Brooklyn nostalgia trip (not for hipsters) -- Part I



Let's take a Brooklyn break.

Brooklyn street box -- Kings Plaza mall

Let's take a break in southeast Brooklyn, where I grew up. A place where hipsters are apparently still few in number. No subway to take you directly to Manhattan; no sidewalk cafes. Some pretty awful, gentry-repellant features -- along with a surprising degree of compact walkability and urban amenity. The image at left might lead you to think the area is a wasteland, but the urbanism is there. The contrasts might possibly make the place more interesting than a Disneyland paradise of narrow streets.

The New York Times has characterized the non-gentrified parts of Brooklyn as either "rough-edged" or anachronistically suburban. Residents of the more  "suburban" areas are portrayed as reveling in an abundance of parking and as preferring "manicured lawns" to "reimagined 19th-century row houses." I'm by no means familiar with every part of Brooklyn -- gentrified or not -- but this suburban characterization of the borough's more outlying areas sounds inaccurate to me.

The neighborhoods that I want to focus on in this and a forthcoming companion post -- Old Mill Basin, Flatlands, Georgetown -- actually exhibit what I think is a rather unique mix of walk appeal and trashy sprawl, with the sprawl elements perhaps protecting the area as a whole from an undesirable socioeconomic "upgrade."

The residential construction in these parts -- dense without being overcrowded, consisting mainly of brick single-family and multifamily rowhouses and small wood frame homes on very modest plots -- could hardly be improved upon, as we'll see below. The commercial areas, by contrast, encompass everything from traditional shopping streets to hideous strip malls, to the windowless hulk of Kings Plaza. But however gargantuan their parking facilities may be, they are still easily accessible by public transit and get plenty of foot traffic from the locals living just across the "stroad."

What I want to convey in these posts are the contrasts and incongruities that make this part of Brooklyn liveable and loveable without being elitist. My "taking a break" idea reflects nostalgic promptings as well as an element of opportunism -- my brother happened to be in the area and took some nice photos, which I couldn't resist using (interspersed with a great many Google street views).  I'm also partly inspired here by the "traditional-city breaks" that form a part of Nathan Lewis' enlightening and entertaining Traditional City/Heroic Materialism archive. Now I know Lewis doesn't care much for Brooklyn, which he dismisses as a collection of 19th-century hypertrophic streets. He's certainly right about the excessive road widths; but my feeling, as someone who grew up in south southern Brooklyn and whose taste for walkable urbanism was formed there, is that you can, somehow, compartmentalize -- look past the hypertrophy and see an excellent housing stock, great connectivity, pleasant street environments, and, on the whole, superior conditions for car-free or car-lite living.

Maybe Kings Plaza and the strip malls lining Ralph Ave. should be filed under the rubric of "good enough urbanism." And maybe their very ugliness plays a role in ensuring that the area retains its heterogeneity!

I'm going to look at the housing styles of southeast Brooklyn in the present post, and (Gd willing) follow up with a discussion of the area's commercial development in a companion post. My idea, again, is that the housing in this part of the world fits the bill for compact-walkable urbanism; the shopping centers are car-oriented and vulgar; and yet the two formats somehow manage to work together.

Housing in Old Mill Basin and Flatlands

Brick rowhouses:

They may not date from the 19th century, they may not be brownstones, but they are rowhouses and they come in a variety of forms -- single-family, two- and three-family; equipped with rear alleys or front-loading garages (which, however, are relatively unobtrusive); presenting all sorts of variations on the front stoop/front porch/front patch of shrubbery theme (yet without over-large set-backs).

I'm going to display a few representative specmens, with comments to follow:

East 58th St. near Ave. J -- three-unit houses with front-loading garages
(Google street view)

 

E. 55th near Ave. O (Google street view)

Ave. T near E. 59th -- (attractive houses, over-wide road)

E. 52 near Ave. J -- rowhouses coexisting with other housing types  (Google street view)

E. 59th between O and T -- single-family rowhouses, no garages, rear alley for parking

E. 55th between J and K  (Google street view)

Avenue J near E. 51 -- The houses look tiny, but include small ground-floor rental units
(Google street view)

Here's what I like about the brick rowhouses:

1) Good enough density: I'm not interested in comparing the density delivered by this housing format with that of some mythical -- or real -- skyscraper city. What's nice about this part of Brooklyn is the implicit understanding, embodied in the built environment, that you have to quit while you're ahead. You have block after block here defined by solid walls of housing, with very little wasted space. You can fit a lot of people into this kind of housing, without making them too uncomfortable.

2) Heterogeneity: The fact that there is a mix of single- and multifamily dwellings means that people of widely-varying economic circumstances, age levels and personal/familial statuses can all live in the same neighborhood, and enjoy the same street environment, as well as the same local services, amenities and shopping facilities. The brick rowhouse is an especially democratic form of housing, in that its multifamily and single-family incarnations don't look too different from each other. Basically, it's all just the same wall of houses, plus or minus a storey, with small stylistic variations. The rowhouse is a great leveler: it blurs socioeconomic distinctions and provides less affluent people with living conditions that are almost identical to those of their better-off neighbors. The owner/landlord of a multifamily rowhouse gets to enjoy a small backyard and the convenience of a garage for his vehicle. The tenant, who might be living just upstairs from the landlord in virtually the same apartment, lacks a backyard and a designated parking spot; but he does get to enjoy residing on the same attractive and people-friendly street, in the same pleasant and safe neighborhood as his landlord, despite his inability to afford a home of his own. He might not need a parking spot because he might not own a car; in any case, he would certainly be able to get by without one in this transit- and shopping-rich area.

I'll illustrate the democratization point further by referring to my own personal experience: while I was growing up, my family (in various configurations) occupied no fewer than 4 of the houses pictured above. We owned a single-family rowhouse while my parents were married, then rented a series of apartments in multi-family rowhouses after they divorced -- first a small ground-level apartment (with entrance next to the garage) during the financially tight immediate post-divorce period, then a larger, upstairs apartment when things had stabilized. While all these upheavals were going on, I was able to attend the same school, keep all my friends, and still feel part of the same general neighborhood. That was a great advantage. Later on, as a young man in his twenties, working full-time and going to college part-time, my brother actually returned to this area and rented one of the small ground-floor apartments on his own. He just liked the neighborhood so much that it seemed natural to to him to return to it, even after the rest of the family had moved away.

