Environment
Mississippi Renewal Report
(archrecord.construction.com - 12/23/05)
By Andres
Duany
A Gulf Coast Renaissance: Introduction
to the Report by the Mississippi Renewal Forum, Governor's
Commission on Recovery, Rebuilding and Renewal. Complete report
can be found at www.mississippirenewal.com
This publication is but a synopsis of
the 18 individual reports that have been crafted to guide
the rebuilding of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The writing
and illustrations contained herein are technical in nature
but presumably self-explanatory. While the report can stand
on their own merits, it may be helpful if I provide some background
to those who must decide what to do with it.
The genesis was, of course, Katrina,
an astounding destructive force which made landfall in Mississippi
on August 29, 2005. My own involvement did not begin with
the Katrina of Mississippi but the Katrina of Florida; for
on August 26, just days before Katrina had its way with the
Gulf Coast, my hometown of Coral Gables, Fla. was swiped.
I had a first inkling that there was something worse out there
than the broken trees on my street when the crews who were
clearing them abruptly packed their equipment and told me
that they were "off to Louisiana."
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A few days later I received a call from
Mississippi architects Michael Barranco and David Hardy and
also Leland Speed, the Governor's Director of Economic Development.
They asked if I could meet Governor Barbour and discuss plans
for the Mississippi Gulf Coast. On September 12 I was with
them and Jim Barksdale, whom the governor had designated to
lead the Commission for the Recovery, Reconstruction and Renewal.
Later in the day, the Governor arrived very tired after traveling
through the area of devastation. He listened silently to our
proposal as described by Jim Barksdale. He then turned to
us and said: "Go ahead. Do what you do - and do it well."
We were all exhilarated by the efficiency
and trust implied by this simple directive. This became characteristic
of the entire process. Without the fast decision-making we
could not have completed the task before us, which was to
set forth plans to rebuild 11 coastal cities and 120 miles
of coastal region. Ultimately we went from a handshake to
conclusion of an enormous body of work in little over a month.
This, of course, was beyond the capabilities
of any one firm; so the first call went to John Norquist,
president of the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU), the
national planning organization based in Chicago. Norquist
and I assembled a team of some of the very best professionals
in architecture, regional and community planning, civil and
transportation engineering, environmentalism, codes and laws,
retail, economics, sociology, public process and communications.
The CNU, whose members are known for working quickly and on-site,
with the advice and participation of local people, was ready.
It was quite touching how some of the busiest people in the
world immediately accepted the call to dedicate a couple of
weeks to help. Such was the call of duty that we ultimately
found many more volunteers than we could accept.
Ultimately, there were to be 110 in
the national team selected to work with an almost equal number
of professional volunteers from Mississippi. Henry Barbour,
executive director of the Governor's Commission, worked with
his staff to collect the many and disparate community representatives
that would join the design teams at the Isle of Capri Hotel
in Biloxi from Oct 11 to 18. The majority of the funding was
provided by the Knight Foundation -the eleemosynary arm of
the Knight-Ridder newspaper chain (owner of the Sun Herald
of Biloxi); other funding was provided by Jim Barksdale. With
their support, the Mississippi Renewal Forum, as it was come
to be named, came into being.
The day arrived, three weeks after the
handshake, and the several hundred participants showed up
on schedule. The work, which can be roughly summarized as
days of meeting alternating with days of designing, took place
for a total of 7 days. There were 11 separate planning teams,
each assigned to a Gulf Coast community and supported by 7
additional teams with expertise in various specialty fields.
Some of the meetings took place at the affected cities; others
brought the citizens and elected officials to the big, incredibly
busy studio at the hotel, where they could discuss over the
drawing tables. At least one mayor enjoyed staying past midnight
and countless other Mississippians became semi-permanent fixtures
of the creative chaos.
A chaos that included an intermingling
in the halls and cafeterias with hundreds from the debris
cleanup crews. It was a rare and ennobling instance of physical
and intellectual labor having not only shared ends, but shared
means.
It is perhaps unnecessary to state that
we, the outsiders, were shocked, and in some cases made despondent,
by the devastation that we witnessed. All were touched by
the noble resiliency of those who had lost everything. It
was not unusual, for example, to ask a serving person at the
buffet line after the condition of their home and receive
the response: "I lost everything, but it will be all
right." We were thus spurred to undertake work for 12,
14, and for some, 20 hours a day. Barksdale called us "over-caffeinated
architects."
Over the days and nights, everything
that needed to be engaged, was: The political process, sometimes
in disarray, had to be reconstituted; the challenge of designing
housing that must be both affordable and durable; the ambiguous
potential of the coming high-rises had to be evaluated - often
with differing responses for each city; the restoration of
the beachfront Route 90 which has become a brutal highway;
the moving of the CSX rail line north and the replacement
of it with transit; the attendant pattern of development that
must support the new transit stations; the reconstruction
of a lost neighborhood structure and its support by codes;
the casinos in their promising new land-based locations; recovering
the viability of the old commercial main streets, which are
under assault by the national chains located to the north;
and a dozen other major and minor issues that had to be adjusted
to each municipality. These, in detail, are presented in the
individual reports.
The challenge that unified the work
was offered by Governor Barbour on the first day of the Forum.
He told us that the coast must not only recover but also be
renewed as a better place than it has ever been. He helped
us to understand that Mississippi could not accept the pall
of permanent regret. Mississippians must not be forced to
pine endlessly for the good old days now lost. Nostalgia for
"before Katrina" cannot long be tolerated by a vital
society. Indeed, the only justification for the tragedy and
the only true healing is to create a better Mississippi. This
is the "Renewal" part of the Governor's Commission.
