Why America Destroyed its Cities

[dougskiles]

We need a clean zoning design.  One that looks at efficiency, service, beauty and health, and doesnt try to legislate morality, wealth or class.

performance zoning and form-based codes get at some of these issues

The process has started in certain areas. At the beginning of the San Marco by Design process, we were told that a form based code would likely result.  We are stalled a little bit as the PD are getting settled in with the new administration.  Hopefully it will pick back ip again soon.

[Ocklawaha]

Yeah, though I think their slogan is 'Just like rail only cheaper', and its obvious that none of them has ever looked in the dictionary.

cheapadjective /CHēp/ 
cheaper, comparative; cheapest, superlative

1.Inexpensive because of inferior quality
- cheap, shoddy goods

2.Miserly; stingy
- she's too cheap to send me a postcard

3.Of little worth because achieved in a discreditable way requiring little effort
- her moment of cheap triumph

4.Deserving of contempt
- a cheap trick

5.Bus Rapid Transit
- a mode that claims all things cheap (couldn't resist that one)

OCKLAWAHA

[north miami]

Which should come as no surprise, since Mayor Haydon Burns hired one of Robert Moses closest associates to help with the redesign of Jacksonville into a 'modern' city.

R Moses.   Now we are "getting somewhere"

[north miami]

Hello, this is Frank Gruber --

The only thing I'd say now is that nothing is inevitable when it comes to patterns of growth.

[north miami]

Planners & Consultants

I recall an instance during my tenure on a St Johns River Water Managementent District Advisory Committee.
A local Planning group office conference room was selected by the District for meeting location.We conducted one meeting at that location.Future unfolding River and Community impacts were clearly posted in the conference room.
I made a point to check point in hopes of garnering Advisory Committee meeting privacy.
There was a backlash over the meeting location which the District heard loud and clear,although in hind sight perhaps we should have stay put!.......

Every single knock down,drag out Enviro/Community episode I have ever been involved in as a citizen and upper level Florida/Northeast Florida Wildlife Federation Board Member has been energized and driven by Planner & Consultant.

Beltway proceedings a dandy narrative.

[north miami]

Brilliant in drawing Tufsu on the carpet,planner &/or consultant

See the thread


Jacksonville mayor comes out against toll road
Tufsu involvement/ n Miami Brannon Chaffee East West Roadways/Wetland Belts thread

[tufsu1]

I have been upfront on this site that I am a planner...and yes, I work for a consulting firm....do you have a point?

[JeffreyS]

Are planners now going to be cast as an enemy to the people?  You know like terrorists, teachers, policemen, fireman and the dreaded union worker.

[FrankGruber]

Frank Gruber here again. Sorry it's taken me a couple of days to respond, but I came back from my vacation with a cold that has completely knocked me out. Plus work to catch up with.

Again, I want to say how gratified that my Huff Post piece engendered this discussion, and I want to thank Tufsu 1 for posting the article. I've never been to Jacksonville, and I had no idea that there was (a) and urban history there, and (b) people there interested in urbanism. Although there's a guy at the law school there, Mike Lewyn, whom I know through the web who writes a lot about these subjects. He's not one of you is he?

And Stephen Dare -- thanks for plugging my book! (Which I assure you, has all the answers.)

Anyway, there's no way I could respond to all the issues that have come up in the discussion, but I'd like to make a few points, mostly focusing on the "nothing is inevitable" concept. The emptying out of our cities -- and suburbanization and sprawl -- have been described repeatedly, but to my mind, no one has come up with a convincing explanation for why. Not that there needs to one reason why, but the reasons people put forward seem weak to me when analyzed.

Okay, so say people wanted to escape the dirty city, the tenements, etc., but certainly not all or even most of 19th century American cities were "bad areas," and many of the most pleasing, such as the Bronx in New York, took the hardest fall. Maybe there is an American bias in favor of open spaces, the Jeffersonian suspicion of cities that I mention in the article, but what did it take to persuade the American male that what he most wanted to do on a Saturday was yardwork? Think of all those commercials that glorify mowing the lawn; what if there were commercials that glorified sweeping the sidewalk in front of your row house, which is what those little Italian ladies would do every morning in South Philadelphia (my hometown).

Canada had just about the same issues as America when it came to land to expand into, etc., but what explains the different outcomes between Detroit and Toronto? Canada has had suburban expansion, but it didn't come at the expense of the inner core. I don't know what the reasons are; here's a link to an article that attributes the difference to the fact that American cities have more local political power than Canadian cities do; I don't know if this is right, but it's the kind of analysis I believe people need to make: http://tinyurl.com/3u3wzgt.

Interesting that someone on your list brought up cities like Medellin in Colombia -- I was just in Spain, in two small provincial cities, and it's amazing what a better job people do with their cities elsewhere. People have pride in their cities -- other than their sports teams, why do so few people have pride in their cities in America?

Anyway, good luck with what you're doing in Jacksonville.  --Frank

[thelakelander]

Welcome to the site Frank.  Historically, Jacksonville was a pretty urban mecca for its size.  Unfortunately, a 60 year process of abandoning the core and city/county consolidation has erased that atmosphere locally and to the outside world.  However, there is still a critical mass of residents who would like to see the old city revived and vibrant again and we'll eventually get there.  Although he hasn't commented in this thread, Mike Lewyn does post here from time to time.  Also, the linked article comparing Detroit/Michigan with Toronto/Ontario raises some pretty interesting viewpoints.  I'm not sold on Isidoros Kyrlangitse's solution for Detroit (I think what ails Detroit ails most of America's urban cities and ultimately can't be solved at a local or state level) but can see the correlation between the two going in opposite directions based off public policies in place.

[tufsu1]

Although there's a guy at the law school there, Mike Lewyn, whom I know through the web who writes a lot about these subjects. He's not one of you is he?

Micael Lewyn has posted on here, but he's not part of this thread....I think he's also left Jacksonville and is now teaching elsewhere.

[dougskiles]

I read one explanation recently about the effect of reducing the depreciation time of commercial buildings.  It occurred in the 1950s at about the same time that suburbanization began to take off.  Basically, the government incentivized sprawl by encouraging the construction of cheap commercial building.  Land was not depreciable at the same rate, so developers kept pushing farther and farther from the core to find cheap land.  The Canadian government did not do this and therefore did not experience sprawl to anywhere near the same rate as the US.

The solution, it would seem, is a major overhaul of our complicated tax system.

[Ocklawaha]

I'm thinking some of our younger readers may not understand that some of the density they were speaking of in 1900 was beyond anything we could imagine today. No AC, poor heat, no sanitation, no running water, outhouses and families stacked on families. Horses, wagons, drays, carriages, and manure coupled with staggering summer heat must have made for conditions that were inhuman. In this light, it is easy to understand why streetcar suburbs seemed like a utopia.

NYC street


Outhouse for the buildings


Police investigation 'overcrowding'.


Laundry became a major household industry






'Sanitary facilities'


Tenement children at play

[spuwho]

Time to start looking forward. Yeah, some people messed up in the past and for many, the past was awesome (and not so awesome) in many ways. But the world changed, so lets learn from it, do better going forward and make the future better for all.

Not sure about anyone else, but I am looking for a better tomorrow.

[thelakelander]

Great points. Time to acknowledge, accept, and learn from our mistakes. That way, we won't waste time in repeating them as we strive to improve our community.