March 9, 2010
Worldwide, cities are good for women
In honour of International Women’s Day this week, I offer the following argument:
The global shift toward cities and more urban based economies has benefited women — and the status of women — in at least three ways.
First, urban women and girls typically need to spend fewer hours doing household chores, including ensuring basic survival, than their rural counterparts. For example, spending half a day hauling water, is not required — even in poorer cities or neighbourhoods where not all homes have running water, a pump is usually close to home. Doing laundry is another chore that urban women can leave to a machine (even if she cannot afford her own, the laundry mat makes this task much easier and faster).
Additionally, as I’ve previously argued apartment and condominium living close to one’s work also benefits women and families with dual careers, removing tasks like commuting from the suburbs. Higher density living also provides a wider audience of potential customers for often small scale female entrepreneurship. Whether making and selling choco-bananas from the house in Quito or teaching fitness classes.
Second, in part by reducing time spent on household chores, living in cities allow more girls and women to attend school (boys also benefit here too). Moreover, cities often offer a woman a wide range of choices to utilize her education from “traditional female paths” like nursing or teaching to the new common female occupations such as accounting.
Third, city life for families and women is removing the economic bias in favor of sons, which world wide may be responsible for many fewer women being born — what the Economist called the missing 100 million women in the world’s population today due to abortion and infantside of female offspring (or gendercide as they call it). Although the historical cultural bias remains in many countries, urban women have the opportunities to earn as good of a living as men. Urban jobs tend to not favor brute strength as some rural occupations. Moreover, land inheritances are less of an issue if one purchases food at the supermarket with money earned as a computer programmer, rather than needs to grow it for oneself. Give the world’s population a generation to adjust to urban living, and baby girls may achieve equal status with their brothers in many more cultures.
To be clear, I’m not arguing that cities are perfect or some sort of heaven for the world’s women. Violence and exploitation takes place in cities just as it does in rural areas (although one could argue that an urban oppressed women may have more resources and options to escape the abuse). My argument is that on balance, the growth of cities and of more urban based, knowledge and service economies has been a step forward for the status and well being of the planet’s female population.
Your thoughts? Are there other ways cities benefit women? Or feel free to argue these points.
Topics: poverty, urban history, urban families | No Comments »
March 2, 2010
Maybe meeting expectations makes “cities” happy
Richard Florida has a new thought provoking piece on what makes cities happy. Since cities are inanimate and cannot really be happy or sad, he seems to be referring to the aggregate mood of the people.
He and his colleagues look at the positive correlations between happiness and such things as income and having higher education levels. And they note the negative correlation to lower education levels.
This made me think about political revolution theory. More specifically the theory that societies are most prone to revolution when rising expectations fail to meet reality. (This is the J-Curve model.) The reverse also generally holds: revolutions are least likely when reality is matching rising expectations — because people are happy if their expectations for life are being met, or exceeded.
So, therefore, if a city is able to meet the rising expectations of people who live there, the citizens will appear to be happy by most measures. I think this partially fits with Florida’s observations.
For example, he found that cities with high numbers of citizens with advanced education levels tend to be happier. We could assume that these individuals have higher expectations for themselves, and also tend to meet them. But we should probably watch out for situations in which those with higher education are not succeeding.
Florida also notes the lower levels of happiness among metro areas associated with the working class — their expectations for life have likely been dashed.
For political leaders a key issue may be to manage expectations. For those of us just trying to understand cities, we may need to look beyond comparing such things as housing prices, average wages, and even education levels across cities. For example, it may not matter to happiness if one city’s citizens have a lower living standard because of high costs; it matters more whether they expect something different.
Topics: resident attitudes | 2 Comments »
February 28, 2010
Finally, a city celebrates its successes
Vancouver frequently receives positive accolades, whether as the world’s most livable city, for its sustainable nature, or as one of the more attractive tourist destinations in North America.
Despite these, or perhaps because of them, local residents and the media tend to focus on the problems the city has: drug wars, homelessness and crime; as well as other challenges for residents like high housing costs, the fact that transit isn’t perfect, nor is the weather.
