Jane's Walks Coming to St. Louis (...plus, I met Roberta Gratz!) 11:03 PM

In just a short month (May 2-3), a handful of the nation's neighborhoods will be taking their feet and eyes to the street in honor of late urbanist Jane Jacobs. The event is called a Jane's Walk; it's a free neighborhood walking tour whose emphasis is on bringing neighborhood residents together to intimately observe the fine-grained facets of their 'hoods.

I am happy to say--with a note that this is preliminary--that St. Louis will be among the cities to participate. So far, the Soulard, Southwest Garden, St. Louis Place, Tower Grove East, and Tower Grove South neighborhoods have expressed interest and may be holding walks. They're all currently in the planning phase.

Who is responsible for this wonderful idea? The Center for the Living City, founded by Roberta Brandes Gratz, a famous preservationist and author of the work "The Living City: How America's cities are being revitalized by thinking small in a big way".

From Miscellaneous Items

(Google Books capture)

I had the pleasure of meeting her in New Orleans at a speech she gave to a preservation class at the University of New Orleans. Her speech was more of an open Q&A session in which students inquired into her interest in New Orleans and asked her opinions regarding sustainable and organic recovery. She should know; she's writing a book on New Orleans' revival post-Katrina, examining the ways in which the city's unparalleled civic culture has not only survived but thrived in the wake of devastation.


I mentioned to her that I was from St. Louis and was very passionate about it; in fact, that morning, I had just posted on the results of the Preservation Board meeting re: 4608 Washington. She seemed distressed that St. Louis would sacrifice more of its architectural heritage, mentioning that her visits to downtown St. Louis have left her frustrated at the disconnectedness and piecemeal feeling to that portion of the city.


Determined not to leave her completely down on St. Louis, we spoke after the class on the revival St. Louis has undergone and the vibrancy that exists despite all of the surgery to the built environment. I forwarded her some photos of St. Louis (again, thanks JiveCitySTL!) along with an old streetcar map of the city (she said she collected these nationwide). She seemed intrigued by the photographs and is very happy to hear that a Jane's Walk or two will likely hit the sidewalks of St. Louis in May.


If you'd like to be a part of any Jane's Walk in St. Louis (whether a walk in one of the neighborhoods mentioned above or a different one), please contact me at matthewmourning@gmail.com and I'll help point you in the right direction.

Will you take a Jane's Walk through St. Louis? 6:08 PM

WHEN: May 2-3, 2009
WHAT: (See below)

What's a Jane's Walk?

Jane’s Walk is a series of free neighborhood walking tours that helps put people in touch with their environment and with each other, by bridging social and geographic gaps and creating a space for cities to discover themselves.

Jane’s Walk honors the legacy and ideas of urban activist and writer Jane Jacobs who championed the interests of local residents and pedestrians over a car-centered approach to planning. Jane’s Walk helps knit people together into a strong and resourceful community, instilling belonging and encouraging civic leadership. Jane's Walk raises urban literacy by combining the simple act of walking with personal observations, urban history, planning, design and civic engagement. They help knit people together into a strong, connected and resourceful community.

Several cities across the country are scheduled to participate this year: Boston, Chicago, New York, Ogden, Salt Lake City, Washington D.C., Anchorage, and, yes, New Orleans (which I'm thrilled to say I've been asked to help out in).

The idea is that local residents would lead a tour of their own neighborhoods on foot to showcase one or more of many things: quality of life issues faced by the neighborhood and how they could be improved; architecture, history, and heritage; a vibrant business district; sites of cultural import; spots that have inspired civic action (think, for instance, the San Luis!).

The ultimate goal is to get people to discuss the potential of urban neighborhoods (examining both their assets and their shortcomings) while observing the neighborhoods through the best vehicle of all: your two feet (or wheelchair wheels, for some). Walking through the neighborhoods instead of driving or biking is more intimate, allows people to dwell on sites that interest them, and, of course, allows for the discovery of hidden, fine-grained urbanism that Ms. Jacobs so enjoyed!

If anyone would like to organize this event in St. Louis, I would love to help out in any long-distance way I can! I'll help write brochures and help plot the routes.

