Moose at MSU

Moose crossing a field across from the Moscow State University building in 1961. Photo by Aleksey Zhigailov, via Eduard Zhigailov (Эдуард Жигайлов, фото Алексея Жигайлова МГУ Лоси).

On towers in the park

Michael Kimmelman's reflections on the "tower in the park" concept — through a comparison of Pruitt-Igoe and Penn South — coincide with my findings in Moscow (outlined a few weeks ago on Polis: Management as Design in Public Housing Blocks). The comments on his article are also very worth reading. Here are some fascinating quotes...

ULI data on population density and the reuse of abandoned industrial zones in Moscow

According to the Urban Land Institute (ULI) presentation at the Moscow Urban Forum, a "truly global city" should have a population density greater than 10,000 residents per sq. km. They compared Moscow's average (10,300) with that of inner London (10,900) and Manhattan (26,800), adding that Tokyo, Shanghai and many other Asian cities are much denser than New York. They used these statistics to make the case for preserving Moscow's current density instead of expanding southward (to 2.51 times the city's current size).



As an alternative, they proposed redeveloping 15,000 hectares of unused industrial zones along the small Railroad Ring (above) . I wrote a note that 31% of Moscow's area is dedicated to industry, most of which is no longer in operation (compared to 4% in London), but I can't confirm that right now. Much of this land is located along the Moscow River (below).



Marina Khrustaleva of the Moscow Architecture Preservation Society (MAPS) wrote an article in support of this idea: Новая Москва подождет.

Grigory Revzin on the need for a museum of the USSR

"необходима вполне традиционная советская деятельность в области пропаганды того достояния, которым мы интересны миру. Единственное, чем мы сейчас интересны с этой точки зрения, – это СССР. Здесь был фантастический мировой социальный эксперимент, и его результаты так или иначе важны всем. То, что в Москве нет музея СССР, – это неправильно и не способствует пониманию собственной идентичности. Такой музей просто необходимо делать, он будет мировым достоянием." Григорий Ревзин: Москве нужен музей СССР

Revzin (an active and very well known art and architecture critic, historian and editor) explains that the Soviet social experiment is a critical part of world heritage that should be featured in a museum. The rest of the article frames this call within a larger argument for developing a compelling cultural identity (unfortunately often called branding: бренд города) for Moscow.

On a loosely related note, can anyone tell me the name of the artist in the photo above? I think he's Russian and worked during the Soviet Era, but I'm not sure.

Green space as assemblage

The concept of assemblage is becoming more and more central to my research on courtyards in Moscow. As part of a recent feature in Area, Colin McFarlane and Ben Anderson bring together a collection of articles that shed light on assemblage theory's "different entry-points and uses as descriptor, concept and ethos" (2011). Fundamentally, assemblage refers to constantly changing configurations of physical elements (including people) and ideas — not a monolithic endstate but "a multiplicity of processes of becoming" (McFarlane 2011). This is a very apt description of cities.

In combining space, time, ideas, agency, relationships and power, the concept of assemblage is well suited to the study of cities. I'm especially interested in what David Featherstone calls "the constitution of political trajectories" (2011), not only as a geography of activism, but as the action through which geography is constructed and ecosystems change. Analyzing public green space as assemblage involves a focus on its formation and the way it is experienced, opening up possibilities for influencing the formation in order to improve upon the experience for as many as possible. Eugene McCann (2011) explains this perfectly:

Assemblages are always works in progress. They involve invention, labour, politics and struggle on the part of those involved in them. They also require and reward detailed, but not naïve, empirical research to shed light on how they operate in practice and in place. ... identification of both what is an assemblage (rather than a monolith) and also what an assemblage is (a contingent and potentially incoherent, unstable confluence of relations and forces from here and elsewhere) offers possibilities for action and change.

Assemblage incorporates key aspects of urban political ecology, right to the city, cultural landscape, ecological urbanism and networked ecology theory that I've been working with so far. The common theme is ecology — more specifically, a broader view of ecology that includes technology and ideas, that views politics as the driving force behind ecological change, and that isn't limited to human activity. The part about not being limited to human activity may not be important to this study, but it does allow me to better analyze the role of power relations in creating the world around us and finding ways to make these power relations as fair and beneficial as possible for as many human and nonhuman stakeholders as possible. Nonhuman stakeholders are important both from a moral perspective and because human wellbeing is intimately connected with the world around us.

