what to do with old buildings & open spaces

These two topics might seem unrelated, but I think that they actually intertwined with one another:  the opportunity and potential of a blank slate (with respect to planning a park or building homes) and people's extreme adoration or abhorrence for historic structures.

I think this connection is illustrated by the Mueller Development in Austin.  All the sudden the city had a large parcel of land close to the city center with which to do whatever they pleased.  They chose to use it for affordable housing to deal with the large lack of such housing in Austin.  They also are developing it in other ways, with retail, grocery stores, health care, and parks and public spaces (this is interesting and informational, but kind of unrelated to my point: http://www.kxan.com//dpp/news/investigations/mueller-bursts-with-major-developments )  But even as the city develops this area in many different ways, they still try to keep a connection to what was there before: an airport.  They kept the old air-traffic control tower and adorned it with colorful Christmas lights, and the new HEB planned is going to have an aviation theme.  (on Google Earth you can still see the old runway... I think they should keep that somehow, perhaps as a type of main street or promenade, but that's probably not viable)  It was just an airport, not an old historic church or anything like that, but still people feel an attachment and the need to preserve what was there before.  I think is simple and not very controversial example of this relation between the ideas of blank slates and old objects.

This relationship is more prevalent and important in scenarios like the Holly Street Power Plant and the Freemason Lodge in Mart, TX.  I think the basic program of the Holly Street project has been decided, but not the specifics.  They are going to expand the park, which I think is a great idea considering its location in East Austin along the river.  And it is my understanding that the power plant itself is destined to be completely removed, with no trace of it remaining.  In this case, the people o the community hated the building and saw it as a symbol of oppression and wanted it gone, regardless of what kind of spatial opportunities the infrastructure cold provide.  The power plant was so offensive to them that they wanted to just erase the piece of history from memory.  In Mart, the opposite is true.  The Freemason lodge is in total disrepair, but the people who use it would defend the structure at all costs.  Even though the building is basically ready to fall over, the history embedded in it is something irreplaceable to the community.  This situation presents many unique opportunities, whether they eventually decide to demolish it, somehow preserve it, or something in between.  There may not be tons of money available for the project, but the fact that the space is there and the building is so important to the people gives this project mush potential.  Personally, I think that decommissioning the building but keeping elements of the actual structure as a memorial, and making the site into a park, and perhaps eventually build a community center to keep and expand on the functionality of the lodge would be a fine way to treat this project.

There is a segment towards the end of the "Urbanized" documentary we watched in class about the redevelopment, for lack of a better word, of parts of New Orleans affected by Hurricane Katrina.  There is boom in building of new and architecturally interesting houses, and houses are nice and necessary, but they are not all the the area needs to rebuild itself, and frankly they aren't designed to match the character of the area and I doubt that the people of the community really identify with them.  The documentary profiled a public art artist who had a project of placing stickers on abandoned and derelict building throughout the affected districts.  They were made to resemble those "Hello, my name is:" stickers but they read "I wish this was:"  People passing by these buildings in their community would write in their desires for the structures.  Responses ranged from 'a park' or 'McDonalds' to 'not here' or 'owned by someone who cared.'  In the end this project was really just a piece of art, but I think that methods like this could be a great way for planners to communicate with residents of a community and learn how they feel about existing or historic structures in their neighborhood or their attitudes and ideas towards the development of public places.

"Urbanized"

I Netflixed that documentary we watched in class before spring break and I have watched it more than once now, really thinking about what each segment is saying.  It's really good...  All of my classes this semester, while different, at the end now all seem to relate and make me think, and this documentary helps me understand more clearly what I am thinking about... if that makes sense.  A few segments really stood out to me.

The first person to speak is the Director of the New York City Department of Planning.  she says "Urban design is really the language of the city.  When you walk down the street, everything you see has been designed:  The width of the sidewalk, where trees are planted, the scale of the trees, how the street furniture interacts, how many store you have per block, the height of the buildings, where they are set back; each one of these things has been thought about."  That statement kind of blows my mind.  Maybe my mind should've been blown the first week of this class, but perhaps it took a whole semester of this class and to hear that statement again for it to really sink in.

