1 00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:03,000 In the last 50 years, 2 00:00:03,000 --> 00:00:05,000 we've been building the suburbs 3 00:00:05,000 --> 00:00:07,000 with a lot of unintended consequences. 4 00:00:07,000 --> 00:00:10,000 And I'm going to talk about some of those consequences 5 00:00:10,000 --> 00:00:13,000 and just present a whole bunch of really interesting projects 6 00:00:13,000 --> 00:00:16,000 that I think give us tremendous reasons 7 00:00:16,000 --> 00:00:18,000 to be really optimistic 8 00:00:18,000 --> 00:00:21,000 that the big design and development project of the next 50 years 9 00:00:21,000 --> 00:00:24,000 is going to be retrofitting suburbia. 10 00:00:24,000 --> 00:00:27,000 So whether it's redeveloping dying malls 11 00:00:27,000 --> 00:00:30,000 or re-inhabiting dead big-box stores 12 00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:32,000 or reconstructing wetlands 13 00:00:32,000 --> 00:00:34,000 out of parking lots, 14 00:00:34,000 --> 00:00:36,000 I think the fact is 15 00:00:36,000 --> 00:00:38,000 the growing number 16 00:00:38,000 --> 00:00:40,000 of empty and under-performing, 17 00:00:40,000 --> 00:00:42,000 especially retail, sites 18 00:00:42,000 --> 00:00:44,000 throughout suburbia 19 00:00:44,000 --> 00:00:47,000 gives us actually a tremendous opportunity 20 00:00:47,000 --> 00:00:49,000 to take our least-sustainable 21 00:00:49,000 --> 00:00:51,000 landscapes right now 22 00:00:51,000 --> 00:00:53,000 and convert them into 23 00:00:53,000 --> 00:00:55,000 more sustainable places. 24 00:00:55,000 --> 00:00:58,000 And in the process, what that allows us to do 25 00:00:58,000 --> 00:01:00,000 is to redirect a lot more of our growth 26 00:01:00,000 --> 00:01:02,000 back into existing communities 27 00:01:02,000 --> 00:01:04,000 that could use a boost, 28 00:01:04,000 --> 00:01:06,000 and have the infrastructure in place, 29 00:01:06,000 --> 00:01:08,000 instead of continuing 30 00:01:08,000 --> 00:01:10,000 to tear down trees 31 00:01:10,000 --> 00:01:12,000 and to tear up the green space out at the edges. 32 00:01:12,000 --> 00:01:15,000 So why is this important? 33 00:01:15,000 --> 00:01:18,000 I think there are any number of reasons, 34 00:01:18,000 --> 00:01:21,000 and I'm just going to not get into detail but mention a few. 35 00:01:21,000 --> 00:01:24,000 Just from the perspective of climate change, 36 00:01:24,000 --> 00:01:26,000 the average urban dweller in the U.S. 37 00:01:26,000 --> 00:01:29,000 has about one-third the carbon footprint 38 00:01:29,000 --> 00:01:32,000 of the average suburban dweller, 39 00:01:32,000 --> 00:01:35,000 mostly because suburbanites drive a lot more, 40 00:01:35,000 --> 00:01:38,000 and living in detached buildings, 41 00:01:38,000 --> 00:01:40,000 you have that much more exterior surface 42 00:01:40,000 --> 00:01:42,000 to leak energy out of. 43 00:01:43,000 --> 00:01:45,000 So strictly from 44 00:01:45,000 --> 00:01:48,000 a climate change perspective, 45 00:01:48,000 --> 00:01:50,000 the cities are already 46 00:01:50,000 --> 00:01:52,000 relatively green. 47 00:01:52,000 --> 00:01:54,000 The big opportunity 48 00:01:54,000 --> 00:01:56,000 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 49 00:01:56,000 --> 00:01:58,000 is actually in urbanizing 50 00:01:58,000 --> 00:02:00,000 the suburbs. 51 00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:03,000 All that driving that we've been doing out in the suburbs, 52 00:02:03,000 --> 00:02:06,000 we have doubled the amount of miles we drive. 53 00:02:06,000 --> 00:02:08,000 It's increased our dependence 54 00:02:08,000 --> 00:02:10,000 on foreign oil 55 00:02:10,000 --> 00:02:12,000 despite the gains in fuel efficiency. 56 00:02:12,000 --> 00:02:14,000 We're just driving so much more; 57 00:02:14,000 --> 00:02:16,000 we haven't been able to keep up technologically. 58 00:02:16,000 --> 00:02:18,000 Public health is another reason 59 00:02:18,000 --> 00:02:20,000 to consider retrofitting. 