The methodological approach for the courtyard project is, I hope, well calibrated to assemblage theory, but I should provide a sound explanation. First, I'm adapting Post-Occupancy Evaluation methods to the study of public green space. This adaptation involves archival research into the design and policy decisions through which these areas have been established and maintained, followed by interviews with current inhabitants. Assemblage offers a conceptual lens for viewing these spaces as combinations of elements and ideas that change through political relations. It also sheds light on these political relations and how their effects are perceived by the residents who experience them each day. I hope this will be useful in support of expanded citizen input in planning decisions. I will explain these methods more thoroughly in upcoming posts.

Credits: Photos linked to source.

Remembering Salvador Allende

Source: New York Times

Just a photo and person I'd like to keep in mind. Although I don't usually write positively about leaders, I definitely admire the ones who are honestly devoted to public service. Based on what I've read, Salvador Allende is among the best.

To appropriate the center ...

These photos are from one of the installations at TsUM for the Moscow Biennale.



Here is some information about the artists ...

Achim Mohné and Uta Kopp.



The floor was covered with a satellite photo of Moscow's central rings, and visitors could walk and write on it.



They added new architecture, jokes, political commentary, questions ... the varied responses defy categorization.



It was a pleasure to explore the city in this format and see it customized by anyone who felt inspired.

People vs Luzhkov

Former mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov. Source: Большой Город, "Юрий Лужков о Ресине, Батуриной и Путине").

I've just thought of another follow-up question, or topic, that would be interesting to write about: movements to counter the trajectory of urban development during the Luzhkov era. How did they arise? How do they interact? How are their visions for the future of Moscow similar or different?

I could interview people from Strelka, Архнадзор (MAPS, Москва, Которой Нет, etc.), Project Russian, Большой Город, Theory & Practice, the-Village, Что Делать (Moscow contingent) and other organizations working to change the city.

This would be a good way of analyzing how associations form and interact to accomplish political objectives (how Latour's notion of political ecology works in the world as it is).

I can almost see this being a series of blog posts based on rapid information-gathering, perhaps something like Thrift's (2011) "'faster' real-time mode of proceeding which documents new developments as they unfold, using an amalgamation of journalistic and social science methods (Thrift 2005)."

Maybe I can do a number of these during my time here if they fill in different parts of the dissertation, or at least keep them in mind for future projects.

Nigel Thrift on the ubiquity of data and its influence on social science

Transportation and noise level data visualization from the SENSEable City Lab's Copenhagen Wheel project. Source: Xiaoji Chen.

"through the agency of state security and a knowing capitalism, both wanting to know ever more, quantitative and qualitative data have become more and more voluminous with the consequence that an increasing part of the output of what was formerly carried out by social researchers — surveys, questionnaires, interviews, and the like — is now available as data in one form or another. Much of what was regarded as the domain of social science therefore no longer needs to be explicitly constructed but is a part of the processes by which the world is made. In other words, the very ubiquity of data and the corresponding ability to mine them for all kinds of associations that they were not originally intended to contain produces an interesting challenge for social science."

Nigel Thrift in "Lifeworld Inc — And What to Do About It," Environment and Planning D, 2011

I found this article fascinating, although it will require a second or third read to really absorb and I'm not sure how much bearing it will have on my dissertation research. It currently has me thinking about data collected by surveillance cameras, websites, cell phones, etc. (thank you to the SENSEable Cities Lab workshop at Strelka and a question on the subject by Adeola Enigbokan of Archiving the City).

Also Thrift's discussion of "cultural probes that can help people to rework the world by suggesting new unorientations rather than correctives. ... cultural probes need to be understood as spaces, frames constructed to produce uncertain outcomes which still have grip, frames which both interrupt and restart the process of association and, in the process, conjure up invitations to act differently" (19).

Adeola's group at Strelka did something like this in studying Moscow's transportation system. They sent two students (one native Russian-speaker and one non-Russian-speaker from Mexico) on assignments to travel from one point in the city to another without using the Metro. The two students mapped their routes and explained their experience and decision-making processes. This uncovered interesting findings about physical space and how different people interact with it. Another group used massive amounts of secondary data to influence public opinion on immigrants in Russian society. While their study could have benefited from direct interviews, their discovery, analysis and communication of data was very impressive.

