“Americans are too impatient. They expect instant beauty. But they forget that cities are not built in one day. We may spend years agonizing over a renewal project and then we expect the city to be rebuilt instantly. Can you imagine what Paris must have looked like when Baron Haussmann finished with it? The social and cultural shock must have been tremendous. It’s like surgery; it takes a long time for the tissue around a wound to heal. The city has to echo life. If our life is rough and tumble, so is the city. I’ve always felt that ugliness with vitality is tolerable. The great danger our cities face today is that their vitality will be sapped by too much concern for instant beauty. New York is not a beautiful city. It may even be ugly, but it is exciting. It draws beauty from its vitality. If you drove all the residents out and made it a gleaming commercial center, it would only be beautiful in a narrow sense. It would be lifeless, and therefore intolerable.”

- I.M. Pei, consulting architect of OKC’s 1965 Urban Renewal Plan

(via Steve Lackmeyer)

• Urban Sketchers
  Urban Sketchers (USk) is a network of artists around the world who draw the cities where they live and travel to. We have this blog, which is by invitation, and a Flickr group where anyone can share their location drawings. USk was started by Seattle journalist and illustrator Gabriel Campanario.
  (tags: sketch urban urban.design rendering drawing)
• The Journal Record: Coalition Opposes MAPS 3
  The [Not This MAPS] group is opposing the $777 million, seven-year, penny sales tax issue mainly because of what the package of capital improvement projects doesn’t have: more emergency response personnel, said Phil Sipe, president-elect of the International Association of Firefighters Local 157 and chairman of the coalition. Not This Maps Coalition otherwise supports MAPS 3.
  But if the issue is passed by voters Dec. 8, he said, the likelihood of securing additional funding to hire firefighters and police officers any time in the next several years severely decreases. So the group is trying to convince city leaders to postpone the question to allow for more consideration.

  “We still hold out hope that we can come to some kind of last-minute resolution of the staffing issues that we have,” Sipe said. “So we’re not entirely resigned about running a campaign against it…

  (tags: maps3 okc oklahoma.city not.this.maps)

A few months back I was fortunate enough to come across the work of Tate James.  He has studied graphic design at OU and clearly has a gift.  In fact, I liked one of his works so much I bought it, and am just waiting to get settled somewhere with enough wall space to show it off.  All this to say, the kid (as if I am old enough to call anyone a kid) is brilliant and a huge asset to the burgeoning young, creative community forming in the Oklahoma City metro – especially Norman.

Fast forward a few months, and one twitter follow later, and I have another reason to give it up to the guy.  I just found out that he and his friends have been operating a community bike co-op in Norman.   This story at VoicesofOk.org offers up details of their work.  They have given away their time to help fix people’s bikes, donated their own parts, and even refurbished some donated bikes and have made them available to the community for people in need of some wheels.  They also started a wiki map to locate dangerous bike grates in hopes of getting them replaced.  Remember when I blogged about bike-sharing via B-Cycle (by the way, we are currently #2 and our OKC dot is still up near Ponca City – odd).  Anyway, this is kind of like that, but completely grass-roots, which makes it so much better.

Here is the rub.  According to the article the co-op is struggling to stay alive as they no longer have a garage to call home.  In my opinion, this is exactly the type of project people should go out of their way to support.  The biggest sacrifice is already being made by the people donating their time and talent, all they need is a little assistance from the right folks.   I am hoping someone out there can offer the funds, facilities, and expertise they need to sustain what they have started and even grow it into a fully functioning non-profit.  Maybe we could even dangle a carrot to get them thinking about an OKC franchise.

If you would like to help, let me know and I will get you in touch with Tate.

