Alas, the grass is not greener
We here at Scaledown have written about Pittsburgh, Seattle, Vancouver and other cities which we see as having progressive urbanism and admired what they have done, Mary Newsom of Citiwire.net has a posting today that bursts the bubble, that the grass may not be greener anywhere else.
Urban Ills: No American Monopoly and I will add Canadian
ATHENS — Each city is a unique blend of history, culture and architecture. But put three dozen urban planners and scholars from around the globe into one room and you discover that their concerns sound astoundingly similar.
In June I spent three days in Athens with a group of former International Urban Fellows from Johns Hopkins University, holding their annual conference this year in the Greek capital city of almost 4 million. I asked those in attendance — most from Britain and Europe, but others from Mexico, India and Turkey — to pinpoint the biggest problem their city faces.
Despite major differences in history, urban form, customs and governance between their cities and U.S. metros, their answers might easily have come from planners in Atlanta, Cleveland, Charlotte or Chicago and Windsor
In the U.S., with our primitive rapid transit, our expensive — and expansive — large-lot suburban neighborhoods and our rapacious appetite for oil-based energy, we’re apt to imagine that other countries’ cities have found more effective solutions to problems that bedevil our urban areas. Europe is like a gigantic, well-planned Portland (though with better French fries), we think, while the U.S. is more like sprawling Phoenix.
But if we assume all that, listening to conference attendees from places such as Rome, Edinburgh, Paris and Bern, Switzerland, is a bit like getting ice water splashed in your face.
Some of the problems they listed and talked about:
- Under-developed or unused infrastructure.
- Mobility and car-focused development.
- Accommodating immigrants and/or different ethnic groups
- Corruption or maladministration
- The difficulty of infill development, compared with growth on the urban edge.
- Gentrification and other housing problems.
- Economic troubles and unemployment.
- Sprawl.
- Lack of regional cooperation or regional governance.
The above, all sound to very familiar don’t they, to us in Windsor.Newsom concludes:What cities need, said Ernecq, is restored political debate. “We need to have a vision and real political leadership and civic participation.”That, I’d add, is an important recipe, no matter where in the world you are.
Tags: cars, development, gentrification, Infill, Infrastructure, portland, Regional cooperation, regional government, Unemployment, urban sprawl, Vancouver, Windsor Ontario
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plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.
Oui, oui!
Those “problems” have existed, well, forever. They are not new. And they will not completely disappear. I can’t believe no has acknowledged that before.
Even so-called successful cities continue to experience those problems. Portland may be a popular example of ‘good planning’ but step outside the Portland municipal boundary and the picture changes.
It has always bugged when people look to other cities for solutions. We shouldn’t be looking at the solution. We should be looking at how they reached that solution and how that experience can be applied locally.
I agree Vincent, I just posted this as a “look see” type article, and also agree that we must find our own solutions while looking at good practices and solutions from other places then adapting them or creating our own for this city.
The difference between European and North American cities is that the Europeans, to their credit, have a long history of urban planning that limits sprawl, promotes public transit and encourages compact, walkable neighborhoods while North Americans have of history of promoting growth at all costs. Rome, Athens and Paris will still be livable, functioning cities in an energy-scarce future while Calgary, Vancouver and Phoenix won’t have any future in an energy-scarce future. That’s because the great cities of Europe were important cultural, business and political centres even before Columbus discovered the new world while North America’s great cities were products of the fossil-fuel era.
A lot of it was geography too, George, but I catch your drift. It’s the same way I consider myself lucky to not have hoarded a lot of crap - it’s because my house is tiny and anything beyond our essentials would take up valuable real estate.
The thing I fear is that we don’t have a culture that can ever be content. We value things over experiences and that will be our downfall.