Tag: Neighborhood

Little Boxes on a Hillside: A Review of New Urbanism

October 17, 2016 / odrozd

As a design and development practice, New Urbanism (NU) emerged in response to widespread suburban sprawl across the United States. The movement seeks to create vibrant, healthy, and sustainable communities through human-scale urban design. NU’s fundamental tenants include walkability, connectivity, mixed uses, architectural diversity, green infrastructure, and increased density. But it’s rise in popularity since the 1980’s has not been without controversy. Critics of NU have argued that the approach does little to alleviate our pervasive reliance on cars, and that the faux architectural diversity feels contrived, even creepy.

Land Use map of Southern Village, a New Urban neighborhood in Chapel Hill, NC. Credit: Chapel Hill Planning, 2005.

I spend a good deal of time debating the merits of NU, but have never really considered it as an option for myself. I don’t own a car, and despite their best efforts, New Urbanists have yet to convince me that these developments are sufficiently walkable, bikeable, and accessible via transit. But life is strange, and two months ago I found myself moving into a New Urbanist apartment, on a New Urbanist street, in a New Urbanist neighborhood. Because I am a plannerd, I decided to use this as a research opportunity. I have spent the last couple of months conducting a series of (qualitative) (spontaneous) tests in order to evaluate my assumptions about NU, and to get a feel for the lived experience of the thing.

Test # 1: Get Milk (Amenities)

Weaver Street Co-Op Market located at the village center. Photo Credit: Mia Candy.

My litmus test for the convenience of a place is how easily I can purchase milk at moment’s notice. A local grocery or convenience store is an indicator more generally of the level of commercial activity in a neighborhood. NU communities are designed with mixed use as a core principal, and my neighborhood boasts a grocery store that sells milk until 10pm every day. The grocery store is an expensive, organic co-op. It is walkable from my apartment complex, but not for the larger houses on the periphery of the neighborhood. Overall, the retail and restaurants in this development are not particularly affordable or accessible by foot. I give it a milk score of 3 out of 5.

Test # 2: Get Around (Transit and Access)

Driveway. Photo Credit: Mia Candy.

I don’t own a car. I am reliant on public transit, my semi-trustworthy 1970’s Panasonic road bike, and really generous friends/chauffeurs. I was curious to establish whether owning a car is a prerequisite for living in this particular NU community. The short answer is, unfortunately, yes. There are two regular and reliable (free!) bus lines that access downtown, and for the serious enthusiast, it is possible to commute by bike. Within the neighborhood, connectivity is generally good, with minimal suburban dead-ends, and a network of lovely bike/ped trails. But the bicycle, pedestrian and transit networks ultimately fall short. Buses don’t run on evenings and weekends. Bike lanes traverse large highways and gnarly intersections, and end abruptly. There are no sidewalks outside my apartment, just an expanse of parking lot. I give this NU development a getting around score of 2 out of 5.

Test # 3: Get Lost (Connectivity and Orientation)

Walking trail. Photo Create: Mia Candy.

A key signifier of a good place is that it allows you to get lost, without ever truly being lost. Wandering aimlessly through a neighborhood is one of the small pleasures in life, and a great way to get to know a new environment. But to wander aimlessly requires streets, sidewalks, and trails that are interconnected. The endless cul de sacs¹ that characterize traditional suburban subdivisions do not make for pleasant wandering. It is well known that good urban form, whether planned or organic, requires a system of paths, districts, edges, nodes, and landmarks. Or, in non-planner jargon, things in the physical environment that help us navigate the world and develop a strong memory of a place in our minds. It is these mental mapping tools that allow us to wander, and orient ourselves, in equal measure.

So I set out to get lost in my new neighborhood. I found myself able to wander for an hour through the streets, discovering convenient shortcuts and trails, all the while, aware of my general position in relation to the town square. The chapel at the center of the development serves as a convenient landmark–situated on a hill, its spire is always peeking through the trees. Despite one or two frustrating dead ends, I was pleasantly surprised by the level of connectivity. Until I emerged onto a highway and had to turn back. I give this development a wanderers score of 3 out of 5.

