November 14th 2007: ErasmusPC Salon at the closing conference of the European Project "Governance in Action". This is the report of Soul of the City, with reports from Almere, Dublin, Amsterdam, Capelle aan den IJssel and Rimini.
Knowledge Network
Erasmus PC was invited by lead partner Almere of the European Project "Knowledge Network, Governance in Action" to organize four salons on the specific situation of New Towns. The final conference of the 3 year European Project was a meeting of 21 partners from 11 countries in Europe.
Many of the partners are new towns. All partners want to share methods of governance, involving residents and stakeholders in their policies and actions. Part of the project was a survey in each partner town about involvement of the inhabitants and wishes for better local politics and governance. The research institutes of the Knowledge Network reported this in "Local identity and local politics, lessons from the Knowledge Network Survey".
Closing Conference
In the closing conference the theme of local identity was explored in the Erasmus PC Salons with the following themes:
1. City Pride
Newtowns struggle with their identity. The image of new towns often is boring, sleepy, and suburban. Nice if you like gardening, but real life is happening elsewhere. How does city pride relate to the image and identity of the city? What makes people proud of their city? What kind of things / activities /people could enhance city pride? Does city pride enhance social cohesion and / or the way people participate in society? Who are / could be important ambassadors for city pride?
2. Upper-class / Cultural Elite
A real city is a city where all social classes feel at home. Dutch new towns / suburban areas mainly consist of lower and middleclass population, e.g. families with children. Upper-class is rare and the direct result is that it is harder to create a thriving cultural climate. Is this a typical Dutch phenomenon? What are your experiences? What is the importance of upper-class in the city? How does for instance having a university in a city effect city life?
3. Soul of the City
Collective memories. Places where something historically important happened. Vibrant city centres or neighbourhoods, where people meet outside on terraces or in parks. Or inside in cafes, museums or restaurants. Those places are the heart and soul of cities. But what about new towns without those collective memories or ‘natural' places to meet. Is it possible to create a soulful atmosphere? What is the soul of your city?
The fourth theme was the meaning of architecture and planning to new towns.
Debating the ‘soul' of Almere, Rimini, Dublin, Amsterdam and Capelle
The Salon "Soul of the City" showed vivid discussions after short presentations with inspiring ideas. In colourful presentations, with lots of images, 5 speakers gave their ideas on the theme.
Chair Hans Karssenberg set the key tone by questioning: "What is the meaning of the ‘soul', especially in new towns? Is it possible to describe the ‘soul of the city'? And if so, what can you do with it, how can you enhance it?"
Newtown with history
Journalist, founder of the website ‘Geheugen van Almere' (memory of Almere) and participant in ErasmusPC Connie Franssen sketched her imprint of Almere since the initial phase in 1976: building a city and building a society.
Now the city is constructed, but the society still doesn't have any subcultures and there is no cultural elite. Soul is the collective memory and also the planning of spaces where people like to be. Almere is above all consumer orientated, clearly to be seen in the city centre.
However, the soul can be found at unexpected places. The memory of Almere collects the stories of Almere people. It was started because the pioneers of the first years are still there. The website is a virtual meeting place; people can react on the stories.
And: "especially the non-existence of roots is liberating - you have to do everything yourself, otherwise it won't happen."
Absolutely nothing interesting here
For Joke Meijer of the new town Capelle aan de IJssel the soul is a mix of comfortable houses and all the facilities of the big city Rotterdam nearby. Especially the variety of neighbourhoods is important. Her daughter had to write to an Italian counterpart of an exchange project: "Absolutely nothing is interesting here, but if you want some fun, Rotterdam is near."
The perspective of her mother is different: it is a safe and nice place to live. And there are many different housing projects: from the Chinese wall (high rise apartment blocks crossing through Capelle) till the oldest quarter of 1792. Water is always nearby. The prove of being a good place to live is the prime minister of The Netherlands, he lives in Capelle and wants to stay there.
Fellini
Maria Estella Lodovichetti of Rimini, an old beach resort in Italy, quotes the ideas of Italo Calvino (Invisible Cities) about life and people, living together and meeting. The soul of the city is formed by the people, as shown in Invisible Cities, by describing many different cities and gradually giving the perspective that finally it is all about the same city.
Maria Estella explores this towards identity and its meaning for Rimini. Especially pride and spaces of interaction between people tell us something about the soul of the city, ‘the places of life': places of learning, of working, of meeting, places of fantasy, hospitality, hope, culture, attraction, distraction, nature, belief, business and memory.
Talking about memory: the graveyard of Rimini tells a lot about the soul, the vivid past of Rimini that still continues to stamp the city. And this accounts for Fellini as well, being born in Rimini; the city plays an important role in many of his movies.
The exceptional aspect of the soul of Rimini is the combination of the specific identity of the inhabitants together with the enormous amount of visitors every year. Visitors are very welcome, for a long time Rimini has a culture of hospitality. Many cities are corrupted by mass tourism, losing their soul. The exceptional aspect of Rimini is the combination of old tradition interwoven with new trends. Reinvent the past!
