Former director program.

I'm excited.

We are researchers

work with something together

for our research for back

here in the New York Times
article record here

on the television so
honored to have Ellen here and

talk about behind this book and

maybe even give us a highlight of
something else coming I'm not sure but

my and I'm very

well I've closely.

Thinks I'm delighted to be
here thank you all for coming.

Mostly because I have been as surprised
as anyone at just how fertile ground

the subject of retrofitting suburbia
has turned out to be June I set out to.

Right.
This what we thought was might be a sort

of wonky.

Book on a subject that we were
very very interested in but

really weren't sure quite
the extent of interest.

And I really just welcome as many
of us as possible to kind of.

Find ways to incorporate what
the changes that are happening

in suburbia into your own
research the possibilities

are just endless and I'd love to invite
more opera to I'd love to collaborate

more with other folks here in the college
and throughout the institute.

Basically what June and
I did in this book was find and

document case studies of
big box stores shopping

centers office parks garden apartment
complexes park and rides edge cities.

Assist residential subdivisions
that have been retrofitted

into more sustainable places one way or
another.

And we've identified three main strategies

at the sort of buy look of
looking at all of that they are.

Either really inhabited with
more community serving uses so

from whatever the before you know if the
same box days but something that's more of

a community serving use other than retail
being usually what's the prior use.

Or redeveloped.

It's redeveloped and urbanized So

going from a more auto dependent you
know box surrounded by parking lot into

something that is much more of a walkable
compact mixed use urban pattern.

And the third strategy is a little
has been a little bit surprising

how many cases there are but
it's really greening.

In that you know reconstruct.

The wetlands day lighting
the culvert streams who are turning

turning dead malls into parks and
parkland in theirs.

So I'm going to talk a little bit about
some of some of the case studies.

We've when we wrote the book
was during the boom.

We had about eighty projects that we
were looking at around the country.

We focused just on the U.S.
We've now expanded

the database to we've got over two
hundred that we're looking at where.

Sort of absorbing more and

more international examples although
we really haven't been rigorous about

really trying to seriously look
at international examples yet

but we're just finding them people
are sending sending us information.

So in our focus in all of this really
has been on the urban design strategies.

Of.

How you know how these underperforming
properties are being repaired and.

So but

in telling in looking at those urban
design strategies we've also been looking

a lot at you know how did each project
come to happen because it's not easy.

To do all this so that the how the policy
changes the demographic changes

the market changes you know looking and
understanding that larger picture and

the sort of narrative behind each
project is important and so.

You want to on the one
hand it's documented case

studies is what we've been doing.

But the other aspect of that and there's
plenty of seats here in the front still is

some of those of you in the back
want to make your way forward.

And just as importantly I think is that
we then have tried to position and

frame the each of these
individual projects.

As part of a larger story.

Of.
And how suburbanization in general

is really changing and in particular.

How once you start to look at all of these
individual projects you can begin to

imagine how we might begin
to retrofit entire metro

regions retrofit the system of sprawl
into something a lot more sustainable.

I would say that you know the the third
sort of component of our work then.

So it's case studies.

It's sort of that larger story and
then the third is

that we've been just has been invited to
do a significant number of lectures and

now running workshops helping communities
begin to collaborate coordinate various

agencies coming together and just makes it
mostly helping them see what's possible.

And really imagine their suburban
landscapes the next steps

that I'm particularly interested
in are to develop a much more

robust database of the projects I
really right now it's basically

a Word document on my laptop and I think
it could be a little more than that

and also really like to
develop much more significant.

Performance metrics right now.

June and I are have just been sort of
telling the story of these projects

mapping them looking at their
morphology looking at their.

Urban design strategies but
there's enormous potential to really

measure the before and
after performance metrics.

When you go from an auto dependent model
who are more walkable or more green model.

You know how are you actually influencing
the energy the environment the.

The social sustainability
the social diversity.

You know there's so many so
many are opportunities.

So part of a big part of my
motivation today really is.

The hope that some of you might be
interested in some of these kind of

performance questions and various
ways that we might leverage these so

all we show some of the case studies
I'll discuss some of the trends

that you know and I'll give a sort of
aspects of my kind of standard lecture but

I really would hope to raise some
future research questions and ask for

your reactions your suggestions
you know as we get into Q. and A.

So again there are still more seats
up in the front if anyone wants to

wants to come forward.

So here's just a little bit
of a you know set the context

of the slide just in
terms of retail space.

Here's more of a snapshot of
the problem that we have in the U.S.

The recession has simply accelerated
trends that were already in place.

We are so over retailed in this country
it's I can get into the stats but I won't.

