Love the coinage here. I wonder what you think about walkable suburbs? Ultimately much of the American public wants to walk places but also not live in a city where they have to give up their car.
I sense that walkability is too closely tied in our minds to high density. And in turn, our image of the idea is of pavement, storefronts, and transit stops. These are all "hard" elements that feel out of place in the suburban physical and cultural landscape.
At their best, suburbs are "soft" spaces where greenery and the natural landscape thrive. These can be highly walkable, too, and promote walking alone or with a few people rather than in a bustling neighborhood. Soft spaces also don't rely on economy and market size (where, again, the denser, the better) as hard elements. The energy that one receives in this setting is of a different rhythm than everyday urban life, and we can see its attractiveness played out in large urban parks (Central Park, Golden Gate Park, Fresh Pond) where people want to be closer to nature.
Most suburbs are structured around car infrastructure and identified by offramps. Future burbs could be designed around green infrastructure as a means of local social cohesion (within 30 minutes of walking), with automobile infrastructure playing a supporting role for INTERnode, rather than INTRAnode travel. What that central green element could be could also be identifiable with the place. I would advocate for the program that best brings people together, recreation.
Love the coinage here. I wonder what you think about walkable suburbs? Ultimately much of the American public wants to walk places but also not live in a city where they have to give up their car.
I sense that walkability is too closely tied in our minds to high density. And in turn, our image of the idea is of pavement, storefronts, and transit stops. These are all "hard" elements that feel out of place in the suburban physical and cultural landscape.
At their best, suburbs are "soft" spaces where greenery and the natural landscape thrive. These can be highly walkable, too, and promote walking alone or with a few people rather than in a bustling neighborhood. Soft spaces also don't rely on economy and market size (where, again, the denser, the better) as hard elements. The energy that one receives in this setting is of a different rhythm than everyday urban life, and we can see its attractiveness played out in large urban parks (Central Park, Golden Gate Park, Fresh Pond) where people want to be closer to nature.
Most suburbs are structured around car infrastructure and identified by offramps. Future burbs could be designed around green infrastructure as a means of local social cohesion (within 30 minutes of walking), with automobile infrastructure playing a supporting role for INTERnode, rather than INTRAnode travel. What that central green element could be could also be identifiable with the place. I would advocate for the program that best brings people together, recreation.