Abstract
Nan Ellin’s newest book, Good Urbanism, has a place within multiple sets of publications. It is the latest publication in the Metropolitan Planning + Design series, a collaboration between Island Press and the University of Utah’s Department of City & Metropolitan Planning. It is one of a small set of books that go beyond the problem of determining what is desired in our urban environment and instead sets forth an agenda for how to achieve good urbanism. Third in Ellin’s series on “Urbanism,” it follows Integral Urbanism (2006) and Postmodern Urbanism (1996). While Good Urbanism is topically and structurally more similar to her most recent book, it shares the theoretically rich language of Postmodern Urbanism. It appears as if Ellin has come full circle within the topic.
Her prior “Urbanisms” were largely focused on establishing the what of their respective subjects; in this book, she diverts from that pattern to emphasize the how of good urbanism, beginning by establishing that “there is now a virtual consensus among planners and urban designers about what constitutes good urbanism” (1). On the basis of a recent meta-analysis of the prescriptions of theorists such as Scott Campbell, Kevin Lynch, Abraham Maslow, Peter Calthorpe, Doug Farr, and Witold Rybczynski as to a set of common good city form elements, Ellin considers the what of good urbanism as established (Toker and Minassians 2012). Instead, the rest of the book leads us through multiple process models, sets of desired qualities, and attitudinal approaches that can be used, both individually and in alignment, to achieve good urbanism.
The first of her models, Path toward Prosperity, is explicated through the use of diagrams, case studies, and a variety of theoretical areas and examples. These range from Jane Jacobs, Clifford Geertz, and Richard Florida, to Native Americans, the Taoist tradition, and the partnering of Barnes & Noble/Starbucks. She uses multiple examples, cases, and metaphors to explain the conceptual steps along the Path toward Prosperity: prospect, polish, propose, prototype, promote, and present. Case studies of design projects and processes are inserted throughout and used to illustrate key concepts from the Path toward Prosperity. One of the strengths of this book is in the way she has chosen to present these cases; rather than focus on the end product, which is seen so often in design-oriented texts, Ellin continues to emphasize exploring the how, investigating and exposing process.
In a chapter titled “The Tao of Urbanism: Rendering the Latent Manifest and the Possible Inevitable,” and through the use of an illustrative mining metaphor, Ellin describes how the Path toward Prosperity is initiated by prospecting for “gems.” These “gems” are more than valuable pieces of baseline information about a location or community; the choice of terminology illustrates her fundamental approach to urbanism, which is that “rather than beeline directly to resolve the problems, the Path toward Prosperity resists this temptation and begins instead with a step aside, enlarging the perspective and gathering the gifts” (12). By focusing on assets and building on strengths, Ellin advocates avoiding the mental and emotional pitfalls and traps associated with dredging up a community’s problems in order to fix them.
Ellin’s concept of prospecting is multidimensional, including personal (self) prospecting, collective (group) prospecting, and place (site/context) prospecting, balancing the insights of the design professional with “local knowledge” (Geertz 1983) and the site’s own genius loci. Continuing with the analogy, the “mined gems” are then polished, through a cooperative process, as described in a chapter titled “Co-Creation: From Egosystem to Ecosystem.” This concept of co-creating, with its inclusive view of the design process, silo-busting approach to design education, and ability to catalyze a good urbanism reaction, really seems to be at the heart of Ellin’s good urbanism (both process and product). This co-creative envisioning includes the steps of polishing and proposing, as the cooperative and collective community joins in “painting a picture in words and images” (35) of a joint vision. Moving through the Path’s steps, as this vision crystallizes through additional inputs, there is momentum to prototype and promote the vision to a larger community for awareness, testing, feedback, and implementation support; the momentum of the project is largely the result of the cocreative nature of the prospecting and policy steps, making the possible inevitable.
Returning to her findings from Integral Urbanism in the chapter “Going with the Flow: The New Design with Nature,” Ellin steps away from describing the Path toward Prosperity and instead describes the integral qualities of good urbanism, namely, hybridity, connectivity, porosity, authenticity, and vulnerability. Through the use of case studies profiling the Open Space Seattle 2010 plan, the CEDAR approach to community planning, and the University of Arkansas Community Design Center, Ellin demonstrates how the cocreated identification of assets through the Path toward Prosperity are augmented by capitalizing upon existing, integral, “flows.” Just as “good urbanism integrates functions that were separated” (57), Ellin seeks to draw parallels with earlier concepts of the urban vis-à-vis nature, ranging from Asian concepts of feng shui and Vedic architecture, Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City and Lewis Mumford’s biotechnics, through Ian McHarg’s Design with Nature and William McDonough’s Cradle to Cradle, to urban ecology, landscape urbanism, and ecological urbanism.
