"Energy Efficiency of Small Buildings" by Green Lab includes Miami, mentions Townhouse Center

From the National Trust for Historic Preservation: "Realizing the Energy Efficiency Potential of Small Buildings summarizes two years of research into the opportunities and challenges of delivering energy-efficiency strategies to small buildings.  The small buildings sector (made up of structures 50,000 square feet and under) contains 95 percent of all commercial buildings by number.  This research is important for two reasons. "First, small buildings are the physical foundation of social and economic life in thousands of communities nationwide.  Small buildings form the collective heritage of cities and towns, they are the drivers of economic development, and they are valuable assets that provide the basis for revitalization efforts in vulnerable communities.  Smaller, older buildings typically house locally-owned small businesses that rely on affordable rents and unique, flexible workspaces.  Similarly, small multi-family and mixed-use buildings are often the lifeblood of a city’s affordable housing stock. Neighborhoods and districts made up of these buildings are rich in history and offer people a common identity and sense of place.

"Second, most communities desperately need the investments that are readily available through energy-efficiency improvements.  We identify the potential savings in the small buildings sector as almost one-fifth of all national commercial building energy consumption.  This means if small buildings and businesses took advantage of readily available energy-saving improvements, they would reduce the overall energy used by national commercial buildings by almost 20 percent.  Regrettably, small buildings are regularly overlooked in the energy services market, due to the complexity of the building stock, limited resources of building owners and small businesses, and small profit margins available to service providers when buildings are addressed individually.

From the report: "The survey was conducted by a team of university graduate students, student coordinators, and faculty in ten distinct climate regions: Seattle, Philadelphia, Lexington, Charlotte, Austin, Phoenix, Denver, Chicago, Miami, and New York City.  The Miami survey was conducted by Townhouse Center, an advocacy organization."  Townhouse Center did oversee the Miami survey; but the City of Miami Planning Department dedicated staff to data compilation (the report gives special thanks to Luciana Gonzalez); property owners DACRA, Goldman, Barlington, and MBCDC gave data on their entire portfolios; and FIU students filled in the blanks.  The real thanks goes to Jeana Wiser, Green Lab project coordinator, for helping Miami participate.  Full post here and report here.

Miami Small Urban Buildings: Course, Book (Free!), Exhibit, Bus Tour, Presentati​on...

[Re-blogged from Knight Blog]  Jason Chandler, a licensed architect and an associate professor at Florida International University, writes about a joint studio course with the not-for-profit Townhouse Center that is supported by Knight Foundation.

Miami has built to the sky and horizon with towers and subdivisions but lacks neighborhoods of a middle scale. In other cities—like Boston’s North End or New York’s West Village—those places are often the most vibrant. To help Miami start developing such neighborhoods, Knight Foundation funded an architecture studio course at the Florida International University School of Architecture about the neighborhood building block: small, adaptable buildings.

This spring semester, students visited and documented small urban buildings in downtown Miami and Savannah, Ga. Then each student designed a new, small, adaptable prototype for Miami. The effort produced more than 100 designs, which have been curated into a book, “Infill Housing.”

The course and book were produced in collaboration with Townhouse Center, a not-for-profit that promotes urban neighborhood development.

“‘Infill Housing’ is an easy-to-follow roadmap of how Miami can draw from the past to develop the small, adaptable buildings that add up to great middle-scale neighborhoods,” said Andrew Frey, Townhouse Center’s executive director.

During the visits to downtown Miami and Savannah, students experienced how small-scale infill buildings create resilient urban environments. The Savannah visit took students far out of the studio, to places and buildings that they had never seen before. Immersing students in cities so that they can experience buildings in person is critical to architecture education. It teaches students to “see” architecture and to appreciate its scale, materials, use and context.

“Infill Housing” was published after two months of culling, editing and formatting. It begins with student drawings of their inspiration—the small urban buildings in Miami and Savannah—and continues with their new designs, interspersed with photos of the students at work in Miami and Savannah. It provides a clear vision of what the students produced and experienced and is available in paperback or as a free e-book.

