Creating Urban Metabolism
Urban metabolism, originally proposed in 1965, is a model to facilitate the description and analysis of the flows of the materials and energy within cities (Wolman 1965). It offers benefits in the study of the sustainability of cities by providing a unified or holistic viewpoint to encompass all of the activities of a city in a single model.
Urban Metabolism can be classified into the following three types:
1. On a national or regional scale: In this type of study the material exchanges between an economy and the natural environment are analyzed. Indicators are calculated in order to assess the level of resource intensity of the system.
2. Corporate material flow analysis, or along an industrial supply chain involving a number of companies: The goal of material flow analysis within a company is to optimize the production processes in such a way that materials and energy are used in the most efficient manner (e.g., by recycling and reduction of waste). Companies that implement a material flow analysis can use the results to improve their operations costs and environmental performance.
3. In the life cycle of a product: This is another term for the life-cycle inventory step of life-cycle assessment.
Urban Metabolism can be used as a quantitative measure of the “health” of a city: A city “who is whole,” with respect to physical, social, and economic factors, is presumably a healthy city. Where these factors are deficient indicates an “ailing” city. It also can be a qualitative indicator of livability. The term quality of life is used to evaluate the general well-being of individuals and societies. According to ecological economist Robert Costanza, “while Quality of Life (QOL) has long been an explicit or implicit policy goal, adequate definition and measurement have been elusive. Diverse ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ indicators across a range of disciplines and scales, and recent work on subjective well-being (SWB) surveys and the psychology of happiness have spurred renewed interest” (2008).
A livable city — suitable for human living — is one that is in balance such that all of its parts and resources contribute to its inhabitants’ quality of life. One method of rating cities is the Creativity Index (Florida 2002). This is a composite measure that is based on four indices for the most current year available: the Innovation Index (1999), High-Tech Index (2000), Gay Index (2000), and Creative Class (1999). In the United States, Madison, Wisconsin, ranks highest among the regions with 250,000 to 5,000,000 people. Several other Midwest cities are ranked in the top 50, including Lincoln, Nebraska (19), Rockford, Illinois (24), Appleton-Oshkosh-Neenah, Wisconsin (27), and Peoria, Illinois (35). Mercer’s Quality of Living Index (Mercer 2011) uses 39 criteria, including political and economic stability, health care, educational opportunities, culture, recreation, hygiene, safety, and public transportation. While European cities dominate the top tier of ranked cities, San Francisco (30), Chicago and Washington, D.C. (both at 43), New York City (47), and Seattle (48) round out the top 50 cities for quality of life, with scores of 99.8 or better (Mercer 2011). In 2010 the rating also identifies the cities with the best eco-ranking based on water availability and drinkability, waste removal, quality of sewage systems, air pollution, and traffic congestion. In this survey, seven U.S. cities with scores of 126.6 or higher, such as Honolulu (2), Minneapolis (6), Pittsburgh (13), Washington, D.C. (23), Boston (25), Philadelphia (34), and St. Louis (43), rank among the top 50 cities worldwide for eco-living (Mercer 2010).1
The City Who Is Whole
In his essay “Architecture as Medicine,” Daniel Willis (1999) uses the modern hospital to draw analogies to architecture. Whereas the hospital is often perceived as a “machine for healing,” studies in modern medicine indicate that the attitudes and beliefs of patients have a significant impact on their ability to recover. Willis points out that modern hospitals, due to their infrastructures of complex technology and systems, share many attributes with other highly mechanized building types. They run on a system of “abstract time of twenty-four hour sameness” in which the functions of the hospital, like the patient, are objectified. He argues that hospitals, like other building types, can create an “authentic sense of place” by rejecting “machine metaphors” for deeper physical and aesthetic attributes that actually may be more beneficial to healing than efficiency (Willis 1999: 4-5).
In a sense, the modern hospital, functionally as well as socially, resembles a modern city in its programmatic and technological complexity. It assembles several familiar functions, such as housing, education, technology, restaurants, offices, and institutions, into a single complex. Thus, its metabolism of operational flows and strategies may be compared to the metabolism of a city, where the flows of information, technology, economy, and social life must all be integrated (plate 14).
The mind-body dilemma in medicine also can be compared to the function-aesthetics problem in architecture: “Both dichotomies,” writes Willis, “are comprised of abstract concepts” that are “artificial creations . . . with their own peculiar histories and origins” (Willis 1999: 9-10). Thus, he argues, the “form follows function” dictum of modern architecture, in which aesthetics become[s] the rational outcome of functions, must be questioned based on the limitations of its own representational system — as Jorge Silvetti (1977) eloquently argued in his essay “The Beauty of Shadows.”2 Likewise, the presumed rational order of the city, which is often the result of the integration of complex functions and systems, does not necessarily translate directly into quality-of-life.
Comparisons of cities to the human body have been made since the time of Vitruvius. Le Corbusier viewed the city hierarchically in anthropomorphic terms with an administrative civic “head,” a mixeduse “body” of retail and housing, and service and industrial “appendages.” Modern architects and urban designers have tended to view the city as a mechanism in which the parts must function together efficiently for the benefit of the whole; thus, architecture and, more pointedly, zoning become “machines for healing” the city. But machine metaphors, predicated largely on a functionalist approach, obscure the more nuanced and authentic issues of place-making.
