It was not always this way.
In many Chicago neighborhoods, we see the vestiges of development based on the person...the person walking from place to place. Grocery stores pop up every couple of blocks, and in the first story of apartment buildings, to serve the local clientele. Public houses and bars show up in the same fashion. Ninety-percent of the needs of a resident of Lincoln Park, Bridgeport, or Rogers Park sit within one mile of a person's place of residence. In the most smartly developed communities, the retail corridors include every manner of shop we need to support our lives.
Around the world, and even here in the US, a movement over the past forty years has sought to reverse the trend of suburbanization of the public space. This suburbanization minimizes sidewalks, maximizes parking lots and major thoroughfares, and seeks to get people from their garages to their retail outlets with a minimum of time spent outside. This has put an increased strain on our existing roads, requiring more investment in them, and an increased burden of maintenance. To lower those costs, and revitalize our urban areas, several advocacy groups now call for "walkable neighborhoods". These areas allow someone to live comfortably without an automobile, and center development not on what will draw more people into an area to shop, but what will draw more people into an area to live.
As a way to highlight this movement, advocates have started to call for major urban areas to establish pedestrian malls on areas formerly devoted to vehicle traffic. Some cities around the world have gone so far as to shift their culture from one of driving to one of biking or walking (see Copenhagen), while others have taken less grand steps of temporarily establishing these pedestrian-friendly zones (see Times Square, New York City). Whatever the scale and permanence, each of these projects seeks a better balance between human-centered commerce and vehicle centered commerce.
In Chicago, local advocates have put forward a proposal to turn the north end of the city's famed "Magnificent Mile" into a pedestrian mall. For those familiar with the area, it would encompass the final quarter mile of the posh stretch, starting at the historic Water Tower and extending to the end of the street at Lake Shore Drive. Proponents note the expanded capacity for people to two of the strips largest retail outlets (Water Tower Place and 900 North Michigan), as well as the opportunity for new retail developments in the abandoned right of way. Opponents - including Mayor Rahm Emanuel - cite the need for vehicular traffic in the area, and point to an old crutch of the anti-pedestrian crowd...
The State Street pedestrian mall of the 80s and 90s.
In response to a particularly harsh round of urban flight in the 70s, Mayor Jane Byrne proposed turning State Street, the other famed avenue in Chicago, into a bus-only street with an expanded pedestrian mall. The idea centered around competing with an ever expanding number of suburban malls with something similar. Anchored by Marshal Field's State Street Store, the plan sought to encourage development by making the area more person-friendly.
It did not work.
Development did not follow the change. People did not flock down, mostly because the area still had issues with crime, the stores outside of Marshall Field's and Carson's did not have much appeal (the area still included adult bookstores and a predominance of fast food). Also, the presence of many bus lines still kept the air quality suspect. Pedestrian-friendly development as a driver of economic development did not work.
Michigan Avenue of the present shares little with State Street of the 80s and 90s. Retail development already flourishes. Residences in the area command some of the top prices in the city. People want to live, work, and shop in the area. Additionally, if you look at the layout of North Michigan compared with State Street, you will notice that State Street forms a necessary spine of the "Loop" of Chicago. Traffic needs to flow east and west across it to connect people to the major lakefront attractions in Grant Park (and now Millennium Park). Looking at the map, one sees that State Street forms a natural connection point between the areas south of the "Loop" to areas north of it. Changing such a necessary artery in a drastic way made little sense.
North Michigan Avenue, on the other hand, and specifically the last two blocks, shares none of those physical qualities. Blocking the street would not close-off access to anything to the east. The only major "attraction" in that direction is the Northwestern Hospital campus (which includes Lurie Children's and Prentiss Women's hospitals), and that access would remain open by leaving Chicago Avenue open. Michigan Avenue ends at Oak Street, thus it already has a natural termination. Access to Lake Shore Drive can happen easily one-half mile south at Illinois Street where development has already eased access. The only people negatively affected by the establishment of a pedestrian mall are the residents east of Michigan and north of Chicago who might rely on the use of the small number of side streets to cross Michigan Avenue to go to other parts of the city.
There may be many reasons why a pedestrian mall on North Michigan Avenue will not work. There are an equal number of reasons why it will work, and the City will have to wrestle with the economic development advantages and the logistical challenges. That said, dismissing the idea on the grounds that we have done it before and it failed does not hold water. Cities as close as Madison, WI have made it work, as has the aforementioned NYC. I, for one, want to see the studies, the data, and the pros and cons. If it does not work, then I want to see where it will work. We have ceded our public space to the automobile for too long, and the time has come to take some of it back.
If not Michigan Avenue, then somewhere of equal profile.
No comments:
Post a Comment