The Next American City: A Response
By Vince Michael and Anthea Hartig
We regrettably missed Charles Buki’s Next American City speech at the National Preservation Conference in Austin, but studied it and it is a provocative scorcher, as the self-described “community developer” no doubt intended (see for yourself at www.czb.org and http://www.czb.org/blog/2010/10/comments-at-the-national-trust-for-historic-preservation/). Buki congenially opens with his denouncing of the label preservationist, but goes on to share his valuable critique of our built environment – and of preservation’s seeming lack of care about community and over-privileging of architecture and its rehabilitation. We here writing don’t have the luxury of eschewing the preservationist label, although we are both active in the discursive movement afoot to change that label (see Forum Journal, Spring 2010, focused on “What’s Next for Historic Preservation,” in particular Donovan Rypkema’s headlining article, Michael’s and Muniz/Hartig’s pieces therein and the follow-up Forum On-Line discussion with Rypkema and Vince Michael.
Buki’s overall critique of our social built environment finds it Koyaanisqatsi-esque—an out of balance set of places in which interdependencies and interconnections have been lost. He also argued convincingly that distinctions between city and suburb are artificial and not helpful, especially in the wake of our efforts to rebuild such places through preservation, new urbanism, or even “old” urbanism, about which we couldn’t agree more, but for reasons different than his. Here goes. Continue Reading
Gentrification
Every day I scour the papers (real and virtual) for landmarks news and todays was about an arson fire apparently targeted at the restoration of the Morse theater,a lovely little 1912 nickelodeon. Graffiti in the theater (“You want war. Get uz”) seemed to indicate that those responsible were fighting gentrification of the neighborhood. The restoration of the theater was “the main spur to the transformation of the neighborhood.”
If the theater can manage to shift a “gang-infested” neighborhood into a livable community, well, I have to say that is about the best reason to save an historic theater.
But someone opposes this and violently. This strikes me as similar to the arson fires that burned a series of 6,000 square foot “green” homes out West several months back, or the spasms directed against Wal- Mart and Starbucks and McDonald’s. But the fight against gentrification is tricky business, for several reasons. Continue Reading