City Comforts, the blog

It's a mom-and-pop market

Common Monkeyflower asks an extremely astute question about the nature of local real estate markets.

One of these days, I need to learn more about urban land economics, as The Way Things Are just doesn't seem to jive with what local prices would seem to call for. In some cases, it seems the problem is foolish land use laws; these kinds of examples are high on the list of reasons I don't like certain land use controls. For example, there's the old Olga's Kitchen building on State and (mumblemumble) in Ann Arbor, across the street from the Frieze Building. This is the terminal lot on a stretch of campus-oriented retail and restaurant properties that is known for having incredibly high rents. One would expect that, after Olga's went out of business, the lot would be bought up pretty quickly and redeveloped, as desire for space in that corridor is high, and somebody could make decent rent. Instead, the lot sat empty for about 5 years, and only this summer began to be redeveloped, in a plan for an 8-story building with ground level retail and upper level residential, including a couple of "affordable" units. Why so long?

My take? Obviously I cannot comment on the specfic parcels mentioned by Murph. But generally, look to the nature of ownership, the size of the parcels, the scale of investment, the time-frame in which people invest, the overall "stickiness" of real estate as an investment...i.e. in short, commercial real estate is not a perfect market because people are not perfect and do not act with perfect information. Real estate is not a fungible commodity (unlike one bushel of wheat which is more less the same as another).

Consider a typical 60' by 100' lot in a commercial district. It has a 2500 square foot, somewhat shabby one-story retail building on it. The owner bought it 25 years ago, ran his business there for years, has now retired and rents it out on relatively short-term leases (say 2-3 years.) The zoning might allow a 5-6 story building and there is strong demand in the area. Obviously the property is ripe for redevelopment.

But the owner isn't. He knows little of real estate development and knows no one who does.

Yes he could sell the land and make a big "profit" (remember he bought it 25 years ago) and then pay lots of taxes and not know what to with his cash (he doesn't know much about the stock market either --- who does?) But he forgoes an investment he knows for the risks of...of what? So why sell.

Or he could partner with someone who know development. But who? The transaction costs of required trust, knowledge etc on both sides for such a partnership are extremely high. And after all, it's actually a fairly small site and would not be of interest to any developer large enough to be listed on the stock exchanges, so the owner has to deal with a much smaller entity which raises the risks etc etc. Development is a troublesome prospect for an amateur, even as it also is for professionals.

So the owner does nothing but rent it out. And for him that is a very rational choice because he does not have access to the information needed to develop the property and so the "do-nothing" alternative is the smart one.

His heirs may not see it that way and so that's why so much property changes hands via estate sales.

And I would not agree that zoning is much of an impediment to redevelopment unless the "bump" provided by a tear-down & rebuild scenario is simply too small to justify the work. And in that case the matter might not be a "flaw" in zoning but simply a choice --- unwise as it might appear to some --- that the height limits in a particular area should be low.

A sensational approach

Terry Teachout observes how other reviewers deal with Zankel Hall. He notes that

[m]ost critics have discussed the appearance of the hall without attempting to evaluate its functionality. Were the seats comfortable? Are the aisles wide enough? How hard is it to get in and out of the place? Will the interior design wear well --- and does it seem to have any effect on the perceived acoustics?

As, (via essential Arts & Letters Daily), I had just finished reading an article from Vocabula Review The Singular They: The Pronoun That Came in from the Cold I was reminded of the importance of words in, of course, expressing one's thoughts but also in giving shape to them.

So I was struck by Teachout's distinction between appearance and functionality. It's a common distinction but when it comes to buildings --- even architecture --- I think it creates problems.

The dichotomy between appearance and functionality is a misleading one.

All assessments of buildings --- even ones characterized as functional --- are based on sensations --- whether of the skin, the nose, the ear or the buttocks. Appearance describes only sensations perceived by the eyes. Sound-proofing and noise-isolation (to follow-through on the Zankel hall example) deals with another but (obviously for a concert hall) no less critical sense. The manner in which the seating and the aisles are arranged is also a matter which can only be judged by how the users feel as and after they use it..

All judgements as to the fitness of a building are ultimately based on feelings. A leaky roof, for example, is truly insidious not only or even mostly because it is can give rise to rot ("not functional") but because it makes us cold, wet and miserable and denies the very psychological purpose of a building to give succor and shelter.

The traditional approach to judging a building gives appearance overwhelming precedence and denies the other senses. That's an extremely narrow approach. Teachout recognizes that that is a mistake and seeks to elevate functionality. That's well and good. But he allows the underlying fallacy --- Appearance v. Functionality --- to go unchallenged.

That's my minor quibble about his use of terms.

***

In another post --- no one can shake this FLW flea --- Teachout also asks:

I almost hate to bring up Frank Lloyd Wright again, but reading this story made me think of Fallingwater, the Wright house whose conservators have had to work fearfully hard to keep from collapsing. Commenting on this in an earlier post, I asked, "Is a great painting less great because it makes use of innovative but chemically unstable pigments that change over time?"

Maybe not. But a building is not a painting. A piece of architecture is designed to do something ---provoke certain feelings --- and if it fails to to produce certain of those feelings, then it can be judged as less worthy.

There is life after the Three Rules

There is trouble in Blowhard City and you can read about it here.

