is 'livable communities' just a code word for new urbanism?
or is the a depth to the Ahwahnee Principles that transcends stylistic nostalgia?
is our sustainable future based on adapting these principles into green urbanism?
Existing patterns of urban and suburban development seriously impair our quality of life. The symptoms are: more congestion and air pollution resulting from our increased dependence on automobiles, the loss of precious open space, the need for costly improvements to roads and public services, the inequitable distribution of economic resources, and the loss of a sense of community. By drawing upon the best from the past and the present, we can plan communities that will more successfully serve the needs of those who live and work within them. Such planning should adhere to certain fundamental principles.
My only real problem with New Urbanism is the tendency for Disney-fied historical styles to be implimented townwide in one fell swoop. Why the heck does it have to look like a Cape Cod Bungalow??? Maybe if I could bring myself to read a little more on the subject, this question would be answered?
rationalist; check out neo NU above for photos of non-Disney inspired New Urbanist community
I would argue that the concept of livable communities is best served by strategies that are simultaneously homogenous in some respects, while very context specific in others. You mention four: community, water, economic, form...
water/economic: these components are dependent on infrastructural availability, resource consumption, localized legislation/policy etc., yet are essentially homogenous among rural/urban communities
community/form: these components interject cultural, social, and historical based needs thus will tend to result in more locality-specific solutions
it has been said on this forum that 'formulaic planning is dumb planning', to which I would concur...but what about 'contextually-sensitive formulaic planning'?
On a side note...CNU XVI is in Austin next April...if anyone is interested.
p.s. I had no idea that Austin's mayor has an architectural background (albeit from A&M)! Three cheers for architects and civic involvement!
"it has been said on this forum that 'formulaic planning is dumb planning', to which I would concur...but what about 'contextually-sensitive formulaic planning'?"
it's still bad. context is a very loaded word. usually context is bandied about to mean stylistic homogeneity - build brick in brick neighborhoods. if "context" begins to mean social, technological, economic, ecological, and political context then you're starting to get somewhere, but if that's the case i don't think we're talking about new urbanism anymore.
lets see you're talkin on your cell phone listenin to your ipod text messaging and watching dvd's in your car. maybe this is why there's a breakdown in community?
vado, maybe if the nu crowd could understand that that is precisely the definition of community for the majority of young people these days, the whole tone of this conversation might be different.
when i communicated the phrase 'contextually sensitive, i didn't convey that my intent was to use the word in it's most hollistic sense. (i.e. context meaning the social, technological, economic, ecological, and political constructs that make a locality what it is and does)
this is precisely the issue i have with forms of impersonal, internet communications...the inability to communicate the whole picture of ones message (i'm one of you!)
i understand that the root cause of unsustainable (again, in it's most hollistic sense) civilizations as issues of unhealthy, misguided social constructs; mostly due to the fact that technology is doing laps around our innately human abilities. To quote Harvard psychologist Steve Pinker:
'Our minds are best suited to a past environment where the problems we faced concerned survival rather than the kinds fo problems that we face today.'
Anyways, back to:
Rollin down the street
talkin on my celly cell
jammin on my ipod...
Laid back
[with my mind on my dashboard
and my dashboard on my mind]...
(maybe I should leave the lyric-writing up to Vado)
i don't have a beef with new urbanism, just the name 'new urbanism'. it's old urbanism, but it's being built in the exurbs!
i live in a neighborhood that would fit the new urbanist prescription to a T, but it was built in 1910 and was a product of the new streetcar line that reached to here from downtown. similar to n.u., the houses are all of a similar style, are close together, are served by an alley system, and were all built within about 10 yrs. so the whole 'instant town' critique doesn't bother me much: these neighborhoods were developed just as quickly and with similar motives.
the major difference is that these older neighborhoods were on the periphery of downtown. now that the streetcars are gone, i can still walk downtown in about 20mins. while our n.u. town is 35 minutes drive away, outside the outer ring road on former horse farm land.
building a 'community' that is about getting away from all but your own kind of people is what new urbanism seems to be about in practice, if not in theory.
if given that the definition of community has changed quite a bit in the last 50 years, perhaps the way we plan cities should be changing as well. i'm not sure the ideal of children biking to school and playing catch with the next door neighbor really applies anymore. if we accept that new forms of community are about text messaging and sitting in front of the tube playing wii, then how does that affect the way we plan for a younger generation? i'm not at all sure it is the way many city planners would like things to be, but it is our contemporary reality. utopian solutions don't really address the problem.
