“Reading the City,” the late 2012 column from urbanist Allison Arieff, is stuck in my head.

Arieff’s year-end piece for The New York Times described with style and subtle irony how she escaped a “smart city” conference in Barcelona, and explored the urban spaces around her, armed with only a conventional map. She ended her column with a recommended reading list of books that tell stories about cities. The kind of stories that happen outside of conference halls — experiential, first-hand stories.

…….

Today’s post continues as an exclusive entry at Crosscut. For the remainder, click here.

Image composed by the author.

The response through online vendors–especially Amazon rankings–suggests that a long-form version of the myurbanist approach has merit, and was, perhaps, long overdue.  And for those who have already downloaded, enhancements are coming, free of charge!

The Urbanism Without Effort web page is a one-stop venue about the book, related media and appearances. The summary below appears on the site’s Media page, and is current as of today.

The following 2013 articles and reviews reference Urbanism Without Effort:

Ronald Holden, “Chuck Wolfe’s urban manifesto“, Cornichon

ULI-Northwest Blog Entry on Book Launch Event (with downloadable Powerpoint presentation)

Roger Valdez. “Urbanism Without Effort? Let It Be!“, Seattle’s Land Use Code

Planetizen, “The Dynamic Potential of Urbanism Without Effort“, Planetizen

Miriam Axel-Lute. “Where Community is at Work Making Itself“, Shelterforce

Juan Carlos Garcia de los Reyes, “Urbanismo Sin Efuerzo“, La Cuidad Comprometida, Granada, Spain

Kaid Benfield, “How City Lights Change the Way We Experience Places“, NRDC Switchboard

 

The following representative 2013 articles by the Author reference Urbanism Without Effort:

“Alley Movie Nights: Can you say urbanism without effort?“, Crosscut

“The Dynamic Potential of Urbanism Without Effort“, The Atlantic Cities

“Picturing 10 Qualities Every City Should Have“, The Atlantic Cities

“Picturing 10 Urban Qualities Central to Every City“, Crosscut

“Reclaiming the Urban Memory“, Sustainable Cities Collective

“Movement and Settlement, Upside Down“, The Huffington Post

As many of you know, I’ve spent many exciting and rewarding years exploring and documenting cities around the world, as a land use/environmental attorney, as a writer, and for my own enjoyment. I am continually motivated when experiencing great cities firsthand, and learning from historic and diverse examples how to create authentic urban environments.

Through these explorations, I’ve come to the conclusion that before we can create workable, sustainable urban areas, we need to understand what happens naturally when people congregate in cities.

I’m very pleased to announce that Island Press has just published a short e-book sharing my photographs and observations of how city dwellers interact naturally with one another and the urban environment, and how these interactions can be more readily observed and adapted. Part of the Island Press E-ssentials program, Urbanism Without Effort (9781610914420/$3.99) argues that in our rush to engineer livable, connected places, we have lost sight of the fact that the best urban places are fluid, spontaneous, and human.

A short article based on the book appears today as an exclusive in The Atlantic Cities, here. For more information and testimonials, see the book’s press release, here, or go to urbanismwithouteffort.com.

I hope you find the book inspiring. Please share this information with your own contacts, both those steeped in cities, urban planning, design and regulation, as well as those whose interests stem from their own daily experience with urban environments. You can download the book atAmazon, Barnes & Noble, the Apple Store, Kobo and other electronic vendors.

If you’d like to submit a review for a publication or website, you can request a review copy at press@islandpress.org. If you have any questions or ideas for how to use Urbanism Without Effortin your own work, please get in touch.

P.S. For those of you in the Seattle area, the Urban Land Institute and Futurewise have been kind enough to host a book release event at 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 7, at the GGLO Space at the Steps. You can learn more and register here.

One inspiration for my new book, Urbanism Without Effort, came in 2010,  from  an unexpected find in a Seattle used bookstore. This discovery led to interviews and exposure to incomparable photographs, some over a century old.

“Reclaiming the Urban Memory” first appeared in myurbanist in 2010, when it was also featured by Kaid Benfield in his blog and in The Huffington Post.  A revised version appeared in 2011, both in myurbanist and Grist.

Given the passage of almost two years, and the considerable number of new readers interested in cities and urban history, the story is well worth a rerun, as slightly updated below.

Here, for new readers and old, is the stirring work of Burton Holmes, a continued and motivating force in my work, and by inference, a catalyst for us all.

