Creating Tomorrow - Design with the Desert: Conservation and Sustainable Development - page 479

to extend ones caring and commitment beyond the boundaries of any one project. For all
of human history, the metrics of population growth, consumption of natural resources, the
rate of species extinction, and climate change have all been gradual, until now. 16
These and other critical changes to the underlying dynamics that affect us all are destined
to produce future environments very different from what is so familiar today. The coming
changes in how we relate to each other and to the earthly home we all share are inherent
in multiple trajectories already in play. While the degree of change to be experienced is not
a choice, the character and quality of what such changes represent offer unprecedented
opportunities for sustainable success. Both the opportunity and threat were long ago
characterized by Buckminster Fuller as “Utopia or Oblivion.” 17
Having started with seven questions and worked our way through the prior six
challenges, what remains is to put it all together into a positive prophesy for human life
on earth. The seventh and final challenge is not only to preserve the natural environment
but also to create heroic structures and settlements that respect and enhance their
surroundings. An essential ingredient will be the creation of artful places that exert an
emotional, gravitational pull upon the soul. Such creative contributions of humanity
will become critical components of nature itself. We will understand our well being as
something inseparable from the health of the natural systems that surround and sustain
us and we will need new tools to get us there.
Many southwestern municipalities continue to struggle with Euclidean zoning and other
mechanisms that are beginning to be seen as outdated and detrimental to the pursuit of
smart development and green design. Others are taking steps forward to revamp their
approach (see Chapter 13). A case in point is the City of Mesa and its Gateway Center,
which is destined to become a new urban hub. The key to this vision is based on a public/
private partnership between the City of Mesa and DMB, one of the southwest's leading
community developers.
In 2006, DMB purchased the 3200 ac General Motors Proving Grounds with the goal of
developing a new kind of urban desert environment. Swaback Partners is working closely
with the Developer and City on both the physical planning and new tools for guiding the
development. An analysis of existing zoning standards resulted in all parties agreeing
that many of the City's past tools were not appropriate for the creation of twenty-first
century desert urbanism. Mesa's zoning standards, like those enacted by many cities
following World War II, had focused on separating land uses, emphasizing vehicular
circulation, and inadvertently, embracing sprawl. For the Mesa Gateway Center, the new
zoning, approved by the City Council at the end of 2008, is a hybrid system of codes and
ordinances that include components of traditional zoning, performance-based zoning,
and form-based code. Elements of the form-based code look to guide a seamless palette of
(1) Open Space, (2) Civic Space, (3) Neighborhoods, (4) Villages, (5) Districts, (6) Regional
Campus, (7) General Urban Center, and (8) An Urban Core.
Among our most significant twenty-first century goals, must be the creation of
communities that become our greatest works of art, for which most structures will be
experienced as background texture. Just as most trees in a landscape, or brush strokes in
a painting, or notes in a symphony do not call undo attention to themselves, so it must be
with the structures of a well-considered community. But background texture is only part
of the story. Think of the timeless beauty of symbolic places that continue to inspire the
imagination. King Ludwig II's Neuschwanstein Castle and the hillside villages of Italy
and France all occupy sensitive settings in which they add something special. Closer to
home, Taliesin West, and the ruins of Mesa Verde, Keet Seel, and Batatakin are enduring
attractions. Their presence becomes part of the mystery and magic of nature itself.