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Summary: This article explores

how sustainable development


can apply to the scale of towns
and small cities. This ques-
tion is explored through the
case studies of two European
examples: Ferrara, Italy, and
Totnes, U.K. Both of these places
have introduced a number of
sustainably initiatives despite
their small scales. While many
of these initiatives are geared
toward the mobility sector, they
speak to a much larger vision
of that both places have begun
to articulate: how smaller urban
places can adapt and take
advantage of the development
challenges of the 21
st
century.
The author describes how these
two experiences relate to towns
and cities in Maine in the United
States.
In Focus Reports from the Urban and Regional Policy Program
Urban Current
Recognizing Scale:
Sustainability in Smaller Urban Places
by Christine Grimando
1744 R Street NW
Washington, DC 20009
T 1 202 683 2650
F 1 202 265 1662
E info@gmfus.org
August 2014
Introduction
In September 2012, I travelled to
the United Kingdom and Italy on an
Urban and Regional Policy Fellowship
from the German Marshall Fund of the
United States to meet with planners,
policymakers, and citizen activists
about how sustainability initiatives
are being implemented in their
communities.
1
My particular interest
was how smaller urban places are
adapting or creating these practices.
While major cities, with their relatively
large political and fnancial resources,
rightly receive attention, smaller cities
and towns in aggregate comprise a vast
amount of urban land area, people,
infrastructure, and untapped poten-
tial for sustainability initiatives. Tese
places are also particularly vulner-
able to non-sustainable development
patterns, and require tools to shape
their future.
In my work as the planner for York, a
coastal community in Southern Maine
with a year-round population of only
13,000, the question of sustainable
development what it is and how to
best to implement it has emerged
as a compelling and insistent issue for
the community. It has been a vacation
1 At the time of writing, Christine Grimando was a planner
for York, Maine. She is now a senior planner for the city of
Portland, Maine.
destination for well over a century,
has several village centers, a small but
tenacious fshing industry, and resi-
dents who commute daily to the larger
centers of Portland, Portsmouth, and
Boston. Due to its coastal location and
proximity to several larger cities, York
is under tremendous long-term devel-
opment pressure.
Yorks population grew by 25 percent
between 1990 and 2000, leveling of
between the 2000 and 2010 census
(mirroring Maine as a whole, which
lost population in that decade).
However, during that same time
period, York gained households over
an expanded land area, a clear indi-
cator of development pressure and
demographic changes. Troughout
the 20
th
century, York grew at greater
rates than the county as a whole, and
several orders greater than the state as
a whole,
2
refecting its coastal location
and comparative proximity to large
population centers in the south.
As the community looks at compre-
hensive transportation strategies, and
as an urban planner looking to imple-
ment policies toward this end, I have
been struck by the challenges of scale
2 See Yorks Comprehensive Plan for additional back-
ground information, http://yorkmaine.org/LinkClick.
aspx?fleticket=OmsJQ3kJ15o percent3D&tabid=177
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for York. Despite Yorks small size, it is experiencing consid-
erable low density development far from its periphery.
Tis is a challenge for the entire region, which ranges from
smaller towns such as York to Portland, Maines largest
city with 66,000 residents. Te entire state could be lef out
of the discussion of many of the innovative urban plan-
ning practices so ofen highlighted when the conversation
remains focused on a handful of exceptional world cities.
Maines wonderfully intact downtowns and surrounding
countryside are very much compatible with bicycle use
and cycling infrastructure, even as sprawling development
continues to unfold at the fringes of many communities.
Te embrace of bicycling provides an opportunity to take
stock of road and street conditions and the larger patterns
of development taking place within New England commu-
nities.
Te dysfunctional development patterns that have char-
acterized much of the 20
th
century in the United States
present a unifying theme for mega-cities and villages alike;
reversing and resisting these patterns, however, will require
a refned response. One of several major threads to emerge
from my fellowship work was that of mobility, and particu-
larly how two of my destinations are striving to reduce auto
dependency.
