Beneath the Bridges

What do you do below something big?

This is a very general question, but an important one. Many pieces of urban architecture are quite large, especially overpasses, bridges, elevated rail, etc. And there are a lot of different approaches to what you put below that, from "nothing" to "actively hostile to homeless architecture" to "cool stuff."

So let's consider the advantages of each.

1. Nothing in Particular

Sometimes you build something big and high, and just ignore what's down below.

This bridge is up there, but there's nothing in particular brewing down here.

This is common when the big thing is so big that it's just not really engaging with anything below it except at the ends--like this huge bridge in Seattle. 

This, to me, is a bit of a missed opportunity. No, I don't expect life underneath this kind of bridge to fundamentally transform, but the opportunity would exist to take advantage of the effect of the bridge--both aesthetic and physical, e.g. shade--and plan something around it.

Still it's better than:

2. Actively Hostile Architecture

The greatest fear of a certain kind of planner seems to be that someone might accidentally not be inconvenienced further when they already don't have somewhere to sleep.

The Wall of Death probably belongs itself in category 3 (see below) hence why I have a picture of it.

However, the chainlink fences here don't.

This is very common: a lot of places have spikes, or fences, or concrete blocks that are just there to stop people from using the space. And I get it to a certain extent: homelessness is not something cities like to advertise, and there's probably some liability issues from building spaces that attract homeless people if something happens to them in that space.

But often, as with this fence, doing that is gratuitous and implemented in a way that doesn't exactly make the space better on its own terms. It's just mean.

3. Something Cool

Of course, sometimes the space is occupied by something that has its own value (see: the art element of the Wall of Death).

See also: the Troll.

I'm not saying every bridge needs a troll (we'd need a lot more than 3 Billy Goats Gruff if so) but certainly the Troll is a good example of adding something more than just a big nothing or worse underneath a bridge.

It need not be art; here's a public space in Milwaukee that's under the interstate there too.

The point is this: this space could be normal, or wasted, or actively awesome.

I know which one I'd prefer. And I bet you would too.

Advantages of Underground Rail

Well, if I'm going to talk about the advantages of elevated rail, it feels only fair to discuss some other advantages: like the advantages of the other main grade-separation option, underground rail.

Because if there weren't any, well, we'd all build the cheaper, elevated option, wouldn't we?

Note that when I say "we," of course, I don't mean the Quad Cities. Lord no! It would be nice, but let's get some basic bus frequency and maybe a rail link to Chicago first.

But "we" in the larger sense do keep building tunneled, or cut-and-cover, rail: so why? What is it bringing to (or rather, under) the table?

1. Land Use

Probably the most obvious advantage of underground rail, besides grade separation itself, is that it has limited demands on the surface: while it requires just as much space as anything else when you consider the space underground, we as a society tend to value the surface much more than the depths: we live there, after all.

That means that a form of transportation whose visible surface-level footprint is minimal has big advantages.

This space doesn't count: the platform, the tracks, the rest of it is all under the everyday life of the city.

Even a big suburban station like this one on the Toronto-York border is still just a single building at the street level.

When your footprint is small enough you need an actual sign for anyone to know it's there, that's small.

2. Unexpected Connections and Paths

The knock-on effect of putting all the actual train stuff down underneath everything is that you're not as constrained by the surface-level patterns in terms of where you put the tracks or stations. True, it's very expensive to tunnel under a river or through a mountain, and going through dense areas has its own problems (good luck avoiding all the other hidden underground systems on which modern cities depend, like sewers, electrical, etc.) but whereas elevated rail tends to mirror or mimic street grid patterns because otherwise you have to knock down the buildings in the way, underground rail...doesn't have to do that.

This could go anywhere! It's like a portal to Narnia, if Narnia had a metro sign instead of a lamppost.

That's how you can build something like Crossrail (now the Elizabeth Line) and connect a bunch of destinations that weren't previously connected: you have (assuming political will and budget) substantial freedom in how you zigzag beneath everything else.

3. Whether the Weather...

And of course, underground rail is out of the way of the biggest objection to elevated rail: the weather. Now, the London Underground may be constantly overheating itself, but by and large you have more control over the temperature and the (hopefully non-existent) precipitation underground than above.

Platform screen doors make this even more pronounced, as you can do more to the platforms as well as the actual cars themselves.

