Climate change can affect temperature and humidity. And those changes can
damage art.
(Photo source: Aude at Wikimedia Commons)
Preservationists are worried climate
change could destroy valuable art
and cultural artifacts. Kyle Norris
reports thay are looking at ways to
protect these valuables:
Transcript
Preservationists are worried climate
change could destroy valuable art
and cultural artifacts. Kyle Norris
reports thay are looking at ways to
protect these valuables:
Climate change can affect temperature and humidity. And those changes can
damage art. Debbie Norris is the chair of the art conservation department
at the University of Delaware.
“Fluctuations in temperature and relative humidity can cause art
materials to crack and craze and deteriorate over time.”
Changes in the weather can also cause biological growth on artifacts. So,
for example, mold can grow on old photos or damage historic documents.
Some buildings that house art are very old and made of stone or wood.
Those building materials are deteriorating faster than they have in the
past. And many of those buildings are not equipped with heating and
cooling equipment advanced enough to control the climate inside the
buildings. That puts the collections they house at risk.
Victoria Park seems like a neighborhood that one might see in a suburban area. But, in fact, it's located in downtown Detroit. (Photo by Nora Flaherty)
Professor Jerry Herron says that people want to live in suburban-style homes. (Photo by Nora Flaherty)
Many cities across the nation are looking to re-imagine themselves—they’re trying to become more like dense, walkable cities like San Francisco or Boston. But some people say that some cities weren’t originally designed to be like that. And people don’t necessarily want them to be. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Nora Flaherty has this report:
Transcript
Many cities across the nation are looking to re-imagine themselves. They’re
trying to become more like dense, walkable cities like San Francisco or
Boston. But some people say that some cities weren’t originally designed to
be like that, and people don’t necessarily want them to be. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Nora Flaherty has this report:
Aside from the cicadas and crickets, it’s a quiet afternoon in Victoria
park. There’s no one out on the tree-lined street, or on the large houses’
beautifully groomed front lawns.
Jerry Herron is an American Studies professor at Wayne State University. He says that this gated community has everything that people associate with suburbia.
“An artificially wind-y street, some kind of neoclassical details on the houses, a cul de sac at each end, plenty of cars in the garages, basketball hoops, all of the things that people would associate with characterstic life in suburbia. Except it’s in the middle of one of the oldest downtown industrial parts of the city of Detroit.”
Herron says that most urban planners wouldn’t expect to see a suburban-style
cul de sac right in the middle of the city.
“I think because it doesn’t look like one of those pre-arranged ideas of the city, cities aren’t supposed to look like suburban McMansions houses. Well, it turns out that that’s where people want to live, and if you build it in the city, they’ll come and buy the houses and be happy.”
That kind of thinking runs counter to what many urban planning experts might say. In fact, the success of Victoria Park might seem to be an oddity in planning circles, because most planners believe that it’s a specifically urban lifestyle that attracts people to cities, one that involves chic apartments, condos and busy streets, not lawn care and attached garages.
But Jerry Herron says that more suburban-style development is in keeping
with this city’s history.
“One of the important things about Detroit is that seventy-five percent of the people who live here – I believe that’s an accurate figure – virtually since the beginning of the city’s history, have lived in private houses, so that there’s really a dedication to this idea of private property, that they have something good, it has to be mine, it has to belong to me, which makes it very difficult then to imagine as desirable living in something I don’t own, that I have to share with other people, that I may just be renting.”
Regardless of whether they choose to live in private houses or high rise buildings, people who choose to live in the city like being able to spend less time in their cars than they would if they lived in the suburbs.
And they like the cultural attractions and diversity of the cities. And even if it might seem suburban compared to life in other cities, life in this city is still very different from life in the suburbs. Olga Savich grew up in Troy, Michigan a north-west suburb of Detroit. She now lives in a high rise building near downtown.
“I moved to the city because I just needed to get out of the suburbs, I lived
there my whole life, there’s nothing there but the mall, I didn’t
necessarily want to structure my whole life around shopping. So I moved to
the city because it seemed like it was exciting, like a new start.”
Although Savich likes the more traditionally urban aspects of the city, she
also likes the fact that there’s big open spaces, including Belle Isle park,
right in the middle of it.
“I used to walk down on a Saturday afternoon with a book and just sit on the rocks by Shane Park and you can put your feet in the water, you know, it’s really pretty. Going to belle isle, it’s almost like having your own Metropark, you know, right in your own back yard, it’s like a five-minute bike ride.”
And while a lot of people see Detroit’s big, empty urban spaces and abandoned and decaying buildings as the city’s big problem, other people are attracted to exactly those things. Jerry Herron lives in the same building as Olga Savich.
“There’s a lot of room in the middle of a city that’s 300 years old, a lot of green space in the city. And I think that people that are attracted to that kind of revitalization and the presence of significant decay find this a really exhilarating and exciting place. That abandonment attracts people, the way ruins attract people. And people who like it think it’s really unusual and unique and only Detroit looks like that really.”
