A preview of, and reaction to, doomsday cuts

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Just got back from Philadelphia, where SEPTA has announced:

  • 25% fare hike, to $2.50 base fare in town
  • No more weekend service
  • and 20% weekday service cuts on all lines, mostly by combining express/local runs on commuter lines and cutting evening/midday service sharply (maybe to once an hour on many lines)

…unless the state bails out their $60 million deficit. The talk there is that emergency funding this year is likely, followed by a restructuring next year that will fold SEPTA, the ports, the airports, etc. into a superregional agency with new funding. As a general principle, I support regional solutions — especially where opportunities to cross-subsidize transit arise (as in the obvious solution of using road tolls to pay for transit) — but the super-agency could exacerbate the current situation where the suburbs get to control Philadelphia’s transportation priorities.

Transit will continue on its death spiral without solid new funding sources. The currently appalling level of service in Philly — half-hour headways and $5.50 fares for a 20-minute ride to the airport, one subway line already abandoned on weekends — surely has had much to do with its downtown’s inability to maximize labor force accessibility and thus compete as a central employment hub.

Part of our argument here in Chicago should draw upon the Chicago Central Area Plan‘s finding that transit is the #1 economic draw for businesses to the central area, and that downtown Chicago is the powerhouse of the Chicago region’s economy. Without a vibrant and lively central city, Chicago is just another rust belt relic — and without transit, central Chicago will choke on traffic. Our entire region’s economic competitiveness hinges on adequate city transit.

The CTA also makes a pretty good case (large PDF) that its structural deficit is merely one symptom of a broken funding mechanism.

  • Suburban Cook subsidizes money-losing long-distance Metra and Pace service in the collar counties. Each collar county transit trip receives over $3 in public subsidy, even while residents of the collar counties pay almost nothing for transit ($0.0025 on the dollar). Indeed, 52% of subsidies for collar county Metra service come from suburban Cook. It’s not just city vs. suburbs — the inner suburbs are getting fleeced as well. In an ideal world, Cook’s five million residents would be able to speak up for ourselves and beat back exurban free-riding, but alas, Springfield doesn’t work that way.
  • CTA and Pace would be in okay financial shape if not for ballooning (and unsubsidized) paratransit costs. Hence, paratransit-free Metra has enough cash to pad its capital budget for extensions to the open countryside beyond exurbia, while CTA and Pace go beggaring.
  • the RTA funding formula was broke from the beginning; transit ridership has steadily fallen (by 30%!) since it (and its strict farebox recovery ratios) was instituted. Most other states fund transit at a state or regional level, not at what’s effectively a city level.
  • Transit must grow to properly serve the region; the TTI congestion study estimated that regional transit ridership must grow by 241,000 customers a day — almost the equivalent of increasing CTA rail ridership by 60%, or Metra ridership by 80%.
  • The Loop would truly choke without CTA, which has 34-39% market share of inbound traffic from the west/northwest/southwest (remarkable considering the relative youth of the Orange Line) and 66% market share headed from the north lakefront. Market share along the south lakefront is a paltry 18%, which could be markedly improved if Metra and CTA didn’t both feel the need to offer duplicative (and inferior) services along that corridor.
  • CTA funding has lagged inflation by 29% — but overall regional transit funding has lagged by 9.7%. Of course CTA is missing out on the sales tax boom in the suburbs, but overall, the sales tax is not keeping pace with economic growth in the region. Consumer goods and services make up the same proportion of the economy as they did in 1980, but the “goods” part of that (which pays sales tax) has fallen by over half. The “services,” which don’t pay sales tax, have increased substantially. Thus, sales tax receipts are stagnant even while the economy grows. (See CTBA’s report.)
  • No one seems to have remembered that federal operating subsidies — once to the tune of $200 million in current dollars a year — have disappeared.

Sadly, of course, all of this nuance will be lost on CTA riders and probably even on the General Assembly. All they will do is yell at CTA.

