America is awash in generica – from generic stores and generic malls to generic food and chain-restaurants. Anthony Bourdain, the culinary adventurer of No Reservations searches the globe for the authentic, the unique, the real. America’s older industrial cities have one great advantage on their side, he says – their urban authenticity.
“What went wrong here?” is an unpopular question with the type of city fathers and civic boosters for whom convention centers and pedestrian malls are the answers to all society’s ills but Harvey [Pekar] captured and chronicled every day what was–and will always be–beautiful about Cleveland: the still majestic gorgeousness of what once was–the uniquely quirky charm of what remains, the delightfully offbeat attitude of those who struggle to go on in a city they love and would never dream of leaving … A place so incongruously and uniquely…seductive that I often fantasize about making my home there. Though I’ve made television all over the world, often in faraway and “exotic” places, it’s the Cleveland episode that is my favorite–and one about which I am most proud …
As Joseph Mitchell once owned New York and Zola owned Paris, Harvey Pekar owned not just Cleveland but all those places in the American Heartland where people wake up every day, go to work, do the best they can–and in spite of the vast and overwhelming forces that conspire to disappoint them–go on, try as best as possible to do right by the people around them, to attain that most difficult of ideals: to be “good” people.
July 20th, 2010 at 12:11 pm
“the still majestic gorgeousness of what once was–the uniquely quirky charm of what remains, the delightfully offbeat attitude of those who struggle to go on in a city they love and would never dream of leaving” – is that the same as deprivation, poverty, lack of opportunity, crime, poor health and early death?
I hate the way wealthy people romanticise deprivation and squalour. There is nothing unique about living in a deprived community. There is nothing romantic about ancient buildings that look good but house poor asthmatic families in cramped and damp conditions.
Malls and chain restaurants and chain stores may be generic, but the market gives us what the market wants. If we want chi-chi boutiques, then we will shop in them and then independent chi-chi boutiques will be ubiquitous and malls will not. The fact that it’s the other way round tells us about what people want.
I may not like that, but that’s because I’m middle class. Other people do like malls and chain restaurants but that’s because they’re not. Same difference. I just wish writers like this joker appreciated that their opinions are simply prejudice…
July 20th, 2010 at 6:40 pm
Bourdain’s piece is exquisite…really captures the essence of a great man and a great city…warts and all. The prior poster missed the point of the entire essay.
July 20th, 2010 at 9:10 pm
My effort to provide a panacea of sorts (a great good place): http://fwsullivans.wordpress.com/
The suburbanization and bland-aising of America stigmatizes the great character and history of this country that preceded it. The coincidence between the dramatic rise in divorce and depression and the creation of suburbia should not be ignored. But with boring lifestyles chained to driveways and cars, why not expect a correlating plummet in overall happiness. Sting sums it up best in the Police’s song, Synchronicity 2: “mother chants her litany of boredom and frustration but we know all her suicides are fake… daddy only stares into the distance… he knows that something somewhere has to break…”. Lost in the lurch to suburbia were lifestyle necessities so unnoticed that no one understood what exactly had been lost when everything homogenized, ie, what went wrong. So people blamed spouses, bosses, the Joneses who have more and whatever other nearby cause might seemingly be linked to overall lifestyle morbidity. Lost in the shuffle were all the random interactions human beings have with the people in their environments that help them smile, laugh and maintain sanity– the idle chats rarely noticed for their significance but which naturally level the highs and lows of daily life. Fortunately, people like Jane Jacobs and Roy Oldenburg pulled back the curtain and began showing us what we had been really missing. It will take to time to reset the lifestyle/values paradigms but blogs such as this one give us faith that it will occur. With that, cheers!!
July 22nd, 2010 at 12:05 am
“those who struggle to go on in a city” – Unfortunately this recalls my visits to Iron Curtain countries during the Cold War. There was plenty of majestic gorgeousness and quirky charm, particularly for those of us with dollars in our pockets.
July 22nd, 2010 at 12:46 am
I’m all on board with trashing suburbia – I grew up in that blandness. But I imagine during it’s heyday, Cleveland proper was criticized for the very pragmatic, boring lifestyle that suburbia now embodies. To hold up a fading Cleveland now as “authentic” is the height of arrogance, misunderstanding, nostalgia and pretension. I imagine Richard Florida himself realizes this, but it’s too late to go back on the thesis that made him famous.
