Direction of Cities, Direction of County?

It was my great privilege to be invited to answer some questions for the Bethesda/Chevy-Chase Political Action Committee (PAC). I can't offhand recall the names of all of the people there, although they were identified to me as mostly very influential top level management or administration of many large and reputable firms and organizations.

Nor can I give the exact details of the questions I was asked, nor the answers I gave; that would be telling.

Yet one set of questions in particular involved policy matters regarding highly developed parts of the County such as Silver Spring and Bethesda/Chevy Chase.

This all reminds me of a piece I wrote almost ten years ago, which should give any curious person some idea of how I think about Urban Planning issues. Interested parties might search under Google Groups Advanced Search for key phrases and read some of the discussions I engaged in on the topic of Urban Planning, mostly in the context of the Revitalization of the District of Columbia.

This is mostly a review of Guinther's "Design of Cities".

Here's the piece, with the material to which I responded quoted with a preceding ">":

> Actually, there seems to be a backlash
> from the growth and traffic in the
> suburban areas, as congestion there is
> forcing companies to reconsider locating
> or remaining there. DC seems to be
> coming to grips with its economic
> disadvantages through changes in tax policy.
> The first-time homebuyer credit has caused
> the price of housing stock to soar, and
> in some neighborhoods it is rather scarce now.
> Downtown is improving too; there are
> cranes all over and some ghost streets
> are now reoccupied. Of course, there remain
> vast pockets of blight, but these areas are
> not going to improve by the construction
> of an outrageously priced freeway,
> which won't happen anyway. Freeway
> construction seems to do little to
> help neigborhoods in DC--some of the worst
> are right along the Southeast Freeway and I-295.
> Those freeways haven't brought them any
> real commerce other than the occasional
> truck terminal or gas station. Since
> an I-95 connector through DC is going to mainly
> serve long-distance truckers and commuters
> (excuse me, _would serve_, if it were to be built,
> which will not happen), I don't see
> how it is going to help. The existing
> urban freeways in the city are not
> helping neighborhoods at all as far as I can tell.
> Oh, and one other thing...why would this
> road have to be constructed through poorer
> communities like Brookland? Is it because
> it might be easier politically to
> ram this through those communities
> than to revive the proposals like the
> Palisades Parkway or the continuation
> of Rock Creek & Potomac Parkway to I-270?
> Resurrecting the latter might help revive
> Glover Park, Forest Hills, Kensington
> and Chevy Chase--areas just waiting for
> intermodal terminals and storage yards.

Actually, I think that if there were to be anything resembling an actual freeway built through DC, it would consist of already-planned enhancements to New York Avenue NE / Baltimore-Washington Parkway, and its connections with the Southeast and Southwest Freeways. In my opinion what's needed additionally, and which probably can't easily be built, are connections between the B-W parkway and I-95.

Note that construction has already begun, including a fairly major overhaul of bridges, on New York Avenue NE. For the last few years it had been an atrocious gateway to the city; one left the B-W Parkway and crossed over into the District and kaboom, it was like driving through Beograd after NATO bombed. Potholes ate busses. It was far from pretty. It's still not pretty now, nor will it be for about two years, but in the end it will be capable of carrying very heavy traffic. However, it will still be unlimited access for most of the distance from the B-W to North Capitol Streets.

This brings us to another issue.

In the Monday Washington Post Business Section, there was an excellent little spread detailing the current redevelopment of the once-hideous intersection of New York and Florida Avenues, roughly one long block east of North Capitol Street. This used to be one of the major eyesores any visitor to Washington could see, and there has been a lot of rhetoric thrown around by everyone from myself to then-candidate Anthony A. Williams, regarding development of this intersection into the "real gateway to the real Washington". Now that NY Avenue is getting a face-lift, getting to the gateway will be much less wear-and-tear on entering vehicles.

But what will they see once they _reach_ the gateway?

I just finished an excellent little book, _Direction of Cities_ by John Guinther, foreward by Edmund N. Bacon, author of the classic _Design of Cities_. Guinther's book is as much about politics as it's about architecture or city planning, and notes with some dismay the modern disconnect between the various disciplines which should be cooperating with each other in the development of urban spaces. He takes us through a nice little history lesson regarding population movements and urban revitalization and economic and political causes of urban decay and suburban overgrowth, but consistently returns to the theme (Bacon's seminal idea) of cities as a continuum of sensory experiences.

Certainly the continuum of sensory experience which was presented to recent visitors to Washington, who arrived through the NYA gateway, was one of decrepitude and blight. One came down the bridge over the railways and kabam, instant ugly smacks you in the face like stink off a rotten fish. But what can you do? The place is a transportation bottleneck, and simultaneously a passage. With the tracks on the east, it's an unnatural barrier between east and west. It's also the gateway, but to vehicular traffic only, to the northeast and southeast.