I wonder how the Google Public Data Explorer is being used by researchers, and whether people are uploading new data sets. The American Historical Association (AHA), for example, has been considering this over the past year. Thrift mentions a site called flowingdata.com in reference to data visualization. I also wonder about the dangers of relying too much on secondary data sources. The Economist raises similar concerns (over privacy, manipulation, inaccuracy, etc.) in "The Data Deluge" and "Data, Data Everywhere." However, as long as these data are used critically they clearly hold amazing potential.

Questioning the question

I have to admit that my dissertation fieldwork in Moscow is off to a slow start. This is mainly due to a lack of focus, as I find myself getting lost in the process of transcribing interviews in Russian and taking part in valuable but not always directly related events at MSU and the Strelka Institute. I know I should pay someone to do transcription, but I have absolutely no disposable income and it's the best way I can think of to improve my Russian.

The original research question — How have Soviet approaches to the maintenance of public green space in Moscow changed with the transition to a market economy? — should be more specific and applicable to current theoretical and practical discourse. Here are some updated versions that have come to mind over the past three months.

Question 1: Has the maintenance of public green space (forest reserves, buffer zones, parks, gardens, squares, boulevards, courtyards) in Moscow changed with the transition to a market economy? If so, how is this change perceived by local residents?

Research based on this question could be useful for urban designers and policy-makers in Moscow because it examines the current system with a historical perspective and focuses on the views of those it serves (this will require an appropriate sample of Moscow residents).

It could also be useful for urban designers and policy-makers in other cities around the world, because the Moscow case offers an opportunity to assess — through a kind of Post-Occupancy Evaluation — the legacy of modernist approaches to the establishment of urban green space, which were implemented on a massive scale during the Soviet era; perhaps other historic approaches as well.

Finally, this question frames an evaluation of neoliberal policy in relation to post-Soviet public green space, again from the perspective of those who experience it.

There are a number of problems with these questions. First, their scope is too broad. Maintenance may have changed to greater or lesser extents, and in very different ways, for each of the identified green space categories. This would have to be explained sufficiently before moving on to the follow-up question, which seems more useful in Russia and abroad.

Although it's important to understand maintenance policies and be clear about whether I'm analyzing remnants from the Soviet era (or before), new approaches, various hybrids ... I probably don't have enough time to cover all forms of green space for this study. Even if I were to focus on one, I think this approach is too descriptive to be of use in theoretical discourse and too abstract to be of use in practice.

Question 2: What do local residents (again, I'll need a sound representative sample) like and/or dislike about public green space (same categories listed above) in Moscow? What role does it  (way too varied for that pronoun) play in their lives? How would they change it if they could?

These questions focus more specifically on residents' views and less explicitly on maintenance and neoliberal policy, which could be helpful because it allows me to analyze the legacy of modernist planning principles in the context of market transition with a clearer focus on human-environment relations. I think this would be more useful for urban designers and policy-makers, but it's still broad and I'm not sure yet about its place in academic discourse.

To fine-tune the scope, I could focus on one form of green space. In that case I would choose courtyards between apartment blocks. This is promising because almost all Moscow residents have them, they bring up a host of critical public space issues, and I could go into more detail without worrying about imbalanced information for different categories of green space. On the other hand, this would narrow the study's field of relevance and cut it off from interesting developments now taking place in Moscow's public park system.

As for academic discourse, my original proposal of a historically informed political-ecological analysis of post-Soviet public green space in the context of neoliberal urban development (hmmm, that sounds really awkward) seems better-suited for Question 1. Question 2 wouldn't prevent that analysis, but it seems more applicable to theories of urban design and development along the lines of Camillo Sitte, John Ruskin, Ebenezer Howard, Patrick Geddes, Le Corbusier, Clarence Stein, Jane Jacobs, Anne Whiston Spirn, Jan Gehl, placemaking, new urbanism, ecological urbanism. I'm not exactly sure how it coincides with the reading I've been doing on urban political ecology, cultural landscape, right to the city, and assemblage (see recent work by Colin McFarlane here and here). It's definitely related, but how does it add anything of value to these fields? And can it meaningfully connect them with debates on urban design/development?

With regard to urban political ecology, Question 2 speaks to the call for researchers to pay attention to actors/actants who are too often ignored by designers and policymakers, finding ways for them to be more integrated into democratic urban governance. But what specific issues in political-ecological theory would the information that I'm gathering help resolve? Power imbalances and environmental injustice (uneven distribution of healthy, attractive, carefully maintained green space)? Production of urban space and human-environment interaction (role of design and policy decisions in shaping urban environments and their influence on citizens, how local citizens feel about these processes and how they would improve them)? These possibilities would apply to cultural landscape as well.

