Kyle Harrison
book-chapter

PKP — The New City (lecture notes)

2020

PKP — The New City (lecture notes)

Lecture notes from the PKP course that gave The New City its name and much of its vocabulary. The definition Kyle kept from Lecture 1 is the one the whole thesis rests on: “A city is a habitat created for mutual enrichment.” From there: access to housing, and the rest of what a city owes the people in it.

Part of the New City reading list — the books Kyle worked through while building the The New City thesis. Indexed on that page.

Notes

  • The New City
  • Reading
    • https://www.brookings.edu/research/copenhagen-port-development/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=cs
    • “Cities in the International Marketplace” by Savitch & Kantor
    • “The Art of City Making” By Charles Landry
    • “Wealth of Cities” by John Norquist
    • “The Spirit Level” by Richard Wilkinson
    • “The World is Flat” by Thomas L. Friedman
    • “The Rise of the Creative Class” by Richard Florida
    • Capitalism as if the world matters by Jonathon Porritt
    • Redefining Cities (1985)
    • Cities For People by Jan Gehl
    • New City Life by Jan Gehl
    • Museum Without Walls by Jonathon Meades
    • Green Metropolis by David….
    • Prosperity Without Growth, by Tim Jackson
    • What Is Nature and What Has It Done For Us?
    • The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs
    • Big & Green: Toward Sustainable Architecture in the 21st Century
    • Growth, Innovation, Scaling and the Pace of Life in Cities (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2007)
    • The Economy of Cities by Jane Jacobs
    • The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits by: C. K. Prahalads
    • Life Between Buildings: Using Public Spaces by Jan Gill
    • Rethinking Happiness by Aldo Cibic = changing our mentality of happiness
    • Cities People Planet by H. Girardet
    • Triumph of the City by E. Glaeser
    • Good Cities, Better Lives by P. Hall
    • Cities of Tomorrow by P. Hall
    • Green Manhattan in the New Yorker Oct. 18, 2004
    • Whole Earth Discipline by S. Brand
    • Urbanism in the Age o Climate Change by P. Calthorpe
    • Sustainable Urban Design by A. Ritchie and R. Thomas
    • Makeshift Metropolis by W. Rybczynski
    • The Energy Glut by P. Edwards and I. Roberts
    • Human Transit by J. Walker
    • Ecosystem Service Come to Town by G. Grant
    • With regards to work in this sector, I’d recommend looking for organisations that work in the fields of: urban design, platemaking, sustainable living, human-centred design and public realm design. These are the ‘buzzwords’ being touted around and you might be able to find your niche within. This is also related and you might find interesting: http://www.bmwguggenheimlab.org/100urbantrends/#!/new-york-city/
      • Gabriel Smales
    • City Lab - citylab.com
    • This Big City – thisbigcity.net
    • Grist – grist.org
    • Next City – nextcity.org
    • Guardian Cities – theguardian.com/cities
    • Sustainable Cities Collective - sustainablecitiescollective.com
  • Resources
  • Lecture Notes
    • Lecture 1
    • beyondgreen.co.uk
    • Why do cities matter most?
      • Jonathon Porritt, “capitalism as if the world matters”
    • “Sustainability is anything that can be done forever and is the goal of the human species.”
      • A city is a habitat created for mutual enrichment.
    • “Cities have been engines of innovation since plato and socrates bickered in an Athenian marketplace.” - Triumph of the city
      • Each city-dweller consumes less land, less energy, less water and produce, less pollution than his counterpart in settlements of lower densities.” Redefining Cities (1985)
    • Poor city dwellers live with environment challenges created by rich city dwellers who never have to deal with those problems in their own lives.
    • The way we value things impacts our decision making (What Is Nature and What Has It Done For Us?) Enviromentality is not an intangible benefit.
    • Seminar 1
    • Question: How difficult is it to create weather related public transit in New York City?
    • In Singapore, they have socially engineered building plans (percentages of race, representative of the whole culture, make up portions of housing in one building)
    • Question: What is the difference between “the government should do more…” and “the government should do this…”?
    • Most cities want to attract rich people/companies in hopes of bringing their wealth and capital. The 85 richest people control more wealth than the poorest 1/2 of the planet (3.5 Billion), and the gap is getting bigger.
    • The among you care is not necessarily determinant of the amount to which you succeed.
    • Lecture 2
    • Sustainable Urbanism
    • People may ask, “aren’t all the cities built?” City infrastructure, economics, policy, etc. must all be reconsidered and improved if the world is to continue to grow.
    • Problems we face?
      • Sprawl
      • Pollution
      • Slums
      • Inequality
      • Isolated development
      • Lack of social infrastructure
      • Car-oriented environments
    • We must maximize exchange and minimize the travel required to do that.
    • “The measure of a city’s greatness is found in the quality of its public spaces.”
