Kaid Benfield's Blog: The Media and the Environment

Contemplating Earth Day at 40: a journey for the environment, from NIMBY to YIMBY

2010-04-15T13:34:44Z

As I write this, I am attending the annual conference of the American Planning Association, where I was invited to speak. We are in New Orleans, one of the world’s most welcoming and culturally rich cities, the horrors of Katrina and limitations of longtime poverty notwithstanding. It is also a city rich with historic, walkable neighborhoods. This is a well-suited venue for experiencing, contemplating and sharing the ingredients of community and how to make a better built environment.

What’s a YIMBY?

APA’s membership is composed largely of city and town planners, working for municipalities across the country. They are, at least in their 21st-century incarnation, ‘accidental environmentalists’ whose traditional intentions may not be explicitly environmental but whose current (and in many cases longstanding) causes of thoughtful placemaking, great communities, and efficient transportation almost by definition reduce the weight and scope of our human footprint upon the earth. They get it, intuitively.

In fact, I would argue that they get it better than many environmentalists did for a long time, given our movement’s traditional distrust of cities, development, and commerce. One would have been hard pressed to find a self-identified environmentalist at the time of the first Earth Day, in 1970, who supported land development of any kind, orderly or not. But this is no longer the case, and I and many of my colleagues in the environmental community are living proof.

We now think of ourselves as passionate advocates of development done well, no longer NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yard) but YIMBYs for smart, green urbanism. We know that land development – residential, commercial, civic – is going to happen with our country’s population growth and cannot (and should not) be wished away. We absolutely must say yes, especially in our back yards, to making it as beneficial for the environment and as nurturing to the human spirit as possible. More about that in a bit.

Whither Earth Day

I have to admit that I have never been all that enamored of Earth Day. Part of it is that I remember the original one in 1970, when people I knew were being sent off to die in a tragic war for very dubious reasons, and my own status was in jeopardy. I remember seeing a TV newscast of that Earth Day showing school kids sitting around singing earth songs, and I thought it was trivial by comparison to stopping the war, diverting the county's attention from something that seemed much more urgent.

Some folks felt different, and as a result we now have NRDC, the Environmental Defense Fund, the National Environmental Policy Act, the federal EPA, and a whole slew of federal environmental legislation from that energized period in the early and mid-1970s. And I now have a career.

Today, Earth Day still can feel a little gimmicky to me, to be honest. But, given that this year brings a decadal anniversary of this wondrous beast we call the modern environmental movement, it’s a good opportunity to reflect on where we’ve been, and where we are. I’ve evolved a lot during these decades, and so has our cause. (By the way, we should not forget that there was also a ‘pre-modern’ environmental movement: Teddy Roosevelt, John Muir, Aldo Leopold and Rachel Carson certainly didn’t wait for Earth Day to get started. Neither did proto-urbanist Jane Jacobs, for that matter.)

Becoming a ‘recovering litigator’

I began my professional career as a litigation lawyer (not in the environmental field, which barely existed when I graduated from law school) and it took me forever to shake the label. I started as a consumer advocate, litigating deceptive advertising cases at the Federal Trade Commission with the most remarkably bright, energetic and creative (two in my small office eventually became screenwriters) bunch of people I have had the honor of working with. Having made a reputation as a budding young litigator, I was soon hired by a private law firm. I assisted on the firm’s top cases and, when the client didn’t want to pay the fees the top people in my firm commanded, was lead counsel on others.

I became exposed to environmental law and liked it. When an opening came up in the policy section of the US Department of Justice’s environmental division, I lobbied hard to get it and did. That job put me in contact with NRDC and eventually another opportunity, which I had to lobby even harder to get. That was 28 years ago, and I’ve never left.

There was still a problem, though: the law firm, Justice and NRDC liked me as a litigator more than I liked to litigate. NRDC in particular wanted to, and did, deploy me before administrative agencies and the federal courts to stop environmental damage, particularly in our national forests. When we needed someone to manage a large and important case where NRDC was a defendant, I was deployed for that, too. (Trust me: it’s more fun being the plaintiff.) But the world of arbitrary deadlines, constant jockeying for position with abstract arguments about procedure, and being adversarial for a living isn’t for everyone.

It took me at least 15 years at NRDC to get out of the litigation box and work directly on solutions rather than just stopping bad things. How could I get from NIMBY to YIMBY, I wondered, and would there be a place for YIMBY thought and advocacy in the environmental movement?

Working to create good things, not just stop bad ones

Well, yes, because the environmental movement was changing. My colleague Ralph Cavanagh was blazing a new trail, figuring out a way for electric utilities to make more money from managing demand for electricity than by building or expanding power plants. My colleague (and future MacArthur laureate) David Goldstein was devising a way for mortgage lenders to make money by investing in “location-efficient” neighborhoods that required less driving and thus freed up borrowers’ incomes to make homebuying more accessible.

NRDC’s energy program, perhaps more than any other group of advocates in the mainstream environmental movement, became champions of a new wave of solutions that recognized that all business wasn’t evil, that with the right programs we could become partners instead of adversaries. And with better results for the planet, frequently, than we were getting out of litigation and adversarial lobbying. When our energy team was looking in the mid-1990s for someone to address transportation efficiency, I could not have been more ready.

(I still had to dodge a couple of situations where some members of the old guard thought it would be a swell idea for me – since I was a litigator, after all – to spend my time fighting bad highway projects, but by then I had enough clout at NRDC to say no. It did not harm those challenges, which were well prosecuted by talented lawyers in other organizations.)

It took about five minutes for me to discover (with the help of APA, among others) that transportation efficiency was really about land use. And so were a lot of other environmental challenges, from conservation of the landscape to healthy waterways to clean air to wetlands preservation and more. But what was still missing was the ‘aha’ solution for land use: sprawl was certainly the villain, but what could be the land use equivalent of Ralph’s industry-friendly utilities reform?

Becoming a YIMBY at last

I didn’t really become a YIMBY until I read of uber-architect/planner/thinker Andres Duany’s pioneering work in creating a nonsprawling community in Seaside, Florida, and of equally uber-architect/planner/thinker Peter Calthorpe’s work in articulating (and naming) ‘transit-oriented development,’ walkable communities built around neighborhood conveniences and public transportation stops. These templates addressed land use and transportation at once, and made for convivial neighborhoods, too. That was something positive to advocate. It was good for developers, good for residents, and great for the environment, compared to sprawl. (In a lot of ways, they were actually working on emulating the historic neighborhoods of New Orleans and other older cities.)

