Here is a video book trailer for A Place in Mind: The Search for Authenticity![A Place in Mind [Weekend Watch]](http://www.assoc-amazon.ca/e/ir?t=&l=as2&o=15&a=1550652826 "photo"){kind=small}
Dr. Avi Friedman is a McGill University professor and co-founder of the Affordable Homes Program at McGill’s School of Architecture. Wallpaper Magazine named him one of ten people “most likely to change the way we live.”
The video was produced by Immediate Productions.
In a rational world, real estate development follows economic development follows organic regeneration; not the other way around.
—Roberta Brandes Gratz, The Living City, p. 229
The above quotation is something that Phoenix still does not understand.
Our current economic situation is not the result of some unavoidable perfect storm of national and global forces, but rather the predictable outcome of local decisions that placed most of our economic eggs in one basket—the real estate industrial complex. The region’s growth for much of the past fifty years has been a false economy based on speculation and greed, not fundamental economic principles.
Rather than acknowledge this and look to start regenerating our economy based on our innate assets and local talent, the city and state are trying to revive the economy by returning to real estate development and speculation as a proxy for sustainable economic development. This is seen in such projects as CityScape and even downtown ASU’s continued expansion.
Flickr Photgraph by patricklanigan (Patrick Lanigan)
While a lack of permanent residents and a paucity of day time office workers remains a challenge in and around downtown, it isn’t the biggest obstacle to success. The true challenge is a lack of authenticity. CityScape, like the Arizona and Collier Centers, before it, fail to offer a unique experience to visitors residents alike. These developments do not reflect either the history of the city or what remains of the surrounding areas urban fabric. To extend the metaphor, these developments are not only an obvious patch applied to downtown’s existing fabric, but made of synthetic fabric that are found in countless other locations throughout the Valley and country.
We need to start building on our past and history; and yes Phoenix does has a long and fascinating history. This way we’ll not only attract businesses and resident who want to be here to add to the evolving story that is Phoenix, rather than those who are only here for the incentives, and will move on when the incentives dry up or another place offers then a better deal.
We only need to look a short distance east to see the faults with this synthetic approach. On the surface, Mill Ave would seem to posses they type of fabric that urbanites would drool over: a densely woven combination of retail, restaurants, cafés, cinemas, workplaces, and housing. With 60,000 students, staff and faculty a within a short walk of Mill Ave and dozens of condo and office complexes with in a short walk, Tempe has both the requisite residential and office population for a successful urban hub. Yet the district has struggled to thrive since evicting the small-scale businesses and night clubs almost 20 years ago. In an article for Shade Magazine a few years back, Dr. Nan Ellin explained why:
…the businesses are predominantly large corporate enterprises with exact clones around the country, if not the globe. Their headquarters are elsewhere, like the urban design, not from this place. Partly resulting from the lack of retail diversity is a lack of social diversity on the street, preponderantly representing a narrow demographic of the white middle class from the teens through 30s.
Authenticity is not about trying to be like the cool kids—the “world-class” cities like New York, or the exceptional cases like Portland, Oregon. It’s about building on our cities’ history and their essential nature. To renew our cities, we have to build on what they are, not what they aren’t.
Instead of tearing down our past and building new boxes to contain what we WANT to be, we should be doing the opposite.
Flickr Phot by Nick Bastien
A little over a year Iago, I shared my first observations on CityScape. It has been one of my most popular posts.
At the time I wasn’t impressed. People told me to give it time; wait until the businesses start opening up; attend a few events.
Well, I’ve done all three, and I’m more disappointed than ever.
The project seems to ignore key concepts of New Urbanism design, which calls for more windows and openings. In this way, CityScape is inward-looking and smacks of Arizona Center. I’m concerned that they made some of the same mistakes, and that we didn’t learn a lot since that time.
—Grady Gammage Jr. in Phoenix Magazine
Cityscape continues to represent all that is wrong with Phoenix: artificial, ignorant of its site and isolated from it’s surroundings. Despite being promoted as the centerpiece of downtowns re-re-re-revitalization, the development has yet to deliver. Hopes of residential units have been delayed—if not dashed, the anticipated grocery store (high-end or otherwise) has yet to open, high-profile local businesses have pulled out and national chains have reduced hours or laid off staff.
Not only is Cityscape blatantly anti-city and anti-urban; it doesn’t even compare well with its suburban competition. From the inside there is no there there. Patriots Square is still a concrete mess, the exterior windows are still covered and the few businesses have minimal signage, their glazed windows make it difficult to see what’s inside (particularly on the upper levels).
We are accustomed to accepting change in the name of progress without taking a questioning look backward.
—Roberta Brandes Gratz, The Living City, pg. 312.
Photo Credit: Fred M. on Yelp
Boosters of CityScape may like the convenience of the parking, the sterility cleanliness, the security (read homeless patrol) and the excitement that occurs during peak moments. What they don’t comment on is the emptiness that pervades the development between these rare events. They also seem to be immune to the banal architecture and it’s isolation from the rest of downtown, highlighted by the contemptuously blank walls facing large swathes of Jefferson and Washington. Sure, CityScape may be better than ‘nothing’, but do we really want to set the bar so low?