In the years and months leading up to hosting the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, it seemed like everyone focused on the problems, and that protests about these would overshadow the global event.
And then the Olympic flame actually arrived. Everyone came out to see it (or protest it, but more to see it and wave a flag at it). And as everyone became acutely aware of being in the global spotlight, suddenly the citizens of the city decided to celebrate the positive — what they love about their city, and not the problems (which are hardly unique to large urban areas).
Major downtown shopping and urban thoughoughfares were closed to cars, allowing buskers, artists, athletes, sponsors and ordinary folks to mingle, cheer and participate. At first, thousands came out onto the streets. And then tens of thousands. And then perhaps more than that by the time Canada’s men’s hockey team won gold.
What were people celebrating:
That Vancouver is pedestrian friendly. You can walk along the waterfront on seawalls, or through downtown streets that are always alive.
That the transit system worked, somewhat to the surprise of many. And it worked spectacularly well.
That Vancouver is all about being surrounded by water: the False Creek Ferries and Aquabus were jammed, taking people around the creek between Granville Island and Yaletown / Downtown; the SeaBus was a crucial transit link to get spectators to mountain venues. To me, a great symbol of this was the Olympic Rings being projected into sea-spray during the nightly fireworks and waterworks show.
That Vancouver is fun: Whoever thought of putting the zip line across Robson Square was a genius. It showed the whimsical and youthful side of the city, and reflected a unique activity possible at nearby Whistler and Grouse mountains.
This may well be another transformative event for the city and its residents, like Expo 86 but crammed into 17 days. Although I expect residents demands to improve the city and not accept the foreign accolades at face value will continue, I also predict that locals will spend more time appreciating — and celebrating — what makes the city successful. Finally.
To my regular readers, I’ve spent the last two weeks enjoying the most phenomenal urban street party and experience. Regular posts will resume next week — feel free to send me an e-mail with topic suggestions.
Topics: resident attitudes, urban history, public spaces | No Comments »
February 8, 2010
The coming blurred boundaries between work and home
Over the past year I’ve spent a lot of time analyzing the intersection of workplace trends and urban living trends. It’s becoming probable that the urban knowledge economy will require many workers to supply their own private workspace. Employers — or the city milieu itself — will be responsible for supplying the space for collaboration. This has pros and cons for individuals, employers as well as the city itself.
Increasingly, many office-based employers are literally breaking down walls to create a much more open environment for workers, often with the goal of increasing cross-communication among employees from different divisions and backgrounds. Gone will be the days of many individuals hunkered down in private offices or high walled cubicles. Those that have not yet done so often have making this change within their 5- year or 10-year plan.
Having worked in both environments, I have found open plan to be far more efficient for idea generation and collaboration. However, when I really need to focus and write down the results of the idea generation, or to build an Excel model or other tool to move a project forward, uninterrupted, private time can be essential. Most knowledge-based workers I speak with feel similarly, at least when it comes to the need to focus.
Some companies that have moved to open plan offer silent workspaces for such concentrated efforts — or even small bookable private offices. Many also allow employees to work from home when they feel the need for privacy.
Thinking ahead, I suspect many knowledge economy companies will increasingly rely on the employees to provide their own private spaces (which might be at home, might be at the library, might be on a park bench). The employer will offer only collaborative options and allow or expect people to find their own way to block-out or escape distractions when necessary.
Will this work? I think it might. It will allow employers to save some money on office space. (Although typically technology costs rise to supply more mobile options, thus possibly negating any real savings here. Time will tell.) And, it may allow many employees to better manage their own productivity as well as work-life balance needs.
Will employees resent being expected to supply their own workspace? I keep thinking that many will. But, I’ve yet to find anyone who will admit to being anything but excited at the prospect of generally being allowed to work from wherever they feel most productive.
Indeed, a major US financial institution I interviewed found that when given a choice, over 80% chose to go mobile — which meant giving up an assigned office, but having the privilege of working from anywhere. Most still came into “the office” 3 or 4 days per week, needing to stay in the loop on company happenings, collaborate with team members, and catch up with supervisors and mentors. Those that didn’t want to go mobile had typically only recently been promoted to a role with a private office and were therefore reluctant to give up this perceived status symbol.
