Ray Spaxman's thoughts on planning the city. Lessons from Downtown South

In my previous post I included comments from some of Ray Spaxman's 'followers' to something he shared a week ago. Since it relates to the creation of Downtown South, one of Vancouver's most successful new neighbourhoods, I am copying it here: 

 Hello. Here is a different-from-normal urbanarm missive. Now that I am “sort of retired” I am quite busy culling and filing "stuff from my past”. Today, I came across a letter I had written in October 2007 to an architectural critic who had completely mislead his readers about the urban design principles that were guiding the redevelopment of our Downtown South area. I am sharing it with you now for it has a distinct relevance to the development that we see emerging today. 

 "While I enjoy your energy and enthusiasm for your subject and always look forward to your articles, I get worried when I see you going off into places which are misleading to peoples’ understanding of why the city might be the shape it is. If people are misled about the principles guiding building and city design they will lose the ability to judge and improve the products. 

Improvement is always needed for we do learn as we go along both from what we achieve and the changing needs of society. I am enclosing for your information an excerpt from the Planning Department’s October 1982 Quarterly Review which describes the work occurring in the Downtown South area, and especially the investigative urban design exploration into the best shape for development in what was known as the “hole in the doughnut”. 

The tower and podium emerge in response to the design performance guidelines that the department was pioneering at the time. Those guidelines included such principles as good sunlight and daylight penetration, privacy for residents, access to water and mountain views, “eyes on the street”, continuous street activity for security, human street scale, enhancing the sense of community and achieving a comfortable interface between the private and public realms - and all focused on achieving a new level of livability, with affordability, at higher densities. 

The guidelines of course owe much to the wisdom of people like Jane Jacobs, Gordon Cullen, Christopher Alexander and Kevin Lynch. We have much to learn from what has happened in the Downtown South and wherever new high-density development occurs in the future, (which will present different challenges than the Downtown South). I hope its design will always concentrate on providing for those human needs that contribute to livability.” I worry these days that our approving authorities seem most interested in maximizing the number of units and making as much money as possible for the City and the developer. Also, why are our professional planning, architectural, social and development organizations so silent about all this? Perhaps they believe it is all good and cannot understand why so many of us just can't see it What do you think? Keep safe and well. Ray