2013_SUB urban form typology

Urban Form Typology

Fall 2012 Architecture 562 Urban Form Typology University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Architecture

University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Architecture 232 Architecture Hall Lincoln, NE 68588-0107 (402) 472-7943 http://archweb.unl.edu/ Fall 2012 Arch 562

Urban Form Typologies

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Urban Form Typology

Assistant Professor: David Karle

For decades the role and label of the city has been in questioned. Terms such as urban vs. rural, city vs. suburban, and region vs. mega-region are becoming more ambiguous and multifaceted. As Louis Worth points out in his 1938 essay “Urbanism as a Way of Life” questioning the use of the term ‘urban’ and argues “the characterization of a community as urban on the basis of size alone is arbitrary.” This concept was supported

by Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1934-35 “Broadacre City” proposal and Ludwig Hilbersiemer’s 1945-49 “New Regional Pattern” plans in which both proposed planned communities for a de-centralized community.

Beyond the mid 1900’s the process of urbanization in North America has generated a series of complex spatial organizations. However, the North American model of urbanization is based on the process de-urbanization.

Pierre Belanger, Professor of Landscape Architect and Planner at Harvard’s GSD states, “The way we understand cities is through a linage of thought developed in North America. One that is fundamentally different from the old world or European views.” European cities of centralization and density cannot depict the process of urbanization in North America.

The process of urbanization encapsulates expanding cities or superurbanism and un-building or dis-urbanism. A vast portion of the built environment in North America is neither city, nor dense. Ellen Dunham-

Jones states in her article Seventy-five Percent, “urban sprawl accounts for approximately 75% of all new construction in recent decades.”

This is an extremely high number considering the claims about urban growth. Even with the recent housing crisis and high foreclosure rates, the suburbs are not dead and as designers of the built environment we cannot turn our backs on them. A unique spatial condition exists within the suburbs, unlike that of the dense urban core. The space has problems and strangeness but also untapped latent potential.

Scholars like Charles Waldheim, Chair of Landscape Architecture Department at Harvard’s GSD, claims “low scale and low density” development will infill the outlying areas of North American cities, and as we continue to grow and shift Ellen Dunham-Jones, Georgia Tech states, “the big design and development project for the next 50 years is retrofitting suburbia.” Therefore, artifacts of urbanization, specifically within suburbia, will become a focus for future investigations. Architectural relicts of sub-urbanization are poised to be identified and augmented for an alternative use.

In anticipation of this low scale building density in suburban areas we must begin to look at these under preforming suburban artifacts in new ways. Participants in the course were charged with investigating spatial and architectural typologies within the city of Lincoln, Nebraska.

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Matt

-Contributors Dennis

Matt Goeser received his bachelor’s degree at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln where he developed a peculiar liking of unpredictable football teams and the color red. Being a self-proclaimed masochist Matt continued right through to his graduate studies at Lincoln. He can currently be found meticulously stressing over the intricacies of his studio projects which will most likely be overlooked in his final critique. After grad school Matt sees himself practicing architecture in the Midwest while quenching his thirst for design in various other endeavors as well.

Dennis Krymuza is from Omaha, Nebraska. He received his Bachelors of Science and Design in 2011 from the University of Nebraska – Lincoln and is currently finishing the second year of his Masters in Architecture at UNL. Having been exposed to several Service-Learning studios, he intends to expand his design background by pursuing an additional Masters in Landscape Architecture.

He doesn’t know where he’ll be in five years, and would rather not know right now. He’s excited to discover that for himself.

Daniel

Brian

At the time of this publication, Daniel was pursuing a Master’s degree in Architecture at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, while completing a thesis for the National Museum of Bermuda, developing a master plan of growth based on the increasing tourist trade and the desire for local interaction, within a historical Victorian Royal Naval Dockyard.

Having recently completing a semester in Europe, Spring 2012, and a summer in Galapagos Island, where Daniel’s interest in tourist and local interaction begin.

Brian is a first year Masters of Community & Regional Planning student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. After completing his Bachelors degree in Economics at UN-L, he started his own business and continues to expand the company while working on his Masters degree. Brian is married and has three teenage children keeping him his toes everyday. He aspires to continue in the M.CRP program specializing in GIS spatial analysis.

Tristan

Corey

Chantal

Ryan

Well on his way to becoming a successful Accountant, Corey left college after 2 years to travel the world. Having never left his home state of Nebraska before, he was amazed to find a world full of richness and culture. He has returned to school to master architecture. He is lifelong student and practitioner of design and loves to apply his skills to the design of all things.

Having been able to live in four different countries during her graduate and undergraduate studies, Chantal has developed a deep appreciation for culture, language, and travel. Travel has an integral role in the realization of how cities form systemically and architecturally. Most importantly travel allows seeing what makes our lifestyles quite unique right here in the United States. Chantal will graduate with her Master’s Degree in Architecture from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln this Spring 2013 and plans to work internationally.

Ryan is a sixth year graduate student at the University of Nebraska in the Architectural Design Program. He grew up in Omaha, Nebraska where early in his life he developed in interest in Architecture and Drawing. His skill and interest in this field and adjacent foci has continued to develop and the greater understanding he attain has become more refined.

Kylie

Amanda

The opportunity to study abroad during Kylie’s undergraduate studies positively impacted her outlook on architecture and solidified the importance of pursuing the program. Photography is a vital asset to the understanding of the built environment and with the use of social media, she has been able to share her passions with many others. Always on the search for the freshest crab and the smoothest coffee, Kylie will graduate with her Master’s of Architecture in May of 2013.

After a semester abroad in Europe during the Spring of 2011, Amanda returned to the United States with a fresh appreciation of architecture, city design, and good wine. She is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in architecture at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln while simultaneously enjoying the experience of teaching as a teaching assistant.

Hard Lines + Soft Fabric Matt Goeser M.Arch

Image 1: Suburbia confronts a decommissioned rail line

The city of Lincoln Nebraska and the rail industry have coexisted since 1870, shortly after the city’s birth. While the role the rail industry plays has changed throughout history, the relationship between the rail roads and urban fabric of Lincoln has remained stagnant. What was once considered a necessary asset to a developing city of the nineteenth century is now seen as an obstacle; restricting a city’s flexibility and hindering their capacity to redevelop in ways overlooked by rail-centric urban planning. The city must now inventory and reevaluate the urban rail typologies that exist within its own urban fabric as they strive to rebrand and redevelop the various urban and suburban centers of Lincoln.

Rail lines have undoubtedly played a major role in the development of the United States west of the Appalachian Mountains and an even more significant role in the shaping of the Great Plains. Since the creation of steam powered trains, the great plains have been seen as an obstacle, a relatively barren gap hindering the connection of the east coast to the west. As soon as the potential of connecting the nation through a rail system was imagined, work began to bridge the gap between the coasts as fast as possible. The Great Plains were groomed and graded in order to make way for Union Pacific lines that would shape the physical landscape and eventually the urban landscape. Cities sprung up every ten miles along the Union Pacific lines haphazardly stringing development across the plains. Some of the cities would be attached to the rail lines in a methodical manner; others in whatever makeshift way seen fit by a handful of farmers and rail developers. Some of cities would become large and provide their own interest while other smaller towns would struggle to find their own identity and eventually fall off the chain of civilization created by the rail industry. Now, all that remains

of that chain is the infrastructure that tied each piece to the next and the bigger cities that diversified quick enough to build healthy, standalone economies. Lincoln Nebraska is one of those larger pieces that remains on that chain. Even though the lines of railcentered development that traversed the Midwest are no longer as apparent as they once were, their naĂŻve but genuine intentions have left a permanent mark on the macro scale of the Great Plains, the micro scale of cities, and even the nano scale within the city creating unique adjacencies.

Within the city of Lincoln it is easy to see that the rail line and industries that followed them have had a profound (detrimental or otherwise) impact on the urban fabric. But how did it become so? When did it seem like a good idea to run such an obtrusive man-made river through the center of a major city? The blind ambitions of the rail industry throughout the Great Plains in the late nineteenth century set a precedent for the forcefulness with which major railways were placed. By the end of the 1920s the Great Plains

Active Rail Lines in Nebraska - 1899 vs. 2002

Rail Line 14 \ Urban Form Typology \ Hard Lines + Soft Fabric

Lincoln

Railroad Land Grants 1880

would be permanently marked with 42,000 miles of railroads, most of which would lie east of the 100th meridian.1 Eastern Nebraska’s fertile soils lent themselves to farming practices that demanded grain silos at precise intervals along the rail lines. In contrast, most of the development surrounding railroads in western Nebraska would be primarily used to refuel water and repair trains. These parameters laid the ground work for where development would occur in the Great Plains and especially in Nebraska.2 The rail lines became the arteries of the Midwest; connecting, outlining and feeding the region with supplies, and a means of moving them.

Cities along the rail lines were typically placed eight to ten miles apart, determined not only by the limits of the technology and the maintenance it required but also the team-haul principle.

This principle was determined by the distance a team could haul wheat; five miles round-trip in one day and anything beyond ten miles would require a location to stay for the night. These cities that popped up alongside train tracks were located and funded by very simple rules that primarily considered the proximity of the rail industry without any consideration to typical city planning agendas. Without fully comprehending the ramifications of their decisions, industry leaders such as Midland Pacific Railway became the most influential urban planners of the Great Plains in the

Union Pacific R.R. Burlington & Missouri R.R.

Image 2: A modern reconstruction of a T-town outside of Grand Island, NE

nineteenth century.3 Further encouraged by both the state and federal government, rail companies were given land grants in order to build rails through and develop land that had yet to be settled on.

Of the numerous rail developers to lay tracks through Nebraska, the Union Pacific and Burlington railroads held rights to almost sixteen percent of Nebraska’s land mass given. The land was broken into square mile sections and every other section within twenty miles of a railroad was given to the rail companies creating a checkerboard of rail-owned property.4 Through their hands western Nebraska was populated along rail corridors, creating a relatively dense urban landscape that stretched from Omaha to the panhandle; a landscape that became so dense only a fraction of the cities would survive.5 Hard Lines + Soft Fabric / Urban Form Typology / 15

Image 3: Grand gestures are created in the urban fabric where major lines meet

The populating of the rail right of ways birthed three distinct urban typologies; parallel towns, t-towns and in more unfortunate cases “hell on wheel” towns (a phenomenon unique to the Union Pacific).

Each typology found its distinction in its orientation to the rail road. Parallel towns were typically found in western Nebraska and where more utilitarian in nature. Developing parallel to the rail lines allowed them to properly service the technology that required constant maintenance as it crossed the Great Plains. However, these towns did not develop much further than that. As locomotive technology became more reliable, these towns would eventually find their obsolescence. In contrast, t-towns had a much more dynamic relationship with the rail industry. Parallel towns were not much more than glorified service stations while t-towns had a more parasitic nature. The rail ran across one end of town and a main street would form perpendicular to that. The “T” shape formed was a unique fabric condition unlike most courthouse-centric layouts that were common in the nineteenth century. While t-towns generally grew into self-sufficient cities, the ones that failed to diversify lost their economic foundations and became fodder for the larger t-towns as they fell apart. Finally, as with most industry driven developments or booms, there were the undesirable developments; these amounted to “Hell on Wheels” towns. Typically beginning as a t-town or parallel town, these were towns that were thrown up quickly and without much thought. When rail workers and rail town developers decided to hang around for too long they brought with them all of your typical vices: gambling, saloons, and prostitution.6, 7 Fortunately for Nebraska, none of these things became viable industries to grow a town around and the towns faded away almost as quickly as they sprung up. These three typologies made up most of the urban development surround rail lines into the early 20th 16 \ Urban Form Typology \ Hard Lines + Soft Fabric

century. Despite Lincoln’s historic connections to the rail industry it did not fall in to one of these categories.

Although Lincoln was first founded around the banks of the Salt Creek in hopes of finding its niche within Nebraska’s economy through the salt industry, it drew local rail lines quickly. Lincoln’s aspirations of becoming a manufacturing center for salt died soon after but not before attracting its first railroad by 1870 and totaling seven separate lines by 1900. After being declared the capital of the state in 1867 the city saw a great increase in population and business.

At this point Lincoln understood the importance to sustaining such growth through the development of rail lines and stops through the city. Lincoln began to offer incentives to rail companies that directed their lines through the city and connected them to other major hubs. In 1870 the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad claimed the city’s first incentives when they connected Plattsmouth to Lincoln and eventually Kearny. Trains would continue to lay tracks throughout the end of the nineteenth century at which point Lincoln would become the closest commercial center to 774 of the 914 rail stations in Nebraska. 8, 9 Now, these once impressive statistics and great driving forces have taken on new definitions in Lincoln’s contemporary urban fabric.

The locomotive tracks that were once the arteries to the city when development sprawled outward from them have now become the great manmade rivers of Lincoln; carving through the urban fabric and eroding the urban landscape around them. What was once at the forefront of economic development has become a sign of the stale locomotive industry in Lincoln. Understanding the current role rail lines play in the fabric of Lincoln might be best understood through

connections to past rail typologies. While you will be hard pressed to find conditions similar to “hell on wheels” towns in Lincoln that are related to the locomotive industry, there is still evidence of parallel and t-town like relationships. One of the larger rail lines in Lincoln is the Burlington Northern Santa Fe line that runs parallel to Highway 2 for most of the highway’s length through Lincoln. As was common with parallel towns in western Nebraska, this line, while one of the more recognizable lines in the city, actually has the least impact on the city grid and general fabric. Part of this is due to the fact that while many of the tracks in Lincoln are considered live and ready for use they have not seen action in many years. In that regard, this line proves to be one of the least obtrusive; it acts merely as a static, physical barrier. Without rail traffic it only minimally impacts the more kinetic aspects of the city such as flow of vehicular and pedestrian traffic. The parallel town condition within the city seems relatively harmless with its largest affect being on zoning and development. However, the t-town typology within the physical extents of the city presents more resistance.

By the inherent nature of t-towns the lines of the rail within the urban fabric directly opposed the urban grid and created much more rigid parameters for planning cities around them. While the t-town once had a more dynamic and healthy relationship with the locomotive, the contemporary “t-towns” of Lincoln produce conditions that are much more static and detrimental to the cities growth and flexibility. Each time the city grid encounters one of yesteryear’s rail lines it creates grand gestures in the fabric. One can see the city grid literally uprooting itself and, through acts of brutal over-engineering, spanning far above and across the rail lines in massive overpasses and underpasses. The rail lines then become large obstacles in the city that we treat as impassable manmade rivers. The city has accepted them in the same manner with which the Salt Creek is treated. Without questioning their once relevant role in the city, we leave them untouched, bridging over and digging under. These marks leave an even longer lasting impression on the fabric not only scaring the land directly affected by the tracks but also in the way zoning and infrastructure must compensate for them.

Even though these conditions account for most of the lines running through the city, there are anomalies that create their own distinct micro-environments.

There are numerous places in Lincoln where live tracks remain but are nothing more than the leftover infrastructure of time past. When the tracks are left behind, but the city develops around them without any acknowledgement of their presence, an unhealthy relationship is created. While the tracks still have their formal building setbacks in place, there otherwise seems to be no other interaction between the old and new. In a neighborhood just east of the Capitol Beach area in Lincoln lies a live train track once used to supply the various builders’ supply companies of the area.10 Other than the obvious

Rail-town typologies in urban context: parallel town at large (top), modern t-town (middle) parallel condition hidden behind a strip mall (bottom) Hard Lines + Soft Fabric / Urban Form Typology / 17

Image 7: Rail nodes create striations in the urban fabric just west of the urban core

gap between the commercial zoning and the cookie cutter duplexes of suburbia there is no other sign of locomotive activity. The neighborhood simply turns it back to the railroad and without even placing fences in their backyards exists in a simple manner with the benign rail line. It creates nothing more than an undeveloped greenbelt.

In other conditions found on the fringe of Lincoln’s fabric there are even more developments running right up to the rail lines without fear. While some suburban neighborhoods post fences that only wishfully attempt to ignore the fact that there is a functioning railroad just fifty feet from their back porch, other commercial districts blatantly overlook their locomotive neighbors. The challenges created for urban planning by the railroads happen at a much larger scale as well. These larger obstructions are usually disguised as rail yards and thus are not typically questioned or perceived to have as detrimental effects as the pairing of train tracks and the suburban backyard. However, these large urban railroad nodes need to be reevaluated in a time where they no longer operate at full capacity. The large train depot located on West O St. sits just beyond the relatively dense downtown core of Lincoln. In contrast to the city grid of downtown Lincoln, the train station creates horizontal striations in the urban fabric that exist on a scale so large that the fabric does not attempt to negotiate or address the rail lines in any way. Another major node exists at 70th St. and Cornhusker Highway where the high contrast between the rail industry and city grid is visibly apparent. To the south of the rail yard and grain silo stop, the residential blocks of northeast Lincoln run straight into the industrial rail zone creating an abrupt line stop in the city grid that extends for twelve blocks. To the north of the old grain silos Cornhusker Highway loses its hierarchy within the urban fabric as it and the surrounding commercial zoning are seemingly repelled away by the rail yard. Either way, beyond creating visual discontinuity in the urban landscape, the train tracks have left massive hard lines in 18 \ Urban Form Typology \ Hard Lines + Soft Fabric

the zoning of the city. The problem currently at hand is that both the railroad and city planning happened in drastically different times with different agendas and now have a disconnected and apathetic relationship with each other. Suburban development has sprawled up to and around the train tracks without questioning them, yet.

These strange relationships have put Lincolnites in an awkward position to manipulate zoning ordinances rather than question and redevelop the city to create a healthier dialogue with the lines throughout the city. In Lincoln, zoning ordinances are supposed to limit the zones surrounding railroads to residential transition (R-T) districts. These zones occur when property abuts or is across the street from industrial or commercial zoning. Given the stipulations of R-T zoning, these residential zones should be restricted to only single family and two-family dwellings.11, 12 However, through Lincoln’s partial understanding of the negative impacts of such ordinances, the zoning neighboring train tracks in Lincoln in typically some form of standard residential zoning. As the city begins to understand the irrelevance of many of the rail lines in the city it will be necessary to reevaluate the zoning regulations that may further hinder development surrounding decommissioned tracks.

