Gaslight Village Conceptual Plan
(Click image to download larger version.)
©2010 J.Crawford, D. Salzmann & Gaslight Village Symposium

What is Gaslight Village?

The Main Idea

Gaslight Village is a proposed mixed-use, pedestrian-oriented, urban village on the site of a former gas works on the east bank of Philadelphia's Schuylkill River. When completed, it will be home to some 4,000 families.

Venice Street Scene
©2002 J.Crawford

A variety of sustainable industries will provide employment for many residents of Gaslight Village. Shopping, businesses, social, educational, recreational, and community activities will be clustered around Gaslight Square, at the heart of the village and close to the transport hub. The district will not be entirely self-contained, but nearly all requirements of daily life will be located within it.

Location, Shape, and Size

The site is located in South Philadelphia at the location of the former Municipal Gas Works. The site is served by a single road and a heavy-rail freight railroad that passes through the northern part of the site.

Overall, the village and the adjacent industrial zone occupy a rough ellipse almost a mile long and nearly 3000 feet wide. The site occupies roughly 220 acres.

The site is divided into two major parts by the existing rail freight line. To the south of the rail line is the mixed-used district containing everything except "utility" functions such as freight handling, parking, trash processing, warehousing, and manufacturing. Utility functions will be located on the north side of the rail line and served by both road and rail freight.

Elfreth's Alley, Philadelphia
Copyright Undetermined

A parking garage and the central transport station will also be located north of the rail line, near the main entrance to Gaslight Square. Also situated in the garage will be car-sharing facilities and a baggage handling operation. Streets in the pedestrian zone will be accessible to emergency service vehicles.

The site will be linked by rail to SEPTA's Market-Frankford Line, with convenient transfer to SEPTA trolley and regional rail services, and to Amtrak at 30th Street Station. The site is linked to the Grays Ferry community via Schuylkill Avenue, and other South Philadelphia neighborhoods are just across the Schuylkill Expressway and will be accessible by extensions of existing SEPTA bus routes.

Green Space

Much of the southern part of the district will be surrounded by green space, some of it devoted to parklands and playing fields. It is anticipated that the Schuylkill Riverwalk will pass through the greenbelt.

The greenbelt will be situated between the Schuylkill River and the southern edge of the pedestrian district. Most of the greenbelt will be more than 600 feet wide. A portion of this area will be dedicated to "permaculture," a type of high-yield, sustainable agriculture. Permaculture will provide appreciable amounts of food and significant employment.

Amsterdam Courtyard
©2003 J.Crawford

Nearly all blocks will have spacious interior courtyards that will provide green space adjacent to most buildings. These courtyards will average 100 by 150 feet. Most of them will be planted with trees to provide shade and a degree of privacy.

Why is Gaslight Village Needed?

Like most other northeastern industrial cities, Philadelphia suffered after WWII from rapid suburban growth and the hollowing-out of the urban core. This caused serious urban problems and created a sprawling suburban form based on intensive automobile use. This arrangement probably cannot be sustained in the face of peak oil, climate change, and economic constraints.

The city has lost many of the vast array of opportunities that once characterized life there, along with nearly a quarter of its population. Those who are left behind, except for those fortunate enough to reside in gentrified pockets, have fewer and poorer choices of work, schools, health care, recreation, and culture. Personal safety and security have declined significantly. Over the past 50 years, many attempts have been made to revitalize Philadelphia's neighborhoods, but few have had lasting positive effect. The pedestrian village model offers a highly cost-effective, efficient, and attractive way to integrate the people of the community with the jobs, goods, and services they need and with the amenities that make urban living rich and attractive.

Daily Life in Venice
©2001 J.Crawford

The high cost of infrastructure in comparatively low-density neighborhoods is part of the problem. Despite being built mostly three stories tall, much of present-day Philadelphia is built on comparatively wide streets that must dedicate a large percentage of space for car parking and movement. Indeed, in many parts of the city, 40% or more of the land is primarily devoted to moving, storing, and servicing of motor vehicles.

