Transcript for:
Insights on Sustainable Urban Design Practices

hello everyone and welcome to the webcast my name is Christine Dy Davis I'm the executive director of the Ohio chapter of the American Planning Association and I am your webcast moderator today is Friday October 25th and we will hear sustainable Urban Design a comprehensive approach for technical questions related um to today you can type those in the Q&A box uh located in your toolbar and I will do my best to answer your technical questions for questions related to the presentation you can type those in that same Q&A box and we will get to those at the end of the presentation during the Q&A um please don't raise your hand just type your questions whatever they are or comments in that Q&A box please today's guest host is the sustainability and resilience series we'll hear a little bit more about that coming up here in a moment from Carla but thanks to the series for joining us and for bringing today's session um coming up we have a lot of webcasts coming up and some of this stuff the coming soon actually I already have filled in uh we we have an Ethics session we have a law session we have an equity session we have an SNR session did I say ethics we have ethic we have every single one of the required aicp CM credits available before the end of this year uh so head over to our website Ohio planning.org planning webcast and you can register for all of our upcoming sessions right today's session is worth 1.5 CM credits and one excuse me of the sustainability and resilience credits you can log them by heading over to planning.org log to your my APA account and from there you can search by today's title or event number both of which can be found on our website again it's at the bottom of your screen Ohio planning.org planning webcast if you're on social media be sure to like us on Facebook that's where I post any important date or time changes when new sessions are available for you to register for and a reminder of what's on tap for the week we record all of our sessions and we post them onto our YouTube channel so head over there and just type in planning webcast in the search bar we'll pop up along with our well over 500 session recordings all available to you for free so be sure to subscribe to our channel so you get notified when one of our recordings has been posted again if you have questions either technical or for our panelist just type those in the Q&A box keep those hands down we'll get to those at the end during our Q&A period and with that I'm going to turn it over to you you Carla to kick things off for today wonderful and good morning or good afternoon depending where you are welcome to the sustainability and resilience series I'm Carla ebach chair of the sustainable communities Division and of this series as well as president of ebach Consulting in South Florida so I'm very happy to present today's session the series is a multi-divisional effort created to provide opportunities for planning professionals to broaden and deepen your knowledge while allowing you to earn aicp sustainability and resilience credit either live or on demand and we're very thankful to Christine dersy and the planners webcast series for partnering to bring series to life so I'd like you to check out these offerings uh that we have in the series we have a collection of 19 recordings to date that have become a permanent library of resources available for free and thanks to the dedicated e eorts of fellow professionals who have donated their time and their expertise to make these presentations and to help us organize the events these are available as uh Christine may have said on the YouTube playlist absolutely bursting the seams of this slide at this point I think next next event I may have to actually somehow figure out how to make two slides um just use that QR code to get right to the playlist and maybe we'll also drop that link in the chat um um today's recording will be available soon on that same platform and also for aicp credit and there will be more exciting sessions to come uh next slide you are about to hear sustainable Urban Design a comprehensive approach Urban Design as I'm sure you know because you're here plays a vital role in promoting sustainable resilient communities or it can fail to do so in long lasting ways um sustainabil on the Urban Design scale has gained interest over the past decades and yet it remains a fragmented field lacking a unified approach um the wide range of scales disciplines and areas of expertise involved in sustainable Urban Design has made it difficult to fully understand and apply in real world projects um next slide Christine so today's speakers are ready to share some key expertise on this subject and I will let them introduce themselves more fully but we're going to hear from uh first Merill St Ledger senior principal with Smith group based in Washington DC and she's immediate past chair of the sustainable communities Division and then a longer presentation by Nico Laro professor of architecture and Urban Design at University of Oregon co-director of the sustainable cities Institute and creator of the sustainable Urban Design framework work about which you'll hear today so thanks again for being here uh with hundreds of your fellow planning colleagues and I'll turn it over now to Merl to get us started all right thank you Carla I'm going to share my screen uh let's see can everyone see my screen it's still coming in there we can see it okay great thank you so much yes as Carla said um my name is Merl St Ledger and I lead the Urban Design and planning Studio at Smith group's DC office and am uh Carla's predecessor the immediate past chair of the sustainable communities division here at APA uh I have the pleasure of introducing today's topic and our speaker uh Nico larco professor at the University of Oregon and the lead author of the sustainable Urban Design handbook uh he's going to talk about this the framework that he that he has uh created and published in this book but before I introduce Nico I wanted to set the stage a little bit and touch on why sustainable Urban Design matters right now after all as planners we have a lot of policy guidance out there from APA and from other organizations we have excellent published work and specific policies to guide our communities in addressing sustainability climate change and resiliency issues we also have a number of organizations that have published goals and performance measures for reaching the needed sustainability and resiliency targets that we are after in the built environment so we know what we want um but we're not always sure how to get there and that's where Urban Design comes in urban Design's impact can be truly transformative um how we plan and design our cities our towns and our spaces matters to our uh present and to our future after all 55% of people now live in urban areas and our cities are responsible for 80% of the Glo Global GDP but also 50% of the waste uh 70% of the natural resources and 90% of the innovation and The Innovation is key because that's how we can make changes uh that address these issues at the same time uh climate change government policies world events have created shocks and stresses on our people and our systems that are testing our resilience and pushing us to find strategies for adaptation and mitigation sustainable Urban Design lies at this intersection several disciplines coming in together uh concerned with design of the built environment uh and therefore affect people every single day in every aspect of their lives but more than that sustainable Urban Design can really bring together the beauty and complexity of people with the systems that underly our communities in a very meaningful way the sustainable Urban design handbook brings together critical sustainability topics with design at every scale that we work in it's an amazing resource that synthesizes research and examples and presents them in a way that is easily accessible and applicable by professionals so without further Ado I'll introduce niik larco he's a professor Urban designer and architect and he leads element Urban design uh a design and consulting firm and has been professor of architecture and Urban Design at the University of Oregon since 2004 where he's also the director of the urbanism next Center and co-director of the sustainable cities Institute since 2018 he has also been a strategic adviser and researcher at tno a Dutch national Think Tank Professor larco researches and teaches sustainable Urban Design as developed the framework that you're going to hear about and assist cities and projects on how to best apply these principles and approaches his work around urbanism next is focused on how technology advances uh issues such as shared Mobility self-driving cars e-commerce and the sharing economy uh Professor larco has published in various academic and professional journals was a full right scholar twice and has testified on his research to Congress and was also a speaker at Ted X College Park so without further Ado I'm G to stop sharing and Nico you can take it from here thank you so much let me get the sharing to happen here there can you all see my slides now yes okay great so first of all huge thank you to Christine and to especially to Carla and Merill for uh or organizing this and the introductions very much appreciate it very excited to be here um talking to all of you and uh sharing this work that's hopefully helpful to the work you're doing um as Marl mentioned uh ni larco I'm um a professor at the University of Oregon in architecture and Urban Design uh also direct the urbanism next Center in the sustainable cities Institute and what I'm going to be talking about today is uh has been a more than a decade's worth of work of developing an approach to sustainability uh um in in Urban Design uh this is this is meant to be a a a uh well since you can't answer directly I just like you to think about uh how do you currently approach sustainable Urban Design in the projects that you've got in front of you as planners as designers as elected officials as Community stakeholders what is it that you do uh uh when you start a project when you when you want to really focus on sustainability and Urban Design and and the reason that I asked that is because it is a very difficult question and uh uh I found the the this work really came out of um um a realization that there wasn't a really clear answer of of of what to do with that um the if you ask the question is is this place sustainable or how do I make it sustainable it's a really complicated question there's lots of things to consider lots of different topics there's conflicts there's a variety of conditions these images that you see here the top one is Shang High the middle one is in Arizona and the bottom one is in libreville and Gabon and these are really different places and so if you ask the question is this place sustainable you would have all sorts of different answers they're they're very different in terms of climate obviously but also in terms of culture in terms of politics economically uh what kinds