urban cartography

video: Walmart spreading like a virus

Thomas J. Holmes created "The Diffusion of Wal-Mart and Economies of Density" in 2005. The epidemiology and visualization of dumb growth is just as visually interesting as the spread of a disease, and follows similar models.

From an article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal:

Today, though, Wal-Mart's influence over the retail universe is slipping. In fact, the industry's titan is scrambling to keep up with swifter rivals that are redefining the business all around it. It can still disrupt prices, as it did last year by cutting some generic prescriptions to $4. But success is no longer guaranteed. Rival retailers lured Americans away from Wal-Mart's low-price promise by offering greater convenience, more selection, higher quality, or better service. Amid the country's growing affluence, Wal-Mart has struggled to overhaul its down-market, politically incorrect image while other discounters pitched themselves as more upscale and more palatable alternatives. The Internet has changed shoppers' preferences and eroded the commanding influence Wal-Mart had over its suppliers.

Does Sprawl Make Us Fat Lards?

The cover story in the current issue of Science News delves into the many relationships between urban design and individual health. Specifically, the article reports on new research exploring how common patterns of sprawl may make us softer, slower and ultimately less healthy people; is it preselection (i.e., people who enjoy exercise are less likely to move to suburbs), or a result of living in this type of environent? via boingboing.net

(University of British Columbia urban planning professor Lawrence) Frank's team, like the other groups, found that areas with interspersed homes, shops, and offices had fewer obese residents than did homogeneous residential areas whose residents were of a similar age, income, and education. Furthermore, neighborhoods with greater residential density and street plans that facilitate walking from place to place showed below-average rates of obesity.

The magnitude of the effect wasn't trivial: A typical white male living in a compact, mixed-use community weighs about 4.5 kilograms (10 pounds) less than a similar man in a diffuse subdivision containing nothing but homes, Frank and his colleagues reported.

So far, the dozen strong studies that have probed the relationships among the urban environment, people's activity, and obesity have all agreed, says (Reid Ewing of the University of Maryland at College Park's National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education). "Sprawling places have heavier people," he says. "There is evidence of an association between the built environment and obesity."

Lethem vs. Gehry: Fight!

Jonathan Lethem, one of my favorite authors, has written an excellent letter to Frank Gehry, creator of some of the most awe-inspiring and utterly out-of-place, out-of-scale, out-of-his-mind and locally unpopular structures in the world on Gehry's proposed plan for a nouveau Brooklyn. The first of several excellent points in Lethem's open letter, published in Slate:

Brooklyn-based architect Jonathan Cohn's rallying cry: "It's the scale, stupid." The primary objection to your project always was, and always will be, its outlandish disproportion to the neighborhoods around it. None of the array of low-scale, largely residential communities directly adjacent to this proposed "neighborhood from scratch" (your words) want or need such an intrusion. Residents have been enticed with goodies: major-league sports in Brooklyn, housing at a variety of income levels, an influx of jobs. Yet in this case, none of the carrots that have been dangled are worth it — or, necessarily, realistic. Let me quote Cohn from his superb article: "The ambitiously scaled projects of the 1960s failed … because interventions, at that scale, in existing fabric, were extremely traumatic to the urban morphology. This project (now 8.66 million square feet) would be like locating the former World Trade Center towers (only 7.6 million square feet combined) plus Madison Square Garden, somewhere near the West 4th Street transit hub because of all the trains there." With all due respect to your accomplishments, you've not made your career as an urban planner; your emphasis, rather, is sculpted steel and glass. The scale of this project was one of Ratner's company's preconditions for the site; it's not something that originates in your aesthetic. Guess what? It's a huge mistake — emphasis on the huge.

Paris is burning: the concentration of poverty

The riots in France continued last night, albeit at lower intensity than the night before. They appear to be spreading, metastasizing beyond Paris to dozens of French cities, and now have sparked a few events outside France. There have been millions of bytes of text written about the riots already, by many people far more knowledgeable about the situation in France than I. If I can offer anything new to the discussion, it’s just to point out the similarities between the French riots and the riots by African-Americans in the late 1960s in the United States. In both cases, there is a poor class with high unemployment, particularly among the youth. In France, as in the United States, the first response to the riots by the government and the press (beyond anger at the rioters) was discussion about how horrible those economic conditions were, and some token redevelopment projects in the slums were proposed to try to rectify the economic disparity. It’s good to remember, however, that poverty alone does not breed riots. In France today, note that it isn’t first generation immigrants who are rioting, but second or third-generation immigrants, who are generally a little better off. Similarly, in the United States the large barrios of Hispanic immigrants have historically not had problems with riots (with the possible exception of the Zoot Suit Riots), while many of the African-American communities that have been poor for generations seem just as likely to have a riot today as in 1992 (the last major riot in Los Angeles).

