urban design and the happy city: on community representation within the public square

by Timothy Maher, Urban Designer, DC Office of Planning Urban Design Division

JUST WHO IS THE HAPPY CITY FOR?

To actively pursue the notion that we can create the happy city, urban designers, planners, and policymakers must first recognize that our work must elevate participation in the public sphere so that all who desire to be in this space can feel safe and welcome within it. Our work must first be grounded in the ideals of resilience, sustainability, and equity so that people from many disparate backgrounds (cultural, racial/ ethnic, socio-economic) feel their voices have the power to influence how they are governed. This has long been an integral promise of the American experience, spoken of often by the founding fathers, but never seriously contemplated until recently.

One immediate facet of the idea of equity – and where urban designers and planners play an integral role – is the issue of representation in the public square. Do the members of a community feel like their values are reflected in the physical design of their neighborhood? Can they feel as safe or welcomed in the public spaces they inhabit as anyone else of a different background? Do they feel that if they were to speak up about an issue occurring within that space they would be heard or that frequently marginalized voices would be elevated? These questions form the building blocks for inclusion and belonging in a neighborhood and lay an important cornerstone: If members of a community feel represented, acknowledged, and free to fully participate in the public square, only then have the prerequisites been met for our aspiration to the happy city.

Representation in the public square is intrinsically important, otherwise the issue of who is memorialized in statuary across the country – and who has access to the power structures that make such decisions – wouldn’t be so heated a discussion at this time. Similarly, we direct a wealth of resources into historic preservation and the creation of historic districts, in part to shape which collective memories or aesthetics are prioritized as neighborhoods ebb and flow over time.

Representation should be so intrinsic to the field of urban design that it ought to make up much of the curriculum of Urban Design 101 courses at universities. But herein lies the challenge for urban planning and design at all levels – how do we engage the whole of a community in such a way as to honestly elicit input on how they want to shape the design of their surroundings?

Understanding Engagement And A Needed Paradigm Shift

Over the past several years, the DC Office of Planning (OP) has made several efforts to shift the thinking as to how community members are included in planning efforts. The first of these pilot efforts, organized as part of a grant award by the Kresge Foundation in 2016, was the citywide Crossing the Street program, an effort to use art and culture as a means to bring communities together and begin dialogue with neighborhoods experiencing rapid demographic and social change.

Through outdoor music, art, and cultural performances, tactical urbanism demonstrations, and neighborhood potlucks, dozens of individual events and installations were hosted across the city, all scoped and workshopped with community stakeholders. This effort pushed city planners into the physical space of the neighborhood where they could directly engage community members on what was their turf – to ask questions about what is cherished within a neighborhood and what challenges need to be addressed while physically inhabiting that very space. It became an outdoor forum that better allowed individuals who have not previously interacted with the Office of Planning before to have an avenue for engagement.

Simultaneously, OP began conducting Public Life Studies as another shift in public engagement efforts. Based on the Jan Gehl idea that direct observation of activity (and inactivity) can provide clues as to the way people use their public spaces, a Public Life Study can better assess how the physical design features of a public square are actually used rather than relying on vague design intentions and assumptions. Following up the direct observations are intercept surveys to provide insight into how people perceive the spaces they inhabit and their reactions to various elements within a space. In turn, new or proposed conceptual designs for public spaces can then be improved by understanding some of the myriad ways in which people interact with their surroundings. For example, observations can focus on how users pass through a space, where they opt to linger (whether by themselves or with a group), or by watching for when a wall is just an aesthetic fixture versus when it is used as a bench, footrest, or playground.

TO MOVE FORWARD, WE AS PLANNERS AND DESIGNERS NEED TO RECOGNIZE OUR ROLE

IN IMPROVING COMMUNITY REPRESENTATION WITHIN THE PUBLIC SQUARE. THIS IS A MARATHON EFFORT TO BUILD TRUST AND RECONSTRUCT RELATIONSHIPS WITHIN COMMUNITIES, ESPECIALLY WHERE ECONOMIC SEGREGATION AND DISPLACEMENT HAVE OCCURRED.

Both of OP’s proactive engagement models are light years beyond the standard practice of community engagement that has persisted for decades – a weeknight evening meeting that is typically attended only by those with the free time to – and yet they still fall short of what could be. Though, a critical shortcoming of the Public Life Study method is that direct observation and surveying of people as they inhabit a space homes in on groups already comfortable in that space and proceeds to set their behavior up as the baseline. What is left unseen (or lesser seen) are groups marginalized in public or those more hyper aware and uncomfortable with being watched or recorded while going about their daily lives.

The Long And Incremental Road To Better Community Engagement

To move forward, we as planners and designers need to recognize our role in improving community representation within the public square. This is a marathon effort to build trust and reconstruct relationships within communities, especially where economic segregation and displacement have occurred. And while our current toolkit of engagement ideas is improving, it does not yet suggest a flawless solution. On that end, we should consider that each project moving forward can serve as a testing ground for new and potentially inspiring means of expanding our outreach to the members of a community that have yet to give us their time or trust.

A chance for a novel approach to engagement came in 2020, notably during the summer and fall months of the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic when District residents were facing a slew of unprecedented pressures stemming from the public health crisis. At the time, the city was operating under ‘Phase 2’ restrictions that set limits on the interior capacity of restaurants and shops, and mandated physical distancing and mask use in public. With people’s behaviors so intensely altered during the health emergency and safety orders, the direct observation of a Public Life Study was an uncertain endeavor. At that time, however, OP began a series of investigations into the Frank D. Reeves municipal center and its surrounding public spaces at the intersection of 14th and U Streets, NW.