Chicago architects pick their favorites

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AIA Chicago recently polled its members about Chicago’s architectural treasures. Some surprises:
– The Rookery (42%) as best indoor public space. Well, it’s not really all that public anymore.
– Buckingham Fountain (31%) as best outdoor public space. Overscaled, lacking in any sense of enclosure, and drowning in twin rivers of traffic.
– Robie House (32%) and Farnsworth House (28%) almost tied for best building outside the center city, beating out even Crown Hall (17%).

Recent photos

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Some photos from the past few weeks — haven’t had time to organize them into albums:


95th at Calumet River, 21 August


106th west of Calumet River, 21 August


111th & Cottage Grove, 21 August


7th Avenue at maybe 25th, NYC, 27 August


Plano, Ill., 17 September

Westinghouse High School

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LPCI has placed Westinghouse High School on its annual Chicagoland Watch List, saying that CPS intends to demolish this giant former candy factory for playing fields once the replacement school (now under construction) is complete. Of course, never mind that there’s plenty of other open spaces in half-vacant East Garfield Park, that Chicago School loft buildings are almost priceless in some neighborhoods, and that rehab has begun filtering their way around to Franklin and Sacramento Boulevards.

Sure, converting a 400,000 square foot building is a daunting prospect — two or three hundred lofts, perhaps — but selective demolition of the additions could improve feasibility. It has fantastic surviving architectural details and a shallow, T-form plan that’s a great improvement over the too-deep floorplates that plague many current loft conversions.

Ironically, the new Westinghouse school is being done to LEED specifications. Doesn’t LEED supposedly promote reuse of existing buildings?

Civilization declines further

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From Chicago magazine’s Dish dining newsletter:

“Crew Bar + Grill (4804 N. Broadway; 773-784-2739), a 3,000-square-foot gay sports bar, recently opened next to The Green Mill with a signature drink called a �beergarita,� which, unfortunately, is exactly what it sounds like. . . .”

Scenes from “Perdition”

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Vincent rented “Road to Perdition” last night to see the direction. I just wanted to see the locations:

  • Factory exteriors: Pullman Wheel Works, blast furnaces along Little Calumet River or in East Chicago
  • Entering Chicago sequence: along Columbus Drive past Hutchinson Field ballfields (note the maintenance shack). Reflections in car windows of Michigan Avenue streetwall were digitally added in post-production. Car enters over LaSalle Street bridge. Watch the last few seconds of the reflection carefully; the perspective gets screwy as the reflections begin to run perpendicular to the actual scenery. At the last moment, cobra head streetlights from Columbus Drive appear in the reflection, just as the focus shifts to the actual buildings.
  • Busy sidewalk: in front of Rookery.
  • Lexington Hotel (with the second-floor gallery and large elevator bank): Palmer House Hilton. The Lexington stood at Cermak and Michigan, where the Lakeside Bank is now; it’s most famous now for having been ransacked by Geraldo on live TV in search of Capone’s hidden treasure.
  • Newspaper reading room with green marble: Couldn’t figure out immediately, but of course it’s the G.A.R. Hall at the Cultural Center, n�e the central library.
  • “L” tracks: Initially didn’t know, but the three pillars across (one of which was added later, with different trusses) and the concrete inserts below point to the South Side Green Line, with its former express track and post-construction raising.
  • Catholic church on a square: St. Sylvester’s, on Palmer Square

The narrow streets are, of course, a Hollywood “New York City” set — note the sunken building entrances, ridiculously narrow street proportions, and 3/4-scale buildings.

Define “cool”

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Some new urbanists have started to talk about building “cool neighborhoods” from scratch, a term and, indeed, a concept — further reducing “cool” to yet another marketable, finance-able lifestyle choice — that I find highly suspicious.