• Reports: Cheaper cost of living in Edmond countered by lower wages
  The study also didn’t include recent information about Oklahoma’s ugly economy. And while the economies of Edmond and many other Oklahoma cities have remained solid over the past year, the state’s financial picture continues to grow darker, an economist with a think tank said recently.
  David Blatt, director of policy at the Oklahoma Policy Institute, said recent state revenue numbers were down 26 percent in July, and August was the worst month for revenue collections since the mid-1980s.
  “For the first two months of the year, we are down 29 percent from last year,” Blatt said in a media release posted on the institute’s Web site. “What makes everybody’s task going forward especially tricky is that we don’t know if we’ve hit bottom.”
  The $210 million in revenue collected during July and August is 23.8 percent or about $200 million less than what had been estimated. This amounts to 18 percent below appropriations. Oklahoma’s unemployment rate of 6.8 percent is the highest since 1988
  (tags: economy cost.of.living edmond quality.of.life wages recession)
• Developer committed to keeping historic buildings alive | The Journal Record
  “This is a prettier building than a new one in the suburbs,” he said. “My wife and I, we travel, and we have our favorite urban streets in Chicago, San Francisco, New Orleans and Austin.”
  And the historic structure on Broadway, he said, should be a prominent part of Oklahoma City’s favorite urban street.
  Mason has invested heavily to keep that sense of history alive.
  About four years ago, he purchased the building for $416,000. After that, he spent $4.2 million more renovating the structure. Since then, Mason said he’s invested more than $8 million in redeveloping historic buildings in the downtown area.
  “It’s a lot more fun being down here,” he said. “It’s a lot more fun building things down here.”
  (tags: steve.mason oklahoma.city okc development downtown historic automobile.alley great.street)
• Oklahoma City developer’s work pays off with historic status | NewsOK.com
  A standing-room-only crowd applauded Automobile Alley developer Steve Mason on Tuesday as he unveiled a coveted plaque placing his renovated century-old Cadillac building on the National Register of Historic Places.
  (tags: oklahoma.city development okc downtown steve.mason historic automobile.alley)

• Livable Streets Get New Look from Fire Code Officials | Congress for the New Urbanism
  CNU’s proposed changes to the International Fire Code won a split decision from the International Code Council’s fire code committee today, along with a clear invitation for more dialogue on street design between new urbanists and the fire service.

  CNU’s proposals acknowledge that solid common ground exists for ongoing efforts to reconcile narrower streets and good emergency access: Street connectivity — specifically well-connected networks of traditional street grids — is essential to good urbanism, shortens emergency response times, and improves overall community life safety. Taken together, these changes would have made the fire code less focused on mandating wide streets, and more flexible in allowing cities to take advantage of the safety and response benefits of connected networks of walkable narrower streets. Even so, acceptance of Appendix K and the committee’s stated desire for more dialogue with CNU are important steps toward that goal.

  (tags: new.urbanism cnu fire code zoning streets urban.design)
• Jane Jacobs | Urbanist's Economic Prescription Might Make Good Medicine Today | Miller-McCune Online Magazine
  "The economic developers I speak to no longer even try to defend these subsidy strategies," Shuman says. "They've run out of excuses except for the fact that the politicians like them. Politicians get more mileage from one big deal that brings 1,000 jobs than an entrepreneurship program that generates 10 jobs in 100 local businesses. Even when the rhetoric has shifted to the importance of local, in terms of where the money goes, it's still following an old and entirely discredited mode of economic development."

  As for the stimulus bill, Shuman says it has "the worst features of economic development on steroids. If in a typical year, millions [are] spent on pork, this year more than a trillion is spent on pork." Even if the stimulus package is a success, he says, the program "could have been more successful with less money if we had followed Jane Jacobs' ideas" of local resilience through import-replacement.

  (tags: jane.jacobs economic.development local business subsidize bailout)

Hopefully I have made my point on the MAPS 3 public process to date.  It is clear that what we have witnessed so far cannot possibly represent our City’s best effort at a inclusive process.  That said, the past is the past.  There is nothing that can be done before the December 8th MAPS 3 vote to rectify the situation – including more blogging on the topic.

Instead, I am looking forward.   Looking forward to a favorable result for MAPS 3 at the polls on December 8th.  Looking forward to the post-vote public meetings, and planning charettes, and lively discussions (and maybe even an open competition) focused on finding the best locations for the projects and making sure the best ideas are implemented.  If such a process takes place in the future, then we can all find the grace to forget what has taken place thus far and channel our energy into ensuring the projects are a success.


