Earlier this year I recorded two podcasts for the community radio program Design Minded in Indianapolis with Lee Alig and Steve Mannheimer, former architecture critic of the Indianapolis Star. We talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly of architecture and design in the city.
Here’s the first episode. If the player doesn’t display for you, click over to listen on Mixcloud.
Here’s the second episode. If the player doesn’t display for you, click over to listen on Mixcloud.
Cover image credit: Miyin2 CC BY-SA 4.0
The aching desire to ‘capture the grandeur of the past’ infects every single aspect of life in The City That Shall Not Be Named. The sense of loss and the resentment about it leads locals to look for scapegoats in each other; a war of all against all. It explains why public interactions are so often so seemingly and pointlessly nasty. The natives, 80% of the population, are going around wondering why they didn’t get what they were promised. There’s a narrative running through their heads asking why what they were told to expect is so far from what they’ve actually gotten. These narratives of their city being ‘stolen’ from them is what unites the city’s clans in their defensive rejection of the city’s other clans. Each clan has it’s own version of what caused the city’s huge decline. It’s an urban version of a Faulkner novel filled with characters fighting battles that the rest of the world has long forgotten. Yes, St. Louis, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and a few other American cities have something of this, too. But, The City That Shall Not Be Named takes it to a level I don’t think has existed otherwise in America…though some have said that New Orleans before Katrina was similar.
This doesn’t mean anything for its urban design since it doesn’t have the people, growth, or resources to ‘design’ anything. It can only keep things functioning as best it can.
OMG, can there not be one post without the tired retread bashing of Cincinnati. No, I’m no expert on the city, but JFC.
If one listens to Matt, the City is actually Mordor.
I don’t know what Mordor is, but Cincy is pretty bad. Never have I seen so many do so little with so much. It’s a shockingly dysfunctional place. It’s trapped in a narrative of decline. No thoughts of design or planning are possible. Growing places without the entrenched social and political battle lines have the chance to design things. My comment is the only one actually mentioning design here. Hmmm….
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordor
I think Matt is missing his calling. He should be writing epic fantasy with The City serving as the locus of all EVIL in the world.
🙂
I’ll leave the moralizing fantasies to you. I prefer to see what actually exists, not what we imagine to exist.
You can’t be serious: “I prefer to see what actually exists, not what we imagine to exist.”
There’s a lot of indulging of fantasies here, and everywhere else online. People use it to hide away from the world, not to see it. It’s a kind of video game for many, instead of a research tool.
I listened to the podcasts and don’t recall even a passing reference to Cincinnati nor any comparison by Aaron or the hosts.
It’s my experience that (except for the Reds) folks in Indy don’t think much about Cincinnati.
Listen again…
I wasn’t referring to podcasts, or Aaron.
I should have been more clear that I was agreeing with you that the original comment is out of place because the podcasts didn’t mention Cincinnati.
The podcast does mention Cincinnati.
What does “JFC” mean.
Check Dictionary.com or Urban Dictionary. Despite being on the Internet, they’re pretty good sources.
To save time, here’s an abridged definition: “JFC is a vulgar slang initialism….usually used as an exasperated exclamation in times of frustration or for emotional emphasis in a variety of informal contexts, especially in digital communication.”
I believe it is the initials are those of a figure of world religion coupled with a verb.
Regarding Matt’s posts, for me the thing I value most about this blog are the comments. Whether I agree or disagree, they always stimulate my thinking. Matt is the most prolific contributor and his posts are always articulate even if somewhat obsessively focused on Cincinnati.
It does remind me of a small (30,000 population) city in Illinois I’ve been involved with for the past 20 years and made numerous offers of assistance, with no success (even with grant funding in hand that could advance any one of dozens of priority redevelopment sites identified in a 2019 comprehensive plan update). There seems to be some stunning level of dysfunction that’s infected all local leadership – city, county, and private sector – for decades. I’ve never encountered anything like it in work for 100 or more cities. In my opinion it’s the dominant factor limiting this city’s revival, but no one there seems to even recognize its existence. But I don’t live there so it’s just a somewhat frustrating curiosity. This seems similar to what Matt perceives to be present in Cincinnati and it would be maddening to me if I had to spend a big part of my career in such a city, especially with a passion for urban issues.
It’s fear and resentment. When a group of people share the experience of stagnation and decline their whole lives, they only see threats. They can’t see opportunity. They come to build their identities and relationships around fear. The fear actually unites them. It’s the thing they share. They feel they must be against things and that they cannot be for anything. All change becomes an existential crisis. Most sit quietly in their resentment and dream/plan their escape; the young and ambitious to big coastal cities and the old to a semi/retirement in Florida, a place Cincinnatians speak of as a virtual holy land that will solve all of their problems. The rest lose themselves in drinking (Cincinnati is the booziest place I’ve lived by far) and an endless series of festivals in which the same people meet each other over and over again in an almost ritualistic way. If you try to engage someone new at one of these festivals, you’ll start to wonder if you’re invisible.
In Cincinnati’s case, it’s a multi-generational experience forming the local culture and institutions into defense bastions over time. The only possible source of change is from outside, but it has to be large and move fast enough to overwhelm the local defenses. It’s much easier for even the most ambitious people and organizations to bypass it, no matter how cheap it is, and look elsewhere. Only when all other possibilities are exhausted will they consider such a place…and that only happens in the final stages of an economic expansion such as the one that has just ended. It means the ‘window’ for new outside investment is small.
