Like Al Gore, Lawrence D. Frank has a slide show, and he brought it to Bloomington last week. His message is not quite the same as the former vice president's warnings about global warming, but it's related: Let's build towns and cities people can walk in.
A faculty member at the University of British Columbia, Frank has led a series of high-profile studies that predictably link driving to obesity and dirty air.
His studies also demonstrate the kinds of communities that encourage people to choose walking over driving. Walkable neighborhoods tend to have:
More people, Streets that connect with other streets (no cul de sacs), and destinations for walkers — stores, schools, parks, restaurants.
This is the gist of New Urbanism. A model of development sweeping the country, New Urbanism allows pockets of commercial activity in residential neighborhoods (grocery stores, restaurants, coffee shops). It mixes higher density housing, like townhouses or apartment buildings, with single-family dwellings, to concentrate enough people in areas to support neighborhood business.
Bloomington's new proposed zoning ordinance, now under discussion by city officials, seems to be inching in that direction, softening, though not erasing, the traditional lines that marked the town into districts defined by clear-cut uses.
For instance, in the interest of increasing density and availability of affordable housing, the ordinance would allow auxiliary units in areas zoned for single-family residences. A family might build a cottage in the backyard or add an apartment to the family home.
That idea provoked a lively discussion at the Elm Heights Neighborhood Association meeting, the day before Frank spoke.
Some saw the virtue of allowing older people to stay in their homes by putting in an apartment for a live-in caregiver, or allowing older moms or dads to move in with sons or daughters yet have their own separate living space, or letting a young family hire a live-in nanny with her own apartment in the main dwelling or a cottage in the backyard.
To others, the very idea of second units was a no-go: they could imagine all kinds of ramshackle creations springing up like mushrooms across the backyards of Elm Heights and evolving into more rentals for absentee landlords.
Similarly, when the subject turned to a proposal to replace the old K & S store on Second Street with an apartment complex with retail space on the ground floor, most people seemed to like the idea of having a grocery there. Or even a neighborhood tavern. But what if a club came in with crowds and loud music?
The devil is the details — the specific ways to create denser, mixed-use neighborhoods. It is not hard to see the argument for change, but citizens are going to need to work together to re-imagine their town.
Carol Polsgrove can be reached at cpolsgro@indiana.edu. She is a member of the Elm Heights Neighborhood Association.