Top 5 Blog Posts

Sambo Mockbee tops the list of "most read" posts on the NAV blog for good reason; he changed the way many people, including me, look at so-called ordinary materials. He was as much artist and sociologist as Architect. For ultimate inspiration, click on "Shelter for the Soul."

http://newamericanvillage.blogspot.com/2008/02/sambo-mockbees-shelter-for-soul.html

The next most clicked essay - What's Your Walk Score? - links you to a site that scores your (or any) neighborhood for walkability. See how you rank.

http://newamericanvillage.blogspot.com/2008/03/what-is-your-walk-score.html

Architect and professor Michael Berk takes the bronze with his design for the Green Mobile - an affordable, portable, and very green alternative to the modern-day McMansion.

Berk recently illustrated the power of truth and integrity. Forced by an aggressive and arrogant administration at Mississippi State University to "dumb-down and hide" the educational aspects of his design class, and under the threat of the Dean of the School of Architecture being fired, he stood up to the power structure with truth and integrity as his only defense. Long painful story made short, Berk and the Dean remain and the president of the University resigned. This deserves a more detailed post and is, I promise, forthcoming.

http://newamericanvillage.blogspot.com/2008/02/micheal-berks-greenmobile.html

Coming in right behind Berk is America's first green Architect, Frank Lloyd Wright. At the age of 89, he made the claim that "If I had 15 more years, I could rebuild this country." Although prone to hyperbole for the sake of drama, he may have been right. Wright is responsible for more of our built environment than you think, including the open plan. He called it "exploding the box."


http://newamericanvillage.blogspot.com/2008/02/frank-lloyd-wrights-organic.html


Rounding out the top 5 is Michelle Kaufmann. She's doing some very interesting things in the area of pre-fab design and building. All very contemporary. Check her out at:

http://newamericanvillage.blogspot.com/2008/02/michelle-kaufmanns-glidehouse.html

A Walk On The Wild Side

In the abstract, my neighborhood is perfect for walking.

A major university is 5 blocks away. A grocery store is 4 blocks in the other direction; a park and zoo just beyond that. Restaurants, a pharmacy, an elementary school, retail shops, churches, bars, and liquor stores – a veritable smorgasbord of life’s basic necessities.

But there’s one big problem.

Its completely unwalkable.

According to my neighborhood’s walkscore (see previous post), the area around my house should be moderately walkable. The density sets the stage. Approximately 30,000 people occupy the real estate (during the day) within a mile of my home. But with very few sidewalks, and even fewer crosswalks, getting from here to there on foot becomes entirely impractical.

Over the past 50 years, neighborhoods have been planned as if pedestrians do not exist. Planners and politicians, aided and abetted by architects and engineers I might add, have orchestrated land development with the assumption that the car is the only viable means of transportation, the silver bullet, the one-size-fits-all solution.

That predisposition brings us to where we are today: Sprawl - even in the midst of dense urban development. And walking, as a means of transportation, has been forgotten.

The university chronically complains about a lack of parking. Yet my neighbors (and in fact my Dutch roommate who is accustomed to walking) drive the 5 blocks to campus and park there instead of taking a 10 minute stroll.

Why? Because lack of any planning for pedestrians has created an urban frontier. Walking in this environment means taking your life in your own hands. Pedestrians must share the road with zooming cars (driven by distracted cell-phone yappers) and race across major thoroughfares without the benefit of crosswalks or overpasses.

In fact, in a current “improvement” project on Hardy Street at the edge of campus, crosswalks have been removed with none added. The local Department of Transportation came up with a design that widened the roadway and removed a couple of intersections effectively channeling the traffic and increasing the average speed noticeably. With restaurants, coffee shops, bookstores, campus parking, and even a dormitory across the street, pedestrians now have to run for their lives with no crosswalks in sight. The photo above is of just that.

