City Comforts, the blog

I don't have a lot more to say right now.

So please Play The Endless Loop Parking Lot Movie and consider it carefully.

The movie should open in a browser window. But beware: it is a big file (4 MB) so don't try it if you have a slow connection. And whether you will actually be able to see it in your browser window depends on software configurations way beyond me. Furthermore in Safari and Firefox it loops. In IE/Mac it doesn't repeat. I have no idea what happens in Windows. So please consider this as an experiment.

UPDATE: The choice of a photo of McDonald's is deliberate. It's an attempt to get city-loving liberals to get over the cant of associating awful sub-urban environments with corporatism and chains and all the other convenient, cliche targets. The issue is our failure, so far, to integrate the personal vehicle into cities. LeCorbusier and FL Wright and Robert Moses and Fritz Lang (the film-maker of 'Metropolis') all tried and all failed to show us a world in which the car was successfully intregrated. So the task is still before us and it is one of human adaption of new technology, not scale or form of business ownership. If the sign read Alice Waters' Cute Little Bistro (rather than McDonalds) the food would be better but the point would not be nearly as clear.

But let's not assume that McDonald's did it voluntarily and heap some ill-placed praise on it. I suspect that it was simply following the rules set down down by the City of Vancouver's planners.

Which is the apt analogy?

Norm Geras says that the house was on fire in Iraq.

The way I see, there were "people on thin ice in the middle of a take."

The question was (or at least should have been) not whether it was moral to try to save them -- it was -- but whether in attempting to save them the saviors put everyone at even greater risk by the manner of their venture. We had other choices in March 03. We -- actually, the poseur in the White House -- chose not to take them.

Election turnout in Seattle

The conventional wisdom is that it will be big. And I think that's correct.

My own anecdotal evidence: I was called by a friend who was herself volunteering and so I agreed to help out on election day. (The Democrats, of course...driving shut-ins to the polls, "canvassing" etc etc..that sort of thing.) I am told to show up at 7PM last night at University Heights Community Center for a briefing etc. I show up there.

And so do approximatey five hundred of my neighbors. (Yes, I did a square foot guesstimate as I was standing there.) The halls were packed and the Party organizers surprised. It was amazing and heartening even if that the Electoral College diminishes the importance of our individual votes.

Maybe it only appears to the naive

that the Video Shows G.I.'s at Weapon Cache.

Here's a perfect one for Derrida and his intellectual allies. Can you be sure they are GIs? Or that they were at a weapons cache? Or even in Iraq? You do know about the plot. Don't you? "The media" (and of course not the guys who own the media like Rupert Murdoch but the reporters and editors who work there with no job security) are all out to get you and it's only a few brave bloggers (I was scathing last year about Andrew Sullivan's attempt to claim the scalp of that NYT Editor) who stand in the way of social armageddon.

OK. That's for kooks. And I am not saying that media people are always responsible. I've been personally burned by incompetent/unethical reporter/editors at the Seattle Times so don't look for here for blind approval. For most reporters -- like most plumbers or anyone else -- it's just a job.

But my fear for the Kerry Presidency - and we might as well start now -- is that the kooks, no matter what happens in Iraq, guys like Roger L. Simon will try to shift the responsibility. If -- God help us -- the Iraquis are able to get their own political house in order in the next few years, then it's obvious that the Bush strategy was wise. If, as appears more likely, the country descends further into chaos, then Kerry will be around to blame. I think that the one common denominator of kooks of both the right and left (and oh yes, we do have them indeed) is that they refuse to grow up to adulthood and take responsibility and always remind us that "the dog ate my homework." Someone else is always to blame.

Frankly you see the same thing with a lot of urbanists. They don't want the problem with modern cities to be something as simple as the misuse of a new technology (i.e. cars and our lack of understanding of the parking lot as a pattern generator). They want new urbanism and smart growth to be a thorough and revolutionary critique of American society, to presage a wholesale transformation of the very marrow of social life, to precipitate fundamental change in how we all relate as human beings. So they don't pick up on something as simple as the Three Rules because they are not revolutionary enough and they don't really care abouit better cities but simply about the frisson of association with big change.

Well, call me a conservative with a small "c." The problem with that kind of approach to cities -- similar to the problem with the Iraq war -- is that it tries to do too much, and all at once.

Broadway's Big Box

Guest Post by Matthew Amster-Burton

Last week in Seattle, on Capitol Hill, a new supermarket opened. This is important to me because I'm a food enthusiast, and the new supermarket (a QFC grocery, owned by Kroger) carries a wide variety of gourmet food. It's also important to me because it's two blocks from my apartment.

Why is important to you as City Comforts Blog readers? Because in terms of urban design, this is one of the most successful urban supermarkets I've ever seen. If you're interested in the problem of how to design a large store that follows the Three Rules and behaves like a proper urban citizen, you need to come check out the new Q next time you're in Seattle.

A little background. Until last Friday, the QFC was sited on the block north of the new location. It was a decent supermarket, but the urban design was terrible. It was one story, with a huge blank wall on the street that was, of course, a graffiti magnet. At night they'd close the corner entrance and you'd have to enter through the parking lot.

To the south was a historic but decaying mall called Broadway Market. In the eight years I've lived here, it's seen constant turnover and housed a variety of businesses, everything from the Gap to a movie theater to a homemade soap store to a new age and dwarf sword emporium called (seriously) Magickal Gardaen.

The movie theater closed and turned into Gold's Gym. The Gap closed. The sandwich stand closed. Broadway Market was in sorry shape. Then, this summer, Kroger announced that they would remodel the market and turn it into a new QFC. This decision had historical resonance, because the Broadway Market was built in 1928 as a functioning produce and meat market, back when every neighborhood had such a thing. It became a Safeway in 1958 -- a really ugly one, if historical accounts are to be believed. Then Safeway moved out and the market foundered for many years. My wife and I would often talk about how nice it would be if there were a butcher in the Broadway Market again.

