The Call of the Mall, Reply at Your Own Peril

I have set my sights on several planning jobs in towns that are in very modest-size.

The temptation is to say gee, if they just put in a few more up-scale chain stores they could generate a lot of business. A Gap over here, an Abercrombie over there and people would flock from miles around!

Afterall, that is what I am thinking whenever I drive around Des Moines- gahh if they just had an H&M or a Barnes and Noble!

This is not entirely fair to say. The "upscale" mall, and the newest mall in town, Jordan Creek contains many national brands, including J. Crew, Pac-Sun, Ann Taylor Loft, etc., But H&M is among the missing. Barnes and Noble is in town and scattered throughout, though their bargain section is lacking in terms of quality.*sigh* I'm still looking for a Crate & Barrel or a Whole Foods. Yes, I am a horrible yuppie snob. I swear it's latent!!!

But as past experience has taught us, relying on a mall is a dangerous proposition. Other cities have tried building a mall as their Hail-Mary economic development strategy. And at first they appeared to be a resounding success. Afterall, who doesn't love a shiny, new building filled with all of your favorite stores?

The question is posed, what happens when the cruel hand of Time leaves its grubby fingerprints on an establishment? What happens when thirty years have passed and the age of a structure begins to show? It's hard to pass off an era-specific 1960s mall as hip and happening when a sleek new mall is built. Insert analogies culled from Sunset Boulevard, All About Eve, or any Joan Crawford movie centering around an aging (badly) starlet here.

And what is one left with besides a monstrosity of a building that is hard to convert into other uses. Imagine how hard it is to retrofit a former McDonalds or Taco Bell building into something else. Yes, they can be turned into a hair salon, pet boutique, or office. But these archetypal buildings are firmly ingrained in our psyches. And when we drive by the new Tammy's Toys for Pets, we still think why is the Taco Bell now a pet shop!? Imagine trying to do that with an old mall!*

Therefore, my proposals are minimal in terms of expense and often rely on social gathering, such as spaghetti suppers and pancake breakfasts. I figure, people have to eat, why not do it together? I also suggest other community-building activities, such as organized sports teams and talent shows. I'd share the list, but one must save some ideas for the interview!

People may tire of American Eagle or Macy's, but our need to be social creatures is not as fickle as the next season's hemlines. And in some communities the need to keep with the latest trends is not as important as keeping up with one's family.

Though I love big city life, I'd be willing to trade it in for a government job in a small town that allows me to think creatively and not have to worry about breathing in deeply. LA's air quality leaves much to be desired. But fresh, country air? Can't get enough!

In the end, it is community, not commerce that triumphs.

*= this is not to say that the old malls must go the way of ill-conceived housing projects. Sometimes the spaces are leased out to grocery stores-

http://retailtrafficmag.com/news/mall_owners_experiment_supermarkets_09292010/

Here are some other interesting ideas from Retail Traffic magazine

http://retailtrafficmag.com/news/developers_rethink_mall_06272010/

But it does require money, on some one's part. And no one knows that better than Cloverfield, Virginia

http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/2010/aug/21/clov21-ar-464846/

And if one does raze a building and build a new "destination center", one must remember to build it for tourists and locals.

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/front_page/20101226_For_tourists_and_city__not_re-created_equal.html

With thanks to Planetizen.com's search engine for these results.

The "Architect"

Merry Christmas everyone! I just received a copy of Makeshift Metropolis: Ideas About Cities by: Witold Rybczynski, his new work and my all-time favorite author. Yayyy!!! So super psyched.

Reading the dust jacket my dad was asking who was the (main) architect who designed the "White City," i.e. the Chicago's World Fair of 1893. Answer: Frederick Law Olmsted.

His question got me thinking. I haven't had a chance to read Rybczynski's work. But the dust jacket says ". . . the movements that defined the twentieth century, such as City Beautiful, the Garden City, and the seminal ideas of Frank Lloyd Wright and Jane Jacobs. If the twentieth century was the age of planning, we now find ourselves in the age of the market. . ."

