Welcome back. Our next topic is what planners and engineers call
infrastructure: the systems that support modern urban life.
Whenever the power goes off,
those of us who live in developed countries are reminded how
dependent we are on the systems that supply water and power,
cable television and the Internet,
the dispose of sewage.
We are also highly dependent on the roads, highways,
trains, and airports which make it so easy for us to travel.
We expect these systems to work all the time.
Of course, in many places in the world they do not work all the time.
They may not even exist.
The talented engineers and public works officials
who make the built environment function in developed countries,
generally leave it to others to decide what cities and towns should be like.
They are the enablers,
and sometimes they help implement some very bad decisions.
The population of Florida located in the southern part of
the United States is expected to double by 2050.
Florida has an attractive climate for much of the year,
and for a long time its growth has been supported by people retiring there
and others who like the lifestyle and moved here to work or moved their business there.
It's also a favorite tourist destination.
Transportation in Florida is mostly by automobile and development has followed
the familiar spread out pattern created when
places developed based on access mainly by autos.
A research studio at
the University of Pennsylvania was asked by The Tampa Bay partnership and
the Central Florida partnership to look at
development trends to 2050 and then model a better alternative.
Using GIS, we projected current development trends based on official state of Florida
2030 population projections and then extended
the same development patterns again to meet the population projections for 2050.
If current trends are followed,
doubling the population will result in urbanizing three times the current urban area.
A huge investment in infrastructure if it is possible at all.
Twice the population, three times the area urbanized.
How researchers then put together a map of
real transportation proposals plus some additions of our own.
At the time, the first phase of a Florida high-speed rail network had actually been
funded by the federal government as part of
the economic stimulus program after the great recession in 2008.
So including a high speed rail network was not an academic assumption.
It was really going to happen.
Some months after our study was completed,
the governor of Florida decided to refuse the money for high-speed rail,
but that is another story.
We also showed a network of local transit systems feeding into the rail system.
The trains and transit create a more balanced system.
The roads and highways are still there,
but they would now be alternatives if people would use every day.
Our studio also put together an ideal Conservation Network
similar to the example for the whole state of
Florida which I showed you in an earlier session.
Not every piece of land that becomes accessible as
new infrastructure is put into place should be urbanized.
Some of this land is necessary for the continued maintenance of
the attractive environment which is what
has been drawing people to Florida in the first place.
It is important to know, upfront,
what places definitely should not be urbanized.
So this shows four different sets of criteria: Access to water,
biodiversity, preservation of wetlands,
and preservation of significant agricultural lands.
Then having optimized all four of these criteria,
four optimal maps are put together to make the ideal Conservation Network,
which shows that 3 million acres of natural land ought to be preserved,
and of that about a little more than a third is preserved
already by programs already in place in the state of Florida.
Now we project an alternative scenario.
These maps use GIS to project where transit is spaced in and starts to help
concentrate some of the new population in
more intensely developed places within the existing urban fabric.
When parts of the ideal Conservation Network
are shown as threatened by the pace of development,
these places are secured from development in the simulation.
So here is the same existing condition in 2005.
Projection to 2030, same population increase,
new development only involves 400,000 acres of which 96,000 is Infill.
We follow the projections in the program and secured
98,000 acres from development and had that then feed back into the model.
When you fast forward from 2030 to 2050,
you see that new development requires another 372,000 acres,
of which 29,000 is infill,
in existing areas and perhaps another 21,500 acres need to be conserved.
So for 2050, you have the same population,
14.4 Million, people in the urbanized area.
Is just less than two million acres.
The population doubles, but the land area only increases by 80 percent.
Our research estimate of the capital cost in
infrastructure for urbanizing an acre of land at a $100,000.
Not counting any annual operational costs,
which of course, are considerable.
A million acres conserved,
that is a difference in conventional infrastructure costs of a $100 billion.
That amount of money ought to be able to pay for a lot of high-speed rail trains,
a lot of transit,
and a lot of conserved land.
The other point is that the trend is probably unsustainable.
People will realize, by sometime around 2030,
that huge investments have been made in roads and pipes
and wires and new schools and services,
and what has been created is too expensive for the taxpayers to maintain.
The alternative scenario is not only describes a far superior environment,
but will permit much more manageable capital and operational costs.
Of course there are a lot of assumptions made in
the alternative scenario about the effect of
trains and transit can have on the shape of development.
This diagram shows three catchment areas immediately around the transit stop.
The core area is generally considered to be within a quarter mile of the station.
At a walking speed of 3 miles an hour,
that's a five minute walk.
The primary catchment area is within half miles of the transit station, a 10-minute walk.
And there is a secondary area beyond.
And considering destinations, such as workplaces or shopping,
the core area is the most important.
In considering where people live in relation to transit,
the primary and even secondary areas can be as important as the core.
This diagram shows how geographic and physical barriers can limit
the catchment area meaning that maybe this is not at the location for a station.
This site shows how the catchment areas can be reshaped by other factors.
If the stops are close enough together,
the core areas can become a continuous corridor of development.
The first of these drives shows a typical commercial corridor in Florida,
which is totally dependent on automobile traffic.
The next drawing shows what can be expected to develop over time in
the same location if there is a transit stop near this intersection.
You can see the light rail train in the drawing stopping on the left.
This is a diagram of what can happen when two transit lines intersect,
creating a larger prime catchment area.
And this is a diagram of the general distribution of land uses in such a location.
These are the kinds of assumptions that underlay
the alternative scenario for the Tampa Orlando region.
The increases in density are very modest.
Most existing development stays the
same and some new development continues to follow the trend pattern.
But creating an infrastructure system balance between
roads and transit could make a huge difference.
This map shows the development of a streetcar in downtown Norfolk Virginia.
When the stops are as close together as they are in this example
the whole of the downtown can become a crime catchment area.
But even with better land use policies,
the projected population increases in
Florida will put a huge burden on infrastructure systems.
Other measures will be needed if the population growth can be sustained.
What will be needed, essentially,
are distributed systems on
individual properties to supplement the support from the regional infrastructure.
Our research looked at three examples of what will be needed in the entire state
of Florida to support population increases by 2060.
To conserve the water supply,
all residential buildings will ultimately need to have rainwater collection.
So the car washing and lawn watering are not done with drinking water.
Everyone will also need to have low flow toilets and showers plus
water saving appliances and piping to reuse water from sinks to flush toilets.
This slide shows how such improvements can be phased in over
time and then this graph shows how household water consumption can
remain essentially flat as opposed to
the trend shown in the red line where there would be severe water shortages.
To conserve electricity by 2060,
all residential buildings will need at least solar water heaters,
and some buildings will need photovoltaic systems on roofs to
generate electricity on sunny days to reduce the load on the regional grid.
Again, these changes can be phased in gradually up to 2060.
As photovoltaic installations are expensive at least right now,
this graph shows only some houses renovated or built with the new systems.
To hold down gasoline consumption and pollution,
all vehicles will need hybrid systems or burn
an alternative fuel to reach an equivalent of 46 miles per gallon.
The technology to reach this goal is already available,
but it will take time to phase in compliance.
Again, making changes in fuel efficiency can keep consumption essentially flat.
It's necessary to make estimates about the future,
but we always have to remember that estimates are only estimates.
What is clear is that decisions about where we
make investments in infrastructure like roads or transit,
and how we manage consumption,
will have a decisive effect on the future of cities and metropolitan regions.
Our next topic will be the codes and design guidelines that can be
used to manage growth and change in cities and metropolitan regions.
