Thanks for sharing the GGW article on Dupont Circle. I have long used Dupont Circle (much as JJ invokes the North End in Boston) as a great neighborhood that would be impossible today. I have never succeeded in articulating this case well enough, so now I can just post a link. Even some of the wholly residential blocks are beautifully diverse in their architecture. John Norquist makes the same point in his talks about his favorite blocks in Milwaukee: these different styles of rowhouses would fail architecture juries and fail "the character-of-the-neighborhood" tests. Although this is an old talking point, we still need to find ways of re-articulating it until it catches on more, and Westley Sturhan's article is a masterpiece.
"Of course, saying this doesn’t guarantee that the people who mostly run big American cities will do their jobs."
Ha, it certainly doesn't! But reframing the narrative hopefully helps those who want their leaders to do better to have some moral clarity on the issue. Thanks for your response—and you're exactly right that I'm refusing to accept certain attitudes on the right and left that are essentially anti-urban.
Thanks for this piece. Curious if you have examples of North American cities doing a better, more flexible job with their zoning by-laws and permitting. My broad impression is most zoning updates that profess to support more livable, mixed-use cities just add more rules (generally with good urbanist intentions). The belief in regulation and bureaucracy is strong in most professions and society in general.
Thanks for sharing the GGW article on Dupont Circle. I have long used Dupont Circle (much as JJ invokes the North End in Boston) as a great neighborhood that would be impossible today. I have never succeeded in articulating this case well enough, so now I can just post a link. Even some of the wholly residential blocks are beautifully diverse in their architecture. John Norquist makes the same point in his talks about his favorite blocks in Milwaukee: these different styles of rowhouses would fail architecture juries and fail "the character-of-the-neighborhood" tests. Although this is an old talking point, we still need to find ways of re-articulating it until it catches on more, and Westley Sturhan's article is a masterpiece.
"Of course, saying this doesn’t guarantee that the people who mostly run big American cities will do their jobs."
Ha, it certainly doesn't! But reframing the narrative hopefully helps those who want their leaders to do better to have some moral clarity on the issue. Thanks for your response—and you're exactly right that I'm refusing to accept certain attitudes on the right and left that are essentially anti-urban.
Thanks for this piece. Curious if you have examples of North American cities doing a better, more flexible job with their zoning by-laws and permitting. My broad impression is most zoning updates that profess to support more livable, mixed-use cities just add more rules (generally with good urbanist intentions). The belief in regulation and bureaucracy is strong in most professions and society in general.