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"Between the Edges"
Milos Bobic
introduction
THOTH Publishers, 2004. |
Between the Edges
Street-building transition as urbanity interface
First, besides the financial limitations of consumers, there is a contemporary production process that is unable to bring an occupant's dreams to fruition. This process is preconditioned by state-controlled subsidies and mortgage policy exclusively oriented towards the housing market. All functions other than housing are of secondary importance, proportional to the investment risk, and state interests and limits. The influences of particular and group interests, especially those of investors, have a crucial impact on a final product that is inevitably mono-functional and stereotypical.
Second, both present development speed and the short existence of new settlements have an important impact on their lack of urbanity. Homogeneity of a community develops over time, as does urbanity. Only by living together can people develop a system of social codes and common culture. For that purpose, they are supposed to be able to adapt the living environment according to their needs and cultural level, but usually such adaptation is impossible. On the contrary, as James Vance (1990) wrote, "the adaptation of city forms from one stage to another and from one functional relationship to another is one of the more common structural processes". Only through transformation of the designed spatial forms, functional configuration and social pattern may a balance between inhabitants and their living environment be achieved. Only in such a way may the designed forms become forms of living.
Third, it seems that certain structural conditions are causing failure among the professionals and their practical experiments. For a liveable city environment a good plan is not enough. Present development strategies and the power of participants in the process, as well as urban doctrine stand as barriers against serious breakthroughs in the present development pattern. Urban regulations are inflexible and do not follow particular situations, procedure is too long and inefficient, householders are mostly without any direct influence upon the developing process and the representatives of development corporations have discrete influence on all decisions. Because of state's withdrawal from investment in the housing sector a significant paradox has evolved: developers have become responsible not only for their particular interests, but for a public interest as well (Priemus and Dieleman 2002).
Fourth, in countries with a strong tradition and a long history of social housing - as Dutch society for example - appearance of the housing market as a leading development force causes an obvious paradox. Houses can be sold as private property, but the urban planning rules are still following patterns developed under the social housing system whereby buildings are considered collective property and owners do not have the right to transform the exterior of their home according to their own desire. This paradox of private ownership under collective control expresses both a high level of state paternalism and professional inertia among urban bureaucracy and planners.
Finally, on the theoretical level, among the disciplines within urbanism (sociology, urban planning, economy, geography) and among other professionals, serious gaps in interpretations of urbanity have occurred. Dispersion of ideas, creative potential and often-opposed concepts of urbanity characterise the state of affairs. The dominant concepts in different fields seldom advocate opposed points of view. They differ from the standpoint supporting an urbanity dependent on economic potential and globalisation, via those that advocate the importance of social and occupational propinquity, and favour extreme positions that oppose the importance of urbanity in today's cities, thanks to mobility and electronic communications development.
Those are the main reasons why, aside from some improvements, no major breakthrough in the present condition has been made. Basically, there is not enough effort to interrelate physical and social aspects of the city. By all these positions, the two traditional standpoints in urban theory are questioned: On one side, the fact that every society has a specific spatial representation, broadly advocated in Lynch's theory and, on the other, the fact that city space is a consequence, not a cause, of urbanisation, as we have been taught by David Harvey.
It seems obvious, if the development of urbanity should follow the growth of urbanisation, that some changes on crucial points of the system that produces the contemporary city are also necessary. This seems to be a monumental task. With such an ambitious goal, targeting structural changes of the system as a precondition, the practice is imited, waiting for some better moment in the future. For the time being, millions of houses and a number of new settlement and neighbourhoods will be built in Europe. In the course of time, the chance for a radical change becomes less and less realistic. As Kenneth Frampton (1980) pointed out, there is a real possibility, even under the supposition of some radical change of the system, that change would not be put in place because the new system would have to operate on the basis of enormous physical and technical heritage from the previous one. Macro infrastructure and communications, settlements and houses, devastated landscape and ecosystem - in other words, the whole infrastructure and superstructure developed under the present system will become a huge ballast, a barrier for any kind of radical change in the future.
Because of the complexity and high expenses of restructuring of these settlements, which usually cost far more then primary investment, such actions most often end up in the demolition of the existing, and building all over again. It seems obvious that the combination of the market economy and the state's excessive social concern together can not make things better. We should remember many planned city projects that have been demolished after several decades because of their poor conditions, overcrowding, anonymity or economic depression, like the St. Louis's Pruitt-Igoe housing slabs in 1972, or became experiments of radical reconstruction like Sheffield in the '80s or Amster-dam in the '90s.
These examples demonstrate clearly that urban quality and in particular the phenomenon of urbanity need to be approached with a more appropriate strategy. And this poses the question: What is the alternative? What is a possible effective approach and where can it be applied? In the first place, it seems necessary to find a concept of urbanity that offers a certain framework rather than a personal standpoint or a strict definition. Because of the complexity of its causal factors, urbanity cannot be explained through one single definition. For that reason, it seems more reasonable to look into some common denominators in the present discussion. There are not many of them, but a few may help in locating the problem.
First, there is the common understanding that urbanity is not a particular and exclusive spatial phenomenon. This follows the idea that it has a spatial representation, i.e. that some spatial configurations have more effect on its development than others. The fact that it cannot be implanted or designed is the third common denominator. Therefore, the category of time occurs as our fourth inherent framework of urbanity. Finally, the fifth denominator is the standpoint that there is no single form or type of urbanity. In other words, many of its forms result from specific cultures. We may say that each urbanity has its own realm, a notion necessary for this discussion to be possible at all.
But, there is also one significant, less visible common denominator. In the present discussion radical ideas and high expectations are prevailing. As a consequence, neighbourhoods and the everyday lives of their citizens remain out of focus. For that reason, the whole theme of urbanity had been displaced from its traditional core, from the place where it appears and grows. It is often forgotten that an average of about 75% of every city is dedicated to housing environments. At the same time housing makes about 95% of new developments. Here, in the residential enviroments, real cultures are mirrored as the main protagonists of daily city life. If urbanity cannot be implanted but conditioned and nurtured then it must also be maintained by people. For such a reason, it seems reasonable to observe more closely the environments where its common roots develop.
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