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Epilogue Democratized by necessity, the [Fort Collins long-range planning] process led to goals that went beyond the predictable safe streets and commerce that planners might have otherwise emerged. In a departure from the old command-down process—planners proposing, residents disposing in public­ planning meetings—ideas bubbled up in new ferment. —Kirk Johnson, “A Town Envisions the Future on Its Own Terms,” New York Times, November 17, 2011 The spectrum of humane urbanism across the country is broad and open-ended, defined as it is by local ingenuity—“ideas bubbling up in new ferment”—instead of top-down fiat. Humane urbanism eschews grand plans, textbook designs, and mega-development that breeds gentrification. Its aesthetics evolve not from established standards of architectural and planning design, but from the spontaneous palettes of mural artists, urban gardeners, building renovators, the melee of street fairs and ethnic festivals, and the rainbow of people—diverse in age, race, life style, wealth, and apparel—who share urban spaces and experience. Grassroots efforts to make communities more “humane” are often scattered, uneven, and underfunded. They are also hard to assign to neat classifications. In the introduction, I likened humane urbanism to topsoil—a nurturing medium that promotes creative symbiosis among people, places, and plants. And in the preface I suggested that the collective efforts of local movers and shakers comprise the compost of humane urbanism, enriching the fertility of that topsoil. Synergy among diverse goals is a critical attribute of humane urbanism. Society tends to divide its attention and resources among competing needs—jobs, housing , education, health, and environment—and then address each one separately, if at all. But at the community scale (however defined), these needs must be confronted simultaneously or progress in one area will be undermined by failure in others. That of course is the modus operandi of community development corporations and their national umbrellas like the Local Initiative Support Corporation (LISC), as discussed in chapter 7. Like ecology, humane urbanism thrives on diversity—of participants, of goals, of means, of disciplines, and (one hopes) of viewpoints. Some initiatives are closely 250 Epilogue related to larger national movements—social and environmental justice, affordable housing, school choice, health and fitness, natural disaster mitigation, animal rights, and climate change mitigation. Others are truly homegrown, as in saving the Forbus Butternut in Poughkeepsie or protecting the Oaks Bottom Slough in Portland, Oregon. They depend on spontaneous and often voluntary local leadership . They are pragmatic and creative in stitching together existing program resources , available funding, and donations of money, time, and office space. Most involve public-private partnerships, some of which are local alliances to save a particular site, to restore a stream, wetland, or watershed, or pursue a particular mission such as environmental education or urban gardening. Others have evolved into influential regional networks such as Chicago Wilderness. Many also foster social interaction among diverse populations sharing a common ­ resource like a watershed, thus promoting what the ethicist Andrew Light refers to as “ecological citizenship.”1 Humane urbanism is not a panacea or “silver bullet” solution to the metropolitan muddle created over the past century. Most freeways will not be replaced by light rail and bikeways, and will certainly become more crowded and deteriorated in coming years. Urban greenhouse gases will continue to warm the earth’s atmosphere despite the plethora of climate change plans adopted by cities associated with the International Council for Local Government Initiatives (ICLEI). Urban farming programs such as Growing Power will provide increasing supplies of fresh, healthy, locally grown food, but junk food will not disappear anytime soon. Affordable housing will continue to be scarce and remote from employment opportunities despite the dedicated work of such housing providers as LISC, Habitat for Humanity, and Enterprise Community Partners. This book does not attempt to predict the future path of American cities; that it leaves to others whose crystal balls are clearer than mine. Nor does it seek to prescribe any universal elements of humane urbanism. That task is left to the good sense of those engaged in the process who best know what they need and what resources may be available, or not. The purpose of this book, as I stated in the preface, has been to explore “the terrain of humane urbanism, both in its present contours as far as they can be discerned and historically in its relationship to what has gone before.” We have crossed a major hurdle in overturning the hegemony of patricians and technocrats—their help is...

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