Neighborhood Newsletter

Neighborhood Scale Task List

Possible City wants to match uses with Philly’s 40k vacant lots

It can seem that for every new park, bar or apartment complex in Philadelphia, there’s a barbed wire-shrouded, plastic bag-laced empty lot brimming with potential.

Possible City, the Philadelphia area’s only semi-finalist in the Knight News Challenge on Open Government, aims to address the problem by mapping Philly’s more than 40,000 vacant lots, and empowering urban planners and artists with tools for collaborating on plans to revamp these spaces on a lot-by-lot basis.

In short: as we assess what vacant lots exist, let’s create the tools to do something about them.

Visit the site and its mapping tool here.

“As a longer term vision, this could become an economy for rebuilding the city,” says founder Douglas Meehan, who was drawn into urban planning by a fascination with post-industrial vacant space, and spent four years studying urban planning and landscape architecture at Penn grad school & worked in Philly for three more before moving to New York for a job.

The idea was inspired by Meehan’s participation in the Urban Voids competition, which challenges participants to lay out the best plan for repurposing urban space. He was irked by the competition format, which asks challengers to come up with individual plans within silos.

“I thought, why aren’t we sharing this information?” says Meehan, who eventually wants to invite professionals at all stages of experience, like those who would participate in Urban Voids, to find work on the platform and use it to build a career.

But to begin with, he’s forming the foundation of a user community by reaching out to organizations like West Rockland Street Project, news community Hidden City Philadelphia, West Philly’s Farm 51, Philly Food Forest and youth-action groupPublic Workshop, who are already invested in solving the problem of vacant spaces from the grassroots.

Cities have traditionally dealt with the problem of vacant space using a top-down approach, Meehan said, overhauling lots across wide swaths of city as puzzle pieces in a master plan. While the top-down approach promotes cohesive design, certain communities are neglected.

Possible City’s approach intends to balance bottom-up advocacy with a holistic view of projects across the city, with the goal of attracting public and private investment to popular projects.

Of course, there are other efforts around vacant land in Philadelphia, which has caught plenty of attention.

• the Philly Land Bank proposal
• Campaign to take back Vacant Land

Meehan’s next step is to move these groups into a beta test, and begin gathering feedback on what they like, what they don’t like, and what they would add.

“This could be one of the projects on Possible City,” says Meehan.

http://technical.ly/philly/2013/05/13/possible-city-vacant-land/

10 Best New Complete Street Policies in the US

Ever been to a city that has the perfect ratio of bike lanes to pedestrian walkways to roads? Chances are, that city has implemented a Complete Streets policy--a formal policy that outlines a community’s plans to make streets safe for people using all modes of transportation. There are 488 Complete Streets policies in place across the U.S.; in 2012, cities, states, and regions passed 130 new policies.

This year, at least, the best new policies haven’t come from huge U.S. cities. With a few exceptions, smaller communities are making the most inroads. That’s according to The National Complete Streets Coalition, a project of development research and advocacy organization Smart Growth America. The Coalition ranked the top 10 Complete Streets policies of 2012 based on their performance in a number of "ideal elements," including a clear vision; access for pedestrians, bicyclists, transit passengers, trucks, buses and automobiles; street connectivity; design, and measurable performance standards.

 

communities adopt Complete Streets policies that they’re thinking about what the next steps are going to be," says Stefanie Seskin, deputy director of the National Complete Streets Coalition. "It’s an accountability measure we’ve been pushing a lot."

These are the 2012 winners:

• 1. Indianapolis, IN
• 2. Hermosa Beach, CA (tie)
• 2. Huntington Park, CA (tie)
• 4. Ocean Shores, WA
• 5. Northfield, MN
• 6. Portland, ME
• 7. Oak Park, IL
• 8. Trenton, NJ
• 9 Clayton, MO
• 10. Rancho Cucamonga, CA

Indianapolis took the number one spot for a thoughtful, well-rounded policy. Says Seskin: "They are recognizing the needs of an aging population, and attracting and maintaining a younger generation. They spent a year or so working towards what Complete Streets means locally, how it would apply to their process. They’re thinking about how this works across their streets. People have options to get from destination to destination."

The city also plans to measure everything it’s doing, including transit stops that are accessible by sidewalk and curb ramps, crash rates, bike lane mileage, and more.

“Indianapolis is putting critical investments into our urban environment to make it more inviting to new businesses and residents,” said Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard in a statement. “Growing our workforce and attracting new talent requires Indianapolis to do everything possible to make our city a place where people easily can walk to amenities in their neighborhoods, bike and drive to and from work, and explore our many great attractions--a place where people want to call home.”

It’s too soon, of course, to measure how well the Indianapolis Complete Streets policy is working. But we’ll be watching. For an example of a long-standing (since 2006) Complete Streets policy in a major city, check out what Chicago is doing.

As Seskin points out, it’s not just cities that can implement Complete Streets policies. "There are so many different kinds of jurisdictions that are really interested in this. We don’t view it as a big city only or a small community only kind of thing," she says.

But in many smaller communities, implementing the policies can be a struggle. If they don’t control the local roadways, it takes longer to make changes. And big infrastructure projects don’t come along as often as in big cities, so it can be a long time before the fruits of a Complete Streets policy are apparent.

"It’s a slow process," says Seskin. "We have over 500 communities with policies now, and it takes some time for projects to take hold."

http://www.fastcoexist.com/1681910/the-10-best-new-complete-streets-policies-in-the-us

Neighborhood Goals:

Goals for Neighborhood: 

Water:     Increase stormwater infiltration

Air:         Develop Streetscape strategy that uses native plants to filter the air

Life:        Create more efficient traffic layouts

Energy:   Education and awareness to reduce energy use

Earth:     Create a cradle to cradle community plan and or policy

Impacts of Urban Green Space on Wellbeing

People living in urban areas tend to report greater wellbeing if they have parks and gardens nearby, says a new study from the UK that suggests green spaces have a positive impact on mental health in cities. Mathew White and colleagues from the University of Exeter Medical School's European Centre for Environment & Human Health, in Truro, Cornwall, write about their findings in a paper due to be published online this week in the journal Psychological Science. They describe how they examined data from a national survey that followed UK households over time, and even after taking into account differences in income, marital status, employment, physical health, and type of housing, they found city dwellers reported higher life satisfaction and less mental distress when they lived in greener areas.


Investigating the impacts of urban green spaces on wellbeing from ECEHH on Vimeo.
Considering greenspace improvements like parks, gardens, trails, etc., in new development of cities can pay off for the city and its residents in the long run!

Grays Ferry Ave.