Cities and Families Part I: Intro

While sorting through my stuff recently to prepare for my move to L.A., I came across an old issue of U.S. News & World Report, from June 8, 1998. I had saved this issue because it contained an article which I found interesting and relevant to what has long been a strong interest of mine, namely urban development. I uploaded the article, Cities That Work, by Brendan I. Koerner, so that readers can access it in pdf form, for educational purposes only, so I hope that makes it legal.

The article considers the then-nascent internet and computer technology age and suggests that cities can take advantage of that growing industry, but in order to do so, they must "take care of the basics." (The debate of whether internet and electronic technology will spread cities out or bring them tighter in together is an interesting discussion in itself, one that is well represented by comparing The World Is Flat by Thomas Friedman to Who's Your City? by Richard Florida.) It pairs six cities with aspects of effective planning--Vancouver, B.C. with attracting families; Minneapolis, MN with parks; Chattanooga, TN with the riverfront; Curitiba, Brazil with public transit; Tilburg, The Netherlands with careful budget management; and Melbourne, Australia with "smart design." The wealth of topics I could take on and the directions I could follow from this, for me, are mind boggling. Literally, my mind boggled.

I'd like to start by considering Vancouver's case because I think that the aspect of families is the least appreciated of the six. Cities, it seems to me, have recently relied very heavily on attracting DINK's, perhaps in hopes of maximizing the ratio of private spending to public services. Room should be made for DINK's, of course, but the bedrock of sustainable population growth will likely be stronger with a solid base of families. The issues that will attract families, furthermore, are issues that appeal to everyone else, at least to some extent. They may not seem like much, but I would argue that they are vital to a city's success, and not only in their ability to attract families. I plan, therefore, on covering the most important, as I see them, of these issues--education, crime/safety, and cleanliness--in more depth in upcoming posts, so stay tuned.

Considering a certificate in historic preservation...

For anyone interested in the history of urban development, there are many great case studies available, even our little town of St. Louis.

There's the early years of University City. The oldest known building in U City is the Sutter-Meyer farmhouse. The oldest one in Clayton is the Hanley House. A nice summary of the city's history is available here. I also came across this source that links to many of the histories of the municipalities of St. Louis. Affiliated with that last source and focused more on photos is this site. I also remember seeing something where people would hold up old photographs of St. Louis and stand where the photos were taken, which made for a really astounding effect, but I can't find it. If you know what I'm talking about and know where it is, please let me know.

(This is my excuse for a blog entry when I'm "busy." I hope to have something more substantial coming soon.)

Brother, can you spare a dollar?

A couple of weeks ago, on my way to work from the Metro station, I was greeted by a friendly man walking in my direction. He told me that his grandmother had recently perished in a fire; the incident was on all of the news broadcasts; and he was in dire straits. Would I be able to spare him some money? Seeing that I was considering the situation, he added that his wife had just committed suicide.

At this point, finding his troubles a little far-fetched, I began to doubt him. It's possible that he was telling the truth, but I believe most readers will think, as I did, that most likely this man was digging desperately for my sympathies, and using lies as a shovel. Rather than become offended that he would take me for a dope, though, I decided to give him something, mostly for one reason, as best described by one of my friends.

During a long walk, one of my friends said that when people on the street ask him for money, he generally gives them a dollar or so, because he knows that the person on the street will appreciate that dollar, no matter how he spends it, more than my friend himself will. It was under this logic that I decided to give my inquirer what I felt comfortable giving.

I decided to give a dollar. It seemed like a reasonable amount, something that I wouldn't regret later despite all of the graduate school tuition and undergraduate student loans that I have to look forward to. It's not enough for a meal, but it's a start. When the man received my dollar, however, his shoulders fell, his eyes rolled, and his face took on a look of extreme disappointment. At that moment, it seemed like I would have appreciated that dollar more than he did.

Will the incident prevent me from giving a dollar to other people who ask for money on the street? Probably not. Should I be angry at the man on the street for not being thankful? Should I be mad at myself for not being more generous? Should I be mad at the financial and social system that leads people to beg on the street? I don't know. But maybe one day I'll gain a better understanding and acceptance of the way things are. For now, one thing is clear; and it was best put into words by the great Ray Davies: it's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world. Except for Lola, of course.

Circuit Court Judge Overturns NorthSide Tax Credits

Paul McKee needed to prove that his plan for NorthSide, his proposed development in North Saint Louis City, was feasible and sound in order to receive large chunks of tax credits from the city and from Missouri. As Bill McLellan comically reported, McKee failed in that task when a circuit court judge nixed the city ordinance which had offered McKee the necessary tax increment financing for the project to be profitable as far as McKee was concerned. McKee, of course, is the incredibly successful owner, de jure or de facto, of Paric--his original construction company--and numerous spinoffs such as McEagle and Optimus. His companies have, or will, constructed and/or developed a number of significant projects in St. Louis--from Winghaven to the Kiel Opera House rehab.

As McLellan says, it may not be over since McKee can appeal the decision. But after having gone through all of the trouble, the complaints, and the winding red tape, McKee--entering his older years, handing off some of his business to his sons, and content with the contracts that his company has secured--is ready, I think, to give up on this project, at least on the scale that he has proposed so far. And frankly, I believe that's a good thing, no offense to Mr. McKee.

I agree with McLellan on many of his points, including the fact that there was no meat on McKee's skeleton of a plan. How McKee planned on selling all of his homes and the commercial space is beyond me, it's beyond McLellan, and I think it was beyond McKee, too. (Perhaps if he hadn't constructed Winghaven--more than 30 miles from downtown--there would be more demand for residences closer to the city, but that's another issue.) But can you blame him? It seems that deep down inside, McKee just wanted to help the City of St. Louis return to some degree of what it was at the beginning of the 20th century: one of the nation's largest and most important cities. (And if he could make a few millions of dollars during that, he wasn't going to complain.)

Daniel Burnham, mentioned in McLellan's article, said "Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. Remember that our sons and grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us. Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty. Think big." Burnham is best known for his Plan of Chicago. He was instrumental in that city's rebirth and was commissioned for many of the projects after the Great Chicago Fire. But the fire, by destroying everything so completely, presented the opportunity, as well as the necessity, for big plans. St. Louis City, fortunately, is not in that situation. What St. Louis needs, I think, is small plans, as McLellan suggests. Divided into its hundreds of tiny municipalities, St. Louis thrives on super-local tastes and flavors. McLellan gives the example of Soulard, but similar areas like the Delmar Loop and the Central West End provide evidence that St. Louis' best hope is in small developments, in the little plans. After all, when many small plans succeed, they too can "stir men's blood."

Book Review: Reyner Banham's Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies

Reyner Banham's writing has a wonderful flowing and entertaining style while maintaining an academic base. It therefore makes for a quick read, and an informative one. There are also many pictures, many of them taken by the author himself, of some of the more interesting architectural examples of the region.

Banham's purpose in writing the book is to set out four ecologies that have led the way to Los Angeles' unique urban arrangement: the beach (Surfurbia, as he calls it), the freeways (Autopia), the flatlands (The Plains of Id), and the foothills (Foothills; I guess creativity runs out at some point for everyone). Based on these four ecologies, Banham celebrates what he sees as the best aspects of L.A.'s development: beach-front lifestyles; the personal freedom provided by automobiles; an architectural style which mixes Spanish Colonial Revival with the mid-century modern architecture brought there by pre-WWII German exiles; and the expansion of residential and other architecture into, over, and seemingly hanging from the nearby foothills. Banham's other main point is that the early railroads, rather than the later highways, in the area led to L.A.'s current multi-modal form (as opposed to the traditional mono-centric urban form. The highways, meanwhile, simply followed the tracks of the railroads. "If there has to be a mechanistic interpretation, then it must be that the automobile and the architecture alike are the products of the Pacific Electric Railroad as a way of life." (p. 220)

Banham's adoration of Los Angeles, its design, and its planning carries the reader from chapter to chapter. He briefly mentions the environmental and social ills that are attributed to L.A., but never hints at the possibility that those ills are affected by the very design and planning which he loves. Despite whatever problems it may have, since L.A. has grown into the second largest city in the country, it seems that the format "works." This success, Branham suggests, contradicts the work of many authorities on planning. "Los Angeles threatens the intellectual repose and professional livelihood of many architects, artists, planners, and environmentalists because it breaks the rules of urban design that they promulgate in works and writings and teach to their students. In so far as Los Angeles performs the functions of a great city, in terms of its size, cosmopolitan style, creative energy, international influence, distinctive way of life and corporate personality... to the extent that Los Angeles has these qualities, then to that same extent all the most admired theorists of the present century, from the Futurists and Le Corbusier to Jane Jacobs and Sibyl Moholy-Nagy, have been wrong." (p. 218) Banham's main weakness, as I see it, is that the aforementioned ills undermine L.A.'s success, but to its credit, many other cities have the same problems, and more importantly, L.A. is currently trying to lessen or solve its problems: environmental and social.

From a more personal standpoint, I was hoping to gain some familiarity with Los Angeles by reading this book. Imagine how disappointed I was when I finished the book and went back to the foreward to the 2009 edition and found that "neither Los Angeles nor Banham read now as they did in the 1970's, or even in the 1990's." Nonetheless, in order to see L.A. the way he did, Banham had to adopt an approach to urban analysis that was different from his peers of the time. Anthony Vidler described Banham as "challenging his field of inquiry" and "attempting, sepcifically in Los Angeles, to reinvent how architectural and urban inquiry might proceed anew." Where some see kitsch, Banham sees architecture in the vein of pop art. Where some see bogged-down traffic, he sees a freedom of mobility. Where others see dull cubes, he sees efficient and simply elegant architecture fitting its warm climate. For this reinvented approach--or even for having the courage to take such a different approach--Banham's book is worthy of study by planners and designers.