Barriers to Housing Production in Oregon

A summary of our recently released report on Barriers to Housing Production in Oregon:

This brief summarizes research conducted by faculty from the Institute for Policy Research & Engagement (IPRE) on barriers to housing construction in Oregon. The research team conducted a literature review, reviewed municipal housing-related documents and plans, and conducted a survey of local government staff, private sector housing developers and nonprofit housing developers. The summary report highlights key barriers and offers recommendations on how local and state policy might soften key barriers.

To understand perspectives on barriers to housing production, we developed and administered an online survey to selected stakeholder groups. We targeted (1) local government staff (primarily planners, but other staff in cities that do not have planning staff), (2) for-profit housing developers, and (3) non-profit housing developers. A total of 323 individuals participated in the survey; 134 government representatives (41% of respondents), 105 private sector developers (33%), 52 nonprofit housing developers (16%) and 32 that could not be categorized in the three primary groups (10%).

Exhibit 1 shows the top 12 barriers reported among the 61 included in the survey ranked by the percentage of respondents indicated they barrier was “extreme.” Barriers from 4 of the 5 categories emerge in the top 12 with several barriers related to construction costs (construction and materials), industry structure, and land supply constituting the most consistently rated extreme barriers. Additionally, the mismatch in housing supply for low and moderate income to compete the market and the lack of supply keeping up with population growth are demand related barriers that are perceived as extreme.  Key conclusions from our research include:

  • Barriers are varied and interact in complex ways
  • Regulatory barriers are real but vary by community and are community dependent
  • Land supply is generally perceived as a barrier, but the constraint is much more nuanced than having an adequate supply of land in UGBs – provision of infrastructure and the size of lots pose barriers
  • Industry-related barriers (e.g., construction and labor costs; availability of labor) are significant and difficult to address with state policy
  • Private and nonprofit housing developers perceive process barriers (e.g., permitting, fees, etc.) as extreme at much higher rates than the public sector.
  • The private sector is not producing lower cost housing

To check out our recommended solutions and read more about our research see:

Barriers to Housing Production Brief

Barriers to Housing Production Summary Report_

Barriers Housing Production Technical Report 

 

 

That’s a wrap! Study Abroad 2022

On Sunday, under less than ideal circumstances in a lecture room in a hostel, our 17 courageous, amazing students presented to their classmates and other friends of the program about what they learned and what they want to carry home.  This class is such an inspirational experience as an instructor and guide for these students.  This year’s class included several students who were specializing in planning, architecture, and engineering. This group was different in that they’ve all taken classes in planning and have been exposed to ideas that challenge American transportation planning.  Even though they agreed with the concepts in the classroom, there’s nothing that can replace the experience of coming here and getting a bicycle in an independent setting.

In final presentations, students talked about how riding bikes in cities designed for them makes them happier, safer, more independent/ autonomous, and less anxious. One of our Scan Design Fellows (Robin Lewis from Bend) live blogged the presentations! They spoke about how planning around bicycles offers accessibility and helps reach sustainability goals, while giving people access to greenspace & recreation.   They connected their work to theoretical concepts like user-centered design and de-growth.  They spoke of specific aspects of infrastructure that make this work from planning for calm streets, microinfrastructure, public space, long distance routes, transit connections, and critical linkages like bicycle bridges. They talked about communication and education approaches to launch public education campaigns and to get children on bicycles.  I was impressed with how they married research with personal experience to offer insights into a topic that resonated with them over the last 4 weeks.  Over the coming weeks, the students will be writing up their final projects to carry their experiences back to the U.S. As with previous cohorts, I’m excited to see how this group of students harnesses this experience to make a difference in their communities and launch their careers to work towards better places that allow for these same amazing things we experienced.  These students are inspiring, resilient, and wicked smart – I can’t wait to see what they do with their knowledge and experience!

