Some Examples of Structural Adaptivity - Part II

Here are some more examples of how I propose that structural adaptivity could be applied as a leading principle for resilient development in the US over the next 20-50-100 years.  These are intended to support my conviction that structural adaptivity is the only logical approach to advancing our built environment for a rapidly changing, uncertain, unpredictable future.  I am hoping that others will review these concepts and propose their own personal and team-researched applications of the principle.

In re-balancing our nation, do so by major watersheds.  I propose that the re-balancing of our nation’s urban development (as I discussed before) should be based on the locations and characteristics of our major watersheds.  All major urban development regions should have a long-term dependable natural source of fresh water. 

Hopefully one does not need to review a lot of data or arguments to convince one of the critical need by large metropolitan areas for dependable, continuous sizeable supplies of fresh, potable water.  Although there may be alternative sources for such supplies, I am proposing that great emphasis be placed on relating urban development locations, sizes, and expansion areas, to the extent feasible, on watersheds.  Watersheds are the areas of land (drainage basins/catchment areas) where all grounds drain rainfall into one or another stream, major segment of stream, or into another type of water body.

The largest watershed is the Missouri Watershed with more than 500,000 square miles of drainage area above the confluence of the Missouri with the Mississippi, and with an estimated population of a little less than 10 million persons.  The area has an annual rainfall of approximately10 inchesper year.  That is about 5 square miles of rain inches per capita.  At the other end of the spectrum, the Mid Atlantic Watershed along the east coast, including the New York and nearby metropolitan areas, covers only a little over 100,000 square miles (about 1/5 the size) and contains approximately 49 million persons (almost 5 times the population size). It has an average yearly rainfall of about43 inches.  That is about .09 square miles of rain inches per capita.  The variance is enormous.

Some of the other major inland watershed areas are  the Tennessee, the Ohio, the Upper Mississippi, the Lower Mississippi, the Great Basin (mostly Nevada), the Upper Colorado, the Arkansas-White-Red, and the Rio Grande.  These also are watersheds with large runoff amounts for the amount of existing population and economic development.

Certainly watersheds are very complex geomorphologic areas and cannot be taken as the only possible units for a national planning schematic for a re-balancing plan.  However they do suggest the type of structure which would seem most logical as a starting point.  (As an exercise, but not included here, I have prepared a Watershed-Based Re-Balancing Concept Plan just to see how such a framework would look.) 

Many other dynamics would need to be considered, including projected future changes in rainfall (based on global warming), seasonal differences in rainfall, ground absorption of precipitation, agricultural and other non-urban uses of fresh water, ground water resources for fresh water, existing water bodies, etc.  Nevertheless, we are capable of identifying such factors and using them to plan a better spatial pattern for urban development.

I am not proposing any scheme to “force” re-balancing.  I am speaking about a general perspective on guiding growth in a much more rational and adaptive pattern.  And I am talking about what I assume would be the same approach that the private “risk management” institutions would take if they bore most all of the liability for underwriting the health, safety, and long term viability of our nation’s regional and urban development.

Build Several New Metropolitan areas.  Even with the re-balancing of our nation by major watersheds, we most likely will need to establish and augment the growth of one or more new large metropolitan areas or megalopolises to accommodate large increases to our population and economy.  I am proposing that these be in the interior of the U.S.  (Most if not all of these most likely should be large expansions of existing sizeable cities or growth of the expanses in between and around several – rather than start-from-scratch new conurbations.)

Many of the existing megalopolises in our country are facing problems of being too large, or being in a “limiting” location, or having many buildings and infrastructures that are very old, obsolete and need replacement.  In the recent past these have been the sites of much of the US growth.  To continue this trend is dysfunctional.

One or more new large metropolitan areas or megalopolises in the country, in locations that are much more adaptable for our unknown future, should greatly assist in meeting future population growth needs.  At the same time they may be very accommodating in providing alternatives for the residents and businesses now living in the somewhat dysfunctional urban areas we have.  In addition, they should be much more capable of meeting the requisites of re-location populations that become displaced because of some of the wildcards suggested above.  Large-scale migrations should be anticipated.

