Today’s column is brought to you by the letter “C.”
Yes folks, by the good letter “C.” It’s number three in the alphabetical order and is featured in the lead position in our word for the day, “CONNECTIVITY.”
And it’s a way cool word. Simple to pronounce and equally simple in meaning. Just take “connect,” add a couple of suffixes and you get “connectivity.” It’s the state of being connected or being able to communicate with some other person or thing. And how’s this cool (or even mildly interesting)?
Here’s how – it’s a word that has become metaphoric brick and mortar in a community’s plans. Connectivity is the foundation – the linchpin – of the entire Comprehensive Plan for the City of Fairhope. This is the plan (updated from the 2000 version) just approved by the council at its first meeting of 2007.
This plan sets the goals and objectives for the city as it faces a future of increasingly rapid growth in an environment of dramatic change. Everybody (or just about everybody) talks about “Keeping Fairhope, Fairhope,” as all of these dynamic processes impact the community. This plan, resting a firm foundation of “connectivity,” is the path to handling change without changing the character of the city.
OK, now moving along. You just saw that connectivity is the condition of being connected – it’s a form of being in communication. In the context of Fairhope’s Comprehensive Plan this means physical connection of roads and sidewalks and trails and whatever to allow easy movement around the community for social and economic purposes – a very basic form of communication among the residents, businesses and governmental organizations. It’s what we all do when the Internet and phones don’t meet our needs for communicating with others – we drive, walk, run, bicycle, skateboard or whatever, to get where we want or need to be.
The concept of connectivity as developed in the plan serves to make these “trips” as short and car-free as possible. This means where people live and where they need to go to work, play, shop or whatever, should be as close and convenient as practical. Further, the routes to and from each should be direct and pedestrian-friendly. This is the essence of Fairhope’s “Village Concept.”
Small commercial “villages” are placed within residential neighborhoods with the objective of providing services a few blocks from folks’ houses – ideally so close walking is an attractive way to get there. This means there eventually will be many small village “downtowns” just a few blocks – not miles – from home. There is the expectation house size and price will increase as you move away from the village centers and population density will decrease, giving the opportunity for regular communication among a heterogeneous population – all within a common neighborhood.
In creating decentralized village centers and enabling easy communication throughout the adjacent neighborhood, there emerges another benefit: reduced traffic congestion. Neighborhood connectivity means many, or even most, of the trips a family makes each day can be made on local streets – not the major thoroughfares. This means the traffic burden is reduced on the main roads carrying most of the commercial traffic and providing access to destinations outside Fairhope. The cascading effect of reduced local traffic on these major highways gives us a smoother flow of traffic and fewer delays – providing economic and environmental benefits. In addition, the need to add traffic controls and expand the number of roads or the number of lanes per road is reduced – again with economic and environmental benefits.
The ability to actually go somewhere on local streets also promotes getting out of gasoline-burning vehicles and onto bicycles or even our own two feet. With the Village Concept, many more destinations will be close enough to consider self-propulsion to get there, while good connectivity will ensure the local road network allows the safest and shortest trip possible.
A collateral benefit is the ability to use low-speed electric vehicles (instead of traditional cars or trucks), when walking isn’t practical due to distance, weather or “cargo.” These vehicles are already on our streets but are limited to downtown or neighborhood travel – they’re not legal where the speed limit is over 35 mph. This means trips between most subdivisions and from them to downtown Fairhope cannot be made in these inexpensive, practical, environment-friendly vehicles. Neighborhood connectivity throughout the city would make these vehicles common sights, gliding silently down our streets, rather than the novelties they are now.
Connectivity is very much in Fairhope’s future plans, but as was noted at the council meeting, it is hardly universally acclaimed or even tolerated. It is particularly unpopular among those who value living on cul-de-sac streets or in whole cul-de-sac subdivisions – and will defend this isolation with its assumption of safety and putative exclusivity against all comers.
There is another “C” word that applies here – one that is used to describe the motivation underlying this behavior. It’s called “Cocooning.” It’s in direct opposition to “Connectivity” and has, in the case of the Fly Creek PUD, already bent the objectives of the Comprehensive Plan to its will.
In my next Jubilee column I’ll look at the implications of this conflict as Fairhope moves forward in implementing the plan just approved by the council.
Contact Pete Gleszer at jubilee@lagniappemobile.com.
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