The immersive ugliness of our everyday environments in America is entropy made visible. We can't overestimate the amount of despair that we are generating with places like this. And mostly, I want to persuade you that we have to do better if we're going to continue the project of civilization in America. By the way, this doesn't help. Nobody's having a better day down here because of that.
Preplavljujuća ružnoća naših svakodnevnih okruženja u Americi je entropija na delu. Ne možemo preceniti količinu očaja koju proizvodimo ovakvim mestima. I najvažnije, želim da vas ubedim da moramo da se potrudimo ako želimo da nastavimo projekat civilizovanja u Americi. Usput, ovo ne pomaže. (Smeh) Nikom dan nije bolji zbog ovoga.
There are a lot of ways you can describe this. You know, I like to call it "the national automobile slum." You can call it suburban sprawl. I think it's appropriate to call it the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world. You can call it a technosis externality clusterfuck. And it's a tremendous problem for us. The outstanding -- the salient problem about this for us is that these are places that are not worth caring about. We're going to talk about that some more. A sense of place: your ability to create places that are meaningful and places of quality and character depends entirely on your ability to define space with buildings, and to employ the vocabularies, grammars, syntaxes, rhythms and patterns of architecture in order to inform us who we are.
Ima mnogo načina na koje ovo možete opisati, ja volim to da zovem "nacionalni auto slam". Možete reći i prigradsko razlivanje. Ja mislim da je prikladno da se zove najveće pogrešno raspoređivanje resursa u istoriji sveta. Možete ga zvati tehnološko eksternalno nagomilano sranje. (Smeh) To je ogroman problem za nas. Značajan - problem koji se ističe u vezi s ovim jeste taj da su ovo mesta do kojih nam nije stalo. O tome ćemo malo više da pričamo. Osećaj za mesto. Vaša sposobnost da stvarate mesta koja su značajna i koja poseduju kvalitet i karakter, zavisi u potpunosti od vaše sposobnosti da definišete prostor građevinama, i da upotrebite rečnike, gramatike, sintakse, ritmove i obrasce arhitekture kako biste nas informisali o tome ko smo.
The public realm in America has two roles: it is the dwelling place of our civilization and our civic life, and it is the physical manifestation of the common good. And when you degrade the public realm, you will automatically degrade the quality of your civic life and the character of all the enactments of your public life and communal life that take place there. The public realm comes mostly in the form of the street in America because we don't have the 1,000-year-old cathedral plazas and market squares of older cultures. And your ability to define space and to create places that are worth caring about all comes from a body of culture that we call the culture of civic design. This is a body of knowledge, method, skill and principle that we threw in the garbage after World War II and decided we don't need that anymore; we're not going to use it. And consequently, we can see the result all around us. The public realm has to inform us not only where we are geographically, but it has to inform us where we are in our culture. Where we've come from, what kind of people we are, and it needs to, by doing that, it needs to afford us a glimpse to where we're going in order to allow us to dwell in a hopeful present. And if there is one tremendous -- if there is one great catastrophe about the places that we've built, the human environments we've made for ourselves in the last 50 years, it is that it has deprived us of the ability to live in a hopeful present.
Javni domen u Americi ima dve uloge: to je mesto boravka naše civilizacije i našeg građanskog života, kao i fizička manifestacija javnog dobra. I kada degradirate javni domen, automatski ćete degradirati kvalitet svog građanskog života, i karakter svih odredbi javnog i zajedničkog života koji se tu odvija. Javni domen se uglavnom u Americi javlja u obliku ulica, jer mi nemamo trgove ispred katedrala starih 1000 godina i pijačne trgove, kao stare kulture. I sposobnost da definišemo prostor i kreiramo mesta do kojih nam je stalo dolazi iz kulture koju mi zovemo kultura građanskog uređenja. To je telo znanja, metodologije, veštine i principa koje smo bacili u smeće posle Drugog svetskog rata i odlučili da nam više nije potrebno; nećemo ga više koristiti. I posledično, rezultat toga vidimo svuda oko nas. Javni domen mora da nas obavesti ne samo o tome gde se nalazimo geografski, nego mora da nas obavesti gde se nalazimo u našoj kulturi. Odakle dolazimo, kakvi smo ljudi i mora da - radeći to, mora da nam pokaže kuda idemo, kako bi nam dozvolio da boravimo u sadašnjici punoj nade. I ako postoji jedna ogromna - ako postoji jedna velika katastrofa u vezi s mestima koja smo izgradili, u vezi s ljudskim okruženjima koja smo sebi napravili u poslednjih 50 godina, to je da su nas uskratila za sposobnost da živimo u sadašnjici punoj nade.