____________

the old is new again

Melbourne, Flinders Street Station, 1917 ©2006 BHHC

“100 years from now I wonder if those in the future who view these images will appreciate the value of … pictures as a means of recording life as is lived in this century… photography is in the truest sense biography –is it not the writing of life in a truly universal language?”

-Burton Holmes, Seoul, Korea, 1899

The Great Recession, climate change and the quest for carbon neutrality have reoriented how we look at cities, the distance between home and work, and the role of the automobile.

A simultaneous, street-based nostalgia targets simpler times, a more human scale and an elusive world of accessible neighborhoods often lost in the memories of earlier generations.

Melbourne, Flinders Street Station, 2009, evolved as modern transit hub ©2009 myurbanist

Consider imagery which restores such lost urban memories for those who did not witness modern urban history, and recreates what political writer Alexander Cockburn has termed “the lost valleys of the imagination”.

Such “lost valleys” often grace nearby bookstores and online forays, but quality varies, and frustrates our romantic search to turn back time.

Of all available resources, amid blogs and information byways, no visual record is more compelling than the archived work of seldom remembered, but innovative documentary pioneers, who left breathtaking records of camera artistry: pictures revealing moments when people hardly understood the camera as it recorded the profound change which surrounded them.

One such pioneer, Burton Holmes, preserved imagery in unparalleled human scale, first with black and white, glass negatives, often hand-colored with fine, single hair ermine brushes and through parallel use of motion pictures from the time of their invention.

He showed all that a city can be—while also depicting the changing form and appearance of infrastructure, public spaces and the impact of this change on urban residents.

Travelogues, the Greatest Traveler of His Time, Ed. Genoa Caldwell

His legendary work, which entertained the captive opera-goers in front rows and the general admission crowds in the rear, is well-chronicled in the work of Genoa Caldwell (The Man Who Traveled the World and Travelogues: The Greatest Traveler of His Time, recently republished as Early Travel Photography), as well as by other devotees, and can be readily reviewed in print and online (including the most resource-intensive compilation at burtonholmes.org).

Holmes was not an intentional urban historian. He became a famous stage presenter, who, from the late nineteenth century until the 1950′s, inherited a showman’s tradition from earlier travel lecturers and became synonymous with the new word, “travelogue,” which he favored to stimulate vicarious interest in his art. He brought the first motion picture cameras to the Far East, recorded Tolstoy and the coronation of Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie and otherwise roamed the world–often to places of danger where a camera had never been– and brought home both organic, natural portraits of life abroad and entertaining still and cinematic visions to halls across America.

However, over and above Holmes’ published travelogue narratives, a particularly intentional urban documentary purpose flows from his photos, as depicted above and below. Photo-archivist and biographer Caldwell has shared hints of this perhaps subconscious resolve in quotations she has compiled in the over 30 years she has devoted to her research. An example of one reference she has found that holistically describes urban ambiance addresses Berlin in 1907.

Holmes noted Berlin as a city of contrasts, where the traveler feels the unseen presence of something fine and beautiful, and it is cleanliness, he said, that pleads most eloquently for Berlin. There, he described how the art of municipal housekeeping is practiced in perfection: “Berlin is the best-kept great city in the world–there are no backyards in Berlin, [and] balconies filled with flowers ornament the buildings, [while] outdoor cafes give impressions of cheerful sociability, and the traveler is confirmed in his impression that Berlin is a city beautiful.”

Holmes’ cameras captured far more than the order he saw in Berlin; he chronicled the impact of new forms of transportation as they were introduced to classical environments, and the resulting evolution of streets and ways of life.

BeIow is a sampling of the collection maintained by Burton Holmes Historical Collection (BHHC), reprinted with special permission and under copyright of BHHC. Caldwell has archived 1700 of an assemblage which once numbered 30,000 photos, the rest lost to the poor condition of time. A range of movie footage, from 200 film cans rediscovered in 2003, now resides at George Eastman House in Rochester, New York.

a mode we have lost?

A captivating horse and buggy amid Sydney’s clouds shows a morning routine now lost in Western culture today. Holmes was fascinated by the expanse of the Australian continent and the impact of colonization on native people and place.

Sydney, 1917 ©2006 BHHC

a mode to regain

A grand Austrian urban stroll provides a model for emulation. Holmes regaled in the “superb edifice” of Vienna’s Grand Opera House, while his camera prioritized the pedestrian view.