60 00:02:20,000 --> 00:02:23,000 Researchers at the CDC and other places 61 00:02:23,000 --> 00:02:25,000 have increasingly been linking 62 00:02:25,000 --> 00:02:27,000 suburban development patterns 63 00:02:27,000 --> 00:02:29,000 with sedentary lifestyles. 64 00:02:29,000 --> 00:02:31,000 And those have been linked then 65 00:02:31,000 --> 00:02:33,000 with the rather alarming, 66 00:02:33,000 --> 00:02:35,000 growing rates of obesity, 67 00:02:35,000 --> 00:02:38,000 shown in these maps here, 68 00:02:38,000 --> 00:02:40,000 and that obesity has also been triggering 69 00:02:40,000 --> 00:02:42,000 great increases in heart disease 70 00:02:42,000 --> 00:02:44,000 and diabetes 71 00:02:44,000 --> 00:02:46,000 to the point where a child born today 72 00:02:46,000 --> 00:02:48,000 has a one-in-three chance 73 00:02:48,000 --> 00:02:50,000 of developing diabetes. 74 00:02:50,000 --> 00:02:53,000 And that rate has been escalating at the same rate 75 00:02:53,000 --> 00:02:55,000 as children not walking 76 00:02:55,000 --> 00:02:57,000 to school anymore, 77 00:02:57,000 --> 00:02:59,000 again, because of our development patterns. 78 00:02:59,000 --> 00:03:02,000 And then there's finally -- there's the affordability question. 79 00:03:03,000 --> 00:03:06,000 I mean, how affordable is it 80 00:03:06,000 --> 00:03:09,000 to continue to live in suburbia 81 00:03:09,000 --> 00:03:11,000 with rising gas prices? 82 00:03:11,000 --> 00:03:14,000 Suburban expansion to cheap land, 83 00:03:14,000 --> 00:03:16,000 for the last 50 years -- 84 00:03:16,000 --> 00:03:18,000 you know the cheap land out on the edge -- 85 00:03:18,000 --> 00:03:20,000 has helped generations of families 86 00:03:20,000 --> 00:03:22,000 enjoy the American dream. 87 00:03:22,000 --> 00:03:24,000 But increasingly, 88 00:03:24,000 --> 00:03:26,000 the savings promised 89 00:03:26,000 --> 00:03:28,000 by drive-till-you-qualify affordability -- 90 00:03:28,000 --> 00:03:30,000 which is basically our model -- 91 00:03:30,000 --> 00:03:32,000 those savings are wiped out 92 00:03:32,000 --> 00:03:35,000 when you consider the transportation costs. 93 00:03:35,000 --> 00:03:37,000 For instance, here in Atlanta, 94 00:03:37,000 --> 00:03:39,000 about half of households 95 00:03:39,000 --> 00:03:42,000 make between $20,000 and $50,000 a year, 96 00:03:42,000 --> 00:03:45,000 and they are spending 29 percent of their income 97 00:03:45,000 --> 00:03:47,000 on housing 98 00:03:47,000 --> 00:03:49,000 and 32 percent 99 00:03:49,000 --> 00:03:51,000 on transportation. 100 00:03:51,000 --> 00:03:53,000 I mean, that's 2005 figures. 101 00:03:53,000 --> 00:03:56,000 That's before we got up to the four bucks a gallon. 102 00:03:56,000 --> 00:03:58,000 You know, none of us 103 00:03:58,000 --> 00:04:01,000 really tend to do the math on our transportation costs, 104 00:04:01,000 --> 00:04:03,000 and they're not going down 105 00:04:03,000 --> 00:04:05,000 any time soon. 106 00:04:05,000 --> 00:04:08,000 Whether you love suburbia's leafy privacy 107 00:04:08,000 --> 00:04:10,000 or you hate its soulless commercial strips, 108 00:04:10,000 --> 00:04:13,000 there are reasons why it's important to retrofit. 109 00:04:13,000 --> 00:04:15,000 But is it practical? 110 00:04:15,000 --> 00:04:17,000 I think it is. 111 00:04:17,000 --> 00:04:19,000 June Williamson and I have been researching this topic 112 00:04:19,000 --> 00:04:21,000 for over a decade, 113 00:04:21,000 --> 00:04:23,000 and we've found over 80 114 00:04:23,000 --> 00:04:26,000 varied projects. 115 00:04:26,000 --> 00:04:28,000 But that they're really all market driven, 116 00:04:28,000 --> 00:04:31,000 and what's driving the market in particular -- 117 00:04:31,000 --> 00:04:34,000 number one -- is major demographic shifts. 118 00:04:34,000 --> 00:04:37,000 We all tend to think of suburbia 119 00:04:37,000 --> 00:04:40,000 as this very family-focused place, 120 00:04:40,000 --> 00:04:43,000 but that's really not the case anymore. 