Short film by the Congress of New Urbanism, an advocacy group for more pedestrian friendly neighborhoods and diversity of housing types, highlighting instances where highways have decreased quality of life and property values for communities, and removing them vastly improved, well, everything. I would say, they do have a point - unless you’re travelling interstate, highways don’t always speed things along.
Fun fact from the video: Vancouver, BC doesn’t have ANY highways! And yet they get along just fine.
Extra: another video case study from the city of Portland, Oregon which also did away with certain stretches of freeway and filled in the areas with…parks. Leslie Knope would be proud.
via hwysnbywys:
Beyond Sprawl: Creating Self-Contained Neighborhoods | Sustainable Cities Collective
A rendering of Dockside, in British Columbia Credit: Busby, Perkins + Will
Look at many large North American cities and you see a sea of suburban houses. Sprawl has become the norm. But it is costly, damages the environment and affects quality of life. A new generation of planners and architects is beginning to look at sustainable, human-centered solutions to the creeping suburbs. There are several reasons for the rise of the suburbs. The planning structures put in place after WW II encouraged the construction of low-density neighborhoods. Low gas prices created a car-dependent culture. And most developers are resistant to changing the paradigm of the suburbs because it has worked for them. The four architects profiled in this series offer their own analyses of how North America has come to face this situation, and how it might be solved.
