So much of what we do in America is based on the assumption of growth. Growth in value and market share are keystones of success in the for-profit world, of course. Among arts organizations and their funders, there’s a notion that success should be measured by the addition of new programs and an increasing annual budget. In city planning, ‘smart growth’ has become a catchphrase over the past decade, as cities sought to grow, but not so fast as to outstrip their infrastructure.
But this article in the New York Times suggests that the growth assumption isn’t always true, and that many cities, in fact, are shrinking. Says the article:
…while city dwellers make up nearly half the world’s population, new research by the United Nations and other demographers has shown that for every two cities that are growing, three are shrinking. Some cities that were bustling centers of commerce just a generation ago have become modern-day Pompeiis.
One of the immediate questions for planners within shrinking cities is, of course, how to get those people back (which can be like trying to stop the tide from going out). A more subtle question being addressed at long last is: what do we do with the space they leave behind?
As the article suggests, the developer’s impulse is to clear away the empty buildings to provide a blank slate for new development. But some cities, like Detroit, are working to counter this impulse by infusing the challenge with artists, architects, and community partners. These cities are finding that leaving the spaces available can actually lead to better solutions:
Every city, of course, is different. But research by Shrinking Cities has revealed that planned development is often counterproductive. And buildings left vacant often lend themselves to curious and unexpected uses that can trigger development at the grass-roots level.
While some of the solutions might give us pause (see the photo in the Times article of the old movie house converted to a parking garage — with all the garish golden plaster work and velvet drapes intact), others are inspired (like Detroit’s attempts to make abandoned buildings into works of community art). An organic view of adaptive reuse wouldn’t see these two projects separately, anyway, but as parts of a larger ecology.
Samuel Beckett once said:
All art is an attempt to fill an empty space.
City planning scholar Jane Jacobs has an often-quoted statement, as well:
New ideas require old buildings.
There’s something in between these two quotes to suggest that artists and arts organizations have an important and powerful role to play in the shrinking cities issue…not just to lure the emigrants back, but to re-imagine the empty spaces.
(More on the Shrinking Cities project here.)
