City Limitrophe
Many urban centers have begun to rethink how they operate and zone themselves to improve the experience of residents and their carbon footprints. For many decades, cities have been dominated by the automobile. People lived in the suburbs and commuted on highway networks to their job, separating them from one another, as well as creating massive amounts of greenhouse gas emissions.
From Centers for the Urban Environment: Survival of the Cities by Victor Gruen
Following the rise of the automobile and an increasing proliferation of suburbs in the USA and Canada, many cities began to separate residential and commercial buildings. This went against the design of many cities which had mixed-use commercial and residential buildings, with shops or services on the ground floors, and residents above. Since the 1990s, these zones have begun to return. They offer many advantages, letting people live closer to where they work. Jane Jacobs was a strong supporter of these types of buildings as she felt they created a stronger and safer community, as storefronts were able to keep an eye on the street. The increased foot traffic helped to build relationships and a sense of community as people saw one another more often.
Horse-drawn garbage wagon, near Belmont and Pike, Seattle, Washington, 1915. Wiki Commons.
In some parts of France, and one small town in Vermont, horses are used for garbage collection. The horses are quieter than their gas-driven counterparts. Also, they do not emit the same amount of greenhouse gas. Horse-drawn vehicles and machines were once the backbone of cities and farms before the advent of cars and other machinery around the turn of the 19th century. In some sense then, the use of horses represents a return to form. Some municipalities in France even use the animals to pull carts that take children to school.
Some designers have thought of new ways to create better spaces for people to interact with one another in their neighbourhoods. Buildings can be grouped with parks and walkways between them allowing for shared space. Designers have noted that people are more likely to use and maintain the space if they feel a connection to it, this may come in the form of community gardens. The hope behind many of these developments is to foster a stronger sense of community as people are more likely to interact with and build relationships with one another if they cross paths more often. Some other important principles are that of enclosure, proximity, and scale. These design principles ensure that spaces are built to a human scale, to avoid them feeling like chasms between two huge skyscrapers, or empty and wide open fields.
Horse-drawn garbage wagon, in the french town of Hennebont.