Convenient angles of view in the city present legible messages, with existing materials, without the need for more.
In this case, an eager urbanist can stand in one place, and read the very words he desires.
No graffiti required.
Image composed by the author. Click on the image for more detail.
Analyses of Seattle’s downtown rebirth seem to be in vogue of late, both from here and afar. From Jon Talton in The Seattle Times to Richard Florida inThe Atlantic Cities, writers are holding up small mirrors to the central city-scape—like the “Claude Glass” used by landscape painters of old—to create motivating and exciting images of of the evolving economy of the city I call home.
These perceptions showcase a walkable, creative-class city where transit meets the commerce of the future. However, in reality…
Today’s post continues as an exclusive entry at The Atlantic Cities, “The Quest to Make Regulatory Reform Work in Seattle”. For the remainder, click here.
Image composed by the author.
Ralph Waldo Emerson said: ”By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote.”
To me, there is no exception with regard to cities, and the result is both humbling and inspirational. I have a working hypothesis that websites which aggregate quotations about cities and city planning are among the most telling chroniclers of the relationship between humans and their urban environments.
Whether generic web destinations such as Brainy Quote or more specific, professionally oriented sites, the range of descriptors for cities give a backdrop for current issues and their context.
One such site, located here, is moderated by long-time Washington/Oregon planner and administrator, Rich Carson, and is a personal favorite.
Carson’s assembly of quotations, along with others I have found, led me to a “Top 15″ selection.
Here is a topical summary of the 15 quotations and accompanying comment.
We will neglect our cities to our peril, for in neglecting them we neglect the nation.
(John F. Kennedy)
The axis of the earth sticks out visibly through the centre of each and every town or city.
(Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.)
President Kennedy’s words have new meaning amid today’s focus on urbanization as a driver of the national and world economy. Nineteenth century “fireside poet” and physician Holmes, Sr. echoes this centrality. Both statements should remain within the vocabulary of speechwriters.
A city that outdistances man’s walking powers is a trap for man.
(Arnold J. Toynbee)
No city should be too large for a man to walk out of in a morning.
(Cyril Connolly)
Here, Toynbee, the twentieth century British historian and author of the morals-based A Study of History, fueled the flame for walkable cities. Connolly, a contemporary writer, editor and critic, was not far behind. To me, both quotations are far more relevant than arcane.
I’ve often thought that if our zoning boards could be put in charge of botanists, of zoologists and geologists, and people who know about the earth, we would have much more wisdom in such planning than we have when we leave it out the engineers.
(William O. Douglas)
The smallest patch of green to arrest the monotony of asphalt and concrete is as important to the value of real estate as streets, sewers and convenient shopping
(James Felt)
Justice Douglas wryly captures the importance of natural systems to land use regulation and decision-making. James Felt, a mid-twentieth century New York City developer and philanthropist, echoes the sentiment while Chair of the New York City Planning Commission. Their perspectives are reminiscent of the holistic view of today’s urbanist.
In the annals of history, many recognize that we have moved as far as we can go on untamed wheels. A nation in gridlock from its auto-bred lifestyle, an environment choking from its auto exhausts, a landscape sacked by its highways, has distressed Americans so much that even this go-for-it nation is posting “No Growth” signs on development from shore to shore. All these dead ends mark a moment for larger considerations. The future of our motorized culture is up for change.
(Jane Holtz Kay)
Growth is inevitable and desirable, but destruction of community character is not. The question is not whether your part of the world is going to change. The question is how.
(Edward T. McMahon)
Architecture and planning writer and critic Jane Holtz Kay captures today’s focus on alternative transportation modes in her 1998 book, Asphalt Nation, while long-time smart growth advocate Ed McMahon frames the key question of how best to channel and balance urban growth. Their sentiments remain most relevant to the interplay of land use and transportation, as well as facilitating livable communities with transportation choices.
In the planning and designing of new communities, housing projects, and urban renewal, the planners both private and public, need to give explicit consideration to the kind of world that is being created for the children who will be growing up in these settings. Particular attention should be given to the opportunities which the environment presents or precludes for involvement of children both older and younger than themselves.
(Urie Bronferbrenner)
Bronferbrenner, a twentieth century psychologist and systems theorist, captures the generational orientation of the sustainable city, and his words need little elaboration, except, perhaps, by my supplied imagery.
The metropolitan region is now the functional unit of our environment, and it is desirable that this functional unit should be identified and structured by its inhabitants. The new means of communication which allow us to live and work in such a large interdependent region, could also allow us to make our images commensurate with our experiences.
