Picking up from where I left off in the last post regarding my 1997 urban design article in the Maine Sunday Telegram titled, "A Sense of Place"-
While living in Camden I noticed a new
high school was going to be built 3 miles out of town so I wrote an article in 1997. Camden Maine was an amazing little town with the town hall, police, fire, library, schools, Y, town landing in town. The current school was in town and almost all the
kids walked to school and walked down to bagel shop and over to the Y
in town for swimming or sailing and lived a wonderful holistic life.
The new state of the art school would mean all would have to be
bussed to and from and parents would have to drive them everywhere. I
thought the existing old mill building right in town over a stream
with high ceilings and lots of space would be perfect if they moved
the credit card telemarketing company out (that company eventually did leave). I said Portland school
stayed in town. They built the new Y out of town too so the kids couldn't just walk there for lessons, etc.
Speaking of walking I had time to write this for a few days as I was lying in bed barely able to move after injuring my back somehow during basketball game. Another anecdote is this time is when my first son began to walk and holding his hand we would step down the granite blocks along the stream and bay.
After the article the state did start looking at schools staying in walkable areas so perhaps my urban design work began to have an effect. It's always hard to tell as I've never been contacted by any state or municipal planners, etc. regarding any of my articles.
Quoting from the end of the article: An exchange student from Switzerland was interviewed recently regarding her experiences so far in the United States. She said it was so different, all this rushing around by car to run simple errands. In her village, people walk. ``Things are so hectic here,'' she said. ``We move a lot slower where I come from. My house is closer to everything there, and it's new to always have to drive somewhere. We don't even have school buses there.''
Where was she? Los Angeles? Miami? Some New Jersey suburb?She was in Camden, Maine.
Here is the second half of the article 'A Sense of Place' as published in spring of 1997:
In the future we will have access to unlimited alternate realities in 3-D video. Access to our institutions, such as libraries, town offices, police, fire department and even schooling may come through the video world. From a purely pragmatic view, there will cease to be a need for many institutional buildings. Based strictly on the numbers, we might say that life will be more efficient without them.
But no matter how many tasks we can accomplish with the computer or how entertained our children can be by one, we will always desire to be around people for a certain amount of time each day. How many of us go into a shop after work just to be around people, even if we don't need to purchase anything?
Therefore, our institutions might simply change to fulfill needs that are not based solely on function. The library may be a ``quiet zone''; the police station will contain a ``safe zone.'' We can develop our public spaces based on emotional values.
In Orono, I lived across the street from the road up to the high school, so I walked to school. The high school in Orono contains the public library. The building sits behind the middle school, which sits behind the police/fire station/town office building, which sits on Main Street.
After school we could walk into town, and maybe go to Pat's Pizza or LaVerdiere's. The institutional buildings were all placed in town because it was common sense to do so. We must use common sense when placing our institutions in the future.
The zoning laws we write are the rules by which developers play. Any time we see a building go up that does not fit our concept of what our town should be, we have only ourselves to blame. The rules we write are the basis for the creation of our towns, and we need to incorporate goals that are in step with the experiences we would like to have in moving by foot through our town. These rules should incorporate networks of experiences such as the movement from library to school; from town hall to post office; from police station to town hall; from shops to school, etc.
When we plan our public institutions around automobile traffic, we place the comfort of a large piece of metal over our own comfort. We try in vain to have a meaningful conversation in five seconds as we pick up a burger at the drive-through window. And while our cars sit comfortably in their spaces, we wander aimlessly through seas of asphalt to complete simple chores.
In Camden, the best place for a new high school may be smack in the middle of town in the old mill now used as offices for a telemarketing company. That company with all its commuters may in fact be better off at the proposed high school site. That would make common sense.
An exchange student from Switzerland was interviewed recently regarding her experiences so far in the United States. She said it was so different, all this rushing around by car to run simple errands. In her village, people walk. ``Things are so hectic here,'' she said. ``We move a lot slower where I come from. My house is closer to everything there, and it's new to always have to drive somewhere. We don't even have school buses there.''
Where was she? Los Angeles? Miami? Some New Jersey suburb?
She was in Camden, Maine.
But no matter how many tasks we can accomplish with the computer or how entertained our children can be by one, we will always desire to be around people for a certain amount of time each day. How many of us go into a shop after work just to be around people, even if we don't need to purchase anything?
Therefore, our institutions might simply change to fulfill needs that are not based solely on function. The library may be a ``quiet zone''; the police station will contain a ``safe zone.'' We can develop our public spaces based on emotional values.
In Orono, I lived across the street from the road up to the high school, so I walked to school. The high school in Orono contains the public library. The building sits behind the middle school, which sits behind the police/fire station/town office building, which sits on Main Street.
After school we could walk into town, and maybe go to Pat's Pizza or LaVerdiere's. The institutional buildings were all placed in town because it was common sense to do so. We must use common sense when placing our institutions in the future.
The zoning laws we write are the rules by which developers play. Any time we see a building go up that does not fit our concept of what our town should be, we have only ourselves to blame. The rules we write are the basis for the creation of our towns, and we need to incorporate goals that are in step with the experiences we would like to have in moving by foot through our town. These rules should incorporate networks of experiences such as the movement from library to school; from town hall to post office; from police station to town hall; from shops to school, etc.
When we plan our public institutions around automobile traffic, we place the comfort of a large piece of metal over our own comfort. We try in vain to have a meaningful conversation in five seconds as we pick up a burger at the drive-through window. And while our cars sit comfortably in their spaces, we wander aimlessly through seas of asphalt to complete simple chores.
In Camden, the best place for a new high school may be smack in the middle of town in the old mill now used as offices for a telemarketing company. That company with all its commuters may in fact be better off at the proposed high school site. That would make common sense.
An exchange student from Switzerland was interviewed recently regarding her experiences so far in the United States. She said it was so different, all this rushing around by car to run simple errands. In her village, people walk. ``Things are so hectic here,'' she said. ``We move a lot slower where I come from. My house is closer to everything there, and it's new to always have to drive somewhere. We don't even have school buses there.''
Where was she? Los Angeles? Miami? Some New Jersey suburb?
She was in Camden, Maine.
No comments:
Post a Comment