PBS: Think Tank: Transcript for "Is It Time for Olmsted Again?"

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Is It Time for Olmsted Again?

THINK TANK

ANNOUNCER: Funding for Think Tank is provided by the John M. Olin Foundation, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, and the Smith Richardson Foundation.

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MR. WATTENBERG: Hello, I’m Ben Wattenberg. Frederick Law Olmsted was America’s first and greatest landscape architect. He designed many of the most beloved parks and public spaces in North America. He is best known for planning Central Park in the heart of New York City.

MS. ROGERS: Remember the park is a democratic experiment, this was a people’s park.

MR. WATTENBERG: In an age, now, of so-called suburban sprawl, when public spaces are said to be scarce, when planners contemplate vast new integrated cities, we hear the question, where is Olmsted when we need him. Think Tank explores.

We are joined by Witold Rybczynski, professor of urbanism at the University of Pennsylvania, and author of A Clearing In The Distance, Frederick Law Olmsted And America In The 19th Century, Charles Beveridge, editor of the Frederick Law Olmsted paper and coauthor of Frederick Law Olmsted, Designing The American Landscape, and Robert Fishman, professor of history at Rutgers University, fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and author of bourgeois utopias, the rise and fall of suburbia. The topic before the house, is it time for Olmsted again, this week on Think Tank.

(Musical break.)

MR. WATTENBERG: Frederick Law Olmsted was born in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1822. Following a job as a ship’s boy on a trade ship to China he tried life as a gentleman farmer on Staten Island. Over the years he traveled extensively in Europe, which influenced both his later design work, and his philosophical outlook. In 1858, after winning a design competition, Olmsted and his partner began work on Central Park in Manhattan. Now, almost 150 years later, founder of the Central Park Conservancy, Elizabeth Barlow Rogers explains Olmsted’s plan.

MS. ROGERS: The vision was to create a rolling greens, rural scenery. This is the essence, they knew that one day a great city, this is amazingly foresighted, the great city would grow up around the park and surround it. But, they felt that rural scenery, nature, the country in the city was very important.

MR. WATTENBERG: Following Central Park’s success, Olmsted turned to design and build Prospect Park in Brooklyn, and South Park in Chicago, and Franklin Park in Boston, among many others. With his park projects, Olmsted hoped to, as he said, influence men’s minds and character. He argued that men must come together, and must be seen as coming together, and the public spaces he designed provided places for Americans to do just that. Olmsted originated the idea of the modern park, and is often credited with providing the intellectual framework for the modern suburb.

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MR. WATTENBERG: Many of America’s communities from East Coast to West Coast are shaped by his legacy, and his devotees still sing his praises.

MS. ROGERS: I admire Olmsted for so many reasons. Think of him as a park builder, think of him also as an urban planner, but let’s also think of him as one of the progenitors of our great national park system, and these places are spiritual touchstones for the American people.

MR. WATTENBERG: Let’s find out who Olmsted was, and if his thinking is relevant today.

Gentlemen, thank you for joining us on Think Tank.

Let’s talk first about Olmsted, who I must confess, when I got into this little research project I did not know very much about, and two of you gentlemen have written books on Olmsted.

Witold, why don’t you begin -- give us a little something about it.

Charles, go on. And then let’s chat about Olmsted personally and his vision, and then let’s get to the meat and potatoes of this thing, which is so what.

MR. RYBCZYNSKI: Well, one thing to understand about Olmsted is that he wasn’t a trained professional. He became a professional landscape architect, but he was very much self invented. And what goes into making that man is, I think, crucial to understanding him. He was a journalist, he was a farmer, as you said, he was a person who traveled around the country, knew the United States very well. And he brings to this new profession that he really invents in some ways, a great background. And so the richness of what he does has to do with the experiences that he brings. He was really 40 years old when he fully decided to engage himself in this profession.

MR. WATTENBERG: Charles, you agree with that?

MR. BEVERIDGE: Yes, I certainly agree with all of that. But, the number of experiences of Olmsted had, and the social and political thinking that he put into the question of where America was, and where American society was going to go was something that was with him always. He tried a variety of different careers that gave him a variety of different experiences, so that by the time he began to be simply a landscape architect he had a whole social, and indeed psychological set of purposes that had to do with what he wanted American society to become, and he simply chose one of, in fact, many possible routes that he, in fact, began to experiment with, to carry out his ideas.

MR. WATTENBERG: So he was -- had aspects of being really an applied political philosopher, is that fair?

MR. FISHMAN: Yes, I think he was. And to me what’s so remarkable about Olmsted, and valuable about him is that at a time in the 19th Century that we think of as every man for himself, of pure individualism, that he was at the heart of these great collective works of art.

