Vol. 60, No. 6 — June 1979 —
Rediscovering the
City
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In grave disrepute a few years
ago, city life is making a come-back. For tourists as well
as residents, the city has again become the place to be. For
both, there is rare satisfaction in being an urban explorer.
It also serves to keep the city alive and well...
A recent article in Saturday Review told of a native
of New York City who had moved to a country home some years
ago. He had repeatedly invited his father in New York to come
and stay with him, always to be met with the same reply: "Me?
Come to the country? Are you crazy? Where is there to walk?"
Taking nothing away from the joys of rural life, one can
see this urban denizen's point of view. Except to the knowledgeable
nature lover, the countryside appears to be static and dull,
restful though it may be. By contrast, the city is restlessly
alive - that is, the city proper as opposed to the suburbs.
There are city-lovers as well as nature-lovers, sharing the
same keen eye for detail; to the former, the "streetscape"
of the city holds a fascination that never palls.
It is the fascination of the kaleidoscope - of endlessly
changing patterns and colours. A person may walk down the
same street a hundred times and notice things that have never
registered on him before. They may be as inconspicuous as
a gargoyle at the top of a building, a sign peeping out of
a shop window, a menu on display at the front of a restaurant.
No bird-watcher ever saw such variegation. The faces, shapes,
and raiment of the crowd change constantly as it surges by.
As the summer vacation season approaches this year, hundreds
of thousands of Canadians are making plans to savour the manifold
pleasures of the city. Some will go abroad, some to the United
States. More of them than ever will visit the cities of Canada,
even though they may normally live in other Canadian cities
or their suburbs. They will join resident city-lovers in their
agreeable rounds of things to see and do.
In their travels, these urban tourists will be taking part
in a kind of renaissance that has affected not only tourism,
but trends in lifestyles, the arts and business. For, after
a long spell of neglecting and even scorning the big city,
people are now rediscovering its worth. Whether as individuals,
in groups or through their elected representatives, they are
breathing new life into the downtown stone and steel and concrete.
They have recognized anew that the city is the fulcrum of
civilization, and that it is indispensable in this role.
The image of the city in the public mind has come almost
full circle in a single generation. Back in the 1940s, in
the golden age of radio, the airwaves were rife with popular
songs literally singing the praises of city life. If it wasn't
April in Paris, it was New York in June, a foggy day in London,
or New Orleans at any time. To people in those days, the big
city represented warmth, good living, glamour and romance.
Twenty years later it had become as fashionable to deplore
cities - especially, though not exclusively, in the United
States - as it once had been to glorify them. American intellectuals
en masse declared their cities to be tottering on the
brink of doom. And indeed, evidence was all around of the
urban collapse they predicted. Whole huge sections of U.S.
cities were ravaged by rioting, arson and looting.
The situation was never so grim in Canada, where a tradition
of orderliness at least made our cities relatively safe places
to live in and visit. Still, a rising incidence of crime and
the chaos caused by demonstrations and public service strikes
considerably dimmed the attraction of our home-grown bright
lights.
The cause of it all was concisely explained by author James
Michener in an essay written in 1967. "Ours is the first generation
in which people have had the option of rejecting the city
if they wished," he pointed out. "The automobile, new systems
of marketing and communication, plus the superior attraction
of the suburbs, enabled us to live quite satisfactory lives
while ignoring the city..." The consequences of this rejection
in the U.S. included urban decay, civil unrest, and a massive
increase in crime among the dispossessed persons left behind
in the city core.
In Canada, the consequences were somewhat different: deterioration
and sterility. This accorded with the global over-view of
the urban malaise, as expressed by such experts as Lewis Mumford
- that city life "dehumanized" people, turning them into either
neo-barbarians or automatons. Mumford blamed it on human slavery
to the machines that tend to dominate modern living. He said,
in effect, that only through a "re-humanization" could the
city be saved.
Fortunately, it looks as if that is exactly what is now
happening. Even in the American cities worst afflicted by
the urban blight of the 1960s, former suburbanites are moving
back into the core areas, braving obvious dangers for the
sake of being back in the swing of city life. Canadians too
are showing a fresh appreciation of their inner cities in
a reversal of the mood that impelled them to withdraw to the
suburbs a few years ago. Toronto, for example, has taken on
added vitality since families have begun renovating and taking
up residence in run-down houses and other buildings close
to the centre of town.
