Root of the trouble

So where were the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette editors over a year and a half ago when the city and its design team held public presentations to solicit comprehensive feedback on the Creative Corridor plan designed by staff at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville?

In their “Welcome to no place,” the editorial writers level criticism of the four-block Main Street revitalization on the first day of its construction-a rather imprudent moment to assess success or failure. Nonetheless, they raise salient points well understood by hundreds of stakeholders, property owners and now-active investors who participated in two years of project-development meetings. So let’s update the editors on what the community has agreed to and is now implementing.

First, the editors equate tree removal with destruction of Main Street’s legacy, its “aura of Time Past.” Photos of Little Rock’s historic Main Street would show the editors that, like almost every great early 20th Century American Main Street, there were no trees, as they would have interfered with its commercial functioning.

But Main Street’s commercial life is gone, and revitalization is premised upon building a livable downtown neighborhood for all income groups, mixed with cultural and workplace functions. This is why the plan calls for trees to replace those that have reached their life expectancy. This time, trees will be planted as allees and stands to shade new public spaces, enriching the street experience for users, pedestrians and residents who will live there. The design is focused on reclaiming the non-traffic social activity found on all great streets-dining, gathering, assembly, strolling and recreation.

Here is what the editors may not understand: Existing trees were planted in a way that shortens their life span. The foremost determining factor of longevity is ground-surface perviousness in filtering water and nutrients to the root ball. Most do know that a tree’s root ball is generally as large as its canopy. Impervious concrete surfaces prevent adequate nutrition and hydration of urban trees, which is why the life span of an urban tree averages 13 years. We now have improved practices for triangulating the interconnected issues of tree planting, ground surface design, and urban stormwater management.

The Creative Corridor plan-under and above ground-is configured to ensure a thriving landscape within the city. This requires regard for place-appropriate plant guilds (species mix) given local climate, soil conditions, hydrology and user interfaces. The ground surface is designed as a “sponge” employing pervious surfaces, structural soil cells, and rainwater bioswales to filter and treat polluted stormwater runoff before it’s discharged into the Arkansas River.

Do the editors know that the first hour of urban stormwater has a pollution index much greater than that of raw sewage? Cities everywhere are figuring out how their urban infrastructure might become an environmental asset rather than a liability. Little Rock is poised to offer a national model of “green urban infrastructure” that reconciles urban and natural systems. We can set the bar.

Most importantly, the design coordinates public-sector improvements to service renewed private-sector investment made by the Rep, the symphony, the ballet, restaurateurs, hoteliers, developers and other individual actors.

I am heartened by our editors’ dedication to Main Street’s sense of place, and thus look forward to more vigorous advocacy for the proper preservation and stewardship of its historic structures. Despite the focus on trees, urbanists understand that the true legacy of Main Street is its architecture-the city’s irreplaceable cultural gene pool. The craft, technology and intelligence of Little Rock’s Main Street environment is exemplary, the best of its time, and simply cannot be reconstituted by will or money when a structure is lost. Creative Corridor landscapes celebrate and appropriately frame these statewide architectural treasures, the envy of many in other Arkansas towns.

While I appreciate the clever, prize-winning writing of the editorial page-the “showy” erudition and facility of a prodigy-it missed the mark on content. Facility can be entertaining; but it can’t substitute for a serious understanding in how places are actually developed.

While the editors cite tourist-ridden and beer-laden zones like Beale Street and the French Quarter as hallmarks of place, Main Street stakeholders have in mind a more sophisticated and quiet vision of livability.

We are students of cities and visit them extensively, worldwide. We love Little Rock and felt privileged to have worked in the state’s capital city. I encourage the editors to become more engaged beyond that of a Monday morning quarterback.

Urban regeneration is difficult and complex; the odds are against you. It requires cooperation and extraordinary leadership from the city, another envy among other towns.

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Stephen Luoni is director of the University of Arkansas Community Design Center and the Steven L. Anderson Chair in Architecture and Urban Studies.