Veritas et Venustas

Duany Crits Ouroussoff

IN TODAY's New York Times, Little Herbert writes a farewell to Jane Jacobs.  Apart from defending Robert Moses and framing her as an out-of-date fuddydud, the article becomes a protracted attack on the New Urbanism. Towards the end he states "For those who could not see it, the hollowness of this planning strategy was finally exposed in New Orleans. where planners are tarting up historic districts for tourists, even as deeper social problems were being ignored and it's infrastructure was crumbling."

This is such misinformation that is virtually an exact reversal of the truth. The New York Times has done this before of course, in describing the work in Biloxi. Remember when it reported that residents feared that the Moule-Polyzoides plan was turning a neighborhood into a golf course, when in fact the plan was proposing turning a golf course into an affordable neighborhood! No correction was published despite requests by John Norquist and others. In what field other than the Times' architectural criticism would this not be considered a bald-faced lie? Old Herbert so persistently confused autobiography and ideology with intelligent consideration that this seems to have became acceptable, but without the prestige of the Times it cannot be pulled off. Mike Davis was a recent victim of this misunderstanding, and Reed is the latest.

As a matter of fact, those places where we have worked in Louisiana receive no tourism at all. Downtown Lake Charles, Abbeville, Erath, Delcambre, Vermillion Parish, St Bernard Parish and the Gentilly sector of New Orleans are workaday places. All of them in physical and socioeconomic decline before the hurricane. The New Urbanist work has been to transform the dislocation caused by the hurricanes to an opportunity to stem the decline. It has been difficult, unglamorous work. To give one example: In last week's Gentilly charrette week we found that retention of large HUD housing project had no support whatsoever among those participating (over 1000 people). But we nevertheless rooted out as many of the project's displaced ex-residents as we could, to verify that they indeed wanted to reinhabit it. In the sun, I coached them for hours on how to more effectively present their case (their "leaders" are incredible). We then retrofitted the design of the project and it's extended surroundings so that it would work better socially. The New Urbanist team thus became the only advocates for salvaging it. The day after he charrette I remained in New Orleans to find a developer that would execute (not a perfect solution, but the HUD-New Orleans Housing Authority are beyond dysfunctional).

What is to be learned from this kind of article? That now, among the intellectuals and critics no less than the developers, we control the discourse. Even Jane Jacobs is now interpreted through the lens of the New Urbanism.  Remember Sorkin's peremptory statement of frustration over this at the Urban League lecture: and the LA TImes' insightful comments in this regard?. It may be the victory to some of our intellectual warriors that the only way to position "other urbanisms"--even historical ones--is relative to New Urbanism.

We are unlikely to win over the professional intellectuals, the critics and and academics. Tom Spain, when studying at Harvard 15 years ago already reported  "Andres, you can apologize for Seaside for the rest of your life, and they will never forgive you.". But do we have to?  They have no operational power. They have made themselves useless by falling back on the recourse of remaining willfully ignorant of what we actually do, as this alone which allows them to spread misinformation while retaining a shred of self-respect.

In a strange analogy to Vietnam, they control the capital cities while we control the territory and the hearts and minds of the people. We understand the "facts on the ground": the delivery system that builds (and has always built) this country, and we increasingly have the worldwide  environmental movement behind us, as well as the energy crisis.

They are increasingly using evacuation helicopters from the rooftops (taking them to Manhattan, Rotterdam and Barcelona). Perhaps some will quietly leave to the blend in with the people.

Andrés Duany

The following is from Laura Hall, a New Urban Earth Mother who's too sweet to be angry.

 

Ten years ago, I attended a weeklong conference in Jane's honor in Toronto called "Ideas that Matter." I had been struggling locally on some political/freeway widening issues and felt completely alone and shunned.  The local enviros despised me as much as the business community did.

I asked Jane how she managed to survive the scathing attacks on her after she wrote Death and Life.  She told me that what she found out after writing it was that she was "a completely normal person."  Almost immediately after publication, she said, the normal people came out in droves to support her ideas.  It was the critics (the egotistical architects and the conventional planners), she told me, who were abnormal.  She advised me to just keep writing and speaking and doing my job and I would find out that I too was not alone.  We (and especially Andres) have now all found that out.

I had an experience this past week in California that reminded me of this conversation.  I gave back-to-back NU presentations to elected leaders in Marin County (the exclusive, the wealthy and the beautiful) and in the San Joaquin Valley (the average, the laborers).  A summary:

Marin event:  Art and Garden Center, aged beef, expensive wines, 3 artistic desserts (apiece).  The audience rolled their eyes during the presentation.  One snotty question at the end.  They couldn't wait to leave.

SJV event:  Strip mall in Fresno, chicken and lumpy potatoes, cheap wine, vanilla ice cream.  Dozens of lively questions both during and after the presentation.  People kept jumping up from their seats with excitement.  They wouldn't let us leave.  I ran out of business cards. When I turned on my computer at 6 AM the next morning, there were already emails from them asking about next steps.

Jane Jacobs' spirit lives on.

UPI: “Gentilly to create model for New Orleans”

United Press International
Apr. 27, 2006

Gentilly, the New Orleans neighborhood just north of the French Quarter, has begun a neighborhood planning process that could set the standard for the city.

The Gentilly urban-planning method is called a "charrette," French for "cart," where architects, developers, environmentalists, sociologists and transportation experts work directly with the people who will inhabit a community, the Christian Science Monitor reported.

Gentilly's charrette is all-volunteer, thus free from governmental restraints, and the first in New Orleans.

The idea is to collectively design a model that everyone can agree on very quickly -- in this case, eight days.

The Gentilly project also offers a glimpse at how the larger city might re-emerge. The plan calls for a more walkable town center and raised housing designed to withstand future floods.

Residents with slab-on-grade homes were advised by architects to convert their first floors into garages and build second floors with living quarters because the cost of raising the structure three feet is exorbitantly high.

Regarding the risk of flooding, one resident said, "We've been living with this risk all our lives so it's really a non-issue."

“Locals' plan: a more walkable Big Easy”

From the Christian Science Monitor:

Indeed, charrettes like this have been going on throughout Katrina-ravaged communities in Louisiana and Mississippi, but this is the first in New Orleans and the only all-volunteer charrette, so it is free from governmental restraints. Ms. Hedge-Morrell believes this charrette will be a model for other neighborhoods to follow.

Gentilly: microcosm for city's challenges

So do some of the city planners who helped get the project rolling.

"Everything that will come up for discussion in New Orleans comes up in Gentilly," says Andres Duany, a Miami-based urban planner who approached Gentilly because he sees the neighborhood as a microcosm of New Orleans. "It has some of the highest ground and some of the lowest ground, it has every housing type, a wide spread of economic diversity."

Few of the 27,000 residents of Gentilly, just north of downtown, have returned. But many who have were active in the charrette.

Each day there was a spirited meeting where residents and designers discussed issues, came up with suggestions, and studied plans.

USA > Society & Culture
from the April 27, 2006 edition

BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD: With a table full of water colors, designers James Dougherty, left, and Susan Bridgewater draw out new buildings and housing for the St. Bernard Housing area of Gentilly. THE TIMES-PICAYUNE/CHRIS GRANGER Locals' plan: a more walkable Big Easy Gentilly district's planning process offers first glimpse of how New Orleans might rebuild. By Kris Axtman | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor NEW ORLEANS – April Allen has torn down her 1950s ranch-style home and plans to replace it with a raised Arts-and-Crafts-style home. She's one of the few in the New Orleans neighborhood of Gentilly who knows what she will do with her structure. But what of the neighborhood she loved so much, water-logged for three weeks after hurricane Katrina? "Neighborhood parks, corner stores. We now have the opportunity to make all that happen," she says. That's why Ms. Allen is participating in a neighborhood planning project - the first of its kind in New Orleans - which some local politicians believe will serve as a model of bottom-up planning for the rest of the city's neighborhoods. The project also offers a first glimpse at what the city might look like. Two new features the Gentilly plan calls for: a more walkable town center and raised housing designed to withstand future floods. The Gentilly urban-planning method is called a "charrette," French for "cart," where architects, developers, environmentalists, sociologists, and transportation experts work directly with the people who will inhabit a community. The idea is to design collectively a model that everyone can agree on, and it happens in a very short period - in this case, eight days. "This is part of a bigger process going on city wide," said Gentilly's City Councilwoman Cynthia Hedge- Morrell. Indeed, charrettes like this have been going on throughout Katrina-ravaged communities in Louisiana and Mississippi, but this is the first in New Orleans and the only all-volunteer charrette, so it is free from governmental restraints. Ms. Hedge-Morrell believes this charrette will be a model for other neighborhoods to follow. Gentilly: microcosm for city's challenges So do some of the city planners who helped get the project rolling. "Everything that will come up for discussion in New Orleans comes up in Gentilly," says Andres Duany, a Miami-based urban planner who approached Gentilly because he sees the neighborhood as a microcosm of New Orleans. "It has some of the highest ground and some of the lowest ground, it has every housing type, a wide spread of economic diversity." Few of the 27,000 residents of Gentilly, just north of downtown, have returned. But many who have were active in the charrette. Each day there was a spirited meeting where residents and designers discussed issues, came up with suggestions, and studied plans. The residents' first task was to decide whether they wanted their community to revert back to Aug. 28, the day before Katrina hit, or create a more cutting-edge walkable community with corner grocery stores and schools that don't require busing. Also discussed were the options for rebuilding homes. For instance, the preliminary FEMA flood maps state that all homes in New Orleans must be raised three feet above the base flood elevation. Architects showed residents what three feet looked like as opposed to eight feet, which would allow the bottom story to be converted into a garage. Flood-proof home has garage as first floor Residents with slab-on-grade homes were advised to covert their first floor into a garage and build a second floor with living quarters because the cost of raising the structure three feet is exorbitantly high. Those with pier-and-beam homes were told to get started right away because the cost of raising a structure would rise with time. All were given architectural options that mimicked the many New Orleans styles. "Do what you must do, but do it right," said Mr. Duany to the afternoon crowd assembled in a local church. "[City hall] will forgive anything if you do it right. You've got to get on with your lives." But residents voiced concerns about building while the levees are still under repair. They are scheduled to be completed June 1, the start of the hurricane season, and should be able to handle Category 3 storms. Duany assured residents that the levees would be excellent "because the honor of the nation depends on it. The levees are in better shape than they have ever been." But the reality, he said, is that rebuilding in New Orleans is a risk because the entire city is below sea level. "We've been living with this risk all our lives so it's really a nonissue," said one resident. "I just want people to know that they don't have to raise their homes at all," said another resident, referring to structures that are already three feet above the base flood elevation. "Your flood insurance rates will be better if you do," added another resident. "But they will go up rudely anyway," interjected Duany, as the designers buzzed in the background. "The simple fact is, a raised home looks better, has better curb appeal when it comes to resale." In the end, the group hashed out several proposals, which will have to be approved by the city council. They include: • Transforming the Gentilly Shopping Center, currently in disrepair and out-of-date, into a walkable town center with retail, residential, and office space. • Creating the Gentilly Neighborhood Housing Corporation to buy, renovate, replace, and resell abandoned homes. • Redesigning public open spaces to be easy to maintain and highly useful. • Providing architects to guide residents though the process of rebuilding and raising homes. • Creating a mixed-use employment center on the Pontchartrain lakefront. RICH CLABAUGH - STAFF; SOURCE: AP MAP

Lightning Strikes (but not the way we hoped - yet)

STRONG THUNDERSTORMS knocked out the power in much of New Orleans last night. Andrés Duany was perhaps a third of the way into his presentation of the results of the charrette when the power went out there. A hundred or more of the five hundred Gentilleans who turned out for the presentation stayed for a Q & A, while the other four hundred promised to come back the next night and to bring their friends. Meanwhile most of the volunteer charretters head home after 9 days in the Big Easy. More later.

Times-Picayune: “A New Gentilly”

Architect has big ideas for the neighborhood that include town centers and green space
Wednesday, April 26, by Coleman Warner

Determined to influence planning efforts across New Orleans, Miami-based architect Andres Duany and other advisers presented recovery ideas to Gentilly residents Tuesday night, calling for revamped business districts, ongoing technical help for homeowners and conversion of part of the St. Bernard public housing development to mixed-income housing.

