Notes from the first Europe Free Write

I decided that Ellen and I should do some free writing about our plans for our European research. Free writing is a technique we're practicing in our summer writing class. There was one free writing exercise listed in the book that asked to respond to a number of topics. The first was to simply brainstorm everything about a project. So here is what we each got for the Europe project, summarized:

Andy:

• I know we are going to a few cities in Europe to study modern planning projects to find what has worked well there and why it isn't happening at home.
•  Recent ideas that have come to my mind are to make a carfree web presence that takes various cities and encourages individuals to start sub sites about their cities or neighborhoods and talk about ideas for making them car free. 
•  If I can document how these projects got built then people will see that the same can be accomplished in their cities.  
• Can I get enough information simply by observing and researching? How many interactions to I need with experts there and how much with people that live in the space? This is the real fear of mine--trying to identify and interview these individuals, where I may not be comfortable with the communication.
• Part of what will solve this is to have a well documneted projects about which I can speak comfortably. I'd like to accomplish this in part by filling out some grant applications and continuing to organzie our wiki. This will give me the boost I need.
• I also need to rely on people that live in the countries to help out with interview setups if possible. I don't know why I say that, of course I can just do it over email. 
• I really need to identify the facet sof the places that we are going to study so I don't go into it blindly. Of course new things will pop up while we're there, including new places. But I should refer to my task list to see what I need to do to prepare for each site.
• What do I want to capture? Photos and video are obvious, interviews, written observations. Is there more? I need to look at transit maps schedules, business district maps, and history of development.
• Do I need to wrry about dimensions of things. In some cases yes. When there is a pattern that needs to be noted of the street with (Read the Christopher Alexander Pattern Language book.) Street surfaces, infrastructure are importang. 
• Try to figure out whether these places were ever like US cities as far as infrastructure and when they deviated. This should be fairly easy. I think there is a preety common point back in the 1920s or 30s. Then things started to change after WWII.
•  I keep thinking about movement. You have to talke about the experience of movement, both on transit and walking. This is critical. 
• What about ancillary stuff, health, work-life. You need to figure out a way through interviews to get a sense of these things. So it really comes to preparing extensive interview questions. 
• So we have the grant writeup of the project,  the interview questions, and the detailed list of facets we're to study at each site. 
• Does the product matter yet? I don't htink so. I know for sure that I want to make this carfree website and the Europe research will fit into that somehow. 
• Are we imitating J.H. Crawfords's work? I don't think so We're not primaily focused on car free, though it is the primary recipe for success.

Ellen:
(These are my notes from her recital, so it's incomplete)

• Solitude in a large public space
• Living entity
• How do American cities represent death
• What gives things life?
• How can public trasnit recesitate life in America?
• Hard to think of Americans having much work saving or redoing things.
• What are we supposed to do with our major fuckups?
• Asphalt--give me better material
• Mystery, options, wonder--can you make that or is it a starting point
• Pedestrianization - comprehensive success at getting somewhere else as a matter of great importance
• How do you bring it all together and how do you get people together to do that.
• I don't want to simply compare.
• Why are Euro cities flurishing?
• 5 senses in evaluation of public space.
• What are our options, what does it say about the history or cultural landscape of the place, what's being addressed?
• The notion of destination-focused versus experience of traveling. Draining and blind to get around by car. No options to get out and explore.

As you can see, we both thought very differently about our trip, and complemented each other quite nicely. I was off in my usual analytic mode, and Ellen was much more sense and emotion based.

In our next free write exercise we wrote about what makes our project so important, what are the challenging question that we pose for ourselves, and what questions would detractors pose?

• Cities are important from the standpoint that they represent the most significant concentrations of civilization and the most sustainable way to house large portions of the population.
• Unfortunately cities are pretty bad right now. They are dirty, loud, and dominated by an inefficient form of thransportation. Most of the problems are caused by this form of transportation. It pollutes and takes away the space that would make living in cities pleasnt. There's no doubt in my mind that this is a key problem. But many people argue that auto transportation is needed in the modern city. This isn't true, but I need eveidence to prove that. I can show that a compact medieval city or Venice works without cars. But I need to show that more moden cities can be transormed to be carfree and have good transit. I mean to show that they functioned better than previously and better than their counterparts that din't make those improvements. 
• I also need to show the economic benefits of this configuration. How are these places improved economically? Are people more likely to linger in public space (econ+)? Is crime less likely than in a car dominated culture, who knows? Are people healthier, why yes. Is it easy for unique culture to develop, probably? Is efficiency gained, of course. Does it actually make society function better if people aren't getting around by cars and have space to gather? Yes, but I don't have economic measures to prove that necessarily. 

 So what would the sketpic say:

• How are you going to do errands? Well let's take a look at how Europeans do errands and whethere there is any hardshop they suffer that Americans do not. 
• How do the elderly get around. Let's take a look at how the elderly move. Do they do better in these Euro places or worse. 
• What about the children, are they more free than they would be in a car place.
• (These are  good interiew questions)
• Have things gotten better for children and the elderly. 
• What about racial tension? Does a carfree/good transit make that better or worse? Clearly people are seeing more of each face to face. 
• What about the naysayer that says you simply can't match the convenience of the car and people are never going to give them up. Maybe so, but does that matter? Do we need to worry about the people that insist on cars. I don't think so. Because I think you can remove a lot of drivers with better transit and supporting services. You can remove a lot of drivers with limited car access in business centers. 
• Will this hurt business? I don't think so, as long as there is an obvioyus way for people to do their business without cars. Are Europeans going downtown to purchase large items, or do they rely on going out to the suburbs to Ikea also? Does this full-amenity downtown break down for some types of errands. 
• The subway/metro isn't safe? Perception or reality? Let's take a look a t the crime numbers and see what we come up with.
• Density is a big criticism. But we've learned that density isn't that bad if you don't have to deal with the cars. 
• What about road trips?
• What about having more lockers for carfree people?

Ellen:

• Look what your government does for you. What does government provide that people like? Look what we're trying to do for you. We need that government push, presence.  Government Deals. "We need you to use transit and we're gonna provide it for you."
• What makes ____ such a strong point, and how can people be serious about it? How can I convey my seriousness about it when you thnk about public space. It's one of the most difficult things to pass on to others. We come accross so few beautiful scapes here, and taking advantage of our culture and history to do it.
• We put glass covers on precious things, isolating them and preserving them but not incorporating them into what is current. Overly conserved areas are so separate from the living parts. Why does  it have to be separate?
• New urbanism lacks character, no layers, and layers make everything interesting. Give me the most intereseting spaces and see what we can attract
• Why should anyone agree with preservation, identity.
• What does the city mean to you. I fear your answer won't be the comprehensive (externalities)
• I have a sense that Europeans have planned in a comprehensive manner, and even though they might have done that there were things they didn't anticipate that made it more dynamic. What are some of the negatives that they might of planned in a comprehensive manner? 
• What about the John Adams houses, how often do Bostonians go there? 
• Seamlessness of Europe. Here we force things or turn them into a circus.  Like New Urbanism. If we could plan in a comprehensive manner, perhaps we could make something a little bit more seamless, where it's not just a show.

Obviously a lot of strong ideas emerged from this free writing and the previous on that are worth documenting here. We'll continue to do these exercises. We're also starting to do free-writes that are place based. We go to a public site and each write our thoughts about it. This will be great practice for Europe. I'd also like to incorporate photography and spontaneous interviews into these place-based sessions.