As I reflect on my own experience this trip, I’m left with different takeaways from the last class.  The key thoughts that I’m sitting with this time:  1) political will; 2) intentionality; 3) working across silos. Time and time again, our guest speakers remind us that the “issues” we face in the U.S. around taking away parking and fear of change are not all that different than what European cities are facing – even today, Copenhagen faces heated resistance to removing parking.  At the end of the day, it all comes down to political will. Second, achieving this world that makes us feel so safe, happy, and comfortable isn’t by accident – designers and planners make careful, intentional choices to prioritize bicycles and make things work.  Finally, making progress requires working across silos in both public space/transportation but also transportation/land use/housing. A few of our closing speakers reminded us about the role of land use planning in achieving densities that make cycling feasible.  Henk Swarttouw spoke a new housing development in the Netherlands prioritizing building bicycle infrastructure to make sure it’s present before people start developing habits around transportation.  This speaks to the need to integrate land use planning, housing construction, and transportation investments like Sweden is doing with the Sverigeforhandlingen. I’m inspired to write up and tell the story of this policy.

The Leaders of the 2022 trip!

Chased by cows – minutes from Amsterdam

Have you ever left a dense city and extremely busy train station and been cycling next to cows within minutes?  What a thrill! On Saturday morning, Nick and I rode a bike ferry (the coolest) to Noord to start a longer ride outside the city.  After getting a bit stuck in a couple of canals and parks thanks to my poor sense of direction, we were soon outside the A10 and plopped on the Netherlands National Cycling Routes.  We were also surrounded by cows and fields.  The A10 effectively serves as a growth boundary on the Northern edge and urban to rural transition is stark.  What makes it unique is how well-marked, integrated, and safe the rural cycling routes feel.  We were just on city bikes (without helmets) but we felt extremely safe on narrow off-road paths.  We meandered around the countryside and were at one point chased by cows who were running full speed along our bicycles.  Following the routes was easy and clear.  We got to ride a second low-tech ferry across another body of water that cost 25 cents each.

The cycling in Amsterdam is world-renowned and incredible, but this access to the countryside with safe and clear infrastructure is truly unmatched.  Denmark is working on their own cycling strategy, but it’s safe to say that the adage is true – The Netherlands is a cycling country while Copenhagen is a cycling city.

For the love of social cycling

Our class starts in Denmark before moving to the Netherlands – as Marc describes it, this gives students a way to get used to an environment busy with cyclists that is predictable and easy-to-follow because space is clearly delineated and rules are generally followed.  We then move to the Netherlands where the cycling culture is “more evolved” as some describe it – where the cyclists now reign supreme over other vehicles.  Typically, we drop students right into Utrecht which is often ranked one of most cyclist friendly cities in the world and has some the busiest bicycle segments in the Netherlands (and world.) This year, students got a bit of warm up in Nijmegen. I really enjoyed seeing Nijmegen and surrounding areas to get a glimpse of what cycling culture is like in smaller cities.

Utrecht is a different experience entirely.  Like in Copenhagen, we give students bikes then ask them to follow a local in rush hour to observe customs and behavior around cycling.  What did we hear?  “It makes sense to me.” “Signals don’t seem to matter.” “We got to ride side by side!” and “It’s super scary!”  “They go so fast here!”  After this task, we met up with our Utrecht expert, Ronald Thamse, who offered some ideas into why things might seem different here including “Welcome to the Netherlands. Don’t tell us what to do,” and that people tend to ignore rules if better for themselves. He also reminded us of the concept of social cycling. They design cycle paths to be at least 3 meters wide to allow friends to cycle side by side while allowing another to pass. Two-way cycle paths are at least 4 meters wide.

This concept of social cycling was something I missed dearly since my last trip to the Netherlands and something I embraced again.  Roaming around on a bicycle, I would see friends cycling side by side, grandparents next to grandchildren, families together, and school children 2×2 catching up on the day before.  On Saturday, Nick and I chose our lunch restaurant on a busy fietstraat (bicycle street) where we could watch bicycle traffic.  It provided endless happiness!

I vividly remember riding side-by-side with my friend Meg in Florida on a road bike ride early morning and getting harassed by drivers then law enforcement who told us it was “illegal to ride side by side.” In fact, it wasn’t as she wrote to the local paper in an op-ed later.  But, this contrast reminds me of the extreme differences in cycling culture in the U.S. v. the Netherlands. In the U.S, you’re supposed to be shoved to the side out of the way of the vehicles, even if it’s unsafe, even if you want to have a conversation, even though you’re still taking up less room than the vehicles.  In the Netherlands, they consider the social aspect of cycling so that you can take meetings and have chats side-by-side with friends.  Moreover, the bicycle is at the top of the pyramid.  (That means that pedestrians, transit users, and drivers cede to the bicycle – there is a clear king here.)  It took 40 years for Utrecht to get here, but it’s miraculous to experience and it inspires so much comfort, safety, and happiness from the cycle.

