Quote:
Originally Posted by tildahat
I don't know exactly what Dunham-Jones would say in response, but fleshing out the presentation a bit: some of it actually had little to do with retro-fitting and was about 'reinhabiting' old strip malls, which has some benefits, but is not at all about 'urbanizing'.
There was some discussion of tearing up developments and returning it to greenspace/wetlands, etc.
The retrofitting seemed focused on older inner-ring suburbs - I don't think she was arguing we could fix Avery Ranch. The presentation was tied to the South Austin Combined planning process, which I think does have some (perhaps limited) potential for retrofitting, along with the east side of 78745.
The other focus was on redeveloping old malls, of which there are some successful examples:
http://www.downtownbelmarapts.com/4/...wood-Colorado/
On the downside, most of the successful retrofits seemed to be TODs of one sort or another around light rail lines. In many ways it was a depressing presentation because it showed how for "progressive and green" Austin lags behind... |
1. Reinhabiting old malls has nothing to do with suburban retrofit - its the age old process of filtering down. I don't know why she discusses it in relation to the topic.
2. Taking old malls and asphalt and converting it to mixed use town squares has some benefits, certainly that's possible with Highland Mall here. But creating lifestyle center nodes, while nice, doesn't fix the basic problem with sprawl.
3. I agree there really isn't a fix for Avery Ranch type development.
4. Her challenge to imagine how to retrofit Ben White Blvd was a bit of nonsense. There is no fix for that short of ripping it out and starting over. She could have chosen a better target like Airport Blvd. or SoLa or Burnett where there really is potential.
It seems that the only fix necessary for true inner ring suburbs built on the grid is up zoning (or even better form based zoning but I don't expect "progressive" Austin will ever accept such a radical concept). I'm not sure how you can ever fix pod style development on dendritic roads unless you're willing to rip it out and start over.