MR. WATTENBERG: Witold, what did Olmsted create in Central Park?

MR. RYBCZYNSKI: Well, some of what he was doing was, as Charles said, came from Europe, came from England, he was doing what anybody would have done. I think what strikes me --

MR. WATTENBERG: For example?

MR. RYBCZYNSKI: There was water, because they wanted to have boating and skating. There was open areas for parade grounds. There were places that people could go horseback riding. And it was done in the picturesque sort of British manner. What strikes me about Central Park that was I think original and in some ways American was there was a lot of roughness, there were these big rocky outcroppings. And rather than simply dynamite them and get them out of the way, they incorporated that into the landscape. So you’re walking down, you’ve got to think of yourself as a Victorian in the 1870s walking down the street, looking over a wall at these enormous rocks and sort of very rough terrain.

MR. WATTENBERG: Was that whole area, which goes from 59th to 110th Street, was that whole area at that time undeveloped, or were there some dwellings on it already?

MR. BEVERIDGE: There were some small dwellings, there were some small villages, there were -- it wasn’t very good land for farming, but there were people living there.

MR. WATTENBERG: So they took down whatever was there.

MR. BEVERIDGE: The land was expropriated. But, it was not particularly attractive from a landscape point of view, there was as lot of swampy land, which became the basis for some of these low areas holding water, the ponds and lakes, but there were these -- the chief natural feature, I think, were these rocky outcroppings, and rather than sort of create a soft British style park, it seems to me that they built on that and made this very rough Adirondack style, as they refer to it, landscape, which was something unusual. The other thing that’s unusual, I think, as a landscape is that the landscape comes right up to the street, and just stops. It hits the wall. There’s no border, there’s no sense of now you’re in the city, now you’re in the park. It’s very abrupt. And so it really -- it’s like the piece of wilderness dropped in the middle of New York, which is I think one of the experiences that New Yorkers love about Central Park, is that you go from the street and you’re just dropped into another environment.

MR. WATTENBERG: So it’s not a European park in the sense of one of these great manicured, delicately kept sorts of places. Is that right?

MR. BEVERIDGE: The wildness that is there is certainly important, and there’s a kind of American wildness, a reference to a drawing from the American scenery, that is quite different from the European parks. But, the site was so rugged that there wasn’t much choice in that regard. In fact, Olmsted and Vox (((sp) called their design green sword, because they were providing more of the meadow terrain than they felt, or expected any of the other competitors, because that kind of landscape had a kind of soothing quality that was a particularly important antidote to the city.

MR. WATTENBERG: In the other parks that Olmsted subsequently designed, did this sort of American frontier spirit come through? I mean, Rock Creek Park certainly has that wild and rugged terrain. What about Boston and Prospect Park, Chicago, Patterson, New Jersey, I’m told he designed the park. And I have a friend who comes from Patterson. Is that common throughout his work?
MR. BEVERIDGE: The wildness is common, but what’s more important to him was the rolling green sword, which was similar to what one found in the great estates of England. Because he felt that that was the landscape that was particularly the antidote to the city, and to the harshness and the unnaturalness of the city. So you find both, one as an alternative to the other. But, far more in Central Park, because of the site than Olmsted cared to put in a park. He did say from the beginning that in Manhattan they chose -- the area of the park had been chosen, he said, no other area of the same size in Manhattan could have been found that was less well suited for a park.

MR. WATTENBERG: What specifically from some of the other parks around the country that -- or communities that Olmsted created sort of come to mind as most important, Witold?

MR. RYBCZYNSKI: One of the -- I think one of the things is the size, just the size of them. And I guess in Central Park the size was set beforehand. But, his parks are rarely smaller than 500 acres, which is a very big amount of land, compared to a European park.

MR. WATTENBERG: How big is Central Park?

MR. RYBCZYNSKI: Central Park is about 750 I think. So the idea of not only making parks in the city, but making them this big, I think was something unusual. It wasn’t -- we take it for granted today, but that was an important decision. And considering these parks were actually quite far from where anybody lived, the sort of foresight and optimism about urban life, and vision is remarkable.

MR. WATTENBERG: What was Olmsted’s vision, and is it relevant today?

MR. FISHMAN: Well, I think the first thing that comes out so strongly for me, from Central Park, and the other parks, is a democratic vision. You know, even in the mid-19th Century, New York was already probably the most diverse single settlement in the whole world. And here Olmsted and the other backers of Central Park said, we are going to create this wonderful work of art for everyone. And Olmsted was very decided about that democratic vision. And nothing pleased him more than to visit the park on a Sunday, and see people of all ethnic groups, of all classes, using it together.