121 00:04:43,000 --> 00:04:45,000 Since 2000, 122 00:04:45,000 --> 00:04:48,000 already two-thirds of households in suburbia 123 00:04:48,000 --> 00:04:51,000 did not have kids in them. 124 00:04:51,000 --> 00:04:54,000 We just haven't caught up with the actual realities of this. 125 00:04:54,000 --> 00:04:57,000 The reasons for this have a lot to with 126 00:04:57,000 --> 00:04:59,000 the dominance of the two big 127 00:04:59,000 --> 00:05:01,000 demographic groups right now: 128 00:05:01,000 --> 00:05:04,000 the Baby Boomers retiring -- 129 00:05:04,000 --> 00:05:06,000 and then there's a gap, 130 00:05:06,000 --> 00:05:08,000 Generation X, which is a small generation. 131 00:05:08,000 --> 00:05:10,000 They're still having kids -- 132 00:05:10,000 --> 00:05:13,000 but Generation Y hasn't even started 133 00:05:13,000 --> 00:05:15,000 hitting child-rearing age. 134 00:05:15,000 --> 00:05:18,000 They're the other big generation. 135 00:05:18,000 --> 00:05:20,000 So as a result of that, 136 00:05:20,000 --> 00:05:22,000 demographers predict 137 00:05:22,000 --> 00:05:24,000 that through 2025, 138 00:05:24,000 --> 00:05:27,000 75 to 85 percent of new households 139 00:05:27,000 --> 00:05:30,000 will not have kids in them. 140 00:05:30,000 --> 00:05:33,000 And the market research, consumer research, 141 00:05:33,000 --> 00:05:35,000 asking the Boomers and Gen Y 142 00:05:35,000 --> 00:05:37,000 what it is they would like, 143 00:05:37,000 --> 00:05:39,000 what they would like to live in, 144 00:05:39,000 --> 00:05:42,000 tells us there is going to be a huge demand -- 145 00:05:42,000 --> 00:05:45,000 and we're already seeing it -- 146 00:05:45,000 --> 00:05:48,000 for more urban lifestyles 147 00:05:48,000 --> 00:05:51,000 within suburbia. 148 00:05:51,000 --> 00:05:54,000 That basically, the Boomers want to be able to age in place, 149 00:05:54,000 --> 00:05:56,000 and Gen Y would like to live 150 00:05:56,000 --> 00:05:58,000 an urban lifestyle, 151 00:05:58,000 --> 00:06:01,000 but most of their jobs will continue to be out in suburbia. 152 00:06:01,000 --> 00:06:04,000 The other big dynamic of change 153 00:06:04,000 --> 00:06:06,000 is the sheer performance of 154 00:06:06,000 --> 00:06:08,000 underperforming asphalt. 155 00:06:08,000 --> 00:06:10,000 Now I keep thinking this would be a great name 156 00:06:10,000 --> 00:06:12,000 for an indie rock band, 157 00:06:12,000 --> 00:06:15,000 but developers generally use it 158 00:06:15,000 --> 00:06:18,000 to refer to underused parking lots -- 159 00:06:18,000 --> 00:06:21,000 and suburbia is full of them. 160 00:06:21,000 --> 00:06:24,000 When the postwar suburbs were first built 161 00:06:24,000 --> 00:06:26,000 out on the cheap land 162 00:06:26,000 --> 00:06:28,000 away from downtown, 163 00:06:28,000 --> 00:06:30,000 it made sense to just build 164 00:06:30,000 --> 00:06:32,000 surface parking lots. 165 00:06:32,000 --> 00:06:34,000 But those sites have now been leapfrogged 166 00:06:34,000 --> 00:06:36,000 and leapfrogged again, 167 00:06:36,000 --> 00:06:38,000 as we've just continued to sprawl, 168 00:06:38,000 --> 00:06:41,000 and they now have 169 00:06:41,000 --> 00:06:43,000 a relatively central location. 170 00:06:43,000 --> 00:06:46,000 It no longer just makes sense. 171 00:06:46,000 --> 00:06:49,000 That land is more valuable than just surface parking lots. 172 00:06:49,000 --> 00:06:51,000 It now makes sense to go back in, 173 00:06:51,000 --> 00:06:54,000 build a deck and build up 174 00:06:54,000 --> 00:06:56,000 on those sites. 175 00:06:56,000 --> 00:06:58,000 So what do you do 176 00:06:58,000 --> 00:07:00,000 with a dead mall, 177 00:07:00,000 --> 00:07:02,000 dead office park? 178 00:07:02,000 --> 00:07:05,000 It turns out, all sorts of things. 179 00:07:05,000 --> 00:07:07,000 In a slow economy like ours, 180 00:07:07,000 --> 00:07:09,000 re-inhabitation is 181 00:07:09,000 --> 00:07:11,000 one of the more popular strategies. 182 00:07:11,000 --> 00:07:13,000 So this happens to be 183 00:07:13,000 --> 00:07:15,000 a dead mall in St. Louis 184 00:07:15,000 --> 00:07:18,000 that's been re-inhabited as art-space. 