How Cities Work
In response to the problems facing the Houston region -- you know the list: air quality, congestion, storm water control, availability of drinking water, urban sprawl -- a group of dedicated members gathered about a year ago to determine whether a R/UDAT (Regional Urban Design Assistance Team) could assist in addressing and perhaps solving these regional issues. They have asked themselves and others lots of questions. What is the target area? Who is the client? How will we refine the problem statement? Who are the stakeholders? Could another R/UDAT complete the recommendations of the one in 1990? Why didn't the 1990 client (the city of Houston) implement those recommendations? Why is the ordinance requiring comprehensive planning -- a product of the 1990 effort -- still on the books but not acted upon?
We have been warned that Houston will gain about 1 million in population within 20 years. How will we handle that? An indication of how much things do not change is a comment from the Hare and Hare report to the Planning Commission in 1929:
"Houston's growth has been rapid and promises to increase. It is the purpose of this plan to provide for the welfare, convenience and happiness of present and future citizens. In adopting the provisions of the plan, the people of Houston and their officials will have to decide whether they are building a great city or merely a great population."
What makes a great city? What determines the shape of a city? The turn of this century has evoked plenty of comment on those questions -- from dull, dry statistical report to fiery polemic. As is my wont when troubled by a problem, I started reading some of that comment -- most recently How Cities Work: Suburbs, Sprawl, and the Roads Not Taken by Alex Marshall.
It's a book worth reading. Marshall is neither an architect nor a planner but a journalist who grew up and still lives in Norfolk, Virginia. His purpose in writing was to critique New Urbanism, which he says is "more destructive than not in its effect on city planning." He really gives Celebration, Florida, Andres Duany, and developers in general a working over.
Much of the book, however, describes what he thinks are the three determinants of a city, great or otherwise: transportation, economics, and politics.
On the role of government he says: "Imagine sprawling suburban wastelands like Dade County or Houston if government had actually laid out a street pattern early on, before development occurred. These places would still be suburban but they would be suburban more coherently."
On transportation: "Highways, train lines, sidewalks, and bike paths are a service, or an investment, around which the rest of society and an economy constructs itself."
His comments support the conclusion that the R/UDAT steering group has reached: some kind of institutionalized regional decision-making is essential for the region to become other than a very large population spread over an incredibly large area.
"To build a good neighborhood," Marshall says, "one must first build a good region."
Do you agree? Do you want to shape Houston's future? Share your vision. Join the R/UDAT steering group. Call me, I'll put you to work.
Martha Murphree, Hon. AIA
