[Carfreeliving] Your parking lots or your lives

[Jason Henderson]

Greetings, I thought some of you might enjoy this Op Ed in today's Times 
Picayune (The New Orleans daily paper). - jh
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/otheropinions/index.ssf?/base/news-0/1139126254210420.xml

Your parking lots or your lives
When we are a walkable, denser city, we won't need all those cars anyway
Sunday, February 05, 2006
Jason Henderson
For three months, we've heard engineers and politicians sing the praises 
of the storm-protection system built by tiny, low-lying Holland. As a 
New Orleans native and professor of urban geography focused on land use 
and transportation debates, I appreciate what I have recently learned 
about that country, which operates in some ways quite differently than 
we do here.
In Holland, land-use policy directs where growth can occur. Dense, 
compact cities are respected, and mass transit, bicycling and walking 
are considered practical and dignified ways of getting around.
In Holland, the approach toward human-environment interaction, including 
flood control, land use and transportation policy, is holistic.
If New Orleans is to survive the next hurricane, its citizens must 
reflect and learn from this disaster in a holistic way. But 
unfortunately, the overall debate about how much of the city to rebuild 
is degenerating into a debate between reducing the footprint and 
population and simply rebuilding everything. It has degenerated into 
ecological stewardship vs. social justice. If left unresolved, it 
threatens limbo and will leave people in the city even more exposed to 
future hurricanes.
 From an ecological standpoint, the rebuilding debate is inextricably 
bound with the mistakes of paving over surrounding backswamps with 
sprawl and constraining the freshwater sediments of the Mississippi 
River. Land-use policy allowed much of the backswamp -- Lakeview, 
Gentilly, eastern New Orleans -- to be paved over on behalf of white 
families, and later middle class black families, moving away from social 
problems. They moved there instead of solving tough problems (schools, 
crime, poverty) in the urban core.
Ecologically, this subsiding and vulnerable backswamp sprawl should be 
returned to wetlands. The pathway of the Industrial Canal should be used 
to send Mississippi River sediments into the northern and eastern flanks 
of the city to shore up wetland defenses. The Industrial Canal would act 
as a pipeline splaying mud into replenished wetlands, which would 
function as storm surge buffers, stormwater runoff basins, habitat for 
seafood and timber supply, and a resource for education and recreation.
Obviously this regeneration of wetlands will require relocation of 
thousands of New Orleanians, both white and black, taking us back to 
social justice and how to balance it with ecological stewardship.
That balance can be achieved by building more densely -- but only 
moderately more so -- on the less vulnerable ground along the natural 
levee of the Mississippi River and south of the Metairie-Gentilly Ridge. 
And this can be done by maximizing development on surface parking lots 
scattered throughout this part of the city.
Consider this: In a typical parking lot, the average parking space 
consumes 350 square feet, 400 with landscaping. Three parking spaces, or 
1,200 square feet, approach the size of a comfortable two-bedroom home.
Today parking and streets consume upwards of 50 percent of the land area 
of an American city. This leads to the question -- is New Orleans for 
people or cars?
Instead of providing vast acreages of parking around the high and dry 
Wal-mart, attractive mid-rise, mixed-use developments should be 
constructed with ground-floor retail below three or four stories of housing.
These developments would consist of inclusive housing, built with solid 
craftsmanship and providing for a range of incomes and household sizes, 
from small efficiencies to three-bedroom family homes.
They would respect the traditional grid and original human scale of the 
city, not be characterized by garagescapes or walls of bleak high-rises.
Repeat this throughout the city, from smaller lots, such as the A&P on 
Magazine, to the Winn-Dixies, Roberts and Save-a-Centers. Spread the 
densification using the template of surface parking while preserving 
existing housing stock.
Of course, New Orleanians will need to re-orient their approach toward 
transportation. The re-oriented city would be a compact, walkable, 
transit-oriented city with bicycling, car-sharing, and taxis as 
essential components.
Passenger rail would connect the city to Baton Rouge, Armstrong Airport, 
and the rest of the Southeast.
Rail would also operate as a much-needed tool for evacuation when the 
next storm arrives. All of this should be funded through petroleum taxes.
Additionally, all publicly owned on-street parking throughout the city 
should be priced at fair market value with revenue going to the city.
A holistic approach for ensuring a viable future for New Orleans 
includes rethinking density and transportation. Building more densely on 
surface parking lots is one possible balance between ecological 
stewardship and social justice.
. . . . . . .
Jason Henderson is an assistant professor of geography and human 
environmental studies at San Francisco State University. His e-mail 
address is jhenders at sfsu.edu.
-- 
"Make wetlands not war"

Jason Henderson
Native New Orleanian
living in San Francisco
Cell: (415)-425-5844
Home: (415)-255-8136