Many of us who write about cities like to share rediscovered videos from times gone by. The videos are especially notable when ideas with currency today are discussed in other contexts, providing opportunities to compare, contrast and sometimes be humbled by history.

Here is a prescient video from 1948, about “Charlie”. This cartoon protagonist champions the basics of the new town movement in post-war Great Britain—a Garden City-inspired effort intended to ease housing shortages. The first phases of the movement brought to the city planning lexicon names such as Stevenage, Crawley, Hemel-Hempstead, Harlow, Hatfield and Basildon (see Osborn and Whittick’s classic The New Towns (1963) for the full story).

An interesting tidbit: as the video explains, the “neighborhood centre” was a key premise of the British new towns—based on the guiding principles of the Reith Report as implemented through the New Towns Act of 1946.

Similar to then-contemporary American “neighborhood unit” principles, the new towns commonly featured structured neighborhoods of 5,000-10,000 inhabitants with at least one elementary school, local shops on two sides of a triangle or flanking a square with a church or public house.

What can we learn from the ever-optimistic Charlie (who ends the video on a bicycle)? Take a look at the video above, or review the script below, courtesy of the British National Archives:

Charlie: Our town was going to be a good place to work in, and a grand place to live in, with plenty of open spaces; parks, and playing fields where people could enjoy them, flower gardens, and of course there’d have to be an attractive town centre too, with plenty of room for folks to meet. Good shops, a posh theatre, cinemas, a concert hall, and a civic centre.

Chairman: We have to plan the residential area next. Let’s consider it as a series of neighbourhoods and take any one of them. Now – how shall we plan? Most important of all is the child. So we’ll need pedestrian routes for the pram-pusher. Nursery schools within 400 yards of every home. Primary schools within safe and easy reach. Each neighbourhood must have its own.

Voices: “Churches” “Community centre” “Shopping district” “And lots of pubs – right next door to me” (answer) “Oh no, you don’t.”

Chairman: Oh, there’ll be a pub quite near enough for you. And finally, we started on the houses. The site was planned for maximum sunshine and then everyone could take his choice.

Charlie: Detached houses – semi-detached – terraced houses. Flats for people who wanted them – hostels where the young folks could get together, and bungalows for the old ones.

And so we moved right in. I’m telling you – it works out fine; just you try it!

Modernize the script, and take away the industry-avoiding colonization of the hinterlands. Consider the neighborhood vision with jobs close to home. I would argue that the city neighborhoods sought by the creative class, multi-modal “Charlies” of today are nothing new, right down to the hoped-for micro-brew a short walk or bike ride away.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

From these images, what is clear?

I suggest five points:

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

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

Clay would likely agree:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The themes span six subject areas, below.

More Roles for Social Media

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

• Make No Little Plans Without Twitter

Renewed Attention to the Romantic City

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

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

• Rethinking the Essence of Urbanism
• Understanding the World’s Urban Transition

Additional Counterintuitive Solutions for Infrastructure and Economic Development

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

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

• Potholes as Parks?
• Placemaking With Zip Lines

New Types of Regulation and Urban Places

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

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

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

• Neighborhood Sustainability the Focus of New Code Ideas in Seattle
• “No Net Loss” for Third Places?
• Fusion Businesses as Indicators of Urban Change
• How—and Where—Should We Live?

Ongoing Importance of Urbanism Without Effort

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

• Urbanism Without Effort

Additional Ways to Conceive of Urban Opportunity

Finally, here is a dialogue that may never end.

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

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

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

• The Importance of Corners
• Is a Vibrant City Best Measured at Night?
• Is Urban Life Overrated?

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

Picture this about 2012—an urbanist calendar with places in mind—framed by international snapshots in time.

Each month of this urbanist calendar could echo experience, and provoke optimism through depiction of people and place.

Here is my composition, and perspective, from Seattle and beyond.

January:  Street Vending (Arusha, Tanzania)

February:  Street Watching (Matera, Italy)

March:  Street Blending (Vancouver, Canada)

April:  Life Amid the Creative Class (Gates Foundation, Seattle, USA)

May:  Urban Bicycles at Rest (Florence, Italy)

June:  Iconic Skyline (Seattle, USA)

July:  Urban Density at Work (Valetta, Malta)

August:  Transportation Choices (Nice, France)

September:  Nature in the City (Seattle, USA)

October:  Nightlife (Moscow, Idaho, USA)

November:  The Storefront at Rest (Lucera, Italy)

December:  The Laneway  (Melbourne, Australia)

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

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.

In the Lucanian Dolomite mountains of Italy’s Basilicata province, two hill towns show the magical potential of place, connectivity and human innovation in unparalleled fashion.

