100 IDEAS PROJECT

Showcasing a diversity of community.  City vibrancy through thousands of visitors.  An experience of South Bend through it's past, present, and future.

I miss the Ethnic Festival.  Not the Midway rides that you can get at any carnival, which brought turf violence.  I miss the food and the music and the experience of culture.  I loved the way it tucked into different spaces throughout the streets that brought a greater understanding of the city itself (the places and the people).  In planning, it brought together a great many people to pull together the event; from across municipal, commercial, and residential boundaries.  I heart South Bend and the experiences that I had during that festival are a great reason why.

When we bring it back, let's make it better.  Help people find value in it again.  From the vendors to the businesses to the residents and yes, even to the people who brought the violence.  Let's connect it to everyone and give them all a reason to be advocates for the community.

Municipalities, like South Bend, should expect more out of their public spaces, their buildings, and their systems.  It's not enough to design environmentally conscious spaces.  Designing for people seems like an obvious statement.  But as William H. Whyte states, “It is difficult to design a space that will not attract people. What is remarkable is how often this has been accomplished.”

In evaluating what qualifies for good design standards, cities should consider these aspects of placemaking:

Human Scale: So often, cities are designed to manage cars, but in order to accomplish more vibrancy, it is essential to focus on human scale elements.  These aspects include features that are engaging, that improve clarity, and develop complexity

Engaging: "Enough to look at" and providing awareness of context

Clarity: "Guiding the Eye" includes visibility, safety, legibility, recognizable pattern.  These elements help in the often discussed needs of wayfinding, creating hierarchy, and orientation within cities

Complexity: "More than meets the eye" - vistas that reveal depth

Heath:  Health isn't just if you are sick or not.  It includes several facets (physical, social, mental, environmental) that are both dynamic and systemic.  Common elements to encourage each facet include:

Design for active living: Increase opportunities for recreation, pedestrian amenities (trails and bike lanes that are connected to parks and mass transit)

Design for sociability: cities should address through design welcoming and openness components, opportunities for engaging people and people watching

In 2011, shortly after getting elected as the Mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel stated that, "a decade of deferred maintenance had left the city's financial house structurally teetering... [and he] returned again and again to the point that "somebody" could have acted earlier but didn't."

Many municipalities, including South Bend, employ a reactive crisis management model for building maintenance.  More specifically, maintenance is important, but it's generally done only when a crisis happens (something breaks).  This model can have a dramatic domino effect.  For instance, if the roof develops a leak in a city facility, if the money is there, the leak is fixed.  If there is no budget money for the repair, systemic damages can occur, like interior cosmetic damage, saturated insulation (and thus ineffective) and potentially structural damage.  As the problem evolves it spirals out of control and into ever increasing economic woes.

In order to improve resiliency and responsiveness, as well as improve financial flexibility, the crisis management model for building maintenance has to improve.  Standard crisis management stages go from pathologic (who cares, as long as we aren't caught), to reactive (important, but only when a problem arises), to calculative (systems in place to manage crisis), to proactive (continuously work on problems), and finally to generative (crisis anticipation and preventive culture).

Potawatomi Park: Currently, the parking cuts the zoo off from the rest of the park, limiting overall success of the entire park.  The current parking arrangement also limits the entry experience to the zoo.  Right now, the other park amenities conflict with zoo (paid amenities compete for attendees with free amenities) and no clear linkages exist between playgrounds, Conservatories, Pavillions, and zoo.  An overall Potawatomi Park Masterplan would not only seek to make these connections, but improve them individually.  Pedestrian connections, wayfinding elements (signage and hierarchy elements, lighting), unifying vistas, and better landuse (updating parking and vehicular ways).

Neighborhood: Greenlawn, River Park, IUSB, Library, Adams HS, and the Farmer's Market all make up a larger area that would benefit from better connection to the zoo.  Programming elements (like education sessions at library and IUSB or petting zoos at Farmer's Market) and physical connections for pedestrians make up two of the connection types.

Downtown: Wayfinding to zoo is minimal and unclear. Creating a strong linkage to downtown better attracts new out-of-town visitors to the zoo.  This cannot be simply road signs that hang from traffic lights.  This type of linkage would include a strong East/West trail and a branded signage element.

South Bend Community Schools has a major budget shortfall.  Already spending less money on instruction than other school districts, it has been often said that the corporation wants to make cuts as "far away from students as possible."  One way that schools can do that is to focus on energy.  While the SBCSC does a great job of high level energy management, meaning they've closely examined equipment and envelop upgrades, pursuing occupant optimization and renewable energy possibilities have not been fully explored.

