Fourth, Expand The Concept of Sustainable Places
Save Some Monuments (and Empty Places)
Sustainable, resilient communities require many places not intended for ongoing human occupancy. These include ceremonial places like monuments and cemeteries as well as basic storage facilities like parking ramps and warehouses. These places are empty, not intended for human occupancy. How should empty places be evaluated from the viewpoint of sustainability and resilience? All of our built places, occupied or unoccupied, consume community resources. Is there any return on investing in empty places?
For many of us who live in more spacious houses, empty places fill quickly with “stuff”. In cities, vacant lots and empty buildings become repurposed and refilled (or demolished). Do we need empty places? How are empty places distributed geographically in our cities and regions? Do we need places devoid of human activity and how do they help sustain our community? We always need the “open” places of our natural environment, sources of food, water, soil, air, and more. But what about the empty places that we build or that emerge in our cities?
Few people would suggest that monuments, like pyramids and obelisks, should not be sustained. Most of these structures are not needed to support humans physiologically. Nevertheless, they seem essential and last for centuries (notwithstanding natural disasters). What is so important about these places that we continue to save them?
One answer comes from John Ruskin’s Lamp of Memory , in his famous set of essays on the Seven Lamps of Architecture. Ruskin’s essay instructs contemporary designers to create places that memorialize our current culture as well as light up our remembrances of important places constructed by past generations. Put another way, Ruskin’s Lamp was intended to light up both the past and the future. For planners concerned with resilience it means that we must (a) preserve the past and, at the same time (b) create places that will be worthy of remembrance by future populations who might view our actions with admiration rather than contempt.
Mexico’s pyramids, albeit unoccupied, must be preserved. They show us the culture of great civilizations and prove a community’s capacity for resilience over centuries. Mexico, 2001.
Following Ruskin’s advice is not easy. Think about the arguments we have in our culture, as well as others, regarding monuments. In our communities, some places worthy of preservation are saved while others demolished. For example, some of the early cemeteries in America, including Milwaukee’s Forest Home Cemetery, were designed with the intent of creating a landscaped place, like a park, as a place to enjoy a stroll while bringing forth meaningful memories of the past. Many tombstones and mausoleums in Forest Home echo the visual style of past buildings. These types of places sustain thoughts of respect, history, and spirituality. They also can evoke feelings of social conflict, even hatred when a monument idolizes a person representing a community’s history of immorality. Heroes (or villains) in one generation become villains (or heroes) later on.
Communities also demolish places that should have been preserved. In Milwaukee some may recall the demolition of a Frank Lloyd Wright apartment building to create a turning lane or the demolition of portions of Olmsted’s Riverside Park for a new sports facility. Both of these places had lost perceived value over time and, while still occupied, seemed less than worthy of remembrance. Were these actions consistent with making Milwaukee more resilient? The point is that our communities should sustain places that contain ideas and values from the past, from the present, and for the future.
Every community has its “pyramids” and “statues of liberty”. These places of memory that can consume lots of financial resources. Places of memory have broad cultural appeal as historic icons or the subject of intellectual discussions — look no further than the selling of related mementoes. It is worthwhile to speculate on how such structures would fare in the systems of evaluation and measurement that we currently use to measure sustainability. How would the “LEED” rating system classify the Mexican pyramids?
Expand Resilience To Include All Needs
With the exception of their embodied energy, today’s accounting systems (which measure ecological or environmental footprints) would probably give places like the pyramids a high rating. Pyramids do not use any food, energy, or transportation resources. They do not emit unwanted gases. They do not impact their surrounding environments. Civilizations could perish, and the pyramids would remain for a decade if not centuries. Their footprint is close to zero. However, their function does not address our physiological needs like food, water, and energy, but does address human needs regarding ideas and culture — which may be equally important.
For planners, the key issue concerns the sustainability and resilience of a complete community — one which sustains and makes resilient places that embody ideas, beliefs, history and wisdom plus the equally fundamental physical needs to sustain life.
