New York Replaces Unfriendly and Boring with . . . Unfriendly and Boring

This wouldn't be so tragic if they couldn't walk up to 43rd street and see how it ought to be done.

Breaking the Cycle

There’s an article in this month’s Retail Traffic magazine (the mind boggles) about how “credit retailers,” retailing corporations rated by Moody’s as “investment grade” bond risks, can dictate lease terms to the property owners they lease from. The terms were things like waiving requirements to be open, controlling who else is allowed to lease nearby, exactly what their rents are to be (regardless of construction costs,) things like that. Which brought to mind the thought (beyond “why the hell am I reading Retail Traffic magazine) of the tragic cycle of the whole enterprise: Normal people (they like to call them “consumers” – I guess “producers” live in China – see here,) shop for stuff based on bare minimum price. The retailers providing these prices are using enormous economies of scale that collect their outlets into enormous rectangles, pay their staff poorly, and set a floor for building cost. This floor to cost drives a very specific kind of building to be commissioned by those that commission these things, who in turn browbeat whatever is left of the architect they hire to configure it. Everybody gets their sanctified ROI and goes home happy. Thus, a few large companies that have squeezed the global supply chain down to a minimum can dictate to any city in North America and Europe exactly what they’re going to add to their city and how.

This seems to be like a classic case of both unintended consequences and externalities. The external results (horrible cities) of a cost-minimizing decision by the merchant are not borne by them (except in so far as they live in those cities,) and end up being an unintended consequence of a cost-minimizing public. Now, I’m naïve enough to think that people really don’t want to live in hideous environments, but where is the input for this registered? Planning and zoning referenda are obligatory, and rather esoteric things to explain, as well as contradicting deep-seated notions of property rights. If only it could be quantified. It is obliquely so now – the most quaint neighborhoods usually demand a premium, but if you absolutely put it to people in a vote this way: “would it be worth X per year for a city that looked like this rather that that,” what would they say? Where is the price number? Does it change among different groups? Beyond a framework for implementing something like this, who would even study the question: Economists? Political Scientists?

It’s bizarre that a subject that affects millions daily gets almost no input directly, and counter-productive input indirectly.

ADDENDUM:
For further info on the impacts of squeezing the supply chain, check out slate's debate between Barbara Ehrenreich and a pro wal-mart economist. For more wal-mart commentary, or for Ehrenreich as theater, check here. -KP

Kafka in the City

The Street Window

Whoever leads a solitary life and yet now and then wants to attach himself somewhere, whoever, according to changes in the time of day, the weather, the state of his business, and the like, suddenly wishes to see any arm at all to which he might cling – he will not be able to manage for long without a window looking on to the street. And if he is in the mood of not desiring anything and only goes to his window sill a tired man, with eyes turning from his public to heaven and back again, not wanting to look out and having thrown his head up a little, even then the horses below will draw him down into their train of wagons and tumult, and so at last into the human harmony.

-Franz Kafka, 1912

Collage du mois

Scarcity and Funding the Arts

I, for one, am a proponent of the fine arts. Painting, theater, dance, sculpture, poetry; all of it adds to the fullness of life and understanding. Of course, they all seem to be constantly short of funds, which they probably are. However, the same thing is said by research scientists, wildlife advocates, public school teachers, intelligence agents, indigent care clinics, and a long list of groups clamoring for more (usually government, usually federal) funding. This is a finite resource. If there is, in fact, a moral imperative to address some of these things, what would be its resolution? If there’s a collective (i.e. governmental) obligation to support some of these things, how would the balance be struck in a world (as all worlds) of scarcity? If there are resources that can’t be left to individual consciences to dispose of, then there are some hard moral questions that need to be asked about funding the arts:

How can we fund the arts as long as anyone doesn’t have basic necessities?

At what point does improving the lives of the secure take precedence over providing for the underprivileged? does their gratitude matter? does their voting record?