This isn't a right-to-the-city study unless it somehow speaks to how and why people are prevented from certain uses of public space, or how they work around such restrictions. But it doesn't really. It does look at the legacy of top-down planning strategies, so the problems that emerge could be an argument for the right to the city as a more democratic form of urban development. However, from what I've seen so far, the current benefits of public green space — established and maintained through authoritarian policy — appear to outweigh the problems. Still, if there are convincing connections between such problems and top-down decision-making, this study would support right-to-the-city appeals. Also, I think there's a lot of potential in bringing right-to-the-city theory into the realm of urban design.

In reference to assemblage, Question 2 allows for an analysis of urban form as a constant process of change, always coming into being through political relationships. This underscores the need for a historical view of modernist planning strategies. Such research could uncover contingent positive and negative aspects of design ideas that could be forgotten if we fail to consider them simply because they're associated with communism, modernism, fascism, etc.

Ecological urbanism is the most intentionally design-oriented body of theory that I've been reading and it comes up often in architecture (especially landscape architecture) and planning discourse. Although I'm really not well versed in it, I think Question 2 is relevant based on its potential for assessing the role of design in optimizing urban landscapes over time. It could also help me adress related questions on how to best increase urban green space with sustainable maintenance systems that enhance ecosystem services.

Overall, I think my dissertation research is still best situated within urban-political-ecology and cultural-landscape literatures with a possible allusion to assemblage in its bearing on the historical analysis of design decisions (product as process). On a practical level, it could inform ways of increasing attractive perceived space — that is, a sense of balance between coziness and spaciousness — within urban density, providing healthy oases in the midst of unhealthy urban development (e.g., pollution, giant traffic-choked roads, infrastructural decay), maximizing comfort and minimizing loss (of time, money, effort, biodiversity, wellbeing), actively listening to people in order to understand their likes/dislikes/needs/objectives/priorities as a first step toward opening up channels for direct participation in urban governance.

The objective is to an contribute to an increase in healthy, attractive, sustainable (from a maintenance perspective) and multifunctional green space in cities. In light of these considerations, I feel good about Question 2 if I can strengthen it in the following ways:

1. Focus on courtyards. This will make the interview and archival research processes much more doable and it would be locally relevant in connection with housing redevelopment as part of Moscow's Genplan 2025. It would also shed light on legacies of urban design ideas closely related to Clarence Stein (contributing to the work of the Stein Institute, which partially funded this research, and others who focus on shared green space). It is also a good first step in conducting "user-centered" fieldwork in Moscow, which could help me make the case for future studies of the green space classifications listed above.
2. Make sure my interview methods are sound, especially with regard to developing questions and selecting interviewees (consider different approaches, including online questionnaires).
3. Thoroughly understand the design, establishment and maintenance of Moscow courtyards in historical perspective.
4. Make the question more compelling for local and international urban designers, policy-makers and researchers. Here is a first attempt ...

Question 3: How are past approaches to the design, implementation and maintenance of public green space in residential areas perceived by the inhabitants of these spaces today?

This question makes sense to me, although what I mean by "how are past approaches ... perceived" and "inhabitants of these spaces" will, of course, have to be clearly defined. I should also determine how these perceptions coincide/contrast among different populations and in different locations within the city. This approach could prepare me for future studies that address questions like:

1. Are inhabitant perceptions of public green space in Moscow different from those in smaller and less prominent Russian cities?
2. Are they different than in cities of similar size and prominence in other parts of the world? Warsaw, London, Nairobi, Hong Kong, Caracas, Beijing, Shanghai, Washington, D.C., New York City?
3. Should maintenance of public residential green space be centralized, decentralized, public, private? Are there promising ways of drawing upon each to different extents in different circumstances?

Ok, so now I'm ready to begin really understanding the design, implementation and maintenance of courtyards in Moscow, as well as best practices for developing my interview/survey questions. Maybe this could take the form of separate posts here or on Polis. I can't believe I'm just starting this now. Better late than never, but I'd better be very efficient to make sure I can do a good job and still finish the dissertation in June.

Mystery animation on Russian public housing

By any chance does anyone know the name of this film?
Знаете ли вы как называется этот фильм?

Abandoned escalator in Sparrow Hills

On Friday I passed by an abandoned escalator in Sparrow Hills (the historic photos above and below are from the amazing oldmos.ru).