As I was soon to learn, I wasn’t alone. There was a growing group of us, arriving at the same conclusions at the same time. Well, frankly, some were already ahead of us, including Duany and Calthorpe, and a whole bunch of enlightened people in Oregon. But now the enviros and advocacy organizations were getting on board – elements of the solutions were being developed not just within architectural and planning circles but also at places like the Environmental Defense Fund, Center for Neighborhood Technology, EPA, Sierra Club, American Farmland Trust, Conservation Fund, Surface Transportation Policy Project, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Enterprise Foundation and more.

Parris Glendening gave our movement a name, making ‘smart growth’ his signature issue as governor of Maryland. Eliot Allen of Criterion Planners began to use sophisticated technology and brainpower to measure the environmental impacts of neighborhoods, almost universally finding that those that were well located within their regions, designed to be walkable and transit-accessible, and efficient in their use of land produced superior results to sprawling subdivisions and commercial strips. The progressive architectural movement that Duany, Calthorpe and their peers called 'the new urbanism' eventually became even more powerful when coupled with environmentalists' smart growth theory that insisted that even the best-designed development would not produce net benefits unless it went into the right places, and stayed out of the wrong ones.

We found industry partners, too, in the Urban Land Institute and Congress for the New Urbanism, and professional organization partners such as APA. The smart growth movement, writ large, was born. We created organizations like Smart Growth America, the Smart Growth Network, and the Growth Management Leadership Alliance to support the cause and, eventually, LEED for Neighborhood Development to rate and certify it. Congressman Earl Blumenauer and Senators Jim Jeffords and Carl Levin became our early legislative champions.

How is being a YIMBY different?

Our movement became, and remains, much more about making friends and building alliances than slaying enemies. There are still folks within NRDC and other organizations who fight the bad stuff and don’t back down in fierce legislative battles, and you should be very glad of it. (We need them even to fight preservation battles in New Orleans, where important neighborhoods are at risk as I write.) And there are still some folks in the environmental movement who don’t quite know what to make of us YIMBYs, even though one of the better-kept secrets is that we’re winning: central cities are growing again after years of decline, driving rates are declining, sprawl developments are losing money, all this even before the recession, and nearly every community in America wants to jump on the smart growth bandwagon, one way or another. Zoning ordinances are being reformed left, right, and center to support walkable and transit-accessible neighborhoods. California now has a smart growth planning law to reduce carbon emissions, and so many jurisdictions are adopting complete-streets laws to make sure that walkers, cyclists, and transit users are accommodated fairly alongside cars that I can’t keep up. There is no question that market forces are trending our way.

Collaborating for solutions works. And it’s not just we smart growth advocates, of course. NRDC’s energy program is still leading the way in its realm. Our water program is working on solutions, too. Our urban program is working on green jobs. We even have a Center for Market Innovation, whose sole purpose is to work with industry on win-win approaches to environmental challenges. Our sister organizations in the environmental community also have solution-oriented agendas. The environmental movement has grown up.

Back to New Orleans

When I spoke to the planning audience at the New Orleans meeting, I opened by saying, “You are my heroes. You already know what to do to make better, more sustainable communities. I see my job as building public and political support to enable you to do it.” It’s not completely that simple, of course: we still have much to learn together and from each other. We have a lot more implementation to accomplish and great neighborhoods and communities to build. But I knew I was among friends, by and large.

I then demonstrated my YIMBY credentials by arguing for more, not less, development in some places. It can be counter-intuitive to some, but we actually reduce per capita environmental impacts by concentrating them. We use less land, emit less carbon, reduce the spread of pavement that way. But I also argued that we must be thoughtful about it. We must make the places where we build better and greener. We should only be YIMBYs when the development earns it.

The day after the talk, I spent several hours walking around the Vieux Carré, the French Quarter. It is the essence of a lively, walkable neighborhood with tons of character. Yes, it can be very touristy, what with conventioneers like myself ambling around; but there are always plenty of locals about, too. It can be boisterous and loud in places at night, but it has quiet, restful spots, too. You can even find a parking spot if you need one, which you won’t, unless you’re coming from or going to a place less convenient. And you can also sample some of the world’s best music and food, which you should, because post-Katrina New Orleans is still recovering and needs your business to strengthen its municipal coffers. The Quarter has proved itself quite literally sustainable, having survived three centuries more or less intact.

You’re actually limiting your environmental footprint while you’re having a good time here, because you’re using your feet, not your car. And, if you want a change of scenery, you can hop aboard one of the country’s oldest streetcar lines, part of which rides on a green rail bed. You have to try really hard to have a bad time in old New Orleans.

You see, it’s easy being green when you’re in a great, walkable neighborhood. We need more of them. And we need more YIMBYs to help make them happen.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

Green Metropolis: David Owen’s urban manifesto

2009-09-29T13:31:19Z

I've written before about how rural utopias usually aren't as environmentally benign as they seem, while urban places - compact, walkable cities, suburbs, and towns - encourage lifestyles that are very low-impact on a per-capita basis. It's one of the basic premises of smart growth. David Owen, author of the new book Green Metropolis, understands this and believes the message must be spread.

I was asked to write a review of Green Metropolis for Solutions, a new academic journal dedicated to "solving the mounting environmental, social and economic problems of our time." (Note: the website is only partially constructed.) Excerpted from my full review, here's some of what I have to say:

"Owen's 2004 article, 'Green Manhattan,' published in the New Yorker, was a breath of fresh air for those of us working on urban issues and sustainable alternatives to suburban sprawl. In 'Green Manhattan,' Owen made the point that when we measure environmental impacts, whether emissions, waste, or land consumption, on a per capita basis, dense cities are, in fact, the greenest places and, in the US, Manhattan is the greenest of them all. In his article, Owen clearly articulated what some of our new work at the NRDC was all about: reducing our per capita environmental footprint by finding more efficient ways to grow.

"But Owen was also right in that article to assert, as he does again in his new book, that a lot of environmentalists and a lot of the public still do not understand this sort of environmental calculation. When 'Green Manhattan' was published, I sent a copy to all of my organization's trustees, and, to my dismay, within an hour of my message, one of my colleagues had fired off a rebuttal. My colleague, who was invested in addressing problems of urban waste and pollution in New York, was not entirely wrong in fearing that Owen - and, by extension, I - were undermining his work by suggesting that Manhattan was environmentally OK the way it was. But he was wrong in failing to acknowledge that, in many ways, Manhattan was and remains a very good environmental model, with its highly efficient use of land and walkable neighborhoods. And that, if we could bring the per capita environmental footprint of America closer to that of Manhattan, we would be achieving a great green success . . .

