Case Studies in Retrofitting Suburbia
Urban Design Strategies for Urgent Challenges
1. Edition March 2021
272 Pages, Hardcover
Wiley & Sons Ltd
Further versions
A brand-new collection of 32 case studies that further demonstrate the retrofitting of suburbia
This amply-illustrated book, second in a series, documents how defunct shopping malls, parking lots, and the past century's other obsolete suburban development patterns are being retrofitted to address current urgent challenges they weren't designed for: improving public health, increasing resilience in the face of climate change, leveraging social capital for equity, supporting an aging society, competing for jobs, and disrupting automobile dependence.
Case Studies in Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design Strategies for Urgent Challenges provides summaries, data, and references on how these challenges manifest in suburbia and discussion of successful urban design strategies to address them in Part I. Part II documents how innovative design strategies are implemented in a range of northern American contexts and market conditions. From modest interventions with big ripple effects to ambitious do-overs, examples of redevelopment, reinhabitation, and regreening of changing suburban places from coast to coast are described in depth in 32 brand new case studies.
* Written by the authors of the highly influential Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design Solutions for Redesigning Suburbs
* Demonstrates changes that can and already have been realized in suburbia by focusing on case studies of retrofitted suburban places
* Illustrated in full-color with photos, maps, plans, and diagrams
Full of replicable lessons and creative responses to ongoing problems and potentials with conventional suburban form, Case Studies in Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design Strategies for Urgent Challenges is an important book for students and professionals involved in urban design, architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning, development, civil engineering, public health, public policy, and governance. Most of all, it is intended as a useful guide for anyone who seeks to inspire revitalization, justice, and shared prosperity in places they know and care about.
Acknowledgments xi
Part I. Urgent Suburban Challenges
Chapter I.1 Disrupt Automobile Dependence 3
Roads, Streets, and Stroads 4
Can't We Do Something About All This Traffic? 6
Parking, Parking. . .and Parking 9
Walk, Pedal, Hail, and Scoot 11
Autonomous Urbanism? 13
Urban Design Tactics for Disrupting and Reducing Automobile Dependence 14
Chapter I.2 Improve Public Health 16
The Burdens of Disease 17
Category 1: Physical Activity, Obesity, and Chronic Disease 18
Category 2: Emotional Health and Degree of Community Engagement 19
Category 3: Likelihood of Being Killed or Injured in a Vehicle Crash 19
Walk This Way: Linking Physical Activity to Physical Design 19
Access: To Good Food, and to Healthcare 23
Safety: Preventing Preventable Injuries 24
Seeing Green: Biophilic Design and Mental Wellness 26
Combatting Loneliness: The Importance of Social Connectedness 27
Cleaning Up: Reducing Impacts of Polluted Air, Soil, and Water 27
Well-Executed Retrofitting Improves Public Health 28
Chapter I.3 Support an Aging Population 29
A New Name: Perennials 29
The Lifelong Community Model 30
A Brief History of Retirement Living: Sun City and The Villages of Florida 31
Learning Lessons from Retirement Communities 34
Social Support: Reinhabiting Ghostboxes and Parking Lots into Amenities 34
Housing Choices: Aging-in-Community at Malls, Strip Centers, and Office Parks 36
Economic and Wellness Factors: Evolution of the "Granny Flat" and the Household Model 38
Post-Car Life for Perennials? 41
Chapter I.4 Leverage Social Capital for Equity 42
Conceptual Frameworks for Increasing Equity Through Social Capital 43
Demographic Trends in Suburbs as Drivers of Change 45
A Framework for Asserting the Role of Design in Achieving Social Diversity 47
Third Place Redux 48
Social Capital in Ethnoburbs 49
Providing More Housing Types and Choices, Including Units for Rent 50
Protecting Apartments Under Threat 52
A Right to the Suburb? The Public Realm 53
Retrofitting the Suburban Social Body 55
Chapter I.5 Compete for Jobs 56
Generational Shift? 57
Retrofitting the Office Park and Corporate Campus 60
Urbanism as the New Amenity 62
Reinhabiting and Regreening the Office Park 64
Boosting Small Business by Reinhabiting Dead Retail 65
Future Forecast for Jobs Competition 68
Chapter I.6 Add Water and Energy Resilience 70
Retrofits to Improve Water Quality: From Gray to Green 71
Retrofitting Water for Resilience: Too Much Water 74
Retrofitting Water for Resilience: Too Little Water 76
Retrofitting Suburbia for Energy Resilience 77
Adding Resiliency by Design 82
Part II. The Case Studies
Case Study II.1 Aurora Avenue North 89
Shoreline, Washington
Case Study II.2 Hassalo on Eighth and Lloyd 91
Portland, Oregon
Case Study II.3 Lake Grove Village 98
Lake Oswego, Oregon
Case Study II.4 Phoenix Park Apartments 101
Sacramento, California
Case Study II.5 Parkmerced 104
San Francisco, California
Case Study II.6 The BLVD 111
Lancaster, California
Case Study II.7 TAXI 116
Denver, Colorado
Case Study II.8 Guthrie Green 121
Tulsa, Oklahoma
Case Study II.9 La Gran Plaza 127
Fort Worth, Texas
Case Study II.10 The Domain 131
Austin, Texas
Case Study II.11 ACC Highland 138
Austin, Texas
Case Study II.12 Mueller 144
Austin, Texas
Case Study II.13 Promenade of Wayzata 152
Wayzata, Minnesota
Case Study II.14 Maplewood Mall and Living Streets 157
Maplewood, Minnesota
Case Study II.15 Baton Rouge Health District 160
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Case Study II.16 Uptown Circle 163
Normal, Illinois
Case Study II.17 One Hundred Oaks Mall 166
Nashville, Tennessee
Case Study II.18 Historic Fourth Ward Park 169
Atlanta, Georgia
Case Study II.19 Technology Park 174
Peachtree Corners, Georgia
Case Study II.20 Walker's Bend 178
Covington, Georgia
Case Study II.21 Downtown Doral 185
Doral, Florida
Case Study II.22 Collinwood Recreation Center 189
Cleveland, Ohio
Case Study II.23 The Mosaic District 192
Merrifield, Virginia
Case Study II.24 South Dakota Avenue and Riggs Road 199
Fort Totten, Washington, DC
Case Study II.25 White Flint and the Pike District 203
Montgomery County, Maryland
Case Study II.26 The Blairs District 211
Silver Spring, Maryland
Case Study II.27 La Station - Centre Intergénérationnel 214
Nuns' Island, Verdun, Quebec
Case Study II.28 Bell Works 217
Holmdel, New Jersey
Case Study II.29 Wyandanch Rising 223
Town of Babylon, New York
Case Study II.30 Meriden Green 229
Meriden, Connecticut
Case Study II.31 Cottages on Greene 233
East Greenwich, Rhode Island
Case Study II.32 Assembly Square 236
Somerville, Massachusetts
Index 245
JUNE WILLIAMSON is associate professor and department chair at the City College of New York's Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture. She is the acclaimed author of Designing Suburban Futures: New Models from Build a Better Burb (Island Press, 2013).
ELLEN DUNHAM-JONES is professor of architecture and directs the urban design degree at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She was voted one of the world's 100 most influential urbanists by Planetizen and hosts the Redesigning Cities podcast.
The authors' first book, Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design Solutions for Redesigning Suburbs (Wiley), was deemed "the Bible of the retrofitting movement" in the Chicago Tribune. It was featured in The New York Times, CBS Evening News, Urban Land, Architectural Record, and received the 2009 PROSE award for architecture and urban planning.
