Translator: Rhonda Jacobs Reviewer: Ellen Maloney
Since childhood, I’ve always been fascinated by cities.
And when we study cities, we have to think of them in two components:
public life and public space.
Public space is kind of the scaffolding,
the form of a community, a form of a city.
Public life is the living, breathing community,
with all its hopes and dreams,
changing with time and generations.
And since cities first appeared on the planet, about 10,000 years ago,
these two aspects have interrelated with one another, very intimately.
The community sort of formed the structure of the city,
and the city facilitated the life of the community,
all the way through history until about 200 years ago.
The first half of the 19th century saw major changes in technology
that created the industrial revolution,
machinery was invented,
fossil fuels were mined,
factories were built in many cities across the world.
And this changed the structure of cities.
And large numbers of workers migrated to cities,
swelling populations of cities,
from perhaps tens of thousands of people to hundreds of thousands,
and even millions.
So the form and structure of the city changed,
and for the first time, the structure was built to facilitate
the large-scale manufacture of industrial goods,
and to house large numbers of people
in close proximity to their places of work.
And so we had the result of those which are the pollution and congestion
that we had in 19th century industrial society,
think of Charles Dickens, for example.
And then, in the mid-20th century, technological changes occurred
that allowed us to escape the congestion and pollution.
So, we have the industrial city,
and we had the congestion and pollution and squalor of the industrial city.
And then we escaped.
And we escaped into the suburbs,
and many of the cities hollowed out.
And now we have suburban life.
And what does the structure tell us today?
The structure still no longer supports public life.
The structure supports private life.
We’re isolated in our automobiles –
these little capsules that we have.
And even at home – we have all the modern conveniences in these houses,
and they’re like bunkers.
We’re isolated in these bunkers.
And this is the way millions of people live in this country today.
And this is why these millions of people are hungry …
for community.
Because the interaction is no longer there.
We no longer have that function.
So today, approximately 80 percent of young people graduating from college
are choosing to live in an urban lifestyle.
And thankfully, we have innovators
that have studied this from the late 1960s,
and actually know how to create cities
that will again foster that community life,
foster that connection between people.
This is in Brighton, England.
And this is a street in Brighton
that is for both pedestrians and automobiles.
And they changed this in 2006.
And this is what that same street looks like today –
a 62 percent increase in pedestrian traffic,
a 600 percent increase in stationary activity,
and this community life is what we have been striving for.
It’s what older people remember.
And what the old people remember, the young people are searching for.
So we have an opportunity today to reinvent our cities.
Within the last decade, there have been a tremendous number of studies
on human happiness and well-being,
and it turns out that there are several factors that go into longevity,
freedom from disease, general happiness,
you know, and they’re like diet and exercise, and pre-genetic disposition,
and all of that.
But the single most telling factor in human health,
is our connection with other people –
our connection with the community around us,
the closeness of familiar faces,
people who care about us and people who we care about.
And a more recent study,
just published in the New York Times I think a couple of weeks ago,
was about our interaction with people that we don’t know in society –
on the way to work, simple greeting people,
exchange of information, the time of day and all of that,
and they found, remarkably, that the people who did this
on the way to work,
had a better outlook in their day,
improved their attention span,
their productivity at work,
and their general happiness throughout the day,
as opposed to the control group who came to work kind of in a bubble,
you know, making no eye contact, etc.
So this shows you the importance of this connectivity.
The interesting thing about this
is that when we go back in history to pre-industrial civilization,
the ancients knew this intuitively.
In Ancient Greece,
the size of an Agora could not be any larger
than the distance that would enable a person
to recognize another individual from the other side.
And their proportion of buildings strive for the ideal,
and everything was to enhance the human form,
and to foster the connectivity of the community.
When the Romans conquered a territory,
the first thing they would do is build a city from the ground up,
complete with aqueducts, theater,
public baths, temples, libraries,
and they would generally build a city for 50,000 people –
the ideal size city.
And when it got to be too large,
they would build another city in that territory.
Because 50,000 people, there were enough people
to support the elements of civilization
because the city was the repository of civilization.
And yet it was small enough
that it would be full of familiar faces for people.
So we’re learning this today,
which sort of brings me to the idea of the micropolis –
the ideal size community today – between 10,000 and 100,000 people
with those same attributes.
It has a wider world in it, thousands of people that you don’t know,
and yet it has the familiarity to be affirming and engaging.
There are hundreds of these cities in this category throughout the country
that are waiting to be revitalized.