Lincoln’s recently enacted railroad quiet zones go to show that the city is attempting to mend some of the latent affects the rail industry has had on the city.13 An extra effort must now be made by the city to provide quick fixes to the issues of uncovered from the juxtaposition of Lincoln careless rail-centric development and their recent attempts to diversify the city with its rebranding. As the city reconsiders the impact of the marks left by the rail industry they have also begun to track and map accidents and safety hazards surrounding the train tracks and their proximity to the growing urban fabric. However, only small steps have been taken in the direction of repurposing underused rail right of ways.

Image 8: The train depot on Cornhusker Highway ignores, rejects, and stretches the urban fabric around it

The Mopac trail was once a rail line running through Lincoln which has since been converted into a bike trail. While this was a simple solution to the problem of underperforming fabric it actually had much greater affects on the city other than just creating space for recreation. While not ideal, the bike path allowed commuters to at least traverse a small part of the city with greater ease and safety.14 Looking beyond the pedestrian scale, the trail also had a much smaller building setback that then rail lines. The residential and commercial zoning began to infill the newly acquired land which had once been a meager buffer between the train and surrounding residents. In this circumstance the city fabric was able to mend itself and the scars left from the locomotive. Using the Mopac as a precedent, what would happen if the city reconsidered all of the underused rail lines as trails and bike paths? Although it seems like a simple and possibly limited solution, it might be the first step in reclaiming parts of the city that have been severed by the hard lines left in the wake of the locomotive boom.

It has never been more appropriate for Lincoln to reconsider every

aspect of the city and whether it contributes to the cohesive image of Lincoln as it rebrands itself. As the city shifts into a new era as a cultural, opportunity-laden and family friendly city; moving away from its identity as the less attractive younger sibling of Omaha, do the railroads allow the city to grow in every way necessary? The city has already found that train tracks have hindered the development of the city but it took a massive sports arena and redeveloping of the Haymarket to relocate lines running through the area. While the train tracks create heavy lines in the urban fabric, one would think that they were sacred or set in stone with the amount of legislation and planning it takes to even reconsider moving or repurposing them. Lincoln needs to reconsider the rigidity of its urban fabric and how much flexure it allows for new development in particular neighborhoods but even on a macro scale that the train tracks operate on. How many trains must use a single track per year before the land is worth more as a park, mixed use space or an entire greenbelt around the city? The city has a great opportunity knocking at its door with the amount of proposed change just around the corner. Detroit was lead off a cliff by the pied piper playing to Hard Lines + Soft Fabric / Urban Form Typology / 19

the tune of Fordism. Lincoln must be careful to not allow the rail industry to lead it any further down a similar path where past decisions about mono-industrial city planning continue to haunt and hinder the city’s development.

References: 1. Berg, Donald J. “Encyclopedia of the Great Plains | Railroads, United States” Plains Humanities Alliance Digital Initiatives. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Oct. 2012. <http://plainshumanities.unl.edu/encyclopedia/doc/egp.tra.028.xml>.

2. Alton Lee, R. “Encyclopedia of the Great Plains | T-towns.” Plains Humanities Alliance Digital Initiatives. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Oct. 2012. <http:// plainshumanities.unl.edu/encyclopedia/doc/egp.ct.050>.

3. Berg, Donald J. “Encyclopedia of the Great Plains | Railroads, United States” Plains Humanities Alliance Digital Initiatives. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Oct. 2012. <http://plainshumanities.unl.edu/encyclopedia/doc/egp.tra.028.xml>.

4. “Land Grants for the Railroads.” Nebraska Studies. N.p., n.d. Web 15 Nov 2012. <http://www.nebraskastudies.org/0500/frameset_reset.html?http:// www.nebraskastudies.org/0500/stories/0505_0101.html>.

5. Alton Lee, R. “Encyclopedia of the Great Plains | T-towns.” Plains Humanities Alliance Digital Initiatives. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Oct. 2012. <http:// plainshumanities.unl.edu/encyclopedia/doc/egp.ct.050>.

6. Ibid.

7. Berg, Donald J. “Encyclopedia of the Great Plains | Railroads, United States” Plains Humanities Alliance Digital Initiatives. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Oct. 2012. <http://plainshumanities.unl.edu/encyclopedia/doc/egp.tra.028.xml>.

20 \ Urban Form Typology \ Hard Lines + Soft Fabric

8. Davis, Abigail. “Encyclopedia of the Great Plains | Lincoln, Nebraska.” Plains Humanities Alliance Digital Initiatives. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Oct. 2012. <http://plainshumanities.unl.edu/encyclopedia/doc/egp.ct.030.xml>.

9. Lincoln Lancaster County Genealogical Society. “Railroads of Lincoln and Lancaster Co.” LLCGS. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Oct. 2012. <http://www.llcgs. info/cpage.php?pt=51>.

10. Figard, Roger. Phone interview. 7 Oct. 2012.

11. Ibid.

12. “InterLinc: City of Lincoln: City Attorney Lincoln Municipal Code Book.”

InterLinc: City of Lincoln & Lancaster County. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Oct. 2012. <http://www.lincoln.ne.gov/city/attorn/lmc/contents.htm#27>.

13. “InterLinc: Railroad Quiet Zones - South Salt Creek and South Lincoln Quiet Zone.” InterLinc: City of Lincoln & Lancaster County. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Oct. 2012. <http://lincoln.ne.gov/city/pworks/rtsd/quiet/ ssaltcrk/>.

14. Williams, Glenn. “Nebraska Recreational Trails, USA.” Nebraska Recreational Trails Information. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Oct. 2012. <http:// nebraskatrails.tripod.com/railtrai.html>.

Image 9: Suburban fabric denying the rail industry Hard Lines + Soft Fabric / Urban Form Typology / 21

The Cost of Zoning Dennis Krymuza M.Arch

Image 1: S. 45th and Pine Lake St.

ABSTRACT: The role zoning has played in the realm of the residential environment has transformed our environment in the way we not only live, but move. Richard Ingersoll in his book Sprawltown: Looking for the City on its Edges writes, “The disorderliness of many contemporary edge settlements seems like a series of pictures put together by random accident, without a narrative structure.” He claims the condition of sprawl is an inevitable reality we need to address rather than condemn as a failure. Ingersoll’s argument is built from the technological innovations which overtime has contributed to the condition of suburban sprawl in America.

The objective of this essay is to exam the relationship of the Industrial and Residential zoning laws in Lincoln, Nebraska through the use of historical context and case studies in hopes of uncovering relationships between the planned and built environment.

The rise of personal mobility is likely to go down as one of mankind’s greatest innovations as well as one of our greatest hindrances.

The automobile is in part responsible for growth patterns and structure of our cities, and is the underlying issue when planning.

The automobile is also responsible for being one of the few products in which innovation and technological improvement is paramount. In response to the rapid growth of our cities, zoning ordinances and laws have influenced the way in which the built environment functions in relationship to the way we move. The relationship between the way we live, the way in which we build our environment, and the way we move is driver for this essay. Our cities have begun to overcome the spatial fragmentation, which occurs between the automobile and pedestrian, but yet as Ellen Dunham-Jones states in her article Seventy-five Percent, “sprawl accounts for approximately 75% of all new construction in recent decades.” The spatial consideration for the automobile between the realm of the residential home and industrial sector has failed to be addressed. The automobile has become the developmental incubator for horizontal expansion of our cities to be possible. Our roads are now rivers of concrete and metal, which carry the power to divide towns and dismantle neighborhoods. Zoning promises the segregation of incompatible land uses and retention of community character and values, but at what cost to the cohesiveness of the city and its inhabitants?

This exploration involves examining the relationship between three components of the built environment: the residential zone, the industrial zone, and the transportation corridor as a response 24 \ Urban Form Typology \ Zoning

to the automobile. The lens used in examining these relationships is zoning. Before establishing any new relationships, one needs to address the topic of zoning itself, as it has become the fundamental building block for how our cities are now structured and growing.

What is the history of zoning, why do we have zoning laws, and what are the positive and negative externalities associated with zoning? Once zoning has been introduced, an examination of Lincoln’s history in comparison to zoning at large will allow us to situate case studies. By examining these case studies within Lincoln and comparing it to the overall policies of zoning, we can begin to identify moments of unique interaction in the progress of Lincoln’s growth over time. Identifying these moments allows for a critique of whether or not Zoning has proved being successful or not.

Zoning came about in the United States shortly after 1910.

Many attribute New York as the origin for the first zoning laws, although New York was not the only city in which such ordinances were coming about. Had New York not introduced it’s first comprehensive law in 1916 several other cities would have quickly gained the recognition. 1 Zoning itself was not brought about because of circumstances in a specific place, but rather an idea, which came about across the nation nearly simultaneously. The change in the urban conditions and technology contribute more to zoning origins than those of planners, politicians, and designers; zoning’s advocates traditionally have offered two reasons. Advocates suggest zoning is necessary to protect and enhance property values, specifically the values of residential properties, especially singlefamily homes. 2 With this suggestion, zoning protects the property owners of new developments from negative externalities. Without zoning, residential property owners would face depreciated values if a development with negative externalities moved in next door, for example a junkyard or a steel factory. Essentially a development could move in would and deteriorate the value of residential

Image 2: Property for sale. S. 6th and West A St.

property. The solution is to divide the municipality into zones so industries are located near other industries, commercial business near other commercial businesses and residential properties next to other residential properties. This idea of zones has some intuitive appeal, based on the real or imagined horrors of entirely unregulated development.

A problem with the property values rationale for zoning is the rationale is difficult to support with empirical evidence. It has not been clearly established whether zoning results in higher market values for residential property. Another problem with this rationale is zoning’s advocates have not clearly established that zoning is the only means, or even the most effective or efficient means, of controlling externalities.

Second, zoning is defended as a tool of a broader scheme for comprehensive urban planning. 3 However, in many smaller communities where they cannot afford their own planning agencies, zoning is often not accompanied by comprehensive planning. Critics suggest in bigger cities that do have planning departments, planners often find zoning a bothersome, time-consuming, and technical distraction from what they regard as their more important planning functions, i.e., charting the future of a specific area. Therefore, it is not clear whether zoning has ever been well integrated with the other tools at a planner’s disposal. In particular, with regard to mega-developments, which often preoccupy big-city planning departments, traditional zoning appears to play a relatively minor role among the array of available planning tools. Finally, Houston, which has never had a zoning ordinance, does have an active and effective planning department. 4 This suggests zoning is not a necessary component of successful urban planning.

More recently, some zoning advocates have suggested the prevention of “fiscal freeloading” as a third rationale. According to this view, some new developments place a greater burden on public services than they contribute in new taxes. Zoning is a means in which developments can be screened out in favor of developments who pay their fair share. This may be one of the ways zoning is used in some exclusive suburban communities, but it does not appear to be a major factor in big-city zoning schemes. Moreover, where the fiscal freeloading rationale is employed, there are troublesome implications. Typically, lower-income, multi-family rental housing developments are thought not to “pay their own way.” These developments often increase the demand for public services by the increase in numbers of new residents they bring to the community.

This effect may be compounded if low-income residents require more public services per capita than higher-income residents.

Low-income housing is generally less costly and typically has a lower taxable value per household and per capita than the housing of more affluent residents; consequently, ad valorem property tax (commonly applied to a tax imposed on the value of property) revenues will be lower per new resident. If allowed to continue, the lower-income housing developments might permit lower-income persons to share in a higher quality of public services than otherwise would be available to them, including public schools with better funding and higher quality academics. These developments might allow low-income persons to reside in closer to what are often the fastest-growing job markets. Thus, the fiscal freeloading argument may become a rationale for excluding lower-income persons from suburban residency and opportunities for economic advancement.

As many Midwestern towns, the expansion of the railroad influenced the amount of growth for a city. The Burlington & Missouri River Railroad claimed a $50,000 prize when it’s first locomotive steamed into Lincoln in 1870. By 1872 the addition of two more rail lines helped Lincoln to become a rail center. The population from 1870 to 1875 jumped from 2,500 residents to 7,000, and to 13,000 by 1880. By the 1900’s, the “planned city” of Lincoln had grown with little coordination or system – beyond extending the original grid.

5 Lincoln adopted it’s own zoning regulations in 1924 after the Chamber of Commerce commissioned studies which proposed zoning regulations in the early 1920’s. The 1920’s saw the annexation of both College View and Havelock. The state legislation extended the city’s jurisdiction three miles beyond its limits in 1929, creating a potential tool for the community to guide its growth. These early steps were further built upon in 1948 with the creation of Lincoln’s Planning Commission. Shortly after in 1952, Lincoln adopted it’s first comprehensive plan to coordinate the public improvements and private developments. In addition to Lincoln’s growth, the notion of annexation contributed to a great deal of Lincoln’s ability to grow.

Zoning / Urban Form Typology / 25

The two specific areas for this case study in Lincoln have been identified are situated near or around a railroad and primary traffic corridor. These two locations however, are not the only two situations in which the residential / industrial zoning condition occur. The studies address the issue of residential and industrial zoning in different fashion, yet both pose problems.

The first location analyzes the condition occurring around the location of South 5th Street and West A. The residential district is divided by the north-south running railroad line, which further extends southward and allows connection to lines running along Highway 2. The buffer between the railroad line and the residential properties is extremely limited, primarily due to the railroad gaining right of way before housing occurred along the rail line. Image 3 depicts the relationship between the residential neighborhood and the railroad and industry. The residential district is currently zoned as R-4 and the industrial district is currently zoned as I-1.

The division created by the railroad creates dead-end streets and decreased flexibility. Due to the rail line, the primary traffic corridor is required to be elevated to pass through industrial threshold. The streets, which do connect, connect directly between the residential and industrial use types. Within the scope of this essay and case studies, the analysis of property values within the area was done under the pretense that property values for individual homeowners are protected from being placed to inappropriate adjacent land uses. The sample sizes of property values identify residences located directly on the border between zones and residences located further from the border. Five homes located directly along the border with an average square footage of 790 sq. ft. averaged a property value of $65,520. Examination of five properties one-quarter mile away from the site average a square footage of 910 sq. ft. and an average price of $67,380. A 3% increase over the value of homes adjacent to the industrial zone. The property for sale depicted in Image 2, which

26 \ Urban Form Typology \ Zoning

Image 3: South 5th and West A St.

is adjacent to a industrial / business land use, is currently valued at $71,000 versus a property of similar size two blocks east being valued at $84,700. This initial examination supports the notion that property values are decreasing the closer a property is located near an industrial zone. Missing layers of information for this analysis would involve levels of demographics for the neighborhoods that include family size and area of employment. Other unforeseen factors may be at play as well.

The second case study focuses on a larger traffic corridor situated along a rail line. Highway 2 is primary denoted as a Highway commercial zone within Lincoln. Image 4 depicts the intersection of 48th St. and Highway 2, in which a concrete mixing facility is located along the edge of the highway. In this situation a barrier between the residential (R-2) and industrial zones (I-1) occurs, the right of way of Highway 2, along with a green buffer, a stark contrast from

Including a buffer between the two zones is most ideal, and Lincoln seems to incorporate it fairly well. To determine the success or failure of the buffer requires further analysis that looks at the system as a whole rather than in isolated instances.

Image 4: 48th and Highway 2.

the previous case study at West A. The two zones are still adjacent to each other in nature, but separated by increased distance and in this case, a traffic corridor that experiences high volumes of varying traffic types. The same examination looks at residential properties along the edge nearest to the border with the buffer zone between the residential and industrial zones. Five samples with an average square footage of 1,055 sq. ft. averaged a property value of $131,300.

Examining property values one-quarter mile north into the neighborhood, five lots with an average home of 1,077 sq. ft. average a value of $136,580. A 4% increase in value.

Both case studies depict an initial correlation that warrants further analysis. The Highway 2 case study includes homes zoned in R-2 rather than R-4 and has initial increased value primarily due to location and possibly due to the inclusion of a buffer between the Highway commercial zone and the residential neighborhood.

The buffer depicted in the second example is one type of buffer, primarily utilizing the right of way width of a large transit corridor with the inclusion of a natural landscape. There are other ways to resolve an adjacency incompatibility. If an Industrial land use is to be located adjacent to a Single Family Residential, there are other zones that would typically be expected to intervene that provide a transition or “Buffer.” These buffers would be (in approximate order) Industrial, Commercial, Office, Multifamily, and Single Family. An argument could be made for requiring separation between Industrial and Single Family in an amount that would allow each of those zones to have space reserved to “intervene” between the two adjacent incompatible uses, as seen by the case study involving Highway 2.

For instance, if the required minimum lot widths for each of the intervening zones is Commercial (C)=100 ft, Office (O)=100 ft, Multi-Family (MF)=100 ft, Single-Family (SF)=100 ft , then there should be a 400 foot Buffer required between Industrial and Single Family uses based upon an order of land use.

In addition, there should be an allowance for street access between the separate zones. This would be as follows: between Industrial and Commercial: 100 ft Right of Way; between Commercial and Office: 100 ft ROW; between Office and Multi-family: 100 ft ROW; between Multi-family and Single Family: 100 ft ROW. This would give an additional 400 foot Buffer separation requirement.

Putting both Buffering requirements together you could get an 800 foot Buffer requirement. This is in addition to buffers which are

Image 5: West A Panorama Zoning / Urban Form Typology / 27

required in the Industrial zone itself. It would seem that which ever land use type goes in first has right of existence, and that if Industrial is the new land use proposed adjacent to Single Family Residential, then the new Industrial use must provide the necessary 800 foot Buffer, even if it is all on the property belonging to the Industrial user.

Correspondingly, if a new Single-family residential sub-division is proposed to go in next to Industrial use, the sub-division must provide such a Buffer. This may be in the form of reserved green space Buffer area, which presents an opportunity within the built and planned fabric that is currently ignored by zoning guidelines.

The summation of the analysis done in this essay present a problem of zoning compatibility in current existing conditions around Lincoln, Nebraska, which shows the decreased value of property occurring along the edge of a zoned residential boundary which lies adjacent to an industrial zoned boundary versus values of homes further from the incompatible zone. Strategies attempted by the City of Lincoln attempt to combat these issues, but to assess whether or not these are successful strategies remains to be reinforced with further analysis. This essay does however uncover a design opportunity involving the planning and furthering of zoning regulations. Current zoning fails to respond to the natural landscape, and an inclusion of a buffer strategy which creates a hierarchal order between zoning types opens the window for potential design strategies to be implemented within the buffer zone to help strengthen the natural environment through landscape infrastructure and natural systems to reduce surface runoff and to foster new biodiversity. The integration of multiple disciplines in addition to the current professional disciplines involved in planning needs to be part of the conversation in the future of city planning as it becomes ever changing.

