Here are some pictures of the new Devon Tower that was just unveiled. The tower is planned to rise 54 stories / 925 feet. I am sure I will have more to say at a later date, but just enjoy the pictures for now!

Midtown Oklahoma City Animation – by Skyline Ink from imagiNATIVEamerica on Vimeo.

For more of Skyline Ink’s amazing work, head to their their website!

Stephen Dubner (co-author of Freakonomics) invited seven leading thinkers on cities to weigh in on what the future holds for suburbia. Here is an overview of the important points, followed by some of my own thoughts on the subject. To read the full NY Times article, click here.


ARTICLE RECAP

James Kunstler, with his typical gloomy apocalyptic vision, describes a future in which both energy consuming suburbs and high-rise urban areas (described elsewhere as buildings over seven stories that necessitate elevators) will suffer greatly:

One popular current fantasy I hear often is that apartment towers are the “greenest” mode of human habitation. On the contrary, we will discover that the skyscraper is an obsolete building type, and that cities overburdened with them will suffer a huge liability — Manhattan and Chicago being the primary examples. Cities composed mostly of suburban-type fabric — Houston, Atlanta, Orlando, et al — will also depreciate sharply. The process of urban contraction is likely to be complicated by ethnic tensions and social disorder.

In Kunstler’s mind the cheap energy era is over and technology is not likely to save the day:

The automobile will be a diminishing presence in our lives, whether we like it or not. Further proof of our obdurate cluelessness in these matters is the absence of any public discussion about restoring the passenger railroad system — even as the airline industry is also visibly dying. The campaign to sustain suburbia and all its entitlements will result in a tragic squandering of our dwindling resources and capital…

…Sometimes whole societies make unfortunate decisions or go down tragic pathways. Suburbia was ours.

Jan Bruekner, professor of economics at the University of California, offers a more balanced take examining how the incentives that created the suburbs are shifting.

Urban economics tells us that cheap gas, lots of investment in highways, and rising incomes created the suburbs that we now see in American cities.

The first two forces made it affordable and convenient to commute from far out, and greater affluence made people covet big houses, which can be built for less on inexpensive suburban land. Lately, these suburbanization forces are being reversed by “gentrification,” with well-off, empty-nester households lured back to city centers by improving urban amenities (restaurants, museums, etc.) and the renewal of crumbling downtown housing stocks.

Over the next 40 years, these forces will continue to operate, with some new twists thrown in. Skyrocketing gas prices will lead some households to reconsider their long commutes, introducing an “anti-suburbanization” force that favors denser, more compact cities. Boosts in auto fuel economy will soften this blow, but the push for suburbanization will nevertheless slow. Urban densification will also mean a different look for some of our neighborhoods: single-story ranch houses, the hallmarks of past suburbanization, will increasingly give way to denser, two-story suburbs, as is already happening in many cities where land prices are high.

John Archer, chair of the Department of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of Minnesota, believes the suburbs will be resilient and able to survive by becoming more flexible, smarter, and hybrid.

Ideals of privacy, property, and selfhood…are splendidly realized in the single nuclear-family detached house, set in its private surrounding yard. And no matter the threats of global warming or energy shortages, the solutions that we pursue are going to adhere to those ideals.

Seemingly, at least in Archer’s opinion, the “new urbanist” are the first to attempt to cater to these ideals with a hybrid form.

As many “new urbanist” and “new suburbanist” projects demonstrate, suburbia is becoming a hybrid place that melds desirable traits of city living (activity, diversity) while still maintaining allegiance to primary suburban ideals of selfhood and domesticity (and, one might add, consumption).

Alan Berube, research director and fellow at the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, offers a compelling analysis that views the continued impact of transportation on the form of cities.

New physical forms. Just as America’s first suburbs sprouted up along the streetcar lines built in the early 20th century, the first half of the 21st century will see the growth of “light rail suburbs” (even in areas that don’t have the rail yet).

High oil prices and the imperative to address global climate change will help spur denser residential development along transit corridors outside of cities. We’d see more of it today, if supply kept up with demand. Chris Leinberger estimates that walkable suburban communities served by transit today command anywhere from a 40 percent to 200 percent price premium over conventional drivable suburban development.

Lawrence C. Levy, executive director of the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University in Hempstead, NY, offers similar findings, but admits it is largely dependent on political leadership and cost of energy

The energy price crisis, which is battering suburbia harder than other areas because of its dependence on the car, has hastened a trend toward building higher rise housing in village downtowns near commuter rail lines — aka “transit oriented development.”

