It’s more useful if the question “Is it all about density?” is a little more nuanced. While a more compact city is critical, there are a lot of different kinds of densification, and the nature of that density is contingent on the processes that get us there. In Vancouver, we’re getting a very particular kind of density: a developer-friendly, instant-mix version that is injecting huge swaths of the city with a concentrated, pre-planned density in an incredibly short period of time.
But density without community just sucks. Thousands and thousands of people jammed into faceless little boxes, trying to pay off exorbitant mortgages is not much of a city. The ostensibly public spaces in the new downtown are the opposite of common—they are filled with people rushing around through highly-manicured landscapes without a pause—mirroring the frenzied construction all around them. We really should be aspiring to density, but too often what we’re getting here is a rendition that threatens to undermine the virtues that theoretically inhere in dense urban life.
Interestingly, many of the same things were being said twenty years ago about the West End. Critics claimed that it was being built too fast, that people were being herded into high-rise cages, that it was a faceless landscape of towers. But now, the West End proper is a terrific neighborhood in all kinds of ways, full of vibrant city life. Maybe in twenty years my critiques will seem equally unfounded.
Maybe. But I think there is something different going on right now. First, the building frenzy going on presently is on a whole other level of magnitude. The West End was built fast, but nothing like this. Second, the West End really has a remarkable diversity of building forms. The other day, Selena and I spent an afternoon walking around the neighborhood and there is really a surprising lack of repetition; there are huge numbers of buildings and they are mixed-up very nicely. And the scale is something else. The West End is one whole order of magnitude lower than what is being built now and is mostly made up of five and six story blocks, and that matters. Past a certain height, you necessarily lose conviviality and neighborliness, especially when it is so choreographed.
More than anything, though, density has to unfold, not sprout in a just-add-water boom. Christopher Alexander has often written about the need for incrementalism or accretive growth. His first rule of city building in A New Theory of Urban Design is: “Piecemeal growth as a necessary condition to wholeness.” It’s a principle that’s getting its ass kicked here. It’s possible that this is just the first blast to kick-start a new era of density, perhaps in time this will all settle down. It’s not the speed per se that I am objecting to here, but rather the process of growth that is reflected on the street.
It’s something that Vancouver environmental designer Erick Villagomez echoed when I asked about his thoughts on density:
We need more nuance about the implications of densification. This city was founded by developers and that has remained the core of the city. Obviously developers love density—it makes them a lot of money, as we’ve seen downtown—and although the city has handled it in a relatively decent way in terms of urban design, our densification has been pretty simplistic. Yes, density is important toward reducing our ecological footprint and creating vitality, but it can’t be that alone. If we are going to densify sustainably we have to connect it to many other factors.
Coming from Toronto, it’s incredible how uptight this city is. If you are going to densify toward an urban culture you have to have more faith in people. We have to look closely at the pockets of the city where density and vibrancy co-exit and examine how they thrive. I’m a big proponent of a more traditional city-building approach that looks closely at smaller spaces, of enlivening specific spaces, building from the bottom up, rather than these large scale “revitalizations.” In the bureaucratic management of a large city we’ve lost a lot. Vancouver has always been a top-down city: we need to get to a grassroots, bottom-up style of small-scale local transformations that, in aggregate, will create a better public realm.
An excellent example that Erick uses is a laneway on Commercial Drive that the Vancouver Urban Design Forum worked on. Looking at the hidden value of residual spaces throughout the city and using donated materials and local labor, they changed a thin, half-block stretch of unkempt alley into a lovely little public place through simple means. They replaced the beat-up asphalt with a strip of grass bordered by two permeable paved driving edges and a local community group painted murals on the walls enclosing the space. It is a humble adjustment, but one which has changed that alley.
Predictably, the city fought them on it and asked that it be removed within days of its creation. Local people mobilized, backed them off, and that now-grassy lane remains a small, lovely example of two things: the city’s signature intransigence, and people’s capacity to build a city. It’s not a huge deal, but it is precisely what Villagomez and Alexander point to: a grassroots unfolding of the city, small piece by small piece.
The depth, diversity, and vitality of a city are contingent on its public space and common places: it is where we encounter strangers, debate, the unexpected, and the need for civic engagement. Parks, museums, playgrounds, sidewalks, city squares, outdoor cafes, libraries, markets, sports events, bars, bike paths, theaters: it is what is best about every city, and what makes urban life worthwhile.
More than that, though, the health of public space is closely tied to the health of democratic life: they require one another. A democratic culture requires citizens engaged in dialogue, exposed to new ideas, interacting with people not like them, and confronted by others. That much is obvious. But the relationship is not that simple—you cannot just provide public spaces and boom, you get democracy, nor is it true to say that if you have more democratic discourse you’ll necessarily get more common places. It is closer to the truth to say that there are many different kinds and shades of public space and they inform the kind of political life that exists. We have to look at public space and ask the same questions we would ask of politics: who participates, what kind of activity is encouraged, is it equitably and equally distributed, are users in control?
Istanbul is sometimes described as one of the world’s great cities and it is obvious right away what a densely public place it is. People are everywhere: selling stuff, talking, smoking, taking the ferries, drinking tea, fishing, and walking around. And most of the activity takes place in unofficial rhythms and colonizes space intended for something else: impromptu cafes on street corners, simit sellers in every alley, tea vendors on the sidewalk, fishing off the Galata Bridge.
But let’s not get too romantic here. Part of the reason the streets of Istanbul are full of people is that lots of them have nowhere else to go. People are selling shit in every nook and cranny of the city because they are desperate for some cash. All those guys fishing on the bridge might make a great photo, but many of them are trying to get dinner. It’s important not to aestheticize or exoticize people’s harsh lives—all that vitality is probably a lot more enjoyable for a visitor.
But there are also lots of different kinds of poverty. Who’s richer: the guy fishing on the bridge, smoking with his buddies, and walking home through Beyoglu to his extended family, or the guy who leaves his cubicle, jockeys his car onto the highway, stops at Superstore, buys a bunch of food, and hustles back to his suburban home to eat in front of the TV? There’s lots unfair with that comparison, but the core of it is salient. The point is not to blindly replicate the dense public vitality of other cities, but to be able to recognize it, not as a consumer good but as an expression of something deeper.
Public life in Istanbul is a total mess—and beautifully so. Everyone I know there goes out constantly, almost every night, to drink tea or beer, shop, visit, do business, or just chill out. Public life happens everywhere. Some of it is clearly planned in the ways that I expect, but often it is in an apartment-turned-bar, or at a teahouse set up with some folding chairs in an alley, or a political club on the top floor of a housing block, or a café under a bridge. It is an ethic reflected in the traffic, both pedestrian and vehicular, which is predictably nuts and turns almost everywhere into fair game.
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