i think the 'living in technology' scenario is a straw man, jafidler. even the most diehard gamers come up for air and talk to people. social interaction is a basic to human nature and a lot of it, amazingly enough, still happens face to face. maybe not about biking and catch (though biking, sprinklers, and kickball are still big in my neighborhood), but getting together for wii, text messaging while in groups at the shopping center, etc.
sw, that's exactly what i'm talking about. knowing that kids are spread out by the suburbs and their interests are very different from what they were when we were growing up, how can you facillitate social interaction, but do it on their terms? i'm not saying that we all have to live in our technological bubble, but i do think we need to acknowledge that technology has drastically changed modes of social interaction. how can we make life better given those terms? i'm not sure creating sidewalks is the answer.
but i see the kids walking and skating down the sidewalks to the shopping center, the body art emporia, the burrito shop, the skate shops and the coffee shops all the time!
I wish we would stop using the terms "Modern" and "New"
Wikipedia's definition of Modern - Modern generally means something that is "up-to-date", "new", or from the present time. The term was invented in the early 16th century to describe recent trends. -
To call something like Corb's Villa Savoy "modern" is crazy! No? Its no where near "up-to-date"and 1929 is not "present time" Sheeiit, the Acropolis was modern at a point in time.
What will we call architecture in 100 yrs? Ultra-neo-new-modernism
Wikipedia's definition of Modern Architecture - Modern architecture, not to be confused with 'contemporary architecture', is a term given to a number of building styles with similar characteristics, primarily the simplification of form and the elimination of ornament. The style was conceived early in the 20th century. Modern Architecture was adopted by many influential architects and architectural educators, however very few "Modern buildings" were built in the first half of the century. It gained popularity after the Second World War and became the dominant architectural style for institutional and corporate buildings for three decades. The exact characteristics and origins of Modern architecture are still open to interpretation and debate.
WTF? Haven't we come to conclusion of what the characteristics of Classical Architecture are?
Maybe its just the English language that kills me???
wAtS- good rant and this thread is as appropriate a place to have made it...
So I'm deconstructing the Ahwahnee Principles and I'm agreeing with most of them, but a few seem very naive or just plain out dated...
community principles
1. mixed-use aka complete and integrated communities [ok]
2 & 3. activities are within easy walking distance [check]
4. diversity in housing [ok]
5. range of job types [as if there is any control once walmart moves into town]
6. community = larger transit network. [ok]
7. The community should have a center focus [hmm - does a strip mall count?]
8. an ample supply of specialized open space in the form of squares, greens and parks whose frequent use is encouraged through placement and design. [wtf- who says that my specialized open space can be used by you? and If I don't want to use it- what are gonna do about it???]
9. 24/7 Public spaces. [ok, but I want to be able to sleep]
10. developed zones should have a well-defined edge, such as agricultural greenbelts or wildlife corridors [check- but how is this gonna be enforced?]
11. safe streets for pedestrians [ok]
12. preserve natural terrain, drainage and vegetation within parks or greenbelts. [opps! they already bulldozed those old trees and filled in that stream!]
13. The community design should help conserve resources and minimize waste. [now this is what I'm talking about]
14. efficient use of water. (gurggle :-)
15. The street orientation, the placement of buildings and the use of shading should contribute to the energy efficiency of the community. [this makes me happy]
Regional Principles
1. The regional land-use planning structure should be integrated within a larger transportation network built around transit rather than freeways.
2.greenbelt/wildlife corridors again
3. Regional institutions and services (government, stadiums, museums, etc.) should be located in the urban core. [WHO SAYS SO??? I want my suburban de minile collection, or the barnes foundation]
4. Materials and methods of construction should be specific to the region, exhibiting a continuity of history and culture and compatibility with the climate to encourage the development of local character and community identity. [But brick sucks for daylighting - give me a glass wall with proper shading any day!!!! history is dead, I live for tomorrow]
I don't know of any place that actually fits most of these criteria- even teh CNU designed places fall short on most- EIFS ain't regionally appropriate and white picket fences belong to the 1940s - not the 13 colonies, how about designing a wigwam or tepee if you want to be historic!