I don't know if you've followed it, but there's been a little controversy in NYC about a couple of new apartment buildings that the celebritect Richard Meier has designed for a block in Greenwich Village. Meier is known for his pristine modernism (Platonic/geometric forms, white on steel on glass materials), where Greenwich Village is known and loved for its irregularity and personality -- a quirky, neighborhoody, Euro-like charm involving low buildings, lots of brick, oddly angled streets, cobblestones, cafes, flowers ... Well, the Meier buildings are now complete; here's a link to a page showing a photo of them. How do you react, knowing that they've been inserted into the Village? (Sexual overtones intended -- the Village's charm is rather feminine, while Meier's brand of modernism couldn't be more ego-phallic.) I'm happy (and grateful) to go along with David Sucher (here), who argues that the most important thing is always whether a building behaves properly in a basic, Three Rules way. That's the key, absolutely, and for all I know Meier's buildings do exactly that. Still, aesthetics can play a role too, at least they do for me. And, longtime Village inhabitant that I am -- I moved here for the art, the low buildings, the cute streets, etc -- I can't help myself. I look at the striking, bold, chilly brilliance of Meier's buildings, and I think about their architect, and my main thought is, "What an asshole."

I am gratified that someone besides is me is actually using the Three Rules to judge an urban building. But after having achieved that objective, let me say this about that: There is life after the Three Rules. They are, I believe, the first and primary step is assessing an urban structure. But they are not the only criteria.

Besides the use, (e.g. do you really want to live next to a slaughter house even if the structure is built to the sidewalk?) the sheer size of a structure in relation to its neighbors is probably the next major issue. I take no stand on the Meier design. The photos I saw didn't really give me a clear sense of what is happening at sidewalk level. And the buildings do look big. But too big? I know nothing of the neighborhood and its long-term plans for me to venture an opinion. As objects, they look fine. Just a nice ordinary competently-designed journeyman architecture...and that is no insult. Are they "too big?" I have no idea. If I were the develeoper I'd probably say "not at all...urban land is valuable and more people should be able to live at this wonderful site." If I were a neighbor...of course no new building can be too small.

As to stylistic issues I admit that there is no way to prove whether --- if the Three Rules are observed --- stylistic differences make much difference. One of the delights of the city is its layers, even the pentimento which can spring forth to the close observer. So while we should respect the site form of a particular district, I have my own doubts whether slavish adherence to a particular style is of paramount importance.

Meier's "pristine modernisn" --- if presented so it follows the Three Rules and is at an "appropriate" scale --- might do just fine. Yes, a bit of a shock for the first half-dozen times one passes it but soon just part of a diverse urban landscape if the site plan --- the key element in any case --- helps to create a pedestrian-oriented street.

A Rant (funny)

The Buck Stops Here states:

"I hate legal pads. And I'm going to write a little rant about them."

And he does.

I am glad I am not the only college grad who has trouble with this stuff

It's nice to see that Mitch Kapor, one of the key figures in the history of the PC --- ...he developed VisiCalc...the spreadsheet ... no there was not always a spread-sheet, which seeems odd now that they have become so basic to almost everything including to-do lists for a big camping trip --- doesn't know where stuff is stored in Mac OS x either:

I've been playing with iBlog. I'd send you over to it to see the results but I can't figure out what the URL is of the test blogs I've created on my .Mac account. Funny, no? Spent 20 minutes looking through help and trying various tests with no luck. Other than this small detail, which I'm sure some kind reader will see me through,it's a pretty nice desktop (Mac) client for both reading and writing blogs.

My threshold problem is that I cannot find iBlog, which is shown as a link in the original.

UPDATE: Note correction in comments. My (best) excuse is that I never used either program. Anyway, Lotus was pretty seminal, too.

A clear baseline is important

Lasers used to renew Sound shoreline

The Army Corps of Engineers flew over Puget Sound yesterday, blasting away at the shoreline surrounding Skagit Bay with laser beams aimed at correcting decades of human environmental abuse. ... "We're trying to map the areas that scientists believe are most critical for understanding the natural processes," said Bernie Hargrave, manager of the Army Corps' role in a multiagency effort aimed at improving the environmental health of the Puget Sound. ... The problem with the goal of restoring the shoreline to its natural state is that nobody really knows what "natural" means. With all the homes, bulkheads, piers, docks, waste streams, drained wetlands and developed estuaries, there just isn't that much natural shoreline left around Puget Sound.

Perfect for London?

Recomendo Recommends

My Jeep is camouflaged to look like a commercial fleet vehicle. I made up a fake company name, appropriated a 1950s-era logo that once belonged to a nuclear energy mutual fund, painted safety stripes on the back, and plastered a fake vehicle number all over the place. I also added flashing yellow lights in the rear window, and a police-style spotlight and rubberized push bumper to the front. VERY FUN accessories ... and useful too (when used with discretion). The spotlight is incredibly versatile -- you can point/rotate it while sitting in the driver's seat -- and it's come in handy countless times for roadside emergencies, setting up campsites, or finding house numbers on dark streets.

This urban camouflage guise is very useful for parking in yellow zones, urban/industrial exploration, and crime deterrence. And the thing is... it really works!

Name of the day

What I learned about urban design from Edward Said

Will there be life after death for the Bellevue Art Museum?

The unfolding drama/discussion about the demise of the Steven Holl-designed Bellevue Art Museum which I mentioned yesterday here continues today with the question Will there be life after death for the Bellevue Art Museum?

Law Review Article

The Buck Stops Here
mentions what appears intriguing:

Thanks to Lawrence Solum, I see that my good friends Rick and Nicole Garnett of Notre Dame Law School have a couple of new articles in progress.

Nicole's article is titled "Property Regulation and the Public Order," and is available here (link in original) (Word format). In it, she examines the usefulness of property regulations in maintaining public order. I was particularly intrigued by the section on "Jane Jacobs and the New Urbanism," which discusses the effects of architecture on crime control, etc. Definitely worth a read.

Sounds interesting indeed!

Parking Lots in Dallas

Postrel about Parking Lots.

Behind every good building...

