The Naked City Blog

Ever wondered why so much architecture nowadays – especially architecture that other architects rave about – looks as if it was designed by someone who’s got an inner ear balance disorder? Or what, really, is so bad about designing a building that pays homage to the past 2,000 years of architectural tradition?

Last June I had the opportunity to hear a devoted modernist architect, Dan Solomon, give a speech in which he skewered the modernist architectural movement in the United States and proposed a different way of looking at modern architecture, one that doesn’t jettison the past but builds on the best of the past.

Solomon is a founding member of the Congress for the New Urbanism. Yes, despite what some people may tell you, New Urbanism as an architectural and planning movement has plenty of room for modernist architects.

His talk was fascinating, and one I think many architects and others will enjoy reading, no matter what their position is on Modernism (though any architect who admits to not liking Modernism is usually subject to withering scorn, and Solomon explains why). And it explained to me why the Harvard School of Design (including its devotees on the New York Times’ architectural writing staff) holds such disproportionate sway over architectural thinking in America today.

Here’s the LINK. Warning – it’s long. And I don’t have the slides he showed. But with a long holiday weekend looming, it should keep you busy.

Here’s a sample – he’s characterizing the attitudes of many of today’s Modernist architects:

“ … Populist hostility to an abstract modernism is a philistine ignorance tobe ignored; references to vernacular building, the imperatives of place orclassicism are inadmissible, and dissonance, not harmony, is the order of the day.”

Happy reading.

NOTE: The survey mentioned below will take comments until Dec. 8, not Nov. 24 as I said on Tuesday.

Gee, I hate to break off yet another pro-con tirade about transit (see comments on my previous post, many offered while I was on vacation last week). But here goes.

Even though today’s weather is making most of us vow not to be outdoors at all, today’s topic is walking: for pleasure, for exercise, for dogs and as transportation.

One of the biggest changes I’ve seen in Charlotte in the past 10 years is the number of people walking, for all the reasons listed above. Part of that’s due to the slow but steady improvement in the number of, and quality of, city sidewalks. Part of it’s due to newcomers who are used to living in places where walking is easier. If you’ve ever spent time in New York, for instance, you know walking five or six blocks is simply routine. You wouldn’t think of driving that distance. In Charlotte, most people wouldn’t think of walking that distance.

Why should the city try to encourage people to walk? Consider public health – most of us are getting fatter and we need the exercise. That drives up health costs for everyone, from our insurance rates to the cost of Medicare and Medicaid.

Consider transportation costs. It’s a heckuva lot cheaper to build sidewalks than to build – or even widen – streets. The more people can walk places, the less they’ll clog our streets with their cars.

Try recreation. Walking and hiking are immensely popular exercise.

Try household budgets. Walking is cheaper than driving.

And consider all the people who can’t drive. That would be kids, the disabled, and many elderly for whom loss of a driver’s license too often spells loss of independence.

Amazingly, the City of Charlotte’s Transportation Department now has a pedestrian program manager, Vivian Coleman (vcoleman@ci.charlotte.nc.us). She’s working on a pedestrian master plan to improve walking conditions throughout the city.

As part of that, she’s asking everyone who’s interested to take “>this online survey. It takes less than 10 minutes – more like 3 unless you read really, really slowly. It will be available until Friday, Dec. 8. Go to it.

NOTE: The survey mentioned below will take comments until Dec. 8, not Nov. 24 as I said on Tuesday.

Gee, I hate to break off yet another pro-con tirade about transit (see comments on my previous post, many offered while I was on vacation last week). But here goes.

Even though today’s weather is making most of us vow not to be outdoors at all, today’s topic is walking: for pleasure, for exercise, for dogs and as transportation.

One of the biggest changes I’ve seen in Charlotte in the past 10 years is the number of people walking, for all the reasons listed above. Part of that’s due to the slow but steady improvement in the number of, and quality of, city sidewalks. Part of it’s due to newcomers who are used to living in places where walking is easier. If you’ve ever spent time in New York, for instance, you know walking five or six blocks is simply routine. You wouldn’t think of driving that distance. In Charlotte, most people wouldn’t think of walking that distance.

