Force by Design

The University of Maryland’s plans for shutting down campus drive as a move toward a pedestrian oriented campus is a step backwards. History shows removing roads from an area to increase quality of space often fails. The idea is always tossed around with lofty promises of less congestion, better environment, and less accidents. Yet this ignores the urban renewal cries of the 60s and 70s in many cities across the planet which made similar promises. The result is usually less freedom, more congestion elsewhere along other routes, increased desolation, and more crime. One does not even have to look outside the state to find examples of bad designs involving a loss of roads and permitting only public transit access.

Baltimore’s light rail may not be the sole cause of Howard Streets shift from a retail powerhouse, but helped solidify the street to be plagued with startling vacancy rate ever since. Cumberland, Maryland followed the trend to install a pedestrian mall, shutting off through traffic to have a walkable area much shorter than campus drive and managed to seal a desolate fate before all industry died down in the city.

The university has been able to reduce reported incidents on campus with their policing efforts, but security is related to the amount of traffic in an area. Potential victims are more likely to be found in areas with less people. Since cars travel much faster than people on foot, in a sense a steady stream of cars at night adds security. It is a guarantee a car-less campus would feel less safe after dusk. Albeit ironic and counter intuitive, “traffic-free, pedestrian-friendly zone” is a time tested oxymoron.

What exactly is the campus doing when it shuts off traffic at the front gate? There are already only a few roads that provide access needed to maintain functionality on campus. Service roads will always be needed, taxis will always be summoned no matter how many master plans try to affix the image of a trafficless campus.

This is not to say all plans including a restricted flow of vehicular traffic are doomed to failure. Many planners can point to more successful stories. Instead of trading case studies, it is important to think about the consequences of such drastic action. Cars get negative press because they are smelly, cost money, and can kill pedestrians. But cars are also frequently used by students, visitors, and faculty alike because of the greater freedom they provide. Many students are willing to take on the cost of a parking permit because it grants them a freedom and convenience that is not readily available otherwise. This plan seems to force one method of travel on all parties who come to campus -- parents, friends, students, etc.

I applaud UMD for running a test trial closing of campus drive this summer, but it is going to be insignificant because summer cannot match the conditions of a typical school day. A trial run in Fall would provide a real taste of the cost-benefit analysis.

There is something to be said when a debate is boiled down to giving people only one option. Planners and designers pretend they can imagine all scenarios of students and visitors to inform a given design -- but it is impossible. Schemes with the unusual concept that all people will use just one means of transportation is mechanistic. It is engineering that is not befitting for an institution of higher education or elsewhere for that matter.

4-D City: Ignoring Commuters in Green Equation

from an entry to a competition that I was thinking about that got lost in the pile. note that I don't go into all the nitty gritty, but my main idea stems from the concept of the city as place rather than the concept of the city as people.

The talk is big for urban design that fits in with the new buzzword, "green." Now, admittedly I am not much of a fan of fads, or buzzwords, but all the green talk is at least getting people to think. It is making homeowners, commuters, business owners, politicians, everyone become more aware of the benefits of a more energy efficient lifestyle.

But thinking is not enough, nor taxes from Washington to curb our use on domestic oil supply. The bottom line is not how much we drive, but why we drive so much. And it doesn't get solved by solar panels on homes or carbon taxes. Nor will it be solved by creating even more new places in the US to fill the lush, green lands between the conurbations. We could only wish the solution would be a new city dropped from the sky into the cornfields of Iowa. We can effectively brainstorm how to continue responsible growth and act on those conclusions, but looking at our cities which already exist and thrive is more important.

Population of a City Changes in Any Given Day

I am from Maryland, where I get to see the best of both DC and Baltimore traffic. As a child raised in the suburbs, driving was a pastime. I drove from the eastern shore to the Shenandoah, and even once to Cleveland. In order to truly understand how to tackle greener urbanism, we need to stop cropping our views to a clean crisp box. The harsh reality is many people who work in DC, live elsewhere. Many who work in New York, commute. What can we gain from this is important. Think about how much energy and time we spend to get to work and back. The cropped image of a city is false -- it is really a vast network of roads and smaller towns. This is a key to addressing a major part of the congestion and energy consumption of the most frequent trip of the middle class.

