Crossing Campo Street from downtown Las Cruces into the Mesquite Historic District is like crossing between two urban worlds that are often misunderstood.
To the west is one of the country’s textbook examples of everything that could go wrong with federally subsidized Urban Renewal, including the obligatory seas of parking, corporate CBD architecture, vacant properties, and a one-way loop that locals derisively refer to as “the race track.” The stunning aerial view from 1974 shows the city after its failed open-heart surgery. Even today, after a heroic struggle to dismantle the virtually abandoned pedestrian mall and reinstitute automobile-access on Main Street, the pain of this flattening experience lingers on. The place is deserted on a beautiful September evening.
Downtown Las Cruces in 1974, after the leveling of “urban renewal.”
In Klein Park, families are gathered under a tree at the very corner where the first settlers cast lots for the newly surveyed properties. Kids are zipping by on scooters, and men are working on their cars. It’s not much of a tourist attraction, but it’s a real place with thriving families, some economic struggles, some hip renovated historic properties, barking dogs, and corner stores. The homes are economical, close to the street, and most show evidence of care and pride. It’s a place that works and is loved by those that live there.
It wasn’t always this way. The virtual destruction of the city center proved a hard blow to Mesquite, which struggled with neglect and gang violence in the aftermath of Urban Renewal. A 2006 ceramic tile mural stands in Jardin de Mesquite as a vivid reminder of this. The work was commissioned by Las Esperanzas, a civic organization founded by a group of concerned women who returned to care for their aging parents in the 1980s, but then found themselves in a critical leadership role to help reduce crime and uplift community pride. After years of hard work and collaboration, Mesquite is back on its feet, thriving within the same resilient blocks and buildings built generations ago. And almost all of them would be against the rules under typical contemporary planning and zoning regulations.
The demolition of the city center is understood as an epic mistake by almost everyone here, but have we learned the important lessons from the tragedies of Urban Renewal? Some time ago I was having dinner with a local planner who lamented the loss of downtown Las Cruces through Urban Renewal but then immediately suggested that the demolished properties were in serious disrepair and that despite the relatively active merchant scene in the 1960s “probably needed to be torn down.” It was like I was re-witnessing the introductory scene in The Death and Life of Great American Cities, in which Jane Jacobs’ city planner acquaintance acknowledges that life in Boston’s North End is generally functional and healthy while in the same breath condemning it as a slum that deserves to be razed. Fifty years later, planners still seem to miss how the physical environment helps to support social, cultural, and economic resilience.
The contemporary architecture profession certainly hasn’t helped much either. Dazzled by the newest and boldest, architects frequently find themselves unable to understand the significance of the simple, time-honored forms of common buildings. Instead, buildings too often become an exercise in expressive acrobatics or cartoon imitations. New Mexico is littered with new buildings inspired by local traditions while missing the essentials: a good frontage, with openings, walls, shelter, service and parking just in the right place for both residents and the pedestrian passer-by. Mesquite is full of these essentials: simple forms that promote economy and flexibility; proportions that enable natural cooling and ventilation; arrangements that enable efficient land use and incremental generational growth; elements that cultivate public and private outdoor life; dispositions that enable discreet parking and storage; details and colors that promote joy and identity.
Glancing at the 1967 bird’s eye view, taken just before Urban Renewal, I can only imagine the equally supportive and resilient environment that must have existed in downtown Las Cruces. Of course it wasn’t perfect and was showing its age, as does Mesquite. But it supported approximately 160 businesses on Main Street. Within three years of the pedestrian mall’s completion, that number dropped to 90. In 2005 there were fewer than 10. This kind of history should inspire respect. In city planning, this means respect for private properties, and the law of unintended consequences. It means respect for time-honored forms that have proven to be economical, resilient and capable of renewed purpose. It means respect for communities and the local particulars that enable them to thrive in the long term.
Fortunately, Las Esperanzas and the Mesquite neighborhood have led the way. In partnership with the city’s planning department, the neighborhood pushed for its own neighborhood plan, zoning overlay district and code. It’s a clear, context-sensitive, and character-based zoning that encourages all of the essentials for Mesquite: mixed-use, higher densities, and excellent private building frontages. While this neighborhood must function within the larger city bureaucracy, Mesquite has re-written the rules to fit its context. Even downtown Las Cruces is determined to rebuild through a participatory process and intends to repair its fabric for the 21st century with a new supporting code and plaza.
Your neighborhood’s local essentials may be different than in Mesquite, but perhaps it’s time to consider whether your local planning tools are supporting a thriving and resilient future.
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Cities should be built by those who live in them from the bottom up. Today’s car-centric mentality and dominant construction modes defeat this essential law. When the construction of smart surfaces (modular elements of building) becomes the big industry of the future and we have fought the corporations so that they are willing to move beyond the errors of modernity we will have cities dense enough to have vital economies and diverse enough to deserve the name city. They will be walkable. They will be eco-sufficient. And they will be locally dreamed up according to the actual needs and desires of those who will live there.
Expecting that 1850’s era small and poorly built structures must be considered sacred is a bit absurd. The problem with Las Cruces urban renewal in the 60’s was that there was not a commitment or even a need to rebuild, but you do not provide photos of what was demolished to indicate if in fact it was preferable to demo a decrepit area rather than to leave it standing to be a crime center and ultimately to collapse by gravity. You simply dismiss the following local expert opinion: the demolished properties were in serious disrepair and that despite the relatively active merchant scene in the 1960s “probably needed to be torn down.” Where do you expect the money to have come from for a total retrofit of crumbling buildings…and why should such an investment be made? The money is not even there today 50 years later for downtown rebuilding. I have watched the planning efforts in the redevelopment area fail because they are simply wishes. Can you ever agree with demolition of 150 year old buildings which were built with mud and sticks? Also, at minimum you should have provided the local demographics of quite severe poverty and very low median incomes rather than a mere reference to “some economic struggles”. This is a Wal-Mart town not a Georgetown. Wishing and lamenting does not accomplish anything and ignoring the economic realities in your article is shameful. You can go to a lot of very old remote western towns and lament how they have slipped into decay and that doesn’t mean there is the economic vitality to try to make them what they once were. This was once the capital city for the combination of Arizona and New Mexico well before they became states and when Billy the Kid roamed the area and some nearby silver mines were prospering, but there is no such viability remaining…now Las cruces is a minor retirement destination and a poor farming area. It is on the Rio Grande river and the old North/South Spanish trade route but the river only flows a few days of the year now and the only trade route is Rt 10 running East/West with the trucks rushing past this little city of no consequence. You just can’t carpetbag into a small town basically in the middle of nowhere and lament how it is not vital. I have seen well intentioned “wishers” open and then close art galleries and small shops across the town. The demographics dictate the possibilities but you ignore demographics.
I spent 15 years living in Las Cruces, five of those working as a planner for the city. My last 2 years there I was in charge of the Downtown Revitalization project. I think this article captures the essence of Mesquite very well, especially how the changes in downtown in the 70’s negatively impacted the neighborhood. Urban Renewal was a nasty word and there were plenty from that generation that had terrible memories of that time. The neighborhood to the west, Alameda, was also impacted negatively by those changes, although the make-up of that neighborhood was definitely less “working class”. You did mention that the City is trying to restore Downtown, and I am proud that they have continued to work hard at fixing portions of the built environment that never should have been altered to begin with. Now, if the City Council would just get around to changing the traffic on the racetrack to two-way, we could get back to a pace that makes sense for the heart of LC.
As for the local planner you met up with, he/she clearly is not from the area, as they fail to understand the culture and mentality that weaves its way into the built environment there. Whether those buildings in the 60’s were old or not, is really not the issue. New Mexicans are fiercely loyal to their history. Old is not seen as past its prime. It is revered, especially in the older neighborhoods. You want new? Head up the mesa and you’ll find plenty of McMansions with faux adobe exteriors and the Wal-Marts. That type of development has its place, and Las Cruces is no stranger to it, but Mesquite, Alameda and Downtown, in all their age and perceived disrepair are the real heart of the City. Urban Renewal was a travesty, and 40 years later the City and its citizens are still trying to fix the damage it did.
Andrew – great article. Spot on. The best Form-Based Codes and Overlay projects I’ve seen are based on great analysis of the historic pattern / condition and coding to that. And of course by historic, I mean pre WWII when we all shared an innate, correct understanding of making place. David.