of populations you have so it's it's a really it's a complicated question that varies a whole lot and that it's really difficult to know exactly what it is we should be focusing on when we ask that question uh as planners designers elected officials as stakeholders um there's a whole range of different things that we think about as related to sustainability everything from obviously the transportation networks and the energy Ed with that storm water networks ecology um um a whole range of different issues and so trying to understand what we should focus on uh is is a really big question but then also understanding how we would be able to compare or evaluate uh places uh both in terms of are they sustainable right now or as many you all are planners and uh and designers trying to think about uh Alternatives that could be happening in this location how do we compare these different ones and how they might um how they might uh perform in terms of sustainability thankfully there's a fantastic uh uh amount of information out there uh on sustainability related topics in all sorts of different disciplines one of the issues with when we talk about the built environment and Urban Design is that it touches a lot of very different disciplines everything from obviously Urban Design itself uh planning uh um uh land use issues Transportation issues Urban Ecology um everything having to do with the way the water moves through through urban areas um it turns out there's a lot of fantastic information out here when you when you start uh looking at this in terms of Urban Design the problem is that most of it is siloed uh and so um it really brings a brings up two big problems one that this information is not accessible to people outside of that discipline or outside of that area and two that each one of these areas is not considering how they on the one hand they might have huge opportunities of co- benefits with areas around them or near them or topics near them um or how there might be you know negative impacts uh and and best understanding how to mitigate those things um so what you see here is this is just a very small sample of some of the resources that um we use to create uh the work that I'm going to be talking to you about we've looked at over a thousand sources uh um uh from a range of different disciplines and also tremendously help uh have talked to have interviewed a number of different uh individuals working in these disciplines to better understand what is the most important part uh of what they're doing of what of the topic they're looking at that we should be thinking about as we uh take these approaches into sustainable Urban Design there are rating systems out there uh that have you know played a really important role in kind of raising the Vil visibility of sustainability and I would say motivating some places to to move forward with sustainability there's lead uh this is cities and communities there's also ND sites uh which is more of a landscape focused uh rating system and dgnb and bream are used more in Europe than they are in the US and they offer they talk about a whole range of different issues not only design issues uh uh but also you know things has brought us good governance while these are tremendously helpful they are you know as as as they present themselves to be they are evaluation systems they are uh ways of uh understanding if the thing you've created does the thing that you'd like for it to do um so they're very technical often times uh and and um they get very specific and it's very hard to use these as design tools or as planners to use these as a way of engaging stakeholders for instance as I mentioned they get very technical very very quickly and so the the work that that we've done is really trying to understand how we approach sustainabil Urban Design uh um early on in projects how we think about how we conceptualize about this so from all that research uh that I was just talking about before the the more than a thousand different resources uh and doing a whole lot of uh discussion and thinking about this we really uh um narrowed this down to five main what we call outcome goals um that are important to create sustainability at the Urban Design level so the first one is energy use and greenhouse gas based on transportation and land use and the basic idea here is how do we get people out of cars and into bike ped Transit my sense is that many of you have a lot of experience in this area this seems to be the most the most common one when we think about sustainability really important one as well the second one is about storm water so really thinking about how it is that water that falls from the sky doesn't become runoff so it doesn't move horizontally and when it does how do we make sure that we mitigate it as much as possible ecology and habitat we're talking about how we make sure we don't touch areas we shouldn't be touching uh how we are creating opportunities for robust uh species Health um and how we're creating uh microclimate uh or sorry micro habitats in uh certain areas because we work at a scale large enough where we can really affect all those things the next section energies and production is really talking about energy in the non-transportation side so not about Transportation on land use and some of the other um uh uh people have looked at sustainability Urban Design confound these the number one and number four here but this is really a really different world this is talking about things like um the urban heat island effect it's talking about how Urban Design creates the opportunity for sustainability in archit so thinking about things like uh um solar exposure you know orientation wind exposure wind access those types of things and also it's about the embodied energy that exists within the urban environment so we think a lot about embodied energy in terms of architecture but we can also think about whole city systems whole metropolitan areas have a certain amount of embodied energy based on the number of people who are living there right and some are more efficient than others and finally finally with equity and health we're talking about things like how affordable there are is how does the built environment is affecting affordability accessibility uh physical activity how much we're moving around uh safety and and and then also social Mobility the opportunity for us to get ourselves out of uh you know improve our social economic status and how much the built environment is impacting those things so if you take these five main outcome goals uh that we we think is are important for sustainability you can then what we've done is organize them by SC scales that we typically work at in Urban Design so region to city the whole metropolitan area pretty straightforward district and neighborhood a lot of projects and Urban Design fit this area where you're doing a whole kind of area design uh uh comprehensive plan for instance or things like that and then block street and project parcel are similar scales uh actually same scale it's just the block and street is typically what we think of as the public sector uh or the public rum and project parcel typically happens uh from the private sector that's not always true there's definitely examples where that doesn't happen such as in campuses and stuff but what this gives you is an organization of all the different scales and then all these different uh outcome goals and we've done then based on all that research that I showed before is organize this in terms of specific physical things that you can do in the city these are physical Urban Design Elements uh organized around these different dimensions and Christine the the link that I had sent before if you can put that in the in the chat that would be fantastic to to give people access to the so you don't have to uh uh copy this down or try to memorize it or even try to read it I'm sure it might be small in some of your screens but there's a link um that uh I think the first link off of the the link that's that was just sent to you is you can download the the this framework what this framework does then as I mentioned is it organizes around these outcome goals and these scales So What it lets you do is to say for instance I'm interested in this my community is interested in this outcome goal well here are all the things that need to happen on the physical uh Urban Design scale or physical Urban Design at all these different scales to make that thing happen I often talk about this as a as a magic decoda ring that helps you translate uh you know often times uh some of the the groups that you might be working with as you're doing um thinking about Urban Design might not have a background in design and this helps them understand all the pieces that are necessary to make that goal happen you can also use it as a design tool thinking about I've got a project of a specific scale here are all the different questions that I should be asking uh about this uh project um so you can understand uh where there might be co- benefits around these things or or there might be synergies not necessarily that you're going to be able to address all these things we all know that there's limitations in projects but at least it gives you a a kind of a a list of topics that you should be thinking about uh and helping you prioritize those things you can also use this as an evaluation tool to say I've got a project at this scale well these things really are only going to help with these outcome calls depending on somewhat what's happening at these other scales oh sorry um so you can think about uh how it is that the that the what's happening in an existing project so you can do use this kind of as an evaluation tool to say well these are the things that were working well at these scales and these are the things that maybe aren't working well and these are Partnerships we might need to develop uh to make these projects happen so it gives you it really takes what is a I'm sure we've all felt a fairly complicated uh um uh topic sustainability in our neighbor in the nebor neighborhood and in a development in in our cities and helps you break it down into pieces that I think are are more understandable digestable and actionable so I'm going to quickly go through um uh some of these different through this Matrix to give you a sense of the types of things that are that are talked about here and how these things relate to each other uh and then we'll talk a little about how like little more about what the opportunities are of using something like this and resources that we've developed so as I mentioned uh the earlier the this the first one that energy use and greenhouse gas for transportation land use is really trying to figure out what do we need in the built environment to get ourselves out of cars and into bike ped Transit and for this case really because bike pad and Transit is a much better um uh much more efficient use of energy so at the largest scale at the region and City scale the first uh absolute rule is compact development um and this is actually compact development is important for all the different topics