City Comforts, the blog

" slowly polished by traffic and sunshine...slowly polished by traffic and sunshine..."

One of the delights of life is to happen upon the casual application of imagination to the banal. (That's why I get annoyed by the pretentious posturing of starchitect poseurs who work so hard to gild the lily.) Talking about banal, old French MANHOLE COVERS would seem to fit. (In Seattle we call them personnel covers, if you can believe it.) Take a look at how a bit of effort can inform even the most mundane things.

Thank you Michael Jennings for the link.

Not a lot of political (or practical) appeal here either

American Footprint says:

As I understand it, nuclear power is expensive, but a lot of this has to do with the fact that no nuke plants have been built in the past 25 years and a lot of old hippies are unduly alarmist about nuclear waste.

Yeah, those old hippies. Just so alarmist about how to take care of nuclear waste for the next thousand years. How silly.

And how powerful. Just think of it: a bunch of pot-smoking hippies stopped an entire billion-dollar industry. Probably just blew smoke in the face of the NRC. Would that it were so.

Seriously, I'd love to believe that nuclear power was practical but that pesky issue of what to do with the nuclear garbage is a real one and nobody seems to have a clue about how to solve it. We can't seem to come up with reasonable plans to "dispose" (i.e. safeguard for thousands of years) of the stuff we already have. To expand our nuclear capability without a real answer to that waste problem seems fairly radical.

And moralizing about urban form comes from both left and right

Ron Rosenbaum observes:

The implication was evident: We deserved it. It would be a salutary lesson. It was the Pat Robertson wing of the Left in full flower: Sinful America deserved this Judgment from the sky. Crocodile tears could be shed for those people who died in the towers, but those buildings were so ugly, they were such eyesores, they were a symbol of globalist hubris— it was as if the terrorists who flew the planes into the towers were really architectural critics, flying Herbert Muschamps, not mass murderers.

More broadly, what confounds me is that urban form is seen by some of both Left and Right as a moral issue — as opposed to the more obvious, to me, analysis of it as the logical & simple result flowing from mis-use of an historically brand-new tool i.e. the automobile. Perhaps that's why I decline to hector our society. As one who makes oodles of mistakes, more each day, I have sympathy for persons and groups who makes mistakes. And I view our mis-use of the auto as simply a mis-take.

When a book review...

...starts off with a loaded and unsupported assumption before it even gets to the independent clause -- such as...

In an age where nuance and sensitivity in language are valued more than resoluteness on the battlefield, it is not an easy thing to praise the career of....

...then I have to stop reading the review.

It is bizarre to oppose -- which is the import of the clause -- skill with language and skill on the field.

It is doubly odd that a professor of classics, of all people, would suggest inherent conflict. Language -- especially if expressed with nuance and sensitivity -- is one of the arms of a general, Churchill and Odysseus prime examples. What the fellow might have meant is that bigots can be good generals, but that might be too obvious to point out and doesn't allow one to get in a dig at political correctness either. Now if he had said that bigots make the best generals I would have kept reading.

That's an exceedingly gracious way of putting it.

STICKS & STONES refers to starchitecture as

glamorous sculpture

and he really nails it here:

Herbert Muschamp is snapping his synapses as fast as he can. In three separate “appreciations” or “critic’s notebooks,” or whatever they are—the streams of consciousness are the same in all—he quite predictably conflates several unrelated pop-culture/high-culture references in his efforts to erect a rhetorical house of cards in support of Zaha’s greatness. (Other critics usually settle for variations on the theme of “I like her, so you should.” Herbert buries you in babble.) Last Sunday’s Times Magazine found him comparing Zaha’s work to the “extreme geometries” of Rome’s baroque churches and to the work of fashion designer Emilio Pucci. What it is that compellingly links these talents is left to your imagination.

.

Rural depopulation and urban densification

I don't think Matthew Yglesias should run for office on this proposal:

I just don't fundamentally see a problem with letting rural areas continue to depopulate while America's metro areas grow. With the exception of New York, every city in the United States is pretty low-density outside of a relatively tiny downtown business districy (look at Washington's endless tracts of three story row houses in neighborhoods both fancy and decrepit), a situation that could be easily changed by altering some tax and zoning rules in a way that could radically lower urban (and, consequently, inner-suburban) housing prices even while permitting a much larger concentration of people in the regions of this country that have viable economic bases.

I am in sympathy with what appears at first glance to be a somewhat laissez-faire approach to population distribution. After all, we don't want the government in the bedroom in any sense. The only problem comes with the sleight-of-hand in which Yglesias presents the option: "...easily changed by altering some tax and zoning rules in a way that could radically lower urban..."

Well easily changed if we had a dictatorship. Not quite so simple with literally thousands of jurisdictions and a culture built over a hundred years and in which, most importantly, people like it the way it is.

A few small issues.
Rural areas still have a lot of votes.
Urban areas also still have even more votes.
More importantly, land use policy is largely a very local matter and there is almost universal agreement left and right that that is better than having regional government much less State or Federal intervention.
Neither rural or urban folks want dramatic changes in density, especially the urban areas. The verb "to densify" is not a positive one

People have been struggling with issues of urban form for the past 50 years or more and the idea that these tax and zoning policies -- the core social tools -- can be "easily changed" is mystifying, especially when it comes from the mind of an otherwise very astute observer. As a theoretical matter, "easily" may be accurate. But in reality, these tax and zoning laws have literally been manifest in concrete and (for better or worse) a huge and complex culture built on their foundation. To change them is not at all an easy task.

***

And, as a coda, there is the sunk investment in the physical heritage (streets, sidewalks, utility systems, buildings etc etc.) of thousand thousands of small town throughout the depopulating regions. This infrastructure has real value; these towns are very often charming "Main Street" settlements. It is sad to see such investment go to waste when there is such high demand in only a hundred metropolitan areas for housing.

Very clever

descrit observes:

Interesting how when someone decides to "take a wait-and-see attitude," he or she takes the pinnacle of passivity — namely, doing nothing — and makes it sound like the height of alertness and proactivity.

Put aside the politics

I appreciate bloggers who pay attention to details.

And that doesn't mean I agree or not with the privatisation conclusion. But there is something about the glory of small details, about the sign that another intelligence has been that way before and acted with intention, and further that someone else notices, that I find rather pleasing and delightful.

Doesn't really look that "radical" at all.

Deconstructing Hadid - Is the new Pritzker Prize winner the radical she's thought to be?

