Many of us who write about cities like to share rediscovered videos from times gone by. The videos are especially notable when ideas with currency today are discussed in other contexts, providing opportunities to compare, contrast and sometimes be humbled by history.
Here is a prescient video from 1948, about “Charlie”. This cartoon protagonist champions the basics of the new town movement in post-war Great Britain—a Garden City-inspired effort intended to ease housing shortages. The first phases of the movement brought to the city planning lexicon names such as Stevenage, Crawley, Hemel-Hempstead, Harlow, Hatfield and Basildon (see Osborn and Whittick’s classic The New Towns (1963) for the full story).
An interesting tidbit: as the video explains, the “neighborhood centre” was a key premise of the British new towns—based on the guiding principles of theReith Report as implemented through the New Towns Act of 1946.
Similar to then-contemporary American “neighborhood unit” principles, the new towns commonly featured structured neighborhoods of 5,000-10,000 inhabitants with at least one elementary school, local shops on two sides of a triangle or flanking a square with a church or public house.
What can we learn from the ever-optimistic Charlie (who ends the video on a bicycle)? Take a look at the video above, or review the script below, courtesy of the British National Archives:
Charlie: Our town was going to be a good place to work in, and a grand place to live in, with plenty of open spaces; parks, and playing fields where people could enjoy them, flower gardens, and of course there’d have to be an attractive town centre too, with plenty of room for folks to meet. Good shops, a posh theatre, cinemas, a concert hall, and a civic centre.
Chairman: We have to plan the residential area next. Let’s consider it as a series of neighbourhoods and take any one of them. Now – how shall we plan? Most important of all is the child. So we’ll need pedestrian routes for the pram-pusher. Nursery schools within 400 yards of every home. Primary schools within safe and easy reach. Each neighbourhood must have its own.
Voices: “Churches” “Community centre” “Shopping district” “And lots of pubs – right next door to me” (answer) “Oh no, you don’t.”
Chairman: Oh, there’ll be a pub quite near enough for you. And finally, we started on the houses. The site was planned for maximum sunshine and then everyone could take his choice.
Charlie: Detached houses – semi-detached – terraced houses. Flats for people who wanted them – hostels where the young folks could get together, and bungalows for the old ones.
And so we moved right in. I’m telling you – it works out fine; just you try it!
Modernize the script, and take away the industry-avoiding colonization of the hinterlands. Consider the neighborhood vision with jobs close to home. I would argue that the city neighborhoods sought by the creative class, multi-modal “Charlies” of today are nothing new, right down to the hoped-for micro-brew a short walk or bike ride away.
While the Colorado Rockies saw long-awaited snow this weekend, depths remain historically low. Signs caution of “early season” conditions (more typical of November), yet the economic impact is still unclear—resort revenues benefitted from robust holiday traffic through New Year’s Day.
This background—a low snowpack and its potential impact on the economic base of resort towns—provides an ironic gloss to my annual presentation at a national continuing legal education conference in Aspen.
Hence, an unoriginal, yet salient question: What of cities and towns built on climate-dependent activities, and the consequences of over-dependence on consistent weather?
After all, enthusiastic, robust tenets of urbanism usually rely on similarly strong, underlying economies.
The presentation is embedded below, and addresses—in summary form—several urbanist ideals, as well as the interplay of market preferences and public policy initiatives in two key areas: redevelopment in concert with new transit infrastructure, and reuse of formerly contaminated properties within urban cores.
Recent reports and coverage show that the skyscraper is very much alive in the post-9/11 world, despite recession and lowrise alternatives to modern urban development. Hence the timely release of consulting engineer Kate Ascher’s new book, The Heights: Anatomy of a Skyscraper (Penguin Press, 2011), a remarkably plain-language reexamination of tall buildings in a sustainability-conscious age.
Ascher previously profiled the built environment, on a broader, more horizontal basis. In The Works, in 2005, she examined New York City infrastructure in layperson’s terms, with similar, graphically rich precision.