Why should the city try to encourage people to walk? Consider public health – most of us are getting fatter and we need the exercise. That drives up health costs for everyone, from our insurance rates to the cost of Medicare and Medicaid.

Consider transportation costs. It’s a heckuva lot cheaper to build sidewalks than to build – or even widen – streets. The more people can walk places, the less they’ll clog our streets with their cars.

Try recreation. Walking and hiking are immensely popular exercise.

Try household budgets. Walking is cheaper than driving.

And consider all the people who can’t drive. That would be kids, the disabled, and many elderly for whom loss of a driver’s license too often spells loss of independence.

Amazingly, the City of Charlotte’s Transportation Department now has a pedestrian program manager, Vivian Coleman (vcoleman@ci.charlotte.nc.us). She’s working on a pedestrian master plan to improve walking conditions throughout the city.

As part of that, she’s asking everyone who’s interested to take “>this online survey. It takes less than 10 minutes – more like 3 unless you read really, really slowly. It will be available until Friday, Dec. 8. Go to it.

Which party controls the Mecklenburg County board of commissioners – which was still unclear Wednesday afternoon – could have some potentially far-reaching effects on how the county grows and how it pays for the growth.

As I write this midafternoon Wednesday, it looks as if the Democrats will control the board. Two of the three at-large seats were won by Democrats: Jennifer Roberts was top vote-getter and Parks Helms came in third. Republican Dan Ramirez was second. But only 78 votes separated Helms from fourth-place finisher Kaye McGarry, with 1,340 provisional ballots due to be counted Nov. 17. So if McGarry were to overtake Helms and win a seat, the board majority would be Republican.

So what would that mean? Two big issues come to mind. One is transit – which plays a major role in shaping where development goes and what kind of development it is. The board’s current Republicans pushed unsuccessfully in October to study whether to hold a referendum to repeal the transit sales tax. District 1 rep Jim Puckett, who seems not to have been re-elected, was particularly outspoken: He thinks any such tax ought to go to roads, not mass transit.

The other issue is whether to find alternative revenue sources to help take the pressure off property taxes to pay for growth-related needs, such as schools, parks, etc.

I thumbed through notes from interviews with five of six at-large candidates before the election, and I hauled out the candidate questionnaire published in the Charlotte Business Journal by the Real Estate and Building Industry Coalition’s political action committee.

First, the questionnaire: One key question was whether candidates would support real estate transfer taxes and/or impact fees – two methods some other N.C. counties use to raise revenue for growth-related costs. Another was whether local governments should be allowed to adopt adequate public facilities ordinances as a way to stop or slow growth. Those ordinances say new development can’t overload public facilities, such as schools and roads. Typically developers pay into a fund to bring public facilities up to par or else phase developments to give public facilities time to catch up. So the question’s phrasing was a bit disingenuous, or not well informed.

The answers? Roberts said she’d be “willing to explore all the options,” including impact fees and land transfer taxes. She gets multiple bonus points for being the only one to point out a gigantic flaw in the APFO question. “Local governments are already allowed to adopt APFOs. Davidson has one.” Nicely done, especially the part where she neglected to say whether she’d consider one here.

Ramirez didn’t respond to the questionnaire.

Helms wouldn’t support transfer taxes or impact fees. He said local governments should be able to adopt APFOs.

McGarry said no to transfer taxes and impact fees and said governments have the authority to keep up with infrastructure as they approve projects. That’s technically correct, though I think if Charlotte City Council suddenly started rejecting development plans due to road incapacity, they’d be hit with lawsuits.

Republican Jim Puckett, who finished fifth for an at-large seat and isn’t likely to win, said no to both. Democrat Wilhelmenia Rembert, who finished sixth, said yes to both.

Among district winners, Republican Karen Bentley said no to both. Democrat Norman Mitchell didn’t respond, but he’s said before he favors looking at those options. Democrat Dumont Clarke said he’d like to see both studied.

Dan Bishop and Bill James, both Republican, and Valerie Woodard, a Democrat, didn’t have opponents and so weren’t included in the questionnaire.

Now the issue about transit, from my notes:

Roberts: Voted against studying a transit tax repeal when it came before the board in October. Helms: Ditto. Rembert: Ditto.

