Lux et Veritas

Crime

Sunday, August 13, 2006

Today's Washington Post Outlook Section features an article on crime and crime statistics. It's about the realities of "the streets". One of the interesting observations is that much of the neighborhood killing is because of "slights", "grudges", and the unwitting and also purposeful ignoring of gang rules, politics, and culture. How can crime and violence be reduced when these gang social systems not only prevail, but are also a sanctury for the angry, lonely, the disenfranchised, and the unsophisctated about the conflict resolution benefits of civilized discourse and behavior? In a very extended analogy, aren't we looking at a world-wide cultural divide where these same kinds of people resort to tribalism and its attendant dedication to murder without conscience? I wonder sometimes if the surge in murder in murder neighborhoods isn't about copycat behavior of those who see the settling of scores by nation states and jihadist groups of all types?

Politicians world-wide continue the same rhetoric that we need to get to the core of the problems. But they never do. Example, the rather late European, UN, US manufactured cease fire that both the Israelis and Hezbollah are thinking about. Meanwhile, the Israelis continue their push into Southern Lebanon to "root out rocket sites" and establish a zone where a UN/Lebanese peace keeping force can then occupy and monitor. We don't know just what other strategic thinking is going on that "gets to the core of the problems": the Hezbollah and Hamas goal to wipe Israel off the map; the Israeli goal of either eliminating or controlling its enemies, and the reason every Israeli-US action creates more converts to radical Islam. Is anyone ever going to take the long view and dedicate considerable time to understand what's really going on now and find incremental ways to resolve conflicts?

The US is famous for declaring war. Remember the war on poverty. We not only have more people living in poverty than before, but we now have a middle class struggling to meet their responsibilities for shelter, food, education, a job, and access to affordable and top quality health care. This has all been said before; but what hasn't taken hold is that in order to solve these problems some government teamed with various non-governmental organizations devoted to these issues, you have to know them, pay attention to them, and have strategies that are flexible but aimed at success. The US, even in the good old "Great Society" days stuck with their bureaucratically devised "program", and failed to evaluate them and change them to follow their goals. Then, everyone tired of "the poor" and few of these programs remain.

One of the ways of defeating these problems is to stop declaring war on them, but instead just go out and do something that works. Example: the work of Dr. Paul Farmer in Haiti. With hard won and now consistent funding from philanthropic organizations, he set up a modern hospital in one of the remote areas of Haiti, and went about his business to provide quality medical care. It's the old story of "if you have your health, you have everything".

Another example. There is a charter school in Boston devoted to providing real education and counselling to poor, mostly, black kids who have been kicked out of the public school system. This population is very small, but the program, as reported in the New Yorker, works. In order for a student to stay in the program, he/she has to learn and become disciplined and civilized citizens. Key to creating discipline, each student is required to master Mandarin Chinese before graduation. This seems weird on the surface. But when you think about it, it makes sense to force young and very distressed children with no emotional grounding, to find a place where they can see their own achievement by mastering something absolutely foreign to their everyday experience.

All of these efforts at crime reduction, standard health care, and education would never be cllassified as "wars". But they are lessons to be learned and models to be repeated where civilized behavior is rarely the strategy to settling disputes and solving problems. Actually, everything I have written goes directly to the meaning of conservative. That is to preserve and maintain a civilized life and return to the "old values".

Peace and Stem Cell Research

Tuesday, July 19, 2006

The explosion of a war in the Middle East, highlighted now by the Israeli-Lebanon-Hamas conflict, and the potential veto of a relaxed federally supported stem cell research program by President Bush share the same unfortunate strategy. And that is to prevent the extension and improvement of the human condition. War kills indiscriminately. Opposition to stem cell research continues the suffering and death of people with diseases stem cell research may, hopefully, may cure. In both cases, they are wars against positive change and an unwillingness to deal with very clear and sometimes muddy complex issues.

