Category Archives: Places

Remembering MLK in Chicago

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The story of the time Martin Luther King, Jr. spent in Chicago in 1966 is not well-known. While many think of King as leading a successful Civil Rights Movement that culminated in the “I Have A Dream” speech in 1963 and then the passing of the Civil Rights Acts of 1964, his efforts in his last years faced more opposition. In Chicago, he unsuccessfully fought for an end to residential segregation. Read two longer posts about King’s time in Chicago:

–MLK in Chicago – Jan 17, 2011

–More on MLK in Chicago in 1966 – Aug 7, 2011

The Chicago Tribune has this short summary of what King faced in Chicago:

On this muggy Friday afternoon, Martin Luther King Jr. stepped out of the car that had ferried him to Marquette Park on Chicago’s Southwest Side to lead a march of about 700 people. The civil-rights leader and his supporters were in the white ethnic enclave to protest housing segregation. Thousands of jeering, taunting whites had gathered. The mood was ominous. One placard read: “King would look good with a knife in his back.”

As King marched, someone hurled a stone. It struck King on the head. Stunned, he fell to one knee. He stayed on the ground for several seconds. As he rose, aides and bodyguards surrounded him to protect him from the rocks, bottles and firecrackers that rained down on the demonstrators. King was one of 30 people who were injured; the disturbance resulted in 40 arrests. He later explained why he put himself at risk: “I have to do this–to expose myself–to bring this hate into the open.” He had done that before, but Chicago was different. “I have seen many demonstrations in the South, but I have never seen anything so hostile and so hateful as I’ve seen here today,” he said.

Not Chicago’s best day or season.

From modest homes in a Canadian prairie town to McMansions

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R.J. Snell returned to the Canadian prairie town of his youth and was surprised to find that its modest homes had been replaced with McMansions:

Having just returned from a two-week visit, I’m struck by the visible demise of modest restraint, particularly in the homes. Driving about the countryside, for this is what one does there, I saw many new homes of a preposterous scale, many thousands of square feet (one even had an outbuilding to house all the mechanicals), with multiple garrets and turrets, all jutting conspicuously from the fields and into my purview. They could not be hidden, nor were they meant to, and on the treeless flatness were visible for great distances.

Right beside them, sometimes just across the road, stood the old farmhouse, diminutive, overshadowed. In the towns, a kind of segregation had taken place, with the older neighborhoods a mix of homes smaller or larger (but of a kind), but new developments on the far side of town housing looming monstrosities dwarfing the older places.

This was not neighborly. This was not modest. This was a thumbing of the nose at those with less, a demand to be noticed, seen.  Roger Scruton writes of the bad manners of much contemporary architecture compared with older patterns, saying:

The principal concern of the architects was to fit in to an existing urban fabric, to achieve local symmetry within the context of a historically given settlement. No greater aesthetic catastrophe has struck our cities—European just as much as American—than the modernist idea that a building should stand out from its surroundings, to become a declaration of its own originality. As much as the home, cities depend upon good manners; and good manners require the modest accommodation to neighbors rather than the arrogant assertion of apartness.

Rod Dreher follows up with an interesting question:

The question is, did money cause this cultural revolution in domestic architecture, or did the arrival of wealth happen to coincide with a cultural revolution in the way people thought about themselves and their desires, causing them to build their houses in a certain way now as opposed to then?

Which comes first: the cultural values or the material conditions? If looking at this from the production perspective in the sociology of culture, changes in material conditions like how architects are viewed, how single-family homes are viewed (as Snell suggests, should homes fit into the neighborhood or stick out?), how houses are constructed, how the real estate business operate, how zoning laws and local regulation encourage or discourage larger homes, etc. In other words, architectural styles or consumer desires don’t just change because individuals desire this. Rather, they change in conjunction with material and cultural change.