July 22nd, 2010 at 1:33 am
Dante, I agree it’s easy to romanticize the nostalgia of the past and I’m sure it’s true that the soda fountain pharmacies that we adore today were as commonplace and indifferent as glass coke bottles back in the day. But they were locally owned, real and filled to the brim with regulars and true characters. They were located within dense neighborhoods largely occupied by people from all walks of the life. Instead of garages, carports and driveways, they had carriage houses in the alleys (which fell out of existence altogether in suburbia). Instead of being setback and apart, these buildings’ doors entered virtually into the sidewalks and streets and most were attached to one another. Instead of strictly zoned residential and commercial development, commercial space and public taverns, restaurants, coffee shops and pizzerias were interwoven into the fabric of the these walkable residential communities. Many people lived above their storefronts. In sum, these were densely populated communities in which people lived, worked and played; and occasionally went into town via public trolley. So the numbers of random interactions decreased dramatically when we built-out suburbia. You should read Roy Oldenburg’s book, “the great good place” and specifically his chapter on what’s wrong with place in America. Mixed use, income and demographic development fostered relationships wrought through random run-ins and the true sense of community that developed within these arenas. Third places offered natural leveling spaces where people from all walks of life could share stories, jokes, current events conversations and a couple beers or glasses of wine and generally unwind. Homes are not made for these informal get-togethers, homes are generally serious places housing people sown to each other by a common income base and sets of daily chores and routines. Third places in these communities offered means of escape from life and its obligations– places where people could be people, the way kids can be kids in the schoolyard. It’s these experiences that forge lasting if somewhat limited relationships and allow people to blow off steam in natural ways. Again, suburbia does not offer these experiences. In any event, I felt the need to chime-in because the third-place-space might be the most unappreciated and taken for granted of them all.
July 22nd, 2010 at 7:31 am
Hayden,
You make a lot of sense. However, whilst you accept that “it’s easy to romanticise” the past, but then you go on and romanticize third places in your post.
Is it that other people can’t romanticize, and yet you can?
You are privileging one perception of third places over many others. I agree with many of the observations you make about third places.
Yet, we also need to accept that there were many pitfalls, just as there are many pitfalls about the kind of development that Anthony Bourdain is criticising.
For instance not all kids can be “kids in the schoolyard”, such as those with mobility impairment, or minority groups to the dominant demographic group in a neighbourhood for fear of bullying etc. You say “People from all walks of life could share stories, jokes” etc. Is this true? Are you really sure? Do you have evidence that the population could contribute to this universally good discourse throughout history? Could black people in the deep south in the 1950s really stand on sidewalks in white areas and crack jokes about white people?
Really?
So, again, I agree with many of your points and the general thrust that human-scale, independently-owned, community-owned walkable neighbourhoods are the best. But we need to put our money where our mouths are – do we always shop at independently-owned stores? Do we always walk everywhere?
It’s like the middle class wants to romanticise these places, but when push comes to shove they have the option of driving to a 24hr Walmart and buying their shopping, then go home and buy a $1 waffle from a street market and think this qualifies them to complain about globalisation.
July 22nd, 2010 at 9:01 am
Daniel, first of all, great points across the board. It might be fair to observe that I am romanticizing the past in my comments but I’m really romanticizing the present-day urban revival and explaining why it’s superior to the suburban model. 24-7 Wal-Marts and other retail evolutions certainly have their place and have brought everyone convenient access to the products they need at cheaper prices; and opened new markets to producers. One could argue that their utility has diminished given the advent and evolution of the online retail market but that’s another discussion. But returning full-circle, I tried to provide some underpinning for Bourdain’s conclusions regarding the appeal of urban industrial cities; I would extend it to all urban communities that have retained enough of their original model and conception to become true communities again. At the time Oldenburg wrote his book, my comments might be seen to be romanticizing the past but since then, we’ve seen a decisive shift back towards the urban lifestyle (just in terms of structure, obviously we’ve also seen cultural evolution that makes these communities even more desirable and open than before, race being only one such way). So what will become of suburbia.
