So, since we are suffering from cabin fever over here – we came up with this crazy idea during the great quarantine of 2020. Hear us out:
A good city should be like a good sandwich.
Don't believe us? Well, what is a sandwich? It’s an assembly of different elements in order to achieve a more nuanced and interesting flavor than the individual pieces by themselves. It’s an efficient and tasty way to consume many different food groups in a single meal. It doesn't make sense (to anyone over the age of 7) to eat a piece of lettuce, and then a slice of tomato, and then some bacon, and then a small swig of mayonnaise (…eww). We eat sandwiches because they deliver all the taste and texture of bacon, lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise in each bite. The whole sandwich is more than its parts.
Cities are also more than their individual pieces, and that is how you can tell a good city when you "taste" one. A good city should be layered and complex, a mixture of flavors and textures and time periods (think of the difference in time it takes to make a PB&J versus say, a Reuben) that together form a satisfying and complete experience. Each ingredient in a sandwich serves a specific purpose and contributes to the overall sandwich composition:
The infrastructure (the utilities, roads, transportation) is the bread, the solid but adaptable foundation upon which all the other layers depend and that holds all the pieces together.
Business and commerce are the meat or protein, providing energy and resources.
The vegetables and toppings are health, education, civic space, the stuff that is good for you and make you feel good.
The sauce is culture, art, music, those things we add in to make cities fun. That extra spice without which the city is still good, just a little bland.
And the crucial part of any sandwich, as well as any city, is the consumer. Because why even make a sandwich if not for people to enjoy it?
Ignoring the age-old debate about whether or not a hot dog is a sandwich (let's just assume that it is), is the City of Cincinnati akin to a cheese coney? Well, the city has centuries of infrastructure (the bun). It was built on the industry of meat packing and beer (the hot dog and chili). The city has commendable network of public parks and healthcare but may lack support for education (a figurative ton of cheese and... onions?). And lastly, Cincinnati is not complete without its notorious sports teams, arts districts, and music scene (mustard and chili. And yes, that IS cinnamon you taste). It is a little weird, a little disproportionate, not exactly healthy, and only some people like it who didn't actually grow up here. There's Chicago-Style pizza, New York-style pizza, St. Louis barbecue, New Orleans Po’boy, Texas chili - what kind of sandwich is your city?
The beauty of this crazy comparison is the sheer number of forms that a sandwich can take. All cities are the same at some level; the same ingredients tried and tested in different combinations, creating different flavors, different textures. When you travel, it's like getting to try a new sandwich. What new flavors are introduced? How is this new sandwich different from your own? There are some cities people dislike or avoid, and some that people love and re-visit over and over. Some of it is based on personal taste, or the experience of the cities you grew up with. Some of it is opinion only (maybe they don't like corned beef), and some ingredients just don't go well together (like mayonnaise and peanut butter - yeah, we said it). Most, however, have the same basic components arranged in different ways and the role of the urbanist/architect (or chef) is to find new combinations to improve the urban experience.
When we curate a city, we must have a balance. The proportions of ingredients are important. For instance, Covington has an influx of new housing complexes (think white bread) and a dash of new and fun businesses like axe throwing, cat cafés, and magic shops (think jalapeño chutney). However, if you lose businesses and industries (the turkey), you just end up with a lot of spicy bread. It also helps to have different kinds of bread. Every time we tear down an old building to make room for a cookie-sandwich-cutter apartment building, it’s like trading in a century-old sourdough starter for a trendy quarantine experiment (or… the only brand of bread left on the shelves in the grocery store – if you will).
Cities are not homogeneous, and Covington is no exception. Some people will eat peanut butter and grape jelly on white bread their whole life because it is cheap, it’s efficient, and it’s filling. But any foodie and anybody who loves their city will tell you that it’s the variety, the contrast, the combination of all the different textures, colors, tastes, and smells that make experiencing a great city—and a great sandwich—fun.
What do you think, have we completely lost our minds over here? Are we just hungry? Or do you like the analogy? What can we add to our sandwich to make it even better? What are other sandwiches missing?