Now, with the assumption that skyscrapers are both urban building blocks and small cities in themselves, she provides a necessary primer on the hows and whys of contained vertical settlement amid an otherwise horizontal landscape.
A telling hint from the outset: The table of contents is a “directory” and the chapters display in reverse order, as if building floors, ascending, in elevator fashion, from introduction, through elements of constructability, function, maintenance, sustainability—and topping off with a look to the future.
The book is a remarkable confluence of coffee table display, children’s book fascination, and quick study fact-finding.
According to a reviewer, Ascher followed inspiration from David Macaulay’s The Way Things Work. The Macaulay-like show and tell style predominates—but for grownups—as Dave Banks notes in Wired.
Full of color diagrams, perspectives and narrative detail, factoids abound. Topics range from superstructure to building elements (e.g. glass, skin and steel), and include corollary systems (e.g. elevators, air conditioning, safety, fire prevention and energy conservation).
Among the learning: Ascher expects that Dubai’s Burj Khalifa will remain the world’s tallest building for a decade or more. Yet, the last chapter predicts more of the same “supertall” examples, such as China’s pending, 121-story Shanghai Tower.
After summarizing approaches to reduced environmental footprint and diverse tower shapes, a last section, entitled “How Will We Live?”, entices the urbanist with predictions of the further evolution of mixed-use skyscrapers.
Consider, for instance, the 750,000 inhabitants of the visioned Shimizu Pyramid, a mega-structure standing over piers in Tokyo Bay, with miles of interconnected tunnels below.
While not entirely devoid of context and backdrop, Ascher’s vertical approach in her 2011 effort is more building-specific than citywide. She glosses over history, regulation and interdisciplinary perspective in favor of design, construction and long-term site maintenance.
One compelling diagram illustrates the basics of floor-area ratio through a comparison of a 1.3 million square foot mixed-use skyscraper versus the same land use spread over a suburban setting. I would have enjoyed more of such contrasts—about urban form as a whole—and the interrelationship of buildings, streets, blocks and transportation.
But, in fairness, this broader view is not Ascher’s premise, and my preference actually contrasts with Ascher’s core purpose of educating readers, through robust illustration, about the basic wonders and challenges of building tall.
While some other reviewers are in a quandary about the book’s intended audience, I have little doubt that Ascher has created a laudable, one-stop summary that goes beyond lists and photographs of tall buildings. and gives the rich grounding in vertical basics that all students of cities both need and deserve.
Book cover reproduction courtesy of Penguin Press. Building image composed by the author.
Last year, I asked what elements of today’s urban landscape occur in spite of urban land use policy and regulation, and form “shapes of avoidance”. I provided a historical example, and suggested modern counterparts. That was before Occupy Wall Street and its progeny.
Nate Berg’s November 22 article in The Atlantic Cities posed compelling questions about how today’s public spaces can accommodate the Occupy Movement.
Berg asked whether the Movement “may be a mechanism to change the way we think about what we as a public want and need from our public spaces”.
In visiting the public spaces used by Occupy Seattle and Occupy DC in the past weeks, I saw a potentially new form of public space, institutionalized, not by top-down authority, but in spite of it.
Accordingly, Berg’s question recalled my thoughts from November, 2010, slightly amended from the original, below.
______
The form of urban settlements and appearance of constituent structures reflect underlying culture and regulation.
In times of change, buildings, landscapes and objects transform to show the impact of new or modified policies or regulations. And the resulting shapes of compliance—such as the patterns of height, bulk and density dictated by a new downtown zoning code—can potentially reinvent the urban landscape.
But the urban landscape can also be dramatically altered by “shapes of avoidance”.
Consider, in the context of everyday urbanism, those shapes and patterns dictated by focused avoidance of regulation.
Here, I am discussing not just spontaneous parklets and sidewalk tables of guerrilla urbanism” or “pop-up” cities, but widespread examples of urban forms that result when policy or regulation is creatively defied.