Apparently it was built around 1959, when the Lenin (now Sparrow) Hills metro station opened.



It was closed for reconstruction in 1983 due to structural damage from landslides, and not included in the 2002 station redevelopment. It can be reached easily by turning right after exiting the station on the Sparrow Hills side, after which you'll see it on your left.



Graffiti lines the wall that closes it off from above.



Fortunately, it's still easy to enter. I like the ladders that connect each grass-covered roof.

Does anyone have more information about the escalator's design?

'Landscape Science: A Russian Geographical Tradition'

Shaw, D.J.B. and Oldfield, J. (2007) Landscape Science: A Russian Geographical Tradition, Annals of the Association of American Geographers 97: 1

Abstract
The Russian geographical tradition of landscape science (landshaftovedenie) is analyzed with particular reference to its initiator, Lev Semenovich Berg (1876–1950). The differences between prevailing Russian and Western concepts of landscape in geography are discussed, and their common origins in German geographical thought in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are delineated. It is argued that the principal differences are accounted for by a number of factors, of which Russia's own distinctive tradition in environmental science deriving from the work of V. V. Dokuchaev (1846–1903), the activities of certain key individuals (such as Berg and C. O. Sauer), and the very different social and political circumstances in different parts of the world appear to be the most significant. At the same time it is noted that neither in Russia nor in the West have geographers succeeded in specifying an agreed and unproblematic understanding of landscape, or more broadly in promoting a common geographical conception of human-environment relationships. In light of such uncertainties, the latter part of the article argues for closer international links between the variant landscape traditions in geography as an important contribution to the quest for sustainability.

Quotations
"English-language literature has paid relatively little attention to its use by geographers in the non-English-speaking world. This article will begin to address that gap by examining the history of landshaftovedenie or landscape science in Russia. Since the early twentieth century, and more particularly since the 1950s, landscape science has played an important role in Russian physical geography, occasionally aspiring to cross the physical-human divide."

Notes
- Review of contemporary notions of "landscape" (e.g., Cosgrove 1984; Cosgrove and Daniels 1988; Olwig 1996; Schein 1997; Muir 1998; Arntz 1999; Antrop 2000; Spedding 2003; Winchester, Kong and Dunn 2003; Morin 2004; Arntz 1999; Tyutyunnik 2004).

- Although I'm still reading this article, the link to sustainability seems strangely tacked on at the end without much explanation. Is it even necessary?

Credits: Image linked to source.

'Building the Healthy City: The Role of Nonprofits in Creating Active Urban Parks'

"Building the Healthy City: The Role of Nonprofits in Creating Active Urban Parks" by Pascale Joassart-Marcelli, Jennifer Wolch and Zia Salim in Urban Geography 32: 5, 2011

Abstract
Access to parks and recreational opportunities contributes to physical activity and positive health outcomes. But who is responsible for building the healthy city, particularly where resources are limited? While neoliberal state restructuring and fiscal austerity measures have increased the responsibility of nonprofit organizations in local services provision, little is known about their role in promoting healthy urban environments. This article investigates the role of nonprofits in supporting parks and physical activity in Southern California and analyzes the relationships between levels of voluntary-sector activity and the socio-demographic, economic, and fiscal characteristics of municipalities. Results indicate that nonprofits are unevenly distributed and more active in affluent, fiscally stronger, suburban, conservative, and white municipalities, reproducing intra-urban differences underlying health disparities.

Quotations
"we investigate the growing role of nonprofits and public-private partnerships in promoting park development, maintenance, and recreational use and discuss their impact on urban park equity."

"access to healthy spaces is being redefined by a combination of related fiscal, political, social, and cultural forces that shape the resources allocated to parks and recreational activities."

"A better understanding of the intra-metropolitan geography of nonprofit and community-based efforts to promote physical activity spaces, such as parks, community centers, recreation classes, and after-school sports programs, and their relationship to the broader institutional and socio-economic landscape could help in developing effective policies to reduce health disparities."