Treekiller - I would have to say that the word "strip" alludes to a non-central type entity.
number 10 can be solved w/ number 12...if they havent already filled and plowed
I think maybe a better approach than just settling on the rules put forward by New Urbanists is to look at cities that work.
For instance, I think Portland, Oregon is a fantastic city. Just in the area from downtown to the northern edge of the Pearl District, you find parks, stores, high-rises, low-rises, walkable areas, hipster culture, yuppie culture, strip-clubs, bars, skate shops, bookstores, Chinatown, industrial areas. In other words, you find a truly vital mix of functions -- not just a monoculture, and not just one type of development. Anyone and everyone can find something that appeals to them.
Portland embraces a number of New Urbanist values, but it also adds into the mix some "red light district" elements and a lot of cultural diversity. I kind of think that's what's missing from New Urbanism: some of the dirt and messiness that make cities vital. If Seaside had had a strip club and a dive bar, it wouldn't have been as easy to mock.
Good points, farwest. Maybe the perception of Disney-fication is a result of the stripping away of the "undesireable" elements of a community, and therefor to many of us, the reality of it. Aside from the sex trade, are there bums in Seaside? Homeless shelters? What about food banks, industrial trades, water treatment plants, night clubs, or a shop that'll sell me a Big Red vibrator no questions asked?
but how can you plan for the dirt and seedy elements???? when every city seems to be trying to regulate the redlight districts out of existence. Other then walter hood, there are few main stream designers planning for the down and out as part of main street. So how to qualify the necessity and desireability to have a little 'danger' as part of the street. We've become such a risk averse society that pleasure has also been eliminated as the powers that be try to make everything 'safe'.
we've traded freedom of choice for velvet shackles just to feel comfortable and lost many of our civil liberties. Look at NYC as a place that you must pay to enter. not much different when compared to disney or six flags.
Well there's sex in the sunny day
That shines down on Boylston street
And I love the U.S.A.
So share the modern world with me
'Cause I'm in love with the U.S.A. now
I'm in love with the modern world now
Put down your cigarette
And drop out of B.U.
Alright
That's right
Well out in the afternoon
Out in the arid plane
We'll share a modern love
Under suburban rain
And me in love with the U.S.A. now
And me in love with the modern world now
Put down the cigarette
And act like a true girl, oh.
Well out on route 9
It's bleak and nearly dying
Stop all this Greek(weak) stuff
And drop out of B.U.!
With me in love with the U.S.A. now
Me in love with the modern world now
Put down the cigarette
And drop out of high school, oh
Oh that's right.
Well I'm in love with the U.S.A. now
I'm in love with the modern world now
Put down the cigarette
And act like a true girl.
Well listen
Well the modern world is not so bad
Not like the students say
In fact I'd be in heaven
If you'd share the modern world with me
With me in love with the U.S.A. now
With me in love with the modern world now
Put down the cigarette
And share the modern world with me.
tk- I don't necessarily have a solution readily at hand, I just think it's a very good point. It resonates as something that I feel is missing from not just New Urbanist villages, but much of suburban America today. We try to regulate out these things under some sort of a Mother-Knows-Best-Dear mentality, and wind up with a less rich experience.
We can't plan for the dirt and seedy elements. But we also shouldn't be regulating them out of existence.
I think there's a place for the family friendly, scrubbed and polished community. Right now, it's called the suburbs. I hope it evolves into a more sustainable model--but I respect peoples' right to be free from strip clubs and dive bars and panhandlers.
I also think that there are gradations of seediness, places that are "just seedy" enough, without being truly terrifying. Like maybe the lower east side in new york in the mid-nineties. Or Old Town in Portland. (Any others?)
I hate it when cities (which, after all, are meant to be generators of every type of activity) clean up too much. It makes them feel sterile and dead.
more sex stores/strip bars are next to highway interchanges in the 'burbs then in the bright lights and big city... lax regulations and fewer neighbors, cheaper rents pull these activities out to the 'family freindly' zone... then there is the meth crisis of small town america - us city slicker still prefer our blow... so there is nothing inherently safe or sanitized about the levitowns of the world. most porn is produced in the ur suburb of LA - the valley... so how do we suck this sleeze back into times square, grand avenue, or the combat zone?