      • John Ruskin (Triumph of the City)
    • Is “technotopia” the answer? (Tech heavy civilizations like MASDAR in the middle east)
    • Walkable neighborhoods = 400 meter diameter
    • Cyclable neighborhoods = 800 meter diameter
    • Density rises around city centers
    • Things To Look Up
      • PlaNYC
      • Zip car = Car club in London
      • Vancouver = Greenest City 2020 (which one?)
    • A sidewalk surrounded by walls and houses (no access to front doors) develops no sense of place.
    • PEOPLE FIRST -> THEN URBAN SPACE -> THEN BUILDINGS
      • Heavy taxation on cars can help deter drivers.
      • Traffic is organized to cyclists, not cars. Green lights match up with cycling pace.
    • When developing an urban plan, you rarely have a blank canvas to work with, there are almost always constraints whether they are social, economic or environmental
    • With sustainability, you’ll have to do everything a little differently and you’re not going to turn a quick buck, but the higher quality will ultimately be more profitable
      • How shall we live?
      • Values, self-image
      • Involve people
      • Walking economy (prepping the change)
      • Compact, connect, diversity (density, no sprawl)
      • Walkable, fine grained, adaptable buildings (easily changeable), mixed community. Be built to accommodate change
      • Public realm: How do we experience our city?
      • Importance of “Good Ordinary”
      • Patient finance/ long-term investment
      • ONLY AFTER ALL THIS does sustainable design have true value
    • Remarkable Cities Presentation in London
    • The economy, to support 10 Billion people w/ middle class expectations for their lifestyle, will have to be 15 times what it is now and 40 times what it is now by the end of the century.
    • People often say “these are good ideas, but we have to live in the real world.” Edward O. Wilson coined the idea of the “real, REAL world.”
    • “Envrionmentalists have yet to seize the opportunity offered by urbanization. Two campaigns should be mounted-the first to protect the newly emptied countryside, the other to green the hell out of cities.”
    • You can’t just look at one aspect, you have to look at the whole picture.
    • “We shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us.”
      • Winston Churchill
    • Policies over the last 40 or 50 years in Copenhagen have changed the way they live.
    • “Design a remarkably sustainable LIFE and THEN re-design your city.”
    • You invest in a public realm so that you meet your neighbors, socialize with your neighbors.
    • The average manhattan resident uses 1/3 as much resources as the average Dallas resident.
    • Central Paris has the highest density in Europe.
    • What Issues Do We Face?
      • Access to housing
      • safety
      • distance, movement and time
      • energy and water supply and circular economy
      • social and cultural interaction, diversity and tolerance
      • Migration and global upheaval
      • Air quality
      • A healthy ecology of the city
      • Active health and well-being
      • renewable electrification
      • Working and cycling as alpha means of transport
      • Good work (near where they live)
      • Tolerable degree of inequality
      • Beauty and utility
      • Abundant, accessible and progressive greenery
    • “We’re still far too separated into silos. There is no collaboration between effectively educated professionals.”
    • Urgent Challenges + Remarkable solutions = Remarkable Cities
    • Change the world by skipping a generation
    • “Great leaders do not settle for systems as they are, but see what they could become, and so work to transform for the better, to benefit the widest circle.”
      • Daniel Goldman
    • We haven’t enough leaders and we need more of them.
    • Leaders of tomorrow:
      • New framing
      • City disruptors
      • Strange alliances
      • Boldness of thought and action
      • Trans-disciplinary leadership and learning
      • New partnerships
    • Seminar 2
    • What constitutes a “valuable” form of social interaction/capital?
    • Tokyo, though a dense location, birth rates are declining because more people can stay home and have social interactions rather than going out.
    • Lecture 5
    • Public Realm = spaces between buildings
    • Climates, cultures, countries, they’re all different. But people are universal. They have a desire to be a part of their community, especially when they’re in the public realm.
    • Necessary activities will occur no matter what. With the invasion of the car, these necessary activities become limited and passive. Not active.
    • Seminar 3
    • What are some examples of place?
    • Commonalities
      • Activity (offices, shops, etc.)
      • Aesthetically well-groomed
      • Eye on the street (safety)
      • Iconic as representative of the area
    • Weaknesses
      • Overcrowding
    • Lecture 6
    • Victorians invented the idea of a public park, recognizing the need for an open space dedicated to relazation, exercise, etc. A place where people could enter free of charge and mix together freely.
    • “How the young respond to nature will shape the configurations and conditions of our cities, homes - our daily lives.”
      • Richard Louv, The Last Child in the Woods
    • Seminar 4
    • A) How do communities indirectly/directly benefit from environments?
      • Appreciate beauty
      • Aesthetically pleasing
      • A sense of place, socialization (sense of belonging)
      • Mental health/calmness, motivation to exercise
      • Creates an invitation to live more healthy
      • Educational benefit of community farms
    • B) Ways that access to the environment hinders well-being?
      • Too big can create a sense of separation in community
      • Attract bugs and unwanted animals
      • Overuse of water on plants and trees
    • Lecture 7
    • In reality, no city can be self-reliant. You’ll always be relying on some kind of import.
    • Improvement can only come through gradual progress.
      • Energy Reduction
      • Energy Efficiency
      • Renewable Energy
      • Low-Carbon Energy
      • Conventional Energy
    • Products of services - Things that don’t have to just be consumed, but can be recycled, reused and rented out.
    • Example: A carpet company that takes used carpet and moves it around, based on what it’s needed for.
    • “Perhaps all societies deserve to be judged by their garbage.”
    • - Héctor Castillo Berthier
    • Global improvement can only occur if government works and achieves their ambitions. How can I help unless I understand those ambitions as well as the PROCESS that leads to their success?
    • Cultural ripples - your actions impact the culture in which you exist. If you bike, they bike.
    • LECTURE 8
    • “The World is Flat” by Thomas L. Friedman
      • Where you are in the world will become less and less important
    • In some ways, the world is becoming more spiky. (Stiglitz, Florida) More and more of the world is moving to cities.
    • “The Rise of the Creative Class” by Richard Florida
      • Mercer, Monocle (Publications) which outline quality of living rankings. London isn’t there, New York is low, but Sydney, Auckland, Copenhagen are there.
      • Some of this is debatable. Richard Florida is like a cherry on the cake rather than the nitty gritty details.
    • “The Spirit Level” by Richard Wilkinson
      • In societies where the income gap between rich and poor is smaller, community life is better, there is struts and less violence, health is better, teenage pregnancy is lower, etc.
    • “Cities aren’t full of poor people because cities make people poor, but because cities attract port people with the prospect of improving their lot in life.”
      • Ed Glaeser, Triumph of the City
    • “Wealth of Cities” by John Norquist
    • “Cities in the International Marketplace” by Savitch & Kantor
    • Analyse a city for effective/ineffective
      • Development trajectory - market centered vs. social centered
      • Market & Condition - Favorable or unfavorable
      • Bargaining (in favorable conditions) - Dirigiste vs. entrepreneurial
      • Bargaining (in unfavorable conditions) - public dependent vs. private dependent
      • Number & extent of political jurisdictions
      • Quality of formal and informal networks between jurisdictions
      • Fiscal, strategic and administrative centralization/decentralization
      • Bounding and under-bouding
    • “The Art of City Making” By Charles Landry
      • Leadership ideas change with history
    • “Cities were invented to facilitate exchange, exchange of information, friendship, material goods, culture.”
    • Charles Landry - resident thinker in Adelaide, Australia
    • Optimum city size = constantly dynamic based on marginal benefit vs. cost
    • U.K. municipalities receive grant but its use is decided by federal policy
    • Germany - 3 prongs/levels of taxation
    • Centralized infrastructure
    • Neil Murphy studied political science, philosophy, economics, sociology, urban planning
    • Urbanized: A Documentary
    • “People think parking is a human right. Of all the rights we have, parking is not one of them. Thats like asking “where am I supposed to put my food? That is not a government problem.”
      • Governor in Columbia, 1998-2001
    • Lecture 10: Planning
    • “Anticipate futures and problems, to explore their possible impact, to describe what is wanted and how to get there.”
      • Charles Landry
    • Planning
      • Politically led/inherited objectives/vision
      • 15-20 year perspective
      • Predicted and provide approach to land use - housing, industry, employment.
      • How muchWhat goes where?How do the different pieces interact?What does it look/feel like?What does it do to the place as a whole?
      • Evidence and impact assessment
      • Consult, refine and adopt
    • There is a difference between urban overcrowding and density
    • “20th century planning is a response to the evils of the 19th century city.”
      • Peter Hall, Cities of Tomorrow
    • Local authorities don’t cover real economies. Only 51% of Leicester jobs are held by Leicester residents. It was only 31% in Manchester.
    • We can’t only ask how were going to plan fro growth, we must also ask how we will deal with decline. How do we shrink our city when portions become no longer useful?
    • Lanzhou, China - building cities square by square