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.

On the importance of cities

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.

On walkable cities

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.

On natural systems

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.

On growth

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.

On children

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.

On the regional focus

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.

On urban sentiment

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.

On the people

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:

• An outright concern with land affordability and the importance of a mixture of housing types
• Commentary addressing the notable absence of regional planning
• Attention to the defensive use of zoning regulations rather than working more creative development incentives
• The challenges of funding infrastructure for new development
• The impact of sprawl, on land, resources and accessibility
• Appropriate separation of pedestrian and vehicular traffic
• Rethinking streets (although still with a presumption that creative cul-de-sacs and curvilinear patterns might trump the grid)
• An orientation towards designing with the land
• The potential of cluster and compact development
• The challenges facing the creative innovator

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.

Seattle-based writer and futurist Alex Steffen (left) joins Gary Hustwit on stage

As a survey text in visual form, Gary Hustwit’s Urbanized is a frank introduction to the buzz about cities in our age of right-minded sustainability. Lurking amid the narration and vignettes is a scalable world view where the car is no longer king, and community priorities rather than government mandates often set the agenda for change.

Seattle had the chance to view Hustwit’s new release last night, and in my estimation, the audience saw local issues reflected back from the screen, as will city-dwellers everywhere who attend an Urbanized presentation. Hustwit clearly succeeds in highlighting a universal cast of diverse and sometimes conflicting stakeholders who must balance and integrate ideas, technology and economic forces characteristic of an urbanizing world.

Other articles about Urbanized have set the stage well, among them a Hustwit interview in TheCityFix, a review by Christopher Hawthorne in the Los Angeles Times (who notes Southern California is missing in Hustwit’s lexicon) and a concise entry by Nate Berg on the new Atlantic Cities site.

In short, Hustwit, while not an architect or urban planner, aptly synthesizes the hottest urban issues—from carbon neutrality to safety to human-scale transportation. He employs voices of the well known, the lesser known, and fast-moving urban imagery, which guides the film from Mumbai to Santiagp, to Brasila, Bogota and around the world.

I’ve written lately about the value of imagery in conveying the messages of cities. In this context, Urbanized gives rich meaning to street scenes, infrastructure, and the single building as part of an urban framework.

Through the film’s masterful editing, reality abounds.

Santiago slum dwellers participate in the design of new dwellings, and choose bathtubs over water heaters to escape the communal shower left behind. Brasilia is a planned joy from the air, yet a disconnected trek for the pedestrian. Beijing, with narration by architect Yung Ho Chang, becomes a city of wide avenues no longer a place where friends cross paths. Adjacent to Cape Town, in the township of Khayelitsha, a community project team builds safety through light and other urban design features.

Hustwit also honors his cast and blends them skillfully with their environments.

Former Bogota Mayor Enrique Peñalosa is one with the bus rapid transit and bicycle infrastructure which made his reputation. Landscape Architect James Corner hears the noises around him on New York’s High Line and acknowledges them as an undeniable piece of the urban experience. And the camera is loyal to the anthropological perspectives presented by Danish urban designer Jan Gehl as he suggests angles of view characteristic of evolved homo sapiens in their urban habitat.

While some have said that Urbanized is more primer than graduate seminar, it is still a must-see as a one-sitting wonder. Seldom do we get to see the Brookings Institution’s Bruce Katz espouse optimism for cities as opportune laboratories for reinvention and competition, within moments of dramatic scenes of tension between citizens and government. Hustwit has a knack of mixing and matching, and merging problem with opportunity.

A visual triumph, Urbanized could nonetheless feature more cities, reference more history and, sometimes better blend the film’s talking heads with the community they espouse.

Yet the film says more than meets the eye, and in my view, issues an undeniable challenge to all who embrace cities: capture ideas, and make better urban places going forward.

Initial image composed by the author at the Egyptian Theater, Seattle.

Safety, proximity and interaction: the stuff of poetry, metrics or both?

