Suburban Retrofit: Discovery Through Uncertainty

design research by nick knodt suburban retrofit : : discovery through uncertainty suburbanization drivers : : development and financial

suburbanization outcomes : : parcelization

atlanta 2025 : : site aggregation model

masters of architecture candidate, 2014 : : advised by i単aki alday

The American experience poses a critical question: is an urban age possible in a suburban nation?

Just a decade or two ago it would have been difficult to imagine the promise of an urban age in the United States: competitive cities that create and nurture strong, resilient and adaptive economies; sustainable cities that promote accessible transport, residential and employment density and energy efficiency; inclusive cities that grow, attract and retain the middle class and integrate individual across racial, ethnic and class lines; and physical cities where the built environment - neighborhood design, the architecture of public and private space - is a critical foundation of competitiveness, sustainability and inclusivity ... hidden beneath the story of sprawl and decentralization there is an emerging narrative about the power and potential of cities and urban places.

-Richard Burdett, et al. The Endless City, pg 96

6

Table of Contents

“There is still so much work to be done.

Future challenges include changing mortgage underwriting to take location efficiency into account and more thoughtful integration of suburban retrofitting at the regional scale ... [Landuse documentation] allows planners and designers to zoom out and identify which sites should be regenerated (because we should never have built there in the first place), which should be redeveloped (because of their transit and employment access), and which should be targeted for re-inhabitation by entrepreneurial lowprofits and community-serving nonprofits.�

-Ellen Dunham-Jones (2013)

INTRODUCTION Problem, Question, Context, Approach

14

Abstract

16

Suburban Redevelopment Glossary 23

Images Cited Bibliography 122

PART ONE - Drivers of Suburbia Suburbanization Drivers Auto-Dependency Take For a Ride Housing as a Commodity

34 36 40 42

Development and Financial Risk

44

PART TWO - Financial Structure and Development Process Financing Structures I Development Process ‘Working with an Architect’ Financing Structures II

50 54 55 56

Who Plans America?

Regenerating Older Suburbs The Option of Urbanism

60 62 64

PART THREE - Outcomes of Suburbia Suburbanization Outcomes Spatial Outcomes

70 72

Parcelization Design Response to Suburbia

80 82

RESPONSE: Site Selection and Aggregation Model Site Selection and Aggregation Model

95

DESIGN SCENARIO - Atlanta 2025 Atlanta Now Scenario How Should the City Evolve in Relation to Existing Transportation Infrastructure?

108 118

124

Problem, Question, Context, Approac Suburban Retrofit: Discovery Through Uncerta “Not only is the city an object which is perceived (and perhaps enjoyed) by millions of people of widely diverse class and character, but is the product of many builders who are constantly modifying the structure for reasons of their own. While it may be stable in general outline for some time, it is ever changing in detail.

Only partial control can be exercised over its growth and form. There is no final result, only a continuous succession of phases.�

-Kevin Lynch, The Image of the City

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proach THE PROBLEM: In conjunction with the complexity of suburban redevelopment, the tyranny of easy development decisions continue to lead to excessive greenfield development instead certainty of harnessing the possibility of the existing suburban territory. Furthermore, the risk adverse financial community has yet to embrace the suburban retrofit as viable site and designers have had only small success across the territory.

THE QUESTIONS: How can we as designers alleviate the pressure to develop greenfield sites and what new tools can we develop to influence this commodity driven decision?

What is the process of site selection for the redevelopment of the existing suburbs?

Considering current population growth and approaching peak oil, how should the city evolve in relation to existing transportation infrastructure?

PROFESSIONAL CONTEXT: Acknowledging and engaging an existing design discourse about the ‘Suburban Retrofits’ and ‘Sprawl Manuals’ this thesis asks the question: why have designers only had small successes across the suburban territory? This being said, designers have recognized the abundance of opportunities resultant of suburbia that allow us to confront ecological damage, social isolation, and single-use mobility.

THE APPROACH: The uncertainty and difficulty of suburban redevelopment will benefit from a site selection and aggregation urban model that encourages a new way of developing a city that takes an understanding of the existing landscape, existing forms of mobility and metropolitan links, an analysis of densities and a mixture of program, and the impact of creation. The model and associated design experiments will both continue the existing dialogue and help real estate developers successfully focus their limited resources across the suburban territory.

This model is first vetted and refined through a thorough design scenario: Atlanta 2025.

15

Abstract Suburban Retrofit: Discovery Through Uncerta “Fringe development constitutes what we call a tyranny of easy development decisions.

And this tyranny ultimately subjects residents and businesses in closer-in jurisdictions to the consequences of decisions made in more remote government jurisdictions.�

-William Lucy, Suburban Decline: The Next Urban Crisis

16

This thesis is concerned with the thoughtful and incremental redevelopment of the suburban territory by harnessing and redirecting the primary driver of suburban development, the real estate market, to embrace the uncertainty of suburban redevelopment rather than reject it.

Real estate development and financing practices are inexorably linked to the evolution America’s auto-dependent suburbs.

In conjunction with an inflexible and obsolete regulatory system, these practices perpetuate low-density, greenfield development carving away at a healthy agricultural and forested edge. Rather than proposing new limits to growth, this thesis proposes methods for designers to engage with the suburban redevelopment process to help real estate developers and financers – the primary vehicle of suburban built environment – to focus their limited resources on harnessing the existing suburban territory and most successfully make places for living.

certainty

Acknowledging and engaging an existing design discourse about the ‘Suburban Retrofits’ and ‘Sprawl Manuals’ this thesis asks the question: why have designers only had small successes across the suburban territory? Designers have recognized the abundance of opportunities resultant of this change that allow us to confront issues of ecological damage, social isolation, and deteriorating housing stock, to name a few. These issues span the transect from urban center to rural land, and this thesis focuses on the opportunities at the low-density expansion due to excessive urban growth. Equipped with these design methods and tools proposed over the past 15 years, the problem can be re-framed to address the “tyranny of easy development decisions” (Lucy 55) which continue to perpetuate auto-dependent development at the fringes of the American city.

Design firms are also beginning to create closer ties to the real estate development process by, at times, incorporating devel-

opment into their financial model, both embracing the risk and uncertainty of building and driving more thoughtful increments of the built environment. This being said, these efforts focus primarily on the city center, and the possibility of the suburban retrofit has yet to be embraced.

The suburban territory deserves just as much attention to encourage what Kevin Lynch describes as the “continuous succession of phases.”

This thesis aims to embrace the suburban territory that over 50% of Americans live in. Any retrofitting project should not take an wholly negative view of the territory and should understand that it has been the focus of efforts to escape from the city to what is now the “dominant cultural landscape, combining cherished natural and built environment, yards and single-family houses” (Szold 17). So, rather than a tabula rasa approach to retrofitting the suburbs, a carefully calibrated series of adaptations must be envisioned.

Motivation comes from the massive shift of our global population into cities and the ubiquitous suburban development as a response to growth, seeing that the consequences are both exciting and challenging to address. It proposes harnessing the existing suburban territory by asking how the city can evolve in relation to a fractured territory of ownership and an existing network of transportation infrastructure. Looking at the primary drivers of suburban development in America this thesis uncovers the real estate development process to isolate extreme parcelization as a barrier to the redevelopment project, then proposes a site selection and aggregation model to mitigate the uncertainty of this parceled landscape, and finally aims to refine the model’s breadth and parameters through a design scenario in one of America’s most ‘sprawled’ landscapes, Atlanta Georgia.

Response: Site Selection Model In response to the extremely parceled suburban territory a new tool and understanding is necessary to foster redevelopment across the suburban territory. As described

by Richard Peiser, one of the primary barriers to redevelopment is the extremely fractured suburban territory of ownership.

To help level the playing-field between greenfield and greyfield development decisions and embrace redevelopment uncertainty this will help designers and developers discover the possibility within small scale site ownership. The proposed urban analysis model focus on five typologies of sites for redevelopment. It seeks to discover how the fractured territory can become an asset for developing a cohesive vision for redevelopment and growth of the existing built environment through the process of deciding which territories should be the focus of limited resources.

Design Scenario: Atlanta 2025 – Population Rise and Peak Oil In order to refine of the site selection and aggregation model’s breadth and driving parameters this thesis will thoroughly develop a design scenario in one of America’s most ‘sprawled’ landscapes, Atlanta Georgia. Using the 2025 predictions of Atlanta’s population growth along with the national predictions of rising oil prices, this scenario uses the design process to explore the question: how should the city evolve in relation to existing transportation infrastructure?

Atlanta represents both a primary example of the spatial typologies of the suburban territory and a city on the brink of exciting prospects for suburban redevelopment.

Atlanta is projected by Arthur Nelson to require 43% new or retrofitted development by the year 2025. Along with this projected demand, the design scenario aims to harness both the relocation of a major stadium from the city center to the suburban fabric and the city’s location along a primary leg of the proposed east coast high speed rail line.

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100 Suburbs 90 Central City 80

Percent of U.S. Population

70 60 50% Urban

50 40 30 20 10 0 1850

1900

1950 Year

2000

Chicago

Tokyo

Atlanta

Phoenix

100km / 62mi

100km / 62mi

100km / 62mi

100km / 62mi

1900

1925

1950

1975

2000

higher density

lower density

Aggregation Aggregation is the process of uniting dispersed or fractured elements into a whole or group. Either the final product maintains the fractured character, erases all evidence of the existing field, or a hybrid of the two. In the context of suburban redevelopment, aggregation is crucial to any development project. Conventionally, redevelopment projects aggregate large tracts of fractured land in order to tear down existing structures and replace the grouped territory with a new single vision. These projects often take a decade to negotiate and develop because of land owners holding out from selling and often cause gentrification and displacement.

