Most of the discussion about what to do about dying main streets has focused on use flexibility. This paper focuses on quantity and coverage – how many and where should main streets be located? The current physical spread of traditional main streets is a product of an earlier age when miles of storefronts were surrounded by high-density neighbourhoods. Not enough a ention is paid to the need for 'smart shrinkage' – i.e. the need to drastically reduce the amount of land given over – i.e. zoned – as commercial space. Focusing on struggling commercial corridors in one large American city, Chicago, I lay out the factors to consider in deciding priority areas, including population, business, and street characteristics, and include suggestions about what planners and urbanists should aim for in the next decade.
{"title":"The Future of Main Street: Retail Shrinkage","authors":"E. Talen","doi":"10.2148/benv.48.1.30","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2148/benv.48.1.30","url":null,"abstract":"Most of the discussion about what to do about dying main streets has focused on use flexibility. This paper focuses on quantity and coverage – how many and where should main streets be located? The current physical spread of traditional main streets is a product of an earlier\u0000 age when miles of storefronts were surrounded by high-density neighbourhoods. Not enough a ention is paid to the need for 'smart shrinkage' – i.e. the need to drastically reduce the amount of land given over – i.e. zoned – as commercial space. Focusing on struggling commercial\u0000 corridors in one large American city, Chicago, I lay out the factors to consider in deciding priority areas, including population, business, and street characteristics, and include suggestions about what planners and urbanists should aim for in the next decade.","PeriodicalId":53715,"journal":{"name":"Built Environment","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43662694","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
What do art and community spaces look like when no one can use them to gather? Academic research into neighbourhoods and urban art scenes have focused on the power of such spaces to bring people together. Using the framework of Oldenburg's notion of 'third places', sociologists have recognized the importance of places like art galleries, bars, restaurants, coff ee shops, and anywhere else people gather in providing a physical site of orientation outside work and the home for people to be together and communities to amalgamate. While there have always been critiques of such places and their role in urban space, e.g.their part in gentri fication and potential displacement, positive accounts of their role in neighbourhood life have typically focused on their ability to draw people together, so a situation like the current pandemic – when such gatherings are forestalled – raises an obvious question about their current utility. Using two case studies on the South Side of Chicago, this paper leverages interview data with merchants involved with sociallyengaged commercial spaces to examine some of the ways that community spaces in Chicago shifted in light of the pandemic. The article concludes with policy and theoretical considerations based on these case studies, extrapolating lessons beyond the South Side of Chicago. Speci fically, it suggests that in addition to off ering limited versions of their traditional facilitation of physical co-presence, art and community third places can also leverage their importance in social networks to help distribute information and resources.
{"title":"Gathering Spaces When No One Can Gather: Art and Community Third Places in the Age of Covid-19","authors":"J. Parker","doi":"10.2148/benv.48.1.48","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2148/benv.48.1.48","url":null,"abstract":"What do art and community spaces look like when no one can use them to gather? Academic research into neighbourhoods and urban art scenes have focused on the power of such spaces to bring people together. Using the framework of Oldenburg's notion of 'third places', sociologists have\u0000 recognized the importance of places like art galleries, bars, restaurants, coff ee shops, and anywhere else people gather in providing a physical site of orientation outside work and the home for people to be together and communities to amalgamate. While there have always been critiques of\u0000 such places and their role in urban space, e.g.their part in gentri fication and potential displacement, positive accounts of their role in neighbourhood life have typically focused on their ability to draw people together, so a situation like the current pandemic – when such gatherings\u0000 are forestalled – raises an obvious question about their current utility. Using two case studies on the South Side of Chicago, this paper leverages interview data with merchants involved with sociallyengaged commercial spaces to examine some of the ways that community spaces in Chicago\u0000 shifted in light of the pandemic. The article concludes with policy and theoretical considerations based on these case studies, extrapolating lessons beyond the South Side of Chicago. Speci fically, it suggests that in addition to off ering limited versions of their traditional facilitation\u0000 of physical co-presence, art and community third places can also leverage their importance in social networks to help distribute information and resources.","PeriodicalId":53715,"journal":{"name":"Built Environment","volume":"105 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41274064","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The changing fortunes of the high street have been a subject of interest for some time, with a view that trends such as the shift to more online retailing as well as changing pa erns of work, mobility and prosperity may impact the viability and vacancy of retail units. These pa erns and concerns have been exacerbated by recent governance reforms in England. At the same time as a global pandemic has reduced footfall and threatened many shops with closure, the government has been deregulating the urban planning system so that local governments have less ability to exert control over the use and design of buildings. This has been seen particularly in the form of what is known as 'permi ed development', which allows commercial buildings to be converted to residential use without needing planning permission and which was increased in scope in August 2021. This deregulation has been driven by a neoliberal, market utopian understanding of the so-called 'housing crisis' in England. An existing trend of converting high street shops to residential use is thus likely to accelerate. In this article, we examine the drivers for adaptive reuse of commercial buildings as residential use and the deregulatory governance context currently surrounding this in England. We then consider data on the rate of conversion and provide case studies of diff erent quality conversions of shops to dwellings, arguing that there is insufficient a ention being paid to design quality, particularly in terms of the quality of housing being provided for residents of these conversions. This might mean that conversions threaten the wellbeing of residents – consigning them to 'future slums' (BBBBC, 2020) – and also the vibrancy of high streets and the broader quality of the public realm. We argue that incremental conversions, not bound within any broader planning, of high street functions (or what it means to lose active frontages, without compensation) are a threat to overall place quality. We therefore propose design principles and make policy recommendations that seek to achieve the eff ective governance of commercial to residential conversion whilst sustaining that place quality.