If “cities, like cats, will reveal themselves at night,” as the English poet Rupert Brooke suggests, then how many of us should fear for our safety in the urban darkness? Is a nighttime city better measured by the numbers, rather than by such human perception and poetry?

In my view, first noted here. Brooke’s poetry is a worthy start. His feline analogy creates the framework for five important qualities of 24-hour, magnetic places. The first, safety, spurs four more—mobility, proximity, commerce and interaction.

An ideal night street dining scene would increase city rank

We know the positives from these qualities: legendary, all-night coding jags in the technology sector, vibrant nightlife and night markets, to name a few. All can enable more robust evening public transit service and police presence through a credible political voice lobbying for still more.

While metrics may not be necessary to frame the look and feel of a successful city at night, more formal measures might further structure inspirational images of vibrance over emptiness.

Perhaps it is time for a moniker—-a “lumens score” or “urban illumination index”—to add to the indicators of a 24-hour city, something characteristic of the creative metropolitan meccas called for by the vanguard of today’s urbanist advocates.

I can see the maps, graphs and charts, not to mention the list: “Top Ten Cities to Achieve Brilliance Without Light”.

The relationship between darkness and urbanism has been studied several times in interdisciplinary fashion, and at least one MIT course has been devoted to the “interaction design” of the associated “world of night”. However, my sense is that these efforts remain far more at the cutting edge than they should.

Low interactivity, an incomplete street: a low "lumens score"

In discussion of public safety issues concerning urban areas, law enforcement, design and planning often remain in their respective silos, devoid of integration.

Ongoing neighborhood policing and social service initiatives should be more outrightly integrated with the renewed focus on environmental and urban design criteria for safe streetscapes.

Concepts of “Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design” (CPTED)—frequently international in nature—have been present for decades and were implied in Jane Jacobs’ work.

CPTED principles on display in Melbourne

A recent visit to Melbourne, Australia, showed certain CPTED principles along neighborhood streetcar lines, including ample (glare-protective) night-lighting, territorial sensitivities to illuminated, sidewalk-oriented window areas, enhancement of the role of passing vehicles, transparent protection from weather at building entries, and low bushes and/or lower picket-type fencing along the street to limit access while allowing for entry visibility.

Similar safety-enhancement approaches to safety of female transit users have received wide attention. Many cities and civic associations (such as the Downtown Seattle Association) have also advocated for integration of CPTED principles.

Increased advocacy efforts for funding of pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure will accelerate policy and regulation encouraging such principles for safety. This should lead to further discussion opportunities for “complete streets,” which include the dimension of lighting to facilitate wider, multimodal use over a longer percentage of the day.

From the street, hidden possibilities intrigue the imagination amid open and closed businesses, shadows and light.

When evening light and crowds merge to create a sense of safety, where walking and transit define mobility and proximity, if commerce goes on without the sun, then human interaction with the built environment is a demonstrated success.

If we need to energize this after-dark integration by goal setting, for a “lumens score” of 10 out of 10, time is of the essence.

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

Last week, while the Seattle City Council gave final approval to more street food vendors in public places, Borders Group Inc. began its liquidation of most remaining Borders bookstores, including locations in destination American downtowns.

This is related news, because both items are about how public and private uses and spaces mix in urbanized areas. Both raise questions of “no net loss” of urban, and downtown “third places” and how to make a more livable city.

In my view, despite the today’s international focus on urban street food vending, the paradigm left behind by Borders leaves bigger questions for back-to-the city devotees.

Some definitions are in order. “Third place” is a decades-old term championed by sociologist Ray Oldenburg for venues which bring people together in the tradition of the American colonial tavern or general store. The idea remains central to urbanist thinking, and describes those places, other than home or work, where we gather, debate and trade. “No net loss” is a term borrowed from the vocabulary of wetland conservation, and allows for replacement of lost assets with equivalent resources.

“No net loss” is the essence of sustainability.

In the last decade, as forms of home and work evolved, conceptions of third places changed as well—from larger footprint commercial spaces such as Borders, to mid-size bookstores (e.g. Third Place Books), to back-to-the-commons public spaces and the pop-up agora. Street food vending is somewhere in the mix as an expanded place of ambience and employment—and to all but certain bricks and mortar restauranteurs—a likely urban benefit.

