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.

South Salt Lake and the Quest for Civic Identity

The City of South Salt Lake relishes a rich history, more than the current physical structure of the city invokes.  When the pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847, settlements were quickly established on the fertile strip of land flanking the river flowing out of the Wasatch mountains to the east, later named Millcreek, as irrigation ditches were dug, and the valley's finest farms, orchards, and dairies were established on the flat alluvial landscape.  The plan for Salt Lake City's blocks ended at 900 South (today 2100 South).  The area to the south of Salt Lake's southern edge to present day 2700 South, was referred to as the "Big Field," where the pioneers cultivated their needed crops in the abundant fields. Originally, the area was made up of three distinct unincorporated areas: Millcreek, Central Park and Southgate and the area continued to be sparsely populated agricultural land, with parcels allocated in five- to twenty-acre units, until about 1870. Around that time, local businesses began to develop  including Husler's Mill, built about 1865 on the banks of Millcreek onTerritory Road, which is today's vehicular behemoth, State Street.

Husler Mill, ca. 1921

Other private, noteworthy developments of that era include Winder Dairy and Calder Park. Calder Park was established in the 1860s by George and mary Calder, clearing the well watered land with oxen, planting grass and trees and creating a lake from a natural spring to be used for boating spanned by a picturesque bridge.  The proprietors continued to develop the park installing a dance pavilion, racetrack, ball park, a carousel, and other attractions.  The park passed through different ownership including the Rapid Transit Street Car Company which ran the park from 1891 to 1902 and extended streetcar service to the park along 700 East installing electric power throughout the park. At its peak, Calder Park was attracting over 100,000 patrons per season.

Wandamere Park 1911

The LDS Church’s Granite Stake assumed ownership in 1909 and changed the name to Wandamere Park and, presently, after being acquired by Charles Nibley and donated to Salt Lake City is today known as Nibley Park, a municipal golf course, and but a shadow of its former self.

The area continued to grow and develop.  Near the turn of the century, development of infrastructure began with major dirt roads being covered with slag from nearby smelters and the construction of public buildings such as schools and churches.



State Street looking south from 2100 South



Miller School and Mormon Church, 3300 South, ca. 1910

Two of these structures remain as historical landmarks. The Scott School was built in 1890 on the northeast corner of 3300 South and 500 East. With various additions made over the years, the schoolhouse evolved to become part of Granite High School, and currently functions as the Pioneer Craft House, owned by the City of South Salt Lake, and continues to play an important educational and cultural role in the community.  In 1899 the Catholic Church built the Saint Ann's Orphanage and church on the south side of 2100 South between 400 and 500 East. The orphanage was adapted into an elementary school in 1955 and remains as one of the premier private educational institutions in the Salt Lake Valley.

St. Ann's Orphanage, ca. 1910.

The Granite Tabernacle was built by the Mormon Church in 1903 on the northeast corner of 3300 South and State Street. The Granite Tabernacle was considered one of the finest tabernacles, with a tower rising 133 feet and a dome arching seventy feet over the assembly hall that seated 2,500 people. Unfortunately, the landmark building was demolished in 1956 and the site is today imperiously occupied by a Megaplex theater.

Granite Stake Tabernacle, ca. 1910.

In 1936, several area businessmen formed the South Salt Lake Businessmen's Association to address the issue of using septic tanks or open cesspools which drained into local creeks, and decided to put the issue of incorporation to a vote. Against strong opposition, the vote passed on September 28, 1938, and the City of South Salt Lake was incorporated. The sewer was built for $462,000 using mostly pick axes and shovels. The City of South Salt Lake was the result of a pragmatic collaboration by forward looking business owners to provide sewer treatment and municipal water services to the businesses and residents living in the shadows of Utah’s capital.  The founding of South Salt Lake is thematically tied to secession, given the unwillingness and lack of commitment on the part of Salt Lake City to respond to growing needs, the city fathers set out to create a community to serve the residents, businesses and farms populating the area in an effort to create an individual civic identity and community.

City of South Salt Lake Landmark

So what’s happened since that time?  South Salt Lake’s history quietly eroded away being overrun by a monotonous landscape filled with Salt Lake’s leftover industry.  South Salt Lake has lost numerous historic buildings and landscapes and is now segregated from communion with Salt Lake City and its own west side, cut off by Interstate-80 and I-15.  The hub of the most traversed intersection in the state, the “Spaghetti Bowl,” filled with a complex array of on and off ramps, rushes travelers through the city at enormously high speeds.  In addition to the mid century transportation infrastructure, South Salt Lake is the site of a large commuter transit hub, the Central Pointe station connecting Sandy-Salt Lake and the Salt Lake-Daybreak line. 

As the city has developed over the 20^th century, a disproportionate commitment to industry and business earned the city the moniker “City of Industry,” to the detriment of its city character and negation of diversity.  South Salt Lake’s borders are diaphanous and ill-defined, existing chaotically as a carpet haphazardly rolled out from Salt Lake City along State Street. 

