By 2010, Detroit had become the poster child for an American city in crisis. There was a housing collapse, an auto industry collapse, and the population had plummeted by 25 percent between 2000 and 2010, and many people were beginning to write it off, as it had topped the list of American shrinking cities. By 2010, I had also been asked by the Kresge Foundation and the city of Detroit to join them in leading a citywide planning process for the city to create a shared vision for its future. I come to this work as an architect and an urban planner, and I've spent my career working in other contested cities, like Chicago, my hometown; Harlem, which is my current home; Washington, D.C.; and Newark, New Jersey. All of these cities, to me, still had a number of unresolved issues related to urban justice, issues of equity, inclusion and access.
在2010年,底特律已经成为 深陷危机的美国城市的代表。 (它的)房地产业崩溃了, 汽车工业垮了, 人口在2000年到2010年间 下降了25%, 许多人开始放弃这座城市, 因为它已经“荣升”美国萎缩城市的榜首。 在2010年,我承蒙克雷斯基基金会 和底特律市政府的邀请 来与他们一起领导一个城市规划项目, 为这座城市创造一个成果共享的未来。 我以建筑师和城市规划师的身份 参与这项工作, 其实我也曾经服务于其他有争议的城市, 如我的家乡芝加哥, 我现在的居住地哈莱姆, 还有华盛顿以及新泽西洲的纽瓦克。 于我而言,这些城市仍然有一系列 有待解决的问题,关乎都市正义、 社会平等、包容性以及社会资源的获得。
Now by 2010, as well, popular design magazines were also beginning to take a closer look at cities like Detroit, and devoting whole issues to "fixing the city." I was asked by a good friend, Fred Bernstein, to do an interview for the October issue of Architect magazine, and he and I kind of had a good chuckle when we saw the magazine released with the title, "Can This Planner Save Detroit?" So I'm smiling with a little bit of embarrassment right now, because obviously, it's completely absurd that a single person, let alone a planner, could save a city. But I'm also smiling because I thought it represented a sense of hopefulness that our profession could play a role in helping the city to think about how it would recover from its severe crisis. So I'd like to spend a little bit of time this afternoon and tell you a little bit about our process for fixing the city, a little bit about Detroit, and I want to do that through the voices of Detroiters.
同样也是在2010年, 流行设计杂志开始 仔细地研究像底特律这样的城市, 并用长达整期的篇幅来讨论“改造这座城”。 我的好友弗雷德 伯恩斯坦邀请我 参加《建筑师》10月刊的 访谈, 当我们看到出版杂志的标题: “这位规划师能拯救底特律吗?" 我和他都咯咯地笑了。 我的笑容中略带尴尬, 那是因为,很显然, 仅凭一个人的力量,尤其是一个规划师的力量 就想拯救一座城市,这是荒唐可笑的。 但同时, 我笑是因为我觉得这个标题蕴含了 一丝希望,那就是我们的职业 对帮助一个城市走出严重危机 有着重要的意义。 因此,今天下午我想花一点时间 来告诉大家我们的改造计划, 也就是改进底特律的方法。 我想通过展现底特律居民的意见来做到这一点。
So we began our process in September of 2010. It's just after a special mayoral election, and word has gotten out that there is going to be this citywide planning process, which brings a lot of anxiety and fears among Detroiters. We had planned to hold a number of community meetings in rooms like this to introduce the planning process, and people came out from all over the city, including areas that were stable neighborhoods, as well as areas that were beginning to see a lot of vacancy. And most of our audience was representative of the 82 percent African-American population in the city at that time. So obviously, we have a Q&A portion of our program, and people line up to mics to ask questions. Many of them step very firmly to the mic, put their hands across their chest, and go, "I know you people are trying to move me out of my house, right?"
我们的改造计划启动于2010年9月, 那时特别市长选举刚刚结束, 而且有消息传出,这座城市 即将接受改造。 这让底特律居民 感到焦虑和恐慌。 我们已经计划好要在这样的房间里召开一系列社区会议 向居民介绍改造计划。 全城各地都有居民前来, 不管是住在情况稳定的社区的 还是住在已经看到 空置现象的社区。 当时, 大部分的听众是 那占城市人口82%的非裔居民的代表。 显然,我们的会议有一个提问环节, 人们在麦克风前排起长队,准备提问。 许多人坚定地走到麦克风前, 双臂交叉在胸前,然后说: “我知道,你们想把我赶出自己的房子,对不对?”