28 \ Urban Form Typology \ Zoning

References: 1. Toll, Seymour. Zoned American. New York: Grossman Publishers, 1969.

2. McMillen, Daniel P. , and John F. McDonald. “Could Zoning Have Increased Land Values in Chicago?.” Journal of Urban Economics 33, no. 2 (1993): 167188.

3. Haar, Charles M. . “In Accordance with a Comprehensive Plan.” Harvard Law Review 68, no. 7 (1955): 1154-1175.

4. Siegan, Bernard H.. “Non-Zoning in Houston.” Journal of Law and Economics13, no. 1 (1970): 71-147.

5. Graff, Jane. Nebraska, our towns - east southeast. Seward, Neb.: Second Century Publications, 1992.

“CASDE | Lincoln -- Lancaster County.” CASDE | Virtual Nebraska. http:// www.casde.unl.edu/history/counties/lancaster/lincoln/ (accessed November 8, 2012).

“InterLinc: Planning : Developing Land In Lincoln.” InterLinc: City of Lincoln & Lancaster County . http://www.lincoln.ne.gov/city/plan/develop.htm (accessed November 5, 2012).

“InterLinc: City of Lincoln: City Attorney Lincoln Municipal Code Book Table of Contents.” InterLinc: City of Lincoln & Lancaster County . http://www.lincoln. ne.gov/city/attorn/lmc/contents.htm#27 (accessed October 17, 2012).

“Lancaster County / Lincoln, NE GIS.” InterLinc: City of Lincoln & Lancaster County . http://lincoln.ne.gov/gis/gisviewer/ (accessed November 18, 2012).

McKenzie, Roderick Duncan. The metropolitan community. New York: Russell & Russell, 1967.

Zoning / Urban Form Typology / 29

THE SUBURBS AND THE SUBURBAN HOUSE:

A SECTION THROUGH LINCOLN Tristan Vetter M.Arch

Old is new again in this southeast Lincoln development

Taking a section cut through Lincoln, Nebraska will give a complete account of the history of the urban and suburbanization that has taken place through the last century, from the urban core to the suburbs, and beyond into the exurbs. Lincoln is composed of many different neighborhoods; old and prestigious ones such as the Country Club, Near South, North Bottoms, and to the new suburbs and the experimental Fall Brook community. The following paper will outline a brief history and paint the current state of the suburbs, and then look into case studies of the suburban neighborhood and the suburban house to analyze how they relate to the urban fabric of Lincoln.

Suburbs to a majority of Americans is the place where we grew up, went to school, and call home. Suburbs are responsible for the land use pattern known as sprawl. Sprawl is characterized by low-density, wondering highways, big box retail and shopping centers, mega office parks, and large suburban neighborhoods. Contrary to what most people believe, sprawl is not exclusive to America, but has been found throughout history, as early as ancient Rome1, and has manifested itself globally in regional forms2.

The condition of the modern American suburb as we know it begins in a post-war United States. According to Galina Tachieva in the Sprawl Repair Manual, there are three generations of suburbs: pre-war, post-war, and late 20th century exurbs3 . Exurbia could be classified bluntly as â&#x20AC;&#x153;the suburbs of the suburbs4.â&#x20AC;? Early pre-war neighborhoods were focused on pedestrian-centric communities focused on walkability and urbanity, while the other two forms abandoned those notions completely with the advent of the automobile. Pre-war suburbs sprang up in America around railroad lines where middle-class communities took root, similar to developments in 18th century London5. With the advent of the Eisenhower interstate system, decentralization, and increasing industrialization of the Nation, people flocked to cities from rural towns into low-density single use developments and as mobile as ever.

Suddenly the country did not seem so huge. Zoning laws were initially put in place to limit the spread of fire and provide access to sunlight6, but zoning ordinances later enacted fragmented the urban landscape by isolating single-use family homes from other types of developments. After the World War II the need to house returning 32 \ Urban Form Typology \ The Surburbs and the Suburban House : A Section Through Lincoln

soldiers and their families becomes a nation wide problem.

The roots of the American Suburb can be traced back to the William Levitt family who perfected home construction during WWII while creating housing for the military on the East Coast. After the war the Levitts started to build subdivisions for these returning veterans. Levittown, built in 1947, was located outside of New York City and featured mass produced housing. With residentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s use of their automobiles, the need for convenient amenities within walking distance was reduced or practically eliminated. Levittown became the model for the American suburb, bringing with it a larger dependence on the automobile due to winding curvilinear streets, cul-de-sacs, and increasing distances from jobs and the city.

Sprawling and suburbanization by definition is not sustainable, large amounts of land are displaced with urban infrastructure such as roads and utility stations. Large parking lots, massive big box roofs, and streets all add to the urban heat island effect. The increase in paving and parking lots decreases the amount of permeable surfaces and increases storm water run-off, putting strain on water management systems. Home owners use fertilizers, soaps, and other toxic chemicals that run into the sewer systems and must be treated. Lawns require copious amounts of water to maintain that manicured green look that homeowners find so important. All these houses have centralized AC and heating systems which puts large loads on the power grid, especially during hot summer months. The lack of good public transit and long commutes means more cars on the road, which equates to more gasoline being used and pollution in the air. Sprawling invades and destroys ecological systems such as wetlands and habitats. In Lincoln suburbanization has led to the near extinction of the Salt Creek tiger beetle whose habitat is located

Image 2: An Early Family poses in front of their 1948 Cape Code Bernard Hoffmann, for Life Magazine, Bernard Levey Family http://tigger.uic.edu/~pbhales/Levittown.html

The capital building abruptly neighbors these homes in the Near South.

urban core

urban core

suburbs

suburbs

exurbs

exurbs

old

old

new

new

An Aerial View of the First Stages of Levittown Tony Linck, for Life Magazine, Aerial View of Levittown, June, 1948 http://tigger.uic.edu/~pbhales/Levittown.html

in the salt marshes of the Salt Creek Watershed, north of Lincoln7.

All of these issues are what the current and future generations of designers are going to be called upon to find better ways of doing things.

The following pages are a case-study of select neighborhoods in Lincoln. The neighborhoods studied are: The Near South, The Country Club, Colonial Heights, a very low density acreage development, and the New Urbanist communities Fallbrook and Village Gardens.

Right: diagram showing generic patterns of urban development.

The Suburbs and the Suburban House : A Section Through Lincoln / Urban Form Typology / 33

Fallbrook Highlands

Arnold Heights Capital Beach

Belmont

University Place

Clinton Near South Country Club

Edenton

Colonial Hills Village Gardens

34 \ Urban Form Typology \ The Surburbs and the Suburban House : A Section Through Lincoln

Left: map of Lincoln and major neighborhoods Right: brick road remains in Woods Park Neighborhood The Suburbs and the Suburban House : A Section Through Lincoln / Urban Form Typology / 35

36 \ Urban Form Typology \ The Surburbs and the Suburban House : A Section Through Lincoln

1:6000 scale

urban core

old

Near South 14th and Jackson The Near South Community is an established urban neighborhood with close proximity to downtown Lincoln. Some of the oldest homes in Lincoln can be found in the Near South area, some dating to the late 1800’s. The prominent styles of homes in the area is the American Craftsman style bungalow and the four square, which typically is accompanied by alley ways and detached garages behind the house. The porch is a key characteristic of the bungalow, putting emphasis on social gathering space on the front of the house, a contrast to the shift to put decks and larger yards on the rear of modern homes found in suburburban neighborhoods.

suburbs

exurbs

new

The street network in the Near South is defined by the grid of downtown Lincoln. The grid street layout and the proximity to downtown promotes walkability and bicycling to the university and jobs downtown or nearby. According to the 2000 census the percentage of rental occupied housing units in the area is 43 percent8. http://lincoln.ne.gov/city/plan/databank/tract/20.htm

1:900 scale

Near South population density: 8,300 people per sq. mi Zoning: R2 Earliest home built in block: 1904 Lot sizes : 50’x 123’, 50’ x 73’ Average lot area: 5,500 sq. ft Average home size: 2,500 sq. ft Lot setback: 30’ North and South, 18’ East and West

Four Square style homes in Near South

The Suburbs and the Suburban House : A Section Through Lincoln / Urban Form Typology / 37

38 \ Urban Form Typology \ The Surburbs and the Suburban House : A Section Through Lincoln

1:6000 scale

Country Club 27th and Sheridan Boulevard The Country Club is a prestigious up scale neighborhood in what is now central Lincoln and is a great example of an early suburb. A majority of the homes were built from 1910-1940s. The 65 acres was established in 1903 by the Woods Brothers, Mark, George, and Frank.9 In 1917 The Country Club of Lincoln moved from its original home at 7th and Washington to its current location at 27th and High Street.10 A 1924 historical map shows an inter-urban rail car line, owned by Woods Brothers Realty, running along Sheridan Boulevard from downtown to Union College.11 Streetcars were common after in cities during this time, and attributed to early suburban sprawl as the rich left the city for the suburbs.12 Street car service ended in Lincoln in 1943. In 1926 the US Supreme Court (Euclid v. Ambler Realty) found that zoning ordinances were in the best interest of governments to dictate were certain land uses should and should not occur.13 In this area of Lincoln as we move away from downtown the square grid found in the Near South now transitions to a larger and more rectangular form, a 2×1 one division instead of 2×2. Boulevards such as Sheridan Boulevard weave in and out, splitting the rectangle up into pieces. Another difference found in the Country Club is the elimination of the alley way, instead you have detached garages accessed from the front drive of the house, and yards butt up against each other.

suburbs

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1:900 scale

Revivalism architecture styles such as the Cape Cod Colonial Revival, Colonial Revival, Tudor Revival, and Neo-Renaissance, are prominent in this area, and was common in the era of construction.

A few homes can be found in the style of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Prairie Style, such as the Mark Woods home.14 Another indication of the wealth in this area is a number of large homes can be found in the 5,000 square feet to 10,000 square feet range.

Country Club population density: 3,400 people per sq mi

Colonial Revival home in The Country Club

Zoning: R1 and R2 Earliest home built in block: 1910 Lot sizes : 50’x 140’, 50’ x 75’ Average lot area: 9,000 sq ft Average home size: 3,700 sq ft Lot setback: 35’ North and South, 15’ East and West

The Suburbs and the Suburban House : A Section Through Lincoln / Urban Form Typology / 39

40 \ Urban Form Typology \ The Surburbs and the Suburban House : A Section Through Lincoln

1:6000 scale

Colonial Hills 56th and Pioneers Colonial Hills is located in South-East Lincoln. The neighborhood was established in the late 1960s, with a large majority of homes built in the seventies, and later homes were built in the mid eighties to early nineties. With increased environmental awareness and fair housing issues, the 1970s experienced slightly slower suburban growth than in previous years.15 Despite that, this neighborhood begins to show the DNA of a modern suburb. A large retail area can be found in the SW corner of the development. Between 1970 and 1990 daily commutes doubled from one to two trillion miles16 as Americans moved further and further out of the city, and further away from their jobs, schools, and other activities.

New trends that can be found in Colonial Hills is the single story ranch house, the split level house, and the cul-de-sac. The garage has now become attached to the front of the house. Dead ends and aimlessly curving streets make navigation through these suburbs tedious. The population density of 2,600 people per square mile is 38% less than that of the County Club—which was more than half that of the Near South. What is interesting is that the average lot area has increased from 9,000 sq. ft. to 10,000 sq. ft., while the average house size has decreased from 3,700 sq. ft. to 1,700 sq. ft.

suburbs

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Colonial Hills population density: 2,600 people per sq mi Zoning: R1 and some R2 to the North Earliest home built in block: 1973

Split level home

Lot sizes : mostly non-uniform, 70’ x 135’; 70’ x 170’ Average lot area: 10,000 sq ft Average home size: 1,700 sq ft Lot setback: 15’ from property to sidewalk The Suburbs and the Suburban House : A Section Through Lincoln / Urban Form Typology / 41

42 \ Urban Form Typology \ The Surburbs and the Suburban House : A Section Through Lincoln

1:6000 scale

56th and Yankee Hill exurbs

new

The population density here is about 290 people per square mile.

Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s nine times less than the population density of Colonial Hills!

Homes here range 5,000-10,000 sq. ft., and can the value of the property and home can easily hit one million dollars. The size of the lots range between 150,000 and 200,000 sq ft (3.4-6.2 acres).

Walking anywhere becomes increasingly difficult and commutes can become extremely long.

Developments such as this clearly shows how much land is being consumed by sprawl. Since 1980 suburban population has grown 10 times faster than urban population (williams, 11). Lancaster Countyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s comprehensive plan will displace nearly 142,000 acres of farmland by the year 2060 (not including rural land). Nationwide there was loss of 13,773,400 acres in farmland between 1982 and 2007, with a total loss including agricultural and rural land of 41,324,800, acres.17

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50,000 acres

Yes, there is a house back there 40,000 acres

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50 year Ag-land consumption

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Lincoln/Lancaster County Comprehensive Plan total ag-land consumed : 142,160 acres

10,000 acres

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Left: diagram showing consumption of agricultural land surrounding Lincoln if the three tiered LPlan 2040 is adhered to.

Source: http://www.lincoln.ne.gov/city/plan/lplan2040/plan/document/Amended/vision.pdf The Suburbs and the Suburban House : A Section Through Lincoln / Urban Form Typology / 43

Fallbrook

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Village Gardens

Fallbrook and Village Gardens suburbs

Located far north and south, respectively, Fallbrook and Village Gardens are two recent New Urbanist neighborhoods. There many differences in these neighborhoods compared to the others we have looked at, but they are ironically most similar to the first case study, the Near South. The most apparent difference to traditional suburban neighborhoods is how close the houses are with one another, and yards are considerably smaller. There are no fences or large backyards with towering vegetation. The goal is to make communities more social by increasing the potential for human interaction to occur. As an additional result, the density a neighborhood can increases slightly.

suburbs

exurbs

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Fallbrook

The automobile is not the primary consideration anymore. Garages are at the backside of the home. The alley is making a comeback.

The relocation of the attached garage to the rear of the home changes the dynamic of social spaces. The front porch rises from the dead and becomes a prominent people gathering element once again. Each development has a â&#x20AC;&#x153;town center,â&#x20AC;? with shops, business, and community amenities. The layout of the streets becomes increasingly clear without cul-de-sacs. Walking is promoted through the trails and wide sidewalks and green nature buffers along the main boulevard.

The verdict is still out on wether or not New Urbanism will effectively combat sprawl, or just make suburbs more bearable to live in. Its a step in the right direction regardless of how effective it is at the former. Opponents claim that New Urbanismâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s critique of suburbia brings about other problems such as increased bus traffic and pollution due to higher densities, along with a worse crime rate than that of less dense communities.18

Village Garden, eclectic mix of houses

Examining Lincoln through a section cut gives a great time line of the development of the urban and suburban fabric, the place where people live, work, and play.

The Suburbs and the Suburban House : A Section Through Lincoln / Urban Form Typology / 45

References: 1. Bruegmann, Robert. Sprawl: A Compact History. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2005.

2. Fishman, Robert. “Beyond Sprawl: The New American Metropolis.” In Mitten am Rand: auf der Weg von der Vorstadt ueber die Zwischenstadt zu den regionalen Stadtlandschaft [In the Middle of the Edge: From the Suburb to Sprawl to the Regional City], by Lars Boeiling and Thomas Sieverts, 138-161. Wuppertal, Germany: Mueller and Busmann, 2004.

3. Tacheva, Galina. Sprawl Repair Manual. Island Press, 2010.

4. Sanchez, Arhur C. Nelson and Thomas W. “Exurban and Surban Households: A Departure from Traditional Location Theory?” Journal of Housing Research (Fannie Mae Foundation) 8, no. 2 (1997): 249-271.

5. Bruegmann, p. 24-25.

6. Daniel K. Slone, Doris S. Goldstein. A Legal Guide to Urban and Sustainable Development for Planners, Developers and Architects. John Wiley & Sons, 2008.

7. Laukatis, Algis J. “Endangered Salt Creek tiger beetle gets extra protection.”

Lincoln Journal Star, April 7, 2010: 1.

8. City of Lincoln. 2000 Census Tract Information. n.d. http://lincoln.ne.gov/ city/plan/databank/tract/ (accessed November 15, 2012).

9. Enersen, Julie. “The Country Club of Lincoln.” Country Club Neighborhood Association Chronicle, Fall 2003: 1-2.

10. lbid., p. 2.

11. Woods II, F Pace. Keeping the Pace: The white Line Street Cars. April 8, 2009. http://blog.woodsbros.com/2009/04/08/keeping-the-pace-the-whiteline-street-cars/ (accessed November 18, 2012).

12. Williams, Donald C. Urban Sprawl. Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio, 2000.

13. lbid., p. 4.

14. Enersen, Julie. “The Mark Woods House.” Country Club Neighborhood Association Chronicle, Fall 2002: 1-2.

15. Williams, p.10.

16. lbid., p.10.

17. Morril, Jennifer. America Has Lost . April 27, 2012. http://www.farmland. org/news/pressreleases/America-Has-Lost-23-million-acres-of-farmland. asp (accessed November 18, 2012).

18. Williams, p.11.

Nebraska State Historical Society. “Maps.” Research. 2009. http://www. nebraskahistory.org/lib-arch/research/public/maps/Lincoln_1924.pdf (accessed November 19, 2012).

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The Suburbs and the Suburban House : A Section Through Lincoln / Urban Form Typology / 47

Sub-Urban Storage Daniel Scott M.Arch

Image 1: Parking in urban Lincoln

This paper will examine how the introduction of the automobile created an item no longer a toy of the upper class but an indispensable tool of everyday life. This transition begins a creation of an automobile dependent American society that changed the landscape forever. Construction of urban parking garages and residential units has changed the way we care for a car when in daily now use. Introduction of the automobile changed downtown core from to single use parking structures to multiuse structures, with similar change in residential locations from carriage house transformation into garages, carports and the attached garage in the 1940’s. As the urban network grows, in the urban core and suburban ring, vehicle storage is ever increasing and creating architectural opportunities in the way we interact with the storage units for the American way of life.

In the last century the standard form of personal transportation within the human environment has caused dramatic alterations in all aspects of personal interaction within the built infrastructure. From the dependency of a living animal to self contained personal motor vehicle, the advancement from horses drawn to gasoline-propelled modes of transport in itself did not ignite change, but the way our forms of transport are stored while in non-use is most evident. A city once required large stable complexes for needed requirements of housing horses and in personal residence, carriage houses.

