City Comforts, the blog

Munich

A.C. Douglas informs us that he will not see Munich because of its "corrupt, perfectly imbecile underlying philosophic premise." There's a much better reason: it's just not a very well-done film. It's flabby, wandering and an hour too long. Whatever you might eventually think of its "philosophic premise," once you tease it out, it doesn't set forth that "philosophic premise" in a clear way. See it only if you like to keep up with films or like to be able to keep up your end of a dinner conversation. After all the hero's sturm und drang about revenge, my reaction, following Occam, was "very bad management by his handlers."

Charles Fried offers "The case for surveillance:"

Daddy knows best.

If such impersonal surveillance on the orders of the president for genuine national security purposes without court or other explicit authorization does violate some constitutional norm, then we are faced with a genuine dilemma and not an occasion for finger-pointing and political posturing.

Yes, the occasion is for those who seek such surveillance powers to consult with the rest of us -- through our elected representatives -- to find a Constitutional solution. The incorrect solution is to proceed as one wishes and then claim the excuse of necessity. Statists like Fried and, I fear our new Chief Justice Roberts, appear to me to have "Married the State." The all-wise government knows best. When will they get the point that the furor over Bush's usurpation of power has little to do with what he actually did -- if he had gone to FISA we would grumble but at least he would be nominally following the law. The problem is his condescension and play-acting at being our "leader" by refusing to consult with the rest of us (figuratively speaking).

What I find odd about Fried's remote passive-voice stance —

"The president claims that congressional authorization for military action against Al Qaeda, together with his inherent constitutional powers, make such action lawful. There is some plausibility to that claim but until tested in the courts it is impossible to give a definitive opinion about it. (italics added)

— is that he implies that there is some innate, inherent message in the Constitution which the courts will "discover" rather than, as I would see it, "decide" or even "create." Ideas about what the law "is" ("should be" to most common-sense people) will be "tested" in the crucible of the courts and the truth will emerge. It's an oddly passive way of discussing one of the great issues of the the day -- any day. Of course the Supreme Court will ultimately decide what the law of the land shall be — but that's not because they are wisest but merely final.

UPDATE: As I mentioned a few posts ago, it's interesting that the lawyers seem to have adopted the medium of the blog so rapidly and some rather eminent names amongst them. In particular I have been reading the blog of the University of Chicago Law School. I've left some comments — rhetorical questions for those who favor King George — at a post titled The President's "Inherent" Power. Now, Professor Geoffrey Stone has blogged on Bush's Spy Program and the Fourth Amendment. The punch line for me — why this whole issue is so important — (quoting) from the Supreme Court:

History abundantly documents the tendency of Government - however benevolent and benign its motives - to view with suspicion those who most fervently dispute its policies.

Joke of the day

One of my neighbors is bent out of shape because another neighor is making fun of Dick Cheney, the same Dick Cheney who curses at Senators.

"Six to eight years to rebuild the viaduct?"

Councilman David Della writes:

For the sake of safety and jobs, let's rebuild the risky viaduct.

Alternatively, building a new, stronger viaduct is estimated to cost between $2.7 billion and $3.1 billion and is projected to take between six and eight years to build.

Besides my astonishment that it is projected to take six to eight years to tear down and rebuild 1.5 miles of elevated freeway, and further, that no one seems to find such a timeframe curious, here's my question: If we can do without the viaduct for a construction period of. say, seven years, why can't we do without the Viaduct for seven decades?

•••

Some extremely brief background on a complex subject. In the early1950's Seattle built an elevated highway along its downtown waterfront. It runs for about 1.5 miles. By all claims the viaduct is prone to collapse in case of an earthquake; many people I know are scared to drive on it. The Mayor and City Council chose a tunnel to replace the viaduct in order to — it is also claimed — "connect the city to its front door of Puget Sound." The tunnel is supposed to cost $4.5 billion. To tear-down and replace the viaduct is supposed to cost >$2 billion. (All these numbers are rough and I keep hearing them change all the time.) To rebuild the viaduct in-place — i.e to repair it in place section-by-section and keeping it continuously open to some traffic — is claimed to cost as much or more than a brand-new viaduct. The State has allocated $2 billion for the corridor, in whatever form is finally decided makes most sense.  Our own senior Senator has told us that we should expect "no help" from Washington, D.C.  A group of activists — the People's Waterfront Coalition — urge us to tear down the viaduct and leave it down, as, we are repeatedly told, was done in San Francisco. But whole neighborhoods — Ballard in particular — look to the viaduct as their transport connection to the rest of the world.