So that question is really powerful, and it was certainly powerful to us in the moment, when you connect it to the stories that some Detroiters had, and actually a lot of African-Americans' families have had that are living in Midwestern cities like Detroit. Many of them told us the stories about how they came to own their home through their grandparents or great-grandparents, who were one of 1.6 million people who migrated from the rural South to the industrial North, as depicted in this painting by Jacob Lawrence, "The Great Migration." They came to Detroit for a better way of life. Many found work in the automobile industry, the Ford Motor Company, as depicted in this mural by Diego Rivera in the Detroit Institute of Art. The fruits of their labors would afford them a home, for many the first piece of property that they would ever know, and a community with other first-time African-American home buyers. The first couple of decades of their life in the North is quite well, up until about 1950, which coincides with the city's peak population at 1.8 million people. Now it's at this time that Detroit begins to see a second kind of migration, a migration to the suburbs. Between 1950 and 2000, the region grows by 30 percent. But this time, the migration leaves African-Americans in place, as families and businesses flee the city, leaving the city pretty desolate of people as well as jobs. During that same period, between 1950 and 2000, 2010, the city loses 60 percent of its population, and today it hovers at above 700,000.
这个问题真的很尖锐, 当时我们就这么觉得, 尤其是在你把这个问题与 一些底特律居民, 以及很多有类似经历的 居住于像底特律那样的中西部城市的非裔家庭 联系起来。 他们中的很多人向我们诉说 他们是 从祖父母或曾祖父母那里继承房子的, 他们的先辈就是那160万 从南方乡村迁徙到北方工业区的移民之一, 这些移民的形象被雅各布 劳伦斯 记录在油画《大迁徙》之中。 移民来到底特律,期待着更美好的生活。 他们中的很多人服务于汽车工业, 如,福特汽车公司;迪亚戈 里维拉在这幅壁画中 描绘这些故事。这幅壁画现藏于底特律美术学院。 他们的劳动成果给他们带来了一座房子, 对于很多人而言,这是他们拥有的第一处房产。 同时他们拥有了自己的社区,里面住的 都是首次置业的非裔美国人。 他们在北方的前数十年 都生活的很好,知道1950年左右, 那时底特律的居住人口达到了峰值 180万人。 也正是在这个时候底特律开始经历 第二波迁移大潮, 人们搬迁到城市的郊区。 在1950年到2000年之间, 底特律的城市面积拓展了30%。 但这一次,迁移大潮 把非裔居民抛在身后。 随着家庭和企业离开底特律, 城中变得人口稀少, 就业机会紧缺。 也就是在1950年到2000-2010年, (底特律的)城市人口下降了60%, 现在其人口大概是70万人。
The audience members who come and talk to us that night tell us the stories of what it's like to live in a city with such depleted population. Many tell us that they're one of only a few homes on their block that are occupied, and that they can see several abandoned homes from where they sit on their porches. Citywide, there are 80,000 vacant homes. They can also see vacant property. They're beginning to see illegal activities on these properties, like illegal dumping, and they know that because the city has lost so much population, their costs for water, electricity, gas are rising, because there are not enough people to pay property taxes to help support the services that they need. Citywide, there are about 100,000 vacant parcels.
当晚,出席会议并与我们交谈的听众 跟我们讲述了生活在一个人口 如此稀少的城市的感受。 很多人说,他们的房子是街区中为数不多的 有人居住的房子, 坐在自家的门廊里 就可以看见数座被遗弃的房子。 在 整座城市中,有8万座空置的房子, 也有空置的不动产。 居民开始看到有人在这些建筑里 从事非法活动,如非法倾卸。 居民们还意识到,由于城市人口锐减, 水费、电费、油气费都在上涨, 因为支付财产税的人变少了, 税金不足以维持这些服务的运营。 在底特律,还有大概1000块闲置土地。
Now, to quickly give you all a sense of a scale, because I know that sounds like a big number, but I don't think you quite understand until you look at the city map. So the city is 139 square miles. You can fit Boston, San Francisco, and the island of Manhattan within its footprint. So if we take all of that vacant and abandoned property and we smush it together, it looks like about 20 square miles, and that's roughly equivalent to the size of the island we're sitting on today, Manhattan, at 22 square miles. So it's a lot of vacancy.
大家或许对这种规模没有概念, 因为我知道,这听起来是一个巨大的数字, 但大家只有看了城市地图才能真正明白它的含义。 底特律的城市面积为139平方英里。 你可以把 波士顿、三藩市 以及曼哈顿岛 拼入底特律的地域之中。 如果我们抽出所有空置的和被遗弃的房产 并把他们拼在一起, 它们的面积大约有20平方英里, 几乎等同于我们现在所在的 曼哈顿岛的面积, 曼哈顿岛的面积是22平方英里。 空置率实在是太高了。
Now some of our audience members also tell us about some of the positive things that are happening in their communities, and many of them are banding together to take control of some of the vacant lots, and they're starting community gardens, which are creating a great sense of community stewardship, but they're very, very clear to tell us that this is not enough, that they want to see their neighborhoods return to the way that their grandparents had found them.
