This is Later: The Fate of Urbanisms in the Post- Condition
This research project, by Aaron Davis and Leah Meisterlin, is being funded by the William Kinne Fellows Prize from Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation. The project is currently in planning and development. What follows is excerpted from the research proposal.
"There is no later. This is later." -- Cormac McCarthy. The Road.
Abstract
Post-Industrial. Late-Capitalist. Boom Town. The terms used to define the end of eras are also the same terms used to frame the questions of the future. The future of what? Post- conditions around the world are manifesting themselves in the erasure of cities. The architect therefore needs to both imagine the future of these cities, critically implementing “post” effects but also be willing to accept the “pre” condition that these places may one day be gone. Therefore documenting the existing gives agency to a vernacular that has been increasingly marginalized, while providing a context for the push toward newness on multiple scales. Three of these such places are the Soria region of Spain and the towns of Laviano, Italy and Braddock, Pennsylvania. Each have suffered massive population loss due to variations on post-urbanisms. Each are attempting to revive their places, and the succcess of these efforts is equally unsure. This research proposes the photographic and drawn documentation of the present condition of each place. It may seem like a preservation exercise at first blush, but the effort is to expose the importance of histories operating toward a determination of meaning for the imagination of their potential, not merely preservation for its own sake. Lastly, the research will culminate in a book comprised of written and photographic statements and measured drawings of spaces emblematic of the bridge between past and future. The goal is sharing the individual stories of these places, concurrently offering lessons for those areas around the world currently pushing through the post/pre condition.
This is Later is a research and documentation project proposed to examine the present population conditions in three disparate areas, all suffering from post-industrial effects. The areas to be studied are the villages of the Soria region in Spain, the town of Laviano, Italy, and the city of Braddock, Pennsylvania. In addition to studying the various effects of industrialization on local demography, the project seeks to examine the effects of demographic shifts on place/space relationships.
Background
The demographic effects of industrialization are more complex than the typically cited rural-to-urban migration during the moments of industrial boom. This typical migration has effects that last for generations, eventually letting once-vital villages wither to ghost towns such as those in Soria, Spain. Further, these effects include the post-industrial exodus exemplified by Braddock, Pennsylvania, and culturally embedded effects such as reduced birth-rates, as in the case of Laviano, Italy.
Soria, Spain: Subject to Post-Industrial Politics
The Soria region of Spain represents the result of rural-to-urban migration taken the the extreme. Despite Spain’s population having more than doubled in the last hundred years, areas like Soria are becoming ghost towns as only half of the country’s territory is home to over ninety-five percent of its population. This skewed distribution is due in large part to Franco’s economic policies in the late 1930s and ‘40s. The drive toward industrialization incentivized migration to the cities and shifted government spending from infrastructural investment for agricultural areas toward that which was needed for heavy industry.1 As a result, Soria (with a predominantly agricultural economy) suffered more than most. On the one hand, the region directly lost population. On the other, that population saw no reason to return to a home without the means to sustain itself.
In 2007, there were 492 vacant villages in Soria.2 Those that are not empty are well on their way. Some are home to fewer than 10 people, most of whom are pensioners. Many of these villages have only a couple of children, who must attend school elsewhere. A region that was vital for centuries is, seemingly, meeting its end.