3
3 While I focus specifcally on transportation in this article, my research included a much
broader set of policy questions. See a sample of these in the blog posts I wrote during my
research.
Town of York, Maine
Ferraras Two Wheeled Center
My frst destination was the small city of
Ferrara, Italy, with a population of 135,000.
Te town is engaged in a number of innova-
tive practices, including green purchasing
standards in government contracts; an envi-
ronmental accountability and budgeting
system for the city as a whole that includes
sustainability indicators for air quality, water
consumption, and waste production; and
social equity and public participation eforts
to involve the community in policymaking.
Ferrara is using a multi-disciplinary, multi-
sector approach to sustainability, but it was
cycling in Ferrara that caught my attention.
Ferraras central piazzas daily swell with people
socializing, shopping, talking, dating, pausing,
and commuting on their bicycles.
Tough not as well-known as other European cities
renowned for bike-friendliness, Ferrara enjoys some of the
highest percentages of total trips by bicycle on the conti-
nent. In fact, with total trips by bicycle at more than 30
percent, Ferrara is far ahead of any other Italian city, and
the city was frst to appear in a 2009 list by copenhagenize.
com of top bicycling cities outside of Scandinavia, the Neth-
erlands, and Germany. By contrast, less than 10 percent of
trips in Portland, Oregon, perhaps the most heralded city
for cycling policy and culture in the United States, are made
by bicycle.
Ferraras journey to becoming a cycling city is an unusual
one, and involved a mixture of historic precedent and
political will. In 1991, the release of national statistics on
modal splits indicated that the city far outpaced other
Italian cities in trips by bicycle. Tereafer, the city began a
campaign to protect, encourage, and capitalize on cycling
as both a continuing viable means of transportation and a
selling point for tourism. Ofcials established a city bicycle
ofce and launched numerous promotional programs,
including a small bike-sharing program that allows tourists
to leave their cars outside the historic city center and utilize
free bicycles available at critical public transit points.
Most importantly, the formation of a plan that outlined
best practices for bicycle policy meant the city gave weight
to cycling as a signifcant means of transport, as a crucial
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part of their economy, as a serious component of pollution
reduction eforts, and as part of their local identity. In my
discussions with city planners and with the local public
transportation authority, AMI Ferrara, a few broad points
were repeatedly emphasized:
promote the culture of cycling for both the sake of
tourism and the cultural identity of residents;
gather data on common routes and accidents before
making improvements to prioritize infrastructure invest-
ments in the face of scarce budgets; and
make cycling convenient, safe, and easy,
and at least as fast as using an automobile
for the majority of trips for ridership to be
maintained or increased.
One signifcant component of that conve-
nience, which pre-dates Ferraras cycling self-
consciousness by decades, is that much of the
historic center of the city is car free. Separated
bike paths and lanes begin at the edge of this
area, and continue outward until the city runs
into agricultural lands and natural areas. At
the city limits, separated infrastructure ends
again, but routes for recreational cyclists to
the countryside and beyond are well signed.
In other words, the network accounts for the
rural to urban spectrum, and relies on diferent
tools and strategies appropriate to diferent
places on this spectrum. Te city center is the
Bike Path connecting Ferrara with the surrounding countryside
primary destination of this infrastructure, and
functions like one large shared space, with
cyclists and pedestrians clearly dominating
public space. Where there are taxis, buses, or
cars in or near the center, they move slowly
and defer to bicycle and pedestrian movement.
Another aspect of the citys cycling approach
is an EU-funded efort to increase central city
freight trips conducted by cargo bike to further
eliminate the need for automobile trafc in the
center. Subtle improvements all reinforce the
successful movement of people and vehicles
across the citys spaces. Tese include sensi-
tive transitions between street and sidewalk
through shifs in texture from one zone to
another, strategic bollard placement, and changes in color
and material to demarcate space.