Test # 4: Get Locked Out (Community)

This is not a test I recommend trying on purpose. But when I accidentally locked myself out of my apartment, it turned out be a useful exercise on the importance of community. Standing on a balcony, barefoot, and in my pajamas at 7:00am on a Wednesday morning, it occurred to me that I needed to be rescued. Luckily, my balcony faces the bike/ped trail that is densely populated by runners, dog walkers, and parents with strollers, pretty much throughout the day. What I needed in that moment was not only someone I could call out to for help, but a group of strangers willing to arrange a ladder, lend me their cell phones, and offer me something to drink while I waited for a locksmith. I needed community, and New Urbanism provided. I give this neighborhood a helpful neighbor score of 5 out of 5.

Final Thoughts

What has surprised me most while living here is the level of diversity I have found in streets, and parks, and houses. I am certain that when the community was built 20 years ago, the faux architecture appeared creepy and contrived. But two decades of real, lived experience in the place has given it an almost natural feel. I discovered homes, weathered over time, paint chipping, and gardens overgrown with wildflowers. It felt – and I have no doubt that the homeowners associated would disagree with me on this – real, and lived in, and only a little bit like pleasantville.

Mailbox outside one of the homes in Southern Village. Photo Credit: Mia Candy.

Footnotes

¹The actual plural for ‘cul de sac’ is ‘culs de sac.’

Featured Image: Row houses in Southern Village. Photo Credit: Mia Candy.

About the Author: Mia Candy is a recent graduate of UNC’s planning program, and an editor emeritus here at Angles. She grew up in Cape Town, South Africa, where she first developed an interest in urbanism and the complexities of urban development in emerging cities. Mia is a placemaking consultant, and a planner at Renaissance Planning Group. Her lifelong dream is to write a children’s book.

Street Seats: a student-designed parklet in NYC

May 13, 2016 / odrozd

On the corner of New York City’s 13th Street and 5th Avenue, hundreds of people use the sidewalk adjacent to The New School University Center every day. For a university in Manhattan, “campus” is a loose term that defines the parts of the city traversed by its students. Union Square Park—a magnet of public life—is a proximate and popular space for students and faculty to relax outside, though there is a noticeable lack of activities taking place there. Aside from the park, public seating is otherwise nonexistent in these highly trafficked parts of Manhattan. To approach this challenge, the city’s Department of Transportation’s (DOT) created a parklet initiative: Street Seats.

Union Square Park. Photo: chensiyuan

The New School’s relationship with the DOT began last year when the first iteration of Street Seats was built. Ten architecture students volunteered to redesign an on street parking space in merely two weeks. They built off of the standard design provided by the DOT, then constructed and installed the design themselves. Because of the overwhelmingly positive response to the parklet, The New School’s School of Constructed Environments created a course called “Design Build” open to students of any major.

2015-street-street-platform-customizable-design-new-school-manhattan

The New School’s 2015 Parklet. Photo: NYC DOT

This semester, fourteen fellow students and I formed an interdisciplinary team to design, construct, and install a parklet in little more than three months. Whereas last year’s Street Seats was twenty five feet long, this year’s was approved for forty feet. With more time and space allowed, our group had the ability to develop a more complex design.

A rendering of the 2016 parklet. Photo: Camille Petricola and fellow students

The parklet will bring together the University community and the public for the spring and summer months. With a generous amount of planters and movable seating, this public seating area will be an evolving space over it’s seven month lifespan and will set a precedent for next year’s design.

The parklet, created with multiple tubes of many heights, encourages a diversity of uses. Photo: Camille Petricola and fellow students

Featured photo: The New School Community enjoying the 2016 parklet. Photo: Camille Petricola

Camille Petricola has lived in multiple cities around these United States but considers herself a native Pittsburgher. She majors in Communication Design at Parsons School of Design in New York City, where she focuses on urbanism and public space. Her favorite color is cobalt blue.