Leon Krier (1984) criticizes mechanical functional zoning as “the most effective means in destroying the infinitely complex social and physical fabric of preindustrial communities.” He proposes that the city should reintegrate main urban functions into urban quarters (districts) of limited territorial size in which residence, work, and leisure should be located within walking distance. For example, Soulard Square in St. Louis is an established community with a farmers’ market, restaurants, small shops, residences, and churches all situated in a compact, walkable neighborhood.
A more useful analogy, according to both Krier (1984) and Christopher Alexander and his colleagues (1987), is an organic model of urban growth as a process of incremental transformations through time. A well-planned city is “whole,” and the purpose of responsible city planning is “to heal the city.” Alexander’s overriding rule is that “every increment of construction must be made in such a way as to heal the city. . . . Every new act of construction has just one basic obligation: It must create a continuous structure of whole around itself.”
Postindustrial cities in the United States have been diagnosing and treating their “ailing” commercial infrastructures for several decades, with mixed results. Urban renewal programs in the United States during the 1960s, for example, gave little attention to preserving the fabric of older neighborhoods or to the significant displacement of the poorer residents. Since then, many smallerscale cities, such as Peoria and Milwaukee, have had to rely on a handful of industries to sustain their aging manufacturing bases. Enticing new industries and the jobs they create continues to be a major economic and political goal. However, bringing new businesses and industries into postindustrial communities extracts a price. For example, Caterpillar Corporation, which has its headquarters in Peoria, is a major Fortune 50 company that manufactures and markets heavy industrial earth-moving equipment throughout the world. The financial health and well-being of the city of Peoria is directly tied to Caterpillar’s financial growth and continued vitality. The city also believes that in order to continue to grow and prosper, it will need to attract more Fortune 50 companies like Caterpillar, rather than foster its own creative capital of talent, technology, culture, and enterprise. This problem is not unique to Peoria, since many postindustrial cities are competing for the same limited pool of companies. Furthermore, the harder that cities compete with one another by offering lucrative incentives such as tax breaks, land for development, and pro bono services, the more likely they are to bankrupt themselves in the process.
Admittedly, the role of architecture as built environment to “heal” a city in a holistic sense is limited. As Weiming Lu, past president of the Lowertown Development Corporation in St. Paul, observes, “physical renewal does not bring social regeneration” (Lee 2008). However, buildings do have a lasting impact on the urban environment in that they give form to the city, define its streets and paths, create scale, and house vital functions. In short, architecture gives order to the city and its inhabitants and, in turn, is given meaning through the rituals of daily life. Thus, as Alexander points out, the city is an organic composition whose processes of its planning and growth are integral to its health and metabolism.
Sustainable Development
The concept of urban metabolism also provides a means of understanding the sustainable development of cities by drawing an analogy with the metabolic processes of organisms. As Alexander et al. (1987) observe: “When we look at the most beautiful towns and cities of the past, we are always impressed by a feeling that they are somehow organic. This feeling of ‘organicness,’ is not a vague feeling of relationship with organic forms. It is not an analogy. It is instead, an accurate vision of a specific structural quality which these old towns had . . . and have. Namely: Each of these towns grew as a whole, under its own laws of wholeness.”
The parallels between organic growth of cities and sustainable processes also are strong: “Cities transform raw materials, fuel, and water into the built environment, human biomass and waste” (Decker et al. 2000). In practice the study of an urban metabolism (in urban ecology) requires quantification of the inputs, outputs, and storage of energy, water, nutrients, materials, and wastes. This enables planners, developers, and design professionals to determine strategies that will create projects that are better suited to diverse urban and natural ecosystems.
Urban metabolism can be defined as “the sum total of the technical and socio-economic processes that occur in cities, resulting in growth, production of energy, and elimination of waste” (Kennedy et al. 2007). The metabolism of an ecosystem, for example, involving the production, via photosynthesis, and consumption, by respiration, of organic matter is often expressed by ecologists in terms of energy. A few studies of urban metabolism have focused on quantifying the embodied energy in cities, while others have more broadly included fluxes of nutrients and materials, and the urban hydrological cycle.
Sustainable development must “meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but also for future generations” (United Nations 1987). Lu contends that “urban development is most successful when there are natural areas nearby, where people can escape the city for a quiet walk or a moment of reflection” (Lee 2008). Many postindustrial cities in the Midwest region of the United States were developed along water transportation systems, which provided sources for potable water as well as routes for the transport of goods and services. Today, protection of these natural resources is vital to the ecology of both the cities and the region. Consequently, many cities have become environmental stewards by protecting their watersheds and developing environmental strategies to mitigate the effects of flooding, erosion, and pollution. In Peoria, the Illinois River is a resource that is used for transportation and recreation. The Warehouse District lies in the floodplain of the river and can be inundated during heavy rains and seasonal flooding. In addition, the bluffs on which both Peoria and East Peoria are situated create a natural watershed to the river. Filtering and treating gray water before it reaches the river is essential to maintaining the water quality for now and into the future.
