Despite the large number of Americans now living in cities, urban issues have been astonishingly absent from the U.S. presidential debates. PPS did a spoof article for Faking Places, the annual April Fool's Newsletter, in which Hillary, McCain and Obama make promises for more livable neighborhoods. The glaring omission of urban issues from the national discourse is actually no laughing matter.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports:

"There are three times as many urbanites in America as country folk, yet you wouldn't know it listening to the three main presidential candidates, or perusing their Web sites. Instead, you might come away thinking the United States is a collection of Norman Rockwell small towns surrounded by picture-book farms."

Related Stories: 
The Candidates and the City [Gotham Gazette]
Urban Issues Get Short Shrift [Politico]
Candidates Largely Ignore Urban Issues [City Mayors]

Planetizen has named PPS/Jay Walljasper's The Great Neighborhood Book as one of its top 10 planing books of 2007.  http://www.planetizen.com/books/2008

Also, Urban Land magazine recently reviewed The Great Neighborhood Book in the November/December 2007 issue. Click here to read the review.

The Great Neighborhood Book also received an honorable mention on the American Booksellers Association's list of books about promoting local businesses.

Jay Walljasper discusses the need for cities to have life on their streets -- even in the most frigid days (and nights) of winter.

"Plunging temperatures don't necessarily sentence us to months of house arrest. People around the world from Copenhagen to New York are figuring out how to keep things lively throughout the colder months. City streets bustle with festivals and outdoor attractions showing that winter is something to enjoy rather than endure.

My colleague Cynthia Nikitin, vice president of Project for Public Spaces, describes Berlin in the dead of winter: "It gets dark at 3:30. It's snowing like crazy. But it's no problem. People are playing bocce ball on the ice. There are tents selling hot mulled wine. You are walking down the street just watching all the other people. Life is good, and winter feels good, too."

But you need to give people reasons to be outside, Nikitin adds -- "a market, ice skating, music, decorative lighting. No one will stay outdoors to stare at an empty plaza."

The Rockefeller Foundation is now accepting nominations for the 2008 Jane Jacobs Medal on its website through February 1, 2008. The 2008 Rockefeller Foundation Jane Jacobs Medals will recognize two living individuals whose creative vision for the urban environment has significantly contributed to the vibrancy and variety of New York City.

Click here for the full  press release

Click here for the The 2008 Jane Jacobs Medal Nomination Form

New library designs are moving away from the quiet, institutionalized models of old. The next generation of libraries are using technology and placemaking to create community spaces, where "people can congregate, be comfortable,... meet neighbors and catch up on the news, learn and play and read."

Small-scale revitalization takes shape in Albuquergue with large-scale impacts. The city opted to redevelop existing buildings, rather than tearing down their history. Small changes have resulted in a unique sense of place with a "human face" in the city's downtown.

Designers are working to create spaces and situations to encourage and promote interaction in a time where people are living closer together physically, but farther apart socially.  Community cannot be built; what can be built are spaces and situations to draw neighbors together. These spaces come in all forms. Multi-family complexes can center on a water feature, a nearby park, a common yard, a special tree or a barbecue patio.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 13 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The U.S. General Services Administration, manager of 8,600 federal properties across the nation and steward of 425 historic landmarks, has published a new workbookto help guide GSA property managers on how to enhance public spaces infederal buildings.

"Federal buildings in many communities are the government's most prominent representative, a symbol of democracy," said David Winstead, Commissioner for GSA's Public Buildings Service. "It's important that these spaces are accessible to the public and that they convey a positive image of the federal government."

GSA produced, Achieving Great Federal Public Spaces - A Property Manager's Guide in collaboration with the Project for Public Spaces. The workbook provides GSA property managers with a step-by-step process on how to enhance public spaces such as plazas, lobbies, atria and grounds. It suggests short, medium, and long-term improvements -- from actions as simple as reducing clutter and inviting civic organizations to use public spaces for activities and events, to more elaborate measures such as buildings enhancements, including the streamlining of the security process in lobbies.

"When managed effectively, these spaces support neighborhood goals and play an important role in how our client agencies view their workplaces," commented Anthony Costa, Deputy Commissioner for Public Buildings. "It is in our collective interests that we make the most of our public spaces."

 A short video and article about a mixed-use development project that is getting mixed-reviews from resident in Grand Junction, CO.

Mixed-use development is springing up on First and Patterson Streets. People who live in the area say they are concerned about the impact it will have on their neighborhood.

Wendy Hoffman says she's not sure what to think about the 20–acre development sprouting up in the backyard of her dream home.  She is worried about traffic and noise the development might bring and she's not alone.

Grand Junction's planning department has been fielding calls from people who have concerns about the project as well.

Developers say people just need to give it a try.