The units are more affordable because builders can acquire land in depressed village downtowns more cheaply than in other areas and because they are usually allowed to build more units per acre. The affordable apartments in hipper, walkable urban-style neighborhoods become a magnet for young, well educated workers that many suburbs have been losing. Independent elderly couples, who no longer need or want a big single family house, also are drawn to these cheaper, more interesting neighborhoods.

DEFINING THE OBJECTIVE

I should note, that in addition to the repeated forecast for denser, walkable, and transit-oriented development, many of the respondents spent time discussing the shifting demographic trends which are sure to reshape the suburbs we know today. This is certainly something we will see happen and I generally agree with the insights offered on this point.

What I am more intrigued by however, is the view echoed by almost all of the respondents that the cost of energy will be a major determinant suburbia’s future. This may seem like an obvious point for them to make, but I have always been one to believe that as soon as the cost of gasoline rose to a point that invited competition, the market would respond with innovations that softened the effect of energy cost. What has actually always concerned me more is the debilitating urban form that has arisen as a result of the personal automobile – a form that necessitates tons of parking, hinders community, and makes active living difficult. Ultimately, I find that we can embrace both the personal automobile with the exceptional freedom of mobility that it offers, along with an urban form that provides a high quality of life for everyone, including those that do not own a car. But quality of life must be the priority!


WHERE IT WENT WRONG

Cars are certainly a contributing factor to many peoples overall quality of life, but too often I find that American cities have failed to view the use of automobiles as a means to achieving a greater quality of life and have instead viewed the use of automobiles as the the objective itself. Once we lost sight of the true objective, it is not wonder it all went so wrong. In my opinion, suburbia’s golden era took place when early, wealthy suburbanites were able to benefit from all that suburbia offered in the form of “privacy, property, and selfhood” and yet remained a quick car ride away from a vital urban center that offered the best of a city in the form of community, shopping, culture, and people watching. This ideal combination that truly offered “the best of both worlds” was eventually sought out by everyone – and for good reason – but when all of the people left for the suburbs so did the amenities that were provided by now depleted urban center. The suburbs were no longer “the best of both worlds” and for many were no better than what a city by itself had offered in the first place.


TRANSIT-ORIENTED DEVELOPMENT

Perhaps this is the idea that we are returning to with transit-oriented development. This was repeated in different ways by a number of the respondents and I believe their assessment is on target. Transit-oriented developments (or TODs) offer a hybrid of suburban and city living; and in a infrastructural form that contributes to the sustained vitality of a major urban center. What many cities currently have is a transportation system that is exclusively automobile oriented, which is detrimental to the sustained vitality of a city’s downtown and will diminish the aggregate quality of life for all residents. A diversity of transportation options with a diversity of related forms should be appealing to everyone. I certainly don’t want people that hate living downtown to be forced to live there; I want everyone to have the freedom to choose where they live and be held responsible for paying the full cost of that decision. Cities that can provide the overall best quality of life to a diverse population with varying taste will win out in the long run. This can only be done if we allow different parts of the city to serve different functions, but all in a way that contribute to the vitality of the city as a whole.

One way OKC could make downtown more functional for people both with and without cars is to improve parking accessibility and transit downtown – for more on this proposal, check out Bricktown Parking: Killing Two Birds with One Streetcar!

New York City’s Department of Transportation recently kicked of their ‘Summer Streets’ program, similar to Bogota’s Ciclovia the program temporarily closes major streets to automobiles, allowing people to takeover the space and use it to walk, bike, or just hangout. Like Bogota, they also provided health and fitness activities to encourage people to get out and exercise.

Do you think this could happen in Oklahoma City? Would we be willing to give some space back to pedestrians, even if only for a day? Creating a permanent pedestrian friendly environment downtown will take some time. It will require the full commitment of the city with each new development, zoning change, and public improvement. But closing a street for a day takes nothing more than the will and a “road closed” sign. If you have ever been downtown during the day on a Saturday, then you know that traffic is not really a problem. It would be great to close a couple streets from downtown all the way to the trails at the river every Saturday. South of 10th Street on Broadway then down Shields to the river is my preference. The YMCA would be able to provide some exercise programming and the two new bicycle shops – Bicycle Alley and Schlegel’s Bicycles – could serve as headquarter for bike rentals, etc.