The environments we are living in, more typically, are like these. You know, this happens to be the asteroid belt of architectural garbage two miles north of my town. And remember, to create a place of character and quality, you have to be able to define space. So how is that being accomplished here? If you stand on the apron of the Wal-Mart over here and try to look at the Target store over here, you can't see it because of the curvature of the Earth. (Laughter) That's nature's way of telling you that you're doing a poor job of defining space. Consequently, these will be places that nobody wants to be in. These will be places that are not worth caring about.
Okruženja u kojima živimo, tipičnije su ovakva. Znate, ovo je prsten asteroida od arhitektonskog smeća 3km severno od mog grada. Upamtite, da biste kreirali mesto s karakterom i kvalitetom, morate znati da definišete prostor. Kako se to ovde postiže? Ako stojite na ulazu u Wal-Mart ovde i pokušate da pogledate Target prodavnicu ovde, ne možete da je vidite zbog zakrivljenosti Zemlje. (Smeh) Na taj način vam priroda govori da nemate pojma da definišete prostor. Posledično, ovo će biti mesta na kojima niko ne želi da bude. To će biti mesta do kojih nam nije stalo.
We have about, you know, 38,000 places that are not worth caring about in the United States today. When we have enough of them, we're going to have a nation that's not worth defending. And I want you to think about that when you think about those young men and women who are over in places like Iraq, spilling their blood in the sand, and ask yourself, "What is their last thought of home?" I hope it's not the curb cut between the Chuck E. Cheese and the Target store because that's not good enough for Americans to be spilling their blood for. (Applause) We need better places in this country.
Danas imamo, znate, oko 38 000 mesta u Sjedinjenim Državama, do kojih nam nije stalo. Kada ih budemo imali dovoljno, imaćemo naciju koju ne vredi braniti. Želim da se setite toga kada pomislite na one mlade muškarce i žene koji se nalaze u mestima kao što je Irak i prolivaju svoju krv u pesak. Zapitajte se kakvo je njihovo poslednje sećanje na dom? Nadam se da nije ivičnjak između Chuck E. Cheese i Target prodavnice! Jer to nije dovoljan razlog da Amerikanci prolivaju svoju krv. (Aplauz) Potrebna su nam bolja mesta u ovoj zemlji.
Public space. This is a good public space. It's a place worth caring about. It's well defined. It is emphatically an outdoor public room. It has something that is terribly important -- it has what's called an active and permeable membrane around the edge. That's a fancy way of saying it's got shops, bars, bistros, destinations -- things go in and out of it. It's permeable. The beer goes in and out, the waitresses go in and out, and that activates the center of this place and makes it a place that people want to hang out in. You know, in these places in other cultures, people just go there voluntarily because they like them. We don't have to have a craft fair here to get people to come here. (Laughter) You know, you don't have to have a Kwanzaa festival. People just go because it's pleasurable to be there. But this is how we do it in the United States.
