The Critical Mass of Urbanism

Introduction: American study of urbanism has become more urgent: cities as we know them seem unlikely to survive. Both the government and the private sector are worried about the future cities, but their concerns with urban problems have been quite different. These two planning groups, government and the private sector, are seldom aimed at the same targets.

In the government example, we see our bureaucracy voicing the criticism of the urban process of self-determination in community formation. We see bureaucratic action to save our cities by artificially removing class barriers.

In the private sector, we see rebellion against excessive government. We see a revival of 19th century capital development: our best development comes with least government. Such rhetoric, and sometimes politics, has been characteristic of planning during the past 40 years to save a city. While we have been planning, in the real world urban deflation has produced insupportable budget inflation. Our cities have lost their affluent population and its support of urban tax base. Our cities are compelled to offer more human services to a poorer population at higher unit costs. Urban deterioration will bottom-out only when our cities become a fundamental, functional core, which we are compelled to support at whatever cost. This core city will no longer be what we call our center of civilization.

Our cities, where we now seek our support for a new form of living, were the planning of the early 19th century and the housing of the American industrial revolution. This physical plan, more than 150 years old, was conceived for a different society from the social change we are promising for the year 2000. The early cities and their housing never were intended for attractive living, but rather for storing people in their upward trip to riches. Within our inheritance of this deteriorated outworn housing, we continue to hope to deliver our social promises for the 21st century. Deliverance, if possible, is more likely to come from a new environment structured for a new society, and it is the shape of a new environment that we must now examine.

The Reinvention of Cities:
Can our almost deliberate march to urban deterioration be turned? Is there a realistic way toward urban rejuvenation which can shape us, our governments, and our human condition? Does the architect know how to make a plan for the possible city, go give us community which we can pay for? A plan which can house both our density and humanism at the same time?

I believe yes.

In 1979, the Joint Commission on Urban Affairs from the Congress of the United States, issued a study called "To Save A City." The study was meant to show us need and methods to save our cities in trouble. Above all, the study meant to reaffirm that our cities are the symbols of our humanism and our civilization. The report stated: "This rejuvenation of our cities... could be the growth industry of the eighties. A huge consuming public is uniting for the joys and strengths that the city of the future can provide."

"Rejuvenation of cities" -- do we mean the old, failed city, or some new form of city to match our social change?

A New Form For Urban Rejuvenation:
What form of a city can shelter a society that needs a cohesion of neighborhood, but often has given up the children, the church, and lacks the jobs that support the neighborhood? What should the city look like that can no longer afford to service the needs either of the automobile or its people? Whatever answers we find, these new problems cannot be solved with the answers found in the old forms.

Are there new forms which can better shelter a new society and produce a measurable improvement of the conditions of debt, of work, or our political life? There are working examples of these new forms, and there is a rapid growth of new research on city formation from them.

The City Within a City: The Critical Mass of a City:
Living, working, recreation, culture, each had its separate physical location 25 years ago; each had separate zones in our American cities. This led to urban sprawl, to transportation problems, to high cost of distribution for energy and city services.

In order to reduce sprawl and reduce the cost of urban shelter, we combined these living activities within a single structure called a mixed-use "urban complex." Marina City built in Chicago was, in 1960, the first complex since the 14th century cities to provide 24-hour use, 7 days per week, on an urban site. It was the first to reduce the cost of living by providing more intensive usage of broader services spread throughout commercial and domestic living patterns; and by providing a system of internal taxation for the first time, it absorbed the cost burden of social amenities normally provided by the municipal government. Its density was 635 families per acre.

Density Reduces Taxes:
An urban complex with housing an .d commercial rents has the financial resources to replace municipal spending by privately supporting its social services. An urban complex collects more of the family income than just apartment rent. An urban complex, if properly planned, can be the locus of spending about 60-cents of the take-home dollar.

The private apartment development now includes the free swimming pool. But if the complex is large enough and commercial rent returns fat enough, the free swimming pool service can be extended to include schools and health and education.

Greater concentrations of people can achieve a more democratic society with more social amenities. New numbers as well as new forms are needed to achieve a critical mass in neighborhood formation.

1. 750 families at today's reduced birth-rate become the critical mass required for support of a conventional school. We also need a new form other than the single-family house to use less land and bring parents and children closer together into a smaller neighborhood.

2. 3000 families are the critical mass which buy enough groceries each week to support one supermarket. A sales volume of $250,000 per week is needed to support a supermarket. New neighborhood forms are needed to bring more than 3000 families closer to their daily shopping.

3. 7500 people are required to support a simple health plan at low cost. Other new, larger, and denser communities are required to support public transportation, culture, hi-tech business, energy conservation, and, in fact, all our city actions.

A new society needs new density; new forms of our architecture can shape a city suited to new social changes and concerns. Architecture changes behavior. New modernized urbanism can attract a balanced society which in turn can better pay for our urban services.

It is clear that our concept of necessary population density must change to match our needs. But what do we need? What must our city provide?

Briefly, three urgently needed changes must be provided in American cities:

1. Restore city middle-income population with job creation;
2. Reduce the cost of housing in urban centers;
3. Provide housing and living environment for new family types.

The combination of all these must be enhanced with that magic element of concern for life that we call humanism--together, these three will form cities within cities.

A Design for Urban Objectives: River City:
For the past 15 years, we have been planning and designing for this goal a model called River City. In the south section of Chicago's Loop on the Chicago River, it will be located on 45 acres of land now used by the CSX Systems (formerly Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad).