Public Open Space/The Public Realm/Social Glue + Urban Design

The use and abuse of Public Open Space (The Public Realm) by land speculators and their puppets (politicians, town planners, traffic engineers, landscape architects, and architects) is standard in cities in Canada and the U.S.A., with few exceptions (Vancouver B.C., Portland Oregon, Montreal Quebec, Ottawa Ontario, Santa Monica California). The above abuse is presenting enormous barriers  - barriers that dry up the Social Glue needed for a Healthy Livable City.

 

The abuse of Public Open Space is happening in both the suburbs and the inner core of cities. Unfortunately, apologists who simply do not understand how and why citizens use Public Open Space, more often than not, support the continuation of this destruction of Public Open Space in both, the suburbs and in the inner core of cities. These illiterate apologists, in a confused state, often start describing rooms in privately owned buildings as being an examples of fantastic Public Open Space. Ironically, any time these apologists start talking about “rooms” being an example of fantastic Public Open Space - typically signifies that there is a lack of substantial usable Public Open Space. That the design of the particular city with this great room - in fact, is the antithesis of good urban design.

 

 

The abuse of Public Open Space began in earnest, after the Second World War. Hundreds of World War Two profiteers bought cheap farm lands, far from city centers in the late 1940s and began the suburban sprawl syndrome accompanied by the strangling of the inner core of cities with suburban sprawl traffic and by Big Box super-sized, hi rise office towers and condos.

 

The Second World War was all consuming from an industrial point of view and all of North America was left with an extreme shortage of housing by the end of the war. This housing shortage was taken advantaged by the war profiteering land speculators who not only decided to clean up financially; but at the same time these self appointed elite initiated the art and science of social engineering. These people were (are) playing SIM CITY; but, with real people.

 

It wasn’t by accident at this time, that Ford and other automobile  manufacturers banded together with the elitist group of land speculators - who then began the process of only building new housing far from city centers. Naturally, public transit did not exist to service of all this new housing (the burbs); consequently, home buying citizens were forced to buy a automobile at the same time as a home (both naturally on time).

 

The substantial profits controlled by war profiteering elite, enabled these profiteers to buy anyone - and in quick order - a cadre of puppets were created overnight. These puppets included politicians, planners, architects of all stripes, building inspectors as well as so-called traffic engineers. Normally if one speculates in any market (like the stock market) there are substantial financial risks; but, when it came (comes) to speculating on land - there are no risks. The elite simply buy anyone to eliminate any/all risks.

 

Even buying land in the over priced downtown core of any city is a financially risk free project; because, the land speculator knows that he or she will be able to recoup the money by building an inner city Big Box condo tower - the more stories - the more profit for the land speculators. Ironically, research shows that the infrastructure costs to support hi rise towers will never be recouped through property taxes. It is laughable that these same land speculators will give the media sound bites about how these Big Box towers are intensifying the inner core of the city and saving infrastructure expenditures for a city; but in fact it is the reverse - the infrastructure costs sky rocket. These land speculators make money off the backs of the middle class - who pay the majority of property taxes in any city.

 

Aside from the financial fleecing perpetrated by the land speculators; tax paying citizens were, at the same time, made into guinea pigs. The land speculating, elite aided by their puppets, began a 50 year period of Social Engineering - whereby the speculators decided where and how the rich, the middle class, low income class should  live.  Naturally the elites and their puppets didn’t understand (or care about) the outcome of their Social Engineering efforts.

 

The outcome is best described by the world’s foremost urban researcher and designer, waterfront researcher and designer, and  Public Open Space researcher and designer - Jan Gehl. Gehl was asked to give the prime talk at the American Mayors Annual Conference, held at Princeton University. Gehl summarized the above process of the elites as “Dog Shit Pile” planning and development. Whereby the elite and their puppets plopped buildings down in a “willy nilly “, “helter skelter” fashion - without any rational (other than to make money while controlling people) - and later the citizens were supposed to figure out how to overcome all the barriers presented by the elite and their puppets - in an attempt to make cities Livable.

 

The preceding pages will cover the well proven ABC’s of removing some or all of the barriers that the elite and their puppets have produced over the last 60 years - with respect to Public Open Space (The Public Realm). At the same time the outcomes of that misconstrued social engineering will be exposed - outcomes of teen gun crime, exorbitant suicide rates amongst single moms, criminal levels of pollution, and cities without high levels of social glue for all of it’s citizens in the inner core of cities as well as the suburbs.