There is a new shopping center in town. Its location was never really controversial—the developer chose a wooded, rocky spot just off one of our main roads, and I did notice that a well-regarded local ecologist told the local paper “there really is no unusual or special plant, animal, or habitat in that spot.” Its mix of stores, still evidently a work in progress (there are quite a few empty storefronts remaining), caused some concern, as our already struggling Main Street didn’t want or need competition. Not to worry, folks, thus far all the tenants of the new mini-mall are big corporations with headquarters out of town. Whether the development would get a tax break, how much, and for how long was hotly argued, but the mayor and those in her corner prevailed because the local economy so badly needs a bigger base. One item seems never to have been debated: the design. The developer and his design team pledged to be “sensitive,” which meant not only that the storefronts would have a somewhat-New-England-ish look, but that there would be hills and dales and green swathes. I notice even vintage-looking streetlamps were installed here and there.
“Gloucester Crossing,” as it was dubbed, is now open for business.
Because its biggest tenant is the popular discount grocery store Market Basket, we have been flocking there. Other tenants, spread out over a few acres, include a Dollar Tree (selling discounted junk made mostly in China), a Marshall’s (selling discounted clothing, shoes, housewares, and inexpensive gifts, ditto I imagine), and a Five Guys burger franchise. Sidewalks are in short supply and the prospect of walking from one of these stores to another is daunting; you are likely to be mowed down by motorists navigating the curving, a-little-bit-too-tight parking lots and “lanes” amid wedged-in landscaped islands and curb strips. The only sounds you hear are squealing tires, the occasional horn, and grocery carts doing back-to-my-car derby. There are no smells, from grilling burgers or plants.
Why do I hate this place? I am not trained in urban design, I don’t know any more about commercial design than most of the rest of us. But I know what I like, as a human and a consumer, and I know what I do NOT like. This place is offensive.
Let me see if I can find the words; let me count the ways. “Gloucester Crossing” conjures up a quaint country crossroads, not this cynical or half-assed effort. (I admit, I am a little oversensitive about names—I grew up in Southern California, where rampant and heedless construction bulldozed the orange groves, replacing them with cookie-cutter housing developments dubbed “Orange Blossom Acres.”) Unlike a town square or a main street, Gloucester Crossing cannot be easily reached by walking or bicycle and cannot be easily navigated on foot. There is no place to sit outdoors. There are no trashcans (so litter appears to be a problem). It is not friendly meet-and-greet your neighbor. Spacing is really a problem; the place feels compact and stingy, even though there are buffers of grass and gravel on all sides and presumably a little more elbowroom would have been possible. (Call it buffering if you want, but the net effect is that the place is baldly isolated from its surroundings.) And, thus far, nothing is locally owned, and once again we Americans are merrily filling our carts with junk outsourced to overseas factories.
The new village-themed shopping center is not public space—which, for the record, main streets and town squares decidedly are; gathering is not welcomed or part of the plan, whether for a Santa Claus, 4th of July parade, politicking, or any other imaginable civic use. Though it is not an enclosed mall, its efforts to create a comfy wee-village feel are poorly executed and look phony. I am not fooled by the awkwardly placed light posts (no useful illumination), the faux “town hall clock” on the front of the grocery store, the pseudo-Federal-style storefronts, or the perfunctory landscaping. I don’t want to go, and I don’t want to stay. The place is cheap, hasty, tacky, and unfriendly: spend and be gone, folks, it seems to blare in a hectoring, unfamiliar voice.
I am not anti-development per se; I did understand the mayor’s arguments and the resident ecologist’s assessment. I know Gloucester Crossing has provided local jobs, and a boost to the local economy is expected and will be hailed. But just as it successfully drains rainwater down its fake designed streambeds, it drains away all local character, convivial human interaction, and ease of movement. It is essentially hidden from the rest of our town like an industrial park and in the same way, it is a slave to the car culture, outside suppliers, and business without personality or warmth. There’s got to be a better way.
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In my town in the historical districts you have to apply for design approval, not that that necessarily guarantees a felicitous result.
I have heard quiet rumblings that money changes hands between developers and the building inspectors and other city officials here so that regulations can be bypassed. Building continues sometimes on Sundays, for instance. Parking spaces are supposedly limited, but overnight new lines have been seen to appear, berms moved, etc. and then nobody thinks to protest and the new spaces are permanently squeezed in. For one thing this is illegal because cars can park within a very few feet of old wooden buildings and are a fire hazard.
I don't know what to do about this sort of thing. There is so much of it and it happens so constantly. I'm still resonating from a recent trip to Frankfurt. Admittedly German life is regulated rather insanely, for instance you can get a ticket in Frankfurt for your car being too dirty, but at the same time, there are flowers everywhere, nicely taken care of, and the new buildings are beautiful to look at. Sidewalks are even. Roads are like velvet.
We are becoming a third world country and nobody seems to notice!
The sad thing is that it wouldn't be that difficult to add community-frien dly features ... but since such features add nothing to the short-term bottom line (and in fact cost rather more than the cookie-cutter approach), it'll never happen unless people like us who care about such things organize, persuade, and lobby.
Seriously, the creation and development of pleasant, human-friendly, functional, and memorable urban design isn't rocket science. Gloucester itself has a particularly nice downtown commercial district. What planners, architects, and every one else doesn't like to admit is that the long dead people largely responsible for the layout of the pleasant built environment of downtown Gloucester managed to achieve that largely without formal training in urban planning, and largely without zoning and permitting processes and reviews.
Teri concludes with "There's got to be a better way." Well, yes, there is a better way, and it has been extensively written up and studied by folks such as Andres Duany and his wife Elizabeth Plater Zyberk.
If you find this thread interesting, I urge you to visit the work of Duany, Zyberk, and many others at the website of the Congress of New Urbanism, www.cnu.org.
The reason these sorts of, as Kunstler wrote "depressing, brutal, ugly, and spiritually degrading" places continue to be built is mostly because the planning boards aren't really well aware that other far more attractive development models even exist, and largely neither do the developers or the banks who finance these ugly developments. It's all they know to do.
Get the word out.
Architects really need to be kept away from Dead shows. And Lego.