If the man and woman who own a home are working to earn an honest living by commuting a shared 100 miles a day, rather modest in Maryland, what does a carbon tax do? What does incentives for hybrid cars do now? Arguably, our cars are the one luxury item that isn't quite the luxury item. People simply don't have access to public transit to get to the places they need to work. It is easy to proclaim, "Just move to the city," but there isn't always room, the costs can be high, and it may not work into the lifestyle choices of those who yearn for it.

A possible solution: trains. It is funny how a concept that started in the 19th century can still be true. But old can also be good. Exceptionally when matched with new technology, more energy efficient and for the populous. Just a trip to Japan taught me the tactfulness in planning the train network and bus lines to get from each of the locations on my two week trip. No cab rides needed, only buses and trains. The United States needs to revisit the train as a mode of transit.

I feel like this should spawn a new conversation between engineers and architects. It is easy to assume this is solely an engineering problem, but the stations and methods of access are what needs to be looked at.

Why do we lie to ourselves about the planning of these over sized parking lots, equipped with plenty of spaces, nice green medians, and trees and this and that...when you can just glance over a hill to see the massive interchange. More about parking lots and their design implications in a future post...

104a: Pittsburgh General Notes

Have you ever traveled to Pittsburgh? Let me tell you I have gone twice now and I have to say unlike other cities there are immediately notable things:

The first time I drove into Pittsburgh from the Pennsylvania Turnpike via I-279, which was the most spectacular way to come into the limits. You meander in the hilly terrain of the middle of nowhere in PA, only to come across a tunnel that borrows underneath a large steep hill with many residences adorning the top. The trip at this point is miles long, leaving room for many to wonder just how far the city is from the turnpike. But then, as you exit the long subterranean pipe, a burst of light floods your brain as you struggle to take in the many sights. To your right, the cascading planes that manage to rush up the hills. in your immediate site, numerous roads, only to be outdone by the bridges, skyscrapers, and the backdrop of the lush green landscape. So many levels on so many dimensions, it was a big shock to a person who had never been. SO the second time I had a lot more reason and was able to articulate what I saw...

Imagine any river of significant size, where the waters are of an unknown depth and wider than a quick swim. The river beds are below your feet and obviously even deeper than the majority of the trails. The further you journey from the water's edge, the higher you climb, meeting all sorts of trees and assorted brush.

This is not too different from most places where their are large bodies of water, but imagine now two large bodies forming an ever larger one winding into the distance between a valley of steep inclines. The nature is omnipotent and inevitable to the eyes of any onlooker. That is why it is incredible any settlement of people can occur in a place of so much overwhelming nature.

Juxtaposed with the river and the precipitous landscape, Pittsburgh is certainly one of the more unique cities. Most cities merely either coexist with the fringes of a waterfront or incorporate a sliver of trees in a dense urban fabric. Perhaps many examples of such confluences are noted in the thick of wooded wilderness of America -- older and smaller towns like Harper's Ferry, WV certainly enjoy the picturesque nature as well. But Pittsburgh achieves it's stance as a city more than a simple city along the waterfront. No, this large city manages to preserve the greatness of the river and overcome it all at once.

Baltimore, MD and New York, NY are cities that have a fair amount of water near them. But in general, the water lacks the gravity to encourage reflection or leisure, the cities place more pedestrians on the inner networks, or encourage a more piecemeal engagement of the water, such as with overly commercialized spectacles on a less than scenic port. Pittsburgh in its complexity as a landscape offers a more simple solution to the incorporation of green space. Consider it the opposite to Central Park in NY...an oasis that is the effort of the planners and designers of the city. Here, rather, the land will only permit so much building to efficiently and comfortably exist. The result is phenomenal.



In just a few places you travel, you are not too far from a wall of trees. Walk along the south side flats and you have to see the hillside of Mt Washington. Or the walk along the strip and you cannot avoid glancing at the hill side of the thick brush hiding Bigelow Blvd and Polish Hill. Unlike many cities where districts may follow the arbitrary and ever shifting lines of demographics, the permanence of the landscape will create a differing genus loci per location, no matter who may flood the streets. This creates an interesting question of how did zoning laws impact this city...because in a location where you only truly have so much of a flat building surface, it raises the question of the procedural history. Unlike other places that may need arbitrary and standards for development and growth, the natural boundaries of the site could provide a scope that Pittsburgh is the way it is and will remain that way. The facade and the vistas are actually relatively timeless, with a majority of the high rise structures dating around 40 years ago.