Chandler and Frey will present the book at a LAB Miami book talk on Oct 10 at 7 p.m.  [Register now!]  The students’ work will be exhibited at BFI in Miami from Nov. 1-17.  Chandler and Frey will lead one of BFI’s Weird Miami bus tours on Nov. 10, taking riders through exemplary—but sometimes overlooked—Miami urban neighborhoods.  (Photo credit: Hermann Gonzalez, FIU graduate, Master of Architecture, 2012.)

ALNY wealth of resources about small-scale vacant lots and prototype buildings to fill them

The Architectural League New York took an in-depth look back at "Vacant Lots", its 1987 collaboration with the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development.  From the League's website we learn that "Vacant Lots" was a "design study examining the potential of small-scale infill housing to contribute to the city’s affordable housing portfolio.  The study identified ten sites owned by the City in the Bronx, Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn that were representative of the types of small abandoned lots proliferating in the city at the time, and that were considered realistic prospects for development.  The League’s charge to designers was to develop plans for these sites that could be prototypical solutions. "Collected here is original material from the Vacant Lots book, a photo essay on Urban Omnibus of the ten sites today and a survey of contemporary initiatives for housing New Yorkers, and excerpts of recent conversations with Mark Willis and members of the Vacant Lots organizing committee: Carol Willis, Deborah Gans, Brian McGrath, Mark Robbins, and Rosalie Genevro."  Resources include:

• Roundtable: Deborah Gans, Rosalie Genevro, Brian McGrath, Mark Robbins, Carol Willis
• A Conversation with Mark Willis
• “The Breached Wall” by Herbert Muschamp
• The Vacant Lots Study Project
• Vacant Lots: Then and Now
• New York Housing
• The Cost of Living
• City of Imagination
• Writing the Program
• Prototypical Solutions

New York townhouse value: width matters, but not much, and narrow sells for more $/area

From Real Deal writer Adrienne Berard: "Not only is townhouse width a point of pride for homeowners, buyers and brokers in New York City, it is one of the most important attributes appraisers use in determining the sale price of a townhouse, said Jonathan Miller, president of appraisal firm Miller Samuel.  The wider the townhouse, the more flexibility a buyer perceives in the overall floor plan, said Miller. "But how much does width actually impact the price per square foot of a property?  A review of 214 Manhattan townhouse sales that closed between July 2010 and March 2013 shows that wider townhouses don’t necessarily sell for a higher price per square foot.  For example, the 50-foot-wide Harkness Mansion on E 75 St sold for $36.5 million in 2011, at a price of $1,682 per square foot.  Last year, a 12.5-foot-wide townhouse on E 78 St sold for $6.1 million, or $2,083 per square foot.  Instead, a better marker of value, the data sample shows, is how far a townhouse’s width deviates from the Manhattan average — 19.1 feet on the East Side and 19.7 feet on the West Side, according to the Douglass Elliman townhouse market report, prepared by Miller.

"While flexibility in layout is dependent on width, a poorly designed use of space will decrease any value gained from extra width, he explained.  He remembers appraising a 15-foot-wide townhouse on the Upper East Side in which the owner had installed an elevator.  The elevator took up nearly half the width of the floor plan and greatly decreased the value of the property, he said.  Indeed, the overall closing price of a home has more to do with location and layout than width, according to the data, compiled by StreetEasy.

"Just as buyers covet wide townhouses, there is also demand for the exclusivity of skinny townhouses.  Manhattan’s slimmest townhouse, at 9.5 feet wide, is on the market for $3.5 million, or $3,530 per square foot.  The 990-square-foot, four-story house on Bedford St includes a renovated basement, three bedrooms and two bathrooms."  Full article here.