It's worth reading:

The cult of obscurity that surrounded Hadid hardly distinguished her from her colleagues in the architectural avant-garde—or, for that matter, in the artistic or literary ones. For decades, architects like Hadid and their champions in the academy have discussed architecture in writing where jargon operates as a kind of code, keeping amateurs confused and thus, for the most part, comfortably out of the way.

But Hadid took that disdain a step further: She walled off her work visually, too. Nearly every one of her early designs made an enemy of aesthetic clarity and legibility, and seemed to reject the idea that non-architects should be able to look at architectural plan, elevation, or rendering and actually be able to imagine what the building is going to look like in the real world. Many of her renderings seemed to be composed from the perspective of a helicopter dipping into a crazy sideways tailspin.

Just when we thought we had Hadid pegged, though, her first American building opened its doors last spring. The Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art sits on a compact corner site in downtown Cincinnati. It's an ambitious design: The galleries are contained within blocks of space that jut out from the facade like wayward drawers on a piece of furniture, giving the building the look of a huge, three-dimensional painting by Braque or Malevich. The floor of the entry hall curls dramatically, like a magic carpet, as it nears the back wall. But the museum is also calm and surprisingly straightforward, and it treats the average museum-goer with a remarkable generosity of spirit. On the whole it's welcoming, not exclusive or proudly alienating.

It's possible that the building will prove to be an aberration for Hadid. For a true measure of her place in architectural history, we'll have to wait until her major projects are built, particularly a new museum in Rome and a BMW factory in Leipzig, Germany, both of which are now under construction.

But rather than suggest that Hadid has softened over the years, the Cincinnati museum offers a sign that perhaps she has been a sophisticated, accessible architect all along—that behind her aggressive renderings lay buildings that are better, if less radical, than the hype suggested. In other words, Hadid may be right that the Pritzker will push her into the mainstream. But if it does, the trip will be a bit shorter than she's ever been willing to admit.

The irony of the award

I left this comment at John Massengale's:

Well of course I almost entirely agree with you; I only caveat your conclusion about the aesthetic appeal of Hadid's Rosenthal Center.

I don't swoon; but based on the photo, I rather like it. It seems to be an ordinary, decent urban building: a straight-forward "Three Rules" street-level frontage with diverting upper-stories. And it seems to have just-enough fenestration at the upper levels to prevent it from becoming a leaden, hostile "block." (I think we need to leave room for the infrequent architectural program such as a museum which discourage a lot of windows.) All-in-all, a decent job, done according to the basic rules of urbanism. Again, maybe not "great" or "ideal" but a credible work which helps create a good urban street.

So what is the irony? What I find ironic is that she is being given an award (primarily for this building, I'd wager, her first in North America) for a design which by anyone but a "name architect" -- i.e. a Starchitect -- would be ignored as "just another ordinary, decent urban building." She is rewarded for doing the banal. Judging by the exterior, she's done a nice piece of urbane and very corporate architecture. The building could easily have Exxon or Pfizer carved discretely in its facade. But no one will admit that this is just a decent street-enfronting urban building; instead and for some reason which escapes me, they cobble-together fantasmagoric expressions to try to convince that the Rosenthal is unusual, ground-breaking, cutting-edge, blah-blah-blah. That's irony.

Ho-hum

Though not an unabashed enthusiast, STICKS & STONES pretty-much goes along with the pack on Hadid and accepts that she has some sort of special talent.

I love what Zaha does (and I love the diva veils and the whiskey-Brit voice) yet I can’t dismiss the skeptics. You do not hire Zaha if you expect walls to be vertical and floors to stay underfoot, where they belong. Hers is a painterly and spectacularly sculptural sensibility and you give into it or you go elsewhere. Zaha hasn’t built much because such an uncompromising approach too often turns out to be quite at odds with humdrum utility. Her unbelievably gorgeous proposal for an opera in Cardiff, Wales, was a bit short on the kind of specifics that would help ordinary people understand whether the thing would actually work—or as the Telegraph writes, “Many in Cardiff felt that an alien, incomprehensible building was being foisted upon them.”

Philistines? Well, not entirely. Even her Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art, in Cincinnati, a pretty tame design by Zaha standards, is quite demanding curatorially with its idiosyncratically shaped galleries stacked over many levels. And yet the coiled energy visually embodied in the exterior’s blocklike shapes shows she knows how to excite the urban nerve endings in a wholly new way.

We posted on the Rosenthal Center a while back. It's not a bad urban building at all -- it meets the 3 Rules -- but it excites the "urban nerve endings in a wholly new way"? And that novelty is presumptively good? (I guess it is presumptively good as it goes unexplained.)

Nah. I don't think so. Based on the photos I have seen of the building, it's just a nice urban building. There are dozens and dozens if not hundreds of equally pleasant and foregettable structures around. Why do otherwise clever people fall for this sort of over-valuation -- both the buildings and even more importantly the language around them? Based on her talent alone, I suspect that Hadid's trajectory will be very, very short.

Will blogs ever pay?

Well this one won't but maybe Matthew Yglesias will. (For my money, and that's where I put it, Yglesias is among the very few genuinely astute political bloggers -- informed, judgements sharp but mildly-put, little or no cant -- and I have no doubt he will be a commentator on big-time big-$$$-media before too long.)

Anyway, I am advertising my book on his site -- arranged FYI by a company named Blogads -- and I am curious to hear your suggestions on the wording of my ad, how to improve it, etc etc. (It's in the left-hand column but you may have to scroll down.)

When will the debunkers (e.g. Alan Sokal, Dennis Dutton) get hip to the nonsensical language of the architecture world?

It appears that the Pritzker folks are unleasing another drenching of nonsense upon us; when will someone of prestige speak up? For example: Martyr for the avant garde joins the elite at last

Her designs are distinguished by sharp angles, flowing lines and dramatic juxtapositions. Her buildings cannot be understood in simple terms of floors, walls and roof but form flowing planes that wrap round space.

Ugh. I want to vomit.

This debunking task -- I guess i could call it fisking -- needs to be done by someone of serious academic and/or critical standing and someone who also has an astute understanding of how cities work and how buildings are put together, as pieces of matter, politically and economically. It's no good attacking the airy, fairy generalities of Starchi-babble with our own airy, fairy generalities. Simple nouns and verbs, folks. Above all, what is required is common sense and a feel for the language.