Free Speech, Signs, and the City

March 4, 2016 / odrozd

The passing of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has been dissected for its potential impact on litigious issues from campaign finance to abortion. Yet one surely settled issue is the court’s June 2015 ruling on the limits of control a government may use to regulate signs. In a 9-0 decision, the Supreme Court found that the small town of Gilbert, Arizona exceeded its authority when it applied a basic and common ordinance to the directional signs of Good News Presbyterian Church. The repercussions of the Reed v. Gilbert case for city planners are still being felt and—at best—are not fully understood.

Context Good News Presbyterian Church operated like many congregations do that lack permanent facilities; each week, the church would deploy small directional event-like signs with arrows showing worshippers where to go. Under the town’s sign ordinance, these signs were categorized as events and were subject to certain size and time restrictions. Other signs that displayed political issues or advertised home-owners associations were granted larger sizes and longer duration. The town of Gilbert thought its regulations were constitutional, because they were both content neutral (e.g. you can talk about whales) and viewpoint neutral (e.g. you can advocate saving the whales). Creating categories for differing sign messages was a reasonable method to regulate signs in the face of larger public interests like traffic safety.

The Supreme Court thought otherwise. It struck down the town’s sign ordinance on the grounds that it infringed upon the church’s constitutional free speech rights by basing the categories and exceptions on what the sign said. The court opined that by having different standards for different speakers, the town was expressing a preference for certain speech. Sign regulations now had to pass a harder test, “strict scrutiny,” requiring that governments prove that their regulations were finely tailored and essential to the intended outcome. This ruling was a win for free speech advocates. The majority opinion described an initial list of permissible sign regulations including: lighting, size, changing text, and location. But the decision also left considerable ambiguity as to the applicability of this new test to commercial speech.

The Roberts Court, 2010. Photo Credit: Steve Petteway, Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Following the Reed v. Gilbert ruling, groups such as the American Planning Association (APA) and the International Sign Association called for for regulatory clarity and showed intent to produce educational materials for towns to take corrective action. During one APA chapter webinar, a guest speaker recommended town officials:

remove references to categories based on content
add a severability clause so that in the event of legal action, the larger ordinance would stand.

Given the breadth of categorical-based sign ordinances, towns are in the process of reviewing their ordinances for compliance, while—I fear—others may be unaware of the conflict at all and vulnerable to legal action.

The months immediately after the Reed v. Gilbert decision provided yet another turn in sign regulations. With the new requirement of strict scrutiny, federal courts struck down city panhandling ordinances in Massachusetts and Illinois. The Supreme Court’s ruling was interpreted to overturn ordinances that restricted types of speech (i.e. requesting financial support). A desire to prevent the uncomfortableness of being asked for money was not sufficient to bar how individuals could use public spaces.

Tension between free speech and the police powers of the state have always been present, and it appears that free speech is winning. Ordinances have many potential purposes such as encouraging aesthetic continuity, compatibility of use, and pedestrian and vehicle safety. But this ruling has curtailed city planners’ popular and simple tool for controlling the aesthetics and use of public space. Municipalities must now clearly justify their attempts to control not what is said, but rather where and in what manner. It is a responsibility that was the planning profession should not take lightly.

How else will the Reed v. Gilbert decision be interpreted in the urban realm? The answer will depend on the actions of municipalities, their planners, and their city attorneys as they revisit decades odd ordinances to reflect the the messy, confrontational, but ultimately beneficial, process of citizenship.

Joe Seymour is a first year Masters Candidate at the UNC Department of City and Regional Planning with interests in land use and transportation. He’s not a lawyer, but sometimes plays one on TV.

Ravelejar: The Art of Neighborhood Branding (3/4)

December 19, 2015 / odrozd

Part 3: Balancing Neighborhood Character and Tourism

Part 1 of this series (“The Barcelona Model”) was published on this site on September 30, 2015. Part 2 (“Constructing the Mythology of Barrio Chino”) was published on October 17, 2015.