Nijmegen – Now for a Mid-Sized Dutch City

A re-routed course (due to COVID protocols) allowed for the addition of a mid-sized Dutch city into our course.  On Monday, we rode in vans from Odense, DK to Linden, NL, which is a very small town about 15 km from Nijmegen.  On Tuesday, we were greeted by an enthusiastic Dutch transportation planner in his mid-30s – Sjors van Duren. Sjors shared stories of being a fresh college graduate out of the University of Nijmegen who was the only one at his organization enthusiastic about cycling projects. Throughout the day, Sjors shared stories of projects he shepherded to improve cycling connections throughout the region including cycling super highways, “keep on going riding routes” and important bicycling bridge connections.  It was great to hear from someone mid (or early) career sharing stories about recent projects in a mid-sized city.  We hear from such a great variety of public, private, nonprofit and academic sector cycling experts throughout the class and I appreciated what Sjors offered to our roster of amazing speakers. Nijmegen was a great introduction to the Netherlands because it offered examples of a smaller city doing a lot of stuff recently (v. Utrecht and Amsterdam, which have been “at it” for 40+ years.) Remarkably, the cycling mode split increased by *20* percentage points from 40% to 60%. These were a few lessons I took away from our day with Sjors:

  • Cycling Super Highway = Keep on Going Riding Route: Sometimes you have to re-cast the same project in different communities to get buy in from the community.  Language, communication, and values matter. Couching projects in terms of values like social mobility, congestion, and health can build support from different politicians and residents.  The point is to offer safe, fast, convenient infrastructure that lets people get from place to place easily.
  • Back up your dreams with calculations: Sjors was able to build regional support for a cycling bridge from Cujik to Mook by using the tools of engineering and congestion to justify the investment in a cycling bridge to communicate just how cost-effective infrastructure for cycling is compared to motorways. He also said to put your math in a box after you’ve gotten political support, because it’s already served it’s purpose and there’s no need to revisit it.
  • Put some skin the game: On the same bridge project, Sjors told a story of getting municipalities to commit to each funding a little piece of the project in the region. When they came up a little short for funding, it was easy to get commitment for the rest of the funding because everyone had showed faith in the project.
  • Recycle infrastructure: Instead of building brand new facilities, find older paths and routes that can minimize the amount of investment required. One of the paths we cycled followed an old Roman road.  In the U.S., we do this with rail trails (though there are some political challenges that can raise the costs).
  • Sometimes you have to make it better for cars to make it better for bikes: Nijmegen has a lot of cars as well and we went through some intersections that see 50k cars per day. Sjors gave examples of trying to increase capacity for cars in some parts of the city in order to make it nicer for cycling in other parts of the city.   We talk so much in this course about making things harder for cars to encourage biking, but it was really useful to hear Sjors say “you’re never going to convince everyone” and that sometimes you make tradeoffs to improve cycling.
  • Pick the best communicator for the job: Sjors gave a good anecdote about learning who you can communicate with and being willing to step back to let someone else manage a relationship if they’re better at communicating with a particular audience.
  • We tradeoff safety for convenience: While it’s the safest for all road users (bikes, pedestrians, vehicles) to stop at every intersection, you trade off convenience for safety.  If you make it so inconvenient to cycle, then no one will do it.

Sjors talking about Nijmegen

Sjors and Nick riding on the “Keep on Going Riding Route”

Roundabout design

The “bad” route from Nijmegen to Cujik

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the “bad” route — pretty nice!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As a side note, there are multiple ways to get from Linden to Nijmegen – we rode with Sjors on the “Keep on Going Riding Route” where bikes go non-stop on an off-street facility through a forest. It was lovely and pleasant.  He also described a “highway” route – we rode that route as well, and it was remarkably pleasant as well with protected infrastructure and beautiful roundabouts.  The “highway” felt more like a U.S. arterial and traffic was going ~40 mph maximum, mostly because the road was designed to slow you down.  I met a woman on the train who was an Australian ex-pat living in the northern part of the country.  She said “In Australia, when we talk about safety, we make roads as straight as possible and cut down all the trees. In the Netherlands, when we talk about safety, we make the road curvy, narrow it, and add trees to slow people down.”  It’s a very accurate description of the approach, and it’s really easy to see how well the Dutch approach works in a variety of contexts.

