Inga Saffron

Transcription

Good evening, everyone. Good evening, everyone. It's wonderful to see so many familiar faces in this crowd. I feel like I'm back in New Orleans, suddenly. I haven't seen many of the Loeb alums since that wonderful weekend back in October. And of course, I've met many more alums since then. And, it's also great to see a terrific showing from the GSD faculty and students here. So thank you, everyone, very much. My name's Mark Mulligan. I have the distinct honor of being the interim curator of the Loeb fellowship this year. It has been a fantastic year. I can't tell you. I've been teaching at the GSD since 1996, and I think this was the funnest year ever. I really appreciate how-- thank you. This is called "warming up the audience," and you're warming me up. So I really felt embraced by the Loeb family this year, and I can't tell you how much it means to me to be part of this incredible program, and part of this incredible outreach to the world-- the professions, and to the problems of the world today, and the amount of creativity that's brought to bear in the meetings of the Loeb fellows, has just been an overwhelming pleasure for me. So tonight I have the distinct pleasure to welcome you all to the annual Loeb lecture of 2015, featuring this year's honored speaker Inga Saffron. Now I'm going to put on the glasses. Inga will be a familiar name to most of this audience, both because she's a recent alumna of the Loeb Fellowship class of 2012-- a very good year-- and because she is one of the most prolific, admired, and recognized architectural critics active in the US today. Coincidence? I don't think so. So we are very honored that Inga has accepted our invitation to deliver the annual Loeb lecture, which also serves as a kind of keynote address for the Loeb Fellowship Alumni Council weekend, which obviously you also know doubles as our spring orientation weekend for the incoming class of Loeb fellows, class of 2016 And now, before I actually continue introducing our guest speaker, let me take a few moments to briefly introduce the new Loeb fellows who will start their fellowship year in August. You'll have the opportunity to speak with each of them at the reception immediately following this lecture in the portico rooms. So I'll keep this very brief. But could I ask each of the new Loeb fellows to stand as I read your name, and to remain standing until all the names have been read? We have Neha Bhatt from Washington DC, Liliana Cazacu from Romania-- our first Romanian Loeb. Janelle Chan from Boston. Kimberly Driggins from Washington, DC. Alejandro Echeverri from Medellin Columbia. Shane Endicott from Portland, Oregon. Arif Khan from New York. Brett Moore from Melbourne, Australia. And Euneika Rogers-Sipp, from Atlanta by way of Alabama. OK. So. It's wonderful. And while people are standing, let me also just ask-- should I read the names individually of the current class? Shall I do that? Yeah, let's do that. OK. So we're going to start off again alphabetically. Gisli Marteinn Baldursson from Reykjavik, Iceland. Jamie Blosser from Santa Fe, New Mexico. Scott Campbell from Colorado Springs, Colorado. LaShawn Hoffman from Atlanta, Georgia. Andrew Howard from Dallas, Texas. Maria Jaakkola from Helsinki, Finland. Marc Norman, from New York. And Thaddeus Pawlowksi from New York. And Kolu Zigbi from New York. OK. We have one 10th fellow, Shahira Fahmy, who could not be with us tonight. But I want to just say to the class of 2016, you have some very big shoes to fill following this amazing class. You guys have made my life wonderful this past year. Now I'm looking for one more person in the audience, because I don't know whether everyone has met him, although he should be very familiar to you. There he is. Let me make a very brief but important introduction to this assembly-- the newly appointed curator of the Loeb fellowship, John Peterson, Loeb fellow of 2006. So you'll be hearing more from him over the course of this weekend. But I want him to feel the warmth of this body, and the applause that you can bring him. So now back to our guest speaker tonight. Inga Saffron is the architecture critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer. For more than 15 years she has written a weekly column called "Changing Skyline" that offers an insightful look at the urban design issues facing Philadelphia. She is the winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize in criticism. Only seven architecture critics have received the Pulitzer Prize in criticism since it was introduced in 1970, and Inga is the first architecture critic to win the award since 1999. Yeah? How about that? The prize-- no, please, continue! The prize citation reads, "Awarded to Inga Saffron of the Philadelphia Inquirer for her criticism of architecture that blends expertise, civic passion, and sheer readability into the arguments that consistently stimulate and surprise." We'd like to think that it isn't a coincidence, again, that Inga received the Pulitzer Prize immediately following her Loeb year, that this was just part of her [inaudible] curve. And for the class of 2016, you'll need to read up on that [inaudible] curve thing. During her year at the GSD as a Loeb fellow 2011 to '12, Inga explored issues related to place-making, alternative transportation, and rammed earth construction. Now I'm going to quote now from her Inquirer bio. "Pushing beyond the usual boundaries of architectural criticism, Inga Saffron's weekly columns focus on the buildings and public spaces that Philadelphians encounter in their daily lives. She applies a reporter's skills and sensibilities to explore the variety of forces-- political, financial, cultural-- that shape the city. Her columns on waterfront development, zoning, and parking issues have led to significant changes in city policy. "This year, Saffron launched Built, an innovative new web page that allows her to curate Inquirer stories on architecture, development, and transportation. By packaging this related content together, and updating it daily, Saffron has focused attention on a group of interconnected issues that are crucial to Philadelphia's future. "Before assuming her current position, Saffron spent five years as a correspondent in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union for the Inquirer. She covered wars in the former Yugoslavia and in Chechnya, and witnessed the destruction of Sarajevo and Grozny. It was in part because of those experiences that she became interested in the fate of cities, and began writing about architecture. "Saffron began her journalism career as a magazine writer in Ireland, and worked for the Courier News in Plainfield, New Jersey before joining the Inquirer in 1985 as a suburban reporter. She's the author of