Guinther also returns to the theme of what he calls "direction" or "thrust". Also recurrent in the book is the concept of "vector", applying not only to the perceived exudation of artistic line in architecture, but also to the impartation of that line into the surrounding city, a sort of radiation of social force. There's an interesting contrast he develops, for instance, regarding how structures -- including open spaces -- are utilized. He notes, for instance, the contrast between the piazzas of the old world, and the sterile yet equivalently-large spaces which surround many skyscrapers, or for that matter high-rise Projects tenements. The difference, he seems to state, lies in the misapperception by many designers as to the desirability of the Le Corbusier proposition that the design of a structure should be independent of everything, including the land on which it is to be situated. This is certainly a form of purism, but it is isolating as well -- rather, it is essential for success, in any real longterm sense, to have integration, continuum, with the surrounding city.

Vectors as ideas are contrasted with solutions. A solution is the response, by an individual or committee, to some problem of comparative immediacy. The solution might be elegant, even as realized, but it is a temporary response to a temporary problem, and it may in fact be solely the work of one individual or a specific committee; once the planners have moved on, so does the solution: as times change, the solution may become either ineffective or contraproductive. Rather, what's needed is the vector, which is a freestanding vision which can be realized, perpetuated, by almost any individual or group.

The "Eastern Gate" as I shall call it, is presently set for re-development, primarily as a business gateway. Yet I believe we should note the wisdom of some of the cautionary tales Guinther brings us. For instance, the example of Detroit's Renaissance Center should be heeded. By the creation of a focus of inward-looking buildings, "vitality" was directed from the old downtown which had been intended to be revitalized; rather than revitalizing downtown, Renaissance Center became, according to Guinther and others, the final death blow to an already-tottering central city.

Let's compare, for instance, the neighborhood of Dupont Circle, and the high-rise blocks of Southwest Washington. Why, after sundown, is Southwest a deserted technical desert inhabited only by the lost and by skate-rats, where Dupont is a lively bustle? Dupont is a continuum, and Southwest is a Le-Corbusier hodgepodge of look-alike buildings each its own Purist ideal, plopped down with little care for how it blends with the neighbors. Also, Southwest is cut up into isolated blocks with little access from one street to the next. Dupont has wide avenues with appealing visual spaces, particularly to the north along Connecticut Avenue, and along all of the eastern prospect. It's a vital and living place where the business community, the neighborhood, and most-importantly the neighbors all come together and mesh into one fabric. Southwest, by contrast, is entirely built for one purpose and achieves total sterility as soon as people are not forced into it by their jobs. Unlike Dupont Circle, "there's no _there_ there".

Now let's compare the redevelopment at the "Eastern Gate". Drive around and look at what you see. Drive through late at night, and ask yourself, does this look more like Southwest with a little more trafic, or does it more closely resemble Dupont Circle? Outside of a few hangers on outside of the various restaurants serving the all-night traffic in and out of town, there's scarecely any nightlife.

Why? The only "there" that's there is the intersection. The place is being developed as a business park, not as a part of a continuum integrating business and the surrounding communities. There is no vector from the community leading to the centers of development, and there are no visible and popular avenues leading from the development into the community. Nor, other than the present vehicular routes, with their heavy traffic and inhospitable concrete aprons of sidewalks, is there any human space. Other than the interiors of the fast-food joints, there is no real place where anyone can sit and not feel one is some sort of a bug waiting to have something swoop down and gobble you up, it's all pavement. There's no community. Unless there is a very powerful effort made to add greenspaces which invite the passerby to sit a spell, no matter how many tenants can be attracted into the commercial space by day, at night the redeveloped buildings will simply be more sterile monuments to the disconnection, of Le Corbusier's purism, from the continuum.

I have to come out in support of "Save New York Avenue, Inc.", Ron Linton's $2 billion proposal, which includes decking-over the mammoth space-waster and continuum-buster of the railroad interchange east of the intersection of NYA and Florida Avenue, combined with the development of a Dupont-like Circle park, concurrent with efforts to enhance the hilltop neighborhood north of Florida Avenue and east of North Capitol. Also to be given consideration would be how to develop a greenspace axis between that hilltop and the land of Gallaudet University. It must always be kept in mind that whatever force, energy, or concept is vectored into this redevelopment, will radiate into the community. Will we choose to create something that imparts new energy into the surrounding comunity, radiating in all directions along New York and Florida Avenues? Or will we simply plop down a lot of concrete and turn this part of North Central Washington into another Southwest?

Whether or not Linton's exact proposal becomes a design goal in the District, still, I believe we must always keep in mind that the goal of urban design is not merely to package land to the greatest profit of the developers and the geratest advantage to politicians -- rather the goal of
urban design is to improve the utility of the city for the residents, its ability to let them live rewarding lives, and lives that are enjoyable.

Let us have no more discontinuous sterile landscapes such as in Southwest's office district. Let's design living neighborhoods like Dupont Circle, where attractive parks are contained as the focus of business development which rings them round, rather than placing a pittance of greenspace around monolithic real-estate that oppresses the pedestrian with their weight and grim artificial "purism".