If you missed it, there’s a really excellent piece in the Sunday New York Times about how America’s highway and urban planning policies in the last 50 years have undermined the cultural centers of cities, fueled sprawl and heightened class and racial divisions. Architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff basically points out, hey we’re about to spend billions of federal money on repairing our national infrastructure, we should step back and realize that the way we’ve been building most cities recently hasn’t been smart or healthy.
The article, Reinventing America’s Cities, reads like a grim manifesto:
The country has fallen on hard times, but those of us who love cities know we have been living in the dark ages for a while now. We know that turning things around will take more than just pouring money into shovel-ready projects, regardless of how they might boost the economy. Windmills won’t do it either. We long for a bold urban vision.
One of the main points Ouroussoff makes is that the unpopularity of public works projects during the Reagan era left the planning of city spaces to private developers. Developers “began refurbishing parks and old historic quarters. The result was sanitized versions of real cities organized around themed districts, convention centers and sports complexes.”
Themed districts, convention centers and sports complexes, huh? Sound familiar, Portland?
Great article. Maybe a little late though. High speed rail, communities built around schools/park, more public transport options…Somehow I see that never happening due to the oil, car and house building industries stronghold on American life. Not to mention, the pharmaceutical companies who benefit from people who drive everywhere.
P.S. Why does the NY Times not have a comment section for all the articles? Shitty!
This article does a good job of explaining one reason why THE CRC IS CRAP!!!
Intellectuals, planners, and our elected officials know that our best future is everyone living on top of each other in condo bunkers, taking expensive and crime-ridden train rides everywhere they need to go.
Just don’t ask intellectuals, planners, or our elected officials to actually live in such places themselves.
Not to mention the creepy “mini cities” like the Streets of Tanasbourne or Bridgeport Village.
Anti-intellectuals, right-wing nut jobs, and our former elected officials know that our best future is in everyone living in McMansions connected by vast spans of concrete, requiring endless use of scarce foreign oil and contributing to environmental destruction.
Just don’t ask any of these people to bear the true costs of their actions.
Hey a.O., since the intellectuals, planners and our elected officials already have their detached single-family homes, they’re thrilled that you’re on board with The Density Plan.
And your condo will only cost twice as much per square foot as their stick-built homes did!
None of this (cities vs burbs) would be half as bad if we had truly efficient transit linking the two.
Have we modeled planning after the way people want to live or has the way people live been determined by planning? And, who gets to decide?
What, this is news? Wasn’t this already covered by Jim Kunstler, like, fifteen years ago???
Or Jane Jacobs 30 years ago?
Tommy and Matthew,
It’s news because the vast majority of people don’t pay attention, ignore history, and don’t learn from past mistakes.
True dat, VDB!