Lovely rural path

Bridges

Roundabout

Path outside Nijmegen

Riding near Linden

Odense – Impressive Mid-Sized City

Odense is approximately 200k in population with 30k college students, making it similar in size and student demographics to Eugene. After our long bike rides, we went straight into a meeting with city traffic planner Connie Juel Clausen.  She gave us an enthusiastic and impassioned overview of the recent investments in the city including:

  • A new cycling bridge over the train tracks into the redeveloping harbor area
  • A new tram line that opened 1 month ago, connecting city center to the university
  • Removing a freeway from the city center, which allowed for a large mass of land to be repurposed into housing, space for bicycles, and space for the tram. This also allowed the city to reconnect the shopping district and the museum district.
  • Investing in cycling superhighways to the outskirts of the city.

Tram and new public square (freeway removed)

New development in space from removed freeway

New cycling bridge over train tracks to harbor

Redesigned street and public square (from cars to tram lines)

In addition to physical improvements, we heard about the campaigns to encourage cycling including:

  • Cargo bikes to borrow from businesses
  • Cargo bikes for kindergartens
  • Cycle play to teach kids to bike and to enjoy cycling
  • Cycle Happy School to encourage classes to take bicycles to museums, swimming pools, and have mobile classes
  • Traffic gardens at several schools (instead of the one in Copenhagen)

The city is continuing to work to make the city more attractive to college students and families.  The city is engaging the water and the harbor to activate the space. The college campus is large, but disconnected from the city center so students commute from Copenhagen by train and tram rather than moving to Odense.  We took the tram to the campus on Sunday, and it definitely had a deserted, eerie feeling.  There were several new-looking buildings but no restaurants, cafes, or housing closeby.

University buildings with bike path & tram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Odense definitely has a different feel than Copenhagen – it’s less dense with fewer people, so the bicycle lanes aren’t as packed.  There are more single family homes and more cars throughout the city.  The crosswalks all have pedestrian “beg buttons” requiring you to wait for the light to turn to cross the street. The bicycle infrastructure is extensive and well integrated.  It feels pretty comfortable to get around the city by bike (though I’ve been geographically confused a few times.)

I love visiting mid-sized cities because it’s inspiring to see how cities of this size invest in big projects to improve communities for people.  I see many parallels to Eugene in terms of opportunity and inspiration as the city reconfigures Franklin Blvd and pursues EWEB redevelopment – these projects have been in the works for several years. Franklin Blvd has roughly the same traffic volume as the freeway the city of Odense removed from city center.

We’ve been visiting several mid-sized Scandinavian cities, and I’ve been impressed by the large-scale redevelopment of industrial areas in city centers.  How are they getting things done so quickly when we struggle in the U.S. to get such massive projects off the ground? The level of housing construction and focus on making quality places in these defunct industrial areas is impressive.  While the focus of my research was on one particular housing/infrastructure policy in Sweden, I’ve been interested in understanding what makes housing construction more feasible in these countries. As I mentioned in a previous post about my sabbatical research, the systems for planning and housing are more similar than different.

Bicycle Touring in the Countryside

Bicycle Touring in the Countryside

Our class focuses on planning for people on bikes in large cities, mid-sized cities, and small towns/rural areas.  To facilitate this learning, we typically spend some days doing supported bike touring from location-to-location where our luggage is carried by our amazing on-site experts (Floris & Adam at Austin’s Adventures) while we ride our bikes from point to point.  The rides range from 20-30 miles each day and encompass a diversity of infrastructure.

This year’s class brought us to different locations and destinations. Normally, we bike up the coast of Denmark to Helsingør, then take the ferry to Sweden and bike down the coast of Sweden to Malmö.  COVID restrictions forced us to reconsider the schedule and route and allowed us to explore new areas.  That has meant that we’re experiencing this part of the country the same time as students, which is tough from an educational perspective, but interesting to see our immediate reactions.