that we're we're going to be talking about um compact development limits our met poon footprint limits sprawl lets things uh be closer to each other um uh has a tendency to lead to increased density so that there's more opportunities for uh Origins and destinations to be close to each other and there's lots of different ways of doing that here on the lower right you see um the urban growth boundaries that exist around cities in Oregon um but there's lots of different ways to make sure that you get compact development you know Green belts uh um transfer development rights all sorts of things we can also think about things at this scale such as our transportation Network the overall the the the overall Network across the entire Metropolitan region so not necessarily how a stop is working right but how what the opportunities are to get from one place to another but the same kind of question we can ask for for the bicycle network uh how that works across the entire region is it is it possible to get from one area to to another as a as an entire system uh and then we can also think about things like the regional land use mix do we have all of our housing for instance in one area and all of our commercial in a different area and all of our Industrial in a different area or are we having more of a mix of those types of things as a district and neighborhood scale there's a number of things that we we can look at um on the one hand uh simply a question of how how are we doing in creating a robust pedestrian Network and a lot of this has to do with Street network connectivity um so if we look at this example on the left this is actually Portland where I'm from this is a 200 by 200 foot block some of the smallest blocks in the United States uh and on the right is a suburban area which I actually don't remember where I took this image from uh so a suburban area in the United States um but what you see here is these small and defined blocks let us very easily get from one part of the city to another part of the city city in a fairly easy straightforward and straight line manner right uh and it's very clear how to get there and it's also uh fairly Direct in a more suburban area with these what I call loops and lollipops patterns let's say I lived right here and I wanted to apologies uh I lived right here and I wanted to go to the this uh this house over here the straight line distance is not very far at all and absolutely walkable uh but what happens is I actually need to go through the street Network around here out to here potentially onto an arterial back over and then down and then get to that thing so that is doubling or tripling the length of the trip which we all do what is obvious which is we tell our kids to get in the car and we'll take them there so the street connectivity and the the the way that impacts the travel distance has a big impact on what mode we're going to take other things at this scale are for instance uh the the the density of zoning and platting so on the one hand what is allowed to happen here obviously the things on the left this is a uh mixed use um zoning the thing on the right is single use zoning so everything is further away uh but then also our platting has a big impact on what is developed on the left-and side we have larger Lots which allow for larger buildings denser buildings uh more mixed use within that and on the right hand side we know the the lot sizes limit the types of buildings that could happen on here even if we were to change the zoning so that's important to think about at the district scale uh we also think at this scale things like uh our parking uh um uh uh requirements so what what amounts of parking we're asking for and also things like the the land use mix so on the left-and side as I mentioned this is mixed use uh very much the the 15minute city idea that I can get to everything that I need in a easy 15minute walk or bike whereas on the right hand side we have uh single-use zoning uh happening all in one uh only allowing one type of thing at the Block and Street scale we're talking about things like complete streets uh so multimodal Street design uh streets that not necessarily um uh don't allow the car but uh have the car fit within a a bunch of different modes that that all have um have a a presence and ability to be there and feel comfortable so this is an image from nacto and uh the Street design guide is a fantastic resource for those of you who don't know about it uh we actually worked with na on some of this research earlier on in developing the book um and here you can see you know large like fantastic pedestrian areas uh bike infrastructure that feels protected and uh safe uh dedicated Transit lanes and then vehicles are also allowed in this but they're not necessarily allowed to dominate um also at the scale you can think about things of parking but not not only the amount of parking you have but how you actually design so at the Block and Street we're really interested in what the design of the parking is questions like what is the edge condition of the parking uh does it feel like a big gap in the urban fabric is the parking located uh in front of the building or behind the building is the parking located on a corner or within the block so that you start feel like there's more continuous uh Street Front what size of the curb Cuts those types questions and then at the building scale we really start to think about how it is the building is contributing to uh sustainability of the the the urban building built environment so uh the image on the left uh you have a highdensity housing uh that you see the tower that's there in the back and then the the to the building that you see in the foreground uh is part of that same project and instead of having those units all uh accessed internally through a corridor which is typically how we do this each one of these units is actually touches the ground and has an entrance and and uh Windows looking out to this direction right and that creates a fantastic vibrant uh Street Front even when there's no one specifically in the like coming in and out of the buildings right it creates this is very much the Jane Jacobs eyes on the streets or the perception of eyes on the street um and so think about how different that would feel if this was all the backs of buildings and there were no entr in that happening here in terms of a a commercial environment you can think of a very similar thing uh you know the amount of transparency that you have here the number of windows and doors that you have entrances that you have here help create this Lively environment so you can think about the difference of if this was just a continuous solid B brick wall with all the rest of the urban environment being the same uh how much this would diminish the the the um the the desire to to come here walk and bike and and use other modes of transportation so that gives you a sense across all these different scales how that works in energy use in greenhouse gas I'm going to go a little faster through some of these other topics uh but so for instance in terms of water and storm water as I mentioned there's two main things we want to do on the one side one hand we want want to minimize the amount of runoff that we have on the other hand we want to mitigate the runoff this is a slide that shows um these different kind of conditions this is you know uh natural ground cover where where water can move in in a kind of Natural Way H and this is where you have a whole lot of impervious surface so our urban areas look like this in this natural condition you have 25% of the water that falls from the sky goes deep infiltration 25% shallow and 10% is runoff in this more urban condition only 5% has deep infiltration so think about what that does to restoring our aquifers but then 55% is runoff so more than five times the amount of water is runoff and the problem with that with that is that runoff typically the way that we've worked with it is um it it's hot it picks up heat from the surfaces around it uh it we move it really quickly into pipes and as fast as we can into uh our rivers and and lakes and so it's picked up pollutants it's warm uh it's got uh it's it's coming at a very fast speed right and what we want to try to do is do a a much more sustainable approach which is to cool water down slow it down filter it and put it back into natural systems so in terms of uh minimizing runoff the first thing we want to do is just create less of it uh so two ways of doing that are a few ways of doing that on the one hand if this is a watershed that you see here uh instead of having even amounts of development all over this water shed you can take that same amount of development and put it all in one area in compact development well what this does here here is it leaves most of your Watershed to be in a natural system which is much better overall for how the um how the water system works uh whereas this creates problems everywhere it creates that those issues I was talking about increased heat uh pollutants uh you know more appropriate surface throughout the entire Watershed other things you can do to minimize runoff is simply have less impervious surface so this means narrower streets uh thinking about uh uh using um perious Paving wherever you can and then also at the Block Street and project parcel scale thinking about how we use trees so there's a number of studies that have shown that tree canopies can actually hold a tremendous amount of water up to 27% of the rain that falls from the sky can actually be held within the canopy structure and the bark structure and so if we think about what types of trees we're using you can actually limit the amount of water that ever touches the ground so this is all to minimize runoff we can also mitigate runoff uh substantially with our the things we do in Urban Design so for instance um I'm assume many of these things are familiar to you but things like Retention Ponds and detention ponds uh rain Gardens rain Gardens uh swales uh these types of things all help to slow water down uh move it um cool it off as it moves through these types of structures have opportunities to uh filter and then also find its way back into the ground so instead of like piping this all into a system that into a um a network that goes directly out into a river for instance this is reducing the amount that ever gets there and then also slowing it down and cooling off and filtering it as it goes trees also play an important again at the Block Street project parcel scale trees play an important role and that they can uh provide evapor transpiration so they're pulling water out of the roots up into the leaves uh and coming out of out of the canopy evaporating back into the into the atmosphere so letting the the ground uh be able to take on more water uh so these here you can see at all these different scales how you're creating these robust storm water Network and green storm water infrastructure uh that helps to mitigate storm water in terms of uh ecology and habitat uh your the main things you want to do as I mentioned before is don't touch things you shouldn't