Los Angeles developer: "infill is new normal, and small is future of infill", but faces obstacles

From Architects Newspaper writer Casey Lynch: "Changing demographics and an array of trends are quickly positioning infill development as the 'new normal' in real estate.  But what is less commonly discussed is that small-scale development is the future of infill.  In dense but sprawling cities like Los Angeles, our many village-like, niche neighborhoods simply cannot handle the infrastructure demands of large infill projects.  The result is that the ongoing pressures of urbanization and densification will require more targeted development of a smaller scope and scale.  The growth of Los Angeles is dependent on our ability to facilitate neighborhood development. "Such small-scale development faces a unique set of challenges that must be addressed to solidify the platform for urban revitalization. The problem isn’t that the development process is different for projects of different sizes (although it can be), it’s that the demands of the process place disproportionate strain on smaller projects.  The most challenging demands stem from the opacity of the entitlements process, the cost of doing business, and the response times of city agencies.  Smaller developers have fewer internal resources to digest these complexities, and can’t afford to engage expensive land use consultants and expeditors for advice.

"While Los Angeles will see more small-scale development out of necessity, we should also embrace it as a prospect for better development, generally.  Smaller developers tend to be much more attuned to the wants of communities in which they work, which leads to projects that are designed more appropriately to fit within the existing fabric of neighborhoods. These projects also offer an added economic uplift to the community, as small developers are more likely to engage local architects, designers, and builders."  Full article here.

Video series on browstone renovation shows common challenges and good solutions

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzXkmdOpm9U]From StreetEasy: "StreetEasy presents Demo to Decor: The Renovation of a New York City Brownstone, a series that shadows the gut renovation of a Park Slope brownstone.  Featuring local architect, Brendan Coburn and local interior designer, Tamara Eaton."  Currently there are 3 episodes: 1 introduces the project and highlights its major objectives and undertaking (above), 2 on fixing up the façade, and 3 is not actually labeled as episode 3 but regardless is about redesigning the garden extension.  I hope they do more.

Donate to help NY Landmarks Conservancy book "Bricks & Brownstone" new edition get published

From NY Landmarks Conservancy: "Your support is critical for the new edition of Bricks & Brownstone, the classic history of the New York row house.  The New York Times has called it a 'Bible', one which both 'chronicled and furthered the row-house revival that transformed many New York neighborhoods'."  Donate here. From the book website: "Bricks & Brownstone is the definitive history of the New York City row house, a “bible for buffs and architects,” according to the New Yorker.  First published in 1972, the book has been instrumental  in helping homeowners and enthusiasts to identify and restore the historic features of their brownstones.  The book’s author, the late Charles Lockwood, designated his longtime collaborator, the preservationist Patrick Ciccone, to complete a long-in-the-works revised edition of the book, set for publication by Rizzoli in 2014."

Disaster recovery depends on "building pattern" that creates "place-based social networks"

From Atlantic Cities writer Sarah Goodyear: "When dealing with severe weather events, the type that climate change is making more common, improved infrastructure is important.  But the social ties of a neighborhood – the kind of relationships that are nurtured by trips to the corner coffee shop and chats on the sidewalk – might prove equally important when it comes to saving lives. "In a New Yorker article this week (behind a paywall), sociologist Eric Klinenberg looks at the impact that solid, place-based social networks can have on protecting lives in a natural disaster.  He takes as his example the Chicago heat wave of July 1995, which killed 739 people.

"But in two adjacent neighborhoods that were demographically nearly identical – mostly black, with high concentrations of poverty and elderly residents -- Klinenberg reports the death rates were vastly different.  Englewood recorded a fatality rate of 33 per 100,000 residents.  Right next door, Auburn Gresham’s rate was 3 per 100,000.  From the New Yorker piece:

The key difference between neighborhoods like Auburn Gresham and others that are demographically similar turned out to be the sidewalks, stores, restaurants, and community organizations that bring people into contact with friends and neighbors.  Between 1960 and 1990, Englewood lost fifty per cent of its residents and most of its commercial outlets, as well as its social cohesion….  Auburn Gresham, by contrast, experienced no population loss in that period.  In 1995, residents walked to diners and grocery stores.  They knew their neighbors.  They participated in block clubs and church groups….

"As cities prepare for climate change in earnest, they’re going to need to harden infrastructure, change building patterns, and overhaul government emergency procedures.  But they’re also going to have to put a greater value on the human connections that can be found in walkable neighborhoods where people know each other and support local businesses."  Full article here, Klineberg article here, and related paper here.