Ellin introduces another model, the VIDA approach, as a guide for following the Path toward Prosperity in a chapter titled “The Art of Urbanism.” An acronym for Visioning, Inspiring, Demonstrating, and Advocating, this process is largely focused on the prospecting/cocreating step of the Path. Through the acts of MeSearch, WeSearch, and ReSearch (which correlate with personal, collective, and place prospecting), the VIDA approach counters the trend of beginning projects with problem finding, and instead focuses on catalyzing action through a candid assessment of the current environment and an inspiring vision for the future. At this point, Ellin makes clear the relationship between her two models, the Path toward Prosperity and VIDA, through a diagram that “translates [them] into an action agenda, providing a how-to guide” (84).
Ellin’s use of multiple (overlapping) models and divergent terminology for similar concepts might be somewhat confusing to some readers. Throughout the first half of Good Urbanism, the reader understands that her interest lies in process, and she clearly walks the reader through the Path toward Prosperity. However, once the reader has become familiar with these concepts, Ellin introduces a second model that distractingly adopts similar yet different language and is combined with the now familiar Path toward Prosperity model to create yet another model/action agenda. Many readers may be left confused about the necessity of these additional models, and why Ellin believes that her Path toward Prosperity does not provide planning guidance, only “describes the direction of this activity in conceptual terms” (84) and needs to be augmented through yet more conceptual frameworks.
In the penultimate chapter, “From Good to Great Urbanism: Beyond Sustainability to Prosperity,” Ellin introduces yet another model. Drawing parallels between the concept of Sustainability and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Ellin notes that both are constrained by their focus on meeting needs, rather than on using existing assets to explore opportunities (Maslow 1943). Her final model is based, instead, on a Hierarchy of Gifts that is more in line with her Path toward Prosperity, noting that while “sustainability is certainly an improvement over decline, better still are flourishing, thriving, and prospering” (102). Ellin profiles multiple ways in which this Hierarchy of Gifts, with fuels (renewable energy sources) at the bottom, tools (skills, tools, and technologies) in the middle, and jewels on top as the polished “gems” of Good Urbanism, has become “apparent as urban design trends have been aligning fortuitously with political, economic, and social trends” (104). Ellin particularly focuses on the influence that the shift from needs to assets has had on the training and practice of nascent planners and urbanists. These include both a shift from critique-based to conversation-based models in planning schools, as well as a movement of practitioners regarding “human habitat as part of nature, rather than a machine for living” (107).
In a final model mash-up, Ellin seeks to combine the benefits of her Hierarchy of Gifts-based search for prosperity with the Path toward Prosperity, VIDA model, and even Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs into a final model, illustrated by a pyramid turned on its side, and called “Sideways Urbanism.” Rejecting both the top–down model of modern urbanism and the bottom–up model that emerged as a reaction to top–down planning, Sideways Urbanism can be initiated by anyone, from political leaders to interested citizens. Aligning the Pathway to Prosperity with levels in a Hierarchy of Needs/Gifts combined pyramid, Ellin anticipates that projects or designs will gain wide support through multiple constituencies (drawing on renewable energies assets) and be refined through Pathway processes (and knowledge tools). As ideas are drawn from true community needs and assets, impacts will satisfy local, indigenous needs and help a community to achieve self-actualization as it realizes jewels of good urbanism.
Good Urbanism is another worthy contribution from the author to the growing literature supporting equitable, ecological, and ethical planning and design practice. Although the introduction of multiple overlapping models is slightly confusing for the reader, the author’s exuberance and enthusiasm about the topic is made abundantly clear. Ellin’s Good Urbanism would benefit from a paring down and the imposition of additional structure; chapters are not overly long but the lack of subdivision within them can create a sense of repetitiveness. While it is apparent by the end of the book that sharing her models is the overarching reason behind the writing of this book, some guidance or trajectory would have made this an easier reading experience. Ellin’s case studies, while not unusual or entirely unique, provide a distinct viewpoint that gives even the most overexposed, the High Line, a fresh perspective. The case studies alone would be useful for planning or design courses speaking to community engagement or project process issues. As a whole, Ellin’s Good Urbanism artfully bridges the gap between theory and practice through careful explanation of the intricate processes, paths, and procedures to be experienced on the way to creating quality places.