Pictured: a space that will only be rained on in an absolute disaster. 

Now, do these advantages counteract the advantages of elevated rail we looked at before? Of course not. Otherwise we'd build only one kind of rail. But they are significant, and they offset the generally greater cost of underground rail substantially. That's why both are viable options--and why, if we can afford it, a lot of cities opt for going underground.

Transit and Sport: US and Europe

 So while the 15-minute City brand has been damaged by a lot of conspiratorial thinking, I do think the central idea that we should have easier, more consistent, and car-free access to the things that make life pleasant, easy, and livable remains a vital one.

And while that applies for sure to things like groceries, jobs, schools, and the other things that we need to live a modern life, it also applies to the things that make life better without necessarily being required.

So I want to talk about getting to sporting events.

1. Sports Are Perfect For Transit

Fundamentally, a sporting event is a natural fit for public transit, because it involves a lot of people travelling to and from a known location at a predictable set of times.

That's why even in cities that don't do transit well, sporting events often get better transit. Famously, it's a pain to get to Foxboro, the stadium where the NFL's Patriots play, but you can do it on gameday because they run a special commuter-type service.

This means that even sporting events that are not really "15 minute" events (since Gillette Stadium in Foxboro is hours outside of Boston) are transit hubs.

But we can do better than that.

2. Stadia In The Community

US sports stadiums are typically in the midst of giant parking lots. This makes sense, as the majority of people who will access the stadium are assumed to be arriving by car, since most trips in the US are by car.

This is not always the case everywhere.

Here's Stamford Bridge, a major football stadium in London, home of Chelsea FC, a top-ten global football club in terms of fanbase.

It's right on the street in the midst of that mix of Chelsea, Fulham, and Earl's Court that is its neighborhood.

I got there on foot, and it's a 4 minute walk from Fulham Broadway station.

Here's a picture I took just after getting off a tram in Paris, of the Paris FC stadium. Now, Paris FC is not Paris Saint Germain, and thus not one of those global top-ten in terms of fanbase: but it's a pretty darn accessible stadium:

Yes, in both cases there is space around the stadium, because on match days you need it: queues, crowd control, vendors, etc. But the space around it blends right back into the streetscape: you don't have to cross a huge parking lot to get there, you just have to walk up to the pedestrianized spaces around the stadium itself.

Emirates Stadium, home of Arsenal (another of those big clubs) has a very visible street presence and a giant walkway to get to the stadium--but notice that it's just kind of a neighborhood as soon as you pass the sign.

Craven Cottage, home of Fulham, a smaller London club, is even more integrated. Would you know that was a stadium of a major league team if you didn't know from this post?

They even want you to help the neighbors by binning your trash.

This is how people exit Craven Cottage after a game: not a traffic jam, but a wave of walking people as far as the eye can see.

That's what integrating a stadium into a city can look like. It may not make it a "15 minute" city, unless you are like London and have a major football club every 15 minutes. But it certainly makes it closer to one when people can get to their sports as easily as to their grocery store--and neither by car.

3. Green Shoots

Of course, not every US stadium is like this. The old-school baseball stadiums, like Fenway Park in Boston, are nestled neatly into their neighborhoods too. But that's a legacy, not a current commitment. 

What's more impressive is that US cities are doing better going forward in some important ways.

No one would accuse St. Louis of being anywhere but the US, or anything but American, but when they built a new stadium for St. Louis City FC, they put it downtown.

During construction, they were very proud of their identity.

And what they built was nestled into the city, not separated from it (except by, you know, ticket barriers).

This picture isn't of the stadium--it's the zoo. But I took the train from one to the other. Magical! Admittedly, it took more than 15 minutes. But the larger concept of the 15 minute city--the idea that I should be able to do this easily, without a car--remained valid.

And St. Louis isn't alone. US cities are starting to return to the idea that a stadium doesn't have to be a parking lot. Let's just hope the movement continues, and is married (as it was in St. Louis) by transit improvements as well. 

And if it does, I look forward to taking transit to a lot more sporting events. 

Protecting Views

 I was talking to someone recently and they brought up the golf course that used to be in what is now extremely prime real estate by the river in Chicago.

My friend's claim was that this happened because people wanted to protect their views of the lake, and that building tall towers there (which is eventually what happened, of course) would impact others' views. 