The renovation took about four months, during which, incidentally, they did a superb job of keeping the sidewalk open. Now there is a butcher, and a bakery, and an enormous frozen food section, and a pharmacy. The QFC replaced a Fred Meyer variety store, and it continues to sell vital non-grocery items like hardware, motor oil, athletic socks. They didn't take over every retail space in the mall, however. The newsstand remains, and the video store, the Greek and Mexican restaurants, the espresso bar, the shoe repair shop, and others. (There are also apartments above, facing the back of the building, and the parking is underground.)

Here's what else they did right. The store (which is three floors) has three entrances, with checkouts at each entrance. Each entrance opens directly onto the street. The front of the store has big glass windows. While you pile green beans into a bag, you can watch the street life on Broadway, and the street life can watch you. So many supermarkets don't get this. Half a mile away is a large Safeway store which also has big windows on the street. They've covered the windows with black plastic so you can't, God forbid, see actual people shopping. People don't want to look at perfunctory window displays. They want to look at other people.

I won't go into the dry-aged beef or the cheese section.

Like most Americans, I find big box stores convenient. An afternoon at Staples sounds like fun, and I don't want to give up the ultra mega packs of Huggies from Costco. But in a city neighborhood, big box stores are a problem. They waste too much street frontage on a single tenant, and Corporate generally doesn't understand the Three Rules, or any rules other than Build Tons of Parking.

The new QFC points the way. It's a 63,000 square foot store. That's not as big as a typical Home Depot, but a "Home Depot's Greatest Hits" of this size would be a tremendously useful store, and in fact, according to Home Depot's site, their smallest stores are only 45,000 sf.

As you can tell, I'm overjoyed to have this store two blocks from me. The only problem now is the old QFC, which is going to sit derelict for years while the owner and the city wrangle over how the property will be redeveloped.

He's wisely given up on architecture & cities.

Now this fellow ought to avoid politics as well and stick to noise. He suggests that

A win for Kerry in this election will be seen by those Islamist pigs precisely as a repudiation of the Bush administration's terrorist policies...

In this fellow's world, it is only intentions that count. Allowing, as I do, that the bumblers in the White House probably meant well, the logic of his statement is that we can ignore how effectively and competently goals are pursued and pay attention merely to the intentions behind the actions.

I don't think the maestro ignores manifestation when it comes to the sounds of a symphony orchestra i.e. he doesn't say that all that matters is that it intended to hit the right notes. He demands that the musicians actually play correctly; good intentions are not enough.

So why should we suffer under a well-intended (humor me on that one) President and ignore his performance?

More to the point, the bad guys actually prefer Bush because he keeps making mistakes and offering further opportunities for creating chaos.

Roger L. Simon...

simultaneously puffs up like a rooster and gets ready for defeat next week.

Neat trick.

It's interesting that when elections go the way one likes, the people have shown wisdom. When you lose, the people have been tricked. I am not saying that Simon is alone in such a pose; kooks on the left do the same as well. I guess it's just a human weakness to blame others and refuse to take responsibility. Scratch that: it's what children do.

This boast (by Simon) was sufficiently pathetic that I was almost sympathetic:

If the Kerry does win, the mainstream media will have gotten him elected with their biased coverage and they will pay for it more than they could imagine. And it will be the blogosphere and you, our supporters, who will make them pay. Our strength will grow incremently with a Kerry victory in terms of influence and even economic power. And both will be at the expense of the mainstream media. Yes, we too have "plans."

"...make them pay...'plans' " Brave words! :)

If blogs had sound, I would expect to hear the stamping of tiny feet. Or echoes of my own adolescent cant -- Hey! when we were young and foolish I too was young and foolish! -- that we hippies presaged some sort of "revolution."

Of course maybe Roger's just satirizing blogosphere phantasy and I am just missing his wit.

Resolving what at first might appear as a contradiction

A reader writes:

I've been reading City Comforts, and I've reached a point where I find myself confused by a point you make: You say that curves are necessary to limit the traffic speed in neighborhoods, and to make it easier for cars and pedestrians to co-exist. How does one incorporate curves into the grid system that you say that an urban village needs?

Fair question. Go back a few pages. The issue is not precisely the "grid" but "connectivity" and limitation of cul de sacs, dead ends and so forth. Just imagine a chocolate grid which had melted slightly in the very hot sun: the once-straight lines are softened but they still form and allow a continuous path. It's that simple.

In fact, on page 72 of the book I suggest:

To clarify further, it is not critical that the grid be rectangular, i.e., a literal ninety-degree grid. The important thing is that the streets be continuous and create continuous thoroughfares. What one wants to avoid are dead ends, which tend to concentrate traffic on arterials rather than diffuse it through a broader network.

Speaking of "mandates"

normblog offers these figures:

Below is a table I've put together...with the relevant information from all the elections since the Second World War.
1948 * 04.5%, 114 * Truman/Dewey
1952 * 10.9%, 353 * Eisenhower/Stevenson
1956 * 15.4%, 384 * Eisenhower/Stevenson
1960 * 00.2%, 084 * Kennedy/Nixon
1964 * 22.6%, 434 * Johnson/Goldwater
1968 * 00.7%, 110 * Nixon/Humphrey
1972 * 23.2%, 503 * Nixon/McGovern
1976 * 02.1%, 057 * Carter/Ford
1980 * 09.7%, 440 * Reagan/Carter
1984 * 18.2%, 512 * Reagan/Mondale
1988 * 07.7%, 315 * Bush 1/Dukakis
1992 * 05.6%, 202 * Clinton/Bush 1
1996 * 08.5%, 220 * Clinton/Dole
2000 *-00.5%, 005 * Bush 2/Gore

1. The name of the winner
2. The percentage margin of victory in the popular vote
3. The size of the majority in electoral college votes

Marginal Concept

A peculiar rationale for not voting:

Surely there's not much difference between a world where Bush gets 3 more votes than Kerry and a world where Kerry gets 3 more votes than Bush. If Bush is the rightful president in one of those worlds, he's got to be darn close to rightful in the other.

