Josue Cruz

Landscape Architecture
Sophomore Year

Active Cities
As technology innovation becomes the number one external factor that
affects the way in which we conduct our lifes we are also starting to lose the
essence of appreciation towards time and our environment around us. Since
the beginning of the 21st century human life has accelerated to speeds that
are astronomical in terms of getting things done in a more efficient faster
way. We have lose the sense of time when we connect ourselves to the rest
of the world through our portable devises. We have lose the essence of
community and cohesiveness with our daily surroundings when we connect
ourselves online. We put our heads down to check our latest notifications and
at the same time we block from our sight from beauty of people and the
environment. As Landscape architect this is one of the most critical issues
that we face every day when we try to connect people that live their life at a
hundred miles an hour with their surroundings. We have the job of creating
these places where people can automatically feel the impact of our work by
engaging them naturally with their surroundings. This is one of those issues
that need immediate attention before we completely loose our sense of
cohesiveness with people and places. On my research I will study how the
American city became what it is today. I will also talk about how the new
generation views these cities. We will also discuss some of the major issues
of todays cities. I will also go into detail about what we can do to make this
cities more appealing to the public. How as landscape architects we can
completely change the view of millions of people about city living. How we
can create a complete paradigm shift about the experience that cities can
offer to us throughout our entire day.

During the early 1950s the US suburbia sprawl spread like a wild fire on a
dry summer season. This was a time of prosperity for a young nation that
had just ended two major World Wars. Innovation in technology and
manufacturing close the gap between the rich and the working middle class.
The middle class families finally had the opportunity to enjoy things like
owning a car. The invention of the car gave the common man freedom to
travel, and this was the beginning of the Suburbia sprawl. Houses became
affordable because of the high demand from people who were eager to move
out of the cities. The middle class saw an opportunity to leave the old, gray,
cold and smelly city environment. They saw the new picture of the suburbia.
A new way of living that would allow them to grow their families on a much

pleasant environment where you had a neighbor, a backyard and multiples

dogs if you want it to. This was the renaissance of the new American Dream.
Commute to the big cities every morning for work and eight hours later come
back home to your perfect wife waiting for you with a hot dinner already
served on the table, and later on the evening entertain yourself with this
magnificent invention call the television. At the same time cities were being
abandoned by millions. During the day these cities were still active by the
hundreds of thousands that rush through its sidewalks to get to work. But
when night time arrived these cities became cold, boring, and dangerous.
They served no purpose for anyone other than the perfect time for graffiti
artist to paint on the walls of these abandoned cities. US cities grew in a
different direction. The big corporate skyscrapers grew taller and taller. The
worst thing about these building growing taller is that during the 1960s the
architecture for these building was plain. These building became giant
rectangular boxes that were not pleasant to the human eye at all. As the
years passed by America grew into a nation of 321M habitants with one
major flaw. As James Kunstler put into in his book The Geography of
Nowhere the sprawl became Brutal, ugly, unhealthy, and spiritually
degrading. The sprawl became a double edge sword for America because it
also created unhealthy lifestyles for the American people.
The American people unintentionally became a victim of their own choice to
be part of the sunburn sprawl. Their daily choices change overtime and
unintentionally became less healthy. The big highways were design to hold
the early commute of people that move to the city every morning and
afternoon. Sooner or later these people found themselves stock in traffic for
hours at a time sometimes. Slowly all these hours compounded overtime and
then you have someone who is obese because of all those hours were he or
she was just sitting on their car stock on a traffic jam instead of having to
commute to by foot. Another major cause of unhealthy habits that that this
tedious process of having to deal with the daily commute create it was the
boom of the fast food industry. Everything of all sudden became more on the
go because people having less time to cook and putting more time into the
daily commute. In the chapter of Urban ecology Relationship Between Urban
Sprawl and Physical Activity, Obesity, and Morbidity a study was conducted
in which two pairs of neighborhoods in the San Francisco Bay Area
concluded that walking to commercial areas more frequent in the older
neighborhoods (City Like) with nearby stores and grid-like street networks
than in the newer more homogeneous neighborhoods. The study goes on to
talk about how these constant absence of close commute systems affects
that way in which peoples health was being affected. Now that we have
seen the unconscious affected of the suburb sprawl we will discuss the

