City must expand, embrace plazas, other public spaces

Sorry, but our city is not an architectural utopia. It’s eclectic at best; the good stuff was done long ago. Now, with the high-rise boom in Kaka­ako, we need to catch up and keep up on our public spaces.

Over the years, we’ve lost the sprawling lawns and palm circles. We’ve become more dense and intense, and we haven’t kept up on our public spaces. We’re getting paved over, with obvious social degradation. We need to expand and enhance our public spaces.

Google "public spaces," and you’ll see images of urban open public spaces from around the world, bristling with delights. Good weather or not, our public spaces are nothing to write home about.

We have Kapiolani Park and Tama­rind Square, but most of our public spaces are boring if not sterile. Even New York, with Central Park, South Street Seaport, the Battery, the High Line and so many charming neighborhood parks, is way ahead of us.

For this discussion, public spaces are open and dedicated to the public at large rather than any particular subgroup. "Private parks," such as the Agora warehouse on Cooke Street, don’t qualify.

Public spaces include parks, plazas, squares and outdoor places where people can gather. They give us relief from the grind, an escape from the maddening crowd and a way to connect with community.

People intuitively seek out public spaces to be with other people. They gather to express their views, to see and be seen, and to reaffirm their part in a larger society. This belonging gives us a better democracy.

It may be too late to change the emerging reality of Kaka­ako, but it isn’t too late to soften its impact by expanding our public spaces. Given the political challenges involved, there isn’t a moment to waste.

The homelessness problem makes things more complex. When the homeless occupy our public spaces, they displace other people. To make things work, we need to keep these spaces available for the public. And to do that, we need to solve the homeless problem.

But what design elements do we want for our new public spaces? Innovative and ambiguous design is good. Design on a completely human scale is good.

Open space and walk paths are good. Trees, grass and greenery are good. Places to sit, read, talk and congregate are good. Benches, tables, chairs and contiguous cafes, restaurants, shops and kiosks are good. Drinking fountains and impeccably clean, safe, accessible bathrooms are good. Dogs, too.

Street music, art, entertainment, street scenes and events are good. Charging stations for laptops and cellphones are good. Bike stands are good. Other creative things we haven’t thought of yet are good.

The design-professional community designed our state, but many of their projects did not include public spaces.

At this point we should ask them to weigh in with their thoughts so we can incorporate the design points they might have suggested earlier.

Like any other real estate, public spaces are also about location. Done right in the right place, they will create a new vitality for our city. Can’t you see the crowds coming around to enjoy these things? Don’t you think the tourists will love them? Don’t you think everyone else will, too? Wouldn’t you?

There’s too little land in our island state, and too few owners, absent noblesse oblige, give public spaces much attention. If owners are not willing to include public spaces in what they build, the law should be changed to require them to do so.

Public officials customarily focus on projects that are high gain and low risk. Public spaces don’t often fall in that category. We need to show these officials that public spaces are critical to community health and to keeping the new entrepreneurial generation here.

There are many interests lobbying for development, but who lobbies for public spaces? Who is there to demand that we create, re-create and preserve our public spaces? We need a nonprofit watchdog that will push for public spaces. Perhaps the Project for Public Places in New York can help. See pps.org.

Our public spaces are more than a measure of our esthetics, quality of life or prosperity; they are a statement of what we are, our collective self-image, state of mind and social psychology, thus defining our community.

It’s time for a new mindset for life in the city. It’s time to cherish every public space. They are, after all, about openness and togetherness. Let’s embrace them and make this the utopia we always wanted.

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Jay Fidell, a longtime business lawyer, founded ThinkTech Hawaii, a digital media company that reports on Hawaii’s tech and energy sectors of the economy. Reach him at fidell@lava.net.