After a lot of thought about these, I have decided on a few categories. There are lots of urban places that are suffering from decentralisation. A blog I wrote a few months ago about extreme centralisation brought to my attention how many locations reflect this or other hot spots for concern in the region. Some of them are due to poor planning, others are due to poor design.
In conversation with other people who look critically at the city, we have identified Urban Dead Zones (UDZ) as places that do fall seriously short in their potential as urban community areas. In particular, I think of the parking lot heavens of Charles St in almost it’s entirety, and Caroline as well. These places feel dangerous to women who avoid them at night, and are crazy for faster traffic. Other UDZ’s would be Duke St and Queen St through the downtown with their commercial capacity completely dwindled. Another type of UDZ would be the Waterloo Town Square that requires constant programming or major attraction such as a skating rink to maintain usage of the space.
I was very unimpressed by the choice to build the Charles St side of the new Charles and Benton garage not include street level store fronts, reinforcing Charles St as a continued UDZ.
The problem with UDZ is that they reinforce a continued feeling of emptiness in deeply urban spaces, reinforcing both a sense of danger for pedestrians both through not having feet on the streets, and they also tend to be worse for traffic with cars passing through large areas of parking lots, even though they are within the core, as though they were on country roads. Cyclist who have the misfortune of traveling down Caroline, even with the addition of bike lanes, often attest to the speed and grave concerns they have concerning the safety of the street.
UDZ’s also prevent vibrant community development. People avoid them for walking even if they provide a decent corridor for pedestrian and cycling transit.
Suburbs have similar, such as the ultra fast and scary for cyclists and pedestrians Fischer-Hallman or Ira Needles. Suburbs are so rampant with design and community issues that I won’t be touching them on this entry, or likely much ever in my blog (never mind much in person).
What is to be done? These spaces are already constructed and create a negative dynamic. Is there possibility for reclamations?
Charles and Benton UDZ
Parking lot across the street from....
...another parking lot.
James
January 23, 2011
Larry asked me one day on the bus what they were building. I replied it was a parking garage. To which he countered, “No, a crime scene.”
J
Terre Chartrand
January 23, 2011
Oh man… Well, it is a site and community killer. Yeah, it will bring more cars in, but really – Charles is for the most part a very large wasteland. Thank goodness for the vibrance of Kate’s Pyrus, Elison’s, and the few other places that add folks to the street along there.
JB
January 23, 2011
Yes it will bring more cars and allow for inexpensive parking. A ll this while our genius leaders try, on the other hand, to promote the LRT and increased transit from the suburbs. Do they really think that this will work when they are providing an alternative that is in direct competition with thier plans? I just don’t get it.
JB
Terre Chartrand
January 24, 2011
So we develop the core at the expense of the core community for the sake of suburban cars that we are trying to keep out with new transit initiative? Yup. Totally backwards.
Lisa Harmey
January 24, 2011
It’s what’s called a “fudge” that garage.