massurban:

“Now Coveted: A Walkable, Convenient Place

By CHRISTOPHER B. LEINBERGER. May 25, 2012

WALKING isn’t just good for you. It has become an indicator of your socioeconomic status. 

Until the 1990s, exclusive suburban homes that were accessible only by car cost more, per square foot, than other kinds of American housing. Now, however, these suburbs have become overbuilt, and housing values have fallen. Today, the most valuable real estate lies in walkable urban locations. Many of these now pricey places were slums just 30 years ago. 

Mariela Alfonzo and I just released a Brookings Institution study that measures values of commercial and residential real estate in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, which includes the surrounding suburbs in Virginia and Maryland. Our research shows that real estate values increase as neighborhoods became more walkable, where everyday needs, including working, can be met by walking, transit or biking. There is a five-step “ladder” of walkability, from least to most walkable. On average, each step up the walkability ladder adds $9 per square foot to annual office rents, $7 per square foot to retail rents, more than $300 per month to apartment rents and nearly $82 per square foot to home values. 

As a neighborhood moves up each step of the five-step walkability ladder, the average household income of those who live there increases some $10,000. People who live in more walkable places tend to earn more, but they also tend to pay a higher percentage of their income for housing.

Although we have not studied all urban areas to the same degree, these findings appear to apply to much of the rest of the country. In metropolitan Seattle in 1996, the suburban Redmond area, home to Microsoft, had the same price per square foot as Capitol Hill, a walkable area adjacent to downtown, based on data from Zillow. Today, Capitol Hill is valued nearly 50 percent above Redmond. 

In Columbus, Ohio, the highest housing values recorded by Zillow in 1996 were in the suburb of Worthington, where prices were 135 percent higher than in the struggling neighborhood of Short North, adjacent to the city’s center.  Today, Short North housing values are 30 percent higher than those of Worthington, and downtown Columbus has the highest housing values in that metropolitan area. 

In the Denver area, Highlands Ranch, an upscale, master-planned community 20 miles south of downtown, had housing in 1996 that cost on average 21 percent more than housing in Highlands, a troubled neighborhood adjacent to downtown Denver. Today, Highlands has a 67 percent price premium over Highlands Ranch. 

People are clearly willing to pay more for homes that allow them to walk rather than drive. Biking is part of the picture, too. Biking and walking are part of a “complete streets” strategy that public rights of way should be for all of society — not just cars.”

Via: The NY Times

Image: Josh Cochran

whatturnsmywheels:

(via Guerrilla Gardener Plants Pothole Gardens Around the World | Urban Gardens)

The will to fill the potholes, with beauty (MyWHaT)

massurban:

“Green Infrastructure Could Save Cities Billions

Nate Berg. April 24, 2012

Compared to canvas grocery bags or CFL light bulbs or even solar panels, larger “green infrastructure” projects such as roof gardens or permeable streets can be hugely expensive. It turns out, however, that they’re actually not that expensive when compared to the costs of building more traditional infrastructure, and can even save money. According to a new study, governments are wasting billions of dollars a year by not going green.

Looking at 479 case studies of green infrastructure projects around the U.S., the report finds that the majority of projects turned out to be just as affordable or even more so than traditional “grey” infrastructure. About a quarter of projects raised costs, 31 percent, kept costs the same and more than 44 percent actually brought costs down.

“The lesson learned so far by early adopter communities who have already implemented green infrastructure in a significant fashion is that a wide-ranging commitment to including green infrastructure stormwater approaches, on public as well as private properties, can result in long-term fiscal savings for local governments as well as provide numerous, tangible economic and community benefits through related ecosystem services,” notes the study, co-authored by the American Society of Landscape Architects, American Rivers, the Water Environment Federation, and ECONorthwest.

The costs of traditional infrastructure are especially pronounced in cities and regions with combined sewer systems that collect both sewage and stormwater. During heavy rainfall, these systems are often overwhelmed, pouring sewage-laden water into drinking water sources and greatly increasing water treatment costs.

Technologies like permeable pavements and rain gardens can capture, naturally treat and filter stormwater back into the ground, preventing overflows and reducing reliance on treatment centers. Chicago’s existing green infrastructure, including its green alleys, diverted about 70 million gallons of stormwater from treatment facilities in 2009, according to the report.

These projects can create significant costs savings. New York City plans to build green infrastructure to cut down discharges into its combined sewer system – a project expected to save about $1.5 billion in treatment and infrastructure costs over 20 years. Replacing streets in Seattle with permeable pavement and other green infrastructure has cut paving costs nearly in half.

And by allowing natural processes to take over the work we’ve been building infrastructure to handle, operations and maintenance costs also fall. The report concedes that some maintenance on green infrastructure will still be required, but that it is significantly less than what’s required by traditional infrastructure.”