2) No snouthouses! Note that many of these brick rowhouses come equipped with 1-car front-loading garages (as well as driveways that effectively provide additional private parking spaces). Note as well that these garages manage not to detract from the pleasantness of the building facades or kill the street atmosphere. The Old Urbanist blog has explored the question of whether townhouses and front-loading garages can work together -- here and here. I think these specimens hold their own alongside those featured in the Old Urbanist posts.


 Small single-family wooden frame houses:

These come  as fully detached houses or as semi-detached pairs, with small front yards, small back yards, and narrow paths (often used as driveways) between them. They are older than the brick rowhouses and, while I was growing up, were thought to be an inferior, less prestigious form of housing. Archie Bunker's house (in Queens) is of this type, reinforcing the blue-collar image. Not having spent much time in the area since the early 1990s, I'm not sure this class distinction still exists -- though the Google street views do show quite a few American flags (perhaps denoting military service or political affiliation?) on the porches of these houses, a sight that is uncommon on the brick rowhouse streets. 

I always had a regard for these dwellings and enjoyed walking along the streets lined with them, even when they were thought (by some) to be disreputable. They vary the scene by breaking up the blocks of brick rowhouses, and by displaying a certain diversity of color, facade, etc. I don't think this is the phony kind of diversity that you have in suburban tract housing. The idea is that the houses all work together to form a complete street environment (just as the brick rowhouses do). They are modest in size, the spaces between them are small, and they create the desired "outdoor room" or enclosure effect that is thought to be essential to the pedestrian experience.

Representative samples:

East 53rd near Ave. O (Google street view)

E. 57th near Ave. O -- jazzing things up with partial brick veneer ( Google street view)

E. 53rd near Ave. S -- co-existing with brick rowhouses ( Google street view)

E. 61st near Ave. T -- small stylistic variations (Google street view)

Mill Ave. and Ralph -- American flags

It's interesting to compare the street environment yielded by these single-family wooden frame houses of Old Mill Basin with the single-family homes that line the streets of "new" Mill Basin -- an enclave that, unlike Old Mill Basin, does fit the New York Times label of "suburbia:" 

E. 64th St. near Mayfair Drive South, suburban Mill Basin
(Google street view)

E. 66th St., suburban Mill Basin (Google street view)

The NYT article linked to above doesn't distinguish between Old and "new" Mill Basin, but when it talks about a "zone of lawn mowers" and a "country club’s worth of swimming pools," it's referring to the newer area that juts into Jamaica Bay and was "whipped up from scratch" by engineers -- not to nearby Old Mill Basin with its more traditional street grid and architectural style.

Why do these two latter photos from "new" Mill Basin scream Suburbia, while the preceding ones from Old Mill Basin don't (and I've deliberately steered clear of the McMansions that have recently replaced many of the original "new" Mill Basin houses)? These aren't huge houses, and the garages don't protrude for a snouthouse effect. The setbacks of the "new" Mill Basin houses aren't any larger than those of the classic Old Mill Basin houses, the spaces between them aren't much larger, and they display similar slight variations of color, window and porch style, etc. Why do these suburban-Mill Basin homes have such a solitary, every-man-for-himself feel? Why, taken together, do they produce monotony rather than harmony? Even as a teenager, visiting friends in "new" Mill Basin, I could tell the difference between this much more expensive/upscale area and the area where I lived, and preferred my own area.

Old Mill Basin/Flatlands housing styles -- subjective/emotional response:

Why do the unglamorous street scenes of Old Mill Basin and Flatlands tug at the heart? (And I believe they could tug at anyone's heart, not just the heart of someone who grew up there.)

Modesty. Simplicity. Staying within bounds. Small parts making up a whole that is greater than the sum. Being separate -- together. Everybody having their own bit of privacy and comfort, that do not come at anybody else's expense. 

These, in my subjective estimation, are the values embodied in the housing styles of Old Mill Basin and Flatlands, and are what give these neighborhoods their peculiar charm. Living within limits, when translated into architecture, apparently has aesthetic merit. Making the most of available space, "a place for everything, and everything in its place." 

Walking these streets -- or even looking at them via Google street view -- is at once restful and stimulating. Simplicity is pretty, and fun.

Charles Siegel's Politics of Simple Living connects traditional neighborhood design with precisely these values of simple living. 

***********************************************************

I'll leave the reader with just one more Google street view that shows how these tranquil, walkable streets coexist with elements of autocentrism and sprawl, in anticipation of Brooklyn nostalgia trip -- Part II:

View of Kings Plaza Lowe's shopping mall, E. 55th St. intersection
(Google street view)

Jerusalem’s Newest Tourist Attraction: Open-Air Escalators in Har Homa

לגרסה העברית

For several years now, Jerusalem’s Har Homa neighborhood has been the test site for an innovative form of underground garbage dumpster. Recently, however, the Municipality announced that Har Homa will be the venue for a somewhat more glamorous initiative: a system of open-air escalators. If all goes according to plan, the escalators will function as a public transportation mode, help residents cope with the neighborhood’s difficult topography, and attract tourists.

Har Homa’s residents – like those of other hilly Jerusalem neighborhoods – are all too aware of the mobility problems occasioned by steep inclines. Although a healthy adult with time to spare might, with only a little huffing and puffing, be able to climb the hundreds of outdoor stairs by which streets are typically connected in these neighborhoods, such is not the case for senior citizens, people with disabilities, mothers with young children in tow, and those faced with time constraints (such as parents who need to get their children to school or kindergarten before proceeding to their workplaces).



One of Har Homa's many "extreme" staircases

Up to now, Har Homa residents have dealt with this problem by using their private cars to get to and from most, or all, local destinations. In accordance with current planning rules, all neighborhood buildings were designed with hefty amounts of off-street parking. As a result, local households have found it convenient to own two cars, and sometimes more. The availability of these vehicles has made it possible for Har Homa residents to get to neighborhood supermarkets, groceries, health clinics, kindergartens, schools, synagogues, beauty parlors, pizza parlors, candy stores, the community center, and all other local destinations without having to climb endless stairs, or take heartbreakingly circuitous detours on foot in order to avoid the stairs.

