OnlineEvent Type: Lecture, WorkshopParent Event: Rethinking Sprawl with Galina TachievaOrganizer: 1000 Friends of FloridaEvent Website Events
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As a part of the Dr. John M. DeGrove webinar series, Galina Tachieva joined 1000 Friends of Florida to discuss the repair of sprawling communities. The structure of the webinar allows for over an hour of densely packed lecture, instruction, and Q&A to properly dissect the prevalent issue of sprawl in modern suburban communities across the country and around the world.
In this presentation, Galina Tachieva discussed strategies to enhance suburban communities as they exist today. Utilizing knowledge and methods found in the Sprawl Repair Manual, she explored ways to introduce connectivity, sense of place, mixed uses, and better, more diverse housing opportunities for communities. The webinar began with an overview of new urban principles and recent development trends and goes on to cover the retrofitting of large areas (shopping centers, office parks, etc.) and bringing smaller-scale, incremental change to neighborhoods with lean sprawl repair tools.
Many office parks beyond the Toys “R” campus have a standard look: “lots of curved surface parking and square buildings,” the Georgia Tech professor Ellen Dunham-Jones said.
Between the lack of sustainability and aggravation by the work-from-home lifestyle boosted during COVID-19, these office parks are becoming increasingly outdated and deserted.
As laid out in the Sprawl Repair Manual, a future life can still be revitalized in business parks through the construction of a mixed-use, walkable community that counters the original isolated nature of such developments.
OnlineEvent Type: Lecture, WorkshopParent Event: The Architecture of Place Conversation SeriesOrganizer: ICAAEvent Website Events
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Over a three-part series, Galina Tachieva, Marianne Cusato, and Ben Bolgar had the chance to play the role of both interviewer and interviewee. In each installment, one of the architects was interviewed by one of the others about the influences, experiences, and projects that have led to their design perspective on the architecture of place. At the end of each session, students from partnering university departments posed additional questions to the speakers, followed by an open Q&A with attendees.
In this installment, Galina Tachieva was interviewed by Ben Bolgar, Senior Director at The Prince’s Foundation, on a number of topics, including the ever-pressing urgency to repair sprawling communities following the post-pandemic flight to the suburbs.
OnlineEvent Type: PublicationParent Event: РЪКОВОДСТВО ЗА РЕКОНСТРУКЦИЯ НА СПРОЛАOrganizer: Sofia Municipality / СТОЛИЧНА ОБЩИНАEvent Website Events
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The Sprawl Repair Manual has been translated and published by one of the Bulgarian universities in architecture and design, Sofia Municipality, as an online edition. This is a major step in making universally vital information on urban planning and development accessible worldwide. The “Architecture and Town Planning” department, together with the publishing center of the VSU “Chernorizets Hrabar”, the city of Varna, has made this milestone not only possible but a reality.
The manual has been made available electronically and can be downloaded here.
Louisville, KentuckyEvent Type: Lecture, WorkshopParent Event: CNU27 Organizer: Congress for the New UrbanismEvent Website Events
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The member-led session reflected on the significant changes in urban real estate markets over the last two decades that have invigorated downtowns and urban neighborhoods. Many people are forgoing private subdivisions in favor of places with a sense of community. Responding to this shift of preferences, the participants considered how can we address the challenges of economically inefficient sprawl.
The lively interactive roundtable discussion focused on successional development as a way to respond to the risks and vulnerabilities of sprawl. Four themes were addressed:
importance of incremental retrofit in a suburban context;
ways to mitigate investment risk and other exposure;
ways to stem decline before it reaches collapse; and
first steps and ability to act quickly. Each roundtable participant will share their expertise, suggest practical tools and techniques, and field questions from delegates.
Editors Notes: The annual Congress for the New Urbanism, now in its twenty-seventh year, is the preeminent national event on building better places. Each year, more than 1,500 attendees convene to hear from speakers, participate in workshops, collaborate on projects, and engage with leaders in dozens of fields.
2019 July 9
An Introduction to Form-Based Coding
Naples, Collier County, FloridaEvent Type: LectureParent Event: The Dollars and Sense of Growth Organizer: A Collier County Organized Public Event Events
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During an interactive presentation, Galina Tachieva highlighted the opportunities for creating better and healthier communities in Collier County using form-based planning and coding.
