City Comforts, the blog

War on terror? What war on terror?

Texas Raises Its Limit to 80 MPH

"Our mission is to go and seek out whether we can fulfill the requests of the driving public," said Mark Cross, spokesman for the state transportation department. "And the request from the public is they want to go faster."

Or, depending on your politics, "Global climate change? What climate change?"

Which translation of the Constitution do you prefer?

I happened upon a timely post (by Pierre Tristam) which stated that English Is Not the National Language and in the comments he went further and suggested:

"Language is not the only thing that preserves us as a nation...And the Constitution (certainly a more defining glue than language) can be spoken in any language and have the same power."

The US Constitution in any language? Fascinating concept.

"the Constitution...can be spoken in any language and have the same power."

Well yes it would have a great deal of power, I am sure, in any language. But would you want to run our US courts under foreign translations? (I ask that literally as this whole business of "national" or "official" language is not a theoretical question but comes down to a whole lot of very practical and tangible things like pleadings in court and street signs.)

If anything suggests that we do have a national language — and that it is English — it would be the language of our law. It's so obvious — hat's off to Tristam for suggesting it — that I had never thought of it before. So I would ask this question of any who oppose (or disbelieve) the idea that we have (or should have) a "national language:"*

Should we allow translations of the Constitution to be used in US Courts as the basis for lawsuits?

Should you be allowed to plead that some planning department has overstepped its bounds by  issuing (or refusing to issue) a building permit and cite as your authority a version of the US Constitution in Dutch? Or Swahili? Or one of the dozens and dozens of mother tongues spoken by American citizens?

I really can't fathom that anyone could suggest "Yes, we should translate the Constitution into many languages. And use them all in our Courts."

So it seems to me that if you say "No, you have to cite the original version in English" then your are agreeing that we do have a national language. We do not have multiple versions of the Constitution and you have to refer back to it in the original language, which perforce becomes the baseline for all social agreement.

Such a rule — the Constitution can only be cited in English — is sensible in so many ways that I don't think I need to explore it beyond saying that the first and most obvious reason is that we already have enormous difficulty interpreting the Constitution in one language. To add more versions would be madness.

-------

* I'm leaving open what having a "national language" means in practice. Tristam makes some good points that having a "national academy" (as do the French) to keep the language pure would be stupid and self-defeating and really impossible to accomplish. But there are lots of questions — for example, Are there any rights or duties relating to bi- or multi-lingualism? — which I think can be fairly debated, though their answers to me are quite clear.

The Retrofit is the only politically-realistic solution.

Perhaps out-of-town readers are getting bored with the Viaduct. Well, so are we here in Seattle. But it's been more than 5 years since the earthquake and our political leadership doesn't know what to do, yet it wants us to pony-up billions. Here's my compressed take, much of which will make no sense without a knowledge of Seattle politics and geography. Sorry.

Additional & essential background (including the infamous the "Westlake Mall Phenomenon") in this post: 'You can't get there from here.'

•••

Now, we start the analysis:

1. The Surface Option will gain just-enough political traction (and I mean a fair amount but nothing close to a commanding plurality) to scare the Governor into seeing the big unavoidable political fact of what I call the "Westlake Mall Phenomenon": Once you tear down the viaduct, you can't replace it. (Or only with enormous political cost.)

2. One (and only one) of those political costs is to the Democratic Party, and there are national implications: 

Do we want the "D" in "Democrat" to become a standing joke for "Dither?"

That's what the public administration of this State (largely Democratic) and City (entirely Democratic) will stand for if it cannot make a decision on the Viaduct. The very worst thing which can happen to a politician — looking like a bumbler; anyone remember Jimmy Carter or Michael Dukakis? — is not that far away. Five years after the earthquake and we still don't have a plan, much less are under construction. It is embarrassing.

(And btw, that is not a comment on Carter or Dukakis, in substance. I think both got a bad rap. I am simply talking about the raw, mean politics of the sound bite. "D as in Dither" is not bad.)

3. So the Rebuild is a non-starter. (Once you tear down the viaduct, you can't replace it.) The entire notion of tearing down a structure (which only a small part of the population actually like) and then putting up the same thing (or worse) is bizarre. (We all know the Rebuild was only a stalking-horse for the Tunnel i.e. to make the Tunnel look not-that-expensive.)

4. There is not enough money for any Tunnel, much less doing it right (i.e. which would be tunneling all the way to Mercer so as to re-connect the street-grid between South Lake Union and Queen Anne.)

5. The Retrofit is the only option left standing. Btw, it also leaves money left over to work on SR 520 which is a nice side-benefit for the Eastside. Handled intelligently, it would make the Mayor and City Council look like heroes — "We saved a  billion dollars by going with the Retrofit! So let's use it for the benefit of the Eastside!"

The Governor is a smart woman. She will get tired of all the blather about twenty blocks of highway and realize that she will get tarred with the brush — there goes that Cabinet post (Attorney General?) in a Democratic Presidency — if "D as In Dither" is traced back to her State. She will get it in due course.