Unfortunately, the minimum parking requirements, while ostensibly solving problems of local mobility and access, have created their own issues: horrendous traffic in the areas surrounding the neighborhood’s educational institutions and shopping centers, a Wild-West attitude toward parking, air pollution, excessively wide roads, unsafe and unpleasant conditions for pedestrians, and exceptionally unattractive architecture due to the need to house vast numbers of automobiles. All of things are inconsistent with current municipal policy, which seeks to promote walkability and public transit use, and to reduce car dependency to the extent possible.

Enter the Municipality's newest initiative, to be implemented in the coming months: the installation of a state-of-the-art open-air escalator system to supplement Har Homa’s network of outdoor staircases – and, in some instances, to replace those staircases.



Medellin escalator, courtesy of DaniBlanchette, Flickr

Outdoor escalators are operated in quite a few cities around the world, Barcelona and Hong Kong among them. Over the past few years, particular interest has been generated by the impressive system installed in Comuna 13, one of Medellín, Colombia's poorest neighborhoods, whose topography greatly resembles that of Jerusalem’s Har Homa. Unlike Har Homa residents, however, the denizens of Medellín’s most notorious slum have no private cars available to them, and until recently were forced to use stairs equal in number to those of a 28-story building in order to reach the city’s employment and commercial centers. The escalator system, like the cable car system that also serves as a mode of public transit in Medellín, is a social-justice project aimed at improving local residents’ living conditions, connecting them to the city and to jobs, and setting real social change in motion. The success of these initiatives earned Medellín the title of Innovative City of the Year for 2013 (beating out Tel Aviv, which placed second).

One may ask: why is the status of a third-world city such as Medellín relevant to our discussion of a Jerusalem neighborhood, most of whose residents fall somewhere along the middle-class spectrum and own private automobiles that give them mobility both within the neighborhood and outside it?

We posed this question to Deputy Mayor Ruth Sela, holder of the Jerusalem Municipality’s planning and environment portfolios, during a joint interview with her fellow deputy mayor, Gabi Ganon.

Sela: “We need to stop viewing the private car as the default solution to every transport situation, and as a symbol of status and luxury. The private car is simply destroying our built environment, and our health along with it. The present municipal leadership is an enlightened one that wants to advance sustainability and promote public health, and the car dependency that currently prevails in Jerusalem’s peripheral neighborhoods is inconsistent with that approach.

“After all, we’ve turned Jaffa Road into the country’s longest and most attractive pedestrian mall. You can’t go anywhere near the center of town nowadays with a private car, and over the coming years this trend will only intensify. Pretty soon there will be almost nowhere in Jerusalem to take a car to, or park one in – except the peripheral ‘residential’ neighborhoods! So it makes sense to implement our policy in these neighborhoods as well. Rather than each family owning multiple vehicles just so they can get to destinations within the neighborhood, we’re going to enable them to get to those destinations on foot, and to give up at least one family car.”

But, despite what you’ve said about Jerusalem’s core areas becoming increasingly car-hostile, the residents of Har Homa still need to use their cars to get to jobs and shopping centers outside the neighborhood, in the absence of any viable alternative.

Sela: “Of course we can’t hope to advance the escalator project and promote ‘car divestment’ without drastically improving public transit service to the neighborhood. The frequency of the bus lines that serve Har Homa will be increased to every 10 minutes rather than every 20 (or more) – constituting true ‘rapid bus service.’ We’ll also be annulling the parking minimums for residential construction, so it will be a lot harder to own more than one family car.”

Cancelling the parking minimums will surely be an unpopular move. People might start asking whether the Municipality isn’t intervening inappropriately in residents’ lives. If Jerusalemites have grown accustomed to using their cars for every out-of-home excursion, and if they enjoy the feeling of status and power that it gives them, why ruin it for them?

Sela: “Look, as a public official I have to think, and also act, with my constituents’ long-term interests in view – even if that entails decisions that are unpopular in the short run. The prevailing lifestyle in Har Homa and in Jerusalem’s other peripheral neighborhoods is simply unsustainable and unhealthy. The impoverished residents of Medellín’s worst slum are now benefiting from a neighborhood infrastructure that facilitates walking; they will neither want nor need private cars even once their economic status improves. They’re going to stay trim and fit, while the relatively affluent residents of Har Homa will be quivering gelatinous masses. You know, rumors have got round to us in the Municipality that Har Homa residents like to tie their garbage bags to their car antennas and drive with them to the garbage dumpsters located just a few meters from each building. It’s this kind of behavior that I, as a public official, feel obligated to address.”

That does still have overtones of ‘Big Brother’.

Sela: Hey, Mayor Bloomberg of New York City looks out for his public in just the same way – he takes things even farther. Go into a New York restaurant and open the menu – you’ll find that every item has a calorie estimate next to it. Bloomberg’s even trying to prohibit the sale of sweetened beverages in the city, as a public health measure.”

That particular effort hasn't succeeded. It was thought to be too intrusive – and that’s just what people are liable to think about your attempt to separate Jerusalemites from their cars.

Sela: “The escalator project – and the sustainability considerations that lie behind it – are issues of urban and transport planning that fall within the purview of a municipal authority. Not only that, but the question of the automobile’s place in the urban environment is absolutely one that municipalities should be facing up to and answering.”

At this point in the interview signs of impatience could be discerned in the facial expressions and body language of Deputy Mayor Gabi Ganon, who up to now had maintained a polite silence.

Ganon: “With all due respect to my colleague and to her concern for sustainability and public health, I have to take issue with the idea that environmental and health concerns are what ultimately set the escalator project in motion.

“The current municipal leadership is a proudly capitalist one, and it’s not reasonable for the Municipality to undertake projects of this magnitude just to make residents happy and ensure their physical fitness. We’re not a welfare state anymore.

“An initiative has to be potentially profitable – otherwise, how can we fund it? How would we raise the funds for an infrastructural project as complex as the Har Homa escalators?”

Indeed, we were planning to ask just that question. How will the Municipality be paying for the construction and operation of the escalators?

Ganon: “This is the good part. The Municipality won’t be spending a penny of its own money. And it won’t have to go schnorring, either. Two worthy and committed Jews, one Israeli and one from the Diaspora – with the means and the desire to benefit both the city and themselves – will be investing in the project and, in time, will receive an impressive return on their investment.”

How will they get a ‘return’ on a project whose main purpose is to advance the public good, not to generate income? Will users have to pay a toll?

Ganon [chuckling]: “No, no, no toll. It’s an interesting idea, but probably not practicable. No, there are other ways to make money off a project.

“Look, the concept of ‘the public good’ has passed its expiration date – it belongs to the socialist era. Today’s philanthropists have learned this very well. They’ve reached the conclusion – and this is very consistent with Jewish tradition, by the way – that the highest form of charity is enabling others to earn a living, not just to throw money at them. And this is where the escalators fit in. The environmental and health benefits will essentially be by-products. The escalators’ real function is to be a tourist attraction, like the ones in Hong Kong, which upgraded a topographically problematic area and turned it into a vibrant, sought-after commercial quarter! The same thing will happen in Har Homa. You’ve got wonderful views of Bethlehem there – Christian tourists will come in droves, once the proper investment has been made. We might even put in a cable car system to run between Har Homa and Bethlehem, like the one we’re planning to operate between the Old City and the Khan Theater. Kevin Bermeister, the escalator’s main financer (along with Erel Margalit), will buy one of the neighborhood’s residential towers and turn it into a swanky hotel, Erel will open a few non-kosher restaurants, and everybody will profit. It’s a slam dunk!”

What -- drab, monotonous Har Homa, with its endless vistas of ground-level garages, is going to become a tourist destination?



Hong Kong (covered) escalators --
 courtesy of Maucaine via Wikipedia

Ganon: “Why not? They predicted at first that the Hong Kong escalators would be a total failure, but the novelty attracted people and led to the opening of innumerable businesses, shops and restaurants, situated mainly at the escalator system’s entry and exit points. A form of ‘transit-oriented development,’ if you will. Regarding Har Homa, we’ll soften the regulations so that the garages of the residential buildings can be converted into commercial spaces. There’ll be boutiques, cafés and pubs at the ground level of the buildings.”

Sounds like science fiction. But to what degree is this really agreeable to the residents themselves? Maybe they don’t want a pub at the ground level of every building? After all, it’s a neighborhood consisting mainly of young families, most of them religiously observant to some degree or other.

Ganon: “Look, a pub on the ground floor is a negligible price to pay compared with all the money that’s going to be flowing into the neighborhood -- money that will make it possible to provide Har Homa with all of the municipal services that are currently lacking there – a library, a well-baby clinic equal to the patient load, shade structures in the playgrounds, kindergarten buildings and synagogues in accordance with demand, development and maintenance of green spaces. The Municipality will finally agree to take responsibility for all those areas that have been left in Construction Ministry limbo. All the problems that the folks in Har Homa are constantly whining about will finally be resolved!”

Wait a minute – shouldn’t the neighborhood be getting all these services anyway, in return for the arnona [municipal property tax] that the residents pay?

Ganon: Don’t make me laugh. Did you really think residents are entitled to something in return for their arnona? Arnona barely covers garbage pick-up, after you take into account all the other really important things the Municipality has to finance with its limited resources. New sports and entertainment arenas that overrun their original budgets by a hundred million shekels, for instance. And let's not forget cool events like the Formula 1 road show planned for next month. With stuff like that going on, is it any wonder there's no money left for neighborhood libraries? The peripheral neighborhoods need to stop asking what the city can do for them, and start asking what they can do for the city -- then maybe they'll get somewhere."

But does Jerusalem really need yet another tourist destination? Aren’t the Old City and the revitalized downtown enough?

Ganon: “Decentralization and breaking up monopolies -- that's the name of the game. Why shouldn’t other neighborhoods enter the tourism market? Healthy competition between neighborhoods will ensure optimal delivery of tourism experiences to all those who visit the city – that is, to all customers purchasing the Jerusalem ‘product.’ Basically, I want to do in the urban arena what my brother did in the cellular one – open things up to competition. Besides, we’ve come to realize that the Old City and downtown Jerusalem simply won’t be able to handle the load once we reach ten million and more tourists per year. These areas have no carrying capacity. You throw two falafel wrappers on the ground and the city’s filthy.

“We need neighborhoods like Har Homa to take up the slack.”

********

*Note: The above is, of course, a satirical piece; the author hopes that no one will attribute the "interview" statements to any actual Jerusalem deputy mayors, past or present. The "interview" merely aims to take to their logical conclusion certain ideas that have gained currency in recent years, and to provoke thought.

Some more unasked questions about the Begin Expressway Extension



Begin South Extension (simulation: J'lm Municipality)

In my last post I looked at the Begin extension from the perspective of the south Jerusalem neighborhoods and suburbs that it is meant to serve. I asked whether the extension would ultimately enhance the livability of these neighborhoods (Gilo in particular).  I took it upon myself to pose this question because I had noticed, with frustration, that the media were paying attention solely to the Beit Safafa side of the affair, and were completely ignoring the extension's potential impact on all other parts of town. I'm still frustrated. Here are a few more questions that no one seems to be asking:


In what way will the extended (and widened) Begin Expressway be exempt from the phenomenon of induced demand?

"Say goodbye to traffic jams!" rhapsodizes an unnamed author in the Jerusalem Municipality's online magazine, with regard to the Begin extension. The extension is meant to replace the route currently traveled by residents of Gilo, Har Homa and Gush Etzion on their way to the Begin entry point at Golomb St.; part of it will run as a tunnel under Dov Yosef Road, constituting, in effect, an expansion of current roadway capacity (beyond the recent lane addition to an already-existing segment of the expressway). One must ask (and the answer is pretty obvious): has the planning echelon taken into account the well-known phenomenon by which such capacity expansion "provides smaller net benefits than is often recognized, due to the effects of generated traffic?" Has it tried to envision the potentially greater congestion that a lengthened and expanded Begin Expressway is likely to produce, precisely because it will encourage more driving around town? Has it, in short, paid any attention to the considerable body of research showing that highways "that were supposed to handle projected demand for decades became congested in just a few years, because of the traffic that they themselves generated?" In its eagerness to move as many south-Jerusalemites to the opposite end of town as possible, like so many pawns across a chessboard, has the Municipality considered any alternatives to highway extension and widening? Better public transit, say? or more efficient use of land resources so that south Jerusalemites might have jobs, services, amenities and shopping available closer to home, thereby obviating the need for cross-town travel?

