Two ancient French cities. The first, founded by Cadillac in 1701; the second, founded by Bienville nearly seventeen years later. Both predate the republic by several generations. Detroit and New Orleans have followed vastly divergent paths in the three centuries since their founding, but there are some interesting parallels between the two.

The St. Charles Streetcar is back in service.

Both cities are a little ragged by time, studded with faded remnants of a more prosperous era. Both cities face struggles for new employment generators. Both have suffered cataclysmic devastation of urban fabric, and a precipitous population loss. Both have fabulous renovated buildings casually intermixed with brooding ruins. And both Detroit and New Orleans have some of the most creative and passionate residents in America; determined to maintain an urban lifestyle unique to themselves.

Magazine Street shops

I’m presenting an album of New Orleans photos today, as a way to catch up with my readers and as a mea culpa for my long absence. I was married last month, and that combined with our honeymoon in the Crescent City somehow pulled me away from my blogging duties. You understand.

We were in town for the freak snowstorm.

So what’s going on in New Orleans these days? A lot; in fact the oldest historic neighborhoods have largely recovered from the aftermath of Katrina. I learned that this is because, before the flood “protection” installed in the early twentieth century, residential construction occurred only on natural levees and ridges. In the deltaic floodplain of the lower Mississippi, the highest ground is actually closest to the river. Here’s where we find the French Quarter, Faubourg Marigny, and Esplanade Avenue; and the Warehouse District, Lower Magazine Street, and the Garden District.

Which isn’t to say that the city doesn’t have a lot of work to do. New Orleans’ biggest employer, the tourism industry, was heavily damaged by the bad publicity after the hurricane. We were received like royalty at every shop or cafe we visited (not that this is all that different than my recollection of pre-storm hospitality!).

Restoration work on Esplanade mansion.

We found this month to be a good moment for a relaxing New Orleans getaway, before the intensity of Mardi Gras takes over much of the city in February. New Orleans is currently hosting a terrific contemporary arts exhibition titled Prospect.1, which has been running since November and will wind down on Sunday, January 18th. Featured in the New York Times, this exhibition is housed in high profile settings like the Contemporary Arts Center, as well as abandoned structures and fields in the Lower Ninth Ward.

Contemporary Arts Center, Interior view.

The ‘orange house’, part of the Prospect.1 city-wide exhibition.

Site of levee break, and a stop on the Prospect.1 exhibition. Lower Ninth Ward.

The organizers have prepared an outstanding wayfinding map, and there is a reliable shuttle service connecting all the Prospect.1 venues.

The Lower Ninth Ward, or is it a west-side Detroit street view?

I also made time for a visit to the Preservation Resource Center on Tchoupitoulas Street.

Preservation Resource Center.

The PRC is a strong voice for presentation and sustainable urban living in New Orleans, and has been a critical player in the many post-hurricane debates concerning damaged historic buildings.

A tattered blue roof tarp, a symbol of post-Katrina New Orleans, survives on this shotgun.

With more than a dozen staff members, a permanent exhibition and shop space, and a thick monthly magazine, they are a first-class, professional preservation organization. Since I’m sure all of my readers are already members of Preservation Wayne, I would encourage you to support PRC as well.

A spray-painted Katrina marker left as a remembrance on this restored mansion.

There is no reason Detroit can’t take inspiration from what’s going on in New Orleans; the rebounding neighborhoods, the entrepreneurs populating historic storefronts, the resurgent music scene, and a civic obsession with art, preservation, and culture. Forget Atlanta and its vapid glassy skyline; this haunting, idiosyncratic city is Detroit’s true southern soul mate.

An antebellum mansion succumbing to nature and neglect.

I’m hopeful that the next several years will see a slow improvement in the fortunes of these two soulful American cities, which share more problems, and more potential, than most other towns in America.

In a recent Detroit Free Press article we read happily about progress in funding for transit in Detroit. Limiting car trips within the city improves the quality of life for all of us, and reduces the need for endless road construction and additional parking garages. Take a look at the website for Transportation Riders United for the unlimited potential given better transit in metro Detroit.

Guardian building: reachable by bus

I’m cautiously optimistic about future transit development in Detroit. The Detroit Department of Transportation (DDOT) seems to have shaken off the doldrums of recent years and seems to be entering the 21st century. Only this month they have launched a pilot program for bicycles on buses [PDF]. This has been available for years in Los Angeles and is a terrific way to expand the use and reach of a transit trip. It also helps remind us that bicycles are not just for recreation, but are also full-fledged transportation devices with zero carbon footprint. Give DDOT a call to express your support for this progressive inter-modal initiative.

Additionally (and this is the design geek inside me editorializing), I find the current DDOT pocket maps (e.g. Jefferson route [PDF]) to be graphically engaging and nicely done. This is not unimportant; a strong graphic vocabulary helps build an organizational culture of professionalism and pride, and (most importantly) attracts new riders. You can find and download the map for your route here. Incidentally, the iconic “green and yellow” colors date back to the founding of DDOT as a municipal entity back in the Roaring Twenties.

Neighborhood organizations and church groups (or even enthusiastic individuals) have another way to help transit in Detroit. DDOT’s “Adopt-a-Shelter” program [PDF], modeled after those in other cities, allows groups to commit to the maintenance of a nearby shelter. For anyone familiar with the discussions concerning Broken Windows theory (and everyone reading this blog should be!), the care and maintenance of your local bus shelters should be a top priority. Planting a few flowers or scrubbing off some graffiti is only a few hours work on a Saturday morning.

I would love to hear about some DDOT bus experiences from my readers…good or bad, just add your comment below (and your suggestions for improvement). Detroit buses have had a mixed reputation in recent years, and I’d like to think that things have gotten better for riders and drivers. Safe, reliable, and convenient transit is a lodestone of a pedestrian-oriented culture and preserves walkable neighborhoods. It also reduces pressure for traffic-generated changes to historic landscapes (bad things like street widenings, paving over vegetation, and planning parking lots where historic buildings still stand…)

Next time you have a chance, take the bus, and park the car for the day. The Woodward or Jefferson routes are good for newbies. If you’re coming down from the ‘burbs, try SMART. The city thanks you.

Today I’d like to highlight this NYT piece about urban infrastructure funding. In it, the financial role of Yale University in keeping up parts of New Haven is discussed.

On Sunday, the Free Press reported that street names in Pleasant Ridge are being considered for sale, which is not an altogether unrelated issue.

Central Park, NYC.

And in New York, there continues to be concern about the riches showered on Central Park while other public recreation areas in the city are neglected.

Boston has tried this, and a New York preservationist supports the idea. Of course there is more than a hint of political theory wound up in this private/public funding debate; but to my eyes advocates of private funding for public infrastructure are neglecting the long term implications of this trend. Specifically, private donors are able to ’support’ infrastructure of their own choosing, while bureaucracies (love ‘em or hate ‘em) at least have to pay lip service to the idea that tax revenue is being distributed equitably among different needs: needs that have presumably been analyzed and studied by professionals like yours truly. It is hard to imagine donors fighting for the naming rights of subway stations in struggling East New York, or corporations underwriting the renovation of obscure playgrounds in south Los Angeles. Are they just left behind in this new financing calculus?

Cortelyou Road subway station, Brooklyn.

There’s a lot to think about here, but I’ll be touching on many of these issues in the months ahead. As a thought for today, and as a launching point for bringing this discussion into our Detroit-centric world, it is sobering to consider the prospects for desperately-needed infrastructure funding in cities largely devoid of magnificently rich institutions and peopled by residents not in certain target-marketing demographics.

Know of any?