January 22, 2007
By Neil Fraser and Katherine Cox
I THOUGHT we'd have a bit of a change of pace this week - this is an article that my business partner, Katherine Cox, and I wrote for Built magazine.
Space for our urban souls
"What attracts people most, it would appear, is other people ..." William H Whyte
"In the future, livable communities will be the basis for our competitiveness and economic strength. Our efforts to make communities more livable today must emphasize the right kind of growth – sustainable growth. Promoting a better quality of life for our families need never come at the expense of economic growth. Indeed, in the 21st century it can and must be an engine for economic growth." Al Gore
There is a global renaissance in urban parks and public spaces. Cities around the world are creating parks as focal points for economic development and neighbourhood renewal. Cities have passionately embarked on major tree planting projects, imploded buildings to create green lungs, upgraded roads to become leafy streets oriented towards pedestrians and cyclists. Easy access to parks and open space and connecting these green lungs has become a new measure of city wealth - an important way to attract businesses and residents by guaranteeing both quality of life and economic health.
In Paris, under Mayor Bertrand Delanoe's lead, it seems that urban citizens will commandeer any underdeveloped space they can find, such as balconies, derelict railway sidings, hard building facades even defunct parking garages, and transform them into green public space, parks and gardens.
"They will sacrifice broad boulevards for the sake of bike paths with leafy canopies. They will argue for community gardens over apartments, relinquish a busy city expressway along the Seine for a temporary beach park, will see in every shabby lot a cathedral of green … build community gardens on vacant lots, however small." J Ackerman, National Geographic, October 2006
Delanoe has pledged to find and develop 75 acres within Paris for new parks and green public spaces. This will be achieved through creatively re-using odd city spaces and supporting 40 small community gardens on previously vacant lots.
We may consider it astounding that Parisians can afford the "luxury" of such urban wonder. Surely they too have stretched budgets, yet they can find that little more for green space. And isn't it time that we too broadened our "development" horizons to accept that parks and gardens, green streets and green infrastructure are no luxury? They are, in fact, essential and achievable.
Sceptics may well point out that we have too many other priorities - rapid urbanisation, glaring poverty, crime and housing shortages. Yet there are great examples in the developing world. In the face of similar problems to our own, in three years the former mayor of the Colombian city of Bogotá, Enrique Penalosa, established and refurbished 1 200 parks and planted over 100 000 trees.
Tangible benefits and value
There are some very real and tangible reasons to invest in urban open spaces. Over the past few years, internationally the value of parks and open green space has become increasingly measured in terms of social, environmental, economic, mental and physical health.
Despite this there is a significant lack of response from our local government, an ignoring of the necessity of these aspects in our city. The list below represents a brief summary of some of the most tangible and measurable values derived from quality public space in the urban environment.
Environmental value:
Vegetation filters pollution and absorbs noise; it radically reduces carbon monoxide and other harmful car emissions, as well as the effects of urban heat islands, reducing temperatures by five to 10 degrees. This is an all-important phenomenon under the looming fear of global warming.
Social value:
It is a proven fact internationally that people who live public housing surrounded by vegetation and trees show higher levels of community, social cohesion and reduced stress compared with occupants of buildings surrounded by concrete and tar.
The same people also display less aggression, are calmer, generally happier, and do not abuse their built environment through vandalism, graffiti and littering. Studies have shown that incidences of violent crime have been halved when buildings are planted with trees, grass and gardens.
The Urban Institute lists the contributions that green space makes towards the cohesiveness of communities, including youth development, social capital, improvement in health and cognitive function, reduced symptoms of attention deficit disorder, a greater ability to overcome depression and stress as well as reduced blood pressure and anxiety levels.
Economic value:
Accumulating evidence indicates that conserving open space is not an expense but an investment that produces important economic benefits.
Open space is good for the city's bottom line. Green spaces in cities generally require relatively minor public investment yet show significant returns. There is a tangible link between property values and their proximity to green space and urban forested areas, a connection between urban parks and neighbourhood quality.
In the US, community development corporations now invest in managed open space programmes, an area of development that is rapidly growing. The success of Bryant Park is but one example. This badly designed and maintained area behind the New York City Library became a centre for criminal activity and negatively affected the adjacent commercial activity.