Glossary for Suburban Redevelopment

In this thesis I argue for the use of a hybrid aggregation method that both maintains many of the existing structures and suburban history while structuring the fractured sites with new civic and mobility amenities. This method both begins to create a more differentiated sense of place and allows for incremental redevelopment along with a unified vision by taking advantage of the publicly owned right of ways and both conventional and innovative funding methods.

American Dream

Auto-Dependency

The American Dream, represents the desire for a hybrid between building and nature, along with exercising the right to own land and a desire for private space. In conjunction with a dramatic post WWII increase in American wealth and the 1940s GI Bill the American Dream has perpetuated the development of a highly-parceled, low-density, and auto-Dependant American city. The American Dream is still relevant — though in constant flux — and can be thoroughly harnessed to develop support for suburban redevelopment.

Brownfield Development

Debt Services Debt services are the various methods of leveraging future value of developed land for tthe purposes of financing construction projects. Since development and construction projects have some of the highest financial risks associated with them, the financial institutions that offer debt services are often quite conservative and rely heavily on financial, market, and design precedents to systematically mitigate their risk in lending to real estate development companies.

23

Density (High)

Density (Medium)

Density (Low)

New York City San Francisco Boston Chicago Philadelphia

Foreclosure Depriving the right of the mortgagor the power to redeem a mortgaged estate (OED). At the root of the 2008 American Financial Crises was an overwhelming quantity of sub-prime and high risk mortgages which foreclosed became toxic (higher mortgage than the value of the estate). In 2012 MoMA exhibited and published a study, “Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream” which began to experiment with urban, spatial, cultural, and financial solutions to communities suffering from a high percentage of foreclosed and/or toxic estates.

An analyses of a number of the proposed projects can be found on PG.

Greyfield Development

Incentives

Greyfield Developments – by contrast to Greenfield Developments – are characterized as previously developed land (often big-box retail or commercial office parks) going through the redevelopment process and are presented with many constraints to construction and adaptation.

Because of the necessity of site specific design to these complex set of site constraints Greyfield Development is seen as embodying greater risk and is therefore often avoided by Financers and Developers. This thesis aims to continue efforts of Suburban Retrofitting by simplifying the development process and providing an urban analysis to better select suburban sites to most efficiently harness our limited resources.

Incentives – Tax or Grant based – are often policy decisions offered across the political scale from local to federal made to advocate for a specific type of development or the inclusion of a public amenity. Incentives can be harnessed as a policy method to further promote the redevelopment process of the existing suburban territory.

For instance, at the federal level the highly generous – yet highly restrictive –historic tax credits to redevelop existing historic structures could be used as a model to encourage the redevelopment of non-historic structures for purposes described on page PG.

Parcelization Parcelization, also referred to as subdividing, is the process of splitting up large plots of land – often originally of agricultural uses – to move from own owner to often hundreds of owners. This process is easy, low risk, and often quite profitable but makes the future development efforts on the same land extremely difficult to accomplish. The process of aggregating highly parceled land can sometimes take up to a decade. Some rural municipalities have begun to adopt the elimination of the by right subdivision rights, others have offered visions of selling development rights from the rural land to the territory focused on for urban development.

24

Drosscapes

Employment Mismatch

Exurbs

Employment mismatch is the physical dislocation between housing - often affordable housing rates - and available job markets. In the suburban territory the costs of transportation, which rely almost solely on the auto, are often prohibitive for financially troubled households to travel large distances to employment hubs. If public transportation is even offered it often requires extreme travel times to make it to and from work. (check!,,)

“A district outside a city or town; spec. a prosperous area situated beyond the suburbs of a city.” (OED)

Greenfield Development Greenfield Development is the primary housing pattern characterized by the suburban territory. It is defined primarily as a development project that is confronted with minimal physical or infrastructural constraints. The construction industry has developed a housing commodity and construction process that maximizes the Greenfield development typology through the parcelization of large tracks of land – often previously agricultural land – and therefore has become an infinitely repeatable commodity. There are many critical arguments for reducing the proliferation of Greenfield developments and currently the primary response has been through limits to urban growth. As this has been characterized repeatable and predictable development option it has been favored by the financial, development, and construction communities leading to what William Lucy describes as “the tyranny of easy development decisions.”

Inter-Modal Transportation

Mixed-Income

Mixed-Use

Mortgages

A primary goal for increasing socio-economic diversity and upward financial mobility, and decreasing the concentration of poverty and an employment mismatch.

Development characterized by a variety of program offered in close and walkable proximity. This development type often requires a specific zoning designation different from the suburban single family resident (R-1S).

A form of long term debt service that is leveraged by physical property and repaid in monthly installments until the debt is paid or property foreclosed. The illegal resale of known toxic mortgages helped worsen the Great Recession.

Privatization

Pro-Forma

Programmatic Homogeneity

This is the process of rendering typically public space or event private by barring entry, often through charges for entry or individual ownership. Privatization often is attributed to suburbia through both the prevalence of auto-dependency as a mode of private ownership and the single family detached home with no access to public space other than planes of asphalt. The private nature of these examples are often challenged by events such as block-parties and carpooling.

The primary tool for real-estate developers and financiers to balance relevant market projections, construction costs, and debt services and judge the risk associated with a given proposal.

This is the outcome of intense single-use zoning which results in one building type or program type across a large territory.

This perpetuates auto-dependence and deters walking with large distances.

A mixture of transportation options offered by infrastructure that connect to a mixture of program and public amenities. Primary modes of transportation include: Air, Regional + Light Rail, Buss, Biking, and Walking.

25

PART ONE - Drivers of Suburbia Suburbanization Drivers Auto-Dependency Take For a Ride Housing as a Commodity

34 36 40 42

Development and Financial Risk

44

The past 150 years of urbanization in America has brought about an intense transformation of the landscape developing from under 10% Americans living in the metropolitan territory to over 80% in 2010. While this rapid urbanization has remained at a roughly steady rate the 1940s – which represent the tipping point from a majority rural to majority urban population – is the threshold at which this metropolitan population growth became completely suburban.

This is to say that as our urban areas have grown with rapid force we have maintained an extremely low density of urbanization with clearly recognized consequences to our built environment and daily lives (Kunstler, 10).

Suburbanization Drivers Tyranny of Easy Development Decisions and Auto-Dependency Since the early nineteenth century, suburbs have been part of the process of urbanization growing along with the crowded centers of cities. For almost 200 years, Americans have idealized life in single-family homes in natural settings, while paradoxically creating more and more urbanized landscapesto contain these demands for private space. The production of millions of model suburban houses - involving massive investments by the federal government, huge expense to individual families, and extraordinary profits for private real estate developers - has configured the landscapes where moste Americans live and work. ... understanding how existing suburbs have been organized, financed, designed, constructed, marketed and inhabited is central to calculating the prospects for ending sprawl.

-Terry Szold and Armando Carbonell, Smart Growth: Form and Consequences.

34

The suburban territory began its evolution as a direct result of policy, commercial, and personal finance decisions; though was thoroughly aided by the design community as a response to the overwhelming desire to escape from the congestion of the city. Beginning as a marketing and transportation decision

by Alfred P Sloan, then Chairman of General Motors, the automobile industry campaigned to capture the users of the thriving streetcar system. The industry forced the transition from rail to bus to car by buying and closing the thriving electric motor light rail networks across American cities and replaced them with a fleet of noisy and polluting buses. As a replacement the buses served their purpose, they discouraged the enjoyment of public transit and instilled a desire for an alternative mode of transit. The car, along with the rapidly expanding network of highways, became the only viable option. (Taken for a Ride) Making the American Dream available to many Americans the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) began its post-war policy by adopting the G.I. Bill, providing the dream house with little or no down payment. Often payments were as low as $60 per month. (Williamson, 16)

Auto-Dependency Single Variable Transit Drives Suburbia

The design and building professionals usually must work within a rather rigid framework of controls and standards that dictate all aspects of subdivision layout. Simple dimensions for minimum street width, sidewalks or planting strips seem innocuous, but when applied to miles of streets in hundreds of subdivisions occupied by millions of people, they have a enormous impact on the way our neighborhoods look, feel and work for us ... To secure its investments, the federal government, through the FHA, established a comprehensive system of appraisals procedures designed to eliminate risk and failure. To qualify for a loan, lenders, borrowers and developers had to submit detailed plans and documentation of their projects to the administration, which would determine whether or not they had sound prospects ... Soon FHA officials found themselves in a powerful position to direct and shape development for generations to come.

-Terry Szold and Armando Carbonell, Smart Growth: Form and Consequences.

Although the zoning and housing finance systems and subsidies were important to [the genesis of the suburban territory], the new vision of transportation provided by the Interstate Highway System was the primary catalyst for this major transformation. Throughout urban history, transportation has driven development. The transportation system in which the society chooses to invest its money ... is the primary dictator of where and how we construct the built environment ... And although the car seems to offer unbounded freedom, in fact the car-based transportation system decreases transportation flexibility. Transit, bicycling, and walking become less and less viable, pleasant, and safe as development spreads out ‌ current suburban densities would have to increase about six times to make any sort of transit work.

-Christopher Leinberger, The Option of Urbanism.

36

Perhaps the most straightforward positive consequence of drivable sub-urban residential development is delivering on its Jeffersonian promise to provide what could be called “terrestrial affiliation,” having a piece of dirt to call one’s own. The cramped urban dweller or the transplanted farmer generally yearned for a garden or yard. Drivable sub-urbanism allowed this for almost everyone.

-Christopher Leinberger, The Option of Urbanism.

During the height of automania, a zoologist observed that in animal heard excessive mobility was a sure sign of distress and asked whether this might not be true of his fellow human beings. Perhaps it was distress ... but what historian can list all the causes that led twentieth-century man to race from highway to byway, tunnel to bridge? Suffice to say that he seemed to be consistently going from where he didn’t want to be to where he didn’t want to stay.