Constructors West says the concept of mixed-use is exactly why people who live next door shouldn't be worried about traffic.  They say that a place that has retail, office and residential space helps clear congestion because people don't have to drive to work, live and play.

The Silicon Valley cities of Mountain View and Sunnyvale are alike in many ways. But their downtowns offer a study in contrasts because of land use decisions made 30 years ago.

 

After funding the research that helped Jane Jacobs produce her landmark book "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" nearly 50 yeas ago, the Rockefeller Foundation has inaugurated the first Jane Jacobs Medals.

Barry Benepe, the 79-year-old founder of Greenmarket, will receive the first medal for "lifetime leadership." Omar Freilla, the 33-year-old founder of Green Worker Cooperatives in the Bronx, was named the winner of the first medal for "new ideas and activism."

The medals will be presented in September in conjunction with the opening by the Municipal Art Society of an exhibit titled "Jane Jacobs and the Future of New York."

FDR shaped the Pentagon, and two of the founding fathers were amateur architects who built their own residences.  Why haven't more presidents taken an interest in architecture?

A program in Savannah is encouraging downtown churches to redevelop their parking lots to include needed affordable housing and neighborhood services.

American museums, still flush with expansion fever, have become more convinced than ever that real estate is destiny. Every museum in the country seems to be opening a new wing or a satellite building or scouting locations for one. And the recent news that the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth has hired Renzo Piano brings the number of American museum jobs the Italian architect has won to 63. OK, to nine. But still.

Few museums, however, can hope to match the double expansion pulled off in just 3 1/2 months by the Seattle Art Museum. Coolly restrained, the SAM expansion keeps its ego in check and the focus on what's inside.

Policymakers are ignoring the wishes of local people and exaggerating the importance of “metropolitan” urban design in creating successful public spaces, according to a new report, the Social Value of Public Spaces.  

“Most public spaces that people use are local spaces they visit regularly, often quite banal in design, or untidy in their activities or functions, such as street markets and car boot sales,” the report said.

PPS Board Member Roberta Brandes Gratz reminds us what was lost when Robert Moses deemed areas 'slums' and tore them down in this piece from City Limits.  

The Americans for Libraries Council will hold the first annual Voices for America's Libraries Awards at a special reception at the Grolier Club in New York City on Friday, March 30th. This year's awardees are four prominent individuals who through their work have shown a deep commitment to supporting community access to literature and libraries.

They are:

• Peter J Gomes, Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church Harvard University.
• Sybil Jacobson, President and CEO, the MetLife Foundation
• Susan Jacoby, author, journalist
• Fred Kent, President, Project for Public Spaces

The first annual Voices for America's Libraries Awards should be an interesting and edifying event, as well as a chance to learn more about getting involved with a well-respected national institution.

"Three decades after his Pompidou Center in Paris turned the architecture world upside down and brought him global fame, the British architect Richard Rogers has been named the 2007 winner of the Pritzker Prize, the profession’s highest honor."

"Three years after the Seattle Central Library opened to starbursts of praise, including mine, I am trying to understand why, when I need to spend a working day at a library, I retreat to the Bellevue Regional instead of Seattle's downtown flagship," writes Lawrence Cheek of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

"It's time for a reconsideration -- something like what architects call a post-occupancy evaluation, which looks at how a building is working for people in everyday use."

Architectural critic John King finds 'starchitects' to be great designers, but troubling to cities, saying, "What bothers me is the detached unreality of a world where architecture is reduced to a chic parlor game. At some point the stars aren't designing for the site or the client. They want to pull a new breed of rabbit out of their hat."

While most consider the building as the most important element of architecture, Jan Gehl's works are appreciated by millions for emphasising what isn't there.

"If we do not plan for schools to be the joint-use centers of our neighborhoods now, we will be forced to address it later and to retrofit later. We do not have the luxury of single-use buildings that do not take advantage of all of their potential. It’s not just about land; it’s also about the roles these facilities play in enhancing the health of our communities."

The Rockefeller Foundation announced the creation of the Jane Jacobs Medal, an award that will recognize individuals whose creative vision for the urban environment has significantly contributed to the vibrancy and variety of New York City.

The medal will be given annually to two people: one who has made a lifetime contribution and another who is at the start of a promising career.

The Foundation is accepting nominations through March 2, 2007 on its website.

 

$3.1 million will be spent over the next two years on an effort to improve streets in Downtown Atlanta and make the city's heart more pedestrian friendly. Projects include in-ground sidewalk planters along curbs to dissuade walkers from crossing in the middle of streets, more mid-block traffic signals that can be activated by pedestrians, realigning some streets and more greenery to keep people away from curbs. Downtown business leaders, hospitality officials, the state and Georgia State University are all contributed funds to the effort.

