Yule Heibel’s Post Studio © 2003-2009

Guerrilla Sharrows in the mist

A few days ago, Victoria, BC activists related to O.U.R.S. (Other Urban Repair Squad, eg.) painted sharrows (Shared Lane Markings) on several streets in the city. The local paper ran an article (City crews obliterate guerrilla road marks) and Victoria Indymedia published OURS’s press release, Cycling Activists Take to Streets Over Slow Expansion of Bike Lanes. One of the City of Victoria’s councilors (recently elected John Luton) is supposed to be a cycling advocate, but was quoted in the local paper (the Times-Colonist) as follows:

“I question whether these are bike advocates or just anarchists who ride bikes,” he said.

“More responsible bike advocates work with municipalities to advance their cause. This sort of thing creates more problems than it solves.” (source)

The Times-Colonist has started publishing letters to the editor on the topic. I have to say I really agree with the first part of this one, Bike-lane painters are doing a good deed. The author (Marty Hykin) writes:

I am thinking about the midnight bike lane painters whose work was destroyed by city crews the next day. It is reported that the cycling group “followed Canadian guidelines for road marking to a T” and that their admirable motivations were entirely concerned with promoting road safety.

City councillor John Luton, a cycling advocate, dismisses the actions of these civic-minded volunteers, calling them “anarchists.” He states that the work must be done “within the city budget and priorities.”

Yet the city appears to have plenty of money in its budget to shift priorities in the blink of an eye, sending crews out to paint over the markings. Where did that money suddenly come from?

There are a variety of problems in this city that are handled in part or in whole by volunteers. Volunteers work as school crossing guards, feed the hungry, house the homeless and guide tourists. People put up road signs warning drivers to slow down in residential streets where children might be playing. I don’t hear the city harrumphing that those worthy people are “anarchists.”

Why can we not accept the cycling group’s generous gift of free paint and free labour? Perhaps the city might even reciprocate by providing a few road safety cones or a person to direct traffic around the activity.

While I’m not sure I want volunteers to take over too many duties, I think Hykin nails it when he points out that the city never ceases to remind taxpayers and residents that it has no money to address pressing problems, yet somehow managed, in the blink of an eye, to find the crews, the paint, the funds to obliterate the sharrows – which had been painted in part as protest over the delays in implementing cycling infrastructure improvements, delays supposedly stemming from lack of funds.

I live near one of the intersections (Cook and Fort Streets): even though I’m really familiar with those streets, I had no idea there were itty-bitty signs on Cook Street between Fort and Yates that indicate to drivers and cyclists that the latter are allowed, encouraged, even obliged, to take the center of the lane.

So, are we waiting for some cyclist to get knocked over by a car driver who thinks he’s “in the right” in not sharing the road, or do we continue to put up with cyclists on the sidewalk endangering pedestrians?

Before anyone flames me for not wanting cyclists on sidewalks: I don’t know about your municipality, but it’s illegal here for anyone over 12. I feel about cyclists on sidewalks the way cyclists feel about being on roads that drivers don’t want to share: it’s not a good mix. From the pedestrian’s point of view, a cyclist is heavier, has much greater velocity, and can really do some damage to the person on foot …just as a car (heavier, greater velocity) does damage – will do more damage, but damage is damage – to anyone on a bike …or on foot.

The main point, however, is money: how come the City has no money to paint sharrows, yet has the funds to paint them over, lickety-split? Is this part of the bureaucracy malaise (silo thinking), and have new councilors bought into it already?

(Photo source: Follow the Sharrows on Urban Photo)

Urban density and social media tools

It won’t come as news to those of us who love and defend cities, but it’s nice to have scientific research backing up what we espouse as urban positives: High population density triggers cultural explosions, according to a new study by scientists at University College London. The study was published in the journal Science; see also UCL’s page here (h/t Richard Florida/Creative Class blog).

The study reports that “complex skills learnt across generations can only be maintained when there is a critical level of interaction between people.”