Every war since the Vietnam War was fought to eliminate and/or frighten to the point of self-defeat our or democracy's opponents. This goal has been supplanted by the Bush doctrine to wage preemptive war in Iraq and Afghanistan or to support a war in the Middle East for the purpose of spreading democracy.  Considering the history of the Middle East of imperialistic motives of the British, French, and, now, the US, it is no surprise that there are groups who, for one motive or another connected to their anger against against foreign occupation and the US motive to "spread democracy" have adopted the tactic of violent and spontaeous suicide or missle attacks. The spread of democracy is in its way imperialistic, because many countries have strong political cultures that will almost certainly  will resist becoming democratic. Similarly, radical Islamic movements that promote this kind of violence keep the whole war mentality going to the point of no resolution.

Meanwhile, the nature of war has changed. A uniformed  modern army, well equipped with modern weapons has not been able to quell violence. Now, spontaneous attacks by armed insurgencies and, in the Middle East, the employ of missles whose launching sites are undectable make it impossible to stop the conflict by traditional war strategies.

This is overlayed by tribalism and religious dissent that have been going on for centuries.  In most of these countries, local economies either don't exist, are primitive, or failing, preventing the growth of strong capitalist urges for wealth from developing that would otherwise mitigate the cultural/political and religious upheavals. Concentrating on eliminating all of the violent and opposing forces by means of armed conflict does not get to the underlying causes of terrorism and blocks the establishment of strong, local economies and the peaceful trade between enemies. China and Vietnam are primary examples of these more positive outcomes. In short, war does not destroy the culprits and does not promote progress toward addressing underlying problems.

Similarly, opposition to stem cell research stands in the way of extending the life of people suffering from all sorts of incurable or chronic, life shortening conditions. And that opposition is built on the views of conservative thinking groups, tribes if you can see that translation, who view stem cell research as an attack on the very beginnings of human life. These beginnings are in reality no more than discarded cells from fertility treatments and abortions and general medical research which would never become full-fledged, living human beings.

The unknowns about stem cell research and cures for many diseases give additional force to groups that are in opposition. Will the cures work across the board? Will the transplantation of human cells cary with them genetic inheritances that cause disease, disfigurment of the child, mental incapacitation, weird behavior, etc.? Noone really knows at this point and won't know until the research moves forward.

However, the belief systems held by many countries that either foment or support the nobility of war as well as international political hegemony are very strong. Equally strong is the power of US conservative religious groups who have used their opposition to abortion and stem cell research to gather a large group of supporters who are threatened by change. The Republican party base is stablilized by keeping these groups happy, which translates into a presidency that makes quick decisions in general and specifically in support of their major issues. Coincidently, the religious right also believe in "smiting their enemies", a phrase lifted from the Bible, which gives credence to Bush's preemptive wars to create the same political atmosphere world wide that these groups and the Bush Administration wish for the United States.

The urge for the resolution of conflicts is far weaker than the urge to commit to war. There are too many variables: seemingly intractable religious conflicts, tribal behavior that stands in the way of modernism, and long held resentments between Middle Eastern countries and, now, against the West, in particular the United States. The West continues to be warlike and imperialistic in its commitments to spread democracy. And the insurgents become even more violent. Neither tactic leads to peaceful resolution.

In fact, the religious rights' strong belief in the sanctity of life in practice produces the very opposite of result: war to smite "our enemies" who threaten the security of our version of life, which can be viewed as mass murder; and opposition to medical research into the use of stem cells to improve and extend life of many, many people world-wide. 

The golden rule to treat others as would like to be treated and the religious commitment to the sancticty of life are turned on their head by the means used to achieve both.

CNU XIV

Washington, DC, Sunday, June 4, 2006

Congratulations to the organizers of the Providence Conference for the planning and execution of a truly excellent and well-run program. I not only enjoyed myself but learned something.

It was interesting to finally meet some of the subscribers on the listservs with whom I communicate frequently. It reminded me of finally seeing photographs of people I listened to on the radio during the 1940s. They were just different from what I had pictured in my minds eye.