A story from the local Hearst paper:

Adieu to Bellevue Art Museum

The Bellevue (Washington) Art Museum is closing, foiled by a combination of a tough economy, white-elephant architecture and a failure to find an audience.

The architectural community gave Stephen Holl's building a solid thumbs-up, but the visual arts community was considerably less impressed. In essence, the building is full of personality and high style, yet it is a difficult place to display art.

Jirsa, the museum spokeswoman, disagreed. "I think we were clear, but maybe the direction we gave him hasn't worked as well as we wanted."

What's particularly interesting about the story is that the key "money quote" from the same paper's architectural critic which appeared in print between the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs above --- a scathing but plausible judgment which condemned the Museum's Board for being "clueless" in how to control a starchitect like Holl --- is now missing from the story as it appears on-line.

Hobbies

I remember reading "somewhere" that when asked to name their favorite recreational activity, a lot of people say shopping.

Real De-construiction

Kansas City tells us about

RIP brick

Bank Street downtown between 7th and 9th was stripped down last week in preparation for resurfacing, so I got to walk on the old bricks that were hidden beneath the asphalt.

Today, Bank Street was back to boring regular fresh black asphalt. The bricks are hidden yet again.

It actually might make more sense to have the streets made of easily-moved bricks ("unit pavers") rather than using them for the more static sidewalks which are more rarely torn up for utilities and so forth.

UPDATE: Just to clarify, my conjecture is that (counter-intuitively) it make more sense to use the unit pavers in the street and pave the sidewalk with concrete or (believe it or not) asphalt. The City of Dunedin in New Zealand is one of the most charming, urban cities I've ever visited and it has asphalt sidewalks...very odd at first but after a while one forgets and they look just fine.

There is always a But

I love it when someone, Nathan Newman in this case, posts fairly coherently on something like Rent Control and then ends up with something really profound such as being against "anti-development zoning."

When there are no more homeless families in the shelters and working families aren't paying half their wages for housing from where they then have to commute an hour on the train to their jobs in Manhattan-- then I'll have some sympathy for preserving "context" zoning or other NIMBYish gentrification programs. Until then, I basically oppose all anti-development zoning in the City.

I know NIMBYISM at its most hypocritical and I too detest its holier-than-thou attitude, its attempt to seize the high moral ground and speak for "the community." Bosh.

Bands of neighbors get together to defend their property interests from perceived loss of value from "incompatible development" etc etc and boring etc. Such folks have an absolute ethical, legal right to protect what they believe is theirs. But it galls me when they get on their moral high horse and claim to speak for "the community." Technically speaking, bosh!

But --- and here is the rub --- there is such a thing as incompatible development and it's reasonable and even fair for individuals and their governments to try to re-form it. "Unleashing the market" (Newman is too smart to fall for that one) is one of the favorite solutions. But unless you get rid of ALL local zoning --- right, Congress can handle that too --- the preferences of neighbors is just as real a factor in development as is gravity.

Urban Explorations

There seems to be bunch of people who go places they shouldn't and blog about it.

Car Guy Alert

This must be Car Radio for bloggers:

First, the big picture. The major decision is whether to get satellite radio, not which service to choose. Satellite radio is not particularly expensive - XM's basic monthly subscription is $9.99 and Sirius's is $12.95 - but it is a luxury, especially for drivers in urban areas with a broad selection of free radio or anyone with a good collection of tapes and CD's.

That said, free radio may seem unbearably monotonous once you have tried XM or Sirius. Unlike free radio, there is always something entertaining available somewhere in the diverse world of satellite broadcasting. And once you have locked in on something you like, you can drive forever without ever losing the digital signal.

Drive forever, huh?

Crozier for Mayor

His platform almost makes one look into becoming a London voter.

Property is too expensive. With a three-bedroom house costing six or seven times the average wage, millions are postponing and even abandoning the idea of having children. This is hardly a sustainable state of affairs. Prices are high because demand is high and supply is low. The answer is to increase the supply.

If elected I would abolish all planning laws and all building regulations. Immediately, people would start to build. Up mainly. And why not? We shouldn't be scared of living in flats. Many people around the world enjoy good quality high-rise living where raising a family is as easy and as pleasant as living in a semi-detached. All that we have to do is to allow it to happen. I believe that by scrapping the regulations we will see the development of all sorts of new ideas in architecture as well as a massive increase in capacity. ...

It's an interesting approach except for one little thing: few who currently own property would agree that "Property is too expensive." Quite the contrary. Assuming that Londoners and Seattleites have similar values, which judging by the British blogs I read, they do --- I suspect that most property-owners think values (not "prices," thank you) are "about right" if not a tad low. So "unleashing the market" to build more housing faces enormous resistance from everyone who already owns --- and every time you help someone (through one sort of subsidy or another) to own, you create a new voter who wants to keep things as they are and will turn around and call for restrictions.

And I also want to know more about those "new ideas in architecture."

But good luck, Patrick. Please send me some campaign buttons and I'll make sure that they are distributed to the right people.

California Ranch

Washington Mutual agrees to sale of California ranch property

Washington Mutual Inc. has reached an agreement with the state of California for the $150 million sale by the banking firm of the 2,958-acre Ahmanson Ranch complex near Los Angeles. ... One of the last large parcels of open space left near Los Angeles, the property is home to several endangered species, notably the California red-legged frog and the San Fernando Valley spineflower. ... But the scenic property also is located in a fast-growing area where housing is in short supply. Ahmanson had planned to capitalize on the housing shortage by building a 3,050-home, master-planned golf course community on the site. Following its acquisition of Ahmanson, WaMu chose to proceed with those development plans, but has been dogged by protests and lawsuits ever since.