They go on to talk about various things from slums in India to public transportation to Jane Jacobs.  One of the final segments that we didn't get to view in class is about a proposed massive redevelopment of a large piece of Stuttgart to replace and bury existing old railways and build tons of apartments and stores on the surface.  This sounds like a great idea to me, but then you are presented with what has to happen in order for the project to take place:  You have to demolish an old and historic train station that is very important to the people of Stuttgart, as well as removed a park and cut down huge trees that are hundreds of years old.  The segment profiles the massive opposition to this redevelopment project.  Apparently, almost 20 years ago the people of the town did approve a sort of redevelopment, but the process of designing the new project was plagued with problems and stops and starts and spanned many years and this made it nearly impossible for the community to be involved and informed about the process.  It is said that nearly 2/3s of people in Stuttgart now oppose the project and there is a massive opposition organization that stages rallies and protests.  When workers came to start cutting down trees there was basically a riot with police macing people and spraying them with fire hoses and arresting people.  It reminded me more of the Arab Spring or something than community participation or whatever about a public works project.  Community participation isn't the right word, but really, it was insane.  The community was so polarized by this issue and the people cared so much, just about saving a park and a building.  It was impressive how much they cared.  I know people get really worked up over issues like this in Austin, but I don't see anything like this happening here.  Not to say that we don't care, or that the people in Stuttgart are barbarians, but there just has to be something about our American society that is engrained in our DNA that while we are attached to our communities, by comparison, and as a whole, we are apathetic.  Does this make sense?  America is just so huge with so much space and we have become spoiled and come to take things for granted that we just don't care so much.  Either that, or it's because our society has been broken up into so many different groups and factions all wanting different things and we are too busy arguing that we can't some together to fight for what is important to us.

Mueller Development

My girlfriend recently purchased a house in the Mueller development. She's only 24 and definitely couldn't have afforded the house with out the assistance from the affordable housing program they have there, but with the assistance and rent from roommates she is going to be able to actually own her own home.

I've visited the area several times recently and gotten to hear some of the details of how the process of getting a house works. It seems like there is some red tape to deal with, but I suppose its necessary to accomplish the goal. She had to deal with her realtor, some other realtor, and also a representative of the affordable housing program. They required her to submit pay stubs and other information about her income. Even though she did earn less that the income limit and had a signed letter from her employer the program representative claimed she earned too much to qualify for a new house, but she did qualify for a resale. On that note, if you own a house in Mueller you have to get approval from the offices to do any substantial changes or improvements to your house, and if you choose to sell your house you first have to offer it back to Mueller first to be resold as affordable housing, though they may decline. Ultimately, if you do qualify, Mueller will pay $89,000 dollars of your house.

They have various different types of houses in Mueller for various income levels. They have houses, row houses, duplex-type houses, condos, and even larger more expensive homes, thought I am not sure wether those are involved with the affordable housing program. The video below talks about how the Muller development got rolling. The city had this large piece of land close to the center of town, and really the only option for it was to make housing, to take a bite of the some 35,000 people without available affordable housing. (we talked about this at the beginning of the semester, I think that is the right number.) It seems like the housing there is just getting eaten up. everything they have built is full, and even some condos and houses not even built yet already have owners.

http://www.muelleraustin.com/photos-and-videos#num=0&id=223

they have a nice website. it has just basic info about the area and the program, but it also has more in-depth information like design guidelines, information about purchasing homes, and also serves as a event guide and community message board.

