Urban Design for Economic Stability

 

The relationship between land use allocation and its revenue generating potential within cities is very loosely understood and more a matter of opinion than fact. Current knowledge has been an inadequate foundation for a planning/urban design strategy seeking to establish the long-term economic stability of cities.

The knowledge needed to plan for financial stability is available but located in separate public silos. The cooperation needed to correlate this information has not been attempted -- to my knowledge. A farmer can tell you that separating income evaluation from crop allocation and yield assessment is financial roulette, but cities have not understood that they are farms with crops of shelter capacity and activity called zones and intensity that must be adequately allocated to anticipate the combined revenue needed to ensure their financial stability and desired quality of life over time.

On second thought, cities may understand the challenge but have not comprehensively addressed the financial problem with data science, geographic information systems, shelter capacity evaluation, revenue correlation, and urban design of land use allocation.

Land use plans for compatible adjacent activity have not adequately anticipated the three-dimensional shelter capacity, intensity, and activity compositions required to produce a financially stable habitat, social “quality of life”, and desirable physical context for growing populations within a limited Built Domain. This is the potential of urban design. Without it, we will continue to sprawl, consuming land for new revenue to meet increasing growth and expense with consumption until we meet the planet’s Law of Limits.

BACKGROUND

In my experience a county has been the repository for all public revenue collection within its boundaries, and has recorded this information by parcel number and street address. In some cases, cities may have assisted. The county has not been interested in correlating its information with a constituent city’s street addresses, zoning districts, census blocks, and census tract designations since the information is not related to their mission and involves time-consuming compilation that can randomly change. This deprives cities of essential information because a city is a farm “… and a farmer can tell you that separating income planning from crop allocation and yield assessment…” is management without a strategy that can easily produce decline. (I’ve purposely repeated the text italicized.)

County real estate tax information is publicly accessible but personal income tax information is classified. A city, however, cannot accurately manage the revenue from its land use activity, shelter capacity, and physical intensity allocation decisions without more complete county information regarding the characteristics and economic performance of every acre within its boundaries, because this is the foundation for its financial stability. The challenge is to make relevant county revenue information available to local jurisdictions for evaluation and land use/design allocation while protecting the public expectation for privacy, integrity, and accuracy.

The separation of land use activity from measurement of its physical intensity and economic productivity per acre is an error that farm economics should make obvious.

It is possible for a city to create a database of zoning district, census block, and census tract designations related to every street address; to link this database with county revenue information; and to write database queries that correlate tax information with its related census block, tract, or zone locations while also protecting county source information. Comparison of economic productivity per acre to a city’s average annual expense per acre can indicate where attention is needed to improve a city’s average economic performance. The ratio of area productivity deficits to surpluses discovered will be an indication of prior planning decision success and the future land use capacity, activity, intensity, and context decisions needed to improve a city’s average economic productivity per acre. There will always be subsidies, but their presence will remain hidden at increasing risk to the future as they increase with age.

SUGGESTION

The objective is to protect county revenue information from disclosure when required, but to make it available to cities who cannot make informed decisions without it. These cities must gain a better understanding of the relationship between the acres in their jurisdiction and the revenue produced by the occupant activity and intensity they permit.

County real estate tax information is available to the public. A read-only version could be linked to a city’s street address and zoning database for local planning purposes if the local database exists. Income tax information is more problematic. Some cities track county income tax receipts in a secure location to ensure accurate county accounting. This private information could be related to a city’s street address database and compiled by zone, census block, or census tract at this secure local location to protect individual privacy. The protected income tax information could be queried by zone, census block, census tract, or other geographic area and combined with property tax revenue for the same area. This would enable planning/urban design evaluation of the relationship between city land, its shelter capacity, physical intensity, occupant activity, and average revenue per acre available to support its operations, maintenance, improvements, and debt service expense.

Relational databases, data science, geographic information systems, shelter capacity evaluation, and urban design are some of the tools a city needs to understand and plan for a sustainable economic relationship between its land, the revenue it provides, and the context it creates to serve the quality of life desired.