Miami Beach politician on convention center: "massive development....that never goes well"

From Next City writer Bill Bradley: "Miami Beach wants to update its convention center, but not just with a fresh coat of paint, new lines in the parking lot and a sparkling new sidewalk out front.  Instead it wants to redevelop the whole 52-acre district near the Atlantic shore. "Commissioner Jonah Wolfson seems to be the only official in town opposed to the redevelopment plans.  'I am not an anti-development guy,' Wolfson told me.  'And it’s very hard to be the sole voice of opposition.  But these massive developments are just cheesy.  It makes no sense from a planning perspective.'

"'People come to Miami Beach for the beach,' he said, making a fair point.  'This is not a convention town.  I don’t have a problem with renovating our existing structure, but the concept of expanding is not wise from a planning perspective.  I don’t think it’s wise from an economic perspective.'

"Wolfson said that development has to be organic.  'To go in and drop a spaceship in the middle of this area, to me it’s not necessary,' he said.  'Look at the Design District.  It was organic.  Men and women who were trying to invest in the area, they bought stuff and they worked with what they had and they built it up and it was a process.  It wasn’t just like, "slap down this massive development." That never goes well.'"  Full article here.

"Miami is missing middle-density building types" and all their benefits, such as...

From Global Site Plans writer Jennifer Garcia: "Miami is a melting pot.  However, contemporary housing fails to represent this diverse population by developing only single-family homes and condos.  Miami is missing middle-density building types: townhouses, row houses, courtyard housing, and more.  Why are these middle units important?

• Crowded condos have made 'density' a bad word among many communities.  However, [middle-density] building types are small-scale and blend seamlessly in any community, which makes the [local government] approval process easier.
• They create a fine-grain mix of families, incomes, and ethnicities.
• Attached housing is economical due to the utilization of the shared wall, simple forms, and smaller size, resulting in less waste on unnecessary construction.
• As the city matures, these units can also be easily adapted for other uses in the future.
• Mature neighborhoods offer vacant lots and opportunities for redevelopment within city limits.  These infill properties are ideal for small, incremental growth."

Full post here.

Smithsonian "Object of the Day" was a townhouse facade drawing: old type, Modern style

From Smithsonian writer Rebecca McNamara: "This blueprint in the Cooper-Hewitt collection depicts architect William Lescaze's radical and trendsetting four-story townhouse on E 48 St, New York.  Lescaze's townhouse, which he used as his home and office, re-imagined the standard row house and introduced the first modernist-style townhouse in New York, and possibly in the US. "In the 1930s, and even today, most residential urban blocks were filled with highly ornamented nineteenth-century townhouses.  Lescaze's, instead, has a flat facade, large, horizontal windows of glass brick, and stucco walls. As a modernist architect, Lescaze did not believe in adding ornament to a building; he chose materials with function in mind, and any decorative effects created were simply happy accidents.

"The Swiss-born designer followed European examples with the choice of glass bricks, seen on all four stories, but was one of the first architects in the US to use this material.  He was making history, but history-making was not necessarily his goal: designing a functional residence was.  The glass bricks allow light to enter the interior while retaining privacy and blocking an uninteresting view of a brownstone across the street.

"Today, architects continue to reinvent the townhouse, with varying degrees of acceptance from their neighbors or the design community.  But when wandering around city streets and passing row houses with glass brick or horizontal windows, or even those that resemble nothing the city has ever seen before — Matthew Baird's Greenwich Village Townhouse, for one — it is worth remembering Lescaze."  Full post here.

How get a "complete neighborhood" by market forces, not planning? Start with smaller buildings

From Market Urbanism writer Emily Washington: "Earlier this week I attended an Urban Land Institute event about DC’s new development, The Yards.  This is a 42-acre area that was formerly a manufacturing center for the Navy.  In 2003, Forest City Washington purchased the site from the General Services Administration for residential, retail, and office redevelopment. "During the presentation, I was reminded of Ronald Coase’s 1937 paper, 'The Nature of the Firm'.  He explains that firms exist, rather than each worker serving as his own contractor, because firms reduce the transaction costs of contracting for individual projects:

"'In economic theory we find that the allocation of factors of production between different uses is determined by the price mechanism.  The price of factor A becomes higher in X than in Y.  As a result, A moves from Y to X.  Yet in the real world, we find that there are many areas where this does not apply.  If a workman moves from department Y to department X, he does not go because of a change in relative prices, but because he is ordered to do so.'