Energy is an expense that is often cited as a "cost of doing business," but many of those costs can be eliminated through better management.  Becoming more energy efficient is the cheapest and fastest way to reduce energy costs.  Occupant optimization is a two pronged approach in energy efficiency: 1) Training staff to be more aware of how they use energy and tactics to be more energy efficient  2) Empowering staff to bring their energy efficiency observations forward and apply those.

Another energy opportunity is to pursue renewable energy.  With a total of 33 schools with a roof area in the hundreds of thousands of square feet per school, there is ample opportunity for the SBCSC to take advantage of their underutilized roof area.  A couple of things make this solution feasible: 1) schools use more of their energy during the day, when the panels are making energy  2) Looking at individual schools, it might be difficult to pursue solar energy, but system-wide there's a lot more potential.

Funding has always been a stumbling block for these types of projects. However, aside from rebates and grants, a few options are surfacing.  Property Assessed Clean Energy Programs (PACE) can finance 100% of their project and pay it back over time as a voluntary property tax assessment through their existing property tax bill.  In this way, projects are net positive cash flowed from day one.  Indiana is currently working on setting up a PACE program.  Another type of funding is external investors, known as Energy Service Companies (ESCO) who would pay to develop the solar system, and get paid by through a portion of energy savings in a process known as Energy Performance Contracting.  

In addition, from the Natural Resources Defense Council:

The National Solar Schools Consortium launched yesterday at the opening of the widely-attended National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) Conference. Still in its infancy, the goal of the Consortium is to act as a unified voice for the growing solar schools movement, promoting the use of solar energy on K-12 and post-secondary schools, consolidating and coordinating current and future solar curriculum and resource development, and providing tools designed to help schools explore solar energy options both on campus and in the surrounding community.

While primary waste reduction strategies in South Bend focus on more effectively managing waste streams (how we define and process them) and how we collect them (AVAC), several other opportunities exist to encourage waste reduction.

Opportunities like implementing a City-wide Fee on Plastic Bags or pairing services with recycling programs (like Transpo passes for recycling) certainly could be explored.  A new policy for paying trash fees depending on weight disposed has potential to save money on hauling and on landfill fees.

From AS+GG's "Toward Zero Carbon" Plan:

Encourage the reduction of household waste by asking residents to pay for garbage removal based on what they actually generate.

Since garbage is paid for on a per-unit basis, residents who conserve are no longer asked to subsidize the cost of those who generate a large amount of waste.

Current pay-as-you-throw programs report a 15-25% reduction in the amount of waste disposed and triple the amount of recycling.

As highlighted in earlier ideas, South Bend has a plethora of parking.  While multipurpose parking and more efficient distribution of parking solves many problems, it's absolutely essential to increase density in South Bend.  

Historically, urban success has been rooted in high densities: the concentration of many people in small areas. Bringing people and their economic activities into close proximity with each other can be economically and even socially liberating.

It's a delicate balance identifying the appropriate amount of urban density.  Excessive density can lead to infrastructure demands that are unable to be met, while insufficient density makes it difficult to support city amenities.  Defining this balance is the purpose of zoning ordinances, but over the last several decades, South Bend has let slip the importance of density on the overall success of the city.

Of the six facets in the Strategic Energy Plan, facilitating energy efficiency measures through updating the municipal code of ordinances had the most potential to impact long term change.  Updating the code ensures that any new project meet guidelines that facilitate not only energy efficiency measures, but sustainability and improved quality ones as well.

Across the US, cities are faced with mounting maintenance and energy costs because buildings were built as cheaply and quickly as possible.  First cost models do nothing for the systemic drain the facilities have on cities throughout their life cycle.  Upgrades are then based on crisis management (if something breaks, fix it if you can afford it) and have little long term plans in place.

Here are 5 measures to improve the quality of new construction:

Use LEED and Sustainable Sites requirements as a baseline for updated Municipal Code Requirements

Require life cycle cost analysis as part of the design process and make decisions based on that cost (from a municipal standpoint, far more responsible with tax payer dollars)

Use more qualitative metrics than quantitative requirements

Require landscape architects to seal site plans (to ensure all layers of site needs and context are met)

"Sustainable development requires much broader public awareness and understanding of the natural resource and economic challenges facing the world in the 21st century. [Education institutions] are significant, but largely overlooked leverage point in the transition to a sustainable world." - Toward Zero Carbon, Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill

Environmental learning programs foster STEM focused curriculum, but enable creative approaches promoting expanded learning opportunities (outside of textbooks).

