This morning I posted a link to this editorial from The Architect’s Newspaper, which presents a positive view of ruin porn (or Detroitism,) a recent tendency to photograph the ruins of Detroit’s and marvel at their sombre beauty (see examples here, here and here). This article got me thinking: why are we fascinated with signs of urban decay? Why has the plight of Detroit become the object of so much attention? The ruins of Detroit symbolize much more than than the end of the industrial age. They remind us that even the greatest cities eventually die, that no matter how grand humanity can be, it cannot escape a tragic fate. Detroit’s photographs are morbidly beautiful, and we can’t stop watching.

But ruin porn is just part of a general tendency to underline how much Detroit has come to suck. Yes, Detroit sucks, and we revel in remembering and detailing how much it sucks as often as we can. Back when I was living in Seattle, the Stranger (one of the city’s alternative weeklies) published a 3000-word feature titled “Things I Remember About Detroit.” Apparently all there was to remember was violence, prostitution, drug deals, dirt and ruins. I read all 3000 words with vicious pleasure. I also viewed countless photo essays about Detroit’s abandoned buildings, and I even started sharing on this blog my own opinion about what Detroit needs in order to survive.

When I stumbled upon this article this morning I decided to make a quick search about what is said about ruin porn online, and it turns out a lot of good stuff has been written, pro and against the trend. But eventually, I found a feature piece from Vice magazine dating two years back, which eventually gave me an entirely different perspective on the issue.

Detroit residents are obviously not enthralled with the interest they’re getting from the media. The city is their home after all, and they know that life there is not always all gloom and despair. But what’s probably pissing them off the most is that the view of the city we get in the news is increasingly distorted. For example, Michigan Central Station, which has been used so many times as a symbol of the local declining industry, actually closed in the ’80s and was never used, if I remember correctly. The Packard Auto Plant in East Detroit, another photographers’ favourite, closed in 1956. Examples of misrepresentation abound: a 24-year-old journalist sent by Time magazine to spend 6 hours in town in order to write a feature article, photographs carefully cropped to portray decaying landscapes, articles obsessing over the community gardens and cool artsy projects happening in town (I plead guilty here), journalists who forget to make the difference between the effect of the crisis and urban planning (some neighbourhoods were emptied on purpose)… Beyond our morbid interest for Detroit’s ruins lie a failure of journalism to tell the true story.

Photo credits: From the article “Something something, something Detroit” . The caption reads: “Climbing a hillock for a better view of the grassy wastes surrounding Jane Cooper Elementary School. If you move the camera just a few inches to the left you’ll get a bustling, well-maintained food-packaging plant in frame, so be careful to crop that shit out. Photo by James Griffioen.”

Thomas Morton, the author of the Vice article, cites the following example of a local story that goes unnoticed by the national press:

Here’s the bummer: To get a nice, wide westerly view of the building complex you have to go into the adjacent cemetery. On the outer path at the edge of the plots there’s a large, jarringly ugly sign warning visitors to lock their cars and be alert for muggers. Next to this, on my visit, there was a haphazard stack of concrete grave liners sprinkled with dirt near an idling front-end loader whose front end was loaded with topsoil and plastic flowers.

There are families of white folk who fled Detroit for the suburbs in the 60s who have now become so terrified of visiting the city that they’re willing to disinter their dead loved ones and rebury them in their current neighbourhoods. And it’s not just one or two oddballs doing this—more than 1,000 bodies have been exhumed and moved since 2002. It’s a full-blown trend.

This type of stories is being reported in local media, but never make it to national headlines. In fact, says Morton, the most accurate reporting about the city has been done by local media organizations, such as the Detroit Free Press. And while ghostly pictures of a decaying city make a nice coffee-table book, not much ends up being done over there. I’m also thinking that we do such a good job at pitying Motown, but we suck at seeing urban and social dysfunction in our own cities.

I’ll probably keep on reading about Detroit. After all, it’s still a fascinating live experiment… But I’ll take everything with a grain of salt and I’ll try to think about those who live there. Or get my fix from sprawl porn instead.

Top photo: Flickr user killerfemme.

Ghost towns… We used to think about them as icons of the Wild West, traces of an ancient civilization (Petra) or as the unfortunate consequences of an accident (Prypiat, abandonned after the Chernobyl catastrophe.)

Financial speculation has since created another kind of ghost town, one created by the laws of modern banking and the rules of real estate. In the U.S., these towns are the foreclosed neighbourhoods of California or Florida, bought for a fortune and sold for nothing.

I’ve recently learned that the U.S. were not the only country dealing with a real estate bubble, far from it. Spain has been plagued with a problem of unfinished developments and unsold housing lots, well documented in these articles from the New York Times and the Guardian. In the meantime, its youth can’t afford to buy property, unless they sign 50-year mortgages.

