Maybe The World Breaks On Purpose, So We Can Have Work To Do

Earlier this month I attended a couple of events with Peter Kageyama, author of For the Love of Cities. In his presentations he talked about attachment with where we live, quoted here from his website:

“A 2009 Gallup study that looked at the levels of emotional engagement people have with their communities, found that just 24% of people were “engaged” with their community. Gallup also found a significant relationship between how passionate and loyal people are to their communities and local economic growth. The most “attached” communities had the highest local GDP growth. Despite this, it feels as though our places and our leadership have forgotten how to connect with us emotionally and our cities have suffered because of it.”

Attachment, he explained, might be as simple as voting, going to a PTA meeting, etc. Forty percent were not attached, thirty-six percent were neutral, and only twenty-four percent attached. See the Gallup Soul of the Community website for the detailed reports.

“Over the past three years, the Soul of the Community study has found a positive correlation between community attachment and local GDP growth. Across the 26 Knight communities, those whose residents were more attached saw more local GDP growth. This is a key metric in assessing community success because local GDP growth not only measures a community’s economic success, but also its ability to grow and meet residents’ needs.” (p5 2010 report)

I asked  Peter Kageyama to say a few words to St. Louis:

Good advice! In the presentations he mentioned a January 2011 report in Newsweek listing the top 10 dying cities.  Those listed were:

• 10. Grand Rapids, Michigan
• 9. Flint, Michigan
• 8. South Bend, Indiana
• 7. Detroit, Michigan
• 6. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
• 5. Cleveland, Ohio
• 4. Rochester, New York
• 3. Hialeah, Florida
• 2. Vallejo, California
• 1. New Orleans, Louisiana

Newsweek wrote:

“Michigan dominates much of this list, with several cities experiencing significant declines in population as the state suffered high unemployment rates and above average foreclosures in recent years due mainly to the collapse of the auto industry.”

As you can imagine Grand Rapids wasn’t pleased.  But their response was not the typical stuffy political press release as if so often the case from municipalities. Check out this news report:

In short the city leaders listened to a 20-something controversial local artist, Rob Bliss. The result was the 9+ minute Grand Rapids LipDub:

This video has now been viewed more than 4 million times! The $40,000 production cost was raised through private donations and was a bargain given the positive PR it has generated for Grand Rapids. Thousands of residents participated. Newsweek said they didn’t do the study and they think better of Grand Rapids.

Another town Kageyama mentioned was Braddock PA, a 19th century suburb of Pittsburgh. It has lost 90% of it’s population from a peak of 20,879 in 1920.  They know they have issues, no rose colored glasses. They partnered with jeans maker Levi’s on the following:

“People think their are no frontiers anymore, they can’t see how frontiers are all around us.”

“Maybe the world breaks on purpose, so we can have work to do.”

Powerful stuff! Thanks for the Regional Arts Commission (RAC) and STL-Style for bringing Peter Kageyama to St. Louis!

- Steve Patterson

Opening Reception for American City: St. Louis Architecture: Three Centuries of Classic Design Friday June 10th

Click image for PDF with details of opening reception

Tomorrow night will be a great event, the “opening night reception with photographer William Zbaren and architectural writer Robert Sharoff, creators of American City: St. Louis Architecture: Three Centuries of Classic Design.”  Both the reception and exhibit are free.

The reception is Friday June 10th from 5-7pm at the Missouri Botanical Garden, 4344 Shaw Boulevard. You can use this address link to check transit routes in Google Maps.

ABOVE: Photographer Zebaren (left) and writer Sharoff (right) at Macy's last month

I reviewed their book in January and had the pleasure to meet both last month at the reopening of the downtown Macy’s. I can’t wait to see the images in large format at the exhibit.  If you can’t make the reception tomorrow be sure to get to the exhibit by August 21st.

The authors also have two book signings scheduled: Saturday June 11, 2011 @ The Missouri Botanical Garden 11am -1pm and June 12, 2011 @ Left Bank Books 399 North Euclid from 4-6pm

- Steve Patterson

Readers: ‘Death and Life’ a Classic, Happy Birthday to the Late Jane Jacobs

Jane [Butzner] Jacobs was born on May 4, 1916, ninety-five years ago today. Jacobs was 45 when she finished & published Death and Life of Great American Cities.  Jacobs died on April 25, 2006.

The poll (and post) last week asked:

Q: Have you read ‘Death and Life of Great American Cities’ by Jane Jacobs?

1. Yes, a must-read classic! 38 [37.25%]
2. No, it is on my list to read 23 [22.55%]
3. No, never heard of the book before 20 [19.61%]
4. No, I have no desire to read it 11 [10.78%]
5. Other answer… 6 [5.88%]
6. Yes, but it has been years 4 [3.92%]
7. Yes, wasn’t impressed 0 [0%]
8. Yes, no longer relevant though 0 [0%]

It is nice to see that more than half have read it or plan to do so. From the other answers we see that some are currently reading the book.