•••

Now, first-term Councilman Della breaks ranks with his senior colleagues and a tough Mayor. He steps out of line to urge that we give up the dream of the tunnel and simply rebuild the viaduct. (There's an interesting political story right there but it is not mine to tell right now.)

So here's my practical planning question:

If we can do without the viaduct for a construction period of seven years, why can't we do without the Viaduct for seven decades?

I believe that that is the central political question surrounding the viaduct. Here's one scenario/prediction. The City turns on a dime and follows novice council-member Della's leadership and concedes that the tunnel is a no-go. So then people start focusing on the rebuild. The six to eight year construction period sticks in everyone's mind. "What will life be like? How will we manage? If we can accommodate a six to eight year construction period, maybe we can do without the viaduct completely?"

Others are starting to ask the same question:

If a new freeway is built along Elliott Bay, Seattle will invest substantial talent and resources to reduce traffic flows in that corridor during construction, only to welcome the cars back upon completion. We'll find ways to reroute cars onto existing streets or take them off the road altogether in the service of a project that will later encourage us to dispense with such innovation.

That meme will delight the tear-it-down folks but scare the bejeesus out of Ballard, whose residents and commercial interests are, I believe, fairly united in perceiving that the viaduct is their essential transportation artery. Ballard will turn on the complete rebuild option because it will be scared that once the viaduct is torn down and people see how nice it is without it and how the traffic can be accommodated, there will be pressure to scuttle the project. No sooner is that last question a common one — with a great number of Seattleites asking "Hey! If we don't need the viaduct for 6 to 8 years, maybe we can do without it forever?" — then the engineers will come up with a plan to rebuild the viaduct in-place. In exhaustion, in typical Seattle fashion, the Mayor and Council will agree to muddle in to the future.

My prediction, which you should understand is not necessarily my own first choice but simply an assessment of the politics: bet on a rebuild-in-place.

•••

UPDATE: One of the things to remember is that in terms of public perception, none of the transportation investments for the viaduct corridor do anything but maintain the status quo. Neither a tunnel nor a brand-new viaduct increase capacity though they arguably increase safety, so it'snot as though there is no pereceived gain. But the seven year disruption provides no easily-perceived transportation benefit. It's not as if one can say, "Well yes we'll suffer through construction for seven years and then we will have a nice 8-lane corridor through downtown." Most people will see that we already have an extremely efficient 8-lane corridor and all this effort will only maintain it. Once you are forced to take the tunnel off the table, then the tear-down & rebuild viaduct becomes a hard sell.

 

Justly making an issue of The NYT's coverage of architecture

John Norquist & Stephen Filmanowicz write:

With architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff leading the way, the paper focuses its attention on buildings as iconic art objects. The places where ordinary people live, work or shop are often invisible in the paper's coverage.

Read the whole thing.

Btw, I should probably have used the term "formal coverage" of cities and architecture. If you read the general, lifestyle and business sections of The NYT there is an awful lot of good writing on the built environment. But Ouroussoff is the paper's designated "architecture critic" and so appears to speak for the institution.

A foreigner visits and wonders

Rhian Salmon says:

The primary reason   for my visit to the States is the annual meeting of the American   Geophysical Union in San Francisco. This is a huge and well respected affair:   twelve thousand people, disciplines ranging across all the geosciences, five   days of simultaneous poster and oral sessions from 8am to 5pm. The thing that   strikes me is that while the debate on the street still seems to be "Is   climate change happening," not once do I hear that asked inside.

Calgary's East Village

I blogged on Calgary's East Village last June when I there to attend a symposium. Here are some remarks — Download PDF File — I made then.

The symposium and my remarks were concerned with how the University of Calgary might take part in the re-development of a small part of Calgary known as the "East Village." To the east of the downtown core and bounded by the lovely Bow River, the area was the historical origin of Calgary but for 40 years at least if not more has seen little development. In fact a good half of it is vacant lots. The City hopes through its plan (which is both regulation and capital improvement) to spur development in the area. It seems to be working. The University of Calgary, at least as of six months ago, was engaged, along with other educational institutions, in planning to expand into the area.

 

 

Will this e-book reader changes the shape of publishing?

Will it transform what we understand as "the book?" Who knows. But yesterday, a Dutch company, iRex Technologies, announced a new product The iLiad.