If you are interested in improving things on a more permanent basis, check out this post on Mapping Pedestrian Friendliness in OKC!

Urban designer Alex Krieger of Chan Krieger Sieniewicz in Cambridge, Mass. is working with the City of Baton Rouge on a new master plan for their downtown and offers up his eight rules for a successful downtown. It is interesting to read the full article and see how the eight values are applied to Baton Rouge. It seems that the downtowns of Baton Rouge and Oklahoma City have a lot in common as far as the renaissance they have both experienced over the last decade and similar problems that both downtowns continue to attempt to solve. Check out the full article if you have the time, if not, here is a summary of the list.

8 Rules for a Successful Downtown

1. Cities are for living in – to make downtowns work, you need a critical mass of urban residents. The article states, “It takes 5,000 people to reach the next level of market demand to attract retail and other amenities.”
2. Understand who cities are for - “An urban residential lifestyle isn’t for everyone; many people, particularly families, like the suburban model just fine. Krieger says cities appeal to folks in their 20s and 30s, along with empty-nesters who prefer easy access to restaurants, museums and amenities over a golf course.”
3. Mixed-use environments - “You don’t want people to come downtown for one experience,” DiResto says. “You want them to be able to enjoy an entire day or evening.”
4. Think Compactly - development needs to be compact and provide an environment that makes walking not only possible, but enjoyable.
5. Invest in culture - make room for artist studio space, galleries, cultural institutions, etc. Often these uses get priced out as the downtown becomes more successful.
6. Conservation - “Green space is a big deal for many cities, even Houston, one of the world’s great monuments to urban sprawl and unchecked development. Everyone likes a little shade, and trees are prettier than concrete. But squeezing green spaces into an urban environment takes a little creativity. In Chicago, which also has an air-quality problem, green roofs are popular.”
7. Mobility - connecting not only various districts within downtown, but connecting downtown to the outlying areas of city.
8. Creative use of history - creating a historic narrative that connects people to the history of their city. This is something Baton Rouge considers one of its greatest strengths. Oklahoma City could probably do a better job of highlighting what is a very unique history.

So what is your assessment? What do you think of the list? Which of the eight is OKC doing a good job on and where could we use some more work?

If you haven’t yet become familiar with the “Core to Shore” master plan, then check out the video posted a couple days ago before reading on.

The “Core to Shore” plan lays out a vision for an over 500 acres area between downtown and the Oklahoma River. This is a long-term plan, intended to shape development for the next 25 years. Much of what is planned will change over time as markets shift and thinking evolves. However, there are a number of public improvements planned that will begin to take shape very soon, when the I-40 relocation nears completion (currently scheduled for 2012). The most significant of these public improvements is undoubtedly the large ‘Central Park’ at the heart of the plan. Oklahoma City’s new downtown park will consists of approx. 32 acres between the new boulevard on the north (replacing current I-40 alignment), SW 7th Street on the south, Hudson Ave. on the west, and Robinson on east. Over $3 million was approved as part of the 2007 Bond election to fund the purchase of the land for the park. In the future, this park will be the symbolic heart of our city, drawing visitors to events from all around while providing future downtown residents recreational amenities and an idyllic escape. With the master plan complete and the funding for the land in place, it is time for us to start visioning what we want the park to be, so I have compiled a list of the ‘Top Ten Must-Haves’ for Oklahoma City’s new park.

To get an idea of what types of amenities and attractions are typically successful at large urban parks, I perused Project for Public Spaces list of the best parks in the world. And here are the results…

#10 Model Sailboats

A pond or fountain for r/c model sailboats is a popular attraction for kids in many parks around the world. In OKC the sailboats will be cruising thanks to winds that average over 11 knots.

#9 Ice Rink

The annual Braum’s ice rink during Downtown in December has proved that an OKC ice rink can not only stay frozen but provide a great winter time destination for people of all ages.

#8 Flower Garden

How can one take time to stop and smell the roses, if there are, in fact, no roses?

#7 A Great Lawn

The perfect place to have a picnic, catch some rays, or throw a frisbee. This flexible space is a key element of many great urban parks.

#6 Beautiful Bridges

Beautiful bridges serve a number of purposes in a great park. They make for picturesque scenes, offer attractive places to sit and converse, and they bridge things – ideally water, but now more often traffic. Oklahoma City will have at least one great pedestrian bridge spanning I-40 and we should hope to have a few more top-notch bridges connecting paths across the parks various water features.