Javni prostor. Ovo je dobar javni prostor. To je mesto vredno pažnje. Dobro je definisano. To je nedvosmisleno otvorena javna prostorija. Ima nešto što je užasno važno - ima nešto što se zove aktivna i propustljiva membrana oko ivice. To je fensi način da se kaže da ima prodavnice, barove, restorančiće, lokale - stvari ulaze i izlaze iz nje. Propustljiva je. Pivo ulazi i izlazi, konobarice ulaze i izlaze, i to aktivira centar ovog mesta i čini da to bude mesto gde ljudi žele da borave. Znate, na ova mesta u drugim kulturama ljudi jednostavno idu dobrovoljno jer im se dopadaju. Nije nam potreban sajam zanata da bismo naterali ljude da dođu. (Smeh) Znate, nije vam potreban Kwanzaa festival. Ljudi idu jer je zadovoljstvo ići tamo. Ali mi u Sjedinjenim Državama to ovako radimo.
Probably the most significant public space failure in America, designed by the leading architects of the day, Harry Cobb and I.M. Pei: Boston City Hall Plaza. A public place so dismal that the winos don't even want to go there. (Laughter) And we can't fix it because I.M. Pei's still alive, and every year Harvard and M.I.T. have a joint committee to repair it. And every year they fail to because they don't want to hurt I.M. Pei's feelings.
Verovatno najznačajniji promašaj u javnom prostoru u Americi, koji su projektovali tada vodeći arhitekti, Heri Kob i I.M. Pei: trg bostonske gradske kuće. Javno mesto koje je toliko tmurno da ni alkosi ne žele da idu tamo. (Smeh) I ne možemo da ga popravimo, jer je I.M. Pei još uvek živ, i svake godine Harvard i M.I.T. prave zajednički komitet za popravku.
This is the other side of the building. This was the winner of an international design award in, I think, 1966, something like that. It wasn't Pei and Cobb, another firm designed this, but there's not enough Prozac in the world to make people feel OK about going down this block. This is the back of Boston City Hall, the most important, you know, significant civic building in Albany -- excuse me -- in Boston. And what is the message that is coming, what are the vocabularies and grammars that are coming, from this building and how is it informing us about who we are?
I svake godine im ne uspe, jer ne žele da povrede osećanja I.M.Peija. Ovo je druga strana zgrade. Ovo je dobilo internacionalnu nagradu za dizajn, mislim 1966. ili tako negde. Druga firma je projektovala ovo, ne Pei i Kob. Ali u svetu ne postoji dovoljno Prozaka da učini da ljudima bude okej da prođu ovim blokom. (Smeh) Ovo je zadnji deo bostonske gradske kuće, najvažnije značajne javne zgrade u Albaniju - pardon - u Bostonu. A kakva je poruka koja dolazi - kakve su reči i gramatike koje dolaze od ove zgrade i kako nas informiše o tome ko smo?
This, in fact, would be a better building if we put mosaic portraits of Josef Stalin, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, and all the other great despots of the 20th century on the side of the building, because then we'd honestly be saying what the building is really communicating to us. You know, that it's a despotic building; it wants us to feel like termites. (Laughter) This is it on a smaller scale: the back of the civic center in my town, Saratoga Springs, New York. By the way, when I showed this slide to a group of Kiwanians in my town, they all rose in indignation from their creamed chicken, (Laughter) and they shouted at me and said, "It was raining that day when you took that picture!" Because this was perceived to be a weather problem. (Laughter)
