New Urban Network resonds on "Now what..."

If our economy is in trouble and real estate is going to be in the tank for a long time, what will happen to new urbanists? He doesn't offer any answers. Our own view is that new urbanists struggle in a down real estate economy — just like anyone else involved in land use and development. But the long term trends are promising for mixed-use, compact planning and development.

via newurbannetwork.com

My response:

I quite agree that " long term trends are promising."

But how long?

I like to be an optimist but if there is any significant and continuing trend of happy-to-know-nothings, I fear for our country. I have a bit of fun with Kunstler but that may be merely because I hope him to be wrong. (Maybe like Cary Grant who like everyone elsewants to be like Cary Grant, maybe even Kunstler wants to be wrong.) Consider the physical environment emblematic of its emblem: Sarah Palin and Wasilla, Alaska. It's not a very nice place. The physical setting is splendid but the town...well there is no town...it is not even a nice suburb. (And yes, there are some.) It's not the economic poverty at all but the mental. Yet a substantial portion of our fellow citizens like that sort of place. If you asked them to transform Wasilla, say, Carmel- without-the-Tourists, California, I suspect that many of Palinites prefer it the way it is. Again, I hope I am wrong.

But reviving the real estate economy does not seem likely. The very same people who don't like Obama, the stimulus, don't want government etc are also whining that Obama hasn't been successful at "producing" jobs. They don't want government but then they complain when it doesn't work. (It's not impossible for those ideas to be in concert but in this instance, they aren't. TPs are not saying "We don't like government but so long as we have one, it ought to succeed in creating jobs.")

Conversely, Obama doesn't seem to be able to explain to his people (i.e. sensible folks like us) that in fact the TPs are correct in some ways -- government cannot on its own revive the economy. Nor has Obama NOT been able to use the stimulus to provide urbanistic shovel-ready jobs like mundane pro-walkability things like sidewalks and curbs to push urban re-development. (At least that is my understanding of where the shovel-ready money is going.)

So I think it will be a long time to see those great "long-term trends" because our country seems to be uniquely screwed-up: Republicans don't know what to do and the Democrats don't know either, and if Democrats did know, they wouldn't have the political will to do it. I see a stalemate. I hope I am wrong.