod. They didn't want ugly subdivisions so they set up design guidelines and zoning but that was supposed to keep the area looking like "Cape Cod" but what ended up happening was it looked like your standard suburb with cheap decoration. People don't understand how powerful economy and zoning are.

I don't want to just blame "NIMBYs", there is blame to go around for everyone. Developers cut corners to make an extra buck, architects have to change plans when the economy changes, citizens want to have their cake and eat it too, and politicians don't fully understand the zoning laws and economic plans they sign into law but do it so they can get votes.
 
What bothers me the most at a lot of public meetings is that government agencies and planners don't take the opportunity to educate the public. Most of the time, they just present a plan, listen to comments, and then possibly refute them or just say "we'll take them into consideration."

What would TRULY be useful is for the BRA or some other organization/agency/etc to present to neighborhoods a "Planning Primer" of sorts, explaining the relationships between density, design, transportation, open space, etc, and give examples from Boston and elsewhere to show people what's been done and why.

It's great that so many people want what's best for their community, but as they say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I think with some additional knowledge, the average person would have a much better understanding of what's possible and what it means, and would also allow them to formulate much more useful and realistic comments in response to new projects.

It's a recurring problem, really, for many projects. I work on advocating for better streets for peds, bikes, and transit when the reconstruction projects come up, and one of the biggest barriers is neighbors who ask for something but don't realize that there are actually better alternatives. For example, many people get hung up on having a median with trees to beautiful the street and as a pedestrian refuge for crossing. However, unless that median is very wide and usable by people, for example the Commonwealth Ave Mall, it's not really all that useful. It's generally better to take that extra space and add it to the sidewalks or use it to help gain some space for bike lanes. That way, it's actual usable space instead of just dead space that looks nice. Walk signals can be timed in a such a way so that a median is not needed for pedestrian refuge. Anyway, my point is that community members often ask for a solution that isn't a good one, and in many cases will fight tooth and nail for it. But with a little more education about the possibilities, many of these fights could be avoided.
 
Not wanting sprawl and not wanting density are not mutually exclusive if you are against growth. But if you want growth then, yes, you have to pick one.
 
But growth is inevitable. More people are going to be born than die.

Where are going to be housed?

Either where people already live (more density) or where nobody currently lives (sprawl).

Unless we are willing to practice population control, those are our only two choices.
 
Without immigration, we'd actually be well on our way to zero or negative population growth by now - something that has already happened in Italy, Germany, Spain, Russia, etc.
 
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