I have loved riding bikes since I was very small and used my bike as a way to get some freedom to go buy candy at the Dairy Mart and visit friends. At some point, I was allowed to bike down the hill out of the neighborhood to go to Dairy Mart by myself and it gave me freedom before I had a car. I have vivid memories of my first “long” bike rides – I remember a 6 mile ride to a friend’s house in high school and being so impressed with myself.  Later in college, I started biking to campus because the bus was always full.  When I moved back to Kentucky, I bought a cycling routes about riding in the Bluegrass.  I vividly remember biking ~25 miles near Shakertown with my friend Ben and being so hungry and exhausted after!  Later in college, I started dragging my dad out on rides in the countryside near our house in rural Kentucky.  When he briefly retired in 2006, we enjoyed 20-30 mile road bike rides all over the Bluegrass until I moved to graduate school.  I gradually started doing triathlons and longer rides. I’ve always loved road biking in rural areas and feel so centered and happy riding by bicycle through beautiful landscapes.

All of that is to say, I love sharing this hobby and passion with others and really enjoy seeing others go through that process of “I biked that far!? That was hard, but that was fun and beautiful!” But in the U.S., it’s really hard to, in good conscience, convince people to go out on rural roads when drivers go so fast and the infrastructure is so poor.

On this trip, it has been eye-opening and inspiring to witness a group of college students bike further than they ever have before nearly everyday.  Many bike for transportation in the U.S. but few bike recreationally.  When we debriefed some of the rural ride, the reactions were mixed – some loved it but some realized that biking without purpose wasn’t for them.  For some, it inspired them to consider biking further distances that previously seemed unfathomable in the U.S.

Riding to Troense Island

Troense Island

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Troense Island

Troense Island

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Over the course of this week, we biked over 100 miles include 3 x 25-30 mile days. Here’s what our routes looked like:

  • Tuesday: Optional 11 mile ride to Troense Island from Svendborg
  • Wednesday: 27 mile loop around Aero Island
  • Thursday: 25 mile ride from Svendborg to Kornith via Esegkov Castle
  • Friday: 26 mile ride from Korinth to Odense via Ringe (some of the group got the fun experience of taking bike to train after an 11 mile cycle to Ringe!!)

A few thoughts about the infrastructure we experienced:

  • A central part of the national bicycle strategy is thinking about cycling for recreation. What’s so cool about this is that you can plan low-carbon (carfree) cycling vacations that involve taking a train to a small town, then a ferry to an island for cycling.
    • The strategy includes: safety & security, tourism, service, comfort, signage, and meaningfulness
  • During our trip, we followed some signed routes and veered off path for some diversions (like castles)
  • The quality of the infrastructure varied from rail trails to separated multi-use paths to lightly trafficked rural roads to highways with no shoulder.
  • Cars were much more attentive and cautious around cyclists than in the U.S. Not speeding too fast nearby or honking.
  • The countryside and island rides were really gorgeous and unique. It was great to enjoy those without a fear of cars.
  • There’s something I love about riding from a small town/rural area into a city – we did this in Malmö and Amsterdam in 2019. It’s really eye-opening to see the exurban to suburban to urban landscape shift. Some aspects of urban form are really similar to the U.S. (like a McDonalds and Shell station adjacent to a highway).  But the cycling infrastructure is completely different – from about 10 km from town, we were on a separated off-street facility the entire way. It was a cycling superhighway! At our presentation later in the day, we learned that the national government is putting an emphasis on longer distance routes to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Ferry to Ærø Island

Disembarked from Ferry at Ærø

Beautiful trail on Ærø

Ærø Island

Ærø Island

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A fun wayfinding note:  Our guide/ co-leader Adam created many of the routes via RideWithGPS from afar.  The visit to Kornith was new, so we ended up on a short highway section – all of us noted how unpleasant it was (though really much less miserable than U.S. roads of this nature.)  At our bed & breakfast, Nick started talking to the host about the railroad station we saw and asked if there was still service there.  He mentioned how they had developed a rail trail from Kornith to Ringe.  We shifted our route based on this local intel and used the rail trail, then the Danish National Cycling Route 55 to get into Odense.   The new route added a few miles (3) but was much safer and more comfortable than the original route.  This happens in the U.S. as well – you often add mileage to be safer and more comfortable.

Cycling Superhighways

Rural bicycle infrastructure

 

 

 

Crew from Ringe to Odense

Arriving in Odense

Rural Infrastructure

Rail Trail

“Human Behavior Trumps Infrastructure”

Rasmus Duong-Grunnet (Gehl) said this on our cycling tour of the bicycle snake in Copenhagen.  The point is – if you don’t make it work and make it easy for people to use – they won’t, or they’ll do something outside of the intent of the designer. Relatedly, bikes need to be able to connect effortlessly and decisions must be made to make the bicycle the preferred mode of arrival rather than an afterthought.