Vienna, 1907 ©2006 BHHC

street scenes and carriage jams

Traffic congestion took different forms, often without protection from the elements. Holmes’ photographs were rich with street scenes in world cities. Consider the different social nature of traffic interactions without doors or windows and the different sounds that graced the street.

Paris, 1895 ©2006 BHHC

London, 1897 ©2006 BHHC

the ascent of the car

Early in the last century, Holmes toured Denmark by car. Here, a rare car-sighting south of Copenhagen in 1902 yields to a predominant auto culture on Seattle’s Marion Street by 1934.

South of Copenhagen, 1902 ©2006 BHHC

Seattle, 1934 ©2006 BHHC

gathering places

Note the human interaction in a public place as captured by Holmes in Italy and France, countries he repeatedly visited in times of war and peace. Today’s increasing attention to sidewalk cafes and public gathering spaces attempts to achieve the ambiance of the photographs below.

Florence, 1924 ©2006 BHHC

Paris, 1918 ©2006 BHHC

change in the holy land

Jaffa Gate, in the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City, shows the evolution from animal to motorized transport at the sunset of the Ottoman Empire. The Jerusalem chronicled by Holmes is reminiscent of Mark Twain’s narrative in Innocents Abroad.

Jerusalem, 1920 ©2006 BHHC

Jerusalem, 1920 ©2006 BHHC

a town with a purpose

The gold rush town of Dawson City, Yukon Territory was assembled in weeks with all the vitality of an urban place. Holmes’ many photographs there documented a new town built on speculation with a surprising sense of permanence, amenity, and not least of all, sidewalks.

Dawson City, 1903 ©2006 BHHC

the romance of the bicycle past

In Rome and Naples, Holmes captured the function and charm of the bicycle mingling with urban forms.

Rome, 1924 ©2006 BHHC

Naples, 1924 ©2006 BHHC

Holmes’ work offers a central place to rediscover the look and feel of Cockburn’s “lost valleys of the imagination” and provides models to facilitate the regeneration of a classic model of urban life–a full experience shaped not just by where one could drive in a car, but by where one could walk or ride by animal–or access by public transportation. His photographs provide gloss on features to include in new development and the planning of today’s complete streets.

The implications from the photographs are more than academic, as inferred principles of practice for regulation and design emerge. The architect can derive the relation of building and street. The traffic engineer can see inspiration for lanes, surfacing and signage. The lawyer and planner can react to setbacks, and ways to encourage pedestrian spaces while assuring light, air, acceptable noise levels and governance of private use of public spaces.

Perhaps most of all, the child in all of us is transported by time-travel to a fantasy world better than the Wizard of Oz, because the world in the photographs was real and foundational. In the end, the “film as biography” foretold by Holmes in 1899 draws us in, and challenges us to reclaim and relive the best of the city. It is a biography we should read as precedent, both for inspiration and for lessons learned from the consequences of change.

Please scroll over photographs for credit. Except where indicated, all photographs ©2006 BHHC. Restricted use. Do not copy.

Republished in Grist, on June 29, 2011, in edited form, here, and in Crosscut on September 18, 2010, here.  Thanks also to Kaid Benfield for republication in his “Village Green” column in The Huffington Post on September 8, 2010, and his Natural Resources Defense Council Blog on September 9, 2010.

Last week, I participated in the Project for Public Spaces’ Placemaking Leadership Council inaugural meeting in Detroit. The event left several impressions, among them a real concern about accuracy in recounting what I saw.

In 2009, I tried to add my two cents about Detroit from a Seattle perspective in Crosscut, without the benefit of first-hand knowledge. In retrospect, nice try. Often, the complexity of urban evolution is better summarized in a single image like the one above.

As I note in Urbanism Without Effort (Island Press, 2013, pending this month), in The City in History, Lewis Mumford framed the universal dynamic of movement and settlement in cities of any era.

In January 2012, here, I suggested with an image of a “walkable Pompeii” that application of the urban dynamic of movement and settlement need not be static, and often shows ironic reapplication over time.

Similarly, in the above image of home and street, a lone figure moves across empty infrastructure in front of settlement that is no more.

To me, the remaining question is simple. What’s next?

I’ll offer that very few of us really know enough to answer.

Image composed by the author in Detroit. Click on each image for more detail. © 2009-2013 myurbanist. All Rights Reserved. Do not copy.

