City Comforts, the blog

Not enough children in Seattle...

...But plenty of Village Idiots?

This article contains just enough wisdom, thinking parallel to my own, and concern for a city that I also love, to make it worth reading. But too may wild swings to prevent it from really connecting.

On the one hand Knute Berger berates our Mayor for encouraging a dense city. Then he berates the Mayor for not paying enough attention to making Seattle pedestrian-friendly. There is a disconnect there -- while I would be the first to agree that density per se does not make a pedestrian-friendly place, by the same token it doesn't hurt. And generally a certain amount of density is associated in fact (not as causality but as result) with interesting urban places.

Then Knute berates "density freaks" for ignoring families and for somehow making Seattle unfriendly to children.

But it's not density freaks nor the Mayor who make ordinary single-family houses in Wallingford (a middle-class Seattle neighborhood) worth +$400 k but the fact that no one really wants to keep housing affordable. Or knows how.

The Mayor may well have his priorities askew but Knute doesn't really home-in -- so far as I can tell -- to uncover what ails Seattle. It's good to see that The Seattle Weekly is paying attention to these issues; I wish they'd pay just a bit more attention and offer a little more sophisticated story than attacking "urban sophisticates."

New book announced; now persuade author to desist

UPDATE: Duh...It looks like the "Three Rules" PDF which I ask you to download in the paragraphs which follow is corrupt. I apologize. I will try to get a fresh, healthy one up as soon as possible.

•••

There. I just said it.

I have decided to write a new book. Well maybe "think really seriously about writing a new book" would be more accurate. And maybe "assemble" or "edit" might be a better term as most of what I do is brief commentary on photos so there is not a whole lot of writing involved. (As an aside,while "a picture is worth a thousand words." I suggest that "a picture and a few sentences are worth ten thousand.")

Anyway, the new book might be titled something like

The Three Rules
of Urban Design:
Close to everything you need to know
about creating a pedestrian-friendly city.

It would be an expansion of the third chapter (of City Comforts) which you can find here. By way of work-plan, I would start by reviewing the posts on this blog; a few posts would become grist for the new book  And you'd see a category something like "For the new book."

•••

Now, before I spend a whole lot of time on this new venture, even just thinking about it, I would ask a favor from you, the reader. Please read that third chapter on The Three Rules. (You can download it here or, better, you can read it in a hard copy -- inscribed! -- which you can purchase here.  Just tell me you'd like it inscribed.)

If/when you have read the chapter I would ask you to write and explain to me and the rest of the world, if you like, why I am all wet...why The Three Rules are not the starting point for understanding, much less re-forming American cities. In the most polite way possible, I challenge you to challenge me. I will listen carefully. (In fact, I'll keep a continuing link to this post in the sidebar so that the comments can be continually accessible.)

I am not joking. You will be doing me a great favor if you can convince me thatThe Three Rules are merely a minor sideshow, and that I have got it all wrong -- such as this Timely criticism attempts -- and that I have grossly simplified the way cities work, have ignored "root causes" and "fundamental relationships" etc etc and whatever else. If you can convince me then I can happily give up this new book as a foolish venture and a waste of time and paper.

Michael Blowhard has cautioned anyone who contemplates Writing a Book. His words are sage. For those who have never embarked on a book project, I can assure you, a new book is very time consuming, expensive and gets in the way of doing this sort of urban research:

Salt Lake City as seen from inside the warming hut on the summit of Snowbird Resort. 

Witold agrees (not exactly a surprise)

Street Cred - Another way of looking at the new MoMA

Most of the new construction is along 54th Street, and it is here that Taniguchi's minimalist architecture makes its maximal impact. The blank walls of the new addition are clad in black modular panels of what I think is granite, but which might just as well be kryptonite for all the character it displays. The five-story wall slices down next to the sidewalk with the finality of a guillotine. The brutal scalelessness resembles something out of a Kubrick science-fiction fantasy. As for the lobby entrance, which might have been an opportunity to humanize this unrelenting composition, it is merely a utilitarian slot, the mirror image of the truck bay next door.

I posted on MOMA after my Gates trip with the same reaction.

Request For Proposals from persons expert in creating crackerjack presentations

A link in this morning's Arts & Letters Daily reminded me of Edward Tufte. I think he gets a bit carried away about Power Point, (see my post Is PowerPoint also a moral issue?) but I have long admired the graphics of Tufte's own site and have been intrigued by his one-day Courses.

