Lessons on Development Patterns From America’s Oldest Planned City
A street in Savannah, GA.
Savannah, Georgia, is a city on the architects’ and planners’ North American Grand Tour. The city’s unique plan and eclectic architecture provide a PhD education on urban design. There is no limit to the lessons this city can teach, and I learn something new every time I have the opportunity to explore it.
Savannah takes the honor of being the oldest planned city in the United States. Although we may not be able to identify the individual who developed the original plan, we do know who was responsible for the implementation of the master plan: James Edward Orglethorpe was charged with implementation of the plan and his spirit remains present even today as the city develops.
Engraving by Pierre Fourdrinier showing the historic plan of Savannah. (Source: Wikimedia Commons.)
Savannah’s streets and blocks are organized around a series of squares. The first four squares were constructed in 1733 under the direction of Orglethorpe, and this pattern of streets and squares continued for the next 117 years. Each new square created new parcels for private development.
The first homes on these lots were small, modest, one-story wooden houses. Following a traditional development pattern, over time, these small homes grew. Single-story homes grew upwards, wood was replaced with bricks, and lots merged to accommodate larger homes. When additional entry-level housing was needed, ground-floor units and rear carriage buildings converted into small apartments. This natural pattern of development began thickening the historic grid of the city and continued making Savannah into the city we recognize today.
An example of incremental growth in Savannah: we can see that this building has grown upward and outward.
Ground-floor apartment units in Savannah.
Approximately 215 years after its founding, cities like Savannah began abandoning known traditions and began experimenting with the suburban pattern of development. This approach to development represents one of the swiftest changes in our approach to cities. Blocks that had slowly developed over time, accumulating wealth, were bulldozed in a very short time and replaced with a variety of modern land uses that abandoned the history and character of the city.
We can experience the impacts of these dramatic changes to the city today. Most notable is the legacy of urban renewal along West Broad Street, now Martin Luther King Boulevard. The I-16 flyover devastated an entire neighborhood, and it is still attempting to recover to this day. The city built a parking garage in the historic Ellis Square, burying it. You can also experience the erosion of the city’s urbanism through the numerous surface parking lots and corner gas stations found throughout the city.
These changes were all radical changes and giant leaps executed in a matter of just a few years in Savannah’s 291-year history. They are the epitome of the Suburban Experiment. No city, most especially a city with almost 300 years of settlement, should experience radical change. Unfortunately, these radical changes have resulted in a regulatory environment where, now, all proposals for change must go up against nigh-impassible barriers.
Savannah is a city stuck in regulatory amber. All of the dramatic and radical change the city has experienced has hardened the position of residents to reject change. The regulatory process has become so complicated and unpredictable to an applicant that the city is now frozen under glass, making it nearly impossible to allow the traditional pattern of development. No neighborhood should be exempt from change.
Like so many other cities across North America, the current, contemporary approach to development is not working. We have invested into the suburban development pattern both on the edge and within our historic cores. Savannah provides us the full extremes on this spectrum, and the regulations for development exacerbate the problem.
This modern approach assumes that every building will be constructed to a finished state, resulting in a community unable to adapt and change over time. It assumes that every building will be designed and constructed to a level of perfection impossible to achieve by human hands. This is not how Savannah was originally developed or master planned.
This modern approach rewards the giant leaps such as large hotel developments and multi-block redevelopment plans, and discourages the next increment of development where a single-story home can grow upwards, and ground-floor units or rear carriage buildings can be converted into small apartments.
A new carriage house under construction in Savannah.
Cities that are not exempt from change allow for the natural pattern of development to begin while restricting radical change. Allowing for small incremental changes, at scale, dispersed throughout the city, will thicken the historic grid of the city and continue Savannah’s success into the next 300 years.
Edward Erfurt is the Director of Community Action at Strong Towns. He is a trained architect and passionate urban designer with over 20 years of public- and private-sector experience focused on the management, design, and successful implementation of development and placemaking projects that enrich the tapestry of place. He believes in community-focused processes that are founded on diverse viewpoints, a concern for equity, and guided through time-tested, traditional town-planning principles and development patterns that result in sustainable growth with the community character embraced by the communities which he serves.