In a funny way, tk, that isolation of these activities is exactly the problem. It's the "bowling alone" syndrome. By putting all these "unsanitary" activities in their own dmz's, far removed from the rest of daily life, they become stigmatized, isolated, lonely activities. It's a form of social control and cultural sterilization.
(By the way, I'm not even talking about illegal activities like drug use. I'm talking about legal but seedy activities. Pornography, heavy drinking, being homeless, skateboarding, wearing funny clothes, dayglo hair, etc etc......)
Disneyfication.....
Regulation i think is a key part.
We don't know how to regulate for grime..
Also we (meaning many of the modern middle american population) don't want sleaze. Well we do but in the bathroom fingers and toes tapping.
If we don't first come to a basic understanding=acceptance of what is desired than the whole conversation is moot.
Times Square is not suppose to be sleeaze,, the visitors that many cities cater to now wouldn't feel comfortable.
As for Portland, it may have sleaze...
However, a friend of mine made a recent comment when she visited.
The city seems to expouse all these greats ideals of livable community, progressive etc.
Yet the population is, fairly homogenous....
Anyways.
Kind of off topic.
As for the new forms of communal interaction. Technology is new but also just as easily commodofied.
Even right now i am typing this up in a coffee shop.
Ahh the whorror
indianapolis magazine recently had a story about all the "massage" parlors that have been cropping up in the wealthy suburb of carmel. the story did not have a happy ending.
isn't "sleaze" also just another trendy architectural expression of urbanism? who here really visits red light districts, porn shops, etc.? i'm guessing not many of us, but it's cool for architects to be down with sleaze, graffiti, deviance, etc.
i'm still far more interested in designing for razr-toting suburban teens. designed sleaze is just as fabricated as seaside.
@ jafidler,
I can't speak for anyone else, and i am not a real or even fake architect just a friend and admirer.
But i do visit those establishments at least occasionally,
And i make use of other unsavory, "sleaze" elements of city life,
i am not sure you can design sleaze if so your right it would be no better/different than Seaside,
Yet,
i think one can design space for sleaze to exist...
As for Razr-toting teens from the suburbs..
I can only think that here one needs to be aware of the new forms of communication outlined or mentioned above.
However even here space needs to be provided for the virtual forms of interaction to occur.
"However even here space needs to be provided for the virtual forms of interaction to occur."
absolutely, this is what i find exciting.
in regards to the sleaze, i live about four blocks from a strip club. i haven't ever gone into it, not for any moral reasons, i'm just not particularly interested. i pass it quite often on walks. the people that go there are usually fairly obnoxious suburbanites and wanna-be detroit gangstas. yes, it brings some sort of street life i suppose, but i think an ordinary bar would probably do as much, if not more. on a scale of one to ten of my urban priorities, a good red light district is about a two. it just doesn't seem as important as the responses in this thread might imply.
I absolutely agree, sleaze in the forms of strip clubs and red light districts are not at the top of my short list of important urban attributes,
Although i can appreciate such elements on some sort of aesthetic basic....?
However i think the trend towards de-sleazing cities steps beyond the bounds of simply cleaning up or getting rid of red-light districts to cleaning up all sorts of other "undesirable urban elements", sometimes to the point at which urban has been de-urbanized (in my humble opinion)
As for "However even here space needs to be provided for the virtual forms of interaction to occur."
I think one needs to be careful here, this doesn't just mean designer computer rooms, where this activity can take place in a artificially lit and sterile IT center.....There needs to be some sort of interpretative aspect.....
Any ideas??????? How can we extend beyond the statement to actual practice?
"a space for the virtual forms of interaction to occur."
nam, it's not a very satisfying response, but for me, it goes back to the social, technological, economic, ecological, and technological context of the design. there's not going to be a one off response (the problem the new urbanists have gotten themselves into). steven's above example of punks skating to the local tattoo parlor sounds to me like a post-apocolyptic maybury, very different from the wealthy, extremely mobile disaffected youth of bloomfield hills, mi. i believe there's good design possible for both scenarios, but it's not going to be the same design.
livable communities
is 'livable communities' just a code word for new urbanism?
or is the a depth to the Ahwahnee Principles that transcends stylistic nostalgia?
is our sustainable future based on adapting these principles into green urbanism?