First, a bit of history. The Reeves Center plays a fairly significant and at times nostalgic role in the memories of many longtime District residents – it was intended in the mid-1980s to help reinvigorate a neighborhood struggling with a lack of investment following the 1968 riots less than two decades prior. The calculated ‘investment’ of a large municipal office building set back from the street to create an expansive front plaza would kickstart weekday activity along the corridor with a thousand daily government workers. These workers would have an immediate need for a variety of surrounding retail spaces, lunchtime diners, dry cleaning, shoe repair shops, and the like. The plan was that this would in turn spur new residential and office development to then induce additional demand for retail in a positive feedback loop of economic vitality and growth and set the course for a self-sufficient and desirable neighborhood again.

In time, the U Street corridor, once the bustling arts and finance center known as Black Broadway in the early and mid- 20th Century, re-emerged as a place of exciting nightlife, flashy retail and restaurants, high-rise residential buildings, and rebuilt historic theaters. Arguments can be made as to whether or not it was the Reeves Center that really did act as catalyst for the neighborhood (and academics continue to go back and forth on it), but the idea that it played a significant role in revitalizing a Black neighborhood by a Black mayor in the early days of Home Rule is still present in the minds of many long-term residents of the District.

A Case Study Along Black Broadway

One illustration of the microcosm of this re-birth was the 14th and U Street intersection and the adjacent public plaza which has played witness to many spontaneous protests and celebrations over the years as a central gathering space.

On the night that Barack Obama first secured his party’s nomination as a presidential candidate, celebrants including a makeshift drum circle gathered at the plaza in revelry. Similarly, several years later, activists in the Don’t Mute DC campaign purposefully selected the 14th and U Street plaza as a site of protest and demonstration when a white newcomer to the neighborhood filed a complaint in an attempt to shut down a nearby corner store for playing Go-Go music on a speaker from the sidewalk. Events of this nature have a way of gravitating towards the open plaza.A clear challenge to exploring urban design is presented by this cocktail of ingredients:

A municipal center built by an important Black political figure in a city with a majority Black population located in a renowned, former Black financial/ entertainment district;

A public plaza and community gathering space for local political protest and celebration; and

The potential redevelopment of a site in a neighborhood that has been experiencing economic pressures that can lead to displacement.

And so for urban designers the question is raised; how can we ensure that any future development proactively carries and builds upon the shared cultural memories of a space, positively acknowledging the rich history of Black enterprise, while taking note of how residents want to participate in the public square today? And can we address this effectively both meeting the needs of existing residents while also making room to welcome new members to the community so that all can feel represented and coexist within their public square?

As OP embarked on a Public Life Study of the 14th and U Street intersection during the first fall season of Covid, it was clear that in-person observation would be unreliable (few were behaving normally in public and even fewer were comfortable answering questions from a stranger in a mask) so we resorted to a series of community storytelling and narrative exercises conducted online. During this process, we asked community respondents to expound on their memories of the space, what types of activities do they believe still belong on the site and if they want any new activities introduced. What we got in return was something different than the typical snapshot of pedestrian activity over a single weekend at the site; we received a broad mosaic of many positive and negative perceptions of the space that spanned decades, told to us from the perspective of the persons witnessing it firsthand. Though it was a cacophony of points of view with many gaps and some events we were unable to corroborate, it did allow us to home in on a sense of collective memory and cultural value of the immediate area.

On Moving Urban Design And Engagement Forward

As a case study in improving public engagement, the Reeves Center site is far from faultless. It illuminated for us a novel method of tapping into collective memory that we have only just begun to explore, but fell short in reaching marginalized populations that are not connected to the internet. But if we can learn these lessons and improve our next model, it serves an overall positive purpose.

And as with any planning study, the true challenge of seeking a more equitable representation and a voice for communities within the public square must inspire the work conducted during the design and implementation stages of development. The study is still necessary – we can continue to broadcast these issues so that future participants in this ongoing process can build on top of the information that has already been gathered. Planning and urban design here can act as planting the seed of an idea, and so OP introduced the following design principles to be considered for any proposals on the site moving forward:

Living Legacy: Recognize the once-in-a-generation opportunity to celebrate and honor the living legacy of a neighborhood steeped in the U Street corridor’s historic link to Black identity, culture, and enterprise. Acknowledge the Reeves Center’s ties to civic activism and the struggle for Home Rule in the District through architecture, urban design, commemoration, and public art and promote Black-owned businesses as principal tenants of any redevelopment.

Public Plaza: Maintain a true public open space along the site by transferring a portion of the private lot for use and ownership by the public. Design an open plaza that prioritizes visual openness, physical access, and comfortable environmental conditions and that reflects the shared values of the District and its people.

Engaging Edges: Prioritize day-today activity, foot traffic and visual interest along the site through site design, architecture, and a curated selection of ground floor tenants with opportunities for outdoor retail or café spaces to the benefit of the surrounding neighborhood.

As we continue to address the role urban designers and planners play in a community’s access to and representation within the public square, we welcome the chance to constantly learn and evolve from past attempts. It is only through the long-term building of community trust that they lend us their voices and guide us to better, more sustainable and inclusive outcomes. It is on us as designers and planners to not turn back when facing sticky problems and instead open our ears to improvement.

References

To follow up on OP’s Public Life Studies and other Placemaking and Public Engagement efforts, check out the following:

Creative Placemaking at OP and the Crossing the Street Project: https://planning.dc.gov/page/creative-placemaking

Public Life Studies at OP: https://planning.dc.gov/publication/guide-public-life-studies-dc

Public Space Activation & Stewardship Guide: https://planning.dc.gov/page/district-columbia-public-space-activation-stewardship-guide

Our City, Our Spaces Guide: https://planning.dc.gov/our-city-our-spaces