touch which we decide that you know as Urban designers and as planners uh saying what areas are open to development what aren't uh mitigate where we do touch them so figuring out how we buffer with that which I'll talk about in a moment and how do we create microhabitats um in terms of where we are uh uh developing right often times we don't think of urban areas as um areas of robust ecological uh opportunity but there's actually tons of opportunity for this both in like our ordinary kind of Street trees and and plantings and things uh but also in these ecological networks that we we've developed so this is an image that shows a a robust ecological Network that's coming through here right so thinking about how you create continuity so that species can move through this uh have uh opportunities for finding each other for mating so uh you got a much better gene pool through this uh and it also mitigates if there's ever a problem in one place that species can actually move from one place to another so at the at the region and City and district and neighborhood scale we're talking about these robust ecological networks and these ecological corridors and patches H as we get more to the block and Street scale with those issues you can think about how it is that we actually cross uh some of the infrastructure with these uh with these networks and corridors uh so these are some great examples this is from Main do with this is a a a modified Culvert which actually is is really is designed for turtles to be able to pass through uh you have these other types of culs that are for larger uh animals and then you have this is more expensive but really effective way of getting for instance over this large Berry which is a freeway um uh creating a land bridge that lets species move from one side to another so thinking about at the Block and Street scale how you deal with your Wildlife Crossing so you have continuous um um networks uh these continuous networks can have all sorts of different um uh shapes right so you can have your your kind of core habitat and Edge habitat you can have stepping stone corridors uh you can have uh landscape corridors all sorts of opportunities uh for those things um depending on what you're trying to do and you need be working with ecologist to figure out exactly what's what's the best for your Target species um but then at the Block and Street scale we can really think about uh where we do have develop but how we make sure that that is not creating a problem for neighboring uh um habitat so think about uh ecological area buffers and making sure that they are sufficiently large for um whatever uh Target species we've got so this is a slide that shows Target species on the left hand side and the length the the size of the buffer that you should have and that would change depending on for instance if you're down slope uh from um from a a more aggressive use uh or if there's a lot of water moving between these spaces or things like that another really important topic at the Block and Street scale is uh this idea of high vertical complexity this came from interviewing and having fantastic conversations with Urban ecologist uh who said you know one of the best things that uh um Urban designers can do and planners can do is to create more um uh um complex more more robust vertical complexity and what that means is you know what we often do on the right hand side is uh uh things like this which is these carpets of lawn of a monoculture a few lollipop trees that are also all the same species and while that makes sense in areas where you might have um where you might be kicking a ball or throwing a frisbee or something we do this a lot uh and even at the edges of places where we might be kicking a ball there's opportunities to be doing something different what uh what creates a robust habitat is the things that you see on the left- hand side this is a a rainforest here in in the Pacific Northwest uh but it really shows this idea of a range of different uh types of structure so you have canopy trees you have smaller trees you have bushes you have shrubs you have um sedges you have ground cover all creating this really complicated vertical structure that creates a range of different types of habitat that help um the same species in different points of its life cycle right it's mating if it's nesting if it's hunting uh uh or different species so it really creates a much more robust kind of uh um moment well we can't exactly recreate uh the the the Pacific Northwest rainforest everywhere but there are many things that we can do to increase the vertical complexity so this is an example of a parking lot that uh has its water instead of going into a pipe it goes into a Swale so a fantastic kind of move with that and then instead of just lining that Swale um with uh with you know grass um you really think about the vertical complexity here so here you see some some trees smaller trees shrubs bushes uh these sedges these grasses which really create a fantastic vertical uh uh structure vertical complexity here which is really good especially for insect species which are if you talk to ecologists are one of the most important classes of species to be helping with um you can also create micro habitat so this is a example of a park which has grasslands uh wetlands and uh Oak Savannah all in one place this is a lot of different habitats that are happening one place but there's opportunities within urban areas to really uh focus on creating um uh a viable habitat within the area in terms of energy use and production um we're really trying to do a couple different things one of them is to uh and a lot of it depends on the climate right so uh here we we've with the book that we've done we've organized it in these four main categories arid tropical temperate and subarctic um most of the United States as you can see is within the the temperate and then some in tropical and and arid um and what we're trying to do here is think about things about how do we reduce the urban heat island effect uh how do we maximize the sustainability uh potential of buildings based on orientation block size and such and so for instance uh you can think about things like this which is there's different housing or building typologies which perform better or wors depending on the um on the climate and so um these this helps us understand depending on the climate we have what kinds of typologies we might be hoping for for sustainability and that would then affect for instance what kind of uh um density of uh of zoning and of platting what size of lots that we're going to have uh to make this work um so you can see here you know row row or bar buildings uh work really well Courtyard buildings work really well a lot of different climates Towers don't necessarily work great uh but that doesn't mean we shouldn't do Towers it's just that we should think about the trade-offs of where we do towers and the the benefits it might have climatically compared to the benefits that we might have for instance for transportation reasons we can also think about uh things uh at the Block and Street scale about the color of surfaces so the the creating cool and green surfaces uh so this is thought of as the albo effect so warmer or sorry darker colored uh elements end up taking on more heat absorbing more heat and so how can we green the an area or use um um lighter colored materials this is a really good example from Barcelona in one of the RAS that's over there uh and then also at this with this topic with energy use and production we can think about the the embodied energy of a built environment as I mentioned so here you see four different densities of development uh New York City on the right hand side Florida on the left Florida suburb on the left and you think about the amount of embodied energy the amount of energy it took to uh produce uh maintain and then dispose of uh the concrete uh that's and and elements that are used materials that are used for the street for sewage for water um uh delivery uh for electrical lines and how much of that um uh public infrastructure you need per building right that is definitely has a cost to it but it also has just an energy side of it as well so the denser the the development the more of a opportunity we have to um uh to reduce the urbanol O overall embodied energy development and then finally in terms of equity and health we can think of a number of different ways that uh that the built environment really impacts uh the opportunities for equity and health uh affordability so first of all everything that we talked about uh in that first section on uh transportation of land use that we talked about for energy use so getting people out of cars and in bike Transit is fantastic for energy but it's also fantastic for Equity reasons so it turns out that bikes bikes uh uh pedestrian access and Transit use are the most the most affordable and the most equable ways of of moving so definitely helps with a ton with affordability we can also think about to help with affordability the types of lots that we have the size of lots that we have the type of development that we're allowing uh and also the mix of housing unit types that we have there's been a number of studies that have showed that areas that have a larger mix of housing unit types actually reduce the cost of housing accessibility as I mentioned all the topics with um transportation in terms of physical activity we can think about uh things on the first again related to Transportation what modes we're being uh the built environment is pushing us towards and and are we actually using active travel are we moving our bodies as we actually move ourselves through the cities so thinking about bikes and pets and then most Transit trips start and end with uh um walking and biking uh we can also think about uh the other piece is um movement that has to do with Recreation so uh what kind of Open Spaces are available to us a lot of Studies have shown that um having one of the biggest determinance of will you do exercise today is is there a spot near you or for you to do that exercise is it really accessible and is it is it welcoming um and so thinking about where we put our open space and then also the type of open space is the what kinds of things so this is in the block and Street scale thinking about active interactive open space um is it uh open Does it include uh amenities for young children does it include amenities for um teenagers and young adults U such as fields and courts and things like that and Does it include amenities for older adults uh such as benches places to sit in places to stroll in terms of safety we can think about how it is that we're organizing our our different uses uh you know great to have mixed use but we don't necessarily want to have uh you know for instance housing right next to a factory that could have pollutants or putting schools for instance right next to a freeway so thinking about how it is that we can minimize based on a land use question um uh conflicts with that we also think about uh Transportation safety so all the things that we talked about