Commercial District Planning & Design
Developing or adopting a comprehensive, long-term vision for a Main Street district is essential to setting a positive course for future development and investment. Section 1: Commercial District Planning and Design explores several key themes associated with commercial district planning and design, including: designing for the whole community, commercial district master planning, zoning basics, public improvements, managing traffic, and understanding parking.
Section Resources
Designing for the Whole Community
Intergenerational Design:
- What is Livable? Community Preferences of Older Adults, AARP Public Policy Institute
- AARP’s Raising Grandchildren: Support page
- Do Millennials Want to Call Your City ‘Home’?, Governing Magazine
- Older, Smaller, Better, Preservation Green Lab of the National Trust for Historic Preservation
- Projections and Implications for Housing a Growing Population: Older Households 2015 – 2035, Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies report
- State of Grandfamilies in America, Generation United
- Grandfamilies.org State Fact Sheets
- Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Grandparents Raising Grandchildren
ADA & Streetscapes:
- San Francisco Will Say Goodbye to Brick Sidewalk, Josh Cohen, Next City
- ADA Accessibility Guidelines, U.S. Access Board
- Designing Sidewalks and Trails for Access – Best Practices Design Guide, Federal Highway Administration
Homelessness & Design:
- Stuart Semple launches campaign to eradicate ‘hostile design’ around the world, The Art Newspaper
- Extending Our Reach: Reducing Homelessness Through Library Engagement, American Library Association
- How Aggressive Architecture Designs the Homeless Out of the Public Realm, ArchDaily
- These communities for the homeless were designed by students, Mashable
- How Cities Use Design to Drive Homeless People Away, The Atlantic
- How One Architect Is Innovating To Combat Homelessness In London, Forbes
- Framlab Wants to Revolutionize the Way We House the Homeless, American Institute of Architects
- Hostile urban architecture: A critical discussion of the seemingly offensive art of keeping people away, Research Institute of Sweden
Commercial District Master Planning
- Revitalizing Main Street Handbook, National Main Street Center
- NYC Commercial District Assessment Guides Note: In spring 2018, LISC will publish an updated framework that will be free to download on their website.
Commercial District Zoning
Public Improvements
Planning Public Improvements:
- What Makes a Place Great, Project for Public Spaces
- Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper approach, Project for Public Spaces
- Starting with the Petunias, Project for Public Spaces
- Quick Build for Better Streets, People for Bikes
- Lost Lessons from American BIDs, Lawrence Houstoun
- Innovations: Not Your Usual BIDs, Lawrence Houstoun
- Crowdfunding
- ioby, aka “in our back yards”
- Patronicity
Streetscape Improvements:
- Institute for Quality Communities, University of Oklahoma
- Free Community WiFi, Wired
Wayfinding:
- Walk Your City
- Strengthening Commercial Districts, A Guide to Downtown Wayfinding, Larisa Ortiz Associates
- Tactical Urbanism
- Walkonomics app
- Montclair, NJ Wayfinding System
Trail-Oriented Development:
Managing Traffic
How Traffic Affects Economic Vitality:
- The Economic Benefits of Sustainable Streets, NYC Department of Transportation
- How Traffic Congestion Impacts Economic Growth, Emily Badger, CityLab
- The Economic Benefits of Bicycle Infrastructure, Darren Flusche, League of American Bicyclists
Two-Way Conversions:
- Two-Ways Fix Our Neighborhoods, John Gilderbloom and William Riggs, Planetizen
- One-Way to Kill Your Downtown Retail, Strong Towns
Streets for People, Not Cars:
- Traffic Calming 101, Project for Public Spaces
- Making the Case for Cycling Friendly Cities with Bikeonomics, Ben Schiller, Fast Company
- 10 Techniques for Making Cities More Walkable, Kaid Benfield summarizes Jeff Speck’s Walkable City, CityLab
- 8 Principles of Streets as Places, Project for Public Spaces
- Streets as Places, Project for Public Spaces
- Rightsizing Streets, Project for Public Spaces
- What is Shared Space? Project for Public Spaces
- Complete Streets, Smart Growth America
- Complete Streets: Best Policy and Implementation Practices, American Planning Association
Understanding Parking
Parking Studies and Reports:
- Parking Matters, a report prepared for the City of Savannah, Ga., by Nelson\Nygaard Consulting Associates
- Plaza District: A Parking Blueprint, Oklahoma City
- A Report on Parking Impacts and Downtown Vitality, City of Portsmouth, N.H.
High Cost of Free Parking:
- The High Cost of Free Parking, Vox (video)
- Parking Flexibility as an Economic Development Tool, Smart Growth America
- Finding a Place for Parking, Project for Public Spaces
- National Park(ing) Day