City Hall and the Park – the Long View

The arguments both pro and con about placing the Newport city hall on the Avocado property seem short sighted. The argument most often cited in favor of Measure B is that it will save the city eight million dollars. Fifty years from now no one will remember that $8 million but the city hall will still be with us, as will decisions we make concerning the Avocado property. At the risk of shocking local Greens however, of which I count myself one, people should realize that open space and parks in an urban setting are not always good. People should get past their knee-jerk reactions and vote on the path that best serves the long term interests of the city.

Building a new city hall is a rare opportunity to spend significant money solely for the benefit of our community. The city hall should be more than just a cubicle pad for city employees. Since the beginning of civilization places like the Roman Forum and Bruges City Hall have served as a source of civic pride but more importantly, they have served as generators of social capital. Robert Putnum in Bowling Alone defines social capital as that measure of trust we gain by meeting and talking with people face-to-face. He showed that social capital is strongly correlated with the economic and social well-being of a community. As we retreat behind our computer screens and hide in virtual communities of like-minded people, a physical means, like the city hall, of breaking this isolation becomes all the more important and should be one of its major goals, where ever it is placed.

The city hall can facilitate building social capital both in the design of the structure itself and by where it is placed. An architecturally stunning but isolated white elephant surrounded by parking lots actually detracts from social capital by isolating city employees from their community. A successful city hall needs to be easy to reach by car and by foot and works best when it is close to places that people already congregate, like Fashion Island for example. The structure itself and its immediate surroundings can include features that attract people like a lecture hall, theater or music shell. Why not make it mixed use? Restaurants and coffee shops attract people and bring them together. Why not include private offices especially those of community-based organizations encouraged through reduced rent? Perhaps some of the conflict that plagues council meetings could be smoothed over if organizations like the Chamber of Commerce, Association of Realtors and Greenlight shared the same water cooler.

The immediate question we face on Tuesday is whether the city hall should be placed in the open space on Avocado or whether that space should be reserved for a park. Part of that decision should be: will that property make a good park? People arguing strongly in favor of open space should realize that this property is not open space in the sense of limiting sprawl. It is already surrounded by sprawl and close to the economic center of Newport. If it is to be a park, it will be an urban park. Jane Jacobs in The Death and Life of Great American Cities made some remarkably perceptive observations about urban parks. She noted that good parks, like Boston's Public Garden, can be a joy to the community and enhance property values. Other parks become places of squalor, shunned and feared by their neighbors and often frequented by gangs and drug dealers. They bring down property values.

The outcomes of these parks are not the result of chance or fate. They are often predictable. Among the characteristics of successful parks that Jacobs observed is that they attract a diverse set of users who occupy the park sequentially all day long: for example, the stroller brigade in the morning, office workers for lunch, kids in the afternoon, dog walkers in the evening. Another characteristic of many successful parks is that they are accessible from all sides. Barriers, either natural or man-made, limit the traffic flow through the park and make people wary of it. Before people automatically assert that the Avocado property should be made into a park, they should visit the site and think about these observations.

One concern that Jacobs did not foresee that is perhaps more relevant to California is that open spaces in an urban setting discourage walking and push us into cars. People in favor of the keeping the Avocado property as a park have raised concerns about traffic congestion. The best way to reduce traffic congestion would be to get people out of their cars and create walking and public transportation corridors around Newport. The city hall, where ever it is sited, should help establish such corridors.

Measure B on Tuesday forces us into making a quick decision on what may be a once in a lifetime opportunity to create a new city hall. The public rancor about the Avocado site may blind us to the bigger issues involved. For some of the same reasons that the Avocado site is not a great place for a park, it is not a great place for city hall. A location more closely connected to Fashion Island, for example, or even the existing site might be better. On the other hand, successful decisions usually involve compromise. If our city fathers will commit to using the money saved by the Avocado site to create a better city hall that our grandchildren will appreciate, then I for one would be willing to give up the park.