Life’s better when you mix it up

Urbanists use the term mixed use to describe a neighborhood or a particular site that has more than one type of activity going on. Today, urban areas that contain a mix of uses are generally considered to be safer, more interesting, and more vital economically. Why is this?

Historically, cities naturally grew in a mixed-use way. Someone would build an apartment building here. Someone else would build a store across the street. Then a school, maybe a church, an office, and more homes would follow down the block. Different uses developed in response to what people needed or wanted at the time, and everything was relatively close by and easy to get to. Cities also didn’t have a lot of regulation back then either — property owners could pretty much do what they wanted with their property.

Eventually, however, we discovered that some uses weren’t all that appropriate next to each other. Do we really want kids going to school across the street from a factory belching out black coal smoke? So the idea of zoning was invented to separate land uses into different geographic zones in the city: housing goes over here, offices go over there, and factories go way over there. By the 1950s, this idea had become immensely popular and virtually every city in America was growing with all of its different uses segregated into different zones.

This widespread geographic separation of land uses in cities led to an overreliance — if not outright dependency — on the automobile to get anywhere, which resulted in all sorts of problems. But another consequence of single-use districts is that they are typically active during only one part of the day, leaving them deserted the rest of the time. People generally feel more comfortable and safe when other people are around, so single-use districts by their nature can become unappealing places for many hours or even days at a time.

Take, for example, the typical office park. During the work day when the offices are full of people, there’s a lot of activity going on and it feels like a perfectly pleasant and safe environment. But during the evenings and weekends, the typical office park becomes a dead zone: everything is closed and no people are around.

I was reminded of the downside of single-use districts the other day when I wrote on my DenverInfill blog about a new museum planned for Denver’s Golden Triangle Museum District. The notion of a museum district sounds great at first. Concentrating all of your city’s museums into one area can create a vibrant and stimulating environment — when the museums are open. But in the evening when the museums are closed?

Adjacent to the Museum District is the rest of the Civic Center area, including the State Capitol, the City & County Building, and many other government buildings — all of which are closed during the evenings and weekends. So despite the eye-catching architecture and the venerable purposes, many people don’t find the Civic Center and Museum District to be a particularly appealing place to hang out during the evenings. Why? Lack of people! To realize the full potential of Denver’s treasured Civic Center and Museum District, we need to integrate among all those museums and government buildings a mix of uses that are busy with people during the evening hours — like restaurants, shops, hotels, and housing that will allow the area to feel safe, engaging, and vibrant 24/7.

What about your community? Could the areas where you live or work benefit from a sprinkle of different uses to make them more comfortable and interesting places? As a general recipe for a successful urban area: mix it up!

Ken Schroeppel is a Denver urban planner and the founder of denverinfill.com, a website and blog that reports on Denver construction projects and urban development. Ken also teaches urban and regional planning at the University of Colorado at Denver.