There, where, in the Middle Ages, rocky outcrops were lookout posts, some see an extreme sport in the Volo dell’Angelo zip wire which spans a narrow, deep ravine. I see a place reinvented like none other, worthy of the translation: Angel Flight.

I have written about hill towns before, and most recently in the context of Matera, Italy: the “sustainable city of stone”.

My premise has been that in the face of remarkable challenges of setting, residents still mastered local terrain and natural systems to create local lifestyles that worked well for hundreds—if not thousands—of years.

Castelmezzano, and neighboring Pietrapertosa, are no exception, full of demonstrable cooperation with their defensive mountain settings, presumed megalithic origins and unique local traditions.

As translated from the lofty Angel Flight website description:

Visiting Pietrapertosa you have the feeling that everything is adjusted depending on the rock, such as the many stairs.  These are examples of the symbiosis between the village, its inhabitants and the rock, the live demonstration of its territory, which cannot deny the massive presence of almost unbridled nature, but must make it part of the urban structure.

Pietrapertosa takes its name from “Petraperciata”, meaning “drilled” (in this case honoring the local perforated rock), and is the highest town in the Basilicata region, with its 1088 m above sea level, spread on the rocks of the Lucanian Dolomites, well protected from possible incursions from the valley. This character of a natural fortress and the possibility of dominating the valley of the Basento have favored the presence of man since time immemorial.

Today, as the world moves from tradition to reinvention, Angel Flight is an inspiration.

In 1990, Paul Duncan wrote of Castelmezzano that while most residents still lived off of the land, shepherds came to their flocks in Fiats, with radios to pass the day. Thirty years later, cell phone signals creep around the mountain features and isolation no longer exists.

How can the Castelmezzano and Pietrapertosa repurpose to new economies and simultaneously inspire adaptive reuse which is respectful of history and aesthetics?

The Angel Flight website provides a partial answer, marrying new human activity with the ongoing setting:

[A] new concept… allows use of creative environmental heritage answering a new need and a new understanding of leisure and recreation, tended increasingly to new experiences and to seek new emotions. An adventure in contact with nature and with a unique landscape, to discover the true soul of the territory.

I am not asserting that a zip wire will revitalize empty neighborhoods (hilly or otherwise), rescue overbuilt fringe suburbs or rural towns without purpose. But to achieve other progressive retrofits in the way we live, use our land and travel, we should take seriously the innovative quality of “zip wire thinking”.

An outlier? Perhaps. But it is placemaking at its finest, and an example that I, for one, will never forget.

—–

In addition to my photographs, above, many people have captured images and videos of the zip wire, and further review of the Angel Flight website or a Google search nets many compelling results. Among my favorites is this video from David Kilpatrick of Kelso, Scotland, United Kingdom.

David admirably captures and documents context and experience in a “you are there” recording, embedded below.

All images composed by the author. Click on each image for more detail. Video by David Kilpatrick, as cited above.

“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.

Last year, I asked what elements of today’s urban landscape occur in spite of urban land use policy and regulation, and form “shapes of avoidance”. I provided a historical example, and suggested modern counterparts. That was before Occupy Wall Street and its progeny.

Accordingly, Berg’s question recalled my thoughts from November, 2010, slightly amended from the original, below.

______

The form of urban settlements and appearance of constituent structures reflect underlying culture and regulation.

In times of change, buildings, landscapes and objects transform to show the impact of new or modified policies or regulations. And the resulting shapes of compliance—such as the patterns of height, bulk and density dictated by a new downtown zoning code—can potentially reinvent the urban landscape.

But the urban landscape can also be dramatically altered by “shapes of avoidance”.

Consider, in the context of everyday urbanism, those shapes and patterns dictated by focused avoidance of regulation.

Here, I am discussing not just spontaneous parklets and sidewalk tables of guerrilla urbanism” or “pop-up” cities, but widespread examples of urban forms that result when policy or regulation is creatively defied.

Call it the urban landscape’s manifestation of French-American microbiologist René Dubos‘ classic discourses on remarkable and unpredictable human adaptation to environmental change, Man Adapting and So Human an Animal.

A compelling example is the alteration of a southern Italian landscape in the 15th to 17th centuries premised on the avoidance of taxes or fees—the apparent explanation for the unique shape of trulli houses in Puglia, Italy—and the resulting appearance of the Itria Valley and the town of Alberobello.

As the story goes, local inhabitants built the conical houses—that don’t look like houses—without mortar. This method allowed easy destruction, so the Counts of Conversano could avoid property tax payments to the King of Naples on permanent structures (such as residences).

