Within many suburban developments there is an abundance of under utilized space within residential lots and public rights of way. Many suburban streets are 35-50ft wide; such widths unnecessarily consume ecological, social, and economic resources. We propose a new regenerative median for suburban streets that treats gray water and sewage, produces agriculture, provides a platform for small scale commercial activity and slows down automobile traffic to promote increased pedestrian activity and social interaction within the neighborhood.
Design of the regenerative median provides a strategy of land use manipulation to create a closed loop system for water, agriculture, and human waste. The localized water treatment system, when tied into existing infrastructure, slowly curbs the neighborhood demand for distant fresh water supplies and the energy required for its transport and treatment. Depending on local conditions the design of a regenerative median could manipulate other elements ultimately inserting open space, residential units, mass transportation, pedestrian circulation, park land, or native habitat.
Great idea. Thorough, well thought-out and well presented.
Great idea. Thorough, well thought-out and well presented
I hope this project goes from concept to reality! Great idea.
This seems like a great idea that looks, moreover, relatively easy and instant to implement and would improve quality of life in more ways than one! I wish that streets here in the UK were wide enough for this!
This is true restorative design and it gets my vote.
I garden, and I’ve generally tried to keep my garden as far away from the street as possible. How does this project deal with the automobile contaminants (particularly exhaust) and their proximity to human food? I could see restorative wetland medians as being more practical.
If I awoke to see a farmers market on my street, I might have a good reaction, and consider it interesting. I would definitely buy something to eat.
But is it viable? My street isn’t that wide, and every inch of parking space is used. The street that is used heavily has 40 MPH traffic, fairly deadly to pedestrian activity of a farmer’s market. Implementing pedestrian stops would slow traffic to a crawl.
If you can close of some streets from traffic you can create farmers markets, much like in New Orleans. In San Luis Obispo it is done every thursday night on the main street, where all the shops are… this is wildly successful.
In a suburbian location… I wonder if enough people will show up to afford a single market shop. The problem with suburbia is that it just doesn’t have a high enough population density, yet all the space is taken up so there is limited transit to and fro. In a town, it is more likely that a farmers market will be chosen in a shopping district, which is not exactly solving the problem of suburbia. In real the estate market, the shack like shop constructions would unfortunately devalue the neighboring homes.
Love this idea…easy to facilitate, creates job opportunities, brings local produces and product to communities that have to go out of their way to shop local.
Great concept…I’d open it up to local artisan and crafts people and it might have to be a seasonal thing to start…summer for sure, an Autumn themed with pumpkins and fall harvest items, canned stuff etc…and then Christmas!
Good idea – use all the right of way, not only for cars.
The markets’ area will be a small proportion of the productive land – locate them in appropriate places, not continuously.
Needs lots of cheap labor, or higher produce prices. Sadly, both are with us.
Seems easy, practical and not so futuristic.It says to me: let´s start TODAY !
Congratulations!
Sensible and logical presentation that would reduce pollution, reduce the costs of recycling waste and enhance to visual aspect of suburban streets when they are sufficiently wide. It would also reduce the extremes of wind and temperature caused by vast expanses of asphalt.
Love this idea! We could so do this right now in New Zealand! There are even median barriers with grass strips down the middle in many suburbs in Auckland just waiting for a project like this! There are families with kids going to school at the moment with no lunch, but with this kind of initiative with everyone on the street participating, they could pick up something on the way to school and help to aleviate the problem. This project would encourage neighbourhoods to get to know each other again, get communities supporting one another, saving seeds for the next year, learning new skills, reducing the need to use transport to get veg and fruit and all while recycling waste, encouraging sustainable living and contributing positively to the environment!
Even if the street is not wide enough, there are those little strips of council land between the houses and the footpath – use those! or build roundabouts at intersections and plant there! Infinite possibilities! I LOVE IT!
Great idea. Practical and useful.
Great idea. Very practical and reasonable to implement. You are going places with ideas like this!