What surprised me the most was the situation in China, whose housing bubble is taking gigantic proportions. The New South China Mall, the biggest mall in the world, has been sitting empty for years. Nearby, towns built for millions of people have a 25% occupancy rate, while residents in Beijing can’t afford to buy decent property.

Here are two striking videos that show the desolation of the Mall and explain the real estate bubble in China:

Watch the full episode. See more POV.

The question is: what will happen when China’s bubble, estimated to be way bigger than America’s, will burst?

Photo credits: Flickr user Remko Tamis, held under a Crative Commons license.

This article published in the New York Times on July 1st comes as rather good news for Detroit. It’s actually the first positive piece of news I’ve come across about this city in months — maybe years.

It seems the creative type has elected Detroit as its newest boom town. According to the article, “downtown Detroit experienced a 59 percent increase in the number of college-educated residents under the age of 35, nearly 30 percent more than two-thirds of the nation’s 51 largest cities.” Artists, designers, entrepreneurs and other types of young professionals have been taking advantage of low real estate prices and the growing number of career opportunities.

This phenomenon transpires in the number of trendy coffee shops and restaurants opening every year, renovated buildings as well as community initiatives being launched. I was particularly impressed by the Detroit Creative Corridor Center, an entrepreneurship hub providing services to new creative businesses.

There seems to be a certain parallel with what New Orleans has been experiencing since Katrina: a surge in creative initiatives and social entrepreneurship. Both cities still have a long way to go, but it seems that in such places that have been badly shaken by deep crisis, the feeling of community lies at the basis of the reconstruction effort. I hope we’ve only seen the beginning of what will be an amazing journey toward a renewed prosperity.

Photo credits: Ian Freimuth, some rights reserved.

There’s a very interesting article in the September/October issue of Foreign Policy in which International Relations expert Parag Khanna discusses the evolution of our world toward an age of the city.

Khanna points out that cities have always been acting as focus points for civilizations (think Venice or Changdu.) However we’ve never lived in an age where mega-cities acting as centres of power are emerging in all areas of the world. In fact, Khanna argues that the future will not be about nation-states but about global cities.

The reason why I find this point particularly interesting is because as an immigrant to Canada, I feel like I belong more to a city than a country. Although I’ve adapted very well to the Canadian lifestyle (after all, it’s not so different from where I’m from,) it’s been much harder to fully identify with Canada as a country. There are certain values inherent to the Canadian culture that I will never be able to embrace. However, I’ve always felt a deep attachment to the city I live in. Montreal is a multi-cultural, bilingual and creative city, and I’m just that. I truly feel I’m a Montrealer.

The global city Khanna refers to is populated with individuals and families who come in majority from somewhere else – region or country. That diversity reinforces the specific identity of each city, because as migrants we all feel the need to identify with the place we live in an spend a lot of energy doing so. The city makes us and we make the city.

Khanna also notes that there’s already been a shift of power toward the Asia-Pacific region. In fact, cities in these regions often  gain more power than the very country they belong too, or at least do so more quickly. When we analyze development and try to boost it (and I’m referring to international aid in particular here) we look at global, national indicators. Maybe it’s time to enact policies that focus on the city, and by enacting policies for the city, development will eventually spread to the entire country.

Classifying global urban development

I think that in order to exist in our contemporary society, cities, whether they are “mega” or not, have to face different kinds of challenges that I classify according to their nature:

Western traditional centres of power (New York City, Paris, London) have to figure out how to be relevant in spite of gentrification. As real estate prices keep on climbing, I expect the creative power of these cities to decrease. Just take the issue of noise levels linked to bars and concert venues that has been damaging nightlife and the music scene in Paris. We’re going through the same thing in Montreal, and nobody here is happy to see venues close down. Eventually, gentrification will cause much more damage. Another challenge is to make these old cities environmentally sustainable. It’s more about converting old structures than building new LEED-certified constructions.

Mega-cities in developing countries will have to manage the transition of their slums toward well-engineered neighbourhoods with structured political systems. In these cities, environmental sustainability would need to be planned now, so that as slums develop they integrate sustainable features. Mega-cities also have to learn how to manage exponential growth by creating the appropriate infrastructure (e.g. transportation.)

In between: middle-size cities that will never grow into major centres of powers. I’m thinking particularly of North-American cities such as Detroit or Portland, since I don’t know much about middle-sized cities in other areas. These have to capitalize on developing a distinct identity. They have to find a specificity, often in the creative area, that makes them relevant and necessary in relation to bigger urban areas.

I’d like to finish this post with a post-scriptum that doesn’t have much to do with the main topic I’ve been discussing. In his article, Khanna writes: “It’s worth remembering that only in Europe were the Middle Ages dark — they were the apogee of Arab, Muslim, and Chinese glory.” Well, I’d like to state how annoyed I get when I read or hear that the Middle Ages were dark, and I hear and read this often.