Perhaps a map users nightmare, these dips, valleys, hills, and steep drops even inform the flattest areas, such as the Central Business District with it's relative even presence. The road heights do vary, but only to accommodate the eventually unforgiving drop along the edge of Southside slopes. Liberty bridge needs to be on an entirely different level. This contrasts a majority of the bridges on the over the Allegheny river and all the others over the Monongahela Valley. Driving by the streets can be easy enough if you have the third dimension in mind.

The cities balance of the induction of fast paced interchanges and bridges into the busier parts of town is not imposing. All sites from the city's CBD are not overwhelmed with sites of concrete and asphalt. The most obvious location of this saturation is notably the location for the stadiums. I am quite struck on the ability for pedestrians to share the bridge with the high speed Interstate traffic over the Fort Duquesne Bridge. Not just this bridge, but noteworthy is that unlike the unfriendly notion of the pedestrian in many municipalities, there is a great deal of foot traffic encouraged by the aesthetics and form of the bridges in the city.

Walking in the CBD was much like any other city, which the grid fairly easy to follow...but noteworthy is the brick paved Grant street which is diagonal to the Penn and Liberty Avenues as they have to eventually take you up the strip. The strip itself is sadly the victim of much abandonment, but look past the emptiness pass 20th street, and gladly take in the old storefronts, cultured joints, and elaborate streetscape. It is different across the Monongahela River, but the old architecture remains, but inside a different vibe. The street culture is not as present on Carson Street, but surely the stores and hustle is there for anyone to take in.

The impression one leaves with is finally a city where perhaps the notion of an identifiable skyline is not all that matter, but rather the product of the environment and it's inhabitants as a whole. After all, take away the hills and the water and leave the skyline, you may not be able to guess it is the Steel City. But perhaps if you took away everything that was a high-rise and left the landscape, you would be able to. How many cities have we all traveled to in which we can do that?

206: urbānus + "ics" = Study of the City

..."If thought can corrupt language, then language can corrupt thought"...

(George Orwell)

Urbanism is a concept that is confusing. Simple as this fact seems, it is not a word that has much history, strict definition, or even recognition among most. Unlike other fields of study – ones that end in -omics, -ture, and ign, urbanism ends in ism, and is therefore a school of thought. But the word itself is used to imply a large array of items that are basically pertaining to a city.

The more I think about the concept of urbanism, which sounds more and more like a school of thought than a discipline, I come to see that it is a very rich study that has a broad subject base. For instance, if I were to argue that New York City is poorly planned, this is obviously in the umbrella of an urbanism discussion. Furthermore, if I were to argue a part of the history of the city, when planners did so and so, again, obviously a part of urbanism. Moreover, what if I were to discuss a plaza design. Or a policy decision to enforce plazas. Or a discussion on who lives in what parts of a city. But what if I postulate for you readers a concept that urbanism is more than a school of thought, a discipline of study, or an aggregate of other topics, but an approach to these topics.

Historians can go in depth about politics of the national level governance – but many more specialize in topics of media and art and so on. Cities, in their abundance, have their historians too – who can recount and see the clear path their local jurisdiction has taken. But not all cities have this sort of documentation. Some are, seemingly, uninteresting, trite, and at worst, ignored. But as all things have a past, all things must have a history.

History, I will argue, is a key component of looking at Urbatics, Not Urbanism. But the way a city is standing, what makes the city what it is. Not the way people wish it can be changed or enriched. Many times in design class we have the notion of Urban Design, how a city is thought to be ideal, how a city is contrived, and how a city yields from that intervention decades previous. But what about the notion that there is more than just philosophy that goes into constructing large centers of people? What if I were to argue there is a benefit in examining even the small centers of people?

Urbanism forces the reader and myself to infer a basic assumption: that there is a thought process to all design, universally understood and applied. But we all know that in a field of study so complicated as politics, the amount of isms are far from short supply. These isms themselves are important to understanding history of the world. How can one examine Soviet-era politics without Marxism. Vietnam without Communism. The US without Federalism or Republicanism. And going out of politics into Architecture, where there are Modernism, classicism, etc. The point is that Urbanism is a misnomer, for it applies a philosophical and academic approach that so surreptitiously sneaks in with the way we examine the history.

