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"Five urban design mistakes that create unhealthy and inactive communities"

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  1. chdot
    Admin

    "
    Getting up and out is often the first step in leading a healthier lifestyle. But in the name of safety and security, new developments often include too many gates and barriers.

    Developers are often simply doing what they think is safest. But while these measures can reduce crime, they also discourage people from walking around their neighbourhood. Sometimes imposing too many gates and barriers can have the opposite effect and make areas less safe. It can lead to empty ground floors where no one walks, or fenced-in courtyards that feel uninviting.

    Instead of using gates, designers can draw attention to the street by encouraging people to walk through outdoor spaces to get to local amenities, creating bustling shared spaces that are safe and encourage people to walk.

    "

    http://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2015/jul/28/urban-design-mistakes-unhealthy-inactive-communities

    Posted 8 years ago #

  2. kaputnik
    Moderator

    Failing to design a jubilee street party is in the Top 5?

    Posted 8 years ago #

  3. Morningsider
    Member

    It's hard to tell whether this article is a joke or not. Particular highlights:

    Gates put people off jogging.
    Online consultation is a better way of finding "what residents really want" than speaking to people.
    Things are better if you employ a doorman.
    Design sociable spaces - but not too sociable.

    and my favourite, the author is "...the project lead for urbanism at Future Cities Catapult"

    Posted 8 years ago #

  4. Min
    Member

    I don't think porches make people more sociable. Not having a car definitely does. It is very noticeable in our street that, with the exception of our immediate next door neighbours*, we hardly see the ones who own cars. They just walk out of their house, straight into their car and drive off.

    * This is because it is possible to catch them getting into or out of their car since we live right next door.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  5. kaputnik
    Moderator

    It's possibly some kind of record, but in our 9-flat tenement I think there are no (or possibly 1) car owner. Guy upstairs had a fashion Vespa but think he got bored trying to maintain it and it spent more time locked up outside going nowhere than it did going somewhere so he sold it on.

    The other flats in the street make up for it though...

    Posted 8 years ago #

  6. Wilmington's Cow
    Member

    "I don't think porches make people more sociable. Not having a car definitely does."

    Certainly not using it for every single journey does (and so naturally not having a car at all probably makes people more sociable). We've a few folk in the street like that - though they do wave hello as they drive past, but the folk in the street we tend to know and say hello to are the people with dogs who go walking straight from the house.

    I like on a Sunday morning walking the half mile to the corner shop for a pavement, and saying hello to people walking the other way - no idea who they are, and they me, but it's just a bit of human interaction.

    I've found tenement stairs to be odd though - plenty chance to bump into folk and say hello and be neighbourly. Maybe folk just didn't like the look of me the two flats I lived in...

    Posted 8 years ago #

  7. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    @Wilmington's Cow

    Tenement closes are different because you can't cross them to avoid someone. Forced proximity seems to imply reserved behaviour.

    The proposition that gates prevent jogging is quite magnificent.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  8. chdot
    Admin

    "The proposition that gates prevent jogging is quite magnificent."

    Less magnificent is the number of developments that shun nearby cycle paths (eg Ferry Road) - often on 'police advice'.

    Apart from benefits to new residents of a direct connection, it makes path less attractive as it reduces the number of users - and 'escape' routes.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  9. Wilmington's Cow
    Member

    @iwrats - aha, that would tie in with this (now I've read the article): "Being visible to our neighbours — at comfortable distances and not on top of one another — is crucial to making neighbourhoods more sociable."

    Posted 8 years ago #

  10. kaputnik
    Moderator

    Less magnificent is the number of developments that shun nearby cycle paths (eg Ferry Road) - often on 'police advice'.

    If you mean high-end gated communities, yes that is less magnificent and something of a trend in Edinburgh.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  11. Wilmington's Cow
    Member

    I can't think of any gated communities in Edinburgh - sounds a monstrous idea (have seen a few on my travels and they always just smack of "We're so much better than you", so wouldn't be surprised to find they'd made their way here).

    Posted 8 years ago #

  12. chdot
    Admin

    "If you mean high-end gated communities"

    Not specifically. There are plenty of developments 'open to the street' but fences off from nearby paths.

    Some have holes in fence.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  13. neddie
    Member

    Quartermile is more or less a gated community, since you can't get from Simpson Loan to the Meadows without going all the way to Chalmers St or MMW. There is even a gate in the original wrought iron fence on the Meadows where the ought to be a pedestrian connection, but it is locked shut. Same at the Simpson Loan end.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  14. Min
    Member

    Certainly not using it for every single journey does

    Fair point!

    Posted 8 years ago #

  15. kaputnik
    Moderator

    I can't think of any gated communities in Edinburgh

    Recent developments at bottom of Whitehouse Loan (old Church of Scotland cottages), Ellersley Road (old Balfour Stewart House, Distillers Company HQ), Clinton/Pitsligo Road (old BT exchange / office) spring to mind, and there are more. There has been something of a flowering of remote gate entry systems in the leafier 'burbs of Edinburgh.

    Chdot also makes a valid point, there are plenty of "social" housing projects that appear to turn their face to the road/ car park and backs to the nearby paths and greenspaces.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  16. gembo
    Member

    On the gates front

    I had to climb two sets of gates 18 times on holiday to go running. A car could trigger them but not a person, or a horse or donkey.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  17. Stickman
    Member

    "Ellersley Road (old Balfour Stewart House, Distillers Company HQ)"

    The entrance on the north side is gated but the west side is open. It's built within the high stone walls of the original large estate house, so not quite sure this one qualifies although I do get your point.

    (My first flat was in the small 80s development next door. I used to imagine that the owners of the large Murrayfield houses looked down on our wee estate.)

    Posted 8 years ago #

  18. sallyhinch
    Member

    I seem to remember from reading Happy City (Charles Montgomery) that there are quite complicated conditions that make people sociable in cities - it's to do with being able to choose whether to interact or not. So porches are good, because if you're not feeling sociable you don't have to go and sit there, whereas a shared lift or lobby with a bunch of strangers is not good because you don't have the choice so you start behaving as if the other people aren't there. The UK equivalent of a porch might be a front garden, as we don't really use porches the way Americans do, as a place to sit and watch the world go by (and by implication, be open to conversation with passers by)

    Posted 8 years ago #

  19. Min
    Member

    The UK equivalent of a porch might be a front garden

    Most of which paved over to provide car parking of course.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  20. kaputnik
    Moderator

    so not quite sure this one qualifies although I do get your point.

    That I had not seen... So yes you're right it doesn't strictly qualify in the letter of the gated community rules, but to my mind perhaps the spirit of it.

    What I really did have in mind is not just places with no thoroughfare (as this would include culs-de-sac, but where it's not even possible to get in without eithet climbing over something or having a gate buzzed for you.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  21. Rosie
    Member

    Thursday 3.9.15 5:30 for 6

    The Human Scale by Jan Gehl Architects

    Film showing at Edinburgh University.

    More details here:-

    https://www.facebook.com/pages/Spokes-the-Lothian-Cycle-Campaign/169099526468801?fref=nf

    Posted 8 years ago #

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