Mechanization has created an American society integrated with the importance of a personal automobile. This personal need has changed our cityscapes from horse drawn carriage to the automobile.

With this fundamental change our cities have adjusted our forms of non-use storage. This alteration in storage facilities has affected both the urban core along with the personal domain of the residential network. While each has changed with the times the general idea has remained the same, requirement for storage is necessary in all aspects of our daily lives.

society. By the 1920’s the car had a dominant presence on the city streets. At the end of the 1920’s one in five American’s owned a car, and eighty percent of cars produced in the world were concentrated in the United States3, With these societal changes in moods of transportation, the urban landscape changed. With the needed increase of parking space, the use of land as parking increased.

With the morning hours comes an influx of individuals from the out laying suburbs into the dense urban core, commuters leave their personal residence and arrive in the city center, to places of employment. Upon arriving, three parking options dominate the urban core for the placement of the vehicle while attending daily needs: on street parking, surfaced lots, and multi-story parking structures. With each, respectively, the number of maximum capacity increases.

While a city offers variety of parking, each offers a different purpose.

Street parking offers two types, parallel and angled both of which offer quick short term parking for the use of commercial actives in At the founding of Lincoln, horse dominated the streets of the city, as local restaurant and stores. After the street, the surfaced lot offers the twentieth century started; the process began with cars replacing for longer storage but limited quantities. Meeting the need for more the horse. The greatest advantage to bringing the automobile to the storage space and acting in the same aspects as the lot, the multimasses was on October 22, 1903 when the Association of Licensed level parking structures offer cities the need for larger amounts of Automobile Manufacturers (ALAM) filled lawsuit against The parking spaces in a smaller site. The proximity to amenities has Ford Motor Company for infringement rights on the patent of the created a pattern of parking development, on the premature of the automobile held by ALAM1. The following eight years would play urban core, surfaced lots offer the same purpose as the parking garage but at smaller capacity quantities. Where the spatial footprint out in the American legal system and court of public opinion, until on January 9, 1911 a panel of federal judges ruled that the idea of of the lot versus the parking structure is the same the vertical occupation creates a different urban composition. The need for the automobile was not owned by one person or company and Ford was not infringing upon ALAM’s patent rights, Ford could now larger amount of parking in the city core, the only opportunity mass-produce the car2. The age of every man had arrived; the Model is to build up. Looking at figure 1 the location of vertical parking A would start the transformation of a vehicle dependent American Figure 1: Lincoln figure-ground with multi-level parking structures in blue.

50 \ Urban Form Typology \ Sub-Urban Storage

Sub-Urban Storage / Urban Form Typology / 51

structures in the City of Lincoln, the placement of the structure is to be expected, near places of employment that require large amounts of workers and therefore numerous parking spaces. While in comparison to the University of Nebraska, parking structures serving the university are located on the peripheral. This may seem out of place but this corresponded to location of student housing, where the vehicle is placed in a parking stall for long term storage.

In 1918 the first parking garage was built in West Loop of Chicago by the firm Holabird and Roche for the Hotel La Salle4 and was used in daily operation until 2005 when the garage was demolished. After the completion of the first garage a cartoon was published stating we have constructed â&#x20AC;&#x153;a hotel for carsâ&#x20AC;?5. Soon multi-level parking structures would become commonplace in the downtowns of the American city. Currently the city of Lincoln has 5,118 parking stalls in multilevel parking structures6, while the University of Nebraska offer 4,4407 stalls in multilevel parking structures Recently a change in architecture design has changed for parking structures. One example of this fundamental change is the Larson Building (image 2). While the bottom level allows for the renting of commercial space the middle levels acts as the parking structure and the top levels are rented for residential purposes. This allows for the structure to have a 24-hour use instead of a regular business day.

Following the start of the Great Recession in 2008, many architectural structures were scraped or placed on hold until the economic climate changed. During this time the pattern of urban parking garages adapted. The typical parking structure requires a large percentage of capital to become a reality with each space representing a cost of around $25,0008. If one looks at the Haymarket Garage on 848 Q Street (image 3) offering 409 parking stalls and a construction cost of $5,000,0009. Functioning solely as vehicle storage as the only retail space has been empty. The Haymarket Garage, as in many American Cities, offers a location for storage of an object used for short travel distance and spending the majority of its useful life in non-use. Cities have been required to provide large structures for this sole purpose with no other objective than storage.

This has changed as architects have introduced new typologies for the parking garage.

Multi-level structural parking has recently changed, into a programmable space to include parking, residence, and commercial space. The advancement toward a multiuse parking structure seems new but is not. Cities such as New York, Chicago, Dallas and Los Angeles have built larger more advanced parking structures than the Larson Building. While the Larson Building and Garage has recently created a desire for more of this type of structure the idea has been seen in Lincoln before. One of the first garages in Lincoln

Image 3: Haymarket Parking Garage

Image 2: Larson Building and Garage 52 \ Urban Form Typology \ Sub-Urban Storage

Image 4: Haymarket Parking Garage

Image 5: Site of UNL future multi-use parking structure

Image 6:Rendering of future UNL parking and housing structure(UNL Parking )

Nebraska was the Rampark Parking Garage on 12th and P Street (image 1 and 4). This took a model of garage on top and retail on the ground floor. One of the main reasons for this garages unique development is the investment by a private company with profit as a driving force, where the city of Lincolnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s planning goals seemed more of providing a service with little thought or questioning. With this model of building the city of Lincoln would follow development for several years of single use parking structures, with most being built within close proximity to each other and on major entrances to the cities core (figure 1). With the economic issues facing many cities, a source of income is the diversifying of income sources.

One answer has been the construction of multiuse structures.

Competition of the Larson Building and Garage in Lincoln the city added 533 parking stalls, 17,000 square feet of retail, 52 apartments, and a green roof at a cost of 31 million dollars10. Acceptance of this typology by the general public has created a successful ideology on how to incorporate multi use development seen in cities, such as New York and Chicago for decades, into other smaller urban centers.

With the success of the Larson Building and Garage, the University of Nebraska as announced the building of a new multi-use living and parking structure on campus (image 5 and 6). If there is any question about the economic and planning success of the Larson Building in the Lincoln urban network one only has to look at the recent press release by the University of Nebraska and its construction of its own multi purpose parking and living structure. As this parking structure type takes the place of the old style the building becomes operable the whole day and not as a storage facility.

owners offers the service sector. The usage of the parking in the city has different usage patterns; the main use is from regular business day, with occasional usage during special activates, such as a football game or a concert. No matter the purpose for using the downtown parking at the end of the planned event the user and the car leave the city and make their way to the suburbs dotting the outer rings of the city. Parking patterns in suburban America reflect the patterns of the city center. While the downtown offers street, lot, and garage the suburbs also offer street, lot, and garage all on a smaller scale but surviving the same purpose. In the downtown the street offers the smallest amount of parking and parking structures the largest, but this scale changes when in personal use and not for the masses.

Parking in the cities urban core allow for the economic activates necessary for the livelihood of a city. The street parking offers economical exchange of physical commodities, while the surface lot and multi-level parking structure offer storage of vehicles while their

With the innovation of the automobile as an everyday personal transportation mode the street became more than a circulation route. While used before the car for carriage movement the street became household, street design began to increase. Within America the requirements for fire codes required wider streets than European cities11, this allowed for an ease of transformation of the road into a multi use circulation option. The street allowed for vehicle circulation and vehicle storage on both sides. On street parking is commonplace through older neighborhoods where driveways and garages are limited. This can be seen in areas surrendering the University of Nebraska campus and downtown Lincoln, such as the North Bottoms area. As the city grew new neighborhood areas began to provide personal parking structures, either carports or a garage.

Construction of new homes almost always have an attached garage, this has not always been common. Before the car became a normal household item, the wealthier areas of a city, such as the Country Club area of Lincoln, had houses with detached carriage houses (image 7). This outbuilding would offer an area for storage of the Sub-Urban Storage / Urban Form Typology / 53

carriage, a stable for one or two horses and living quarters for the stable staff. As the horse and carriage left the city and replaced by the automobile the transformation of carriage house into garage space took place. Introduction of the car into the American life was a luxury only accessible by the wealthiest of the population12. As these portions of the population begin to remove the horse and carriage from daily use they transformed the carriage house into the stable equivalent for the car. The personal garage was born. The birth of the garage from the carriage house created a building trend that would last for the first half of the 20th century13. With the introduction of the Model A the Ford Motor company created an item no longer a toy of the upper class but an indispensable tool of everyday life. Within the country carriage house were being turned into garages, and personal sheds were having additions added to create new storage space for the new automobile. As the car became a part of day-to-day life, detached garages remained the building trend with quick success of the mail ordered houses.

Image 7: Carriage House in country club area of Lincoln

The only adaptation in vehicle storage between its introduction and the detached garage was the design of a carport. In 1909 the Sloan House in Elmhurst, Illinois designed by architect Burley Griffin introduced the idea of the carport to the Prairie School style created

by Frank Lloyd Wright14. Wright would support the idea of the carport and use the idea in his Usonian homes of the mid 1930’s in Madison, Wisconsin and had this correspondence with Usonian client, Herbert Jacobs.

“A car is not a horse, and it doesn’t need a barn. Cars are built well enough now so that they do not require elaborate shelter.”

Where Herbert Jacobs replied.

“Our cheap second-hand car had stood out all winter at the curb, often in weather far below zero. A carport was a downright luxury for it.” 15 Carriage house, carports, and detached garages would remain the standard American model until 1941. The first know publication of a attached garage to the residence was in the 1941 publication of Country Living Magazine, where a plane was published that removed the garage from the back of the residential lot to being connected directly to the residence. This idea would become full scale American practice after World War Two with the construction of suburban neighborhoods changing form the detached carriage house model to attached garages accessible from within the house.

This model of house construction has continued till present. The early model of attached garage allowed for a simple one-car stall until the 1950’s with the introduction of two car stalls (image 8). In the Fallbrook neighborhood of Lincoln Nebraska a design decision 54 \ Urban Form Typology \ Sub-Urban Storage

Image 8: attached garage in modern suburban Fallbrook, Lincoln

Image 9: access to personal garage placed in alley behind house, Fallbrook

Image 10: Apartment lot parking, Links, Lincoln

Image 11: Multi-family housing

has been made to remove the garage from the front of the house and placing it in the back with an alley offering access to the garage. This has design features reminiscent of the carriage house of the late 19th and early 20th century (image 9).

As the idea of an American Dream portrays that of a single-family home with an attached garage (image 11) the need for parking will only increase as the city’s population increases. With the feeling to design parking lots for Wal-Marts, shopping malls to fit the capacity of shoppers on Black Friday while sitting empty the rest of the year. The idea of designing a place for short-term storage of an object spent mostly in storage is an idea requiring change. As the population begins to in fill the areas between the city center and the outskirts the need for parking will only continue to grow, allowing for interesting analysis seeing how the municipality reacts, if the city increase vehicle storage units or requires people to find other means of storage or abandoned the car for other modes of transportation.

As urban fabric of a city increased the diversity of housing stock evolved with the time, once it was only typical to find apartment complexes within the urban center, now it would be difficult to find a suburban area with them. This changed as large amounts of the population moved to the outskirts of the city. With the construction of medium to high-density housing, requirements for dense parking followed. As the apartments were built the method for parking as a lot is required (image 10). Street and garage parking would not meet the dense requirements or the space needed to meet the new dense housing, normally built around single-family neighborhoods.

Apartment complexes offer surface lot parking for the largest portions and garage as an added on amenity. As this model of apartment building meets the requirements for parking demand the model is likely to continue the pattern.

After World War Two major changes of vehicle storage changed.

Before the war cars parked on the street or in detached or converted garages. When the war ended new demands were being felt in the construction process. As the United States experienced a period of fast economic gain this new wealth in the American household was spent on new homes and normally two vehicles. With this new way of life the construction method of the house changed. Now homes with two stall garages and driveways were built for the simple storage of an object used manually but requiring large amounts of storage space. Parking has become an expectation, always within easy access, as much as seventy-five to eighty percent of urban land is paved16, either for circulation or parking. This statistic is an astonishing figure that shows the importance of the automobile in the American culture.

References: 1. The New York Times “Motor Car Patents Upheld by Court”, September 16, 1909 2. The New York Times “Won’t Contest Decision”, January 13, 1911 3. Jump‐cut Urbanism: Cinema, the Automobile, and the New Code of Urban Perception pg 79.

4. A Brief History of Parking: The Life and After-Life of Paving the Planet 5. Daniel Luttazzi Lepidezzi, Lepidezze postribolari (2007, Feltrinelli, p 275) 6. www.parkandgo.com 7. www.parking.unl.edu/about-us 8. Peter Hind, Site Context Class, March 2009 9. www.sinclarehille.com 10. www.journalstar.com 11. Jump‐cut Urbanism: Cinema, the Automobile, and the New Code of Urban Perception 12. Jump‐cut Urbanism: Cinema, the Automobile, and the New Code of Urban Perception Pg. 77 13. Country Living Magazine, 1941 14. Martin Wachs and Margaret Crawford. The Car and the City: The Automobile, the Built Environment and Daily Urban Life. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991: 106–123.

15. The Jacobs House by Frank Lloyd Wright, 1936 16. Jump‐cut Urbanism: Cinema, the Automobile, and the New Code of Urban Perception pg. 76 Sub-Urban Storage / Urban Form Typology / 55

A Trip to the Mall Parking vs. Pedestrian Brian Bernt M.CRP

Superior Crossings, Lincoln NE

The current status of the suburban shopping mall parking condition consumes excessive amounts of our landscape with asphalts expanses. The problem with current parking lot design is the integration of pedestrian and auto traffic; provided are some examples proposed to give these currently used spaces a facelift to address some of the walkability issues in effect today. Additionally, present a couple of alternatives currently proposed by some developers in retrofitting the existing malls with vertical and underground parking structures which is currently consumed by horizontal surface lots suggesting this type of design to a development currently underway in Lincoln.

Parking is a convenience advantage of the shopping center over urban/downtown commercial areas by providing suburban closeness. In spite of this, the shopper may not always find the parking space they want. The shopper wants a space they can find easily, with a minimum of difficulty in moving around the parking area, and one which is located near the store or store group in which they are going to shop. Parking in the shopping center is seen by the shopper as a series of steps: maneuvering the car around the lot until they find a space, getting the car into the space, walking from the space to the stores. Once the shopper has safely maneuvered their car into the best available space, they have only to walk to the stores.

However, the current sprawling parking lots of suburban malls have a tendency to make this step the most difficult. Seemingly, a retro philosophy from the birth of shopping malls called the cult of autocrats; as originally noted by Victor Gruen â&#x20AC;&#x153;the pedestrian remains the largest single obstacle to fee traffic movement,

Superior Crossings, Lincoln NE 58 \ Urban Form Typology \ A Trip to the Mall

everything must be done to facilitate and increase the flow of automobile traffic.â&#x20AC;?1 Some parking spaces are not economically used, due to their distant location from the stores. The poorly located spaces would be used more frequently if they were more conveniently located. The limit on parking area is for the most part determined by the distance people have to walk to get from their cars to the stores. In a shopping mall which offers only an uncomfortable walk what is the limit people can reasonably be expected to walk?

On the other hand, the mall can offer the shopper something other than a sea of unused asphalt, a potentially dangerous walk to the stores and pleasantly designed public areas in the same amount, or less, space increasing the likelihood of success into the future.

Developers build parking lots to accommodate the anticipated crowd of customers on the busiest shopping day of the year, the day after Thanksgiving, Black Friday. The quantity of parking space

is measured in two ways. The older method of calculation is to compare the total area devoted to parking with the net retail area of the stores using a 3:1 ratio. By this method, if 50,000 square feet of floor space is devoted to retailing, then 150,000 square feet to parking area. A more recently used measure is to compute the number of parking spaces per 1,000 square feet of store space. If we assume that each space takes up a total of 300 square feet of parking lot area (including aisles, landscaping, etc.) then 3.3 cars can be parked for each 1,000 square feet of parking area. By the old method, a ratio of 3:1 meant that there were three square feet of parking for every square foot of retail space. So, for 1,000 square feet of retail space there would be 3,000 square feet of parking.2 However, the annual increase of larger masses of shoppers on Black Friday have required parking demand ratios, city codes and retail-driven standards to evolve newly developed standards. Shopping malls, directed by anchor stores, typically specify one parking space for

Target, Lincoln NE

every 225 square feet or 4.5 spaces per 1,000 square feet of gross leasable area.3 The city of Lincoln uses a calculated method based on the square footage of the commercial development. Based on the city zoning ordinances a suburban mall would a B-5 Planned Regional Business District. The parking requirement for zone B-5 is 4.5 spaces per 1,000 square feet of leasable area.4

The amount of creativity, energy and planning that goes into the design of these parking places, especially compared to other elements of the built environment, is hardly visible. Yet, in terms of their visual impact, their land usage, or any other measure, there is almost no other place of the public environment that people experience more in their daily lives.5 The parking lot is often overlooked as a critical place that facilitates the transition between two modes of transportation. Smart parking lot design will consider the experience of drivers and pedestrians as well as complement the use of the building it serves by creating a shared space that is safe, functional, and attractive.6 Seldom are mall development projects found with fully integrated parking lots as part of their overall design scheme. Parking lots seem an afterthought of the design even though most people drive to and enter a shopping mall through the lot.

However, these vast expanses of asphalt are indeed the gateway by which a first and last impression of the shopping mall is made. Yet everyday thousands of mall shoppers arrive at their destination by car, enter a typically bare and monotonous asphalted lot, park their cars and struggled to find a safe walking route.7 Most pedestrians in a parking lot rarely look for traffic, as it is the driversâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; responsibility to look for them, pedestrians always have the right-of -way. The electronic world we live in is seen in suburban parking lots where usually someone is strolling while talking on a phone, texting with their head down or a child playing a video game. Circulation of automobiles and pedestrians should be simple and safe. Parking lots should offer direct and easy access for people walking between their A Trip to the Mall / Urban Form Typology / 59

vehicle and the building entrances.8 But, suburban mall storefronts have no setback as do city streets to protect the entering and exiting flow of shoppers from the traffic flow. Seemingly, the developers of the current parking lot were only concerned with traffic flow entering the mall and creating enough spaces to accommodate the cars, but left walking safely to the stores at the pedestrians own risk. In what appears to be an afterthought, a series of speed bumps and stops signs clutter the thoroughfares of the lot to protect the pedestrian. These obstacles only cause frustration and clutter to flow of both driving and walking.

