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magazine / ja05
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July/August 2005 issue |
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Neighbourhood fusion
Merge traditional downtown blocks with
the suburban labyrinth, and you end up with
a development that encourages neighbourliness
By Tom Carpenter and Steven Fick
City planners in Stratford, Ont., have wagered that
friendliness can be built into modern cityscapes, that
sociability can be engineered just as smoothly as can
traffic patterns and efficient land use. In 2004, the
official city plan established that a recently annexed plot of land
will become the world's first pedestrian-centric and neighbourly
"fused grid" subdivision.
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Traditional grid
• direct, convenient routes
throughout
• easy to navigate
• more paved area for roads
• through traffic and many fourpoint
intersections in residential
areas make walking less safe |
Conceived by a team of architects, landscape architects and
city planners at the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation
(CMHC), the scheme is named for the way it fuses the so-called
loops and lollipops (crescents and culs-de-sac) of suburbia with
the traditional north-south or east-west grids of older downtown
neighbourhoods. It is a hybrid, and like many hybrids, it may
prove to be greater than the sum of its parts.
Planners have known for decades that crescents and dead ends
are a clever use of real estate. The streets themselves require up to
25 percent less land than an equivalent grid, and the layout
ensures that most streets see only local traffic. The trade-off is
that suburbs are notoriously difficult to traverse on foot. Getting
from point A to point B — even if the distance is short as the
crow flies — often involves a convoluted journey, so pedestrians
become supplanted by cars.
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Conventional loop and cul-de-sac
• long routes to get short distances
• harder to navigate
• less paved area
• safer for pedestrians
• open space beyond walking distance
for most residents
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Space-wasting grid neighbourhoods, on the other hand, are
easy to navigate on foot. Distances are minimized, and it is
always simple to get oriented. Pedestrians like that, even though
there may be a lot of traffic.
The fused grid marries the best of both by arranging four
roughly equal quadrants (one is shown at right) into a grid
pattern that is surrounded by larger streets lined with commercial
and community buildings. Within each quadrant, crescents and
culs-de-sac save space and limit the traffic going past people's
front doors. Strategically arranged green spaces provide quick
walking routes to local destinations. The parks also contribute to
efficient land use: people are content with smaller lots if they have
a view of open ground.
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Fused grid
• continuous open network of
pedestrian-friendly streets, paths
and open spaces
• less area for roads than traditional grid
• through traffic only on surrounding
arterial roads, not on residential side
streets
• easy pedestrian access from all
residences to surrounding businesses
and public facilities
• close proximity to open spaces
throughout
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Where does friendship enter the picture? The fused grid, in the
words of CMHC senior researcher Fanis Grammenos, "recaptures
open space from the car" and hands it back to pedestrians. Studies
confirm the obvious: people who regularly encounter one another
on the sidewalk are likelier to meet and talk. And having been
introduced by the canny efforts of urban planners, they are on
their way to forging new neighbourly relationships.
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Culs-de-sac, parks and walkways can be configured
in virtually limitless ways. But, in each case,
the purpose remains the same. By transforming
some of the paved-over land into green space,
the fused grid does more than control traffic and
encourage walking. Views are enhanced, more
ground becomes available to absorb rainfall, and
more vegetation takes up more carbon dioxide.
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