What are today’s trulli?

Are they merely a list of unenforced zoning violations (e.g. unpermitted home occupations, illegal accessory dwellings, unsanctioned tent cities, vehicles on lawns) or perpetual temporary uses?

Given the breadth of land use regulation today, could spontaneous, repetitive trulli-like “shapes of avoidance” define a sustainable urban landscape more interesting than planned examples?

Or are the most visible “shapes of avoidance” now limited to freedom of expression in the ballot box and on urban walls?

After all, some might argue that graffiti and the recent electoral landscape are the trulli of our times.

All images composed by the author.

This article was republished in similar form in the Fall 2011 issue of ARCADE, Architecture and Design in the Northwest.

Whether centered on “reset” or “recession”, there is no shortage of provocative summaries about the game-changing new economy. As a legal practitioner who also writes about cities, I find the most value in comprehensive efforts gleaned from on-the-ground intelligence of urban trends—those parlayed by clients on a daily basis.

Today’s post continues as an exclusive entry on The Atlantic Cities. For the remainder, click here.

Photograph composed by the author.

One of my favorite motivational scenes, that inspires city reinvention, is the one above.

The photo shows the first part of the Nice, France tramway—a city-center transit line which has helped change an automobile-oriented downtown. Experiencing this image in real-time, applying the full range of human senses, compelled my understanding of what is achievable amid the urban fabric of today.

Immersion in the real look and feel (and sometimes sound and smell) of a more compact and sustainable local experience can feed arguments for change, justify expenditures or tell how to cast a strategic election vote. Personal involvement is the most powerful and verifiable way to champion the city cause, over and above mere acceptance of empirical data, article prose and illustrations.

Unfortunately, when it comes to these far-away urban places, not all of us have real-time access to the inspirational modern projects served by transit, or the historic monuments, streets and squares that illustrate the potential of creative city life.

How best then to inspire others’ personal preferences for cities? How do we translate in real terms the popular arguments in favor of urban density and moderated use of the automobile?

I have written a fair amount on similar supplements to popular visions of how cities “should” be.  My past proposals include developing one’s own urban diary, considering the real challenges of “bringing home history from another place” and outlining the risks of developing “place-echoing” venues with a purpose only to provide––without more––decorative facades of more desirable places.

When advocating for clients or researching transit-oriented development topics, I have found that often the most daunting task is to cast an ideal new goal (such as re-engineering transit-based places next to single-family neighborhoods) as something of value, convenience and pleasure that will improve day-to-day life.

Here are three, perhaps non-traditional thoughts about how to bring messages home in a meaningful way.

By example. How to further the potential of a green tramway, even if it means giving up something accustomed, like street parking? Acceptance and excitement about the concept might occur through indirect, yet powerful experiences:  while sampling a local streetcar and understanding its convenience, suffering a long commute and its related frustration, or vicariously in a phone conversation with a friend who has just had a real-time experience in a far-away place where such transport exists.

Only when an abstract goal has such personal meaning can it be complemented through example, such as the photograph of Nice, France.  For some, such as property owners along a planned transit improvement, commitment may only be achieved after receipt of an ample compensation award by a transit agency to “sweeten” the deal.

By gestalt. Consider the value of a surprise event that recalls something well-known to you.  My own such experience was a sudden brush with a famous painting early one morning, where a similar, modern view resulted in a new perspective.

Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks painting (from 1942) has long symbolized the loneliness and isolation of urban life.

That Hopper painting, much critiqued and recreated for almost 70 years, appeared anew to me in a university city (Eugene, Oregon), in early morning darkness.

But, ironically, inside the new “Nighthawks” setting was an upbeat, small city crowd with resilience and interaction—the opposite of Hopper’s interpretation of urban life—an environment which suggested the positive elements of human interaction as the baseline for all of our urban potential.

By local reinvention. A logical place for firsthand observation is close to home, where local action can supplement big ideas through demonstrable implementation, such as a reclaimed natural system, a dedicated restoration of a creek in urban woods.

One such “scaled” lesson learned comes from a historic urban park network, partially restored by neighbors, working with the Seattle Park Department. Seattle’s Madrona Woods story, accessible here, shows us how and why.

Note the city woods, then (1909), and now (2011):

And see the new pedestrian bridge, and restored Lake Washington shore:

While photographs, artwork, numbers and the written word are accessible to most, in my view, limited access to real-time experience of place is a challenge to urbanist sermons and rankings.  I find that successful advocacy and implementation is more about facilitating real and personal commitment in others than in proselytizing about the abstract, and for that, we need more accessible experiences.

