Last night, a newly-minted class of citizen planners celebrated their graduation from the Philadelphia Citizens Planning Institute. Each grad received a copy of the Collaborative’s book, Leverage: Strengthening Neighborhoods Through Design, thanks to the generosity of the Dale Corporation and the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency.

The Citizens Planning Institute is a program created by the Philadelphia City Planning Commission to take a more effective and active role in shaping the future of their neighborhoods and of Philadelphia, through a greater understanding of city planning and the steps involved in development projects. Donna Carney, director of the Citizens Planning Institute, said, “We’re excited to be graduating our third CPI class! Including tonight’s graduates, there are now 90 Citizen Planners representing 49 different neighborhoods across the city.”

Leverage will provide the citizen planners with a “look book” of real community-based projects, models that will be helpful as they become involved in the day-to-day and long-range development issues in their communities.

Walkability is a measure of how friendly a community is to walking. Walkability’s impact is not limited to the built environment—it affects to well-being, safety, environmental quality, and economic vitality of communities.

Walkability is something that Philadelphia does well. We rank fifth in the nation in walkability, according to Walk Score. Joe Minott, executive director of the Clean Air Council, noting our good standing at last night’s Urban Sustainability Forum, posed the question, “What do we have to do to become #1?”

Dom Nozzi, executive director of Walkable Streets, says the next wave of transportation planning and design will focus on “fixing the mistakes we’ve made.” “It’s not about providing new facilities for pedestrians, but about taking some of the space now allotted to cars and putting it into the realm of pedestrians and bicyclists.”

Taking the space from cars and using it for bicyclists and pedestrians results in a very different design philosophy for the public right of way. After decades of designing “forgiving streets,” transportation planners are embracing “street chaos”, which is a lot less risky than it sounds.

Forgiving streets are engineered with wide lanes, easy turns, and plenty of stoplights to reduce the attention and decision-making demanded of drivers. Instead of making streets safer, though, forgiving streets has engendered inattentive drivers… and more traffic accidents.

Street chaos—right of ways designed to force drivers to slow down and pay attention—has a toolbox that includes chicanes, surface patterns and textures, and mid-block pedestrian crossings. Last October’s Better Blocks Philly demonstrated these design elements of walkability convincingly.

“It’s not so much about training professionals to design walkable streets,” says Nozzi, “but more about giving them permission to apply what they already know.” He recounted a story about a city official who put out a call for a safe intersection design for parents with children. He was flooded with ideas and options.

Philadelphia is ahead of the game, according to city planner Debby Schaaf, who is leading Philadelphia’s soon-to-be-completed pedestrian and bicycle plan. Our city’s mix of land uses puts lots of useful destinations (stores, restaurants, the gym—and work, if you’re lucky) within walking distance. Our narrow easy-to-cross streets, a continuous network of sidewalks, and (oddly enough)short signal cycles that minimize waits at intersections encourage walking.

For all that, Philly rates a silver level designation from the Walk Friendly Communities Program , a nationwide program with the goal of encouraging towns and cities throughout the United States to establish (or recommit to) a high priority for encouraging and supporting more safe walking. What do we have to do to go for the gold?

Walk Friendly says Philadelphia needs to pay more attention to our network of sidewalks—keeping them in good repair and retrofitting many of them. A full time pedestrian coordinator on the city’s staff and training to help city officials support walkability in their day-to-day decision making would also earn us points.

Walkability is a fascinating corner (intersection?) of transportation planning where lots of innovative, interdisciplinary thinking is happening. It promises to have a growing influence.

Bradley Flamm of Temple University’s Center for Sustainable Communities tells us to watch out for these emerging trends: a new focus on walkability in suburban places (where half of all Americans now live), universal design principles applied to entire neighborhoods, and a more critical inquiry into the relationship between the built environment and community health.

The Collaborative worked with Pennsylvania Horticultural Society to put together a tour featuring innovative neighborhood projects for Cities Alive, an international conference for green roof and wall professionals hosted here in Philly last week.

Conference goers were treated to an off-the-beaten-path look at green spaces and buildings in the APM, Northern Liberties, Kensington, and Fishtown neighborhoods. Stops at infill housing, green spaces, and a green high school (the recipient of the US Green Building Council’s top honors today) gave them a good feel for the green and gritty fabric of Philadelphia’s neighborhoods. And since many of the stops included trips to the roof—they caught some excellent city views too.

Scenes from the City of Neighborhoods tour:

Many thanks to Julie Snell, Chair of the Local Tours Committee, and the tour presenters!

Daryn Edwards, AIA, Interface Studio Architects
The Modules at Temple Town

David Elliott, RLA, Pennsylvania Horticultural Society
Liberty Lands Park and the Big Green Block

Bill Foley, GRP, Tremco, Inc.
The Ice House

Jane Rath, AIA, SMP Architects
Kensington Creative and Performing Arts High School

Photos courtesy of Bill Foley.

