"My street, myself"

Maryanne Moll, author of "Tepid Water" (2001), "Three Men In One Night" (2002), "Scorpio Over Siquijor" (2002), and "At Merienda" (2005) has started a blog. She lives in Bangkal, Makati -on Evangelista St. Her latest entry is wonderful description of street life in our metropolis.

"In Evangelista, there’s always a handful of jeepneys in line to take passengers to Libertad and Buendia, people are practically spilling over the sidewalk and into the streets, and an average of five empty taxicabs pass by every minute. Edsa is a two-minute walk away, along a road that glimmers with a 7-11, a 24-hour Mercury Drug, Video City, Yes Wash, Andok’s, Julie’s Bakeshop, Goldilocks, HBC, PNB, Reyes Haircutters, The Look Salon, Pizza Hut, Jollibee, McDonald’s, Chowking, and about ten different pawnshops and twenty cheap cafeterias, and four grills, plus a hundred eload stores and internet cafes and one bingo place with dingy yellow tables where people play alfresco. Add to that a Makati Police Station and a station of the Bureau of Fire Protection, and a hospital.

It’s a street that never sleeps. I sometimes go out at 2 am to buy myself some ice cream, a reward for having labored over a five thousand-word draft, and jeepney barkers still call out, “BuendiaLRTBuendiaLRTBuendiaLRT,” and people would get in, fully dressed and fully awake, bringing their plastic file folders and umbrellas, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to go to Buendia LRT at 2 am. But I am not one to judge. After all, I myself buy ice cream at 2 am.

I love my street. Here I can do my grocery shopping at 6 am with an unwashed face and not be judged. Here I can walk while wearing my last smelly pair of jeans before laundry day and not be physically thrown out of the ring of the civilized. I can also trip on a piece of garbage and fall down and not be helped, but, well, at least I won’t be laughed at. I enjoy the complete lack of judgment here. I even suspect that this total lack of judgment that my anonymity in Evangelista has caused is in turn causing me to be somewhat of a superwoman. Here I can exist on an eccentric diet of instant food, junk food, cereals, and lutong bahay and still stay standing after three days of non-stop writing-to-beat-a-deadline. Here I can also write a chapter a day in my apartment about Philippine politics in the late 70’s and still be able to carry on an intelligent conversation with one of my downstairs neighbors about the pros and cons of having laundromats do one’s laundry while we’re on our way to take out the trash."

this week in our cities...

• Taguig planning a lake front financial district


A great idea -it'll open up Laguna lake as the other waterfront of the city - in counterpoint to soon to be expanded waterfront at the CCP. It will also hopefully draw attention to the environmental degradation of the lake..
Connect it to the west to Fort Bonifacio then to Makati, north to Ortigas and Libis, and south to the redeveloped FTI.


• Call centers changing the city; police now on 24 hour watch (You mean they never were???)


• FX operators still wrangling on AUV express plan


• Quezon City begins building a medical complex


Which will integrate quite well with the North Triangle Commercial Center. From the article:



"The multimillion-peso project will be the first of its kind in Asia and is expected to be completed by 2010, Del Mundo said.

“It will be something that we will all be proud of, something that will thrust us into the 21st century and beyond,” he told the Inquirer in an interview.

Aside from the hospitals, which will be expanded and their facilities upgraded, the complex will also have a National Reference Laboratory for Degenerative Diseases, and centers for blood diseases, brain, cancer, and physical therapy and rehabilitation. A Medical Arts Building, large enough to accommodate the clinics of 1,280 doctors, will also be constructed, Del Mundo said.



• BF continues his Metro Gwapo program, this time threatening to confiscate laundy hung on clotheslines


• MMDA looking for new dumpsites.


FACTOID: Metro Manila produces 8,000 metric tons of trash EVERYDAY. That's more than 17 million pounds. Or the combined weight of over 1,500 asian elephants! It also means that every person who lives in Metro Manila produces more than 1 pound of trash everyday.

taking great photos of great places

Image: "Dancing through the streets in Buenos Aires' San Telmo neighborhood."
-from Project for Public Spaces' The Best Street Photography of 2005

Project for Public Spaces releases their Best Street Photography from 2005 along with 10 Tips for Taking Great Photos of Public Spaces.

"When it comes to photographing public places, it's obvious that people must be front and center in your shots. But there's a lot more to good street photography than getting a nice crowd in the frame. To really communicate something about a place, you need to illustrate its qualities as a site of human activity. These tips from our street-smart photographers will help you capture those perfect public space moments on film (or memory card)."

I thought my manila shutterbug friends would enjoy the tips (and maybe add some of their own):

1. Look for people's patterns


2. Always be alert


3. Wait for the right moment


4. Become a part of the place


5. Legitimize yourself


6. Be purposeful


7. Naïveté can help


8. Try a number of angles


9. Your own photos are always better than someone else's


10. Find a great place

And, may I add, if you know of great urban places in Metro Manila, don't forget to nominate them.

this week in our cities...