Here is just one example:

Old Frenchtown St. Louis: This tour would allow the observer to walk through some of St. Louis's best urban neighborhoods and some of its worst urban planning blunders, and everything in between. The tour could start at the corner of Missouri and Park in Lafayette Square, showcasing the Victorian splendor of the Painted Ladies along the park (and discuss that the neighborhood nearly fell victim to an urban renewal project--Lafayette Park itself almost became a truck stop. No lie!). It could continue down Park through the business district and talk about recent revitalization. Historic preservation could be a big focus here. Discussions could take place on how to appropriately design new construction/infill for well-established, high-integrity historic districts.

Keep walking east on Park through the new King Louis Square development. Talk about the ravaging of the near South Side (Frenchtown) for mid rise public housing projects in the modern era (Darst Webbe, chiefly). Speak about the planning process for the new development and whether or not it's a fitting replacement. Proceed east along Park until you arrive at South 9th. Walk the tree-shaded blocks of the LaSalle Park neighborhood before circling back via the pedestrian pathway on 10th Street. This would be an appopriate time to talk about the Purina complex and urban renewal efforts in LaSalle Park.

Keep south on 10th until the pedestrian bridge over I-55. Discuss the interstate's effect on Frenchtown.

Cross the pedestrian bridge (it's still open, right?) and end up on Ninth Street in Soulard. Walk south to (and through) the Soulard Market. From here, it's kind of open--many Soulard blocks would be worth a walk to show off old Frenchtown. The tour should eventually make its way back to Lafayette Street and proceed west towards Tucker. The last leg before returning to Lafayette Park (this time, walk through the park!) would be Bohemian Hill. Discuss the controversy of this 21st century renewal project and examine the remaining buildings.

There you have it? What do you think?

I'd love to help develop brochures for these "walks". Another walk possibility, in conjunction with Landmarks Association's Architecture St. Louis exhibit, would be Lewis Place, which would be a much shorter walk but no less interesting.

Old North St. Louis and Cherokee Street walks seem inevitable, too. Again, contact me and I will begin writing/planning!

For more information, please visit the website and let me know ASAP if you're interested!

Ballpark Village: don't build an artificial office park! 10:45 AM

Wait a second.

I'm not anti-office space.

With a recent article from the P-D expressing that two major law firms are looking at a new home in Clayton (OR a fresh bundle of tax incentives from the city to remain downtown!), we need workers downtown.

But why do we have to stress the "development" of sites? Isn't this a very suburban notion--to take a chunk of land, neatly plan it so as to screen out all unwanteds and funnel in all desires, to control for the expected and the unexpected?

Ballpark Village--and I believe Steve Patterson has expressed the same view over at Urban Review--should be subdivided and rezoned. The city should put through-streets in the site. The lots can then be sold off.

This is the best of both worlds--"development" mentality and urbanism. With an aggressive zoning overlay district, the city could indeed get a Ballpark Village-like development, meaning that a certain percentage of these private lots would have to be dedicated to offices, would have to be so many or so few stories in height, would have to have the same setback and signage requirements, etc.

BUT, the site's land would be competed over, producing a more diverse and potentially much better and much more organic "development".

Jane Jacobs called downtown megaprojects "cataclysmic development"--meaning that if too much money goes into one place at one time, the flood of money drowns the place. It drowns its authenticity and its connection to the dozens of surrounding blocks that were developed without such incentives and excitement and "District-ification". It becomes an island of investment, a fad to be discarded once the novelty has washed away with the money.

If the land that BPV rests upon is truly valuable, private developers will snatch up the lots. Due to the market, they may just erect the office towers that are currently being discussed. But some enterprising developer may also find it useful to develop rental apartments that overlook the stadium. The Ballpark Lofts have certainly done well, according to the Post.

So why restrict development and turn a couple city blocks into an artifical "Village" when we could have good ol' urbanism do the work?

Three Paragraphs You Need to Read (no, seriously, do it...) 12:27 AM

From Jane Jacobs' "The Economy of Regions": A slap in the face to economic development as we know it. If you're too lazy to read the following, SUPPORT LOCAL.

The standard diagnosis of the trouble with supply regions, abandoned regions, and clearance regions as well as stagnated and declining cities is "not enough industry." To be sure. But the standard prescription for the deficiency is "attract industry." What are these industries that can be lured and hooked? Where do they come from and why?

For the most part they are industries that originally developed in cities or city regions but are no longer tethered there by localized markets or by everyday dependence upon multitudes of producers and services close by. Their markets have become far -flung, and they supply so many of their own everyday needs for producers' goods and services internally and have become so practiced at acquiring those they must buy from others, whatever the source, that these enterprises have developed great freedom in choosing where to expand or to relocate. They can move to virtually any place providing other special advantages they seek: for instance, exceptionally cheap labor, close proximity to raw materials they use, release from environmental regulations, or the chance to cash in on tax forgiveness and other subsidies commonly offered to enterprises that will move into depressed areas.

