The History Channel’s City of the Future candidates from Chicago, Los Angeles and New York have been announced and voting started two days ago. A regional (sort of) competition was held in each of those three cities and the winning candidate then represents their city in the now-national competition to “determine the architectural design that best addresses the issues of the 22nd century.” The History Channel are asking voters, which they oddly refer to as the ‘consumer vote’, to cast their entry against the following criteria:
* Which proposal and model is most original?
* Did the proposed vision address the competition issues of Demographics, Commerce and Industry, Housing, Culture and Leisure, Infrastructure, Transportation, the Environment and Sustainable Design?
* Does the proposed vision respond to the existing city?
* Does the design illustrate inspiration or lessons learned from the past civilizations featured in the Engineering an Empire series?
Now I have lived (or in my current situation do live) in two of the three cities in this competition, so I have a bit of personal insight (and bias!). My least-favorite candidate is LA, obviously. First off, it’s LA.
Do I need another reason? Okay fine.
Their submission only further compartmentalizes the arrangement of infrastructure, divides and re-disperses resources in a way that proclaims to use existing infrastructure for the foundation of the new, while leaving places like current-downtown LA to become a ghost of its former self.
That leaves us with Chicago and New York.
Well even though New York is my current home, our representatives, ARO: Architecture Research Office, leave us with a measly one-page poorly-rendered PDF that does little to detail or explain their concept – the notion of ‘vanes’ which I might add is brilliant, the crappy presentation notwithstanding. They also fail completely, having contracted what I call New York County Complex, or the belief that somehow New York City is only Manhattan, and dismissing the existence of the other four boroughs, or 297 sq. miles of land, or 6,471,083 inhabitants – oh you get the point already (had their proposal included everywhere and everyone else, I believe it would have been so ambitious it would have won outright).
Which leaves me voting for Chicago, which I only lived in for one year – very brief – but which I have a strong fondness for (except for that Wrigley Field place and the pitiable team that plays there). Not only do UrbanLab have the most-informative, swanky and fluid website, but their submission, under the title ‘Growing Water’ presents us with a very descriptive and well-sourced slideshow of facts and images that address pre-existing conditions while solving problems of sustainability and future growth, and a city where ‘eco-boulevards’ run throughout the grid of the city and said grid is overtaken by all types of organic life, from snails to wetland plants! Brilliant!
But hey, who am I to tell you (psst, vote for Chicago) who to vote for (CHICAGO!). View the submissions and vote for yourself (or click here to vote for Chicago).
worst. pdf. ever.
How about Chicago because it’s the only one of the three that, in the 22nd century, isn’t going to require a massive dike to keep it from being fully or partially submerged under the ocean Smart bets are on the Midwest, all the way around.
An update for you: a great flickr set for the new york plan
yeah i saw those when they first uploaded them. definitely weighs in for their case – strange though that their Flickr page has more information about their proposal than their website!