It will be released in April, 2006. It is based on E-Ink.

This could be the technological advance for which I have been hoping.

Here's another promo shot:

 

My view is that some point there will be a device which for many (but not all) users and purposes will replace paper. I've blogged on this several times. (Use the Google search function on this page to find those posts.)

I say "but not all" because many people seem to react very negatively to the reduction in the use of paper as a medium of written communication. When this topic come us many people react in horror and say something like "Never! I love paper! I can't imagine reading on a screen!"

And in fact I agree in part. For all the time I spend on-line, I do not read anything longer than, say, 500 words on-screen. I don't like it. It's not a comfortable reading experience. So the whole point of the e-book reader (generically speaking) is that it won't be like reading a computer desktop screen. It will be an entirely new technological device with ergonomics entirely (or largely) new. If it isn't, it won't succeed.

Finally, some practical thinking

Forget tunnel, rebuild the viaduct

It's time to put aside dreams of replacing the Alaskan Way Viaduct with a tunnel and an open waterfront, a Seattle City councilman (David Della) says. City leaders need to face fiscal reality and rebuild the earthquake-damaged viaduct as it stands...

First-term councilmember challenges reputedly strong-arm Mayor's pet project to replace viaduct with tunnel. This is a very big local story. It's odd that our other local daily hasn't even mentioned it.

An emerging consensus

Motivated by a mixture of commonsense and selfishness, a consensus is emerging that it is not wise to rebuild New Orleans to the spatial extent it had been prior to Katrina.  The  chicken-and-egg nature of the problem is boggling. The core is the problem of the interim: Do you allow people to rebuild in below sea-level areas prior to the reestablishment of the levees and the barrier islands, which may take decades? And in that interim where do the people live? And is it realistic for us to rebuild a city for people who have put down roots elsewhere? That's the prudence & commonsense part.

More on the necessity of rebuilding the barrier islands in Bayou Farewell : The Rich Life and Tragic Death of Louisiana's Cajun Coast. Haven't read it but it sounds interesting. The author's website — Katrina No More! And an interesting radio show on Protecting New Orleans. (Scroll down the page.)

The selfishness part is that the voters of New Orleans are  a fraction of what they were 4 months ago and New Orleans has diminished political capacity to gain Federal funds because the rest of us will temporize about paying for flood-proofing areas where no one lives. (Mind, I am not saying that is right but merely observing what I think are the politics.)

Here is a post from a law professor on Ghost towns (and New Orleans) and Public Choice.

My intuition is that the federal government ought to help rebuild  New Orleans in a manner that aims to support and house 100,000 (rather than 450,000) people.  If more people want to live there, they will need to tax themselves in order to create the necessary infrastructure.

BTW, it's interesting that among the professions lawyers and law professors seem to be in the lead as early adopters of blogs. Is it true? If so, does it have to do with the mental thrust-and-parry which law school inculcates.

UPDATE: Some words from Alan Sullivan on the issue, though I don't believe that the "foolish plan" to which Alan refers is still being taken seriously by very many:

The post-storm analysis underscores the importance of reconsidering the foolish plan to make everything exactly as it was. New Orleans is untenable in its historic configuration. The low parts should be abandoned, and new defenses prepared only for two areas: (1) the port and old city along the Mississippi, (2) the university complex along Lake Ponchartrain. Those places are higher and more defensible. The rest of the city should be razed and allowed to go wild. That's the hard truth. If people won't face it, they'll spend stupendous amounts of money, only to lose the battle again.

What I'd add is that practical politics and human decency require the rest of us to give generous aid for serious resettlement aid. Help the displaced and current citizens of New Orleans to rebuild — but not below sea level.

Why would a (true) conservative defend him?

Stuart Buck makes light of NSA Spying by projecting a sophisticated cynicism at the same time he offers a protective statement of "That's not to say anything about whether such monitoring is appropriate..." Yet the message comes through that knowledgeable parsing of the Constitution allows the President to do anything he wants.

What motivates self-proclaimed conservatives (I actually think they are radicals) to defend a President who breaks the spirit and letter of the law? I just don't get it.

•••

UPDATE: Yes, there are still principled conservatives. Listen to Conservatives on Foreign Policy on The Diane Rehm Show, Monday December 19, 2005. Pretty amazing. Very encouraging. Real patriots.

 

Government as market participant?

J. Roth takes issue with my skepticism on direct public investment in redevelopment, in particular when it comes to an area he knows well: Downtown Pittsburgh.