Currently, some malls have recognized the pedestrian safety issue and are redesigning their current layout to promote pedestrian

Target, Lincoln NE

Superior Crossings, Lincoln NE 60 \ Urban Form Typology \ A Trip to the Mall

traffic separation. By using the same surface lot but restructuring the layout corridors for pedestrian aisles can be incorporated in the rows of cars see figures 1, 2 and 3 below.9 This approach, while on the surface seems to be a step in the right direction, assumes people will follow the painted guidelines leaving an aisle in the middle for pedestrian flow. Also, these aisles could be intimating to pedestrians as no a physical buffer exists between them and the parking car. A better alternative is creating a physical raised sidewalk between the parking rows. This approach would create a curb for cars to park against and stop prior to obstructing the walkway or striking a pedestrian. By creating a physical buffer between the cars people will be more likely to use them and stay out of the roadway aisles. These sidewalks then lead to marked crosswalks and cart corrals for added convenience.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3 Target, Lincoln NE A Trip to the Mall / Urban Form Typology / 61

Gateway Mall, Lincoln NE

Multi-story parking garages because of the relatively high cost per parking space are not usually recommended by shopping center developers, except where the amount of land is limited and its cost per square foot is high. For shopping center purposes the structure itself needs to be a self-service parking garage, and this fact raises some problems of design in a multi-level garage, particularly in the size of the spaces and aisles on each floor, and the width and design of the ramps leading to the floors. However, a mall with an enclosed structure would be able to boast that no shopper need walk a shorter from their parked car without being under some cover. Covered walkways for shoppers can be an important feature, especially where the parking is spread out considerably, and the weather often inclement. In Lincoln, one multi-level parking structure in the Gateway Mall has elevated walkways to connect to the stores.

Ellen Dunham-Jones in a video lecture Retrofitting Suburbia addresses what she terms as “underperforming asphalt” and gives some examples of re-habilitating abandoned malls with other

Gateway Mall, Lincoln NE 62 \ Urban Form Typology \ A Trip to the Mall

alternatives.10 Recently, Selig Enterprises a developer for Walmart has somewhat adopted some of her principles in two of their newly proposed developments. The first development will place a new store in an abandoned mall located in Decatur, GA.11 This store would be designed by using the abandoned “big box” store building for the store and then reducing the parking lot footprint with a raised garage. All of the unused asphalt lot would then be re-habilitated with greenspace. The walls of the parking structure are proposed to display public art. The new design is encouraging the creation of a Suburban Plaza to community engagement in the area. Another development plan by the same group is proposing the use of underground parking structure as part of the same re-development.12 This alternative would include two underground facilities to increase pedestrian safety and reduce the asphalt footprint. Both alternatives display characteristics of change in the design of suburban mall parking and the sea of asphalt in the current condition representing real estate in transition as a vehicle of change rather than a change for the vehicle. The new Walmart development in Lincoln, located at 27th and Yankee Hill streets, would have been a favorable site for the compact design provided for the Decatur, Ga. development.

Given the site was previously undeveloped and concave landscape, a vertical or underground design structure design alternative would have been a sign of forward planning over the current horizontal lot in progress. Provided this alternative cost more to develop initially, the reduction in site footprint could allow for development of community use space possibly neutralizing some of the controversy with new store location.

Although the building codes for parking in suburban malls do not dictate the vast expanses of asphalt creating the statement which seems to hold true for parking facilities at shopping centers: there seems to be no record of any parking facility having too large a capacity for the suburban shopping center. Parking standards of the past have been devoted to addressing supply and demand

with design standards limited to stall dimensions and geometry.

The resulting shopping mall lots are oversized with little attention paid to the impact on the pedestrian experience. Planners and architects are now realizing the dangers inherent to pedestrians in the current parking condition and the vast waste of natural resources in the asphalt expanses. The time for horizontal expansion is now ending and vertical expansion of the spaces now enters into design features. The predominance in design for the automobile is now making way for public concern in the direction of walkability in our environment. The natural landscape should be part of the design integrated with the life of the community as a place used for cars but also encouraging the idea of using the parking lot as an urban plaza, a pleasant place to visit and coexist with cars.13

References:

New Walmart Development, Lincoln NE

1. Gruen, Victor. Save Urbia for the New Urbanities. AIA Journal, 1960. pg 36.

2. Wolf, C. Morton. Site Design, Parking and Zoning for Shopping Centers.

American Society of Planning Officials. Information Report No. 59. January 1959.

3. Ben-Joseph, Eran. Rethinking a Lot: The Design and Culture of Parking.

Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012. pg 16.

4. City of Lincoln, NE Zoning Ordinance. Available at: http://lincoln.ne.gov/ city/attorn/lmc/27/ch2767.pdf.

5. Groth, Paul. Parking Gardens: The Meaning of Gardens. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990. pg 130.

6. Stark, John A.. Parking Lot Ballet: The Intersection of Pedestrians and Automobiles. The New Planner: http://www.planning.org/thenewplanner/2012/ fall/parkinglotballet.htm. Posted: Fall 2012 7. Ibid., 101.

8. Steiner, Frederick and Butler, Kent. Wiley Graphic Standards, Student Edition: Planning and Urban Design Standards. Hoboken, NJ: American Planning Association, 2007. pg 166.

9. Ibid.

10. Dunham-Jones, Ellen. Retrofitting suburbia. Available at: http://www.ted. com/talks/ellen_dunham_jones_retrofitting_suburbia.html. Posted: June 2010.

11. Ellis, Ralph. Suburban Plaza to include Community Kiosks, Walls for Public Art. Available at: http://decatur.patch.com/articles/suburban-plaza-to-includecommunity-kiosks-walls-for-public-art. Posted: August 2012.

12. Wheatley, Thomas. Revised Suburban Plaza plans released; now includes two underground parking lots. Available at: http://clatl.com/freshloaf/ archives/2012/06/04/revised-suburban-plaza-walmart-plans-released-nowincludes-two-underground-parking-lots. Posted: June 2012.

13. Miller, Catherine. Carscape: A Parking Handbook. Columbus, IN: IrwinSweeney-Miller Foundation, Washington Street Press, 1988. pg 88

Revised Suburban Plaza, Decatur, GA A Trip to the Mall / Urban Form Typology / 63

Commercial Stretch Corey Hess M.Arch

Image 1: View down the one mile stretch of strip malls.

The recent trend in our evolving society, showing the incorporation of the automobile as personal transportation, has not only contributed to increasing suburban sprawl, but is also splintering us into insular factions. The idea of our society as a community amalgamated with culture is dwindling.

As Americans race to inhabit larger portions of land, living in the shelter of their private homes and smaller collective communities, the automobile has separated the marketplace, once the center of community, and spread commercial development along an infrastructure built for cars. We have applauded the automobile for its personal convenience, and the effects are starting to be recognized as society evolves.

Architecture has been removed and replaced by “boxes or ‘buildings without qualities’ that proliferate along American freeways and feeder roads as if generated by the same mathematical DNA that engineered the arterial infrastructure itself. This new building logic, like a virus jumping the species barrier, generates not buildings at all but pure generic infrastructures. At once uncommitted and totally flexible they re-conform like a floating currency to any temporary use: from storage facilities to doctor’s offices, insurance headquarters or car showrooms.”1 Comparatively, the open air mall has built an infrastructure around the pedestrian, reinvigorating the sense of community and culture in society. The idea of the “Main Street” as a representation of the typical American community is represented in a shopping typology as a pedestrian mall. America, however, is no longer built around Main Street as conceived by most people. Rather, in modern communities, the commercial centers are arterial roads with big box stores and strip malls, a typology that has evolved as the American landscape has become oriented around automobiles, requiring wider roads, larger parking lots, and a generally larger scale of development. In recent years there has also been a surge of outdoor malls and “town center” style developments that have sought to capitalize on the external benefits of the Main Street condition, whereby closely-spaced stores and walkable streets increase revenue and property values while reducing the amount of required parking.

In places like Omaha, Nebraska, where cars and trucks are the predominant mode of both personal and freight mobility, can we reconfigure the current auto-oriented growth patterns to permit some form of the Main Street condition while still meeting the needs of an auto-based transportation system?

66 \ Urban Form Typology \ Commercial Stretch

Omaha, the largest city in the state of Nebraska, is a growing city whose suburban infrastructure follows the sprawling DNA of your typical American suburb. Using this condition, we will frame a comparative analysis of the connectivity and walkability of two of Omaha’s nodal developments.

TYPOLOGY Strip Mall The Lakeside development is Omaha’s prime example of automobile designed shopping. The Lakeside development is located along the north side of a 1 mile stretch of highway and features over 500,000 square feet of office and retail space with the opportunity for housing another 70+ tenants.

The strip mall type is a small scale building, usually one story, set back from the street with a small to medium sized parking lot in front. The demand for parking spaces makes this a typical solution for many developments. However, as the amount of parking is often equal to or greater than the footprint of the building, this arrangement compromises the sense of a coherent street wall (the continual definition from the front facade of a building lining the street). From a pedestrian point of view, this vast expanse of parking creates an unpleasant experience. Merchants are unable to engage potential pedestrian consumers, as “window-shopping” would require customers to cross a broad parking lot.

Image 3: Figure/Ground comparison of a quarter mile stretch of the Lakeside development.

1/4 MILE

1/4 MILE

Image 2: Aerial view of a 1/4 mile stretch of the Lakeside development. Image courtesy of DP Management. www.dp-mgmt.com

Image 4: Figure/Ground comparison of a quarter mile stretch of the Village Pointe development.

Commercial Stretch / Urban Form Typology / 67

Image 5: The strip mall has few architectural details and little differentiation between units. It appears as one singular homogenized structure.

Image 6: The pedestrian mall employs a variety of architectural details and appears as if each unit was designed separately. Image courtesy of Village Pointe. www.villagepointeshopping.com

Architecturally, this development is a chaotic collection of many commercial developments. The disorganized appearance was partially the result of a zoning amendment turning agricultural fields into retail and commercial lands without specific design guidelines to advocate a more cohesive spatial quality. Thus, the Lakeside Development evolved under the pressures of economy and traffic demands. Lakeside is a one mile strip of vastness, interrupted by a floating collage of large neon signs and grounded by flat, anonymous boxes in a black sea of asphalt. In his book, “Learning from Las Vegas”, Robert Venturi termed these one story architecture “shed” and “duck”. A “shed” being a basic block-like form that serves no aesthetic functions other than to stand as a base for a sign. It is the “$10,000 building with the $100,000 sign.” The “duck”, on the other hand, is a building that itself is a sign. Venturi named the category after a Long Island roadside attraction shaped like a duck; it was a building that advertised itself. Most buildings on the Lakeside strip are “sheds”. Economics practicality steered strip malls to become flexible vessels for low-rent businesses. Change of tenant only requires new signage graphics; there are no architectural commitments required by the shed typology. The site plans of these developments always place the sheds as far back from the sidewalk as possible, giving adequate space for parking. Thus, store signs are too far for drivers to see from the street, giving rise to the freestanding sign. They stand like colorful totems on the edge of the street, taunting drivers to enter the shopping plaza. The dense display of freestanding signs, store signs, temporary “sales” signs, creates a light spectacle after dusk on the Lakeside Strip. Their supporting structures all disappear in the darkness of night, leaving brightly lit graphics floating in the vast sky. It is the pauper’s version of the Las Vegas strip; its similarity not in opulence but in visual abundance.

Pedestrian Mall

68 \ Urban Form Typology \ Commercial Stretch

Before the automobile flourished in our society, the pedestrian occupied the city street. The main artery branched out to smaller feeder streets sustaining the life of a community. Society centered on a dense cultured urban environment. Shops lined the pedestrian walkways and shop owners lived in apartments above. The city squares served as places of gathering for commercial, civic and recreational purposes. The people of the society engaged one another on a personal level. In the modern day suburban setting time normally spent in the physical public realm is now spent in the automobile, which is a private space as well as an antisocial apparatus, separating us from face to face interaction. The urban environment gives way to the suburban environment. A new society designed around the personal automobile. In the absence of walkable public places - streets, squares, and parks, the public realm - people of diverse ages, races, and beliefs are unlikely to meet and talk.

Society continues to become more individualized and secluded.

“Pedestrian life cannot exist in the absence of worthwhile destinations that are easily accessible on foot. This is a condition that modern suburbia fails to satisfy, since it strives to keep all commercial activity well separated from housing… There are three other significant factors to in the provision of successful pedestrian environments. First, the streets must not only be safe but also feel safe; second, the street space must be comfortable and third, the street must be interesting, as safety and comfort alone are not enough to get people out of their cars.”2

Image 7: The pedestrian mall offers safe and comfortable walkways with minimal vehicle traffic and landscaping. Image courtesy of Village Pointe shopping mall.

Image courtesy of Village Pointe. www.villagepointeshopping.com

Village Pointe opened in 2004 to much acclaim as an upscale lifestyle development designed in a “prairie style” concept distinctive to the Midwest. With an open-air lifestyle design replicating a nostalgic Main Street shopping district; Village Pointe shopping center allows vehicular access but creates a pedestrian environment. In creating a new “old downtown” feeling, the shopping experience allows consumers to seek a simpler lifestyle, one that emphasizes family, friends, and experiences. With a mix of promotional and specialty tenants, the center includes a wide array of national, regional and local merchants found along the Main Street. Featuring retail, entertainment and dining venues, this shopping center complements the thriving Omaha community.3 Village Pointe offers over 600,000 square feet of retail, dining and entertainment along a quarter mile long Main Street. It is home to over 60 proprietors including furniture, sporting goods and entertainment venues.

The pedestrian mall type is also a small scale building type but one that is more appropriate to scale. The stretch of service, shopping and entertainment is housed in a development reminiscent of a city’s main street, with on street or minimal parking in front. Pedestrian traffic is at the top of the traffic hierarchy, encouraging shoppers to interact amongst themselves and with the local merchants.

From an architectural standpoint, each shop has their own distinct design separating each shop from one another, yet fitting cohesively into a larger complex. Store interiors are more specifically designed to the relay the overall brand of the business inhabiting the space.

The pedestrian scale relieves the need of oversized neon signage and instead allows for more uniquely designed logos. The sidewalks are lined with trees and landscaping improving the comfort and walkability of the development.

Commercial Stretch / Urban Form Typology / 69

Image 8: The large expanse of parking and vehicular traffic make walking unsafe and uncomfortable. Walkability is low as development is designed for automobile.

INFRASTRUCTURE Strip Mall “Have you seen the two-hundred-foot-long billboards in the country beyond town? Did you know that once billboards were only twenty feet long? But cars started rushing by so quickly they had to stretch the advertising out so it would last.” – Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 The Lakeside development is made of a one mile stretch of highway with retail and service shops, restaurants and grocers on either side.

Because the development straddles a highway, zoning ordinances only allow for entrances every quarter mile.

Built for the scale of the American automobile, entrances to the malls are located at ¼ mile intervals or to put that at the pedestrian scale it measures roughly 4.5 blocks.

70 \ Urban Form Typology \ Commercial Stretch

Relationship of street to building “Throughout the world, but especially in North America, the trend is moving away from urban spaces tightly surrounded and defined by buildings and toward the proliferation of free-standing structures lost in space. Increasingly building ensembles no longer play a role in delimiting and embellishing small and valued spaces; rather seemingly unrelated structures are simulated in vast, amorphous open areas.”

The Lakeside development is zoned CC, known as Community Commercial District. The CC district is intended for commercial facilities which serve the needs of several neighborhoods. Allowed commercial and office uses are generally compatible with nearby residential areas. However, uses allowed in the CC district may generate more traffic and have more effect on residential neighborhoods than those allowed in the less intense LC district. Site development regulations are designed to minimize these effects. CC

Image 9: The distance between retail buildings in the Lakeside strip mall measure 320 feet across with 280 feet of automobile lanes and parking stalls. The Infrastructure is designed for the automobile and thus makes pedestrian travel unfavorable and can even be unsafe.

Image 10: In contrast to the strip mall, the Village Pointe pedestrian mall has a distance of 120 feet between retail buildings and, in this instance, only has 25 feet of vehicular traffic lanes to cross, making pedestrian traffic the focus and the development as a whole much more safe and walkable.

Commercial Stretch / Urban Form Typology / 71

Image 11: The Lakeside development is located directly off of a major highway with little to no pedestrian traffic. The development relies heavily on large signs visible from the street.

Image 12: Village Pointe has been designed at a human scale, encouraging more foot traffic and smaller signs. Merchants benefit from window shopping.

Image courtesy of Village Pointe. www.villagepointeshopping.com

districts usually require access from major streets, primarily minor and major arterials. CC districts are most appropriate at major street intersections, at the edge of residential areas or at the junction of several neighborhoods, and in other areas appropriate for welldeveloped commercial facilities. The CC district, combined with the MD major development overlay district, provides further thorough review of commercial projects that may be regional in scope. A conditional review process for large projects further assures high development standards for planned commercial facilities.

LC districts are most appropriate at intersections of collector and/or arterial streets at the edge of or in the core of residential neighborhoods, in planned commercial areas in newly developing residential areas, and in other locations where local commercial services are required.5

Lakeside Development has over 40 acres of paved parking lot separating the stores from the edge of the streets buffer zone by over 300 feet. The shops open to a 10 foot wide sidewalk that steps into tertiary traffic lanes surrounding the massive car parking lot.

This development malls are separated by 4 to 6 lanes of Highway (HWY 92). The lanes are 35 feet at the narrowest and 40 feet at it’s widest. The directional lanes are separated by an 18 foot median and have a 40 to 80 foot buffer separating the street from the mall parking lots. It is estimated that over 60,000 cars travel by through this stretch of Highway daily.

Pedestrian Mall The LC, or Limited Commercial District, is intended for neighborhood shopping facilities which serve the needs of residents of a surrounding residential community. Allowed commercial and office uses are generally compatible with nearby residential areas.

Site development regulations are designed to ensure compatibility in size, scale and site characteristics with a residential environment.

72 \ Urban Form Typology \ Commercial Stretch

Village point offers peripheral parking lots surrounding the main street shops. A single two lane road splits the complex with street side parking. The shops open up to large 24’ wide sidewalks with lush landscaping. The development incorporates a number of outdoor points of interest such as a communal hearth featuring a burning fire or an interesting sculpture, or even a small pavilion used for small outdoor concerts. The combination these points of interest layered upon safe comfortable pedestrian traffic enriches the entire shopping experience bringing the consumer to a more intimate scale where interaction within the community is encouraged.