The Third Ward in Milwaukee is bounded by Lake Michigan to the east and the Milwaukee River to the west. Consequently, water and effluents that enter the river also are carried directly into the lake. For more than three decades, the city of Milwaukee has been working in partnership with the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee in the study of its transportation corridors, urban redevelopment, and natural environments. Most recently, it is carefully examining its natural watersheds and engineering infrastructure of distribution systems and is taking measures to revitalize its waterways with environmental safeguards. Shoreline along the Milwaukee River and Lake Michigan once used for industrial purposes is now being ecologically reclaimed for recreation and natural habitats.
Even the largest of the Great Lakes presents a fragile ecosystem under intense ecological pressure. Open to international shipping, Lake Superior is continually threatened by invasive species carried by large ships. As a port city, Duluth, Minnesota, must always be vigilant for pollutants and nonindigenous invasive species that threaten the quality of its water, fish, and wildlife habitats, as well as its economy (plate 13).
Sustainable development ties together concern for the carrying capacity of natural systems with the social challenges facing humanity. As early as the 1970s the term “sustainability” was employed to describe an economy “in equilibrium with basic ecological support systems” (Stivers 1976). Ecologists have pointed to Beyond the Limits (Meadows et al. 1992), which explores how exponential growth interacts with finite resources, and presented the alternative of a “steady state economy” — defined by Thomas R. Malthus (1803) as an economy of relatively stable size — in order to address environmental concerns.
During the 1990s, St. Paul and Duke Energy Generation Services developed Ever-Green Energy, a wood-fired combined heat and power (CHP) cogeneration facility to produce clean and efficient energy for the Lowertown District. According to its website, CHP is a process that generates both electricity and heat at the same time. Steam from the turbine generator that creates electricity is used to heat water rather than being released into the atmosphere and lost. The biomass fuel used in the St. Paul facility is clean wood waste generated in the Twin Cities metro area. This CHP process extracts more usable energy from the fuel than creating heat or electricity alone, so it is much more efficient. Ever-Green Energy (2008) claims that by using renewable energy, the CHP plant simultaneously produces 25 megawatts of electricity and up to 65 megawatts of thermal energy.
Large quantities of wood waste are generated in the Twin Cities metro area annually, resulting in storage and disposal problems. The CHP plant turns approximately 280,000 tons of this renewable resource into green energy annually, replacing about 60% of District Energy St. Paul’s use of coal and oil and significantly reducing carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and particulate emissions. The Ever-Green Energy CHP plant demonstrates that addressing the problem of energy in a sustainable and costeffective manner will produce multiple cost savings that can be passed on to the consumer. It is just one example of how sustainable infrastructures can be developed.
The field of sustainable development can be conceptually broken into three constituent parts: environmental sustainability, economic sustainability, and sociopolitical sustainability. The three building blocks of economic sustainability are information, integration, and participation. In sustainable development everyone is a user and provider of information. Developing economies, therefore, need to change from old sector-centered ways of doing business to new approaches that involve crossdisciplinary coordination and the integration of environmental and social concerns into all development processes. Furthermore, broad public participation in decision-making is a fundamental prerequisite for achieving sustainable development (Allen 2007).
According to A. M. Hasna (2007: 48), “sustainability is a process which tells of a development of all aspects of human life affecting sustenance. It means resolving the conflict between the various competing goals, and involves the simultaneous pursuit of economic prosperity, environmental quality, and social equity — famously known as three dimensions (triple bottom line) — with the resultant vector being technology.”
As pointed out in chapter 2, the first step in sustainability is preservation and adaptive reuse of existing buildings. This is not preservation in the historical or interpretive sense with the goal of freezing a building or place in time. Rather, it is a pragmatic response to using what already exists (provided it’s serviceable) and razing only those buildings that cannot be saved.
Banbury Place in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, is a good example of adaptive “recycling” of buildings on a limited budget (plate 8). With more than 1,900,000 square feet of floor space, this former tire factory is a unique multiuse, multitenant facility located on a scenic site along the banks of the Eau Claire River (Banbury Place 2009). It is Eau Claire’s best known industrial landmark. Banbury Place accommodates a mixture of light industrial manufacturing, commercial warehousing, service, retail, public/private offices, self-storage, and luxury warehouse-style residential apartments. It offers a wide range of on-site amenities, creating a vibrant activity center that facilitates the networking of tenants. Compared to many high-end warehouse renovations, Banbury Place is far more basic. For example, many of its original glazed openings, each filling an entire structural bay, have been replaced with smaller stock windows. And some openings have been filled in altogether with concrete block, thereby diminishing the authentic industrial character of the complex. Interior details and finishes are inexpensive and standardized to such a degree that one cannot distinguish one building from another internally, which makes way-finding and orientation difficult. However, by keeping renovation costs to a minimum, Banbury Place remains an affordable live/work environment for its tenants.