This shift toward mobile work could really benefit the functioning of cities. What if everyone didn’t commute at the same time? Some people might find it more productive to work from home for a few hours, then head to the office mid morning. Others would come in early and leave early, finishing their workday from their patio in the sun. Those who prefer suburban living might not commute everyday.
What about you? would you resent or embrace the more flexible workplace, or the mobile-worker based city?
What other pros or cons do you see?
Topics: urban history, urban technologies, economic development, urban lifestyles | 8 Comments »
February 2, 2010
The wacky and weird of living in an Olympic host city
Having the Olympic Games in your city at first sounds exciting, exotic and somewhat cool. As the Vancouver Olympic Games approach there have been — and are sure to be many more– elements of that. For example, I went skating on the Olympic Speed Skating oval with my four year old son — what a fast ice surface; that was cool. Top Canadian and global musicians and entertainers will be in town, often performing free shows. I may try to catch one or two. Buildings are blanketed with 100 foot high images of athletes — I’ve been staring at Clara Hughes from my office for months.
And then there are the unexpected, strange and bizarre things. Here are a few:
- Large military aircraft suddenly make low speed passes through town; or a military helicopter circles above your house for hours.
- It’s a tent city! Giant white tents are everywhere — pavilions for various places and organizations. Nunavut has one, Canada has it’s own, etc. Millions have been spent on them.
- Lost mounties: hundreds (thousands) of RCMP officers are here to help with security. Vancouver doesn’t use the RCMP normally as its police force, so most have never been here. Helped some mounties on bikes (rather than horses) find their way the other day.
- Starbucks has new door signage everywhere, with “Welcome” written in at least 10 languages and 5 different alphabets.
- Time for residents, businesses and other organizations has three distinct phases in 2010: “Before the Games,” “During the Games,” and After the Games. All projects have deadlines before or sometime well after the Olympics. We all talk to each other with “what are you doing during the Games” (as in are you leaving town, renting out your place, staying, attempting to go to work, etc.)
- Garbage will be picked up in the middle of the night (roads will be too busy during the day).
- For many businesses, the Olympic 2 weeks will be a test run of “catastrophe management” — they have had to invest in technology so everyone can effectively do their jobs from home (as would have to happen should an earthquake or terrorist take out a bridge or two, cutting off parts of the city).
I’m sure there will be more. Anyone else care to add something?
Topics: catastrophe management | 6 Comments »
January 12, 2010
Libraries as public 3rd places
Seth Godin and CEOs for Cities raised the issue of what do to with public libraries in the 21st century. Over time, all books will be available on the internet, which will mean fewer people checking out the hard-cover, hard copy versions.
Seth thinks they should “train people to take intellectual initiative.” Not a bad goal, but we have universities for that and increasingly they are reaching out to the broader community.
So what to do with all these small and large public places dotted around a city that belong to the taxpayers. Why not make them into “third places” that are free as well as community resource points. Currently, small business people and others wanting to network or discuss an idea need to spend money to “rent” a table at Starbucks or another wireless cafe.
What if libraries offered comfortable spaces for people to meet and chat, as well as spaces for silent reading or working –free wireless, of course, plus the ability to borrow a computer while you’re there. Maybe for a small fee (or free), small meeting rooms could be reserved complete with technology like projectors. Maybe local groups including meetup ones would have a free place to meet: a novel writing support group or political campaigners.
What if these existing places could also become community resource points staffed by volunteers. Tourist and travel information in one corner, help with your resume in another, tax advice in a third place and maybe legal help at certain times in another area.
At certain hours childrens’s programing (typically available now) would continue– story time, song time, etc.
All the books libraries currently own would still be available and people would still come to read them. Children love the magic of books with bright colours, fun pictures and pages they can “turn by self”and this won’t change when it’s possible to download the same books.
Rooms to watch classic movies and documentaries could exist for those who prefer to watch them in a group and discuss the content afterward with fellow aficionados.
What do you think? Would this work?
