Neil Fraser
26 July 2002
Ever wondered about the word 'downtown'? Evidently for New Yorker Philip Hone, "a prominent businessman, one-time mayor and indefatigable diarist of the 1830s and 1840s", downtown had a geographical meaning, he meant the southern part of Manhattan Island.
He also meant the northern part when he spoke of uptown and, in both cases, was merely following the convention of south meaning down and north meaning up. (Capetonians come ‘up’ to Joburg, we go ‘down’ to the Cape!)
From 1830 to 1870 the growth of New York was phenomenal with its population moving from a quarter of a million to nearly one-and-a-half million. The result was a transformation of the city with the southern end evolving from mixed use to commercial and the northern into residential.
Evidently New Yorkers still used the terms 'downtown' and 'uptown' when referring to the geographic location, "the words gradually took on a functional meaning that reflected the changing structure of the city".
Wood's Illustrated Handbook, a guide written for the British, explained that the expressions ‘downtown’ and ‘uptown’ "are employed to designate the business and social quarters of the city" – one devoted to "commerce, traffic and law" the other to "private life".
Robert M. Fogelson, an urban historian, has written a fascinating book entitled ‘Downtown’, in which he documents the rise and fall of this heart of the American city. He provides a wonderful quote from George Makepeace Towle – US Consul at Bradford in 1870 – who informed his British readers: "If caprice takes you downtown, you soon find yourself in the very whirl and maelstrom of commerce and trade. As you proceed uptown, quiet and insouciant ease takes the place of the bustle and hurry of the down town quarters."
Not exactly the Johannesburg CBD and Hillbrow a century-and-a-quarter later! Webster’s Dictionary, notes Fogelson, referred to ‘downtown’ as an 'American word', but he comments, "downtown was not only an American word, it was also a uniquely American place."
Manhattan, and Downtown Manhattan in particular, is still such a uniquely American place. 4 000 citizens of New York City testified to this fact when they came together recently at a "Listening to the City: Remember and Rebuild Workshop" where they deliberated and set priorities on plans for the redevelopment of the site of the World Trade Centre. 4 000 citizens at one meeting! What commitment! What organisation!
And what technology!
Some years ago I had the good fortune to witness in both Atlanta and Washington DC, the extraordinary value that high-tech technology similar to that used in just such a massive meeting provides.
In order to effectively workshop the ideas of hundreds or thousands of community participants, they use a high tech model created by America Speaks, an organisation committed to linking citizen’s voices to government.
The participants sit at tables of 10 people plus a facilitator with a laptop connected to a central server. Each participant has a keypad which allows them to place votes and preferences.
Using keypads to vote on a series of carefully considered questions participants are guaranteed an anonymity that encourages freedom of expression which in turn results in absolute honesty and meaningful results.
The technology provides instant feedback to participants and facilitators which appears on big screens around the room and produces an immediate digital record of the workshop’s results.
This allows for things like the demographics of participants to be immediately determined (and made transparent) and for preferences of the group to be determined instantaneously.
The small group facilitators (in this case the 4 000 participants were spread over 500 tables) ensure an understanding of the process. In the case of the recent World Trade Centre workshop, 71% voted for a symbolic new structure for the downtown skyline and 56% for the restoration of the street grid which the original construction of the Twin Towers disrupted.
And, all six of the design proposals for the redevelopment of the site provided at the session received a ‘thumbs-down’. All of the designs incorporated the million plus square metre space that had been lost on September 11 and the majority of the 4 000 participating citizens said ‘no way’.
All of this can be gleaned from www.americaspeaks.org but an article by columnist Neal Pierce of the 2002 Washington Post Writers Group succinctly sums it up: "What a difference from a generation ago when a handful of powerful business and political leaders virtually dictated New York’s critical development decisions: witness the legendary freeway and bridge projects of Robert Moses, devouring neighbourhoods and landscape in their path. Of course it's radical to involve little people in the big decisions. But it's about time."
On the same issue, I received an e-mail from Melissa Laughlin who spent some time with the JDA and is now back in her hometown, Chicago. She writes that she "had a great meeting with the North Eastern Illinois Planning Commission (www.nipc.cog.il.us) and thought that you might be interested in what they are doing.
"NIPC are undergoing the process of developing a 30-year comprehensive plan for Chicago and surrounding areas. What's special about the process, is that they are the first organisation to conduct a regional planning process driven completely by the community - and committed to incorporating previously invisible voices to the process.
"It's a similar concept to Hillbrow's Planning for Real Exercise - but on a much larger scale. The community determines, through a large scale participatory process, the vision and plan for the future of the region.
"The process is ground-breaking for two reasons: one, empowering citizens to set the priorities of a region; two, for the technology used to facilitate the process."
I wonder what the results of high-tech anonymous voting process for strike action would be? Mind you, the same question could be asked regarding voting by politicians!