Caviar: the Strange History and Uncertain Future of the World's Most Coveted Delicacy, published by Broadway Books in 2002." And to give you an idea about the diversity of her stories in the Inquirer and elsewhere, let me read a sampling of a dozen recent headlines. I think this just gives you an idea about what she's investigated. From the New Republic, the headline, "America's Billionaires are Turning Public Parks into Playgrounds for the Wealthy." And from the Philadelphia Inquirer, a long list here. "The Real Problem of Gentrification is Over Success in Development Hurting Philadelphia." "Awful Architecture Meets Terrific Urbanism." We can probably find some of that at the GSD. "Preserving Philadelphia's Black History." "New Focus on Pedestrian Safety." "Ten Worst Streets." "City Says it Wants Family. Does it Really?" "Stern Rebuke: City Tells Museum Architect to Try Again." I don't think you pull punches. "Curb Parking More by Tackling Demand." "Including Neighbors in Planning Process." "Philadelphia's Zoning Board Undermines Planning Vision." That's just a sampling. Since her Loeb year, Inga Saffron has been an active contributor to the fellowship and to the GSD. In fact I saw you here just two weeks ago as part of Jerold Kayden's conference on design competitions. We're thrilled to have her back again to address this gathering of past, current, and future Loeb fellows, and to speak about the passions that drive her work. So please join me in extending a very warm welcome to Inga Saffron. [applause] Well, thank you. That was really lovely. And I have to say, it's a little daunting to be here on this side of the podium, because of all that time that I was on that side. And it really does feel like almost yesterday that I was coming to Cambridge for this weekend, which, went by in a blur. I was just trying to remember some of the details in talking to some of the fellows from my class. And I can hardly remember, because it's so packed. And to the new class, I just want to say congratulations. And this is going to be a life-changing year. And also, that it will always be like this weekend. There will always be too much to do. And to the class, to the departing class, I want to say that it's not the end. And what my class used to say, it was like West Side Story. When you're Loeb, you're a Loeb all the way. And you'll be back. So when I wrote my Loeb application, which is quite a few years ago now, I do remember that I devoted my main essay to our growing reliance on private funding to run city parks. And I thought it was a problem then. And now that some time has passed, I think it's even more of a problem as the chasm between rich and poor widens, and really, I think, really threatens to undermine our democracy. So I wanted to start by just asking this pretty simple basic question of who are urban parks for? And I'll answer the questions, I guess. Are they for office workers to relax at lunch time, or protesters to highlight injustice and exercise their democratic right to free speech? Are they green enclaves for children to play? And what if those children are skateboarders? Is it OK to have food trucks serve meals in parks? And how do we feel about serving meals to the homeless in parks? Are they for people who exercise? Or are they for people who need a nap? Is it OK if we use parks to set up tents for black-tie parties? Or tents for food farmers' markets? Or are we OK with tents for protests? So obviously, we all bring a lot of baggage to this conversation. And I know that I do. We want to believe that our parks are open to everyone. No one ever says, oh, well let's just fund parks in wealthy neighborhoods. Yet we know that not all parks or park users are treated equally. There are many urban neighborhoods where the schoolyard is an asphalt lot, where there are no swings to be found. Where the only open space are vacant lots that are strewn with trash. And it's no wonder that there's an obesity epidemic among children growing up in poverty. But our expectations are changing about parks and cities. And over the last two decades, we've really cleaned up a lot of blight, and banished drug dealer dealers from parks. At the same time, we've entrusted many of our public spaces to private managers. And that's really what I want to talk about. And even those parks that remain fully under public control are increasingly expected to generate revenue to support their existence. We've come to see parks not just as places for kids to play, but as a tool to leverage revival in cities, to bring back the middle class. We want our parks to serve as stages for programming so that we can create 24/7 cities and make people feel safe. And these added responsibilities, they stem from worthy goals. But they can also raise issues about access and equity. And which parks do we fund? Who decides? Who gets to enjoy the results? I feel that the way we think about parks and public spaces today is shaped by the history of the last half century, when the condition of our cities and our parks deteriorated in tandem. When the cities went into decline, and parks became unkempt and unwelcoming places, they became magnets for crime, and drug use. And the poor conditions of public spaces was itself a reason that people began to flee cities. And so in case you've forgotten, I just wanted to show you what Central Park looked like in the '80s, which is not so very long ago. That's the Belvedere Castle. But in the last decade, it's been a really amazing time. I just think about my still short lifespan, how I have lived through the decline and rise of cities. And we've been witnessing an amazing revival-- cities that have been hemorrhaging population for decades have started to see people return to hollowed-out neighborhoods, and lots of cities are increasing in population. We've had an immense amount of housing construction. That's in Washington, DC. Not Philadelphia. So a lot of the people moving back into cities, as we all know, tend to be millennials, and very tech-savvy folks. And we're always hearing predictions about how technology is going to make us go into our own little caves and never come out. But in fact, I think it makes people more social, because they want to get away from their screens, and they want to go outside, and they want to interact with people, and dogs. And so I think what technology has done, has given people a lot more freedom to choose where they live and work. And that means that people can be very picky about where they decide to live. And in a lot of cases, they're making those decisions based on the quality of the public spaces-- amenities like parks and trails. And I think this explains why we're actually living in this golden age of park-making, because cities realize that these tech-savvy millennials