Shrinking Cities - Readings

A class this term at Portland State involves a reading and conference on 'Shrinking Cities'. Led by professor Ellen Bassett, a group of a dozen students from PhD and Masters in Urban Studies and Urban and Regional Planning reading and discussing four diverse texts, along with a range of other writings on the subject. 

  :: Detroit Race Riots - 1967 -  image via Brittanica

Our first book is "The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit" by Thomas Segrue.  Originally published in 1996, this book has won a number of awards for history, and continues to provide an overview of the connections between racial and economic inequality as played out in the post-WWII urban landscape of Detroit.

Other books include Mapping Decline: St. Louis and the Fate of the American City by Colin Gordon, Camden After the Fall: Decline and Renewal in a Post-Industrial City by Howard Gillette, Jr. and Small, Gritty and Green: The Promise of America's Smaller Industrial Cities in a Low-Carbon World by Catherine Tumber.

This is By no means a comprehensive overview of the subject, but the aim of the group is to discuss the social, economic, political, and spatial phenomena at work in a number of US Shrinking Cities, to better understand this issue.  Stay tuned for some thoughts over coming weeks, and if you have suggested readings to include, that would be very welcome.

LU Conference in the Central States

I just received this announcement of a conference sponsored by the ASLA Central States Chapter entitled "Landscape Urbanism: Economics of Healthy Communities" - (a remarkably odd title imho, but) including keynote speakers Andres Duany, John Crompton, and Brad McKee... topic session submittals are due tomorrow so late notice, but the conference itself is on May 5-6 in Des Moines.  More info, contact Matt Carlile at mcarlile@thinkconfluence.com

Some LU Definitions

A great resource for those looking for clarification on some of the terminology around Landscape Urbanism on the New Urban News.  A number of key terms and concepts (as well as their originating authors) are included, including:

"Analog Ecologies: Projects that attempt to model, analogously, the responsive behaviors of living systems in nonliving constructions or processes."

"Emergent Landscape: The urban form emerges from the interaction of complex systems (ecological, political, social, economic, etc) that make up cities and human settlement; urban form is the product of a complex confluence of a potentially endless set of factors."

"Invisible Infrastructure: Invisible infrastructure generally refers to non-tangible infrastructure such as wireless communications. More broadly, the term can refer to all forms infrastructure, such as power transmission lines, that often go unnoticed. A general tendency in development has been to make infrastructure more invisible and remote, even as it becomes more individualized and less communal. Landscape urbanism argues that this invisible infrastructure escapes the attention of the masses and that there is a need to make it visible for the masses to appreciate it."

"Radical Horizontal Urbanism: A vast mat-like field where scattered pockets of density are knitted together by high-speed, high-volume roads. Coined by Pierre Belanger."

"Structured Ecologies: The strategy of working with or alongside the substance and processes of dynamic ecologies: plants, waters, wildlife, etc."

"Void Framework: The voids of figure-ground diagrams are protected from “contamination by the city.” Open spaces, or voids, in a cityscape are desirable."

Also included is a key concept of Landscape, Landschaft, and Landskip - which I think is a key determinant that many folks miss in thinking about landscape in a purely North American was as 'open space greenery' and derived from the scenic viewpoint of "Landskip" and not in more broadly European terms as a unit of habitation  "Landschaft" that includes a more culturally inclusive concept.

Good food for thought (or discussion), so check out the entire list here.

NOW Urbanism

In the spirit of the variety of urbanism - some upcoming events from University of Washington in Seattle as part of the Now Urbanism: City Making in the 21st Century and Beyond - a year long interdisciplinary series of speakers around the concept of the modern city.  Thanks to Thaisa Way from UW for the heads up... I hope to make it to the Nov. 18 event, which should be a great dialogue from a couple of different, but inspiring, thinkers Randy Hester and Chris Reed.

