The Urbanologist

Chicago, Who Are You?

The house where Carl Sandburg wrote about the hog-butchering, the wheat stacking, and so on. 

Chicago has fascinating me for several decades and I have written a number of books on the city, along with various missives, diatribes, and tributes. I was glad to meet the talented writer Kelly O’Connor McNees via Twitter, as she shares my fascination with the Windy City.

I recently proposed that we each write short observations on Chicago-centric topics and perhaps we might take on the Loop, the El, or any other host of ideas, locales, or grand cultural movements associated with the city. 

We set on our sights on the iconic (and frequently memorized) poem “Chicago” by Carl Sandburg. What follows is the first in what will be an occasional series on such matters and I’m terribly excited about the whole enterprise.

First up is my own piece, and please continue on to read Kelly’s musings on this poem here.

I first encountered this poem in some massive anthology of Great American Poems. That wasn’t the actual title of this tome,  but it might as well have been. It contained page after page of stoic doggerel about the Pilgrims, some flowery prose about emotional encounters with leaves of grass and then bam, bam, bam: Hog butchering! Railroading all over the landscape! Brawny tough shoulders!

Wow, I was in love. Yes, please, and more of it.

The words seemed honest, a bit rough and ready, and they were describing a sprawling city that I already loved. True enough, my only visit to Chicago at that point had been with my folks to see Mr. T march in the Thanksgiving Parade on a cold winter day in 1982, but yea, it was memorable. And I loved what I saw, sure enough.

Since that time, I have read the poem for my students in my urban studies courses, shared it with friends after late nights of drinking at Miller’s Pub under the El, and thought about the world it describes. I can sum it up thusly: You can’t go home to this Chicago again.

To my mind, that’s exactly the point. There are no more hog butchers left in Chicago. No more oinkers to be transformed into a myriad of products, minus the squeal of course. The railroads are there, albeit a a bit anemic, but still proud and the harried commuter can still jump on train to Waukegan or Wilmette to make it home for the violet hour.

This economy based on making and assembling physical goods, slaughtering millions of animals, and the like within the city limits is just a palimpsest. All of these machinations have long since been spun out to far-flung provinces and no one seems to care. And why should they? For the most part these goods are cheaper than they were (relatively) than in Sandburg’s time and that’s so much the better, many might say.

One sliver of a line in this magnificent work still rings so true for the Chicago of Our Own Times: “Here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities”. Chicago is still that tall bold slugger as much as it was one hundred years ago, standing high above towns like Elmhurst, Lombard, or even more distant Midwestern locales. Dare I say East Lansing? Or could you suffer through a French Lick?

This is the thing that matters most of all for today’s Chicago. It remains an entrepot, a honey pot that draws in young talent from Bettendorf to Bangalore, as it did in Sandburg’s time. This is the thing that stirs the pot, this constant churning of youth in and out of the city, year after year, decade after decade. 

You can see it in the South Loop, you can hear it in Lincoln Park, and it is always a presence right there on the steps of the Art Institute of Chicago as thousands of schoolchildren get their first, second, and third taste of what it means to be at the corner of Michigan and Adams on a busy day.

Come to think of it, we might need a “Chicago” for the Way We Live Now. 

Maybe that will be our next shared meditation. 

A Modernist Moment on the Mall

It is a hot day in Washington, D.C., but that is no surprise. It is late May, and as the seasons change and the ice caps slouch to the surrounding blue expanses, it is inevitable that it will be some type of warm.

On a day like this, the Hirshhorn Museum is most attractive to me. It is a salve, a release valve, a tonic to the dominant mode of architecture around the Mall that seems to look eastward and backward to ancient Rome and Athens for comfort, reassurance, and architectural familiarity.

A certain cool modernity (yea, some would give it Bru-tal-ity) is the dominant mode here. One does not have to crouch to walk underneath its elevated ellipse, but to do so offers a new perspective on its forms. Here there is an orderly pattern language of windows punched into its very being.

What is behind these windows, you ask? Art of the Modern and Contemporary variety prevails. You will find no dentured George Washington portraits, no Radio Flyers of mid-20th century America, and nary an homage to Bob Hope, that Essential American who started off life in Britannia. 

