Creating Sustainable Neighborhood Design for Legacy Cities: A New Framework for Sustainability Assessment (original) (raw)
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2009
The Woodbridge neighborhood lies two miles from downtown Detroit and is home to a diverse community of students, artists, young professionals, families, and empty nesters. In February 2008, participating Woodbridge residents completed a community design process led by the Detroit Collaborative Design Center (DCDC) that resulted in a master plan and development strategy to guide future growth in the neighborhood. Our master's practicum was to further develop the design of a greenway through the Woodbridge neighborhood and plan a system of bike routes that connected the neighborhood to local and regional biking and greenway efforts. Research strategies included a literature review regarding greenway history and benefits, previous local attempts at greenways, design elements, site inventory and analysis, and a community meeting and survey tool. Observations conclude the neighborhood infrastructure emphasizes vehicular traffic and lacks pedestrian elements, and residents appreciate the naturalistic areas of the neighborhood but desired more recreational amenities. The Woodbridge Neighborhood Greenway and Bike Plan Design Guide is a booklet that communicates the design intent, program and features to community members and to the client, Woodbridge Neighborhood Development Corporation. The Design Guide strives to improve and enhance the pedestrian and non-motorized transportation experience throughout the Woodbridge neighborhood, connecting it to local amenities and greenways, and identifying it as a unique community within the City of Detroit. Methods
Vacant, abandoned or unproductive land parcels, sometimes called "wastelands", offer opportunities to create new green spaces in cities. Such spaces may be utilized to add to the stock of urban nature, expand recreational green space, promote real estate or commercial development, or simply remain undefined. These various trajectories have significant implications for population health, ecosystem services and real estate values. However, they may also contribute to inequitable outcomes. Are disadvantaged communities, which may be paradoxically rich in wastelands, more advantaged when green space redevelopment occurs, or are they more at risk of green gentrification and associated displacement? To address this question, we first review some of the literature relative to wastelands, especially as they relate to processes of urban change such as depopulation, land use planning, regrowth and gentrification. We utilize historical redlining maps, the Detroit Master Plan and projected land use scenarios from the Detroit Future City (DFC) Strategic Framework Plan to identify areas of vulnerability or possibility within walking distance of the proposed Joe Louis Greenway (JLG). Finally, we consider how wastelands situated along the JLG may be reframed as flexible opportunity spaces, their potential leveraged to advance environmental justice, economic opportunity, and social equity, especially as the City of Detroit takes socioeconomic and racial equity as a key orienting principle-an alternative to green gentrification that we call green reparations.
2015
This project focuses on the spatial planning, analysis, and design of a green infrastructure (GI) strategy for the Cody Rouge neighborhood in western Detroit. The Cody Rouge neighborhood is an ideal setting for this work because, like most neighborhoods in the city, it has experienced dramatic landscape change over the last sixty years as it has grappled with issues of blight, poverty, and vacancy. Specifically, the prevalence of vacant lots and abandoned properties, which cover approximately 25% of the landscape, contribute to neighborhood instability while creating a disconnected network of unused open space. Numerous studies that have examined future planning scenarios for "shrinking cities" have adopted GI for its multifunctional potential as a method for not only addressing blight caused by vacancy and abandonment but also as a long-term strategy for promoting urban ecology by enhancing ecosystem services and having a positive effect on human health and well-being. Through the development of spatial models that synthesize opportunities for stormwater management and vacant lot feasibility, green infrastructure prioritization and design strategies are recommended for the Cody Rouge Neighborhood. This project aims to provide a neighborhood planning approach that integrates ongoing efforts for citywide greening, compliance for water management, and vacant land stabilization. Additionally, through an overview of topics related to green infrastructure, landscape planning, spatial modeling, urban ecology, and cultural landscape values, the transdisciplinary nature of this work is emphasized and an accessible, legible, and welldocumented strategy for landscape modeling and green infrastructure site prioritization is provided for the Cody Rouge Neighborhood.
Reinventing Detroit: Reclaiming Grayfields—New Metrics in Evaluating Urban Environments
Challenges, 2011
Planners, designers, citizens, and governmental agencies are interested in creating environments that are sustainable and fulfill a wide range of economic, ecological, aesthetic, functional, and cultural expectations for stakeholders. There are numerous approaches and proposals to create such environments. One vision is the 1934 "Broadacre City" proposed by Frank Lloyd Wright for the Taliesin, Wisconsin area that was never implemented. Frank Lloyd Wright's vision integrated transportation, housing, commercial, agricultural, and natural areas in a highly diverse pattern forming a vast urban savanna complex. He also applied his "Broadacre City" idea to the 1942 Cooperative Homesteads Community Project in Detroit, Michigan, another un-built project. This vision concerning the composition of the urban environment may be conceptually realized in the ongoing gray-field reclamation in suburban Detroit, Michigan. Recent science-based investigations, concerning the metrics to measure and evaluate the quality of designed spaces, suggest that this "Broadacre City" approach may have great merit and is highly preferred over past spatial treatments (p ≤ 0.05). These metrics explain 67 to 80% of the variance concerning stakeholder expectations and are highly definitive (p < 0.001).
