Subarea Planning Flashcards
Corridor Planning
Corridor planning most typically refers to roadways but can also apply to rail corridors, waterways and greenways. Corridor planning can happen at the multi-national, multi-state, regional or local level.
Corridor Transportation Planning
Corridor transportation planning typically occurs at the regional level. Corridor planning allows the regions governments and responsible agencies to coordinate major transportation planning projects. Corridor planning identifies the long-range transportation needs along the corridor, evaluates alternatives, and implements strategies addressing these needs. Most corridor transportation planning is conducted by a Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO).
National Corridor Plannning
At the national level, the latest effort by the US Department of Transportation is called “Integrated Corridor Management” (ICM). ICM refers to the “efficient movement of people and goods through institutional collaboration and aggressive, proactive integration of existing infrastructure along major corridors”. The main goal is for corridors to be managed as multimodal systems where operational decisions are made “for the benefit of the corridor as a whole.”
Scenic Corridor Planning
The Federal Highway Administration developed the National Scenic Byways Program in 1992. The purpose of the program is to dsingate and fund enhancements of scenic highways across the United States. To receive Scenic Byway Designation, a roadway must have archaeological, cultural, historic, natural, recreational, and/or scenic qualities. As part of the designation process, a Corridor Manamgent Plan must be prepared, which documents the roadway’s intrinsic qualities, identifies goals and strategies, includes an implementation timeline, and identifies responsible parties.
In addition to the National Scenic Byway Program, most states offer their own state-level byway program. For example, the Mississippi Scenic Byway program has similar requirements as the national program.
Greenways and Blueways Planning
- In addition to planning for roadway corridors, planners are also responsible for planning green and blue corridors, often called Greenways and Blueways. While greenways and blueways plans can be created at the local level, they are often most effective at a regional level. For example, creating a blueway plan for the length of a river in the region or providing connectivity between blueways and greenways to create regional recreational opportunities. Greenway and blueways plans can achieve a number of goals including:
-Protecting natural resources
- providing alternative transpiration options
- connecting neighborhoods with recreational opportunities
- promoting healthy communities
- creating economic development opportunities.
Greenbelts
Are underdeveloped natural land areas that have been set aside for the purposes of open space and recreation, linking urban residents with nature. The nonprofit Greenbelt Alliance is an anti-sprawl, pro-infill development organization that has successfully lobbied for the establishment of 21 urban growth boundaries across four counties surrounding San Francisco. In 1967, Boulder, Colorado created the first locally-funded greenbelt in the US, funded by an increase in the local sales tax.
National Heritage Areas
Places where natural, cultural, and historic resources combine to form a cohesive, nationally important landscape. These are designated by Congress and can be found on the National Park Service website. Some National Heritage Areas are National Heritage Corridors. The Delaware and LeHigh National Heritage Corridor is an example of a heritage trail.
Tourism Corridor Planning
Refers to efforts to link social, cultural, and economic drivers between communities for the purpose of supporting tourism. For example, a working group along Interstate 80 focus on tourism corridor planning.
Neighborhood Planning
The modern conception of neighborhood planning can be traced to Chicago School sociologists in the early 1900s, notably Robert Park and E.W. Burgess. The neighborhood unit was proposed by sociologist Clarence Perry in the 1920s. Perry’s neighborhood unit- an idealized, aspirational version of neighborhood- was 160 acres (the acreage of a half-mile square, within which Perry placed a circle with a quarter-mile radius), with a density of ten units per acres and a population of 5000
What is a neighborhood?
Neighborhoods are often difficult to define geographically, with definitions and boundaries that change over time. For example Chicago started with 77 “Community Areas”, derived by Chicago School sociologists in the early 20th century. Then in 1978, the city designated 178 neighborhoods based on a resident survey. Later the city’s map contained 228 neighborhoods.
In some cases, boundaries are set for planning purposes based on roadways, rivers, or census boundaries. Census tracts, which average 4,000 population, are often used as a proxy for neighborhood.
Neighborhood Planning
A sub-city level of planning. It follows the same process as other types of planning, including collecting information, identifying key issues, setting goals, coming up with alternatives, selecting alternatives, determining the implementation mechanisms, and evaluating the progress towards the implementation of the plan. Plan topics vary from community to community. For example, crime prevention may be critical in one neighborhood, while historic preservation is important in another.
Public participation is a critical part of the neighborhood planning process.
Many communities undertake neighborhood planning. For example, the City of Columbus, Ohio, has created plans for many of its neighborhoods. The City’s document library has a variety of neighborhood plans.
The limited geographic extent of a neighborhood plan can have drawbacks, including a more limited focus, fewer resources, and often, limited political influence. On the other hand, stakeholder engagement is likely to be easier since the issues being discussed are closer to home. There is an opportunity to be more specific and detailed about future goals in the context of a neighborhood–scale plan
Downtown Planning
A type of “specific area plan”. Downtown plans incorporate many of the same components as other types of specific area plans.
Most major cities have downtown plans. Downtown plans might be presented in the form of a master plan aimed at improving physical infrastructure, including recommendations for adding street furniture to improve the streetscape or enacting design guidelines to improve storefront facades. Downtown plans may recommend programs such as façade improvement grants and wayfinding for visitors and residents.
A good example is the downtown plan for Anchorage. It sets the following six goals:
- create a downtown for all
- provide more housing downtown
- jump-start development
- improve connectivity
- activate the ground floor environment
- provide a clear, sensible regulatory framework
It also establishes three types of strategies:
- land use- allowance for primary and second land uses
- Development projects and opportunities - “Catalytic development sites” and “opportunity sites”
- Supporting strategies - market strategies, transportation and circulation strategies, urban design strategies, and program strategies (e.g. signage, building identity, safety, and security)
Main Street Programs
Participation in a Main Street Program has been a popular way for planners to approach downtown revitalization in smaller towns. States are often a source of funds for downtown revitalization programs.
Edge City
Not really a “downtown” in the traditional sense, an edge city describes a relatively new concentration of business, shopping, and entertainment outside a traditional urban area in what had recently been a suburb or rural community. The term was popularized in the 1991 book Edge City by Joel Garreau, who argued that edge cities were the new normal of urban growth worldwide. Garreau established five rules for a place to be considered an edge city:
- it must have more than five million square feet of office space to accommodate between 20,000 to 50,000 office workers (as many as some traditional downtowns)
- it must have more than 600,000 square feet of retail space, the size of a medium shopping mall. This ensures that the edge city is a center of recreation and commerce as well as office work
- it must be characterized by more jobs than bedrooms
- it must be perceived by the population as one place
- it must have been nothing like a city 30 years earlier.
