While I generally try to resist golden-age thinking, I do believe John Beutler has the right idea in his News-Leader column this morning:
To serve the everyday needs of its inhabitants, a neighborhood should contain housing of various types, schools and churches, parks, retail uses like groceries and even some employment. People can live, work and play in the neighborhood. They can get around more by foot, reducing congestion for those who need or want to drive.
A neighborhood should be a place that satisfies people and their needs. It doesn’t have to be Bedford Falls, but it can add to a wonderful life.
Beutler, an urban designer, has been writing a series of columns for the N-L recently about how to make city life better.
It’s exactly this wonderful life I’m looking for as we begin the next phase of our lives.
When my wife, daughter, and I moved here six years ago, we made a commitment to live in a neighborhood close to MSU so that we could walk and ride bicycles as basic transportation. That choice has worked out very well — I ride or walk everyday and rarely drive our car. My wife and daughter now make half of their trips burning calories instead of carbon.
What Beutler describes exists right now (to a limited extent) in downtown Springfield. It needs work. It needs polish. It needs are few problems fixed. But the raw materials and the vibrancy are there. We’re planning to move downtown — into the growing loft culture — as our next phase (no timetable yet). I’ll keep you posted.
Comments 9
Good change of pace.
Posted 12 Dec 2009 at 2:14 pm ¶Steve… WP is sending your comments to the SPAM folder. What is WP telling you when you post?
Posted 12 Dec 2009 at 2:29 pm ¶WP tells me nothing whatsoever, whether I post from a real computer or my iPhone. CommuteOrlando which is WordPress as well, posts fine. If this goes into the SPAM folder, I suggest you not post this comment, but see what tweaking setttings does. I MISS being able to comment from my iPhone at Starbucks on the way home from work!
Posted 12 Dec 2009 at 6:36 pm ¶What’s more, the post shows up from my end right away. Trust me, I’m NOT a spambot, but a REAL person!
Posted 12 Dec 2009 at 6:37 pm ¶Steve… These last two posted no problem. Hmmmmm… OK, I’m going to poke around and see what I can do about it.
Posted 12 Dec 2009 at 9:45 pm ¶iPhone test comment if you’re poking around.
Posted 12 Dec 2009 at 10:01 pm ¶Steve… I took a good look at my SPAM filter and my comment settings, and I cannot figure out why some of your comments are held. I’m hoping the Akismet plug-in will “learn” not to block your iPhone comments. I’m also going to poke around on inter-tubes to see if others are having this problem.
Posted 13 Dec 2009 at 11:17 am ¶Hmm, THIS comment is posted from a Windows computer, but using Safari, theoretically the same browser that the iPhone uses.
Posted 13 Dec 2009 at 7:36 pm ¶Steve… Odd. I’ll see what I can find out.
Posted 14 Dec 2009 at 7:13 am ¶