Urblogs worth spending time with

Atlanta-based strategic planning firm Civic Strategies defines an Urblog as “those that are focused on a metro area, provide interesting commentary about local politics, culture or urban life and aren’t so ideological that they’re painful to read. So how much ideology is too much? Hey, it’s our list, so we get to decide.”

Civic Strategies recently added Urban Review St. Louis to their list of “urblogs worth spending time with.” Cool, thanks!

“Steve Patterson’s Urban Review – St Louis is a more biting version of Larry Felton Johnson’s Atlanta blog about urban design. Patterson is angry at a lot he sees around him, and he’s particularly steamed about the demolition of revered old buildings. Urban Review – St. Louis is part of a collection of blogs called the STL Syndicate (including Blog St. Louis and Commonspace). What does it say about St. Louis that it is nurturing the best urblogs in the country? Perhaps simply that somebody cares in River City.”

I’m quite flattered by the recognition. What is really flattering is how popular Urban Review St. Louis is becoming. On average I get about 90 hits per day – certainly no competition for the Post-Dispatch – but not bad for less than two months. A quick look at the stats for this week show many readers are coming from computers at City Hall (or within the St. Louis City government), East-West Gateway Council of Governments, Washington University, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Monsanto and yes – AG Edwards. Interesting, very interesting.

To the folks at Monsanto – I’m not going to critique your campus the way I did the AG Edwards campus. Why bother, it is so suburban it doesn’t warrant the effort. Enterprise’s headquarters, on the other hand, is not so suburban so it will be fair game. Perhaps I can decide who has the greener lawn – AG Edwards or Enterprise?

I hope the powers that be at City Hall and East-West Gateway continue reading, maybe they’ll learn something about urbanity, the folly of the grandiose, and the details that make city life great.

– Steve

St. Louis’ Gateway Mall leaves much to be desired

The view below is from my friend’s private office in downtown St. Louis:

Not a bad view?

What do you see?

I see a useless strip of green where historic buildings used to be, sterile buildings on the North and equally sterile buildings on the South. From the Old Courthouse to the Municipal Courts this is a dead zone.

Oh sure, at lunch people are relieved to escape their cubicles for the outdoors and you’ll see people out and about. However, the rest of the time this area has no real meaning to the people of St. Louis.

People moving into the lofts only a few blocks to the North are not doing so because of this space. In a future post I’ll take a more detailed look at the Gateway Mall – why it was ill conceived, why it is an urban failure and what can be done to correct the situation.

– Steve

Urbanity often requires more thought than money

Sometimes very unfriendly places can be made more hospitable not by some grand scheme costing tax payers millions of dollars. An example of such thinking is demonstrated in the picture below from downtown San Francisco in February 2004:

This otherwise sterile entry to an office has been enlivened by a flower vendor pedaling his goods under the dry canopy of this building. Obviously this vendor is here with the blessing of the building owner. This owner may have realized the building was drab and needed to bring some life to the entryway? Perhaps they realized they could get a few buck and make that unused space leasable floor area? Whatever the reason, it has created a point of human contact along the sidewalk and given a small business owner an instant storefront location.

In May of 2003 I snapped the photo you see below:

This is of a 7-11 convenience store in the Gaslamp Quarter neighborhood of San Diego. Yes, while on vacation I took a picture of a 7-11. I couldn’t help myself. This 7-11 actually adds life to a neighborhood rather than drain it away. Plus, since smoking is banned in public places in California I was actually able to walk into this 7-11 without choking. Bonus!

Below is another little bit of urbanity where you might not expect it – under a convention center!

Yes, I’ve seen Subway shops before and no Jared wasn’t behind the counter. The Washington State Convention Center in Seattle crosses over the road going from block to block – a better decision than changing the street grid. To add some street life and to serve pedestrians they’ve got a couple of very small storefronts and a flower vendor has set up shop between them. The shop to the far right is a pizza & gelato place.