The only design such people are interested in is defensive design. They want to know how to design out those they don’t want in their neighborhood and city. That dynamic may exist in many places, but in Cincinnati you pick your turf and defend it to the death. A Pyrrhic victory is still a victory in Cincinnati. If a neighborhood has to be reduced to a smoldering ruins in order for you to maintain control of it, so be it. You don’t try and make it appealing. That will only bring people who you’ll have to struggle to bring over to your side in the pitched local battles that characterize every aspect of life. This is seven years of hard-won wisdom in the City That Shall Not Be Named. I’m sure it has some relevance to some other cities in America, but none that I’ve lived in. Cincinnati’s central problem is Cincinnatians.
I also have a few thoughts regarding Aaron’s topic, although not specifically regarding Indianapolis. I had the advantage of professionally participating in Milwaukee’s revival the past 30 years, one that I believe has been characterized by excellent urban design. I remember working on some housing projects for the City in the early 1990s focused on some distressed major inner city commercial corridors (N Dr Martin Luther King Jr Drive, North Avenue, Center Street, etc.). At the time I was thinking why bother with good urban design practices, like buildings fronting directly on the sidewalk, 1st floor commercial spaces in every building, etc.), when the street as a whole was so stunningly blighted. It seemed at the time like putting a finger in a leaking dike . But Milwaukee by this time had developed detailed plans with good urban design standards for nearly every neighborhood. Now, 30 years later, with 1 or 2 high degree of difficulty projects being completed every year on these corridors, it’s amazing the transformation that has taken place.
So good plans are essential for good urban design as well as the long view – particularly in slow growth cities where you need to leverage full advantage of every development project that does take place.
Having the right plan in place at the right time is also essential. In Milwaukee, one of the most stunning urban design features is the riverwalk. A far sighted plan was in place by the mid 80s just in time for decades of complete conversion of the riverfront from abandoned industrial sites to apartments, offices, and condominiums. It was far sighted because it included provisions in the design for a future water taxi service (we’re still not quite there, but close). The plan resulted in continuous public access to the river where essentially none existed.
It seems like another factor in good design is the dynamics of the local development community. If a high standard has been established, other developers are more likely to follow. Good quality design becomes a market expectation. The City is less likely to bow to developer demands to waive certain good urban design practices. I was surprised when I passed through Des Moines two years ago and saw a major office tower under construction as well as what appeared to be a full block parking structure. I couldn’t believe that Des Moines (a midwest success story featured in this blog) was still building “dead” blocks in its downtown. No doubt the developer made the argument that it was not financially feasible to incorporate first floor commercial space into the design for the parking structure. No chance of the city winning this argument anytime soon with any other developer.
Aaron made a comment seeming to mply that a robust population growth favors good design. I think the opposite may be true. In high growth markets, developers can do quite well focused on suburban sprawl development. Why bother with challenging urban brownfields or infill development. High growth markets are far more dominated by national developers that will take a corporate design approach. This doesn’t favor high quality design. Milwaukee is dominated by local developers Every major office or apartment tower in recent decades was developed by local companies or local developers with strong ties to the community. All (in my opinion) have good design.
So, we have to choose between good design and growth. Can anyone think of an example of both in the same city?
Portland OR and Seattle seem to be exceptions. I haven’t been to Austin. I have been shocked in my travels to cities like Las Vegas, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, Houston, and Dallas over the past decade. They are stunningly bad from a design perspective. Denver’s a little better but still bad. Not remotely in the league of major cities in my region of the rust belt (Chicago, Milwaukee, Madison, Minneapolis) in terms of good urban design.
Austin has an urbanity not found elsewhere in Texas, though that’s not saying that much.
Portland and Seattle are somewhat constrained by mountains, Seattle by ocean, and Portland by rivers. And of course the UGB in Portland. Las Vegas, Phoenix, LA, SLC, Houston, and Dallas regions do not have serious geographic constraints (theirs are around highways, traffic, availability of drinking water and adequate electric power for AC).
Being in a desert and having to invest huge sums in water collection and distribution systems is a ‘constraint.’ It’s why new housing developments in Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Southern California are so high density by American standards.
Matt, that’s exactly what I said: potable water is a constraint in Vegas, Phoenix, LA, SLC, Houston, and Dallas (rather than geography).
New housing developments in SoCal (and, indeed, in most coastal communities) are higher density than the US norm because land is so expensive.
…and land is so expensive because the cost of supplying it with water is so expensive.
No, land on the coasts is more expensive than, say, Youngstown or Detroit because demand for land is much higher on the coasts.
…and demand is much higher because…..?
Portland and Seattle do seem to connect the dots on growth and development in ways other American cities just don’t. LA, SLC, and Denver at least have growing rail transit that focuses development there in some ways. Dallas and Houston don’t seem to be able to connect their rail transit with development. We can’t really generalize about ‘American cities’ when it comes to design and planning.
I’m a little more skeptical than many about Seattle. I was shocked by the utter…banality…of much of the new housing when I visited last year. And 1950s suburbia in North Seattle worthy of the crappier East Bay suburbs like Union City. 🙂