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 Dec. 1, 2006 | Vol 5 No. 22 |
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In This Issue: – Getting it Right on Fulton Street – An Urban Barn Raising in Washington Heights – Do Skyscrapers Indicate an Inequitable Society? Build It Right We bring the issue up because in recent days, relatively modest cost overruns have prompted a small chorus of voices to complain that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is building a palace in Lower Manhattan that sacrifices capacity for architectural acrobatics. If voices like this had prevailed a century ago, we would have an underground bunker at 42nd Street and Park Avenue, rather than the majestic Grand Central Station that both functions well and provides a great experience for its users. Frankly, it is a bit irritating to have board members of the MTA state in an almost servile tone that they are “not building cathedrals.” Building stations that are both grand and functional is something to strive for and be proud of, not the converse. At issue is about $15 million in cost overruns on an $844 million project, and the issue is falsely being posed as a choice between an underground walkway that would connect the R and W subway lines to the E train and the architectural features of the center. Both are necessary and well worth a sum that is a rounding error in the MTA’s $21 billion capital plan. While it is not clear which architectural features would be cut, the most likely candidate is a lowering of the 50 foot conical roof that would provide light and a sense of space in the station. A grander station at Fulton Street makes sense both practically and symbolically. Practically, it’s a way of providing a more pleasant and sensible experience to the 300,000 people a day who go through there. Symbolically, it is a way of announcing the single most important subway station in Lower Manhattan, an area that the city and region have targeted for renewal in the aftermath of the devastating attacks there on 9/11. True, Lower Manhattan is already getting the grand PATH station by Santiago Calatrava, which goes on the site of the attacks themselves at the World Trade Center. But the Fulton Street complex gets many times the traffic of the PATH station. In reality, both new stations are necessary and appropriate. The error of logic on the part of the naysayers is that they seem to separate functionality and aesthetics, when in reality they complement each other. Put plainly, more people will use a system that is pleasant to be in and easy to use, no matter what its capacity as defined by engineers. No one would dispute that cleaning up grime and graffiti on the subways created a more attractive environment and restored a sense of safety that encouraged riders to use the system, or that both the transit system and city as a whole benefits from attractive public portals such as Grand Central Terminal. It is high time that people stopped complaining of “wasting” money on things that make our public environments more uplifting. Building great public spaces, whether it be a plaza on the streets or a platform in a subway station, should be part of the job, not an unnecessary luxury. – RPA Staff An Urban Barn Raising But like an old gospel tune, the universal spirit of this practice has survived dozens of mutations and evolved into new models that can be found in today’s urban and suburban neighborhoods. Both the continuity and differences with the past struck me when about a hundred volunteers from throughout the Tri-State area came together through a program called New York Cares to fix up my daughter’s small school building in Washington Heights. The building is the temporary home of Washington Heights Academy, a program started by a group of parents with a vision of education centered around relationships between school, family and community. The structure, one of the boxy, aluminum-framed modular buildings that New York City’s Department of Education is using to address its classroom shortage in overcrowded districts, is functional and even provides a sense of intimacy. However, after several years of use by a middle school, it suffered from peeling paint, water damage, graffiti and general wear. Teachers, parents, administrators and other school staff worked overtime to get the classrooms ready for younger children in September, but the exterior problems were beyond the resources of the immediate Washington Heights Academy family. Enter New York Cares, a nonprofit with a mission of mobilizing teams of volunteers to support public schools and service organizations throughout the five boroughs. Since it can’t rely on the social bonds of a small community, New York Cares fills the void by tapping into networks of urban institutions, such as corporations and alumni associations. The results are impressive in scale with over 27,000 volunteers working with 850 organizations each year. In practice, the activities can replicate the spirit of a barn raising, but replace its standardized ritual with the diversity and organized chaos of a 21st century metropolis. For Washington Heights Academy, New York Cares enlisted Citigroup to invite its employees to paint and spruce up the building and school yard on what was, thankfully, a sunny November day. By the time I arrived with Amy and Jenna, my wife and daughter, dozens of women, men and children were hard at work rolling fresh paint on the walls, covering the playground with games like hopscotch and twister, and creating a 40-foot mural designed by a teacher from the Academy’s host school, P.S. 178. The crowd was much more diverse than the Amish barn raising scene I remember from Witness. The gender roles were far looser, although the guys still seemed to gravitate toward the big paint rollers and there were more moms than dads supervising children. As in earlier times, families brought homemade food for the workers, like fried chicken, Dominican rice and pasta salad, but like good New Yorkers a bunch of us just ordered take out pizzas. Mostly, though, the day was an inspiring display of good will from people we had never met and will likely never see again. Yet the connections were real and in many ways as important as the transformation of our school’s façade. I will never forget my conversation with the woman who drove up from Philadelphia and relayed stories of her own five-year-old, or how delighted the volunteers were to talk to Jenna and see her reactions to the new playground games and wall murals. I can imagine now how the farm family must have felt when the job was done and their neighbors went home. While the job is finished, the work is just beginning. In our case, there is the process of turning what is now a Kindergarten-2nd grade program into a full-fledged K-8 public school. There are applications to finish, new teachers to hire and a search for permanent space when we outgrow our current quarters. And, of course, education