Reinventing Cities

Recent news about Detroit filing for bankruptcy protection has the echo of other American cities that were in financial crisis during the 1980s recession. Design students who sleep through their history classes have little comprehension that the vibrant city life they now enjoy hasn’t always existed. Modern societies have done much to sanitize urban operations with paved streets replacing mud, zoning to exclude smelly, noisy and polluting industry, tree-planting programs to shade walkways, and waterfront restoration projects for water-related recreational activities. Many reasons, including extensive social welfare programs and an insidious drug trade, threatened the economic stability of cities such as New York where crime and general degradation made public parks and places unsafe and therefore unused. Projects such as Bryant Park in Manhattan and Meridian Hill Park in Washington, DC developed strategies for public/private partnerships that instilled a sense of civic stewardship required to restore these amenities supporting beneficial urban life.

Efforts such as these are part of the reinvention of American cities along with functioning public transit systems, increased densities, and diverse services within walkable distances. Cities that have high-quality public schools are able to retain young professionals who enjoyed city life when single, and now have young families to educate. However, the situation in Detroit is beyond typical remedies. Massive debt (over 18 billion dollars) and the erosion of its tax base have forced the insolvent city to file for bankruptcy protection setting up renegotiations with creditors and pension fund managers. The downward spiral has been exasperated by a non-existent housing market and minimal municipal services. Detroit also has a weak cultural heritage unlike New Orleans where restoration efforts on a grand scale after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina are ongoing.

Other cities have suffered extreme devastation and prevailed. Setting aside concern for human suffering, the Great Fire of London in 1666 cleared medieval slums and allowed the central core to be rebuilt with wider streets and new building codes mandating the use of non-combustible materials. Paris never experienced such a fire, but anticipated it in the 1860s giving vast power to Baron Haussmann who widened and straightened medieval streets into boulevards, and constructed extensive water and sewer infrastructure projects. In 1871, the Great Chicago Fire burned over three square miles of the city core made up primarily of wooden structures clearing the way for a building boom of newly-devised skyscrapers.

Detroit’s recovery will depend on the reconsideration of its social systems and turning its dysfunctional suburbs into urban farms. Creditors want to sell assets including the art at the Detroit Institute of Arts, but what if instead the Institute became a national beacon attracting artists to the city. If the city provided inexpensive housing in the central district, organized farmer’s markets and had excellent public schools, people would come. Work, eat, learn – when a city supports the simple needs of a productive life, people want to live there. More economic maneuvering only fuels the negative economic spiral. People can make a positive creative spiral.