SOCIAL: Fwd: Your parking lots or your lives

[Dave Snyder]

Thanks, Amy, for that article from the NYT. I think it's a faulty 
parallel to compare NYC neighborhoods abandoned due to capital flight 
to neighborhoods destroyed by and still vulnerable to environmental 
catastrophe.

On the other hand, the point about neighborhood pride and organic 
rebuilding is correct: when a community builds its own place in 
defiance of the dictates of "sensible planning" you usually get 
wonderful neighborhoods.  But in what ecologically should be a swamp? 
My friend Jason, a new Orleans native and land use professor at SF 
State, wrote this op-ed for the Times Picayune. To take his points 
one step further, and respect the idea in the PPS editorial from the 
NYT that New Orleans doesn't have to shrink, here's what ought to 
happen in New Orleans:

Buy out the residents of the lowlands, providing residents with 100% 
of their equity and banks with 60% of theirs. Replace all the housing 
by building high density, walkable neighborhoods on the high portions 
of New Orleans, on lots where WalMart and other terrible land uses 
currently reside. Return the lowlands to wetlands and industrial uses 
that can tolerate funding, such as that WalMart and delivery 
warehouses, public parks, parking lots, etc.  Finance this with 
savings from not having to rebuild the levees to a standard that can 
withstand another inevitable category 5 hurricane, and by what is 
essential a global warming tax levied through higher insurance rates 
throughout the country.

Just my $.02


>Date: Sun, 05 Feb 2006 11:39:31 -0800
>From: Jason Henderson <jhenders at sbcglobal.net>
>To: Carfreeliving at livablecity.org
>Subject: [Carfreeliving] Your parking lots or your lives
>
>http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/otheropinions/index.ssf?/base/news-0/1139126254210420.xml
>
>Your parking lots or your lives
>When we are a walkable, denser city, we won't need all those cars anyway
>Sunday, February 05, 2006
Jason Henderson

>For three months, we've heard engineers and politicians sing the praises
>of the storm-protection system built by tiny, low-lying Holland. As a
>New Orleans native and professor of urban geography focused on land use
>and transportation debates, I appreciate what I have recently learned
>about that country, which operates in some ways quite differently than
>we do here.
>In Holland, land-use policy directs where growth can occur. Dense,
>compact cities are respected, and mass transit, bicycling and walking
>are considered practical and dignified ways of getting around.
>In Holland, the approach toward human-environment interaction, including
>flood control, land use and transportation policy, is holistic.
>If New Orleans is to survive the next hurricane, its citizens must
>reflect and learn from this disaster in a holistic way. But
>unfortunately, the overall debate about how much of the city to rebuild
>is degenerating into a debate between reducing the footprint and
>population and simply rebuilding everything. It has degenerated into
>ecological stewardship vs. social justice. If left unresolved, it
>threatens limbo and will leave people in the city even more exposed to
>future hurricanes.
>  From an ecological standpoint, the rebuilding debate is inextricably
>bound with the mistakes of paving over surrounding backswamps with
>sprawl and constraining the freshwater sediments of the Mississippi
>River. Land-use policy allowed much of the backswamp -- Lakeview,
>Gentilly, eastern New Orleans -- to be paved over on behalf of white
>families, and later middle class black families, moving away from social
>problems. They moved there instead of solving tough problems (schools,
>crime, poverty) in the urban core.
>Ecologically, this subsiding and vulnerable backswamp sprawl should be
>returned to wetlands. The pathway of the Industrial Canal should be used
>to send Mississippi River sediments into the northern and eastern flanks
>of the city to shore up wetland defenses. The Industrial Canal would act
>as a pipeline splaying mud into replenished wetlands, which would
>function as storm surge buffers, stormwater runoff basins, habitat for
>seafood and timber supply, and a resource for education and recreation.
>Obviously this regeneration of wetlands will require relocation of
>thousands of New Orleanians, both white and black, taking us back to
>social justice and how to balance it with ecological stewardship.
>That balance can be achieved by building more densely -- but only
>moderately more so -- on the less vulnerable ground along the natural
>levee of the Mississippi River and south of the Metairie-Gentilly Ridge.
>And this can be done by maximizing development on surface parking lots
>scattered throughout this part of the city.
>Consider this: In a typical parking lot, the average parking space
>consumes 350 square feet, 400 with landscaping. Three parking spaces, or
>1,200 square feet, approach the size of a comfortable two-bedroom home.
>Today parking and streets consume upwards of 50 percent of the land area
>of an American city. This leads to the question -- is New Orleans for
>people or cars?
>Instead of providing vast acreages of parking around the high and dry
>Wal-mart, attractive mid-rise, mixed-use developments should be
>constructed with ground-floor retail below three or four stories of housing.
>These developments would consist of inclusive housing, built with solid
>craftsmanship and providing for a range of incomes and household sizes,
>from small efficiencies to three-bedroom family homes.
>They would respect the traditional grid and original human scale of the
>city, not be characterized by garagescapes or walls of bleak high-rises.
>Repeat this throughout the city, from smaller lots, such as the A&P on
>Magazine, to the Winn-Dixies, Roberts and Save-a-Centers. Spread the
>densification using the template of surface parking while preserving
>existing housing stock.
>Of course, New Orleanians will need to re-orient their approach toward
>transportation. The re-oriented city would be a compact, walkable,
>transit-oriented city with bicycling, car-sharing, and taxis as
>essential components.
>Passenger rail would connect the city to Baton Rouge, Armstrong Airport,
>and the rest of the Southeast.
>Rail would also operate as a much-needed tool for evacuation when the
>next storm arrives. All of this should be funded through petroleum taxes.
>Additionally, all publicly owned on-street parking throughout the city
>should be priced at fair market value with revenue going to the city.
>A holistic approach for ensuring a viable future for New Orleans
>includes rethinking density and transportation. Building more densely on
>surface parking lots is one possible balance between ecological
>stewardship and social justice.
>. . . . . . .
>Jason Henderson is an assistant professor of geography and human
>environmental studies at San Francisco State University. His e-mail
>address is jhenders at sfsu.edu.
>--
>"Make wetlands not war"
>
>Jason Henderson
>Native New Orleanian
>living in San Francisco
>Cell: (415)-425-5844
>Home: (415)-255-8136
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Carfreeliving at livablecity.org mailing list
>to facilitate and promote car-free living in SF
>To unsubscribe: 
>mailto:Carfreeliving-request at livablecity.org?subject=unsubscribe
>or, for all options, go to:
>http://livablecity.org/mailman/listinfo/carfreeliving_livablecity.org