This also would greatly increase our adaptivity.  The US must be able to maintain its economic strength if any of the major metro areas fails or greatly declines.  It must be able to shift people, economic activity, governance, and all related activities from one region of the country to another if essential.  Moreover, by having a diversity of large urban centers in a great assortment of locations, each competing with each other in their methods and strategies for adaptation to change, we will have greater capacity to keep coming up with the best solutions to the struggles of the day.

Currently there are about 300 million people living in the US.  About 80% of them live in metropolitan areas.  Current projections are for the US to grow to a population of about 400 million by sometime around the middle of the century, and then possibly start leveling off.

If we were to plan, establish, and “grow” 5-10 new large metropolitan areas of approximately 5-10 million each, we could greatly assist in providing for about 50% of the growth of our nation. 

Urban densities.  Urban densities generally should be allowed to develop on their own as determined by private enterprise.

The form and densities of our urban areas do not generally need to be guided by the planners and government leaders.  They will evolve as a result of the developers in response to the private market place.  In pursuit of “adaptivity,” private free-market-guided developers should be encouraged and supported.  They move quickly, they change directions rather quickly, they frequently return to their customers and correct their development problems/mistakes, they are effective in adapting to their customers’ changing wants and needs – and to the technologies and life styles that are so often changing, and they are willing to take chances and seize opportunities. 

Otherwise, if a choice must be made by the public, moderate densities should prevail.  They are the most adaptable.  Very-high densities restrict adaptivity for future change and very-low densities are counter-productive to meeting the desired benefits of an urban environment.

Roads/Highways.  We need to improve our road/highway system with more and better major and minor arterials and avoid building any more super large “freeways.”  The system should facilitate movement, at frequent spacing intervals, in most all directions – providing moderate size alternative routes rather than a few super large freeways.

Our current network of streets, roads, and highways was designed mostly by engineers focusing on the highest possible traffic flow efficiencies.  It included the assumptions that our nation would always be able to keep ahead of the need for such facilities, so that problems of major congestion would be rare, and that total breakdowns would not occur. 

But our nation has not been able to keep up.  While it is a problem for all roads and highways, we also have the problem that supersized freeways and other limited-access expressways offer little or no adaptivity in the event of breakdown/major congestion on the one main route.  Likewise they are fully constrained by their interchanges, no matter their location or configuration. 

They also are very expensive and can only be built at significant distances from each other in most cases.  They dislocate many residents and businesses.  And if there is any problem in using the closest one, there often are no other decent alternatives routes of travel within a reasonable distance.

A different system is needed, one which places priority on adaptivity.  We need to focus on building more modest-size principal arterials crisscrossing our urban and regional areas at much more closely spaced intervals, offering alternative routes of travel.

Such a system can provide much better access into high traffic centers and areas, throughout urban areas, and for flows of traffic leaving an urban area.  They will also be much more adaptable to changes in the pattern and types of urban development and thus not constrain the succession/transition of urban development as the urban areas’ needs and responses to needs change. 

Now with increasingly more new technology and traffic management knowledge, such medium-high capacity highways/roads can be built and managed to provide for all needed traffic flows at good speeds and with good safety.  Such roads and highways should be designed to standards that rely on and take advantage of new technology.  Some of the technology and management possibilities likely will include: smaller cars, more restricted/dedicated lanes, more/better driver information systems, intelligent traffic signals, congestion pricing, pay-by-the-mile pricing, automated vehicle-highway travel, automated vehicle steering and control, dual mode vehicles using highways and transit ways, and many more.

It is also likely that future auto (or equivalent vehicle) travel will level off or decline somewhat and more people will work from their homes.  More people will be using other modes of travel, drivers will relent on their pursuit of speed, more goods and services will be delivered to homes, and more people will be using some form of bicycle transportation or will be walking. 

Continued use of the automobile or similar personal transportation vehicle, with its flexibility to use alternative routes of travel, should be expected and supported to continue.  It has the greatest capacity for adaptivity.