can live anywhere, and they want to attract them. And so they are competing for them to live in their cities by building great parks, and upgrading old ones. We've invented whole new categories of parks to please them, and you probably know this pop-up on Broadway in Manhattan, at Times Square. So we have this whole new vocabulary of pop-ups and parklets, the High Line in New York. That kind of park never existed before. Even more ambitious cities like Dallas are capping highways that separated neighborhoods, and they're turning them into public squares. This is Klyde Warren park in Dallas, which is a really interesting and effective park. But just because we're building all these parks doesn't mean we're actually spending more public tax dollars on urban parks. In fact, we're not. In many, many cities, the parks' budgets haven't increased in decades. And this is Philadelphia, where I think we're spending about a mere $3 million more than we spent in the 1980s. I think the budget increased from $12 million to $15 million for the whole city of Philadelphia. And so in real dollars, that means that the parks budget has been cut dramatically. And so people have to find other ways to maintain their parks. You have to find the labor where you can. So what have cities done? Well, if they're not going to raise their parks budgets, most cities have figured out that they can court private donors, and they can outsource parks to private entities. And that's really kind of troublesome, because so much of our urban life is being privatized. But I think it's especially troublesome for parks, which are really the essence of publicness. Once you turn over control of public space to a private entity, is it still actually public space? So I just want to go back and give a little history. I'm sure many of you know this. We know that as cities declined in the '60s and the '70s, parks declined along with them. There are famous stories about how bad Central Park in New York, was how bad Bryant Park was. And then the turnaround actually has been dated to 1980, which is only four years after New York City almost went bankrupt. And that was the year that a woman named Elizabeth Barlow Rogers founded the Central Park Conservancy, which, it was a new idea to create this nonprofit friends group. And she had a lot of friends, a lot of wealthy friends. And she was able to raise tremendous amounts of money, and really transform Central Park, which was so badly deteriorated. And when you go there now, it is really the gem of parks in America. It's the crown jewel of New York City parks. And because it was so successful, this conservancy model has been emulated by cities all around the country. And really, hundreds of dilapidated parks have been remade by this. But not all parks. This is another park in New York City, in Corona, Queens. And this could be 1980, right? The private park managers tend to come in a few different forms. There are conservancies, there are friends groups, there are trusts. There are business improvement districts that sometimes run parks, and there are nonprofit development corporations. And they have been very, very effective at transforming parks, as I mentioned, like Central Park. The High Line was created by a nonprofit-- not really by the city. A lot of downtown parks have been remade by these kinds of private managers, the kinds of downtown parks that are an expression of municipal pride-- a lot of parks in neighborhoods that are more affluent, and where people have the capacity to form organizations, to form friends groups and hold fundraisers. So they have done really incredible work. But at the same time, not every neighborhood has the capacity to form an organization, or many neighborhoods don't even have people they can hit up for money. They don't have a company headquartered there. And so one of the results has been a increase, or a kind of a two-tiered system where we have have and have-not parks. And so why does it matter? And this is a sign that was put up after a new park opened in Philadelphia. And I guess I felt a little offended by the tone of it. So even though these park managers do great work, it's easy to forget that their interests are not necessarily the same as the public's interests. Often they see parks as a tool to spur private development and investment-- not a bad thing. That's especially true when parks are run by business improvement districts and development corporations. They have a more corporate way of thinking about public space. It's not about can kids just let off steam here. They have other goals. And the other thing about these private managers and private agencies is they are now often setting the agenda for public space citywide And this was very much starkly revealed after the billionaire Barry Diller announced a proposal to build an entirely new park on the Hudson waterfront in Manhattan. Diller, who was one of the biggest contributors to the High Line, has actually offered to foot the bill for this pier. It's called Pier 55. $100 million he's donating to build it. Not just build it, but to landscape it and to program it as an entertainment venue. And it's not an accident that it's across from his office in Chelsea. And when you look at it, it just looks so fabulous and fun and interesting, and you say, why would you look that gift horse in the mouth? But I think it's worth drilling down into some of the details of how it came into being, and its effect on other parks in New York City. So this is Pier 40, which is a very big pier just a few blocks south of the pier that Diller wants to build. And it's run by the Hudson River Park Trust, which is an independent public agency. And it has ball fields. It has all kinds of indoor athletic facilities. It's incredibly popular. When school lets out, it just becomes a hive of kids doing all kinds of athletic things. But the Hudson River Park Trust which runs it, amazingly, runs this incredibly popular waterfront park-- it receives no money from any government. It was formed by the state. And at that time, it was expected to live on the revenue it could generate from concessions. So it does own Chelsea Pier, but when the trust was formed, and then when the contract was negotiated with Chelsea Pier, which is an amusement venue, they got a great deal. And so it hardly generates any money for the trust. So what happened was that the trust has not been able to maintain all its holdings. It's responsible for most of the Hudson waterfront south of about 59th Street. And it had to shut down one of its peers because the pilings were rotted. It had no money to turn to fix them. This pier, which is used, also has a lot of problems. It's estimated that it needs about $100 million in repairs to its pilings. So about two years ago, the