(Btw, any feedback on Tufte's courses would be appreciated as there is commonality between his thinking and mine. His A visual display of data should be simple enough to fit on the side of a van reminds me of the rubric in City Comforts that "a great zoning code can fit on one side of an index card, a small index card at that." So, maybe, as I am inspired by Tufte, I ought to take his course to see how he does it. Are opinions?)

Anyway, it just struck me that I should put together a City Comforts seminar, emphasizing, of course, The Three Rules. (And modest as I am, with much to be modest about, I'd start with a more modest half-day/3-4 hour seminar, however.)

Is there someone out there I couild hire who really knows how to put together such seminars? Someone I can hire as a advisor/coach etc? 

If interested, please email me a letter of interest and credentials. Obviously, people close by, in the Seattle area, will have an advantage but I wouldn't  rule out anyone.

Timely criticism

Architecture vs. Urban Design:

While I like, in principal, the ease of "three rules", and its applicability in the exurban and suburban landscapes, even, at times, in the newly built urbanscapes, I find it frighfully weak and terminally simplistic in the consideration of Every Building at Every Site. As a lens of criticism it doesn't even begin to approach a work of architecture with any compelling rigor in its analysis of space, or the experience of it – except in its perimeter. It looks at the outline, and then condemns the center.

Of course I couldn't possibly agree with the statement above as I think, at the least, it misconstrues the purpose of The Three Rules; of course I'll chalk that up to my own imperfections in communicating the purpose, scope, extent etc etc of Rules; but I welome the critique and I will respond as I am able.

And I say "timely" in light of an announcement I'll be making in the next few days.

Letter from Phil Langdon in Hartford

I am posting an article by Phil Langdon (below the fold) because I believe that the use (which too often means misuse and abuse) of eminent domain in governmental "economic development" programs
1. is morally repulsive in itself, and the Fort Trumbull neighborhood situation seems to me to offer a regrettably fine example ; 
2. injures the urban planning enterprise by associating it with over-reaching governmental policies and thus diminishes its standing in the population as a whole;
3. is simply not needed as a tool of urban planning.

Many liberals may believe that because the opponents of eminent domain are often from the far right then their arguments can be safely ignored. That is wrong; and I ask my fellow liberals to reconsider that position.

I largely agree with Phi though I think we part company when he offers that "an outright
prohibition might hamper worthwhile undertakings, such as the removal of junkyards and oil tank farms from waterfronts" as I think that considering the abuse, we can live with a few junkyards and oil tank farms here and there until their economic life is finished.

Whither the big box store?

New (Sub)Urbanism describes one possible option under consideration in Flagstaff, Arizona: simply Limiting Big Box Retail.  Among the provisions:

- Limit new retail development buildings to 125,000 square feet
- Require any proposal that exceeds 75,000 square feet to have a comprehensive impact study commissioned by an independent consultant chosen by the City but paid for by the developer
- Cap the amount of floor space dedicated to non-taxable grocery items at 8%

New (Sub)Urbanism believes that

[t]his proposal is quite reasonable. It will not impede consumer choice or businesses from operating there--Flagstaff currently has a Wal Mart that is 115,000 square feet and a Target that is 96,000 square feet. But it will restrict "super-center" monstrosities that decrease neighboring property values, require significant public infrastructure, and adversely affect local businesses.

However I believe that this path is frought with legal, political, ethical and practical issues.

Far more realistic I suggest is to civilize the big box.

More from City Comforts in the near future on how to do so.

Indianapolis talk

Really important.

Urban Design/Urban Village Lecture with David Sucher.

This forum is part of the Urban Design Indianapolis initiative, a project of the CAP: Indianapolis Center and an implementation component of the Indianapolis Regional Center Plan 2020.

The forum speaker is David Sucher from Seattle, Washington, author of the book City Comforts: How to Build an Urban Village. The book shows examples of small things - City Comforts - that make urban life pleasant: places where people can meet, methods to tame cars and to make buildings good neighbors, art that infuses personality into locations and makes them into places. Many of these small details are so obvious as to be invisible.

At a time when Indianapolis is seeing tremendous investment in its urban core and cultural districts, as well as in urban-style developments around its fringes, Sucher will offer his observations on what it really takes to create a dynamic urban village.

