Designing the city

Christian Century, June 20, 2001 by Norman B. Bendroth

That being said, one wonders at times if the New Urbanists romanticize "the old neighborhood." For every Pleasantville there is also a Hell's Kitchen and a Watts, places that do more to segregate and isolate immigrants and the underclass than they do to create community. Neighborhoods have also been places to draw sharp lines of turf to be protected.

One such example was reported in the pages of this journal a year ago. In Portland, Oregon, Sunnyside United Methodist Church, a poster child of the New Urbanist movement, held a Wednesday night dinner for the community, which including the homeless population. The purpose was to try to ease class tensions by bringing people of different income groups together for a meal. On Friday evenings the church hosted a coffeehouse for the homeless and recovering alcoholics. Programs included evangelism, anger management, Bible study and live music. Coffeehouse directors barred those who were visibly drunk or causing a public disturbance.

Apparently many residents in Sunnyside resented the presence of this population and the mess they left behind. They filed a complaint with the city, and an official stepped in, shut down the church's meal program and limited any public gathering, including worship services, to a maximum of 90 persons.

"A number of the concerns were very legitimate," said Tim Lewis, then pastor of Sunnyside. "Complaints about loitering and public disturbances had to be addressed." This was done during a large hearing before the city council, which eventually declared the city official's actions unconstitutional.

"Many of these young professionals are genuinely committed to re-urbanization until they encounter drugs and homelessness," said Lewis. "Urban reality challenges romantic notions about moving back into the city. As a culture they are very tolerant, but there was also an anti-Christian bias that would show itself at these meetings." At the end of the day, Lewis said, he was impressed by the outcome and the agreements reached between the church, the city and residents.

The vision of building mixed-income and mixed-race neighborhoods is appealing and profoundly biblical, but extremely difficult to pull off without a simultaneous educational or "consciousness-raising" project. Perhaps this project could become a place of cooperation between local churches and developers.

The New Urbanism suggests that if builders and planners proceed according to proper principles, sprawl and its attendant deformations of life would be severely diminished. On this point, the New Urbanists are perhaps a bit naive about human nature. New Urbanism can also easily devolve into another niche for yuppies rather than becoming a new paradigm for fostering a civil society. The corrosive nature of human sin and unintended consequences always haunts such human projects.

DOES GOOD DESIGN create good people? Philip Bess, professor of architecture at Andrews University in Michigan and seminal thinker on these matters, says no and yes. Good design can foster and be an expression of community, but it cannot cause it. In the same way, good design cannot cause human happiness--but it can provide opportunities for it to flourish. A well-designed town or building creates a place for a community to recognize itself or to find itself. This process requires both time and care. In short, cities are made great because they are loved. If there is nothing particularly lovable about them--if they are ugly, poorly designed and socially isolating--then they will not foster community.