I actually thought of this same idea years ago. I was looking out of the window while on the highway and noticed that there was empty land in the middle dividing the lanes. I’ve been in the car for an hour. Then I thought they should built a bathroom there and a some food stands. hahaha. Apparently I was hungry too. I though the idea was cool but then I was thinking that it could be a hazard to safe driving. For example filth, distraction, and then weather conditions. Maybe a big arbitrary wind storm could cause a lot of chaos when things start to fly around. But i think it could definitely be established in local street areas with a lot of open street space and exhaustive planning with certain standards and restriction.
This reminds me of the way that yards are used in Italy for gardens rather than lawns, creating a beautiful and practical use of space. I hope this idea becomes a reality.
Definitely a good idea! Would be better applied to some of our wider arterials and collectors. Reminds me of the “common ground” in New Orleans. How about adding streetcars or transit down the center on wider thoroughfares?
Great idea and the reclaimed water does work, I have a big development that uses the reclaimed water from its sewer plant to grow there grass along there streets. and what green grass it is.
This concept is well thought out and a win/wwin answer to walkable communities, healthier living through better produce and a concept that helps to create beautiful surroundings. Maybe each street or neighborhood could contract with a small family owned farm. This concept is ripe for collaboration.
Great Idea
Ya, a wonderful concept to encourage communal land use, provided data on auto emissions are not effectively diluted by ambient winds, etc (see “beez 8/10/09″).
sure good idea in a perfect world.
here, in Lebanon the pavements are full of light poles and trees or parked cars.
enough of this and to the serious comment. I think this idea is great though i feel it will work in small communities such as villages and closes. I think the municipality should spear head this type of agriculture for the people to benefit from.
I think this represents a real solution to implement in a suburban context. Does not have to happen on every street, but there are plenty that would be suitable.
It has its “practical” challenges, but the idea is sound. As such it should be pursued. This could also be implamented in cities as well where access to fresh food is a real challenge.
Nice…
this is a good solution! what we need now is a solution that is geared for the present situation that will benefit the future.
Good idea. In many suburban towns like mine in the SF Bay Area, we have side streets (already posted with a 25mph speed limit) that are 60 feet wide. I don’t know what the original town planners were thinking, but you could easily install a 20-foot-wide median for planting.
Great job Heather, keep up the good work making the world we live in a better place.
I would have to give this idea my vote. I think it addresses most of the issues that we are currently facing and will face into the future. It also addresses the wonderful idea that as the earth becomes more populated there are ways to design spaces to encourage activity in communities in a proactive way.
I LOVE IT!!!
Yes absolutely of course 100% yes!
I think this is a very positive way to deal with the future suburbs. We need more planning like this.
Great!! Good idea.
Great idea! My vote winner. Why should we be dominated by cars and have to travel big distances to get fresh produce? I say, slow the cars down, reduce their priority on the road and give something back to the locals and pedestrians…..BIG ticks from here!
You had me at “regenerative.”
good idea. in my urban neighbourhood we only have a relatively small public vegetable garden and the waiting list is over 3 years long to receive a plot. there is certainly a lot of demand for public gardening!
in suburban areas, people generally have enough room for their own garden in their own back yard. this isn’t very social, however, and i think that there would still be a demand for more public gardens such as the ones proposed here.
a relatively inexpensive idea which can have a big community impact. great stuff!
Good idea – not only the use of our neighbourhood green space more efficiently, but also the recognition that smaller roads and local commerce is better both socially and enviromentally. Us north americans are unique in the world with our oversized car, roads, homes and meals. We can look to Europe and beyond to see how more mature cultures already partly use this concept.
I would also like to note that this project is on the right track by focusing on public space. Other proposed projects in this contest target private properties (ie:shopping malls, big box stores) which will never gain any momentum because business is about fast cash and the bottom line.
Another gardener here, worried about growing toxic food full of car pollution, cigarette butts, dog poop and general urban vibrancy. The realities of street gardening for food are pretty gross. E.g.,
http://www.yougrowgirl.com/thedirt/2007/04/26/12-reasons-why-i-dont-grow-edibles-in-my-street-garden/
I’ve foraged fruit from boulevard trees, only to find an oil rainbow when I wash them.
I super love the idea of putting useful medians down those wide streets though.