What point constitutes saturation of necessities among the population? should anything beyond this point be redirected to the rest of the world? to the arts?

How much military risk reduction (surplus defense spending) is worth a really good symphony? a really good play? a bad one?

Is it more important to fund a cure for AIDS or a substitute for oil, and can funds be taken from either for the arts?

What kind of calculus do you use to determine how to balance immediate physical needs, basic science research, and the psychological benefits of the arts?

Is concentration of wealth acceptable if used to invest in new technology (creating further general benefits?) What if it’s used instead to endow a museum?


If we’re going to go down this road, these are the kind of things that will have to be addressed.

Cash Flows

The average American has an income of about $40,000 a year and has, as we have seen, a personal savings rate of zero. The average Chinese earns around $1,500 per year but has personal savings of 23 percent of his income — and is lending a large chunk of these savings, via the People's Bank of China, to the average American.

Niall Ferguson, (History, Harvard) New York Times Magazine, June 11, 2006

Think about it.

The City on Autopilot

Click Image to Enlarge

. . . and the thought for the day:

“1.6 The Generic City is the city liberated from the captivity of center, from the straitjacket of identity. The Generic City breaks with this destructive cycle of dependency: it is nothing but a reflection of present need and present ability. It is the city without history. It is big enough for everybody. It is easy. It does not need maintenance. If it gets too small it just expands. If it gets old it just self-destructs and renews. It is equally exciting – or unexciting – everywhere. It is “superficial” – like a Hollywood studio lot, it can produce a new identity every Monday morning.” Rem Koolhaas, SMLXL, p. 1249

When in doubt, go back to Jane

The basic argument the famous Jane Jacobs* laid out for urban safety is this: crime doesn’t occur with (known) witnesses watching the street; witnesses come along with activity on and around the street; activity comes along with lots of different stuff going on at varied hours. Ergo, single-use zoning is deadly.

In her words:

The basic requisite for [safety on the streets] is a substantial quantity of stores and other public places sprinkled along the sidewalks of a district; enterprises and public places that are used by evening and night must be among them especially. Stores, bars and restaurants, as the chief examples, work in several different and complex ways to abet sidewalk safety.
First, they give people – both residents and strangers – concrete reasons for using the sidewalks on which these enterprises face.

Second, they draw people along the sidewalks past places which have no attractions to public use in themselves but which become traveled and peopled as routes to somewhere else; this influence does not carry very far geographically, so enterprises must be frequent in a city district if they are to populate with walkers those other stretches of street that lack public places along the sidewalk. Moreover, there should be many different kinds of enterprises, to give people reasons for crisscrossing paths.

Third, storekeepers and other small businessmen are typically strong proponents of peace and order themselves; they hate broken windows and holdups; they hate having customers made nervous about safety. They are great street watchers and sidewalk guardians if present in sufficient numbers.

Fourth, the activity generated by people on errands, or people aiming for food or drink, is itself an attraction to still other people.

This last point, that the sight of people attracts still other people, is something that city planners and city architectural designers seems to find incomprehensible. – Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, 1961

This is the basic tenant of urbanism (at least with regard to safety.) The question in critique is this:

Is the idea of the active, multi-use pedestrian street still viable in the current economic environment in more than a few specialized places? [See here] Is this still a viable model for the average person in the average place?

Running Aground on the Shoals of the Right

This month American Enterprise Magazine (not something I normally read, but pointed out by Veritas et Venustas, which I’ve mentioned before) has a most of an issue devoted to the phenomonon of New Urbanism. Who knew it was so popular? I think the proximate cause was the Congress for the New Urbanism’s proposal to rebuild cities, make that towns, on the Gulf Coast. (For my opinion, see Not Going to Happen) Theirs (AEM’s) is a totally different take on the whole urban issue. The cover is “Attack of the Snobs,” which gives a pretty good idea of their opinion of the whole movement. Rather than approaching it from a by-the-numbers standpoint, the unifying position is “the suburbs make people happy,” which, I suppose, is an argument. There’s lots of defense of Wal-Mart (favorite line from the editor: “while I don’t frequent there myself . . . “,) and a raft of unattributed statistical claims (footnotes, please?,) but all things considered a reasonable overview of the issue from a countervailing political perspective. Anyone that interviews Witold Rybczynski can’t be all bad.