185 00:07:18,000 --> 00:07:20,000 It's now home to artist studios, 186 00:07:20,000 --> 00:07:22,000 theater groups, dance troupes. 187 00:07:22,000 --> 00:07:24,000 It's not pulling in as much tax revenue 188 00:07:24,000 --> 00:07:26,000 as it once was, 189 00:07:26,000 --> 00:07:28,000 but it's serving its community. 190 00:07:28,000 --> 00:07:30,000 It's keeping the lights on. 191 00:07:30,000 --> 00:07:33,000 It's becoming, I think, a really great institution. 192 00:07:33,000 --> 00:07:35,000 Other malls have been re-inhabited 193 00:07:35,000 --> 00:07:37,000 as nursing homes, 194 00:07:37,000 --> 00:07:39,000 as universities, 195 00:07:39,000 --> 00:07:41,000 and as all variety of office space. 196 00:07:41,000 --> 00:07:43,000 We also found a lot of examples 197 00:07:43,000 --> 00:07:45,000 of dead big-box stores 198 00:07:45,000 --> 00:07:47,000 that have been converted into 199 00:07:47,000 --> 00:07:50,000 all sorts of community-serving uses as well -- 200 00:07:50,000 --> 00:07:53,000 lots of schools, lots of churches 201 00:07:53,000 --> 00:07:55,000 and lots of libraries like this one. 202 00:07:55,000 --> 00:07:58,000 This was a little grocery store, a Food Lion grocery store, 203 00:07:58,000 --> 00:08:01,000 that is now a public library. 204 00:08:02,000 --> 00:08:05,000 In addition to, I think, doing a beautiful adaptive reuse, 205 00:08:05,000 --> 00:08:07,000 they tore up some of the parking spaces, 206 00:08:07,000 --> 00:08:10,000 put in bioswales to collect and clean the runoff, 207 00:08:10,000 --> 00:08:13,000 put in a lot more sidewalks 208 00:08:13,000 --> 00:08:15,000 to connect to the neighborhoods. 209 00:08:15,000 --> 00:08:17,000 And they've made this, 210 00:08:17,000 --> 00:08:20,000 what was just a store along a commercial strip, 211 00:08:20,000 --> 00:08:23,000 into a community gathering space. 212 00:08:23,000 --> 00:08:26,000 This one is a little L-shaped strip shopping center 213 00:08:26,000 --> 00:08:28,000 in Phoenix, Arizona. 214 00:08:28,000 --> 00:08:31,000 Really all they did was they gave it a fresh coat of bright paint, 215 00:08:31,000 --> 00:08:33,000 a gourmet grocery, 216 00:08:33,000 --> 00:08:36,000 and they put up a restaurant in the old post office. 217 00:08:36,000 --> 00:08:39,000 Never underestimate the power of food 218 00:08:39,000 --> 00:08:41,000 to turn a place around 219 00:08:41,000 --> 00:08:43,000 and make it a destination. 220 00:08:43,000 --> 00:08:46,000 It's been so successful, they've now taken over the strip across the street. 221 00:08:46,000 --> 00:08:49,000 The real estate ads in the neighborhood 222 00:08:49,000 --> 00:08:51,000 all very proudly proclaim, 223 00:08:51,000 --> 00:08:54,000 "Walking distance to Le Grande Orange," 224 00:08:54,000 --> 00:08:57,000 because it provided its neighborhood 225 00:08:57,000 --> 00:08:59,000 with what sociologists like to call 226 00:08:59,000 --> 00:09:01,000 "a third place." 227 00:09:01,000 --> 00:09:03,000 If home is the first place 228 00:09:03,000 --> 00:09:05,000 and work is the second place, 229 00:09:05,000 --> 00:09:07,000 the third place is where you go to hang out 230 00:09:07,000 --> 00:09:09,000 and build community. 231 00:09:09,000 --> 00:09:11,000 And especially as suburbia is becoming 232 00:09:11,000 --> 00:09:13,000 less centered on the family, 233 00:09:13,000 --> 00:09:15,000 the family households, 234 00:09:15,000 --> 00:09:17,000 there's a real hunger 235 00:09:17,000 --> 00:09:20,000 for more third places. 236 00:09:20,000 --> 00:09:23,000 So the most dramatic retrofits 237 00:09:23,000 --> 00:09:25,000 are really those in the next category, 238 00:09:25,000 --> 00:09:27,000 the next strategy: redevelopment. 239 00:09:27,000 --> 00:09:29,000 Now, during the boom, there were several 240 00:09:29,000 --> 00:09:31,000 really dramatic redevelopment projects 241 00:09:31,000 --> 00:09:33,000 where the original building 242 00:09:33,000 --> 00:09:36,000 was scraped to the ground and then the whole site was rebuilt 243 00:09:36,000 --> 00:09:38,000 at significantly greater density, 244 00:09:38,000 --> 00:09:41,000 a sort of compact, walkable urban neighborhoods. 