Reykjavík Grapevine - 15.06.2007, Blaðsíða 4

06_REYKJAVÍK_GRAPEVINE_ISSUE 08_007_INTERVIEW/CITY PLANNING
Jonathan Levine is Professor and Chair of the
Urban and Regional Planning program at
the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor. He
teaches courses in transportation policy and
planning, public economics in urban planning,
and quantitative planning methods. Profes-
sor Levine was recently in Reykjavík, lecturing
for his students enlisted in the Iceland Studio
workshop, a part of the University of Michigan
summer semester. Professor Levine also gave a
lecture as a guest of the Engineering depart-
ment at the University of Iceland, after which
a Grapevine journalist sat down with him to
ask a few questions.
Maybe you could start by telling me a bit
about the Iceland studio and how that
came about?
Orri Gunnarsson did a Masters degree in ur-
ban planning at the University of Michigan in
Ann Arbor. He proposed to me that we host
an international studio, which is something
our university does any way. We have studios
this year in Japan, in India, in Switzerland,
in Argentina and a few other countries. It is
something that is a regular occurrence in our
college during our May-June half semester.
Orri came to me and suggested: “Why not
an Iceland studio?” And I immediately said
“wonderful, if we can get enough students,
let’s do it. I will nominally be the professor
of the course but you will be the one teach-
ing the course since we need someone who
knows Iceland”
“We got just enough students to enlist, and
the students are having a wonderful experi-
ence here. It is a very intimate engagement
with the place. They are here for six weeks
and they are learning every day, meeting dif-
ferent people and learning about planning
issues and architecture here in Iceland. They
are working on two projects, one is the site
where the building burned, [on the corner of
Austurstræti and Lækjargata] and the other
project is a mountain residence.”
Well, let’s turn to your lecture. Let me
first briefly summarise to see if I under-
stood you correctly. Your main argument
is that centralised planning institutions,
or decentralised power even, discourages
densifying redevelopment because of the
closeness of the citizens to the people in
power. Is that an accurate restatement?
Absolutely. That is exactly my point. And I
should note that in a lot of debate, the close-
ness of the citizens to the people in power is
thought to be a good thing. We want gov-
ernmental responsiveness to our interests. We
don’t want remote government or indifferent
government. But what I was trying to expose
is what I think is the flipside. I think there is a
problem inherent to very decentralised plan-
ning authorities.
Here in Reykjavík, there has been a very
conscious effort to increase public partici-
pation on all levels of local government,
not least regarding planning issues, is
there a solution to these differences?
First of, let me say that I am very pro-public
participation. I think public participation is
overall a good thing. But there are times, in
the United States at least, where public par-
ticipation amounts to little more than a mob
mentality. Where the mob is determined to
keep out the outsiders. I don’t value that kind
of public participation. I think that kind of
public participation is a problem. So, I think
that what we need is professional planners
who will guide the public participation towards
creative outlets. And that the creative outlets
are using the public participation to ensure
the change that is inevitable – because change
always happens – is better than it otherwise
would have been. The problem is in the United
States, in planning circles, public participation
is treated as good. Period. But, when it turns
into this mob mentality, bent on the exclusion
of the outsider, I’m sorry, but I can’t treat it
as good.
But is it necessarily wise to put the plan-
ning power into the hands of the politi-
cians by centralising the planning institu-
tions?
But really, they are always in the hands of the
politicians. Whether local politicians, regional
politicians, provincial politicians or national
politicians. Ultimately, planning decisions be-
come political decisions. We would like to be
able to inject a lot of professional knowledge,
technical and even scientific knowledge into
the political process at any particular level.
Maybe the question is: do we really want na-
tional politicians, or the national government,
meddling in very, very local affair? I know that
in your system here, you already have that in
a way. I was surprised to learn that every local
planning decision needs to be authorised by
he national planning authorities.
That would be inconceivable in the US,
first of all because of the sheer size. Could
you imagine a country of 300 million and
every planning decision goes up to Wash-
ington for approval? We could probably wait
for ten years before we got an answer back.
But you already have that here. You already
have some level of involvement, but I would
like to the involvement to be driven by pure
planning consideration by injecting a national
view of planning into local decision-making. In
my opinion, if I had to design the system, the
local decision wouldn’t need to buckle up to
the national level, they would only buckle up
if there were objections on either side, where
they would become levels of appeal. So, plans
would need to be consistent from national to
regional to local, but the decision could end
at the local if everybody agrees.