CNU XIV was a contrast in extremes. There were the very practical sessions, e.g. pattern books, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the very theoretical and often hard to grasp, e.g. Unfoldings: The Building Blocks of Living Neighborhoods. Surprising was the Taskforce Summit where I was part of the group that discussed housing affordability. 

Ray Gindroz 's session on pattern books was notable for the suceess of pattern books. Surprising and appropriate was that all of the panel members, with the exception of Leon Krier, were developers. Though the theme was supposed to be about high density mixed-use development, for the most part it was about residential areas with some mixed uses near the center city. It was both surprising and comforting to learn the success in the use of pattern books by developers to guide their architects and, to a lesser extent, to be used in negotiations with the city and local interest groups. More vague is how pattern books can be used for in-fill, because it is hard to predict how a general massing plan can anticipate various architectural designs. Paul Ostergaard, Managing Principal of UDA, explained to me that the pattern book in these instances is mostly for "creating a certain kind of place" to which any architectural design should comply. More work on these in-fill pattern books will help to unearth just how a pattern book can shape infill in massing new development and to create sensible public spaces and special places.

Disappointing were Leon Krier's remarks on pattern books. They were a rambling of unorganized thoughts on peak oil, cars, the ignorance of government, the limited understanding of the public, the destructiveness of American mass culture that works against "good architecture" and new urbansim. At one point, Krier contended that "modernism", in contrast to new urbanism, had an easy time being accepted, to which one questioner reminded him was quite the opposite. Roy Gindroz did interrupt to ask Krier what he thought of pattern books, to which Krier responded of-handedly was "good"; and then he went back to his rambling discourse which continually used the word "ecology" in no context to which the real defintion of the word fits. After he finished his remarks, the audience but most importantly the panel members were curiously silent, which I would define as a mixture of embarrassment and dumboundedness. Here was an NU icon who turned out to be less than the "superman" I would have imagined from a radio program.

I stopped by only briefly on a session on the market for modernism in new urbanism. I left at the point where exhortation drummed out reason and rationality, and when slides of modernist contributions to the street scape were anything but a contributing factor. The facades were flat without depth or rhythm and the coloring resembling some child's building blocks. It is clear the style war was continuing without some thoughtful theory and examples of just how these "styles" can take their rightful places in a good place townscape. NU and the "modernists' have to stop the style wars to get on with the business of exploring the possibilities of both peace and a better product.

The audience for "Unfoldings" and Chris Alexander's presentation was surprisingly very large. Since Alexander never took the time to quickly go over the evolution of his work from patterns to unfoldings, it was difficult to understand just what he was talking about. For those who have not read any of his books, importantly "Patterns.....", my guess is that they may have been totally baffled. What Alexander thinks about how to approach building and townscape design revolutonizes the traditonal  hierarchical approach architects and town planners follow and reverses that traditional thinking to take into account organic evolution, pattern relationships between people of various cultures and building, and how these patterns "unfold" over time (change in complex ways much like the evolution of biological matter). Michael Mehaffy is leading his organization to translate this thinking into a body of new knowledge that planners and architects can use. Open as I think I am to new ways of thinking about these subjects, I had to admit that my mind struggles to understand and that I would be unwilling, at my stage in life, to undertake Michael's important work.

The surprise of the whole conference was the group discussion on affordable housing that took place at the Task Force Summit. After some limited remarks on subsidies, Phyllis Bleiweiss put forth the premise that this new initiative starts by assuming government intervention, including subsidies of all kinds, with private market participation and a whole set of tools for addressing the problem that she and the panel members agreed was a must for NU to work on. The panel concluded that since much of the available information already exists and many interest groups are involved in recommending new strategies, money and time CNU will provide will be devoted to hooking up with these different interest groups and working together to devise all of the "tools". This after months of harranguing on the need for subsidies by Emily Talen, David Brain, and myself with those on the list who "don't feel comfortable with government intervention and who also believe that too much money has already been spent and the results have been more slums, street crimes, and unplanned pregnancies by the very poor.

