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A Wonderful Day in the Neighborhood
I love cities.
I love the messy, vital, constant movement; the color, the busy
sweep, the very insanity of so many people living and working
together in a small space. The other day I found myself
defending my love of cities to a woman who hated them. “I’m a
farm girl at heart,” she told me proudly. While I share her love
of the outdoors, I’m no Thoreau. If I stayed at Walden Pond for
longer than an afternoon, I’d go nuts.
What makes me
crazy is not the people who prefer the suburbs, but the city
folks who itch to change their city without understanding how it
works. They want it cleaner, safer, greener — all very admirable
desires — but in the changing they destroy the very things that
make them work. Tampering with a city is like fooling with an
ecosystem — you never know what damage you will create by
introducing new elements.
Jane Jacobs, a
housewife from Scranton, a mother of three with no college
degree, moved to New York and fell in love with its old
neighborhoods. She came to learn how city neighborhoods worked
and became a savvy community activist dedicated to preserving
them. She wrote The
Death and Life of Great American Cities, forever
changing our understanding of cities. (from:
In 2 visions, a blueprint to a livable city, Anthony Flint,
8/20/09, bostonglobe.com)
Though Jacobs
may not have had fancy degrees, 50 years ago she came up against
the ultimate PhD-developer-power-broker, Robert Moses, and won.
Moses, who single-handedly built the New York we know today —
its bridges and roadways, parks and swimming pools, Jones Beach,
the UN building, Shea Stadium, and the housing towers that rose
up in the era of urban renewal — ended up losing when he came up
against Jacobs and the community groups that she formed. His
idea of a city cleaned of its grittier elements was a sterile
vision that left no room for one important piece: the people who
lived there.
This idea of
city cleansing began when Congress launched the Federal Urban
Redevelopment Program in Title I of the Housing Act of 1949.
During the next two decades, planners, mayors, and journalists
dreamed up grand schemes to revitalize the nation’s cities.
Architects drew slick glass and steel skyscrapers set in vast,
sunny, empty plazas. There are very few people in these
drawings.
Jacobs ignored
these schemes until they hit home. When she learned that Moses’
plans included destroying her beloved Greenwich Village
neighborhood, she began organizing her community. In one of the
most quoted passages of
American Cities,
she described the sidewalk ballet that took place outside her
window everyday — the comings and goings of the people who lived
and worked there, who came to shop, enjoy themselves and live
their lives from dawn till long after dusk. She explained how a
safe street is always busy, filled with multi-use buildings and
people’s eyes constantly on the street. Anyone who has ever been
to areas of downtown Boston dedicated solely to office buildings
knows how unsafe they feel at night.
Compare that
to the North End where people live above stores, restaurants are
open late, and every inch of street is used to its fullest, and
you can understand the difference between a neighborhood that
works and one that is a failure. It is not the shiny,
glittery-glass skyscrapers that draw people, but the more homely
buildings that welcome strollers at pedestrian levels. We feel
safer sitting on a bench on a crowded city sidewalk than in a
vast, concrete plaza.
Jacobs
advocated low-rise streetscapes like Greenwich Village, but she
was not against towers as long as the ground-floor experience
was friendly for the pedestrian. She realized that density
translates to activity in parks and open space and on the
streets and sidewalks. There’s plenty of capacity in downtown
Boston for all of this.
(In 2 Visions)
So it was with
great relief that I read Casey Ross’ article in the February 10
edition of the Boston Globe stating that:
Massachusetts
transportation officials have severed ties with the developers
of Columbus Center, the latest chapter in one of the most
ambitious and controversial projects in Boston’s development
history. The state Department of Transportation told the
project’s developers they are in default of their 99-year lease,
after stalling on plans to build an $800 million complex above
the Massachusetts Turnpike that would have united the Back Bay
and South End neighborhoods. Because of funding problems, the
developers stopped construction on the six-building complex of
condominiums, hotel, stores, and parks on a massive deck over
the highway.
We’ve learned
nothing. We still think that creating an $800 million complex
will unite neighborhoods, this time actually building it all in
the air. Who will shop in these expensive stores and live in
these luxury condominiums? Would people looking for affordable
housing in the Back Bay and South End live in this fantasy in
the clouds?
Now that these
grandiose plans have failed, the city supports the state’s move
to reconsider plans for the property.
“Given the economic
realities, it makes a lot of sense,” said Boston Redevelopment
Authority spokeswoman Susan Elsbree.
State Representative
Martha Walz said, “Any new public bidding process should require
the developer to hew to guidelines established for the property
in the 1990s that called for smaller-scale development. They may
get some very positive creative ideas.” (Ross)
Especially if
they leaf through Jacobs’ book. Might I suggest that the
developers all be given a copy?
February 25, 2010
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