The Middle Ages, in spite of their apparent lack of prestige and glamour, were an exciting period during which some fundamental concepts for religious and philosophical thought were elaborated. What’s more, this is when the basis for our modern political and state structure were laid. It’s fascinating to see how complex the codes and structures of power were at that time, in spite of technological limitations, and how important their legacy has been for our contemporary society.

So, just to make it clear, Western civilization did not go backwards after Antiquity. Progress is a subtle notion that is often misinterpreted.

Photo credits: Sao Paulo, Flickr user tsc_traveler

Another investigation into the world of slums has been published. Doug Saunders, from the Globe and Mail, is the author of Arrival City, in which he describes his experience in these vast and poor urban areas populated with thousands of people who often have relocated from the countryside. Although I haven’t had the chance to read it, I have gone through an excerpt published on Sep. 25 in the newspaper, accompanied by an article summing up his findings.

Saunders’s view matches recent studies that have shown that slums are not the dirty, poverty-ridden, hopeless areas we previously thought they were. He describes vibrant neighbourhoods were social change is possible and brought about by residents themselves. The originality of his work lies in the fact that he doesn’t hesitate to include districts located in western cities, such as Toronto’s Thorncliffe Park or Évry’s Les Pyramides.
But this portrayal of slums seems at times overly optimistic and romanticised. For example, Saunders seems to have forgotten a major element: the neighbourhood of Kibeira in Nairobi, Kenya, where progress has been slow to come by and which thereby acts as a counter-example to the “slum-as-basis-for-social-change” thesis (again, I haven’t read the whole book and am just basing my analysis on the feature article published in the Globe.)

The problem of Kibeira is not that it doesn’t have the potential for change, but that local authorities have done an efficient job at preventing it through a series of binding regulations and through repression. Change would certainly take off if politics were different.
As most of the developing world is currently following an urbanization movement, studying and understanding slums is becoming increasingly crucial to ensure global security. Saunders’s book seems to be another huge step in that direction, but we all have to be wary of falling into romanticism. Few of us, after all, understand what it’s like to live in such neighbourhoods daily.

Read the Globe and Mail’s article here.

More info here.

Conventional approaches to slums and slum dwellers are thoroughly paternalistic. The trouble with paternalists is that they want to make impossibly profound changes, and they choose impossibly superficial means for doing so. To overcome slums, we must regard slum dwellers as people capable of understanding and acting upon their own self-interests, which they certainly are. We need to discern, respect and build upon the forces for regeneration that exist in slums themselves, and that demonstrably work in real cities. This is far from trying to patronize people into a better life, and it is far from what is done today.

Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities.

There seems to be somewhat of a discrepancy between the way certain cities portray themselves to the outside world and the reality. Vancouver is often praised for its highway-free boundaries and high-density downtown core. I found these areas (downtown, Yaletown and the West End) to be mostly spiritless and, dare I say it, soulless. Some vast areas of Yaletown and the West End are strictly residential (we’re talking about huge condominium towers here) and deeply lack these small stores that usually give life to neighbourhoods. In the West End, I walked by some condo buildings whose first floor was non existent – the structure relied on cement pillars, suppressing all hopes of creating a community feeling. What would Jane Jacobs think about this?

Downtown, I noticed a certain disrespect for the history of the neighbourhood. The façades of the old buildings that have not been razed are not carefully maintained, unlike neighbouring tourist-friendly Gastown. It took me several times walking on Granville street to realize that the cement façades of most clubs and theatres were in fact layers hiding gorgeous art deco structures. One of my friends, who had lived in Vancouver for several years, had never noticed them. The neon signs that had become a symbol of the city have been banned.

When I visited Portland, having read so much about their dynamic urban planning department and enterprising city government, I expected something else than the small city I found. Don’t get me wrong, I love Portland. It’s a very vibrant city where many innovative initiatives are taking place. But Portland, with its cute houses and low-density, is a Pacific Northwest city, and by definition not walkable. Can any amount of well-intentionned urban planning change this?

In comparison, certain cities that have rather moribund urban planning departments nonetheless have an urban fabric that works pretty well, relying on other frameworks such as history to maintain vibrant neighbourhoods (Montreal and Seattle, I’m talking about you.) I’m not staying that urban planning is useless. Montreal has been suffering dearly from poor planning (for those of you who know the city, names like Griffintown and Turcot may mean something to you. The old city would have been razed if it wasn’t for Phyllis Lambert!) What I’m getting at is that trying to export some urban planning models that have been created according to local determinants isn’t right. Each city, even if it can get inspired from what has been done elsewhere, must develop its own planning strategy. What’s more, things that work on paper don’t necessarily feel right in real life. Vancouver is the most livable city in the world according to the Economist and its urban planning model is widely praised. That’s a great PR campaign they don’t even have to pay for. The thing is, when you get there it’s another story. And here I am, ranting about Vancouver once again…

How did the idea of EcoDistricts come about?

