I’ve been reading a book by James Howard Kunstler called “The Geography of Nowhere.” Great book — you should pick it up. It was written in 1993, so I looked online for some more recent talks he’s given, and found this one (warning: contains some strong language). In that talk, he made a great observation that should be obvious to all of us: people like to inhabit great places. He shows this graphic as an example:
He explains:
It’s a good public space. It’s a place worth caring about. It’s well-defined. It is emphatically an outdoor public room. It has something that is terribly important. It has what’s called an active and permeable membrane around the edge. That’s a fancy way of saying it’s got shops, bars, bistros, destinations. Things go in and out of it — it’s permeable. The beer goes in and out, the waitresses go in and out. And that activates the center of this place and makes it a place that people want to hang out in. You know, in these places in other cultures, people just go there voluntarily because they like them. We don’t have to have a craft fair here to get people to come here. You know, you don’t have to have a Kwanzaa festival. People just go because it’s pleasurable to be there.
This should be common sense, but we’ve become so accustomed to poor public spaces that we don’t even notice them anymore. We have been conditioned to expect and accept mediocrity.
Consider some of Peoria’s public spaces: Riverfront Village, Festival Park, the area around the Civic Center. These are not places where people want to hang out. It’s not pleasurable to be in these spaces. The best the city can do is have the Park District “program” the space with festivals, carnivals, and other things that entice people to come down and visit. But go down there when there’s no program, and the space is vacant. There’s a reason for that: nobody wants to be there.
And that’s what’s wrong with this proposed public space, too:
To borrow a line from Kunstler, there’s not enough Prozac in the world to make a person feel good about being in this space. Ask yourself, honestly, if this is a place you would want to hang out with your friends. Yet, as you can see from the bird’s-eye view picture, the designers have provided ample open space for you to (theoretically) congregate. But the sad truth is that nobody wants to drive downtown (too bad they can’t live here) with their sack lunch (because there are no cafes) and stand around on a big concrete slab (because there’s no shade or bench) between two collections of blank metal walls (that have no retail draw). Museum backers tacitly admit that no one will want to come to this space, because their plan to attract people revolves totally around programming, just like Festival Park and the rest of the riverfront. There is no “active and permeable membrane around the edge” of this proposed development. And so, if it’s built, it will look just like this artist’s rendering: empty, stark, colorless, vacant, and depressing.
This would be a travesty if it were built at all, but the prospect of it being built with public funds is unconscionable. Peoria doesn’t need another tax-subsidized dead space downtown. We have enough of them. Peoria needs great places. And if taxpayers are going to contribute to a project, they deserve to get a great place for their money. If the museum folks want our tax money, they are obligated to provide something a whole lot better than what they’ve proposed. Peoria residents should demand it.
I would hate to be in the position of voting against Bellwood because it is attached to the museum, but I would and will. I cannot see the monstrosity shown in the artist rendering pulling residents downtown.
CJ – I know you hate the Cubs, but Wrigley Field is one of those places. I can compare it to Miller Park in Milwaukee.
There is no “Millerville” around the Park. There isn’t anything the matter with Miller Park, but there isn’t any reason to stick around, either.
Wrigley Field, on the other hand, has that ‘permeable membrane’ around it. I love Wrigley, but surround it by a few large parking lots and it loses some of its appeal.
I am also thinking of Beal Street in Memphis and the French Quarter of New Orleans. Cincinnati/Newport, KY have some areas like that, too.
They are the place to be because people want to go there and people want to go there because they are the place to be.
Anon — I agree with you about Wrigley Field. It is a great place and a great ballpark. Too bad a better team doesn’t play there. 😉
I always feel that the area around the Civic Center in uninviting and impersonal except towards City Hall. The Riverplex on the river side is pleasing because of the park and walkway. As to the Cubs, the area around Cub Park is good for bars, drunks and upward moving types that have lots of cash. This museum as shown in the plans is totally cold in appearance and my vote is NO NEW TAXES!!! Back to the drawing boards folks; try to do it right this time.
I’ve also had the opportunity to enjoy The Geography of Nowhere, and Kunstler does make a lot of very good points. However, sadly I’d say that this plan does fit in with the context of downtown, in that it’s ideal for a space you see and take a lunch break in during the daytime and a place no one sees or goes to at night. It’s no secret that downtown downhill from Main and Madison becomes a ghost town after 5 or 6 pm, and there’s good reason for that: there’s nothing to do. Sure, there are a few places that still gather some attention at night (Sully’s, et al.), but otherwise there’s no reason to be downtown at night. The museum block is in a great position to do something to link the riverfront with the rest of downtown and the Civic Center (because apparently everything needs to be connected to the Civic Center, e.g. the Pere project), but instead the city seems to be encouraging the Museum Block to be its own entity. I’d much rather see a plan that would extend the Fulton pedestrian mall from Washington to Water to provide a throughfare (and a direct sightline) from City Hall/Twin Towers/the Civic Center all the way to the riverfront to create a pedestrian axis through downtown.
If you enjoyed The Geography of Nowhere, I suggest you also read The Life and Death of American Cities by Jane Jacobs. The book, albeit very dated (1961), gives great points that are still very applicable today regarding outdoor “rooms” and public spaces.
Is this a “shovel ready” project that could get funding through the new Obama fund for infastructure improvement?
You know, Kunstler was neither trained as a geographer, a landscape architect, an urban planner, an engineer, etc….It is easy for people to get excited about him because he is fast to criticize, and he’s right, people like to be in nice spaces, but that’s not news. I would recommend that you pick up J.B. Jackson’s “A Sense of Place, A Sense of TIme”, and “The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes” for other views.