inter // states from Samuel Cockedey on Vimeo.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Makeshift Metropolis
Ideas About Cities
Scribner, 2010
Re-positions Jane Jacobs' insights within the 21st century dynamics of technological innovations, market forces and global economic realities.
Particularly useful case studies of successes and failures. Modi'in in Israel by Moshe Safdie. Touches on prospects for small city "university towns" -- the Santa Fe effect.
.
The flashy star-chitecture phenom of the last few years causes him too much concern. They build enough ROM renos like Libeskind's in Toronto and this problem will go away on its own.
Globe review here.
Excerpt on attempts to establish shopping malls in downtown settings --
Shopping malls in the suburbs thrived because shoppers could easily drive to malls and park nearby. Urban shopping malls cannot supply the same convenience: drivers have to navigate congested city streets, and parking garages are neither convenient nor free. Moreover, suburban malls are self-contained -- there isn't anywhere else to go -- whereas urban malls are surrounded by scores of competing stores, restaurants and other attractions. As a result, the financial record of urban shopping malls has been checkered. Researchers Bernard Frieden and Lynne Sagalyn suggest that while urban malls may be profitable for lenders (who incorporate high risk premiums) and merchants (since sales per square foot in urban malls are generally high, at least on the lower levels), they are not always profitable for developers, since the up-front and operating costs are much higher than in the suburbs. Nor have urban malls had the hoped-for effect of rejuvenating downtowns. Instead, the marketing strategy of grouping national name-brand stores in clean, hospitable environments had drained pedestrian and commercial life from nearby streets. The Gallery at Market East. a multilevel in downtown Philadelphia, for example, is full of shoppers, but adjacent Market Street, once the city's chief shopping street, now attracts only discount merchants and dollar stores.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Port Place Mall Redevelopment Fly-over
There seems to be an effort made here to make this thing look even worse than the end result may be.
The north area of the site -- the area the developer assured Council would include infill 2nd storey residential units -- is now referred to as "under development" and will almost certainly be behind unsightly hoarding for the next few years.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
LISA ROCHON: CITYSPACE
Ai Weiwei: Planting originality, reaping Beijing's fury
From Saturday's
Globe and Mail
Published
Email to Mayor and Council May 12, 2011
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Jane's Walks
Date: Thu, 12 May 2011 12:27:01 -0700
From: Frank Murphy
To: Mayor&Council, GENERAL MANAGERS
Mayor Ruttan --
The recent Jane's Walks across Canada in honour of the work of urbanist
writer Jane Jacobs reminded me I wanted to contribute a couple of quick
thoughts to issues and projects currently in front of you and your
Council colleagues.
They fall under this general umbrella: Nanaimo faces no greater
challenge than that presented by its large land mass and low population
densities and compounding this problem resources and amenities are
thinly dispersed and not effectively integrated into their immediate
neighbourhoods.
To see what I mean, stand in the parking lot of the small shopping
centre at Dufferin Crescent and Boundary Avenue. Note how Nanaimo
Rregional Hospital is buffered from the neighbourhood by lawns and
parking lots, sending a message to the neighbourhood: we're not really
part of you. Note how the streetscape has been conceded almost exclusive
to the car. Note the low quality poorly placed apartment buildings
surrounded by parking lots. To the pedestrian it's a hostile
environment. The neighbourhood has no centre, little public space and no
amenities to speak of.
I live on Selby Street, across from the E&N Train Station. I very much
appreciate the neighbourhood's mix of commercial, office and residential
uses. It is walkable and has something of an anchor in its Fitzwilliam
Street shopping street. The new Immigrant Welcoming Centre has just
opened down the street, new rental housing has been built in the last
couple of years. Not everyone in my neighbourhood is happy about the bus
exchange being located on Prideaux, but I'm fine with it. I return from
my morning walk and see people arriving by bus and heading to work at
the tailor shop or the restaurants or offices.