Getting people out of their cars and
back on their feet
All over North America the city core is regaining its traditional
status as a market-place. After many years of focussing their
attention and investments on suburban shopping centres, retailers
have taken a rewarding second look at business prospects downtown.
Malls containing all the shopping and entertainment amenities
of main street under one roof have been connected to the traditional
department stores. When seen in the light of the need for
re-humanization, it is noteworthy that these malls depend
on people walking rather than driving. They have taken them
out of their cars and put them back on their feet, thus bringing
them once again into contact with their fellows on a basic
human scale.
The resuscitation of the city after it had almost been given
up for dead seems to be due to a fact that escaped the notice
of the urban soothsayers of yester-year. This is that people
like being in the city, despite its noise, dirt, danger
and all the rest. They like the glitter, the bustle, the rubbing
of shoulders, the electric sensation of high-powered activity.
In wanting to be in a city, people are obeying an impulse
that is nearly as old as mankind.
Before history was ever written, human beings began to band
together in market-places formed for the purpose of trading.
The inhabitants of the outlying areas travelled to them with
their produce, and presumably lingered for a primitive night
on the town. As time went on, more and more people decided
to put down roots in these commercial centres.
Some became craftsmen, building and mending things for people
who came in from the surrounding countryside. Rulers, priests
and scholars emerged. Defences, schools, and places of worship
and entertainment were constructed. The fundamental culture
of the populace was enhanced and enshrined in palaces, temples
and statuary. In places that were ports or on main trading
routes, a cross-fertilization developed with the cultures
of other lands.
And so were born the world's cities. But not all agglomerations
of population became true cities, as Lewis Mumford has pointed
out. According to him, the difference between a city and a
town is "the unique function of the city as a container and
transmitter of culture". It has also been an active generator
of culture from the bronze age to this day.
From the bronze age on, a generator
of culture
In their cultural dimension, cities have always attracted
men of ability in search of learning and inspiration. "The
City, the City!" wrote Cicero of his beloved Rome. "Devote
yourself to her and live in her incomparable light." The sheer
size of the population offered scope for artists and artisans
to give free rein to their abilities. The city was where Michelangelo
could paint a mural, where Molière could get a play
produced, where Beethoven could introduce a symphony, where
Christopher Wren could build a church.
In any North American city today you still see things that
could only exist in an urban setting. No small town or suburb
can afford a great library, art gallery, or museum. Symphony
orchestras, opera and theatre companies may tour the outlying
regions, but the city is their natural habitat. The same applies,
with rare exceptions, to professional sports teams and the
stadia and arenas they play in. They need the broad base of
population on which urban culture lives.
The scale of the city is one of its chief sources of enjoyment
and edification. "When a man is tired of London he is tired
of life," said Dr. Samuel Johnson in 1777, "for there is in
London all that life can afford." A big city is a small world
unto itself, packing all aspects of life into small, accessible
compartments. It is at once a microcosm and a microscope,
containing and magnifying the best and worst of humanity.
The city's contrast between good and evil, beauty and ugliness,
has always been fuel for the creative fires of artists of
all kinds.
Variety lives both within and among
Canadian cities
In some cities the world is quite literally represented.
Canadians are particularly favoured in this respect. Thanks
to immigration and the Canadian tradition of encouraging ethnic
diversity, few cities in the world are as cosmopolitan as
our three largest ones. Smaller places such as Winnipeg and
Hamilton are not far behind.
Within three blocks of a single street in Montreal, for
instance, you will find Russian, Creole, Japanese, Spanish,
Italian, Chinese, French, Arab, and West Indian restaurants,
plus American-style bars and a British-style pub or two. Nor
is this street unique for its variety in the cosmopolitan
heart of Montreal. Whole districts of our cities have assumed
the character of the country of origin of most of their residents.
Hence there are parts of Toronto where you would swear you
were in Lisbon or Athens, and streets in Vancouver that might
be in Hong Kong.