Don't count on it. And an odd, whistling-past-the-graveyard thing for an economist to suggest. If applied to a Profit & Loss Statement, it would mean that it doesn't matter if a company, over a period of years, makes a small profit or a small loss each year.

Of course the notion that "majority wins" is a convention we use to prevent civil war and no one thinks it means that one party is "right" and another "wrong." It simply means that the winner got more votes -- (which of course is not the situation with our current President so it's a bit odd for a right-winger to even bring up the issue.)

I just visited St. Louis

Unspectacular doors of St. Louis.

Maybe. But pleasant place, overall.

Is it a matter of damning by faint praise?

I could very well have missed their statements.

But I am curious about the silence on the upcoming Presidnetial election at such left, intelligent-but/and-war blogs such as Norm Geras
and Harry's Place.

I read others falling in line with a man with whom they disagree on every other issue save the war. But silence from these stalwarts of my daily reading. I assume that even for war-bloggers there are limits. Or maybe especially for war-bloggers there are limits. And Dubya is way beyond the limits due not to his policies but to his plain old incompetence.

•••

Btw, if nothing else, if you vote for Bush you get Tom Delay and that should make even people primly "firmly on the fence" stop and ponder how comfortable that fence really is.

Can anyone seriously suggest that the USA is now safer?

Or that it doesn't really matter who wins the election?

Huge Cache of Explosives Vanished From Site in Iraq:

The Iraqi interim government has warned the United States and international nuclear inspectors that nearly 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives - used to demolish buildings, produce missile warheads and detonate nuclear weapons - are missing from one of Iraq's most sensitive former military installations.

Even accepting the war on its own terms -- i.e. that it was a necessary venture -- this administration is demonstrating frightening inability to manage and must go, for the sake of the nation. Saddam Hussein was an evil man but the explosives were in a defined location. Now, thanks to the Bush team, they are scattered about and apparently being used against our own soldiers.

How anyone could proudly present himself as "firmly on the fence" in this election is astonishing as well as, of course, a bit unbelievable. Reasonable citizens might have disagreed about the war, prospectively. But how one can now not have an opinion about who should carry on...

The issue now is different and simpler: is the current White House team competent to bring the war to some sort of conclusion? Judged by this one story -- and track-record is the way it works in the business world, as GW Bush should understand -- the answer is an obvious 'No.' And shilly-shallying about and posing as "disliking politics" is a luxury long past. You can try to run from reality but it catches up.

The Neighborhoods Americans Want

The latest survey on neighborhood preferences was released this week by the National Association of Realtors and Smart Growth America. The press release had the headline, "Homebuyers Favor Shorter Commutes, Walkable Neighborhoods." Of course the pro-sprawl contingent can not let this inflammatory statement stand without a rebuttal. Sure enough, a counter-editorial titled "Let's Pretend" was penned by Joel Schwartz, visiting scholar at the AEI.

[I say "pro-sprawl" because, while these folks profess to support a level playing field, somehow it's always Smart Growth and new urbanism that inspires their animus. The subsidies, regulations, and institutional practices that overwhelmingly tilt the playing field in favor of sprawl are ignored or dismissed as nearly irrelevant. The net effect is pro-sprawl.]

It's notable that Schwartz fixates on one question in the survey, and ignores the other 15-plus questions that demonstrate very intriguing and deep support for walkable, mixed-use communities.

For instance, in terms of preferences for NU, survey respondents said the following were "very" or "somewhat" important in deciding where to live:

Sidewalks and places to take walks 72%
Living in a community with people at all stages of life 65%
Being within walking distance to stores and restaurants 51%
Living in a community with a mix of people from various racial and ethnic backgrounds 47%
Being within walking distance to schools 46% Being within walking distance of public transportation 46%
Living in a community with a mix of people from various income levels 45%
Church, synagogue or religious place of worship within walking distance 40%
Living in a community with a mix of different types of housing 38%

These percentages are much higher than the 33 percent that's usually cited as the market segment that wants NU -- more than twice as much in some cases.

The one question that Schwartz rants about could be phrased in a more balanced way, it is true. (It compares a lively urban neighborhood with a large-lot suburban neighborhood and asks which you prefer.) Even acknowledging the bias in that one question, however, the responses (and the associated demographics) are informative food for thought.

Schwartz says it's "misleading" to provide hypothetical choices that aren't commonplace. That argument makes no logical sense. So what if 13 percent of households are on half-acre lots or larger? How does that make peoples' preferences less valid? And even if 15 percent of workers' commutes are 45 minutes or more, that represents a daily experience for millions of people. It's no fantasy, I assure you.

Schwartz claims the Smart Growth community can't exist as it is described in the question he dislikes. But there are hundreds (if not thousands) of neighborhoods that fit the criteria listed in the question, including dozens of mature NU communities. He repeats the familiar canard -- that Smart Growth is about activists "imposing their vision" on the rest of us -- but it's the suburban, auto-based lifestyle that is imposed right now on a sizeable segment of the market. Just look at new residential construction. How much is walkable, diverse, and mixed use? Less than 10 percent, if that much, and compare that to the percentages in the NAR survey.

Then and now indeed.

Vertigo...Then and Now.

Via Urban Archi-Texture.

Street Memes

Via Josh Rubin: Cool Hunting we learn of Streeetmemes:

"street meme": a sticker, stencil, or poster that can spread a single image around the world. Unlike traditional graffiti art where each piece is unique, street memes can be copied repeatedly, taking on a life of their own, and spreading through the collective effort of people scattered around the world.