Call it the urban landscape’s manifestation of French-American microbiologist René Dubos‘ classic discourses on remarkable and unpredictable human adaptation to environmental change, Man Adapting and So Human an Animal.
A compelling example is the alteration of a southern Italian landscape in the 15th to 17th centuries premised on the avoidance of taxes or fees—the apparent explanation for the unique shape of trulli houses in Puglia, Italy—and the resulting appearance of the Itria Valley and the town of Alberobello.
As the story goes, local inhabitants built the conical houses—that don’t look like houses—without mortar. This method allowed easy destruction, so the Counts of Conversano could avoid property tax payments to the King of Naples on permanent structures (such as residences).
What are today’s trulli?
Are they merely a list of unenforced zoning violations (e.g. unpermitted home occupations, illegal accessory dwellings, unsanctioned tent cities, vehicles on lawns) or perpetual temporary uses?
Given the breadth of land use regulation today, could spontaneous, repetitive trulli-like “shapes of avoidance” define a sustainable urban landscape more interesting than planned examples?
Or are the most visible “shapes of avoidance” now limited to freedom of expression in the ballot box and on urban walls?
After all, some might argue that graffiti and the recent electoral landscape are the trulli of our times.
All images composed by the author.
This article was republished in similar form in the Fall 2011 issue of ARCADE, Architecture and Design in the Northwest.
Whether centered on “reset” or “recession”, there is no shortage of provocative summaries about the game-changing new economy. As a legal practitioner who also writes about cities, I find the most value in comprehensive efforts gleaned from on-the-ground intelligence of urban trends—those parlayed by clients on a daily basis.
Today’s post continues as an exclusive entry on The Atlantic Cities. For the remainder, click here.
The genius of the old ways, near Cortona in the 1950's
If universal questions about the dynamics of place need a stage to be answered, there is no better theater than Cortona, Italy, home to Frances Mayes’ Under the Tuscan Sun, and a symbol of the romantic ambience of a simpler life.
There, American expatriate and film producer Sarah Marder left a long career in the banking industry to produce a pending documentary, The Genius of a Place, which tells both a personal and universal story based on 25 years of observing a commercial transformation from a tradition-based, agrarian economy to dependence on tourism and world renown.
The film’s title is no accident, echoing English poet Alexander Pope’s exhortation that we “consult the genius of the place in all”. The film crew followed suit, listening to evidence from the Etruscan past to today.
Despite the idyllic hill town setting (and interviews with well-known icons including Mayes herself, Sir Anthony Hopkins and Jeremy Irons), Marder insisted to me from Milan this week that while the movie was filmed in Cortona, the focus is far broader. “We see Cortona as a symbol for places all around the world facing similar challenges, undergoing rapid change, growth and construction.”
The film crew is pursuing what Marder terms “a balanced approach”, examining the benefits and drawbacks of this transformation. For instance, interviews depict a more dynamic town economy of new jobs and businesses, but also convey how the town center population has dwindled from a post-War high of roughly 7000 to less than 1500 today.
Marder at work in Cortona's main square
Similarly, townspeople explain how, as real estate prices have climbed, locals have sold older dwellings in favor of larger homes in outlying areas. The clear message is one of a changed commercial fabric, with stores now catering almost exclusively to touristic whims, not residents’ needs.
Footage also shows familiar urban challenges, Cortona style. Like many tourist centers, parking availability is often limited. In peak seasons, trash piles grow next to dumpsters. A well-digger explains the need for increased well depths based on substantially increased water demand.
From my perspective, in bridging common urban growth experiences worldwide, Marder’s endeavor is both remarkable and sincere. What happens to an authentic place forever altered by unexpected notoriety, such as Mayes’ arrival, books and films? How is tradition changed and culture compromised? How should growth be managed and a sustainable local economy preserved?