I wonder how current social media tools mimic the benefits of density, or augment it in places that are emerging.

For example, I live in Victoria, BC, a medium-sized city that is approaching good density levels in the core neighborhoods, and I’m continually amazed by how social media tools like Twitter, Facebook, and a local forum on Vibrant Victoria have allowed a speedier dissemination of ideas. The dissemination doesn’t necessarily produce “instant” results, but how much more bereft we would be without the various platforms for those conversations.

While web-based tools can’t replace actual rubbing-up against people, they do facilitate transmission of ideas as well as complex skills, particularly if those skills aren’t manual. Yet even in the realm of manual skill or physical production – say, vegetable gardening or backyard chicken-raising – I’m likely to turn to the internet to find instructional videos or a local group. Digital natives will always go there first (and I’ve been an immigrant several times over, so I consider myself fully “naturalized” here, too, thank-you!).

Online social media tools absolutely augment the benefits of “real” population density. Thinking about online density and actual urban density (and its benefits) together, as being of a piece, seems important.

Better gold through green

It seems everyone is going green, or will be. Today I went to Victoria’s UDI (Urban Development Institute) luncheon to hear Terasen Energy Services‘ Gareth Jones present “All About Geo-Thermal: Learning from Local Projects.”

Some basic take-away points: unless I severely misheard, British Columbia prices for energy (or electricity) will rise 80% in the next 10 years; the best place to make inroads in meeting the very ambitious greenhouse gas reductions (which are nearly as ambitious as Europe’s) set by the BC Liberal Party is in communities/ municipalities; and the best places to get the best bang for the buck in alternative energy is in dense settlements, whether multi-family complexes (including highrises and townhouse developments) or densely settled neighborhoods.

Other points: we in BC often think that we get most of our energy/ electricity “from hydro” (i.e., from hydroelectric power projects, therefore from “clean” water-driven sources), but we actually import 15% of our electricity from out-of-province, and those imports are “dirty” (typically derived from coal-fired plants). In addition to that little wrinkle, only 21% of our total energy needs in BC are met by electricity in the first place (and of that 21%, remember that 15% aren’t “clean”). The remaining 79% are met by natural gas (another 21%), other fossil fuels (can’t remember the exact number – I think it was around 20%?), wood (another 16%), and other sources. Alternate sources are at present but a small, very small piece of the pie.

There was more, and it all deserves a longer blog post or article, for which I’ll have to dig out my notes and do some research. What struck me today was the sense of urgency that came across in Jones’s presentation: that we really don’t have a lot of time to sit on our hands in pursuing alternative energy – not least because an 80% rise in costs will really do a number on the economy. It would probably make the current recession look like a walk in the park.

Jones encouraged all the developers, builders, and planners and politicians at the luncheon to explore the myriad ways that the provincial government and Terasen Energy Services are trying to make alternative energy production (and consumption) more commonplace.

Meanwhile, there’s more to research and think about: Living buildings and how they’re cost-effective, for example.

Next week, there are two events scheduled in Victoria – first, at the University of Victoria on June 3, Jason McLennan, CEO, Cascadia Region Green Building Council will speak on The True Costs of Living Buildings, and the next evening (June 4), a less formal event showcasing some examples will take place at the Burnside-Gorge Community Centre. (I have to admit that after hearing Gareth Jones explain the benefits of density when it comes to installing alternative energy both for new and retrofitted buildings, Jason McLennan’s homepage photo disturbs me. It’s of an isolated single home – a converted church even? – in the middle of nowhere, which is probably the most large-footprint lifestyle, in environmental terms, that privileged westerners can choose. Perhaps his home is environmentally sustainable, but it’s still not a great model in the sense that it’s not anything we should strive for. Ok, end of sour aside.)  (Update, 5/27: If readers click through to the comments on this post, they’ll see Eden’s comment, which corrects my assumption about the photo. It’s actually not a private home, but the barn of a sheep farm. That’s really good to know, because the myth of the self-sufficient yet large single-family family home on a large property – a “green” variant of the suburban lifestyle – exerts a strong and unsustainable pull, which I prefer not to see strengthened. Thanks, Eden, for the additional info!)

