Learning the Right Lessons from Nice

Public plaza in Paris

I was particularly distressed by last week’s attack on Nice’s Promenade des Anglais.  The sorrow was sharp because the attack occurred in a walkable urban place, a place described by CityLab as “an elegant Belle Époque version of the Atlantic City Boardwalk”, a place filled with folks in a celebratory mood. 

(Although as I write this it remains undetermined whether the attacker in Nice was affiliated with a terrorist organization, it seems moderately clear that he was a Muslim by birth and was likely using Muslim discontent as a justification for his actions, even if the specific motivation for the attack fell elsewhere.  These likely facts inform my comments below.)

Giving form to my thoughts on the attack provided an unexpected and uncomfortable reminder of recent history.

I recalled having written a post on a similar subject, but couldn’t remember which attack had triggered the post.  So I embarked on a search of my archives, trying to recall the target.  It wasn’t the concert hall or soccer stadium in Paris.  It wasn’t the Orlando night club.  It wasn’t the airports in either Istanbul or Brussels.  It wasn’t the classroom in Newtown or the conference room in San Bernardino.

I finally found it.  It was the Boston Marathon.  Those were far too many incidents of which to be reminded.

At least to my ear, my earlier article has stood up well.  I’d change a word or two, but not the underlying message.  However, there are further lessons that could have been gleaned from the crimes at the Boston Marathon and in Nice, lessons that I didn’t elucidate in the earlier post.  Those were omissions I’ll correct today.

One of the responses to the Nice attack, admittedly a lesser response but still heard, is that public places have become unsafe, that private homes, preferably far from the urban core, are the only truly secure places.

It’s a response that’s tone-deaf on at least two levels.

First, the oil needed to sustain the drivable suburban model, the model that created many of the remote private homes that some would now call our only refuges, has been a primary cause of Muslim unrest.  It’s true that the Israeli problem would have roiled the Middle East regardless and that the transition to modern democracy is never easy, but the perceptions that the West was only interested in the Middle East because of its oil and that many geopolitical decisions made by the West were driven by that interest were major destabilizing factors.

To suggest doubling down on the suburban model in response to tragic events triggered in part by the model is remarkably insensitive and unhelpful.

Second, one of the arguments used by extremists to radicalize moderates is that the Muslims will never be truly accepted into the Western world.

Assimilation is never easy.  We have many examples in the U.S. to prove that point.  But assimilation from behind the locked front doors of suburban fortresses is impossible.

To effectively combat the radical propaganda, we must rub shoulders on sidewalks, at restaurants, and in marketplaces with those who are different than us.

Taking a break from public places in the aftermath of Nice is understandable, but returning to those places after a short respite is essential if we’re to move past our era of fear.

I’ve never thought of visiting Nice, thinking myself more suited to wander the sidewalks of London, Paris, or Venice, but the events of last week may cause me to reconsider.  Hanging out on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, exchanging smiles with strangers, suddenly seems a desirable way to spend an afternoon.

Hopefully, many of you feel the same.

On a personal note, I’ll be traveling for my next seven publishing days.  Given that my plate of urbanist activities has recently become well filled, I considered taking a break from writing.  But I couldn’t bring myself to break a skein of three posts per week that now goes back more than four-and-a-half years.  So, I’ve written, or will soon write, the posts that will cover my absence.  They’ll be published automatically as the regular publishing days arrive.

Most of the posts will be shorter than my regular posts, which is probably a good thing.  I’ve been advised that the desirable length for a blog post is 650 to 1,000 words, long enough to convey a clear message but short enough not to require a major time commitment from the reader.   However, I struggle with the upper end, often writing beyond the 1,000-word limit.  Recently, I’ve been saving up some ideas that can be addressed in fewer words and will use them during my travels, bringing my long-term average slightly closer to the desired range.

Lastly, I may struggle to serve those of you who are accustomed to being alerted to my new posts by Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or email notices.  With a travel computer that is wheezing its way to obsolescence, uncertain hotel wifi, and a full schedule of activities, I may not be able to hit all of my noticing goals.  But I’ll do the best I can, while also encouraging you to visit my primary site each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday even if no notices are received.

