December 19, 2005

Sir Peter Hall Spots the Unicorn in the Garden
Celebrated planner holds forth on sustainable urbanism at the National Building Museum.

Last week, the National Building Museum and the American Planning Association presented the inaugural L’Enfant Lecture on City Planning and Design, featuring Sir Peter Hall, the director of the Institute of Community Studies and professor of planning at the Bartlett School of Architecture and Planning, University College London. Hall’s lecture, The Sustainable City: A Unicorn in the Garden—a title taken from the James Thurber fable—questioned whether “sustainable urbanism is a mythical beast.” The answer, Hall said, is no, but the debate continues as to whether sustainability is best achieved through the buildings themselves or in the spaces between the buildings. In this debate, Hall seems to believe the best options occur between the buildings. Throughout the lecture, he argued for a type of development that would result in the creation of polycentric mega-city regions linked through mass transit. He noted that this type of development has occurred on almost every continent and continues to thrive around the world—and in particular parts of western Europe.

To begin the lecture, Hall cited several historic examples of sustainable planning, venturing as far back as the 1928 plan for Radburn, New Jersey, which turned the backs of houses to the front, and vice versa, maximizing open space, while minimizing dependence on the automobile—two of his keys to sustainability. The Radburn plan, he noted, provided inspiration for similar communities, such as Greenbelt, Maryland. Hall also cited Patrick Abercrombie’s 1944 plan for greater London as a later, more ambitious, plan for sustainable development.

The European Model
As for the best examples of modern-day sustainability, Hall contended that European countries—in particular, the Netherlands, German, and Switzerland—tend to lead the way when it comes to planning cities that are highly pedestrian friendly, have high-quality public transportation, and restrain the use of automobiles through innovative programs such as congestion charges and traffic calming.

Hall singled out Freiburg, Germany, as a city that has achieved exceptional sustainability by actually reducing auto use over the past 20 years. He also noted that Zurich, Switzerland, has dramatically boosted the use of public transportation by creating an integrated commuter rail system that combines standard commuter rail with local light rail on an integrated ticketing system.

He also touted congestion charges as an example of fostering sustainability without creating new infrastructure. Hall noted that London’s congestion charges have cut traffic in the city by 17 percent, reduced congestion by 34 percent, and generally created a quieter, more pleasant atmosphere for the city. The program has been so successful, he noted, that there has been talk of extending the scheme to other cities in England and perhaps creating a national road charging system.

Success in South America
However, Hall added, sustainability through mass transit is not limited to complex rail systems in wealthy European cities. In fact, several South American cities have been able to implement “bus metro” systems based on a system first developed in Curitiba, Brazil. The Curitiba Bus System depends on high-capacity busses that allow passengers to load and unload efficiently from raised and covered platforms similar to what residents would find at a traditional metro stop. These platforms keep the buses moving along three major lines—an express, local, and orbital—which are integrated at several points throughout the city.

To be most successful, Hall noted, these bus metros—and in fact any mass-transit system—must be integrated with proper land-use plans that cluster high-density along the major corridors of the system. When properly implemented, the Curitiba buses can create a high-density, high-capacity metro at a “fraction of the cost of a traditional rail system.”

In fact, he noted that the Curitiba system has been so successful that it has spread beyond South America to Adelaide, Australia, and cities in Canada.

A Challenge for New Urbanism
While Hall was generally positive about the New Urbanist movement, which he said has resulted in a return to traditional built forms and higher-density development, he did note that New Urbanist communities are no different—from a sustainability standpoint—than any other form of tract suburban housing if they are not adequately connected by mass transit, a sentiment that drew a smattering of applause from his audience. 

Hall held up the Laguna West development outside of Sacramento, California, an example of this type of failure. He said that the development fails the sustainability test because it is not served by public transportation and is as completely car dependent as any other suburb. Hall further conceded that England’s new city of Poundbury—held up by the Prince’s Foundation as a model of sustainability—is not fully integrated with mass transit and, as a general rule, needs to be more fully integrated into the urban fabric of its surrounding area.

Hope for America
While European and South American examples of sustainable cities are all well and good, perhaps the real unicorn in the garden is the possibility of fostering sustainability in car-centric America. While Hall acknowledged that most Americans have a distinctively different idea of what constitutes acceptable density than do their European counterparts—and that mass transit has a certain cultural stigma in this country—he said sustainable cities can still be achieved here. Hall said there is compelling evidence that America is experiencing an “urban renaissance,” with citizens rediscovering the advantages of urban living, particularly in western states where many cities are seeing population and job growth in central urban areas. Citing Robert Fishman’s “The Fifth Migration,” an article in the Autumn 2005 issue of the Journal of the American Planning Association, Hall noted that 26 cities across the country experienced higher job growth in city centers than in suburban areas.

Indeed, Hall said sustainable development has been done in the United States, is being done here, and can continue into the future—particularly in western cities where development is most prevalent. All it will take, he said, is money, political determination, and imagination. He also encouraged American planners to learn from the best practices that have been demonstrated in other countries and called on universities to perform more research on creating sustainable development.

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