"Green Metropolis, which expands on the themes Owen introduced in 'Green Manhattan,' could not be timelier. The book is subtitled 'What the city can teach the country about sustainability,' and there is indeed a critical story to be told on the subject. Increasingly, planners and policy wonks get it, but the public, who elect our decision-makers and testify at development hearings, do not, and we need someone like Owen to help spread the word, in non-wonky English.

"To a great extent, Owen accomplishes this. Especially in his well-researched opening chapter, Owen shows how environmentally efficient a large city like New York really is, and how failing to seize upon this fundamental truth can lead us in wrong directions. He is absolutely right, for example, in pointing out that the biggest environmental challenge facing a place like New York is not, as many believe, how to reduce carbon emissions from lighting, heating and cooling buildings, a category in which New Yorkers already lead the nation on a per capita basis (like 'putting skinny people on diets,' Owen writes). It is, instead, how to address perceptions of inferior public school quality and a lack of public safety, which diminish the city's ability to attract and retain residents to its efficient lifestyle . . ."

The book contains useful chapters on transportation, parks, the inherent energy efficiency of buildings in urban locations, whether or not they employ the latest green technology, and so on. Each is filled with information and interesting anecdotes, and Green Metropolis makes a good introduction to and overview of these subjects from the point of view of an urbanist. I would recommend it especially to someone newly interested in these subjects as a good place to start.

I do think the book has some flaws, unfortunately, including one very important one. But you'll have to read my full review to know what it is.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

The Smarter Cities project would like your help in improving its criteria for ranking US cities

2009-08-10T13:36:10Z

As some of you probably know, Smarter Cities is an initiative that ranks US cities on a number of key sustainability criteria as well as on overall sustainability. The system has been developed, managed and staffed independently of NRDC, but several months ago our organization agreed to host it on our website. Now that the system has been re-launched as a project of NRDC, we would very much like your input on how to improve the rankings criteria.

The criteria that were used in the recently published rankings are here, and the evolving criteria that are being proposed for the next round of rankings are here. You may email your thoughts directly to the Smarter Cities team at smartercities@nrdc.org, or you may participate in the CityWiki, which was established online just last week as an exercise in participatory environmentalism. The CityWiki lists the proposed criteria for the next round and is structured to receive input on each criterion (note that the proposed list differs in some respects from the one used last year), alternative methods of city comparison, and weighting and scoring. You will need to go through an easy login process to participate, but it will be a very effective way of registering your thoughts.

I would also be interested in reading your thoughts here in this blog if you're willing to share them. (Beyond the rankings, criteria, and wiki, the Smarter Cities site also hosts a blog, a "citizen reporters" section that invites outside participation, a "city stories" section of profiles and issue commentary, and more.)

In the past round, each city was scored on 10 issues, which were equally weighted in the overall rankings. These were air quality, energy production and conservation, "environmental standards and participation," green building, green space, recycling, transportation, "standard of living," and water quality and conservation A threshold question to consider is whether these are the right categories and, if so, should they remain equally weighted?

The scores were then compared to each other in three groupings according to population (large cities of 250,000 or more, medium from 100,000 to 250,000, and small for under 100,000). It has been the project's ambition to score every US city of 50,000 or greater population, over 600 in all. Of the large cities, Seattle, San Francisco, and Portland made it a clean sweep for the Pacific coast in the top three overall spots. Coming in last among the 67 large cities were Anchorage, Alaska; Islip, New York; and Lexington, Kentucky.

For the various issue categories, the rankings were based on a combination of reported performance data and responses to a broad questionnaire sent to an environmental official in each city. For illustration, here is a closer look at a few of the issue categories and a bit about how they were scored, along with some of the results:

Air Quality: 7/10 of the score was based on where the cities ranked using EPA's Air Quality Index, and 3/10 was based on whether the city had smoke-free workplaces and restaurants. The top big city under these measures was Seattle; the worst was Charlotte. The best medium-sized city was Madison; the worst, Paterson, New Jersey. Interestingly, notoriously polluted Houston scored relatively well, bettering Tucson, St. Paul, and Raleigh; Los Angeles scored higher than Virginia Beach.

Energy Production and Conservation: For this category, the largest portion of the score was based on the main sources of energy in each city, with points given for the presence of renewables and deducted for nonrenewables. 4/10 of the score was based on the questionnaire answers, with credit given for the presence of conservation programs and whether or not green power options are available to consumers through their local utilities. This put Seattle, Anaheim, and Dallas in the top 10 big cities, and Wichita last; Santa Rosa was the highest-ranking medium city; Elizabeth, New Jersey, the lowest. New York, which has the lowest per capita energy consumption in the country, ranked 27th among the 67 big cities, below Oklahoma City, Las Vegas, and #9 Dallas.

Transportation: 8/10 of the transportation scoring was based on the responses to the questionnaire sent to a city official. Cities were ranked by the number of "transportation options available to residents," such as "bicycle paths, bicycle sharing programs, bus systems, carpool lanes, car sharing, dedicated bicycle lanes, light rail, sidewalks/trails, subways and trolleys." 2/10 of the score was based on transit ridership. Among big cities, San Francisco ranked first and Lexington, Kentucky last; among the mediums, Santa Clarita, California was first and, again, Paterson last. Los Angeles, despite soaring rates of driving and the country's worst traffic congestion, ranked #3 under this methodology, outperforming Portland, New York, and Chicago.

Standard of Living: These scores were based on a combination of median household income, the percentage of families living below the poverty line, the percentage of owner-occupied housing, and the National Association of Home Builders Housing Opportunity Index (HOI). San Jose ranked as the large American city with the best standard of living, New Orleans the worst. Among the mediums, Thousand Oaks, California ranked first and, sadly, Paterson was again last.

Environmental Standards and Participation: I believe this category was based entirely on the questionnaire responses, and cities were ranked according to how many municipal departments had environmental standards and/or public participation opportunities. Sacramento ranked first among the bigs, Lexington (again) last. (Why am I starting to think that Lexington's environmental officer simply failed to spend enough time on the questionnaire?) Among the mediums, Santa Rosa ranked first, Paterson (see comment above re Lexington) last.

NRDC sees this project as a beginning and a work in progress, and we really want to get it right. Among the things our team has learned so far is that, by and large, the media love rankings stories and, unsurprisingly, the cities that scored well are happy. Those that believe they should have scored higher are not so happy with the criteria. Among the online commentary, The City Fix DC was laudatory, while World Changing and Greater Greater Washington were among the critics.