Now we come to my favorite subject: Gloversville.
This is a picture of downtown Gloversville,
and in 2017, we are about to embark on our plans,
developing our strategy for a complete urban revitalization of our city.
And one of the important things about this is that the area around the downtown
is at least as important as the downtown itself.
And the reason for this is that the area around it
has to be developed into a very diverse
and densely populated residential area,
and it has to have a variety of housing
so this is the Burr Street neighborhood.
And like many cities, the area that forms the doughnut around the downtown
is the most deteriorated area,
and because it’s the most deteriorated, it has the most potential.
So, we have to redevelop those areas,
and we have to create pedestrian corridors
between these areas and the downtown itself.
Very important because the walkable city
is the high water mark of urban development today.
In the downtown, we have to make these public spaces
give us an opportunity for people to come together.
So we know how to do this
because there have been so many studies on environment.
So this is the four corners developed into a versatile public space
that could be used for parking in the daytime,
and events in the evening.
And then this area in front of the old high school
which is about to be redeveloped,
and the high school is going to be rebuilt,
actually torn down and another building built, which will be senior housing.
That could be a very inviting plaza.
We have the corridor that goes to the Farmers Market
to the west of Main Street.
And we have the actual Market Square itself,
where the Farmers Market is to the west of Main Street,
will be redeveloped to look like this.
This is an example of one of those pedestrian walkways
that would come to the center.
And of course, this is the corner of that parking lot, very little used,
should become a skateboard park.
The idea is creating something that will be designed
based on current research,
based on the volumes of urban planning research that we’ve done,
that will be designed to attract people toward the center –
upper stories being developed into live-work spaces.
As a child, I grew up on McNab Avenue on the west end of Gloversville,
and you could climb the hill where the high school is built today,
and you could climb up onto the big rock,
and from there you could look down and see the whole city.
And back then, in the 1950s, it was kind of a thriving city,
and on a calm day you could almost hear the sewing machines,
and the din of the busy place.
And it seemed to me like something out of a storybook –
this perfect little city sort of separated from the wider world.
Fast forward 60 years
and we are all excited to be in a position now,
with the wherewithal, and the technical knowledge,
and the ability to perhaps make it better than it’s ever been before.
(Applause)
Since childhood, I’ve always been fascinated by cities.
And when we study cities, we have to think of them in two components:
public life and public space.
Public space is kind of the scaffolding,
the form of a community, a form of a city.
Public life is the living, breathing community,
with all its hopes and dreams,
changing with time and generations.
And since cities first appeared on the planet, about 10,000 years ago,
these two aspects have interrelated with one another, very intimately.
The community sort of formed the structure of the city,
and the city facilitated the life of the community,
all the way through history until about 200 years ago.
The first half of the 19th century saw major changes in technology
that created the industrial revolution,
machinery was invented,
fossil fuels were mined,
factories were built in many cities across the world.
And this changed the structure of cities.
And large numbers of workers migrated to cities,
swelling populations of cities,
from perhaps tens of thousands of people to hundreds of thousands,
and even millions.
So the form and structure of the city changed,
and for the first time, the structure was built to facilitate
the large-scale manufacture of industrial goods,
and to house large numbers of people
in close proximity to their places of work.
And so we had the result of those which are the pollution and congestion
that we had in 19th century industrial society,
think of Charles Dickens, for example.
And then, in the mid-20th century, technological changes occurred
that allowed us to escape the congestion and pollution.
So, we have the industrial city,
and we had the congestion and pollution and squalor of the industrial city.
And then we escaped.
And we escaped into the suburbs,
and many of the cities hollowed out.
And now we have suburban life.
And what does the structure tell us today?
The structure still no longer supports public life.
The structure supports private life.
We’re isolated in our automobiles –
these little capsules that we have.
And even at home – we have all the modern conveniences in these houses,
and they’re like bunkers.
We’re isolated in these bunkers.
And this is the way millions of people live in this country today.
And this is why these millions of people are hungry …
for community.
Because the interaction is no longer there.
We no longer have that function.
So today, approximately 80 percent of young people graduating from college
are choosing to live in an urban lifestyle.
And thankfully, we have innovators
that have studied this from the late 1960s,
and actually know how to create cities
that will again foster that community life,
foster that connection between people.
This is in Brighton, England.
And this is a street in Brighton
that is for both pedestrians and automobiles.
And they changed this in 2006.
