Lots more here illustrating the concept:
West Dayton Regional Open Space
The idea is to address the mix of large scale industrial abandonment and underutilization + ongoing residential abandonment on the West Side + demolition of public housing.
An urban design concept is investigated involving a mix of large urban parks (something Dayton lacks), forest preserves, and urban ag, tied together by a bikeway and parkway system.
The concept also works with the topography by proposing a skyline drive, and suggests urban infill and commercial intensification in the remaining neighborhoods, as well as parkside housing to better define the city edge at the parks.
Note that this is mere "paper architecture" as there are no real-life proposals for something like this.
Sunday, August 5, 2007
Greenways for West Dayton
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3 comments:
Jeff,
You have a nice way of turning a problem (vacant housing) into an opportunity waiting for a solution. Interesting that you chose the 2000 census vacant housing number and didn't try to augment it with some of the higher recent estimates. One person I talk with thinks we might be double the 2000 numbers.
Thanks, this was just an excersie for fun, based on things I know about urban design, architecture, and citys I've lived in.
I chose 2000 as that was the best numbers out there and they were comparable to 1999, and aso detailed to lower levels of geography.
I don't trust the estimates, and they are not broken down by block group, which is what one of those maps is based on.
But I agree. One will see the unit numbers improve in one part of this area, Wright Dunbar, as it has been re-urbanized to some extent. W-D is a fascinating case of taking a near vacant neighborhood and restarting the development clock.
One can see this happening in other parts of West Dayton too, moreso in that McFarlane neighborhood, but also in Wolf Creek and Edgemont.
I do not know who is behind this new affordable housing construction, but they are doing a good job of it, with some of the units fitting in pretty well with the trad Dayton urban vernacular architectur style.
So I think rather than the "grand plan" one will see incremental redevelopment and infill. The "grand plan" approach might still work for abandoned industrial sites and closed public housing, where there are large blocks of property to work with.
If you follow the link to the longer thread at Urban Ohio, you'll see I started working with mostly pre-existing empty sites and more or less empty residential streets.
I think you are absolutely right with this. I had posted a similar rant (albiet just a one-shot observation with no graphics or really any type of resources) at the Grassroots Dayton website. It is pretty much the only option that Dayton is going to have. Greenspace will have to be maintained as the population and base of Dayton cannot afford the sprawl and rambling business districts that the suburb have....there is just not enough people or money to sustain it. One of the possible long term benefits is that a large property management firm may see this as an opportuniy to do a land grab, sit on their investment for a while, then provide low-cost industrial/manufacturing sites to large domestic and/or foriegn corps. Good or bad? Who knows.
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