Going back even farther in time, (which Rybczynski may do), I would argue that if the 21st century is the age of the market (or the developer) and the 20th century was the age of the planner, then the 19th century (going as far back as the Renaissance, and technically even farther) was the age of the architect.

I haven't taken any history of architecture classes so my timeframe is definitely up for revision or modification. It could have been shorter, or could it have been from the beginning. Afterall, some cave person or Druid had to conceptualize what Stonehenge would look like.

Watching Inception the concept of the power of the "architect"- in the literal sense of the word, not in Nolan's sense of the word, weighs heavily in my mind. Especially as in the movie the "architect" is given ultimate control over the design and execution of not only a building, but an entire world. (Maybe architect isn't the right word. Maybe urban planner is a better term ;) We are the ultimate latent control-freaks. But "architect" sounds sexier- images of schmancy eyewear, all-black clothes, and spiky, artsy, hyper-stylized hair. Or maybe I'm the only one who hears the word architect and thinks of Daniel Liebskind).

source: http://www.wilde-spieth.de/english/bilder/daniel_libeskind.jpg

Planning school has broken down many of my pre-conceived notions, including the sovereign power of an architect.

I used to think that the architect had the same role as he (or now she) had centuries ago. He possessed a vision and the client paid. This was true well through Olmsted's time. But not anymore. Now I know it's no longer true. Architects are hemmed in by their clients' budgets, legal and construction restrictions, the laws of physics, developers, lawyers, and bureaucracy in 31 other flavors.

I don't know what the role was of different parties in, say, the Renaissance, other than the architect and the patron. There were obviously sub-contractors, such as the carpenters, the masons, the other craftsmen. In their time they would have been called gilds.

But who said how big one's mansion/villa could be? Obviously, property lines were determined by law. But setbacks? Roof lines? That may not have been legally mandated except by whoever was richest. Or if your second story impinged on your richer-than-tho neighbor. Maybe a cute architectural historian knows and would like to enlighten me. ;)

I'll let you know if I do determine an answer. Until then, power to the people! Er, the market.

Confessions of a Design Snob

I have been thinking a lot about my planning interests.

Before I went to planning school and learned about ordinances and politics, setbacks and NIMBYs, my driving desire in planning was to create, or at least cultivate, places for people to "hang out," to "just be."

I've come to learn that if I really want to "create" hangouts I'll literally have to put my money where my mouth is and become a developer. And as I rarely balance my checkbook I doubt that taking out a construction loan in my name is a wise idea either.

But the dream lives on.

I know that humanity needs spaces for social interaction, where we can connect- cite Bowling Alone, sociology, some anthropology for good measure, yadda yadda.

The question remains, how to bring it about?

I hate to be all Parisian, 1920's, was-it-ever-really-that-good-or-is-everyone-who'd-offer-up-a- differential-is-dead-so-let's-say-yes-with-abandon, salons, and cafes, but I do think that cafes and coffee houses, despite their inevitable romanticizing and looking at the past with round, hippy rose-colored glasses, remains one of the best places for people of different incomes, races, and creeds to come together without too much inherent strife.

Look at Starbucks. Except for the dude who is monopolizing a table for four, with his laptop and no beverage nor food item in view during a crowded hour, there is rarely any strife. I admit that some times it's a chick who commandeers an entire table without a status-cup in view, nor a baked good to-go bag in sight. Either way, it's uncool when I'm meeting my group for a project get-together in a Starbucks that is well-known as a student studying spot, as it is right next to my campus and you're pecking away on Facebook taking over an entire table not buying anything. You are on warning, sir/ma'am. Starbucks corporate would back up my logic, as much as I'd hate to be in agreement with Starbucks corporate on many issues.

I was thinking about this specifically as I met my friend and fellow planner at USC, Caitlin, at the Mars Cafe, by Drake University, here in Des Moines. Caitlin grew up in Des Moines and said that the Mars Cafe was "the cool place to hang out for the cool kids," which she self-deprecatingly declared that she wouldn't know from personal experience.

