Posts about Urbanism

Between my parents, who listened to adult contemporary, and my friends who were getting into musical theatre, I was anxious to hear music I could actually relate to. Green Day was pretty easy to find: on the radio, on television, and in the halls of Blake High School, on t-shirts and patches sewn to jean jackets.

Their songs were fast and catchy, though as a preacher's kid, I was initially horrified by the foul language. But I'd spent plenty of mindlessly dull afternoons like the ones Billie Joe Armstrong described in "Longview," and was relieved to know someone else felt the same way.

Meanwhile, I'd never been to Washingtonian Center before the evening of the party. Walking felt like a punishment, something I did on those "Longview" afternoons when I didn't have a ride to any place more interesting. On those days, I'd walk 45 minutes to the shopping center closest to my parents' house, down streets with look-alike 1950's ranch houses and all while not seeing another person. It was boring, but slightly better than being at home.

At the Washingtonian Center, walking suddenly became something fun. We could walk from the movies to an artificial lake, then look in store windows on our way to dinner. And we could do all of this while being around and looking at other people. Not only was it better than sitting at home alone, but it was more fun than going to the mall.

I didn't question Washingtonian Center's authenticity at first, perhaps because I couldn't yet tell the difference between it and a traditional downtown. But I definitely wondered why Green Day called themselves a "punk band," which didn't seem to describe a group who played stadiums. Punks, I imagined, were more likely found in places like Phantasmagoria, the grungy and now-closed punk club in Wheaton.

But both of these experiences served as a sort of gateway to more "legitimate" pursuits. It's because of Green Day that I made friends with similar taste in music who would later introduce me to "actual" punk bands like Fugazi or invite me to see their band play shows in punk houses. (The webcomic Nothing Nice to Say jokes that Green Day fans get into real punk out of embarrassment for liking Green Day.)

And it's because of Washingtonian Center that I began to explore downtown Silver Spring before it became a new "town center" in its own right, and taking Metro into the District to wander around there. I've always been interested in architecture, but it's trips to places like Washingtonian Center which got me excited in the spaces between the buildings, which is why I'm currently in school for urban planning.

Much as I wouldn't have gotten into real punk if I hadn't listened to Green Day, I wouldn't be so excited about walking down real city streets had I not walked down a fake city street first. So for that reason, I'm not bothered when a new development is compared to a small town or an Italian piazza. Some of these places are like the Good Charlotte of urbanism, unable to be even a good fake downtown.

But like a good punk song that can teach you to see yourself and your world differently, I'm convinced that a walk down a good urban street can do the same, whether it's in a city or a suburb, old or new.

For more on the topic of punk rock and New Urbanism, check out this post from Scott Doyon comparing the two.

What do teenagers need? The ability to get around without a driver's license, for starters. A 15-year-old who can get around town on foot, on transit, or by bike or skateboard isn't just a convenience for their parents, who don't have to shuttle them around after school. They're given the tools for their own independence and self-discovery.

So the ideal place for a teenager is probably a neighborhood with sidewalks and bike lanes, ample public transit, and one which has schools, shops, and hangouts located within close range to home. That sounds a lot like Takoma Park, Bethesda, or below-the-Beltway Silver Spring. Rockville, with its new town center and excellent bike network, isn't far behind.

Scott Doyon at the PlaceShakers blog also notes that these places give kids the valuable opportunity to make mistakes:

For a child, having increasing opportunities to navigate the world around them, explore, invent, fall down, scrape knees, make decisions, screw up, get into—and solve—conflicts and, ultimately, achieve a sense of personal identity and self-sufficiency is a good thing. The right thing.

Of course, kids who can actually get around on their own two feet might do some unsavory things. Some of the kids who walk to downtown Bethesda, for instance, might've gone to buy drugs at the movie theatre on Wisconsin Avenue. But it's not like the car-bound kids in Germantown and Olney weren't doing that, and it's a lot harder to hide destructive behaviors when you're not in a two-ton vehicle.