I also wonder about larger factors affecting this community. Where did residents get this money to spend on bigger houses? I ask this after lecturing this week about the Ferdinand Tonnies’ ideas about gemeinschaft and gesellschaft as well as Emile Durkheim’s concepts of mechanical and organic solidarity. Both theorists were interested in the shift from small town life to more urban life. Both suggested urban life contained fewer strong interpersonal relationships and systems where people were joined together by interdependence and external constraints rather than tradition, family ties, and shared values. Is a similar process taking place in this prairie town, perhaps through suburbanization or the rise of a good nearby job source or the Internet which opens up more possibilities for residents to connect to the outside world?

Canadian housing market may be headed for a crash

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The troubles of the US housing market have been well documented and now it looks like the Canadian housing market may also be headed in the same direction:

A housing correction—or, possibly, a crash—is no longer coming. It’s here. And you don’t have to own a tiny $500,000 condo in downtown Toronto or a $1.3-million bungalow in Vancouver to get hurt. With few exceptions, the impact will be indiscriminate as the euphoria of rising house prices is replaced by fear. The only question now is how bad things will get. If the decline picks up speed, as many believe it will, there could be a nasty snowball effect. Construction jobs will be lost. Homeowners will end up underwater. Consumers may stop spending. “I’m getting very nervous,” says David Madani, an economist at Capital Economics, who has been predicting a drop in housing prices of up to 25 per cent in Canada. “I know I’m a bear, but the housing market itself has the potential to put us in a recession, let alone what’s happening in Europe and the U.S.”

Canada could be setting itself up for a devastating one-two punch: a painful domestic housing slump just as Canada’s export and resource-driven economy is hit with falling global demand. The most acute threat is the U.S. debt crisis, which, if handled poorly, could tip the world’s largest economy back into recession, taking Canada along with it. Meanwhile, Europe remains mired in a recession and concerns about China’s growth persist. “I feel like Canada is in the path of a perfect storm here,” Madani says. Other than housing, “the key pillar of strength is our booming resource sector,” says Madani. “If you take that away, it’s just going to knock the lights out.”…

Eight months later, the story has been reversed. And not just in Toronto and Vancouver. In Victoria, existing home sales were down by 22 per cent in November from a year earlier. In Montreal, sales were down 19 per cent last month. Ottawa’s sales were down nine per cent and Edmonton’s were down six per cent. With all those houses lingering on the market, prices dipped in 10 of 11 big cities across the country between October and November, according to the Teranet-National Bank index. It was the first such drop since 2009.

The weakness is also evident in new home construction. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation reported a third straight month of falling housing starts in November. The trend is expected to continue next year.

I wonder if anyone will ask whether the Canadian housing market should have applied more lessons from watching the travails of the US housing market. This article suggests there are some similarities and differences in the two situations: a similar overextension of credit and the involvement of speculators alongside a market more insulated from a collapse since more mortgages are guaranteed by taxpayers and a glut of urban condos. But, it would be helpful to have more comparison points: what are the differences in government policies regarding mortgages and homeownership? What are the policies about encouraging sprawl versus urban residences? What percentage of the economy is tied up in construction, housing starts, and real estate sales? Of course, there is also the difference in having a significantly smaller economy (Canadian GDP of $1.4 trillion, just over $15 trillion GDP in the US) and population (over 34 million in Canada, over 311 million in the US).

Highlights from the “Illinois’s 33%” poverty report

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A new report from the Social Impact Research Center, “Illinois’s 33%,”  looks at poverty in Illinois. Here are a few highlights:

1. Something I did not realize: the preamble to the Illinois Constitution mentions “eliminat[ing] poverty” (p.1).

“We, the People of the State of Illinois…in order to provide for the health, safety and welfare of the people; maintain a representative and orderly government; eliminate poverty and inequality; assure legal, social and economic justice; provide opportunity for the fullest development of the individual; ensure domestic tranquility; provide for the common defense; and secure the blessings of freedom and liberty to ourselves and our posterity—do ordain and establish this Constitution for the State of Illinois.”

2. The report is not just about poverty; it is also about people in near-poverty. The income thresholds for this are here (p.5):

This methodology of measuring people with low incomes or near poverty seems to be growing. The Census reports the median household income in Illinois is $56,576.