again under um uh energy um and greenhouse gas uh issues with transportation land use also apply to this to making safer streets um and then with social Mobility we can think about how it is that for instance the affordability of a place uh the ease of getting to work the ease of getting to Health Care the ease of getting to job training uh affect our ability to uh improve our socioeconomic situation so that was a lot of information to give you all at once apologies um but the the idea is that hopefully what I'm showing you is how you can break this down into pieces that make sense and are understandable as I mentioned before the way that you can use this is if you have an outcome goal H you can think about all the different ways the physical things some of the things I just talked about that uh relate to that outcome goal this is tremendously effective uh uh working with u um Community stakeholders which usually are very clear about the outcome they would like to have but aren't really sure about how it is that you can um create that in the buil environment as Merill was was talking about earlier this um um question of uh how do we do it right if we know what we want to get to how do we do it well this helps you understand that uh as I mentioned before also you can think about how it is that the the topics uh the uh the topics that exist at a specific scale what are the questions we should be asking so I've got a project at block and street or a district neighborhood these are all the questions I need to be asking and figuring out how it is that they might uh apply to this you can also use this to think about uh synergies or co- benefits um uh understand the relationships between these which I think is really huge amounts for huge room for improvement in how we do our work around this topic uh so for instance this's a topic I like to an example I like to give um if we were thinking about Street trees and typically when we think about Street trees in Urban Design and planning we typically do whatever we did you know in another part of the city yes we'll copy that or a city nearby and typically with the same distance and the same type of tree so you know 20 30 ft on Center um and we can use this to actually make more informed and better decisions about that so for instance if we were thinking about trees and energy use in greenhouse gas based on transportation and land use we might think about where we position the trees so that they actually act as buffers uh uh viable buffers between you know fast moving traffic and uh people you can also think about what kind of canopy you would have so that you create this fantastic uh dappled light here in this example here in one of the RAS in Barcelona in terms of storm water you could think about well what species do I have what kind of canopy cover does it have and what kind of bark structure does it have and Branch structure to think about how much it's going to hold uh water in the canopy or how much it'll evap transp parate water and how much that of that canopy is actually continuous in covering the streets so it can actually hold that water in terms of ecology and habitat you can think about are we using all one species of trees or should we maybe be varying this the trees along the street uh should we be having them regularly spaced which there's a lot of reasons to do that or should we start to maybe cluster them uh should we just have them come out of the ground as they're shown here or do are there opportunities for vertical complexity in this so lots of questions that we could ask uh to help us design a a more ecologically robust area in terms of energy use and production we can think about where exactly these trees are located in relationship to buildings on the one hand they are you know helping with the color uh and reducing the heat Ison effect they're uh creating shade which is helps with that but um do we place them on the south side of the building on the east side on the West Side how close to the building should they be what kind of canopies right that help can help us with that and then finally in terms of equity and health all the topics that I talked about with energy and greenhouse gas the way the trees help with that are also helping with equity and health but we can also ask things such as what species of trees are we using are we can we make sure that we're not creating problems with allergens uh for instance so this is a way that we can think about uh again using this framework as uh to understand uh synergies and co- benefits we can also use it to understand uh tradeoffs so for instance uh this piece that I showed you before if we were just thinking about uh storm water maybe you know you think like oh this is would would be fantastic and this would be horrible but well for transportation land use this and Equity issues this works a whole lot better so you can actually use this to to at least uh make evident where the tradeoffs are going to be and think about how you might uh if you're if you're creating kind of problems within this or conflicts in terms of how to use this framework there's a bunch of different ways to use this uh on the one hand as I've mentioned it's just simply as a design tool so you know early on with your design teams uh um Consultants uh helps you focus on what questions you need to be asking and opportunities for synergies along that uh and also understanding what the conflicts are uh as I mentioned you might not be able to address all everything that that is kind of covered in this but at least it let you can ask the question and figure out where easy wins are and where you might need to have put either money or political will to make happen you can do uh an existing conditions evaluation and assessment and also for you know alternatives to see what the potential of an area might be so you've got a new project happening in an area the first thing you can do is go through the the framework and just for each topic each element that's in the framework say is this already working well is this something that we could get to work well or is this something that's going to be a real challenge to make happen uh and that really just gives you an understanding of the landscape of oh these are the areas that we could make work these are areas that are going to be more challenging it can help you think about where what your priorities are and where you might have most effect it can also help you understand um what Partnerships you might need to develop to actually get projects to work and maybe projects out outside of the U uh Partners outside of the scale that you're working at or maybe uh different sources of funding for instance in terms of client and stakeholder engag as I mentioned before it helps you understand helps you define where the priorities are and and translate that into actual um uh physical design elements that you need to have happen and then also uh you can think about your design team composition uh I would say your project composition so for instance we worked with uh Gail Associates where we had a a bunch of people in The Firm actually go through and rate how well they understood each one of these topics uh in the framework and you get a really easy quick landscape of oh our office does really well on this and maybe our next hire needs to be in this area or we need to get training in this area uh but for those of you who are planners and you know trying to think of uh whole project teams think about what kind of Consultants you have um what what areas of this might certain firm cover and it could be they cover a bunch of different things and where do you have gaps and where might you need to bring in other Consultants to to round out um the team give you an example of how you can use this uh as an evaluation tool uh this is an area the Lloyd District which is uh in Portland um this is a uh fairly defunct mall that just was recently purchased by a new owner and this whole District uh is really in need of Redevelopment this is a a convention center and a a um a stadium arena is where the Trailblazers play um and we were asked by the city and by the owner of the mall to think about what could happen in this and so we did an evaluation uh looking at uh well what are the existing conditions of this area how what's working what's not if we want to do make this area more sustainable if we ask the question how do we make this sustainable so we did an analysis looking at different topics and how much the where things were working well where things were kind of not great and where things were really going to be challenges and you can look at this in you know at different scales and it helps you understand where there's opportunities uh and where there might be um uh real challenges to this and helps you uh understand like how you might approach this um so that that's work that we've developed over many years over the last 10 years we've been developing this which is the sustainable Urban Design handbook that was uh mentioned by both Carla and Merill uh it has been a long time coming uh if I knew how long this would take I probably wouldn't have taken it on uh but thrilled that it's out in the world right now but so the sustainable Urban Design handbook is organized around the framework and each one of the elements in the framework is its own chapter and I'm going to show you basically how the chapter is organized chapter each one as I mentioned each element has a chapter and the chapters have on the on the one hand this thing we call this page we call the dashboard which describes what the topic is for those of you who might not know what an robust ecological area buffer is some of the metrics that that are related to it this area which talks about how um this element is influenced by other elements and how it influences other elements so really trying to and it gives you a sentence or two to help you describe why those things are related to each other so it helps you understand how things are related to each other across uh all these different uh topics uh a very rough implementation guide to say if this is a green field development versus a retrofit development how easy or hard is this in term of cost and how easy or hard is it in terms of difficulty and that's like a little bit of question of political will um then each each one of these elements also has a section which talks about the recommended approach this is what we're pointing to this is what we're trying to get to this is the vision we're trying to get to uh a typical approach this is what we usually build which is often uh um not quite to the level that we'd like for it to be uh but so we can understand where the differences are and then the importance and this is where we have a lot of uh the peer-reviewed research and professional best practices that we've researched to say why you should be paying attention to this what are the impacts that you're going to have from this we have a each element also has a section on background so if you don't know what the difference is between a core and Edge habitat we explain it to you there uh we explained for instance