Portland has been building green buildings really well for the last 10 years, but there’s another level after that. You have even more opportunities with green buildings that are connected with water sharing, air conditioning and other energy efficiency features.
Our strategy is based on five pilot districts. All five of the districts are urban renewal areas and they have very different typologies. We have the [Portland State] University, we have a neighbourhood called the Lloyd district and that’s primarily commercial properties, the South Waterfront, which has seen significant development in the last ten years. The last two are called Gateway and Lents. They are primarily residential, lower-income. We have done the least work to date out there.
The stake-holders in the districts are going to have very different relationships. The challenges around how you make decisions will be very different.

What are the steps that you will be taking to develop these EcoDistricts?

There are a handful of sustainable district developments in the world that we’ve looked at. But what’s unique about what we’re doing is that we’re working with existing neighbourhoods. The hope is that they become neighbourhood-driven instead of developer-driven.
We’re going to do a comprehensive audit in order to understand what the assets in each district are. The next step would be feasibility studies to figure out how realistic the project is. And then it will be a matter of finding funding. We’re imagining a three year timeline.
We see EcoDistricts working as two pieces of physical strategy: hardware and software, because it’s also an opportunity to see how people can change behaviour.

What has been the feedback from the community so far?

People have been widely enthusiastic. In the university district, for example, there’s been significant interest from professors and students who wanna do research. The Lloyd district has also received positive feedback.
The East Portland district is less known. We’ve had warnings that there have been a lot of planning development there and they haven’t seen a lot of change. We’ve been trying get our technical advisers to connect with the people who are actually living in this EcoDistrict.

The city of Portland has taken a number of groundbreaking measures over the years to increase its sustainability. How do you get the support from the public to enact such measures?

Michael Armstrong: A big part of what we do about setting a vision is setting public engagement. We do that through surveys and public workshops attended by the mayor, and we’ve also been working in small groups. We learn a lot from this, and people understand how things work city-wide.

There’s a long tradition of that here. There is this well-established institutional culture and citizen engagement. We sort of joke about this, some people say “do we really have to get people’s opinion on this issue?” Well in Portland, we do. In Portland people care and that’s how they understand the outcomes. People who have less interest in what the municipal government is doing are less likely to move to Portland than, say, Houston.

Some of these measures, like promoting local food, aim at changing people’s behaviours. How do you do that?

We actually think food is relevant to the overall strength of the community. We want these changes to have a health impact, a carbon impact, and local economics impact. The ways we can influence that are somewhat limited, but what the city can do is to support farmers markets, or community-supported agriculture. We have turned city-owned lands into public garden projects. We have a zoning code that we make sure is not getting in the way of these things. We can help people see the relationship between food choices and climate change for example. This goes back to seeing our community as a resource.

One of your newest initiatives is the Clean Energy Works, which encourages residents to renovate and upgrade their houses to reach energy efficiency. How does that work?

This is a key piece of our climate action plan. We have a goal of reducing our carbon emissions to 20% of the carbon we used in 1990, and we’ve been trying to push people to think about how this translates into their daily life.

Energy improvements are paid for by the city and the homeowner repays the loan over time through the energy bill. The key is that it’s the city that makes the investments. Our community workforce agreement has been putting in place standards for labour practices to make sure the jobs that are created by that program are quality jobs. Right now we’re in the pilot phase, doing the first 500 homes.

It's not only about the environment...

These types of upgrades can take years to pay off. How do you gather political consensus to invest into programs that may not yield immediate results?

Cities are used to make investments over periods of time. We think of Clean Energy Works as providing public service. This has value to the community, in the same way that fixing potholes in the street has value, or building a bridge over the river. The difference is that the buildings are privately-owned whereas the roads are publicly-owned. We’re never going to solve problems like climate change if we leave the responsibility to change to the people only.

Another new initiative is EcoDistricts, which aims at increasing sustainability at the neighbourhood level instead of concentrating on single buildings only.

There are opportunities to do much better by sharing resources among buildings. The big challenge there is that our whole system has been structured around not sharing things. If anything goes wrong in my building it’s my problem. This notion of sharing and thinking about ways groups of buildings can perform together much better than individually is exciting. It reminds me about the things we learned in kindergarten like sharing… This is driven by climate change, we’re taking all kinds of risks. There’s a degree of urgency. It’s a safe bet compared to the risks we’re taking with our current emissions.

Next: an interview with Naomi Cole from EcoDistricts.