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Innovation

'Pocket neighborhoods' could transform suburbs

Can suburban communities have amenities closer to their homes, much like urban dwellers living in higher density, without giving up green space? The answer could be "pocket neighborhoods."
Written by Tyler Falk, Contributor

Whether it's in cities, surburbs, or rural areas, people like to live near jobs, schools, and stores. And it's easier to make that possible, sustainably, by living closer together. But people don't necessarily want to give up their single-family homes for high-rise apartments in the city center. Does it have to be either/or? Can suburban communities have amenities closer to their homes, much like urban dwellers living in higher density, without giving up green space?

Kaid Benfield, at The Atlantic Cities, thinks we can have it both ways with "pocket neighborhoods." The idea could transform suburban communities, or at least offer a nice alternative to living in either a city or exurb. Benfield points to architect Ross Chapin's Third Street Cottages in Langley, Washington as an example of how to build these reimagined suburbs:

Third Street Cottages placed eight small homes around a shared common green, on about two-thirds of an acre in a walkable small town setting. To my eye, they look fantastic. To be sure, the small structures aren’t ideally sized for a large family, but their scale works for a significant part of the housing market, and the concept – a compact footprint around shared common space – can be and has been applied to groupings of larger homes that still conserve land and resources while increasing walkability.

Ultimately, it's about offering more options for people who want to live closer together, in order to meet real estate demand for sustainable communities.

[I]t is a strategy that can be implemented incrementally on smaller pieces of land. In my world, people are always looking for the Huge Idea to produce Big Change. But that’s not the way things happen in the real world, especially when we are seeking to accommodate development in our existing cities and towns. The evolution of 21st century sustainable communities must be about infill development and replacement of outdated properties, generally one project at a time. The pocket neighborhood approach allows subtlety and sensitivity as we simultaneously add more people and live more compactly.

Here's Ross Chapin's tour of a pocket neighborhoods:

"Pocket Neighborhoods' For Sustainable Suburbs" [The Atlantic Cities]

Photo: studio-d/Flickr

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com

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