4. The Great Gig in the Sky

This is the fourth installment of my urban design blog tribute to Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. I feel compelled to more boldly highlight this after a recent episode. Last week I did Time, an interpretation of a brilliant song that contains some of the best rock and roll lyrics ever written. The day after the blog came out, my stepdad informed me that my mom was very concerned about my mental state after reading the “poem” that prefaced my post (the “poem” being the lyrics to the aforementioned song). I assured them that my mental state is pretty much the same as it always is, and that I’m fine. I will note, that it’s always great to be reminded that your mom cares (and that she thinks you are capable of writing the lyrics to one of the great songs of all time).  In an effort to avoid any further confusion: Linda, the next song deals with time and death. I am not overly fixated on either, just following the structure of the album. (…and I’m sorry I don’t call more often).

Obviously “The Great (Fill in the blank) in the Sky” is a reference to death or passing of what the blank was filled in with. In the context of the album, I’ve always thought of this as the song with the screamy chick in between the two most poplar songs on the album.  Either way, there is a reference to transition. 'Round here, the most auspicious example of transition is the upcoming change in city leadership. I considered writing about that and what the implications might be for urban design, but I have decided to write about something a bit more concrete.

Urban design, as I practice it, focuses on the urban public realm- the streets, parks, plazas, and views that comprise our communally owned spaces. This public realm belongs to all of us and expresses the values and aspirations of the community. The other side of that coin is private property. (This is especially true in our country where we have developed a very black and white view of property- it is either public or private, there is no gradient). Our private places belong to their individual owner(s) and express that values and aspirations of that person. (Yes, your house/office/lot expresses your values and your aspirations to God and everybody). Public and private places serve different masters and are attended to different stewards. A healthy city, however, will leverage each to make the other better.

One of the most important and nuanced maneuvers in urban design is treating the transitions between pure public space and pure private space.  One of the hallmarks of a poorly designed place is a lack of attention to transition- these are places where one moves directly from pure public space to pure private space. This type of situation makes both of the spaces feel less comfortable because they retain the mental residue of the other- the private doesn’t feel totally private and the public doesn’t feel totally public. This lack of definition and legibility results in places that we perceive as being uncomfortable. We thrive on clues that inform us about the space that we are in and that indicate what types of activity are accommodated or appropriate.

The most successfully designed places create gradients or transition zones between pure public and pure private. The classic American example is the stoop of a downtown residential unit. Consider the examples of homes in our downtown. To enter, a person makes a gradual transition from pure public space to private space- sidewalk (pure public), steps (semi-public), porch (semi-private), indoors (pure private). It only takes 10 feet to make the transition, but the perception of space is far greater that the actual difference traveled. This makes the city, and its part more legible and defined, and therefore more comfortable. Beyond the public realm gradient, a well designed home will have its own privacy gradient that provides transition from “public” to “private” spaces within the home- the same principles apply.

(The gradient applies to all places - offices and retail spaces as well. However, the interiors of those types of private property are semi-public/public anyway, so the transition phase can be somewhat lessened.)

The challenge is to find the literal common ground between the public and private sectors to be able to create these transitional gradients. It is important to do so since this is where the rubber meets the road: we can create a healthy, legible, beautiful city that expresses our value of community and generosity, and our aspirations of being the best city in the country; or we can build a city that tells the world that we do not value place, and the we aspire only to do what it takes to get by.

This is indeed a tricky wicket. The baseline of the argument is “you can’t tell me what to do with my property”. This is true (to a certain extent) and I do not propose making anyone do anything. The challenge is to nurture the spirit of community that elevates us above the baseline argument. It would be great if we could create a culture where people do things like creating these transitions because: a) they understand the underlying principles, b) they understand that these techniques have practical and economic benefits for the property as well as the community, c) they trust that if they do something their neighbors will as well, d) they want to express their own values and aspirations, and e) they have pride in their community. If we can find a way to create that culture, we will be one of the great cities in the country. If we can’t overcome the baseline argument then the community can’t transition and we are left in purgatory.