In 2002, several public and private entities in Barcelona came together to form a new community organization called Tot Raval (“all of El Raval”). The formation of Tot Ravel was in response to both increasing diversity and threats of gentrification in Barcelona’s historic El Raval neighborhood (see the former blog post in this series, “Constructing the Mythology of Barrio Chino”). The objective of the organization is to bring together the various associations, institutions, and businesses in the Raval with a common goal of improving the quality of life in the neighborhood. To do so, Tot Raval facilitated research on the social and economic needs of the Raval and worked to create business partnerships both within and outside the neighborhood. Among many other advocacy projects, Tot Raval also promoted the cultural activity of the neighborhood via social media and local news outlets. Tot Raval is not dissimilar from a Community Development Corporation, but with the distinctive place-marketing interests of a Business Improvement District.

Tot Raval Organizational Logo. Photo Credit: Tot Raval

Tot Raval addresses diversity as both a social issue and cultural asset. The organization actively supports immigrant organizations and social service providers that help new residents integrate into their new environment. Tot Raval also helps finance and promote the cultural activities of its diverse population. For example, the Association of Cultural Education and Social Operations of Pakistani Gifts (ACESOP), uses funds from Tot Raval to organize inclusive, community-wide Ramadan celebrations and hosts community meals, which are held in the Rambla del Raval, the neighborhood’s largest public space. According to the director of Tot Raval:

“In the Raval we have a kind of melting-pot and multicultural atmosphere: we have a kind of co-existence…so the participation and empowerment of local groups, municipal committees and associations is the most important thing for generating common processes of development (cited in Degen 2012, 63).”

To further define the neighborhood, Tot Raval partnered with the marketing firm S,C,P,F in 2006 to create a neighborhood branding campaign to foster local pride and improve the image of the neighborhood, while embracing its diversity of cultures. The campaign transformed the name of the neighborhood into a verb, “Ravalejar,” suggesting that the Raval is not just a place, but an attitude and a way of living. With S,C,P,F Tot Raval created Ravalejar posters, which were displayed in storefronts and in public spaces. They also developed a variety of merchandise items, such as canvass bags, stickers and notebooks. By 2013, the Ravalejar campaign had created more than 200,000 artistic objects made by local artists, residents, and visitors.

Ravalejar campaign materials. Photo Credit: Tot Raval

The most prominent and permanent installation of the Ravalejar campaign was the installation of a Ravelejar plaque, which hung in wide view in the Placa de l’Angels, a recently renovated public space in the center of El Raval, until its removal in 2013. Approximately ten feet off the ground, and taking up roughly 300 square feet, the plaque was nailed to the wall like a poster. On it, the fictional word Ravalejar, appeared as it might in a multilingual dictionary, its conjugation written out in the five major languages spoken in the Raval: Spanish, Catalan, Arabic, Urdo, and Tagalog. The poster appears made of paper, with visible imperfections, a representation of the neighborhood’s history of arts and crafts and resourcefulness.

Public posters accompanying the Ravalejar campaign. Photo Credit: Tot Raval

Ravalejar plaque. Photo Credit: The Polis Blog, Alcaraz 2013

The Ravalejar campaign can easily be placed in the realm of community-based art, emphasizing community engagement and participation. Community-based art is perhaps best exemplified by Suzanne Lacy’s “new genre public art.” Lacy argues that once created, public art enters into preexisting social and economic systems, making it the role of the public to engage with critically. The “new genre public art” concept strives to use community-based art to encourage dialogue and advocate for new political ideals about issues like multicultural representation, consensus building, and public participation. Lacy rejects the notion that public artists passively reflect society with their work and is hyper-aware of the tendency of the media and big-capital to transform artistic endeavors into spectacles. One can easily imagine an advocate of new genre public art repudiating the efforts of city planners to use artwork as an impetus for urban redevelopment. The motivation by many to site work within a specific social or political issue, rather than in a physical location, is an obvious attempt to resist this.