Ideally this person would not be overly-dentified with the right wing, which would unfortunately eliminate a fellow like Kimball and much of The New Criterion crowd, even thoush some of them might be qualified; for me, even when I agree with them, their views are tainted by their rigid ideology; and just as Muschamp torturously (and humorously) tries to make starchitecture 'progressive,' they would make urbane architecture 'conservative;' they would both be wrong and a pox on both houses. (Where are you now, Lewis Mumford, when we need you.)

One of the serious impediments to the advancement of city planning in our era is that the language used by Muschamp, Koolhaas etc etc, goes almost unchallenged as serious intellectual discourse and is even furthered by well-meaning but naive camp-followers like the Pritzkers. The mass audience now believes (and is brow-beaten into accepting that it is their own flaw for not understanding) that an architect like Hadid actually has anything of serious intellectual content to offer. This is a mis-direction of attention of which any Three Card Monte huckster on the sidewalks would be proud.

Maybe a boycott of Hyatt Hotels is in order?

Reality Bites

Not every architect can be a Louis Kahn or Eero Saarinen. But these days, it seems more and more architects don't even try. At the nation's top architectural schools, students are too often encouraged to see their field as an aesthetic exercise largely divorced from its obligations to the brick-and-mortar world. For almost a decade, Hadid has been a poster child for this wing of avant-garde architecture. Perhaps in time she will show her followers how to turn their ideas into reality. But by honoring Hadid for her ideas rather than waiting ten years to honor her for an actual body of work, the Pritzker jury has suggested that in contemporary architecture, reality doesn't matter.

(The author is right-on, though he overstates the importance of Kahn. I had the pleasure of re-visiting Kahn's Salk Institute a while ago and it really is a nice piece for a suburban business park. But it is neither artful nor significant.)

Crime and Development

A while ago, and along with a number of other blogs, we posted (e.g. Is New Urbanism "crimogenic?" and "Crimogenic?" No, Bunkogenic.) about crime & new urbanism etc. We were prompted by a shabby report, still being touted by a West Coast anti-city enthusiast, which proposed a high correlation. Reader Matthew Amster-Burton brings our attention to this paper which offers an opposing view. It appears to be a reasonable, empirical investigation of the spatial dynamics of crime. I have no opinion yet but it looks rather interesting:

About ten years ago, research on patterns of burglary in residential areas, using space syntax techniques to analyse the urban layout, suggested that burglary rates were lower in more spatially 'integrated' streets, that is, those with more potential movement. The results ran counter to the fashionable consensus that 'defensible space', with its 'strangers equal danger' mentality and its reliance on curtain twitching residents in cul de sacs, was the best protection against crime....

"Is architecture the dominant visual art form of the day?"

Tyler Green asks. It's an interesting question and James Russell offers his own to-the-point answer:

There's another reason for architecture's ascendance. $75 million will buy you one Van Gogh -- or a very nice museum addition to put it and a few hundred other works of art in. So architecture, for the high-end collector class, remains a BARGAIN.

For myself, I don't think the answer to Tyler's question is even remotely "yes." But if it were so, the upshot might well be a good news/bad news one. It's good that more people are supposedly paying attention to the built environment.

The bad news is that their experience is largely mediated through
1. images in the media and
2. words of intellectual impostors like Herbert Muschamp (to pick out the most important imposter.)

I hear people "ooing!" and "cooing!" -- some even here in the blogosphere! -- about buildings like Gehry's Disney Hall -- but very few have ever been there, so their enthusiasm is a bit odd, a bit off-pitch, like the pre-mature laugh before the punch-line to the joke is even voiced. Their experience and "appreciation" for the building is entirely formed by opinions in the media and by photos. They do not know the building but they like the photos and the words spoon-fed to them.

So perhaps Tyler's question might better be "Is media-hype the dominant art form of the day?"

Why does no one pay attention to the "fashionable nonsense" of architectural criticism?

There is a vibrant ongoing debate about modern intellectuals who are good at stringing words together to sound impressive but who really have little to say. This article on Postmodernism Disrobed is just one among many in that genre. (Link via Butterflies and Wheels.) Why, however, as a general rule, do these worthy debunkers pay no attention to architectural theorists such as Koolhaas, Muschamp etc etc ad infinitum? Surely there is bunk there in bushels. No doubt they are kept busy enough by literary theorists and so forth. But, as an entirely separate inquiry, why no attention paid to people who spoof the built environment? Are we too much in our heads? With insufficient sense of the body? Only the most tenyous and remote connections to the buildings around us? I think it has something to do with that.

What ideology does...

... Hadid represent? Whatever it is, her recognition via the Pritzker Prize is sad news.

Is there anyhing there with which to disagree?

John Massengale (at "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?") prompted Michael Blowhard to write about Massengale on Modernism which -- following a series of lengthy comments -- prompts me to visit (to start my re-investigation) the web site of the "Genius Architect" Daniel Libeskind to determine whether -- in terms of ideas -- there is any "there, there."

The gist of the lively post & comments at Blowhards (please go read them) was the Blowhards' (I believe unsupportable) assertion that our current crop of anti-urbanist Starchitects (e.g. Koolhaas, Libeskind, Gehry et al) manifest some aspect of Modernism. My position is that this modern crop of Starchitects are divorced from understanding of what makes a good city and are ordinary careerists who have found a niche in creating "Oh! Wow!" architetcture for the gullible masses. They are divorced not because of ideology but because everyone thinks that they are all geniuses so no one has the nerve to tell them to design agood urban building. But the Blowhards think that these guys represent some sort of real ideology --"Modernism" -- with real Ideas and that they don't design humane, urbane buildings because of some ideological framework. At least I think that's the issue.

I could be wrong; and since empiricism trumps dreams, to start my investigation into the ideas-if-any of starchitecture, I went toLibeskind's own site to see if there were any ideas, there.

No dice. What I found was a series of inoffensive words. For example, Libeskind was honored by being given the German Architecture Prize and offered the following (among others) words, (words which I believe were central to his talk):

I believe that architecture is not reducible to any particular climate of opinion. No abstract theory, game of forms, application of technology or pragmatics is sufficient to communicate the fact that architecture is a movement beyond the material. It is length, height and width, but also the depth of aspiration and memory. The living source of architecture is the very substance of the soul and constitutes the structure of culture itself.

