THERE ARE SOME BOOKS I’VE READ that have stuck with me, and typically these are books that make me see things in a new way.
There was always something about the suburban environment in toto that had always bothered me, but I had a hard time putting my finger on exactly what it was that bothered me, until I read “The Geography of Nowhere,” the 1994 best seller by James Howard Kunstler. His account of suburbia mixes social and economic history, personal anecdotes and often acid-tinged polemics to build a case that we Americans ought to reassess the built environment that became pervasive after the Second World War and that most of us take for granted.
His critiques were often surprising. For example, he counters the common complaint that the problem with suburbs is that they “all look the same” by pointing out that Paris, France, is by design and ordinance relatively uniform in the look of its streets and neighborhoods.
Yet no one comes back from Paris complaining about that city’s monotonous sameness.
He points out that Paris and other older European cities are uniformly beautiful. They are beautiful because the citizens of those cities have made them so, and by resisting attempts by the modernist, steel-and-glass contingent of architects and urban planners to remake those cities to serve the automobile.
American suburbs, by contrast, are designed explicitly to serve the needs of cars, and even prioritize the needs of cars over the needs of people.
Many suburbs lack sidewalks, for example. Even when sidewalks are present, the design of the streets themselves are modeled after county highways.
I never realized this before reading Kunstler’s book, but purely as a matter of physics and mechanics, driving at 50 miles per hour is well within the design limits of most suburban streets and ordinary cars.
(That said, I can confidently predict that the Benicia Police Department, and the judge who will sentence you, will take a very dim view of any of you actually tearing around Southampton at 50 miles per hour to test this, so please just take my word for it.)
Benicia is a great place to compare two different paradigms of design. The older part of town, roughly speaking the area from Military down to the water and east of West Seventh Street, was laid out and built from the mid-19th century to about 1940. The part of town above Military was built in the years since.
The old Benicia Primary school is down on the eastern side of East Third Street between K and L streets in Old Town. The building is more than 100 years old, and the intervening century-plus has given the building a certain sagging patina of age and wear.
Despite that, I’m impressed at the air of authority and decorum that is projected by the building itself. It is proportioned more or less along classical lines.
The entrance portico is flanked by Roman columns and capped by a triangular roof whose proportions and ornament convey that one is entering a place that connects a storied heritage to a hopeful future. It honored the students who went there, and told them and their parents that what happened there was important and noteworthy.
The current Benicia Middle School up on Southampton Road was completed in 1976, and is built mostly of steel and (lots of) cement.
The current principle is an old friend of mine and a wonderful human being. From the accounts of parents I know the school is staffed with dedicated and resourceful people and high achieving students.
But the building itself is — how do I put this? — unworthy of the excellence of its staff and students. Try something for me: stand in front of the school some early evening, mentally edit out the sign in front and the bike racks and so forth, and just look at the building itself.
Now, answer me this: if someone were to say that the building were a minimum-security prison for non-violent offenders, what could you point to in the architecture to prove them wrong?
The building is mostly windowless cement. It is surrounded by high chain-link fencing, and the primary thing being communicated to an observer is, perhaps, blast-resistance. What is being communicated to the students by the architecture when they walk through the doors of that place? Is it telling them that they are entering a place that connects an honored past to a hopeful future?
I believe we can do far better as a nation to make our public buildings places that use architecture and ornament to show that they are places we cherish and honor. We used to know how to do this as a people, and the remnants of the armature of civilization can serve as templates for how to proceed with this worthy project.
Matt Talbot is a writer and poet, as well as an old Benicia hand. He works for a tech start-up in San Francisco.
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Matt – also take a look at Tom Wolfe’s From Bauhaus to Our House, published in 1981, which was the first major look at this post-war trend of making housing developments based on the needs of cars. He points out that, in older architecture, you could see, and therefore, visit, your neighbors regularly. If you drive through Southampton, you will note that in 99,9% of the homes, you cannot see your neighbor’s door from your door because the garage blocks the views. He also explores the glass/steel office buildings, which he compared, I think, to fortresses, where the inhabitants can see out, but folks on the sidewalks usually can’t see in. The breakdown in the close, neighborhood communities of the US can, I think, be attributed in large part to the architecture of post- WWII American, which one satirist referred to as “ricky tack.” Great article.
I hate auto-correct. It was called ticky-tack!
The truth is America will never reconnect with itself in residential areas like you find north of Military East. These are all neighborhoods filled with workaday run families that like nothing better than to park their cars in the driveway after work, run inside and turn on the idiot box (not just TVs anymore), and disconnect from the world outside. No, if we are ever to reconnect, we need more places like Santana Row in San Jose, complete with transportation hubs, inviting courtyards and sidewalk cafes, and residential units above a thriving retail area with great restaurants and a promising night life. Benicia has some residential over retail developments like this at the end of first; however, what is lacking is a thriving retail area with great restaurants and a promising night life. There will never be that. Hence, Benicia will always be a sleepy little bedroom community with a dreary social scene, as if the stigma of being a refinery town was not enough.