"In the case of The Yard, this means that Forest City Washington is saving money on development expenses...and giving up the price system which would better direct firms developing individual parcels to know what their customer want.  This tradeoff is represented above.  Firms will increase in size until the cost of not being able to rely on the price system is equal to the transaction costs of contracting work out.

"During her presentation, Deborah Ratner Salzberg stressed her firm’s objective of creating a 'complete neighborhood' with a balance of residential development and a mix of retail.  By one firm developing this entire small neighborhood, they had the advantages of knowing which tenants were likely to sign leases in which buildings and controlling the vision for development within one company.  However, they were not bidding against other developers to determine the highest-value buildings for each parcel, meaning that planning, rather than the price mechanism, shaped the definition of a 'complete neighborhood.'"  Full article here.

In Bangalore, "low-rise consumes land, high-rise consumes energy"...so mid-rise mixed-use!

From Atlantic Cities writer Mark Bergen: "BANGALORE, India -- Ascend to the top floor of the UB Tower downtown, and you can nearly see the city's full expanse from all sides.  The skyscraper, the centerpiece of the five-year-old luxury shopping mall UB City, is one of the city's tallest structures.  It stands 420 feet. "More than 100 buildings rise higher in both New York and Hong Kong, though each is less populous.  Cities in China and southeast Asia rise high, but Indian ones did not.  Most grew like Bangalore: outwards and compact.  It leads to a natural question: Why aren't Indian cities that tall?  But there are others who pose a very different query: Why should they be?

S. Vishwanath, an urban planner, lives in Vidyaranyapura, a neighborhood in the city's far northwest with rows of squat, single-family homes and buzzing shops.  He would like every neighborhood to resemble his.  India, he claims, is best suited for 'poly-nodal' urbanism -- a bunch of self-contained cities within the city.  'People won't have to travel outside of two or three kilometers,' he explains.

"That vision is a relief for anyone who has braved Bangalore rush hour. But he is less concerned with traffic than resources, particularly water.  Tall buildings, where water has to move up several stories, can have wider ecological footprints.  'While the low-rise consumes more land, the high-rise consumes more energy,' says Sathya Prakash Varanashi, an architect who has worked in the city for two decades.

"Both men do, however, wield judgment on the impact vertical growth has on society.  They see shorter, dense structures as more conducive to public life.  'The strength of India has always been that there is mixed land use in every part of town,' argues Vishwanath.  Residents dwell alongside shop owners, street vendors and the legions of working poor."  Full article here.

Singapore shophouse was bookstore, stripped down to its structure, becomes residence

From Decoist writer Sherry Nottingham: "A couple in Singapore decided that they would try and bring back their childhood days by converting an old book shop in the historic Joo Chiat Place in Singapore.  With the help of CHANG Architects a careful restoration and renovation project was embarked on. "The building purchased by the couple was a book store called ‘Lucky Book Store’ and was originally built way back in 1920.  The idea of the owners was to convert the main structure of the book shop into a spacious dwelling area, while a single-story modern home would be constructed on an empty plot right behind the shop, and linking both these areas and surrounding the newly added home with a beautiful garden.

"The interiors of the book shop were made less congested by removing all the existing non-structural parts.  This created large and flowing spaces, while it also showcased the historic past of the edifice.  "  Full post with several images here.

Trend? Miami gets another small, attached, multi-story, mixed-used building with no parking

From a press release from Keenan/Riley: "K/R's recently completed Garden Building is a two-story mixed-use building with an intensively landscaped green roof in the heart of the Miami Design District.  The original site served as an expansive garden for private and public events.  The new Garden Building expands on this vision, incorporating retail space on the ground floor, a mixed-use second story space and a green roof garden."  On the building's facade, "just above street level, a series of jewel-like glass 'vines' are suspended within finely crafted frames."  Full press release here. For designing small, attached urban buildings, what  wisdom can Terry Riley share?  From an email from Mr. Riley:  "Starting out as a young architect in New York City, I became very used to the idea that the facade defines the structure -- in many more ways than in suburbia where buildings tend to be free-standing."  You heard it here first, folks: focus on the facade.  Congrats on an attractive, exemplary building!