I have been told by multiple persons over the past few days, that my public objections to the MAPS 3 public process will hurt my chances of finding a job in Oklahoma City.  Well, if that is the case, it is most unfortunate.  Because more than anything, I am looking forward to returning to Oklahoma City and contributing my energy and ideas in an effort to make it a better place to live.  That was the dream two years ago when I left to attend graduate school and it remains the dream today.

• dustbury.com » Watch for oncoming steamroller
  All the previous MAPS deals were, for the most part, out there in the open, warts and all. I can only conclude that this package must have so many warts that its proponents want to keep the camera away as long as possible. Unfortunately, that sort of thing works only in Hollywood — and, occasionally, in Tulsa.
  (tags: maps3 okc oklahoma.city public.process dustbury)

CLICK TO ENLARGE

CITY CHARGES FOR PUBLIC MEETINGS?

Something is clearly wrong with the ongoing MAPS 3 public process and I know I am not the only one who has noticed. The public meetings promised over the summer didn’t happen and now we come to find out that the MAPS 3 press conferences promised to start in October are ticketed events that cost regular citizens (i.e. “nonmembers”) thirty-five dollars to attend. I would like to think that these ticketed luncheons are not the promised public meetings, but according to the Mayor’s Assistant David Holt, they are!  I am honestly dumbfounded – my beloved city has resorted to charging for public meetings?

It is clear that the MAPS 3 public process is in need of correction. One can only hope that major changes are made in the next six weeks and that sincere gestures of public engagement are seen both before and after the December 8th vote.

Links to the sources displayed above:

9/17    Mayor and Council announce MAPS 3 proposal

10/22  Luncheons ‘map’ Oklahoma City’s tax plan details

• Now THAT'S a public process | Philly | 10/23/2009
  "From the mayor's press office:
  The Mayor’s Office of Transportation and Utilities is co-sponsoring a Forum on the Future of Bus Shelters and Street Furniture with the Next Great City coalition and the Academy of Natural Sciences. The forum will include presentations from bus shelter and street furniture vendors and present perspectives on the role of advertising in public spaces.

  You know, I'm tempted to be snarky about this, but really, why? People care about this stuff, and they should be able to weigh in. Good on the city.

  The release also says that the city is inviting ideas for "additional pieces of street furniture." I want swivelly desk chairs in all subway stations."

  —

  Why can't Oklahoma City citizens be a part of the decision making process for the Downtown Streetscape?

  (tags: public.process streetscape okc oklahoma.city downtown streetlamps)
• Luncheons ‘map’ out Oklahoma City’s tax plan details | NewsOK.com
  "Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett on Wednesday kicked off a series of luncheons designed to inform voters about the MAPS 3 project.

  Cornett launched the Breaking Through luncheon series at the Skirvin Hilton Hotel. The luncheons are designed to give members of the public an opportunity to learn about the MAPS 3 proposal and ask questions."

  The cost to attend the luncheons is $30 for Greater Oklahoma City Chamber members and $35 for nonmembers (e.g. regular citizens)

  (tags: maps3 okc oklahoma.city public.process)
• OKC Mayor Mick Cornett plans to educate about $777 million proposal | OKG Scene.com
  The campaign has already kicked off to rally support, a process that includes spreading the word about what the projects do and why they are important. Cornett said he is at the “top of the information pyramid,” and it will be his main task to educate the public.
  (tags: map3 okc oklahoma.city flow.of.information)
• MAPS 3 faces date with voters; chamber hopes for good turnout
  At Oklahoma City University, political science department chairman Richard Johnson said the MAPS 3 campaign needs to do a better job of informing constituents.
  “Unless the supporters do a better job of getting out in front of this, they really risk having it fail,” Johnson said.
  “People have felt really good about the MAPS projects generally and getting a reasonable return on their dollar. But there’s not really enough out there yet. The public really needs to be educated about MAPS 3 and what’s in it – something like the need for an expansion of the Civic Center, for example. The benefits really need to be laid out for people to motivate them to vote.”
  (tags: maps3 oklahoma.city okc)

This video is incredible and does much to demonstrate the importance of an enjoyable path for pedestrians. Perhaps more abstract is the “fun” experienced by pedestrians on sidewalks full of people with opportunities for window shopping, but the theory is basically the same.

(Thanks to Jan at The Happy Homemaker for sending this my way)