New Streams

Thanks to Random Garble, Rants, and Musings for turning me on to a whole sluice of information which started at What does place mean to the connected? proceeded to A New Set of Social Rules for a Newly WirelessSociety and then to Neal Stephenson's Metaweb which is his way of "supporting the book," the book in this case being his own novel Quicksilver which is a science-fiction novel and thus amenable to annotation and serious discussion. As I have wondering how or if I would "support" City Comforts I found the idea of doing so in the form of a Wiki to be intriguing. Apparently Wiksilver has the caught the eye of others.

New Toys, Same Us

More stimulating words from someone at PurseLipSquareJaw got me to thinking about whether or how our digital toys make a difference.

.....urban space is now the unique stage for experimentation with new lifestyles based on digital network connectivity.

"...[E}xperimentation with new lifestyles based on digital network connectivity" ...hmmm...New lifestyles, eh?

From the trenches indeed

As someone was saying, the beat goes on but now at Terry Teachout's.

Wronged by Wright

A reader writes:

Regarding living in a work of art, the idea of living in a Frank Lloyd Wright house is indeed attractive, but as one who was recently privileged (and despite my remarks, it was a privilege) to spend a week in one, I have to tell you it was in many ways damnably uncomfortable.

...The ongoing blogosphere debate over Wright has had a certain abstract quality, precisely because none of us has ever lived in a Wright house—which is, after all, the heart of the matter. Right?

Teachout is correct, though I would extend his "heart of the matter" beyond domestic architecture to all buildings. The ultimate test of a structure --- even, or maybe especially, as a "work of art" if one insists on that distinction --- is how the user and the structure interact, how they both behave and how the structure encourages the human to feel.

This is how we square the circle and reconcile "architecture as art" with common-sense: a work of art --- by any definition I would think --- must call forth human emotion and while those human emotions may involve the mind, they primarily start from the seat-of-one's-pants.

In fact the idea that we should ignore our feelings ---of any kind: comfort, delight, exhilaration, awe, fear --- when we consider a piece of architecture totally denies the only sensible purpose for art in the first place: to make us feel. So then to turn around and say that in considering a work of art we shall only consider this certain kind of feeling...well that is preposterous. One certain individual can deny that this or that feeing is germane for him; but to set it out as a universal and say that it's important how a building hits one in the eye but feelings of discomfort because the ceiling is too low are not allowed...well, that makes no sense to me. Buildings are design to create sensations. Period.

UbiComp 2003 -- Update

I went back to browse through the Conference agenda to see whether there was much or any concern for the implications of ubiquitous computing. As an owner of an Airport-configured iBook I am a great enthusiast, at least when I can post from my favorite coffee houses, for ubiquitous computing. I also like my privacy. I wish that UbiComp 2003 shared those privacy concerns a bit more aggressively.

The good news is that there is a conference session on "Social Aspects and Privacy." The bad news appears (I'd be overjoyed if someone from the Conference can reassure me that I have missed something) when you start to read the papers which will be presented. Such as:

Havana, Cojimar, and Pinar del Rio

The International Conference on Urbanism: New and Green in Cuba sounds intriguing.

UNESCO has declared three places in Havana as world heritage sites. This series of research and educational workshops allows Americans to listen and exchange ideas with non-governmental Cuban architects, planners, environmentalists, and preservationists in accordance with U.S. Treasury regulations...

Tourist travel by Americans in Cuba is considered illegal and folks who go without a license face heavy fines of up to half a million dollars and jail sentences.  We oppose these harsh restrictions on the ability of Americans to travel freely. In the meantime, we do provide an opportunity to travel to Cuba legally because of the educational mission of our programs. It is very hard to get a license to travel to Cuba, and we are proud to offer an excellent opportunity for visiting and learning in Cuba.

So far as seeing the end of Castro, it seems as if the more American tourists the better, as inundating Cuba with friendly Americans would seem to be a most subversive method of dealing with an authoritarian government.

UbiComp 2003

Well I guess it pays to have academics around. Via [PurseLipSquareJaw] I learn of UbiComp 2003 the Fifth (no less) Annual Conference on Ubiquitous Computing. The conference is right here in Seattle and only costs the equivalent of one day's heli-skiing.

"Ubiquitous Computing" means "computing technology that migrates beyond our desktops onto our hands, heads and clothing, and becomes increasingly embedded in a wide variety of other objects, such as walls, cars and appliances."

Very interesting. White Rose should monitor this one as of course the implications for privacy are staggering.

Interesting new site

I am not quite sure if I totally relate to Anne Galloway's [PurseLipSquareJaw] at an intellectual level --- after all, Crooked Timber links to me (and it's the old link at BloggerPro, btw) as Otherwise Unclassifiable; Galloway is institutionalized i.e. an academic --- and links to an intimidating amount of university-type stuff e.g. books, seminars, research etc which to my mind tend to complicate as much as clarify. (But maybe I am merely jealous.)

But I love her sheer animal energy. She offers some personal observations --- the essence of blogging as I see it --- from her recent trip to Italy:

Yesterday at dusk we visited the property of the Knights of Malta - perhaps the world's smallest sovereign state. Surrounded by an imposing wall, you cannot go inside but are able to look through a keyhole in the main doors. Astoundingly, the keyhole offers a direct line of sight to the Vatican, as if to keep an unflinching eye on the Church. Never have I seen such a small design feature embody such history and power, and all while it limits one's gaze. Stunning. And no doubt a bonus for conspiracy theorists.

That's great.