Nick/nack
For Dublin the soul means a combination of places of action and exchange and places of tranquillity. Soul. A city needs these contrasts, where all aspects of life from birth till dead are possible. The Spanish steps in Rome are fantastic and a symbol for the city, till you see them if nobody is there.
This is in sharp contrast with the ‘IKEA' world, the big shopping malls, thriving out the shopping streets with character and the ‘nick/nack' shops. Suburbia has community facilities, but where is the vibrancy of the town square? When planning a new town, than it is very important as was done in Almere, to develop small sub centres.
Where do visitors go to in cities? Not to the chain stores, the same all over the world, but to special townscapes, unique places. Issues of soul are diversity, participation, sense of belonging and to deliver grassroots, in short: a ‘sense of place'.
Is it possible to plan this? It is planning the unplanned world, the possibilities for interactions, with good squares with many visitors. Places where things can happen, as Croke Park in Dublin, an important meeting place. But we often forget: the big podia of the city need lots of small podia to feed it. The small meetingplaces in the quarters, where the first interaction starts.
Aboriginals
A second view of the soul of Almere is given by Johan Bouwmeester, inhabitant and civil servant at the municipality. He saw the location of Almere for the first time 30 years ago, when it was still an empty side. For him Almere is like a dream, growing layer after layer in the time, a succession of land and water, and all the dreams and fears of the inhabitants. The soul is the relation between people and networks, the sum of expectations and aspirations of people.
Every city is a promise, especially Almere, People of Almere are dreamers. It is a city where you can smell the human potential. Even at the start, amidst the frame of the buildings and rudimentary roads, you could feel the energy.
In Almere nature and culture are interwoven, more than anywhere else. In this city, constructed on a new spot, it is an act of culture to put brick after brick. It is the same energy which Johan encountered in the fast growing city Gabarone in Botswana. It grew from 500 inhabitants in 1968 to 80.000 in 1988 and 220.000 now, with the same feeling of human potential as Almere.
When making a map of the soul of the city, it is not about a factual map with roads etc, a one dimensional map. One should need a map as the aboriginals do. They not only put roads on the map, but also history, the reflections of past encounters.
Basically Johan tells us: the soul of the city is my soul, and my soul is the soul of my city.
La Vie Vinex
Toine Heijmans works as a reporter for the daily newspaper De Volkskrant and lives in suburbia since three years. Nowadays he lives as far away from his childhood friend as when they were young, when they were saying to each other 35 years ago: "Never to live in a suburb again!".
He now lives in IJburg, the newest quarter of Amsterdam, on artificial islands in the lake between Amsterdam and Almere. His ideas of suburbia have changed, he wrote a book about it, ‘La Vie Vinex' (in The Netherlands the new big quarters in the vicinity of the big cities are named "Vinex quarters).
The prejudices are a never ending story: it is boring, uninspired, no creativity, not for people, the only thing that moves is the wind, "But how is it possible that I am happy here", Toine thought. He discovered suburbia has a soul. IJurg is like slim city, a city coming from scratch, from 600 persons 3 years ago, to 10,000 now, and the common idea was that the new inhabitants with 1.5 incomes and two kids would stay in their new houses. But against these expectations people start to organise all sorts of activities with each other.
This is the soul: people doing things together. And this is also a critical aspect for planning a new city: it is too much about architecture, too often about money, and not nearly enough about the future inhabitants.
Sense of Place
In a vivid discussion the spotlight was directed on several elements of the introductions. If ‘sense of place' is the most important aspect, then we are talking about the combination of physical aspects and human aspects, the urban society. If this combination feels well, people understand it immediately, inhabitants and visitors alike. Visitors can feel it instantly if there is an interesting environment, cityscape, with a good human atmosphere.
But also it is possible that certain ‘average' neighbourhoods, not appealing to visitors, have an important meaning, a ‘sense of place' for inhabitants who feel connected to the quarter or who have special memories. So here the ‘sense of place' is more about the human aspect than the physical aspect or the beauty of the quarter.
Can time give little by little a ‘soul' to new towns? Or is it going up and down and up, from the first pioneers who with each other try to fill in the new town, and then a lapse in time to the first generation that was born in the new town, grew up there and wants to stay there, feeling proud.
The soul unfolds itself if the inhabitants don't talk anymore apologetic about their new town and if other people react with a sense of jealousy if they hear you are living in a new town.
Can this process be accelerated or is it a more natural and gradual process in time? The participants of the salon are optimistic about the possibilities to develop a ‘soul' in new towns in a short period of time. However, there is a special note about this: "Perhaps Almere should degenerate first, before it can diversify. Maybe degeneration is o.k.. Maybe we then get the subcultures a real city needs."
Finally: graveyards tell us a lot about the soul of a city, Rimini and Dublin showed us this aspect. But what do we see if we visit the graveyard of Almere? Johan Bouwmeester jumps to this item "it was completely planned on forehand. It is moving to see the planners were thinking from the beginning that the new town is a place from birth to death".
Marijke Storm and Hans Karssenberg
Amsterdam, November 18 2007