Do people use those vast green lawns at office parks?

Fresh Bilge is driving through Atlanta:

"The downtown area appeared quite extensive; major buildings are not closely bunched. I imagine there must be some appealing spaces between them, but I couldn't tell from the road."

Just out of curiosity, if Alan Sullivan had pulled off the Interstate and seen a nice lawn between some widely-spaced buildings, would he have been prompted to park his car and stroll about on the lawns?

I suggest "No." (At least as a general proposition; Sullivan as a unique long-distance traveler may be a plausible exception.) The tower-in-the-park sounds appealing but in fact, if you watch how people actually behave, not how they think they would/should behave, then you find such plazas and large setbacks usually bereft of people.

Of course there are exceptions: office building plazas inhabited by people on a nice spring day and of course real parks. But the large building set amidst a large lawn is not a people-attracter, even though it lives-on in popular imagery, and that's all this post is really about: the momentum of popular imagery.

In fact people gather in tight and contained spaces like shopping malls and narrow urban streets.

Just think about it: when when was the last time you were driving through a suburban office "park" distrct and you saw more than a lone jogger using the grounds? But the F.L. Wright/LeCorbusier model of the city still sounds good -- except that it doesn't really sing a clear tune.

•••

Exception: They actually seem to use the lawns at Microsoft in Redmond.

Precisely the issue

Andrew Sullivan gets it:

The issue is: even if they see the world the right way, are they capable of pursuing their policies competently?

Hewn and Hammered notes

FLW criticism. My comment there:

Please be sure to read my posts(s) in context with far more extensive discussions at 2blowhards and Terry Teachout's.

I am not saying that FL Wright was not a talented architect but simply that attaching the term "genius" to him gets in the way of assessing his work and provides an answer before a question is even stated. When someone is a "genius" there is often a popular tendency to abstain from critical thinking about that person's work. "Genius" does not need the moniker.

A terrific illustration is this post on a book review . Read the comments. We received a response from the book's author which I believe illustrates my point. Here's this really smart reviewer -- Janet Maslin -- reviewing what may well be a really good book (Fallingwater Rising) by Franklin Toker and what does she do? She takes substance for granted --- "Great artist," "Masterpiece," "Architectural miracle" -- and writes gossip rather than focussing on the way the book deals with Wright's design. That's the problem with calling someone "a genius" -- it makes them into a cartoon god and it diminshes us.

Visualizing "smart growth"

I think this article Smart Growth's Misunderstood Message by Roger K. Lewis might have been written just for Jane Galt though I doubt she'll be talking about the built world anytime soon.

WalMart et al

For continuing coverage of WalMart and other big-box retailers, follow theboxtank.

One nice touch is that the blog offers direct links to Bloomberg LP's quote page for WalMart, Costco, Home Depot and Target. All are up in the past year except WalMart.

Anyone still undecided about whether Bush is capable to serve a second term?

If so they should read this article in The New York Times Magazine. It's a disturbing portrait of a man who is wilting under the pressure of the job. It also answers my question of almost a year ago Is Bush the man to carry out the Bush doctrine? and the answer, simply & based on his ability to ask questions and process information, is thumbs-down. It takes more than faith to win a war.

(Btw, I know that there are a few rational pro-Bush people out there and I would be curious to get there take on the article --- and not just a dismissive "Oh it's from the NYT.")

UPDATE: Q.E.D.:

This President doesn't learn from his mistakes because he doesn't think he has ever made any.

Thoughtful post...

...on Frank Gehry's MIT Stata Center at cityofsound.

I'd rather they did the opposite: Built Environment Makeover

Of course a frisson of bile is always good for ratings. And I guess that emphasizing the negative can be useful, too, in getting people to see what is happening in the built world. But I hope that they put great focus on what happens after the demo.

TV viewers to choose 'most vile building'

Television viewers will be asked to nominate the country's worst building in an architectural ugliness pageant that could turn the winner into a pile of rubble.

Channel 4 has teamed up with the Royal Institute of British Architects for the four-part series, Demolition, which provides a modernistic riposte to the BBC's Restoration series.

But follow the links; it has real possibilities and is not quite as negative as the headline suggests.

Channel 4 and RIBA intend to tear down an eyesore and, in a subsequent series, follow the construction of a replacement building.

If they get beyond architecture and into site then it could be marvelous. The transformation should start with redesign of the site -- kind of a Built Environment Makeover (or whatever the name is) to show how even the worst places can be transformed. It would be productive to encourage people to think about what works. And why. There is/was (?) This Old House about the individual dwelling. Now there needs to be a show (PPS-sponsored? CNU-sponsored? Sierra Club-sponsored? National Main Street Center? It would be nice to see all those folks cooperate) on re-designing larger spaces...a shopping center, a strip-mall, a neighborhood, some public square, or maybe even simply widening a particular street corner to make it more comfortable. I can visualize the moderator interviewing Fred Kent and/or Andres Duany (and I don't mean to exclude other "names" but those are ones which pop to mind). This could be a terrific show-case for people who really have something to say about the built environment ---not starchitect irrelevancies such as Libeskind and Koolhaas et al -- who are favored by well-meaning people (like Charlie Rose and Terry Gross) as spokespeople for some sort of forward-looking & progressive view of cities.

The TV-viewer would see the complex process of re-designing some commercial and/or public place..(maybe even the entire downtown of Bellevue, Washington! though the project has to be something which can be realized in the space of year or so.) The viewer would see the meetings, discussions, calculations etc etc. The varying interests and the politics. And above-all, (like some Ayn Rand figure gone over to The Good Side), the new urbanist designer ("We are all new urbanists now.") modestly yet decisively keeping the pedestrian at the forefront and the parking at the rear.

