Abstract:
This project presents a new paradigm in public transportation as the backbone of future sustainable development in Metro Detroit. A holistic analysis of historical patterns in transportation, development, demographics, and the environment reveals issues often overlooked in modern planning and development. To address these issues, the proposal harnesses principles of sustainable urban design and transit-oriented development (TOD) to create a unique plan for Detroit's metropolitan development. This plan is then exemplified in downtown Rochester -a historic city center within Detroit's northern suburbs -as a multi-modal transportation hub and civic center.
While the experts behind American city planning and development commonly understand that automobile-based sprawl is less environmentally and socially sustainable than other modes of transit-related development, today's community development is still largely determined by automobile dependency. Combined with an ever-growing population, these sprawling metropolitan development patterns have become the single greatest sustainability issue our world faces today. The predominant goal of this project is to illuminate the social, environmental, and developmental issues that have resulted from contemporary urban growth in northern Metro Detroit, and then propose a way to begin correcting them. Just as automobile ¬dependence facilitated sprawl, a new paradigm in transit could become the primary influence for a newfound future of sustainable metropolitan development.
Among the diverse urban fabric of Metro Detroit, the City of Rochester stands as a microcosm of the issues that sprawl presents within populous, historically significant suburban communities. This project proposes a way for Rochester to reinvent its transportation networks, recover its ecological heritage, and -most of all -direct its amenities toward pedestrians rather than automobiles. By welcoming public transportation back within its city limits, Rochester has the opportunity to once again become a junction and destination for economic and recreational activity that is sustainable, diverse, and contributable to Metro Detroit as a whole.
