September 26, 2005
THERE are a couple of things I forgot to mention last week about Denver. It is a city of parks - the metro area has 302 parks covering 5 100 acres (or about 2 064 hectares), of which the largest is 200 acres.
In the downtown area there are nine parks. They are all beautifully maintained by the Denver parks department, as are the many wide, grassed pavements that run through the city's residential areas.
Sport
It is a city of sport and recreation. Apart from the football, baseball, basketball and ice hockey venues in the downtown area, there are soccer and lacrosse fields, 15 golf courses, 220 kilometres of biking and hiking trails along two river systems within the metro that run through the downtown, and eight major ski-resorts within 120 kilometres of the city.
Art
It is also a city of art. Denver's Public Art Programme was established in 1988 under a by-law whereby 1 percent of all capital improvement projects over $1-million undertaken by the City is invested in public art.
Since then about 150 public art works have been installed across Denver.
While the programme is managed by the City's office of cultural affairs, a citizens' group is appointed by the mayor to advise the City on art and cultural issues. The artworks are selected through a public process that includes citizens, artists and design professionals.
Each public art project is site specific and each selection panel is unique. Panel members are charged with identifying works that speak to a location, a group of people or a time in history. Each selection panel is asked to select works that represent Denver and identify artists who can create works of art that engage the viewer, inform the visitor and add vitality to Denver's landscape.
Works are very diverse, ranging from murals on buildings to sound installations, sculptures, plaques, photographic and video installations, ceramics and lighting, among others.
Denver has been voted the number one city in which to raise a child (Child Magazine); number one to have a pet (Purina Pet Institute); number one bike city in the USA (Bicycling Magazine); number one city for singles (Forbes Magazine) and was listed as one of the Ten Healthiest Cities in the USA (Sperling's Best Places).
So here you can stay a healthy single while riding your bike with your child and dog.
Boulder
A post-conference tour provided attendees at the International Downtown Association congress the opportunity to visit the city of Boulder for a couple of days.
Situated about 50 kilometres from Denver, Boulder nestles at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. It began its life in 1858 as a number of log cabins erected by gold rush prospectors. The huts provided shelter below the mouth of Boulder Canyon and acted as a supply point for prospectors seeking gold and silver in the Rockies.
By 1859 there were 70 cabins and by 1890 the population numbered some 4 000 - a similar sort of background to Joburg. Today the population is 100 000, but that increases by 30 000 during the university terms.
If you want to visit what I would describe as a "sensible and eminently civilised city", Boulder is it - almost. Its setting is beautiful, with a number of mountain peaks forming the backdrop.
There are a great many walking and biking trails, there is virtually no graffiti and no billboards nor outdoor advertising. Buildings are restricted to five or six storeys in height and there is a lot of use of natural stone and timber.
It is remarkably clean yet in the two and a bit days I was there I never saw any street cleaners. And as in Denver, I also saw very few police.
There are no fences between or in front of houses - no 3m walls, razor wire or electric security fences. The buses are equipped with racks in front to transport passenger's bicycles, the traffic lights have a countdown to tell you how many more seconds you have to cross the street and it is quiet.
By-laws require parking garages, of which there are a number, to have commercial activities on the street elevations so that one is not confronted with faceless and ugly parking structures.
While there are plenty of pavement cafes, they have to pay the municipality a rental for the public space they occupy, which then goes back into maintaining and beautifying the public environment.
Boulder is a university city; the University of Colorado dates back almost to the founding of the city, the campus is lovely. Students are very much in evidence throughout the city.
This is another cultural city with an annual music festival and a seven-week Colorado Shakespeare Festival attended by some 50 000 people. Centres for art and culture abound and Boulder hosts the National Centre for Atmospheric Research, with a building designed by IM Pei.
Pedestrianised mall
It is also another city with a highly successful pedestrianised mall. Four blocks of Pearl Street in the heart of the downtown area were pedestrianised in 1976/77 as a preservation reaction to a retail shopping mall that had been built on the edge of the city and which had a negative effect on downtown retail.
The pedestrianisation stimulated the property owners to refurbish their buildings to what they looked like in 1880. The Pearl Street Mall itself was completely refurbished in 2002 and is a really great mall - a very wide streetscape with excellent brick paving, many trees and colourful plantings and lots of variations with sculptures, play areas for kids and fountains.
It is lined with a large variety of bars, restaurants and shops. The mall is well managed by an improvement district organisation which recently has installed a wireless facility, powered by solar energy, throughout the mall so you can just pull up a chair in the sun and surf the web or catch up on your e-mailing.
Sunshine
Boulder boasts 300 days of sunshine a year, which is probably also to blame for a collection of quite the weirdest looking street people I've come across. However, they are or appear to be of the non-aggressive variety.