Greene Intermediate Center

Has been in the process of transitioning to an agriscience based magnet school for about a year now.  As the South Bend Community School Corporation distills this methodology, the potential to create a network of environmental learning programs throughout the school system is great.  This network would reduce the burden of programming and take the benefits to a much larger level, allowing for a much broader implementation of the curriculum.  

Because this type of curriculum benefits both students and their parents, dramatic improvements to both energy efficiency and environmental/ecologic health.  In terms of energy, being more efficient is the cheapest and fastest energy savings we have.  This can be effectively taught at the elementary school level, ensuring massive energy savings long term, both residentially and commercially.  The same impact on environmental systems can be realized.  In just Greene Intermediate's case, the school sits positioned on a drainage ditch that connects directly to the Kankakee River, which then connects to the Mississippi River and the watershed of the Gulf of Mexico.  The amelioration efforts on the property to that drainage ditch can truly have global connections.

A natural location for a PTSD garden dedicated to veterans is adjacent to the VA Clinic in downtown South Bend.

Programming:

Incorporate PTSD programming from clinic: space for individual and group counseling (mental health and social health facets)

Incorporate horticulture therapy components (physical health and mental health facets)

Memorial component honoring the sacrifices made by those in service to the country

Soften parking lot approach to building

Gardens:

Include variety of seating options to accommodate various group sizes

Reduce ambient noise levels

Raised beds for wheel chair accessible horticulture therapy options

Benefits:

Increased programming options from existing facility

Improving/restoring health from access to nature\

I've never been to San Diego, but I hear it's really nice.  I've heard about the great weather and the fish tacos.  Imagine if South Bend had that type of publicity and word-of mouth promoting.

I sat on a community building panel last night and one of the topics that came up was the need to be better advocates.  It's really a call to action for people in a community, to contribute to the perception of how welcoming a city is to a diverse range of people.  In a great article about what makes people attached to a city, Marlys Harris defines this trail as "openness".  

"[Cities] are being judged by a whole different metric."  It's how we treat the new neighbors or how we act at Little League games or even how we respond to weather.  We had a pretty intense winter this year in South Bend.  I like to think of it as a prime location to write the next great American novel.

For policy makers to support this, focus less on attracting new people to the community and do a better job of making the people who are here happier.  If the people who live here aren't happy, they won't advocate for the community.

Implementing a light rail system is a popular idea.  Many people have tossed out various versions for how and where it should connect.  While those are important components (I think it needs to connect ND to downtown and downtown to the airport, perhaps via Union Station), I want to address keys for success, benefits, and costs of such an undertaking.

Keys for success:

Bus routes that tie in at key intersections that form TODs

Transit Oriented Developments (TODs) with bike share and greenway connections

Engaging stations/transit stops that offer other benefits to riders (art, information, shelter, connectivity)

Pop-up amenities encouraged by policy makers

Benefits:

Improved commuter efficiency and reduced traffic congestion

Reduced pollution leading to lower energy/HVAC bills; improved air quality/microclimate/ambient moisture levels

Increased property values and spurred economic development

Affordable transportation options (for students and low income)

Consistent/efficient/reliable transportation 

Costs 

High construction costs

High operation costs

According to the South Bend Parks and Rec. Annual Report, in 2012, they cut down seven times as many trees as they planted.  What's frightening is that this only takes into account the quantity of lost trees.  However, larger trees process far more carbon dioxide, produce more oxygen, and have a far greater impact on temperature and air quality than smaller trees do.  If every degree the city is cooled saves millions of dollars in HVAC energy costs and trees are the easiest way to control that, the loss is quite significant across the city.

Let's face it: no one like to parallel park.  It's often cited as the worst part of the driving test.  In all seriousness, parking takes up valuable real estate in cities often cutting people off from amenities and blocking views of street life.  This is especially true of parallel parking which often sits immediately adjacent to sidewalks.  While not every former parking space has to be used as "park" space, they can add functional space for area businesses and restaurants looking to capitalize on previously unprogrammed space.  That space can also be used to accomodate protected bike lanes.

Here's some images from a Tactical Urbanism event called Park(ing) Day, which highlights temporary efforts to demonstrate the value and potential use of the spaces.  Last year, these efforts temporarily reclaimed space in over 160 cities on 6 different continents.  In some cases, those ideas lead to permanent opportunities.