In response to the Borders news, some pundits, like Josh Stephens in Planetizen, have called for a better, non-Walmartian reinvention of the bookstore. In his view, big boxes—even when urban— destroy Mom and Pop purveyors. Amazon and Kindle aside, he makes a good case for a new, post-recessionary wave of independent urban bookstore startups. For those bookstores, I hope that he is right.

But as to third places—and I am going to assume that “big books” uses can play such a role—there is something bothersome about the final demise of Borders’ urban core locations. While perhaps an opportunity for the independent competitor, what of the potential loss of third place uses in high-value urban downtowns?

Will the prime square footage occupied by Borders have similar, third place potential once reclaimed? Will replacement uses provide the equivalent, fusion business purposes of books, coffee, lecture and song?

Last week, CNN Money was also abuzz with the the re-realized location efficiencies of heading back downtown. In that spirit, let’s hope that downtowns retain dedicated uses of value to those soon to arrive.

Both the private market and public policymakers should work together on the potential prize of livability: assuring the sustainable, no net loss of square footage devoted to urban third places.

All images composed by the author.

Lately, there is no shortage of reporting about big urban ideas and visions of what will make places great.

For David Roberts, writing in Grist, the answers are conceptual, e.g. assurance of ecological sustainability and density, while Crosscut contributor Mark Hinshaw lauds great projects in the making through citation to the “verve, variety and vitality” of James Corner’s early rethinking of the Seattle waterfront—with a city-wide focal point in mind.

But where is the realism, and why does it matter?

In a recent Financial Times article, Edwin Heathcoate dissected the ever-popular lists of great cities and acknowledged that such rankings are often based on individual taste—in response to the qualities that the identified cities present.  However, Heathcoate’s goal was not to organize a ‘liveable city” list based on successful implementation of a big urban idea.

For me, as a practitioner, I am anchored on the “how” to make big urban ideas happen. Once a big idea is vetted—whether in an authoritarian or democratic way—what assures its success? Most particularly, what if, from Day One, the vision pushes comfort zones of the achievable; politically, legally or monetarily?

I suggest reality-checks from the beginning, which includes careful and contextual due diligence—reflecting back and showing some immediate grounding of what detractors might argue as the pie-in the-sky.  Call it “idea management” in the urban arena.

To return to the Seattle example, on the waterfront:  Grand, “make no little plans” visions are afoot, in a purposeful, unconstrained exercise led by james corner field operations that contemplates a merger of natural systems and urbanity. With a considered framework (summarized nicely by Cristina Bump here) a presentation in Seattle by Corner and his team last Thursday night brought the potential of a new city orientation towards the city’s nascent Elliott Bay, with the potential of reclaimed beaches, green piers, terraced topography-sensitive runoff and new, waterside gathering places.

Hinshaw frames the successful rebirth of the Seattle waterfront by artful hint—now is not the time for curmudgeons—rather, it is the time for courtship in an urban Spring.

Regeneration of the waterfront in Seattle and other cities worldwide (see plans for Perth, Australia, here) is but one example of potential implementation of the big urban idea. But big ideas can fail without the idea management of due diligence—a catalog of what will, can and could happen.

Without a simultaneous catalog of due diligence checklists (even if they are kept under cover), visions risk repudiation and rancor. In reaching this conclusion, nothing has impressed me more than first-hand learning from the Jerusalem light rail project —off budget, off schedule, full of geopolitical questions and implementation snafus.  Ironically, as I recounted in 2010, project implementers noted that:

BRT [bus rapid transit] is more viable in Jerusalem given far less need for excavation and utility relocation, and, echoing sentiments in other Israeli cities, probably should have been the mode of choice to begin with.

The project is almost done today, with opening scheduled for later this year—five years late.

So in conclusion, I suggest no moderation in the generation of big urban ideas, no doom-saying.  But I hope amid all of the vision, the checklists are forming.