"Inserting a tall building into a neighborhood of mostly two- to six-story buildings is a recipe for conflict. Where some see revitalization and an expanded tax base, others see architectural Armageddon: loss of human scale, more traffic and parking headaches, dark shadows on the streets.

But what if the lanky newcomer is shapely, not hulking?

What if it re-energizes a sagging business district and contributes to the long-term health of a neighborhood?"

These centers of wisdom are not just about books anymore. They're diversifying - and designers are focusing on their social role

Efforts are underway to refurbish, rethink and rejuvenate Denver's aging Civic Center park, boosting its profile and transforming it into a more desirable destination by improving accessibility and security and giving residents and tourists more reasons to visit.

Though the plan has been endorsed by most parties, it has also generated emotional debate by preservationists, and members of the public who feel they were not engaged in the decision making process. 

There was a golden age of motoring when the multi-storey car park was considered a symbol of pride and progress. But car parks are fast becoming symbols of our congested cities, our heavy carbon footprint, our dependency on oil; a civilisation that once embraced the motor car as an agent of liberation now feels a little sheepish about the whole affair.

The hunt for new ways of creating moderately priced housing in places with immoderate land prices has led housing experts in New York City to an unconventional thought: Why not tear down obsolete branch libraries and replace them with libraries that not only are bigger and better, but also have apartments built on top?

 

"As they battle sprawl, Washington area leaders say they face a stubborn foe, and it's not greedy developers or the tyranny of the automobile or the desire for big houses. It is the United States government.

In scattering employees to the region's outer edges, local officials and planners say, the federal government has undermined efforts to concentrate growth near public transit and the area's urban core -- the strategy local officials see as key to reducing traffic and conserving resources in a booming region."

Voters in the City of Austin will decide whether to approve a bond issue to build a new central public library downtown.

"Like in other cities, we now have chance in Austin to reinvent the central library," says Loriene Roy, professor of library and information science at the University of Texas and president-elect of the American Library Association. "It can be a point of community pride, a dynamic downtown place everybody can use every day and yet still be something really terrific we leave for the next generation."

"Where schools are built can have a major impact on the character and growth of a community. With a push from state education officials, communities are consolidating small schools and building new ones near town centers. This is a welcome change."

CALL FOR ENTRIES
2007 RUDY BRUNER AWARD

About the Rudy Bruner Award:

The Rudy Bruner Award is given to urban places that demonstrate the successful integration of effective process, meaningful values and good design. RBA winners are distinguished by their social, economic and contextual contributions to the urban environment, and often provide innovative solutions to our cities’ most challenging problems.

The RBA awards one Gold Medal of $50,000 and four Silver Medals of $10,000 each.

Case studies of winners are published on line at www.brunerfoundation.org and in a book distributed by the Bruner Foundation.

2007 Selection Committee:

• Mayor Manny Diaz, Miami, FL
• Reese Fayde, CEO, Living Cities: National Community Development Initiative, NY
• Reed Kroloff, Dean of Architecture, Tulane University, New Orleans
• David Perry, CEO, Great Cities Institute, Chicago
• Josephine Ramirez, Director of Planning, The Music Center, Los Angeles
• Robert Kroin, Chief Architect, Boston Redevelopment Authority, Boston

For more information or to receive an application, contact:

Bruner Foundation
130 Prospect Street
Cambridge, MA  02139
Ph. 617-492-8401, Ext. 184
Fax 617-876-4002
Email: application@brunerfoundation.org
Download the application: www.brunerfoundation.org

The application deadline is December 18, 2006.

Please provide your name, title, company or organization, full address and daytime phone and/or fax number on all application requests. Please let us know how you learned about the Award.

"The strategic location of a library at one end of a heritage block, and a smart wine shop at the other, can lead to an empty block becoming home to a coffee shop, a bakery, a cheese shop and a bookstore.

Public institutions like the Post Office, the library, and the liquor store have been gathering places in communities for generations. Strategically used to leverage economic renewal, they not only restore a street but begin to rebuild a community's tax base."

"Two blocks of well-loved green space next to New York's main library should get Minneapolis thinking: Why not transform one or more of the surface parking lots next to its central library into an urban oasis?"  Bryant Park provides a model for Minneapolis to think about the backyard of its new downtown library.
 

"American architecture is still reeling from the 9/11 attacks. Critics and architects say that security now trumps design, as barricades and mall-like plazas are sucking the soul out of urban life."

A new convention center in Spokane, WA, is criticized for its lack of warm human scale, and out-of-the-way location. A local critic calls the project "a missed opportunity to add to downtown's architecture," and adds, "It gets my nomination as the worst public building in America."

