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.
Photograph composed by the author.
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.
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.
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.
One of my favorite motivational scenes, that inspires city reinvention, is the one above.
The photo shows the first part of the Nice, France tramway—a city-center transit line which has helped change an automobile-oriented downtown. Experiencing this image in real-time, applying the full range of human senses, compelled my understanding of what is achievable amid the urban fabric of today.
Immersion in the real look and feel (and sometimes sound and smell) of a more compact and sustainable local experience can feed arguments for change, justify expenditures or tell how to cast a strategic election vote. Personal involvement is the most powerful and verifiable way to champion the city cause, over and above mere acceptance of empirical data, article prose and illustrations.
Unfortunately, when it comes to these far-away urban places, not all of us have real-time access to the inspirational modern projects served by transit, or the historic monuments, streets and squares that illustrate the potential of creative city life.
How best then to inspire others’ personal preferences for cities? How do we translate in real terms the popular arguments in favor of urban density and moderated use of the automobile?
I have written a fair amount on similar supplements to popular visions of how cities “should” be. My past proposals include developing one’s own urban diary, considering the real challenges of “bringing home history from another place” and outlining the risks of developing “place-echoing” venues with a purpose only to provide––without more––decorative facades of more desirable places.
When advocating for clients or researching transit-oriented development topics, I have found that often the most daunting task is to cast an ideal new goal (such as re-engineering transit-based places next to single-family neighborhoods) as something of value, convenience and pleasure that will improve day-to-day life.
Here are three, perhaps non-traditional thoughts about how to bring messages home in a meaningful way.
By example. How to further the potential of a green tramway, even if it means giving up something accustomed, like street parking? Acceptance and excitement about the concept might occur through indirect, yet powerful experiences: while sampling a local streetcar and understanding its convenience, suffering a long commute and its related frustration, or vicariously in a phone conversation with a friend who has just had a real-time experience in a far-away place where such transport exists.
Only when an abstract goal has such personal meaning can it be complemented through example, such as the photograph of Nice, France. For some, such as property owners along a planned transit improvement, commitment may only be achieved after receipt of an ample compensation award by a transit agency to “sweeten” the deal.
By gestalt. Consider the value of a surprise event that recalls something well-known to you. My own such experience was a sudden brush with a famous painting early one morning, where a similar, modern view resulted in a new perspective.
Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks painting (from 1942) has long symbolized the loneliness and isolation of urban life.
That Hopper painting, much critiqued and recreated for almost 70 years, appeared anew to me in a university city (Eugene, Oregon), in early morning darkness.
But, ironically, inside the new “Nighthawks” setting was an upbeat, small city crowd with resilience and interaction—the opposite of Hopper’s interpretation of urban life—an environment which suggested the positive elements of human interaction as the baseline for all of our urban potential.
By local reinvention. A logical place for firsthand observation is close to home, where local action can supplement big ideas through demonstrable implementation, such as a reclaimed natural system, a dedicated restoration of a creek in urban woods.
One such “scaled” lesson learned comes from a historic urban park network, partially restored by neighbors, working with the Seattle Park Department. Seattle’s Madrona Woods story, accessible here, shows us how and why.
Note the city woods, then (1909), and now (2011):
And see the new pedestrian bridge, and restored Lake Washington shore:
While photographs, artwork, numbers and the written word are accessible to most, in my view, limited access to real-time experience of place is a challenge to urbanist sermons and rankings. I find that successful advocacy and implementation is more about facilitating real and personal commitment in others than in proselytizing about the abstract, and for that, we need more accessible experiences.
In the end, urging people to witness and experience their own examples, gestalt and local reinvention may become the most successful advocacy of all.
Image of Nighthawks, by Edward Hopper via Wikipedia, fair use. 1909 postcard of Madrona Park courtesy of City of Seattle. All other images composed by the author. Click on each image for more detail.
Today, across the world, in multiple contexts, the allure of the bicycle knows no bounds.
Commencing with the atmosphere of Florence, at night above, the images presented here provide multiple examples of the urban bicycle in practice, whether whimsical, functional or historical.
Today’s post continues as an exclusive entry on Sustainable Cities Collective. For the remainder, click here.
All images composed by the author in Canada, France, Great Britain, Israel, Italy, Tanzania and the United States. Click on each image for more detail.
Microfinance—the practice of personal small loans to spur creativity in developing nations—had well-known rural roots. Of late, I had assumed that the practice had become a city-based endeavor, in concert with other programs, targeting the world’s burgeoning urban populations.
Time in Africa earlier in the year did not change that perception.
However, after following up with community economic development friends back home, I learned that fostering a rural middle class should spur reflection among those passionate about cities. Sometimes, finding a way to keep a meaningful rural existence trumps city life.