http://www.muelleraustin.com/

The area does kind of feel like some generic tract home development, filled with McMansion Jrs, and home styles are kind of bland and beige colored, but I think underneath the outer layer it is a really well thought out and planned community and a nice place to live. They homes are close together and small, so the population is dense, but the layout and green spaces make it seem like a suburban neighborhood. There are a few small green spaces throughout and one large central park with a playground and pool. The pool house is pretty cool, we even visited it once for a Construction class. On the older streets the trees have started to grow in and the sidewalks are nice to walk on. There are several amenities nearby including more parks and an outdoor amphitheater and a place for foodtrucks farmer's markets. There is a nice civic center in core of the Muller area as something that would draw outsiders to the area. There are also multi-story apartment buildings next to the housing development with commercial businesses and restaurants on the ground level. Nearby they are planning on building an HEB designed by Lake-Flato, and it's neat a large retail center with a Home Depot and things like that. They even kept the old air traffic control tower and put pretty lights on it as a reminder of the area's past (this reminds me of the potential of the Holly St. Power Plant).

It's not all built yet, but they really are making this area a town within a town, an urban node that is a blend of a nice suburban neighborhood with houses and parks and ponds and a more dense urban area with mixed-use structures that is walkable and is a place that Austinites would want to live in or visit. I hope this post doesn't seem like an infomercial. Before I didn't know much about the area or the housing program, and was skeptical, but having had some experience with it and after taking a closer look I have come to really appreciate the area and the efforts it is making to improve the city.

Houston Geodesic Dome

my favorite tv channel is the Science Channel, and I spent a few days at my parents house and got to watch me some. they have a show about crazy and large scale futuristic theoretical engineering projects, and this one was about a huge transparent geodesic dome built over downtown Houston. the purpose of the dome would be to protect the downtown area from hurricanes and also to help regulate the climate to be cooler and less humid, so as to reduce necessary air conditioning and limit the city's carbon footprint. everyone they interviewed seemed to know what they were talking about and they made it seem completely feasible within the next 50 years or so, but really the show was really silly. after half a semester of this class it made me think about what the social/economic/demographic/whatever implications of building a large dome over downtown Houston would be. I think it would act like I-35 in Austin and create two very distinct zones: inside and out. prices of living units would rise dramatically inside the dome. all the rich people would move inside the dome, and all the poor people would be pushed out and I imagine would congregate directly on the outside of the dome. I think the dome, already literally a bubble, would figuratively become a bubble and all those living within it would eventually come to live their lives entirely in the bubble and remove themselves from the greater city. in the event of a hurricane, everyone would desperately be trying to get into the bubble, and there wouldn't be room for everyone, so how would they decide who gets in and who doesn't? I think it would probably result in riots. and how would they even get the funding for the dome? taxpayers? they wouldn't want to pay for it unless they were going to live under it? they would have to get it privately funded by companies located in the downtown area. anyway, this whole discussion is silly. the idea is silly, and this theoretical discussion of the ramifications is silly, but what isn't silly, or maybe the most silly thing of all is that because of this class I now think of all these things, even when I'm just sitting around watching tv. I feel smarter.

On Jane Jacobs

I think I have learned about Jane Jacobs before, but basically forgot about her until she was discussed in class on Monday. I LIKE HER. from what I heard in class, she sounds like she advocated a style of zoning/planning that I like and was trying to advocate in my first blog post. Her idea of a sort of laissez- faire, libertarian attitude towards zoning, that would just let the city develop on its own, and on its own would great dense and diverse communities, is one that I really like. You should just let the city grow as it and its people want it to over time, and the end result will be a very unique and varied condition. There may be problematic issues that arise, but then the community should simply edit itself. Pruning and trimming and mowing the lawn. I think that the government should impose some basic rules and guidelines, like rules for fire-safety and such, and say don't put a porno shop next to a school, things like that, but beyond that, specifics should be set out. Does that make sense? At the end of the lecture on Jane Jacobs we discussed reasons why her plan for no planning wasn't as perfect as she thought and reasons why it wouldn't really work other places. I think basically it was what she liked was just her rich white lady neighborhood, and simply letting areas be themselves wouldn't produce similar results in other locations, because there was a very specific set of circumstances that led the the development of her neighborhood as she liked it? now I'm thinking that maybe her ideal neighborhood and the one in which she lived were very different, and her ideal one never really existed? I should look into her more. Anyway, I think that any sort of attitude and method toward planning is not going to be perfect and have problems, but I still think that the libertarian approach is best. Have a libertarian attitude towards planning in all places, and you will see as a result vastly differing neighborhoods and cities with varying densities and lots of diversity... and if something undesirable develops, simply trim it out. I like this train of thought, but I am worried it sounds like nonsense... I should refine this idea and use it in my policy paper...