Ovo bi ustvari bila bolja zgrada da stavimo mozaike portreta Jozefa Staljina, Pola Pota, Sadama Huseina, i svih drugih velikih despota 20. veka, na drugu stranu, jer onda bismo iskreno rekli šta nam zgrada zaista poručuje. Znate, da je to despotska zgrada; želi da se osećamo kao termiti. (Smeh) Ovo je isto to, malo manje. Zadnji deo gradskog centra u mom gradu, Saratoga Springs, Njujork. Usput, kada sam pokazao ovaj slajd grupi Kivanijanaca u mom gradu, svi su u besu ustali od svoje filovane piletine. (Smeh) Vikali su na mene i rekli, "Padala je kiša kad si to fotografisao!" Jer se smatralo da se ovde radi o problemu s vremenom. (Smeh)
You know, this is a building designed like a DVD player. (Laughter) Audio jack, power supply -- and look, you know these things are important architectural jobs for firms, right? You know, we hire firms to design these things. You can see exactly what went on, three o'clock in the morning at the design meeting. You know, eight hours before deadline, four architects trying to get this building in on time, right? And they're sitting there at the long boardroom table with all the drawings, and the renderings, and all the Chinese food caskets are lying on the table, and -- I mean, what was the conversation that was going on there? (Laughter) Because you know what the last word was, what the last sentence was of that meeting. It was: "Fuck it." (Laughter) (Applause)
Znate, ova je zgrada dizajnirana kao DVD plejer. (Smeh) Ulaz za audio, struja - (Smeh) vidite, znate da su ove stvari bitni arhitektonski poslovi za biroe, zar ne? Znate, mi angažujemo biroe da projektuju ove stvari. Možete tačno videti šta se dešavalo u 3 ujutru na sastanku projektnog tima. Znate, 8 sati pre roka, četvoro arhitekata pokušava da završi ovu zgradu na vreme. I sede za dugim stolom u sali za sastanke sa svim crtežima i renderima i svim kutijama od kineske hrane koje leže po stolu i - mislim, o čemu se tu vodio razgovor? (Smeh) Jer znate koja je bila poslednja reč, poslednja rečenica na tom sastanku. Bila je: "Zajebi ovo".
That -- that is the message of this form of architecture. The message is: We don't give a fuck! We don't give a fuck. So I went back on the nicest day of the year, just to -- you know -- do some reality testing, and in fact, he will not even go down there because (Laughter) it's not interesting enough for his clients, you know, the burglars, the muggers. It's not civically rich enough for them to go down there. OK.
(Smeh) (Aplauz) To je poruka ove vrste arhitekture. Poruka je: Jebe nam se! Jebe nam se. Tako sam se vratio najlepšeg dana u godini da bih - znate, samo da proverim realnost. Ustvari, čak ni on neće da ide tamo - (Smeh) jer nije dovoljno interesantno za njegove klijente, znate, provalnike, pljačkaše. Nije društveno dovoljno bogato da bi oni išli tamo. OK.
The pattern of Main Street USA -- in fact, this pattern of building downtown blocks, all over the world, is fairly universal. It's not that complicated: buildings more than one story high, built out to the sidewalk edge, so that people who are, you know, all kinds of people can get into the building. Other activities are allowed to occur upstairs, you know, apartments, offices, and so on. You make provision for this activity called shopping on the ground floor. They haven't learned that in Monterey. If you go out to the corner right at the main intersection right in front of this conference center, you'll see an intersection with four blank walls on every corner. It's really incredible.
Šema Glavne ulice u SAD - u stvari, ova šema građenja blokova u centrima je svuda u svetu prilično univerzalna Nije tako komplikovano - zgrade više od jednog sprata, izgrađene do ivice trotoara tako da ljudi - znate, svakakvi ljudi mogu da uđu u zgradu. Druge aktivnosti mogu da se odvijaju gore, znate stanovi, kancelarije i slično. Aktivnost koja se naziva kupovina odvija se na prizemlju. To nisu naučili u Montereju. Ako odete do ćoška tačno na glavnoj raskrsnici pravo ispred ovog konferencijskog centra, videćete raskrsnicu sa četiri prazna zida na svakom ćošku.