• Belmonte wants to model QC after Singapore and he can do this as the city will soon retire P1B in (inherited) debt after posting P6.1B in tax collections.


from the MStandard article:


Aside from salaries and wages, the bulk of the budget this year will go to infrastructure projects, including an underpass at the Quezon City Memorial Circle that will be similar to the Lacson in Quiapo, Manila.

“For (the) underpass alone, we will spend about P80 million. Around P380 million will be spent in 87 road projects.”


Egad! They want a pedestrian underpass in QC Circle? The cars win again vs. the pedestrians!


...meanwhile:


"Ayala Corp. is now constructing the 70,000 sqm North Triangle Commercial Center at QC Business District Development Center located between the North Triangle and North Edsa. The rehabilitation of Araneta Center is also being fast tracked. Megaworld is also pouring in some $12.5 million in office development in Eastwood City Cyber Park. Araneta Center will also develop a P15 billion “scenic garden” mass transport-based residential project."


• Atienza prepares to redevelop Quiapo.


• Fernando tries to resolve the traffic control feud with metro mayors, but Lina tells BF to back down for now.


This whole traffic tickets/police power snafu points to the weakness of the MMDA, both as a political entity and as an enabling law. The metro needs a strong regional administrative/planning authority and NCR congress reps should make this #1 priority. (If they can get past the turf war that is.)


• Congress promises to open NAIA-3 by March.


• SBMA remains the biggest employer in Bataan


• De Quiros asks why we keep naming our streets after public officials.


• Another fire guts a section of the metro, leaving a a hundred families homeless in Cubao. This after an earlier fire displaced 3,000 in Tondo. All in all, 109 fires in December

awarding urbanity

Inspired by Carlos Celdran's last kvetch, and the Project for Public Spaces' Great Public Spaces, I am asking readers to nominate the 10 best urban places in Metro Manila.

The qualifications:

• must be a publicly accessible place (i.e. - you don't have to pay to get in, or buy anything to get in)


• preferably outdoor, or largely outdoor


• democratic (not just for the burgis)


• must contribute to making life in our metropolis just a little bit better

Post a comment or send me email if you have any nominees. I will, of course, expect you to explain your nominees. Pictures are also welcome.

I'll close the nominations by January 15 and then open the list up for voting.

Please email this post to others who may be interested in improving our city -and recognizing the places that make our metropolis a better place to live.

visions vs. vectors

Le Corbusier's 1925 vision for the future of Paris

"But their prophesies will be no more perfect than the previous ones, continuing to tell us more about their own time than about 2030, because cities rarely arise from vision."

-Denise Scott Brown

Denise Brown discusses urban visions for the future against the actual dynamic of cities in "Building a Future Without a Blueprint" an op-ed piece for the WaPo. (Registration is required -but you could try accessing via BugMeNot.)

Brown's piece is brief but she does point out that societal forces -technology, demographics - drive consumer choices that then drive the dynamics (vectors, if you will) that shape cities.

To think realistically about housing and communities in 2030, we must see them as dependent variables that will owe their structure not to architects' dreams, but to forces at work within the society, technology and the natural world at the time they are built.

I don't quite agree with Brown's read on the future of (American) cities, re: "Cities may see modest increases in upper-middle-class returnees, but the majority of working Americans and many of the elderly will choose single-family detached suburbia." (A view she doesn't take time to substantiate.) And apparently she doesn't either as in an paragraph earlier, she says, "I'd also like to see housing types that would suit the evolving needs of Americans. One model to look at might be the lilong of Shanghai."

What about Metro Manila? What urban dynamics are shaping our urban forms? Are there housing typologies that would improve our city? How do we develop -deploy these typologies?

the changing city

This from BWorld Online last week:

"After a decades-long wait, the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) may be on the way to realizing its vision of becoming an Asian mecca for arts and culture as it prepares to bid out almost 60 hectares of land reclaimed from Manila Bay...

• 57.8 hectares of land comprising most of the area declared by the Supreme Court as property of the Cultural Center of the Philippines.


• As currently planned, the area will be awarded to a single developer.

Apparently the NCCA held a design competition for the masterplan that had a top prize of Php 100,000.00, and the winners were supposed to have been announced last December 8. But I can't find any announcements either on the NCCA site nor the CCP site. Although the BWorld article says the masterplan was completed in 2003 by Planning Resources and Operations Systems, Inc.

From a two part report dated May 16, 2005, in the Manila Times Online, PROS is a division of Palafox and Associates, although their website does not list the CCP masterplan as a project.

If done right, this will create an northend anchor to Baywalk -and an honest to goodness public waterfront for the city. It will also have a huge multiplier effect on the Roxas Boulevard corridor.

The plan allocates 10% of the development to residential uses -"both transient and permanent" -which I assume means rental units will be included. Some 32% of the project area will be devoted to open space.

Part two of the report also quotes CCP President Nestor Jardin

“Though there are major thoroughfares in the area, we will have a public transport terminal that is accessible to all, meaning an egalitarian vision. Whether you’re rich or poor, you’re welcome, so public transport hubs are a must.”