In the process of writing, the ideas evolved, as partially captured in the book’s subtitle, “Reconnecting With First Principles of the City”. Central to the book is the role of imagery, the urban diary concept, as well as other concepts first referenced in myurbanist and related articles in several publications.  

I have many goals for the book, keeping mind the countless preexisting books, essays and new media that already characterize people and place from different perspectives.  My central goal is to complement the vast role of precedent, and to help people see for themselves the richness of urban history and potential amid the challenges and opportunities encountering cities today.

Courtney Lix, Associate Editor at Island Press, played a key role in helping several blog-based notions combine and mature into another, more organized medium.

The book is slated for release in electronic form later this month. The associated writing, rewriting, photography and follow-up certainly explain the irregular timing of myurbanist entries for the past year. Thanks to readers for standing by!

See below for the flyer, which provides more detail. Watch the Island Press website, here, for the latest!

All images composed by the author. Click on each image for more detail. © 2009-2013 myurbanist. All Rights Reserved. Do not copy.

I believe in the value of visiting contrasting places–divorced from the familiar—in order to read landscapes of shelter, wheels, weather, landforms and light. From these observations, our urban dialogues gain their basis, and to my mind, their sustenance.

I like to bring this purposeful travel home, first, for visual inspiration, and second, to inform professional practice regarding settlements and cities. I found fodder for both a few days ago in Iceland, amid a basalt terrain of lava fields seemingly created only yesterday, among contemporary accounts of renewable energy and epic stories of settlement dating back little more than a thousand years.

In Icelandic landscapes, in small towns, and in the resurgent capital city of Reykjavik, are scenes and stories that transcend nature, culture and the built environment. In the imagery of such places, we see scaled expressions of urban settlement and transport, both past and present, including dramatic examples of human interactions with the raw elements of nature.

Others have described how the legendary sagas that help define the country’s national identity largely lack a description of visual surroundings, but rather center on elements of humanity and survival. As a modern supplement, here is my more image-oriented summary of lessons learned from Iceland’s interplay of the natural and built environments, including human capacity to adapt to the opportunities and constraints of place.

1.  Measure urban sustainability by clarity of the sky at night

The legendary Northern Lights dominate the evening. Why not use clarity of the night sky as a new measure of city sustainability?

2.  Encourage minimalism that blends with surrounding nature

A small church and outbuilding on the Snæfellsnes peninsula honor natural surroundings with simplicity and scale.

3.  Allow fusion businesses and food trucks in an urban setting

A branch of Copenhagen’s cutting edge Laundromat Cafe and a contemporary food truck show Reykjavik as consistent with worldwide urbanist trends.

4.  Provide street retail integrated with sidewalk life

Streetside shopping activates the sidewalk in Reykjavik.

5.  Use building color to make a statement in all seasons

In Stykkishólmur, an iconic red offsets winter weather.

6.  Champion practical building materials consistent with tradition

Where native trees are scarce and light is variable (short in winter, long in summer), color and corrugated iron cladding have replaced turf, stone and concrete as dominant building features in Reykjavik.

7.  Employ simple materials for monuments, blended with surroundings

In Borgarnes, a symbol of human significance echoes surrounding nature.

8.  Foster the interaction of urban fabric with an iconic city pond

In Reykjavik, the historic town and a modern city hall frame Tjörnin, the best-known small waterbody in Iceland.

9.  Recall the contrast of the man-made with landscape and clouds

Throughout the country, unrivaled cloud formations offset paving and structure.

To fully understand cites, I believe we should return to places where human settlement still stands in awe of larger forces, and to view the nascent built environment with discernment and care. For me, last week’s fundamental journey to Iceland, largely beyond the echo chambers of placemaking and policy, was a primer on the very underpinnings of human movement, settlement and consequent urbanization.

To supplement this limited introduction to Iceland’s sense of place, I urge readers to consult a wealth of available information about other, equally relevant aspects of the country, such as an atmosphere nearly free of pollutants and the successes of sustainable geothermal energy—not to mention the long, dramatic history of colonization, postwar independence, emergence from poverty and contemporary reinvention after the 2008 financial crisis (symbolized by the remarkable success of Reykjavik’s unique Mayor, Jón Gnarr).

This post first appeared in similar form at The Atlantic Cities, here.

Thanks particularly to Mark Johnson of Civitas, whose proud Icelandic heritage gave me a crash course in Iceland that fostered a much keener eye.