Milwaukee has been the headquarters of Harley-Davidson, Inc., a manufacturer of motorcycles, since 1903 (Harley-Davidson 2010). The Harley-Davidson brand is widely respected and has developed a dedicated following among motorcycle enthusiasts. The 130,000-square-foot Harley-Davidson Museum, located on Walker’s Point in the Fifth Ward, is a popular tourist attraction. The Iron Horse Hotel, which also is dedicated to Harley enthusiasts, is housed in a renovated firehouse whose original industrial structure, materials, and character have been preserved and reinterpreted in new elements and details (plate 11). In contrast with Banbury Place, no expense has been spared. One could say that the Harley-Davidson brand defines Milwaukee’s postindustrial renaissance by presenting a product and an image that is quality driven and appeals to a broad clientele of blue-collar workers and white-collar professionals alike. In other words, the clientele of the Iron Horse, who also are likely to own Harleys, have come to expect high-style design from a company that promotes motorcycles at the “cutting edge” of design and performance.
Pat Sullivan, a “hands-on” developer and partner in the JP Companies in Peoria, reuses just about every material in his buildings. He does not limit his efforts to renovating buildings but also addresses the street by recycling pavers. In this more sustainable scenario, buildings and materials are salvaged, recycled, and repurposed for new applications. A general theme of all postindustrial redevelopment, therefore, is the integration of old and new. This applies to the adaptive reuse of existing warehouses in Minneapolis into edgy, high-tech lofts and businesses, as well as the development of new, modern condominiums built shoulder-toshoulder with historic buildings in Milwaukee and St. Paul, Minnesota.
Creative Class versus Creative Capital
In The Rise of the Creative Class, Richard Florida (2002) notes how at Carnegie Mellon University students were casually “recruited” by a high-tech company based in Austin, Texas. Their recruiting methods were low-key and unconventional: “hanging out” with prospective candidates was preferred to formal interviews, reflecting both the philosophy of company and the generational mindset of its employees. He also notes that one of its “star” recruits from Carnegie Mellon sported spiked multicolor hair, body tattoos, and multiple piercings. “What a change from my own college days,” he muses, “when students would put on their dressiest clothes and carefully hide any counterculture symptoms.” Clearly, hiring employees that “fit in” to a corporate mold was not what this company wanted.
But what piqued Florida’s interest most was the fact that young, talented professionals were leaving Pittsburgh and moving to Austin. Florida had personally witnessed Pittsburgh’s own transformation as a postindustrial city, yet it could not create the same quality of life for these professionals that Austin promised. In lieu of professional sports teams, museums, or high-art cultural activities, they are choosing cities such as Austin as a place to live and work because they have a culture that appeals to a young “creative class”: a thriving music scene, ethnic and cultural diversity, fabulous outdoor recreation, and great nightlife. Most important, such cities are more affordable than many U.S. cities located on the west and east coasts.
So why can’t Pittsburgh, or any other up-and-coming postindustrial city for that matter, compete with Austin or Silicon Valley for the “best and brightest” people? Florida concluded it is not simply jobs, as many economists would argue, but quality-of-life benefits that draw the creative class to unlikely places. Another reason is that despite high ratings for quality of life, Pittsburgh consistently ranks as one of the worst performing U.S. cities in terms of poverty, crime, employment, income, and housing abandonment (Hollander et al. 2009). This paradox also plagues many other postindustrial cities. Safety, along with quality of schools, ranks among the highest concerns for people moving back into central cities.
However, like Pittsburgh, many postindustrial cities in the Midwest have much to offer, including affordability. New technologies do not have to be developed elsewhere when the educational and economic resources are already present, waiting to be tapped. Yet, even in Milwaukee’s vibrant Third Ward, creative talent is leaving for Chicago because that is where the creative class seeks opportunity.
Not all creative talent leaves postindustrial cities. In fact many talented people seek opportunities in such cities because they are affordable and they do offer certain lifestyle choices they desire. Jassen Johnson is a founder and partner of Renaissance Development Associates in St. Louis, with dual M. Arch. and M.B.A. degrees. For his architecture thesis at the University of Illinois in 2002 he performed a market analysis for redevelopment of Midtown Alley in St. Louis and developed planning and architectural proposals that he has since put into action. In just eight years, Renaissance Development has developed over $80 million in projects, including WireWorks (plate 12). Jassen was able to capitalize on experience in the construction industry that he acquired working with his family and his architectural education and business acumen to create a firm that offers comprehensive development, design, and construction services. Furthermore, he markets the quality of life that his firm promotes and designs for to attract creative professionals to urban districts as the first step in creating community. For this reason, as Cindy Washington of ND Development in St. Louis explains, creative communities are not so much about attracting a particular age group as they are about people who share “a frame of mind.”
Quality of life (QOL) is represented as the interaction of human needs and the subjective perception of their fulfillment, mediated by the opportunities available to meet the needs. Quality-of-life factors include (1) opportunities to meet human needs now and in the future for the built, human, social, and natural environments realized through investments of capital and time; (2) human needs, including subsistence, reproduction, security, affection, understanding, participation, leisure, spirituality, creativity, identity, and freedom; and (3) enhancement of subjective well-being (happiness, utility, and welfare) for individuals and/or groups.