Just to be clear, I am not against government investment in "urban background" — infrastructure such as streets, sidewalks, sewer systems etc etc. But I am skeptical that it is wise (or needed) for government to subsidize — which includes eminent domain to assemble large sites— specific real estate developments. But see what J.Roth has to say.

Travel is educational.

"...sobered and frightened" indeed

Readers may recall that I did a post back in late October disparaging the traffic-centric nature of the Virginia gubernatorial election. Well, the truth of the matter is that I hadn't driven in Virginia for a while when I wrote that. This afternoon, I took a trip to the Trader Joe's in Fall's Church and holy shit is there a big traffic problem in Northern Virginia. Considering that this was a totally non-rush-hour excursion, the experience left me sobered and frightened as to what regular commuters living in the area must experience. So, by all means, make traffic the top issue in statewide politics.

Who says property rights don't deserve 'strict scrutiny'?

Who says property rights are not "fundamental rights?" Go ask the Chinese peasants.

China seals town after police kill protesters.

During the demonstration, thousands of people gathered to protest the amount of money the government offered as compensation for land to be used to construct a wind-power plant. Police started firing into the crowd, killing as many as 10 people, mostly men, and wounding up to 20, villagers reached by telephone said Friday.

In American law, people are always suing the government. It's one of the things which distinguishes us from, say, China. And one of the key issues — tediously 'procedural' as it might at first appear — is whether or how much the courts "defer" to the judgment of the government agency, be it local, state or Federal.

Now there are several levels of deference. Issues which involve civil liberties — freedom of religion, speech, assembly or racial segregation etc etgc — trigger what is called "strict scrutiny." The Court takes on itself the right to examine every aspect of the law very closely. But when it comes to property rights — and this issue is at the heart of Kelo as well as many other important cases in American history — the court simply asks whether there is some mere "rationality" to it. If the law seems to have a "rational relationship to a legitimate public purpose," then that is enough and the law is upheld.

But with the "fundamental rights" the court will look far deeper. It will second-guess the government. It will ask whether the method adopted by government to further the legitimate public purpose are also the "least intrusive means." And if it thinks that there is a simpler, less intrusive way to get the job done, it will overturn the law.

This distinction is a fundamental concept in American jurisprudence and a very important one in American politics. In Kelo, the Court majority said "hands off." This is a property matter and we don't have to look very hard. I have been troubled by this distinction ever since I learned of it in law school. I don't wish to overturn it wholesale, as it is a basis of the modern regulatory state, which overall I think has been extremely beneficial. But we shouldn't be so sure that — ask the Chinese peasant or Mrs. Kelo — property rights are not a "civil right," and are indeed 'fundamental' to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

How quickly we become enthusiasts for zoning.

Right Reason invited back Roger Scruton to wander-about on Town Planning. One of the commenters — the comments are actually far more engaging/provocative than the post, which is vague and seems to have little to do with American cities — illustrates the point about how quickly even right-wingers come to love government intervention when it protects their own particular interests. She writes:

In fact, interestingly, Max Goss brought up the possibility that a Wal-Mart might be put in across the street from my house in an attempt to get me to abandon what he thought perhaps was my extreme libertarianism. Okay, I'm not an extreme libertarian. In fact, I _like_ zoning laws that make sure that Wal-Mart can't be built across from my house. But aren't those the very zoning laws that we're being told need to be tossed out in order to let us re-build our cities as beautiful, old-style New Urban cities with mixed-zoned areas so people can walk to the store? Well, in that case, I guess we're just going to have to ban Wal-Mart, or else if I end up unluckily in a "mixed-zoned" area, I really _could_ have one right across from my house. But that would be un-aesthetic. So maybe the present zoning laws do have something to be said for them. (italics added)

Kennedy with a tin ear?

Should Environmentalists Support the Cape Wind Project? Kennedy Says No....

And while Tom Andersen seems to generally agree, he also asks:

Should he have mentioned the family's proximity? Does anyone who cares enough to follow the issue not know about the Kennedys and Hyannisport? I doubt it. But I would have liked to see a sentence in his piece that said something like, "It's true that the project would be visible from my family's place in Hyannisport, and I don't like the idea of the view being marred, but there are more important reasons to oppose the project as well."

I agree. I cannot fathom that Kennedy would not acknowledge his own conflict-of-interest as a way of inoculating himself from attacks of self-interest, even if he had been able to show a long history of opposition to similar objects elsewhere.

