Contributor Blog

If you’ve ever worked in distressed communities, you’ve faced the dilemma that there simply is no private market for what you want to see built.  You can chip away at the problem of vacant land with thoughtful affordable housing developments or, if you’re lucky, a new recreation center but by and large, large amounts of vacancy remain and impact the psyche of those that live nearby.  So working closely with residents, and really listening, has sparked a whole new sub-discipline in our world of urban planning and design - temporary use. 

The shrinking cities movement shined a light on the potential of ad-hoc reuse and programming some time ago but so too has groups like the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society

I previously lamented the apparent death of industrial use in our cities by the widespread application of terms like “post-industrial” and “rust-belt.”  While semantics is an issue, let’s not forget that design matters and, in terms of industrial use, it hasn’t seemed to matter enough in recent years.    

In times past, industrial use was often a form of pride.  Many of the hulking, multi-story industrial buildings in older cities are (still) beautiful additions to our cityscapes.  In some cities, those that went vacant have spawned a new form of urban scavenge hunting by those seeking to fuel their appreciation for our industrial past through photography and exploration.  Think as well of the WPA posters, many of which used stylized industrial themes to promote our “American” identity. 

Thanks to the National Vacant Properties Campaign for another important conference on vacant properties - this time in Louisville.  I was duly impressed with the first conference on the subject a year and a half ago but what struck me this time was the growing diversity of voices concerned with the issue.

At the last conference, I (and I assume many others) had the feeling that it was a therapy session of sorts for like-minded spirits.  "Older industrial" cities were sharing information and ideas because, while all cities are unique, we share a lot of the same challenges.  

I never put much thought into the term “post-industrial.”  In my college and grad years, the phrase seemed to be used like candy – a ubiquitous summary of the current state of cities in the US.  The phrase implies a kind of death in our cities, an inability to retain the industries that spurred their very growth. 

Paterson?  Yeah Paterson, the City 13 miles to the west of NYC.  Birthplace of American industry, the “Silk City” founded by Alexander Hamilton and designed by Washington DC’s master planner Pierre Charles L’Enfant.  Besides textiles, Paterson was home to the first repeating revolver, first submarine and the Rogers Locomotive Works that, at one time, manufactured 80% of the Country’s locomotives.  Paterson is also home to the second largest waterfall in the northern hemisphere (Niagra Falls taking top honors of course) and a collection of foreign born residents so lar

One of the perks of my job is getting to know new cities and neighborhoods.  We research, create a lot of graphics and talk with a lot of people.  In the course of those discussions, while people often exhibit pride in where they live, there is also an underlying concern that frequently goes something like this:

• “We feel like a last place team – the one that can never get out of the cellar.”
• “There is a real self-image problem here.”
• “You can’t do that in [insert name of place here] because we

With the Olympics nicely coinciding with my vacation, I think I’ve watched more coverage of the games than the average human should. Prior to the start of the games, I followed with interest the story of how Beijing was re-fashioning itself to host the games. Much has been written on this subject from the loss of the city’s “hutongs” to the “distorted” messages conveyed by the starchitecture. Some have referred to Beijing as a “Houston on steroids.”

I was reading the New York Times Magazine special architecture issue a few weeks ago when something jumped out at me. On the intro page to the issue of the “Mega-Megalopolis” one of the by-line says “How does an architect plan for a city with no history? Or a city that just keeps growing?” Interesting questions particularly given the fact that to charge architects with the task of planning our cities is affording too much power to a profession that simply doesn’t have it.

We’ve all been subject to them – the endless powerpoint presentations that extol the worst aspects of animated text and mind-numbing bullet points. While Edward Tufte has written about the horrors of powerpoint, I see it as just a tool and like any tool it can be used wisely or poorly. After all, David Byrne, the former Talking Heads front man, makes art with powerpoint so it can’t be all bad. But one thing struck me at the American Planning Association’s (APA) conference two weeks ago: some sessions would have been much better if the powerpoint presentation (or abuse thereof) didn’t get in the way. In actuality, some of the best presentations I attended didn’t use powerpoint at all.

I think many planners, in principle, agree that public involvement and grass-roots approaches to planning are necessary. The emphasis on the sheer numbers of people a plan "includes" is only one recent example of our profession’s emphasis on public involvement. But I think deep down, many colleagues see a distinctive split between involving the public and empowering them to implement. Involving is necessary and important to get any plan endorsed. But once that plan is complete, the public (residents, business owners, local stakeholders) is many times not regarded as an implementation partner except perhaps in roles of advocacy.

Often times I’m struck by the advances we’ve made in mapping, modeling and depicting our cities.  What was once the purview of mapmakers, surveyors or architects is now a democratized, engaging process that brings unexpected results.  And the more advanced the technology, the more transparent our cities seem to become. 

Journalists and bloggers love to argue over city rankings which tend to multiply faster than the tribbles on star trek.  Which city is the friendliest?  What cities have the nicest parks?  What cities are the best places to live for mildly overweight divorcees between the ages of 32 and 34?  The data is scrutinized and then how it was interpreted lambasted as ridiculous.  And of course rankings are ridiculous.  Cities are too complex to boil down to a few numbers.

I had the opportunity to spend a day at the Vacant Properties conference late last month which, if you’re not familiar with the “movement,” you should be.  Granted it’s not for everyone.  At the opening plenary session, the moderator asked “who is here from a weak market city?”  A room full of hands went up with a collective giggle.  It felt like an AA meeting for cities.  Admitting you have a problem is the first step toward addressing it.   

Since making the switch from architecture to planning / urban design, I’ve been fascinated by the continuing dialogue that surrounds what we do to explain… what we do. There is less emphasis on this dialogue in architecture of course as the tacit assumption is that architects build. (I would say not all great architects need to build but this is a debate for a different setting.) What did often emerge in architecture was the common concern that “design” is not valued to the degree that it should. And why not? Architects spend anywhere from 5-6 years in school the majority of which is spent in studio learning how to design. Who wants to then enter the profession feeling like their education mis-led them?

Most people use the Summer months to re-connect with pastimes forgotten during winter months. It is this time of the year that sales soar both at the box office and in bookstores. Most normal people I know take trashy novels with them to the beach or submerge themselves in an entire season of 24 (which thanks to Netflix can be accomplished in a few intense evenings). I tend to lean toward the other extreme (although I have indulged in bad TV from time to time). My wife calls me a design geek because my bedside table is always full of design magazines, books and theory.

I’m not basing this quick observation on any specific historical research or book, so bear with me. Cities grow and shrink; in effect they change rapidly (although sometimes it doesn’t seem rapidly enough and at other times all too rapidly). Where we operate in that continuum I think shapes much of how we see our role as professionals. Planning to address either shrinking cities or growing ones can seem, at times, like totally different professions. A colleague of mine remarked that planning for shrinking cities is definitely a niche market. With so much discussion surrounding growth and how we grow, there is much less dialog that defines the opposite.

I would like to think that the overwhelming response to the question posed in the title would be a resounding, "No!"  I never gave the issue much thought before last week because frankly, I didn't really need to.  Working in a city like Philadelphia where the overwhelming percentage of proposed projects requires a zoning variance, we've trained ourselves to work within an imperfect system and make the best of what's at hand.  (It should be noted that Philadelphia is about to embark upon a process to re-vamp the zoning code, but that is for another post in the future).  More importantly, the issues faced by some neighborhoods go a lot deeper than zoning.  So why this post?

This post is a few weeks after the fact but the recent APA conference only solidified my resolution to say something.  In early April Teddy Cruz gave a lecture here in Philly at the School of Design.  For those of you not familiar with his work, he has a unique and thoughtful perspective on the relationships between culture, planning and design. 

I'm glad this blog to date has provided fertile ground both to challenge planning as a profession as well as to compliment planning when it happens to do something worthy.  In this spirit, I'd like to irritate many of my colleagues out there and definitively say that starchitects are not the problem. 

I wish I could play the role of Stephen Colbert and ridiculously declare the end to this debate, but alas, I do not have the television airtime (or wit) to make this point as effectively as I would like.  This forum will have to do.

A long time ago in a previous design office, I made the mistake of engaging a light rail fanatic in a debate about whether Peachtree Street in Atlanta should be adorned with a light rail line. The debate turned into a protracted email diatribe about the pros and cons of light rail and whether this specific idea made any sense.