Even beyond the seemingly universal challenge of funding for vision, the pitfalls of process and delay remain—concerned neighbors, overlapping agency jurisdictions, related regulations and other stakeholder review will often come to light.

Through idea management, let’s use existing tools and invent new ones so that big urban ideas do not die before their time.

All photographs composed by the author. Seattle waterfront graphic courtesy of City of Seattle/james corner field operations.

My 2010 reflections, reproduced below, capture individuals still in the news, and the issues of today’s urbanism, boundaries and ecosystems in Jerusalem—considerations well worth heeding in response to the President’s focus on borders, and his call to embrace the choice “between the shackles of the past and the promises of the future.”

In Jerusalem, a municipal administration rides a pendulum between sustainability and geopolitics.

Greenbelts, light rail, complete street-making, and the storied demolition orders for Palestinian homes in a floodway: all live on a world stage.

Last week, addressing Pacific Northwest professionals visiting with Seattle-based i-SUSTAIN, Deputy Mayor Naomi Tsur prescribed the ultimate sustainable urbanism, drawing from a Hebrew phrase. Jerusalem must “emerge from its [many] walls,” old and new, she argued, and enhance the city’s diverse, public areas largely already shared by all.

The Jerusalem of gathering spaces and neighborhoods is already present, she claimed, and should no longer grow out in rings of settlements, but should preserve compact neighborhoods based on affinity, interlinked by public transit and defining connectors such as the Jaffa Road and the Street of the Prophets.

The tools? Public process, for one, even in areas annexed after the 1967 Six-Day War, to help define a collective local voice.

Her systemic analysis of the city is familiar and compelling, as she simultaneously seeks to avoid a Nicosia outcome (a reference to the divided Cyprus to the northwest). Arguably, she is peacemaking on a platform of the sustainable city.

For instance, Tsur thinks at night about the infrastructure lacking in East Jerusalem, and how the city should rise above the intractable and remedy untreated eastern watershed drainage, which flows directly to the Dead Sea. It would be feasible, she says, to pump this sewage to the state-of-the-art treatment plant that already treats the western watershed sewage, and create drinking water through sustainable technology.

Meanwhile, in the East Jerusalem village of Silwan, along the Kidron Valley, just below the City of David and Hezekiah’s water tunnel, Fakhri Abu Diab thinks at night about other things — like what to tell his children about the potential fate of the family house which still “carries the smell of his mother.” As recently reported by The New York Times’ Ethan Bronner, the Abu Diab house was one of several that received a demolition order, because it was expanded without a permit and is the potential location of an archaeological park at the base of excavations already mired in the complexities of political archeology — a search not only to document biblical events, but seen by detractors as a Jewish land-claim process in disguise.

In Abu Diab’s view, the post-1967 municipality has ignored him before, and he lacks confidence in the proposed relocation offer, which is under negotiation for a move to higher ground.

Walls, sleepless nights, conflict, water, and a future for children. The human condition speaks loudly in this most urban of cities, as the debate over the future of Jerusalem brings a reality-television aura to local land-use administration.

The original article also appeared in Crosscut, here.

No matter what the Code says, it looks like the people have spoken.

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.

…

Around the world, such city models are regularly updated as urban landscapes change, a three-dimensional depiction of what American planning and zoning maps can only hope to inspire.

The scale model can clarify the unique footprint of the subject urban area, and visits to and photographs of the model’s venue can educate, advertise and identify challenges, opportunities and solutions.

Need we be limited to the desktop Sim City? Need such real life, physical models await artistic inspiration, world expositions or other landmark occasions?

Philanthropists and grant-makers: In a time of municipal fiscal restraint when such endeavors may not be otherwise achievable, why not fund cities that apply for the privilege of creating the scale model tool?

Muncipal Jerusalem's current scale model

Scale model of biblical Jerusalem

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.

At the interface of tradition, tourism and sustainability, dramatic photographs can tell a story that is hardly apparent at first glance.