The most compelling issue covered is the perception / aspiration that the Dallas poll [The Big D below] gave a glimpse of. A sample:

New Urbanism will remain a niche phenomenon unless and until its advocates break out of their cocoon and better comprehend what they’re up against. At present, they refuse to acknowledge that suburbia’s growth and the decline of core cities could stem from anything other than misguided zoning, federal mortgage guarantees biased towards suburban development, and nasty racial politics. They overlook the fact that suburbia as satisfied the aspiration of countless Americans to ownership of a freestanding house on a spacious green patch outside the increasingly ill-governed city. This aspiration is deeply ingrained in the nation’s DNA – the DNA of American individualism. - Catesby Leigh, “The Sins of Shady Lane” The American Enterprise, June 2006

On that note, an apropos comment from one of our readers:

. . . a reason why a car based culture is better for some: A woman alone in a car at night is a lot safer than a woman alone on the street at night.

A valid point. Jane Jacobs (and anyone that’s been in Manhattan lately) had an answer for the security issue, but a valid point nonetheless.

The Big D Weighs in on Urban Living

This month the Dallas Morning News held a little informal poll on the topic of raising children in Downtown Dallas. Apparently there are TEN families with children there. (Of course, this isn’t Chicago – a small fraction of the economic activity in the Metroplex occurs in downtown Dallas.) Despite having no retail (Nieman-Marcus doesn’t count,) very little nightlife, or for that matter life at all, there’s been something of a loft space boom (i.e. loads of office space that’s had its tenants move North) in the area of late. The responses from random Dallasites, I thought, were fascinating. Economics totally aside, there is a psychological idea of the good life that may be impossible to overcome. The notable absence of children of Learning from Chicago has deep roots, justified or not, in the psyche of the average person. There’s probably some of Christopher Alexander’s work at Berkeley that addresses this, but the mainstream architectural community never seems to care. Without children, you miss the middle-aged high-income households that drive the urban engine. N.B. “Frisco” refers to a distant Northern suburb, not the City by the Bay. Note the grammar and spelling in some of the suburban entries.

The Question: Would you consider raising children in Downtown Dallas?

May 31, 2006 09:22 p.m.
Kids need grass and their own yard and a dog and a cat -- not a couple of selfish parents more interested in being hip and cool than providing a good home environment for their children.
May 31, 2006 09:21 p.m.
Absolutely not. I wouldn't live there as an empty nester!
May 31, 2006 09:12 p.m.
absolutely no environment to raise a balance child.
May 31, 2006 09:09 p.m.
I absolutely would. Most suburbs look the same and offer the same thing from coast to coast. On the other hand, most downtowns are unique to the area and offer so much more. Most things are within walking distance and what's not is easily reached by train and bus if need be. My girlfriend and I live in Downtown Dallas and we've talked about raising children there. It is only a matter of time.
May 31, 2006 09:09 p.m.
Sure, you gain just as many great lifestyle elements by living downtown as you do by living out in the suburbs. I don't think a family in Frisco has the opportunity to literally walk down the street and have access to venues like the DMA, the Nasher, the Meyerson, shopping, and other great arts and entertainment options. It's called "walk to life" versus "driving everywhere all the time".
May 31, 2006 09:01 p.m.
No, thank you. I work downtown and hate the garbage I see every day. I love living in the burbs.
May 31, 2006 09:00 p.m.
No I would not. Personanlly, I prefer country living where it quieter, less smog, and less traffic.