I'm not here to litigate whether this is actually the reason (though it seems plausible to me). Rather, I want to talk a little bit about this concept of protected views--both why it can make sense, and when it can go too far.

1. A View Is A Genuine Amenity

Let me start with the most important point: I do think that there are levels at which a view is, legitimately, part of the value of a place, and something to be protected. 

We can think of this in a reductio ad absurdum: if my neighbors put up tall buildings on every side of my lot and across the street that mean I can see literally nothing but the street straight down and their blank walls on each side, I think it's pretty clear that my quality of life and the value of my living space have been impacted.

The brick building doesn't have much view to the right, does it?

But we can go beyond that. There are good reasons for not just the ability to see out the window in general but for views of certain buildings or sights to be protected.

St. Paul's is genuinely the centerpiece of the City of London: being able to see it is valuable.

As this downtown Vancouver logo suggests, the mountains are an important thing to be able to see in that city.

We could say the same about Lake Michigan in Chicago (not that you'd have any trouble from the height this photo was taken).

So there are genuine reasons to protect views.

2. How Much Protection?

But the counterpoint is that not every scrap of visibility needs to be equally protected. Once we've hoisted ourselves over the "completely blocked by all surrounding buildings" bar, we enter into a more complicated space where countervailing interests need to be accommodated. 

We can imagine this with the opposite reductio ad absurdum: if we don't allow any building at all that might enter into the sightline of an existing building, we can't build anywhere anytime; we can't accommodate the density we'd need in a functional city; and we're imposing just as much cost on our neighbors (now unable to build) as they were on us in the first hypothetical (unable to see). 

So the question becomes: how much of a view needs protection?

Certainly, we can't expect everyone everywhere in Chicago to see the lake, or in Vancouver to see the mountains--the cities are too big, and sheer distance plus the existence of height variation in the land is going to mean not everyone can see everything all the time.

That goes double with St. Paul's, which is, after all, itself a building built into what would have been a different view before it was built (and indeed there was a different St. Paul's there before the Great Fire). 

This is what the concept of Vancouverism is intended to balance: tall buildings, as above, but also wide pediments that mean that there are gaps in between the buildings so people can see.

The above picture isn't classic Vancouverism, despite being in Vancouver, because the high-rises are fairly wide, instead of thin shards above wider, shorter buildings. But I use it to point out that the style matters less than the substance; it matters less that the buildings be the distinctive narrow towers of downtown Vancouver than that there be space between them to let others peek through.

We can see similar trends, though less of the pediment-tower style, in the Chicago skyline as well. Everyone can see the water (or in this case be seen from the water) and yet we do not have a race to the bottom where everything has to be 1 story.

In other words, there is space to protect views without that meaning that we don't build.

3. Reasonable Accommodation, Not A Veto

The fundamental point here is that protecting a view should be a matter of a reasonable accommodation, where you can't deliberately and significantly block someone else's view of something important, but it should not be a veto where you can block all development simply so you can look across someone else's property. 

Or make them turn it into a golf course because it's shorter.

It can be reasonable, as here in London, to prevent the riverside (or lakeside, or other major point of culturally or environmentally significant views) from becoming clogged with high-rises that block everyone else from seeing it.

But especially as we suffer collectively from a housing crisis across the world, it's not reasonable to say we can't build up at all.

And as St. Paul's shows, you can have consistent density at medium heights without impeding a good view at all.

Views matter--but they're not the be all and the end all. Letting people actually live where they want is another significant good, and one we can't ignore.

Privacy in the City

 Today I want to talk about something that I think gets misunderstood somewhat in a lot of discourse over urban density: the question of privacy. How much do you experience privacy in a big, dense city versus a smaller one or a town or rural area?

Well, that's gonna depend on how you define privacy. 

1. Big City Surveillance

Let's start with the obvious: if your interest is not appearing on CCTV, traffic cameras, or other forms of state or corporate surveillance, you'll probably be on camera more in a big city.

There are more traffic cameras, gun cameras (in the US at least), private and government CCTV, etc. in denser places, for obvious reasons. 

But at the same time: there may also be more places that don't have those things, as a percentage. If the only place I can shop for groceries is driving to Walmart, well, I know Walmart has me on CCTV. My local grocery may or may not; the corner store may or may not; the farmers market probably doesn't, depending on what city I'm in. But if those don't exist, I'm definitely, rather than possibly, being surveilled while I shop--even if I may be on camera fewer timers per day.