The Governor will end up declaring an emergency based on "new engineering information" and adopt the Retrofit as an immediate necessity. Such an emergency action would foreclose any environmental lawsuits and make her look decisive in the face of bumbling local officials, which would be so.

•••

Just an aside. It's easy to confuse what one wants with what is realistic. I seem to give short-shrift here to the so-called "surface option" but not because I think it an unrealistic option in reality. In some form such as a 35 MPH Boulevard it might very well work. But the real world does not work in reality but in mental perception. And I do not believe it is within the political imagination over the next 18 months to deal with the complexity of the surface option. It's just too dammed complicated and contentious. The pay-back for politicians — the perceived risk-to-reward — is simply too high. It's too unconventional etc etc. Its adoption by the electeds would unleash numerous lawsuits, reinforcing the idea that Democrats offer "inept management," an issue on which they are all too vulnerable.

•••

Stefan Sharkanksy's take:

While I agree that the Retrofit is the only objectively realistic solution, I've been in Seattle just long enough to see that realism only rarely contaminates the decision process of Seattle's political leadership. If I had to guess, I'd say that a political tug-of-war between competing unrealistic solutions will continue indefinitely.

1:1...which could have been titled "Co-Starring Le Corbusier"

The Seattle Film Festival is on and I've just returned from the world premier (indeed!) of 1:1 (En til En):

The love affair between a Danish girl and a Palestinian emigrant is rocked to its core when her brother is found beaten half to death and all suspicions point towards the local Arab community. Mistrust and racial animosity bubble to the surface in this tough drama about the lack of tolerance and understanding between cultures.

It was quite good and timely on several counts. The issue of immigration and the relations between Christian and Muslim cultures in Europe appears paramount.

But I wonder if a "co-star" of the movie was the housing project — inspired by Le Corbusier and Robert Moses? — where the protagonists and their families lived. The film-makers made sure we didn't miss the importance of the physical context. The movie starts with a view of the town's plan which then morphs into an aerial photo. Then we see flashbacks to the 50s or 60s (real ones, not staged, I think) showing the origins of the place, with voice-over by its designer specifically explaining his philosophy: a perfect place where "cars and pedestrians would never mix." It's only after that explicit placement of the drama in a 1950s-60s housing project that the drama begins. And to my eyes, which I admit are always looking for a spatial hook, the violence in the movie was clearly abetted by the vulnerability of solitary isolated pedestrians in the midst of sterile "open space."

Highly recommended if only as a story of two families.

The local hippie paper, The Stranger, says:.

As far as I know, there's no equivalent Danish term for the banlieus that ring Paris, but this excellent feature about racial tension among teens in a "prefabricated township" outside Copenhagen follows in the well-marked footsteps of French films like Lila Says and Games of Love and Chance (both SIFF 2005). The girl (Joy Petersen) is European and extremely pretty; the boy (Mohammed-Ali Baker) is Palestinian and also extremely pretty. Their siblings are thugs (the Palestinian is a boxer; the Dane uses racist slang), and violence between the thugs poisons their pretty love. Despite the familiar plot, the drama is precise and harrowing. Annie Wagner

(I don't see Annie Wagner's attempt at equivalence; the genesis of the problem is from dishonesty in only one family. But see the movie yourself.)

It's worth repeating

Don't look to higher oil prices as a savior.

MoMA's prison wall

Culture Girl takes note of The 54th Street Prison Wall:

This is understated elegance? What was Taniguchi thinking when he decked out MoMA's northern facade in unsightly, instantly dirty-looking corrugated metal siding? And what are those forbidding prison gates, blocking the man-on-the-street from getting a view of the beloved sculpture garden? I was at the City Planning Commission deliberations where they said they wanted some "transparency" from the garden to the street. Instead, it's "Keep Out."

I am actually partial to metal siding but in it's proper place. The problem with the sculpture garden facade is of course not that it is made of metal siding but that it is a blank wall and blank walls do not belong on any street which is meant to attract pedestrians. (Some wag will now tell me that it's part of Taniguchi's overall intention to create a buffer of fear around the Museum...and that that is part of the art...blah blah blah.)

My overall take on MoMA? Not even a precious object. And that's about as low as I can go.

Come the floods, Seattle will be in good shape

I don't want to make light of global climate change*.

But if global climate change continues and the seas rise further, Seattle will not be a bad place to be after the deluge.

via Crooked Timber's "Swimming with the fishes".

*(Yes, I believe the vast majority of scientists who both state that it is happening and that human agency is the major cause. It's a bit more of a question about what to do. The great failure of GW Bush, besides Iraq, is not that he rejected Kyoto but that he has not suggested anything to replace it. )

Should France and Holland have different laws on landfills?