But anyway.
You know a third roughly a third of our

shopping mall in closed regional
shopping malls are Dead movies rates.

Two thirds of them to
be seriously troubled.

Fifty thousand strip malls the newest
ones have a thirty four percent

vacancy rate those that were built in the
last four years on average about eleven

percent make that making them more and
more of them less and

less economically viable big box stores
over three hundred fifty thousand

of them three hundred million vacant
square feet and most recent estimates and

we have all of this occurring on
countless commercial strip corridors.

So we just have a curse and acres of
what developers like to refer to as

underperforming as fault and
I like to think of that as the name

of my indie rock band in a parallel
universe and it's one of these days.

Now the imperatives.

And I won't go into detail on the east.

You know that here but

you know why we people often say to
me you know retrofitting the suburbs.

We should be focusing on our downtown
redeveloping revitalizing our downtown.

Of course we should and
we have in approximately half of U.S.

metros we've actually seen significant
improvements but there are also

very specific reasons why we should be
focusing on retrofitting the suburbs and

so here are just a few climate change
urban dwellers have approximately one

third the carbon footprint of suburb and
that should be.

Yes urban dwellers have approx one third
the carbon footprint of suburb and

dwellers because of all the driving

detached buildings having more
surfaces to leak energy out of

all of that driving leading to
incredible dependence on foreign oil.

The suburbs also you know
we have extreme profit.

Everyone is recognizes the issues of
social segregation in the suburbs but

poverty is also since two thousand and
five more Americans in poverty live in

suburbs than in cities and so the
opportunities again to begin to retrofit

suburbia and to make more urban
places within existing suburbs.

Give us an opportunity to begin
to try to address some of

the issues of social equity.

Public health has been an interesting.

Issue with Suburbia a lot of research
from the Centers for Disease Control and

other places including research done
here at Georgia Tech have linked

the dramatic increases in obesity to
the sedentary lifestyles in suburbia and

all of that also having the consequences
of rising rates of diabetes

heart disease the impacts on children
not walking to school anymore.

All sorts of things are mapping
in ways that clearly

relate to our development patterns and
certainly affordability is

the big big issue for
generations suburbia has provided.

Countless households with

the you know access to the quote
unquote American dream.

But increasingly the savings of drive
till you qualify affordable housing

out at the edge are more than eaten up by
the increase in the rising transportation

costs and in particular here in
Atlanta where we're absolutely.

The drive to qualify model
does not work and all of for

all of the other issues now with
the mortgage crisis and add to that.

So but there are also several dynamics
that have been have been pushing

retrofitting forward and accelerating
it and which is why did you and

I were able to find all of these
examples the Brookings Institute

did a very instant interesting
study on that one fifth of the US

now live in what are often referred to
as the first suburbs or the first ring.

And for the with the Obama and
administration there are now some

new programs for the first time kind of
overcoming what has been seen as a policy

blind spot to begin to redirect growth
back into those existing areas.

Many of which have been in decline but
have the infrastructure in place so

that opportunity of retrofitting
to direct growth back to

communities that could use a boost.

Instead of out to the edges and we've now
got federal policies that are beginning to

to really improve that it's
also an interesting dynamic

that just simply has to do with
the fact that we've been sprawling for

so long that those first suburbs.

Even though their mindset is still we're
suburban downtown is that our back.

The fact that they've been leapfrog so

many times and
that's what took away their market share.

That's why they are their
values often have declined.

It also gave them a relatively
central position.

And it's that new relative Central.

Larger Metro which is now giving a lot
of suburbs the chance to if they choose.

B. go more urban and certainly in transit.

The extension of transit systems from
the center out into the suburbs as in D.C.

is is one that has been
an enormous driver.

We actually need to update
this map already there are.

D.C. is retrofitting like mad and
there's there's more and more of them.

Now but the biggest driver

really of retrofits has been the rather
surprising demographic shifts.

We all in this you know we all tend to
think of suburbia as family focused.

That's not who actually lives there.

That is simply carry over you know of the
imagery more than two thirds of suburban

households do not have children in them
anymore and the number we will soon be at

the point where three quarters of suburban
households do not have children in them.

What's happened is
basically the baby boomers

who are the babies that the suburbs were
initially post-war suburbs were built for

please come forward.

There's plenty of room
still in the front and

the baby boomers have aged with suburbia.

They've stayed they're still there.

They're now empty nesters their kids
now that there are still plenty of.

The boomers you know
the big demographic bubble.

They're still for
the most part in suburbia the.

Forty thirty and forty year olds Gen X.
They're having kids they're in suburbia.

But they're a small generation.