Though it rained during most of the conference, the sun came out at the CNU XIV Conference.

Another Perception of New Urbanism

Monday, March 6, 2006

This other percpetion of New Urbanism is by a black architect friend. I mention race here because it has a lot to do with how different life experiences see things. That would be true if I had heard it from various other ethnic, racial, and public interest groups. But I think it is worth listening to because NU needs to take a look at itself, to learn to know what additional development of its ideas and message is necessary to make its goals and protocols of practice more widely understood and accepted.

My friend said:

1. The movement is identified with one person, Andres. To my friend, he becomes perceived as a "cult" leader. He added that this is true of all other architecture, planning, and urban design movements. Movements themselves, he added, take on a "position" that immediately sets itself either apart from or superior to other movements, hence this kind of tribal competition.
2. He perceives NU as white and elitist. That is partly due to its apparent racial composition and the fact that NU takes no strong position of effective programs to fund "affordable housing" and produce a significant supply on a regular schedule, this among other prominent issues having to do with supporting and pushing for effective public transit subsidies, the true integration of the enivronment movement into NU, and so on.
3. The persistent argument about the best architectural style to accomplish urbanism is an unnecessary diversion from the implementation of its goals. and it sets up a disccusion that is way off understanding NU core goals.
4. Finally, he contends, too many of the built NU projects look the same: the New England green, a green mall, small town shopping streets, and a high density core that often is a key hole configuration. He feels that the solutions are more suburban in subject matter, rather than dense urban related. His point is that there are other urban design solutions that keep to NU principles but that are different for local different reasons. Finally,
5. There needs to be social impact analysis, that is, how the proposed urban design plan affects all income groups and cultural groups, in terms of housing, education, jobs, the provision of social-welfare and medical and social services, etc. He added, on my prompting, that impact analysis should also include fiscal and environmental impacts, particularly in the case of the Gulf Coast, such as the effects of annual and cumulative rising of water levels that may eventually engulf towns and cities in that belt. In conclusion, NU has become a club of like minded movement members to which other non-members and orginal founders are not included as equals.

Whether or not NU agrees with or takes strong objections to these observations and perceptions is irrelevant to the reality here that someone outside the movement, who truly supports its goals, practices, and standards, sees NU differently. And not necessarily altogether favorably. Since NU wants to have as many interests "under the tent", these observations shine the light on very specific changes NU should make give more than token lip service to considering and important relevance of other ideas and perceptions.

In fact, it cannot rest on its laurels and achievements gained so far. And it must expand its urban design ideas and give active support to government and private sector coalitions to actually carry out its goals.

On a personal note, I have persistently commented on many of the issues my friend has outlined so clearly. Any "movement" gets pretty clubbish after a while, if for no other reasons than a sense of arrogance sets in and divergent opinions are dismissed sometimes and sometimes not in a positive way. Further, a movement sets up competition with other competing "movements" where the debate is more one of which has the superior ideas and achievements, rather than a studied consideration of how those divergent ideas can be melded into a more inclusive and intelligent NU movement.

This is not a rock throwing effort on my part to distinguish myself as being someone with very strong (read competing) ideas. Rather it is to say that NU has to keep rethinking itself in measurable ways and expand its ideas by taking seriously the need to implement its goals on the ground for everyone of color, of different ethnic groups, of different incomes, and with different life experiences. This is not to recommend that NU becomes a political lobbying group. It is more like being practical and addressing just what specifically it takes to implement its goals on the ground and in terms of the people and interests it affects.

A melding of measuring social and other impacts with the kind of theoretical framework that Christopher Alexander has produced has the potential of strengthening NU and making its case to a wider audience, especially those who oppose it just because it may be a better idea that makes them feel less with their flimsy and self-referential goals and principles. These analytic approaches give NU designers a more complete picture of place and the people whose plans will affect them most directly.