Some of suburban growth can be deemed “white flight” and a response to Brown v. Bd of Education and the civil rights movement. But it can also be ascribed to the post WWII housing explosion that simply applied the mass-production model that had been successful in building autos and winning a war to the new need for housing. Who would have thought that owning a bigger house with a bigger yard and more privacy would lead to more unhappiness? The attributes of third places and the random associations that occurred naturally in dense walkable mixed-use communities were so unnoticed that no one even understood until recently what went wrong when the suburban model took hold; most people didn’t realize what they had left behind. In any event, I am probably generalizing too much, the point is that the suburban model leaves much to be desired and the urban lifestyle is being chosen for its benefits, as Bourdain notes. The real question is what becomes of suburbia as its property values plummet and structures decay. The new suburban slums will have to be addressed creatively. In any event, very good dialogue, I could write for days on this….
July 22nd, 2010 at 10:38 am
Hayden, true enough that we’ve lost a lot in the move to suburbia (third places). I think it’s OK to lament that.
The challenge is that the contemporary American inner city is often now either a) decrepit, dangerous, dirty.. or b) full of expensive boutiques. So now wonder the everyman stays away; He’s not brave enough to find a gem in scenario A and not stupid enough to shop in scenario B. Or at least that’s the perception..
One part of the solution is town centers in the ‘burbs. This is a current trend. A lot of these developments are tacky and full of chain stores, but at least they provide a place for people to walk around and interact with one another. Perhaps over time, more locally owned, unique stores will creep in and architects will
Another part of the solution is to re-think the insanity (regulations, extra taxes) that makes it so difficult for anyone to start a business or build new housing in the inner city. I’m talking specifically about nanny state cities like NY and San Francisco, but I think it applies in other locales as well. I’m sure we can ease up a bit without ruining the unique character of these cities, no?
July 22nd, 2010 at 8:21 pm
Dante, true enough the inner city has its challenges and the town center model (new urbanism) certainly trumps the predecessor suburban model. Those developments seem a bit too faux but perhaps after a few decades of wear, tear and use, they’ll possess that character too.
I could not agree more with you regarding the failure of many city governments to help foster their own revitalization by creating economically friendly conditions, engendering new entrepreneurship and revitalization. We need local urban governments to get their economic development programs on steroids– to pump in capital so that the would be entrepreneurs have the resources to bring their ideas to reality. Under an asset-based lending model, it’s almost impossible for energetic young entrepreneurs to find they capital they need to startup new businesses, particularly in the downtrodden districts that desperately need the infusion of new business and the vibe of energetic entrepreneurs. But if these cities are going to revitalize, they need to seed the effort to attract the would-be entrepreneurs. Everyone has heard the stories of people who started businesses on credit cards but that’s not a system that’s going to produce the broad-based results we need to see. Good discussion…
July 23rd, 2010 at 1:12 am
This whole density, urban, anti-suburban idea was explored ad naseum in architecture school during the seventies. In spite of the longing for a poetic urbanism, suburbia works well for most people. And unfortunately the dense inner city romanticised by Jane Jacobs is an anacronism. Totally gone , and replaced either by gangs, and graffiti, or vertical gated communities for the rich. It is worth mentioning that the most creative places on the planet today, like Silicon Valley, and Hollywood, are suburban environments.
July 23rd, 2010 at 1:24 am
A different view of urbanism :
http://www.joelkotkin.com/content/00251-myth-back-city-migration
July 23rd, 2010 at 1:34 am
In prelude to a more responsive retort Wil, here’s a great article worth a read: http://toughmoneylove.com/2008/08/22/disturbia-in-suburbia-a-permanent-decline-in-residential-property-values/
Anyone who argues that suburban property values have not declined substantially relative to urban values simply lives in fantasy land. We can debate the reasons why, but that factual reality cannot be called into serious question by objective intelligent individuals. So why are suburban properties meeting lukewarm demand relative to the demand in urban environments? Why are people paying more for less in urban environments?
Again, anyone who has not observed the substantially declining interest in the suburban lifestyle is simply living in delusion. More discussion might be warranted or desired; but there’s little else to say in response to such obviously unenlightened commentary.
July 23rd, 2010 at 3:49 pm
What I really wish is that we could start to take some appreciation in our rural communities again. But of course, that won’t ever be a reality again though theres plenty of romantic, idyllic rural settings in America. This century will continue to see an upward progression of urbanization just as it happened in the early 19th century. Though some may remember that urban areas are often the sight of much violence and social inequality.
