Centre Place, in Melbourne, Australia. (By Joseph Ip. This and all images courtesy of John Wiley & Sons, Inc.)
The secret to great streets is that there is no secret, that great streets were once the norm, that making them is easy, and that we can have them again, even in America, if we want them.
This is the message of a new book, Street Design: The Secret to Great Cities and Towns (Wiley), by Victor Dover and John Massengale. But while streets that generate active cities are not hard to build, they are against the law in many places (in America, especially).
Getting around those laws is what makes it difficult to maintain or regenerate great streets, turn poor streets into great streets and build great streets anew. All are possible by following the instructions in Street Design.
To read the rest of this column, please visit The Providence Journal.
[If you get a “not found” page, scroll down to and click on Opinion “columns” and this will be at the top. If you get a subscribe page, click “x” to bypass.]
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About David Brussat
This blog was begun in 2009 as a feature of the Providence Journal, where I was on the editorial board and wrote a weekly column of architecture criticism for three decades. Architecture Here and There fights the style wars for classical architecture and against modern architecture, no holds barred.
History Press asked me to write and in August 2017 published my first book, "Lost Providence." I am now writing my second book.
My freelance writing on architecture and other topics addresses issues of design and culture locally and globally.
I am a member of the board of the New England chapter of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art, which bestowed an Arthur Ross Award on me in 2002.
I work from Providence, R.I., where I live with my wife Victoria, my son Billy and our cat Gato.
If you would like to employ my writing and editing to improve your work, please email me at my consultancy, dbrussat@gmail.com, or call 401.351.0457.
Testimonial: "Your work is so wonderful - you now enter my mind and write what I
would have written."
- Nikos Salingaros, mathematician at the University of Texas, architectural theorist and author of many books.
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