Also this issue:

Easement Does It
Voluntary agreements to preserve the past pay off in the future.
-J. Randall Cotton

May 14-20, 2003

cityspace

Design and Advocacy

by Daniel Brook

It was standing room only on May 6 at Carpenter¹s Hall, the historic meeting place of the First Continental Congress, as 150 Philadelphians gathered for a Design Advocacy Group forum. As at that august 18th-century meeting, attendees detailed a list of grievances against the powers that be and agreed to meet again in the future. In the 2003 case, the subject of the grievances was the lack of public input in city planning decisions. The group will reconvene in September for a meeting to which both Mayor John Street and challenger Sam Katz have been invited. If things don¹t change, the group seemed ready for a 1776-style revolt.

The forum was organized by the Design Advocacy Group, a volunteer organization dedicated to injecting the expertise of architects and urban planners into debates over real estate development in the city. Speakers tackled topics ranging from the lost opportunity for building a downtown baseball stadium, to the preservation of the city's historic fabric and a sensible approach to Center City parking.

DAG co-founder William Becker spoke of the breakdown in the public hearing process on major projects. Instead of weighing what good design would be, the government has bought into the deal-o-mania philosophy of the private sector in which all development is good, Becker said.

Architect Alan Greenberger contrasted Philadelphia's haphazard parking system (system may be too generous a word) with the high-tech coordinated lots in London that tell motorists where the nearest space is when a given lot is full. Greenberger also raised the specter of Columbus, Ohio, where more than half of downtown is dedicated to parking. While Greenberger admitted Philadelphia was not on the verge of going the way of Columbus, the Ohio capital, he said, should serve as a warning.

The question-and-answer period served as more of a venting session as angry audience members brainstormed about how to have an impact on city planning decisions. With the planned September forum planned for a larger space at the Franklin Institute, Street and Katz will surely get an earful. The message should be clear: Philadelphia is filled with people who care about the physical shape of the city and whoever wins in November will have to listen to them.