As a substantive matter, I have seen wind-farms near Palm Springs, California — I blogged on them here — and I like their looks so I am pretty-much unsympathetic to the opposition which I believe is fundamentally about "visual intrusion." I just went back to that old post of mine and found a link to America's First Offshore Wind Farm on Nantucket Sound. The target page is about photo simulation to show what the wind farm will look like. Poke around; it's fascinating stuff and I would be curious to hear how the opponents specifically critique it.

Portland needs more warehouses?

Clark Williams-Derry does a nice take down of an article by Joel Kotkin which, if you read it even half-carefully, indicates that Joel doesn't really know Portland very well. Btw, as I have written before on this blog, I have had the pleasure of chatting with Kotkin (we share a healthy skepticism to the conventional) and he seems like an amiable urbanist. So I am perplexed about his shabby hostility — not mere constructive crique which would be fair — towards what are clearly some of America's most interesting and prosperous cities: San Francisco, Portland and Seattle. Go figure.

Sprawl, more

Robert Bruegmann's book Sprawl is getting a lot of play. Geitner Simmons, for example, picks up on London's urban sprawl.

Bruegmann is undeniably correct. Urban growth has been with us for millenia. That's hardly  a debatable point. But what were distant suburbs in 1850 or 1920 etc etc are now treasured "in-city" neighborhoods. The issue is not whether we will "sprawl" — will cities grow — but whether the settlements we build will be treasured by our great-grandchildren.

Much of the criticism of New Urbanism for aiding and abetting "greenfield" development is misplaced. Speaking of Seattle, for example, there is little alternative but greenfield development as the existing developed areas are largely built-up and offer little room for more single-family detached dwellings. The test for new greenfield development is whether it can be readily connected to new adjoining developments to form what will be the city of the future.

Outtakes

Where are the correcting mechanisms?

I’m not surprised that my letter hasn't run. The FT has extraordinarily little space for letters. Of course, they could be unconstrained for space on FT.com, but the site is so pitifully run compared to the hard copy newspaper that I suspect it never occurred to anyone at the paper they they could do something different with the website.

Considering the effectively unlimited storage capacity afforded by servers, mainstream media could publish far more letters as well as, of course, its own unused copy. For example, a reporter may write a good 2000 words. But solely for reasons constraints of the printed edition, the article is edited to 500 words. Why not publish the whole thing as an part of an expanded edition of the "paper?" Its "outtakes."

Tax Increment Financing

Useful critique at Canada West Foundation:

To avoid pitfalls, four cardinal rules must be followed.  First, TIF should only be used when there is strong evidence that absolutely no development will occur in an area without it. Ignoring this one rule is the root of most problems with TIF. (emphasis added)

Of course such a sensible criterion would in many cases be a show-stopper, which of course is exactly the point.

Bus Rapid Transit

A terrific NY Blog urges Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) as one solution to making Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards project work. Now nothing is perfect. I understand that. But I am skeptical about BRT in terms of its impact on the pedestrian environment.

The issue as I see it is use of the curb-lane for speeding buses. With a very wide right-of-way -- or in a suburban situation with large setbacks on each site -- you might still have a curb lane for on-street parking or a sidewalk wide-enough (20'?) to provide a buffer from traffic whizzing-by in that curb lane. But if you don't have sort of buffer, the sidewalk is going to be a pretty hostile environment. Of course maybe this issue has been foreseen by the BRT enthusiasts.

(I am putting aside the situation — which may well apply in some cities — in which the right-of-way is so wide that you can place the dedicated bus land and stops in the middle of the street.)

And how does it work as a library?

A cool house: Yes, but have you tried to use it as a library?

The title says it all.

The real test for the famed "book spiral"  of the much-praised Koolhaas Library will be whether other new libraries copy it. My bet is 'no,' but we'll see.

Btw, the story's basic contention — the Main Branch of the Seattle Public Library  is poorly designed — was no surprise, but not because of my own experience or opinion as I haven't used it enough to have formed one. Anyway, several weeks ago I was standing near the checkout counter of the Seattle library and overheard this conversation:

Citizen: So you must be so excited by the new library. I know I am.
Librarian: Yes, it certainly is dramatic. But it doesn't work well as a library.

What's next? The PT Barnum House?

Prefab Homes Get Fabulous.

"While they don't really fulfill the promise of a Wal-Mart-priced house, they are far less expensive than an original design by, say, Richard Meier," says Arieff.