Nice concept but only when all vehicles are electric. I don’t want any food that has been exposed to heavy fumes from autos, nor coated by the asbestos that falls from certain brake pads. But maybe someday this will be doable. Thanks for the effort!
As a civil engr who designed many people friendly street projects this one appeals to me to the max.
This is brilliant…folks will do a lot of extra weeding and back breaking labor if given additional tax breaks for being a community participant even in the Texas Heat.
I like the idea,but. The public space is just too dirty for growing food. Heck, most farms are too dirty. Dirty meaning polluted.
Narrow driving lanes slows traffic down in residential neighborhoods. Narrow lanes with parking is more dangerous for children. Less eye on scene time for a driver to see the kids. Grasscrete is good for low impact use such as a residential driveway accross part of a lawn. Heavy traffic areas will end up filled with street dust and will die.
Probably one of the best proposals, and my favorite. What I like — and unfortunately, Entrepeneurbia, which is my second favorite proposals, was not clear enough on the issue of greenery, this is the criticism I would like to make of Entrepeneurbia — is the integration of greenery into community. This project seems to be more eco-friendly than the others — I do not say that the other projects are not eco-friendly, but Brian Alessi’s project appears to be the more complete, I think so.
Other factor is his idea of reusing existing plots, that I think, is one of the most precise comparing with other projects. When I first saw his project, I thought of Interboro Partners’ “Improve Your Lot!”, say, their project on suburbian land uses (see Interboro Partners’ website for more information on his project). Like Interboro Partners, Brian Alessi attempts to rewrite the community’s — in extenso the suburbia, and, why not, the city — genetic code. He demonstrates that one of major suburbian problems — Paris and its suburbia and Tokyo and its suburbia, two cities where I live, are concerned with this issue — is a bad land management.
Then, He, I think, attaches importance to the quality of life of inhabitants. I do not know if he wants to transform some vacant land into lot to inhabit, and others for green space (parks…), but what I read shows that he envisions reusing vacant lots in this way. Is it not what we call The New Suburbanism, to quote Interboro Partners? That is: People will be able to improve community’s lots, otherwise, they can reappropriate the city.
So, I will conclude my comments by saying that: by reusing these patterns — vacant lots, existing buildings —, Brian Alessi seems to take account that: 1. reusing vacant lots increases lots value 2: he considers that the city’s function is to be reactive rather than proactive.
Sorry for my English, and Enjoy the vote.
Annick from Paris
the world needs innovative ideas such as this. You also understood the purpose of this competiton, which seems to be a difficult thing given other entries! This is certainly an concept worth pursuing and studying further for its feasibility. It is however a token intervention if considering “Reburbia” as a large scale/ big picture retrofit effort. Kudos on the initiative!
I like this one too. Although there are some issues.
1) In an ideal world people would pay for this food grown at the cute little retail booths. However, here in LA I have actually witness a poor family that actually let their kids out of their van in front of our house to pick all the oranges off our tree. I felt so bad I didn’t stop them. But think of all the theft if it were in the medians? Entrepreurbia’s “Sub-Urban Farms” offers a much more unique and viable solution to growing food in the suburbs. From what I can see, Sub-urban Farms maintains the grounds, you pick your produce in a fenced/secured environment, then pay at the home which was converted into the checkout area and a fresh salad bar! Ingenious and completely thought out. The community benefits, they make money. Win-Win!
2) I also have a problem with soil, air, runoff issues present in the medians. I think they’d be better suited to native plantings vs. grass but not growing food.
3) People have a romanticized view of the “community garden”. They rarely are very visually appealing and often get taken over by groups of retired women and turned into garden clubs with long waiting lists to get your own little plot of land. This has little benefit to anyone but a small section of the community.
There are several other problems. All could be solved but as a landscape architect that has worked with community gardens on several occasions the only successful “group” I’ve ever seen was a children’s garden at a local school. This entry is still quite conceptual.
It is great to see the commentary, criticism, and dialogue evolve on this topic and I hope it will continue with such enthusiasm beyond this competition. The urban-suburban condition demands that all of us, as global stakeholders, keep these lines of communication open to help find sustainable solutions.