importance of creating city vitality ones again to our oldest cities and new
ones as well.
City vitality is something that major US City are staring to take into
considerations when building new projects. How can a city create an
environment thats efficient for business and at the same time work just fine
when the nine to five work madness is over? How a city can captured those
city commuters? How can we make our streets more active? How can we
make transportation more effective and fun? How can we create a vibe of
cohesiveness among the city walls after dark? These are some of the
questions that Landscape Architects ask themselves when handling this kind
issue of creating a more cohesive living spaces among the city walls. As
Professor George curry put in his lecture and tour of the city of Syracuse, city
vitality can be achieve when a city protects its old values in architecture and
business history. The city of Syracuse was ones one of those citys that suffer
from the urban sprawl in the 1950s and after the salt industry move down
south. The city population drastically decreased and the city grew old, and
unappealing to those that commute to work there. During the past decades
the city has tried to recover some of its popularity by creating greener plazas
around the city. Slowly the city of Syracuse is increasing its population and
overall aesthetically pleasant looks, but its still has a lot more work that
needs to be done.
As the years pass by and the Baby Boomers and Generation X are being
pushed back by the millennial generation we are starting to see noticeable
changes in the way our cities are being build and decorated. One of the most
impressive city renovations done by a millennial landscape architect was
done by Kristian Koreman. Kristian Koreman is a visionary when it comes to
connecting city areas together as well as making the public support
something of a good cause for the benefit of human synergy. The city of
Rotterdam 4 years ago was a city that was divided into three distinctive city
areas. A highway that ran through the middle of the city separated 3
different communities of people, and this separation of the city made the city
loose its overall sense of community living. Kristian Koreman saw this as
major issue, he then proposed an elevated side walk that would connect the
3 different city areas without having to drive around the city in order to get
from point A, B and C. This elevated corridor was assemble into pieces,
almost like a Lego. Kristian finance the first piece himself and then he
convinced the entire city to finance the rest of the elevated side walk. As a
result The Luchtsingel became the worlds first crowd funded public
infrastructure. The Luchtsingel stands for Air Canal, became the heart of the
city immediately after completion. Abandoned building became green roofs
and an explosion of businesses opened around The Luchtsingel. Restaurants,
bars, public parks for kids and real state boomed simply because now three

different city areas were connected by this elevated pathway that gather the
city together like no other city has ever done before. The success of the
project gained local, national and international awards by the LA associations
and architecture Associations. Kristian lecture at SU gave me total different
perspective of what we as future Landscape Architects can do for a city that
needs a sense of purpose ones again. His lecture inspire me to look at big
projects as a means to do great things for people and gather them together
for something that can be share by our generations and future ones to come.
One of the most fascinating ideas that Ive heard came from Barbara Bestor
lecture at SU. Barbara Bestor is an architect that likes to connect with the
younger generation. She implement her work in ways that allows people to
interact with space in ways that older generations wouldve never thought of
doing. How about creating spaces famous for being called The Selfie Spot.
That sounds crazy but this is something that she has being implanting on her
work to capture the attention of the younger generations. What Bestor found
out was that these selfie spots sometimes became the main focal point of a
particular destination. A clever way to capture the younger generation
attention to interact with a particular space that overtime becomes popular
is a fantastic idea that we as landscape architects can implement into our big
projects in the future. A new way of thinking outside the box that is effective
and most importantly, fun.
What is it that makes a city more alive and attractive for people? A recent
study done by Sasaki Associates study six of the major cities in the USBoston, Chicago, New York, Austin, San Francisco and Washington DC. They
survey 1000 people from each city that live and work in one of these six
cities and asked questions about 4 key areas: Architecture, activities, parks,
and open spaces. The results we astonishing, 65 percent of the people said
their favorite city experiences happened in either open space or in the
streets. What this is saying is that people are being influenced about their
long term living on a city based on what they encounter on the city streets
and the open spaces like parks, plazas and water front views. If we boiled
things to the core of who is the artist that can make this happen we would
conclude that the responsibility lays in the shoulders of Landscape
Architects. The number one reason why a person might move to a city is
probably a job opportunity, but what would make them stay is what they see,
feel and smell when they walk around the city.
The most successful city parks around the country are usually located inside
the big cities like New Yorks Central Park or Boston Public Garden Park. They
are very appealing to the human eye when you notice them from a side walk
scream greeting on behalf of the city. Ones youre inside the park you feel
safe and relaxed. A city park should be inviting, safe and also easy to access