Gaslight Village is largely a return to the earlier, more successful urban patterns that once formed the bedrock of the city's prosperous economy.

Tree-Lined Narrow Street in Portugal
©2006 J.Crawford

Village Character

Gaslight Village will blend the best of 18th and 19th century Philadelphia tradition with the most efficient and sustainable technologies of the 21st century. Iconic images of Philadelphia's old streets are familiar to people around the world. These are beautiful, human-scaled places with narrow streets and small three-story buildings. These buildings are almost always of traditional brick construction, which is economical to maintain, fireproof, durable, and beautiful.

Gaslight Square, the new community's center, may resemble Independence Hall but will incorporate solar heating and electricity generation, advanced insulation practices, and video teleconferencing facilities. Local offices, shops, services, and offices will provide the goods and services of daily life within easy walking distance of home, without the need to drive, or even take transit. Biking will also be well supported and the streets will be amply wide for both pedestrians and cyclists.

Local businesses will be supplied through the industrial area, with excellent access to both rail and trucking, mostly eliminating the need to move heavy freight through the community's streets.

Salamanca, Spain
©2008 J.Crawford

A walk through the streets of Gaslight Village will reveal much in common with Society Hill, Queen Village, or Elfreth's Alley, but humans won't have to compete with cars for space in our streets. Children will play safely, while adults relax in the tranquil atmosphere of their local streets and squares.

Typical buildings will be of brick construction, from 2½ to 4 stories in height, sharing walls with their neighbors, as is traditional in Philadelphia row and townhouses. This arrangement greatly reduces the exposed wall surface, with corresponding reductions in heating and cooling loads. Nearly all buildings will enjoy generous interior courtyards, immediately adjacent to the backs of the houses and generally shared with neighbors.

A wide swath of green space will sweep around the district from the west, across the south, and on to the east, ending at the railroad tracks. Carefully arranged in this space will be a variety of green uses, including playing fields, a waterfront promenade, parkland, community gardens, and permaculture.

The Commons — Ithaca, New York
Courtesy Ithaca College

One of the most important characteristics of communities such as we propose is tight social bonding within the community. This can still be seen in some Philadelphia neighborhoods, but in other neighborhoods it has largely disappeared, to be replaced by fear and suspicion. We view the fostering of a healthy community as one of the greatest benefits Gaslight Village will offer, and a huge improvement in the quality of life for many of the people who will move there. We expect diverse, mutually-supportive communities to arise once an attractive and safe stage for community life is provided in the attractive, human-scaled streets free of the noise and danger of cars.

Economics

How will we pay for this? Initial planning and feasibility will require a comparatively modest grant from a foundation committed to demonstrating the current state-of-the-art in sustainable urbanism. Once the project is under way, we can anticipate remediation assistance from federal, state, and local agencies to clean up any residual toxic material from the former gas works. Umbrella financing packages will be arranged for core industrial startups and Gaslight Square commercial/residential construction to ensure that the initial critical mass of people and business is achieved. We anticipate that once the character of this remarkable community becomes familiar to Philadelphians there will be considerable demand for building sites in the remainder of Gaslight Village.

Ongoing financing for the rest of the build-out would come from traditional sources on a per-project basis. We anticipate that this will be self-organizing because the economics are compelling: floor-area and per-capita costs should be much lower than comparable suburban development. At the same time, Gaslight Village should enjoy a quality of life far better than is the norm in any American city today.

Biking in Ravenna, Italy
©2002 J.Crawford

Local stores become economically viable in the village in large measure because they need allocate no land for parking lots. Stores will mostly be located on the ground floors of buildings that have residences on the upper floors. Offices may be situated on the ground floors of buildings more distant from Gaslight Square. This makes highly efficient use of the valuable ground floor locations while providing economical housing above. This is an ages-old pattern that still works effectively in most of Europe, much of New York City, and some parts of Philadelphia even today.