Existing patterns of urban and suburban development seriously impair our quality of life. The symptoms are: more congestion and air pollution resulting from our increased dependence on automobiles, the loss of precious open space, the need for costly improvements to roads and public services, the inequitable distribution of economic resources, and the loss of a sense of community. By drawing upon the best from the past and the present, we can plan communities that will more successfully serve the needs of those who live and work within them. Such planning should adhere to certain fundamental principles.
community principles
water principles
economic principles
form based codes
archinect seems to hate new urbanism- a few of the recent discussions on the subject include:
sprawl
gilmore girls
neo NU
is the CNU just a cult of personality, or is there some valid lessons to be learned?
My only real problem with New Urbanism is the tendency for Disney-fied historical styles to be implimented townwide in one fell swoop. Why the heck does it have to look like a Cape Cod Bungalow??? Maybe if I could bring myself to read a little more on the subject, this question would be answered?
rationalist; check out neo NU above for photos of non-Disney inspired New Urbanist community
I would argue that the concept of livable communities is best served by strategies that are simultaneously homogenous in some respects, while very context specific in others. You mention four: community, water, economic, form...
water/economic: these components are dependent on infrastructural availability, resource consumption, localized legislation/policy etc., yet are essentially homogenous among rural/urban communities
community/form: these components interject cultural, social, and historical based needs thus will tend to result in more locality-specific solutions
it has been said on this forum that 'formulaic planning is dumb planning', to which I would concur...but what about 'contextually-sensitive formulaic planning'?
On a side note...CNU XVI is in Austin next April...if anyone is interested.
p.s. I had no idea that Austin's mayor has an architectural background (albeit from A&M)! Three cheers for architects and civic involvement!
"it has been said on this forum that 'formulaic planning is dumb planning', to which I would concur...but what about 'contextually-sensitive formulaic planning'?"
it's still bad. context is a very loaded word. usually context is bandied about to mean stylistic homogeneity - build brick in brick neighborhoods. if "context" begins to mean social, technological, economic, ecological, and political context then you're starting to get somewhere, but if that's the case i don't think we're talking about new urbanism anymore.
lets see you're talkin on your cell phone listenin to your ipod text messaging and watching dvd's in your car. maybe this is why there's a breakdown in community?
vado, maybe if the nu crowd could understand that that is precisely the definition of community for the majority of young people these days, the whole tone of this conversation might be different.
yeah well that don't make for successful lifestyle centers for the kids to spend their allowances at.
when i communicated the phrase 'contextually sensitive, i didn't convey that my intent was to use the word in it's most hollistic sense. (i.e. context meaning the social, technological, economic, ecological, and political constructs that make a locality what it is and does)
this is precisely the issue i have with forms of impersonal, internet communications...the inability to communicate the whole picture of ones message (i'm one of you!)
i understand that the root cause of unsustainable (again, in it's most hollistic sense) civilizations as issues of unhealthy, misguided social constructs; mostly due to the fact that technology is doing laps around our innately human abilities. To quote Harvard psychologist Steve Pinker:
'Our minds are best suited to a past environment where the problems we faced concerned survival rather than the kinds fo problems that we face today.'
Anyways, back to:
Rollin down the street
talkin on my celly cell
jammin on my ipod...
Laid back
[with my mind on my dashboard
and my dashboard on my mind]...
(maybe I should leave the lyric-writing up to Vado)
i don't have a beef with new urbanism, just the name 'new urbanism'. it's old urbanism, but it's being built in the exurbs!
i live in a neighborhood that would fit the new urbanist prescription to a T, but it was built in 1910 and was a product of the new streetcar line that reached to here from downtown. similar to n.u., the houses are all of a similar style, are close together, are served by an alley system, and were all built within about 10 yrs. so the whole 'instant town' critique doesn't bother me much: these neighborhoods were developed just as quickly and with similar motives.
the major difference is that these older neighborhoods were on the periphery of downtown. now that the streetcars are gone, i can still walk downtown in about 20mins. while our n.u. town is 35 minutes drive away, outside the outer ring road on former horse farm land.
building a 'community' that is about getting away from all but your own kind of people is what new urbanism seems to be about in practice, if not in theory.
if given that the definition of community has changed quite a bit in the last 50 years, perhaps the way we plan cities should be changing as well. i'm not sure the ideal of children biking to school and playing catch with the next door neighbor really applies anymore. if we accept that new forms of community are about text messaging and sitting in front of the tube playing wii, then how does that affect the way we plan for a younger generation? i'm not at all sure it is the way many city planners would like things to be, but it is our contemporary reality. utopian solutions don't really address the problem.