Matt life is choices. We all make them. Were we live,, work, play and of course many other things.. The automobile has increased those choices. If it were not for the automobile there are many places folks could not visit, live and develope their own life style. I have driven all over the USA and have learned to appreciate what other folks want. How they live and also how they enjoy their life with their personal independence. Big cities with a few exceptions are a thing of the past. The bridge along with the automobiler opened up a whole new life style for Benicia and the areas around it. Without the bridge and the automobile Benicia would be a place where no goes. It has developed a sleepy town life style with a refinery that brought a very large group of very mobile people. Try the car first. The Palo Alto area is a good example of how a town did and will survive with the same living stkle of 100 years ago. Just expanded and very much upgraded. Very little stack and pack their. Stack and pack will work in some areas. Boston and Chicago are good examples about six months out of the year. Then the weather comes and it is terrible place to be. San Diego has developed a very desireable year around life style all supported by the automobile. The entire state of California and all its natural beauty is supported by the automobile. The only folks you see traveling America by bus are EU folks. Those folks are still living in a world long past the modern world. Everyone wants to visit Americ from all over the world. The automobile has made much of that possible. Now all we have to do is start making the Electric car pay their fair share of the road up keep. Like a huge electricity charge or better yet a very high registration fee like $2,000 a year. Think of what that can do for our roadsd. Matt your thinking is out of touch with the real world.
And, how does sprawl factor in on employment? Here is a “great example:
“”Atlanta is the Sultan of Sprawl, even more spread out than other major Sun Belt cities. This would make an effective public transportation system nearly impossible to operate even if politicians were willing to pay for it, which they aren’t. As a result, disadvantaged workers often find themselves stranded; there may be jobs available somewhere, but they literally can’t get there.””
http://nyti.ms/1t8Cp01
Paul Krugman? I got it. Enro. I do not want this cats advise on anything. That ends that conversation with a big bang.
Enron
The current trend is that less and less young Americans are purchasing, or even driving cars. These are the folks that will influence the future landscape of this country. It will surely see a departure from the post-war aesthetic/planning model. It is about time. Folks don’t visit our country in order to see places like Fremont, Fresno, or Evanston. They come to see the big cities, landmarks, and natural wonders.
If everyone got around this country like I have you would see an entirely different story. They love the mix of culture in our country that they see no where but in America. Just trAVEAmerica.
If everyone got around this country like I have you would see an entirely different story. They love the mix of culture in our country that they see no where but in America. Just travel America. and you see what I mean. Except for maybe Krugman.. Travel those wonderful roads all paid for by fossil fuel driven automobiles. The very first desire of young Americans is to get an automobile. Do notknow why anyone could not understand that. Yes lots of bikes also all rode by folks that I do not want driving a car. Everry where in Americsa you will see tour buses in every city and stop all across America. America is an adventure to them and they want to see it all. Big cities, small cities, p;aces that some of Americans have never been. The EU folks love it. They can see a big city anytime but they cannot see a place like Redding CA. Try following their advebnture in America you might learn something. Go to Baker Oregon and talk to Potato farmers as an example. Believe me you will learn something. Go to Lamont and learn about the sucess of the Okies. Quit an expierence for all folks. I love every bit of it.
Back to architecture of the suburbs.
Matt, you are right about public buildings all being barely distinguishable from prisons. The irony is that many harken the design aesthetic of cold war era soviet states.
How can that be? We’ll much of that has to do with the building process and making everything quick and cheap. Craftsmanship is out the door. The only place the true craftsman exist today is in small privately run companies. The development of suburbs in the last 20 years has suffered from this. Large developers are prone to use cheaper materials; and are prone to blaze through projects where pride of work is not allowed to exist. Hence, we have a glut of homes that start falling apart after 10 to 15 years.
Unfortunately, this general approach is not limited to home construction industry. Look at the automotive industry. American cars have only recently started to become better. Largely due in part to the involvement of companies like Mercedes, Toyota and Volvo with American car companies. Fortunately, the small company/pride in craftsmanship model works here as well. Just look at the fantastic engineering and unprecedented approach to the automotive industry Tesla has exhibited. There may still be hope.
The comment there still may be hope tells it all. These folks do not even believe it. You just got your answer.
At 6:08 pm – just words with no meaning.
Tom – I agree with mush of what you write here. Another factor worth considering: those older, better buildings were built by a society that was far less wealthy, by practically any measure, than the United States of the present moment.
Contrast San Francisco Civic Center with the government buildings of almost any city of a similar size built since World War II. On the one hand you have a beautifully proportioned and decorated civic space that is one of the masterpieces of Beaux Arts – and on the other you have something that typically looks like either a suburban junior high school or (in its more brutalist iterations) something like the Academy where Dark Lords of the Sith are trained.
Matt,
I actually like the new San Jose City Hall. But, that is just me. I also like the design ethic that came out of Bauhaus,. Oscar Niemeyer’s work, and Eichler Homes. For me, it is all about natural light.
As far as you agreeing with me, that is appreciated. I am just prone to point out the truth, even if some are offended, or in denial.
Cheers!