Peter Brown, an architect, planner and at-large council member in Houston, outlines a new metropolitan agenda for his region, which should be required reading for policy-makers in the US and around the world.
A social reckoning looms. Reclaiming the central city as the place of choice for middle class families and the “creative class” should be our first priority. …The urbanist writer Jane Jacobs said it this way, “the purpose of cities is to create the middle class.” This is the “New
Metropolitanism.” Here is what the mayor and City Council should do to advance the New Metropolitanism.
Read the whole thing here. And share your thoughts.
July 2nd, 2007 at 11:12 pm
I know I sound like a glassy-eyed civic booster, but the three points Brown proposes for Houston are the basis for Portland’s urban success for the last 30 years.
• Planning at both the city-wide and neighborhood level. We sometimes seem to plan to death, but it’s created a series of vital neighborhoods. The neighborhood association system has fallen on hard times, but the last mayoral election was partly decided by the perception that the big-money candidate had stabbed a couple of neighborhoods in the back (he lost).
• Downtown revitalization. The 1970’s Downtown Plan and the 1980’s Central City Plan laid the groundwork for light rail, condomania to the North and South and a vital central city.
• Regional Coordination. With the country’s only elected regional government, METRO, planning doesn’t stop at any city’s limits. (We also lucked out in getting statewide land use planning back in the 70’s when D’s & R’s in the legislature still worked together.)
However, as Portland shows up on top 10 lists for everything from the Creative Class to sustainability to bicycling to gay friendliness to comic book artists to local foodies, etc. it’s important to recognize that city planning didn’t do it all, or even most of it. It gave us strong infrastructure but the rest is probably beyond the power of government to produce.