Ramirez: Apparently we editorial board members who interviewed him didn’t ask about it. (Twenty lashes with a wet noodle!)

McGarry: Would put a transit tax repeal on the ballot.

Puckett: Proposed studying transit tax repeal. Voted against transit tax in 1998 and thinks roads are a better use of tax money than mass transit.

Bentley: “No hard answers” on a transit tax repeal measure but supports looking at it. Voted against transit tax in 1998.

Mitchell: Voted against studying transit tax repeal.

Bishop and James: Voted for studying transit tax repeal.

So what happens next? We’ll have to keep watching.

Which party controls the Mecklenburg County board of commissioners – which was still unclear Wednesday afternoon – could have some potentially far-reaching effects on how the county grows and how it pays for the growth.

As I write this midafternoon Wednesday, it looks as if the Democrats will control the board. Two of the three at-large seats were won by Democrats: Jennifer Roberts was top vote-getter and Parks Helms came in third. Republican Dan Ramirez was second. But only 78 votes separated Helms from fourth-place finisher Kaye McGarry, with 1,340 provisional ballots due to be counted Nov. 17. So if McGarry were to overtake Helms and win a seat, the board majority would be Republican.

So what would that mean? Two big issues come to mind. One is transit – which plays a major role in shaping where development goes and what kind of development it is. The board’s current Republicans pushed unsuccessfully in October to study whether to hold a referendum to repeal the transit sales tax. District 1 rep Jim Puckett, who seems not to have been re-elected, was particularly outspoken: He thinks any such tax ought to go to roads, not mass transit.

The other issue is whether to find alternative revenue sources to help take the pressure off property taxes to pay for growth-related needs, such as schools, parks, etc.

I thumbed through notes from interviews with five of six at-large candidates before the election, and I hauled out the candidate questionnaire published in the Charlotte Business Journal by the Real Estate and Building Industry Coalition’s political action committee.

First, the questionnaire: One key question was whether candidates would support real estate transfer taxes and/or impact fees – two methods some other N.C. counties use to raise revenue for growth-related costs. Another was whether local governments should be allowed to adopt adequate public facilities ordinances as a way to stop or slow growth. Those ordinances say new development can’t overload public facilities, such as schools and roads. Typically developers pay into a fund to bring public facilities up to par or else phase developments to give public facilities time to catch up. So the question’s phrasing was a bit disingenuous, or not well informed.

The answers? Roberts said she’d be “willing to explore all the options,” including impact fees and land transfer taxes. She gets multiple bonus points for being the only one to point out a gigantic flaw in the APFO question. “Local governments are already allowed to adopt APFOs. Davidson has one.” Nicely done, especially the part where she neglected to say whether she’d consider one here.

Ramirez didn’t respond to the questionnaire.

Helms wouldn’t support transfer taxes or impact fees. He said local governments should be able to adopt APFOs.

McGarry said no to transfer taxes and impact fees and said governments have the authority to keep up with infrastructure as they approve projects. That’s technically correct, though I think if Charlotte City Council suddenly started rejecting development plans due to road incapacity, they’d be hit with lawsuits.

Republican Jim Puckett, who finished fifth for an at-large seat and isn’t likely to win, said no to both. Democrat Wilhelmenia Rembert, who finished sixth, said yes to both.

Among district winners, Republican Karen Bentley said no to both. Democrat Norman Mitchell didn’t respond, but he’s said before he favors looking at those options. Democrat Dumont Clarke said he’d like to see both studied.

Dan Bishop and Bill James, both Republican, and Valerie Woodard, a Democrat, didn’t have opponents and so weren’t included in the questionnaire.

Now the issue about transit, from my notes:

Roberts: Voted against studying a transit tax repeal when it came before the board in October. Helms: Ditto. Rembert: Ditto.

Ramirez: Apparently we editorial board members who interviewed him didn’t ask about it. (Twenty lashes with a wet noodle!)

McGarry: Would put a transit tax repeal on the ballot.

Puckett: Proposed studying transit tax repeal. Voted against transit tax in 1998 and thinks roads are a better use of tax money than mass transit.

Bentley: “No hard answers” on a transit tax repeal measure but supports looking at it. Voted against transit tax in 1998.

Mitchell: Voted against studying transit tax repeal.