I laughed, remembering the cool coffee shop in the town that I spent the majority of my childhood called, Something's Brewing. I vowed, as a child, that when I went to high school that I would hang out there after school and be so cool. Unfortunately, I only frequented that establishment on weekends, and often accompanied by my dad, which is the polar opposite of cool to a high schooler.

But the Mars Cafe was cool. It was the longest wait I've ever had for a hot cup of cider (my poison of choice in the winter). Yet it had the requisite locally-produced, winking-at-pop-culture art, the kid-friendly toys, and the slightly funky vibe that a local college coffeehouse has.

However, it felt a little too "new," too static-y, I don't know if because it's wedged in a nondescript strip center, if the roof felt too high, if the glass was gasp! too commercial (as opposed to I don't know too bohemian? I know it can't all be Art Nouveau. But it should be!) If the paint wasn't peeling in the right places, if the tables weren't "distressed" enough to warrant approval. Thanks to David Brooks, my "bobo" aesthetic is now highly attuned to bruise tones and the right level of distressed finishes, ie does it look like someone took a hammer to it or sanded the heck out of it even though it's brand-new? (see Bobos in Paradise by David Brooks, a slightly culturally dated reference as it was pre dotcom bust. Still socially scathing in a tongue-in-cheek kind of way. You'll never look at Anthropologie the same way again post-read)

This summer I went to the Bourgeois Pig, great name, mais non? in Hollywood to see a friend off before he left town for osteopathy school. The BP, as it is not called, is also directly across the street from the Celebrity Scientology Center. I wish I could say that I made that up. The BP, besides its hilarious location, is what I think of when I think coffeehouse. It's wedged in a strip too. The pig does not stand alone. There's a cute, quirky gift shop next door, and a slightly more formal restaurant to the right. But it definitely has that lived-in vibe that I crave.

"Tell me what you think of the inside," my friend said with a grin after we'd exchanged pleasantries and I was about to go inside to place my order. "Why?" I asked, expecting some Hollywood freak show of half-assembled mannequins peeking out of dark corners, or a porcelain unicorn collection on display whose sheer quantity would render one speechless. This is Hollywood, not the star machine of yore. More like the sideshow carny with that lecherous look in the eye. It's surreal fun, but you'll want too bring your Purel just in case. "You'll see." he grinned and took a nonchalant sip of his Yerba Mate tea.

The inside of the establishment is painted a dark, dark cobalt blue. It's a small space with an old bar, old school cash register, and gilt gold decorations, including the namesake pig, peering out at odd angles. I'd never been in a coffeeshop that looked like it was painted by a pre-teen whose artistic vision exceed his grasp of good interior design. But I've yet to forget the place.

Maybe Time not only heals all wounds, but also provides that patina we need to give a place that sense of history, of community. Or maybe the Starbucks aesthetic is just fine.

Sandra Tsing Loh comments on said aesthetic (as have many other writers, who I won't cite here) and how it has permeated her entire life.

"My generation. . . our psyches, our aesthetics have become totally Starbucks-ized! I expect every space I enter to look like Starbucks. I walk into a room and expect to be immediately bathed in earth tones, track lighting, and a story on a chalkboard about how far organically grown Costa Rican beans have traveled to see me, me, me. . ." (from Sandra Tsing Loh's Mother on Fire, 257).

I'm not anti-the Starbucks aesthetic. But I'd prefer a drink at the Bourgeois Pig over the nearest Starbucks and not just because the Bourgeois barista was genuinely excited at my request for a raspberry mocha compared to the green-aproned peeps at the coffee chain named after the first mate on the Pequod in Moby Dick (true story), who I could create the most inane custom order and they wouldn't blink. Sheesh, sometimes the customer isn't always right. Sometimes s/he's a raging lunatic and must be put down like Old Yeller. Or maybe it's my phobia of becoming an insufferable yuppie talking.