I have enormous respect for my friend, his well-thought out ideas, and his goals that reach beyond his own ego and the need for personal accomplishment and recognition. He's talking about everyone and not just a well-intentioned and well-honed movement.

Enough Already, Ben Forgey

Monday, February 12, 2006

There he goes again! In his Sunday, February 12, 2006 Washington Post Cityscape column, Ben Forgey, entertains his readers with the latest decon architecture in Spain. And, at the same time, pays no attention to the wonderful Spanish cities where these new designs have been sited. This is not one of my rants at Mr. Forgey. It's more a case of highlighting some of silliness of these projects.

This is the Valleceron Chapel. My first reaction is that the building is upside down. My second reaction was that this is not Corbusier at Ronchamp.  Just to see what it might look like if the top were to be the bottom, take a look at the next image.

It doesn't look any less silly. But at least the building is no longer top-heavy and is also anchored to the ground.

This is a park under construction in Seville. I lost interest in the upper photo of what the pedestrian would experience under the canopy because the earlier description of an airport not shown as "biomorphic" seemed to apply here as well. I don't know what the word means specificially, in reference to architecture - I'm playing dumb here. In any case, if I don't understand both the word in this context, then I don't understand Forgey's understanding of the building.

I like a good joke as much as anyone. But these sillinesses cannot be classified as even a bad joke!

What does grab me in the lower photo above is that it reminds me of some of the tin roofs seen in less elite neighborhoods in Mexico. In this case, the wavy roof and graffiti-like pattern adorns an unfinished traditional building. In any case, it seems like bad joke of vernacular Spanish architecture.

My Father-in-Law

Saturday, January 14, 2006

My father-in-law is a very lucky man. He survived 35 missions in WWII as a navigator on a B-17 in the 8th Air Force. At 85 he is alert, intelligent, funny, and perfectly capable of participating in daily life. He has written books and articles on the history of central York. He has both wisdom and a very down-to-earth quality, which including all of his other qualities makes him one of my all-time best persons in the world.

But he's not so lucky. Having inherited the bad gene for eye sight, he suffers from irreversible macular degeneration. Thanks to the quality of medical practice at the Syracuse University Medical School, he has willingly received every surgical procedure and drug regimen available to stabilize his condition. Except that he is legally blind. He cannot read and can barely make out the images on the TV screen. This is a terrible fate for a man clearly capable of carrying on the intellectual life he has enjoyed since retired  20 years ago.

What may compensate for his loss of sight are various expensive image enhancing devices that his medical insurance will not/cannot cover. Having appealed to the Veterans Administration to supply him with these devices, he now is required by them to take a physical and wait, wait until the Administration makes a ruling. If it is positive then he will have to wait some more for the procurement process to provide him with this equipment.

During December 2004, I wrote a post on a very seriously wounded Iraq II Army war veteran. It was clear when at Walter Reed Hospital that more attention had to be given to help him survive and be as comfortable as possible. Luckily, his mother prevailed as his advocate and he got the best care posssible. But returned to civilian life, the VA either didn't or delayed providing both financial and medical support to allow him to lead the best life an invalid can expect. Again, his mother prevailed and VA paid attention.

My father-in-law survived the war without a scratch and went on to lead a normal life. He is clearly not in the same category of need as the case in the previous paragraph. But he also contributed to the survival of democracy world-wide. The early respone by the VA to truly meet his needs is in question, because the delays he will experience will put in question his future quality of life. More to the point, this delay is running neck-in-neck with his statistically limited life span. He may die before the VA acts.

Unfortunately, my father-in-law has no active advocate to help him. His wife, also 85, is unable physically to help him, suffering from crippling pain from degenerating vertabrae. My wife, from the distance between Washington and Camillus, NY will do her best.

I would appreciate anyone who reads this post that can help refer me and my wife to advocate groups concerned with veterans medical services. We need to push the right buttons to get him the help he needs in time for him to live the best life he has left.

