I already spoiled the point of this post above: these still exist, just not usually in the US. Here I want to talk about not what they used to provide but what they still provide: what makes a streetcar suburb distinct and why they're (still) a valuable urban form.
1. Multiple Centers
The biggest advantage of streetcar suburbs is that by virtue of centering on a streetcar line and its stops, they have a built-in main or high street. The greatest flaw of many car suburbs is that "there's no there there" (ignore that that quote was originally about Oakland, CA, which is a real city now). The distances and point to point assumptions of the car-centric design do not lend themselves to having a central space people actually occupy (as opposed to a built space that stays empty) or a sense of place. A streetcar suburb has a focus.
And that means the overall urban area ends up with multiple centers.
My favorite part of wandering around Greater London, for example, is that the various towns that have agglomerated into this megacity each retain a certain sense of self; there is still some kind of high street or center that is distinctly that area's hub.
"Downtown" Croydon, for example, feels more active than many a full-sized city center in the US.
This is because of how the transit works to focus and channel people flow to create and reinforce natural multi-centrality in the area. We can still have this as long as we build for it: the Croydon trams didn't survive, they were rebuilt. The same is true for the Canary Wharf area and the DLR in London; we can still produce this urban form if we want.
2. Two-Way Flow
An important part of a streetcar suburb (not an American commuter rail suburb) is that transit flow goes both ways, from city center to suburb as well as suburb to center. This is obviously related to the first point, but distinct in that it's about how the service of transit moves people (or more accurately allows people to move themselves) as opposed to the built environment and how it centers certain areas.
You can always work in the city and live in a suburb; most US cities assume you will, even with cars. But streetcar suburbs allow outflow too, and ease reverse commutes and other non-standardized movement of people.
This can lead to establishment of whole financial districts outside the city center, as in the aforementioned Canary Wharf or La Defense in Paris. But it can also just make it easier to work, live, and move around the city.
Again, these are modern, renewed examples. We can and should build more of these. And once the transit infrastructure is in place, we need to actually run transit to allow this: no US-style one-way-only commuter nonsense, and no empty bus lanes or train tracks all day long.
3. Mixed Zoning and ToD
Streetcar suburbs also usually have mixed zoning at least near the streetcar itself, a form of transit-oriented development (ToD). This enables people to do all of living, working, shopping, and enjoying life nearby to each other, rather than in total separation as in much modern zoning.
As here, again in Croydon.
Again, this remains doable today. We stopped doing it in much of the US, but that is a choice that could be changed.
It doesn't need to be giant financial districts either! It can just be places that allow people to stop for a meal or a drink, go shopping, sit in parks, and generally hang out, all within reasonable distance of their home or work, or the transit they take between those points.
Thinking of the Quad Cities, we may not have an urban core in the way a London or a Paris does, but we could all be each others' streetcar suburbs. We could have transit that allows common commutes between cities, centers urban activity along its routes, and allows for mixed-use, larger-scale development around it. We used to have some of this back in the day--we could again, if we had the political will.
What about your city or suburb? Does it have this urban texture? Could it? What would need to change?
No comments:
Post a Comment