It must be stressed that the proposed design establishes a site specific design solution and is careful not to propose a set of rigid, prescriptive guidelines. No claim is made to universal adoptability and the last sentence of my proposal attempts to stress the idea that there can be more than one solution. Good design will respond to local conditions.
Perhaps the most critical aspect of the project was manipulating the design process itself. By integrating regenerative guidelines and stakeholder input into the design process micro-conflicts were created shifting the tendency of the design to favor sustainable (re)development outcomes. My paper on strategies for retrofitting suburbia goes into more detail if you’re interested.
http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B7UXlE2sP9R-OWE2NGFhMjUtODg4Ny00YjE2LWJlOWQtMjdmNDUxZTUyNjQ3&hl=en
Thanks to all for your feedback and support.
Great idea, especially for developing countries like the Philippine. Income generating and at the same time it will solve some problems in malnutrition. I hope our government will look into this kind of proposals. Though many households here are doing some backyard gardening for personal consumption only.
Lovely illustrated use of the web for feedback plus education. Interested in the social aspect of the project, and yet, why not get more for your investment….food, social interaction, along with being good stewards of the land. Now how to get folks motivated to apply this lovely idea……….
I love a natural median between roads. It softens the road and provides a calming effect for drivers and open space for birds and small animals. If the road is wide enough, it could be utilized for agriculture and pedestrians. If the road is too busy or narrow, then just vegetation is fine. (I love tree-lined roads.)
I also love when a town or neighborhood closes the street for 2-3 blocks and creates a communal area for neighbors to socialize and shop at the local stores (like the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder CO or the square in Mill Valley CA).
I am all for bringing nature back into our daily lives wherever we can! And socializing with my neighbors is fun too!
Love the ideas but question the health considerations of growing food in narrow spaces with car exhaust on both side of the strip. Chemicals end up on the food and inhaled by working gardeners.
I’m chemically sensitive so these things are a constant consideration for me. It’s especially dangerous for infants and children with low body weights.
Maia de Gaia
I made the mistake of voting for this one and I can’t seem to undo it. It’s too dangerous to have people in the middle of the road, but just in case reduced speeds were mentioned(I didn’t read the whole thing) It’s important to have some lee way- think of driving sexting teens! booo on no vote retractions.
It looks great on paper. However, I’d be very hesitant to actually eat any produce that’s been in the middle of the road though! In the middle of the road!
I would have to trust the gardeners who have posted comments here about never planting edibles in their front gardens because of car and road pollutants.
However, if this particular problem can be solved, along with the myriad of road crossings and people wandering between the path and the center willy nilly then I’m for it!
Why not put thin strips of commerce on each side of these wide roads… similar to the stands on the side of the river Saine in Paris… but not food at tire or any level. I guess that would be too close to residents though.
Maybe there’s something here but I’m not seeing a widespread solution. I would travel from one place to a suburb to visit a restaurant or other business though, like Entreprenurbia. That one has communal gardens too doesn’t it, replacing corner tot-lots? And those veggies aren’t within 5 feet of oily cars.
works in reality quite well, see all those temporary garden installations.
but a steady usage and more effective one would be even better.
I work in transportation in New York State. Though I like this idea, from experience I know that in order to implement this one would need to deal with a number of pollutants and contaminants from the road, including road salt in many northern climates. It would be best implemented in slow residential areas. Because of the pollution concerns, I think it would be helpful to condense the travel lanes instead of separating them, and to provide a vegetated filtration buffer between the road and the food.
Medians are utilized by traffic engineers for vehicular safety and flow. I am all about urban farming, but this idea has some serious legal hurdles to overcome. It seems like a median on a high speed road is the last place one should look at for urban farming/farmers markets.
Interesting idea, and well presented, in my opinion. (I tend to agree with comments in #52.)
This is a great idea – and perhaps in the not too distant future? The car’s time is over and the space taken should be handed over to community use.
Interesting idea. A similar idea already exists in a border town in Vietnam, Lao Cai, where vegetables are grown in the middle of the road. But they don’t channel the stormwater from the road for irrigation.