Topics: urban history | 14 Comments »
January 9, 2010
Think small: A non-market housing supply solution?
Planners and politicians in many cities — especially those with high housing costs — face a dilemma when it comes to providing non-market housing (sometimes called social housing). The most cost effective solutions in terms of dollars per unit can be to build a big apartment block in a struggling area of the city where land is cheaper.
Unfortunately, this can tend to reinforce a poor ghetto’s status, which can make it harder for individuals and families to make those broader connections in a wider community that help break the cycle of poverty, especially for kids.
Better for many people is to be mixed into market-housing neighbourhoods. In a recent interview, a child who grew up in a smaller Vancouver social housing project located in a generally wealthier area of the city noted how she and her cohorts in the social housing townhouses went to school with the children of successful business people and university professors. As a result, she argued, the high school performance and university graduation rate of these children from the social housing complex was quite high. She was very grateful for having had the opportunity to be a part of this high performing peer group as it allowed her to break a cycle of poverty in her family.
Her experience was from the 1970s. Today, it would can be hard to get a medium-sized non-market housing project approved in an existing neighbourhood. So what if those seeking to provide non-market housing thought much smaller.
In many cities across North America there is a movement to increase the density of existing and sometimes older areas by allowing duplexes, secondary suites, and laneway houses be added to existing properties.
What if social housing organizations went around existing, and maybe gentrifying, neighbourhoods and bought up suitable existing houses that could be converted into 2 or 3 units.
Those who would benefit from the homes could be invited or required to provide some labor during the renovation. This would keep costs down along with using the existing home’s “solid old bones” as a base.
Buying the occasional fixer-upper house that comes up for sale anywhere in the city would eliminate the social housing ghettos. The city could even mandate there not be more than one house on any given block.
Surely this has been tried somewhere. Does it work? Can it work?
Given the amazing cost overruns at a Vancouver social housing project (I think the units will cost tax payers over $700,000 each), buying up existing houses just seems easier.
Note: by social housing I’m not talking about homeless shelters, but homes for those with jobs, or students with children, for example, who just cannot afford the escalating costs of housing in some of North America’s more dynamic cities.
Topics: planning policy, diversity | 6 Comments »
January 6, 2010
Five Phenomena of the Century (so far)
The first decade of the 21st century has come to a close. For the first blog post of the new decade, I decided to ponder the most significant trends of the past decade related to cities or affecting urban spaces.
Below are the five most significant happenings, in no particular order because they are all somewhat interrelated.
1. Widespread recognition of how industry clusters work and the importance of focusing on those in furthering an urban economy. For a while, every city tried to attract every type of industry. In the late 20th century leaders of cities everywhere wanted bio tech companies, an auto plant, the next Microsoft, fashion designers and the movie industry to flourish in their town. More recently, city government and business groups have spent time examining the industries where the region has a comparative advantage over other places: sectors where they have more jobs on average and likely some ingredients or a history that gives the industry an authenticity in the community. Such strengths can then be used to attract more people and organizations in that cluster.
2. Richard Florida’s publishing of “Rise of the Creative Class.” The book helped explain the human dimension behind why clustering works and how cities need to foster a mix of “talent, tolerance and technology” in order to attract and retain knowledge-based industries and workers. The book spawned new ways that planners, developers, business leaders, and scholars think about cities (whether they agree or not, everyone has to respond to these ideas).
3. Rise of Asian cities as global commercial, manufacturing and financial hubs:
- 20 years ago, when China was massacring citizens at Tienanmen Square no one could have predicted the country of today and the urban revolution there as detailed in The Concrete Dragon. According to Mastercard in 2008, 15 of the most important 65 world cities are now in China. Besides Beijing and Shanghai they include places like Harbin, Xian, Wuhan and Nanjing that few ordinary people outside of China have heard of they are so new to the contemporary world stage.
- 10 years ago had you heard of Dubai?
- Bangalore and Mumbai have became centres of global outsourcing and then innovation in their own right. Clustering works for India too.
