Good bad urban design?

Today I’ve started wondering if there as any such thing as good bad urban design. Obviously not everywhere can be some sort of urban paradise of aesthetic beauty, physical functionality and social conviviality – does bad urban design play its part in making good urban design stand out, be appreciated more and have a more powerful positive impact by way of comparison as a result?

Further – it’s popped up here and there over the past week or so (in conversation will colleagues, general reading etc) that there is a need to cater for the fringes of society. If we make every street corner crisp and clean, where there are not dodgy shadowy areas, no homeless people or litter – are we in danger of not building up awareness of what is bad? The best way to explain this is the example of the over-protective parent that doesn’t expose their child to danger – as a result, the child might not develop properly from a lack of being exposed to both good and bad.

In the race to push for great urban design – are we forgetting that there might well be a place for badly designed spaces?… and that just like well design spaces – if they are accompanied by the right social message they could be places of positive impact?
I’m starting to really engage with the idea that the success of urban environments beyond the basics of ‘practical’ and ‘safe’ urban design may well be much more to do with issues of society and perception than bricks and mortar…

I’m off to read this now: ‘What are we scared of? The value of risk in designing public space’... and keep this quote from Jane Jacobs in mind:

‘Architecture and urban design may not determine human behaviour, but bad design can numb the human spirit’

(Jane Jacobs quoted by David Lammy, ‘The cost of bad design’)

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After-thought:
Good Urban Design = Good Space + Potential for Good Place.
Bad Urban Design = Bad Space + Potential for Good Place.

Space being that which is physically tangible about a defined location.
Place being that which is socially ethereal about a defined location.