Gaslight Village is not a gentrification project. Real American city neighborhoods are enriched by the presence of residents and workers from all walks of life and of diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds. It is our intention to help create a community that welcomes all, and provides attractive opportunities across the economic spectrum.

We expect to see an appreciable demand for labor to clean up toxic waste at the old gas works site. This will provide initial employment at the site even before any housing is constructed.

We expect that the sizable industrial site provided on the north side of the site will become home to a variety of prosperous industries, most of which will address the need for increased sustainability in all of life's activities. These industries tend to be labor intensive, which assures a good supply of jobs for the residents of the village.

Energy

Medium-density construction in the manner proposed for the village is intrinsically energy efficient. Transport energy will probably be reduced ten-fold. Most of the transport that is not human-powered will be efficient rail or bus service. Initially this will probably be diesel powered, but more sustainable vehicles can be introduced as they become available. Other energy consumption, principally in the form of space heating and cooling, will be reduced by 50% or more compared to typical American usage. Of course, air pollution emissions should be correspondingly reduced.

Energy efficiency will also be improved by better freight transport. The site will be arranged to support rail transport in preference to trucks. Container use will be facilitated, and we anticipated direct delivery of containers to a long line of buildings immediately south of the tracks. These would be the active warehouses of the village and also home to stores selling bulky and heavy items. We anticipate that this arrangement will support a trend away from road freight in the coming decades, spurred by the inherent efficiency that rail transport enjoys compared to road transport.

Walking in Salzburg, Austria
©2002 J.Crawford

Within Gaslight Village, most freight will move on pallet movers, freight bikes, and hand carts. The distances are short, so these modes can be employed with relative economy, and the peaceful life on the streets will be minimally disturbed by freight movement. A few exceptions for the entry of trucks may be required, but we anticipate that a hefty fee for truck entry would discourage this mode within the village.

Sustainabilty

It is not yet possible to build a sustainable city, but Gaslight Village moves as close to that goal as can currently be achieved and probably does not conflict with future requirements that may emerge. The design model intrinsically provides vastly reduced energy consumption.

We propose to establish some core industries that should grow nicely in the decades ahead as energy and materials shortages increasingly affect the global economy. We foresee industries to reclaim materials from the waste stream and make useful goods from them. For example, wood in the waste stream would be recovered and reworked to remove metal objects before being laminated into new, durable solid-wood planks that can be used for many purposes. This recovered wood could become the feed stock for a furniture industry producing goods that can be expected to last decades, not years as is the case with fiberboard furniture now so widely produced and routinely discarded.

Campo San Bartolomeo, Venice
©2001 J.Crawford

These changes also ameliorate the problems with solid waste disposal that are becoming ever more serious as suitable land-fill sites move farther and farther away from cities. At the same time, valuable resources, particularly metals, will be recovered and reused or recycled. The reductions in mineral ore excavation and refining alone are large enough to justify this approach. The benefits will increase as the richest ores are exhausted and industry turns to ever-poorer ores that require more money and energy to process.

Security

Urban neighborhoods of the type we propose are inherently crime-resistant. They provide safety and security advantages compared to other models, both urban and suburban. The chief improvement comes from the fact that all areas are occupied both night and day, providing a dense network of human security: eyes on the street. That combined with the stronger community ties that we anticipate will help to keep people safe on the streets. Further, miscreants will be unable to use cars to mask identities or for quick getaways.

Folkingestraat — Groningen, The Netherlands
©2010 nlstreets

Join Us

The Gaslight Village Symposium is currently organizing core groups, with the following goals:

• Invite participation and secure buy-in from Philadelphia community opinion leaders and city officials
• Craft and submit a comprehensive and effective seed-money grant proposal
• Prepare a detailed public presentation of the project

If you find the possibilities discussed here intriguing, please join us in formulating plans for bringing them to fruition. Join the Gaslight Village Symposium.

If you have questions or suggestions, or know someone you would like to put in touch with us...