Take a look, read the commentary if you like, make up your own mind, and let our Smarter Cities team know what you think. Personally, I am hoping that we can move away from the subjectivity of questionnaire responses as much as possible and toward reported performance data; and I am hoping we can use per capita performance measures rather than raw numbers. I also hope we can develop new categories on smart growth (such as density trends) and public health (such as obesity and major disease rates). I have been impressed with the openness of the team to suggestions, and your input will be vital to improvement.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

Architecture on hallucinogens (video)

2009-07-29T13:34:07Z

555 KUBIK | facade projection | from urbanscreen on Vimeo.

No deep message in this post, just entertainment with an interesting deconstructive edge. UrbanScreen has this to say about the video:

"The conception of this project consistently derives from its underlying architecture - the theoretic conception and visual pattern of the Hamburg Kunsthalle. The Basic idea of narration was to dissolve and break through the strict architecture of O. M. Ungers "Galerie der Gegenwart". Resultant permeabilty of the solid facade uncovers different interpretations of conception, geometry and aesthetics expressed through graphics and movement. A situation of reflexivity evolves - describing the constitution and spacious perception of this location by means of the building itself."

Enjoy.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

Prevention's "25 best walking cities" in the US

2009-05-22T13:38:07Z

Prevention magazine has published a list of the cities that its editors believe are the best in the land for walking. There are no surprises in the top ten, unless you count Honolulu as one:

San Francisco
New York
Boston
Chicago
Philadelphia
Washington
Seattle
Honolulu
Portland
Pittsburgh

There are, though, a few that I didn't expect to see in the top 25, including Rochester, Santa Ana, San Jose, Columbus, and Tucson. They don't say a lot about the list, but I did like a few of the short reasons why. For example:

Philadelphia: "High density of schools keep speed limits low in many neighborhoods making the streets safer for walkers."
Honolulu: "Good mix of desirable destinations such as stores and restaurants within walking distance."
San Diego (#14): "Some of the many improvements include new street lights, crosswalks and curb pop-outs in desirable downtown locations. And a new pedestrian bridge is in the works."
Denver (#20): "Varied and diverse downtown, features outdoor mall for only pedestrian traffic and public transportation on 6 out of 7 days."
Columbus (#21): "Hundreds of beautiful parks, including the Topiary Garden, which has recreated Seurat's 'A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte' painting, for visitors to walk through." (Now I must go see it.)

It is interesting to compare Prevention's list with Chris Leinberger's, which is based on the ratio of the number of highly walkable districts within metropolitan areas to population. Nine of Chris's top ten are also in Prevention's top ten, though I'm proud to say that Washington leads his list. Confirming the consensus, nine of the top ten in Chris's list also make the top ten in the rankings of the totally fun site Walk Score. Eight of Walk Score's top ten overlap with Prevention's. San Francisco and Boston are two of the top three in all three lists.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

Faith-based environmentalism: an interview with Michael Abbaté (Part 2)

2009-05-20T13:34:36Z

Michael Abbaté is director of urban planning and design for Gresham, Oregon, a suburb on Portland's MAX light rail line. His new book is Gardening Eden: How Creation Care Will Change Your Faith, Your Life and Our World, published by WaterBrook/Random House.

Mike believes that our society has created a false division between faith and science, and that environmentalism can bridge the gap between the two worlds. His publisher's agent sent me a copy of Gardening Eden, which prompted me to ask Mike some questions. Part 1 is here. Today, we continue and conclude:

Q: Portland is world-renowned for its progressive land-use practices, and Fairview Village has won all sorts of acclaim as an embodiment of some of them. Are you pleased with the progress that metro Portland has made in revitalization, transit-oriented development, containment of sprawl and so on? Do you believe these practices are of value to people of faith? What are the challenges to the prospects for these practices becoming more widespread?

A: As a landscape architect and Urban Design & Planning for a city in the Portland Metro area, I have mixed feelings. On many levels, Oregon's landmark land-use rules have prevented much of the sprawl evident in other metropolitan areas. It has led to innovative developments such as Fairview Village, where I live, Orenco Station in Hillsboro, and others have served as an example of smart growth. Consequently, many people who live in these types of developments are able to walk to work and to nearby shopping. This benefits the environment and serves as an example that environmental stewardship does not mean "stop building", but rather "build smart and sensitively".

However, for those of us who live here, we have a long list of ways our community could be improved. I am working to promote more intense development in Gresham's historic downtown, promoting the benefits of living in a more dense urban situation than the suburban homes on large lots that many of us grew up in. The current real estate crash has shown that we have definitely overbuilt this type of house. Many experts predict that when the housing cycle comes back, what will lead the way are condos and apartments in downtowns that offer an exciting, dynamic neighborhood with shopping, jobs and entertainment within walking distance. There are some experts that believe that the once-prized distant suburban neighborhoods, will become undesirable places to live for new first-time home buyers.

The net effect of this trend will be beneficial to the environment, as we live more densely and then can protect farm, forest and natural lands around and within our communities.

Q: When I first became aware of environmental issues, in the early 1970s, the environment was not a partisan issue. The Environmental Protection Agency and the National Environmental Policy Act were both adopted under president Nixon. So were the launchings of modern air and water pollution legislation. What happened?

A: Hmmm...great question. During the Reagan Administration, a few notable strides were made on behalf of the environment. However, the greatest impact was probably made by James Watt, the Secretary of the Interior. His combative, attacking style tended to polarize the discussion. With Watt, individual property rights were seen as trumping the needs of the collective. In 1968, Hardin had described the results of this mindset as the "Tragedy of the Commons". When the environment and personal property rights were linked with abortion and other socially conservative issues, it became almost exclusively partisan, and impossible to discuss the alliance between "conservative" and "conservation". By the way, this is true on both the right and left. We tend to like to label things in our two party system as one or the other, then dismiss the camp opposite from us. This is why many Americans are frustrated with the two party system, and why thinkers such as Jim Wallis (God's Politics: Why the Right Gets it Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It) are increasing in their influence.

Q: Many visible Christian leaders who embrace progressive politics are African-American; many visible Christian rightists are white southerners. As someone who grew up in a white southern Christian context but whose political values are liberal, I often wonder why faith didn't lead more of us in a direction of compassionate, inclusive politics. Do you have a sense of how this occurred, and whether faith might become a more unifying factor?

A: There are many pastors from around the country who are leading the effort to reestablish the church's responsibility to protect the planet. As I sit here in an Atlanta hotel writing this, I am preparing for this afternoon's opening of Flourish 2009, the first national conference on creation care for pastors and church leaders. Speaking will be Leroy Barber, an African American pastor here in Atlanta, and Joel Hunter pastor of Northland outside Orlando. Many of the vocal pastors who signed the Evangelical Climate Care Initiative are southerners.

