Beyond Sprawl: Part One

[marmar]

from the Next American City blog:



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.

Martin Neilsen is an architect with Busby Perkins + Will. He is interested in building centralized, self-contained communities and in finding ways that cities can use their spaces in more sustainable and efficient ways.

One issue for Neilsen is that suburban homeowners don’t pay the true cost for building their neighborhoods. “The reason that more suburbs are built is that we don’t pay the true cost of the infrastructure and the road network,” he says. “That’s never factored in and it’s not part of the developer’s cost so it’s not a cost that’s transferred back to the homeowner.”

The European model of planning appeals to Neilsen. “I think Europe is a good ten years ahead of North America in terms of change,” he says. “They don’t see sustainability in the same way we do. They don’t wear it on their sleeve. They live with it.”

One of the projects Neilsen was involved in at Busby Perkins + Will is a large development called Dockside, in British Columbia’s Victoria. This one-million square foot property makes its own energy and treats its own wastewater. It illustrates Neilsen’s ideas about self-contained neighborhoods.

“Dockside took the position that they would treat their own wastewater on site,” he says. “The system can actually take wastewater from surrounding industries and treat that water. Those industries use a lot of water and they pay for it so Dockside can actually sell back water to those industries.” .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://americancity.org/buzz/entry/2827/