Neighborhoods with Underground Wiring are More Valuable

It's interesting when the physical world manifests itself and big-time bloggers notice:

Do underground power lines cost more? My wife tells me that the Russians are laughing at the power blackout in Virginia, they commonly have underground power lines, as do many parts of Europe. Common opinion is that underground lines are more costly, one estimate says $1 million per mile. Some commentators charge that underground lines are better for our health. If I read this advisor to terrorists correctly, underground lines may be less vulnerable to sabotage as well. I am not willing to endorse this idea, but the prospect of two weeks without power in my home naturally leads me to look for alternatives.

One thing to consider on the plus side of the cost/benefeit analysis is that neighborhoods with underground wiring are more valuable. I don't have the hard data to prove it but I know that my house would be more valuable (greater than my share of the undergrounding) if our street did not have ugly overhead power poles.

Why then, you ask, has my block not undergrounded? Good question. The answer lies in transaction costs to organize neighbors to form an Local Improvement District (LID) to pay for it, and part of those transaction costs include governmental resistance to LIDs.

From the other perspective is that there is no incentive for the utility to initate the undergrounding as it cannot capture any of the increase in value and, counter-intuitive as it may seem, utility company employees have told me that the utility actually prefers power-on-poles because of lower maintenance costs.

A tribute to art-chitecture

Anyone who appreciates Style should appreciate the wit of a "Starchitecture Heights" subdivision.

When you think housing development, you don't think great architecture. McMansions, yes. Taliesins, no. But in Southampton, New York, on the wealthy eastern end of Long Island, developer Coco Brown is creating a modernist art gallery disguised as a subdivision.

The curator - yes, there's a curator - is Richard Meier, the architect best known for the Getty Center in Los Angeles. Meier rounded up some 45 "starchitects," including Zaha Hadid, Michael Graves, Shigeru Ban, and ninetysomething Philip Johnson. Each was asked to come up with a design for the project, dubbed the Houses at Sagaponac, then given a budget of about $200 per square foot. The first home is slated for completion in October; the whole development will be finished by 2008.

I am curious about several things such as is this for real? "40 serious inquiries from young, moneyed aesthetes willing to plunk down $4 million for an architectural statement" sounds like the developer has a good PR staff.

And then if those young aesthetes are for real, what is the market premium for a house which is plumped-up to be the product of a starchitect? And not just the first sale but on resale?

Thank you Michael Jennings who also appreciates it, at least at some level.

"It wasn't my idea."

Byzantium's Shores discusses some mis-steps in reinvigorating his local downtown and in passing inadvertently gives me far more credit than I deserve. I thank him but I must demur. He writes:

The town in which I live, Orchard Park, has recently been expending a lot of effort to make its village center a lot more attractive. (Orchard Park is a fairly affluent suburb of Buffalo. It happens to be the town where Ralph Wilson Stadium is located, and thus, a lot of Buffalo Bills players end up living here.) They've built new sidewalks, planted flower beds and commissioned sculptures along the main streets, given pretty much every building a fresh coat of paint, and in one case even demolished a crappy 1960s era building that had been on the town's main streetcorner and replaced it with an attractive building of red brick that actually blends in with the older style buildings around it, including the 1910-era red brick building across the street. I don't know if they've read David Sucher's book City Comforts, but they seem to be putting a lot of his ideas into practice: building to the sidewalk, putting parking behind the buildings, putting a lot of benches about for people to sit, et cetera.(italics added--DS)

I'm flattered but I must nip in the bud even an inadvertent over-credit. These are not my ideas. They are my observations. Big difference and though use of the term by Byzantium's Shores was passing, throw-off usage, for the record I would not want to be accused of claiming these physical ideas. My suggestions about cities are not a priori but post hoc --- not beforehand as a matter of theory about how things should be but observations (along with several tens of thousands of other people) about how things actually are arranged in great urban environments.

"It wasn't my idea." I just shoot the pictures.

Haven't heard it yet...

...but the idea of a radio show focussing on Smart City sounds like something a Type-A would listen to on the StairMaster at the gym...which is good.

Private Property Rights and Local Control

It's good to see (via Common Monkeyflower) the Right-wing at least try to deal with things like Private Property Rights and Local Control: Can We Have Both? and this article has a somewhat nuanced view:

Private property rights and local land use control have been linchpins of American society for many years but it seems these ideals, sometimes viewed as complementary, have become unlikely adversaries.

I like the way this guy seems to understand that zoning both creates and insures property values...though "unlikely adversaries?" Oh well, it makes a good lead paragraph.

At least part of the reason is that these concepts have changed over time. Property rights groups seem to be well aware of their own rights, but sometimes lose sight of others’ property rights and oppose development project they don’t like.

Excellent! Finally we have a conservative who at least sees the problem!

Local land use control, in principle a process that allows local residents to be involved in planning their cities’ future,

that's a pretty remarkable concession for a conservative: bravo!

but then...

has become a forum for outside activists to block new development.italics added

Well perhaps if one is talking about land use disputes around National Parks but locals are well-enough able to see horrors in any impending change so that they do not need "outside agitators" to agitate them.

The dilemma is that local control can certainly infringe upon property rights, but pure property rights leaves few options for local land use control.

Ok, at least it's a clear statement of the problem.

But then Mr.Moore demonstrates what I see as a very flawed understanding of the way the system is actually structured, at least in the metropolitan areas where most land use battles happen. He writes --- and it sounds great in theory:

So, how might we sustain people’s property rights and still exercise reasonable local control that sometimes restricts property rights? Local control must move from the project approval and debate level to a more strategic level. Instead of hashing out each development project in public hearings dominated by activists and lobbyists, cities should provide guidance in broader specific area plans that provide a general direction for the local area. Cities should seek out input from only local neighborhood residents on broad directions for the community, not ballot box zoning or decisions on individual projects. Necessary project level decisions could be left to appointed planning commissions to depoliticize project approvals. Citizens and city councils would get involved when plans are periodically reviewed and changed.

