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Sherwood's Soapbox

City Traffic, Commuting and the Energy Crunch.

I know someone who won't let their kids walk to school. It's only 6 blocks away, but it's on the wrong side of a main artery.

For 11 years of my life I worked at a residential boarding school. My house was on the property. My commute was a 4 minute walk.

As a kid, I grew up in a small Idaho town. My dad was a prof at the university. We lived a mile from his office. He walked every day, rain or shine. Even walked home for lunch. His commute took 18 minutes, and he never had to look for a parking spot.

I think we are building our cities the wrong way around. We have zones for living, zones for working, zones for shopping. Time to revisit this.

Now first of all, I recognize that certain industries don't mix well with residential neighborhoods. Stock yards, refineries, blast furnaces come to mind.
Some businesses by their nature need to be next to the main transport routes.
Trucking companies. Any company that handles enough stuff to have it's own rail siding.

But LOTS of businesses can be mixed with residential without a problem, even in the same building.

European cities have sections where a shop owner lives above the shop.
Good idea.

Some of our taller buildings in Edmonton have the right idea: The bottom three floors are department store, the top is office space. Elevators to the office space have a separate lobby that can be closed off from the department store lobby after hours.

Take this idea a step further: Offices and residences and stores all in one building. Aim for a balance that the number of jobs in the building are the same as the number of residence spaces in the building. This won't mean everyone lives in the building they work. The builder may guess wrong as to the ratio of single bedroom units to doubles. May have too many upscale units for all the clerks in the store.

Suppose that for the suburbs we went back to a grid system. Further, one block in 6 was designated business/retail. Some of them would have a single box store, such as Home Depot or Sears. Some of them would have bunch of shops. Where possible you would mix stores that were mainly daytime (Professional offices, business to business 8-5 shops) with mainly evening shops (restaurants, night spots, movie houses) to maximize the use of parking.

Within a 10 block walk I can reach 100 blocks. At 1 in 6, 16 of them will be some form of business, retail, school, library. My chances of being able to find a job within walking distance of home are pretty good. Maybe both parents no longer need a car. Or maybe the old clunker only gets 2000 km per year and it isn't worth replacing. Maybe with half the people able to walk to get a carton of milk, there will be room on the roads for the other half. Maybe we can build neighborhoods full of neighborliness.

Wouldn't that be something!

Read, laugh, send me a line and tell me why each idea won't work. Convince me and I'll issue a retraction, and grant you a kudo for correcting my ignorance.

Send email to soapbox@sherwoods-forests.com

Note that, unless you tell me otherwise in your letter, I may publish it, or quote it in a future rant