Oklahoma City and the New Urbanism

[Just the facts]

I recently started reading The Charter of the New Urbanism and it is full of interesting ideas that could be applied in OKC. The book is available for free from the link below.

http://www.cnu.org/sites/files/charter_book.pdf

In Chapter 5 I came across a section about how to use open space to define the edges of neighborhoods. In modern OKC streets and plat maps define the boundaries between neighborhoods but it would be better to use natural features to not only define the boundaries, but to also connect neighborhoods.

Neighborhood edges should meld seamlessly,
except where natural barriers, large green spaces,
freeways, or other boundaries provide a prominent
edge. It’s important to design with the features of
the land to define urban boundaries and establish
a sense of identity. A ring of green around every
neighborhood isn’t necessary.

With this in mind I got thinking how this could be applied in OKC. I think rehabilitating Lightning Creek through South OKC would be a good place to reintroduce the concept of urban nature back into OKC.

Over the years Lightning Creek has been turned into OKC's version of the LA River. It is currently a glorified concrete drainage ditch that is off-limits to anyone except maintenance workers. The chain-link fence makes sure of that. It doesn't have to be this way.

If the creek was restored to its natural state with trees, meanders in the creek bed, or even a series of low water dams the creek could be turned into a very nice 5 mile long park while keeping the flood control protections in place. Homes near the creek would need to be removed and replaced with bike paths, trees, and water features.

I would much rather live next to a park than what is there now.

Here is an urban creek in downtown Greenville, SC

[BG918]

Deep Fork River would be a better place to start IMO. It would be great to have a jogging/bike path through the trees along the creek.

[Just the facts]

Deep Fork River would be a better place to start IMO. It would be great to have a jogging/bike path through the trees along the creek.

That works also. I would like to see the city start restoring all the creeks to original condition (while keeping flood control measures in place). Is Deep Fork the name of the creek that flows behind Penn Sq Mall and out past Remington Park?

[JayhawkTransplant]

Yup, and by the Deep Fork Grill!

Cool thread. I agree with restoring with our channelized streams, adding recreational uses around them.

[krisb]

New Urbanism has historically defined urban and rural landscapes in distinct categories. I'm not sure creating expansive, overflowing creeks through neighborhoods is what the New Urbanists would recommend. They are more about dense, human-scaled architecture with a sense of enclosure. So called "green space" in the urban setting tends to negate those fundamentals. New Urbanism = a love for humanity, Green Urbanism = a love for nature

[Just the facts]

krisb - admittingly, I am new to the New Urbanism movement although it turns out that views I have held most of my adult life fit nicely within the confines of New Urbanism so I guess I found where I should have been all along. Now as for your comment:

New Urbanism is not just about block design and individual buildings. It is a much larger tent. Here is a quote from the book I linked to above. It is on page 10.

This book sets out 27 basic principles of
urbanism that should guide public policy, development
practice, urban planning, and design. They
begin at the scale of the metropolitan region, and of
whole cities and towns. These are followed
by design principles for neighborhoods, districts,
and corridors as the basic elements of cities and
towns, and then city-design principles for blocks,
streets, and individual buildings. Each principle is
explained and illustrated in detail.

Isolated islands of green space in a sea of concrete is not what new urbanism has in mind. We learned that lesson here in Florida about 15 years ago. In the name of protecting wildlife every subdivision was required to have a certain percentage of green space preserved. We ended up with urban sprawl and green pockets that weren't connected to each other. That didn't help animals because they couldn't get from one green dot to the next with out being killed by a car. Throw in a bunch of fences in every backyard and tutles couldn't get from a dry retention pond to another pond with water. The State of Florida decided to change that and instead of subdivisions providing the green space the developers purchased large areas of existing green space and put it into preservation and open space. Now instead of 100 - 1 acre "parks" we have multiple 100 acre parks. It worked out much better for everyone - even the animals.

[Just the facts]

I thought it might be worth building a library of New Urbanism documents and links for those that are interested in reading such things. This primer has some really good ideas with lots of design information.

PEDESTRIAN AND TRANSIT-FRIENDLY DESIGN:
A Primer for Smart Growth

http://www.epa.gov/smartgrowth/pdf/ptfd_primer.pdf

[NoOkie]

I don't care what people want to call it, I'd love some naturalized creeks with trails and parks around them. Plus, a MUP near Deep Fork would make for a handy east-west route for riding a bike. Right now there aren't great solutions in that area.

[Just the facts]

I don't care what people want to call it, I'd love some naturalized creeks with trails and parks around them. Plus, a MUP near Deep Fork would make for a handy east-west route for riding a bike. Right now there aren't great solutions in that area.

Long narrow ribbons of green space would be great for OKC. Using the existing creek network would be a great place to start. The greenways serve as neighborhood boundaries and not only provide neighborhood based recreational opportunities but also allow for non-motorized transit corridors that traverse the entire city.

[soonerguru]

Why have so many of our creeks and waterways been paved with concrete? Overambitious engineers? Is this Paul Brum's legacy? I know our city has had a problem with trees for decades but it must also secretly despise natural waterways.

[Snowman]

Why have so many of our creeks and waterways been paved with concrete? Overambitious engineers? Is this Paul Brum's legacy? I know our city has had a problem with trees for decades but it must also secretly despise natural waterways.

It is more of an national thing and the problems you get from solutions to earlier problems may take years to decades to identify (even then it still may be hard to get the political will to do it better), stemming from urban/suburban development almost always causes more runoff than the existing streams could handle or turns out the 20/50/100 year floodplains affect so many people that it can not be ignored. So most work has been about increasing volume either in places with existing flooding issues or following codes to handle what the area would be expected to have after development occurs. The choices tended to get cut down to a few standards based on what is the cheapest way of handling the volume needed. Concrete and stone rip rap have been favored for larger channels due to preserving flow speed, reducing soil erosion and low annual maintenance. The Army Corps of Engineers should take the blame for largest waterways.

[Just the facts]

I found a pretty cool flash animation with mouse-over feature that highlights components of new urbanism. It is done by National Geographic.

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/fe...h-feature.html