Where are all the cars going to park once they get there?

Anyone who has been driving in Jerusalem over the past decade has witnessed a tremendous reduction in the amount of parking space available (relative to the ever-greater number of cars on the road) in pretty much any part of town that is worth going to. Many parking spaces that were once free are now paid spaces -- a positive development in terms of discouraging private car use and fostering the use of other modes. Given this situation, one can hardly help wondering why the Municipality would be actively encouraging south Jerusalemites to come downtown every day in their cars. I doubt that the 1,300-space park-and-ride garage planned for the future highrise office complex at the city's western entrance will be able to accommodate them all. Surely some of those spaces will be needed for the Tel Avivians who will be converging en masse to do business in Jerusalem's shiny new CBD. (Presumably not all of them will be enlightened enough to ride the future high-speed railway from TA to Jerusalem -- especially once Highway 1, the road connecting Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, has been widened). In all seriousness, if the Municipality is touting the transit connectivity of its envisioned CBD, shouldn't it be prioritizing transit options, rather than private-vehicle access, to that CBD from all parts of town? Why are the residents of Gilo, Har Homa, the Gush Etzion suburbs, etc., being excluded, by implication, from the city's great transit revolution? Why would they want to use the light rail line that is being planned for Derech Hevron if they are being provided with direct entry to Jerusalem's premier automobile artery? And if the lack of parking in town is ultimately going to deter them from using their cars, why do they need the Begin extension in the first place?


How will the Begin extension affect the Malha area?

This question presupposes that the area around the Malha Mall, Teddy Stadium and Malha Technology Park is a public space like any other, with potential for fine-grained urban development encompassing a variety of uses, including residential, and a variety of building types. This premise, however, is by no means self-evident to the Jerusalem Municipality, which appears to regard the area as a dead space waiting to be fashioned into a network of roads (what little of it has not already been given over to roads), the better to service one of the many mega-projects it has going around town -- the Jerusalem Arena.

Self-contained complex with tons of parking:
the planned Jerusalem Arena
(simulation via J'lm Municipality)

The question of whether the Jerusalem Arena is truly an economic-engine-in-the-making, or a boondoggle of cataclysmic proportions, deserves a post of its own, if not a public commission of inquiry. The fact that the project's cost was underestimated by NIS 120 million and that funding for "other projects in the city, including youth centers, [elder] services, and neighborhood sports complexes" has, consequently, been diverted to it, does not necessarily reflect on its potential value -- though the worth of such projects has indeed been called into question for decades by economists (“If you want to inject money into the local economy, it would be better to drop it from a helicopter than invest it in a new ballpark”).

Of course it's hard to discuss transport-related decisions separately from decisions about land use, since the two topics are intimately connected. Suffice it to say that a municipality that insists on erecting self-contained, single-use complexes in Malha (a mall, an office park, a stadium, and now a sports-and-entertainment arena) could hardly be expected to treat the land surrounding these distinct compounds as the future site of bustling, human-scaled streets where Jerusalemites might live, work, play and socialize in a variety of settings.

Town planner Gerard Heumann has noted that "At Malha, a shopping center, sports stadium, technology park and residential neighborhood were designed as if each existed on separate planets. Not a single building in the technology park bounds adjacent roads, not even opposite the shopping center, where a golden opportunity existed for the design of valuable commercial space at ground level." It's not that the Municipality has something against valuable commercial space; it's that the Municipality is incapable of conceiving that, outside of its beloved "historic downtown," anyone would want to move around such spaces on foot.

Will the infrastructure for Begin Expressway South, which will cut across Malha with "service roads" for the mall and stadium, enhance the Malha area's urban values, or utterly destroy them?
Haaretz reporter Nir Hasson asserts that "The Begin Highway does not cut through Beit Hakerem or any other neighborhood in Jerusalem. It delimits Jewish neighborhoods but cuts the Palestinian neighborhoods to pieces.” To cut through an existing neighborhood is a sad thing; but to keep existing neighborhoods from expanding because their boundaries have been artificially "delimited" by a highway is also sad. It is sad to think about the Malha that will never be -- the intensively-developed, lively mixed-use area that might have connected organically with the Katamonim, with the residential part of today's Malha and. indeed, with Beit Safafa; that might have enmeshed the mall, the office park and the stadium within a viable urban fabric.

And now for a few final questions:

Where is Jerusalem's urbanist community on this issue? Why isn't it making itself heard? And why is Deputy Mayor Naomi Tsur -- who has recently and publicly criticized Israel's infatuation with the automobile -- pretending that the Begin Extension is just a  logical and necessary component of Jerusalem's municipal transportation master plan ?

Bad for Beit Safafa, Good for Gilo? Extending Jerusalem's Menachem Begin Expressway Southward

The planned Menachem Begin Expressway South extension -- simulation (J'lm Municipality)

One of the most curious aspects of the Begin Expressway extension story is the absence of any comprehensive, city-wide angle on it.

When work started a few months back on the extension -- which is meant to provide the motorists of Jerusalem's southern neighborhoods and suburbs with direct access to the city's celebrated traffic artery -- a certain amount of media attention was generated; but that attention was entirely political in nature. Articles in Haaretz and elsewhere described an outrageous plan to run a multi-lane highway through the tranquil and picturesque village of Beit Safafa -- an Arab enclave in an otherwise Jewish-populated part of Jerusalem -- thereby slicing it in half and irreparably damaging the fabric of life there.

The issue, to the limited extent that the media have addressed it, has been given an exclusively sectoral spin. It has been framed as an evil Israeli plot to enable “settlers from Gush Etzion […] to drive to Jerusalem’s center or Tel Aviv without stopping at a single traffic light” -- at the expense of Beit Safafa's residents, who have been depicted  as easy targets for abuse by the Jerusalem Municipality due to their minority status. The residents, of course, mounted a protest which has been rejected by the Jerusalem District Court; they will soon be taking their appeal to the Supreme Court.