There aren't enough Gen Xers to fill
the existing single family homes

that the baby boomers will vacate.

We have a glut of single
family homes nationwide.

That will last.

Estimates are till about one
thousand twenty thirty five.

But coming up behind them.

The next biggest group
are the millennium is genuine.

I Gen Y..

When polled You know they
grew up in the suburbs.

But when polled as kind of idealistic
twenty two year olds where do they want to

live seventy seven percent say they
want to live in an urban core.

But the reality is suburban job growth

has outpaced urban growth
by a factor of about six.

Most of their jobs are likely
to be in the suburbs.

And so worse and already what we're
seeing is Gen Y. is predominantly working

in the suburbs but looking for
a more suburban lifestyle so but Gen Y.

is also not yet having kids there reached
the sort of prime child rearing years.

It's all of this demographers predict
that through two thousand and twenty five

seventy five to eighty five percent of new
households will not have children in them.

So really where the growth which if
we ever get back row heating and

building again the growth
in the market is really for

more urban lifestyles and more urban

housing types in suburban
locations closer to the jobs.

So what do you do if you've
got all this got some

underperforming properties you've got
dead malls and dead strip malls and

out of date office parks and
all of those kinds of things.

Well.
So it turns out lots of things.

Now the reason habitation strategies
they tend to focus more on sort

of social sustainability.

Jane Jacobs long ago wrote about
the need for a complete community to

have cheap space for the nonprofits the
low profits the mom and pop entrepreneurs.

You know you don't want to gentrify and

redevelop every single old building
underperforming building you want

to have some of them around to to enable
the local sort of mom and pops in.

Interesting things that
been some very interesting.

Re inhabitation projects.

Some of them are very modest I
mean this is simply a park and

ride in California that a developer
has the permissions to redevelop

into a mixed use more sort of a New
Urbanist community but not in this market.

So he's created a temporary market center
which literally is building on top of

the parking lots with retail an Airstream
trailer the shed does not actually break

the ground those posts are just
gravity sitting on top of it but

the part on top of the parking lot.

There's a and there are several examples
of this kind of just sort of temporary

Rian habitation of space but

it's still a seed of a new
kind of community town center.

Here in Atlanta.

This is on the was a super K.-Mart up in

Woodstock that has been
converted to a mega church.

We found loads of examples there's
actually an architecture firm in Missouri

that specializes in converting
dead Walmart's into churches.

You know it's not the most sustainable.

You know you're still getting a lot of
people driving to apply to to essentially

a parking lot in a big box but
you are still at least you're not.

Contributing to the waste stream.

You're not you know you're still reusing.

Some of that embodied energy.

One of the big trends in Rian habitation
is what developers often refer to as meds

and eds medical system medical
facilities and educational institutions

on this particular example
combines both this is a model in

that was a dying mall in Nashville
that the entire second floor

has now been taken over by the University
of Vanderbilt Medical Center and

we've seen there's entire malls
that have become medical centers.

There are many several malls that
have incorporated everything from.

Charter schools all Community High
School Community College all the way up.

So we're seeing a lot
of this sort of reuse.

But in particular the medical we're seeing
the growth in the medical industry but

also it's bringing the medical
facilities now closer to

the aging population that is out
there in the in in suburbia.

So the redevelopment strategies
tend to really though you know

if you if you're habitation kind of often
can help with social sustainability but

to get the environmental impacts
generally that you've really got to.

Completely transform
the infrastructure urbanized densify.

And so there and
there are loads of examples of this and

these are some of the case studies
that Gene and I really developed and

mapped a little more thoroughly.

This is one of the oldest examples
of Mashpee Commons up in Cape Cod

was a little strip center
family owned over twenty years

they just slowly built on
top of the parking lots and

built a little fragment of a New England
village and they now after long

struggles have permission to connect
that fragment to several more little.

Much more very compact
residential neighborhoods.

This is another example of building
on top of the parking lots.

But this time in an office park
outside of Washington D.C. and

Hyattsville was a the office park
was designed by Edward Darrelle

stone in the sixty's with
just surface parking lots and

when D.C. Metro Rail opened extended
the line and opened a new station.

Kitty corner from the site.

The owner said when those parking
that search the surface lots don't

make sense anymore that
lands much more valuable.

So we inserted a new main street
in between the existing bill.

Things and brought in a lot of
housing a cinema plex grocery.

Etc.

While the office park remained office
buildings remain perfectly functioning

office buildings that has now triggered.

The mall next door.

The owner is already thinking about
extending the street grid from the office

park there is already three
other properties of apartment

Garden Apartments have now already been
permitted to go up to thirty story.

You know high rise apartments.

