search citypaper.net
  


Happy and Car-Free
Philadelphia is a great transit town. Let's find ways to build on that.
-Robert J. Ravelli

November 7-13, 2002

cityspace

A Prayer for the Regional City

The students and residents who packed a UPenn lecture hall Monday night to hear University of Michigan urban planning professor Robert Fishman speak may not have been expecting good news, but that’s what Fishman delivered. Professorial slide show aside, Fishman expounded on his view that cities and suburbs can thrive together.

Fishman challenged the conventional wisdom that the rise of the automobile and the suburb would leave the city in the dustbin of history. He told an anecdote about the late urbanist Lewis Mumford's response upon hearing in 1975 that the City of New York was bankrupt: "Make the patient as comfortable as possible, the case is hopeless." Fishman, however, went on to list the well-known features of New York's comeback.

But Fishman's larger point is not just that downtowns are back -- even Philadelphians know that. His point is that urban centers can peacefully coexist with suburban "edge cities" or "technoburbs" (places with jobs and shopping as well as housing), creating what Fishman calls a "regional city."

Fishman showed a slide of midtown Manhattan juxtaposed with an office park in North Jersey. "Both of these are New York," Fishman told the audience, meaning both are part of the New York "regional city," and both can thrive. One doesn't have to suck the life out of the other, though this can happen, Fishman acknowledged, as it has in his own metropolitan area of Detroit.

Fishman said the main unsolved problems in his new and "hopeful vision" of the regional city are the urban neighborhoods that "are caught between two forms of urbanism" -- the vibrant downtown and the prosperous fringe. Displaying a map of Philadelphia, Fishman pointed out the high-poverty neighborhoods ringing Center City. Fishman said he hoped inner-city neighborhoods could be rebuilt at slightly lower densities (the model behind Mayor Street's Neighborhood Transformation Initiative, though he did not mention the program by name).

As Fishman talked about the need to redevelop inner-city neighborhoods, heads in the audience were nodding, but Fishman's claim that suburbs are not places of "soulless conformity" seemed a tough sell with the Center City crowd. When he put up a slide of a Starbucks outdoor café table in a strip mall parking lot and said, "You can still have your coffee on the terrace" in suburbia, the crowd laughed. It was hard to judge how much they were laughing at him, and how much with. Apparently not everyone in downtown America is as ready to make peace with the suburbs as Robert Fishman is.

-- Respond to this article in our Forums -- click to jump there
Recent Comments
Web Exclusives
Daedelus
Mon., Feb. 22, 8 p.m., $10, with Nosaj Thing and Jogger, Kung Fu Necktie, 1250 N. Front St., 215-291-4919, kungfunecktie.com.
Fever Pitch
One Philly dance troupe lets imagination carry it to the farthest corners of reality.


search restaurants by name
search by neighborhood
Search
search by cuisine
title
theater

Search
search for:
within:   of  
more jobs
(use zip or city, state)
Search
"Great vision without great people is irrelevant."
—Jim Collins, Author,
"Good to Great"
In Partnership with JobCircle
start date / /  select date
end date / /  select date
category
keyword
Search Buy Concert Tickets
Category:
Keywords: Search

Search Real Estate

ALL | MON | TUE | WED | THU | FRI | SAT | SUN

or

LOCATION:

ADVERTISEMENT
auto car parts on
Irish for a day: St. Patty's Day events
`remanufactured engines, automatic transmissions, used parts, or new body part , engine repair parts, Thanks auto car parts` »
Koozies online on
REVIEW: Miro Dance Theatre, 1/30, Painted Bride
`It seem a combination of India and English!` »
baidu on
Eternal Teenager: RIP John Hughes, 1950-2009
`It was something for everyone. Even in Ferris Bueller` »
dmac on
NOW SEE THIS: Al Bundy shakes it to Major Lazer
`Molly, will you help me make a shot-by-shot remake of this scene?` »
Jesse D on
SXSW Day 2: The Labelmakers
`Kill Rock Stars, Merge, and Sub Pop showcases all on the same day. That is just awesome!` »
GODMAN ENZO ferrari, WE SAY JEWS ARE FRIENDS OF MUSLIMSBECAUSE HASRATH ALI WORKED WITH JEWS the holy quran with out rasool a khuda and his family, the book is only worth a car magzine on
SURPRISE!: Urban artists love Obama
`GODMAN ENZO WANTS TO THE THANK PHILADELPHIA'S CITY PAPER FOR GIVING US A CHANCE TO WRITE WHAT WE FELT, SOME VERY DIFFERENT FROM THE NORMAL COMMENTS RATHER ` »
Vincent Vanroro on
Blahg Humbug
`Maybe we should just offer critiques of the artblahg loser's work instead of pretending we don't know who he is. You can call me VINCENT and I'm just ` »
BC17603 on
BIG UPS: Local designers lovin' on their hometown
`And when you head west to Lancaster, be sure to check out BUiLDiNG CHARACTER, Downtown Lancaster's Creative Outlet with 30+ vendors selling architectural ` »
Passerby on
The Fall Guy
`KB, the reason that high school students are using interpreters is that many of them have lived in the US for only a few months. One thing that news ` »