head of the trust approached Barry Diller and told him its song of woe-- that the pilings were rotting on these piers, it really needs some money, and would you be interested in contributing something? And like many donors, he was not interested, because it's not very sexy to contribute money for maintenance, and especially when that maintenance needs to happen underwater. But Diller didn't exactly close the door. And there were conversations with the trust. And as those went on he got more interested. Rather than repairing the existing piers, he said I'll build another pier, and I'll fund that entirely myself. And the result was Pier 55 which is designed by the British landscape architect Thomas Heatherwick. And here he came up with this really over-the-top design of this very naturally landscaped park that would include several concert venues. And it's sort of like a Central Park in a giant planter floating off the water. So naturally, people are very excited about it. It is really pretty. But consider what it is costing the citizens of New York. So even though Barry Diller is giving $100 million, and even though he's going to program it, and he's going to pay for the maintenance for 20 years, New York State and the City of New York had to contribute an additional $30 million for access and to repair parts of the waterfront. And this is going to be a really, really expensive park to maintain, because if you have any plants in containers, you know how in the summer when it gets super hot, they're very, very thirsty, and you have to constantly water them. Well, imagine if you had a two-acre planter. It's going to suck up a lot of water. And yes, Barry Diller will maintain it for 20 years. But 20 years will go by pretty fast, and then it'll be the Hudson River Park Trust's problem. So it is a very generous gift. But it's also creating a park that the trust never planned to build. There's still no plan to fix the other piers. And so there are a lot of unknowns. Meanwhile, I think it's an interesting number. So the total cost of this is said to be $130 million. That is the same exact same number of that Mayor Bill de Blasio announced he was going to spend to repair neighborhood playgrounds in New York. So I think it's 30 or 40 of them. And this same budget for this one park. This is a new boardwalk in Philadelphia. And it's part of the Schuylkill waterfront development. There wasn't enough land, so the Schuylkill River Development Corporation, a nonprofit development corporation, decided to build this boardwalk out in the water. And it's another wonderful thing. You're a little like Huck Finn out there on the water. And so I want to talk about this park and this model, this nonprofit development corporation. For years, Philadelphia talked about developing its Schuylkill waterfront, and could never get it off the ground. And then this corporation was formed. And it's built several miles of trails, and it's done a lot of planning. It's a public-private partnership. And cities like these kind of public-private partnerships, because as I said, Philadelphia tried to do this on its own. It couldn't get it off the ground. These private groups are way more nimble. They're better at raising money from private donors. Yet they still qualify for public money. This boardwalk was built almost entirely with public money. The partnerships, they're somewhat insulated from politics that complicates life in a big city. But they're also much less transparent in their operations, because they are private. So this group, it has a board of directors, and that board includes executives from Sunoco, the University of Pennsylvania. Several large developers are on the board. There's a couple of lawyers. I think the city has one representative from the city commerce department. But there's not a single neighborhood resident on this board. And this park is about one block from a very dense row-house neighborhood in Philadelphia. Everyone loves the park. It's been very successful. And it's even been successful in what the board wanted, which was to spur development along the waterfront, where there is a ton of vacant land. And one of the interesting things about that development is-- I did not do this picture. I stole this from somebody. But what's interesting about this picture, I think you can see some of the low-scaled houses that are just one block in from the waterfront. And this is the kind of development that is being built on the waterfront. It tends to be way out of scale. But even worse than that-- I mean, the high rises don't bother me that much-- but everything is being built on these garage podiums, which, when you have several of these projects, what you get is this massive wall running along the waterfront. And because this park is run by a development corporation, when these projects came through planning and zoning, they did not say a peep about them. It's a very complicated relationship. And they did not take a stand. And I think that's because their interest is to get development-- not necessarily to protect this park. So I think that's another example of the conflicts that exist with private managers. And I want to talk about another Philadelphia example. This is Dilworth Park, which was designed in the late '60s, and probably finished in the mid '70s. It's right in front of Philadelphia's City Hall. A really fantastic, Beaux-Arts city hall. Was the largest masonry building in America before the Pentagon. I'll just put in a plug for this. Designed by John McArthur. Took 30 years to build. Incredibly corrupt. That's why it took 30 years. So in the '70s this plaza was opened in front of City Hall. And it was meant to be sort of the front door for the city to City Hall, and sort of the living room of the city. And in a typical '60s design-- there are all these level changes. And it's pretty hard, a lot of hardscape. And of course, the city didn't maintain it very well. And it became a place where there were a lot of homeless people, and drugs. And also, for some reason, had this terrible, terrible bird problem. And at sundown vast flocks would circle overhead, and they made a big mess. But despite all those problems, a lot of Philadelphians thought of this as a place to gather to celebrate citywide events. So if Philadelphia sports teams ever won anything-- which they never do-- this is where they would go. And I remember seeing Bill Clinton when he was campaigning for president here. And so it did have this. It was the place where the city came together. It was also the site of the 2011 Occupy protest. But because it was in such bad shape, and because people really didn't like seeing a lot of homeless people there, there was a move to clean it up. And the city decided that it couldn't handle that. And at the same