So we're seeing you know again that
the trigger of transit coming in

triggering one project took to
retrofit another one to add on

to that another one another
one very kind of interesting.

You know shifts occurring
the architecture is not so great but

the urban isn't as it is I
think improving drastically.

This is another one of.

The redevelopment projects.

I think they've done
a really very particularly

good job on this one Bill Maher
is outside of Denver.

In Lakewood Colorado it was a very
large regional shopping mall.

And when it died.

The town it essentially defaulted to
the town it was the town's cash cow it was

their default downtown they
had their proms at the mall.

And they just wanted a developer
to fix their mall but

nobody developers we have not
built any new enclosed opened

a new enclosed mall in this country
since two thousand and six that was from

a peak of building about twenty opening
about twenty year in the late ninety's.

So the pattern has shifted what we've
been building is more open air malls and

again a lot of that has to do with
the retailers recognizing the changing

demographics in suburbia malls are very.

And to teenagers and the fate of the food
court is very sort of family focused.

Whereas open air retail tends to be much
more oriented to the young professionals

and the empty nesters with restaurants
with actually with tablecloths and

it's and in that I think there's a lot
of things that are going on with

the role of air conditioning and there's
a of the things one can talk about it.

So Bill Maher

has been redeveloped it's about three
quarters of the way through now.

It went from one hundred acre superblock
site just a big mall surrounded

by parking a couple about buildings and
to now twenty two

blocks of Walkable compact
mixed use urbanism it's not

high rise it's fairly you know it
goes up to four stories Max but

it's all green construction
huge photovoltaic.

And really I think great connectivity
with the Jason neighborhoods and

it's really has created the downtown
that Lakewood never had.

But what's happening with
the dead malls is and Denver now

partially because of the success of
Bellmawr all go back eight of the thirteen

regional malls in the Denver area have or
have announced plans to retrofit.

So it's Denver has really figured
out how the public sector and

private sector work together
to make these deals happen.

And not a single house.

You know one's house was destroyed

in making this this was just you know
it was retail site so no one has

been displaced all of the existing single
family home neighborhoods are still there.

So on the one hand you know
politically this is fairly easy.

It's simply providing more choices for

that part of the demographic that is
looking for a more urban lifestyle.

But what you end up with if if that's the
only way you redevelop it in many respects

it's a great way to start but you're just
just getting pockets of walkability So

the question is how do you actually
begin to connect up the dots and

to do that you've got to start
retrofitting the corridors themselves.

So there's also a lot enormous
amount of work on corridors.

This is one in Columbia Pike in
Northern Virginia that is actually

doing very well even in this economy.

It's a five mile strip with four
nose at major intersections that

are using Form based code to
very tightly script to how

long of a corridor they're going
from one story up to eleven.

But then tapering down to two or

three as they meet the edge of
the existing neighborhoods.

They're using the revenue from
the additional density to then support

a street car along the corridor and
they're pretty deliberately

not rezoning the entire corridor or
because they want to preserve the existing

affordable apartment complexes
that are in between the it's.

And so this has been a very interesting
one to watch in Vancouver Vancouver is so

often leading I think in
a lot of urban design issues.

Vancouver is doing sort of
similar things to cater to.

Columbia Pike but is also now.

Employing a district energy system
as they convert from single use

to multi multi use and as they.

So they have already.

They built a subway for for the Olympics
along what had been a commercial strip.

They've got some very interesting I
think very handsome mixed use buildings.

It's hard to see in this light but that's
a Home Depot with affordable housing on

top and boutique retail lining it several
other kinds of interesting examples but

again that the district energy system
is such that there's code now requires

large buildings along the along
the corridor have to build an over kapan.

City of their mechanical systems.

Whereas the smaller buildings simply
hat they don't they don't have to

build any system and they can connect.

But they have to provide the connection so

that you get and then the balancing of
the peak loads of The Office uses during

the day balancing out with the peak loads
of the residential uses that night and

start to get a lot of synergies
in the energy production uses but

all of that densification
won't work everywhere.

Retrofitting redevelopment only works
where you've got a market for it and

often regreasing makes more sense.

And also because we built a lot of suburbs
where we really shouldn't have we.

It was fairly common
to drain the wetlands.

You know to build commercial
development before the Clean Water Act.

And so
that now as these properties are aging and

decaying it gives us
an opportunity to regroup.

If we never should have built
there in the first place.

So there's a lot of interesting strategy
there's a lot of farming that people

are doing a lot of interest now on carbon
sequestration how to actually you know

again take these heat sinks of
parking lots and really Green them and

look at their large their
environmental impacts and performance.