MR. WATTENBERG: In today’s argument, here you had earlier in 1999 Vice President Gore put out this big paper about suburban sprawl. We actually did a program on it, and by my lights it was just laced with anti-suburban rhetoric, anti-automobile rhetoric, and in favor of some sort of a growing involvement of federal zoning. Now, I grant you that is my caricature, or accurate portrayal. We had a big discussion about it. Would Olmsted align himself on the Gore side of this view, or on the people who are saying, well, Gore and those people are being elitist about it?

MR.RYBCZYNSKI: I don’t know if Charles would agree. I would say that he -- Olmsted saw the suburbs as an absolutely positive force. I don’t think he ever imagined that we would all be living there. I think he saw the suburbs as a place where some people would live.

MR. WATTENBERG: Only half of us live there, not all of us.

MR. RYBCZYNSKI: Now it’s about three-quarters. But, in his day it was probably one quarter. I mean, so it’s hard for me to see what he would say, because I think his view of the suburbs was a place for a relatively small number of people to live. He always assumed that the majority of working Americans would live in the cities.

MR. BEVERIDGE: I think that’s hard to tell. I mean, the question is what was the promise of American life. It expressed itself in many different ways, and I think one of the promises that he hoped to see was one where as many people as possible could live in their free standing houses, with some space around it for that individual family. He was terribly concerned about community, and it’s expressed by building parks and park systems, and parkways. He’s also very concerned about domesticity, because in his light the getting Americans outdoors, getting a house where -- what he calls open air apartments, that have some extra space by which they can cultivate aesthetic sense, and create an individual space that increases their own individuality are all elements of this theme of domesticity that was almost as important to him as community.

MR. WATTENBERG: And he designed some of the earliest suburbs, didn’t he?

MR. BEVERIDGE: Yes.

MR. WATTENBERG: Where?

MR. BEVERIDGE: Well, the outstanding one is Riverside, six miles west of the loop in Chicago. And the one example, 1500 acres of a large community that really carried out and saw put on the ground many of his design principles.

MR. WATTENBERG: So you two biographers of Olmsted, I’m surmising this, would regard him as sort of pro-vibrant and vigorous growth in America. Is that fair?

MR. RYBCZYNSKI: I think he took it for granted. I think his generation generally did. But, I think he would have taken it for granted. He accepted the growth as a fact of life.

MR. WATTENBERG: Okay. Now, you have some problems with what’s been going on in American urban life. Why don’t you lead me through what’s troubling you?

MR. FISHMAN: Right. Well, I am ready to sign Olmsted up for the smart growth cause. We always try to sign him up, he’s one of those figures.

MR. WATTENBERG: You did very well, by naming it smart growth, making all the rest of us in favor of dumb growth.

MR. FISHMAN: I think it’s a wonderful term.

MR. WATTENBERG: Capture the language, right. But, we’re not going to let you get away with it that easily. Right.

MR. FISHMAN: The point, I think you have to look at the matter historically. When Olmsted planned these great late 19th Century suburbs, what he was looking for was an alternative to the crowded city that would really exclude any contact with nature. That was the great fear at that time, that you would have this immense unnatural city that would literally drive people crazy. So you had to have this daily contact with nature, that the suburb brings.

As Witold and Charles said, he never imagined the suburbs growing to be essentially huge regions. In fact, the suburbs have become our cities. And if you look at what Olmsted wanted from nature, he wanted an alternative, he wanted that sense of repose, and that’s exactly what we’re losing in these suburban areas. The problem is what I, in fact, would call dumb growth, the kind of fragmented, low density growth, that destroys the countryside without creating any real community, any real sense of place. And I think Olmsted would have hated that.

MR. WATTENBERG: The smart growth people, as I have sensed it, when you get down to specific remedies, they are looking for more mass transportation, and for more people living in cities, or in apartments outside of cities, rather than sprawl. Is that basically where you come out?

MR. FISHMAN: Yes, exactly.

MR. WATTENBERG: What do you guys think of -- what would Olmsted say about Fishman?

MR. FISHMAN: If he took notice of me at all.

MR. RYBCZYNSKI: One of the things that struck me about Olmsted was, while he was visionary, he was also very pragmatic, and he doesn’t -- you never hear him sort of complaining about why do people want to live in cities. He just accepts that people in the 19th Century are going to build these huge cities, and he’s trying to make them function better. But, he never talks about -- at least I haven’t read anything where he talks about let’s fragment the city, let’s create satellite towns, or anything like that. And I think he would be much more pragmatic than Bob about facing the problem, rather than trying to rebuild America, he would accept that this is how we want to live, and he would try to make it work better.

