Post by ferryfast admin on Mar 3, 2006 23:12:25 GMT -5
Gulf Coast Residents Dream Of A New America
PASS CHRISTIAN, MS (AP) - Dreams of the future here are just sketches: Friendly streets lined with a welcoming mix of homes, stores and sidewalks. Neighborhood parks for play, picnics and a shady respite from the Southern sun. A bustling waterfront.
Reality lies on the ground, for mile upon mile of this hurricane-blasted stretch of Gulf Coast, a mess of splintered homes, flattened trees and tent cities housing hundreds still homeless nearly five months after Katrina.
Many people are neck-deep in that reality, scratching for the basics of meals, shelter and a job. But a high-powered group of community leaders, elected officials and architects are busily hammering out an ambitious framework for what could come next - to rebuild the entire 80-mile stretch of Mississippi's coast in a way that could produce a new model for small towns.
They are creating a test case for a different vision of America, one that seeks to turn away from the suburbs of the past half-century and instead embrace an idealized life of small towns and compact cities. It aims to resurrect the best of the past - evening promenades, neighborhood groceries, even trolleys - with the promise of the future's technology, jobs and transportation.
The ideas come from architects who call themselves New Urbanists - a group committed to the ideas that smaller, walkable communities work better. They emphasize densely built downtowns with thriving Main Streets, neighborhoods that mix commerce and homes, a range of transportation options and a style that relies on a region's history. They spurn suburbs and sprawl.
"You don't want to call it a blessing, but it is a chance," said Jim Barksdale, the former Netscape president and a Mississippi native who heads the state rebuilding commission. "You need hope and a sense of place. These ideas have provided that. They seem to be reasonating with an awful lot of people out here."
There are plenty of doubts - about the costs, jobs, casino gambling and the return of the poor and minorities who have built homes here. And many architects say the New Urbanists' vision is unrealistic for some towns. But leaders here are pushing for change, and quickly, hoping to jump-start Mississippi's rebuilding while arguments have left New Orleans hamstrung.
Elected leaders, newspaper publishers and developers are enthusiastically backing the proposals. Residents are still learning about the ideas. But what will determine the real shape of rebuilding here will come together through the incremental, unflashy steps of local government and private development, from building codes and road plans to housing blueprints.
The proposals came together remarkably quickly. Katrina hit Aug. 29, and while much of the nation's attention focused on the tragedies in New Orleans, the devastation in Mississippi was sweeping. Fewer people died here, but the storm's fiercest winds and waters flattened the cities of Bay St. Louis, Waveland and Pass Christian. Devastation was tremendous farther east, too, in Biloxi, Gulfport and Ocean Springs.
Within days of the storm, rebuilding talks were shaping up. Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour welcomed a rebuilding proposal from one of the most prominent of the New Urbanist architects, Miami-based Andres Duany. Separately, Barbour moved quickly to allow the coast's casinos to rebuild on land, eliminating an earlier requirement that they must be on the water.
In-mid-October, scores of architects from around the world met for a six-day meeting at a ravaged casino in Biloxi. Working with local architects and community leaders, they examined the damage and weighed each of 11 communities' mix of residences, business, transportation and history.
They produced 11 individual plans tailored to each town. Overall, they aimed to create more transportation options, strengthen each community's downtown and build a network of neighborhoods. Each town will choose what pieces to put in play.
Among the bigger proposals:
• Put a beachfront boulevard in place of Highway 90, a busy waterfront road that runs along the entire coast. Cars would share space with people, with a median, trees and other ways to lure pedestrians, with hopes for evening promenades.
• Move freight-train lines that run close to the coast miles farther away, north of Interstate 10, and turn the rail lines into mass transit, or bike paths.
• Better utilize the waterfront for a range of uses - for ferry service, water taxis, for recreation as well as for working shrimpers.
"It's aways about community, it's always about walkability, it's always about diversity of use and people," Duany said. The idea is for people to live closer together and rely less on cars, with less sprawl and less traffic. "The lifestyle of the American middle class is the greatest environmental problem of the world."
California architect Laura Hall, who led the work in Pass Christian, said that tackling the entire coast of Mississippi will give the country the best example yet of how well New Urbanism works. "It's a huge turning point for the country to be able to see this on such a huge scale. It's taken us 20 years to get to this point."
The designers turned to old postcards of the coast of 75 or 100 years ago to help carry their message to residents. The faded images of old rail stations, dusty storefronts and beach scenes seem to capture the neighborliness and mix of residences and businesses they're trying to recreate.
The embrace of their effort in Mississippi has spurred interest among officials in several Louisiana cities, though not New Orleans.
It's also stirred up a simmering backlash among other architects, who say New Urbanists, while correct in building denser cities where people can walk, produce a "one-size-fits-all" model that confines its solutions to the past and isn't open to new ideas.
For the people on the Gulf Coast, however, architectural arguments are a long way off.
In Pass Christian, Philip LaGrange said he'd seen the plans but had little faith in them, given the slow pace of reconstruction so far.
In Biloxi's low-lying eastern edge, floodwaters left block after block of tumbled-down homes where a thriving community of Vietnamese had settled. The plans would leave much of that area alone.
"I don't 100 percent reject the city plan, but I ask - the city should find a way to adjust the situation to help the poor people," said Father Dong Phan, head of the Vietnamese Martyrs Church.
In Ocean Springs, new Mayor Connie Moran loved the design plans. But she has been frustrated by state transportation officials' plan to more than double the size of the bridge across Biloxi Bay, from the four-lane span left in pieces by the storm to a six-lane bridge with four breakdown lanes.