I can be reached at this blog or my email: konrad.perlman@verizon.net.

Is Herbert Mauschamp Homophobic?

Sunday, January 8, 2006

This is certainly an appropriate question. In a two page article in today's NY Times Architecture column, Mauschamp waxes irrelevantly about the value of 2 Columbus Circle. According to Mauschamp, the value of Ed Stone's "weired" museum has mostly to do with the flowering of the gay community in New York and its attachment to it as a symbol of rebellion against the overpowering heterosexual community that looked down on it. Mauschamp asserts, perhaps by innuendo, that a combination of women and gay men are behind the movement to preserve what has always been in my earliest memories a "dog" of a building": a venetian palace built for a rich man with artistic appreciations that did not fit into the code which the Museum of Modern Art launched. My immediate free association brings to mind Saddam Hussein's preference in the architecture of the Arabian nights. Peggy Guggenheim's truly Venetian Palace of modern art is no less queer - a rich American woman as a Venetian wannabe - albeit with a more refined artistic sense. Mauschamp tries to connect weird, queer, and gayness to distinguish the value of the former Hartford Museum; but I would doubt he would judge Peggy's artistic pretensions in the same way. She was just queer but not gay.

As a sideline observation of the article, it is the usual philosophical, sociological, historic grabbag, and artistic allusions and coded phrases about other things that populate this windy far from analytic article on 2 Columbus Circle. Please tell me what Rudy Guiliani, the "ugly" (according to Mauschamp") late Penn Station, white flight, the secular historicism movement, and similar weak supports have to do with his argument that what certain groups of people cherish or use as a symbol of rebellion against their exclusion give architecture its meaning - value?

His seeming sociological and historic analysis and loud seeming homophobic interpretation of Stone's creation damn the building. That was its purpose from the beginning. In my limited view, this is exactly what criticism of art should never do. While all of the background Mauschamp creates is interesting in a sort of "off-the-wall" way, how much of it is an appraisal of Hartford's folly?

As I have written previously in this blog about Mauschamp, his publication in the New York Times, the "paper of record" does a great disservice to the education of the public in matters of archtecture controversey. If New Yorkers on both sides of the argument aren't already confused about whether or not to preserve this relic for its strangeness, as in the anthropomorphic restaurant architecture of the interior of Amereica, Mauschamp not only confuses matters but taints the discussion with not so veiled homophobia. I'm reminded of the current Administration's tactics to discredit its opponents with words like "disloyal", "anti-american", and "abettors of continued Iraqi violence".

The fact of the matter is that New Yorkers with a need to vent their anger at something other than the incredible stress and overload as citizens of the city is actually the source of the debate. It's winter now and the hot issues of avian flu, insecticides, organic food, and other matters of the summer, fall, and spring outdoors have faded away temporarily, and now preservation is the focus.

The Huntington Hartford Museum is no more or less an architectural dog than many other New York buildings. They don't deserve historic and preservation designation either. But Mauschamp's article and its twisted pronouncements wipe the debate slate clean, allowing judgments on its architectural merit to be made unhindered. 

Solving the Problem: James Freed, Sens. Lieberman and Clinton

Saturday, December 17, 2005

This is about solving problems in general. James Freed. notably the architect of the Holocaust Museum, died yesterday. He left a legacy of expressing this horrible event in a truly sensitive, nuanced, and iconic manner, a model of both urbanistic and memorial architecture. Yesterday, Sens. Hillary Clinton and Joseph Lieberman held a press conference denouncing violent video games and offering legislation that would tax game creators $1,000. This bully-pulpitism not only doesn't solve the problem of violence in our society, it avoids the entire issue and its most recent demonstration of failure in the conduct and their support of the Iraqi War.

The front facade of the Holocaust Musem respects the quiet, traditional, and often, ecclectic context of the street.

The rear facade is iconic of some of the major features of a concentration camp.