Highway revolts are nothing new, either abroad or in Israel, and in Israel it would be ridiculous to claim that they are restricted to the Arab population. I therefore find it astonishing that the Begin extension is being represented as an "Arab-Israeli" issue, rather than an urbanist one. While I sympathize with the Beit Safafa residents, I'm not at all sure that the matter at hand is one of ethnic discrimination. The Beit Safafa residents' claim that the city "has proceeded with work without carrying out a detailed plan for the segment of the expressway through the neighborhood, as required by law, and without allowing residents to file objections," sounds suspiciously like the argument mounted in 2010 by Jewish residents of Elmaliach Street in Katamonim Tet, when work preparatory to the Begin extension was launched without the residents having "received all of the material [and] documents necessary for them to properly formulate their objections."

In general, if one looks at things from a car-versus-human standpoint, one could easily argue that the Jerusalem Municipality treats Jewish neighborhoods no better than it does Arab ones. The Beit Safafa residents are justifiably upset that, due to the highway being build in their midst, their small children will now have to walk farther and cross a bridge in order to get to their nursery school. However, this is no different from the situation that currently exists in the Jewish neighborhood of Gilo (the Begin extension's planned termination point). Gilo's community council has proposed that footbridges (or even underpasses!) be erected across the neighborhood's dangerous main roads (see below), so that residents -- and especially children -- can get to schools and other public facilities without risking their lives.

It's not that the Jerusalem Municipality wants to torment and abuse its Jewish and Arab residents; it simply doesn't perceive that there is anything wrong with the car-oriented policies that shape development in the city's less central neighborhoods. Indeed it thinks of walkable urbanism as a city-center thing, as something to showcase in the Jaffa Road display window. The Municipality has jumped enthusiastically onto the creative class bandwagon and is actively striving to transform Jerusalem's "historic downtown" into a paradise of placemaking and urban amenity (that this effort is being paradoxically expended on a part of town that was walkable and attractive to begin with has not gone unnoticed). The idea is to attract tourists and hipsters who, it is assumed, will spend a lot of money and generate a trickle-down effect on the city's economy. The city's working-class outer neighborhoods, by contrast, are being left in their original state of car-dependent sprawl. While Beit Safafa is paying one sort of price for the prevailing urban policy, in the form of a multi-lane expressway that will slash through an area that is still human-scaled and walkable, neighborhoods like Gilo and Ramot have long been paying a different kind of price. They came "pre-slashed."

Gilo's highways

Since it's being claimed that the Jewish neighborhood of Gilo, at Jerusalem's southern edge, is going to benefit from the Begin extension at Beit Safafa's expense, it might be worth looking at Gilo's true current status. Is Gilo a pleasant, pedestrian-friendly place for which direct entry to Begin will be a harmless added perk?

Not exactly. In fact, it already suffers from the highway slash-through syndrome that Beit Safafa residents are seeking to avoid, and its symptoms will likely increase in severity once the Begin extension is added to the mix.

Gilo's unfriendly main street (HaGanenet segment)

Gilo is already bisected to some degree from north to south by Dov Yosef Road, and from east to west by another long road whose various segments are named HaRosmarin, HaGanenet and Tsviya-VeYitzhak. These roads are, in essence, highways, not neighborhood main streets or boulevards. Dov Yosef Road does not pretend to be anything other than a traffic artery connecting Gilo with the Malha Mall and the current Begin entry point at Golomb Street. By contrast, there is both residential construction and commercial activity along HaRosmarin, HaGanenet and Tsviya-VeYitzhak; however, these east-west roads (which, depending on the topography, either border a wadi or slice through built-up areas) are exceedingly wide, and range from four to six lanes with formidable dividers extending along much of them. Their main purpose is not to concentrate commercial or social activity within the neighborhood, but to channel automobile traffic to and from Dov Yosef Road and the Derech Hevron traffic artery to Gilo's east.

Gilo's main shopping complex is situated at the intersection of Tsviya-VeYitzhak and Leshem, and consists of a tiered outdoor center that is an accessibility nightmare and an adjacent indoor mall that cannot be reached safely by pedestrians.

Gilo central shopping complex

The complex's unfriendly design, unwalkable location, and proximity to the much larger Malha Mall, which most Gilo residents are able to reach within minutes by car, have been deadly to business; most of the Gilo Mall storefronts have lain empty for years. Zeidenberg Park, whose entry point lies diagonally across the road from the shopping center, represents a major investment in terms of play equipment and landscaping; but its location deep in a wadi and consequent invisibility at street level, as well as the multi-lane road that divides it from the shopping area, preclude any meaningful interaction between the sites. Gilo's community center, pool and library are nowhere nearby, having been situated in a strictly-residential enclave at the eastern end of the neighborhood; most residents, one may assume, access these amenities via private car, just as they would travel by car to amenities outside the neighborhood.Where a more human-scaled main street might have concentrated local commercial and social activity in a lively and effective way, an internal highway and car-oriented planning have separated the existing resources and made synergy between them impossible.

Gilo is not the only Jewish Jerusalem neighborhood to be divided by a highway; Ramot, at the city's northern end, is similarly bisected by Golda Meir Boulevard, and similarly characterized by a pedestrian-hostile distribution of local amenities. That is how these neighborhoods were planned. The assumption was that everyone would have cars, and use them not only to get to their jobs in other parts of town, but for most local errands as well.

Having established that the practice of running highways through Jerusalem neighborhoods is rooted less in discriminatory tendencies than in an auto-centric planning orientation, we are now free to look at the Begin extension, and its potential impact, from a broader perspective, one that encompasses not only Beit Safafa but the extension's supposed "beneficiary" neighborhoods, as well.

Will the Begin extension enhance the livability of Gilo, and of the other south Jerusalem neighborhoods and suburbs that it is meant to serve?