(And if you’d like to begin receiving email notices of new blog posts, please send me an email, although you may not get the full value of the request until after I return.)

In my next post, which will publish as I’m winging my way to my comfortably walkable paternal hometown in Ohio, I’ll ponder our failure to turn more quickly toward urbanism despite many signs that we should be doing so.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)

Public Places Need People, Some More than Others

Public places should be designed to attract people.  (Admittedly, too many are designed to feed the egos of design professionals and city councils, but that’s a topic for another time.)  A good public place should only be fully realized when it’s filled with people enjoying themselves.

But some places have an even greater need for people.  They require people to avoid being creepy.

During my extended travels to CNU 23, I spent an evening in Pittsburgh.  A North Bay friend who had recently relocated to Pittsburgh offered to give me a tour of some of his favorite urban settings in the Steel City.

And so it was that after we enjoyed jumbo fish sandwiches at the Original Oyster House on Market Square (plain, but tasty), we walked over a block to look at the plaza in the heart of PPG Place, a cluster of neogothic towers executed in heavily shaded plate glass by famed architect Philip Johnson.  (PPG was formerly Pittsburgh Plate Glass, hence the unusual choice of building materials.)

Personally, I found the architectural style rather contrived.  I could appreciate the architectural and engineering skills involved in presenting gothic in plate glass, but just because one can do something doesn’t mean that one should.

However, even worse, at least on a grey, overcast evening in early spring, was the plaza itself.  With only a few lonely people hustling through the otherwise deserted plaza, with the austere and foreboding glass spires surrounding the plaza on all sides, and with the massive granite obelisk commanding the center of plaza, I found the scene unsettling.  It was as if the dark minions were silently awaiting orders from their evil overlord.

I felt badly for my friend.  Here he was, having graciously given up his evening, less than day after returning from a two-week vacation in Japan, to give me an urbanist tour of Pittsburgh and I was repaying him by describing one of his favorite places as something from the plains of Mordor, deep in Middle Earth.  But it was overwhelming impression that struck me.

I’m sure that when the plaza is filled at Christmastime with a skating rink, happy children, Christmas trees, and a dusting of snow, it’s a fine and happy place. 

But on a chill and largely deserted April evening, I kept looking about for a hobbit sneaking through, seeking a place to dispose of a gold ring.

Next time, I’ll touch on some North Bay topics, including a report from a Petaluma meeting on transit funding, the upcoming Petaluma Urban Chat topic, and a possible City Repair project that is taking another step forward.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)

Great Public Spaces Needn’t Be Owned by the Public

Most well-used public spaces are owned by the public.  When I talk with others of creating more energized public places in the North Bay, the initial assumptions are publicly-owned parks and downtown plazas.

Much of the reason for the assumption is that privately-owned public spaces in recent times are often dismal places.

As has been documented by William Whyte and others who have looked at the plazas of Manhattan, people rarely linger in most plazas owned by private corporations.  The problem is that the corporations were induced to provide public spaces in exchange for additional building height.  But having provided the spaces, they had no interest in maintaining a plaza which people actually used.  So they sought design solutions that would make the plazas as dreary and unfriendly as possible.  As a result, few folks find enough enjoyment to hang around.

Here in the Bay Area, the plaza in front of the Bank of America Building in San Francisco is an example of an unfriendly public space.

But there can be well-designed and well-used public places that are privately-owned.  Corporations that followed the concepts put forth by Whyte have often energized their plazas.  Examples in Manhattan include the CBS Building and Rockefeller Center.

Here in the North Bay, although not as fully energized as some may have hoped, Theatre Square Plaza is an example of a privately owned public plaza that offers some vitality.

Yet one more example, this one again in the state of New York, is Larkin Square in Buffalo.

The Project for Public Spaces, an organization that is well-aligned with the work of Whyte, interviewed the Zemsky family who own Larkin Square.  Having revitalized their obsolete industrial buildings and finding that they didn’t need as much parking as they had anticipated, the family began looking for other uses for the land that remained.  Trying to build a place that they would themselves enjoy and learning from the usage as the public space evolved, Larkin Square was the result.

