Smart Growth in Somerville
Part 4:  Density

A Commentary by William C. Shelton

(The commentaries of The Somerville News do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of The Somerville News, its staff or publishers.)

Last month, I spent ten days in Europe‚Äôs most densely populated country. The Dutch have been practicing smart growth for five hundred years.  As I enjoyed the beauty and charm of their cities, I kept thinking about my own dense city.

For many Americans, density has negative connotations.  Perhaps we associate it with slums and tenements.  Yet density need not be oppressive.  Density is what makes possible all the virtues of cities‚Äô that, throughout history, have drawn those yearning to escape what Marx called ‚Äúthe idiocy of rural life.‚Äù

In the U.S., our sixty-year lapse into idiocy is called ‚Äúthe suburbs.‚Äù It has taken a toll on our quality of life and the natural world. Suburbanites spend much of their lives isolated. Obtaining food, services, and entertainment requires driving.  If suburb dwellers are too young, or old, or poor to drive, they are even more isolated. Human interaction does not happen spontaneously in suburbs; it must be planned.

Forty-four acres of Massachusetts woods, fields, and farms are lost to development every day.  Habitat destruction is the primary threat to 80 percent of the region‚Äôs endangered species.  More than half of Massachusetts‚Äô rivers don‚Äôt meet water-quality standards, while pumping from aquifers to meet suburban demand is drying up rivers or, as with the Ipswich, making them flow backwards.  Boston has more highway lanes per capita than Los Angeles, but ours are more congested.

These conditions are not primarily caused by population growth.  Massachusetts‚Äô population has increased 20 percent since 1950; developed land, by 200 percent.  The cause is leapfrogging, low-density, single-use development.

Dense urban areas use resources efficiently.  New York City consumes half the energy per resident as the next most efficient U.S. city‚Äîone fifth that used by Seattle; one tenth that of Dallas.

Density allows the residents of well-designed cities to choose between solitude and conviviality at any time.  Other children are always nearby for kids to play with.  All the requirements for daily life are in walking distance. This mix of residential, work, retail, and entertainment uses on the same block puts eyes on the street day and night, minimizing crime. Proximity to families, public transportation, and needed goods and services enables elders to age with dignity and independence rather than becoming isolated.

Describing these virtues is simultaneously a description of what dense cities need to realize their promise:  physical design that encourages community; an integration within each neighborhood of all the uses needed to conduct daily life; effective, efficient, and low cost transportation; pockets of open space in walking distance from any location; and public services that keep the streets clean and well maintained.

Somerville once enjoyed all these conditions, except open space, and we can recreate them.  Simply walking through Union, Davis, Ball, and Magoun Squares or lower Broadway can be an enjoyable pastime. The built environment participates in and enriches the walker‚Äôs experience, rather than constraining and assaulting it.  Buildings come up to the sidewalk‚Äôs edge and present a continuous series of windows, doors, and items of visual interest.  Walkers encounter their neighbors or coworkers and pause to exchange news.

Construction of two Green Line extensions, an Orange Line station, and the Urban Ring will take us a long way toward recreating the effective transportation system that once served Somerville.  To justify the additional public transit that takes us to within a few blocks of any Somerville destination, we need much more density of the kind that we have lost:  work places and the jobs that they provide. 

The daytime population that comes with new work places will also bring back to the squares all the goods, services, and amenities needed for daily life.  The property tax revenues generated by them can pay for the training Somerville residents need to obtain the new jobs, help provide affordable housing that keeps families in the community, and maintain the public infrastructure that supports it all.

Every time we have the opportunity, we should add small pieces of green space. Cumulatively, they can make a big difference.

One afternoon in Amsterdam, the elastic band on my bike‚Äôs rack got caught in the wheel.  I pulled the bike onto the sidewalk and began disentangling it.  Within minutes, four unrelated locals surrounded me, all wanting to help.

The most enthusiastic good Samaritan took over, while I struck up a conversation with a woman in her sixties.  She told me that she had never felt any fear walking through Amsterdam, day or night.  People who could come to her aide if needed were always in hailing distance.

Resuming my ride, my thoughts turned again to Somerville.  When gasoline inevitably reaches $10 per gallon and the suburbs die or transform, Somerville can be a shining city on seven hills, demonstrating how humans can live together effectively, with grace and style.