Suburban Nation - Andres Duany [127]
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The list of downtowns that have succeeded over the decades includes many that are wholly owned by a single company, such as Kansas City’s Country Club Plaza; Shaker Heights, Ohio; Lake Street, Chicago; and downtown Nantucket.
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The same is true for large office facilities. When we were working in Trenton, New Jersey, we were surprised to learn that sixteen thousand state office workers were located in that seemingly unpopulated downtown. They were largely invisible, thanks to their being able to park in garages immediately adjacent to their buildings. Not only did their daily trajectories never leave state property but any desire to venture to nearby shops and restaurants was immediately discouraged by the no-man’s-land of surrounding parking.
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In Miami Beach, sidewalk dining is subject to a number of wise regulations: All tablecloths and napkins must be real cloth rather than blow-away paper. Instead of cheap plastic, all glasses must be real glass, all plates must be ceramic, and all flatware must be metal. These rules provide a more elegant dining and pedestrian environment, discourage bad food, and reduce litter.
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An important catalyst in the revival of West Palm Beach has been the county’s performing arts magnet high school, established on an abandoned school site downtown.
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There is, however, a form of gentrification that should always be fought: government-imposed speculative gentrification, in which cities attempt to stimulate rebuilding downtown areas by raising their zoning capacity. This technique results in an increased tax assessment, which more often than not forces existing residents and businesses to depart. Meanwhile, the resulting higher land values actually end up impeding development, because the large-scale projects suggested by the new zoning present a risk that often can be undertaken only by the large developer. As a result, only one project may get built every five years, with that project singlehandedly absorbing all the real-estate demand of the next five years. While Americans seem to accept this form of development as inevitable—half of the city sitting empty while huge projects land in isolated locations like spaceships—a quick look across our northern border shows that this need not be the case. In Vancouver or Toronto it is not uncommon to see big new buildings inserted among old two- and three-story buildings. The difference is a tax policy that allows large-scale development without penalizing existing small property owners with higher taxes.
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Historic preservation ordinances are essential to maintaining the quality of our cities. Although such laws are often regarded as anti-business, many a troubled neighborhood has experienced a dramatic economic resurgence as a result of preservation-induced tourism, Miami’s Art Deco South Beach being an obvious example. However, as currently enforced, historic preservation can also undermine an area’s urban quality. This is due to the U.S. Department of the Interior guidelines which, inspired by the early modernist writings of the Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne, do not allow building additions to blend in. Specifically, they recommend that additions to older structures “always be clearly differentiated from the historic building,” in order to avoid any confusion of the different eras represented (The Secretary of the Interior’s Standards, pp. 58-59). In many cities this recommendation has been expanded beyond just additions, such that even entirely new buildings may not emulate their surroundings. This attitude, bred from the modernists’ hatred of historic styles, is now only useful to architectural historians who hate being fooled.
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This code looks different from a standard zoning code because it is about physical form. For example, it addresses building height instead of F.A.R. (Floor Area Ratio), the measure used by most municipalities nationwide. (F.A.R.