In the end, urging people to witness and experience their own examples, gestalt and local reinvention may become the most successful advocacy of all.

Image of Nighthawks, by Edward Hopper via Wikipedia, fair use. 1909 postcard of Madrona Park courtesy of City of Seattle. All other images composed by the author. Click on each image for more detail.

Today, across the world, in multiple contexts, the allure of the bicycle knows no bounds.

Commencing with the atmosphere of Florence, at night above, the images presented here provide multiple examples of the urban bicycle in practice, whether whimsical, functional or historical.

Today’s post continues as an exclusive entry on Sustainable Cities Collective. For the remainder, click here.

All images composed by the author in Canada, France, Great Britain, Israel, Italy, Tanzania and the United States. Click on each image for more detail.

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.

Just imagine an efficient scene of shuttle transit from a large parking area to your destination, a compact service district. At the end of the shuttle, medical services, a bank, food, drink, entertainment and public restrooms greet your arrival. The spirit of human activity and community are everywhere.

We know these qualities as the ideal characteristics of urban density, of transit-oriented development and of successful, traditional or new “infill” neighborhoods. We also know these qualities as reflective of simple and basic underlying human needs.

And that is exactly the point, as the description above is not of a city, but of the staging and administration area for the obstacle course known as Hell Run, “the most kick-ass mud run on earth”.

Participation in a temporary gathering place, whether it is the staging area for Hell Run, Burning Man or a county fair, remind us of the fundamentals of human settlement, and the framework elements we are trying to recapture in rethinking cities today.

In fact, several authors have addressed the more purposeful creativity of Burning Man, and have debated the urbanistic standing of temporary or nomadic encampments, or, as Nate Berg has noted, city-like places.

I am particularly interested in core services that appear in such places, whether they last for one day or several, and what their inadvertent presentation and implementation tell us about human nature and first principles of association in urban areas. As Aron Chang recently wrote in adapting the work of Ellen Dunham-Jones, Christopher Leinberger and others, embracing traditional human qualities and day-to-day life patterns is essential if historically sprawl-based suburbs are to be successfully reinvented.

For me, the look and feel of the Hell Run staging area was actually a gestalt reminder of more profound, simplifying experiences in Tanzania earlier this year.

There, witnessing daily life was a “back to basics” reorientation which confirmed the underpinnings of cities as conceptualized by the Richard Florida model: places to creatively reinvent human capital from the ground up, taking people’s common and creative potential to higher levels.

I am not arguing event planning as a replacement for urban planning. Rather, I am using visual examples to agree with those who have acknowledged the human aspect of urbanism over top-down prescription or unsustainable patterns of growth.

As illustrated, temporary and less developed places can look eerily similar in the way fundamental human services are congregated and presented to the public, and I would venture that these are the true building blocks of cities everywhere.

It is beyond these building blocks—how our cities and those of the developing world continue to grow, and how growth is administered—where the real challenges continue.

Last March, in a baseline examination of the fundamentals of housing and the wheeled vehicle, I focused on a nagging question brought home from Tanzania and which recurred at the Hell Run staging area: Do we sometimes regulate away the urban vitality of our cities by attempting complex, prescriptive fixes — aimed at modeling or reclaiming what used to evolve naturally — and ironically squelch the first principles of human shelter and transportation suggested above?

Inherited forms of shelter and age-old methods of transportation are to residential zoning and infrastructure planning 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?

What if the automobile is overused, at increasing expense, when bicycle, cart, or other transportation would do, with the value added of health and exercise?

Sometimes this contrast of fundamentals to complexity, or of a different place and tradition, can refocus priorities, and warp the senses.

In the words of the postwar Italian writer and Invisible Cities author, Italo Calvino:

Traveling, you realize that differences are lost: each city takes to resembling all cities, places exchange their form, order, distances, a shapeless dust cloud invades the continents.

Consider Tanzanian roadside stands and the traditional forms of transportation used when a car is either unavailable, inaccessible or inappropriate. Commerce and people can move, without regulation. Wheels and the human body go places in ways we have forgotten. Innovative, human-propelled transport, often with goods attached, knows no bounds.

While not literally Calvino’s cities, images from the developing world, coupled with temporary places such as the Hell Run staging area, “exchange their form”. Together, their initial modesty suggests that through the complex evolution from initially well-meaning institutionalization, we risk losing what is most human about places we live.

So, in building urban community, it remains imperative to reassess—with simplicity in mind—and to always remember first principles, such as shelter and the wheel.

All images composed by the author near Karatu, Tanzania and Carnation, Washington. Click on each image for more detail.

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.