A first-time customer visiting from New York City suggested this book to me the other day, so I looked it up. The first chapter alone was SO spot on, I thought I should transcribe a few excerpts here for future reference. Just so I don't forget.
In the following passage, the author, Matt Hern, is writing about East Vancouver, British Columbia -- which is decidedly different than Detroit. But, obviously, many of the themes are universal. I suspect I'll be quoting this again & again.
Common Ground in a Liquid City:
Essays in Defense of an Urban Future
Essays in Defense of an Urban Future
by Matt Hern (AK Press, 2010)
“I think the real issue is how to create an organic, unfolding city – what Christopher Alexander calls a living city; one that isn’t run by bureaucratic planning or rampaging developers but is allowed to unfold, driven by a million decisions made by people on the ground. A city should be the best of humanity; an ethical union of citizens drawn together by mutual aid and shared resources. Think of libraries, parks, public transit, movie theaters, patios, coffee shops, bars, beaches, plazas, festivals – everything that makes a city great. All of that is about sharing resources so we don’t have to be walled off by ourselves buying and hoarding our own books and DVDs, hiking on our own property, drinking by ourselves, driving our own cards, isolated, and atomized.
And that sharing means public space or, better yet, common space. And that’s my definition of urban vitality: constantly running into people who aren’t like you, who don’t think, look or act like you, people who have fundamentally different values and backgrounds. And in that mix there is always the possibility to reimagine and remake yourself – a world of possibility that is driven by public life and space, that at its best turns into common places and neighborhoods. That’s what makes a great city, not the shopping opportunities.
It’s more than that, too. Cities are the key to any ecologically sustainable future. There’s just no way seven billion people can spread out across the globe. Living densely, shortening distances we have to travel, reducing our physical footprint, sharing resources, sharing energy is the only way that this is possibly going to work ecologically. To make that happen, cities have to become more urban, not less.
Looking at cities all over the world today though, it’s pretty fucking hard to imagine them as radical generators of sustainability, diversity and vitality. Globalization, colonialism, and corporate expansionism have rendered the cores of most cities virtually indistinguishable from one another. Downtowns everywhere have the same Mickey Ds and Burger Kings, the same Gap, Prada, Benetton and Zaras, the same gleaming towers, the same parking lots, the same rhythms.
And it’s not just downtowns. The Western world’s rush for the suburbs is being replicated all over the globe as urban regions are reconfigured for massive private-car use. Cities are being replaced by massive, megalopolitan stretches of faceless urbanization where it’s impossible to tell where one place ends and the next starts and traditional cities are surrounded by endless expanses of freeways, movie multiplexes, Wal-Marts, industrial parks, gated communities, malls, mini-malls and mega-malls.
I think we still have a real chance to remake this city using some compelling, radical urban traditions and examples.
But that remaking is going to require commitment and discipline. The city continues to pour its resources and energy into attracting investment, courting high-end tourists, building infrastructure for developers and international trade and doing anything and everything to pimp ourselves to the highest bidders. But that strategy is unsustainable by definition.
We have to reject that juvenile economic and cultural logic and build meaningful ways to live on this land without destroying it. That has to mean reimagining this city as self-reliant and constructing a thoughtful re-localization of pretty much everything. That’s not to confuse re-localizing with parochialism, but it is true that it will mean a constriction of the economy. To my mind, that offers up huge possibilities for alleviating inequity: The logic of neo-liberal growth is what has got us into this spot, and it’s not getting us out.
An ecological and an ethical city is one and the same thing – we can’t have a “green” city without reimagining our social institutions. And that can’t be made to happen by relying on politicians or planners or developers. They can’t lead, they have to get out of the way and allow the neighborhoods, communities, public spaces and common spaces that make a great city to become the ongoing expression of a constant series of choices made by everyday citizens.”
