Contents – September 2023
CONTENTS – September 2023
THE QUINTESSENTIAL CHARACTER TOWN EDITION
SMALL CITIES AND TOWNS WITH CHARACTER
- “Envisioning a Town with Character”…wck.
- “Factors that Determine Character”…Assembled from selected Authors Below.
- Profiles of Towns with Character:
MEDIA
- Porto Revival…from Monocle films.
- 7 principles for building better cities…from Peter Calthorpe.
- 4 ways to make a city more walkable…from Jeff Speck.
- About Central Florida Roadtrip, A Model…from WUCF.
- Amazon’s City of The Future…Amazon.
- Capturing the next economy: Pittsburgh’s rise as a global innovation city… Bruce Katz of the Brookings Institution
FROM THE PLANNERS’ BOOKSHELF…
- For the Love of Cities, The Love Affair Between People and Their Places, Peter Kageyama, Creative City Productions, 2011.
- What I Found in a Thousand Towns, A Traveling Musician’s Guide to Rebuilding America’s Communities – One Coffee Shop, Dog Run, and Open-Mike at a Time, Dar Williams, Basic Books, NY, 2017.
- The Great Good Places, Cafés, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community ,Ray Oldenburg, Marlowe & Company, New York, 1999.
- How America is Putting Itself Back Together, James Fallows with Deborah Fallows, Published in The Atlantic, March 2016.
- How Paris Became Paris, The Invention of the Modern City, Joan DeJean, Bloomsbury, New York, 2014.
- Design of Cities: Revised Edition, Edmund N. Bacon, The Penguin Group, NY, 1976.
- The Resilient City, How Modern Cities Recover from Disaster, Lawrence J. Vale and Thomas J. Campanella, Oxford University Press, 2005.
Howard T. and Eugene P. Odum, The Brothers.
From CT.org…The following presents excerpts from a Wikipedia article on Dr. H.T. Odum. The summary almost seems a dis-service to an extensive, nationally appreciated career that covered many topics, multi-disciplines and a wide range of innovative thoughts and approaches. Holistic ecologic analysis was first practiced by Dr. Odum. Mixing biology with engineering and electricity was his…and much more. Read the full Wikipedia article and appreciate his many ideas through his prodigious offerings through books and articles.
Edmund N. Bacon, City Planner, Philadelphia, 1949-1970
Mr. Bacon was the distinguished executive director of the Philadelphia Planning Commission from 1949 until 1970. He is personally responsible for the resurrection and enhancement of this great American city. Mr. Bacon’s approach is to describe the forces and factors of design and then apply them to cities around the world, large and famous, small and little-known.
Contents – October 2023
CONTENTS – October 2023
THE “PEOPLE TO KNOW” EDITION
From…Planetizen’s Readers.
The 100 Most Influential Urbanists.
These are the people that have had the most influence on the places and environments that we call home. LINK: https://www.planetizen.com/features/95189-100-most-influential-urbanists
From…The American Planning Association.
National Planning Pioneers.
The Planning Pioneer Awards are presented to pioneers of the profession who have made personal and direct innovations in American planning that have significantly and positively redirected planning practice, education, or theory with long-term results. LINK: https://www.planning.org/awards/pioneers/
From…CharacterTowns.org.
The professionals listed below are of special interest to CT.org. Some are listed by Planetizen and APA, as noted. Each entry below links to a book, video or summary of their work. Many other notables, such as Rachel Carson, are highlighted in companion Editions.
PROFILES OF SELECTED NOTABLE PLANNERS AND ALLIED PROFESSIONALS…
- Clarence Stein, listed above, Planner/Architect
- Constantinos Doxiadis, City Planner
- Herman Kahn, Physicist/Futurist
- Howard T. Odum and Eugene P. Odum, Ecologists
- Jan Gehl, listed above, Urban Designer
- Lawrence Halperin, Landscape Architect
- Louise Blanchard Bethune, Architect
- Doug Farr. Architect/Urbanist/Author
MEDIA OF SELECTED NOTABLE PLANNERS AND ALLIED PROFESSIONALS…
- E. O. Wilson, Sociobiologist
- Edward Glaeser, listed above, Urban Economist
- Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr, and Jr. listed, Planners/Landscape Architects
- Thomas Friedman, Futurist/Writer
- William McDonough, listed above, Architect
BOOKS ABOUT SELECTED NOTABLE PLANNERS AND ALLIED PROFESSIONALS…
Contents – November 2023
CONTENTS – November 2023
Character towns, small and large, build social cohesion, community connections, civic pride, hometown spirit and institutional trust. Joy and beauty play a part. Civic leaders, public and private, collaborate to balance their personal needs with the communities’ best interests. Sociability and civility are the hallmarks of character towns.
