Architecture. Community development. Land use and comprehensive planning. Urban design. If one were looking for potential terrorists, the students and practitioners in these fields would be unlikely suspects. Nuclear engineers and scientists, immunologists, biologists, chemists and pharmacologists seem much more likely sources of potential trouble with their specialized knowledge about fissionable material, nasty germs and chemical substances. To this list I’d add bankers and accountants, adept at hiding huge amounts of cash in dummy corporations and moving money secretly around the globe to finance all sorts of dodgy operations.
But according to the State Department, architects, planners and urban designers pose a heightened risk to the safety of the United States, so much so that these professions appeared on a list known variously as a “technology alert list,” or “sensitive major list.” According to a recent story in the Education section of The New York Times, the State Department has asked all embassy and consular officials dealing with visas from foreign applicants wishing to study these disciplines in the US to give those applications very careful study and refer the cases to Washington for special scrutiny. The intended aim, so the Times reports, is to prevent foreigners from taking sensitive information out of the country and passing it on to unfriendly foreign governments or terrorist organizations.
As a foreigner who is an architect, community planner and urban designer, all of a sudden I find myself fitting the profile of someone considered a potential threat to US security. I wonder what will happen next time I return to Charlotte from a research trip abroad? When I present my British passport to the immigration officer at the airport I’m usually asked reasonable questions such as “Where did you go? What was the purpose of your trip? What do you do here in the USA?” Now when I answer, “I’m an architect,” will I be frogmarched off to a windowless room for further interrogation? When it’s revealed that I’m also a planner and an urban designer, all three potential threats rolled into one, what fate will await me?
What exactly do State Department officials imagine architects and planners do that is so sensitive to this nation’s security?
We can teach foreigners to design ugly buildings that waste vast amounts of energy. We can show them how to plan cities that collapse under their own weight of congestion and pollution. And as the piece de resistance we can demonstrate how to make community plans to which no elected officials pay any attention.
Or perhaps these professions provide ideal locations for “moles” working under deep cover until the moment comes to strike a blow against American interests. Perhaps wicked architects could cunningly devise buildings that will mysteriously cease functioning after a few years. But Charlotte developers and their designers already know how to do that. Witness all the ugly, vacant big box stores that litter our townscape and are designed to fall apart after about 10 years.
Perhaps malicious planners could plan futuristic-looking road projects in ways that are doomed to fail, and so cripple our transportation system. But of course, that’s exactly what I-485 will do. No surprises there. Possibly, as a last resort, malevolent urban designers could create development plans for cities that destroy all sense of place and history, sapping civic pride. But Charlotte already knows all about that. In fact, the city could write the training manual, having perfected this skill over several decades.
In short, I’m baffled. What sensitive professional information do I have stored in my brain that could be so dangerous to the security of this nation?
The presumption that foreigners might come here to steal our architectural and planning secrets and take them to other countries, or somehow subvert our system to evil ends, is deeply ironic. Much of my work, in professional practice and in education, involves bringing knowledge into the United States, not taking it out. The unpalatable truth is that, despite their many faults, most industrialized nations do manage their urban growth better than the USA.
Many of our competitor countries have better transportation systems of highways and rail transit. Their planning systems are more effective at directing growth to its most optimal locations, constraining unwanted development and prioritizing community values. They preserve natural landscapes more successfully than the USA, consuming fewer precious resources and polluting the environment less.
There is so much for America to learn from others, and quite a lot it could teach in return. But keeping foreign-born architects, planners and urban designers out of the country for fear they may steal our secrets is a ludicrous proposition.
Of course, this reasoning could simply be a smokescreen. Safeguarding America’s urban knowledge from foreign spies may not be the reason for this strange exercise in professional profiling. Perhaps, after all, it’s people bringing progressive ideas into the country that George Bush’s government is afraid of.
This article appears in Jan 28 – Feb 3, 2004.
