{"id":124,"date":"2009-02-12T20:51:00","date_gmt":"2009-02-12T20:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/terragrafix.com\/blog\/?p=124"},"modified":"2009-02-12T20:51:00","modified_gmt":"2009-02-12T20:51:00","slug":"respected-urban-planner-cites-bay-street-mall-as-design-failure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thesecretnewsonline.com\/?p=124","title":{"rendered":"Respected Urban Planner Cites Bay Street Mall as Design Failure"},"content":{"rendered":"


<\/span>Bay Street mall design “really abysmal” says urban planner Daniel Iacofano of MIG, Inc.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>Below is an excerpt of an interview with Daniel Iacofano by The Inclusive City, a website that promotes the concept of “inclusive design”and Iacofano’s book about it, which he co-authored with Susan M. Goltsman. Iacofano and Goltsman co-founded the premier urban planning and design firm MIG, Inc. in Berkeley. <\/span>Inclusive design refers to an approach to planning that promotes <\/span>social and economic equity and community development, with full interaction and accessibility for all residents. <\/span>Click here<\/a> to read the entire interview.
<\/span>
<\/span><\/p>\n

Are there any specific examples of design under so-called New Urbanism that may look good from the outside, but don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t achieve the principles of social inclusion you espouse?<\/span><\/h3>\n


<\/span>Daniel Iacofano: <\/span>The Bay Street project in Emeryville, California, fails on many different levels. It purports to be a Main Street, with cars driving through, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s really a mall without a roof, with housing integrated into it. There are no neighborhood-serving stores where the people who live there can shop; you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t go into a Gap every day\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthat store is a regional draw. And people who work there can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t afford to live there. There are no free gathering spaces and no parks. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not an authentic neighborhood and socially it just doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t work.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>From the point of view of design, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s really abysmal. Again, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re trying to mimic a street, with sidewalks, streets and gutters. But it would have been better from an accessibility perspective\u00e2\u20ac\u201dfor people with disabilities\u00e2\u20ac\u201dto eliminate the curbs and use a different technique of delineating the pedestrian right-of-way from the auto right-of-way. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s where urban design is moving, by the way\u00e2\u20ac\u201dtowards a shared right-of-way.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>So they totally missed it in Emeryville because they were lured into old ideas of what a city looks like. They had the opportunity to control the environment and make it universal design; instead they erected their own barriers. It was an uncritical re-adaptation of a Main Street icon and fails in what it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s trying to do. They began with a packaged idea and made no attempt to create an authentic environment.<\/span><\/p>\n