WHAT IS THE REAL EMERGENCY
OF THE CITY OF DALLAS?
Last January “the City of Dallas and Urban Re:Vision
presented Re:Vision DALLAS in partnership with Central Dallas CDC and BC
Workshop”.
Re:Vision DALLAS is an idea contest for sustainable urban
development, launched to answer an ambitious question: “what if one block in Texas became the
sustainable model for the world?”
The organizers of the competition,
open to everyone regardless of degree and abilities, aim at finding a series of
projects for creating a sustainable block on an unbuilt area very close to the
downtown district.
According to the online
competition announcement “it is also an opportunity to create new-site specific
designs that will transform an existing site in Dallas into a model of sustainable
practices”.
This is
a great opportunity, not only for the dimensions of the area involved, which
measures 2.5 acres,
but rather for what Dallas
represents as the heart of an area relying, economically and culturally, on
fossil fuels.
On the
blog the association has created, experts, students or simply curious people
have judged the question which has inspired the competition enthusiastically,
showing unexpected interest in a very living issue, which analysts have
described not only as a challenge, but also as a great opportunity for the
future.
Yet,
consent was not unanimous, and criticism also affected the competition.
Overseas,
a group of young creative people have taken part in the debate against the
stream, claiming that this procedure is inadequate and asking for a wider view
that could involve the metropolitan entity fully, which they consider essential
for achieving efficient and innovative action.
From
their architects’ studio in Venice,
they explain their objections and insist on criticizing the procedure chosen by
RE:Vision. “We see the “one block at a time” revision procedure as an
appreciable idea for assuring plausible and efficient action, though it is
evident that sustainable rethinking requires an overall view that could encourage
the transformations we need and discourage individualist drift of single actions,
avoiding them becoming obsolete and unfashionable soon after being
provided”.
Briefly,
it is a planning view which defines pre-emptively the guide lines with which further
action will comply.
They
highlight that this is not a rigid plan, but rather a wide reference frame to
be continuously integrated and modified, and within which individual actions
are to be taken.
“We
consider it incorrect to create a model district, an urban area built to remain
the same and become the symbol of a municipal administration interested in
consolidating its image or the sustainable alibi for the lazy life style of a
waster community.”
“Thinking
about the sustainable future of Dallas involves taking into consideration the
role and the relations the city entertains with the metropolitan area (known as
Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex, editor’s
note), a 5.1 million- inhabitant urban region, one of the main economic regions
in the USA”. They underline that this area is set within the region where urban
sprawl has reached its highest peak, and where “the centre has lost its
reference character”.
However,
besides their criticizing attitude, this group of creative people also suggest
their own alternative solution starting from a slogan: Emergency! As they
explain, this is not necessarily related to a catastrophic condition, but
rather to the issue of shortage.
“The
kind of emergency to be considered is embedded in the main urban model, based
on low population density and urban rarefaction, engendering some well-known
effects: waste of soil, higher mobility,
higher resource and energy consumption, higher risk to compromise natural
systems and increase in indefinite spaces.”
Starting
from the current economic situation, the scenery presented by Atelier XX1. , shows a
“credible evolutionary view”, in which the economic-cultural dynamics under way
become future opportunities to modify urban morphology and society structure
significantly.
“Depression,
that global economy is currently experiencing, is affecting downtown areas of big cities deeply, engendering
dramatic reductions in employment and a progressive decrease in spaces used by the
tertiary sector. At the same time, this is causing a reduction in the migration
balance (which up to last year was unbelievable), due to return migration of those
who were mainly employed in informal economy, on which the globalized society
is based”. Dallas,
the city with the highest number of corporations
and the world’s third airport for commercial traffic (source: Wikipedia), seems
to be also affected by current trends, which are causing “vertical urban
shrinking phenomena”. Unlike horizontal shrinking, which is related to closing
down of industries in big cities like Detroit,
vertical shrinking affects the skyscrapers of finance and services.
“This
trend affects the housing sphere, triggering a progressive increase in
inhabited, unsold or vacant houses. The growth in the amount of residential and
tertiary spaces available causes, in the same time, a decrease in market
prices, therefore making central spaces more affordable. Also thanks to the
impasse in the service sector, central spaces may therefore become appealing as
residential spaces.
The
repurpose of downtown skyscrapers
into a residential area may trigger an innovative and virtuous process of
environmental recovery of the areas currently affected by urban sprawl without
interruption. This would allow some of those who live there to choose
central areas which would become more affordable, therefore making the use of
the car unessential. At the same time, the multipurpose recovery of downtown side spaces will avoid people
who can afford it being forced to choose between living in the city centre and
taking advantage from green spaces and services”.
This
general process should take place gradually, through the progressive and
spontaneous abandonment of extra-urban
residential spaces and the settlement of ecologic and eco-sustainable
communities. The latter will live for free in spaces to be “de-urbanized” and “act as enzymes able to trigger reactions
aiming at reaching a balance in the biosphere”.
These
experiments, already undertaken in some areas of the Argentine Pampa, aim at creating
self-sufficient communities, which do not have to move around to earn a living
and do not rely on fossil energy sources, being aware that the soil is an
environmental factor whose natural regeneration is extremely low. This is therefore a dynamic process, which is
centripetal at first, and is extended through the saturation of urban vacancies
created by mobility infrastructures.
This is
an audacious and provocative proposal, yet it is a conscious one. “We are well
aware of our proposal being eccentric in comparison with the competition requirements,
yet we want to communicate the need for immediate and wide action, i.e. cures
instead of palliatives.”
Because
what now is only a symbolic emergency might soon prove to be a real emergency.