D.U.M.B. Housing

So I have lived in an 'Quarters' apartment in west campus for 3 years now. I kind of hate it, but also, I like it just fine. West campus isn't very nice when everyone is drunk and making a mess, but it's a 10 minute walk from school, so that is great. The building and apartment I live in are kind of lame and have no character, and I pay way too much for a 400 sq ft studio apartment, but it's new and clean and everything works and I have it set up the way I like and I have a nice view and natural light, so really, it is just fine for me. I was planning on moving at the end of the school year and I didn't renew my lease. But I have one more semester left next fall, so I decided why not just stay there another year and not have to hassle with moving? I knew my rent would probably go up, but I went to check if my same unit was available for the next leasing period. It was available, but it had been reallocated as one of the Quarters' 5% of their units set aside for S.M.A.R.T. housing, and I am still a dependent of my parents, so I don't qualify... I argued and pled with the management, who are all idiots, but they said there is no way I could stay in my apartment next year... S.M.A.R.T. housing sounds like a great idea to me, but I don't think the city should just make it a universal mandate across Austin. It should be specialized to match the area the units are located. This may actually be the case, but if so, they should revisit their policy on west campus. I know someone in our class said they use S.M.A.R.T. housing in 21 Rio, but still. My apartment with the smart housing rate is $900 dollars a month for a 400 sq ft studio. That is more than what I pay right now, which is my rate when I first signed my lease 3 years ago. Get real. People who qualify as low-income are not going to pay that much. So basically, my apartment is most likely going to sit empty for at least a year until they decide it isn't SMART housing anymore, and I will have to move, and then end up moving again a year later. I don't know how much of this is to blame on SMART housing, or the Quarters management, but those make me equally pissed. Also, they need to stop building giant high-rise apartments in west campus while the existing ones are half-full. Maybe they should just burn west campus down and start over...

ZONING !

I think that I am more anti-zoning than pro-zoning, but I recognize that it is necessary evil. Think of places that grew-up without zoning. Not large metropoli like Houston, but smaller scale places. I live in West Campus; this place didn't evolve without zoning, but in recent years the zoning has been changed and loosened to allow for larger and taller buildings to be built. If you stand on the northeast corner of 22nd and Rio Grande and look northwest you see a few neat old houses in the foreground, and then 10 story tall apartments and garages in the background. West Campus is a really eclectic and interesting place I think. I don't really like the student population who lives there getting drunk and trashing the place every weekend, but I do like the fabric. Now back to my earlier thought. Think of a pioneer town in the 1800's or something; they didn't have a city plan or anything like that, they just picked a spot based on the water or the railroad and started building. They chose a main street and built what they needed and as they got bigger the built out from there. People lived out on farms, which might be equivalent to a suburb in my example, and some lived in town, but if anyone needed to conduct any kind of business they came into town, which is still somewhat true today. I think that places like that the grew out of necessity have a more organic and human quality to them, not like large planned areas of commercial strips and residential blocks, or even worse, forced mixed use developments like the Triangle - that place is awful... Another example of unplanned and nice places could maybe the UT campus? Actually, I am sure they have and had a very specific campus plan, but the University did expand from its original 40 acres as it needed, and over time the repositioning of different types and buildings and departments and the variety in style and old, medium, and new buildings creates a very eclectic and organic environment, in my eyes. So, I think planning ruins the character of places and makes them boring and contrived. I do think that now that the population has grown so large and the cities are growing so quickly that some planing and zoning guidelines are needed, but if it were up to me I would be very conservative in my application of these things and try to do them in a way to allow or at least emulate the organic and human growth that I am so fond of.