{"title":"Turning Shops into Housing? Planning Deregulation, Design Quality and the Future of the High Street in England","authors":"Ben Clifford, M. Madeddu","doi":"10.2148/benv.48.1.123","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2148/benv.48.1.123","url":null,"abstract":"The changing fortunes of the high street have been a subject of interest for some time, with a view that trends such as the shift to more online retailing as well as changing pa erns of work, mobility and prosperity may impact the viability and vacancy of retail units. These pa erns\u0000 and concerns have been exacerbated by recent governance reforms in England. At the same time as a global pandemic has reduced footfall and threatened many shops with closure, the government has been deregulating the urban planning system so that local governments have less ability to exert\u0000 control over the use and design of buildings. This has been seen particularly in the form of what is known as 'permi ed development', which allows commercial buildings to be converted to residential use without needing planning permission and which was increased in scope in August 2021. This\u0000 deregulation has been driven by a neoliberal, market utopian understanding of the so-called 'housing crisis' in England. An existing trend of converting high street shops to residential use is thus likely to accelerate. In this article, we examine the drivers for adaptive reuse of commercial\u0000 buildings as residential use and the deregulatory governance context currently surrounding this in England. We then consider data on the rate of conversion and provide case studies of diff erent quality conversions of shops to dwellings, arguing that there is insufficient a ention being paid\u0000 to design quality, particularly in terms of the quality of housing being provided for residents of these conversions. This might mean that conversions threaten the wellbeing of residents – consigning them to 'future slums' (BBBBC, 2020) – and also the vibrancy of high streets and\u0000 the broader quality of the public realm. We argue that incremental conversions, not bound within any broader planning, of high street functions (or what it means to lose active frontages, without compensation) are a threat to overall place quality. We therefore propose design principles and\u0000 make policy recommendations that seek to achieve the eff ective governance of commercial to residential conversion whilst sustaining that place quality.","PeriodicalId":53715,"journal":{"name":"Built Environment","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48020830","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The transformation of storefronts to post-transactional functions has a much longer history than contemporary debates may suggest. Especially in urban environments, the number of physical retail establishments has declined almost constantly since records began nearly a century ago, allowing us to learn from the transformation of the storefronts this decline has left behind. This article explores how storefronts have transformed into post-transactional functions over the past century in the urban core of The Hague, one of the largest cities in The Netherlands and the country's seat of government. Firstly, it explores, through archival study, the forces behind The Hague's storefront retail decline, from legislation meant to curb independent retailers to urban renewal eff orts. Similarly, archival research illustrates that The Hague has a decades-long tradition of acknowledging and proactively planning for post-transactional storefront futures. Secondly, a comparison between a 1911 storefront database with that of 2017 demonstrates that about a fifth of storefronts have changed to a post-transactional use. The majority of transformations yielded dwellings, followed by offices, parking, vacancy and medical and wellness uses. Many of these new uses have spurred the creative economy of The Hague, illustrating the resilient urban value of storefronts beyond merely hosting consumer transactions.