There is a monopoly on thought, application, and process with the same term. I was taught there is only one good way to do things in a city. Nodes, access to amenity, and so on. The issue I take with this is that it’s a very universal analysis. What about the more tedious, the more minute. This again points to the issue of all these ideas coming under the term Urbanism. How can one go into the more complex without digging into other approaches, large and small?

Perhaps it is because the term is in its infancy that it has not been more widely debated. Below is a quote for it’s possible origins:

‘Urbanism’ in English gains its contemporary meaning as a translation of the French expression l'urbanisme, which can be translated as ‘town planning’. But it has implications which go beyond this translation. Urbanism suggests an approach which comprehends the city as a whole and contains a theory which seeks to explain urban relations. Perhaps the most influential such theory has been the neo-Marxist development, by such writers as Manuel Castells and Henri Lefebvre, of urbanism as a set of spatial relations which have distributive and class consequences independent of those generated by industrialism (the mode of production).
— Lincoln Alliso

Mr. Alliso’s quote furthers the point that the idea of (1)‘town planning’ is the word’s true origin. But then goes on to coattail the definition to also mean (2) the study of the city and (3) the impact of the physical make up of the city on the people who live there. Urbanism, therefore, is a complicated concept. Urbanism is implying much more than simply a study. More than just architecture with its theory’s below, but a full set of theory along with it’s analysis.

The phrase “New Urbanism” should be an immediate cry for help that more vocabulary is used in the field of Urbatics. Unlike the study of cities and spatial interactions with people, New Urbanism promotes itself like a treatise. Just as Marx had his doctrine and Adam Smith had his, the bottom line is that isms are schools of thought. So in this piece, I will use my own term, Urbatics, deriving from urb, latin for city, and tic, meaning pertaining to – Urbatics. This is to contrast Urbanism, which in it’s root ism infers it has a doctrine, a system, or a theory behind it.

When discussing philosophies it is important to address these notions. Vocabulary is the first step in a new understanding of a topic. And with all understandings, it is important to separate the objective facts from the subjective thoughts. Let us go on to discover Urbatics.

So what is an urbanist? I would argue just like an architect that struggles for his style may himself wish to be called a Modernist, an Urbanist can have a school applied to his name. But it is important to not any good modernist be well versed in all schools of urbanism after learning about the fundamentals of urbatics.

Now with these differences at hand you can more readily apply what way Le Corbesier thought as he drew, versus what Rouse envisioned with Columbia. All of them will fall under the umbrella of Urbatics.

402a: Columbia Chases Windmills

A note before I unleash this beast: I have done a lot of work looking and thinking about Columbia...it is the biggest 'city' near me. I have a lot to write on it, but this is the latest.


IS ROUSE OFFICIALLY DEAD?
A Commentary and Brief History of Columbia, MD

The Columbia Board of Residents is meeting to discuss yet again plans to introduce a ‘downtown’ feeling to the suburban planned city. If the board thinks they want to keep his vision alive, maybe they should go back and just see how dead Rouse’s vision actually is today.

Columbia wants to bring the downtown idea of the city to their mall centered suburban (city). Columbia wants it, needs it. That is what they say.

I am a firm believer in the adage from Karl DuPuy of knowing what you want, and then knowing how to get it. I think the primary question is often glanced over with little trepidation, as it is more excited to postulate, dream, and imagine a future space or scenario that is
favorable.

"Booming downtown with lights, shopping, residences, and great times."

Or more in their words from the article
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/howard/bal-columbia0515,0,2111083.story

"To me, it should be a city, but how big a city?" Citaramanis said. "I want it to be a city downtown, and the urban core of Howard County."

She and other citizens fear that too dense a downtown might produce unwelcome crowding and congestion that current residents might hate, while the plan's boosters see those objections as potential roadblocks to a bright fulfillment of founder James W. Rouse's original vision.

It is easy to make assumptions that there is truth to the classic line from field of dreams "If you build it, they will come." Usually they will come, and sometimes, come full force, but there is a difference between success of volume of population, and the success of the spaces themselves.

I was struggling for a few weeks to figure out why the idea of Columbia having lofty goals for a not so distant scheme in their future would be ironic. And it is because Columbia itself was that a mere 45 years ago when Rouse dreamt up his thesis in the rough of Howard County in the mid 60s. A city to revolutionize the idea of diversity, make great communities for all economic statuses and walks of life. To make a great suburban space that was more than just a Levittown, an exit off the expressway.