3. Time

Track three in the C.Rushing blog interpretation of Dark Side of the Moon...

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day 


You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way. 


Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town 


Waiting for someone or something to show you the way. 


 
Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain. 


You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today. 


And then one day you find ten years have got behind you. 


No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun. 


 
So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking 


Racing around to come up behind you again. 


The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older, 


Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.
 
Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time. 


Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines 


Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way 


The time is gone, the song is over, 
Thought I'd something more to say.

I am, of late, obsessed with time. Perhaps because I’m getting older (this year’s Christian-mas is a milestone), perhaps because my schedule is tight, perhaps because the boys are growing too fast, perhaps because selling my time is how I make a living. In addition to being my latest obsession and aside from being one of the greatest songs ever, Time is also an integral element of urban design.

The great cities of the world have grown incrementally over time. Since our country is relatively young, American cities have only had a few centuries to evolve as opposed to the millennia of some European and Asian cities. In and of itself, this is neither good nor bad, but couple that with unprecedented technological and population growth over the past century and the American city has become a different animal from cities across the globe.

Because our cities are so young, we don’t have the types of authentic, evolved city spaces that can be found on other continents.*  We do, however, love to put on a show. So it’s quite common to find “themed” development over here. Rather than embrace, nurture and grow a visual language of our own, we try to import things we like from around the world. This is part of the reason why the en vogue theme districts and a lot of new urbanist projects feel so thin and shallow. Developers understand that they like a certain place and try to recreate it. The problem is that authentic places have evolved over time and part of why they are so lovely is the patina that can only be acquired with the passage of time. Trying to copy that characteristic only results in places that are inauthentic and plastic- these are characteristics that designers and lay-people alike pick up on.

One of recent trends in urbanism is the recent surge in “DIY” urban design initiatives. This has been a topic of debate for planners and architects; you can read a couple of opinions about it here and here. I’m still in the process of forming an opinion about the phenomena – it certainly has pros and cons. The biggest con for me is time. If we’re talking about just a building, the process can take years. If we’re talking about a city, a single project can take a decade. Forget about issues of money, regulation and expertise, the question becomes who is going to stick with the vision over time to ensure that it is nurtured, protected and moved forward.

Chattanooga is effectively 196 years old. Our relatively recent civic renaissance has lasted about 30 years- only 15% of the overall life of the city. So, in the broad since, our recent work has been but a bump on the timeline. That work, however, has taken about half of a human lifetime. If you consider the various projects and initiatives that have happened within that period, you will find that time plays a major role in each.

In 1982 a state aquarium was proposed in the student work of Images of the City. Ten years later in 1992 the Tennessee aquarium was opened. Eight years passed from the time an intervention in the city’s center was proposed until Miller Plaza was completed. It took about ten years from the Southside planning initiatives of the mid-90s until Main Street hit full stride.  Twenty-five years passed from the time we decided to return to the river until the 21st Century Waterfront completed the connection. All of our major maneuvers have taken time, and each has outlasted yearly budgets and elections at every level.

During our impressive thirty-year run we had an entity that served as the steward for our civic visions. This place was open, transparent and served as common ground for every person and institution in the community. This place also put forth ideas, concepts and visions for the community to digest, debate and react to. The keeper of our collector conversation on urbanism and design kept these visions alive for as long it took to get them implemented. Who now is charged with stewarding the visions for the community over time and across budgets and elections?

*In our country, buildings that are 50 years old are eligible to be designated historic. That's funny. In older cities (where modern architecture also happens to be embraced) there are 200-year-old buildings that are still considered new.

2. On the Run

This week I continue with the C.Rushing blog cover of Dark Side of the Moon- ten blogs corresponding to the playlist of that famous album. The second song (or third depending on which version of the album you have) is called On the Run. This is an instrumental piece that is sometimes referred to as The Travel Sequence…

Whether you call it On the Run or The Travel Sequence, the second song on DSOTM is about movement. If you take a dispassionate view of our built environment, you might conclude that American life is about the same. A cursory glance at any aerial photo (or a look outside the door) proves that most of our built environment is dedicated to moving things: people, cars, freight, waste. This is a common theme in human history. We have always needed to move things. We move good resources, things like food and water closer and bad things like waste and pollution farther away. Of course, if the things don’t move, we move people to them.

Movement, movement everywhere

Over the last 60 years, our American society has developed unprecedented mobility for people and things. We can do marvelous, wondrous and fantastic things. Unfortunately, nobody rides for free and we are dealing with the myriad unintended consequences on the other side of the coin. If you’re interested enough in urban design to be reading this, you’re likely part of the choir and I don’t have to run through the litany of unintended consequences that our automobile dependency has created.

Cars aren’t inherently evil. In and of themselves, roads aren’t bad things. Surface parking lots are not of the devil. The problem is that cities have abdicated their responsibility to create healthy places to traffic engineers who only care about moving cars as quick as possible. Yes, people are in those cars, but what do they arrive to when they get out of the car? What’s the point in getting somewhere marginally quicker if the destination sucks? If we can create better place to move through and to, a reasonable response to a traffic engineer warning of longer travel times or more congestion is “So what”. 

Beyond their threat, there are serious and significant studies that show that traffic engineers are full of it. Closer to home we have specific examples: remember when all the traffic engineers came out and told us that switching McCallie and MLKing would result in gridlock, mayhem and loss of life? Yeah, they were full of it. Remember when the traffic engineers told us that reducing the capacity of Riverfront Parkway would result in gridlock, mayhem and loss of life? Yeah, they were full of it.

Currently we have a situation where engineers hold sway- communities mindlessly follow their recommendations, then try to do their best to clean up after the roads are built. A more healthy model would put the design of places for people, commerce, life and activity on equal footing with the need for access to those places, or (perish the thought) given higher priority.

Movement is important and necessary, but we have lost all perspective. The city should be designed as a beautiful, generous, healthy place that accommodates our lives- movement systems should support that, not drive it.

1. Speak to Me / Breathe (Breathe In the Air)

Earlier this year, I promised that the C.Rushing blog would be done bigger and better than last year. Of course, whether or not I’m delivering on that is debatable. Not wanting to let you down, I’ve been thinking about what I could do. Like a bolt of lightning, it stuck. What do rock bands do when they get full of themselves and want to put on a show? That’s right, they play the White Album in concert in its entirety. Capital idea! Create a series of blog entries that follow the structure of a classic album. Unfortunately, the White Album has thirty tracks and it would be tough for me to develop an urban design analog for "Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey". That leaves only one serious contender doesn’t it? Ladies and gentleman, it is with great joy that I offer you the first installment of the C.Rushing urban design interpretation of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon…

Breathe, breathe in the air.

Don't be afraid to care.

Leave but don't leave me.

Look around and choose your own ground.



Long you live and high you fly

And smiles you'll give and tears you'll cry

And all you touch and all you see

Is all your life will ever be.



Run, rabbit run.

Dig that hole, forget the sun,

And when at last the work is done

Don't sit down it's time to dig another one.



For long you live and high you fly

But only if you ride the tide

And balanced on the biggest wave

You race towards an early grave.

Greatest. Cover. Ever.
For some reason I always fixate on the subtle
white reflected ray produced by incident ray.

Of course, Speak to Me has no true lyrics, only snippets of interviews and vocals that occur later in the album. The title, however, suggests communication- one of the major themes of the renaissance of our city. In my mind, there were a couple of incredibly important types of speaking that enabled use to achieve what we have. Note that I’m writing about what we did in the past, but hopefully we have not forgotten these skills and will put them to use in the not to distant future.

The level of public input during the rebirth of the city is a famous theme.  Speak to me- the call of civic leaders seeking public input on how we could go about fixing things. As we embarked upon our journey, every effort was made to work in a collaborative way that sought, valued, and incorporated public input. Public input is important for a variety of reasons: more people with more perspective have greater potential to develop broad and innovative ideas; participation in an input process gives the participants a sense of ownership and pride in the overall process, making implementation more likely; strong consensus in a public input process can provide a mandate for leaders and elected officials to take bold action. This side of the equation seems to be well understood, and something we rightly point to with great pride.

The other example of communication is the story less told. Speak to me- the call of the public to understand what the issues are, what alternatives exist, and an appeal for leadership. We all understand the tremendous value of public input- it's impossible to build a healthy city without it. What is sometimes overlooked is the vital importance of structuring the framework for input. To be frank, the value of citizen input in a vacuum is somewhat limited. While there is value in the act of participating and in the sense of ownership that can be conveyed, public input is most valuable when it can be focused on something tangible. Meaningful public input has a companion component – education.  The establishment of a framework or set of conditions for the citizenry to react to results in a far more informed and useful consensus than can be achieved otherwise. Setting forth ideas about what good urban design is, about what our community could potentially become, and about our options for the future is of vital importance. This process of dialogue and education creates a capacity in the community to be able to understand and achieve greater things. Laying this groundwork creates a strong foundation, whereas operating from a less informed base results in random input and less informative solutions. Which is not to say that it lacks value- as mentioned earlier, the process of coming together in and of itself is a positive thing.

Communication is a two-way activity– so it has to be with the dialogue concerning how we build the city. When it comes to city building, effective communication is undertaken from a place of open dialogue, not by dictation or unilateralism. It is a process of proposal and comment, opinion and response, action and reaction.

Despite the fact that Breathe (in the Air) has lyrics and is longer that Speak to Me, it is getting short shrift here (I’m running long, and this is a blog not a book). Anyway, the connection is clear and I don’t need to run it into the ground. Breathe in the Air– isn’t it nice to be able do so? Just a few short years ago that wasn’t such an appetizing prospect in our city. Through the hard work of many hands we turned the dirtiest city in the country into the clean(er) jewel that we are. Think about that this week and breathe, breathe in the air, don't be afraid to care…

Seven?

You find me back in Chattanooga, after a trip to Tampa and a stint in the heartland last week. I'm not particularly keen on traveling, but I’m working on a good project with a great client in Iowa. I hate to keep lobbing excuses at ya’ll for why the posts are short or off-topic, but I’m going to do it anyway. Because of travel and workload I haven’t had time to think of a new and exciting topic. Rather than give you another series of links, however, I will write off the cuff about my past adventures in the business of urban design. 

As for this weekend, I'm only hoping to survive Spencer's birthday party. Seven years old, S-E-V-E-N! How time flies. Each year on the weekend closest to his birthday (which always happens to be Memorial day) we have the family in town for a crawfish boil. The weekend is always great and it is the one I most anticipate every year. Aside from its obvious significance, his birthday is also a marker for other events in my life journey.

For as bright and athletically inclined as he is, he has yet to
grasp the concept of this particular rivalry. He does, however,
know the difference between Hondo and Rondo.

2005 was an eventful year. That year, D.Rushing was with child (my aforementioned son and heir), and I was working for Stroud at the Planning & Design Studio. Life was great. We had a very happy, comfortable (I speak for myself) and uneventful pregnancy. Working for Stroud was a joy and privilege, even if it wasn't always a bed of roses. The life of a silversmith’s apprentice City employee was not an easy one. The work itself was a joy, but dealing with the cast of characters at the city and in the broader community could be…trying.

In the late spring, Stroud got the sack and studio employees were shuffled to other city departments. I was designated for assignment in the public works department where I was to assist citizens navigating the building permit process. While I suppose there is something to be said for the fact that I was not fired outright, I can't imagine a more soul-crushing job for a designer. If my goal was to put in twenty years of civil service and retire with a pension, I might have stayed. As you might have suspected, however, I don't get down like that.

Long about this time, Spencer Sinclair Rushing arrived. In part out of loyalty to the Master, in part because I didn't want to be a cog in the bureaucracy (the pay sucked anyway), and primarily because my first son was born, I resigned from the city. How lucky was I to be able to spend the first three months of Spencer's life at home with him and his mother. After having that experience, I am convinced that fathers should be able to take paternity leave (especially for the family's first child as the couple is learning the ropes). The few dollars of income lost could never buy the experiences I had that summer. In the back of my mind, however, was the question about how I was going to continue to grow professionally and earn a few farthings in the future.

OK, so it wasn't all play- but "work" was fun.

That opportunity came when I joined forces with three of the brightest people around. Stroud, Ann and I were unemployed and our friend Jim was looking for the next step in his consulting business. We joined forces to form of Kennedy, Coulter, Rushing & Watson with the mission of providing planning and design for cities and their moving parts. Over the next six years we did some really nice work on projects like the Knoxville South Waterfront, the Nashville Riverfront, Kingsport Landing, and The Strip in Knoxville. While the project work was fun, educational and paid the bills, the great windfall for me was simply being able to interact with three very high level professionals. Watching and learning as they conducted business, both technically and personally, was like being in school again (in a good way).

Alas, starting a new business is no mean feat. We did well enough and kept our families fed, but starting a private sector planning firm during the Great Recession was always going to be a tough ask. In the end, we each started to gravitate toward our core competencies and last fall when Stroud decided to try out for the PGA tour we had a group hug and called it. We’re still finishing out some contracts, and I have shown dogged determination in keeping Stroud off the golf course and on an airplane. That fantastic chapter of personal and professional development, however, has come to a close with a debt to my friends that I’m not sure I can ever repay.

As was the case exactly seven years ago, I’m in a transitional phase. This time round, however, the summer will be hectic rather than blissful, as there are irons in the fire. In August I’ll take the family on vacation, catch up on some sleep, then take the next step in my career. Don’t worry, I guarantee it will not be as a writer.

Have-A-Tampa

Last week was great.  Idea Channel put it down for the Vine Street corridor in the Urban Design Challenge. The team embraced the challenge by putting the site in a broader context and addressing the issues that they felt were most important. If you want to hear more about their concept, make sure to come out the Community Design Forum on June 7th. As the usual Forum host is a member of the Idea Channel team, I have volunteered to moderate. It should be entertaining and informative, and there will be beer.

The morning after the Design Challenge, I hopped a plane with The Bearded One to Tampa. We were invited down there by the one and only Blake D (who was a pupil of mine until he turned evil…just kidding). Last century, Blake and I shared a small office at the RPA for the first year of my professional career. He left Chattanooga for his homeland of Florida and Glatting Jackson (which was later bought by AECOM). AECOM is currently undertaking a downtown plan for the City of Tampa, and as a part of the process is hosting a number of Knowledge Exchange Forums. Each of these forums deals with a specific topic, and we were invited to come tell the Chattanooga story at the public realm forum (correction: Stroud was invited to come tell the Chattanooga story, and I was invited to make sure that Stroud kept his presentation to no more than 20 minutes). I must admit that when the trip was planned, I had grand visions of sunshine and a cigar smoke filled night in Ybor City. Alas, it was not to be. It rained the whole time we were there, and we ended up dashing through a downpour to eat somewhere in Channelside. No serious complaints, however, as this was work not vacation.

As expected, Stroud killed at the forum. (I dropped the ball as our 20-minute presentation ended up running 33:09, but no one seemed to mind).  As we were prepping for the presentation, it occurred to me that he and I (and others no doubt) have given this talk numerous times on the road but not frequently at home. I thought it would be a good idea to record his presentation and make it available online. It is uploaded in 3 parts below.  Although we were asked to go into greater detail on a couple of things that are more relevant for Tampa, it is a pretty good overview of the Chattanooga story from a broad urban design perspective. Enjoy.

In sporting news, a hearty congratulations to the 5-6 year old Hixson Thunder for overcoming their “coaching” to win their pre-season tournament, regular season, and post-season tournament.

I'm a proud papa (and a marginal coach). 

Why should I change? He's the one who sucks

First things first – thank you to those who checked in with health advice and concern. I’ve got a plan for diet and exercise and after a year on a waiting list, I’ve got an appointment to see a new doctor. I’ve heard great things about his practice, and I’m very excited about his approach to health (I feel old exhibit #427: I just wrote that I was excited about a seeing a doctor). Obviously, I have not yet seen him, but after hearing from some of my friends who are clients, and reading about the practice, I am totally on board with the philosophy. As I understand it, the approach to health is collaborative between to the doctor and patient, it puts physical concerns into the larger life matrix of social, emotional and spiritual concerns, and approaches treatment from the standpoint of treating cause instead of symptom (which is the opposite of how my prescription-happy former Doc approached things). Last week, I noted that maintaining health and building the city are both hard work. This week I’ll stick with that concept, but illustrate it with a detail.

One of the things I have found in my dozen years in this profession is that there are two ideas that always come out of a public process (and most stakeholder meetings). The first is to close a street and turn it into a pedestrian mall. The second is to build pedestrian overpasses or footbridges. Both of those are almost always a bad idea. Earlier last week, I sat in on a meeting for an upcoming project, and someone tossed up the pedestrian bridge idea. It was not my meeting, and I think we were trying to wrap things up, so I held my tongue. As I left the building I reexamined why footbridges are such a bad idea. There are some straightforward, concrete answers, but it struck me that there is also a very basic concept that no one ever talks about.

Pedestrian bridges are detrimental to urban environments for a number of reasons- each of which is the direct result of the facility functioning as it should. The job of the footbridge is to remove the pedestrian from the street. The sole benefit from this move is that pedestrian and auto conflicts are reduced (and that is a worthy goal, don’t get me wrong). By taking people off the street, however, we have taken people off the street. The street is the heart of the public realm- our shared community space. We want pedestrians on the street- strolling, sitting, shopping, browsing, running, and dining. This is makes business viable, attracts more activity, and fulfills the promise that is the city.

As I mentioned last week, our society now treats symptoms. We rarely look for the root cause of our problems. This is the case with ped bridges. The fundamental question is this: “What is the problem?” Is our problem motorists behaving in a way that is potentially dangerous, or is it people having the audacity to walk across a street? Put in those terms, the answer is crystal clear. Our problem is not people walking (in fact that is a good thing), our problem is that we developed a transportation system that exists in a vacuum instead of being integrated into the city. Cars are important (I love mine and I drive all the time), mobility is important, access is important- however, these are facilitative actions. The reason we drive is to get from one place to another to engage in some activity. Those activities are the reasons that roads and cars exist to begin with. However, our current system favors the act of moving more than what we do once we’ve arrived. So rather than trying to cure the “ill” of people of walking on a street, why aren’t we address the other side of the equation?

In the great movie Office Space, Michael Bolton (one of the protagonists) decried the fact that his name had been hijacked by a “no talent ass-clown” (the singer Michael Bolton). When asked why he didn’t change his name, he replied “Why should I change, he’s the one who sucks.” So it is with the pedestrian bridge in an urban area. Why should the pedestrian have to get on a bridge, it’s the traffic behavior that is the problem.

*As I was writing this week, Outside the Lines did a segment about Bo Bike’s Bama. This is Bo Jackson’s effort to raise $1 million for the tornado victims by bicycling across my great home state.  Halfway through the piece I was reduced to tears (I am a crier of Vermeilian proportions). I love Bo Jackson (although this has not always been the case), he is a credit to professional athletes and an Alabamian of the highest order. Please consider going to BoBikesBama.Com and making a donation.