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Cracks in the city: Addressing theconstraints and potentials of urbandesignAnastasia Loukaitou‐Sideris a

a Department of Urban Planning, School of Public Policyand Social Research, University of California‐Los Angeles,3250 Public Policy Building, Box 951656, Los Angeles, CA,90095–1656, USA E-mail:Published online: 27 Apr 2007.

To cite this article: Anastasia Loukaitou‐Sideris (1996) Cracks in the city: Addressing theconstraints and potentials of urban design, Journal of Urban Design, 1:1, 91-103, DOI:10.1080/13574809608724372

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Journal of Urban Design, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1996 91

Cracks in the City: Addressing the Constraints andPotentials of Urban Design

ANASTASIA LOUKAITOU-SIDERIS

ABSTRACT The term 'crack' is used in this paper as a metaphor for the fractureddiscontinuities encountered in the physical and social context of American cities. Cracksare the 'in-between' spaces—residual, underutilized and often deteriorating—that fre-quently divide physical and social worlds. The paper sets out to explain why cracks area common characteristic of the American urban landscape, by investigating the factorsthat have contributed to their formation. The study also lays out some normativeobjectives for transforming in-between spaces, and for practising a socially responsibleurban design, by discussing issues such as user empowerment, collaborative design,contextualism and flexibility of form. The role, responsibility and constraints of theurban designer in effecting change are discussed, and a call is extended for broadeningthe cultural, moral and political content of the profession.

Introduction

Every city has its cracks. These are the gaps in the urban form, where overallcontinuity is disrupted; the residual spaces left undeveloped, under-used ordeteriorating; the physical divides that purposefully or accidentally separatesocial worlds; the spaces which development has passed by, or where newdevelopment has created fragmentation and interruption.

• Cracks can be easily encountered in the urban core, where corporate towersassert their dominance over the skies, but turn their back onto the city; wheresunken or elevated plazas, skyways and roof gardens disrupt pedestrianactivity; and where the asphalt deserts of parking lots fragment the continuityof the street.

• Cracks can be found in the inner city, where parks and playgrounds aredesperately needed, but have been left to decay; where public housingdevelopments are fenced islands of poverty; where abandonment and deterio-ration have filled vacant space with trash and human wastes.

• Cracks can be seen in the extensive intermediate areas between the centresand the suburbs, loosely composed of automobile-orientated, commercialstrips, with no sidewalks or pedestrian amenities; and the in-between—districts the realm of warehouses, and industrial complexes.

Anatasia Loukaitou-Sideris is at the Department of Urban Planning, School of Public Policy and Social Research,University of California-Los Angeles, 3250 Public Policy Building, Box 951656, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1656,USA. E-mail: sideris@ucla.edu

1357-4809/96/010091-13 © 1996 Journals Oxford Ltd

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Figure 1. Frame of downtown Los Angeles: asphalt desert of parking lot at theforeground; homeless village and corporate skyscrapers at the background.

• Cracks can be spotted along channels of movement, along freeways, railroadlines, riverfronts and waterfronts, with these channels often acting as barriersrather than connectors, separating and marginalizing whole neighbourhoods.

• And cracks can be observed in the new developments, the 'outer cities', whereshopping centres go dead in the evening, where urban villages are boundedby highways, and walled or gated planned unit developments assert theirprivateness by defying any connection with the surrounding landscape.

Intrigued by the assumption that these cracks in the city could sometimes beperceived not as anti-spaces, but rather as 'forms awaiting realization', thefollowing article sets out to explore a framework for such a possibility tohappen. In addressing spaces 'in-between' one needs first to examine the rootsof their cause. In an effort to investigate why cracks are so often encountered inthe American urban landscape the article will first discuss some urban formcharacteristics and determinants of the American city, then lay out normativeobjectives for transforming 'in-between' spaces, and also explore the role,responsibility and constraints of the urban designer in doing so.