THE COMMUNITY SOCIABILITY EDITION
PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT IDEAS FOR SOCIABILITY…
- “Attributes of a Social Infrastructure Plan for a Character Town”…wck.
- “The Social Infrastructure Aspiration of the City’s General Plan”…wck.
- “Worry Less About Crumbling Roads, More About Crumbling Libraries”…from The Atlantic, Sep 20, 2018.
- “Urban Tissue and the Character of Towns” from The Semantic Scholar, 1996.
- The Four Freedoms.
- “Social Network Theory and Metcalfe’s Law”…wck.
- “Main Street: The Ultimate Community ‘Third Place’ ”…wck.
- “The Neighborhood Sociable”…wck.
PEOPLE TO KNOW…
- “Robert K. Merton and the Social Sphere of Sustainability” from ThoughtCo.com.
- Robert E. Park | Sociology, from The University of Chicago.
FROM THE PLANNERS’ BOOKSHELF…
- The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces, William H. Whyte, The Conservation Foundation, Washington D.C., 1980.
- Urban Sociology: A Human Ecological Perspective, William A. Schwab, Addison-Wesley, 1982.
- Arrival City, How the Largest Migration in History Reshaped Our World, Doug Saunders [dougsaunders.net], Pantheon Books, New York, 2010.
- The Great Reset, How New Ways of Living and Working Drive Post-Crash Prosperity, Richard Florida, HarperCollins Publishers, 2010.
- The Great Good Places, Cafés, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community, Ray Oldenburg, Marlowe & Company, New York, 1999.
- Building A Vibrant Community: How Citizen-Powered Change Is Reshaping America, Quint Studer, Be the Bulb Publishing, Janesville WI, 2018.
- Mirror for Man: The Relation of Anthropology to Modern Life, Clyde Kluckhohn introduced by Andrea Smith, Routledge Classic Texts in Anthropology, 1949.
- Better Together, Restoring the American Community, Robert D. Putnam and Lewis M. Feldstein, Simon & Schuster, Inc., New York, 2003.
- Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life, Eric Klinenberg, Crown Books, NY, 2018.
Attributes of a Social Infrastructure Plan for a Character Town.
The Mission is to Build Communities with Character.
The mission of design professionals, developers and city officials who build the city is to understand how to discern and pursue the town’s vision and then, to develop a strategy that preserves, enhances or discovers the community’s character. Community-based vision drives the town’s strategy which then directs every action of the town. In the end, the prize is a small city or town that evokes an emotional attachment between its people and the space they inhabit.
The Social Infrastructure Aspiration of the City’s General Plan
Leveraging Physical Assets to Create Community Civility and Sociability.
The vision of most small cities and towns in America, however expressed, is to be an interesting, pleasant and prosperous place for residents, businesses and visitors. A strong social infrastructure system is essential with:
- Interest meaning places to go, people to meet, things to do, see and experience.
- Pleasantness implies a place that is safe, healthy, educated, beautiful and civil with strong neighborhoods, schools, parks and businesses.
- Prosperity depends on jobs with livable wages, public revenues from reasonable taxes and fees and an economic base that provides community stability.
The Four Freedoms
On January 1, 1941, as the Great Depression waned and the United States’ agonized over the war in Europe, President Roosevelt outlined four freedoms in his State of the Union address. The purpose was to establish the reason for civilization; to establish the foundational freedoms that drive governance and our civil interactions. As Clyde Klockhohn opined: “No nation can exist for long as a nation unless there is some discoverable core of common purpose.”
In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential freedoms.
Social Network Theory and Metcalfe’s Law
Networks are essential elements of every city and town. The city planning profession, in my experience, does not study the theory and practice of network design and management anymore than it studies systems or sociology…to the detriment of ourselves and our clients. Social Network Theory [SNT] can be augmented by Metcalfe’s Law, summarized below. Though not intended for application to social systems, SNT is directly applicable to city planning in that networks with more “nodes” or participants, are more powerful than networks with fewer members.
Main Street: The Ultimate Community ‘Third Place’
THIRD PLACES IN THE 20TH CENTURY.
Ray Oldenburg effectively describes gathering spots that serve as third places, especially in small cities and towns. His idea also extends to the “Cheers” bar in bigger cities. Members-only clubs do not qualify. Entry needs to be freely accessible to customers, visitors and a regular clientele, preferably by walking or biking.
Robert E. Park | Sociologist
1864-1944
Robert Park began his career as a reporter for newspapers in Minneapolis, Detroit, Denver, New York, and Chicago, an encounter with journalism that influenced his later work in sociology. Park believed that a sociologist was “a kind of super reporter, like the men who write for Fortune …reporting on the long-term trends which record what is actually going on rather than what, on the surface, merely seems to be going on.”