Anyway, this is how you compose and assemble a downtown business building, and this is what happened when in Glens Falls, New York, when we tried to do it again, where it was missing, right? So the first thing they do is they pop up the retail a half a story above grade to make it sporty. OK. That completely destroys the relationship between the business and the sidewalk, where the theoretical pedestrians are. (Laughter) Of course, they'll never be there, as long as this is in that condition. Then because the relationship between the retail is destroyed, we pop a handicapped ramp on that, and then to make ourselves feel better, we put a nature Band-Aid in front of it. And that's how we do it. I call them "nature Band-Aids" because there's a general idea in America that the remedy for mutilated urbanism is nature. And in fact, the remedy for wounded and mutilated urbanism is good urbanism, good buildings. Not just flower beds, not just cartoons of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. You know, that's not good enough. We have to do good buildings.
To je stvarno neverovatno. Kako god, ovako osmišljavate i sastavljate poslovnu zgradu u centru, a ovo se desilo u Glens Folsu u Njujorku, kada smo pokušali da to ponovimo, gde je nedostajalo. Prva stvar koju urade je da podignu prodavnicu za pola sprata kako bi izgledalo sportski. OK. To potpuno uništava vezu između posla i trotoara, gde se nalaze teoretski pešaci. (Smeh) Naravno, njih tamo nikad neće biti, sve dok se ovo nalazi u takvom stanju. Zatim, pošto je veza između trgovine uništena, ubacimo rampu za hendikepirane i onda, da bismo se osećali bolje, ubacimo prirodni flaster ispred. Tako mi to radimo. Zovem ih "prirodni flasteri" jer rašireno je mišljenje u Americi da je priroda lek za osakaćeni urbanizam. U stvari, lek za osakaćeni i ranjeni urbanizam je dobar urbanizam, dobre zgrade. Ne samo leje sa cvećem, ne samo slike Sijera Nevada planina. Znate, to nije dovoljno dobro. Moramo da pravimo dobre zgrade.
The street trees have really four jobs to do and that's it: To spatially denote the pedestrian realm, to protect the pedestrians from the vehicles in the carriageway, to filter the sunlight onto the sidewalk, and to soften the hardscape of the buildings and to create a ceiling -- a vaulted ceiling -- over the street, at its best. And that's it. Those are the four jobs of the street trees. They're not supposed to be a cartoon of the North Woods; they're not supposed to be a set for "The Last of the Mohicans."
Drveće na ulicama ima samo četiri uloge i to je to. Da prostorno ograniče trotoarski prostor, da zaštite prolaznike od vozila na kolovozu, da propuštaju sunčevu svetlost na trotoar i da omekšaju grub izgled zgrada i da formiraju tavanicu - zasvođenu tavanicu - iznad ulice. I to je to. To su četiri uloge uličnog drveća. Ona ne treba da budu crtež Severnih šuma; ne treba da budu scenografija za "Poslednjeg Mohikanca".
You know, one of the problems with the fiasco of suburbia is that it destroyed our understanding of the distinction between the country and the town, between the urban and the rural. They're not the same thing. And we're not going to cure the problems of the urban by dragging the country into the city, which is what a lot of us are trying to do all the time. Here you see it on a small scale -- the mothership has landed, R2-D2 and C-3PO have stepped out to test the bark mulch to see if they can inhabit this planet. (Laughter)
Znate, jedan od problema sa fijaskom predgrađa je u tome što je uništio naše poimanje razlike između sela i grada, između urbanog i ruralnog. To nisu iste stvari. I nećemo rešiti probleme urbanog tako što ćemo dovlačiti selo u grad, što mnogi od nas pokušavaju da urade svo vreme. Ovde vidite umanjeno - matični brod je sleteo, R2-D2 i C-3PO su izašli da testiraju površinu da vide da li mogu da nasele planetu. (Smeh)
A lot of this comes from the fact that the industrial city in America was such a trauma that we developed this tremendous aversion for the whole idea of the city, city life, and everything connected with it. And so what you see fairly early, in the mid-19th century, is this idea that we now have to have an antidote to the industrial city, which is going to be life in the country for everybody. And that starts to be delivered in the form of the railroad suburb: the country villa along the railroad line, which allows people to enjoy the amenity of the city, but to return to the countryside every night. And believe me, there were no Wal-Marts or convenience stores out there then, so it really was a form of country living.