And it sounds so great in theory that that's how it is actually structured in reality. There is a hieracrchy of planning restrictions from very broad goals "Seattle should be a nice place for kids" all the way down to "Each project must provide X square feet of Open space." But remember the earlier allusions to the tensions between predictability and flexibility? Well there is no way you can write a code which is so precise that it fits every site and circumstance. One must, in a real world practical world, even one run by hard-core capitalists, allow a certain amount of discretionary felxibility. And whenever you introduce flexibility you introduce discretion and uncertainty and review boards etc etc. Presto! A political dog-fight.

Anyway, it's great to hear a conservative grapple with these issues in a way which acknowledges a problem:

In many places “local control” has become a euphemism for no or slow growth, and “property rights” a euphemism for no planning. Getting back to reasonable definitions of those terms, and shifting the local approval processes from the tactical to the strategic, will help us retain local control and strong private property rights.

It's a great start but I'd redline the Reason reasoning because it in fact reflects the way things are already done (and not working very well). Maybe it's odd that I --- a wish-washy liberal with libertarian leanings --- would say this but Reason's critique, though simpatico, is not yet a trenchant and useful criticism. I'd send the post back for further work because this problem is a big one and I laud them for grappling with it. I know I already said that; but I am so impressed with conservatives who acknowledge that there is a problem of community planning that I want to urge them to continue on even if I think that they didn't quite get it right this time. God knows my liberal side isn't doing anything useful.

Trucks-on-Tracks

Or it could be Buses-on-Tracks or even Beemers-on-Tracks but there is the question of alliteration and also the actual substance of this photo:

click to enlarge

and then this one:

click to enlarge

I don't have to spell it out exactly; you get the drift. (Tell me if you don't.)

There would seem to be enormous potential (in theory) for this technology to create a dual-mode system. For example, a bus with dual rail/road capacity might have a great deal of advantages at the urban fringe i.e. collect by bus from lower density areas and the make time on the fixed rail. I'm surprised that no one has ever (to my limited knowledge -- have they?) done anything like this.

You would think would make sense in connecting Vancouver B.C. to Whistler for the Winter Olympics, It's a tortuous coastal and mountain drive along a reasonably dangerous road and it's a big issue for the Olympics organizers.

So why not? Why has this technology --- presumbaly developed by the railroads for their own convenience --- never been transfered?

I can expand later but one of the issues with fixed rail systems of any kind is the distance between stations. That distance determines how the system behaves. Stations far apart, you need huge park-and-ride lots and you lessen the power of the system to shape geography into a more pedestrian-oriented form. Stations close together means slower overall system performace. That trade-off, as I see it, is the central push/pull of fixed-rail station alignment. One would think that this dual-mode technology would have a great potential to mitigate that tension in certain circumstances.

The location of the shot? The romantically-named town of Hundred Mile House in the Cariboo Country of British Columbia. Marvelous!

UPDATE: As suggested in the comment below, is it simply too few rail lines?

No on street parking?

101-280 is back from a trip:

If you follow Brand St., the main shopping street of Glendale, past the Tower Records and the Borders and the outdoor mall with the Seoul Grindz: Korean BBQ Of Hawaii (verdict: good food-court food, although I did not try the Spam sushi), it interestingly reverts to what looks almost like the main street of any midwestern town circa 1955 -- low buildings with awnings, small stores, wide sidewalks and slant parking. And Hollywood Boulevard itself is only a few steps removed from looking the same way: they've taken out the parking to add traffic lanes, they've covered the wide sidewalks in dark tiles and the famous embedded stars, and the stores have moved into selling bongs, wigs, T-shirts, lingerie, and pornography.

No on-street parking on Hollywood? Hmmm. I would wonder if there are any pedestrians. Of course The Strip in Las Vegas and Michigan Avenue in Chicago prohibit on-street parking, but I would say those are 'sports,' centers of "world-scale" pedestrian actvity and not a good model for most streets.

Trading Spaces and the Apotheosis of the Expert

Useful post --- everyone hiring a professional designer should read it --- at (or is it "by") God of the Machine about the TV show "Trading Spaces" and the Apotheosis of the Expert.

Trading Spaces, as recent visitors from distant galaxies may not be aware, is the biggest hit show on cable television. Two homeowners, given a designer, a carpenter's services, and $1,000 budget, have two days to redesign a room in each other's house. I watch it for the same reason everyone does, because I find before and after pictures impossible to resist. It is also a fine piece of moral instruction.

This is Not a Joking Matter

Brian posts about a guy who says that there is such a thing as right wing humor and Brian concludes that

this posting of Madsen's is a muddle, but it has at least provoked me into some worthwhile ruminations. On balance, therefore, it was a good thing.

Ah, I think I get it. It was a joke.

Here's what the underlying post, Laughing all the way to the market, says, in part:

Is a sense of humour right-wing? I think it is. I know the BBC uses right-wing to mean simply bad, but I use it to indicate support for a spontaneous society made by the free economic and personal decisions of its members. Left-wing implies support for a more centrally planned society which seeks to reproduce in the world a vision of what some people think society ought to be like.

Clearly there are some right-wingers with a wry, understated and witty sensibility. The subject post (above) proves it.

Or, someone is saying that those New York Jewish comedians and comediennes are all part of a vast right wing conspiracy? Eh? I love it.

I think his whole idea is nutty. (That's why I love it.) Seriously, right wing humor? Where? There is enormous wit at Samizdata and Ronald Reagan could tell an amusing story...but in general the notion of right-wing humor is itself intensely comical but in a wistful way. Unless one consider someone like Ann Coulter to be an intentional (as opposed to un-intentional) comic, where are theses right-wing humorists? (And maybe that is an explanation about Coulter; she really wants to be in show-business and starting out as a right-wing "commentator" is a likely route.)

