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RESEARCH PROPOSAL Community Driven Urban Design: Social Practice Tactics for Addressing Issues of the Built Environment

ABSTRACT:

Several professionals in the field of architecture and urban design employ creative tactics focused on social impact, civic dialogue, and grass roots placemaking. Drawing on socially responsible urban design theory, as well as principles of arts- based civic engagement and social change, these efforts have gained momentum in the 21st century due to a variety of economic, governmental, social and technological factors. This research capstone will include an extensive literature review through two courses – PPPM 523 Urban Revitalization and an independent reading course on “bottom-up” urban design with Professor Philip Speranza – as well as web-based document analysis of select case studies. The purpose of this study is to locate these tactics within current urban redevelopment policy and arts-based community development theory, and outline elements of best practice as a means of advancing the field of community driven urban design.

KEYWORDS:

Urban revitalization, urban designers, built environment, placemaking, civic engagement, social impact.

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND:

Problem Statement

The economic downturn over the last decade has had a significant effect on the health and vitality of urban areas. Cities in the United States struggle with many challenges that stem from the built environment. These issues include space equity, food access, transportation planning, residential uprooting, public dialogue, and cultural identity. In addition to the institutional and conventional (top down) methods of urban revitalization, many individuals in the field of art and culture are taking a grass roots approach to addressing problems of the built urban environment. Among these creative types are a number of professionals in the field of architecture, urban planning, and civil engineering. These individuals, who will be here on referred to as urban designers, are disregarding conventional channels in order to focus their efforts on individual projects aimed at engaging community members in civic dialogue and collaboratively shaping their built environment. Although socially responsible urban design is not a new concept, due to the recent economic recession, shifting urban demographics, and advancements in web-based technology, there has been a recent growth in the number of documented community-based urban design projects. This type of community-driven and socially conscious methods of urban design, as a form of arts-based civic engagement and social change, lacks sufficient cohesion as a field. Animating Democracy argues that practitioners in the field of arts-based civic engagement and social change “are not frequently connecting their work, sharing information, or learning from other’s experience…The impact of the work is often unexamined, isolated, or invisible. This prevents the work from garnering the public attention and support it deserves” (2012).

Purpose Statement

This capstone research seeks to bring visibility to this form of urban design practice and its practitioners, as well as contribute new information to the current body of knowledge in the following ways: First, it will identify common objectives among these urban designers – what are they trying to solve? Secondly, it will

position this work in the context of contemporary urban renewal strategies and municipal policies. Thirdly, it will create a resource for urban designers and their communities by documenting the strategies/tools they are using and themes of best practice. Lastly, the study will define the field and begin to map the parameters of this type of work with the intention of highlighting both the attention to methods and the impact. The majority of existing literature on the subject of urban design and social practice has been written by scholars in the field of architecture and urban planning. By exploring this trend within the context of arts-based development, I will expand the current understanding of this topic, encourage new connections, and provide further recommendations for mapping the field.

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

Architecture and Social Practice

Architecture and urban planning are not fields typically associated with critical pedagogy and social justice. However, critical practices within the field of architecture have a long history and span a wide range of applications. This study will draw from history and theory of socially responsible design. “An architecture of social responsibility resists dominant social trends in order to promote social justice and “radical democracy” and works toward liberation by helping groups achieve a spatial voice in new forms of community and solidarity, conceived within difference” (Dutton & Mann, 1996, p. 159). In 1993, Pratt Institute and Architects/Designers/Planners held an international convening to address the definition of socially responsible design. The definition that was generated stated:

Socially responsible design celebrates social, cultural, ethnic, gender and sexuality differences…seeks to redistribute power and resources more equitably; change society; continually calls into question its own social, cultural, and philosophical premises and, through a continuing dialectic, seeks to ensure that its ends are consistent with its means; seeks in its process, to develop strategies for public intervention and participatory democracy. Socially responsible design recognizes that only those people affected by an environment any right to its determination (Dutton & Mann, p.17)

This framework of socially responsible design will guide this study’s analysis of the urban designer’s role in contemporary urban revitalization initiatives, as well as define common objectives and tactics.

Interdisciplinary Placemaking

This study is rooted in concepts of placemaking established by Jane Jacobs, author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1989), and William Whyte (1980), known for his pioneering research on pedestrian behavior in the urban public space. Whyte was instrumental in the creation of Project for Public Space (PPS), a national nonprofit organization that uses planning, design and educational programming as a means of creating and sustaining public spaces that build strong communities. PPS defines placemaking as “a multi- faceted approach to the planning, design and management of public spaces. Put simply, it involves looking at, listening to, and asking questions of the people who live, work and play in a particular space, to discover their needs and aspirations” (2012). PPS recognizes that authentic placemaking is only possible when it combines the technical and creative aspects of urban design with the unique cultural and social needs the community.