And since it pours when it rains, there’s an out-of-town event I’d love to be able to go to: The Seattle Architecture Foundation will lead a tour through South Lake Union, called LEED: It’s Not Just for Buildings Anymore:

SLU’s close proximity to donwtown’s and existing transportation lines are the foundation for a successful sustainable neighborhood. Community design focusing on adaptive building re-use, alternative transportation, storm water management and other sustainability techniques is revitalizing the neighborhood adjacent to Seattle’s urban core.

SLU was accepted into the USGBC’s LEED-ND Pilot (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design – Neighborhood Development) program, and is one of the first existing neighborhoods anticipated to receive LEED certification.

Catherine Benotto and Ginger Garff from Weber Thompson and Katherine Cornwell and Jim Holmes from the City of Seattle will explain how great neighborhoods are created. Highlights of the tour include the Terry Thomas Building, the redesign of Cascade Park, the street car maintenance facility and an exploration of the master plan for Terry Avenue.

Seems to me that the South Lake Union walking tour would be a perfect complement to Gareth Jones’s presentation, but then again, Jason McLennan’s presentation is a lot closer to home…

February article: Housing 2.0

It took a while for me to catch up with my own goal to blog about the articles I’ve posted to Scribd, but here (finally) is a quick pointer to Housing 2.0, the piece I published in the February 2009 issue of FOCUS Magazine.

It’s a funny title in some ways, but this brief introductory description, followed by the first paragraph, might clarify the intent:

Using the Wikipedia model, along with modular housing, to solve homelessness: As web 2.0 development has shown, people are able to unleash creativity and energy when they see how to move forward and get things done from the bottom up.

Vancouver architect Gregory Henriquez wants to tackle Vancouver’s crisis of homelessness with temporary modular housing. Homelessness, he points out, is growing at a much faster rate than housing can be built, which basically means that housing production should speed up. The problem is that traditional housing construction can’t.

So, the gist is that it’s another attempt on my part to shift our thinking away from “let government do it” to “let the people do it.” If we have a group of people who’ve become systematically beaten down (sometimes through their own bad choices, sometimes through the bad choices others made for them), does it make sense to keep them passive and in a state of learned helplessness, or is it better to help people move – step by step – toward autonomy? (That’s a rhetorical question, by the way. I know what my answer is.) Henriquez tried to make a case for what he called “Stop-Gap Housing,” and it makes a lot of sense in our housing market (which is both imploding in some ways, while still incredibly unaffordable at the same time).

I also, in this article, try to get a “2.0″ kind of thinking focused on bricks and mortar (literally), which is something that’s badly, badly needed in land use and development. There have actually been some great historical precedents for that kind of fluid thinking, in particular Archigram’s DIY City concepts (I blogged about this and my ideas and responses around “housing 2.0″ here).

I’m not sure the Victoria readership appreciated all the weirdo references I threw out in this piece, but everyone should get out of their comfort zone occasionally, right?

Note: The March article, Victoria’s Urban Forest, is also up on Scribd, and I’ll blog a short post on that one tomorrow.

Canadian cities in a quagmire?

We’re experiencing an exceptional cold weather spell in southwestern British Columbia, and last night a 47-year old homeless woman died in Vancouver.  She burned to death, trying to keep warm with a live fire; the police think her blankets must have caught fire. The story is all over the news of course, including here: Woman’s body discovered in burning shopping cart.  Like so many others, she kept her possessions – and at night, herself – in a shopping cart.  The cart, enclosed by blankets, became her pyre.  Unlike many people who are homeless, she was also a drug addict and shelter-resistant (someone who refuses to use shelters).

Regardless of where you stand on the issues surrounding homelessness, shelters, affordable housing, and what to do about people who are mentally ill or drug addicted, there’s one thing that struck me in the news item.  It showed once again that Canadian cities don’t have the autonomy they need, and that they will continue to face unique problems because of this lack.

I’ve written several times that it’s wrong that cities in Canada are “creatures of the Provinces” that don’t have real powers while simultaneously the senior levels of government have downloaded (or offloaded, the terms are used interchangeably) more and more responsibilities to them.  Trying to solve homelessness with the limited abilities to raise money that cities in Canada have is a huge challenge.  Compound this with problems posed by people who are seriously mentally ill or drug addicted, and you get a quagmire.

Quagmire, as in beyond “mere” crisis.

Tracey, the woman who died, was approached three times by Vancouver police and asked if she would come inside into a shelter.  She refused, and got quite angry by the third try, which took place around 12:30 a.m. Dec.19.  By 4:30, she had set herself alight.  What’s the city to do?

Here’s what the article says:

[Gregor] Robertson [Vancouver's newly-elected mayor] is considering other ways to remove mentally ill people from the streets in life and death circumstances.

“We can’t literally let people die on our streets that can’t take care of themselves,” he said. “That’s immoral in my mind.”

One of the options is a program called “Code Blue,” where outreach workers can forcibly bring people inside if they’re believe to suffer from mental illness. It’s used in New York when temperatures dip below -9 C.

“It is something to look at,” says Rev. Bruce Curtiss of Vancouver’s Union Gospel Mission. “If someone is out there and not in a capacity for whatever reason.”

A final decision could not be made by the city and would rest with B.C.’s provincial government. There’s concern a Canadian version of Code Blue would be unconstitutional.

“The issue there really is ‘are we barred by the charter of rights and freedom from implementing that particular system or is there some other approach that our government could use to help someone like this individual?’” said B.C. Solicitor General John Van Dongen.

Yes, and while the B.C. Solicitor General studies the problem and the city consults with its lawyers, more people will die.

Remember that Vancouver, alone among Canada’s cities (at least in the West) has a Charter of its own, and therefore more autonomy than other Canadian cities.  (It’s a unique fluke that Vancouver has a charter, as far as I understand it. Lucky Vancouver.)

But even Vancouver is hog-tied, if not by the Province (of which, even with a Charter, it is still a “creature”), but also by Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which seems to have been concocted at a heady time when all freedoms (especially in the abstract …sorry, do I sound jaundiced?) seemed like a great idea and no one considered that cities would be the refuge of people who are homeless – a difficult enough situation in itself – but who might also pose extra challenges if they are in addition mentally incapacitated or drug addicted to the point where they will simply die on the street unless forced to survive (by being sheltered).

Oh, and don’t forget: Canadian cities are supposed to “solve” all this downloaded misery with 8-cents from every dollar that Canadians pay in taxes, and with property and business taxes they collect from the folks in their municipality. They can’t float bonds and they can’t collect income or consumption taxes.

Quagmire.

Comment on BC Supreme Court Ruling re. Camping in Parks

Tim Ayres is a realtor in Sooke, BC, who blogs about real estate and Victoria issues.  I’ve seen his Twitter updates in the Twitter Local Net, but haven’t been following his blog.  The other day, however, I saw that someone I follow on Twitter twittered that he had left a comment to Tim’s video post, Get Ready For The Homeless in Beacon Hill Park [Video], which asked readers what we all think about the “camping in parks” ruling.

For anyone in BC, the recent BC Supreme Court ruling is …uh, significant.  (And for the best local coverage on this question so far, see the Vibrant Victoria forum thread, Homeless win right to camp in city parks.)

I clicked through to Tim’s video blog and posted a lengthy comment.  However, as it appears to be held up in a moderation queue I’m re-posting it on my blog, too (minus some pre- and post-amble…):

The ruling by (BC Supreme Court Justice Carol) Ross is not helpful if it does nothing to bring the various levels of government together to address the problem of homelessness, and I have to voice my disagreement with comments here that the city should be able to fix the problem.

Far from defending our current municipal leadership — because it has been wishy-washy — I would argue, however, that the cumulative effects of off- or downloading by *all* parties at the senior (Provincial and Federal) levels of government has created the mess we’re in now.

By all parties I’m referring to how Paul Martin’s Federal Liberal government really accelerated the downloading of federal responsibilities to the provinces; how our current Conservative federal government, when approached for help with infrastructure in cities — which includes *so* many aspects — reduced the issue to banalities by replying that “the Federal government isn’t in the business of fixing potholes”; how at the Provincial level, we’ve lost mental hospitals to cut-backs, are failing to provide detox.

Most importantly, I’m also referring to how, we, in urban centres, are subservient to rules laid out in a British North America Act that gave Provinces all power over municipalities because cities were considered unimportant, mere entrepots for raw resource export (which is manifestly no longer the case), and how our Canadian Constitution also fails to take into consideration the fundamental importance of cities to 21st century economies.

And yet the problems of homelessness as well as untreated mental health problems and often attendant drug- and alcohol-abuse as well as the criminality associated with procuring drugs (and paying for them, that’s based on crime often enough) aggregate in our cities. These are problems dumped on municipalities, which in turn can’t seem to deal with them. Yes, people are poor and even homeless in rural areas, people become addicts in rural areas, people lose their minds in rural areas. But when they come for help, chances are they’ll migrate to the cities to seek it, expecting services that those cities are increasingly unable to provide because they’re being asked to do too much with too little.

In case you’re interested, a number of months ago I wrote a blog post about off- or downloading and how the spectacle of homelessness is the last link in that downloading scheme, Connect the dots: two articles by Miro Cernetig and Bob Ransford that should be read together.
What I argued was that we citizens are the last link in that chain: the municipalities have dumped the problem on us — and just as the downloading of responsibilities from Feds to Provinces to Municipalities was ill-conceived, downloading to Joe and Jane Citizen is equally wrong.

It’s wrong for the same reasons: if you download responsibilities (which entail fiscal responsibility) without ensuring that the entity you’re downloading to has a tool kit with which to approach the responsibilities, you’re asking for trouble down the road. When Canadian cities were asked to take on the responsibility for the hard-to-house, the mentally ill, and the drug-addicted, the scheme collapsed. Why? Because there’s nothing in Canadian cities’ toolkit to allow them to create the fiscal arrangements to pay for that responsibility. Canadian cities depend on property and business taxes, while all income and consumption taxes go to senior levels of government. Municipalities can’t keep jacking up property and business taxes, unless they want to drive out their most successful members.

I’m not excusing poor leadership at any level of government. But Canada is set up in a very weird way, and it’s not as easy as some would believe to deal with these problems. There are way too many silos and too many policy restrictions on how cities can be pro-active.

What I would like to see (and ask municipal politicians) is “how are you going to be an effective lobbyist for us?” I would ask, “how are you going to break down the party mentality that sets up us-and-them dichotomies?” — something we see far too much of in Victoria, which likes to nurture an NDP chip on its shoulder and complain about the “evil” Liberals. I’d want to know how you (municipal leader) are going to seek out contacts on a personal level, make sure you meet the right people at all levels of government, how you’re going to *schmooze* and wheel and deal, assemble teams, and break down the g-d-damn silos, so we can work toward the common good. I would not want a municipal politician who has lofty ideals and refuses to get his/ her hands dirty by working with “the other side.” I would specifically support politicians who are ready to throw the old partisanship out the window. At least we who are housed still have windows to throw things out of. Let’s use that.

PS: I don’t work in government or have any professional affliliation with policy making. I am passionately interested in cities, though, and write often about Victoria in particular.