M'soft is still in the map game

Windows Live Local.

Promise less; deliver more.

Another weakness of New Urbanism is illustrated by this comment:

And if a gated development is claimed by NU, doesn't it say that the movement is more about style (traditional vs 'modern', whatever that is) than a broader social agenda?

That's a fairly common riff. "If New Urbanism claims to be about _______, then why doesn't it _________?"

It's this business of a broader social agenda which concerns me. I reject it. Somehow the idea has gotten across that NU is a total social reform movement which, if followed, will solve all problems. No one says that explicitly and most would probably reject it if confronted. But it seeps out and engenders the sort of comment above; it may be one of the reasons some people speak of New Urbanism as a "cult."

New Urbanism is a brilliant, powerful, transformative way of analyzing small-scale development — the individual building, the block, the neighborhood and the boundaries between neighborhoods. I cannot say enough good things about it and how much I admire its strictures and what it has accomplished. The founders of CNU are to be admired, applauded — and criticized.

But I am more than unconvinced that NU has much to say of any particular novelty or incisiveness about matters at a larger — though I do not say more important — scale such as the city or the region, much less about systemic social/economic problems such as race relations, environmental sustainability or social equity in general.

I believe that New Urbanism weakens itself by allowing itself to be too many things to too many people, even if those things are only in the imagination of the hopeful. As the comment illustrates, I believe that NU may unconsciously raise expectations beyond its ability to produce. Promise less; deliver more.

Toll roads, congestion pricing etc

They seem to be surfacing for their annual visit. A Volokh Conspirator notices and wonders if anything will materialize.

We may wel get toll roads and congestion pricing etc etc but they won't be part of some free-enterprise nirvanna.

I think it might be be naive to imagine that toll roads could escape politics. The principle issue is eminent domain. It is inconceivable to me that government will (or will be allowed (by the Courts and The People) to delegate the power of condemnation to a private party. And it is not possible, in the real world, to assemble an urban transportation corridor without eminent domain. Therefore government will have to take the lead in creating the context within which a provide road can be built and operated.

It may very well be a good idea to have some sort of "congestion pricing" of highways, but such systems, I believe, can only come into existence as a response to a governmental initiative, which might dilute the ideological fervor behind this whole matter i.e. toll roads may be a good idea but let's not kid ourselves that they are bold free-market capitalism at work — they cannot exist without the police power to take someone's land.

New Urbanism's main weakness

In a previous post I remarked that

There is some very reasonable criticism of New Urbanism but the critics are so little in touch with it that they don't even know the real weaknesses.

Comments to that post illustrate the weakness. Here, for example, are the thoughts of one attentive commenter:

I admire New Urbanism insofar as it confronts the contemporary problem of pedestrian-friendly street life; but its stylistic and typological prescriptions are misguided.

The weakness of New Urbanism is simple: Many people — both people well-informed or not in matters of the built environment —  believe (some sincerely but all incorrectly) that New Urbanism is about architectural style.

Of course, that's not a weakness of New Urbanism as an intellectual system per se — it's in the perception of New Urbanism. I would bet that if you ask the majority of intelligent but not architecturally-informed people to describe New Urbanism, they'd say something like "Oh! Yes, it's about picket fences and front porches." And since practically speaking, perception is reality, if enough people believe that New Urbanism is about or favors or requires some particular architectural style, then that becomes the reality.

The "real" reality is that New Urbanism makes no stylistic prescriptions. But that makes no difference if New Urbanism's proponents fail to forthrightly and repeatedly explain that. Yes the CNU Charter states that "Individual architectural projects should be seamlessly linked to their surroundings. This issue transcends style." But such a statement, to my mind, especially in the face of the vast majority of New Urbanist projects which are in a traditional style, gets lost.

That so many people think New Urbanism does make such stylistic choices can ultimately only be the responsibility of New Urbanism's proponents. Its detractors will certainly — and I am still mystified about why anyone could be against New Urbanism; and I say that sincerely — continue to mis-interpret it to serve their own purpose. So it is up to New Urbanism's voices to say again and again that the New Urbanism is not about any one particular style of facade.

New Urbanism's official voices have not effectively separated — in the public mind — site plan from architectural style. That anyone can still associate New Urbanism with "traditional" facades is New Urbanism's major weakness. And it is a weakness remedied only by New Urbanists.