Collier County is a fast-growing region but the current Land Development Code is complicated and outdated. If done right, new planning strategies can be effective in creating dynamic, walkable communities. These area-specific Form Codes will benefit residents, economics and the environment. It is however important to assist developers and planners understand the importance of smart growth principles. Galina Tachieva, managing partner at DPZ CoDESIGN, and author of the Sprawl Repair Manual and the Smart Code shared her guidance and expertise on these topics.
The Dollars and Sense of Growth – A Collier County Organized Public Event
ICSC Report ‘Mixed-Use Properties: A Convenient Option for Shoppers’
The latest ICSC research in 2019 found 78% of U.S. adults would consider residing in environments that have a variety of uses in close proximity to one another. The principal reasons include convenience, an efficient use of time, and more better experience. We wonder who are the remaining 22%?
Author: ROBERT KUNZIGOutlet: National GeographicPublished: March 27, 2019Link to ArticleArticles
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Carlton Landing, Oklahoma – designed to be a sustainable walkable community complete with amenities and features that enhance its livability. www.dpz.com/Projects/0804
The 20th Century family for whom suburban subdivisions were envisioned is no longer the statistical norm. In addition, young people are looking for an urban lifestyle, and so are many of the parents left behind. To build the cities and towns of the future, National Geographic explores the need to fix the recent mistakes and misconceptions of automobile focused suburbia.
Author: Amanda Kolson HurleyOutlet: CitylabPublished: February 11, 2019Link to ArticleArticles
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Schools and amenities within walking distance of homes, Greenbelt, Maryland, 1942. Photo Credit: Marjory Collins/Library of Congress
Offering an alternative to wasteful suburban sprawl, the Greenbelt-Towns Program was a Government-led urban planning approach that began in the late 30’s. Although short-lived, lessons can be drawn from the goals, scope and reaction to the suburban demonstration towns that embodied a mix of housing, walkability, and a traditional downtown.
Author: Richard Vines, Neil Callanan, and Will MathisOutlet: BloombergPublished: January 5, 2019Link to ArticleArticles
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With restaurants and bars now occupying upwards of 25 percent of space, mall owners are struggling to identify new opportunities to stem their decline. There is growing recognition that to compete with vibrant downtowns and online shopping, malls will also need to add hotels, apartments, and entertainment to create attractive mixed-use neighborhoods.
Transformation of the mall from a retail-only destination into a vibrant, mixed-use, urban center – University Mall, Orem, Utah
Author: Katherine ShaverOutlet: Washington PostPublished: January 3, 2019Link to ArticleArticles
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Fountains on Clematis Street, West Palm Beach, Florida
Developers have identified a desire by suburbanites for ‘experiences’ that provide them with activities and places to interact. Hence the rise of cooking demonstrations, outdoor yoga classes, smaller concert venues, farmers markets, and splashable fountains, among others. The more time spent together, the more likely people will also shop, dine, and hold a positive view of their community.
Legacy’s vibrant Main Street offers residents and employees a multitude of day to night destinations and traditional urban features such as treelined sidewalks and outdoor cafes.
Much of suburban sprawl is vehicle-oriented, served by inadequate sidewalks, and inaccessible without a car. Highlighting Jeff Speck’s new book, Walkability City Rules: 101 Steps to Making Better Place, the article discusses how investing in walkability can enhance the appeal of places to a range of ages, increase home values and jobs numbers, and promote local expenditure on goods and services.
Galina’s opening keynote presentation positioned Sprawl Repair as a comprehensive and practical method to transform auto-dependent, single-use places into more complete, economically viable communities. It demonstrated how design, regulatory and implementation techniques derived from the “trenches” at all development scales: regional, community, block, building.
Strategies were identified to create economic and social value out of stranded real-estate assets as the demise of the industry that produced sprawl continues: Malls and office parks are dying; golf courses are closing; McMansions are losing their appeal to Millennials. The presentation not only highlighted why we should retrofit sprawl, but also showed a practical How, Who and When step-by-step path of action forward to a better burb.
Editors Notes: Retrofit Magazine held its second-annual one-day conference in October 2018 in Charlotte north Carolina. The conference brought together focused on retrofitting commercial, industrial and institutional buildings.
Author: Rob SteutevilleOutlet: CNU Public SquarePublished: October 9, 2018Link to ArticleArticles
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Taking advantage of unexpected demand, the mixed-use Village Center is defined by three-to-five-story buildings and recalls the character of Huntsville’s historic town center.
