Brian Sharp

@SharpRoc

The ninth-annual Reshaping Rochester lecture series kicks off Tuesday evening with a speaker who argues that America’s battle with diabetes and obesity is “born of our landscape” and truly is an urban design crisis.

Jeff Speck — city planner, architectural designer and author of the 2012 book “Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time” — says suburban sprawl and car culture is not just poor planning but bad for the community economy and people’s health. He will offer a toolbox of sorts to enliven streets so people want to get out and bike or walk.

Ultimately, he says, cities are best served if, rather than trying to attract corporations and tech companies, the goal is to attract the people who companies will want to hire.

Reshaping Rochester is organized by the Rochester Regional Community Design Center, an independent nonprofit now in its 10th year that works with residents and professionals on issues of sustainable, quality community planning and design.

Speck will deliver what he calls his “‘Why Walkability?’ rant” at 7 p.m. Tuesday inside First Universalist Church of Rochester, 150 S. Clinton Ave. He hopes those who attend also come out for his two-hour free workshop Wednesday morning focused on good and bad examples in Rochester.

“I’m learning as we go,” he said of the Rochester landscape. “But the thing that puts you on the map in the planning conversation right now is the de-highway-fication of one-quarter of your (Inner) Loop. Everyone is talking about that.”

He thinks the city could go further, raising not just the southeast portion of the sunken roadway to an at-grade boulevard but the northeast stretch as well. But that is an expensive proposition. “The question to ask is, ‘What are the easy wins, and how can they be made to add up to something?’” he said.

The city has done some of that, using lane markings to delineate bike lanes and on-street parking. City Council this month will consider legislation authorizing the conversion of Clinton Avenue and St. Paul Street downtown from one-way to two-way traffic.

Speck served as director of design at the National Endowment for the Arts from 2003 through 2007, overseeing the Mayors’ Institute on City Design and creating the Governors’ Institute on Community Design. He touts the “skinny streets” plan and investment in bicycle trails and routes in Portland, Ore., where citizens drive 20 percent less than the average U.S. citizen. Or the growing bike culture in places like Minneapolis, Minn. It is easier to bring bike culture to cold cities, he said, “where you don’t need to shower” after your commute.

As downtown and the city’s neighborhoods see greater investment in the reuse, renovation and new construction directed at individual properties, strengthening the connections via streets, sidewalks and parks, is ever more important, said Joni Monroe, the design center’s executive director.

Speck, she said, “will talk about how that is done effectively.”

Other speakers in the series will be:

…Aaron Bartley, co-founder of People United for Sustainable Housing (PUSH Buffalo), on Feb. 25.

…Former Boston Mayor Thomas Menino on March 19.

…Mindy Thompson Fullilove, professor of clinical psychiatry and clinical sociomedical sciences at Columbia University, who studies the relationship between the built environment and mental health, on April 30.

…Thomas Herrera-Mishler, CEO and president, Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy, on May 20.

BDSHARP@DemocratandChronicle.com

Twitter.com/sharproc

If you go

What: “Walkable City” lecture by Jeff Speck, principal of Speck and Associates LLC, city planner, author and architectural designer.

When and where: 7-9 p.m., First Universalist Church of Rochester, 150 S. Clinton Ave.

Tickets: $15 per person, free to students with valid ID ($10 for seniors — pre-registration required). Buy online at rrcdc.org or at the door.

After the lecture, Speck will sign his book, "Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time."

For more information call (585) 271-0520