Former Denver City
Council member and architectural consultant Susan
Barnes-Gelt penned an
op-ed piece in the Denver Post regarding architects and urban
planning. The article begins:
What if
the design of every building, landscape or development had to address the
question, "What is a livable city?"
The
notion emerges from the vision of Denver's 2000 Comprehensive Plan: "a
city that is livable for all of its people now and in the future."
Implicit in both the vision and the question is that the good life for Denver's
people is full, good and happy — for individuals and for the citizenry as a
whole.
Ms. Susan Barnes-Gelt judges
graduate school architects on the livable city. Does she speak of single-family homes with backyards for the children to
play? No, the project is a high-density
transit oriented development (TOD) site at Colorado Station near Colorado
Boulevard and I-25 in Denver.
The
seminar's readings and discussion encourage them to see themselves first as
citizens and then as architects. The quality of our built environment suggests
that too few licensed designers, developers, regulators or builders follow
suit. The implications of this are profound: the primacy of the public realm;
the relationship of buildings to one another; and the quality of connections to
adjacent districts and neighborhoods.
This is collectivism, pure and simple. The
“primacy of the public realm” trumps all other considerations or property
rights. Unfortunately, urban planning in
general and transit oriented developments in particular usually have social
engineering as the primary goal.
Joshua Sharf responds to Ms.
Susan Barnes-Gelt over at at View From a Height
where he provides a scathing deconstruction of the urban planning,
high-density, transit oriented design myths and the intellectual gobbledygook
planners use to promote these developments. Read the whole thing.
by Civil Sense
Looks like those folks living around DU in Denver that oppose a 200+ unit TOD are against democracy
http://univneighbors.org/univneighbors_pos_sta_devt.pdf
Posted by: Allen | May 19, 2008 at 05:47 PM