Bishop and James: Voted for studying transit tax repeal.

So what happens next? We’ll have to keep watching.

Christie Taylor thinks Charlotteans need to be more curious.

Taylor, an owner of downtown’s Hodges Taylor Gallery, is pitching a proposal to anyone who’ll listen. Her idea, which she freely concedes isn’t fully formed yet, is to embark on a campaign to encourage more people to be more willing to try new things, ask new questions, befriend new people – you know, the things you do if you’re curious.

Her idea is aimed in part – but only in part – at encouraging people to sample the city’s arts offerings: plays, concerts, art galleries, the opera, etc. Her question to me over lunch this week: Why are people afraid to try new things?

I had a few possible answers. First: Too many cultural offerings cost too much. Example: I went to the opera “Madama Butterfly” last weekend. The good news: I stayed awake, unlike my only previous opera adventure some years back, in which I napped through an embarrassing amount of “Don Giovanni.” The bad news: The seat – which was a very good one, granted – was $75.

That alone keeps people from trying new things. If you aren’t sure you’ll like a new type of cultural offering, you’re unlikely to want to risk that kind of money. Heck, even Children’s Theatre tickets can be as much as $18 each. Take an adult and two kids, and that’s $54. (Yes, they offer less expensive tickets. So does the opera.)

Second, people crave comfort. When you’re working all day, fighting traffic to get home, worried your job will move to India, afraid you may not have health insurance next year and your pension may evaporate before you retire, getting outside your comfort zone isn’t high on the list of things you crave. What you crave is the psychic equivalent of macaroni and cheese.

But I also think Taylor’s got a good idea: Get us to mix it up a bit more. Maybe have a “free night” at the opera, symphony, theaters and museums every month or two, to invite in newcomers. But beyond that, I don’t have much inspiration.

You might, though, have a cool idea for a Curious Charlotte campaign. Let’s hear them.

In a city with high aspirations, Charlotte’s architecture by and large hasn’t risen to meet those aspirations. Why not?

Why, for instance, isn’t the collection of facilities soon to be built uptown – the new Mint Museum of Art, the new Bechtler Museum, the new Afro-American Cultural Center and the new performing arts theater and the NASCAR Hall of Fame – being treated as the opportunity of the century? After all, they have the potential to mark a huge section of uptown, and to shape its design, activities and architecture for decades.

But do you even know what those buildings will look like beyond some rudimentary drawings that have been published in the newspaper? And did you like what you saw? The Hall of Fame sketch I saw looked like a bad parody of a 1950s Jetsons’ city. All it needs are jet-cars in the sky, women in tennis skirts and guys in unitards.

A group of architects, artists, designers and interested others have been meeting monthly to talk through the state of design and art in Charlotte. Their next meeting, Monday, Nov. 6, at the Mint Museum of Art on Randolph Road, will tackle “What’s Ailing Architecture?”

Panelists will be three architects: Rebecca Fant, current president of the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects; Peter Wong of UNC Charlotte’s College of Architecture, and Murray Whisnant. Moderator will be Manoj P. Kesavan of Adams Group Architects, a founder of the Point 8 Forum.

Here’s Manoj’s outline for the panel’s discussion:

Architecture is quite high-profile these days. There is a never-before media attention, creating a roster of celeb architects (or “starchitects”), whose names alone are enough to sell out the commercial developments that they design. Also perhaps there has never been a time in history with so many professional architects designing so many buildings.

Yet most of what we see around is “junk architecture” – buildings of hollow elegance that are created for instant consumption, and are of no lasting value. Why is the higher number of professionals and the increased attention not leading to a increased level of public awareness and higher quality of built environment? Why are most affluent American cities like ours so impoverished when it comes to having structures that are capable of inspiring/touching deeply those who enter it or inhabit it?

Interesting luncheon speech last week from writer Joel Kotkin. Sorry that I’m only now getting this blog post written. (My Observer colleague, Forum Editor Lew Powell, somehow thought he deserved a vacation, and the rest of us had to double up a bit to cover for him.)