Is it that gays can mention being gay but straights can't?

Fresh Bilge seems concerned that moderates with humane sensibilities were bound to feel offense by Kerry's mentioning that Mary Cheney is gay. Huh?

I am puzzled by the reaction, there as elsewhere. Is it that gays can mention being gay but straights can't? Is that it? That's not very "out." Or that being gay should be never be brought down to specific individuals? Gee, every time George mentions his "lovely wife" he is announcing his sexual preference, so the issue is pretty explicit everywhere. It's bizarre to suggest that "moderates with humane sensibilities" would be offended when Mary Cheney, as Avedon Carol reminds us that "...isn't just a lesbian, she's a professional lesbian; it's her job to be gay for Coors." Like it's inhumane to help Mary's career? The only people for whom it might be inhumane are right-wing bigots.

The Other Sullivan, who if you didn't know it is openly etc etc gay, puts the issue well:

First, the equation of gayness with some sort of embarrassing problem or, worse, some kind of affliction. For people who believe this, of course Kerry was out of line. That's why Rove's base is so outraged. But if you don't believe this, it's no different than, say, if a candidate were to mention another candidate's son in the Marines. Or if, in a debate on immigration, a pro-immigrant candidate mentioned Kerry's immigrant wife. You have to regard homosexuality as immoral or wrong or shameful to even get to the beginning of the case against Kerry. That's why it's a Rorschach test. Secondly, Mary Cheney isn't private. She ran gay outreach for Coors, for pete's sake. She appears in public with her partner. Her family acknowledges this. She's running her dad's campaign! Whatever else this has to do with - and essentially, it has to do whether you approve of homosexuality or not - privacy is irrelevant.

Moreover, it just doesn't seem very sporting of the Republicans. They use Mary Cheney as a symbol of their "big-tent" mentality (ha!). Then they flip-flop -- "geez can't you guys get some backbone and be decisive!?" -- and get all huffy when someone acknowledges that their symbol is just heart-beats away from being a First Daughter.

The web is a marvelous scavenger hunt

Almost every day I stumble on some new variety of human experience. Have you ever heard of Benchmark Hunting?

Using your GPS unit and/or written directions provided by NGS, which are available for review by the public, you can seek out NGS survey markers and other items that have been marked in the USA.

At the top of peaks or in a village square, you probably walk by at least one every day.(italics added -- DS)

The interesting thing about benchmarks and horizontal control points is that a majority of them are located in plain sight (though largely ignored by the general public). Searching out these locations and documenting them allows others to share pictures of the various areas where they are placed. There's a certain excitement to be the first to find and document a control point, as well as seeing what others have found through photos on the website's Benchmark Gallery. Some of these points haven't been visited and documented as being still in existence in a very long time, so you may also be rediscovering long neglected objects of American history as well!

Bellevue could transform itself overnight

City planners struggle to reinvent Bellevue

In a skyscraper atrium plastered with drawings and slogans -- "Walk it! Live it! Love it!" -- some of the region's top architects are struggling to find "the big idea" that will transform this city.

Their task: creating a livable downtown.

After a recent walking tour, the urban redesigners were blunt. The city's heart, they found, is splintered by islands of office buildings and stores, seemingly rising from an asphalt sea.

Sorry folks, slogans won't do it. But the location of parking will. (I blogged on this a few days ago, here.)

Bellevue could transform itself overnight if it removed entirely (or at least in off-peak hours) its typical prohibition of on-street parking. Literally, by taking down signs and allowing on-street parking it could change the feel of downtown Bellevue. Excuse me, it could create a downtown Bellevue by that one step. The city has just-about-enough sidewalk-oriented buildings so that allowing on-street parking would provide a tipping point for pedestrian activity.

(Btw, and a reminder, allowing on-street parking is one of the sub-rules in The Three Rules. It is an essential element in "putting the parking somewhere else" besides between the building and the sidewalk as we typically see in sub-urban development.)

The big issue? Traffic flow. The powers-that-be in Bellevue think that they need every lane. "Loss" of the curb lane to parking is considered impossible.

My prediction? Bellevue will never feel like a city unless it allows on-street parking.

My proof? Give me an example of any city which feels like a city and which (except for a very few extraordinary places e.g. Chicago's Michigan Avenue, New York's Fifth Avenue, Paris' Champs Elysee, at least as I remember them) does not, by-and-large, allow on-street parking. I do not think such examples exist. Am I wrong?

The advantages of my proposal:
1. It's cheap.
2. It's quick.
3. It's reversable
4. It's amenable to fine-tuning.
5. It gets the job done.

Digital versus chemical

There was some discussion a while ago at blowhards on photography and the advantages, it was claimed by the guest poster, of the old chemical techniques.

Maybe the resolution to the issue -- and "Which is better?" is only an issue for a very small group I'd imagine -- is that if you look at photography as a means of self-expression, then chemical might have some advantages. I don't know; I take the poster's word for it.

But if you look at photography as a means of communication, as a way to illustrate an idea or as concept, digital is far and away the superior medium simply because it allows us to do things which we could not do before.

My own little contribution to cuture -- my book, with some 200 photos and 50 sketches in it -- would have been absolutely impossible without first digital layout and then digital photography. (That's the historical sequence, not the way the book was produced.)

Might the book have been better if it had been done chemically? Maybe. But not really. First of all the book would never have been done because of difficulty/cost, so the comparison is illusory as the book could have never happened. And if you really want 'bang-for-the-buck,' the first thing you'd do is improve the basic skills (composition, understanding of lighting, etc etc) of the photographer (i.e. me) rather than change his tools back to chemical. Knowing where to stand/how to compose a shot is far more important than whether it is digital or chemical.

There may well be things which chemical photography can do better than digital. But mere communication is NOT one of them.

