How Can a Virtual Store be Urban?

Online shopping can be quite convenient but nothing beats walking down a city street and walking into a storefront. For example, I love shopping at UMA in downtown St. Louis shown at right. Besides the great selection of products and friendly service from owner Mike Finan, the building is a knock out. Just look at that storefront.

Graphic designer Jen Halski managed to retain this feel for UMA’s new website and online store. In fact, the image to the right came from Jen. When you see UMA’s new site you’ll see how this was used and how you feel like you are shopping downtown from your computer.

Click Here to view the site in a new window.

I personally love the new site and how it gives that street feel. Let me know what you think!

– Steve

Planning Books of Interest

I’m a book hound. I have hundreds of books and thousands of magazines. I’ve read nearly all, some more than once. For nearly 20 years I’ve used the Architects and Designers Book Service to order books.

So when I get a catalog in the mail for more books I have to hide the credit cards before I open it up. Such is the case with the American Planning Association’s “Planners Book Service Catalog.”

Below are a few of the books I found very interesting from the catalog. I’ve linked to their site although you can probably order them through other sources like Amazon or local bookstores like Left Bank Books or the St. Louis AIA Bookstore.

The following are just a few of the books that look interesting to me. The descriptions are theirs not mine. – Steve

Cities In Full

Three decades ago, urban America was troubled by escalating crime rates and a fleeing middle class, but conditions in many cities were enviable then compared to now. Some are so damaged that to restore them to their 1970 condition seems an insurmountable task, and true revitalization may seem unimaginable to those who control their fate. Yet, all is not lost. CITIES IN FULL explores the great potential of the American city and outlines essential elements necessary for its revitalization.

Steve Belmont embraces Jane Jacobs’ much acclaimed prescription for urban vitality — high densities, mixed land uses, small blocks, and variously aged buildings. He examines neighborhoods that adhere to her precepts and those that do not and compares the results. He examines the destructive forces of decentralization and shows how and why they must be turned into forces of renewal.

The author outlines an agenda for recentralizing commerce, housing, and transportation infrastructure and discusses how recentralization is affected by poor social and economic conditions. He analyzes the deficiencies of current low-income housing policy and offers a strategy more favorable to cities and their metropolitan areas.

Belmont exposes neighborhood political forces that sometimes thwart a city’s best interests and offers an ambitious blueprint for renewal that includes creating middle and upper income housing at moderate and high densities; revitalizing neighborhood commercial streets with an urban spirit; building new centralized infrastructure; and transforming the public realm to attract the middle class.

Exhaustively researched and well illustrated, this book is an invaluable resource for planners dedicated to reviving American cities.
… Continue Reading

Smoking Ban Clears the Way for Non-Smokers to Enjoy Going Out

As St. Louis County considers a ban on smoking in public spaces the rhetoric is increasing. Chief among the anti-ban comments is smokers won’t stay around restaurants and spend money. Unlike California we don’t have the weather for year round patio use to keep smokers spending money. So the scare tactic is smokers will quickly leave restaurants and won’t watch games at bars. BS.

A remotely valid argument is that while smoking doesn’t hurt business it doesn’t help either. That is, restaurants in non-smoking states grow at slower rates than restaurants in smoking states. It is hard to say if this is true as so many studies are being thrown around. Lets assume it is true.

What about the growth rate of lung cancer in states with smoking bans? It is too early to know the long term effects (pro & con) of a smoking ban. I think St. Louis County, St. Louis City and the entire State of Missouri should be give it a try. If it turns out in 2025 that the ban didn’t have the desired results then allow smoking again. In the meantime I can actually enjoy going out for a couple of decades.

Most restaurants have a non-smoking section but often I end up 5 feet away from the smoking section with nothing to keep the smoke away from me. As a lifetime non-smoker I just can’t consume food around smoke. It is not appetizing. Still other places are in the dark ages and they don’t even offer a non-smoking section. Like most people, I enjoy dining alfresco but smokers are on the patio as well. Trying to get a meal without smoke is not exactly easy.