Urban Form Determinants and Characteristics of the American City

Even though no city in the world is alike in terms of historic background,reasons of growth or decay, physical and topographic characteristics andsocio-cultural dynamics, American cities do commonly share certain attributes

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Figure 2. Advertisements on chainlink fence along an inner city arterial corridorin Los Angeles (corner of Florence Ave. and Normandie Ave.).

which make them distinguishable urban entities. For one, American cities aremuch newer than old world cities, which have followed slow-evolving patternsof growth, change or decay. In contrast with the 'organic quality' that many oldworld cities display—a quality that came through constant interaction of gener-ations of their inhabitants with the physical setting—American cities are prod-ucts of abrupt human actions on the natural landscape. Most American citieswere laid out purposefully and quickly to house settlers. Others were drawn onpaper almost overnight and then superimposed on the landscape by profit-minded speculators. Compared with the centuries-long evolution of European,Islamic or Oriental cities, American cities can be characterized as 'instantphenomena'. For West Coast cities in particular, this newness is often revealedby the large tracts of land within their boundaries that still remain undevelopedor underdeveloped.

Growth by subdivision has been the typical American approach to townbuilding (Attoe & Logan, 1989). The grid, which in the history of urbanism hasoften been used in starting new towns, became the characteristic layout of theAmerican city. As Grady Clay (1973) explained:

Most original plans consisted of rectangular lots formed into blocks,and these, in turn, formed into a rectangular gridiron. ...Original gridswere seldom big enough for growth. Usually by the mid-nineteenthcentury, another set of speculating settlers laid out a new townsite justupriver or downriver from the original settlement. Seldom did thelatecoming grid merge easily with the original, (p. 44)

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Figure 3. Railroad tracks off Florence Ave. in South Central Los Angeles.

These 'breaks', as Clay calls the fractured discontinuity of the grid pattern, oftenbecome awkward leftover spaces in the late 20th century city, that help toseparate rather than unite the different zones and districts.

The superimposition of the grid has provided the American city with an easilycomprehensible and legible layout. At the same time it has stressed attention tothe street intersection rather than the core of the block. In most old world citiesthe streets came only as a result of the often irregular block pattern. Streets,squares, public spaces were carved out of the building mass, creating a tightlycoherent system of linkages and connections. In the American city the networkof streets that results from the gridiron layout defines the urban block.

Originally confined by walls, most old world cities were built as compact anddense urban structures. In Europe, for example, freestanding, detached buildingstended to be only royal, religious and cultural institutions. In America, theconviction that the grid could be extended infinitely in the landscape has shapedthe morphology of cities. As Sennett (1990, p.48) argues "cities have beenconceived like a map of limitless rectangles of land. ... town squares havebecome random dots amidst the block after block of building plots". TheAmerican city has sprawled horizontally rather than vertically, often coveringvast expanses of land. It is only natural that one can find much more 'lost space',to use Roger Trancik's (1986) term, in the low-density, sprawled American city,than in the tightly built, compact city of the old world.

The American city more than any other city in the world has been shaped andinfluenced by the automobile. The automobile has expanded the individual'shorizons beyond the narrow precinct of the neighbourhood or locality. It helpedbring closer distant parts of the city, other cities and the countryside. The

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Figure 4. Industrial warehouses and electric power stations off Main Street at theEast Side of downtown Los Angeles.

impacts of the automobile on the physical form of the city have been dramatic.Freeways and highways superimposed another grid over the American city.These transportation networks asserted their dominance over the human-madeand natural landscape. At the same time they created numerous cracks in thecity, segmenting urban form, dividing urban parts, carving out neighbourhoodsand creating 'gray zones' along their embankments and ramps. The automobileis also partly responsible for the horizontal expansion of the American city. Thepost-industrial American urban landscape is a multi-centred expanse withseveral concentrations of centres dispersed through its region, and 'edge cities'(Garreau, 1991) on the periphery, all loosely connected through freeways andcommercial corridors. Los Angeles is typical of such development, which as hasbeen argued may be paradigmatic of 21st century urbanism (Soja, 1989).

The American city is to a great extent a 'coarse grain' city, composed ofextensive areas of homogeneous socio-physical elements. As Lynch (1981, p. 266)explained:

The grain of residence by class in American cities is markedly coarse,if sometimes blurred, and likely it is becoming coarser. To the degreethat people can choose their place of residence, they consistently opt forplaces near their own kind. This choice is made for reasons of behav-ioral conflict, because of fears of violence or sexual relations across classboundaries, as a symbol of social status, as a means of protecting ahousing investment, in consequence of social aspirations for self or forchildren, to gain access to better services, or simply because people caneasily find friends among their own. Since different groups have very

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Figure 5. Vacant lots along the 5 Freeway in East Los Angeles.

unequal opportunities for choice, this preference results in a markedlycoarse and graded array. Once it appears, it will then be reinforced bythe conscious exclusion of other racial and economic groups.