time, right around City Hall, a lot of older office buildings were being converted into apartments. And so there was a kind of push from the owners of those apartment buildings, and from real estate interests, to take over this plaza. And the Downtown Business Improvement District, which is called the Center City District, said, give it to us. We'll renovate it. We'll run it. We'll take it off your hands. And so I think this is a kind of amazing thing, where the city outsourced the park at the front door to City Hall-- the most public space of all public spaces-- to the Center City District, which indeed did raise $55 million, and hired OLIN to redesign it. And again, because it was done by a private entity, there was no public involvement at all in the redesign. I don't mean that the city didn't look at the drawings. The city did look at the drawings. But there was no public engagement. There were no public hearings before the design was done. When the design was all done, they went in a sort of formal way to the City Art Commission, and the City Art Commission says, great. The design, I think, reflects a lot of the current thinking about these kinds of parks. They've done away with the multiple levels that used to exist here. They've made this very flat, kind of bland surface. And the reason for that-- this is incredibly popular right now in parks-- is when you have a bland surface, you can have all kinds of programming. You can have movie nights. You could have concerts. This park has a fountain. They turn the fountain on in the summer. In the winter they can replace the fountain with a skating rink. And when it opened, people were really, really excited. It was very new and fresh. The Center City District installed a cafe there. They have a very large crew of maintenance workers. It's always clean. It's actually become kind of a destination for leisure-time activities, where no Philadelphian would go there just to hang out in the past. So definite improvements. But I'm concerned, because I think there are ways in which the space is less welcoming. So there are large, large numbers of uniformed security people. And it was kind of funny, because the first week they started throwing out people who were seen taking videos, until they were told that they couldn't do that. That that was a First Amendment right. You had to let people video in the park. I also think the fountain acts as a kind of form of crowd control. It's so big. And technically, they can turn off sections of it. But they keep it on. And there's actually very little surface area of the park where you can just sort of do what you want to do. Since Dilworth opened, there have been two major demonstrations here. And I thought the way they were handled was pretty indicative of this problem. This is a protest that took place last week in solidarity with Freddie Gray after the events in Baltimore. And I was pretty disturbed that the manager-- the private manager-- did not turn off the fountain, and that the demonstration was kind of forced literally into the corner of this park. After about an hour, there were a lot of people tweeting about what's going on? Why won't they turn off the fountains so that the demonstrators would have more space? And they finally did turn off the fountains. But it's not clear. There are a lot of reasons given for why they didn't do it from the beginning. But it has the appearance of being a way of controlling the crowd. Something similar happened when a protest was staged here after the events in Ferguson. That was during the winter. And the skating rink was here. And I thought it was kind of amazing that they didn't stop the skating during the protest for Michael Brown, and that there was this weird juxtaposition of the Zamboni going around and around in circles while people were chanting. So there's this kind of disconnect between whose public space is this. I want to turn to another issue I think that's really important and increasingly prevalent in parks. And this is Washington Park in Chicago, which you may have been reading about recently, because this is, I think, the leading site for President Obama's library. And there was a lot of controversy over it, because the city was going to give the land to the University of Chicago. So it's going to give up part of its parks system to build this library. Which of course is a good thing, and has its benefits. But I think there is a tendency among cities that have so much parkland they can't maintain it all. And it's easy to treat it as a kind of fungible commodity. We'll just slice off this piece, and we'll give this piece to this entity, and they'll take care of it. And I see this a lot in Philadelphia. And this is FDR Park in Philadelphia, which is the only Olmsted park in the city, way, way in the south of a Philadelphia near the sports stadiums, and another big park that the city can't maintain. And so recently, some nonprofit group came along that wanted to build a bicycle velodrome, because this happens to be right across the street from the sports stadium. So they thought, what better place to put another stadium than in the park? So they petitioned the city parks department to give them this land. And I have to say to their credit that there is a board, a citizen board, the Fairmount Parks Commission, turned them down. But there's several other agencies that have jurisdiction. So we don't know how it's going to turn out. But in recent years Philadelphia's given up a part of Fairmount Park for a high school. They wanted to give half of one park to a cancer hospital. You know, these are good causes. But basically people come to the city and say, can I have a piece of your park? And the city treats it like, well, that's a reasonable request. What do you want to do with it? Maybe we'll give it to you. And so there's a lot of pressure on cities to give up this land. Another big pressure that I think has a lot of impact on older neighborhoods is on community gardens. Lots and lots of cities with vacant land, like Philadelphia, and plenty of other cities, over time people took ownership of that vacant land. And they would make it into community gardens. And they would really put their heart and soul in them. And they often became community enterprises, and sort of community-made parks. And now as cities revive, you know there's a ton of housing development. You can see that in the bottom right there's even a house being built right across the street from this community garden in West Philadelphia. And a developer went to the local city councilperson-- that's Jannie Blackwell-- and asked her to transfer it for a housing development. And the neighborhood put up quite a fight. It looks like they're winning, but it's still hard to tell. When these kind of community gardens