revisiting sustainable housing, politics and a basic pride of place

On July 18, 2015July 19, 2015 By Chuck WolfeIn compact development, everyday urbanism, housing, infill development, placemaking, politics, sustainability, urban administrationLeave a comment

In Seattle, the recent recommendations of the Mayor’s Housing and Livability Agenda (HALA) Advisory Committee have dominated civic discussion, particularly a small part of the HALA report that emphasizes more flexible housing types in single-family neighborhoods (e.g mother-in-law apartments and detached accessory dwelling units).

To some of Seattle’s mainstream media, images such as the one above—depicting a longstanding triplex in a Seattle residential neighborhood—are forgotten. Instead, Rome is burning, or, perhaps, with subconscious memory of the changes brought by the Great Seattle Fire of 1889, drastic change stands looming from the brown lawns of the historic heat wave of 2015.

In response, here is a timely republication of a post from last October, that also appeared in the Huffington Post, and, as digested, in Planetizen.

I began with a core question, and answer, about where and how we live: “What do the politics of urban housing have to do with a seasonal caravan park in Provence? For me, the answer is clear. Our political discussions, mired in jargon and positioning, often lose sight of a human pride of place inherent in even the simplest forms of shelter.”

Please read on.

A major American urban theme, today, addresses the challenge of maintaining housing affordability, and determining who should pay to insure available residences close to work and necessary services. Other themes include scrutiny of residential configurations, and debates over how small is too small for today’s dwelling unit size. In Seattle, various stakeholders, from elected officials to developers and nonprofits, continue jousting over an arguably not-ready-for-prime-time housing linkage proposal and new limitations on the size of micro-housing units. A new Advisory Committee will attempt a varied tool-based cure [as of October, 2014].

I recently keynoted a Seattle housing non-profit’s annual breakfast. There, I had to answer a big question: What, exactly, is affordable housing? My answer simply stated that people need affordable access to the sought-after elements of urban life. To paraphrase, people need affordable access to homes of whatever size and shape that they can take pride in.

When people take pride in where they live, their homes’ appearance shows a bonding with the place, often with considered ingenuity.

This ingenuity is clear at the Domaine du Pin de la Lègue (a 53 year-old caravan park near Fréjus, France). From the Domaine, I asked myself last month, why not focus on how to see and decode the expressions of people’s pride in and around the walls and ceilings that protect them?

I am talking about the basic decorator and landscaper within us all, our human tendency to create a sense of comfort with the outside world so that we blend more easily with where we live.

The Domaine du Pin de la Lègue is, in American terms, a seasonal manufactured housing community. Some stay almost all year but most people are in residence for short vacations. Either way, there are a range of services nearby, including a grocery store, a produce store, a butcher and deli, a hairdresser, restaurants and more. There’s an outdoor cinema, tennis courts, a lending library, several pools, boules (or pétanque) and plenty of summer events.

Most importantly, there is the pride of place surrounding the small living spaces in the homes all around, from clever retrofits to landscaping and rockeries befitting the best of single-family neighborhoods.

On a stroll, this pride is clear throughout the Domaine, where caravans become palaces amid dignified grounds. In the ways called for among some urban redevelopment movements today, small-scale innovation is on display—it’s a locale where the plot-based, lean and pop-up urbanism movements of the United Kingdom and the United States merge with some admirable diversity.

Admittedly, it’s more campground than the best of Paris, and that’s really the point, as the illustrations here make clear. But unlike a campground, the surroundings are not disassembled. Rather, like a neighborhood, the homes become nurtured, planted around, and modified in functional ways.

People don’t need expensive building materials, identities or complex regulatory tools to find a pride of place. Rather, we carry with us the ability to mine pride from place, even in places that are, perhaps, least expected to shine.

Images composed by the author in Seattle, and at the Domaine du Pin de la Lègue, outside Fréjus, France. Click on the images for more detail. © 2009-2015 myurbanist. All Rights Reserved. Do not copy.

For more information on the role of personal experience in understanding the changing city, see Urbanism Without Effort, an e-book from Island Press.

towards canine equity in the city

On November 22, 2014November 22, 2014 By Chuck WolfeIn everyday urbanism, pedestrianism, politics, urban views, urbanism without effort, vignettes5 Comments

Now is the time for the urban dog.

One of the most immediate cultural distinctions a traveler notices in France is omnipresent,well-behaved dogs, often quite unlike their detached American cousins (perhaps including my own). In a matter of a few weeks, I have assembled a mental diary of locational examples that illuminated the integrated role of multi-modal canine life.

Examples included sitting on adjacent train seats, in restaurant diners’ laps and on park benches next to owners. Not to mention my almost tripping over many, child-like, aisle-shopping companions.

These observations remind me, frankly, that we often regulate away the opportunity for certain, traditional life-enhancements in the interest of public health, something that probably made sense in a more feral age.

But if we are truly on the way to inevitable urbanization, I vote for the extension of the mixed use, sharable spirit to enable more equity for the urban canine.

I, for one, don’t mind sitting next to a well-behaved poodle, or shopping with dogs in both the Gucci in Cannes, as well as the Guccy Wawa located a few towns away.

