Category: placemaking

the timeless advice of universal urbanism

On By Chuck WolfeIn everyday urbanism, placemaking, politics, urban administration2 Comments

People often ask why, as a lawyer, I have chosen to spend spare time writing about urbanism. “Osmosis and irony” is the best answer I can muster.

While many of my friends monitor, message—and often preach—changing approaches to urban development, I write because I am seeing many things in the popular press and blogosphere recalled from childhood as obscure, meal-time conversations in an urban planning professor’s family.

I am reminded of one of many of Mark Twain’s attempts at characterizing the human condition:

“Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.”

So, in a sense, the meal-time conversations of childhood continue. In the interim, words have changed, but the ideas are constant. Regulations have attempted to cement what was selective policy. And a sense of urgency—borne in “pollution control”—now centers on mitigation of climate change.

How distinct are the urban policies of yesterday, today and tomorrow?

By way of example, the Seattle City Council 2011 Priorities address an agenda with several sub-elements (click here), built around the following, which are understandable and appropriate topics for the 21st century city:

  • Foster safe, just, and healthy communities for all
  • Build a livable city for our future
  • Invest public resources fairly and effectively

Maybe such topics are generic, modern city-speak, regardless of exact era, technological advancement or regulatory system.

Over 40 years ago, my father (the professor) was asked for advice about contemporary urban issues of the day relevant to Seattle.

In response, he focused on issues of regionalism, infill development, equitable transportation systems, housing, education, natural systems, storefront vitality and community involvement.  He frankly approached the pitfalls of merging land use policy with politics and the need for a bold vision at the juncture of the public and private domains.

Ironically, change the date, update vocabulary, and the following abridged advice might provide a helpful, timeless and universal road map in whatever urban direction we choose to travel.

June 5, 1967

TO: Mr. Jack Robertson

Random Notes: Planning and City Development With Regard to the Seattle City Council

Urban and regional issues that could be expected to concern a Council.

1.  A metropolitan orientation: awareness of the city region, the interrelationship of the problems and willingness to view them in the context of a central city and its hinterland.

2.  Inner city rejuvenation: the changing core – urban and human renewal utilizing all aid to facilitate a vigorous business and industrial center – but not to ignore housing and other community facilities as only the very rich, very poor and disadvantaged are left.

3.  Transportation: varied means and choices inherent in systems that would be efficient and subsidizing public as well as private means, mass transit as well as individual.

4.  Services and facilities: provided beyond a “minimal” level–underground as well as over, for the aged as well as the young, for the aesthetic as well as the athletic, for the indigenee as well as the transient or the tourist, for the disadvantaged (racial, economic, etc.) school child as well as those of the affluent, etc.

5.  Amenities: the scenic, the historical, the cultural, the recreational etc. — the quality element, particularly in an area such as Seattle, where a concerted effort should be made to conserve and enhance existing elements and moreover to promote more in developments for the future.

6.  Attitudes and actions for a viable environment:

a.  To encourage and initiate demonstration projects and doings to show what can be done, to innovate in response to problems unique to the area, to freely engage in experimentation as needed in a dynamic, and growing area and to expect and admit some failures.

b.  In emphasizing community action, to really deliver services not only those of health but also of social welfare at the neighborhood and “store front” level.

c.  To provide a vital planning and development function where goals and priorities are publicly discussed, where priorities are asserted based on evaluations of the costs and gains (economic and social) and those are revealed as the basis of decisions, where policies are tested in forums involving community participation, and where public strategies consider the repercussions of private actions.

…

hey urbanists: what are we typing for?

On By Chuck WolfeIn everyday urbanism, infrastructure, placemaking, politics, sustainability1 Comment

Visiting and photographing cities worldwide can take the metrics away, often amid economic recession, adjacent to revolution or facing or remembering the challenge of reconstruction. In such settings, qualitative and interactive experiences and comparison seem more important than documenting carbon emission, census data, rankings or ratings.

While data and catch-phrases have merit to enhance background principles and to support goals, so does the sense of wonder with which people reflect upon where they live, and ask about how other places are different, day-to-day, at the human scale.

Witness the frustrated commuter, who will authentically share perceptions, no matter the transportation mode. People will earnestly talk about neighborhood safety, a sense of economic well-being or challenge and and satisfaction or concerns about a child’s education. With sincerity, others will reference the weather, green or water surroundings or the music of place and time.

And transfixed, the world listens to and watches revolutions and disaster, where the urban setting is entirely disoriented and must rebuild again.