Handed over to the private sector some years ago, it was completely redesigned and rebuilt and today, utilising private sector management through a business improvement district, it has become one of New York's best loved and used public spaces. And the value of surrounding property has skyrocketed.
But going even further back, as early as the 1850s landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted justified the purchase of land for New York's Central Park by noting that the rising value of adjacent property would produce enough in taxes ultimately to pay for the park. By 1873, the park – which until then had cost approximately $14-million – was responsible for an extra $5,24-million in taxes each year.
Property journals and the internet are literally awash with examples of increasing returns on property development and higher rentals achieved near well-managed green space.
Higher property values mean higher rates and taxes, which result in increased wealth for the city. But public open space must be well maintained and secure.
Quality of life:
The most successful higher-density neighbourhoods in cities across the world – those most attractive to upwardly mobile homebuyers – offer easy access to parks, playgrounds, trails, greenways and natural open space. Again, research shows that the major elements crucial for a satisfactory quality of life are low crime, safe streets and access to greenery and open space.
This is largely because green spaces offer welcoming places for people to gather, to chill, to escape momentarily from crowded busy cities. These spaces allow people to play and give people a reason to get outdoors, exercise and stay healthy.
Cities need to attract people. If people want to live in a place, economic development and the necessary infrastructure will follow. Companies, indeed huge corporates such as Boeing, have chosen to relocate to cities with significant green spaces as their employees and those employees they wish to attract, are used to living in urban environments with a high quality of life, walkability and easy access to outdoor recreation.
Policy and legislation:
Cities are using policy to protect and encourage the growth of urban green. An urban forestry resolution was passed by the United States in 2003 to preserve existing and promote the growth of new forests. In 2005 50 global cities signed a Green Cities Declaration at the World Environment Day held in San Francisco. One of the purposes of the declaration was to ensure that by 2015 an accessible public park or open space would be located within half a kilometre of every urban citizen.
Joburg appears to be spot on in terms of policy – the protection and replanting of Jozi's urban forest is paid significant attention in the new Growth and Development Strategy. However, the relevant departments do not appear to be paying any heed to their policy, or the City fathers are not providing the necessary budget.
Trees:
Trees are major capital assets in cities across the world. Just as streets, pavements, public buildings and recreational facilities are part of a community's public infrastructure, so are trees. Aside from the obvious aesthetic benefits, trees improve the air by removing pollutants, provide carbon sequestration, protect our water – even precipitating urban rainfall, save energy, and improve economic sustainability – and even improve traffic safety.
The scope and condition of a city's trees and, collectively, its urban forest, is usually the first impression that city projects to its visitors. A community's urban forest is an extension of its pride and community spirit in the following ways:
- Trees enhance community economic stability by attracting businesses and tourists;
- People linger and shop longer along tree-lined streets;
- Flats and offices in wooded areas are rented more quickly and have higher occupancy rates;
- Businesses leasing office spaces in developments with trees find their workers are more productive and absenteeism is reduced; and
- Property values increase five to 30 percent (Urban Institute) compared to properties without trees.
The recent addition of 100 new trees at Zoo Lake is a step in the right direction, as is the project to plant about 7 000 trees in Soweto as part of the City Parks planting programme.
Jozi and shades of green
Let's face it – Joburg offers very few examples of great public space. Mostly this aspect of urbanness is to be found in individual, separated instances: sculptures and night skies at Mary Fitzgerald Square; Trinity Session's funky trees in Braamfontein, indeed, Braamfontein's newly upgraded streetscapes and the Civic Park and piazza (donated by the private sector); the abundance of public art at Constitution Hill; creative and symbolic landscaping and green installation at the Apartheid Museum; the Hector Pieterson Memorial; the University of the Witwatersrand's new Origins Centre; the Anglo American Main Street precinct, which is a great example of what can be accomplished over just two city blocks; the streetscaping and artefact installations along Main Street and in Eagle Square; and innovative water features and planting surrounding the new University of Johannesburg gallery and theatre.
