By Lewis McCrary - September 17, 2014

Today’s urban policy is saturated with language that calls for forward progress. Whether it’s the theoretical precision of "new urbanism," the revolutionary power of policies deemed "innovative," or “next-generation infrastructure,” city officials today are bombarded by rhetoric that encourages big ideas for what admittedly are big problems. Yet some of the best practices for increasing the livability of the urban core have strikingly traditional roots. Trendy catchphrases obscure our view of tomorrow’s city -- which is more likely to resemble the cities of the past than the utopian visions of science fiction or TED Talks.

To acknowledge the limits of urban policy, one need only look at the recent historical record. Some of the most sweeping plans for revitalizing inner cities have done great damage to the valuable historic fabric inherited from the past, while doing little to cure the underlying disease.

The most egregious example, the vast federal urban renewal programs in place from the Great Depression through the 1970s, focused on wholesale clearance of slums. Many were replaced with towering concrete housing projects set far away from the street. The large, open parcels were often fenced, giving them the quality of penal institutions, and further isolating the struggling families they were intended to help. Most became magnets for crime and drug activity, and have been or are in the process of being demolished. They are universally recognized as policy failures little more than a generation after their construction. Yet in their own time, these large-scale urban interventions were considered "innovative," as described in a 1969 report of the American Institute of Planners.

In contrast, the dense Lower East Side tenements that housed New York City's poorest residents in the 1890s are now often renovated into homes for the upper middle class.

But today's gentrification of older four to five-story buildings on Lower Manhattan's narrow streets suggests that traditional design is no impediment to -- and may even be helping to fuel -- an urban renaissance. Absent the overcrowding and poor plumbing, areas once considered slums gleam with the Old World charm of Paris or Amsterdam. This realization is why historic preservation has become more than a quaint end in itself; it is now policy that recognizes the value of the classic streetscape.

Eyes on the Street

Walkability is a favorite metric of urban policymakers, and older neighborhoods such as the Lower East Side are off the charts. Most 19th- and early 20th-century structures easily accommodate another central tenet of new urbanists, that regulation should allow a variety of commercial and residential uses in close proximity -- in many cases, even within the same building. Retail and services on the street level are not only convenient for residents on foot, they also add life to the sidewalks, putting more of what the great mid-century urbanist Jane Jacobs called "eyes on the street," which in turn deter both violent crime and petty property destruction.

City planners can bolster mixed-use development by relaxing zoning codes, but must also ensure that byways welcome more foot and bicycle traffic. Old methods from the heyday of urban renewal called for strict separation of people and vehicles, often resulting in empty pedestrian malls and foot bridges to cross busy boulevards. But in the last few years, Complete Streets, a national framework that has been implemented by cities such as Philadelphia and Baltimore, has provided officials with guidance on keeping pedestrians and cyclists safe alongside automobile traffic. Planners must cope with many more cars that have hit the roads since World War II, but this innovative approach to street design in fact harkens back to an era before automobiles were the default mode of getting around town.

Developments outside older central cities are also responding to demand for increased walkability. In Tysons Corner, a suburban development of office towers, condominiums and shopping malls outside Washington, planners are modifying a streetscape of parking garages and eight-lane roads to allow for greater pedestrian mobility. This and other places that Joel Garreau described as "edge cities" are adapting by taking on more of the features of the traditional urban center.

The Economy, Stupid

Full human flourishing has of course required more than safe and lively thoroughfares with plenty of places to buy a quart of milk. The city has always been the site of the marketplace, the engine of commerce that creates wealth and provides livelihoods for its residents. Thus it's unsurprising that urban policymakers would focus on economic well-being, and jobs in particular.

Mayors everywhere seek to bring large employers to town, hoping that a relocation of workers from suburban office parks will breathe new life into abandoned downtowns and industrial districts. Yet many now realize that the long-term security of their local economy will not come from catching one or two big fish. Instead, according to another popular buzzword, planners seek to encourage "clusters" of businesses that draw talent and enable more growth through both collaboration and competition.

The cluster approach seeks to maximize the conditions for creating new wealth, but is hardly original: Medieval towns often specialized in a specific trade, securing special permission from the king to hold fairs promoting their wares and trade directly with foreign merchants, while for much of the 20th century Detroit was synonymous with a strong American auto industry.

One of the most admired clusters of modern times resides in the primarily suburban Silicon Valley. Given the fast growth of the tech industry, it’s no surprise that officials everywhere -- cities included -- want to create similar hubs for entrepreneurs. In New York, planners encouraged the transformation of former factories and warehouses into what is now justifiably called Silicon Alley.

Generations of Infrastructure

The center of the Big Apple’s tech district is a former warehouse purchased by Google in 2010. Originally constructed in 1932, and occupying an entire city block, the Chelsea building is the third-largest in the city by square feet, and was once a bustling terminal for truck and railroad cargo. This example of adaptive reuse sits atop some of the most important infrastructure of our day: fiber-optic cables, which enable such innovations as the nearly instant financial transactions that give Wall Street banks a competitive edge.

Google's data warehouse is connected to what planners refer to as next-generation infrastructure, though it has been built alongside older public works. Yet it has adapted to present demands and utilizes the latest in technological capabilities. In fact, many large data centers are located on valuable Manhattan real estate, primarily because a forerunner to the Internet -- large telephone switching sites -- have called the island home since the days when computers were made of vacuum tubes.

With public revenues in decline, city leaders must find ways to retrofit older infrastructure for new needs -- and increasingly are paying for it themselves. In some cases, this means greater use of private partnerships, such as Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel's infrastructure bank, or Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter's proposed sale of the city's gas works. Increased local responsibility for large infrastructure projects may point to an era that again looks like the past, when cities could not depend on federal borrowing to make up for shortfalls.

As mayors sift through data and evaluate proposals for walkability, clusters of industry, and new infrastructure, they should remember the simple dictum of urbanists such as Jan Gehl and Jane Jacobs to always design cities "for people." Of course, cities have always been for people. Planners shouldn't be surprised that investing in what works for their citizens means first building upon the best that they have inherited.