Let the city unfold.

After reading Russell Preston’s essay: Civic Beauty , I was struck by a hidden nugget tucked among the call to urbanist action. (I recommend reading his essay to understand the context of this post.)

The nugget: “Public space is a platform for the life of a city to unfold.”

The Gatekeepers.  The city consists of the people and their aggregate contributions through evolving culture, government, systems, technologies, creations and decisions.  As cities become more complex, gatekeepers evolve in the form of experts and officials.  Rules, money, circles of trust keep information and power in the hands of a few.  (This has happened throughout history and across disciplines in religion, science, art, politics.. city planning.)  Out of necessity, the specialists have emerged.  Power has been condensed.  Decisions have been left to the appointed, elected or self-proclaimed experts and officials. 

Simplified complexities.  As the rules, systems and technologies have evolved, the gatekeepers strengthen their hold on power by simplifying the complexities to the masses. 

• “Wind up car. Car go vroom.” 
• “Make street bigger. Car go faster.” 
• “Do what you do best. Your neighbor’s got your back.  He’ll navigate the legal codes to keep you out of trouble. He’ll even keep track of all the time it takes.” 
• “Your newly elected mayor will make the best decision for the city. She was elected by the people and she’ll take it from there.”
• “Follow me on Twitter and you will learn how to get thousands more followers so you can teach your followers how to get thousands more followers.”

Specialists make decisions. Specialists are necessary for innovation and advancing ideas and technology.  But specialists have long held too much power.  Representative governments have been set up to give the people a say in who gets to make the decisions.  But the specialists still make the decisions.  The will of the people, the representatives, the officials are slaves to the experts — out of necessity, practicality and the complexity that can only be “understood” and “simplified” by the specialists.        

Web of relationships.   The experts have forgotten that the city exists as an ecosystem of people and their creations.  It is essentially a web of the people’s relationships with each other, their past and their future. 

In order for the city to be strong.  The web of relationships must be strong.  The formal relationships encompass the rules that govern and keep the city functioning as an ongoing entity.  These have been the playground of the specialists.  While the purpose of these rules should be to strengthen the relationships of the people amongst themselves, their past and their future… many of the rules have fallen victim to the specialist.

Design to strengthen relationships.  The built environment merely exists to support the needs of the people and their web of relationships.  If we design cities to strengthen relationships (with each other, our past and our future selves) – we think about culture, history, interaction, flexibility, environmental impact, emotional attachment (and people!).  This fosters community, sense of belonging, citizen engagement, knowledge and better understanding of the broader and long-term impacts of our decisions.

Community and Space. Russell Preston states “A living urbanism begins with community and space. It is the act of shaping this space that gives life to a place.” 

Lets think of our public spaces as a platform to strengthen relationships, engage citizens and support the needs of all people.   This means better places for interacting.  Flexible spaces that can evolve.  Spaces that enrich a sense of belonging and emotional attachment.  Streets that support safer, healthier, efficient modes of getting from place to place.  Considerations for impacts on the environment for our city’s future economy and health.  Natural food and clean water to keep us healthy. 

Let the city unfold.        
Public spaces were once a necessity.  When technology became more important than the people that the technology should have been helping – public spaces became less important.  Let’s make people important again. 

Urbanists, humanists, environmentalists please stand up… no gatekeepers allowed.

LandingZone US

LandingZone US has officially launched!  This is just one of our efforts to put Providence, RI on the map.  Check out my latest post about OfficeLAB here.

Real Estate As A Service

The Real Cloud. 

Although – it may be just as blasphemous for me to say this as it was when Microsoft first realized the power of “the cloud” – but… is Real Estate going the way of creating its own “cloud”?

The current trends of globalization, distributed work, cloud computing, specialization, collaboration, sustainability, telecommuting, etc.  are affecting how some of the big guys are utilizing their physical real estate.  And the little guy doesn’t need much any more to get a profitable business up and running.  Gone are the days of the storefront… even for stores. 

So why is the real estate industry not embracing these trends? Regus has been a leader in this world and co-working locations are helping to move us there… but when will the days of “Real Estate As A Service” become mainstream?

Young entrepreneurs, experienced consultants and corporate executives alike – need not be constrained by the current models of “office space”.  There is another way.  Property owners – embrace the cloud and benefit from it.  Next time you do a rent survey – make sure to include home offices as part of the competition…

Microplaces

Planners, architects and developers look to placemaking in creating more sustainable, urban environments in which to live, work, learn and play. 

Lately, I have been starting to look at the nuances of creating community and sense of place at a much smaller scale.  At OfficeLAB, where we are building a networked, replicable model of a community-based workspace that is at the same time casual and professional, funky and sophisticated, affordable and packed with added value – the evolution of a community is an interesting thing to witness. 

In these early stages of growth, every new member has an influence on the day-to-day vibe.  Everyone still has the “NORM!” feel when they come in and bump into their newly found “co-workers”.  I hope we don’t lose that. I see it as an important piece of our sense of place.  Something that differentiates us from every other business center or shared office space or coffee shop.  Everyone should be so lucky to get that “NORM!”-like feeling when coming into work.