The following is yet another letter to the editor (this one to the Times-Colonist), which almost certainly won't be published. So I'm publishing it here... [update: it did get published -- nearly two weeks later on July 28, and cut by a bit, too; I plan to create some sub-pages here eventually, with additonal letters, etc.]

New edit: this page is now a sub-page to "Letters to the Editor(s)." I haven't renamed this letter as "Towering dreams for 'uptown'," since that would break existing links to it. Future letters should have titles relating to their content, however...

Re: "Towering dreams for 'uptown'" (July 15, 2006)

Your writers note that Coun. Dean Fortin is "concerned" about "pressure" from developers who propose taller buildings, and that "We have more and more experts in the sustainable development community telling us about building at a human scale." Perhaps these experts include Jeremy Harris and Ben Lee, whose wonderful presentation on building sustainable cities Mr. Fortin attended on July 13 at City Hall. But could I just add that Harris and Lee do not oppose highrise construction on principle, and simply meant that taller buildings should be clustered together, vs. being strung in a line (which creates the dreaded "picket fence" effect)? And most importantly, that Harris and Lee emphasized the need for any building, regardless of height, to allow pedestrians to interact and access it (visually and physically)? Their mantra was "people first, cars second." That is: building design must make street-level contact with pedestrians a priority. Some of our more unfortunate buildings, tall and short, disregarded street-level vibrancy in favour of a superficial modernism whose "design" was mere lip-service because all that mattered at the time was the automotive traffic moving through the street.

This is not a question of height. Take a look at the shorter structures that replaced originally taller buildings at the NE corner of Douglas and Johnson and the SE corner of Fort and Douglas. The Johnson and Douglas corner now sports a 6-storey example of second-rate brutalism which replaced the 10-storey Permanent Loan Building [n.b.: it's the tall, sticking-out thing...], while the Fort and Douglas corner has a shorter building (the RBC) that looks good in a drive-by, but utterly repels and excludes any pedestrian who finds him- or herself in the unfortunate position of trying to window shop (blank walls) or buy a magazine (hidden door) inbetween catching buses. So: we have two buildings that are shorter than the buildings they replaced, yet their smaller scale does absolutely nothing to enhance "human scale." In fact, these short buildings eradicated it. The originally taller buildings, however, did have human scale because they offered the humans on the street something to do and to look at.

Most of the recent highrise construction, on the other hand, does pay attention to what happens at street level. These buildings offer pedestrians interesting arbors and other structural elements that suggest embrace or refuge, and they include sidewalk cafes or eye-catching shop windows that invite pedestrians to linger and enter. If I walk down the street, I don't do it with my neck craned, counting the storeys above, because the height is irrelevant as long as the human scale is happening where humans are: on the street.

I would suggest that this is what city planner Deb Day and DRA president Sandra Meigs have in mind when they speak of the revitalization and vibrancy these projects can offer.

Here's a link to the Times-Colonist article.

See also the just-added (July 15) Sex in the City essay...