Arterial roads, around the world, were designed for the machine and not for the man. Their prime objective is the fast vehicular movement which they often excel at but at the cost of creating edges within the city by dividing communities and discouraging pedestrianization. The 1.5mi (2.4km) stretch of North Avenue Corridor which entails the area of study currently shows clear signs of an edge between the Oak Park community and the City of Chicago’s Galewood community due to the speeding traffic, vacant buildings, and lack of public infrastructure and presence.
With the correct interventions and design framework, we hope to uncover the corridor’s potential and uplift the social, economic, cultural, ethnic, and political strata to be a strong urban center for the neighboring communities, rather than an edge. This is to be achieved through the vision of providing an appropriate mix of densities that are critical to creating vital urban spaces.
