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PROVOCATIONS
August 1996
"Community and Values"
by Jonathan Rose
from "Developing Times," Summer 1996 Affordable Housing Development Corporation newsletter
The physical layout of a town, village or city reflects its underlying world view. The
traditional New England town center was formed by four buildings and a square -- the town
hall which represented governance; the library, knowledge; the courthouse, justice; and
the church, spirit.
The square itself represented the commons: community, a civil society. When one came to
the square, one was informed of these values through the presence of these buildings. Our
culture co-evolves with the places we build.
Today our centers are dominated by retail malls or large office buildings representing
the centrality of materialism and the corporation to our culture. The co-evolving culture
and civic topology that result from this form is a degradation of civil society and the
environment.
Many communities have begun to take control of their futures. We believe this begins
when a community identifies its core values, and then organizes itself around them so as
to make them explicit. In fact, as consultants, before we can make civic plans, we try to
identify civic values.
AHDC Principles
In our work, we try to understand the close connection between the built environment
and the cultural result.
It thus became clear that we had to clarify our own principles if we were to understand
what values we wanted to strengthen in the projects we develop.
We have arrived at a set of principles that we think increases the ecological and cultural health of human settlements: diversity; environmental responsibility; livelihood; and interdependence.
We began our derivation of these principles by observing the nature of biological
systems. For example, we know that the more diverse a system is, the more healthy it will
be.
We then looked at the common patterns of urbanization that emerged in the seven
birthplaces of urban culture: the Sumerian in Southern Mesopotamia, the Egyptian in the
Nile Valley, the Harrapan in the Indus Valley, the Chinese by the Yellow River, the Aztec
in the Valley of Mexico, the Maya in the jungles of Guatemala and Honduras, the Inca on
the coastlands and highlands of Peru.
For example, all early cities organize space as a progression from grand public spaces
which "map" the culture's view of the universe to semi-private courtyards and
alleys, to private interior spaces.
We also have been examining the rise and fall of great cities for lessons to be learned
from their life cycles. In addition to the economic, political and military reasons for
city formation, we have observed that great cities often seem to have a founder whose
vision sets its course. Moreover, cities seem to die either prematurely, because of
environmental or political stress, or in old age due to sprawling suburbanization, leaving
a weak and poorly led center.
For example, the hollowing out of Detroit during 20 years of petty leadership is not so
different from the decline of Rome following Constantine's relocation of the center of his
empire to Constantinople, which left Rome with petty leadership, urban strife and a flight
of the middle classes to the suburbs.
Since cultures develop within ecological contexts, we also look to the emerging science
of complex adaptive systems for guidance in interpreting the range of data from these
cultures.
1. Diversity
Human settlements are complex adaptive systems which thrive when they are diverse, and
stagnate and become vulnerable when they become monocultures. Current zoning and public
policy in the USA tend to create monocultures, separating residential zones from places of
work, and further separating residential zones into various housing types (multi-family,
townhouse, single family, etc.).
As cities grow, they tend to industrialize. The natural response is to create separate
zones for living and working. The consequence of this separation is the commute to work,
with its attendant traffic, pollution and breakdown of community.
In this phase of its life cycle, a city needs low cost, low pollution mass transit to
connect housing with work. However, as a city evolves from an industrial economy to an
information economy, it needs to return to the mixed use nature of its preindustrial
youth, where one can walk to work, school, daycare, markets and culture.
Healthy communities mix activities -- residences, places of work, marketplaces, public
places and centers for education and spiritual search. The various uses support each other
(residents shop at local stores, office workers walk to work, children can walk from
school to park or library, etc.) and minimize auto trips. A mix of uses also acts as a
defense during economic swings that may affect a portion of the economy.
We are always surprised that lending institutions prefer to lend to projects that have
one large tenant rather than many small tenants. Time and time again we see large, single
use buildings in bankruptcy because Walmart or IBM moved out and no-one moved in. Projects
that are flexible enough to serve a wide variety of users have much higher lifetime
occupancy rates.
Communities are also strengthened by cultural diversity. We know that neighborhoods
that are filled with predominantly one income group, whether very high or very low, tend
to breed problems (although different types of problems).
AHDC attempts to develop projects that increase the diversity of the surrounding
community. The remarkably obvious consequence of this practice is that we develop to fill
unfilled needs, and therefore our projects usually have little competition. This
contributes to the economic success of our work.
2. Environmental Responsibility
We can increase the elegance, economy and integration of what we build by using design
to reduce use of materials, and information to reduce use of energy. Environmentally
responsible development (ERD) is based on using fewer resources, giving preference to use
of renewable resources, using waste as a resource, and planning thoughtfully so that fewer
resources will be needed.
In practice, environmentally responsible development begins by choosing the right place
to build (and the right place not to build), and proceeds by being conscious about how we
build.
