Clusters
If planned well, the areas around transit havens are often interesting places to be. As pedestrian-friendly street activity increases around transit stops, a new level of safety develops because there are so many “eyes on the street.” A sense of comfort and community pervades these places, which bring interesting and useful businesses such as grocery stores, restaurants, cleaners, and pharmacies close to the sidewalk, and they also bring professional services (physicians, accountants, attorneys) to what quickly becomes a neighborhood.
In planning new neighborhoods, characteristics of smart growth usually include a “town center” in which the main buildings are two to three stories high, with offices and residences above sidewalk-level shops and services. This model has been widely used in Europe and other places for centuries, and indeed has been traditional in small towns and older cities in America. Even European suburbs on average tend to be three to four times as dense as American suburbs because of these clusters. In successful models, a wide range of housing choices and prices is available.
Older suburbs have the same opportunities as core cities in that their growth can occur around town center clusters. Planners in many places advocate mixed-use areas that gradually give way to more typically suburban and even semi-rural areas.
The concept seems very simple: growth around nodes with transit connectors from node to node. For an existing suburb, this opens up new development opportunities even though physical boundaries may have been reached.
In some regions, clusters of office buildings have appeared around and at some distance from the central city. These employment clusters can be viewed as opportunities to add shops and services, and to increase residential density while adding new transit options.
The critical message of demographic and other studies is that people have a very wide variety of desires and needs, and that there are markets for kinds of development that haven’t been given a great deal of attention in the last twenty years, particularly the models of the American Town and the Great City. (Next Section)
Economy, Community, Environment
Smart Growth Trends
Strong Central Cities
Mobility and Land Use
Clusters
Community & Place: Revitalizing Neighborhoods
Greenspace and Natural Resources
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