Tim Worstall comments on an article by Garton Ash on Diversity and suggests "No.":

The EU is setting rules at the centre which apply to all, undermining that vital diversity and thus cocking up the system. Just as one trivial example, countries such as France, with masses of wild open space and low population density, must follow the same laws on landfill as tiny crowded places like Holland.

I am fascinated that he would use landfill as an example.

Knowing little of Europe, but the same applies here — just substitute King County (fairly urban) and Okanogan County (mountain & ranchland) in my own State of Washington — I wonder if there should be very different laws.

Certainly the limitations on what and how should be the same pretty-much everywhere e.g. no toxics, must be compactable/compacted, layers of soil etc etc...I am not upon the details but I am pretty sure that there is a proper way to do a garbage dump (that's what it is, of course) and a sloppy, careless way which leads to water pollution problems and doesn't produce usable, buildable land when the site is completely filled. (Of course compaction requirements might be different in the rural place. Maybe. And I say "maybe" because none of these rural places are so far off the beaten path that we should not expect and encourage development in them over the next 50 - 100 years.)

I might imagine the locational criteria might be looser in the rural area. But not really, as I suspect you want to keep minimum distances from settlements, which of course is a whole lot easier in the low-density area. But that is not a matter of regulations but simply the fact that you have fewer people. And you certainly wouldn't want to put a garbage dump in a marsh — there are so many reasons for prohibiting that, water pollution problems at the top of the list.

So is there a principled way — will of the local people aside — to regulate landfills differently in very rural areas (but not "wilderness" in the American legal sense) versus more built-up areas?

The old school speaks

One old boy says don't leave viaduct decision up to voters.

The Mayor and City Council should make the decision even though he clearly doesn't trust their competence either.

Seattle is getting stranger and stranger.

I'd be cautious about spoofing when my own proposal is a "big-dig"

Nickels tries satire to drum up interest in waterfront tunnel

Mayor Greg Nickels, in a speech Wednesday touting the tunnel to the Rotary Club of Seattle, played a two-minute video spoofing the viaduct controversy by quoting an imaginary "Committee to Save Big Ugly Things," whose spokesman uttered tongue-in-cheek warnings about removing the viaduct from the waterfront.

(video link at newsstory)

•••

And judging from that headline — "Nickels tries satire to drum up interest in waterfront tunnel" — the thinking at the P-I must be that the tunnel is a dead duck.

Try an experiment. You are going to try it anyway if the Mayor's tunnel plan prevails.

(Note: I'm keeping this post up toward the top for a few days as it is an important one.)

•••

Even the staid mainstream media is giving the "surface option" some serious play and the Seattle P-I asks the question: Could Seattle do without its elevated highway?

The obvious way to answer the question is to experiment and close the Viaduct for a year and see if we can get by without it.

It's going to happen anyway during construction if we go with the Tunnel or Rebuild options.

So do it now, under controlled circumstances, when we still have the Viaduct up in case the experiment is too painful etc etc. We have the luxury of being able to experiment - why commit to a five year closure when we can actually try it out?

The politics are not easy and it would take self-discipline not to use it in case of emergencies.

But it is going to be closed for years anyway if the Mayor has his way.

So let's just try it and get this "Can we? No we can't. Yes we can." issue over and done with one way or another. Close the Viaduct for a year and see if WSDOT's construction period transportation plan actually works.

Note: The Peoples Waterfront Coalition plan and the WSDOT construction-period transportation plan have enormous overlap as they both assume moving a vast amount of traffic will have to move through the Seattle CBD without having a Viaduct. In fact the WSDOT plan will probably be more demanding of the street system. So let's see if WSDOT has a plan before we get committed to a 4-6 year closure.

Another note: If you are not willing to try this experiment then you cannot be for the Tunnel or the Rebuild as both require far-longer closures.

Seattlest agrees.

Alaskan Way Viaduct? Huh? What's that?

A few readers have asked for basic background on Seattle's Alaskan Way Viaduct. Try Wikipedia: Alaskan Way Viaduct.

Don Pittenger's post at 2blowhards also provides a nice overview.

157 differently sized apartments?

Here's a short post (with interesting comments) on an attractive apartment building in Holland which has, we are told, "....157 apartments, each different in size..."

Everyone is different in size? What an odd and it seems to me needlessly expensive way to build. I can see a range of sizes -- from some very small studios to even 3-4 bedrooms, in response to market demand -- but surely 157 different sizes seems a bit excessive? Just a typo?

The comments to the linked post are interesting if one is curious about what people like and why. The building is a simple box and people really respond. It must illustrate some point about breaking up large planes etc. The immediate environment appears quite sterile and it's over-water which is a no-no in Seattle for a host of sound environmental reasons.

UPDATE: There are only 15 different apartment types, which is still quite a few. More data.

I've known it for years

Costco is THE place for inexpensive dining.

I always take my first dates there.

I'm late to the party

Close the Viaduct already.

Modernism in London

Deyan Sudjic says it's

...a show about architecture and design shows as much as it is a show about architecture and design.