This is an example of a strip
shopping center outside of

St Paul on Minneapolis that had
been built on top of a wetlands

they'd put the culvert ID But
as you can see here.

You know the culvert had collapsed in the
parking lot was parking strip mall died.

So they actually did reconstruct
the wetlands built this beautiful lake.

Well and
in the process created lakefront property.

So in it and managed to attract
the first new private investment

in over forty years to a very
low income neighborhood.

So it's interesting how
sometimes the re greening

starts with this was on
a major migratory bird route.

You know what the intentions.

Were really simply
environmental reclamation but

they actually also got sort
of got some new housing.

This is another example of re Greening and
kind of an interesting example is this one

combines all three strategies
Northgate Mall in North Seattle.

An older mall there an old sort
of historic mall at this point

still doing very well
they wanted to expand.

But environmentalists were still mad at
them from the sixty's when the mall had

Culver did a major creek under a part of
its enormous parking lot so they may have

struck a deal that in order to be allowed
to expand the mall was going to have to

give up an entire quadrant of its
the lower half really of its parking lot.

So this half has become
a transit center and

this half is now the daily
Creek in what is.

Now actually the a water control channel
that cleans the runoff for over six

hundred acres has senior housing built
in the foreground and mixed use housing.

On sort of the far corner there with
this park in the middle and it's.

Been very interesting and

then also a Goodyear tire store
has been added as a library.

So you know there's just the whole series
we're seeing malls now sort of become

better neighbors more of
a community anchor and

watching some a lot of
these sort of changes that.

Here's now the creek.

Has become an amenity and
this is certainly part of in general we're

seeing you know the recognition that
parks increase property values.

So there's a lot of examples now of dead
malls dead properties that are being

torn down turned into parks in the hopes
that that will increase property values

over time and then eventually you
can build up around their edges and

there's lots of strategies.

Lots of examples of this kind.

If they.

But so but we end up.

OK so there's tons of examples we could
look at this is one of these places

really like this is a photo
of a protest happening on

the Astroturf town green at downtown
Silver Spring a retrofit in Maryland.

And you know as an urbanist
I really appreciate that.

The These redevelopments
including this one.

You know hey at least it has a public
space in an area that didn't have any

public space before then it has
a place where protest can happen.

And I appreciate that they've got put
in place a walkable infrastructure but

the surfaces the designs you know when you

get down to an Astro Turf town green
when you see a lot of the building.

It's very cheap.

They're sort of suburban qualities of
construction which tend to be very cheap

but they're not they don't
feel real they aren't and

they aren't you know obviously raises
some challenges for us as we go ahead.

These are very high bridge
places they are generally public

spaces in quotes because they're actually
under private management and ownership.

If urban street scapes but
still have suburban parking ratios

urban qualities but at suburban costs
again that sort of issue of the quality

of the architecture local place making but
with national retail design and

funding populations that are more
diverse than typical suburbs but

less diverse than typical cities and.

They are examples of instant Urban is on.

And I think almost all of us you know when
we think of the great places we would.

I love you know incremental Urban
a place in urban ism places

that have evolved over time where you see
all of the different the imprints of.

You know different generations
you feel you belong to something.

Much larger than just that sort of instant
gratification of the current moment.

But that works great if your
infrastructure is already a basically

a sustainable infrastructure pattern you
can just modify one building at a time and

this continue to have this great dynamic
system June and I argue that in suburbia.

You know incremental can work.

Certainly zoning rezoning and

just allowing things to
sort of change over time.

There are incremental strategies
that work to some extent but

to truly make suburbia more sustainable.

You need to change the infrastructure and
get it out.

Walkable pattern of blocks and
lots and streets and

to do that means you've got
to redevelop in big chunks.

So we as architects and planners and
designers have to come up with.

Better.

We have to figure out how to do a better
job of designing instant urbanism.

So the next challenge is as we go ahead.

I think are with retrofits
I think are to to sort

of figure out you know how to how do we
improve the architectural quality in these

places how do we design instant urban
isn't even if it's only temporary.

That's what I'm seeing some of the best
design is the temporary ones and

we also have some challenges to
try to figure out how to in live

in public space by means other
than retail for the most part.

We've been relying on retail to
make our urban spaces lively

to make it and our suburban spaces lively
it's the only place of life liveliness.

Retail is not.

Retail is dying more than it is thriving.

We've got a we've got to and it's an
opportunity for us to really get back to

what is the point of public space and
I don't think it's only about retail.

We also need to really target retrofitting
strategies at the Metropolitan.

Scale so far most of the projects
happened because the stars aligned and

someone was able to work something out but

now I think we got the opportunity to do
great field audits of the larger area

of regions really find out where
are all of the underperforming

properties where are all the surface
parking lots that are near transit.