The city has a Buddhist Temple - I believe it is one of the few cities in the USA that does - and hosts a wide variety of spiritual beliefs manifesting themselves in plenty of New Age, Chinese, Nepalese and Indian shops and restaurants. In fact, I have never seen as large a collection of such "belief retail" in one western city.
Challenges
However, the traditional city centre is again under threat. The American free market approach to development is resulting in a whole new "lifestyle and retail" area being built not far from Boulder's traditional downtown region.
At the International Downtown Association conference, one of the British delegates advised that in the United Kingdom, regulations to support high streets in towns and cities had recently been re-instated. They had been removed under the Thatcher government, resulting in a great deal of harm to traditional retail.
The American delegates responded that this was great for the Brits, but they could not see this taking place in the USA. The result is that American cities are constantly under threat from development away from the city core, just as we are.
While in Boulder I stayed in what, until last year, was the only hotel in the downtown, the Boulderado. Built in 1909 and refurbished some years ago, it still offers genteel surroundings and comfortable accommodation at a reasonable price. Oh, that we had some of out old landmark hotels still going strong.
Lessons
Okay, so what lessons could we learn?
One: in Denver and Boulder there is a great deal of civic mindedness. City councils cannot just do what they want to; the citizens have a huge say.
Nothing appears to be done without extensive public debate. I was interested to find the degree to which citizens had a say in the design of the Pearl Street Mall and in its artworks.
We seem to have lost this facility and that is not for the better. We also do not have the degree of interest and pride that the ordinary citizen there has in what is happening in their city.
Two: although their broad planning seems to be laissez-faire, there is, in fact, strict control over individual developments and particularly over historic or heritage buildings.
Citizens fight tooth and nail to ensure that developers are not given carte blanche to do their own thing, and the result is that much is preserved - and preserved well. This does not mean that refurbishment cannot be done that is not in keeping with the original use of the building - preservation appears to be sensible and balanced.
Three: there is a great movement of residents back into the cities. Denver has 1 896 units under construction in the centre of the city, and this will accelerate with the rising price of petrol. I saw in the press that some people are now resorting to shared vehicle ownership.
However, unlike ourselves, random residential development cannot just take place where a developer sees a gap. In Boulder mixed use with retail on the ground floor is happening right in the centre of the city.
Four: public transport by bus is excellent and the buses are increasingly being driven by gas or electricity. (They are also smooth and quiet).
I have heard nothing of our own Inner City Distribution Project for some time; I previously made a plea for consideration of light rail or bus but that evidently is not being considered. American transport engineers seem more flexible and pro-active in their thinking than ours.
Five: still on transport - in so many cities that I have visited in the US and Europe the bicycle is such an important mode of transport that city planning seems naturally to cater for it.
This is so in Denver too, with its bikeways and the racks on buses for transporting bikes. I would have thought that with our climate and relatively flat topography bicycling would have been something to nurture and efforts would have been made to provide the sort of environment that would encourage it.
Six: public buildings are quite spectacular, with famous international names being appointed to bring prestige and some unique iconic design.
One book I read on Denver starts with the following words, "As an architectural treasure chest, Denver is unmatched in Colorado."
I believe that we have some good architects and practices that can hold their own with the internationals. But we are very introverted in our design and some new thinking may bring a breath of fresh air to the city, as well as something to brag about.
Seven: public art is a part of the cityscape and cultural attractions are boosted by making it easy for people to get there.
We seem always to be crying that we have great attractions that are not supported, but we do not go out of our way to make it easy for people to get there.
What about a monthly "cultural bus" heavily advertised to bring the fearful from the north to see what the city really can offer?
Eight: city planning authorities are proactive, always appearing to look at how the city can be improved. I know it is easy to be critical, but I really see no strong lead being given by our city planners in so many aspects of its development.
Nine: public space is so important to any city and is enhanced in these Colorado towns by art and functional facilities.
Finally, while Denver and Boulder are well functioning and exciting cities to visit and, I am sure, to live in, I still missed the colour and some of the "irregularities" of the African city that makes places like Joeys so edgy and gritty.
It is always good to come home.
Regards, Neil.
Permission to use web site material
Publishers may use material from this site free of charge, as long as:
- Credit is given to either the "City of Johannesburg website
(www.joburg.org.za)" or to "Johannesburg News Agency
(www.joburg.org.za)";
- If the article is used online, a link is provided to the original
article on this website;
- The name of the article's author is acknowledged;
-
The webmaster is informed of how and where the material is used (fill
in this brief online form).
Johannesburg News Agency is operated by BIG Media at 011-484-1400 |
