Design for Ecological Democracy

by Hester, Randolph T.

• ISBN13: 9780262515009
• ISBN10: 0262515008
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-09-24
• Publisher: The MIT Press

Summary

Winner, 2007 Davidoff Award presented by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP), Winner, Scholarly Illustrated Category, 2007 AAUP Book Jacket and Journal Show. and Winner of the Architecture & Urban Planning category in the 2006 Professional/Scholarly Publishing Annual Awards Competition presented by the Association of American Publishers, Inc. Over the last fifty years, the process of community building has been lost in the process of city building. City and suburban design divides us from others in our communities, destroys natural habitats, and fails to provide a joyful context for our lives. In Design for Ecological Democracy, Randolph Hester proposes a remedy for our urban anomie. He outlines new principles for urban design that will allow us to forge connections with our fellow citizens and our natural environment. He demonstrates these principles with abundantly illustrated examples-drawn from forty years of design and planning practice-showing how we can design cities that are ecologically resilient, that enhance community, and that give us pleasure. Hester argues that it is only by combining the powerful forces of ecology and democracy that the needed revolution in design will take place. Democracy bestows freedom; ecology creates responsible freedom by explaining our interconnectedness with all creatures. Hester's new design principles are founded on three fundamental issues that integrate democracy and ecology: enabling form, resilient form, and impelling form. Urban design must enable us to be communities rather than zoning-segregated enclaves and to function as informed democracies. A simple bench at a centrally located post office, for example, provides an opportunity for connection and shared experience. Cities must be ecologically resilient rather than ecologically imperiled, adaptable to the surrounding ecology rather than dependent on technological fixes. Resilient form turns increased urban density, for example, into an advantage. And cities should impel us by joy rather than compel us by fear; good cities enrich us rather than limit us. Design for Ecological Democracyis essential reading for designers, planners, environmentalists, community activists, and anyone else who wants to improve a local community.