As the City embarks on their journey into the 21^st century, a visionary mayor and city council are attempting to build a sustainable and livable community atop the existing framework of disjunction and fracture, “a city on the move.”  Mayor Cherie Wood asserts, “Those who live here realize that these city lines contain all that could be desired in a community.”  While the statement is an exaggerated attempt to sell the city to business and residents alike, there is an element of truth to the statement.  The more accurate statement would be that “these city lines could contain all that could be desired in a community.”  There remain mountains of work to do.  One effort that has languished in the poor economy is the Market Station project, a large scale mixed use development centered around the light-rail transit hub at Central Pointe. In addition, by 2013, a street car line is expected to run along an existing rail line just south of 2100 South (the northern border of the city) from the Central Pointe TRAX station to the Sugar House neighborhood.  These progressive developments are pointing the city in the right direction, however there needs to be a centralizing force, a project which coalesces all of these important elements into one shared whole.

Proposed Market Station, 2100 South and Main Street

To that end, the most significant component of that vision is the effort on the part of the city leaders to establish a city center, a symbol of the community.  Rather than redefining or inventing a symbol for the community, the city has set its sights on historic Granite High School, recently vacated by the school district due to declining attendance and shifting demographics.  The opportunity to purchase the property presented itself and the city of South Salt Lake embarked on the road to acquisition by putting the decision to the voters of South Salt Lake in a $25 million dollar bond proposal. 

Granite Senior High School, 1934.

Home to one of the highest per capita violent crime rates in Utah, the status quo of South Salt Lake is so ingrained in the voters’ minds that they necessarily reject any proposal geared toward improving their community, creating civic identity, and establishing a sense of place.  South Salt Lake lacks any identifiable city center, physical or symbolic; and no, having a City Hall housed inside a billboard off of I-80 does not count.  The Granite High Bond was regrettably defeated, 1006 against to 1001 for. 

City of South Salt Lake City Hall, as viewed from I-80

The Granite High bond was an opportunity to create a long needed identity for the city, a civic center, a place to gather and commune, a democratic agora where citizens and politicians interact on equal terms.  The historic Granite High School would have become an immediate community asset, yet the voters in South Salt Lake have passed on a promising opportunity and must accept continuing second tier status.  Most businesses opposed the bond, citing poor economic times, a shortsighted vision, negating that South Salt Lake would become a more attractive business center as a real community is established.

Artist rendering of redeveloped Granite High School Campus

So to a missed opportunity, a reiteration of the fight song of the Granite High Farmers is warranted:

“When sight and sound of the campus

Fade in the long, busy years

Yet will return in our memories

Echoes of old songs and cheers.

You, of the field, track and diamond,

Fighters for clean victory,

You who love the fair, square sport,

You'll hear the song of the "G".

Go it Granite, go it Granite

Hear the battle cry;

Go it Granite, go it Granite

Yours 'til we die.

She will remember, you'll not forget her

Though you are far away

She is calling, calling to you ever

Honor the grand old "G"!”

© 2011 Steven Daniel Cornell 

Naming Utah’s Non-descript Streets

While Utah’s pragmatic street names clearly cater to the lowest common denominator of human intelligence, they lack a certain degree of creativity and fail to define a sense of place. There seems to be some unwritten pact with the Jeffersonian survey dictating adherence to this unrelenting rationality. Even so, local or not, some just cannot grasp the numerical concept, which leads me to believe that most of us are alphabetically inclined and find more meaning and importance in aptly named places. Therefore, I propose a novel system, one which maintains the numeric designation defining directionality and geographical location, but supplements it with a bit of Utah’s own vibrant and peculiar culture and history.

Certainly, there have been some in roads (no pun intended) toward imbuing our streets with local narrative and local appeal, but they are few and far between. I was pleased with the near immediate designation by the University of Utah of Mario Capecchi Drive, named after the University’s own recent Nobel Laureate. And there are certainly the well known “Temple” streets in downtown Salt Lake, but even these lack a sense of imagination. North Temple, South Temple and West Temple all demarcate the grand boulevards converging at the center place of Joseph Smith’s Zion. East Temple never materialized, instead it acquired the name Main Street, derived from its function as the main commercial spine of the city. Although with the recent fiasco over the LDS Church’s acquisition and construction of the Main Street Plaza, the one block stretch between South and North Temple, it may as well be renamed “Lover’s Lane.”

South Temple in Salt Lake City, was named one of America’s “Ten Best Streets” in 2008 by the APA (American Planning Association). South Temple was at one time called Brigham Boulevard, so named because of Brigham Young’s twin estates, the Lion House and the Beehive House, as well as other lesser known examples, all necessary to support his multiple households. One in particular was the “White House” on South Temple at 119 East South Temple and designed by William Weeks, Young’s preferred architect until Weeks made it clear he didn’t really like Young. While I’m not advocating renaming South Temple, I think at least a block of it should be named Brigham Street, between State and Main Streets. As it stands, there is currently not a street in Salt Lake City named after Brigham Young, an astonishing failure to revere the city’s first and foremost urban planner.

Now, it seems a bit indulgent for Salt Lake to name streets after individual states of the Union, but that is unfortunately the case. There is a Colorado Street, a California Street, Virginia Street, Connecticut Drive, and a Michigan Avenue, to name a few. Seemingly as an afterthought, Utah Street came to be, but is hidden in the Rose Park neighborhood, and peters-out in a small disjointed staccato. Quite frankly, it’s rather embarrassing.

