INTERPETING CITY IDENTITY THROUGH THE MEDIUM OF THE STREET by LAURA L. KRAUL BBA, The University of Michigan, 1980 MBA, The University of Michigan, 1983 A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree MASTER OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE ATHENS, GEORGIA 2002 2002 Laura L. Kraul All Rights Reserved INTERPETING CITY IDENTITY THROUGH THE MEDIUM OF THE STREET by LAURA L. KRAUL Approved: Major Professor: Mary Anne Akers Committee: Ian Firth Deborah Martin Paul Kelman Electronic Version Approved: Gordhan L. Patel Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia May 2002 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my Major Professor, Mary Anne Akers, and the members of my Reading Committee, Ian Firth, Deb Martin and Paul Kelman for their guidance and advice given for this thesis. I especially want to thank my husband Douglas for his support and encouragement during my graduate years at UGA. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...............................................................................................................................iv CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ..............................................................................................................................1 2 IDENTITY, IMAGE AND PLACE................................................................................................5 Review of Literature...............................................................................................................5 Synthesis of Readings ..........................................................................................................11 3 STREETS.............................................................................................................................................15 4 CASE STUDIES.................................................................................................................................21 Broadway, New York City..................................................................................................22 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles.......................................................................................36 Michigan Avenue, Chicago.................................................................................................51 A Summary of the Three Streets .......................................................................................64 5 THE APPLICATION .......................................................................................................................68 Refining the Identity Street Concept.................................................................................68 The Rationale for Peachtree Street as the Application...................................................71 Recent Peachtree Street Projects and Studies..................................................................73 6 PEACHTREE STREET TODAY: A PERCEPTUAL INVENTORY...................................75 Methodology .........................................................................................................................75 Initial Observations..............................................................................................................76 Recent Peachtree Street Projects and Studies................................................................101 v 7 THE HISTORY OF PEACHTREE STREET AND ATLANTA .........................................104 The Evolution of Peachtree Street..................................................................................104 Peachtree Street’s Surroundings.......................................................................................111 Atlanta’s Virtual Identities ................................................................................................118 8 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR PEACHTREE STREET.......................................................120 Synthesizing the Pieces......................................................................................................120 Peachtree’s Role as Atlanta’s Identity Street..................................................................123 Design/Planning Alternatives for Peachtree .................................................................130 Additional Proposals for Peachtree Street .....................................................................147 9 CONCLUSIONS..............................................................................................................................149 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...........................................................................................................................................152 APPENDICES.................................................................................................................................................159 I TIMELINE OF PEACHTREE STREET AND ATLANTA HISTORY ............................159 II A SAMPLER OF QUOTATIONS AND COMMENTARY ON ATLANTA....................165 III CITY OF ATLANTA’S POPULATION HISTORY................................................................168 vi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION The Eiffel Tower. Golden Gate Bridge. Gateway Arch. Space Needle. Names given to unique objects that evoke pictures in the mind, images that conjure associations with specific cities: Paris, San Francisco, St. Louis, Seattle. Ideal for post cards and tourist brochures, these landmarks aid in the creation of a first “hook”, or attention getting point of reference for a city. Often the structure may even have an interesting history in its own right, although it is the rare resident or visitor that seeks more than the visual or functional impact of the object. But beyond the cognitive function it provides, does an object really provide any insight into its city, who and what it is? Greenwich Village. Georgetown. Buckhead. Little Havanna. More names, this time given to neighborhoods which have actual or perceived commonality within their physical borders, yet uniqueness from their surroundings. One of the more socioeconomic and/or occupational class homogenous groupings found in cities, neighborhoods can play a role in supporting a resident’s identification with that community. Beyond this, residents and nonresidents are often able to associate certain neighborhoods with specific cities. In contrast to landmarks, the mental image of the neighborhood extends beyond a visual “thing” to qualitative descriptors of the neighborhoods’ residents and even lifestyles. It is not uncommon for these images to be so strong as to lead to stereotypes and generalizations that extend and last far beyond the reality. Given that cities are aggregates of heterogeneous people and neighborhoods, the use of a singular neighborhood as a medium for understanding a city’s “spirit and character” is simplistic at best, and fallacious in most cases. Virtually every American metropolitan area has some form of Visitor and Convention Bureau, a place of reference where we could expect to find a synthesis of what the city views are its positive qualities. Of course, the “city” in this case is the perspective of the commercial and local 1 2 governmental representatives, and that perspective is addressed towards the perceived expectations of visitors, not residents. Not surprisingly the visitor websites of the top U.S. cities portray their cities in a commonly used format, one of listing specific establishments and structures within standard activity categories of shopping, dining, lodging, sightseeing, etc., and placing such entities in their geographic locations on maps. Such information aids in promoting legibility of the city prior to the visit, a worthwhile function. But have we learned anything more from these sources about that particular city? Does a listed collection of predominately privately run commercial entities, attractions, and historical landmarks portray a city’s identity? Landmarks and neighborhoods, information and public relations – taken individually, these elements and methods have limited use in understanding the identity of a city. It is the contention of this thesis that another medium can be employed, one that may be the smallest environmental grouping capable of associating an identity with a city. That medium is the street. Often viewed today as a thin line on a map or a semi-static factor in traffic flow studies, the urban street is one of this country’s most ignored and underutilized assets. It has, however, distinctive characteristics that make it an applicable format for formulating images about its host city. This assertion will be explored by focusing on the concept of one particular street within an urban area, that which I am categorizing as an “identity street”, as a narrator of city identity. The foundation for this justification is found in the next three chapters. Chapter 2 establishes a theoretical framework for the definition of “identity” from the fields of sociology, psychology, architecture, and human geography. Here we will see that identity is closely associated with the ideas of image and place, and is also a function of one’s participatory role in the city, e.g. full-time resident, commuter, or occasional visitor (Relph 44). Chapter 3 reviews the origins, evolution and current status of the street, followed by the functionality and perceptions of streets in America. The scope of this thesis pertains only to the United States due to the significant differences in the historical context of the street and our