Selena Hoy: Japanese Kids Walk and They Walk Alone→

Atlantic:

“Even in big cities like Tokyo, small children take the subway and run errands by themselves. The reason has a lot to do with group dynamics.

It’s a common sight on Japanese mass transit: Children troop through train cars, singly or in small groups, looking for seats. They wear knee socks, polished patent-leather shoes, and plaid jumpers, with wide-brimmed hats fastened under the chin and train passes pinned to their backpacks. The kids are as young as 6 or 7, on their way to and from school, and there is nary a guardian in sight.

A popular television show called Hajimete no Otsukai, or My First Errand, features children as young as two or three being sent out to do a task for their family. As they tentatively make their way to the greengrocer or bakery, their progress is secretly filmed by a camera crew. The show has been running for more than 25 years...

Japan has a very low crime rate, which is surely a key reason parents feel confident about sending their kids out alone. But small-scaled urban spaces and a culture of walking and transit use also foster safety and, perhaps just as important, the perception of safety.

“Public space is scaled so much better—old, human-sized spaces that also control flow and speed,” Dixon notes. In Japanese cities, people are accustomed to walking everywhere, and public transportation trumps car culture; in Tokyo, half of all trips are made on rail or bus, and a quarter on foot. Drivers are used to sharing the road and yielding to pedestrians and cyclists.”

I find this fascinating, As a kid growing up in a rural area, Japanese children today have the freedom that as a kid I had. Today, most American kids appear to be motored around by parents. How can we change our cities and our culture to foster more independence for our young? 

Linda Poon: Putting Citizens at the Center of Urban Design→

CityLab:

“Creating a lively public space isn’t as easy as building it and waiting for the crowds to come. There’s a lot that city planners have to consider: How much space is available? What’s the target demographic? How can a public space be made energy efficient?

A group of researchers at MIT thinks that there’s an important piece of the puzzle that’s too often overlooked: the human experience. Studying how people interact with cars, buildings, and sidewalks within an urban space says a lot about its quality, says Elizabeth Christoforetti, an urban and architectural designer at MIT Media Lab.

With a $35,000 grant from the Knight Prototype Fund, she and her team are working on a project called Placelet, which will track how pedestrians move through a particular space. They’re developing a network of sensors that will track the scale and speed of pedestrians, as well as vehicles, over long periods of time. The sensors, which they are currently testing in downtown Boston, will also track the “sensory experience” by recording the noise level and air quality of that space.”

In the tradition of observations of William Whyte.

Higher Density Needs Mixed Use→

Bill Lindeke, writing for Streets.mn:

“I was surprised when I got to my buddy’s place because, though it was in the middle of nowhere, my friend’s house wasn’t a house per se. Rather, he’d bought an attached townhome that was part of a long row of similar complexes in a brand new greenfield development, complete with sidewalks and quasi-porches and a pleasant almost grid-like street network.

Looking out at the sidewalks, I turned and asked my friend, “So where’s do you walk to?”

He looked at me blankly. “Um. People walk their dogs?”

The useless sidewalks in my friend’s strange middle-of-nowhere quasi-urban neighborhood got me thinking, so I started looking around for places where you have relatively urban densities, but no urban diversity. There are lots of these places, and not just in the suburbs. It doesn’t make any sense, but there you have it. Let’s meet some of them!”

We must unlearn what we have learned with our failed suburban experiment.

Urban Walkability→

Nyla Hughes, writing for the Great Lakes Echo:

“Despite recent economic challenges, Detroit’s future as a walkable city is promising, according to a recent study by George Washington University.

Significant improvement is expected due to the investment in 40 office, retail, and residential structures by Quicken Loans, according to the study by Chris Leinberger and Patrick Lynch at the university’s school of business. Also, Detroit’s suburbs of Ann Arbor, Ferndale, Royal Oak, and Birmingham are making strides in walkable urbanism.”

Michigan Municipal League; Traverse City, Michigan: 

Foot Traffic Ahead: Ranking Walkable Urbanism in America’s Largest Metros

Quantify must your amenity be before cherish it you can.