Public posters accompanying the Ravalejar campaign. Photo Credit: Tot Raval

Implicit in Lacy’s new genre public art is that artists, upon entering the social and economic systems which they are supposed to critique, will be able to navigate its inherent matrix the power relations and maintain agency over their work, the public, and the interaction between the two. In her book One Place After the Other, Miwon Kwon address this issue by dissecting the ways in which cultural institutions mediate relationships between the artist and the community. She demonstrates that the different ways “community” is defined and operationalized holds profound social and political implications that contradict the foundational aspirations of the practice, namely to represent and empower marginalized groups. Instead, public art can exploit communities by fetishizing their struggle, and create a “mythic unity” which glosses over more complex social inequities (ibid).

Ravalejar epitomizes this tension between empowerment and exploitation of a community. On one hand, Ravalejar serves the essential purpose of a brand: to attract customers. Tourism books and online guides often depict photographs of skateboarders and young people hanging out by the plaque next to descriptions of the neighborhood as a fun place to go out to bars and clubs and experience “authentic” Barcelona. Many restaurants in the area offer a “Menu Ravalejar” for lunch, a literal consumption of the brand. As one bar owner described, the neighborhood attracts not only tourists, but locals, who want to go out and party “with a feeling of danger.” The brand has been enormously successful, with the neighborhood attracting more than 25 million visitors per year (El Periodico 2008).

For some, the transformation of space into a commodity by the Ravalejar campaign represents the new logic of capitalism and its preoccupation with semiotic content.

Tot Raval community event in the El Raval neighborhood. Photo Credit: Tot Raval Facebook Page

Drawing one’s attention to specific sensory rhythms of the neighborhood, particularly it’s gritty blend of trendy bars and immigrants, mediates the sensory experience of the place. Some may go so far as to claim the Ravalejar campaign has turned El Raval into a kind of theme park, reducing the neighborhood to a tourist attraction and blocking from view the social realities of the neighborhood. However, rather than ignoring differences, Ravalejar makes difference its starting point, and has initiated a collective process of identity construction, pursued by various community organizations and cultural associations with the aim of improving the neighborhood for its residents. This is the topic of the final post in this series.

About the Author: Brady Collins is a Doctoral Candidate at UCLA’s Department of Urban Planning, specializing in spatial justice and cultural planning. A strong believer in the power of ethnographic methods, his work not only aims to provide insight to urban planners and designers, but also community organizations and social movements. Brady is also a member of the Urban Humanities Initiative at UCLA, and thus draws from multiple disciplines in his work, including history, sociology, and architecture. His current research examines neighborhood branding in multi-ethnic, multi-racial urban areas.

Public Space and Conscious Design: A Case Study

November 11, 2015 / odrozd

Think of your favorite public space. It could be the park near your childhood home. It might be the waterfront promenade where you run, or walk, or ride your bike at sunset. Perhaps it’s a busy downtown street. Now consider: what is it about this particular space that makes you happy? That makes you feel safe, comfortable, welcome, at home? It is likely that your favorite place was consciously designed to attract you to it, to keep you engaged with dynamic activities and programming, and to maximize social interaction: in essence, to create a cohesive sense of place.

The open space outside Weaver Street Market in Carrboro, NC. Photo Credit: Mia Candy

One of my favorite places in the small town of Carrboro that I now call home is the outdoor grounds at Weaver Street Market, a community owned grocery store. The space sits at the intersection of East Weaver Street and North Greensboro Street, and covers roughly 30,000 square feet of land. The site functions primarily as a place for patrons of the market to eat and drink, but the site has a multitude of other uses and is open to anyone, and is, as such, a truly public, open space.

Sitting and chatting at Weaver Street Market. Photo Credit: Mia Candy

I spend a lot of time in the space and enjoy its consistent vibrancy, but I recently set out to analyze why it works so well. Looking particularly for conscious design elements and social interactions, I spent a few hours walking around, sitting in, sketching, and photographing the space. What follows is a brief overview of my findings.

Author sketch of design elements and amenities in the space

The public space outside Weaver Street Market functions as the epicenter of the town. Its location at a central intersection as well as its proximity to varied retail and commercial activity and services brings a variety of residents into the space. However, the success of the space is that it encourages people to stay for hours on end instead of merely passing through.