Granted, I'm a horrible design snob, but I'm also a history nerd. And if a place feels like it's been around forever, or at least I can't tell, I'll happily pony up $3.99 for a thimbleful of chai. Ah, marketing, you destroy me and revive me.

Irregardless, our built environment has forgotten to mandate "the third place" as Ray Oldenburg calls them in his excellent work, the Great Good Place.

To cite Wikipedia, Oldenburg calls one's "first place" the home and those that one lives with. The "second place" is the workplace — where people may actually spend most of their time. Third places, then, are "anchors" of community life and facilitate and foster broader, more creative interaction. All societies already have informal meeting places; what is new in modern times is the intentionality of seeking them out as vital to current societal needs. Oldenburg suggests these hallmarks of a true "third place": free or inexpensive; food and drink, while not essential, are important; highly accessible: proximate for many (walking distance); involve regulars – those who habitually congregate there; welcoming and comfortable; both new friends and old should be found there. -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place

While it may take me a lifetime to actually use that helpful sheet of paper that my bank encloses with each monthly account statement, at least there is food for thought for what could be added to our built environment as the absence of a third place leaves a vacuum in our social lives.

Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose (the more things change, the more they stay the same)

Looking for a job my how-to-get-a-job books recommend that I define what I want in a job. They don’t recommend vagaries. So, I’ve been thinking of what I’d like to do ideally/where I’d like to live and what reality might be able to provide.

When I was young I wanted to be an artist- sleep late, have people pay me to paint, travel to lands far from the staid but comfortable Midwest in which I grew up. I also wanted to live in a big city, with exciting things to do at night, which would be waiting for me after I rolled out of bed. There would be cultural events at my disposal. Ideally, it’d be a big creative city brimming with artistic people to chat with over coffee, watch good-not-boring foreign films with, and contemplate priceless works of art together. Also, ideally my dad's last name would be Trump, Rockefeller, or other titian of industry.

Some things remain the same- in a perfect world I’d prefer to sleep late, be paid to paint, and travel. But I know that nowadays it’s next to impossible to eke out, much less make a proper living as a painter. Therefore, I’ve realigned my sights for something more realistic. I’ve always wanted to have a job that would make a difference in the world. And as much as I believe in the power of art I don’t think that a painting will solve world hunger. Mona Lisa’s been around for about five hundred years and she has yet to put a dent in the issue of international famine.

I also think that problem-solving and liaison with multiple parties is something that I’d like to do and would be great at. Ideally, I’d work in an education or sustainability-emphasis capacity. And I’d definitely like to have new challenges every once in a while. I did go/am at planning school. But I am 95% confident in the hiring potential probabilities in the planning realm. All I hear about are people being laid off. However, I get most of my planning news in California. Now is definitely time to start expanding my horizons, especially those that could provide an optimistic boost.

Regardless of where I end up, being in a big city is still very important to me, and especially one that has creative areas. Again, with the utopianism, I’d like to stay in LA. The weather is perfect about 360 days out of the year, there’s always something interesting to do, and we have a vibrant, active creative community. Even if some of them pay too much for clothes that they could pick up at Good Will for 200 dollars less, same look.

However, I have a mental list of places that I’d like to live in before I settle down somewhere for a really long time and Texas is one of them. I’ve lived technically in the four parts of the US. They’re not the true cardinal points. But it is definitely the four major regions of the US= the Northeast (Connecticut), the Southeast (Savannah), the West Coast (California), and the Midwest (Chicago, Wisconsin). But I haven’t lived in Texas, which I consider a country unto itself. It’s certainly big enough to be. And guys that say ma'am like George Eads of CSI fame make me weak in the knees. Granted, that wasn't terribly professional, but it's true. I also visited Charlotte, North Carolina over spring break last year and I loved it there. It reminds me of Savannah, where I went to undergrad, but there is more to do.

I’m open to moving anywhere, that is the perk of moving around a lot as a kid. Just nowhere with wretched amounts of humidity and within reasonable driving distance of a major metropolitan area.