The legal powers of zoning have enabled this segregation of people andactivities in the American city. Zoning ordinances backed by real estate intereststhat meant to ensure a stable and orderly development of the urban land market,have transformed the urban form into a structure of single-use cells. Thus, theAmerican city is a collection of 'typical landscapes': the corporate/office domain,the retail district, the industrial precinct, the residential suburb (Lynch inBanerjee & Southworth, 1990). Even though the 'mixed-use' concept started toappear recently in the planners' vocabulary, one can only rarely encounter areaswith a real overlay of activities in a single territory.

For the most part, the American urban context is a collection of different socialand physical realms, rigidly separated and often purposefully segregated. Thecontemporary American city is a much more complex social mechanism than itspre-industrial counterpart. In contrast with the homogeneity and social inte-gration of many earlier cities the modern American urban environment is a richamalgam of social groups. One would expect that this diversity of the socialcontext would also result in a full array of physical elements and spatial formsdefined by culture. However, very rarely is this the case. Admittedly, one canfind ethnic neighbourhoods of special character in the American city: China-towns with buildings topped with curved roofs and glazed tiles, and decoratedwith Chinese friezes and pillars; Little Italys with noisy coffee shops andbustling outdoor life; Hispanic barrios with street vendors enlivening sidewalk

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activity and retail. But for many citizens these neighbourhoods are at best touristattractions and 'theme parks', and at worst places frightening and culturallyalien. Rather than being meaningfully interlinked with one another, differentareas in the city remain segregated pieces and fragments.

A decisive factor that defines the appearance of the urban form in theAmerican city is economic wealth or poverty. In an urban paradox that seems tointensify, landscapes of extreme affluence can be found next to landscapes ofpoverty, abandonment and disinvestment. The geographic distance between thetwo types of landscapes may be small, but the symbolic and physical cracks thatseparate them are endless.

City building in America has been to a great extent a private process.Especially in the last decades the core of many American cities has been largelydetermined by corporate actions and objectives. Whole city blocks, once occu-pied by a multitude of different shops and small buildings, have given way tocorporate megastructures. Diverse street life has been replaced by inwardlyorientated buildings with blank facades and walled plazas. It has been arguedthat the memorable decline of the life and variety of urban streets has paralleledthe rise of corporatist economy of the city, the shift from mostly small to mostlybig business in the American economy after the Second World War (Relph,1987).

The rebuilding of central business districts has been determined by corporatedesires for high visibility, display of power, enhancement of corporate imageand high returns on corporate ownership of central city real estate. Each newoffice tower represents a corporate flagship that demands recognition throughprominent location, building height, distinctive design. In this game of rivalryfor power, space becomes a device for the enhancement of corporate image. Thisfact is often intensified by the absence or 'weakness' of design controls andurban design frameworks from the part of the public sector. The result in spatialterms is a 'patchwork quilt of private buildings and privately appropriatedspaces' (Trancik, 1986), cut off from the rest of the city fabric. The inwardorientation and fragmentation of the city's spaces is in strong conflict withurbanistic objectives for coherence, continuity, linking of districts and socialgoals of integration, justice and equal access to spaces and amenities for allcitizens.

Filling up the Cracks: Some Normative Arguments

The socio-economic and political forces that shape the physical form of theAmerican city are often beyond the grasp and responsibility of the urbandesigner. It is mostly political and economic power that determines what will getbuilt, where and who will benefit from it. The design praxis is shaped by a seriesof controls that more often than not express the power of capital and tend toperpetuate its interests. Having said this, however, we should also admit thatthe profession's material interests are increasingly identified with those offinance and corporate capital (King, 1988). The social role of the profession isoften conveniently forgotten in light of generous commissions by developers.Many urban designers seem to have become more ignorant and disconnectedfrom the larger social problems facing the city. They are content to designfragmented and often privatized pieces in the city: signature urban plazas,theme parks and invented streets, instead of improving traditional public spaces:

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the streets, the alleys the neighbourhood parks. The days, when architects andurban designers with manifestos and polemics were ready to change the worldare long gone. As Paul Goldberger (1989), the New York Times architectural critic,complained, the recognition that design cannot solve all urban problems is seenas justification for saying that social problems are therefore not the profession'sconcern at all. This stance is often perpetuated by the schools and professionaljournals, which in their respective studios and publications give more emphasisand exposure to flashy projects designed for institutional and corporate clients,rather than fewer more modest community design examples (which may includeaffordable housing and support services, revitalization of inner city neighbour-hoods, etc.)