I don't disagree, but only because there is not a whole lot with which to disagree. It seems to me a bit vacuuous -- " architecture is a movement beyond the material" -- which I assume (as his words are so poorly composed) that "buildings call forth emotions in people" etc etc...Pretty harmless, conventional stuff...vague adolescent intellectualizing...the sort of thing which I can imagine any New Urbanist saying (though with a bit more oomph! & concreteness, I would hope). I wouldn't call Libeskind's words particularly controversial -- "buildings have significance beyond their material form" -- in fact they are rather ordinary, banal truisms -- unless there are some hidden code words there which escape me.

So if such banalities passe for ideology, the only issue is that many far too many people have a rather attenuated understanding of an idea.

UPDATE: Unfortunately, the great divide in our culture between the "cerebral" world and the "built environment" world is no better illustrated by the fact that no one discusses it. For instance, the "fashionable nonsense" spewed by these folks ought to be a focus of witty Butterflies and Wheels. One of the reason architects are able to get away with so much BS (this is my hypothesis) is because the vast majority of "ordinary intellectuals" are intimidated by architecture (and admittedly it is big) and so are not able to recognize BS when they hear it. Too bad for they are missing the terrific target afforded by the meaningless but humorous jargon of the Libeskinds, Koolhaass and so forth.

Needed: a Shadow Blog for Arts & Letters Daily

The British political opposition has a shadow-cabinet; why not a Shadow Blog for Arts & Letters Daily to help keep that estimable group on its cerebral toes? Like many people -- how many tens of thousands? -- I often start my day by browsing Arts & Letters Daily to see what the intelligentsia is up to. Sometimes I am impressed; but too often I read one of their links and my reaction is "Huh? Why point us to that piece of tripe?"

(I have always wondered whether I am the only one who reacted that very way; I am sure I am not, for if there is one magical thing about being part of a mass, middle-class culture, I have finally learned that if I feel some way then there are probably many thousands of others who feel the same way, as small a minority as we may be in absolute terms.)

Anyway, this particular link -- Who Needs an Agent? You Do! -- made me wonder once again why in the world the A&LD editors chose it, what was the uber-message -- why tell us about this slight article? why? what did it offer that I didn't get? -- especially as that very day I had read half-a-dozen others of certain gravitas.

What someone needs to do is establish a Shadow Arts & Letters Daily to read the 3 or so articles to which A&LD links each day...and to offer some trenchant criticism on the article and its worth, not the cute Time (magazine) gloss which A&LD has begun to offer as a substitute for real wit.

Moreover, the Shadow Blog could offer a Comments section so that readers -- who might well be as expert as the linked-authors -- could offer their own critique.

It takes more than decisiveness

Mark A. R. Kleiman says:

But some of us dislike George W. Bush largely because he has proven to be such an inept war President.

I wouldn't say that I dislike George Bush -- in fact as I have said several times on this blog, I think I would genuinely like GW as a companion on the golf course or a raftng trip -- but I do agree that he is not a war president in whom I feel confidence. And we are at war.

While I admire GW's quality of decisiveness, I also value wisdom and, following Odysseus, craft. One has to be decisive but it is more effective if astute in one's decisions.

Guest post from Laurence Aurbach

I've gotten tired of hearing the sound of my own voice, as no doubt others have, as well. So here is a new one, with other voices to join in as the earth turns. Laurence Aurbach has been an advocate for new urbanism since 1997, working as an editor, writer and graphic designer.

•••

Laurence Aurbach suggests:

Don't miss the terrific article -- How the old Times Square was made new. -- in The New Yorker on the history of Times
Square. It's stuffed full of keeper quotes. Here is a selection of them.

TIMES REGAINED by ADAM GOPNIK How the old Times Square was made new. Issue of 2004-03-22 Posted 2004-03-15 http://www.newyorker.com/critics/atlarge/?040322crat_atlarge

The story follows, on a larger scale than usual, the familiar form of New
York development, whose stages are as predictable as those of a professional
wrestling match: first, the Sacrificial Plan; next, the Semi-Ridiculous
Rhetorical Statement; then the Staged Intervention of the Professionals;
and, at last, the Sorry Thing Itself.

...

The Semi-Ridiculous Rhetorical Statement ... is intended to show that the
plan is not as brutal and cynical as it looks but has been designed in
accordance with the architectural mode of the moment. ("The three brass
lambs that stand on the spires of Sheep's Meadow Tower reflect the
historical context of the site" was the way it was done a decade ago; now it
's more likely to be "In its hybrid façade, half mirror, half wool, Sheep's
Meadow Tower captures the contradictions and deconstructs the flow of ...")

...

The porno shops on West Forty-second Street weren't there because the middle
class had fled. They were there because the middle class was there.

...

A new orthodoxy had come into power, with an unapologetic emphasis on formal
"delirium" and the chaotic surface of the city. ... To an increasing bias in
favor of small-scale streetscapes and "organic" growth was added a neon zip
of pop glamour. The new ideology was Jane Jacobs dressed in latex and
leather.

...

Forty-second Street, was saved by government decisions, made largely on
civic grounds. ... Civic-mindedness, once again, saved capitalism from
itself.

...

The idea that there is a good folkish culture that comes up from the streets
and revivifies the arts and a bad mass culture imposed from above is an
illusion, and anyone who has studied any piece of the history knows it.

...

All the same, there is something spooky about the contemporary Times Square.
It wanders through you; you don't wander through it.

...

One of the things that make for vitality in any city, and above all in New
York, is the trinity of big buildings, bright lights, and weird stores. The
big buildings and bright lights are there in the new Times Square, but the
weird stores are not. By weird stores one means not simply small stores,
mom-and-pop operations, but stores in which a peculiar and even obsessive
entrepreneur caters to a peculiar and even an obsessive taste.

If you like beat 'em up arch-rant...

...(which I do)...then don't miss Michael Blowhard on Towers in the Park.

Seriously, it's an excellent post. Read it carefully. What he does is put you the reader in the position of a pedestrian so that you can actually get a sense of experiencing the building at ground-level. That is unusual in arch-crit which usually discuss a building in remote, abstract language with references to obscure intellectuals.

David Sucher, live

Well not really live, actually. But archived at Smart City Radio. I haven't heard the show, probably won't so I have no idea if he makes sense at all; but in general I am very familiar with this fellow's rap; in fact I have heard it quite enough to not want to bother listening. But you might want to give it a try if you have nothing better to do.

worth noting

subway systems of the world, presented on the same scale

Tschumi-designed Museum for the Elgin Marbles: what is the real story?

2blowhards discusses the fallout from the Greek Elections. One impact involves the proposal for a museum to house the Elgin Marbles, which was brought to our attention a few weeks ago by the Blowhards' guest-blogger Nikos Salingaros.