2. Big City Anonymity

But the flip side of that is that in a big city there are also a lot fewer reasons for someone to care about you, specifically, and what you are doing.

There may be CCTV nearby, but someone managed to tag this door an awful lot anyway.

I'm sure there are multiple CCTV in this picture (it's Camden in London after all) but who is watching them to see me in particular in this press of people?

There may not be anyone watching at this random intersection in Davenport, but if they are they're definitely looking at me. Because I'm the only one here, and I expect to be the only one here all day, basically.

Even more so here, where there isn't even a school or a business to drive foot traffic. Yes, it's less likely anyone is looking--but if there's a house with a camera, I'm on it and they'll be interested to see me, specifically, on their feed.

There's a reason the stereotype of a small town is that everyone knows everyone else's business: the other people are few enough that you know them all, and they're the entertainment. People watching is a bit different if you actually know the people! That doesn't mean that's a negative; for a lot of people, it's a big positive! But it's also a different kind of surveillance in its own way.

3. People vs Machines

In many ways, this comes down to the idea that in a big city a machine is more likely to watch you, and in a smaller area a person is more likely to do it.

I totally see why the former concerns some people more: my memory is less perfect than a computer's, and so being watched by me means you'll be forgotten, and no one can search their database for what you did or where you were! I also see how the fact that the former is usually corporate or government-controlled is also an issue. 

But if you're most concerned with being able to do things without anyone caring, rather than without anything seeing, you're probably better off in a big city.

It's a balance, and I don't blame anyone for falling on either side. But give me the anonymity of a million eyes over the scrutiny of ten any day.

Playing in Public

 One element of public infrastructure that I think is critically valuable to developing a culture of people existing outside in community is space for play--specifically but critically, not exclusively for children.

Or at least, not in a way that makes it weird for adults to be present in those spaces if they're not immediately visually attached to a child. We get weird enough about adults and kids together in our society (intergenerational connections are actually kind of important?) but I can see the reason why a wholly-child-centric space with non-attached adults makes people less than fully happy. So urban spaces should have space for both.

Today I want to highlight some examples of what I have liked in some parks I have been to.

1. Effective Use of Unused Space

Let's start with a personal favorite: the downtown park and parklike spaces in Toronto.

This could be a very narrow skyscraper, but otherwise it's not really going to get a lot of use: it's right next to the expressway and it's a narrow space between two streets. 

It's ideal for a park though: it's narrow for buildings but wide enough that no kid is automatically running into the street, and it's long so you can actually have a whole lot of vaguely-connected stuff in the space without it feeling cramped.

There's obvious kid architecture here but also places for people to sit, meditative spaces, and if I recall correctly even a pull-up bar. 

It's an effective use of space that might otherwise be lesser used, and it's a good intergenerational space. It's also big enough that no one feels crowded (though when we were there it was pretty empty, so...no one could have been crowded--hopefully it fills up at other times).

2. Path Integration

Another common technique I see is integrating these spaces into the neighborhood of multiuse paths, as here in Lincoln:

This, itself, is a kids playground: swings, play structure, obviously intended for your 5-12 year olds (and effectively younger, but the city's liability requirements mean it's labeled for 5 and up). 

But you can see the connection to the larger path system that is a bike path along a waterway, and there's a bench in the picture.

A reverse angle on the structure gives you the covered pavilion in the background as well, which is close enough that a parent can supervise older kids from a distance but far enough away that I've seen completely un-playground-related groups happily eating in it while kids play on the structure, with neither group bothering the other.

All in all, it's an effective area for allowing people to exist in public together, all facilitated by that close proximity to the pathway.

3. Fine, Green Space Rocks Too

I can't leave this topic as is without admitting that, for all that built environments can contribute to this, actual green space is considered a key part of the urbanist fabric for a reason.

I do prefer the kind of green space though that, as here in Croydon above, has some shade built in (both trees and structures), paths demarcated, and a little bit of care taken to make sure that people aren't just being tossed into an open patch of grass and told to make do.

You don't need to have a whole laundry list of available activities and buildings like here in Vanier Park, Vancouver, but it helps to have something more than just open space. 