The interior is iconic of the more gruesome details of a prison camp.

James Freed solved the Holocaust Memorial problem.

Neither Sens. Clinton nor Lieberman have even studied much less offered solutions for the US legacy of domestic and international violence. In considering this statement, please remember Hillary Cliinton's very loud youthful protest against the Vietnam War and for women's rights. Please also remember Joseph Lieberman's religious moral conservative statements about his commitment to Orthodox Judaism and Judaism's legacy of bigotry, discrimination, and violence designed to destroy it. Both of them have forgotten their histories of commitments for peace, first in their both approving the resolution for Presidential war powers in Iraq and, in the case of Sen. Lieberman continuing support of US failed military strategies there. And second, in Sen. Clinton's continued crafting of a "centrist" political position on the withdrawl of troops in Iraq. Their political positions and public moralizing on the giant issue of violence forget that the solutions to these problems start in the nuclear family they talk, moralize, and write about persistently. I believe it was more than 50 years ago Rodgers and Hammersmith wrote a song for the amazing South Pacific whose theme has to do with hate, violence, and bigotry that are taught at home.

New Urbanist Challenges

Wednesday, December 7, 2005

Long standing challenges to New Urbanist ideas have resurfaced as the result of recent appraisals by the Washington and LA Times of gulf coast plans prepared by CNU practitioners at a recent one week charrette. These appraisals boil down to: NU is about retro 50s cozy, mostly white, small town life gone forever; it rejects modernism in favor of traditional architecture; Katrina victims want the towns where they lived, not some perfect solution; it creates more sprawl rather than stopping it, etc.

Superficially, most of what has been written in these commentaries has to do with the need to say something controversial, are a reflection of the American need to forget the past and move to something new, and just plain lack of understanding of the issues and ideas. Both articles are reactionary and stir the pot, rather than being thoughtful evaluations of conflicting ideas and preferences. Finally, neither offer alternative solutions or visions that might cast a critical light on these plans. Nothing new here. But it comes at a time when thoughtful urbanists want to prevent another Katrina like weather and environmental holocaust and create a better model for a safe and more pleasing townscape.

It's Retro; it's white; it's only for the comfortable upper middle class

Yes, a great many NU design principles take lessons from the great cities and the comfortable small towns in America. But the critics and the commentators immediately criticize these principles because they are old, not current to present day (sprawling) America. The "comfort" of the traditional town is not considered, in part because many of the reporters are too young to have lived in them or did not understand the qualities of those towns if they lived in them. It is also the case that sprawl has become a model because it is everywhere, and everything not like that is retro.

It is also true that a large number of NU greenfields developments have been financed by conventional mortgage instruments. Regardless of the mix of housing types, e.g. less expensive apartments over stores and apartments, most of the housing is out of reach for the middle class and the working poor. "Affordable housing" is a local, state, and federal government isssue of various kinds of subsidies and new mortgage instruments that enable these groups to live in new NU developments. Again, most of the critics and reports cling to the political centrist line of a smaller government dedicated to the bootstrap fantasy,  and, as a result, never give a thought to public-private financial partnerships to create housing for the less privileged.

Another reason this line of attack sticks to CNU is because it, too, clings to a centrist political position, is snared by bootstrapping fantasies, is anti-"nanny state", and recommends manufactured, below code, and other no-frills housing as a way to achieve that goal. None of these strategies produces a predictable number of "affordable housing" at "affordable" prices or rents to meet growing demand.

CNU Rejects Modernism, Supports Traditional Architecture

What is forgotten in this debate, often violent reactions by one side or the other, is that modern architecture has failed to produce the rythym, solidity, sense of movement, and continuity that traditional architecture can do. Flat, glass and steel modern and neo-modern architecture produce blank street walls, often hide retail by tucking it into the building wall, and gives no sense of differentiation between one retail opening from another, discouraging pedestrian flows to given destinations along the street. The decon architects go further by rejecting not only traditional architecture and modernism, creating a "moonscape" architectural "new paradigm" that belongs to no recongizable physical context.