I believe some great alliances have been formed between African-American and white Christian pastors in the past 20 years. There have been many inter-church movements that have built bridges across racial differences. One of the most prominent ones has been Promise Keepers. Here, African Americans played a very prominent role.

Q: I think the gardening metaphor really works, and your writing projects how well it works for yourself, as a landscape architect. Apart from the implications for your faith, what have you personally enjoyed the most in your professional career?

A: Thank you for the compliment. One of my most fulfilling labors of love will be the grand opening (June 6) of the new Center for the Arts Plaza [rendering on right] in Gresham, Oregon for whom I now work. I oversaw the design of this plaza when I was with GreenWorks, a private Landscape Architectural firm. I also continue to enjoy going back to the Oregon Zoo to see the habitat areas I designed 23 years ago. I am also very excited about how we have paved the future for redevelopment in downtown Gresham. Oh, and I am very proud of my home raised garden planters [photo above] that I designed and built! You should see them.

______________________________

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

Faith-based environmentalism: an interview with Michael Abbaté (Part 1)

2009-05-19T13:33:58Z

Michael Abbaté is director of urban planning and design for Gresham, Oregon, a suburb on Portland's MAX light rail line that is attempting to create a smarter, greener and more sustainable community for its residents and visitors. He is a landscape architect by training and co-founded Portland's award-winning design firm GreenWorks. He and his wife Vicki live in Fairview Village, a much-acclaimed new urbanist community a couple of miles from his office.

What sets Mike apart from others in the field, though, is that he is also a devout Christian who fervently believes that taking care of the earth is man's duty to the creator. In his new book Gardening Eden: How Creation Care Will Change Your Faith, Your Life and Our World, published by WaterBrook/Random House, Mike explains the scriptural basis for what he calls "creation care," and discusses how it should guide people of faith in addressing such concerns as global warming, mountaintop removal mining, sustainable transportation practices, and daily life.

His metaphor is one of tending the garden, caring for the earth writ large as one would nurture one's own flowers and vegetables. One of my favorite sentences in the book, which I am quite sure was written with a smile on the author's face, is "After he created the earth, all living things, God invented landscape architecture." Another favorite passage, which comes in applying the "Halloween Test" of a walkable neighborhood: "You may not be able to recognize a walkable neighborhood, but I guarantee a parent with a six-year-old child can" (from "Gardening Tip 25: Walk").

Mike believes that our society has created a false division between faith and science, and that environmentalism can bridge the gap between the two worlds. His publicist sent me a copy of Gardening Eden, which prompted me to ask Mike some questions. His answers are thoughtful and deserve some space, so I am going to run this in two installments, beginning here:

Q: I was struck by not only the presence of both Old and New Testament sources in Gardening Eden, but also the way some of your thoughts about worship (particularly, for example, the steps of observation, solitude, and meditation) resonate with tenets of Buddhism. You write of the potential of the environment to be a "bridge" between red and blue politics, between science and faith. Do you also see it as a bridge between and among different faiths?

A: Absolutely. The faith I know best is Christianity, but Judaism and Islam also share a heritage that reaches back to a personal Creator God who gave us a spiritual reason for caring for the environment. Buddhism and Hinduism, though different in their beliefs about the essence of God, also recognize that humans and the earth are linked in ways more profound than simply our physical needs. One of the points of Gardening Eden is that environmental stewardship is not, first and foremost, a political issue, it is a personal and spiritual one.

Q: The American Values Network has recently surfaced as a welcome expression of your values in the political arena, running faith-based ads on Christian radio stations in support of a strong federal climate bill. Your book is more personal than overtly political, which is important in its own right, but do you think more Christians are becoming ready to embrace pro-environment politics? What are the signs?

A: With 83% of Americans claiming some type of spiritual faith, and 75% of Americans believing that the environment is worth making financial sacrifices to protect, it is clear to me that a majority of Americans are motivated both by faith and the environment. The election of President Obama also points to a potential shift in the public's desire to see some real environmental leadership by the federal government. However, I am more interested in talking to some of the folks who did not vote Obama, are suspicious of environmentalists and dismiss the issue as driven by left-wing secular humanists.

Some things are right for an individual to do, regardless of politics. Helping your neighbor, feeding the hungry, loving your enemy, nurturing a child, stewarding creation. These are good and right for an individual to do, and must be driven by an inner conviction that is more profoundly personal than a party platform. Too often, I believe that good, loving and sacrificial people have lumped all environmental issues and programs together, then dismissed them as politically untenable. I have been told by many readers of Gardening Eden that reading it has caused them to rethink their personal beliefs and to implement different lifestyles and behaviors. This is not because of a political awakening, but rather a spiritual one.

I also believe that people under 30 are going to lead the way on this issue. I have talked with dozens of people who are no longer willing to look at the issue in this left vs. right, polarized way. They are activists wanting to DO things rather than just debate them. These folks see the inherent mandate for the faith community to protect the planet, and are frustrated that older generations have failed to act decisively. They read Shane Claiborne's book Irresistible Revolution, and decide they too want to move to the inner city to help rebuild a sense of compassionate community. They hang on to Francis of Assisi's words: "Preach the gospel at all times - if necessary, use words." I think it is a very exciting time to watch how the faith community builds on the activist traditions of the past and transforms itself as doers as well as speakers.

Q: Who do you see as the most important audience for your book, and why?

A: I have felt like I have had my feet in two different worlds. My professional world is filled with good people who are concerned about environmental degradation, but are much less interested (or willing to talk about) in a spiritual life. On the other hand, when I have talked to friends in my church, very few of them seem to care much about environmental stewardship. I believe that the two are not mutually exclusive, and in fact, the person of faith has a more clear and rational mandate to protect nature than the secularist. So, my primary audience is latter; the Jew, Catholic, Evangelical Protestant, Muslim or other spiritual believer who has not connected his or her faith with the issue of environmental conservation. However, I am very interested in reaching those who are not "believers", yet want to explore how faith might influence our society on this issue.

In fact, since the book has come out, I have been honored to have many deep spiritual conversations with people who would not identify themselves with any type of organized faith community. These discussions have been rich, meaningful and profound. I believe that these discussions have encouraged many of these folks to reevaluate their personal world-view and spiritual beliefs. If nothing more, it has shown to them that not all evangelical Christians are right-wing hate-mongers, just like I tell my faith-filled friends that not all environmentalists are left-wing human-haters!

