Payam Mirrashidi: SF Days

The Congress for New Urbanism

Several years ago, a received a book for Christmas that explained and deconstructed, in plain terms, the suburban landscape of my upbringing. Geography of Nowhere by James Howard Kunstler changed my perspective on my surroundings. It was a life changing book. Once I digested it, city planning became the bread-and-butter of my cocktail party banter. Before reading it, I didn't have the framework nor vocabulary to describe what is wrong with the traditional American suburban setting. After reading it, I was incorrigible: the following Christmas my family asked me to refrain from constantly telling them how much I hated Los Angeles, and suburbia in general, for they were tired of constantly hearing about it. For them, Redondo Beach, California was a nice place to live. (For me as well, but I wasn't going to admit it!)

I followed Geography of Nowhere up with a slew of other fantastic books along the same vein. Home from Nowhere, the followup, was another great Kunstler read. As anyone who has read it can atest, Mike Davis's City of Quartz is the definitive book on Los Angeles. While it is not for the light hearted, getting through it all is a worthwhile effort. I managed to do it, albeit incongruously, over a couple of days on the coast of Bulgarian Black Sea. With the catchiest title of the lot, Suburban Nation is a look at this space from the progenitors of the new urbanism movement, Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk. They break down their own projects and explain what worked and what didn't. The one disappointing book I'd recommend against is Ray Saurez's The Old Neighborhood. The premise is that he enjoyed growing up in Brooklyn and he thinks that it'd be cool if average middle class people today could afford that lifestyle today.

The one book that gets cited over and over in any new book on the urban landscape is A Pattern Language. Computers geeks will find it notable that this is the book that started the whole pattern movement. The so-called "gang of four" book, Gamma et al., was based on it. A Pattern language is an encylopedia of "towns, buildings and construction". I recommend it to anyone with even a passing interest in architecture. When my parents where designing their own house this book was the reference by which all ideas were vetted against.

All proper movements have their bureaucracies and the aptly located Congress of New Urbanism in San Francisco is one focalpoint for work in this area. To quote the Amazon review of their charter, the CNU is, "a movement which seeks to support an American movement to restore urban centers, reconfigure sprawling suburbs, conserve environmental assets, and preserve our built legacy." One of the tenants of New Urbanism is the primacy of a walkable, mixed-use neighborhood. And to drive this point home, the CNU commissioned very interesting PWC study where it was postulated that it would be a profitable enterprise if failing suburban malls, so-called greyfields, were converted into mixed-use, walkable villages. This study attempted to put a real dollar value on improving the suburban landscape. The idea was to make it abundantly clear to developers that there is another model to follow other than that of big boxes and track homes. The study findings itself are quite dry, however, so I recommend reading the Executive Summary.

Some San Jose developers were convinced by these arguments and next weekend, the Santana Row development is being launched. The launch is a few months late because of a fire that occured last fall but the place doesn't seem any worse for the wear. I had lunch over there with some co-workers a few weeks ago and I have to say, the place is not bad. Although, now that I think about it, it might, in fact, be bad in the Paul Fussell sense of the word. I'll admit that there is a Las Vegas quality to the place as it is very reminiscent of The Venetian hotel but overall I was expecting it to be much less appealing, if not less expensive as well. This place is not an average, middle-of-the-road haunt; it's definitely for the upwardly mobile. Still, Santana Row has passed my first look. Yes, it's over-the-top grandiose for San Jose and it's very disconcerting driving there since it's smack in the middle of suburbia but once you're walking around inside the bubble it's as if you're somewhere far, far away - maybe a French village, maybe Disneyland instead. Regardless, it is an icon of mixed-use development. Kudos to the developers; I'm excited to see how the place turns out in two to five years.

I think the reason the ideas of this urban movement speak to me is that I lived in Cole Valley, San Francisco for so many years. In many respects, it is the ideal walkable, mixed-use neighborhood with easy access to public transportation. Even though, I don't live there anymore, I know I'll be back one day.

Posted by payam at June 9, 2003 11:58 PM | TrackBack