Where old becomes the new, new

With rapid growth over the last half of the 20th century, many North American cities are faced with challenges of increasingly congested transport systems and declining city centres. In response they are now trying to reshape themselves into more compact, liveable, sustainable cities of the future.

City planners are increasingly looking for ‘old’ examples found in many European centres as models to aspire to. Replicating a tried and tested model provides direction and confidence in achieving an urban core that meets city objectives, and allows planners to benefit from lessons learned in other places around the globe. In doing so, ‘new’ examples are slowly becoming the precedent for the old.

Over the past decade, Steer Davies Gleave has been helping a number of cities use our European Light Rail Transit (LRT) design experience to address their need to develop integrated transit solutions, improve transit service and transport choice, and support wider city shaping objectives. This includes planning and designing beyond just the public transport infrastructure, considering a ‘complete street’ philosophy in the design process. Although the term ‘complete streets’ was conceived in North America, its principles are taken from European experience and translated into a North American environment.

Taking old examples isn’t necessarily straightforward when applied in new contexts. While many European cities evolved over centuries, many North American cities are under pressure to shape their downtowns in decades alone. Despite the advantage of precedents, the emerging challenge is how to turn visionary long-range targets into real, deliverable projects.

Faced with this challenge, many cities are recognising the need for both top-down visionary planning and a bottom-up approach to planning and infrastructure investment. While strategic policies with clearly stated visions and objectives are critical, to be successful they must be linked with individual strategies that provide sufficient detail to ‘prove the concept’. Only when both are aligned will cities have sufficient tools to deliver ‘old’ best practices within a ‘new’ context.

Actively shaping places isn’t restricted to the new world. With the introduction of Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) in the UK, existing locales are being redefined and a new geography of ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ planning is underway. The challenge will be establishing clear and continuous links between the two.

Drawing on its European experiences Steer Davies Gleave has been working with the City of Mississauga in the Greater Toronto Area to produce a Downtown Movement Plan that will add a further level of analytical rigour to their visionary master plan, and transform the downtown into a 21st Century urban centre.