"What will the projects look like? They will be spacious, parklike, and uncrowded. They will feature long green vistas. They will be stable and symmetrical and orderly. They will be clean, impressive, and monumental. They will have all the attributes of a well-kept, dignified cemetery. And each project will look very much like the next one."
"These projects will not revitalize downtown; they will deaden it. For they work at cross-purposes to the city. They banish the street. They banish its function. They banish its variety. There is one notable exception, the Gruen plan for Fort Worth; ironically, the main point of it has been missed by the many cities that plan to imitate it."
"Almost without exception the projects have one standard solution for every need: commerce, medicine, culture, government-whatever the activity, they take a part of the city's life, abstract it from the hustle and bustle of do"
Major American cities are undertaking significant redevelopment projects that will shape downtown areas for generations. These projects share common characteristics: spacious, parklike designs with green vistas, symmetrical layouts, and monumental architecture resembling well-maintained cemeteries. Cities including San Francisco, New Orleans, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Kansas City, Little Rock, and Nashville are implementing similar plans. However, these standardized approaches work against urban vitality by eliminating street functions and variety. The projects abstract different urban activities—commerce, medicine, culture, government—from the dynamic street life that defines cities. This uniform approach deadens rather than revitalizes downtown areas, with Fort Worth's Gruen plan being a notable exception whose key principles are being misunderstood by other cities attempting to replicate it.
Read at Fortune
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]