3. There is definitely some geographic disparity in these figures. Here are the numbers for the Chicago region which clearly shows wealthier and less wealthy counties and Chicago neighborhoods (p.7):

I did not see any calls for metropolitan approaches to poverty. In the Chicago region, it would be difficult to deal with a particular problem, say affordable housing, in just Chicago or a few of its neighborhoods without cooperation and input from others in the region.

4. The report has more figures and possible solutions in five areas that could help people move out of poverty: employment, education, housing, health & nutrition, and assets (p.3-4, 15-17).

Gated crime-free “private city” under construction in Guatemala

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A new gated community under construction in Guatemala is upfront about being exclusive and crime-free:

Guatemalan developers are building a nearly independent city for the wealthy on the outskirts of a capital marred by crime and snarled by traffic. At its heart is the 34-acre (14-hectare) Paseo Cayala, with apartments, parks, high-end boutiques, church, nightclubs, and restaurants, all within a ring of white stucco walls.

The builders of Paseo Cayala say it is a livable, walkable development that offers housing for Guatemalans of a variety of incomes, though so far the cheapest apartments cost about 70 times the average Guatemalan’s yearly wage. It’s bordered by even costlier subdivisions begun earlier. Eventually, the Cayala Management Group hopes to expand the project into “Cayala City,” spreading across 870 acres (352 hectares), an area a little larger than New York’s Central Park .

Cayala’s backers promote it as a safe haven in a troubled country, one with an unusual degree of autonomy from the chaotic capital. It also embraces a philosophy that advocates a return to a traditional concept of a city, with compact, agreeable spaces where homes and shops are intermixed.

Detractors, however, say it is a blow to hopes of saving the real traditional heart of Guatemala City by drawing the well-off back into the urban center to participate in the economic and social life of a city struggling with poverty and high levels of crime and violence…

Pedro Pablo Godoy, one of the 25 architects who worked on Paseo Cayala, said it is the first project in Guatemala that adheres to New Urbanism, a movement that promotes the creation of walkable neighborhoods with a range of housing types and commerce.

Sounds like a fairly typical gated community that may simply be unusually frank about the reasons it is built and why wealthy residents would want to live there: to avoid the problems of society. I imagine some New Urbanists would not anything to do with such a project that is hardly about mixed-income development or being integrated into the fabric of normal society.

While we could focus on the exclusiveness of this new development, it would also be interesting to study whether and how a community forms in such a setting. It sounds like the developers expect some sort of streetlife, partly due to the architecture and design as well as a younger generation they are hoping to attract that want a lively urban setting. Will this actually occur? Will the perceived safety lead to more vulnerable social interactions? If so, what will this community end up looking look?

This also is reminiscent of plans to build several cities in Honduras that would have their own government and oversight.

Could a new Chicago casino be a cultural hub?

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Chicago Tribune critic Chris Jones argues that the inevitable Chicago casino should be more of a cultural hub than a gaming paradise:

Instead, it should be viewed as a major new cultural hub, which happens to have a little gambling going on alongside its many other attractions.

And that won’t happen unless Chicago’s creative professionals — its architects, entertainment executives, chefs, artists, actors, music promoters, cultural officials — hold their noses and overcome, as did the former street performers of the Cirque du Soleil more than two decades ago, whatever qualms they may have about becoming involved with gambling, which will arrive with or without them. They must grab hold of this civic debate right now, before the chance is lost for good.

The main energy of a Chicago casino should have everything to do with experiencing architecture, watching spectacular shows, eating at world-class restaurants, interacting with thrilling technological art and the like, and as little as possible to do with gambling. When winners are few, the core activity, experience elsewhere has shown, is more frequently depressive than ecstatic. The casinos’ commercials showing constant excitement at the slots are, as anyone who has spent time in a casino late at night will attest, illusions.