Like a lot of big cities with decaying centers, Detroit is working hard to bring people in. Experts are thinking hard about what kind of cities people are looking to move to. And Herron says that anyone who’s trying to make a city like Detroit appealing to outsiders would do well to work with what the city already has, rather than trying to make it like other cities with different histories.
Proposals to build greenways in Detroit are raising interest, hopes, and concerns. (Photo by Val Head)
Many cities looking to revitalize their urban centers
have turned to greenways to spur economic development. Greenways are pedestrian or bike paths that typically run between parks, museums, or shopping districts. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports on hopes that greenways will breathe new life into one of America’s most blighted urban landscapes:
Transcript
Many cities looking to reviatlize their urban centers have turned to greenways to spur economic development. Greenways are pedestrian or bike paths that typically run between parks, museums, or shopping districts. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports on hopes that greenways will breathe new life into one of America’s most blighted urban landscapes:
This abandoned rail line twenty-five feet below street level might not be many peoples’ first choice for a walk or a bike ride. But Tom Woiwode thinks soon it might be. Woiwode is the director of the GreenWays Initiative for all of Southeast Michigan. When he takes a look down this former Grand Trunk Western Rairoad line in Detroit, he doesn’t see the fast food wrappers, tires, and crashed and rusting shopping carts. He sees trees and grass and benches. And more importantly, he sees people, and places for people to spend their money.
“So maybe a bike repair shop, restaurants, some opportunities for music venues and those sorts of things, so people can ride their bike on down to the riverfront and along the way either stay here for lunch, or along the way stop and rest and enjoy the ambiance, or take their food and go on down to the riverfront where they can enjoy the extraordinary natural resources of the river as well.”
We’re standing near the city’s sprawling open-air produce market. It’s one of the most popular draws for people from inside and outside the city limits. When it’s complete, the greenway will link the market to Detroit’s greatest natural asset: the Detroit River. Greenways are a new redevelopment concept in Detroit. But elsewhere, Woiwode says, they’ve proven a well-tested urban redevelopment tool.
“In fact, back in the late 90’s, the mayors of Pittsburgh and Denver – two municipalities that are roughly similar in size to Detroit – both characterized their greenways programs as the most important economic development programs they had within the city.”
Minneapolis is another city that’s had success with greenways. In fact, backers of the greenway plan in downtown Detroit say they were inspired by a similar project there. Last month, Minneapolis completed the second phase of what will eventually be a five-mile greenway along an abandoned rail line much like the one in Detroit. It’s called the Midtown Greenway. And it’ll eventually link the Chain of Lakes to the Mississippi River thruogh neighborhoods on the city’s south side.
Eric Hart is a Minneapolis Midtown Greenway Coalition board member. He says even the greenway’s most avid supporters joked that people might continue to use it as a dumping ground for abandoned shopping carts like they did when it was just a trench.
“Since then, since it was done in 2000, there’s been a lot of interest in the development community to put high-density residential structures right along the edge of the greenway. And it’s viewed more like a park now.”
Since the first phase was completed in 2000, one affordable housing development and a 72-unit market-rate loft project have been completed. And five more housing developments – mostly condos – are in the planning stages. Hart says people use the greenway for recreation and for commuting by bicycle to their jobs.
Colin Hubbell is a developer in Detroit. He says he’s all for greenways, as long as they’re not competing for dollars with more pressing needs in a city like Detroit: good schools, for example. Or safe neighborhoods. Hubbell says the question needs to be asked: If you build it, will they come?
“I’m not sure. I’m not sure, if, given the perception problem that we have as a city, how many people on bikes are going to go down in an old railroad right away, I’m not sure even if that’s the right thing to do, given the fact that – I mean, we have a street system. And just because there’s a greenway doesn’t mean if somebody’s on Rollerblades or a bicycle that they’re not going to stay on a greenway.”
Hubbell says Detroit already has a lot of streets and not much traffic – leaving plenty of room for bicyclists. Hubbell says it might be cheaper to paint some bike lanes, and put up signs. But he says connecting the city’s cultural and educational institutions, the river, and commercial districts with greenways is a good idea – as long as they’re running through areas where people will use them.
Kelli Kavanaugh says that’s exactly what’s happening with greenway plans in the city. Kavanaugh is with the Greater Corktown Economic Development Corporation in southwest Detroit.
“You can’t just stick a greenway in the middle of a barren, abandoned neighborhood and expect use. But when you put one into a growing neighborhood, a stabilizing neighborhood, it really works as another piece of the quality of life puzzle to kind of support existing residents, but also attract new residents to the area. It’s another amenity.”
Greenway backers say for a city struggling just to maintain its population, Detroit can only benefit from safe, pleasant places to walk and bike. And if other cities are any indication, they say greenways should also help bring another kind of green into Detroit.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Sarah Hulett.
Climate change can affect temperature and humidity. And those changes can damage art. (Photo source: Aude at Wikimedia Commons)