If you're interested in urban neighborhoods, cultural districts, design and planning, development, new urbanism, or just curious about what makes a great place for people, you'll be interested in what David Sucher brings. For more information about Urban Design Indianapolis, visit http://www.urbandesignindy.org.

And here I thought that I knew paranoia

“The Gates” on the Road to Serfdom.
But consider the source and it it is not surprising.

•••

Another, more sane, view:

At A Fish.

Unless informed on the Schiavo case, best to remain silent

Almost all -- left, right and center -- commentary on the Schiavo case seems to me to be useless, even drivel. I don't need to mention any names because it is all over the blogosphere; and most commentary seems to me to be generally irrelevant as it starts with people's opinions as opposed to procedural and factual history of the case. Only by putting oneself in the seat of the judges and understanding the factual and procedural history can one have much useful to say on the Schiavo case, per se. Unless you read the court's decisions -- the actual texts -- and understand the way the judge(s) appled the law to facts, you really are wasting your time in discussing the matter because you don't know what is really happening, Mr. Jones.

Of course more general questions concerning "end-of-life" issues are fair game. But it's silly to discuss these general issues in relation to Terry Schiavo unless you have actually read the Schiavo cases. And if you think that the judge(s) have mis-applied the law or that they didn't understand the facts or that the law should be changed, that is part of the public debate, should be encouraged and starts from the texts. But there is too much lofty, abstract, essentially meangingless debate such as one finds in this David Brooks column in which he opines that "[t]he core belief that social conservatives bring to cases like Terri Schiavo's is that the value of each individual life is intrinsic." Ugh. Both clauses are shallow.

UPDATE: I am wrong. There is some meaningful discussion on the blogosphere. See this excellent post at Obsidian Wings.

And here is a useful site to find the actual court documents, which should be the starting point for any discussion of this matter: Abstract Appeals

Dream world:

Why the U.S. Needs More Nuclear Power

Nuclear wastes pose no serious engineering problems. Uranium is such an energy-rich fuel that the actual volume of waste is tiny compared with that of other fuels, and is easily converted from its already-stable ceramic form as a fuel into an even more stable glass-like compound, and just as easily deposited in deep geological formations, themselves stable for tens of millions of years.

Unfortunately these dreamers live in my world.

A web site well-worth noting

I was looking for a good image of the Millau Bridge to supplement the prior post and I Googled this excellent site Structurae: International Database and Gallery of Structures.

Welcome to Structurae! This site offers you information on works of structural engineering, architecture or construction through time, history and from around the world. Our documentation begins at the time of the pyramids in Egypt and Roman construction, continues to Romanesque and Gothic churches and through to the Industrial Revolution all the way to today and beyond. Structurae deals mostly with bridges, tunnels, dams, skyscrapers, stadiums, towers, etc. Explore this site to discover the marvelous works of structural engineering.

I have just added it to my blogroll.

And here is one of its images which shows the bridge that Jennings urges us to see:

from structurae, Image # ID 32419

It was on my list of things to see; now it is really on my list.

I will take the advice of one commenter (or is it commentor?) and travel more.

Conveniently, Michael Jennings reminds us of that fantastic bridge in France -- le Viaduc de Millau --  (which you can see here on Webcam .)

The Millau viaduct is simply mindblowing. You may know in advance how big and how high it is in terms of numbers, but when you see it it really blows you away. I have seen a lot of great works of engineering, but I cannot remember the last time I saw one that was simply as awe inspiring as this one.

Is even my beloved monorail prone to abuse of eminent domain?

I have been a big supporter of the Seattle Monorail but I am wondering if there is some immutable and iron law which dicates that good things get screwed up when you give government too much power to implement...for example: Monorail Monopoly, The Monorail's Latest PR Mess: Excessive Land Appropriations?

Now, in what appears to be only the latest public relations fiasco, the agency appears to be using its governmental power to take advantage of some property owners, condemning more land than they need to build the initial Green Line. In fact, the owners claim--not without reason--that SMP is engaging in an unethical, and perhaps illegal, land grab. The affected properties are likely to rise in value when the project is finished, and SMP could then sell them off to private developers at a hefty profit.

In this light, the timing of the anti-monorail initiative last fall may have been unfortunate indeed as the initiative's overwhelming defeat may have encouraged the monorail authority to abandon caution, as is not unknown to big winners.

