Reality check update: We agreed to agree
By Bill Settlemyer
President and CEO, Setcom Media
I’m hoping you’ve heard or read about the regional planning exercise called Reality Check that was conducted early last month. This one-day exercise was developed by the Urban Land Institute and had already been used in several other communities around the country as a means of developing a common vision for regional growth.
As one of the participants in our session for the Charleston tri-county region, I was impressed by the organization and design of the process as well as by the tremendous diversity represented by the more than 150 community leaders invited to participate.
Once the fast-paced exercise started with people grouped around tables covered with regional maps, everyone just jumped in and started working together. When the dust settled after several hours of frenzied activity, we were presented with a set of “Consensus Principles” representing the prevailing views among the participants. Here they are:
Consensus Guiding Principles
• Preservation of the region’s unique and treasured natural and cultural resources should be an integral part of all growth management discussions and development decisions.
• The region should focus on the development of “live-work-play” communities with a mix of housing types, jobs and recreational and civic amenities.
• More emphasis should be placed on providing affordable housing.
• The region should promote urban infill and development and encourage higher-density development along existing and augmented transportation corridors.
• Major transportation corridors should become interconnected multi-way corridors with a mix of vehicle, transit, bicycle and pedestrian mobility options.
• Housing and jobs should be better balanced through the region to allow more people to work and shop at places closer to their homes.
• A regional visioning, cooperation and coordination process should be developed in support of these goals.
Consensus Transportation
• Build a transit network throughout the region, including on the existing railway corridor paralleling Interstate 26 through the region; through the I-526 corridor from West Ashley, Mount Pleasant and Daniel Island; and from North Charleston to Goose Creek and Moncks Corner.
• Maximize existing transportation corridors through the addition of multi-modal options, including mass transit and bike and pedestrian ways.
• Focus households and jobs along existing or new transportation corridors.
• Maximize use of existing railways for cargo and human movement.
• Bring a new regional focus to means and paths for port cargo distribution; make cargo distribution considerations an integral part of all growth management discussions and decisions.
Consensus Green Space Principles
• Use the area’s well-defined ecological network, coastal areas and waterways as bases for conservation planning.
• Preserve the area’s unique plantation and other historic, cultural and agricultural resources; make natural and cultural resource preservation an integral part of development discussions and decisions.
• Protect the existing green space corridors and cultural assets outside of urbanized areas, particularly west of the Cooper River and east of the Ashley River.
• Create green buffers between urban and open space areas; integrate and connect green space and active and passive parks at all scales, including state, regional and local and projects levels.
Subtle shifts underlie consensus
Many of the guiding principles will sound like old news: Of course we want to preserve our natural, cultural and historical environment.
That’s always been a high priority. But look more closely and you’ll see new ideas that haven’t been widely accepted or applied.
For example, the idea of deliberately developing “live-work-play” communities has not been on the radar screen until recently. Daniel Island and I’On exemplify those themes, and more newer developments do the same. But the old mindset in favor of gated cookie-cutter low-density subdivisions has not gone away.
The same goes for the general sentiment expressed in the principles that discourage suburban sprawl. The future will not be kind to regions that can’t focus better on high-quality higher-density infill development nearer the region’s core.
The alternative is increasingly clogged roadways, longer and longer commute times, higher energy costs, and a widely dispersed population that is difficult to serve with any form of mass transit.
This requires a change in mindset not just for planners and civic leaders but for us as citizens.
Climate change, energy costs and other factors make a case for living a less profligate lifestyle, one without huge homes, huge cars and a bias for “living large” in every sense of the word.
Years ago, I was stationed in Heidelberg, Germany, as an Army JAG officer. One of the great charms of Europe was the seemingly meticulous way that city, town and country were blended together in a way that was both more efficient and pleasant than our chopped-up, traffic-snarled urban and suburban regions.
And living in downtown Charleston, on a quiet residential side street, I managed to find a bit of that European pleasure in the Holy City’s historic district. We rarely struggle with traffic problems, which belong largely to those who live farther out from our island of relative traffic tranquility.
We can go in one direction and be in the crowds of shoppers on King Street, or another and be walking down the middle of a quiet “South of Broad” residential street lined with beautiful homes and gardens.
No, that’s not a setting that’s right or achievable for everyone, but next time you’re racing about in your Explorer or Denali ferrying kids from place to place or trying to run all those Saturday errands, try to imagine what it would be like if we could all live closer to where we work, play, shop and worship, and, dare I say it, relax.
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