November 17: Environmental Urbanism: Design With Ecological Democracy @ Architecture 147 [Public Lecture]
Randolph T. Hester, Landscape Architecture, University of California, Berkeley

November 18: Environmental Urbanism: Ecological Design For Healthy Cities 

(What does it mean to envision a healthy city - one that nurtures both people and the environment? Environmental Urbanism acknowledges and embraces the relationships between people and their material surroundings. This session will explicitly consider how the human processes of city making involve an ongoing negotiation with various non-human elements-- soils, water, atmosphere, and animals. By considering the intended and unintended effects of urbanization, our goal is to better understand how and to what extent we can intentionally shape future urban landscapes.  Speakers include:

• Chris Reed, STOSS, Boston
• Randolph T. Hester, Landscape Architecture, University of California, Berkeley
• Howard Frumkin, Dean, UW School of Public Health
• Panel Moderated by Peter Steinbrueck, Steinbrueck Urban Strategies

Additional dates of events can be found on their website and include a number of upcoming events of interest in the next year.

• Informal Urbanism: Slum Cities and Global Health (January 13, 2011)
• Transcultural Urbanism: Immigrant Cities (February 11, 2011)
• Generosity of Cities: Arts, Humanities, and the City (March 10, 2011)
• Next Eco-Cities (April 7, 2011) 
• Towards Just Cities (May 5, 2011) 
• The University and the City (May 26, 2011)

Ph.D.

In addition to (or shall I say augmenting) the launch this year of my new firm, I've also begun what shapes up to be a long process of obtaining my Doctorate - specifically a Ph.D in Urban Studies from Portland State University - and their Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning. I hope to blend the concepts of theory and practice into the conceptual framework of landscape architecture and urbanism - topics near and dear to my heart. Well into week two of classes, and it's been a great addition to my ruminations on L+U - as well as stretching me into some territory that was previously unknown. Good stuff.


:: The original Ph.D.

My additional goal is to continue with a vibrant practice along with furthering my education - embedding each within the other. I don't expect any major structural changes to the blog, but it will represent a different level of brain activity - particularly diverging from my somewhat organic ramblings to a more focused type of intellectual rigor. Or maybe this will be my escape from the countless papers and readings... who knows. As with everything, change is the only thing we can count on.

Certificate in Urban Green Infrastructure

My colleagues Brice Maryman and Nate Cormier, both landscape architects at SvR Design Company in Seattle, are teaching a pair of online courses this Spring and Summer with a focus on Urban Green Infrastructure. These two know the ins and outs of the topic, through their work locally and through the ever-expanding Green Infrastructure Wiki. Check out an overview of the course via an online presentation here.



Some additional info from the online site:

"Discover how strengthening a city's green infrastructure network increases community health and ecological resilience. Learn to recognize, quantify, and apply ecosystem services and amenities in an urban environment. Explore humanity's evolving relationship to nature as expressed in biophilia and emerging theories of landscape performance.

Develop integrated and elegant solutions to the complex infrastructural challenges facing growing cities and envision "high performance landscapes" that are multi-functional, yet culturally resonant. Experience the latest advances in urban landscape stewardship, and stay up-to-date with innovative, open source communication technologies, from wikis and social networking media to online collaboration and presentation tools"

The two courses include a Spring session entitled "Planning Urban Green Infrastructure Networks" which "...provides an overview of urban green infrastructure planning, drawing on the methods and techniques from strategic conservation planning, landscape architecture, urban planning and design, landscape ecology, and other related disciplines. You will learn how to organize a holistic planning process and work with the six green infrastructure systems in terms of their functions and services. Through case studies, lectures, and interactive exercises, you will learn to integrate systems into community-wide networks. The course will also cover innovative policy and funding strategies."



This is followed by a Summer class focusing in more detail "Designing High Performance Landscapes" where participants will "...explore the technical and aesthetic design considerations of high performance landscapes. You'll gain an appreciation of landscape aesthetics in an urbanizing world. Through case studies and carefully led design exercises you will learn to synthesize diverse programmatic functions into elegant solutions."

You can course overviews, instructor bios, and more on the site. The courses are developed in partnership with the UW College of Built Environments and the UW Department of Landscape Architecture

Fringe Urbanism

Not a variation of my favorite new FOX series, but a lecture happening tomorrow at University of Oregon Department of Architecture in Portland at the White Stag.

