DC bridge marker, on the recently reconstructed 12th St overpass of D St SW.
Category Archives: Uncategorized
David Simon – “An argument for the city.”
From AlterNet, an interview with David Simon, creator of The Wire and Treme.
This show, if we do it right, is an argument for the city. For the idea of American urbanity, for the melting pot, for the idea that our future can’t be separated from the fact that we are all going to be increasingly compacted into urban areas, though we’re different in race and culture and religion. And what we make of that will determine the American future.
I listened during the last election cycle to the rhetoric about small town values and where the real Americans live. I thought to myself, “I’ve never heard such bullshit in my life.” Rural America’s not coming back. That idea was lost with the Industrial Revolution. And yet with more than 80 percent of Americans living in metropolitan areas, there are still demagogues who want to run down the idea of multiculturalism, of urbanity, being the only future we have. We either live or die based on how we live in cities, and our society is either going to be great or not based on how we perform as creatures of the city.
I haven’t watched Treme at all yet, due to my inability to stomach the extra cost of HBO every month. I’ll have to add it to the list. If the quality is half as good as The Wire, it will be well worth watching.
How Jane Jacobs killed city planning
I ran across this excellent piece from Thomas Campanella in Design Observer, discussing the deadly impact of Jane Jacobs on the planning profession. Campanella is a professor of planning at UNC-Chapel Hill’s Department of City and Regional Planning. I share it because I’ve encountered many of the same issues in my relatively brief time in the profession. An excerpt:
And all along I kept wondering: Why did this have to come out of a coffee shop and a classroom? Where were the planners? Why didn’t the town or county planning office act on this opportunity? A moment ago I argued that the public lacks the knowledge and expertise to make informed decisions about planning. If that’s the case, what does it say about our profession when a group of citizens — most with no training in architecture, planning or design — comes up with a very good idea that the planners should have had? When I asked about this, the response was: “We’re too busy planning to come up with big plans.” Too busy planning. Too busy slogging through the bureaucratic maze, issuing permits and enforcing zoning codes, hosting community get-togethers, making sure developers get their submittals in on time and pay their fees. This is what passes for planning today. We have become a caretaker profession — reactive rather than proactive, corrective instead of preemptive, rule bound and hamstrung and anything but visionary. If we lived in Nirvana, this would be fine. But we don’t. We are entering the uncharted waters of global urbanization on a scale never seen. And we are not in the wheelhouse, let alone steering the ship. We may not even be on board.
Lots of interesting stuff to chew on in the piece. I will say that vision isn’t in short supply amongst individual planners – from directors down to new staff – but articulating that vision within planning’s narrowed authority can be difficult.
Anyone in the field (or observing it from afar) should give it a read. I’m curious to hear what others think.
Tiny Jackson Hole
A Tiny Day in the Jackson Hole Backcountry – by Tristan Greszko.
I had posted this in my Google Reader feed last week, but I feel it’s deserving of a post. Skiing is a hobby of mine. Though I love living in DC, it doesn’t offer the same kinds of winter recreation opportunities, nor do the adjacent parks and wilderness areas have the same scale and feeling as the American West.
I ran across this ski video initially expecting more of the same from the ski movie genre – movies that exist to show the skills of the athletes and how they push the envelope of what’s skiable. This is something different – a short film that truly encapsulates the experience of spending a day in the Jackson Hole backcountry. More than anything else, the use of tilt-shift photography and miniature faking gives the mountain a sense of scale that no film I’ve seen has successfully recreated. The sense of being alone along a ridge, a small person amidst a huge landscape is one of my favorite feelings about skiing. The fact that this film is set in Jackson – my favorite place to ski by far, a place I’ve visited many times over the years – only makes it that much more enjoyable.
As the artist’s (Tristan Greszko) instructions read, let the movie load in HD, put it on full screen and sit back for the ride. It’s almost like you were there for the tram ride to the summit. As it is, I’m just glad I was able to make a trip to Wyoming earlier this season to take part in the record 557 inches of snow.
The most segregated cities in America
Salon.com has an interesting slideshow of the 10 most segregated cities in America. The data comes from the 2010 Census, and the methodology to determine the level of segregation is based on differences between census tracts:
We may think of segregation as a matter of ancient Southern history: lunch counter sit-ins, bus boycotts and Ku Klux Klan terrorism. But as the census numbers remind us, Northern cities have long had higher rates of segregation than in the South, where strict Jim Crow laws kept blacks closer to whites, but separate from them. Where you live has a big impact on the education you receive, the safety on your streets, and the social networks you can leverage.
The following is a list of the nation’s most segregated metropolitan areas of over 500,000 people. The rankings are based on a dissimilarity index, a measure used by social scientists to gauge residential segregation. It reflects the number of people from one race — in this case black or white — who would have to move for races to be evenly distributed across a certain area. A score of 1 indicates perfect integration while 100 signals complete segregation. The rankings were compiled by John Paul DeWitt of CensusScope.org and the University of Michigan’s Social Science Data Analysis Network.