I’ve written several other entries related to housing, homelessness, affordable housing, and so on, but the specific entry I cite above (Connect the dots…) is probably the one most relevant to the crisis we’re dealing with currently.

On Creativity

I have to reblog and repost the entry I just read on CEOs for Cities.  Called In Detroit for Creative Cities Summit, Carol Colletta has this to report on what she learned about creativity and economies (emphasis added by me):

“Creativity is the only inextinguishable resource we have.”

There are 3 principles of the creative ecology from John Howkins:

1.  Everyone is creative.
2.  Creativity needs freedom.
3.  Freedom needs markets.

Creativity does not equal the arts. Creativity is not the same as innovation.

Creativity needs freedom of expression, dialogue, collaboration, education and learning, cities and clusters, and acceptance by family and society.

Creativity is not deferential.  You don’t do it (creativity) because something thinks it’s a good idea.  Otherwise, it becomes the repetitive economy.  The creative economy thrives on novelty and meaning.

The creative economy is an economy of failure.  It we skirt that truth, we are back to repetitive economy.

The creative ecology is niche where diverse individuals express themselves in systematic and adaptive ways, using ideas to produce ideas and others support this even if they don’t understand it.

It’s easy to build a building.  It’s hard to fund creativity.

Diversity -> Change -> Learning -> Adaptation

Education is only important if it enables learning.

Cities must ask, “How big is our learning capacity?”

I know there are people who will poo-poo this, but for me it strikes a chord.  Maybe because I’m all about failure, or maybe because I’m all about doing stuff that isn’t deferential. For example, you want something like a DemoCamp?  You really want a DemoCamp?  Just friggin’ hold one then. (This goes for anything worth doing. Rinse and repeat: anything worth doing!)  And don’t worry about ownership.  Who cares?

There’s a great song by Abbey Lincoln, a vocalist, composer, recording artist I admire totally.  It’s called Throw It Away.  There are often days when Lincoln’s songs provide a palimpsest for what I feel most deeply.

Throw it away / Throw it away / Give your love, live your life / Each and every day // And keep your hand wide open / Let the sun shine through / ‘Cause you can never lose a thing / If it belongs to you   (Album source)

Maybe it’s weird to go from CEOs for Cities to Abbey Lincoln, but it makes sense to me.  Creativity is the blues, but what a great shade of blue it is.  As Colletta posted (above), “The creative ecology is niche where diverse individuals express themselves in systematic and adaptive ways, using ideas to produce ideas and others support this even if they don’t understand it.”

“…even if they don’t understand it.”  Trust, keep your hand wide open.

A comment on “Sarah Palin: the liberal voter’s worst nightmare” by John Carlson

Crosscut Seattle published Sarah Palin: the liberal voter’s worst nightmare, by John Carlson, a “longtime Republican” who in this article “enumerates the many ways by which Gov. Sarah Palin could become the most beloved national figure since Ronald Reagan.”

Ok, let’s just agree to disagree here.

What really interests me is a reader comment by “Blue State.”  Entitled “Sarah Palin will not be the wave of the future,” he (or she?) writes:

The entire Republican convention, including Sarah Palin, highlighted the fact that there aren’t “red states” and “blue states” — there are urban areas and rural areas. The Convention was a bizaare effort to make the entire country believe that it should become a small town, with all of the worst attributes of anti-cosmopolitanism that involves: religious fundamentalism, hating Europe (huh?), belittling education and achievement as “elitist,” parochial discrimination against people who aren’t just like you.

Fortunately, demographics are fighting back against this vision of America. More people are living in cities. More people are tolerant of gay people and people of other countries. More people think that it’s not un-American to speak two languages or to eat French cheese. Hey — FEWER PEOPLE ARE HUNTING! It’s a fact!

Sarah Palin is a throwback. She’s not America as most of us know and love it; she’s the face of the past, not the future. The Republicans may well succeed in moving the country back a few decades, but we won’t stay there forever.

