To market, to market

Lyonnais market

One of my greatest and most frequent pleasures in Lyon is to visit the marché en plein air, the farmers’ market. There is a nice one not more than five minutes’ walk from my host family’s apartment. Stands of produce, flowers, sausage, and bread materialize early every morning in a colorful two-block corridor that borders the Saône. The market is especially large on Sunday mornings, with vendors hawking oysters, dried fruit, olives, rotisserie chicken, mushrooms, preserves, and honey. My personal favorites are the vendeurs de fromage, whose refrigerated carts display a dazzling and pungent variety of artisanal cheeses. The more expensive varieties, like Tome de Savoie and Comté, come in huge wheels with delicately mottled crusts. But for poor students like me, there are little cakes of homemade goat cheese and generous hunks of blue cheese to be had for 2 euros or less.

Produce stand in Lyon

Besides the quality of the dairy products, a few things about this Lyonnais market have really impressed me. Firstly, there is the the matter-of-fact practicality of it. People come armed with large baskets and carpet bags to buy their produce for the week. There is no visible municipal intervention: no public servants, no special amenities, no shelter or banners or signs. The market sets up on a wide piece of asphalt that. When it has been dismantled and packed away, all that remains is an innocuous stretch of riverbank sidewalk. Furthermore, there is no eco-tourism here. The market’s patrons are buying local food because it’s fresh and accessible, not because they are on an environmental crusade or think that handmade sausage would make a charming gift. Patrons are also unlikely to inquire whether the beef they are buying is grass-fed or the chicken free-range.

This practicality is in sharp contrast with the character of Charlottesville’s City Market. A 2012 report by Market Ventures Inc. showed how disproportionately well-off and educated visitors to the market are; indeed, a majority have graduate degrees. They come to make small purchases and to chat with others who share their cultural capital and sociopolitical backgrounds–not to do their weekly groceries. And while the City Market may appear informal because of its location (a parking lot), the municipal government is very much involved in its operation and planning. The Charlottesville City Council even has ambitions to integrate it into a “mixed use market district.” Such a district would provide market-goers with shelters, green space, and running water, while allowing the city to develop a valuable plot of public land and use the market’s economic power to benefit a number of permanent small businesses.*

A second thing that stands out about the Lyonnais marché is the absence of any businesses or kitchen gardeners. Charlottesville takes great pride in hosting the largest farmers’ market in the region, but farmers make up only a portion of the vendors. Shenandoah Joe’s, a local coffee enterprise with several cafés, and Great Harvest Bread Company, a national franchise, have both gotten permission to man stands. There are also a fair number of people who come to sell pies they’ve made in their kitchens or apples they canned in their backyard. In Lyon on the other hand, all the vendors seem to be full-time farmers and artisans. This means that their farms and crafts must furnish them with a substantial and regular profit– freeing them from the need to have second jobs or open cafés. Of course, the fact that Lyon is a city of one million people and can support daily markets plays a big role in this. Charlottesville’s population is certainly too small to do the same. But the solvency and independence of farmers and artisans here also hints at an agricultural economy and legal framework favorable to their existence.

Produce at the Charlottesville City Market

For me, there is no question that a small farm and market culture is beginning to gather strength in Charlottesville, and that it will continue to do so. But it will be under the wing of the local food movement. Charlottesvillians who shop at the City Market are making a conscious choice to support local farmers, act in an environmentally friendly way, and participate in a local cultural event. But in France, the local food infrastructure may never have disappeared, and so has no need to be revived. A Lyonnaise going to the market is not trying to help a farmer or make a political statement. She just wants to buy her cheese.

*See Charlottesville Tomorrow’s coverage: http://www.cvilletomorrow.org/news/article/16309-city-market-proposals/

Charlottesville City Market

Metro/polis/ation

A view of Vieux Lyon from Croix Rousse

A little less than three months since my arrival in Lyon, the city is beginning to feel like a familiar place. At first, my mental map of the city was largely made up of broad districts: the Rhône and Saône rivers cradling the Presqu’île in the center; the old city clustered on the western banks; the hip–or hipster–Croix-Rousse neighborhood spreading north; the glittery modern Confluence district to the south; and in the east, the universities, firms, and immigrant populations of the Guillotière. Now, my map has crystallized in terms of the streets I traverse and landmarks I see on a daily basis. The fabric of each individual neighborhood, its fountains, its street life, its textures, are coming into focus. And if I ever lose my way, I only need to glance at la Basilique perched above the city to find it again.

Lyon mental map

Charlottesville can of course also be characterized as an ensemble of neighborhoods, each with its own character. There’s Downtown, West Main, Belmont, the university grounds, Fry’s Spring, Rose Hill, and so on. But if I was asked to draw a map of those neighborhoods, I think I would be hard pressed to decide their boundaries. Their streets aren’t orthogonal, and the Rivanna River is a sort of gap or no-man’s-land that is much less useful for orientation. So even though Charlottesville is much smaller than Lyon, it’s harder to map. Perhaps this cartographic confusion is a symptom of how I experience my hometown (by car rather than on foot)…or maybe it really reflects a lack of legible urban form.

Charlottesville mental map

But the subject I really want to tackle in this post is not mental mapping. Instead, I want to talk about a concept that has been popping up quite a bit in my classes, something called “Metropolisation.” Besides testifying to the Gallic penchant for long nouns that end in -tion, this word seems to encapsulate a whole range of hopes and fears the French have for today’s urbanism. According to the eminent French planner François Ascher, metropolisation can be defined as “the progressive concentration of human riches, power, and resources in the largest urban agglomerations” (excuse my poor translation). The result of this trend is a full scale revolution in the country’s landscape, political structure, and society.

Basically, the story goes like this: The French national government is burdened with debt and less and less able to furnish its citizens with the quality of services and planning they require. To save money and improve management, it has decided to decentralize, ceding authority to the communes.  At the same time, the advent of factory farming and a decline in heavy industry have led to a huge rural exodus. Add in immigration, and the result is that 85% of the population now lives in an urban area.* The largest cities have begun to swallow the surrounding communes, whose populations often commute to the city to work. They form agglomerations with their own metropolitan governments. An excellent example is Grand Lyon, which includes Lyon and 57 surrounding communes. And these metropoles are becoming increasingly powerful and autonomous, taking part in international politics and the global economy independent of the national authority. The are also “seceding” from France on a cultural level by developing more liberal, cosmopolitan anti-cultures with their own music and film scenes.

Ascher says that globalization and “the deepening division of labor at the global level” are the primary drivers behind the rise of the metropole. Only large urban agglomerations are able to offer the diversified labor market, the number and quality of firms and infrastructures, and the international connections required by modern citizens. But another contributor is doubtless modern transportation and communication technology. The French can get from one city to another more quickly and with fewer stops than ever before. As a result, the smaller cities and towns that used to dot the routes between large cities are disappearing. And thanks to the car, the people who used to live in those towns can now find employment in the city while maintaining a low-density lifestyle in its far-flung suburbs. In addition, cities can now import the food and resources they need from much farther away; they no longer depend on the towns and farms in their immediate vicinity. All this leads to a new landscape of extremely populous but also low-density cities, with very few towns and small cities in between them.

Lyon advertises itself in English, the new lingua franca

One more important aspect of metropolisation is intense inter-city competition. Enterprises, investors, tourists, and highly qualified laborers are all more mobile than ever before. Because of modern transportation and communication, these actors and activities can choose to locate in almost any city they like. So metropoles compete to capture them. They develop publicity campaigns boasting unique attractions. They offer financial incentives to entrepreneurs and businesses, and host festivals and universities to attract the “creative classes”. They beautify themselves and build urban amenities in order to lure tourists. They also vie to become the seats of international bodies. In sum, they drive each other to radical change, each in search of its own image but at the same time becoming more like every other metropole in the world.

Phew…and all that is implicit in one word! So why aren’t American planners talking about metropolisation? In some ways, I think they are beginning to. There’s the idea, for instance, that environmental planning can’t happen at the truly local level–watersheds are regional, for instance, and thus can’t be managed by a single locality. At the same time, a lack of general consensus on climate change and environmental issues prevents national-level legislation. Thus, planners see a need for the metropolitan region to emerge as a political entity. But is it emerging? Maybe. Northern Virginia (or NOVA, to those who know it well), comes to mind. An agglomeration of independent, affluent cities like Alexandria, Fairfax, and Manassas, but also dormitory communities of Washington D.C., this region is taking steps to plan its future, notably in terms of transportation. The Northern Virginia Regional Commission, for instance, conducts intensive transportation planning “charettes” and works to protect the Chesapeake Bay.

Still, metropolisation is a new idea to me, and an intriguing one. What will the consequences be for our societies? How will representation and participation of the citizen change if the structure of our democracies shifts toward the metropole? How will our professional lives change? What about international politics? And will national identities really cede to urban, cosmopolitan ones? When metropolisation comes to America, what will happen to the nation of small towns and greyhound buses that Simon and Garfunkel sang about? If you have any of the answers, let me know.