The Begin extension will terminate in Gilo, by the Tunnel Road interchange through which Gush Etzion motorists enter and exit the city. Gilo's community council is gushing about the extension's potential benefit to the neighborhood, in the form of "quick access" to "Jerusalem." I'm not sure, though, that Gilo residents currently feel cut off from "Jerusalem." As noted above, they already have quick access to the Malha Mall via Dov Yosef Road, the expeditious, if perilous, thoroughfare that actually brings them most of the way to their current Begin Expressway entry point at Golomb St. They are also quite close to the Talpiot Industrial Area, via Derech Hevron. When I recently stopped by the Gilo Mall in search of a new pencil case for my son and left empty-handed because the toy-and-school-supplies store (one of the few that I remembered as still being operational) had closed down, I was able to get to Talpiot by car in just a few minutes' time to continue my quest.





Poor pedestrian access and too close to Malha: empty storefronts in the Gilo Mall

  Gilo has a negative image. It is not thought of as a potential destination for the younger, educated people who have been organizing in Jerusalem in recent years under the Hitorerut BiYerushalayim and Ruah Hadasha rubrics, despite the fact that housing there is relatively affordable and access to the commercial and recreational hubs of Malha, Talpiot and Emek Refaim is convenient (a comparative advantage over such farther-flung northern Jerusalem neighborhoods as Ramot and Pisgat Zeev). The problem appears to lie with Gilo's inferior urban qualities -- its walkability deficit, lack of local shopping, inaccessible public amenities, etc.

These problems are ostensibly being addressed by Gilo's master plan project; yet the material that has coalesced up to now seems curiously shallow and unconvincing. One gains insight into the Gilo plan when one looks at the position papers that serve as background it, and which were drawn up with "resident involvement." These papers talk about remodeling and invigorating the main shopping area, densifying the neighborhood, improving walkability and public transit, improving linkage to the rest of the city, creating local jobs, and all sorts of things that are usually associated with good urbanism.

However, the most emotionally charged sections of the position papers are those that deal with roads and with parking. The sense of Gilo residents' preoccupation with where they are going to put their cars, with maintaining traffic flows and not being caught in traffic jams, is palpable, and is reflected on a practical level in the demand for added roads, road widenings, more extensive parking areas around the commercial centers and neighborhood amenities (including parks), and parking minimums of 2 spaces per unit in all new residential construction. The position papers note, matter-of-factly and neutrally, that Gilo is a "bedroom community," and that most residents get around by car, even within the neighborhood; these facts are presented as a status quo that is not up for negotiation. That the neighborhood's auto-oriented scale might be the root cause of its unattractiveness to the younger generation is an idea that appears not to have been entertained.

Under these circumstances one is tempted to ask, Shouldn't Gilo residents be given what they want? If they want more and wider roads and more places to store automobiles, shouldn't they get them? And if they want immediate entrance to the city's north-south automobile artery, why not provide it? They have been conditioned to depend on their cars, why try to change things?

But surely the counter-questions also need to be asked. Having already mentioned Gilo's stillborn shopping district and pedestrian-hostile main street, let's consider whether the extension is likely improve the status of either. Will encouraging Gilo residents (and the residents of nearby Har Homa and Gush Etzion) to use their private cars to travel, via Begin, to jobs, shopping and recreational facilities at the opposite end of town (in addition to relatively nearby Malha) have a beneficial effect on local businesses? A successful shopping area might conceivably be developed on HaRosmarin St., near the Trampiada/Tunnel Road entrance, to serve both the residents of that part of Gilo and those of Gush Etzion who pass through Gilo on their way to and from downtown Jerusalem (just as the Moshe Dayan Blvd. shopping complex successfully serves Mateh Binyamin and Neve Yaacov residents who pass through Pisgat Zeev). Will the direct link to Begin and consequent complete bypass of Gilo itself facilitate or hinder such commercial development in eastern Gilo? Will it do anything for Gilo's moribund existing shopping center? Will the perceived necessity of providing smooth access to Begin from within the neighborhood make a narrowing of Gilo's main east-west roads -- so desirable for walkability reasons -- at all a realistic prospect?

If efforts to improve public transit to and from Gilo are ever indeed undertaken (Mayor Nir Barkat's re-election platform claims that a "Blue Line" from Gilo to Ramot via the city center will be advanced during his next term), will they have any chance for success, given the Begin extension's implied encouragement of private car use?

All of these questions apply, in varying degrees, to Har Homa, the future Givat Hamatos neighborhood (wedged between Beit Safafa and Gilo), and the Gush Etzion suburbs. Will easier and closer access to Begin have a positive effect on commercial development in these areas? Will it encourage people to switch from private car to public transit? Will it foster good urbanism in these areas? Will it make them more desirable to a younger, less car-oriented generation?

In my next post, I hope to raise some additional questions regarding the Begin Expressway extension -- questions relating to the extension's impact on other parts of Jerusalem.

The downtown trophy wife

Is it sensible to take a center-city area that up to now has been characterized by a mix of uses, and to designate it solely for "culture and tourism?"

Relatedly: should historic buildings be, on principle, emptied of workaday uses and dedicated exclusively to "culture and tourism" uses (e.g., boutique hotels)?

Such is the approach that the Jerusalem Municipality is currently taking toward Jaffa Road and environs -- the area that most locals simply think of as "downtown" but which is increasingly being referred to as the "historic city."

I think that this approach needs to be subjected to public scrutiny. I, for one, see two major problems with it:

1) The segregation of uses that it imposes will make downtown Jerusalem a much less attractive destination for regular Jerusalemites and Israelis, essentially rendering it a tourist trap whose artificiality will be perceived by the more discerning tourists;

2) By removing historic buildings from circulation as facilities where normal, everyday activities take place, and by devoting them to tourist-oriented uses, the planning echelon will be dividing Jerusalemites and Israelis from their own architectural heritage, thereby impoverishing them culturally.

As noted in my last post, which discussed the recently-approved plan for a high-rise office park at Jerusalem's western entrance, Deputy Mayor Kobi Kahlon has stated that "anyone who doesn’t have to enter the city shouldn’t do so. Leave the historic city to culture and tourism.” Downtown Jerusalem, according to Kahlon, is simply too fragile to "take the load" of the governmental/clerical functions currently housed within it ("You toss out two pieces of paper there and the city is filthy"), and is altogether suited to the expression of "much greater meanings."  The idea is that certain activities are just too mundane for the traditional architecture of downtown Jerusalem, and should be transferred to the envisioned skyscraper complex at the city's entrance -- "Rova Mevo Ha'Ir."
 

