Decatur Dissed By Duany?
Decatur Metro | February 26, 2009 | 1:32 pmOh snap!
Though Scott and E reported that smart growth “godfather” Andres Duany mentioned Decatur in a recent presentation, they didn’t mention how, in the words of CL’s Thomas Wheatley, “deliciously brutal” he was about metro-Atlanta.
For instance…ehem…wanna make sure I get this right…
“If Decatur’s great, it’s only in the absence of anything better.”
And while that particular nugget certainly stings more than just a little for a community that’s been trying hard to reverse its bad development practices for over 20 years, you’ll probably find yourself agreeing with Duany as he turns his attention to other, less flattering aspects of Atlanta’s urban landscape.
All of these delightful Duany bites can be found in Wheatley’s post over on Fresh Loaf.
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It didn’t help that one poor woman was hit by a car on Courtland on her way to the presentation — http://saportareport.com/blog/?p=177
Those 15 story parking decks baffle me too. Who has the patience for that? Also, do you get dizzy after making it all the way up?
Let’s not go gettin’ all up in yo’s bizness, now. E and I tried — not too well, I s’pose — to clarify this in the last exchange. That is the correct quote, but he was talking about block connectivity at the time, not the town as a whole.
Agreed it plays more deliciously out of context though.
I figured it might be an “out of context” thing, but man it was too juicy to ignore. But I agree… that Wheatley character must be stopped at any cost.
Hehe. Agreed.
Duany is a very provacative speaker. He makes an intereting presentation about a subject that many would otherwise find dull. ARC has his first presentation up on their website http://www.atlantaregional.com/html/4921.aspx .
I don’t have direct quotes, but some of his other remarks:
McMansions substitute for the shortcomings of the public realm. Instead of going to a movie, the owner enters his media room. Instead of going to a coffee shop, the owner uses their $400 expresso machine. Rather than going to a gym, the resident of a McMansion uses their exercise room.
Duany speculated that large suburban homes could evolve into successful boarding homes. Duany said, “It will be a cold day in hell when the zoning codes permit boarding homes in subdivisions.” And then he added, “It is a cold day in hell.”
“Walt Disney figured out a long time ago that Americans will pay to enjoy a pedestrian experience. They charge you $100 a day to walk around their parks.”
“Growth is good in every aspect of our lives except development.”
Another of his insights…”American cities were once considered the best in the world. European planners came here to see how we did it.” After WWII, the US subsidized new home construction, but did not offer incentives for rehabilitation of older housing stock. This was the beginning of the end for American cities. Canada provided incentives to renovation as well as new construction and their urban environment is much better as a result.
The new urbanism refuses to address the problems of a non-homogeneous society.
I think Montreal is a better case study for us than all of Canada. Francophones live in their section of town and anglophones live in theirs.
I know we should all just get along but we don’t.
In addition I’ve always wondered how the older folks in your medium rise mixed use feel when the younger neighbors decide to party hardy into the night.
McMansions substitute for the shortcomings of the public realm. Instead of going to a movie, the owner enters his media room. Instead of going to a coffee shop, the owner uses their $400 expresso machine. Rather than going to a gym, the resident of a McMansion uses their exercise room.
——–
Does he mean that there’s a shortage of coffee shops or that there’s not enough coffee shops we can walk to?
If Decatur is Atlanta’s best example of higher-density, transit-oriented, mixed-use development, then I think he makes a fair point. Other cities have their DuPont Circle, Newbury Street, Union Square, Rive Gauche. We don’t. And don’t tell me it’s little five points. Personally I think that’s OK, and I love Decatur for what it is and what it isn’t. I think it’s more of a knock on the fact that Decatur is the best that a world-class city like Atlanta can come up with. Maybe the answer is video poker at Underground Atlanta.
He means it is pain to drive anywhere. Suburbanites and others who live in places where walking is nearly impossible, must drive everywhere, and to make matters worse: it is an ugly drive on the commercial arterials in the burbs.
Riding in a car is pretty boring. I mean really – when was the last time we enjoyed a car ride – age 2? My dog gets a lot more out of the car than I do. I’d much rather walk to a coffee house, a restaurant or work than drive.
david,
New urbanism absolutely deals with a hetrogenuous society. It provides a wide variety of housing types and prices. Thereby encouraging different income groups, different age groups and different household types to live in one community. Americans and others have self-selected neighborhoods, particularly along racial and class lines. I don’t believe anyone believes that new urbanism is the panacea that is going to overcome our race issues.