As a start, I would like to see the next CNU Congress confront the issue and thoroughly and clearly state that New Urbanism is not about architectural style and start to put this issue to bed.

Is it true?

"No amount of levee building or stockpiling of bottled water will ever save New Orleans until the state's barrier shoreline is restored."

Yes it is true. And we are not going to spend the money.

via John Massengale.

Duh.

Don't even consider tearing down the Monorail.

Some people ride the Monorail every day, parking their cars at one end or the other. "It's pretty efficient," Cooper said. "A bus has to stop at all the lights. To get all the way down Fifth takes three to four times longer than the Monorail, not even counting the time spent waiting for the bus."

And that's why so many people thought an expanded monorail system, running north-south on the west side of the city as a start, was a good idea. Too bad we didn't hear such sentiments (as above) more commonly when the issue was at the ballot.

Worrying about something that won't happen.

Some people worry — Rebuilding the Gulf Coast — that the rebuilding of New Orleans (and my comments are narrowly confined to that city) will be done in a fashion to create a theme-park.

But this sobering article from the LA Times — On Their Own in Battered New Orleans — sums up the real issue: rebuilding New Orleans is not going to happen because the rest of the country will find valid excuses to not spend the money it would take to do it safely i.e. rebuild the coastal barrier islands and then the levees. It's a many-year long project and New Orleans has lost many voters and hence political clout so I doubt if we will ever see redevelopment of those parts of New Orleans which lie below sea level.

Understandably, people in New Orleans are finding this new political reality hard to accept.  New Orleans Is Not Ready to Think Small, or Even Medium

It is not easy to broach the idea of such a smaller-scale city. The people here have long defied the perils of this place, whether that meant the yellow fever outbreaks of the 1800's or Hurricane Betsy in 1965."New Orleans has survived for 300 years," said Councilwoman Cynthia Hedge-Morrell.

But for much of that time, wasn't the city settled largely on the elevated areas?"

You are underestimating the intelligence of the people of New Orleans," Ms. Hedge-Morrell replied. "They know what they are doing."

Maybe they do. But if the rest of the country wouldn't pay for rebuilding the barrier islands at the mouth of the Mississippi  — and there is a many billion dollar plan to do so — when New Orleans had more political power I can't see that it will put up the money now.

 

But what could they possibly offer?

Just recently, I've noticed with admiration (mixed with exasperation) a number of stories by LA Times reporter Christopher Hawthorne. A recent story on CNU and its political acumen (via John Massengale, of course) had one passage which particularly struck me:

The debate about the New Urbanists' influence in Katrina reconstruction efforts, and the way it has begun to ricochet from the Gulf Coast to Washington, D.C., to Southern California ,in the end has broad ramifications for contemporary architecture.

It comes at a time when cutting-edge designers such as Rem Koolhaas and Zaha Hadid enjoy an unprecedented level of celebrity and public recognition yet have failed to find influence in government — particularly American government or suburban America or with big developers. (italics added)

"...enjoy an unprecedented level of celebrity and public recognition yet have failed to find influence..."

I wonder why they have had so little influence. Before one even says "Thank goodness!' or "What a pity," there is the question of what conceivable "influence" such designers might have. Could it be that they have little influence in urbanism because they have so little to offer? 

Precisely what (or even just vaguely) might Koolhaas and Hadid et al have to say to modern urbanism or even design in its broadest sense? What can they teach us? Easpecially in relation to the redevelopment of an entire region such as the Gulf Coast? The idea is breathtaking in its misunderstanding of what startchitects do.

Starchitecture — and this particular criticism has been an ongoing one on this blog — is sui generis. It is freak architecture. It is unique precious-object design. It is meant to be unrepeatable and to display the singular genius of the designer and (of course) the patron/client. For anyone to imagine that Hadid or Koolhaas or Gehry or any other one of the host of panting, preening architecture show-offs could have much to say to a designer or builder of an apartment building or warehouse or any other mundane structure built to a tight budget and under the suspicious gaze of hostile neighbors, the sorts of buildings which surround us in the real world, much less for cities or a whole region destroyed by the wrath of Aeolus, and which should indeed be the subject of public-spirited genius, well, such a one must surely be joking or dreaming or both.

The real tragedy is that startchitects, with their attention-getting personae, are ideally suited to the role of educator. Yet they have made no attempt to educate the public about the possibility of having precious object architecture and good urbanism, which is an absolute and real option. There is no inherent conflict between having unique "starchitect" buildings which stand out from the background — the famed ""raisin in the oatmeal" — and yet actively take part in urban life, specifically sidewalk life, which of course is the sine qua non, in fact the very purpose, of good urbanism.