I just don't get it, unless one is playing with oxymorons.

Like "military intelligence" do we now have "conservative comedy"? Oh I get it; the whole thing, including Brian's post, is a part of a vast right-wing joke. And I fell for it.

UPDATE: Crooked Timber is also concerned about the issue of right wing humor. Shall I tell them?

Accentuating the Positive?

No. The

hunt is on to spotlight worst examples of civic desolation

The search is on for the grimmest, most fly-tipped, burnt-car littered, supermarket trolley infested stretch of grot in Britain.

The public is invited to nominate the worst wasted space in Britain, in a campaign launched today by Cabe, the government's commission on architecture and the built environment. It estimates that up to 70,000 acres, an area the size of greater London, lie abandoned and desolate.

The campaign comes with backing from celebrities, including the actor Sir Ian McKellen. He wonders plaintively: "Why do we define space with fences? Why don't we take our litter home?"

An estimated one-third is local authority owned, some of it earmarked for future development, some just abandoned. Tens of thousands of acres, broken up into tiny chunks, sur round the estimated 76,000 empty council-owned properties, 37,625 empty housing authority units, and 57,000 homes owned by government departments, including the prison service and army. The main house builders also have huge land banks.

Cute but I think it might be as well to tease-out lessons from successful places...after all, how do we learn? By copying the successful.

UPDATE: Actually take a look at the site Wasted Space....Nominate; there may be much more to the program than I gathered from The Guardian's article.

Great Signs Photo Album

In a totally frivolous vein, I have added a photo album for Great Signs in the sidebar (currently to the right but who knows for how long).

The photographers of the first five I've posted are unknown to me. They were emailed and the person who sent them doesn't really know where they are from either. (Of course I will give credit or even withdraw them upon request by person who can persuade me that they took them.)

If you have a sign that you would like to contribute --- credit of course, mere use, no transfer of rights, revocable at your pleasure, effusive thanks given etc etc--- please write to me at david-at-citycomforts.com. (I am trying to cut down on SPAM and I am told that if I don't have my name up no one will be able to find me; sounds dubious but I'll try it.)

And actually, the signs are not so frivolous. I love signage for the insights they offer into both the culture (yes, this is a culture blog but pretty-much low culture suitable for the common-man and common-woman) and socio-economics (I took courses) of a place.

I found some great ones which didn't appear to have a role in the book City Comforts so I might as well post them here too, as time moves along, or as we move through time.

Why "For" or "Against"?

Why should there be arguments for or against micropayments?

The only issue is can it work? and that is not something about which there can reasonably be a "YES I am for it working" or NO I am against it working." This is not an ideological question; it is a practical one and practical people will either solve it or not. To argue, (as Davies does in the link referenced by Cowen below,) that there is some sort of impossibility because of transaction costs is a bit short-sighted and only reflects current reality. A businessman would say "We have a deal except we have to lower the transaction costs. If we can't, then no deal."

Why not use web technology to charge people very small bits for downloading songs, or reading blogs for that matter? An earlier note of mine discussed mental transactions costs -- having to ponder the small charge each time -- as a potential problem. An excellent post by Daniel Davies provides further, and better, ammunition against the micropayments idea. His key point: at some point micropayments have to clear through real financial institutions and the real shuffling of paper. Right now we don't have the technology to do this more cheaply than credit card companies do, and they don't find very small transactions to be worth their while.

Davies' post is indeed persuasive as to one factor limiting micro-payments. But it's only the story now and merely presents business hurdles to overcome. I am somewhat puzzled by any tone of advocacy; either someone will be able to make it work or no one will be able to make it work. All seem to agree that it's
1. a good idea
but
2. it's not happening.

It's great that people are applying their minds to explain why it's not working now.

But now and forever are a long way apart.

Ethnic heritage for WASPs?

Chris Bertram posts about Restoration and the urban environment :

In recent weeks the hit TV programme on British TV has been Restoration, which invites viewers to vote for the dilapidated country house, castle, factory or mausoleum they most want renovated. Patrick Wright has been a shrewd observer of the "heritage industry" since the publication of his landmark On Living in an Old Country in the mid-1980s. He has a good essay in the Guardian on the ambivalence of restoration and on the often-attached social snobbery.(emphasis added, check-out links in original)

(What an idea! Viewer-participation for historic preservation! Only in England! It would be interesting to develop a TV show to straw-poll other major public investments.)

But as to snobbery --- indeed.

A few years ago I visited splendid Mystic Seaport in Mystic, Connecticut. (Irony in link intentional and an indication that even historic preservation evolves.) As I wondered about, and particularly in the obligatory founders' hall, I was struck by the benefactors' names: I wish I could get the rhythm down but there was a certain 17th century air to them all. And then it struck me: I was in an ethnic heritage museum for WASPs. Ethnic heritage is big in the USA nowadays. Yes we are a "melting pot" but also a salad in which each ingrediant contributes to the whole but also keeps the flavor of its own historic identity. I like it: the mutual respect for "the other" and also for "the past."

And yes, social exclusion and snobbery have a bit to do with historic preservation, if looked at from the most cynical perspective: I mean who designed & developed those 18th and 19th century treasures? Certainly not immigrants who arrived in North America in 1880. No of course not, it was the WASP grandees of North and South. And please don't forget it.

But overall, historic preservation effort seems to me a very valuable thing (and Mystic Seaport in particular is terrific if you like ships, boats etc) in that remembrance of the past fosters social stabilty and continuity, (especially if there is recognition that many such structures were actually "built" by cheap immigrant labor or literally, slaves.) Now of course if one does not want social continuity...