#5 The Crumrine Carousel

The Crumrine Carousel (also referred to as the Oklahoma Centennial Carousel) was an idea floated around a couple of years ago by Bob and Jacqueline Crumrine. The Crumrines were said to have already met with an Italian carousel manufacturer about building the two-level carousel and had even struck a tentative agreement for a location in Bricktown. I haven’t heard much about this project since early 2007, but it is time we revive the idea. Everyone loves a great carousel and it would be a unique feature for our park not found in many places outside of Paris. A Bricktown location wasn’t a bad idea, but it will fit much better in the park.


#4 Public Art

Anish Kapoor’s Cloudgate (first picture) cost $23 million dollars. An absurd amount of money to spend on the piece of public art located in Chicago’s Millennium Park. Yet, the mirrored bean is so loved by the citizens of Chicago and has attracted so many people to the park, that it is considered money well spent. Art can provide something to contemplate, something to remember, or just something to make you smile and it is something our new park must have.

#3 Outdoor Concert Venue

Whether permanent or temporary, having a stage setup ready to accommodate rockstars, symphonies, and everything in between is a definite must-have. Placing this adjacent to the our Great Lawn (see #7) creates an outdoor concert venue to accommodate the masses. In fact, Oklahoma’s very own Garth Brooks set a record when approx. one million people gathered to hear him play in New York City’s Central Park.

#2 World Class Fountain

The popularity of fountains dates back centuries. Romans celebrated their incredible infrastructure with beautiful ornamental fountains (such as Bernini’s Trevi Fountain – third picture). Our park will surely have one fountain, maybe more. Grant Park in Chicago has both the classically designed Buckingham Fountain (first picture) and recently added the more modern – and extremely cool – Crown Fountain (fourth picture) as part of the Millennium Park addition. The fountain will be such an important element of our new park that I recommend holding an international design competition to ensure that our’s is truly world class.

#1 The Oklahoma Land Run Monument

This massive bronze sculpture by Norman artist Paul Moore depicts Oklahoma’s most famous moment. The monument is located south of I-40, near the Bass Pro Shop and spanning the most southern portion of the canal. The current location falls far short of ideal. We need to move this incredible work to a prominent location in our new park where it can get the attention it deserves. The pictures shown are from Doug Loudenback’s extensive overview of the project – worth checking out if you would like to learn more.

If you aren’t excited about “Core to Shore” yet, you should be. Take a second to get familiar with the plan…




…then let the brilliant animation from Oklahoma City firm Skyline Ink take you there. NOTE: large file size, may take some time to stream.


Oklahoma City’s “Core to Shore” – by skylineink from imagiNATIVEamerica on Vimeo.

Here is the video again with some helpful commentary from Mayor Mick Cornett:

Special thanks to Eddie for bringing the video to my attention and to Derek at Skyline Ink for allowing me to post it. More of Skyline Ink’s amazing work can be found on their website!

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Bricktown has a parking problem. I am apparently very lucky, as I have never had to deal with this problem myself, but people have now talked about this “problem” or “perception of a problem” for so long that it really must be true. According to Steve Lackmeyer, the city is now considering “fixing” the problem by purchasing the Power Alley parking garage and offering free or reduced-price parking spaces. Before we talk more about the garage, lets check out the current parking situation in Downtown.

DOWNTOWN PARKING

Downtown OKC, Inc. has tried to ameliorate the parking issues by distributing information on the amount and location of parking in Downtown and Bricktown. On their website they provide this map showing all of the parking spaces in Downtown along with the route of the downtown trolley.

As you can see there is actually a ton of parking available in Downtown – over 20,000 spaces! Bricktown itself has over 4,000 and that is without including the 750 spaces located on the north lots. It appears the point of contention is not the availability of spots but the cost. “Wal-mart has free parking, so why not Bricktown?” This may explain why people continue to proclaim a lack of parking, while the consultant hired to study the issue stated that even during peak hours 1 out of every 3 parking spaces is available, with over 1,000 total available spaces (it appears my good fortune wasn’t luck afterall). So the idea of purchasing the Power Alley garage and subsidizing the parking costs ostensibly tackles the problem head on – we don’t need more parking, we just need cheaper parking…or better yet free parking!

FIXING THE PROBLEM

The Power Alley parking garage (located on Sheridan, just north of the Bricktown Ballpark) has 538 parking spaces (according to the Bricktown Association website).

