The epiphany that the common suburb has long been
lacking in identity or that the urban neighbourhood craves a unique niche has finally
dawned on municipal governments. The American suburban dream of conformist homogeneity is
now a faded ideology. Instead, bureaucrats are trying to artificially create that
intangible quality of "place" and have attempted to impose it upon rather
ubiquitous locales. Take the case of Citrus Heights, California, a rather banal suburb of
Sacramento that can boast six-lane thoroughfares lined with strip malls as its primary
civic spaces. Here, civic authorities have planted medians of flowers and erected banners
proclaiming the boundaries of their little fiefdom. That no one could tell when they
entered or left the city previously is telling. A similar strategy was employed in a
Dallas suburb, in which banners were erected and landscaping improved around a typical
intersection of two wide, arterial roads, surrounded by typical chain outlets and big-box
stores. This was thus proclaimed "downtown". One town supervisor confessed,
"People want to be able to identify with a place". In other words, they're tired
of monotonous ubiquity.
However, this phenomenon is not confined to banal sprawl-ridden townships on the city
outskirts. Hundreds of revitalising neighbourhoods in cities worldwide have been asking
themselves the question, "What does this place signify?" New Yorkers can
identify with the spirit of Greenwich Village, San Franciscans with Haight-Ashbury, and
the words "Little Italy" and "Chinatown" have become common lexicon.
But in many formerly bombed-out urban neighbourhoods that are now recovering, or new ones
built from scratch (like Seattle's Denny Regrade), the famous atmosphere that pervades
well-known locales such as the Village or Haight is elusive. These new neighbourhoods are
desirous of a pulse, a vibe. Perhaps it is to escape the fate of total gentrification,
which has swept so many neighbourhoods into a monoculture of Starbucks and SUVs not much
better than that of the least unique suburbs.
And therefore city governments have stepped into the forefront. Armed with a cavalcade
of signs, banners, advertising resources, and, above all, liquidity, they have endeavoured
to create "place" out of locales perceived as lacking it. Look here, the banners
shout from their perch on the lightposts, this is the South Side Cultural District. This,
of course, is justified by the city through an investment in a couple nearby theatres and
maybe a newly-opened coffee shop in which poetry is read nightly. If the city receives a
return on its investment through increased activity in the area, it might be implored to
add some snazzy street furniture or public art . . . maybe a statue of, say, Louis
Armstrong gracing a new park. All this sounds excellent at the outset. The new
"Cultural District" blossoms, a veritable renaissance takes place through its
incessant promotion. It becomes a destination. The city coffers are expanded to the point
where it can invest in further neighbourhoods, its planners thinking up new concepts for
their promotion.
The city's health improves, but does the uniqueness of the district, or the city as a
whole? Aforementioned famous quarters – the Village, Haight-Ashbury – were not
the work of some bureaucrat in the City Planning Department. They were and still are
authentic, coalescent concentrations of people with common interests, common aspirations
and a common way of life. The Chinatowns and Little Italies that seemed to once dot every
city were not groups of restaurants promoted with excessive signage and street decoration,
but communities in which immigrants found support networks to help them adjust to their
newfound nation. It seems the recognition by City Hall of the intangible qualities which
create a working, authentic, and popular neighbourhood is impossible. That's why so many
cities, where such neighbourhoods, dubbed "slums" in their day, were cleared for
parking lots or luxury condos, are being forced to rebuild from the ground up and
proceeding in exactly the wrong direction.
Granted, an acknowledgement of density, vitality, and variety as essential
characteristics of a city was a big step for City Hall to take, but its vision can still
improve. Many cities seem to seek only to disguise yuppie playgrounds with new identities
so as to create the appearance of a great metropolis without risking the irrational fears
of what comes as a result of ethnic diversity or colonies of beatnik artists rather than
sparkling new condominiums for the upper middle class. It's easier for it to create what
amounts to a theme park, in which lies Hippieland or perhaps the Gay Kingdom, than to
fundamentally acknowledge the essential elements needed to create the realities of such
places.
However, in most cases the city is not completely contriving such zones from its own
imagination. It may be true that there are Chinese residents and merchants in the majority
in the newly delineated Chinatown, or that Little Italy has historically been so, but even
then, the city's attempts at defining that place run contrary to their flavour. Why does a
real Chinatown or Little Italy need promotion via signs and banners when the atmosphere of
the neighbourhood speaks to its individual charms? For inherent in authentic
neighbourhoods is the ability to emanate a sense of place through the common architecture
or ethnicity or whatever interesting idiosyncrasy is possessed within. The sign placed by
the City of Boston at the entrance of its famed North End is almost laughable in the
respect that the entrance is almost certainly illustrated by the architectural fabric, the
winding narrow streets, and the Italian cafes. Any Bostonian can identify when he or she
has entered the neighbourhood or is currently "experiencing" it without some
indication planted by the city. Likewise, people are drawn to the neighbourhood by its
interestingly anomalous character.
But the North End is a neighbourhood endowed with a long history and strong character.
How to foster the creation of new districts, then, without such rare qualities, and
without the aid of the false advertising utilised by promotionalists? Cities should be
subsidising entrepreneurs, encouraging private investment, and allowing developing
communities to form their own grassroots culture. Clearly, the authenticity of a
neighbourhood is not compromised when promoted from within rather than by some government
directive. Let the people determine place in the organic method that has sustained and
created great neighbourhoods over the aeons.