This neighbourhood has been informed that the City with the Province
will be building 40 units of "assisted housing" on Wesley similar to
that proposed for the Hospital neighbourhood. There has been no outcry
here, granted the proposed site is not as contentious. This
neighbourhood is better able to absorb a project like this. The lesson
has been learned in other cities that if you want a neighbourhood to
accept projects like social housing, sometimes you have to first fix the
neighbourhood.
The lesson has also been learned in other cities that you have stop
making the planning mistakes that lead to the problems in the first
place. Which brings me to your decision to proceed with the City Hall
Annex without public discussion or neighbourhood consultation, and most
importantly in my view, without a comprehensive plan for the Quennell
Square precinct. Both of these projects bringing millions of dollars of
development and opportunity to this site, but are placed helter-skelter
and amount to another opportunity lost to integrate public capital
projects into their surroundings to the benefit of all involved. This
particular site offers opportunities that would be the envy of every
small city in the country. There are strong ownership positions here by
both the City and the Province. The School District has maintained a
presence here and a private trade school is currently using the
facility. The precinct includes the Law Courts Annex and the City-owned
Franklyn Street gym. Imagine the redevelopment of Quennell Square as the
subject of a country-wide Design Competition, as other cities have done.
Imagine incorporating into this precinct a strong element of education
and training, designing and incorporating the supporting infrastructure
and encouraging the location of private and public education facilities
into this block. Critcal mass where we now have this growing economic
sector, for one example, spread thinly throughout the city. Where we had
dislocation we start to see integration and cross-fertilization. The
site would probably include some public space perhaps the entire site
designed around a central zocolo creating a very desirable, diverse,
residential neighbourhood as well.
While these ideas are hardly radical and are being tested daily in
cities across the country, they are not prominent here. I've never
understood this because anytime I've had a chance to talk with the
professionals in your Planning Office, or sat in a meeting of your
Design Advisory Panel or had a chance to chat with local architects or
for that matter developers, it's ideas like this they discuss. I've
never understood why they don't champion these ideas and why they don't
feel they have a responsibility to promote them and educate both Council
and the public at large in how fundamentally important they are to
reaching our goals to be a healthy, prosperous, inclusive city.
Frank Murphy
Subject: Jane's Walks
Date: Thu, 12 May 2011 12:27:01 -0700
From: Frank Murphy
To: Mayor&Council
Mayor Ruttan --
The recent Jane's Walks across Canada in honour of the work of urbanist
writer Jane Jacobs reminded me I wanted to contribute a couple of quick
thoughts to issues and projects currently in front of you and your
Council colleagues.
They fall under this general umbrella: Nanaimo faces no greater
challenge than that presented by its large land mass and low population
densities and compounding this problem resources and amenities are
thinly dispersed and not effectively integrated into their immediate
neighbourhoods.
To see what I mean, stand in the parking lot of the small shopping
centre at Dufferin Crescent and Boundary Avenue. Note how Nanaimo
Rregional Hospital is buffered from the neighbourhood by lawns and
parking lots, sending a message to the neighbourhood: we're not really
part of you. Note how the streetscape has been conceded almost exclusive
to the car. Note the low quality poorly placed apartment buildings
surrounded by parking lots. To the pedestrian it's a hostile
environment. The neighbourhood has no centre, little public space and no
amenities to speak of.
I live on Selby Street, across from the E&N Train Station. I very much
appreciate the neighbourhood's mix of commercial, office and residential
uses. It is walkable and has something of an anchor in its Fitzwilliam
Street shopping street. The new Immigrant Welcoming Centre has just
opened down the street, new rental housing has been built in the last
couple of years. Not everyone in my neighbourhood is happy about the bus
exchange being located on Prideaux, but I'm fine with it. I return from
my morning walk and see people arriving by bus and heading to work at
the tailor shop or the restaurants or offices.