Ethnic diversity is only one of the reasons why Canadians
should explore their own cities before looking farther afield.
If there is variety within Canadian cities, there is also
great variety among them. A person from, say, Calgary will
find a world of difference from what he is used to at home
in the salty old seaport and garrison atmosphere of Halifax.
And vice versa: for someone from Halifax to visit Calgary
is to sample an entirely unfamiliar air of cowboys and Indians,
oil and cattle - the air of both the old and new West.
Canada's newer cities show that history
need not be old
Canada's cities range from the very old to the very new.
Founded by Champlain in 1608, Quebec City is among the most
ancient cities on the continent; it remains steeped in history
and splendid charm. On the other hand, Vancouver was still
a swamp and a stretch of thickly-wooded mountainside when
it was chosen as recently as 1885 as the western terminus
of the Canadian Pacific Railway. It was chosen well, in one
of the most beautiful natural settings ever to grace man's
handiwork. Its very newness, added to its location on the
Pacific, gives it a special casual verve.
A trip to one of our newer cities will hold some surprises
to anyone who equates history with antiquity. The excellent
Provincial Museum of Alberta in Edmonton, for example, provides
proof that history is no less intriguing for being relatively
new. There, an exhibit of farm machinery dating back to before
the turn of the century can prove at least as interesting
as a display of suits of armour in one of the old cities of
Europe. Edmonton, incidentally, boasts eight other museums,
including the huge restored Fort Edmonton. This is just one
indication of how Western Canadians cherish and preserve their
collective past.
"A man should know something of his own country, too, before
he goes abroad," wrote Laurence Sterne in Tristram Shandy.
Unfortunately, Canadians in the past have proved all too ready
to make their way elsewhere on their vacations, ignoring exhortations
to "see Canada first". When they have travelled in
their own land, they have tended to give the cities short
shrift in favour of Canada's natural beauties. With our newer
cities coming of age and our older ones being restored, now
is the time to consider exploring the wealth of interest and
entertainment they hold.
Poking around the side streets simply
to see
what is there...
But if we should know something of our own country and its
other cities, then surely we should also know something of
the cities we ourselves live in, or are close to. It is remarkable
how many people there are who can live in a city or one of
its suburbs and not take the slightest interest in what there
is, or what is happening, in the heart of town. There are
people who have never been inside their city's museums, except
perhaps as children on school tours. Others might go to a
hockey or football game, but never to a concert or a play
downtown.
These things are, of course, matters of taste; it is perhaps
a greater shame that some have never even walked the streets
of their cities. They have never strolled around its various
districts, with their different occupational and ethnic characteristics,
to get the feel of how their fellow city-dwellers work and
live. They have never sampled the noisy and odoriferous splendours
of a city market on a hot summer day, nor cooled off in the
hushed sanctuary of one of the churches. They have never taken
an hour or two out of their lives to do nothing more than
poke around the side streets simply to see what is there.
Instead many people keep to their cars, which carry them
unseeingly home when their day's work is finished. The hasty
tension of the expressway at rush hour is surely one of the
least attractive aspects of urban life. In the evening they
may watch an episode of a television series about an American
city. And, during the commercials, they may ponder how boring
their lives have become.
They are missing out on a great deal of stimulating experience
which is more or less there for the taking. The exploration
of cities is one of the cheapest forms of entertainment there
is. You can, of course, spend a fortune in the city; but there
is much to be done and seen that costs practically nothing
or very little. One good way of reacquainting yourself with
your own city is to take an inexpensive bus tour designed
for out-of-town visitors. You may be surprised at how many
things the guide points out that have never caught your attention
before.
Whether it is your own or somebody else's, the city always
offers things to catch your attention, because in small, subtle
ways, it is constantly changing. The benefits of city-viewing
are mutual, for the city needs people to take an interest
in it to keep it alive and well. It needs people who are willing
to participate in it. It needs life and love in its heart
if it is to continue to provide its immense benefits to mankind.
Published by RBC Financial Group. All editions from the RBC
Letter collection are available on our web site at www.rbc.com/responsibility/letter.
Our e-mail address is: rbcletter@rbc.com.
Publié aussi en francais.
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