Sunday, January 19, 2020

Urbanist As a Title

Just thinking, how often the word urbanist gets tossed around and how vague is the reference.  Doubtless it applies to someone able to make a living writing about or directing studies of city life. But also a city planner,  trained in bureaucracy? Even a dim association with the concept/character of the flaneur ?(yes, I know, odd French word and not used often in everyday discourse....the person who loves walking around, suggesting a superficial somebody  who lives for him or herself alone).
To know an 'urbanist' ,  someone who refers to him/herself that way is rare, and unfortunately one of these souls recently passed away  at age 87 in Washington, D.C. He was Neal R. Peirce, an 'urban affairs columnist," as the New York Times obit calls him. He was a full fledged fully qualified reporter on metropolitan affairs, state and local, committed to the notion that cities can reinvent themselves, that politics is not always dirty. Especially if the nonprofit sector is involved. Wisely, he made sure to get experience early on as legislative aide to a Congressman so to learn firsthand about government from the top down.
Reading a short report on his life I reflected how the so-called urbanist also could refer to people who love walking city streets, often with no particular goal. The opportunity to observe what isn't readily seen from car windows. Purple pansies blooming  in winter. The layout of bricks on a sidewalk - how and why a certain design applied, and how much better the idea of a design can be.  Taking in whatever is on view through windows of buildings. Reflecting on the existence and variety of finials. What ever they are...
Of course to do this requires fortitude:  putting away the phone, forgetting your own and other people's existence - at least for a while.

No comments:

Post a Comment