http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/120310/1/Fishman_LetterFromTheDean.pd

Fishman, Robert

English

Deep Blue Documents at the University of Michigan

L ike the wonderful Jazz Age skyscrapers that bear the date “1929” on their foundation stones, Agora began at the peak of a bubble – in this case, the real estate bubble that peaked in 2006 – and its contents over the next decade reflect the fate of planning in an era of austerity.  Many of us had hoped that, as in the New Deal of the 1930s, the response to the mortgage crisis that hit with full force in 2008 would be an invigoration of the public sector and the initiation of long-delayed major infrastructure projects that would both combat “the Great Recession” and ease the transition to a more sustainable and equitable society.  Instead we have experienced an attack on all forms of government initiative and the resultant shrinkage in the public realm that supports planning. Nevertheless, planning has been surprisingly resilient in adapting to austerity, as the pages of Agora reflect.  The contents of this tenth-anniversary issue illustrate the continuing focus on such crucial issues as neighborhoods, sustainability, adaptive reuse, and transit.  What is perhaps most heartening is the continuing strength of urbanism itself – the desirability of living in dense, walkable, diverse communities.  Only planning can deliver the urbanism that is so desirable and desired today. With the federal and most state governments paralyzed by anti-public forces, the cities have again emerged (as in the Progressive Era a century ago) as the champions of the public realm and the sites of real planning creativity.ROBERT F ISHMANINTERIM DEAN PROFESSOR OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBAN AND REGIONAL PLANNINGTAUBMAN COLLEGE OF ARCHITECTURE + URBAN PLANNINGLETTER FROM THE DEANWhat is also evident from this issue of Agora is the international emphasis of so many of the articles, an emphasis which I believe would have surprised its editors in 2006.  The articles are still concerned with Detroit and Hamtramck, but there are also contributions on urban gardens in Shiraz, Iran; Chinese villages-in-the-city; and Saudi urban growth patterns.  The key might be found in the symposium on “What makes a Place Refugee-Ready?”  As Lewis Mumford pointed out in 1962, the city is always about strangers, and now these migrants are as likely to come from across the globe as from across the nation or region.  Whether based in Shiraz or Hamtramck, urban planning today is necessarily global.I congratulate this year’s team of editors and all their predecessors over the last decade for their successful efforts to bring the best work of our Taubman College students to a wider audience.  Agora itself is excellent proof of the continuing relevance and and resilience of planning.ROBERT FISHMAN

Letter From the Dean

http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/120310/1/Fishman_LetterFromTheDean.pdf

Letter From the Dean

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Deep Blue Documents at the University of Michigan