某些听众 也会给我们讲一些他们 社区中的好消息: 社区中的居民团结起来 管理空置的土地。 他们开辟了社区花园, 这为他们创造了一种强大的社区服务精神。 但他们仍然很明确地告诉我们, 这仍不令人满意, 他们希望自己的社区 能够像先辈建城时那样繁荣。
Now there's been a lot of speculation since 2010 about what to do with the vacant property, and a lot of that speculation has been around community gardening, or what we call urban agriculture. So many people would say to us, "What if you just take all that vacant land and you could make it farmland? It can provide fresh foods, and it can put Detroiters back to work too." When I hear that story, I always imagine the folks from the Great Migration rolling over in their graves, because you can imagine that they didn't sacrifice moving from the South to the North to create a better life for their families, only to see their great-grandchildren return to an agrarian lifestyle, especially in a city where they came with little less than a high school education or even a grammar school education and were able to afford the basic elements of the American dream: steady work and a home that they owned.
自2010年起,人们就有很多关于 如何处理空置房产的猜测。 很多人认为它们会被建设为社区花园, 或者是所谓的城市农业。 很多人对我们说: “把空地变为农业用地,这个主意如何? 它既可以提供新鲜食物, 也可以给居民提供工作机会。” 当我听到这种说法时, 我总想象着大迁徙中的先民 会在坟墓中辗转反侧, 可以想象到,他们背井离乡, 从南方迁徙到北方, 是为了给家庭带来更好地生活, 而不是要他们的曾孙辈又回到田园牧歌的生活之中; 特别是,他们来到这座城市的时候, 很多人并没有受过高中教育, 有的甚至没有上过初中, 但他们仍然能拥有 美国梦的基本元素: 稳定的工作,以及自有的房产。
Now, there's a third wave of migration happening in Detroit: a new ascendant of cultural entrepreneurs. These folks see that same vacant land and those same abandoned homes as opportunity for new, entrepreneurial ideas and profit, so much so that former models can move to Detroit, buy property, start successful businesses and restaurants, and become successful community activists in their neighborhood, bringing about very positive change. Similarly, we have small manufacturing companies making conscious decisions to relocate to the city. This company, Shinola, which is a luxury watch and bicycle company, deliberately chose to relocate to Detroit, and they quote themselves by saying they were drawn to the global brand of Detroit's innovation. And they also knew that they can tap into a workforce that was still very skilled in how to make things. Now we have community stewardship happening in neighborhoods, we have cultural entrepreneurs making decisions to move to the city and create enterprises, and we have businesses relocating, and this is all in the context of what is no secret to us all, a city that's under the control of an emergency manager, and just this July filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy.
如今,底特律又出现了 第三波迁移大潮: 文化企业不断进驻。 企业家们把同样的空置地块 和被遗弃的房屋 看做获取新的 创意和利润的机遇; 他们可以像旧有的模式那样, 迁入底特律, 购置房产,建立成功的 企业和饭店, 并在自己社区中成为成功的社区活动家, 带来积极的变化。 同样的,一些小型的制造企业 也正在认真考虑进驻底特律。 Shinola是一家高档手表 与自行车制造商, 它特意选址底特律, 理由是 他们被底特律闻名全球的创新能力所吸引。 他们也知道,他们可以充分利用 一批仍然精于工业制造的劳动者。 现在,我们看到社区服务精神 在社区中萌芽发展, 文化企业决定 迁入底特律,创建新公司, 并且,制造业也准备迁入, 但这一切都发生在一个 我们都熟知的大环境之中: 一位紧急状况下的负责人 正在管理底特律, 而就在这个7月,他根据联邦破产法第9章提出了破产申请。
So 2010, we started this process, and by 2013, we released Detroit Future City, which was our strategic plan to guide the city into a better and more prosperous and more sustainable existence -- not what it was, but what it could be, looking at new ways of economic growth, new forms of land use, more sustainable and denser neighborhoods, a reconfigured infrastructure and city service system, and a heightened capacity for civic leaders to take action and implement change. Three key imperatives were really important to our work. One was that the city itself wasn't necessarily too large, but the economy was too small. There are only 27 jobs per 100 people in Detroit, very different from a Denver or an Atlanta or a Philadelphia that are anywhere between 35 to 70 jobs per 100 people. Secondly, there had to be an acceptance that we were not going to be able to use all of this vacant land in the way that we had before and maybe for some time to come. It wasn't going to be our traditional residential neighborhoods as we had before, and urban agriculture, while a very productive and successful intervention happening in Detroit, was not the only answer, that what we had to do is look at these areas where we had significant vacancy but still had a significant number of population of what could be new, productive, innovative, and entrepreneurial uses that could stabilize those communities, where still nearly 300,000 residents lived.
