The Life of American Cities: October 12, 2014

One Good Street Per City…Is It Enough?

Recently Ogden’s 25^th Street was named as one of America’s Ten Best Streets by the American Planning Association.  A well-deserved distinction, Ogden’s 25^th Street has long been a favorite of mine, along with other great Utah streets like Provo’s Center Street, Brigham City’s Main Street, Park City’s Main Street, along with most of Utah’s smaller central towns like Helper, Gunnison, and Panguitch, to name a few. 

Most of the examples of good streets in Utah towns and in American towns and cities in general are the result of cyclical economics.  These streets were originally the commercial centers of the cities and towns we call home.  They were more than just centralized business locations, they were the town centers, the civic characters of cities and were the heart of communities.  Most originated prior to the automobile, and thereby were centrally located for pragmatic reasons; they were the “walkable” and “walk toable” centers of the communities.  All the services necessary to support daily living in a neighborhood node or a small community were found in these civic centers, and as a result they were filled with people.  Over time, as first the streetcar and then the automobile came onto the scene, the centers were stretched and pulled apart as fundamental services were displaced.  Over time, investment in the centers waned and many fell into disrepair and neglect.  People ceased visiting the centers due to the lack of essential services which only further eroded the character of these bygone places.  People began taking an interest again in the 1970s, and what all these great streets have in common today is a huge public and private investment over the last 40 years to revive these civic centers.  Much of the reason they are great today is due to the fact that when they were forgotten, they were truly forgotten and the original structures were abandoned and left alone. 

But 40 years of intense investment to still have the root of the original problem exist is demoralizing. These streets are quaint and cute, but they are really just a fake image of their former selves.  It’s as if the original owners moved out or were forced out and were replaced with absentee landlords.  Now, it’s not my intention to criticize the businesses that exist on these streets because in many cases they are locally owned businesses, but drugstores have been replaced with optometrist offices, nickel and dime’s  with high-end bike shops, department stores with law firms, grocery stores with lingerie shops, and sporting goods stores with overpriced restaurants. In other words, the basic services that used to exist on these streets no longer exists, instead boutique shops line the streets because nothing is capable of competing with suburbia’s big box retail outlets. Habitation on these streets is typically limited to evenings, weekends, and holidays when it feels good to stroll down the paths of a great place.  I would argue that Ogden’s 25^th Street is a great street that is dedicated to the automobile and it is really only great from Grant Avenue to its Union Station terminus.  That seems to be the problem. 

But the larger issue is that our American cities have one great street, one great place, and it rests on a terribly fragile foundation.  As long as our cities are dedicated to the automobile we may have to be assuaged with having just one great street.  Until we revolt and start imposing on our cities a “walkable” and “walk toable” landscape, that will be what we are left with.   Take a walk down to your Main Street, USA, inhabit the place.  Walk it.  Use it.  Demand the need for it.  Start your own revolution to make American Cities great, one street at time, not just on one street, but the whole city.

The Life of American Cities: October 6, 2014

My teenage boys recently went to a concert in Provo with some friends to see a band whose name I can’t remember, and if I tried to remember it would seem an attempt to betray my true age.  I was interested in their Instagram post following their outing, the initial one stating “Provo is cool.”  And the follow up:  “Provo is cool because we were there.”

It takes people to make a place.  I’m always a bit chafed when architecture is presented in a sterile photograph without people, a laboratory, a fake.  Sitting in Piazza della Rotonda in Rome just over a week ago photographing the Pantheon, it would have been unthinkable to photograph this masterpiece without the masses milling about.  The Pantheon is truly a pinnacle of art and engineering, the zenith of Roman architecture.  What makes it so interesting is that it has been in continuous use since 126 CE.  People of different cultures, nationalities, and eras have graced the Pantheon since its origination.  People, people, people.  Is the Pantheon a place because of the people that inhabit its graceful interiors, or sit on the steps of the Fontana in the warm Roman sun, or seek refuge under the powerful portico?  Or is it a place already? Is place a predetermining factor for population?  Is place somewhere that attracts the people to its essence, its beauty?  Would Piazza della Rotonda be the same if the Pantheon were a ruin, a bare foundation scarring the earth?

Now Rome is vastly different than Salt Lake.  There is a monumental building on every corner.  The whole city seems to be a place, full of places, each with its own distinct character.  What these places all have in common is that they are populated, constantly, day and night.  Rome is a dense, compact city.  Salt Lake is not and will likely never be.  But Salt Lake does have the makings of place.  Salt Lake has a street infrastructure with so much potential for complete streets that their nearly ubiquitous use by the automobile is maddening.  Where is Salt Lake’s essence?  Where are Salt Lake’s great places?  I’m looking for answers here.

There is a new place which is just being introduced to the city.  Formerly a freight corridor for the Denver and Rio Grande and Union Pacific Railroads, and later abandoned, the S-Line greenway is a multi-modal transportation corridor primarily dedicated to the new UTA Streetcar, but with a wide and substantial bikeway, a smaller pedestrian pathway, and paved plazas at each street intersection, all of which is sited in a breathtaking landscaped greenway native to the Utah environment.  This place is just beginning to attract people, but remains fairly quiet most days.  I rode my bike on the S-Line on Sunday and it was slightly disappointing to be the only one on it, though it may have facilitated my higher speeds over the posted 9 mph limit.   The connections on the east and west ends are a bit tenuous and with continued investment on the part of South Salt Lake and Salt Lake City, there should be better integration into the existing urban fabric, but right now it remains slightly isolated. 

This essay will remain slightly open ended but I ask you the reader to comment and identify the essence of Salt Lake, to name the great places of our city, or potential places that are lurking in the background, like that old abandoned freight corridor.   

 

The Life of American Cities: October 4, 2014

Having just returned from a two week excursion in Italy seeing such places as Venezia, Roma, Firenze, Milano, and five beautiful coastal villages built impossibly on the craggy cliffside abutting the Ligurian sea called "Le Cinque Terre" (Riomaggiore, Manorola, Corniglia, Vernazza and Monterosso), over the next 2 months I will write a blog about my experiences, my reminiscences, my biases, and my readings of the life of my American city, Salt Lake.  In the course of my blog, I will include my experiences of other American cities I have visited in the past, namely New York, Washington D.C., Baltimore, Charleston, Boston, San Francisco, Portland, Austin, Buffalo, Spokane, Indianapolis, Seattle, Phoenix, and Los Angeles, to name a few, as well as some better known Utah cities such as Ogden, Provo, St. George and some lesser known examples like Springville, Orderville, and Saratoga Springs.  In addition, I will be looking closely at another American city I will be visiting in November, Savannah, Georgia. 

The Life of American Cities: October 3, 2014

I spent 25 minutes walking one way to the nearest coffee shop (not located in a convenient store) from my house.  I passed 3 bikers and one pedestrian, and this is rush hour, 8:00 am on Friday.