Discussion Guide for Exploring Issues Surrounding Development of Towns and Cities

Background Imagine that you are sitting at your computer playing a game called City Scape.

What you have in front of you is a topographical map of the land where your city is located. You are there when your city was first established. How would you develop your city? As the game progresses you will be asked to make decisions that will ultimately affect not only the city but the culture of the community.

The game will progress through time. At first, your city will be greatly impacted by technology. Means of transportation and communication will be limited. Lack of refrigeration will mean that your city will need to be surrounded by farm land. How do you want to blend the natural features of the land itself (hilly terrain, rivers, lakes) to your city plan.

How do you want your city to look? What building practices do you want to encourage or limit? What businesses do you want to encourage or discourage? What control do you want to give city officials about the way your city will develop? How will you balance the interest of the private sector with the plan you are developing?

How do you want your city to develop socially? How will you encourage a diverse population base by making housing affordable? How will you support the acceptance of different religions? How will you provide that all citizens of your city have a voice in how the city develops?

How will you maintain the stability of your community? What will you do to guarantee a vibrant economy? How will you keep economic interests from adversely impacting what you want your city to become?

Think about what will make your city unique. Can you imagine how these might develop? How will you protect the unique identity of your city as the city evolves?

Now imagine how a significantly insignificant decision can have a lasting impact on your city (either positive or negative). As you’re playing this game, think about how many times you will need to play the game to get things “right”?

Of course the city you live in already exists. This game that led to your city scape has already been played. Does that mean that you have no role to play in the shaping of your city? No it doesn’t. This discussion series will help you think about ways that you as a citizen can influence that shape of your community.

We’ll be starting with a series of short scenarios about current ways citizens can impact the development of their communities. These scenarios are designed to challenge your perspectives about how you think about the shaping of communities.

Then we will present a description of how communities might develop. We will ask you to respond to the scenarios and the guidance of the development of communities.

Changing the City Scape

The City of Greenmont was devastated by a major flood. All of the riverfront was destroyed. The city leaders decided that the need to rebuild the riverfront was an opportunity to upgrade the appearance of the city. Building codes were upgraded.

Design standards were created. The Building Commission added aesthetics to one of its decision criteria for approval of new construction or major renovations.

A public/private partnership was created to rebuild the city’s riverfront. The project was a huge success and became a show case for how the city could transform its appearance. This led to further changes in the city. Older buildings were condemned and replaced with structures that met the new codes, building standards, and aesthetics.

Greenmont’s economy also began to become an entrepreneurial hub.

Entrepreneurs were especially attracted to the vibrant new look and feel of Greenmont.

The housing values in the city greatly increased.

One other change in Greenmont was its population diversity. Lower and many middle class families could no longer afford housing in Greenmont. This especially impacted the racial and ethnic makeup of Greenmont. Greenmont became a “pretty town with pretty people.”

Suppose that Greenmont is the city you are creating with the City Scape game.

Now read the Think About… Creating Beautiful Towns and Cities concept which follows.

We will be discussing this concept and how you view it as a guiding principle for the development of communities

Think About…Creating Beautiful Towns and Cities

What if the most important consideration for shaping towns and cities is to create a beautiful place? This policy approach aims at precisely that—designing and developing beautiful towns and cities. Of course, beauty in a town or city is not just about the appearance of a few pretty buildings or art in public spaces. It's also about the overall interplay of the spaces that make up that town or city. Our sense of beauty isn't a static universal ideal. It's shaped by our culture and history. Beauty relates to personal tastes, local conditions, and geographic or regional variations. This policy doesn't insist on one vision of what constitutes beauty. It does not define beauty for all places and all times.

Instead, it offers a platform for seeking beauty in a way that is responsive to local contexts. The core thrust of this policy is to support aesthetic or beautiful design in the built environment in whatever ways are locally determined.

The goal of this policy is to encourage and support beautiful design in the built environment of our towns and cities. This means taking into account the overall design of the community, including the open spaces and green spaces, and not just individual structures. This policy's focus would include beautification efforts that place works of art in public spaces. But it also would extend beyond such efforts by looking at the interrelation of the whole community.

This policy approach recognizes the relationship of aesthetics to quality of life. By taking care of the appearance of neighborhoods, the policy would indirectly foster a more robust civic life and safer neighborhoods (avoiding the so-called “broken window” problem, where neglected appearances lead to a decline in civility and civic optimism).

Taking care of the physical appearance of a community can help revive the spirit of the residents, fostering a sense of pride in the place where they live.

Some Questions for Discussion

1. How (and who) decides the aesthetic goals of a city?

2. How might the aesthetics of a city impact the cultural diversity of a city?

3. How might tradeoffs be handled between aesthetics of a city and the economic, cultural, or social base of a city?

4. How might aesthetic goals reflect timeless concepts of how people view beauty in city design?