And then begin to target.

Where should we be regretting because
we never had a regional scale.

You know to really look at the big step
where should we be retraining because we

never should have built there in the first
place where should we be reading habit

because we want to encourage
some of those non-profits and

we've got lower income populations
where should we be redeveloping

because you've got the infrastructure and
the jobs and thanks.

And then.

We've also we're seeing I'm seeing
a remarkable shift of again the first

generation of retrofits we're very
much developer led since the crash.

All of the momentum now has
moved to the public sector and

we're seeing a lot of really really
creative ways that the public sector is

coming up with incentivizing
retrofitting so many very quickly

sort of show you know I do think there are
some examples of interesting architecture.

There are some interesting again
hypothetical proposals of rethinking at

the regional scale to build a better bird
design competition for a long island kind

of saying you know let's only belittled
at the railroad station stops and

then completely and
really farm on all the areas in between.

And there are maybe even real
projects going ahead and

a very large scale especially
around Washington.

Tysons Corner seven hundred
acres being retrofitted

by the introduction of transit.

And then but

you know I think the recession that was
it's exacerbating the gap between rich and

poor Washington is giving us examples of
sort of where the richer places are going

to be going with retrofitting but we need
to also figure out what we're going to do.

When with less means and

there's a whole sort of interesting
movement of tactical urbanism

which is sort of do it yourself really
cheap temporary ways to inhabit space.

Whether it's just in New in New York City
you know painting green traffic

islands to turn them into new parks or
one of my favorite dumpster pools.

And and then there's yet
on the eve of these new public instead of

finding public lands this is a great
example in Washington again.

Hope you can see but taking an
intersection with very wide turning radio

I making it a ninety degree intersection
so that it's more walkable and

then giving developers the traffic what
Iowans if they will build in a pedestrian

friendly higher density way because manner
because it's right next to transit and

that's part of what there's a new
new book The Manual designing

walkable urban thoroughfares that Congress
for the New Urbanism and the Institute for

transportation engineers took seven
years to develop that is now recommended

practice we have new tools that are
recommended practices from the engineers

on how to actually that we want more
walkable you know how to do it that this

is the right thing to do first time in
fifty years there are there are new tools

coming out there and I've sort of talked
about some of the Greyfield audits this is

not really a a great field audit but
it starts to get I thought for Atlanta.

This just shows the four
million square feet

of vacant retail in the Atlanta
region as of two thousand and nine.

I don't know what it is today.

What it looks like today but

all of those are potential
redevelop you know retrofit sites.

Another interesting new tolls the housing
plus transportation affordability index.

You can go on to this site and

look at any metro area the colors are so
dull here but.

This you can query it and zoom in.

But look.

Looks at actual you know the cost
of housing but also the cost of

transportation and so here's Atlanta two
thousand to two thousand and eight we see

the cost is going up at Lanton now half
of households are spending thirty two

percent of income on transportation and
twenty nine percent on housing.

We are spending more you know
that it's in nobody does the math

here from the same website you can
query average block size and see how it

correlates with C O two perhaps hold
from household from Los are to use a lot

of these very interesting tools that can I
think help us try to figure some of that.

Also some really interesting new research
looking at property say a property

tax on a per acre basis and
beginning to compare suburbs

most suburban municipalities believe
they live or die by having a mall or

a Wal-Mart to generate sales tax but
in fact property to sales tax.

Most of it goes to the state sales
property tax stays in the municipality and

there you begin to see the advantages
of mixed use are rather enormous and

become and then the infrastructure
paybacks enormous advantages.

Mike.

Students in both my seminar and my studio
have also been trying to sort of develop

some new tools for looking at and
studying some of these issues.

This is one that our Montel came up
with which was just a simple way

to look at how retrofit a bowl is a site.

So here comparing three
malls in the day in Atlanta.

According to using some work
from Brenda case here of

how she looks at different campus
different sort of suburban tissues and

their relative How subject
they are to change or not.

And then being able to sort of compare
it if you were a regional agency and

wanted to target one of these malls for
redevelop.

Which one will you end up ultimately
having more impact on the rest of

the neighborhood.

How much how likely are areas next to it
a likely to flip as a lot of interesting

new state policies and what goes through
these new technologies these are so fun.

The she is human powered inverted
bicycle to monorail tubes

then these guys want to million bucks from
Google to take the idea from the theme

park to the office park and
see that as a as a new way to

try to interconnect some of our suburban
stuff in China they're building

the straddle bus the two story
bus that rides above traffic.