Journal of Urban Affairs, 2014
high densities, mixed land uses, high connectivity, greater accessibility, and pedestrian activity is significantly weaker in declining inner cities. More than any other elements, decentralization and dispersion define U.S. cities as we go into the twenty-first century. Much research into the environmental, economic, and social dimensions of the density of the built environment (high density vs. low density) has emerged, focusing in particular on the coupling of ongoing decentralization with the rapid decline of central cities. This combination of factors has followed clear lines of class and racial composition that have created poverty-stricken enclaves that are ethnically and racially entrenched. Such conditions of decline within cities are seen as facilitating perpetual cycles of disadvantage in shaping the "local burdens of place" (Vojnovic et al., 2013). Many U.S. cities are characterized by the coupling of extreme urban decline and inefficient suburbanization, including Youngstown and Dayton (Ohio), Buffalo (New York), Flint (Michigan), and others. However, with the release of 2010 Census data, Detroit emerges as the most dramatic example. The city of Detroit lost a quarter of its population during the decade 2000-2010-from a population of 951,270 in 2000 to 713,777 in 2010. This can be seen as a loss of some 24,000 people annually, over 63 people every day, or close to 3 people every hour. Since the 1950s, when Detroit had 1.85 million people, its population has been cut by more than 60%. As one might imagine, severe local stresses become evident when a city built to accommodate 1.85 million houses only some 700,000 within its boundaries. Chris Hansen (2010), on Dateline NBC, described the city's condition in this way: They litter the landscape, thousands and thousands of abandoned homes. And just like these buildings, Detroit is a shell of its former self. One third of the people here live in poverty. Almost half the adults are illiterate, and about 75 percent of kids drop out of school. I could be describing some ravaged foreign nation, but this is the middle of America.
Greening the Metropolis - An Analysis of Vacant Land Reuse Initiatives in Major U.S. Cities
This study demonstrates and analyzes how the reuse of vacant land through various processes, collectively referred to as urban greening, can lead to significant improvements in the economy and environment of major U.S. cities. Post-industrial northeastern cities have experienced shrinking population bases for decades and suffer from some of the highest property vacancy rates in the nation. These cities are addressing this chronic problem by reusing vacant properties for urban farming or so-called clean & green initiatives. This study also reports how abandoned rail trails are becoming a burgeoning component of urban greening initiatives. Cities are creating public parks out of abandoned elevated rail lines, the most well-known being The High Line in New York City. Most prior research of vacant land reuse is qualitative, with a few quantitative studies that show correlation but not causation with economic and/or environmental improvements. Despite this, there is sufficient data driven and anecdotal evidence to conclude that positive impacts, both economically and environmentally, occur in cities that reuse vacant land through urban greening.
URBAN AREAS Policy, Planning, and Zoning Recommendations
Our urban areas represent the greatest challenge for the future of Smart Growth. There is an abundance of land and deteriorated buildings for redevelopment. The market drive for these locations will be dependent on a larger regional strategy as well as high quality urban design, streetscapes, green spaces and transit. It is critical that redevelopment efforts be focused into specific urban neighborhoods and districts rather than diluted effort in all neighborhoods.
A green space vision in Southeast Michigan’s most heavily industrialized area
Urban Ecosystems, 2018
In 2011, Marathon Petroleum Company LP, which has operated a refinery west of the Rouge River since 1959, initiated a voluntary property purchase program in the neighborhood known as the Oakwood Heights. Approximately 80 % of residents accepted the offers made to them. Around the same time, a group of community and nonprofit stakeholders was developing a vision for revitalizing the area adjacent to the new Fort Street Bridge, through celebrating cultural heritage, preserving natural Great Lake habitats and supporting recreational opportunities along the river. As a result of the collaboration that developed, parts of the 110acre area are now slated to become a wildlife habitat and urban forest, supporting other green infrastructure along the Rouge and Detroit Rivers. The paper proceeds in four parts: 1) we first provide background and an overview of the history of the Rouge River and its importance to the development of the culture and industry of Detroit, Michigan; 2) we then describe the development of the idea for expanded green space in this area as the confluence of two concurrent investments, one by government and one by industry, and a series of discussions between local stakeholders and community residents; 3) we present the vision for two contiguous green space areas, including a small interpretive park and a landscape designed to maximize ecosystem services; and 4) we conclude with a discussion of this project's significance as it relates to both the city of Detroit and other cities facing similar challenges, exploring how private industry can work with NGOs and public agencies to transform such interstitial areas into multifunctional landscapes that provide tangible benefits to community residents as well as measurable environmental outcomes.
Journal of the American Planning Association
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