Toward the Livable City

Edited by Emilie Buchwald Milkweed Editions, 2003, 326 pp., paperback $18.95. In The City in Mind, James Howard Kunstler convincingly argued that contemporary America’s fixation with “green space” often leads to exceedingly dull and anti-urban environments. Now, in “The Empty Harbor,” Phillip Lopate offers a related thought: A narrow focus on creating clean, noncommercial, publicly accessible waterfronts is making the water’s edge boring. Lopate’s case in point is his native New York. The three most important recent projects on the Manhattan waterfront— Battery Park City, South Street Seaport, and Hudson River Park — “all have in common a certain antiseptic, deadened quality,” he observes. The lack of urban liveliness stems partly from “an understandable fear of allowing any private use to contaminate the shore,” Lopate says. “I think this is a mistake,” he emphasizes. “By all means, the public should be able to get to the water’s edge, to walk along the riverfront and enjoy sea breezes. But that does not mean that the entire waterfront needs to be protected by a prophylactic green belt.” “Is there some way of incorporating the city’s everyday, syncopated spirit into a design for a new waterfront?” Lopate asks. “Why would it be so terrible to have a Ferris wheel or a Chinese restaurant or some other spark of urban life by the waterfront?” He offers an alternative vision: ”The waterfront could house schools, libraries, courthouses, post offices, police stations, firehouses — could be a destination point for ordinary citizens in the course of their daily routines, not just when they are in a leisure-seeking, park mood.” Lopate’s essay on the lost opportunities of waterfront planning is a high point of Toward the Livable City, but certainly not the only one. Fourteen other essayists and critics also offer reflections, opinions, and predictions about the city and its future — among them Kunstler, Bill McKibben, Tony Hiss, Jane Holtz Kay, Jay Walljasper, Myron Orfield, and John A. Powell (or as he prefers, john a. powell). Walljasper, formerly with Utne Reader, looks at how cities can foster pedestrian activity. McKibben reports on the impressive transit achievements of Curitiba, Brazil. Hiss tells of Dan Burden’s constant travels in service of walkable communities. Kunstler warns of “the long emergency” in store for America as the era of cheap oil comes to an end. There are a few errors. Orfield describes Connecticut Gov. John Rowland as a smart-growth leader, an opinion few smart-growthers in Connecticut would second. John A. Powell, in a gloomy essay on housing and race, offers what I view as an overly negative portrayal of the federal HOPE VI public housing redevelopment program. All in all, this is a stimulating and intelligent collection, one that ranges from big policy questions to intensely personal reflections. And in case you don’t have a copy, the final section consists of the Charter of the New Urbanism.