In both the Gehl and Copenhagenize lectures, I was struck by the concept of adapting infrastructure for human nature.  This concept is common in thinking about “desire lines” – or where people walk on paths when the provided option isn’t intuitive.  But they gave a few examples of watching human behavior and adapting the infrastructure to suit it, even if it is not in alignment with design guidelines.  James at Copenhagenize gave an example of bicycle slip lane that helps people commute from the north side of town to work downtown.  They noticed the behavior, put in a pilot to study it, then made changes in line with the observed behavior to relieve the pinch point in the commute.

Both Andreas and James mentioned how important pilots are for getting support when there are critics and skeptics. James joked that it was even easier when you do pilots in the summer when everyone is on vacation!  Overall though, it’s important to measure the before and after to be able to communicate the results.

The approach to study and make changes seems to reflect Danish sensibility – they use guidelines but don’t make rules unless needed.  As long as people treat areas with respect, they’ll let you do it. But if something becomes a problem, they’ll make new rules about it.  This extends to the design of the roadways – the Danish approach is simple; it’s not over-engineered with a ton of paint or specialized signals. In Copenhagen, they follow a typology that takes into account how many cars and how fast.  When the cars are <10 mph, it’s a shared space.  When cars are 20 mph, they use painted lanes and parking protection.  Faster, they use the most common design – the curb separated cycle track so it’s clear where you belong.  The use very few signs but use design to make it clear.  Finally, when cars are over 50 mph, they use a buffered bicycle track with a barrier or a fence so the modes never cross. In addition, they use traffic calming to signal how fast cars should be going. I appreciated something James said about bikes – they’re fast moving pedestrians, not cars. We wouldn’t tell pedestrians to “share the road” and walk down a car busy with streets, and we shouldn’t tell bicycles to do that either.

A few design features that were fun to hear about and see in action:

  • Designated cyclist phases with the pedestrians – have different stop bars to pull the bikes out of the cyclists blindspots. Bikes aren’t a big threat to pedestrians so they don’t need a separate phase.
  • Use bike boxes to facilitate bunching and let bikes get through an intersection. Can get 100 bikes through in 45 seconds; probably 6 cars
  • Small elements of design – like making cars come up to level of pedestrians instead of making pedestrians come down into the space of cars which is harder to see.

Stop bar ahead of cars to protect people riding bikes

Painting bicycle markings only at crossings

Beautiful calm street

Curb protected infrastructure

Bunching to get through lights

Playful Cities

When kids learn to play while riding a bike, it becomes part of your body.  Even though the traffic garden is designed like a city, it’s not necessarily about teaching rules.  Once they know how to ride and are comfortable on a bike, the parents are responsible for teaching the rules. The Danish Cyclist Federation developed several games for kids to play on a bike.  The most important thing is exposing kids to bike culture early and making it fun.

The playgrounds

In the 1970s-1980s, Denmark realized that families were leaving the city and made a conscious effort to improve spaces for families.  This included investing in improving inner courtyards, investing in kindergartens, and creating playgrounds.  One unique thing about Copenhagen is the prevalence of staffed playgrounds.

Overall, their playgrounds are less focused on risk and more on teaching the kids about various subjects like construction, farming, or traffic… and about building structures that help them be independent and test their limits. This goes in line with the Scandinavian approach to schooling which focuses on teaching small children to be humans and interact with others through play-based learning and doesn’t start teaching reading & math until age 7.

This level of play extends around the city in small and random places – there are tiny play structures all over and trampolines right next to the harbor.

 

Trampolines by harbor

Traffic Playground

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The parks

There are many great parks all around the city.  From the flowery manicured Kings Garden to the lush, lake centered Orstedsparken to Superkilen and Norrebroparken, there is lots of variation. There seems to be something for everyone (who likes being outside!) and a focus on creating parks that reflect what people in the neighborhood want. We learned more about the unique design of Superkilen on our Copenhagenize Tour – the park was designed to reflect the multicultural neighborhood from the three major colors (red, green, and black) representing Palestine to the different playground equipment reflecting different countries.

