Alleys Are Assets Again

Today alleys are in full revival in new developments. In older neighborhoods, there's a movement toward alley beautification and clean-up. Even the potential for providing environmental benefits is being explored.

In suburbs built after World War II, they were considered quaint and obsolete. After all, in older city and small town neighborhoods, they are often dirty, rodent-infested, weedy, stinky, and occasional respites for criminals. So why would anyone want to resurrect the concept? Isn't the green alley sort of a contradiction in terms?

Well, when new urbanism began to assert itself, we revisited one of the possible benefits of the alley. It's a great way to put the garage behind the house, where it belongs. The front of the house should be where we have porches and sidewalks, and where we socialize. When we put mammoth garages in the front of our homes, protruding even further toward the street than our front door (sometimes called snout houses), it's the equivalent of crossing our arms when we meet someone. We're saying, "We don't want to interact with you. Our car is more important than our neighbor. We're going to try to get inside our house without even seeing our neighbor."

Of course, other benefits include a reasonable place to stash your trash, out of the view of the public. And an alternative circulation method.

The Rise of Beautification, Clean-Ups, and Environmental Functionality

Now we're seeing a welcome flurry of activity beautifying alleys. Wonderful projects by cities large and small, as well as neighborhood groups, stage clean ups, including removing wayward trash, unwanted weeds gone wild, and graffiti. Sometimes flowers are planted, the dumpsters are lined up more neatly (until the garbage truck's lifting device plants them at a jaunty angle again), and fences are repaired or painted.

Commercial districts and downtowns can beautify their rear parking lots and entrances by helping or requiring businesses to repair or repaint ugly doors and windows, redo their stairways or fire escapes from the second floor, add landscaping in odd spaces, and paint or repair fences. That's in addition, of course, to the usual clean-up activities.

Keeping a rear-door circulation pattern is critical to many businesses that receive supplies from that side of the building. Making an area inviting both to delivery trucks and to human beings is a big challenge, but one that you can manage with some fencing and landscaping as screening to keep the one use away from the other.

And the pavement itself can be repaired, or allowed to deteriorate into two paved strips with grass growing between. If the alleys are no longer functional in terms of people having a good reason to drive on them, they can be allowed to revert back to green space. We would prefer that to allowing them to be handed back to each private resident; who knows what future use the public sector may have for a linear corridor?

Ideas for Projects

It's really not hard to generate ideas. Here as much as anywhere in your neighborhood or community, just a short walk with friends will identify what should be done. So plan that walk for the next nice day. Make a list of all the negatives, and then as you're refreshing yourselves with a beverage together afterward, see if you can create a positive or two along the way.

For inspiration, read about the Indy Alley Clean-Up Program. This is a straightforward clean-up sponsored by the Public Works Department.

The very interesting Baltimore gating and greening program allows residents to decide they want to block off their alley and reclaim it for other purposes. Suggestions include cleanup, planting grass or landscaping, picnic tables, art, or anything else residents want. There's talk of making yourselves safer from criminal activity as you beautify these strips.

And the grand-daddy of all repurposing of alleys must be Chicago's green program, described in this handbook. The handbook presents a menu of choices that the City will use to try to improve stormwater runoff practices by introducing permeable paving, reducing urban heat effects, and replacing old, energy-intensive fixtures with sky-friendly street lighting.

So if you wouldn't want to see a photo gallery of your leaning fences, weeds, dead animals, and trash on Flickr, get busy with a spring or fall beautification, clean-up, or greening project.

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