To be fair, I do like a few of the tenants especially the newly opened Arrogant Butcher and even the franchised Jimmy Johns. I’m happy that downtown finally has a pharmacy. However they are not enough. Indeed, I wish that they were the exception that proves the rule, and not the rule themselves.
These type of businesses should be the lures to get people excited and drawn downtown where they discover locally owner businesses and begin frequenting them. Instead, customers of Jimmy’s get to see a competing chain; and Arrogant Butcher diners get a panoramic view of parking lots.
I think CityScape is more of a convenience than a destination. I don’t think they’re creating any kind of unique experience for anyone that’s been in Phoenix and shopped before.
—Steve Rosenstein, co-owner of The Duce, in Phoenix Magazine
To make things worse for downtown as a whole, the few business that have opened, and several of the office tower tenants could have easily found space. Instead of using public funds (which now make up about half the project’s funding) to lure business to CityScape, the city could have helped these businesses settle in downtown’s existing urban fabric.
Imagine the Arrogant Butcher and CVS on the ground floor of the incredible Luhr’s complex, or Lucky Strike reusing the under appreciated McGinnis Building across from the Duce on South Central? The remaining stores and restraints could have easily fit in the empty store fronts of the Collier Center, Cronkite Building or several other nearby buildings The office tenants could have stayed in the previous downtown locations, or moved to the Luhr’s buildingor the former Phelps Dodge offices.
By going this route we now have MORE empty offices and store fronts downtown than ever before. Indeed, CityScape is looking more and more like the Collier Center, with Lucky Strike filling the role of Hard rock; Arrogant Butcher playing Kincaid’s and Banner Health acting as Bank of America.
Phoenix needs to learn that while mixed-use is important, a mixed used mega development will never be a substitute for the authentic diversity that grows out of several smaller-scale densely organized projects.
CityScape is a paradox. It was intended to be a bold new form of development downtown, but ended up being a lesser facsimile of the Arizona and Collier Centers. But perhaps the biggest irony is that while it’s name and marketing scream their urban ambitions, CityScape is almost without a sense of urbanism. To borrow Michael Sorkin’s appraisal of New York’s Lincoln Center, the development is
Like a giant spaceship… offering close encounters with the city, but not too close. The buildings are always adamant about their alien status.
In a earlier post on ‘Big Urbanism,’ I noted that in recent years developers have become interested in urban centers once again. Examples of this renewed interest are found in developments like Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn to CityCenter in Las Vegas and CityScape in Phoenix.
A common word used to describe each of these is ‘urban.’ In reality they are only ‘quasi-urban. Instead of enhancing places for residents who already embrace urbanism, these developments are aimed at luring suburbanites to spend money. Just as suburbs tried to entice shoppers by incentivizing mega-mall developments complete with water parks and roller coasters in the 1980s and 1990s, city cores are now trying to lure people back downtown with urban styled complexes. While these quasi-urbanist developments are better than their suburban consign (hence the use of ‘quasi), they still fall far short of creating a real urban experience.
One glaring example is in the use of windows. While many quasi-urban developments have windows facing the street, they are often ‘fake windows’—windows showing the backs of display shelves, covered by closed blinds or reflective film, or used to display advertising (even the once popular store window displays are increasingly being replaced by generic posters). Rather than providing porosity, light and opportunities for more ‘eyes on the street,’ these ‘faux fenestrations‘ become visual barriers that reinforce a feeling of isolation.
What these developers—and their government boosters—fail to understand is that people don not seek urban experiences purely for economic reasons. They definitely do not do it to increase their senses of separation and isolation. Rather, people seek urban areas for connection, vitality and local history. Most importantly they seek authenticity. Quasi-urbanism may have co-opted the urbanist language and even some of its forms; but until it offers more than blocked windows and generic products, it will never create truly authentic urban places.
Five of the best articles and blog posts I’ve read over the past week.
Note: In order to keep better track, (and a more reliable schedule) of my Recent Readings lists, I and going to use the meme of ‘Friday 5′, which several other blogs I use also employ. it is kind of like the Twitter ‘Follow Friday’ meme, but with blgs and interesting posts instead of Twitter account. this format has the additional benefit of giving people some weekend reading material, and a chance to catch up on some interesting articles and blog posts they may have missed during the busy work week. Hope you like it.
Image from Identity Theft for Cities
And for some non-urban, but related fare:
To keep up with other articles that I’ve found interesting, be sure to check out my shared items on Google Reader.
Through his Yurbanism brand, Yuri Artibise explores the ‘Y’ of urbanism by sharing ways to make our cities more livable, community-oriented places one block at a time.
© 2013 Yurbanism. All Rights Reserved.
Powered by WordPress. Designed by 
Brightkite
Youtube
Email
Flickr
FourSquare
FriendFeed
GoodReads
Google
Last
LinkedIn
Myspace
Twitter
Facebook
SlideShare
Delicious