Climbing trees at Weaver Street Market. Photo Credit: Mia Candy

A number of well-designed features of the space contribute to this comfortable and welcoming environment. The first is that it is primarily designed to encourage people to sit. The abundance of different types of seating options (benches, picnic tables, and small tables) and the shade and rain cover mean that the space offers places for anyone at virtually any time to sit and read, do work, meet friends, have a meal or a drink, or just people watch. It is also a space that encourages play: there is art to look at, trees to climb, and open space in which to run around, or dance, or play music.

Doing work at Weaver Street Market. Photo Credit: Mia Candy

The space is also dominated by natural elements, materials, and textures: greens and browns, tree planters and grass, red brick facades and walkways, and wooden tables. These features make the space feel somewhat like a natural ‘sanctuary,’ and noise from the nearby intersection is softened by tree cover along its edge.

But design features are not enough. Weaver Street offers free wifi, garbage disposal (including recycling), restrooms open to the public, and night time lighting, all of which allow people to remain in the space for long periods of time. In addition, the space is easily accessed from all directions and by all modes of transit, with a multitude of places to park a bicycle or car.

Place to sit, garbage disposal, bike racks and proximity to a bus stop

Weaver Street Market, like many of our favorite spaces, is actively designed to bring people together for extended periods of time. For this reason, it goes beyond existing as a neutral space and becomes a vibrant, dynamic, and truly public place.

About the Author: Mia is our Managing Editor of Online Content here at Angles, and is a second year master’s student in the Department of City and Regional Planning at UNC. She grew up in Cape Town, South Africa, where she first developed an interest in urbanism and the complexities of urban development in emerging cities. Mia lived in New York City for two years, researching occupational and environmental health. Her research focuses on planning for public space and urban design, and implementing placemaking strategies in the developing world. Mia’s lifelong dream is to write a children’s book.

Photo Credit: PHP Barcelona Conference '15

Ravelejar: The Art of Neighborhood Branding (1/4)

September 30, 2015 / odrozd

Part 1: The Barcelona Model

Barcelona. To many, the name of this cultural capital conjures up images of beaches, ornate architecture, tapas, and wine. It is a city whose reputation precedes it. While its reputation can be, in part, attributed to the city’s world famous soccer team and representations in popular media¹, Barcelona’s ascent to global city status is also the result of innovative urban planning and design strategies. These strategies combine social policy, cultural production, and urban redevelopment in order to construct and manage a city brand. Often referred to as the “Barcelona Model”, the city has created a unique method for city branding that is now followed by city planners and designers worldwide².

Photo Credit: PHP Barcelona Conference ’15

The Barcelona Model emerged after dictator Francisco Franco’s death in 1975 and during the 1979 local democratic elections when the relationship between culture, governance, and urban transformation in Barcelona began to shift. In the years that followed, the city underwent massive urban redevelopment projects including the creation of new public spaces and the restoration of the waterfront area. First, the city created a new governance model that prioritized engagement with, and participation by, members of civil society³. By allowing citizens to influence decision making, the city not only encouraged an engaged political culture, but also an identity of “Barcelonity” that transcended socio-economic class and encouraged a sort of city-wide pride. Through this governance structure, the city addressed deficits in education, health services, and public spaces that were the unfortunate remnants of the Franco years⁴.

Photo Credit: Barcelona Through Contemprary Art Museums

Photo Credit: Barcelona Through Contemporary Art Museums

A major part of this identity construction involved the development of public spaces that promoted social cohesion and allowed for political participation. These urbanization projects, called “PERIs” (Planos especiales de reforma interior, or Special Plans for Interior Reform) were implemented at the neighborhood level as part of Barcelona’s Comprehensive Plan⁵. The city created a program to acquire old industrial land at low prices in Ciutat Vella (“Old Town”) and in working-class neighborhoods in order to build higher-quality public spaces and collective services.