Much of the above, though public space, was funded by the private sector. In the realm of private space, a huge bouquet must go to the MTN building in Jozi, where grey water is recycled and the building is on its way to being energy efficient. The company is also planting 600 indigenous trees on site.
We observe that there are hardly any commercial buildings of note that are not set in significantly landscaped surrounds. If the private sector recognises the value of green surrounds, why is the public sector so reluctant to follow this example by creating similar investments in our cities? Why do we not have any public space or public urban life worth speaking of in Jozi?
Sure, our legacy of apartheid planning to an extent still dictates the kinds of public life and urban space taking shape today. We are the first to admit that we must work with what we have as well as create wonderful urban newness.
We need to put the joy and wonder back into urban living. To do this, those involved in city development must go beyond the traditional view of parks and public space – that of providing poorly managed open areas for recreational facilities and programmes. We must get away from our narrow perception of streets as conduits for cars, a bleak scattering of parks as our only public spaces.
Let's genuinely start creating streets and public transport as "place".
"The street is the river of life of the city." W H Whyte
"If you plan cities for cars and traffic, you get cars and traffic. If you plan for people and places, you get people and places." Fred Kent, Making Places, June 2005
This may seem too simplistic and obvious but it is just that. We need to make conscious, deliberate choices about designing streets, green infrastructure and city spaces for people. Barcelona, in Spain, has built boulevards or ramblas that give pedestrians priority over cars. London and Rome charge congestion fees for vehicles entering the city centre, successfully reducing traffic levels and funding an aggressive programme to improve transit.
Bogotá boasts a world-class rapid bus transit system and has established a mandate to eliminate private car use during the morning rush hour by 2015. Portland, in Oregon, not only has one of the best public transit systems in the United States, but thousands of acres of parks and open space. Vancouver, with over 200 parks and 30 kilometres of waterfront walkways and bikeways, has been consistently voted as one of the world's most livable cities.
And then there are tot-lot parks, small alley ways and spaces between buildings, intersections, vacant backyards, rooftops, balconies, cemeteries, surplus land, derelict parks – these can all be transformed into vibrant green spaces for public use, for kids' playtime and adventuring. All these places are vital because they bring identity to a community, give it focus and can, in fact, be part of its rebirth.
"We all need to see other people. We need to see green. Wealthy people can do that at clubs and private facilities. But most people can only do it in public squares, parks, libraries, sidewalks, greenways, public transit … The least a democratic society should do is offer people wonderful public spaces." Enrique Penalosa
Penalosa views cities as being planned for a purpose – to create human wellbeing. "Public spaces are not a frivolity. They are just as important as hospitals and schools. They create a sense of belonging. This creates a different type of society – a society where people of all income levels meet in public space is a more integrated, socially healthier one."
Future Jozi, a creative alternative
We're lucky – we have space. We already have an urban forest, although it is constantly under threat as the City's Planning Department continues to approve cluster developments in Johannesburg's treed neighbourhoods.
But we lack access to open space, parks and publicness in our city. Both low and upper income areas are desperately short of quality public space. In Johannesburg, we are in a position to create a future where the greatest priority is given to pedestrians, cyclists, and public transport. When this happens, the street itself can fulfill the critical "town square" function that we are missing.
We started this article with a quote from Al Gore, with whom we would argue that livable communities and cities with quality of life are the basis of competitiveness and economic strength now as well as in the future. Given this, South African cities are, for the most part, lacking, indeed lagging way behind. Now is the time to invest heavily in "greenfrastructure".
Cheers, Neil
PS: There are two January walking tours by the Parktown and Westcliff Heritage Trust:
Saturday, 20 January – Braamfontein Cemetery: a grave affair
Handkerchiefs and smelling salts will be de rigeur, except for those whose interest in Joburg's history outweighs their sense of decorum.
Meet at the cemetery office inside gate in Graf Street at 2pm. The walk lasts about three hours and costs R50 for members and R70 for non-members. The tour is restricted to 25 people.
Saturday, 27 January – Parktown West Gardens and Homes
The tour combines architecture and horticulture with touches of history.
Meet at the small park in Seymour Avenue, Parktown West at 2pm. The walk lasts about three hours and costs R50 for members and R70 for non-members. The tour is restricted to 40 people.
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