But when we look at the success of such a scheme, it is a mixed result. Columbia is afluent, many people live there. But how successful is it as a city. The car dependent citizens would argue that the connectivity and ability to use town centers and village centers has failed with impeccable precision. And the quality of those town centers themselves is highly suspect.

So when we have a board of people who think they know what they want and there for how to get it, I have a few recommendations in mind.

Columbia is a case study in the point I make with all New Urbanists I come across. NUs are great people, who know what a city needs, we may differ on what it takes to get there and the correct amount of policy intervention, but they are correct with data and sociology on there side -- for starting places from scratch.

I argue Columbia, like most sprawling conurbations and even locales in the boondocks, such as my last two houses, is an established place. People live there, and if that isn't enough, they live there in large numbers. So it is often a lot harder for a NU to make a claim that with New Urbanism, or as I prefer, good urbanism, we can transform space. Columbia is too big. And like many systems, like Baltimore and Baltimore's Metro area, the system is complex and depends on looking at the flux of the people who go in and out.
Columbia's major systemic flaw is that if you were to argue the village centers are successful in providing the needed ammenities to their residents, it is more difficult to lay claim to such for the Town Center. The vision, as I have read, was to have a place that anchors the city where people can gather. It has a central library, a location for meetings and concerts, a lakefront for public view, and of course, the mall.

I love Columbia on a cynical level not only because it is a city that has a mall as it's central core. It is because the road system, the artery that is to bring people in, Little Patuxent Parkway, loops around it, making the cities infrastructure itself based around the mall. The office buildings that form an electron shell around the vast deserts of asphalt and painted lines. To protect, the mall on the inside.

But I fear I am focusing much too much on the town center proper. The main vein of the ideas that lived on in Rouse’s vision have disappated. One can argue that diversity has preserved in Columbia, but then again, it has in many other cities that did not take such radical measures to ‘diversify’ in the first place. Another notable remark is the lack of a proper transit system, which of course Rouse fought for. Where are the committees requesting such a system be created to make a more efficient and equitable, if not just esuriently, means travel in the ‘city.’
Because of the car-oriented design, Columbia is such an ardent failure in achieving the goal of a downtown because of its complete disregard for the bipedal types, the ones on bikes and on their feet, given that from all sides, the mall requires a hike up a series of stairs and hills, through some garages, between the light posts, and finally, you come inside.

Just imagine if you would have exported the parking of the mall on LPPkwy from the get go. Take the Macy's, JCPenny, the bath and body and place it on the main avenue. Replace the center of the asphalt park with a real park. A park that unlike Centennial park, is in the real heard of town. You could take advantage of the hills, mix the pedestrians with the cars, bring in a natural element that is indeed surrounded by the active part of the city center.

But that isn't the case. The mall is so ingrained and so permanent. What downtown main street appeal would you place on LPPkwy? What gravitational pull could make people wish to walk along side such a unpedestrian friendly avenues that snakes around a bigger commercial center. After all, a sidewalk on the side of a fast paced thruway doesn't equal mainstreet appeal. And who wants to walk across the parking lot to the bistro of LPPkwy when you have an extensive food court already installed.

Lesson: Nothing is in a vacuum. You can't treat LPP like it is all alone without the gigantic monstrousity of the mall. The Mall (of Columbia) is so successful, itself presents the issue of the injected downtown. Which begs the question, what came first, the downtown, then
the city? Or the city, then the downtown? If you argue the mall is the downtown that lead to the city that lay today, I would agree with you. If you suggested that Columbia’s been somehow devoid of a downtown until these discussions, I’d be less inclined to see that.

All these factors need to be considered before the wild dreams of board members that want this new look to occur for their city. I am sad because most of the angst this is generating is not about my concerns, but because of the potential deforestation of a part of symphony woods. I have never been in there, aside for concerts. And now they are debating making the Columbia area more accessible from the South via 29. The car will dominate all the more. And downtown areas need to control the amount of cars. Look how many people love walking along side route one.

This is not to say there aren't ways to accomplish the goal. But the goal needs to be less dependent on the human condition and more realistic on the cause and the effect, which I fear, could be minimal.