Park in Nordhaven (on roof of parking structure)

Orstedsparken

King’s Garden

Superkilen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Adult playgrounds

Thanks to humid, warm temperatures, we’ve fully embraced dock and harbor bath culture.  European parks are well-known for being full of people hanging out on blankets.  Parks and swimming areas can create “third-spaces” for people outside of their homes and work.  Even better – these spaces are free and open the public. The engagement with the water in Copenhagen is so amazing.  There are lots of official harbor baths, some with intricate diving structures or built in swimming lanes.  There are also just low-cost wooden stepped docks where you can grab some snacks and drinks and hang out with your friends.  The water is clean because the city moved the industry from the center of the city and made the “largest swimming pool” in the center of the city.  As Andreas mentioned, local destinations are the key to transformation of Copenhagen – also a climate strategy because it reduces the number and volume of people driving out of town to the beach.   It’s about biking to and from work, but also other places people want to go and be.   In both considering families and recreation, Copenhagen acknowledges that people are leaving the city and makes changes to make cities nicer.  I always daydream about Springfield or Eugene having more formal swimming areas along the Willamette, or ice cream or coffee stands near the river.

Harbor swimming area

Copenhill – ski slope on a waste-to-energy facility

Conscious Decisions

A common refrain about Europe is that “it’s always been this way,” and that the “culture is different,” or the “city design is different.”  This notion has been written about and debunked by many ex-pats living in bicycle-friendly cities.

When you’re visiting Copenhagen, you notice that the city is vibrant, well-functioning and easy to get around.  But it wasn’t by accident and it wasn’t necessarily because of historic design or a “different culture.”  When big changes (like pedestrian streets) were proposed in Copenhagen, many thought they would fail because of the weather and culture, but they were hugely successful.

Many of the aspects of good design are subtle – you don’t notice them if you’re a regular resident going about your daily life.  But you’d notice if they were missing or if it was harder to get around.  For example, have you ever had to carry your trash around because there aren’t strategically places trash cans around the city?

As we’ve been living in Scandinavia, we’ve come to appreciate these subtle elements of city design that just make things nicer and smoother. In attending lectures, I’ve been struck by how conscious many of these decisions were.  The work of Gehl observes human behavior, measures it, and offers strategic visions for planning cities for people.

Some other examples I noticed:

  • If we want people to bike, we make it the fastest, easiest and safest way to get around. Bike parking should be close and easy. Taking a car should be a bit more difficult. Instead of having cars parked directly outside of homes, Copenhagen uses centralized parking hubs that require walking across a quad to get to the car.  That makes it less enticing to use for short trips.  In this example, it also gets people to walk through shared public space which activates community interaction.
  • If we don’t want people to drive out of the city to recreate at beaches, we clean up the harbor by removing industry and combined sewage overflow into the harbor, and we create nice places for people to enjoy the water. This makes it possible for people to bike and walk to swimming areas after work.
  • In studying urban space, Gehl realized that buildings that 5-6 stories are ideal for urban life – people interact with public space. If they live in taller buildings, they live in the sky and don’t interact with public space. This level of density is similar in Paris, Copenhagen, Malmö and many other cities. After living in this level of density, I agree that it’s ideal – it’s dense enough to have a population to support neighborhood scale retail but can still be quiet and calm without the feel of a huge city.
  • In redevelopment areas like Nordhaven, city plans integrate the concepts that work well in other parts of the city for new development. The height is mostly 5-6 stories except some landmark pre-existing buildings. Parking is in hubs rather than adjacent to homes. The concept is based on an idea of a 5-minute neighborhood, but the shops are local rather than large international chains.

Nordhaven – playground on top of parking garage

Nordhaven – side of parking garage with greenspace

Ideal density (and lovely garden!)

Islands Brygge Swimming Area in Harbor

I’ve been struck by how the forces that make these decisions difficult are the same as we face in U.S. cities.  People fight for street parking, existing residents are against new development, and everyone is against change.  But these cities have the political will to overcome these forces of change and make a conscious choice to take a different path.  Andreas’ advice about navigating the political realm, forming relationships across siloes (at a local level and across levels of government) really resonated with me.  To overcome these issues, it’s not just about trying to get them to care about climate change – it also has to be communicated related to quality of life, air pollution, and noise. And most of all, you can’t convince people to ride bikes if the network isn’t well-connected, and it isn’t easy and fast to do so.