It is ironic that the challenge was
catalyzed by a vast destruction, and that it's potential for
fulfillment is made possible only because of vast destruction.
It is not only possible, but quickly so. One can indeed build
anew and one can build better. How much better, though?
There is no doubt that the latter half
of the 20th century has badly frayed American communities.
The once marvelous, walkable villages, towns, and urban neighborhoods
of our country, places that organically included the richer
and the poorer, the younger and the older, places that were
not dominated by the car - those places have gradually been
replaced by housing subdivisions, strip shopping centers and
business parks. Fine avenues have been replaced by arterial
roads; dignified housing is replaced by mobile homes, open
space replaced by pavement. It is not necessary here to rehearse
the betrayal of promise - the literature of the New Urbanism
has abundantly documented it.
The problem of suburban sprawl is not
only an aesthetic one, and it is no longer even a social one.
It is simply no longer a sustainable living pattern - not
in coastal Mississippi or anywhere else. The scarcity of petroleum
and consequent rise in its price is permanent. It will catalyze
the restoration of communities to what they were historically
- places that are walkable, mixed-use, mixed-income neighborhoods,
towns and villages. It is certain that such places will sooner
or later return, as all places must molt over time, adjusting
to this reality. What is so extraordinarily hopeful for Mississippi
is that the devastation of Katrina will allow the Gulf Coast
to arrive at this future faster - before anywhere else in
the United States. In Mississippi it will take less than one
generation. A blessing in disguise, if ever there was one.
And we found yet another blessing: In
addition to the emotional resilience of the people, there
was an unusual clarity of vision from the leadership. Apparently,
some Americans are still able to respond to crisis. Perhaps
the lumbering bureaucracies of the Federal government are
incapable of acting quickly, but the government in Jackson
and the local leadership on the coast, together with the slew
of representatives in attendance from national NGOs, were
all hands-on, fast and confident. At no time did we encounter
hesitation.
With such leadership, if it can be sustained,
this naturally beautiful 120-mile of coast will be so attractive
that there is no question that it's currently dispersed population
will return, and that the stream of retired boomers looking
for sun and surf will continue to find their way to it. More
important, though, is that talented and well-prepared young
people will choose to settle on the Gulf Coast because it
is a most pleasant and also a most promising place to live
and work. Of course the climate and the sea are great amenities,
but only with the kind of communities projected through these
reports will this prospect be fulfilled. Don't dismiss this
possibility: the city of Portland, Oregon achieved it. Despite
it's cold, gray weather, Portland, as a result of planning
similar to that proposed here, overcame it's marginal location
and it's poverty such that it is now wealthy with the industries
that thrive on talent and youth.
The future requires a quality of life
that attracts people who have a choice of where to live and
the companies that follow them. It is necessary that the Gulf
Coast create jobs beyond the now-vulnerable fishing, the tourism
with its low wages, and the very ambiguous benefits of a gambling
industry. Spinning off from the research center at Kessler
Air Force Base and the current military contractors, better
jobs can be created. Guiding everything, could be the vision
of a Mississippi which is to be - not the Mississippi that,
however beloved, follows others but one that gradually takes
the lead.
Are such visions fulfilled? Often not.
There is usually too much that needs to change, too much that
needs to be destroyed before it can be created anew. There
is typically an insufficient sense of urgency. Not often does
our stable democracy have cause to take the risk of being
visionary. However, during that week of October no one, from
the Governor to the poorest of citizens without a roof over
their heads, saw any reason to project anything other than
a great vision. There seemed to be something about the magnitude
of what needed to be done that cleared the mind and bolstered
the spirit. Decisions, rather than taking months and years,
took hours and days. Those who participated are unlikely to
experience such an event again. And there are reasons to be
apprehensive. The transition from those who crafted the proposals
to those who will implement them is notorious difficult. The
need for everything is such, that there will be a tendency
to accept whatever comes up for permit: casino designs of
stunning size and garishness; oceanfront condominiums so tall
that they forever blow the scale of the townscape; their attendant
parking garages brutally blocking the light and view of adjacent
neighborhoods; any of the many "improvement" that
MDOT has to offer, regardless of the consequences to pedestrian
life; the instant slums of ill-designed mobile home parks;
the low-end models of the big box retailers, instead of the
better ones available for places that require it.
There is no doubt that some of the eleven
municipalities will succumb to what can only be called a "beggar's
syndrome". The situation of being grateful for anything
that comes your way is common enough, even without the current
crying need for taxable projects and housing and shops. It
may be hard to break the trance of inferiority. Yet it only
requires the consciousness that these place in Mississippi
are too good for that kind of abuse. It must be borne in mind
that any condo developer, or national retailer, or casino
needs a site on the gulf coast as much as the gulf coast need
them. Their business plan has been made. They want in. They
will not go away if told to go back and do a better job. It
will take spirited leadership of the kind that was apparent
during the week of the design forum. It takes self- respect
to demand excellence. Just once. The better result will break
the trance of low expectations.
We hope that this spirit will continue
as long as it is necessary. This is difficult because this
process will take a generation or more - and that is perhaps
the heaviest burden. For the time required to achieve the
vision will surpass our personal ability to be involved. The
task is not only to begin, but also to institutionalize the
vision so that it survives and transcends us. For this purpose
this report offers codes that will be an integral part of
the long-range planning effort. And, no less important are
the other reports presented to the Governor's Commission that
will join this one in addressing the future of the Gulf Coast
in it's many other particulars.
This will be an epic journey. It is
the hope of those of us who were present at the first steps
that when they look back, the people of the Gulf Coast will
not be seen as victims of tragedy, but as a generation fortunate
to have been there at the beginning of a renaissance.
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