I have no opinion about the building -- the images offered on the web are simply too small to see enough to offer an opinion.

But the politics interest me. Blowhards link to Greeks put stop to 'Elgin Marbles' museum in The Telegraph which seems to say that the issue is not at all about the design of the structure per se but about its siting, its location, which would destroy unearthed archeological treasures. Tschumi's "modern" design is mentioned but only in passing and not as a factor.

The whole thing is fascinating as the museum's location was approved by the Greek Central Archaeological Council, which sounds impressive, though it may have been another paper-tiger which was rolled by the potent political machine of a NY-based, Swiss-born college professor. There is a story here but I wonder if Tshumi's design is just a sideshow.

UPDATE: unfolio is a bit more blunt than I am about the so-called The Athens Effect set forth by Michael Blowhard, above.

Is it really that well-known?

James S. Russell says:

"But I'm from Seattle, which means I know passive-aggressive behavior when I see it.

Patrick Crozier Asks

Do we talk about terrorism and security on Transport Blog?

"...I don't know if we talk about this sort of thing here."

I offer my opinion -- "Yes" -- at this excellent blog, which all who are interested in cities should attend, as cities are totally creatures of transport.

Live - work

Live-work is permeating the mainstream.

Is there a demand for live-work communities?
The rise of live-work units
More evidence of the live-work trend
Live-work unit models
From a live-work unit owner herself
Live-work from an artist's point of view

These are posts at the blog of CoolTown Studios which seems, so far as I can judge, to be in business to create community, which is an interesting and slighly puzzling proposition.

Does spatial form influence our social values?

I have had a fascinating email conversation over the last few days. My correspondent and I seem to quite agree quite on urban form (NU = good) but seem to very much disagree about the possible impacts, if any, of that form on the psychosphere. The issue seems to revolve around the old issue of environmental determinism i.e. to what degree can we look to our spatial forms as generators (or even reinforcers) of attitude? Of values? I had an epiphany during this conversation, connecting the dots on perhaps two of the biggest phenomena of the last part of the last American century.

The suburbs are accused of being deadening environments and I agree wholeheartedly, at least as to the commercial strips and multi-family areas. (The claim that suburban single-family areas are really so terrible strikes me as more than a bit exaggerated,) At any rate, some of the support for new urbanism from both left and right stems from the perception that NU will make us "better" people. Certainly, I think, some conservatives somehow think that NU expresses "traditional values" and will reinforce any such nascent views. Likewise, progressives think that living in a walkable neighborhood will bring people into closer contact with their neighbors, leading to greater sense of community etc etc. Life is replete with unrealistic expectations.

But looking backwards (rather than forward) isn't it interesting and significant that our society has
1. evolved into a far more humane, conscious, tolerant society etc etc
2. simultaneously with the growth of the American suburbs?

Just to be clear, I am not suggesting any causality. But the timing certainly asks one to ponder what is going. (My own glib answer is that propsperity and education easily trump spatial form as shapers of personal values.)

Doesn't the simultaneity of these two epochal events make one wonder about claims for either the delterious impacts of the suburbs ("soulless, alienating" etc etc) or the promise of new urbanism ("community," "cooperation," etc etc). I am not claiming causality but merely independence of the phenomena.

There can be no question, I believe, that the post-WW2 years have been among the most remarkable in the history of human civilization as to the degree of tolerance within a major, complex society i.e. the USA. Just examine the facts. I am not saying that we are unique (I don't know enough to make that claim) or that there are not continuing problems but we have made enormous, enormous progress. There have been only rare eras in world history when so many people have lived side-by-side in such relative harmony etc etc. It is an enormous achievement for the American polity, withal our real and remaining issues.

And it has happened during the era of the suburbs.

This is not to claim that the suburbs produced such tolerance and progress (though no doubt some will claim that.) It merely illustrates the claim that urban form and human behavior are to some large degree separate. I am not, I guess, an environmental determinist.

It should be a bit cautionary to those who speak as if the evil soul-destroying suburbs will bring on the end of the world. Or that New Urbanism will save it. The reforms of the last 50-60 years -- allowing blacks to vote, women to work, protecting the environment, making human rights a factor in politics, etc etc -- have all occured within a suburbanizing America. Makes one stop and wonder. No?

The determinant of social evolution seems not to be spatial form but prosperity and education.

Of course these insights, assuming their truth, as I do, do not diminish new urbanism one bit or suggest that it is not a brilliant manner of reorganizing our spatial structure. NU principles will make our settlements a better place to live, so far as I am concerned. But to claim that NU will improve is as individuals, improve our character etc etc is a case yet to be convincingly made. ON all sides of the fence, unrealistic expectations are unrealistic.

Phil Langdon Asks:

Friends, By Thursday, March 18, I need to write an article for "On Common Ground," a magazine of the National Association of Realtors, assessing what the smart growth movement has accomplished --- and what not accomplished after a few years of widesprad discussion of the problems of sprawl.

I would be glad to get your perspective on what has been achieved and what hasn't, and any thoughts you have about the situation.

It would be useful if respondents would identify themselves, such as telling me where they're located and their occupation or involvement in planning or design or other relevant matters.

Best,
Philip Langdon
plangdon@snet.net
Senior Editor
New Urban News

Readers are welcome to comment here and/or write directly to Phil.

Yes...But...

A Daily Dose of Architecture says about New Urbanism:

"I don't want to argue for or against New Urbanism since personally I think the movement has many positive aspects but just as many shortcomings"

That's an interersting statement -- I would like to hear more why/how NU's shortcomings seem to balance out its positive aspects.

UPDATE: Actually, I was curious why Daily Dose thought NU has any shortcomings; however I see others are of a like mind! The more the merrier!

But the comments left here so far have been unconvincing, even puzzling. The objections seem more straw-man than flesh-and-blood and/or are a reflection of unrealistic expectations engendered by over-enthusiastic NU-supporters.

For example, why should anyone expect NU to produce more affordable housing? Drywall is drywall and it costs the same no matter where you hang it.

Likewise, why should anyone be critical of NU because some developer may (or may not) make his own excess claims that his project is "true NU" when it is not?

That it is "trendy and exclusive"? I am not sure what that even means.

The fact that people can make such criticisms seem to me to be a lesson for the organized forces of NU (e.g. CNU) that it is better to "Promise less and deliver more." Global implications that NU can solve every problem leads inevitably to global disappointment when it becomes obvious that NU can do no such thing.

