So for most of the year, I'll be changing my focus from Austin to Eugene, concentrating on the city's evolving urbanism and the role that the University plays within the city, as well as the community's conflict between varying ideals of "green-ness".
Eugene Public Library
What I like so much about Eugene is that even at only around 150,000 people, it still has a better existing urban fabric than Austin does. Especially infrastructure-wise. Mainly from the fact that it's been a substantial-sized city for longer. Downtown has wide sidewalks with at least 20 blocks of 2-3 story mid-rise buildings. And several of the surrounding city neighborhoods were obviously built pre-zoning, with their nice mix of apartments, offices, single-family homes, and offices. For the size, it also has a great transit network, with BRT, and several other lines that run every 10 minutes during the main part of the day, as well as a circulator linking campus and downtown, and nice rural routes that connect the city with parks and small towns.
There are some drawbacks, though, sometimes Downtown can seem a bit dead: so many offices and city buildings, and not enough entertainment or working public spaces, and some of the big avenues like 11th and 6th and 7th seem to break up downtown into spaces that don't interact with each other because they're just large car sewers. Also, especially the Police, and sometimes the University as well, don't seem to appreciate the urban parts of the city for the gem they are, and can get quite high-handed.
I'll be trying to update more frequently with posts about some of the urban developments, transit changes and architecture studios that are happening around town recently.