Mnogo toga dolazi iz činjenice da je industrijski grad u Americi bio takva trauma, da smo razvili ogromnu averziju prema celoj ideji grada, gradskog života i prema svemu što je s tim povezano. I ono što možete videti prilično rano, sredinom 19. veka, je ideja da nam je potreban protivotrov za industrijski grad, a to je život na selu za sve ljude. I to se pojavljuje u vidu železničkog predgrađa: seoska kuća uz prugu, što dozvoljava ljudima da uživaju u prijatnosti grada, ali da se vrate na selo svake večeri. I verujte mi, tada nije bilo Wal-Marta ili marketa u okolini.
But what happens is, of course, it mutates over the next 80 years and it turns into something rather insidious. It becomes a cartoon of a country house, in a cartoon of the country. And that's the great non-articulated agony of suburbia and one of the reasons that it lends itself to ridicule. Because it hasn't delivered what it's been promising for half a century now.
Znači to jeste bio oblik seoskog života. Ali onda se dešava da to mutira u narednih 80 godina, i pretvara se u nešto prilično podmuklo. Postaje crtać seoske kuće u crtaću od zemlje. I to je ta nepovezana agonija predgrađa, jedan od razloga što se izlaže podsmehu.
And these are typically the kind of dwellings we find there, you know. Basically, a house with nothing on the side because this house wants to state, emphatically, "I'm a little cabin in the woods. There's nothing on either side of me. I don't have any eyes on the side of my head. I can't see." So you have this one last facade of the house, the front, which is really a cartoon of a facade of a house. Because -- notice the porch here. Unless the people that live here are Munchkins, nobody's going to be using that. This is really, in fact, a television broadcasting a show 24/7 called "We're Normal." We're normal, we're normal, we're normal, we're normal, we're normal. Please respect us, we're normal, we're normal, we're normal.
Jer nije ispunilo ono što već pola veka obećava. Ovo je tipično stanovanje kakvo tamo vidimo, znate. U osnovi to je kuća bez ičega sa strane, jer ova kuća želi da nedvosmisleno izjavi "Ja sam mala koliba u šumi. Ne postoji ništa s bilo koje moje strane. Nemam oči na glavi. Ne mogu da vidim." Znači imate ovu poslednju fasadu kuće, prednji deo, što je u stvari crtež fasade kuće. Jer - primetite ovde trem. Osim ako su ljudi koji tu žive patuljci, (Smeh) niko ga neće koristiti. Ovo je ustvari TV koji non stop emituje program koji se zove "Mi smo normalni". Normalni smo, normalni smo, normalni smo, normalni smo. Molimo vas poštujte nas, normalni smo, normalni.
But we know what's going on in these houses, you know. We know that little Skippy is loading his Uzi down here, getting ready for homeroom. (Laughter) We know that Heather, his sister Heather, 14 years old, is turning tricks up here to support her drug habit. Because these places, these habitats, are inducing immense amounts of anxiety and depression in children, and they don't have a lot of experience with medication. So they take the first one that comes along, often. These are not good enough for Americans. These are the schools we are sending them to: The Hannibal Lecter Central School, Las Vegas, Nevada. This is a real school! You know, but there's obviously a notion that if you let the inmates of this thing out, that they would snatch a motorist off the street and eat his liver. So every effort is made to keep them within the building. Notice that nature is present. (Laughter)
Ali mi znamo šta se dešava u ovim kućama, znate. Znamo da mali Skipi ovde puni svoj uzi, (Smeh) spremajući se za školu. (Smeh) Znamo da Heder, njegova sestra Heder, koja ima 14 godina, ovde radi, da bi održavala svoju navučenost na drogu. Jer ova mesta, ove naseobine, proizvode ogromne količine anksioznosti i depresije kod dece, a ona nemaju mnogo iskustva sa lekovima. Tako često uzmu prvi koji im se nađe pri ruci. Ove nisu dovoljno dobre za Amerikance. Ovo su škole u koje ih šaljemo: Centralna škola Hanibal Lektor, (Smeh) Las Vegas, Nevada. Ovo je prava škola! Znate, očigledno postoji ideja da ako pustite zatvorenike ovog mesta napolje, oni će zgrabiti vozača sa ulice i pojesti mu jetru. (Smeh) Dakle svi napori se ulažu da se oni sačuvaju unutar zgrade. Primetite da je priroda prisutna. (Smeh)