Not An Egg

Laurence Aurbach writes:

Recently a winner in the Alaskan State Capitol Building competition was announced, a wan yet overbearing decon/avant garde/what-have-you creation by Morphosis and mmenseArchitects. Soon thereafter, Thom Mayne, the principal of Morphosis, won the Pritzker Prize.

Now the talented Marianne Cusato has designed a counter-project for the capitol building -- "Alaska Deserves a Real Capitol Building, Not an Egg" -- using the historic precedent of Russian civic buildings built in the 19th century. Cuasato is a 3rd generation Alaskan, born and raised in Anchorage and Kenai.

Cusato's proposal -- which she has offered as a private citizen -- is far better than the Morphosis design for several reasons.

First, it creates and orders its surrounding spaces into accessible, functional parks and greens.  Those spaces provide a suitably grand setting for the state's most important civic structure.  They relate the building to the street in a pedestrian-friendly manner and also mediate a difficult, steep site with graduated terraces.

Second, Cusato's design provides a more legible point of reference in the city fabric.  It creates a focal point for the main approach to the site.  It uses near/far layering and axes to establish a dramatic setting in relation to the background mountainous terrain.  It creates a distinct and comprehensible landmark for the city and its skyline.

Third, the design conveys meaning.  It connects to the nation's heritage of state capitol buildings, while also being uniquely Alaskan.  It demonstrates a sophisticated understanding of classical and traditional proportions, composition, and ornament -- one that conveys elevated values of order, propriety, balance and responsibility.  By drawing upon enduring principles of Western civic building design, the proposal avoids faddishness and instant obsolescence.  It promises to remain proud, relevant and well-loved, far into the future. 

Modernists will object that a tradition-based design is "not of our time." They argue that new materials and construction methods mean that only un-ornamented, machine-like designs with a high novelty factor can be authentic.

But does technological innovation require that we abolish all references to our architectural heritage?  Did the Romans abolish columns and pediments following the invention of concrete?  Did the architect of the U.S. Capitol abolish domes and cupolas following the invention of cast iron? On the contrary, those materials were used to take traditional and classical design patterns into new avenues of expression.

Comments about the Alaskan state capitol design may be sent directly to the Alaskan State Capitol Planning Commission at info@alaskacapitol.org

Cupolas of Capitalism: State Capitol Building Histories is a resource of state capitol building images from around the United States. Trivia question: Did you know that 40 state capitols have cupolas?

My idea of grace

(click to enlarge)

A structure from Behlen Building Systems (a Nebraska company) which I saw last weekend in central Washington State. I happened upon it at the Sand Hill Crane festival in Othello, which btw was well-worth attending. (I am not particularly a "birder" but these cranes are charismatic and create an event simply by landing etc etc.) The tour stopped off at this farm and of course I noticed the barn; it was easier to see than were the cranes, for a starter.

I am particularly taken by the waves of this roof.

Responding to a comment by Laurence Aurbach, here is a close-up of the building's surface:

(click to enlarge)

As I commented, with windows and doors, I think this could be the makings of a splendid little "Main Street" building. Would I want every structure on the street to be so "direct"? Probably not. But every now and then, like the raisin in the porridge, it would be great.

Sounds like bad news to me

Architect of Unyielding Designs Takes Top Prize.

Consider how the building meets the sidewalk:

Via Modern Art Notes where Tyler Green took the intelligent and all-too-rare step (not to pun) of offering a judgment only after having "walked all the way around Thom Mayne's new Caltrans building." So I'll be the first to offer that I could be all wrong — I haven't been there — and maybe the photo above is of only one eentsy-teensy part of what is actually a great urbane building. I would be happy to be proven wrong and find that the Pritzker is awarded to someone with a city sense. Make my day.

Update: Daily Dose appears to fall for it.

Shin-pei sees through the hype.

Michael Blowhard spends more psychic energy -- and this is to his credit as the issues are crucial -- than could I on exposing the emptiness of the architecture of Thom Mayne.

Alas, PIXEL POINTS also buys into the hype.

Another research trip

This time to see Sand Hill Cranes. Have a good weekend.

Meanwhile don't miss the thread (in the comments at Stoned Again) in which Michael Blowhard poses the question

"Can Modernist architecture and Modernist urbanism can be that easily severed from one another?" (italics added)

I say "Yes!" (Just take a look at this example, Hudson Blue. It is modernist architecture but not modernist urbanism. No?)