i live in a new urbanist neighborhood that was built about a hunnert and twenty years ago.
i think the 'living in technology' scenario is a straw man, jafidler. even the most diehard gamers come up for air and talk to people. social interaction is a basic to human nature and a lot of it, amazingly enough, still happens face to face. maybe not about biking and catch (though biking, sprinklers, and kickball are still big in my neighborhood), but getting together for wii, text messaging while in groups at the shopping center, etc.
sw, that's exactly what i'm talking about. knowing that kids are spread out by the suburbs and their interests are very different from what they were when we were growing up, how can you facillitate social interaction, but do it on their terms? i'm not saying that we all have to live in our technological bubble, but i do think we need to acknowledge that technology has drastically changed modes of social interaction. how can we make life better given those terms? i'm not sure creating sidewalks is the answer.
but i see the kids walking and skating down the sidewalks to the shopping center, the body art emporia, the burrito shop, the skate shops and the coffee shops all the time!
I wish we would stop using the terms "Modern" and "New"
Wikipedia's definition of Modern - Modern generally means something that is "up-to-date", "new", or from the present time. The term was invented in the early 16th century to describe recent trends. -
To call something like Corb's Villa Savoy "modern" is crazy! No? Its no where near "up-to-date"and 1929 is not "present time" Sheeiit, the Acropolis was modern at a point in time.
What will we call architecture in 100 yrs? Ultra-neo-new-modernism
Wikipedia's definition of Modern Architecture - Modern architecture, not to be confused with 'contemporary architecture', is a term given to a number of building styles with similar characteristics, primarily the simplification of form and the elimination of ornament. The style was conceived early in the 20th century. Modern Architecture was adopted by many influential architects and architectural educators, however very few "Modern buildings" were built in the first half of the century. It gained popularity after the Second World War and became the dominant architectural style for institutional and corporate buildings for three decades. The exact characteristics and origins of Modern architecture are still open to interpretation and debate.
WTF? Haven't we come to conclusion of what the characteristics of Classical Architecture are?
Maybe its just the English language that kills me???
how can we define something if we dont even know what the hell it is?
Sorry to get off topic...carry on!
wAtS- good rant and this thread is as appropriate a place to have made it...
So I'm deconstructing the Ahwahnee Principles and I'm agreeing with most of them, but a few seem very naive or just plain out dated...
community principles
1. mixed-use aka complete and integrated communities [ok]
2 & 3. activities are within easy walking distance [check]
4. diversity in housing [ok]
5. range of job types [as if there is any control once walmart moves into town]
6. community = larger transit network. [ok]
7. The community should have a center focus [hmm - does a strip mall count?]
8. an ample supply of specialized open space in the form of squares, greens and parks whose frequent use is encouraged through placement and design. [wtf- who says that my specialized open space can be used by you? and If I don't want to use it- what are gonna do about it???]
9. 24/7 Public spaces. [ok, but I want to be able to sleep]
10. developed zones should have a well-defined edge, such as agricultural greenbelts or wildlife corridors [check- but how is this gonna be enforced?]
11. safe streets for pedestrians [ok]
12. preserve natural terrain, drainage and vegetation within parks or greenbelts. [opps! they already bulldozed those old trees and filled in that stream!]
13. The community design should help conserve resources and minimize waste. [now this is what I'm talking about]
14. efficient use of water. (gurggle :-)
15. The street orientation, the placement of buildings and the use of shading should contribute to the energy efficiency of the community. [this makes me happy]
Regional Principles
1. The regional land-use planning structure should be integrated within a larger transportation network built around transit rather than freeways.
2.greenbelt/wildlife corridors again
3. Regional institutions and services (government, stadiums, museums, etc.) should be located in the urban core. [WHO SAYS SO??? I want my suburban de minile collection, or the barnes foundation]
4. Materials and methods of construction should be specific to the region, exhibiting a continuity of history and culture and compatibility with the climate to encourage the development of local character and community identity. [But brick sucks for daylighting - give me a glass wall with proper shading any day!!!! history is dead, I live for tomorrow]
I don't know of any place that actually fits most of these criteria- even teh CNU designed places fall short on most- EIFS ain't regionally appropriate and white picket fences belong to the 1940s - not the 13 colonies, how about designing a wigwam or tepee if you want to be historic!
