By Paul Grenier
In certain Greek villages, writes architect Christopher Alexander in "The Timeless Way of Building," outside every house there is a band of whitewash four or five feet wide "so that people can pull their chairs into a realm which is half theirs, half street, and so contribute to the life around them."
On the other hand, wrote Alexander, cafés in Los Angeles are indoors so that food won't get contaminated.
The first pattern, he says, is alive; the other, dead.
I couldn't help thinking of this parable about the purposes, and limitations, of public safety last Friday during a tour of downtown Bethesda led by Dan Burden, president and founder of Walkable Communities, Inc., and one of the United States' leading lights in the field of creating lively, walkable town centers and downtowns.
What does it mean to create "walkable" spaces in Montgomery Countya goal that practically everyone, from Kentlands to Silver Spring, has signed on to of late? Is the idea to create as much pedestrian safety as possible? Or is it to create places that are themselves alive?
Incidentally, Dan Burden said that Christopher Alexander was one of his heroes.
Burden, who currently lives in Florida (though he travels frequently all over the country), had been in town for a conference and to give a lecture at the National Building Museum. He was talked into this impromptu walk about Bethesda by local enthusiasts from the Sierra Club and the Coalition for Smarter Growth.
A staff member from County Councilman Phil Andrews' office, the Civic Federation's Alyce Ortuzar and a fireman who specializes in urban design also came along. John Z. Wetmore, producer of Perils for Pedestrians, a local cable television series, acted as co-leader of this walking seminar in urban design.
Burden, who is quite tall, sports a big mustache, and wears bright vests, started by the fountain in front of Barnes & Noble. "This is easily a 9 [on a scale of 1 to 10]," he said. "Most of your pleasant atmosphere, in addition to the fountain and nice size and scale of the buildings, and the trees, is the lawn furniture."
The movable green metal chairs around the fountain won his unqualified praise. People love to define their own relation to one another when they sit outdoors, Burden said. Mountain View, Calif., even pays storeowners to install such quality furniture outside their shops.
"What else do you find pleasing here?" Burden asked.
"I like the building," said Richard Hoye, the fireman, pointing to the structure across the street that houses Cosi (along with several other cafés). "It's near the street, and it shelters [it]," he said. "What's bad is this wasteful, murderous, suburban intersection."
Burden agreed. The excess of space on the street just confuses drivers and pedestrians alike. "They could reclaim [for pedestrian use] 30 percent of this street, and the traffic would behave better." Pointing across the intersection, he added: "That parking lot is just waiting for a development opportunity."
We moved down Bethesda Avenue and stopped near Bethesda Bagels, just south of an alleyway.
"This is a good sidewalk," he said. "It's wide enough." As Burden had explained earlier, though, a street's walkability is defined by many things: by a feeling of safety and welcome, for one. A key element here is what Burden, echoing the great Jane Jacobs, referred to as "eyes on the street."
This section of Bethesda Avenue has exactly that: eyes on the street from people in its small stores with street-level windows. There are also art galleries and bars on this block that stay open late: better still.
This "good" sidewalk, Burden continued, provides a sense of security from the passing cars because it has a nice wide 'furniture zone'the strip between the curb and the 'walk zone' that has been planted with large trees and is interspersed with benches.
We moved to the corner of Bethesda and Arlington roads.
"That's one of the 10 best grocery stores I've seen in America," Burden said, pointing at the new Giant food store.
Wetmore, however, disagreed. "The windows are too high. And, instead of the caricature of a door [he pointed to a large cemented archway painted on one side of the building], they could have put a door there. And on the other side, you get exhaust fumes from the parking garage that's underground. If I was one of the businesses on that side, I would be annoyed that [they] created such a hostile environment."
Burden backtracked. "It's not the most perfect," he said, " but it's what we're trying to get more grocery stores to go to."
We circled the block, stopping every 50 feet or so to learn something new: nine-foot lanes on the street calm cars down, 12 foot lanes make them aggressive. Signal lights hung from span-wires are ugly. Buried utilities allow trees to grow bigger. And the Hampden Square apartments (on Hampden Lane) avoid that 'downtown D.C.' feeling by being gradually tiered back from the street instead of rising up five stories in a vertical line.
The apartments, though, drew criticism from Hoye. "I like the density," he said, "but they've created a little of a fortress effect at the pedestrian level."
After the tour, a smaller group gathered for dinner in a Houston's restaurant.
Towns and cities all over the country, Burden said, are trying to recreate their traditional centers. The suburban experiment in incoherent, homogenous space had failed: people everywhere were pushing to recreate what Bethesda has begun the long, hard path of restoring.
What would Burden say to those who point to the communications revolution, globalization and the Internet, as events that have made coherent cities and villages and downtowns things of the past. Perhaps the future belongs to those who say 'I can live anywhere?'
"I think people who say that are confused," Burden said. "With the construction of the Internet, and people spending more time on the web, there is an even greater need to create centers [where people can connect in traditional ways]. One of the problems with the burbs which put everything in segregated places is that you have lost what people used to have."
Photo at left and bottom right by Dan Burden;
Photo at top right by Marketa Ebert.