I think he understood that the American city was unplannable, and in some ways ungovernable, and he wanted to set up these arenas, parks, and other elements that would structure it somewhat. But, he wasn’t a micro manager, he’s not like those who wants to redo the whole thing square foot by square foot. He’s content to lay out this sort of armature and let us roil in between the parkways. And he doesn’t feel it’s appropriate to sort of step in and tell people how to live, which is the problem I have with smart growth, there’s a kind of hectoring, lecturing tone about it that rubs me the wrong way.

MR. WATTENBERG: So it’s smart growth versus hector, lecture?

MR. FISHMAN: To my mind the crucial issue of politics today in America are these regional questions between cities and suburbs. Understanding that a region can only thrive through cooperation between the two. And one sign of this cooperation is limitations of growth at the edge. In other words, without that you have this continually expanding region that leaves the poor behind, that leaves the central cities behind, that destroys the nature that the suburbanites want. So to me politics is about precisely this regional conversation about limitations.

MR. RYBCZYNSKI: But, we know the limitations, because they’re very simple. You have to quadruple the price of gas, put serious limits on individual and community’s ability to control the land where they live, raise the price of food so farmers are not encouraged to sell land to developers, who then develop it. I mean, essentially do what the Europeans have done, and then we can limit sprawl. Nobody talks in the smart growth about those things, because they’re obviously so pie in the sky, and impossible to sell to people, to turn us into Europe where only the rich can afford to live in cities and people have very small amounts of space, and pay a lot for food, and have less choice. None of those things are really very desirable. And yet, they are part and parcel of the package, because that’s how you get from A to B.

MR. WATTENBERG: I mean, isn’t smart growth really part of that NIMBY, not in my backyard, that gangplankism, you say suburbia excludes the poor, or the lower middle class. If you start drawing a line around existing suburbia, boy, you have really stuck it to the lower middle class, because they can’t go out to the next cheaper suburb, and it’s increased, therefore, the value of the homes within the existing suburb, and they’re stuck in the city, and nice people in the suburbs are going to say, one of these days we’re going to get around the curing crime there, but in the meanwhile you can’t move out to the next larger suburb, the next new suburb?

MR. FISHMAN: Well, I think --

MR. WATTENBERG: Notice how neutral a role I’m playing here. My role is immoderator, but go ahead.

MR. FISHMAN: Both of you are making a few assumptions about what it would take to create this smart growth pattern. I don’t think you’d have to turn America inside out, and raise gasoline prices, and food prices to that extent. I mean, I think that there are workable alternatives. For example, the transfer of development rights with farmers, so that they can continue farming and yet get some benefit out of the increased value of their land. But, I do think that a more coherent kind of development, the denser development, development with alternatives to mass transit is in the end more efficient, and cheaper to the society as a whole. I think the argument is on the other side, that nothing is more expensive, finally, than sprawl.

MR. WATTENBERG: I mean, the only trouble with mass transit is that all the evidence of our census is that people want to drive their own cars. Let me ask you this, you are, I think by accident, seated in the middle of these two gentlemen. Just let’s wrap this up, where would you come out on this? This is a pretty interesting dialogue here, particularly if you exclude my partisan participation, not partisan, but my ideological participation.

MR. BEVERIDGE: Well, again, trying to take some of the Olmsted point of view, and trying to extrapolate, which is certainly difficult to do, the approach that he took and the reforms that he was proposing and so forth all stemmed from the idea that there should be a subordination of the interest of individual, and especially individual profit maker, to the interest of the community, and that the community should make decisions, and should have -- certainly for his time there was a wide range of areas where he thought the community should intrude. And I suspect that that range, for him, would increase today. But, on the other hand you have to realize that in his time certainly he saw limits to how much control there could be.

MR. WATTENBERG: A very fascinating discussion, gentlemen.

Thank you very much, Charles Beveridge, Witold Rybczynski, and Robert Fishman.

And thank you. We encourage feedback from our viewers via email, it’s very important to us. For Think Tank, I’m Ben Wattenberg.

ANNOUNCER: We at Think Tank depend on your views to make our show better. Please send your questions and comments to New River Media, 1219 Connecticut Avenue, Northwest, Washington, D.C. 20036, or email us at thinktank@pbs.org. To learn more about Think Tank, visit PBS Online at pbs.org. And please let us know where you watch Think Tank.

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Funding is provided by the John M. Olin Foundation, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, and the Smith Richardson Foundation.

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