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> Discussion Forum > Place-Making
Place-Making| Author | | kip
3/13/2009
3:06:39 PM | How can we design places that do not just respond to real estate market demand but also to the rising cost of oil, the growing scarcity of water, the impacts of global warming and sea level rise, and the probability of high carbon taxes to mitigate them? How do we leverage Stamford s location on the Long Island Sound? | mahesh
3/21/2009
11:12:41 AM | One way I see is by improving public transportation and publicly available information about public transportation.
Improving public transportation would lead to more people using it which would mean lesser cars being used which would help combat the rising cost of oil and reduce global warming.
Presently Stamford has Bus service provided by CTTransit, but in many places, information about Bus services is not available to "person on the Street", further details of problems with CTTransit Stamford Buses can be found at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cttransit_stamford_bus_riders/
Regards,
K. Mahesh | ssweeney
3/26/2009
6:25:48 PM | I have to agree with K Mahesh. The more people ride the buses, the better the system works. Yet the signage to make this happen and to attract new riders needs an upgrade. There's a real opportunity here to use the street presence postitively. | rstein
4/27/2009
9:25:07 AM | Need to wake up Connecticut DOT. It should not take a decade to get replacement rail cars on the line, or to even decide, one way or the other, whether a 5th Station on the New Canaan Branch RR Line can be added at E. Main Street. (Jon Smith) | rstein
4/27/2009
9:27:08 AM | As Waterside and the South End round out, frequent water related programs and attractions should be put in place, perhaps including "water taxi" service between the two neighborhoods. (Jon Smith) | rstein
4/27/2009
9:34:39 AM | Encourage high density housing along the emerging Mill river Park Corridor. Increased density=increased security via actively used "friendly" park system. (Jon Smith) | richardmunday
6/2/2009
4:43:46 PM | Place-making is something that people do. When I came to Connecticut from a place where it doesn t rain much, I was struck by how quickly a piece of newly disturbed earth turned green with new growth. The climate here favors plant life. As an analogy this is relevant to economic growth in Stamford.For Stamford to be a place where people want to be, conditions should be favorable. But what are they, and for what?
In The Economy of Cities, the writer of Death and Life of Great American Cities Jane Jacobs, argued that all cities have a common foundation: commerce. According to Jacobs, cities began as, and fundamentally still are, primarily places of exchange, and so prosper or decline on the basis of their ability to support exchange. Cities are places where people come together in order to find value and to find reward.
Tree-lined streets, bike paths, balloons in the park, minstrels, or monorails, are like apple pie, and who would not like a slice, but they do not make a city a city. Stamford will be reinvented through the way it engages people and allows people to engage in the life of the city: in city-sponsored projects, certainly, but mainly in physical and intellectual projects that its people, themselves, initiate and pursue.
Stamford should check to see that it is providing the political, regulatory, and cultural environment that fosters more and more varied, more differentiated patterns of exchange between people. Stamford should create a climate that is open to new ideas. The next big things will begin small, and will emerge from the efforts of those who value their association with the city because they see that there is value in being there.
My recommendations to Stamford are these. First: send out the message that Stamford is a place that encourages people to seek reward through their engagement there. People should hear that Stamford will ensure that its environment " physical, cultural, governmental " will try to cultivate their initiatives. Second: be that place. That is place-making.
| kip
6/25/2009
10:58:01 AM | Richard: I think it's ironic that it should be an architect who reminds us that place making is not just about the physical, and that you should invoke Jane Jacobs to make your point that cities are primarily places of exchange between people and that the soil and climate of a city has to be such that it nurtures new ideas and individual economic success and growth. The New Urbanists have diminished Jacobs' ideas to a sort of environmental determinism: if you just have density, mixed use, short blocks and old buildings, vital urbanity will magically happen. This is nonsense of course, which they have proved beyond doubt in sterile creations such as Celebration and Seaside. If you closely examine the vibrant urban neighborhoods that Jacobs describes in the "Death and Life..." you'll find that they shared more than those four physical characteristics; they were all places with a diverse mix of incomes, a very high percentage of foreign born, and a very high percentage of women in the workforce. It's as much that mix of people that produces a great place as the four physical characteristics. In fact, that mix of people will produce a great place even when the environmental conditions are not perfect. Conversely, you can give a group of white, upper middle class families with a working dad and stay-at-home mom a perfect physical environment and they will make it a boring place. Part of the problem with the New Urbanist recipe is that they conflate Jacobs' ingredient of "old buildings" with heritage architecture. Jacobs was not talking about style; she was talking about cheap space, and the diversity of people and uses that cheap space enables.
Anyway, I agree with the thrust of your point, but wonder if "exchange" fully captures what makes a city a place. There is a subversive quality to great cities. They are not just places of exchange, but also of foment. --Kip | richardmunday
8/25/2009
6:36:40 PM | Foment? It suggests anarchists sipping absinthe. But, indeed, I agree. Fomenters, however, need others of like mind to foment with. Fomenters also need cafes, and they need the existence of people who live and work in cities for reasons other than to foment. I like the word exchange because it is ordinary. It doesn t differentiate or pass judgement. It allows that a city, like a marketplace, will offer junk, things that you might not like, as well as stuff that you might like. It is by exposure to the merchandise that we learn to discern: including the quality of the foment on offer.
A slathering of architectural foment in Stamford would be a very good thing. As an architect, I would like one day to see Stamford on the list of places that people talk about, or want to visit, or live, or work in because it is a place that is creating and trying out new ideas about architecture, urbanism and city life. It will need architectural foment for that.
A Stamford that wants to re-invent itself could therefore profitably cultivate attitudes that encourage architects and planners to debate, explore and test the possibilities for the creation of place that will express and meet the needs of the new time we are entering. That is the kind of climate I would like to see Stamford foster. It will lead to something important.
I saw a wonderful, concrete idea in your observation about New Urbanism: what is great about old buildings is that the space in them is often relatively cheap to rent. Low rent lowers the cost of entry into the economic and intellectual life of the city, and improves the odds that there will be new people and new things of value to exchange there. Not every place, not every building or urban place has to look great to have great things happen. Is there enough space in Stamford cheap enough to encourage a significant number of people to start businesses in the city? Can that be promoted? Is Stamford doing that now? If so, how is it working out? Might it be possible to bring more, cheaper space onto the market by some mechanism? If there has to be a choice between cheap commercial space and a wider sidewalk somewhere, is it not possible to build a wider sidewalk later?
Kip, Reinventing Stamford is an important means to enable ideas about the city to emerge. I appreciate this opportunity to participate, and look forward to more debate.
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