-Percival Goodman, Communitas.

While there are many supposedly “anti-business” arguments for a higher gas tax - from fighting global warming to supporting public transit - the real justification is economic: subsidized automobile use is the single largest violation of the free-market principles in U.S. fiscal policy. Economic inefficiencies in this country due to automotive subsidization are estimated at $700 billion annually, which powerfully undermines America’s ability to compete in the global economy.

-Andres Duany, Elizabeth Platter-Zyberk, and Jeff Speck, Suburban Nation.

37

Once funding for real estate became available again around 1993, much of the growth went even furthur out to the frindge, leaping beyond edge cities to what Dr. Rober Lang of Virginia Tech called “Edgless Cities.” In the 1990s, drivable sub-urbanism was on sterorids. The only unifying element was the limited-access highway that connected work and home. Edgeless cities that were beyond the beyond emerged as southern Oklahoma became a suburb of Dallas and eastern West Virgina became a suburb of Washington, D.C. There were no centers in this new kind of sprawl, there was no “place.”

-Christopher Leinberger, The Option of Urbanism.

Taken for a Ride: Destruction of the Street Car for an Auto-Dependant Metr A ring of settlement around North American cities resulted [from the success of the street car network], built in a patchwork pattern of street grids and wood frame houses of various types that facilitated direct access by foot for all residents to the lifeblood of transit. In recntly built auto-dependent residential subdivisions this type of street connectivity is sorely lacking. Meanwhile, North American streetcar and interurban lines were almost comply dismantled and discarded by 1960 ... The culprit? We could blame the private automobile ... as a technology, private automobiles seem to have accrued lasting power. (Williamson, 8)

40

ant Metropolis

41

Housing as a Commodity: Images of Escape: Marketing the Ameri But there has also been the American Dream, that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to his ability or achievement. (Adams) Achieving the American dream soon became almost inextricably linked with living in a detached house in suburbia, where land subdivides, homebuilders, and real estate agents kept themselves busy and profitable building and selling the American dream. (Williamson 13)

e American Dream

Real estate development and financing practices are inexorably linked to the evolution America’s auto-dependent suburbs.

In conjunction with an inflexible and obsolete regulatory system, these practices perpetuate low-density, greenfield development carving away at a healthy agricultural and forested edge.

Responding to the parameters set by both the commercial market of home buyers and the policy environment defined by local, state, and national governments, the development community has consequentially been forced into a myopic view of the built environment. Governed both by the publicly traded demands for a standardized and profit proven building typology, the development community adopted the “nineteen standard real estate product types,” further limiting the options for market and contextually considered construction.

Development and Financial Risk Market and Debt as Driver

Public markets have a precondition when they agree to trade a company or a product. The public market can only trade “like for like.”

The market does not want to trade unique things ...

So when Wall Street took on real estate in the form of REITs and CMBSs in the early 1990’s, real estate had to commoditize what it built. The industry did this with what it knew how to build then: drivable sub-urban products.

-Christopher Leinberger, The Option of Urbanism.

44

These limits to uniqueness and variation are primarily motivated by reducing the risk calculations in a proforma and standardizing the construction industry’s output. These methods are both considered to maximize the profit margins of single real estate development project but have neglected to account for the self-supporting value of a flexible urban design and mobility vision. This being said, the development community has begun to embrace the feasibility of TOD (Transit Oriented Development) and “New Urbanism,” though are rarely conceived in tandem, further limiting the success of the development project.

In reaction to this risk driven development practice, the process of limiting growth through policy has been adopted throughout the country though with limited success. Often UGBs (Urban Growth Boundaries) are under continuous pressure to expand their limits, and limits to by-right development are generally met with opposition because of their steep reductions in land value.

The nineteen standard real estate product types in 2006 (Leinberger 51) Retail • • •

Miscellaneous

Neighborhood center Lifestyle Center Big-box anchored

Suburban garden Urban high density

Built to suit Mixed-use urban Medical

Industrial

Entry level Move-Up Luxury Assisted Living / Retirement Resort / Second home

• • • • •

Business and luxury hotels

Apartment • •

• • •

Housing

Hotel •

Office

Self storage Mobile home park

• •

• •

Built to suit Warehouse

Team Summary Board

2013 ULI Hines Student Urban Design Competition

1. Summary Pro Forma Net Operating Income Rental Housing Market-rate For-Sale Housing Rental Housing SRO Rental Housing Affordable For-Sale Housing Office/Commercial Market-rate Retail Affordable Retail Hotel Structured Parking Surface Parking Other Total Net Operating Income Development Costs Rental Housing Market-rate For-Sale Housing Rental Housing SRO Rental Housing Affordable For-Sale Housing Office/Commercial Retail (ALL) Hotel Structured Parking Surface Parking Armory Renovation* Land Acquisition Infrastructure / Landscaping Magnet School Billboard Buy-out Demolition Costs Total Development Costs Annual Cash Flow Net Operating Income Total Asset Value Total Costs of Sale Total Development Costs Net Cash Flow Debt Service Net Cash Flows From Debt Cash Flow After Debt Net Present Value @10% Loan to Value Ratio (LVR) Unleveraged IRR Before Taxes Leveraged IRR Before Taxes

Year 0 2013-2014

Phase I 2015

2016

2017

$ $

3,750,992 $ 21,813,956 $

7,539,424 $ 9,886,085 $

7,765,607 $ 10,792,283 $ $ 14,302,019 $

322,928 $

332,616 $

$ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $

4,592,092 953,591 504,387 1,128,340

200,000 $ $ $

$

(6,998,010)

$ $

(132,426,247) (40,990,479)

$

(19,977,871)

$ $ $

(10,000,000) (5,163,524) (5,781,108)

$ $ $

(1,000,000) (585,424) (357,212,387) -

$ $

(357,212,387) (357,212,387)

$ $

260,612,742 (96,599,645)

705,744 $

$ 18,436,567 $ $ 3,912,895 $ $ 748,532 $ $ 5,583,927 $ $ 2,711,833 $

2020

11,116,051 $ 3,928,288 $

11,449,533 $ $

726,916 $ 20,649,141 5,258,060 779,387 5,751,445 2,802,188

$ $ $ $ $

748,724 $ 21,409,171 5,456,607 811,167 5,923,988 2,895,254

51,011,475 $

48,694,443 $

$

(7,646,914)

$

(8,355,989)

$ $ $ $

(92,817,517) (28,136,197) (66,150,651) (20,295,466)

$ $

(112,665,012) (17,501,407)

$

(30,436,424)

$ $

(4,801,290) (2,068,228)

$

(500,000)

$

(290,203,940)

$ 33,766,286 $ 33,600,665 $ 24,544,869 $ 57,193,800 $ 51,011,475 $ $ 200,717,330 $ 404,372,418 $ 418,304,316 $ 712,454,041 $ 781,078,885 $ $ (2,057,624) $ (1,577,064) $ (719,842) $ (2,239,959) $ (1,361,349) $ $ (287,380,916) $ $ 31,708,662 $ 32,023,601 $ (263,555,889) $ 54,953,841 $ 49,650,127 $ $ (19,870,272) $ (33,043,742) $ (15,739,909) $ (39,741,537) $ (26,587,723) $ $ (38,760,423) $ (24,197,779) $ 177,253,747 $ (47,525,884) $ (26,587,723) $ $ (7,051,760) $ 7,825,822 $ (86,302,142) $ 7,427,957 $ 23,062,404 $

48,694,443 807,388,675 (1,094,740) (290,203,940) (242,604,237) (28,693,092) 181,227,981 (61,376,255)

$ (2,869,134) $ (12,500,000) $ (1,500,000) $ (120,052) $ (287,380,916)

Current Site Value (start of Year 0) Projected Site Value (end of Year 10)

3. Unit Development and Infrastructure Costs Development Costs Unit Cost 233,650.02 Rental Housing $ Market-rate For-Sale Housing $ 333,291.72 Rental Housing SRO 153,339.42 Rental Housing $ Affordable For-Sale Housing 187.08 Office/Commercial $ Retail (ALL) $ 121.24 Hotel 24,836.59 Structured Parking $ Surface Parking 12,500,000.00 Magnet School $ Public Infrastructure Costs 1,005,493 Roads $ Utilities ther Hardscaping (not incl. surf. pkg.) $ 23,048 Landscaping $ 432,786 Other Amenities Total Infrastructure Costs $ 1,461,327 Total Development Costs

2015

2016

2017

$ $ $ $ $

2024

15,844,274 $ 26,828,415 $

16,319,603 $ 27,633,267 $

16,809,191 9,107,925

1,191,481 $ 32,981,461 7,426,719 877,617 6,284,759 5,331,213

1,227,226 $

$ $ $ $ $

34,172,474 7,701,131 912,344 6,473,302 5,500,150

1,264,042

$ $ $ $ $

35,399,217 7,983,776 948,113 6,667,501 5,674,154

90,909,365 $

96,765,939 $

99,939,496 $

83,853,919

(55,393,120) (58,482,469)

$ 90,909,365 $ 96,765,939 $ 99,939,496 $ 83,853,919 $ 1,084,265,866 $ 1,191,692,187 $ 1,262,406,849 $ 1,402,899,734 $ (3,393,385) $ (3,190,774) $ (3,135,262) $ (2,142,038) $ $ $ $

87,515,980 (51,808,066) (91,503,061) (3,987,081)

$ $ $ $

93,575,165 (37,266,777) (52,501,771) 41,073,394

2019

2020

2022 905 276 150

957

490 1,753

490 2,847

980,006 223,766 105,882

1,278,317 560,610 158,824

1,259,507 485,844 100,000 345,729 561,246 154,816

1,806,235 614,507 100,000 345,729 911,183 154,816

306,265

$ $

Total Costs 211,453,269 92,057,029

$

23,000,913

$ $ $ $

337,908,776 86,628,084 66,150,651 70,709,761

$

4. Equity and Financing Sources Equity Sources (total)

Financing Sources (total)

