Street Layout and Blight
For much of the 20th Century the street pattern of existing cities was under constant attack by Traffic Engineers, Architects and Urban Planners. Cities typically had one of two types of layout – a strict grid or a more random pattern such as that of the downtown in Boston or Manhattan, or a combination of both. The planners, architects and engineers of the 20th century viewed both the random layout and the compact grid as “obsolete.” With exceptions like Broadway running North & South, St Louis was a standard grid city.
The term ‘gridlock’ originated out of the idea that cars would clog intersections to the point where they’d get boxed in – thus gridlock. Since this time that term is used anywhere traffic congestion exists — ironically often where a grid is absent so all traffic is forced through a single arterial.
The textbook in my Housing & Community Development law class at SLU indicates the federal housing agency (presumably HUD) had model laws for states to adopt with respect to defining blight and a slum. The Missouri definition for blight is very similar to the one in the text:
(1) “Blighted area”, an area which, by reason of the predominance of defective or inadequate street layout, unsanitary or unsafe conditions, deterioration of site improvements, improper subdivision or obsolete platting, or the existence of conditions which endanger life or property by fire and other causes, or any combination of such factors, retards the provision of housing accommodations or constitutes an economic or social liability or a menace to the public health, safety, morals, or welfare in its present condition and use;
Note that “predominance of defective or inadequate street layout,” is first, before unsanitary or unsafe. Of course the statute doesn’t clue us in on what is an adequate street layout. Followed close behind is “improper subdivision or obsolete platting.” Obsolete platting is as subjective as inadequate street layout. Unsanitary is probably easier to pin down as is the deterioration of improvements. But the bias against a compact street grid and narrow deep building lots with alleys is well documented. This bias led to state statutes like this that made it easier to label areas as slums or blighted.
Many areas razed during Urban Renewal had the compact & walkable grid being created today in New Urbanist projects like New Town at St Charles. Overcoming this old anti-grid bias is a challenge in new “greenfield” projects, however. Zoning codes & development standards call for too wide of streets, high parking requirements and large setbacks.
Building setbacks had a couple of early uses. First in private residential streets the setback was used to create a lawn area and a more open feel. The other use was to help ensure that when the city wanted to widen the roadway that they’d not have to demolish the front portion of buildings as was the case in St Louis when early planners began remaking our city for cars, not people.
A major thrust for planning in the 21st Century will end up being undoing 20th Century experiments that failed to serve people. The definition of blight as written may help in that regard. I can see future planners indicating the cul-de-sac layout of much of suburbia as inadequate. Similarly, I can see the typical wide but shallow suburban lot shape being called obsolete. In time we’ll be razing much of the crap from the last 60+ years. Suburban Renewal.
Wide, shallow lots do make it easier to park multiple cars in front of suburban houses. It is what my mom instinctively looks for in a neighborhood. It makes it very difficult to walk those neighborhoods though. I find even some streets in my neighborhood of Southampton to less walkable (5600 block of Bancroft) due to wider lots.
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Walkable neighborhoods are needed to promote public transportation but I noticed today there are still plans to decimate Metro service due to budget shortfalls. As we hope and plan for a better urban core the services to make that happen are disappearing.
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I need a Margarita. I think I’ll walk to Pueblo Solis. Try that in suburbia. 🙂
Wealth-Transfer”R”Us is how this seemingly simple definition is put to use in the region. Textbook definitions become powerful weapons of abuse in communities divided by design and a state government that lacks adequate safeguards to protect private property.
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At one local municipal meeting, blight was declared and proven by the narrow conditions of sidewalks and the presence of utility poles. The declaration was necessary to use eminent domain. Of course the sidewalk conditions were determined by the administration of the same municipality.
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In Clayton, the property at Hanley-Forsyth was blighted to favor a potential owner over current owners. Fortunately the owners could afford justice and thus a significant portion of wealth was not forced to be transferred via oversimplified but abused definitions. Ultimately, the free market provided the City’s objective and without undue favoritism, a rare occurrence in the region.
You are so right about the grid and the built in prejudice by those who govern, bending words to their definition of blight. While I would not rid government of all officials and bureaucrats such as happened with the Iraq Army after American overran them, still I think 90 percent of the corporate, government establishment is crap and needs to be replaced. With the wall street melt down, it is evident all the rich kids who attended ivy league schools and walked into high paying jobs with enormous decision making power are basically as worthless as a southern Missouri Hoosier. (I’d have to give the edge to the Missouri Hoosier in intelligence)
A complete upheaval and house cleaning needs to occur, but hey, it may happen with the wall street meltdown.