(Kevin Lynch)
In his 1960 classic, The Image of the City, urban planning and design academic Kevin Lynch presented spatial tools for understanding cities and their surroundings, defined discrete elements of urban form, and argued for their incorporation into planning practice. Today, few would argue with his influential precepts.
I have an affection for a great city. I feel safe in the neighbourhood of man, and enjoy the sweet security of the streets.
(Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
In Rome you long for the country; in the country – oh inconstant! – you praise the distant city to the stars.
(Horace)
Almost two thousand years apart, two revered poets comment, with reference to timeless qualities of city life.
Any city however small, is in fact divided into two, one the city of the poor, the other of the rich. These are at war with one another.
(Plato)
What is the city but the people?
(William Shakespeare)
Clearly, then, the city is not a concrete jungle, it is a human zoo.
(Desmond Morris)
From Book IV of Plato’s Republic to Shakespeare’s lesser known tragedy, Coriolanus, to zoologist Desmond Morris’ 1969 contrast of human tribal beginnings with modern life, the city has been center to social, economic and political analysis. In light of the last year, in which social protest has reemerged in urban places around the world, these three perspectives have never been more relevant.
In conclusion, to better understand contrasting points of view about cities, books, magazines and online articles are not the only informational alternatives. As the 15 contributions presented here illustrate, Emerson’s opening observation about the necessity of quotation is itself alive and well.
All images composed by the author. Click on each photograph for more detail.
“Place matters” is a familiar declaration. Its common use shows that profiling places, especially creative, urban places, is very much in vogue. For instance, the phrase graces the Atlantic Cities masthead, is the title of a New York City project that protects distinctive local environments, frames a non-profit corporation and is a campaign of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
Similarly, the term “placemaking” has reached critical mass. The founder of the place-centric Project for Public Spaces (PPS), Fred Kent, recently recounted the increasing role of PPS around the world, including an interview in The Atlantic, here.
While placemaking is not a profession, it is certainly a practice that has spread across multiple disciplines, far beyond design and planning roots.
One placemaking premise is to avoid politics and pedantic debate (such as “new” v. “landscape” urbanism)—one of the tenets of the movement is efficiency, often without “starchitecture” or directed urban redevelopment. Rather, placemaking is frequently a low-cost, facilitated exercise which helps enhance people’s faith in their cities and neighborhoods.
Accessible media about placemaking includes articles (e.g. Lisa Rochon in the November 25 Globe and Mail), webcasts (e.g. last year’s National Endowment for the Arts panel discussion here), and the currently touring film by Gary Hustwit, Urbanized. In my home town, the Seattle Times’ “Seattle Sketcher”, Gabriel Campinario, often champions placemaking concepts through his regular, community-based illustrations.
Since writing my article last week on how best to portray city life, I have been pondering which form of media is best-suited to convey the stories of places where people want to live.
Based on my own familiarity with the role of public comment and expert testimony in regulatory decision-making, including the influential voices of citizens at a public hearing, I began a search for compiled, consolidated voices on a variety of topics addressing what makes a livable place. I wanted more than generic “happiness surveys” and similar, more data-oriented presentations.
I concluded that we need more than instructive YouTube videos, such as the Streetfilms series. Rather, we need a syndicated, “60 Minute”-style production, which offers interviews about the universality of placemaking, while distinguishing the narrative, custom stories of varied communities.
Then, I discovered such a radio show is already at work, on the other side of the country, in Miami: Place Matters, with Dr. Katherine Loflin.
From my direct follow-up with Loflin, it is clear that the show is off to a promising start.
Place Matters runs Thursday at 11:00 am EST on Miami’s WZAB, 880-AM. It is podcast accessible, and Loflin’s interviews and unique focus are well worth a listen. According to Loflin, it is the only nationally focused radio show in the country explicitly devoted to placemaking:
Through the show I wanted to bring on representatives of diverse systems in “community” (i.e., political/municipal leaders, young people, corporate, philanthropy, researchers, planners, university presidents, filmmakers, celebrity, technology folks, everyday residents etc.) and have them at some point testify how their work and/or background informs a discovery or conclusions that “place matters.” My thinking was if you could look at my guest list and see a very diverse group of folks coming to the same conclusion on the importance of place from their perspective, it would make a powerful, almost universal, statement.
As a veteran, former program director at the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and Lead National Expert on Knight’s Soul of the Community project, in partnership with Gallup, Loflin is no stranger to the relationships between people and place. The study’s findings on what ties people to their communities helped to frame the show’s concentration.