are lost, it really hits communities that are poorer with very, very little open space. and it also, for people in this community, this is a way to get fresh vegetables, a way to be outdoors, a way to be active. And so as we lose these community gardens, we lose this really crucial bit of open space. I'm not saying it's not a hard choice, because communities really do need development. But I think maybe it's a little too easy to say, OK, you worked this land for a little while, but now we're going to do something more important with it. And this is a very different kind of situation, also in Philadelphia. That sort of bump out on that building that says 1700 Market is now a plaza, and probably a plaza that was a created as part of a zoning bonus. But they want to enclose it and create retail, and in a part of the downtown that is booming. And so this little open space where there was light and air is now threatened with being closed in, because there's just so much development, and the pressure is enormous. So I thought I would add in my talking what can be done to make sure the limited funds are distributed more equitably, and what can we do to make sure that all neighborhoods have access to good parks? One of the good things happening in Philadelphia-- and I think in a few other cities-- is that there have been the creation of these citywide conservancies. And in Philadelphia it's called the Fairmount Park Conservancy. And it's trying to position itself as a clearinghouse to distribute funds to all neighborhood parks. So rather than a single, wealthy park that has access to donors just spending money on that park, the citywide conservancy will filter the money to neighborhoods that don't have the capacity to raise money. And I think that's one of the best solutions that I've seen. One of those parks that has received money, this is Julian Abele Park, which was just created in what's called the graduate hospital section of Philadelphia. And it was completely organized by the neighborhood. There was a vacant lot. They were able to get title to it. They convinced the city to let them build this park. They raised all the money. They enlisted the help of the city water department. And because the water department is concerned about run-off, they were able to get some money to build this park. And I just want to give a plug for Julian Abele, who was the first black person to graduate from the University of Pennsylvania architecture program. And he grew up in the neighborhood. And so this is a pretty nice addition to this neighborhood which had no open space at all. And now there are block parties, and movie nights, and some other good stuff. This is the 11th Street Bridge project in Washington, DC, which has been getting a lot of press. And it's an interesting story, because it connects the neighborhood of Anacostia and the more affluent Capitol Hill neighborhood. And so this park would be built on a former highway bridge that's being replaced by the bridge right above it. And so when they decided to do this, they knew it would have a big, gentrifying effect on Anacostia. And from the very beginning, the organizers of this project really engaged with the neighborhood. And it became a joint effort. And it is literally a bridge between these two communities. Or it will be a bridge between these two communities. And I think involving the public early and being transparent about the planning I think helped prevent it from becoming just a park for one group of people. I think another good thing that's happening, and this again involves, well, in Philadelphia, the water department, and that's the greening of schoolyards. So often in cities, schoolyards are just asphalt lots, and maybe they would have a climbing frame. I think there was a period when school districts did not want to have any playground equipment, because they were afraid of liability. And so you got these incredibly cold, harsh schoolyards. And now I think that position has shifted. And Philadelphia started a program to green some of the school yards, and using water department money, and other money. And if that's the only open space in a neighborhood, that's the real opportunity to create real parks, usable parks, and green space in neighborhoods that might be pretty far away from the nearest sort of professionally managed park. But I think ultimately, when we talk about how to make parks more public, I think we really have to own up to the fact that we can't have them unless we pay for them. And that the idea that we're only going to spend a minuscule amount of our city budgets on parks, and expect them to be public, is unrealistic. And we can't just keep outsourcing them to private managers. So I think there has to be a shift in city budgets, more money spent on them, and more responsibility taken by the city parks department. They can't just push it off on private managers. So to answer my original question of who are parks for, parts are for everybody. And everybody has to support them. So thank you very much. [applause] I guess I could take some questions. We have some microphones. Want this microphone? OK. Wonderful Are there questions? I cannot believe the Loeb Fellowship does not have questions. Thank you, Charles. Well, I work for New York City Parks Department. I'm Charles McKinny. So Inga, the core issue is that the cities have to invest in the parks. I agree, yes. And that you wouldn't say that it was wrong to restore Central Park with private funds. Oh no. No. I don't say that. So having run Riverside Park, and not having the benefit of those sorts of funds, we use volunteers. And it really connected the park to the neighborhood. And although I was mad that the city wasn't paying, in the end, the energy that I got from real volunteers made it the park that it is today. So I'd just like to re-frame the argument that philanthropy makes more money available to other parks. I've heard that argument. OK. Thank you. But I'm not sure I fully buy it. I mean, that's the argument for Central Park, and the High Line, is that the city doesn't have to spend as much money. But I think we still see cities not committing as much money as they should to other parks. And I totally agree with you, that the people have to be involved with their parks, and that's a good thing. But they can't do everything. They can't do capital improvements. So, we did have a change in the mayor. And he put $130 million of city funding on parks that haven't had city investment in the past. And that's a really good thing. Yeah. Yeah. So you talked about the need for cities to fund parks. In most of the cities I'm familiar with, the challenge is that the police and fire are increasingly larger and larger parts of the municipal budgets, and parks almost always get cut when