It seems, however, that today after the failure of the Modern Movement tofulfil some of its early social objectives and the frequent dissemination ofpostmodernism into superficial populism, today more than ever design needs asense of direction. This should not take the form of a search for a new style,fashion, novelty or paradigm, but rather should be guided by the realization thaturban design can become a responsible agent for the reconstruction of the cityform, the creation of humane environments for all, the mending of the cracks. Inwhat follows I will attempt to construct a normative agenda for the profession.

Collaborative Design: Empowering the Users

The potential of urban design as an act which can give the people the power tochange and control their own environment has rarely been realized. The usualnorm is that of the designer-expert, who may at stages interact with the client,but who is mostly guided by his/her creative skills, professional ethics andperceived understanding of the clients' needs. The notion that urban design canbecome a communicative process, however, situates the profession in a socialcontext, where activity evolves through participation and engagement of theusers. In this context, the urban designer and the users/clients can try to make'sense together' (Forester, 1985). Their collaboration helps towards a mutualformulation of problems and towards the generation and evaluation of solutions.User inclusion through collaborative design helps the urban designer to makesense out of various cultural and ideological contexts. This process can trigger aspatial dialectic among the community at large. In the end the process itself mayhelp mediate community and social conflicts, and lead towards communityempowerment.

Respecting the Needs of the 'Substantive' Client

In an early paper Koichi Mera (1967) distinguished the two roles of the urbandesigner's client as that of the 'nominal client' or 'decision maker of design', andthat of 'substantive client' or actual 'user of design'. He outlined the dilemmathat the professional is facing when the two roles are not coinciding in the faceof one person (or group). In such cases, it is quite often that the urban designer'chooses sides' with the nominal client, responding to the wishes and expecta-tions of the people who have commissioned the design and paid the fees, ratherthan the people who may actually use, live, work or move around the designedspaces. A good example of this is illustrated in the form and function ofcorporate plazas, which can be found in most American downtown areas. These

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are spaces provided by the private sector frequently in response to developmentincentives (FAR bonus). They are designed to be used by the public, often in thename of the public's interest. Their design image, however, is frequently muchmore responsive to private goals of control, social filtering, image generation,manipulation of user behaviour, than public needs of access, freedom and choice(Loukaitou-Sideris, 1991, 1993).

Contextualism versus Standardization and Theming

The design praxis does not happen in a vacuum. It takes place in a physical andsocial environment and should be determined and shaped by its contextual andtextural specificities. As has been argued, the basic misconstruction of theModern Movement consisted in its denial to recognize and respond to thedemands of the context. The Movement's doctrines that called for generalizabil-ity and universality of design resulted in decontextualization of the urban form.The Modern Movement promoted standardization rather than contextualism inthe urban landscape. Neighbourhood parks, playgrounds, schools and shoppingmalls looked the same, whatever the socio-economic and cultural specificities ofthe population or the idiosyncrasies of the site.

Speculative development of space often utilizes 'generic' forms which can beeasily reproduced. The end result is often a homogeneous product, stripped ofenvironmental and cultural specificities. In the mind of some developers suchspaces could fit every need. In reality user needs are adjusted to the design'sfeatures. Standardization leads to the patterning of space according to the needsof the 'average user'. This may make sense from an economic standpoint.However, standardization often contributes to the production of spaces whichare insensitive to specific social contexts and needs.

Postmodernism has not succeeded in bringing back the issue of context asurban design's focus of attention. "By precluding issues of gender, race, ecology,and poverty, postmodernism and deconstructivism have...forsaken the develop-ment of a more vital and sustained heterogeneity" (McLeod, 1989). Like post-modern architecture, post-modern urban design also tends to becontext-independent. Like modern urban design, postmodern urban design is adirect result of a free market economy, and a true reflection of a 'marketlandscape', where each project attempts to out-perform its immediate compe-tition in scale, scope and novelty of 'themes'. The production of a theme parkthat can be re-created in any context and can nostalgically appeal to any tasteseemingly solves the developer's puzzle as to how to address a multiculturalurban population.