The ability of humans to satisfy these basic needs arises from the opportunities available and constructed from social, built, human, and natural capital (and time). Costanza et al. (2008) identify four types of capital as a means for providing these opportunities: (1) social capital is networks and norms that facilitate cooperative action (Putnam 1995); (2) human capital is the knowledge and information stored in our brains, as well as our health and labor potential; (3) built capital is manufactured goods (tools, equipment, consumer goods), buildings, and infrastructure; and (4) natural capital is the structure of natural ecosystems. To this list we could add technology capital, which fosters the development of new technologies in biomedicine, ecology, and informatics. All forms of capital are investments that generate flows of benefits. For example, the benefits of natural capital are the renewable and nonrenewable goods and services provided by ecosystems. Costanza and Daly (1992) point out that “the differing characteristics of these . . . types of capital can be used to help guide policy and decision making with regard to meeting human needs.” Collectively, they constitute what we refer to as creative capital.
If they are to attract creative talent, postindustrial cities must critically reassess their creative capital, which includes people, technology, institutions, and cultural and environmental amenities. They must identify new and emergent technologies that are being developed in their own regions and provide the incentives and lifestyle choices that will attract and keep young entrepreneurs. They need to take inventory of their physical infrastructures and protect and sustain their natural resources. Publicprivate partnerships must be forged among cities, businesses, and academic institutions to promote sustainable research and development as well as educate new workers and reeducate already skilled workers for emerging opportunities.
Urban Synergy and the Transect
The patterns of redevelopment of postindustrial cities are now becoming familiar. At the initial stages of transformation, artists, countercultural types, and so-called bohemians looking for raw space and cheap rent seek out derelict buildings. Old warehouses, with their robust structures, industrial materials, high ceilings, and large unobstructed floor plates, are ideal environments for lofts and artists’ studios. Ground floor spaces can be developed into galleries, restaurants, commercial, and office spaces (fig. 4.1). New startup companies and creative agencies often seek out such spaces for the same reasons as artists. Warehouses are desirable because they are adaptable to a virtually unlimited number of uses. This trend also brings in developers who see economic opportunities in transforming raw warehouse spaces into modern live/work environments. Visionary architectural and planning initiatives coupled with creative people and entrepreneurs make postindustrial areas trendy, which attracts new investment. Of course, this process also results in gentrification, which, although objectionable to some, is often the result of development of postindustrial districts and the catalyst for the redevelopment of adjacent derelict districts. The Lowertown Redevelopment Corporation in St. Paul, Minnesota, addressed this problem by creating a development bank to fill the gap in financing for projects in the district. This funding mechanism encouraged local residents and entrepreneurs to stay and invest in Lowertown, rather than be displaced (Lee 2008).
FIGURE 4.1. Warehouses can be adapted to many uses, for example this restaurant at WireWorks in St. Louis. (Courtesy of Paul J. Armstrong)
This scenario does not happen overnight. It is a process that generally takes decades, beginning with a combination of grassroots community groups and individual initiatives, which in turn inspire new, more coordinated forms of development. Redevelopment plans for Lowertown in St. Paul, for example, began in 1979 through a publicprivate partnership coordinated by Weiming Lu, past president of the Lowertown Redevelopment Corporation, and former mayor George Latimer. Today, it is nearly complete with future development plans to create the Bruce Vento Conservation Area along the east bank of the Mississippi River. Redevelopment of Milwaukee’s Third Ward began around the same time. It is now the home of the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design and has propelled development in the adjacent Fifth Ward Warehouse District.
In Minneapolis, redevelopment of the warehouse district into mixed-use lofts (fig. 4.2) and of the Gold Medal flour mills into a museum has been complemented by the addition of major new cultural buildings such as the Guthrie Theater, designed by Jean Nouvel, and Target Field, home of the Minnesota Twins baseball team.
Canal Park in Duluth is situated in a former industrial area adjacent to its famous aerial lift bridge. Today it includes the historic DeWitt-Seitz Building, a commercial-style building designed in 1909, which has been renovated so as to house retail shops, office spaces, and restaurants (plate 9). With easy access to Lake Superior and a maritime museum, Canal Park attracts tourists as well as a diverse population of young and old (plates 13 and 15). New hotels and lodges share with existing buildings the rugged beauty of the lakefront.