A riot requires not just poverty but a prevailing sense of injustice among a people, whether from police abuse or from job discrimination (as in both France and the US). This sense of not really belonging to a society, and not really having any say in the political process, is just as important to the formation of a riot as the economic component. It is, unfortunately, much more difficult to change, which is why governments tend to respond to riots by just addressing the economic component and ignore the issue of racism.

There’s another important lesson that came out of the 1960s U.S. riots and is now apparent in the French riots: the failure of modern urban planning. The French made a decision to construct large affordable housing projects out in the Paris suburbs, and did it the cheapest possible way, using tall skyscrapers that I’ve heard referred to in French as “bunny cages”, to describe how cramped and ugly they are. Similarly, the U.S. constructed large skyscrapers in huge projects in urban areas in Chicago and New York. These projects are now widely recognized as failures. The concentration of poverty, whether by affordable housing projects or more subtle techniques like zoning, multiplied the problems caused by poverty many times over. While newer housing projects in the U.S. and France recognize this and are generally more dispersed across a region, the old projects mostly persist as a blight on the landscape. There’s a real need for a wholesale dismantling of these projects, either physically (by demolition) or socially (by redeveloping portions of the projects). This won’t happen overnight- it took 20 years to build the “bunny cages”, and it will take at least that long to construct an equal number of affordable housing units in more dispersed settlements.

The reason this is so important is that cultural assimilation of poor groups into the broader society, the stated goal of both the French and the U.S. governments, is impossible without physical proximity. Immigrant neighborhoods form naturally for first-generation immigrants, and are invaluable for survival in their new country. However, after the first generation, or in the case of native poor groups such as the African-American urban poor, government policy must enable the movement of people into the broader society. Currently, both U.S. and French policy aim, effectively, to isolate their poor from the broader society, with disastrous results.

via Hamlets Dreams

Suburban Housing Developments are Conformist Political Deathtraps.

Our dear friend Fauxmarc found this ad in the Washington Post while on the train into work this morning. And he didn't alter it at all. Suuuuure.

For LA, Utopia or Dystopia?

The Los Angeles Times recently printed an article - For LA, Utopia or Dystopia? - investigating how "prestigious developments" cause detrement to surrounding neighborhoods due to traffic and increased housing and service costs. Further, the article addresses sprawl, car-dependency, the housing-squeeze, and other issues in communities similar to the densely populated, mostly-sprawl, and big-box infested Los Angeles.

How Far is too Far?

A developer in Washington DC plans to build 4,300 houses 100 miles away from DC - and 50 miles away from the nearest city. The Washington Post article How Far is Too Far explores the extent to which people are willing to commute in order to work in a city and live in the suburbs, and the social and economic repercussions of this decision.

"Stop Hating on Walmart"

To those sour-faced defenders of the "free" market and its necessarily poor treatment of the bottom rung: I do not apologize. Other than that, this image needs neither description nor comment.

Eminent Domain Expanded (or, all your property belong to KB Homes)

For light Friday reading, take a look at the Chicago Tribune article about yesterday's Supreme Court ruling, and learn how it's okay for local governments to take away your home and give the land to private developers in the name of "renewal."

Of course, the image used here isn't really accurate; SCOTUS wouldn't be your new landlord, but rather KB and Centex Homes and other assemblers of houses and commercial properties vastly inferior than those residents were trying to hold onto in this particular case.

Talking to the Wall

Here is the story of two neighboring cities, one of which stands firm in its resolve to keep out the big box that is Wal-Mart, and the other, which joyously embraces the corporate behemoth. After Greenfield, Mass., blocked Wal-Mart from setting up shop, filmmaker Steve Alves documented the town's progress and ideological differences from the town of Orange, where Wal-Mart enjoys a comfy existence. Alves' comedy,  "Talking to the Wall: The Story of an American Bargain," which was ten years in the making, also has as its main character the famous Al Norman, a self-proclaimed "sprawl buster." Watch some movie clips here.
[above image via]

Kick Out The Culture Jams

Our good friend Karl Hungus (not his real name) shows us that culture jamming is alive and well in Middle America. Now, if only they could spell "shitholes" correctly.