This neighbourhood has been informed that the City with the Province
will be building 40 units of "assisted housing" on Wesley similar to
that proposed for the Hospital neighbourhood. There has been no outcry
here, granted the proposed site is not as contentious. This
neighbourhood is better able to absorb a project like this. The lesson
has been learned in other cities that if you want a neighbourhood to
accept projects like social housing, sometimes you have to first fix the
neighbourhood.
The lesson has also been learned in other cities that you have stop
making the planning mistakes that lead to the problems in the first
place. Which brings me to your decision to proceed with the City Hall
Annex without public discussion or neighbourhood consultation, and most
importantly in my view, without a comprehensive plan for the Quennell
Square precinct. Both of these projects bringing millions of dollars of
development and opportunity to this site, but are placed helter-skelter
and amount to another opportunity lost to integrate public capital
projects into their surroundings to the benefit of all involved. This
particular site offers opportunities that would be the envy of every
small city in the country. There are strong ownership positions here by
both the City and the Province. The School District has maintained a
presence here and a private trade school is currently using the
facility. The precinct includes the Law Courts Annex and the City-owned
Franklyn Street gym. Imagine the redevelopment of Quennell Square as the
subject of a country-wide Design Competition, as other cities have done.
Imagine incorporating into this precinct a strong element of education
and training, designing and incorporating the supporting infrastructure
and encouraging the location of private and public education facilities
into this block. Critcal mass where we now have this growing economic
sector, for one example, spread thinly throughout the city. Where we had
dislocation we start to see integration and cross-fertilization. The
site would probably include some public space perhaps the entire site
designed around a central zocolo creating a very desirable, diverse,
residential neighbourhood as well.
While these ideas are hardly radical and are being tested daily in
cities across the country, they are not prominent here. I've never
understood this because anytime I've had a chance to talk with the
professionals in your Planning Office, or sat in a meeting of your
Design Advisory Panel or had a chance to chat with local architects or
for that matter developers, it's ideas like this they discuss. I've
never understood why they don't champion these ideas and why they don't
feel they have a responsibility to promote them and educate both Council
and the public at large in how fundamentally important they are to
reaching our goals to be a healthy, prosperous, inclusive city.
Frank Murphy
Urban Nation: Why We Need to Give Power Back to the Cities to Make Canada Strong
September 16, 2010
This excerpt from Urban Nation: Why We Need to Give Power Back to the Cities to Make Canada Strong offers some suggestions for the badly needed reform of municipal government.
The author is Alan Broadbent, Chair of the Canadian Maytree Foundation, which identifies itself as “committed to reducing poverty and inequality in Canada and to building strong civic communities.”
Among the Maytree Foundation’s initiatives is Ideas that Matter which is based on the wide-ranging ideas and principles of Jane Jacobs. Here’s background on the book: Maytree Policy in Focus newsletter. And these highlights:
Political Parties – Most cities in Canada do not have a party system. Adding a party system could help local officials articulate policy, and make the system more comprehensible to the electorate. It could also make consensus easier to obtain because of party discipline – but this is a double-edged sword. If party discipline is too strict, it could prevent a diversity of opinions from reaching council, or limit the influence of local councillors.
Mix of Ward and City-wide Councillors – In Vancouver, councillors are elected city-wide, and the electorate votes for their top 10 candidates. In most other cities candidates are elected by a ward and only mayors are voted city-wide. There are pros and cons to both approaches. A mix, where some councillors are elected to represent local issues, and others are elected with the views of the entire city in mind, would likely result in a stronger city government.
Stronger Mayor – Canadian cities are governed by a “weak mayor” system. In most cities, the mayor is the only member of council elected by the entire city. Once elected, they have to negotiate with the councillors of each district or ward. While this arguably provides more opportunity for individuals to have their views expressed through their councillors, it also make it difficult to pass city-wide initiatives.
In cities like New York, London or Chicago, the mayor has substantially more powers than the councillor, and the office has a budget for staff that mirrors that of provincial and federal ministers. They can make appointments to key council committees and senior positions in the public service. They can also prepare annual plans and budgets, subject to approval of council.
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