The suburbs offer a mono-culture. It is designed for mom, dad and two kids. The houses are four bedrooms 2.5 baths with two car garages. The vast majority of new home buyers are not Ozzie and Harriet with kids. The burbs fail to meet the needs of anyone that doesn’t drive: the elderly and children. Mom and dad become chauffers delivering the kids to school, soccer, church and friends. As people age and driving becomes an increasing obstacle, the elderly tend to become isolated.
See my previous comment about partying. In a mixed use not only will they still be isolated they’ll be annoyed too.
I’ve studied “new urbanism” and have met Duany and seen him talk. As E said, he definitely is a provocative speaker. He also has an ego larger than his vision. As Bo says, if Decatur is the best Atlanta has to offer, then Decatur suffers by comparison to other areas of the country and world. Where I think Duany is clearly missing the point is in the area of community. Decatur may not be what Duany would design if he sat down with a blank canvas and open land. But Decatur should be lauded for what we’ve accomplished in the last 10 or 20 years. Ours is more organic growth.
The one thing that people crave is community. New urbanism creates a landscape that gives the potential for community. When you walk more, see your neighbors more, etc. you get to know them and you create community. You can build a new urbanist development, but you can’t build community with sticks and bricks. That comes from the people. And this is where Decatur shines. What Duany cannot get from looking at a map of Decatur and driving through it once or twice is the community that we have in Decatur.
Well said MC….well said.
Great presentation E. Really does a good job of summarizing his New Urbanism argument, plus towards the end he talks about the effects of the recent economic collapse, which I found interesting.
And of course Duany has a big ego. Thank goodness for that. Shrinking violets don’t promote change, and with this plethora of empty and dying suburbia, we need some sort of revised plan that isn’t based on cheap energy.
Though I’d love to promote more controversy (what blogger doesn’t?) I don’t think Decaturites should be all that offended by the remark. He was trying to make a brutal point about street grids so people would take notice. But MC points to something important that I was considering yesterday, as I constantly fluctuate back and forth between consideration for the past and the future of our urban environments.
Decatur may not have the best street grid anymore…thanks mainly to the MARTA station, Commerce Drive and lets not forget the wholesale destruction of Beacon Hill, but I think a city’s history and organic evolution goes a long way in making up for that, adding an extra, unseen layer of “community” where perhaps our street grid fails. Knowing that we nearly lost the Old Courthouse, on top of all else that was lost, doesn’t make the town more walkable, but it does add our sense of community.
I shudder to think that we almost lost that great sightline up Clairemont to the courthouse.
I also think the grid isn’t everything.
Every time I see this sort of thing I’m reminded of Corbusier’s Ville Radieuse. Beautiful to look at, logical to think about, and utterly impractical.
David, actually Duany and other folks interested in New Urbanism (like the irascible Kunstler) often hold up Le Corbusier’s ideas as a foil to their own – that is, as something they never want to replicate. Corbusier was instrumental in the development of the suburbs; Gwinett has more in common with Corbusier than any mixed-use development does. Corbusier hated the closed-in feeling he got when he walked on a street with tall buildings, and loathed the pedestrian areas (he was a notorious germophobe) and as a consequence loved the isolation of the automobile.
In all, it sounds like you are worried about potential changes in your lifestyle that would force you to have closer interactions with neighbors. You could always go knock on someone’s door to ask them to be more quiet if they are keeping you up at night. Thats a pretty small price to pay for many of the benefits – economical, environmental, aesthetic – of the type of thing Duany is talking about. Or, you could mow down some more trees, pour some more asphalt, build an expensive network of sewage and electrical infrastructure – just to assuage your uncomfortable feeling of confronting a neighbor.
I think some see Le Corbusier when when looking at New Urbanist greenfield plans in particular, since they are similar in terms of building entire towns from the ground up. The non-organic aspect of a NU town can be a bit overwhelming, especially early in the development’s lifetime. I can’t say this point was completely lost on me when visiting Celebration, FL.
But I think one of the many differences between the New Urbanist like Duany and the father of modernism is that Duany is aware and values the infinite aspects that make up a community and wouldn’t be willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater just to improve a grid.