References: 1. Kwinter, Sanford, Fabricuius, Daniela, The American City 2. Duany Andres, Suburban Nation, 64 3. http://www.villagepointeshopping.com/ 4. Ford, Larry, The Spaces between buildings, 24 5. Omaha, Nebraska, Code of Ordinances, Part II – Municipal Code, Chapter 55 – Zoning, ARTICLE VIII – COMMERCIAL DISTRICTS http://library. municode.com/

Commercial Stretch / Urban Form Typology / 73

The Great American Front Porch Chantal Bonner M.Arch

Image 1: McMansion, Omaha NE

The Beginnings By definition a porch is a covered entrance to a building, usually projecting from the wall and having a separate roof. The Front porch is useful for storage and as shade device from the elements, but in the United States, the porch is much more significant for being a semi-public living space. The word porch is derived from the Latin word portico, meaning, in classical Greek and Roman architecture, a walkway with a roof supported by columns, usually the front part of a colonnade. Another precursor to the porch can be seen in Ancient Greece and Rome in the veranda, a roof supported by columns around the perimeter of a courtyard. Also, public buildings in the Middle Ages and Renaissance Italy would often have a loggia, a shaded outdoor area, outside the entry open to pedestrians. As much as this feature has influenced the physical characteristics of the American house plan, none completely play the societal role as important as the prototypical American front porch has.1 In the 1600 and early 1700s, slaves were brought to the states and built their own homes of the traditional style of their origins. Since slave owners discourage any social cohesion, the homes were built separately rather than in compounds. Whether the home was built with or without a porch, the front door always opened directly to the road. This allowed the user to be simultaneously at home and in the public. This type of house was known as the shotgun house.2 Due to practicality reasons, the shotgun house spread from slaves communities to non-slave communities. The porch added a cooler indoor/outdoor extension to the living area of the home which added much need ventilation for the indoors. Freed and free-born slaves continued to build shotgun homes with porches creating porch-fronted communities and soon the style became less and less associated with slaves. In time, the way the African Americans used their porches as semi-public, community-enhancing spaces caught on among the general population as well, and other types of houses 76 \ Urban Form Typology \ The Great American Front Porch

1600s-1700s SHOTGUN HOUSE

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Abstract: The front porch is an American cultural icon. As an architecture feature dating back to many styles of other cultures, the way the front porch is used in the United States, in the social life of many Americans makes for a unique reflection of cultural and historical factors of this county. This paper will discuss the historical foundations and development of the American Front Porch while examining some of the aspects of American culture which explain and have contributed to the porch’s decline in popularity in the mid 20th century, and how the porch is making a return in domestic architecture through the development of the garage.

KITCHEN VERANDA KITCHEN

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formal living informal living support

Image 2: The front porch was integral part of Shotgun House and the Victorian House.

in the south began to be built with porches, but the idea that anyone was welcome on the porch did not completely catch on.3 The porch in mainstream society in the South became an interstitial space between home and public. A family could be at home, socialize with the public, keep watch on children, and meet uninvited guest. In this way, the cultural meaning of the front porch became a hybrid and middle ground between West African and European ideas about how outsiders should be treated in and around the family home.

In the mid-1800s, a number of diverse factors including the Industrial Revolution and the Transcendentalist movement led to the spread of the front porch’s popularity to other parts of the U.S. By the 1840s, industrialization had created a new large middle class.

For the first time, due to the greater efficiency of factory production, a significant number of people had leisure time at the end of a workday, allowing for family life to become a more significant part of typical American life. People suddenly had time and wanted a place in which to spend it, and the porch was the perfect space. At the same time, industrialization had allowed the price of building materials to fall to the point where more people could build bigger houses. The rise of the balloon-frame way of constructing a house also made it easier to build the complex porch structures that would fit with popular heavily ornamented Victorian building styles.4 Partly as a response to rapid and widespread industrialization, a cultural movement began that placed a high value on nature and, in particular, the American landscape. Suddenly it became not only desirable but fashionable to spend time outside. A landscape designer named Andrew Jackson Downing and an architect named Andrew Jackson Davis were popularizing the front garden in the various house plans and pattern books they created together and sold, and they proposed the front porch as the natural and

1800s

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X

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6’ X8’

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10’ X12’

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informal living support

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14’ X 14’

8’ X 8’

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10’ X12’

formal living

12’ X 8’

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17’ X 12’

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The affordability of the automobile also made remote suburbs without any need for public transportation possible. People now commuted long distances to work making traffic fairly constant.

One would now pass someone’s home by car rather than foot which resulted in less socially accessible neighborhoods. In the meantime, the detached garages were being built in the back of the home allowing for traditional service-orientated function in the back leaving the front untouched. The home floor plan also is un-affected in which the services areas such as the kitchen still remain at the rear of the home while the living area remains near the front yard. In essence the garage is the new stable house for the automobile.

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Image 3: The alley garage leave the American home floorplan untouched.

necessary bridge between the garden and the house as well as a place to observe and enjoy the garden. The porch became an everpresent feature on Victorian-era houses, and is now considered an integral part of the various Victorian house styles in America. In the Victorian home, living areas were always near the front porch with views to the garden while the service areas such as the mudroom were always toward the rear of the home closes to the exterior carriage house. The carriage house was basically a barn store horses and buggies while also containing workrooms.

Family Life The porch played an important role in the family life throughout the country. As an outdoor space attached to the house, the front porch allowed for families to easily transition from the inside to the outside for evening leisure time and simultaneously catch up on news within the neighborhood. More importantly, the porch allowed for a degree of supervision of children within the community. A child playing in the street was in view of the adults sitting on the porch, and the idea of looking out for another’s children was not a foreign idea.

Also, in the 1920s gardening became popular and families started to resort to the backyard rather than the front porch for leisure STREET time. Since the garage was placed in the backyard, the garage was beginning to feel out of place while the less popular porch GARAGE was decreasing in size. One solution to this problem was GARAGE to put great amount of effort into blending the garage within the garden.

Extreme examples of the garage as a garden feature can be seen in journal articles of the late 1910s and early 1920s. These schemes typically involved facing the garage front away from the house and toward an alley or rear-street to obscure the large, flat garage doors.5 -

GARAGE

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The porch also holds a unique social function as an interstitial space between the family home and the values associated with the outside community. This allowed for someone to express their own values that neighbors may not agree with while remaining within the protected zone of the family home.

The Decline The porch’s popularity was altogether short lived. By the 1930s, the building of houses with porches as well as using the existing porches was beginning to fall out of style, and by the end of the 1950s the porch was only an important part of everyday life in the South. A

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number of factors contributed to the 1940s-1980s decline with the popularity of1950s-1990s 1930s SPLIT RANCH STYLE HOUSE CAPE CODE COLONIAL REVIVAL RANCH STYLE the automobile being the most effective.

TheHOUSE car and the affordability of the car among the middle class change the way the street was used. On street parking became a necessity and many small community streets were widened to accommodate for automobile existence in the front of the house, meaning front yards had to decrease in size. This change made the front porch closer to the street near the noise, exhaust, and traffic. Suddenly the front porch was a less desirable place to spend leisure time and marks the change of societal values of the use of the American home.

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Image 4: The alley garage allowed for separation of pedestrians and vehicles with grouped houses even with attached garages.

The Great American Front Porch / Urban Form Typology / 77

While now attaching the garage to the family home made good sense among the general public, the placement of the garage within relation to the home was still not considered. The thought at the time was rather if one should attach the garage to the house while maintaining the dominance of the pedestrian entrance or to attach the garage as a tool to shield and privatize the backyard.

The Radburn community in New Jersey was one of the first newly developed suburbs to take pedestrian orientation into consideration.

Radburn is most recognized for the careful planning of the separation between pedestrians and the automobile, in which is achieved by isolating the pedestrian’s paths and vehicular roads.

Similar to the overall community plan, the floor plans of the Radburn homes have unique relationships between the front and back, and public and private. Each house basically has two front yards, four entrances, and only three rooms on the ground floor since the design accommodates for pedestrians on one side and

PEDESTRIAN

STREET

PEDESTRIAN Another solution to solve this problem the invention of the alley STREET entrance gave way to the personal driveway. The garage could now be seen from the street providing convenient access to the street while still being pedestrian friendly. The garage is now on the side of PEDESTRIAN the home still not directly affecting the family home floor plan.

By the late 1920s, while the garage is moving closer to the house, the television and air conditioning was making the porch less useful and the indoors more desirable. Suddenly the whole family wanted to be inside the air-conditioned living room watching television rather thanSTREET on their noisy porches. Finally in early the 1930s, the attached STREET garage had become a more excepted feature of the middle class. An article in the 1929 issue of Architectural Record notes the increasing tendency to attach the garage “as development that has followed the changed attitude toward the motor car…. When the public started to accepted the garage as a practice to express the house externally rather than seeing the garage as a stable it become a common popular practice.6

PEDESTRIAN Image 6: 1929, Radburn, New Jersey Partial plan

traffic on the other. In plan, Radburn is quite similar to the alleygarage configuration of the 1910s. The cul-de-sac is more or less an inverted service alley for the automobile, while the other side is preserved for the community. Even though the porch is on the decline, the front porch is included in the Radburn home almost as a last attempt to preserve and re-store the porch to the pre-automobile time.7 Shortly after the push for the Radburn homes, Architecture Record began to push the house to garage relationship by promoting the garage as the primary entrance to the home. The pedestrian entrance was left alone in the front by placing the garage in the back with a looping driveway. This concept allowed for the entire frontage for living space instead of backyard focused living spaces.

Allowing guests to enter through the kitchen or utility/support rooms was thought as undignified.8 This also point outs the obvious configurations in the suburban family home floor plan. In almost every floor plan, the garage is always next to the support spaces such as the kitchen, dining room, and laundry room, while the living ENTRANCE

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78 \ Urban Form Typology \ The Great American Front Porch

PORCH

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Image 5: 1920s, Example of Garages as a garden feature

ENTRANCE

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Image 7: 1929 Radburn Home, Porches faced pedestrian paths at the rear of the house, and garage access from the cul-de-sac reserved for the automobile.

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1.

2.

3.

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Image 8: Garage Arrangement at the rear make the entire frontage of home available for living rooms. Cars drive in & out, allowing one driveway to serve two garages.

PEDESTRIAN STREET

PEDESTRIAN Image 9:

STREET

1. Detached garage, similar to the stable for sanitation 2. Attached garage, only for convenience of entry 3. Attached in the house plan GARAGE garage , incorporated GARAGE GARAGE

STREET

spaces are always next to the yard.

Around the same time, the Small Homes Plan Bureau was proposing

the garage to be used as a wayPEDESTRIAN of shutting out the surround community and emphasizing the private garden. By putting the the kitchen, a living room orientated to the backyard, and two or garage closer to the street, a shield was created for noise and three bedrooms at the front or side of the house commonly known protection from the automobile. Children would now play in the as the ranch house. The construction of Post-World War II homes STREET STREET backyard and the living room now moves from the front of thePEDESTRIAN home set the pattern of suburban development for the next thirty years to to the back. Through architectural competitions and advice columns come. Up to this point, other than the home floor plan mirroring STREET in newspapers, the Small Homes Bureau and the Better Homes itself, one interesting change in the configuration is the location of in America Association, attempted to convince homebuyers and the laundry room which was once known as the mudroom. Since builders about the virtues of the porchless house which had living the garage has now moved from the rear of the lot to the front, the rooms facing the rear yard.9 laundry room is now squeezed between the garage and the rest of PEDESTRIAN

The backyard retreat mirrors the family home plan completely and has influential consequences in suburban life. No longer was spontaneous interaction encouraged in the fenced backyard like the former front yard. In theory, the thought of having the enclosed backyard was thought of a necessity to give a boundary for the garden area and to shut out the scenery of barren adjoining houses.

This trend is not merely just a reaction to the automobile but also a reflection of cultural values at the time. Safety from the automobile STREET was becoming a huge concern as the density of the suburbs increased and the push to keep children in the backyard was becoming a basic suburban ideology. The suburbs are now single family focused rather than community focused. Also this type of suburb allowed for segregation. If a visitor of the pre-automobile home was not welcomed inside, he or she was left standing on the porch. Postautomobile age, one is much less likely to have such a visitor because everyone is in the same socioeconomic background.10 Post World War II Eventually, the typical suburban house being designed with a garage built-in into home rather than attached was catching on, but it was not until after World War II when the concept truly caught on. In fact, the built garage became a standard feature. Now homeowners could go straight from their cars into the home without ever being outside on foot, meaning that there was truly no one to see or speak to from a front porch and the porch became a completely outdated notion. If there was a porch, it was decorative or in the rear. The typical post-war house plan included a garage with direct access to

the house.

STREET

PEDESTRIAN

Another unique instance of change came between the 1950s 1980s when neighborhoodsPEDESTRIAN called for narrower lots. This gave birth to the split level ranch home. The marketplace was making a lot of demands in the mid-1950s: more houses, bigger, and less monotonous. Developers answered with the original split-level, or three-level, home. The ranch was hacksawed somewhere near STREET PEDESTRIAN the middle, and â&#x20AC;&#x153;split.â&#x20AC;? Half of the house containing the garage and bedrooms were raised up a little bit. The other half containing the entry, living room, kitchen, and dining room were dropped

Image 10: 1990s, Highlands Neighborhood Lincoln NE, Split Level Home The Great American Front Porch / Urban Form Typology / 79

The Replacement of the Porch Although obvious, the garage’s main function up to this point is to accommodate the car, but overtime the garage has completely become just as much part of the house as the kitchen or living room.

In fact, the front garage has been significantly implemented into the suburban home even more than the front porch. By the previous mentioned definition of a porch, the garage could be considered the new front porch and even the new front door. The garage door in many cases is the closet door to the street and more often than ever the suburban family enters the home through the garage.

The increasing size of the garage is also a reflection of the importance the space is to today’s family. In fact, garage sizes have double and even triple post- World War II. The garage has become a reflection of a family’s wealth in which the higher a family’s income the bigger the garage. For example, the Family Acres neighborhood in Lincoln is a newer neighborhood with an average household income of $94,283. This neighborhood is frontloaded with double car garages and McMansion as oppose to the Bicentennial Estates neighborhood on 40th & A with an average household income of $47,544.11 This neighborhood is front loaded with snot nose single garage homes.

Image 11: 2012 , Lincoln NE, Bicentennial Estates.

80 \ Urban Form Typology \ The Great American Front Porch

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down a bit. In many cases the living room/kitchen had a basement underneath, and thus the new design had four distinct levels, but more importantly it later gave birth to the den also known as the family room. This room is directly connected to the garage and sometimes shares activities with the garage. This concept brings more interaction within the garage and the garage begins to take on a more performative space. With the garage being the closet to the street, families are beginning to interact once more with the front of the home.

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Image 12: The evolution of the great American front porch

Regardless the size, the time a family spends in the garage is unknown, but drive down a street in Lincoln on a nice day and one is bound to see a few people in their garage, feet propped up and chatting with passer-bys similar to the old-time porch. In frontgarage-loaded communities, the garage gives users the maximum exposure to the street and people walking by. In a way the garage can be thought of as a stage, as the big garage door rolls up and connects

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with the street, the space encourages interaction between neighbors and can act as a living room, entertainment room, or a business depending on the performance required. This speaks to how flexible the garage is and as the American family’s values may change and require more public community exposure the garage can allow this to happen. The garage is constantly transitioning in function within the home and the importance of the space should be embraced as an opportunity to act as the new American Front Porch.

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Image 13: Activities such as Garage Sales, make garages turn garages into a perfromative space.

References 1. Michael Dolan, The American Porch: An Informal History of an Informal Place, Lyons Press, 2002.

2. Scott Cook, “The Evolution of the American Front Porch,” online essay, http:// xroads.virginia.edu/~CLASS/AM483_97/projects/cook/first.htm 3. Jocelyn Hazelwood Donlon, Swinging In Place: Porch Life in Southern Culture, University of North Carolina Press, 2000.

4. Jocelyn Hazelwood Donlon, Swinging In Place: Porch Life in Southern Culture, University of North Carolina Press, 2000.

5. Jennings, Jan, Society for Commercial Archeology, and Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village. Roadside America: The Automobile in Design and Culture. 1st ed. Ames: Iowa State University for the Society for Commercial Archeology, 1990.

6. “Garages,” Architectural Record 65 (February, 1929);196 7. Louis Brownlow, “Some Problems in New Planning,” in Planning Problems of Town City and Region: Papers and Discussions at the Twenty-First National Conference on City Planning, Ma20-23, 1929 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1982), 156.

8. Kocher and Frey, “Planning the House Garage,” 52-55.

9. Theodore A. Koetzli, “Diversified use Seen in Garage,” Los Angeles Times, May 12, 1929, pt.4, 6.

10. Folke T. Kihlstedt, “The Automobile in the Transformation of the American House, 1910-1935,” Michigan Quarterly Review (Fall 1980):557.

11. http://www.city-data.com/nbmaps/neigh-Lincoln-Nebraska.html

The Great American Front Porch / Urban Form Typology / 81

SPACE:

BY AUTOMOBILE Ryan McDermott M.Arch

Image 1: Vehicular Influence

The separation between different developments and varying zoning districts is a product of vehicular influence. The prevailing trend has been a growing disconnection and fragmentation between land uses. Different types of land use such as residential and commercial are often incompatible with each other as adjacencies. This incompatibility is a result of residences high susceptibility to noise and congestion externalities. In such a context, buffers, which apply different barrier effects to promote physical separation, can be used to mitigate such incompatibilities.1 This sort of condition is considered acceptable, but potential interaction is ignored and the result is insubstantial.

Image 2: Strip Mall - 27th and Superior

“Streets, highways, parking garages, curb cuts, and crosswalks are so ubiquitous that we rarely, if ever, think we could do without them.”2

Aggregating expansive low-density developments have resulted in multiple issues linked to the environment, general health, and culture. Whether this sprawl is defined by the number of residents per acre in a given area, or by association with decentralization or discontinuity, the repercussions sustained by these communities continue to grow.

The judgment for the delusion of sprawl weighs heavily on the automobile. “Not only has the automobile influenced our vision and mentality, it has also affected the design of buildings and cities, their planning, spacing, size, and aesthetics.”3 The dependency on the automobile has propelled an uncongested standard of development where housing subdivisions, strip malls, shopping malls, and fast food chains reign supreme. And in this land of acres of asphalt, systems of lighting and signage, the automobile informs these spaces and the correlation between these spaces. The relationship between the commercial and residential areas has resulted in an absence of acknowledgement and awkward juxtapositions, and the interactions people have within and between these spaces is inadequate and unavoidable.