我们在2010年就启动了这个项目;到2013年, 我们推出了“未来底特律”项目, 这是我们的一个战略计划,以引导这座城市 走上更好、更繁荣、 更可持续的发展道路—— 这不是它过去的模式,而是它可以利用的模式; 我们审视了新的经济增长方式, 新的土地利用模式, 更加稳定而稠密的社区, 重新配置的基础设施和城市服务系统, 以及更大的空间让民间领袖 采取行动,实施变革。 对于我们的工作而言,有三个情况 是迫在眉睫的。 第一,这座城市其实不算很大, 但它的经济规模却是太小了。 在底特律,每一百人只有27个就业机会, 这与丹佛、亚特兰大、费城的情况大不相同, 它们每一百人就有35到70个就业机会。 第二,人们要接受一个事实, 我们不会用以往的方式 来利用所有的闲置地块, 即使在将来也不会。 我们习以为常的传统居住区 不会出现, 而且,尽管城市农业产出丰厚 且成功干预了底特律的危机, 它也不会是唯一的出路。 我们要做的是,关注那些 空置率很高 但仍有大量人口的区域, 那些居民年轻,有干劲,有创意, 可以为企业所利用; 这样,他们使仍有 将近30万人的社区更稳定。
So we came up with one neighborhood typology -- there are several -- called a live-make neighborhood, where folks could reappropriate abandoned structures and turn them into entrepreneurial enterprises, with a specific emphasis on looking at the, again, majority 82 percent African-American population. So they, too, could take businesses that they maybe were doing out of their home and grow them to more prosperous industries and actually acquire property so they were actually property owners as well as business owners in the communities with which they resided. Then we also wanted to look at other ways of using land in addition to growing food and transforming landscape into much more productive uses, so that it could be used for storm water management, for example, by using surface lakes and retention ponds, that created neighborhood amenities, places of recreation, and actually helped to elevate adjacent property levels. Or we could use it as research plots, where we can use it to remediate contaminated soils, or we could use it to generate energy.
因此,我们提出了一种新的社区构想—— 其实我们设计了几种模式——被称为生活工作相结合的社区。 在那里,居民可以重新利用 废弃建筑, 并把它们改造为企业基地, 同时也可以再次着重强调 占82%的非洲裔居民。 因此,他们也可以把 他们以前在居住区外建立的企业带入居住区, 并把它们发展为更加繁荣的产业。 同时他们也可以购置房产,使得他们同时成为 自己所住社区中的 房产所有者以及企业所有者。 我们也在考虑 除了种植作物以外的土地利用方式, 希望把土地规划得 更具生产效率。 比方说,一些地块可通过建造人工湖和蓄水池 来建立雨水管理系统; 可以设立社区便利设施、 娱乐设施, 切实地提高 附近居民的生活水平。 或者,我们可以设立研究中心 来治理土壤污染, 又或者建立发电厂。
So the descendants of the Great Migration could either become precision watchmakers at Shinola, like Willie H., who was featured in one of their ads last year, or they can actually grow a business that would service companies like Shinola. The good news is, there is a future for the next generation of Detroiters, both those there now and those that want to come.
因此,“大迁徙”先民的后代 既可以变成Shinola的精确制表工匠, 就像去年Shinola广告中的威利先生那样; 也可以自己建立 可以给Shinola这样的公司提供服务的企业。 好消息是:下一代的底特律人 依然有着光明的前途, 不管已经身在底特律的还是想来底特律的都是这样。
So no thank you, Mayor Menino, who recently was quoted as saying, "I'd blow up the place and start over." There are very important people, business and land assets in Detroit, and there are real opportunities there. So while Detroit might not be what it was, Detroit will not die.
所以,梅尼诺市长,你的好意我心领了; 他曾说: ”我要先把底特律夷为平地再重新开始。“ 底特律仍有着十分重要的人群、 产业以及土地, 而且还有实实在在的机遇。 虽然底特律不会恢复它过去的模样, 但它也不会消亡。
Thank you.
谢谢。
(Applause)
(掌声)