We believe one should build mixed-use communities in transit-accessible locations
within urban growth boundaries. Once we have taken land from its natural state, we have an
obligation to use it well by keeping our existing cities, towns and villages healthy,
rather than leapfrogging over them to build on agricultural lands.
3. Livelihood
How do we spend our work days? What is the quality of our lives, and the lives of those
we work with? How does this impact our children, spouses and parents?
We believe that an economic development paradigm should focus on livelihoods rather
than jobs. A livelihood is a full, balanced life, part of which is meaningful work that
supports needs, but that also supports a sustainable, holistic culture.
Community design plays a significant role in creating livelihoods. The more the
economic activity of a community cycles within the community, the better it is able to
sustain itself.
Development and community building should be planned so as to support the quality and
content of our work life, and its seamless connection with our family life. The anomie
felt by many Americans comes from the disconnection between how they live and what they
believe.
How can we raise our children or care for our parents if we work hours away from home?
Does a strip mall on a six lane highway allow us to meet neighbors in the same way a
village mainstreet of shops and cafes does?
The information age increasingly allows us to work where we live--whether we work with
our hands or our minds. In monocultural communities, this will lead to further isolation;
in integrated villages and cities, to more interaction.
Unfortunately, our Northern cultures are evolving into an information-based economy
while consuming greater amounts of material. We have been accomplishing this by exporting
our dirtiest industries to the megacities of the south. Can we create healthier cities
without depending on cheap goods made in awful conditions in Manila and Mexico?
The reason we focus on the small entrepreneur is that she is the basis of a
self-sufficient community. Entrepreneurship is as applicable to Bangladesh (Grameen Bank
model) as it is to Santa Fe.
Although large corporations were thought to provide good, stable jobs, after the last
decade of mergers, takeovers, buyouts, downsizing and globalization, corporate security is
far less predictable. Furthermore, by necessity, employment in a large corporation
requires commuting.
There is a growing counter-trend, the independent consultant who contracts with a
corporation for a specific task, and then moves on. The advantage is that skilled
consultants are able to continuously re-price their work based on their skills, to choose
work which will enhance their skills, economic value or quality of life, to telecommute
and to choose when to work and when not to.
In a way, this is a reinvention of nomadism. This model seems to work for those who are
young, self-confident and living in rental housing; or for those who are mature and
experienced and have paid off their mortgages; but its uncertainties are less appealing to
those with mortgages to pay or children's education to save for.
4. Interdependence
We will be able to save the earth from the greenhouse effect, soil depletion,
deforestation and our constant release of toxic material into the water and air only if we
are able to understand more deeply our interdependence.
Interdependence increases the energy and information flows in a system, and thus
increases its health. An understanding of interdependence has been transmitted best by
spiritual traditions. . .
The concept of interdependence unifies the three previous principles. The more subtly we can understand the effects of our actions and the places we build, the less we will disrupt the web of life.
One group whose work for urban revitalization is a conscious reflection of a set of
values is the Greyston Foundation in Yonkers, NY. For the past twelve years, Greyston's
innovative community development work has included job creation, housing for families
stuck in the homeless shelter system, and an integrated package of social services.
Greyston's work is based on the background of Buddhist philosophy of putting compassion
into action. Greyston's work attempts to balance the "Five Buddha Families" or
energies of human nature: spirit, study, livelihood, social action, and
relationship/community.
Greyston began working with the issue of livelihood and social action by building a
bakery that now sells $3.5 million a year of cakes, tarts, and the brownies for Ben &
Jerry's ice cream. The bakery employs 45 formerly homeless or ex-convict workers.
Next, Greyston began renovating burnt-out buildings into housing--this July it breaks
ground on its third building. Since Greyston focuses on helping families move from welfare
to work, it started a daycare center, a job training program and life skills classes.
Spirit is represented by an interfaith center, knowledge by a college of interfaith studies and social action and community by the way it all ties together with the neighborhood. Greyston's community gardens allow people to work together in a delightful, environmentally enriching, sustenance-providing setting. . . By establishing its principles first, Greyston has been able to chart a clear path for transformative work.
Jonathan F.P. Rose is President of
Affordable Housing Development Corporation, developer of notable projects such as Benedict
Commons, in Aspen, Colorado. In addition to its planning and developing activities, AHDC
maintains a research department which investigates the manufacture and use of products,
and the relationship between products as pieces of integrated systems.
copyright 1996 Affordable Housing Development Corporation.
PROVOCATIONS is an online journal of architecture and ideas.
Editor: Susan Bilenker, info@design-site.net.
Publisher: Susan Bilenker Communications for DesignSite™
.
Opinions expressed by authors published in Provocations are those of the authors and not
necessarily those of Provocations.
last update: 1/8/04