More indulgent behavior is found over in Sugarhouse. Many Ivy League schools appear as street names, perhaps to brag of the residents elitist eastern education. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Cornell are the most apparent. Michigan appears in the vicinity as well, which I mentioned earlier as a state name, but it clearly is some kind of a joke. I never saw ivy in Michigan. Interesting and quaint as they are, they clearly don’t inspire a sense of place unique to Utah or Salt Lake. Early developers and planners clearly suffered from low self-esteem.

As one strolls outside of the city or village centers, as the case may be, there exists a greater variety of naming designations, some good, some not so good. Take for example the Marmalade district just west of the Capitol Hill area in Salt Lake where certain street names describe a certain marmalade, (i.e., apricot, quince, and almond) derived from the various trees found in the neighborhood used for that very purpose. Thereby, these distinctive street names describe the specific place and as a whole define a unique neighborhood district in Salt Lake.

In Millcreek township, on the east bench, in the suburban development at the mouth of the canyon, one encounters names such as Pluto Way, Jupiter Drive, Apollo Drive, Mars Way, and my favorite, Lois Lane. At least it is distinctive and original especially when compared to the Thousand Oaks drive just to the south, a designation found in nearly every city in the nation, and one which unfortunately describes the now extinct pristine pre-development condition.

Salt Lake even boasts a few dead presidents, such as Jefferson Road, Washington Road, Madison Road and Adams Road, isolated clear out in Magna township on the west side. Ironically, just north of these streets are Mason Way and Dickson Way. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions, but personally I think Adams wanted to join ranks with his southern cohorts. This meager attempt however pales in comparison Salt Lakes neighbor to the north, Ogden, which boasts streets named for Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Quincy, Harrison, Van Buren, Polk, Tyler, Pierce, Buchannan, Jackson and Monroe, to name but a few, however, they did not stop there; Washington, Monroe and Harrison are boulevards, and not mere streets. But here again, there is a lack of local cultural appeal  and local reference in these grand designations. Ironically, someone snuck Custer in there between Tyler and Polk. 

State Street in Salt Lake is perhaps the most aptly named street in the state. Stretching from the Arizona border at Glen Canyon National Recreation area north to the Idaho border at Bear Lake for 502 miles and known by its more prosaic name, US Highway 89. US 89 was the transportation network, established in 1926, it snakes its way through some of the most scenic landscape in Utah. It has a somewhat roundabout history of realignments, diversions, etc., and provided the first large scale commercial and trade corridor in the state. However, its name is a bit ambiguous and should be renamed, Utah State Street.

I think my point is that the existing street names just fall short and disappoint. We’ve idolized a few politicians such as Bangerter and Hansen with major highways, but if it were me I’d think someone was out to malign my good name with the appellation on such behemoths.

Salt Lake has venerated its basketball icons John Stockton and Karl Malone with Stockton Malone Way on the east side of the Utah Jazz’s home, the Energy Solutions Arena. The poor guys are as inseparable as Laverne and Shirley. I’m certain Larry Miller will have his name on a street somewhere shortly. Maybe State Street in Salt Lake from 33rd South to 53rd South, an apt stretch of monolithic car lots would do justice.

I want something more!  Where is Richard Kletting Drive? Cal Rampton Boulevard? John Lee Way? Rosanne Barr Circle? Donny Osmond Street? Avard Fairbanks Avenue? Juanita Brooks Lane? Joe Hill Trail? Everett Ruess Rue? Carl Rove Pass? Don Lind Alley? Alma Richards Highway? Wallace Stegner Hill? The list is endless. I’ve only named a few of the familiar and prominent Utahns. There are ten prominent local names to each one these more broadly familiar ones. Names of individuals is just a first step, there is hidden cultural heritage which is all but erased and lost under our dominant white Mormon culture, namely the native American cultures which thrived in the region prior to our arrival and overbearing claim. Below the asphaltic layers of South Temple in Salt Lake, there existed a Fremont burial ground, now largely obliterated. The destruction of the indigenous place and its replacement with our modern city continues without apology.

Herein exists a huge potential to memorialize and present Utah’s heritage, from important indivual to geographic references, and everything in between, in short to account for the past and create a sense of place in our villages, communities, neighborhoods and cities.


© 2010 Steven D. Cornell

Young’s Salt Lake City and Haussman’s Paris: A Tale of Two Cities

Paul Goldberger, the New York Time’s Pulitzer Prize winning architectural critic, on a visit to Salt Lake City in 2007 to deliver the opening plenary at the Utah Heritage Foundation’s Annual Preservation Conference, noted the burden of Salt Lake City’s pioneer era block sizes by suggesting: “this is one real drawback to your urban grid here, that it was designed without pedestrians in mind…” A somewhat presumptuous statement given Salt Lake City’s gridded plan derived from the divinely mandated Plat of the City of Zion.

