MAPPING ANALYSIS THROUGH URBAN DESIGN STRATEGY IN CHICAGO
A mapping analysis by Sahara Shrestha
INTRODUCTION:
The more successfully a city mingles diversity of uses and users in its everyday streets, the more successfully, casually (and economically) its people thereby enliven and support well-located parks that can thus give back grace and delight to their neighborhoods instead of vacuity. (Jane Jacobs 1991) An urban city is considered to be viable if it has a facility within proximity, is lively, and safe. In this analysis, various urban factors such as diversity, density, walkability, and safety are analyzed. One of the biggest metropolitan cities, Chicago is chosen as a site in this assignment to inquiry about the problems and patterns of land parcels in the city.
SITE INFORMATION:
Chicago is one of the biggest metropolitan cities in the USA with a population of 2.7 million. It is located on the northeast side of Illinois habituating in the shore of Lake Michigan. It has been a port from the late 18th century between Great Lake and Mississippi river making it the first city to develop steamboats and inaugurate trains as a means of transportation. After the great Chicago fire, the city rebuilds tremendously with fastidious urban planning and design strategy. It is one of the ever-growing cities, famous for its skyline of the skyscraper.
SITE SELECTION, NEIGHBORHOOD CENTER:
A place is considered favorable for a living if it has proximity to all basic facilities needed for human life. Hence, buffer from facilities like school, hospital, bus stops, and parks are created. Firstly, the educational building is selected from Chicago parcel shapefile and exported as a new feature to create new shapefile for school. After, buffer for 0.25 miles is created from analysis too. Similarly, a buffer from other facilities is created. A favorable site that intersects all buffers is chosen. I particularly chose the south side of Chicago since it is comparatively more prone to crime. I wanted to analyze its characters in “Safety”.
In this way, neighborhood from the Chatham community is selected to perform urban design analysis. It is situated in the southeast side of Chicago. The neighborhood consists of parks, schools, and hospitals within the buffer area. It suffices 30 points from LEED checklist:
Walkable streets
Compact development
Connected to open community
Walkable streets: 12
Compact development: 6
Mixed-use neighborhood centers: 4
Street networks: 2
Transit facility: 1
Access to civic and public spaces: 1
Access to recreation facility 1
Tree-lined and shaded streets 2
Neighborhood schools 1
BOUNDARY:
The selected neighborhood has commercial buildings on the edge. The commercial building surrounds the inner residential building. It acts as a boundary and segregates residential areas from major roads. If we see in the city scale, we can see that the prevailing railway tracks act as an impermeable boundary between neighborhoods. It separated the area and cannot pass through it.
DENSITY:
The neighborhood has a diverse population per area between blocks. The population per acre was calculated by using a new expression. The housing per acre and population per acre is calculated similarly. The neighborhood with multi-story housing had a higher density than the neighborhood block with a single housing. The existing high-density area consists of R2 and R3 ( double story and three-story housing). The density if these blocks can be minimized by incorporating single housing and more open space between the high-density building to create a buffer area between the housing. The low-density block consists of a single housing building. The density of this block can is increased by incorporating multiple story housing in the block. It increases the viability of the neighborhood when the density of the place is high.
DIVERSITY:
There is a certain pattern of types of housing in the selected block. The neighborhood has single housing in the middle part of the block and diverse housing on the rear part. The diversity of a place is determined by the variety of types of housing in the area and the presence of people in the neighborhood at different times of the day. The neighborhood block can be made more viable by incorporating mixed house houses within the block. The single housing and multi-story housing can be constructed side by side within the block to improve the viability of the neighbourhood.
WALKABILITY:
Though every street corners and crossing has sidewalks doesn’t mean the city is walkable. Jane Jacobs refers to a city to be walkable, the street should be encouraging. It should have definite characteristics that provoke people to walk. The selected crossing had a narrow pedestrian area, 4 lane road, and shaded trees only on one side of the road. Design proposals for the street to make it more walkable, sidewalks are extended to make room for outdoor activities from the café. Proper fencing between sidewalks and road is created to provide safety while walking which makes the sidewalk kid-friendly. Numerous streetlights are added. The dimension of sidewalks is edited according to the standards.
The 4 lane road is extended to provide cycle lane on either side of the road. The on-street parking is planned between the cycle lane and the main road to increase the safety of bikers in high-speed road.
SAFETY:
Chicago is known for its high crime rate. In this analysis of the southeast side of Chicago, variation in property crime and violent crime is observed. The safety of the area is analyzed in 3 block groups with 32 neighborhood blocks. Block 1 shows low violent crime but high property crime. Since the area has high-density eyes on street is prevailing which acts as natural surveillance making people aware of violent activity. However, the high density leads to multi-story buildings with more nooks and crannies that are prone to crime. The territory is not maintained in this block group and there is insufficient street lighting.
In 2 blocks group, there is low violent as well as property crime. We can see the buffer between public and private. Windows in between the building provide natural surveillance.
In block group 3, there is high violent and property crime. It mostly consists of the apartment buildings and multi-story housing. There is no proper buffer between public and private. The windows are accessible directly from the public area. Hence, the outer railing is provided for the safety of the property.
CONCLUSION:
The selected neighborhood is analyzed in the given urban study topics and appropriate design solutions are proposed.
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