Simplicity in urban planning

Thanks to the Permission to Suck blog I came across a talk Rhode Island School of Design president John Maeda gave at TED on the subject of simplicity.  (Maeda literally wrote the book on simplicity.)



I really started to appreciate simplicity when I was a student in Professor John Sullivan's fluid mechanics course at Purdue University.  Our first exam did not go well; Professor Sullivan said our class achieved one of the lowest test score averages in his career up to that point.  One particular test problem had most of us scribbling furiously for a page or more; when Professor Sullivan demonstrated the solution, it only required a simple, elegant, three lines.  It was a thing of beauty.  I don't always succeed, but the power of simplicity is a lesson I've tried to return to throughout my life.

Simplicity can be a valuable tool in urban design and city planning.  In his excellent book Green Metropolis, David Owen wrote, "Walking in much of Manhattan...is like walking on a map."  The average New Yorker lives nine months longer than the average American; there are several reasons for this, but one reason is the fact that they walk more.  The city is a walker's dream: plenty of landmarks, sprawling sidewalks, and a beautiful grid street layout.  The city is easy to navigate because of the grid.  Even if you get lost on foot, you'll rarely go more than a block out of your way.

I've lived in St. Petersburg, Florida, since 2004.  We do not come close to New York in terms of walkability.  But we have a street grid system that makes St. Petersburg a breeze to navigate.  Sequentially numbered avenues run east-west and sequentially numbered streets run north-south.  So if I'm looking for 5100 3rd Avenue North, I know I need to go to 51st Street and 3rd Avenue North.  If, from there, I need to go to 71st Street and 38th Avenue North, then I need to travel 35 blocks north and 20 blocks west to reach my destination.  This is perfect for the directionally challenged like myself.

(St. Petersburg, Florida)

I'll be moving to nearby Tampa soon enough.  Not quite as easy to navigate.  Yes, most streets are laid out according to an approximate grid.  But Tampa covers a much wider area than St. Petersburg (more on that in future posts) and, except for a few areas, the convenient numbering system is gone.  I don't know Dale Mabry Road from Hillsborough Avenue from Columbus Drive.  I'm looking forward to being in a new city and learning my way around.  It will just take longer than in St. Petersburg.  I'm also wondering if this has an impact on emergency services.  The street numbering system in St. Petersburg doesn't require much thought (or GPS help) once you're used to it.  It seems finding an address in Tampa, and most cities for that matter, will take precious extra time, even if only a few moments.

(Tampa, Florida)