Measuring the past produces knowledge. Accurately predicting future shelter capacity, intensity, activity, and revenue options represents an opportunity to build on knowledge and produce desirable, economically stable urban design compositions within limited areas. The building design categories and design specification options located in the collection of forecast models entitled, “Shelter Capacity Evaluation”, have been derived with this objective in mind. It is not enough to understand a problem without the tools needed to examine options and define solutions. I have discussed them on many previous occasions and simply reference them here.

Economic development projects are tactical solutions. The battles will be endless until a goal can be recognized, and a strategy defined with a language capable of leading the efforts of many. The following is a list of information needed to begin understanding the performance of land within a city’s boundaries in my opinion. As I’ve just mentioned, however, understanding is only the beginning. In this case it means that a parasite must learn to adapt on a planet that has not been designed for unlimited growth and consumption. An adequate leadership language is needed to begin.

MUST KNOW

1)      Total annual revenue received by a city from all sources

2)      Total taxable acres in city

3)      Total gross building area in sq. ft. per city zone

4)      Taxable buildable acres per city zone

5)      Total revenue per city zone

6)      Number of separate city zones

NOTE: a zone is a collection of planned, compatible activities within a defined zoning district that is one area in a city master plan.

APPLICATION

1)      Gross building area per zone (GBAz) divided by the number of taxable buildable acres per zone (BACz) equals taxable gross building area sq. ft. per zoning acre, or shelter capacity per zone (SFACz).

2)      Revenue per zone (REVz) divided by the total taxable shelter sq. ft. in the zone (SFACz) equals the revenue per taxable shelter sq. ft. per zone from the zoning activity, shelter capacity and intensity present (RVSFz).

3)      Revenue per zone (REVz) divided by the taxable buildable acres in the zone (BACz) equals the revenue produced per zoning acre by the taxable of activity, capacity, and intensity in the zone (RVACz).

4)      Total revenue per taxable acre per zone (RVACz) divided by number of zones (Zn) equals average city rev per taxable acre (CRAC).

5)      Total annual city expense (CXP) divided by total taxable city acres (CAC) equals the average city expense per taxable buildable acre (CXAC).

6)      Avg city rev per taxable acre (CRAC) must equal total city expense per taxable acre (CXP). When it doesn’t, budget cuts are required to correct the imbalance and decline becomes an increasing matter of opinion.

The revenue per taxable, buildable acre in a zone (RVACz) may be greater than or less than a city’s total expense per taxable buildable acre (CXAC). “A comparison … can… indicate where attention is needed to improve a city’s average economic performance. The ratio of zoning area productivity deficits to surpluses will be an indication of prior planning success and the future land use capacity, activity, intensity, and context decisions needed to improve a city’s average economic productivity.” (I’ve purposely repeated the text italicized.) The language of shelter capacity evaluation has been created to assist in the consideration of a city’s land use potential. It can also be used to express a city’s leadership decisions in correlated values that can be followed by design to reach a strategic goal.

FINAL NOTE

A city that grants tax abatements without a comprehensive understanding of the revenue “yield” produced by the shelter capacity, intensity, intrusion, and context present or planned on each buildable, taxable acre of land within its boundaries is operating on assumption, hope, and history that has never been a solid foundation for the anticipation, planning, and design needed. Continued annexation of land, agriculture, and the natural domain have been, and are, expedient Ponzi solutions motivated by the lack of knowledge and excessive assumption involved.

Walter M. Hosack: November 2024

Land Use and Urban Design

 Two-dimensional Plans and Three-Dimensional Shelter Compositions

The use of land for social activity and the use of land to shelter activity has led Zoning to believe that both are “land uses” that can be addressed with the same methods and language, but the use of land for compatible activity and the intensity of physical shelter constructed to protect occupant activity on land involves two separate languages. The first involves traditional legal identification and regulation of separate topics. The second involves the mathematical correlation of design specification topics and values to achieve a strategic planning objective.

Separation of activity on land involves the concept of compatibility. Separation of shelter for occupant activity on land involves levels of physical intensity that produce spatial context, but intensity and context have not had adequate planning and design definition.