The implication of vehicular dependence is automobiles are the predominate choice of transport within a city. The community’s freedom of choice is limited in the way they live and move around the city. Thus, the sprawled communities around the city rely on the car to perform all the necessary daily activities. With vehicular reliance comes road construction, which leads to dispersal of land uses, and together with the greater road capacity, facilitates a rapid growth in car use. The resulting congestion sets up a never-ending spiral in demand for road space.4 The impact resonates in the urban 84 \ Urban Form Typology \ Space: by Automobile

design of cities as the city must adjust to the needs of automobiles in terms of movement and space, and in doing so, buildings get replaced by parking lots, open air markets get replaced by enclosed shopping malls, walk-in banks and fast-food stores get replaced by drive-in versions of themselves that are inconveniently located for pedestrians, and town centers with a mixture of commercial, retail and entertainment functions get replaced by single function business parks.5

The vast majority of the United State’s population (approximately 80 percent) now lives in metropolitan areas, but the population and employment continue to decentralize within regions, and density levels continue to decline at the urban fringe. Suburbanization is a long-standing mode that reflects the preference of many Americans for living in detached single-family homes, made possible largely through the mobility provided by the automobile and an extensive highway network. These single-family homes are often located in their distinct zone which tends to extend sparsely along the urban fringe consuming vast quantities of undeveloped land.6 Single-use zoning is an instance where commercial, residential, institutional, and industrial areas are separated from one another.

Thus, large tracts of land are consequently devoted to a single use and are isolated from one another by open space, infrastructure, or barriers. As a result, the places where people live, work, shop, and recreate are far from one another, usually to the extent that walking, transit use and bicycling are impractical. In the United States, the creation of a subdivision was commonly the initial step toward a new incorporated township or city. Contemporary notions of subdivisions rely on the Lot and Block survey system, which became popularly utilized in the 19th century as a means of addressing the expansion of cities into surrounding farmland. The method of subdivisions was useful for purposes relative to conveyance, but

Image 3: housing subdivision, Lincoln, NE 68521

this method did not wholly address the impacts of expansion and the need for a comprehensive approach to planning communities.7 The causatum of single use zoning creates a disconnect between residential and business/retail. In some instances this might be an appropriate method for planning, but individuals living in a subdivision rely on the vehicle as the primary mode of transportation and only have a few locations in which to enter and exit the development. This limited access causes high traffic volume to collector streets, and all trips, no matter how brief, must enter the collector road in a suburban system. Whether their destination is a retail store or a business park, a collector street is the means in which they access and egress these areas as well.

The strategy for locating shopping centers, such as Walmart, is determined by four primary factors, real estate catchment, sales tax rates, energy costs, and distribution radii. The locating of these stores can turn state and city boundaries into mere technicalities. The idea behind this strategy is to cover the targeted market located in the suburban and rural areas. â&#x20AC;&#x153;No matter the retail type, the shopping centre environment includes not only the commercial enclosure itself but also the environs they produce: parking lots, street lights, traffic lanes, median strips, freeway exits, drainage systems, retaining walls, grass berms, gutters, sidewalks, curbs, fire lanes, etc. that characterize the suburban commercial landscape and in fact come to dominate it.â&#x20AC;?8 According to the American Planning Association, there is a one-to-three ratio of building to parking area associated

with big box stores.9 For example, a 50,000 sq. ft. building will have approximately 150,000 sq. ft. of surface parking. A supplementary feature of shopping centers is the receiving area where goods are shipped and unloaded. These conditions include an access road and docking bays which large distribution trucks occupy. While the front of the store is geared toward the vehicle and pedestrian movement, the back of house solely serves the distribution function.

Developments abutting this condition such as residences are unrecognized or dealt with in an inadequate manner by separation through the use of privacy fences, access roads, or berms.

Considering a more specific scale, Lincoln, Nebraska undoubtedly shares a common ground with the general populous of the United States which is no stranger to the expanse of these low density developments. The fashion and manner in which zones are broken up portray a very parceled and segregated system that shows no signs of potential implementation of mixed use zoning. While one would see an attempt toward integrated development in the denser urban downtown of Lincoln, the construction of a similar development has yet to be realized. This does not convey a lack of movement toward this development, mixed use development is simply a new concept and process the city must acclimate to.

Planning for a mixed use neighborhood development requires a master developer willing to produce multiple types of housing and commercial spaces. The issue is Lincoln does not have a developer who has enough experience handling multiple building approaches.

Space: by Automobile / Urban Form Typology / 85

Residential

20’

Commercial

Building 125,000 sq ft

Park Industrial

27th St

Superior St 14th St

50’

23’ 8’

I-180

Parking 250,000 sq ft

30’ Cornhusker HWY

5300 sq ft Residential Lot Size

Image 4 : Lincoln, NE zoning districts, 68521

The dependence on the automobile in the suburbs of Lincoln is complimented by the extent of the subdivisions, the adjacency of gas stations and relative amenities, and the rigid layout of the zoning districts. The determined area of analysis is in the northern region of Lincoln allowing for a deeper understanding of the suburban areas interplay with nearby commercial districts.

Within this region of Lincoln, the expanse of housing subdivisions is significant. The zoning for these subdivisions are primarily within the R-2 to R-4 zoning districts which gives a single-family dwelling lot area of about 5300 sq. ft.. Breaking the residential lot down a little further includes a lot width of fifty feet, an average front yard of 23 feet, a side yard of 15 feet, and a rear yard of more than 30’, depending on the lot depth. The less common but existent R-1 district has about fifty percent more space allotted, but these are located in more rural areas.10

86 \ Urban Form Typology \ Space: by Automobile

+ 50% Commercial Lot Size

Image 5 : Relative size of residential to commercial lot sizes

Compared to the business and commercial use zoning, they are given a lot area of 1,000 to 2,000 sq. ft. per unit. The requirements for abutted space are approached in a much different manner. If a business or commercial building abuts an adjacent building, they are required to have 0 feet between. The only time this is not required is if the building abuts a residential zone, in this case they are required to allot twenty feet for a side yard and fifty feet for a rear yard. This sort of commercial zoning results in large strips of grey or beige masses accompanied by seas of parking that allow no stimulus in regards to visual diversity. The dependence on the automobile resonates heavily with the designated parking requirements associated with business and commercial buildings. For every 1000 sq. ft. of building space, 4.5 parking spaces are required. That is roughly 730 sq. ft. of parking space per 1000 sq. ft. of occupiable space, not counting drives. Even when the building allows for a buffer against residential zones, the major disconnect and ignorance of potential mixed use is quite apparent.11

Fremont St. 84th St.

Residential

Image 6 : 27th and Superior Commercial-Residential Relationship 48th St.

Commercial

Leighton St.

A A

A

A Residential Commercial

27th St.

B B

B

Pine Lake Rd.

B

100’

100’ 200’

27th St.

Residential

200’

Commercial

Image 7 : 27th and Superior Figure Ground

The back-of-house interaction commercial buildings have with adjacent residents presents a significant disconnect and creates an obvious barrier that is less than considered. One instance of a barrier that is created between these developments occurs on the east side of the strip mall northeast of 27th and Superior. The back of house condition which includes drives and docking bays, faces residential apartments, and the boundary which separates these two spaces is an access road which serves the docking bays and the apartment parking lot, a slight change in grade, and rows of garages. The issue of abutting a large warehouse store was considered, but is it dealt

with effectively? For all the residents that face to the west, the most significant view offered is of a monumental beige concrete wall that practically belittles the apartment complex all together. At one point, there is a break in the connection between these warehouse stores, but the extent of this brief discontinuity leaves more to be desired.

The change in grade accompanied by the rows of garages effectively blocks off the back of the strip, but is a view of garages any more satisfying than the back of a Sam’s Club or HyVee?

Space: by Automobile / Urban Form Typology / 87

Fremont St. 84th St.

Image 8 : 48th and Leighton, western condition Residential Commercial

Leighton St.

Image 9 : 48th and Leighton, northern condition

A

Residential

Commercial

B

B

A

27th St. Pine Lake Rd.

100’

200’ 27th St.

Residential Commercial

100’

200’

Image 10 : 48th and Leighton Figure Ground

A condition associated with the strip mall at 48th and Leighton involves the abutting of the parking area and back-of-house with adjacent residences. This commercial strip consists of a HY-VEE with a bar and grill on the west end. On this west side of the strip mall development the only barrier between the residents and the parking lot is a 7 foot privacy fence. The fence acts as a separation line, buts its purpose is completely utilitarian. There was no consideration of how these spaces could work together or coexist at any level. The lowest level is not exposed to the parking lot, but is the break of exposure in exchange for a dilapidating privacy fence an 88 \ Urban Form Typology \ Space: by Automobile

adequate substitute? A nearby condition located on the north side of the strip mall is seemingly surrounded with almost no boundaries (see image 9). This residence has a chain link fence determining the extent of its boundaries, but there is no more than two to three feet of buffer between the fence and the adjacent buildings. The surrounding context of this residence, beyond the backyard, consists of parked cars, dumpsters, apartment windows, an access road for the commercial strip, and a comparatively monumental concrete wall belonging to the backside of the HY-VEE with no incorporation of a barrier or attempt at integration.

48th St.

St. Leighton St.

Image 11 : 84th and Adams, eastern edge condition

Residential Residential

Commercial

Commercial

A

A

27th St. Pine Lake Rd.

100’ 200’

27th St.

Residential Commercial

Residential Commercial

Image 12 : 84th and Adams Figure Ground

100’

Image 13 : 84th and Adams The final condition regards the Walmart’s relationship with a soon to be housing subdivision near 84th and Adams. Currently the area is landscaped to accommodate the winding roads and rows of houses, but none of these spaces yet exist in adjacency to the Walmart.

Despite the fact that the suburb has yet to be built, the barrier located on at the back of the Walmart, on the east side, is a simple wooden privacy fence that extends the length of the Walmart and an open field extending approximately 125 feet beyond the fence.

The potential change of this edge condition is doubtful, so this fence that seems to stretch on forever will continue to do so and the bare field of prairie will persevere unless it becomes a supplementary collector road for the subdivision. The only connection to be seen is now happening between the residence and the Walmart is a street on the north side of the development that will allow access to both the Walmart parking lot and 84th Street. This sort of condition shows

200’

that even when there is room for some more integration of systems, this separation will still occur, and even if residences live within a few blocks of the strip, they will use their vehicle in order to reach their destination.

The separation between different developments and varying zoning districts is a product of vehicular influence. Dependence on necessary commutes for any or all activities makes most people inconsiderate of an alternative option. Is it possible to function without a vehicle? How would developments be different if everyone wasn’t so dependent on the automobile? Would people walk to get groceries? Would smaller scale retail start to be incorporated into neighborhoods? The possibilities within these considerations are foreign to American suburbia, “And leaving your car, you might lose your life.”12 Space: by Automobile / Urban Form Typology / 89

References: 1. Rodrigue, Dr. Jean-Paul . “Transportation, Land Use and the Environment.”

Hofstra People. http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/eng/ch8en/conc8en/ch8c3en. html (accessed November 12, 2012).

2. Furness, Zachary Mooradian. One less car: bicycling and the politics of automobility. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2010.

3. Schwarzer, Mitchell. Zoomscape: architecture in motion and media. [1st ed.

New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2004.

4. Perry, Mark. “Carfree Cities: Articles: Mark Perry: Car Dependency and Culture in Beirut.” Carfree Cities. http://www.carfree.com/papers/perry.html (accessed November 11, 2012).

5. Frumkin, Howard (May–June 2002).Urban Sprawl and Public Health.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved on 2008-02-07.

6. TRB. Driving and the built environment: the effects of compact development on motorized travel, energy use, and CO2 emissions. Washington, D.C.: Transportation Research Board, 2009.

7. TRB. Driving and the built environment: the effects of compact development on motorized travel, energy use, and CO2 emissions. Washington, D.C.: Transportation Research Board, 2009.

8. LeCavalier, Jesse. “Logistics, Territory and Walmart: All Those Numbers: Places: Design Observer.” Places: Design Observer. http://places.designobserver. com/feature/walmart-logistics/13598/ (accessed November 11, 2012).

9. APA. “Site Design, Parking and Zoning for Shopping Centers.” American Planning Association. http://www.planning.org/pas/at60/report59.htm (accessed October 31, 2012).

10. “InterLinc: City of Lincoln: City Attorney Lincoln Municipal Code Book Table of Contents.” InterLinc: City of Lincoln & Lancaster County . http://www. lincoln.ne.gov/city/attorn/lmc/contents.htm#27 (accessed October 18, 2012).

11. “InterLinc: City of Lincoln: City Attorney Lincoln Municipal Code Book Table of Contents.” InterLinc: City of Lincoln & Lancaster County . http://www. lincoln.ne.gov/city/attorn/lmc/contents.htm#27 (accessed October 18, 2012).

12. Schwarzer, Mitchell. Zoomscape: architecture in motion and media. [1st ed.

New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2004.

90 \ Urban Form Typology \ Space: by Automobile

Space: by Automobile / Urban Form Typology / 91

Mall Growing City Kylie Von Seggern M.Arch

Neighborhood adjacent to Southpointe Pavilions, Lincoln NE

The mall is a driving factor for the growth of southwest Lincoln. Schools and neighborhoods have in filled the land surrounding the Southpointe Pavilion development at 27th and Pine Lake Road, and now the Wilderness Hills development at 30th and Yankee Hill Road. By examining the history of the city and shopping mall, this paper investigates the reasons behind why the mall is becoming the city and how it drives suburban growth while setting up a strategy to keep the strip mall from dying as East Park Plaza did. Through the use of maps and city planning strategies, a positive light is shed on the suburban mall and how city expansion is impacted.

The suburban mall has evolved out of the infamous downtown department store into a place of refuge for consumers where all of their wants are satisfied, easily accessible by auto. Lincoln, Nebraska has a population of 262,341 and is currently home to two active shopping malls.1 One mall is in the center of Lincoln, and the other is located in the southwest corner of the city. Southwest Lincoln is rapidly growing into a favorable retail and residential location. The question is: does the mall drive suburban growth? This paper will investigate the effects of suburban mall planning has on growth patterns of Lincoln, and how the mall is becoming the city.

History In 1870, the first railroad reached Lincoln and the population began at 2,500. By 1880, the population had risen to 13,000 and within the next 10 years it swelled to 55,000.2 The extreme explosion in population caused residential areas to expand in all directions, except for the northwest which was zoned for industrial purposes.

The integration of commercial and industrial areas into residential was not encouraged and by 1923, a zoning ordinance was in effect which prohibited industrial and commercial use in residential districts.3 Neighborhood development was important to Lincoln and maintaining specific styles was vital to each area. College View, Havelock, and Belmont were annexed into the city while maintaining the character of the small shopping areas. Movement spread towards the outskirts of the city and the downtown rapidly lost its population. Gateway Mall, located four miles east of downtown at 61st and “O”, opened in 1960, and became the first major shopping mall in Lincoln. Anticipated to be the only regional multi-use center outside of downtown Lincoln, Gateway Mall included East Park Plaza in zone B-5.4 Designed to be an outdoor mall, Gateway was enclosed in 1970 and the total square footage grew to 975,000 square feet anchored by 5 department stores.5

94 \ Urban Form Typology \ Mall Growing City

East Park Plaza was developed on the site of an old chicken farm by three Lincoln attorneys in 1967.6 Surrounding a central court filled with flowers and trees, stores lined the strip and the entire mall was occupied within a few months after opening. Osco Drug and Russ’s Market were added and made East Park Plaza a desirable shopping location. The decline of East Park Plaza began when the strip mall was sold to a company with an objective to attract larger stores. By not renewing leases and buying out the remaining tenant leases, the new company quickly remodeled the strip mall to be attractive to retail such as Linens N Things, which declared bankruptcy in October of 2008, and it now sits empty with the exception of the movie theater, as seen in the image on the next page.7 The 1985 Lincoln – Lancaster County Comprehensive Plan outlined the Lincoln Center Plan for a large downtown mall, which required a $12 million grant from several hosts. Unfortunately, the downtown mall proposal fell through when the last department store in downtown Lincoln moved out in 1990.8 City Council members rerouted the Lincoln Center Plan to expand Gateway Center, place a retail site at 27th and Superior, and another retail site at 27th and Pine Lake. An “Urban Village,” a neighborhood mixed use center at a human scale, was proposed for 40th and Yankee Hill as a pedestrian oriented, mixed-use space integrated into the surrounding neighborhood design and adjacent to mass transit routes into the center of the city.9 By 1998, construction for Southpointe Pavilions, 450,000 square feet of retail space, began at the proposed 27th and Pine Lake site, creating the second largest suburban shopping mall in Lincoln.10 An employment center and three new urban villages were proposed in the 1998 Comprehensive Plan for the corner of 14th and Pine Lake, where Southwest High School was built in 2002.11

Gateway Mall 975,000 - 440,000 sq ft O Street

70th Street

56th Street

40th Street

27th Street

East Park Plaza 170,000 sq ft

Nebraska Highway

Old Cheney Road

Southpointe Pavilions 440,000 - 250,000 sq ft

Pine Lake Road

Yankee Hill Road

Wilderness Hills 140,000 - 46,000 sq ft

February 1966, Lincoln Journal: Aerial of Gateway Shopping Center

Lincoln NE Mall Growing City / Urban Form Typology / 95

Riley Elementary - 1927 Lincoln Lutheran - 1962

Meadowlane Elementary - 1957 Culler Middle - 1958

St. John’s School - 1959

Gateway Mall - 1960 East Park Plaza - 1967

O Street

Hawthorne Elementary - 1927

27th Street

66th Street

Eastridge Elementary - 1955

Southwest High - 2002

Southpointe Pavilions - 1998

Figure 1 Median Income and Schools near Gateway Mall

Scott Middle - 1996

Pine Lake Road

Adams Elementary - 2008

Cavett Elementary - 1995

Wilderness Hills - 2008

0’ 0’

500’ 500’

$55,000

96 \ Urban Form Typology \ Mall Growing City

$105,000

$125,000

Figure 2 Median income and schools near developments

East Park Plaza in 2012

Demographics With the promise of a new shopping center, the growth of Lincoln east of downtown was flourishing with schools and housing developments in the 1950s. After the war families wanted to live in neighborhoods close to public schools and easily accessible to shopping districts. The downtown department stores were moving into the new Gateway Shopping Mall and the development encouraged families to settle east of the downtown, reinforcing the idea of the mall becoming the driving force as growth for a city. Seen in Figure 1, today the median household incomes in the Gateway area are more modest than in the Southpointe area, which tends to reflect the typical demographics for a city where the higher household incomes reside on the outskirts of the city.