As a bit of history, the central idea of the original plat depicted a orthogonal delineated city populated by a series of large blocks. In the central block a multitude of twenty-four temples were depicted with one emphasized as the principle temple. The temple was graphically described on an unsigned and crudely drafted sheet depicting the plan, front and side elevations alongside an articulate description. These “houses of worship, schools, etc.” were to accommodate the projected 15,000 to 20,000 inhabitants of the proposed City of Zion. Each of the planned twenty-four “houses of worship, schools, etc” was to be at least as large as the specifications found in the drawings for the principal temple of the Presidency, but was to be dedicated to and managed by the various quorums in the two levels of Mormon Priesthood, the Aaronic and Melchizedek. A revised plat was prepared by Frederick G. Williams to correct oversights in the original plat and was sent to Bishop Edward Partridge in Independence in August of 1833. In the revised plat, the total area of the city was increased from 1 mile to 1.5 miles square, the number of half acre lots was increased from 968 to 2,600 which reduced the average number of people projected per lot from between an estimated 15.5 to 20.7 persons to between an estimated 5.8 to 7.7 persons. One of the three central public blocks (used for storehouses and schools) was removed and the remaining central public blocks were reduced in size from the rectangular fifteen acres to ten acres square which resulted in a uniform block pattern throughout. The axial direction of the central public blocks were changed from a north-south to an east-west direction, the uniform street width of 132 feet was limited to the four major cross-axis avenues and the remainder streets were reduced to 82.5 feet. Finally, names or numerical designations were included for the streets in the revised plat. The gridded plat devised for the City of Zion was not uncommon in the United States during this time, and was primarily based on the ubiquitous Federal land survey of 1785. It was the “utopian premise behind Smith’s plan and how it was to be implemented” which distinguished Zion from other contemporary American cities. Brigham Young, Joseph Smith’s theocratic successor, continued imprinting the Plat of Zion concept, with utilitarian revisions as necessary, on successive colonial settlements in the West. Salt Lake City was laid out with the four principal streets bounding the solitary yet central temple block.

Returning to Goldberger’s assertion, however, so what of Salt Lake City? Because of the overly large block sizes and wide streets the city exudes a suburban feel in its city center vis-à-vis the densely packed fabric of, say, Portland, Oregon. Salt Lake’s streets are monotonous and uniformly rigid which is surprisingly disorienting despite its obscene rationality. As mentioned, the gridded blocks are ten acres in size and require roughly two minutes to walk end to end, eight minutes around. The streets hold to a uniform 132 foot width, averaging approximately 15 feet of sidewalk on either side with 100 feet of road surface, give or take. Young’s 19th century urban framework accepted the intrusion of the automobile with considerable ease and its accommodation has changed little since the extraction of the intra-city trolley system in the 1950s and 60s. However, in anticipation of the 2002 Winter Olympics, Salt Lake City “re-constructed” a much needed light-rail system. The 19-mile light rail system, smartly named TRAX, consists of two lines originating downtown at the Salt Lake City Intermodal Hub; one line, which opened in 1999, heads south to Sandy and the other, which opened in 2001, branches east to the University of Utah. Salt Lake City’s Main Street, from South Temple (at the northern aspect) to 400 South (at the southern aspect), was redesigned as a result of the light rail line and now exists as a fresh counterpoint to the surrounding ubiquity of the auto-philic streets. Salt Lake’s Main Street sidewalks are much wider than the typical widths in the rest of the city center; as well there are only two lanes (one on each side of the street) dedicated to the automobile, and of course two light rail tracks. In this five block strip, there are expansive pedestrian platforms at the first, third and fifth blocks providing access to the train and offering a bit of diversity to the street. Here the city comes to life; the shops are vibrant and oriented to the sidewalk and the pedestrian, there exist outdoor dining areas, places to sit, the trees are full and regular, and the architecture exists in the background as a subtext to the street. Main Street is replete with civic amenities, which leaves one to bemoan the drought in the rest of the city. The street itself is a civic amenity.

Brigham Young’s streets were designed ostensibly to accommodate the required turning radius of a team of oxen hitched to a wagon. This archaic function still exists in a majority of the surface streets in the city, however why this remains important is an ongoing mystery, unless one considers the turning radius of the average SUV. Perhaps Young’s prescience anticipated this ungodly environment.

Paul Goldberger continued: “The street means more than the building, and that you can make a great street out of so-so buildings if they are put together well and relate to each other well and make a tight urban fabric, and if you have enough great streets you have one of the most important ingredients of a great city.” Getting at the heart of Goldberger’s argument requires a look at a city known for its striking streets: Paris.

On their face, Paris and Salt Lake City are two of the most unlikely comparitive urban models. Salt Lake once boasted the Paris Department store and the two cities developed into their modern cloak in the 1860s but beyond that, their growth and development resulted from a very diverse set of variables, with a diverse set of end goals, and by very diverse political groups with varied interests. Modern Paris is burdened with its own issues of sprawl, crime and overpopulation, to which any large metropolis is necessarily subject, however it boasts some of the most diverse streetscapes of any city on earth. Goldberger would love modern day Paris with this endless street diversity. It only became a hallowed model of urban planning in the latter half of the 19th century, prior to that time it existed as a medieval rabbit’s warren teeming with narrow twisting roads and dirty alleys. Thomas Jefferson, who spent a considerable amount of his career in Paris as the U.S. Ambassador, stated of cities in general: “The yellow fever will discourage the growth of great cities in our nation & I view great cities as pestilential to the morals, the health and the liberties of man…” Pre-Haussmann Paris was Jefferson’s likely reference in this anti-urban denunciation.