I'll keep you posted on what unfolds! And where I end up. :)

Your Car = You (Whether You Like It or Not)

Pulling up behind a car at my parents’ local library I noticed that said car was the same model and color as the one that my roommate drove in college, a white Pontiac Grand Am.

This made me think how our cars are an extension of us- be it conscious or sub-conscious, and thus become a part of our personal history. College kids drive beat up Civics and old Camrys. Investment bankers drive sleek German sedans. Moms used to drive minivans, now they drive SUVs, treehuggers drive Priuses and the well-heeled treehuggers in today’s economy may drive Nissan Leafs.

Some thing is signaled when you say that you drive a Mercedes versus a Kia.

The point is even cited in the work, Get What You Deserve! How to Guerilla Market Yourself by marketing gurus Seth Godin and Jay (Conrad) Levinson, ". . . cars, as much as anything else you can buy, telegraph your professional and social status" (128).

And there is a fun new ad campaign by a precocious seven-year-old who is horrified by the “uncool” car that his parents drive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80pNUxIczig

Even kids know that a car is a reflection of you and who you are, or who you want to be.

Even some parts of our history are tied to certain cars. My first car was a 98 white Plymouth Neon. I drove it for the last two years of college all around Savannah, Georgia and made a lot of (G-rated) memories there. It died horribly- T-boned in Chicago and I bought a silver 99 VW Passat, which was my first love affair with a car. That car had everything I wanted- heated, leather seats, a CD changer, a sun roof/moon roof, and a delectable assortment of bumper stickers including one that said, "I Dig Pale Skinny Guys" It was a mobile personal ad.

I am currently carless and have been for the past three years. But when I get a full-time job I am looking at a Honda Insight as it is slightly cheaper than a Prius and yet it is a hyrbid without the overt lifestyle connotations of a Prius.

Therefore, to extricate ourselves from our cars we must not just relinquish the convenience and security that they provide. We must also give up a part of ourselves, of our identity. And that point is often absent from cars versus mass transit debates.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Freeway, or b-i-k-e = l-o-s-e-r?!?!

My friend and fellow planner, Ed and I were talking as we drove around LA gathering stuff for our Thanksgiving feast. He had been carless like myself last year, but he had his car shipped to him a month ago. And he was loving his newfound freedom!

We were talking about how within certain circles the car versus mass transit debate starts to develop tunnel-vision. We agree that, given the opportunity and access, people should take mass transit instead of their cars. Mass transit increases air quality, reduces nonpoint source pollution, and could even reduce congestion - all of this is assuming that new vehicles do not replace the vehicles that were taken off the road as drivers become riders.

But some times having a car is so much more convenient such as shopping for Thanksgiving dinner. Or when one has to buy paper goods. Lugging a 6 pack of paper towels on the bus is no fun for anyone, including and especially the other riders.

At the same time, when did a bike become short-hand for loser? Tom Vanderbilt, author of Traffic: How We Drive and What It Says About Us, wrote an interesting article about the movie Greenberg, whose main character's main mode of transportation is not his own car, and what does that say (or imply) about the man himself?

http://www.slate.com/id/2262214/

I have many happy memories riding my bike as a kid and I imagine that many other people do too. Unfortunately, a lot of people think that bikes are only for kids. But there are literally hundreds of highly educated people who possess bachelors, masters degrees, and even advanced degrees, who use bicycles as their predominant, or only form of transportation, including Dr. Donald Shoup, PhD.

Yet some bikers become so single-minded in their passion that they think that's what good for them should be good for everyone confoundit, to quote Nero Wolfe.

As with many things in life, except chocolate and Italian men, I believe that a little moderation never hurt on either side of the debate.

Isn't It Ironic, Don't You Think? A Little Too Ironic

I had some free time and was reading Los Angeles author, Sandra Tsing Loh's book, Mother on Fire when I came across this passage,

"I am a person who believes that in Los Angeles, people's innermost personalities, their philosophies even, are revealed in the driving routes they choose, the trail of bread crumbs they make as they weave their way through the city" (Tsing Loh, 58).