Lynda H. Schneekloth and Robert G. Shibley, in Placemaking: The Art and Practice of Building Communities (2005), argue that the fields of architecture, urban planning, civic engineering, and landscape design embody the professional appropriation of placemaking, and have traditionally denied the rest of the community participation in a fundamental mode of human expression. If, however, professional placemakers recognize the scope and implications of their actions, they have great potential to affect positive change. This study will use this community-driven, interdisciplinary placemaking theory to define social practice urban design. The urban designer, as a professional placemaker should: a) make ‘dialogic space’ by facilitating respectful and

open discussion; b) conduct exercises of ‘confirmation’ (affirming aspects that are working) and ‘interrogation’ (critically analyzing conventions and challenges); and c) employ ‘framing action’ by allowing these insights to guide and inform subsequent actions. This recommendation is “based on a worldview that assigns legitimacy to every person’s experience of living, to the potential competence and compassion of human action, and to the fundamental importance of place as an actor in living well” (Schneekloth and Shibley, 2005, p. 8).

The methodology of Jacobs, Whyte, Schneekloth and Shibley placemaking resonates with the social activism tactics and educational theory of Brazilian educational theorist and social activist, Paulo Friere. Although Schneekloth and Shibley don’t reference Friere directly, they draw on non-elitist forms of leadership and encouraging critical questioning of one’s surroundings in order to deconstruct the forces at work. Friere (2005) writes, “the educator’s role is fundamentally to enter in to dialogue…about concrete situations and simply to offer him the instruments with which he can teach himself” (p. 43). The production of knowledge and process of meaning making is, thus, rooted in dialogue and shared practice. This capstone research will draw attention to urban design tactics that reflect Frierian ideology. It will differentiate and promote the work of urban designers who encourage free flowing exchange of responsibility and vision, from urban designers who adhere to institutional boundaries and conventional expectations.

The act of communal placemaking requires a high level of trust, open collaboration, and accountability, grounded in critical thinking and shared responsibility. Without authentic dialogue and respect, exercises in collaboration between urban designers and their communities can be artificial and meaningless. Identity by Design (2005), a guide to urban design practice by two professors at Oxford Brookes University, Georgia Butina Watson and Ian Bentley, focuses on the mediation between physical and imagined community identity. Between the two of them, Watson and Bentley are well versed in architecture, city planning, urban regeneration, urban morphology, cultural studies, and public art policy. Published over ten years after Schneekloth and Shibley’s Placemaking, Identity by Design makes the assertion that professional urban designers can be agents of civic and cultural transformation. The urban designer possesses a thorough knowledge of the morphological elements, including topography, hydrology, linkage networks, block, land plots and building structures, and therefore it is their duty to “organize these elements and the relationships and interfaces between them, so as to foster positive support for our place-identity agenda: maximizing choice, constructing rootedness of imagined community, overcoming nostalgia, supporting a sense of transcultural inclusiveness and co-dwelling with the wider ecosphere, for as many users as possible” (p. 262). Watson and Bentley illustrate a progression in the professional and academic understanding of and appreciation for cultural placemaking in the last decade. This study will identify and describe case studies that illustrate this progression in community focused urban design tactics.

Watson and Bentley advocate for a new definition of Modernism as it pertains to the urban design sector. “Modern design” has become too preoccupied with aesthetic and the latest technological advancements (p. 310). As a result of U.S. industrialization, conventional urban design strategies have become siloed. “The art of promoting constructive interaction among people in public places has been nearly forgotten. Planners, architects, and public administrators have focused more on creating aesthetic places and on providing unimpeded movement and storage of automobiles than on creating places that encourage social interaction”, writes Tom Borrup (2006) in The Creative Community Builder’s Handbook (p. 75). To be truly modern, designers must “use the best knowledge we have to face up to current design challenges – today certainly including problems of place-identity – and have the courage to move in whichever direction that may lead” (Watson & Bentley, p. 270). Culturally and socially relevant urban design focuses on the link between place and identity. Further investigation of the Modernism, as it applies to disciplines within urban design, will be developed throughout the course of this study.