1. Never heard of it, but I’m curious.
2. no, but i think i’ve heard of it before somewhere
3. I just started reading it a couple weeks ago
4. almost finished; amazingly relevant and still underappreciated 50 yrs later
5. Yes, A real eye-opener that still applies to mistakes being made today
6. Just started the other day. It all seems right so far!

To me the book is an enjoyable read filled with excellent observations and lacking the pompous theories that fill so many books on urban planning and architecture. THE classic on urban planning.

Happy Birthday Jane Jacobs!

- Steve Patterson

Poll: Have you read ‘The Death and Life of Great American Cities’ by Jane Jacobs?

ABOVE: Jane Jacobs on the cover of Death & Life of Great American Cities

Fifty years ago Jane Jacobs published The Death and Life of Great American Cities, a harsh criticism of the state of urban planning at the time.  Jacobs was 45 when Death and Life was first published. Tomorrow marks five years since her death at age 89.

A direct and fundamentally optimistic indictment of the short-sightedness and intellectual arrogance that has characterized much of urban planning in this century, The Death and Life of Great American Cities has, since its first publication in 1961, become the standard against which all endeavors in that field are measured. In prose of outstanding immediacy, Jane Jacobs writes about what makes streets safe or unsafe; about what constitutes a neighborhood, and what function it serves within the larger organism of the city; about why some neighborhoods remain impoverished while others regenerate themselves. She writes about the salutary role of funeral parlors and tenement windows, the dangers of too much development money and too little diversity. Compassionate, bracingly indignant, and always keenly detailed, Jane Jacobs’s monumental work provides an essential framework for assessing the vitality of all cities. (description via Left Bank Books)

I can think of no other book on urban planning and cities that continues to be debated decades later or have their own Facebook page.

The mistake made by Jacobs’s detractors and acolytes alike is to regard her as a champion of stasis—to believe she was advocating the world’s cities be built as simulacra of the West Village circa 1960. Admirers and opponents have routinely taken her arguments for complexity and turned them into formulas. But the book I just read was an inspiration to move forward without losing sight that cities are powerful, dynamic, ever-changing entities made up of myriad gestures big and small. The real notion is to build in a way that honors and nurtures complexity. And that’s an idea impossible to outgrow. (Metropolis)

The poll this week asks if you have read this book and your thoughts on it.  The poll is in the upper right corner of the site.

- Steve Patterson

From Death & Life to Retrofitting Suburbia

Fifty years ago Jane Jacobs published her now-classic The Death and Life of Great American Cities.  Her book was a criticism of the Urban Renewal policies she observed in the 1950s.  Unfortunately too few paid any attention to her observations until it was too late.  Inner cities were gutted and suburban sprawl has leapfrogged way beyond anything sustainable.  Jacobs’ book offers little t0 help us  in the 21st century.

In the last 50 years we’ve had various planning trends & terms:

“There’s a 15- to 20-year cycle on urban planning terms,” says Robert Lang, urban sociologist at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. “Remember ‘urban renewal’? Smart growth is near the end of its shelf life.” (USA Today : Will ‘intelligent cities’ put an end to suburban sprawl?)

I’m betting on “retrofitting suburbia” as a lasting planning process for the next 25-40 years.  In April 2009 I did a book review on a new volume: Book Review: Retrofitting Suburbia, Urban Design Solutions for Redesigning Suburbs. The book is $75  and worth every penny (Left Bank Books).  Unfortunately neither the St. Louis or St. Louis County library systems have this excellent book.

In January 2010 co-author Ellen Dunham-Jones presented an excellent TED Talk on the subject.  In 20 minutes you can get, for free, the basic concepts presented in the book.  Please take time to watch all 20 minutes.

I’m excited about gradually building on parking lots, densifying corridors, daylighting creeks, and restoring wetland areas.  This retrofitting should be applied to the suburbanized parts of the City of St. Louis as well the rings of suburbs around the city.

Dunham-Jones says:

“The growing number of empty and under-performing, especially retail sites, throughout suburbia gives us actually a tremendous opportunity to take our least sustainable landscapes right now and convert them into more sustainable places.”

Agreed!  The St. Louis region must begin planning for the future now, if we wait our jobs and economy will suffer.  I have a framed picture of the cover of Death & Life next to my desk because it is such an important book.  I may need to frame the cover of Retrofitting Suburbia as well.