Somewhat ironically, Ruskin also limited his definition of architecture to a narrow class of buildings he considered worthy of artistic achievement (palaces, fortifications, churches) and specifically excluded shops and homes as mere buildings unworthy of architectural talent. Today I suspect he would add storage sheds, parking ramps, and warehouses to this list of “unworthy” structures that are not worth remembering or saving. While many planners, including myself, would disagree with Ruskin’s elitist values, it is hard to ignore his distinction between places built for physiological needs and safety versus those built for spiritual and aesthetic purposes. Both sets of needs are essential to a complete community and therefore both must be considered as part of any approach to sustainability and resilience.
Use Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs
One of the clearest conceptualizations of these defined needs comes from Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. His five categories from top to bottom are paraphrased here (and discussed in multiple online sources)
Self-actualization
Esteem
Comfort
Safety
Physiological needs
As planners and designers, we address these need every day, but not in isolation from each other. Some parking structures, which add “comfort and safety” to our daily lives can also look beautiful. Some destination monuments, like the Statue of Liberty, can also provide tourism-related jobs for a community. For planners, it must be the sum of the values for multiple needs that informs our decisions. Almost invariably, this approach runs into direct conflicts in local communities where one demographic appreciates “comfort,” another is looking for “esteem,” and many seek basic “shelter”.
The personal flower pot on public display has always symbolized the aesthetic generosity and good intentions of a single individual devoid of their social position — somewhere near the top of Maslow’s hierarchy and clearly above our physiological needs. Camden (1968) and Copenhagen (2002).
While in theory Maslow’s needs can be discussed independently, in planning practice we do not have that luxury. His hierarchy of needs impacts each one of the “triple bottom line” measuring sticks — environment, economics, and equity. The two examples noted above — the Statue of Liberty and a parking ramp — both incur issues that span all the needs and all of the bottom lines. While Maslow’s list of needs refers primarily to individual persons, planners also need to measure such needs as a community-wide condition (which makes planning for these needs even harder).
Integrate Measures Of Needs and Bottom Lines
As we look at multiple needs, we should not use the wrong measuring stick for each attribute. Isolated evaluations of one set of needs are much simpler to explain as a basis for political support (just think of urban renewal and urban freeways) but they can actually make sustainability more difficult and less likely.
Another example is the mini-storage warehouse — clearly at the other end of the spectrum from the pyramids. Such structures are not likely to be candidates for historic preservation unless we have eliminated all of them and we need to keep one as a cultural reminder of a lifestyle that required massive amounts of storage for many useless objects. Here too, I suspect that mini-storage warehouses would come out near the top of the measurement scales for LEED-rated buildings as well as low ecological footprints. The obvious problem with this system of thought is that the mini-storage structure has no redeeming cultural value. It is not hard to argue that their purpose is to store the “stuff” we have consumed through purchases but not really want in our lives on a daily basis.
Measuring the need for “parking” provides another so-called need that generates heated arguments — whether it is street parking, parking lots, or parking structures. Parking structures store stationary objects for long periods of time with no human occupancy on property that would be more valuable if used for residential or commercial purposes. Yet the parking space has become an absolute necessity for many residential neighborhoods and business districts. Both surface parking lots and structures engender debate.
Imagine a proposal to build a large structure that houses expensive objects that will be left unseen, unoccupied and unused for most of the day. The cost per unit of storage (a car) is needed for “comfort”. Imagine a comparable proposal to house great works of art — also unoccupied and unused for most of the day. This space is clearly needed for “esteem”. How do we measure these needs and compare their community value? Planners must find ways to measure and compare these needs, both parts of resilient places.
Topic summary
Save Some Monuments (and Empty Places)
Expand Resilience To Include All Needs
Use Maslow’s Hierarchy
Integrate Measures Of Needs and Bottom Lines