And I look forward to reading Francis Morrone's response when I get back to a computer, as he catalyzed the whole discussion.

In any case, Michael's question is a practically-important one and needs discussion.

Indeed! Site plan trumps elevation

Morrone  strikes again and notes

My own feeling is that Modernist urbanism has got to go--and we can deal with that through appropriate channels. It's a city planning not a historic preservation issue--though I'll grant that in some cases the two fields are closely related.

My point, I guess, is that sensitive designers might well weave together an urban fabric that uses traditional means and manners to help Modernist buildings work better in an urbanistic way.

I think Francis demands too much. It is not merely sensitive designers who can create a good urban street in a modernist style. Banal designers -- even uncouth fools! even Rem Koolhaas! -- can take part in creating a good urban street if they simply understand and then follow The Three Rules.

What is missing -- I say yet again -- from most of these discussions of modern versus traditional are two other boxes in the matrix which vastly trump mere style since they are based on and reinforce human behavior: architecture versus site plan.

Francis gets it; why do so few others? These endless discussions of modern versus traditional lead nowhere unless one can distinguish between site plan and architecture. Would it help if I rephrased the matter as one between site plan and elevation?

Stoned

Nice post by Francis Morrone on architectural fashion in which he discusses Rem Koolhaas.

I think that the big mystery about Koolhaas is the source of his reputation. A comment (on Francis' post) by one IJSBrand ---

Whenever I think about Koolhaas I think about his design of the Kunsthal (Art hall) in Rotterdam. Where the entrance is the exit [two narrow doors] and people going to the giftshop are passing through as well. Never have claustrophobic spaces and grandeur been mixed so splendidly together

--- reminded me of the cramped, unpleasant de facto main entrance to the Seattle Public Library. (The Fourth Avenue entrance.) It, along with other details of the building such as its circulation make me wonder if Koolhaas is even a good architect, much less a "great" one. There is a really interesting study/book here: how the public reputation -- step by step -- of a starchitect is crafted. And crafted it is.

•••

Morrone seems to take somewhat seriously what passes for "architectural theory" these days (and for which Koolhaas is particularly noted.) Francis writes that Koolhaas

'suggested that "Manhattanism" was to a certain extent the product of manifesto, or at least theory--by such men as Raymond Hood, Harvey Wiley Corbett, and Hugh Ferriss. These were the genius designers of the "Modernistic" (as opposed to "Modernist") city of towers of the twenties and thirties. Like many of the architects of today, they were theorizers. They championed the city of congestion, of skyward thrust, of slam-dancing commutes, of what one of their number, the real-estate developer Irwin Chanin, called "the mise-en-scène of the romantic drama of American business."

In the spirit of Occam's Razor, I'd wonder whether the architectural shape of Manhattan is less a function of intellectuals' "manifestos" than of business responding to the geographic constraints of an island context (and one with solid bedrock for foundations) combined with the dire to make money i.e. build up rather than out.  Business theorizers are after-the-fact justifiers rather than catalysts. It seems just a bit implausible that a bank would have made a loan to develop a high-rise on the basis of the theories of Raymond Hood, Harvey Wiley Corbett, and Hugh Ferriss. No? Why choose the more complex & convoluted Koolhaas answer, based on tenuous assumptions, when a direct one will do.

Eminent domain could well be a fusion issue.

Mother Jones takes note of the eminent domain issue in The Condemned and Left, Right, & Wrong.

Considering the poor judgment indicated by its new building...

...I am not surprised by this story about MOMA.

via Modern Art Notes.

The manliness of the author

Can one achieve manliness by writing about it?

I thought this article would have embarrassed TR.

Market Regulator? or Market Participant?

Citywide `Wi-Fi' network pondered.

Chicago officials took the first tentative steps Tuesday toward installation of a citywide wireless network that would allow residents to connect to the Internet from easy chairs, school desks and office break rooms--and provide City Hall with a major source of new revenue.

