Cities around the world are working toward efficiency, and as René Boer argues, toward perfection. But, Boer says, that’s coming at a price.
Boer is an architecture critic based in Amsterdam and author of the book "Smooth City: Against Urban Perfection, Towards Collective Alternatives." He says the pursuit of this "smoothness" is taking away from what cities can naturally be, or become.
The Show spoke with him about it.
Interview highlights
How to do define "smooth city?"
RENE BOER: So I understand the smooth city as an urban condition that is characterized by increasing levels of perfection, control optimization, beautification and especially also the eradication of everything that that stands in the way of this increasing perfection, so to say. And this is something that you see in cities around the world.
This definitely sounds like what urban planners strive for in many ways.
BOER: Well, exactly. Yeah. And I mean, there is a paradox here. I mean, we all need cities that function well enough that ... we like, that are not dangerous, that are clean enough, so to say. But I feel that in some cities, we're pushing it a little bit too far.
Your book is a bit of a criticism of this concept of the smooth city. So what, what do we lose? What do those kinds of places miss out on?
BOER: I would say a certain level of urbanity. So I think historically, the cities were also place where people could develop themselves, emancipate, become someone else, connect with others, build communities. And I feel that in the smooth city, yeah, the urban environment becomes increasingly this, kind of, environment that is only focused on consumption, that is completely scripted. So you have to follow certain pre-scriped paths in ... what you do — during your when you, when you go around in the city. And yeah, I would advocate a very different kind of city that is more shaped by people themselves rather than through like, yeah, pre-arranged scripts.
It almost sounds like you're describing kind of a homogenization of cities, that they all kind of start to look the same, and function the same way, and have the same stuff in them. As opposed to what makes one place unique from another.
BOER: Well, exactly because I think that's what the small city is doing. It's kind of compressing the complexity and diversity of the city in this, into this one-dimensional flats — flattened service, that doesn't allow for the richness of the urban experience anymore. And yeah, so I think that's, that's definitely a big problem here.
Are you finding that this is happening by smoothing out the rough edges of a city? Is that what's happening to transform these cities into what you're seeing that you don't love?
BOER: Yeah, exactly. So, not only the rough edges, I mean, also the, let's say the, the rich complexity. The rich texture of every part of the city.
So what's the balance then? Because I would imagine that if you ask a lot of New Yorkers, would you like to have a city like it was in the late 1970s, early 1980s — with Times Square being what it was and much of the rest of the city being what it was — I'm guessing a lot of New Yorkers would say: "Hard pass. No, thanks." What's the balance? BEcause it sounds like you're advocating for maybe some of that, but not all of that.
BOER: Well, exactly. ... We're back at the paradox, indeed, that I'm definitely not advocating for a city for the unseemly city, right? I'm not advocating for a dangerous, dirty, messy city. Instead, what I describe in the book is to move beyond this binary between, let's say, the ultra smooth or the ultra unsmooth. ... And move towards what I call the porous city. Which refers to the notion of porosity like sponge, for example. Like a much more open and fluent kind of urban environment, that its characteristics are more defined by everything that flows through it — the people, the ideas, the intentions, the ambitions. So a much more, let's say, collectively made kind of urban environment.
Does that mean there are some parts of the city that are smoother than others, but maybe nothing quite as rough as what we imagine a rough city would be?
BOER: Yeah, definitely. I mean, for example, here in Amsterdam, there are certain neighborhoods that become this completely sanitized, controlled clean kind of environments that almost feel like a shopping mall, right? Or an interior space or like an airport, for example. Which is a far cry from, let's say the — yeah, the very diverse and complex kind of urbanity that existed before, that was much more shaped by people themselves. So there's definitely certain neighborhoods that, yeah, are like pushing it to the extreme.