These facts are never considered when modernist architects attack New Urbanism. The attacks are less a real challenge to NU urban design standards than they are an irrational defense of unique, self-referntial, often decon architecture that is concerned only with form and not with urbanism. Their argument is made more forceful by NU practitioners who reject modernism and, who, themselves, fail to understand that NU is not about style but aesthetically pleasing, effective place making that draws its models from great cities and neighborhoods.

Katrina victims want the towns they lived in, not perfection

This preference for the familiar over the better can only be softened by a planning process that goes on long after the charrette is over. The one-week plan, no matter how comprehensive in its scope and community participation, is something that becomes a point of argument stoked by politicians looking for a real community issue to prolong their political tenure, the modernist architects, and the developers who already have a formula for buying up and redeveloping (read clear and suburbanize) ruined real estate at cheap prices. This controversey is also prolonged by an absence of activist local and state governments to support better urban design and the resistance of the federal government, specifically FEMA, to subsidize rebuilding that protects the environment and makes for better and more "affordable" towns and cities. Better ideas are not seeded by a clinging to the not so good past and old, unworkable, urban models.

NU developments promote sprawl instead of stopping it

Regardless of NU goals to create more dense, walkable, affordable, and diverse neighborhoods and towns tied to public transit, individual subdivisions and "new towns" by themselves are stuck out in the middle of the vast sprawl and not a part of a New Urbanist regional design scheme. Moreover, the lack of sufficient density to make public transit of some kind "feasible" defeats one of the key goals, unless public transit is already planned and can receive financing. Kentlands is a prime example of this situation. Overwhelming the reality of sprawl by developing model NU towns and neighborhoods is beyond the abilities of New Urbanism. NU success depends to a very large extent on the role of government and the private sector to create a new urban model and to reverse 50 years of suburban development tied to the car, the freeway, and the free-standing mall and strip commercial retail.

The great weight of suburban development from the past 50 years, the federal support of cars and freeway development, the promotion of the dream of single family housing, and the political benefits derived from supporting this model work against a real understanding of NU principles and practices. Recent criticisms of NU Gulf planning effforts, no matter how ill-informed, have great traction because of this history. While the great efforts of the founders of New Urbanism have produced marvelous results and garnered supporters from a diverse group of professionals and citizens, without the active parcticipation of a feasible national urban policy and financing programs that are partnerships with the private sector, attaining NU goals will continue to be an up-hill battle. The chorus of opponents are the known-little of no public/government intervention, private property fantasists, the sensationalist media, articulate but uninformed critics, and the development community that clings to their successful money-making financial models.

These are not meant to be doomsday predictions or harsh criticisms of both sides of the current arguments in the Gulf Coast planning effort. Any good idea cannot succeed without the kind of support outlined in this post. Look at how long it took to make television a commercial success, how long it took for people to recognize the enormous potential of the technology. It changed everyone's life. And so is the case with New Urbanism.

Proposed Federal Budget Cutting and Restoration of the Gulf Region

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

At the same time as Washington pours billions of dollars to aid restoration of the Gulf Region, Congress is discussing bills to cut such social programs as Medicaid, food stamps, and child support. Today's Wall Street Journal reports this in the middle of the first section.

What this means is that few if any legislators took note of the implications of the "invisible poor" exposed by the devastation by Katrina of neighborhoods where they lived. Bush has again lied about his recently stated goal that he will "wipe out poverty wherever it is". Thus, the nation-wide population of poor middle class and poverty level families cannot expect any relief. And by implication the delayed maintenance of deteriorating infrastructure of bridges, sewer and water systems, and other public services and facilities will continue.  All of this sets the stage for other national disasters attributable to mud slides, erosion of beaches, reduction of flood preventing wetlands, general water and air pollution, the disposal of hazardous waste,  and the reduction of housing affordable to poor middle class and poverty families.