It is the same method of running government from the federal level to the local level. Defined by unresponsive political types, Slay unwilling to challenge Paul McKee for instance. Kissing the ass of the wealthy, whose greatest skill is buying politicians and the money they offer and screw the people.
They may be able to prop up their corruption for awhile, but it is so obviously corrupt that eventually there will be no saving wall street and any of their fantasies. Main Street is no different.
And so the grid, the wonderful city grid, its demise, and the demise of the city can be traced to federal policy as well as the usual corrupt local decision making.
I realize there will be people who feel I am overstating the situation, but in fact it is understated. The corruption is prevalent and out in the open yet the American people have been buffaloed into thinking it is normal.
Thanks for the bribe, I mean campaign contribution, I love you all, but have to take care of my contributors.
Thus the grid dies, primarily from a lack of funding for mass transit, although zoning, demolition and new suburban developments help seal the fate of the grid and the city.
I agree with you Steve that change is coming, although I’m not sure it is how anyone expected. The people running things are not leaving unless a complete collapse occurs. Otherwise they will continue to buy the government policy they desire.
The demise of the grid has long been documented as a parallel occurrence to the demise of our cities key urban conditions: among them walkability, connectivity, livability, and more general urban conditions such as continuous streetscapes, quality of design, etc.
However, it must also be pointed out that the grid also decimated the existing environmental conditions, bringing into question its ultimate value. The entire inherent landscape of Manhattan Island was essentially bulldozed to lay down the (mostly) uniform grid that makes up the land north of the tangled streets of Greenwich Village.
The urban planners essentially traded off any semblance of topography for the pure functionality of a perfect urban grid. The results are certainly debatable. Wiping the city of any relation to nature has led to an immaculate city that boasts unparalleled connectivity but almost no connection to the natural condition it sprung from.
Should our cities be devoid of nature? Should ultimate connectivity of the urban condition be more important than reacting to the environment (in terms of climatic orientation, topography)? I don’t know, both are arguably equally important… especially in the context of sustainable design, global warming etc.
The question then becomes whether the grid is (or should be) the ultimate organizing element of our cities. It is certainly far superior to the disconnected main highway/ cul-de-sac hierarchy that organizes suburbia, but the question remains: is the grid the best solution?
I’ll offer an alternative solution: one proposed by OMA (and certainly many others). The grid that modifies itself to the topography. The best of both worlds. Simultaneously reacting to the environment, while still functioning as a working grid offering the city connectivity, walkability, and livability.
http://www.oma.eu/index.php?option=com_projects&view=portal&id=628&Itemid=10
Maybe I’m being too cerebral, maybe I’m not quite articulating my ideas clearly. If so I apologize, stream of consciousness writing has its pitfalls. I’d just hate to see us view the need for grids in simplistic terms… repeating the mistakes of the past while not changing the solutions for the problems of the future.
A grid is among the best ways to fight gridlock. Cul-de-sacs dumping into collectors dumping into thoroughfares (aka arterials) only creates wider thoroughfares, which in turn creates wider intersections and/or longer signal cycles. A grid or network of well-spaced connections (streets need not form a rigid grid but can be indirect zig-zag or curvilinear connections) provides route choices that make the thoroughfare system itself more reliable and resilient in its redundancy of routes.
There are also cost savings to other sectors of government from first responders to school buses (if even still needed with a more walkable environment to neigborhood schools). In addition to cost-benefit analyses or modeling response time between networks, connectivity index is a new measure used to compare areas. The ratio divides the number of links (street segments) by the number of nodes (intersections). The higher the ratio, the more connected the links. Cul-de-sacs drive the ratio down for any area evaluated, since such streets only have one node per link.
I never knew that the actual definition of urban blight pertained to a particular style of urban design or architecture, in this case, a style that was in vogue a little over a hundred years ago. Since when is it the job of the government to make sure we are in-style and up-to-date with the latest trends in architecture? If history repeats itself, in another 20 or 30 years will blight be redefined to be the definition of suburbia?
Gridlock will happen with density. It will be even worse when you have arterial collector roads and pod style housing. Fewer alternate routes from A to B. A good example would be my commute from North St. Louis where I work compared to where I worked in Earth City. The former has many options whether driving through the City or the highway, while the latter there’s only the highway, save getting lost on County roads which wind on an terminate at no logical place. Yes people are more likely to get lost in the County because if you know your cardinal directions you can’t get lost in the City…unless you hit a street barrier that is!
Oh and screw relations to nature. I want concrete, terra-cotta, and shadows. If I want nature I’ll go to Forest Park or Tower Grove.
you damned socialists!
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