Images composed by the author in Iceland. Click on each image for more detail. © 2009-2013 myurbanist. All Rights Reserved. Do not copy.

Successful integration of nature and the city is a hallmark of sustainability. Sometimes it occurs without effort or provocation, while other times it results from  projects or plans. In both instances, the natural and artificial merge, morph and redefine urban reality going forward.

Last week, on a Seattle winter evening, my dog and I stood at a neighborhood street corner in a spontaneous meeting with an urban coyote who, for several moments, owned my neighborhood pavement with conviction. Upon our rounding a corner and coming face-to-face, the  coyote cast a long stare (with those “I am not a pet” eyes I once saw in Africa), turned around, and moved on.  For this feral, walkable urbanist, the city sidewalk was clearly as customary a migration route as wooded paths or the open plain.

Several recent articles address the growing presence of coyotes in urban areas as an indicator of changing relationships between the city and larger, surrounding ecosystems.  Whether considered pests or admirable interlopers, they are increasingly sharing (PDF) our places and spaces.

A landscape architect friend explained this integration as a merger of surrounding nature with urban culture and physical form, two things that need not be as distinct as we might expect.  In my recent experience, no longer separate from the city, an animal corridor aligned with the sidewalk, a mainstay of  urban transportation.  I saw a spontaneous integration of nature and the city without any “urban sustainability plan” in place to allow indigenous wildlife safe passage on city streets.

This “city in nature” is not the same as calculated insertions of “nature in the city”, where artificial edifices are more systematically undone and replaced with fundamental green.  I recently saw a good example of the latter across the world, while touring the Madrid Rio Project (PDF) by bicycle. This large-scale linear park was built as the M-30 motorway relocated within a submerged tunnel, allowing for restoration of the Manzanares River above.

There, I spoke with another landscape architect about what it means to reprogram places from built to natural. In particular, we discussed a former motorway ramp (shown here) that now displays greened pedestrian space imposed on the former roadway, complemented by its  elegant (and once autocentric) river-hugging form and artful curve.  He explained the approach: At core, there is nothing natural in the city, he said, and anything we can do that resonates with the public and creates a sustainable result, is defensible, proper and legitimate.

Through the experiences described here, and the respective views of the two landscape architects, I’ve learned more than expected about the ways urban and natural systems can merge and redefine.  Whether nature embraces the city by coyote habitat adopting urban infrastructure, or a project brings back nature to the city, such as in Madrid, there are some common themes to consider.

• Few themes are more basic than the intersection of nature and the urban environment.
• This theme is  elemental to urban ecologists and landscape architects as well, to whom habitat restoration can play a key project role.
• As championed by Harvard Professor Joan Busquets, the most sustainable cities integrate natural geography and systems into the urban fabric.
• The first landscape architect is right in his observation that nature, culture and physical form–once separated, now more easily merge.
• The second landscape architect is also right; multiple approaches exist to introduce the natural to the built environments, and  innovation that resonates—from greened ramps to restored beaches to vertical gardens—need not honor authenticity or precedent if done sustainably.

In the end, watching the coyote’s use of the sidewalk also taught me that while there is arguably nothing natural in the constructed city, the proposition has its exceptions, or compromises. For instance, in addition to common advice about coexistence with urban coyotes—such as protecting small pets at night, there is a larger issue at play:  From multiple perspectives, the role of nature and the city will continue to realign.

In fact, before too long, our cities’ versions of Madrid’s green, repurposed motorway ramp  may have some non-human users along the way.

All images composed by the author in Seattle and Madrid. Click on each image for more detail. © 2009-2013 myurbanist. All Rights Reserved. Do not copy.

Today’s post first appeared in similar form in THe Atlantic Cities, here.

The actor and director Orson Welles once said:

“I dont believe in learning from other people’s pictures. I think you should learn from your own interior vision of things and discover, as I say, Innocently, as though there had never been anybody.”

I agree, and apply Welles’ point of view to portrayal and comprehension of the urban environment. I learn about cities by shuffling my own photographs—not others’—and comparing similar human activities in different places.

For me. what stands out in this case?

Four contrasting photos of the American crosswalk and Barcelona’s Las Ramblas show direct, inspirational differences in the relation between people and public rights of way. Determined, mechanistic crossings on the left contrast with the ambiance of street life on the right. Photos like these freeze the activity in view, allowing novel dissection of everyday transactions which we otherwise take for granted.

