“The spirit of city making…is more like jazz than chamber music”, writes city expert Charles Landry in his excellent book The Art of City Making. I could not agree more.
“Why?”, you may ask.
Before we answer that, let’s look at the music.
The perfection of Chamber Music
Have you ever listened to outstanding chamber (or other classical) music? Every whistle of the flute, pluck of the cello and blow of the trumpet has its purpose. You know the musicians have practiced and prepared and planned it all; each member knows their part and carries it out with precision and perfection.
You are in awe of their brilliance, and quite rightly.
The creativity of Jazz
Have you ever listened to and watched an outstanding jazz ensemble? Once again, you are in awe. There is less precision and perfection, but you are amazed at their creativity and improvisation.
Similar skills I (and Charles) think you need to make the best cities.
City making – like jazz?
For jazz you need creativity and improvisation more than precision and perfection. In the same way, I believe if you approach city making with creativity and improvisation, you will do better than if you try to be precise and perfect. I believe you’ll struggle to plan a perfect city in advance with pen and paper.
Instead, I recommend you take a leaf from the book of European city makers of the middle ages and earlier, where great cities evolved without perfect planning. As the saying goes, Rome was not built in a day.
Jazz in Curitiba
Or, in more recent times, how about Curitiba’s transformation under Jaime Lerner to a city for people? Creativity and improvisation ruled the roost.
For example when civil engineer Nicolau Kluppel asked if he could build a new recycling facility, Jaime Lerner said he could do what he wanted, but there’s no money.
By creatively involving the city’s people (buying waste from them with bus tokens) and local business (by selling them recycled goods), Nicolau helped Curitiba achieve the best recycling rate of any city in the World. Miles Davis would have been proud.
Could Curitiba have achieved what it did without the creativity and improvisation of jazz?