245 00:09:41,000 --> 00:09:43,000 But some of them have been much more incremental. 246 00:09:43,000 --> 00:09:45,000 This is Mashpee Commons, 247 00:09:45,000 --> 00:09:47,000 the oldest retrofit that we've found. 248 00:09:47,000 --> 00:09:50,000 And it's just incrementally, over the last 20 years, 249 00:09:50,000 --> 00:09:52,000 built urbanism 250 00:09:52,000 --> 00:09:54,000 on top of its parking lots. 251 00:09:54,000 --> 00:09:56,000 So the black and white photo shows 252 00:09:56,000 --> 00:09:58,000 the simple 60's strip shopping center. 253 00:09:58,000 --> 00:10:00,000 And then the maps above that 254 00:10:00,000 --> 00:10:02,000 show its gradual transformation 255 00:10:02,000 --> 00:10:04,000 into a compact, 256 00:10:04,000 --> 00:10:07,000 mixed-use New England village, 257 00:10:07,000 --> 00:10:10,000 and it has plans now that have been approved 258 00:10:10,000 --> 00:10:13,000 for it to connect 259 00:10:13,000 --> 00:10:15,000 to new residential neighborhoods 260 00:10:15,000 --> 00:10:17,000 across the arterials 261 00:10:17,000 --> 00:10:19,000 and over to the other side. 262 00:10:19,000 --> 00:10:21,000 So, you know, sometimes it's incremental. 263 00:10:21,000 --> 00:10:24,000 Sometimes, it's all at once. 264 00:10:24,000 --> 00:10:27,000 This is another infill project on the parking lots, 265 00:10:27,000 --> 00:10:30,000 this one of an office park outside of Washington D.C. 266 00:10:30,000 --> 00:10:33,000 When Metrorail expanded transit into the suburbs 267 00:10:33,000 --> 00:10:36,000 and opened a station nearby to this site, 268 00:10:36,000 --> 00:10:38,000 the owners decided 269 00:10:38,000 --> 00:10:41,000 to build a new parking deck 270 00:10:41,000 --> 00:10:44,000 and then insert on top of their surface lots 271 00:10:44,000 --> 00:10:47,000 a new Main Street, several apartments 272 00:10:47,000 --> 00:10:49,000 and condo buildings, 273 00:10:49,000 --> 00:10:51,000 while keeping the existing office buildings. 274 00:10:51,000 --> 00:10:54,000 Here is the site in 1940: 275 00:10:54,000 --> 00:10:56,000 It was just a little farm 276 00:10:56,000 --> 00:10:58,000 in the village of Hyattsville. 277 00:10:58,000 --> 00:11:00,000 By 1980, it had been subdivided 278 00:11:00,000 --> 00:11:02,000 into a big mall on one side 279 00:11:02,000 --> 00:11:04,000 and the office park on the other 280 00:11:04,000 --> 00:11:06,000 and then some buffer sites for a library 281 00:11:06,000 --> 00:11:08,000 and a church to the far right. 282 00:11:08,000 --> 00:11:10,000 Today, the transit, 283 00:11:10,000 --> 00:11:12,000 the Main Street and the new housing 284 00:11:12,000 --> 00:11:14,000 have all been built. 285 00:11:14,000 --> 00:11:16,000 Eventually, I expect that the streets 286 00:11:16,000 --> 00:11:19,000 will probably extend through a redevelopment of the mall. 287 00:11:19,000 --> 00:11:21,000 Plans have already been announced 288 00:11:21,000 --> 00:11:23,000 for a lot of those garden apartments 289 00:11:23,000 --> 00:11:26,000 above the mall to be redeveloped. 290 00:11:26,000 --> 00:11:29,000 Transit is a big driver of retrofits. 291 00:11:29,000 --> 00:11:31,000 So here's what it looks like. 292 00:11:31,000 --> 00:11:33,000 You can sort of see the funky new condo buildings 293 00:11:33,000 --> 00:11:35,000 in between the office buildings 294 00:11:35,000 --> 00:11:38,000 and the public space and the new Main Street. 295 00:11:38,000 --> 00:11:40,000 This one is one of my favorites, Belmar. 296 00:11:40,000 --> 00:11:43,000 I think they really built an attractive place here 297 00:11:43,000 --> 00:11:46,000 and have just employed all-green construction. 298 00:11:46,000 --> 00:11:49,000 There's massive P.V. arrays on the roofs 299 00:11:49,000 --> 00:11:51,000 as well as wind turbines. 300 00:11:51,000 --> 00:11:53,000 This was a very large mall 301 00:11:53,000 --> 00:11:55,000 on a hundred-acre superblock. 