Monthly Archives: March 2004

New Urbanism = walkable neighborhoods

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Peter Calthorpe (well, quoted by Andres) once distilled New Urbanism into two words: diverse and compact. John Massengale has a different phrase: walkable neighborhoods.

The short answer is that New Urbanism is about the making of walkable neighborhoods.

The short answer implies 3 things, all necessary for a walkable neighborhood:

1) There are places to walk to. That means the neighborhood has mixed uses, with stores and offices as well as houses and apartments.

Leon Krier’s definition of good urbanism is that you can buy a good cup of coffee within 5 minutes of walking out your front door.

2) That the neighborhood is, to use a horribly overused word, “sustainable.” That also has a few implications. The first is that you can fulfill most of your daily needs without getting in a car. If the town or village is isolated, there should be a train station or streetcar: in America, only the poor and the real urbanite will use buses on a regular basis. All of this requires a mix of incomes, so that there is a mix of society and workers.

If everyone has to drive to work everyday, the neighborhood is not sustainable in the long run…

3) People want to walk. That requires safe, beautiful streets. Pedestrians need sidewalks and protection from speeding cars, AND interesting, pleasant things to look at. Just proximity is not enough…

Neighborhoods can be hamlets or villages in the countryside, or part of a collection of neighborhoods in larger towns and cities.

Xtra-cycling

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I bought an Xtracycle on a whim yesterday. This nifty contraption is a frame extender: it pulls the rear wheel about a foot back and inserts an extra heavy duty rear rack over. The rack can easily carry as much as a trailer — 200 lbs, to be exact. Best yet, it’s almost ideal for carrying passengers on board.

I’m not exactly sure how I’ll use it (for passengers? cargo?), but it will allow me to carry much, much more extravagant picnics, and maybe help to feed Critical Mass in a very literal way.

Plus, it comes with rockin’ stickers.

Polarity

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For unknown reasons, Northern Trust bank — the keeper of Jenna and Babs’ trust funds — has renamed Paul Kasriel’s weekly economics column “positive economic commentary.” The name change hasn’t at all altered its somewhat alarmist tone, particularly on the pending dollar collapse. Kasriel has pinpointed 2005 as the year when foreign central banks, as in 1973, give up on propping up the deficit-wracked dollar by sinking their own currencies with expansionary monetary policy — thereby triggering a dollar collapse, an inflation shock, and a long-term spike in interest rates.

Currently high US productivity is being sustained based on investments in education and physical capital made in the past, but unfortunately, public and personal investment in the US has plunged to Depression-level lows. Businesses are socking away cash (saving, but not investing, since the bubble dampened the market for new ventures), and the Rest of the World is buying up US capital, but personal and government spending is overwhelmingly going to prop up the US consumption machine (or towards dubious wars). “Will these SUVs, McMansions, and government spending programs allow us to grow faster in the future? If not, will we not have to suffer more of a decline in our future (or our children’s future) standard of living when we have to service our foreign debt?” To which I might add: both massive fiscal debts (the entitlement crunch, deferred infrastructure maintenance and investment) and environmental debts will come due in the 21st century. Where will we find the capital to address those needs and maintain the current consumption orgy?

Another interesting idea: since 2001, US GDP has actually declined by about 15%, if dollars are translated into gold. Gold is a more reliable long-term store of value than fiat currency; hence, its longtime popularity in politically unstable societies.

Urban renewal exhibit announcement

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The City without a Ghetto: Housing Systems
A project by the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP)
Mess Hall
6932 North Glenwood Avenue (Morse stop on the Red Line)
March 27-April 18, 2004
Opening party: Saturday, March 27, 1:00-5:00 pm
Hours: Thursdays 6:00-9:00 pm, Saturdays and Sundays 11:00 am-5:00 pm

An exhibition on the history, present, and possible futures of public and affordable housing in Chicago and New York City, including:

  • Gautreaux v. Urban Renewal, a twenty-foot long timeline, takes the
    viewer through the monumental bureaucratic process begun in 1966 when a
    group of public housing residents and applicants in Chicago claimed
    that the location of their public housing projects violated their civil
    rights.
  • NYCHA: Points of Interest, a film produced with high school students
    from City-as-School, examines public housing in New York City. Where
    did it come from? Who can live there? Why does it look the way it does?
    What are the issues facing public housing today?
  • The Subsidized Landscape, an interactive diorama, shows some of the
    ways that the government uses money to shape the places we live.
  • Housing Chicago, a reading room, features materials from organizations
    and businesses active in the development and discussion of public and affordable housing in the Chicago metropolitan area.