uh uh impacts between uh such as buffer WID shape and plantings and how that can affect the buffer uh and then we have a section on consideration caveats which tells you talks about element interaction this is really trying to bring Nuance uh to your understanding of how this element Works talks about element interactions some political issues you'd like you probably need to keep in mind as you work on this topic um maintenance and operation issues you might have to consider as you work on this topic and then some other issues and then finally we get to uh the guidelines for Urban Design and the idea here was to disting synthesize a whole lot of uh research that we've done to say here's some basic rules of thumbs that you can follow uh to make sure that you make good decisions that you're not going to you know feel like you shot yourself in the foot with later on uh as you uh continue to develop a project um so for instance you know the the size of the buffers you might need and then thinking about how those buffers might change depending on top topography and Landscape uh and how you might use vegetation for it so those types of things so each element in in the framework has its own chapter on this uh a lot of people to think in making this happen uh you know Karen kinson who's actually now the mayor-elect in the City of Eugene uh is a co-author with me um and then a bunch of professors professionals and students who helped make this happen so tremendous you know standing on the shoulder Giants of uh not only from the literature we looked at but really individuals who really helped us put this all together so this is the book in case that's of interest um I hope it can be helpful to uh to you all in in the work that you're doing um and that um uh yeah we we found that it's both for design teams and planners but also elected officials or Community stakeholders it really gives them a way of helping understand how it is that uh uh these topics that they're interested uh can can um can work together and how it's translated into actual projects um really briefly I'll also mention uh as was mentioned before I I run the urbanism NEX Center uh urbanism NEX looks at the impacts of emerging technology on cities uh and so we look at things like uh how new Mobility or shared Mobility self-driving cars e-commerce how those things are impacting cities and how those things have impacts on Equity Health the environment and the economy so I just mention that in case people are interested in those topics love to hear from you uh and can we've got a lot of research we've done in that area uh online urbanism next.org we have a section called the Nexus which compiles a lot of uh research on these topics to help you understand that um so with that I'll just say uh I'm hopeful this is helpful as I mentioned you know we often uh have are many of us are really interested in figuring out how we can create more sustainable uh communities it often feels overwhelming uh there's just a ton of different topics it's hard to under understand how to relate them it's hard to know what questions to ask um it's hard for you know Community stakeholders to understand how to engage in this and and know where their issues kind of fit into all this so the hope is that the sustainable Urban Design framework is a tool that can help you uh uh decipher that uh simplify it understand that there is actually it is actionable uh that we can take a like a rational approach to it and and chip away at this um and yeah so with that I'll I'll happy to take uh any questions you might have thanks so much all right wonderful thank you and we do wait the questions are coming in um first and foremost let's let's kind of set the stage and and ask a a a overarching question and that's of all the stuff that you've looked at what's the most important out of all the things what's the most important and why uh that is a great question thank you so much um so there's a ton of different topics in this and we've touched a lot of things and and uh uh you realize how all things are many of these things are interconnected I'll say the thing that really Rises to the top as the most important thing if we could only really influence one thing it would have to be density and while density of development does not um guarantee that any of these outcome goals are going to happen not having density is an enormous uh um uh we'll say thorn in the side of trying to get any of these things done uh I often think a lot of the work I do work in in the Netherlands as was mentioned with TN and so I get to spend a lot of time over there and I often think my goodness some of the so many of the things that as planed ERS as Urban designers we as design as um as designers we think oh my goodness it'd be great if it worked there is working is working in the Netherlands and you realize that a lot of that is because they just have the underlying density that makes all these things possible and so I feel like in the United States a lot of the times and in North America and Canada as well a lot of the times we're just trying to put Band-Aids on not enough de density of development so if there was one thing that I could you know a a mission to try to uh work on uh I'd say um uh creating more density just helps a ton with everything else it makes many of these things possible well let's lean in density for a minute and I love the Netherlands just as much as the next planner in terms of goals right but let's be realistic that so much of our country is not we just can't do the density it's not meant to be dense or communities aren't built to be dense whatever that might look like just from infrastructure alone or just the to graphy um so what do you say about that how how do we do we need to to kind of zero in on our areas that like identify our areas that we know could be more dense and address that through our zoning um or you know do we just need to I'm just thinking of a of a rural community that is on wellwater and and doesn't have any type of infrastructure and there's absolutely no way that we can ask them to be denser than they are sorry I just got a a phone call that interrupted by oh no so so if you could repeat the last part of the question oh I don't even remember what it was now I just started ranting just I'm just looking at how some communities they are as dense as they're ever going to be and it's not dense it's just it is what it is and what do we need do we you know so you heard that part you heard the yeah so so I've got i' got two two answers uh to two parts uh answers to your questions uh on the one hand um this the the the this framework is not meant to be prescriptive right it's like one of the frustrating things to me as I was looking uh starting this research you know 15 years ago uh is that sometimes the the idea of like um uh here's a here's a a a what we should doing for sustainability and they showed you this like wonderful dense multimodal mixed use like you know fantastic project and the truth is most of us can't do those things right for political reasons economic reasons cultural reasons whatever it might be um and you know so what do you do there and so the the framework's really meant to say well here's a bunch of different topics that you can be doing you can apply this to a single family home uh like neighborhood you could apply apply this to a dense neighborhood you could apply it to a rural neighborhood you might not be able to do all these things right in some places you can't like just because of the way they're developed you cannot do that but is it that you can push sustainability wherever it is you are right really thinking about it it's an incremental approach so I think that's that's one piece the other piece I'd say though is uh I I do think we need to reconsider a little bit how we think about density so rural areas absolutely right like we do not need to densify rural areas but um I think we do need to think about how it is that we can create as much density as possible in the areas that we do have developed um and that doesn't mean like creating like Hong Kong density everywhere I I'm I mean just so for instance you know Oregon recently um eliminated single family use zoning as a thing right so now Everywhere by right you can do duplexes and some places triplexes and quad plexes and this isn't like creating you know massive density everywhere but if everywhere had you know a granny flat uh uh you know an Adu behind a house you've doubled the density of the area so there's ways of of creating more density that don't necessarily have to be feel oppressive or uh you know tremendously aggressive so so I I would say I would say that so first yes more density is better two well let's find density where it can work and where it feels good uh and feels you know uh works with with the neighborhood that we're working in um and three uh there's some places that Den is not going to be possible what are the other things that we can do to make this place more sustainable so I would say in a lot of communities when we when we have these sessions on sustainability and resilience and climate change and all of this there are always many questions about how do I convince my community that this is important and nine times out of 10 the answer is Money Talks so from your perspective when for example we're talking about perhaps removing single family housing from our zoning ordinances to allow for um more more dense housing can we say money talks to that like is that something that you you you know that you can talk about for a minute or two yeah yeah so yes so this is a this is a really good question and it's comp complicated answers so first of all yes money talks like in the in in the US and I'll say everywhere but definitely in the US uh economics seems to govern like we we are we we put that high on a pedestal of like things that we react to um and so the question you know part of that is so for instance there's fantastic work that's done by uh Urban 3 I think it's called um uh which looks at the cost of creating low density development it's expensive like the the cost of the infrastructure and the cost of maintaining that infrastructure and providing Services is really expensive so there is an economic argument to be had there um but that that's not necessarily always the best way to in my mind to to attack this I would say you know this sounds this might sound a little vague but figure out what the issues are with whoever it is that you're trying need to convince what is it that's motivating them what are they trying to get to and then figure out where that aligns with whatever it is that you're trying to do in terms of sustainability and work on that so I'll get just give a rough example we do a lot of work with sustainability un sustainability with communities around Oregon and Oregon has a reputation for being a very sustainable state but it is mixed there's some areas that are you know dieh hard sustainability uh is super important and other areas which not at all and you know in some of the communities we work in uh you can come in and talk about sustainability as the thing