FRINGE URBANISM
UNTAPPED POTENTIAL FOR SUSTAINABLE SUBURBS
Lecture by Nico Larco, Asst. Professor, UO Department of Architecture

Noon, Wednesday January 20

White Stag Building, 70 NW Couch, Event Room
with Live Broadcast in Eugene, Lawrence Hall, Room 206



There is currently a shift occurring within the peripheries of our cities as social constructs and physical realities collide. The re-development of suburbia holds enormous promise both as an adaptation to changing sociology and in the potential for a more sustainable approach to existing forms of development. Multidisciplinary approaches to architecture and urban design will be critical in how this transformation takes shape.

Professor Larco’s research focuses on the nexus between architecture and urbanism. He is Co- Director of the Sustainable Cities Initiative (SCI), a cross-disciplinary organization that addresses sustainability from the region down to the building. SCI is engaging Architecture and Allied Arts faculty and students in research and design while providing service and technical assistance to a different city each year.

City Limits: Distance from the Center

As a follow-up to the exploration of the introduction to David Oates' book City Limits I wanted to write a bit about the first essay in the book, entitled 'Distance from the Center', which seems appropriate as a quick take on this thing we call the Urban Growth Boundary as well as the dynamic of inside versus outside. This short essay gets at the roots of contemporary urbanism by taking a measure of sorts for our planning, or at least an investigation as to whether the UGB is a mechanism for good (p.6):

"Since the inception of Oregon's land-use system in the 1970s, Portland has evolved from a decaying, lackluster provincial burg, into one of the nation's most successful and distinctive cities. One of the things I'd like to figure out, as I walk, is whether the UGB might be contributing to that success. And if so, how."


:: image via Boston.com

" A boundary is a lie that reveals truths. Sharp edges -- distinctions -- are indispensable to clear thinking. On a map, the UGB looks perfectly clear. It says we are separate. But in fact we are connected."


:: image via Free Association Design

Images of the edge reinforce this distinction with a defined inside and outside delineated in sharp clarity. It's easy to imagine this as a social contract - but it's as much a product of the political as the topographic and hydrologic. By walking the line the specificity is evident, and perhaps rooted in something as old as our need for prospect and refuge, a remnant from the evolutionary days on the African Savannah - as mentioned by Oates on p.7: "...I want to see how the UGB runs along the wooded hilltop just behind those houses. When I go up a cutbank to look close, I see second growth Douglas-fir crowding its whole life right up to the magic line. For one morning hour, this vivid parallel world hovers above the street... The human habitat, maybe, imprinted deep in an old part of the brain. Edge of the forest. Safety and a prospect of possible dangers, or dinners."


:: image via Prospect-Refuge Theory

Although rooted in evolutionary comfort, there is another face to the peri-urban, something many urban folks feel is mirrored in Oates comments of feeling 'unease' when far from the center. While the center seems a place, the boundary is a marker of the urban area's 'self' (p.8-9). "Distance from the center" implies that one place has a relation to other places: to the center first of all, the place of convergence, and also to the edge where intensities relax and then distinctly, cease. You can map any point by reference to center and circumference, metering the intesity, knowing where you're at: Edge or Downtown or in between... So 'distance from the center' is the physical and emotional yardstick of a place that is a place. Its center and edge are located, findable. And feelable, too; each has its paradoxical human meanings marked out as well. Emotional trade-offs, clarified by their relation to each other. This, not that. More connected (but crowded); more private (but isolated)."

The concept of a boundary assumes that there is a bit of homogeneity within the line, which a quick drive or stroll around the entirety of the urban area will quickly prove a challenge to pin down. It's all 'Portland' but is it different shades? Can we maintain individualism while adopting the share communal ideology that the structure of our urban area rests on? Oates relates this as a question of our linked humanity (p.10): "We cannot think a thought, speak our native tongue, drive down the street, or even stand there in our genes except by profound connectedness to the other humans who have built the species for a million years, body and mind, and who are doing so this very moment all around us."

"What we receive from others is, pretty much, everything. This implies reciprocal responsibility."

This responsibility is the root of what makes Portland tick. It's what allows Metro to govern and provide a net around many separate municipalities, as well as allow us to accept that there is good for one, and good for all, and that those are rarely the same thing. The application on-the ground leads to quirks like islands within the UGB that are outside while simultaneously inside and myriad other notable places. And they aren't theories and policies but places where people inhabit. And the line is merely a delineation, but not a specific container, as Oates mentions on p.11: "Ecologically, all places are connected. Economically, the life of Oregon flows into an out of Portland with little regard for the UGB. What's the line mean, after all? What's inside, what's out?"