What does a municipal government brings to the party? Why have a publicly-owned wi-fi network? Is there any sort of "natural monopoly" which suggests that public ownership is appropriate? Are the roles of market regulator through the police power (i.e. zoning) and market participant (i.e. providing a service) in conflict? Isn't self-dealing inevitble? i.e. using the police power to favor one's own enterprise? I myself have thought that a city-wide wi-fi would make sense. But with the model of cell phones -- ubiquitous without governmental subsidy -- I now wonder. What else do you need, in public, for a wi-fi network besides a series of broadcasting base stations scattered about? (Obviously there is some sort of computer to connect them and control access etc etc) It's not a super high-tech enterprise. Why not allow competing city-wide and or neighborhood systems? (I assume that a City-sponsored system -- like any capitalist --  would inevitably seek exclusive rights to forestall competition.) Why involve government? It seems gratuitous.

Sony's Librie - another lost opportunity for Sony?

How the iPod Ran Circles Around the Walkman.

...Sir Howard (Stringer) should recognize that the Sony he inherits is constitutionally incapable of making one (electronics) plus one (entertainment) equal three.

Stringer might also consider the possibilities of the Librie -- Sony's EBook Reader based on E-Ink. It appears to be another example of Sony's technical brilliance and marketing foolishness. It's not for sale in the USA almost a year after its debut to universal accolades. And what's odd, as well, is that it does not support Adobe's PDF (which I assume is the default used in Japan, too?) but some proprietary Sony format.

I have actually held/seen a Librie and it's a pretty nice device. It still needs work -- color and a wi-fi connection so as to be able to read periodicals at cafes etc etc. But it is a great start.

•••

The EBook Reader is a continuing interest of mine as both reader and suthor/publisher. In terms of "who can do it?" I still haven't given up on the idea that Apple will give us the EBook Reader as an evolution of the IPod

A liberal asks:

why public broadcasting?

Is it possible that something better would develop if the audience of "All Things Considered" was up for grabs?

Sure. Anything is possible. Maybe NPR will start to offer a pony, too, when you donate $1000.

But in the meantime here's my comment:

Oh that makes real sense.

Dismantle the one national radio source which starts to approach fair-handed discourse because it doesn't meet some theoretical test of "appropriate governmental action." Now that's typical Liberal thinking for you! Do the "right thing" short term even when it hurts your long term goals. I am sure the Republicans will admire us for that...giving up our only even remotely sympathetic network because it is the right thing to do.

The world is a complex place and to even consider getting rid of NPR at this time (much as its conventional liberal thinking annoys me) in the wishy-washy way you imply is not a good idea.

Now what might make sense is to put NPR up for sale. But you have it backwards: "I worry in particular about the effect of public broadcasting on the market for high-quality news and information."

The real point is that NPR proves that there is a significant (and affluent) market for "high-quality news and information" and that it probably doesn't need governmental subsidy.

Maybe NPR should go truly public and sell shares in itself?

If we are concerned (as we should be) about media concentration, we could require a low (initial) share price and limits on how many shares can be held by one entity. I would prefer to support my local NPR station by investing in it than by responding to begging.

Elegantly put.

John Massengale says:

The first role of an urban building is to shape the public realm, making the city more important than the building. The first goal of an “avante garde architect” in 2005 is to make his or her building unique. The most banal gimmick trumpets the "genius" of the individual architect and trumps the common good.

Well phrased indeed, and worth repeating.

The first role of an urban building is to shape the public realm, making the city more important than the building. The first goal of an “avante garde architect” in 2005 is to make his or her building unique. The most banal gimmick trumpets the "genius" of the individual architect and trumps the common good.

Pacific Northwest Drought

On our way to a beach hike yesterday (Ebey's Landing) we drove by the Skagit River. It was lower than I have ever seen it, especially in March when the Cascade mountain snow is starting to melt. In fact, Current flows are about one half of their historical mean over a 63 year period. (And had it not been for the drought I would probably have been skiing but most PNW ski areas are closed.)

This chart (click to enlarge) explains the situation.

It is drawn from this page, USGS Real-Time Water Data for SKAGIT RIVER NEAR MOUNT VERNON, WA, and is troubling. There is nothing like seeing dark river bottom where you expect to see floating boats, and then to have that image backed up by numbers, to make one aware.

 

Amazon versus my own site

If there are any people out there reading this blog who have purchased my book City Comforts, I'd be curious to get some feedback from you about where you purchased it and why.

As many of you may know, the second edition of my book is sold at both Amazon and at my own site.

To my chagrin and lighter pocketbook, Amazon outsells me even though its price is higher and (judging from my own experience as a buyer) the delivery is much slower.

So my question is why? 