Laviano, Italy: Subject to Post-Industrial Cultural Effects
Situated in the mountainous Campania region of southern Italy, Laviano is emblematic of a phenomenon researchers have coined “lowest-low fertility.” Lowest-low fertility is the result of a birth rate below the rate at which a given country can maintain its current population. What makes Laviano unique is that its annual birthrate has reached 1.3, lower than any rate in recorded history and when combined with its aging population, means that the town itself is dying. Beyond rural-to-urban migration typical of post-industrial cities, the low population vis-a-vis a decreasing birth rate is more a refelction of culturally naturalized notions of gender equity. The cultural effect of post-industrialism on Laviano is that childlessness has become an ideal lifestyle. The opportunities of work and education provided by industrialization mean that people are having children later in life. This is compounded by Italy’s adherance to conservative gender ethics that mandate through social norms that a married woman’s “place” is in the home.3
Laviano is young, architecturally speaking. In 1980 an earthquake struck, levelling most of the town and killing 300 residents. From this disaster came opportunity in the form of government stimulus money to rebuild. When the reconstruction was complete, however, the workers left, leaving the city with a paradoxical urban condition: young city, old residents. In 2003, responding to developing demographic “earthquake”, Laviano’s mayor Rocco Falivena introduced a “baby bonus.” The bonus is an offer of 10,000 euros for any woman who would give birth and raise a child in the village. His goal for the bonus is to attract and root new citizens in the town by parsing out the payment over time: 1,500 euros when the child is born, 1,500 for each of the child’s first four birthdays, and the balance when the child enrolls in the first grade.4
Braddock, Pennsylvania: Post-Industrial
Braddock, Pennsylvania could rightly be called the birthplace of the American steel industry. It is not only home to Andrew Carnegie’s first steel mill, but also the first public library, both monuments to the prosperity of Braddock and indicative of the autodidactic mythology of the American spirit. Like many industrial towns, the end of World War II also marked the end of Braddock’s seemingly immutable progress. After the war, the town’s population dwindled from 18,000 to less than 3,000, most of whom struggle with unemployment. Operationally bankrupt for the past 20 years, Braddock has not had the money or personnel to maintain its public facilities. As a result, it is now a combination of vacant lots, abandoned retail, and homes in manifold stages of decay. The city still has its mill, although the lure of suburban lifestyles proliferating after the war means the nearly 1,000 workers all commute from outside. With no other major industry, and no consumers to incentivize development, Braddock itself is in the final stages of post-industrial decline.5
What Braddock has is space. John Fetterman, elected Mayor in 2005, founded Braddock Redux, a non-profit organization he uses to purchase real estate in the city which he then converts to civic functions such as urban farms and a community center. Touting Braddock as “a laboratory for solutions to all these maladies starting to knock on the door of every community,”6 Fetterman is a politician sympathetic to new urban solutions, and with the abundance of cheap real estate, may have fertile ground for rethinking the American city.
Project Description
This is Later is a written, photographic, and drawn documentation project aimed at focusing attention toward these three entropic places and the lessons of industrialization and post-industrial planning that they represent.
Clearly, industry is not enough. A multiplicity of foundation principles is needed to start and perpetuate the urban (and rural) fabric of the 21st century. Boom-towns are dying and dead, and the notion as-such is a bankrupt notion of urban vitality and revitalization, now destroyed by the failing of late-capitalist bubble-financing. Not only are these three places symptomatic of economic and political industrial agendas, they are representative of secondary and tertiary effects of the industrialization process. As such, they are harbingers of what is to come for those regions and nations currently industrializing, warning of the results of poor planning, lack of foresight, and constant emphasis on immediate economic gain. This is Later intends to raise a red flag.
But these places are not finished. Soria is nearly empty, still it struggles to attract tourism and retain the few young families it has. Laviano’s innovative incentive policies may prove fruitful and generate the population necessary to thrive. And Braddock has a mayor committed to revitalizing his town.
The questions posed for and by this research revolve around what may be the tipping point for each of these places. Each of them run the risk of one day being vacant, and each of them may one day regain its residents. The hope for this project is to record present history, to capture this point in time for each of the three examples, and to share this moment. Beyond mere documentation, This is Later asks our role in responding to these places -- our role as architects and planners, our role as policy makers, our role as informed citizens. Are we obligated to save places because they were once settled, or are we content to let civilization take its course? Many settlements have come and gone throughout the course of human history. As places are neglected, do we so neglect those who live there? The question of our role is also the question of our responsibility.
Notes
1. Keeley, Graham. “Missing Persons,” Monocle June 2007, 48-51.
2. Ibid.
3. Shorto, Russell. “No Babies?” The New York Times Magazine 29 June 2008, 34-41, 68.
4. Ibid.
5. Streitfeld, David. “ Rock Bottom for Decades, but Showing Signs of Life.” The New York Times 9 February 2009.
6. Ibid.