The only thing the actual gambling would bring to the table is the revenue that will make other great things possible in what could be an intensely creative building, one of the few big-ticket cultural developments that actually could pay for itself and get built in a barely recovering economy, rather than languishing as a costly, unfunded dream.

This is an intriguing idea – and one that might be too aspirational. The conversation about casinos in Illinois has been primarily about money as state and local governments are in desperate need of cash. My primary question to Jones would be whether there are actual models to follow here – are there urban casinos, outside of Las Vegas, that meet the goals he suggests or would Chicago be doing a whole new thing here? What would it take to have both a profitable casino as well as one that could be a cultural center? Where would such a cultural casino be located that could build upon existing tourist flows while also attracting new crowds that would be drawn to a casino? Historically, casinos tend not to have the best reputation as they attract certain kinds of crowds so building a world-class casino and cultural hub would be a big coup if done well in Chicago.

A hard look at Washington, DC’s economic boom

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In light of the recent fiscal cliff showdown, Annie Lowery at the New York Times writes a long profile on “Washington’s Economic Boom, Financed by You“:

Billions in federal spending, largely a result of two foreign wars, were pouring into the local economy by the early 2000s. Then came the housing bubble. But after it burst, a remarkable inversion occurred: as the country withered, Washington bloomed. Since 2007, the regional economy has expanded about three times as much as the overall country’s. By some measures, the Washington area has become the richest region in the country. It is now home to the three highest-income counties in the United States, and seven out of the Top 10.

The growth has arrived in something like concentric circles. Increased government spending has bumped up the region’s human capital, drawing other businesses, from technology to medicine to hospitality. Restaurants and bars and yoga studios have cropped up to feed and clothe and stretch all those workers, and people like [developer] Jim Abdo have been there to provide the population — which grew by 650,000 between 2000 and 2010 — with two-bedrooms with Wolf ranges.

Despite its recent success, however, the article suggests that “Peak Washington” is already here, that there is nowhere to go but down:

And yet there is a sense that the capital is headed for a slowdown. Among the Pentagon’s plans to cut nearly $500 billion over the next decade could be reductions not only in materiel but also to all manner of support staff. The homeland-security budgets look certain to see significant reductions, too. One recent estimate noted that more than two million jobs would be at stake if the sequester comes into effect.

Lowery suggests that a tempering of expectations in metro DC would, on balance, be a good thing:

There’s something unsavory about having a capital city doing outrageously well while the rest of the country is limping along — especially when its economy is premised in part on capturing wealth rather than creating it.

To the extent that DC’s economy is indeed “premised in part on capturing wealth rather than creating it,” I agree.  Nevertheless, Lowery cites plenty of evidence that “creative” (as opposed to “capturing”) work is being done in metro DC (“Google has opened an outpost….LivingSocial owns a huge, hiply decorated space….Audi, Intelsat, Hilton Worldwide and dozens of other firms have opened up offices or moved their headquarters to the region”).  Presumably, every urban area “captures” some of its wealth and “creates” some.  How much “capture” is too much, thus making a whole region “unsavory”?

Along these lines, I’m also intrigued by the quote from Virginia Congressman Jim Moran (D), who observes that “Maryland got the life sciences [centered around the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD], and Virginia got the death sciences [centered around the Pentagon in Arlington, VA]….Of course, NoVa [Northern Virginia], given the two wars, it’s done even better than suburban Maryland.”  Does this suggest that DC’s Maryland suburbs are less “unsavory” than DC’s Virginia suburbs?  Or does it only matter that the National Institutes of Health and the Pentagon both spend tax revenue, making them equally offending because they “capture” the country’s wealth?

Remembering the cable car era in Chicago

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A new book highlights the cable-car era in Chicago around the turn of the 19th century:

Chicago historian and transportation author Greg Borzo has chronicled that forgotten era, which lasted not quite 25 years (1882 to 1906), in his new book, “Chicago Cable Cars,” published by The History Press.