"Our approach in this paper is primarily quantitative: emphasizing trends in funding streams, identifying relationships between public and private spending, and explaining local variations in nonprofit expenditure on parks and recreation. To fully understand changes in the governance of public parks and their influence on inclusion or exclusion of particular groups from these community spaces, our findings must be intersected with more detailed qualitative data obtained from interviews of park users, nonprofit stakeholders, and residents of neighborhoods where nonprofits are actively involved. Such an endeavor goes beyond the scope of this paper." (685)

"Access to open space is estimated based on data from the California Protected Areas Database (CPAD), which identifies land protected for open space purposes by public agencies and nonprofit organizations. Land use polygons from the CPAD (2009) shape file were intersected with municipal polygons using ArcGIS 9.3 to compute total open space acreage by municipality. These figures were then standardized to obtain open space acres per thousand residents, as a crude measure of existing parks as well as land where nonprofits could promote the development of parks and recreation activity." (691)

Notes
- starts with a list of studies on the public health benefits of parks (Sallis, et al., 2000; Humpel et al., 2002; de Vries et al., 2003; Bedimo-Rung et al., 2005; Maller et al., 2005; Cohen et al., 2006, 2007; Epstein et al., 2006; Roemmich et al., 2006; Williams, 2007; Bell et al., 2008; Sallis et al., 2009)

- highlights imbalances in access to healthy parks, citing another list of related studies (Estabrooks et al., 2003; Wolch et al., 2005; Boone et al., 2009; Dahmann et al., 2010)

- reviews the neoliberal shift in responsibility for public parks away from the public sector (especially local government) to nonprofits (683)

- addresses concerns over social equity and the distribution of resources/activity of nonprofit organizations in Southern California

Credits: Photo linked to source.

Exploring Cultural Landscapes

I've decided to start posting here again as a public research diary. For now I'll be writing mostly about topics related to my dissertation (on public green space in Moscow and how its maintenance, use and preservation have changed with the transition to a market economy). In preparation for a seminar on cultural landscape, I've been familiarizing myself with the term's theoretical and practical dimensions. The following is an overview of information available online.

The word landscape is based on the ancient German word scapjan (to work or do something creative) (Haber 1995: 38), and this process can be physical or psychological. In other words, landscapes are defined through action, including perception. Examining our role as humans in landscape production is of great value in understanding and improving cities. It applies to placemaking, architecture, planning, activism, policy, horticulture and a wide variety of other urban concerns.

German geographer Otto Schlüter was among the first to define cultural landscapes as areas distinguished by the role of humans in their development (Livingstone 1992: 264). Carl Sauer (left), a human geographer from the United States, began building upon this concept in the 1920s. He saw culture as the primary agent shaping much of the planet's surface (Sauer 1925: 63), rejecting the environmental determinism prominent in many geography schools at the time. He drew upon cultural anthropology and biological sciences, defining himself as "an earth scientist with a slant towards biogeography of which man is a part" (Leighly 1976: 342). Sauer founded a highly influential approach to cultural geography known today as the Berkeley School. It is centered around field-based inquiry into the diffusion of material and non-material cultural traits, the identification of cultural regions based on such traits, and cultural ecology (i.e., how environments are influenced by their inhabitants over time) (Winchester et al. 2003: 17).

By the late 1970s, the Berkeley School faced arguably groundless (Price and Lewis 1993: 1) criticism for adopting a monolithic "reified" and "superorganic" view of culture — focused excessively on the rural and pre-modern — without adequately considering the influence of contingent perceptions and relationships among individuals (Duncan 1980: 181, for an overview see McColl 2005: 223). Such critics drew upon post-structuralism, constructivism, linguistic theory and critical social theory in calling for a new cultural geography (Cosgrove and Jackson 1987: 95). They saw cultural landscapes as multifaceted processes of representation, and not simply imprints of a given culture upon the land (Livingstone 1992: 10). Cultural landscapes were analyzed as "texts" (via interpretative qualitative methods such as discourse analysis) for insight into the ideas and interactions through which they emerged and changed (Johnston et al. 2000: 140).

New cultural geography was criticized during the 1990s for giving rise to a proliferation of relatively arbitrary descriptive studies of "the cultural" that did not sufficiently engage with "substantive" aspects of landscape (i.e., real as opposed to apparent, including the establishment of rights and responsibilities, Olwig 1996: 645), the meaning of culture (Mitchell 2000: 73), and the abuse of power (Barnett and Low 2004: 3). In addressing these concerns, scholars have pointed to the combined representational and material aspects of cultural landscapes, along with the dynamic social, political and economic relationships through which they are produced (Mitchell 1996: 28, Schein 1997: 660). Not all studies associated with new cultural geography ignore these processes, just as not all studies associated with the Berkeley School deserve much of the criticism from new cultural geography. However, the debates have enriched our understanding of cultural landscape and its relevance in practice.

