Bringing human-scale architecture back to Phoenix, Arizona
As much as I've loved living in Phoenix, I miss human scale architecture. And if you're not sure what I'm talking about, get out of your car. Even in my nice suburban neighborhood here in Glendale, everything is scaled for cars. And that means roads as wide as the length of a football field, blank walls next to sidewalks that are inches from gigantic vehicles rocketing by at freeway speeds, and parking lots that seem to stretch for miles. Compare this to the city I lived in in the mid-1980s, Santa Barbara, California. Sure, there are cars - it's California, after all, but they're separated from the humans. Sidewalks along State Street aren't just afterthoughts. There are parking garages, nicely designed into the backgrounds, that allow people to walk with a few steps down to a human scale world. There are trees, and flowers. OK, let's see a show of hands as to how many people have commuted to work on their bicycles in Phoenix! OK, that's a few, ...