Why such a disparity between sales at Amazon and sales at my own www.citycomforts.com? Is it simply that people (of course) think of Amazon first when shopping for a book? Any book?  Maybe buyers are made aware of the book in the first place through Amazon? Are buyers not aware of my own site? Do people feel more comfortable buying through a huge, known entity such as Amazon? Are there subtle barriers to purchase at my site i.e. is Amazon's so much easier? Any perspective would be appreciated.

Now don't get me wrong; I am happy to sell any books and if they are sold through Amazon, that's great. But I make more money when I sell directly and so anything I can do to increase sales at my own site is worth considering.

Please send feedback privately to me at "david@citycomforts.com"

Thanks.

UPDATE: Thanks, truly, for the very interesting constructive criticism so far. I am sure I will be acting on almost every one. A few comments -- about not liking to use PayPal -- struck me particularly because of an email that I received not 30 minutes ago. A prospective buyer writes:

I’m trying to order one copy on line and it keeps saying my payment session has expired and I need to enter the information again.  I’m going as fast as I can and it keeps doing that.  Can someone help me?

Over the past year or so I had heard every now-and-then from a few others about the difficulty of using PayPal. But I have been lazy and had written off those complaints about PayPal as so many transactions had gone through without issue. Stupid me. I guess that I really need to find some alternative way for people to pay by charge card. Perhaps it's time to go back to Costco and see if its credit card service is simpler to set-up & use. Hope so. Last time I looked (a bit over a year ago) setting up a "shopping cart" seemed to involve matters beyond my capabilities.

Hero worship

terra non firma quotes someone as saying:

"An artist's work should stay an artist's work."

(The context is modification to Gehry's Disney Hall to decrease glare.)

As if the fact that someone is called an "artist" by a cadre means that he or she is now exempt from social comment. What a short-sighted view. One of the most offensive elements of starchitecture is the adulation which it bestows on its "names." It's the same thing I find so distasteful about Ayn Rand.

Hero worship leads to fascism.

Now that doesn't suggest we shouldn't praise people for a job well done. Of course we should. But it is when people start oohing and aahing about gimcracks that we should start to worry. So that's why it's refreshing to see people like Christo and Jeanne-Claude take themselves not-so seriously.

Huh?

Matthew Yglesias refers to the:

...near-universal belief that there aren't important economies of scale to be reaped by expanding beyond a single metro area,

Come again? Who believes that? Safeway? Wal-Mart? Costco? Starbucks? Home Depot?

I have read both the underlying post, which seems to ask why monopoly capitalism has not succeeded in creating essentially one large firm,

But the sort of semi-national chain store patchwork we see in the supermarket and drugstore businesses seems to lack a rationale.

and one response.

I am still puzzled by Yglesias question. Lack a rationale? Our economy is filled with firms of various sizes. In many business, say law firms or restaurants, there appears to be a fairly smooth curve of the size of enterprise i.e. there is everything from the single-stand/one lawyer shop to McDonalds/Starbucks and global mega-firms with a thousand lawyers. Some businesses, say refining oil, do not lend themselves to small operations because of capital, technological and regulatory barriers.

The ultimate answer to the question is that there are limits to growth such as human talent, ambition and even commonsense, which allow people to be happy with say, only $25 million net worth.

And I wouldn't be so sure that so many of those small chaims will in fact survive. I just read about one Washington State grocery chain which is downsizing because of, in the words of its chief executive, Wal-Mart. So the regional chaims may in fact be on the way out.

Syncophants Arise

I can hear their shrieks now: Libeskind's Denver Art Museum Expansion

Now calm down. It's not that I am immune to the spectacular. I like the Rockettes and I like Liberace and I like the movie theaters of the 1920s. And I even like this Libeskind design, as much of its interior as is shown anyway. But as an advancement of culture it's so irrelevant...so nothing-to-do with the daily texture of life...so striving, so arty. But I grant him an A for intention: Libeskind would like to be relevant. In fact he writes about the importance of architecture:

It seems to me that architecture is, in fact, the machine that produces the universe which produces the gods. It does so not fully through theories or reflections, but in the ever non-repeatable and optimistic act of construction. The qualities of its resistance, which are as pragmatic as the materials from which it is built, form an irascible and volatile field whose smile is not that of Buddha.

The only problem is that his words are too unclear to have any real substance. It would be nice if a (probably) talented fellow like Libeskind could get down from his high horse and just talk plain English.

via Modern Art Notes

"Somebody has to monitor America's favorite drug dealer."