“Providence, which won a 2018 CNU Charter Award, is an example of how traditional neighborhood development can add to quality of life in a car-oriented suburban landscape.” explains Rob Steuteville, Public Square. The 305 acre Village of Providence intentionally rebalances the previously fragmented, single-use sprawl at the northwest city limits of Huntsville with infill, housing diversity, shared amenities, and useful commercial. By providing the region’s missing ingredients in a walkable environment, it has become a preferred place to live and a popular evening hang-out.
“The last time Americans fled the cities for the suburbs, from the 1950s to the 1980s, they were driven primarily by fear of crime. This time the migration is the consequence of the cities’ success, not their failure. Housing
and rental prices in many of the country’s largest metro areas have soared, inspiring residents to pack up and move out.
As more young people decamp from the cities to the suburbs, … a hybrid might develop, where people who leave cities—especially the most vibrant and expensive ones—will gravitate to places with similar amenities. Or transform them—as is happening in San Marcos. Though it has its fair share of cookie-cutter homes and strip malls, its well-preserved old downtown boasts a brewery and beer garden, a yoga studio and, now, a bootcamp boutique.”
Author: Michael Andersen, PlacesForBikes staff writerOutlet: peopleforbikesPublished: March 7, 2018Link to ArticleArticles
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Halsey’s sidewalk-facing business strip on a winter morning.
The parking lot at Gateway’s shopping center, just off Halsey, is zoned for skyscrapers.
At the cutting edge of sprawl retrofit, Portland is working to making biking desirable in a neighborhood originally built for cars, where the 1920s-style commercial lots to the north face unbroken sidewalks, and the 1950s-style lots to the south face a two-row parking lot.
“Portland’s leaders [are] thinking these two blocks are the perfect place to begin what many of them see as the great work of the 21st century: undoing the errors of car-dependent design that began in the 1940s.
If this row of buildings successfully leads Gateway’s transition to a more walkable, bikeable neighborhood, it’d put the street at the forefront of a national movement to redevelop close-in suburban neighborhoods.
The city’s plan is to preserve parking on both sides of the street, but flip the parking and bike lanes so a combination of curbs and parked cars would separate bike and auto traffic.
Author: Alan GreenblattOutlet: GOVERNINGPublished: December 1, 2017Link to ArticleArticles
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Suburbs first gained popularity for being everything a big city wasn’t. Now they want to be just like downtown. Photo by David Kidd
It is becoming more apparent that the suburban pattern of development created imbalances and burdens on society, the economy and the environment. In a very worthwhile article, Alan Greenblatt describes the revolution that is taking place and gaining steam. The most valuable and successful communities will be those that are developed around diverse town centers and transit. SmartGrowth and Sprawl Repair will be the key.
“All over the country, suburbs are rushing to develop new mixed-use corridors, complete with dense, walkable shopping areas, often attached to a town hall or performing arts complex, as in Shirlington [VA], and usually surrounded by mid-rise apartment or condo buildings.
Mixed-use developments like these are becoming kind of a cliché in American metropolitan areas — but that doesn’t make them any less revolutionary.
“People who don’t have kids in their houses eat out a lot more than people who have kids,” says Ellen Dunham-Jones, director of the urban design program at Georgia Tech University and a leading authority on suburban evolution. “Suddenly,” she says, “you see the suburbs have way more restaurants than they used to, even bars and nightlife, which used to be anathema.”
“The downtown housing has gotten absurdly expensive in those cities that have revitalized,” says Dunham-Jones. This explains to a large extent the denser development taking shape in communities such as Shirlington and Rockville [MD].
An increasing number of developers want to appeal to people who prefer to live and work in places where they don’t have to drive for everything they want. “The suburbs that have gotten that are going to be the winners in the future,” says Ed McMahon, a senior resident fellow with the Urban Land Institute. “The way people work, shop and move around is changing. Those that have figured that out are going to prosper, and others are going to decline.”
“The privacy that the aging boomers really valued while raising their kids, now they’re beginning to question that,” Dunham-Jones says. “Do I really want to mow that big lawn? If they’re retired, suddenly that privacy can seem lonely.” Or, to put it another way, the ability to conduct much of one’s life on a cellphone may be generating a desire for in-person contact, perhaps the only thing the phone cannot deliver.
