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Case Studies in Retrofitting Suburbia. Urban Design Strategies for Urgent Challenges. Edition No. 1

  • Book

  • 272 Pages
  • March 2021
  • John Wiley and Sons Ltd
  • ID: 5841875

A brand-new collection of 32 case studies that further demonstrate the retrofitting of suburbia 

This amply-illustrated book, second in a series, documents how defunct shopping malls, parking lots, and the past century’s other obsolete suburban development patterns are being retrofitted to address current urgent challenges they weren’t designed for: improving public health, increasing resilience in the face of climate change, leveraging social capital for equity, supporting an aging society, competing for jobs, and disrupting automobile dependence.

Case Studies in Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design Strategies for Urgent Challenges provides summaries, data, and references on how these challenges manifest in suburbia and discussion of successful urban design strategies to address them in Part I. Part II documents how innovative design strategies are implemented in a range of northern American contexts and market conditions. From modest interventions with big ripple effects to ambitious do-overs, examples of redevelopment, reinhabitation, and regreening of changing suburban places from coast to coast are described in depth in 32 brand new case studies.

  • Written by the authors of the highly influential Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design Solutions for Redesigning Suburbs
  • Demonstrates changes that can and already have been realized in suburbia by focusing on case studies of retrofitted suburban places
  • Illustrated in full-color with photos, maps, plans, and diagrams

Full of replicable lessons and creative responses to ongoing problems and potentials with conventional suburban form, Case Studies in Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design Strategies for Urgent Challenges is an important book for students and professionals involved in urban design, architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning, development, civil engineering, public health, public policy, and governance. Most of all, it is intended as a useful guide for anyone who seeks to inspire revitalization, justice, and shared prosperity in places they know and care about.

Table of Contents

Introduction vii

Acknowledgments xi

Part I. Urgent Suburban Challenges

Chapter I.1 Disrupt Automobile Dependence 3

Roads, Streets, and Stroads 4

Can’t We Do Something About All This Traffic? 6

Parking, Parking. . .and Parking 9

Walk, Pedal, Hail, and Scoot 11

Autonomous Urbanism? 13

Urban Design Tactics for Disrupting and Reducing Automobile Dependence 14

Chapter I.2 Improve Public Health 16

The Burdens of Disease 17

Category 1: Physical Activity, Obesity, and Chronic Disease 18

Category 2: Emotional Health and Degree of Community Engagement 19

Category 3: Likelihood of Being Killed or Injured in a Vehicle Crash 19

Walk This Way: Linking Physical Activity to Physical Design 19

Access: To Good Food, and to Healthcare 23

Safety: Preventing Preventable Injuries 24

Seeing Green: Biophilic Design and Mental Wellness 26

Combatting Loneliness: The Importance of Social Connectedness 27

Cleaning Up: Reducing Impacts of Polluted Air, Soil, and Water 27

Well-Executed Retrofitting Improves Public Health 28

Chapter I.3 Support an Aging Population 29

A New Name: Perennials 29

The Lifelong Community Model 30

A Brief History of Retirement Living: Sun City and The Villages of Florida 31

Learning Lessons from Retirement Communities 34

Social Support: Reinhabiting Ghostboxes and Parking Lots into Amenities 34

Housing Choices: Aging-in-Community at Malls, Strip Centers, and Office Parks 36

Economic and Wellness Factors: Evolution of the "Granny Flat" and the Household Model 38

Post-Car Life for Perennials? 41

Chapter I.4 Leverage Social Capital for Equity 42

Conceptual Frameworks for Increasing Equity Through Social Capital 43

Demographic Trends in Suburbs as Drivers of Change 45

A Framework for Asserting the Role of Design in Achieving Social Diversity 47

Third Place Redux 48

Social Capital in Ethnoburbs 49

Providing More Housing Types and Choices, Including Units for Rent 50

Protecting Apartments Under Threat 52

A Right to the Suburb? The Public Realm 53

Retrofitting the Suburban Social Body 55

Chapter I.5 Compete for Jobs 56

Generational Shift? 57

Retrofitting the Office Park and Corporate Campus 60

Urbanism as the New Amenity 62

Reinhabiting and Regreening the Office Park 64

Boosting Small Business by Reinhabiting Dead Retail 65

Future Forecast for Jobs Competition 68

Chapter I.6 Add Water and Energy Resilience 70

Retrofits to Improve Water Quality: From Gray to Green 71

Retrofitting Water for Resilience: Too Much Water 74

Retrofitting Water for Resilience: Too Little Water 76

Retrofitting Suburbia for Energy Resilience 77

Adding Resiliency by Design 82

Part II. The Case Studies

Case Study II.1 Aurora Avenue North 89
Shoreline, Washington

Case Study II.2 Hassalo on Eighth and Lloyd 91
Portland, Oregon

Case Study II.3 Lake Grove Village 98
Lake Oswego, Oregon

Case Study II.4 Phoenix Park Apartments 101
Sacramento, California

Case Study II.5 Parkmerced 104
San Francisco, California

Case Study II.6 The BLVD 111
Lancaster, California

Case Study II.7 TAXI 116
Denver, Colorado

Case Study II.8 Guthrie Green 121
Tulsa, Oklahoma

Case Study II.9 La Gran Plaza 127
Fort Worth, Texas

Case Study II.10 The Domain 131
Austin, Texas

Case Study II.11 ACC Highland 138
Austin, Texas

Case Study II.12 Mueller 144
Austin, Texas

Case Study II.13 Promenade of Wayzata 152
Wayzata, Minnesota

Case Study II.14 Maplewood Mall and Living Streets 157
Maplewood, Minnesota

Case Study II.15 Baton Rouge Health District 160
Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Case Study II.16 Uptown Circle 163
Normal, Illinois

Case Study II.17 One Hundred Oaks Mall 166
Nashville, Tennessee

Case Study II.18 Historic Fourth Ward Park 169
Atlanta, Georgia

Case Study II.19 Technology Park 174
Peachtree Corners, Georgia

Case Study II.20 Walker’s Bend 178
Covington, Georgia

Case Study II.21 Downtown Doral 185
Doral, Florida

Case Study II.22 Collinwood Recreation Center 189
Cleveland, Ohio

Case Study II.23 The Mosaic District 192
Merrifield, Virginia

Case Study II.24 South Dakota Avenue and Riggs Road 199
Fort Totten, Washington, DC

Case Study II.25 White Flint and the Pike District 203
Montgomery County, Maryland

Case Study II.26 The Blairs District 211
Silver Spring, Maryland

Case Study II.27 La Station - Centre Intergénérationnel 214
Nuns’ Island, Verdun, Quebec

Case Study II.28 Bell Works 217
Holmdel, New Jersey

Case Study II.29 Wyandanch Rising 223
Town of Babylon, New York

Case Study II.30 Meriden Green 229
Meriden, Connecticut

Case Study II.31 Cottages on Greene 233
East Greenwich, Rhode Island

Case Study II.32 Assembly Square 236
Somerville, Massachusetts

Index 245

Authors

June Williamson Ellen Dunham-Jones