Starbucks Gossip

Kotkin is coming around to

new urbanism. (Or at least so it appears to me.)

Architects, environmentalists, and planners should apply their energies—not their contempt and condemnation—to America's suburbs.

Of course that's what New Urbanism has been trying to do for the past decade or so.

But why does Joel have to pose his overall message in a way which appeals to anti-city suburbanites? Why, Joel?

Blogging hiatus

On research trip until mid-next week.

Extraordinary image

From A Daily Dose of Architecture: Our Surreal World:

via Tyler Green

Knocking Kotkin leads to

A reasonable summary:

Many strongholds of urban liberalism have placed severe restrictions of development that are bad for poor people and largely mask the financial interests of well-heeled incumbent property owners under the guise of doing something leftwing. It's hardly a revolutionary point.

Of course I agree with much of this, as you know.

But the large point Matt misses is that if you do allow unrestricted development it is not good for either rich people or poor people. By-and-large we do a terrible job of forming cities so the urbs resulting from unrestricted growth would be unpleasant for all. The no-growth impulse certainly makes phony claim to the high moral ground of ecological sensitivity, and should be rejected on that basis. But in historical terms it was the only possibility, considering that America had/has no (pro-pedestrian) mental frame work for urban development in a world of cars, and so unrestricted growth would have no set of social customs to fall back upon...as we did in the pre-car era, when we built some very nice cities. While New Urbanism and The Three Rules are on the horizon, they still have a long way to go to form a background set of assumptions.

Even now, as I showed a few days ago here on this blog,  institutions with all the financial and cerebral resources imaginable -- I am speaking particularly of MOMA -- are inept, unconscionably inept, at taking part in city building.

So, no, we are not yet ready for unrestricted building as it will produce yet bigger idiotic cities which will benefit no one -- neither rich nor poor -- in either the short or long run.

I am so curious to hear the reactions

For example -- one out of probably ten thousand examples, and that is part of the fascination -- I enjoyed Majikthise's own remarks and those of her readers, here.

I haven't heard the phrase "Fun City" in years

It's awfully pleasant to read Francis Morrone's commentary on...well on just about anything as withal his somewhat right-wing approach he puts across his ideas in a graceful, decent, incisive way.

Morrone offers an extremely interesting take on Fun City which you should not miss, (and which will date you right away, if you know the location of "Fun City" which phrase I assume must have been first voiced in deep irony.)

"Question authority" -- even art critics

One of the supposed "justifications" offered for art is that it makes us think, raises consciousness etc. Artists are supposed to be in the forefront of human awareness, seeing things new ways etc etc

But then come along art critics and what do they want? Total obediance to their sensibility, which they offer as superior.

So I enjoyed Peter Schjeldahl's pleasant, self-effacing and accurate summary of the politics of The Gates:

...“The Gates” is a populist  affront to the authority of art critics...

Something to remember: even a mistake can turn out well

After glancing in the papers and finding what appears to be some encouraging news from Lebanon, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Israel/Palestine and even Iraq, I had been thinking along just these words from Jonathan Freedland :

The war's silver lining

First, we ought to admit that the dark cloud of the Iraq war may have carried a silver lining. We can still argue that the war was wrong-headed, illegal, deceitful and too costly of human lives - and that its most important gain, the removal of Saddam, could have been achieved by other means. But we should be big enough to concede that it could yet have at least one good outcome.

Second, we have to say that the call for freedom throughout the Arab and Muslim world is a sound and just one - even if it is a Bush slogan and arguably code for the installation of malleable regimes. Put starkly, we cannot let ourselves fall into the trap of opposing democracy in the Middle East simply because Bush and Blair are calling for it. Sometimes your enemy's enemy is not your friend. (italics added)

via Harry's Place

Now of course it's fair for people to point out that very few anti-war people were ever actively "opposing democracy" directly. Nonetheless, I think it will be difficult for many people to overcome their hostility to anything associated with Bush and to applaud any outcome which is associated with his policies. But I think we should all make an effort to avoid that trap and should try to hold George W. Bush to his pro-democracy rhetoric.

Passages - of interest primarily to Seatteites

We have a wonderful venue in Seattle named Town Hall which can and does host a wide variety of events. It's founder, David Brewster, is stepping down. He deserves a rouind of applause.