21st Century Solutions by Gary McCaleb

In the April 2008 issue of Travel + Leisure magazine Karrie Jacobs wrote the following:
“. . . I’ve been thinking for a while about the future of cities, looking for signs of 21st-century urbanism. I’m not particularly interested in the Dubai model, or the China model, both of which seem to be riffs on old-fashioned ideas about the future being a place where everything is bigger and shinier. No, I’m looking for a city that might correct the excesses of the previous century and come up with new formulas – architectural and otherwise – for the future.” (Click here to read the story in its entirety)

Jacobs’ search for “new formulas” is an important challenge for all those who are involved in the shaping of their city.

Within a few days of reading Jacobs’ words I ran across another example of the “bigger and shinier” model. Alastair Gee wrote about Moscow’s 21st century plan involving the world’s biggest building at a cost of $4 billion and including “a ring of 100 skyscrapers around the city center . . . and nine new highways, some with 18 lanes.” (Click here to read the story in its entirety)

But Gee continues with the other side of the story: “Moscow’s historical architecture has become vulnerable. Some 200 historic buildings have been torn down in the past five years.”

Aleksei Klimenko, a member of Moscow’s city architecture board, is quoted as saying, “Our understanding of the value of the original has decreased . . . Fakes dominate.”

New models are needed. New solutions and formulas. And all the answers are not to be found in cities the size of Dubai or Shanghai or Moscow. Cities of all sizes must be searching for solutions to “correct the excesses” and to value community. Surely some of the solutions will come from the four- and five-figure cities of the U.S. and the world.