It was possible to successfully argue that a policy permitting home locations adjacent to factory locations threatened the public health, safety, and welfare. This introduced the concept of compatible relationships. Master plans, zoning district plans, and lists of compatible activities per zone followed to resolve the many potential conflicts involved.

Density and the floor area ratio were used for definitions of physical intensity and context. Both measure results but give inadequate design direction. The results have often been sprawl or excessive intensity because density and floor area ratio values do not replace the many design specification topics, values, and building design category decisions that must be correlated to define shelter intensity and context options for any given land area and activity group. These specification decisions cannot be led as separate topics because they do not act independently. The values involved must be comprehensively correlated to produce accurate shelter capacity, intensity and context options for consistent leadership direction.

Shelter capacity, intensity, and intrusion topics and values have not been defined, measured, correlated, or evaluated to build design knowledge over generations, but this is the knowledge that can consistently lead to the quality of life implied by the phrase, “to protect the public health, safety, and welfare”. This phrase should include, “…within geographic limits defined to protect both our quality and source of life” in my opinion.

I have discussed the building design categories, specification topics, topic values, and architectural algorithms that produce shelter capacity, intensity, and context options for occupant activity on any given buildable land area in many previous essays. I have referred to it as shelter capacity evaluation, and earlier as development capacity calculation, but won’t repeat myself here. I would simply like to argue that the intensity and context of urban spaces/places formed by quantity combinations of building mass, parking, pavement, unpaved open space, and movement affects our physical, social, psychological, environmental, and economic quality of life.

The context of places can be measured, evaluated, and predicted with the quantitative language of shelter capacity evaluation. These places are occupied by activity options that have public and private financial implications. The correlation of context and activity within the zones of a city has public economic implications that determine a city’s financial stability, but context has been an accidental result of private investment intent. Public revenue has not been a private investment priority.

The context topic has been called urban design. It deserves measurement and evaluation to build the knowledge needed to predict, defend, and lead the second generation of decisions that will define the external places and spaces we inhabit and can afford to maintain. The context quantities that result will be symbolized by the final appearance introduced and debated by the language of fine art.  

Walter M. Hosack: November 2024

Photo credit: Jakriborg, juni 2005

Shelter Design Leadership Decisions

 

We have not been able to consistently match a given land area with desirable quantities of gross building area, floor quantity, parking, pavement, and unpaved open space to avoid the context we refer to as either “sprawl” or “excessive intensity”. Many designers have felt that building appearance could overcome the level of intensity, or balance introduced, since they are not in control of intensity decisions; but architectural success is a function of both context and appearance. It is a physical symbol of the priorities of its time, and it currently serves an emphasis on growth and consumption.

I should pause to explain a few terms used in this essay.

1)    Shelter capacity is equal to gross building area in sq. ft. per buildable acre occupied.

1)     The maximum gross building area potential of  a given buildable land area is a function of the values entered in the design specification template of a building category forecast model.

2)     Architectural intensity is equal to shelter capacity times the percentage of impervious cover planned or present divided by 10,000.

3)      Architectural intrusion is equal to floor quantity divided by five.

4)      Architectural context is equal to intensity plus intrusion.

We have never had equations and forecast models capable of accurately predicting the gross building area potential of a given buildable land area based on a comprehensive set of design value decisions and a chosen building design category. (I can’t footnote this so please see my note at the end of this essay.) This means that we have never been able to correlate population growth and shelter demand with desirable context compositions of shelter capacity, intensity, and intrusion on a given land area whose cellular growth is limited to prevent consumption of our source of life.

Context measurement and evaluation of existing design specification values related to a given project and building design category can define the parameters needed to produce the balance we seek. It can also define what we seek to avoid.

Context prediction based on a building design category and its related design specification decisions can be used to lead both public and private shelter design toward the physical, social, psychological, environmental, and economic context we seek. This leadership will improve based on the knowledge gained from context measurement and evaluation recorded in a common, comprehensive mathematical language.

Context measurement and evaluation represents knowledge accumulation and the foundation for leadership language. Its conclusions can be used to defend context prediction. The combination can improve the contribution of design to the political decisions concerned with population growth, shelter capacity, and environmental preservation.