One of the key points to this and the first picture is small places can offer excellent opportunities for adding street life, providing a needed service/product and giving someone a chance to start a business without major overhead required of a larger space.

Small doses of urbanity can be added easily and have a much bigger impact than their apparent size. On the other hand, some of the grandiose schemes that take millions of dollars and years to complete often have less of an impact than promised.

– Steve

Vespa dealership relocating to Loop area

The St. Louis area Vespa scooter dealership is relocating from St. Louis County (Rock Hill) to the City of St. Louis. Sources tell me it will be on Delmar in the loop so it might actually end up in University City but that is close enough in my book. You read it here first (not the Post-Dispatch or the St. Louis Business Journal).

If you are not ready to take up bicycling, a scooter is a great way to get from point A to point B without using tons of fuel or taking up too much space. I plan to purchase a scooter in 2005 for those times when I don’t want to cycle but don’t want to drive my car. Scooters are wildly popular in urban cities such as NYC.

In most municipalities, scooters with a 50cc engine or less do not require liability insurance, license plates or even a special motorcycle license (they do require a driver’s license). Larger engined scooters are treated like motorcycles. Always wear a proper helmet for safety when riding a scooter or bicycle.

One dealership located downtown is selling 50cc scooters from Seattle area company Twist-N-Go. Auto World (yikes) located at 1422 Delmar has just received a shipment of these urban commuter scooters. Their phone number is 314-436-2788. Given their proximity to all the lofts they should do well. Long time motorcycle dealer 3628 South Broadway, Widman Motorcycle Sales, carries the Derbi line of scooters imported from Spain.

The Stella from Genuine Scooters is based on the classic P-Series Vespa. The BMW Motorcycle dealership on Forest Park used to carry Aprilia scooters but they have moved out to the county. The Aprilia scooter dealership is now at Extreme Toys on Lemay Ferry in South County.

The City of Warrenton Missouri may have inadvertently outlawed these commuter scooters recently. From the November 9th Post-Dispatch, “The Warrenton Board of Aldermen at its Tuesday, Nov. 2 meeting approved an ordinance that prohibits the use of motorized scooters in the city of Warrenton. Other than disabled persons, residents cannot use motorized bicycles or scooters on streets, highways, roadways, sidewalks or any other property in the city. The new ordinance describes a motorized scooter as “any two, three (or) four wheeled device having handlebars that are attached to a foot board, which is designed to be either stood upon by the operator or equipped with a seat, and is powered by a motor that is capable of propelling the device with or without human propulsion.”

I spoke with a Warrenton police offer who confirmed that any motorized scooter of less than 50cc’s is not permitted on a street in Warrenton. More than 50ccs is consider a motorcycle and thus subject to the normal licensing and motorcycle license. Bummer, but it is not like I’d ever go to Warrenton anyway. Bicyclists note – this also applies to motorized bicycles!

In addition to needing dedicated bicycle parking we also need special areas for scooter & motorcycle parking. Below is an example in San Francisco of a parking meter to service multiple cycle spaces.

SEC & USPS Blamed for AG Edwards’ anti-urban headquarters campus

“The Securities and Exchange Commission has some really wacky requirements for securities firms. I am not personally aware of whether AGE’s black glass and “no stopping, standing”, etc. signs are because of SEC regulations. I have a suspicion that part of their design is most likely an effort to comply with privacy concerns and legal requirements from the SEC.”

The above are comments from a woman named Susan – the spouse of an AGE employee – in response to my critique of the AGE headquarters. from November 22, 2004. I responded to another AGE employee a few days later – click here for that response. Ok, on to my response to Susan’s comments…

You are kidding right? Oh, you’re not. Well, I have no doubt that privacy is a factor with respect to SEC regulations – I’ll give you that one. However, I seriously doubt the SEC cares if Securities Firms operate in an urban context with a pedestrian-friendly first floor that actually has a relationship to the street. They do have Securities Firms in Manhattan don’t they?

