Urban environments form the heart of our modern world. More and more people wish to move from the countryside to the city, and it’s easy to see why. Advances in technology have liberated the masses from working the land for food, yet this created a vacuum that cities could fill: jobs. Work dried up from the countryside, and more and more production methods moved to become en masse in the city. Only dense urban environments could provide the workforce to staff a large, dense factories, offices, development studios and other high production places of work. And this trend continues today, as the rural poor seek out a middle class life, literally millions of people will be cramming into urban environments over the coming years. It is essential that we get this right. Here are three policies that cities can begin to implement now to help their expansion be sustainable and not gridlock them out with miles of cars.

Smaller block sizes

If you have a city of 600 foot blocks, you have a car based city. This is a city built for cars and not people. This seems crazy at first thought. Why on earth would we build cities for cars and not the people that actually live in them? You’d be surprised just how many urban locations are made for the car and not the person. With 600 foot block sizes, or larger in some areas, you have a city that nobody walks. You have a city that will be dominated by car parks, wide roads and interchanges, traffic. There will be little land left for building on, so when building does actually happen it becomes sterile high rise buildings instead of squatter, more vibrant buildings. In some cities, land area dedicated to cars can be as high as 60%. Terrible news for everyone. Except car companies.

Decreasing block sizes to 200 feet means you have a walkable city. Roads can be two lanes at most, giving more space for pavement, bicycle lanes, bus lanes and trees, all which contribute to the overall quality of the city. Land usage decreases, decreasing the price of land as supply sky-rockets. This is a key step to an affordable city. More importantly, it encourages walking with all the extra street space and the decreased distance down a block. And when people do need to travel longer distances, they cycle behind a safe wall of trees separating them from motor traffic or take the speedy buses down private lanes. By just one simple change we have a cheap, clean and safe city. Businesses will also be encouraged to spill out onto the street (and zoning should be more than happy for this to happen) to increase the vibrancy of the streets. Cafes, restaurants and shops just outside can increase the spontaneous, emergent interactions that are being lost from modern cities as everyone walls themselves into a metal boxes. These streets are fertile streets, packed with potential ideas ready to be plucked by any passing citizen. This is the birthplace of innovation.

More Green Spaces

There is something magical about a green space. They are free from cars providing a good place of safety for dog walkers, the elderly and children. They provide a relaxed environment to walk through, jog in, or enjoy some social time. The quality this provides to the city is immense, in terms of appearance and in terms of helping to keep the air clean.

We can introduce green spaces in a variety of ways, some of them innovative and compressed. Of course, the classic public park is the most famous and iconic way, and this does provide the best space for people to recreate in, but sometimes this is not always possible, especially in a well established city that neglected green spacing for most of its development. Riverside walking space, with greenery is a great way to do this. The town where I grew up decided to prohibit access to the river with fencing, segregating the two sides of the town and eliminating a good source of relaxation to the townsfolk and a potential bike and walking highway that runs right through the town. Trees and terraces lining roads provide attractive streets and reduce the feeling of an overcrowded concrete jungle. This alone improves well being by giving us a psychological break from the overwhelming busyness we are always exposed to.

Cities should not underestimate the health and aesthetic benefits of green spaces, which can make up for the short term loss in land profitability in long term benefits in quality of life. A city with a high quality of life attracts many businesses that it otherwise wouldn’t, and encourage tourism. These sources of wealth combined with decreased healthcare costs makes them a worthwhile investment. For example, depending on who and how it is measured, China spends something like 2-10% of GDP on combating the negative health effects of polluted air. Imagine if they had taken a green space approach to cities from the start!

Mixed use zoning

Zoning laws often segregate out cities into districts of similar function. This sees the residents living far away from a city centre that provides the services that they require on a daily basis, forcing longer distance travel. Allowing for more mixed use land means residents will live very close to the services that they need to travel to, namely shops, workplaces, schools, libraries, sports facilities and other institutions. There is less need for travel by car (have you noticed a theme yet, dear reader?) and more ability for people to walk to where they need to go. You have a healthier population of walkers, and maybe a better educated population where short walks to the library become commonplace.

Mixed use zoning also eliminates the city centre or high street, meaning there is no one monopolised area. Instead, businesses that would have otherwise been off the beaten path can benefit from the more decentralised and spread out foot traffic. This gives the city a more balanced, homogenised economic structure and gives poorer communities especially a fighting chance.

With this more dispersed and universally denser foot traffic comes another surprising benefit. With few places free from passing eyes, crime will decrease. People will feel safer by always being in the company of other people, even if they are random strangers. Parents of young children will also enjoy the benefits of less cars on the street.

Mixed use zoning also allows for less single family housing and more multi family housing, single person housing, student housing and so on. This provides more flexibility to the housing market, ensuing that there are products at all prices ranges to suit all types of people and budgets. Not only does this give you a diverse city that has the capacity to attract innovators from all classes, but also provide an affordable and balanced city, that can deliver to even the poorest that live there without pushing them out out to the dredges of the outskirts.

Closing Thoughts

All of these policies have a few common themes: reduce car transit, increase walking, promote health, promote social interaction and increase affordability. These key qualities will keep cities flourishing for generations to come. If all city planners do is keep the fundamental principle to heart of designing cities for people and not the cars that they drive, we can’t go too far wrong.