more with the lanes

Tonight I walked through the centre of the city after work from waymouth across to the excellent bicycle express store on halifax to buy some new handlebar tape for my bike. I had forgotten just how big (geographically) the cbd here actually is and how a few streets is actually quite a long way. I also can't believe still, how much the city just dies after hours. Even on a Friday with late night shopping the people just vanish once you get beyond the immediate vicinity of Rundle Mall. Its actually quite scary when you get off the main roads.

Having said that, I was most excited to be able to walk much of the way through some of the very urban looking side lanes that join the major streets and I have to admit to even walking past a couple of nice looking pubs I didn't know existed. I couldn't stop thinking about how we could/should/must make these lanes a more integral and accessible part of the urban fabric. Not to want to become a replica Melbourne, but you do have to acknowledge that it is a city that has embraced the human scaled and inviting aspects of the laneways that we simply haven't done here. Adelaide just isn't pedestrian friendly and its certainly not a city that you would say is just waiting to be 'discovered' on foot. There is no invitation to wander. It's a city for walking in straight lines and getting from A to B during office hours before the 5:30 exodus.

What makes really appealing cities in my view, is an environment built to human scale and with limited vehicular traffic. Think the Covent Garden, Soho, Leicester Square areas of London. Lots of activity in a dense and compact area all accessible on foot and begging to be walked through. Think 3-4 storey buildings with minimal setbacks on narrow lanes. There is nothing like being lost in a city and then just walking around until you find yourself.

So what should we do? well, how about improving pedestrian access on some of the cool north/south running lanes throughout the city and promoting small shops, cafes, offices and apartments to open on to them. Maybe start with a small precinct like the ones near the central markets and get a whole network linked together so that you can actually walk more than a hundred metres without having to cross six lanes of traffic! How about getting some people living and working in buildings that interact with the street rather than just turning a cold shoulder.

more on that to come.

Thoughts for the day

Adding lanes to solve traffic congestion is like loosening your belt to solve obesity. - Glen Hemistra

If you plan cities for cars and traffic, you get cars and traffic. If you plan for people and places, you get people and places. - Fred Kent

When will we realise?

Last night i was out to dinner with some good friends who have recently bought a new house in one of the newer estates south of the city. Its not my kind of thing (too big, a little cliche, typical mcmansion really) but arguably really quite nice and with a pretty sweet view. The problem is its pretty much in the middle of nowhere (well amongst a bunch of other suburban houses that are in the middle of nowhere too). I asked them how they were liking it and obviously its a great house but what do they miss? Well being close to the shops, cafes, pubs and public transport that were just around the corner from the old place. She works in the city and used to walk a few minutes to the train stop and catch it in to and home from work. I couldn't help but smirk a little when she made the comment, that if someone isn't there to pick her up off the train now, she's stranded! Amusingly too she noted, if there is nothing in the fridge at night, they don't eat because they can't be bothered going back out again. Nothing like when there were shops within a short walk!

This might be a reality for heaps of people who live in the country, or small towns but this is supposed to be a city and people are supposed to have the advantages that city life brings, like being close to services. It should be everyones right to have good, reliable and frequent public transport within a short walk of their house and this is how we should be designing new parts of the city. What percentage of Adelaide has this?

I can't believe we are still covering prime agricultural land north, south and east of the city (thank god for the coast to the west or we would have sprawled a few nautical miles that way too by now) with more of the same shite housing that we know is so unsustainable.

My ultimate plan if I were in charge would be to stop all new development on greenfield land. I would take a number of the less desirable suburbs close to the city (sorry western suburbs but its probably you) and throw out the development plan as it stands. I would allow, no I would enforce zero set backs and 3-4 storey buildings as a standard. I would create a whole new suburb that was 4-6 times more compact than existing. I would encourage developers with tax incentives but only if they involved design professionals in the design process. I would eliminate minimum car parking numbers and improve transport links. I would encourage cycling and walking as the main means of transport and it would be great. This would take up less than 1% of the existing footprint of the greater city and those who complained could live in the remanding 99% of the sprawl with their big lawns, multiple cars and subscription to the Advertiser.

As noted I would especially promote cycling as a fashionable alternative form of transport. I have been spending too much time on copenhagencyclechic reminiscing about how good europeans have it and thinking about how much better women in dresses and high heels look on bikes than guys in full combat high visibility suits. Yep, won't see any of this in Adelaide....

