Urbanism+Articles

= THE URBAN CONTEXT; Attention Getting = Published: August 12, 2001     To the Editor: Though Herbert Muschamp disagrees, context is important in architecture again, and for good reasons. Almost a century of new starts, innovation and creative play with form has left the public reeling and has guaranteed revenge [Measuring Buildings Without a Yardstick, July 22]. Before the 20th century and with early Modernism, design invention was seen as a means to an end, generally social or technological progress. But now change and audacity have become ends in and of themselves, as well as a prerequisite for media attention. Don't make excitement for its own sake habitual, mandatory or, worse yet, a style. I realize it may make less-exciting copy, but we need to hear about aesthetically compelling buildings that also function well, fit in well and age well. The urban grid does help organize and tame individual excess and exceptions, as Mr. Muschamp points out; yet 20th-century architects have produced few good urban blocks or livable neighborhoods while, arguably, producing some of the greatest individual buidings of all time. When they are preoccupied with the formal consistency of their design -- the internal context, if you will -- a self-centered urbanism is sure to follow.

= The city that grows = 

Officials, local farmers divided on new urban agriculture rules
  January 03, 2011 | By Monica Eng, Tribune reporter Chicagoans have been tending gardens and preserving their bounty for the winter since the city started. But in recent years, a new variety of urban agriculture has sprouted. Dusty vacant lots that might have once grown new condos are now being eyed as sites for agriculture — large growing plots and winter greenhouses aimed at producing food for more than just family and friends.  <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">  <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #292727; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif;"> <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">In an effort to regulate the new crop of urban farms, Mayor Richard Daley last month presented a proposed ordinance to the City Council. City officials say the new rules are aimed at "nourishing urban agriculture," but some of Chicago's top urban farmers believe they will stunt the growth of grass-roots projects. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Crafted by the Department of Zoning and Land Use Planning, the ordinance and its accompanying protocols propose requirements on fencing, plot size, processing, landscaping and zoning that would apply to urban farming in all its forms: commercial production plots, nonprofit farms and community gardens. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">"If this passes, our work would be over," said Erika Allen, of Growing Power, which runs four nonprofit gardens and farms in Chicago. "We couldn't do any of our projects. They're all over the size limit. We couldn't sell produce at our Cabrini-Green farm stand. And some of our expanded projects would also be affected." <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Ken Dunn, of the Resource Center, would like to see vacant city lots used for temporary gardens modeled on his 1-acre City Farm, run for 10 years on city-owned land at Division Street and Clybourn Avenue but slated to move to a new site. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">He's concerned that the ordinance would treat such projects as if they were permanent structures, requiring expensive landscaping and fencing, among other things. Dunn said he could use vacant land to produce healthy food and thousands of living-wage jobs, but under the new ordinance, he predicts fewer public benefits along with skyrocketing startup times and costs. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">"Rather than the city recognizing the value of temporary use and the possibility of full employment and of healthy food everywhere, the new ordinance will delay each project's start-up for at least a year and increase the cost of urban agriculture by 10 times or more," Dunn said. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Zoning spokesman Peter Strazzabosco said he believes such concerns are overblown. Many of the objections are "based on 'what if' scenarios that the recommendations already take into account," he said. "And all of these points will work themselves out." <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Not all urban farmers are unhappy with the proposal, saying they accept the city's promises to smooth out wrinkles later. Several say they would be happy just to have a zoning code that recognizes urban farming. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">"This ordinance makes (urban farms) permitted uses by right, thereby taking them out of the shadows and saying clearly, yes, urban agriculture and community gardens are an important part of Chicago's urban fabric," said Ben Helphand, executive director of NeighborSpace, a nonprofit land trust that secures space for community garden use. "This is a huge step in the right direction." <span style="background-color: #ffffff; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif;"><span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;"> <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #292727; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">  <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #292727; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif; font-size: 12px;"> <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Currently, the city hosts hundreds of community gardens and about a dozen small farms whose produce is sold to the public. But Chicago is also peppered with roughly 14,000 empty lots that all parties agree could be farmed to create jobs, beautify the city and bring fresh produce to needy communities. Who gets to farm those lots and what rules will govern them remain points of contention, however. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Some urban agriculture activists fear that big businesses could squeeze out nonprofits in competition for plots, but Strazzabosco said he thinks "there will be more plots of land than there are qualified farmers to work them." He did acknowledge that "existing businesses have come and talked to the city about doing urban farming and are waiting for the recommendations to pass before moving forward." <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Brandon Johnson, executive director of the Washington Park Consortium, said he welcomes the business opportunities that farm plots could bring. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">"We want to create a framework for urban agriculture as part of our economy," said Johnson, who is planning an urban farm in Washington Park. "The plots have the ability to create some wealth, but when you have vacant lots that are unproductive, they are a wasted asset. Much of the (urban agriculture) leadership has come from the nonprofit sector, but we also want to see growing businesses here." <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Martha Boyd, program director for Angelic Organics Learning Center's Urban Initiative, said she is concerned about how the ordinance will affect nonprofit projects aimed at feeding needy communities.