{"title":"The Past of Our Storefront Future: A Century of Post-Transactional Storefront Transformations in The Hague's Urban Core","authors":"Conrad C Kickert","doi":"10.2148/benv.48.1.11","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2148/benv.48.1.11","url":null,"abstract":"The transformation of storefronts to post-transactional functions has a much longer history than contemporary debates may suggest. Especially in urban environments, the number of physical retail establishments has declined almost constantly since records began nearly a century ago,\u0000 allowing us to learn from the transformation of the storefronts this decline has left behind. This article explores how storefronts have transformed into post-transactional functions over the past century in the urban core of The Hague, one of the largest cities in The Netherlands and the\u0000 country's seat of government. Firstly, it explores, through archival study, the forces behind The Hague's storefront retail decline, from legislation meant to curb independent retailers to urban renewal eff orts. Similarly, archival research illustrates that The Hague has a decades-long tradition\u0000 of acknowledging and proactively planning for post-transactional storefront futures. Secondly, a comparison between a 1911 storefront database with that of 2017 demonstrates that about a fifth of storefronts have changed to a post-transactional use. The majority of transformations yielded\u0000 dwellings, followed by offices, parking, vacancy and medical and wellness uses. Many of these new uses have spurred the creative economy of The Hague, illustrating the resilient urban value of storefronts beyond merely hosting consumer transactions.","PeriodicalId":53715,"journal":{"name":"Built Environment","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49407945","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The use and reuse of urban storefront spaces provide a lens into the economic activities of neighbourhoods and cities. As a spatial typology, the urban storefront has adapted to economic change and accommodated new uses over time. Coworking has emerged as a legitimate social architecture of the new economy, and coworking spaces have increasingly layered themselves into the physical architecture of the storefronts and streetscapes of major cities. This article contextualizes the coworking space along the historic trajectory of the urban storefront and draws from speci fic examples of street-level coworking spaces in New York City developed through exploratory case study methods. The main argument is that by situating coworking space at street level, work has become an increasingly consumerized experience that is marketed and sold like other goods and services. This trend off ers an alternative to retail use, thus providing an opportunity to rebalance the mix of uses in neighbourhoods and cities. The article concludes with re flections to inform planning and design.
{"title":"The Consumerization of Work in the Modern City: Storefronts, Coworking, and the Convergence of Production and Consumption","authors":"Peter A. Bacevice","doi":"10.2148/benv.48.1.104","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2148/benv.48.1.104","url":null,"abstract":"The use and reuse of urban storefront spaces provide a lens into the economic activities of neighbourhoods and cities. As a spatial typology, the urban storefront has adapted to economic change and accommodated new uses over time. Coworking has emerged as a legitimate social architecture\u0000 of the new economy, and coworking spaces have increasingly layered themselves into the physical architecture of the storefronts and streetscapes of major cities. This article contextualizes the coworking space along the historic trajectory of the urban storefront and draws from speci fic examples\u0000 of street-level coworking spaces in New York City developed through exploratory case study methods. The main argument is that by situating coworking space at street level, work has become an increasingly consumerized experience that is marketed and sold like other goods and services. This\u0000 trend off ers an alternative to retail use, thus providing an opportunity to rebalance the mix of uses in neighbourhoods and cities. The article concludes with re flections to inform planning and design.","PeriodicalId":53715,"journal":{"name":"Built Environment","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41453713","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"It's All in the Context! Sustaining a City's Culture and Character: Principles and Best Practices by Charles R. Wolfe with Tigran Haas","authors":"L. Ghilardi","doi":"10.2148/benv.48.1.141","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2148/benv.48.1.141","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":53715,"journal":{"name":"Built Environment","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49301982","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jacob Izenberg, D. Farrand, Molly Rose Kaufman, M. Fullilove
Main streets are an amalgam of civic, commercial, and public spaces that serve as urban places of connection and exchange. Many factors have undermined the commercial functions of main street, but the Covid-19 pandemic has been a particularly severe stressor. This paper describes the manner in which the University of Orange Music City team planned festivals to support their local main streets during the pandemic. Drawing on the authors' previously developed box-circle-line-tangle model of main street social function, this paper uses the example of the Music City Festival to underscore how careful a ention to the tangle of main streets can stimulate new thinking and action in support of these crucial centres.