Tis trafc hierarchy inversion is striking, especially when
viewing the range of people comfortably converging on
the central streets and squares of Ferrara. Children and the
elderly arriving on bicycles are common sites. Te gender
balance and representation of the full age and economic
spectrum of the population are also conspicuous. Long
distance, recreational cyclists also pass through central
Ferrara in neon and spandex, since the city is part of several
City of Ferrara, Italy
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shuttle bus, bike parking, a feet of electrically assisted
bikes for hire, wayfnding eforts around town and online, a
biofuels program, and a remarkable suite of other initiatives.
Some of these are sure to be more successful than others,
but that too is only a mark of their sweep and ambition. So
noteworthy were their eforts that the U.K. Department of
Transport awarded the group over $1 million in funding.
Tis funding is now being directed for trafc routing
improvements, physical improvements to streets and inter-
sections, and development of a town-wide sustainable travel
study. A Final Cycle Plan was issued in February 2013,
combining references of best practices from elsewhere, such
as the Netherlands, with a locally calibrated set of priori-
tized proposals.
Similar to Ferrara, Totnes was able to engender a new way
of thinking about transportation in the community. Trans-
portation has become important not just for mobility but
for a sense of place, for the continued vibrancy of their
crowded High Street, and for a sense of themselves as a
community pursuing a more sustainable future. Due to the
villages size and the physical dimensions of its streets and
public spaces, which like so many communities in Maine
are narrow and in demand by many users, Totnes path to
a mobility strategy will not be through vast infrastructure
projects. Instead, Totnes must maximize the space it does
have, make subtle improvements in which space gets priori-
tized for which users, and make surgical interventions when
regional cycling networks, and it welcomes all
cyclists as part of its broader green tourism
eforts.
Totnes on the Move
My second European visit was to Totnes, a
small, dense, and stunning village in South
Devon, U.K. of approximately 8,000 residents.
Totnes will never be large enough to support
a full-fedged bike share system, the likes of
which are being launched in Boston, New
York, London, Paris, and even Madison, WI. It
will never have space on most of its intimate,
narrow streets for a full bike lane, let alone
cycle tracks, which physically separate a bike
way from vehicular trafc. Te rolling roads
leading to the farms and countryside that
immediately abut the town, remarkably free of
strip development and residential sprawl, are
also too narrow to support dedicated bike infrastructure.
Totnes has received considerable attention as the frst
Transition Town, now an international network of places
pursuing community-led responses to climate change and
eforts to reduce fossil fuel reliance. Te experience of
Totnes cannot and should not be separated from the Transi-
tion Town movement which continues to be very impor-
tant and active in the town but its rubric does not in itself
entirely explain the synergy and momentum of the place.
Totnes is simultaneously engaged in sustainable transport,
public space redesign, local economy initiatives, energy,
housing, and local food initiatives, among many others. I
went to explore what these eforts meant at the scale of the
traditional village. I found that its approach to transporta-
tion was not as a bicycle project, but as a means to increase
safety, reduce pollution, and increase resilience.
Totnes is determined to transition the community to a
more comprehensive transportation model, working with
the constraints and opportunities of its built environment.
A community group formed Totnes on the Move,
4
with
the endorsement of the Devon County Council, to tackle
transportation from multiple perspectives community
education, cycle routes, regional connections to other
communities through bus and rail service, an in-town
4 http://www.totnesonthemove.org.uk/
A street corner in Totnes
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physical infrastructure changes are needed. Tese restraints
will lead to relatively modest physical interventions that will
have to be paired with policy and other initiatives to change
travel behavior.
Te case of Totnes should be good fscal news for bicycle
and transportation planners in small communities. For
communities of Totnes size, and perhaps for every place
lacking signifcant public transit in the United States, such
as Maine, there is a fair amount of resignation that small
communities must be car dependent, as if this is the inevi-
table price of living amidst natural beauty.
Te example of Totnes bucks U.S. assumptions of what a
village is for. Afer all, our New England villages and towns
were quite literally built for walking, with core structures
and dimensions that predate the arrival of the automo-
bile. Te ambitious example of Totnes highlights how our
villages have yet to really defne their own sustainable
transport paradigm. Spirited and comprehensive models,
like those that Totnes ofers, are sorely in need for small
communities.
