The Mayors’ Institute on City Design: Lessons from Charleston

April 3, 2009

What does a mayor do, after being called to a 3 a.m. fire of a beloved historic building, when at 8 a.m,. gathered in front of the charred remains, city fire officials convey somber news that "the building needs to be razed." Does the Mayor use his power and persuasive abilities to save and rebuild the iconic building, or does he let a century old beloved architectural treasure simply disappear from the city landscape forever?

These questions and more, plus dramatic stories of creating river greenways despite insurmountable odds and inspiring citizens with "small acts of beauty," riveted audiences one February night during a lively, anecdotal and well-illustrated presentation by Joseph Riley, Mayor of Charleston, at a proceeding of the Mayors' Institute on City Design in Philadelphia hosted by our Mayor Michael A. Nutter from February 12 to 14, 2009.

Keeping up with your email these days is not easy.  Priorities need to be made -- which to delete and which to save -- sometimes hard to figure out, sometimes not. Not so hard to figure out is to save emails from PlanPhilly, a project of Penn Praxis, the clinical arm of the School of Design of the University Pennsylvania, these are definitely "keepers."  Their emails highlight intriguing lists of topics and event links that encompass both broad issues and the finer details that face urban dwellers in a complex web of commercial, industrial, and residential landscapes.  PennPraxis technology brings us substantially closer to "Penn's Greene Country Towne" via electronic communications most recently evidenced in a special event invitation to attend the Mayors' Institute on City Design. The topic Mayor Joseph Riley: Preservation and Redevelopment of the American City: The Charleston Experience caught my eye since Charleston is a place I have always wanted to visit, but have been stymied, despite enticing cultural trips offered by the likes of the Society of Architectural Historians, among others.  Charleston  appeals not only as a unique architectural City, but also as a cultural and historic destination, and due to its port location (sound familiar?) having played a role in American military history spanning both Revolutionary and Civil Wars.  Ultimately, despite, my fixedness to remain above the Mason Dixon Line I love to cross over temporarily to beautiful Southern metropolises and climes ... Savannah and Charleston inspiring this impetus.  So, on a cold dark night, the armchair traveler in me was compelled to -- at the very least -- travel briefly and conveniently via SEPTA from Center to West Philadelphia to make a further trip (via PowerPoint) to this renowned beautiful and balmy coastal city.

What is the Mayors' Institute on City Design? It is a "life line" organization for mayors that provides them a unique learning environment of mutual support and exchange among a civic body now comprising 750 mayors who wish to create, protect , and enhance the quality of life in American cities.  The Institute allows mayors to gather from across the country, along with leading design professionals, to study their cities' most pressing planning issues, a  kind of "case study institute of city design."  The forum is also open to the public to give them an opportunity to hear from some of the talent coming from across the country (per PhillyPlan).  The Institute was created 20 years ago and is going strong as a consortium effort at transforming communities through design, working in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts, The American Architectural Foundation, and The US Conference of Mayors. These noble and lofty goals came to life on February 12, 2009 in Philadelphia with an illustrated lecture by Mayor Joseph Riley of Charleston, South Carolina, who also was a, Institute  co-founder with architect/urban designer Jaquelin Robertson.

The gathering was held in the distinguished collegiately Gothic Houston Hall  in the dramatic Hall of Flags thanks to Penn's new Dean of the School of Design, Marilyn Jordan Taylor, and was hosted within a local partnership group comprising the Philadelphia City Planning Commission, PennPraxis, and the  Academy of Natural Sciences among others, and was kicked off with introductory remarks by Philadelphia's Mayor Michael Nutter.  The room definitely "twittered" when Mayor Nutter arrived with a much anticipated late entrance.  The room achieved an even greater buzz when he worked the front two rows where were seated an impressive number of mayors, four or five in attendance in the front two rows of the packed auditorium.  I noticed friendly and at-ease power handshaking with heads leaned towards close to one another to whisper some mutual shared comment or moment of appreciation, with broad smiles suffusing the group.  It is in moments like these, where you witness body language and small but perceivable interactions, that one comes to realize how important it is for our elected officials to just "hang" with each other, to  learn, understand, and appreciate what so-and-so is doing, how are they handling such and such a situation either 100 miles up or down I-95.  When Mayor Michael Nutter amusingly introduced himself, lacking an introducer, by dramatically intoning "and now introducing the Mayor of Philadelphia" you knew the evening would completely express charm and warmth. After his theatrical self-introduction, Mayor Nutter announced "I am going to enjoy this lecture and relish the opportunity to stay, sit down, and hear Mayor Riley speak," and he did so, impressively, remaining seated and attentive throughout, and room-wide no BlackBerry-induced bowed heads were apparent.

