lovenotes: open letter to city planners

a letter, and at the end, a playlist!

Open Letter to City Planners:

Ordinarily I wouldn’t deign to tell you how to do your job. You don’t tell me how to do mine (directing summer musical theatre for children ages 6-12). But if these times are, as they say, unprecedented, I think I should get to try new things, and this letter is the top of my list.

I’ve been thinking a lot about you. 

Something that happens during a global pandemic, I’m learning, is that you go on a lot of walks. When you start going on a lot of walks in the same small city in which you go to school, the places you walk become very familiar, their flaws and eccentricities made obvious by repetition. My daily route has become what becomes of a word when repeated over and over until it sounds like the most ridiculous combination of nonsensical noises a person could muster. The zoetrope of my city has been dismantled; images of buildings and sidewalks free-floating, over-contextualized, the frames no longer contributing to a narrative, but to an energetic state of confusion.

From my credulous state, bleary-eyed and blinking as a lemur with a millipede in its mouth, I have come up with some ideas for you. 

I want to start with a criticism, if that’s alright. I hope you won’t be offended, but why would you ever choose a style called “Brutalism”? What is it about a building, which are generally made of hard things like concrete or brick, that makes you wish they were more vicious, bloodthirsty and barbaric? And even titles aside, buildings in this style tend to be incredibly inefficient uses of space and resources- “more concrete” seems rarely to be the answer, wouldn’t you agree? My proposed alternative is more of other things; more vines being allowed to slither up the sides of buildings, more windows. The walls of indoor trampoline venues are padded like giant boxing gloves- this feels like a good standard for the sides of buildings facing the street, as sometimes people like to lean against them. Buildings lined on the outside with the rubber from recycled rainboots! Window boxes! Geometry!

I grew up going to the Walt Disney Concert Hall to see the version of the LA Philharmonic that is for kids. The building is by Frank Gehry, and it looks like a crumpled-up ball of tinfoil. When it was first built, it was so reflective that it proved hazardous to drivers when the sun was at a certain angle. In response, the building was matted. Instead of glittery, it looks industrial, like it’s made of air ducts that have been flattened like cardboard boxes and rearranged. It is beautiful, still, because of the shape, which is kind of like if a robot tried to imagine the Sydney Opera House, but I mourn the shiny past. The building flashes its muted light from Grand Avenue, downtown. Grand, indeed! I think this is an excellent starting point. 

I also like seeing buildings that are home to a whole host of things. A day-care, a publishing firm, SAT prep classes, a massage place, a dojo, a smoothie bar- all these things and more, under the same roof! This way, on your way to wherever you’re going, you have the opportunity to meet people in the elevator who are on very different missions than you. When we ultimately trudge our way into a world of activity as connection-starved, sun-seeking lizards, my guess is we will be opportunistic when it comes to striking up conversations.

And when it comes to locations for intentional connection, I have some thoughts as well: any place where the goal is Romance should have teeny tiny tables. Tables so small that when you sit at them with someone else, your knees have to touch. There is nothing more exhilarating than touching knees on a date, knees, of course, being the delicate promise of more. More candles which drip over the lips of repurposed wine bottles. Less flowers in places where food is served (conflict of sensation). More flowers everywhere else. 

Eradicate one-way streets. No more of that shit! It’s a bad excuse for narrowness, which is excusable in alleyways and nowhere else. Already existing one way streets should be made bike/rollerskate/horsedrawn carriage exclusive. And while we’re on streets, they should be made out of funky crushed up things. Seashells, glass, bones, cobblestones, whatever! 

If a place is home to animals, the animals should have access to windows so that they might be visible to passers-by should they choose to be, with the exception being fish-tanks or animals otherwise confined to terrariums or habitats, because they don’t really get a lot of choice in their location and might be overstimulated by constant visibility. And windows which peer into the homes of humans should provide for interaction; buildings which face each other should ensure that the windows are level so friendships can be formed. 

Structures that have been created to appear uneventful, like parking lots or middle schools, are passing up on the opportunity to be treats. If someone works, learns or lives somewhere, this place should be a treat.

Generally, it is my experience that in public spaces, there is the expectation that the personality of a person or thing must be muted. I think this is a mistake, and I’d bet many people agree. I find that the presence of one personality has the power to coax more out. It is pleasing and encouraging to enjoy the thing you’re looking at. Frederick Law Olmsted, whom we can thank for Central Park and other pleasant, green interruptions of cities, said “the enjoyment of scenery employs the mind without fatigue and yet exercises it; tranquilizes it and yet enlivens it; and thus, through the influence of the mind over the body gives the effect of refreshing rest and reinvigoration to the whole system”. I like the sound of that. 

With admiration, curiosity and hope,

Charlotte

go take a walk! and listen while you do! (cover art, as always, is by my dear friend Mckayla Witt)