These are not casual questions about the impacts of tourism, but rather about best practices going forward, based on legacies potentially lost. As Marder explained during our several recent discussions:
As I saw things begin to change starting around 2000, I wanted to find a way to document some aspects of Cortona before they changed beyond recognition or repair. I especially wanted to document the way of life of the elderly, which resemble life from centuries ago, because I could see that it would soon be extinct. Ironically, I seemed to be among the few noticing. From the perspective of many, it was a non-issue—most people embraced their day-to-day concerns and were not worried that the town might change in unsatisfactory ways. For them, the town’s well-being followed from a legacy of the past 3000 years.
In fact, places like Cortona, with special topography, viewpoints and strategic advantage, have long driven human settlement. I wrote last year how historic hill town settings are instructive for more than romantic vacation ambience—they contain important lessons about successful human settlement.
These settings blend with natural surroundings; keep up a pedestrian identity, with limited vehicular access; emphasize aesthetic principles (views to and from); communally group institutions around public open space; carefully merge public pathways and private dwellings; offer efficient living spaces and allowance for density; as well as display innovative bases for water collection and storage and management of sewage and stormwater discharge.
An ancient borgo, or tiny village, in Cortona's surrounding countryside
With similar factors in mind, Etruscan choice of city location was typically a matter of utmost importance, carried out by specialized elders who knew how to apply the right criteria for a suitable site. Marder confirmed that as late as the 1950s, town residents were still using 2000-year old Etruscan wells scattered throughout the town.
Considering all that Marder and her team have achieved to date, the film could offer an enviable case study. In Genius’ merger of celebrity together with dozens of interviews with ordinary, yet thoughtful people, insightful views about placemaking in a global economy emerge. In the specific case of Cortona, Marder implicitly wonders whether tell-tale, accidental notoriety should be envied or avoided, mitigated or embraced.
Although Cortona’s recent growth has come mainly from tourism, in conversation, Marder focused instead on new development that has accompanied the town’s fame. She considers tourism just one of the many types of development a place can pursue, usually in a relatively unenlightened way:
All places understandably seek economic development. These same places then find themselves at some point wrestling with the side-effects of development that they didn’t ponder or manage particularly well. They didn’t foresee the future repercussions of their actions and have compromised their place through myopic behavior. That’s something sad and yet we, the creative team, believe it’s a universal story, something that is happening to communities all around the globe.
Until the film’s completion, the best summary of Marder’s message is through the film’s trailer, embedded below, as well as a variety of clips on YouTube.
The team behind Genius has the ambitious goal of a 2013 Sundance Film Festival début, an honor granted to just 1 in 50 films. Plans for 2012 include distilling 4000 minutes of footage into an about 90 minute film by September.
Meanwhile, people often ask the production team if the film is going to propose solutions to the questions presented. While neither a lawyer nor an urban planner, Marder said she is routinely pressed to generate “some policy, law or methodology”, something she said that she “is in no place to do”.
However, she has bigger plans that mirror the best of neighborhood outreach, visioning, and charrette. She hopes that the film will become a tool for promoting “local stewardship on a global level”, perhaps as a catalyst for touring workshops for engaging viewers on the unintended consequences of development in their own town or city.
“Is it Utopian to believe that people in communities could band together to safeguard their respective special place’s long-term interests?” she asked.
My answer honors the efforts of Marder and her film crew. As an alternative to traditional growth management approaches, legislative hearings and city council deliberations, perhaps we all should keep an eye on The Genius of a Place.
For more details on the film and production schedule, visit the film team’s website, here. Historic photo of Cortona-area oxen by Prof. Duilio Peruzzi. Photo of “Genius” on-set by Antonio Carloni. Photo of Cortona-area countryside composed by the author.
Just imagine an efficient scene of shuttle transit from a large parking area to your destination, a compact service district. At the end of the shuttle, medical services, a bank, food, drink, entertainment and public restrooms greet your arrival. The spirit of human activity and community are everywhere.