SYNERGY
Synergy, in general, may be defined as two or more agents working together to produce a result not obtainable by any of the agents independently. The term synergy was refined by R. Buckminster Fuller (1975), who analyzed some of its implications and coined the term synergetics. The characteristics of synergy include:
A dynamic state in which combined action is favored over the difference of individual component actions
Behavior of whole systems unpredicted by the behavior of their parts taken separately, known as emergent behavior
The cooperative action of two or more stimuli, resulting in a different or greater response than that of the individual stimuli
Synergy, therefore, creates urban metabolism by combining diverse resources to create an entirely new entity. In the postindustrial city, urban synergy includes urban ecology, preservation and adaptive reuse, and design guided by the principles of New Urbanism. Urban ecology is a subfield of ecology that deals with the interaction of organisms in an urban or urbanized community and their interaction with that community. Urban ecologists study the trees, rivers, wildlife, and open spaces found in cities to understand the extent of those resources and the way they are affected by pollution, overdevelopment, and other pressures. Analysis of urban settings in the context of ecosystem ecology (looking at the cycling of matter and the flow of energy through the ecosystem) may ultimately help us to design healthier, better managed communities by understanding what threats the urban environment brings to humans. Today, there is an emphasis on planning communities with an ecological design using alternative building materials and methods. This is in order to promote a healthy and biodiverse urban ecosystem.
FIGURE 4.2. Bookmen Stacks Lofts in Minneapolis provides residents with upscale living in a sleek glass-and-steel high-rise building located within walking distance of the Guthrie Theater and Target Field. (Courtesy of Paul J. Armstrong)
THE TRANSECT AND THE SMARTCODE
The urban-to-rural transect is an urban planning model created by New Urbanist Andres Duany. The transect defines a series of zones that transition from sparse rural farmhouses to the dense urban core. Each zone is fractal in that it contains a similar transition from the edge to the center of the neighborhood. The transect is an important part of the New Urbanism and Smart Growth movements. Duany’s firm, Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company (DPZ), has embodied the transect philosophy in their SmartCode generic planning code for municipal ordinances.
The SmartCode, developed by DPZ, is a model form-based unified land development ordinance designed to create walkable neighborhoods across the full spectrum of human settlement, from the most rural to the most urban, incorporating a transect of character and intensity within each. It folds zoning, subdivision regulations, urban design, and basic architectural standards into one compact document. Because the SmartCode enables community vision by coding specific outcomes that are desired in particular places, it is meant to be locally calibrated by professional planners, architects, and attorneys.
Duany promotes transect planning in lieu of traditional Euclidean zoning and suburban development in which large tracts of land are dedicated to a single purpose, such as housing, offices, and shopping, which can be accessed only via major roads.
The concept of the transect was borrowed from ecology. Ecological transects are used to describe changes in habitat over some gradient, such as a change in topography or distance from a water body. Patrick Geddes, in his Valley Section (a section of land taken from ridgeline to shoreline) of the early twentieth century, was among the first to proclaim that human settlement should be analyzed in the context of its natural region.
A major feature of transect planning is that it incorporates a variety of residential and commercial spaces into a single neighborhood. A typical neighborhood would, for instance, consist of a light commercial area with a bank, general store, pub, coffee shop, and apartments. Moving outward from the center, residential density gradually decreases, from apartments to townhouses to fully detached houses. The central area is designed to be a focus of transit and, ideally, within walking distance of any point in the neighborhood.
The Transect has six zones, moving from rural to urban. It begins with two that are entirely rural in character: Rural preserve (protected areas in perpetuity) and Rural reserve (areas of high environmental or scenic quality that are not currently preserved but perhaps should be). The transition zone between countryside and town is called the Edge, which encompasses the most rural part of the neighborhood and the countryside just beyond. The Edge is primarily single-family homes. Although the Edge is the most purely residential zone, it can have some mixed use, such as civic buildings (schools are particularly appropriate for the Edge). Next is General, the largest zone in most neighborhoods. General is primarily residential but more urban in character (somewhat higher density with a mix of housing types and a slightly greater mix of uses allowed). At the urban end of the spectrum are two zones that are primarily mixed use: Center (this can be a small neighborhood center or a larger town center, the latter serving more than one neighborhood); and an urban Core that serves the region. Typically, the Core is a central business district.
The major advantages of the transect as an urban planning tool are (1) education — it is easy to understand; (2) coding — it can readily be translated into the familiar framework of Euclidean zoning districts; and (3) the creation of immersive environments. Transect planning is inherently synergistic, in that all of the elements of the human and natural environments must work together in the transect to create something that is greater than the sum of its parts. The transect also creates a framework to control and promote growth in certain areas; increases pedestrian life, local safety, and community identity; and provides tools to protect and restore natural environments. Transect planning cannot be applied, however, without a change to local ordinances.
New Urbanism as Catalyst
New Urbanism began as a response to urban sprawl. Its core planning principles are based on Traditional Neighborhood Development (TND) and Transit-Oriented Development (TOD). In a TND the development of a community begins with a master plan that provides a network of interconnected streets, alleyways, and convenient walking distances, all contained within a greenbelt. Neighborhoods are designed with a quarter-mile radius (a five-minute walk from edge to center). Street blocks are generally not bigger than 230 by 600 feet, with integrated building types and uses. Squares and parks are evenly distributed, with community buildings placed on prominent sites. All these are controlled by a design code that draws on the architecture of the region and regulates building use, building placement, building form, landscape, and street types.