The lunchtime office worker crowd, fed by a restaurant in the square, is typical of many better public spaces, but where Larkin Square excels is in the evening, when food trucks and free music can attract crowds of more than 1,000 people.

As Leslie Zemsky notes, the family couldn’t always justify the costs for Larkin Square based on the projected bottom line, but they were sure that building the square as an engaged public space would provide benefits to the family.  And they were right.

In describing the success of Larkin Square, the Project for Public Spaces notes their eleven steps for building great public spaces.  I’ve linked the eleven steps before, but they’re worth reviewing again relative to Larkin Square.  The concept of triangulation, the idea that site features can be configured such that strangers are induced to begin conversations, is particularly intriguing.

I’m writing about Larkin Square because the Congress for the New Urbanism will meet in Buffalo this year.  The 22nd annual conference, better known as CNU 22, will begin in Buffalo in a few days.  Having enjoyed and learned much at CNU 21 in Salt Lake City last year, I’ll be in Buffalo this year.  And with the conference closing party in Larkin Square, I’ll have a chance to look around the square myself. 

Based on the CNU 21 experience, I expect to rub shoulders for five days with inspirational urbanists and to return with lots to share, much of which will quickly find its way into this space.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)

Public Plazas in Springtime

It was about a year ago when the finish line of the Boston Marathon was disrupted by domestic terrorism.  In the days that followed, there were many who spoke about a fear of public places and an unwillingness to return to them.

In response, I wrote that interaction in public places was a necessary component of a free society.  While a respite from plazas and parks was understandable, we owed it to our neighbors and to ourselves to return to the public realm as soon as possible.

And we did so, although surely more because of our ability to put bad times into context rather than because of any eloquence I brought to the topic.  Last weekend, my wife met a group of girlfriends for brunch in a restaurant fronting a downtown plaza.  For days afterward, she recalled with delight the scenes of people walking dogs, sipping coffee, and enjoying the sociability of a warm Saturday morning.

Public plazas are an essential place of public interaction and discourse, which must be protected and enhanced for societies to be free.

Luckily for us, our North Bay plazas are generally peaceable places.  But that isn’t true elsewhere in the world.  Public places are where civil dissent against authoritarian rule ferments.  Most recently, this was true of Independence Square in Kiev where Ukrainians gathered to argue for a more European style of government.  The movement eventually pushed President Viktor Yanukovych into exile, a story of which the final chapters are still being written.

Independence Square was only the most recent example of public places as a site of civil dissent, a list that also includes Tahrir Square in Cairo, Tiananmen Square in Beijing, and even the Parisian boulevards of the 19th century.

Writing in Atlantic Cities, Matt Ford offers a brief history of the role of public plazas in dictatorships, both in overturning dictators and in the design of public places to suppress dissent.  (I don’t find that Ford reaches any overarching conclusions, but the historical review is worthwhile.)

On a more domestic front, former New York City Planning Director Amanda Burden recently spoke to a TED gathering about public places in New York City.  Burden has appeared in this blog previously when I described her in my review of the movie “Urbanized” as “an over-dressed, role-playing drone.” 

Unfortunately, she doesn’t come off much better in the TED video.  Her insights about public places could have come directly from college textbooks.  But, however vapid and derivative her insights and ideas, she used the position of New York City Planning Director to accomplish good things for her city, for which she deserves credit.

But even more important than articles and videos about public plazas, it’s springtime and a weekend approaches.  Whatever else may be in your plans, you owe it to yourself and to your community to visit a public plaza this weekend.  Perhaps I’ll see you there.

And if you live in a community that lacks a plaza such as Healdsburg Town Square, Sonoma Plaza, Courthouse Square in Santa Rosa, or even Putnam Plaza in Petaluma, perhaps you can also take a few minutes to email your city council about your disappointment in the deficiency.  I’d be on your side as would most believers in democracy and the freedom of assembly.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)

Technology and Public Places Revisited

A few months, I wrote about urbanism versus technology.  It was a cautious entry into a discussion of great complexity.  But understanding how urbanism and technology interact can have significant implications to urbanism.  Technology can help bring new users to a public place, but can also interfere with the success of the public place.  It can also lead us to product ideas that are almost too weird for words.