Loflin explained the project as backdrop to her pursuit of a radio show:
We had been doing well-being studies for a while. They have been called happiness studies, well-being surveys, indicator projects, and the like and they stay important. But they only tell half the story.
Soul of the Community went further. To understand our experiences and existence, we looked at personal outcomes in the context of place—why people wanted to live where they do—and why location matters to them to begin with. We then derived roadmaps of indicated action. These roadmaps are available for further use to help grow people’s attachment to a place and perhaps impact economic growth as a result.
When we spoke last week, Loflin’s graduate degrees in social work with journalistic and community practice concentrations were clear. I asked her about the show’s goals, and about the challenges of translating placemaking to the public over the air. She replied enthusiastically:
Being the only nationally focused radio show on placemaking, the show was an experiment at first. But clearly audience interest and feedback shows a continued need for a 30 minute shot of placemaking each week, perhaps even an hour, as this topic continues to take off and take root across the country.
Through the show, I wanted to raise the placemaking conversation, reflect that conversation back to the field and provide a platform to show the wide range of sectors coming to the same conclusions about the importance of place. I think I am off to a good start, but there is more to do and many more stories, ideas, research findings, and thought leaders to showcase in order to move the field forward.
Loflin’s “good start” is notable in its diversity, and often builds from Soul of the Community findings. The first show featured PPS’s Kent in late September. Loflin’s further shows have featured several on-the-ground examples in Detroit, Toronto, and Chicago.
Based on my review of several of the podcasts, Loflin’s common themes show important sensitivity to the specific context of a place, from the Detroit renaissance to technological opportunity to inventory place in Chicago, and she is most fond of a very key point: Soul of the Community findings show that Generation Y will often move to a city without guarantee of employment, if the place has draw for other reasons.
Her guests largely center on approaches to community development, based on local preference rather than any tendency to unthinkingly adopt a best practice from another place. She clearly allied with Kent in her inaugural interview: look to what community members want, especially younger representatives. Rather than “bag the buffalo”, seek lighter, quicker and cheaper ways to revitalize a community.
Among her more recent guests: Nick Arnett, age 19, who is central to an effort to make Fort Wayne, Indiana a better place with his 12 cities in 12 month placemaking tour, and Sarah Marder of Milan, Italy, who is in the process of filming The Genius of a Place about challenges to Cortona’s unique identity after the attention brought to the town by the work of Frances Mayes (see my piece on Marder’s work here).
I asked Loflin why, given her show’s uniqueness, she chose a title, Place Matters, which was in frequent use already. “Well, honestly, I didn’t know when I started that quite so many things and organizations already use that moniker,” she said. “However, my reasoning when I was formulating the show was that I found myself saying it so much in my speeches—it was a core message.”
She elaborated on her as-applied focus:
After I discovered that so many others use “place matters”, I researched it further and found that still in fact my show’s message and focus was unique as a nationally focused showcase/platform/clearinghouse for place. Plus, as part of Soul of the Community, we really centered on the dissemination and practical application of a project that some argue was the first to empirically show that place matters in real, measurable ways.
Loflin’s interviews suggest the potential for even greater focus by moving beyond her current themes and involving the more project-oriented architects, developers, elected officials and others (even lawyers), whose practices implicate the evolving city.
I asked Loflin, in closing, whether, without such specifics, might a radio show premised on popular terminology become an overbroad proposition. Perhaps predictably, she explained her step-by-step approach:
When you’re trying to get entire community systems to think differently about place, you have to start with the big ideas, and you have to get an initial following in all sectors to help spread the word. Recently, I have begun to showcase resident-led projects, where frankly I see the best placemaking ideas originate – and I think many local leaders, planners (and lawyers) would agree. Perhaps leaders will end up following local residents’ lead in some cases! But I also have a couple of mayors already offering to be guests in 2012 and hopefully they will encourage their counterparts in other cities to listen to the show and adopt a place-focused approach to their leadership as well. In 2012, I’m hoping that those stories can continue be told and provide community leaders and residents with a stream of placemaking ideas and projects that inspire the betterment of their place.
Loflin’s answer illustrates the importance of integrated and inclusive placemaking discussions. Place Matters may be among the best venues to tell the story in a new and universal way.
All images composed by the author. Click on each image for more detail.
Rural Africa, ripe for city skills, without cities
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.
Lumana's Cole Hoover, in Seattle
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.