Georges-Eugène Haussmann and Brigham Young were contemporaries. Both exuded a large and dominant personality, accented by their large portly figures. Both are regarded in their locale as pre-eminent urban planners. Haussmann’s modern reinvention of medieval Paris was on a scale unlike any seen before or after, excluding of course cities ravaged by war or natural tragedy. Haussmann's crafty re-urbanization was largely accomplished by obliterating many of the old, twisting streets and leveling rundown apartment houses. The great urban voids were then replaced with the rues, avenues and wide, tree-lined boulevards which is what Paris is heralded for today. Other elements of Haussman's plan included uniform building heights along the grand boulevards with anchoring elements such as the Arc de Triomphe and the Grand Opera House. Haussmann's plan for Paris inspired some of the most important global architectural movements, including the City Beautiful Movement in the United States. During this urban recreation many of the boulevards were just that, just the street. Development followed the street which is an important point which I’ll come back to. Paris seems to just get better with time like a fine Bordeaux.

Salt Lake City, however, seems a stale cola in comparison, which in effect is just losing its gas. As Goldberger suggests, Salt Lake’s streets may be a liability, however taking the high road (no pun intended) its streets may be an endearing and empowering asset. Salt Lake’s streets already fit the Paris template. Unlike Haussmann’s destruction of Paris, Salt Lake simply has to refit its existing network, akin to removing extra and unecessary clothing as temperatures rise. Most importantly, there must exist a defined hierarchy of streets within the city.

The Parisian “Grand Boulevard” street type can be aptly applied to the existing Salt Lake “arterials” accessing downtown. These include 700 East starting at 2100 South and terminating at the landmark anchor, South Temple; State Street starting at 2100 South and continuing to the Beaux-Arts State Capitol (1916), by Utah’s preeminent architect Richard K.A. Kletting, as the landmark anchor; 400 South starting at the Interstate-15 off-ramp with the University of Utah’s John R. Park Building (1914) as the anchor, which was designed, by the way, by the prominent firm Cannon, Fetzer & Hansen; North Temple beginning at Salt Lake’s International Airport with the Salt Lake Temple as the anchor; 500 South beginning at 700 East and extending to Interstate-15; and 600 South beginning at Interstate-15 and extending to 700 East. These streets are hierarchically the most important, functioning as the primary gateways to Salt Lake City and should be the “Grand Boulevards.” These should offer diverse transit alternatives such as TRAX (as on 400 South and planned for North Temple), Bus Rapid Transit lines, and, of course, automobiles. (See Drawing 1) As well, major arterials from I-15 to the south should populate this category and include 1300 South, 2100 South, and 3300 South all extending to 700 East.

 The Parisian “Boulevard” street type should include South Temple (from the University of Utah past the temple and to the Union Pacific Railroad Depot; Main Street from 2100 South past the temple to the Main Street Plaza (where a stoic statue of Brigham Young stands); West Temple from 1300 South past the temple to the huge architectural behemoth LDS Conference Center. The Salt Lake temple exists as a dominant theme in the overall landscape of these boulevards. These streets should mimic the landscape on Main Street described above, still providing space for the automobile but not allowing it to dominate. Again there should be TRAX lines, bus lines, trolley lines, etc. (See Drawing 2)

The Parisian “Avenue” street type should include 100 South, 200 South, 300 South, 200 West, 300 West, 100 East, 200 East and 300 East; essentially, the commercial core of the city outside of the four principal boulevards. The avenues should be pedestrian oriented with wide sidewalks, bike lanes, bus lines, trolley lines, etc. The automobile will still be allowed but will be a very minor theme to the overall street character. Use of one-way directional patterns should abound at this level to create elbow room for a wide variety of users. (See Drawing 3)

The Parisian “Rue” street type should apply to the remainder of the streets from 400 East to 700 East, from 400 West to 700 West, and from 700 South to 1200 South are primarily residential in character and should be redesigned to include dedicated bike lanes, trees, ample pedestrian sidewalks and promenades, etc. Because of the overall use pattern they should be intimately scaled to the human. The automobile traffic present on these streets should be strictly local. (See Drawing 4)

There should be a progressive and radical initiative on Salt Lake City’s part to continue to promote the development of mid-block alleys, an agenda already being stressed in current master planning initiatives. Mid-block alleys are essential to the future vitality and success of the large and unwieldy Zionic blocks. The mid-block alleys create a permeance within the city, allowing it to breathe in a sense. Mid-block crosswalks should be a mandatory component of a mid-block alley. In essensce a secondary block pattern shoud be established which gives primacy to the pedestrian.

Within all of the models described above a rich diversity of street sub-types can and should exist within each of the street types. Looking closely at the “boulevard,” if TRAX is only feasible on Main Street then other streets within this genre should be outfitted with bus rapid transit, trolley lines, bikes lanes, etc. As streets take on a distinct character, the monotony of the grid will be diminished and citizens will form a relationship with the street.

The ultimate function and goal of the street is it’s capacity to transport people and goods from one point to another, in other words a vehicle for commerce. The street is the vehicle for commerce, not the car. The rational grid built by the pioneers in Salt Lake City accomplishes this economic proposition with unprecedented efficiency. The street will accept any number of transportation alternatives to fulfill its function. In fact, with a greater diversity of transportation alternatives, the street will function at its highest and most optimal. Let’s consider a hypothetical: 100 citizens must get from Main Street to the University of Utah. If all were to hop in their cars, in the large parking lot required to house the cars downtown, and get on 400 South, these 100 cars occupying the current three-lane roadway, assuming each car requires at least its own space and the space of a car in front and back for elbow room, the cars would require at least two blocks (roughly 1500 feet in 3 lanes). These cars would require a large parking area on the other end as well. Now if you added TRAX and assumed 75% opted for this mode of transport, the 25 cars now occupying the three lanes would require only a half a block (about 375 feet). A single TRAX car easily would house 75 passengers and takes up only about 80 feet of linear space (compared with 750 feet for 3 lanes of cars or 2250 feet for a single lane of 75 cars). Now if we add bike lanes and give 15 of those people bikes, and 75 still ride TRAX, we have only 10 cars on the road and these cars only require 100 feet of space packed into 3 lanes. This is about 1/8 of the Salt Lake’s typical block. Suddenly there seems to be little need for three lanes of car traffic and the parking areas required at the origin and destination points is absolutely minimal.

Outside of the central city there exists intact neighborhoods with distinct character and rich diversity with established and fabulous streetscapes. These include the Avenues, Rose Park, Glendale, Sugar House, and Federal Heights. By providing transit options to these “streetcar suburbs,” these areas will continue to thrive and add to the vitality of the city. Another important component of Salt Lake’s urban re-invention would be the inclusion of greater Salt Lake in the mix. For example, the southern boundary of Salt Lake exists at 2100 South, at which point the City of South Salt Lake begins. There is nothing architecturally or geographically that separates the two cities. The Grand Boulevards on State Street and 700 East described above should continue through South Salt Lake to the southern “boroughs” of Midvale, Murray, Sandy and Draper.

Transportation is the key. Alex Marshall stated in his profound book entitled How Cities Work: “Every city built has grown from the spine of its transportation system, like flesh around bones, whether it be a river, a trail, a railroad, or a highway. If we want to shape a city, we have to shape its transportation system.” In summation, to borrow a common phrase: “If you build it, they will come.”

© 2010 Steven D. Cornell

Sources:
Goldberger, Paul. Utah Heritage Foundation Annual Preservation Conference Plenary Address.

Smith, Joseph. History of the Church, 1:357-59.

Marshall, Alex. How Cities Work. 46.

American Fork Main Street

The recently constructed Good Earth Whole Foods development on West Main Street in American Fork is blatantly more conspicuous than the early 20th century house it replaced and therefore more impressive in our collective memory. With little effort the developer abandoned the historic value of the site and in a larger sense further eroded the historic fabric of American Fork’s Main Street. The ostensibly trivial removal of elements in American Fork’s historic core do not seem to be a legitimate concern to those involved in local city planning. It’s akin to whittling away at the base of a mature oak tree, initially the cuts are harmless, but over time the cumulative effect undermines the entire structural system and destroys the tree with catastrophic and irreversible effect. Death by a thousand cuts, as it were.

The proposal to demolish the historic house was presented at a planning commission meeting in 2006. A few local preservationists in attendance spoke in defense of the historic structure on Main Street and decried the proposed Good Earth development. If and when historic architecture is replaced, the replacement should be better than that which is replaced and should at a minimum reference the historic condition. There is so much potential to develop responsibly and sustainably, yet cities seem to lack resolve in upgrading exiting Euclidian codes and are reluctant to confront developers. The disruptive urban and architectural issues with the Good Earth development are numerous. The building is set back from the street face with parking areas awkwardly plopped in front paying homage to the automobile. Without decrying the distasteful nature of the architecture, to replace a historic residence with a strip mall is contrary to every current urban planning best practice.

The home’s eventual demise was delayed due to some technicalities in the approval process required for the demolition permit, but ultimately not prevented. During the course of that meeting the Planning Commission Director blithely remarked, “We can’t save everything.” The decision to demolish the structure was based on economic considerations and the director was accurate in suggesting that not everything can be saved. But when one looks at the losses to date in this growing community it is long past time to unequivocally affirm that the remaining historic architecture will not be sacrificed for mediocre and poorly conceived replacements. Decisions to demolish historic structures for the sake of economic development set dismal precedents. Economic development is essential to sustaining cities, but big box and strip mall development is inappropriate and counter productive in the downtown core and especially on historic main streets in small towns like American Fork. The community as a whole is failing to protect the historic core, and until an historic overlay district is established in the downtown core with city ordinances to boot, the trend will continue and increase toward substandard development allowing unabated erosion of the remaining historic architecture and destroying it as a public and civic place.