The very freedom of location that enables these industries to leave city regions for distant regions means freedom from local markets and freedom from symbiotic nests of other producers. Therefore, their presence does nothing, or little, to stimulate creation of other, symbiotic enterprises. This outcome becomes starkly obvious whenever these transplants pull up stakes and leave for yet a different location, perhaps one with still cheaper labor or still lower electric rates. What they leave behind when they move are merely economic vacuums, very different from what they left behind originally in the cities or city regions of their origin. And as long as they remain in a region with a transplant economy of this sort, they produce only little and only narrowly for the local economy itself. Their markets are distant. In effect, such transplants shape a kind of industrialized supply region incapable of producing amply and diversely for its own people and producers as well as for others.

Does St. Louis need more corners? 3:29 PM

I live in New Orleans.

If you thought St. Louis had an iron street grid, come to this city. We are talking endless rows of neat squares--not rectangles--throughout most of the 19th Century and early 20th Century city.

In comparison, St. Louis has superblocks. When I was back in town a few weeks ago, I drove through some North Side neighborhoods that troubled me for reasons other than their relative decay. The blocks are far, far too long in many parts of the city, I noticed.

What are the advantages of the short block? Late urban planning guru (inventor?) Jane Jacobs sums it up best.

• Short blocks provide more corners. More corners means, or can mean, more opportunities for retail and mixed-use structures. More activity on corners means more eyes on the street. More eyes on the street means a safer and more vibrant community--with services (a dentist? a small grocer? you name it) right down the block!
  
• Short blocks are less forbidding to the pedestrian or cyclist. When you live on a looooong block, you're much less likely to desire to disembark from your house and make the trek down the same block every day. We're humans. We like things that are visually, aurually, olfactorily(?) interesting and exciting. Yes, many of us prefer routine as well. But that's the beauty of the short block. Your commute to, say, the commercial main street two blocks away from your shorter block, means: 1) you will pass more corners, which may divert your trip and 2) you have choices in your journey! Shorter blocks means you can take any number of rational routes to get to your destination. With large blocks, we feel entrapped and restricted. The best way to deal with entrapment, it seems, has been the presence of an escape pod--an automobile.
  

I come to you not without visual aids.

Take a look at Kingsway West, a neighborhood about as far out from the original core as New Orleans' Uptown (Kingsway is actually a bit closer to its respective downtown!).

Kingsway West:

and Uptown New Orleans:

Absolutely NO cross streets between Kingshighway and Union? That's too long, especially since we're talking a series of blocks. Let's measure.

Walking west on Northland Ave. from Kingshighway to Union: 0.36 miles.

Walking west on Loyola from Napoleon to Jena in Uptown New Orleans: 0.06 miles.

That means, out of this one sample block, both of which are representative of their immediate surroundings, St. Louis's block is 6 times longer--6 New Orleans blocks!

When my mother came down to visit, she was forced to walk a lot. She would often ask me how far our destination was, since traveling on foot is not her preferred transit system. I found myself saying "2 St. Louis blocks" when it was 4 or more New Orleans ones.

Only Soulard seems to have blocks close to New Orleans' size--which makes sense. It was laid out by a French Creole.

Now, this is not the largest problem you can have. And there are very stable South Side blocks that are extremely long. Check out all of the Southampton neighborhood's residential streets for examples.

But the North Side got me thinking. Why not take advantage of vacant lots and create new through streets? It would help redensify the neighborhoods, add some commercial or office space, and make the North Side more pedestrian friendly in the process.

St. Louis, in my opinion, needs shorter blocks wherever it can get them. Ballpark Village, Pruitt Igoe site, the N. 22nd St. Urban Prairie--listen up! No superblocks!

Urban Review's Steve Patterson deems San Luis Apartments "not a good urban building"--and undermines preservation in the process. 8:35 PM

Urban Review St. Louis has released its verdict on the San Luis Apartments: not worth saving, but better than a parking lot.


The photo is courtesy of VanishingSTL.

