Signs of the Times #62

 WATCH

FOR

CARS

[Driveway. West Side, St Paul.]

VOTE NO

to

VOTER ID

[Bike. West Bank, Minneapolis.]

Please respect

the neighbors and

keep the volume

low when going

to your cars.

[Window. Mac-Groveland, St Paul.] 

Please Do Not Walk on

"New Plants"

 [Yard. Lowry Avenue North, Minneapolis.]

BOBA TEA

INSIDE GET HAPPY

[Window. Lowry Avenue North, Minneapolis.]

Do Not 

STEAL

These Plants

Police Patrolling

[Fence. Summit Avenue, St Paul.]

       n

12 Ou  ce 

Coffee

[Sandwich board. Stadium Village, Minneapolis.]

Bill's

Box

BJ's

Kieth's

Jason's

NOT

Wes

[Construction type box thing. University of Minnesota campus, Minneapolis.]

Sidewalk Dogs #7

 [Dog and fence. Cathedral Hill, St Paul.]

[Dog and doorway. Prescott, WI.]

[Dog and table. 28th Avenue, Minneapolis.]

[Dog and door. Lowertown, St Paul.]

[Dog and alleyway. Warehouse District, Minneapolis.]

[Dog and table. Minnehaha Park, Minneapolis.]

[Dog and trash can. West Side, St Paul.]

 

[Dog and bench. Selby Avenue, St Paul.]

Cities and Inner Life

[Young's work involves performative walking.]

A few weeks ago, I found myself at an all-day retreat meeting in downtown St Paul to discuss the city’s forthcoming Complete Streets Manual. It was early in the morning, the room was full, and everyone was drinking coffee. We began the meeting by going around the room introducing ourselves. Each person in attendance stood up and described who we were, and what our interests were.

As it turned out, I found myself sitting next to Marcus Young, the official artist-in-residence for the city of St Paul. I've long been a fan of Young's work, and consider him one our keenest thinkers about the connection between cities and art. Marcus was the brains behind St Paul’s inexpensive and innovative sidewalk poetry program, and his other work involves things like performative walking and public art. At any rate, Marcus stood up, introduced himself as the city’s artist-in-residence, and said he was interested in “the intersection of environment, behavior, and inner life.”

Maybe I was too sleepy, but I thought little of it at the time. We went on through the meeting, which lasted pretty much all day and involved a lot of brainstorming about things like the MUTCD (eeek) and different kinds of design manuals. By 5:00, everybody was both encouraged about, and weary of, urban design.

Later that day, when I was chatting with Young about the meeting, he asked me a question. During the meeting, one of the moderators had made a reference to Young’s stated  interests.  Curiously, when described them, he removed the term “inner life” from list. He said something like, “I too am very interested in the relationship between environment and behavior.” “Why,” Marcus asked me later, “was nobody interested in having a discussion about inner life?"


Planning's Determinist Legacy

[For reformers like Riis, slums bred vice.]

Young’s question got me thinking about urban professions. Planners, architects, and designers are generally agnostic about inner life. They have almost nothing to say about how spaces affect our emotional well being. Meanwhile, artists like Young are eager to link space and the self. They believe that how we move about the city, and what kind of space we inhabit, has a profound effect. Whether we walk or drive, and what kind of homes we have, changes our ability to think about the world. Consider the connection between walking and thinking, between getting lost in thought and wandering the city.  Consider the connections between contemplation and public space. (Rebecca Solinit’s two books about walking make for an encyclopedic guide to this relationship.) In short, our physical spaces provide us with mental space. Our streets deeply affect how we understand ourselves, and how we relate to each other as a society. Environment, behavior, and inner life become almost inseparable.

For architects, planners, and urban designers, however, the connection between inner life and environment is nowhere to be found. Today, these disciplines have nothing to say about how spaces affect our thoughts. There are lots of reasons for this curious omission, mostly having to do with politics, power, and the long history of connecting space to morality. For example, the early history of US city planning traces its roots back to the urban reform movement in late 19th century cities. At that time, huge teeming slums were synonymous with immigrants. Page through a book like Jacob Riis’s How the Other Half Lives, and you quickly see that there was little distinction made between substandard housing and crime LINK. At that time, the connection between environment and inner life was quite clear: slums bred immorality. The way to reform the city was to build better buildings, to inspire dirty and densely packed immigrants to embrace temperance and respect for the state through classical architecture, grand boulevards, and bucolic Olmsted-ian parks.

[Olmsted's Central Park was a moral project, as much as anything else.]

Over time, planning and architecture gradually left this kind of spatial determinism behind, turning to a more modernist ideal of space. Assumptions connecting environment and thoughts meant privileging certain (White, male, bourgeois) cultures over others. These attitudes were unabashedly racist and sexist, and reading them today is an exercise in atonement.  Instead, urban professions adopted the theoretical concept of the autonomous individual, the idea that human beings have an essential inner self that remains the same regardless of environment. In other words, we are always essentially the same person, no matter where we live. We have the same values and thoughts, no matter how the city is designed. Space doesn’t matter.

Today, planners and architects almost insist on this principle, refusing to suggest any link between environmental design and inner life. Linking them would be condemned as “social engineering,” probably the cardinal sin of planning. This insistence on the abstract external world mans that architecture might be considered beautiful, but it’s not inspiring. Cities might be liveable, but they’re not spiritual. Motivations for good urban design must always be described using abstract measures and external reasoning. Anytime designers cross this invisible barrier between outer world and inner self, they become visibly uncomfortable.

[Unlike Burnham's Chicago, planners and architects no longer explicitly conect cities to inner life.]

Inner Space: The Final Frontier

This attitude is unfortunate. Of course there's a connection between environment and inner life. Our spaces make us who we are. By insisting on abstract concepts devoid of feeling, cities are lose some of their most compelling justifications. There is something very important about walking that isn’t just about exercise or environmentalism. Walking is much more than that. It allows people space for contemplation, opportunity to experience the wind and the sun and the stars. There is something crucial about living amidst other people in a community, about having public spaces that bring represent our shared future. My point here is that inner life is a key element often missing from conversations about urban design, because of the desire to avoid political or deterministic assumptions.

It would be nice if there was some way to talk about the connection between environment and inner life without turning into a 20th century moralist. Words and concepts like “place,” “community,” and “quality of life” can point toward the conversation, but don’t really get us there. Maybe this is a role for artists. How do we begin to talk about how spaces make us feel, and why this is important? I don’t know, but stamping poetry into the sidewalk is probably a good start.

[Tonight in the dark kitchen only the stainless steel sink holds the moon.]

Reading the Highland Villager #69

[The Villager in autumn.]

[Basically the problem is that the best source of Saint Paul streets & sidewalks news is the Highland Villager, a very fine and historical newspaper. This wouldn't be a problem, except that its not available online. You basically have to live in or frequent Saint Paul to read it. That's why I'm reading the Highland Villager so that you don't have to. Until this newspaper goes online, sidewalk information must be set free.]


[Editors note: This is the time of year -- election season -- when the Highland Villager turns away from neighborhood and sidewalk news to focus on campaign pieces. Thus, the lack of interesting St Paul development stuff.]


 Headline: Opinions vary on Island Station moratorium
Reporter: Jane McClure

Short short version: Report on a public hearing about a moratorium on redevelopment at Island Station, the old long-vacant coal plant just up the Mississippi River from downtown St Paul. The proposed moratorium pits the Chamber of Commerce and property owner (who want to tear down the building) against Parks and Rec and historical preservation lobbies. The issue is heated currently because the impending passage of the “Great River Passage” plan, which would likely emphasize the need to preserve the Island Station building. [This gets to the heart of a key tension around historical preservation: how long do you let a building stay vacant in the hopes that a preservation project comes along? Or, do you bulldoze a beautiful building because the land is valuable, and it’s too expensive to save it? There’s no simple answer. A lot depends on context. Is the building a big drag on the neighborhood? How historically important is it? What are the positive and negative impacts the proposed development? This case is unique because this property is so isolated. There is literally nothing nearby, other than the river and a high-speed road. That’s one reason why I’m in the moratorium camp. Compared to other sites (e.g. the city’s two old breweries), waiting to develop this gorgeous structure has little cost for the city. The GRP parks plan spends a lot of time talking about this exact area, and it’s worth the extra time to see what impact the plan has. -Ed.]

Headline: Memory care OK’d for Ramsey Hill site
Reporter: Jane McClure

Short short version: The Planning Commission approved plans to use an old church home on Ashland Avenue as housing for seniors with memory problems. The plans involve a mix of preservation and new construction. The building’s plans were scaled back from 4 to 3 stories after hearing neighbor concerns.


Headline: Committee to discuss soccer fields, other uses for Victoria Park space
Reporter: Jane McClure

Short short version: The large unused vacant space in the Victoria Park neighborhood that used to be an Exxon Mobil “fuel tank farm” will become some kind of park. A committee will decide in April. One of the ideas is a large soccer complex. Another idea is a “more natural park with playground equipment and grass fields.” There is extensive cleanup of pollution from the former oil uses. [From what I have heard, the city really messed up with this site. They should have held out and insisted that the land be used for housing. Instead they're stuck with these park proposals which, while being better than a oil tank situation, do not come close to the development potential for this lovely riverfront land. -Ed.]

Why You Should Embrace the Impending Zombie Pub Crawl Apocalpyse

[People on the West Bank reacting to news of the ZPC.]

Look out, Twin Cities. Zombie Pub Crawl is upon us. If you live anywhere near the West Bank of Minneapolis, you might consider fleeing the city. At the very least, think about ordering a pizza, drawing the blinds, and not leaving your house all weekend.

Zombie pub crawls can be terrifying experiences. But they’re interesting, too. It’s not just a another case of “life imitates art imitates life imitates a frat party.” Zombie Pub Crawl also represent the return of repressed urban crowd. It’s a night when dead cities come back to life, when mindless mobs take back the streets to haunt the land of sidewalks. In spite of the brainless antics, the Zombie Pub Crawl is a good thing. Zombies are the ultimate pedestrians, and crowds are what make cities alive.


The Pub Crawl that Will Not Die

[Yes, it really is scary.]

These days, ironic meta-self-aware horror moves are all the rage, and the story of the Zombie Pub Crawl would make an excellent script:

When Carik and three friends started the crawl in 2005, it was the party of the year. But as time passed, their creation mutated into something bigger than anything they could have imagined, peaking in 2011 with more than 27,000 zombies in attendance. The organizers' growing perturbation with the event is evident in how they have chosen to name it over the years: In 2009, they titled it "It's Starting to Stink." In 2010, it was, "It Just Won't Die."

This Friday, they are expecting between 30,000 and 40,000 attendees — more than six times bigger than what Guiness defines as the world record for largest pub crawl. The culmination of nine months of planning, the event will take two cities,13 bars, 200 volunteers, and 202 port-a-potties to pull off. There will be a 50-foot inflatable zombie. DMX will be there, as will the Gin Blossoms.
Throw an unlimited supply of alcohol in the mix, and a real zombie apocalypse might be more manageable.

"Every day I get up and it's Zombie Pub Crawl until I either have to go to bed, or I can't sleep because I'm trying to go to bed and I'm stressed about it," says Ackerman. "We have nightmares about zombies, but just that we're not entertaining them."

You know the story: smug urban hipsters create ironic pub crawl. It goes well; they chuckle and bask. More zombies appear each year. Young people emerge from suburban enclaves nobody had remembered about. Then somehow, one dark night, thirty thousand zombies arrive. The joke isn’t funny anymore. The creators are destroyed by a creature of their own making. This is what Facebook Frankenstein looks like. The bloody irony of Taylor Carik’s predicament is delicious.

Years ago, when the Zombie Pub Crawl was nothing but a few West Bank punks doing karaoke and messing with cars, I wrote about how much I liked it:

It's a well-known fact that Zombies, re-animated human corpses, are mindless. They tend to move, slowly and stumblingly, in the vague general direction of brains, on which they feed.

What isn't well known is that, because of their slow-moving and heedless perambulation, Zombies make the perfect gauge of good sidewalk and neighborhood design. They wander aimlessly, and don't hesitate to stumble into the street. Being already dead, getting run over isn't a big concern for a zombie. So, if they can travel from pub to pub in search of brains without getting run down by speeding drivers, anyone can!

So, wherever Zombies dare not fear to tread, you can be sure that those streets have excellent sidewalks

Sure, the Zombie Pub Crawl has changed since then. It’s turned from a funny joke into a terrifying mass of libidinal suburbia freed by facepaint, fake blood flowing down the sidewalk like the snot-goo in Ghostbusters 2. But, maybe that’s OK. Then and now, the Zombie Pub Crawl illustrates the purest form of pedestrian freedom, the walking body incarnate. Brainless people ambling down the sidewalk, given permission to take over the streets by George Romero.