10,918,470 934,797,242

$ 1,206,170,674 $ (36,464,005) $ (540,525,386) $ 665,645,288

-

Percent of Total

Amount

Bridge Investment Partners

2023

303,284,434

32%

Construction Loans Phase I Construction Loans Phase II Construction Loans Phase III Total

$ $ $ $

261,380,937 156,610,798 209,921,073 627,912,808

Permanent Loans Public Subsidies (total, if any) Historic Tax Credit (State) Historic Tax Credit (Federal) Total

$

600,009,605

$ $ $

1,800,000 1,800,000 3,600,000

0.2% 0.2% 0.4%

Total

$

934,797,242

100%

12,500,000 Private

96,804,234 (36,464,005) (36,464,005) 60,340,229

2021

694 110 100

-

$ $ $ $

$ 122,522,791 $ 1,402,899,734

2018

767,326 259,820 100,000

$

1,156,778 $ 29,049,688 7,160,298 843,901 6,101,708 5,167,198

2023

514 72 50

726,320 146,756 52,941

$

15,382,791 $ 26,047,004 $

2022

200,000 24,544,869 $ 57,193,800 $

$ $

2014

$ $ $ $ $

2388

Team

Phase III 2021

2019

(43,109,193) (12,235,792)

$23,757,981 66% 10.6% 17.3%

2. Multiyear Development Program Year-by-Year Cumulative Absorption Total Buildout Project Buildout by Development Units Rental Housing 905 Market-rate For-Sale Housing 276 Rental Housing 150 Affordable For-Sale Housing Hotel 490 Structured Parking 2847 Surface Parking Other Project Buildout by Area (Gross Built Area) Rental Housing 1,278,317 Market-rate For-Sale Housing 560,610 Rental Housing 158,824 Affordable For-Sale Housing Office/Commercial 1,806,235 614,507 Market-rate Retail Affordable Retail 100,000 Hotel 345,729 Structured Parking 911,183 Magnet School 154,816 Total 5,930,222

11,694,031 2,608,734 718,576 1,215,326

33,766,286 $ 33,600,665 $

(112,950,956) (21,338,768)

$

342,594 $

$ 11,270,292 $ $ 2,511,566 $ $ 689,492 $ $ $ $ 1,171,190 $

700,000 $

Phase II 2018

28% 17% 22% 67%

45

PART TWO - Financial Structure and Development Process Financing Structures I Development Process ‘Working with an Architect’ Financing Structures II

50 54 55 56

Who Plans America?

Regenerating Older Suburbs The Option of Urbanism

60 62 64

FINANCING STRUCTURES: PRIMARY PLAYERS

Existing Built Environment + Ownership

Tax and Policy Incentives

Real Estate Development

Zoning + Public Policy

Real Estate Market Site Selection

Program Selection

R.E. Investment / Private Ownership

50

Design Development

Design Precedent

GeoPolitical Risk

Banking + Capital Markets

Insurance + Asset Management

Mortgage / Debt Service: Ownership

Systematic Financial Risk Assessment International Monetary System

Debt Service: Construction Loans

Public + Institutional Funds

Financial Precedent

Private Equity Funds

51

FINANCING STRUCTURES: PRIMARY PLAYERS

Tax and Policy Incentives

Zoning + Public Policy

Site Selection

Program Selection

Existing Built Environment + Ownership

Real Estate Development Design Development

Debt Service: Construction Loans Mortgage / Debt Service: Ownership

R.E. Investment / Private Ownership

52

Design Precedent

EU

Private Equity Funds

SE Asia International Monetary System

Public + Institutional Funds

North America

China

Real Estate Market

Systematic Financial Risk Assessment

Banking + Capital Markets

GeoPolitical Risk Insurance + Asset Management

Financial Precedent

53

Major Factors in Real Estate Development Site Selection Zoning • • • •

Environmental Impact

Legal use of the site (by right) Restrictions on density and layout Allowable contiguous land uses Likelihood of obtaining variances

• • • •

Physical Features • • • •

Government Services

Size Soils Topography Hydrology (floodplains, surface water)

• • • •

Utilities • • •

Sewage (often most constraining factor) Water (important constraint in certain parts of the United States, particularly the southeast and southwest) Computer lines, fiber optics, cable television, telephone, gas, oil, electricity; usually readily available except in large-scale projects

Transportation (all modes) • • • •

Transportation linkages Traffic Availability of public transportation Especially important in determining access and in evaluating ingress, egress, and visibility of alternative sites

Parking • •

Adverse impacts on air, water, and noise levels Amount and type of waste project will generate Other areas of concern, including historic districts, parks, open space, trees, and wildlife habitats Hydrology (floodplains, surface water)

Usually needed on site; therefore, interacts with zoning and physical features Is structured warranted?

Police and fire services Garbage collection Schools, health facilities, and other government services Impact fees, property taxes, and permit fees

Local Attitudes • • •

Defensive: how powerful are antidevelopment forces?

Neutral: what social costs does the project impose? What are the benefits to the locality? Is the project in the public interest?

Offensive: what are local attitude towards growth and how can they be used to help shape, refine, and specify the project to be built?

Price of Land •

Cost of land, including site development

Demand and Supply • • • • •

Population growth, trends, and projection Employment growth, trends, and projections Income distribution and probable change Existing and planed supply Competitive environment, including comparison of relevant features, functions, and benefits

Real Estate Development Research** ANALYZE LOCAL MARKET Demographic Data Regional/Local Economic Base Sociocultural Uniqueness

NEGOTIATE CONTRACT FOR SITE

POTENTIAL TENNANTS

ARCHITECT ENGINEER PLANNER

LENDERS INVESTORS

PRELIMINARY PROJECT DESIGN

EVALUATE FEASIBILITY (yes-revise-no)

Project Specifications

54

CONTRACTOR(S)S AND KEY SUB-CONTRACTORS

EVALUATE ALTERNATIVE SITES

Negotiation

PUBLIC SECTOR

Site Selection

SITE SELECTION CRITERIA Market Physical Legal Political

ANALYZE COMPETITION Companies Comparable Projects Potential Competing Sites Potential Competing Projects

Market Research

SCAN ENVIRONMENT Public Policy Environment Relevant Macroeconomic Environment Competitive Functional Environment

55

FINANCING STRUCTURES

TIF (Tax Increment Financing) A public method of investing in development and infrastructure projects by leveraging projected increases of tax revenue to fund current projects. This financing method is quite popular across the United States and is used as an incentive for enticing real estate developers to include public amenities or spur economic development.

tax base

full increment available for financing at beginning of development project

time project begins

project completion, debt services repaid

over 30% of Chicago’s land area is a TIF district 56

Landbanking Landbanking is the process of a non-profit or public institution acquiring vacant or abandoned land as they become available with the aim to transfer ownership at a later date to support the needs of the community. This process of aggregating land should be seen as a primary method of preparing for future suburban reinvestment.

acquisition of vacant or foreclosed land into a landbank for future development 57

FINANCING STRUCTURES

REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) Publicly traded securities that invest in real estate development projects directly, as opposed to through mortgages or properties. Though not yet a standard practice, the REIT funding method could be leveraged to build local investment in redevelopment projects from the existing landowners, allowing existing populations to participate in both the risk and the profit of development projects.

Public / Private Partnership Public / Private partnerships represents a method of sharing the high development risk between public municipalities and private development companies or trusts. This model is effectively used to provide both profitable commercial amenities along with infrastructure and amenities for the public interest.

Productive Land (Energy and Manufacturing) Providing methods for increasing the productivity of land through energy generation can be leveraged to fund redevelopment projects.

Limited Equity Cooperative “Decouples the ownership of the home from the land below it. Residents still own their spaces, and thus have an incentive to care for them, but the land and shared amenities are owned by a private trust. The trust places a permanent ceiling on the costs (and also on the financial upside) of ownership. Covenants require owners to sell their homes or co-op shares back to the trust�

-Martin Bergdoll, Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream

58

Conventional Private Debt Services This demonstrates the conventional financing method for real estate development projects where the future value of the developed land is leveraged for construction and operation loans. This method of debt services preferences repeatable and predictable program and construction typologies.

Private / Private Partnership (Existing Land Owners) This standard method of gathering private investment, when decoupled from heavy financial debt services, has the greatest flexibility with building typology, scope and program. This being said, it often lacks incentives for investments in public amenities.

Microfinancing Micro-financing often refers to group sourced loans when multiple businesses or individuals apply for a joint loan. This method can be most useful for funding small scale retrofits across the suburban territory.

59

Who Plans America Richard Peiser and June Williamson

Certainly at the site level it is developers and their architects who determine the cityscape.

To be sure, planners adopt and administer design guidelines for setbacks, building heights, densities, streets, and landscaping that are incorporated into zoning and building codes.

Such regulations define the building envelopes and street patterns, and one might argue that such a “system� is to blame for obsolete and inflexible regulations that all too often generate boring streetscape. Nevertheless, it is developers who build the subdivisions and buildings that people inhabit. They determine where investment takes place, which neighborhoods are revitalized, which buildings survive.

-Richard Peiser, Who Plans America? Planners or Developers?

60

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CONTEMPORARY DISCUSSION

61

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CONTEMPORARY DISCUSSION

Regenerating Older Suburbs Richard Peiser and Andrienne Schmitz

Redevelopment is more complex than new development. Many believe erroneously that redevelopment is cheaper and more efficient because it entails reusing land and existing infrastructure.

From a public welfare perspective, it may indeed be more efficient, but it is rarely less expensive.

Redevelopers often face costly delys because of community opposition, as well as expenses related to environmental mitigation, tenant relocation, and infrastructure repairs and replacements ...

The existance of high-quality public transportation significantly enhanses the economic benefit of redevelopment compared with greenfield development, where mass transit can support higher densities without requiring more transportation investment.

-Richard Peiser, Who Plans America? Planners or Developers?

62

63

CONTEMPORARY DISCUSSION

The Option of Urbanism Investing in a New American Dream

block quotesTe norbita bereniu senatum in ditantimis conium adhuit; et publiaciam fac factusperi te condactorum omaio, usa verfecta, tumv peOptem o inatis, fir ublin terit. Ox senari in viriam. Seni ignos, num niu si tus, move, sulvist riterei pari perite tam terfereis. SumRi terrae mum nostem, orurendit, non Etre crio coniu consulo ccibefe ntemus, nemus vertem vilicit.

O ta, die nostius

64

65

PART THREE - Outcomes of Suburbia Suburbanization Outcomes Spatial Outcomes

70 72

Parcelization Design Response to Suburbia

80 82

Suburbanization Outcomes

70

strained personal finances

heat islands water quality degradation

employment mismatch

concentration of foreclosure

obesity and asthma

Although drivable sub-urbanism has resulted in lower housing costs, the real price of these houses is hidden in the gas tank. Transportation costs were eighteen percent of household income in 2005 ... the result is that owning an average car is the equivalent of having an additional $135,000 mortgage.

-Christopher B. Leinberger The Option of Urbanism auto-dependency and high carbon footprint

Foreclosures have not been evenly distributed across the country. On the contrary, they have been happening in some places far, far more than in others ... In order to sort out what was really going in, it is vital to see the spatial patterns in these foreclosures.

-William Lucy Foreclosing the Dream aging housing and infrastructure stock

social segregation concentration of poverty

The Brookings Institute showed that the concentration of poverty (defined as a census tract with more than 20% of the households living below the poverty line) has been increasing since the 1950s ... The ability of the [upper and middle] class to segregate themselves over the past half century ... explains much of the crime, violence and deadend lives in U.S. society.

-Christopher B. Leinberger The Option of Urbanism

programmatic homogeneity

By physically designing out all options except travel by car, modern suburbs limit travel choice ... As a result, the nation becomes more reliant on cars to reach even their local destinations and their physical activity levels decrease.

-D. Vandegrift, T. Yoked Obesity rates, income, and suburban sprawl complexity of suburban redevelopment

Fringe development constitutes what we call a tyranny of easy development decisions. And this tyranny ultimately subjects residents and businesses in closer-in jurisdictions to the consequences of decisions made in more remote government jurisdictions.

-William Lucy, Suburban Decline: The Next Urban Crisis

fractured ownership

One of the most difficult problems in regeneration is site acquisition. Small parcels of vacant property or land with underused buildings are usually available for small developers to buy, but more substantial parcels with sufficient scale to attract larger developers and institutional financing are much more dificult to find.

-Richard Peiser, Regenerating Older Suburbs 71

Spatial Outcomes Case Study Atlanta and Suburban Space

Making a neighborhood by aggregating individual houses is seemingly straightforward and simple.

This deceptive simplicity lulls the design profession, policy makers, and ultimately, suburban dwellers into an inattentive acceptance of a house-by-house development of the residential landscape. And while concerns for the social and environmental consequences of suburban development are intensified by the consistently large numbers of annual single-family housing starts, there are surprisingly few alternatives proposed for this kind of housing ... today with suburban design subsumed by maketing and with a culture of architects increasingly uninterested in the mundane everyday, the architectural profession either has been thwarted or has withdrawn from the suburban housing debate.

-Renee Y. Chow Suburban Space: The Fabric of Dwelling

72

e

SINGLE FAMILY RESIDENT PARCELS LESS THAN 1/2 ACRE FULTON CO. GEORGIA, 1”=2000’

74

75

SECTION TITLE

76

77

SECTION TITLE

78

79

ECOLOGICAL CRISIS

PARCELIZATION Metropolitan Municipalities to Suburban Subd

One of the most difficult problems in regeneration is site acquisition.

Small parcels of vacant property or land with underused buildings are usually available for small developers to buy, but more substantial parcels with sufficient scale to attract larger developers and institutional financing are much more dificult to find. Brownfield sites, railroad yards, and dead shopping malls are often desirable because they usually involve larger sites. Each of these merits the considerable attention they have received. However, they can take years, sometimes decades, to be prepared for redevelopment.

-Richard Peiser, Regenerating Older Suburbs 80

SINGLE FAMILY RESIDENT PARCELS LESS THAN 1/2 ACRE FULTON CO. GEORGIA, 1”=30000’

Subdivisions

81

DESIGN RESPONSES TO SUBURBIA

Design Response to Suburbia Retrofits, Grand Visions, and Manuals

82

83

SECTIONRESPONSES TITLE DESIGN TO SUBURBIA: RETROFITTING SUBURBIA

84

85

DESIGN RESPONSES TO SUBURBIA: DESIGNING SUBURBAN FUTURES

86

87

DESIGN RESPONSES TO SUBURBIA: FORECLOSED

88

89

RESPONSE: Site Selection and Aggregation Model Site Selection and Aggregation Model

95

94

Site Selection and Aggregation Model In response to the extremely parceled suburban territory a new tool and understanding is necessary to foster redevelopment across the suburban territory.

As described by Richard Peiser, one of the primary barriers to redevelopment is the extremely fractured suburban territory of ownership. To help level the playing-field between greenfield and greyfield development decisions and embrace redevelopment uncertainty this will help designers and developers discover the possibility within small scale site ownership. The proposed urban analysis model focus on five typologies of sites for redevelopment.

It seeks to discover how the fractured territory can become an asset for developing a cohesive vision for redevelopment and growth of the existing built environment through the process of deciding which territories should be the focus of limited resources.

95

Layers: Site Aggregation Model

modes of transit political boundaries and primary policy factors vacancies

large lot ownership + public right of way

for sale property

program ajaciencies + zoning regulation expansion of the city center : : suburban hubs : : utility right of ways : : transportation right of ways : : peri-urban edge

To simplify the computation complexity of the site aggregation model while maintaining the interactions of suburban systems, the site aggregation model is simplified into layers of increasing scale and focus. They build upon eachother to narrow the available sites down to a carfully selected group of fractured or continuous sites.

96

Potential Model Value Structures

Model Value Structure Test 1 • Understand the land ownership patterns across the suburban territory and how best to take advantatge of fractured ownership in the redevelopment process.

• Single use zoning and housing to multi-functional zoning and typologies of housing • “Domesticating infrastructure” by re-envisioning methods of using the publicly owned right of ways of small to high volume auto traffic.

• Understand how to take advantage of the existing built structures of “boxes and mats” that define the suburban territory. this is best understood through the extensive writing on “Retrofitting Suburbia.”

• Adapt the landscape surfaces and built structures for the necessities of climate responsibility • “Landscape and infrastructure must be seen as an interrelated system”

Model Value Structure Test 2 • Harness the fractured site structure of suburbia through design and promote financial collaboration with existing land owners.

• Favor existing structures.

• Promote intermodal mobility and understand the potential of public transit systems.

• Provide access to cultural amenities and program and promote the civic theater.

• Provide recognized and thoughtful access to the public landscape. This can be fractured though respect the necessities of landscape maintenence.

• Understand the larger implications of incremental redevelopment and the power of creation.

• Re-imagine and harness the cultural desires that drove the development of suburbia.

• Maintain healthy connections to the city by promoting a central hierarchy of density though developing a poly centric and interconnected city.

• Promote a diversity of housing typologies and affordable options.

97

EXISTING URBAN SIMULATION MODELS

Introduction to Urban Simulation

14

Are Employed in

Create

Households Income Size Structure

Jobs Occupation Wage Developers

Build

Contain

Persons Age Ethnicity Education Employment Occupation Wages

Occupy

Buildings Type Size Units Value Age

Occupy

Businesses Industry Employees

Occupy Services

Services Police Fire Schools Garbage

Service

Infrastructure Transportation Water Supply Sewer Energy

Regulate Land Ownership Location Topography Geology Soils Land Use Land Cover

Build Governments

Policies Land Use Plans Zoning Impact Fees Resource Regulations Habitat Preservation Environmental Quality

Set

Provide

Distributes Resources Consume

Water Energy

Consume

Emissions Produce

Point Source Nonpoint Output

Consume

Products Services

Produce

Consume Produce

98

Figure 3: Agents, Choices and Interactions to Represent

Interactive Design of Urban Spaces using Geometrical and Behavioral Modeling 1

1

Carlos A. Vanegas Daniel G. Aliaga 1 Purdue University

1

2

INTEGRATION OF AN URBAN SIMULATION MODEL AND AN URBAN ECOSYSTEM MODEL 2

Bedřich Beneť Paul A. Waddell University of California, Berkeley

Paul Waddell Associate Professor of Public Affairs and of Urban Design and Planning University of Washington, Box 353055, Seattle, Washington 98195 USA Tel: (206) 221-4161, Fax: (206) 685-9044, Email: pwaddell@u.washington.edu Marina Alberti Assistant Professor of Urban Design and Planning University of Washington, Box 355740, Seattle, Washington 98195 USA Tel: (206) 616-8667, Fax: (206) 685-9597, Email: malberti@u.washington.edu

b terrain c

d

a

jobs

This paper explores the development of an integrated urban-ecological simulation framework by linking two lines of urban and ecological simulation modeling. We propose a framework for linking the UrbanSim Model and the Urban Ecosystem Model, and describe the structure of the proposed approach. The model is object-oriented and links urban actors to ecological processes through a disaggregate spatial structure.

e

Figure 1. Urban Model Design. This example city is incrementally generated in a two-step process. First, based on designer input, the system creates a low-density town in a valley by the coast (a). Then, the designer replaces the office buildings (b) with high-rises (c), and constrains the downtown of the existing city and the forest area around it (d). The system increases the population as a result of the larger number of jobs and locates the population in accessible land outside the valley, creating new roads, parcels, and buildings, while leaving the original downtown unchanged (e, f).