The Hirshhorn is different from the rest of those other institutions that dominate the Mall. It is not any better or any worse. For what I crave on a day like this, yea, many days like this, it is exactly what I need. A place that is quiet, a place with fewer visitors and a place that is dedicated to Our Recent Artistic Past and Those Impulses That Emanated Forth From Those Closer Decades

For that reason alone, it is a Minor Miracle on the Mall. 

It should not be missed. 

Boston, How Did You Grow?

The story of Boston’s growth and development is one that involves the interplay of private developers, conscientious citizens, and a raft of public government entities. It’s a complex story, and one that is expertly told by James O’Connell in this volume published by the MIT Press. 

As someone who has taught urban studies and related subjects for years, I knew I had to reach out to James to see if he would time for a brief interview about his work. He was most generous with his responses and here’s what he had to say.

For the uninitiated, what’s the value of planning to society? 

Planning creates a framework for urban and suburban development. It provides transportation, water supply, sewers, parks and open space, and public buildings. Infrastructure and zoning allow private actors to build out housing and businesses. Planning, in the case of Boston Emerald Necklace and the Metropolitan Park System, also provides the beauty, landmarks, and attractive recreational areas that make the city appealing.

My book The Hub’s Metropolis: Greater Boston’s Development from Railroad Suburbs to Smart Growth traces planning efforts for nine distinct eras of suburban development as well as Boston’s later 20th and early 21st century redevelopment. Each era’s planning paradigm has a distinctive approach to real estate patterns, transportation, housing styles, business location, and open space in shaping the built landscape. The eras are:

• Traditional Village Centers and Proto-Suburbs (1800-1860)
• Country Retreats (1820-1920)
• Railroad Suburbs (1840-1920)
• Streetcar Suburbs (1870-1930)
• Metropolitan Parkway Suburbs (1895-1945) 
• Suburban Mill Towns (1820-2012) 
• Postwar Automobile Suburbs (1945-1970) 
• Interstates, Exurbs, and Sprawl (1970-2012) 
• Smart Growth Era (1990-2012). 

Each model of suburban development has left its imprint on the landscape. In some places, a planning template complemented an earlier model and in others replaced it.

What brought you to this particular project?

When I moved to Boston from Cape Cod in 2000, my family and I were driving through Milton and I was struck by the Blue Hills Parkway and the adjacent early 20th-century development. I recognized that this artery was similar to others in the Boston area and wanted to learn how they came about.

I became interested in learning more about how the metropolitan region had developed and how it functions today. Living in Newton, working in downtown Boston, and seeking recreational and cultural opportunities in other communities, I recognized that we live regionally, but do not always think regionally. Besides Sam Bass Warner’s book Greater Boston: Adapting Regional Traditions to the Present, I could find no book that provided an overview of Boston’s metropolitan area. There are hundreds of books on the city of Boston, but little on the region. To satisfy my curiosity, I researched several topic areas that turned into articles, talks, or book chapters—regional planning, the Metropolitan District Commission, public transit, regional development patterns, open space conservation. My wife and I took weekly expeditions to explore the region’s cities, towns, open spaces, college campuses, shopping areas, etc. After about a decade, I had a book on my hands.

I should confess that I am a regionalist at heart and have written books interpreting regions where I have lived. Residing in Springfield, I wrote The Inside Guide to Springfield and the Pioneer Valley and edited The Pioneer Valley Reader. I also have written the only history of Cape Cod’s development as a resort—Becoming Cape Cod: Creating a Seaside Resort.

What are three of the defining moments in the history of planning for the Boston region? (laws, acts, movements, technological innovation, etc.)

Creation of the Railroad System—The railroad system created during the 1830s and 1840s spurred development of the region’s pre-World War II suburbia. Investors started New England’s first railroad, from Boston to Worcester, in 1834. They built rail lines to Providence and Lowell (1835), Salem (1838), Newburyport (1840), and Plymouth, Fitchburg, and Fall River (1845). This truly made Boston the “hub” of the region and created the commuter rail system that still exists and provides the development framework for transit-oriented development.