New Urbanism and Ideology -- More

unfolio posts on The sidewalk has no ideology
of a few days ago.

...it would be be very easy to politicize urbanism, but very difficult to do it effectively. Both sides have substantial reasons to agree with it, so while there may be partisanship on certain parts or reasons, looking at the big picture largely eliminates any effects of politicization.

If politicize is meant to have a clearly ideological and/or partisan flavor, then that is well-said. Clearly there may be differences of judgment even among close allies of the proper action in any given situation and hence the public discussion may be contentious and hence "political." But that doesn't mean that it has to be ideological.

As one small example, the core of New Urbanism is based (though it is verbalized differently) on the Three Rules. It turns out that implementation of such a view of the ideal town does not require complex zoning codes and intense regulation. but the simplest codes, requiring only simple governmental intervention.

Back to the drawing board might be the right answer

Muschamp opines this morning on visions.

Five architecture teams have prepared designs for an Olympic Village, to be in Long Island City, Queens, to help New York win its bid to be host to the summer games in 2012. The designs were unveiled yesterday and will be on view for the next two weeks at Vanderbilt Hall in Grand Central Terminal. A winning design will be chosen in May. After that, who knows?

With luck, maybe it will be back to the drawing board.

Of course, to be scrupulous, it is impossible to tell much from the article -- the accompanying slide does not help much more -- about the site plan, as no one seems to think that the public can read them, so no ever includes them. Nor is there any attention to the details of the project such as how many acres of ground or the condition of the surround neighborhood etc etc. But for me, of course, the fact that Muschamp likes any of them -- and the ones he likes explicitly harken back to the worst of the '60s -- raises a bit more than mere suspicions that there is another potential fiasco looming.

But take a look at the slide show yourself (the article deserves to be skimmed rapidly). Here's Hadid's "vision." :)

In some quarters, this is what passes for architecture.

UPDATE Responding to BK Miller's comment:

Definitely, the Classicists are generally correct. But they seem to get carried away with the "columns" business and mix-up architectural (i.e. building detail) with larger site-plan (i.e. Three Rules) questions -- to the confusion of themselves, the decision-makers and the general public.

The first question to ask when creating an Olympic Village is "What do you want as The Legacy?"

The Legacy is the gimmick which Olympics' organizers use to cajole the local populace into putting up the vast amounts of dough require to stage an Olympics. The pitch runs "You get a great party and then you get The Legacy"...some set pf physical improvements to the city or region. It's a beguiling notion and it is usually spun-out as a something for nothing deal. I shouldn't be so skeptical; there will be A Legacy besides a mountain of bills and so you might as well create a useful one. But I find the ulterior motive behind The Legacy to demean the nobility of the Games themselves. It's like getting married for the wedding presents or having friends over in hopes that you can put away the good bottles of wine which they bring and serve only Two Buck Chuck.

But the reality is that The Legacy is the driver. So for what Legacy should people ask? What should be the standard by which to judge the design?

The answer, to me, is going to be a no-brainer: you want a neighborhood. Especially in New York City, you want a residential neighborhood. So the standard is pretty simple: which design produces the best permanent residential neighborhood while (of course) satisfying the very temporary needs of the athletes.

The good news is that the short-term and long-term goals can be pretty-easily reconciled.. The bad news is that the long-term goal may be too simple to be grasped. Or perhaps a fellow like Muschamp simply has no standards.

***

John Massengale notices, too.

And well deserved praise indeed!

Swedish Magazine Credits Florida Sociology Professor for Sparking Interest in Quality Urban Living

Source article here at Axess, a magazine for the liberal arts and social sciences

The book, of course, Ray Oldenburg's The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community which sets forth what I think is the novel and brilliant scheme of home, work and hangout as the central places of human life. The book has been enormously influential among people who care about cities but it's my impression that it has never been accorded the attention it deserves from "serious intellectuals." For example, it does not seem to been reviewed by the The New York Review of Books while a book like Re Koolhaas' S,M,L,Xl is feted.

I could be all wrong about this but it seems to me to be another sad sign of the dis-connect between the mind and body which infects so many intellectuals.

Vast improvement...

... at this blog. (Scroll-down left-hand column.)

The theory of "City Comforts" -- in a nutshell: "Brilliance innovates, genius borrows."

STICKS & STONES asks

What's wrong with a Carnegie Hall knockoff?:

If getting great concert-hall sound is so difficult in modern halls, asks Drew McManus, maestro of Adaptistration here in AJblogland, why not just build new halls just like the great old ones?

Great question. But the offered answers (about why it cannot be done) are not very convincing at all. They are merely factors. Sure, maybe you can't do it nail-for-nail, but it still seems as if you can do it fairly closely. Why this mad impulse to innovate when we have tremendously good models of 'what works' all around us? I'll tell you: pure human vanity and pretense. Of course the desire to "play" is at work as well; and that is a worthy element of life (Homo ludens) and we should generally let it flow full-force, but not when it comes to elements of a common realm i.e. the city.

"Brilliance innovates, genius borrows."

Brilliance is cutting-edge; Genius stands on the shoulders of the past.

"Public Bad, Private Good?"

The Anatomy of a disaster describes problems with a British "leisure center."

Late Victorian and Edwardian pools such as Haggerston and Whitechapel, closed for the greater glory of the failed Clissold leisure centre,

photeo David Levene in The Guradian

were designed in the main by local authority architects. Thoughtfully built, they served local communities for a century, giving few problems along the way while offering genuinely democratic places to meet, wash and exercise. And all without hype. But Hackney, like all too many borough councils, lost its dedicated architect's department. Local authority architects, often men and women of keen intelligence and local knowledge, tended to go the way of council housing in the 1970s: down the plughole. Most had long gone by the time the lottery popped up with its promise of prodigious funds for bright new buildings.

Besides the issues of "cutting edge" architecture, which this blog has long ago deemed a witless criterion, the article sets forth an interesting conservative agenda, with which I am in some sympathy, or is it a liberal agenda, with which I am also in sympathy?

Forbearing ideology for the sake of getting something done

Here, by Robert Locke, is a contra-example to the post below (The sidewalk has no ideology.) Locke's piece is a thoughful article about designs for the WTC site in Manhattan; and you would hardly know that the guy is a (quote) "conservative" except if you had read other of his articles; at least that's how it seems to me. I found it refreshing to read such a discussion, knowing the author's politics and never (oh maybe just a bit) being able to discern them from the article.