Speaking to about 500 people who packed St. Leo the Great Church on Paris Avenue, Duany said residents should insist that a multimillion-dollar citywide planning effort now gearing up furnish a planner for each of 19 neighborhoods his team studied, to ensure that concerns peculiar to each area aren't ignored.

"You deserve a great deal of individual attention," he said, noting that the "tyranny of the majority" is a threat in broad planning exercises.

The large church lost power during a thunderstorm about 8:15 p.m. and many of those attending filed out. But Duany continued answering questions in near darkness. Another meeting is set for today at 7 p.m.to discuss the plan in more detail.

Tuesday's presentation culminated a charrette -- brainstorming and intensive design work, with frequent public feedback -- by dozens of architects and planners led by Duany and his firm, Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co. The glib, high-energy Duany is a controversial figure in architectural circles. But Gentilly residents, with few exceptions, responded warmly to the work by Duany and other New Urbanist planners who celebrate traditional streetscapes and seek to recreate pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods.

Working with the Gentilly Civic Improvement Association, the consultants tackled a dizzying array of issues in a flood-devastated stretch of New Orleans. Pontchartrain Park and Gentilly Woods already have launched a planning exercise and weren't included in the new planning study.

Among the group's preliminary recommendations:

-- Ask the City Council to create several neighborhood planning centers in Gentilly that could provide publicly funded architects to advise homeowners trying to rebuild. City planning for smaller geographic areas could be guided by such centers.

-- Establish a nonprofit Gentilly Neighborhood Housing Corp. to buy and renovate, or replace, abandoned homes, drawing financial support from government agencies and mortgage lenders. The corporation would directly support the work of the planning centers.

-- Convert the existing Gentilly Shopping Center at the junction of Elysian Fields Avenue and Gentilly Boulevard to a new town center that features a grassy public square, offices and residential uses along with retail stores.

-- Retain older, well-built sections of the St. Bernard housing complex for affordable or low-income housing, but urge federal officials to demolish more recently built parts of the development and allow construction of mixed-income housing. The existing public housing sections should be refurbished with new streets.

Government officials should give special attention to small neighborhood shopping districts and to former corner-store property uses to allow for a revival of communities marked by heavy pedestrian traffic, Duany told the crowd.

Earlier in the day Tuesday, as he presided over harried last-minute design work by volunteer architects from around the country at St. Leo the Great, Duany said he hopes his plan will become a key element of a citywide neighborhood planning effort.

But Duany, who served as a paid consultant to the Louisiana Recovery Authority in its planning work in other parishes, added that his team's plan must grab public notice or risk being ignored. Duany and his associates are, for now, footing their own bills in Gentilly.

Frustrated with a city planning agenda that may take several months, Duany said the one-week intensive meeting-and-design process in Gentilly should "set standards for speed. The people need help now."

Some architects and planners in New Orleans aren't fond of Duany and his brash, fast-track methods for planning neighborhoods and towns. And as the charrette process geared up last week, one zoning consultant and former New Orleans city planner, Pat Fretwell, said Duany's team is tackling complex issues that typically require months of hard work by local planners.

"When you get planners from outside of the city of New Orleans, they don't know the culture, they don't know the city and they come up with these idealized plans that don't work," Fretwell said.

Nikki Najiola, chairwoman of a planning committee for the civic group, said residents were at first skeptical of Duany's intentions. But the volunteer advisers demonstrated they were listening, Najiola said. When she raised the idea of forming a nonprofit corporation in Gentilly that could redevelop flood-damaged homes, the consultants immediately began researching funding options, she said.

Duany's team plans to produce a formal report from its Gentilly work in the next few weeks that will be posted on the civic group's Web site at www.gcia.us.

. . . . . . .

Coleman Warner can be reached at cwarner@timespicayune.com or at (504) 826-3311.

Jane Jacobs, Rest In Peace

From the Charrette

DAVID GOLDBERG writes: “Why New Orleans Matters.”