Generali Building, via Wikipedia (Magister)

In keeping with this idea, government offices now located in Jerusalem's "historic city" are slated to be moved to Rova Mevo Ha'Ir. Furthermore, according to Haaretz, "the Planning and Building Committee is also discussing a plan to turn the old ministries' offices, some of which are located in historic buildings, into boutique hotels."

One building that has been mentioned as a prime candidate for such a re-purposing is the "Generali" Building at the corner of Jaffa Road and Shlomzion HaMalka St., built in the 1930s to house the offices of the Italian insurance agency Assicurazioni Generali. The Generali Building is currently home to a number of Israeli government offices, including the Interior Ministry's Jerusalem District administration.

I haven't had anything to do in the Generali Building in years and don't know to what extent Israeli citizens are inconvenienced by having to conduct their business in that particular location. Deputy Mayor Kahlon claims that the presence of government functions in buildings such as this one "cause[s] terrible traffic downtown, as well as parking shortages". I find this assertion rather curious, inasmuch as Jaffa Road has been closed for some time to vehicular traffic other than the light rail -- the idea being that people should get to that part of town via public transit and forego the use of their private automobiles. If you're riding the light rail, why do you need parking? How can there be traffic jams in a part of town where cars are no longer allowed?

I don't pretend to know whether public-sector efficiency is best served by concentrating government offices in one specially-designed compound -- i.e., Rova Mevo Ha'Ir. It does strike me, though, that when ordinary citizens come downtown to run errands at government facilities, downtown can only benefit-- since a citizen who enters the area for one purpose will likely remain there for others. Logically, it would seem that when downtown Jerusalem is emptied of its government offices, regular Jerusalemites and Israelis will have less occasion to go there. Are we quite certain that this is what we want?

I personally don't have much reason to go downtown, as most of my needs can be met in the Talpiot Industrial Area -- the badly-neglected "secondary" CBD that, in my view, actually functions as primary CBD for a sizeable chunk of Jerusalem's population.. However, this past summer I enjoyed a brief but instructive city-center idyll that brought home for me just what is wrong with the Kahlon plan for this part of town.

Mushtasfa Jerusalem (District Health Office building),
 via Wikipedia (Ranbar)

Pictured at left is a historic building at 86 Jaffa Road -- one that, presumably, the Municipality would want emptied of its governmental functions and turned into a boutique hotel. This Ottoman-era edifice was constructed in 1882 as a residence and later turned into a hospital; since the British Mandate period it has housed the Jerusalem district health office.

I had to bring my 3 year old daughter to this building several times this past summer, for a series of anti-rabies innoculations (after she was scratched by a stray cat). Never having needed the services of the district health office before, and having no prior knowledge of the facility's whereabouts, I was very pleasantly surprised to find myself ushering my daughter into this distinguished old structure, the formality of whose arched stone gate is set off by a soothing little front yard and welcoming, geranium-filled porch:

Rather than having to sit in an institutional waiting room for the prescribed 20 minutes post-innoculation, my daughter and I (and the other kids I brought along on the various vaccine visits) were able to enjoy our mid-morning snack out here on the district health office porch, joined by the occasional employee on coffee break. When we were through, we stayed downtown, running different errands each time. On one occasion we picked up inexpensive crafts supplies at a discount store; on another -- paperbacks at a second-hand bookshop. I got to familiarize myself with some clothing stores I had never seen before. We bought slushes and iced coffees, burekasim and cookies. We discovered a newly-renovated playground in the downtown area that constitutes a worthwhile destination in and of itself.

Had we not needed the services of the local rabies prevention unit, we would not have patronized any of the aforementioned downtown businesses. We simply wouldn't have been downtown.

Our forays to the city center were both enjoyable and productive. We didn't go there for the specific purpose of experiencing "culture." We got a healthy dose of "culture" just by taking care of some decidely mundane business at the scenic venue of the Jerusalem district health office. And we were able, afterward, to run a variety of errands on foot, within a radius of just a few city-center blocks. Culture and commerce, pleasure and efficiency -- the blessings of mixed-use development.

Unfortunately, current urban thinking in the Jerusalem Municipality appears to have stalled at the "separation of uses" stage. Much lip-service is being paid to the idea of mixed-use development, but the plans being actively adanced call for a fairly rigid compartmentalization of uses.

Whether 86 Jaffa Road in particular has a boutique future in store for it is not the point. The point is that Kobi Kahlon thinks "we have to empty [Jerusalem's historic downtown] of all the officialdom [פקידות] and other uses. This city has far greater meanings."

I'm sure that when Kahlon talks about Jerusalem's "greater meanings" his intentions are reverential -- and that is the problem. It's one thing to appreciate the city's history and to want to  preserve its unique character in those areas where "character" has a tangible presence in architectural form. However, putting specific parts of the city on a pedestal and dictating the kinds of uses that can take place in them, is quite another matter. It's almost like the objectification to which men sometimes subject women -- an idealization that ultimately devalues.  Rather than having someone alive and dynamic to relate you, you end up with a porcelain doll, a trophy wife, a puppet.

In the case of downtown Jerusalem, what we could end up with, if we're not careful, is a sterile museum in which tourists lap up lattes and empty their pockets to purveyors of kitschy Judaica while street mimes and jugglers leap and frolick in a frenzied effort to conceal the emptiness at the core of downtown -- a place where no actual work goes on, where no real life is lived, where nothing productive happens. 

We already have an "Old City" that is devoted to religion, tourism and religious tourism. Do we really want to start calling that part of town the "Old Old City?" Must Jaffa Road now become a "New Old City" -- a static Disneyland of handsome traditional architecture housing nothing but cafes and boutiques?

I don't want to be unfair to Kobi Kahlon. I have no problem with his desire to add office space in the city entrance area or even, necessarily, with the transfer of government agencies to that part of town -- provided that such transfers are clearly in the public interest. What bothers me is the assumption that governmental and commercial/corporate affairs are best managed out of dedicated skyscraper complexes, while historic downtowns and traditional architecture should play a merely ornamental role in the life of a city. In the present post I have looked at the latter half of this false dichotomy. In my next post I hope to discuss the former in greater depth.