Watson and Bentley define place-identity as “the set of meanings associated with any particular cultural landscape which any particular person or group of people draws on in the constructions of their own

personal or social identities” (p. 6). To support and expand architects and urban planners’ role in leading civic dialogue around issues of the built urban environment, it is critical to confront society’s narrow definition of professional urban designer. An individualistic approach to urban design and art making, motivated by superficial, purely aesthetic, purely function, or other detached factors, prevents constructive collaboration between artists/designers and their community. As Watson and Bentley recommend, this study will conduct ‘close readings’ of progressive design interventions in public spaces and reexamine the relationship between professional urban designers and their communities (p. 34).

Creative Intervention in the Urban Environment

This study will apply David Pinder’s (2005) interpretation of the role of the artist to the role of the urban designer. Pinder, Professor of Geography at the University of London, examines ways in which artists can defend public space through creative and inspired interaction with the city. He challenges the common assumption that artists serve merely to beautify and inspire urban renewal projects and proposes another role. “It is not simply an issue of asking what artists can do in a narrow instrumental sense to bring about progressive urban change, but rather of opening up through such practices the potential for collaboration, interventions, re-imaginings that disrupt and expand senses of both the city and self” (p. 404). Like Pinder, I will draw connections between psychogeography and situationist theory, and apply them to the task of urban exploration and revitalization. For example, intentional, accidental, and subversive pedestrian path-making contributes to the identity and vitality of urban communities. Walking, he explains, is a powerful tool for access, discovery, and action. Mapping exercises and storytelling are creative approaches to uncovering the hidden values and assumption of a city.

“To intervene through creative practice in public space today in New York and other cities is to enter into a crucial struggle over the meaning, values and potentialities of that space at a time when democracy is highly contested ” (p. 398). The responsibility of the creative placemaker must be to create a safe and supportive platform for this struggle and potential conflict to take place. The Animating Democracy Toolkit (2008) provides a useful definition of civic dialogue that applies to the work of the creative placemaker. Civic Dialogue is “two or more parties with differing viewpoints working toward common understanding in an open-ended, most often face-to-face format” (p. 14). The complex dimensions within each urban setting make it impossible for a city’s collective understanding to ever be complete and fully resolved, but experimentation and dialogue will always be vital to spark to revitalization and change.

Urban Design as Arts-based Civic Engagement and Community Development

By locating urban design within the field of art-based community development and civic engagement, this study will integrate community arts concepts with that of urban planning and design. Bill Cleveland (2011), Director of the Center for Art and Community Development, defines art-based community development as “arts-centered activity that contributes to the sustained advancement of human dignity, health, and/or productivity within a community” (p. 4). According to Cleveland’s Ecosystem of Arts-based Community Development (see Appendix A), this field is made up of four types of arts-based activity categories. The diagram positions urban planning/design within the “build and improve” category. Arts-based community development, as Arlene Goldbard explains, “inevitably responds to current social conditions: the work is grounded in social critique and social imagination” (2010, p.22). Goldbard, like many community cultural development practitioners and the placemaking scholars previously mentioned, draws on the pedagogy of Friere. Friere’s approach to education, often referred to as “critical pedagogy”, empowers participants through the transformative power of language. By helping people to name the source of their oppression, they begin to decode and deconstruct their reality and enter into the conscious process of reshaping their environment.

This study seeks to describe the tactics of urban designers are engaging the community in critical thinking around social issues of the built urban environment. Animating Democracy defines arts-based civic engagement as:

The artistic process and/or art /humanities presentation provides a key focus, catalyst, forum or form for public dialogue/engagement on the issue. Opportunities for dialogue/engagement are embedded in or connected to the arts experience. In addition, the arts may provide a direct forum to engage in community planning, organizing, activism, and therefore is a form of arts-based civic engagement (2012).

Urban design, being an artistic process, by this definition, has the potential to be a tool for civic engagement and social change. This study will focus on urban designers who are using their knowledge and skills to a) educate ordinary citizens on the languages of the built environment and urban space; b) design shared space aimed at foster a vibrant and just community; and c) empower communities to shape the future of their own neighborhoods and cities.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY:

My research approach is heavily influenced by the knowledge and skills I gained as an intern for Animating Democracy. As a program of Americans for the Arts, Animating Democracy works to “bring national visibility to arts for change work, build knowledge about quality practice, and create useful resources. By demonstrating the public value of creative work that contributes to social change and fostering synergy across arts and other fields and sectors,” the program strives “to make the arts an integral and effective part of solutions to the challenges of communities and toward ensuring a healthy democracy” (2012). Much like the mission of Animating Democracy, my capstone research seeks increase visibility, build knowledge about quality practice, and become a useful resource. My investigation will specifically focus on the arts-based activity of creative community-driven urban design tactics.

