Editorial Note: English is not the first language of the writer of this post, BK. Please forgive the minor errors (and OC Reader Forums inside jokes) and take in the ideas presented by this talented and experienced architectural historian and housing market researcher.

First of all City of Irvine has created several urban sectors with tremendous failure in the marketplace. Central Park West and the Korean Towers are both projects that missed the demographic. Creating more towers just won’t cut it. First, the city has to convince irvinites to abandon their beloved 3CWG, driveways, and backyard living and endorse a lifestyle without cars or deliberate inconvenience of car parking. Urbanism requires walk able streets and people will walk when they don’t have cars and parking. That is not a reason to walk in Irvine. Walking Fido so he can find a lamp post to pee is hardly enough of reason to constitute pedestrian activities. Again these seductive images in glossy brochures are just illusion that don’t exist in real life.

The city will have to give up those damn strip malls with a sea of parking lots in front of retail and restaurants. one can’t have these extremes side by side: Urbanism with adjacent suburbia. I processed many projects in Irvine and the first thing the planners would ask for is “Do you have enough parking for Santa’s sleigh, cars for each of his reindeers and a special spot for Rudolph with a handicap ramp.”

There got to be street interests such as sidewalk cafes, shop windows and people that make a lively street. This includes homeless, street performers, street vendors, pan handlers, hookers and run away teens to create the necessary dynamic of an urban core. Old Town Pasadena, Hollywood, and Third street promenade are the softcore downtowns that have many of the elements while the hardcore downtown must have yet an additional layer of urban ills including the indigents, gangs, abandoned warehouses, loft livings, night clubs, sports venue and graffiti.

An Urban core often without intention evolved from infinitesimal baby steps what is known as the pyramid massing and density. Viewing all downtowns from a distance the buildings collectively form a pyramid shape where the buildings gradually became taller due to higher density and land yield toward the center of a downtown.

What Irvine wants is a fractured form: on one side would be backyard and the other side would be penthouse. This ego driven design is not based on need or practicality but rather by the image of power.

China did just that with lack of understanding and foresight. a high-rise downtown was built next to a ancestral village. To make the downtown work the government condemns all the historic homes and villages and force residents to vacate by eminent domain. During the time of Olympic an extra tall green fence was erected to hide the old villages located just on the other side of the Olympic Village. The government instructed all foreign medias to avoid the ancient villages appearing in the background of their event coverage.

Irvine can’t have the best of both worlds. These extremes is like oil and water where the two will never blend or support each other’s existence.

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