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[Michael Winslow Czeiszperger <michael AT czeiszperger.org>]

On Tuesday, January 7, 2003, at 04:25 PM, Lee Haslup wrote:
> Southern Village in Chapel Hill is a more typical example.  The people
> who live there work somewhere else -- many of them in RTP.  The people
> who work there live somewhere else.

I'm sure a large portion of the residents work in RTP, but there's also 
a large number who work either in SV or in CH, at least among the 
people I know best:

* Zoe's teacher at daycare lives in SV on her salary as a day care 
worker and walks to work.
* Hundreds of residents take the bus every day.
* Zoe's best friend's mother works in a non-profit aid agency in SV, 
and his father takes the bus into CH.

An unscientific response to be sure, but New Urbanism is about more 
than working where you live, as defined by the big list I posted 
earlier, and as I will explain below. You certainly don't have to live 
in SV to have access to a bus.


> The local grocery store is nice
> but rather pricy.  The locals do some shopping there but sneak out to
> Food Lion down the street for the bulk of their groceries.

The Weaver Street on Market Street has the same prices as the Weaver 
Street on Weaver Street in Carrboro :-) I went to a focus group of 
Weaver Street in SV shoppers, and the amount of grocery shopping done 
in Weaver Street ranged from 25% to 75% of their total grocery 
shopping. Having the grocery right in the neighborhood is a benefit for 
several reasons:

1. Being able to just run to the corner to pick up some groceries is 
both convenient and cuts down on trips into town, reducing pollution 
and traffic congestion. At least from the focus group, about 1/3 of the 
shoppers there are from outside the neighborhood. Remember, there's a 
very full park-n-ride lot right next door, and this saves them the 
trouble of having to drive somewhere to shop for groceries.

2. I run into friends from inside and outside the neighborhood, turning 
a trip into a pleasant social experience, increasing the quality of 
life. This is a much different experience from going to a large 
supermarket where I rarely if ever have the opportunity to socialize.

But its not just about Weaver Street Market. You also get the same 
benefits from the three restaurants, the day care center, schools, dry 
cleaners, doctor, theater, dentist, lawyer, real-estate agent, spa, 
gym, bookstore, garden store, etc.


> Life in
> Southern Village is still all about spending half your time in your
> car.

As an engineer I'm interested in the percentage changes, not absolutes. 
Between the more than a dozen local businesses and bus service the 
residents of SV make significantly fewer car trips than comparable 
suburban style developments. But perhaps the most important commute of 
all is I get to walk my daughter to daycare.

___________________________________________________________________
Ending a sentence with a preposition is nothing to be ashamed of.
        -- michael at czeiszperger dot org, Chapel Hill, NC