I have looked through a fair amount of stock photography in putting together City Comforts and I used only two shots (of places in Europe-- too far to travel). The photos were in most cases far better than mine from a technical standard. But the photographers did not know what to shoot. And that's the key thing about photography: knowing what is significant and worthy of recording.

To me, photography should be a basic skill like writing. Both are important but without something to say, they are merely empty technique.

A cliche but still funny

I have no idea where this came from; it was in my "clutter" file and I just stumbled across it.

I'd give credit if I knew where it came from.

The blogosphere is particularly suited for

... the expression of personal delusion:

"...but Bush is at the top of his game here at the end."

Not even remotely. That's whistling past the graveyard.

Kerry won decisively because he looked Presidential. Game.

Will they punt? As usual?

We'd better watch these cases: Justices to Hear Second Case on Taking Private Property.

I love it

He's difficult to summarise because it's nonsense.

So says Roger Scruton, philosopher of Jacque Derrida:

"He's difficult to summarise because it's nonsense. He argues that the meaning of a sign is never revealed in the sign but deferred indefinitely, and that a sign only means something by virtue of its difference from something else. For Derrida, there is no such thing as meaning - it always eludes us and therefore anything goes."

I wonder if Derrida would have argued that following the Three Rules yields ambiguous results. In fact how did Derrida deal with statements such as Newton's gravitational law, which for all practical purposes are accurately unamibiguous. Ever since I first heard about them -- never read him of course -- Derrida's "ideas" struck me as both incredibly obvious -- "One may have to tease out the meanings of other humans' statement!" -- and delusional -- like Kozynski's "Chauncer Garndner" — an empty shell in whom people invest so much that their own investment creates meaning. Or more ominously, like the Wizard of Oz who intentionally creates meaning through lies.

•••

Via Butterflies and Wheels.

Instapundit is concerned...

...that the US media is largely ignoring the Australian elections.

I am concerned that Instapundit ignores the built environment.

Or should I be pleased, lest we have encouragement for even more Insta-cities?

We'll keep tweaking it for a while

Changing to a bird's-eye 45 degree view is going to take a bit of work; it's a great idea and will help people grasp the power of where one locates parking. (And btw that bird's-eye view seemed to be the most popular suggested improvement.) We have also tried to add illustrations for each condition but we have "technical problems" so far. I really do appreciate your comments, every one of them.

But a larger point: the animated image is a "cartoon," a simplifications. Comments about whether, say, the parking lot entrance are in the wrong spot (it is accurate, actually), whether the urban lot is too big, and so on are being ignored for the moment. While I want the image to be reasonably accurate (and it is), the point of the image is to remind you -- you have all seen it ten thousand times -- of the transformative power of the location of the parking lot, of its centrality as a pattern-generator. To paraphrase Archimedes, "Give me power to locate the parking and I can transform a city."

I will post very soon about the City of Bellvue, Washington and its struggles to be a city rather than a very large and rich suburb.

Miniver Cheevy Observes

Urban planning and political protest

"...yet another example of the impoverishment of American civic life through lame urban design.

It's particularly vivid for me, as an alumnus of UC Santa Cruz. The university's first chancellor, Dean McHenry, wanted to pattern the campus after Oxford's residential colleges. According to campus legend, he was able to win support for this because of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement. The residential college plan meant no central gathering place on campus comparable to Sproul Plaza at UC Berkeley."

Airport Angst sounds like Straining Snobbery

I like airports. The security procedure is hardly a bother any more (which may be a mixed blessing.) I like the vicarious contact with thousands of unknown lives. I still find airports glamorous and exciting.

But some people will complain about anything:

The price of going to Paris (or any other place you'd like to be) is measured now not in dollars but in fatigue and humiliation. The modern airport is a dreadful place in virtually every respect, and the one certainty is that it will only get worse.

OK the flight itself can be tiring. (Woe is me! To fly across the continent in hours.) And one does have to share the airport with, well...all sorts of people. But "a dreadful place in every respect?" The things WaPo writers find time to complain about!

In fact I think that Yardley is dead-wrong. American (at any rate) airports are improving. The magazine & book shops are getting better. You can get decent coffee, even decent sandwiches (I am think of United's O'Hare Terminal.) Some are architecturally interesting: United's O'Hare, Denver's new one and DC's National. Like a lot of other consumer products in the USA, the quality of the "airport experience" has gotten better in the past 10-15 years. What would keep someone from seeing the obvious?

How do you know?

Some fellow in the London Times ask a very good question: Can there be any certainty in the death of Jacques Derrida?

Indeed, Winds of Change suggests that alternate discourses should not be dismissed.

Indeed! How do you know that Derrida is Dead? You heard about it on the TV? Ha!

Might this entire story of his death simply be a didactic exercise on Derrida's own part to make the whole world a classroom? Using the "event" of his death as an exemplar? Elvis has been sighted recently. Why not Derrida?

Philly urban design reviewer

I haven't read any of the columns of Inga Saffron yet (too tired to register right now) but they look interesting.

Btw, any other big-media critics we should follow? I'll set up a sidebar list if I find enough of them.

Whoa, there indeed!

I asked in a moment of light humor: Can you believe this one? GOP Wants Moore Locked Up Over Noodle Bribe. Comes now TM Lutas and he is steamed, thinks Moore should be in the pokey, that there is no "joking exception."

TM states: Michael Moore's owes John Ashcroft His Freedom. No, really.

No. Not really. Except in the sense that John Ashcroft give Moore so much great material for black comedy.

I agree that there is no exception for jokers. But there is a requirement that the alleged perp Moore must have had the intent to actually sway people's actions with a payment. On the face of it, offering underwear and "stale soup" just doesn't cut it for me as a sign of serious intent. TM sees it differently (as does some fellow at Slate.) They say that "intent" does not matter.

