Building placement matters.

This the the intersection of Chippewa and Delaware in downtown Buffalo, NY.  Look at the difference the proper placement of a building at the sidewalk can make on a neighborhood.  Two of the buildings are built to the sidewalk and a third is built like a tacky strip mall. Shame on Starbucks. So desperate to be across the street from a local coffee shop that they choose to lease that hideous building. The building under construction on the fourth corner will be placed at the sidewalk edge as it should be and help make this a vibrant intersection. Perhaps the Starbucks corner will follow suit.

Continuity of Place

This is a building on Main and Fifth in downtown Los Angeles. According to Brigham Yen the building is known as the Pershing Hotel and was built in 1889. The structure is being converted into affordable housing for the homeless and very low income population. The image above shows the structure with a construction fence around it before demolition of the guts if the building. The three images below show the facade braced while the new building is constructed behind it. While this method of facade preservation doesn't provide all the benefits of preserving the entire building, such as keeping the demolition of debris out of landfills, it helps maintain continuity of place in the historic core of downtown Los Angeles.

 

 

Related:  Older buildings, continuity of place, and the human experience.

  

"There is nothing about our cities that is inevitable or unchangeable."

It amazes me how often people assume that the built environment, the way their cities look and function, is purely the result of "market forces" and that those pesky planners are just trying to force people to live differently. The reality is that many of the laws related to land use and housing are geared toward compelling one type of built environment and limiting another and thereby excluding genuine choice for people. 

You could argue that we live in a free market country. That all of our decisions are based on what people want - that Conway is sprawled because the people want the city to be sprawled, and that Conway is automobile dependent because people want to drive. 

That is a bunch of baloney.