You’ll pay at least 25 percent more per square foot for housing in Reston, Va., which is built around a town center, than in nearby Sterling, a postwar cul-de-sac suburb that’s the same driving distance from Washington.
The most in-demand suburban developments are being built around transit, and this is true even where the share of commuters using transit is still low.”
Author: Feargus O'SullivanOutlet: CITYLABPublished: October 11, 2017Link to ArticleArticles
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Houses in the still relatively dense London suburb of Willesden. Photo by Suzanne Plunkett/Reuters
It is not rocket science that walkability reduces obesity – it is a health argument for Sprawl Repair. Feargus O’Sullivan writes:
“A U.K. study finds a clear connection between density and obesity—and even rural areas fare better than suburban ones.
The study, carried out by specialists at the universities of Oxford and Hong Kong, found that obesity rates were markedly lower in areas where homes were more tightly clustered.
This might not come as a shock, given the long touted health benefits of walkable neighborhoods.”
“…they make one thing clear: Residents’ health is highly likely to improve when sprawling suburbs are made more dense. …it also breaks ground by matching obesity levels with specific rates of housing density.”
“… the lack of walkability for British people living in sparsely populated areas was compensated for by a relatively active lifestyle, … Even people who live in very sparsely populated areas still had considerably higher levels of obesity than people who live in densely built cities.”
“In other words, being at the heart of things, being able to get around easily, and having more opportunities to build wider social networks might actually boost wellbeing in itself by making life easier, as well as encouraging people to leave their homes more.”
Sprawl repair that clusters homes and inserts mixed uses creates walkable, healthier communities. Heres how it can be done.
Author: Laurie Volk, Todd ZimmermanOutlet: Build a Better Burb - The Hub for Great Suburban DesignPublished: August 14, 2017Link to ArticleArticles
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According to Laurie Volk and Todd Zimmerman, “Since the turn of century, the demographic convergence of the two largest generations in the nation’s history, Baby Boomers and Millennials, both at life stages favoring community-oriented neighborhoods has formed the foundation for a nationwide urban resurgence.
The impact has been felt in neighborhoods at every scale, from the nation’s greatest cities to small, walkable 19th century downtowns that have become the de facto urban centers for surrounding auto-oriented subdivisions.”
However, there are other distinctions among households that can be more meaningful than age cohort, including preferences for urban scale and taste for new versus old.
In addition, Millennials’ life stage, financial circumstances and attitude toward ownership housing threatens to clog the whole system of ownership housing.
Millennial families’ continued embrace of walkable urbanism will depend on the success and quality of re-urbanization, particularly in smaller-scale urban centers, and whether a range of housing types can be developed, redeveloped, restored or maintained within these walkable neighborhoods. And, perhaps more importantly, it will depend on whether these dwellings, whether for-rent or for-sale, will be affordable to a wide spectrum of households.
Solitary drive-through retail site is retrofitted with liner buildings to incrementally begin the transition to walkable, livable communities. Image Credit: Sprawl Repair Manual by Galina Tachieva of DPZ CoDesign
Deficiency: Sprawl-type Solitary drive-through retail. Remedial Techniques: Step 1: liner building retrofit. Step 2: Dense redevelopment where viable. Image Credit: Sprawl Repair Manual by Galina Tachieva of DPZ CoDesign
Jonathan Hopkins of Urbanismo makes a compelling case that the NPS’s evaluation criteria for nominating properties to the National Register of Historic Places should be revised to address concerns that preservation funding will become increasingly available for use by sprawling Post-War suburban subdivisions like Levittown, New York as they reach their 50 year eligibility mark.
“It becomes necessary to make clear criteria-based distinctions between sprawl and other development patterns like neighborhoods and small towns in order to prevent the preservation of obesity, social dysfunction, and environmental degradation.”
“By taking a proactive approach sooner rather than later, the prevention of preserving sprawl in its current state can be realized. The preservation movement – in coordination with environmentalists, developers, medical physicians, and others – can encourage law-makers to pass legislation to amend the Secretary of the Interior’s standards to include suburban retrofitting guidelines that outline appropriate initiatives to be funded by tax credits and planning grants at both the State and Federal level. In coordination with land-use, zoning, tax, and development policy reforms that discourage new suburban sprawl developments, historic preservation funding sources can encourage the retrofitting of sprawl into a more sustainable, accessible, affordable, and attractive living arrangement.”
