City Projects


Balancing Working and Living

You may work in groups of 3 on this project.

Suppose you want to design a neighborhood which supports a wide range of social and ethnic backgrounds. You have planned a wide range of housing types, to support as diverse a population as possible. But you realize you will also need to provide a diversity of employment opportunities if all those residents are to be able to stay in the neighborhood.

Your neighborhood is 10 blocks (@ 1,500,000 sq. ft.) with a planned capacity of 870 people in 275 housing units, as follows:

  • 25 Class I: Large single-family units with 3 bedrooms on 15,000 sq. ft. lots. Average 4 persons per unit.
  • 40 Class II: Moderate single-family units with 2 bedrooms on 10,000 sq. ft. lots. Average 5 persons per unit.
  • 25 Class III: Duplex buildings with 2 bedrooms in each unit on 16,000 sq. ft. lots. Average 4-6 persons per unit.
  • 40 Class IV: 4-plex apartment buildings with 1 bedroom in each unit on 10,000 sq. ft. lots. Average 2 persons per unit.

Assume that you will achieve a basic/service ratio of 1:2.5. The wage scale for each of the household classes is:

  • Class I (Managerial & Professional) --$40/hr.
  • Class II (Salaried Worker) --$25/hr.
  • Class III owner (Supervisory worker)--$15/hr.
  • Class III renter (Laborer) --$10/hr.
  • Class IV (Laborer) --$6/hr.

Your job is to plan employment for an average of 1 person for each of these households.

  1. What are the basic & service businesses which you will attract to your neighborhood? How many employees of each class does each business need to employ?
  2. What is the purchasing power of this neighborhood? How does the service sector reflect the neighborhood income profile?
  3. Assuming you must meet the following space standards, how much space is required for the employment you have specified? What is the ratio of residential to employment space?

Land Use Type

Space per employee

Parking space per employee

Office

250 s.f.

150 s.f.

Manufacturing

400 s.f.

150 s.f.

Commercial

1,000 s.f.

300 s.f.

4. What additional types of space would you normally expect to find in a neighborhood?

 

Last Updated  1/10/04 by Tony Filipovitch