7 Reasons Why Redding Should Not Fear "Density," but Embrace It.
When you google the terms “urban,” “urban density,” or “city density,” you’ll find images of skyscrapers, of major city skylines and highly urbanized areas that are densely populated.
While some may find the beauty in city life and see the purpose in human civilization being compacted to that degree, these images are outliers in what population density actually means in the majority of America’s traditional town-centers. According to the 2010 Census, Redding ranks at the very bottom of 57 identified urbanized areas in California in terms of population density. The population in the greater Redding Area is, in fact, one of the most widely dispersed in the State at 2,002 persons/square mile. So when we talk about envisioning a denser development pattern it’s important to understand that the examples of major metropolitan areas are an an extreme leap to what Redding will likely ever become and is not necessarily what’s being advocated for. Redding will never look like Hong Kong, and may never be as densely populated as San Francisco, but we can remove the glass ceiling on growth in our town and understand that allowing denser development is not something to fear, but something to embrace as a vital step towards future prosperity.
This blog post will be the first of a series of posts that will explore just what the right type of denser development can do for the people of Redding’s physical health, the City’s fiscal health and the prosperity of local businesses and citizens. We may dive deeper into each segment in future posts. In the meantime, here are eight reasons why Redding should not fear “density,” and should embrace it.
It Preserves Rural Living Environments and Character
Since the 1980s (perhaps prior) to the present, as identified in any of the most recent community/regional planning documents, the people of Shasta County and in Redding have continually identified the same values as being important and integral to the character of the area as the population grows: Preserving the rural lifestyle, open space, recreation resources, scenic beauty, agriculture and timber industries has always been the primary goals and objectives for the community at large. Many people would then suggest that any urbanization of our cities or adding density to neighborhoods in areas with urban services (sewer and water) is the enemy of the rural lifestyle; that it would destroy the community character in the surrounding areas. This could not be further from the truth.
On the contrary, restricting growth in areas with existing urban services causes pressure for development to be unduly directed to the suburban, exurban and rural areas surrounding our cities. Fighting development that would increase density in urban areas means development has, and will continue to threaten our agricultural areas, our timber harvest areas, our scenic views, our cattle grazing lands, our wildland urban interface areas, our quiet country acre properties. It’s critical to understand that the more we fight the urbanization of places that should naturally grow and add density, the more we offset that development pressure to areas we are trying to protect from suburban sprawl. It’s for this reason that density should not be a bad word but a good word if we do it right. Design plays a huge role in making denser places beautiful and livable. And that is where we advocate for livable towncenters that grow with quality of life and the human experience as the center focus..
It Can Provide Housing Variety and Choice
As we age through life, our needs for housing change and our desire for housing types vary. When we allow a denser development pattern, our community lends itself to more variety of housing types to serve those changing needs and desires. A young person returning from college may want their own individual apartment rather than having to share a four bedroom house with other people in order to afford the rent. A widowed retiree may be looking for companionship with other people in similar situations and may be seeking a group housing option or a multi-family community near doctor’s offices and grocery stores. A growing family may want a single-family dwelling, or they may want a condo near downtown shops so they can spend some of their time walking to serve daily needs rather than having to load up the car every time they need to fulfill a menial task around town. This is the nature of making a vibrant place for people to live - providing choice. Cities are complex and seek to serve the needs of many different types of people with many different interests and needs. Denser development offers something Redding has not been providing in terms of variety. Redding is still primarily a suburban town. All too often, rhetoric has treated any type of housing that isn’t single-family as illegitimate. And yet the thought of living in and visiting a place like Paris, France, one of the densest places in the world, still appeals to many of us. There’s a balance to strike here in the greater Redding area that isn’t currently there.
It Is Market-Driven
With conversation on the current national housing crisis at an all-time high, what has become clear is that there are many constraints on adding housing development in our communities. One such constraint is the construct of single-family zoning restrictions. The idea that a neighborhood is built to a finished state and should never incrementally grow nor would it be considered compatible with other types of living environments is what is asserted through enforcement of single-family zoning. This type of regulation and segregation of housing type didn’t always exist in America. Prior to this commonly used tool for “growth management,” and segregation; and prior to auto-oriented street design and land use patterns - cities would naturally grow from the center. People would live close to where they worked and housing type would change to meet the growing demand in city-centers. Areas that were previously settled with a single-family home, might make the next step to add an additional unit (or two or three) because the land value justified the investment and the next increment in housing development was not constricted with a “glass ceiling.”
However, in the first half of the 20th Century, many cities did become poor places to live as pollution from industrial uses had yet to be reigned in. The appeal of living further from the urban areas and commuting everyday was thus touted as the American dream for all. The segregation of uses to such an extreme degree has proven to be an overreaction to the issues of early 20th century city-living. Single-family housing separated from any other housing type or commercial use of land is one such response. Inherent in the advent of single-family zoning was the idea that developments and neighborhoods were built to a finished-state and were never expected, nor allowed, to grow - an unnatural restriction of growth that inhibited the free market to answer housing demands in areas that need it the most. Cities around the Country are waking up to this fact. Allowing for density again, can allow the market to meet the demand. Issues with incompatible land uses and the challenge of making our cities livable is one that architects, urban designers and planners are trained to address in this modern era.