Truck and Other Freight Transportation.  I believe that before long we will need to establish a separate road/highway system, or similar types of corridors, with advanced movement facilities, for trucks and other freight carrying mechanisms.

As we transition into an era of small, lightweight passenger vehicles, such vehicles will present even greater safety hazards and psychological constraints on drivers accepting travel on the same thoroughfares as the much larger trucks.  Such a state of affairs also would be disadvantageous to the smooth movement and adaptability of each.  Further, the construction of the two distinct types of pavements and related highway elements would be much more cost-effective if each were built only to the necessary standards of each. 

Future trucks and similar vehicles are likely to be even larger.  The trend is to make them as big as possible, dependent primarily on the rules of the federal transportation authorities.  Longer, segmented trucks as tall and wide as possible, dual mode trucks, future technologies and potential applications in speed management, variable messaging, congestion charging and electronic toll collection, road infrastructure surveillance, guidance systems, dedicated lanes, automated highways, etc. should be expected. 

Other freight carrying mechanisms are being investigated, including an increase in the combinations of trucks, rail and maritime intermodal transportation, “truck trains,”  conveyor systems, “smart” freight tubes – pneumatic or hydraulic, maglev with capsules, semi-vacuum tube electromagnetic pipeline, or freight tubes that dual mode trucks can also go into.  As investigation and experimentation go forward, those systems with moveable tubes/pipelines, or other mediums of travel, should be favored in the interests of adaptivity.

Maritime transportation is still the most energy efficient and least expensive and will continue to be.  Large ships, many of which are intermodal container ships, will get increasingly larger and we will need deeper and deeper ports to serve them.  With only a few such ports, our adaptivity will be at risk.  We must be looking at bringing deep channels inland or finding other alternatives.

Rail transportation of freight is also likely to continue increasing and its future will depend both on the location and dependability of the railroad lines and the facilities to load, unload, provide cargo storage for, and on upgrading their technology to provide increasingly better service with lower and lower use of energy and consequent reduction in environmental pollution.  Such mode of transportation, however, has very limited adaptivity.

Other modes include inland waterways and air transportation, including airships, providing even more adaptivity.  We also need to be planning for spaceports in many areas of the country so that all regions have one or more nearby.

We mistakenly assume that no matter how large and concentrated our freight transportation systems become we will always be able to handle even more.  We fail to consider the probabilities that at some point the diseconomies of scale will take over and we will be thwarted by congestion, environmental degradation, and other problems.  We also tend to believe that none of the “wild cards” of terrorism, natural or man-made disaster, or other “out of the blue” bad events will ever happen, or at least “not on our watch.”

Suburban Sprawl.  Sprawl may have many positive benefits for adaptivity.  It should not necessarily be discouraged; rather it should be better “managed.” 

Of course, there are many types of suburban sprawl.  I am not addressing the large, estate type housing that is desired by the wealthy, or the scattered commercial or industrial development, or similar.  I am only addressing the low density subdivision developments, mostly built and sold by speculators to the mass consumer market and the hit-and-skip development at the urban/rural fringe, both residential and non-residential.

Suburban sprawl is quite adaptable.  It may be cost inefficient for now but in the longer run it may present many opportunities for retro-fitting it to meet all types of new needs in the future.  For example, if food shortages should become a big issue, it is the area where a great deal more food production could take place.  (Some of it might even be converted back to large-scale farms, if needed.  The free-market should be allowed to work.)  If land is needed for population re-locations, it may be a good location for quickly adding more housing.  If energy supplies become interrupted, it may be a good location for self-generation of power.  Many more examples of suburban in-fill development may be given.

Additional suburban sprawl should not necessarily be stopped; rather it should be constructed in patterns and sizes and shapes which have the maximum amount of adaptability and with the fewest ownership, legal and other constraints on infill, redevelopment, retro-fitting or other changes which are likely to be needed in the future.  (Moreover, any new suburban development should always be required to include a sizeable amount of open spaces in first-rate locations.) 

In addition, of course, in the event of severe climate warming (or pandemics), it may even be the most ideal type of development to accommodate the problems of living.

I have more examples of structural adaptivity I would like to share in future posts.

William Schnaufer