Sir Peter Hall (1932-2014), Urbanist Extraordinaire

This month should not close with Sir Peter Hall’s passing having gone unnoted.

Hall died July 30 in London at 82.  He was perhaps the greatest urban planner of his time, a prolific writer of 50 books and more than 2000 articles, the author of the 1998 historical masterwork “Cities in Civilization”, and a bold proponent of new thinking about urban development whose ideas often came into their own long after he put them forward.

Sir Peter Hall

Hall was a man of the left, was often criticized as a Utopian, but never lost sight of the practicalities of economic growth and opportunity, dynamic social mobility, and hard trade-offs of building urban environments.

He made common cause with Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan in promoting the idea of the enterprise zone — beloved of politicians of both right and left — to revitalize targeted centers of urban decay with incentives and tax breaks.  Jack Kemp’s singular brand of conservatism owes Hall an enormous debt.

Urban planning fell into disrepute in the 1960s and 70s largely in reaction to the massive works of development after World War II that tore up neighborhoods and imposed Corbusian sterility on a dehumanizing scale.  Hall, while coming out of that tradition and unafraid to think big, nevertheless kept a feel for the street-level excitement of city life that has been instrumental to the urban revival of the past quarter-century.

Hall vigorously advocated for ambitious rail-transit projects; London’s new 60 mile Crossrail line, Europe’s largest public works project, is largely his brainchild.  He strongly believed in cycling as an essential ingredient of the urban transport mix.

Thanks, Sir Peter, for making it easier to get across London

Significantly, Hall valued not just the vibrant city center, but also the periphery; understanding that the city is the heart, but just that part, of its greater region.  He called for the development of “garden cities,” not suburbs, but small urban centers often developed around transit links.  Here in the northeastern US, where many small cities are mired in post-industrial decline and impoverishment, Hall’s vision suggests enticing possibilities of regeneration.

As the NIMBY-ism of the late 20th Century gave way to more of a “let’s get building again” sensibility, the role of the planner in guiding development has regained some of its former legitimacy.  Build, certainly; but, in a time when the costs and consequences of unbridled growth are increasingly cause for alarm, there is new appreciation of the need to build smart.

Peter Hall thought society should build more, but he thought it would turn out much better if it were well planned.
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Note: This entry of Lancaster Notebook is reprinted from the public affairs blog AutoKthonous.

Our Temple of Democracy and Its Uncertain Future

For the Lancaster Public Library, the good news and the bad news have stacked up so close to one another it's almost a metaphor for urban living.  Faced with cuts in funding support earlier this year, the Library ditched $90,000 worth of database subscriptions that were among the most heavily used and useful for small business owners, entrepreneurs and start-ups.

At the same time the library management is cooking up big plans -- as in $8.5 million big -- for a major facility renovation and expansion.  A full-ahead capital campaign is being readied for launch and almost $3 million in pledges have already been secured, according to the Intel-New Era.

It's a great thing to think big, but the library's Janus-faced financial picture mirrors a larger existential debate currently being played out among library professionals in the board rooms and offices they occupy overlooking those hushed reading rooms. 

The question before the house runs something like this: in a resource-constrained time, should the public library hunker down and provide the basic services -- collections, lending, reference, reading and writing space -- that have served its patrons so well for generations; or, in an age of information abundance, should the library reinvent itself to become the public doorway to new tools and forms of collecting, portraying, analyzing and communicating the epochal expansion of knowledge and data?

The point and counterpoint have been playing out this month on the (digital) pages of the fine on-line publication, Next City.

As explained in an in-depth piece by Amanda Erikson of The Washington Post, proponents of tomorrow’s technology-driven library see the traditional library user aging out, while a new generation of patrons is appearing already tech savvy and conversant with digital modes of absorbing, manipulating and presenting information.

Erikson lays out the problem: “Only 48 percent of all Americans over 16 years old stepped foot into a library in 2013, down from 53 percent in 2012. Twenty-four percent of Americans didn’t read a single book in 2013. There are a lot of reasons for that decline — people are busier now, with television and movies and the Internet all vying for time and attention. In a digital age, when most people can download most books without even leaving the couch, what can libraries offer their patrons? A place to work? Computers? DVDs? Job training? In other words: What makes a library a library, anyway?”