The first time I was allowed to go anywhere by myself was at age 8, when my family lived in Georgian Towers in downtown Silver Spring. I was only taking the elevator from our apartment to the lobby, but I was so excited I screamed the whole way down. Pretty soon, I could walk to my friends' apartments, across the street to Woodside Park, around the corner to 7-Eleven, and so on. This ended a few years later when we moved to Calverton, where there's very little within walking distance. But I still knew that I had the power to do things on my own.

My 12-year-old brother, meanwhile, has spent his entire life in Calverton. When he's not at school, he's at home playing video games, but I've noticed he doesn't have a close group of friends because they don't live nearby. Last year, I took him to walk with my former boss, Councilmember Leventhal in a parade in Kentlands, one of Montgomery County's few truly walkable neighborhoods.

"Isn't this great, Tyler?" I asked as I took him around Kentlands' Main Street, where we could see kids ducking into shops and hanging out in a little green. "Kids your age who live in this neighborhood can walk to school, to friends' houses, and to the movies! Wouldn't you like that?"

Tyler looked at me like I'd said the sky was green. "Why would I want to walk?" he replied. "Mom and Dad can just drive me there."

As a result, I tend to see most of the issues I write about, from better bike trails and infill development to skateparks and curfews, from the perspective of kids like my brother. I don't just think that good urbanism can make better communities. I think it makes better kids: confident, independent, and more aware of the world around them.

We talk about how urban neighborhoods are drawing young adults and senior citizens alike. But they have a lot to offer kids and teenagers, as well. That's the great part about good urbanism: it can work for everyone, regardless of age or situation.

Progressive ideas about cities would command a larger constituency if we instead practiced a big tent urbanism, starting from the premise that cities aren't just denser suburbs.

Rather, cities are organisms that function fundamentally differently, expanding the range of real freedoms available to their citizens. Prominent amongst these are the freedom to interact with people of diverse backgrounds, the freedom to participate in culturally rich and deep communities, and the freedom to meet everyday needs in the safety and convenience of your community.

Density in and of itself doesn't necessarily generate these benefits, as the early 20th century experience in U.S. cities demonstrates. The Achilles heel of hipster urbanism is architectural determinism which assumes that changes to the built environment lead to a better life for all residents.

Big tent urbanism seeks revitalized urban spaces, but only as a means, not an end. The end is to ensure that the people living in cities are actually experiencing the real freedoms that should follow from urban revitalization.

The Animosity is There

The division between "hipster urbanists" and their discontents is clearly evident, manifesting itself primarily in concerns about gentrification.

Two days after Vincent Gray defeated Adrian Fenty in the Democratic primary for DC Mayor last year, Post columnist Courtland Milloy castigated the "newly arrived creative class" that largely supported Fenty:

Watch them at the chic new eateries, Fenty's hip newly arrived "creative class" firing up their "social media" networks whenever he's under attack: Why should the mayor have to stop his work just to meet with some old biddies, they tweet. Who cares if the mayor is arrogant as long as he gets the job done? Myopic little twits.

While online commenters pushed back hard against Milloy, DC Councilmember Tommy Wells tweeted, "Courtland Milloy's column should be read and re-read."

I've read Milloy's column several times, and have come to agree with Wells' plea that Milloy not be dismissed. Milloy's raw characterization of those most inclined to support Fenty's urbanist policies raises unavoidable questions for those of us who identify as urbanists, particularly those who belong to the "hipster" demographic.

Of all the posts I've written for GGW, the two that triggered the most comments (mostly negative) advocated for unfolded strollers on Circulator buses and for Georgetown University to develop more on-campus housing to preserve the multi-generational character of the community.

Now, I may have been wrong in my positions, but it's noteworthy that the two positions of mine that GGW commenters most resisted advocated for the interests of those other than childless young singles and couples.

How can we broaden the tent of urbanism? By broadening our view of urbanism itself.