One of the funniest points in the animated movie Madagascar was when the menagerie of animals asks an NYPD horse how to get to point X. The horse starts telling them, with great authority in his voice when another NYPD horse butts in and gives an alternate sense of directions. The two horses begin to argue over whose directions are superior while the other animals grow agitated. Unfortunately, I was one of the few people who actually thought that Madagascar was funny. It was aimed at a NYC-centric audience, or at least an audience who would pick up on jokes such as New Yorkers priding themselves on possessing the best set of directions to anywhere in their city, or surrounding burroughs.

Meanwhile, I am often clueless where I am until 6 months after I have left a city and adhere religiously to set ways to get places until after I have moved away. (NYC is the exception- I'm an excellent navigator there, but you'd have to be a cross-eyed monkey not to know where you are)

I was thinking about getting from point A via various routes as I have been navigating the street network of my parents' latest residential town. This year it is Windsor Heights, Iowa, a suburb, if such a word can be utilized to describe, of Des Moines. Last year it was a suburb of St. Paul, Minnesota, ie Shoreview, Minnesota. Next year it'll probably be the moon.

As I drive down Hickman, one of the main streets, I keep looking for White Bear Lake Road, which will take me to Target. Yes, if the Target I was looking for was in Shoreview. Or I keep craning my neck for Culver's, which is by my mom's work and the proffer of treats both hot and cold- frozen custard and Butter Burgers. (the hamburger bun is buttered, it's not some French fusion take on the American classic). But my mom does not work at an accounting firm anymore. She works as a payroll specialist at a bowling alley. Which is not near a Culver's. Or at least not to my knowledge.

I have come to realize that I am an excellent navigator. In places that I have been. Not in places that I current am. (the same is also true for my foreign language skills- while in Italian all of my sub-par French came rushing back.)

Meanwhile, in LA, I blissfully take in the city while my friends drive, or while I take public transportation ignoring most major streets and intersections. I have a gift for describing the feel of a place. But the cross-streets, um, why don't you ask him over there?

This is a constant bone of contention between my friend Derek (my go-to driver/ride) and myself. Derek grew up in Orange County, which is a stone's throw away from LA. And if I had been an OC kid I would have been hightailing it up to LA every chance I could get the keys. Incidentally, people from Orange County do NOT call it the "OC," just as true San Franciscans do not call it Frisco. Therefore, I assume that Derek has a sixth sense of the streets of LA. Especially when we are going some place unfamiliar to me. More often than not he doesn't know how to get there either but assumes that I have squirreled away a set of directions or possess a sense of navigation I have yet to procure.

I have come to realize this when our drive starts to take five, ten, fifteen minutes longer than Mapquest (despite its fallible glory) predicted. Usually it boils down to me asking if he knows where the place is, he replying that he thought that I did, I saying no, him asking if I had printed out directions, and my response as being I thought that he would know the general area so, no. People say that we act like brother and sister. A lot. I have yet to dispute their claims successfully.

My friend Eddie, however, who was more reliant on public transportation than I until his car arrived from Rhode Island, is an excellent navigator, despite being an LA transplant himself. Eddie is also more technically-oriented than I am and can write an amazing paper in about two hours, no prior prep while I academically crucify myself for about three weeks straight before the turn-in date.

If I stay in LA I'll pay more attention to the streets' names. Until then, despite the great irony that I am getting my masters in urban planning, I don't know where a lot of the major streets intersect- does Santa Monica run parallel or perpendicular to Vermont? Will Olympic and Normandie ever intersect? Uh, I don't think so, but don't quote me, etc.,

Ask me in ten years, when, maybe, I won't be in LA, the best way to get to the Glendale Galleria from Little Tokyo (ie downtown LA) during rush hour. I'll probably have excellent directions. Have me describe the feel of Weller Court in Little Tokyo- well, you got a pen?