To that end, as the ever shifting boundaries evolve, what is outside will become inside. But the distinction is perhaps less important than the result. From page 12, Oates reflects: "...it occurs to me that Portland could be riding that paradox of boundaries in a most productive way. 'Distance from the center' works for us. Here's how: By making Portland a center in its own right, we can be inside and outside at the same time."

The idea then is that it seems to work for us, and perhaps not for others. We are urban yet not too global to lose a feeling of togetherness. We aren't coastal, but are connected to the water. We are metropolitan and provincial at the same time. Thus the conclusion from page 13: "Portland may be building a place -- just far enough away, just close enough -- where meaningful edges and a defined center give us groundedness in place and expansiveness of spirit. That's our civic goals, our Portland commitments, argued and plotted endlessly: the good place, under the watchful view of snowy Mt. Hood, where we work on being human together."

City Limits: Where I Walked...

One of the inspirations for the Urban Edge is the book City Limits: Walking Portland's Boundary by Portland author David Oates. Aside from a great read, David is a fantastic guy and a friend. His recent work as part of the South Waterfront Artist-in-Residence program (which was led by artist Linda K. Johnson, whom also had a UGB installation of her own) showed his innate interest in both the urban in addition to the wild, nowhere more evident as in his essays on the boundary from this compilation of thoughts and voices.


:: image via Amazon

The first two essays in the book are worth some exploration. First, the introduction, entitled 'Where I Walked, What I Walked For' provides some motivation and background for the trip - providing an experiential context for the trip, or perhaps justification for getting on foot to experience the entire 260-mile trek around the edge, as mentioned in page 2: "I passed by berryfields and vineyards and orchards along this perimeter: housing on one side and edens purloinable on the other! O taste and see, said the scriptures, so I did. This made me well-disposed toward the entire Urban Growth Boundary project, despite its lumbering superstructure of laws and bureaus, planners and land-use hearings, disputes and wrangles, and to oversee it all, an entire extra layer of government the like of which does not elsewhere exist in these United States, called 'Metro' and hidden in plain site in North Portland..."

"...It is a crazy, going-forward teeter of hopefulness, this Portland."

The beauty of Oates journey isn't just the act of walking and documenting, but rather the fact that this came from a self-described 'non-planner' who didn't get too caught up on the details but rather explored and experienced with a minimum of baggage. His realization wasn't about a policy or a line, but rather, "We were working out how - and whether, to live together." Oates continues (p.2-3): "Our Boundary, both visible border and invisible symbol, is our attempt to agree on how to live: what trade-offs to make so that all (not just a few) can benefit. Oregon's planning scheme is a bit of urban utopianism, an optimistic attempt to tray and live a little better here in this blessed Northwest..."

This isn't to say Oates didn't have a knowledge of the structure, as evidenced in the text. His take really is even-handed (although I know his bias) and truly trying to understand less what the boundary is but moreso what it means as mentioned on p.3, "Portlanders are highly aware of it [UGB]. It's part of our identity... It has given Portland a pleasant and dynamic downtown, close-in neighborhoods that folks love to live in, pretty good public transit, and a fighting chance not to spread endlessly, meaninglessly, in every direction."

Thus the experience of living and not losing what is important is the point, versus the novelty of planning policy of innovative urban form. It's less about what it is than what it's not: (p.3) "We think the orchards, fields and vineyards of the Willamette Valley that have not been covered by tract housing will continue to make our lives richer. We hope to grow in and, in places, up...

"...To become richer in connections and cleverness - to get deeper - instead of wider, flatter, and shallower."

To rely on experience of walking in cities and spaces is historically relevant as a method of inquiry. The travels of the flaneur or the psychogeography of the Dérive or my favorite and more obscure idea of the Greek 'periegete' (mentioned in Placeways, by EV Walter, p.19) that describes a 'tour guide who led people around, giving commetaries on whatever was work seeing," and compiling written guides, known a a periegesis. Oates mentions inspiration of Lucy Lippard's 'Lure of the Local' (p.4): "One way to find ourselves is to walk the map, to think about how the land around us is being and has been used. Looking at land through nonexpert eyes, we can learn a lot."