I grew up in a small town, by the way. As my mother used to say, small towns are places where everyone rallies around you during bad times and stabs you in the back when you’re doing well. That’s what Sarah’s smug whinnying about Obama’s popularity reminded me of — the small town determination to “bring somebody down” when they’re rising above the crowd based on merit, rather than being “just like everybody else.” (emphases added)

I think that’s one of the most trenchant observations I’ve come across so far.  And I think it shows what’s at stake: that smart cities might be the victims in this election.

And oh my, was Blue State’s mother ever right about the small town mentality.  It explains and illustrates so much of what I see in my town, which is experiencing growing pains as it finally becomes truly a city.  Here, too, the prevalent thinking has been to bring down those who are successful, also known as the Tall Poppy Syndrome.

It’s cynical, and useless, and very bad for cities.

Jane Jacobs on “differences, not duplications”

Rereading Jane Jacobs’s classic, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, and came across the following on p.169, in the chapter on “The Uses of City Neighborhoods”:

Almost nobody travels willingly from sameness to sameness and repetition to repetition, even if the physical effort required is trivial.

Differences, not duplications, make for cross-use and hence for a person’s identification with an area greater than his immediate street network.  Monotony is the enemy of cross-use and hence of functional unity.  As for Turf, planned or unplanned, nobody outside the Turf can possibly feel a natural identity of interest with it or with what it contains.

I find Jacobs’s insights so compelling and rich because they apply not just to cities, but to life-systems.  What she has to say about “differences, not duplications” applies equally well to all the places of human use: cities, but also natural and digital/virtual places, and user interfaces of every kind.

She goes on to add the following, pp.169-170:

Centers of use grow up in lively, diverse districts, just as centers of use occur on a smaller scale in parks, and such centers count especially in district identification if they contain also a landmark that comes to stand for the place symbolically and, in a way, for the district.  But centers cannot carry the load of district identification by themselves; differing commercial and cultural facilities, and different-looking scenes, must crop up all through.  Within this fabric, physical barriers, such as huge traffic arteries, too large parks, big institutional groupings, are functionally destructive because they block cross-use.

This is something to think about with regard to Victoria’s Tourism precinct: the district defined by two giant architectural landmarks, built at the end of the 19th / beginning of the 20th century by Francis Rattenbury, The Legislature and The Empress.

I never before thought about how these structures (which can arguably be called “big institutional groupings”) are not just “district defining” (and used by NIMBYs who live near the district as a reason to thwart all other adjacent development), but are also in a very real sense “functionally destructive because they block cross-use.”  Thinking about them in those terms helps explain the curious sense of artifice and sterility that sometimes pervades this district.

Now that the Empress (in the 1980s?) blocked off the grand front door — designed by Rattenbury as a front door to the Inner Harbour, a door symmetrically centred on the building and the Causeway — effectively killing the lobby, and instead moved the entrance off-center, for use by guests only (i.e., literally no more cross-use of the building by the ordinary people), the potential for destructiveness to the district is even bigger.

Not that the Empress should be reduced, no.  What should happen is for life to grow up around and beside it, and that includes additional new development unrelated to the hotel, but still in the district.

Click here for a closeup image of the hotel’s original main wing, which shows at centre the former grand lobby entrance (now blocked off, although the barriers aren’t visible in the photo).  Click here for an image where you can see the new entrance, housed in the comparatively tiny, conservatory-style off-centre pavilion, toward the left side of the hotel.

This new pavilion entrance was added so that the original main lobby entrance, which attracted into the lobby hundreds of gawkers, both tourist and local, could be blocked off and the hotel could strengthen control over who could enter and therefore use the premises.  With this measure, the hotel protected itself, but cross-use by non-specialized users (i.e., users other than guests) was killed off, too.

That also means that you won’t find the Jane Jacobses of today, casually using this space to have a drink and conversation (we won’t mention the cigarette, now banned everywhere in Victoria)…