Via: The Atlantic Cities

Photo: Shutterstock

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)… a fairly crusty conservative group in 2009, rated water infrastructure in the United States as a D-. Yes, that is right, a D- for each of the following categories: inland waterways, drinking water, and wastewater infrastructure!

In Vol 8, Issue 10 (October 2007), this article (linked here: http://www.globalwaterintel.com/archive/8/10/general/us-wastewater-under-pressure.html),  describes how the US Environmental Protection Agency data showed that 53% of major wastewater facilities exceeded their discharge limits in 2005. The map is startling… even though i think the white states should read ‘Fewer than 39% of facilities…’

When are we going to stop designing the same infrastructure and expecting a different result? Not only do we need new designs… we need new ways for our communities to relate to our infrastructure.

More than ever we need creative decentralized natural infrastructure that helps to reconnect our urban fabric, create multiple benefits (ecological, economic, and social) in our communities, and strengthen our neighborhoods.

There are many folks around the globe working on creating regenerative green infrastructure with (not for) our communities. I am lucky enough to be part of team of scientists, engineers, and designers doing just that. Check us out at www.biohabitats.com.

I was lucky enough to spend the last week in the Bahamas at the Cape Eleuthera Institute and Island School on Eleuthera. I was there evaluating their existing water infrastructure and examining their plans for future expansion of the school and institute. In the next few weeks, I’ll be advising them on some things to improve, opinions for expansion, and alternatives for phasing.

One thing is for certain… they have accomplished a ton in the 12 years that they have been in existence. Find out more at www.ceibahamas.org and www.islandschool.org.

The photo is of one of the existing constructed wetlands used to treat wastewater onsite.

sdib:

the LIVING EXTERIOR HOUSE

designer-in-exile:

Turning the tide on storm-water overflow: Though most people don’t think much about sewers, rainwater, and where water goes after a flush of the loo, the folks at the water department sure do. It’s a big problem for cities because water is a limited resource and when storms blow out sewers, it makes for a nasty mix with drinking water, which then takes energy and money to clean. To mitigate storm-water issues, cities like Philadelphia have increasingly relied on green infrastructure tools such as this tree trench and planters in Philly’s Columbus Square to limit overflow. See more on Philly’s new green infrastructure program at our sister site, www.homescienceblog.blogspot.com. 

Related articles

• US cities struggle to control sewer overflows (sfgate.com)
• Bioswales and green infrastructure for New York (freshkillspark.wordpress.com)
• Philadelphia uses tough love to overhaul its water and sewer system. (eenews.net)

Biohabitats engineer Justin Lyon, PE and engineering technician, Olin Christy discuss the potential of natural stormwater management and opportunities of passive beneficial reuse with a perspective client, in Tesuque Pueblo, New Mexico.

“Reclaimed bus yard begins life as urban wetland

A nine-acre park at Avalon Boulevard and 54th Street offers walking paths, native plants and pools with bacteria that clean polluted storm water.

By Kate Linthicum, Los Angeles Times

February 10, 2012

It took three years and more than $26 million to turn an old MTA bus yard in South Los Angeles into what it is today: a sprawling park and urban wetland that will store and clean millions of gallons of storm water — while also giving children a place to play.

The gates to the new park, built on nine acres at Avalon Boulevard and 54th Street, were opened to the public Thursday. Residents say it is a welcome addition to a neighborhood that is sorely in need of green space.

City officials say decades of lax zoning practices have left many of the area’s residential streets blighted with warehouses, mechanic shops and scrap yards. The new park replaces one of those industrial islands with a novel feat of urban landscape design.

Unlike most parks, which feature green lawns and picnic tables, this one is composed of walking paths, native plants and several kidney-shaped pools filled with storm water. Naturally occurring bacteria clean pollutants from the water, which eventually feeds into a storm drain.

John Kemmerer, associate director of the water division at the Environmental Protection Agency, said the park is a model of how cities should treat polluted runoff.

Most of the project was paid for by Proposition O — a 2004 bond measure that set aside money for water quality and other projects. State and local grant money and funds from the EPA and the Metropolitan Transportation Authoritywere also used.

The new park is not the city’s first urban wetland. About a mile away, at Augustus F. Hawkins Natural Park, a small artificial wetland was constructed in 2006. The pools there are now home to an array of animals and birds, like turtles and even an egret, said City Councilwoman Jan Perry, who backed the project and was behind the new one.

Although dragonflies have already been seen at the new park, at the moment, it looks a little spare. Many of the plants are still young, and brown because of winter. The water levels are low because of the recent lack of rain. ‘But in a few years,’ Perry said, ‘it will look like it’s been here forever.’”

Via: LA Times

Photo:  Los Angeles wetlands park, built on the site of a bus yard. (Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times / February 9, 2012)

(Source: massurban)