One place she found her answer was North Carolina State University, which has looked to create the library of the future, after hearing from students that what they needed were “spaces to work together and opportunities to visualize data on some kind of grand scale.”  So rather than reading a book about a historic event, say D-Day, they’d be supplied advanced tools to actually build a digital model of the assault on Omaha Beach.

Another feature of tomorrow’s library is decentralization. In the suburbs around San Antonio, the Bexar County library system is installing connected terminals in all sorts of unexpected places: jury rooms, bus stations and hospitals, among them.

It’s a compelling vision, yet no more than two days passed after publication of Erikson’s article that Next City ran a ringing dissent by Adam Feldman, a music librarian at the Free Library of Philadelphia. “Books on a shelf arranged by the Dewey Decimal System are an essential and invaluable architecture of human discovery and understanding,” wrote Feldman.

Decrying what he believes to be the false promise of “digital evalgelism”, Feldman adds: “The digital-only library is far from a utopian information commons. Rather, that utopian commons is the traditional, well-resourced, urban library with several generations worth of collection expertise.”

Diametrically opposed though they may be, both camps recognize and embrace the core social justice role of the public library to provide universal opportunity to learn -- regardless of economic or social status -- and to do so at little or no cost to the user.  

They are striving to ensure the library remains, writes Erikson, “as Andrew Carnegie imagined: a place where the poor can go to better themselves, to find a job and to access the resources so easily accessible to the rich."


As Lancaster’s library mulls its future, the essential mission remains as it's always been, even if the methods are expanding at Big-Bang speed.

Chatting with Bill Puffer

There's not much that Bill Puffer, the co-founder of Puffer Morris, hasn't seen in his thirty-plus years of real estate experience here in Lancaster.  We caught up with Bill recently and had a lively and informative exchange that really put into perspective some of the big changes that have reshaped our community during the past three decades. 
Lancaster Notebook: What was your background before going into real estate?

Bill Puffer: I have been involved in sales and marketing for over 50 years and I came to Lancaster with the Hamilton Watch Co.  Among other experience there, I was the District Manager for the South Eastern US. and National Director of Sales for the Vantage watches, a Hamilton product line.

Puffer Morris founder Bill Puffer

LN: When did you launch Puffer Morris, and what motivated you to go into the business here?

Bill: My partner, Nancy Morris and I established Puffer Morris Real Estate in 1982. We both had a strong interest in Lancaster City and believed that there was great future potential here. For many years, we advertised ourselves as urban realtors who specialized in Lancaster City. This was unique in the local real estate community since most offices offer services in the general  market.

LN: What are the primary changes that have taken place in the city during the time Puffer Morris has been in business?

Bill: The City of Lancaster has gained wide recognition as one of the finest urban residential locations in the Eastern U.S.A. This has been like a snowball that continues to grow and today several surveys have listed Lancaster among the top choices in the country.

LN:  So how have these changes affected the real estate market during this time?

Bill: Real estate values have continued to increase and will do so in the future because home prices here are only a fraction of those for homes in adjacent markets from Washington DC to New York.

LN: And have the changes in the real estate market changed the way real estate professionals go about doing their job?  What has remained the same?

Bill:  When I got in to the business, we operated with a card system that was unmanageable. Changes were updated twice a week and the pile grew rapidly. For information, we would call the listing office. Comments regarding the system were mostly profane and in the first office that I was in, the broker stacked the cards in a corner.  When the pile fell over the cards were thrown out. Today, we operate with a state of the art MLS system that gives us and the customer instant access to thousands of listings and information, present and past.

LN: In the near term, what are a few of the biggest factors that will shape the future of the real estate market in Lancaster?

Bill: Maintaining the stable government that we have now is critical. The city has a dynamic menu of special events that is also growing. The list is too long to cover here, but the lifestyle in Lancaster is robust. People who come in from other areas are surprised to find the wide range of activities. Lancaster is also a city of neighborhoods where residents get to know each other and interact socially. Groups often get together and visit the many fine restaurants, taverns and cultural events downtown.

LN: Do you have any off-the-beaten-track places in Lancaster you love to visit or take visitors to? 