According to Cole Hoover, Director of Programs for Seattle’s Lumana, whose work focuses in rural Ghana:
Although there is an amazing potential for growth and innovation in cities and urban areas in Africa, I think it is important to recognize that it’s not for everyone. Many people do not have the resources or connections to migrate to cities and some, quite frankly, even when possible, do not want to do so.
Lumana is a small, Seattle-based organization founded by young, multi-national entrepreneurs. In Ghana, Lumana helps people reach their personal and financial goals through microfinance, business education, planning for savings and local mentorship. Lumana also employs four Ghanaians who work in rural areas, out of choice and for connection with their communities.
According to Hoover, these Ghanaians have affinity for their home villages, fellow residents and a slower pace of life. In addition, they take pride in helping to lead operations that can make rural areas more livable.
Hoover’s observations confirm Lumana’s rural-based initiatives:
There is an amazing amount of people who appreciate their traditional way of life and the slower pace that rural life allows. We initially got involved working in rural Africa because its people are some of the most underserved in the world. It is our goal to use our programs to do community economic development that increases opportunities for rural people and makes it easier for them to thrive in the villages they choose to call home.
Today, microfinance work focuses on cities more often than not, leaving a huge amount of underserved populations in rural Africa, said Samantha Rayner, Executive Director of Lumana. Rural areas experience poverty based on disconnection from services and resources.
“Poverty does not just mean having no money,” Rayner explained. “It means having no opportunities”.
Hoover told the story of “Anna” from the village of Dzita. “Anna” was a case study of Lumana’s accomplishments since 2010, helping rural Africans get limited available resources, including access to basic services, such as health care, drinking water, education and a consistent income.
It was in rural Dzita, not a large city like Accra, that Lumana also helped villagers understand how to make their businesses more profitable and to prepare for unforeseen emergencies by creating specific savings plans for education, future businesses and emergencies.
In addition, in a three-day class, villagers typically learn to better understand supply chains, small and medium-sized businesses and how they influence and affect the total economies of the rural communities.
“Rural Africa is an amazingly beautiful place,” explained Hoover. “You see and feel it in the bright-colored clothing, laid back way of life and support of a close-knit community of hardworking and collectively minded people”
I queried Hoover on the fundamental precepts of urban poverty, something I saw firsthand in several instances overseas, and considered in recent writing about Gary Hustwit’s film, “Urbanized”.
Hoover acknowledged the shared burden of urban and rural poverty. But he cautioned that for many people in Africa, moving to the big city is not the goal:
Rural areas still have many endearing aspects that people are sad to lose when forced to move on when faced with a lack of opportunity. Rural Africans are some of the most amazingly resourceful people on earth. They live with a little, and do a lot. Despite the constant poverty many experience on a daily basis, they learn to get by, supporting themselves and those who they love.
Rayner elaborated on the limits facing older generations in rural areas:
They have been around and have deep roots in these communities, including families, established businesses and homes. However, many times, they struggle to make ends meet, because of the lack of opportunities. We try to help by addressing their limits on accessing capital and teaching better ways to save and make good business decisions with the money they earn. With many of these people, their life is in the rural villages, so we want to help make it easier for them to thrive there.
Based on Lumana’s learning about generational views of the city, the children often do not want to leave their villages. Both Hoover and Raynor contrasted American assumptions about their own “Gen Y”—often labeled as an increasingly urban-oriented cohort.
Rural communities appeal to younger Africans, at a fundamental level, said Rayner:
Many young people are not rushing to the cities because they want to, but because it is their only option. A growing number of young Africans are flooding the big cities in search of jobs, leaving behind a better quality of life at home. Many are there to advance their career, go to university or to make increased amounts of money with opportunities only available in the city so they can remit money back home to their families living in the rural areas.
Based on Lumana’s three years of work in Ghana, young people who move to urban areas often do not get better jobs, a university education or more income for their families back home. Rather, many end up living in worse conditions than circumstances they left, in areas far away from those they hoped to help.
Ironically, concluded Hoover, “many are looking for ways to advance their careers, become educated and then return to the rural communities they love best.”
Sitting with Lumana representatives back home in Seattle, I could only wonder whether recent emphasis on cities risks losing sight of universal principles, easily forgotten in an all too competitive world.
Hoover and Rayner referred me to their lead Ghanaian loan officer, Eric Fiazorli, who spoke of helping the rural poor, his family and community. His closing words need no elaboration:
Working in my community is important and I want to find ways with my life to change the rural places I love so much. I want the future to be better for my family to grow up here.
For more about Lumana, click here, or see this recent video from Seattle’s PBS affiliate:
All photographs composed by the author. The KCTS-9 video is in the public domain.