One of the first such attempts that I’ve seen is The Lab, which self-consciously styles itself as “the anti-mall” down the street from monstrous South Coast Plaza — the 100% corner in prototypically suburban, obscenely wealthy Orange County, California. I suppose it’s inevitable that OC, with three million residents, would spawn some demand for underground techno, manga collectibles, and Urban Outfitters — and since the default building type there is the strip mall, it was time to build a strip mall for just that.

Next door, of course, is The Camp, where folks drive their bike-rack-ed SUVs into the parking lot and stroll past fake boulders and a vegan restaurant to get to their Bikram yoga classes. It’s all so self-consciously unreal and almost embarrassing, like someone trying too hard and yet not quite getting it. (Self-consciously cool Flash websites: thelab.com and thecampsite.com)

Both, of course, are just (indisputably successful) strip malls — a different sort of “lifestyle center” for a different sort of lifestyle, but just as creepily sanitized. There appears to be nothing intrinsically urban about “cool” retail after all; it’s just that cities offer an operating environment that requires less start-up capital, thanks to the decrepit and cheap building stock. But it appears that even grassroots, hip lifestyles that proclaim their skepticism of The Man can be successfully reduced, co-opted, and commodified as just another strip mall, financed by mortgage backed securities and ready for replication in Anytown, USA.

[originally posted to the Urbangeneration list]

LA builders’ sly alternative to inclusionary zoning

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In an interview in The Planning Report, homebuilders’ lobby representative Ray Pearl outlines an alternative proposal that the HBAs have presented to the LA City Council as an alternative to pending inclusionary zoning legislation. (California state law encourages inclusionary zoning.) It’s a curious proposal, to be sure, but very well targeted:

Many TPR interviewees have suggested that there�s an absence of actual planning going on in Southern California and in Los Angeles�mediation and negotiation most definitely, but very little planning. Our inner city and inner suburban neighborhoods are being asked to include new schools, and new parks, and new libraries, and more child-care, etc. How, given development pressures, do we best integrate housing into the fabric of a neighborhood without proper planning, which seems today to be under-funded and without strong strong support from city leadership?

Los Angeles certainly needs a proactive planning process that focuses on creating better and livable communities with all of those components that you mentioned. Because the Fair Share Program is so comprehensive in nature, our hope is that this will spur the very planning you�re talking about. In sitting down and choosing where we want housing, we�re going to involve council offices, we�re going to involve the Planning Department, and most importantly, we want to involve neighborhoods.

The city of Los Angeles is virtually built-out. The only way you�re going to provide more housing is for the city to begin to grow up. But no development should be shoved down somebody�s throat. If we can all work together and begin to plan proactively now, we will put the city in a position of being proud of this process. How we address the housing crisis today will say a lot about who we are tomorrow.

In this sense, the builders could succeed in dividing affordable housing advocates (who will be very difficult to wrest away from inclusionary proposals) from planning advocates. Sure, good planning is in very short supply everywhere — very few cities do much pro-active planning of any sort. And “fair share” is a great idea at the citywide level, especially in highly economically segregated cities like LA.

However, what’s suspicious about the proposal is that there’s no reason why the same ideas couldn’t apply citywide: citywide incentives (and requirements) for affordable housing construction, more TIF investment in neighborhoods (heck, more investment, period), better planning for infill zones. As some have pointed out, inclusionary zoning, when properly done, does not discourage building in low-income, lower-price parts of town — those units are often priced affordably anyways.

Plus, such a plan would eliminate the level playing field that citywide inclusionary zoning provides. Indeed, it sounds somewhat like the existing Chicago system, where developers negotiate with City Hall and the aldermen for TIF subsidies and toss back a few inclusionary units in exchange.

An outline of the plan after the jump:
Continue reading →

Keyes: Hets are haunted!