Conclusions
Domestically, York and other communities in New England
are engaged in bicycle planning, ofen to support specifc
goals, such as to implement Complete Streets policies or
for Safe Routes to School events. For all of this
progress, there remain critical gaps between
transportation and land use planning, and the
overall mobility vision of these places.
Creating a policy framework where safe,
complete streets are assumed a necessity is
itself a valuable change, but it leaves of the
question of what destinations those streets lead
to, and what cross section of the population
feels comfortable using them. As long as the
predominant pattern for new development is
comprised of single, isolated uses (as in York,
where the majority of commercial growth
takes place along U.S. Route 1 rather than in its
village centers), a decisive shif in mobility is
unlikely to occur. Tus, though many commu-
nities in Maine are now proposing retrofts of
existing streets and signifcant investments to
improve pedestrian and bicycling infrastruc-
ture, the dominance of decades of low-density development
will present long-term challenges to success.
Ferrara and Totnes each have their own remarkable
momentum on the subject of mobility planning, and it
will be useful to follow how they each manage ambitious
sustainable transport goals. Despite their diferences in
scale, Totnes and Ferrara share elements of their respec-
tive successes, and each of these case studies are applicable
to Maines planning environment. Each characterizes their
historic patterns as advantages to work with rather than as
problems to eradicate. Both places have sought to engender
a cultural shif and a local identity around transport and
sustainability that includes the entire community. Both also
show that small cities are well poised to connect with their
nearby countryside and become a destination and node in a
regional network of cycling initiatives.
Perhaps most critically, the examples of Totnes and Ferrara
are useful for highlighting how the components neces-
sary to make modes such as cycling viable for a large cross
section of the population implicate places as a whole, raising
the broader question of how to build sustainable communi-
ties in the 21
st
century.
As Maines communities take up the charge of planning for
increased bicycle use and overarching sustainability plan-
ning, these two visions, interlocked with their respective
Bike Path connecting Totnes with the surrounding countryside
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About the Author
Christine Grimando was the planner for York, Maine, at the time of
her fellowship, and is now a senior planner for the city of Portland,
Maine, responsible for both development review and a variety of
long-range and comprehensive planning projects. She holds a masters
degree in urban planning from Columbia University, a masters from
Clark University, and a bachelors from the University of Wisconsin-
Madison.
About The Urban and Regional Policy Program
GMFs Urban and Regional Policy Program facilitates a sustainable
network of globally aware and locally engaged leaders by promoting
the transatlantic exchange of knowledge and the incubation of innova-
tive solutions for current urban and regional challenges.
About GMF
Te German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) strengthens
transatlantic cooperation on regional, national, and global chal-
lenges and opportunities in the spirit of the Marshall Plan. GMF
does this by supporting individuals and institutions working in the
transatlantic sphere, by convening leaders and members of the policy
and business communities, by contributing research and analysis
on transatlantic topics, and by providing exchange opportunities to
foster renewed commitment to the transatlantic relationship.In addi-
tion, GMF supports a number of initiatives to strengthen democra-
cies. Founded in 1972 as a non-partisan, non-proft organization
through a gif from Germany as a permanent memorial to Marshall
Plan assistance, GMF maintains a strong presence on both sides of
the Atlantic. In addition to its headquarters in Washington, DC,
GMF has ofces in Berlin, Paris, Brussels, Belgrade, Ankara, Bucha-
rest, and Warsaw. GMF also has smaller representations in Bratislava,
Turin, and Stockholm.
tightly knit urban fabric, ofer helpful models for a more
integrated transportation paradigm. Taking planning for
non-vehicular modes such as bicycling seriously can only
help Maine confront sprawling land use patterns, and hope-
fully will generate needed dialogue on what sustainable
transport might look like outside of our major cities and
across the landscape of northern New England.

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