The second episode of Town Planning Stuff Everyone Needs to Know is now on the Dover-Kohl YouTube channel. This short new installment introduces a crucial topic: why we can’t overestimate the importance of design, versus mere policy planning.
If you only know the land use or the density or the setbacks or the required number of parking spaces, you won’t know whether a development is good for the neighborhood or bad. In the video, we compare two places. The density? The lot size? The land use? All are exactly the same. But I’ll bet you’d prefer to live in one of them, and not the other.
The design is even more crucial than the land use. The character of a street scene comes from the building-to-street relationships, the landscape, the shape and quality of the public spaces, and the texture and proportions of the architecture. If your little lot or parcel presents a blank wall or a parking lot as its face toward the public realm, that will make everybody less likely to walk or bike or use transit—so small decisions have regional implications.
Design matters. That’s #2 on my list of town planning stuff everyone needs to know. Let us know what you think of the episode, watch for another one next week, and please subscribe to the Dover Kohl channel on YouTube. —Victor