4. The Green Revolution – not the agricultural one, but the shift to more sustainable urban construction and sustainable design. 10 years ago, as the US Green Building Council began promoting “green” construction and its LEED rankings, everyone laughed. They said the private sector and institutions would never build LEED office buildings because it couldn’t make financial sense. Today in Canada’s major cities virtually every major project, private and public sector, is being built to LEED or other environmental sustainability standards, not only because doing less harm to the environment is good but because private firms have learned that green makes employees feel better, take fewer sick days and be more productive.
5. Re-birth of urban-style living and the start of a shift away from suburban lifestyles. Individuals, couples and families in North America are increasingly choosing to live in townhouses and apartments in or near the urban core (even if they can afford a spacious suburban home). Not everyone, not everywhere, but enough people to make this a trend and likely one that will help define the 21st century in North America (whereas suburban style automotive culture defined and shaped how people lived in the 20th century). This shift is related to a green consciousness, the rise of women to become the dominant gender in the workforce, the rising price of gasoline, escalating house prices.
Your comments? and what would you add or subtract?
Topics: urban history | 7 Comments »
December 16, 2009
Resiliant Canadian Home Prices–Alternative Theory
Unlike the housing market crash in the USA, in Canada the average home price is reaching record highs, or is already there depending upon how you measure it and adjust for inflation. Market watchers are starting to cry “bubble!” They are predicting a burst, or at least a noticeable slow down soon. (Good article in the Globe and Mail on who is saying what, and why.) They may be right — or not.
However, here I offer the theory that maybe the steady increase in house prices isn’t a bubble, but a response to shifting urban trends. The demand for homes (whether condo, townhouse or single family) close to the urban core continues to grow, while supply cannot keep pace. The result is rising prices.
Increasingly, individuals and families want to live in close proximity to jobs, as well as urban amenities. There is a limited supply of housing in such places, and thus prices go up.
When analysts speak of record high prices, they are typically talking aggregate values, nationally. What I want to see are prices broken down by proximity to urban core. Home price increases may be uneven geographically with the rapid increase of metro core homes masking declining or stable values in suburban places and smaller towns.In the Metro Vancouver area, for example, homes actually in Vancouver, near or in the dense urban core — with proximity to a wide variety of urban amenities from restaurants to theatre, the ocean and transit — have continued to increase in price throughout the recession. But in the more distant, automobile-centred suburban areas, this is not the case.
In the GTA, I’m hearing a similar phenomenon. Home values in Rosedale or Forest Hill continue to rise; demand for downtown Condos has not been satiated. But what about the distant suburbs?
Does anyone have some good, local level numbers?
Other comments on my theory that it’s the rising sale prices of houses in certain places driving up the national average?
Topics: urban history | 6 Comments »
December 1, 2009
Gentrification and diversity
The challenge as many North American metro areas urbanize — evolve into higher density, urban playgrounds — is maintaining diversity in these new and renovated neighbourhoods.
An article by Aaron Renn of the Dallas Morning News is circulating among the urban bloggers that notes how “White” some of the cities often considered models for future urban development are or have become (Portland, in particular). While many of the statements in the article ignore some historical context, this paragraph hits a challenge of our times:
Many of the policies of Portland are not that dissimilar from those of upscale suburbs in their effects. Urban growth boundaries raise land prices and render housing less affordable exactly the same as large lot zoning and building codes that mandate brick and other expensive materials do. They both contribute to reducing housing affordability for historically disadvantaged communities. Just like the most exclusive suburbs.
This paragraph holds true if the city’s urban planners and voters don’t also push for different forms of housing — a diversity of housing options to maintain a fertile environment for a more diverse population, if you like.
Gentrifying urban spaces need: small and larger rental options, of varying age, quality and price; home ownership options of all variety from high rise condo to ground-oriented row house — and some single family homes nearby.
Sure the latter might only be affordable by the highest income cohort group, but this group is as important to the diversity of a neighbourhood as artists, coffee baristas, and junior software programers.
Problems arise in an urban space when one group — whether poor, rich, or in the middle dominates to the point of shutting out all others. And lets face it, mono-cultural life is not what people want when they choose urban spaces over suburban ones.
Topics: diversity, development conflicts | No Comments »