there's a need to cut. Rarely get increases. I wonder if you have any thoughts about how that plays into the current situation in this country, with people becoming afraid of how the police are taking over? Yet we have, as a society, demanded police protection. And that's, I think, what's led to the set of priorities that we see. Well, that's a good question. I'm not an expert in municipal finance. I think the pension problem-- what you're alluding to partly is the pension problem, that's really going to be a killer for cities. It's already sucking up 30% of some cities' budgets-- maybe more. So a lot of those pensions are being paid. Those very high pensions are being paid to police and firefighters. And so I don't even begin to know how cities are going to deal with that. But it's a really huge problem. And so even though crime has fallen, and people still want police in their neighborhood to respond to crimes, I don't know how-- I'm sorry. I wish I knew the answers. But I don't know how to get around all of that. But I will say I do agree that there are so many things competing with parks for money in cities. And it's the easiest thing to put on the back burner. But I think it's unrealistic to think that you can just have other people pay for it. Or it's unrealistic to think that there'll be no consequences if you outsource it to private managers. And so I think cities need to own up to that responsibility. I'm Susan Chin, and I'm from the Design Trust for Public Space. And Inga, public space belongs to everybody. And yet it belongs to nobody, right? So unless you have built a real advocates kind of network, where you have civic engagement, this is why we need journalists like yourself to help the public really understand that that place belongs to them as well, right? So they need ownership, and to be able to speak up and be advocates. Politicians respond to their citizenry who are going to vote for them, or not vote for them. So it's not just a matter of distribution of resources, but it's also that strong citizen voice saying that this is a valuable resource to us, not just we want police and security. We want quality, quality open space, and some place for our kids to play, and for us to be together as families, right? So it's really about building this other, larger social network as well. Yeah, I agree totally, completely. And I think there are voices that do demand those things. And that's why I was talking about neighborhoods with the capacity to organize friends groups, and to lobby for parks. They often get them. That doesn't cost more, right? It's not only the rich neighborhoods that have this. It's also the poor neighborhoods. Right. But they might not be as effective at organizing. And that-- I'm [inaudible]. And I'm from Portland, Oregon. And it seems parks have some similarities to school districts, in that those wealthy communities figure out some way to support the schools, and other districts just can't raise resources. And in Portland we have one scheme where if you raise private money for a public school, then a certain percentage of it has to be redistributed to a pool for other school districts. And the concern, of course, is that donors in wealthy districts won't donate in that case. But that's not proven to be the case. So I'm curious whether New York City or other park systems have the same system. This doesn't solve the private management issue you raised, where funds raised in well-off neighborhoods for well-off parks have to get redistributed-- some percentage of them-- to other parks. Yeah. No, I think that's pretty interesting. And I have heard that discussed in Philadelphia for various things. And in New York City, I believe, also, that's been discussed. Is that right, Charles? Well, it's been discussed, but-- [laughter] Parts of the High Line are now going to be given to various community parks. [inaudible] Yes. One of the things that the Central Park Conservancy contributed to New York City is the degree of professionalism. New York City had just given up on taking care of its parks. And a citizen, you know, Betsy Barlow Rogers, demonstrated that you could keep a park nice. And that real professionalism lifted up, challenged the entire parks department to do better. Because they, well, we are the union, and no, you weren't doing it. Now Central Park has a program now where they actually help the parks department do better. And they have little groups of experts that will help parks all over the city with their tree care, with their lawn maintenance. And they even manage some of the capital projects at Riverside Park, because they can do it better than the government can do. So they can deliver some services. I don't that it's the same thing as distributing money. But I have to say that it does encourage the grassroots people to help people to do better by themselves. Now Susan has some knowledge I don't. Yes, thank you, [inaudible]. But what are you talking about? I do know that the High Line is providing money in other parks. But I don't know that other groups are doing the same. I don't know. I do know [inaudible]. So I have two points, I wanted to make. I think one of them is kind of illustrated by your last slide here, which is that you mentioned the multiple benefits that parks can provide. And I think that a lot of cities are attempting to monetize some of those benefits to pay for parks, because they're not just spaces. They manage stormwater. And that's actually a service that's worth something. They basically reduce the urban heat island effect. And that's worth something. They might increase the exercise that people get, and maybe lower rates of obesity, and that's worth something. And so now I'm seeing more and more ways that people might be willing to pay for parks, and different types of groups paying for parks. Because one of the weird things about our country is that we have this crazy capitalist society. And we have philanthropy that no other country has, right? And so I think it's only fitting that we bring some of those resources from lots of different places, and apply it in civic spaces in the public realm. But New York and Philadelphia might be kind of an exception. The secret ingredient that seems to be missing from so many city parks is design. That the parks and recreation department is recreation. And they minimize the maintenance that they have to do. And they like huge parks, because then they can just bring one crew in the morning and mow it, as opposed to having all these little parks that they have to mobilize around. So if we were going to bring an external force to city parks, I think the most critical thing is design. You talked about Central Park and Bryant Park. Their biggest issues were they were unsafe by design, Bryant Park in