Author Biography

Randolph T. Hester is Professor and former Department Chair in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning at the University of California, Berkeley, and Principal in the firm Community Development by Design. He is the author of Neighborhood Space, Planning Neighborhood Space with People, and Community Design Primer.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. xi
Introduction	p. 1
The State of American Habitation	p. 1
Ecological Democracy	p. 3
Life, Death, and Rebirth of Ecological Democracy	p. 4
The Marriage of Necessity and Happiness	p. 5
Design of City and Landscape Together	p. 7
Enabling, Resilient, and Impelling Form	p. 8
Enabling Form: ôWe Got to Know Our Neighborsö	p. 8
Resilient Form: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Sustainable Happiness	p. 9
Impelling Form: ôMake a City to Touch the People's Heartsö	p. 9
The Global Design Process	p. 10
The Focus Is Design	p. 10
This Book Is for Students of Ecological Democracy	p. 12
Enabling Form: ôWe Got to Know Our Neighborsö	p. 15
Centeredness	p. 21
Ten Rules for Good Centers	p. 23
Sociopetal Places, Forming Open Circles	p. 32
Places for Community Rituals	p. 37
Nourishing Centeredness Every Day	p. 40
Connectedness	p. 49
Independent Adjacencies	p. 51
What Goes Together and What Doesn't
Transportation and Community That Unify	p. 52
Chains, Webs, Flows, Networks, Cycles, and Recycles	p. 54
Resource Footprints	p. 57
Wildlife Habitats	p. 58
Ecological Thinking	p. 59
Mutualism and Glocalization	p. 60
Outside the Confines of the Box	p. 62
Things That Don't Go Together but Might	p. 63
Finding Fish Heads and Tails	p. 64
The Lost Mountain, the Power Map, and the Dirt Contractor	p. 66
Fairness	p. 77
Accessibility	p. 78
Inclusion	p. 80
Equal Distribution of Resources and Amenities	p. 82
Paying Attention to Design	p. 83
Mapping Injustices	p. 85
Fair Landscapes Empower	p. 87
Sensible Status Seeking	p. 97
Forming Communities to Be What They Are	p. 100
Lessons from Poverty	p. 104
Taking Root	p. 105
Small Is Often Beautiful	p. 106
Rare and Commonplace Beauty	p. 107
Conspicuous Nonconsumption	p. 110
Inclusive Heterogeneity	p. 111
Dirty Enough to Be Happy	p. 112
Healthy Status Seeking	p. 114
Sacredness	p. 117
Sacredness Expresses Our Essential Nature	p. 117
Uncovering Sacredness	p. 118
Transformative Community Awareness	p. 125
Preservation	p. 126
Design Gestalt	p. 127
Recurring Center	p. 127
Natural Boundary	p. 130
Connections to Community, Ancestors, and Spirits	p. 130
Particularness	p. 132
Design Inspiration	p. 133
A Higher Purpose for Vexing Problems	p. 135
Resilient Form: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Sustainable Happiness	p. 137
Particularness	p. 145
Bioregional Distinction	p. 147
Topographic Typologies and Willful Water
Peculiar Forms of Conserving, Recycling, and Repairing	p. 152
Meditations, Imaginings, and Similar Someplace Else	p. 160
Time Lapse and Previous Catastrophes	p. 164
Particularness Provides Goodness of Fit	p. 169
Selective Diversity	p. 171
Biological Diversity	p. 172
Cultural Diversity	p. 184
Global Heterogenization and Glocal Design	p. 186
The Landscape Form of a Diversified Economy	p. 187
Social Ecotones of Mixed-Use Neighborhoods	p. 188
How Much Diversity Is Enough?	p. 190
Intergenerational and Social-Class Diversity	p. 196
Seeding Diversity	p. 196
Density and Smallness	p. 201
Concentrated Density Creates Resilience	p. 201
The Conspiracy against Density	p. 205
Net, Perceived, and Affective Density	p. 207
Making Density Desirable	p. 208
Provide for Piracy	p. 218
Hide Density	p. 219
Green the Neighborhood	p. 220
Acquire Big Nature	p. 221
Identify the Neighborhood and the Block	p. 222
Create the Center	p. 222
I Beg Your Pardon	p. 223
I Never Promised You a Rose Garden
Limited Extent	p. 227
Two Excellences Make a Singular Resilience	p. 227
From Settlement to Edge City and Fat Suburb	p. 229
Three Questions of Size	p. 230
Appropriate Size	p. 230
The Outer Limits of Regional Carrying Capacity
Appropriate Size	p. 231
Internal Limits on Optimal City Size
Reconfiguring Megacities	p. 233
Inside and Outside	p. 237
Cities Approaching 250,000 People	p. 238
Appropriate Size	p. 240
Small Towns in Regional Form
Creating a Big Wild Greenbelt for Los Angeles	p. 244
The Essential Scales for Governing Ecological Democracy	p. 251
A Mollusk, a Crustacean, a Flat Worm, and Tocqueville	p. 253
Adaptability	p. 255
Flexibile City Form from Natural Places	p. 256
Landscapes of Adaptability	p. 256
Emptiness	p. 259
Landscape and Building	p. 260
Priority Framework and Piecemeal Intricacy	p. 263
Continuous Experiment, Adaptive Management, and Windows of Opportunity	p. 272
Choice	p. 275
Impelling Form: ôMake a City to Touch the People's Heartsö	p. 277
Everyday Future	p. 281
Designing for What People Do All Day	p. 283
Integrating Present Experience with Change	p. 284
Marking Time	p. 287
Inspiring Visionary Futures with the Everyday	p. 289
Everyday Lessons for Designers	p. 296
Naturalness	p. 301
Naturopathy	p. 302
Naturism	p. 305
Naturalization	p. 308
The Form to Arouse Naturalness	p. 310
The Natural Park	p. 315
Naturalness Impels	p. 323
Inhabiting Science	p. 325
Urban Ecological Illiteracy	p. 327
Native Wisdom, Science, and the Language of Ecological Democracy	p. 331
How Science Is Inhabited	p. 332
What We Need to Know	p. 334
Learning from the Urban Landscape	p. 338
Discovery Landscapes	p. 340
Cultivating Landscapes	p. 344
Instructive Landscapes	p. 345
Scientific Landscapes	p. 348
Argumentative Landscapes	p. 350
LA96C	p. 353
Reciprocal Stewardship	p. 363
Stewarding and Stewarded	p. 364
Native Stewardship Meets Freedom to Withdraw from Civic Life	p. 365
Ecological Necessity and Voluntary Stewardship	p. 367
The Garden Patch	p. 375
Active Responsibility	p. 383
Pacing	p. 387
Light Speed and Snail's Pace	p. 387
Dwelling Pace	p. 390
Learning to Walk	p. 392
Slouching toward Obesity at Car Speed	p. 393
Remedial and Preventive Prescriptions	p. 396
Pathfinders Curb the Car	p. 396
Living Syphonic Sequences	p. 399
Metamorphic Walks	p. 404
Grounded	p. 408
Walk All Over	p. 412
Epilogue	p. 419
Notes	p. 423
References and Suggested Reading	p. 459
Image Credits	p. 487
Index	p. 491
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