These horseless street railway cars were pulled by the quiet, invisible force of continuously moving underground cables that crisscrossed the city, starting on the South and West sides and Loop district and leading to a nationwide cable-car boom in almost 30 cities, according to Borzo…

His research revealed that the cable-car experience, which debuted Jan. 28, 1882 on State Street, from Madison to 21st streets, became “a rich part of the very fabric of everyday life” in Chicago and led to people from different ethnic and economic classes rubbing shoulders, if only for the duration of a ride…

Borzo, who has written three other books about Chicago, said he took on his latest project because history books about the city either confused cable cars with trolleys or skipped over cable cars in describing the timeline from horsecars to electric trolley cars.

He said he hopes the book will foster a wider recognition of Chicago’s cable-car history, perhaps in the form of a monument, a plaque or, better yet, construction of a short cable-car line.

I knew Chicago had electric street cars but was not aware there was a thriving cable car system as well. Find a preview of Borzo’s findings at Forgotten Chicago. The site includes these two interesting pieces of information:

1. Here is the track mileage comparison between Chicago and San Francisco:

During Chicago’s cable car era (1882 to 1906), three companies provided more than one billion rides using an estimated 3,000 cars. Chicago ended up with the second most miles: 41.2 double-track miles compared with a peak of 52.8 double-track miles in San Francisco. And to operate its systems, Chicago’s cable car companies built 13 powerhouses and countless car barns, office buildings, waiting rooms, repair shops, car building shops and other structures. With a mile of single track costing about $150,000, Chicago’s huge investment in cable car track, infrastructure and equipment added up to $25 million ($600 million in current dollars).

2. A map of the cable car system in the Loop in 1894:

For a city looking for new revenues and already having a decent tourist base, I could imagine some people might want to look at a short cable car line that would sell nostalgia like it does in San Francisco. How about a short line from Michigan Avenue to Navy Pier? Not quite an authentic route but it would connect two important tourist spots and replace the buses made to look like trolleys. Perhaps they could even create a little hill to ride over…

Seeing stars in the world’s major cities if they had no lights

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Photographer Thierry Cohen has put together a number of images of what the sky above major world cities would look like if the cities had no lights. The takeaway: city dwellers would see a lot of stars. Here is one example:

Photographer Imagines What World Cities Would Look Like Without Lights thierrydarkened 3

 

My first thought is that such scenes would only be possible in reality in a post-apocalyptic scenario (which is quite popular these days). But perhaps a city could undergo a project like this for a night or weekend? Imagine a positive sort of Carmageddon but not quite Earth Hour which is more about reducing energy use and environmentalism.

Raising money for over 600 pages about Seaside, Florida

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Seaside, Florida is a well-known exemplar of the New Urbanist movement. To tell the story of the community, an architect wants to raise money to help fund a 600+ book about its development:

Visions of Seaside is an upcoming 608-page hardcover book that documents how the theory of New Urbanism was put into practice in the construction of a small town in Florida in 1981.

The book will contain over 1,000 drawings, photographs and diagrams created for Seaside, the first fully New Urbanist town, along with academic essays by Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic Paul Goldberger, Yale professor Vincent Scully, and Andrés Duany, one of the visionaries behind the community…

According to the book’s Kickstarter page, the volume “recounts the history of the making of the town, chronicles the numerous architectural and planning schemes that have been developed for Seaside, and outlines a blueprint for moving forward over the next 25 to 50 years.”

The book’s author, architect Dhiru Thadani, originally conceived of the book as having 224 pages, but the overwhelming amount of materials he uncovered, along with critical essays that were generated, caused the page number to swell. This concerned his publisher, who asked Thadani to raise funds to offset production costs so that the retail price of the book would be affordable.

I show pictures of Seaside to several of my classes and a few always recognize it as the place in The Truman Show. I would be very interested to see this book though I am not sure I would want to pay what such a book would cost. Additionally, I wonder how critical this book will be. The community is interesting in itself but I would be more interested to learn what New Urbanists have learned from the successes and challenges in Seaside. In other words, is Seaside a good model for New Urbanism in 2013 and beyond or has the movement evolved significantly in the last thirty years?