302 00:11:55,000 --> 00:11:57,000 It's now 22 303 00:11:57,000 --> 00:11:59,000 walkable urban blocks 304 00:11:59,000 --> 00:12:01,000 with public streets, 305 00:12:01,000 --> 00:12:03,000 two public parks, eight bus lines 306 00:12:03,000 --> 00:12:05,000 and a range of housing types, 307 00:12:05,000 --> 00:12:08,000 and so it's really given Lakewood, Colorado 308 00:12:08,000 --> 00:12:10,000 the downtown 309 00:12:10,000 --> 00:12:13,000 that this particular suburb never had. 310 00:12:13,000 --> 00:12:15,000 Here was the mall in its heyday. 311 00:12:15,000 --> 00:12:18,000 They had their prom in the mall. They loved their mall. 312 00:12:18,000 --> 00:12:21,000 So here's the site in 1975 313 00:12:21,000 --> 00:12:23,000 with the mall. 314 00:12:23,000 --> 00:12:25,000 By 1995, the mall has died. 315 00:12:25,000 --> 00:12:27,000 The department store has been kept -- 316 00:12:27,000 --> 00:12:29,000 and we found this was true in many cases. 317 00:12:29,000 --> 00:12:31,000 The department stores are multistory; they're better built. 318 00:12:31,000 --> 00:12:33,000 They're easy to be re-adapted. 319 00:12:33,000 --> 00:12:35,000 But the one story stuff ... 320 00:12:35,000 --> 00:12:38,000 that's really history. 321 00:12:38,000 --> 00:12:41,000 So here it is at projected build-out. 322 00:12:41,000 --> 00:12:43,000 This project, I think, has great connectivity 323 00:12:43,000 --> 00:12:45,000 to the existing neighborhoods. 324 00:12:45,000 --> 00:12:47,000 It's providing 1,500 households with the option 325 00:12:47,000 --> 00:12:49,000 of a more urban lifestyle. 326 00:12:49,000 --> 00:12:52,000 It's about two-thirds built out right now. 327 00:12:52,000 --> 00:12:54,000 Here's what the new Main Street looks like. 328 00:12:54,000 --> 00:12:56,000 It's very successful, 329 00:12:56,000 --> 00:12:58,000 and it's helped to prompt -- 330 00:12:58,000 --> 00:13:00,000 eight of the 13 331 00:13:00,000 --> 00:13:02,000 regional malls in Denver 332 00:13:02,000 --> 00:13:04,000 have now, or have announced plans to 333 00:13:04,000 --> 00:13:06,000 be, retrofitted. 334 00:13:06,000 --> 00:13:09,000 But it's important to note that all of this retrofitting 335 00:13:09,000 --> 00:13:11,000 is not occurring -- 336 00:13:11,000 --> 00:13:14,000 just bulldozers are coming and just plowing down the whole city. 337 00:13:14,000 --> 00:13:17,000 No, it's pockets of walkability 338 00:13:17,000 --> 00:13:19,000 on the sites of 339 00:13:19,000 --> 00:13:21,000 under-performing properties. 340 00:13:21,000 --> 00:13:24,000 And so it's giving people more choices, 341 00:13:24,000 --> 00:13:27,000 but it's not taking away choices. 342 00:13:27,000 --> 00:13:29,000 But it's also not really enough 343 00:13:29,000 --> 00:13:32,000 to just create pockets of walkability. 344 00:13:32,000 --> 00:13:35,000 You want to also try to get more systemic transformation. 345 00:13:35,000 --> 00:13:38,000 We need to also retrofit the corridors themselves. 346 00:13:38,000 --> 00:13:40,000 So this is one that has been 347 00:13:40,000 --> 00:13:42,000 retrofitted in California. 348 00:13:42,000 --> 00:13:44,000 They took the commercial strip 349 00:13:44,000 --> 00:13:46,000 shown on the black-and-white images below, 350 00:13:46,000 --> 00:13:48,000 and they built a boulevard 351 00:13:48,000 --> 00:13:51,000 that has become the Main Street for their town. 352 00:13:51,000 --> 00:13:53,000 And it's transformed from being 353 00:13:53,000 --> 00:13:55,000 an ugly, unsafe, 354 00:13:55,000 --> 00:13:57,000 undesirable address, 355 00:13:57,000 --> 00:14:00,000 to becoming a beautiful, 356 00:14:00,000 --> 00:14:03,000 attractive, dignified sort of good address. 357 00:14:03,000 --> 00:14:05,000 I mean now we're hoping we start to see it; 358 00:14:05,000 --> 00:14:08,000 they've already built City Hall, attracted two hotels. 359 00:14:08,000 --> 00:14:11,000 I could imagine beautiful housing going up along there 360 00:14:11,000 --> 00:14:14,000 without tearing down another tree. 361 00:14:14,000 --> 00:14:16,000 So there's a lot of great things, 362 00:14:16,000 --> 00:14:19,000 but I'd love to see more corridors getting retrofitting. 