For more information on the role of personal experience in understanding the changing city, see Urbanism Without Effort, an e-book from Island Press.

clarifying urban property rights, without effort

On August 4, 2014August 4, 2014 By Chuck WolfeIn everyday urbanism, infill development, pedestrianism, placemaking, politics, urban views, vignettesLeave a comment

An entry in the new series, depicting the common sense dimensions of urban places

In today’s shareable city, there are some things—like driveway access—that are difficult for many people to surrender to chance. In this case, the means of communication, both inadvertent and direct, caught my eye for inclusion in this “common sense” series.

Over a year after publication of Urbanism Without Effort, I still come upon memorable, unique images of small-scale urban representations of standard human fare. In this instance, near dusk, my Sony A7S recorded a simple, private rights assertion next to public rights of way.

Consider this adaptation of what could well be a leftover holiday lawn ornament, a likely award winner in a conjectural “you can’t make this stuff up” competition.

As I’ve said many times: The urbanism we already have is often the best urbanism of all.

For more information on the role of personal experience in understanding the changing city, see Urbanism Without Effort, an e-book from Island Press.

why do we write about cities?

On March 30, 2014March 30, 2014 By Chuck WolfeIn everyday urbanism, infrastructure, placemaking, politics, sustainability, urbanism without effort1 Comment

When we write about cities, sometimes we do best when we take the metrics away.

In 2011, amid a visit to San Francisco and just back from Africa, I offered some thoughts about why we write about cities. Three years later, I’m not sure much has changed.

I continue to believe that visiting and photographing cities worldwide can take the metrics away, often amid economic boom, or bust, next to revolution or facing or remembering the challenge of reconstruction. In such settings, qualitative and interactive experiences and comparison seem more important than documenting carbon emissions, census data, rankings or ratings.

While data and catch-phrases have merit to enhance background principles and to support goals, so does the sense of wonder with which people explain where they live, and ask about how other places are different, day-to-day, at the human scale.

Witness the frustrated commuter, who will authentically share perceptions, no matter the transportation mode. People will earnestly talk about neighborhood safety, a sense of economic well-being or challenge and satisfaction or concerns about a child’s education. With sincerity, others will refer to the weather, green or water surroundings or the music of place and time.

And transfixed, the world listens to and watches revolutions and disaster, where the urban setting is entirely disoriented and must rebuild again.

The fundamental reason that successful cities resonate is because they satisfy and/or complement some very basic human needs, often related to mental and physical health: congregation, safety, and the three “e’s” of education, environment and economy. In our policy and regulatory discussion of such urban settings, I continue to think we might perform at a higher level by starting with reminders of the core: the basic human needs which cities can give, or frustrate.

Only after acknowledging the fundamentals—and pausing to watch and listen— should we debate the circular arguments of ends versus means.

For more information on the role of personal experience in understanding the changing city, see Urbanism Without Effort, an e-book from Island Press.

revisiting a simple basis for common ground in urban settings

On February 9, 2014 By Chuck WolfeIn everyday urbanism, placemaking, politics, sustainability, urban administration, urban juxtapositions, urban views, urbanism without effortLeave a comment

A footnote to the new series, in the urban world, juxtapositions matter

Today, with snow on the ground in our region, some tongue-in-cheek Facebook threads with writer and friend Knute Berger, and later with Bellevue, Washington City Council Member John Stokes, alluded to the common bond and unifying effect of a snowfall.

In response to a Facebook version of the photograph above, in which I mocked an “envious” Seattle urbanist bird admiring Bellevue, Stokes wrote:

Nice little city we have over on this side of the lake, excellent photo. That bird is in a nice place too. Great region, unified today by Nature.

Much like my “placemaking” observations about the Seattle Seahawks’ Super Bowl parade in last Friday’s The Atlantic Cities, this social media chatter focused me on another spontaneous event that bridged political and economic boundaries as a common experience: a uniform, visible cover on the land.

I returned to one of my favorite pieces of writing, and a 35-year fascination with the concluding paragraph of James Joyce’s 1914 short story, “The Dead“, included in Dubliners.

The short story’s ending stressed—not so subtly—the unifying effect of snow spread uniformly over a divided Ireland:

Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

A bit ponderous, perhaps?

Of course. But for me, it is a déjà vu about the potential for common ground.

In college, I was even more ethereal on the same theme, in a short story about snowfall in Jerusalem. Emulating Joyce, I toyed with a seeming unity of snowfall in a divided city—something I have seen journalists imply a few occasions since. (In particular, a New York Times reference barely two months ago cited joint Israeli-Palestinian efforts to assure safe passage of Israeli officials from Ramallah back to Jerusalem).

This déjà vu is a clarifying footnote to why I have embarked on a series about urban juxtapositions, overlaps and overlays. Thanks to the snow, and the Seahawks’ parade, there now is a new gloss on the suburb/city-based ninth entry of a week ago.

I’m even more convinced that analysis and dialogue about cross-silo experiences can help avoid a divisive undercurrent to the ongoing refinement of urban best practices— beyond traditional monikers of city, suburb, region and neighborhood.

For more information on the role of personal experience in understanding the changing city,see Urbanism Without Effort, an e-book from Island Press.

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Category: politics

revisiting sustainable housing, politics and a basic pride of place

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towards canine equity in the city

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clarifying urban property rights, without effort

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why do we write about cities?

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