Each of the 10 most segregated cities includes a narrative for the city. Several include observations on transportation and the linkages between land use and infrastructure.
# 10. Los Angeles
The L.A. riots of 1992, like the 1965 Watts riot, were sparked by police brutality, a steady concern in besieged neighborhoods like South Central. Nearly 20 years later, the jobless ghettos of black and Latino Los Angeles remain. Greater Los Angeles has been so big for so long — legion nodes connected by extensive highways — that it’s hard to say exactly what its borders are. Safe in their cars and behind their gates, most white people have gone back to not paying attention.
In short, transportation matters. Diversity without intermingling can be isolating.
# 2. New York
Ingrid Gould Ellen, an urban planning and public policy professor at New York University, says that New York City is somewhat more integrated than the data would suggest, because it is far denser than most cities. Since census tracts are made up by population, tracts in New York tend to be very small.
“What happens is that we’re not making apples to apples comparisons. The neighborhoods in Atlanta and Houston are 10 times the size of neighborhoods in New York City physically,” she says. “The census tracts are so much smaller, so you’re likely to cross over a number of census tracts every day.”
The daily commute of the average New Yorker also lessens racial isolation. Thanks to the dominance of public transit, intra-city travel tends to be a diverse experience.
New York, despite segregation, benefits from both density and transit.
# 1. Milwaukee
Nationwide, blacks have been concentrated in the inner city, far away from where new jobs are created. Yet the case of Milwaukee is extreme: 90 percent of the metro area’s black population lives in the city. Making matters worse, suburban whites are notably hostile to building any form of public transit to connect city people to suburban jobs, further exacerbating segregation’s ill effects.
If you’re wondering if this can somehow, some way, be blamed on union-busting Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, the answer is yes. Walker took the lead in a campaign against public transit to connect the suburbs to the city during his time as county executive. He thought the funds would be better spent on highways.
“There is virulent opposition in these exurban counties to any kind of regional transit system, particularly a regional rail system. There have been proposals over the years, but they’re always DOA,” says Levine. “Governor Walker’s big issue as state representative and county executive was ‘Over my dead body light rail,’ and he fought with Milwaukee’s mayor over funds for regional rail. He very much represents that suburban and exurban base.”
That map graphic says it all.
Density, productivity, and housing prices
Ryan Avent recently spoke at the Kauffman Foundation‘s conference for economic bloggers. His short presentation touches on a number of economic issues as they relate to urban economies and their role in our national economy.
The presentation tackles Tyler Cowen’s Great Stagnation thesis. Avent specifically looks at the benefits of density on productivity and innovation, and how the dispersal of the American population has had a disparate impact on American productivity.
The implications for cities are clear – the dense areas (owing to the benefits of agglomeration and economies of scale) are extremely productive, but they’ve not been the areas seeing growth in recent decades. Instead, the less-dense places in the sun belt have grown. Avent attributes this to the sun belt’s ability to expand supply and keep housing costs low (citing Ed Glaeser). The implication is that the low cost of living is attracting people to areas that are less productive than the dense but hard-to-expand coastal cities.
Virginia is for DC lovers?
Virginia’s tourism folks have saturated Metro Center (located, of course, in DC) with ads:
As a DC resident, I’m not sure if I’m bothered by Virginia riding DC’s coattails, or if I should be happy for the free advertising.
Global transit logistics
Matt Johnson at GGW has a short post with a wonderful video documenting the logistical process of delivering a new dual-mode Bombardier locomotive to NJ Transit after manufacture in Germany. The video raises several interesting issues:
Logistics – the ALP-46, being built for North American rails, is too heavy to use existing rails for transport from the manufacturing plant in Kassel to the port in Hamburg. As a result, a coordinated ballet of precise movements is needed to get the locomotive to the dock.
The coordination is fascinating to watch. I’m reminded of some of mammoth’s recent posts on the global logistics supply chain, ranging from the world’s new largest vessel, the shape of infrastructure without architects as exemplified by a rail and container yard in Illinois, and commentary on the concept of the aerotropolis (breaking down the BLDGBLOG interview with Aerotropolis author Greg Lindsay).
The precision involved in moving cargo like this is always fascinating. The connection/competition between seaports and airports (obviously, you’re not going to fly a locomotive like this for delivery) is also interesting, particularly in the vein of the role of just-in-time delivery and potential disruptions of supply chains from Japan’s recent earthquake/tsunami.
Manufacturing – The fact that such a journey for an American commuter railroad locomotive is even necessary is puzzling. The vehicle is manufactured in Germany by Bombardier, a Canadian company. It reminds me of the somewhat perverse consequences of Buy America provisions for US Transit systems, as well as the general lack of investment in transit.
