The question mark in “temporary paradise?” is essential. Fifty years ago, the municipal planners Kevin Lynch and Donald Appleyard were hired by San Diego Benefactor Hamilton Marston to examine our binational region and submit their recommendations. Could the fortune of our paradise when our border metropolis boomed?
Lynch, who died in 1984, was a city planner, academic and author in Boston. Appleyard, who died in 1982, was his counterpart in Berkeley. Over two years, she made many trips to San Diego in the course of her landmarks. They visited several communities, spoke to a number of San Diegans, met with the planners of the city of San Diego Max Schmidt and Mike Stepner as well as a consulting committee appointed by the city council and Mayor Pete Wilson. In 1974 they showed their 50-page report.
“Temporary paradise?” Last year was again in public during the world design capital San Diego Tijuana 2024. It was the subject of workshops organized by Appleyard's son Bruce, a planner, author and professor at San Diego State University. At 50 it is worth a ramp light.
In words, photos and illustrations, “temporary paradise?” Views the natural and artificial landscape from coast to desert, suburbs to the inner city. Lynch and Appleyard deliver their ideas in a clear, sometimes poetic language. They were beaten with the sea in the region, canyons, mesas and wild animals. They found an unmistakable topography from west to east and striking socio -economic differences. How can we protect the topography and serve all residents as an adult region best?
In view of the downtown of San Diego, you describe a spectacular Bayfront with simple public access and wonderful view of many locations in the city center. These assets threatened to be wiped out by poorly planned development. The city center was run down in the city center. The core, which then consisted of older buildings and a handful of high -rise buildings, seemed to be lifeless during the day, while Horton Plaza on Broadway, although “Brazil and Tawry”, became of activity. People gathered to observe how water spit in a vaulted fountain designed by Irving Gill. With the surrounding green and seating, the place was a magnet for people, a model for good placemaking that was to be replicated.
In the city center today? This is an entire book about the good, the bad and the ugly.
North Park, as the authors found, was an inviting quarter of historical houses that need exciting new shop fronts and street landscapes, careful traffic structure and the addition of bicycle traces. It would make a logical stop along a potential new light railway line, and it was also an ideal place for the new infill development to offer urgently needed apartments.
Today, North Park is in many ways how Lynch and Appleyard have proposed. The new 2.3-mile-person-cycling cycle is an example. However, growth has also strengthened the concerns about the situation, design and the scope of poet new projects.
Barrio Logan and the surrounding districts, the authors observed, urgently needed TLC. Buildings and streets were in decay, basic infrastructures such as schools and libraries. In general, San Diego's Bayfront would benefit from eliminating usage purposes that are not dependent on the promenade, such as:
Of course, the airport remains largely expanded or bad, but Barrio Logan is now a lively example of reviving in the spirit of a diverse community.
According to Lynch and Appleyard, Mira Mesa did not represent the urban spread in the worst. In addition, the new community would need a lot of water and strength, but environmentally friendly opportunities to deliver it were not in the picture.
Mira Mesa is a much better place today. The branch library is filled with books in many languages. The Mira Mesa High School has a striking new music center. The landscape design along streets and sidewalks has been greatly improved, and there are many parks for many types of relaxation.
“Temporary paradise?” Instead, it was seen as a resource for future planning. According to Stepner in San Diego in San Diego, some of his recommendations were integrated from 1979. Stepner, Bruce Appleyard and many others believe that the study is more relevant today than ever.
“The suggestions that you do with regard to infill and what makes a full community could offer a useful instrument to combat the priorities of living space, homelessness, infrastructure and public security,” says Stepner.
To maintain his father's work, from which “temporary paradise”? If only a small part, Appleyard's passion is. His father wrote books such as “Livable Streets” and “The Conservation of European Cities”. Bruce 'book “Livable Streets 2.0” (2020) contributes significantly to the original of his father.
Ironically, Donald Appleyard, an expert in traffic control in the neighborhood, whose traffic authorization strategies were implemented in Berkeley and are now on the spot when he was hit by a drunk driver during a visit to Greece. Bruce was 17 and he saw his father for the last time when he dropped him at San Francisco International Airport.
Since 2016 he has been collecting ideas for a successor to “Temporary Paradise?”, Including the WDC2024 workshops, which he organized with Stepner, with a view to the next 50 years. Also in connection with WDC, he and Stepner spent the original “temporary paradise” again? In Slick Magazine format with successive Spanish and English texts and new introductory remarks through planning experts, including the two.
Appleyard's efforts to a new “temporary paradise”?, The years 2016 and 2024 should be emphasized for obvious reasons like large red warning flags. Appleyard is determined, like his father, that San Diego and Tijuana should merging to create a binational identity together. He is not shy to name names, especially one thing if he explains why obstacles to such a unit are greater than ever.
Apart from binational relations: “I think living is still the most important problem. We have to find ways to create denser projects in politically powerful communities such as Mission Hills in which I live. “He believes that there are opportunities to convey between nimbies and those who could bring new apartments.
Last year, Appleyard wrote and distributed a “explanation of mutual dependency for San Diego Tijuana”, which is included in the reprint of “Temporary Paradise” from 2024? As the title shows, it confirms the need for a binational partnership.
During the WDC2024 he looked for signatures of confirmation. Hundreds added their names of the explanation, he says, but not the mayors of San Diego and Tijuana, although he personally presented them personally.
Dirk Sutro wrote extensively about architecture and design in Southern California and is the author of Architectural Guidebooks in San Diego and UC San Diego. His column appears every month in times of San Diego.
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