that you're trying to do uh or Equity is thing you're trying to do in other areas you need to talk about well we're really talking about quality of life issues we're really talking about efficiency issues right and so somewhat framing I think is important to understanding your audience I don't think that's particular to to the thing that I'm talking about here um oh and there was something else I was gonna oh yeah and there's also I've been shocked at the number of times that I've talked to developers uh and you know about some kind of sustainability topic and and that they've been doing something that is really like not helpful uh connectivity is a really big one in that and you ask them like well would you have like would you put a walking path that connected here and here and they said sure right the answer is like yeah absolutely as long as you told me all early enough in the design process I don't want that as a change order but you tell me early off in the design process there's opportuni so part of like I think there's one like lwh hanging fruit of a lot of things that we could do if we just understand what the synergies are and what the relationships are I'm putting in a new you know uh um uh bike lane is there opportunity to deal with storm water when I do that is there if I'm putting in a new storm water system is there a possibility to work on on ecology and habitat when I do that so I think there's a whole lot of of lwh improve opportunities that we've just because we've been so silent and so separate that we haven't really um addressed the way that we could next question on thank you on on one of your slides um you you had two Street patterns one on the left side it was like a grid pattern and then on on the right side it was like the loops and lollipops and yeah you know plan development type thing um and if I'm understanding right kind of the I the idea was that if you're in a grid pattern it it takes you less time to get through vers winding through um developments or wherever which you know then more drive time more pollutants all of that so I'm I'm curious so how do we you know when when when we uh receive a plan in front of us for uh a new development and you see all these winding roads a lot of it I think has to do with accounting for the natural features like waterways trees flood planes um I know also a lot of times roads tend to be curvy just to slow people down in residential areas so is there a place to meet in the middle like do you have examples or techniques to kind of not necessar be a grid pattern so you know that it can organically live within its environment but also at the same time kind of cut down on some of that drive time yeah absolutely absolutely so um there's a great resource uh Susan handy wrote um oh it's an APA uh resource um you can do this I think it's called like Street connectivity I think it's just called Street connectivity so Susan handy one of the APA uh the the resource books that you all put together which is which are fantastic uh has a ton of fantastic research on how to increase connectivity and I'll I'll just give you a couple things to think about one just reducing the the the distance between intersections so somehow like not allowing enormous large distances between intersections till you do have it doesn't have to be a grid but bring in another street that happens there it turns out curvy streets don't necessarily slow people down as much as intersections do uh so having intersections actually is a better way to to slow slow down traffic um some other things that you run into sometimes though are people don't want cars going through there and as far as I'm concerned I can completely understand that so where possible streets I think full streets are great but if not can would you be willing to do a bike path or a pedestrian path through here uh right as ways of of um creating connectivity the other way thing that uh you know and the I've written a whole book on this on site design for multif family housing but if you look think of multif family housing um often times it is not connecting is actually a barrier to connectivity these are large Parcels of land that you know connect typically to the arterial and then have no connection to things around them so just thinking about how you create uh moments of connection through streets ideally but also just through Pathways is a really uh um good way of increasing connectivity overall thank you um could we talk a little bit about agriculture and whether it deserves some airtime in this Urban Design kind of discussion if you could talk a little bit about that and are you thinking about Urban agriculture are you thinking about uh both agricult like yes like rural Agriculture and urban agriculture yes yes so I'll say uh um the large scale agriculture with a capital A right in other words like that you know uh farming um absolutely like Urban Design has a ton to say about that and mostly we should not impede in those things so for those of you who are familiar with the history of uh of Oregon we have Urban growth boundaries which I think are pretty well understood everywhere and we've got State planning uh what's really interesting is the story of why that happened which was a a bizarre mix of bed fellows of environmentalists uh people in the agriculture industry uh and and also let say the natural resource industry right so the logging and such uh and um um sorry so those three yeah so logging uh resource extraction we'll say um Agriculture and environmentalists and the thing that was really clear to all three groups is um it works better when you all stay over there development wise right and keep in your cities and don't you know sprawl out into all of our areas over here uh and that's how that's really the birth of uh the the urban growth boundaries that exist in in the state so absolutely thinking about how we create cities that are denser more vibrant uh have uh you know with compact development that is an absolute boom to to agricultural areas that are around our cities and one of the slides I showed you see I didn't really talk about it but this Edge between development and agriculture that exists over here with that compact development um in terms of urban agriculture there's tremendous opportunities for creating uh um uh uh food production within cities so uh Community Gardens are fantastic in terms of the actual food production but also in terms of Community Development and Community uh you know developing a sense of community in these areas so thinking about how we do that uh where they're located uh can we walk to them uh how do they maybe tie into the storm water Network right enormous opportunities for all of that uh yes yes yes yes um I'm I'm looking at your your framework here and I'm very quickly looking through it and I'm not seeing anything related to um like wind farming or solar farming things like that does that play a role in this framework or is that a different discussion so we talked about putting a an area in there uh with this and we decided not to includeed um the other one that I think kind of relatedly which is missing is uh we had a a chapter on District energy and an element on District energy uh and we ended up not including it um uh mostly because they get really specific they a specific land use kind of question and so you can kind of think that it's it's somewhat exists in some of the um elements that are related to land use um their location is not uh uh their location's not tremendously important in terms of adjacencies right because you can move power barely not super easily but definitely within an urban area you can use it move it fairly easily uh and so we weren't sure if we needed to have a specific uh element called out to that but yeah that that is something there's definitely gaps in the in in in this work that we're continue to develop and actually it's been great uh getting feedback from people as we think about the next uh iteration of this um when we're talking about density um and I'm just thinking of communities that perhaps came late to zoning or quality land use regulations and there's just a lot of landlocked properties um that are developed do you have thoughts on that on how in what way we could turn that into an opportunity so so by understanding you're talking about like Leap Frog development kind of topics yes yes well so infill is tremendously important right so we think about compact development and density figuring out how we uh uh utilize these spaces that are automatically more connected and uh um more accessible to you know other parts of the city than building on the edge so yeah wherever possible I think doing infill development we we do have a section on infill development specifically although that's more at the Block and Street scale but definitely you know wherever there's opportunities to do that on the one hand on the other hand we can think of these uh potentially as ecological corridors or or U helping with the ecological or storm water Network so thinking about where they're locating what kind where they're located what kind of habitat they have how they're connected to other areas right again habitat works best when it's in corridors uh and connected um and so using those things for that so on the one hand they could be opportunities for increased desity on the other hand there can be opportunities for really developing um more robust uh storm water infrastructure or ecological area ecological networks thank you so we're a community and we're looking at this framework and then we say to ourselves where do we start is is there some type of like audit that we should be doing for our community to determine like what's the loow hanging fruit what do we want you know what's like out there in the 15-year Horizon you know like how do we tie this back to our comprehensive plan and make sure that there's continuity across the board because this is really daunting right and we might say oh well this looks like a good idea let's you know look at bicycle networks but do you even know do you do you even have a handle on your bicycle networks in your community where do we where do we start to kind of assess that that is that is a great question and so as as was mentioned um uh by Marl when she was first introducing this uh introducing me I I started a small consulting firm uh called element Urban Design and it's more or less is how do you start how do you how do you actually do um uh work on this topic and the the the first thing you need to do is just to do an assessment to just say and and I'll say assessment in two ways the the easier way is to just say well here's our community or here's a neighborhood that we're about to work on how's this working like let's just just start out with this this for each one of these elements this is working great or this so we're doing SWAT analysis that's what we're doing we're basically doing a SWAT for these exactly SWAT right you like good swats um but it really gives you a sense of like oh these are the things that are you know goodness like you know in terms of like uh storm water in terms of like um uh energy