OVERVIEW AND OBJECTIVES Concern about the health of the natural environment, and about increasing pressure placed on the environment by human activities, has manifested itself in various ways in public policy and academic research. Within the United States, the Clean Air Act and the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act have focused legislative pressure on the metropolitan planning of transportation infrastructure to minimize effects on air quality. Internationally, scholarly and political interest in broad environmental issues such as global warming, acid rain, deforestation and tropospheric ozone depletion capture the public imagination, focus the energies of international bodies such as the United Nations and motivate academic research.

Two separate streams of research have focused on the interactions between human activities and uses of land with the natural environment. One stream deals with metropolitan scale modeling of land use, transportation, and environmental effects, focusing in particular on air quality impacts. The second treats a broader geographic and environmental context of human induced stress on natural ecosystems, most often within the context of global change.

We refer to these two respective research areas as urban simulation models and ecosystems models. While both of these research areas deal with human-environmental interactions, they do so with significantly different emphasis, scale, methodology and objectives.

The purpose of this paper is to seek common ground between these two research directions. We examine the reach and limitations of each approach, and attempt to synthesize the strengths of both into a framework for developing an integrated urban ecosystem model at the scale of an extended metropolitan area that encompasses its ecological domain. The research builds on the respective modeling efforts of the authors in these two areas, and provides a foundation for a modeling effort now underway at the University of Washington to develop an integrated ecosystem model for the Puget Sound ecosystem.

In the next two sections, we briefly describe the two contributing models that we seek to integrate. We conclude with a section that describes our framework for synthesizing them, and discusses difficulties that must be resolved in order to complete the integration of the modeling approaches at an extended metropolitan scale. We do not attempt to address a

f

Abstract

1. INTRODUCTION

The main contribution of our work is in closing the loop between behavioral and geometrical modeling of cities. Editing of urban design variables is performed intuitively and visually using a graphical user interface. Any design variable can be constrained or changed. The design process uses an iterative dynamical system for reaching equilibrium: a state where the demands of behavioral modeling match those of geometrical modeling. 3D models are generated in a few seconds and conform to plausible urban behavior and urban geometry. Our framework includes an interactive agent-based behavioral modeling system as well as adaptive geometry generation algorithms. We demonstrate interactive and incremental design and editing for synthetic urban spaces spanning over 200 square kilometers.

Keywords: interactive, editing, 3D models, urban spaces.

CR Categories: I.3 [Computer Graphics], I.3.3 [Picture/Image Generation], I.3.5 [Computational Geometry and Object Modeling], I.3.6 [Methodology and Techniques].

We present a framework for intuitive and interactive design of 3D geometric models of large, complex, and realistic urban spaces. An urban space is a collection of architectural structures arranged into buildings, parcels, blocks, and neighborhoods interconnected by roads. The key notion behind our approach is to close the loop between behavioral modeling and geometrical modeling of urban spaces. We model the design and editing process as a dynamical system using a set of functions that describe the change the variable values. Our system produces models resembling existing cities, and is useful for a variety of applications ranging from games and movies to urban planning and emergency management.

Previous research in urban modeling can be divided into the areas of geometrical modeling and behavioral modeling: the first is purely computer graphics oriented (e.g., [Parish and Muller 2001, Wonka et al. 2003, Mueller et al. 2006, Aliaga et al. 2008, Chen et al. 2008]), and the second lies outside this research domain (e.g., [Alkheder et al. 2008, Waddell 2002]). The results of urban behavioral modeling are intended for decision-making regarding urban policies in current and future urban areas. In general, however, behavioral simulation models use limited and fixed 2D geometric features (e.g., grid cells or parcels) and are computationally too expensive to run at interactive rates. Some research has been performed in feeding the output of a behavioral modeling system into a geometrical modeling system producing 2D layouts or 3D models that change over time (e.g., [Honda et al.

2004, Vanegas et al. 2009, Weber et al. 2009]). However, the focus is not on designing and editing a new urban model, but rather on computing changes (e.g., growth) over time to a provided model.

Figure 1: Urban and Ecological Dynamics

Households Location Travel Production Consumption

Developers New Construction Redevelopment

Businesses Location Travel Production Consumption

Governments Infrastructure Regulations

Urban Processes Feedback

Land Land Use Land Value Development

Infrastructure Transport Water Sewer Energy

Environmental Stressors Land Cover Impervious Surface Grassland Forest Wetlands

Resource Use Water Energy Materials

Emissions Point-sources Non-point Sources

Habitat Change Stream Flows Riparian Vegetation Species Addition/Removal

Biophysical Processes and Impacts

99 Note: Processes in italics are new model components not presently modeled in UrbanSim

Inputs Statistics

Value / Analysis System Maximize Influence on the Built Environment through the power of creation and re-framing.

•

Housing Age

•

Foreclosure Rates

•

Auto Ownership

•

Demographics

•

Reduce auto-dependency.

•

Employment

•

Promote a better connected city.

•

Socioeconomics

•

Harness existing mobility and metropolitan links.

Mobility

Geography + Landscape •

Topography Analysis

Land Use

•

Soil Compositions

•

•

Open / Undeveloped Space

Harness a mixture of densities and program.

•

Biophilia

•

Harness undervalued land + interstitial infrastructural spaces.

•

Promote a mixture of incomes and demographics.

•

Improve areas with high foreclosure.

Land Use + Ownership + Density •

Public Space

•

Civic Space

•

Housing

•

Employment

•

Commercial

•

Private Space

Infrastructure

•

Proximity to Nature

•

Age of Infrastructure

•

“Safety”

•

Mobility Diversity

•

Feeling of Community

•

Walkable Infrastructure

•

Homogeneity to Diversity

•

Bikable Infrastructure

Development Potential

•

Auto Infrastructure

•

Auto Dependency

•

Parking Ratios

•

Bus Infrastructure

•

Light Rail

•

Regional and High Speed Rail

•

Airports

Market Analysis

100

Suburban cultural values:

•

Land Values

•

Land Ownership / Parcelization

•

Absorption Rates

•

Access Debt Services

•

Existing Land Uses

•

Existing Real Estate Cash Flows

•

Ease of development?

•

Promote redevelopment over green-field development. (This will need policy and financial support / incentives)

Possible Sites

Strategies

Foreclosure Redevelopment

New inter-modal infrastructure

•

•

Arguments for High-Speed rail.

•

Locations for metropolitan and regional light rail systems.

•

Improved bike and pedestrian networks.

• •

Collaboration with banks for parcel grouping.

Promote public space and landscape in residential suburbs.

Density: Low-Medium.

Infrastructure Reuse •

Reuse undervalued interstitial spaces to promote connections across infrastructural barriers.

Increase Density and Mixed-Use Development.

Increase access to Public Space.

•

Fostering Third Places and proximity to public landscapes.

•

Promote new forms of modality.

•

Can people exist in close proximity to infrastructure?

Minimize residential and commercial displacement.

•

Density: Medium-High.

•

High Foreclosure Rates

Peri-Urban Edge

•

Large Land/Parcel Ownership

•

How does the city meet the agricultural edge?

•

Proximity to Alternate Housing

•

Density: Low-Medium

Suburban Hub

Suburban cultural values re-harnessed: •

Private Space.

•

Proximity to Nature

•

“Safety.”

•

Feeling of Community.

•

Homogeneity to Diversity.

Expansion of the City Center

•

Re-frame Ownership.

•

Alternative housing typologies :

•

Mono-Centric to Poly-Centric.

•

Mixed-Use and Mixed-Income hubs that focus to harness existing infrastructure networks.

•

•

Density: High.

How does the city transition into medium and low density development?

Density: High to Low.

•

Offer variety for ever expanding family types.

•

Accommodate an aging suburban population.

•

Encourage new understandings of collective ownership.

Zoning and Policy Adjustments: •

Encourage a method for accumulating parcels while reducing displacement.

•

Incentives for redevelopment over green field development.

101

necessity + suburban territory (issues) // history + suburbia today aging housing stock

suburban concentration of poverty

employment mismatch

auto-dependency and high carbon footprint

psychological separation and lack of community

outdated consumer model

single use zoning

cultural perceptions

complexity of suburban redevelopment

programmatic homogeneity

no access to public and civic landscapes

fractured ownership

contemporary regenerations of sprawl designing suburban futures

foreclosed: rethinking the american dream

retrofitting suburbia

drosscape

regenerating older suburbs

sprawl repair manual

current development practices + outcomes // green to gray greenfield development

t.o.d.

walkable urbanism

site selection model finding tipping-points for promoting: walkability

sustainability

program

landscape

artificially undervalued space // interstitial spaces

civic life

sites of regeneration peri-urban edge

transportation infrastructure

utilities infrastructure

foreclosure / vacancy redevelopment

suburban hubs

expanding city center

conflicts confronting suburban regeneration extreme parcelization // fractured land ownership

102

artificially deflated land-values

inflexible cultural values of land ownership and land use

zoning structure

inflexible financial system

“the tyranny of easy development options”

programmatic homogeneity

loss of per-urban agricultural landscapes

fractured infrastructure networks (transport +utility)

reduced access to third places

employment miss-match

impoverished / overburdened municipalities

strategies for resolving conflicts (show when, where and why) new inter-modal infrastructure

increased density

mixed-use development

alternative housing typologies

suburban cultural values re-harnessed

increased access to public / civic space

zoning restructuring

policy adjustments

urban design visions

shared ownership models

alternative energy production

ecological repair

modular building

adaptive reuse of buildings

financing tools

programmatic hybridity

reintroducing: cultural capital and the arts

infill development

housing choices for the elderly

landscape regeneration

suburban agriculture

retrofitting office and industrial parks

retrofitting shopping centers

retrofitting auto infrastructure

mitigating redevelopment complexity

examples of redevelopment success for financial institutions

biophilic suburbs

next steps model for interaction of the strategies

where is program necessary (reprogramming the suburbs)

work through one site type

real estate structure redesign

financial interactions

work through one analysis model

comprehensive vacancy model

an understanding of what attracts or repels developers

“cross sectional analysis of suburbs across the states”

layer of ecological regeneration

an understanding of what attracts or repels developers

“cross sectional analysis of suburbs across the states”

book of the complexity of suburban regeneration

book of research towards a specific design proposal

model for site selection used by real estate developers

103

DESIGN SCENARIO - Atlanta 2025 Atlanta Now Scenario How Should the City Evolve in Relation to Existing Transportation Infrastructure?