The owner of the garage is Marsh Pitman. And while Marsh is actually a good friend of mine, I haven’t asked him about anything related to this deal, so I don’t know how much the City would spend to acquire Power Alley from him. Still, we can probably estimate the price pretty close ourselves. According to the County Assessor’s website the property is worth approximately $4.2 million. Typically you would want to price a structured parking garage in terms of the cost per space or with an operating garage you could cap the operating income. I don’t have any clue what the income is on the garage, but we do know the number of spaces. If you take the $4.2 million figure and divide by the 538 spaces, it works out to around $7,800 per parking space without including the cost of land. Generally, new structured parking spaces cannot be built today for less than $12,000 per space, and that is the minimum. So we can definitely throw out the assessor’s number as being far too low. My best guess is that the City could not buy the Power Alley garage for less than $16,000 per space total – so we are talking about approximately $8.6 million.

So spending $8.6 million for the Power Alley garage, and providing 538 more subsidized parking spaces in Bricktown, is one option for the City. But I beleive there is another – better – option that will take care of the parking problem while providing some added benefits to the entire Downtown area.

THE GREEN LINE

As you likely already know, I am a huge proponent of improving and expanding our transportation options in Oklahoma City. I think the rubber-tired trolleys are great, but we can all agree that they have always been more of a novelty than something you can actually depend on to regularly get around Downtown. Knowing what we know now, we probably would have scraped together enough money to get the MAPS streetcar system up and running even without support from Washington. Well this is our opportunity to right the wrong and fix our parking troubles in the process.

The proposed Green Line consists of a modern fixed-rail streetcar system running straight along Sheridan for three-quarters of a mile from N. Stiles Ave. on the east end of Bricktown to Hudson Ave. in Downtown. Four stops are proposed, spaced approximately one-quarter mile apart, putting most of Downtown and Bricktown within a five minute walk. The short route and limited stops will allow for consistent and expedited service – likely less than five minutes between trains during peak periods. And the straight-line route and bi-directional service would make navigation a breeze for locals and tourists alike.

Perhaps the best thing about the Green Line is that is will solve all of our parking troubles as well. As we saw before there are a ton of parking spaces in the Downtown area and the Green Line will provide easy access to some of the largest parking structures. Instead of adding 538 spaces we can provide access to the 1,696 spaces at the Galleria garage – not to mention the other garages that are also close to the route. And almost all of these spaces are likely empty most nights and weekends during Bricktown’s peak business hours.

PAYING FOR IT

These are the most current figures being used by the City of Albuquerque:

The cost to construct a Streetcar is approximately $28 million / mile. That cost includes all aspects, including steel rail, concrete, pedestrian friendly stops, traffic signals, maintenance facility, power source, utility reconstruction, roadway reconstruction, and vehicles.

So our three-quarter mile system would cost approximately $21 million. If we used this option instead of purchasing the Power Alley garage, then we would save that $8.6 million, bringing the total extra cost down to $12.4 million. For this bargain amount we would really be solving Bricktown’s parking “problems” while laying the foundation for an urban transportation system that would greatly benefit both Downtown and Bricktown into the future. This is a senseable and relatively inexpensive way to get public transit off the ground OKC! It will mesh perfectly with the forthcoming Devon Tower; lighten the parking demand in Bricktown, allowing for some of Bricktown’s surface lots to be developed; and the energy created would serve as an impetus to make something happen with the Stewart Metal buildings on the east end of Bricktown. This is just the start, when the time is right the line could be easily expanded to provide service to the fledging Film District or even the American Indian Cultural Center. We could sit here and name the benefits of this all day, but instead we should just do it!

I came across this article by Jan Gehl – an urban design rock star – in which he discusses the importance of the design of the first-floor of urban buildings in attracting pedestrians and creating active streets. Downtown Oklahoma City has made tremendous gains since MAPS, but we still have very few streets with the restaurants, shopping, and (above all) people most often found in a pedestrian-friendly urban environment. In the article Close Encounters with Building (note: downloads as a .pdf), Gehl explains the importance of the first ten feet of a building and how it can either help to create a street or public space that pedestrians want to visit or conversely, create a place that pedestrians will avoid.

