OCTOBER
23, 2007
Film Festival: New Urban Cowboy
An interview with Michael E. Arth
BY JIM
MOREKIS,
CONNECT SAVANNAH
KNOWN TO URBAN PLANNERS and designers the world over as the father of “New
Pedestrianism,” Michael E. Arth decided to put his groundbreaking ideas
about compact, walking-oriented, mixed-use neighborhoods to the ultimate test.
He chose an almost unbelievably blighted area in DeLand, Fla., outside Daytona
Beach. In an area of town once called the Garden District but then known simply
as “Cracktown,” he bought several dilapidated houses at auction
in 2001 and renovated them extensively. He reoriented the houses around a central
communal courtyard, creating a “pedestrian lane” around them to
link to other parts of the neighborhood.
The work was fraught with physical peril in the form of the entrenched crack
cocaine retail industry and its associated crime, but Arth managed not only
to bring his idea to fruition but to flourish. His renovations quickly formed
the core of an entire downtown DeLand renaissance which has tripled property
values, yet still provided affordable and safe housing.
Arth’s documentary about his efforts, New Urban Cowboy: The Labors of
Michael E. Arth, will be screened at the Savannah Film Festival. We spoke to
Arth last week.
Wouldn’t some people criticize what you did as simply “gentrification?”
Michael E. Arth: That’s a red herring, this idea that gentrification is
bad. How it got started I don’t know. How else are you going to reduce
crime and blight, unless you start some massive public works program? There’s
got to be the motivation to save old neighborhoods and redo old homes. This
idea that we have to let housing deteriorate in order to provide flophouses
is nuts.
In my instance in the Garden District we ended up doubling the population. But
we have just as many people on Section 8, and the cost of housing is not going
up appreciably, though I so-called “gentrified” it.
So the point is not necessarily to stop gentrification but to have multiple
income levels.
Michael E. Arth: Gentrification is a total non-issue in the Garden District,
even from the point of view of the people there. My neighborhood is multiracial
and has multiple income levels. There’s the same proportion of black and
Hispanic residents as before. The difference is that there’s not a lot
of people hanging around engaging in criminal enterprises [and it’s a
great place to live].
Of course the ultimate solution to the drug problem is something that won’t
happen for a long time. It’s legalization and regulation. Everything I’ve
seen reinforces that. My experience in “Cracktown” just reconfirmed
everything I already thought about the issue.
Even police I talked to admit it. One crackhouse in DeLand had upwards of 100
people coming through every day. There were busts all the time. But that didn’t
change anything. You can clean up certain areas, but to address the overall
problem, ultimately you’ve got to legalize it.
You have some close scrapes in the film. How did you guarantee your safety
through it all?
Michael E. Arth: I realized the low-key approach is the best and the safest.
The police said “Buy protection.” I thought about that, but I’ve
never owned a gun, I don’t like guns, and I think a lot of problems are
created by gun ownership. In general, violence begets violence. Besides, the
criminals had more force than I had. They would have crushed me easily.
There were a few times I did feel I was courting disaster. I wondered if I hadn’t
made a big mistake, especially in the first two months. But I kept the same
approach. I would stick out my hand and introduce myself. Sometimes they wouldn’t
shake it, or sometimes they refused to tell me their name. I put them on the
defensive by being friendly and low-key, and it worked very well. The bad guys
just melted away.
I would come up to them and say something like, “I know you’re not
dealing drugs, but if I see people that are dealing I’ll be calling the
cops.” They would get very defensive and then I wouldn’t see them
anymore.
My incident with the lightning bolt didn’t hurt, though, whether it happened
by sheer synchronicity or serendipity or whatever. It gained a lot of notoriety,
especially among the religious people in the neighborhood. They thought, “OK,
this is about God.”
How it happened was I saw five guys standing on the street, obviously up to
no good. So I walked up to them just to shake hands. As I came up one said something
about one of my properties like, “I wouldn’t fix that up if I were
you.” And the rest sort of gave me that drug dealer’s stare.
I thought, I can’t just walk away now, I’ve got to follow through.
So just as I’m coming up to them this lightning bolt strikes in the middle
of the street. One guy jumped straight up in the air [out of his pants], and
another guy’s pants went down to his ankles. I never saw any of them again
ever.
The lightning came out of the clear blue sky?
Michael E. Arth: No, this was Florida, so you’ve always got some afternoon
storms coming through. I don’t believe in miracles, but I would say that
incident is what you’d at least call a meaningful coincidence (laughs).
It certainly qualifies as synchronicity.
How does your Garden District project advance New Pedestrianism?
Michael E. Arth: The main purpose is to introduce New Pedestrianism as a more
ecological version of New Urbanism -- which is of course just a revival of old
urbanism. That’s what you have in Savannah, old urbanism, but New Urbanists
love it because that’s what they want to do all over again. One thing
New Urbanists don’t bring into account is there’s a whole lot more
cars now than anyone predicted. I remember growing up playing baseball in the
street, and it would be hours between cars.
There’s a growing problem in Savannah, the issue of suburbs turning
into slums. Is that particular to us or is it nationwide?
Michael E. Arth: Across the entire country it’s happening. Those 1940-1980s
suburbs are already in decay, so there’s nothing much worth saving. As
they continue to decay eventually we need to just bulldoze and start over. What
I propose is putting pedestrian villages around every city, making that the
preferred form of zoning. Then city councils can say to developers, here’s
an easy path for you, to build something that includes a village center within
10 minutes walking of the farthest edge of the village. Each is separated by
a small green belt so that each center is connected to a ring of transportation
around cities. That also makes for extremely efficient public transportation.
How could Savannah apply your ideas?
Michael E. Arth: One problem with older cities is that any built environment
already exists, so it’s difficult to change the existing infrastructure.
And your historic district is nearly intact. The way to do it is if you have
extremely deteriorated neighborhoods. If they have an alley, that’s even
better. Then you can condemn the rear ten feet of each lot and make a pedestrian
lane. You can then take all aboveground utilities and bury them under the pedestrian
lane. In houses you renovate, you reorient them to the pedestrian lane at the
rear. Suddenly you have a pedestrian grid.
Our area is infested with prefab “village” developments But
they’re really the same old gated communities, just marketed differently.
Michael E. Arth: Yeah, what the builders do is evoke images of pedestrianism
and community but the reality is very different. They have show models where
they close down the street to traffic and disguise the garages. They create
this village-like feel to the model homes, but as soon as the first few get
sold it’s all ripped out and it shows its true nature.
New Urban Cowboy screens Sun. Oct. 28 at 2:30 p.m. at the Trustees Theatre
and Thurs. Nov. 1 at 2:30 p.m. at the Lucas Theatre.