There are multiple possible perspectives on the technology/urbanism interaction.  The Aporetic offers the thought that bland and featureless public places are the result of cell phone proliferation.  Prior to cell phones, when we wanted to meet a friend in a public place, we needed clear and distinctive locations.  The Aporetic’s example is the eagle in the Wanamaker’s department store in Philadelphia.

But with cell phones available to help us with last-minute course corrections toward meeting points, he argues that we no longer need distinctive meeting places, which leads to bland, innocuous public places such as Dulles International Airport near Washington, D.C.

Alan Jacobs of Atlantic Cities, among others, poked the obvious hole in The Aporetic’s hypothesis, which is that Dulles existed long before cell phones were common.  The Aporetic tried to cover the logical gap by arguing that recent Dulles remodels have increased the blandness of the place, which illustrates the impact of cell phones.  But the cause and effect of his hypothesis remain dubious.

Having rebutted The Aporetic, Jacobs then took his own wrong turn, arguing that cell phones have proliferated because public places are bland, resulting in a need for cell phones to help us navigate and to meet friends.

That hypothesis seems equally flawed.  I suggest that there is no cause and effect between cell phones and public places.

Instead, cell phones have become omnipresent because they provide a constant connection to interesting stuff happening in the on-line world, which is both exciting and addictive. 

And public places have become bland and uninteresting because we took a flawed turn into modern architecture (per Tom Wolfe and James Howard Kunstler), because we refocused our world around the needs of the automobile (Jane Jacobs and others), or because of both.

We needn’t blame bad public places on cell phones or vice versa.  They both happened for understandable and unrelated reasons.

Besides, the key question isn’t how did we get here, but where do we go from here?  Is it possible to build public places that create interactions between people when many folks have noses buried in cell phones?

To begin to answer that question, it’s important to note that cell phones offer both benefits and detriments in the creation of effective public places.

Cell phones can encourage people to venture outside the front door, which is the first step toward successful urbanism.  Much like a high school party where you only wanted to attend if you were sure that friends would also be there, cell phones can provide a social safety net, giving courage to a phone user to venture into a new or unfamiliar setting.  Even if there is no one to talk with, a cell phone owner can sit on a bench and play with his phone, pretending not to feel awkward.

So the challenge isn’t to bring people into the public realm.  It’s to get them to set the phones aside and to engage in face-to-face communication once they’ve arrived.  Cari Nierenberg, writing in Health Today, presents current research showing that it only takes the presence of a cell phone on a table to reduce the quality of human interaction.  (Admission: I often have my cell phone on the table when dining with my wife, although I often forget that it’s there.  Nonetheless, it seems to be an oops.)

It’s too easy to say that we should educate people to put their cell phones away when they have a chance to interact with real people.  I doubt the ability of education to match the increasing seductiveness of cell phones.

Instead, it is on the urban planners, landscape architects, and the managers of public places to create places and events that triumph over the cell phone at least some of the time.  Not every battle will be won, but victories are possible.

A few weeks ago, I visited a waterfront park that included swings for two with a view over a lovely estuary.  All the swings were occupied and no cell phones were in sight.  Over the summer, I often went to a public market where conversations were going on all around me and there were no cell phones to be seen.  It’s not easy, but the cell phone can be beaten back into its holder.  It’ll be a continuing challenge to find and to build upon those victories.

To end on a note that reads like it’s from The Onion, John Metcalfe of Atlantic Cities reports on a vest being developed by researchers at MIT.  The vest would constantly monitor your Facebook account, inflating to provide a simulated “hug” whenever someone likes something you’ve posted on Facebook.

Recognizing the need for more human interaction, someone thought that a good idea would be to simulate human interaction based on input from the internet.  At least some of us have truly become lost in our electronics and seem to have forgotten what real human interaction should be.

One wonders how these researchers interact at their holiday party.  Perhaps they show Yuletide affection by liking each other from their cell phones.  The cell phones that are on top of the table.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)

Best Public Places

I haven’t returned to the subject of public places in awhile, but a recently published list is begging to be shared.