Mess Hall is a non-commercial space for collaborations, open-ended projects, curated events, exhibitions, workshops and more, located in Rogers Park.

The City without a Ghetto: Housing Systems is co-sponsored by the Storefront for Art and Architecture, a nonprofit organization founded in 1982 committed to the advancement of innovative positions in art, architecture and design.

And please join us for a related public event:

Dismantling the Ghetto: Policy Prospects
with Alexander Polikoff and Henry Binford
The Chicago Architecture Foundation
224 South Michigan Avenue
Thursday, March 25, 2004, 6:00-8:00 pm
Free and open to the public

This program will introduce the story of the Gautreaux class action, initiated in Chicago in 1966, and its continuing relevance to attempts to residentially desegregate American communities.

Alexander Polikoff, Senior Staff Counsel at Business and Professional People for the Public Interest, served for 35 years as lead counsel in the Gautreaux public housing litigation. He joined BPI one year after its founding in 1970 as Executive Director, a position he held for almost 30 years. Before that he was a member of the Chicago law firm of Schiff Hardin & Waite. He received bachelor’s and master’s degrees (the latter in English Language and Literature) and a J.D. from the University of Chicago. He has published a book, Housing the Poor: The Case for Heroism, and is currently completing another book on the Gautreaux class action.

Henry Binford is an Associate Professor of History at Northwestern University specializing in suburbanization in the 19th century and the decline and redevelopment of cities in the 20th century. Professor Binford received his Ph.D. from Harvard, and since 1990 he has held a joint appointment in African-American Studies. His research centers on the evolution of cities, especially in America. He is the author of The First Suburbs: Residential Communities on the Boston Periphery, 1815-1860, and is working on a study of the evolution of slums.

Dismantling the Ghetto: Policy Prospects is co-sponsored by the Chicago Architecture Foundation, CUP, Mess Hall, and the Built Environment Workshop of the University of Chicago Art History Department.

About CUP
CUP is a nonprofit design and research organization dedicated to the understanding of architecture, urbanism, the physical environment, and social processes. Since 1995, CUP has organized and produced exhibitions, publications, discussions, and educational programs on topics such as Governors Island, building codes, street trees, the African Burial Ground, urban development, and architectural education. Ongoing projects address risk management, business improvement districts, international financial institutions, and municipal waste management. Please visit us at www.anothercupdevelopment.org.

A nation divided, the city united

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A nurse… said: “The problem is the government has made us feel like we’ve come out of this divided. The… party exudes a feeling that you are either with them and [the country] or you are somehow unpatriotic or against them.”

— a Socialist voter in Madrid

Sadly, American voters seem to be otherwise disposed: even though the current regime has plainly failed to protect the citizenry, plenty of voters still give Bush credit for “leadership through crisis.” Some pundits are saying that an “October surprise” terrorist attack would benefit Bush, as voters rally ’round the flag — even though an attack then, after three years of the Everlasting War on Evildoers, would plainly demonstrate the incompetence of those in power.

Also from The Guardian, a pleasant paean to how Spain’s citizenry is standing against the new era of fear:

What’s at stake is a long history of the city, that exchange point for trade and ideas that has been the crux of all civilisations. The city orders how large numbers of human beings live in close proximity. In so doing, it civilises and turns strangers into citizens who belong to a civil society in which they treat each other with (more or less) civility. All these words have the same Latin root, civitas.

What the demonstrations in Spain remind us is that civility — the measure of goodwill from one stranger to another — is ultimately what makes a city’s spirit. It is the accumulation of tiny, daily interactions with bus conductors, fellow commuters, newspaper sellers and coffee-shop waitresses — the humour, the greetings, the gestures of help that smooth the rough edges of urban living.