Metropolitan Parks and Parkways—The Metropolitan Parks and Parkways, which were long managed by the Metropolitan District Commission, provided a magnificent open space and parkway system. It formed the development framework for the first-generation automobile communities within the Route 128 beltway. Designed by landscape architect Charles Eliot in 1893, this system was the country’s first example of environmental regional planning. The forest preserves included the Middlesex Fells, Blue Hills, Stony Brook, and the Waverly Oaks. Eliot set out to preserve the banks of the region’s three major rivers—the Mystic, the Charles, and the Neponset—as well as Revere and Nantasket Beaches, which were the first publicly-owned beaches in America. Within seven years, the metropolitan park system conserved 91,000 acres of open space, 13 miles of oceanfront, 56 miles of riverbank and built seven parkways. Now, that’s using the public sector to get things done.

1948 State Highway Master Plan—The postwar blueprint for highway construction in Massachusetts. The Highway Master Plan laid out a highway system that included the Route 128 and the I-495 beltways, the Massachusetts Turnpike, Storrow Drive, Central Artery, Southeast Expressway, I-93, as well as the unbuilt Inner Belt. This system took a couple decades to be built and transformed metropolitan Boston.

What two or three things (such as infrastructure improvements, policy tools, etc.) would you like to see happen in Boston proper? (a wish/dream list, if you will)

Urban Ring—A decade ago, the state was planning a circumferential transit route two miles out from downtown Boston. The Urban Ring would cross all the subway lines and numerous bus routes, facilitating cross-town transportation and encouraging transit-oriented development. In its initial stages, the Urban Ring would be bus rapid transit service on dedicated lanes. By its final phase, the Urban Ring be a fixed-rail system. With the ultimate cost reaching into the billions and the challenges entailed in maintaining the existing transit system, the state suspended the visionary project in 2010.

Promote Development in Suburban Town Centers—Encourage more compact mixed-use development where development and infrastructure already exists. This objective can be promoted through state zoning reform legislation and state and local development incentives. Such initiatives could be especially useful for redeveloping Gateway Cities—older industrial cities—and stimulating development in established suburban centers which have been static in recent years.

In your experience, what’s the best way to get people out of their automobiles and on to other forms of transportation (buses, subways, bikes, etc)? 

More Extensive Transit Service—Modernize the existing transit system. An expansion of transit service, by extending the Green and Blue Lines and introducing the Indigo and South Coast Commuter Rail Lines, could fill out the region’s public transit system and entice more drivers out of their cars. It is also important, through zoning, to encourage transit-oriented development , which makes public transit a more attractive mode of transportation.

Create Dedicated Bike Lanes—It is estimated that bicycle use could increase by 600% if cities provided dedicated, low-stress bike lanes. There are a certain number of bike riders who will brave city streets and use striped bike lanes, but there are large numbers of casual bike users who do not feel comfortable jostling with motor traffic. Separate bike paths are a means of attracting this broad audience of bicyclists. A clearly marked network of discreet bike path routes around the city and environs should be further developed.

Recently, there has been a great deal of talk about the resurgence/reinvention of Downtown Crossing. What do you think is currently missing in terms of the commercial (or other) mix in that section of the city?

I work downtown, on State Street, and think that the redevelopment of the Filene’s block, which is supposed to start this year, will do a lot to spur surrounding development. I think it would be a mixed blessing if most of the spinoff commercial development were national chains that are already present in the Back Bay. I like the mix of locally-owned stores and restaurants that currently exists on Washington, Bromfield, West, Summer, and Winter Streets and Temple Place. We need more funky independent stores, such as Bromfield Camera, Bromfield Pen, The Watch Hospital, and the stamp & coin stores on Bromfield Street. Eateries such as jm Curley’s, Stoddard’s, Herrera Mexican Grill, Pizzeria Rico, The Marliave, and The Silvertone create unique downtown magnets. I think Downtown Crossing, though a shadow of its former self, is under-rated and should build on its recent achievements. In some ways, it has the vitality of the locavore culinary movement, seeking authenticity in local life and culture.