is the main event and a continuous process. But now we know that there are people beyond our immediate network that we can call on when needed, even though they might not be our neighbors and we may not know their names. – Chris Jones, Vice President for Research The Commanding Heights I don’t recall exactly when I began to notice this, but at some point I found myself noticing that the places that had lots of tall buildings seemed to be in countries with more inequitable distribution of resources. I hadn’t done any formal study, but when I thought about soaring skyscrapers I thought of New York City, Chicago, and a slew of Asian cities, such as Kuala Lumpur, Shanghai and Dubai. Then I thought about prosperous countries that, at least in my mind’s eye, did not have as many tall buildings. France, Germany, Holland and all the countries of Western Europe came to mind. Japan came to mind. Most of the classic cities of Europe, such as Paris, Barcelona or Copenhagen are relatively low-rise environments. And perhaps not incidentally, these countries also have a much more even distribution of wealth than either the United States or many developing Asian countries. Now this was disturbing. The chrome spire of the Chrysler Building had long lifted my step when I spotted it coming out of a subway. How sad to think it might be associated with not only great height, but great monetary distances between rich and poor. To quench my curiosity, I checked out my hunch with a little research recently. As a starting point, I looked at the world’s tallest buildings on Emporis, a database on buildings developed by an international real estate company. Then I matched it with a list of income inequality of countries as found in Wikipedia, the open source online encyclopedia. The author measured the income inequality of countries as defined by their Gini Coefficient, which is a standard statistical tool to measure inequality. The picture that emerges is not black and white, in part because there is no single definition of skyscraper. But some trends emerge. The European Union and Japan, which in general top the list in terms of having more equitable economies, have fewer tall buildings in general and in particular have fewer of the really soaring skyscrapers, the ones that top the charts. Of the top 100 tallest buildings according to Emporis, which range from the 101 story tower in Taipei at 1671 feet in position number one, to the New Century Plaza Tower in Nanjing in China at 52 stories and 837 feet, only three are in Japan or Western Europe. And those are in relatively low positions, with the Yokohama Landmark Tower in Jpan at 39th place, and two towers in Frankfurt at 90 and 94th. The majority of the tallest 100 skyscapers are in the United States, (35), and China (27). It is a remarkable story to see how China, which a generation ago probably had no tall buildings, now has almost as many as the United States. The other countries in the top 100, in order of the number of buildings they had, were Dubai (7), Malaysia (3), Australia (3), Canada (3), Singapore (3), Saudi Arabia (2), Taiwan (2), Bahrain (2), Germany (2), South Korea (2), Qatar (1), Russia (1), Philippines (1), Thailand (1), North Korea (1), and Japan (1). This list of countries mostly repeats itself when I looked at the top 200 tallest buildings. Again, the USA and China dominated, with a smattering of other countries listed above. In general, the countries that have the bulk of the skyscrapers fare poorly on the inequality rankings. The United States and China rank quite low in income equality, at 73rd and 85th out of 126 countries. Part of China’s inequity ranking is shown in that it still actually has a per capita income of about $1700 per year, less than Guatemala. Given that, it’s amazing it’s been able to lead the world in production of skyscrapers. Other countries on the top 200 list also ranked low. Malaysia was at 98th; Singapore was at 85th in income equality. So it would seem my hunch that there is some connection between the presence of really tall buildings and greater income inequality has something to it. But as my sister the epidemiologist likes to remind me, correlation is not causation. Perhaps it’s a simple coincidence, or dependent on other factors, that relates tall buildings to large gaps between rich and poor. In addition, this picture may be changing. Japan has several really tall buildings under design or construction, and according to Emporis, rapidly growing Spain is leading Europe in the production of tall buildings. But turning to speculation, why might large inequities in wealth and income lead to taller buildings? Well, the simplest explanation that comes to mind is that tall buildings are a physical manifestation of inequality. They are a physical example of the heights between rich and those less rich, and the ability of the former to dominate the latter. I suspect that only people of great wealth can marshal the huge resources, both physical and political, to get a great tall building constructed. Skyscrapers, while great to look at, are not necessarily great to work in or around. They blot out the sun of their neighbors. They dominate their denizens by requiring long elevator rides. They dwarf their individual inhabitants. In that, is both the awe they generate and their inhumanity, or at least their lack of human scale. In a more equitable political environment, where more people have more political power, I suspect really tall buildings are harder to construct. I think a similar thing is demonstrated when one looks at whether tall buildings are allowed on a prominent public waterfront. Only in cities where a few have great power is it possible to block access visually and physically to the waterfront. Sadly, this is too often the case in much of the Tri-state region. Looking historically, there seems to be a correlation between building huge things and disparities between rich and poor. I remember traveling through the Loire Valley in France once, and seeing the huge chateaus built in the 1400s and 1500s. Then I traveled to Amsterdam, and saw the much lower-rise city, which even then was famous for a broader middle class and an absence of great individual wealth. So what am I to draw from this? We are hardly likely to stop building skyscrapers. And to do so would be grasping the wrong end of the stick. Rather than judging tall buildings, it would be nice if we worked for a broader distribution of income in this country, and then it will be interesting to see what happens with those buildings. – Alex Marshall |
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December 3 - 5 December 5, 8:15 am - 10:30 am December 5 December 7 & 8 |
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Spotlight on The Region A publication of Regional Plan Association, Robert Yaro, President, Alex Marshall, Senior Editor 212-253-2727, x360 alex@rpa.org www.rpa.org |
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