Book examines urban design in cities
The Calgary that Could Have Been. From Sandstone to Skyscrapers. Where the Sidewalk Ends.
These could be the names of recent Jane’s Walks — neighbourhood tours inspired by the great urban philosopher Jane Jacobs — but they could just as easily be chapters in Toronto architect and urban designer Ken Greenberg’s book Walking Home . The names of these walks hint at the changes Calgary and other major cities around the world have experienced in the post-Second World War era: relentless urban sprawl the loss of heritage buildings and the prioritization of cars over pedestrians. But they also reflect how many of these cities have rejected potentially destructive expressways preserved elements of the past and recognized suburbia’s role in ensuring a brighter future.
Greenberg initially envisioned Walking Home a book that explores these and other challenges and opportunities facing cities today as a scholarly analysis of the knowledge he’d gleaned over his decades-long career. But he later came to realize the need for both a more personal book given his experience of many of the changes it describes as a native of New York and longtime resident of Toronto and one aimed at a much broader audience.
“What’s been happening to cities is not really insider baseball” he says. “It’s something that concerns everybody in a very profound and immediate way.”
While Greenberg wrote the book — which discusses cities in Europe the Americas and Asia — for a global audience he believes cities are an integral part of Canada. The vast majority of Canadians live in cities and he argues they are our major economic engines. But while Walking Home finds cause for hope in the revitalization of such neighbourhoods as Quebec City’s historic Quartier Saint-Roch or Vancouver’s Yaletown the lack of focus on urban issues in the recent federal election dismayed him.
“In the last election very bizarrely I think the word ‘city’ was hardly mentioned” he says. “Virtually every party has a published rural policy which is important and significant and should be there. But the only party that actually had an urban policy was the Green Party which is a very odd circumstance.”
Though Greenberg regrets that Canadian cities lack the jurisdictional powers those in many other countries possess he’s witnessed some promising local developments. While his book critiques Calgary among other cities for its street life-killing Plus 15 system he’s “excited” by projects such as the Calgary Riverwalk one which he was personally involved with.
“I’ve had some great experiences working in Calgary recently” he says. ”In some of the newer areas that I’m aware of in Calgary a lot of the life has come back down to street level which I think is really important.”
Indeed “the street” in Greenberg’s opinion is as important as city hall. He helped lead a Jane’s Walk in Toronto this year for the third time and finds both the turnout and the concept’s growth encouraging.
“It was really quite remarkable how this idea of getting people out in their neighbourhoods from many many different angles different perspectives and talking to their neighbours and enabling people who are curious about different parts of the city to see them through the eyes of the others how this has caught on” he says. “And how it’s actually spreading all around the world now.”
Greenberg’s well aware that the journey towards denser more sustainable and less car-centred cities will be a long one. But the survival of humanity he believes depends on the survival of cities.
“What I was really trying to write about among other things in the book is the kind of problem a city is. It’s extremely complex and the way in which decisions get made is very important. And cities are essentially the problem solvers. The great problems of our time will be solved in cities.”