Hipster Urbanism

For many, urbanism can be reduced to support for density irrespective of the consequences for communities. And they see these density increases as being enabled by free housing markets, denser residential and commercial developments, and more transportation options.

When NPR ran a story about gentrification in Anacostia, 5 GGW contributors, all of whom I respect immensely, wrote 2 articles dismissing the story. One contributor questioned whether what looks like gentrification isn't really "just a family making a decision to sell and another family making a decision to buy".

Another lauded the newcomers into Anacostia: "good for them for believing in a neighborhood in spite of its challenges, and for meeting its hurdles head on and its new amenities with a sense of excitement."

While these fellow GGW contributors make the important point that the newcomers are middle and upper-class black just as often as they are white, recasting the issue as one of class just brings into sharper focus whose interests we appear to be advocating for.

Urbanists' lack of concern for the effects of large-scale migration in cities, whether it is young middle-class professionals moving into Anacostia or students moving into Georgetown group homes, undermines the credibility of their ideas.

This lack of concern makes urbanism look to many like a front for the interests of the most footloose and unrooted in society - professional, childless singles and couples.

While this segment of society has always existed, over the past couple decades it has become a major demographic phenomenon. Manning Up: How the Rise of Women has Turned Men into Boys describes the effects of millions of twenty- and thirty-somethings' decisions to delay marriage and children.

The delay of marriage and childbearing is particularly profound in the District of Columbia. No state has as high a median age of first marriage as the District, and no state has seen a larger increase in the median age of first birth (5.5 years) from 1970-2006.

Is urbanism's recent success nothing more than the historic growth of this transient demographic? To Milloy and many others, it certainly appears that way.

Big Tent Urbanism

Urbanism can and should command a broader constituency, including families, the elderly and the poor and working-class. But this requires urbanism to aim for more than in-migration and density for their own sake, regardless of the consequences.

It's critical to note that the leading urbanist thinkers associate urbanism with particular benefits of density, secured through smart planning and development, not with density itself. Prominent amongst the benefits that flow from density plus proper planning and development are the freedom to participate in diverse communities of cultural depth and richness.

Kunstler, Duany and Jacobs bemoan the damage done to cultural institutions sustained by cities as a result of suburban sprawl. Yet urbanists in DC don't bemoan the loss of communities and cultural memory when neighborhoods turnover their residents - it's just the free market at work.

These same authors praise the generational and socioeconomic diversity that is possible in cities. Jacobs writes that "cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody."

Urbanism at its core argues that cities aren't just denser suburbs. They are an organism that fundamentally functions differently and is able to expand the range of options and real freedoms available to people.

But when urbanist policies for enabling such cities are limited to the built environment, they commit the sin of architectural determinism which limits those options and reduces freedom. This myopic view of development has steamrolled communities, and thus undermined urbanism, ever since Baron Haussmann's 19th century renovation of Paris displaced poor and working-class Parisians to the outskirts of the city.

Development that focuses on people, not places, employs all tools of development in order to expand the real options available to people. Revitalizing the built environment for greater density is very important as a means to expanding the freedoms available to people, but it is not the end itself.

If other tools of development aren't employed, then the diversity of culturally deep communities available to urban residents is quickly lost and the range of people who can benefit from revitalized spaces is reduced to a lucky few.

This broader, people-centered view of development was articulated by Amartya Sen in his Development as Freedom, which has become a landmark in development theory. Sen argues:

If freedom is what development advances, then there is a major argument for concentrating on that overarching objective, rather than on some particular means, or some specially chosen list of instruments.

Any self-identified urbanist in the District who has nothing to say to its 30% of children in poverty, or the 30% of out-of-work Ward 8 residents, cannot rightly claim the mantle of urbanism and deserves any backlash he or she receives.

Smart-growth policies must benefit all residents, or else be they will be rightfully viewed as the tyranny of one class of people over another. We should stop supporting change that does not benefit all residents, as the heart of urbanism is the expansion of the real freedoms made possible by cities.