In the American crosswalks, I see the pedestrians in separate spaces, on their way to a distant elsewhere, and not part of the street they traverse. Their perpendicular disconnection with the right of way is particularly clear from my camera’s vantage point.

In Barcelona, the vantage point on a walking street merges with the activity around it. There is a unity of people with their surroundings, and stares are not empty, but engaged with the adjacent place.

From thoughtful composition of one’s own, simple urban photographs, stories unfold, which both define problems and suggest solutions. But in their own experience, regardless of the imagery, some readers may prefer a crosswalk’s anonymity to the proximity (and pickpockets) of walking streets and tourist lore.

Those individual preferences make my very point. Here, rather than dictate walkability to others with my pictures, I show and tell.

However, like Orson Welles, I urge readers to think for themselves about what they see, and draw conclusions from their own vision, photos not required. Allowing for multiple perspectives about what is best in the city is a practice that I highly recommend.

This post first appeared in similar form in The Atlantic Cities, here.

Images composed by the author in Seattle and Barcelona. Click on the image for more detail. © 2009-2013 myurbanist. All Rights Reserved. Do not copy.

I see this as a tilt to the qualitative aspects of the urban experience—an approach I believe should stay as a lynchpin of evolving urbanism.

I find that when writing outside of the confines of my “day job” as a lawyer, I usually pursue these qualitative aspects.  I like to emphasize the impressionistic and, essentially more etherial, emotional “bookmarks” of experiences in cities around the world.  By and large, these bookmarks recall modern expressions of traditional urban life. Together, they are a useful summary of evolving human experience in the city.

As background to work on my forthcoming book, I itemized and illustrated several of these more qualitative bookmarks while traveling last year.  Here is the result, combined with learning from earlier travels, and framed, as “ten urban qualities we need to see more”.

Spontaneous competition in simple places

The aspects of the city that avoid rigid regularity are among the most interesting and memorable. Here, an empty storefront provides the stage for competing glass providers to advertise with several different labels. Commercial needs drive unpredictable results in even the simplest of situations.

Signage with a direct message 

Commercial signage also provides a prime venue for urban observations. When such signage carries a lifestyle or political message in direct form, the purpose of the associated business is clear. In this urban place, living animals prevail, without question.

Wood-framed storefronts and proud displays

>

Natural building materials give an organic sense of invitation to an otherwise ordinary world of metal and cement. While not possible in all climates, and demanding of maintenance, wood-framed retail establishments punctuate their surroundings. Passersby are often drawn to these exteriors based on variety, color and well-presented merchandise within.

Water features that emulate nature, in context

While not always allowable for health and safety reasons, water features in the public domain emulate spontaneous puddles, pools and streams of urban times gone by. Just as sidewalk tables or benches give a human scale to the street, careful placement of water complements greenery and presents the unexpected. There are lessons learned from such small-scale improvements, especially if they are linked together in a restored natural system, or meet a dual aesthetic and drainage purpose.

Classy blokes in front of classy places

“Third places” with character, such as local bars, are nothing new. Rather than mandate all alcohol consumption occur within, outdoor customers can provide ambiance and interface with daily life. Such street interface need not be uncivil, and, in this case, resounds with local character.

Commercial porches, with color and vantage points to the street

Some parts of the world present traditional architectural styles that mix commercial and residential uses, and offer “eyes on the street” from open verandas above. This is a logical, and not artificially segregated approach to neighborhood. Rich color often enhances such traditional building form.

Spectacular examples of shopping tradition

Debates about density often lack a rich visual record of active, close-knit community. In this case, a shopping day crowd fills city spaces in a comfortable way, consistent with local culture. While not adaptable to all cities without permanent or scheduled pedestrian uses of rights-of-way, this example shows dynamic potential of which many are not otherwise aware.

Young children in open squares

One of the universal aspects of safe urban open space is a place for children to explore at more than arm’s length from parents or family. The most simple human experience, such as viewing a shadow, also becomes touching theater to nearby observers. This photograph is a challenge and a test–can children safely act the same way near where you live?

Culturally indigenous engravings in the built environment

Another universal and traditional pattern is for the built environment to reflect important cultural aspects of its builders. In Portugal, a common feature of public squares reflects the ocean, is important to a historically seafaring people, and walking produces a feeling of the rolling sea. Have we lost unity of purpose that such places can no longer be built?