Gehl has done a ton of research, often using teams of researchers to observe 100m sections of street and record measurements such as the number of pedestrians, pedestrian speed, number of stops, number of times they entered/exited a building, etc. Through this he has been able to identify a handful of design attributes that can either attract or deter pedestrians by creating what he calls the ‘urban scene at eye level’. Here is what Gehl has to say about the design attributes he has identified and how they can lead to creating a good or bad ‘urban scene at eye level’.

THE URBAN SCENE AT EYE LEVEL

Scale and Rhythm

Pedestrians experience the urban scene at maximum three mph, with plenty of time to enjoy the surroundings. Small units provide a wide range of experiences, and a large number of doors provide many points of exchange between outside and inside. A scale of three mph is compact and rich in sensory experience. A scale of 35 mph also features qualities worthy of sharing, but rarely are they meaningful to pedestrians.

Transparency

The opportunity to be on the inside looking out – and on the outside looking in – significantly broadens the range of experiences in the buildings themselves and in urban space. If we walk through the city close to the facades, the various display windows and opportunities to share what is happening in the buildings enrich our experience considerably. And people inside the buildings can follow what is happening in the surrounding urban space. Life inside and outside the buildings can thus interact for the benefit of both.

Appeals to Many Senses

We can draw on all our senses when we are close to buildings, and we have sufficient time to look, listen, smell and touch the good things on offer. A wealth of sensory impressions and shopping opportunities awaits. In contrast, a string of orange posters is a poor substitute.

Texture

Good materials and fine details are an attraction for people strolling through the city. There is ample opportunity to reach out and touch the buildings and examine the smallest detail. Attractive ground-level facades offer texture, good materials and carefully crafted details.

Mix of Functions

The functions inside buildings have a major impact on the activity and attractiveness of the spaces outside. The desire for narrow units and many doors in the facade can be echoed in a desire for wide functional variation inside. The outcome is many units, many points of exchange between outside and inside, and a wealth of many different events and experiences. The department store with its ten large display windows is far less interesting than the ten different functions in the street scene opposite.

Vertical Facade Rhythm

Walking along a ground floor fac?ade with primarily vertical rhythms makes the walk much more interesting and eye-catching. We move from ‘column to column’, which makes the walk seem shorter. Facades with primarily horizontal articulation intensify the feeling of distance – a long tiring prospect at eye height.

FACADE MAPS

With these attributes in hand, he creates a map of a city showing the “problem facades” that interrupt pedestrian paths and lower the overall quality of the pedestrian experience. For instance, this diagram compares the street facades of (a) Stockholm to those of (b) Copenhagen. The difference between the two maps speaks to a dramatic difference for pedestrians.

Look at the open plazas and squares in (b) Copenhagen, almost all of which are surrounded by pedestrian friendly (light facades). Whereas (a) Stockholm has block after block of poor facades with few pedestrian-friendly plazas or squares (the exception being the one shown on the lower left side. After creating these maps, Gehl has been able to work with cities in creating urban design guidelines that address the problems and has successfully attracted increased numbers of pedestrians in cities around the world.

FACADES IN OKC?

So here is the question, where do we have examples of each of these facade types in Oklahoma City? It would be great if we could create our own facade map of Downtown Oklahoma City & Bricktown and determine which areas are pro-pedestrian and anti-pedestrian according to the attribute listed above.

Here is what I think might work. Everyone could take some time to assess a street (or seven) – based on memory, by actually visiting, or using streetview- and add their assessment to our very own Google map — creating a Pedestrian Friendliness Map of Oklahoma City!

Here is an example of a green (green = pedestrian friendly) push pin I added for the Bricktown Canal as it approaches Mickey Mantle – click to enlarge.

While this is an example of a red (red = bad for pedestrians) push pin I added for Robert S. Kerr St. just west of EK Gaylord.

Give it a shot. Just use the descriptions mentioned above to assess each of the attributes. Here is the form info I used that you can paste into the pushpin description window:

Good for Pedestrians? (Yes, No or Maybe)

Scale and Rhythm: Yes
Transparency: No
Appeals to many Senses: Maybe
Texture: Yes
Mix of Functions: No
Vertical Facade Rhythm: Yes

Trust your gut as to whether it deserves a or a . It is easy to do so give it a shot!

Here is what you do:

1. click on the link below
2. click the ‘Save to My Maps’ link on the upper-left side
3. then click the button on the left side of the screen

CLICK HERE TO START ADDING TO THE MAP

Here is what our efforts have produced so far:


View Larger Map