Tumbleweeds

Where are all the people? Its a question I find myself asking so much of late. The only time I seem to see people in this city is on my lunchbreak when everyone has a reason to be on the street at the same time. Otherwise there is a rush before and after work of determined commuters furiously fighting to get into their cars to beat traffic but that's kind of it. I rode home tonight from the office at 6:30 and the streets were all but empty. Its actually a bit disturbing. Kind of like everyone has heard on the news that there are rampaging monkeys (or orrangutangs as is more the case in Adelaide) on the loose and I was the only one that didn't hear the message not to leave my building. If this ever were the case, I would blame the advertiser. I don't know how, but I'm sure it would be their fault.

Anyway, I just wanted to start by posting a link to one of the better sites I have stumbled on recently. I rate their excellent content. Maybe Mike Rann and Harbo could read some of the articles about cities that are doing great things. See, I'm trying to be more positive today.

http://www.urbanism.org/

I'm also time permiting, going to develop some ideas I've had for making this town more wicked. As I was alluding to in my first post, this isn't a big city but if we could cull the small town mentality and embrace some well directed recklessness in thought we could probably do some cool stuff. Maybe I can even get AdelaideNow to run one of my ideas.....

this is it.....

Alright, so this is it. After much talking about it, threatening to do it (well not to you because you likely don't know me), I've taken the plunge and decided to start a blog. Is it going to be any good? Probably not but hey, that's what blogs and anonymity are all about right? Oh, and it has never stopped the Advertiser from publishing so why not.

So what's it all about? Well, the situation is quite simply that I've returned to life in Adelaide (oh yeah, thats the SA 'heaps good' Adelaide) from a few years living, working and traveling in Europe. Unfortunately due to family commitments, visas etc. the OS time had to come to an end and now I am back to where it all started. What's so bad about that I hear you say? Plenty of people live here and think Adelaide is tops. You even come from here! I note you said 'unfortunately', wait, is this going to be you blogging a lot of the ill informed, biased and nonconstructive anti-Adelaide rhetoric that we have come to expect from the kids today? Well, yes....... and no. Then why don't you f$*k off and live somewhere else if you don't like it so much?

Ease up! The deal is this; I don't hate it (entirely), it just frustrates me because it could be so much more than what it is. Its just that there are a lot of people here with less than progressive attitudes and to quote Aurelio Vidmar, it really is a bit of a 'pissant town'. I'm not saying that in a completely negative way, I just think once people realise that, we could probably deal with the reality of it all and progress a bit.

I should point out here that my interests and gripes lye mostly in the realms of architecture, urban design and planning (though that won't stop me trying to comment on a bit of culture, fashion and so on because really, its all part of the same thing really). For me, its about the built fabric, the forms and spaces that make up the city and the stark reality of returning to a city where people seem to place little value on this. Mostly though, its about one man's struggle with a return to suburbia!

So you don't like suburbia eh? What's your beef? Well as I see it, the past 60-70 years of urban planning in this city have been based around this very outdated and largely shite model of planning. All of it based on the fallacy that is the 'suburban dream', the detached house on a block of your own land. The problem with suburbia though is that it's trying to be half urban (without the good bits like accessibility) and half rural (without the reality of proper space and cows). It's the ultimate compromise with the worst of both worlds.

So again, you don't like suburbia, you don't really like Adelaide. Then what do you like?

I like streets where people live and interact rather than just drive (one of their three cars) from suburban project homes down to the mall. I like density and diversity. I like the ease and virtues of a well connected public transport system that runs often enough that i don't need to live by a timetable. I like the ability to ride and walk most places. I like a city that feels alive and where things are at hand. I like being able to walk to the shops, park and the pub. I especially like being able to walk home from the pub (via a kebab shop). I like walking or riding because I am going somewhere not because I need to to make up for a lifestyle that doesn't involve enough exercise. I like riding without licra. I like progressive cities. I like people who don't leave stupid comments on the AdelaideNow website (more on that later).

Anyway, that's largely me. When I get some more time, I'm going to start posting up some of my gripes, observations and maybe even positive plans for making this city more urban. A positive dose of urban for a city infected with suburbanitis.