Bill: I often take clients on a tour of the Lancaster that I know. We go through neighborhoods, side streets and alleys where there are remarkable homes hidden behind facades that normally would not be noticed. These run the gamut from beautiful restorations, to dramatic contemporaries, to converted warehouses and commercial buildings. Many of them could be featured in a magazine. One of the pleasures of this business is that we have been fortunate over the years to have sold many of them several times.

LN: What trends in your business do you see growing in the years ahead?

Bill: Each year, our clientele from other areas of the country continues to grow as more people become aware of the benefits of life in the City of Lancaster. They become our best ambassadors,  and  at this time, I can think of several who are now moving in, or planning to, because of friends who are here now.

LN: This year, Puffer Morris's ownership changed hands.  What does the future hold for your firm?

Bill: Last January 1, our business was sold to Ric and Mary Tribble and Scott Haverstick, three of our former agents. They are continuing our long term interest and commitment to Lancaster City while also using their considerable knowledge and expertise as they expand in to select suburban areas.

Flow gently, sweet Brandywine

Few places are as suffused in the past as the Brandywine Valley of southeast Chester and Delaware counties and northern Delaware.  It's not only due to the great Revolutionary battlefield, or the magnificent estates -- now publicly accessible -- built by several generations of DuPonts.  The pastoral quality of the landscape alone can transport a visitor back into a simpler and more tranquil time.

Brandywine Creek

The heart of this storybook area is in Chadds Ford at the Brandywine Museum, where, in a restored and converted gristmill on the bank of the Brandywine Creek, is housed a delightful and stimulating collection devoted to the many artists who have lived and been inspired by the Brandywine's beauty -- first and foremost among them, three generations of Wyeths. 

The museum

Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009) is of course renowned as one of the last century's great realists.  His galleries are rich in pieces that evoke the routines and customs of rural life.  Their simplicity is counterpointed by an understated tension expressed in the faces and bodies of his subjects (most of them neighbors and intimates) of yearning, sorrow and joy. The effect is a matter-of-fact honesty that has captivated viewers and often befuddled fellow artists and critics.  Snow Hill, Andrew's meditation on death (his own) is a masterwork -- at once sardonic and mysterious.

Andrew Wyeth's enigmatic 'Snow Hill'

George Weymouth's 'The Way Back'

The art of Andrew's son James (born 1946), more pictorial and less melancholy than the father's, but equally absorbed with the the region's life and land, is abundantly on view, as are works of many painters of an earlier time who were equally taken with this countryside.  "The Way Back," a self-portrait by George Weymouth (born 1936) showing only his hands on the reins of a horse-drawn carriage as it approaches his Chadd's Ford river house, is a conscious homage to that tradition.

However, for some visitors, particularly those with a leaning toward fantasy and adventure, the highlight is the NC Wyeth gallery.  Andrew's father and James's grandfather, Newell Convers Wyeth (1882-1945) was one of the great book illustrators of his time, bringing to life in the mind's eye of young readers knights and buccaneers, explorers and fortune-hunters of all sorts.

'Treasure Island' cover

Entrance to the gallery is marked by the stealthy approach of a gang of pirates set on ambush, rendered against a lurid, solid yellow sky.  The painting was commissioned for the cover of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, and on the walls within are found vivid scenes of Jim Hawkins and Long John Silver, a brooding Roger Bacon, the medieval philosopher, and the Salem witches.  A favorite is the American traitor Benedict Arnold with his beautiful wife Peggy Shippen at his side, miserably exiled to London in a losing cause, the object of passerbys' curiosity and more than a little contempt.  For any youngster with a taste for action and adventure, this art is a visual and imaginary feast.

Peggy Shippen, wishing she were back home in Pennsylvania

Get up and go:

The Brandywine Museum is located on Route 1 northbound in Chadd's Ford.  From Lancaster, take Route 896 south out of Strasburg and enjoy one of Pennsylvania's finest scenic byways.  Try The Bullfrog Inn in Georgetown for lunch, or take a quick detour at Lincoln University and load up on some fresh mushrooms at Sher-Rockee Mushroom Farms.  The museum is one of many attractions in the Brandywine Valley, so it's easy to make a day of it.