particular. And that even now, we know so little, or the people who are practitioners-- again, I won't say anything about New York-- not in this room. [laughter] But we designed them very badly. In DC, where I work and live, we just built a new city park that literally everything around it has its back to it. How is that even possible? Is this the Anacostia? No, no, no. It's a city. It's designed by the Parks and Recreation Department. And it's next to a school. But Kim knows the park that I mean. It's the back of every place. It's going to be unsafe from the first day until we tear it down and start all over. So, I think design is the biggest missing ingredient. Love for you to talk a little bit more about how do we bring a better design sensibility to the public realm-- especially in places that can't afford it. Well, I do think public engagement can help that process. I mean, it's a big subject. It's a very big subject. And there's a different story for every park. I'd be curious to know the reasons why that park that you're referring to does turn its back on the neighborhood. Is that what you're saying? That's the land they had. Uh-huh. Right. So I think talking through those issues-- having a lot of eyes on the project can help you avoid some of them. I don't know if this is always a problem. Sometimes it does become a committee project, and then you don't get real design. So I think that can also be a problem. But I don't know if there's one answer of why designs are not better. The Dilworth Park that I criticized, I really feel like that would have benefited from a lot more public engagement and a different sensibility. Especially if it's a neighborhood park, how could you not engage the people who live there? The only thing I would say about it is what private investment has brought is a much higher level of design. You can quibble about that particular park. But if you look at waterfront parks along the Anacostia, or even the one that you showed, the bridge park, that was an international design competition. It brought a higher standard which at least the city-designed parks of the last 50 years, in my city and a lot of other cities don't come anywhere close. Because the budget is more towards the actual physical buildings, towards the recreation spaces. And as you see, the public engagement is there. It's really around the building. It's not really around the open space. And so that's really part of the conundrum, is that parks and recreation and open space, it's all together. And the focus in DC has been on the building, not the space-- open space. We have time for one last question. And Luis has been patiently waiting up there. So, Luis? Hi. Good night. thank you for the lecture. It was very nice. I'm Luis Valenzuela from Chile. We have very few public-private partnership. And we're looking into these models pretty much. So it was a very nice lecture to attend. I would like, if you could, go a little bit deeper in commenting a certain differentiation that I see between what is private-public-private partnerships in terms of investment and design, towards putting up a park, versus what is the private and public partnership in terms of management of the park. Is it that because you have a private investment, then the management will be adequate? Is it a way to look at management in terms of following up how you keep the park, how you dedicate spaces, how you participate with community in it? Can you do it even though it was privately invested from the beginning? So is there a difference between that? Do you see that difference? Could it be separated? Because at the end, you're saying that cities need to put more money. So it seems to be that's a problem of the first investment on the public space. Thank you. So it's a complicated question. So we use these terms kind of broadly. I try to use this term "private managers." But there are many different forms of private support for parks. So there are friends groups. So the city would maintain ownership, and responsibility, and maintenance, but the friends group would be an active participant, or a conservancy, like the Central Park Conservancy. But the parks department is still ultimately responsible for the park. But the Conservancy has an office, and raises money, and has a very big role in the park. And then, going toward the completely other end of the spectrum, what I've seen is nonprofit development corporations. That's a really fully privatized model where the development corporation would have total responsibility for building the park, managing the park, maintaining the park. And they would have a board. And maybe they would have a city representative on the board. But there's a pretty big distance. There's a further distance there between the public control, because it becomes a responsibility of the management, of the development corporation. And the same I think is true with these business improvement districts. So I'm not opposed to private philanthropy. I agree that we need that, because there'll never be enough money to keep parks the way we want them to be. But I guess I do have issues when cities totally relinquish their responsibility. It's really easy to say, let this development corporation run it. It takes the burden totally off the hands of the city. They just have to send a city official to the meetings, or maybe interface over some event. But I think it's too easy a solution for cities, and it lets them off the hook in not spending money that-- and not taking responsibility for how do we want to manage it. When this protest took place in Dilworth Park, I wondered if the city was running it, would they have turned off the fountains? I don't know the answer to that question. [applause] OK. Thank you. Thank you, Inga. That was wonderful. All right. Thank you everyone. There is a reception now in the Portico Room. So we'll see-- excuse me. Oh! Excuse me! Wait! Before people disperse, Deborah has asked to have just a word or two. Thank you. Good evening. I just found out have diligent Mark is as an MC, because he wanted to know how I want to be introduced, and what I was going to talk about, and I wouldn't tell him what I was going to talk about, because I'm going to talk about him. So, Mark. Mark has been-- I'm going to be really quick. Mark, as you know, has been our interim curator. So, "In grateful appreciation for the enthusiasm, energy, and personal commitment invested in the Loeb Fellowship during his term as interim curator, the alumni of the Loeb Fellowship welcome into our lifelong fellowship Mark Mulligan as an honorary Loeb Fellow. [applause] Thank you so much! And thank you. For later-- something from the council. Thank you so much. The Fellowship is very grateful for you. OK. Thank you so much. Now we have a reception!