=<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #292727; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif; font-size: 12px;"> = <span style="background-color: #ffffff; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif; font-size: 12px;"> = <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #800080; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 140%;">Is `new urbanism' truly a step in right direction? =

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">ARCHITECTURE.
<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #292727; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif; font-size: 12px;"> <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"> February 01, 2003 | By Arrol Gellner, Inman News Features. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">In recent years, a whole passel of architecture has marched under the banner of "new urbanism," a movement that seeks to counter the alienation of suburban sprawl and to rekindle human interaction in our communities. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Inspired by the smaller-scale and pedestrian focus of turn-of-the-century towns, a lot of new urban design has had heartening success. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">In big cities such as Chattanooga, Tenn., and tiny ones such as Suisun City, Calif., revamped neighborhoods that combine human scale, mixed-use planning, carefully varied architecture and a focus on foot-traffic have yielded vibrant places in which humans, and not just cars, can interact.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif; font-size: 12px;"><span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif; text-align: left;"> <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #292727; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"> <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #292727; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif; font-size: 12px;"> <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">In residential design, new urbanism has its own set of hallmarks. Prominent front porches, for example, are meant to encourage neighborly interaction, while garages are banished to the rear of building lots to help break the automobile's stranglehold on the street. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Such features, last seen in force during the 1920s, are slowly beginning to creep back into the offerings of the nation's more progressive developers, along with architecture that overtly mimics both Victorian cottages and the Craftsman and California bungalow styles of the teens and '20s. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Alas, in a few recent cases, the invocation of new urbanist ideals has begun to ring a bit hollow. Many pseudo-new urbanist developers are already veering toward hackneyed gimmicks such as theme park-like general stores and phony wooden water towers emblazoned with tract names. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">In central Florida, the Disney Corp.'s experiment in clean-slate town planning, Celebration, has retrograde whitewashed clapboard homes and cloyingly cute picket fences, for a look that's reminiscent of Disneyland's Main Street U.S.A.  <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Here and there, this WASPish vision of utopia is enlivened--if that's the word--with two-dimensional renditions of Spanish Revival architecture. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Celebration is fairly dripping with an atmosphere of corporate calculation, drawing on the most treacle and superficial cliches of America's past, while perpetuating land-hogging planning ideals that are no longer viable for a crowded nation with ever-broadening cultural values. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">On the opposite coast in Vallejo, Calif., is mass-artist Thomas Kinkade's first foray into development, simply called "The Village." <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Billed as "Thomas Kinkade's vision of simpler times," The Village plays on contemporary angst by offering the same escapist iconography found in the artist's rather fevered cottage paintings. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">The Village's mantra-like slogan promises "Calm, not chaos. Peace, not pressure,"--in glaring opposition to Kinkade's own frenetic corporate pursuits. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Yet despite its saccharin sales entreaties, The Village is somehow less disturbing than Celebration's finely calibrated atmosphere of happiness-in-a-can. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">At least Kinkade's development is blatantly commercial, as it must be to capture the same vast market as his mass-produced art. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Celebration on the other hand, has the pretense of a social experiment--one that seriously suggests we can escape urban woes by retreating into a sanitized, white bread version of America that never really existed in the first place. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Still, with the disastrous course American planning has taken during the postwar era, one is paradoxically left feeling thrilled to see anything even remotely different from the dead-end paradigm of freeway expansion and suburban sprawl. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">The new urbanism holds great promise if it can avoid devolving into merely another developer's sales gimmick like the live-work movement before it. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">At least it's a step in the right direction.