What Does Incrementalism Actually Mean

[M II A II R II K]

What Does Incrementalism Actually Mean


September 6, 2018

By Andrew Price

Read More: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/...incrementalism

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Incremental intensification often goes hand in hand with granularity. It keeps land ownership diversified, and it enforces good urban bones, since a separate building every so many feet means a destination such as a housefront or a shopfront every so many feet. It lowers the risk that an area will be negatively transformed, as it takes the form of many small bets

- A few apartment buildings will pop up first, and if the demand is not there, no more apartment buildings will appear rather than fewer large bets the entire block is being replaced with 200 units. Smaller buildings on smaller lots are easier to redevelop for the next generation of owners and land uses, and facilitating incremental intensification decreases the impact of land speculators. We are always going to have the land speculator who refuses to develop until either the time is right or someone offers them a really large sum of money. I would rather the speculator sit on a few empty lots than entire blocks.

- Incremental implementation means looking for low cost ways to rapidly prototype and iteratively improve. Henry Ford has a famous quote: "If I'd asked people what they wanted, they'd have asked for faster horses." As with all products, the best way to design a product is to see what sells and watch people use it. By testing out the placement of the bike lanes and trees with chalk and cones first, we were able to try out multiple configurations and we even have the option of rolling back before we spent too much money. Because rapid prototyping is cheap, it can be scaled cheaply and quickly. We could roll out a citywide bike network using cones and chalk in less time and with less money than repaving even a few streets.

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Land-use patterns change over time. In the diagram below, we have a block of detached single family homes, and there is growing demand to accommodate more people.







Rarely is our first attempt at something our best attempt. In the diagram below, a city wants to improve a street by planting trees and installing bike lanes.







On the left, the ground floor of the building was converted to retail space. The retail space is an empty shell that could house many tenants over its lifetime. On the right, the duplex was demolished for a house and a purpose built shoe store. When the shoe store left, the old shoe store was demolished for a purpose built cafe.







Incremental architecture is the least common form of incrementalism, but it does happen. You often see this with large public buildings: the shopping mall adds on an expansion. The school constructs an extension so they can fit in more classrooms and a new gym. A house adds on a garage. Even more rare is when an existing building adds an extra floor