SUMMARY ARGUMENT:

1)      The gross building area potential of a given buildable land area is based on a building design category choice, the value decisions entered in the design specification module of its forecast model, and a choice among the floor quantity options planned or permitted and entered in the model.

2)      An incredible number of shelter capacity options are available based on the building design category chosen and the design specification decisions entered in its forecast model as I have discussed in previous essays, and many of these options are undesirable.

3)       Gross building area options combine with occupant activity options on a given land area to produce public and private financial implications. These economic options also have measurable physical intensity, intrusion, and context implications.

4)      A common, correlated design language is needed to reconcile the private profit and public revenue implications of design specification decisions since they produce the shelter capacity, intensity, intrusion and context of the project spaces/places we form into neighborhoods, districts, and cities.

5)      Without a common leadership language, government will continue to pursue development, annexation and redevelopment to reconcile shelter demand and revenue deficiencies based on a strategy of hope and history. it has not proven to be an adequate foundation for anticipation. Private enterprise will continue to pursue development, annexation and redevelopment in pursuit of profit without concern for land consumption and public revenue deficiencies that may appear years after project completion and profit success.

6)      The private and public sectors do not have a common leadership language capable of reconciling private profit and public revenue objectives with the shelter capacity, intensity, intrusion, and context decisions needed to produce a desirable quality of life.

7)      Data science is needed to correlate occupant activity with the revenue results produced per sq. ft. of gross building area occupied. The revenue implications of shelter capacity, intensity, intrusion, context, and activity design decisions cannot be predicted without this information. Real estate developers have estimated the profit and expense potential per sq. ft. of activity for decades if not centuries. Government has no comparable library of knowledge that can be used to evaluate the public revenue and expense implications of a private development proposal, but it assumes these implications over the lifetime of the project when it is approved. In other words, a farmer understands the yield per crop and acre better than a city understands the yield from its activities and zones. These relationships, however, determine the quality of life each can afford over time.

The urban design objective is to correlate population growth, shelter composition and financial stability within sustainable limits that protect our quality and source of life. The objective cannot be pursued with the language of fine art. It will require the mathematics of shelter capacity evaluation. It is a tall order that challenges our parasitic growth in a Darwinian version of symbiotic adaptation. Success will not be a divine gift, however. We are expected to continue building the knowledge and understand the discipline required to shelter and survive.

Walter M. Hosack: November 2024

FOOTNOTE: Nor have we had equations capable of accurately predicting the buildable land needed for a given gross building area objective based on a comprehensive set of design value decisions and a chosen building design category.

THREE QUESTIONS from an ARCHITECT

 

Walter, your attempt to establish a mathematical basis for development is admirable. (1) You must not be alone - have others attempted the same thing? In the end, physical objects are built which conform to the desires of people with money who build them. (2) In one sense, is there even urban design in the US? (3) Do you distinguish between urban planning and urban design?

(1)   I’m not aware of any other attempts at a mathematical basis for development but I am not an academic. Development has always had a mathematical foundation, but it has never been reduced to an effective leadership language. Zoning was our first attempt to lead development decisions, but its mathematical development vocabulary has been incomplete, uncorrelated and often contradictory. This is what I have been attempting to improve with the building design category classification, design specification templates, and implication measurements/predictions of “shelter capacity evaluation”. We cannot predict shelter design alternatives and lead shelter design decisions without a correlated mathematical vocabulary. The result of inattention will be continued annexation and consumption of land without anticipation of its consequences.

(2)   I think you will find landscape architecture more focused on urban design since it involves the exterior spaces/places created by compositions of building mass/shelter capacity, parking, pavement, unpaved open space, and movement systems within urban areas. These divisions do exist within some public planning departments but the absence an adequate leadership language forces them to focus on project proposals rather than three-dimensional plans for economic stability that can afford a desirable quality of life. Architects seem to be focused on the internal context and exterior building appearance needed to satisfy the shelter requirements associated with a client’s activity. Exterior urban context seems to be more of an afterthought related to the building floor plan required and the land available. This makes the urban places created a matter of chance that continues to depend on annexation to correct inadequate physical, social, and economic decisions.