We know these qualities as the ideal characteristics of urban density, of transit-oriented development and of successful, traditional or new “infill” neighborhoods. We also know these qualities as reflective of simple and basic underlying human needs.
And that is exactly the point, as the description above is not of a city, but of the staging and administration area for the obstacle course known as Hell Run, “the most kick-ass mud run on earth”.
Participation in a temporary gathering place, whether it is the staging area for Hell Run, Burning Man or a county fair, remind us of the fundamentals of human settlement, and the framework elements we are trying to recapture in rethinking cities today.
In fact, several authors have addressed the more purposeful creativity of Burning Man, and have debated the urbanistic standing of temporary or nomadic encampments, or, as Nate Berg has noted, city-like places.
I am particularly interested in core services that appear in such places, whether they last for one day or several, and what their inadvertent presentation and implementation tell us about human nature and first principles of association in urban areas. As Aron Chang recently wrote in adapting the work of Ellen Dunham-Jones, Christopher Leinberger and others, embracing traditional human qualities and day-to-day life patterns is essential if historically sprawl-based suburbs are to be successfully reinvented.
For me, the look and feel of the Hell Run staging area was actually a gestalt reminder of more profound, simplifying experiences in Tanzania earlier this year.
There, witnessing daily life was a “back to basics” reorientation which confirmed the underpinnings of cities as conceptualized by the Richard Florida model: places to creatively reinvent human capital from the ground up, taking people’s common and creative potential to higher levels.
I am not arguing event planning as a replacement for urban planning. Rather, I am using visual examples to agree with those who have acknowledged the human aspect of urbanism over top-down prescription or unsustainable patterns of growth.
As illustrated, temporary and less developed places can look eerily similar in the way fundamental human services are congregated and presented to the public, and I would venture that these are the true building blocks of cities everywhere.
It is beyond these building blocks—how our cities and those of the developing world continue to grow, and how growth is administered—where the real challenges continue.
Last March, in a baseline examination of the fundamentals of housing and the wheeled vehicle, I focused on a nagging question brought home from Tanzania and which recurred at the Hell Run staging area: Do we sometimes regulate away the urban vitality of our cities by attempting complex, prescriptive fixes — aimed at modeling or reclaiming what used to evolve naturally — and ironically squelch the first principles of human shelter and transportation suggested above?
Inherited forms of shelter and age-old methods of transportation are to residential zoning and infrastructure planning what oral histories are to Gutenberg — the backdrop of rich tradition for codification and institutional creation. If safety and well-being are maintained, such institutionalization may be laudable for preserving practices or legends otherwise lost with time. However, if the result is lost functionality, needless complexity, discrimination or prohibitive expense, the institution may need reexamination.
For instance, what if a zoning code is no longer cohesive, or impedes rather than accomplishes societal goals?
What if the automobile is overused, at increasing expense, when bicycle, cart, or other transportation would do, with the value added of health and exercise?
Sometimes this contrast of fundamentals to complexity, or of a different place and tradition, can refocus priorities, and warp the senses.
Traveling, you realize that differences are lost: each city takes to resembling all cities, places exchange their form, order, distances, a shapeless dust cloud invades the continents.
Consider Tanzanian roadside stands and the traditional forms of transportation used when a car is either unavailable, inaccessible or inappropriate. Commerce and people can move, without regulation. Wheels and the human body go places in ways we have forgotten. Innovative, human-propelled transport, often with goods attached, knows no bounds.
While not literally Calvino’s cities, images from the developing world, coupled with temporary places such as the Hell Run staging area, “exchange their form”. Together, their initial modesty suggests that through the complex evolution from initially well-meaning institutionalization, we risk losing what is most human about places we live.
So, in building urban community, it remains imperative to reassess—with simplicity in mind—and to always remember first principles, such as shelter and the wheel.
All images composed by the author near Karatu, Tanzania and Carnation, Washington. Click on each image for more detail.
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urbanists at work