I read the law differently:

US CODE: Title 42,1973i. Prohibited acts

(c) False information in registering or voting; penalties
Whoever knowingly or willfully
• gives false information as to his name, address or period of residence in the voting district for the purpose of establishing his eligibility to register or vote, or
• conspires with another individual for the purpose of encouraging his false registration to vote or illegal voting, or
• pays or offers to pay or accepts payment either for registration to vote or for voting
shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both...

I have added the bullet points, as that is how I read the passage to make it sensible. The issue turns on what is meant by the modifier "knowingly or willfully." The alleged perp has to have been "knowingly or willfully" taking the action of "pays or offers to pay..."

Maybe there is clear law on that term — "knowingly or willfully" — but to me it means that the alleged perp had to have had the intent to actually bribe someone to vote or register to vote. I'd have to hear more about the full context of Moore's actions before I could believe that he was making a serious — "knowingly or willfully" — offer to pay.

Any lawyers out there who will offer an opinion about what "knowingly or willfully" means in this context?

UPDATE: Bingo! Intentionality is an element of the crime.

I checked in Black's Law Dictionary (not online) for the definition of "knowingly _or_ willfully." That precise term does not appear. But "knowingly _and_ willfully" is there, as are the separate terms "knowingly" and "willfully." All three explicitly include the requirement that the alleged perp must have acted intentionally.

I wasn't in the audience, of course, but I wonder if there was anyone there who thought that Moore was serious in his intention to "pay or offer to pay" for people to vote.

If not, then Moore walks.

Case closed.

Was someone looking for this article?

Joel Garreau's article. (I posted on it last year here.)

Joel says here:

One of the reasons edge cities haven't attracted many artists and bohemians is that so much of it is brand-new and therefore expensive. That will change. Somebody had to be the first to look at an abandoned New England textile mill and realize it would make a great condominium. Somebody had to be the first to look at an old SoHo sweatshop and realize it would make a great artists loft.

Just so, in the near future, somebody realizes what a great space an old Kmart is - 80,000 square feet with

16-foot ceilings and killer HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning). Then he or she realizes you can get them for nothing from the Resolution Trust Corporation - and the first edge-city bohemian district is born.

First the artists break the space into lavish 5,000-square-foot sculptors studios. Then they punch skylights into the roof to let natural light into the interior. Then they do the sensible thing and start living there illegally.

They place sculptures and anything else they can think of on the roof, although the windmills quickly become cliché. When all the really great space in the Kmart is full, other people start filling the former drugstores and dry cleaners of the abandoned shopping center with funky bars, savory restaurants, computer-arts master printers, and the shady dens of CD-ROM pressers. The exteriors of the buildings are painted in intriguing ways. Think Berkeley, California - or better yet, its neighbor, Emeryville.

There are still a lot of parking spaces in the near-term future. This place will never resemble an old village because it was originally shaped by the automobile. Individual transportation is unquestionably here to stay. Artists are individualists, and they cherish the freedom that four tires and a steering column afford them - especially as vehicles become zero-emission and are easily modified with hand tools because so much of their makeup is plastic and fiberglass.

This edge-city bohemian district is unquestionably a working environment. Art is being made, and artists need their trucks to bring in materials and supplies. There are trendy industrial overtones to this place. An arc-welding unit on the back loading dock is quite the status symbol, as is a used hologram duplicator.

The problem of the urban parking garage

A reader asked about icky parking garages and don't they just inherently destroy things.

(I've posted on this before, I think, but it is buried way back in the archives. But you might want to check "The myth of the "decent architect" and Marina City 's Circular Parking Garage.)

And he's right to ask.

Here's an example of a "bad" parking structure:

It presents merely a blank wall to the street.

Here's an example of the same basic thing parking structure (though this one has apartments on the upper floors) by having activities (shops) at street level:

See? We transform a parking structure's impact on the street by forcing it to conform to the three rules. (Btw, the shops need not be more than 30 feet or so deep to be effective and marketable so there is trivial impact on the economics.)

If you look around any major city you can see example of both models: the "bad" parking garage with blank walls or cars visble at the sidewalk but you can also find examples (once you start looking you'll see) of the street-friendly ones with activity at the sidewalk level.

UPDATE: (If anyone has better examples than the ones I have shown here -- I am intensely busy this morning and can't find my Boulder CO pictures -- please help me out. Thanks.)

"Sensible-shoes bourgeois cluelessness"

Well now. Surprise! An excellent post with which I entirely agree: And Speaking Of Clueless in which ACDouglas defends Sherlock Holmes (as if Holmes really needs it) from the misunderstandings of Judge Posner.

Except for one thing: I could do with a little less venom hurled at "sensible-shoes bourgeois." I am "sensible-shoes bourgeois"

The animated graphic goes visiting.

A number of people have paid me the nice compliment of either linking to or (better yet) actually showing, on their own sites, this animated graphic:

I think that's great. The more people who see the moving image of urbanism the better.

One commentor at Miniver Cheevy remarked:

It's a neat graphic, but I am evidently too slow to grasp the point. Which is better, parking in front or in back? Without having thought deeply about the subject, I lean toward centralized parking shared by multiple buildings....

Well the reader gets the idea very well indeed and actually even advances things somewhat.

But he does raise a point about which the graphic is explicitly silent: "Which is better?" Which site plan (and that's the term for overall layout of building, road, sidewalks on a particular property) is "better?"

My answer:

It all depends on your goals. If you want a walkable neighborhood, you get one answer. If not, then another.

The graphic is value-free.
It does not tell what to do or what is good for you.
It merely points out the consequence of a choice.

Let me put it this way. If you do not care about pedestrian-oriented neighborhoods, then the graphic, and the urban planning lesson it sets forth, is not relevant to your life. And I assure you that I am not trying to persuade anyone that they should want pedestrian-oriented neighborhood.