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Alan Keyes, quoted in the S-T: “In a homosexual relationship, there is nothing implied except the self-fulfillment, contentment and satisfaction of the parties involved in the relationship,” said Keyes, who holds a Ph.D from Harvard University. “That means it is a self-centered, self-fulfilling, selfish relationship that seeks to use the organs intended for procreation for purposes of pleasure. The word pleasure in Greek is hedone and we get the word hedonism from that word.”

“In an interview with CNN, Mary Cheney’s sister, Elizabeth, responded to Keyes’ remarks by saying, ‘I’m not going to dignify it with a comment.'” State GOP chair Judy Barr Topinka called the statement “idiotic” (stupid, yes, hateful, yes, but I dunno about idiotic) and demanded an apology. During a speech to the Illinois delegation at the convention, “some delegates clapped enthusiastically. Other rolled their eyes and clapped silently. Topinka stayed in another room during his speech.”

When asked if childless heterosexuals are also hedonists: “The heterosexual relationship is haunted by the possibility of the child, which means you have to commit yourself somewhere to your head to the possibility of a lifelong commitment that involves not only selfish pleasure but sometimes sacrifice.”

Sorry for the absence — I spent the weekend in New York City. Photos from Sunday’s demo (“manifestation massif” — Le Monde) coming soon. Speaking of which, 100,000 — the AP’s count — is a mathematical impossibility.

Aerial photos showed that the march stretched over two miles long at its longest — over 10,000 feet long. Are we to believe that the march was only ten persons wide? In fact, it filled three of Manhattan’s broadest avenues shoulder to shoulder and even spilled onto adjacent sidewalks and streets. The half-million figure cited by UFPJ (and, according to the Times, confirmed by police) sounds more reasonable.

Lost opportunity

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Actually, the honorable thing for Clinton would have been to resign. I argued for that in a Time magazine article as soon as he revealed that he had lied to the nation.[12] I knew, of course, that he wouldn’t. He had thrown himself off the highest cliff ever, and he had to prove he could catch a last-minute branch and pull himself, improbably, back up. And damned if he didn’t. He ended his time as president with high poll numbers and some new accomplishments, the greatest of the Kid’s comebacks�so great that I have been asked if I still feel he should have resigned. Well, I do. Why? Partly because what Ross Perot said in 1996 was partly true�that Clinton would be “totally occupied for the next two years in staying out of jail.” That meant he would probably go on lying. He tried for as long as possible to “mislead” the nation on Gennifer Flowers. He still claims that Paula Jones and Kathleen Willey made false charges. Perhaps they did, but he became unbelievable about personal behavior after lying about Flowers and Lewinsky. I at first disbelieved the story Paula Jones told because it seemed too bizarre; but the cigar-dildo described by Monica Lewinsky considerably extended the vistas of the bizarre.

Though Clinton accomplished things in his second term, he did so in a constant struggle to survive. Unlike the current president, his administration found in Sudan the presence of a weapon of mass destruction (the nerve gas precursor Empta) and bombed the place where it had existed�but many, including Senator Arlen Specter and the journalist Seymour Hersh, said that Clinton was just bombing another country to distract people from his scandal.[13] “That reaction,” according to Richard Clarke, “made it more difficult to get approval for follow-up attacks on al Quaeda.”[14] Even when Clinton was doing things, the appearance of his vulnerability made people doubt it. It was said in the Pentagon that he was afraid to seize terrorists because of his troubles; but Clarke rebuts those claims�he says that every proposal to seize a terrorist leader, whether it came from the CIA or the Pentagon, was approved by Clinton “during my tenure as CSG [Counterterrorism Security Group] chairman, from 1992 to 2001.”

We shall never know what was not done, or not successfully done, because of Clinton’s being politically crippled. He has been criticized for his insufficient response to the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. Michael Walzer said of the bombing raids Clinton finally authorized that “our faith in airpower is…a kind of idolatry.”[15] But Clinton was limited in what he could do by the fact that the House of Representatives passed a resolution exactly the opposite of the war authorization that would be given George W. Bush�it voted to deny the President the power to commit troops. Walzer says that Clinton should have prodded the UN to take action; but a Republican Congress was not going to follow a man it distrusted when he called on an institution it distrusted.

