From the man himself, James Shanley who got this dialogue started. (See "Oh No He Didn't" Series to the right.)
Even its current state, the central waterfront is, from an urbanist's perspective, a Dead Zone. The part of it that is actively used, at least for some of the year, is the thin strip along the waters edge: the Board-walk. Excluding Market Landing Park, which is only heavily used for July and August, the Central Waterfront is a storage area. People will use the Ways to the Water to access the part they are most interested in using, which is the board-walk. The rest is something to get through. In my opinion, this will not change whether its an "attractive parking destination" or "attractive park".
One of the challenges we face with both Waterfront West and Waterfront East, is that they are for all intents and purposes cut-off from the core downtown by the undeveloped central waterfront. At one time in our city's history, the central waterfront was developed, and the city flowed from the water to the core, and vise versa. We need to re-establish that connection. Not to do so runs the risk of developments that become entities/destinations unto themselves instead of a seamless continuation of the core. While still providing needed tax revenue, this could have some not so good effects on the core city.
How do we do this? Limited, human scaled development, sited perpendicular to the river, with a mix of retail (especially food), office and residential. Even as few as three or four structures carefully sited so as to maximize views/ways to the river, would do a lot to stimulate the area, and make the West/East parcels connect to the core. Development along the easterly edge of Waterfront West should be sited so that the focus is towards the downtown, not towards Route 1. Get people looking/moving towards the core.
What makes cities work is density and people. Opens space and parks are good things, but they do not posses inherent goodness. Neither do buildings, but properly juxtaposed they can change an area from something to get through, to a place that you never want to leave.
2 comments:
Yes!!....a smart set of ideas that I would bet work great. We might want to read [as a community wide thing] Jane Jacob's "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" . It could give folks a shared vocabulary for engaging in this dialog. I admire Mr Shanley's leadership in untangling old somewhat hardened ideas about the waterfront.
I strongly support Mr. Shanley's premise, and his vision for a potential revenue-positive use of the Waterfront area.
Since the surveys/non-binding referenda were passed, there have been dramatic changes in City services, as a result of financial setbacks that simply could not be imagined.
Speaking as a School Committee member, in the last five years, we have laid off or not replaced more than 60 FTE's in staff and administrators, closed a school, lost more than 2.7 million dollars in actual revenue; we have removed a model foreign language program from the elementary schools, and have been forced to eliminate the shredded program that remained in the middle school.
We have identified literacy at the early stages of schooling as a critical problem in the schools. Sadly, another park on the waterfront won't be the lovely, sylvan setting we might hope for if we cannot afford to keep it up, or if our children cannot read the signs that say pick up after your pet.
We cannot depend on yesterday's answers to face today's and tomorrow's challenges.
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