Merger of family and business in fundamental ways

Here, family and small city roadside business merge with indescribable precision, reminding us of fundamentals we should not forget. Commercial transactions and family purpose were once commonplace. The evolving city, with increasing mixed uses and work close to home, might learn from images such as this one.

All images composed by the author in the United States, Australia, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Malta and Tanzania. Click on each image for more detail. © 2009-2013 myurbanist. All Rights Reserved. Do not copy.

This post first appeared in The Atlantic Cities in similar form. Click here.

Here is one more of my eleven favorite night city photographs from 2011 and 2012 that will hang for the month of February at Cafe Verite’s Madrona location in Seattle. An earlier post summarizes my theme, which focuses on “meetings” of light, people and the built environment.

Three of the photographs will also appear in my upcoming book, Urbanism Without Effort, (Island Press, 2013). One is the likely cover photo.

For Seattle locals (or if you will be visiting), stay tuned for notice of a small gathering during the month.  Mini-cupcakes will add to the ambience my several snapshots of the 24 hour city.

All images composed by the author in Vancouver, British Columbia. Click on image for more detail.  © 2009-2013 myurbanist.  All Rights Reserved.  Do not copy.

I find that often, an excess of verbiage in a blog post detracts from an urban image. In cases where a natural setting blends with the built environment, the best summation is within the reader’s review and contemplation.

So, I will offer just one observation: Even without a devastating storm, our structures are easily overshadowed by daily expressions of climate nearby.

Image composed by the author. Click on image for more detail. © 2009-2013 myurbanist. All Rights Reserved. Do not copy.

Gatsby’s green light, urbanism-style?

In order to reckon with today’s urbanism, I suggest challenging your dreams and, like The Great Gatsby, the American Dream itself.

Recently, I went into a restaurant in a trendy urban neighborhood, excited by the prospect of something new in a former light industrial space. At first glance, I assumed a dream fulfilled, featuring more of what’s needed in a changing, post-recessionary city: Awnings with street appeal, a hybrid French-Italian name, an angular entry off of the sidewalk with diminutive, curbside seating and an implied European, old-world charm.

After sitting down, I found a diverse, fusion menu, at odds with the exterior. Then, I focused on discordant building materials, lighting fixtures, doors, tables and chairs, and the sense of place became both nowhere and anywhere. While one wall displayed some photos of the former building use, in total, the ambiance became vintage antique and consignment store, all in one. The place was well-appointed, and the food and service very good, but the experience communicated to me an incompatible melange of urban adornment.

I left, reminded of one of my favorite quotations from American literature about American Dream, in the form of the “green light”, the enduring symbol of hope with which F. Scott Fitzgerald closed The Great Gatsby:

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther…. And then one fine morning—So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

I may suffer from too much concern for the naturally occurring, qualitative aspect of urban places and surrounding neighborhoods, but my story is hardly about chasing overly conventional dreams. I agree with Edwin Heathcoate’s January 11 reminder in The Financial Times, that a “beautiful” city may demand no more than modest, spontaneous moments of experience.

The chic beach couches

I have also championed the composite, evolving city that is in formation, where spaces—whether residential or commercial—are shared, morphed or recombined in ways different from before. And I will celebrate with everyone when the clearly novel and chic succeed, such as couches on the beach in Tel Aviv, or the ice cream laundromat that I have described in my neighborhood.

But in this case, an eclectic hodgepodge—without a more real relation to its context and surroundings—brought me an uneasy pause. Without a more authentic tie to place, I perceived an unrealized vision, one that could easily disappear if the economic recovery cannot sustain.

Is the search for good urbanism in American cities the latest manifestation of the American Dream, a quest so aptly perceived and critiqued by Fitzgerald in 1925?

If places are not implemented with care, and if they leave a sense of the overly artificial and concocted, we may collectively and forever chase The Great Gatsby‘s symbolic green light at the end of Daisy’s pier.

Images composed by the author. Click on each image for more detail. © 2009-2013 myurbanist. All Rights Reserved. Do not copy.

For me, this assertion is most interesting with illustrated detail. Photographs, I learned, tend to emphasize not only social activity and technological tools, but also the relationships of each to the city– visible through windows nearby.

Consider the three Seattle portrayals below. All show the merger of a public/private venue, technology and neighborhood from vantage points located both without and within.

Images of Seattle, Washington composed by the author. Click on each image for more detail. © 2009-2013 myurbanist. All Rights Reserved. Do not copy.