We're going to have to change this behavior whether we like it or not. We are entering an epochal period of change in the world, and -- certainly in America -- the period that will be characterized by the end of the cheap oil era. It is going to change absolutely everything. Chris asked me not to go on too long about this, and I won't, except to say there's not going to be a hydrogen economy. Forget it. It's not going to happen. We're going to have to do something else instead. We're going to have to down-scale, re-scale, and re-size virtually everything we do in this country and we can't start soon enough to do it. We're going to have -- (Applause) -- we're going to have to live closer to where we work. We're going to have to live closer to each other. We're going have to grow more food closer to where we live. The age of the 3,000 mile Caesar salad is coming to an end. We're going to have to -- we have a railroad system that the Bulgarians would be ashamed of! We gotta do better than that!
Moraćemo da promenimo ovo ponašanje, sviđalo nam se to ili ne. Ulazimo u epohalni period promene u svetu i - u Americi sigurno - taj period će biti obeležen kao prestanak ere jevtine nafte. To će promeniti apsolutno sve. Kris me je zamolio da ne dužim o ovome, i neću. Osim da kažem da neće postojati hidrogenska ekonomija. Zaboravite. To se neće desiti. Moraćemo umesto toga da uradimo nešto drugo. Moraćemo da smanjimo i promenimo veličinu i obim skoro svega što radimo u ovoj zemlji i već je trebalo da počnemo. Moraćemo da živimo bliže mestu na kom radimo. Moraćemo da živimo bliže jedni drugima. Moraćemo da gajimo više hrane bliže mestima u kojima živimo. Doba Cezar salate sa udaljenosti od 5km se bliži kraju. Moraćemo - imamo železnički sistem kog bi se Bugari stideli! Moramo bolje od toga!
And we should have started two days before yesterday. We are fortunate that the new urbanists were there, for the last 10 years, excavating all that information that was thrown in the garbage by our parents' generation after World War II. Because we're going to need it if we're going to learn how to reconstruct towns. We're going to need to get back this body of methodology and principle and skill in order to re-learn how to compose meaningful places, places that are integral, that allow -- that are living organisms in the sense that they contain all the organs of our civic life and our communal life, deployed in an integral fashion.
I trebalo je davno da počnemo. Srećni smo da su novi urbanisti poslednjih 10 godina iskopavali sve informacije koje su generacije naših roditelja bacile u smeće posle Drugog svetskog rata. Jer to će nam biti potrebno ako ćemo da naučimo da rekonstruišemo gradove. Moraćemo da povratimo ovu metodologiju i principe i veštinu kako bismo ponovo naučili da stvaramo mesta sa smislom - celovita mesta. Koja predstavljaju žive organizme u smislu da sadrže sve organe našeg građanskog života, i našeg zajedničkog života, razvijene na celovit način.
So that, you know, the residences make sense deployed in relation to the places of business, of culture and of governance. We're going to have to re-learn what the building blocks of these things are: the street, the block, how to compose public space that's both large and small, the courtyard, the civic square and how to really make use of this property. We can see some of the first ideas for retro-fitting some of the catastrophic property that we have in America. The dead malls: what are we going to do with them? Well, in point of fact, most of them are not going to make it. They're not going to be retro-fitted; they're going to be the salvage yards of the future.
Tako da kuće imaju smisla, da su razvijene u mesta za posao, kulturu, vladu. Moraćemo da ponovo naučimo šta su noseći blokovi ovih stvari. Ulica. Blok. Kako skrojiti javni prostor koji je u isto vreme velik i mali. Dvorište. Gradski trg. I kako stvarno iskoristiti ovo. Možemo videti neke od prvih ideja za poboljšanje nekih od katastrofalnih nekretnina u Americi. Mrtvi tržni centri. Šta ćemo da uradimo s njima? Pa, činjenica je da mnogi od njih neće preživeti. Oni neće biti poboljšani; oni će biti otpadi budućnosti.
Some of them we're going to fix, though. And we're going to fix them by imposing back on them street and block systems and returning to the building lot as the normal increment of development. And if we're lucky, the result will be revivified town centers and neighborhood centers in our existing towns and cities. And by the way, our towns and cities are where they are, and grew where they were because they occupy all the important sites. And most of them are still going to be there, although the scale of them is probably going to be diminished.
Mada, neke od njih ćemo popraviti. Popravićemo ih tako što ćemo ponovo nametnuti sistem ulica i blokova i vratićemo se zgradama kao normalnim doprinosima razvoju. I ako imamo sreće, rezultat će biti vaskrsnuće gradskih i susedskih centara u našim postojećim mestima i gradovima. Usput, naša mesta i gradovi se nalaze tamo gde se nalaze i razvijaju se tu jer zauzimaju sva bitna mesta. Većina njih će i dalje biti tu, iako će njihova veličina verovatno da se umanji.
We've got a lot of work to do. We're not going to be rescued by the hyper-car; we're not going to be rescued by alternative fuels. No amount or combination of alternative fuels is going to allow us to continue running what we're running, the way we're running it. We're going to have to do everything very differently. And America's not prepared. We are sleepwalking into the future. We're not ready for what's coming at us. So I urge you all to do what you can. Life in the mid-21st century is going to be about living locally. Be prepared to be good neighbors. Be prepared to find vocations that make you useful to your neighbors and to your fellow citizens.
Imamo mnogo posla. Neće nas spasiti hiper-automobil; neće nas spasiti alternativna goriva. Nikakva količina ili kombinacija alternativnih goriva nam neće dozvoliti da nastavimo da radimo to što radimo na način na koji to radimo. Moraćemo da sve radimo veoma drugačije. Ali Amerika nije spremna. Mi mesečarimo u budućnost. Nismo pripremljeni za ono što nam stiže. Zato vas pozivam da uradite ono što možete. Život sredinom 21. veka će se živeti lokalno. Pripremite se da budete dobri susedi. Pripremite se da nađete poziv kojim ćete biti od koristi svojim komšijama i sugrađanima.
One final thing -- I've been very disturbed about this for years, but I think it's particularly important for this audience. Please, please, stop referring to yourselves as "consumers." OK? Consumers are different than citizens. Consumers do not have obligations, responsibilities and duties to their fellow human beings. And as long as you're using that word consumer in the public discussion, you will be degrading the quality of the discussion we're having. And we're going to continue being clueless going into this very difficult future that we face. So thank you very much. Please go out and do what you can to make this a land full of places that are worth caring about and a nation that will be worth defending. (Applause)
Poslednja stvar - ovo me uznemirava godinama, ali mislim da je posebno važno za ovu publiku. Molim vas, molim vas prekinite da o sebi govorite kao o "potrošačima". OK? Potrošači su drugačiji od građana. Potrošači nemaju obaveza, odgovornosti i dužnosti prema drugim ljudskim bićima. I sve dok u javnoj diskusiji koristite reč potrošač, vi degradirate kvalitet diskusije koju vodimo. I nastavićemo da kao neznalice idemo u tu veoma tešku budućnost s kojom se suočavamo. Hvala vam mnogo. Molim vas idite i radite ono što možete kako bismo imali puno mesta do kojih nam je stalo i naciju koju bi bilo vredno braniti.