Suburban Nation - Andres Duany [96]
The real lesson is that the design of new places should be modeled on old places that work. Invention is welcome, but must be laid upon the solid foundation of precedent, as it is in medicine and jurisprudence.dv While this approach may be less entertaining than inventing a new building style every Monday morning—and thus far less popular in the architecture schools—it affords the designer a degree of expertise and authority that is lacking in the profession today.
Architects who accept the challenge of being not just inventors but experts will find ample opportunity to confront suburban sprawl. It is common knowledge which types of buildings constitute sprawl, just as it is understood which buildings create a pleasant, pedestrian-scale environment. How to turn the former into the latter, in a way that developers can live with, is also becoming better known. For architects who wish to become a part of the solution, the task is clear.
CITIZENS
Citizens can begin by understanding how much their environment affects—or, in fact, generates—their quality of life. Once this relationship is recognized, it becomes obvious how we can best serve our own needs by improving our physical surroundings. In an increasingly diverse nation, in which our social, intellectual, and spiritual realities can be as varied as our genealogy, the physical world is the one thing that we truly share. All the more important, then, that we work on it together.
Indeed, concern over one’s surroundings has the potential to create community among the most diverse populations. An urban or suburban neighborhood may be home to people of many backgrounds, but all share the same concern for the health and safety of their families and for their quality of life. Even if a neighborhood improvement effort fails at first, that effort can create the relationships that make future success more likely.
Among other things, this book is an appeal to the “armchair architect” to become an armchair urbanist. Armchair architects rarely have the opportunity to put their knowledge and energy to work. Since most buildings are designed without public participation, the mere citizen—unless wealthy enough to initiate private projects—is confined to the role of critic. The most influence an armchair architect can exert on a building is to block it.
In contrast, the armchair urbanist has a new opportunity every day to make a constructive contribution to the creation and improvement of the public realm. Thanks to several decades of activism, more and more urban-scale projects are being developed with the active participation of citizens in the design process. Their common sense is a necessary foil against the technical expertise of the specialists.
Furthermore, every citizen can initiate the improvement of the physical environment. Whether it be raising awareness of design issues at the grass-roots level, convincing local government of the need for a master plan or TND Ordinance to stop sprawl, or promoting a main street revitalization effort, private individuals have abundant opportunity to positively influence their surroundings. Many successful neighborhood improvement efforts can trace their origins back to the kitchen table of a concerned citizen.
Finally, armchair urbanists can begin to undermine the hegemony of sprawl simply by spreading the word. As this book should make clear, there are too many misconceptions about the American suburb. Most of us are not in the habit of thinking critically about our environment, or about how its form can dramatically affect the quality of our lives. Just raising the topic is a valuable start. Indeed, it is the only start. None of the government reforms discussed above will ever be initiated without voters clamoring for change.
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