Cities, streets, public space and survival

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Cities, streets, public space and survival

• Alan Powers
• Cultural Context ENVT1036
• 2005

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• James Howard Kunstler, The Long Emergency,
  Atlantic Books, London 2005

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Kunstler quotes a professor of geology from
Princeton University, Ken Deffeyes, who predicted
recently that the peak of oil production would
occur on Thanksgiving 2005, with an uncertainty
factor of only three or four weeks on either
side.
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• "The fifth revolution will come when we have
  spent the stores of coal and oil that have been
  accumulating in the earth during hundreds of
  millions of years... It is to be hoped that
  before then other sources of energy will have
  been developed... Whether a convenient substitute
  for the present fuels is found or not, there can
  be no doubt that there will have to be a great
  change in ways of life. This change may justly be
  called a revolution, but it differs from all the
  preceding ones in that there is no likelihood of
  its leading to increases of population, but even
  perhaps to the reverse."
• Sir Charles Galton Darwin, 1952

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• American Vice-President Dick Cheney said in 1999,
  By some estimates, there will be an average
  annual growth in global oil demand over the years
  ahead, along with, conservatively, a three
  percent natural decline in production from
  existing reserves.
• That means by 2010 we will need on the order of
  an additional 50 million barrels a day.

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From Herbert Girardet, Cities, people, planet,
Wiley Academy 2004
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Photograph by Sarah Leen Blissfully free from
bumper-to-bumper tie-ups, Tori Carman and Olivia
Jeffery cruise down their cul-de-sac in
Alpharetta, Georgia, about 20 miles (32
kilometers) north of Atlanta. Developments like
this one, with their acres of single-family homes
that are miles from the nearest retail strip,
drive opponents of sprawl crazy. But Kim Jeffery,
Olivias mom, says seclusion was the whole point.
We wanted to live on a cul-de-sac, she says,
so the kids could ride their bikes and scooters
and play out front.
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• Standing Their Ground
• Photograph by Sarah Leen
• Why have Citizens for Responsible Growth (CRGC)
  in Clemson, South Carolina, mobilized to stop
  Wal-Mart from opening yet another store in their
  area? For one thing, the proposed developmenta
  204,000-square-foot (19,000-square-meter) retail
  monolithwould be larger than all of the retail
  space in Clemsons downtown shopping district
  and, as a result, would crush local businesses.
  Plus, there are already three other Wal-Marts
  within 15 miles (24 kilometers) of Clemson. We
  know the land is going to be developed, says Jim
  Witte, CRGCs President. But that kind of big
  box store doesnt belong there.

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• The areas required to supply a city with food and
  forest products and to absorb their output of
  wastes, and particularly their output of carbon
  dioxide
• Everyone is now in everyone elses backyard
• Carl Folke

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Kunstler predicts a return to the small town or
city and its supporting agricultural hinterland.
Those towns and cities will have to be a lot
denser. Most of the towns and small cities of
America are in a coma today. The luckier ones,
which are generally tourist towns, have had a
residue of boutique commerce barely holding the
downtown buildings together. Typically, though,
downtown buildings in small towns are unoccupied
above the ground floors because the landlords
will not invest in expensive renovation under
strict building codes while new, suburban style
garden apartments pop up on the fringe. The
unluckier small towns of our nation and they
are the majority lie in various stages of
dereliction and ruin, their industry gone, their
populations aged or idle, the infrastructure
rotting. Even solid brick buildings fall apart in
a few years when they are not inhabited. Once the
roof leaks, all bets are off.
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• From Herbert Girarde, Cities, People, Planet,
• Wiley Academy 2004

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Milton Keynes
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From Richard Register, Building Cities in Balance
with Nature, Berkeley Hills Books, 2002
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Pedestrianisation in Copenhagen

• Strøget, the old main street, was pedestrianised
  in 1962.
• People said Using public space is contrary to
  the nordic mentality

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• The street now carries an average of 25,000
  people between 10.00 and 18.00 in winter, and up
  to 55,000 in summer.
• It was the beginning of a network of car-free
  squares and streets

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• We need to learn how to live in cities again,
  reducing the ecological footprint to a one
  planet lifestyle.
• The skills and understanding of design and
  construction professionals can help to make this
  happen.

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• 11 October Alan Powers London understanding
  the growth of a city
• 18 October Ken Worpole (author) Public parks -
  What they can do for People and Cities
• 25 October 2005 Susan Parham (Chairman, Council
  for European Urbanism) The Life of the Street
• 1 November 2005 Site visit
• 8 November 2005 Bill Dunster, (Zedfactory
  Architects) A holistic approach to green
  building and living
• 15 November 2005 Daniel Moylan (Deputy Leader,
  Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea)
  Kensington High Street, Sloane Square and
  Exhibition Road
• 22 November 2005 Louise Thomas (Director, Urban
  Renaissance Institute, University of Greenwich)
  What is Urban Renaissance? Hand in for Field
  Study Work
• 29 November 2005 Review of Group Project work
• 6 December 2005 In-class assessment
• 13 December 2005 No Cultural Context. Sustainable
  Construction 9-1.