363 00:14:19,000 --> 00:14:21,000 But densification 364 00:14:21,000 --> 00:14:23,000 is not going to work everywhere. 365 00:14:23,000 --> 00:14:25,000 Sometimes re-greening 366 00:14:25,000 --> 00:14:28,000 is really the better answer. 367 00:14:28,000 --> 00:14:30,000 There's a lot to learn from successful 368 00:14:30,000 --> 00:14:32,000 landbanking programs 369 00:14:32,000 --> 00:14:34,000 in cities like Flint, Michigan. 370 00:14:34,000 --> 00:14:36,000 There's also a burgeoning suburban farming movement -- 371 00:14:36,000 --> 00:14:39,000 sort of victory gardens meets the Internet. 372 00:14:39,000 --> 00:14:42,000 But perhaps one of the most important re-greening aspects 373 00:14:42,000 --> 00:14:44,000 is the opportunity to restore 374 00:14:44,000 --> 00:14:46,000 the local ecology, 375 00:14:46,000 --> 00:14:48,000 as in this example outside of Minneapolis. 376 00:14:48,000 --> 00:14:50,000 When the shopping center died, 377 00:14:50,000 --> 00:14:52,000 the city restored the site's 378 00:14:52,000 --> 00:14:54,000 original wetlands, 379 00:14:54,000 --> 00:14:56,000 creating lakefront property, 380 00:14:56,000 --> 00:14:59,000 which then attracted private investment, 381 00:14:59,000 --> 00:15:02,000 the first private investment to this very low-income neighborhood 382 00:15:02,000 --> 00:15:04,000 in over 40 years. 383 00:15:04,000 --> 00:15:07,000 So they've managed to both restore the local ecology 384 00:15:07,000 --> 00:15:10,000 and the local economy at the same time. 385 00:15:10,000 --> 00:15:12,000 This is another re-greening example. 386 00:15:12,000 --> 00:15:14,000 It also makes sense in very strong markets. 387 00:15:14,000 --> 00:15:16,000 This one in Seattle 388 00:15:16,000 --> 00:15:18,000 is on the site of a mall parking lot 389 00:15:18,000 --> 00:15:20,000 adjacent to a new transit stop. 390 00:15:20,000 --> 00:15:22,000 And the wavy line 391 00:15:22,000 --> 00:15:25,000 is a path alongside a creek that has now been daylit. 392 00:15:25,000 --> 00:15:28,000 The creek had been culverted under the parking lot. 393 00:15:28,000 --> 00:15:30,000 But daylighting our creeks 394 00:15:30,000 --> 00:15:32,000 really improves their water quality 395 00:15:32,000 --> 00:15:34,000 and contributions to habitat. 396 00:15:34,000 --> 00:15:36,000 So I've shown you some of 397 00:15:36,000 --> 00:15:38,000 the first generation of retrofits. 398 00:15:38,000 --> 00:15:40,000 What's next? 399 00:15:40,000 --> 00:15:43,000 I think we have three challenges for the future. 400 00:15:43,000 --> 00:15:46,000 The first is to plan retrofitting 401 00:15:46,000 --> 00:15:48,000 much more systemically 402 00:15:48,000 --> 00:15:50,000 at the metropolitan scale. 403 00:15:50,000 --> 00:15:52,000 We need to be able to target 404 00:15:52,000 --> 00:15:54,000 which areas really should be re-greened. 405 00:15:54,000 --> 00:15:56,000 Where should we be redeveloping? 406 00:15:56,000 --> 00:15:59,000 And where should we be encouraging re-inhabitation? 407 00:15:59,000 --> 00:16:01,000 These slides just show two images 408 00:16:01,000 --> 00:16:03,000 from a larger project 409 00:16:03,000 --> 00:16:05,000 that looked at trying to do that for Atlanta. 410 00:16:05,000 --> 00:16:07,000 I led a team that was asked to imagine 411 00:16:07,000 --> 00:16:10,000 Atlanta 100 years from now. 412 00:16:10,000 --> 00:16:13,000 And we chose to try to reverse sprawl 413 00:16:13,000 --> 00:16:16,000 through three simple moves -- expensive, but simple. 414 00:16:16,000 --> 00:16:18,000 One, in a hundred years, 415 00:16:18,000 --> 00:16:20,000 transit on all major 416 00:16:20,000 --> 00:16:22,000 rail and road corridors. 417 00:16:22,000 --> 00:16:24,000 Two, in a hundred years, 418 00:16:24,000 --> 00:16:26,000 thousand foot buffers 419 00:16:26,000 --> 00:16:28,000 on all stream corridors. 420 00:16:28,000 --> 00:16:31,000 It's a little extreme, but we've got a little water problem. 