It Promotes the Efficient Use of City Services
Many cities across the Country are managing financial woes due to a development pattern in America over the last 50+ years that demands more of City services while providing less tax revenue per acre than traditional town development patterns. Our urban areas are served by bridges and roads, storm water infrastructure, sewer pipes, pumps and treatment facilities, water pipes, pumps and treatment facilities, electric power lines and transformers, gas lines and compression stations, fire hydrants, emergency services and police, mail delivery routes, trash pickup service, etc. It doesn't take long to find out, if you go through the exercise, that the farther the development pattern sprawls, the more roads to maintain, the more pipes to replace, the more pumps to service or replace, the more linear foot of power lines to repair after a storm, the further the trash collection has to drive and the longer the emergency response times will be. If we truly understood the cost of our maintenance obligations, we'd know a good place to start getting better return on our investment, would be to allow for greater density in the areas that have this infrastructure in place. We'd realize that density and the efficient use of our land and our infrastructure is likely more vital to our fiscal outlook than pension reform. We'd start to do the math on development in our town and know when a project, though it may provide tax revenue in the short-term, would be a drain on city finances once the maintenance bills started to pile in over the long-term. There's no mistaking it: denser development promotes the efficient use of city services and it should be welcomed. Check out the great work being done to analyze this at Urban 3.
Is Wildfire Resilient
While cities in the early part of the 20th century experienced catastrophic fires, these disasters no longer occur in urban areas. Firefighters are typically able to control the spread of fire from building to building in urban areas thanks to improvements to building and fire codes and having the opportunity to target the fire origin in an isolated location prior to further spreading. What we are seeing more and more, however, is at the edges of our towns, or in towns with a more suburban type of density, in the wild land urban interface, it is a lot more difficult to fight fires. During these catastrophic wild fires, the majority of time and resources are spent on evacuation of the sprawling, far spread penetrations of housing developments into the wild land urban interface areas. Holding a denser development standard in edges of our cities that are prone to wildfire, would allow for clustered development to occur - limiting the wildland urban interface edges to a smaller, more manageable area. With development clustered, the task of fire break and fuel management would be much more likely to pencil out. Additionally, road networks, such as a street grid, in denser areas, if designed properly, lends itself to more efficient evacuation. There's more to explore here in the future to demonstrate how other places can serve as an example for our town to be designed in a more fire resilient way.
It Enhances Air Quality
Anyone who visits Southern California and the greater Los Angeles area doesn’t have to wonder about air quality within the basin, you can visibly see the smog. So it isn’t surprising that Los Angeles ranks at the top of the nation in air pollution. A sprawling suburbia blanketing the hills and valleys as far as the eye can see and predicated solely on personal automobile access will do that to a place. People must drive and drive far in order to go about their business and car exhaust, as we know, pollutes our air. Although our growth is slower over time than Southern California’s has been, Shasta County is well on its way to poorer air quality. To counter this fact, we must embrace urban living environments that provide people the opportunity to use other modes of transportation and to walk and bike rather than clogging up the roads by driving and continuing to increase vehicular emissions. Land use patterns must fundamentally change and people will need to be afforded real options to get things done without having to drive their cars. Denser development patterns that combine land uses gets people out of their cars and can counteract the ever-increasing air pollution that we’re seeing in our community. Keeping heavy polluters out of our town centers is a given, and this shouldn't only apply to industrial uses. Cleaner air is dependent upon denser development that allows modes of travel to shift to walking and bicycling. Ultimately, achieving cleaner air should be a design challenge in urban mobility that we are willing to tackle.
The Younger Generation Wants It
At a recent event at the Cascade Theater, Jason Roberts of ‘Better Block,’ was asked what he would recommend be done to keep the young people interested in staying in Redding. While his response was a good one (stating that the young people will see that you’re trying to improve things and want to be a part of it), it doesn’t address a fundamental need and desire for the younger generations who want to live in vibrant city-centers and live a more urban lifestyle. The millenials represent a significant shift in what the American dream means. No longer is the primary dream to obtain the suburban lot and home with the garage in the front and grass to mow. The key is, these city centers have to be vibrant and livable. If Redding wants to attract the best and brightest young talent, we’ll need to understand that a vibrant, lived-in downtown and town-centers with housing choices are paramount to an increasing majority of young people. Similarly this has become a primary factor in businesses choosing where to lay their roots.
As we’ll explore further, urbanism and density are not the enemies of our rural character, rather, if done right, is the way we will protect our rural areas and vital resources from suburban sprawl. If we’re going to thrive in the future, we’ll have to truly embrace denser development as the fiscally responsible, environmentally sustainable, healthy lifestyle-enabling, and economically wise solution to many of our current problems.