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ATLANTA NOW

In order to refine of the site selection and aggregation model’s breadth and driving parameters this thesis will thoroughly develop a design scenario in one of America’s most ‘sprawled’ landscapes, Atlanta Georgia. Using the 2025 predictions of Atlanta’s population growth along with the national predictions of rising oil prices, this scenario uses the design process to explore the question: how should the city evolve in relation to existing transportation infrastructure?

Atlanta represents both a primary example of the spatial typologies of the suburban territory and a city on the brink of exciting prospects for suburban redevelopment. Atlanta is projected by Arthur Nelson to require 43% new or retrofitted development by the year 2025. Along with this projected demand, the design scenario aims to harness both the relocation of a major stadium from the city center to the suburban fabric and the city’s location along a primary leg of the proposed east coast high speed rail line.

109

One of the pervasive myths about metro Atlanta is that the region's massive sprawl was the product of a freewheeling development culture, one in which the regional political leadership was weak and uncoordinated and often in open conflict. With the regulatory state confused, the free market stepped in to the void and developed what the region's residents and businesses desired. The region's sprawl grew out of this combination of lax government oversight and agile local real estate market.

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The birth and future of sprawl

A different look at how metro Atlanta became the land of subdivisions - and where it's going

by Carlton Basmajian

Atlanta's sprawl was actually planned in a far more coordinated way than most people realize. This has to do with the influence of Atlanta's 40-year-old public regional planning agency, the Atlanta Regional Commission. By virtue of its lo ng-term stability, a result of strong and consistent support from the state and the federal government, ARC quietly took control of the regional development process.

Beginning in the early 1970s, ARC started an ongoing planning program to reimagine metro Atlanta's urban form. Over the years, and through a series of extensive plans, this process outlined and advocated a low-density metropolis, and identified the policies and infrastructure investments necessary to realize that vision.

Several factors came together to make such long-range planning possible. The growth of Atlanta and its suburbs recentered the state's politics. The successes of the Civil Rights Movement brought new electoral power to the region's growing African-American population. Changes in federal transportation policy put new emphasis on coordinating decision making among neighboring jurisdictions.

In this alternate version of Atlanta's development story, sprawl is the outcome of a publicly visible but largely overlooked planning process. Aided by the consistency of ARC's regional plans, and the infrastructure systems they produced, the private real estate market started filling the region with singlefamily houses, strip malls, and office parks. This model of planning and development, in which ARC played the central role in the regional development process, held for more than two decades.

JOEFF DAVIS

SP R AWL AND ALL: Me tro Atla nta ’ s ra mp a nt, unche cke d growth is coming to a n e nd , a ccord ing to a re ce nt re p ort

To every beginning there is an end. And recently, we were informed that sprawl in metro Atlanta is potentially on the wane.

According to a report by Chris Leinberger of the Brookings Institution, a growing (and surprising) amount of the region's new residential and commercial development is taking place in walkable urban areas. (Think Midtown, Decatur, and other places where you don't necessarily need a car to get around.) The study offers important evidence of changing real estate investment patterns in metro Atlanta and suggests that the real estate market has shifted to meet an increasing demand for denser development.

Most surprisingly, it also suggests that Atlanta, "the poster child of sprawl, is now experiencing the end of sprawl."

For people who are even vaguely familiar with Atlanta's growth politics this is a bold statement. No doubt changes to Atlanta's real estate industry, and the impact of the 2009 recession particularly, played a role in the dramatic slowdown in metro Atlanta's pace of development and the increasing amount of development within walkable places. But it's also likely that the sprawl machine had begun to shift gears much earlier, before the recession.

One of the pervasive myths about metro Atlanta is that the region's massive sprawl was the product of a freewheeling development culture, one in which the regional political leadership was weak and uncoordinated and often in open conflict. With the regulatory state confused, the free market stepped in to the void and developed what the region's residents and businesses desired. The region's sprawl grew out of this combination of lax government oversight and agile local real estate market.

Though this is a compelling story, an equally strong argument can be made that Atlanta's sprawl was actually planned in a far more coordinated way than most people realize. This has to do with the influence of Atlanta's 40-year-old public regional planning agency, the Atlanta Regional Commission. By virtue of its long-term stability, a result of strong and consistent support from the state and the federal government, ARC quietly took control of the regional development process.

Beginning in the early 1970s, ARC started an ongoing planning program to reimagine metro Atlanta's urban form. Over the years, and through a series of extensive plans, this process outlined and advocated a low-density metropolis, and identified the policies and infrastructure investments necessary to realize that vision.

110

Several factors came together to make such long-range planning possible. The growth of Atlanta and its suburbs recentered the state's politics. The successes of the Civil Rights Movement brought new electoral power to the region's growing African-American population. Changes in federal transportation policy put new emphasis on coordinating decision making among neighboring

In other words, the public sector led the charge toward sprawl, and the re al estate industry followed along. This can be difficult to see, especially up close.

Working as a planner in Atlanta in the early 2000s, I had a hard time recognizing the role of the public sector. Development in the region seemed chaotic and unplanned.

The mid-1990s turned out to be a watershed. Several of the region's most powerful and long-serving politicians retired, declined to seek re-election, or were defeated. The tenor of Atlanta's regional politics changed. ARC's leadership turned over and the comfortable relationship that had grown up between the region's key political decision makers ended.

Perhaps the most visible result of this turnover was the transportation crisis in the late 1990s, punctuated by the battle of the Northern Arc. A chastening moment for virtually everyone involved with urban development and planning in Atlanta, the fight over the massive suburban freeway played a significant role in the end of Roy Barnes' political career. It was arguably the transportation crisis that finally tweaked Atlanta's approach toward regional planning.

ARC has made efforts to retrofit some of these areas and repair the damage caused by sprawl, including the 1999 program known as the Livable Centers Initiative, or LCI. Rather than trying to control the outward spread of the urban fringe, the program put significant money into planning around existing or emerging regional centers. The idea: promote density in places where it already had a foothold. The program seems to have worked. But more interesting is the fact that LCI emerged out of the transportation crisis. Thus well more than a decade before the recession, a change in regional planning was underway that appears to have had as much to do with slowing the sprawl machine as the market.

The history of Atlanta's sprawl suggests that public regional planning has been leading the way — first down the path to sprawl and now on the way back to a more walkable future. In spite of the failure of last year's transportation sales tax and the recent proposal for a second commercial airport in Paulding County, the region's political leaders and planners seem to understand the game has changed. The changing focus of the regional planning process and the recognition of the importance of walkability indicates that the region's future will likely be markedly different than the past.

The timing is right to ask — and ponder — several questions. Have the wheels of the sprawl machine fallen off? Are public agencies and boosters of business district officials, where much of the development will happen, doing what's needed to help fix the region? And, finally, what does the end of sprawl look like?

Like the end of most things, we won't be able see the exact moment when sprawl stopped until well after the fact. And we won't really know what this future looks like until it's become part of the past. But according to the report, metro Atlanta's attitudes about sprawl may finally have crossed a threshold.

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Figure 3-1: Unified Growth Policy Map

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suburb no long apply?

With Braves Set to Move, a Broader Look at Atlanta

1 0. V ideo: The Ch

Mayor Kasim Reed of Atlanta, who recently brokered a deal to build a $1.2 billion downtown stadium for the Atlanta Falcons, spent the week taking hits for letting the Log in to see w hat your friends are sharing Log In Wi th Facebook go.Privacy Policy | What’s onBraves nytimes.com.

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His critics, he said, are shortsighted.

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“We’ve got to make a decision — either we’re going to be a region or we’re not,” he said at 4 Dead in MetroWage Strikes North Train news briefing Planned Fast-the Braves’ announcement. “It bothers me that we a packed the day atafter Derailm ent in Food Outlets in have not come far enough a community that people feel that a team moving 12 miles is the Bronx 1 00 as Cities a loss to the city of Atlanta.”

The traditional lines between the city’s 423,000 residents and those of the nearly 3.8 million people living in its suburbs have long been fading, especially demographically.

Places like Gwinnett and Cobb Counties north of Atlanta have become much more racially diverse in the last decade. The number of black residents in Cobb County grew by 47 percent from 2000 to 2010.

John Bazemore/Associated Press

In 1999, the Braves’ opening-day game against Philadelphia.

By KIM SEVERSON Published: November 16, 2013

ATLANTA — A collective gasp rose here last week when the Atlanta Braves announced that they were moving to the suburbs. The franchise, after all, has been not only a sports team, but also a mirror of Atlanta’s aspirations.

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The Braves became the first bigleague team in the Deep South when they moved to Atlanta from Milwaukee in 1966. The team quickly became a national presence thanks to Ted Turner’s cable network and was an early symbol of the region’s evolution beyond the confines of its segregated past.

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But now, as the team makes plans to head a dozen miles northwest to a new $672 million baseball stadium in Cobb County, a regional civic conversation has begun: Is the move a blow to a city beginning to enjoy a post-recession urban renaissance, or is it a signal of a new era in which traditional assumptions about the divide between city and suburb no long apply?