On now at the V&A in London: Modernism: Designing a new world 1914-1939.

The Viaduct goes national

Two Blowhards blogger Donald Pittenger asks how we should deal with the Viaduct: Dig, Patch or Flatten?  He favors something similar to the "surface option." The key thing about such a surface boulevard as he envisions would be the "design speed" for which it is built and managed. I can't see much more than 35 MPH being urban. And it would have to have traffic lights etc, so as to deliberately prevent it from becoming a highway. I am not sure if Seattle is ready for something so urban.

No one says it's a bad idea

A local blog notes the possibility that we might simply Retrofit the Viaduct?:

The tunnel still seems like the best bet (but let's secure that extra dough, Greg.)  I'm surprised how many folks in liberal Seattle are lashing out at Mayor Nickels plan to open the waterfront for the first time since the Truman Administration.

I don't think that anyone is against a fine waterfront. And no one is lashing out at the Mayor.

The issue is priorities — money. If the money was available the Tunnel would be under construction now.

But the money is not there unless we starve every other part of Seattle and devote the marginal cost of the tunnel (at least an extra +$2 billion) to the central waterfront.

A lot of people question such a priority. It's not that the Tunnel is a bad idea. But there are many other very significant ways to spend that >$2 billion on other parts of the city. It's a matter of weighing costs and benefits and I don't think the tunnel offers enough in relation to the cost.

Have they really thought it through?

Chamber asks council to limit viaduct options
"The Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce sees both the 'surface street' and 'retrofit' options for replacing the Alaskan Way Viaduct as dangerously inadequate and we urge the City Council to not include these options on the ... ballot this fall," chamber President Steve Leahy said in the letter to Licata.

Do they understand the impact of the closure? They are smart folks so maybe they are correct and the closure is no problem. Then why not do it now as an experiment? And before we commit to any plan, we can find out whether we can get by gracefully without the viaduct corridor?

Stranger journalist threatens:

She'll Shut Up About the Surface/Transit Viaduct Option...

No, don't at all shut up, Erica. Keep at it. This is a signficant and big-ticket issue for Seattle. People should be informed. Your writing is important.

But maybe you could start reporting, too. It would be great if you could transcend advocacy journalism and examine the issues — political, practical, logistical, economic, engineering, environmental and whatever — for all the alternatives, not just pumping up the one you favor.

Four dollar gas? Smaller cars.

The sixty-four trillion dollar question is whether permanent higher gas prices will have much impact on American spatial patterns. Or alternatively, an impact primarily on the energy-efficiency of vehicles?

I plunk with the latter:

Gas crisis? Tell these commuters

Sherrie Leslie's job is to set, perm, color and cut the hair of about two dozen regulars at a hair salon in Edmonds.

But there's a catch. Leslie lives in Nine Mile Falls — a town north of Spokane. On the other side of the state. So every Tuesday afternoon, Leslie hops in her 2003 Kia Rio and drives 320 miles to Edmonds. Every Thursday afternoon, she makes the return trip. She also styles hair two days a week in Spokane, a 90-mile round-trip commute from her home.
... ...
Some say nothing will change until gas hits $4 a gallon, and stays there. Or $6.

I don't know. I do know if a stylist is happily driving 820 miles a week to cut hair, our gas crisis isn't registering as one.

A fine appreciation

Jane Jacobs, 1916–2006 by Howard Husock.

Isn't that the idea?

The Glen
...a beautifully flawed example of New Urbanist principles on a large scale within an existing (sub)urban fabric.

And when these individual New Urbanist plats merge together over a period of years or decades as the area develops parcel-by-parcel they will form a seamless walkable city. That's the idea. No?

What about urban design?

"Forget about the Gates Foundation. The world's biggest charity owns IKEA — and is devoted to interior design."

The Weekly should hire this guy

A thoughtful "Letter to the Editor" (here & then scroll down a bit) about Seattle planning:

Bungalows are SUVs

Knute Berger's engaging in a bit of "golden age" revisionism with his idolization of the Seattle bungalow [Mossback,  "The 'Just Right' People" May 10]. Even at the time they were being built by the thousands, bungalows were not considered a low-cost housing option. To the contrary, contemporaries often referred to bungalows as "the least house for the most money." People bought them primarily because they found them charming, not because they were a bargain. Many still do.

Would Seattle be worse off without its ocean of bungalows? There are two ways to look at it. On the one hand, the Seattle bungalow adds a lot to the visual character of the city and replacing them with anonymous boxes would be a terrible blow to the urban fabric. They're still charming, accentuated now by the patina of age and the glow of nostalgia.

On the other hand, the huge quantity of in-city single-family housing, of which bungalows are a major part, represents a significant political problem for the evolution of our city. Few other cities in the world have as high a proportion of single-family residences as close to the downtown area as Seattle. Local politics and land-use planning are dominated by the concerns of those single-family homeowners, often to the detriment of their own neighborhoods and the city as a whole (including the development of practical mass transit, economic vitality, affordable housing solutions, and the increasing density necessary to support those things sustainably). Berger's and much of the city's idealized vision of the inefficient, costly-for-its-size, yet pleasant and picturesque little bungalow as the essential expression of Seattle dwelling is a core part of that problem.