In 1992, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee included cultural landscape in its operational guidelines to represent areas that are only partially human-made. This sparked initiatives to preserve these sites throughout the world (Fowler 2003: 14, PDF). UNESCO defines cultural landscape as places or objects that "represent the combined work of nature and man ... illustrative of the evolution of human society and settlement over time, under the influence of the physical constraints and/or opportunities presented by their natural environment and of successive social, economic and cultural forces, both external and internal" (UNESCO 2008: 14, PDF). The UNESCO definition is based on the following classifications (ibid: 86, PDF):

1. The most easily identifiable is the clearly defined landscape designed and created intentionally by man. This embraces garden and parkland landscapes constructed for aesthetic reasons which are often (but not always) associated with religious or other monumental buildings and ensembles.
   
   
2. The second category is the organically evolved landscape. This results from an initial social, economic, administrative and/or religious imperative and has developed its present form by association with and in response to its natural environment. Such landscapes reflect that process of evolution in their form and component features. They fall into two sub-categories:
   
   
   • a relict (or fossil) landscape is one in which an evolutionary process came to an end at some time in the past, either abruptly or over a period. Its significant distinguishing features are, however, still visible in material form.
     
     
   • a continuing landscape is one which retains an active social role in contemporary society closely associated with the traditional way of life, and in which the evolutionary process is still in progress. At the same time it exhibits significant material evidence of its evolution over time.
     
     
3. The final category is the associative cultural landscape. The inscription of such landscapes on the World Heritage List is justifiable by virtue of the powerful religious, artistic or cultural associations of the natural element rather than material cultural evidence, which may be insignificant or even absent.

UNESCO cultural landscapes differ from cultural and natural heritage based on the official acknowledgement of hybridity between the two — a kind of human-nonhuman coproduction of meaning. Examples include Stari Grad Plain in Croatia, Matobo Hills in Zimbabwe and Mount Wutai in China. There are no UNESCO-designated cultural landscapes in the United States (Mesa Verde, shown in the opening photo, is listed as a cultural site of exceptional archeological value). While I don't see culture as separate from nature, the UNESCO definition is an important acknowledgement of our role in shaping the world around us. At times it's useful to distinguish between degrees to which environments are shaped by humans. 

It seems that everything we know is influenced by human action if we include the act of acknowledgement. And we are very much a part of nature. At the same time, as many post-Sauer geographers have noted, social problems should not be "naturalized" (e.g., Mitchell 1996: 26-27) as perpetual and beyond our ability to solve. In light of the questions raised in academic discourse, can cultural landscape be applied in other ways, with a more direct focus on solving ecological problems, from poverty to pollution? How can it help us contribute beneficially to the natural world?

Credits: Each photo linked to source.

Agricultural Education in the City

[Originally posted to Where] A public school in Philadelphia is training students in food production and environmental care on an urban farm. The Walter Biddle Saul High School of Agricultural Sciences is a magnet program with 600 students from throughout the city. Located in the upper Roxborough neighborhood, it includes a 130-acre farm with livestock, greenhouses, crops, and pastures.

Saul offers concentrations in Food Science, Floriculture and Greenhouse Management, Landscape Design, Animal Science, and Natural Resource Management. In addition to the agricultural program, students take a full range of high-school, advanced-placement, and college-level courses. The results are impressive. Saul's average graduation rate is 95 percent, with 80 percent going on to college. Other students start their own businesses or are hired into skilled agricultural jobs right after graduation.

Public and Private Space

[Originally posted to Where] Having just returned from Russia, I’ve been thinking a lot about public and private space. The country has been experiencing rapid privatization since the early 1990s. Many aspects of urban life, from transportation to housing to recreation, are becoming less public.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Private space can encourage responsibility for quality maintenance. We’re usually more likely to repair and improve upon places we own than places we share with everyone.

According to the logic of privatization, public maintenance is best contracted to independent businesses or nonprofits. In a way this makes sense. It provides incentive for efficient work, and as long as high quality is a requirement, we should get intended results at lower costs.

So why do market efficiencies so often result in low-quality public space? Strip malls, for example, or over-commercialized waterfronts. I guess it has to do with our priorities, and how much we’re willing or able to pay. If public space isn’t valued, it will be difficult for businesses and nonprofits to cover the price of basic maintenance.

We expect to pay more for higher quality cars and houses. But what about bridges, water, roads, and other public entities? Not that we should pay more than we get in return, but it seems that quality services indicate a well-functioning society. While I found the parks, trains, and streets of Moscow nicely maintained, I heard that some neighborhoods are filled with uncollected garbage, and that the metro system was built at the rest of the country's expense. It's important that the benefits of public investment are distributed fairly.