July 24th, 2010 at 1:24 am
Hayden, The “interest in the suburban lifestyle” may not be fashionable among certain young people thses days. I know it wasn’t among my peers when we were young in the sixties, and seventies. Yet suburbia continues to grow, and serve the needs of most Americans. What you are calling “obviously unelightened commentary” consists of nothing more than ideas with which you do not agree. It should be easy to understand that the current state of real estate valuations are a result of several years of an extremely harsh recession, and will prove to be transitory, once the evolving demographics of the US have an impact on housing. The prices of a few very expensive urban properties bought by the super rich skew the median values of housing in the cities, and is not a reflection of the type of housing sought by most people. It is true that condos are in a slump pricewise, in general. …. If you ever get an opportunity to visit the west coast take a look at places such as San Mateo county, home of Silicon Valley, or Orange County, near Los angeles, or Bellevue in east King coonty , near Seattle, to see what suburbia means these days.
http://www.joelkotkin.com/content/00251-myth-back-city-migration
July 24th, 2010 at 2:11 am
Wil, I have visited all of those places and dated girls from all of them. I am not here to chastise lifestyles, only provide observations. I am obviously biased toward urban environments but am not against those who would rather champion suburban lifestyles, many of whom I count as friends. But I will argue vehemently that American society and culture lost much when it trended away from urban culture. Beyond that, I am comfortable resting upon events and history to take hold in the next few decades. The cards will fall where they will, in the interim, I would encourage everyone to make their lives as enjoyable as they can, wherever they might find themselves.
July 27th, 2010 at 2:40 am
Perhaps taking this in a different direction and circling back around to the original quote–
I live in a regional city (Spokane, WA) that isn’t one of America’s “older industrial cities,” yet I would argue that we have plenty of authenticity. (Our history lies in resource extraction, not heavy manufacturing; timber, mining and agriculture built our downtown.)
A description like Dante’s, in which the inner city is either decrepit, dangerous and dirty or full of expensive boutiques, doesn’t capture my city’s downtown. So many debates about urbanism are like this one, with an implicit assumption that “urban” means “giant megalopolis” or “gritty scary post-industrial.”
My downtown hasn’t failed. It isn’t abandoned. It isn’t dirty.
There are boutiques, yes–some of them expensive, some of them creative, low-cost places started up by scrappy 20-somethings taking advantage of lower rents (thanks to the recession) to gamble on a dream (see http://noryanjohnson.wordpress.com/ for one of the local examples I’m thinking of).
Besides the boutiques the downtown has a beautiful public library with a view of the river that runs through the heart of the city; miles of public trail along the river; great local restaurants; historic brick buildings updated with technology; creative reuse like the city’s original power plant remodeled into a restaurant and office spaces (http://www.steamplantgrill.com); and so much more that I could describe. (If you’re interested, see downtownspokane.org)
I work for a university on a new campus being built on the site of former railroad yards on the east end of downtown, where alongside great new construction we have renovated an old railroad building into state-of-the-art (yes, really, even though that term is overused) research labs and design studios.
To Fleur’s point, I also consider myself lucky that within an easy drive of my downtown I can reach an area with over 30 small local farms and buy my food directly from the people who grew it (in addition to farmers’ markets in various neighborhoods during the growing season). We have genuine rural areas and green spaces along with incredible recreation and natural areas literally within walking/biking distance from downtown.
I do find it quite telling that the big suburban development projects from the heyday of the tech bubble now mostly sit empty thanks to companies downsizing, selling, or outsourcing production to the developing world, while tomorrow’s tech firms occupy offices in or very near downtown. And I doubt all those people living in the suburbs around us would be here if we didn’t have the downtown and its services and employment centers, nor would the farmers do as well if they didn’t live close to a large population base.
Sure, there are malls and chain stores too–but they haven’t crowded out the things that are genuinely unique. (And I refuse to apologize for being glad we have a Nordstrom’s in downtown
.)
You couldn’t find this mix with its particular local flavor anywhere else. It’s all authentic.
Isn’t that the real point–that we can love our cities for what they are?
@BarbChamberlain