Sunday's NY Times article cited PPS's opposition to the existing plans for Brooklyn Bridge Park.  Our critique can be found here: http://www.pps.org/great_public_spaces/one?public_place_id=933

An essay by PPS president  Fred Kent on the current Downtown Brooklyn Development efforts including the Waterfront: http://www.pps.org/info/ppsnews/brooklyn_essay

Another recent article about this issue heavily quoting Fred Kent:  http://www2.pps.org/updates/one-entry?entry_id=6531

An innovative program in Denver, CO, has transformed neglected schoolyards into community centers.

 

Former California State Architect Steven Castellanos outlines the changes that would be required to change how schools are designed and built if they are to become centers of communities. 

ArchNews contributer Kenneth Caldwell interviews two architects and discusses library design trends, and the renewed roles that all kinds of libraries have to play in our civic life.

"What's wrong with the buildings Frank Gehry wants to put in my neighborhood?" asks Jonathan Lethem, a writer who lives in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn.

Please join the Center for the Living City in celebrating the life of Jane Jacobs on Wednesday, June 28, from 5:00 - 7:00, Washington Square Park, in front of the Arch, the site of her first victory over Robert Moses.

"A new campaign to highlight the impact of bad design on people and the places where we live has been launched by the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment.

CABE believes that bad design is not just about aesthetics: it is about buildings and spaces that don't work, can't be maintained, and waste money because they need to be replaced sooner than they should.

As part of the campaign, the public is being invited to nominate the buildings, streets and spaces that depress them."

"The idea of reusing historic buildings is now so ingrained in our culture that it is hard to imagine that only a few decades ago it was a radical concept. Now we see old structures as heritage, as potential money-spinners, as ciphers for authenticity. The British countryside is littered with arts centres in old mills and factories, and contemporary art has replaced machinery in the heartlands of the industrial revolution, from Saltaire in West Yorkshire and the Balticon Tyneside, to Tates Liverpool and Modern."

"Millennium Park, the $475 million modernist playground that opened at the edge of Lake Michigan here two years ago, has quickly become one of the city's leading tourist attractions. What is less known, however, is that the 24.6-acre park...has had a transforming effect on the surrounding neighborhood.

In the late 1990's, the area, known as the East Loop or South Michigan Avenue, was a fairly sleepy retail and office district. In the last five years, however, it has emerged as one of the city's hottest residential neighborhoods with more than a dozen projects rising within blocks of the park."

While concerns for the physical safety of people and buildings in Washington DC are understandable, our responses -- defined strictly in terms of physical measures designed to protect Washington's buildings and the people in them -- are vastly out of proportion.   It is almost impossible to overstate the damage being done to the beauty and symbolism of the nation's capital.

Architect and set designer David Rockwell collaborated with Broadway choreographer Jerry Mitchell on his latest project, the new JetBlue Airways terminal being built at JFK airport.  The two men examined the "choreography" of public spaces, and used the teachings of William H. Whyte as inspiration.

Jane Jacobs, who died last month at age 89, is best known as the author of the influential 1961 book, "The Death and Life of Great American Cities." Much of what she wrote is still relevant to 21st century challenges and discourse about smart growth, planning and land use regulation, urban revitalization, historic preservation and architectural design.

"San Diego architect Teddy Cruz, and his firm Estudio Teddy Cruz, have been working along the Mexican border for years. Cruz’s newest design is for two affordable housing and community center schemes for immigrants in the border town of San Ysidro, California. The plan was developed with non-profit community center, Casa Familiar, whose client base is mostly Spanish-speaking.

Cruz’s inspiration came first from discussions and brainstorming sessions led by Casa Familiar. It also came from a critical approach to the trends in new urbanism, which he says “only address aesthetics, creating a fake facade of difference without considering the lifestyle of the community.”  He says the downtown redevelopment of San Diego is an example of this kind of “suburban planning,” meaning that he feels it is dressed up in high-end urban aesthetics without addressing zoning policy for higher density or affordable housing options."

What are we really arguing about when we argue about architecture?

This week's New York Times Magazine features this and other articles on architecture: Architecture 2006.

 

A panel of architecture critics discusses the meaning of activist criticism and whether it still has a meaningful role.

"Although architecture schools are adding courses on how to design green buildings, the consensus is that more needs to be done. Indeed, the notion of sustainable design - balancing architecture's emphasis on style and structure with the creation of buildings that protect the environment, human health and save resources - presents a challenge."

Daniel Goldstein, a spokesman for Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, said the new design is "still way too big, and does not change the fact of 16 skyscrapers slammed on top of and next to low-rise, historic neighborhoods."

Frank Gehry, the project's architect, and Laurie Olin, its landscape designer, emphasized details that they said would harmonize the planned arena and commercial and residential buildings with the neighborhoods they would border.

"Jane Jacobs didn't trust urban planners. She once told me that planners would call her all the time and tell her what great work they were doing in her name. Then she would find out that they were following the same old pattern she was opposed to."

Urban Planner Thomas G. Lunke reflects on the life of Jane Jacobs in City Limits Magazine.