When Barcelona was chosen by the Olympic committee to host the 1992 Games, the influx of national and regional public investment helped finance additional public works projects, such as the construction of the Olympic village, new sports facilities, and the immensely renovated waterfront⁶. In a sense, the Olympics provided an opportunity for Barcelona to present its shining achievements to the world: the transition from dictatorship to democracy and the parallel transition from city to cultural capital.

Photo Credit: Design Applause!

As is often the case for cities competing for an Olympic Bid, Barcelona generated both public and private investments in preparation for the 1994 Games. The city used the funds to renovate the cultural infrastructure of existing museums, particularly the iconic Gaudí architecture⁷. With the input of globally renowned architects, the Casa de Caritat project helped improve the city’s image and attracted tourism and investment dollars⁸. Richard Florida’s conception of the “creative class” policy agenda suggests that cities should develop a culture of openness and cosmopolitanism by way of small-scale music and performing arts venues, art galleries, and trendy nightclubs in order to attract workers in an emerging professional class. Anticipating this theory, Barcelona’s 1994 Strategic Plan for the City included not only the development of cultural institutions, festivals, and conferences, but also a stronger knowledge-based economy based in design and media arts.

While the revitalization of Barcelona has many supporters, it has also received criticism for its disparate impact on impoverished communities. For instance, Barcelona’s revitalization has led to the implementation of new public policies that focus on improving cultural amenities for the purpose of community development in marginalized areas⁹. However, critics of the knowledge-based economy model argue that, because of its emphasis on attracting creative class workers, the policy became increasingly fragmented, leading to a relaxation of planning regulations, a decrease in public participation, and a move towards a top down approach to large infrastructure and redevelopment projects¹⁰.

Nowhere has the effect of the Barcelona Model been so polemic as in El Raval, traditionally a working class neighborhood, that is now a gateway community for multiple immigrant groups from North Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons | Barcelona El Raval 060

As a result of Barcelona’s cultural urban revitalization, El Raval has experienced increased spatial segregation of demographic groups and social activities within the neighborhood. While some areas enjoy high income levels and a large concentration of new businesses, others are characterized by low-income immigrant communities and high unemployment. Social issues such as drug abuse and vast informal economic markets are prevalent within these communities – issues that have been inherited from Raval’s history as a working class area within the city of Barcelona.

While these issues have always been, and continue to be, characteristic to the area, perceptions of the Raval as a neighborhood of poverty and vice have been largely exaggerated. Historically, a mythology about the neighborhood was perpetuated by the political and economic elite in order to justify the city’s redevelopment efforts. Part two of this series will examine the neighborhood’s history, and unpack the pejorative discourse used to characterize and rebrand El Raval.

¹Most recently, Woody Allen’s highly successful Vicki Cristina Barcelona (2008) packaged the city and all of its exaggerated charm into a cinematic guided tour. More popular in the EU, L’Auberge Espagnol (2002) similarly portrayed Barcelona as cosmopolitan metropolis of debauchery.

²Evans, G. (2003). “HardBranding the Cultural City From Prado to Prada”, International Journal of Urban and Regional Studies, 27:2, pp 417440.

³Blakeley, G. (2010). “Governing Ourselves: Citizen Participation and Governance in Barcelona and Manchester”, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 34:1, pp 130145

⁴Degen, M. and Garcia, M. (2012). “The Transformation of the ‘Barcelona Model’: An Analysis of Culture, Urban Regeneration and Governance”, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 36:5, pp 102238

⁵For “Las Normativa Urbanística” of the Plan General Metropolitano de Barcelona, see http://www.numamb.cat/

⁶García, S. (1993). “Barcelona and the Olympic Games” in H. Hauuserman and W. Siebel (eds), Festivalization of urban policy, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag

⁷Subiros, P. (1999). Estrategies culturals i renovacio urbana. Barcelona: Aula Barcelona

⁸Subirats, J. & Rius, J. (2008). Del Xino al Raval. Barcelona: Hacer Editorial

⁹Institut de Cultura de Barcelona (2006). Nous Accents 2006: Elements per una revisio del Plan Estrategic de Cultural de Barcelona. Barcelona: Institut de Cultura and ICC Consultors Culturals SA

¹⁰Degen, M. and Garcia, M. (2012). “The Transformation of the ‘Barcelona Model’: An Analysis of Culture, Urban Regeneration and Governance.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 36(5): pp 102238

Sustainability Lessons from a German Neighborhood

September 8, 2015 / odrozd

Rather than working in opposition to natural forces, new American developments could follow Vauban’s example and plan with them.

