Urban Policy: Reflections for Week 5

David Owen: Green Manhattan: Everywhere should be more like New York
Owen makes a decent argument for why cities need to expand upwards instead of
outwards. Owen essentially makes a life-cycle argument using qualitative observations. He
argues that most environmental damage comes from transportation and that compact cities will
allow people to be more efficient. Apartments also assist economic efficiency by minimizing
heating and cooling losses into unoccupied space or space between disconnected buildings.
From a technical standpoint, Owens arguments could be improved by drawing on more
quantitative data. His explanation about how Manhattan switches from a hotspot on a total
impact basis to a low on a per-capita basis could have been made using an actual diagram. He
could have compared the greenhouse gas emissions due to electricity consumption and
transportation from Los Angeles to the emissions from New York City. I think Owen missed a
chance to make his argument more convincing.
I believe there are also tradeoffs between minimizing per-capita environmental damages
and over-stuffing the city with residents. I think Jane Jacobs arguments fall apart when you have
so many people on the sidewalks that people cannot see past each other in crowds. I think public
health becomes a greater concern when people are so close to each other. Public transportation
infrastructure is under stress when so many people are utilizing it. Therefore, I do not think
Owens arguments can be taken to the extreme.

Questions for discussion:

What is the balance between congestion and environmental/economic efficiency?
What other statistics could Owen offer to help explain his points?
Which other cities are incentivized to build upwards instead of outwards?

Peter Calthorpe: Urbanism in the Age of Climate Change

Calthorpe writes a piece about the potential of urbanism to solve the increasing urgent
problems of climate change. Calthorpe focuses almost exclusively on environmental and
greenhouse gas issues. Despite his emphasis, he states that urban design is part art, social
science, political theory, engineering, geography, and economics (520). However, I do not
believe cities can turn around the culture of overconsumption without dramatic interventions in
making cities more environmentally friendly. I think people are far less likely to take the
environment seriously. Therefore, there needs to be additional emphasis on promoting
environmental protections.
Calthorpe also claims that, ironically, the biggest barrier to such a green, if not urban,
solution may be environmentalists themselves, protesting lost desert landscapes or resisting
impacts on bird populations by wind turbines (521). Calthorpe has mistaken all
environmentalists as conservationists and I recommend that he breaks out of his social circles
and try to find other environmentalists. That said, I do think Calthorpe takes for granted that city
planners can plan and consume in whatever fashion they need to achieve the ends they desire. I
understand his sense of urgency, but I also find his recklessness alarming.
Overall, this piece is also a good argument for why sprawls need to become more
compact.

Questions for discussion:

 Can urbanism take place if there are people who refuse to believe in climate change?
Urbanism shifts industries to become more information oriented. Such industries still
consume electricity. Therefore, can urbanism succeed without state and national level
investments in clean energy?

Thomas Beatley: Planning for Sustainability in European Cities

This is a great piece on how Europe has taken steps to achieve the urbanism explained in
the Owen and Calthorpe piece. As I was reading, I recalled a presentation I attended about how
city planners were trying to restructure Chinas transportation system. Essentially, many people
in China prefer to walk or bike for their errands and it is possible because of the numerous street
vendors and hole-in-the-wall type shops. The presenters argued that planners must also think
about roads for people and bikes instead of just for cars. They argued having roads that cars
cannot access could decrease traffic congestion in China.
Europe has taken some steps, especially with their bike lanes, to become more friendly
for pedestrians. I would be delighted to see some of Europes advances translate to cities in the
US.

Questions for discussion:

What can American cities learn from European ones?
Some of the plans Europe has instituted take decades to implement. Is there still hope?
Can suburbs benefit from more walking and biking roads?

Project for Public Spaces: Place Making and the Future of Cities
I think theres a tension between building environmentally sustainable cities and
community-oriented cities. Building an environmentally sustainable city sounds like packing
people into apartment buildings like sardines in a can and creating a fantastic transportation
system so people can move around in a sustainable fashion. On the other hand, its difficult to
imagine how a community-oriented planning group will collectively decide to let themselves be
packed into a building. I am not sure how its possible for a city to have both a sustainability and
community emphasis. I think one must come first. A city needs to be sustainable before the city
can bring in community involvement into program planning. I believe this also requires the city
to allocate space for communities to gather.
Lastly, I do not believe that public spaces will help address segregation. Churches are
public spaces yet it is incredibly difficult for them to attract people from outside of the
neighborhood, which is where people of different socioeconomic class tend to live. I think public
spaces will draw in the people who live near the vicinity of the space but will not draw people
from outside of the community.
In general I agree that cities need to do a better job of building a city for its people.

Questions for discussion:

How can you build a sustainable city that also allows for community planning?
This piece assumes that communities are static and their desires are fixed in time. How
do cities adapt to the needs of their changing communities and demographics?

Remaking Post Industrial Cities: New Orleans Case Study

 This piece is dire. I lived in New Orleans for a few months and I didnt see how bleak the
situation was. Perhaps I would have ventured around more if I was more familiar with city
development.
The New Orleans case study illustrates what happens when a city injects a stimulus
package to promote tourism without developing the residents living in the city. The New Orleans
government created a situation for business people to thrive. The reimaging worked for the
stakeholders of the city. However, the ordinary residents struggled to make the community work.
The New Orleans example also shows that diversity is insufficient to solve racial issues.
The city must be more proactive in disrupting the generations old segregation lines that divide a
city up if it wants to alleviate the problems associated with race.
I find it surprising that New Orleans struggles so much. From the outside, it looks like
New Orleans has tremendous resources and is one of the greatest cultural melting pots on the
Western Hemisphere. A lot of the problems highlighted by the New Orleans Case Study points to
a lack of political representation for the minorities of New Orleans. I think New Orleans has a lot
of potential and I hope it does a better job taking care of its grassroots population.

Questions for discussion:

Can the city prioritize its community while keeping the tourism industry strong?
How a city as diverse and culturally rich as New Orleans develop without erasing
cultures and historical developments?

Sarah Treuhaft: Equitable Development, the path to an All-In Pittsburgh

I like this piece, because it highlights how racial inequities are a huge problem for
Pittsburgh and how the city could aggressively address those issues. Here are my problems with
the piece:
This piece has not convinced me that race is the biggest issues that Pittsburgh must
addressed. I personally believe it is, but I dont think a lay reader would feel the same.
This piece reads like the UN Habitat piece Here are general principles and strategies
moving forward. However, its unclear how Pittsburgh will advance those plans forward
or if Pittsburgh city council even plans to move those pieces forward.
The piece could have also mentioned how ordinary citizens can help deal with the racial
inequities after all, race is ultimately a societal problem, not a government problem.
This piece focuses on black-white interactions and does not emphasize other races or
refugees. This piece takes for granted that improvements in equitable development will
make Pittsburgh more welcoming in general.
Points I liked:
The word community was used over 100 times. This piece understands how important
communities are in building equitable cities.
There are a lot of solid ideas and strategies laid out in Treuhafts piece.

Questions for discussion:

Why do communities struggle so much with equitable and sustainable development when
people like Sarah Treuhaft are acutely aware of the issues?
Which of Treuhafts strategies should be the starting point for the development of
Pittsburgh?