Planetizen released their updated compilation of the Top 100 Public Places in the U.S. and Canada.  I love travel for many reasons, but this list has me particularly eager to hit the road.  Take a look at the list.  I expect you’ll be equally motivated.

I know people who have made it a goal to visit all fifty states.  Indeed, I’ve thought about it.  But states are defined by boundaries that were often arbitrary and capricious.  Public places seem so much more organic and in tune with the human condition.  And therefore worthy of being visited.

I just might adopt the alternative bucket list of visiting as many of these public places as possible.  And not just to visit, but to buy a sandwich, find a good bench, and observe the world using a good public place.  I can’t think of a retirement plan that sounds more enticing.

Nonetheless, I still want to quibble with list on a couple of points.  As one objection, Central Park is a fine place.  But I have a hard time believing that Central Park belongs on a list that Golden Gate Park misses.

For another, Place Jacque Cartier in Montreal is probably my favorite public place, at least in the western hemisphere.  (Trafalgar Square in London and the Tuilleries in Paris would outrank it.)  Mount Royal Park is a splendid Olmstead creation that adds greatly to the civic life of Montreal.  But, given a free afternoon in that fine city, I’d pick Place Jacque Cartier every time.

Another omission that surprised me at first, but made sense as I pondered it, is the Rose Kennedy Greenway in Boston.  It’s a broad swath of luxuriant green grass that the locals and their dogs use with enthusiasm on warm, sunny days.  (The photos here, including the dogs at play, are from the Greenway on just such a day.)  However, it lacks features to engage folks on less spectacular days.  A good public place needs to have year-round magnetism.

If you have any thoughts on the list, please share.

On a personal note, after I publish this post, I’ll depart on a trip that will add four more states to my lifetime tally.  Ironically, it doesn’t include a single public place on the Planetizen list.  But I expect to see other great places about which I’ll share upon my return.

I’ve already written the blog posts for my absence, so please continue returning here three times a week even while I’m away.  And if you receive an email from me when I publish a post, those will continue during my travels.  (And if you don’t receive an email but would like to, please email me.  I’ll be happy to add you to the list.)

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)

Successful Public Spaces are the New Anchor Tenants

I really should move onto another urbanist subject, but there is such great information available about public spaces that I can’t yet tear myself away.  I ask your forbearance while I tiptoe through another few links.

Fred Kent writes in Urban Land about the success of public places that are a part of retail developments.  He includes a story from near Seattle where the neighbors became so connected to a public place that they formed a non-profit to help manage it.

He also suggests that “Successful public spaces are the new anchor tenant."  His enthusiasm is likely premature in drivable suburbia, but there are certainly walkable urban places where a successful plaza is filling the role of an anchor store.

Kent next reports a sentiment that public places are more successful when the nearby retail stores are locally-owned, not chains.  As one developer says “Brands do not add to the energy; they suck the uniqueness out of an area.”

On the gustatory side, I concur completely with the quote.  I’ll go out of my way to eat at a locally-owned restaurant and have convinced others to follow me.  Last summer, a hotel clerk in Greenville, South Carolina recommended a local rib place to a group with whom I was traveling.  Weeks later, one of my friends emailed me in disgust when he found that the place was actually part of a regional chain.  The ribs were only fair.

And then Kent touches on what may be the most important value of a good public place, the ability of the place to make connections between people.  As Kent writes, “Even the smallest gestures to connect toward strangers can bring about a sense of community."  The Project for Public Spaces, in their eleven steps for the creation of good places, talks about “triangulation” strategies to create reasons for strangers to begin talking.

Atlantic Cities adds to the subject of strangers connecting by describing the psychological benefits that one receives when a stranger makes eye contact. 

Then, as if fate was trying to ensure that I got the point, an email unrelated to urbanism arrived.  It closed with a quote from French writer, Andre Maurois.  “Smile, for everyone lacks self-confidence and more than any other one thing a smile reassures them."

And there you have it.  Good public places introduce strangers and build good communities.  That’s a lot of accomplishment for a little plaza or park.

Next post, I promise to write about something other than place-making.  Although I may soon return to the subject.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)