(3)   To me there is a great difference between urban planning and urban design. In my opinion, the language of planning has been concerned with the two-dimensional compatibility of social activity. It has been unable to effectively address or discuss the physical and economic implications of shelter capacity decisions beyond appearance and has failed to adequately address or define “context” in terms capable of leading hundreds of thousands of designers toward desired objectives. The only option in these cases has been annexation for more projects and hope for a financially successful future. It is a comprehensive problem that cannot be addressed by individual investors. It can only be solved with a city planning language that has mathematically correlated urban design leadership potential.

I don’t believe the problem of unlimited shelter growth on a planet with limited land area can be solved by individual investors without public leadership. In my opinion, the public and private interests involved have not been able to speak to each other in a language that can reconcile their interests. The private sector attempts to anticipate with the pattern language of design while the public sector attempts to regulate with the written word and miscellaneous, conflicting dimensional specifications. The language of shelter capacity evaluation reconciles this conflicting message with forecast models and embedded architectural algorithms that can be used to measure, evaluate, predict, regulate, and build knowledge. It is a common language that can be shared by public and private interests to break down mistrust with correlated predictions and mutual understanding.

Walter M. Hosack: November 2024

Tactical Architecture and Strategic Urban Design

 

Christopher Alexander called architecture a “pattern language” long ago since it relies on graphic images to communicate intent in my opinion. The language involved presents diagrams that may be worth a thousand words but cannot build knowledge regarding the context presented. In fact, it cannot define the term. It can only depict an example that leaves knowledge of success a matter of opinion, and this success cannot be duplicated without fear of plagiarism.

CONTEXT

Architectural context became a concern of social movements centuries ago when excessive population density was forced to occupy undersized rooms without light, air, ventilation, sanitation, and safety. These excessive internal conditions were reflected by the external physical intensity of the tenements inhabited. The difference between internal space per occupant and external space per building became confused by the term “density” however, since external “intensity” could not be defined by the pattern language available and still in use today.

Zoning regulation has made partial attempts at intensity definition by specifying partial, uncorrelated pattern language details such as, but not limited to, yard setbacks, building height limitations, and parking regulations. They often conflict and require time-consuming variance approvals forced to become inconsistent given the circumstances encountered. The results have often been sprawling consumption of land and/or excessive intensity because a pattern language cannot comprehensively define leadership intent, build knowledge, or anticipate conditions related to the thousands of project decisions involved around the planet.

Fortunately, the components of external project context can be comprehensively identified, measured, and mathematically correlated to predict their implications. These implications can also be predicted when contemplated specification values are entered in the design specification module of a building design category forecast model. I’ve discussed this measurement and prediction potential to build knowledge and lead future shelter capacity planning in many previous essays.

The shelter capacity, intensity, and context implications predicted in a shelter capacity forecast model can be adjusted by changing the design specification values entered in the specification module before pencil hits paper. The knowledge that can be accumulated by this measurement and prediction format has improved leadership potential for both public and private sectors.

Leadership is needed to protect our quality and source of life from excessive consumption of land for shelter capacity. It should be a self-evident argument. Land is needed to shelter the activities of growing populations and is needed as a source of life. Shelter will consume this source without leadership that is able to define the shelter capacity of land and limit its consumption.

Density in terms of dwelling units per acre has never been an adequate measure of intensity. It has simply not addressed the many design specification values that must be correlated to produce a desired result. This has prevented us from reconciling population growth and shelter capacity on limited land areas that are consciously prescribed and monitored to produce a sustainable, compatible presence and desirable quality of life.

The equations of shelter capacity evaluation have been my response to this perceived gap, and I have discussed them in numerous essays over the years. They are the descendants of a social reform movement that first recognized the relationship between shelter intensity, social density, and its effect on public health, safety, and welfare (quality of life). The response has influenced our lives and behavior in many ways, but we have struggled to lead the shelter required for this activity without sprawl and excessive intensity. This is not an issue associated with a single building. It is about the assembly of shelter projects that form the places we inhabit with collections of building mass, parking, pavement, and unpaved open space. The topic is typically referred to as urban design, but the scope of concern is not limited to an urban design area. It extends to the collection of urban design areas that must eventually be correlated to form sustainable city design, and it requires an equally comprehensive leadership language.