So it's like B.R.T. but
you don't give up the dedicated lane and

then in Australia industrial
design grad student has

figured out how to grow
bamboo into a bicycle.

Very cool.

I actually saw the the real bike.

So you know.

There's so many interesting possible ways
to I think sort of work on these things.

This is my last slide.

You know just sum up some hint of
some of the possible directions for

performance metrics.

There are so many different things.

You know that I think one could
begin to measure that's where

I don't have the expertise and would love
to collaborate with other folks on sort of

you know how do we begin to come up
with some more measures and ways to

try to sort of advance some of this works
up I'm going to close it right there.

And thank you.

There.

Several of them.

One is that in most cases they're illegal.

So you know changing the zoning.

Number one you know all of the almost all
of these projects require a change in

zoning you often have a lot of
fair amount of there's a need for

certain amount of education and resistance
most suburban communities resist

change and are fearful of of change and.

So even recognizing you know that if they
if the model if some if a property has

really died then it's much easier
to change if it than if it's dying.

But and financing right now there are so
many regulatory hurdles

the Currently the whole secondary
mortgage market Fannie Mae Freddie Mac.

have a limit on a cap of twenty percent on
mixed use we need to eliminate that cap

to make it easier to do the underwriting
there is talk about trying to get

mortgage underwriting now to actually
include network location the fish and

sea as a measure and there's it's
there's so many there's a lot of

stuff you can get into Also you know it
at various levels that you can get into.

There's also a lot of steps
that one can take on this and

the biggest things right now is
certainly the recession in the market.

It's hard to get anything financed.

So that's where some of this
temporary instant stuff is actually

I think becomes really interesting
because that's those are actually

quite successful ways to
at least start something.

Has

been one of the first ones
to retrofit me before.

For nine hundred sixty six.

You allies standards on parking was for
retail was ten parking spaces per

thousand square feet of retail they
changed it then to five cut it in half and

Nowadays if you bring transit you
can get it down to two or three.

So a lot.

What a lot of developers in terms of
looking for that underperforming asphalt

as they were looking for those older malls
pretty Sixty-Six that had an excess of

parking even by today's codes which allows
you to start to build the mixed use on top

of the parking lot before without doing
anything you sort of get that for

free if that's successful then your next
phase you build the parking deck and

then then you then you start don't
need the parking lots as much so

there's a series of strategies but
that's been probably the most

common architecturally

Yes I think so.

I think

probably more from

I think that's what exactly is coming in.

Yes absolutely.

In Bellmawr absolute There's museums
there's post office libraries Absolutely.

In all of in all of these.

The didn't get into the detail
it's certainly cover.

We cover a lot of that now
I think that it's what I

do you know architectural
the public life is

precisely what I actually find extremely
heartening in these projects and

whether it's a mall that's become
an art center which is in St Louis.

There's one of.

One of those it's exactly that increase
that increase in the public life and

the increase in that whether it's or
whether in some cases it's just cafe

society or you know what that is that has
come in but it's the opportunities for.

People to actually have a much
more social life in suburbia is

exactly what you find in these one of the
metrics that I've actually been talking

with people about measuring in terms
of sort of the health and well being is

that it is you know how can we measure
the social capital and there's certainly

already several studies that are still
that are you know they're still crude but

there are finding enormous increases
in exactly that and it is the I mean

when I was a university coming in on top
of them all that extrusion of them all.

I mean I didn't get into the details
on this you know the Vanderbilt

not the Vanderbilt one the last the the
one that I showed of the architecture and.

The.

Where for that I did the one.

There's a mall where they built
a new university on top by extruding

the atrium of the mall up five stories and
and actually made a really

also attractive space one of the most
one of the few particularly attractive

space when I say I think I don't think
the architecture is that successful in

literally talking about the aesthetics and
the design which is sad because

I mean it again It's suburbia in general
in terms of the public realm has been so

bereft of that kinds of those
kinds of qualities so we're

seeing I think these retrofits in general
tried to introduce public space but

without adequate budgets adequate
thin building materials you know

they're still there certainly still not
where one would hope that they would be.

But it varies.

I think it really varies I think
Del Mar is actually one of

the best built it's also probably
one of the least affordable.

I wouldn't call it fragile at all.

Actually I think it really
varies which once you go.

Which ones you're going to a lot of
the D.C. ones are also pretty interesting.

And you get sort of funky mixes that

in some cases it's actually out of
the weirdness of the juxtapositions

where you're getting incredible energy
out of new immigrants coming in.

It's a very very dynamic and fairy lively
places the new eatery the university

the infill of the office park and
the architecture I think is very suburban

I don't like the style of the archetype of
the bill the quality of the buildings but

it's now become it has more eateries
than anywhere else in the whole county.