{"title":"Music on Main: Supporting a Tangle of Main Streets during the Covid-19 Pandemic","authors":"Jacob Izenberg, D. Farrand, Molly Rose Kaufman, M. Fullilove","doi":"10.2148/benv.48.1.63","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2148/benv.48.1.63","url":null,"abstract":"Main streets are an amalgam of civic, commercial, and public spaces that serve as urban places of connection and exchange. Many factors have undermined the commercial functions of main street, but the Covid-19 pandemic has been a particularly severe stressor. This paper describes the\u0000 manner in which the University of Orange Music City team planned festivals to support their local main streets during the pandemic. Drawing on the authors' previously developed box-circle-line-tangle model of main street social function, this paper uses the example of the Music City Festival\u0000 to underscore how careful a ention to the tangle of main streets can stimulate new thinking and action in support of these crucial centres.","PeriodicalId":53715,"journal":{"name":"Built Environment","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48676875","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
R. Amoako-Sakyi, K. Agyemang, C. Mensah, Prince Kwame Odame, A. Seidu, Y. A. Adjakloe, S. Owusu
Apart from their potential environmental benefits, micromobility modes of transport can afford their users enormous health benefits. This notwithstanding, their adoption is very low or non-existent in most African cities including Ghana. The paucity of research on micromobility in Ghana restricts any objective discussions on the factors that contribute to its low adoption. However, data from elsewhere flag the lack of safe spaces as an important factor. The creation of safe spaces and a micromobility supportive environment will have to be premised on the nuanced understanding of existing intermodal interactions and con flicts. Although micromobility vehicles like e-bikes and e-scooters are not common in Ghana, bicycles are, and they offer a window of opportunity to study intermodal interactions between cyclists (micromobility proxy) and other road users. Using a mixed methods approach, this study investigates the interactions and con flicts that arise between child cyclists and informal-sector commercial vehicle drivers in two Ghanaian cities (Cape Coast and Kumasi) and attempt to predict micromobility acceptability based on drivers' attitudes towards child cyclists and drivers cycling experiences. The results show a low acceptability of micromobility by drivers. They also had several negative stereotypes about cyclists and considered them illegitimate road users. Educational attainment, employment status, and priority access emerged as the best predictors of acceptability of micromobility use by informal-sector commercial drivers. Taken together, the low acceptability of micromobility and the negative perceptions drivers have of cyclists might present significant stumbling blocks to adoption of micromobility in the study areas. Further studies on the suitability of the built environment, intention-to-use, policy development as well as the development of a business model for micromobility will go a long way in shaping the next steps.
{"title":"Drivers' Cycling Experiences and Acceptability of Micromobility Use among Children in Ghana","authors":"R. Amoako-Sakyi, K. Agyemang, C. Mensah, Prince Kwame Odame, A. Seidu, Y. A. Adjakloe, S. Owusu","doi":"10.2148/benv.47.4.443","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2148/benv.47.4.443","url":null,"abstract":"Apart from their potential environmental benefits, micromobility modes of transport can afford their users enormous health benefits. This notwithstanding, their adoption is very low or non-existent in most African cities including Ghana. The paucity of research on micromobility in Ghana\u0000 restricts any objective discussions on the factors that contribute to its low adoption. However, data from elsewhere flag the lack of safe spaces as an important factor. The creation of safe spaces and a micromobility supportive environment will have to be premised on the nuanced understanding\u0000 of existing intermodal interactions and con flicts. Although micromobility vehicles like e-bikes and e-scooters are not common in Ghana, bicycles are, and they offer a window of opportunity to study intermodal interactions between cyclists (micromobility proxy) and other road users. Using\u0000 a mixed methods approach, this study investigates the interactions and con flicts that arise between child cyclists and informal-sector commercial vehicle drivers in two Ghanaian cities (Cape Coast and Kumasi) and attempt to predict micromobility acceptability based on drivers' attitudes towards\u0000 child cyclists and drivers cycling experiences. The results show a low acceptability of micromobility by drivers. They also had several negative stereotypes about cyclists and considered them illegitimate road users. Educational attainment, employment status, and priority access emerged as\u0000 the best predictors of acceptability of micromobility use by informal-sector commercial drivers. Taken together, the low acceptability of micromobility and the negative perceptions drivers have of cyclists might present significant stumbling blocks to adoption of micromobility in the study\u0000 areas. Further studies on the suitability of the built environment, intention-to-use, policy development as well as the development of a business model for micromobility will go a long way in shaping the next steps.","PeriodicalId":53715,"journal":{"name":"Built Environment","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48752983","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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