Kotkin is Irvine Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation . His most recent book is “The City: A Global History.” He was a provocative choice to speak to a conference put on by the nonprofit group, Partners for Livable Communities, which drew a good number of people interested in public art programs, cultural amenities, creative economies, etc. I’ll confess right off I haven’t read his book. I’m only reporting what he said in his speech.

Part of Kotkin’s message was this: Forget “arts” as a way to economically reinvigorate cities. What successful cities throughout history have provided are public safety, functioning economies, upward mobility, and “sacred” spaces, which don’t necessarily have to be religious. If a city has commercial success, then arts and culture will flourish, as they have throughout history in cities such as Venice, Florence, Amsterdam, London and New York.

He quoted Herodotus, the 5th century-B.C.E. Greek historian: “Human prosperity does not abide long in one place.” His point: Cities rise and fall. Cities and regions compete. Get used to it.

“There is no case that I know of,” Kotkin said, where art has done anything by itself “except to create a tourist economy.” He obviously thinks cities that desperately chase the so-called “creative class” and don’t pay attention to basic needs such as public safety and infrastructure (streets, sewers, schools) are misguided.

I agree, up to a point. Cities have to have thriving economies or they stop being cities and dry up and blow away. Without the things he lists – safety, jobs, etc. – they fail. But the arts are a segment of an economy. They produce things other people want to buy. Artists buy supplies and many of them hire help. As such, they’re small businesses. Cities wanting to diversify their economies – for example, old textile towns – need lots of different economic enterprises, and the arts should, or at least could, be among them.

And just one word: Asheville. Being known as an artsy town lures other artists.

But Kotkin’s cautions are well-taken. I’m not sure city boosters anywhere can just decide to become cool and artsy and have any promise of success.

One of Kotkin’s funniest quotes was from an unidentified talk radio host: “If you need a campaign to prove you’re hip and cool, you’re not.”

It’s conventional wisdom that families move to the suburbs to get cheaper housing.

But a new study looks at the combined weight of both housing and transportation for low- to moderate-income families in 28 metropolitan areas and finds that combined costs of the two expenses are surprisingly constant. In other words, your housing costs may go down, but your transportation costs go up. Or vice versa.

Here’s a link that will get you to the report, “A Heavy Load,” as well as some fact sheets.

The report, released Oct. 11, is from the Center for Housing Policy, the research affiliate of the National Housing Conference, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group that studies housing policy, specifically affordable housing. Among the sponsors of this report: The Bank of America Foundation, and the National Association of Realtors.

In a nutshell, the study found that working families in the cities studied spend about 57 percent of their incomes on housing and transportation, with roughly 28 percent for housing and 29 percent for transportation. The share of income devoted to one or the other varies, but the combined costs tend to stay about the same – 55 to 60 percent.

Why does this matter? A lot of folks, including policymakers, have the rather simplistic view that an affordable house in the suburbs is the single best solution to help family income. This study shows the picture is a lot more complex.

And it also shows that if you’re planning to buy (or even rent) a new place, prudent financial planning means you should look at the big picture, not just housing costs alone.

From the report:

The study also points to the importance of infill development that expands the supply of affordable housing in inner city and older suburban neighborhoods that have good access to traditional job centers; the development of more affordable housing near transportation hubs and suburban employment centers; providing good quality and reliable transit for suburb to suburb commuting, as well as for helping families in the outer suburbs get into the central city; and policies to encourage car sharing and to reduce the costs of car ownership for families who cannot easily get to work via public transit.

This post is specifically for planners, architects, landscape architects, engineers, developers and government types who know the rules and standards that force development to look the way it does. And (obviously) for any other interested readers, too.

My architect pal Tom Low, of Duany Plater-Zyberk’s Charlotte office, shares this lovely photo of a street in Paris and asks – Can you do this at home?

I’m no expert, but here are a just few things I spotted that I don’t think would be allowed in Charlotte or most other places nearby:

• Cafe tables too close to (or possibly even in) the street.
• Tables without any awning or umbrella to cover them. (I think that’s an overly zealous health regulation.)
• Awnings encroaching over the public sidewalk.
• A blackboard sitting in the street.
• And I’m not sure, but I suspect those signs somehow run afoul of the city’s sign ordinances, which are, in my opinion, too strict on benign signs and too lenient on billboards.

So let’s hear it: Can you do this at home?