Supporters of privatization might argue that services should be purchased directly by those who benefit from them, so as to reduce the misapplication of public funds. In its most extreme form, this might involve gated communities providing their own infrastructure, tollbooths at every bridge and roadway, and people hiring private companies for protection from crime. This could be considered fair in the sense that services would be more closely related to the amount we pay. However, it is less fair that children from wealthy families should start out with such major advantages over other children in education, health care, and basic safety. While salaries in lower paying fields like teaching and the military might rise with private demand, their services would be controlled by those who could afford them.

In looking for ways of maintaining public space, Russia’s experience with socialism could offer useful lessons. While there are many aspects of Soviet rule that didn’t work, there are others that continue to benefit city residents. These include accessible transportation, parks, and cultural resources. It will be interesting to see if Russia can draw selectively from capitalism without losing the advantages of its socialist legacy. At the very least, we can study these advantages and see if they might work in other cities.

Is responsible maintenance of public space possible? Working on this would be a sound investment in our quality of life. Of course, the money for public investment has to come from somewhere. This is a question for economists, but it also has to do with where we place our values. If we care enough to improve upon the quality of our surroundings, we can make this happen. It will be important to figure out what improvement would mean and how to go about it. If we make this a priority, things could get better sooner than we think.

Credits: Photo of the Four Seasons Fountain by Miroslava De Abreu Coelho. Photo of Tsaritsino Park from Flickr user initsownway1701.

Transition States

[Originally posted to Where] Development, use, abandonment, reuse, demolition, redevelopment. Transition states. It seems that everything is in transition, but here I'd like to focus on the span of time between clearly defined places like factories and forests.

Development includes combining separate elements into new forms, like making something out of legos. Materials are assembled into buildings, which in turn form cities. This may fulfill a need or function based on reactions to things that came before. In this sense, new things embody the past.

When a thing no longer serves its purpose, it is often abandoned. At this point it can be reused in its current form, reassembled into something new, or destroyed. But it can never really be destroyed. Nearly imperceptible parts remain in circulation. They integrate with other things. They may haunt us in a way more tangible than the ways we haunt places. Smoke can be like a ghost that haunts us.

A New Urban Environmentalism?

[Originally posted to Where] I'm not sure if there's anything left to say about Van Jones, the Obama administration's special adviser on green jobs. An article by Elizabeth Kolbert details his efforts to address urban poverty and global warming by putting people to work on green infrastructure projects. Jones explains his plans in a recent NPR interview. His work has captured our imagination, but does it represent a promising new form of urban environmentalism?

Sitte in a Digital World

[Originally posted to Where] Camillo Sitte thoughtfully explained the interior qualities of his favorite public spaces. Though generally open to the sky, they were surrounded by varied building types and furnished with stairways, arches, and sculptures. They were intimate and often irregular, with engaging views on all sides. He lamented the abandonment of plazas as daily life moved increasingly indoors.

Today life moves increasingly online, but the places we inhabit -- whether physical or virtual -- are no less important. Even looking out the window affects our state of mind. This is hard to measure, but it's fairly clear when we feel comfortable, depressed, inspired, fearful, or healthy in response to our surroundings.

Sitte envisioned outdoor space that didn't feel desolate. When we think of The Great Outdoors, we usually mean forests, mountains, rivers -- not cities. But in many ways forests have more in common with cities than with prairies or deserts. They are full of proximate activity, and contain many unique places. I wonder how cities might eventually be considered part of The Great Outdoors.

It would be a stretch to think of online places in Sitte's terms, unless we include video games. Many games offer convincing and imaginative environments. They might help us understand the way people interact with physical spaces before building them. Although it doesn't seem possible to get a feel for a place before it is built, studying people's use of virtual settings can inform key decisions. This sounds expensive, but could save money in the long run.

Whether physical, virtual, or somewhere in between, environments affect the quality of our lives. Considering the factors that contribute to positive experiences, as Sitte did, is of great value. His observations have inspired generations of architects, planners, and concerned citizens to create and preserve beloved places.

Credits: Photo of the Piazza dei Signori Vicenza from Flickr user Albert dj. Drawing scanned from p. 378 of Camillo Sitte: The Birth of Modern City Planning, by George R. Collins and Christiane C. Collins.