421 00:16:31,000 --> 00:16:33,000 In a hundred years, 422 00:16:33,000 --> 00:16:35,000 subdivisions that simply end up too close to water 423 00:16:35,000 --> 00:16:38,000 or too far from transit won't be viable. 424 00:16:38,000 --> 00:16:41,000 And so we've created the eco-acre 425 00:16:41,000 --> 00:16:43,000 transfer-to-transfer development rights 426 00:16:43,000 --> 00:16:45,000 to the transit corridors 427 00:16:45,000 --> 00:16:47,000 and allow the re-greening 428 00:16:47,000 --> 00:16:49,000 of those former subdivisions 429 00:16:49,000 --> 00:16:52,000 for food and energy production. 430 00:16:53,000 --> 00:16:56,000 So the second challenge 431 00:16:56,000 --> 00:16:59,000 is to improve the architectural design quality 432 00:16:59,000 --> 00:17:01,000 of the retrofits. 433 00:17:01,000 --> 00:17:03,000 And I close with this image 434 00:17:03,000 --> 00:17:06,000 of democracy in action: 435 00:17:06,000 --> 00:17:08,000 This is a protest that's happening 436 00:17:08,000 --> 00:17:11,000 on a retrofit in Silver Spring, Maryland 437 00:17:11,000 --> 00:17:14,000 on an Astroturf town green. 438 00:17:15,000 --> 00:17:17,000 Now, retrofits are often accused 439 00:17:17,000 --> 00:17:20,000 of being examples of faux downtowns 440 00:17:20,000 --> 00:17:23,000 and instant urbanism, 441 00:17:23,000 --> 00:17:25,000 and not without reason; you don't get much more phony 442 00:17:25,000 --> 00:17:28,000 than an Astroturf town green. 443 00:17:28,000 --> 00:17:31,000 I have to say, these are very hybrid places. 444 00:17:31,000 --> 00:17:34,000 They are new but trying to look old. 445 00:17:34,000 --> 00:17:36,000 They have urban streetscapes, 446 00:17:36,000 --> 00:17:38,000 but suburban parking ratios. 447 00:17:38,000 --> 00:17:40,000 Their populations are 448 00:17:40,000 --> 00:17:43,000 more diverse than typical suburbia, 449 00:17:43,000 --> 00:17:45,000 but they're less diverse than cities. 450 00:17:45,000 --> 00:17:47,000 And they are 451 00:17:47,000 --> 00:17:49,000 public places, 452 00:17:49,000 --> 00:17:52,000 but that are managed by private companies. 453 00:17:52,000 --> 00:17:55,000 And just the surface appearance 454 00:17:55,000 --> 00:17:58,000 are often -- like the Astroturf here -- 455 00:17:58,000 --> 00:18:01,000 they make me wince. 456 00:18:01,000 --> 00:18:03,000 So, you know, I mean I'm glad that 457 00:18:03,000 --> 00:18:05,000 the urbanism is doing its job. 458 00:18:05,000 --> 00:18:08,000 The fact that a protest is happening 459 00:18:08,000 --> 00:18:10,000 really does mean 460 00:18:10,000 --> 00:18:13,000 that the layout of the blocks, the streets and blocks, the putting in of public space, 461 00:18:13,000 --> 00:18:15,000 compromised as it may be, 462 00:18:15,000 --> 00:18:17,000 is still a really great thing. 463 00:18:17,000 --> 00:18:19,000 But we've got to get the architecture better. 464 00:18:19,000 --> 00:18:22,000 The final challenge is for all of you. 465 00:18:22,000 --> 00:18:24,000 I want you to join the protest 466 00:18:24,000 --> 00:18:26,000 and start demanding 467 00:18:26,000 --> 00:18:28,000 more sustainable suburban places -- 468 00:18:28,000 --> 00:18:31,000 more sustainable places, period. 469 00:18:31,000 --> 00:18:33,000 But culturally, 470 00:18:33,000 --> 00:18:35,000 we tend to think that downtowns 471 00:18:35,000 --> 00:18:37,000 should be dynamic, and we expect that. 472 00:18:37,000 --> 00:18:39,000 But we seem to have an expectation 473 00:18:39,000 --> 00:18:41,000 that the suburbs should forever remain frozen 474 00:18:41,000 --> 00:18:43,000 in whatever adolescent form 475 00:18:43,000 --> 00:18:45,000 they were first given birth to. 476 00:18:45,000 --> 00:18:48,000 It's time to let them grow up, 477 00:18:48,000 --> 00:18:50,000 so I want you 478 00:18:50,000 --> 00:18:52,000 to all support the zoning changes, 479 00:18:52,000 --> 00:18:55,000 the road diets, the infrastructure improvements 480 00:18:55,000 --> 00:18:58,000 and the retrofits that are coming soon to a neighborhood near you. 481 00:18:58,000 --> 00:19:00,000 Thank you.