Which will help as far as accessibility -but the area's main problem is the barrier of Roxas Boulevard which, because of the recent expansion of the roadway, is less pedestrian friendly. The CCP site is accessed through two east-west arteries - the north-end via Gil Puyat (Buendia), which has been obscured by the short-sighted flyover, and south-end via Vito Cruz -which is too narrow. Both of are also not particularly pedestrian friendly.

What would crown this effort would be a tram at surface level which would run the length of Roxas Boulevard - connecting Intramuros to the MRT/LRT hub at the Taft-EDSA intersection. Plus lateral line linking the site to the Makati CBD via Buendia.

According to MTimes article, the goals of the plan are:

• Develop the CCP complex as a center for arts and culture in Asia and the centerpiece of artistic expression of the Filipino soul and spirit;


• Maximize the income potentials of CCP’s real properties;


• Encourage private-sector participation in the development of the CCP complex; and


• Promote private and public activities in the CCP complex.

My hope is that CCP will make sure to include artists apartments -affordable units. It could really be interesting if they provided live-work housing for artists.

If anyone has anymore details about this, please email me.

(Two other major pieces of property soon to be developed will have huge multiplier effects: the MRT North Depot (North Triangle Business District) and Camp Crame/Camp Aguinaldo complexes.)

manila tees

Thanks to GUTS. GRIT. GUMPTION. for this lead on Team Manila Tees. Produced and designed by Graphic Designed Lifestyle. The website lists prices but no info on where to buy.

I'd really like to score the Urban Rail design. Any of my friends back home (you know who you are) want to track this down for me?

better late than never

Big thanks to vonjobi of the Filipino Librarian for joining this call.

leading change in metro manila

Harriet Tregoning, Executive Director of the Smart Growth Leadership Institute, has adapted John Kotter's outline of how to lead change in organizations into a playbook for leading change in the built environment.

Hopefully we can use the playbook to channel our frustrations about the state of our metropolis into an actual movement committed to improving the quality of life in Metro Manila.

Here's the playbook:

1. Communicate a sense of urgency


You can only campaign for change if people understand why there is a need to change the status quo. I think this is the toughest challenge for Metro Manila. We all know what we don't like. We are all frustrated with the quality of life in the metropolis but none of the reasons stand out as urgent. A litany of what is wrong with the city is not enough. We have to identify the key issues and develop a message that outlines the broad consequences of failing to act on these issues.


Is it the state of the environment? Pollution? Traffic? The Pasig? Laguna Lake? Quality of life? Housing? Competitiveness? -all of these are pressing and important issues. (The problem is that we have lived with these issues for so long we have been inured to their effects.) The crux lies is finding the key issues that will allow us to go to the next step which is to...


2. Establish a broad guiding coalition


The driving issues on the table must be powerful enough to bring all the stakeholders to the table. It has to be a strong, multi-sectoral coalition united on the issues. A special interest group will not do. Neither will a coalition of convenience do - not if it waters down the issues.


3. Develop a vision for an alternative


Disillusion and disatisfaction will not be enough to drive lasting change. The movement must also present a vision for an alternate future. To paraphrase Kennedy: It will not be enough to ask people to complain about what is wrong, we must also inspire them with a vision of what can be.


4. Constantly communicate the new vision


The work of evangelism is not the exclusive domain of churches. Or to put it another way, you have to infect people with the vision to bring it to reality.


5. Engage leading local governments


We won't get very far in our campaign for change if we remain outsiders throwing stones. We will have to earn a place at the table and be ready to engage the existing authorities. If we do our work well, the issues we champion will resonate with the electorate and will find their place in the platforms and debates of local candidates.


6. Leverage catalytic projects


Like I wrote in my previous post, nothing succeeds like success. Change does not always proceed via cataclysmic events. Lasting changes are built on incremental steps - success can build on success. We must find and leverage projects that will: 1) show what our vision looks like on the ground, and 2) allow people to use the success of the project to push for the same changes across the metropolis.


7. Allow broad-based action by changing systems/structures


The changes we push for hopefully empower people to create more innovation. Here's an example of a different way of doing things: the city of Porto Alegre (Brazil) pioneered direct citizen participation in allocating the municipal budget. It has not only revolutionized the way the city invests in capital projects, it has also created a culture of citizenship. (More on Porto Alegre in a succeeding post.)


8. Generate short-term wins


Cities do not change overnight. At best, changes can occur over 5 years. More substantive changes happen over 20-30 year cycles. To keep the coalition and the vision energized, the movement must identify and generate short term wins. Better sidewalks? Cleaner esteros? - The vision must be grounded on a strategy -and that strategy must have short-term wins as wayposts.


9. Consolidate the gains and build on them


See item #6 (above).


10. Embed changes in the culture


See item #7 (above). -- the end-game must be a culture of citizenship.

Image: Orrery mechanism of the Clock of the Long Now