Here is my list of grievances surrounding Patterson's post:

1. As a respected (and, by local leaders, feared) urbanist, Patterson's commentary is of particular importance in keeping a prominent corner of the Central West End away from the direction of surface parking. On principle, Patterson has opposed modern buildings that are not "urban" and has declared San Luis unworthy of preservation. He has likely solidified an already extant bias against mid-century modern structures (due to their association with urban renewal). In the fight against surface parking for Taylor and Lindell, Patterson has severely diminished morale.
2. The San Luis Apartments is a unique building. Its massing and materials are appropriate for Lindell's midrise streetscape. Its street level, while obviously not a top-notch urban space, does not compromise the ability of one more temperate with regard to the reality of automobiles in cities to recognize the building is, in fact, urban. On the Urban Review topic's comments section, a reader rightfully pointed out that the turn-of-the-century decadence displayed on Westmoreland and Portland places is not quite "urban", but nevertheless adds to the character of the Central West End.
   
3. Even if the Archdiocese sold the land to the city, which issued an RFP, which netted a proposal, how confident would anyone be that the resultant design would be superior to San Luis? It may address the street level issues, but would the bold architectural heritage of the San Luis be respected? I doubt it. If we cannot build "better" (energy efficient, exercise of skilled craftsmanship, etc.) and build to last longer than what we replace, there should be no consideration of demolition.
4. Patterson demands of those who insist architecture be saved merely for its accurate representation of a popular style during a specific period: please shoot me. He references the dreary track record of 1980s strip malls as an example. This sort of logical fallacy is damaging to preservation. It is not merely representativeness that deems a building worthy of saving; it is also superior design, contribution to streetscape, and how the building attempts to blend into the existing fabric. I would argue that San Luis accomplishes these with success, even if not a stellar example.
5. This same "it's not urban" argument can be twisted and manipulated. Why not have torn down St. Aloysius on the Hill if significant residential density--urban formatted homes--would replace it? Why the hell not demolish the Doering Mansion for the much more dense arrangement of Mississippi Bluffs Condos? Steve's argument here was not exactly one of density, as I've made it, but it's but another one of the tenets of Jane Jacobs' bible of urbanism that is never to be defied. Why be willing to sacrifice density but be unwavering in opposition to a building whose pedestrian friendliness is under scrutiny?
   
6. San Luis can be reformatted as easily as it could be torn down and replaced. Its street level issues could be addressed.

Urban Review--contributing to the rationale for this demolition is contrary to your mission.

Read the New Orleans Chapter of the American Institute of Architects' statement on the San Luis here.

Also, a typically awesome and well-spoken statement by Michael Allen on the former Hotel DeVille, now San Luis.

St. Louis needs to become a "walking city" again if it hopes to reduce crime. 9:30 AM

A brilliant presentation in my "Citizen Participation" class inspired me to write this post.

My friend and the presenter in question, Rosie, used a timeless quote from Jane Jacobs' seminal work The Death and Life of Great American Cities.

No amount of police can enforce civilization where the normal casual enforcement of it has broken down.

What Jacobs means is that, without "eyes on the street" and people that care for (rather than fear) their community, neighborhoods will inevitably decline regardless of police presence. Law enforcement officials cannot replace a social fabric that was designed to offer mutual protection by neighborhood stewardship and vigilance.

One New Orleans group named SilenceisViolence has risen up against that city's crime wave to, to use the apt cliche, "take back the streets". "City Walks" is a program they sponsor in which a group of residents take...:

...weekly evening strolls from one New Orleans neighborhood to another. These walks are intended to nurture connections among neighborhoods, to establish a positive, anti-violence presence on our streets, and to bring new faces to businesses around the city. The City Walks will be held each Sunday evening, with a 7pm departure. We will walk 1-2 miles each week and will have a small reception at our destination establishment. Transportation will be provided back to the departure establishment.

What a simple and completely doable idea this could be for St. Louis. It is positive on so many fronts.

1. It encourages walking through St. Louis neighborhoods--the very best form of transportation by which to appreciate this beautiful city is the tried-and-tested foot.
2. It takes people through stigmatized and crime ridden neighborhoods so that residents can both take in the "bad" and appeal to the "good" that the neighborhood has to offer.
3. It adds activity to neighborhoods that don't often see a wave of meandering pedestrians.
4. It potentially builds cooperation and trust between neighbors who perhaps were too afraid to leave their homes to speak to one another before.
5. It links adjacent neighborhoods and teaches residents to recognize that we shouldn't be so damn parochial!
   

In a city that reported 138 homicides last year such as St. Louis, the City Walks program could only serve to benefit the more forlorn of the city's streets.