Indianapolis old, small, mixed-use "encouraged ordinary citizens to become developers"

From Urban Indy writer Graeme Sharpe: "Have you ever been to an old downtown and marveled at the historic buildings? Have you ever wondered how they could create such beautiful buildings on such small budgets, compared to the placeless architecture we are told is barely affordable today?" "The truth is that those multi-story, mixed-use buildings lining the street were built by a different culture.  But that old American culture was a very clever one, and we can profit from studying what they did right, and how they did it.

"The typical traditional urban building is between 20 to 40 feet wide, and between 60 to 200 feet deep.  This small width was a product of structural engineering limitations.  A traditional building with masonry walls and wooden floors could not span further without significant cost increases

"Perhaps even more importantly, the small sizes encouraged ordinary citizens to become developers.  Many buildings were financed directly by business owners or residents, who would offset building costs with lease income from unused spaces.  These self-developing streetscapes ensured that no single developer or architect controlled the evolution of the city.  It would reflect a social, shared history instead.

"Traditional buildings, and traditional streetscapes by extension, never happened overnight. They evolved over time, as each small plot was filled in and then raised upwards.  The neat thing about masonry walls is that they can support an incredible amount of weight if they are braced at each floor level, so adding a new floor on top was usually a simple process.

"Minimum Parking Requirements, whether for permitting compliance or loan approval, have been the single greatest enemy of the traditional building technique.  The key lessons here are to create a development environment where buildings can start small, expand gradually, and create mutually beneficial relationships with their neighbors."  Full post here.

Townhouses with garages in front don't have to be ugly and anti-urban, says Old Urbanist

From Old Urbanist blogger Charlie Gardner: "Do front-loading garages truly present an insoluble design problem for the rowhouse format?  A quote from Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk's The Second Coming of the American Small Town illustrates this common point of view: 'When housing achieves a certain density but parking remains a necessity, the car's house (the garage) overwhelms the human's house. No architect is skillful enough to make human life project itself on the façade of a house when 60 percent of it is given over to garage doors.' "Taking the 60 percent figure as a rule of thumb, we'll then say that no more than 50 percent of a façade can be occupied by a garage door before the aestheticsbecome intolerable.  Using this figure, we get, for single-car garage rowhouses, a width of no less than 16' [and] for two-car garage homes, a width of no less than 32'.

"Now, 16 feet is an extremely common width for rowhouses in the older neighborhoods of Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., but contemporaryattempts to integrate standard 8' garages on these lots usually have not, in my opinion, succeeded.  What if we were to widen the lot a bit more?  These early 20th century rowhomes in the Sunset neighborhood in San Francisco, at 25 feet across, lessen the visual impact of the garage doors.

"Once we take a look at models beyond the United States, however, we see that far better street level results can be achieved using the same dimensions.  These Mexico City homes, at around 25 feet wide, present a friendlier face to the street.  The garage door itself, stylistically integrated with the window bars and iron balcony railing, is relatively inconspicuous."  Full post here.

ULI Small-Scale Development Meet-Up in New Orleans, Feb 28 to March 1. Register now!

ULI recently started a Small-Scale Development initiative, including a series of 2-day meet-ups around the country, special events at larger ULI conferences, and an online community. From the website: "Join other entrepreneurial developers who are focused on infill and smaller-scale projects for this exclusive ULI members only program.  The result is an intimate alliance of professionals engaged in an ongoing exchange of best practices in the niche area of small-scale and infill development." I went to the 2nd meet-up (last year in DC) and enjoyed it, and more importantly the program is going in the right direction, strengthening small-increment infill developers individually and as a community.  The next meet-up will be Feb 28 to March 1 in New Orleans. I'll be attending, and I encourage you to consider and fwd this invitation to anyone who may be interested.  Below is the program outline, and you have to apply at the link above.

