Month: November 2004

Touchstone
1993Does what is says it will: give voice and the language to the nagging feeling that much of America suburbia, building, and way of life is a empty, hollow void of greed and consumerism. However, it’s not all a tirade against this modern world, but more a history of how we got here. Don’t look to Kunstler for the rosy glasses and small town nostalgia–his tour of major movements in American planning shows how the rot was there from the start. The main strand he sees that links us to our Puritan town planners is their break from European tradition and the idea that land and property have value beyond that of the dollar. This is what results in the splendid cultural and social centers of Europe–the Italian piazza, the central square. When land is assigned monetary value only, there can be no public places. Now, of course this changes–there’s a nice section on the design and theory behind NYC’s Central Park–but the idea of property value stays with us. Doing what you want for yourself and not for any public good has resulted in bland, anti-social architecture, strip malls that beg not to be looked at.
The bad cop to David Sucher’s good cop, Kunstler in small doses is a hilarious crusty curmudgeon (though he’s not that crusty). In book-length form, he’s a serious, world weary analyst of our particular social malaise. It was only when I read out the following passage to my friend that I realized how funny it was:

Carpentry is an exacting set of skills. Even at the professional level it has been debased as a consequence of mass production, and the number of incompetent building contractors is disturbing. At the amateur level, it is worse. In fact, the home improvement industry actively promotes the idea that skill is not important. All that matters is buying the right tools and building materials. The tools will do the work, and the materials–such as factory-made drop-ceiling kits–will eliminate thinking. All the homeowner need do is lay out some money at the building-supply store, and then take the stuff home Saturday morning. The job itself is “a snap.” All this is based on two contemporary myths: [1] the idea that shopping is a substitute for design, and [2] the idea that it’s possible to get something for nothing, in this case skillful work without skill.

For me, there’s very little exaggeration, and so I had stopped laughing some time back.
Some of the book takes in the best and worst of American cities, best being represented by Portland, the worst by Las Vegas, Atlanta, and, well, pretty much everywhere else. He’s ambivalent about Los Angeles, which can be new urbanist or hellacious depending on which onramp you choose.
Kunstler’s theories on the end of cheap oil and the downfall of suburbia should be listened to, if not heeded. There’s little chance of that these days. But being so, this is an essential book.

City Comforts Books
2003
Out of anything else I’ve read this year, David Sucher’s “City Comforts” has completely changed the way I look at the world, in particular cities and the urban environment.
It was reading James Kunstler that first put voice to my feelings about living in strip-mall America, but Sucher’s book is a sort of antidote. “City Comforts” is a guidebook to what’s right in a city (Kunstler focuses on the opposite), with photo illustrations every page from his native Seattle, Portland, and other livable cities to prove his point.
Sucher’s philosophy of urban planning comes down to three points, which he hammers throughout the book.
One: Build to the Sidewalk (Property Line).
Two: Make the Building Front Permeable. Use windows and doors to link the interior of the building to the exterior of the street. No mirrored glasses.
Three: Prohibit Parking in the Front of the Building. This is not to be confused with on-street parking, which is essential. It is almost a sub-rule of Rule One.
This isn’t just the point of the book, but a backbone. Elsewhere Sucher photographs parts of cities he likes and then tries to divine a rule from them. Some are obvious, others aren’t.
For example: Mixed-use buildings make sense at transportation hubs. At a train or bus station, why not have supermarkets and other essential shops? This is a given in many metropolitan areas, but it doesn’t seem in use here in Southern California. Bus depots sometimes have crappy little gift shops, but so do hospitals and gas stations.
Being able to go for a stroll is not just relaxing, but, I learned, in some cultures it’s essential:

“In many parts of the world, particularly the Latin nations, it is a part of daily life to take an evening stroll. There is s acomplex and involved ritual to this walk, this promenade, this passaggiaeta or paseo, as it’s called in Italy and Spain. It was a tradition in France and Britain, and in the United States, too, before the automobile spread us so far apart that now one has to drive to find a place to walk.”

Sucher titles this section “Bumping into People” because that’s what makes urban living so enjoyable. Last Saturday, for example, I had lunch with my wife, but then took the afternoon to go to the coffee shop to write. On the way there I ran into my professor from my days at UCSB outside the art museum. In the art museum’s cafe I ran into my dad, who was having lunch with my cousin and her husband, who were visiting from England; I briefly checked out the public library’s art gallery and ran into my friend Alex’s girlfriend Carla, who now works there. Finally when I got to the coffee shop I ran into Laura, formerly a waitress at the above mentioned cafe writing two 10-page papers for her class. And that was all in the space of one block and 30 minutes!
Other ideas that turned me on: Widening bridges over freeways into streets with shops (continuing the street that leads up to it); using white noise from a waterfall to cover traffic noise; allow windows to open visibility into businesses, for people watching and to see work being performed (countering idea that work happens outside public sphere).
The book is over 200 pages long and has at least that many ideas. Buy one for yourself and one for the urban planner of your town. One thing Sucher points out is that this isn’t a no-growth proposition. But if the citizens can’t point to examples of what works and what doesn’t in a city, then they can influence developers better instead of just opposing them.
In Santa Barbara, we have a little of both. Downtown S.B. is vibrant and offers plenty of strolling areas, but a majority of this is centers down 10 blocks of State Street. Go one block either way and the “urban village” experience stops. Instead we get parking lots, storage units, blank-walled office buildings, administration buildings, and no mixed use. A stroll down these streets can be very lonely indeed. “City Comforts” is essential reading if you want to understand your environment, and better yet, gives you the tools to change it.
As far as I know the best (and only?) place to buy the book is from Sucher’s web site. You might also want to check out his blog.

Here’s an excellent post over at 2blowhards.com on Ian Nairn. I’d never heard of him until now, but his writings on London apparently would go down very well with the James Kunstler/David Sucher crowd (to which I belong). He was more of a fan of modernism than Kunstler, but still understood the essential truth that people like to live in walkable, friendly cities, not in pod boxes out in the suburbs. And this was many many years ago.
Looks like it’ll be slightly difficult to find some books by him, but I’ll start looking.