But studies have long indicated that the use and perception of space dramat-ically alters for different groups, owing to socio-cultural distinctions, gender,age, race and income differences, and life-cycle stages. Urban designers shouldseek to understand and capture in their designs the differentiation in needs andvalues among users. Designed spaces should look quite different in Chinatownthan in a Hispanic barrio of the city, and should perform different functions andacquire a different spatial character in a congested city neighbourhood than ina low-density affluent suburb. Instead of designing contextual 'superspaces' thatseek to apply to every taste, the focus should probably turn towards the creationof effective group-settings, which take into account not only the specificities ofthe physical environment, but also the different use patterns of men, women,

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children, young adults, the elderly, the different ethnic groups, the homeless andthe handicapped. Instead of nostalgically recreating fake public realms that areeffectively sealed from the real city, urban design should seek to embrace theseproblematic public spaces, the neighbourhood parks, the streets, the alleys. Theurban designer's challenge is then to provide settings that address needs andvalues of specific social groups, but at the same time to design them as inclusiverather than exclusive, overlapping rather than segregated, interlinked ratherthan disconnected.

Integration versus Segregation

The fragmentation of the public realm has been accompanied by fear, suspicion,tension and conflict between different social groups. This fear results in thespatial segregation of activities in terms of class, ethnicity, race, age, type ofoccupation and the designation of certain locales that are only appropriate forcertain persons and uses (skid row park, ghetto, corporate plaza). Residen-tial space often consists of 'gated communities' that separate the public into'insiders' and 'outsiders.' The fear of crime has often led homeowner groupsvehemently to oppose 'intrusion' of 'alien' social groups or uses, anddensification of their purely residential enclaves.

Whether such fear is grounded or not is beyond the scope of this article. Theimportant question for urban design is how to address a community's concernsand at the same time promote landscapes of integration and communicationwithin the city fabric. One way is to work out solutions which respond toresidents' fear of crime without resorting to fortification (Davis, 1990), the'locking up' of whole buildings, neighbourhoods or locales. The idea of 'defens-ible space' as articulated by Rand (1969), Newman (1972), Coleman (1985) andothers promotes environmental design as a means of mitigating crime.

At the building level, the way buildings relate to the street, the orientation ofentrances, the type and articulation of ground floor uses, the relationshipbetween open and enclosed places, the hierarchy between public, semi-publicand private spaces need to be considered. At the neighbourhood or communitylevel possibilities lie in the physical articulation and structuring of public spacesto maintain face-to-face interaction. Design intervention into urban form couldbe done in such a way to facilitate rather than hinder human communication.Design elements should emphasize and reinforce the bonds of the public spaceto the rest of the urban structure. Access can be enhanced through pedestrianconnections, such as through block walkways, arcades, paseos, which link publicspaces to the surrounding districts, and through the integration of streetscape. Inthat sense public spaces become connectors rather than buffers between areas.

A whole repertoire of spaces can be reclaimed as part of the public realm bymobilizing the forces of design. In addition to streets, alleys, parks, squares andplaygrounds, each city has myriads of forms 'awaiting realization': empty lots,river banks, parking lots, freeway left over space, abandoned railroad lines,school yards, flood control channels. It is the urban designer's role to suggestnew possibilities for such spaces and 'inject' them with activities patternedaccording to the revealed preferences of users.

The type of edge, the border line between different areas in a city (public orprivate territories, different neighbourhoods) plays a critical role for the way an

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environment is perceived. Sharply demarcated borders, abrupt discontinuitiesand walled boundaries emphasize segregation and enclosure. Soft edges, flexibleboundaries in the form of transitional zones are often able to function asconnecting links (Gehl, 1987).

