Question: What is sound of urbanism in the California desert?
Answer: The sound of birds chirping. Over outdoor loudspeakers.
A press release crossed our desk a few days ago, announcing that CT/KDF Community Development Partners has received funding to redevelop four existing retail buildings and make the entire shopping street sing – literally – with the sound of canned birdsong.
The developer's investment partner (known in some circles as a "lender") U.S. Bancorp Community Development Corp., plans to use $16.15 million from the sale of New Markets Tax Credits to redevelop Lancaster Promenade III, four properties along the new Lancaster Promenade, to be known henceforth as The BLVD (pronounced "bull-vid") in downtown Lancaster.
From the press release: "The BLVD is known for the calming sounds of bird chirping and singing, which have been piped in over 70 speakers for the past several months. The bird chirping, blended with calming synthesized music, is played five hours a day along a half-mile stretch of the boulevard. The piped-in music was the brainstorm of Mayor R. Rex Parris, who says that the chirps have a calming effect on the local population."
Make a mental note to yourself: Birdsongs are brainstorms.
This proposal is innovative because sound, per se, is rarely used as a design element in urban areas. One possible exception, if memory serves, is the big barrel vaulted structure that covers historic Fremont Street in Las Vegas, which has a computerized light show with an ear-splitting soundtrack. For further examples, however, I'm stumped. Swallows, of course, play an important role in downtown San Juan Capistrano, by returning each year on the same day, but their melody is apparently unrelated to tax credits.
To my mind, the question is whether little, far-flung Lancaster should be allowed to monopolize the boon of piped-in sounds on public streets. Other California cities have the same right to commit public sound pollution. In the Inland Empire, for instance, which has the highest office vacancy rates in Southern California, we could have loudspeakers blaring the sound of wind whistling through empty spaces, in a creepy way. (Whooo-ooo-ooo!) In high end shopping district of Union Square in San Francisco, we could broadcast the sound of cash registers. (Ka-ching!) In the Pechanga casino outside Palm Springs, we could replicate the sound of a winning slot machine. (Bing-bing-bing, clunk-clunk-clunk-clunk.) And in Sacramento's Old Town, a historic recreation of the city during Gold Rush days, we could pipe in the sounds of a grizzled miner clearing his throat and…. Well, maybe not.
But as for the sound of birds, forget it. Lancaster got there first.
The "BLVD" in Lancaster. Birdsongs not included in photo.