And it's become this extremely
you know a lively place.

It's providing something that count
that entire county has never had

to go

through and

would be one of

the great

question why is only

one life.

I'd say it's already not suburbia.

I mean it's never been pretty.

Where retrofitting the image.

I mean that is really what it is because
not somebody has always been more diverse

than the stereotype.

It's.

And there's that we have a halt in
intro chapter where we we really try to

certainly recognize some of that but
I think a lot of it is getting trying.

To get now the image especially
in the head of designers and

planners to more correspond to this
incur much more dynamic reality.

Because the zoning codes in place
would still have you believe

that we're back in the one nine hundred
forty S. in for most of these communities.

When the reality is so
much more diverse than that.

John.

And.

I think what you know what I what
one thing that I my response is.

Retrofitting I don't.

It isn't only the redevelopment.

That's the only strategy the re
inhabitation the regrinding

are also part of it.

So that's part of again why I wouldn't
just want to call it densify and

suburbia that's one aspect but that is
not going to work for a lot of places.

So it's trying to I think
have a broader tool kit and

recognize that there are different
strategies that apply more are more

appropriate in different
places that it's helpful to.

Well.

I think a lot of it has to do is
simply the my I mean initially.

My June and I were like the terminology
of retrofitting because it did precisely

because it didn't attack suburbanization
as inherently you know wrong about it.

It implies that you know OK we need
to retrofit implies improvement but

not radically you know complete overhaul.

I don't think it's realistic to imagine
that we're going to see a complete

overhaul.

And I do think there are multiple
strategies within that there are certainly

suburbs many suburbs that are going to
thrive and retain value for a long time.

Much much beloved So I don't I'm not sure
if that's really answering your question.

You know in retrospect it's hard to to
say why did we pick that but that's.

Right.

Like him it's because I'm not
I don't think there's one I'd.

I'm not convinced that there
is one preferred answer there.

So I'm really I'm trying to
document what's going on.

I see some places that
are doing the corridors and

I think I'd love to do more
performance analysis of them.

How is that model working as opposed
to the places that are doing them or

nodal So at this point and I'm sort of you
know I think observing that those these

are all happening and different
places are trying different different

strategies El Paso is probably the most
radical right now on the corridors.

But you know.

So it's precisely because I think right
now I'm documenting what's happening.

And I'm certainly am advocating change but

I don't I want to do more research
to figure out which of these

are that is a better model and
are there is it possible to

say that that one of them is universally
going to be the better model I doubt it.

I think you've got you've got to
understand the different conditions where

which ones and I'd love to be
able to go to communities and

say given your a range you know your
regional conditions you guys really ought

to go nodal or you guys really ought to
go linear but I don't I'm not there yet.

I wished I would love to work with you to
figure out on you know how do we really

assess assess that.

Well.

It's actually I know of at least
one case the Mashpee Commons was

the very first of
the redevelopment ones I show

Mashpee Commons the owners I know are
really annoyed because they can't there.

They don't meet the prerequisite for the
lead indeed precisely because lead in to

the first requirement is you
have to be a smart site.

And if you're trying to retrofit
a dumb site to become more smart.

It actually wipes out quite
a few of these projects.

So actually leave it leave that is one
of the inadequacies of of using lead but

there certainly are other other ways.

So yeah I think I lead as a would be
a great is a great place to start but

I do think there's a lot more measures
that one can get into than just one.

Where you can.

Absolutely.

Then.

Yeah.

The other is also to get into more of the
social measures which lead really hasn't

thought and I've had some students last
semester one of the students looked at

sort of social justice and equity issues
and I actually was surprised to find that

in fact a greater diversification
certainly ethnically and in.

Come wise as a result then it within
a half mile radius kind of thing you know.

You're right.

I'm so lucky.

I agree.

Or private

my Meanwhile the banks have it but
they're not lending anything so you know.

Yeah.

Sure

I think possibly you
know because certainly.

One of the interesting research questions
that we've also looked at is you know at

what point does what is if you're
tearing down an existing structure and

you're losing that embodied energy.

You know what.

How much more do you have to rebuild and
what how much more sufficient systems to

really get the paybacks where where
do you draw those lines and it and

I'd love to have you know I think we
have some sense of that but not good.

Really good sort of the life
cycle analysis stuff is

on some of these older properties
I mean and where and when.

How do we design point.

New properties is
the other sort of question.

So that they aren't I've been
approached by mall owners you know so

tell us how to design models
that can live a longer life.

So you know I think there's a whole
lot of great questions embedded in.

In those.

Area.