• Thurs, Feb 28, 3 PM: Registration followed by panel discussion, reception, and dinner.
• Fri, March 1, 8:30 AM to 5 PM: Panel, project tour, skills instruction, and deal sharing.
• Panel Discussion: Lessons from the Worst Deal I Ever Did
• Panel Discussion: New Normal, New Opportunities
• Project Tour & Case Study: Adaptive Use, Infill
• Skill Instruction: Entity Formation for Small Developers
• Skill Instruction: Capital Structure Options and Implications
• Skill Instruction: Finding the Best Consultants
• Skill Instruction: Deal Presentation Tips
• Attendee Deal Sharing: What Can I Do Differently

Nashville's lessons for creative place-making: dense, fine-grain, adaptable neighborhoods

From Better! Cities & Towns writer Joe Nickol: "Recently I have been working in Nashville, Tennessee, meeting with, among many others, representatives from the visual arts, music, and business communities to discuss ways that new downtown development can reinforce Nashville's legacy as one of the most creative cities in North America. "The central question of this exploration is what about this city allows Nashvillians to use it to develop explosive musical talent generation after generation while developing brains at an equally impressive rate?  If not for key physical attributes, Nashvillians could not have used their city in a highly adaptive and productive manner.  These attributes include:

"Affordable, hyper-adaptive buildings that age well.  Nashville has a diverse stock of buildings that were practically constructed and whose simplicity has allowed them to adapt to changing market needs through time.  Although, like most other cities, newer buildings largely fail to abide by this pattern, they have pulled uses out of the aging stock to allow creative reuse at price points that allow musicians and startups to access and afford them.  This flexibility in use affords great resilience to economic changes and positions the city well to take take advantage of unforeseen opportunities.

"Compression, Connectivity, and Inter-Mixing.  Practical, well-constructed buildings are not enough.  Cities such as Nashville thrive on compression and interconnectivity between buildings, places, and users.  This allows strangers and acquaintances to come together comfortably and organically to perform and exchange ideas.  This is the birthplace of technology (in the classic sense of the word) and the hotbed of innovation where new ideas are constantly emerging from old ones.

"But not all cities are like the music industry.  Many are like corporations.  They tend to tense up as they grow and age.  This generally tilts policy and behavior toward protecting largeness at the expense of the more resilient scale of the tinkerers, innovators, and startups.  The effects of doing so can be seen in our urban landscapes when many small parcels and buildings get assembled into creating super-blocks and mega structures."  Full article here.

Incremental investments that add up to fine-grain, adaptable neighborhood are "antifragile"

The writings of Nassim Taleb inspired this post more than a year ago, and recently inspired Strong Towns writer Charles Marohn: "Today, after being able to read the Patron Saint of Strong Towns Thinking Nassim Taleb's new book Antifragile, I am able to more fully grasp, and explain more succinctly, the concept I was struggling so hard to develop. "A city built in the traditional development pattern -- the human settlement approach used for millennia across geographies and cultures -- has high upside and low downside.  In periods of robust growth, it will prosper.  In periods of stagnation and decline, it will not fall apart or implode but actually experience innovation and undergo renewal.  This is beyond resilience; it is antifragile.

"In Taleb's book he has a chart where he lists fragile and antifragile approaches across a broad spectrum of social endeavors, from finance to medicine.  The last entry is 'urbanism' where he lists: 'Fragile: Robert Moses.  Antifragile: Jane Jacobs.'

"We have come to see the stagnation and decline of our blocks and neighborhoods as a normal part of the development process.  It is not.  The normal course of human development is for successful cities to mature incrementally over time.  When that occurs, they become financially resilient.  That is what literally thousands of years of human history tells us is the 'normal' pattern for cities; an incremental maturing process where prior investments are built on, expanded and enhanced over time."

"As James Howard Kunstler wrote, so many American cities simply committed suicide.  It was self-inflicted damage, but injury was not the intention.  The goal was growth.  A community's emphasis needs to shift from creating growth quickly and easily to building value in a broad and incremental way."  Full post here.