The bungalow is not the "spotted owl" of Seattle housing. It's the gas-hog SUV of Seattle housing, driving our policies and politics into absurd realms.

Gregory Wharton
Seattle

Councilmember Della weighs in:

Rebuild the Viaduct

While I agree with a great deal in his op-ed, I am puzzled at Della's apparent refusal to even consider the Retrofit. Is he sanguine about the issue of keeping the traffic flowing during construction? Does he believe that WSDOT's traffic management plan will actually work?

My only surmise (and I emphasize that this is truly a surmise and I say it more tongue-in-cheek than any other way) is that Della may not really want a Rebuild at all and is actually a proponent of the No-build/Surface Option. I say so because I am firmly convinced — more so as this issue heats up — that once we tear down the existing viaduct we will never have the political will to put up something in its place.

So to my mind, to argue for the Rebuild at this point, without even waiting for the results of a fair-handed study of the Retrofit proposal, is to effectively pave the way (no pun intended) for the surface-option. Councilmember Della may not intend such a result, but I do believe that will be the dynamics — once we tear down the existing viaduct we will never have the political will to put up something in its place.

Some people may like that result. Some may detest it. I am merely observing and I believe that the politics will not allow you to replace the viaduct once you have torn it down

•••

Josh Feit asks a parallel question: What is Della's Vision?.

"Is the Retrofit technically feasible?"

It seems to me that many politicos (and citizens as well) seem to think that "feasibility" is an independent variable i.e. that one can simply ask "Is it technically feasible?" and there is only one answer. In fact, feasibility is more often a function of necessity than of anything else.

When you need to do something it often becomes feasible, as if by magic.

It will eventually sink in that it is politically impossible (or at least very questionable) to replace the Viaduct once it is torn down — thanks in part to the energetic & plucky work of our friends at the People's Waterfront Coalition. (We may not agree with their judgment but we must admire their hard work, organizing ability and disciplined adherence to a vision.)

There are those who have a slightly different vision. They believe that the region needs a second limited-access route through the Seattle CBD. This group might be as varied as Ballard commercial interests, the Governor of Washington, CBD retailers & property-owners, Federal Homeland Security etc etc . They are a powerful force, putting it mildly. And they will eventually see the dynamics which will be unleashed by tearing down the existing viaduct — political acrimony and venom unlike anything anyone has ever seen in Seattle, a city which has seen some doozies.

Seattle has "D"-as-in-dither gridlock on some of the simplest issues. Rebuilding the Viaduct after you have torn it down and when people can experience the central waterfront without it will be an explosive issue — unless the interim construction period traffic management plan doesn't work and there is complete traffic chaos. So if you are a decision-maker, take your choice.

Once people start thinking seriously about the dynamics after the Viaduct is torn down, the Retrofit will become very attractive and the WSDOT engineers will be told to "make it feasible."

Large ships turn slowly

WSDOT hires engineering firm to study proposal for viaduct retrofit.

Of course the State has hired a consulting firm which has already stated that a retrofit wouldn't work. And the viaduct project manager says "We don't think it's a good idea." So how does one ensure that the firm doesn't simply do what the client -- WSDOT -- has announced it expects?

Here's the story from another local paper: Viaduct 'retrofit' to get new study.

•••

Btw, I don't think it takes very much away from the argument for the Retrofit to acknowledge that even with its great views for drivers, the Viaduct is hardly ideal. But it is there and we have a lot of other priorities besides spending more money on the Seattle CBD. So in that spirit, I think we ought to be think about how we could make a Retrofitted Viaduct an urbane and interesting place..

•••

Seattlest has its own spin on the eventual outcome: We'll Replace The Viaduct With A Road Despite The Vote.

'You can't get there from here.'

(Remarks submitted to the Seattle City Council and probably of no interest to anyone outside Seattle, if even here. Readers should note that I am not recommending the ideal solution but merely surmising where, at the end of the day, we are going to pitch our tent.)

•••

The Viaduct Dilemma

I am not speaking as an advocate but simply offering some observations about the politics of this issue. My point today is not so much that I am for or against the Rebuild option (I am in fact against it but that is irrelevant) but simply that I don't believe that the Rebuild is a workable solution. Here's the issue:

Once you tear down the existing viaduct
you will be unable— politically — to put up another one.

Where do I sign?

Initiative would block tax subsidy for Sonics.

A local union plans an initiative campaign to try to block taxpayer subsidies for the Sonics at Key Arena.

In fact where do I get a copy of the form? I'll help collect signatures.

Fly on the wall

Hope Her Charger Has a Really Long Cord

Hippy girl: So yeah, we are gonna be living in this yurt for a year without electricity or running water or anything. It's all about getting back to our roots and stuff.