- Steve Patterson

American City: St. Louis Architecture Three Centuries of Classic Design

ABOVE: Cover of American City: St. Louis Architecture. Text by Robert Sharoff & photographs by William Zbaren

Two days ago my post contrasted St. Louis natives & newbies.  That day a beautiful large-format book arrived at my door.  American City: St. Louis Architecture, with text by Robert Sharoff and 140 color photographs by William Zbaren, is stunning.  They affirm my point from Tuesday, that outsiders see what we often overlook.  Sharoff & Zbaren, both from Chicago, came to St. Louis in 2007 working for the New York Times. In the cover letter with the book they say they “wound up being knocked out by some of the greatest architecture in the country.”

ABOVE: One of several photographs of the Carl Milles fountain in Aloe Plaza. Photo by William Zbaren

St. Louis can and does impress persons from Chicago, New York, San Francisco, etc.  Books like this new volume will hopefully open they eyes of people who’ve never once visited St. Louis.  This book is the second in their American City series, the first was Detroit. Upcoming volumes will look at Chicago and Savannah.

Sure St. Louis, and Detroit, have issues but the gems presented in this book are part of the reason why St. Louis is home for me.  This book will be available for purchase in March 2011.

- Steve Patterson

Hoosiers and Scrubby Dutch: St. Louis’s South Side

ABOVE: Jim Merkel signs his new book "Hoosiers and Scrubby Dutch: St. Louis's South Side"

Hoosiers and Scrubby Dutch: St. Louis’s South Side is the title of a enthralling new book by Jim Merkel.  The publisher’s description:

In St. Louis’s South Side, people stand in line for frozen treats named for building material, and women used to scrub their concrete steps every Friday. In the South Side, a stop sign means “tap the brakes quick,” and a restaurant masquerades as a windmill. In the South Side, a dentist once moonlighted as a murderer, and a bloody bank heist became the basis for an early Steve McQueen movie. And in the South Side, prepare to run if you use a particular local slur. Suburban Journals reporter Jim Merkel brings nearly ten years’ experience in covering the South Side. Herein are some of the people, places, and events that made the South Side a place like nowhere else. “South Siders are down-to-earth, good people,” this South Sider writes. “I’m staying until they drag me away for good.”

Merkel’s beat as a reporter for the Suburban Journals has been covering south St. Louis for years. This book enables him to share interesting stories about the people, places & events of the south side.

ABOVE: The Asylum on Arsenal Street

The following is one such story from page 70-71 of the book:

The Asylum on Arsenal Street

In August 1911, the area was shocked to learn how forty-year-old Eva Jarvoubek, a patient at the City Sanitarium, was choked to death by a straitjacket she was wearing. The outcry was loud about what happened at the city’s institution for the mentally ill. Dr. C. G. Chaddock, a member of the City Hospital Visiting Staff, told the State House Special Investigations Committee that the use of mechanical contrivances for quieting violent patients was wrong. Attendants too often used straitjackets and similar restraints when they should use humane care, he said. It was a brief moment of light for the institution inside a tall red brick domed building on a hill at 5400 Arsenal Street. After this incident, things went back to normal. The asylum once again became that looming building visible on the horizon throughout the South Side, where people wondered what went on inside. The asylum’s history was a mix of mistreatment and sincere efforts to help mentally ill people, always limited by a lack of funding. Instances of mistreatment have declined in recent years as effective medical treatments for mental illness have become known, but increasing limits in state funding have harmed efforts to improve the lives of mentally ill people at what is now known as the St. Louis Psychiatric Rehabilitation Center.

The institution first opened as the St. Louis County Lunatic Asylum on April 23, 1869. The building went up in the country, full of fresh air thought to help mental illness, said Barbara Anderson, who was volunteer director of the hospital from 1988 to 2006. The building itself was designed to bring that air inside. But in fact, treatment of any sort was wanting. “It was basically warehousing people with mental illnesses,” Anderson said. “There was no clinical criteria by which someone measured another as being psychologically disoriented,” she said. Sometimes women were brought in suffering from postpartum depression and often ended up institutionalized for years. “It was a way to get rid of your wife and run around with some young girl,” Anderson said. Patients also could have been alcoholics or suffering from syphilitic dementia, or just plain poor.

Treatment was cruel at worst and misguided at best. In the basement, some patients were placed in six-to-eight-foot-wide cubicles with straw on the floors. “People would defecate on the floor, and they would sweep it out every day,” Anderson said. “It was cold and damp down there, and people slept on the floors.” Those patients were usually African-American, or whites who were out of control. Upstairs, patients would be treated to all the amenities of the Victorian household, including reading rooms and pool rooms. These rooms also were thought to improve patients’ mental health. To shock them into sanity, people were placed in vats of ice cold water. “They did the best they could, based on the incredible ignorance they had,” Anderson said.

As time went on, the institution’s name changed to the St. Louis City Insane Asylum and then the City Sanitarium. When the city sold it to the state for one dollar in 1948, it became the St. Louis State Hospital. In 1997, it moved to new quarters on the same property at 5300 Arsenal Street and became the St. Louis Psychiatric Rehabilitation Center. The domed building at 5400 Arsenal became an office building for the Missouri Institute of Mental Health and the State Department of Mental Health.