* CIA World Factbook, 2010.

The old ice company in Charlottesville

Lyon gets a “green lung”

Entrance to the Parc Blandan

On September 13, Lyon kicked off its celebrations of the Journées Européennes du Patrimoine (European Heritage Days) by opening Parc Blandan, a 42-acre public park just east of the city center. Setting aside 42 acres for a park in Charlottesville might not be extraordinary; our Penn Park is at least 280 acres and McIntire Park is 150. But according to my back-of-the-envelope calculations, land is at least three times more valuable and open space is many times rarer here than it is in Charlottesville. So how did the city planners pull off such a feat?

A placard recounts the history of the Fort de La Motte

The answer lies in the park’s history. Way back in the 1400s, these 42 acres made up the moats and grounds of the Château de la Mothe. In 1832, the land was requisitioned for a star-shaped military fort called the Fort de La Motte in honor of a nobleman whose name was a coincidental homophone of that of the old château. Then, in 1884, a series of long soldiers’ barracks were built. The château and barracks still stand today–albeit in poor condition. The tall, sandy fort walls remain as well, enclosing the entire park as well as dividing it into two planes of different elevation. Because the old buildings were never razed, these 42 acres persisted in the middle of city as a neglected oasis. In 2007, Grand Lyon payed 15 million euros for them and began shaping them into a state-of-the-art public park.

Children walk alongside the skate park at the northern edge of Parc Blandan

The park is divided into three main sections, each with a dizzying variety of spaces and activities. The first is the Parc du Repos in the north, which includes a large plaza, a number of hard-scaped playgrounds, a skatepark, and walkways weaving among the barracks. The second is the Parc Panorama, which plays with a steep drop-off made by the fort walls to create terraces, an elevated pedestrian walkway, and shaded gardens. Finally, the Parc de la Découverte Écologique allows Mother Nature to “reclaim her rights” (as the park’s official brochure puts it), featuring wetlands and large fields. At the park’s opening ceremony on Friday, the park was filled with couples strolling leisurely along the paths, teenagers lounging in groups on the lawn, children playing raucously, merchants selling food from tents, and bands performing in the plaza.

Wildflowers grow amid recycled asphalt

As I strolled around myself, what impressed me even more than the scope of the park was the attention and craftsmanship devoted to every detail. Lights were carefully angled to dramatize the fort walls at night. Native flowers and papery birches grew amid recycled asphalt and eco-friendly mulch. Wooden benches had multiple surfaces to comfortably accommodate large groups. Low retaining walls were built out of small local stones stacked in wire crates. The plaza and several of the paths were made of permeable paving. Only one field requires irrigation of any kind.

Talking to Lyonnais about the park, I was often amazed by the mildness of their reactions. The fact that their metropolitan government had invested so much to change the landscape of their city was something most saw as laudable, but also their due as Lyonnais and taxpayers. Although I don’t want to speak for all Charlottesvillians, I have a hunch that a park like this one in our city would be greeted with much surprise and self-congratulation (“look how environmentally friendly we are!”). Here, it is treated nearly as a matter of course that the city should change in this way, and no one talks about the benefits to the environment. They are simply ingrained in the design, remarkable only to an enthused urban planning student from a small city in Northern America…

Leaving the park

Vélo’v: a love story

A vélo’v station–one of more than 350 in Lyon

A little more than a week ago, I made my first contact with the city of Lyon, hopping on an express tram that shuttles between the airport and central train station. That contact was a decidedly positive one, since even through a sleep-deprived haze, I could see that the tram was fast, clean, and well-used. At the time, though, I could not have guessed how thoroughly those three adjectives–fast, clean, well-used–apply to whole of mass transportation in Lyon.

The system is a hierarchical one. On a regional level, Lyon is hooked up to a high-speed train system that sprawls over all of France and much of Europe. Within the city, the metro allows people to cover distance quickly. Above ground, there’s the light-rail system, which is modern and fast. The bus system forms a finer grid, serving smaller roads and less accessible quarters. And finally, there’s my personal favorite–the city’s incredible bicycle infrastructure.

Vélo’v is a bike share program operated by the Communauté urbaine de Lyon (“Grand Lyon”), which is the metropolitan body responsible for most of the urban planning in the city and 57 surrounding “communes.” The program began in 2005, and there are now more than 350 stations , each with 10 to 30 bicycles. In exchange for an annual fee of 15 euros, Vélo’v lets me borrow a chunky red bike with a wire basket and three gears.  I can ride a half hour for free, while additional time incurs an hourly fee. When I’m done, I can dock the machine at any station I like.

Every day in Lyon, I see more people biking than I might see in Charlottesville in the course of a year. And these city cyclists aren’t perched, helmeted and nylon-clothed, atop streamlined machines the way they are in my hometown. Instead, the Lyonnais prefer workhorse bikes, and none more so than the clunky but comfortable Vélo’v bikes. My host mother cycles to her job as a kindergarten teacher everyday, and she owns a bike for that purpose. But half the time, she tells me, it’s simply more convenient for her to use Vélo’v.

Charlottesville piloted a bike share program when I was growing up. Sustainability-minded citizens donated bicycles, painted them white, and stationed them at yellow racks dotting the Downtown Mall and university. Today, the only remaining trace of the program is a dwindling collection of yellow racks, since the bikes were quickly stolen and the effort was abandoned. GPS technology and automatic credit card charges have allowed Vélo’v to avoid the fate of White Bikes. But I think there are also far deeper reasons for the success of a bike culture in one city and its failure in another.

First, Lyon has an enormous and growing system of bike lanes. Most of the roads in the inner city are one-way only for cars, which allows even the narrowest streets accommodate bicyclists traveling in both directions.

A “bike road” in Lyon

Some bike lanes are what I’d call “bicycle roads,” featuring two lanes of bike traffic separated from the rest of the road by a median (see left). Special lanes set aside for buses are also always open to bike traffic.

Along the Rhône river, a linear park includes a wide path that has become a popular bicycle corridor for obvious reasons. It lets cyclists travel quickly and safely along a north-south axis through the densest parts of the city, all the time giving them a beautiful view of the water. Needless to say, the path is lined with Vélo’v stations.

Charlottesville, with the exception of university grounds, has few bike lanes. One that I know very well suffers from safety issues, since it runs along West Main Street between heavy vehicle traffic and a strip of on-street parking. The doors of parked cars open into the bike lane, resulting in many an unfortunate collision. Mostly, Charlottesville relies on “share the road” signs where it makes any provisions for bicyclists at all. As a result, bicycling is closer to a risky, high-intensity sport than a means of getting from A to B. Few people ride workhorse bicycles in Charlottesville for the terribly simple reason that it is impractical to use a bicycle as a workhorse in Charlottesville.

But besides infrastructure, there’s also the matter of values and perspective. In one place, government and citizens recognize cycling as a viable form of transportation that deserves to be prioritized. In another, biking falls in the domain of recreation and is not acknowledged as a serious alternative to the car, even in an urban environment. Until that paradigm shifts in Charlottesville, White Bikes will fail…GPS or no.

I’m sure public transportation will play a starring role in future blog entries, so expect future efforts to move beyond a simple comparison of Lyon and Charlottesville and delve more into the “whys” and “hows.” But for now, I am making it my mission to observe, experience, and record. To that end, I will be among the mass of Lyonnais climbing on their cheery red workhorses to head to school and work along the city’s bike lanes, roads, and corridors tomorrow morning!

Au revoir, Charlottesville!

The Downtown Mall, Charlottesville

Tomorrow, I leave Charlottesville–the Virginia town of 43,000 that I’ve lived in since I was born–for Lyon, a city of 480,000 people and the second largest in France.

As a victim of chronic francophilia, I’ve long dreamed of living in the country of Voltaire and Camus. This semester, my chance has finally come. For 4 months, I’ll take classes at the Université Lumière Lyon-II and live with a host family on the banks of the Saône. Lately, though, I’ve developed another malady: urbanophilia. I’m fascinated by cities. How do they work (transporting, housing, and employing their dwellers)? How do they evolve such unique personalities? How do we experience them? And how are we shaped by them?

I spent the summer working for Charlottesville Tomorrow, a local news nonprofit that covers design and land use issues in my hometown. I want to deliberately use my new knowledge of Charlottesville, as well as my experiences growing up and living here, to think about Lyon. In this blog, I hope to reflect on three questions: 1) In what ways is this much older, much larger city similar to and different from my own? 2) How do the two cities plan for the future? 3) And finally, what can Charlottesville learn from Lyon–or visa versa?

P.S. Please forgive me, Mr. Dickens, for borrowing the title of my favorite of your books for my humble blog…