The Next Urban Frontier: Laneways

UPDATE: If you’re in Seattle ….

NORD ALLEY PARTY

Pioneer Square First Thursday
September 1st, 2011
5:30 to 8:30pm
In the alley behind 314 1st Ave South
(between Jackson & Main AND Occidental & First Ave S)

Music by Parzival
Food & Beverage by the Alley Network Project

Sightline has just posted a comprehensive survey of laneway reclamation not only here in Cascadia but around the world, beginning in Seattle with the work of Todd Vogel in Nord Alley.

Once a stinking strip of menace that was friendlier to rats and crime than to hummus and dancing, Seattle’s Nord Alley is an urban place transformed. Cleared of dumpsters and filth, it now hosts art exhibits, blooming flowers, and a mobbed monthly party. Nord is the leading edge of a trend just catching on in Cascadia: the reclamation of downtown alleys as lively, even lovely, public realms.

After, at party time:

To Todd Vogel, alleys are a neglected opportunity in the urban landscape: “Alleys are a huge wasted asset, but it won’t require too much to reclaim them.” (More from Vogel and footage of the alley are here ). University of Washington students Mary Fialko and Jennifer Hampton agree. They studied downtown Seattle’s alleys and determined that laneways cover almost half as much space as all of the zone’s parks, squares, and existing pedestrian-oriented streets. In other words, reclaiming alleys could increase by almost half the pedestrian area of downtown Seattle.

And then on to Vancouver:

In Vancouver, BC, a non-profit called Livable Laneways has revamped an alley in the city’s Mount Pleasant neighborhood. … Working with community members and an arts group called Vancouver Design Nerds, and supported by the city’s livability initiative VIVA Vancouver, Livable Laneways is transforming an underused alley into a pedestrian link.

And on to San Francisco, and then Melbourne, to the work of Rob Adams and Jan Gehl (who will be doing work in Seattle).

Melbourne’s Rob Adams sums up the process: “To change cities will always be a slow process and cannot be achieved overnight through silver-bullet solutions of grand architecture. It is more about the slow incremental improvement of the most important piece of public space in the city—namely, our streets.”

The SFU City Program will be hosting lectures with Rob in Vancouver and Surrey during Walk 21. So in the meantime, you might want to check out this Streetsfilm video: