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Building San Antonio: Choosing a neighborhood impacts everyone
By: Bob Wise, AIA, is the president of AIA San Antonio. He is an architect with Parsons.
A house is the most important and most expensive investment that most families will ever make, and, as any real estate agent would suggest, the location of one’s home usually ranks as the most important selection criterion.
There are tradeoffs and costs associated with any choice; sometimes the costs are personal, and sometimes there are unintended costs to the greater community.
The American dream of having a big house on a large lot with plenty of trees, a park and shopping nearby and good neighbors with same-age children stems from the notion of frontier spirit of entitlement that Americans have had over the centuries — the attitude that everyone can build a homestead in the abundant open space of the West.
But part of the dream has for the past few decades resulted in sprawling development patterns.
Sprawl brings the more obvious costs that people experience every day: long commutes and miles of congestion on the freeways, choking air pollution, disjointed subdivisions of homogenously built houses, sterile office parks, uninspired strip shopping centers and the rapacious encroachment into the natural areas that surround our city.
The largely hidden cost of sprawl is reflected in downtown areas where vacant buildings signify the void of economic activity. The financial burden that is placed on municipalities to extend services and infrastructure — new power lines, sewer lines, police and fire services, highways and streets — to the fringe areas of a city often is at the expense of inner-city infrastructure redevelopment.
Sprawl also can result in economic and social stratification, sort of socioeconomic “redlining,” which diminishes the diversity of the traditional city. It also impacts inner-city schools; as fewer students live in the almost abandoned urban areas, school systems are forced to close schools with low attendance in favor of consolidating students in more remote schools.
The disappearance of neighborhood stores and shops, the closure of schools and declining property values are often hard to reverse.
Perhaps the most significant costs have been in the social contact realm. So much time is spent in the private commute of the personal automobile that little time is left for unplanned social contact with neighbors on the street or the experience of public spaces that comes with the more traditional design of walkable neighborhoods. With the associated lack of aesthetic distinction, these environments can lessen opportunities to respond to good design and cultural influence.
An alternative to sprawl is a smart design approach to planning that includes more efficient higher-density housing, pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods, mixed-use developments and convenient public transportation that serves the full population. Such developments incorporate planning practices and principles that enhance the economy, environment and community. The criteria for personal home selection may start to recognize increased quality-of-life factors.
Mayor Julián Castro has declared this decade to be the Decade of the Downtown. The sign of a healthy city is a healthy downtown. A smarter way of growing our city would place resources at its nucleus and turn growth back inward to benefit us all.
SPACES: From candy factory to living space
By Megan Stacy – Special to the Express-News
Take a tour of Ann and Philip Allega’s downtown loft and it won’t take long to figure out what this couple is all about. There’s the row of cowboy hats on the headboard in the master bedroom — a decidedly Texan touch for a bed neatly made up with throw pillows upholstered in the Union Jack flag. The Allegas are travelers, food lovers and cultural explorers who most recently called London home.
Last year they moved to San Antonio — Ann Allega’s hometown — wanting an urban lifestyle in a part of the city they had learned to love on previous visits.
The home they bought is part of the Judson Candy Factory Lofts redevelopment project on South Flores Street. Their home is not in the old factory but in a property next door, which dates to the 1890s and housed an Italian grocery store owned by the Granieri family.
The 2,000-square-foot loft nods to the building’s history. One long wall was left untouched, exposing original 18-inch-thick red brick masonry. Caliche walls in the loft’s basement also were undisturbed.
But the rest is thoroughly modern, with sleek finishes of glass, wood and cement.
“Even though the building is 100-some years old, the place is new,” Ann Allega says.
The Allegas purchased the loft sight-unseen while abroad but wanted to move into a home ready for living. They hired Julie Risman of The Inside Story Design and began what Risman calls a “digital design relationship.”
“They wanted something easy, fun and modern,” she says. By the time the Allegas moved in, 80 percent of the home design was complete, all conducted via e-mail and phone calls. Risman calls the design “an homage to where they’ve been and where they come from.” For example, the living room is anchored by a contemporary burnt orange leather couch, which reminds the couple of their connection to the University of Texas at Austin, where they met.
A black leather lounge chair reclines in one corner beneath a picture of Philip’s favorite London bridge and of a poster advertising the New Orleans Jazz Festival. The staircase to the basement level is lined with framed Fiesta posters, each from a year representing a milestone: Philip’s first Fiesta, the year they fell in love with the Southtown area, the year they moved to San Antonio.
The couple’s 4-year-old son, Austin, has a bedroom in the basement. The room is whimsically decorated with furniture painted with images from The Adventures of Tintin, a cartoon series wildly popular in Europe. Having experienced different ways of living on their travels, the Allegas are happy to have landed in an urban space with a vibrant social community.
Ann Allega says there are 20 to 30 places to visit within a 10-minute walk from their home. Following in the British tradition, they’ve adopted nearby Beethoven’s beer garden as their “local,” or neighborhood pub.
They often cycle to restaurants and stores and have been impressed by the amount of activities available for children.
“We think urban living is something everyone should try,” Philip Allega says.