At the very end of Clinton’s regime, did Arafat feel he was not strong enough in his own country to pressure him into the reasonable agreement Clinton had worked out and Ehud Barak had accepted? Clinton suggests as much when he says that Arafat called him a great man, and he had to reply: “I am not a great man. I am a failure, and you have made me one.”

Clinton had a wise foreign policy. But in an Oval Office interview, shortly before he admitte lying to the nation, he admitted that he had not been able to make it clear to the American people His vision had so little hold upon the public that Bush was able to discard it instantly when he cam in. Clinton summed up the difference between his and Bush’s approach for Charlie Rose by sayin that the latter thinks we should “do what we want whenever we can, and then we cooperate whe we have to,” whereas his policy was that “we were cooperating whenever we could and we acte alone only when we had to.” The Bush people are learning the difference between the two policies a their pre-emptive unilateralism fails

Clinton claims that he was not hampered in his political activity by scandals. He even said, to Charlie Rose, that “I probably was more attentive to my work for several months just because I didn’t want to tend to anything else.” That is improbable a priori and it conflicts with what he told Dan Rather about the atmosphere caused by the scandal: “The moment was so crazy. It was a zoo. It was an unr�it was �it was like living in a madhouse.” Even if he were not distracted, the press and the nation were. His staff was demoralized. The Democrats on the Hill were defensive, doubtful, absorbed in either defending Clinton or deflecting criticism from themselves. His freedom to make policy was hobbled.

Clinton likes to talk now of his “legacy.” That legacy should include partial responsibility for the disabling of the Democratic Party. There were things to be said against the Democratic Leadership Council (Mario Cuomo said them well) and the “triangulation” scheme of Dick Morris, by which Clinton would take positions to the right of most congressional Democrats and to the left of the Republican Party. But Clinton, as a Southerner, knew that the party had to expand its base back into sources of support eroded by the New Right. This was a defensible (in fact a shrewd) strategy as Clinton originally shaped it. He could have made it a tactical adjunct to important strategic goals. But after the scandals, all his maneuvering looked desperate�a swerving away from blows, a flurried scrambling to find solid footing. His very success made Democrats think their only path to success was to concede, cajole, and pander. Al Gore began his 2000 campaign unhappy about his association with Clinton but trying to outpander him when he opposed the return of the Cuban boy Eli�n Gonzalez to his father. There is a kind of rude justice to the fact that the election was stolen from Gore in the state where he truckled to the Cubans.

Clinton bequeathed to his party not a clear call to high goals but an omnidirectional proneness to pusillanimity and collapse. This was signaled at the very outset of the new presidency. The Democrats, still in control of the Senate, facing a president not even strong enough to win the popular vote, a man brought into office by linked chicaneries and chance (Kathleen Harris, Ralph Nader, Antonin Scalia), nonetheless helped to confirm John Ashcroft as attorney general. The senators knew Ashcroft well; they were surely not impressed by his acumen or wisdom.

A whole series of capitulations followed. While still holding a majority in the Senate, the Democrats did not use subpoenas and investigative powers to challenge Dick Cheney’s secret drafting of energy policy with Enron and other companies. A portion of the Democrats would support the welfare-to-billionaires tax cut. They fairly stampeded to support the Patriot Act and the presidential war authorization �with John Kerry, John Edwards, and Hillary Clinton at the front of the pack. The party had become so neutered that Al From and others from the Democratic Leadership Council called Howard Dean an extremist for daring to say what everyone is now saying about the war with Iraq�that it was precipitate, overhyped, and underprepared, more likely to separate us from the friends needed to fight terrorists than to end terrorism.

