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What makes cities tick? Architect, planner, developer and author Alexander Garvin has spent much of his adult life exploring that question. The 62-year-old Garvin, who teaches urban planning at Yale University, is a New York City planning commissioner and until last year was vice president for planning, design and development for the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., which is overseeing the rebuilding of the ravaged World Trade Center site. His book “The American City: What Works, What Doesn’t” has become a classic for urbanists. On March 12, Garvin will speak at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee about urban revitalization here and elsewhere. His talk, free and open to the public, is at 7:30 p.m. in Room 105 of Engelmann Hall, 2033 E. Hartford Ave. He spoke by telephone with urban landscape writer Whitney Gould.


Q. Are there some lessons for cities like Milwaukee in the tortuous process New York City has gone through in rebuilding ground zero?

A. Yes. It was an innovative process, involving many different design firms. It required real public involvement. And it’s a model that could work in any city. It was messy and contentious, but anything political gets messy. Look at the Wisconsin primary! That’s what democracy is all about.

Q. A lot of eyes glaze over when the word planning gets mentioned. Why is it so important?

A. One reason we all want to have a great public realm—the streets, parks and public buildings that tie a city together—is so that property owners nearby will want to invest in the city, to generate a widespread and sustained private market. Also, this money spent on the public realm is going to be spent anyway. There is no sense in having to redo it year after year. If a city wants to be great place to live in and to come to, you have to pay constant attention to planning and design.

Q. To judge from the World Trade Center competition, there seems to be a real resurgence of interest in modernist design. But do you think we are putting too much emphasis on spectacular, iconic buildings at the expense of the fine-grain fabric that holds a city together?

A. The World Trade Center site is a special case. Here you had a bunch of terrorists who murdered 3,000 people. You can’t put just anything on this site. You have to show those terrorists that we will come back better than before. Of course, not every building in every city can be iconic; we’d go crazy in that kind of world. You also need ordinary buildings that help create places that people want to be in.

Q. The 1996 edition of your book mentions our Grand Avenue mall as a good example of urban redevelopment. But the mall has been struggling in recent years, and now it is trying to remake itself for mixed uses, including offices. Are downtown malls a thing of the past?

A. No. Some of them, in places like Atlanta, Minneapolis and Cleveland, where there are large numbers of consumers, are doing just fine. But malls have to reposition themselves as the nature of the competition changes.

Q. Milwaukee is an old industrial city trying to reinvent itself for the 21st century. Do you have any general advice for us on how to do that?

A. Make sure to cherish the old things that are extraordinary. Don’t squander them. But also turn over to the next generation something even better—something that you think your grandchildren will want to cherish.