A stone’s throw from the traffic and diversity of nearby Arusha, Tanzania, village community—what we might call neighborhood—is preserved in the distinctly non-urban, tribal traditions which overlay the foundational stratigraphy of East Africa.

As the Ngorongoro Conservation Area yields to the Serengeti plains and wildlife of lore, Maasai villages dot the landscape–easily discernible settlements of the country’s oft-noted tribe. The Maasai culture, which gains sustenance, measures wealth and attracts wives by numbers of cows, resounds with the color of robes, talking sticks and spears, amid the real-time exhibition of long walks across varied terrain.

Roadside Maasai observers, whether solo or in groups, help define the travel experience from Arusha to safari destinations. Safari-bound visitors take note and wave, and sometimes a vehicle from this contrasting culture of Land Cruisers stops to take a photo or to buy jewelry and crafts. In such interactions, traditional dances converge, as both the musical expressions of the Maasai culture and the negotiations of modern commerce play their respective roles.

The visual and interactive experience is compelling, if not overwhelming, and it is not difficult to romanticize the storybook Africa we want to see. But even amid this dramatic setting, we should not forget how today’s sustainability concerns play out in natural and conservation areas, where the simplest introduction of cultural change—including the modern acoutrements of a packed lunch—can implicate the surrounding environment.

Against this backdrop, last week, a Maasai man waited patiently with three dogs some 20 feet away from our lunchtime rest spot under the canopy of an isolated, acacia tree on a cat-track northward. He looked at us and we looked back, both with respect and wonder about how and why.

After 20 minutes of this dance of glances, and a Swahili exchange of offer and appreciation, Elisha, our guide, passed on two plastic bottles of water. Then, the man arose and walked dramatically to the horizon, until he became the classic silhouette of spear against sky, reproduced above.

This timeless image, in today’s terms, raises basic questions of sustainability of an age-old ecosystem, not unlike those presented in today’s urban environments. Think of the concerns behind recent American city efforts to ban plastic bags and styrofoam, but played out in a distant land of lore.

At first, such inquiries seem almost mundane, but echo beyond simple litter control. Should plastic bottles and cling-wrapped sandwiches populate the safari lunchbox? If so, should they leave the vehicles? And if shared in the community of the rudimentary, traditional Maasai village, where do they go when empty?

Another case in point: We visited a Maasai village, and conversed with the chief’s son in a cramped, domed hut no larger than a small walk-in closet. We sat not on the classic hardened dung and sticks in the walls built by women, but on overturned, round plastic drums—a Home Depot-like incongruity, to be sure.

From an outside perspective, it was readily apparent that best practices could define conduct of the tourist industry in today’s Tanzania, which could, in turn, have a positive impact on traditional cultures and the unrivaled ecosystem of the region.

There are efforts underway, including those of Damian Bell, a former safari purveyor who, from the vantage point of non-governmental organizations, provides laudable consulting, partnerships and audits via the Honeyguide Foundation. The Foundation’s inspiring mission is based on a combined approach, whereby the tourism industry and local communities unite to “protect Tanzania’s natural heritage and landscape” and simultaneously “empower local peoples”:

At Honeyguide we strive to link local communities with the tourism industry in order to catalyze economic opportunities and Responsible Tourism practices. In order to advance our mission, Honeyguide is committed to strengthening:

* Improved and transparent community governance
* Sustainable management of natural resources
* Corporate Social Responsibility and Philanthropic strategies

Bell and his colleagues are also in the start-up phase of the related “Responsible Tourism Tanzania” (RTTZ), with more focused efforts to establish an accreditation body for “eco-friendly” practices which adapt standards developed elsewhere to local context.

Such efforts raise more, traditional questions of how to incentivize human conduct—beyond simple “trash in, trash out” policies—in places where regulatory compliance and enforcement are not ordinary aspects of daily life.

Some see the stuff of legend in dramatic photographs. But young warriors-to-be are long barred from the rite of passage of the lion kill.

Today, the facts behind the Maasai man on the horizon raise universal questions of how to manage sustainable practices in a changing world.