Green space is refreshing, it's multiuse (from kids playing around to organized cricket, below, from Stanley Park in Vancouver):

And to top that off it's good for the lungs of the city.

So while I am all in favor of infrastructure that helps facilitate play among kids and adults, sometimes even I have to admit: green space is usually better than too much design.

City Expectations and Appearances

Today I want to talk a bit about how a city shows you the expectations you should have about what existing in that city will be like.

In other words, how do I see the built environment setting up expectations about what the city is like--plus a bit about the way the people are or aren't interacting on the street. I'm going to walk through three city examples, and then say a little about how I see them coming together more generally.

1. Davenport and Distance

Let's start right in the Quad Cities with Davenport.

The big impression that I think Davenport gives you is one of distance: there's a lot of space between buildings, except in the very center of downtown; the roads are wide (see above); there are lots of open spaces near them that aren't filled with sidewalks or buildings at all. 

Sometimes this is great: Vanderveer is a lovely park right in the midst of the city, and we have a lot of parkland in general. That's a positive kind of space and distance: space intentionally dedicated to recreation, relaxation, and play.

Sometimes it's less positive though: just space dedicated to cars and pavement. There's always a reason for the cars to be there, of course, but the proportion is a bit odd. Everything is so far away -- and the parking lots mean it's even far away from itself once you get there.

2. Toronto and Towers

Now, obviously Davenport is smaller than Toronto. There are parts of Toronto, or at least the Greater Toronto Area, that are similar in build to what I just described in Davenport. But let's think about places a similar distance from the center (or centre) of the city.

Toronto has, I suggest, an impression of height rather than width.

Now, this particular shot is from a park, so there is certainly some space between the buildings. But look how high they are! 

Looking horizontally from a high floor you still get a similar experience. Look at the CN Tower in that shot--one of the tallest buildings in the entire world--and consider how not-so-tall it looks against the broader downtown. Now, obviously, given that it is literally that tall, it's visible from a lot more of Toronto than these particular towers are. But the angle still gives that sense that Toronto is pretty tall, at least in the downtown area.

And the other major impression there is that there are so many of them, layered together, that they don't look as wide as Davenport's streets do.

The distance visible here is a couple of miles (about 3 km, for those scoring in Canada or the rest of the world). And yet it looks jam-packed.

And this impression doesn't end with downtown; the Yonge St. corridor is full of high buildings, as this park up the Yonge St. Subway from downtown can attest. Again, they aren't always crowded together (though they often are) but the dominant impression in Toronto is height, not width. It just looks dense because of all the high buildings (even though it too has sections that are much more single-family residential than anything else).

3. Paris and Proximity 

But while Toronto's heights are high, they're not as close together as are the buildings in the dominant physical appearance of a place like Paris.

Like many European cities, Paris is famously tightly knit, with (as discussed last week) a great deal of midrise height along the street. 

This is true even near significant monuments or other spaces that might limit density in other cities.

Notre-Dame is being repaired here, but that's not my focus: look at the heights of the buildings on the right.

Or look at this second wall along the Seine, which is seemingly just as uniform and impenetrable as the river wall below.

The shopping district lit up at night (and oddly full of cars!) is likewise consistently dense and midrise. 

That sense of everything being cheek-by-jowl, dense, and tight gives a very different sense of the city than the Toronto or Davenport examples above. 

Even when the streets are somewhat wide, the density of the buildings gives a different feel than Davenport does with similarly wide streets.

The city just feels like everything is nearby. And it lives up to that: if you walk a couple miles in Paris, it feels much less demanding than walking the same couple miles in Davenport--as we can see by looking at walk share in the cities (Toronto is much more similar to Paris, and may actually exceed it in some places). 

But regardless of the realities of how the cities are used, the visible built environment is also massively different. Everything being closer together makes a marked difference in the experience of the city, not just in first impressions but in the moment by moment experience of existing within the space.

It's probably obvious from, well, everything here what my preference is, but I want here to simply focus on that basic fact: the built environment creates expectations and understandings of the city that are both immediate and lingering, and these different cities fundamentally feel different because of the changes--before we even consider questions like "is there a transit line" or "are there functional sidewalks" or "can you safely bike here."

Urbanism can be visible from the very moment you cast your eyes on a place, and the different feels of cities (especially the city center) are immediately remarkable.