Guy: No electricity or anything? What if you have to call someone or something?

Hippy girl: I'll just use my cell phone.

via Gayle

Department of Correct Usage

The May 15, 2006 issue of  The New Yorker contains these words:

...caretaker of a mansion on a historic estate in Groton, Massachusetts.

It has long been my understanding that "a historic" is not correct and that it should be "an historic." But The New Yorker is certainly a practical authority on such matters. Was I always under a misunderstanding? Or has usage changed?

So I Googled and it seems I have been wrong all these years: "A historic" or "an historic"? Both are correct.

The value goes up, too.

It's hard to tease apart 'price' and 'value' in discussions of urban containment policies:

...but anybody who establishes a growth boundary and doesn't expect land prices to rise is dreaming in technicolour.  We've all seen supply and demand graphs.

I agree with the sentiment, of course, (check out the whole post) and my comment is that a growth management boundary should — if it produces the desired result of a greener city —  actually increase values, not just prices. That's the whole point, of course. Make the urban area more valuable to live in. Higher prices are simply an indicator. One might even suggest that an urban growth boundary could be judged a failure if it doesn't increase prices.

Of course that's just a little bit of theory. In my own Seattle area — in fact in our entire State of Washington — we have had growth management boundaries for some ten years at least and we have had a dramatic increase in housing values. But is that a reaction to the perception that the region is a better place to live? Because it is 'greener?' Are people simply anticipating that the urban growth boundary will make this a much better place to live? I think it would be a stretch to say either. Public agencies so far has been terrifically efficient about instituting more rules but largely ineffective about actually improving the physical environment. There are some bright spots such as the Mountains to Sound Greenway but that has been largely a private action, admittedly made easier by massive suburban downzoning. But have we made much progress inside the urban growth boundary? I think not. Government is great at regulating and indifferent at creation.

In theory at least the urban containment boundaries should create a more valuable environment (translating into higher home values). So far I am not so sure it is happening in the Seattle area i.e. we have the higher prices but have we gotten the higher value?

Is it wrong to take personal advantage of a public policy one thinks is unwise?

In a post on Condo "Flipper" Mentality I found this comment::

"Note also that the liberal supporters (see Hollywood liberals et al) are more than happy to partake of the investment credit and then preach against it."

I don't even remotely see the issue. Why do so many people get confused on this point? One can take advantage of a tax provision ("loophole" if you prefer) with gusto, to the last penny and at the same time and in a very principled way proclaim in public that this is stupid, bad public policy and should be stopped. But until it is repealed it is the rules of the game and one will take advantage of it.

(We're talking here of "unwise" or "foolish" public policy, not some policy one believes is "immoral" or "unethical." In such latter case of course I would get a different result.)

Say Congress passes a law allowing a tax credit for restoring historic buildings. Suppose I am investing in such a project because I love old buildings and can make some money at it. But for one reason or another — say I am a libertarian — assume I am against the tax credit as unwise public policy. I don't think it's immoral or unethical; I merely think it is unwise and silly policy...inappropriate, unneeded, poorly drafted and subject to abuse....whatever. Should I be under some sort of obligation to tell my CPA to ignore that tax credit when she prepares my return?

I say obviously not. Those are the rules of the game and I can speak out against certain laws, urge their repeal etc at the very same time I take advantage of/abide by them in my own private business. It may be ironic but it is hardly unprincipled.

Learning from Paris

With all the current talk about retrofitting the viaduct — and I wonder what odds they are offering in Las Vegas? anyone know how to find out? — I think it timely for me to point out how a model from Paris could inhabit that retrofit and be the best looking model of all.

UPDATE: The suggestion to enclose the space under the Alaskan Way Viaduct (inspired by the Viaduc des Arts in Paris) assumes that the vehicular use of the viaduct continues. No one locally is proposing, even in our wildest imaginations, to keep the structure and to use the road deck as a linear park. My proposal is to use the space underneath the viaduct as something other than parking only if the retrofit option turns out to be the most feasible one.

And who says that right-wing intellectuals can't be dreamers, too?

It's not only Left-wing intellectuals who are out there at the edge. The libertarian Right offers up its own imagination, Public and Private Spaces:.

...most public spaces (streets, sidewalks, etc.) should actually be private (owned, e.g., by homeowners' association)...

I've seen such a concept discussed in many places, particularly the much-missed Transport Blog, where it was raised extensively in relation to highway/railroad corridors (which ultimately offers the most persuasive example for eminent domain.)

The idea of privatizing the entire world is quite intriguing and not a bit scary and I have thought about it quite a bit. And since it is simply not going to happen, I can be pretty calm about discussing it. It's entirely impractical, thank goodness, putting aside any issues of social equity etc etc. because of the issue of transactions costs; it's just too much hassle for business. But it's good to discuss things, even far-out and remote ideas.