The 11.4 acre Macy’s-owned portion of Landmark Mall. Howard Hughes Corporation acquired the Macy’s parcel and has begun to transform the enclosed mall and the Macy’s parcel into a vibrant open-air, mixed-use community with retail, residential and entertainment components designed to create a dynamic urban village. Image: Howard Hughes Corp
“Struggling retailer sees opportunities to improve shopping experience by activating empty parking lots.
As the images of empty parking lots during Black Friday have demonstrated, commercial real estate professionals are slowly warming to the idea that we have far too much parking than is needed- diminishing municipal tax bases and taking away the ability to lease space within struggling shopping centers. Big box retailer Macy’s has announced their intention to create new revenue streams by reimagining acres of unused parking lots- a strategy used by tactical urbanists in places like Nashville, Indianapolis and Miami.”
Author: Michael Joe Murphy, Orlando Sentinel Editorial BoardOutlet: Orlando SentinelPublished: June 20, 2017Link to ArticleArticles
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Jun 20, 2017: Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board spoke to Joshua Harris, director of the Dr. P. Phillips Institute for Research and Education in Real Estate at the University of Central Florida, to ask about malls:
“Q: Did shopping malls ever serve a purpose in society, beyond retailing? What changed, if anything?
A: Shopping malls became the de facto “town square” during the suburban development boom of the ’70s and ’80s. They were the place to go, hang out and be seen. Thus, the urban resurgence that began in the late ’90s, and really intensified in the past 10 years, has taken the “town square” back to the more natural walkable, urban environment. Places like Winter Park, Winter Garden, Thornton Park and now even Baldwin Park (close to 95 percent leased after suffering massive problems during the recession) are all the “hot” places to go on a Friday or Saturday. In reality, history will show that the suburban mall was the aberration, driven by urban decay and rising crime. With urban renewal and major declines in crime, the mall does not fit as well as it did for those few decades. There will be life for existing malls, but likely after being repurposed and designed to feel more like town centers.”
Where logical transportation and community infrastructure already exists, sprawl repair techniques can be used to add residential, office, entertainment, and public open space to spur an entire region with new, walkable Town Centers.
As Amazon nears offering service to Australia, Economist Jason Murphy hopes Australian malls can avoid the current American syndrome of dying malls. He offers the following suggestions that can also offer hope for our American malls through Sprawl Repair and Retrofit:
“Number one is probably to reduce their reliance on risky “anchor tenants”. Coles, Woolies, Target and Big W are shopping centre stalwarts, but none of them is certain to still be succeeding in a decade’s time. One or all of them could find the going a lot tougher in a world where Amazon is trying to win over our wallets.
The next big idea for shopping centres is to offer experiences not just goods. Amazon sells stuff you can get delivered to your door. But experiences — haircuts, manicures and massages; meals, coffees and movies — are still things people want to meet in person for.”
By increasing density and diversifying uses, dying malls can become innovative employment and social hubs that enrich the surrounding neighborhoods.
Author: WP Brand StudioOutlet: The Washington PostPublished: May 25, 2017Link to ArticleArticles
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Check out this story and interactive website from The Washington Post:
“… all around the country as new types of vibrant suburbs, either revived or created from scratch, are springing up outside of expensive downtown cores to meet the needs of young families who aren’t so much choosing suburban life as insisting that the suburbs change to accommodate the priorities they’ve brought with them from the city.
They demand higher-density housing, shorter commutes, easy access to their daily needs, plenty of opportunities to interact socially, interesting shopping, nearby green space, high-end dining options and other amenities traditionally unavailable in sprawling suburbs. It’s a new kind of convenient and tech-enabled community, with more breathing room than downtown and more street life than the ‘burbs.”
“Millennials have been slow to form households, but it’s happening now, and roughly two-thirds say they want to live and work in mixed-use urban neighborhoods where they can feel a strong sense of community and invest in interactions and experiences, rather than things,” says Jennifer Griffin, urban planner and Millennial mom.
of the Dr. John M. DeGrove webinar series, Galina Tachieva joined 1000 Friends of Florida to discuss the repair of sprawling communities. The structure of the webinar allows for over an hour of densely packed lecture, instruction, and Q&A to properly dissect the prevalent issue of sprawl in modern suburban communities across the country and around the world.
