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Behind the clever New Yorker cover of the star spangled banner with a punched out star like the broken glass of a store front, Jelani Cobb addressed Baltimore in his column, "Talk of the Town," concluding that the real question raised by the recent unrest is: What should life in an American city be?
The real question is not one of police tactics: whether the use of body cameras can reduce civilian complaints or whether police-brutality cases should be handled by independent prosecutors. The real question is what life in an American city should be.
Although this question clearly reaches beyond architects and urban planners, they in particular may scratch their heads over it. Hasn't this very question already been answered? After decades of pondering, hasn't the clear consensus emerged that the American city should follow the journalist Jane Jacobs ("Death and Life of American Cities"), not Robert Moses (the legendary New York Commissioner)? Hasn't this new consensus just brought about a revival of the American city in which the new paradigm asks how well one can walk in the city instead of how fast one can drive out of it? In the new paradigm, vibrant, "mixed use" developments, preferably in reused industrial buildings, get points for bursting with coffee shops and sidewalk seating. Cities with a funky music scene, theaters, comedy clubs, galleries and art districts score high in the "livability" index. And what about Charm City itself? Hadn't it become a shining beacon for the come-back city with its downtown stadiums, waterfront reclamation, farmers markets, ethnic festivals, urban gardening, local food and beer? Hadn't it become attractive not only for the young but for the aging as well, ranked among the top ten livable cities by AARP?
Far from a struggling post-industrial region primarily characterized by stagnant or falling incomes, the Baltimore metro area today is relatively affluent. Per capita incomes in the Baltimore region rose faster than in any other major metro area from 2000 to 2013. Regionwide, African American households share in that prosperity. And the city of Baltimore itself boasts large numbers of high-paying jobs in industries such as education, health care, and professional services, particularly in its downtown core along the Inner Harbor and adjoining neighborhoods.(Berube, Brookings)
Baltimore was doing well on almost all of these metrics, plus it scored authenticity points for its water... Read full article Archplan Inc. Philipsen Architects
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