And this is what that same street looks like today –
a 62 percent increase in pedestrian traffic,
a 600 percent increase in stationary activity,
and this community life is what we have been striving for.
It’s what older people remember.
And what the old people remember, the young people are searching for.
So we have an opportunity today to reinvent our cities.
Within the last decade, there have been a tremendous number of studies
on human happiness and well-being,
and it turns out that there are several factors that go into longevity,
freedom from disease, general happiness,
you know, and they’re like diet and exercise, and pre-genetic disposition,
and all of that.
But the single most telling factor in human health,
is our connection with other people –
our connection with the community around us,
the closeness of familiar faces,
people who care about us and people who we care about.
And a more recent study,
just published in the New York Times I think a couple of weeks ago,
was about our interaction with people that we don’t know in society –
on the way to work, simple greeting people,
exchange of information, the time of day and all of that,
and they found, remarkably, that the people who did this
on the way to work,
had a better outlook in their day,
improved their attention span,
their productivity at work,
and their general happiness throughout the day,
as opposed to the control group who came to work kind of in a bubble,
you know, making no eye contact, etc.
So this shows you the importance of this connectivity.
The interesting thing about this
is that when we go back in history to pre-industrial civilization,
the ancients knew this intuitively.
In Ancient Greece,
the size of an Agora could not be any larger
than the distance that would enable a person
to recognize another individual from the other side.
And their proportion of buildings strive for the ideal,
and everything was to enhance the human form,
and to foster the connectivity of the community.
When the Romans conquered a territory,
the first thing they would do is build a city from the ground up,
complete with aqueducts, theater,
public baths, temples, libraries,
and they would generally build a city for 50,000 people –
the ideal size city.
And when it got to be too large,
they would build another city in that territory.
Because 50,000 people, there were enough people
to support the elements of civilization
because the city was the repository of civilization.
And yet it was small enough
that it would be full of familiar faces for people.
So we’re learning this today,
which sort of brings me to the idea of the micropolis –
the ideal size community today – between 10,000 and 100,000 people
with those same attributes.
It has a wider world in it, thousands of people that you don’t know,
and yet it has the familiarity to be affirming and engaging.
There are hundreds of these cities in this category throughout the country
that are waiting to be revitalized.
Now we come to my favorite subject: Gloversville.
This is a picture of downtown Gloversville,
and in 2017, we are about to embark on our plans,
developing our strategy for a complete urban revitalization of our city.
And one of the important things about this is that the area around the downtown
is at least as important as the downtown itself.
And the reason for this is that the area around it
has to be developed into a very diverse
and densely populated residential area,
and it has to have a variety of housing
so this is the Burr Street neighborhood.
And like many cities, the area that forms the doughnut around the downtown
is the most deteriorated area,
and because it’s the most deteriorated, it has the most potential.
So, we have to redevelop those areas,
and we have to create pedestrian corridors
between these areas and the downtown itself.
Very important because the walkable city
is the high water mark of urban development today.
In the downtown, we have to make these public spaces
give us an opportunity for people to come together.
So we know how to do this
because there have been so many studies on environment.
So this is the four corners developed into a versatile public space
that could be used for parking in the daytime,
and events in the evening.
And then this area in front of the old high school
which is about to be redeveloped,
and the high school is going to be rebuilt,
actually torn down and another building built, which will be senior housing.
That could be a very inviting plaza.
We have the corridor that goes to the Farmers Market
to the west of Main Street.
And we have the actual Market Square itself,
where the Farmers Market is to the west of Main Street,
will be redeveloped to look like this.
This is an example of one of those pedestrian walkways
that would come to the center.
And of course, this is the corner of that parking lot, very little used,
should become a skateboard park.
The idea is creating something that will be designed
based on current research,
based on the volumes of urban planning research that we’ve done,
that will be designed to attract people toward the center –
upper stories being developed into live-work spaces.
As a child, I grew up on McNab Avenue on the west end of Gloversville,
and you could climb the hill where the high school is built today,
and you could climb up onto the big rock,
and from there you could look down and see the whole city.
And back then, in the 1950s, it was kind of a thriving city,
and on a calm day you could almost hear the sewing machines,
and the din of the busy place.
And it seemed to me like something out of a storybook –
this perfect little city sort of separated from the wider world.
Fast forward 60 years
and we are all excited to be in a position now,
with the wherewithal, and the technical knowledge,
and the ability to perhaps make it better than it’s ever been before.
(Applause)
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