This months APA Magazine, Planning had a wonderful Perspectives piece by Paul Farmer, the Chief Executive Officer of the APA. While this is only an excerpt, the entire piece spoke to the importance of interdisciplinary and organizational efforts to properly manage the historic character and context of American cities and landscapes. A pretty obvious point, yet rarely seen occurrence. I hope you enjoy what I found to be the most thought provoking excerpt. ...Both physical structure and neighborhood stories matter. As planners, we often talk of places that have history, character, or authenticity. Such places must have stories. In Shreveport, one of the Coke executives served on the Metropolitan Planning Commission for many years. During my two internships in 1968 and 1970, I often heard votes at the MPC being cast because an applicant was from a good family. This sounds all too familiar to many planners, who know that places can be damaged through good intentions. As planners, we read cities not just as observers or simply to understand them. Our prescriptive profession reads cities (and all places) so that we can use the knowledge to add, subtract, change, or engage in stewardship of our natural and built environments. What if we had the equivalent of book clubs for planners and our professional colleagues? What if we read cities together? Would more architects learn how to design for sloping sites as they became practicing urbanists steeped in knowledge of history, people, sites, and structures? Would more engineers set aside their handbooks to learn from the observational techniques of Holly White? Would more planners become active preservationists, involved with the National Trust for Historic Preservation or the International Council on Monuments and Sites? Just think what downtown Atlanta and so many other American cities might look like today if our book club had existed 50 years ago. Some of our work, of course, involves greenfield sites, and we need to become far better at getting the diagram right. For over 75 years we have built regions around the sewer pipe and the highway. Are we surprised at how they have turned out? We once knew how to design regions on greenfield sites. Wise people in Minneapolis decided that land along the Chain of Lakes, Minnehaha Creek, and the Mississippi River would be public forever. The great grid of Manhattan wisely includes a Central Park. It also wisely kept the old Indian trail along high ground, creating a street we know as Broadway as well as the great places where Broadway crosses the grid. We know them as Columbus Circle, Times Square (originally Longacre Square), Madison Square Park, and Washington Square. Similarly, Portland, Oregon, might not have gotten its city right without first getting its region right through growth management. The Pearl District might not have seen a rebirth if the region had sprawled. When reading cities, I find myself a fan of clashing grids, a bête noire of traffic engineers. Imagine San Francisco without the competing grids along Market Street, New Orleans without the French versus English grids along Canal Street, or Pittsburghs Golden Triangle without that same tension along Liberty Avenue. San Francisco has experienced decades of planning battles along the Market Street boundary. In New Orleans, the French Quarter remains distinctly different from the citys office district, but that outcome was in doubt before the Vieux Carre District was established. Pittsburghs downtown districts still tell the stories of the wharves and commerce of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, with differences that stem from different eras of commerce and trade — as in Atlanta, where two development eras are found in downtown and midtown. In San Francisco, explore the citys current development boom and the ongoing planning challenges. In New Orleans, see a city that continues its recovery from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. In Pittsburgh, walk into building lobbies along Grant Street to appreciate the corporate and governmental might that led to Renaissance I in the postwar era. See the rebirth of the Point as it transitioned from railroad use to Point State Park, with adjacent Gateway Center as perhaps the most successful implementation of Corbusiers idea of La Ville Radieuse. Then learn about Renaissance II, which guided the citys post-steel rebirth in the 1980s. Walk each of these cities and others as well. Read each one. Perhaps even create a book club that brings several professions together — and to the streets. Introduce colleagues to the joy of a busmans holiday, planner-style.
Posted on: Wed, 18 Jun 2014 01:09:30 +0000
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