Flexibility versus Rigidity

Time begins to do the work of giving places character when the placesare not used as they were meant to be ... . For the person who engagesin the unanticipated use, something 'begins' in a narrative sense.(Sennett, 1990, p. 196)

In most urban environments possibilities are very limited for the users to mould,change and adapt physical space according to their needs. The design of bothpublic and private spaces is most often characterized by rigidity and inflexibility.Many of the existing 'lost spaces' in a city exist owing to the impossibility oftheir adaptation to current needs. And yet, in the last decade of the 20th century,when population mobility brings quick and drastic transformations in the socialprofile of communities, we need more than ever designs that are sensitive to thechanging values and functional requirements. We need urban designs whichcreate building forms capable of serving varying programmes, structures thatcan be easily altered, spaces amenable to reuse, adaptation and transformation.

Places versus Buildings

The search for uniqueness and innovation in design is a commendable aspirationof the profession. However, the overemphasis on aesthetic appearance, and theperception of space as a collection of signature buildings can lead to a neglect ofthe dynamic interrelationship between buildings and context. The Central Busi-ness Districts of most American cities are icons of individualistic statements ofbuildings, which turn their back onto one another and to the city. This treatmentcreates 'gaps' and discontinuity in the urban landscape and reinforces the imageof the city as a random collection of fragments, rather than a meaningfullandscape of interrelated places. Certainly this process is encouraged by theaspirations and expectations of developers-clients, and the piecemeal, lot-by-lotdevelopment which is characteristic of American cities.

Reality versus Nostalgia

Often designers' sources and archetypes are drawn not from urban Americansettings, but rather from European spatial models of an earlier age (Loukaitou-Sideris, 1993). American architects, urban designers and theorists often looknostalgically back for inspiration to the 'European motherland' (Dyckman, 1961),admiring its romantic city elements: the winding streets, the varied roof lines,the texture of pavement, the street furniture, the squares, piazzas and axialboulevards.

I would argue that the relevance of these past forms for the contemporaryAmerican urban environment is questionable. The purely stylistic quoting ofpast models generates little else than a series of 'theme parks' in the Americancity (Sorkin, 1992). There is much to be learned from the past, but this can

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happen constructively only if the designer clearly distinguishes differences incontextual applications. Even though I do not have specific prescriptions tosuggest for the construction of an 'American urbanism' (after all, such prescrip-tions would defy my premise that urban design should be collaborative insteadof expert orientated), I would like to extend a cry against imported paradigmsor forms, and a call for solutions informed by the specificities of the Americanurban reality.

Epilogue

How can the urban design profession address this call for a more humane,context-sensitive and socially responsible built form? What is the role and powerof the urban designer for the mending of cracks in the city?

Urban design is often perceived as an art, preoccupied solely with visualaesthetics, issues of form and appearance. Urban designers can also act astechnical experts, the specialists able to untangle complex problems related tothe construction of built form. Urban design as art and technical expertise—thesehave been the two roles mostly espoused by the profession in the last decades.However, I would argue that it is this artificial separation of the aesthetic andtechnical from the socio-economic and political that is responsible for theproduction of mere theme parks instead of meaningful urban spaces. A mean-ingful space arises from conflicts over use in a process where the stakeholders-users can participate (Crilley, 1993). A meaningful space is culturally bounded;it is informed by the past—the history of its physical and social context—but isdetermined by the present—the contemporary needs and values. A meaningfulspace is never completely built, but can be changed, adapted, reused andreconfigured by its users. Finally, a meaningful space incorporates links andconnections to other spaces, neighbourhoods, districts. All the above call for abroadened scope and focus of urban design which encompasses not only anaesthetic and technical, but also a social, cultural, moral, and political content.The profession should stop eschewing questions of politics, but bring them tothe surface, understand and cope with them.

Today when our inner cities suffer from abandonment, neglect and decay;when our suburbs have become individualistic statements of 'limited liability';when any sense of a collective public realm has atrophied—today more thanever we need to rethink urban design's role and possible contribution. Manycommunities need the professional, the architect, the planner, the urban de-signer, not to lead but to listen, not to impose plans but to search and suggestways by which space can become better bit by bit, piece by piece. It is now morethan ever that urban designers should get involved in civic and communityaction and should make their professional contribution to this action morerelevant. As Knesl (1984, p.19) has suggested "There could be—if foughtfor—another city, structured to reinforce other sets of values and expectations".It is time to start filling up the cracks!

Acknowledgement

The author wishes to thank Ms Liette Gilbert, doctoral student at the Depart-ment of Urban Planning at UCLA, who took the pictures for this paper.

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