The fundamental reason that successful cities resonate is because they satisfy and/or complement some very basic human needs, often related to mental and physical health: congregation, safety, and the three “e’s” of education, environment and economy. In our policy and regulatory discussion of such urban settings, I continue to think we might achieve at a higher level by starting with reminders of the core: the basic human needs which cities can provide, or frustrate.

Only after acknowledging the fundamentals—and pausing to watch and listen— should we debate the circular arguments of ends versus means.

remembering shelter, not standards

On By Chuck WolfeIn compact development, everyday urbanism, housing, placemaking, sustainability4 Comments

Inherited forms of shelter are to residential zoning 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?

Sometimes the contrast of a different place and tradition can refocus priorities, and warp the senses.

Consider the iconic Maasai village, with a perimeter of brush to discourage animal invasion, and a central open space for market or celebration. Consider further the adjacent huts built of dung and sticks with cramped entry spaces and “room” division with spaces little more in size than our natural reach.

The form and function works, as it has for countless generations.

What if we tried to zone this tradition, with setbacks and ratios and heights and densities? What acronyms would we develop? Would we fall prey to increased allowances for cultural status based on cow ownership?

In the end, ironically, would such codification ultimately prevent the type of shelter that the regulatory effort set out to model?

When the questions are posed, and we contemplate zoning classifications such as IH-1 (Indigenous Hut 1) or CAR (Cow-Area Ratio), the dialogue sounds absurd. And that may be the very point.

Through the complex evolution of initially well-meaning institutionalization, perhaps we risk losing our way.

When necessary or appropriate, let’s remember to reassess, with simplicity in mind.

Cross-posted in Seattle’s Land Use Code: Listening for the future of the city.

busting barriers and achieving the urban balance

On By Chuck WolfeIn environmental and land use law, infrastructure, placemaking, politics, sustainability, transit oriented development2 Comments

Cities are the focal point of interaction between human and natural systems and are the laboratories of how best to live—call it “achieving the urban balance”. We all have pictures of what that balance should look like, both visually and in terms of environmental impact.

Of the many human systems that contribute to the urban balance, land use regulation plays an important part, as the consensus constitution for forms of urban development going forward. Traditional land use tools need to evolve in order to assure a sustainable urban balance and to better wed land use and transportation issues.

The question is how to achieve balance amid the implementation barriers common to presentation of new urban land use approaches.

Many examples of innovation exist, from form-based codes to sustainable development regulations, all designed to move away from increasingly disfavored separation of zoning uses, to approaches which facilitate less reliance on the automobile where possible, encourage forms of transportation which emphasize human health, as well as more clearly enable sustainable development tools.

As a hopeful indicator, there are positive signs in the Puget Sound region. For example, in the time since a report identified regulatory, political and fiscal barriers to transit oriented and urban center development in 2009, initiatives at the local and state levels have turned renewed attention towards issues of concern in the transit and infrastructure-funding arenas. Municipalities have experimented with types of zoning which focus more on look, feel and mixed use than hard and fast, traditional techniques. In addition, last Fall, on behalf of the region, the Puget Sound Regional Council was awarded $5 million in the form of a federal Sustainable Communities grant to enhance planning for urban centers along transit corridors.

However, fallout from recent midterm elections has illustrated the risks of backsliding—a reminder that “achieving the urban balance” and related inventories of best practices and regulatory enactments are more often than not inherently political—and often fall short of lofty goals.

Backsliding can be offset by “stay the course” non-governmental organizations, professionals and citizens who will survive political change, and who will continue to parlay an evolutionary urban agenda.

Let’s both grow the toolbox, and keep it open.

Cross-posted as part of the inaugural series, “C200“, on Citytank.

“citytank is alive”

On By Chuck WolfeIn everyday urbanism, pedestrianism, placemaking, politics, sustainability, urban administration1 Comment

The city lives in many online fora. A new one, Citytank, assembled and launched today by Seattle’s Dan Bertolet, is well worth noting.

Bertolet has assembled a wide range of local and national contributors to write in a focused fashion on the potential of cities, as a conceivable predicate for a true “think tank” on applied urban ideas.

The inaugural series, “C200” features a range of 200 word contributions—required reading for both ethereal and pragmatic “urbies” online.

Much of today’s urbanist dialogue features dueling claims to universal messages, which no one should own.

Through his creation, Bertolet has implicitly acknowledged this communal power of ideas, and has pledged to assemble the best.

Check out Citytank, here.

Photo: Screenshot from Citytank, March 15, 2011.