205:

Note: You'll see overtime I am an erratic writer. I will usually go all over the board and at times just disappear. It is certainly an indicator of who I am and how I work best. 

I haven't been in much of a conclusion based writing mood these days; I have several pieces that are under construction, awaiting edits and images. Personally, I am not worried. This blog is coming together nicely.

This morning I ranted on camera about what I think architecture is and how this will ultimately tie into any work I produce, not just for the blog, but in general. This entry, more than the others, I would appreciate feedback and conversation on what other people think. The typical longwinded essay of my mouth ties the theory of what arch should be, how that ties to urbanism, and how do we best represent it. 

What is Architecture/Urbanism to you?

*** *** ***

Content:

architecture as process, architecture as solution, differences between art and architecture

Art - made for reaction,

but architecture needs to have activation and action, in addition to the reaction

the flaws of looking at merely the outside of the building to say it is 'good architecture'

Importance of social impact, and learning from the sociology of the spaces already made

401a: Asia Town

I am writing from the office on lunch break, so please understand I cannot elaborate fully on the topic at this time.

For all those who listened to my piece on Chinatown in Washington, DC with the picture presentation, I came to a conclusion that cities love to think they have a say in who lives where for image sake. We want 'good jobs and good homes' here and 'a booming downtown.' Well, through tax incentives and well meaning plans, these ideas can come to life, but I have come across a piece from the American Institute of Architects (AIA) that bothers me in a paragraph. My boss in Frederick today sent me a link (http://info.aia.org/aiarchitect/thisweek09/0206/0206d_bta.cfm) which if one leads in it's entirety, could discover a concept for a 'Asia Town.' He called it to my attention and now I feel I need to look at this more closely. The exerpt is from by Zach Mortice, Associate Editor:

"The northernmost section of Charles North is slated to grow into Asia Town, a Pan-Asian community of Korean, Japanese, Chinese, and Middle-Eastern residents and entrepreneurs. Though there is already an Asian presence in the neighborhood, it will require the dominant landowner in the area to attract such people to the neighborhood in much greater numbers for such a distinct cultural district to emerge. This could be a difficult task, as a traditional “Chinatown” has never taken root in Baltimore. Similar to the Backstage District, this area will contain a mix of uses and hundreds of thousands of flexible retail, gallery, studio, and office spaces, as well as incubator spaces. The master plan also calls for row houses to be reconceived as Asian-style shop houses, where business owners split work and living space in one building. "

I highlighted the key phrases in this passage. The notion of 'requiring' more people is not a minor one. In fact, the idea should be questioned before this idea has any credence. DC is proof enough that centrally planning who lives where is not successful. Maybe once upon a time DC had a large Chinese population, but there is no way to keep that. But arguably, people claim they want to hold on to a piece of history and culture. That is a good idea, but how? Through signage, through Chinese archways? How about focusing on key Chinese people...parks for chinese figures in the town. That way it can have a sense of historical permanance. We seem to forgot about people when we are designing. Chinatowns are worldwide, and they never needed people to plan them. They have them in Japan, Korea, Singapore, Thailand, New York, LA, San Francisco, London, and Paris...

But back to Baltimore. They NEVER had a Chinatown, why? Because Chinese people never formed a group large, cohesive, and culturally evident to present itself. It is not like NYC said "chinese people will move here, here, and here." Heck, the actual district in NYC flucuates with the years...and looking to other cultural locales, like Harlem, that thing has changed from group to group. Why not name it "Little Puerto Rico?" Case and point.

Another luxury taken in the piece is one of cultural ignorance. Asia Town assumes a lot of things, that people want to be grouped together based on nationality, heritage, etc, and also that people want to be grouped by continent. Koreans, Japanese, and Chinese living together could work, but if it did, wouldn't it have already happened. Architecture should never inform who lives where, but the people who live there can inform the architecture.

So I stress that if there is barely an Asian presence in that part of Baltimore, making Chinese signs, making Asian style buildings, and herding Asian people to live there will not make this area successful, at least as a cultural center. Culture depends on people...people who activate it with music, language, clothing, customs, and the like. Let's stop pretending we can pick who lives where, because frankly, we shouldn't do that to begin with. It makes the Asians a puppet of a grand plan, a pawn of some municipal concept. That is nothing like Chinatown

I intend to talk about the rest of the article in a future discussion.

400 series will be for current events in urban design