Journal 2: Streets for people.

Safe, sustainable, healthy, full of life. 
These are words that people yearn for in built city environments. Throughout the past century, the designs of our spaces have catered greatly to the automobile. This revolutionary feat has transformed the essence of what cities used to be into what they are now.

You may be asking yourself, "whats the difference between then and now?"

According to the book entitled Cities for People, areas considered populated in the past used to house seven times more people than the same sized area in today's world! The reason being that we've neglected to value walking as a means of getting around, its as simple as that!

In the "olden days," people had critical destination points that they needed to get to everyday, or every week, in order to sustain themselves. Their only modality of transportation was either their feet, or utilizing a horse and carriage. Because of this, villages and cities were organized to allow shorter pedestrian trips, requiring a close proximity to needed destinations. These patterns of development sprung from need, and were designed purely on the basis of functionality.

Nowadays our contemporary city designs are created to sustain our modern lifestyles and all of its privileged creature comforts, in other words, our cities are designed for the automobile. Of course they are designed for people, but the automobile takes serious priority over people, especially in the United States.

A single occupant vehicle changes the overall tenure of a street. It increases the tempo at which people move about in the space, and decreases nearby human activity. When a road is dominated by cars, there are generally less activity on its sidewalks, creating a near "life-less" atmosphere.

But why is this bad? There are a couple of reasons; one being that our lifestyles have become increasingly more sedentary, resulting in heightened health risks that include depression, anxiety, and weakened cardiovascular health. Another concern regarding car domination in our towns and cities is the exhaust that comes with them. Burning petroleum or gas reduces respiratory health because the combustion creates an increase in particulate matter elements, nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, among other gases.

Aside from sacrificing human health and the "life" in our city streets, the gases exhaled from our beloved cars trap heat within our atmosphere, contributing to what the science community call "human induced climate change", or more popularly, "global warming." The detriments of this phenomenon are not entirely predictable, but we can predict some of its consequences. Some of which include sea levels rising, wiping out costal communities and forcing the migration of people inland, and a drastic change in growing seasons worldwide. Other impacts include a change in usual weather patterns and their amounts of precipitation, as well as the acidity of the precipitation, an increased amount of heat waves, wildfires, and unknown impacts on many species' longevity, amidst many other predicted circumstances.

Daunting, eh? Good thing we have an idea of what we're in for, and how the design of our cities can  mitigate these effects! But thats another conversation, lets get back to what makes city areas inviting, irresistible and full of life, the sustainable conversation can happen another time...

The first thing we need to do? 

Dissent design that caters solely to cars. 

According to Cities for People, historically, urban planners were not as aware as we are now that physical environments impact behavior. Now, we know that there is no dispute to the fact that our environments create a stage for our lives, thus impacting health and human relations. Notably so, people tend to gather in places where there are other people milling about. With more "eyes on the street," there is greater safety in an area. What attracts people to utilize a space, and actively incorporate it into their lives? Usefulness, accessibility, overall attractiveness, and less cars! 

In observance of my own life, the most popular areas where I notice people congregate are those that offer a safe and inviting pedestrian pathway. These corridors typically consist of stores, and restaurants; places where people feel invited and come to enjoy the day. The most abandoned places in my city, Salt Lake City, are those that offer no dimension designed for human interaction. These include the bases of taller buildings that don't have windows on their ground level floor, and places that are out of peoples' daily travel ranges. In other words, this is a underutilized "edge," which is typically a great place to add design elements that create usable and enjoyable spaces for people, whether they are simply walking past the building, or sitting in the area.

Design elements such as windows, flower pots, and benches can help a space become more lively, but perhaps the most critical component may be density. Without people in an area, the space generally becomes less attractive to people.

The biggest take away from this blog post may just be to draw inspiration from the past. We've got to reduce the need for cars, and make our cities for people again.