Tomorrow: Part 2.

______________________________

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

Dark Stores: Brian Ulrich's haunting photos of a suburbia that was

2009-03-18T13:24:28Z

I was introduced to Brian Ulrich's haunting photos of dead malls and big-box stores by a slide show in the current issue of Time. As Bryan Walsh's story "Recycling the Suburbs" (one of "10 ideas for changing the world right now"), in the same issue, says:

"The American suburb as we know it is dying. The implosion began with the housing bust, which started in and has hit hardest the once vibrant neighborhoods outside the urban core. Shopping malls and big-box retail stores, the commercial anchors of the suburbs, are going dark - an estimated 148,000 stores closed last year, the most since 2001."

I was quoted in that story to the effect that we need to direct our new development to places that already have infrastructure. I was way impressed with Brian Ulrich's photographs and got in touch; and he has been kind enough to allow me to share some of them with you.

Before Dark Stores (heh - I almost typed "Dark Star," channeling Jerry Garcia), Brian examined the consumerist society that led to those big boxes and malls in his collection Copia, which has received a fair amount of press. This big box is (or was) in Granger, Indiana:

Brian describes his intention for Copia:

"In 2001 citizens were encouraged to take to the malls to boost the U.S. economy through shopping, thereby equating consumerism with patriotism. The Copia project, a direct response to that advice, is a long-term photographic examination of the peculiarities and complexities of the consumer-dominated culture in which we live . . .

"Since we ultimately see ourselves in these images, I aim to elicit compassion and empathy for those depicted by creating formal images that are elegant and beautiful . . . The large-scale prints allow the viewer to stop and notice with a distanced perspective familiar places and things."

Most of Brian's shots are taken in the Midwest (he lives in Chicago). This one shows the back room of a thrift store, filled with new-looking sneakers that apparently never sold in their original store(s):

Here are two more from Dark Stores, depicting Saginaw, Michigan, and Deerfield, Illinois, respectively:

I've written before about declining suburbs and empty boxes, of course. The trend was there even before the economy went in the tank, since for decades retailers have abandoned one location after another in search of greener pastures, quite literally in many cases. But the collapse of the economy is now delivering a crushing blow. Obviously, the model doesn't work, at least not for long. As Ellen Dunham-Jones and I said in the Time story, there is hope, but only if we do things differently.

Time has a companion story on refashioning interstate highways to accommodate rail (quoting my friend Shelley Poticha).

Visit Brian Ulrich's website or the Dark Stores slideshow for more great photos and information.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

Transit needs financial support now, but will states & locals deliver? A tale of two cities

2009-02-20T13:35:33Z

A number of times now, I've been drawn to Charlotte (somewhat against my North Carolina-bred instincts, given what the Queen City has been) for blog posts about the city's rejuvenation through transit-oriented development. It is a real success story, no doubt.

Turns out that I'm hardly the only one. My colleague Jen Henry has pointed those of us who work on the subject to an excellent new video from PBS using Charlotte to illustrate the results that investment in public transit can produce. The irony, though - and the challenge - is that, with transit ridership nationally at a 50-year peak and growing, transit operators are desperately short of cash and facing service cutbacks. The stimulus can help, but only if it is spent wisely.

As PBS's website states:

"President Obama's stimulus money is nearly out the door and on its way to the states, but will it be spent in the way it is intended?

"One alarming example: Mass transit. Cities and states, strapped for money, are cutting back on mass transit even as it becomes more popular with Americans. Meanwhile, President Obama is calling for increased mass transit as a necessary step toward energy independence. Will the government's investment dramatically revitalize our national travel infrastructure, or will states spend the money according to 'business as usual'?"

The structure of the stimulus, with its emphasis on "shovel-ready" construction projects (including transit construction projects) rather than operating expenses, where the greatest shortfalls are, doesn't help. But Charlotte's success certainly suggests the right answer. The video is not a short one, at 24 minutes, but it is really good:

The Charlotte story contrasts sharply with an op-ed in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, also about transportation dollars in the stimulus legislation.

The Pittsburgh story was written and forwarded to me by Kirk Savage, a professor of the history of art and architecture at the University of Pittsburgh. Kirk is concerned that, instead of transit investment, his region will spend the money on something called the Mon-Fayette Expressway, which Kirk calls "the road to yesteryear." It would wreak major damage on what is left of the historic community of Braddock and several others. Kirk writes:

"The perfect [stimulus] test case is right here in southwestern Pennsylvania: the $5 billion and counting Mon-Fayette Expressway. As the Mon-Fayette goes, so goes the stimulus plan and the nation.

"First, a little background. The Mon-Fayette Expressway was initially proposed more than a half century ago when steel-making was king and the population of the Pittsburgh region was reaching its peak. Since 1960, with the collapse of the steel industry, the region's population has steadily declined, but suburban sprawl, paradoxically, has accelerated. Pittsburgh's population has plummeted by almost 50 percent, but freeways have sprouted hither and thither and car traffic into and out of the city has only gotten worse . . .

"So this is our stimulus for the new economy: an 'expressway' that will move a shrinking population in more cars for ever longer distances, all in a misguided effort to sustain the past century's binge of housing tracts and shopping malls."

Read the full article here. This is a tale of two cities, one looking forward, one apparently looking backward, and what they teach us about where our spending priorities need to be.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

Giving thanks to my fellow smart growth writers and bloggers

2008-11-26T13:13:30Z

I was going to award another satirical turkey to a deserving entity, as I did last year. But then I thought better of it: this is a more optimistic season, and I have decided to go positive and acknowledge some of the great writers and blogs that I read, and turn to for inspiration. Our format here doesn't allow a sidebar of links for individual posters but, if it did, these are some of the folks who would be on it.

My strongest role models for how I approach writing about this fascinating field of growth, development, and the environment are two newspaper columnists:

First, I have been reading Roger Lewis's "Shaping the City" columns in The Washington Post for over two decades now. He would probably find the phrase "smart growth" too confining, but he was there way before anyone else I know. Roger is a bit of a secret, in that his columns appear only biweekly and always on Saturdays, embedded in the middle pages of the Real Estate section. Readers are unlikely to find them unless they already know about them; so I'm spreading the word. Roger is always provocative - particularly on regional issues - and is a terrific, amusing illustrator, too.
Better known nationally is Neal Peirce, who writes at least weekly and is carried in scores of newspapers across the country. Neal understands sprawl, urbanism, sustainability and, importantly, politics. He is with the Citiwire Group, where his columns can be accessed, and lately has begun publishing jointly with other columnists.

