As part of my masters program, I am working on a group project for the city of Bouc Bel Air, France. What this city has done is quite interesting. They have a 42 acre piece of property that has to be developed. Unfortunately, there is a 30 acre chunk right in the middle that is susceptible to flooding. Rather then pay a private company to come in and give them proposals, or to do it themselves, they have decided to pay my school an undisclosed amount of money (none of which I get to actually see) to get some students to do the work for them. Although seeing some cash would be great, I don’t mind doing the work for free because it gives me a ton of hands-on, real life experience. This is a year long project, the first phase of which was completed December 21st, 2007. This preliminary portion was merely a diagnostic phase, in which we were to analyze all parts of this city. We had to sum up who lives there, what ages they are, how long they have lived there, where they work, what kind of houses they live in, how they get around, how much they earn, when the city developed, what and when parcels of land were urbanized, the urbanized surface area of the city, what percentage of land is built on, architecture, proximity of services, the role of the environment of past developments, etc. I could go on for pages here, we basically touched on anything and everything you can think of.
To sum up our findings; this city is a mess. Well not a mess in the typical run down city kind of way, but a mess in the upper middle class, drive everywhere, work far, build wherever, sprawly kind of way. Unfortunately, I happen to be reading The Death and Life of Great American Cities, so seeing the way this city was planned is making me cringe every time I open the book. I love welcoming a challenge, but how much can one be expected to do when so much damage has already been done, and ones work is limited to a 42 acre plot of soggy land? I’ve become a huge Jacobs fan, and I’m beginning to wonder how she approached problems of this magnitude (which I’m sure she had done many times over).
The second semester is devoted entirely to creating suggestions for ways in which our land could be urbanized. We will obviously have to take into account the wet nature of the terrain before jumping into projects, making sure to only develop what is allowed by law. However, I think we will not limit the scope of our work to the borders of our territory, but rather work on ways in which this new “community” could be linked with the rest of the city. I would like to create a mini-neighborhood that could be looked to as a great example of the ways in which this city could begin turning itself around. I’m thinking high density, social diversity, mixed uses, walkability… with a big waterpark in the middle! Although it may seem ambitious, (or would “impossible” be a better word?) I’m sure Jacobs felt the same when she first began attacking Urbanization back home.
PS: This project is taking up most of my time, so expect to see updates on the way in which it is moving along.