Working on the Art & Social Change Mapping Initiative, I conducted a detailed inventory analysis of the current Directory of Profiles, an online database of artists, organizations, and project doing arts-based civic engagement and social change. One gap that I identified was work from the field of architecture urban design, and civil planning. Based on my preliminary research on community-driven urban design, I have identified a significant number of individuals, organizations, and projects that would make a valuable contribution to Animating Democracy’s Directory of Profiles.

The purpose of this research capstone is to describe, analyze and begin to map the tactics of urban designers who are addressing issues of the built environment as they relate shared public space through civic dialogue, community engagement, and grass roots placemaking. This study will identify common objectives of these community-driven tactics, as well as intended outcomes. My approach to this research captsone will combine interpretivist theory with an action research approach. I seek to understand problems of the built environment and urban design tactics as they stem from each individual community. I accept that my approach and interpretation of urban revitalization initiatives and designer tactics will be informed by my own experiences – both positive and negative – living in an various urban settings. I place a strong value on shared space in urban communities and I adamantly believe that community members should have a voice in the design and revitalization of their space.

I have identified a lack of cross-sector research on the topic of community driven urban design, so this study will serve to advocate on behalf this work on a variety of professional platforms: city sponsored urban revitalization, urban design, and community arts. I will conduct research with the explicit goal of improving the strategies, practices and knowledge of the environments within which the community driven urban design can thrive. I will attempt to highlight the need for this type of work and promote for further research. This research is meant to foster debate and discussion so that change can occur. This action research approach will

enable this study to become an advocacy tool that will further the advancement community-driven urban design. This study seeks to elevate this type of work within the field of arts-based civic engagement, a field which is currently underrepresented. This study is particularly unique in that it will integrate theoretical perspectives from city planning, urban design, and community arts development. By situating my research within these fields and identifying implications for the field, I will increase awareness of and support for this work.

This capstone research will address the primary question: How are professionals in the field of urban design addressing urban revitalization through creative and innovative design tactics driven by community engagement and focused on building social capital, sparking civic dialogue, and grass roots placemaking? Sub questions include: What political, economic, institutional, and social forces affect the vitality of the built urban environment? What current factors are shaping efforts to revitalize urban areas? How are professionals in the field of urban design responding to this insufficiency of institutionalized channels of urban revitalization? What are the major social and civic needs they are addressing? What tactics are they using? How has it been tried and tested? To what end and to what effect are their efforts making an impact? Where has it been unsuccessful? What are some exemplary project examples?

Definitions

Urban: This study will use the United States Census Bureau’s (2012) definition of urbanized areas of populations greater than 50,000, with a population density greater than 1,000 people per square mile.

Urban revitalization: Renewed and improved community engagement, economic vitality, physical landscape, and/or social justice within an urban neighborhood or city.

Urban redevelopment: To differentiate formalized institutionalized planning strategies, this term will refer to official civic urban renewal initiatives.

Urban designer: For the purpose of this study, “urban designer” will refer to any individual with academic training and/or professional experience working in the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, civil engineering, or urban planning.

Built environment: The physical attributes and features of an urban area that were designed and constructed by humans – public and private, ecological and artificial, sanctioned and unsanctioned.

Civic engagement: “Civic engagement refers to the many ways in which people participate in civic, community, and political life and, by doing so, express their engaged citizenship…the defining characteristic of active civic engagement is the commitment to participate and contribute to the improvement of one’s community, neighborhood, and nation. Civic engagement may be either a measure or a means of social change, depending on the context and intent of efforts” (Animating Democracy, 2012).

Arts-based community development: “Arts-centered activity that contributes to the sustained advancement of human dignity, health, and/or productivity within a community” (Cleveland, 2011, p. 4).

Placemaking: “A multi-faceted approach to the planning, design and management of public spaces. Put simply, it involves looking at, listening to, and asking questions of the people who live, work and play in a particular space, to discover their needs and aspirations” (Project for Public Space, 2012).

Delimitations

The research capstone will address issues of urban revitalization and urban design as it relates to urban communities within the United States. This will ensure that issues of national policy and government will be remain consistent, therefore increasing the impact of this research on policy change. For the purpose of this study, I will only concentrate on issues of urban design as they relate to the built environment of shared public space. This will include spaces such as streets, pathways, plazas, parks, community gardens, cultural districts, and other public gathering spots. I will not focus on residential design or green building design – both of which fall under the umbrella of socially responsible urban design. This will narrow the scope of investigate and produce deeper exploration and stronger conclusion. Although efforts of urban revitalization often involve the fields of social services, law enforcement, and health services, I will not address the revitalization efforts being done in these sectors. I will concentrate primarily on the urban design sector. This study is specifically concerned with strategies of urban revitalization that use the built environment as a platform for problem solving and/or vehicle for social change, which is best examined in relation to shared space.