from any side along the perimeter of a park. One of the biggest issues that
cities like New York City are making an effort to fix is the issue of getting rid
of that 10 to 12 foot high fence in midsize parks around the city. Having a
fence that runs along the park perimeter just yells unsafe, unattractive and
ineffective access to the park. Whats the point of creating a public space
area that doesnt allow you to enjoy the beauty of the park unless you walk
around the park perimeter to find the main entrance? And what about the
holes that people cut on the fences in order to have an easier access to the
park? That to me just yells danger and unattractive. One of the movement
that the city has start it in order to fix this issue is call Parks without Borders.
What Parks without Borders is trying to do is engage people with the park the
minute they step into the park perimeters. They are trying to get rid of the
ugly looking fence that surrounds these parks by extending the park to the
curb line of the street. They want make to make people feel welcomed the
moment they start walking on the park perimeter by adding rain gardens
that run along the sidewalks and street curb line. The goal is to make people
feel that they are already inside the park the moment they step into the
sidewalk along the park. A small little alteration like this will make the park
look a lot more enhance, safer and welcoming.
As we look into the future we will see the population of cities increasing. Our
generation moves at a much faster pace than older generations. We like to
interact with as many things as possible. We are like clowns on a circus
juggling one hundred things up in the air and still finding enjoyment while
doing it. As much as we love our technology we also love finding ourselves
lost in nature. As future landscape architect we need to understand our own
generation and tailored the future cities in ways that will make them
attractive and self-sustain. Our designs will become the blue prints of how
people interact with a street corner. They will change the way in which the
cities of todays will become the cities of the future. A city that support
community activities and cohesiveness among the people and the exterior. If
we can gather people around the city we and sell them the idea of people
cohesiveness, we will successfully implement whatever idea is that we are
trying to sell to them. It all comes down into how resourceful you are about
wanting to change a city landscape. As the research that Sasaki Associates
conducted people are choosing to live on cities long term based on how they
are being influence by in the city streets. Our work in the field is the number
one common denominator for people satisfaction about our cities.

Josue Cruz
Active Cities
Abstract
The purpose of these research paper is to demonstrate and talk about the
experience of people on cities. The effect of active living among the city
walls. How does landscape architecture and innovative ways of thinking
outside the box can have a big effect on peoples perspective about a city
experience. During my research I discover that peoples perception about a

city was affective mostly about what they saw on the streets and city parks.
In a way parks and city streets are among the most public areas on a city.
They are the major influencers in people rational thinking about what a city
can offer to them. For my study I gather research from two of the SU
architect school speakers. Kristian Koreman, a Dutch landscape architect who
completely change the way in which people interacted with each other as a
united community. Then I talked about Barbara Bestor who took a simple
idea and made it look cool by simply understanding what the millennial
generation wants from a city. I am also going to talk about how the city of
today became about what they are today. Going back to the 1950s when the
suburbia sprawl was happening and people start it migrating to the more
traditional American neighborhoods. I also discover the negative effect that
this migration from city to suburbs had on Americans society. Finally I am
going to end my research paper on some simple ways to make a city park
more active. How a simple alteration can change the meaning of a city park.

Citations
Dont really know how to correctly cite an SU lecture:
Barbara Bestor Lecture Speech
Kristian Koreman Lecture Speech

Egwin, Reid, Tom Schmid, Richard Killingsworth, Stephen Raudenbush, and

Amy Slot. "Relationship Between Urban Sprawl and Physical Activity, Obesity,
and." Morbidity. Springer Link, n.d. Web. 21 Oct. 2015.
Frunkin, Howard, Lawrence Frank, and Richard J. Jackson. "Urban Sprawl and
Public Health." Google Books. Island Press, n.d. Web. 21 Oct. 2015.
Associates, Sasaki. "WHAT WE WANT FROM CITIES." Landscape Architecture
Magazine. Sasaki Associates, 28 Aug. 2014. Web. 21 Oct. 2015.