What would have happened had Clinton resigned? Gore would have been given “honeymoon” in which he could have played with a stronger hand all the initiatives Clinton ha begun, unashamed of them and able to bring them fresh energy. That is what happened whe Lyndon Johnson succeeded John Kennedy. Clinton himself may have reaped a redeemin admiration for what he had sacrificed to recover his honor. Before him would have lain all th opportunities he has now, and more. Hillary Clinton’s support of him in this act of real contritio would have looked nobler. Clinton’s followers were claiming that it was all and only about sex Clinton could have said, “Since that is what it is about, I’ll step aside so more important things ca be addressed.” All the other phony issues Starr had raised would have fallen of their ow insubstantiality

Of course, this is just one of many what-ifs about the Clinton presidency. By chance I saw a revival of Leonard Bernstein’s musical Wonderful Town, just before getting my copy of the Clinton book. All through the 957 pages of it, a song from the show kept running through my head: “What a waste! What a waste!”

Gary Wills writing in the New York Review of Books on Bill Clinton’s biography

Chi chi frou frou

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I tried picking up some regular groceries at three lovely yet pricey new delis/grocery shops within three blocks of me, two of them just days or weeks old. The newest one, Olivia’s, is tucked away on Wabansia a few steps west of Damen. It’s very convenient and carries perishables (produce, milk, eggs) and some essentials, like soap. The Goddess & Grocer, which replaced Zoom Kitchen, has been open for a few weeks; it’s a sandwich & salad deli with a selection of groceries to match. (Sandwiches average $8.) Down North is Cooking Fools, which is even more of a deli with a very limited selection of dry goods.

However, the prices!

Anchovy paste: $1.89
One chunk fresh mozzarella: $4.29*
Two beefsteak tomatoes: $1.70*
Quart of peanut butter ice cream: $6.49*
Half gallon organic milk: $4.89*
Dozen eggs: $4.49*
Baked tofu: $5.69*
Red pepper powder: $2.89*
Quart of yogurt: $3.99*
Small box of cookies: $2.99
Box of biscuits: $3.99
Bag of granola: $6*

As much as I like the idea of shopping locally (and yes, the * indicates high quality products from Illinois, Wisconsin, or Iowa), I really can’t keep this up; even Whole Foods looks like a bargain. Yet the usual corner stores carry only liquor, cigarettes, and the usual selection of processed food. Well, I suppose I’ll keep going to Clybourn for Trader Joe’s, then.

And to think that I thought Zoom Kitchen was pricey when it first opened. (That didn’t keep me from running up from downtown after work for a portabella sandwich, then returning to Hyde Park.)

High Line architects selected

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“Otis White”:http://www.governing.com/notebook/today.htm calls the High Line project “ingenious and delightful.”

From “the Times”:http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/12/arts/design/12high.html

Nonetheless, the selection marks a critical step in one of the most compelling urban planning initiatives in the city’s recent history. The preliminary design succeeds in preserving the High Line’s tough industrial character without sentimentalizing it. Instead, it creates a seamless blend of new and old, one rooted in the themes of decay and renewal that have long captivated the imagination of urban thinkers.

Perhaps more important, the design confirms that even in a real estate climate dominated by big development teams and celebrity architects, thoughtful, creative planning ideas — initiated at the grass-roots level — can lead to startlingly original results. As the process continues, the issue will be whether the project’s advocates can maintain such standards in the face of increasing commercial pressures…

Such issues can easily be corrected as the design process unfolds. But they point to what may ultimately be the greatest threat to the project’s success: regulating access to the site. The High Line has already begun to spark the interest of developers, who understand its potential as an agent for raising real estate values… In an effort to take advantage of that interest, city planners have envisioned a series of incentives that would reward developers who include public access to the High Line in their plans. The scheme would also allow developers to connect commercial ventures directly to the gardens, which could radically alter the nature of the project. At the same time, allowing those who own properties below the High Line to relocate creates the possibility of freeing portions of the High Line from the surrounding density.