Suburban Nation - Andres Duany [36]
For an example of true inefficiency, look no further than this street, a standard collector road approaching a cluster of housing in suburban Virginia. Large enough to hold eight cars across, it is as wide as a parking lot. Indifferent to our limited natural and financial resources, this is truly a street that is ready for nuclear attack. Even if it were flanked by buitdings—which it is not, adding to its wastefulness—the street space would exceed the 6:1 ratio by a wide margin.
Trees as enclosure: orderly rows of street trees compensate for an overly wide street space
There is one important caveat to this rule, which involves the role played by trees. Even in some old neighborhoods, Americans have had difficulty adhering to the above ratio, because they like their houses low and their front yards deep. When the distance between low houses becomes too great, it is imperative that trees be planted along the street in a disciplined row. These trees are not intended merely to be decorative; rather, they are included to create spatial definition when the buildings fail to do so. The trees narrow the space and provide a natural vault that contributes to the pedestrian’s sense of enclosure and comfort. In warmer climates, consistently placed trees are also useful for shade. Skeptics need only tour their own towns to confirm that neighborhoods with healthy trees tend to be highly valued, while neighborhoods with sporadic trees tend to be places to move away from.
Landscape architecture as exterior decoration: “naturalistic” tree placement fails to define street space
This correlation makes clear what should be the first job of landscape architects: to correct the deficiencies they have inherited from the other professionals, who have failed to create comfortable street space. Unfortunately, this is precisely what most landscape architects leave undone. What they do instead is to prettify—to design something that is picturesque and photogenic, clusters of random varieties milling about an entrance gate. Straight lines and the repetition of trees, while beautiful in perspective, look boring on paper and thus are set aside in favor of a creative emulation of nature. The landscaping budget, rather than being spent on necessary remedies, is squandered in an attempt to instill the impression that the wilderness has somehow wandered into the subdivision. This is why the landscaping budget is always the first thing in a project to be cut, and why landscape architects complain of not being taken seriously by their clients. Rather than performing an essential function—correcting for the spatial deficiencies of the urbanism, and complementing the relationship between building façades, sidewalks, and street—they have become exterior decorators.
The pedestrian as adventurer: engineers add exciting challenges to urban life
Finally, and perhaps most obviously, streets will not be comfortable for the pedestrian if they are burdened with antipersonnel devices like the eighteen-inch-high curb pictured here. As with gigantic curb radii, this sort of streetscape detail is possible only because the design of the public realm has been left in the hands of technical specialists who place little value on pedestrian access. In this case, in downtown Tampa, it is surface rainwater runoff that has determined the configuration of the street space. Once again, the fundamental question is not how to design a public realm that will work for pedestrians but simply whether or not anyone cares to do so.
INTERESTING STREETS VERSUS BORING STREETS
The upper image on the next page shows a typical streetscape from a successful, not unattractive subdivision in Palm Beach County, Florida. This development contains passable buildings, nice landscaping, and quiet, safe streets. Why, then, do the people who live here drive to the