( Once again I manage to find a bloggable connection between my little home-away-from-winter-home and current issues in Minneapolis)
A recent article in the Star Tribune bemoaned the negative affect that Minneapolis' system of skyways has upon pedestrian traffic in downtown. It rightly complained about the difficulty of finding the almost secret passageways that connect to street level and the detached feeling the protected elevated walkways induce.
I feel that pain, but in reverse. Mostly in winter. As relative newbies we are still finding the the hidden portals that allow for unfettered flow through the businesses and eateries of downtown Minneapolis. It's the same for St Paul, but underground. One night we trudged through stinging hail and breath-sucking cold from restaurant to hockey game, only to find on the way back, "there's a tunnel for that". Could someone make an app?
More recently Robert D. Sykes, U professor of Landscape Architecture rebutted the article stating that we should look to the city of Venice for better solutions to this problem. Although I've yet to see Venice, I saw the beauty of his thinking. He suggested we create better signage, memorable "bridges" and think of the sidewalks as canals for traffic and most importantly called for the building of squares for meeting places that would draw people and provide spaces for meaningful gathering and mental refreshment.
I couldn't help but blurt out to nobody but myself while reading this, "Yes, yes, yes".
You see I'm sold on squares. They are to city planning as sliced bread is to sandwiches.
After numerous stays and now my snowbird time in Savannah, GA, I'm convinced that building squares is the most sensible, sustainable thing for making successful living spaces. Unfortunately most of our cities are already built. I don't know how you retrofit something like this, and I've already admitted my ignorance of economics. However I feel it in my bones every time I shop by a square, cross a square, stop and chat in a square or simply sit and catch my breath in one, that it's a winning idea.
Developers are all about creating "mixed use". The layout of Savannah has been on top of this since the beginning. Somehow James Oglethorpe way back in the early 1700's knew that this would be the making of a lasting and productive settlement.