ECOLOGICAL IDENTITY: BECOMING A REFLECTIVE ENVIRONMENTALIST

tails of the physical environment rather than the big picture, details which are explicitly discussed throughout the text. Armed with the wisdom of this little book (which the author is quick to point out, is hardly rocket science), neighborhood by neighborhood, the city can be reconstructed in a manner that fosters human interaction and a better quality of life for its inhabitants. Formal definitions and justifications dispensed with, Sucher then offers a series of guidelines, homilies, personal observations and epiphanies, organized under such charming little headings as "Feeling Safe," "Fitting In," "Knowing Where You Are," "Children in the City, . Old Shoes are More Comfortable," (in which the concept of weaving the old with the new is presented as "good business and good sense") and "Personalizing the City with Art," among others. Design professionals will find most of these observations obvious: "Provide Seats. A seat is an explicit invitation to stay. " However, this is a book for property owners, municipal bureaucrats, and the rest of the stakeholders of built environment, who often need to be reminded of such things. In the final chapter, entitled, "What this Book is Not About," Sucher actually presents a gentle polemic countering the arguments of city planners who complain about the lack of density in many areas, and who advocate for rail transit. It is not that he is opposed to either. Rather, he believes, it is a question of setting the cart before the horse. High density, he argues, is not a prerequisite for a decent and humane urban environment; rather it is the result of one, a result, that is, of the establishment of a place in which many would like to live. Furthermore, he cautions, rail is neither a panacea for the suburbia that ails us, nor a substitute for decent urbanism. Any and all means of transport need to be designed in service of the community, rather than as the driving force. In this he delivers a gentle critique of Peter Calthorpe’s Transit Oriented Developments (TOD) which are designed around public transport. For the most part, Sucher’s guidebook is hardly unique. Miami architects Duany and Plater-Zyberk have promoted similar aspirations with a very rigorous set of guidelines summarized in their codes for the "traditional neighborhood development," (TND). On the west coast, Calthorpe’s TOD, itself an outgrowth of Calthorpe’s and Kelbaugh’s earlier formulation, the "Pedestrian Pocket," espouse similar concepts (with the density and transit exceptions noted above). Sucher’s contribution is that he concentrates on principles that might be employed incrementally, in a piece-meal manner, and in existing neighborhoods, arguing that any improvement, regardless of whether or not it is part of any grand plan, is better than none. While hardly news to most architects, this assertion may be his most important contribution, given his intended audience. Not that he is, as many in the avant garde, antagonistic to regional planning. Rather, he asserts, it is that the issues and controversies encountered at that macro scale (for example, rail versus highway spending, locations for stadiums, theme parks, and the like) are not the most critical factors in rendering a city or a town livable. With the savvy that his experience on Seattle’s Planning Commission brings, he is quick to point out that even as regional scaled projects and issues are debated for years or even decades, the city continues to be built. Sucher has confined himself to the details of that construction, offering a simple guide to making better urban places. Accompanying nearly every observation and guideline are black and white illustrations, depicting everything from sidewalk cafes, to kinder, gentler trash receptacles and parking garages. While for the most part adequate, the illustrations lack the compelling dichotomy offered by Anton Nelessen’s "Visual Preference Surveys," which succeed by rubbing one’s nose in the banality of conventional suburbia while simultaneously presenting images of the good. Nelessen’s efforts offer a way of rendering such concepts meaningful for those who have trouble imagining Sucher’s concepts operating in their own suburban or less than perfect urban neighborhoods. And building neighborhoods is at the heart of this little treatise. Implicit in the argument (but left unstated) is the belief that communities (at least some of them) are place centered. With the confidence (or perhaps naivete) of the zealot, Sucher does not address the possibility raised by many critics (and inherent in the concept of edge city) that the urban village which he advocates may be an anachronism. Sucher avoids polemics, assuming that if you’ve picked the book up to read, you have already embraced the values of traditional urbanism. The global village with its electronic interfaces may be a reality for many (including Sucher, it seems, who surfaces regularly on various Internet "newsgroups" plugging both these concepts and this book), but it has not supplanted human interfaces of the urban village as a necessity. People, he assumes, still long for and indeed require the intimacy and trust-building interactions provided by a humane urban environment. Sucher’s hope is to help bring such environments about. His effort is a necessary, albeit modest, addition to the literature and the cause. Neal Payton is an Associate Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at The Catholic University of America’s School of Architecture and Planning, Washington, DC.