Often, to evoke the vision of an urbanist future, we reflect on images of public spaces borne of a sociocultural tradition from another place or time. But with all the talk about such walkable and compact, mixed use experiences, are we asking too much to bring the presumed richness of an evolved, world city to every American urbanist’s back yard?

Our November 15, 2009 myurbanist entry contained video walks through Rome’s Piazza Navona and Campo di Fiori at night. Here’s another video of Campo di Fiori, and a link to the story of the place:

A former field, the location of gallows for minor offenses, a juncture of streets devoted to trades, a market by day and a haven of night life: do we do injustice to rich history by assuming we can recreate the physical form produced by this “back story”?

A few years ago, while on sabbatical from my law firm, I made a presentation that asked Cornell University students studying in Rome to reflect on the context of what they had learned. A summary of the handout appears below.

The issue of context graced the handout, just as it graces the dilemma of imposing patterns from another history on an American urban pattern.

As noted, this dilemma may yield more questions than certainty in changing times.

Rome contains some of the world’s most successful “public spaces”. Assume you are an American planning director who receives a request from a city council member who has just returned from a trip to Rome. The council member wants to pressure local mall redevelopers to create a space reminiscent of Campo di Fiori at the center of a 1960’s era shopping mall which is subject to pending development approvals for a multi-million dollar renovation. What features can you insert in the development agreement draft to attempt such ambiance? Can successful public spaces be successfully legislated?