5. Prohibit above and below-grade walkways. Pedestrian activity belongs outside at street level. Cars come second. I cannot tell you how strongly I stress that. As soon as Boston realized the value of the pedestrian and the damage that automobiles did, we really started to do things right. Obviously, you have to provide for cars, but that should really take the back seat.

6. Build dense mixed-use developments right up to the sidewalk with parking underground, which is preferred, or structured parking with ground level retail entered from the street. Shopping malls belong in suburbs, not in cities, and I can’t stress that enough as well.

7. Build small-to-moderate sized parks with strongly defined active street edges. Avoid plazas attached to buildings and at all costs avoid large windswept plazas that have no activity around them to give them life.

8. Require via design guidelines and zones that new buildings be compatible with, but not necessarily imitate, the existing ones. Highly competent architects, landscape architects, urban designers and developers should be hired. You and your children will have to look at their work for a long, long time. This part also, I cannot stress strongly enough. Really, these things that we build are going to be around for a century at least. So, you have to really take care to get it right.

9. Hold as many local and regional outdoor festivals as possible.

10. If your downtown is on the water, the edge must be active and dedicated to the public and defined by Buffalonian mixed-use 24-hour development.

That pretty much wraps it up and I will be happy at this point to take any questions that you might have regarding the material you have just seen or on any subject that you think is worth discussing.

Thank you very much. I have enjoyed it. I have had a great time and I hope to come back one day when your waterfront is finished and see the enormous success that I know that it will be.

Mr. Russell’s talk was recreated for these proceedings, taped, transcribed and printed here.

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