Wal-Mart Learns a New Trick

The Denver Post reports on the dawning of a new age at Wal-Mart:

From now on, in communities across the country, Wal-Mart’s newest stores won’t come standard issue. "We don’t want them all to look the same," said Keith Morris, the retailer’s director of community affairs for Colorado. "The one in Thornton should look different than the one in Lakewood." ...

The city’s planners faced a similar plight as other towns that want development but want it on their terms. Again and again, the clarion call is made to preserve scenic beauty, history or a sense of place — the community’s identity.

Yes, another red herring from Wal-Mart. Screw the job loss; let's pretend that "the community's identity" is built only on the most visible criteria.

Big Box Reuse

Hi all, I'm new. I remember once chatting with an architect who tried to convince me that big box development is actually a great opportunity because, in ten years when the company goes bankrupt, communities all over the country will have these huge boxes/land to play with. Although that logic seems pretty misguided to me (and, in my mind, the cons outweigh the pros), our reality and future includes lots of planning for big boxes...

A bunch of ideas in this New York Times article disturbed me, but this one's at the top of the list:

These projects succeed, many new owners say, simply because people feel comfortable with mall-style architecture. At Calvary Chapel, a nondenominational church in Pinellas Park, Fla., which started out in a Winn-Dixie and has now expanded to an adjacent Wal-Mart, the low-slung architecture is a draw for the 3,000 congregants.

NIMBYism and Fair Housing

Why it's not illegal for NIMBYers to put the kibosh on affordable housing developments:

On March 25, 2003, the US Supreme Court ruled that city of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, did not violate the Constitution by allowing voters to initiate a referendum to block a low-income housing development. The twists and turns of this complex decision have many people wondering what it means and what is next. In this special report, KnowledgePlex explores the range of opinions.

Thus Spake Sam Walton

"If some community, for whatever reason, doesn’t want us in there, we aren’t interested in going in and creating a fuss,” wrote founder Sam Walton in his autobiography. A WalMart vice-president also recently lied "We have so many opportunities for building in communities that want Wal-Marts, it would be foolish of us to pursue construction in communities that don’t want us."

We see now that nothing could be further from the truth: Walmart will continue, as they've done in so many communities before, to eliminate dozens and sometimes hundreds of decently-paying jobs from the community, twist and pervert the character of the neighborhood they invade, and generally bulldoze right over anything else that stands in their way. Here in Sacramento, the local city council is desperately trying to fight a WalMart incursion into Downtown Plaza, an urban mall run by Westfield, who seem intent on backstabbing many of their own businesses as well as anyone else within a five-mile radius, all in the name of the dollar. As is business as usual with WalMart, the new store - if it is eventually built - will sell mostly products made in China, pay their workers well under the federal poverty line, and restrict hours to avoid paying benefits or overtime whenever possible. This is terrific for the Walmart investor, who will make money off the degradation of a community that he or she likely does not live in; it is not as terrific for the local business owners who are relegated to taking a minimum-wage job for 38 hours a week without benefits once their own shop is driven out of business or the customers who will have that much less choice of who to buy from.

This post edited for language, although I think the thousands of folks whose jobs have been lost or transferred to China as a result of WalMart might find the original language perfectly valid.

skateboard obstacles, billboard homes

Toronto's downtown has built-in barriers to skateboarders and prevent the homeless from sleeping outdoors.

Across the city, seating areas, standing areas, sculptures — any place where people might be inclined to loiter or play — have sprouted an array of armrests, ribs, "fins," stone knobs and even klieg lights in an effort to keep us from getting too comfortable.

This is the essence of the exclusionary and separation trends that have been overtaking rich urban environments throughout North America. It is sometimes called the "suburbanization of the city." At its core is the vast amount of publicly accessible private land.

On the other side of the spectrum: the Cradle to Cradle (C2C) home design competition is over and Metropolis Magazine has the story. 'pMod', the first prize winner, recycles billboards and train cars into a modular home with some great features.

Gated Communities ≠ New Urbanism

Enormous gated communities in Latin America - complete with schools, clinics, and a wide array of recreational possibilities (I thought the rich and scared only played golf?) - are now billing themselves as Latin America's best example of New Urbanism. "What the !@$&," you may ask, but I'm serious. Some folks think this may be the future of such communities here as well.

Art of Gentrification

From theboxtank.com: Gentrifying Forces Descend Upon Queens

The Suburbs are Racist

Walter Mondale speaks a truth we've been scared to mention: suburbs are, in their insular homogeneity, inherently racist. And they're becoming much more so - at least in Minnesota.

A new study commissioned by the former U.S. vice president suggests that a simmering resentment at the influx of immigrants in recent years is gaining steam, especially in the suburbs.

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