Personal and thoughtful remarks made both Mayors Nutter and Riley encapsulated "what is the Mayors' Institute on City Design and why does it exist?"  The Answer:  to give aid and support to mayors who come to be in charge of  a city based on their ability to manage finances, network, advocate (and any of the above), but rarely to plan beautiful and inspiring cities.  They emphasized that none (if few) elected mayors have experience or degrees in city planning where, interestingly, Greater Philadelphia is a nexus for such work with the University of Pennsylvania School of Design with a department devoted to City and Regional Planning and Bryn Mawr College's  degree program in the Growth and Structure of Cities.  Mayor Riley was a wonderful and assured speaker who laced his talk with quips and humorous anecdotes about how he achieved results and successful outcomes despite being surrounded by timid and frequently "rules rule" bureaucrats.  His was a message of  "let me tell you how I use some 'cussed individualism,' street smarts and some strategic craftiness to achieve my lofty -- more permanent lasting -- goals."  His is a treasured landscape that Americans have come to nickname the Venice of the South, Charleston with wonderful waterfronts, albeit on a peninsula, on our Atlantic seaboard.

Riley set the tone with his talk about his city's experience in preservation and redevelopment by summarizing Charleston's city planning (or lack of planning) history in the 1950s by tearing down "out of date" historic structures with neoclassical ornamentation such as two-storey Corinthian columns in favor of more modern ones such as one-storye brick drive-in motels. Thankfully, Charleston has Riley (who began his term in 1975 and is now serving his ninth unprecedented term) to preserve the architectural beauty and cityscapes of this charming city on the sea.

Some of Mayor Riley's achievements visible in Charleston today include:

• Creating greenways and recreational activities along the waterfront
• Camouflaging garages to look like any other building, just not a garage
• Overruling cars, as the predominant deciders, of streets configurations
• Emphasizing a citizen's right to experience a pleasant street experience
• Hiring architects who will visually integrate low with moderate income housing
• Demanding higher aesthetic standards of architects to build low income housing
• Preserving the corner building on a block as a means to preserve the character of the whole block
• Keeping big and old trees despite construction hindrances of such trees
• Allowing citizens on foot, not just in cars, to experience beautiful ocean views
• Fighting for and creatively saving, preserving, historic buildings after fires
• Encouraging visitors to drop off their cars and take the DASH Shuttle (thus saving a few marriages along the way)
• Entitling Charlestonians to experience beautiful vistas and buildings, emphasizing that individuals deserve to experience beauty in their city proper, frequently being the only place they will ever live, never leaving.

In closing, this mayor who clearly has gained the love and admiration of the City of Charleston, stated that prophetically and wisely, especially given the current economic crisis roiling though our country and region, that mayors tangle with budgets and fiscal dilemmas which 20, 30, 50 years down the road will be forgotten by many people, but when they build something, change something, destroy something physical in their city, that mark can last forever, at the very least for the next 50-100 years.

Exactly two weeks later on February 26, 2009, I was invited by Avi Eden who was recently named to the Board of Directors of the Delaware River Waterfront Corporation  to attend a panel discussion and lively forum on "Community Groups and Distressing Economic Times" in memory of his late wife Judith Eden (thanks again to the informative and street savvy PlanPhilly you can read all about it).  The forum focused on development and the community and how our community can work with and against developers. One of the first statements made by our impressively late arriving Mayor Nutter was "Obviously there is much more pressure to have economic activity in the City of Philadelphia, but I don't necessarily know that we should lower our standards just because we're in dire straits," Nutter continued.... "I mean, things are bad, they're going to be bad for a while, but it's not going to last forever, and you know, bad projects usually stay bad for a long time."  Thankfully, these are just one of a few Lessons from Charleston.

-- Teddy Ashmead, Director of Development