For many of today’s advocates of creative cities, success cannot be achieved soon enough. Common aspirations of sprawl avoidance, compact development, dynamic public spaces, ecosystem integration and multimodal transit are increasingly touted in both the public and private sectors.
Organizations such as the Urban Land Institute (ULI) provide associated, implementation-oriented goals through mission statements. ULI’s mission, in part, prioritizes the responsible use of land and creating and sustaining thriving communities.
In reality, much time often passes between aspiration, mission statement and common acceptance and/or implementation. Good ideas evolve and often merge along the way. And always, land use planning and regulation are impacted by fundamental principles of safety, jobs, education and the politics of place.
Today’s city-oriented visions are often traced to an urban livability and walkability perspective, with Jane Jacobs as the most touted precursor. Historic suburban development patterns are usually the villains of the story. But even those historically vested in suburban single family home ownership suggested reform in land development practices earlier than we often remember.
These calls for reexamination were notable—not for any urgency placed on abandonment of the car—but for a mid-course, suburban damage control assessment based on many ideas that retain currency today.
About the same time as the publication of Jacobs’ comprehensive, classic article in Fortune Magazine, “Downtown is for People”, a 1959 video entitled “Community Growth, Crisis and Challenge” shared several nascent ideas for innovation in land development and regulation.
This video project of the National Association of Homebuilders (in cooperation with ULI and the American Institute of Architects and the predecessor to the American Planning Association), presented an in-process critique of sprawl, long commutes and increasing land costs, and suggested research and implementation of a regionally-based rethinking of development patterns, with urban planning as a necessary intervenor.
Ironically, Rick Harrison’s 2010 newgeography article examined the video’s message, found it largely unheeded and questioned whether sole reliance on transit-oriented density as the only definition of the sustainable city going forward.
For perspective, I suggest a read of Jacobs’ article, linked above, and a view of the video, embedded below. Both offer then-emergent best practices as a basis for much of today’s critical thinking:
From the video, note the inherent, still prevalent themes and challenges of American land development, including:
Clearly, the video is dated, particularly in the seeming assumptions that suburbs and not repopulated cities will be the only harbingers of future growth. It remained for Jacobs and her followers to speak to the best ways to approach the redevelopment of urban cores.
However, there is a not-so-hidden revelation in both pieces: 52 years ago, today’s issues were increasingly clear, and many solutions were already forecast or known.
Successful implementation warrants mention, and many current sources of information regularly celebrate city and neighborhood achievements, through new projects, purposeful reinvention or spontaneous solutions. Examples include longstanding, “best practice” aggregators such as Planetizen, the newer Sustainable Cities Collective, as well as TheAtlantic.com‘s new sister website, The Atlantic Cities.
Such celebration is appropriate, to chronicle how today’s mission statements continue to influence urban development at a time when how we live, work and travel is undeniably changing.
But looking back and reflecting fuels a new question: What will the pundits of 2063 say about the evolution and merger of our ideas of today?
Image composed by the author. Video reproduced subject to a public domain creative commons license.
Steve Jobs’ last public appearance was as a land use advocate, presenting plans for Apple’s circular new headquarters to the Cupertino City Council just four months ago tomorrow.
“Pretty cool” and “like a spaceship has landed” made the news last June, because Jobs was talking like pundits expected, while framing the rollout of something special, fresh and new.
Notwithstanding Jobs’ emphasis on heavy landscaping and subsurface parking, Philip Langdon has criticized the proposal in urbanist circles for its fenced, office park setting of glass and the auto-centric suburbia of old.
Familiar architectural critics have also cross-examined the premise of London’s Foster+Partners’ design. The Los Angeles Times’ Christopher Hawthorne termed it nothing short of a “retrograde cocoon”, while Paul Goldberger in The New Yorker last month questioned whether the building’s enormity would leave Jobs’ last contribution to his company as the least meaningful of his career.
I’m suspending judgment on the building for now, to focus on style and Jobs’ relentless pursuit of dreams. Last June 7, the way he presented and argued, with retiring charm, lit up the room.
Three years of law school does not teach that kind of persuasion. Such artful persistence was Jobs’ magical power, a quality which we should always remember.
Video courtesy of City of Cupertino, City Channel. Click on video to see Steve Jobs’ presentation.
huffington post: charles r. wolfe crosscut.com: chuck wolfe seattlepi.com: chuck wolfe planetizen sustainable cities collective Kaid Benfield (Kaid at NRDC) urban point of view© 2009-2013 myurbanist All Rights Reserved
urbanists at work
