As citizen-driven urban action becomes increasingly potent and well-disseminated, the tension between spontaneous, bottom-up improvements and top-down planning and policy is thrown into higher and higher relief. As often as that tension might manifest through loud, messy confrontations, a great deal of it simply takes the form of confusion. The bottom-ups and the [...]]]>

As citizen-driven urban action becomes increasingly potent and well-disseminated, the tension between spontaneous, bottom-up improvements and top-down planning and policy is thrown into higher and higher relief. As often as that tension might manifest through loud, messy confrontations, a great deal of it simply takes the form of confusion. The bottom-ups and the top-downs aren’t quite sure what to do with each other, so the future of cities remains cloudy. How we get from here to a more harmonious future seems anybody’s guess.

“[Citizen-led] urban renewal instruments might take an important role,” opines Istanbul-based planner Erhan Demirdizen in the new book Handmade Urbanism: From Community Initiatives to Participatory Models, “but only if the local authorities can turn these applications into local development programs.” In other words, policymakers need to figure out better ways to facilitate and channel the energy of engaged citizens, in order for their cities to reach their full potential.

While its tone can, at times, be a bit aloof (read: academic) given the informality of the subject matter, Handmade Urbanism is a significant contribution to those who are trying to figure out how to adapt governance structures to ease the tension between citizens and officials and encourage more action at the grassroots level. The book’s unique format presents diagrams and statistics illustrating three transformative, citizen-driven interventions in five rapidly developing cities and analyzes their impact and meaning through interviews with local activists, designers, and academics. The result is something of a hybrid between a guidebook and a handbook.

The case studies, all of which were selected through the Urban Age program, highlight a wide variety of interventions in slums and favelas in Mexico City, Istanbul, Cape Town, São Paulo, and Mumbai. Presented together, they lead the reader on a journey through a potential place: a city where public spaces truly belong to the public, and everyone is encouraged to contribute. The analysis of these projects looks at each city through a five distinctly different lenses, discussing the role of citizen-led projects with community actors, government officials, academics, artists, and intermediaries, defined by the editors as “those operating at the middle level (between top-down and bottom-up interventions) intermediating scales, and different layers of knowledge and action.”

One of the book’s many detailed diagrams / Photo: Jovis

Unsurprisingly, given this staunchly multidisciplinary approach, there is a heavy focus on the role of partnerships in driving success with bottom-up projects. The success of any public space relies heavily on a strong network of partners, from individuals to organizations. This is especially true of citizen-led projects because unsanctioned improvements often require substantial public support to avoid being dismantled for any number of bureaucratic reasons once they are discovered. Thus, almost every case study presented in Handmade Urbanism involves some interesting examples of people from different constituencies working together. More importantly, several illustrate the power of partnerships and collaboration to transform and expand the reach of the groups that participate.

Take, for instance, Mumbai’s Triratna Prerana Mandal (TPM), which started out as a group of boys who gathered in an underused space to play cricket. They eventually began to take some ownership of the site, cleaning it regularly. This activity led to the site’s selection for a new toilet facility constructed through a World Bank/SPARC program. TPM was charged with maintaining the facility, and smartly capitalized on the centrality of this sanitation space within peoples’ daily routines by relocating their office on-site. Once there, they continued to care for and improve the space, eventually working with the community to create public cultural and educational programming. Their efforts have now been expanded into adjacent abandoned buildings, illustrating “how even basic infrastructure…can provide an impetus for much wider community activism and urban change” when woven into existing social networks.

The capacity for bottom-up projects to drive more systemic change is another key theme seen throughout Handmade Urbanism. Strong partnerships create the kind of productive bustle and vitality that spills over into the streets surrounding a public space, creating what the book’s editors refer to as a “ripple effect.” A case study from Istanbul, Music for Peace, illustrates this particularly well. The group set out to organize a music school and, taking a Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper-style approach, worked to improve surrounding buildings and public spaces “to create a proper spatial environment” for children to learn music.

They also considered how their activities would change the neighborhood’s social system: music was seen as a way to develop youth role models, and to fill the street with music as a way of enlivening public space. Kids carrying their instruments around the neighborhood affected the tone of the area’s street life. Altogether, this created a self-reinforcing cycle that generated support for and participation in Music for Peace’s programming. Within four years of starting up, the group was building a new music center. In 2012, a school was added. The group transformed their community; in return, the community transformed the group.

So how can the official systems in place today become more flexible and adaptable to allow for more responsive solutions to urban problems? There is, of course, no silver bullet for easing the tension between the bottom-ups and the top-downs. But Handmade Urbanism is a helpful tool for illustrating how collaboration can enhance the work that everyone is doing. Its case studies demonstrate for people at the top how citizen-led initiatives can create more bang for the buck. Through the interviews with policymakers and government officials, the book can also help citizens to better understand how contemporary decision-makers think about and approach this type of work, and what challenges need to be addressed.