use and transportation and land use these are the things that are working well and these are the things that are really a problem right so it can help you understand where you've got uh where things are working well and where things are problems and um what things might be easiest to deal with the low hanging fruit with this and what things might be harder and so you can do that as I mentioned physically like looking on the ground and you know have have someone come in and help you think through each one of these elements uh and then you can at the same time think about are is there funding sources for these things might there be combined sunun can I get like storm water funding sources and uh you know bicycle infrastructure funding sources that come come together to help solve this one problem right so on so that's one kind of approach uh on the other side you can look at this is this actually came out of uh uh I presented this to the uh Planning Department in New York City Planning and Urban Design Department New York City and one of the things I said is you know would be really helpful is to go through these elements and think about what our regulations say about each one of these right so we have these elements in the framework and then we have the design guides in the book uh and just think about like is this doable in my community do I have barriers to doing this uh and then you know from that almost like again a yes working well uh could be fixed this would be really hard to fix those could be fixed uh and high priority could be fixed you can end up saying all right well these are the regulations that we should be thinking about that we should be addressing first right and and uh and kind of helps you prioritize and create create an action plan to that and we'd be happy to help anyone who's interested in in doing that in their communities or working with stakeholders to understand this or or specifically applied on projects um let's talk for for a moment about the environmental justice angle of things of sustainability um and this particular question is um well then I have to find it because something moved all over here we go um in writing did you think about the role of culture within the sustainable Urban Design conversation there seems to be more and more research on designing for diversity and I wonder if this has a role in informing more sustainable design so I guess it's sort of a a a a two-part question one looking at it from the angle of environmental justice and then secondly just designing for diversity in general yes um great question it's kind of interesting so you know we were sometimes asked um what's changed you know you started this book 10 years ago once changed H in a lot of in a lot of areas like there hasn't been I would say a ton of change in terms of like the fundamentals are still there uh but there might be some like uh pieces on the edges that have been really interesting or some innovations that have that have come about uh National Best Practices um in the terms in terms of the you know um uh topics around uh site design for Community safety and inclusion that has actually changed a lot so before you know uh I'd say before 2020 uh a lot of that conversation was really around seped uh crime prevention through environmental design uh and how can we make area safe safer and I think there's fantastic work in uh that but there's also that those same tools have been used as as tools of exclusion uh and so rethinking about how we think about that I think is is really important and understanding that it's not only designed but it's also process is really important in all that how we engage communities how uh even design decisions are coming uh in Partnership or from communities is really important um so that's that's one piece another piece I'll say a completely lacking uh which I we we touch on in the book uh but I think is generally lacking is how physically uh what Urban Design physical Urban Design decisions how they impact this question of of equity and and inclusion um there's a ton of work on process with that and it's been like fantastic in the last decade I think there's been more and more ideas of process but what physically should you do uh is you know it's very little and so actually that's like work that we're doing right now uh research work I'm doing right now um uh with eraka and uh and um methun uh and we're looking at you know trying to better understand what those pieces are things like for instance um you know really interesting the the size of lots and the size of parcels makes a huge difference for who has a foothold in being able to get into this be be an owner or a renter even in this community for both housing and for commercial uh spaces right um uh things like um when we design public space uh how much of the public space uh is feels accessible to anyone who's not spending money here right which is a really big question how do we make make sure that that people feel comfortable with that uh whose narratives are being represented in public space um so a lot of these topics that I think are are are just have not been explored and right now we're doing so there's some of that in the book absolutely uh and in the equity and health piece talks a lot about that um but there's a lot more work with that and we're working on that right now and uh uh we we have put in a proposal to the American Planning Association so hopefully we'll be presenting on this uh at the at the national planning conference on those topics great um do you have an opinion on um utilizing more trending forms of zoning moving away from the traditional ukian zoning to for example I would say the the the trending reform right now is more form-based zoning right um and I know I mean across the country and I think lot of it had to do with our housing crisis but communities from coast to coast are just overhauling their their ordinances to try to promote um more housing but in that I feel like there's these all of these undercurrents of discussion about how you know changing the zoning is affecting other things so do you have thoughts on you know our traditional ukian zoning and whether or not that hinders the future you know sustainably and if something like form based is is really a better option for our for our friends that are in the midst or looking to um do some zoning code work here yes um I would say ukan zoning has been a huge problem for generally right so so ukan zoning and single use zoning within ukian zoning has just been an enormous uh problem you understand where it came came from right and it is a a easy safe approach right we are going to separate uses so that we do not create nuisance right makes a whole lot of sense uh if you and there's a whole lot of you know I would say cultural and Al also say economic right the there's certain models of development that have now grown up in ukan zoning and you could point to and say like I can do that and I know it'll be profitable and I know what it'll look like and such um at the same time that has created a lot of the problems that we have right now uh in terms of mixed use uh and uh definitely in terms of dense density of development um and so yes I think rethinking how we do our ukian zoning uh I'm really proud of the work that's happening in Oregon right now as I mentioned where we don't have uh single family zoning as an option so even if you have ukin Zone you're you're it it's definitely been used as a tool of uh not my backyard um and I do believe that there's you know very much an urban designer answers but you know form based codes do a lot of fantastic work uh in um especially when you look at his areas that have historically changed uses and changed kind of character over the years uh but have continued to have um uh similar forms that they've developed and similar forms that we love and so um uh I think I think there's a lot of of weight to be put in that yeah absolutely Merl I don't know maybe this is a question that you can answer as well I think you probably have good answers for this um I I've always thought you know zoning has a place but as you said I think ukan zoning has been um abused uh I do think form-based codes have a place as well but I don't think that they are the the solution they can be fairly restrictive um I think some kind of uh I don't I I don't know uh we love our regulations but um there needs to be some flexibility uh especially you know to account for changes we are constantly changing and um you know there isn't a perfect way to Future proof but uh creating some kind of framework for flexibility in the buil built environment um is really important especially uh as it sort starts to help us mitigate against constantly tearing stuff out and um you know rebuilding uh again from a regulatory perspective I'm I'm not sure how you uh account for that and create that sort of framework but I but I think building in uh flexibility is really the key to um to having a built environment that that can work with changes in you know our lives and in climate and um the markets uh economies uh anyway in real quick in our last minute uh examples of model codes that do a really good job of being flexible incorporating sustainable practices or allowing for the future in the future sustainable practices any good examples that you want to shoot out right now I might I might push that over to Merill I think who's who's more versed in in some of these codes than I am uh no I'm more on the design side uh so I'm not entirely sure um I know Christine if you or Carla have you have um worked with in your communities Carla if you're back there do you have anything there she is this is what you do girl well as it happens I'm working on a uh a point based system for the city of pompo Beach right now resilient uh development standards which mandates you know certain elements of sustainable design in a in a development projects but uh provides options so that a particular development can choose those those options which are the most optimal for their their particular development for the ultimate users for the marketability of their of their project and uh I've observed just personally through my work on that that there are a number of examples around the country uh of such flexible um zoning based uh standards that help to incentivize um incorporating these features so hopefully there'll be more of those in the future around the country we have to wrap up thank you thank you Nico and Merill and Carla for bringing this together the sustainability and resilience series uh thank you for joining us to all of our attendees don't forget we're recording the session we'll post it on the SNR playlist up on our YouTube channel just search planning webcast and our channel will pop up don't forget to register for upcoming sessions at Ohio planning.org SL planning webcast and don't forget to log your CM credits for today you can get all of that information again on our website if you need it to log those credits Ohio planning.org planning webcast so that's it for today thanks everyone for joining us and we'll talk next time thank you so much bye bye