COLUMN: Building cities the Disney way

From Binyamin Appelbaum's, "Carving Marble," Fall '99 From Binyamin Appelbaum's, "Carving Marble," Fall '99This is an ode to rough edges, written in praise of dirty streets and dedicated to the belief that everything that is wonderful about the city is everything that cannot be controlled, created on command or kept pristine. As I write, well over a billion dollars and well over a dozen major projects promise to reshape and redefine the look and feel of the campus and the surrounding community in ways largely irreversible and only partially controlled. The sum total of these projects is a grasp for perfection, a dice roll with the future of University City at stake. It is an attempt to create a retail destination in a street-car suburb, an affluent enclave in working class West Philadelphia, a neighborhood of home-owning families where renters now predominate. The effort is grounded in Penn's determination to undo years of isolationist architecture and to re-establish itself as a member in good standing of the surrounding community. It is a project so magnificent in scope, so broad in conception, that it has only one historical precedent. Itself. For Penn, and the American university in general, has a power otherwise reserved exclusively to government -- the power to recreate entire neighborhoods, not piecemeal, but in one fell swoop. In the 1960s, renewal was the catchword for such efforts, largely characterized by the destruction of entire neighborhoods in favor of concrete towers and asphalt lawns. Today, such re-creation is a kinder and gentler process, emphasizing consultation and community involvement. Nonetheless, if successful, this re-creation will be as fundamental as anything wrought by urban renewal. It will change the very types of people who walk the streets of University City. The area gets wealthier and more homogenous with every passing year, and plans for a new elementary school stand to draw increasing numbers of affluent professionals with children into the housing market. People with homes elsewhere but money to spend are also being given ample reason to drop by, in the form of Sansom Common and coming-soon Sundance Cinemas. At present, this progression seems inevitable and largely positive. But somewhere off in the distance, there are a pair of red flags waving. The smaller worry is that the effort may fail -- that a centrally planned series of chain stores cobbled together by outside investment may not weather recession or the eccentricities of corporate America with the stamina of homegrown retail. The larger worry, however, is that the effort may succeed. Because if it does, Penn may well turn a vibrant and unique corner of Philadelphia into yet another neighborhood filled with buildings that shine. Established chains are predictable. Reliable. Stable. These are the things that Penn loves -- and that most come to the city seeking to escape. It is, or ought to be, an article of faith that the most interesting stores are the ones you can't find anywhere else because they couldn't possibly exist in any other place or at any other moment in time. And the most interesting neighborhoods are the ones with more of these stores than anywhere else. Cities are much-loved because they bear the marks of time, not just the facades of the latest trendy coffee shop chain. But there is nothing in the designs for Penn's new movie theater and supermarket to suggest that the architect was at all aware of the surrounding neighborhood. The buildings are glass-and-steel monuments to the future, rising in a neighborhood whose strength lies in its weathered beauty. There seems little reason to believe that both buildings will be anything other than huge successes in the short term. But neighborhoods that become destinations because they are new and shiny will not be the newest or the shiniest tomorrow. Neighborhoods that become destinations because they are weathered and well-loved will be still older and better-loved tomorrow.