How often do you see it around town? 

Here in Toronto, I can’t say that I see ours all that often outside of city hall. Am I missing it? Here’s what it looks like:

In other cities, such as Chicago, the city flag seems to be far more ubiquitous. Here’s what Chicago’s looks like:

In the case of Toronto’s flag, the two white bands are meant to represent the architecture of Toronto City Hall. The maple leaf is the Council Chamber at the bottom. And there is some suggestion of a letter “T” for Toronto. Wikipedia says the “T” is supposed to be found in the blue space between and above the two towers of city hall, but I’ve always seen the two white bands as being the “T.”

In the case of Chicago’s flag, the blue bands represent the lake and river (I like that) and the four six-sided stars represent significant events in the history of the city (positioned between the two bodies of water to mimic its actual geography).

Roman Mars of 99% Invisible has a great podcast and TED talk on this topic. (The study of flags is known as vexillology.) In both instances, he outlines what he believes to be the 5 rules of great flag design. They are:

1. Keep it simple
   

2. Use meaningful symbolism
   

3. Use 2-3 basic colors
   

4. No lettering or seals
   

5. Be distinctive
   

Toronto’s flag generally conforms to these rules. But there’s something about the positioning of the maple leaf that makes the flag feel a bit arbitrary to me. I want to rationalize it.

In any event, I think it could be really interesting if all of us shared our city’s flag in the comment section below and made a comment about how ubiquitous it is within the urban landscape.

Roman makes the argument that a great flag gives people something to rally behind. And with cities only becoming more important on the global stage, there’s something to be said about having a well-designed flag today.

I wonder if there will be a correlation between good flag design and ubiquity. My guess: probably.

As a follow-up to yesterday’s post about fluid labor markets and urban density, I thought I would present an opposing view.

Joel Kotkin is a well known geographer and author. He has published a number of books, the most recent of which is called, The Human City: Urbanism for the Rest of Us. He is also well known as a supporter of the suburbs, which is a somewhat contrarian view in today’s urban-centric world.

Here is a recent interview he did with Aaron M. Renn (click here if you can’t see it below):

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One of his messages is that the urban core is great for young people without kids, but that we shouldn’t expect it to serve everyone’s needs and wants – particularly those of families. Families need space and affordability, and urban cores are simply not engineered for that.

Long live the suburb.

I was listening to The Urbanist (Monocle Radio) last night while I was making dinner and there was a segment on Moscow’s “illegal retail kiosks.” These are small scale retail structures that were built without formal planning permissions and so the city decided to demolish them. 

There was lots of backlash. Photos here.

Now, I’ve never been to Moscow. So I can’t really comment on the attractiveness and usefulness of these kiosks. But I suspect that these illegal retail kiosks, many of which seem to have been located around metro stations, contributed quite a bit to the city’s urban vibrancy. Retail is hard to get right. It doesn’t work everywhere.

All of this got me thinking about our tendency to sterilize and overplan cities. I’m not saying that planning is bad. It’s not. But I do think we should acknowledge that we don’t know everything about the future and that human ingenuity will undoubtedly unlock new things we never thought would be beneficial.

So how do we plan for the unplanned? Perhaps it starts with accepting the off-center. Here’s a quote from Anthony Bourdain (it’s all over the internet, but I can’t seem to find the original blog source):

I think that troubled cities often tragically misinterpret what’s coolest about themselves. They scramble for cure-alls, something that will ‘attract business,’ always one convention center, one pedestrian mall or restaurant district away from revival. They miss their biggest, best, and probably most marketable asset: their unique and slightly off-center character. Few people go to New Orleans because it’s a ‘normal’ city — or a ‘perfect’ or ‘safe’ one. They go because it’s crazy, borderline dysfunctional, permissive, shabby, alcoholic, and bat shit crazy — and because it looks like nowhere else. Cleveland is one of my favorite cities. I don’t arrive there with a smile on my face every time because of the Cleveland Philharmonic.

There’s value at the margins.