Mayor Kasim Reed of Atlanta, who recently brokered a deal to build a $1.2 billion downtown stadium for the Atlanta Falcons, spent the week taking hits for letting the Braves go.

His critics, he said, are shortsighted.

“We’ve got to make a decision — either we’re going to be a region or we’re not,” he said at a packed news briefing the day after the Braves’ announcement. “It bothers me that we have not come far enough as a community that people feel that a team moving 12 miles is a loss to the city of Atlanta.”

EMAILED RECOMMENDED FOR mayor YOU when I was is that nobody pays any attention to “OneMOST of the things I learned jurisdictions but elected officials,” he said, adding that one of the region’s problems is that 1 . SIDE STREET it has always segregated city from theStreet outer communities.

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On the other hand, Atlanta, long a majority black city, is becoming whiter. During the last 112 decade, the white population has grown by 17 percent, although black residents still make up just over half the population.

Andrew Y oung, the civil rights leader who became Atlanta’s mayor in 1982, said the geographic boundaries that once divided the 10-county region are as much a part of

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2. An Intense Influx of Housing for a Honolulu District

Mr. Y oung, like many civic leaders here, says that moving the baseball stadium offers a chance to redevelop a section of Atlanta that has languished from the start in the shadow 3. On the Market in New Y ork City of the stadium.

Like many cities, Atlanta is enjoying a wave of new urbanism driven by a crop of educated 4. Printing From an Android Tablet workers who have moved in from the suburbs and other, smaller cities, filling coffee shops and restaurants in neighborhoods that used to be cultural wastelands. The population is on ARTSBEAT 5.growing the rise, about 6 percent in the last couple of years.

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The Beltline, an urban walkway and bike path featuring 22 miles of reclaimed railroad | WEST VILLAGE 6. ON LOCATION A Rustic for aofLife Remade bed, has opened upHav theencore city.

A streetcar project opening next year will connect downtown with nearby neighborhoods.

7.

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Westchester Square, the Bronx : Stay in downtown, and a rising high-tech district is moving The College Football Hall of Fame Awhile stretches from Georgia Tech north of the city’s famous aquarium into the high-rise condos 8. Apple neighborhood.

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Nearly two dozen major apartment projects are underway. Developments like the Ponce 9. STATE OF THE ART City Market on the edgeGoing of Old Fourth Ward, Apple’s Pages, the Distance Withwhich combines apartments, shops, Word restaurants and offices in a historic former Sears, Roebuck & Company factory building, 1 0. toVremake ideo: Thehow Changing Mission promise residents use the city.

Many here argue that amid that backdrop, the loss of the team is a blow — especially are being used to revitalize the urban cores of cities like Denver

baseball stadiums Log when in to discover more articles based on w hat you‘ve read. and Minneapolis.

| Don’t Show “I find it ironic that in the lastWhat’s few This? years that we have been becoming a ‘real city’ but we are losing our baseball team,” said Steve Fennessy, the editor in chief of Atlanta magazine.

“That’s a significant wound to our self-esteem.”

Turner Field, nicknamed The Ted after Ted Turner, the team’s former owner, has never really served as an engine of revitalization, although civic leaders have tried.

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A version of this article appears in print on November 17, 2013, on page A16 of the New York edition w ith the headline: With Braves Set to Move, A Broader Look at Atlanta.

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“The truth of it is,” he said, “it’s one big economic unit.”

The traditional lines between the city’s 423,000 residents and those of the nearly 3.8 million people living in its suburbs have long been fading, especially demographically.

Places like Gwinnett and Cobb Counties north of Atlanta have become much more racially diverse in the last decade. The number of black residents in Cobb County grew by 47 percent from 2000 to 2010.

ALSO IN THEATER »

Andrew Y oung, the civil rights leader who became Atlanta’s mayor in 1982, said the geographic boundaries that once divided the 10-county region are as much a part of history as its once-deep racial divisions.

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As demographics changed and development migrated to the largely white suburbs, the team remained a proud anchor of an increasingly black city.

The New Y ork Times

On the other hand, Atlanta, long a majority black city, is becoming whiter. During the last decade, the white population has grown by 17 percent, although black residents still make up just over half the population.

"Johnny Cash: T Robert Hilburn

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Concept 3 Transit Vision Concept 3 (see Figure 3- 5) is the Atlanta region's official long-range vision for transit. It was developed through a collaborative, multi-year effort led by the Transit Planning Board, a predecessor to today's Regional Transit Committee (RTC). The vision was officially adopted in 2008 and now serves as the transit element of the Aspirations Plan of the RTP. The Aspirations Plan represents all needs identified in the region. The Aspirations Plan is discussed in Chapter 4.

Figure 3-5: Concept 3 Transit Vision

Additional information on Concept 3 is available at www.atlantaregional.com/transit.

PLAN 2040 RTP – Chapter 3: Plan Development Framework

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The Sprawl Index Atlanta, GA Overall Sprawl Index Score: 57.66 ranking it 4th most sprawling of 83 metro areas measured.

A lower score on the index indicates a greater degree of sprawl. The average score for all metros ranked is 100. A lower score indicates below average conditions among these 83 U.S. metro areas: for example, less compact housing, a poorer mix of homes and jobs, poor street connectivity, or weaker than average town centers. A score above 100 indicates above average performance, when compared to the other metro areas ranked.

Most metro areas score between 50 and 150 on the scale.

What Makes a Place Sprawling: The sprawl index measured sprawl in four ways. Below are index scores for this metro area. See the report for a full explanation of each factor.

Sprawl Factor

Index Score

Residential Density Factor Mix of homes, jobs & services Strength of town centers/downtowns Accessibility of street network

84.50 73.70 82.31 57.00

Ranking out of 83 (most to least sprawling) 15 13 21 3

The Impact of Sprawl: Outcomes Affected by Sprawl in Atlanta Peak 8-hour ozone level (parts per billion) Fatal accidents per 100,000 persons Daily Miles Driven per person (DMVT) Average number of vehicles per household Percent of commuters using Transit Percent of commuters walking to work Average commute time, in minutes Average annual traffic delay, in hours

120 13.86 33.80 1.81 3.92% 1.31% 31.31 32.69

2000 Population: 3,945,450

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MSA is Metropolitan Statistical Area. For more information on MSAs, PMSAs, CMSAs, and NECMAs, see the Census Bureau.

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Since the Great Recession the necessity for suburban retrofits has only intensified. As June Williamson describes there are intense social, physical, and environmental drivers for suburban retrofits (Williamson, xiii): 1) Combating the contribution of GHG emissions to climate change entails reducing the high carbon footprints of suburban dwellers, up to three times higher than those of city center dwellers, due to driving and energy-inefficient detached dwellings.

2) Increased acknowledgment of the eventual approach of “peak-oil” conditions, coupled with the fluctuating but overall rising price of gasoline at the pump.

3) Demographic change in suburbs, primarily because of longer life spans and the aging of the baby boom generation, leading to a smaller and decreasing percentage of households with children. Change is also caused by the proliferation of immigrant gateway suburbs and a pronounced rise in suburban poverty. North American suburbs are much more varied and divers than generally assumed.

4) Aging of the physical fabric of the “first suburbs” – the communities built out in the postwar era of mass suburbanization from the 1940s to the 1960s – especially of cheaply built commercial properties. There is an overabundance of “unzzderperforming asphalt” in our overretailed suburban landscapes, land that could and should be used to reshape North America.

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Scenerio: Population Rise + Peak Oil

International energy International Range of oil priceenergy cases represents uncertainty world oil represents markets Range of oil in price cases uncertainty in crude worldoiloil markets Figure 49. Brent spot prices in three cases, 1990-2040 (2011 dollars per barrel) Figure 49. Brent crude oil spot prices in three cases, 1990-2040 (2011 dollars per barrel) 250 250 200

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HOW SHOULD THE CITY EVOLVE IN R TO EXISTING TRANSPORTATION INF Although the zoning and housing finance systems and subsidies were important to implementing the [suburban territory], the new vision of transportation provided by the Interstate Highway System was the primary catalyst for this major transformation. Throughout urban history, transportation has driven development. The transportation system in which the society chooses to invest its money, either direct government dollars or government-regulated private dollars, is the primary dictator of where and how we construct the built environment. And ‌ although the car seems to offer unbounded freedom, in fact the carbased transportation system decreases transportation flexibility. Transit, bicycling, and walking become less and less viable, pleasant, and safe as development spreads out ‌ current suburban densities would have to increase about six times to make any sort of transit work.

-Christopher Leinberger, The Option of Urbanism.

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E IN RELATION INFRASTRUCTURE?

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Image Credit

Cover Image:

“House & Home� Family barbecue, circa. 1950. Architect: Chris Choate with designer Cliff May. Photo by Maynard L. Parker; The Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif.

pg. 3

Venturi, Robert, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour. Learning from Las Vegas: The Forgotten Symbol of Architectural Form. Rev ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1993; 1977.

pg. 4

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pg. 6

http://www.design.upenn.edu/arch/via12/authors/vsb/ Pollalis, Spiro N. Infrastructure Sustainability and Design. New York: Routledge, 2012.

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pg. 8

Dunham-Jones, Ellen, and June Williamson. Retrofitting Suburbia : Urban Design Solutions for Redesigning Suburbs. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2009.

pg. 20

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pg. 35

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pg. 38

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pg. 40

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pg. 42

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pg. 70

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pg. 73

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pg. 76-9

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pg. 98

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pg. 98

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pg. 112

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pg. 114

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pg. 116

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pg. 119

Georgia Department of Labor (based on U.S. Census Bureau and Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget)

pg. 120-23

Oswalt, Philipp, and Tim Rieniets. Atlas of Shrinking Cities: Atlas Der Schrumpfenden Städte. Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz , 2006.

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