Suburban, single family housing soon filled in the land around Southpointe Pavilions and the two nearby golf clubs built housing throughout the courses. Wilderness Ridge golf course and housing developments encouraged several other types of residential developments including condo and apartment style living. As the population of Lincoln has grown, Adams and Cavett Elementary, Scott Middle, and Southwest High have been built in the southwest, near Southpointe Pavilions. New schools gives young families a reason to buy houses in the growing neighborhoods and encourages more activity in the area. The demographic of southwest Lincoln tends to be upper-middle class and it is reinforced by the McMansions of 2,250 square feet spread throughout the neighborhoods. Compared to the area surrounding Gateway Mall, an average income of $54,750, the average household income of a

shopper near Southpointe Pavilions is $85,394, seen in Figure 2, and 31% of the shoppers earn more than $100,000.12 Less than ten years after Southpointe Pavilions was built the owners, RED Brokerage from Kansas City, started construction on Wilderness Hills, a spillover outdoor strip mall, similar to East Park Plaza which includes the department store Kohlâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s.13 Built in 2008, Wilderness Hills did not gain its first tenant until 2011: Woods Bros. Realty, who is focused on selling the residential plots around the mall. It is important to critically view the Wilderness Hills Mall and the reason for sitting empty for several years. Building the mall in 2008 was a risk and the economic recession hit when the mall scheduled to open, scaring many tenants for the area into re-thinking their decision. What was intended to be an upper-level boutique strip mall similar to Regency Court in Omaha, a spill-over for Westroads Mall near I-680 and Dodge Street, was left vacant. RED Brokerage sticks to their initial proposal and is maintaining their original lease prices so the strip mall reflects the surrounding demographics.

Population of Southwest Lincoln is quickly growing and with a population of 54,743 in a 3-mile radius of Southpointe Pavilions, the area is projected to reach 58,452 within the next 5 years, 75% of which are over the age of 18.14 With the majority of the population in Southwest Lincoln holding a steady income, the location is perfect for building a second spill-over strip mall aimed to fill with higherend stores to appeal to the upper-middle class shoppers in the area.

Following this page are aerial photos of the growth of southwest Lincoln throughout a time period of twenty years.15 Mall Growing City / Urban Form Typology / 97

Southpointe Pavilions

Wilderness Hills

98 \ Urban Form Typology \ Mall Growing City

1993

1999

2006

2007

2002

2009

2005

2012

Mall Growing City / Urban Form Typology / 99

Shopping Mall Culture The new trend in the suburban mall is to provide the same traditional space, but with a new experience.

“Many cities that built enclosed malls in the hopes of reviving downtown retail have discovered they made a mistake. Today’s developers strive for a more Main Street effect, building smaller infill projects, or breaking larger projects into a series of smaller components.”16 Gateway Mall in Lincoln, although a successful indoor mall, needed to appeal to the new trend of the outdoor walk-able mall and thus came Southpointe Pavilions and later Wilderness Hills, with access to several big box stores and higher-end restaurants. The idea of the outdoor mall with walking and bicycling trail access from adjacent neighborhoods provides an ideal experience for the shopper.

The suburban shopping mall is, in a way, becoming the city. By moving out of the downtown and into the suburbs, events such as meeting Santa Claus and going trick-or-treating have been adopted into the walls of the mall. The new outdoor malls pull the user out of the city and into an environment controlled by retail stores and restaurants. Malls have become destination points for consumers

outside of the city and give those a taste of an idealized, skewed perspective of the true city, which is now the suburban mall.

Architecturally, the mall is “difficult to conceptualize the excessive and formless nature of shopping and designers are left with varied attempts to stabilize a constantly changing program.”17 Currently the solution to this problem is the pedestrian oriented, auto friendly outdoor mall with events ranging from concerts to benefits, and family activities; but what is the solution in the future? One theory to look at is Gruen’s: combining living, office, shopping, recreation, and education into one “shopping town.”18 Instead of separating shopping from living and working, multiple programs would be combined into one in order to stabilize the suburban sprawl. Alternatively, the mall could be translated from the oasis into one the reflects the life of the city by using Jane Jacob’s idea of creating urban difference at a much smaller scale.19 Stores would stay open longer and festival marketplaces would become regular tenants to richen the shopping culture of the suburban mall.20 By accepting the mall is becoming the city by driving suburban growth allows for greater flexibility in programs inside the mall and encourages city life to happen within the suburbs. An important factor of the life and death of the suburban mall is to pay attention to the demographics and needs of the surrounding people.

Bike path adjacent to Southpointe Pavilions, Lincoln NE 100 \ Urban Form Typology \ Mall Growing City

Wilderness Hills, Lincoln NE References: 1. United States Census Bureau, “Population Estimation,” http://quickfacts. census.gov/qfd/states/31/3128000.html (accessed October 2012).

2. Lincoln – Lancaster Planning Department, “Comprehensive Plan,” 1994.

3. Ibid.

4. Lincoln – Lancaster Planning Department, “Comprehensive Plan,” 1985.

5. Gateway Mall, www.shoppinggatewaymall.com (accessed November 2012).

6. Jim McKee, “East Park Plaza,” November 2012.

7. Ibid.

8. Lincoln – Lancaster Planning Department, “Comprehensive Plan,” 1994.

9. Ibid.

10. RED Development LLC, “Southpointe Pavilions,” http://www. reddevelopment.com/properties/browse/southpointe-pavilions/ (accessed October 2012) 11. Lincoln – Lancaster Planning Department, “Comprehensive Plan,” 1998.

12. Lincoln Nebraska Income, www.city-data.com/income/income-Lincoln-

Nebraska.html (accessed October 2012).

13. RED Brokerage LLC, “Wilderness Hills,” http://www.redbrokerage.com/ featured-properties/details.aspx?ID=44 (accessed October 2012).

14. RED Brokerage LLC, “Southpointe Pavilion Business Plan,” http://www. reddevelopment.com/properties/browse/southpointe-pavilions/ (accessed October 2012).

15. Google Earth Images (accessed October 2012).

16. Sze Tsung Leong, “…And Then There Was Shopping,” in Harvard Design School Guide To Shopping (Köln: Taschen, 2001) 128-155.

17. John McMorrough, “City of Shopping,” Harvard Design School Guide To Shopping, (Köln: Taschen, 2001) 192-203 18. Sze Tsung Leong, “Gruen Urbanism,” Harvard Design School Guide To Shopping, (Köln: Taschen, 2001) 380-387.

19. John McMorrough, “Good Intentions,” Harvard Design School Guide To Shopping, (Köln: Taschen, 2001) 370-379.

20. Ibid.

Mall Growing City / Urban Form Typology / 101

Suburban Void Amanda Mejstrik

M.Arch

Image 1: Waterford Estates development

Suburban Void: A break in the continuity of an otherwise structured and uniform community.

A suburban void is caused by a gap between neighbors, which in turn leads to a lack of social interaction. A space longing to be occupied by a home, backyard, or public park becomes nothing more than an empty, unkempt field between two families. There is a new rationale for more compact, mixeduse, walkable and transit-oriented settlement, whether in new developments or in existing cities,1 but with the suburban void hindering these ideas to take place, how will the edge city ever begin to weave within the city core? The void does not need to be infilled with more housing but rather the injection of program that supports social interaction.

To most Americans, there is nothing unusual about the sight of new housing developments quickly building up around them; a condition caused by the rapid and common growth occurring in cities around the nation for over 60 years. 1947 was the year that created new housing reform in America. Post World War II brought about a need for housing returning veterans and baby boomers affordably.

With soldiers returning from war and starting large families, the small inner city apartments were not spacious enough for the growing American family. The rise of the automobile, the middle class, and even racial issues encouraged mass migrations from the city core to spacious suburbs. These issues, along with the economic rise in the US, created an opportunity for building in which the country had never seen before, and with this new opportunity brought new businesses in building.

Abraham Levitt took advantage of the new prospect of mass housing and started his firm, Levitt & Sons in the early 1940’s. With the help of his two sons (who were also his business partners), Levitt created what is known as the first suburban community, Levittown.

Construction on Levittown began in 1947 in New York, and set the standard for what would come to be known as the suburban community. The new method of housing became so popular in America that according to the national census of 1950, 84.5 million out of 151 million Americans were living in suburban areas, a 35% growth since 1940.2 Despite their modest size, the four-room Cape Cod bungalows would eventually offer the fulfillment of the American Dream of property, privacy, and independence. The principles of Levittown can still be seen in sprawling neighborhoods that exist today on the city’s edge: homogenous homes placed on equally spaced lots with affordable mortgages. However, what separates Levittown from modern day developments is the future planning and city cooperation implemented within the new 104 \ Urban Form Typology \ Suburban Void

development. With programs such as the Veterans Administration (VA) and the Federal Housing Agency (FHA) being supplied through the government to help homeowners, the idea of moving away from the city center was, in a way, encouraged. The VA offered low-interest mortgage rates with no down payment required of veterans. The FHA lowered minimum down payments to just 10% and lengthened repayment periods from twenty to thirty years. The housing bill of 1947 reemphasized the government’s interest in prefabrication in the housing industry and offered monetary guarantees to those who would venture into the field.3 The government supported expansion and growth and worked with developers to ensure progress in the best way possible for its city and its residents.

But currently in suburbia, what is intended to be a holistic suburban fabric becomes a patchwork of homes across a development and community. Sprawl becomes a major issue due to the disorganized manner in which neighborhoods are built. Lot sales are not regulated between home builders, so the neighborhood often becomes a desolate landscape of homes placed sporadically around a new development based on where clients want to live. In the pursuit of privacy, home builders often spread themselves between large and empty lots often lacking a proper sidewalk to connect them. ‘Leapfrog’ developments have caused existing settlements to be bypassed and ignored, and with the unorganized growth comes traffic, inadequate affordable housing, and loss of open space.4 Unfortunately, the unprecedented growth of population in the past century will only continue to fuel the expansion of sprawling suburbs in the coming years.

Suburban sprawl patterns have continued for the better part of the twentieth century, slowing down only in times of economic recession

Image 2: 2000 growth

and reinforcing the demand for affordable housing on the outskirts of cities. With nearly 80% of the current population living in and requiring inexpensive homes,5 land developers have had to focus their attention and techniques on sites that meet the needs of the client.

Housing developments typically begin with the site selection. The best site is determined, in most cases, by lot price and availability to city services such as water and sewage lines. The location of the site is somewhat independent of amenities like shopping malls, grocery stores, or businesses, although it is always a benefit to the new development if any of these programs are already in place. Once the site has been approved by the city, preparations begin including grading, installation of city services, roads, etc. After a time period of about 6 months, the lots are ready to be sold to home builders.

Once the owner chooses the lot to develop, only 2-4 weeks is needed to complete a home. This process is quickly expedited by the efficient system set in place by developers, and is evident in images 2 - 4: growth occurs rapidly between 2000 and 2006, but starts to focus strictly on infill between 2006 and 2012. Once the city utilities are established, the development has the opportunity to spread, but begins to re-engage skipped lots once the main infrastructure has been created. Standardized floor plans allow an owner to select the styles, colors, spaces, and details promptly and without adding additional time and cost by working with a draftsman for every home. The same subcontractor is brought in to install cabinets, windows, flooring, etc., in order to keep the design time efficient with a single company. This method also cuts costs when a similar problem arises within a neighborhood: instead of hiring multiple different subcontractors to repair issues within multiple homes, the developer is able to send the same repairman to a multitude of homes within a reasonable area. By keeping the same price point

Image 3: 2006 growth

Image 4: 2012 growth Suburban Void / Urban Form Typology / 105

b

a

Irregular Lots lead to Suburban Voids

Image 5 (a): irregular lot size in Eagle Estates in Southwestern Lincoln, NE creates a void in the fabric of the neighborhood

b

a

Irregular Lots turned into Mini-Parks

a

Irregular Spacing leads to Voids 106 \ Urban Form Typology \ Suburban Void

Image 6 (a): an irregular lot size has the potential to turn into a mini-park, as evident with Vavrina park in Eagle Estates

b

Image 7 (a): cluster of homes closed off from developed areas of the community

Image 5 (b): a second irregular lot size, unable to be sold for home development sits empty between two homes

Image 6 (b): a second mini-park within the same area of Eagle Estates, Marlene Park.

Image 7 (b): home builders have the option to choose their location, which can result in large voids between neighbors.

Suburban Void / Urban Form Typology / 107

within the neighborhood, the suburban home becomes financially efficient for the residents, and well as temporally efficient for the developers.

Lea Barker, a realtor for Hartland Homes in Lincoln, NE, thinks the best way for a city to begin to manage growth and sprawl is to take responsibility for it. “The city refuses to build more water and sewer lines on the edges of town, and instead puts the responsibility on the developer. Well, if we are the people in charge of installing city utilities then we need to purchase the most affordable land to do so, and this often requires us to look for sites well outside of the city’s main infrastructure. Owners of land further away from the city know that their property is not worth as much as a property with easy water and sewage hook-ups. They will sell the land much cheaper than an owner who knows that their property is useful to the city.” 6 This is evident in the development occurring in Southwest Lincoln: Eagle Estates. Harland Homes was forced to purchase the land at a distance away from the city because the land is not as expensive as closer acres which have easy access to water and sewage. Baker goes on to describe the issue as one revolving around affordability, and in order to keep housing inexpensive for clients, the developers must choose a site they know the owner will sell at the price point of Hartland Home’s clients.

However, the occasional acreage refusing to sell land can interrupt the development process. In situations like these, the only option the neighborhood has is to develop around the acreage. Baker admits, “it’s probably not the most efficient layout, but [the acreage] just has to stay like it is. We grow around the acreage that will not sell to us, and try to develop in a way that makes it all fit together.” However, if the time comes when the lot is ready to sell, a fully established neighborhood suddenly has a void space. This will most likely turn into a park, a series of incongruous lot sizes for more homes to be built, or remain an empty lot within the area; all of which lead to the creation of a void, and reinforce the issue of separation within a community. Image 6 is Marlene Mini-Park in Eagle Estates in Lincoln, NE. Due to the size of the lot, the land could not be sold as a home property because the average home lot size is approximately .29 acres and the existing size is only .25 acres. Hartland Homes solved the issue by implementing a playground and basketball court as opposed to attempting to sell a smaller home size. This is one example of a void that does not lead to a further separation of neighbors, but instead provides a social space for the community.

Both Marlene and Vavrina Parks prove that the suburban void does not need to be infilled with more housing, on the contrary, what needs to happen in edge neighborhoods is the injection of program that supports social interaction. One could argue for the city of Lincoln and its attempt to control sprawling growth by the refusal to build water and sewage lines on the outskirts of the city. But with 108 \ Urban Form Typology \ Suburban Void

Image 8: undeveloped land outside of Lincoln’s city limits

Image 9: home building begins

Image 10: completed suburban neighborhood

the issue of inevitable growth, it may ultimately benefit Lincoln to work with developers. Instead of allowing them to build wherever is cheapest. Suburban growth is completely dependent on home ownership and affordability, and the ‘American Dream’ emphasizes owning a home and land. The idea of a planned community seems like the saving grace of any city: offer affordable home ownership to hard working Americans in an area where they can call a piece of land their own, while simultaneously being 15 minutes from the city. But according to architectural journalist and historian, Philip Langdon, “Houses of the past have lessons from which today’s suburbs can profit. In recent decades Americans have been focusing too much on the house itself and too little on the neighborhood. The country can learn much from the neighborly kinds of housing we used to build. They made - and continue to make - good places for living.”7 The issue lies not with suburbia itself, but first with the uncontrolled sprawl of developments and second with the lack of a sense of neighborhood. DPZ is an urban design firm specializing in sprawl repair located in Florida. In Northern Hillsborough County, they proposed connecting cul-de-sacs of subdivisions to improve walkability as well as accommodate affordable housing. The strategy would include connecting the cul-de-sacs through pedestrian and bike lanes in places of possible easements. Some areas may even be possible to puncture through cul-de-sacs to stitch together the suburban fabric and create new centers of activity.8 They also proposed replacing landscaped subdivision entry gates with small public greens lined with retail. The idea is to insert a ‘complete-theneighborhood module’ which consists of a package of buildings and programs, adding balance to residential enclaves by introducing missing elements. By observing how this new technique influences the suburban neighborhoods of northern Florida, the city of Lincoln can begin to understand the effects the suburban void has on the city’s residents.9 The suburbs are pushed outside of the city in order to establish and maintain affordability, and in return, forces homeowners into a remote area of town. The void between neighbors in developing areas does not make interaction any easier. The city needs to take responsibility of suburbia, instead of leaving it to the whims and wallets of housing developers, of whom lack a consideration for the holistic influences of the city, and instead focus on immediate monetary gains. The idea of the suburb was something in the 1950’s that gave Americans something they could call their own, a piece of land located in an opportune area of town. Today, the idea of the suburb is an isolated neighborhood consisting of standardized designs as far away from the metropolis as necessary in order to keep them affordable; creating voids between residents and the city.

References: 1. Paul Lukez, Suburban Transformations (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2007), 9.

2. Donald C. Williams, Urban sprawl: a reference handbook (Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO, 2000), 6.

3. Barbara M. Kelly, Expanding the American Dream: building and rebuilding Levittown (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), 25.

4. Ellen Dunham-Jones, “Suburban Retrofits, Demographics, and Sustainability”, PLACES -MASSACHUSETTS (2005): 8.

5. Donald C. Williams, Urban sprawl: a reference handbook (Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO, 2000), 25.

6. Lea Baker, Interview by Amanda Mejstrik, Phone recording,

Lincoln, NE, November 7, 2012.

7. Philip Langdon, A Better Place to Live (1994), p. 171.

8. Galina Tachieva, November 8, 2012, “Occupy the cul-de-sac,”

Better! Cities & Towns, October 7, 2011, bettercities.net/ news-opinions/blogs/galina-tachieva 9. Ibid

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Urban Form Typology

Fall 2012 Architecture 562 Urban Form Typology Assistant Professor: David Karle University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Architecture