Treekiller - I would have to say that the word "strip" alludes to a non-central type entity.
number 10 can be solved w/ number 12...if they havent already filled and plowed
- I love your picket fence refrence...so true
I think maybe a better approach than just settling on the rules put forward by New Urbanists is to look at cities that work.
For instance, I think Portland, Oregon is a fantastic city. Just in the area from downtown to the northern edge of the Pearl District, you find parks, stores, high-rises, low-rises, walkable areas, hipster culture, yuppie culture, strip-clubs, bars, skate shops, bookstores, Chinatown, industrial areas. In other words, you find a truly vital mix of functions -- not just a monoculture, and not just one type of development. Anyone and everyone can find something that appeals to them.
Portland embraces a number of New Urbanist values, but it also adds into the mix some "red light district" elements and a lot of cultural diversity. I kind of think that's what's missing from New Urbanism: some of the dirt and messiness that make cities vital. If Seaside had had a strip club and a dive bar, it wouldn't have been as easy to mock.
Good points, farwest. Maybe the perception of Disney-fication is a result of the stripping away of the "undesireable" elements of a community, and therefor to many of us, the reality of it. Aside from the sex trade, are there bums in Seaside? Homeless shelters? What about food banks, industrial trades, water treatment plants, night clubs, or a shop that'll sell me a Big Red vibrator no questions asked?
but how can you plan for the dirt and seedy elements???? when every city seems to be trying to regulate the redlight districts out of existence. Other then walter hood, there are few main stream designers planning for the down and out as part of main street. So how to qualify the necessity and desireability to have a little 'danger' as part of the street. We've become such a risk averse society that pleasure has also been eliminated as the powers that be try to make everything 'safe'.
we've traded freedom of choice for velvet shackles just to feel comfortable and lost many of our civil liberties. Look at NYC as a place that you must pay to enter. not much different when compared to disney or six flags.
Well there's sex in the sunny day
That shines down on Boylston street
And I love the U.S.A.
So share the modern world with me
'Cause I'm in love with the U.S.A. now
I'm in love with the modern world now
Put down your cigarette
And drop out of B.U.
Alright
That's right
Well out in the afternoon
Out in the arid plane
We'll share a modern love
Under suburban rain
And me in love with the U.S.A. now
And me in love with the modern world now
Put down the cigarette
And act like a true girl, oh.
Well out on route 9
It's bleak and nearly dying
Stop all this Greek(weak) stuff
And drop out of B.U.!
With me in love with the U.S.A. now
Me in love with the modern world now
Put down the cigarette
And drop out of high school, oh
Oh that's right.
Well I'm in love with the U.S.A. now
I'm in love with the modern world now
Put down the cigarette
And act like a true girl.
Well listen
Well the modern world is not so bad
Not like the students say
In fact I'd be in heaven
If you'd share the modern world with me
With me in love with the U.S.A. now
With me in love with the modern world now
Put down the cigarette
And share the modern world with me.
tk- I don't necessarily have a solution readily at hand, I just think it's a very good point. It resonates as something that I feel is missing from not just New Urbanist villages, but much of suburban America today. We try to regulate out these things under some sort of a Mother-Knows-Best-Dear mentality, and wind up with a less rich experience.
We can't plan for the dirt and seedy elements. But we also shouldn't be regulating them out of existence.
I think there's a place for the family friendly, scrubbed and polished community. Right now, it's called the suburbs. I hope it evolves into a more sustainable model--but I respect peoples' right to be free from strip clubs and dive bars and panhandlers.
I also think that there are gradations of seediness, places that are "just seedy" enough, without being truly terrifying. Like maybe the lower east side in new york in the mid-nineties. Or Old Town in Portland. (Any others?)
I hate it when cities (which, after all, are meant to be generators of every type of activity) clean up too much. It makes them feel sterile and dead.
more sex stores/strip bars are next to highway interchanges in the 'burbs then in the bright lights and big city... lax regulations and fewer neighbors, cheaper rents pull these activities out to the 'family freindly' zone... then there is the meth crisis of small town america - us city slicker still prefer our blow... so there is nothing inherently safe or sanitized about the levitowns of the world. most porn is produced in the ur suburb of LA - the valley... so how do we suck this sleeze back into times square, grand avenue, or the combat zone?