Shelter design leadership is needed because the refuge planned or constructed on a single lot removes land as a source of life. It’s a trade-off between land for shelter and land for survival that adds meaning and urgency to words like “balance”, “sustainable”, and “symbiotic”.

URBAN DESIGN

A single shelter cell metastasizes in response to population growth stimuli and depends on a life-sustaining anatomy of movement, open space, and life support. This anatomy responds to population growth and expands to form a Built Domain that consumes land. This growth is not recognized as a disease mistreated with “annexation” because we are only now recognizing the implications of unlimited growth and consumption. We have simply not understood the building classification and design specification decisions needed to consistently lead shelter growth toward a goal based on understanding and respect for the planet’s ability to sustain life. In other words, we have not been able to accurately predict the shelter capacity of land. We have fought wars over control, surveyed parcels, and traded ownership; but have never attempted to reconcile our admiration for growth and consumption on a planet with limited land area facing competing demands. We think we own and control, but the Natural Domain will never compromise with ignorance.

There are measurable implications related to the shelter growth we pursue within the natural limits we ignore. I’ve called these implications shelter capacity, intensity, intrusion, and context. I’ve mentioned in previous essays that they are produced by a choice among six classified building design categories, and design specification decisions entered in a forecast template related to the building category chosen. Each template predicts gross building area potential based on the specification values entered and the floor quantity option chosen. The gross building area predicted becomes the basis for calculating its shelter capacity, intensity, intrusion, and context implications with additional embedded equations. The physical, social, psychological, environmental, and economic effects of these context implications remain unmeasured and unknown, but I believe that most of us have always felt that the places we create range from claustrophobic to serene, and that they influence the quality of life we experience. It may be possible to convert what we feel to what we know with future measurement and research. It may even be called knowledge.

ARCHITECTURE

Urban design exceeds the client boundaries of a typical architectural commission. It cannot be resolved with land use planning or current zoning regulations any more than a building can be completely defined with a single floor plan and a partial specification. This makes urban design a new frontier of significant public interest and potential contribution since a three-dimensional problem cannot be answered with two dimensional solutions. If you have read my previous essays, you know that shelter capacity evaluation, data science, computer graphic information, mathematics, and design are involved. Alexander’s pattern language will remain to illustrate solutions, but they will be built on the knowledge gained from urban design evaluation. Architecture will become the tactical branch of urban design strategy and city design leadership. There is no option for those who agree that growth is subject to the planet’s Law of Limits.

POSTSCRIPT

When land area is given, the quantity of gross building area that can be constructed becomes the question.

When a gross building area objective is given, the quantity of buildable land required becomes the question.

Answers to these questions are a function of the building design category chosen, the information given, and the values entered for each remaining topic in the design category’s specification template. The answers vary with every floor quantity option and specification revision entered.

Shelter capacity, intensity, intrusion, and context implications are calculated from the gross building area options measured or predicted from the specification values entered. The measurements are like blood pressure readings with no prior diagnostic history.

In architecture these answers have client investment implications. In urban design they have public revenue implications. In both cases desirable context within sustainable limits is not assured. It is a function of design decisions that now require more informed leadership direction.

In other words, the shelter capacity of land is a variable based on design decisions that have physical, social, psychological, environmental, and economic implications. These decisions can be abused to maximize shelter capacity, intensity, and intrusion at the expense of context. It’s time to learn much more about the strategic design decisions involved before we can hope to shelter the activities of growing populations within geographic limits designed to protect both their quality and source of life. Recognizing and correlating the shelter capacity of land may help us to use it wisely since capacity and context can be occupied by any permitted activity.

We are being tested by our use of limited land, sea, and air for growth. Shelter is simply one of the many topics that we must struggle to correlate with growth and limited resources. The appearance of architecture and urban design will only symbolize an answer. It will not provide the measurement, evaluation, prediction, knowledge, and leadership decisions required.

Walter M. Hosack: November 2024