A typical TOD is mixed-use community with an average walking distance of 2,000 feet (or 10 minutes) to a transit stop and a core commercial area. Average density for a TOD residential area is between 10 and 25 dwellings per acre (approximately 25-60 dwellings per hectare). At the center, core commercial uses must occupy at least 10% of the total area, with a minimum of 10,000 square feet (1,000 square meters) of retail space adjacent to a transit stop. Principal community buildings and services are also located in central areas. School and secondary community buildings are located at the edges, which are more automobile oriented. In these “secondary areas” residential density can go as low as six units per acre (15 units per hectare).
New Urbanism has often been applied to new suburban developments but is equally amenable to the development of inner-city cores and former industrial sites. Warehouse districts in many postindustrial cities provide ample opportunities for incorporating new buildings and planning strategies with existing buildings and infrastructures. As pointed out earlier, warehouses can be adapted to new mixed uses. When new buildings are added, they often use materials and forms that reflect the industrial character of the warehouses as well as the historical character of the city.
Typically, adaptations to existing buildings can take the following forms: (1) canopies and entrances, (2) balconies, (3) roofscapes (penthouses, green roofs, and roof decks), (4) entry and display corners (turrets, bows, chamfers), and (5) courtyards and in-between spaces. Canopies on industrial buildings were originally fabricated of cast-iron or steel and used for protective overhangs for loading docks. Today they are made of a combination of glass, steel, wood, and other materials to define entrances and protect pedestrians from the elements. The former Allen D. Everitt Knitting Company building in Milwaukee’s Fifth Ward, developed by Pieper Properties, uses glass and steel curtain walls, canopies, and balconies to add architectural interest to the cream city brick facades (fig. 4.3). The seven-story, 84,500-square-foot mixeduse commercial building has 71,000 square feet of office space and 13,500 square feet of retail space (Weiland 2008). The bold porte cochere of the Iron Horse Hotel in Milwaukee is fabricated from concrete, wood, and steel. Its industrial character recalls Milwaukee’s blue-collar heritage and its reinvention as a technology-driven city. Balconies are conventionally associated with residential architecture. While some are integrated with the facades and structure, many balconies are fabricated from lightweight materials and physically attached to the structure. In Milwaukee’s Third Ward, attached balconies that projected over streets became so prolific that design codes were developed to regulate them.
Many cities are mandating the use of sustainable materials and performance standards. Chicago, for example, is promoting green roofs that are habitable. In Minneapolis, roof decks on warehouse loft buildings create upscale outdoor spaces for residents. Architect Jim Shields adaptively reused an old terminal building to create the upscale Marine Terminal Lofts in Milwaukee’s Third Ward by adding penthouse condominiums above the existing terminal building. These glass pavilions, which overlook both the street and the Milwaukee River, become illuminated “light boxes” at night and highlight activities on the roof. In Peoria, the entrances of many warehouses address the corner using turrets, rounded corners, and chamfers. Ceramic tiles, limestone, and granite are used for ornamental arches, capitals, and cornices.
New Urbanism encourages the use of courtyards and “in-between” spaces to promote a sense of place and community. The alleyways in Peoria’s Warehouse District, for instance, are more akin to internal streets than narrow alleys and can easily accommodate services, pedestrians, and secondary business entrances. In St. Paul, space in between buildings is used for pedestrian circulation through blocks and outdoor dining for restaurant patrons (fig. 4.4).
However, public spaces such as “pocket parks” and the like should not be considered in districts where safety is a factor. St. Louis’s Midtown is an urban corridor that links the University of St. Louis to the downtown commercial core. Historically, it was a vibrant commercial and entertainment district oriented toward the automobile. During the mid-1950s tracts of land were cleared for mid-rise low-income housing. When these buildings were demolished in 1998, the area once again became desirable for redevelopment.
FIGURE 4.3. The former Allen D. Everitt Knitting Company building in Milwaukee’s Fifth Ward at Walker’s Point, developed by Pieper Properties. (Courtesy of Paul J. Armstrong)
FIGURE 4.4. New multifamily housing in Lowertown, St. Paul, Minnesota, provides the semipublic courtyards and in-between spaces promoted by New Urbanism. (Courtesy of Paul J. Armstrong)
Midtown Alley is a three-by-six-block area that is being redeveloped by Renaissance Development Associates in partnership with DN Development. Instead of creating community space at street level, they opted to develop rooftop decks where people could gather informally without safety concerns. As Jassen Johnson of Renaissance Development observed in an interview, the primary things that bring people together initially in any community are “animals and food.” He also recognizes the importance of brand recognition and place-making. Hence, the name Midtown Alley has historical associations that resonate with the community, and his company sponsors social events such as marathons and streetfests that bring people together in large numbers several times each year.
When its planning principles are applied strategically to existing urban districts, New Urbanism actually can be a catalyst for the metabolism of cities and regions. Doug Kelbaugh (1997) argues that “New Urbanism entails more than simply recycling old planning principles and practices, but represents a new and total attempt to find a unified design strategy for an entire region which can be applied to inner city and downtown neighborhoods.” For example, in instances where warehouse districts are adjacent to the central business districts, the vitality created in these developments can help to reenergize the downtown as well as adjacent districts. Cities and urban districts that are well designed should be memorable as well as livable. Consequently, they are places where people want to live. As Leon Krier has observed, the modernists failed “to make towns and villages . . . that people want to come from” (Andersen 1991). Today, vernacular forms help define place, and classicism judiciously applied to civic and institutional structures once again conveys a sense of tradition and permanence.