When one spreads the losses over a number of years and generations those losses are more easily accepted, but when the cumulative effect of the losses are considered it is revolting. It is difficult to imagine that American Fork City seriously considered the demolition of American Fork’s City Hall (1903) just a few years ago. After persistent determination on the part of local and state preservationists and some determined internal city administrators, City Hall was preserved and restored in 2006, reassuming it’s rightful position as American Fork’s crown architectural jewel and receiving numerous state preservation awards. City Hall is once again the metaphorical and physical center of American Fork City.

The economic benefit reaped by developers may not necessarily be beneficial for the fragile communities which we have desperately tried to establish and retain. With each loss towns like this moves one step further from creating and retaining a walkable and pedestrian friendly city center with public amenities which includes a compelling and attractive inventory of historic architecture. In short, a distinctive and unique city center where one prefers to be. With each loss we propel ourselves one step closer to an environment geared entirely toward the automobile, a metastasizing and ubiquitous phenomena which ultimately leads to pedestrian barren landscapes like US Highway 89 which is an unrelenting amassing of strip malls and car lots. A pedestrian no mans land, a non-place. The opposite of the non-place is obvious, as James Howard Kunstler put it: “The idea that people and things exist in some sort of continuity, that we belong to the world physically and chronologically, and that we know where we are.”

A major car dealership in American Fork recently expanded to the east resulting in the demolition of three houses in Columbia Village, a historic Post-war development built in the late 1940s. This just to expand a parking lot filled with gas guzzling super-charged Dodge Ram pickups. The losses will continue to accrue until communities decide enough is enough.

Using American Fork as a mirocosmic example, this trend is occurring in many of Utah’s local communities. All is done in the name of economic development, which in no way guarantees good development. What do we care though, as long as we optimize our conveniences and destroy what created our sense of community and sense of place, to ultimately establish our coveted new organic food stores, Wal-Mart Supercenters and Auto Malls to feed our relentlessly insatiable consumerism.

© 2010 Steven D. Cornell

Daybreak: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Daybreak is the most expansive and most socially responsible suburban residential development to grace Utah’s montane landscape since World War II. I say suburban development because it fits comfortably into the ubiquitous sprawling development model. Although Daybreak differs from the suburban model in many distinct and important ways, it still remains a greenfield development dependent on the automobile for its economic function. Suburb literally means ‘under the city’ deriving from the Latin suburbium,which described a general demographic division in which the upper classes tended to inhabit areas within the city wall on one of the Seven hills of Rome, while the lower classes lived outside of the walls and at the foot of the hills. The term ‘suburban’ in American culture has assumed a pejorative inference as any resident of Detroit will attest. Suburbia is a veritable wasteland, a non-place, a “geography of nowhere.”
The suburban development at Daybreak, sited at the foot of the Oquirrh Mountains, within the boundaries of South Jordan, was made possible by the large tracts of surplus acreage under the control of Kennecott Land, the real estate arm of Kennecott Utah Copper Corporation, which is itself a subsidiary of the multi-national mining magnate, Rio Tinto based in London. The development at Daybreak is but a fraction of the overall estimated 30 to 50 year build-out of the West Bench Development, which in the end will comprise “162,800 houses in neighborhoods mixing the wealthy and wage earners in shared communities of gardens, pocket parks and surrounding open space.” This mass of land, roughly 93,000 acres in all, is nestled between the rugged landscape of the Oquirrh Mountains to the west and the medium metropolis of Salt Lake City to the east, and is estimated to house a half a million new residents.

Daybreak, initially conceived as Sunrise, will occupy 4,200 acres when fully built-out and was intended from the outset to include a variety of housing types placed within proximate location, (i.e., walkable distances) to retail and commercial centers, all of which is surrounded by open space. These design elements define the difference between Daybreak and the traditional American suburb. A key component of the Daybreak development plan calls for construction of a mid-Jordan TRAX spur to parallel the development. Referred to as Transit Oriented Development, a term coined by Berkeley New-Urbanite planner and architect Peter Calthorpe and author of Daybreak’s master plan, Daybreak neighborhoods would be oriented around a transit hub to ostensibly convey residents to their jobs or other activities throughout Salt Lake Valley. Currently the TRAX extension is under construction and is expected to be completed in 2012. In the meanwhile, the Utah Transit Authority has met the burgeoning demand for multiple transit options at Daybreak by providing express bus routes for commuters heading downtown.