Leaving the print media, here are some of my favorite blogs:

Rooflines, the blog of the National Housing Institute, which has graciously invited me to post there occasionally. When I do, I'm in great company, since some of the country's best thinkers on community-building and affordable housing post there.
The City Parks Blog, which is co-published by my friends at the Center for City Park Excellence at the Trust for Public Land. TPL really, really gets the connections between urban places and land, why we need both, and why we need them to be complementary.
The amazing Planetizen, sort of a mother lode of high-quality news and commentary about planning. They just published their list of the year's best planning books, and Neal Peirce is on it. Last year, I was. ;)
Joe Urban, a self-acknowledged counterpoint to Joe the Plumber. It is written by the very able Sam Newberg, a frequent writer for the Urban Land Institute and American Planning Association, and he comes up with lots of interesting angles that you might not find on your own.
Sprawled Out: The Search for Community in the American Suburb, written by John Michlig. John explains: "Welcome to Sprawled Out, a blog [that] will accompany my work on a book designed to use my city of Franklin, Wisconsin as an example of the community planning process in modern American cities and towns around the country." It's a fascinating mixture of the local and the universal.
Landscape+Urbanism, one of the few blogs that seems just as committed as I am to using images to tell stories. And their images are frequently spectacular. The site is beautiful and exceptionally well edited. As the name implies, it covers trends in landscape architecture and design. I haven't known this site for long, but I plan to spend much more time with it.
Urban Milwaukee, whose Dave Reid has been a frequent commenter here. (Thanks, Dave.) The blog gives a great perspective on these issues from the ground up.
FourStory, "Fact-based advocacy for affordable housing and accessible transportation." The blog covers these issues in LA and southern California, yielding another interesting local angle on some of the stories I try to cover from a national perspective. Tony Chavira of FourStory is an occasional commenter on this blog as well.
Two local DC-area blogs, both very good: Greater Greater Washington, an eclectic take on planning issues in DC, with reference to how developments elsewhere might have an effect on the DC area; and Commuter Page Blog, providing excellent coverage and commentary on transportation issues in the region.
I occasionally cruise some green building and sustainable living blogs, too. Some of the ones I've found and liked, which may be a bit random, include: Green Building Law, which has occasionally linked to my posts, for which I am grateful; Jetson Green, covering green building products and examples; and dotcommodity, actually more about green technology than green buildings (dotcommodity is another blog with great images). World Changing is about sustainability writ large, and it is very good.

Finally, I want to salute some of the organizations I am loyal to and whose web sites offer newsy blogs of their own: These include Smart Growth America, the Congress for the New Urbanism, and Transportation for America. These guys and women are my everyday professional friends, and they inform my writing in countless ways.

Thanks to all these friends and sources of reflection, commentary, and inspiration. And Happy Thanksgiving to all.

50 strange buildings of the world (but are they LEED-certified?)

2008-11-18T21:30:35Z

My colleague Gaby Chaverria has pointed me, and now I point you, to "50 Strange Buildings of the World," brought to us by the folks at Village of Joy ("Amazing, Interesting, Wonderful, Weird, Odd and Funny things about our World").

Here are five of them, though to avoid going through permissions hassles the photos here are not necessarily the same as the ones on the website. Just for fun:

"Crooked House," Sopot, Poland, photo here by aronski/Aron M.

Waldspiral, Darmstadt, Germany, photo here by YT/Lynne

Basket House, Licking County, Ohio, photo by addicted eyes/haRee

"Hole House," Houston, Texas, photo by melinnis

Erwin Wurm sculpture, "House Attack," at Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna, photo by Dom Dada/dominik

See all 50 here.

Amazing community art & development projects (part 2 of 2: LA's Watts House Project)

2008-11-10T16:44:10Z

Last time, I wrote about the wonderful Project Row Houses in Houston. Today I get to write about its progeny, the Watts House Project in south Los Angeles.

PRH founder Rick Lowe attempted to replicate his Houston project in Los Angeles, in the shadow of the famous Watts Towers, built in the 1920s by Italian immigrant Simon Rodia and probably the most impressive work of folk art I have ever seen. But he was unable to pursue the project from Houston, and the idea languished until it was taken up by LA native Edgar Arceneaux, who began renovation work at a launch event coordinated with the Watts Jazz Festival in September.

His goal, according to the website of the Watts House Project, is "to work directly and collaboratively with the residents of [south LA's] 107th Street, along with local architects and designers, to completely overhaul the neighborhood with gorgeous facade enhancements and streetscape improvements, all smartly and ecologically designed to meet the particular needs of the residents themselves." Not a bad start, that.

(Apart from the Watts Houses, Arceneaux's work is widely acclaimed and shown. His work has been exhibited at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Kitchen in New York and Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, among many others in the US and abroad. He was also honored by selection for the prestigious Whitney Biennial in New York in 2008.)

The Watts project's website goes on to note that Arceneaux has been developing personal relationships with many of the block's residents, knocking on doors and initiating conversations. During a presentation at a neighborhood meeting, he marveled at the collaborative sharing of resources that already occurs informally throughout the neighborhood, with many of the residents sharing their formidable craft, construction, and artistic skills freely. These include a metalworker with a welding shop in his backyard, a family of roofers, skilled construction workers, gardeners, chefs, and artists. Arceneaux hopes the Watts House Project can help mobilize these existent resources in a focused and systematic way that can bring innovative change throughout the neighborhood.

One of the goals is to empower the residents with skills and assets that will enable them to capitalize on the enormous cultural capital of the Watts Towers and the 250,000 tourists a year that they draw. For example, one resident has mentioned her interest in a community-run café or souvenir shop, which Arceneaux says is just the kind of thing that the Project wants to catalyze.

It's a terrific concept. Writing in the Los Angeles Times, Lynell George reports:

"The Watts House Project (WHP) -- part conceptual art, part activism -- is a mission that Arceneaux, its director, describes as 'an artwork in the shape of a neighborhood development' . . .

"Arceneaux wants to fold together the history of the neighborhood alongside the stories of its residents, pairing artists with architects, creativity with practicality. He hopes to get to all 20 structures on 107th Street -- refurbishing four a year for the next five years -- and expand to create exhibition spaces, cafes, gardens and artists residences. 'Instead of using clay, we're using time and space to sculpt a neighborhood and relationships.'"

The University of Southern California's School of Architecture has been working with Arceneaux and the neighborhood on a master plan for art-driven revitalization that includes green architectural projects for the location of an artist-in-residency program, exhibition spaces, a café, communal house, daycare, educational programming, Project offices and affordable residential housing.

