“Urbanism Should Be Second Nature”

What type of place is your city? Can you step out of your home day or night and catch a bus without too much hassle? Can you pick up your favorite sweet treat or a much-needed toilet paper refill with just a short stroll? Perhaps most importantly, can you find a place to live that you can afford which puts you within easy access of the aforementioned transit stop and a toilet paper dispensary?

Making cities that function well for people can be a lot of work, whether it’s advocating for transit-oriented development or blogging about your vision for safe streets. Kristen Jeffers at the Black Urbanist is yearning to reach the point where good urban places just happen, without demanding so much effort:

Yes, the urban environment is largely an object of creation and reinvention, but eventually, you want to get to the point where all you NEED to do with it is to provide maintenance. If you want to make something new, great! Here’s to you great urban pioneer!

However, some people just aren’t the pioneering and creative type. They like that there’s sidewalk cafes, but they don’t want to build them. Or maybe they are the lounge singer, but not the painter that owns the art gallery. Just because someone is creative doesn’t mean they can create and engineer everything about a city.

She continues:

I need urbanism to mature to a point where I can have a conversation with my family about what I write about and not have to dumb down the language. Where sprawl repair, tactical urbanism, and good governance are just simply

PLACE.

Elsewhere on the Network today: Boston Biker shares an elegant graphic explaining the “cycle of automobile dependency.” Cyclelicio.us checked in on South Dakota, where recent pedestrian safety efforts produced a non-binding resolution urging cyclists and pedestrians to wear bright-colored clothing. And the Architect’s Newspaper reports that unassuming Cleveland, Ohio, has the best BRT corridor in the United States.