One theme I noticed in your book is the debate about density in a range of communities around the region. You’ve mentioned the cultural import of the single-family home and its seemingly bucolic and in some sense, agrarian origins. Are we seeing a shift of people away from this ideal?

A large swath of young singles, couples, and empty-nesters desire urban living in townhouses or apartments. Christopher Leinberger, in The Option of Urbanism: Investing in a New American Dream, cites a market survey showing that 40% of Greater Boston residents desire “walkable urbanism,” while 30% prefer “drivable suburbanism” and 30% would accept either. Only 25% of the current metropolitan Boston housing stock can be considered “walkable urbanism,” so there is a gap in the market. Leinberger estimates that 60% to 70% of all demand for walkable urbanism will be met in suburbs. The new downtown Boston and Seaport District housing is too pricey for most of this market.

The market segments that appreciate urban neighborhoods are attracted by “third places,” which are the pubs, cafes, restaurants, libraries, cinemas, gyms, and similar social hangouts. Besides the urban neighborhoods of Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville, many suburban town centers have been redeveloped as concentrations of “third places” in recent years. They include Salem, Melrose, Arlington, Lexington, Concord, Waltham’s Moody Street, Newton Center, Wellesley, Needham, Norwood, and Hingham. Such places are magnets for residential development.

Right now, many multi-family units are being built by national developers like Arborpoint, Avalon, Archstone, and JPI outside town centers. Suburban communities should work with such developers to encourage new housing to be built in town centers. In some cases, this would entail raising height limits to four or six stories, something which most suburbs have avoided. In addition to building housing in traditional downtowns, communities should also encourage housing to be built in lifestyle shopping centers like Dedham’s Legacy Place or Hingham Landing. I think that rebuilding commercial strips with compact mixed-use developments, like the housing units at the Natick Mall, will be another trend.

If you were to single out two or three instances of thoughtfully designed planned areas within the city of Boston, which ones would you recommend people explore when they have time?

Emerald Necklace and Charles River Parks—For shear enjoyment, explore the Emerald Necklace parks and parkways, starting at the Boston Common and the Public Garden and proceeding up Commonwealth Avenue to the Back Bay Fens. Then follow the Emerald Necklace through the varied landscapes shaped by Frederick Law Olmsted, including Jamaica Pond, Arnold Arboretum, and Franklin Park. This is Boston’s city planning masterpiece. One wonders whether such magnificent public spaces could ever be created again.

Stroll the Charles River parks from the Charles River Dam to Soldiers Field Road past Harvard Stadium to Watertown Square. You don’t have to try these walks in one effort. Take them in short snatches. The Charles River at the Charles Eliot Memorial Bridge is one of my favorite places in Boston. It seems so sylvan.

Neighborhood Commercial Centers—Returning to my discussion about vernacular planning paradigms, I would suggest exploring some of Boston’s neighborhood commercial centers, such as Brighton, Jamaica Plain, Roslindale, and West Roxbury. You could say that they are not planned in the sense that Government Center or the South Boston Seaport District have been planned, but they represent a combination of municipal/neighborhood planning (including Main Street programs) and many private initiatives. An important reason to engage these neighborhoods is that they are models for lively mixed-use centers that could be replicated in Boston’s far-flung suburbs. These organic neighborhood centers are incubators of small independent businesses that help create unique and sustainable communities.

Anything else?

In The Hub’s Metropolis, I trace the relationship between Boston and the suburbs to explain today’s metropolitan condition. From the 19th century until World War II, the suburbs were bedroom communities, single-function subsidiaries to the multi-functional central city. From 1945 until the 1990s, city and suburbs were in opposition. It was an era of “urban flight.” Thousands left Boston for the suburbs out of anti-urbanism and in search of the “bourgeois utopia.” Defenders of the city regarded suburbia with antagonism. By the 2000s, Boston became a national leader in urban redevelopment and there was broader acceptance of the legitimacy of both cities and suburbs. Greater Boston is a metropolitan mosaic, which should be appreciated as a sum and in its parts. There are still tensions around localism, NIMBYism, and class segregation, but there is a growing sense of interdependence and the need for a regional perspective on planning and development.

For more information on James’ work and this book, please take a look at his professional site, The Hub’s Metropolis.