Going out to a bar for a beer is a different story. I’m not trying to eat food so I am bit more tolerant. Still, after a couple of hours my throat begins to get sore. I just can’t take it nor do I want to learn. Coming home from a night out means my clothing goes directly into the washing machine. Visits to California are so refreshing.

I can imagine that it is tough for smokers to quit. Everywhere they go people are smoking. Hardly conducive to quitting. Perhaps if these smokers quit they’d have more money to spend in restaurants and bars on food and drink? Or they have more money to spend on other consumer goods?

So in all the talk about the smokers going home early so they can light up where is the discussion of us non-smokers that might eat out more. That we might stay for dessert knowing we are going enjoy the moment. Or that we might go out for drinks rather than meet for drinks at home. Yes, restaurants & bars may lose some smokers’ business but they will gain the business of non-smokers.

I’m not a prude. If someone wants to drink I don’t care. If they want to smoke some pot I don’t care. If someone wants to smoke cigarettes I don’t care. I begin to care when my personal space is intruded. I drink but I have friends that don’t. My having a drink doesn’t force them to taste the liquor. A person next to me smoking does force me to inhale the smoke. The two vices are different.

Banning smoking on a city by city or county by county basis is likely to cause smokers to cross boundaries. This is why the state of Missouri should have the courage to ban smoking in public places state wide. If smokers want to cross the river to smoke in Illinois then so be it. Or perhaps then we institute a toll on the bridges?

– Steve

Streets Need to Bloom With Flowers

April showers bring May Flowers is the old saying. But sidewalks with pedestrians bring out the flower vendors. This cart in Philadelphia is overflowing and adding substantial interest to the sidewalk.

Florists are also using the sidewalk as additional selling space while adding color and interest to the street life. St. Louis area florists are just now starting to do this.

This market in Philly’s Rittenhouse Square neighborhood is very ordinary except for the interest from its signage and flower display.

Window boxes with overflowing plantings look great on urban residential streets. This example hails from Philly but the city of Cincinnati is using flower boxes as a means of kick starting urban revitalization. But please, no plastic plants.

Come on folks, lets add some more color to the city!

– Steve

Rising Fuel Prices Make Mass Transit More Cost Effective

Not surprising is the fact that as fuel prices increase we see an increase in riders on St. Louis’ light rail – MetroLink. From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

Increased ridership, of course, is great news. More ridership will mean greater support for mass transit. But a downside does exist as well.

First, the cost to the system will increase even though the MetroLink cars are electric. Increased fuel costs will result in higher costs on nearly every good and service in the country. More directly, the cost of the electricity to run MetroLink will increase as well as diesel fuel for the buses. This increase in costs will put additional pressure on the agency to maintain service. It is estimated increased revenues from more riders will not offset higher operating expenses. Some will call for ending public subsidy of mass transit.

For decades the public has been subsidizing transit in a much different form – sprawl. From efforts to keep fuel costs down to paying for highways society has been footing the bill for the privilege of driving a private car. Nothing is more subsidized than the private automobile on a public street or highway.

With a monthly ridership of over a million passengers just think if we didn’t have MetroLink. That is over 35,000 riders per day on average. Without MetroLink we’d have many more cars on our roads for those that could afford a car. The costs of additional wear and tear on roads must be taken into account. The environmental impact of additional cars adding to our region’s smog would also add to the costs. Plus where would all the cars go? Would we tear down more of our historic architecture for yet more parking garages? The price of not having good mass transit would just be too high. We must support and use our mass transit systems.

For me MetroLink just isn’t between my normal A-B routes. I would love to see a street car come down South Broadway to connect downtown to Carondelet. It would be great to walk the few blocks from my home to Broadway to catch a street car. Maybe someday?

In the meantime, I’m going to look at bus routes to get me downtown for the occasional lunch at Curry In A Hurry, public meeting or First Friday gallery walk. It is not going to hurt me to take the bus on occasion. Getting on my bike for trips offers even greater benefits.

Citizens for Modern Transit
Metro – bus & light rail service
St. Louis Regional Bike Federation

– Steve