New Urbanism is often criticized for creating elitist “designer suburbs” that try to “reclaim the earlier suburban ideals of democracy and community, lost through the invasion of the masses” (Leung 2003). But when its principles have been applied to brownfield sites in the inner cities, they have often been hailed as noteworthy alternatives to unworkable high-rise low-income housing projects and derelict slums.
If New Urbanism promotes a shift from “yards to parks” that emphasizes collective space over individual space in suburban communities, then one can imagine a similar shift toward community and neighborhoods in urban areas as well. Both new and existing architecture can be used to define “public” and “in-between” spaces. Existing streets can be reinforced by aligning buildings to the sidewalks without setbacks in order to create continuous edges and unified streetscapes. Public squares can occur at corners or on entire blocks where buildings have been removed. Secondary community spaces can be introduced in pedestrian ways between buildings or in courtyards. Other urban amenities such as open-air markets and public parking can occupy spaces reclaimed from underutilized areas, such as those under overpasses and bridges.
In The Death and Life of the American Street, Jane Jacobs looked closely at the attributes for successful neighborhoods in the 1960s and used her research to argue compellingly “for the rediscovery of dense, tried-and-true urban vitality” (Andersen 1991). Since many warehouse districts already have an existing infrastructure of roads, services, and buildings, they are not tabula rasae. They also have a midrise scale that is appropriate for developing pedestrian-oriented neighborhoods. Development sizes of new buildings also can vary according to site sizes, which vary according to the pattern of private land ownership. Infill buildings can be added wherever increased density is required. Green spaces can be preserved along lakes and rivers to control flooding, filter gray water, and provide natural biomes for wildlife and recreation. Furthermore, warehouses can be built up vertically because they are structurally robust to begin with. Consequently, the land use patterns in urban postindustrial districts can be significantly reduced relative to suburban development.
Conclusion
The postindustrial city is a combination of old and new. It is a blend of existing buildings, which are adapted for a variety of mixed uses, modern lofttype buildings, which employ a combination of industrial and high-tech materials, and cultural, civic, and historical buildings.
Postindustrial cities are reinventing themselves by creating urban synergy through private and public partnerships that develop strategies for sustainable development that attracts new forms of creative capital. They are embracing New Urbanism and planning strategies, such as TND and TOP, to address public transportation needs and design guidelines for creating pedestrian-oriented neighborhoods. With greater emphasis on ecology, postindustrial cities are becoming environmental stewards who protect natural resources and watersheds by creating sustainable biomes for recreation and wildlife habitats. And they are reclaiming former brownfield sites for future sustainable redevelopment.
The organic model of the city suggests that it is always in flux. Consequently, its growth and contraction must be anticipated and planned. A healthy city is a livable city that functions efficiently and is scaled appropriately for people and their activities. Yet it must be adaptable for present needs and future opportunities. It must be economically, environmentally, and socially sustainable. Applying the principles of New Urbanism, such as Transect Planning and the SmartCode, enables planners, developers, and architects to holistically design sustainable urban districts and neighborhoods in former industrial buildings and sites that balance the requirements of ecology, economy, and society. Synergy creates livable cities with healthy metabolisms that foster opportunities for new enterprises and technologies to flourish and provide the lifestyle choices and amenities that will attract a new creative class. As the city prospers, it will generate “regional metabolism” that will affect and benefit other nearby communities. As a result, its own urban metabolism will be increased and sustained by the synergistic effects of its creative capital of human talent, social enterprises, cultural institutions and amenities, built environments and products, natural resources, and emerging technologies interacting at multiple scales regionally and nationally. Just as the “Sun Belt” cities prospered during the high-tech boom, so too can postindustrial cities in the Midwest prosper by attracting a diverse group of creative people, new enterprises, and emerging technologies that are drawn to the reinvented postindustrial city and the quality of life it offers.
Notes
1. Muskat, Oman (48), was the only Middle Eastern city on Mercer’s Top 50 eco-cities ranking. Mercer is a for-profit company, and Oman is an oil-rich country that is not known for being environmentally conscious. Mercer’s eco-city ranking system calls for “water availability, water potability, waste removal, decent sewage treatment facilities, as well as limited air pollution and traffic congestion,” according to their 2010 eco-city news release. Both the city and the country face a serious freshwater shortage and rely heavily on desalination processes to meet their needs. See Laylin (2010).
2. According to K. Michael Hays (1998), Silvetti conjoins the discourse of realism with the general tendency of architectural theory in the 1970s to look to (post)structuralist studies of language as a possible paradigm for architectural thought. He develops a theory of architectural production, which he calls “criticism from within,” through which he aims to expose the fundamental mechanisms by which elements of the language of architecture are lifted out of their historical context and recombined.
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