Urbanism - What is it?

Published October 27, 2022. Revised October 28, 2022 for clarity and adding some links.

This article started as a twitter thread in response to a rural Manitoban wondering what urbanism is. This article is an expanded version of what I had posted. It is a working version based on my current understanding. Know also that there are a lot of variations on urbanist visions. Some are more feasible than others.

Core factors need to work together in order to have a workable urbanist plan that meets the needs of current and future residents and visitors. What I see as the key ones are transportation and land use, which then have a positive effect on other areas of modern economic life.

1. Transportation

An urban area needs to have a good multimodal transportation system [e.g., automobiles, scooters, bicycles, walking, mass transit: (buses/trollies/LRT)] that enables residents and visitors to get around a city reasonably quickly and easily. Ideally it should enable seamless movement from one transportation mode to another within the urban area.

There are studies of the relative net benefit of different transportation modes. E.g., Active Living Research (2016) "Moving Toward Active Transportation."

For urban areas that have viable intercity passenger services (e.g., on the water, intercity buses, intercity rail, or airports) they need to have relatively seamless transfers between urban modes of transportation and the intercity modes in order to maximize the benefit.

The movement of goods is less often talked about in urbanist circles (at least to my knowledge), but there need to be trade routes that allow the efficient and safe movement of goods. There can be significant differences for different types of goods and/or supply chain stages:

• Export/import from long distances.
• Short term storage of inputs, intermediary and outputs.
• Last mile delivery, and more.

Squaring the movement of goods with people movement can be a challenge, but some cities have had significant success with this.

2. Land Use

Land use and transportation go hand in glove. The complete communities concept seems to be a good current approach to neighborhood design.

In some cases, land use policy needs to change in order to allow communities to become or start as complete communities. This essentially means having housing with nearby shops and places of work, combined with good active and public transit connections in and out of the community, along with trade routes for goods movements.

Need to allow more housing types to be built near each other, particularly what is called the missing middle (low to mid-rise apartments and condos: up to 6 stories tall). Some places can have taller building as well. What this will mean sufficient density to support small businesses nearby with less driving, resorting more to active transport (e.g., walk, cycle) for short nearby trips.

If housing meets some simple requirements, then it should be able to be built at right. Also eliminate minimum lot sizes and parking minimums. Then builders will have more certainty, and pricing will fall. This will mean that more people can afford to buy a home or rent.

With higher urban density, this will require having sufficient parks, other open spaces and amenities (zoos, sports, etc) in the neighborhoods. This is more easily affordable because the higher density allows more property taxes per acre (while keep rates lower), for example.

Note that by allowing a variety of home sizes as well, this will mean if people need a micro apartment since they have a low salary and want to live alone, this could be done. This could also help prevent people from becoming homeless.

By having a more compact, highly livable urban area that is more affordable, this will mean less pressure to push out the boundaries of the city (Also, since if you design new suburbs to have greater average density from the beginning, that will also reduce pressure to sprawl).

In any case, this will preserve more farmland that will be needed to feed the world over the coming century. Hint: projections in 2015 expected world population to top out at 11 billion people. #agriculture #farming. For example, see Chris Ferris (2015) "World Grain Marketing: Why the location of population & economic growth is crucial for long-term planning," on expected world population over the remainder of the century.

3. Note to Employers (In combination with No. 1 & 2)

One factor that seems to be ignored by others talking about urbanism is the benefit for employers of reforming land use and improving transportation across modes. If workers are able to afford to live in a city near where they work, or even further afield but with good commuting opportunities, then employers will have an easier time hiring people. Thus, frequent and accessible transit is important for employees and employers, e.g., Adie Tomer (July 2012) "Where the Jobs Are: Employer?Access to Labor by Transit," Brookings. The denser city will also mean more opportunities for service businesses to thrive.

Getting goods to and from mode switching points can be a point of friction. This includes to/from outside urban boundaries (e.g., Airport, inland ports, truck cross docks, to warehouse districts, and factories/warehouses to out of the city), and within urban boundaries (From warehouses to factories. From factories to warehouses, from warehouses to stores, and the last mile to consumers). #logistics #lastmile #warehouses.

4. Further benefits

4.a. Tourism

A denser city with lower cost of transportation and housing means fewer people under severe financial strain, thereby reducing their risk of homelessness. It also means stronger businesses. These two factors make it easier to support a strong arts and culture scene. This is attractive to business and leisure tourists. Another strong benefit.

4.b. Better Quality of Life

The combo of 1 to 4a enable an improving quality of life, which makes retaining and recruiting new residents easier.

4.c. Climate Change Goals

Climate change goals are easier to reach. Complete communities with higher densities on average (more duplexes, quadplexes, low to midrise residences and some high rises) and shorter trips means we can cut more carbon pollution more easily. Car sharing and other short-term rentals are more viable for residents. Add to this more walking, and the use of electric bikes, cars, and mass transit and the carbon footprint of transportation can rapidly fall, while maintaining or even improving transportation across modes.

4.d. Taxes

The urban area will find it easier to cover its life cycle infrastructure costs and its regular costs of operations using taxes on property or land, because there are lower costs per acre for infrastructure, and higher revenue per acre. e.g., 10 Principles for Making High-Density Cities Better | Smart Cities Dive.

4.e. Other

If done right, you also have a greater sense of community, less homelessness and possibly even less crime (since it easier to reach a job).

Summary

Basically, it comes down to making urban areas more friendly for people to live work and play there, enable employers to more easily hire people, and make it a more enjoyable place to visit.

Some interesting further reading.

1. An article by Alfred Twu (October 28, 2022) "The U.S. city of the future," on the Noahpinion substack blog.
2. Economic Complexity and related Economic Geography papers. Accessible here: Publications | OEC - The Observatory of Economic Complexity. (Rather technical, so only for the interested reader of economic geography). Some example papers below.

• Hildalgo, Castaner, Sevstuk (2020). "The Amenity Mix of Urban Neighborhoods," PDF download.
• Balland, Jara-Figueroa, Petralia, Steijn, Rigby and Hidalgo (2020). "Complex economic activities concentrate?in large cities," PDF download.
• Jara-Figueroaa, Juna, Glaeserb, and Hidalgoa (2018). "The role of industry-specific, occupation-specific, and location-specific knowledge in the growth and survival of new firms," PDF download.