In a funny way, tk, that isolation of these activities is exactly the problem. It's the "bowling alone" syndrome. By putting all these "unsanitary" activities in their own dmz's, far removed from the rest of daily life, they become stigmatized, isolated, lonely activities. It's a form of social control and cultural sterilization.
(By the way, I'm not even talking about illegal activities like drug use. I'm talking about legal but seedy activities. Pornography, heavy drinking, being homeless, skateboarding, wearing funny clothes, dayglo hair, etc etc......)
since when has dayglo hair or mullets been stigmatized???
Disneyfication.....
Regulation i think is a key part.
We don't know how to regulate for grime..
Also we (meaning many of the modern middle american population) don't want sleaze. Well we do but in the bathroom fingers and toes tapping.
If we don't first come to a basic understanding=acceptance of what is desired than the whole conversation is moot.
Times Square is not suppose to be sleeaze,, the visitors that many cities cater to now wouldn't feel comfortable.
As for Portland, it may have sleaze...
However, a friend of mine made a recent comment when she visited.
The city seems to expouse all these greats ideals of livable community, progressive etc.
Yet the population is, fairly homogenous....
Anyways.
Kind of off topic.
As for the new forms of communal interaction. Technology is new but also just as easily commodofied.
Even right now i am typing this up in a coffee shop.
Ahh the whorror
indianapolis magazine recently had a story about all the "massage" parlors that have been cropping up in the wealthy suburb of carmel. the story did not have a happy ending.
isn't "sleaze" also just another trendy architectural expression of urbanism? who here really visits red light districts, porn shops, etc.? i'm guessing not many of us, but it's cool for architects to be down with sleaze, graffiti, deviance, etc.
i'm still far more interested in designing for razr-toting suburban teens. designed sleaze is just as fabricated as seaside.
@ jafidler,
I can't speak for anyone else, and i am not a real or even fake architect just a friend and admirer.
But i do visit those establishments at least occasionally,
And i make use of other unsavory, "sleaze" elements of city life,
i am not sure you can design sleaze if so your right it would be no better/different than Seaside,
Yet,
i think one can design space for sleaze to exist...
As for Razr-toting teens from the suburbs..
I can only think that here one needs to be aware of the new forms of communication outlined or mentioned above.
However even here space needs to be provided for the virtual forms of interaction to occur.
"However even here space needs to be provided for the virtual forms of interaction to occur."
absolutely, this is what i find exciting.
in regards to the sleaze, i live about four blocks from a strip club. i haven't ever gone into it, not for any moral reasons, i'm just not particularly interested. i pass it quite often on walks. the people that go there are usually fairly obnoxious suburbanites and wanna-be detroit gangstas. yes, it brings some sort of street life i suppose, but i think an ordinary bar would probably do as much, if not more. on a scale of one to ten of my urban priorities, a good red light district is about a two. it just doesn't seem as important as the responses in this thread might imply.
@ jafidler,
I absolutely agree, sleaze in the forms of strip clubs and red light districts are not at the top of my short list of important urban attributes,
Although i can appreciate such elements on some sort of aesthetic basic....?
However i think the trend towards de-sleazing cities steps beyond the bounds of simply cleaning up or getting rid of red-light districts to cleaning up all sorts of other "undesirable urban elements", sometimes to the point at which urban has been de-urbanized (in my humble opinion)
As for "However even here space needs to be provided for the virtual forms of interaction to occur."
I think one needs to be careful here, this doesn't just mean designer computer rooms, where this activity can take place in a artificially lit and sterile IT center.....There needs to be some sort of interpretative aspect.....
Any ideas??????? How can we extend beyond the statement to actual practice?
"a space for the virtual forms of interaction to occur."
nam, it's not a very satisfying response, but for me, it goes back to the social, technological, economic, ecological, and technological context of the design. there's not going to be a one off response (the problem the new urbanists have gotten themselves into). steven's above example of punks skating to the local tattoo parlor sounds to me like a post-apocolyptic maybury, very different from the wealthy, extremely mobile disaffected youth of bloomfield hills, mi. i believe there's good design possible for both scenarios, but it's not going to be the same design.
south pasadena
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