A visit to Daybreak’s website creates some lasting warm and fuzzies. However, there is a darker side to all of this. West Jordan and the surrounding communities have been burdened by costs for transit infrastructure development which are not being borne by UTA alone. Murray, Midvale, West Jordan and South Jordan, with help from Kennecott Land, agreed to give UTA $1.5 million to cover roughly half of the $3.2 million environmental impact study needed just to qualify for federal funding for the new TRAX line. The 10.5 mile line will cost in excess of 450 million dollars. The local community (i.e., Salt Lake County) will bear half the cost of the new line with proceeds from a sales tax hike that voters approved last year. In addition, lest one think that this community and the larger West Bench development can subsist on public transit alone, the Utah Department of Transportation has joined in. Believing multi-faceted transit options refers to multi-laned freeways systems UDOT is planning and constructing the Mountain View Corridor, a parallel freeway sited roughly 10 miles west of the commuter behemoth, Interstate-15, in response. The cost of constructing the new freeway system is currently estimated at $730 million dollars was allocated by the Utah State Legislature in the 2009 Legislative Session as part of a bonding package for start of construction in Salt Lake County. Costs to maintain and expand the new freeway system in the future will continue to burden the taxpayers and the tax payers children and their children. Does all of this sound familiar? While it may be a TOD in Peter Calthorpe’s eyes, it is also just another auto-dependent suburb with New Urban amenities. As well, clustered like fleas on a healthy dog at the entrance to Daybreak off of the auto-centric Bangerter Highway is “The District at South Jordan.” Comprising 120 acres, The District is anchored by big box commercial chains including Target, JC Penney and Larry H. Miller's 20-Screen Mega-Plex Theater, to name a few. The District offers approximately 1,200,000 square feet of retail space. The District is primarily marketed for its adjacency to the “Fastest Growing Residential Area in the Wasatch.” Civilization close at hand just in case the New Urbanite might need to hop in the automobile hidden in the rear alley and drive the 1.2 miles to Target for baby wipes. It’s like camping with a trailer, it just can’t be done, one excludes the other. There exists a hefty dose of subterfuge amidst the clean Disneyland appearance. It’s difficult to imagine why residents of Daybreak would forgo the use of the two or three automobiles they can easily afford to ride TRAX.

In near comical fashion, Ivory Homes announced in June of 2008 that it planned to start building homes in the North Shore Village. Apparently, the mighty recession makes even the most irresponsible sprawl developer in Utah desperate enough to stoop to traditional neighborhood design. At the time, Chris Gamvroulas, Ivory’s Development Director arrogantly stated, “We have our way of doing things, and they have their way of doing things. It takes a while to make the plans we designed fit their standards.” In other words, Daybreak may be desperate enough to keep construction progressing in a sluggish economy to make steep concessions to satisfy the whims of the careless developer. Stucco and vinyl siding were outlawed in previous Daybreak developments, yet the romantically labeled home styles in the Ivory repertoire such as Alden, Chadwick, Dearborn, Claybourne, Ivory Stratford, Imperial, and Hartford have somehow donned the contraband Ivory cladding.

Modeled on the Andres Duany’s iconic Seaside in Florida, Daybreak lacks key New Urban amenities. Given its emphasis on walkability, there seems to be little of that going on. A walk through Daybreak does not give the impression of a friendly, open community, with neighbors visiting on the street, but rather of a closed, insular landscape, because it is all a façade. The cars are hidden in the rear alley garage, and because the community is largely car dependent, the back door is where Daybreakers interact with the community at large. As well, Daybreak lacks a diverse demographic based on income level. Overall Utah is not rich in cultural and ethnic diversity and, therefore, those quotas may be unrealistic and unattainable. However, there exists a distinctive lower income and ethnic minority in Utah, both of which are excluded financially from residency in Daybreak. There are few if any janitors, mechanics, factory workers, maintenance workers, cooks, dishwashers, secretaries, firemen, etc., that live and work in Daybreak. Traditional Neighborhood Design calls for above-shop residences, granny-flats, basement apartments, etc., to provide housing alternatives for those with lower income levels to live and work in the immediate community. Daybreak has none of the above; alternative living quarters, with their working class occupants, would blight the clean and sterile environs essential to marketing the Daybreak experience. When a community lacks a representative income demographic, it lacks a local economy. Community in the words of James Howard Kunstler, “ [community] is a living organism based on a web of interdependencies – which is to say, a local economy.”

Perhaps Daybreak simply needs the patina of time to fill its large shoes. For example the tree-lined avenues seem barren given the immaturity of the arbor frame. The full layering of the street is, therefore, incomplete and emits a suburban hum. As well, as retail and commercial amenities fill in over time the community may become less dependent on outside retail and commercial attractions. The commercial and retail node, SoDa Row (for South Daybreak), a 45-acre Village Center is currently under construction and in the end, although it is a bit exclusive, will provide basic amenities for the community. A 185,000 square foot corporate center which will potentially house 700 employees was recently constructed on SoDa Row and the retail center will eventually house 130,000 square feet of mixed use office and retail space. Future retail nodes, such as Rubicon Road on the other side of Oquirrh Lake, will only add to its viability.

Time will tell, but in the meantime Daybreak has certainly embraced a vibrant vision of community and elevates a standard by which future developments will be judged.

© 2010 Steven D. Cornell

Sources
Kunstler, James Howard. “The Geography of Nowhere.”
New York Times, April 7, 2006. “Utah Mining Company Building City”
Salt Lake Tribune, September 30, 2001. “Kennecott Set to Mine Golden Real Estate”
Deseret Morning News. May 9, 2004. “Cities dig deep for TRAX line”
Salt Lake Tribune, October 29, 2007. “UTA poised to build light-rail line to South Jordan.”
http://nrt258.local.cbcworldwide.com/
Salt Lake Tribune. June 3, 2008. “Ivory joins Daybreak”