As to the article referenced by Bertram, it's interesting if too British for me to really get.

But it has some nice observations, such as:

And so it is with Restoration, which concentrates on the historical building as a single endangered structure, and sees conservation as a wholly good cause: a secular version of church-going, which only a satanic monster would question.

... a bit dated but just so choice

Via Travelling Shoes I learn about:

Rem Koolhaas and that Barcode Flag

The announcement today by the European Union that it's considering a new flag, one designed by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas and looking sort of like a barcode, comes as something of a shock, although it probably shouldn't.

This should be really interesting

Planning chief in Clallam County to be elected

Clallam County voters this fall will elect one of three men to fill an office that has never been on the ballot before.

Anywhere --- as far as national organizations know.

This Olympic Peninsula county of 65,000 is electing its planning director.

The official title is director of community development. He'll be the county's top land-use administrator, responsible for everything from drafting growth-management plans and processing zoning changes to issuing building permits. He'll enforce restrictions on shoreline development and implement salmon-recovery agreements.

An appointed official holds the job now. That's the way it is in every other city and county in Washington and probably the nation: The National Association of Counties and the American Planning Association both say they know of no other local jurisdiction that elects its planning director.

Just don't complain if you get what you asked for.

Another design mistake about to happen?

For a man who correctly holds shockitecture in contempt, Jim Kunstler's Crudely Named Website, which name could be only be designed to shock (and it's shockingly shabbily-designed to boot), does nevertheless have some very intelligent words on the World Trade Center design, all in his review of Ric Burns' recent show (which was no doubt cloying --- they all are). Jim writes:

I mention all this coming up on the two-year anniversary of the tragedy, because after watching the story it seems to me that the proposed re-design for the site by architect Daniel Liebeskind is perhaps even more horrible, more misconceived, more arrogant, and more foolish, and perhaps more evil than the original Twin Towers themselves. Liebeskind proposes a set of skewed, warped, tortured, and torqued glass boxes, offset by a decorative tower even taller than the two that fell down. The "monument" to the dead is nothing more than the excavated "tub" of the original retaining walls of the foundation.

Have we learned nothing?

In the 1960s, the Rockefeller brothers sought a hugeness of scale for its own sake, a symbolic upthrust of steel and concrete crudly asserting American power rampant -- one tower for each brother. The original WTC had nothing to do with the life of the city per se, especially the life of the street -- a point Goldberger returned to many times. Liebeskind's replacement is really no different, except that this time, in the spirit of our age, the venture is just an exercise in fashion and celebrity dressed up with phony graduate school metaphysical theoretics.

Who owns the river?

Property owner claims rafters have no right to float on by

The issue hangs on interpretation of public trust law as old as the country itself. At its heart -- increasingly played out all over the West as more homes are built in remote territories adjacent to public lands and rivers coveted by adventurers -- is a central question: When can the public be denied access to a public resource?...The question of trespassing generally hangs on whether or not the river legally is held to be navigable. Dating back to the heyday of riverboat commerce, the law has held that in some cases, segments of a non-navigable river can be privately owned. In the 1800s, the Kettle was deemed non-navigable.

An outrage to decency?

Don't you think it's outrageous how some people make light of "genius" and "beauty."

click for pop-up

Will the Real Ansel Adams please stand up?

Thanks to Letter from Gotham I learn about

The Ansel Adams of New York's Bridges

One day in 1914 - he noted the date as Oct. 7 in the logbook - de Salignac arrived at the Brooklyn Bridge to take what is probably his finest, and certainly most famous, image, one that has been reproduced in posters, postcards and books, though never, until recently, attributed to the man who shot it.

Eugene de Salignac/N.Y.C. Municipal Archive, Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

The Parking Puzzle

Who says that no one is interested in anything but "beauty"? The Parking Puzzle

Incredibly, there have been people who failed to grasp the car's relentless ascendancy. A wishful foreword to a planning office report in 1965 said: "Creation of a 'drive-in' campus is open to question. Few universities are shaping themselves irrevocably in an image that assumes the eternalism of the automobile. This may be due to the knowledge that acceptance of the motorcar for individual transit has been a one-generation phenomenon. And its decline, if technology and Madison Avenue cooperate, may be as rapid."

Palo Alto. We managed to land on the moon in 1969, but we're still waiting for BART.

Sometimes I think the same thing

Yankee Blog muses:

One of the things that I love about the Internet is that if you have enough anger there is nothing to stop you from venting it. Beneath the rapid fading veneer of civility and debate about issues in American poltics is a seething soup of anger. This is true on both sides. Many times it is downright scary to read, leaving me with the feeling that the rule of law is not quite as strong as we might think it is. Then I think about all the interests in America that are invested in stability, and believe that things can't really get that bad. But it seems that we are approaching a cross-roads of sorts, a time when there is a distinct danger that all civility and sense of common purpose could disappear from American politics.

I worry about that too. But it can't happen here.

Motoring in New Zealand

Motoring in New Zealand from one marvelous spot to another seems like just the right thing to do come rainy, dark, depressing Seattle December.

The world's first sky preserve

Good links at post on The world's first sky preserve

The world's first sky preserve

I've posted at least once in the past about fledgling attempts to create noise-free zones. Aside from noise, humans create another kind of non-noxious pollution - light pollution. The government in Ontario, Canada, has created the world's first sky preserve, a 1,900 hectare area of land where the sky should be free of any kind of pollution from ground-based lighting. Lots more on the same site. There was also a segment on the USA's National Public Radio programme, Living on Earth and here's the transcript. Oh, just realised there's an International Dark-Sky Association. (via FoRK)

Pretense and Pomp

Some people might think that Herbert Muschamp's