Instead, in the past two days the vacuum has been filled by the people; the politicians would do well to listen, and articulate their civility rather than rush to use the shabby and meaningless metaphor of a “war on terror”. You cannot fight fire with fire, was the implicit message of the silent crowds. Spain’s mourning will have global resonance — as did 9/11. Over half the world’s population now live in cities, and the images we have seen in the past few days offer two alternatives of what the city might mean in the 21st century: a place of terror where the stranger is to be feared and distrusted, or the determined solidarity of strangers — a sea of hands waving hastily scribbled messages with the one word that says everything: “No”. Thank you, Spain, for giving us a choice.

Unfortunately, Americans have never had “liberté, égalité, fraternité” as a rallying cry; in today’s consumer society, we actively shun the latter two. Alex Shakar writes in _The Savage Girl_ that “Hell is not necessarily other people; hell is being surrounded by people who share no solidarity,” which sounds a lot like home.

Last night’s landslide

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The wholly unpredicted landslide for Barack Obama last night was, needless to say, completely exhilirating on the face of it. Even more exciting, though, are the detailed returns. 40 of 50 wards voted for Obama, some by over 90%. The Obama campaign did an amazing job turnout on the south side, with over 15,000 voters going to the polls in many wards — as befits someone whose start in Chicago politics was in registering 100,000 voters.

The election also demonstrates Cook County’s continued ability to dominate the state Democratic party — some 80% of Obama’s votes statewide were from Cook. Obama’s ability to carry the suburbs and exurbs added most of the rest of that margin. (Interestingly, half of Lake County’s primary votes were Democratic–perhaps indicative of the Democratic trend there. Sprawlburb southwest DuPage and Will may remain staunchly Republican, but slow-growth Lake looks to be following the Democratic trend familiar to most mature suburbs.)

Voter turnout in north lakefront wards was middling, but unfortunately turnout suffered somewhat in West Town-Logan Square wards — about 5,000 votes total in the 1st, 32nd, and 35th wards. This was despite some notable campaign activity and events in the area. Organizing alienated, apathetic (even if sympathetic) people in high-churn, gentrifying (and thus highly disorganized) neighborhoods is a challenge I’ve yet to fully wrap my head around. But if we can do it, we’ve got a great shot in November.

Misfired campaign mail

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I’ve only received two pieces of election mail in advance of tomorrow’s election, both of which were misguided.
– Today, a Chinese-language piece from Blair Hull. Targeting Chinese-surname voters is nothing new. It would seem easy to do, since there aren’t that many to begin with (one consequence of having such an old civilization), but the number of different English spellings of each name would considerably toughen the task; plus, most voters named Lee or Young aren’t Chinese.

What makes this most peculiar is that the mail was sent to neither my brother nor I, who are both registered voters at this address — instead, it was sent to my father, who has never lived or voted in Illinois. Even if he was convinced to go and vote for Blair Hull, he’d have to register first, and registration closed a month ago. So, the Hull campaign is so flush with cash that it’ll send random mailings out to random marketers’ lists without even bothering to cross-check them against voter lists.

– On Saturday, a desperate call for help. “I NEED your HELP!!! Help Save the 32nd Ward Republican Organization!!! WRITE-IN & Re-Elect John Curry 32nd Ward Republican Committeeman.” Four candidates filed to be Republican committeeman in the 32nd, one of the few Chicago wards to register more than a thousand Republican votes. However, two of the candidates challenged the other two, the other two counter-challenged, and the Board of Elections threw all of them off the ballot — throwing into question the existence of a 32nd Ward GOP. Curry charges that “the Chicago Democratic machine pulled out all the stops and got me kicked off the ballot.” Um, sure.

At least I know why I received this; I voted as a spoiler in the 2002 Republican primary, and I’ve been marked a Republican ever since. I even got a robocall a few weeks ago urging me to “support our President and our troops” by voting Republican. Sure.

Straphangers

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I noticed black nylon straps hanging from the overhead grab bars on a #77 Belmont bus (one of the Novas) today. It’s a thoughtful touch for those of us who aren’t quite tall enough to comfortably hang onto the rather high bars — but I’ve never seen them outside New York City before. There, they’re so ubiquitous that commuters are known as straphangers.

back to earth

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I’ve just tied up an 80-hour workweek, so maybe I’ll have some more time to do things like blog. Hey, at least we admit we’re understaffed, which is more than past employers would do.