Limitations

Due to the nature of capstone research, this study will not involve any field research and will rely entirely on synthesizing previously published material and publicly available documents. I will not be conducting interviews, observations, or surveys with urban designers or community members. This will make it impossible to guarantee a comprehensive analysis of each individual case study or measure their full impact. It will, however, allow me to gain a broad and extensive view of the field as a whole and draw conclusions across a wide range of examples and theories of practice. The purpose of this study is to define an emerging phenomenon and lay the groundwork for future field research.

RESEARCH DESIGN:

As stated above, this research capstone will attempt to answer the central question: How are professionals in the field of urban design addressing urban revitalization through creative and innovative design tactics driven by community engagement and focused on building social capital, sparking civic dialogue, and grass roots placemaking? The study is designed to examine the question through various lenses, including U.S. urban revitalization policy, urban design theory and practice, and arts-based community development. My primary method of data collection will be an extensive literature review. The content of this literature will be guiding by my participation in two courses during Winter Term 2013: PPPM 523 Urban Revitalization and an independent reading course on “bottom-up urban design” with Professor Philip Speranza. PPPM 523 Urban Revitalization is designed to examine “the main debates surrounding redevelopment and considers those debates within a larger framework, to familiarize future practitioners with this always-important and controversial and now changing field within planning. The course first develops that framework, to frame debates surrounding redevelopment in the context of economic, political, institutional and social forces shaping redevelopment” (2012, p.1). This course will enable me to critically assess current institutionalized urban revitalization efforts in the U.S. Identifying deficiencies and challenges may highlight reasons why some urban designers are trying alternative tactics. A thorough background in urban revitalization policy will allow me to suggest ways that community driven urban design tactics can inform conventional strategies and affect policy change.

Philip Speranza is an assistant architecture professor at the University of Oregon, as well as a practicing architect. In his academic classes and his professional practice, he seeks to strengthen community engagement and identity of place, practicing what he calls “bottom-up” urban design. “In his research, teaching and design, Speranza seeks to understand how design can support urban participation across time while it also reflects and strengthens local identity. To that end he investigates methods of digital and analog media

including drawing and diagramming to integrate open-ended frameworks for participation, testing new systems of future possibilities” (2012). I will work with Philip to develop a set independent reading materials and course objectives that will enable me to explore foundational literature, as well as contemporary theory of “bottom-up” urban design. Additional meetings with Philip prior to the beginning of Winter Term will be necessary to identify a focused reading list and a specific set of learning objectives. Capstone courses begin January 7, 2013 and run through March 22, 2013. For a detailed research timeline, refer to Appendix B.

In addition to the two capstone courses, I will conduct web-based case study analysis and document analysis. Through online investigation, I will review and document broad range of community driven urban design projects with the goal of extracting common themes regarding objectives and design methods. The findings from the two capstone courses will inform the analysis of these individual projects and deepen the evaluation. I will aggregate these case studies on a personal research blog. This research blog will serve as a data collection tool, as well as a platform to document and reflect. As a result of maintaining a research blog throughout the process that highlights exemplary models, this site will become a contributing resource to practitioner and stakeholders in the fields of urban design, civil planning, and community arts.

FINAL OUTCOME:

A possible outcome of this study may be contributing content new to the Animating Democracy’s website, specifically the Art & Social Change Mapping Initiative portion. As previously mentioned, I identified that one of the gaps in their collection of arts for change work is urban design work is urban design. Drawing from my case study collection and analysis, I could expand the amount of community driven urban design work represented in the Directory of Profiles. This could be accomplished through information sharing with Animating Democracy staff and/or an invitation strategy. The results of my capstone research may provide me with enough relevant content to contribute a “Special Collection” focused on civic engagement urban design, presenting a series of ten or more case studies, accompanied by multi-media/visual content. As a Special Collection, this feature would highlight profiles within the site, as well as highlight connections between the work of Animating Democracy and the fields of architecture, urban planning, and design.

Another opportunity may include publishing a summary of my findings in a “Working Guide Trend Paper”. Animating Democracy’s trend papers, “are a growing collection of new and extant papers by leaders in and chroniclers of the field. Papers offer snapshot descriptions of various types of arts for change work within the arts, community development, civic engagement, and social justice fields, as well as work focused on particular issues” (2012). I have already begun to discuss these possible outcomes with Animating Democracy staff and will continue to keep in communication with them regarding my research findings.