Here are three reasons why you should stop worrying and learn to love the zombies...

[A Minneapolis American Legion convention in 1924.]

Zombie Crowds Are The Essence of Cities

History is filled with urban crowds overthrowing those in power. This revolutionary history may be one reason why Western philosophy has long associated urban crowds with brainless destruction, while solitary individuals have come to define rationality.

The best example of this is the French political theorist, Gustave Le Bon’s book, The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind. When it came out in 1895, Le Bon's argument was an exceedingly popular condemnation of people in groups. Crowds, he  argued, transformed otherwise sensible people into irrational emotional animals, driven only by instinct.

Crowds are "always unconscious, but this very unconsciousness is perhaps one of the secrets of their strength." People in crowds are "beings exclusively governed by instinct [...] driven by feminine characteristics.” A crowd “thinks in images” rather than in rational words. Crowds spread like diseases, erasing one’s free will until “an individual in a crowd is a grain of sand amid other grains of sand, which the wind stirs up at will.” In other words, crowds are zombies.

Well, crowds are also the hallmark of urban life. Picture the state fair, a parade, or a football game. How many of your most cherished memories involve being swept along by a crowd, feeling part of something bigger than yourself. We feel most alive where surrounded by others: cheering a rock band, going to the theater on opening night, doing the wave at a ballgame.*

For too long, we’ve privileged the idea that we are at our best in silent, lonely contemplation.  We’ve embraced the assumption that density has no benefits. We’ve designed cities for privacy, suburban castles that become islands of isolation. Well, that has to change. Cities are crowds, and crowds can be a positive force, filled with feeling. It’s OK to let that happen. It’s OK to be part of a crowd.

[Zombie shopping.]

The Zombie Apocalypse Offers Hope for Nonlinear Change

The second hallmark of the zombie apocalypse is that it takes you by surprise. In the recent zombie classic, Shaun of the Dead, Shaun stumbles through his morning routine blissfully unaware of the changes lurking around him. It's another wonderful visual zombie joke.

Our notion of politics seems to imply that change is slow, consistent, and methodical. The return to the city, for example, will take decades. Little by little, people will start re-populating our sidewalks. With each new condo or streetcar, our urban centers will slowly come back to life.

Well, that’s not how the zombie apocalypse happens. Instead of a linear progression, the Zombie Apocalypse is exponential. It seems to happen all at once. One year there are a few dozen zombies, then a few hundred... Then there are thirty thousand, and you’ve completely changed the city.

That kind of change is exciting, especially for young people. I don’t want to wait thirty years for my city to have street life again. Change can happen faster than that. Like the cyclovia movement, or the Times Square redesign in New York City, the zombie pub crawl is a good example of how streets and cities can change suddenly, can leap full force into an unknown future.

[Pumpkins in St Paul.]

Halloween Is The Best Urban Holiday

Of all the holidays that we celebrate in the USA, Halloween is the most urban. Most holidays are wrapped in domesticity. Thanksgiving and Christmas and most everything else are filled with images of privacy and home: living rooms and backyards and Norman Rockwell family dinners.

Halloween is completely different. It’s the one day a year where parents actually encourage their children to wander the city taking candy from strangers. Instead of cringing, people actually look forward to the doorbell ringing. Everyone onto the sidewalks! Kids, explore your neighborhood! The city comes to life.

This kind of urban society is important, and not just for kids. Adults deserve Halloween too. So many young people don’t get to experience urban space. Our city streets are abandoned most of the time. Our downtowns were once filled with crowds, with parades, with people of all ages bumping elbows. Today, they're shadows of their former selves. Today, we’re trapped in cars, in far-flung homes marooned without sidewalks. The closest we get to an urban experience is the checkout line at Trader Joe’s.

The Zombie Pub Crawl isn’t just a funny joke about stumbling drunk people. It taps into our deep seeded need for urban life. The Zombie Pub Crawl celebrates the best urban holiday with a return of the repressed urban crowd. It's an almost revolutionary change in our streets. Sure, it can be scary. But maybe it's the first stumbling step toward a new kind of city. Maybe the revolution will be zombified.

* Damn you, people doing the wave at the ballgame.