But I start from the assumption that to a degree, a great number of people want a pedestrian-oriented neighborhood. In that case they have to understand that they will never get it without adherence to the graphic and the three rules which expand on the graphic. There are no "ifs, ands or buts." Unless you start from the graphic/three rules and design your towns and cities in substantial compliance with them, you will never get a pedestrian-oriented neighborhood. Period. There is no escape. It is an immutable law. But don't take my word for it. Go take a look around you. If you notice a walkable "main street" environment which ignores them, I will buy you lunch. (In Seattle.)

It's been a few weeks now

But don't miss this excellent post by Francis Morrone on Gentrification: Good or Evil?

Can you believe this one?

GOP Wants Moore Locked Up Over Noodle Bribe

The Michigan Republican Party has demanded that filmmaker Michael Moore be prosecuted for offering fresh underwear and and stale soup to college students in exchange for their promise to vote.

Even Sucher wouldn't go quite that far.

All The World Explained In One Simple Image.

"Very important." Yes. Actually.
But All The World Explained?
He'd prefer the understatement of All The Urban World Explained.

Some good comments on Yglesias Blog (above.)

Just an interesting structure

Out in the Delta, near Vancouver, B.C. (click to enlarge)

Where I depart from Jane Galt...

...is that my own strawmen have at least some relation to reality. But Jane says:

"Where I depart from the smart-growth/new-urbanist is in rejecting the belief, which I think is hopelessly naive, that If You Zone it They Will Come.

So Jane rejects an idea that no one holds. Who believes such a thing — "If You Zone it They Will Come" — in the manner in which Jane suggests it is believed? Jane's statement is meant to (oh so cleverly!) associate new urbanism with that book/movie ("Field of Dreams") about a baseball diamond and woo-woo dreamers.

If Jane can find serious, respected smart-growth/new-urbanists who rejects market demand & taste as a baseline element in public/private decison-making — i.e. that "If You Zone it They Will Come" in the anti-democratic & out-of-touch way Jane suggests — then I will be delighted to buy her lunch.

More importantly, such a purported put-down subtly conflicts with the facts of American home-building. "Speculative" (as opposed to "custom") building is how America creates its housing. In fact it's always "build and hope they will come to buy." And if consumers don't buy, then that is part of the creative destruction of capitalism. So why are these "anti" people so worried? Let new urbanism take the market test, where it does very well. In fact I challenge Jane to show new urbanist projects which have failed in the marketplace specifically because of their design.

Jane, I think that it is terrific that you and others (e.g. Cowan) are starting to become aware of the built environment. I just wish you'd look it into a bit more before you offer statements which indicates such a lack of familiarity with the material. Is that too harsh?

And in a funnier vein, Jane made this statement:

"The fact that people like to vacation on Nantucket does not mean that they like to live there."

Huh?

•••

the BUFFALOg also takes note of this debate and comments:

This is the first time I've seen two actual "city-lovers", city advocates if you will, debating the premises of smart growth.

"...debating the premises of smart growth."

Fine. Terrific idea. That's a good thing to do. Criticism -- like exercising a muscle-- makes new urbanism stronger.

But it would be helpful if the antis started by explicitly stating, maybe even using textual authority i.e. quotes documents, the premises of smart growth and new urbanism rather than making up their own fantasy version. I see neither Galt nor her mentor Tierney do any such thing. They seem to me to create a strawman with little connection to what smart growth/new urbanism says in order to prove that it is a weak reed. Big deal.

The cat is out of the bag, following the money

Monorail foes boost light rail

Former Seattle Mayor Charles Royer said yesterday that voters ought to halt the monorail to make available future taxes for Sound Transit's light-rail system.

The text of monorail recall is now that Sound Transit wants the Monorail's money.

Fascinating. Why am I not surprised.

But I question whether bringing in Sound Transit as an explicit factor -- which wants to build, ironically, elevated transit! -- is a politically shrewd move; the agency is not a popular one and is known locally for poor management and incompetence.

The issue for me and Bush...

...is not his intentions -- perhaps alone among Seattleites I still hold to the notion that he intends well -- but "merely" his competence:

Inspector's Judgment: U.S. Report Finds Iraqis Eliminated Illicit Arms in 90's: WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 - Iraq had destroyed its illicit weapons stockpiles within months after the Persian Gulf war of 1991, and its ability to produce such weapons had significantly eroded by the time of the American invasion in 2003, the top American inspector for Iraq said in a report made public Wednesday.

And we went to war over this? Bush should have the grace to be embarrassed.

Now of course it's a good thing that Hussein is gone. That's obvious. But there were other ways to deal with Hussein besides a rush to war. Wiley Odysseus would have had his strategems and tricks. Where is he? Now that we need him.

Note to self

We should not really be focusing much on other bloggers like Galt and Cowan and whomever else has chimed in to carry the water for "autonomists," to mix several images. Bloggers, even when they err, even err very seriously out of perplexing perspective, are brethren. Accessible. Sometimes responsive. In the environment.

The mischief-maker here is John Tierney who writes de haut en bas and whom I cannot imagine would ever dare to engage in direct communication with his critics via the blogosphere.

Excellent!...and to be-expected as the working-out of capitalism

Presentation on Big Box Reuse

On October 12 @ 7pm, Julia Christensen will present findings from her ongoing project, How Communities are Reusing the Big Box. Julia recently wrapped up a three month research expedition all over the United States, which led her to approximately 18 renovated big box buildings. She saw churches, schools, museums, go-kart tracks and more, all in renovated K-Marts, Wal-Marts, etc. During the presentation she will share photos, stories, and artifacts from her trek across the country, discovering how communities are dealing with abandoned superstore buildings. Admission is free and open to the public.

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