The Watts project, of course, has a long way to go before it can compare to Lowe's work in Houston. But it already seems to be inspiring pride in a community-driven neighborhood that could become a worthy creative and cultural match to Rodia's masterpiece.

Go here for a fabulous PowerPoint presentation explaining the project, or watch this great two-minute video to get some of the purposeful yet informal flavor of the project:

Amazing community art & development projects (part 1 of 2: Houston)

2008-11-07T23:53:38Z

A heretofore unique success story of how art has catalyzed community development and identity is about to be unique no more, and that is a wonderful thing. But first let me tell you, in words and pictures, about the amazing Project Row Houses in Houston:

Rick Lowe, the project's visionary (in both senses) founder, began his pursuit of what some must have seen as only a whimsical dream when Project Row Houses was first established in 1993, on the site of 22 abandoned shotgun houses (circa 1930), across two blocks in Houston's Third Ward. (Shotgun houses are narrow one-story dwellings without halls.) Lowe led the rehabilitation of ten of the twenty-two row houses so that they could be dedicated to community art, photography, and literary projects, which are installed on a rotating six-month basis. When a new group of artists is commissioned, each is given a house to transform in ways that speak to the history and cultural issues relevant to the African-American community.

Michael Kimmelman wrote in the International Herald-Tribune two years ago that Lowe's brainchild "may be the most impressive and visionary public art project in the United States," and he won't get an argument from me. Kimmelman reports that Lowe was inspired by John Biggers, the late African- American muralist who painted black neighborhoods of shotgun houses and showed them to be places of pride and community, not poverty and crime. "It hit me," Lowe told Kimmelman, "that we should find an area [in Houston] like the one that Biggers painted that was historically significant and bring it to life." That is exactly what has happened.

Support for the project came from Holman's friends, the National Endowment for the Arts, Chevron, the Graham Foundation, and hundreds of volunteers. Lowe reports that Project Row Houses simply turns over the dwellings to artists for a period of time and lets them follow their own muses in crafting community-relevant exhibitions. Also within the Row House complex is the Dupree Sculpture Garden, which hosts a permanent exhibit.

Adjacent to the houses dedicated to art are seven more that were rehabilitated to become the home of The Young Mothers Residential Program, which provides transitional housing and services for young mothers and their children. Since February of 1996, the YMRP has offered one year renewable contracts for young single mothers and their children, who are provided free housing while they work part time, further their education, and participate in twice weekly programs to help them acquire the skills necessary to become self-sufficient.

In 2003, the Row House Community Development Corporation was formed as a sister organization to Project Row Houses, in order to develop additional housing for low-to-moderate income residents, along with public spaces and facilities to preserve and protect the historic character of the Third Ward. One of their undertakings, the Hannah Project, began in December 2007, and includes the construction of sixteen new affordable homes, contained in eight white clapboard duplex structures, in the neighborhood. Each duplex features deep front and rear porches that are a contemporary adaptation of the shotgun/bungalow architecture typical of the Row Houses and the Third Ward.

The Row House CDC previously built four similar duplexes with design help from the Rice University School of Architecture. It is now working on a new Rehabilitation/Rent-to-Own Project, pursuant to which the CDC will acquire, renovate, and rent up to 38 additional homes at prices affordable to families earning approximately half of the Harris County median income.

Very, very cool.

Next: the Watts House Project, in Los Angeles.

A world-class city at its vibrant best: stunning photographs of London

2008-09-24T14:27:09Z

Anyone who has visited knows what a great city London is, in many ways a collection of highly urban villages, but with obvious concentrations of economic activity and architecture. I'm not going to go into policy analysis in this post; I'm just going to show you some stunning aerial photographs and tell you how to see more on the web.

These were taken by photographer Jason Hawkes:

You can view 19 of Jason's amazing shots of London on The Big Picture website. Even better, you can go to Jason's own site and see many more great aerial photos of many more things, from a fish farm in Hong Kong to a garden maze in Hertfordshire. The site notes that Jason has been involved in 25 books, with photos taken from as low to the ground as 100 feet to as high as 19,000 feet.

High-res and larger-scale photos and usage licenses are available for purchase on the site.

Robert Rauschenberg, 1925-2008

2008-05-14T18:59:46Z

Robert Rauschenberg was my favorite artist, certainly my favorite of those that have been well known. I paid a small – well, actually, not so small – fortune for a signed screenprint of his LA Uncovered #7, image above, which hangs in my living room. It's my favorite. I have another of his works hanging in my office, and several framed posters that I hang or not, depending on whim and what else I want to show. He died this week at 82.

Immensely prolific and varied, RR’s work graced eight covers of Time magazine and is represented in just about every important international collection of fine art. He may still be best known for his pioneering and whimsical “combines” of found objects juxtaposed in striking ways. To me, those look a little dated now, and I prefer the softer and more sophisticated edges RR found in his later work, especially the collaborations with his print publisher, Gemini G.E.L. He never stopped using found objects and endlessly creative ways of juxtaposing them, though.

Occasionally RR created pieces of extraordinary delicacy by using soft fabric instead of canvas or paper as his medium. I remember an incredible show at the Metropolitan Museum in the late 80s or early 90s that featured large scale silky fabric hangings. I can’t find images on the web to link to, but here and here are some cousins of what I remember from that show.

My appreciation of RR has nothing at all to do with his social consciousness or environmentalism (I pretty much hate preachy art and music, not that his fits that description) but I would be remiss if I didn’t point to RR’s exceptional dedication to our cause. He was an environmentalist before I was, doing the very first Earth Day poster in 1970 as well as additional ones in later years (see here and here). There were also special exhibits of his environment-themed work.

Every major news medium has a story commemorating him today. The best tributes I found, though, were this one, from a fan like me (including a link to a Charlie Rose interview with RR that I’m looking forward to), and this one, featuring comments from his own friends. The latter includes a wonderful little anecdote:

“Milton Esterow, editor and publisher of ARTnews, knew Rauschenberg well.

“Esterow remembers years ago talking with Rauschenberg about a U.S. senator who was asked if he collects art. The senator said he was just a fledgling collector and he liked Rauschenberg’s work.

“’He should have started early,’ Rauschenberg replied. ‘I was cheap then.’”

I wanted to fill this post with images and examples of RR's work, but that would have sent NRDC's copyright hawks (and I do appreciate them) into a frenzy. So I'm just including the one I paid for fair and square, along with the plug for the publisher. :) Thanks to Barbara for introducing me to this man's work long, long ago, and to Lana for the very cool volume of his work, which I continue to treasure.