Vauban is an ecologically-and socially-minded neighborhood of 5,000 in Freiburg, Germany. In many ways, Vauban is a successful case study in sustainable urbanism. There is academic agreement that the design at Vauban is outstanding. Nevertheless, as long as this style of living and outstanding design is prohibitively expensive for many, its benefits will be limited.

Vauban Land Use Plan. Courtesy: Vauban°de – Der Freiburger Stadtteil mit Flair und Lebensqualität, CC BY.

Tips
Many American cities are beginning their push toward sustainability with initiatives left and right. As they grow, it’s worth considering and planning what form growth will take. The following is a list of tips for American cities to borrow the best aspects of Vauban and learn from its mistakes.

Make sustainable living accessible and affordable.

Vauban has had difficulty in making housing affordable at a large scale. If its citizens want to include more income diversity in the community, they could consider price mechanisms to do so. Vauban could employ rent control, effectively preventing rent price from rising too quickly. Germany’s capital city—Berlin—created a rent ceiling earlier this month. In its law, landlords are prevented from increasing the rent by more than 10%.After WWI, many American cities created rent controls to protect tenants. Cities without rent controls that are undergoing gentrification might revisit the idea of creating or altering existing rent ceilings. Alternatively, cities could require new development to reserve 10% or more of its units as affordable housing.

Pursue transit oriented development.

Without a huge apportionment of space for cars, Vauban is able to commit more space to the public realm. In a Badische Zeitung survey, 14 in 15 community members expressed some type of support for Vauban’s nearly auto free principles. Development in Vauban has sprung up around its 3 tram stops, which connects the entire district to downtown Freiburg.American city officials in Portland, Oregon and Washington, D.C. have used TOD as an economic development tool. This concept has the ability to reshape and revitalize communities with greater mobility and economic opportunity.

Provide lots of green space that everyone can enjoy.

Residents of Vauban all live close to some kind of green space. A document published by the community claims that the areas five main parks, seen in the plan above, were created with citizen input.

Want to take a stroll along a quiet stream? Vauban is bordered to the south by Dorfbach, the village’s creek.

A stroll along Dorfbach. Photo Brian Vaughn

A stroll along Dorfbach. Photo Credit: Brian Vaughn

Rather than working in opposition to natural forces, new American developments could follow Vauban’s example and plan with them. 60 year old trees can be seen as having an important role in providing greenery and shelter, not as an obstacle.

Let the citizens tell you what they want.

It’s not always easy to please everyone, but the participatory democracy model has worked well for Vauban. Forum Vauban was formed in 1994, and a year later the City of Freiburg was utilizing their input to plan the community’s future. Though the Forum no longer exists, it left its mark on Vauban’s current urban form.Before selling huge tracts of land to real estate developers, local and state governments should consider the desires of the public. Community advocacy forums have the ability to reshape the style of development in the United States.

Further reading:
H. Fraker, The Hidden Potential of Sustainable Neighborhoods: Lessons from Low-Carbon Communities
S. Field, Europe’s Vibrant New Low Car(bon) Communities
City of Freiburg, Verkehrsberuhigte Bereiche (Traffic Calming Areas)

Brian Vaughn is a sophomore undergraduate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He studied and wrote about planning and energy issues in Spain and Germany during the summer, returning to North Carolina with a renewed invigoration to explore and discuss these issues as online content editor of the Carolina Planning Journal. Brian also writes for the Daily Tar Heel’s opinion page, and works with the Sierra Student Coalition’s coal divestment campaign.