The game is just beginning

Letter from a group of eminent engineers to the Seattle City Council concerning the feasibility and advantages of retrofitting the existing Alaskan Way Viaduct:

May 2, 2006

Councilman Nick Licata,
President, Seattle City Council:

We the undersigned Structural Engineers wish to advise the City Council that the proposed Viaduct Tunnel and Rebuild now offered by WSDoT are totally unacceptable when there exists a viable and cost-effective alternative.

We support the Retrofit proposed by the Viaduct Preservation Group (“VPG”).  This Retrofit solution will protect the Alaskan Way Viaduct against earthquake collapse and provide for at least 50 years of service.  This work can be done without complete shutdown of SR 99.  Our first priority would be to fix the problems created by deferred maintenance.

This Viaduct Retrofit solution can be accomplished for less than $600 Million.  Seawall reconstruction can be pursued for $200 Million under an independent schedule and financing.  This compares with $3.6 Billion for the “core” Tunnel and $2.4 Billion for the “core” Rebuild.  Despite the possibility of longer life of new structures, those two options are still more than 3 times the cost of VPG’s Retrofit.  In their prior retrofit studies WSDoT projected extension of structural life by 50-75 years.  In lost commute hours alone, the 8 to 10 years of Tunnel/Rebuild construction closures of SR99 will cost the public $140 Million annually.  Lost work time and business exodus represent hidden costs of Tunnel and Rebuild which WSDoT and SDoT refuse to acknowledge.

We, the undersigned engineers, are or have been principals of leading Seattle engineering firms each representing experience of over 30 years.  Our work includes building, bridges, structural renovations, including work for the City of Seattle and WSDoT.

The monies saved by the Viaduct Retrofit can be used toward other urgently needed traffic improvements which today are only partially funded or entirely unfunded.  As representatives of Seattle Residents, we urge this Council to allow voters the choice of Retrofit on the November ballot.

Yours truly,

Victor Gray, M.S.,P.E.                Neil Twelker, Ph.D., P.E.        Jack Christiansen, P.E.
Sidney L. Porter, P.E.                Thomas Kane, P.E.
Harold Roe, P.E.                       Dean Ratti, P.E.
William Ward, P.E.,S.E.             Adrian Arnold, P.E.

**************

The Seattle P-I reports the story: A longer shelf life for the viaduct

You reap what you sow

One of the reasons we have problems with free speech (see the post on Brandeis, below) is because of a general wooly-headedness as reported here in the The Boston Globe:

Halperin created the exhibit as her final project for a class called ''The Arts of Building Peace," which explores how music, painting, and poetry can help resolve conflicts.

"... how music, painting, and poetry can help resolve conflicts." Bosh. Sounds like blather. I'd like to hear the track-record of "music, painting, and poetry" in bringing peace to the world. The arts serve war far more effectively than peace. Hitler knew that; I bet his budgets offered greater than "1% For Art".

Why place any importance on the speech being "art?"

Tyler Green is offended by "censorship" at Brandeis University and says:

Memo to university officials: Art does not equal journalism. An art exhibit is not a newspaper story. It is not required to present 'both sides' of a story.

He's saying pretty clearly, it seems to me, that "Art" is somehow "beyond" journalism and while it might be OK to censor journalism, don't you dare touch those superior "artists." I don't think so.

(And I won't go into the details because in this case the substance is not important. In the final analysis the University may well have acted foolishly.)

But to argue that artists deserve more freedom of speech to produce art than you or I do to place a poster on a wall is is both ungrounded in the Constitution and short-sighted:

• I am not aware that the Constitution provides (or should provide) greater protection for "artistic expression" (how I detest those cant phrases but they are handy) than for any other speech. "Art" deserves absolutely no more right to free speech than any person's ramblings.

• It doesn't serve free speech well as it introduces the endless and question "But is it 'art'?" No matter what Tyler or other critics may say, "art" isn't "art" until many decades have passed and the object's value is proven by the marketplace; or putting it another way, you can always find someone in the here and now — until you get "certified critics" — to make the case for something being art. Why confuse free speech with "art?"

• It introduces (impliedly) an issue of greater status for "artists" i.e. if you produce what is (arguendo) "art" does that give further protection to everything else you do? I would think that a logical argument.

No, keep the whole issue of art out of it.

•••

There is also a quite modern and I think very corrosive  POV in Tyler's characterization of journalism: "It is not required to present 'both sides' of a story." The implication is that there is no objective, factual reality and that all we have are "two sides" of a story. Journalism, by this view, is not supposed to report facts but merely the various perceptions of reality offered by the "different sides." It's an endless hall of mirrors.

Of course I reject this view for a host of reasons — for one, I personally deal in a concrete world in which there are no "two sides of a story" if you miss your loan payments. And you know, I believe very strongly that there is an observable and repeatable "correct" way to build  walkable cities and designs which don't work. More importantly, I believe it confuses "tolerance" of other ideas with "respect" for them and discourages making decisions because there is always another way of seeing thing...as a (former) friend of mine once explained to me, he thought it would be fine to have Nazis come to a high-school to defend the holocaust because they might have a legitimate point of view which, to be fair, should be heard. I don't believe such degree of tolerance is required. It's OK, even required in life, to say "No. I am right and you are wrong." Life is not all a matter of opinion; there is truth and there is falsehood.

