VIEWPOINT - CUDC Quarterly 1:1 - Fall 2000

The Culture of Collaboration
Ruth Durack
Director, Urban Design Center of Northeast Ohio

The Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative didn’t get its name by accident; nor was "collaborative" chosen casually from the long list of friendly C-words (coalition, consortium, cooperative, collective, connection) that suggest more or less the same thing.

According to the dictionary, to collaborate means "to work one with another, to cooperate" which is the central purpose of our organization. We are here to work with the government agencies, neighborhood development groups,  design practitioners and students who are concerned with the quality of our physical surroundings. And in addition to these professional colleagues, we work with property owners and tenants who have a personal stake in the decisions made about their environment. Urban design deals with the form of human habitation, a collective enterprise that extends far beyond the province of any one of the design professions—and even beyond professions altogether. It is an issue that affects everyone, and to which everyone makes a contribution, even if it’s only in the choice to live in one neighborhood rather than another, or to paint the front door blue rather than green.

But "collaboration" also has the much more sinister connotation of "cooperation with the enemy". In wartime, it means to yield to, or conspire with an occupying force. And with respect to our dealings with the environment, we are indeed in a time of war—at war with urban sprawl, environmental destruction, loss of community, aesthetic decline; and our public realm has been conquered by the forces of commercial competition, private profit, short-term gains and political expediency.

So why did the CUDC choose a name that hints at collusion with such anti-urban forces? Because this is a guerilla war—a conflict of values and priorities in which infiltration is the most effective form of resistance. And I don’t mean infiltration for the purposes of propaganda and sabotage, but as a means of educating ourselves about the disposition of "the other side" and finding ways to subsume its objectives in mutually acceptable actions.

To combat destructive development patterns, we need to understand the rationale of the apparently pernicious decisions that continue to dominate our development landscape. These decisions are not made by evil or irresponsible people. No one sets out to damage the environment, or destroy community, or create ugliness. Development decisions are always motivated by valid intentions and usually excellent information—the strip center developer, for example, knows far more about consumer behavior than any urban designer or architect. But if we are to define practical alternatives to these commercially proven development models, we need to know everything about what what’s driving them, and how information is used to shape investment decisions. Our challenge is to search for new forms that satisfy development interests within a larger context of social and environmental values.

The CUDC provides a place for the kind of collaborative dialogue that needs to occur, particularly between warring factions. This is not for the sake of striking a more comfortable detente, but to reveal common ground, discover new approaches and forge productive alliances. Such riches, however, can only be achieved through enthusiastic engagement in the debate. We welcome your suggestions on how to recruit more collaborators and help us "turn up the volume" on this crucial discussion.