Civic Exemplars: Millard Rogers Jr. & Mariemont

One of the most pleasant walks in a historic American suburb is along the parkway connecting Mariemont, Ohio's town center to a scenic overlook of the Little Miami River.  For me the walk is a pilgrimage, an opportunity to viscerally experience a community where democratic sensibilities and nature are infused into daily life.

The shaded, tree-lined corridor provides a gentle transition from government buildings to Tudor revival apartments, to duplexes and single-family homes incorporating various interpretations of English architecture. The 15-minute journey terminates at the Concourse, a half-moon, green jewel encapsulating a picturesque scene of distant blue-gray hills.  Taking in this view on a fall afternoon, I was reminded of developer Robert Livingood's claim: “the Concourse will be one of the show places in the United States ... for it has this great advantage--the sun does not set in the eyes of the visitor." 

View from Concourse

Livingood was the executor for Marie Emery, the philanthropist who founded Mariemont and hired John Nolen to plan it.  The new town was to be a "National Exemplar.” If Livingood, Emery, and Nolen's ambitions were never fully realized, their vision is revered.  Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk (DPZ) consider "Mariemont too valuable to ignore," and for good reason. It inspired their iconic plan for Seaside. DPZ and Seaside initiated a revolution in city planning, and Mariemont is sacred ground for some.  It is one of those rare places where the past informs the future, an artifact that will be either a point of hope or despair for this generation.

                               

I returned to Mariemont to deliver the inaugural Millard F. Rogers, Jr. Lecture.  Rogers, who passed last April, was a renaissance man.  The director of the Cincinnati Art Museum for twenty years, he also wrote a definitive text, John Nolen and Mariemont: Building a New Town in Ohio.  A founding member of the Mariemont Preservation Foundation, Rogers almost single handedly ensured that Mariemont was named a National Historic Landmark.

Mariemont Chapel

Rogers understood that planning is an act of faith and fiscal acumen.  He had the good sense to ignore academic fashion, and he never wrote off Emery or Nolen as elitist or paternalistic.  Rather, he placed them in their time and honored them for their idealism and commitment.  Emery, an enlightened capitalist and one of the wealthiest women in the nation, wanted to build a community that benefited wage earners of different economic grades.  John Nolen, at the apex of his career in the early 1920s, was the obvious choice for the job. 

The conservative Emery (Robert Taft was her attorney) and the Progressive Nolen were united by the desire to channel America's amazing productive powers into building quality communities.  It was a high-minded project, Nolen designed a the model community that redefined the pursuit of happiness in modern terms. "The solution of many of our most difficult problems connected either with the increase of wealth or the sharing of what makes life most worthwhile is to be found, in the plan for Mariemont," he wrote Livingood. By illustrating the benefits of planning, Mariemont would challenge market forces to match their product. “For lovers of mankind this is in many respects ... a dramatic moment," Nolen announced when Mariemont's plan was unveiled before the Cincinnati Commercial Club in 1921.

Mariemont’s history is captivating.  Egos conflict, opportunities are lost, and ideals are realized.  Was Mariemont a success?  Dale Park, the first neighborhood built, remains viable and affordable, but the town never became a workers haven.  If Mariemont failed to produce a model community for labor, it still provides a model working community. The careful integration of apartments, single-family homes, and shopping, and civic buildings offers a distinct alternative to the disjointed auto-scaled suburban landscape designed to market segments. For planners confronted by NIMBYism every time multi-family or density is mentioned, Mariemont proves that good design can mix uses, create community, and enhance property values.

Neighborhood Center

Perhaps Mariemont is best gauged by the quality of life afforded the town's children. The public schools are exemplary and the town's pedestrian orientation allows children to safely navigate their way to school and a range of activities.  This daily fact of life placed Mariemont on the national news (ABC, July 21, 1999). The 3-minute piece contrasted the life of the Mariemont teen to their cohort struggling to find community in the disconnected subdivisions spreading over the nearby Kentucky countryside.

Something as complex as city planning offers few simple measures, but Marie Emery offered the best test.  Shortly before her death in 1926 she offered this adage: "Good Morning. Is the sun a little brighter there in Mariemont? Is the air a little fresher? ...And the children? Do you feel safer about them? Are their faces a bit ruddier? Are their legs a little sturdier? Do they laugh and play a lot louder in Mariemont? Then I am content."

It is hardly coincidence that Mariemont is well suited to children.  Nolen spent his formative years in an orphanage, and as a city planner he advocated allocating public resources to a wider populace.  John Nolen crafted an exquisite plan, Emery and Livingood implemented it, and Millard Rogers memorialized it.  Future development will honor the past and this is Rogers’s legacy.  In a democracy a plan is a test of civic virtue and, in Mariemont, no one grades higher than Millard Rogers, Jr.

My review of John Nolen and Mariemont: Building a New Town in Ohio  https://networks.h-net.org/node/22277/reviews/22764/stephenson-rogers-john-nolen-and-mariemont-building-new-town-ohio