Benjamín González, a cultural manager from Mexico City, offers perhaps the most succinct summary of the central message of Handmade Urbanism in his interview. Asked what he thinks the next steps would be for sparking more collaboration between arts and cultural programming and city governments to revitalize communities, González suggests that “[We need] to recognize that cities are also cultural projects, and that any particular initiative is also a cultural project, regardless of the subject, because in all of them we are talking about a change in people’s conception and behavior.”

As surely as we shape and change our cities, our cities shape and change us. Why not make that process as hands-on as possible?

A bustling street in Mumbai, one of the five cities explored in Handmade Urbanism / Photo: Jovis

Walking and wandering are two very different things. Walking is functional; it is merely the act of getting from A to B on our own two legs. But when we wander, it is the journey–not the destination–that matters. Somewhere between these two, there has to be a happy medium. In many of today’s sprawling [...]]]>

Walking and wandering are two very different things. Walking is functional; it is merely the act of getting from A to B on our own two legs. But when we wander, it is the journey–not the destination–that matters. Somewhere between these two, there has to be a happy medium. In many of today’s sprawling cities, traveling on foot can be difficult, if not impossible. Even when sidewalks and crosswalks are available, many suburban and urban landscapes are so debased that they provide little inspiration for wandering. To get lost on foot in Paris is a pastime; in Phoenix, it’s a headache.

Between walking and wandering, there is a somewhat political act. It is the decision to walk in spite of one’s environment, and to find enjoyment in humanizing the landscape simply by being present. When I visited Los Angeles for the first time earlier this year, I told several of my friends about my plans to spend much of my time in the famously sprawling city on foot; each and every one of them told me that I was foolish to try. “You just can’t walk around LA like New York,” one said, in an earnest attempt to dissuade me. “People look at you like you’re a crazy person.”

Of course, LA turned out to be a fabulous city for walking, with its elaborate flora and its truly unpredictable urban fabric. Objectively, I can see where some people would find it ugly and alienating for a pedestrian. But then, there’s something to be said for thinking of walkability more as a mindset than a physical condition. We can build environments that encourage more walking, but we must also pay closer attention to peoples’ motivations for walking, and how we can encourage more people to choose to walk: for the sake of their health, and for the health of their communities.

At Pro Walk/Pro Bike: Pro Place, McGill University’s Kevin Manaugh spoke about the psychology of why people do or do not choose to walk. “Walkability is not a one-size-fits-all object that we can just build,” he argued. “Often, we think of walkability as the meeting of urban form and content, but we need to remember to bring in resident needs. Walkability is at the intersection of those three things.”

Intent on learning more about that very intersection, landscape architect Martin Kohler spends much of his time moving through cities (doing something between walking and wandering) documenting what he calls his Big Urban Walks. Based on the dérive methodology, Kohler’s 35-70 mile journeys connect two points on the outskirts of a given metropolitan area, with the route between being “guided by the space of the city.” He documents his walks with field notes, GPS tracks, and thousands of photographs. Every time his surroundings change, Kohler snaps a pic; later, he stitches them all together into fascinating, rapid-fire saunters that allow viewers to traverse places like London (above), São Paulo, Las Vegas, and Detroit in about ten minutes.

“The city is presented with all of its pockmarks and postcard shots, in a portrait of urban complexity.”

Watching these videos, I was struck by how much I was reminded of the urban to rural transect tool developed by the New Urbanism crowd. Particularly in the London video, you can see the countryside give way to the suburbs, and watch as the buildings grow taller and closer together towards the urban core. Once past the gherkin, the same transformation happens in reverse, and the screen fades from gray to green. Kohler is indiscriminate when it comes to what Manaugh calls form and content; he walks through bustling historic districts, crumbling slums, and wide open spaces. The city is presented with all of its pockmarks and postcard shots together, in a portrait of urban complexity.

Kohler’s photos are utilitarian, not precious. This, combined with the rapid speed at which images flash by, allows the occasional moment of surprising beauty to strike with the same poignancy that it might have in person. Just as quickly as a beautiful mural or eccentrically-dressed passerby appears, they’re gone. Moments later, across the city, a family passes by, the children in suits and ties; off to some special occasion. These videos take place over the course of a few days, allowing you to actually start to see the rhythm of the streets. This is the life of the city, captured on film.

In the end, it is that life–that thrum of human interaction–that is at the heart of true walkability. When we choose to walk–or even wander–through areas that are more Phoenix than Paris, we make the statement: people should be here. Barring physical impairment, we all have the ability to walk; it is within our power to create a better city simply by being present. Head outside and walk around a bit. See for yourself.