Homes for People, Not Cars (Part 1)
Part 1 is a high-level look at the contrast between spaces for people versus spaces for cars. Part 2 takes a more detailed look at how this has affected how we made individual design decisions in our projects.
What do I mean by “homes for people, not cars”?
I get this question a lot and some people mistakenly think we simply build “homes without parking”.
From a design perspective, the difference between a space intended for cars versus a space intended for people is night and day. Cars need roads, highways, and parking spaces - lots of parking spaces! These are places that make driving convenient and reliable.
People spaces provide comfort, safety, access to nature, and human connection. These are places that meet our daily needs and help us thrive.
There is a direct trade-off between these two intentions. The same patch of earth can’t prioritize both. Unfortunately, in North America, we've become accustomed with the idea that parking should be provided everywhere we go and assumed that driving should be our primary mode of transportation - implicitly favoring car use over human wellbeing.
To provide two stark examples, here is a space intended for maximizing the convenience of using a car against all other considerations:
A typical Walmart is surrounded by large swaths of pavement that serve a single-use - car parking. Photo Credit: Tom Star
While here is a space designed for people, with all the features that make a space enriching and enjoyable:
Victoria’s inner harbour. A vibrant people space that serves a wide range of uses including local business vendors, cultural events, and social gatherings. Photo Credit: Michal Klajban
When we talk about homes, the same principles apply.
The Typical Townhouse
The typical townhouse is characterized with lots of pavement, minimal green space, and a disconnection between the interior living space and exterior areas.
The tension between designing for people versus cars is perhaps most clear with a typical townhouse design. The design process starts with how cars will come off the street and navigate to ground-level garages, requiring lots of pavement, leaving little room for green space and dictating the site layout. This also pushes the living areas of the home to the second and third level, creating a disconnection between the street and rear yard. This usually leaves a fairly lifeless street presence, yards that rarely get used, and minimal tree canopy.
Furthermore, up to 1/3 of the building is used for housing your car and makes having a basement impractical - space that could be used to house people.
In contrast, our homes minimize paved surfaces, allow more room for trees and landscaping, and provide strong connections between the interior living areas, street, and yard. We are also able to make use of the ground level and a basement to provide living space, ultimately allowing us to provide our homes at a more attainable price.
The Typical Single Detached House
A typical single-detached neighbourhood where people and destinations are separated by large distances.
Single-detached housing has a seductive appeal and North Americans have idealized this form of housing since the post-war period. A single-detached house can have parking, plenty of green space, and large interior living space, all in one. It's your own little castle. However, it misses the other less-visible half of the "homes for people" equation - human connection.
Almost by definition, single-detached housing is about putting distance between people and favoring private spaces over public spaces. This not only undermines our public realm, but it's a narrow and shortsighted view of even our own self-interests and, in fact, often makes us less happy and healthy. The happiest places in the world consistently have strong public spaces (plazas, markets, parks, community gardens, etc.), a powerful sense of community, and moderate-density village-like neighbourhoods.
I won’t get into all the ways single-detached housing is socially, economically, and environmentally unsustainable (more on that in a future post) but I can't neglect to mention that this is the most expensive and exclusive form of housing possible. This is antithetical to creating resilient, diverse, and inclusive communities.
Homes for People
The basic premise of Urban Thrive is simple. In exchange for parking spaces and private car ownership, we'll provide homes that promote human wellbeing at a more attainable price. Small multi-family buildings naturally fulfill this role best, however, this also means providing as many trees and as much green space as possible, shared amenities, designs conducive to social interaction, and modest yet highly functional living spaces. Not only does this enrich the lives of our homebuyers, but it becomes a catalyst for transforming communities.
This blog post only scratches the surface but, hopefully, it illustrates how fundamentally different our housing projects are and why we need to break away from assuming every home should have parking.
If this topic interests you, I highly recommend Curbing Traffic by Melissa and Chris Bruntlett. Melissa and Chris are transportation consultants who moved to Delft, Netherlands, from Vancouver. It delves deep into how the Dutch have created such fantastically people-centered homes and communities, and how that contrasts with the typical North American city. You can order a copy here.