The Decorated Corpse

I'd like to take a look at City Creek Center, a major project in Salt Lake City, Utah. It represents the height of contemporary thinking in urban planning. I'd like to talk about why it does not represent legitimate, healthy urban development, but instead kills the living city, if anything remains, and then decorates the corpse so that the place may look healthy on the surface. I took the title of this post, it's worth noting, from Robert Venturi's landmark study of the vernacular architecture of Las Vegas, in which he describes the difference between 'Ducks' and 'Decorated Sheds' in the world of Architecture. In the world of urban planning, a similar dichotomy exists between decisions about the living city and creative ways to decorate the urban cadaver. After discussing this concept, I'll apply it to the particular project of City Creek Center and argue why that isn't a legitimate replacement for healthy urban development, and is likely detrimental. 

The south side entrance to City Creek Center at Richards Street. The 99 West Apartments (formerly The Promontory) are seen in the distance. ( Mangoman88)

Venturi's take on the difference between 'Ducks' and 'Decorated Sheds' is that Ducks (taken from a duck-shaped roadside stand on Long Island selling eggs) are buildings that are  designed to be specifically and only what they are. Conversion to another use would be impossible or at least quite difficult. The Decorated Shed is a building that is designed in such a way that would allow it to accommodate a wide variety of uses. It may be a clothing store today, but it may very well be a coffee shop tomorrow. One need only change the sign and the interior design. Venturi makes no judgements about this, only an observation and a note to other architects to have more respect for the decorated shed than is normally shown, considering their ubiquity and usefulness in our society and economy.

I completely agree with Venturi that we should all have more respect for the decorated shed. These are the buildings that we all live our lives in. Whether we live in them as apartment buildings and condos, or work in them as office towers and retail stores; these buildings are largely what make the city. They allow the city to function economically and socially. But I am taking only the term (the Decorated _____), not the larger concept. And I am most certainly making a value judgement. What is happening in American cities right now with mega-projects like City Creek Center (this project is certainly not alone) is that space that should be reserved for a healthy urban marketplace is instead being turned over to development companies who then decide to bulldoze the living city and replace it with a per-fabricated version of a city where low value uses don't exist and (consequently) neither do low value people. If you thought urban gentrification had negative aspects, wait till they can just skip the middle man and replace the old development with a finished product that they've deemed appropriate. And it's killing the cities we live in. If you can't tell that the city is dying, that's the point. It's a decorated corpse.

The Frozen City

I'd like to examine the effects of zoning and other policies that shape development in American cities. I want to look at the specific example of my own neighborhood, which is considered to be one of the better neighborhoods in Salt Lake City (from a planning perspective). It follows all of the New Urbanist/Progressive Planners' dictates regarding what makes for great urban development: mixed densities, mixed uses, walkability, and proximity to city center. It's great on paper. But I would like to humbly suggest that it's a great example of why a checklist of ingredients is not a very good way to measure a neighborhood's (or city's) health. All the ingredients are here because the living city, many years ago, developed them as this particular suburb of Salt Lake was urbanizing. But then a funny thing happened. The city was frozen and this particular neighborhood was in the middle of transition between an all-residential neighborhood and a more urbanized central neighborhood. It was frozen at precisely the stage of urbanization that the New Urbanists are so nostalgic for, so it checks off all their boxes. And it certainly does represent healthy urban development. Fifty years ago. If design is the only consideration in city planning, it still should. But it doesn't. I'll be suggesting why it no longer represents healthy urban development as well as how the city was frozen.

(Ice storm photo from NASA.gov)

Firstly, why do I say the city was frozen? I mean that it was frozen from a development perspective, not literally, of course (though we did freeze over a couple of times last winter). The Avenues is not unusual in that its development has been frozen by various city policies. Exclusive use zoning and density/intensity limits are two common ways of 'freezing' the neighborhood. But other policies can strengthen the effect. Anything that reduces the chances that something new is going to be built contributes to the freeze. Even much beloved Historic Preservation ordinances can contribute to the freeze effect if overused. Policies aren't the only thing that can cause this freeze. Lagging economic development can also freeze needed new construction. The freeze also happens because uses are inflexible. If an old office can't become a loft, or an old shop can't become a furniture repair, then the neighborhood will likely find itself unable to adapt to a changing reality and also stands to become obsolete, unable to offer to potential residents the things they need. 

Policies are the primary way in which this 'freeze' is achieved, but American attitudes are the root source, at least today. Americans have become used to the idea that they should be able to determine the specific uses of the land in their neighborhood. It is not considered outside the valid reach of city policy to prevent certain types of unwanted development, even if that particular land use is not directly disruptive to the neighboring residents. While I'm fervently democratic in my philosophies on how government decisions should be made, I'm just as fervent in my believe that not all decisions should be made by government. I believe that certain things should be outside the purview of government. Such things would include land uses that do not cause a direct and legitimate grievance to neighbors. Much of the industrial and commercial uses that are prohibited under current zoning laws would be on that list.

To be sure, there are plenty of things that should not be allowed, but I think that selecting certain areas of the city where they can and certain areas where they can't be done automatically creates areas of privilege and areas of plight. The solution to undesirable uses is to prohibit them inside the city or to regulate their activities in such a way as to make the use tolerable to the rest of the city. But beyond the problem of inequitable treatment, these prescriptive zoning policies also have the effect of freezing the city. Because land uses can no longer shift over time to adapt to the needs of the neighborhood, they remain their original use. Eventually, neighborhood needs (like a grocery store, for instance) go unfulfilled and the source of that need (residents) move elsewhere. The need is removed, lowering the demand on the land market, and the residents who wanted the grocery store go elsewhere as well. Land values crash and the economic activity that would have caused the neighborhood to grow and change over time slows or stops altogether.

Usually, this process means that the neighborhood ceases to change or develop, and can no longer produce the sort of environment that citizens want. Occasionally, as in the case of the Avenues, the neighborhood becomes quite popular years later because of that freezing effect and demand returns as people seek housing near the city center. The neighborhood seems quiet and unchanged, which it is, and attractive compared to housed further away from the city center or more integrated into the urban fabric. Most places that have experienced the effects of the policies that caused the freeze however, aren't so lucky. Most are simply unable to serve the needs of their citizens, and therefore lose land value until they only attract the lowest income residents. This is where we get blighted neighborhoods, unable to attract new capital or support their own costs through their tax dollars. Freezing a neighborhood's development is a sure way to kill it.