A few weeks ago, I was in a conversation with a couple of women on the university track team. I suggested that the team be housed in the dorm across the street. Those who survive the semester without being hit by a car keep their scholarships. “Yeah,” one girl replied laughing, “that’s how we can hold tryouts!” They knew what I was talking about.

The real consequence of America’s addiction to the automobile (my friend Doug Michels of Ant Farm fame called it “autonationalism”) is that we create problems that did not exist before.

Sprawl related traffic jams and long commutes suck up time, energy, and money. Same applies in a densely developed area when you are forced to drive to your next destination just around the block.

Urban space is eaten up (and heated up) by too many parking lots. Modern car-centered zoning regulations result in stretching out the space between buildings to accommodate parking making the surrounding area even less walkable.

Public transportation of any kind is not viable when the metro stop is inaccessible by foot traffic. Lack of bus or train service adds inconvenience on top of inconvenience to the traffic weary commuter and would-be walker alike.

Studies have shown that people living in non-walkable neighborhoods are on average more obese, causing or exacerbating many health problems.

Maybe one of the most tragic aspects of an unwalkable neighborhood is its negative impact on our culture. When driving, there are only two ways to communicate to your neighbor – wave or flip them off! Walkable neighborhoods, by design, offer unlimited opportunities to meet and get to know your neighbors on a more personal level. In an unwalkable neighborhood, people generally know each other by their cars. Not much of a cultural exchange there.

As the trend of sprawl plays out, many are coming to a greater awareness of the inherent problems. The benefits of walking are many – I’ve just outlined a few. Here's a site for more info on walking (and biking) in neighborhoods:

http://www.walkinginfo.org/

What Is Your Neighborhood's Walk Score?

With the price of gas above $3 a gallon, people are starting to think about living and working in a walkable neighborhood.

Over the past 50 years, with low gas prices and abundant undeveloped land, our neighborhoods have increasingly become unwalkable. We fell in love with the car, and in the process, we may have lost our way.

Unwalkable neighborhoods have given us traffic jams, increased rates of obesity, and have disconnected us from a sense of "community."

On the other hand, walkable communities promote good health, convenience, rich cultural interaction, multiple transportation options, and economic advantages for individuals and the business community.

Over the next few days we will explore different facets of neighborhoods, why they respond to the human condition, and why unwalkable neighborhoods do not. We will also entertain suggestions and list resources that help bring about a more walkable built environment.

But today, here is a fun site – walkscore.com - where you can get a sense of the walkability of your neighborhood. Enter your address, and this site generates a number between 0 and 100 depending on proximity to various essential destinations like schools, grocery stores, parks, restaurants, etc. It also maps out the location of those services.

What this site does not indicate is how well the area is planned for pedestrians - whether there are sidewalks or crosswalks or not, for example.

Walkscore.com classifies the rating system as such:

90 - 100 = Walkers' Paradise: Most errands can be accomplished on foot and many people get by without owning a car.

70 - 90 = Very Walkable: It's possible to get by without owning a car.

50 - 70 = Some Walkable Locations: Some stores and amenities are within walking distance, but many everyday trips still require a bike, public transportation, or car.

25 - 50 = Not Walkable: Only a few destinations are within easy walking range. For most errands, driving or public transportation is a must.

0 - 25 = Driving Only: Virtually no neighborhood destinations within walking range. You can walk from your house to your car!

Type in your address or find out how other neighborhoods ranks:

http://walkscore.com/

My home - in a neighborhood near the University of Southern Mississippi and a block from the main east-west thoroughfare in town – is 60. No mention of the mad dash across the highway to get to the university just 5 blocks away or the sprint across Hardy Street to get to the grocery store. Very few pedestrian crosswalks or overpasses exist in the middle if this, the most densely populated area within a 60 mile radius, but I’ll talk about that later on in the week. My office in downtown Hattiesburg comes in at 92.

What is your neighborhood's walk score? Post a comment and let us know how your neighborhood rates.