A conceptual design for St. Mary's Episcopal Church opens new doors (and windows) for serving the community with day care, a food kitchen, and a community bike shop.

Check out Philadelphia Weekly’s review of the Collaborative’s new book, Leverage: Strengthening Neighborhoods through Design. Darren White looks at leverage from several angles—yes, it is possible!—and the cumulative effect of twenty years of leveraging the talents of our volunteers and the tenacity and vision of our nonprofit clients.

In the review, Beth Miller shares her own definition of leverage, “Last year, the value of service of the design professionals that worked through us was $900,000. And that’s money you can’t find anywhere. There are no preliminary design grants out there.  Funders usually want to be the last money in, so it’s a critical point. And it’s a great match of service, interest, and need.  It’s a lot of interventions from the grassroots up… but collectively it can make a huge impact.”

Lighten up your Black Friday by getting a colorful copy of Leverage: Strengthening Neighborhoods through Design—or give one to a friend or family member who’d like to know more about what design can do. The book’s on sale for the holidays at the AIA Bookstore & Design Center, 1216 Arch Street—or online.

P.S.  If you’ve ever volunteered with the Collaborative, don’t forget to look for your name in the “volunteer hall of fame” pages at the end of the book!

Courtesy of TEDx Philly

Volunteer Jennifer Martel writes, “I love to hear about new and exciting ideas, so I was thrilled to receive a ticket from the Community Design Collaborative to attend my first live TED event last week. TEDx Philly was held at the Temple Performing Arts Center, the stunningly-renovated temple-turned-theater on North Broad Street. “The City” was the topic of this year’s talks. Throughout the day, I heard from individuals and organizations whose work weaves and reinforces the physical, social, and technological fabric of our cities.

The first presenter set the tone for the day. Jennifer Pahlka, Executive Director of Code for America, told us about growing up in New York City in the 70s. The city was dirty and dangerous. The economic boom turned things around in a big way, but when the market crashed, Pahlka admits she believed the city would regress to its former state. But it didn’t. It thrived, and today it is greener, wealthier, and better than ever.

Why are many financially-strapped cities doing so well in tough economic times? The answer unfolded with each speaker that stepped onto the stage. It is programs like Play On, Philly!, the Philadelphia Student Union, and the Philly Youth Poetry Movement that empower young people to achieve astounding successes through music, activism, and spoken word.
It is scientists like Dr. Jeffrey Brenner— who is working with Camden residents to build a new health care delivery system for underserved communities. It is activists like Keya Dannenbaum— who realized that mayoral and city council elections (TEDx Philly took place on Election Day) have more impact on the lives of urban-dwellers than the congressional or presidential races that over-occupy the media. It is researchers and scholars like Amy Hillier and Young Jin Yoo— who use technology to better understand and improve the urban lifestyle.

The answer also lies in the art that brings wonder and joy to our city streets. I was excited to hear about two new works of art that will be calling Philadelphia home in the coming year. Artist Janet Echelman has designed a colorful dry-mist garden that will dance across the new Dilworth Plaza whenever a train passes underground. Dutch artists Haas and Hahn whose vibrant paintings transformed urban neighborhoods in Brazil will be working with Mural Arts on several projects in Philly in the coming years.

From TEDx Philly, I learned that it’s not money and large capital projects that make our city great. It’s the invaluable human capital that cities both create and thrive upon.”

Learn about who spoke at The City and where they live on Twitter—plus news about TEDx Philly’s next topics.

Teddy Cruz speaking to hundreds of architects and designers at the Friends Center on October 10.

Hundreds of architects and designers came together at the Friends Center in October to hear Teddy Cruz speak on Creative Acts of Citizenship. If you missed this public symposium or want a reprise, check out our video clips.

Friends Center was busy that night as Occupy Philadelphia activists used the meeting house as home base, parents picked kids up from day care, and teens attended a nutrition class… an apropos setting for an architect who honed his design philosophy at the crossroads of the San Diego-Tijuana border.

Cruz picked up on the Occupy Philly vibe, tying his passionate design practice to its themes of equity. Here’s what he had to say:

A New Kind of Architect

Citizenship is the Creative Act

Rethinking the American Dream

“Not a Vacant Lot”, built on a vacant lot in the middle of vibrant Center City, gathered our free-floating anxiety about Philly’s huge stock of vacant land into something more tangible and hopeful. The Broad Street art installation contained 250 PVC pipes that represent the geographic distribution of Philly’s 40,000 vacant lots and an aluminum play house that displays artists’ interventions on vacant lots throughout the city. The installation was the starting point for Nathaniel Popkin’s recent Inquirer column about the city’s vacant land, how it got there, and new directions in which it could go.

Our vast and varied stock of vacant land—residential, commercial, and industrial—distinguishes us from other major East Coast cities, but only if we can unleash its potential.  It’s simultaneously a singular resource for adding things new and necessary to the city and a tough nut to crack. Check out Nathaniel’s conversations with people who are putting vacant land back into play, including the Collaborative’s Beth Miller.