The author's common-sense and sensibility shines through. Unlike some cultural conservatives who call for "traditional design" and leave it at that, as if the matter is self-explanatory, Robert Locke starts to explain what that means -- in physical terms -- without even stating that it is "conservative." It comes across as just a matter of good city-building. (Oh he does use the word "traditional" but even aware left-wingers use the word "traditional" when it comes to neighborhood structure, so that's no necessary tip-off to politics.) And he does it well in setting forth his own vision for the site.

The base of the new complex, the part that pedestrians actually encounter and where tens of thousands of people will go to work every day, should be modeled on New York’s famously successful Rockefeller Center. You know: the place with the ice rink and the Christmas tree and the Radio City Music Hall. Since the place is full of tourists whenever I go there, I am assuming it has some familiarity to Middle American readers. Its design is not really that complex, nor hard to duplicate. Its secret is relentless attention to human scale, plus enough detailing to bring the huge towers down to earth and save them from the oppressive abstraction of much modern architecture. It has the singular virtue, which is the finest thing about a skyscraper, of giving the ordinary pedestrian a feeling of intimacy with the heroic. A key advantage of its art-deco style is that, unlike stripped-down geometric modernism and post-modernism, it lends itself well to the addition of decorations, murals, and motifs, so there would be plenty of opportunities to fit in stylized American flags, heroic firefighters, icons of religious tolerance, et cetera.

I wish he'd be even more specifc in explaining what is "traditional" and why Rockefeller Center (largely) works. He ought to have just cut to the jugular about site plan, which he implicitly states is where urbanism starts. But it's a level-headed approach and at least he doesn't try to advance the silly claim that a "traditional design" would be an expression of "conservative values" etc etc.

If in fact "traditional design" will surreptitiously and subtly inculcate traditional values -- and I'll take the risk that it won't -- then conservatives don't need to talk about it. Just drop the rhetoric and build. I think their pitch would be far more effective if they soft-pedalled the ideology and just stuck to promoting a certain kind of city -- the kind I believe that this conservative, above, clearly appreciates and which I, of course, share, though from a moderate, sensible middle-of-the-road political perspective. But claiming and posing such a city as an expression of "cultural conservatism" (or "liberalism," for that matter) is a political non-starter.

Good city-building should be non-ideological common ground. Why? Because it is. I listen intently to both sides and neither -- as even the watered-down ideologies they are -- has much to offer intellectually. Liberals should understand that city-building does not require complex and oppressive public regulation or huge "programs." Conservatives should understand that markets cannot do it by themselves.

Does that sound wimpy and Pollyannish? Well just remember that in David M. Sucher the "M" might stand for moderate.

I just had a nightmare

With all this "Five Best This" and "Ten Best That" stuff going around the blogosphere, someone is going to do a "Best Buildings" post.

Such list-making mental exercises may be fun or even useful when it comes to movies or 19h century novels or whatever. But the idea of "Best Building" or "Best House" or "Best Gas Station" is just too silly. (That last one might actually be of some interest simply because so few people ever even thinks of gas stations).

"Silly" only because it would involve and imply some set of standards or rules by which to judge. And since very few people who write about buildings in the real world media have any discernible criteria by which to judge -- just go read their work and see if you can tease out the reasons why they are so often aflutter -- they will either have to make those criteria explicit so their list makes sense or simply present a list with text from a random-word generator, only making sure that the words "genius" and "brilliant" are sprinkled throughout.

The sidewalk has no ideology

I rarely read Andrew Sullivan but his Latest Post sums things up scarily and I fear accurately. It's nothing dramatically new -- just the Red/Blue divide of the USA -- but he states it well. I am observing these divisions harden and it is not a pretty picture.

I've also observed some signs that "cultural conservatives" are trying to take over new urbanism and somehow contort it into part of the conservative agenda. It won't work. The good news/bad news is that practically-speaking many of them are not yet up to speed enough about NU to put up a convincing front. They confuse NU with Doric columns and some vague and undefined notion of "traditionalism." Thus their arguments -- ungrounded in any basic understanding of it -- will be unpersuasive. But that's too bad in one sense because we need as much knowledgeble discussion of cities as possible. The sidewalk has no ideology.

The danger is that conservatives' efforts may politicize an endeavor which hitherto has been largely & thankfully outside the left/right split --- thus providing some literal common-ground on which liberals and conservatives can agree.

(You may laugh but I think it is a healthy thing that an extreme conservative, a left-winger and a balanced & sensible moderate such as I (!) can all agree that the design of a Wal-Mart store is not a good thing for America. Let's put aside the labor and jobs issues from urban design -- they are not all one issue at all; I can easily design a Wal-Mart which was designed as a very urban, "Main Street" building -- and was in fact part of a main street -- but which hewed to the same labor and purchasing policies it has today, whatever one thinks of those policies. And, btw, that's a perfect example of the limits of new urbanism. For better or worse, a Wal-Mart built according to new urbanist principles would still be very much a Wal-Mart.)

I hope that cultural conservatives will forebear and desist from trying to make NU a conservative manifestation of "traditional" society. Intellectually, there is simply no basis for such a claim. For example, columns (even the most traditional columns) are only an optional, incidental and totally trivial choice in an new urbanist design. "Learning from the past" is a truism, a cliche, something so obviously human that it cannot be claimed by one party or another. (The fact, for example, that the new Koolhaas-design for the Seattle Public Library largely ignores the streetfront -- and more on this building later -- is not a sign of anyone's radical ideology but simply that a group of well-meaning people got cowed by a an architect with more skill as a self-promoter than as an urban designer. If anything, it is simply a sign that environmental education -- awareness of the environment -- has not gone very far among educated Americans.)

Now I don't really care what cultural conservatives do about other parts of our common social lives so long as they stay out of my life and go do their thing without bugging people who do not agree with them on matters of personal conscience. The danger I am talking about, (and it's a danger to things which conservatives value as well), is to the slowly-growing intellectual and political movement toward re-shaping our cities. My concern is that if they continue in the intellectually untenable position that new urbanism is somehow "conservative," they will diminish NU as a useful social force by politicizing it.

