The Paths Less Traveled
Urban Integration
Boston 400
Laying out Paths
Cities
Cities for People
The Image of the City and
its Elements
Changing the Residential
Street Scene
The Paths Less Traveled
Author: Didato, Barry
This article deals with the concept of greenways. Greenways are networks of paths, parks, and scenic drives within an urban surrounding. These greenways can improve the quality of life in a crowded city by providing green space. This is important because soon 2/3 of the population will be living in cities. js
Citation: Planning. v56n1. Jan 1990. p. 6-10,
This is a website that deals with integrating neighborhoods into the urban fabric. It discusses the importance of paths to and from the city center. These paths allow for greater employment opportunity. It also talks about the use of nodes along the paths. These nodes can be commercial areas or other employment opportunities outside of the city center. js
Citation: "Urban Integration", <http://www.cmc.gov.za/up/msdf/jprince4.htm>,
1/30/00
The Boston 400 is a massive undertaking to try to make the city of Boston more friendly to automobiles. Boston is not laid out on a grid like most U.S. cities, but instead it has a more European street pattern. The Boston 400 seeks to build more straight, point to point type paths. In a lot of cases these new paths are being put underground so the existing urban fabric is not disturbed. js
Citation: "Boston 400", <http://www.ci.boston.ma.us/boston400/>,
1/30/00
Laying out Paths
Author: Hayward, Gordon
In this article the author discusses how the layout of paths is necessary for a coherent garden design. This applies directly to community design as well. He talks about using smaller vegetation to define the edges of the paths, and larger and more eye-catching plants as nodes. js
Citation: Horticulture, v. 74 (June/July 1996) p. 32-35
Cities
Author: Halprin, Lawrence
This book is an examination of the layout of cities and the many variations that occur between them all the way down to the lighting and paving of roads. This book is extremely detailed at times, such as when analyzing different types of benches, yet at the same time it gives good general information about city form. Halprin notes two cities, Turin and Paris, with respect to there drastically conflicting layouts. Wayfinding is considered and analyzed in Turin, a grid city, and Place de L’Etoile, Paris, a radial city. J.N.
Halprin, Lawrence. Cities. New York: Reinhold, 1963.
Cities for People
Author: Wiedenhoeft, Ronald
This book analyses the movement of traffic throughout the city. Traffic is a major problem in most cities, yet Wiedenhoeft states traffic can be controlled to create a city that is more accessible. By changing streets, allowing mass transit to have there own lane, and widening sidewalks a city can become a smooth moving form of transportation making the city more legible. J.N.
Wiedenhoeft, Ronald. Cities for People. New York: Van Nostrand
Reinhold, 1981.
The Image of the City
and Its Elements
Author: Lynch, Kevin.
This is a chapter of The Image of City dealing with numerous elements within the city, such as paths, edges, nodes and landmarks. Paths for most people are the most defining element within a city. People feel a high level of familiarity with the city when they understand and remember the path system. With the development of paths come a number of more detailed elements like spatial qualities and concentration of use within the path. J.N.
Lynch, Kevin. The Image of the City. Cambridge: Technology,
1960.
Changing the Residential
Street Scene
Author: Ben-Joseph, Eran
This is an intensely detailed analysis of traffic within the city and into suburbs. The primary goal of this article is to explain and encourage good traffic design. For a city to be fluid and highly accessible it must have harmonious movement between pedestrians and motor traffic. To achieve this a designer must consider lengths, widths, plaza areas, materials used and many other elements when planning paths of movement. J.N.
Ben-Joseph, Eran. “Changing the Residential Street Scene: adapting
the shared street concept
into the suburban environment.” Journal of the American Planning
Association 61
(Autumn 1995): 504-15.
