MEMBER PROFILE

Investing in Place
Mott Smith
In Los Angeles, a city-builder imagines all thats possible.
Mott Smiths background doesnt immediately suggest developer. My undergrad degree is in linguistics. It taught me that people follow rules of behavior that are completely unconscious but you can discover them if you watch and learn, he explains. Then I played bass in a rock band full time for two years, which taught me the importance of laying good foundations. After hanging up his guitar (at least some of the time), he worked for the government and private sector. Now, as principal of Civic Enterprise Associates in Los Angeles, hes able to pursue his passion for great neighborhoods. My partner and I do all kinds of projects that allow us to help make neighborhoods more vibrant, walkable, affordable and exciting, says Smith, both as planners and as principals in developments. We like to forge new regulatory pathways wherever possible. And if we can help make those pathways more available for others to use such as with the small lot subdivision ordinance in Los Angeles we feel like weve made a contribution, and we are happy. Smith recently took a visiting contingent from SPUR on a tour of Los Angeles, a city he describes as so rich in culture and so enticingly misunderstood. What can the Bay Area learn that continues to clumsily apply from Los Angeles? a 20th-century new-growth Id rather answer the question paradigm to existing urban places, what can we learn from each with poor results. We need to other? The first time I met (and move beyond planning that cares fell in love with) SPUR, it was mostly about zoning and takes no through an exchange you did with ownership of the city foundations the Westside Urban Forum in L.A. that really matter: infrastructure I was blown away at how similar and the public realm. our perspectives, aspirations, challenges and complaints are. I You talk about the value of now believe the historical period authentic character, which is when a place is built determines often difficult to achieve in brand its form and character even new developments. What are the more than its location does.The advantages of adaptive re-use, new towns in the Bay Area have of not starting from scratch? similar issues as the new towns American architecture, planning in Southern California, as do and development culture is the older communities in both obsessed with authorship, often places.What I have learned from at the expense of authenticity. SPUR and the Bay Area is that it Theres an unspoken sense that isnt just L.A. but all of California urban interventions are only
THE URBANIST

Planner/developer Mott Smith (left) and one his favorite examples of successful urbanism, Jamestown, St. Helena

worthwhile if someone can say, I planned that. This, however, is narcissistic, limiting and profoundly antiurban. It results in the problems the great sociologist Richard Sennett described in his book The Uses of Disorder, namely that urban planners become too preoccupied with stopping unplanned things from happening and, in the end, have no idea how to create. This suburban ethos has invaded our cities over the last 100 years, leaving its DNA in urban renewal, NIMBYism and the highly scripted specific planning we engage in to the exclusion of real game changers like investment in infrastructure and the public realm, the places hungriest for real planning. At Civic Enterprise, we believe that the best neighborhoods have invented themselves over time (generally on a foundation of public infrastructure). And instead of trying to erase that history, as so many plans and projects implicitly try to do, we want to find that value in organic places and build on it. So, as someone who thinks about cities a lot, what is your favorite Urban view: Jamestown, St. Helena, South Atlantic Ocean. A cosmopolitan town of fewer than 1,000 people, built almost 400 years ago and still largely unchanged. It is the purest

evidence I have seen that urban is not about how big a place is but about how it functions physically and how its people decide to relate to each other. Favorite building? Wow, so many to choose from.The Bradbury Building in downtown L.A. is one of my favorites. I love it not just because it is an urban geode but also because of its story. It was designed in the 1890s by George Wyman, a draftsman who was inspired to take the commission after consulting a Ouija board. It sits at Third and Broadway in downtown L.A., right in the middle of the historic core. Its like a quiet guest at a loud party who turns out to be the most interesting person in the room. Impressive urban infrastructure? The canals of Venice, Italy. And favorite book/film/work of art about cities?Wings of Desire, a film by Wim Wenders. Its about uber-cool omniscient angels in Berlin. One falls in love with a trapeze artist and chooses to give up his status and vantage in order to experience real life in the flesh. He becomes a regular, schlubby guy in a bad sweater. But he gets to feel the cold city air, warm himself with fresh coffee and touch the person he loves.We in the landuse world would do well to do all those things every so often. Y
May 2012

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