PASS CHRISTIAN, MS (AP) - Dreams of the future here are just sketches: Friendly streets lined with a welcoming mix of homes, stores and sidewalks. Neighborhood parks for play, picnics and a shady respite from the Southern sun. A bustling waterfront.
Reality lies on the ground, for mile upon mile of this hurricane-blasted stretch of Gulf Coast, a mess of splintered homes, flattened trees and tent cities housing hundreds still homeless nearly five months after Katrina.
Many people are neck-deep in that reality, scratching for the basics of meals, shelter and a job. But a high-powered group of community leaders, elected officials and architects are busily hammering out an ambitious framework for what could come next - to rebuild the entire 80-mile stretch of Mississippi's coast in a way that could produce a new model for small towns.
They are creating a test case for a different vision of America, one that seeks to turn away from the suburbs of the past half-century and instead embrace an idealized life of small towns and compact cities. It aims to resurrect the best of the past - evening promenades, neighborhood groceries, even trolleys - with the promise of the future's technology, jobs and transportation.
The ideas come from architects who call themselves New Urbanists - a group committed to the ideas that smaller, walkable communities work better. They emphasize densely built downtowns with thriving Main Streets, neighborhoods that mix commerce and homes, a range of transportation options and a style that relies on a region's history. They spurn suburbs and sprawl.
"You don't want to call it a blessing, but it is a chance," said Jim Barksdale, the former Netscape president and a Mississippi native who heads the state rebuilding commission. "You need hope and a sense of place. These ideas have provided that. They seem to be reasonating with an awful lot of people out here."
There are plenty of doubts - about the costs, jobs, casino gambling and the return of the poor and minorities who have built homes here. And many architects say the New Urbanists' vision is unrealistic for some towns. But leaders here are pushing for change, and quickly, hoping to jump-start Mississippi's rebuilding while arguments have left New Orleans hamstrung.
Elected leaders, newspaper publishers and developers are enthusiastically backing the proposals. Residents are still learning about the ideas. But what will determine the real shape of rebuilding here will come together through the incremental, unflashy steps of local government and private development, from building codes and road plans to housing blueprints.
The proposals came together remarkably quickly. Katrina hit Aug. 29, and while much of the nation's attention focused on the tragedies in New Orleans, the devastation in Mississippi was sweeping. Fewer people died here, but the storm's fiercest winds and waters flattened the cities of Bay St. Louis, Waveland and Pass Christian. Devastation was tremendous farther east, too, in Biloxi, Gulfport and Ocean Springs.
Within days of the storm, rebuilding talks were shaping up. Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour welcomed a rebuilding proposal from one of the most prominent of the New Urbanist architects, Miami-based Andres Duany. Separately, Barbour moved quickly to allow the coast's casinos to rebuild on land, eliminating an earlier requirement that they must be on the water.
In-mid-October, scores of architects from around the world met for a six-day meeting at a ravaged casino in Biloxi. Working with local architects and community leaders, they examined the damage and weighed each of 11 communities' mix of residences, business, transportation and history.
They produced 11 individual plans tailored to each town. Overall, they aimed to create more transportation options, strengthen each community's downtown and build a network of neighborhoods. Each town will choose what pieces to put in play.
Among the bigger proposals:
• Put a beachfront boulevard in place of Highway 90, a busy waterfront road that runs along the entire coast. Cars would share space with people, with a median, trees and other ways to lure pedestrians, with hopes for evening promenades.
• Move freight-train lines that run close to the coast miles farther away, north of Interstate 10, and turn the rail lines into mass transit, or bike paths.
• Better utilize the waterfront for a range of uses - for ferry service, water taxis, for recreation as well as for working shrimpers.
"It's aways about community, it's always about walkability, it's always about diversity of use and people," Duany said. The idea is for people to live closer together and rely less on cars, with less sprawl and less traffic. "The lifestyle of the American middle class is the greatest environmental problem of the world."
California architect Laura Hall, who led the work in Pass Christian, said that tackling the entire coast of Mississippi will give the country the best example yet of how well New Urbanism works. "It's a huge turning point for the country to be able to see this on such a huge scale. It's taken us 20 years to get to this point."
The designers turned to old postcards of the coast of 75 or 100 years ago to help carry their message to residents. The faded images of old rail stations, dusty storefronts and beach scenes seem to capture the neighborliness and mix of residences and businesses they're trying to recreate.
The embrace of their effort in Mississippi has spurred interest among officials in several Louisiana cities, though not New Orleans.
It's also stirred up a simmering backlash among other architects, who say New Urbanists, while correct in building denser cities where people can walk, produce a "one-size-fits-all" model that confines its solutions to the past and isn't open to new ideas.
For the people on the Gulf Coast, however, architectural arguments are a long way off.
In Pass Christian, Philip LaGrange said he'd seen the plans but had little faith in them, given the slow pace of reconstruction so far.
In Biloxi's low-lying eastern edge, floodwaters left block after block of tumbled-down homes where a thriving community of Vietnamese had settled. The plans would leave much of that area alone.
"I don't 100 percent reject the city plan, but I ask - the city should find a way to adjust the situation to help the poor people," said Father Dong Phan, head of the Vietnamese Martyrs Church.
In Ocean Springs, new Mayor Connie Moran loved the design plans. But she has been frustrated by state transportation officials' plan to more than double the size of the bridge across Biloxi Bay, from the four-lane span left in pieces by the storm to a six-lane bridge with four breakdown lanes.