Just back from a trip to California, and I spent part of an afternoon in San Jose's Santana Row. It's a perfect example of the place-maker's art...mixed-use development including a range of retail and entertainment, rental housing, even disguised big-box retail!, a boutique hotel, well-hidden parking lots, all at high density; shared pedestrian/car spaces, good plantings....
Here's the thing, though. This is not a piece of real townscape. If you've looked at the link above, you'll quickly realize it's a single-developer shopping mall, a very clever one which has won a few awards and is - according to Wikipedia - the fourth-highest ranking mall in California, and the highest-ranking in the Bay Area by sales per square foot.
That Wikipedia article says:
When presenting the award, judges from Builder Magazine noted the street’s European atmosphere that was achieved by employing a variety of architectural designs for the structures as well as sophisticated landscaping details. These details focused on the use of mature oak and palm trees, shaded grassy plazas, courtyards, and fountains, intimate public seating areas, extra-wide sidewalks and street medians, and multi-use destinations such as Park Valencia, which hosts live music, a farmer’s market, and other public gatherings.
Ah, no wonder it's a commercial success: Of course people would rather spend their money in stores on streets which have a Yoooropeean Atmosphere than in another one of the endless strip malls lining the highways. I know I would. If I want to go to sit outside in a cafe for a cup of coffee, I'll take the one on the nice street with the pretty flowers and a few cars driving slowly by, not the joint on the corner of two highways. Heck, if I had the choice of living in featureless condominiums in the middle of nowhere or in a place overlooking some tree-lined, well-tended streets, I know which one I'd pick in a heartbeat.
Santana Row isn't anywhere. It's not in downtown San Jose. It's...well, it's bounded to the north by a large distributor road and a massive Westfield shopping mall; to the east and south by major freeways; and to the west by another access road. No-one walks to Santana Row. But then, this is the Bay Area ex-urbs. No-one walks anywhere.
Is that all I'm whingeing about? Surely it's better to have a little bit of decent urban development in the middle of a lot of poor-quality built environment than to have none at all, right?
Except Santana Row isn't urban development. It's a shopping mall. Looks deceive: It is anti-urban. This isn't public space, it's private space. There are no bums or homeless people. There are no kids having fun or hanging out in the plazas. There's definitely no skateboarding. There's certainly no right to protest, and photography is prohibited without management approval (see this flickr page for example). What it is is a carefully-calculated simulacrum, another bastardization of the ideas we all have about what makes a good urban environment.
And it's a darned good one. Which is why I find it a bit difficult to criticise: As long as I didn't think too hard about it, I really liked it.
Now, there are good guys out there. The Crown Estate, for example, is working with the local authorities to dress up Regent Street, much of which it owns, knowing that its investment in the public realm will have long-term financial benefits. But what does it say when most of the pleasant new developments I can think of - be they Santana Row or Xintiandi in Shanghai - remain private space, with all that entails? Am I the only person who thinks this is a problem? And if not, how can we create tools that allow developers and retailers to cede control of these highly-managed private spaces to the public sector, without losing the ability to maintain their attractive qualities?
Monday, November 16, 2009 at 15:42