A true understanding comes not from books or words, but from experiences - informed by a quest for knowledge. Oates mentions Douglas Kelbaugh and paraphrases such on p.4: "...all the theory and blueprints in the world mean little, in the achieving of a real city, without those invisible ingredients I thought about most often during my walk: that certain idealism, naive perhaps, that yearning and striving he names, from the Greek, arete," which for lack of a better term means 'excellence' or I think more appropriately 'purposeful'. Maybe that's the point - a fulfillment of purpose - not a utopian or planning ideal?

The counterpoint is that a lot of what Oates saw, and exists, on the boundary is sprawl, ticky-tack, garbage - or that much of the good and the bad 'on' the boundary would not be on the line for long - enveloped within the urban, no longer the rural. It's a line and a policy - but it's about real places and real people. Either way, it justs makes you want to walk and see - and perhaps translate this to others in a way half as witty as David does.

David included a number of other voices to augment his, which are captured in the volume - including writers, planners, government officials, and artists. I had an opportunity to walk a section of the UGB with David on his journey and it was a great experience to get into a mode of seeing and interacting with folks along the way - while picking our way through an appropriately named section of King City. My fascination with radio documentary at the time led me to record our visit along the edge, which I will try to do a final edit and get into a web-friendly format for distribution sometime in the future.

David also has a new book out entitled 'What We Love Will Save Us' (Kelson Books, 2009).

Suburban Still Life

Another upcoming highlight to our class will include a visit by Linda K. Johnson, a dancer and performance artist most known locally for both the work recently at South Waterfront and the ongoing series of dances that celebrate the local legacy of Anna and Lawrence Halprin and Portland fountains entitle "The City Dance of Lawrence and Anna Halprin" which is a regular annual performance in the city (more here from Portland Architecture as well).


:: City Dance - image via Portland Architecture

Back in 1999, she was involved in a curated installation related to the UGB. From the ORLO site: "Spanning Boundaries” was a series of site-specific art works, performances and a one-night symposium into the exploration of Portland’s Urban Growth Boundary (UGB). Growth issues are a provocative topic throughout the nation and each artist created installations along its edges. In this intriguing visual juxtaposition of site/non-site art, “Spanning Boundaries” created a broad civic dialogue about community identity, individual rights, historical antecedent and the future of Portland’s growing metropolis."


:: image via Orlo

Johnson's installation entitled 'The View From Here' included site specific performance work at Riverside/Clackamas, Bella Madrona/Sherwood, Broughton Beach/Marina Drive, Dabney State Park/Troutdale, Springwater Corridor/Powell Butte and Jackson Bottom Wetlands/Hillsboro.

A quote from the book Urban Sprawl, by Gregory Squires "The UGB has even attracted the attention of artists, surely a rarity for a land use regulation. Dancer and performance artist Linda K. Johnson set up camp for 36-hour stints at four different points on the UGB, living in a fence-like tent supplied with a TV set and Martha Stewart dishes and bedding. She quickly replaced her specialized choreography with straightforward chats with visitors, pulling opinions from yuppies, school kids, construction workers, and architects. Out of the resulting "suburban still life" came new, complex understandings of the way that the UGB has affected "every single solitary aspect of the way we livie... traffic, education, taxes, our desires and housing and architecture." For Johnson - and for many other Portlanders - the growth boundary has become "a different viewfinder to see the city through" (Gragg 1999).

Quest for the Livable City

For an upcoming seminar class that myself and my colleague Brett Milligan are teaching in the Winter Quarter at the University of Oregon Architecture Program here in Portland, I've been doing a good bit of research on our local planning. Look for some upcoming posts here and at Brett's blog FAD on the topic of Portland's Urban Edge.


:: Portlands Urban Growth Boundary

The class will investigate the phenomenon of the Portland Urban Edge in . One recent resource that I picked up from the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy is an hour-long documentary called 'Quest for the Livable City', part of their Making Sense of Place Series.


:: image via Northern Light Productions

I just finished watching the DVD and it's a great overview of some of the pros and cons of our unique system of land use planning, a passable primer for understanding the edge in a number of ways. Check out a quick trailer here: