The Wealth of Cities

The Wealth of Cities, Revitalizing the Centers of American Life By John O. Norquist Addison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts, 1998. Hardcover, 227 pp., $25.00 U.S.; $34.95 Canada. Milwaukee Mayor John O. Norquist has produced a treatise for the Twenty-first Century on urban revitalization and leadership. He describes the governmental actions that have led to the destruction of American cities, and prescribes what is needed to restore them to viable, healthy and safe centers of wealth. Norquist has led the way over the past 10 years to humanize the urban landscape of Milwaukee. His attention to quality of life has transformed ineffective programs and costly operations into an outcome-oriented success story. Every mayor in America should read this book before finalizing the next budget. City planners and urban designers should absorb Norquist’s message on how the New Urbanism can maintain existing, vital streetscapes, and revitalize the traditional places where commerce and culture “work.” In his chapter on “The New Urbanism,” Norquist references “key precepts of the new traditionalists community.” The importance of the public realm is highlighted relative to streets, sidewalks, parks, and gathering places. He emphasizes that a well-conceived traditional community is one where individual buildings collectively form coherent public spaces where people see and talk to one another. In contrast, cul-de-sac developments restrict neighborly contact to the confines of dead end streets. His vision of a place where wealth abounds is one where sidewalks and porches add gracefully to the public realm. Norquist holds Charleston, South Carolina, as an effective model for a viable city due to its street and alley network, housing diversity and building conservation. He also recognizes the value of new places like Celebration, near Disney World, with its main street of three-story commercial buildings and adjoining compact residential areas. He compares Celebration and similar developments to an urban village in Milwaukee and other heritage places. In addition to recognizing the contributions of the founders of the Congress for the New Urbanism, the works of Frederick Law Olmsted, John Nolen, and Daniel Burnham are lauded. The Wealth of Cities underscores the relationship between conservation of the natural environment and rehabilitation of the urban landscape. Norquist explains how clean cities become rich cities, and provides examples like Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Wichita, Kansas, where wealth is being reclaimed through revitalization initiatives. He holds Portland, Oregon, as a model for a balanced, transit-oriented city within a defined urban growth boundary. After tracing the roots of neighborhood devastation in Milwaukee, Detroit, New York, and other major cities where the interstate highway system severed cultural ties, the mayor explains methods for healing and rebuilding the mixed-use, seamless city. He encourages strong transit systems — like those in Toronto, Boston, and Chicago — to support healthy urban economies with concentrated development. The freeway was never free after all; the spinoff effect of suburban sprawl cuts deeply into the fabric of our culture, which is centered in cities. In his closing comments, Norquist reinforces the key ingredients to wealthy cities which are carefully analyzed earlier in the book. He presents budget and management, crime, and design, as important areas of primary attention for cities. He also outlines changes in welfare, education, housing, trade and immigration, environment, and transportation necessary to unleash the power of cities. Ultimately, he recommends not building cities on fear or pity. Instead, cities should be built on their value as settings for commerce and culture. u Thomas J. Comitta is principal of Thomas Comitta Associates, Inc. (TCA), a town planning firm in West Chester, Pennsylvania.