Through the years, as the building’s name changed, one ineffective therapy replaced another. Patients danced, were given beauty treatments, and sang operettas. A newspaper ran a feature story about how straps, straitjackets, and manacles were replaced by outdoor recreation and occupational therapy, but other articles told of cramped and unsanitary conditions. Nothing really helped, though, until the discovery of medications that treated mental illness. However, here and elsewhere, their promise was limited when patients were released without enough of a structure to treat them in the community. Today, people continue to see the big building with the green dome on Arsenal Street wherever they go on the South Side. What they may not see is how budget cuts are still hurting patients.

This book is a must for any student of St. Louis history.

- Steve Patterson

Public plazas part one: people sit where there are places to sit

I’ve been a huge fan of the late William H. Whyte since I bought his book City: Rediscovering the Center when it was published in 1988.  It would be many years later before I would read his 1980 book The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces or see the companion film of the same name.  I had hoped to show you the film but the six YouTube videos that someone had posted have been removed due to copyright infringement.

The book and film are brilliant.  New York City had passed zoning changes that allowed developers to build taller buildings if they provided public plazas.  A decade later Whyte and his team meticulously studied numerous public plazas to determine why some were heavily used and others stood vacant. In the coming weeks and months I’m going to take a closer look plaza spaces here in St. Louis and use Whyte’s findings to see if they apply and how our plaza spaces might be improved.

One important finding was that “people sit where there are places to sit.”  Sounds obvious right? People would sit on steps and any place they could and not necessarily where the designers wanted them to sit.  “People attracted people” was also a finding, people watching is better when there are others to watch.

- Steve Patterson

Holly Hills neighborhood the subject of new book, author signing event today

ABOVE: Cover of Holly Hills by NiNi Harris

Among St. Louis neighborhoods, Holly Hills is among the newer ones — dating to the 1920s.  Holly Hills is the subject of a new book by my good friend historian NiNi Harris.  The publisher’s description of the book:

“Holly Hills is a brief history of the Hollywood-inspired neighborhood that borders St. Louis’s treasured Carondelet Park. Author and longtime St. Louis historian NiNi Harris follows the history of the area, from the faint traces of early French settlers, through its purchase by railroad magnate Jay Gould, and finally to the dynamic developers who envisioned a California-styled neighborhood. Harris highlights the lasting institutions, civic leaders, and colorful characters that have shaped the neighborood. Also featured are Holly Hills’ extraordinary architecture and lush landscape setting. Engaging text and rich images depict the development of the adjacent Bellerive area, which boasts a rich collection of early twentieth-century Arts and Crafts architecture, luxuriant Carondelet Park, spectacular Bellerive Park, and the boulevards that tie the parks and residential areas together.”

This Sat. June 5, 2010, local historian and author NiNi Harris will be signing copies of her new book “Holly Hills” at from 2-4 p.m. The Bungalow is home of the oldest beer garden in St. Louis!

Although I’ve had a review copy for a few weeks now I’ll admit I haven’t read the book cover to cover — yet.  What I have done is go through the entire book looking at a great collection of images and reading about each.  Harris enjoys highlighting small facets of community — the people, where they lived, where they worked and so on.   The history of Holly Hills, like much of our region, actually goes back to the 19th century.

Other posts I’ve done about books by NiNi Harris:

• Book Review; ‘Unyielding Spirit, the history of the Polish people in St. Louis’ by NiNi Harris
• Book Review; ‘Historic Photos of the Gateway Arch’ by NiNi Harris

- Steve Patterson

Faded Glory or a Glorious Future?

As most frequent visitors know, I’m not from around here (I’ve “only” lived in St. Louis for about 5 years). I don’t remember Sportsman Park or where the Blues used to play. I never went to Gaslight Square or the Highlands amusement park. I never rode on a streetcar here, nor do I have any irrational cravings for a concrete or for Provel cheese. I’m an outsider, and I’m still learning a lot about my new hometown.

Earlier this year, Forbes Magazine did a special series on the State of the City, and unlike many series, focused on the whys cities are the way they are, instead of just creating another list. I found many points that crystallized more than a few of my perceptions and observations about St. Louis, both the city and the region, and offered more than a few insights about what the future may hold for us and how we may or may not get there.

In an effort to be succinct, I’m purposely not going to quote from any of the articles – it would be best if you explored them on your own – but I think there are multiple topics worth further, local discussion, everything from the role suburbia plays to discussions on parks, public art and high-speed rail. Many of the issues raised aren’t new – crime, schools, sprawl, taxes, jobs – but the spin is not always what we’ve come to expect. I’d encourage you to take the time to look at one or more in depth, and then to come back and post your thoughts on the issues that seem most relevant.

- Jim Zavist