Likewise for liberals, btw. They too can be prone to politicize NU and make it into a transformative movement -- but with their own spin. I have only been to one formal NU event -- the Congress for the New Urbanism conference in San Francisco almost ten years ago. It was a good conference with interesting speakers and great informal conversation. But I was puzzled that the organizers were trying to present new urbanism as some sort of "revolutionary" force which would change society at every level and in every aspect. The roster of speakers aimed to create a broad-based "socially-progressive" coalition. I just didn't get it; NU just ain't that powerful. (I also thought that it was a political mistake. Why weren't the people who build those huge churches in the suburbs on the dais? Or the home-builders? I gather things have changed at CNU.) New urbanism is completely consistent with liberalism -- but it also comopletely consistent with conservatism (whatever those stupid code words mean these days.) New urbanism is great but it will not cure anyone's warts. (Actually that's a bad example as warts may very well be related to physical activity! and one of the benefits of NU is to create places where people feel comfortable walking. But you get my intent.)

I love to see people of all viewpoints support the principles of new urbanism and city comforts, (which btw are not exactly the same but there is an awful lot of overlap and no conflict worth noting.) I urge ideologues of any stripe to join in and see it, talk about it, build it, buy it etc...but to leave their ideology at home in a bushel basket. Libertarians, especially, are invited so long as they recognzie the necessity for community involvement.

Now I know this takes away some of the frisson of the hunt and to see NU as non-ideological may lower the emotional level (and thus interest) around new urbanism. I'll take that risk.

And Dow 36,000 too, eh?

James K. Glassman is the guy who brought you the DOW 36,000 (now selling used for 78 cents!) and now he refers to HJ Heinz Co as "the Kerry family business."

In fact, Kerry appears (so far as I can interpret the tables at the Center for Public Integrity) to own no Heinz stock directly. His wife may own as little as $6 million or as much as $30 million in a company which has a market cap of $10 billion. Yes, she's a rich woman and we should be aware of any potential conflict-of-interest. But her inherited interest -- from her first husband and which I believe is her separate property -- hardly makes Heinz the "Kerry family business." She doesn't work there and isn't on the Board. (Nor of course is Kerry.) And owning $30 million of a $10 billion publicly-traded company probably gets you a box of ketchup and recognized at the annual meeting, but it hardly makes HJ Heinz Co. the "Kerry family business." Heinz is a complex Fortune 500 bureaucracy and tie Kerry to it -- for good or bad -- is naive. A guy like Glassman should know better, though of course he did predict Dow 36,000 so maybe his judgment is in need of a bit of exercise.

Such silly innacuracy -- probably not of importance by itself except that it is used to claim that Kerry is a hypocite on exporting American jobs, so it is pretty important -- are picked up and propagated as truth by such "reliable" guys as Glenn Reynolds (who then lamely tries to get out of his innacuracy by saying he likes Heinz Ketchup!) and Stephen Pollard.

Attack Kerry all you like but get your facts straight.

I have seen similar questionable procedure at Fresh Bilge where the usually-excellent Alan Sullivan relies on isolated quotes at (of all possible souces!) FrontPage to characterize Kerry's foreign policy.

If we weren't playing for such high stakes, and if it weren't so easy to check sources, these innacuracies and shortcuts would be funny.

Another 'Duh.'

Wired Warns

The most-read webloggers aren't necessarily the ones with the most original ideas, say researchers at Hewlett-Packard Labs

But the technique to demonstrate it sounds pretty amazing.

Via unfolio.

I'd prefer a horse, and it need not be a large one

The title got my attention.

I am glad someone takes the recent "debate" of wishful-thinking libertarians at Reason to task. (I started to post on it earlier this week but I just found their discussion too dry and boring and empty to hold my attention.) But I guess Belle Waring perservered through it and concluded that if what it is all about is what they say, then If Wishes Were Horses, Beggars Would Ride -- A Pony!. The specific example offered involves condemnation of private property, a subject near and dear to my heart so the post got my attention.

Its trump line, as she so cleverly shows, is that for libertarians there is always "some private mechanism" which will arise -- or descend from the heavens -- to solve problems which had -- hey! -- been thought the special province of government. An example? Say you want to build a rail line and you need to buy the land of 100 people. Ninety-nine agree but there is one guy who refuses; maybe he's got some butterflies living there. The governmental mechanism is to institute a law suit and "condemn" the property through a forced-sale. That's anethema to libertarians; they would suggest a "private mechanism" to deal with the reluctant seller--- some private mechanism "and a pony" --- but they never produce the pony! He's always sweet-tempered and has good conformation; and he's very inexpensive. But we never see him! He's always the private-mechanism pony grazing out in some far-away field. (Now, the obvious private-mechanism pony is of course the self-help of a very privately-wielded gun. It's a private-mechanism and it works, but it is not the sort of thing to wave around in public when you are trying to persuade. Or is it? Maybe the lesson is simply that libertarianism grows out of the barrel of a gun?)

My own conclusion on libertarian thinking on land use issues is that it is no surprise that it has had virtually no influence as it has nothing practical to offer. It is good for "what ifs" in law school property classes -- and that is indeed a social benefit -- but little more. It does stretch your mind so as exercise it is good. But practically-speaking --- for example, should we have building codes or not? --- it offers zilch. Wish it were otherwise as our current land-use regulatory system (speaking specifically of Seattle) is in great need of reform. But reform, not demolition. Yes, government today can learn and be inspired by the imagination of libertarian thinking...but the answers will always be within a government structure And it could not be otherwise. Libertarian-thinking on land-use always involves ponies. (I always wonder how many of these folks actually own any real property or have any direct experience with "the material." There is usually something strained about the way they use the terms...as if it's a foreign language.)

I guess this blog is getting less and less libertarian when it comes to land use. Well I tried. It's where my heart is. But my brain says that the traditional way we have evolved actually has more than a little bit of value and we should not throw it over in hopes of...a pony wandering down the road and into our barn. (Though I'd prefer a horse, and it need not be a large one.)

Via Crooked Timber

The perils of self-publishing: getting paid

I imagine it happens in every business -- the slow pay.

But this one is getting funny. In late October, 2003 I shipped a copy of City Comforts to Franklin Book Co., Inc. in Pennsylvania with an invoice totalling $16.12. I don't know those folks but I assume that they had received an order from one of their customers and have already been paid. Even so, it doesn't matter. I sold to them with no contingiency that their customer pay them.

And I still haven't been paid! Even though I have contacted them and they have promised to pay..and promised...the latest email stated that "We'll do our best..." I thought that was a funny one for $16.12.

Anyone know these folks? Is it a legitimate company? Maybe we could take up a collection for them? Help them arrange a bridge loan?

Btw, now it's pre-pay only for jobbers.