Round Up: Urban Taxidermy, Tightening the Rust Belt, Tips for a Successful Art Tour, The Elements of Placemaking

Jargon Watch: "Urban Taxidermy"

As cities struggle to maintain character of neighborhoods and commercial districts, they are conflicted between two options, the preservation of old buildings versus allowing development to proceed. By preserving a district you also preserve a "walkable, vibrant streetscape where people want to be." Enter Urban Taxidermy.

Robert Allsopp defines urban taxidermy as "the art of preserving, stuffing and mounting buildings for lifelike effect to simulate an intrinsic social, cultural or commercial vitality."

Before urban taxidermy.

After urban taxidermy.

Do Parts of the Rust Belt ‘Need to Die Off’?

Experts suggest that struggling Rust Belt cities must look to the future of their cities by slimming down strategically through "smart decline."  Smart decline refers to "the ways in which cities can plan around population loss and find ways to manage it (and maybe grow again one day)." Some strategies include moving lowest density occupants to compact neighborhoods, building greenbelts instead of maintaining untraveled streets, encouraging urban farming or letting the barren areas revert to nature.

Helping the Public Enjoy Art

A multi-tiered approach to getting people out for an art tour in downtown Des Moines, Iowa offers some ideas on how to attract visitors to your district for one-off events and beyond.

Public Space at the Crossroads of Everything

The "place" in Placemaking is the combination of many more elements than you might've previously even considered. 

Complete Streets help the economy, street vendors vs BIDs smack down, and over designed intersections? Commercial District News Round Up, Week of July 7th, 2015

How Thoughtful Street Design Is Helping Communities and the Economy
The National Complete Streets Coalition, a program of Smart Growth America, released a new report analyzing street improvements in 37 neighborhoods across the country.  In the report, communities that were redesigned to accommodate pedestrians, transit users and bicyclists (as well as drivers of motor vehicles) found that the design resulted in positive impacts on key economic indicators, including employment, new businesses, property values and private investment.

Source: Huffington Post

BIDS Worry Over Movement to Increase Vendor Permits
In New York, the number of street vendor licenses are limited by law - only 3,000 permits are issued annually. But a movement led by The Street Vendor Project seeks to change all that. On the other side of this issue are BIDs that are concerned about the impact of vendors on established businesses - many of whom are paying assessments into the BID and who are affected by vendors right outside their doors. Fordham Road Business Improvement District, the largest BID in the Bronx, along with 72 BIDs across NYC, presented a four-page statement prepared by the New York City BID Association warning of “unilateral, piecemeal change” to the current laws “will lead to unintended consequences.” The BIDs suggest a study before lifting the ban. Both sides see financial struggle as vendors have mounting permitting costs while property owners and merchants of BIDs pay assessments to keep the streets clean and orderly.

Image Source: www.norwoodnews.org   Credit: Adi Talwar

Neighbors Are Mad Lincoln Hub Slows Traffic, But That Was Kind of the Point
The design, intended to imitate an oriental rug and also to slow down traffic, not appreciated by local residents at this Chicago intersection.  Overdesigned?...you be the judge.

Reshaping Growth Centers with Open Space = Smart Growth
The addition of open space to urban areas seems counter intuitive to the often assumed need for high-density growth, but this article points out that the addition of open space and the practice of smart growth can lead to high density and better use of land.  The comparison of Atlanta and Barcelona maps, with similar population size, is astonishing.

Most Bikeable Cities of 2015
Minneapolis took number one spot, putting often assumed bike mecca, Portland, in number three. The ranking looked at cities of 300,000+ and the scores are measured on a scale of 0 - 100 based on bike lanes, hills, destinations and road connectivity, and share of local workers' commutes traveled by bicycle.  Check it out...is your city on the list?

The USDA Site Now Has a National Farmers Market Directory
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has launched a searchable national farmers market directory, allowing you to search for markets online. The site has an interactive map and can search the 8,260 farmers markets by zip code and products sold. The USDA included any market that has two+ farm vendors selling their goods in the same location week to week.

Fulton Area Shoppers Prefer Bike Over Car

We're always talking and writing about bike-friendly business districts, so we were pleased to see coverage from Streetsblog of biking on Fulton Street in Fort Greene and Clinton Hill where we recently wrapped up a retail market study for the  the Fulton Area Business Alliance and Pratt Area Community Council.

image: cityinajar.com

On street parking is so coveted by business owners that the shear thought of removing the spots for bicycle infrastructure such as protected bike lanes or public plazas sends many into panic because those spots are often assumed to be directly associated with increased business and revenue. The findings of a recent study may help to calm business owners' nerves. The FAB Alliance and the Pratt Area Community Council surveyed 477 people on Fulton Street this summer and found that the vast majority of shoppers arrive without a car. 

Image: FAB Alliance and Pratt Area Community Council

The results of the survey show that only 15% of respondents used an automobile to access Fulton Street to shop, which is even less than those that typically bike to the area to shop (either by their own bike or CitiBike). This may be an isolated set of data but it adds to the growing strength of argument toward bike-friendly and multi-modal business districts.

A 2011 study by Kooshian and Winkleman, "Growing Wealthier," notes market trends now favoring mixed-use, walkable and bikable town centers and neighborhoods. They also note that businesses profit from bicycle and pedestrian facility improvements, time savings, and healthcare cost savings, referencing Gotschi's “Costeffectiveness of Nonmotorized Transportation Investments as a Greenhouse Gas Reduction Strategy.” 

image: nydailynews.com

The point to drive, or in this case walk or bike, home here is that with a growing number of shoppers walking and biking, car-centric streets could be a thing of the past.