Sunday reading 22 February 2015

Every week we read more than we can write about on the blog. To avoid letting good commentary and research fall by the wayside, we’re going to publish weekly excerpts from what we’ve been reading.

Deborah Snoonian Glenn, “Want your city to thrive? Look to its trees“, Citylab:

“Our trees provide measurable environmental and economic benefits year after year,” says Charles Herbertson, city engineer and director of public works. “It’s hard to imagine this area without the wonderful collection we have. People move here for the old-growth trees.”

[…]

Culver City’s efforts follow similar moves in nearby Santa Monica as well as in larger cities such as Pittsburgh, San Francisco, and Tampa. Increasingly, cities have recognized that trees provide not only environmental benefits and curb appeal—they’re also good for business.

Peter H, “Greenwood St Industrial Area doesn’t need parking requirements“, Hamilton Urban Blog:

Prior to the 1960s, Hamilton city’s car parking was based on property owners’ willingness to supply and car owners’ willingness to pay (parking space being real estate). This is a free market-based approach shaped by supply and demand of storage space, which can be found in places like Japan and Germany according to this Blog site: Reinventing parking: which cities have abolished parking

[…]

From the 20-odd surveys, parking demand could be close to 4 per 100m² for some and below 1 per 100m² for many (does anyone have access to these surveys?). This tell us what we already know and illustrates why it is not normal to just predict and provide for the very fast-changing manufacturing industries, “because of the significant variations in the extent to which differing manufacturing processes are labour or capital intensive.” (Page55 NZTA reports 374)

Forgotten NZ, “Symonds St Cemetery“:

Symonds Street Cemetery, Auckland’s oldest graveyard, opened in 1842 and full of forgotten souls and a disturbing history… Some are long forgotten here for the more typical reasons such as lost or stolen markers, vandalism, tombstone decay or the fact that they never had/could afford a grave marker in the first place, but more so for the reason that the large Catholic section of the cemetery was dug up in the 1960s to make way for the motorway that many Aucklanders now drive over daily.  Not only were the bodies exhumed from this area, many of the original marble and sandstone headstones and ornate statues were actually used as motorway filler (somehow this was okay with Auckland residents at the time, or the Council did as it so pleased and any objections were ignored)…

Richard Florida, “A new index to measure sprawl gives high marks to Los Angeles“, Citylab:

Laidley points out that the metros that saw the least sprawl—those that actually grew denser—are ones that have their outward growth limited by so-called “growth control” policies. Oregon, one of the first states to introduce metropolitan growth boundaries, has two metros in the top 10: Salem and Portland. Honolulu, Santa Barbara and Seattle also have their outward growth limited by growth control policies.

Many of the metros that saw the most sprawl are older Rustbelt communities that have suffered from deindustrialization, job loss and population decline, such as Detroit, Flint, Cleveland, Toledo and, perhaps surprisingly, Chicago. These metros are locked in a troubling syndrome of outward expansion without economic or population growth.

[…]

But what is the connection between sprawl and economic and social outcomes? To get at this, Laidley conducts a series of statistical analyses (including bivariate correlations, multivariate regression analysis and more sophisticated fixed-effects models) to better gauge the connection between sprawl and phenomena like hazardous pollution, carbon emissions and housing affordability. Using regression analyses, he finds that:

For every 10 percent increase in sprawl, there is an approximately 5.7 percent increase in per capita carbon emissions, a 9.6 percent increase in per capita hazardous pollution, and a 4.1 percent and 2.9 percent reduction in the owner and renter housing affordability index, respectively.

Richard Easther, “A turning lane as lovely as a tree?“, Excursionset.com:

Since Auckland Transport’s argument for felling the trees hinges on traffic models, I was keen to take a look at the modelling they used to settle on their “preferred option”. Either my google-fu is weak or the detailed models are not in the public domain. That said, digging into the paperwork, I found “Appendix H“, reviewing the analyses performed by Auckland Transport and its contractors, written by Leo Hills, an independent traffic engineer.

The first thing that struck me is that Appendix H is a tepid document. Its tone reminded me of an examiner’s report for a thesis whose author has done the bare minimum to get by: the student may pass, but no-one involved will be proud. (Except possibly the student, of course.) It damns Auckland Transport’s analyses with faint praise, queries the reasoning behind their choices, and points out that almost identical results could be obtained without removing the trees.

In other words, an independent analysis of Auckland Transport’s own modelling comes well short of giving it a ringing endorsement.

Claire Martin, “When the parking space becomes a park“, New York Times:

They started an experiment. In a stretch of downtown San Francisco that lacked greenery, they found an empty parking space, rolled out a patch of grass turf and set up a park bench and a potted tree. They put up a sign that read, “If you’d like to enjoy this little park, please put some coins in the meter.” Then they went across the street to watch.

The land next to a parking spot, Mr. Bela says, probably rented for a couple of hundred dollars a square foot per year, “but you could rent this little piece of land, 200 square feet, in downtown San Francisco for a couple dollars an hour.”

Mr. Bela and the others saw a pedestrian wander into the spot, put money in the meter and sit on a bench. Soon another sauntered in, and the two struck up a conversation. Just like that, the exercise was a success. Without much effort or expense, the parking spot had been transformed into a mini-park.

And finally, make sure to take a look at this fantastic video from Brussels, which shows just how many barriers we throw up into the path of people on bikes:

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