DM, good point; Le Corbusier and Duany have both designed greenfield “towns” that always feel a little sterile and creepy (it’s no coincidence the Truman Show picked one of Duany’s spaces for the film, and Celebration made me want to run away and take a shower) – but I find Duany’s rhetoric and principles to be better than their design – and far better ideologically than Corbusier. I think charm takes time, and local traditions, and defined communities that we just don’t have, and so you get designers trying to impose an identity on a neighborhood that doesn’t exist yet… so it feels creepy. But my distinction between NU and modernism boils down to this: Duany’s whole point is to make a place where you can live your whole life within walking distance of your home. Corbusier was the exact opposite; he loved cars. One idea has promise, and the other is dead as a doornail. As for NU, I am more interested in their call to revamp crowded suburban spaces that were themselves built from scratch in the 1960s-80s (such as their big push to revitalize Tysons Corner, VA; NPR did a great story on this in December), because these are the places we’ll be needing to convert in the future. Let’s just hope they don’t make them into creepy but walkable places.
This has been a great discussion. Anything new from the ground up looks sterile and often contrived. Some places have good bones to work with and others will never be successful because the street layout is a disaster. Decatur has good bones; Gwinnett not so much.
For some places to improve, it will take wrenching changes. Duany showed a plan for Toco Hills that completely redesigned the area with a grid layout that would tie into some existing residential streets. I believe his team also proposed using a tunnel for some of the regional pass through traffic (Garvin did the same for the Sembler proposal). I’m fairly certain the residents that live on streets adjacent to these commercial centers aren’t ready for that kind of change. I wonder if the public is willing to impose that kind of change? The change could foster transit, walkable neighborhoods, reduced congestion, housing for seniors and more affordable housing in close-in areas.
So the plan is to throw out the elderly from their well-maintained, heavily wooded apartments that are close to a senior center, walking trails, and a library to redevelop the land? And maybe include a few affordable units for the old folks?
The “on the ground reality” is a developer wants to maximize profit and is dragging New Urbanism into the equation.
The Duany team looked at more than the existing senior complex. They took in the entire Toco Hills commercial district.
E, totally agree. In fact I bike to work precisely because, among other reasons, driving and sitting in traffic sucks. I do not understand why people live in Alpharetta and essentially serve as full-time chauffers to their kids, etc.
In my condo, the whippersnappers invite the codgers to the parties. While true, the enfeebled leave early, they/we can entertain by telling stories of the fabled 60s. Party skillz die slowly. And the demographic can afford your better wines and microbrews.
I think you are being overly fearful. Good design and construction can deal with that.
Priceless, Nolie. Thanks.
Bo, you nailed it! Sad and true.
All the fancy talk and ocassional sophistry of new urbanism should be on the back burner until the safety of the in-town neighbirhoods can be better addressed. Just asked the people who used to have flat-panel TVs in Oakhurst or the recent corpses that have been halled away.
My friend lives in a Gwinnett subdivision. There has been a home invasion and numerous break-ins there. What does that prove about the topic? Answer: nothing.
That is, indeed the case. Unfortunately, many NU developers don’t, once they get into building their projects.
Example: when Charles Brewer was first planning out his first project, he specifically pointed out that there will be affordable basement apartments. Didn’t happen.
Maybe not the basement apartments, Joe, but that’s just one product. Glenwood Park still has garage apartments, flats and lofts available for rent and purchase prices run from around $170K to close to a million. Maybe unattainable to some income levels but surely it’s unfair to suggest Brewer failed to address diversity.
E, agreed. Good discussion.
Curious…did the Toco Hills plan redesign entire existing neighborhoods, or just all the strip mall sprawl up there?
The Toco Hills site was actually not the shopping center. It was across Clairmont on a privately-held plot (called “Williamsburg,” I believe) of mid-century apartments. The owner is looking to redevelop and agreed to serve as one of the target sites.
One note: Most of the apartments are currently occupied by seniors, which brought an additional element to the aging in place discussion. That is, if you redevelop to better address the future but displace seniors in the present, that’s not a good aging-in-place solution. Duany addressed this in his closing, making the point that on-the-ground realities must play a much more significant role should the design process move from theoretical to real.