The following was written by Kaid Benfield and originally posted on the Switchboard, the NRDC blog:

As many readers of this blog already know, Orenco Station was built as one of the country’s first new, suburban transit-oriented developments. It’s on Portland’s MAX light rail line in Hillsborough, Oregon, and comprises some 1,850 housing units and a town center that includes 68,000 square feet of neighborhood-serving, ground-floor commercial space (with lofts above) on a total of 190 acres.

The now-iconic community was one of the first choices we made while researching NRDC’s book of smart growth success stories, Solving Sprawl (Island Press, 2001). What I liked about the development from the start was that it was quiet and suburban, with lots of single-family houses and open space, giving suburban residents much of what they seek, but in a nonsprawling form incredibly convenient and oriented to transit. Relatively new at the time, it was receiving a lot of attention, including an NAHB community of the year award. Although Orenco did not set out to follow new urbanist design principles, the results were certainly similar to those advocated by new urbanism, and the design movement has certainly claimed it as one of its own.

In fact, the community is featured in a front-page story in the September New Urban News written by publisher Robert Steuteville, because new research shows Orenco to be achieving some remarkable results in performance. The new work continues the research led by Bruce Podobnik at Lewis and Clark College, who first published a study on the development in 2002. Steuteville reports that the new study, which compared Orenco to three other neighborhoods in the region with differing design and location characteristics, “will be published in an upcoming urban research journal.”

For now, the results are summarized in the New Urban News article and in another article in Builder, written by Teresa Burney. Of the other neighborhoods studied, Burney reports that two of the neighborhoods were urban (one poor and long-established; the other middle-class and also well-established, but hilly and lacking in sidewalks). The third was a suburban middle-class development of cul-de-sacs.

Steuteville’s article includes tables of findings, one quite remarkable: Fifty percent of residents of Orenco Station report walking to a store or shop 5 or more times a week; that is ten times the rate of the cul-de-sac neighborhood. (The other two apparently were not surveyed on the point.) In addition, 67 percent of Orenco residents say they use mass transit at least once a week; the cul-de-sac neighborhood is also within a quarter-mile of a light rail station, but only 42 percent report using transit. One reason may be that “Orenco Station has pedestrian-friendly infrastructure, while the Beaverton suburb has few sidewalks.”

While a strong majority of Orenco residents report using transit more frequently since moving there, they tend not to use it for commuting to work more often than do the residents of the other neighborhoods. In fact, they use it for commuting a little less than the others, although their use of single-occupant vehicles for commuting is no higher (and lower than that for the Beaverton cul-de-sacs), because they walk, bike, carpool, or use “combination” modes of commuting more frequently than do the others.

Michael Mehaffy, who was a project manager in the development of Orenco Station, speculates that the transit commuting number may be low because many of the community’s residents work at an Intel facility “right on the community’s doorstep” but not on the MAX line, likely resulting in short car trips (still good for reducing carbon emissions). One must also keep in mind that this is metro Portland we are talking about: Orenco’s relatively “low,” 15% mode share for transit commuting is still three times the national median.

Beyond transportation habits, the community’s level of social activity has apparently risen substantially since 2002, when the development was still relatively new (and unfinished?). By wide margins, residents of Orenco Station outpace those of the comparison neighborhoods in reporting more friendliness, more “community,” and more group participation than their previous communities. Steuteville believes the new study is the first of its kind to show big differences in social activity between new urbanist neighborhoods and more conventional development, and also the first to show such a high rate of walking to stores.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog’s home page.

In his seminal book “Great Streets”, Allan Jacobs wrote “given a limited budget, the most effective expenditure of funds to improve a street would probably be on trees.”

I couldn’t agree more.

This is not simply an exercise in greenwashing or tree-hugging. In fact, when planning for cities one of the more damaging paths to go down is to think that green is always good. It’ll be interesting in fact when the current phase of green fancy dies down so we can start to have more rational discussions of what “green” is appropriate in a walkable environment and how much.

But I digress.

