{"id":523,"date":"2011-08-31T08:44:07","date_gmt":"2011-08-31T14:44:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/?p=523"},"modified":"2015-01-31T07:59:51","modified_gmt":"2015-01-31T14:59:51","slug":"three-urbanisms-revisited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/?p=523","title":{"rendered":"Three Urbanisms Revisited"},"content":{"rendered":"

A recurring theme in the urban studies literature and blogosphere (including this blog) is critical comparison of \u00a0different approaches to city-building. \u00a0Such an exercise can have practical utility in the street and also pedagogical utility in the classroom.\u00a0 Although any typology of urbanisms is inevitably reductive (but see here<\/a> for a particularly informative and engaging perspective), typologizing can help clarify distinguishing features and emphases, points at which alternative approaches converge, and viewpoint differences that are irreconcilable.<\/p>\n

With that in mind, I want to examine Douglas Kelbaugh\u2019s comparison of the three paradigms of New Urbanism<\/strong>, Everyday Urbanism<\/strong>, and Post Urbanism<\/strong>. In at least four essays over the last 10 years (e.g.,\u00a0here<\/a> and here<\/a>) Kelbaugh has usefully compared the values and outcomes of each, along with what he sees as their respective merits and liabilities.\u00a0 He has also identified the one that he believes offers the best framework for improving the American city.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Denver’s New Urban Stapleton Community (from Kelbaugh’s “Toward an Integrated Paradigm: Further Thoughts on the Three Urbanisms”, courtesy of Calthorpe Associates)<\/p><\/div>\n

Three Urbanisms<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

New Urbanism<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0is the most well-known and widely practiced of the three urbanisms.\u00a0 Its commitment to designing compact, mixed-use, transit-friendly, and walkable cities overlaps with that of many competitors. \u00a0However, New Urbanism strives more than most to cultivate community in urban design via investments in public space. It is also distinctive in emphasizing a very particular neo-traditional or \u201cpitched roof and front porch\u201d aesthetic that has proven its appeal to a broad swath of the American population.<\/p>\n

Everyday Urbanism <\/strong><\/em>eschews a unifying urban plan and aesthetic.\u00a0 It is more cognizant than most of the manifold cultural differences that citizens bring to urban place-making.\u00a0 It is keen to let differences in space use and built form proliferate in keeping with these cultural backgrounds and interests. \u00a0\u00a0It celebrates spontaneity in place-making and, famously, the design elements of \u201cephemerality, cacophony, multiplicity, and simultaneity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Post Urbanism<\/strong><\/em> is Kelbaugh\u2019s term for the work of urban designers and architects like Koolhaas<\/a>, Libeskind, Hadid, Gehry, and others. \u00a0Like Everyday Urbanism, Post Urbanism rejects formal design orthodoxies and principles.\u00a0 However, there\u2019s a shared commitment to experiment with new designs that make bold, dramatic statements within the urban fabric.\u00a0 These forms occupy a continuum from broken, fractal designs to sweeping arcs and curves.\u00a0 In contrast to New Urbanism\u2019s traditional forms and Everyday Urbanism\u2019s vernacular forms, Post Urbanism\u2019s forms are sensational, and clearly designed to \u201cwow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Evaluation<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Kelbaugh is admirably even-handed in identifying the pros and cons of these paradigms.\u00a0 He likes the aesthetic unity of New Urbanism but worries about its normativity; i.e., the way it romanticizes a particular past.\u00a0 He appreciates the populism of Everyday Urbanism but is troubled by the absence of a larger, unifying design aesthetic. Everyday Urbanism risks place-making \u201cby default rather than by design.\u201d Like most of us Kelbaugh is excited by Post Urbanism\u2019s experimentalism (it eyes the future while New Urbanism mythologizes the past and Everyday Urbanism privileges the prosaic present), but worries about its tendency to produce buildings that out-scale humans and disconnect from their surroundings.<\/p>\n

At same time Kelbaugh recognizes that each urbanism can have its virtues depending on urban context.\u00a0 He suggests that Everyday Urbanism is the best choice for squatter cities of the Global South where immigrants and refugees struggle to create for themselves an urban identity and niche. \u00a0On the other hand, Post Urbanism is the best choice for European cities where a radically new building can offer welcome relief in a mature, high density urban fabric. \u00a0New Urbanism offers the best hope for the \u201ctypical\u201d American city that lacks density but has the economic capacity to achieve coherence. \u00a0It represents a \u201cmiddle road\u201d that\u2019s less glamorous than Post Urbanism but more ambitious than Everyday Urbanism.<\/p>\n