“I also am not sure if AGE ever did have a Jefferson entrance. Yet, I think this criticism is unfair–after all, the USPS designates street addresses–it’s not as if they had a choice in the matter.”

Oh come on, you are trying to make me laugh now. AGE’s address of One North Jefferson is a vanity address. As I previously mentioned, I applaud AGE for not insisting on something self serving like One Edwards Place. USPS would normally give AGE an address on Beaumont – simply based on the entrance location.

“Why should they put an entrance on Jefferson if one was never there? I understand that you are trying to apply the principles of urban planning here, yet I think you are criticizing them on some things that may have had many other contributing factors. Urban design, while important, is not the only factor in designing a corporate headquarters. I think that you may have overlooked some of these other mitigating factors.”

I was not suggesting they now build an entrance on Jefferson simply to have a door to justify the address. I was suggesting AGE and their Architect screwed up from day one – not taking advantage of a prominent city corner. AGE was not forced to place a parking garage on the prominent corner rather than a building entrance – it was a poor choice by the owners and/or architect.

My husband, and many of his coworkers, often frequent restaurants, bars, etc., in the area after work. AGE probably keeps a couple of those Mom n’ Pop bars open that are located near the campus. They have lots of happy hours, and they don’t travel out to the county for them–they patronize the businesses in the neighborhood. I don’t think it’s quite just to pan people for not patronizing art galleries on Washington. It’s just not some people’s cup of tea. Odds are that a bunch of financial geeks, business dorks, and IT workers don’t list art as their primary interest.”

True enough, art galleries are not for everyone – especially geeks, dorks and IT workers (Susan’s generalization, not mine). However, I did not see any signs of life immediately adjacent to the AGE campus. Where are these restaurants & bars you speak of? Perhaps they are a well kept secret? The fact remains, this area is devoid of street life and the AGE campus contributes to the lack of life in the area.

“However, I take issue with your assertion that places like AGE don’t encourage walking. There is a rather large city in Brazil that closed off 20 square blocks of its downtown area to auto traffic, thus making the world’s largest pedestrian mall. It has been wildly successful.”

I had to look this one up because I wasn’t aware of which city Susan was citing – Curitiba. I’m really glad she brought this up because its brings up a number of points I’d like to make. Let’s look at a few details…
• At the same time AGE was building its auto oriented headquarters Curitiba was adopting a master plan to limit auto traffic and sprawl.
• Curitiba started with a single street closed to autos and expanded as part of a master plan. However, the “street” remained opened to pedestrians. This is contrary to AGE’s campus where a number of streets have been completely removed from the grid – limiting choices for pedestrians.
• The overall density of Curitiba is similar to that of current St. Louis – however – three decades of strict land use plans have concentrated people along bus corridors to support their mass public transit over auto use.
• Car-free zones require a high density of pedestrians to be successful.

More information on Curitiba:
Curitiba, Three Decades of Thoughtful Planning
Orienting Urban Planning to Sustainability in Curitiba, Brazil
FRONTLINE: Curitiba’s Urban Experiment

I offer the following link with some reservation because I believe the site to be a pro-sprawl site. They are certainly anti-light rail. But, they have an interesting take on Curitiba – arguing how their approach to mass transit is efficient & cost-effective but the city is not the most appealing. Based on some of the pictures, I tend to agree. Curitiba: World Class Public Transport (PDF)

A great resource on creating great pedestrian-friendly places is Carfree Cities

“I applaud you for demanding better design, I would love to see more thoughtful planning and design in this city. However, I think that you have unfairly criticized AGE for things beyond its control. You are certainly entitled to your opinion. However, I thought you might want to be aware of some facts you may not have known about, such as SEC regulations, etc.”

AGE has been in control of the design of their campus from day one – no SEC or city regulation/building code required such a dreadful campus. Knowledge and willingness on the part of AGE and their architect would have resulted in a better campus.

I too would like to see better planning – it would prevent future AGE-esque atrocities.

– Steve