Street trees, on the other hand, are a simple intervention that is almost universally of value to walkability. And by street trees I do not mean ornamental, fruit, or flowering trees. Instead, I’m referring to the kind of tree that actually grows tall and provides shade over the sidewalk and the street. The virtues of these trees (or as engineers like to refer to them – fixed hazardous objects) are so numerous that it’s a wonder we often don’t have more rigorous programs for planting and maintenance. Here’s just a few:

-they provide shade and comfort for pedestrians
-they cool the pavement, extending its usable life (moderating temperature swings reduce cracking/swelling)
-they add beauty to the walking experience

And I’m sure we could go on.

Of course, there are important design issues to consider. First, try not to do too much; a consistent spacing of the same species not only provides a better canopy, but is more harmonious in appearance.

Second, be careful about the space needed for a good quality street tree. A minimum space is usually needed for long-term health (and sidewalk protection), but overdoing it in width is also unnecessary. High quality trees can very often work in 4 or 5′ grates or lawns. Again, match the species to the design goals and don’t fall back on one-size-fits-all solutions.

One other important thing about trees is that people love to volunteer time to plant them. So in terms of an effort that can be undertaken with fairly minimal expense, consider establishing a tree fund that volunteers can implement. It need not be brain surgery to lay the groundwork for a quality tree canopy.

Finally, a note on maintenance. Simply planting trees alone and letting them grow will not achieve the desired result. Trees do need some form of maintenance, including watering, fertilizing, and especially pruning. Limbing them up as they grow so that the trees grow “over” pedestrians (and building signs) is critical. Sometimes volunteer groups can do this, but often this kind of long-term effort requires a dedicated paid person or persons.

Below are two examples of tree use in the Kansas City area. The top example is that of the Westport area, home to many different shops and bars. The bottom picture shows a more residential setting in the Brookside area, south of downtown Kansas City.

We’ve been a fan of Walk Score since it’s inception, and are interested to see how it progresses. This article looks at the most walkable cities in the US – where is yours?

America’s Most Walkable Neighborhoods

Back to the Future: Walkable Urbanism

The following summary provides some important insight into suburban sprawl. First, how the lack of diversity in housing type in too many suburban communities is likely to impact the housing market in the coming decades. Plus, how the demographics for these areas are changing and what some of the likely remedies are for these dying areas.

Remember, diversity is important – it’s not just a catchphrase. It’s no less critical to communities’ survival than it is to the success of your own investment portfolio. With that in mind, I’d like to thank Kaid Benfield for bringing this article to my attention and paraphrasing some its highlights:

MSN.com has become the latest news outlet to confirm that the ever-outward suburban construction boom that defined United States real estate virtually unchallenged for half a century has gone bust, and perhaps not just temporarily. The latest, a new article by Melinda Fuller of MSN Real Estate, gives us an update with a few new tidbits:
• Arthur C. (Chris) Nelson’s trend research says that we may have a surplus of as many as 25 million large-lot suburban homes by 2030. Many of them will be converted to multifamily properties.
• Aging baby boomers (cough) are likely to start selling off their large suburban homes at a rate of five percent per year between 2010 and 2030.
• Some suburban homes that cannot be sold are already being converted into subsidized affordable housing.
• The average European household spends only a third as much of their income on transportation as do American suburbanites.
• The suburbs that survive will be the ones with walkable, mixed-use amenities.
• Suburban retrofits may be the next development frontier, but outdated policies and practices won’t make it easy.
• Prospective suburban homebuyers should look for signs that their target area is in decline before making the purchase.

Take a look at this photo, from thisisbossi’s flickr photostream. This is a shot from above a suburban area outside of Atlanta, one big city with still flourishing suburbs. However, this type of area represents the kind of communities that could be in trouble in the coming years:

I want to thank everyone over at one of Kansas City’s weekly newspapers, The Pitch. They recently highlighted our work on the redevelopment of downtown Blue Springs, Mo.

Follow this link to take a look at what they said: The Pitch showcases 180° Urban Design and Architecture