The 20 Best Neighborhoods in North America all seem to be the same and/or at least have a very strong resemblence.
So much for that urban design shibboleth of trying to avoid "one size fits all," which only leads to excess bureaucracy and over-regulation.
UPDATE: Several points:
1. It is important to be able to walk before one can run. It would be silly for a town to address the fine points when the coarse issues-- adherence to the 3 Rules -- are ignored or misunderstood etc. It is simply a matter of stages.
2. As to how great neighborhoods developed: certainly the 3 Rules were not an explicit part of their evolution. Most of them developed long before there were cars and parking lots so the issue around which the 3 Rules turns was non-existent. (And I very much question the idea set forth by JRoth in the comments that great neighborhoods came about as a response to "stablished by countless ordinances and policies.") And yes, the 3 Rules are first and foremost decsriptive. But -- like Newton's Law of Gravity -- they are also predictive. There is no pedestrian-oriented neighborhood anywhere which is not, by-and-large with very few exceptions, very well-described by the 3 Rules. As I suggest in City Comforts, the 3 Rules are the essential spatial element but there are many socio-economic issues involved in creating/supporting an interesting neighborhood, (the primary one being some level of prosperity.)
3. None of my comments should be taken to imply that PPS's theme of 20 Best... is in any way silly. That is/was not the intention of my post; I was simply picking up on what I see when I look through the photos. Lists like this one at PPS are fun, get people to think/discuss, puts fine-grain spatial-scale on the public conversation table, etc so they are worthwhile. In fact, I should probably do something like 20 Most Comfortable Streetside Cafes or similar.
Wow. Definitely very, very subjective. Not even sure I agree that they are very much the same (except in the basic, simple rules-which is where I agree with you).
I'm not even sure I would agree that North Beach is the best neighborhood in San Francisco. It's overwhelmed with tourists, has quite dingy, overcrowded housing, and is, to be honest, somewhat filthy. I much prefer Noe Valley or Glen Park or the hills above/between the Haight/ the Castro District, Hayes Valley, and Noe Valley (a big swath of the city, I know.)
Interesting list, though. PPS always has something interesting to say.
Posted by: Brian Miller | Nov 22, 2004 at 03:57 PM
My favorite article in that PPS newsletter is the feature on Enrique Peñalosa, the former mayor of Bogotá. It thickly sprinkled with quotable lines like this:
or this:
Posted by: Laurence Aurbach | Nov 23, 2004 at 09:32 AM
OK, David, I like your 3 Rules, and tell people about them, but I think that you may be a bit myopic here. Although most (all?) of these places by and large meet the 3 Rules, that is, of course, because all of them developed before the heyday of the auto, when pedestrian traffic WAS traffic. The fact that people-oriented neighborhoods appeal to people is not especially insightful, nor necessarily widely applicable as such.
Most important is that these neighborhoods are NOT cookie-cutter. East Village and Kensington Market are ur-urban, while Oak Park is classic leafy 1st-ring suburban, and Chataqua is small-town, if not actually village-ey. I don't even believe that the 3 Rules accurately describe their current states, let alone would lead them to sustainable futures as they exist.
That said, I would be very curious to see a research project that looked at the urban characters of E. Village, Oak Park, and Chataqua;identify what development patterns/regulations have led to the stayus quo; examine how current regulation impacts development (or lack thereof); and postulate/speculate how a bureaucracy-free application of the 3 Rules would change (or not) development patterns.
One last point: as we know, none of these developed in explicit adherence to the 3 Rules. They provide no evidence that the 3 Rules can create these places, only that they describe these places. It may be that the essence of them is contained in just 3 rules, but the reality of them is established by countless ordinances and policies. Likewise, the 3 Article, 26 Amendment defines our nation, but is in no way adequate to creating a functioning society.
Posted by: JRoth | Nov 23, 2004 at 10:13 AM
I'd agree that the list is not particularly helpful other than to get folks talking about urban planning. Having personally experienced #2,3,6 and 8 on the list, I certainly would not have placed them among my top 20. In particular, the "neighborhoods" on this list tend to be far more commercial, and touristy commercial at that, to work as complete, livable environments for any representative sample of North American households. (BTW, on their world neighborhoods list, I would deem the Morningside neighborhood in Edinburgh far more livable than the Royal Mile.)
Posted by: Michael Meckler | Nov 24, 2004 at 05:59 AM
In the big cities, isn't this almost a cliche list of urban-places-for-suburban-tourists-who-want-to-feel-urban, as opposed to urbanism-for-people-who-really-live-there?
Lots of folks in Portland are certainly laughing to see 23rd Street (really Avenue) on the list. The realtors have taken to calling that area "Nob Hill", because it's all about attracting suburban tourists and out-of-town investment. The 23rd Avenue business district is adorable if you like coffee and gift shops, but people who live there would go over to the 21st Avenue to shop and hang out.
Here in San Francisco, North Beach is lovely, but its identity is largely a quotation at this point. Like any over-promoted place, the most interesting parts of the neighborhood are its boundaries/transitions with other neighborhoods, where you can see the corners of the illusion peeling.
For a nice balance of tourists and daily life, plus good mobility, magnificent architecture, and a stunning natural setting, I'd probably name Eureka Valley (a.k.a. "the Castro"). It also includes four terrific blocks of garden-street designed by Allan Jacobs. But then, people really live there, and that may be a mark against it in the PSS ranking.
Posted by: Jarrett | Nov 24, 2004 at 09:55 PM
Dittos for the Eureka Valley garden streets.. Wasn't aware of the Allen Jacobs history, but they remain some of my favorites!
Heck, I would throw in Berkeley's Elmwood and Solano Avenue/Thopusand Oaks neighborhoods-no reason for tourists to go there, but they are immensely livable places with lovely streetscapes, great local business districts, etc.
Posted by: Brian Miller | Nov 28, 2004 at 12:20 AM
David, I would love to see your list of the 20 most comfortable streetside cafes!
Posted by: Shin-pei Tsay | Nov 30, 2004 at 07:33 AM
They picked Christchurch, NZ as a great downtown rather than Wellington! Absolute nonsense, and makes the rest of their picks completely doubtful.
Having lived in both places, Wellington has by far the better downtown. For a start it's by the sea, while the sea is miles away in Christchurch. The streets are on the whole much less divided by traffic than in Christchurch, which makes walking around a lot faster and pleasanter - the narrowness of Willis St forces the traffic to slow down. The shops are more interesting and the cafes and restaurants average considerably better. While Wellington does not have the pleasantness of the walk across the River Avon and down to the Arts Centre, the newly refurbished Old BNZ and the Wellington Public Library and the City to Sea Bridge are heavy items on the plus side and it can also offer a cable car trip.
I can only retain my belief in general human intelligence by the hope that maybe the authors visited Wellington on one of the days that the wind and rain make venturing out of doors an adventure worthy of Lemony Snickett.
Posted by: Tracy | Dec 01, 2004 at 03:19 AM
Tracy: I want to move to Wellington! That's why I buy those lottery tickets :)
Posted by: brian miller | Dec 03, 2004 at 11:28 AM