Here in Iceland at least, it often seems as
if the authorities mostly base their deci-
sions on the bottom line, and that goes
for developers also, who perhaps under-
standably want to turn a profit. So often,
it seems like authorities prefer to go with
the most efficient solution, rather than
what most improves the environment. Is
this a problem?
I understand how that can be a problem, but
let me portrait the opposite, because I think
there are two sides to that coin. The opposite
problem is when the citizens are too success-
ful in keeping out development. They force
development to the periphery and they force
a sprawling auto-dependent pattern. The fact
that developers are interested in developing
close-in – and there seems to be a lot of interest
in developing close-in – the fact that they are
interested in developing densely, both of those
two are potential allies in the fight against
metropolitan sprawl and the fight to revive and
keep vital, central urban areas. In my opinion,
those two things are good things for urban
life. The question is how to channel these good
things to ensure they remain good and that
becomes a question of design and issues of
height and sun-angles, issues of open space,
issues of connectivity, contiguity and transport.
That is where the public sector needs to pay
a close intention to ensure that these things
happen. I don’t think the developers should
get what they want, but I think their impulse
to build close in and to build densely is what
cities needs.
So when the market is driving up real es-
tate prices in the city centre, that is a good
thing that needs to be regulated?
It needs to be channeled, yes. Like a lot of good
things, it needs to be channeled. I think that if
the rules are clear, developers are ready to play
by the rules. So if the planning authorities are
willing to give them guidelines on what is the
desired density and that they want to increase
density; that single family houses does not need
to be replaced by a single family houses and
can instead be replaced with a higher density
house, but because of neighbourhood con-
sideration they can’t exceed a certain height,
etc.; when the rules are clear, in a sense the
developers like it. First of all, there is added
security for them. They know how they are
supposed to build, and they have some insur-
ance that other people in their area will do
the same. So, they don’t necessarily need to
reach up to huge height to try to grab some
sun and some air, because they understand
that everyone else will be kept at the same
level as well.
So what you are suggesting is that there
be a national planning authority that can
act sort of as the guilty party in the sense
that local politicians can point towards it
and say: ‘well it is out of our hand’ when
the locals start to complain?
Sometimes that is good, yes. I would prefer
the term to give it the term backbone to a
guilty party, but yes, I think that it could pro-
vide that role.
When you speak of density, what do you
see as sort of the ideal density for a city
like Reykjavík?
As an outsider, I would be hard pressed to
make a prescription. My knowledge of Reyk-
javík is very thin, and I have only been here
for a few days. In general terms, I am quite
sure that when the older single family units
deteriorate and need to be replaced, I am
quite sure that they could be replaced with,
lets say, four-stories, with two units in each
story. That is a quadrupling of the density and
it is only four stories and doesn’t shape the
streets too much. I know you have the issue
here with the very low sun so buildings tend
to cast a long shadow here. I think it that kind
of levels are done consistently throughout the
city, there would be opportunities for the city
to absorb much of the growth of the metro-
politan area. There is huge potential for the
city to grow, even at that relatively modest
increase in height level.
You have been around the city and you
have seen how it has sprawled in every
direction. Obviously, the area where the
domestic airport is has been a subject of
much debate in the last years, and many
feel it is an obvious location to expand
the city. Have you given that matter any
thought?
I think the airport would be marvelous for
urban expansion. I am not sure the huge value
of that land would not be put to better use
with urban uses. I would like to point out
something else as well. We have been talking
about places and buildings and I want to talk
about people for a second. When you have a
system that restricts severely densities in close-
in areas, and as a consequence, people move
to outlying areas, what you get is a systematic
gap between people’s preferences and what
they are actually able to choose. What I found
in my own research is that if you survey people
in suburban areas in the United States, you
might imagine that everybody who lives in
a suburban area is happy with their lifestyle,
the suburban lifestyle, but in fact, you will
find that about 20 or 30% of them, which is
a very large share, they actually prefer to live in
a walkable neighbourhood. They prefer to use
public transport and they prefer to be able to
walk to the store or to friends. That is really the
problem, people can’t get what they want and
the skyrocketing prices in downtown Reykjavík
are telling you exactly that. Logically, I would
deduce that there are many of people living
in more suburban areas of the metropolitan
area who would be very, very happy to live a
different lifestyle. And ultimately, with global
environmental problems, serving their needs
and their preferences can have a very signifi-
cant environmental benefits as well.

Planning Reykjavík
Text by Sveinn Birkir Björnsson Photo by Gulli
The opposite problem is
when the citizens are too
successful in keeping out
development. They force
development to the peri-
phery and they force a
sprawling auto-depen-
dent pattern.
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