Market Urbanism has commented on the impacts of these types of regulations, citing frequent commenter Alon Levy:
What happened in the 1970s was that the rolling stock market shrank, leaving American transit agencies with just a few US vendors. St. Louis and Pullman were fully protected by Buy American. As such, New York City Transit had no choice but to buy trains from them; the trains turned out to be defective, leading to breach of contract lawsuits that bankrupted both companies. Since then, NYCT has bought from foreign companies, following Buy America to the letter but not to the spirit. The first order after the St. Louis and Pullman disasters was imported from Kobe, as Reagan cut all federal funding, and went without a hitch. Subsequent orders required the vendors to establish US plants, but often only the final assembly is done in the US. In the most recent order, the car shells were made in Brazil.
Buy America does the opposite of leveling the playing field for foreign firms. It favors big players, which can land big contracts and establish US plants. The same is true for the regulatory structure: the various globally unique [Federal Railroad Administration] rules benefit companies that are big enough to be able to modify trains for the American market. Just recently, Caltrain’s request for an FRA waiver involved consultation with just the largest companies in the industry. There are a lot of smaller manufacturers that are shut out of the US market; they don’t have the capital to establish new overseas factories or pay lobbyists to write rules in their favor. Those include Switzerland’s Stadler, Spain’s CAF, the Czech Republic’s Skoda, all Chinese firms, and all Japanese firms other than Kawasaki. Those can occasionally land a US contract, but are usually unable to compete with Kawasaki, Alstom, Siemens, and Bombardier, whose US market shares far exceed their global market shares.
Transportation – As noted in the video, these locomotives are far too heavy to travel on German rails. The fact that they can do so on American rails is a testament to the strength of our robust freight network, but it is also indicative of the unnecessary ‘tank’ mentality of US rail vehicles. This kind of excessive weight (and the regulatory perspective that requires it) is biased towards heavy freight and detrimental to passenger rail of all kinds in the United States.
About that Wisconsin Capitol…
Perhaps I spoke too soon about the virtues of the truly open and public nature of the Wisconsin Capitol. Governor Walker has essentially closed the building down, slowly forcing protesters out in a war of attrition. Despite a court injunction that the building shall remain open during public business hours, only those with scheduled appointments are being allowed in, and even then they are escorted to and from their appointed room.
The Capitol Square, however, remains open to the public.
Since last Sunday, the Walker administration has increasingly restricted access to the Capitol, making protests more and more difficult. But some protesters have refused to cave in.
The harsh temperatures haven’t made it easy. For the last several nights, people have been gathering outside the Capitol near the King Street entrance, where they chant and take turns talking through a bullhorn.
People are allowed into the Capitol if they have an appointment with a legislator. They can attend hearings or Supreme Court sessions in the building without an invitation, but only up to the capacity of the room. “If a hearing room allows 103 people, 103 people will be admitted,” he says. “Not 104. Not 110.”
A shame to see this happen to a public building. What was once a part of the city’s fabric and a key element of the State’s civic space has been reduced to a Gubernatorial stronghold. There’s a huge police presence. Many of those cops are certainly conflicted between the need to follow orders and their solidarity with protesters seeking to protect collective bargaining rights.
As the governor and his aides have attempted to limit access to the state Capitol—which the Wisconsin constitution says must remain open to all citizens—Sheriff Mahoney has steadily argued that he and his deputies are present both to maintain public safety and to defend the right of citizens to assemble and petition for the redress of grievances.
As Walker’s lawless approach has gone to extremes, culminating in a failure by the governor’s Department of Administration to obey an order from a Dane County Judge that the Capitol be opened, Sheriff Mahoney has become more explicit in his objections.
The sheriff objected when Dane County deputies, who have been frontline officers from the start of the recent protests, were the doors of the Capitol were not opened. Finally, he pulled his officers from the scene.
“When asked to stand guard at the doors that duty was turned over to the Wisconsin State Patrol because our deputies would not stand and be palace guards,” said Sheriff Mahoney. “I refused to put deputy sheriffs in a position to be palace guards.”
It’s a shame to see such a public and democratic space closed and silenced like this.
UPDATE: Matt Wisniewski has a third video installment of the ongoing protests at the Capitol:
What I’m reading
CC image from sabeth718
There’s a lot of stuff that I come across, but don’t get a chance to write about. Most of it comes through RSS feeds in my Google Reader. Since I don’t just want to keep these things to myself, I’ve added a widget to the right sidebar with items I’ve shared from my Google Reader feed.
I have a twitter account, but I rarely tweet. This handy system keeps me on a single platform, letting me use one system that I already use. Much easier this way.
I hope those who stumble across this site from time to time will find these items interesting. Any feedback is appreciated, too.