So if starchitects have had little influence, can it be any surprise? By design, so to speak, they haven't done (or said) anything significant except to be different. There is no "school of Rem Koolhaas" and no likelihood of one. The vast public knows when it is dealing with a sport.

Barnum was (apocryphally) right ("There's a sucker born every minute.")
But so was Lincoln. ("You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you can't fool all the people all the time.")

UPDATE: And seriously, all hyperbole and sarcasm aside, if anyone can suggest what the starchitects offer to urbanism — putting aside the necessity for the occasional dramatic statement, which is part of traditional architecture from the Egyptians onwards and hardly something which began with Frank Gehry — please do share.

The housing boom...

Hot Housing Market Still 'Cruising' in LA but Sellers chop asking prices as housing market slows in Boston.

"People in glass houses..."

And I don't mean that as some form of pun...but this characterization is rather humorous:

New Urbanism's critics, mostly modernist architects and academics, consider its designs a form of nostalgia catering to developers and rich homeowners, too rigid and retrograde for contemporary needs.

"...too rigid and retrograde for contemporary needs."

What an odd criticism. I can't imagine that even the most "daring" critics of new urbanism would dare to suggest that modernism is more in touch with contemporary needs. And if they do, would they ever parse it out in particulars? How exactly is modernism (or whatever else you want to call it) more suited for "contemporary needs?" There is some very reasonable criticism of New Urbanism but the critics are so little in touch with it that they don't even know the real weaknesses.

•••

UPDATE: As well it should, the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast is a story which will be with us for decades and the NYT piece cited above seems to be read by some as more-or-less accurate — see New Urbanist Land Grab Begins in Mississippi, for instance. But so far as I can tell from my initial perusal of the Biloxi Plan (download it at Mississippi Renewal) I don't think that the NYT piece is a fair one.

But read the NYT piece in light of what the Plan itself actually says and judge for yourself.

•••

An aside: Isn't it wonderful that the web's enables anyone, anywhere to judge a story in the NYT (or from the White House) by reference to the core documents? I think so. We can't go back and interview people but we can certainly read the source materials.

"Urban Design: Economic Fundamentals"

I am intrigued to know the gist of this course (at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, B.C.)

This course will introduce the important relationship between economics and urban design. The first day will introduce the tools and techniques of economic analysis to participants. The second day will focus on the application of those tools through a variety of case studies that are current and relevant to urban design and planning practice. The purpose of this course is to introduce the elements of economic analysis in urban development; provide an overview of market analysis, investment analysis and land valuation in urban development; and apply the knowledge in actual case studies from basic market analysis to financial analysis for development.

Unfortunately it was given this past November but I'll look into the course outline, readings. teachers' perspective etc etc. Not surprisingly, I will consider the course through my own framework of The Three Rules, which suggests that good urban design is inexpensive.

Make my day

Maybe it's time for the rest of the county to secede from Seattle.

Google Hacks are a city comfort, if there ever was one

For example:  Seattle Bus Monster.

Thanks, Dustin.

Visualizing the City

Digitally Distributed Environments appears to be another marvelously useful site for seeing possible futures. Here for example is a post on Global Warming - London Flooding which offers a movie (that I couldn't access as I seem to be missing a plug-in.)

"With a 3D model it is possible to visualise the impact of sea level change. South London is built on marsh land and is thus more prone to flooding. We have produced a movie that illustrates sea level rise in metres. It clearly picks up the moat around the Tower of London within a metre increase and then follows on to flood most of the Waterloo/South Bank area of London. The movie does not take into account flood defenses, merely a direct sea level rise."

Of course it's not likely that better information will help us make wiser decisions.

Mapping the Noosphere

Everything in the world manifests itself on the surface of the earth. And even though others have mapped the world — Yahoo, Mapquest etc etc — it appears to me that the Google machine is the front-runner. Google Maps Mania is a blog devoted to hacks which increase the scope and utility of Google Maps. (I would mention Google Earth but I am Mac-based and the service is not available for Macs, though I have heard rumors that it is coming soon.) In any case, with Google Maps (let alone Google Earth) I wonder what is happening to the academic study of geography. I suspect that the field is likely to be dramatically energized.

Serendipitously, I found this lovely link.

(click to enlarge.)