•••

David Bernstein at The Volohk Conspiracy also takes notice of the Brandeis matter.

"Just how libertarian can we characterize Jane Jacobs?"

So asked at a commenter at The Volokh Conspiracy.

My response:

My take on Jacobs is that if she had had legal training, she would have argued for a "least intrusive means test" for land use regulations i.e. regulations are necessary but we should use the least burdensome methods possible to achieve particular goals.

As another ex-planner, I don't think that such an idea is even on the table in land use circles. Thus we get huge and complex zoning codes which in many instances don't do more than simple ones. Just compare the fine residential apartment buildings of the 1920s with the ones we build today. Part of the problem is that modernist architecture has inserted the notion that "design flexibility" and "creativity" are associated with good cities.

Good comment at another blog

Jane Jacobs - she wasn’t so great

I think Nicolai Ouroussoff has constructed a strawman here.  First, people have moved on since Jacobs published The Death and Life of Great American Cities.  I don’t know anyone who has an “obsessive belief that Ms. Jacobs held the answer to every evil that faces the contemporary city” and since Ouroussoff doesn’t name anyone that does, or any school that teaches that she did, I doubt he does either.  But that doesn’t make a very good contrarian argument then does it? The lasting impact from a planning perspective has been the attempt to include a better understanding of how people inhabit spaces rather than taking an architectural deteminist approach which says that design can cause certain types of human behavior and to think more about the scale and scope of urban projects, which can be dehumanizing if done on a large scale.

Second, criticizing the new urbanists for their devotion to Jacob’s ideals is an easy target however it is important to note that new urbanist projects aren’t being dropped down into urban cores.  Jacob’s book was about cities and urban life, not suburbs, not exurbs, not towns or villages, and certainly not about developments created on empty land.  My blog post on Jacobs talked about the importance of the accretion of details over a number of years and decades in forming a rich urban environment.

Third, taking Jacobs to task for not having a solution to sprawl or automobile dependency is silly.  Someone else has to answer for sprawl and car culture.  Jacobs was all about the business of saving cities and by changing the dynamic of the debate over the future of urban America, succeeded in her quest.  Isn’t that enough for one life?

Back to more important things

Finally. Intelligent episode-by-episode commentary on The Sopranos.

More misinterpretation

A "certified planner" (no less) tells us (and do read the whole thing):

Politicians and planners would do well to commemorate Jacobs by revisiting her work. Despite the best efforts of well-intentioned planners, you can't "create" a vibrant city or neighborhood. The best cities and neighborhoods just happen, and the best thing we can do is to step out of the way of innovators and entrepreneurs.

"Just happen." As if the initial subdivision and layout of streets simply "happened" independent of human decision following customs and laws and commonsense. Yes, there is an awful lot of overreaching by the planning establishment and it is indeed beyond governmental power to create a vibrant city or neighborhood. But no, the solution is not anarchy and that's not what Jacobs was about. Oh well, the name of every great thinker is misused once he or she is dead and can't respond.

Once again, I remind us of what Gary Hack, in the real spirit of Jane Jacobs, said:

2. Do not overreach. Don't try to regulate too much. Isolate the small number of critical aspects of design that can make a difference. Ask: "How few rules to set?"

But that's not "No rules." And it is at least Three Rules, which you can download directly here.

My copy is on hold

I'll drop by the bookstore this afternoon and pick it up and start re-reading (and I don't re-read any book lightly so this is a real tribute to Mrs. Jacobs' memory). But in the mean time I noticed this observation in the Guardian's obituary

The book does now seem a mite Broadway chorus - villagers helpfully minding each others' business as in On The Town; gangs warring over project and playground turf as in West Side Story...

So I am not the only one to pick up on something in the tone of the book, though it may not be "diversity" in the contemporary PC sense.

•••

Btw, I urge anyone not familiar with the Three Rules of Urban Design to download them (it's a PDF) via this old post of mine. They provide the starting point and the fulcrum by which to re-shape urban civilization.

UPDATE: In fact, I suspect that the Three Rules provide a way to reconcile conflicts as might exist between Jacobs and New Urbanism as the Three Rules are the essential irreducible design framework without which neither old urbanism nor new urbanism can exist i.e. you can take away just about every other element (some degree of mixed use the only exception) and if your place still adheres to the Three Rules you still have an urban place. Put it another way: urbanism old and new start with the Three Rules. I know that's a large claim; and I don't make it lightly.

UPDATE 2: Well I bought the hard-cover version -- the Modern Library edition. It has a nice scale and clearer print than the paperback. As well, I might indeed keep this book around for a long while.