Urban Epistemologies<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

While Kelbaugh\u2019s typology could be updated and\/or expanded to take stock of some recent entries into Urbanism\u2019s battle for hearts and minds\u2014e.g., Waldheim\u2019s Landscape Urbanism<\/a> or its close kin, Mostafavi\u2019s Ecological Urbanism<\/a>\u2014it remains a useful way to grasp how different approaches deal with a number of urban design variables.\u00a0 One analytical dimension that Kelbaugh does not fully pursue is implicated by his use of term paradigm<\/strong> to describe these different approaches to urbanism. This dimension is the epistemological one\u2014the understanding of professional design knowledge that underpins each approach.<\/p>\n

New Urbanism can be described as broadly idealist<\/em><\/strong>, to the extent that it is informed by a codified set of ideals and principles about what urbanism should look like in order to best serve the interests of human community.\u00a0 New Urbanists are confident about the ability of their principles to produce the good city.\u00a0 They also trust that alternative approaches are commensurable and that different ideas can be assimilated into a single, coherent vision of urbanism (i.e., their’s).\u00a0 Post Urbanism is broadly relativist<\/em><\/strong>, dedicated to exploring brand new forms of architectural and design knowledge.\u00a0 The attitude is \u201canything goes,\u201d which is perhaps most apparent in those forms that have been widely criticized for out-scaling humans and disconnecting from the street.\u00a0 \u00a0Finally, Everyday Urbanism is broadly pragmatist<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 It respects different, culturally-specific ideas about city-building and arguably is more concerned than the others about the consequences of design acts for everyday life, for how people live. \u00a0I think Kelbaugh hints at these epistemological orientations where, in this particular piece<\/a>, he suggests that New Urbanists see themselves as urban design \u201cexperts\u201d, Post Urbanists fancy themselves as \u201clone geniuses\u201d, and Everyday Urbanists engage with community members as \u201cco-participants\u201d in the design conversation.<\/p>\n

In Defense of Everyday\u2014and Intercultural\u2014Urbanism<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Viewed from this perspective, I think that the contemporary American city is best served not by New Urbanism, but rather by Everyday Urbanism.\u00a0\u00a0 Contributors to Everyday Urbanism<\/em><\/a>, especially John Kaliski, explain why. \u00a0In so doing I think they also neatly articulate a pragmatist epistemology and ethos. For Everyday Urbanism\u2014as for Intercultural Urbanism\u2014the \u201cprimary element\u201d and \u201cmost salient fact\u201d of everyday urban life is difference<\/a>. \u00a0Not only ethnic difference but also class difference.\u00a0 Andres Duany<\/a>\u00a0admits that New Urbanism seeks to connect to the American middle class, and Douglas Kelbaugh admits that Post Urbanism succeeds best where you have a wealthy, sophisticated consumer citizenry to support it. Certainly American cities are becoming increasingly diverse<\/a> in terms of ethnic and class make-up. \u00a0Some are even taking on \u201csquatter settlement\u201d characteristics as America\u2019s homeless problem deepens.\u00a0 It\u2019s thus becoming increasingly important to design or \u201cscript\u201d spaces in ways that serve diverse urban cultures, including their histories and memories. \u00a0Interestingly, advocates of Ecological Urbanism<\/a> are also aware of this reality and its design challenge. \u00a0Meeting the challenge of designing for diversity must include the scripting of spaces that can accommodate spontaneity<\/a>, unpredictability, new opportunities, and unforeseen possibilities. \u00a0Although Everyday Urbanism is reluctant to articulate a particular design aesthetic, planners and designers don\u2019t disappear. \u00a0Rather, they enable conversation with stakeholders, work to achieve consensus through what pragmatists call “unforced agreement”, and help co-author the urban script. \u00a0The epistemological test of an Everyday or Intercultural Urbanist script is not whether it reaches new levels of \u201cwow\u201d or can neatly assimilate the best ideas of alternative urbanisms, but whether it succeeds in weaving together cultural differences in place-making.<\/p>\n

Sensibility vs. Hegemony in Urban Design<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

In his concluding chapter to Everyday Urbanism<\/em> John Kaliski addresses Kelbaugh’s “design by default” criticism by defending Everyday Urbanism as a paradigmatic \u201cmiddle ground\u201d that’s “truer” than the one that Kelbaugh claims for New Urbanism. \u00a0I don\u2019t think we need to go there.\u00a0 Middle ground-ism is as potentially hegemonic as singular vision-ism, middle road-ism, or synthetic alternatives such as cityism<\/a>.\u00a0 Interestingly, both Kaliski and Kelbaugh suggest that urbanism, at its deepest level, rests on a particular set of sensibilities<\/em>. So too does Mostafavi. \u00a0The future of the American city is best served by debating the substance and consequences of these sensibilities, not paradigmatic hegemony.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A recurring theme in the urban studies literature and blogosphere (including this blog) is critical comparison of \u00a0different approaches to city-building. \u00a0Such an exercise can have practical utility in the street and also pedagogical utility in the classroom.\u00a0 Although any […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[5,8,16,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-general","category-new-urbanism","category-urban-studies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1H2bI-8r","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=523"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3447,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523\/revisions\/3447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}