Category: placemaking

using adaptive reuse to scale the urban future

On By Chuck WolfeIn compact development, everyday urbanism, infill development, lessons learned, placemaking, sustainability5 Comments

How will the city of tomorrow reflect adaptive reuse of the city of today?

I don’t think we ask that question broadly enough, and our day-to-day, property-specific incrementalism can easily overshoot the greatest lessons from history for today’s city politics, regulation and economic constraints.

A hometown case in point, last week, transported me from Seattle to Croatia for inspiration about why we should think beyond limited geographies, time frames and lifetimes when we discuss urban redevelopment options.

Today’s post continues as an exclusive entry at The Atlantic Cities, “What the History of Diocletian’s Palace Can Teach Us About Adaptive Reuse”.  For the remainder, click here.

Image credits: Comparative aerial photos from Wikipedia under a Creative Commons license.

selling the ideals of urbanism, 1948 and today

On By Chuck WolfeIn compact development, everyday urbanism, housing, infill development, placemaking, sustainability5 Comments

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 the Reith 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.

A similar version of this post first appeared in The Atlantic Cities.

the best way to define meaningful places

On By Chuck WolfeIn everyday urbanism, placemaking, sustainability, urban views27 Comments

How should we define meaningful urban places? Who should set the stage?

Both are key questions in managing cities of the future.  The answers are not new.

Harvard Professor John Stilgoe argues for personal observation of the built environment. The title of Stilgoe’s most noted book, Outside Lies Magic (1998), sets the tone for self-inquiry.

Similarly, journalist-turned-urban authority Grady Clay explains how the “undisclosed evidence” of the form and patterns of cities awaits personal discovery.

In Close-Up: How to Read the American City (1973), Clay wrote:

And where are we? Grasping at straws, clutching yesterday’s program, swamped by today’s expert view, clawing at the newest opinion polls, but neglecting that limitless, timeless, boundless wealth of visible evidence that merely waits in a potentially organizable state for us to take a hard look, to make the next move.

Last August, from Italy, I recalled places for people-watching, where “we sit on the edges of the public realm and look in the mirror”.  I cast such places as indicative of safe public environments, including active streets, corners and squares.

But what about more direct observation of place, akin to the teaching of Stilgoe and Clay?

Here are three images of human interaction with urban places. In two cases, history surrounds, and in one case, an intersecting natural environment provides both modification and contrast.

From these images, what is clear?

I suggest five points:

  • Humans both occupy and look within and without bounded vantage points.
  • Nature, including light, color and climate complement human interest in and perception of the built environment.
  • Place observers may expect a result, or a revelation, as part of an evolving story.
  • Cities should help such observation by people.
  • The stories behind the observers in each image could inform goals and objectives for a city’s future.

In conclusion, without vantage points, we dishonor individual needs.  The images show people observing place in a way that is intrinsic to who we are.

Clay would likely agree:

Experts may help assemble data, specialists may organize it, professionals may offer theories to explain it. But none of these can substitute for each person’s own leap into the dark, jumping in to draw his or her own conclusions.

The spontaneous involvement of the people in the images above shows a path to meaningful urban places. Every city-dweller has a story, a “leap in the dark”, conscious or not.  

The best placemaking may result where developers, designers, decision makers and pundits let astute, everyday users have their say.

All images composed by the author. Click on each image for more detail.

talking urbanism amid a shortfall of snow

On By Chuck WolfeIn compact development, everyday urbanism, infill development, infrastructure, placemaking3 Comments

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.

Understanding the Domain of the Urbanist Lawyer

Posts from 2009, 2010 and 201l comment on earlier January visits and presentations in Colorado..

Image and presentation composed by the author.

six trending urbanist themes for 2012

On By Chuck WolfeIn everyday urbanism, infrastructure, placemaking, sustainability70 Comments

The urbanist calendar published on Monday was, admittedly, a visual provocation, setting a stage for thought  about important urban issues for 2012. I see great merit in such urban exploration with a descriptive, rather than prescriptive approach.

But there is another provocation—from 2011 professional experiences and featured articles—that offer several themes that I expect will also endure.

Here is a synthesis of themes to watch, and why, based on my own encounters, and those of clients and friends.

As illustration, I offer citation to several of my articles as they reappeared in the trend-capturing Planetizen (after original appearance in one or more of myurbanist, The Atlantic, The Atlantic Cities, The Huffington Post, Grist, Sustainable Cities Collective and Crosscut) .

The themes span six subject areas, below.

More Roles for Social Media

Evolving communication technology has forever changed how we analyze and discuss the city.  Social media demands straightforward and sometimes trite efficiency.  Yet it provides for mainstream discussion of topics which were once the arcane domain of the legal, design and public policy professions.   “Even more so” is a safe bet for 2012.

Renewed Attention to the Romantic City

If we walk between the towns of the Cinque Terre in Italy, then why not capture this “essence of urbanism” at home?  Can an architect and a lawyer from politically diverse countries (and who have never met) together envision a collaborative professional approach which captures universal ways to read the evolution of urban places?

Compelling, illustrated ideas will always have a place in the urbanist agenda, including next year.

Additional Counterintuitive Solutions for Infrastructure and Economic Development

Even “the humble pothole” is eligible for rethinking and reshuffling in the city of 2012.  My tongue-in-cheek story rode the guerrilla urbanism theme. Never-ending possibilities for innovation abound:  Consider the zip line between hill towns, taking the romantic setting to a new perception of the possibilities of place.

With governmental shortfalls still in the picture, creativity, analysis of privatization and related discussions will continue.

New Types of Regulation and Urban Places

In Seattle, a diverse group convened to consider and recommend land use regulatory reform focused on market flexibility and job creation, both needed foci for 2012.  The Seattle City Council will consider the associated ordinances shortly.

In the mean time, with the closures of Borders’ bookstores nationwide, I urged cities to think about ways to assure “no net loss” for places where people can congregate and spend time together, a.k.a. “third places”.  I also illustrated the potential of the “pop-up”  ice cream laundromat, as an example of the “fusion business” that are increasingly a symbol of the evolving shareable-space city.

Similarly, my recent summary of the Urban Land Institute’s cutting edge “What’s Next?” report showed several ways cities will reshape and evolve over the next decade, based on converging, multiple socioeconomic forces.

Ongoing Importance of Urbanism Without Effort

There will be no shortage of continuing discussion of placemaking in 2012.  Yet “alley movie night” showed that sometimes, we already have what we seek, and urbanism without effort is the best urbanism of all.

Additional Ways to Conceive of Urban Opportunity

Finally, here is a dialogue that may never end.

2011 was a year of protest in public places, which reinvigorated what will be a continued interest in urban gathering places, such as classic squares and city centers.  Other ways to conceive of the city also show potential.

As examples, I focused on the historic role of street corners around the world, and asked whether city vitality is best measured—by five qualities—at night.

One lingering and important consideration:  Not everyone lives in cities, nor is urban life a foregone conclusion.  In that context, I told the story of Lumana, a Seattle-based micro-lending and economic development organization focused on Ghana’s countryside—with a question—should we be more focused on rural than urban areas in the developing world?

All images composed by the author. Click on each image for more detail.