Urban Design and Snow Removal

So, what building designs tend to correlate with quick & effective sidewalk snow removal?  The taller, the better, it seems.  These pics were taken on Saturday around noon after a Thursday night/Friday morning snowfall of about nine inches.  The building on the left is in the 5700 block of Kenwood, eight stories tall among single family homes.  It fits in pretty well because of how the driveway interacts with the sidewalk.  Just east on 57th Street is a 4-story building of condos (I assume) and they also do a great job with the snow.

Most commercial districts do a fine job, also.  Pic-right is 57th Street outside Noodles, Etc.  The sidewalks along the Catholic Churck & School are reasonably taken care of.  Institutions usually have their process in order.  It may take a little while, but it gets done sooner or later.

Well, most institutions, anyway.  Outside Ray School, the snow's been cleared, but it's not exactly a bang-up job.  And the Chicago Park District?  It can't be bothered.  The municipal government is theoretically "all of us" and should set the best example, but it doesn't.  File this complaint under "Parks, the trouble with".

And then we have some examples of genuinely bad design, which we can thank urban renewal for.  On the right is 55th Street with Hyde Park Shopping Center in the background.  These low-slung houses were built around a city-owned slice of green space.  The sidewalk next to the houses gets taken care of, but the curving, diagonal route that folks take to the shopping center gets zero attention.   Same thing happens a couple blocks west on 55th (pic-left).

Single-family homes are inconsistent.*  Some are meticulous, a very few do nothing and the average is about like the sidewalk in front of Ray School above.   What you don't want are sections of blocks where the front doors face some other direction.  Here we have examples on 55th and 57th Street where the design lets folks rationalize that they're simply not obligated.  The only reason there's a decent path is because these blocks get so much foot traffic.

If it were up to me, residential parking would all be metered and the proceeds would partly go to hiring professional services to plough the sidewalks.  Until it's up to me, this is what we have.  Commercial institutions tend to do the best; the city the worst.    The bigger the residential building, the better-- because single-family homes are a mixed bag.

However, I do have to admit that a low-rise won the snowman contest.

*(I wanted to note that the sidewalk in the pic on the left got cleaned off this morning.  I saw a long-suffering woman out shoveling that entire half block.  Thank you, ma'am!)

Comments

[Otto]

"The sidewalk next to the houses gets taken care of, but the curving, diagonal route that folks take to the shopping center gets zero attention."

I was under the impression that these paths are the responsibility of the Monoxide Towers association.

[Muttley]

Is it true that single-family houses aren't required to shovel their sidewalks, but everybody else is?

If you can afford that 1.2M single-family house in Hyde Park, you can afford to hire somebody to shovel. [grumble]

I'm considering taking pictures of the culprits and posting them with links to Zillow and the Cook County Assessor's office. You think I need a lawyer first before doing that? [insert half-smiley here]

[Otto]

"Is it true that single-family houses aren't required to shovel their sidewalks, but everybody else is?"

No.

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